The features of Goisvintha--which at the period when we first
beheld her on the shores of the mountain lake, retained, in spite of her
poignant sufferings, much of the lofty and imposing beauty that had been
their natural characteristic in her happier days--now preserved not the
slightest traces of their former attractions. Its freshness had
withered from her complexion, its fulness had departed from her form.
Her eyes had contracted an unvarying sinister expression of malignant
despair, and her manner had become sullen, repulsive, and distrustful.
This alteration in her outward aspect, was but the result of a more
perilous change in the disposition of her heart. The death of her last
child at the very moment when her flight had successfully directed her
to the protection of her people, had affected her more fatally than all
the losses she had previously sustained. The difficulties and dangers
that she had encountered in saving her offspring from the massacre; the
dismal certainty that the child was the only one, out of all the former
objects of her affection, left to her to love; the wild sense of triumph
that she experienced in remembering, that in this single instance her
solitary efforts had thwarted the savage treachery of the Court of Rome,
had inspired her with feelings of devotion towards the last of her
household which almost bordered on insanity.
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