Lucy said this prayer daily; but now Oswald's presence so affected her, that tears, which she strove to conceal, flowed down her cheeks. He was touched with respectful tenderness, as he gazed on the almost infantine face, that looked as if it still remembered having dwelt in heaven. Its beauty, thus surrounded by age and decrepitude, was an image of divine commiseration. He reflected on her lonely life, deprived of all the pleasures, all the flatteries, due to her youth and charms: his soul melted towards her. The mother of Lucy, too, he found a person more severe to herself than to others. The limits of her mind might rather be attributed to the strength of her principles than to any natural deficiencies: the asperity of her character was acquired from repressed impulses; and, as Corinne had said, her affection for her child gained force from this extreme control of all others.
By ten in the evening all was silent throughout the castle, and Oswald left to muse over his last few hours: he owned not to himself that Lucy had made an impression on his heart; perhaps, as yet, this was not the case; but in spite of the thousand attractions Corinne offered to his fancy, there was one class of ideas, wherein Lucy might have reigned more supremely than her sister. The image of domestic felicity suited better with a retreat in Northumberland than with a coronation at the Capitol; besides, he remembered which of these sisters his father had selected for him: but he loved Corinne, was beloved by her, had given her his faith, and therefore persisted in his intention of confiding this to Lady Edgarmond on the morrow. He fell asleep thinking of Italy, but still the form of Lucy flitted lightly before him. He awoke: when he slept again, the same dream returned; at last this ethereal shape seemed flying from him; he strove to detain her, and started up, as she disappeared, fearing her lost to him. The day had broken, and he left his room to enjoy a morning walk.
