Edwin perceived them, and throwing his arms gently around her.
"Weep not, my sweet cousin," said he; "for, with all his sorrow, I
never saw true happiness till I beheld it in the eyes and heard it in
the voice of Sir William Wallace. He has talked to me of the joy he
should experience in giving liberty to Scotland, and establishing her
peace, till his enthusiastic soul, grasping hope, as if it were
possession, he has looked on me with a consciousness of enjoyment which
seemed to say that all bliss was summed up in a patriot's breast.
"And at other times, when, after a conversation on his beloved Marion,
a few natural regrets would pass his lips, and my tears tell how deep
was my sympathy, then he would turn to comfort me; then he would show
me the world beyond this-that world which is the aim of all his deeds,
the end of all his travails-and, lost in the rapturous idea of meeting
his Marion there, a foretaste of all would seem to seize his soul: and
were I then called upon to point out the most enviable felicity on
earth, I should say it is that of Sir William Wallace. It is this
enthusiasm in all he believes and feels that makes him what he is.
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