"Either avarice or delusion has led a noble heart astray!"
The bright light from the flames reached a great distance around the
ruins, but the words were hardly past the lips of Lawton, before the
gaunt form of the peddler had glided over the visible space, and plunged
into the darkness beyond.
The eye of Lawton rested for a moment on the spot where he had last seen
this inexplicable man, and then turning to the yet insensible Sarah, he
lifted her in his arms, and bore her, like a sleeping infant, to the
care of her friends.
CHAPTER XXIII
And now her charms are fading fast,
Her spirits now no more are gay:
Alas! that beauty cannot last!
That flowers so sweet so soon decay!
How sad appears
The vale of years,
How changed from youth's too flattering scene!
Where are her fond admirers gone?
Alas! and shall there then be none
On whom her soul may lean?
--_Cynthia's Grave_.
The walls of the cottage were all that was left of the building; and
these, blackened by smoke, and stripped of their piazzas and ornaments,
were but dreary memorials of the content and security that had so lately
reigned within. The roof, together with the rest of the woodwork, had
tumbled into the cellars, and a pale and flitting light, ascending from
their embers, shone faintly through the windows.
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