“He sleeps,” she said; “nature exhausted by sufferance and the waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary relaxation to sink into slumber. Alas! is it a crime that I should look upon him, when it may be for the last time?⁠—When yet but a short space, and those fair features will be no longer animated by the bold and buoyant spirit which forsakes them not even in sleep!⁠—When the nostril shall be distended, the mouth agape, the eyes fixed and bloodshot; and when the proud and noble knight may be trodden on by the lowest caitiff of this accursed castle, yet stir not when the heel is lifted up against him!⁠—And my father!⁠—oh, my father! evil is it with his daughter, when his grey hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of youth!⁠—What know I but that these evils are the messengers of Jehovah’s wrath to the unnatural child, who thinks of a stranger’s captivity before a parent’s? who forgets the desolation of Judah, and looks upon the comeliness of a Gentile and a stranger?⁠—But I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!”