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returned to my native country? My answer to these questions must needs
appear to you unsatisfactory, yet they have sufficed to lead me on, day
after day, enduring every wretchedness, rather than by such means to seek
relief. Shall the daughter of the noble, though prodigal Zaimi, appear a
beggar before her compeers or inferiors--superiors she had none. Shall I
bow my head before them, and with servile gesture sell my nobility for
life? Had I a child, or any tie to bind me to existence, I might descend to
this--but, as it is--the world has been to me a harsh step-mother; fain
would I leave the abode she seems to grudge, and in the grave forget my
pride, my struggles, my despair. The time will soon come; grief and famine
have already sapped the foundations of my being; a very short time, and I
shall have passed away; unstained by the crime of self-destruction, unstung
by the memory of degradation, my spirit will throw aside the miserable
coil, and find such recompense as fortitude and resignation may deserve.
This may seem madness to you, yet you also have pride and resolution; do
not then wonder that my pride is tameless, my resolution unalterable."
Having thus finished her tale, and given such an account as she deemed fit,
of the motives of her abstaining from all endeavour to obtain aid from her
countrymen, Evadne paused; yet she seemed to have more to say, to which she
was unable to give words. In the mean time Raymond was eloquent. His desire
of restoring his lovely friend to her rank in society, and to her lost
prosperity, animated him, and he poured forth with energy, all his wishes
and intentions on that subject. But he was checked; Evadne exacted a
promise, that he should conceal from all her friends her existence in
England. "The relatives of the Earl of Windsor," said she haughtily,
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