Venetia turned and looked upon her parents’ bridal bed.  Now that she had discovered her father’s portrait, every article in the room interested her, for her imagination connected everything with him.  She touched the wreath of withered roses, and one instantly broke away from the circle, and fell; she knelt down, and gathered up the scattered leaves, and placed them in her bosom.  She approached the table in the oriel:  in its centre was a volume, on which reposed a dagger of curious workmanship; the volume bound in velvet, and the word ‘Annabel’ embroidered upon it in gold.  Venetia unclasped it.  The volume was his; in a fly-leaf were written these words: 

    ‘To the lady of my love, from her Marmion Herbert.’

With a fluttering heart, yet sparkling eye, Venetia sank into a chair, which was placed before the table, with all her soul concentred in the contents of this volume.  Leaning on her right hand, which shaded her agitated brow, she turned a page of the volume with a trembling hand.  It contained a sonnet, delineating the feelings of a lover at the first sight of his beloved, a being to him yet unknown.  Venetia perused with breathless interest the graceful and passionate picture of her mother’s beauty.  A series of similar compositions detailed the history of the poet’s heart, and all the thrilling adventures of his enchanted life.  Not an incident, not a word, not a glance, in that spell-bound prime of existence, that was not commemorated by his lyre in strains as sweet and as witching!  Now he poured forth his passion; now his doubts; now his hopes; now came the glowing hour when he was first assured of his felicity; the next page celebrated her visit to the castle of his fathers; and another led her to the altar.

With a flushed cheek and an excited eye, Venetia had rapidly pored over these ardent annals of the heart from whose blood she had sprung.  She turns the page; she starts; the colour deserts her countenance; a mist glides over her vision; she clasps her hands with convulsive energy; she sinks back in her chair.  In a few moments she extends one hand, as if fearful again to touch the book that had excited so much emotion, raises herself in her seat, looks around her with a vacant and perplexed gaze, apparently succeeds in collecting herself, and then seizes, with an eager grasp, the volume, and throwing herself on her, knees before the chair, her long locks hanging on each side over a cheek crimson as the sunset, loses her whole soul in the lines which the next page reveals.

  On the night our daughter was born.

  I.

  Within our heaven of love, the new-born star
  We long devoutly watched, like shepherd kings,
  Steals into light, and, floating from afar,
  Methinks some bright transcendent seraph sings,
  Waving with flashing light her radiant wings,
  Immortal welcome to the stranger fair: 
  To us a child is born.  With transport clings
  The mother to the babe she sighed to bear;
  Of all our treasured loves the long-expected heir!