Falkner by Mary Shelley

The prisoner and his faithful companion knew nothing of these momentous changes. Day by day Elizabeth withdrew from the fire to the only window in her father's room; moving her embroidery table close to it, her eyes turned, however, to the sky, instead of to the flowers she was working; and leaning her cheek upon her hand, she perpetually watched the clouds. Gerard was already, she fancied, on the waste of waters; yet the clouds did not change their direction -- they all sped one way, and that contrary to his destination. Thus she passed her mornings; and when she returned to her own abode, where her heart could more entirely spend its thoughts on her lover and his voyage, her lonely room was no longer lonely, nor the gloomy season any longer gloomy. More than happy -- a breathless rapture quickened the beatings of her heart, as she told over again and again Neville's virtues, and, dearer than all, his claims on her gratitude.

Falkner saw with pleasure the natural effects of love and hope add to the cheerfulness of his beloved child, diffuse a soft charm over her person, her motions, and her voice, and impart a playful tenderness to her before rather serious manners. Youth, love, and happiness are so very beautiful in their conjunction. "God grant," he thought, "I do not mar this fair creature's life -- may she be happier than Alithea; if man can be worthy of her, Gerard Neville surely is. " As he turned his eyes silently from the book that apparently occupied him, and contemplated her pensive countenance, whose expression showed that she was wrapped in, yet enjoying her thoughts, retrospect made him sad. He went over his own life, its clouded morning, the glad beams that broke out to dissipate those clouds, and the final setting amid tempests and wreck. Was all life like this, must all be disappointed hope, baffled desires, lofty imaginations engendering fatal acts, and bringing the proud thus low? would she at his age view life as he did -- a weary wilderness -- a tangled, endless labyrinth, leading by one rough path or another to a bitter end? He hoped not, her innocence must receive other reward from Heaven.