'Poor thing!' said Mrs Pemberton, kneeling beside her, 'and is it even
thus with thee? Would thou couldst shed tears, afflicted one!'
'It is very strange,' continued Adeline: 'he loved me so tenderly, and
he used to speak and look so tenderly, and now, see how he neglects me!
Glenmurray, my love! for mercy's sake, speak to me!' As she said this,
she laid her lips to his: but, feeling on them the icy coldness of
death, she started back, screaming in all the violence of phrensy; and,
recovered to the full consciousness of her misfortune, she was carried
back to her room in violent convulsions.
'Would I could stay and watch over thee!' said Mrs Pemberton, as she
gazed on Adeline's distorted countenance; 'for thou, young as thou art,
wert well known in the chambers of sorrow and of sickness; and I should
rejoice to pay back to thee part of the debt of those whom thy presence
so often soothed: but I must leave thee to the care of others.'
'You leave her to my care,' cried Savanna reproachfully,--who felt even
her violent sorrow suspended while Mrs Pemberton spoke in accents at
once sad yet soothing,--'you leave her to my care, and who watch, who
love her more than me?'
'Good Savanna!' replied Mrs Pemberton, pressing the mulatto's hand as
she returned to her station beside Adeline, who was fallen into a calm
slumber, 'to thy care, with confidence, I commit her. But perhaps there
may be an immediate necessity for money, and I had better leave this
with thee,' she added, taking out her purse: but Savanna assured her
that Mr Berrendale was sent for, and to him all those concerns were to
be left. Mrs Pemberton stood for a few moments looking at Adeline in
silence, then slowly left the house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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