This state between reviving hope
and momentary despondency had prevailed for
several weeks, when the affectionate girl entered
an apartment that communicated with George's own
room, where she found the invalid reclining on a
settee apparently deeply communing with himself.
He was alone; and his appearance, as well as the
heavens and the earth, united to encourage the
sanguine expectation of the pure heart that
throbbed so ardently when its owner witnessed any
favourable change in the countenance of the young
man. The windows were raised, and the balmy air
of a June morning played through the apartment,
lending in reality an elastic vigour to the decaying
organs of the sick youth. The tinge in his cheeks
was heightened by the mellow glow of the sun's
rays as they shone through the medium of the rose-
coloured curtains of the window, and Charlotte
thought she once more beheld the returning colour
of health where it had been so long absent.
"How much better you appear this morning,
George," she cried, in a voice whose melody was
even heightened by its gaiety. "We shall soon have
you among us once more, and then, heedless one,
beware how you trifle again with that best of
heaven's gifts, your health. Oh, this is a blessed
climate! our summer atones with its mildness for
the dreariness and perils of our winter; it has even
given me a colour, pale-face as I am--I can feel it
burn on my cheek.
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