ied at a small town in Norfolk, where she had
removed soon after our last unhappy interview. The agent concluded his
letter by saying, that Eugenia had bequeathed me all her property,
which was very considerable, and that her last rational words to him
were, that I was her first and her only love.

I was now callous to suffering. My feelings had been racked to
insensibility. Like a ship in a hurricane, the last tremendous sea had
swept everything from the decks--the vessel was a wreck, driving as
the storm might chance to direct. In the midst of this devastation,
I looked around me, and the only object which presented itself to my
mind, as worthy of contemplation, was the tomb which contained the
remains of Eugenia and her child. To that I resolved to repair.

Chapter XXIX

With sorrow and repentance true,
Father, I trembling come to you.

_Song_.

I arrived at the town where poor Eugenia had breathed her last, and
near to which was the cemetery in which her remains were deposited.
I went to the inn, whence, after having dismissed my post-boy and
ordered my luggage to be taken up to my room, I proceeded on foot
towards the spot. I was informed that the path lay between the church
and the bishop's palace. I soon reached it; and, inquiring for the
sexton, who lived in a cottage hard by, requested he would lead me to
a certain grave, which I indicated by tokens too easily known.

"Oh, you mean the sweet young lady, as died of grief for the loss of
her little boy. There it is," continued he, pointing with his finger;
"the white peacock is now sitting on the headstone of the grave, and
the little boy is buried beside it."

I approached, while the humble sexton kindly withdrew, that I might,
without witnesses, indulge that grief which he saw was the burthen of
my aching heart. The bird remained, but without dressing its plumage,
without the usual air of surprise and vigilance evinced by domestic
fowls, when disturbed in their haunts. This poor creature was
moulting; its feathers were rumpled and disordered; its tail ragged.
There was no beauty in the animal, which was probably only kept as a
variety of the species; and it appeared to me as if it had been placed
there as a lesson to myself. In its modest attire, in its melancholy
and pensive attitude, it seemed, with its gaudy plumage, to have
dismissed the world and its vanities, while in mournful silence it
surveyed the crowded mementoes of eternity.