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Don Lorenzo, could you conceive what I suffered during my absence! Could you know how sorely I regretted all that I left behind, and how dear to me was the very name of Spain! I envied the winds which blew towards it: and when the Spanish sailor chaunted some well-known air as he passed my window, tears filled my eyes, while I thought upon my native land. Gonzalvo too———my husband———"
Elvira paused. Her voice faltered, and she concealed her face with her handkerchief. After a short silence she rose from the sopha, and proceeded———
"Excuse my quitting you for a few moments: the remembrance of what I have suffered has much agitated me, and I need to be alone. Till I return, peruse these lines. After my husband's death I found them among his papers. Had I known sooner that he entertained such sentiments, grief would have killed me. He wrote these verses on his voyage to Cuba, when his mind was clouded by sorrow, and he forgot that
