Had you looked into the little adjoining chamber, you might have seen the slight imprint of her figure on the bed, but would also have detected at once that the white counterpane had not been turned down.

The pillow was more disturbed; she had turned her face upon it, the poor child, and bedewed it with some of those tears (among the most chill and forlorn that gush from human sorrow) which the innocent heart pours forth at its first actual discovery that sin is in the world.

The young and pure are not apt to find out that miserable truth until it is brought home to them by the guiltiness of some trusted friend.

They may have heard much of the evil of the world, and seem to know it, but only as an impalpable theory.

In due time, some mortal, whom they reverence too highly, is commissioned by Providence to teach them this direful lesson; he perpetrates a sin; and Adam falls anew, and Paradise, heretofore in unfaded bloom, is lost again, and dosed forever, with the fiery swords gleaming at its gates.
The chair in which Hilda sat was near the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, which had not yet been taken from the easel.