WHILE such happy prospects were opening on the future life of her friend, the time of Charlotte Henley was very differently occupied in the country.
There is, however, a tendency in youth to rise with events that does not readily admit of depression, and the disorder of George Morton was one of all others the most flattering when near its close. Even the more mature experience of his parents was misled by the deceptive symptoms that his complaint assumed in the commencement of summer. They who so fondly hoped the result, began to believe that youth and the bland airs of June were overcoming the inexorable enemy. That the strength of the young man lessened with every succeeding day, was an event to be expected from his low diet and protracted confinement; but his brightening eyes, and the flitting colour that would at times add to their fiery radiance, brought to the youthful Charlotte the most heartfelt, though secret, rapture. This state between reviving hope and momentary despondency had prevailed for several weeks, when the affectionate girl entered an apartment that communicated with George's own room, where she found the invalid reclining on a settee apparently deeply communing with himself.
He was alone; and his appearance, as well as the heavens and the earth, united to encourage the sanguine expectation of the pure heart that throbbed so ardently when its owner witnessed any favourable change in the countenance of the young man. The windows were raised, and the balmy air of a June morning played through the apartment, lending in reality an elastic vigour to the decaying organs of the sick youth. The tinge in his cheeks was heightened by the mellow glow of the sun's rays as they shone through the medium of the rose-coloured curtains of the window, and Charlotte thought she once more beheld the returning colour of health where it had been so long absent.
"How much better you appear this morning, George," she cried, in a voice whose melody was even heightened by its gaiety. "We shall soon have you among us once more, and then, heedless one, beware how you trifle again with that best of heaven's gifts, your health. Oh, this is a blessed climate! our summer atones with its mildness for the dreariness and perils of our winter; it has even given me a colour, pale-face as I am--I can feel it burn on my cheek."He raised his head from its musing position at the first sounds of her voice, and smiled faintly, and with an expression of anguish, as she proceeded;but when she had ended, and taken her seat near him, still keeping her eyes on his varying countenance, he took her hand into his own before he replied. A good deal surprised at his manner, and at this act, which exceeded the usual familiarity of even their affectionate intercourse, the colour, of which Miss Henley had been so playfully boasting, changed once or twice with rapid transitions.
"Seem I so well, dear Charlotte?" he at length said in a low, tremulous, and hollow voice, "seem I so well? I believe you are right, and that I shall shortly be better--much better.""What mean you, George? feel you any worse? have I disturbed you with my presence and my thoughtless gaiety?"The young man smiled again, but the expression of his face was no longer mingled with a look of anguish; it was a kind benevolent gleam of gratitude and affection which crossed his ghastly features, like a ray of sunshine enlivening the gloom of a day in winter.
