We had remained five months in London three of joy and two of sorrow.

My father and I were now seldom alone or if we were he generally kept silence with his eyes fixed on the ground--the dark full orbs in which before I delighted to read all sweet and gentle feeling shadowed from my sight by their lids and the long lashes that fringed them.

When we were in company he affected gaiety but I wept to hear his hollow laugh--begun by an empty smile and often ending in a bitter sneer such as never before this fatal period had wrinkled his lips.

When others were there he often spoke to me and his eyes perpetually followed my slightest motion.

His accents whenever he addressed me were cold and constrained although his voice would tremble when he perceived that my full heart choked the answer to words proffered with a mien yet new to me.
But days of peaceful melancholy were of rare occurence[:] they were often broken in upon by gusts of passion that drove me as a weak boat on a stormy sea to seek a cove for shelter; but the winds blew from my native harbour and I was cast far, far out untill shattered I perished when the tempest had passed and the sea was apparently calm.