On the
contrary, his imagination kindled with conceptions of widely
dispensated happiness. He looked forward to the time when he should be
able to go about the earth, relieving the indigent, comforting the
distressed; and, by his unlimited means, devising and executing plans
for the complete extirpation of poverty, and all its attendant
sufferings and crimes. Never were grander schemes for general good,
for the distribution of boundless wealth and universal competence,
devised than by this poor, indigent alchymist in his ruined tower.
Antonio would attend these peripatetic lectures with all the ardour of
a devotee; but there was another circumstance which may have given a
secret charm to them. The garden was the resort also of Inez, where
she took her walks of recreation; the only exercise that her secluded
life permitted. As Antonio was duteously pacing by the side of his
instructor, he would often catch a glimpse of the daughter, walking
pensively about the alleys in the soft twilight. Sometimes they would
meet her unexpectedly, and the heart of the student would throb with
agitation. A blush, too, would crimson the cheek of Inez, but still
she passed on and never joined them.
He had remained one evening until rather a late hour with the
alchymist in this favourite resort.
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