Page:Glenarvon (Volume 1).djvu/68

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will prove a dear and constant interest. Never, my dearest Altamonte, ah! never suffer her to be absent, if possible, from your guiding care:—her spirits, her passions, are of a nature to prove a blessing, or the reverse, according to the direction they are permitted to take. Watch over and preserve her—are my last words to you.—Protect and save her from all evil—is the last prayer I offer to my God, before I enter into his presence." . . .

Calantha! unhappy child, whom not even the pangs of death could tear from the love, and remembrance of thy mother,—what hours of agony were thine, when a father's hand first tore thee from that lifeless bosom,—when piercing shrieks declared the terror of thy mind, oppressed, astonished at the first calamity, by which it had been tried,—when thy lips tremblingly pronounced for the last time, the name of mother—a name so dear, so sacred and beloved, that its very sound awakens in the heart, all that it can feel