Her cheeks glowed,
her eyes became humid, and casting their mild radiance on the fading
flowers beneath, she pursued her way through a cloud of fragrance. It
was the last breath of the expiring year. Love is full of
imagination. Mary easily glided from the earth's departing charms to
her own she thought waning beauty; the chord once touched, every note
vibrated, and hope and fear, joy and regret, again dispossessed her
lately-acquired serenity.
CHAPTER XLVII.
AN AVOWAL.
After some little time, Lady Albina, having missed Miss Beaufort,
expressed a wish to walk out in search of her, and the two brothers
offered their attendance. But before her ladyship had passed through
the first park, she complained of fatigue. Pembroke urged her to
enter a shepherd's hut close by, whilst the Count Sobieski would
proceed alone in quest of his cousin.
With a beating heart Thaddeus undertook this commission. Hastening
along the nearest dell with the lightness of a young hunter, he
mounted the heights, descended to the glades, traversed one woody
nook and then another, but could see no trace of Miss Beaufort.
Supposing she had returned to the house, he was slackening his pace
to abandon the search, when he caught a glimpse of her figure as she
turned the corner of a thicket leading to a terrace above. In an
instant he was at her side, and with his hat in his hand, and a
glowing cheek, he repeated his errand.
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