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which had been theirs.
One instance of this kind came immediately under our notice, where a
high-born girl had in early youth given her heart to one of meaner
extraction. He was a schoolfellow and friend of her brother's, and usually
spent a part of the holidays at the mansion of the duke her father. They
had played together as children, been the confidants of each other's little
secrets, mutual aids and consolers in difficulty and sorrow. Love had crept
in, noiseless, terrorless at first, till each felt their life bound up in
the other, and at the same time knew that they must part. Their extreme
youth, and the purity of their attachment, made them yield with less
resistance to the tyranny of circumstances. The father of the fair Juliet
separated them; but not until the young lover had promised to remain absent
only till he had rendered himself worthy of her, and she had vowed to
preserve her virgin heart, his treasure, till he returned to claim and
possess it.
Plague came, threatening to destroy at once the aim of the ambitious and
the hopes of love. Long the Duke of L----derided the idea that there
could be danger while he pursued his plans of cautious seclusion; and he so
far succeeded, that it was not till this second summer, that the destroyer,
at one fell stroke, overthrew his precautions, his security, and his life.
Poor Juliet saw one by one, father, mother, brothers, and sisters, sicken
and die. Most of the servants fled on the first appearance of disease,
those who remained were infected mortally; no neighbour or rustic ventured
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