Since the assassination in the farm-house, she was now for the first
time alone; and now for the first time she felt the full severity of her
affliction, and knew how dark was the blank which was spread before
every aspiration of her future life.
Enduring, almost eternal, as the burden of her desolation seemed now to
have become, it was yet to be removed, ere long, by feelings of a
tenderer mournfulness and a more resigned woe. The innate and innocent
fortitude of disposition, which had made her patient under the rigour of
her youthful education, and hopeful under the trials that assailed her
on her banishment from her father's house; which had never deserted her
until the awful scenes of the past night of assassination and death rose
in triumphant horror before her eyes; and which, even then, had been
suspended but not destroyed--was now destined to regain its healing
influence over her heart. As she still cowered in her lonely refuge,
the final hope, the yearning dependence on a restoration to her father's
presence and her father's love, that had moved her over the young
chieftain's grave, and had prompted her last effort for freedom when
Ulpius had dragged her through the passage in the rifted wall, suddenly
revived.
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