they even comprehend the idolatry they inspire! The Caroline of old!
Lo, the virgin whose hand we touched with knightly homage, whose first
bashful kiss was hallowed as the gate of paradise, deserts us--sells
herself at the altar--sanctifies there her very infidelity to us; and
when years have passed, and a death has restored her freedom, she comes
to us as if she had never pillowed her head on another's bosom, and says
'Can I not again be the Caroline of old?' We men are too rude to forgive
the faithless. Where is the Caroline I loved? YOU--are--my Lady
Montfort! Look round. On these turfs, you, then a child, played beside
my children. They are dead, but less dead to me than you. Never dreamed
I then that a creature so fair would be other than a child to my grave
and matured existence. Then, if I glanced towards your future, I felt no
pang to picture you grown to womanhood--another's bride. My hearth had
for years been widowed, I had no thought of second nuptials. My son
would live to enjoy my wealth, and realise my cherished dreams--my son
was snatched from me! Who alone had the power to comfort?--who alone had
the courage to steal into the darkened room where I sate mourning? sure
that in her voice there would be consolation, and the sight of her
sympathising tears would chide away the bitterness of mine?--who but the
Caroline of old! Ah, you are weeping now. But Lady Montfort's tears
have no talisman to me! You were then still a child--as a child, my
soothing angel. A year or so more my daughter, to whom all my pride of
House--all my hope of race, had been consigned--she whose happiness I
valued so much more than my ambition, that I had refused her hand to your
young Lord of Montfort--puppet that, stripped of the millinery of titles,
was not worthy to replace a doll!--my daughter, I folded her one night in
my arms,--I implored her to confide in me if ever she nursed a hope that
I could further--knew a grief that I could banish; and she promised--and
she bent her forehead to my blessing--and before daybreak she had fled
with a man whose very touch was dishonour and pollution, and was lost to