Everything appears to my aged eyes as if we ought not to be ashamed to
receive our friends within these walls. The cloisters of St. Ruth, Miss
Howard, are not entirely bare, neither are their tenants wholly unworthy
to be seen."
"Open, then, the portals of the abbey, sir, and your niece will endeavor
to do proper credit to the hospitality of its master."
"That was spoken like Harry Howard's daughter, frankly and generously!"
cried the old soldier, insensibly edging himself nearer to his niece.
"If my brother had devoted himself to the camp, instead of the sea,
Cecilia, he would have made one of the bravest and ablest generals in
his majesty's service--poor Harry! he might have been living at this
very day, and at this moment leading the victorious troops of his
sovereign through the revolted colonies in triumph. But he is gone,
Cecilia, and has left you behind him, as his dear representative, to
perpetuate our family and to possess what little has been left to us
from the ravages of the times."
"Surely, dear sir," said Cecilia, taking his hand, which, had
unconsciously approached her person, and pressing it to her lips, "we
have no cause to complain of our lot in respect to fortune, though it
may cause us bitter regret that so few of us are left to enjoy it."
"No, no, no," said Katherine, in a low, hurried voice; "Alice Dunscombe
is and must be wrong; Providence would never abandon brave men to so
cruel a fate!"
"Alice Dunscombe is here to atone for her error, if she has fallen into
one," said a quiet, subdued voice, in which the accents of a provincial
dialect, however, were slightly perceptible, and which, in its low
tones, wanted that silvery clearness that gave so much feminine
sweetness to the words of Miss Howard, and which even rang melodiously
in the ordinarily vivacious strains of her cousin.
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