Not to him only, but to his mother, that mother whose loss he had
lived to deplore, had the inmates of Cherbury been ministering angels
of peace and joy. Oh! that indeed had been a home; there indeed had
been days of happiness; there indeed he had found sympathy, and
solace, and succour! And now he was returning to them a stranger, to
fulfil one of the formal duties of society in paying them his cold
respects; an attention which he could scarcely have avoided offering
had he been to them the merest acquaintance, instead of having found
within those walls a home not merely in words, but friendship the most
delicate and love the most pure, a second parent, and the only being
whom he had ever styled sister!
The sight of Cadurcis became dim with emotion as the associations of
old scenes and his impending interview with Venetia brought back
the past with a power which he had rarely experienced in the
playing-fields of Eton, or the saloons of London. Five years! It was
an awful chasm in their acquaintance.
He despaired of reviving the kindness which had been broken by such a
dreary interval, and broken on his side so wilfully; and yet he
began to feel that unless met with that kindness he should be very
miserable. Sooth to say, he was not a little embarrassed, and scarcely
knew which contingency he most desired, to meet, or to escape from
her.
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