had she first been dazzled by the novel glow of Ernest's undiurnal and
stately thoughts--there had she first conceived the romance of girlhood,
which had led her to confer with him, unknown--there had she first
confessed to herself that fancy had begotten love--there had she gone
through love's short and exhausting process of lone emotion;--the doubt,
the hope, the ecstasy; the reverse, the terror; the inanimate
despondency, the agonised despair! And there now, sadly and patiently,
she awaited the gradual march of inevitable decay. And books and
pictures, and musical instruments, and marble busts, half shadowed by
classic draperies--and all the delicate elegancies of womanly
refinement--still invested the chamber with a grace as cheerful as if
youth and beauty were to be the occupants for ever--and the dark and
noisome vault were not the only lasting residence for the things of
clay.

Florence Lascelles was dying; but not indeed wholly of that common, if
mystic malady, a broken heart. Her health, always delicate, because
always preyed upon by a nervous, irritable, and feverish spirit, had
been gradually and invisibly undermined, even before Ernest confessed
his love. In the singular lustre of those large-pupilled eyes--in the
luxuriant transparency of that glorious bloom,--the experienced might
long since have traced the seeds which cradled death. In the night when
her restless and maddened heart so imprudently drove her forth to
forestall the communication of Lumley (whom she had sent to Maltravers,
she scarce knew for what object, or with what hope), in that night she
was already in a high state of fever. The rain and the chill struck the
growing disease within--her excitement gave it food and fire--delirium
succeeded; and in that most fearful and fatal of all medical errors,
which robs the frame, when it most needs strength, of the very principle
of life, they had bled her into a temporary calm, and into permanent and