and so sweet had seemed that pause, that I had hoped and prayed for its
continuance. No sooner was I separated from her than the charm
dissolved, and all my thoughts, like evening clouds that appear luminous
and rich in color until the sun has set, began to be darkened with a
mysterious gloom. Strive how I might, I was unable to compose my mind to
that serene, trustful temper she had desired to see in me, and without
which there could be no blissful futurity. After all the admonitions and
the comforting assurances I had received, and in spite of reason and all
it could say to me, each night I went to my bed with a heavy heart; and
each morning when I woke, there, by my pillow, waited that sad phantom,
to go with me where I went, to remind me at every pause of an implacable
Fate, who held my future in its hands, who was mightier than Chastel,
and would shatter all her schemes for my happiness like vessels of
brittle glass.

Several days--probably about fifteen, for I did not count them--had
passed since I had been admitted into the mother's sleeping-room, when
there came an exceedingly lovely day, which seemed to bring to me a
pleasant sensation of returning health, and made me long to escape from
morbid dreams and vain cravings. Why should I sit at home and mope, I
thought; it was better to be active: sun and wind were full of healing.
Such a day was in truth one of those captain jewels "that seldom placed
are" among the blusterous days of late autumn, with winter already
present to speed its parting. For a long time the sky had been overcast
with multitudes and endless hurrying processions of wild-looking
clouds--torn, wind-chased fugitives, of every mournful shade of color,
from palest gray to slatey-black; and storms of rain had been frequent,
impetuous, and suddenly intermitted, or passing away phantom-like
towards the misty hills, there to lose themselves among other phantoms,
ever wandering sorrowfully in that vast, shadowy borderland where earth