Page:Glenarvon (Volume 1).djvu/137

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bride his early fancy had chosen.—"I will not marry him—I will not see him:"—These were the only words Calantha pronounced, as they led her into the room where he was conversing with her father.

When she saw him, however, her feelings changed. Every heart which has ever known what it is to meet after a long estrangement, the object of its first, of its sole, of its entire devotion, can picture to itself the scene which followed. Neither pride, nor monastic vows, nor natural bashfulness, repressed the full flow of her happiness at the moment, when Lord Avondale rushed forward to embrace her, and calling her his own Calantha, mingled his tears with hers.—The Duke, greatly affected, looked upon them both. "Take her," he said, addressing Lord Avondale, and be assured, whatever her faults, she is my heart's pride—my treasure. Be kind to her:—that I know you will be, whilst the enthusiasm of passion lasts: but ever be kind to her,