ABSTRACT
Upon my return home, Sir Malcolm informed me in a querulous tone of disappointment, that the Captain and Gertrude were not arrived. I felt greatly relieved at this intelligence, but the next day, about eleven o’clock I was somewhat abruptly told that they were come. I hastened out from the back of the house, and ran along the street, in order to postpone the first interview; but a few hours after, I accompanied my uncle to the lodgings he had taken for them, to meet / very reluctantly that Gertrude whom I had once loved so well. Alas! how was I changed since then, and how I hoped to find in her a stiffness or vulgarity of manner that might disgust me – a north-country accent – an unbecoming freedom, or awkward simplicity – a vacant laugh, displeasing to one of my refinement – or, at all events, a want of that air of fashion, that high-bred courtly manner, and soft address, which I had learned to consider so indispensable. But, as if to plague me, Miss Clairville herself had never appeared half so captivating, so lovely, so seductive in air and manner, as my Gertrude. Yes, it was my Gertrude – for with the joy she / felt at seeing me, tears mingled, and as I clasped her to my bosom, in the first transport of meeting again, the blush of confusion, the smile of surprise, told – I thought it told me – how much I was still preferred to every other. For was it not deep attachment that had tempted her so far from her native home in search of one who had appeared ungrateful and inconstant? What but attachment could have conquered pride – offended pride – deeply humiliated by my cold, my cruel neglect? What too had refined her manners, her form, and rendered those cheeks pale, which rosy health had once adorned? Did she not tremble, did / she not weep on my bosom, as her lips met mine? and did she not breathe out the words, ‘Graham, you have not then forgotten me,’ with an accent that awoke corresponding tenderness in my heart?
