Page:Younger brother, or, The sufferings of Saint Andre.pdf/22

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the gloomy light of a lamp, he found Blanche lying upon the straw in a horrid dungeon; her hair dishevelled; with no other covering than rags: her face drowned in tears; and her hands loaded with chains, lifted up to heaven. He stopped; and with a pity mingled with admiration, contemplates her youth, beauty, and the horrors that surround her. Blanche imagining him to be the gaoler, lifts up her languid head, and with a faint and dying voice demands what was intended "I am come," cries the counsellor, "to pay my homage to suffering virtue, and to terminate its sorrows." He then prostrates himself at her feet, and presents her child to her. Blanche recollecting him, exclaims, "Ah! if he be restored to me, life is yet supportable!" She would embrace this dear child, but the effort is too much. The excess of joy, the transports of her soul, with the weakness to which she is reduced, exhaust her little remaining strength, and she faints in the arms of her deliverer. Who can express the emotions of surprise and ecstacy in this virtuous and feeling heart, when, on recovering her senses, she is informed that she is now