Towards the evening, Jemima brought her Rousseau's Heloise; and she sat
reading with eyes and heart, till the return of her guard to extinguish
the light. One instance of her kindness was, the permitting Maria to
have one, till her own hour of retiring to rest. She had read this work
long since; but now it seemed to open a new world to her--the only
one worth inhabiting. Sleep was not to be wooed; yet, far from being
fatigued by the restless rotation of thought, she rose and opened her
window, just as the thin watery clouds of twilight made the long
silent shadows visible. The air swept across her face with a voluptuous
freshness that thrilled to her heart, awakening indefinable emotions;
and the sound of a waving branch, or the twittering of a startled bird,
alone broke the stillness of reposing nature. Absorbed by the sublime
sensibility which renders the consciousness of existence felicity, Maria
was happy, till an autumnal scent, wafted by the breeze of morn from the
fallen leaves of the adjacent wood, made her recollect that the season
had changed since her confinement; yet life afforded no variety to
solace an afflicted heart. She returned dispirited to her couch, and
thought of her child till the broad glare of day again invited her to
the window. She looked not for the unknown, still how great was her
vexation at perceiving the back of a man, certainly he, with his two
attendants, as he turned into a side-path which led to the house!
A confused recollection of having seen somebody who resembled
him, immediately occurred, to puzzle and torment her with endless
conjectures. Five minutes sooner, and she should have seen his face, and
been out of suspense--was ever any thing so unlucky! His steady, bold
step, and the whole air of his person, bursting as it were from a
cloud, pleased her, and gave an outline to the imagination to sketch the
individual form she wished to recognize.