The Wildfire Club - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

OR TORN LEAVES PROM :LIFE HISTORY. 163
seen her. Balanced like 'a rocking bird, on s.unbeam,
moonbeam, or cold ether car, she'd come to me, and face
to face we talked, as we talk now.
"1 know 1 was half dreaming; for, strange to say, 1
never questioned her or sought to know who or whence
she was. 1 knew she was a spirit, blest and true; and
this was aU. 1 never knew when first we met, or how;
nor can 1 recollect my mountain home or early life without
her. She told me of the future; and 1 speaking oft her
words again, -1 knew not why, except 1 could not help
it, - they called me Seer and Prophet. 1 caUed her
, Eulalie,' - 1 knew not why; and when 1 erred, her
.: dreamy eyes, so' sad, so unreproachful, yet so full of woe,
revealed the mystery of her dear presence ever. She
knew my inmost soul, my secret thought, my hidden ways,
and spirit's wandering flight. She was my second self,
or guardian angel; advised me, cheered me; taught me
bright views of life, and brighter heavens; controlled my
wayward fancy, guiding it to immortality's bright realms,
to which 1 felt she had herself attained."
"What was this mist wreath like, dear Ernest?" inquired
Gabrielle, for the first time interrupting the rhapsody
of the improvvisatore, in a tone between jest and
interest.
"One day," he rejoined, scarcely seeming to heed her
question, "a young comrade, who had been a pupil of
my uncle, the priest, and the only associate whom in my
life 1 ever cared to call friend, came to revisit his old master,
and our boyish intimacy was renewed. He was an
artist; but the world's hard hand had dealt somewhat too
rudely with 'a very fragile constitution, and, bending beneath
the chill bla!!t of consumption, he had come to our
home of beauty and fascination ostensibly to seek health,