No doubt the full import of what he had done had dawned even on Major
Delavie during the watches of that last sorrowful night, for he came
out a pale, haggard man, looking as if his age had doubled since he
went to bed, wrapped in his dressing gown, his head covered with his
night-cap, and leaning heavily on his staff. He came charged with one
of the long solemn discourses which parents were wont to bestow on
their children as valedictions, but when Aurelia, in her camlet riding
cloak and hood, brought her tear-stained face to crave his blessing, he
could only utter broken fragments. "Bless thee my child! Take heed
to yourself and your ways. It is a bad world, beset with temptations.
Oh! heaven forgive me for sending my innocent lamb out into it. Oh!
what would your blessed mother say?"
"Dear sir," said Betty, who had wept out her tears, and was steadily
composed now, "this is no time to think of that. We must only cheer
up our darling, and give her good counsel. If she keep to what her
Bible, her catechism and her conscience tell her, she will be a good
girl, and God will protect her."
"True, true, your sister is right; Aura, my little sweetheart, I had
much to say to you, but it is all driven out of my poor old head."
"Aura! Aura! the horses are coming! Ten of them!" shouted Eugene.
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