"
Margaret led her young charge from the room; who, however sad his
heart at being thus abruptly dismissed, walked proud and erect with
all the welling consciousness of wounded pride. Helen followed him
to the door with her eyes; and when they fell again upon her work,
they were too dim with tears to distinguish the colours of the
flowers she was weaving. Lord Greville had again relapsed into silent
musing; and as she occasionally stole a glance towards him, she
perceived traces of a severe mental struggle on his countenance; the
muscles of his fine throat worked convulsively, his lips quivered,
yet still he spoke not. At length his eyes closed, and he seemed as
if seeking to lose his own reflections in sleep.
"I will try the spell which drove the evil spirit from the mind of
the King of Israel," thought the sad and terrified wife; "music hath
often power to soothe the darkness of the soul;" and she tuned her
lute, and brought forth the softest of its tones. At length her
charm was successful; Lord Greville slept; and while she watched
with all the intense anxiety of alarmed affection, the unquiet
slumbers which distorted one of the finest countenances that sculptor
or painter ever conceived, she affected to occupy herself with her
instrument lest he should awake, and be displeased to find her
attention fixed on himself.
With the sweetest notes of a "voice ever soft and low, an excelling
thing in woman," she murmured the following song, which was recorded
in her family to have been composed by her elder brother, on parting
from a lady to whom he was attached, previous to embarkment on the
expedition in which he fell, and to which it alludes:
Parte la nave
Spiegan le vele
Vento crudele
Mi fa partir.
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