Separate from the rest stood one whose appearance had something of
superior dignity. Her face, though pale and wasted, was less squalid
than those of the others, and showed a dejection of that decent kind,
which moves our pity unmixed with horror: upon her, therefore, the eyes
of all were immediately turned. The keeper who accompanied them observed
it: “This,” said he, “is a young lady who was born to ride in her coach
and six. She was beloved, if the story I have heard is true, by a young
gentleman, her equal in birth, though by no means her match in fortune:
but love, they say, is blind, and so she fancied him as much as he did
her. Her father, it seems, would not hear of their marriage, and
threatened to turn her out of doors if ever she saw him again. Upon this
the young gentleman took a voyage to the West Indies, in hopes of
bettering his fortune, and obtaining his mistress; but he was scarce
landed, when he was seized with one of the fevers which are common in
those islands, and died in a few days, lamented by every one that knew
him. This news soon reached his mistress, who was at the same time
pressed by her father to marry a rich miserly fellow, who was old enough
to be her grandfather. The death of her lover had no effect on her
inhuman parent: he was only the more earnest for her marriage with the
man he had provided for her; and what between her despair at the death of
the one, and her aversion to the other, the poor young lady was reduced
to the condition you see her in. But God would not prosper such cruelty;
her father’s affairs soon after went to wreck, and he died almost a
beggar.”
Though this story was told in very plain language, it had particularly
attracted Harley’s notice; he had given it the tribute of some tears.
The unfortunate young lady had till now seemed entranced in thought, with
her eyes fixed on a little garnet ring she wore on her finger; she turned
them now upon Harley. “My Billy is no more!” said she; “do you weep for
my Billy? Blessings on your tears! I would weep too, but my brain is
dry; and it burns, it burns, it burns!”—She drew nearer to Harley.—“Be
comforted, young lady,” said he, “your Billy is in heaven.”—“Is he,
indeed? and shall we meet again? and shall that frightful man (pointing
to the keeper) not be there!—Alas! I am grown naughty of late; I have
almost forgotten to think of heaven: yet I pray sometimes; when I can, I
pray; and sometimes I sing; when I am saddest, I sing:—You shall hear
me—hush!
“Light be the earth on Billy’s breast,
And green the sod that wraps his grave.”
There was a plaintive wildness in the air not to be withstood; and,
except the keeper’s, there was not an unmoistened eye around her.
“Do you weep again?” said she. “I would not have you weep: you are like
my Billy; you are, believe me; just so he looked when he gave me this
ring; poor Billy! ’twas the last time ever we met!—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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