Thomas Opera Mignon

Excerpt from Thomas Opera Mignon

In a room in Lotario's manorial residence, on the banks of an Italian lake, lies Mignon over taken by a dangerous illness, resulting from the fearful peril she has so lately and so narrowly escaped, as well as from the continued struggle to conceal the affection so long pent up in her breast. Guglielmo, who has meanwhile as sisted Lotario in transporting Mignon to the home from which the unhappy parent had so long been absent, has discovered (from the broken sentences which have escaped Mignon during the crisis Of her illness) the secret of her affection for him. Through the medium of a long-concealed casket, containing a girdle worn by Mignon when a little child, as well as by her heartful utterance of the words of a prayer which her parents had taught her in her infancy, the entranced Lotario discovers, beyond the possi bility Of a doubt, that Mignon is his long  lost child. Blessed by the recovery of her sole surviving parent, and enraptured by Guglielmo's fervent, though long delayed avowal of his love for her, Mignon, fanned by the restorative breezes of her native hills, banishes forever from her memory the recollection of the troubled Past, and con fidingly looks forward to the bright and happy Future. T. J. W.