Miss Peyton detained him for a moment, to inquire into the
welfare of Captain Singleton. Frances smiled with something of natural
archness of manner, as she contemplated the grotesque appearance of the
bald-headed practitioner; but Sarah was too much agitated, with the
surprise of the unexpected interview with the British colonel, to
observe him. It has already been intimated that Colonel Wellmere was an
old acquaintance of the family. Sarah had been so long absent from the
city, that she had in some measure been banished from the remembrance of
the gentleman; but the recollections of Sarah were more vivid. There is
a period in the life of every woman when she may be said to be
predisposed to love; it is at the happy age when infancy is lost in
opening maturity--when the guileless heart beats with those
anticipations of life which the truth can never realize--and when the
imagination forms images of perfection that are copied after its own
unsullied visions. At this happy age Sarah left the city, and she had
brought with her a picture of futurity, faintly impressed, it is true,
but which gained durability from her solitude, and in which Wellmere had
been placed in the foreground. The surprise of the meeting had in some
measure overpowered her, and after receiving the salutations of the
colonel, she had risen, in compliance with a signal from her observant
aunt, to withdraw.
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