Excerpt from The Knight of Gwynne, Vol. 2 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
What a strange turn of fortune! Said he, at length, as relieving his overburdened brain by speech. I remember well the last day I ever saw her; it was just before my departure for England for my marriage. I remember well driving over to Castle Daly to say good-bye! Perhaps, too, I had some lurking vanity in exhibiting that splendid team of four grays, with two outriders. How perfect it all was! And a proud fellow I was that day! Maria was looking very handsome; She was dressed for riding, but ordered the horses back as I drove up. What Spirits She had! With What zest She seized upon the enjoyments her youth, her beauty, and her fortune gave her! How ardently she indulged every costly caprice and every whim, as if revel ling in the pleasure of extravagance even for its own sake! Fearless in everything, She did indeed seem like a native princess, surrounded by all that barbaric splendor of her father's house, the troops of servants, the equipages with out number, the guests that came and went unceasingly, all rendering homage to her beauty. 't was a gorgeous dream of life, and well she understood how to realize all its enchantment. We scarcely parted good friends on that same last day, said he, after a pause; her manner was almost mordant. I can recall the cutting sarcasms she dealt around her, -strange exuberance of high spirits carried away to the wildest flights of fancy; and after all, when, having dropped my glove, I returned to the luncheon room to seek it, I saw her in a window, bathed in tears; she did not perceive me, and we never met after. Poor girl! Were those outpourings of sorrow the compensation nature exacted for the exercise of such brilliant powers of wit and imagination? Or had she really, as some believed, a secret attachment somewhere? Who knows? And now we are to meet again, after years of absence, so fallen too! If it were not for these gray hairs and this wrinkled brow, I could believe it all a dream; and what is it but a dream, if we are not fashioned to act differently because of our calamities? Events are but shadows if they move us not.