ABSTRACT
Matilda had hardly time to strengthen herself in these praiseworthy resolutions, when she was called upon to try their force in action. On being summoned the following morning to attend a visitor in the parlour, she was startled at seeing her cousin, Sir Harold: the servant had not named him to her, or she had not caught his name. Her mother’s presence, however, abated the involuntary terror with which he would otherwise have inspired her. But it was not easy long to retain terror, or even to harbour resentment, against her unhappy cousin. There was something so helplessly interesting in his wildly mournful wanderings, so attaching in the affectionate earnestness of his look, whenever he addressed her, that it was impossible, when in his presence, to recollect he was the fatal obstacle to her most distant hope of happiness; – the evil genius that threatened with destruction the opening bud of promised joy, even if it should dare to expand, after the storm that marked its early morning.
