Sir Jaspar had listened to this narrative with trembling interest, and a species of emotion that was indefinable; his head bent forward, and his mouth nearly as wide open, from the fear of losing a word, as his eyes, from eagerness not to lose a look: but, when it was finished, he exclaimed, in a sort of transport, 'Is this all? Joy, then, to great Cæsar! Why 'tis nothing! My little fairies are all skipping in ecstacy; while the wickeder imps are making faces and wry mouths, not to see mischief enough in the wind to afford them a supper! This a marriage? Why you are free as air! 'The little birds that fly, With careless ease, from tree to tree,' are not more at liberty. Ah! fair enslaver! were I as unshackled!'— The smiles that, momentarily, broke their way through the tears and sadness of Juliet shewed how much this declaration was in unison with her wishes; but, exhausted by relating a history so deeply affecting to her, she could enter into no discussion; and remained ceaselessly weeping, till the Baronet, with an expression of surprize, asked whether the meeting that would now ensue with her own family, could offer her no consolation? Rousing, then, from her sorrows, to a grateful though forced exertion, 'Oh yes!' she cried, 'yes! Your generous goodness has given me new existence! But horrour and distress have pursued me with such accumulating severity, that the shock is still nearly overpowering. Yet,—let me not diminish the satisfaction of your beneficence. I am going now to be happy!—How big a word!—how new to my feelings!—A sister!—a brother!—Have I, indeed, such relations?' smiling even brightly through her tears. 'And will Lady Aurora,—the sweetest of[Pg 724] human beings!—condescend to acknowledge me? Will the amiable Lord Melbury deign to support, to protect me? Oh Sir Jaspar, how have you brought all this to bear? Where are these dearest persons? And when, and by what means, am I to be blest with their sight, and honoured with their sanction to my claim of consanguinity?' [Pg 724] Sir Jaspar begged her to compose her spirits, promising to satisfy her when she should become more calm. But, her thoughts having once turned into this channel, all her tenderest affections gushed forth to oppose their being diverted into any other; and the sound, the soul-penetrating sound of sister!—of brother! once allowed utterance, vibrated through her frame with a thousand soft emotions, now first welcomed without check to her
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