The joy of Miss Peyton was more sobered, and she took frequent occasions
to reprove her niece for the exuberance of her spirits, before there was
a certainty that their expectations were to be realized. But the slight
smile that hovered around the lips of the virgin contradicted the very
sobriety of feeling that she inculcated.
"Why, dearest aunt," said Frances, playfully, in reply to one of her
frequent reprimands, "would you have me repress the pleasure that I feel
at Henry's deliverance, when you yourself have so often declared it to
be impossible that such men as ruled in our country could sacrifice an
innocent man?"
"Nay, I did believe it impossible, my child, and yet think so; but still
there is a discretion to be shown in joy as well as in sorrow."
Frances recollected the declaration of Isabella, and turned an eye
filled with tears of gratitude on her excellent aunt, as she replied,--
"True; but there are feelings that will not yield to reason. Ah! here
are those monsters, who have come to witness the death of a fellow
creature, moving around yon field, as if life was, to them, nothing but
a military show."
"It is but little more to the hireling soldier," said Henry, endeavoring
to forget his uneasiness.
"You gaze, my love, as if you thought a military show of some
importance," said Miss Peyton, observing her niece to be looking from
the window with a fixed and abstracted attention.
Pages:
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504