With countenance bathed in trouble did
Montague return her solicitous glance, and speak. "Into slavery" he
muttered, in half choked accents "was she hurled back." He had not
finished the sentence ere anxiety burst its bounds, and the anxious
woman shrieked, and fell swooning in his arms. Even yet her olive
face was beautefully pale. The cheerful parlour now rung with
confusion, servants bustled about in fright, the youthful family
shrieked in fear, the father sought to restore the fond mother, as
Montague chafed her right hand in his. Let us leave to the reader's
conjecture a scene his fancy may depict better than we can describe,
and pass to one more pleasant of results. Some half an hour had
transpired, when, as if in strange bewilderment, Clotilda opened her
eyes and seemed conscious of her position. A deep crimson shaded her
olive cheeks, as in luxurious ease she lay upon the couch, her
flushed face and her thick wavy hair, so prettily parted over her
classic brow, curiously contrasting with the snow-white pillow on
which it rested. A pale and emaciated girl sat beside her, smoothing
her brow with her left hand, laying the right gently on the almost
motionless bosom, kissing the crimsoning cheek, and lisping rather
than speaking, "Mother, mother, oh mother!-it's only me." And then
the wet courses on her cheeks told how the fountain of her soul had
overflown. Calmly and vacantly the woman gazed on the fair girl,
with whom she had been left alone.
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