Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/222

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220
DUTY AND INCLINATION.

Rosilia's heart responded, as, deeply colourings she listened to what her father had more to advance.

"I have but one cause of regret," said he, "which is, that we shall lose Douglas out of the neighbourhood sooner than we anticipated; he intends to prolong his stay but a few weeks, for the purpose of recovering his healthy and then to make an excursion into Scotland, to revisit his brother, Lord Deloraine, who, it seems, left our old dwelling Mount Zephyr to return to revisit the seat of his ancestors." The countenance of Rosilia expressed her disappointment, which increased upon her father adding, "It appears that, since the loss of his wife, Douglas is more than ever wedded to his profession. I was much pleased in hearing him express himself in the words of a true patriot: if he were not born in England, he had the happiness of being introduced into it at a very early period of his life; the greater part of his friends were English; his first affections had been nurtured in it; that he regarded it in the light of a mother soil; its union with Scotland, indeed, rendered it to him completely such; that as he had embarked in its service, he hoped to finish his career in its defence."

At these words Rosilia became still more agitated. The bright dawnings of affection and approving reason had insensibly taken possession of her; and now that the worth of Douglas had become so conspicuously manifest; when that impediment, the only one formerly existing to oppose an union with him, was