A Sicilian Romance

That his son might

hereafter be enabled to support the dignity of his family, it was

necessary for me to assume the veil. Alas! that heart was unfit to be

offered at an heavenly shrine, which was already devoted to an earthly

object. My affections had long been engaged by the younger son of a

neighbouring nobleman, whose character and accomplishments attracted

my early love, and confirmed my latest esteem. Our families were

intimate, and our youthful intercourse occasioned an attachment which

strengthened and expanded with our years. He solicited me of my

father, but there appeared an insuperable barrier to our union. The

family of my lover laboured under a circumstance of similar distress

with that of my own--it was noble--but poor! My father, who was

ignorant of the strength of my affection, and who considered a

marriage formed in poverty as destructive to happiness, prohibited his

suit. 'Touched with chagrin and disappointment, he immediately entered into

the service of his Neapolitan majesty, and sought in the tumultuous

scenes of glory, a refuge from the pangs of disappointed passion.

'To me, whose hours moved in one round of full uniformity--who had no

pursuit to interest--no variety to animate my drooping spirits--to me

the effort of forgetfulness was ineffectual. The loved idea of Angelo

still rose upon my fancy, and its powers of captivation, heightened by

absence, and, perhaps even by despair, pursued me with incessant

grief. I concealed in silence the anguish that preyed upon my heart,

and resigned myself a willing victim to monastic austerity. But I was

now threatened with a new evil, terrible and unexpected. I was so

unfortunate as to attract the admiration of the Marquis Marinelli, and

he applied to my father. He was illustrious at once in birth and

fortune, and his visits could only be unwelcome to me. Dreadful was

the moment in which my father disclosed to me the proposal. My

distress, which I vainly endeavoured to command, discovered the exact

situation of my heart, and my father was affected.

'After along and awful pause, he generously released me from my

sufferings by leaving it to my choice to accept the marquis, or to

assume the veil. I fell at his feet, overcome by the noble

disinterestedness of his conduct, and instantly accepted the latter.

'This affair removed entirely the disguise with which I had hitherto

guarded my heart;--my brother--my generous brother! learned the true

state of its affections. He saw the grief which prayed upon my health;

he observed it to my father, and he nobly--oh how nobly! to restore my

happiness, desired to resign apart of the estate which had already

descended to him in right of his mother. Alas! Hippolitus,' continued

Cornelia, deeply sighing, 'thy virtues deserved a better fate.'