Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 1).djvu/64

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the melody of her lute. The melancholy which oppressed him made Madeline exert all her powers to try and beguile it, but without effect; every day seemed to add to it; and often, affected by its soft contagion, Madeline has swept the chords of the lute with a disordered hand, and abruptly quitted the room to wipe away the tears it occasioned:—she ascribed, she wished to ascribe, her feelings for him to pity, but they proceeded from even a tenderer impulse than pity.

At length her altered looks and manner discovered to her father the secret of her heart: bitterly he then regretted the hospitality which had introduced so dangerous a guest to her knowledge; and wondered he had not timely foreseen the probable consequences of such a measure, and avoided them. His attentions immediately slackened to de Sevignie; and he scrupled not to hint in pretty plain terms, that his visits at the cottage were attended with inconve-