"'Twas like a voice from the silent grave!" she said, "but it could be
no more than mockery. No, no, 'tis a just punishment for letting the
image of the creature fill the place that should be occupied only with
the Creator. Ah! Miss Howard, Miss Plowden, ye are both young--in the
pride of your beauty and loveliness--but little do ye know, and less do
ye dread, the temptations and errors of a sinful world."
"Her thoughts wander!" whispered Katherine, with anxious tenderness,
"some awful calamity has affected her intellect!"
"Yes, it must be; my sinful thoughts have wandered, and conjured sounds
that it would have been dreadful to hear in truth, and within these
walls," said Alice, more composedly, smiling with a ghastly expression,
as she gazed on the two beautiful, solicitous maidens who supported her
yielding person. "But the moment of weakness is passed, and I am better;
aid me to my room, and return, that you may not interrupt the reviving
harmony between yourselves and Colonel Howard. I am now better--nay, I
am quite restored."
"Say not so, dear Miss Alice," returned Cecilia; "your face denies what
your kindness to us induces you to utter; ill, very ill, you are, nor
shall even your own commands induce me to leave you."
"Remain, then," said Miss Dunscombe, bestowing a look of grateful
affection on her lovely supporter; "and while our Katherine returns to
the drawing-room, to give the gentlemen their coffee, you shall continue
with me, as my gentle nurse.
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