The blessing of her father, uttered by his
long-loved lips, had descended on her brow, and been sealed with his
passionate embrace.
The entrance of her mother, that terrible contest of her lacerated
heart, when her two parents, as it were, appealed to her love, which
they would not share; the inspiration of her despair, that so suddenly
had removed the barriers of long years, before whose irresistible
pathos her father had bent a penitent, and her mother's inexorable
pride had melted; the ravishing bliss that for a moment had thrilled
through her, being experienced too for the first time, when she felt
that her parents were again united and bound by the sweet tie of her
now happy existence; this was the drama acted before her with an
almost ceaseless repetition of its transporting incidents; and when
she looked round, and beheld her mother sitting alone, and watching
her with a countenance almost of anguish, it was indeed with extreme
difficulty that Venetia could persuade herself that all had not been a
reverie; and she was only convinced of the contrary by that heaviness
of the heart which too quickly assures us of the reality of those
sorrows of which fancy for a moment may cheat us into scepticism.
And indeed her mother was scarcely less miserable.
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