Sorrow was to her scarce known, save in the nursery tales and wild
ballads of the surrounding district. When the glowing morn was overcast,
she was unprepared, unfitted for the change. The storm came, and the
little sum of her happiness, launched on this frail and perishing bark,
was wrecked without a struggle!
One evening, in the full glare of a dazzling sunset, the light streaming
like a shower through the dark foliage of the valley, she had loitered,
along with her old nurse, in the dell to which we have before alluded.
The glowing atmosphere was just fading into the dewy tint which betokens
a fair morrow. To enjoy a more extended gaze upon the clouds, those
gorgeous vestures of the sun, Constance had ascended, by a winding path,
to the edge of a steep cliff overhanging the river. She stood for some
minutes looking towards the west, unconscious of the loose and slippery
nature of the materials beneath her feet, and of her near approach to
the brink. On a sudden the ground gave way, and she was precipitated
headlong into the river! Nurse Agnes, who stood below, watching her
young mistress, not without apprehension as to the consequences of her
temerity, was stricken motionless with horror.
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