Could I imagine the dangers that lurked
beneath his roof? could I believe that while I thus once more
indulged in the social converse to which I had been long a stranger,
I should gain the affections of his child? The playful girl towards
whom my age enabled me to assume an almost parental authority, while
I exercised, in turn, the parts of playmate and preceptor, beloved as
she was in all the charms of her dawning beauty, and artless naivete,
inspired me with no deeper sentiment; not even when I saw her
gradually expand into the maturer pride of womanhood, and acquire
that feminine gentleness, that dignified simplicity of character,
which had attracted me in Theresa Marchmont. Early in our
intercourse, I had acquainted Lord Percy that the confinement of a
beloved wife in a state of mental derangement, was the unhappy cause
of my dejection and wandering habits of life; and I was rejoiced to
perceive that his own seclusion from the world had prevented him from
hearing my history related by others. He was also ignorant of the
name and connexions of the lady to whom he knew his beloved and
lamented son to have been attached; little indeed did he suspect his
own share in producing my domestic calamity.
"The disparity of our years, and their knowledge of my own previous
marriage, prevented them from regarding with suspicion the partiality
displayed by their Helen for my society, and the influence which I
had unconsciously acquired over her feelings.
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