CHAP. XLIV. And yet e'en here amid these secret shades, SCOTT. IT is not in the least surprising, that in this retired spot, the fugitives eluded all enquiry. Our readers must therefore now contemplate Lady Courtney no longer as the -giddy fluttering thing, Who shone in the park, and sparkled in the ring:" but as a penitent recluse, hiding her charms, and wearing away the uniform day, in the solitary retirement of Llewenmawr; attended only by her Claudina, who She who " pined in thought," but still wore on her placid countenance, the smile of content, to cheat her friend into the cheerfulness, which she feared had for ever fled her own bosom. Accustomed to restraint from her early youth, it was not now that Claudina found it irksome. regretted the world, only as it contained the man, of whom she thought incessantly, and whom she every moment resolved to forget. To her, the vale of Llewenmawr, never appeared too narrow in its limits, but when she considered that it deprived her of the society, which when possessed, caused her pain, and yet of which the remembrance was now her only pleasure. Sometimes she felt her spirits sink into despondency, when she beheld the fleeting days of her youth, consuming in hopeless disappointment; the past marked only by the cruelty of her relations, the future promising only mournful remembrances, and fruitless regrets. But Claudina's mind, was not more ornamented by every bewitching trait of female delicacy, and sensibility, than it was armed with the more masculine endowments of firmness and resolution; and no sooner was she sensible of the lethargy into which her mental faculties were falling, then she made every laudable effort to rouse them from it; not more on her own account than that of her friend, whose spirits, too prone to droop, needed not the contagious influence of example. To effect this, she resolved to divert her thoughts, by giving them new subjects for employment. She took daily exercise, knowing how much the mind is influenced by the body; and that the sensations excited in the one, by the health-inspiring breeze, and the contemplation of the beauties of nature, ever new and delightful, must preclude in the other, at least for a time, the indulgence of dispiriting and unpleasing ideas. The tender tender and elegant Leonard, justly seys, "Rural air is balsamic to a wounded mind, and the charms of nature, communicate a secret calm to the soul, which stills the stormy voice of the passions." She wandered among the cliffs on the sea shore, and was soothed by the monotonous murmer of the waves, or amused by the varied sounds of the different birds, which built amongst the rocks, and sought their prey upon the waters. Sometimes she saw the distant vessel gliding in gentle safety on the smooth waste, at others the treacherous element changing its aspect, threatening destruction to the hardy adventurers, whom it lifted as if to the clouds, and then sunk as though in its fury it would bury them, and their dearlyearned treasures in its fathomless abyss. Often would she return laden with curious shells, or the most beautiful flowers, either the wild produce of the mountains, or those indigenous to the sea shore: she would delineate them with the most de licate li cate exactness, until the shades of evening interfered with her employment, when she would take her guitar, and play to Everilda all the favourite tunes of their early youth, from the lively airs ofthe Venetian Gondoliers, to the pensive strains of Metastasio; and her sweet and flexible voice, would for a time charm to rest, in Everilda's bosom, the remembrance of her sorrows. Thus with the few authors that they were enabled to bring with them, and the few that they could borrow from Mr. Price, whose pleasing and rational society, was a valuable acquisition to them, the days passed in tranquil uniformity, and Claudina began to reap by returning health and peace, the reward of her perseverance in what she rightly deemed a branch of duty. But with Everilda it was very different; whoever has known the approving smile, the partial praise, the lively participation in pleasure, the soothing consolation in sorrow, and the thousand nameless at tentions |