CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.But now the hand of fate is on the curtain,
And gives the scene to light.
Don Sebastian.
I felt stunned and chilled as they retired. Imagination, dwelling on an absent object of affection, paints her not only in the fairest light, but in that in which we most desire to behold her. I had thought of Diana as she was, when her parting tear dropped on my cheek—when her parting token, received from the wife of MacGregor, augured her wish to convey into exile and conventual seclusion the remembrance of my affection. I saw her; and her cold passive manner, expressive of little except composed melancholy, disappointed, and, in some degree, almost offended me.
In the egotism of my feelings, I accused her of indifference—of insensibility. I upbraided her father with pride—w
