Among the less evils of civil war,
dividing the ties and preventing the connecting intercourse of social
life must be enumerated; and what opinion must those who rejoice in the
conversation of a present friend, or open, with trembling delight, a
letter from an absent one, form of a nation convulsed by furious
discord, when the privation of these blessings is ranked only among its
smaller calamities!
De Vallance had, that evening, the infinite transport of folding Eustace
to his heart, in the comfortable asylum where the worthy Doctor Lloyd
concealed the hope of an illustrious house, the noble victim of adverse
fortune. The generous youths pledged the vows of mutual and perpetual
friendship. Conversing with all the confidence of brothers, Arthur
acquainted Eustace with the early history of their family, and his own
determination never to reap the fruits of his parents' misdeeds. He told
him how Isabel had preserved his life; related the gradual change of his
political principles--their mutual attachment--her heroical devotedness
to her proscribed father--the meek magnanimity and active piety of Dr.
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