But I read your verses, and I knew them by heart at
once; but now my memory has worn out, for I am ill, and everything has
gone cross with me. And all because my father wrote me verses. 'Tis
very strange, is not it?'
'Sweet lamb of my affections,' exclaimed Herbert to himself, 'I fear
me much this sudden meeting with one from whose bosom you ought never
to have been estranged, has been for the moment too great a trial for
this delicate brain.'
'I will not tell my mother,' said Venetia; 'she will be angry.'
'Your mother, darling; where is your mother?' said Herbert, looking,
if possible, paler than he was wont.
She was at Arqua with me, and on the lake for months, but where we are
now, I cannot say. If I could only remember where we are now,' she
added with earnestness, and with a struggle to collect herself, 'I
should know everything.'
'This is Rovigo, my child, the inn of Rovigo. You are travelling with
your mother. Is it not so?'
'Yes! and we came this morning, and it rained. Now I know everything,'
said Venetia, with an animated and even cheerful air.
'And we met in the vestibule, my sweet,' continued Herbert, in a
soothing voice; 'we came out of opposite chambers, and you knew me; my
Venetia knew me. Try to tell me, my darling,' he added, in a tone of
coaxing fondness, 'try to remember how Venetia knew her father.
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