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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ernest Linwood, by Caroline Lee Hentz
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ernest Linwood
+       or, The Inner Life of the Author
+
+Author: Caroline Lee Hentz
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2007 [EBook #20462]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST LINWOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            ERNEST LINWOOD;
+
+                                  OR,
+
+                     THE INNER LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
+
+                      BY MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ.
+
+
+AUTHOR OF "LINDA; OR, THE YOUNG PILOT OF THE BELLE CREOLE," "THE
+BANISHED SON," "COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE; OR, THE JOYS AND SORROWS OF
+AMERICAN LIFE," "THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE; OR, SCENES IN MRS. HENTZ
+CHILDHOOD," "LOVE AFTER MARRIAGE," "MARCUS WARLAND; OR, THE LONG MOSS
+SPRING," "EOLINE; OR, MAGNOLIA VALE; OR, THE HEIRESS OF GLENMORE,"
+"HELEN AND ARTHUR; OR, MISS THUSA'S SPINNING-WHEEL," "RENA; OR, THE SNOW
+BIRD," "THE LOST DAUGHTER," "ROBERT GRAHAM;" A SEQUEL TO "LINDA," ETC.
+
+
+PHILADELPHIA:
+T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
+306 CHESTNUT STREET.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by T. B.
+PETERSON & BROTHERS
+
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and
+for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Thou hast called me thine angel in moments of bliss,
+    Still thine angel I'll prove mid the horrors of this.
+    Through the furnace unshrinking thy steps I'll pursue,
+    And shield thee, and save thee, and perish there too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERNEST LINWOOD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+With an incident of my childhood I will commence the record of my life.
+It stands out in bold prominence, rugged and bleak, through the haze of
+memory.
+
+I was only twelve years old. He might have spoken less harshly. He might
+have remembered and pitied my youth and sensitiveness, that tall,
+powerful, hitherto kind man,--my preceptor, and, as I believed, my
+friend. Listen to what he did say, in the presence of the whole school
+of boys, as well as girls, assembled on that day to hear the weekly
+exercises read, written on subjects which the master had given us the
+previous week.
+
+One by one, we were called up to the platform, where he sat enthroned in
+all the majesty of the Olympian king-god. One by one, the manuscripts
+were read by their youthful authors,--the criticisms uttered, which
+marked them with honor or shame,--gliding figures passed each other,
+going and returning, while a hasty exchange of glances, betrayed the
+flash of triumph, or the gloom of disappointment.
+
+"Gabriella Lynn!" The name sounded like thunder in my ears. I rose,
+trembling, blushing, feeling as if every pair of eyes in the hall were
+burning like redhot balls on my face. I tried to move, but my feet were
+glued to the floor.
+
+"Gabriella Lynn!"
+
+The tone was louder, more commanding, and I dared not resist the
+mandate. The greater fear conquered the less. With a desperate effort I
+walked, or rather rushed, up the steps, the paper fluttering in my hand,
+as if blown upon by a strong wind.
+
+"A little less haste would be more decorous, Miss."
+
+The shadow of a pair of beetling brows rolled darkly over me. Had I
+stood beneath an overhanging cliff, with the ocean waves dashing at my
+feet, I could not have felt more awe or dread. A mist settled on my
+eyes.
+
+"Read,"--cried the master, waving his ferula with a commanding
+gesture,--"our time is precious."
+
+I opened my lips, but no sound issued from my paralyzed tongue. With a
+feeling of horror, which the intensely diffident can understand, and
+only they, I turned and was about to fly back to my seat, when a large,
+strong hand pressed its weight upon my shoulder, and arrested my flight.
+
+"Stay where you are," exclaimed Mr. Regulus. "Have I not lectured you a
+hundred times on this preposterous shame-facedness of yours? Am I a
+Draco, with laws written in blood, a tyrant, scourging with an iron rod,
+that you thus shrink and tremble before me? Read, or suffer the penalty
+due to disobedience and waywardness."
+
+Thus threatened, I commenced in a husky, faltering voice the reading of
+lines which, till that moment, I had believed glowing with the
+inspiration of genius. Now, how flat and commonplace they seemed! It was
+the first time I had ever ventured to reveal to others the talent hidden
+with all a miser's vigilance in my bosom casket. I had lisped in
+rhyme,--I had improvised in rhyme,--I had dreamed in poetry, when the
+moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lustre;--I had
+_thought_ poetry at the sunset hour, amid twilight shadows and midnight
+darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at
+noonday recess at my solitary desk; but no human being, save my mother,
+knew of the young dream-girl's poetic raptures.
+
+One of those irresistible promptings of the spirit which all have felt,
+and to which many have yielded, induced me at this era to break loose
+from my shell and come forth, as I imagined, a beautiful and brilliant
+butterfly, soaring up above the gaze of my astonished and admiring
+companions. Yes; with all my diffidence I anticipated a scene of
+triumph, a dramatic scene, which would terminate perhaps in a crown of
+laurel, or a public ovation.
+
+Lowly self-estimation is by no means a constant accompaniment of
+diffidence. The consciousness of possessing great powers and deep
+sensibility often creates bashfulness. It is their veil and guard while
+maturing and strengthening. It is the flower-sheath, that folds the
+corolla, till prepared to encounter the sun's burning rays.
+
+"Read!"
+
+I did read,--one stanza. I could not go on though the scaffold were the
+doom of my silence.
+
+"What foolery is this! Give it to me."
+
+The paper was pulled from my clinging fingers. Clearing his throat with
+a loud and prolonged hem,--then giving a flourish of his ruler on the
+desk, he read, in a tone of withering derision, the warm breathings of a
+child's heart and soul, struggling after immortality,--the spirit and
+trembling utterance of long cherished, long imprisoned yearnings.
+
+Now, when after years of reflection I look back on that
+never-to-be-forgotten moment, I can form a true estimate of the poem
+subjected to that fiery ordeal, I wonder the paper did not scorch and
+shrivel up like a burning scroll. It did not deserve ridicule. The
+thoughts were fresh and glowing, the measure correct, the versification
+melodious. It was the genuine offspring of a young imagination, urged by
+the "strong necessity" of giving utterance to its bright idealities, the
+sighings of a heart looking beyond its lowly and lonely destiny. Ah! Mr.
+Regulus, you were cruel then.
+
+Methinks I see him,--hear him now, weighing in the iron scales of
+criticism every springing, winged idea, cutting and slashing the words
+till it seemed to me they dropped blood,--then glancing from me to the
+living rows of benches with such a cold, sarcastic smile.
+
+"What a barbarous, unfeeling monster!" perhaps I hear some one exclaim.
+
+No, he was not. He could be very kind and indulgent. He had been kind
+and generous to me. He gave me my tuition, and had taken unwearied pains
+with my lessons. He could forgive great offences, but had no toleration
+for little follies. He really thought it a sinful waste of time to write
+poetry in school. He had given me a subject for composition, a useful,
+practical one, but not at all to my taste, and I had ventured to
+disregard it. I had jumped over the rock, and climbed up to the flowers
+that grew above it. He was a thorough mathematician, a celebrated
+grammarian, a renowned geographer and linguist, but I then thought he
+had no more ear for poetry or music, no more eye for painting,--the
+painting of God, or man,--than the stalled ox, or the Greenland seal. I
+did him injustice, and he was unjust to me. I had not intended to slight
+or scorn the selection he had made, but I could not write upon it,--I
+could not help my thoughts flowing into rhyme.
+
+Can the stream help gliding and rippling through its flowery margins?
+Can the bird help singing and warbling upward into the deep blue sky,
+sending down a silver shower of melody as it flies?
+
+Perhaps some may think I am swelling small things into great; but
+incidents and actions are to be judged by their results, by their
+influence in the formation of character, and the hues they reflect on
+futurity. Had I received encouragement instead of rebuke, praise instead
+of ridicule,--had he taken me by the hand and spoken some such kindly
+words as these:--
+
+"This is very well for a little girl like you. Lift up that downcast
+face, nor blush and tremble, as if detected in a guilty act. You must
+not spend too much time in the reveries of imagination, for this is a
+working-day world, my child. Even the birds have to build their nests,
+and the coral insect is a mighty laborer. The gift of song is sweet, and
+may be made an instrument of the Creator's glory. The first notes of the
+lark are feeble, compared to his heaven-high strains. The fainter dawn
+precedes the risen day."
+
+Oh! had he addressed me in indulgent words as these, who knows but that,
+like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved? Who knows but
+that the golden gates of the Eden of immortality might have opened to
+admit the wandering Peri to her long-lost home? I might have been the
+priestess of a shrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered
+burning incense at my altar. I might have won the laurel crown, and
+found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves. I
+might,--but it matters not. The divine spark is undying, and though
+circumstances may smother the flame it enkindles, it glows in the bosom
+with unquenchable fire.
+
+I remember very well what the master said, instead of the imagined words
+I have written.
+
+"Poetry, is it?--or something you meant to be called by that name?
+Nonsense, child--folly--moon-beam hallucination! Child! do you know that
+this is an unpardonable waste of time? Do you remember that
+opportunities of improvement are given you to enable you hereafter to
+secure an honorable independence? This accounts for your reveries over
+the blackboard, your indifference to mathematics, that grand and
+glorious science! Poetry! ha, ha! I began to think you did not
+understand the use of capitals,--ha, ha!"
+
+Did you ever imagine how a tender loaf of bread must feel when cut into
+slices by the sharpened knife? How the young bark feels when the iron
+wedge is driven through it with cleaving force? I think _I_ can, by the
+experience of that hour. I stood with quivering lip, burning cheek, and
+panting breast,--my eyes riveted on the paper which he flourished in his
+left hand, pointing _at_ it with the forefinger of his right.
+
+"He shall not go on,"--said I to myself, exasperation giving me
+boldness,--"he shall not read what I have written of my mother. I will
+die sooner. He may insult _my_ poverty but hers shall be sacred, and her
+sorrows too."
+
+I sprang forward, forgetting every thing in the fear of hearing _her_
+name associated with derision, and attempted to get possession of the
+manuscript. A fly might as well attempt to wring the trunk of the
+elephant.
+
+"Really, little poetess, you are getting bold. I should like to see you
+try that again. You had better keep quiet."
+
+A resolute glance of the keen, black eye, resolute, yet twinkling with
+secret merriment, and he was about to commence another stanza.
+
+I jumped up with the leap of the panther. I could not loosen his strong
+grasp, but I tore the paper from round his fingers, ran down the steps
+through the rows of desks and benches, without looking to the right or
+left, and flew without bonnet or covering out into the broad sunlight
+and open air.
+
+"Come back, this moment!"
+
+The thundering voice of the master rolled after me, like a heavy stone,
+threatening to crush me as it rolled. I bounded on before it with
+constantly accelerating speed.
+
+"Go back,--never!"
+
+I said this to myself. I repeated it aloud to the breeze that came
+coolly and soothingly through the green boughs, to fan the burning
+cheeks of the fugitive. At length the dread of pursuit subsiding, I
+slackened my steps, and cast a furtive glance behind me. The cupola of
+the academy gleamed white through the oak trees that surrounded it, and
+above them the glittering vane, fashioned in the form of a giant pen,
+seemed writing on the azure page of heaven.
+
+My home,--the little cottage in the woods, was one mile distant. There
+was a by-path, a foot-path, as it was called, which cut the woods in a
+diagonal line, and which had been trodden hard and smooth by the feet of
+the children. Even at mid-day there was twilight in that solitary path,
+and when the shadows deepened and lengthened on the plain, they
+concentrated into gloominess there. The moment I turned into that path,
+I was supreme. It was _mine_. The public road, the thoroughfare leading
+through the heart of the town, belonged to the world. I was obliged to
+walk there like other people, with mincing steps, and bonnet tied primly
+under the chin, according to the rule and plummet line of school-girl
+propriety. But in my own little by-path, I could do just as I pleased. I
+could run with my bonnet swinging in my hand, and my hair floating like
+the wild vine of the woods. I could throw myself down on the grass at
+the foot of the great trees, and looking up into the deep, distant sky,
+indulge my own wondrous imaginings.
+
+I did so now. I cast myself panting on the turf, and turning my face
+downward instead of upward, clasped my hands over it, and the hot tears
+gushed in scalding streams through my fingers, till the pillow of earth
+was all wet as with a shower.
+
+Oh, they did me good, those fast-gushing tears! There was comfort, there
+was luxury in them. Bless God for tears! How they cool the dry and
+sultry heart! How they refresh the fainting virtues! How they revive the
+dying affections!
+
+The image of my pale sweet, gentle mother rose softly through the
+falling drops. A rainbow seemed to crown her with its seven-fold beams.
+
+Dear mother!--would she will me to go back where the giant pen dipped
+its glittering nib into the deep blue ether?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"Get up, Gabriella,--you must not lie here on the damp ground. Get
+up,--it is almost night. What _will_ your mother say? what _will_ she
+think has become of you?"
+
+I started up, bewildered and alarmed, passing my hands dreamily over my
+swollen eyelids. Heavy shadows hung over the woods. Night was indeed
+approaching. I had fallen into a deep sleep, and knew it not.
+
+It was Richard Clyde who awakened me. His schoolmaster called him Dick,
+but I thought it sounded vulgar, and he was always Richard to me. A boy
+of fifteen, the hardest student in the academy, and, next to my mother
+and Peggy, the best friend I had in the world. I had no brother, and
+many a time had he acted a brother's part, when I had needed a manly
+champion. Yet my mother had enjoined on me such strict reserve in my
+intercourse with the boy pupils, and my disposition was so shy, our
+acquaintance had never approached familiarity.
+
+"I did not mean to shake you so hard," said he, stepping back a few
+paces as he spoke, "but I never knew any one sleep so like a log before.
+I feared for a moment that you were dead."
+
+"It would not be much matter if I were," I answered, hardly knowing what
+I said, for a dull weight pressed on my brain, and despondency had
+succeeded excitement.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella! is it not wicked to say that?"
+
+"If you had been treated as badly as I have, you would feel like saying
+it too."
+
+"Yes!" he exclaimed, energetically, "you have been treated badly,
+shamefully, and I told the master so to his face."
+
+"You! You did not, Richard. You only thought so. You would not have told
+him so for all the world."
+
+"But I did, though! As soon as you ran out of school, it seemed as if he
+made but one step to the door, and his face looked as black as night. I
+thought if he overtook you, he might,--I did not know what he would do,
+he was so angry. I sat near the door, and I jumped right up and faced
+him on the threshold. 'Don't, sir, don't! I cried; she is a little girl,
+and you a great strong man.'
+
+"'What is that to you, sirrah?' he exclaimed, and the forked lightning
+ran out of his eye right down my backbone. It aches yet, Gabriella.
+
+"'It is a great deal, Sir,' I answered, as bold as a lion. 'You have
+treated her cruelly enough already. It would be cowardly to pursue
+her.'"
+
+"Oh, Richard! how dared you say that? Did he not strike you?"
+
+"He lifted his hand; but instead of flinching, I made myself as tall as
+I could, and looked at him right steadfastly. You do not know how pale
+he looked, when I stopped him on the threshold. His very lips turned
+white--I declare there is something grand in a great passion. It makes
+one look somehow so different from common folks. Well, now, as soon as
+he raised his hand to strike me, a red flush shot into his face, like
+the blaze of an inward fire. It was shame,--anger made him white--but
+shame turned him as red as blood. His arm dropped down to his
+side,--then he laid his hand on the top of his head,--'Stay after
+school,' said he, 'I must talk with you.'"
+
+"And did you?" I asked, hanging with breathless interest on his words.
+
+"Yes; I have just left him."
+
+"He has not expelled you, Richard?"
+
+"No; but he says I must ask his pardon before the whole school
+to-morrow. It amounts to the same thing. I will never do it."
+
+"I am so sorry this has happened," said I. "Oh! that I had never written
+that foolish, foolish poetry. It has done so much mischief."
+
+"You are not to blame, Gabriella. He had no business to laugh at it; it
+was beautiful--all the boys say so. I have no doubt you will be a great
+poetess one of these days. He ought to have been proud of it, instead of
+making fun of you. It was so mean."
+
+"But you must go back to school, Richard. You are the best scholar. The
+master is proud of you, and will not give you up. I would not have it
+said that _I_ was the cause of your leaving, for twice your weight in
+solid gold."
+
+"Would you not despise me if I asked pardon, when I have done no wrong;
+to appear ashamed of what I glory in; to act the part of a coward, after
+publicly proclaiming _him_ to be one?"
+
+"It is hard," said I, "but--"
+
+We were walking homeward all the while we were talking, and at every
+step my spirits sank lower and lower. How different every thing seemed
+now, from what it did an hour ago. True, I had been treated with
+harshness, but I had no right to rebel as I had done. Had I kissed the
+rod, it would have lost its sting,--had I borne the smart with patience
+and gentleness, my companions would have sympathized with and pitied me;
+it would not have been known beyond the walls of the academy. But now,
+it would be blazoned through the whole town. The expulsion of so
+distinguished a scholar as Richard Clyde would be the nine days' gossip,
+the village wonder. And I should be pointed out as the presumptuous
+child, whose disappointed vanity, irascibility, and passion had created
+rebellion and strife in a hitherto peaceful seminary. I, the recipient
+of the master's favors, an ingrate and a wretch! My mother would know
+this--my gentle, pale-faced mother.
+
+Our little cottage was now visible, with its low walls of grayish white,
+and vine-encircled windows.
+
+"Richard," said I, walking as slowly as possible, though it was growing
+darker every moment, "I feel very unhappy. I will go and see the master
+in the morning and ask him to punish me for both. I will humble myself
+for your sake, for you have been my champion, and I never will forget it
+as long as I live. I was wrong to rush out of school as I did,--wrong to
+tear the paper from his hands,--and I am willing to tell him so now. It
+shall all be right yet, Richard,--indeed it shall."
+
+"You shall not humble yourself for me, Gabriella; I like a girl of
+spirit."
+
+We had now reached the little gate that opened into our own green yard.
+I could see my mother looking from the window for her truant child. My
+heart began to palpitate, for no Catholic ever made more faithful
+confessions to his absolving priest, than I to my only parent. Were I
+capable of concealing any thing from her, I should have thought myself
+false and deceitful. With feelings of love and reverence kindred to
+those with which I regarded my Heavenly Father, I looked up to her, the
+incarnate angel of my life. This expression has been so often used it
+does not seem to mean much; but when I say it, I mean all the filial
+heart is capable of feeling. I was poor in fortune, but in her goodness
+rich. I was a lonely child, but sad and pensive as she was, she was a
+fountain of social joy to me. Then, she was so beautiful--so very, very
+lovely!
+
+I caught the light of her pensive smile through the dimness of the hour.
+She was so accustomed to my roaming in the woods, she had suffered no
+alarm.
+
+"If my mother thinks it right, you will not object to my going to see
+Mr. Regulus," said I, as Richard lifted the gate-latch for me to enter.
+
+"For yourself, no; but not for me. I can take care of myself,
+Gabriella."
+
+He spoke proudly. He did not quite come up to my childish idea of a boy
+hero, but I admired his self-reliance and bravery. I did not want him to
+despise me or my lack of spirit. I began to waver in my good resolution.
+
+My mother called me, in that soft, gentle tone, so full of music and of
+love.
+
+In ten minutes I had told her all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+If I thought any language of mine could do justice to her character, I
+would try to describe my mother. Were I to _speak_ of her, my voice
+would choke at the mention of her name. As I write, a mist gathers over
+my eyes. Grief for the loss of such a being is immortal, as the love of
+which it is born.
+
+I have said that we were poor,--but ours was not abject poverty,
+hereditary poverty,--though _I_ had never known affluence, or even that
+sufficiency which casts out the fear of want. I knew that my mother was
+the child of wealth, and that she had been nurtured in elegance and
+splendor. I inherited from her the most fastidious tastes, without the
+means of gratifying them. I felt that I had a right to be wealthy, and
+that misfortune alone had made my mother poor, had made her an alien
+from her kindred and the scenes of her nativity. I felt a strange pride
+in this conviction. Indeed there was a singular union of pride and
+diffidence in my character, that kept me aloof from my young companions,
+and closed up the avenues to the social joys of childhood.
+
+My mother thought a school life would counteract the influence of her
+own solitary habits and example. She did not wish me to be a hermit
+child, and for this reason accepted the offer Mr. Regulus made through
+the minister to become a pupil in the academy. She might have sent me to
+the free schools in the neighborhood, but she did not wish me to form
+associations incompatible with the refinement she had so carefully
+cultivated in me. She might have continued to teach me at home, for she
+was mistress of every accomplishment, but she thought the discipline of
+an institution like this would give tone and firmness to my poetic and
+dreaming mind. She wanted me to become practical,--she wanted to see the
+bark growing and hardening over the exposed and delicate fibres. She
+anticipated for me the cold winds and beating rains of an adverse
+destiny. I knew she did, though she had never told me so in words. I
+read it in the anxious, wistful, prophetic expression of her soft, deep
+black eyes, whenever they rested on me. Those beautiful, mysterious
+eyes!
+
+There was a mystery about her that gave power to her excellence and
+beauty. Through the twilight shades of her sorrowful loneliness, I could
+trace only the dim outline of her past life. I was fatherless,--and
+annihilation, as well as death, seemed the doom of him who had given me
+being. I was forbidden to mention his name. No similitude of his
+features, no token of his existence, cherished by love and hallowed by
+reverence, invested him with the immortality of memory. It was as if he
+had never been.
+
+Thus mantled in mystery, his image assumed a sublimity and grandeur in
+my imagination, dark and oppressive as night. I would sit and ponder
+over his mystic attributes, till he seemed like those gods of mythology,
+who, veiling their divinity in clouds, came down and wooed the daughters
+of men. A being so lovely and good as my mother would never have loved a
+common mortal. Perhaps he was some royal exile, who had found her in his
+wanderings a beauteous flower, but dared not transplant her to the
+garden of kings.
+
+My mother little thought, when I sat in my simple calico dress, my
+school-book open on my knees, conning my daily lessons, or seeming so to
+do, what wild, absurd ideas were revelling in my brain. She little
+thought how high the "aspiring blood" of mine mounted in that lowly,
+woodland cottage.
+
+I told her the history of my humiliation, passion, and flight,--of
+Richard Clyde's brave defence and undaunted resolution,--of my sorrow on
+his account,--of my shame and indignation on my own.
+
+"My poor Gabriella!"
+
+"You are not angry with me, my mother?"
+
+"Angry! No, my child, it was a hard trial,--very hard for one so young.
+I did not think Mr. Regulus capable of so much unkindness. He has
+cancelled this day a debt of gratitude."
+
+"My poor Gabriella," she again repeated, laying her delicate hand gently
+on my head. "I fear you have a great deal to contend with in this rough
+world. The flowers of poesy are sweet, but poverty is a barren soil, my
+child. The dew that moistens it, is tears."
+
+I felt a tear on my hand as she spoke. Child as I was, I thought that
+tear more holy and precious than the dew of heaven. Flowers nurtured by
+such moisture must be sweet.
+
+"I will never write any more," I exclaimed, with desperate resolution.
+"I will never more expose myself to ridicule and contempt."
+
+"Write as you have hitherto done, for my gratification and your own.
+Your simple strains have beguiled my lonely hours. But had I known your
+purpose, I would have warned you of the consequences. The child who
+attempts to soar above its companions is sure to be dragged down by the
+hand of envy. Your teacher saw in your effusion an unpardonable effort
+to rise above himself,--to diverge from the beaten track. You may have
+indulged too much in the dreams of imagination. You may have neglected
+your duties as a pupil. Lay your hand on your heart and ask it to
+reply."
+
+She spoke so calmly, so soothingly, so rationally, the fever of
+imagination subsided. I saw the triumph of reason and principle in her
+own self-control,--for, when I was describing the scene, her mild eye
+flashed, and her pale cheek colored with an unwonted depth of hue. She
+had to struggle with her own emotions, that she might subdue mine.
+
+"May I ask him to pardon Richard Clyde, mother?"
+
+"The act would become your gratitude, but I fear it would avail nothing.
+If he has required submission of him, he will hardly accept yours as a
+substitute."
+
+"Must I ask him to forgive me? Must I return?"
+
+I hung breathlessly on her reply.
+
+"Wait till morning, my daughter. We shall both feel differently then. I
+would not have you yield to the dictates of passion, neither would I
+have you forfeit your self-respect. I must not rashly counsel."
+
+"I would not let her go back at all," exclaimed a firm, decided voice.
+"They ain't fit to hold the water to wash her hands."
+
+"Peggy," said my mother, rebukingly, "you forget yourself."
+
+"I always try to do that," she replied, while she placed on the table my
+customary supper of bread and milk.
+
+"Yes, indeed you do," answered my mother, gratefully,--"kind and
+faithful friend. But humility becometh my child better than pride."
+
+Peggy looked hard at my mother, with a mixture of reverence, pity, and
+admiration in her clear, honest eye, then taking a coarse towel, she
+rubbed a large silver spoon, till it shone brighter and brighter, and
+laid it by the side of my bowl. She had first spread a white napkin
+under it, to give my simple repast an appearance of neatness and
+gentility. The bowl itself was white, with a wreath of roses round the
+rim, both inside and out. Those rosy garlands had been for years the
+delight of my eyes. I always hailed the appearance of the glowing
+leaves, when the milky fluid sunk below them, with a fresh appreciation
+of their beauty. They gave an added relish to the Arcadian meal. They
+fed my love of the beautiful and the pure. That large, bright silver
+spoon,--I was never weary of admiring that also. It was massive--it was
+grand--and whispered a tale of former grandeur. Indeed, though the
+furniture of our cottage was of the simplest, plainest kind, there were
+many things indicative of an earlier state of luxury and elegance. My
+mother always used a golden thimble,--she had a toilet case inlaid with
+pearl, and many little articles appropriate only to wealth, and which
+wealth only purchases. These were never displayed, but I had seen them,
+and made them the corner-stones of many an airy castle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+And who was Peggy?
+
+She was one of the best and noblest women God ever made. She was a
+treasury of heaven's own influences.
+
+And yet she wore the form of a servant, and like her divine Master,
+there was "no beauty" in her that one should desire to look upon her.
+
+She had followed my mother through good report and ill report. She had
+clung to her in her fallen fortunes as something sacred, almost divine.
+As the Hebrew to the ark of the covenant,--as the Greek to his country's
+palladium,--as the children of Freedom to the star-spangled banner,--so
+she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost worshipped.
+I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble,
+self-sacrificing, devoted friend. I did not know it then--at least not
+all--not half. I knew that she labored most abundantly for us,--that she
+ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an
+empress, anticipating her slightest wants and wishes, deprecating her
+gratitude, and seeming ashamed of her own goodness and industry. I knew
+that her plain sewing, assisted by my mother's elegant needle-work,
+furnished us the means of support; but I had always known it so, and it
+seemed all natural and right. Peggy was strong and robust. The burden of
+toil rested lightly on her sturdy shoulders. It seemed to me that she
+was born with us and for us,--that she belonged to us as rightfully as
+the air we breathed, and the light that illumined us. It never entered
+my mind that we could live without Peggy, or that Peggy could live
+without us.
+
+My mother's health was very delicate. She could not sew long without
+pressing her hand on her aching side, and then Peggy would draw her work
+gently from her with her large, kind hand, make her lie down and rest,
+or walk out in the fresh air, till the waxen hue was enlivened on her
+pallid cheek. She would urge her to go into the garden and gather
+flowers for Gabriella, "because the poor child loved so to see them in
+the room." We had a sweet little garden, where Peggy delved at early
+sunrise and evening twilight. Without ever seeming hurried or
+overtasked, she accomplished every thing. We had the earliest
+vegetables, and the latest. We had fruit, we had flowers, all the result
+of Peggy's untiring, providing hand. The surplus vegetables and fruit
+she carried to the village market, and though they brought but a trifle
+in a country town, where every thing was so abundant, yet Peggy said,
+"we must not despise the day of small gains." She took the lead in all
+business matters in-doors and out-doors. She never asked my mother if
+she had better do this and that; she went right ahead, doing what she
+thought right and best, in every thing pertaining to the drudgery of
+life.
+
+When I was a little child, I used to ask her many a question about the
+mystery of my life. I asked her about my father, of my kindred, and the
+place of my birth.
+
+"Miss Gabriella," she would answer, "you mustn't ask questions. Your
+mother does not wish it. She has forbidden me to say one word of all you
+want to know. When you are old enough you shall learn every thing. Be
+quiet--be patient. It is best that you should be. But of one thing rest
+assured, if ever there was a saint in this world, your mother is one."
+
+I never doubted this. I should have doubted as soon the saintliness of
+those who wear the golden girdles of Paradise. I am glad of this. I have
+sometimes doubted the love and mercy of my Heavenly Father, but never
+the purity and excellence of my mother. Ah, yes! once when sorely
+tempted.
+
+We retired very early in our secluded, quiet home. We had no evening
+visitors to charm away the sober hours, and time marked by the sands of
+the hour-glass always seems to glide more slowly. That solemn-looking
+hour-glass! How I used to gaze on each dropping particle, watching the
+upward segment gradually becoming more and more transparent, and the
+lower as gradually darkening. It was one of Peggy's inherited treasures,
+and she reverenced it next to her Bible. The glass had been broken and
+mended with putty, which formed a dark, diagonal line across the
+venerable crystal. This antique chronometer occupied the central place
+on the mantel-piece, its gliding sands, though voiceless, for ever
+whispering of ebbing time and everlasting peace. "Passing away, passing
+away," seemed continually issuing from each meeting cone. I have no
+doubt the contemplation of this ancient, solemn instrument, which old
+Father Time is always represented as grasping in one unclenching hand,
+while he brandishes in the other the merciless scythe, had a lasting
+influence on my character.
+
+That night, it was long before I fell asleep. I lay awake thinking of
+the morning's dawn. The starlight abroad, that came in through the upper
+part of the windows, glimmered on the dark frame and glassy surface of
+the old timepiece, which stood out in bold relief from the whitewashed
+wall behind it. Before I knew it, I was composing a poem on that old
+hour-glass. It was a hoary pilgrim, travelling on a lone and sea-beat
+shore, towards a dim and distant goal, and the print of his footsteps on
+the wave-washed sands, guided others in the same lengthening journey.
+The scene was before me. I saw the ancient traveller, his white locks
+streaming in the ocean blast; I heard the deep murmur of the restless
+tide; I saw the footsteps; and they looked like sinking graves; when all
+at once, in the midst of my solemn inspiration, a stern mocking face
+came between me and the starlight night, the jeering voice of my master
+was in my ears, a dishonored fragment was fluttering in my hand. The
+vision fled; I turned my head on my pillow and wept.
+
+You may say such thoughts and visions were strangely precocious in a
+child of twelve years old. I suppose they were; but I never remember
+being a child. My sad, gentle mother, the sober, earnest, practical
+Peggy, were the companions of my infancy, instead of children of my own
+age. The sunlight of my young life was not reflected from the golden
+locks of childhood, its radiant smile and unclouded eye. I was defrauded
+of the sweetest boon of that early season, a confidence that this world
+is the happiest, fairest, best of worlds, the residence of joy, beauty,
+and goodness.
+
+A thoughtful child! I do not like to hear it. What has a little child to
+do with thought? That sad, though glorious reversion of our riper and
+darker years?
+
+Ah me! I never recollect the time that my spirit was not travelling to
+grasp some grown idea, to fathom the mystery of my being, to roll away
+the shadows that surrounded me, groping for light, toiling, then
+dreaming, not resting. It was no wonder I was weary before my journey
+was well begun.
+
+"What a remarkable countenance Gabriella has!" I then often heard it
+remarked. "Her features are childish, but her eyes have such a peculiar
+depth of expression,--so wild, and yet so wise."
+
+I wish I had a picture of myself taken at this period of my life. I have
+no doubt I looked older then than I do now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+I knew the path which led from the boarding-place of Mr. Regulus crossed
+the one which I daily traversed. I met him exactly at the point of
+intersection, under the shadow of a great, old oak. The dew of the
+morning glittered on the shaded grass. The clear light blue of the
+morning sky smiled through upward quivering leaves. Every thing looked
+bright and buoyant, and as I walked on, girded with a resolute purpose,
+my spirit caught something of the animation and inspiration of the
+scene.
+
+The master saw me as I approached, and I expected to see a frown darken
+his brow. I felt brave, however, for I was about to plead for another,
+not myself. He did not frown, neither did he smile. He seemed willing to
+meet me,--he even slackened his pace till I came up. I felt a sultry
+glow on my cheek when I faced him, and my breath came quick and short. I
+was not so very brave after all.
+
+"Master Regulus," said I, "do not expel Richard Clyde,--do not disgrace
+him, because he thought I was not kindly dealt with. I am sorry I ran
+from school as I did,--I am sorry I wrote the poem,--I hardly knew what
+I was doing when I snatched the paper from your hands. I suppose Richard
+hardly knew what he was doing when he stopped you at the door."
+
+I did not look up while I was speaking, for had I met an angry glance I
+should have rebelled.
+
+"I am glad I have met you, Gabriella," said he, in a tone so gentle, I
+lifted my eyes in amazement. His beamed with unusual kindness beneath
+his shading brows. Gone was the mocking gleam,--gone the deriding smile.
+He looked serious, earnest, almost sad, but not severe. Looking at his
+watch, and then at the golden vane, as if that too were a chronometer,
+he turned towards the old oak, and throwing himself carelessly on a seat
+formed of a broken branch, partially severed from the trunk, motioned me
+to sit down on the grass beside him. Quick as lightning I obeyed him,
+untying my bonnet and pushing it back from my head. I could scarcely
+believe the evidence of my senses. There reclined the formidable master,
+like a great, overgrown boy, his attitude alone banishing all restraint
+and fear, and I, perched on a mossy rock, that looked as if placed there
+on purpose for me to sit down upon, all my wounded and exasperated
+feelings completely drowned in a sudden overflow of pleasant emotions. I
+had expected scolding, rebuke, denial,--I had armed myself for a
+struggle of power,--I had resolved to hazard a martyr's doom.
+
+Oh, the magic of kindness on a child's heart!--a lonely, sensitive,
+proud, yearning heart like mine!--'Tis the witch-hazel wand that shows
+where the deep fountain is secretly welling. I was ashamed of the tears
+that _would_ gather into my eyes. I shook my hair forward to cover them,
+and played with the green leaves within my reach.
+
+The awful space between me and this tall, stern, learned man seemed
+annihilated. I had never seen him before, divested of the insignia of
+authority, beyond the walls of the academy. I had always been compelled
+to look up to him before; now we were on a level, on the green sward of
+the wild-wood. God above, nature around, no human faces near, no fear of
+man to check the promptings of ingenuous feeling. Softly the folded
+flower petals of the heart began to unfurl. The morning breeze caught
+their fragrance and bore it up to heaven.
+
+"You thought me harsh and unkind, Gabriella," said the master in a low,
+subdued voice, "and I fear I was so yesterday. I intended to do you
+good. I began sportively, but when I saw you getting excited and angry,
+I became angry and excited too. My temper, which is by no means gentle,
+had been previously much chafed, and, as is too often the case, the
+irritation, caused by the offences of many, burst forth on one, perhaps
+the most innocent of all. Little girl, you have been studying the
+history of France; do you remember its Louises?--Louis the Fourteenth
+was a profligate, unprincipled, selfish king. Louis the Fifteenth,
+another God-defying, self-adoring sensualist. Louis the Sixteenth one of
+the most amiable, just, Christian monarchs the world ever saw. Yet the
+accumulated wrongs under which the nation had been groaning during the
+reign of his predecessors, were to be avenged in his person,--innocent,
+heroic sufferer that he was. This is a most interesting historic fact,
+and bears out wonderfully the truth of God's words. But I did not mean
+to give a lecture on history. It is out of place here. I meant to do you
+good yesterday, and discourage you from becoming an idle rhymer--a vain
+dreamer. You are not getting angry I hope, little girl, for I am kind
+now."
+
+"No, sir,--no, indeed, sir," I answered, with my face all in a glow.
+
+"Your mother, I am told, wishes you to be educated for a teacher, a
+profession which requires as much training as the Spartan youth endured,
+when fitted to be the warriors of the land. Why, you should be preparing
+yourself a coat of mail, instead of embroidering a silken suit. How do
+you expect to get through the world, child,--and it is a hard world to
+the poor, a cold world to the friendless,--how do you expect to get
+along through the briars and thorns, over the rocks and the hills with
+nothing but a blush on your cheek, a tear in your eye, and a sentimental
+song on your lips? Independence is the reward of the working mind, the
+thinking brain, and the earnest heart."
+
+He grew really eloquent as he went on. He raised his head to an erect
+position, and ran his fingers through his bushy locks. I cannot remember
+all he said, but every word he uttered had meaning in it. I appreciated
+for the first time the difficulties and trials of a teacher's vocation.
+I had thought before, that it was the pupil only who bore the burden of
+endurance. It had never entered my mind that the crown of authority
+covered the thorns of care, that the wide sweep of command wearied more
+than the restraint of subjection. I was flattered by the manner in which
+he addressed me, the interest he expressed in my future prospects. I
+found myself talking freely to him of myself, of my hopes and my fears.
+I forgot the tyrant of yesterday in the friend of to-day. I remember one
+thing he said, which is worth recording.
+
+"It is very unfortunate when a child, in consequence of a facility of
+making rhyme, is led to believe herself a poetess,--or, in other words,
+a prodigy. She is praised and flattered by injudicious friends, till she
+becomes inflated by vanity and exalted by pride. She wanders idly,
+without aim or goal, in the flowery paths of poesy, forgetful of the
+great highway of knowledge, not made alone for the chariot wheels of
+kings, but the feet of the humblest wayfarer."
+
+When he began to address me, he remembered that I was a child, but
+before he finished the sentence he forgot my age, and his thoughts and
+language swelled and rose to the comprehension of manhood. But I
+understood him. Perhaps there was something in my fixed and fascinated
+glance that made him conscious of my full appreciation.
+
+"I have no friends to praise and flatter me," I simply answered. "I have
+loved to sing in rhyme as the little birds sing, because God gave me the
+power."
+
+He looked pleased. He even laid his hand on my head and smiled. Not the
+cold smile of yesterday, but quite a genial smile. I could hardly
+believe it the same face, it softened and transformed it so. I
+involuntarily drew nearer to him, drawn by that powerful magnetism,
+which every human heart feels more or less.
+
+The great brazen tongue of the town clock rang discordantly on the sweet
+stillness of the morning hour. The master rose and motioned me to follow
+him.
+
+"Richard Clyde is forgiven. Tell him so. Let the past be forgotten, or
+remembered only to make us wiser and better."
+
+We entered the academy together, to the astonishment of the pupils, who
+were gathered in little clusters, probably discussing the events of
+yesterday.
+
+Richard Clyde was not there, but he came the next day, and the scene in
+which we were both such conspicuous actors was soon forgotten. It had,
+however, an abiding influence on me. A new motive for exertion was born
+within me,--affection for my master,--and the consequence was, ambition
+to excel, that I might be rewarded by his approbation.
+
+Bid he ever again treat me with harshness and severity? No,--never. I
+have often wondered why he manifested such unusual and wanton disregard
+of my feelings then, that one, only time. It is no matter now. It is a
+single blot on a fair page.
+
+Man is a strangely inconsistent being. His soul is the battle ground of
+the warring angels of good and evil. As one or the other triumphs, he
+exhibits the passions of a demon or the attributes of a God.
+
+Could we see this hidden war field, would it not be grand? What were the
+plains of Marathon, the pass of Thermopylæ, or Cannæ paved with golden
+rings, compared to it?
+
+Let us for a moment imagine the scene. Not the moment of struggle, but
+the pause that succeeds. The angels of good have triumphed, and though
+the plumage of their wings may droop, they are white and dazzling so as
+no "fuller of earth could whiten them." The moonlight of peace rests
+upon the battle field, where evil passions lie wounded and trampled
+under feet. Strains of victorious music float in the air; but it comes
+from those who have triumphed in the conflict and entered into rest,
+those who behold the conflict from afar. It is so still, that one can
+almost hear the trees of Paradise rustle in the ambrosial gales of
+heaven.
+
+Is this poetry? Is it sacrilege? If so, forgive me, thou great Inspirer
+of thought,--"my spirit would fain not wander from thee."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The life of a school-girl presents but few salient points to arrest the
+interest. It is true, every day had its history, and every rising and
+setting sun found something added to the volume of my life. But there
+seems so little to describe! I could go on for ever, giving utterance to
+thoughts that used to crowd in my young brain, thoughts that would
+startle as well as amuse,--but I fear they might become monotonous to
+the reader.
+
+I had become a hard student. My mother wished me to fit myself for a
+teacher. It was enough.
+
+It was not, however, without many struggles. I had acquired this
+submission to her wishes. Must I forever be a slave to hours? Must I
+weave for others the chain whose daily restraint chafed and galled my
+free, impatient spirit? Must I bear the awful burden of authority, that
+unlovely appendage to youth? Must I voluntarily assume duties to which
+the task of the criminal that tramps, tramps day after day the revolving
+tread-mill, seems light; for that is mere physical labor and monotony,
+not the wear and tear of mind, heart, and soul?
+
+"What else can you do, my child?" asked my mother.
+
+"I could sew."
+
+My mother smiled and shook her head.
+
+"Your skill does not lie in handicraft," she said, "that would never
+do."
+
+"I could toil as a servant. I would far rather do it."
+
+I had worked myself up to a belief in my own sincerity when I said this,
+but had any tongue but mine suggested the idea, how would my aspiring
+blood have burned with indignation.
+
+"It is the most honorable path to independence a friendless young girl
+can choose,--almost the only one," said my mother, suppressing a deep
+sigh.
+
+"Oh, mother! I am not friendless. How can I be, with you and Peggy?"
+
+"But we are not immortal, my child. Every day loosens my frail hold of
+earthly things, and even Peggy's strong arm will in time grow weak. Your
+young strength will then be _her_ stay and support."
+
+"Oh, mother! as if I could live when you are taken from me! What do I
+live for, but you? What have I on earth but thee? Other children have
+father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and friends. If one is
+taken from them, they have others left to love and care for them, but I
+have nobody in the wide world but you. I could not, would not live
+without you."
+
+I spoke with passionate earnestness. Life without my mother! The very
+thought was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more
+than pale,--it was wan--it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under
+her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure
+looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her
+eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when throwing my arms across
+her lap, I laid my face upon them, and wept and sobbed as if the doom of
+the motherless were already mine.
+
+"Grief does not kill, my Gabriella," she said, tenderly caressing me.
+"It is astonishing how much the human heart can bear without breaking.
+Sorrow may dry up, drop by drop, the fountain of life, but it is
+generally the work of years. The heart lives, though every source of joy
+be dead,--lives without one well-spring of happiness to quench its
+burning thirst,--lives in the midst of desolation, darkness, and
+despair. Oh, my Gabriella," she continued, with a burst of feeling that
+swept over her with irresistible power, and bowed her as before a stormy
+gust, "would to God that we might die together,--that the same almighty
+mandate would free us both from this prison-house of sorrow and of sin.
+I have prayed for resignation,--I have prayed for faith; but, O my God!
+I am rebellious, I am weak, I have suffered and struggled so long."
+
+She spoke in a tone of physical as well as menial agony. I was looking
+up in her face, and it seemed as if a dark shadow rolled over it. I
+sprang to my feet and screamed. Peggy, who was already on the threshold,
+caught her as she fell forward, and laid her on the bed as if she were a
+little child. She was in a fainting fit. I had seen her before in these
+deathlike swoons, but never had I watched with such shuddering dread to
+see the dawn of awakening life break upon her face. I stood at her
+pillow scarcely less pale and cold than herself.
+
+"This is all your doings, Miss Gabriella," muttered Peggy, while busily
+engaged in the task of restoration. "If you don't want to kill your
+mother, you must keep out of your tantrums. What's the use of going on
+so, I wonder,--and what's the use of my watching her as carefully as if
+she was made of glass, when you come like a young hurricane and break
+her into atoms. There,--go away and keep quiet. Let her be till she gets
+over this turn. I know exactly what's best for her."
+
+She spoke with authority, and I obeyed as if the voice of a superior
+were addressing me. I obeyed,--but not till I had seen the hue of
+returning life steal over the marble pallor of her cheek. I wandered
+into the garden, but the narrow paths, the precise formed beds, the
+homely aspect of vegetable nature, filled me with a strange loathing. I
+felt suffocated, oppressed,--I jumped over the railing and plunged into
+the woods,--the wild, ample woods,--my home,--my wealth,--my God-granted
+inheritance. I sat down under the oaks, and fixed my eyes upwards on the
+mighty dome that seemed resting on the strong forest trees. I heard
+nothing but the soft rustling of the leaves,--I saw nothing but the
+lonely magnificence of nature.
+
+Here I became calm. It seemed a matter of perfect indifference to me
+then what I did, or what became of me,--whether I was henceforth to be a
+teacher, a seamstress, or a servant. Every consideration was swallowed
+in one,--every fear lost in one absorbing dread. I had but one
+prayer,--"Let my mother live, or let me die with her!"
+
+Poverty offered no privation, toil no weariness, suffering no pang,
+compared to the one great evil which my imagination grasped with firm
+and desperate clench.
+
+Three years had passed since I had lain a weeping child under the shadow
+of the oaks, smarting from the lash of derision, burning with shame,
+shrinking with humiliation. I was now fifteen years old,--at that age
+when youth turns trembling from the dizzy verge of childhood to a
+mother's guardian arms, a mother's sheltering heart. How weak, how
+puerile now seemed the emotions, which three years ago had worn such a
+majestic semblance.
+
+I was but a foolish child then,--what was I now? A child still, but
+somewhat wiser, not more worldly wise. I knew no more of the world, of
+what is called the world, than I did of those golden cities seen through
+the cloud-vistas of sunset. It seemed as grand, as remote, and as
+inaccessible.
+
+At this moment I turned my gaze towards the distant cloud-turrets
+gleaming above, walls on which chariots and horsemen of fire seemed
+passing and repassing, and I was conscious of but one deep, earnest
+thought,--"my mother!"
+
+One prayer, sole and agonizing, trembled on my lips:--
+
+"Take her not from me, O my God! I will drink the cup of poverty and
+humiliation to the dregs if thou wilt, without a murmur, but spare, O
+spare my mother!"
+
+God did spare her for a little while. The dark hands on the dial-plate
+of destiny once moved back at the mighty breath of prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"Gabriella,--is it you? How glad I am to see you!"
+
+That clear, distinct, ringing voice!--I knew it well, though a year had
+passed since I had heard its sound. The three years which made me, as I
+said before, a _wiser child_, had matured my champion, the boy of
+fifteen, into a youth of eighteen, a collegian of great promise and
+signal endowments. I felt very sorry when he left the academy, for he
+had been my steadfast friend and defender, and a great assistant in my
+scholastic tasks. But after he entered a college, I felt as if there
+were a great gulf between us, never more to be passed over. I had very
+superb ideas of collegians. I had seen them during their holidays, which
+they frequently came into the country to spend, dashing through the
+streets like the wild huntsmen, on horses that struck fire as they flew
+along. I had seen them lounging in the streets, with long, wild hair,
+and corsair visages and Byronian collars, and imagined them a most
+formidable race of beings. I did not know that these were the
+_scape-goats_ of their class, suspended for rebellion, or expelled for
+greater offences,--that having lost their character as students, they
+were resolved to distinguish themselves as dandies, the lowest ambition
+a son of Adam's race can feel. It is true, I did not dream that Richard
+Clyde could be transformed into their image, but I thought some
+marvellous change must take place, which would henceforth render him as
+much a stranger to me as though we had never met.
+
+Now, when I heard the clear, glad accents of his voice, so natural, so
+unchanged, I looked up with a glance of delighted recognition into the
+young student's manly face. My first sensation was pleasure, the
+pleasure which congenial youth inspires, my next shame, for the
+homeliness of my occupation. I was standing by a beautiful bubbling
+spring, at the foot of a little hill near my mother's cottage. The
+welling spring, the rock over which it gushed, the trees which bent
+their branches over the fountain to guard it from the sunbeams, the
+sweet music the falling waters,--all these were romantic and
+picturesque. I might imagine myself "a nymph, a naiad, or a grace." Or,
+had I carried a pitcher in my hand, I might have thought myself another
+Rebecca, and poised on my shoulder the not ungraceful burden. But I was
+dipping water from the spring, in a tin pail, of a broad, clumsy,
+unclassic form,--too heavy for the shoulder, and extremely difficult to
+carry in the hand, in consequence of the small, wiry handle. In my
+confusion I dropped the pail, which went gaily floating to the opposite
+side of the spring, entirely out of my reach. The strong, bubbling
+current bore it upward, and it danced and sparkled and turned its sides
+of mimic silver, first one way and then the other, as if rejoicing in
+its liberty.
+
+Richard laughed, his old merry laugh, and jumping on the rock over which
+the waters were leaping, caught the pail, and waved it as a trophy over
+his head. Then stooping down he filled it to the brim, gave one spring
+to the spot where I stood, whirled the bucket upside down and set it
+down on the grass without spilling a drop.
+
+"That is too large and heavy for you to carry, Gabriella," said he.
+"Look at the palm of your hand, there is quite a red groove there made
+by that iron handle."
+
+"Never mind," I answered, twisting my handkerchief carelessly round the
+tingling palm, "I must get used to it. Peggy is sick and there is no one
+to carry water now but myself. When she is well, she will never let me
+do any thing of the kind."
+
+"You should not," said he, decidedly. "You are not strong enough,--you
+must get another servant.--I will inquire in the village myself this
+morning, and send you one."
+
+"O no, my mother would never consent to a stranger coming into the
+family. Besides, no one could take Peggy's place. She is less a servant
+than a friend."
+
+I turned away to hide the tears that I could not keep back. Peggy's
+illness, though not of an alarming character, showed that even her iron
+constitution was not exempt from the ills which flesh is heir to,--that
+the strong pillar on which we leaned so trustingly _could_ vibrate and
+shake, and what would become of us if it were prostrated to the earth;
+the lonely column of fidelity and truth, to which we clung so
+adhesively; the sheet anchor which had kept us from sinking beneath the
+waves of adversity? I had scarcely realized Peggy's mortality before,
+she seemed so strong, so energetic, so untiring. I would as soon have
+thought of the sun's being weary in its mighty task as of Peggy's strong
+arm waxing weak. I felt very sad, and the meeting with Richard Clyde,
+which had excited a momentary joy, now deepened my sadness. He looked so
+bright, so prosperous, so full of hope and life. He was no longer the
+school-boy whom I could meet on equal terms, but the student entered on
+a public career of honor and distinction,--the son of ambition, whose
+gaze was already fixed on the distant hill-tops of fame. There was
+nothing in his countenance or manner that gave this impression, but my
+own morbid sensitiveness. The dawning feelings of womanhood made me
+blush for the plainness and childishness of my dress, and then I was
+ashamed of my shame, and blushed the more deeply.
+
+"I am glad to see you again," I said, stooping to raise my brimming
+pail,--"I suppose I must not call you Richard now."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I hope and trust none of my old friends will begin to Mr.
+Clyde me for a long time to come, and least, I mean most of all, you,
+Gabriella. We were always such exceedingly good friends, you know. But
+don't be in such a hurry, I have a thousand questions to ask, a thousand
+things to tell."
+
+"I should love to hear them all, Richard, but I cannot keep my mother
+waiting."
+
+Before I could get hold of the handle of the pail, he had seized it and
+was swinging it along with as much ease as if he had a bunch of roses in
+his hand. We ascended the little hill together, he talking all the time,
+in a spirited, joyous manner, laughing at his awkwardness as he stumbled
+against a rolling stone, wishing he was a school-boy again in the old
+academy, whose golden vane was once an object of such awe and admonition
+in his eyes.
+
+"By the way, Gabriella," he asked, changing from subject to subject with
+marvellous rapidity, "do you ever write poetry now?"
+
+"I have given that up, as one of the follies of my childhood, one of the
+dreams of my youth."
+
+"Really, you must be a very venerable person,--you talk of the youthful
+follies you have discarded, the dreams from which you have awakened, as
+if you were a real centenarian. I wonder if there are not some incipient
+wrinkles on your face."
+
+He looked at me earnestly, saucily; and I involuntarily put up my hands,
+as if to hide the traces of care his imagination was drawing.
+
+"I really do feel old sometimes," said I, smiling at the mock scrutiny
+of his gaze, "and it is well I do. You know I am going to be a teacher,
+and youth will be my greatest objection."
+
+"No, no, I do not want you to be a teacher. You were not born for one.
+You will not be happy as one,--you are too impulsive, too sensitive, too
+poetic in your temperament. You are the last person in the world who
+ought to think of such a vocation."
+
+"Would you advise me, then, to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water,
+in preference?"
+
+"I would advise you to continue your studies, to read, write poetry,
+ramble about the woods and commune with nature, as you so love to do,
+and not think of assuming the duties of a woman, while you are yet
+nothing but a child. Oh! it is the most melancholy thing in the world to
+me, to see a person trying to get beyond their years. You must not do
+it, Gabriella. I wish I could make you stop _thinking_ for one year. I
+do not like to see a cheek as young as yours pale with overmuch thought.
+Do you know you are getting very like your mother?"
+
+"My mother!" I exclaimed, with a glow of pleasure at the fancied
+resemblance, "why, she is the most beautiful person I have yet
+seen,--there is, there can be no likeness."
+
+"But there is, though. You speak as if you thought yourself quite ugly.
+I wonder if you do. Ugly and old. Strange self-estimation for a pretty
+girl of fifteen!"
+
+"I suppose you learn to flatter in college," said I, "but I do not care
+about being flattered, I assure you."
+
+"You are very much mistaken if you think I am trying to flatter you. I
+may do so a year or two hence if I chance to meet you in company, but
+here, in this rural solitude, with the very element of truth in my hand,
+I could not deceive, if I were the most accomplished courtier in the
+world."
+
+We had reached the top of the green acclivity which we bad been
+ascending, I fear with somewhat tardy steps. We could see the road
+through an opening in the trees,--a road little travelled, but leading
+to the central street of the town. The unusual sound of carriage wheels
+made me turn my head in that direction, and a simultaneous exclamation
+of Richard's fixed my attention.
+
+A very elegant carriage, drawn by a pair of large shining bay horses was
+rolling along with aristocratic slowness. The silver-plated harness
+glittered so in the sun, it at first dazzled my eyes, so that I could
+discern nothing distinctly. Then I saw the figures of two ladies seated
+on the back seat in light, airy dresses, and of two gentlemen on
+horseback, riding behind. I had but a glimpse of all this, for the
+carriage rolled on. The riders disappeared; but, as a flash of lightning
+reveals to us glimpses of the cloud cities of heaven which we remember
+long after the electric gates are closed, so the vision remained on my
+memory, and had I never again beheld the youthful form nearest to us, I
+should remember it still. It was that of a young girl, with very fair
+flaxen hair, curling in profuse ringlets on each side of her face, which
+was exquisitely fair, and lighted up with a soft rosiness like the
+dawning of morning. A blue scarf, of the color of her eyes, floated over
+her shoulders and fluttered from the window of the carriage. As I gazed
+on this bright apparition, Richard, to my astonishment, lifted his hat
+from his brow and bowed low to the smiling stranger, who returned the
+salutation with graceful ease. The lady on the opposite side was hidden
+by the fair-haired girl, and both were soon hidden by the thick branches
+that curtained the road.
+
+"The Linwoods!" said Richard, glancing merrily at the tin pail, which
+shone so conspicuously bright in the sunshine. "You must have heard of
+them?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Not heard of the new-comers! Haven't you heard that Mrs. Linwood has
+purchased the famous old Grandison Place, that has stood so long in
+solitary grandeur, had it fitted up in modern style, and taken
+possession of it for a country residence? Is it possible that you are
+such a little nun, that you have heard nothing of this?"
+
+"I go nowhere; no one comes to see us; I might as well be a nun."
+
+"But at school?"
+
+"I have not been since last autumn. But that fair, beautiful young lady,
+is she a daughter of Mrs. Linwood?"
+
+"She is,--Edith Linwood. Rather a romantic name, is it not? Do you think
+her beautiful?"
+
+"The loveliest creature I ever looked upon. I should be quite miserable
+if I thought I never should look upon her again. And you know her,--she
+bowed to you. How sorry I am she should see you performing such an
+humble office for a little rustic like me!"
+
+"She will think none the worse of me for it. If she did, I should
+despise her. But she is no heartless belle,--Edith Linwood is not. She
+is an angel of goodness and sweetness, if all they say of her be true. I
+do not know her very well. She has a brother with whom I am slightly
+acquainted, and through him I have been introduced into the family. Mrs.
+Linwood is a noble, excellent woman,--I wish you knew her. I wish you
+knew Edith,--I wish you knew them all. They would appreciate you. I am
+sure they would."
+
+"_I_ know them!" I exclaimed, glancing at our lowly cottage, my simple
+dress, and contrasting them mentally with the lordly dwelling and costly
+apparel of these favorites of nature and of fortune. "They appreciate
+_me_!"
+
+"I suppose you think Edith Linwood the most enviable of human beings.
+Rich, lovely, with the power of gratifying every wish, and of dispensing
+every good, she would gladly exchange this moment with you, and dip
+water from yon bubbling spring."
+
+"Impossible!" I cried. "How can she help being happy?"
+
+"She does seem happy, but she is lame, and her health is very delicate.
+She cannot walk one step without crutches, on which she swings herself
+along very lightly and gracefully, it is true; but think you not she
+would not give all her wealth to be able to walk with your bounding
+steps, and have your elastic frame?"
+
+"Crutches!" said I, sorrowfully, "why she looked as if she might have
+wings on her shoulders. It _is_ sad."
+
+"She is not an object of pity. You will not think she is when you know
+her. I only wanted to convince you, that you might be an object of envy
+to one who seems so enviable to you."
+
+I would gladly have lingered where I was, within the sound of Richard
+Clyde's frank and cheerful voice, but I thought of poor Peggy thirsting
+for a cooling draught, and my conscience smote me for being a laggard in
+my duty. It is true, the scene, which may seem long in description,
+passed in a very brief space of time, and though Richard said a good
+many things, he talked very fast, without seeming hurried either.
+
+"I shall see you again at the spring," said he, as he turned from the
+gate. "You must consider me as the Aquarius of your domestic Zodiac. I
+should like to be my father's camel-driver, if that were Jacob's well."
+
+I could not help smiling at his gay nonsense,--his presence had been so
+brightening, so comforting. I had gone down to the spring sad and
+desponding. I returned with a countenance so lighted up, a color so
+heightened, that my mother looked at me with surprise.
+
+As soon as I had ministered to Peggy, who seemed mortified and ashamed
+because of her sickness, and distressed beyond measure at being waited
+upon. I told my mother of my interview with Richard, of his kindness in
+carrying the water, the vision of the splendid carriage, of its
+beautiful occupants, the fitting up of the old Grandison Place, and all
+that Richard had related to me.
+
+She listened with a troubled countenance. "Surely, young Clyde will not
+be so inconsiderate, so officious, as to induce those ladies to visit
+us?"
+
+"No, indeed, mother. He is not officious. He knows you would not like to
+see them. He would not think of such a thing."
+
+"No, no," I repeated to myself, as I exerted myself bravely in my new
+offices, as nurse and housekeeper, "there is no danger of that fair
+creature seeking out this little obscure spot. She will probably ask
+Richard Clyde who the little country girl was, whose water-pail he was
+so gallantly carrying, and I know he will speak kindly of me, though he
+will laugh at being caught in such an awkward predicament. Perhaps to
+amuse her, he will tell her of my flight from the academy and the scenes
+which resulted, and she will ask him to show her the poem, rendered so
+immortal. Then merrily will her silver laughter ring through the lofty
+hall. I have wandered all over Grandison Place when it was a deserted
+mansion. No one saw me, for it is far back from the street, all
+embosomed in shade, and it reminded me of some old castle with its
+turreted roof and winding galleries. I wonder how it looks now." I was
+falling into one of my old-fashioned dreams, when a moan from Peggy
+wakened me, and I sprang to her bedside with renewed alarm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Yes, Peggy was very sick; but she would not acknowledge it. It was
+nothing but a violent headache,--a sudden cold; she would be up and
+doing in the morning. The doctor! No, indeed, she would have nothing to
+do with doctors. She had never taken a dose of medicine in her life, and
+never would, of her own freewill. Sage tea was worth all the pills and
+nostrums in the world. On the faith of her repeated assertions, that she
+felt a great deal better and would be quite well in the morning, we
+slept, my mother and myself, leaving the lamp dimly burning by the
+solemn hour-glass.
+
+About midnight we were awakened by the wild ravings of delirious
+agony,--those sounds so fearful in themselves, so awful in the silence
+and darkness of night, so indescribably awful in the solitude of our
+lonely dwelling.
+
+Peggy had struggled with disease like "the strong man prepared to run a
+race," but it had now seized her with giant grasp, and she lay helpless
+and writhing, with the fiery fluid burning in her veins, sending dark,
+red flashes to her cheeks and brow. Her eyes had a fierce, lurid glare,
+and she tossed her head from side to side on the pillow with the wild
+restlessness of an imprisoned animal.
+
+"Good God!" cried my mother, looking as white as the sheets, and
+trembling all over as in an ague-fit. "What shall we do? She will die
+unless a doctor can see her. Oh, my child, what can we do? It is
+dreadful to be alone in the woods, when sickness and death are in the
+house."
+
+"_I_ will go for the doctor, mother, if you are not afraid to stay alone
+with Peggy," cried I, in hurried accents, wrapping a shawl round me as I
+spoke.
+
+My mother wrung her hands.
+
+"Oh! this is terrible," she exclaimed. "How dim and dark it looks
+abroad. I cannot let you go alone, at midnight. It cannot be less than a
+mile to Dr. Harlowe's. No, no; I cannot let you go."
+
+"And Peggy must die, then. _She_ must die who has served us so
+faithfully, and lived alone for us! Oh, mother, let me go I will fly on
+the wings of the wind. You will hardly miss me before I return. I am not
+afraid of the darkness. I am not afraid of the lonely woods. I only fear
+leaving you alone with her."
+
+"Go," said my mother, in a faint voice. "God will protect you. I feel
+that He will, my good, brave Gabriella."
+
+I kissed her white cheek with passionate tenderness, cast a glance of
+anguish on Peggy's fearfully altered face, then ran out into the chill,
+dark midnight. At first I could scarcely discern the sandy path I had so
+often trodden, for no moon lighted up the gloom of the hour, and even
+the stars glimmered faintly through a grey and cloudy atmosphere. As I
+hurried along, the wind came sighing through the trees with such
+inexpressible sadness, it seemed whispering mournfully of the dark
+secrets of nature. Then it deepened into a dull, roaring sound, like the
+murmurs of the ocean tide; but even as I went on the melancholy wind
+pursued me like an invisible spirit, winding around me its chill,
+embracing arms.
+
+I seemed the only living thing in the cold, illimitable night. A thick
+horror brooded over me. The sky was a mighty pall, sweeping down with
+heavy cloud-fringes, the earth a wide grave. I did not fear, that is, I
+feared not man, or beast or ghost, but an unspeakable awe and dread was
+upon me. I dreaded the great God, whose presence filled with
+insupportable grandeur the lonely night. My heart was hard as granite.
+_I_ could not have prayed, had I known that Peggy's life would be given
+in answer to my prayer. I could not say, "Our Father, who art in
+heaven," as I had so often done at my mother's knee, in the sweet,
+childlike spirit of filial love and submission. My Father's face was
+hidden, and behind the thick clouds of darkness I saw a stern,
+vindictive Being, to whom the smoke of human suffering was more
+acceptable than frankincense and myrrh.
+
+I compared myself wandering alone in darkness and sorrow, on such an
+awful errand, to the fair, smiling being cradled in wealth, then
+doubtless sleeping in her bed of down, watched by attending menials. Oh!
+rebel that I was, did I not need the chastening discipline, never
+exerted but in wisdom and in love?
+
+Before I knew it, I was at Dr. Harlowe's door. All was dark and still.
+The house was of brick, and it loomed up gloriously as I approached. It
+seemed to frown repulsively with its beetling eaves, as I lifted the
+knocker and let it fall with startling force. In a moment I heard
+footsteps moving and saw a light glimmering through the blinds. He was
+at home, then,--I had accomplished my mission. It was no matter if I
+died, since Peggy might be saved. I really thought I was going to die, I
+felt so dull and faint and breathless. I sunk down on the stone steps,
+just as the door was opened by Dr. Harlowe himself, whom I had seen, but
+never addressed before. Placing his left hand above his eyes, he looked
+out, in search of the messenger who had roused him from his slumber. I
+tried to rise, but was too much exhausted. I could scarcely make my
+errand understood. I had run a mile without stopping, and now I _had_
+stopped, my limbs seemed turned into lead and my head to ice.
+
+"My poor child!" said the doctor, in the kindest manner imaginable. "You
+should not have come yourself at this hour. It was hardly safe.
+Why,--you have run yourself completely out of breath. Come in, while
+they are putting my horse in the buggy. I must give _you_ some medicine
+before we start."
+
+He stooped down and almost lifted me from the step where I was seated,
+and led me into what appeared to me quite a sumptuous apartment, being
+handsomely carpeted and having long crimson curtains to the windows. He
+made me sit down on a sofa, while he went to a closet, and pouring out a
+generous glass of wine, insisted upon my drinking it. I obeyed him
+mechanically, for life seemed glowing in the ruddy fluid. It was. It
+came back in warmth to my chilled and sinking heart. I felt it stealing
+like a gentle fire through my whole system,--burning gently, steadily on
+my cheek, and kindling into light my heavy and tear-dimmed eyes. It was
+the first glass I had ever tasted, and it ran like electricity through
+my veins. Had the doctor been aware of my previous abstinence, he might
+not have thought it safe to have offered me the brimming glass. Had I
+reflected one moment I should have swallowed it less eagerly; but I
+seemed sinking, sinking into annihilation, when its reviving warmth
+restored me. I felt as if I had wings, and could fly over the dreary
+space my weary feet had so lately overcome.
+
+"You feel better, my dear," said the doctor, with a benevolent smile, as
+he watched the effect of his prescription. "You must not make so
+dangerous an experiment again as running such a distance at this time of
+night. Peggy's life is very precious, I dare say, and so is yours. Are
+you ready to ride? My buggy is not very large, but I think it will
+accommodate us both. We will see."
+
+Though it was the first time I had ever spoken with Dr. Harlowe, I felt
+as much confidence in his kindness and benevolence as if I had known him
+for years. There was something so frank and genial about him, he seemed,
+like the wine I had been quaffing, warming to the heart. There was
+barely room for me, slender as I was, for the carriage was constructed
+for the accommodation of the doctor alone; but I did not feel
+embarrassed, or as if I were intruding. He drove very rapidly,
+conversing the whole time in a pleasant, cheering voice.
+
+"Peggy must be a very valuable person," he said, "for you to venture out
+so bravely in her cause. We must cure her, by all means."
+
+I expatiated on her virtues with all the eloquence of gratitude.
+Something must have emboldened my shy tongue,--something more than the
+hope, born of the doctor's heart-reviving words.
+
+"He is come--he is come," I exclaimed, springing from the buggy to the
+threshold, with the quickness of lightning.
+
+Oh! how dim and sickly and sad every thing appeared in that little
+chamber! I turned and looked at the doctor, wondering if he had ever
+entered one so sad before. Peggy lay in an uneasy slumber, her arms
+thrown above her head, in a wild, uncomfortable attitude. My mother sat
+leaning against the head of the bed, pale and statue-like, with her
+hand, white as marble, partly hidden in her dark and loosely braided
+hair. The doctor glanced at the bed, then at my mother, and his glance
+riveted on her. Surprise warmed into admiration,--admiration stood
+checked by reverence. He advanced a few steps into the room, and made
+her as lowly a bow as if she were an empress. She rose without speaking
+and motioned me to hand him a chair; but waiving the offered civility,
+he went up to the side of the bed and laid his fingers quietly on the
+pulse of his patient. He stood gravely counting the ticking of life's
+great chronometer, while my mother leaned forward with pale, parted
+lips, and I gazed upon him as if the issues of life and death were in
+his hands.
+
+"I wish I had been called sooner," said he, with a slight contraction of
+the brows, "but we will do all we can to relieve her."
+
+He called for a basin and linen bandage, and taking a lancet from his
+pocket, held up the sharp, gleaming point to the light. I shuddered, I
+had never seen any one bled, and it seemed to me an awful operation.
+
+"You will hold the basin," said he, directing me with his calm,
+benignant eye. "You are a brave girl,--you will not shrink, as some
+foolish persons do, at the sight of blood. This side, if you please, my
+dear."
+
+Ashamed to forfeit the confidence he had in my bravery, or rather moral
+courage, I grasped the basin with both hands, and held it firm, though
+my lips quivered and my cheek blanched.
+
+Peggy, awakened by the pressure of the bandage, began to rave and
+struggle, and I feared it would be impossible to subdue her into
+sufficient quietness; but delirious as she was, there was something in
+the calm, authoritative tones of Dr. Harlowe's voice, that seemed
+irresistible. She became still, and lay with her half-closed eyes fixed
+magnetically on his face. As the dark-red blood spouted into the basin,
+I started, and would have recoiled had not a strong controlling
+influence been exerted over me. The gates of life were opened. How easy
+for life itself to pass away in that deep crimson tide!
+
+"This is the poetry of our profession," said the doctor, binding up the
+wound with all a woman's gentleness.
+
+Poor Peggy, who could ever associate the idea of poetry with her! I
+could not help smiling as I looked at her sturdy arm, through whose
+opaque surface the blue wandering of the veins was vainly sought.
+
+"And now," said he, after giving her a comforting draught, "she will
+sleep, and _you_ must sleep, madam," turning respectfully to my mother;
+"you have not strength enough to resist fatigue,--your daughter will
+have two to nurse instead of one, if you do not follow my advice."
+
+"I cannot sleep," replied my mother.
+
+"But you can rest, madam; it is your duty. What did I come here for, but
+to relieve your cares? Go with your mother, my dear, and after a while
+you may come back and help me."
+
+"You are very kind, sir," she answered. With a graceful bend of the head
+she passed from the room, while his eyes followed her with an expression
+of intense interest.
+
+It is no wonder. Even I, accustomed as I was to watch her every motion,
+was struck by the exceeding grace of her manner. She did not ask the
+doctor what he thought of Peggy, though I saw the words trembling on her
+lips. She dared not do it.
+
+From that night the seclusion of our cottage home was broken up. Disease
+had entered and swept down the barriers of circumstance curiosity had so
+long respected. We felt the drawings of that golden chain of sympathy
+which binds together the great family of mankind.
+
+Peggy's disease was a fever, of a peculiar and malignant character. It
+was the first case which occurred; but it spread through the town, so
+that scarcely a family was exempt from its ravages. Several died after a
+few days' sickness, and it was said purplish spots appeared after death,
+making ghostly contrast with its livid pallor. The alarm and terror of
+the community rendered it difficult to obtain nurses for the sick; but,
+thanks to the benevolent exertions of Dr. Harlowe, we were never left
+alone.
+
+Richard Clyde, too, came every day, and sometimes two or three times a
+day to the spring, to know what he could do for us. No brother could be
+kinder. Ah! how brightly, how vividly deeds of kindness stand out on the
+dark background of sickness and sorrow! I never, never can forget that
+era of my existence, when the destroying angel seemed winnowing the
+valley with his terrible wings,--when human life was blown away as chaff
+before a strong wind. Strange! the sky was as blue and benignant, the
+air as soft and serene, as if health and joy were revelling in the
+green-wood shade. The gentle rustling of the foliage, the sweet, glad
+warbling of the birds, the silver sparkling of the streamlets, and the
+calm, deep flowing of the distant river, all seemed in strange
+discordance with the throes of agony, the wail of sorrow, and the knell
+of death.
+
+It was the first time I had ever been brought face to face with sickness
+and pain. The constitutional fainting fits of my mother were indicative
+of weakness, and caused momentary terror; but how different to this
+mysterious, terrible malady, this direct visitation from the Almighty!
+Here we could trace no second causes, no imprudence in diet, no exposure
+to the night air, no predisposing influences. It came sudden and
+powerful as the bolt of heaven. It came in sunshine and beauty, without
+herald and warning, whispering in deep, thrilling accents: "Be still,
+and know that I am God."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+I do not wish to dwell too long on this sad page of my young life, but
+sad as it is, it is followed by another so dark, I know not whether my
+trembling hand should attempt to unfold it. Indeed, I fear I have
+commenced a task I had better have left alone. I know, however, I have
+scenes to relate full of the wildest romance, and that though what I
+have written may be childish and commonplace, I have that to relate
+which will interest, if the development of life's deepest passions have
+power to do so.
+
+The history of a human heart! a true history of that mystery of
+mysteries! a description of that city of our God, more magnificent than
+the streets of the New Jerusalem! This is what I have commenced to
+write. I will go on.
+
+For nine days Peggy wrestled with the destroying angel. During that
+time, nineteen funerals had darkened the winding avenue which led to the
+grave-yard, and she who was first attacked lingered last. It was
+astonishing how my mother sustained herself during these days and nights
+of intense anxiety. She seemed unconscious of fatigue, passive, enduring
+as the marble statue she resembled. She ate nothing,--she did not sleep.
+I know not what supported her. Dr. Harlowe brought her some of that
+generous wine which had infused such life into my young veins, and
+forced her to swallow it, but it never brought any color to her hueless
+cheeks.
+
+On the morning of the ninth day, Peggy sunk into a deathlike stupor. Her
+mind had wandered during all her sickness, though most of the time she
+lay in a deep lethargy, from which nothing could rouse her.
+
+"Go down to the spring and breathe the fresh air," said the doctor;
+"there should be perfect quiet here,--a few hours will decide her fate."
+
+I went down to the spring, where the twilight shades were gathering. The
+air came with balmy freshness to my anxious, feverish brow. I scooped up
+the cold water in the hollow of my hand and bathed my face. I shook my
+hair over my shoulders, and dashed the water over every disordered
+tress. I began to breathe more freely. The burning weight, the
+oppression, the suffocation were passing away, but a dreary sense of
+misery, of coming desolation remained. I sat down on the long grass, and
+leaning my head on my clasped hands, watched the drops as they fell from
+my dropping hair on the mossy rock below.
+
+"Is it not too damp for you here?"
+
+I knew Richard Clyde was by me,--I heard his light footsteps on the
+sward, but I did not look up.
+
+"It is not as damp as the grave will be," I answered.
+
+"Don't talk so, Gabriella, don't. I cannot bear to hear you. This will
+be all over soon, and it will be to you like a dark and troubled dream."
+
+"Yes; I know it will be all over soon. We shall all lie in the
+churchyard together,--Peggy, my mother, and I,--and you will plant a
+white rose over my mother's grave, will you not? Not over mine. No
+flowers have bloomed for me in life,--it would be nothing to place them
+over my sleeping dust."
+
+"Gabriella! You are excited,--you are ill. Give me your hand. I know you
+have a feverish pulse."
+
+I laid my hand on his, with an involuntary motion. Though it was moist
+with the drops that had been oozing over it, it had a burning heat. He
+startled at its touch.
+
+"You are ill,--you are feverish!" he cried. "The close air of that
+little room has been killing you. I knew it would. You should have gone
+to Mrs. Linwood's, you and your mother, when she sent for you. Peggy
+would have been abundantly cared for."
+
+"What, leave her here to die!--her, so good, so faithful, and
+affectionate, who would have died a thousand times over for us. Oh
+Richard, how can you speak of such a thing! Peggy is dying now,--I know
+that she is. I never looked on death, but I saw its shadow on her livid
+face. Why did Dr. Harlowe send me away? I am not afraid to see her die.
+Hark! my mother calls me."
+
+I started up, but my head was dizzy, and I should have fallen had not
+Richard put his arm around me.
+
+"Poor girl," said he, "I wish I had a sister to be with and comfort you.
+These are dark hours for us all, for we feel the pressure of God
+Almighty's hand. I do not wonder that you are crushed. You, so young and
+tender. But bear up, Gabriella. The day-spring will yet dawn, and the
+shadows fly away."
+
+So he kept talking, soothingly, kindly, keeping me out in the balminess
+and freshness of the evening, while the fever atmosphere burned within.
+I knew not how long I sat. I knew not when I returned to the house. I
+have forgotten that. But I remember standing that night over a still,
+immovable form, on whose pale, peaceful brow, those purplish spots, of
+which I had heard in awful whispers, were distinctly visible. The
+tossing arms were crossed reposingly over the pulseless bosom,--the
+restless limbs were rigid as stone. I remember seeing my mother, whom
+they tried to lead into another chamber,--my mother, usually so calm and
+placid,--throw herself wildly on that humble, fever-blasted form, and
+cling to it in an agony of despair. It was only by the exertion of main
+force that she was separated from it and carried to her own apartment.
+There she fell into one of those deadly fainting fits, from which the
+faithful, affectionate Peggy had so often brought her back to life.
+
+Never shall I forget that awful night. The cold presence of mortality in
+its most appalling form, the shadow of my mother's doom that was rolling
+heavily down upon me with prophetic darkness, the dismal preparations,
+the hurrying steps echoing so drearily through the midnight gloom; the
+cold burden of life, the mystery of death, the omnipotence of God, the
+unfathomableness of Eternity,--all pressed upon me with such a crushing
+weight, my spirit gasped and fainted beneath the burden.
+
+One moment it seemed that worlds would not tempt me to look again on
+that shrouded form, so majestic in its dread immobility,--its cold, icy
+calmness,--then drawn by an awful fascination, I would gaze and gaze as
+if my straining eyes could penetrate the depths of that abyss, which no
+sounding line has ever reached.
+
+I saw her laid in her lowly grave. My mother, too, was there. Dr.
+Harlowe did every thing but command her to remain at home, but she would
+not stay behind.
+
+"I would follow her to her last home," said she, "if I had to walk
+barefoot over a path of thorns."
+
+Only one sun rose on her unburied form,--its setting rays fell on a
+mound of freshly heaved sods, where a little while before was a mournful
+cavity.
+
+Mrs. Linwood sent her beautiful carriage to take us to the churchyard.
+Slowly it rolled along behind the shadow of the dark, flapping pall.
+Very few beside ourselves were present, so great a panic pervaded the
+community; and very humble was the position Peggy occupied in the world.
+People wondered at the greatness of our grief, for she was _only_ a
+servant. They did not know all that she was to us,--how could they? Even
+I dreamed not then of the magnitude of our obligations.
+
+I never shall forget the countenance of my mother as she sat leaning
+from the carriage windows, for she was too feeble to stand during the
+burial, while I stood with Dr. Harlowe at the head of the grave. The sun
+was just sinking behind the blue undulation of the distant hills, and a
+mellow, golden lustre calmly settled on the level plain around us. It
+lighted up her pallid features with a kind of unearthly glow, similar to
+that which rested on the marble monuments gleaming through the weeping
+willows. Every thing looked as serene and lovely, as green and
+rejoicing, as if there were no such things as sickness and death in the
+world.
+
+My mother's eyes wandered slowly over the whole inclosure, shut in by
+the plain white railing, edged with black,--gleamed on every gray stone,
+white slab, and green hillock,--rested a moment on me, then turned
+towards heaven, with such an expression!
+
+"Not yet, my mother, oh, not yet!" I cried aloud in an agony that could
+not be repressed, clinging to Dr. Harlowe's arm as if every earthly stay
+and friend were sliding from my grasp. I knew the meaning of that mute,
+expressive glance. She was measuring her own grave by the side of
+Peggy's clay cold bed,--she was commending her desolate orphan to the
+Father of the fatherless, the God of the widow. She knew she would soon
+be there, and I knew it too. And after the first sharp pang,--after the
+arrow of conviction fastened in my heart,--I pressed it there with a
+kind of stern, vindictive joy, triumphing in my capacity of suffering. I
+wonder if any one ever felt as I did,--I wonder if any worm of the dust
+ever writhed so impotently under the foot of Almighty God!
+
+O kind and compassionate Father! Now I know thou art kind even in thy
+chastisements, merciful even in thy judgments, by the bitter chalice I
+have drained, by all the waves and billows that have gone over me, by
+anguish, humiliation, repentance, and prayer. Forgive, forgive! for I
+knew not what I was doing!
+
+From that night my mother never left her bed. The fever spared her, but
+she wilted like the grass beneath the scythe of the mower. Gone was the
+unnatural excitement which had sustained her the last nine days; severed
+the silver cord so long dimmed by secret tears.
+
+Thank heaven! I was not doomed to see her tortured by pain, or raving in
+delirious agony,--to see those exquisite features distorted by
+frenzy,--or to hear that low, sweet voice untuned, the key-note of
+reason lost.
+
+Thank heaven! even death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so
+lovely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+I said, death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so lovely. Week
+after week she lingered, almost imperceptibly fading, passing away like
+a soft rolling cloud that melts into the sky. The pestilence had stayed
+its ravages. The terror, the thick gloom had passed by.
+
+If I looked abroad at sunset, I could see the windows of the village
+mansions, crimsoned and glowing with the last flames of day; but no
+light was reflected on our darkened home. It was all in shadow. And at
+night, when the windows of Grandison Place were all illuminated,
+glittering off by itself like a great lantern, the traveller could
+scarcely have caught the glimmering ray of the little lamp dimly burning
+in our curtained room.
+
+Do you think I was resigned? That because I was dumb, I lay like a lamb
+before the stroke of the shearer? I will tell you how resigned, how
+submissive I was. I have read of the tortures of the Inquisition. I have
+read of one who was chained on his back to the dungeon floor, without
+the power to move one muscle,--hand and foot, body and limb bound. As he
+lay thus prone, looking up, ever upwards, he saw a circular knife,
+slowly descending, swinging like a pendulum, swinging nearer and nearer;
+and he knew that every breath he drew it came nearer and nearer, and
+that he _must_ feel anon the cold, sharp edge. Yet he lay still,
+immovable, frozen, waiting, with his glazed eyes fixed on the terrible
+weapon. Such was _my_ resignation--_my_ submission.
+
+Friends gathered around the desolate; but they could not avert the
+descending stroke. Mrs. Linwood came, with her angelic looking daughter,
+and their presence lighted up, momentarily, our saddened dwelling, as if
+they had been messengers from heaven,--they were so kind, so
+sympathizing, so unobtrusive. When Edith first crossed our threshold,
+she did indeed look like one of those ministering spirits, sent to watch
+over those who shall be heirs of salvation. She seemed to float forward,
+light and airy as the down wafted by the summer gale. Her crutches, the
+ends of which were wrapped with something soft and velvety, so as to
+muffle their sound, rather added than detracted from the interest and
+grace of her appearance, so gracefully they sustained her fair,
+white-robed form, just lifting it above the earth.
+
+A little while before, I should have shrunk with nervous diffidence from
+the approach of guests like these. I should have contrasted painfully
+the splendor of their position with the lowliness of our own,--but now,
+what were wealth or rank or earthly distinctions to me?
+
+I was sitting by my mother's bed, fanning her slumbers, as they entered.
+Mrs. Linwood walked noiselessly forward, took the fan gently from my
+hand, and motioned me to resign my seat to her. I did so mechanically,
+for it seemed she had a right to be there. Then Edith took me by the
+hand and looked in my face with an expression of such sweet, unaffected
+sympathy, I turned aside to hide the quick-gushing tears. Not a word was
+uttered, yet I knew they came to soothe and comfort.
+
+When my mother opened her eyes and saw the face of a stranger bending
+over her, she started and trembled; but there was something in the mild,
+Christian countenance of Mrs. Linwood that disarmed her fears, and
+inspired confidence. The pride which had hitherto repelled the advances
+of friendship, was all chastened and subdued. Death, the great leveller,
+had entered the house, and the mountains of human distinction flowed
+down at his presence.
+
+"I am come to nurse you," said Mrs. Linwood, taking my mother's pale,
+emaciated hand and pressing it in both her own. "Do not look upon me as
+a stranger, but as a friend--a sister. You will let me stay, will you
+not?"
+
+She seemed soliciting a favor, not conferring one.
+
+"Thank you,--bless you!" answered my mother, her large dark eyes fixed
+with thrilling intensity on her face. Then she added, in a lower voice,
+glancing towards me, "_she_ will not be left friendless, then. You will
+remember _her_ when I am gone."
+
+"Kindly, tenderly, even with a mother's care," replied Mrs. Linwood,
+tears suffusing her mild eyes, and testifying the sincerity of her
+words.
+
+My mother laid Mrs. Linwood's hand on her heart, whose languid beating
+scarcely stirred the linen that covered it; then looking up to heaven,
+her lips moved in silent prayer. A smile, faint but beautiful, passed
+over her features, and left its sweetness on her face. From that hour to
+the death-hour Mrs. Linwood did minister to her, as a loving sister
+would have done. Edith often accompanied her mother and tried to comfort
+me, but I was then inaccessible to comfort, as I was deaf to hope. When
+she stayed away, I missed the soft floating of her airy figure, the
+pitying glance of her heavenly blue eye; but when she came, I said to
+myself,
+
+"_Her_ mother is not dying. How can she sympathize with me? She is the
+favorite of Him who is crushing me beneath the iron hand of His wrath."
+
+Thus impious were my thoughts, but no one read them on my pale, drooping
+brow. Mrs. Linwood praised my filial devotion, my fortitude and heroism.
+Dr. Harlowe had told her how I had braved the terrors of midnight
+solitude through the lonely woods, to bring him to a servant's bedside.
+Richard Clyde had interested her in my behalf. She told me I had many
+friends for one so young and so retiring. Oh! she little knew how coldly
+fell the words of praise on the dull ear of despair. I smiled at the
+thought of needing kindness and protection when _she_ was gone. As if it
+were possible for me to survive my mother!
+
+Had she not herself told me that grief did not kill? But I believed her
+not.
+
+Do you ask if I felt no curiosity then, about the mystery of my
+parentage? I had been looking forward to the time when I should be
+deemed old enough to know my mother's history of which my imagination
+had woven such a web of mystery and romance,--when I should hear
+something of that father whose memory was curtained by such an
+impenetrable veil. But now it mattered not. Had I known that the blood
+of kings was in my veins, it would not have wakened one throb of
+ambition, kindled one ray of joy. I cared not for my lineage or kindred.
+I would not have disturbed the serenity that seemed settling on my
+mother's departing spirit, by one question relative to her past life,
+for the wealth of the Indies.
+
+She gave to Mrs. Linwood a manuscript which she had written while I was
+at school, and which was to have been committed to Peggy's care;--for
+surely Peggy, the strong, the robust, unwearied Peggy, would survive
+her, the frail, delicate, and stricken one!
+
+She told me this the night before she died, when at her own request I
+was left alone with her. I knew it was for the last time, but I had been
+looking forward steadily to this hour,--looking as I said before, as the
+iron-bound prisoner to the revolving knife, and like him I was outwardly
+calm. I knelt beside her and looked on her shadowy form, her white,
+transparent skin, her dark, still lustrous, though sunken eyes, till it
+seemed that her spirit, almost disembodied, mingled mysteriously with
+mine, in earnest of a divine communion.
+
+"I thank God, my Gabriella," she said, laying her hand blessingly on my
+bowed head, "that you submit to His holy will, in a spirit of childlike
+submission. I thank Him for raising up such a friend as Mrs. Linwood,
+when friend and comforter seemed taken from us. Love her, confide in
+her, be grateful to her, my child. Be grateful to God for sending her to
+soothe my dying hours with promises of protection and love for you, my
+darling, my child, my poor orphan Gabriella."
+
+"Oh mother," I cried, "I do not submit,--I cannot,--I cannot! Dreadful
+thoughts are in my heart--oh, my mother, God is very terrible. Leave me
+not alone to meet his awful judgments. Put your arms round me, my
+mother, and let me lie close to your bosom, I will not hurt you, I will
+lie so gently there. Death cannot separate us, when we cling so close
+together. Leave me not alone in the world, so cold, so dark, so
+dreary,--oh, leave me not alone!" Thus I clung to her, in the
+abandonment of despair, while words rushed unhidden from my lips.
+
+"Oh, my Gabriella, my child, my poor smitten lamb!" she cried, and I
+felt her heart fluttering against mine like a dying bird. "Sorrow has
+bereft you of reason,--you know not what you say. Gabriella, it is an
+awful thing to resist the Almighty God. Submission is the heritage of
+dust and ashes. _I_ have been proud and rebellious, smarting under a
+sense of unmerited chastisement and wrong. Because man was false, I
+thought God unjust,--but now, on this dying bed, the illusion of passion
+is dispelled, and I see Him as He is, longsuffering, compassionate, and
+indulgent, in all his loving-kindness and tender mercy, strong to
+deliver and mighty to save. I feel that I have needed all the discipline
+of sorrow through which I have passed, to bring my proud and troubled
+soul, a sin-sick, life weary wanderer, to my Father's footstool. What
+matters now, my Gabriella, that I have trod a thorny path, if it lead to
+heaven at last? How short the journey,--how long the rest! Oh, beloved
+child, bow to the hand that smites thee, for the stubborn will _must_ be
+broken. Wait not, like me, till it be ground into dust."
+
+She paused breathless and exhausted, but I answered not. Low sobs came
+gaspingly from my bosom, on which a mountain of ice seemed freezing.
+
+"If we could die together," she continued, with increasing solemnity,
+"if I could bear you in these feeble arms to the mercy-seat of God, and
+know you were safe from temptation, and sorrow, and sin, the bitterness
+of death would be passed. It is a fearful thing to live, my child, far
+more fearful than to die,--but life is the trial of faith, and death the
+victory."
+
+"And now," she added, "before my spirit wings its upward flight, receive
+my dying injunction. If you live to years of womanhood, and your heart
+awakens to love,--as, alas, for woman's destiny it will,--then read my
+life and sad experience, and be warned by my example. Mrs. Linwood is
+intrusted with the manuscript, blotted with your mother's tears. Oh,
+Gabriella, by all your love and reverence for the memory of the
+dead,--by the scarlet dye that can be made white as wool,--by your own
+hope in a Saviour's mercy, forgive the living,--if living _he_ indeed
+be!"
+
+Her eyes closed as she uttered these words, and a purplish gloom
+gathered beneath her eyes. The doctor came in and administered ether,
+which partially revived her. I have never been able to inhale it since,
+without feeling sick and faint, and recalling the deadly odor of that
+chamber of mourning.
+
+About daybreak, I heard Dr. Harlowe say in the lowest whisper to Mrs.
+Linwood that _she_ could not live more than one hour. He turned the
+hour-glass as he spoke. She had collected all the energies of life in
+that parting interview,--nothing remained but a faint, fluttering,
+quick-drawn breath.
+
+I sat looking at the hour-glass, counting every gliding sand, till each
+little, almost invisible particle, instead of dropping into the crystal
+receptacle, seemed to fall on my naked heart like the mountain rock. O
+my God! there are only two or three sands left, and my mother's life
+hangs on the last sinking grain. Some one rises with noiseless steps to
+turn the glass.
+
+With a shriek that might have arrested the departing spirit, I sprang
+forward and fell senseless on the floor.
+
+I remember nothing that passed during the day. I was told afterwards,
+that when I recovered from the fainting fit, the doctor, apprehensive of
+spasms, gave me a powerful anodyne to quiet my tortured nerves. When I
+became conscious of what was passing around me, the moon was shining on
+the bed where I lay, and the shadow of the softly rustling leaves
+quivering on the counterpane. I was alone, but I heard low, murmuring
+voices in the next room, and there was a light there more dim and
+earthly than the pale splendor that enveloped me. I leaned forward on my
+elbow and looked beyond the open door. The plain white curtains of the
+bed were looped up on each side, and the festoons swayed heavily in the
+night air, which made the flame of the lamp dim and wavering. A form
+reclined on the bed, but the face was _all covered_, though it was a
+midsummer's night. As I looked, I remembered all, and I rose and glided
+through the moonlight to the spot where my mother slept. Sustained by
+unnatural excitement, I seemed borne on air, and as much separated from
+the body as the spirit so lately divorced from that unbreathing clay; it
+was the effect of the opiate I had taken, but the pale watchers in the
+death-chamber shuddered at my unearthly appearance.
+
+"Let there be no light here but light from heaven," said I,
+extinguishing the fitful lamp-flame; and the room was immediately
+illuminated with a white, ghostly lustre. Then kneeling by the bed, I
+folded back the linen sheet, gazed with folded hands, and dry, dilated
+eyes on the mystery of death. The moon, "that sun of the sleepless,"
+that star of the mourner, shone full on her brow, and I smiled to see
+how divinely fair, how placid, how angelic she looked. Her dark, shining
+hair, the long dark lashes that pencilled her white cheek, alone
+prevented her from seeming a statue of the purest marble, fashioned
+after some Grecian model. Beauty and youth had come back to her reposing
+features, and peace and rapture too. A smile, such as no living lips
+ever wore, lingered round her mouth and softened its mute expression.
+She was happy. God had given his beloved rest. She was happy. It was not
+death on which I was gazing; it was life,--the dawn of immortal, of
+eternal life. Angels were watching around her. I did not see them, but I
+felt the shadow of their snow-white wings. I felt them fanning my brow
+and softly lifting the locks that fell darkly against the sheet, so
+chilly white. Others might have thought it the wind sighing through the
+leafy lattice-work; but the presence of angels was real to me,--and who
+can say they were not hovering there?
+
+That scene is past, but its remembrance is undying. The little cottage
+is inhabited by strangers. The grass grows rank near the brink of the
+fountain, and the mossy stone once moistened by my tears has rolled down
+and choked its gushing. My mother sleeps by the side of the faithful
+Peggy, beneath a willow that weeps over a broken shaft,--fitting
+monument for a broken heart.
+
+I will not dwell on the desolation of orphanage. It cannot be described.
+My Maker only knows the bitterness of my grief for days, weeks, even
+months. But time gradually warms the cold clay over the grave of love;
+then the grass springs up, and the flowers bloom, and the waste places
+of life become beautiful with hope, and the wilderness blossoms like the
+rose.
+
+But oh, my mother! my gentle, longsuffering mother! thou hast never been
+forgotten. By day and by night, in sunshine and shadow, in joy and in
+sorrow, thou art with me, a holy spirit, a hallowed memory, a chastening
+influence, that passeth not away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+What a change, from the little gray cottage in the woods to the pillared
+walls of Grandison Place.
+
+This ancestral looking mansion was situated on the brow of a long,
+winding hill, which commanded a view of the loveliest valley in the
+world. A bold, sweeping outline of distant hills, here and there
+swelling into mountains, and crowned with a deeper, mistier blue,
+divided the rich green of the earth from the azure of the heavens. Far
+as the eye could reach, it beheld the wildest luxuriance of nature
+refined and subdued by the hand of cultivation and taste. Man had
+reverenced the grandeur of the Creator, and made the ploughshare turn
+aside from the noble shade-tree, and left the streams rejoicing in their
+margins of verdure; and far off, far away beneath the shadow of the
+misty blue hills,--of a paler, more leaden hue,--the waters of the great
+sea seemed ready to roll down on the vale, that lay smiling before it.
+
+Built of native granite, with high massive walls and low turreted roof,
+Grandison Place rose above the surrounding buildings in castellated
+majesty. It stood in the centre of a spacious lawn, zoned by a girdle of
+oaks, beneath whose dense shade the dew sparkled even at noonday. Within
+this zone was a hedge of cedar, so smooth, with twigs so thickly
+interwoven, that the gossamer thought it a framework, on which to
+stretch its transparent web in the morning sun. Near the house the lawn
+was margined with beds of the rarest and most beautiful flowers, queen
+roses, and all the fragrant populace of the floral world. But the
+grandest and most beautiful feature of all was a magnificent elm-tree,
+standing right in the centre of the green inclosure, toweling upward,
+sweeping downward, spreading on either side its lordly branches, "from
+storms a shelter and from heat a shade."
+
+I never saw so noble a tree. I loved it,--I reverenced it. I associated
+with it the idea of strength and protection. Had I seen the woodman's
+axe touch its bark, I should have felt as if blood would stream from its
+venerable trunk. A circular bench with a back formed of boughs woven in
+checker-work surrounded it, and at twilight the soft sofas in the
+drawing-room were left vacant for this rustic seat.
+
+Edith loved it, and when she sat there with her crutches leaning against
+the rough back, whose gray tint subdued the bright lustre of her golden
+hair, I would throw myself on the grass at her feet and gaze upon her,
+as the embodiment of human loveliness.
+
+One would suppose that I felt awkward and strange in the midst of such
+unaccustomed magnificence; but it was not so. It seemed natural and
+right for me to be there. I trod the soft, rich, velvety carpeting with
+a step as unembarrassed as when I traversed the grassy lawn. I was as
+much at home among the splendors of art as the beauties of nature,--both
+seemed my birthright.
+
+I felt the deepest, most unbounded gratitude for my benefactress; but
+there was nothing abject in it. I knew that giving did not impoverish
+her; that the food I ate was not as much to her as the crumbs that fell
+from my mother's table; that the room I occupied was but one in a suite
+of elegant apartments; yet this did not diminish my sense of obligation.
+It lightened it, however, of its oppressive weight.
+
+My room was next to Edith's. The only difference in the furniture was in
+the color of the hangings. The curtains and bed drapery of mine were
+pink, hers blue. Both opened into an upper piazza, whose lofty pillars
+were wreathed with flowering vines, and crowned with Corinthian
+capitals. Surely my love for the beautiful ought to have been satisfied;
+and so it was,--but it was long, long before my heart opened to receive
+its influence. The clods that covered my mother's ashes laid too heavily
+upon it.
+
+Mrs. Linwood had a great deal of company from the city, which was but a
+short journey from Grandison Place. As they were mostly transient
+guests, I saw but little of them. My extreme youth, and deep mourning
+dress, were sufficient reasons for withdrawing from the family circle
+when strangers enlarged it. Edith was three years older than myself, and
+was of course expected to assist her mother in the honors of
+hospitality. She loved society, moreover, and entered into its innocent
+pleasures with the delight of a young, genial nature. It was difficult
+to think of her as a young lady, she was so extremely juvenile in her
+appearance; and her lameness, by giving her an air of childish
+dependence, added to the illusion caused by her fair, clustering
+ringlets and infantine rosiness of complexion. She wanted to bring me
+forward;--she coaxed, caressed, and playfully threatened, nor desisted
+till her mother said, with grave tenderness--
+
+"The heart cannot be forced, Edith; Gabriella is but a child, and should
+be allowed the freedom of a child. The restraints of social life, once
+assumed, are not easily thrown aside. Let her do just as she pleases."
+
+And so I did; and it pleased me to wander about the lawn; to sit and
+read under the great elm-tree; to make garlands of myrtle and sweet
+running vine flowers for Edith's beautiful hair; to walk the piazza,
+when moonlight silvered the columns and covered with white glory the
+granite walls, while the fountain of poetry down in the depths of my
+soul welled and trembled in the heavenly lustre.
+
+It pleased me to sit in the library, or rather to stand and move about
+there, for at that time I did not like to sit anywhere but on the grass
+or the oaken bench. The old poets were there in rich binding, all the
+classics, and the choicest specimens of modern literature. There were
+light, airy, movable steps, so as to reach to the topmost shelves, and
+there I loved to poise myself, like a bird on the spray, peeping into
+this book and that, gathering here and there a golden grain or sweet
+scented flower for the garner of thought, or the bower of imagination.
+
+There were statues in niches made to receive them,--the gods and
+goddesses of Greece and Rome, in their cold, severe beauty, all
+passionless and pure, in spite of the glowing mythology that called them
+into existence. There were paintings, too, that became a part of my
+being, I took them in with such intense, gazing eyes. Indeed, the house
+was lined with them. I could not walk through a room without stopping to
+admire some work of genius, some masterpiece of art.
+
+I over-heard Dr. Harlowe say to Mrs. Linwood, that it was a pity I were
+not at school, I was so very young. As if I were not at school all the
+time! As if those grand old books were not teachers; those breathing
+statues, those gorgeous paintings were not teachers; as if the noble
+edifice itself, with its magnificent surroundings, the billowy heave of
+the distant mountains, the glimpses of the sublime sea, the fair expanse
+of the beautiful valley, were not teachers!
+
+Oh! they little knew what lessons I was learning. They little knew how
+the soul of the silent orphan girl was growing within her,--how her
+imagination, like flowers, was nourished in stillness and secrecy by the
+air and the sunshine, the dew and the shower.
+
+I had other teachers, too, in the lonely churchyard; very solemn they
+were, and gentle too, and I loved their voiceless instructions better
+than the sounding eloquence of words.
+
+Mr. Regulus thought with Dr. Harlowe, that it was a pity I was not at
+school. He called to see Mrs. Linwood and asked her to use her influence
+to induce me to return as a pupil to the academy. She left it to my
+decision, but I shrunk from the thought of contact with the rude village
+children. I felt as if I had learned all Mr. Regulus could teach me. I
+was under greater masters now. Yet I was grateful for the interest he
+manifested in me. I had no vindictive remembrance of the poem he had so
+ruthlessly murdered. Innumerable acts of after kindness had obliterated
+the impression, or rather covered it with a growth of pleasant memories.
+
+"Have you given up entirely the idea of being a teacher yourself?" he
+asked, in a low voice, "or has the kindness of friends rendered it
+superfluous? I do not ask from curiosity out a deep interest in your
+future welfare."
+
+This was a startling question. I had not thought of the subject since I
+had entered my new home. Why should I think of the drudgery of life,
+pillowed on the downy couch of luxury and ease? I was forgetting that I
+was but the recipient of another's bounty,--a guest, but not a child of
+the household.
+
+Low as was his voice, I knew Mrs. Linwood heard and understood him, for
+her eyes rested on me with a peculiar expression of anxiety and
+interest. She did not speak, and I knew not what to utter. A burning
+glow rose to my cheeks, and my heart fluttered with painful
+apprehension. It was all a dream, then. That home of affluence was not
+mine,--it was only the asylum of my first days of orphanage. The
+maternal tenderness of Mrs. Linwood was nothing more than compassion and
+Christian charity, and the sisterly affection of the lovely Edith but
+the overflowing of the milk of human kindness. These were my first,
+flashing thoughts; then the inherent pride of my nature rose to sustain
+me. I would never be a willing burden to any one. I would toil day and
+night, sooner than eat the bread of dependence. It would have been far
+better to have left me in the humble cottage where they found me, to
+commence my life of drudgery at once, than to have given me a taste of
+luxury and affluence, to heighten, by force of contrast, privation and
+labor.
+
+"I will commence teaching immediately," I answered, trying in vain to
+speak with firmness, "if you think I am not too young, and a situation
+can be obtained;" "that is," I added, I fear a little proudly, "if Mrs.
+Linwood approve."
+
+"It must not be thought of _at present_," she answered, speaking to Mr.
+Regulus. "Gabriella is too young yet to assume the burden of authority.
+Her physical powers are still undeveloped. Besides, we shall pass the
+winter in the metropolis. Next summer we will talk about it."
+
+"They speak of adding a primary department to the academy," said my
+former master, "which will be under female superintendence. If this _is_
+done, and she would accept the situation, I think I have influence
+enough to secure it for her."
+
+"We will see to that hereafter," said Mrs. Linwood; "but of one thing I
+am assured, if Gabriella ever wishes to assume duties so honorable and
+so feminine, she would think it a privilege to be under your especial
+guardianship, and within reach of your experience and counsel."
+
+I tried to speak, and utter an assent to this wise and decided remark,
+but I could not. I felt the tears gushing into my eyes, and hastily
+rising, I left the room. I did not go out on the lawn, for I saw Edith's
+white robes under the trees, and I knew the guests of the city were with
+her. I ran up stairs to my own apartment, or that which was called mine,
+and, sitting down in an embrasure of the window, drew aside the rosy
+damask and gazed around me.
+
+Do not judge me too harshly. I was ungrateful; I knew I was. My heart
+rose against Mrs. Linwood for her cold decision. I forgot, for the
+moment, her holy ministrations to my dying mother, her care and
+protection of me, when left desolate and alone. I forgot that I had no
+claims on her beyond what her compassion granted. I realized all at once
+that I was poor and dependent, though basking in the sunshine of wealth.
+
+In justice to myself I must say, that the bitterest tears I then shed
+were caused by disappointment in Mrs. Linwood's exalted character. I had
+imagined her "bounty as boundless as the sea, her love as deep." Now the
+noble proportion of her virtues seemed dwarfed, their luxuriance
+stinted, and withering too.
+
+While I was thus cheating my benefactress of her fair perfections, she
+came in with her usual quiet and stilly step, and sat down beside me.
+The consciousness of what was passing in my mind, made the guilty blood
+rush warm to my face.
+
+"You have been weeping, Gabriella," she said, in gentle accents; "your
+feelings are wounded, you think me cold, perhaps unkind."
+
+"Oh, madam, what have I said?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear child, and yet I have read every thing. Your ingenuous
+countenance expressed on my entrance as plain as words could utter,
+'Hate me, for I am an ingrate.'"
+
+"You do, indeed, read very closely."
+
+"Could you look as closely into my heart, Gabriella, were my face as
+transparent as yours, you would understand at once my apparent coldness
+as anxiety for your highest good. Did I consult my own pleasure, without
+regard to that discipline by which the elements of character are wrought
+into beauty and fitness, I should cherish no wish but to see you ever
+near me as now, indulging the sweet dreams of youth, only the more
+fascinating for being shadowed with melancholy. I would save you, if
+possible, from becoming the victim of a diseased imagination, or too
+morbid a sensibility."
+
+I looked up, impressed with her calm, earnest tones, and as I listened,
+conscience upbraided me with injustice and ingratitude.
+
+"There is a period in every young girl's life, my dear Gabriella, when
+she is in danger of becoming a vain and idle dreamer, when the
+amusements of childhood have ceased to interest, and the shadow of
+woman's destiny involves the pleasures of youth. The mind is occupied
+with vague imaginings, the heart with restless cravings for unknown
+blessings. With your vivid imagination and deep sensibility, your love
+of reverie and abstraction, there is great danger of your yielding
+unconsciously to habits the more fatal in their influence, because
+apparently as innocent as they are insidious and pernicious. A life of
+active industry and usefulness is the only safeguard from temptation and
+sin."
+
+Oh, how every true word she uttered ennobled her in my estimation, while
+it humbled myself. Idler that I was in my Father's vineyard, I was
+holding out my hands for the clustering grapes, whose purple juice is
+for him who treadeth the wine-press.
+
+"Were my own Edith physically strong," she added, "I would ask no nobler
+vocation for her than the one suggested to you this day. I should
+rejoice to see her passing through a discipline so chastening and
+exalting. I should rejoice to see her exercising the faculties which God
+has given her for the benefit of her kind. The possession of wealth does
+not exempt one from the active duties of life, from self-sacrifice,
+industry and patient continuance in well-doing. The little I have done
+for you, all that I can do, is but a drop from the fountain, and were it
+ten times more would never be missed. It is not that I would give less,
+but I would require more. While I live, this shall ever be your home,
+where you shall feel a mother's care, protection, and tenderness; but I
+want you to form habits of self-reliance, independence, and usefulness,
+which will remain your friends, though other friends should be taken
+from you."
+
+Dear, excellent Mrs. Linwood! how my proud, rebellious heart melted
+before her! What resolutions I formed to be always governed by her
+influence, and guided by her counsels! How vividly her image rises
+before me, as she then looked, in her customary dress of pale, silver
+gray, her plain yet graceful lace cap, simply parted hair, and calm,
+benevolent countenance.
+
+She was the most unpretending of human beings. She moved about the house
+with a step as stilly as the falling dews. Indeed, such was her walk
+through life. She seemed born to teach mankind unostentatious charity.
+Yet, under this mild, calm exterior, she had a strong, controlling will,
+which all around her felt and acknowledged. From the moment she drew the
+fan from my hand, at my mother's bedside, to the hour I left her
+dwelling, she acted upon me with a force powerful as the sun, and as
+benignant too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+If I do not pass more rapidly over these early scenes, I shall never
+finish my book.
+
+Book!--am I writing a book? No, indeed! This is only a record of my
+heart's life, written at random and carelessly thrown aside, sheet after
+sheet, sibylline leaves from the great book of fate. The wind may blow
+them away, a spark consume them. I may myself commit them to the flames.
+I am tempted to do so at this moment.
+
+I once thought it a glorious thing to be an author,--to touch the
+electric wire of sentiment, and know that thousands would thrill at the
+shock,--to speak, and believe that unborn millions would hear the music
+of those echoing words,--to possess the wand of the enchanter, the ring
+of the genii, the magic key to the temple of temples, the pass-word to
+the universe of mind. I once had such visions as these, but they are
+passed.
+
+To touch the electric wire, and feel the bolt scathing one's own
+brain,--to speak, to hear the dreary echo of one's voice return through
+the desert waste,--to enter the temple and find nothing but ruins and
+desolation,--to lay a sacrifice on the altar, and see no fire from
+heaven descend in token of acceptance,--to stand the priestess of a
+lonely shrine, uttering oracles to the unheeding wind,--is not such too
+often the doom of those who have looked to fame as their heritage,
+believing genius their dower?
+
+Heaven save me from such a destiny. Better the daily task, the measured
+duty, the chained-down spirit, the girdled heart.
+
+A year after Mrs. Linwood pointed out to me the path of duty, I began to
+walk in it. I have passed the winter in the city, but it was one of deep
+seclusion to me. I welcomed with rapture our return to the country, and
+had so far awakened from dream-life, as to prepare myself with
+steadiness of purpose for the realities of my destiny.
+
+Edith rebelled against her mother's decision. There was no need of such
+a thing. I was too young, too delicate, too sensitive for so rough a
+task. There was a plenty of robust country girls to assist Mr. Regulus,
+if he wanted them to, without depriving her of her companion and sister.
+She appealed to Dr. Harlowe, in her sweet, bewitching way, which always
+seemed irresistible; but he only gave her a genial smile, called me "a
+brave little girl," and bade me "God speed." "I wish Richard Clyde were
+here," said she, in her own artless, half-childish manner, "I am sure he
+would be on my side. I wish brother Ernest would come home, he would
+decide the question. Oh, Gabriella, if you only knew brother Ernest!"
+
+If I have not mentioned this _brother Ernest_ before, it is not because
+I had not heard his name repeated a thousand times. He was the only son
+and brother of the family, who, having graduated with the first honors
+at the college of his native State, was completing his education in
+Germany, at the celebrated University of Gottingen. There was a picture
+of him in the library, taken just before he left the country, on which I
+had gazed, till it was to me a living being. It was a dark, fascinating
+face,--a face half of sunshine and half shadow, a face of mysterious
+meanings; as different from Edith's as night from morning. It reminded
+me of the head of Byron, but it expressed deeper sensibility, and the
+features were even more symmetrically handsome.
+
+Edith, who was as frank and artless as a child, was always talking of
+her brother, of his brilliant talents, his genius, and peculiarities.
+She showed me his letters, which were written with extraordinary beauty
+and power, though the sentiments were somewhat obscured by a
+transcendental mistiness belonging to the atmosphere he breathed.
+
+"Ernest never was like anybody else," said Edith; "he is the most
+singular, but the most fascinating of human beings. Oh Gabriella, I long
+to have him come back, that you may know and admire him."
+
+Though I knew by ten thousand signs that this absent son was the first
+object of Mrs. Linwood's thoughts, she seldom talked of him to me. She
+often, when Edith was indulging in her enthusiastic descriptions of him,
+endeavored to change the conversation and turn my thoughts in other
+channels.
+
+But why do I speak of Ernest Linwood here? It is premature. I was about
+to describe a little part of my experience as a village teacher.
+
+Edith had a beautiful little pony, gentle as a lamb, yet very spirited
+withal, (for lame though she was, she was a graceful and fearless
+equestrian,) which it was arranged that I should ride every morning,
+escorted by a servant, who carried the pony back for Edith's use. Dr.
+Harlowe, who resided near the academy, said I was always to dine at his
+house, and walk home in the evening. They must not make too much of a
+fine lady of me. I must exercise, if I would gather the roses of health.
+Surely no young girl could begin the ordeal of duty under kinder, more
+favoring auspices.
+
+After the first dreaded morning when Mr. Regulus, tall, stately, and
+imposing, ushered me into the apartment where I was to preside with
+delegated authority, led me up a low flight of steps and waved his hand
+towards a high magisterial arm-chair which was to be my future throne, I
+felt a degree of self-confidence that surprised and encouraged me. Every
+thing was so novel, so fresh, it imparted an elasticity to my spirits I
+had not felt in Mrs. Linwood's luxurious home. Then there was something
+self-sustaining, inspiring in the consciousness of intellectual exertion
+and moral courage, in the thought that I was doing some little good in
+the world, that I was securing the approbation of Mrs. Linwood and of
+the excellent Dr. Harlowe. The children, who had most of them been my
+fellow pupils, looked upon Gabriella Lynn, the protégée of the rich Mrs.
+Linwood, as a different being from Gabriella Lynn of the little gray
+cottage in the woods. I have no doubt they thought it very grand to ride
+on that beautiful pony, with its saddle-cloth of blue and silver, and
+glittering martingale, escorted by a servant too! Had they been disposed
+to rebel at my authority, they would not have dared to do so, for Mr.
+Regulus, jealous for my new dignity, watched over it with an eagle eye.
+
+Where were the chains, whose prophetic clanking had chilled my misgiving
+heart? They were transformed to flowery garlands, of daily renewing
+fragrance and bloom. My desk was literally covered with blossoms while
+their season lasted, and little fairy fingers were always twining with
+wreaths the dark hair they loved to arrange according to their own
+juvenile fancies.
+
+My noon hours at Dr. Harlowe's, were pleasant episodes in my daily life.
+Mrs. Harlowe was an excellent woman. She was called by the villagers "a
+most superior woman,"--and so she was, if admirable housekeeping and
+devotion to her husband's interests entitled her to the praise. She was
+always busy; but the doctor, though he had a wide sweep of practice in
+the surrounding country, always seemed at leisure. There was something
+so cheerful, so encouraging about him, despondency fled from his
+presence and gave place to hope.
+
+I love to recall this era of my life. If I have known deeper happiness,
+more exalted raptures, they were dearly purchased by the sacrifice of
+the peace, the salubrity of mind I then enjoyed. I had a little room of
+my own there, where I was as much at home as I was at Mrs. Linwood's.
+There was a place for my bonnet and parasol, a shelf for my books, a low
+rocking-chair placed at the pleasantest window for me; and, knowing Mrs.
+Harlowe's methodical habits, I was always careful to leave every thing,
+as I found it, in Quaker-like order. This was the smallest return I
+could make for her hospitality, and she appreciated it far beyond its
+merits. The good doctor, with all his virtues, tried the patience of his
+wife sometimes beyond its limits, by his excessive carelessness. He
+_would_ forget to hang his hat in the hall, and toss it on the bright,
+polished mahogany table. He _would_ forget to use the scraper by the
+steps, or the mat by the door, and leave tracks on the clean floor or
+nice carpet. These little things really worried her; I could see they
+did. She never said any thing; but she would get up, take up the hat,
+brush the table with her handkerchief, and hang the hat in its right
+place, or send the house-girl with the broom after his disfiguring
+tracks.
+
+"Pardon me, my dear," he would say with imperturbable
+good-nature,--"really, I am too forgetful. I must have a self-regulating
+machine attached to my movements,--a portable duster and hat-catcher.
+But, the blessed freedom of home. It constitutes half its joy. Dear me!
+I would not exchange the privilege of doing as I please for the
+emperorship of the celestial realms."
+
+But, pleasant as were my noon rests, my homeward walks were pleasanter
+still. The dream-girl, after being awake for long hours to the practical
+duties of life, loved to ramble alone, till she felt herself involved in
+the soft haziness of thought, which was to the soul what the blue
+mistiness was to the distant hills. I could wander then alone to the
+churchyard, and yield myself unmolested to the sacred influences of
+memory. Do you remember my asking Richard Clyde to plant a white rose by
+my mother's grave? He had done so, soon after her burial, and now, when
+rather more than a year had passed, it was putting forth fair buds and
+blossoms, and breathing of renovation over the ruins of life. I never
+saw this rose-tree without blessing the hand which planted it; and I
+loved to sit on the waving grass and listen to the soft summer wind
+stealing through it, rustling among the dry blades and whispering with
+the green ones.
+
+There was one sentence that fell from my mother's dying lips which ever
+came to me in the sighs of the gale, fraught with mournful mystery.
+"Because man was _false_, I dared to think God was unjust." And had she
+not adjured me by every precious and every solemn consideration, "to
+forgive the _living_, if living _he_ indeed was?"
+
+I knew these words referred to my father; and what a history of wrong
+and sorrow was left for my imagination to fill up! Living!--my father
+living! Oh! there is no grave so deep as that dug by the hand of neglect
+or desertion! He had been dead to my mother,--he had been dead to me. I
+shuddered at the thought of breathing the same vital element. He who had
+broken a mother's heart must be a fiend, worthy of eternal abhorrence.
+
+"If you live to years of womanhood," said my expiring mother, "and your
+heart awakens to love, as alas for woman's destiny it will, then read my
+life's sad experience, and be warned by my example."
+
+Sad prophetess! Death has consecrated thy prediction, but it is yet
+unfulfilled. When will womanhood commence, on whose horizon the morning
+star of love is to rise in clouded lustre?
+
+Surely I am invested with a woman's dignity, in that great arm-chair,
+behind the green-covered desk. I feel very much like a blown rose,
+surrounded by the rose-bud garland of childhood. Yet Dr. Harlowe calls
+me "little girl," and Mr. Regulus "my child," when the pupils are not
+by; then it is "Miss Gabriella." They forget that I am sixteen, and that
+I have grown taller and more womanly in the last year; but the awakening
+heart has not yet throbbed at its dawning destiny, the day-star of love
+has not risen on its slumbers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+"I wish you had a vacation too," said Richard Clyde, as we ascended
+together the winding hill.
+
+"Then we should not have these pleasant walks," I answered.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, I should not be returning from school at this hour every day, and
+you would not happen to overtake me as you do now."
+
+"How do you know it is accident, Gabriella? How do you know but I wander
+about the woods, a restless ghost, till glad ringing voices chiming
+together, announce that you are free, and that I am at liberty to play
+guardian and knight, as I did three or four years ago?"
+
+"Because you would not waste your time so foolishly, and because I do
+not need a guardian now. I am in authority, you know, and no one molests
+or makes me afraid."
+
+"Nevertheless, you need a guardian more than ever, and I shall remain
+true to my boyish allegiance."
+
+Richard always had a gay, dashing way of talking, and his residence in
+college had certainly not subdued the gay spirit of chivalry that
+sparkled in his eye. He had grown much taller since I had seen him last,
+his face was more intellectual and altogether improved, and his dress
+was elegantly, though not foppishly, fashionable. He was an exceedingly
+agreeable companion. Even when I was most shy and sensitive, I felt at
+ease with him. When I say that I looked upon him something as an elder
+brother, I mean what I express,--not the sickly affectation with which
+young girls sometimes strive to hide a deeper feeling,--I remembered his
+steady school-boy friendship, his sympathy in the dark days of anguish
+and despair, and more than all, the rose, the sacred rose he had planted
+at my mother's grave.
+
+I thanked him for this, with a choking voice and a moistened eye.
+
+"Do not thank me," said he; "I had a mother once,--she, too, is gone.
+The world may contain for us many friends, but never but one mother,
+Gabriella. I was only ten years old when mine was taken from me, but her
+influence is around me still, a safeguard and a blessing."
+
+Words so full of feeling and reverence were more impressive falling from
+lips usually sparkling with gaiety and wit. We walked in silence up the
+gradual ascent, till we came to a fine old elm, branching out by the
+way-side, and we paused to rest under its boughs. As we did so, we
+turned towards the valley we were leaving behind, and beheld it
+stretching, a magnificent panorama, to the east and the west, the north
+and the south, wearing every shade of green, from the deep, rich hue of
+the stately corn to the brighter emerald of the oat fields, and the
+dazzling verdure of the pasture-land; and over all this glowing
+landscape the golden glory of approaching sunset hung like a royal
+canopy, whose purple fringes rested on the distant mountains.
+
+"How beautiful!" I exclaimed with enthusiasm.
+
+"How beautiful!" he echoed with equal fervor.
+
+"You are but mocking my words, Richard,--you are not looking at the
+enchanting prospect."
+
+"Yes, I am,--a very enchanting one."
+
+"How foolish!" I cried, for I could not but understand the emphasis of
+his smiling glance.
+
+"Why am I more foolish in admiring one beautiful prospect than you
+another, Gabriella? You solicited my admiration for one charming view,
+while my eyes were riveted on another. If we are both sincere, we are
+equally wise."
+
+"But it seems so unnecessary to take the pains to compliment me, when
+you know me so well, and when I know myself so well too."
+
+"I doubt your self-knowledge very much. I do not believe, in the first
+place, that you are aware how wonderfully you are improved. You do not
+look the same girl you did a year ago. You have grown taller, fairer,
+brighter, Gabriella. I did not expect to see this, when I heard you had
+shut yourself up in the academy again, under the shadow of old Regulus's
+beetling brows."
+
+"I am sure he is not old, Richard; he is in the very prime of manhood."
+
+"Well, Professor Regulus, then. We boys have a habit of speaking of our
+teachers in this way. I know it is a bad one, but we all fall into it.
+All our college professors have a metaphorical name, with the venerable
+epithet attached to it, which you condemn.
+
+"I do not like it at all; it sounds so disrespectful, and, pardon me for
+saying it, even coarse."
+
+"You have a great respect for Mr. Regulus."
+
+"I have; he is one of my best friends."
+
+"I dare say he is; I should like to be in his place. You have another
+great friend, old Dr. Harlowe."
+
+"There, again. Why, Dr. Harlowe is almost young, at least very far from
+being old. He is one of the finest looking men I ever saw, and one of
+the best. You college students must be a very presuming set of young
+men."
+
+I spoke gravely, for I was really vexed that any one whom I esteemed as
+much as I did Richard, should adopt the vulgarisms he once despised.
+
+"We _are_ a barbarous, rude set," he answered with redeeming frankness.
+"We show exactly what a savage man is and would ever be, without the
+refining influence of women. If it were not for our vacations, we would
+soon get beyond the reach of civilization. Be not angry with my
+roughness, most gentle Gabriella. Pass over it your smoothing touch, and
+it shall have the polish of marble, without its coldness."
+
+We had resumed our walk, and the granite walls of Grandison Place began
+to loom up above the surrounding shade.
+
+"That is a noble mansion," said he. "How admirably such a residence must
+harmonize with your high, romantic thoughts. But there is one thing that
+impresses me with wonder,--that Mrs. Linwood, so rich, so liberal too,
+with only one daughter, should allow you, her adopted child, to devote
+your young hours to the drudgery of teaching. It seems so unnecessary,
+so inconsistent with her usual munificence of action."
+
+The glow of wounded pride warmed my cheek. I had become happy in my
+vocation, but I could not bear to hear it depreciated, nor the motives
+of my benefactress misunderstood and misrepresented.
+
+"Mrs. Linwood is as wise as she is kind," I answered, hastily. "It is my
+happiness and good she consults, not her own pleasure. Giving does not
+impoverish either her ample purse or her generous heart. She knows my
+nature, knows that I could not bear the stagnation of a life of
+luxurious ease."
+
+"Edith can,--why not you?"
+
+"We are so different. She was born for the position she occupies. She is
+one of the lilies of the valley, that toil not, neither do they spin,
+yet they fulfil a lovely mission. Do not try to make me discontented
+with a lot, so full of blessings, Richard. Surely no orphan girl was
+ever more tenderly cherished, more abundantly cared for."
+
+"Discontented!" he exclaimed, "heaven forbid! I must be a wretched
+blunderer. I am saying something wrong all the time, with a heart full
+of most excellent intentions. Discontented! no, indeed; I have only the
+unfortunate habit of speaking before I think. I shall grow wiser as I
+grow older, I trust."
+
+He reached up to a branch that bent over the way-side, and breaking it
+off, began to strip it of its green leaves and scatter them in the path.
+
+"You do not think me angry, Richard?" I asked, catching some of the
+leaves, before they fell to the ground. "I once felt all that you
+express; and I was doubly wrong; I was guilty of ingratitude, you only
+of thoughtlessness."
+
+"When does Mrs. Linwood expect her son?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"Next summer, I believe; I do not exactly know."
+
+"He will take strong hold of your poetic imagination. There is something
+'grand, gloomy, and peculiar' about him; a mystery of reserve, which oft
+amounts to haughtiness. I am but very little acquainted with him, and
+probably never shall be. Should we chance to meet in society, we would
+be two parallel lines, never uniting, however near we might approach.
+Besides, he is a number of years older than myself."
+
+"I suppose you call him old Mr. Linwood," said I, laughing.
+
+We had now entered the gate, and met Mrs. Linwood and Edith walking in
+the avenue, if Edith could be said to walk, borne on as she was by her
+softly falling crutches. She looked so exceedingly lovely, I wondered
+that Richard did not burst forth in expressions of irrepressible
+admiration. I was never weary of gazing on her beauty. Even after an
+absence of a few hours, it dawned upon me with new lustre, like that of
+the rising day. I wondered that any one ever looked at any one else in
+her presence. As for myself, I felt annihilated by her dazzling
+fairness, as the little star is absorbed by the resplendent moon.
+
+Strange, all beautiful as she was she did not attract, as one would
+suppose, the admiration of the other sex. Perhaps there was something
+cold and shadowy in the ethereality of her loveliness, a want of
+sympathy with man's more earthly, passionate nature. It is very certain,
+the beauty which woman most admires often falls coldly on the gaze of
+man. Edith had the face of an angel; but hers was not the darkening eye
+and changing cheek that "pale passion loves." Did the sons of God come
+down to earth, as they did in olden time, to woo the daughters of men,
+they might have sought her as their bride. She was not cold, however;
+she was not passionless. She had a woman's heart, formed to enshrine an
+idol of clay, believing it imperishable as its own love.
+
+Mrs. Linwood gave Richard a cordial greeting. I had an unaccountable
+fear that she would not be pleased that he escorted me home so
+frequently, though this was the first time he had accompanied me to the
+lawn. She urged him to remain and pass the evening, or rather asked him,
+for he required no urging. I am sure it must have been a happy one to
+him. Edith played upon her harp, which had been newly strung. She seemed
+the very personification of one of Ossian's blue-eyed maids, with her
+white, rising hands, and long, floating locks.
+
+I was passionately fond of music, and had my talent been early
+cultivated I would doubtless have excelled. I cared not much about the
+piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In
+imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impassioned strains of Italy,
+or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of
+thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords,
+the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the
+divine string, and "called angels down."
+
+When I retired that night and saw the reflection of myself full length,
+in the large pier-glass, between the rosy folds of the sweeping damask,
+I could not help recalling what Richard Clyde had said of my personal
+improvement. Was he sincere, when with apparent enthusiasm he had
+applied to me the epithet, _beautiful_? No, he could not be; and yet his
+eyes had emphasized the language of his lips.
+
+I was not vain. Few young girls ever thought less of their personal
+appearance. I lived so much in the world within, that I gave but little
+heed to the fashion of my outward form. It seemed so poor an expression
+of the glowing heart, the heaven-born soul.
+
+For the first time I looked upon myself with reference to the eyes of
+others, and I tried to imagine the youthful figure on which I gazed as
+belonging to another, and not myself. Were the outlines softened by the
+dark-flowing sable, classic and graceful? Was there beauty in the oval
+cheek, now wearing the warm bloom of the brunette, or the dark,
+long-lashed eye, which drooped with the burden of unuttered thoughts?
+
+As I asked myself these questions, I smiled at my folly; and as the
+image smiled back upon the original, there was such a light, such a
+glow, such a living soul passed before me, that for one moment a
+triumphant consciousness swelled my bosom, a new revelation beamed on my
+understanding,--the consciousness of woman's hitherto unknown
+power,--the revelation of woman's destiny.
+
+And connected with this, there came the remembrance of that haunting
+face in the library, which I had only seen on canvas, but which was to
+me a breathing reality,--that face which, even on the cold, silent wall,
+had no repose; but dark, restless, and impassioned, was either a history
+of past disappointment, or a prophecy of future suffering.
+
+The moment of triumph was brief. A pale shadow seemed to flit behind me
+and dim the bright image reflected in the mirror. It wore the sad, yet
+lovely lineaments of my departed mother.
+
+O how vain were youth and beauty, if thus they faded and vanished away!
+How mournful was love thus wedded to sorrow! how mysterious the nature
+in which they were united!
+
+A shower of tears washed away the vain emotions I blushed to have felt.
+But I could not be as though I had never known them. I could not recall
+the guileless simplicity of childhood, its sweet unconsciousness and
+contentment, in the present joy.
+
+O foolish, foolish Gabriella! Art thou no longer a child?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Mr. Regulus still called me "child." We had quite a scene in the academy
+one day after the school was dismissed, and I was preparing as usual to
+return home.
+
+"Will you give me a few moments' conversation, Miss Gabriella?" said he,
+clearing his throat with one of those hems which once sounded so awful.
+He looked awkward and disconcerted, while my face flushed with
+trepidation. Had I been guilty of any omitted duty or committed offence?
+Had I suffered an error on the blackboard to pass unnoticed, or allowed
+a mistake in grammar to be unconnected? What _had_ I done?
+
+I stood nervously pulling the fingers of my gloves, waiting for him to
+commence the conversation he had sought. Another hem!--then he moved the
+inkstand about a foot further from him, for he was standing close to his
+desk, as if to gather round him every imposing circumstance, then he
+took up the ruler and measured it with his eye, run his finger along the
+edge, as if it were of razor sharpness.
+
+"Is he going to punish me?" thought I. "It looks ominous."
+
+I would not assist him by one word; but maintaining a provoking silence,
+took up a pair of compasses and made a circle on the green cloth that
+covered the desk.
+
+"Miss Gabriella," at length he said, "you must forgive me for taking the
+liberty of an old friend. Nothing but the most disinterested regard for
+your--your reputation--could induce me to mention a subject--so--so
+very--very peculiar."
+
+"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "my reputation, Mr. Regulus?"
+
+I felt the blood bubbling like boiling water, up into my cheek.
+
+"I do not wish to alarm or distress you," he continued, becoming more
+self-possessed, as my agitation increased. "You know a young girl, left
+without her natural guardians, especially if she is so unfortunate as to
+be endowed with those charms which too often attract the shafts of envy
+and stir up the venom of malice,"--
+
+"Mr. Regulus!" I interrupted, burning with impatience and indignation,
+"tell me what you mean. Has any one dared to slander me,--and for what?"
+
+"No one would dare to breathe aught of evil against you in my presence,"
+said he, with great dignity; "but the covert whisper may pass from lip
+to lip, and the meaning glance flash from eye to eye, when your friend
+and protector is not near to shield you from aspersion, and vindicate
+your fame."
+
+"Stop," I exclaimed; "you terrify--you destroy me!"
+
+The room spun round like a top. Every thing looked misty and black. I
+caught hold of Mr. Regulus's arm to keep me from falling. Foes in
+ambush, glittering tomahawks, deadly scalping-knives, were less terrible
+than my dark imaginings.
+
+"Bless me," cried my master, seating me in his great arm-chair and
+fanning me with an atlas which he caught from his desk, "I did not mean
+to frighten you, my child. I wanted to advise, to counsel you, to
+_prevent_ misconstruction and unkind remark. My motives are pure, indeed
+they are; you believe they are, do you not?"
+
+"Certainly I do," I answered, passing my hand over my eyes, to clear
+away the dark specks that still floated over them; "but if you have any
+regard for my feelings, speak at once, plainly and openly. I will be
+grateful for any advice prompted by kindness, and expressed without
+mystery."
+
+"I only thought," said he, becoming again visibly embarrassed, "that I
+would suggest the propriety of your not permitting young Clyde to
+accompany you home so often. The extraordinary interest he took in you
+as a boy, renders his present attentions more liable to remark. A young
+girl in your situation, my child, cannot be too particular, too much on
+her guard. College boys are wild fellows. They are not safe companions
+for innocence and simplicity like yours."
+
+"And is this all?" I asked, drawing a long breath, and feeling as if
+Mont Blanc had rolled from my breast.
+
+"It is."
+
+"And you have heard no invidious remarks?"
+
+"Not yet, Gabriella, but--"
+
+"My dear master," said I, rising with a joyous spring from my chair. "I
+thank you from the bottom of my heart for your anxious care of my good
+name. But I am sure Mrs. Linwood would not have sanctioned an
+impropriety. I have always felt towards Richard as I imagine I would
+towards a brother, were I so blest as to have one. He has made my lonely
+walks very pleasant by his lively and intelligent conversation. Still, I
+do not care to have him accompany me so often. I would rather that he
+would not. I will tell him so. I dare say you are right, Mr. Regulus; I
+know you are. I know so little of the world, I may offend its rules
+without being aware of it."
+
+I felt so unspeakably relieved, so happy that the mountain of slander
+which my imagination had piled up was reduced to an _anticipated_
+molehill, that my spirits rebounded even to gaiety. I laughed at the
+sight of my torn glove, for I had actually pulled off the fingers by my
+nervous twitches.
+
+"I thought you were going to apply the spatula. I feared you thought me
+guilty of writing another poem, Mr. Regulus; what else could make you
+look so formidable?"
+
+"Ah! Gabriella, let bygones be bygones. I was very harsh, very
+disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never
+forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a
+softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the
+young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses
+and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if
+it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its
+fragrance, and bless my Maker for shedding beauty and sweetness to
+gladden my way. The perception of the beautiful grows and strengthens in
+me. The love of nature, a new-born flower, blooms in my heart, and
+diffuses a sweet balminess unknown before. Even poetry, my child--do not
+laugh at me--has begun to unfold its mystic beauties to my imagination.
+I was reading the other evening that charming paraphrase of the
+nineteenth Psalm: 'The spacious firmament on high,' and I was
+exceedingly struck with its melodious rhythm; and when I looked up
+afterwards to the starry heavens, to the moon walking in her brightness,
+to the blue and boundless ether, they seemed to bend over me in love, to
+come nearer than they had ever done before. I could hear the whisper of
+that divine voice, which is heard in the rustling of the forest trees,
+the gurgling of the winding stream, and the rush of the mountain
+cataract; and every day," he added, with solemnity, "I love man more,
+because God has made him my brother."
+
+He paused, and his countenance glowed with the fervor of his feelings.
+With an involuntary expression of reverence and tenderness, I held out
+my hand and exclaimed,--
+
+"My dear master--"
+
+"You forgive me, then," taking my hand in both his, and burying it in
+his large palms; "you do not think me officious and overbearing?"
+
+"O no, sir, I have nothing to forgive, but much to be grateful for;
+thank you, I must go, for I have a long walk to take--_alone_."
+
+With an emphasis on the last word I bade him adieu, ran down the steps,
+and went on musing so deeply on my singular interview with Mr. Regulus,
+that I attempted to walk through a tree by the way-side. A merry laugh
+rang close to my ear, and Richard Clyde sprang over the fence right
+before me.
+
+"It should have opened and imprisoned you, as a truant dryad," said he.
+"Of what _are_ you thinking, Gabriella, that you forget the
+impenetrability of matter, the opacity of bark and the incapability of
+flesh and blood to cleave asunder the ligneous fibres which oppose it,
+as the sonorous Johnson would have observed on a similar occasion."
+
+"I was thinking of you, Richard," I answered with resolute frankness.
+
+"Of me!" he exclaimed, while his eyes sparkled with animated pleasure.
+"Oh, walk through all the trees of Grandison Place, if you will honor me
+with one passing thought."
+
+"You know you have always been like a brother to me, Richard."
+
+"I don't know exactly how a brother feels. You have taken my fraternal
+regard for granted, but I am sure I have never professed any."
+
+"Pardon me, if I have believed actions more expressive than words. I
+shall never commit a similar error."
+
+With deeply wounded and indignant feelings, I walked rapidly on, without
+deigning to look at one so heartless and capricious. Mr. Regulus was
+right. He was not a proper companion. I would never allow him to walk
+with me again.
+
+"Are you not familiar enough with my light, mocking way, Gabriella?" he
+cried, keeping pace with my accelerated steps. "Do not you know me well
+enough to understand when I am serious and when jesting? I have never
+professed fraternal regard, because I know a brother cannot feel half
+the--the interest for you that I do. I thought you knew it,--I dare not
+say more,--I cannot say less."
+
+"No, no, do not say any more," said I, shrinking with indefinable dread;
+"I do not want any professions. I meant not to call them forth. If I
+alluded to you as a brother, it was because I wished to speak to you
+with the frankness of a sister. It is better that you should not walk
+with me from school,--it is not proper,--people will make remarks."
+
+"Well, let them make them,--who cares?"
+
+"I care, a great deal. I will not be the subject of village gossip."
+
+"Who put this idea in your head, Gabriella? I know it did not originate
+there. You are too artless, too unsuspicious. Oh! I know," he added,
+with a heightened color and a raised tone, "you have been kept after
+school; you have had a lecture on propriety; you cannot deny it."
+
+"I neither deny nor affirm any thing. It makes no difference who
+suggested it. My own judgment tells me it is right."
+
+"The old fellow is jealous," said he with a laugh of derision, "but he
+cannot control my movements. The road is wide enough for us both, and
+the world is wider still."
+
+"How can you say any thing so absurd and ridiculous?" I exclaimed; and
+vexed as I was, I could not help laughing at his preposterous
+suggestion.
+
+"Because I know it is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear
+of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing
+wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble
+independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of
+breath, a puff of empty air."
+
+"I trust I have sufficient independence to do what is right and
+sufficient prudence to avoid, if possible, the imputation of wrong," I
+replied, with grave earnestness.
+
+"Oh! upright judge!--oh! excellent young sage!" exclaimed Richard, with
+mock reverence. "Wisdom becometh thee so well, I shall be tempted to
+quarrel hereafter with thy smiles. But seriously, Gabriella, I crave
+permission to walk courteously home with you this evening, for it is the
+last of my vacation. To-morrow I leave you, and it will be months before
+we meet again."
+
+"I might have spared you and myself this foolish scene, then," said I,
+deeply mortified at its result. "I have incurred your ridicule, perhaps
+your contempt, in vain. We might have parted friends, at least."
+
+"No, by heavens! Gabriella, not friends; we must be something more, or
+less than friends. I did not think to say this now, but I can hold it
+back no longer. And why should I? 'All my faults perchance thou
+knowest.' As was the boy, as is the youth, so most likely will be the
+man. No! if you love me, Gabriella,--if I may look forward to the day
+when I shall be to you friend, brother, guardian, lover, all in one,--I
+shall have such a motive for excellence, such a spring to ambition, that
+I will show the world the pattern of a man, such as they never saw
+before."
+
+"I wish you had not said this," I answered, averting from his bright and
+earnest eye my confused and troubled glance. "We should be so much
+happier as friends. We are so young, too. It will be time enough years
+hence to talk of such things."
+
+"Too young to love! We are in the very spring-time of our life,--the
+season of blossoms and fragrance, music and love,--oh, daughter of
+poetry! is it you who utter such a thought? Would you wait for the
+sultry summer, the dry autumn, to cultivate the morning flower of
+Paradise?"
+
+"I did not dream you had so much hidden romance," said I, smiling at his
+metaphorical language, and endeavoring to turn the conversation in a new
+channel. "I thought you mocked at sentiment and poetic raptures."
+
+"Love works miracles, Gabriella. You do not answer. You evade the
+subject on which all my life's future depends. Is there no chord in your
+heart that vibrates in harmony with mine? Are there no memories
+associated with the oak trees of the wood, the mossy stone at the
+fountain, the sacred rose of the grave, propitious to my early and
+ever-growing love?"
+
+He spoke with a depth of feeling of which I had never thought him
+possessed. Sincerity and truth dignified every look and tone. Yes! there
+were undying memories, now wakened in all their strength, of the
+youthful champion of my injured rights, the sympathizing companion of my
+darkest hours; the friend, who stood by me when other friends were
+unknown. There was many a responsive chord that thrilled at his voice,
+and there was another note, a sweet triumphant note never struck before.
+The new-born consciousness of woman's power, the joy of being beloved,
+the regal sense of newly acquired dominion swelled in my bosom and
+flashed from my eye. But _the master-chord was silent_. I knew, I felt
+even then, that there was a golden string, down in the very depths of my
+heart, too deep for his hand to touch.
+
+I felt grieved and glad. Grieved that I could not give a full response
+to his generous offering,--glad that I had capacities of loving, he,
+with all his excellences, could never fill. I tried to tell him what I
+felt, to express friendship, gratitude, and esteem; but he would not
+hear me,--he would not let me go on.
+
+"No, no; say nothing now," said he impetuously. "I have been premature.
+You do not know your own heart. You do love me,--you will love me. You
+must not, you shall not deny me the privilege of hope. I will maintain
+the vantage ground on which I stand,--first friend, first lover, and
+even Ernest Linwood cannot drive me from it."
+
+"Ernest Linwood!" I exclaimed, startled and indignant. "You know he can
+never be any thing to me. You know my immeasurable obligations to his
+mother. His name shall be sacred from levity."
+
+"It is. He is the last person whom I would lightly name. He has
+brilliant talents and a splendid position; but woe to the woman who
+places her happiness in his keeping. He confides in no one,--so the
+world describes him,--is jealous and suspicious even in
+friendship;--what would he be in love?"
+
+"I know not. I care not,--only for his mother's and Edith's sake. Again
+I say, he is nothing to me. Richard, you trouble me very much by your
+strange way of talking. You have no idea how you have made my head ache.
+Please speak of common subjects, for I would not meet Mrs. Linwood so
+troubled, so agitated, for any consideration. See how beautiful the
+sunlight falls is the lawn! How graceful that white cloud floats down
+the golden west! As Wilson says:--
+
+    'Even in its very motion there is rest.'"
+
+"Yes! the sunlight is very beautiful, and the cloud is very graceful,
+and you are beautiful and graceful in your dawning coquetry, the more so
+because you know it not. Well--obedience to-day, reward to-morrow,
+Gabriella. That was one of my old copies at the academy."
+
+"I remember another, which was a favorite of Mr. Regulus--
+
+    'To-morrow never yet
+    On any human being rose and set.'"
+
+A few more light repartees, and we were at Mrs. Linwood's gate.
+
+"You will not come in?" said I, half asserting, half interrogating.
+
+"To be sure I will. Edith promised me some of her angelic harp music. I
+come like Saul to have the evil spirit of discontent subdued by its
+divine influence."
+
+Richard was a favorite of Mrs. Linwood. Whether it was that by a woman's
+intuition she discovered the state of feeling existing between us, or
+whether it was his approaching departure, she was especially kind to him
+this evening; she expressed a more than usual interest in his future
+prospects.
+
+"This is your last year in college," I heard her say to him. "In a few
+months you will feel the dignity and responsibility of manhood. You will
+come out from the seclusion of college life into the wide, wide world,
+and of its myriad paths, so intricate, yet so trodden, you must choose
+one. You are looking forward now, eagerly, impatiently, but then you
+will pause and tremble. I pity the young man when he first girds himself
+for the real duties of life. The change from thought to action, from
+dreams to realities, from hope to fruition or _disappointment_, is so
+sudden, so great, he requires the wisdom which is only bought by
+experience, the strength gained only by exercise. But it is well," she
+added, with great expression, "it is well as it is. If youth could
+command the experience of age, it would lose the enthusiasm and zeal
+necessary for the conception of great designs; it would lose the
+brightness, the energy of hope, and nothing would be attempted, because
+every thing would be thought in vain. I did not mean to give you an
+essay," she said, smiling at her own earnestness, "but a young friend on
+the threshold of manhood is deeply interesting to me. I feel constrained
+to give him my best counsels, my fervent prayers."
+
+"Thank you, dear Madam, a thousand times," he answered his countenance
+lighted up with grateful pleasure; "you do not know what inspiration
+there is in the conviction that we are cared for by the pure and the
+good. Selfish as we are, there are few of us who strive to excel for
+ourselves alone. We must feel that there are some hearts, who bear us in
+remembrance, who will exult in our successes, and be made happier by our
+virtues."
+
+He forgot himself, and though he addressed Mrs. Linwood, his eye sought
+mine, while uttering the closing words. I was foolish enough to blush at
+his glance, and still more at the placid, intelligent smile of Mrs.
+Linwood. It seemed to say,
+
+"I understand it all; it is all right, just as it should be. There is no
+danger of Richard's being forgotten."
+
+I was provoked by _her_ smile, _his_ glance, and my own foolish blush.
+As for him, he really did seem inspired. He talked of the profession he
+had chosen as the noblest and the best, a profession which had commanded
+the most exalted talents and most magnificent geniuses in the world. He
+was not holy enough for the ministry; he had too great reverence and
+regard for human life to be a physician; but he believed nature had
+created him for a lawyer, for that much abused, yet glorious being, an
+honest lawyer.
+
+I suppose I must have been nervous, in consequence of the exciting
+scenes through which I had passed, but there was something in his florid
+eloquence, animated gestures, and evident desire to make a grand
+impression, that strangely affected my risibles; I had always thought
+him so natural before. I tried to keep from laughing; I compressed my
+lips, and turning my head, looked steadily from the window, but a sudden
+stammering, then a pause, showed that my unconquerable rudeness was
+observed. I was sobered at once, but dared not look round, lest I should
+meet Mrs. Linwood's reproving glance. He soon after asked Edith for a
+parting song, and while listening to her sweet voice, as it mingled with
+the breezy strains of the harp, my excited spirit recovered its
+equilibrium. I thought with regret and pain, of the levity, so unwonted
+in me, which had wounded a heart so frank and true, and found as much
+difficulty in keeping back my tears, as a moment before I had done my
+laughter.
+
+As soon as Edith had finished her song, he rose to take leave. He came
+to me last, to the little recess in the window where I stood, and
+extended his hand as he had done to Mrs. Linwood and Edith. He looked
+hurt rather than angry, disappointed rather than sad.
+
+"Forgive me," said I, in a low voice; "I value your friendship too much
+to lose it without an effort."
+
+The tears were in my eyes; I could not help it. I was sorry, for they
+expressed far more than I meant to convey. I knew it at once by the
+altered, beaming expression of his countenance.
+
+"Give me smiles or tears, dear Gabriella," he answered, in the same
+undertone; "only do not forget me, only think of me as I wish to be
+remembered."
+
+He pressed my hand warmly, energetically, while uttering these words;
+then, without giving me time to reply, bowed again to Mrs. Linwood and
+left the room.
+
+"A very fine, promising young man," said Mrs. Linwood, with emphasis.
+
+"A most intelligent, agreeable companion," added the gentle Edith,
+looking smilingly at me, as if expecting me to say something.
+
+"Very," responded I, in a constrained manner.
+
+"Is that all?" she asked, laying her soft, white hand on my shoulders,
+and looking archly in my face; "is that all, Gabriella?"
+
+"Indeed, you are mistaken," said I, hastily; "he is nothing more,--and
+yet I am wrong to say that,--he has been,--he is like a brother to me,
+Edith, and never will be any thing more."
+
+"Oh, these brother friends!" she exclaimed, with a burst of musical
+laughter, "how very near they seem! But wait, Gabriella, till you see
+_my_ brother,--he is one to boast of."
+
+"Edith!" said her mother. Edith turned her blue eyes from me to her
+mother, with a look of innocent surprise. The tone seemed intended to
+check her,--yet what had she said?
+
+"You should not raise expectations in Gabriella which will not be
+realized," observed Mrs. Linwood, in that quiet tone of hers which had
+so much power. "Ernest, however dear he may be to us as a son and
+brother, has peculiar traits which sometimes repel the admiration of
+strangers. His impenetrable reserve chills the warmth of enthusiasm,
+while the fitfulness of his morals produces constant inquietude. He was
+born under a clouded star, and the horoscope of his destiny is darkened
+by its influence."
+
+"I love him better for his lights and shadows," said Edith, "he keeps
+one always thinking of him."
+
+"When would this shadowy, flashing being appear, who kept one always
+thinking of him?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+As I had made an engagement with Mr. Regulus for one year, I remained
+with Dr. Harlowe's family during the winter months, while Mrs. Linwood
+and Edith returned to the city.
+
+The only novelty of that wintry season was the first correspondence of
+my life. Could any thing prove more strikingly my isolated position in
+the world than this single fact? It was quite an era in my existence
+when I received Mrs. Linwood's and Edith's first letters; and when I
+answered them, it seemed to me my heart was flowing out in a gushing
+stream of expression, that had long sought vent. I knew they must have
+smiled at my exuberance of language, for the young enthusiast always
+luxuriates under epistolary influences. I had another correspondent, a
+very unexpected one, Richard Clyde, who, sanctioned by Mrs. Linwood,
+begged permission to write to me as a _friend_. How could I refuse, when
+Mrs. Linwood said it would be a source of intellectual improvement as
+well as pleasure? These letters occupied much of my leisure time, and
+were escape-pipes to an imagination of the high-pressure kind. My old
+love of rhyming, too, rose from the ashes of former humiliation, and I
+wove many a garland of poesy, though no one but myself inhaled their
+fragrance or admired their bloom.
+
+    "As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean,
+    Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,--"
+
+So in the solitude of my chamber, in the loneliness of my heart, in the
+breathing stillness of the night, blossomed the moon-born flowers of
+poesy, to beautify and gladden my youth.
+
+Thus glided away the last tranquil season of my life. As was one day, so
+was the next. Mrs. Harlowe's clock-work virtues, which never run down,
+the doctor's agreeable carelessness and imperturbable good-humor, the
+exceeding kindness of Mr. Regulus, who grew so gentle, that he almost
+seemed melancholy,--all continued the same. In reading, writing,
+thinking, feeling, hoping, reaching forward to an uncertain future, the
+season of fireside enjoyments and comforts passed,--spring,--summer.
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith returned, and I was once more installed in that
+charming apartment, amid whose rosy decorations "I seemed," as Edith
+said, "a fairy queen." I walked once more in the moon-lighted colonnade,
+in the shadow of the granite walls, and felt that I was born to be
+there.
+
+One evening as I returned home, I saw Edith coming through the lawn to
+meet me, so rapidly that she seemed borne on wings,--her white drapery
+fell in such full folds over her crutches it entirely concealed them,
+and they made no sound on the soft, thick grass. Her face was perfectly
+radiant.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella," she exclaimed, "he is coming,--brother is coming
+home,--he will be here in less than a week,--oh! I am so happy!"
+
+And the sweet, affectionate creature leaned her head on my shoulder, and
+actually sobbed in the fulness of her joy. My own heart palpitated with
+strange emotions, with mingled curiosity, eagerness, and dread.
+
+"Dear Edith," I cried, putting my arms around her, and kissing her fair,
+infantine cheek, "I rejoice with you,--I could envy you if I dared. What
+a blessing it must be to have a brother capable of inspiring so much
+love!"
+
+"He shall be your brother too, Gabriella! For, are you not my sister?
+and of course he must be your brother. Come, let us sit down under the
+dear old elm and talk about him, for my heart is so full that I can
+speak and think of nothing else."
+
+"And now," added she, as we sat under the kingly canopy of verdure,--on
+a carpet of living velvet,--"let me tell you why I love Ernest so very,
+very dearly. My father died when I was a little child, a little feeble
+child, a cripple as well as an invalid. Ernest is four years older than
+myself, and though when I was a little child he was but a very young
+boy, he always seemed a protector and guardian to me. He never cared
+about play like other children, loving his book better than any thing
+else, but willing to leave even that to amuse and gratify me. Oh! I used
+to suffer so much, so dreadfully,--I could not lie down, I could not sit
+up without pain,--no medicine would give me any relief. Hour after hour
+would Ernest hold me in his arms, and carry me about in the open air,
+never owning he was weary while he could give me one moment's ease. No
+one thought I would live beyond childhood, and I have no doubt many
+believed that death would be a blessing to the poor, crippled child.
+They did not know how dear life was to me in spite of all my sufferings;
+for had I always been well, I never should have known those tender,
+cherishing cares which have filled my heart with so much love. It is so
+sweet to be petted and caressed as I have been!"
+
+"It did not need sickness and suffering to make _you_ beloved, Edith," I
+cried, twisting my fingers in her soft, golden curls. "Who could help
+loving you and wishing to caress you?"
+
+"Yes it did, Gabriella; my Heavenly Father knew that it did, or He would
+never have laid upon me His chastening hand. Sickness and pain have been
+my only chastisements, and they are all past. I am not very strong, but
+I am well; and though a cripple, my wooden feet serve me wonderfully
+well. I am so used to them now, they seem a part of myself."
+
+"I can never think of you as walking," I said, taking one of the
+crutches that leaned against the tree. The part which fitted under the
+arm was covered with a cushion of blue velvet, and the rosewood staff
+was mounted with silver. "You manage these so gracefully, one scarcely
+misses your feet."
+
+"But Ernest, dear Ernest," interrupted she, "let us talk of him. You
+must not be influenced too much by my mother's words. She adores him,
+but her standard of perfection is so exalted few can attain it. The very
+excess of her love makes her alive to his defects. She knows your vivid
+imagination, and fears my lavish praises will lead you to expect a being
+of super-human excellence. Oh, another thing I wanted to tell you. The
+uncle, for whom he was named, has died and left him a splendid fortune,
+which he did not need very much, you know. Had it not been for this
+circumstance, he would not have come back till autumn; and now he will
+be here in a week,--in less than a week. Oh, Gabriella, Grandison Place
+must shine for its master's welcome."
+
+Another splendid fortune added to his own! Further and further still,
+seemed he removed from me. But what difference did it make? Why did I
+think of him in reference to myself? How dared I do it, foolish and
+presumptuous girl! Then, he was seven years older than myself. How
+mature! He would probably look upon me as a little girl; and if he
+granted me the honors of womanhood, the student of Gottingen, the heir
+of two great fortunes would scarcely notice the village teacher, save as
+the orphan protégée of his mother.
+
+I did not indulge these thoughts. I repelled them, for they were selfish
+and uncomfortable. If every one recorded their thoughts as I do, would
+they not, like me, pray for the blotting angel's tears?
+
+In one week! How soon!
+
+Mrs. Linwood, quiet and serene as she was, participated in Edith's
+joyful excitement. She departed from her usual reliance on the subject,
+and checked not Edith's glowing warmth.
+
+In a family so wealthy, a dwelling so abounding in all the elegancies
+and luxuries of life, the coming of a prince would not have occasioned
+any necessary disturbance. The chamber of the son and brother had been
+long prepared, but now the fastidious eye of affection discovered many
+deficiencies. The pictures must be changed in position; some wanted
+more, some less light; the curtains were too heavy, the flower vases too
+gorgeous.
+
+"Does he mind these things much?" I ventured to ask.
+
+"He likes to see every thing round him elegant and classic," replied
+Edith; "he has the most fastidious taste in the world. I am so glad,
+Gabriella, that you are pretty, that you are really classically
+beautiful, for he will think so much more of you for being so. He ought
+not, perhaps; but one cannot help having a fine taste. He cannot abide
+any thing coarse or unrefined."
+
+"He will not think of me at all, I am sure he will not," I answered,
+while a vivid blush of pleasure at her sweet flattery stole over my
+cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+It was my office to gather and arrange the flowers, to adorn the
+mansion, in consequence of Edith's lameness. This I did every morning
+while they were sparkling with dew and the fragrance of night still
+imprisoned in their folded petals. I delighted in the task; but now I
+could not help feeling unusual solicitude about my floral mission. I
+rose earlier than usual, and made fearful havoc in the garden and the
+green-house. My apron dripped with blossoms every step I took, and the
+carpet was literally strewed with flowers. The fairest and sweetest were
+selected for the room _not yet occupied_; and though one day after
+another passed away and he came not, the scent of the blossoms lingered
+in the apartment, and diffusing in it an atmosphere of home love,
+prepared it for the wanderer's return.
+
+Every afternoon the carriage was sent to the depot, which was several
+miles from Grandison Place, to meet the traveller, and again and again
+it returned empty.
+
+"Let us go ourselves," said Mrs. Linwood, beginning to be restless and
+anxious. And they went--she and Edith. Though it was Saturday and I was
+free, I did not accompany them, for I felt that a stranger to him should
+not "intermeddle with their joy."
+
+Partaking of the restlessness of baffled expectation, I could not fix my
+mind on any occupation. I seated myself in the window recess and began
+to read, but my eyes were constantly wandering to the road, watching for
+the dust cloud that would roll before the advancing carriage.
+Dissatisfied with myself, I strolled out on the lawn, and seating myself
+on the rustic bench with my back to the gate, resolutely fastened my
+eyes to the pages I had been vainly fluttering.
+
+Shall I tell how foolish I had been? Though I said to myself a hundred
+times, "he will not look at me, or notice me at all," I had taken
+unusual pains with my dress, which though still characterized with the
+simplicity of mourning, was relieved of its severity of outline. A fall
+of lace softened the bands of the neck and arms, which were embellished
+by a necklace and bracelets, which I valued more than any earthly
+possession. They were the gift of Mrs. Linwood, who, having won from the
+grave a portion of my mother's beautiful dark hair, had it wrought with
+exquisite skill, and set in massy gold, as memorials of love stronger
+than death. Thus doubly precious, I cherished them as holy amulets, made
+sacred by the living as well as the dead. Edith had woven in my hair
+some scarlet geraniums, my favorite flower. Though not very elaborately
+adorned, I had an impression I was looking my best, and I could not help
+thinking while I sat half veiled by foliage, half gilded by light, how
+romantic it would be, if a magnificent stranger should suddenly approach
+and as suddenly draw back, on seeing my dark, waving hair, instead of
+the golden locks of Edith. I became so absorbed in painting this little
+scene, which enlarged and glowed under the pencil of imagination, that I
+did not hear the opening of the gate or footsteps crossing the lawn. I
+thought a shadow passed over the sunshine. The figure of a stranger
+stood between me and the glowing west. I started up with an
+irrepressible exclamation. I knew, at the first glance, that it was
+Ernest Linwood, the living embodiment of that haunting image, so long
+drawn on my youthful fancy. I should have known him in the farthest
+isles of the ocean, from the painting in the library, the descriptions
+of Edith, and the sketches of my own imagination. His complexion had the
+pale, transparent darkness of eastern climes, and his eye a kind of
+shadowy splendor, impossible to describe, but which reminded me at once
+of his mother's similitude of the "clouded star." He was not above the
+common height of man, yet he gave me an impression of power and dignity,
+such as mere physical force could never inspire.
+
+"Is this Grandison Place? my home?" he asked, lifting his hat with
+gentlemanly grace from his brows. His voice, too, had that cultivated,
+well-modulated tone, which always marks the gentleman.
+
+"It is, sir," I answered, trying to speak without embarrassment. "Mr.
+Linwood, I presume."
+
+I thought I had made a mistake in his name, it sounded so strange. I had
+never heard him called any thing but Ernest Linwood, and Mr. Linwood had
+such a stiff, formal sound, I was quite disgusted with it.
+
+He again bowed, and looked impatiently towards the house.
+
+"I saw a young female and thought it might be my sister, or I should not
+have intruded. Shall I find her,--shall I find my mother within?"
+
+"They have gone to meet you,--they have been looking for you these many
+days; I know not how you have missed them."
+
+"By coming another road. I jumped from the carriage and walked on, too
+impatient to wait its slow motions in ascending the hill. And they have
+gone to meet me. They really wish to see me back again!"
+
+He spoke with deep feeling. The home thoughts and affections of years
+thrilled from his tone. This seemed one of those self-evident truths,
+that required no confirmation, and I made no answer. I wondered if I
+ought to ask him to walk in,--him, the master and the heir; whether I
+should ask him to take a seat on the oaken settee, where he could watch
+the carriage, ascending the winding hill.
+
+"Do not let me disturb you," he said, looking at me with a questioning,
+penetrating glance, then added, "am I guilty of the rudeness of not
+recognizing a former acquaintance, who has passed from childhood to
+youth, during my years of absence?"
+
+"No, sir," I answered, again wondering if politeness required me to
+introduce myself. "I am a stranger to you, though for two years your
+mother's home has been mine. My name is Lynn,--Gabriella Lynn."
+
+I was vexed with myself for this awkward introduction. I did not know
+what I ought to say, and painful blushes dyed my cheeks. I would not
+have mentioned my name at all, only, if his mother and sister delayed
+their coming, he might feel awkward himself, from not knowing what to
+call me.
+
+"My mother's protégée!" said he, his countenance lightening as he spoke.
+"Edith has mentioned you in her letters; but I expected to see a little
+girl, not the young lady, whom I find presiding genius here."
+
+My self-respect was gratified that he did not look upon me as a child,
+and there was something so graceful and unostentatious in his air and
+manner, my self-possession came back without an effort to recall it.
+
+"Will you walk in?" I asked, now convinced it was right.
+
+"Thank you; I am so weary of the confinement of the carriage, I like the
+freedom of the open air. I like this rich, velvet grass. How beautiful,
+how magnificent!" he exclaimed, his eye taking in the wide sweep of
+landscape, here and there darkened with shade, and at intervals
+literally blazing with the crimson sunlight,--then sweeping on over the
+swelling mountains, so grand in their purple drapery and golden crowns.
+"How exquisitely beautiful! My mother could not have selected a lovelier
+spot,--and these old granite walls! how antique, how classic they are!"
+
+He turned and examined them, with a pleased yet criticizing eye. He
+walked up and down the velvet lawn with a firm, yet restless step,
+stopping occasionally to measure with his glance the towering oaks and
+the gigantic elm. I began to be uneasy at the protracted absence of Mrs.
+Linwood, and kept my eyes fixed upon the road, whose dark, rich,
+slatish-colored surface, seen winding through green margins, resembled a
+stream of deep water, it was so smooth and uniform. I knew how full must
+be the heart of the traveller. I did not wish to interrupt his
+meditations even by a look.
+
+We saw it coming,--the family carriage. I saw his pale cheek flush at my
+joyous exclamation. He moved rapidly towards the gate, while I ran into
+the house, up stairs and into my own room, that I might not intrude on
+moments too sacred for curiosity.
+
+In a little while, I could hear the sound of their mingling voices
+coming up the long flight of marble steps, across the wide piazza, and
+then they came soft and muffled from the drawing-room below. At first,
+forgetful of self, I sympathized in their joy. I rejoiced for my
+benefactress, I rejoiced for the tender and affectionate Edith. But
+after sitting there a long time alone, and of course forgotten in the
+rapture of this family reunion, thoughts of self began to steal over and
+chill the ardor of my sympathetic emotions. I could not help feeling
+myself a mote in the dazzling sunshine of their happiness. I could not
+help experiencing, in all its bitterness, the isolation of my own
+destiny. I remembered the lamentation of the aged and solitary Indian,
+"that not a drop of his blood flowed in the veins of a living being." So
+it was with me. To my knowledge, I had not a living relative. Friends
+were kind,--some were more than kind; but oh! there are capacities for
+love friends can never fill. There are niches in the temple of the heart
+made for household gods, and if they are left vacant, no other images,
+though of the splendor of the Grecian statuary, can remove its
+desolation. _Deep calleth unto deep_, and when no answer cometh, the
+waves beat against the lonely strand and murmur themselves away.
+
+I tried to check all selfish, repining feelings. I tried to keep from
+envying Edith, but I could not.
+
+"O that I, too, had a brother!"
+
+Was the cry of my craving heart, and it would not be stilled. I wiped
+away tear after tear, resolving each should be the last, but the
+fountain was full, and every heaving sigh made it overflow.
+
+At length I heard the sound of Edith's crutches on the stairs, faint and
+muffled, but I knew it from all other sounds. She could mount and
+descend the stairs as lightly as a bird, in spite of her infirmity.
+
+"Ah! truant!" she cried, as she opened the door, "you need not think to
+hide yourself here all night; we want you to come and help us to be
+happy, for I am so happy I know not what to do."
+
+Her eyes sparkled most brilliantly through those drops of joy, as
+different to the tears I had been shedding as the morning dew is to
+December's wintry rain.
+
+"But what are you doing, Gabriella?" she added, sitting down beside me
+and drawing my hand from my eyes. "In tears! I have been almost crying
+my eyes out; but you do not look happy. I thought you loved me so well,
+you would feel happy because I am so. Do you not?"
+
+"You will hate me for my selfishness, dear Edith. I did think of you for
+a long time, and rejoice in your happiness. Then I began to think how
+lonely and unconnected I am, and I have been wicked enough to envy your
+treasures of affection for ever denied to me. I felt as if there was no
+one to love me in the wide world. But you have remembered me, Edith,
+even in the depth of your joy, ingrate that I am. Forgive me," said I,
+passing my arms round her beautiful white neck. "I will try to be good
+after this."
+
+She kissed me, and told me to bathe my eyes and come right down, her
+mother said I must. Ernest had inquired what had become of me, and he
+would think it strange if I hid myself in this way.
+
+"And you have seen him, Gabriella," she cried, and her tongue ran glibly
+while I plunged my face in a basin of cold water, ashamed of the traces
+of selfish sorrow. "You have seen my own dear brother Ernest. And only
+think of your getting the first glimpse of him! What _did_ you think of
+him? What _do_ you think of him now? Is he not handsome? Is there not
+something very striking, very attractive about him? Is he not different
+from any one you ever saw before?"
+
+"There _is_ something very striking in his appearance," I answered,
+smiling at the number and rapidity of her questions, "but I was so
+disconcerted, so foolish, I hardly dared to look him in the face. Has he
+changed since you saw him last?"
+
+"Not much,--rather paler, I think; but perhaps it is only fatigue, or
+the languor following intense excitement. I feel myself as if all my
+strength were gone. I cannot describe my sensations when I saw him
+standing in the open gateway. I let mamma get out first. I thought it
+was her right to receive the first embrace of welcome; but when he
+turned to me, I threw myself on his neck, discarding my crutches, and
+clung to him, just as I used to do when a little, helpless, suffering
+child. And would you believe it, Gabriella? he actually shed tears. I
+did not expect so much sensibility. I feared the world had hardened
+him,--but it has not. Make haste and come down with me. I long to look
+at him again. Here, let me put back this scarlet geranium. You do not
+know how pretty it looks. Brother said--no--I will not tell you what he
+said. Yes, I will. He said he had no idea the charming young girl, with
+such a classic face and aristocratic bearing, was mother's little
+protégée."
+
+"You asked him, Edith, I know you did."
+
+"Supposing I did,--there was no harm in it. Come, I want you to see
+mamma; she looks so young and handsome. Joy is such a beautifier."
+
+"I think it is," said I, as I gazed at _her_ star-bright eyes and
+blush-rose cheeks. We entered the drawing-room together, where Ernest
+was seated on the sofa by his mother, with her hand clasped in his.
+Edith was right,--she did look younger and handsomer than I had ever
+seen her. She was usually pale and her face was calm. Now a breeze had
+stirred the waters, and the sunshine quivered on the rippling surface.
+
+They rose as we entered, and came forward to meet us. My old trepidation
+returned. Would Mrs. Linwood introduce me,--and if she did, in what
+manner? Would there be any thing in her air or countenance to imply that
+I was a dependent on her bounty, rather than an adopted daughter of the
+household? Hush,--these proud whispers. Listen, how kindly she speaks.
+
+"My dear Gabriella, this is my son, Ernest. You know it already, and he
+knows that you are the child of my adoption. Nevertheless, I must
+introduce you to each other."
+
+Surprised and touched by the maternal kindness of her manner, (I ought
+not to have been surprised, for she was always kind,) I looked up, and I
+know that gratitude and sensibility passed from my heart to my eyes.
+
+"I must claim the privilege of an adopted brother," said he, extending
+his hand, and I thought he smiled. Perhaps I was mistaken. His
+countenance had a way of suddenly lighting up, which I learned to
+compare to sunshine breaking through clouds. The hand in which he took
+mine was so white, so delicately moulded, it looked as if it might have
+belonged to a woman,--but he was a student, the heir of wealth, not the
+son of labor, the inheritor of the primeval curse. It is a trifle to
+mention,--the hand of an intellectual man,--but I had been so accustomed
+to the large, muscular fingers of Mr. Regulus, which seemed formed to
+wield the weapon of authority, that I could not but notice the contrast.
+
+How pleasantly, how delightfully the evening passed away! I sat in my
+favorite recess, half shaded by the light drapery of the window; while
+Ernest took a seat at his mother's side, and Edith occupied a low
+ottoman at his feet. One arm was thrown across his lap, and her eyes
+were lifted to his face with an expression of the most idolizing
+affection. And all the while he was talking, his hand passed caressingly
+over her fair flaxen hair, or lingered amidst its glistering ringlets.
+It was a beautiful picture of sisterly and fraternal love,--the fairest
+I had ever seen. The fairest! it was the first, the only one. I had
+never realized before the exceeding beauty and holiness of this tender
+tie. As I looked upon Edith in her graceful, endearing attitude, so
+expressive of dependence and love, many a sentence descriptive of a
+brother's tenderness floated up to the surface of memory. I remembered
+part of a beautiful hymn,--
+
+    "Fair mansions in my Father's house
+      For all his children wait;
+    And I, your elder _brother_ go,
+      To open wide the gate."
+
+The Saviour of mankind called himself our brother,--stamping with the
+seal of divinity the dear relationship.
+
+I had imagined I felt for Richard Clyde a sister's regard. No, no! Cold
+were my sentiments to those that beamed in Edith's upturned eyes.
+
+Ernest described his travels, his life abroad, and dwelt on the
+peculiarities of German character, its high, imaginative traits, its
+mysticism and superstition, till his tongue warmed into enthusiasm,--and
+_one_ of his hearers at least felt the inspiration of his eloquence. His
+mother had said he was reserved! I began to think I did not know the
+right meaning of the word. If he paused and seemed about to relapse into
+silence, Edith would draw a long breath, as if she had just been
+inhaling some exhilarating gas, and exclaim,--
+
+"Oh! do go on, brother; it is so long since we have heard you talk; it
+is such a luxury to hear a person talk, who really _says_ something."
+
+"I never care about talking, unless I do have something to _say_," he
+answered, "but I think I have monopolized attention long enough. As a
+guest, I have a right to be entertained. Have you forgotten my love for
+music, Edith?"
+
+"O no! I remember all your favorite airs, and have played them a
+thousand times at least. Do you wish to hear me now?"
+
+"Certainly, I do; I have heard nothing so sweet as your voice, dear
+Edith, since I heard your last parting song."
+
+He rose and moved the harp forward, and seated her at the instrument.
+
+"Does not Miss Lynn play?" he asked, running his fingers carelessly over
+the glittering strings.
+
+"Who is Miss Lynn?" repeated Edith, with a look of inquiry.
+
+I laughed at her surprise and my own. It was the first time I had ever
+heard myself called so, and I looked round involuntarily to see who and
+where "Miss Lynn" was.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella!" cried Edith, "I did not know whom you meant. I assure
+you, brother, there is no Miss Lynn here; it is Gabriella--_our
+Gabriella_--that is her name; you must not call her by any other."
+
+"I shall be happy to avail myself of the privilege of uttering so
+charming a name. Does Miss Gabriella play?"
+
+"No, no, that is not right yet, Ernest; you must drop the Miss. Do not
+answer him, Gabriella, till he knows his lesson better."
+
+"Does Gabriella play?"
+
+The name came gravely and melodiously from his tongue. The distance
+between us seemed wonderfully diminished by the mere breathing my
+Christian name.
+
+"I do not," I answered, "but my love of music amounts to a passion. I am
+never so happy as when listening to Edith's voice and harp."
+
+"She has never taken lessons," said Edith; "if she had, she would have
+made a splendid musician, I am confident she would. Dear mother, when we
+go to the city next winter, Gabriella must go with us, and she must have
+music-masters, and we will play and sing together. She has taught in
+that old academy long enough, I am sure she has."
+
+"I think Gabriella has been taking some very important lessons herself,
+while teaching in the old academy, which chances to be quite new, at
+least her part of it," answered Mrs. Linwood; "but I have no intention
+of suffering her to remain there too long; she has borne the discipline
+admirably."
+
+As I turned a grateful glance to Mrs. Linwood, my heart throbbing with
+delight at the prospect of emancipation, I met the eyes, the earnest,
+perusing eyes of her son. I drew back further into the shadow of the
+curtain, but the risen moon was shining upon my face, and silvering the
+lace drapery that floated round me. Edith whispered something to her
+brother, glancing towards me her smiling eyes, then sweeping her fingers
+lightly over the harp-strings, began one of the songs that Ernest loved.
+
+Sweetly as she always sang, I had never heard her sing so sweetly
+before. It seemed indeed "Joy's ecstatic trial," so airily her fingers
+sparkled over the chords, so clearly and cheerily she warbled each
+animated note.
+
+"I know you love sad songs best, Ernest, but I cannot sing them
+to-night," she said, pushing the instrument from her.
+
+"There is a little German air, which I think I may recollect," said he,
+drawing the harp towards him.
+
+"You, Ernest!" cried Edith and his mother in the same breath, "you play
+on the harp!"
+
+He smiled at their astonishment.
+
+"I took lessons while in Germany. A fellow-student taught me,--a
+glorious musician, and a native of the land of music,--Italy. There, the
+very atmosphere breathes of harmony."
+
+The very first note he called forth, I felt a master's touch was on the
+chords, and leaning forward I held my breath to listen. The strains rose
+rich and murmuring like an ocean breeze, then died away soft as wave
+falls on wave in the moonlight night. He sang a simple, pathetic air,
+with such deep feeling, such tender, passionate emotion, that tears
+involuntarily moistened my eyes. All the slumbering music of my being
+responded. It was thus _I_ could sing,--_I_ could play,--I knew I could.
+And when he rose and resumed his seat by his mother, I could scarcely
+restrain myself from touching the same chords,--the chords still
+quivering from his magic hand.
+
+"O brother!" exclaimed Edith, "what a charming surprise! I never heard
+any thing so thrillingly sweet! You do not know how happy you have made
+me. One more,--only one more,--Ernest."
+
+"You forget your brother is from a long and weary journey, Edith, and we
+have many an evening before us, I trust, of domestic joy like this,"
+said Mrs. Linwood, ringing for the night-lamps. "To-morrow is the
+hallowed rest-day of the Lord, and our hearts, so long restless from
+expectation, will feel the grateful calm of assured happiness. One who
+returns after a long journey to the bosom of home, in health and safety,
+has peculiar calls for gratitude and praise. He should bless the God of
+the traveller for having given his angels charge concerning him, and
+shielding him from unknown dangers. You feel all this, my son."
+
+She looked at him with an anxious, questioning glance. She feared that
+the mysticism of Germany might have obscured the brightness of his
+Christian faith.
+
+"I _am_ grateful, my mother," he answered with deep seriousness,
+"grateful to God for the blessings of this hour. This has been one of
+the happiest evenings of my life. Surely it is worth years of absence to
+be welcomed to such a home, and by such pure, loving hearts,--hearts in
+which I can trust without hypocrisy and without guile."
+
+"Believe all hearts true, my son, till you prove them false."
+
+"Faith is a gift of heaven, not an act of human will," he replied. Then
+I remembered what Richard Clyde had said of him, and I thought of it
+again when alone in my chamber.
+
+Edith peeped in through the door that divided our rooms.
+
+"Have we not had a charming evening?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, _very_," I answered.
+
+"How fond you are of that little adverb _very_," she exclaimed with a
+laugh; "you make it sound so expressively. Well, is not Ernest very
+interesting?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"The most interesting person you ever saw?"
+
+"You question me too closely, Edith. It will not do for me to speak as
+extravagantly as you do. I am not his sister, and the praise that falls
+so sweetly from your tongue, would sound bold and inappropriate from
+mine. I never knew before how strong a sister's love could be, Edith.
+Surely you can never feel a stronger passion."
+
+"Never," she cried earnestly, and coming in, she sat down on the side of
+the bed and unbound the ribbon from her slender waist. "The misfortune
+that has set me apart from my youthful companions will prevent me from
+indulging in the dreams of love. I know my mother does not wish me to
+marry, and I have never thought of the possibility of leaving her. I
+would not dare to give this frail frame and too tenderly indulged heart
+into the keeping of one who could never, never bestow the love, the
+boundless love, which has surrounded me from infancy, like the firmament
+of heaven. I have been sought in marriage more than once, it might be
+for reputed wealth or for imagined charms; but when I compared my
+would-be lovers to Ernest, they faded into such utter insignificance, I
+could scarcely pardon their presumption. I do not think he has ever
+loved himself. I do not think he has ever seen one worthy of his love. I
+believe it would kill me, Gabriella, to know that he loved another
+better than myself."
+
+For the first time I thought Edith selfish, and that she carried the
+romance of sisterly affection too far.
+
+"You wish him, then, to be an old bachelor!" said I, smiling.
+
+"Oh! don't apply to him such a horrid name. I did not think of that.
+Good night, darling. Mamma would scold me, if she knew I was up talking
+nonsense, instead of being in bed and asleep, like a good, obedient
+child." She kissed me and retired but it was long before I fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+The next morning, as I was coming up the steps with my white muslin
+apron fall of gathered flowers, I met Ernest Linwood. I was always an
+early riser. Dear, faithful Peggy had taught me this rural habit, and I
+have reason to bless her for it.
+
+"I see where you get your roses," said he; I knew he did not mean the
+roses in my apron, and those to which he alluded grew brighter as he
+spoke.
+
+"Am I indebted to you for the beautiful flowers in my own apartment?" he
+asked, as he turned back and entered the house with me, "or was it
+Edith's sisterly hand placed them there?"
+
+"Are you pleased with them?" I said, with a childish delight. It seemed
+to me a great thing that he had noticed them at all. "As Edith is lame,
+she indulges me in carrying out her own sweet tastes. I assure you I
+esteem it an inestimable privilege."
+
+"You love flowers, then?"
+
+"O yes, passionately. I have almost an idolatrous love for them."
+
+"And does it not make you sad to see them wither away, in spite of your
+passionate love?"
+
+"Yes, but others bloom in their stead. 'T is but a change from blossom
+to blossom."
+
+"You deceive yourself," he said, and there was something chilling in his
+tone, "it is not love you feel for them, for that is unchangeable, and
+admits but one object."
+
+"I was not speaking of human love," I answered, busily arranging the
+flowers in their vases, in which I had already placed some icy cold
+water. He walked up and down the room, stopping occasionally to observe
+the process, and making some passing remark. I was astonished at finding
+myself so much at ease. I suppose the awe he inspired, like the fear of
+ghosts, subsided at the dawning of morning. There was something so
+exhilarating in the pure fresh air, in the dewy brightness of the hour,
+in the exercise of roaming through a wilderness of sweets, that my
+spirits were too elastic to be held down. He seemed to take an interest
+in watching me, and even altered the position of some white roses, which
+he said wanted a shading of green.
+
+"And what are these beautiful clusters laid aside for?" he asked, taking
+up some which I had deposited on the table.
+
+"I thought," I answered, after a slight hesitation, "that Edith would
+like them for your room."
+
+"Then it is only to please Edith you place them there, not to please
+yourself?"
+
+"I should not dare to do it to please myself," I hastily replied.
+
+I thought I must have said something wrong, for he turned away with a
+peculiar smile. I colored with vexation, and was glad that Edith came in
+to divert his attention from me.
+
+Nothing could be more gentle and affectionate than his greeting. He went
+up and kissed her, as if she were a little child, put his arm round her,
+and taking one of her crutches, made her lean on him for support. I
+understood something of the secret of her idolatry.
+
+Where was the impenetrable reserve of which his mother had spoken?
+
+I had not yet seen him in society. As he talked with Edith, his head
+slightly bent and his profile turned towards me, I could look at him
+unobserved, and I was struck even more than the evening before with the
+transparent paleness of his complexion. Dark, delicate, and smooth as
+alabaster, it gave an air of extreme refinement and sensibility to his
+face, without detracting from its manliness or intellectual power. It
+was a face to peruse, to study, to think of,--it was a baffling,
+haunting face. Hieroglyphics of thought were there, too mysterious for
+the common eye to interpret. It was a dark lantern, flashing light
+before it, itself all in shadow.
+
+"It is a shame that you must leave us, Gabriella," said Edith, when
+after breakfast her pony was brought to the door. "Ernest," added she,
+turning to him, "I am _so_ glad you are come. You must persuade mamma to
+lay her commands on Gabriella, and not permit her to make such a slave
+of herself. I feel guilty to be at home doing nothing and she toiling
+six long hours."
+
+"It is Gabriella's own choice," cried Mrs. Linwood, a slight flush
+crossing her cheek. "Is it not, my child?"
+
+"Your wisdom guided my choice, dear madam," I answered, "and I thank you
+for it."
+
+"It would seem more natural to think of Miss--of Gabriella--as a pupil,
+than a teacher," observed Ernest, "if youth is the criterion by which we
+judge."
+
+"I am seventeen--in my eighteenth year," said I eagerly, urged by an
+unaccountable desire that he should not think me too young.
+
+"A very grave and reverend age!" said he sarcastically.
+
+I thought Mrs. Linwood looked unusually serious, and fearing I had said
+something wrong, I hastened to depart. Dearly as I loved my
+benefactress, it was not "that perfect love which casteth out fear." As
+her benevolence was warm, her justice was inflexible. Hers was the kind
+hand, but the firm nerves that could sustain a friend, while the knife
+of the surgeon entered the quivering flesh. She shrunk not from
+inflicting pain, if it was for another's good; but if she wounded with
+one hand, she strewed balm with the other. Her influence was strong,
+controlling, almost irresistible. Like the sunshine that forced the
+wind-blown traveller to throw aside his cloak, the warmth of her
+kindness penetrated, but it also _compelled_.
+
+I had a growing conviction that though she called me her adopted child,
+she did not wish me to presume upon her kindness so far as to look upon
+her son in the familiar light of a brother. There was no fear of my
+transgressing her wishes in this respect. I had already lost my
+dread,--my awe was melting away, but I could no more approach him with
+familiarity than if fourfold bars of gold surrounded him. I had another
+conviction, that she encouraged and wished me to return the attachment
+of Richard Clyde. Her urgent advice had induced me to accept the
+proffered correspondence with him,--a compliance which I afterwards
+bitterly regretted. He professed to write only as a _friend_, according
+to the bond, but amid the evergreen wreath of friendship, he concealed
+the glowing flowers of love. He was to return home in a few weeks. The
+commencement was approaching, which was to liberate him from scholastic
+fetters and crown him with the honors of manhood.
+
+"Why," thought I, "should Richard make me dread his return, when I would
+gladly welcome him with joy? Why in wishing to be more than a friend,
+does he make me desire that he should be less? And now Ernest Linwood is
+come back, of whom he so strangely warned me, methinks I dread him more
+than ever."
+
+Mrs. Linwood would attend the commencement. I had heard her tell Richard
+so. I had heard her repeat her intention since her son's return. _He_,
+of course, would feel interested in meeting his old class mates and
+friends. They would all feel interested in seeing and hearing how
+Richard Clyde sustained his proud distinction.
+
+"Gabriella, especially," said Edith with a smile, which, sweet as it
+was, I thought extremely silly. I blushed with vexation, when Ernest,
+lifting his grave eyes from his book, asked who was Richard Clyde.
+
+"You have seen him when he was quite a youth," answered his mother, "but
+have probably forgotten him. He is a young man of great promise, and has
+been awarded the first honors of his class. I feel a deep interest in
+him for his own sake, and moreover I am indebted to him for my
+introduction to our own Gabriella."
+
+"Indeed!" repeated her son, and glancing towards me, his countenance
+lighted up with a sudden look of intelligence.
+
+Why need Mrs. Linwood have said that? Why need she have associated him
+so intimately and significantly with me? And why could I not keep down
+the rising crimson, which might be attributed to another source than
+embarrassment? I opened my lips to deny any interest in Richard beyond
+that of friendly acquaintanceship; but Mrs. Linwood's mild, serene, yet
+resolute eyes, beat mine down and choked my eager utterance.
+
+Her eyes said as clearly as words could say, "what matters it to my son,
+how little or how great an interest you feel in Richard Clyde or any
+other person?"
+
+"You must accompany us, Gabriella," she said, with great kindness. "You
+have never witnessed this gathering of the literati of our State, and I
+know of no one who would enjoy it more. It will be quite an intellectual
+banquet."
+
+"I thank you, but I cannot accept the invitation," I answered,
+suppressing a sigh, not of disappointment at the necessity of refusal,
+but of mortification at the inference that would probably be drawn from
+this conversation. "My vacation does not begin till afterwards."
+
+"I think I can intercede with Mr. Regulus to release you," said Mrs.
+Linwood.
+
+"Thank you,--I do not wish to go,--indeed I would much rather not,
+unless," I added, fearful I had spoken too energetically, "you have an
+urgent desire that I should."
+
+"I wish very much to make you happy, and I think you would enjoy far
+more than you now anticipate. But there is time enough to decide. There
+will be a fortnight hence."
+
+"But the dresses, mamma," cried Edith; "you know she will need new
+dresses if she goes, and they will require some time to prepare."
+
+"As Gabriella will not _come out_, as it is called, till next winter,"
+replied Mrs. Linwood, "it is not a matter of so much consequence as you
+imagine. Simplicity is much more charming than ornament in the dress of
+a very young girl."
+
+"I agree with you, mother," observed Ernest, without lifting his eyes
+from his book, "especially where artificial ornaments are superfluous."
+
+"I did not think you were listening to our remarks about dress," said
+Edith. "This is something quite new, brother."
+
+"I am _not_ listening, and yet I hear. So be very careful not to betray
+yourself in my presence. But perhaps I had better retire to the library,
+then you can discuss with more freedom the mysteries of the toilet and
+the fascinations of dress."
+
+"No,--no. We have nothing to say that you may not hear;" but he rose and
+withdrew. Did he mean to imply that "artificial ornaments would be
+superfluous" to me? No,--it was only a general remark, and it would be
+vanity of vanities to apply it to myself.
+
+"I want you to do one thing to gratify me, dear Gabriella," continued
+Edith. "Please lay aside your mourning and assume a more cheerful garb.
+You have worn it two long years. Only think how long! It will be so
+refreshing to see you in white or delicate colors."
+
+I looked down at my mourning garments, and all the sorrow typified by
+their dark hue rolled back upon my heart. The awful scenes they
+commemorated,--the throes of agony which rent away life from the strong,
+the slow wasting of the feeble, the solemnity of death, the gloom of the
+grave, the anguish of bereavement, the abandonment of desolation that
+followed,--all came back. I lived them all over in one passing moment.
+
+"I never, never wish to lay aside the badges of mourning," I exclaimed;
+and, covering my face with my handkerchief, tears gushed unrestrainedly.
+"I shall never cease to mourn for my mother."
+
+"I did not mean to grieve you, Gabriella," cried Edith, putting her arms
+round me with sympathizing tenderness. "I thought time had softened your
+anguish, and that you could bear to speak of it now."
+
+"And so she ought," said Mrs. Linwood, in a tone of mild rebuke. "Time
+is God's ministering angel, commissioned to bind up the wounds of sorrow
+and to heal the bleeding heart. The same natural law which bids flowers
+to spring up and adorn the grave-sod causes the blossoms of hope to
+bloom again in the bosom of bereavement. Memory should be immortal, but
+mourning should last but a season."
+
+"I meant that I never should forget her," I cried, my tears flowing
+gently under her subduing accents. "Dear Mrs. Linwood, you have made it
+impossible for me always to mourn. Yet there are times, when her
+remembrance comes over me with such a power that I am borne down by it
+to the level of my first deep anguish. These are not frequent now. I
+some times fear there is danger of my being too happy after sustaining
+such a loss."
+
+"Beware, my dear child, of cherishing the morbid sensibility which
+believes happiness inconsistent with the remembrance of departed
+friends. Life to your mother, since your recollection of her, was a sad
+boon. As she possessed the faith, and died the death of the Christian,
+you are authorized to believe that she now possesses an exceeding and
+eternal weight of glory. Can you take in the grandeur of the idea,--_a
+weight of glory_? Contrast it with the burden of care under which you
+saw her crushed, and you will then be willing to exchange mourning for
+the oil of joy, and the spirit of heaviness for the garment of praise."
+
+"I _am_ willing, dear Mrs. Linwood, my kindest friend, my second mother.
+I will in all things be guided by your counsel and moulded by your will.
+No, oh no, I would not for worlds rob my mother of the glorious
+inheritance purchased by a Saviour's blood. But tell me one thing,--must
+we all pass through tribulation before entering the kingdom of heaven?
+Must we all travel with bleeding feet the thorny path of suffering,
+before being admitted into the presence of God?"
+
+"The Bible must answer you, my child. Do you remember, in the
+apocalyptic vision, when it was asked, 'What are these, which are
+arrayed in white robes? and whence come they?' It was answered, 'These
+are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their
+robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'"
+
+"Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and
+night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among
+them."
+
+I remembered them well.
+
+"Go on," I said, "that is not all."
+
+"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the
+sun light on them, nor any heat."
+
+She paused, and her voice became tremulous from deep emotion.
+
+"One verse more," I cried, "only one."
+
+"For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and
+shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe all
+tears from their eyes."
+
+There was silence for a few moments. All words seemed vain and
+sacrilegious after this sublimest language of revelation.
+
+At length I said,--
+
+"Let me wear white, the livery of my mother, in heaven. 'T is a sin to
+mourn for her whose tears the hand of God has wiped away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+One week, and another week passed by, and every evening was as charming
+as the first of the return of Ernest Linwood. In that fortnight were
+compressed the social and intellectual joys of a lifetime. Music,
+reading, and conversation filled the measure of the evening hours. Such
+music, such reading, and such conversation as I never heard before. I
+had been accustomed to read aloud a great deal to my own dear mother, to
+Mrs. Linwood, and to my young pupils also, and I had reason to think I
+could read remarkably well; but I could not read like Ernest,--I never
+heard any one that could. He infused his own soul into the soul of the
+author, and brought out his deepest meanings. When he read poetry I sat
+like one entranced, bound by the double spell of genius and music. Mrs.
+Linwood could sew; Edith could sew or net, but I could do nothing but
+listen. I could feel the blood tingling to my finger ends, the veins
+throbbing in my temples, and the color coming and going in my cheek.
+
+"You love poetry," said he once, pausing, and arresting my fascinated
+glance.
+
+"Love it," I exclaimed, sighing in the fulness of delight, "it is the
+passion of my soul."
+
+"You have three passions, music, flowers, and poetry," said he, with a
+smile that seemed to mock the extravagance of my language, "which is the
+regal one, the passion of passions?"
+
+"I can hardly imagine the existence of one without the other," I
+answered, "their harmony is so entire; flowers are silent poetry, and
+poetry is written music."
+
+"And music?" he asked.
+
+"Is the breath of heaven, the language of angels. As the voice of Echo
+lingered in the woods, where she loved to wander, when her beauteous
+frame had vanished, so music remains to show the angel nature we have
+lost."
+
+I blushed at having said so much, but the triune passion warmed my soul.
+
+"Gabriella is a poetess herself," said Edith, "and may well speak of the
+magic of numbers. She has a portfolio, filled with papers written, like
+Ezekiel's scroll, within and without. I wish you would let me get it,
+Gabriella,--do."
+
+"Impossible!" I answered, "I never wrote but one poem for exhibition,
+and the experience of that hour was sufficient for a lifetime."
+
+"You were but a child then, Gabriella. Mr. Regulus would give it a very
+different reception now, I know he would," said Edith.
+
+"If it is a child's story, will you not relate it?" asked Ernest; "you
+have excited my curiosity."
+
+"Curiosity, brother, I thought you possessed none."
+
+"Interest is a better word. If I understand aright, the buddings of
+Gabriella's genius met with an untimely blight."
+
+I know not how it was, but I felt in an exceedingly ingenuous mood, and
+I related this episode in my childish history without reserve. I touched
+lightly on the championship of Richard Clyde, but I was obliged to
+introduce it. I had forgotten that he was associated with the narration,
+or I should have been silent.
+
+"This youthful knight, and the hero of commencement day are one, then,"
+observed Ernest. "He is a fortunate youth, with the myrtle and the
+laurel both entwining his brows; you must be proud of your champion."
+
+"I am _grateful_ to him," I replied, resolved to make a bold effort to
+remove the impression I knew he had received. Mrs. Linwood was not
+present, or I could not have spoken as I did. "He defended me because he
+thought I was oppressed; he befriended me because my friends were few.
+He has the generous spirit of chivalry which cannot see wrong without
+seeking to redress it, or suffering without wishing to relieve it. I am
+under unspeakable obligations to him, for he it was who spoke kindly of
+the obscure little girl to your mother and sister, and obtained for me
+the priceless blessing of their love."
+
+"I dare say _they_ feel very grateful to him, likewise," said he, in a
+tone of genuine feeling. "I acknowledge _my_ share of the obligation.
+But is he so disinterested as to claim no recompense, or does he find
+that chivalry, like goodness, is its own exceeding great reward?"
+
+"I thought I regarded him as a brother, till now Edith has convinced me
+I am mistaken."
+
+"How so?" he asked, with so peculiar an expression, I forgot what I was
+going to say.
+
+"How so?" he repeated, while Edith leaned towards him and laid her hand
+on his.
+
+"By showing me how strong and fervent a sister's love can be."
+
+His eyes flashed; they looked like fountains of light, full to
+overflowing. His arm involuntarily encircled Edith, and a smile,
+beautiful as a woman's, curled his lips.
+
+"How he does love her!" thought I; "strong indeed must be the counter
+charm, that can rival hers."
+
+I had never seen his spirits so light as they were the remainder of the
+evening. They rose even to gaiety; and again I wondered what had become
+of the reserve and moodiness whose dark shadow had preceded his
+approach.
+
+"We are so happy now," said Edith, when we were alone, "I dread the
+interruption of company. Ernest does not care for it, and if it be of an
+uncongenial kind, he wraps himself in a mantle of reserve, that neither
+sun nor wind can unfold. After commencement, our house will be
+overflowing with city friends. They will return with us, and we shall
+not probably be alone again for the whole summer."
+
+She sighed at the anticipation, and I echoed the sound. I was somebody
+now; but what a nobody I should dwindle into, in comparison with the
+daughters of wealth and fashion who would gather at Grandison Place!
+
+"Ernest must like you very much, Gabriella, or he would not show the
+interest he does in all that concerns you. You do not know what a
+compliment he pays you, because you have not seen him in company with
+other young girls. I have sometimes felt quite distressed at his
+indifference when they have been my guests. He has such a contempt for
+affectation and display, that he cannot entirely conceal it. He is not
+apt to express his opinion of any one, but there are indirect ways of
+discovering it. I found him this morning in the library, standing before
+that beautiful picture of the Italian flower girl, which you admire so
+much. He was so absorbed, that he did not perceive my entrance, till I
+stole behind him and laid my hand on his shoulder. 'Do you not see a
+likeness?' he asked. 'To whom?' 'To Gabriella.' 'To Gabriella!' I
+repeated. 'Yes, it is like her, but I never observed it before.' 'A very
+striking resemblance,' he said, 'only she has more mind in her face.'"
+
+"That enchanting picture like me!" I exclaimed, "impossible! There is,
+there can be no likeness. It is nothing but association. He knows I am
+the flower-girl of the house, and that is the reason he thought of me."
+
+I tried to speak with indifference, but my voice trembled with delight.
+
+The next morning, when I came in from the garden, all laden with
+flowers, an irresistible impulse drew me to the library. It was very
+early. The hush of repose still lingered over the household, and that
+particular apartment, in which the silent eloquence of books, paintings,
+and statues hung like a solemn spell, seemed in such deep quietude, I
+started at the light echo of my own footsteps.
+
+I stole with guilty consciousness towards the picture, in whose
+lineaments the fastidious eye of Ernest Linwood had traced a similitude
+to mine. They were all engraven on my memory, but now they possessed a
+new fascination; and I stood before it, gazing into the soft, dark
+depths of the eyes, in which innocent mildness and bashful tenderness
+were mingled like the _clare-obscure_ of an Italian moonlight; gazing on
+the dawning smile that seemed to play over the beautiful and glowing
+lips, and the bright, rich, dark hair, so carelessly, gracefully
+arranged you could almost see the balmy breezes of her native clime
+rustling amid the silken tresses; on the charming contour of the head
+and neck, slightly turned as if about to look back and give a parting
+glance at the garden she had reluctantly quitted.
+
+As I thus stood, with my hands loaded with blossoms, a flower basket
+suspended from my arm, and a straw hat such as shepherdesses wear, on my
+head,--my garden costume,--involuntarily imitating the attitude of the
+lovely flower girl, the door, which had been left ajar, silently opened,
+and Ernest Linwood entered.
+
+Had I been detected in the act of stealing or counterfeiting money, I
+could not have felt more intense shame. He knew what brought me there. I
+saw it in his penetrating eye, his half-suppressed smile; and, ready to
+sink with mortification, I covered my face with the roses I held in my
+hands.
+
+"Do you admire the picture?" he asked, advancing to where I stood; "do
+you perceive the resemblance?"
+
+I shook my head without answering; I was too much disconcerted to speak.
+What would he think of my despicable vanity, my more than childish
+foolishness?
+
+"I am glad to see we have congenial tastes," he said, with a smile in
+his voice. "I came on purpose to gaze on that charming representation of
+youth and innocence, without dreaming that its original was by it."
+
+"Original!" I repeated. "Surely you do mock me,--'t is but a fancy
+sketch,--and in nought but youth and flowers resembles me."
+
+"We cannot see ourselves, and it is well we cannot. The image reflected
+from the mirror is but a cold, faint shadow of the living, breathing
+soul. But why this deep confusion,--that averted face and downcast eye?
+Have I offended by my intrusion? Do you wish me to withdraw, and yield
+to you the privilege of solitary admiration?"
+
+"It is I who am the intruder," I answered, looking wistfully towards the
+door, through which I was tempted to rush at once. "I thought you had
+not risen,--I thought,--I came"--
+
+"And why did you come at this hour, Gabriella? and what has caused such
+excessive embarrassment? Will you not be ingenuous enough to tell me?"
+
+"I will," answered I, calmed by the gentle composure of his manner, "if
+you will assert that you do not know already."
+
+"I do not _know_, but I can _imagine_. Edith has betrayed my admiration
+of that picture. You came to justify my taste, and to establish beyond a
+doubt the truth of the likeness."
+
+"No, indeed! I did not; I cannot explain the impulse which led me
+hither. I only wish I had resisted it as I ought."
+
+I suppose I must have looked quite miserable, from the efforts he made
+to restore my self-complacency. He took the basket from my arm and
+placed it on the table, moved a chair forward for me, and another for
+himself, as if preparing for a morning _tête à tête_.
+
+"What would Mrs. Linwood say, if she saw me here at this early hour
+alone with her son?" thought I, obeying his motion, and tossing my hat
+on the light stairs that were winding up behind me. I did not fell the
+possibility of declining the interview, for there was a power about him
+which overmastered without their knowing it the will of others.
+
+"If you knew how much more pleasing is the innocent shame and artless
+sensibility you manifest, than the ease and assurance of the practised
+worldling, you would not blush for the impulse which drew you hither. To
+the sated taste and weary eye, simplicity and truth are refreshing as
+the spring-time of nature after its dreary winter. The cheek that
+blushes, the eye that moistens, and the heart that palpitates, are
+sureties of indwelling purity and candor. What a pity that they are as
+evanescent as the bloom of these flowers and the fragrance they exhale!
+You have never been in what is called the great world?"
+
+"Never. I passed one winter in Boston; but I was in deep mourning and
+did not go into society. Besides, your mother thought me too young. It
+was more than a year ago."
+
+"You will be considered old enough this winter. Do you not look forward
+with eager anticipations and bright hopes to the realization of youth's
+golden dreams?"
+
+"I as often look forward with dread as hope. I am told they who see much
+of the world, lose their faith in human virtue, their belief in
+sincerity, their implicit trust in what seems good and fair. All the
+pleasures of the world would not be an equivalent for the loss of
+these."
+
+"And do you possess all these now?"
+
+"I think I do. I am sure I ought. I have never yet been deceived. I
+should doubt that the setting sun would rise again, as soon as the truth
+of those who have professed to love me. Your mother, Edith--and"--
+
+"Richard Clyde," he added, with a smile, and that truth-searching glance
+which often brought unbidden words to my lips.
+
+"Yes; I have perfect reliance in his friendship."
+
+"And in his love," he added; "why not finish the sentence?"
+
+"Because I have no right to betray his confidence,--even supposing your
+assertion to be true. I have spoken of the only feeling, whose existence
+I am willing to admit, and even that was drawn from me. What if _I_ turn
+inquisitor?" said I, suddenly emboldened to look in his face. "Have
+_you_, who have seen so much more of life, experienced the chilling
+influences which you deprecate for me?"
+
+"I am naturally suspicious and distrustful," he answered. "Have you
+never been told so?"
+
+"If I have, it required your own assertion to make me believe it."
+
+"Do you not see the shadow on my brow? It has been there since my cradle
+hours. It was born with me, and is a part of myself,--just as much as
+the shadow I cast upon the sunshine. I can no more remove it than I
+could the thunder-cloud from Jehovah's arch."
+
+I trembled at the strength of his language, and it seemed as if the
+shadow were stealing over my own soul. His employment was prophetic. He
+was pulling the rose-leaves from my basket, and scattering them
+unconsciously on the floor.
+
+"See what I have done," said he, looking down on the wreck.
+
+"So the roses of confidence are scattered and destroyed by the cruel
+hand of mistrust," cried I, stooping to gather the fallen petals.
+
+"Let them be," said he, sadly, "you cannot restore them."
+
+"I know it; but I can remove the ruins."
+
+I was quite distressed at the turn the conversation had taken. I could
+not bear to think that one to whom the Creator had been so bountiful of
+his gifts, should appreciate so little the blessings given. He, to talk
+of shadows, in the blazing noonday of fortune; to pant with thirst, when
+wave swelling after wave of pure crystal water wooed with refreshing
+coolness his meeting lips.
+
+Oh, starver in the midst of God's plenty! think of the wretched sons of
+famine, and be wise.
+
+"You must have a strange power over me," said he, rising and walking to
+one of the alcoves, in which the books were arranged. "Seldom indeed do
+I allude to my own individuality. Forget it. I have been very happy
+lately. My soul, like a high mountain, lifts itself into the sunshine,
+leaving the vapors and clouds rolling below. I have been breathing an
+atmosphere pure and fresh as the world's first morning, redolent with
+the fragrance of Eden's virgin blossoms."
+
+He paused a moment, then approaching his own portrait, glanced from it
+to the flower girl, and back again from the flower girl to his own
+image.
+
+"Clouds and sunshine," he exclaimed, "flowers and thorns; such is the
+union nature loves. And is it not well? Clouds temper the dazzle of the
+sunbeams,--thorns protect the tender flowers. Have you read many of
+these books?" he asked, with a sudden transition.
+
+"A great many," I answered, unspeakably relieved to hear him resume his
+natural tone and manner; "too many for my mind's good."
+
+"How so? These are all select works,--golden sheaves of knowledge,
+gathered from the chaff and bound by the reaping hand."
+
+"I mean that I cannot read with moderation. My rapid eye takes in more
+than my judgment can criticize or my memory retain. That is one reason
+why I like to hear another read. Sound does not travel with the rapidity
+of light, and then the echo lingers in the ear."
+
+"Yes. It is charming when the eye of one and the ear of another dwell in
+sympathy on the same inspiring sentiments; when the reader, glowing with
+enthusiasm, turns from the page before him to a living page, printed by
+the hand of God, in fair, divine characters. It is like looking from the
+shining heavens to a clear, crystallized stream, and seeing its glories
+reflected there, and our own image likewise, tremulously bright."
+
+"Oh!" thought I, "how many times have I thus listened; but has he ever
+thus read?"
+
+I wish I could recollect all the conversation of the morning,--it was so
+rich and varied. I sat, unconscious of the fading flowers and the
+passing moments; unconscious of the faint vibration of that _deep, under
+chord_, which breathes in low, passionate strains, life's tender and
+pathetic mirror.
+
+"I am glad you like this room," he continued. "Here you can sit, queen
+of the past, surrounded by beings more glorious than those that walk the
+earth or dwell in air or sea. You travel not, yet the wonders of earth's
+various climes are around and about you. Buried cities are exhumed at
+your bidding, and their dim palaces glitter once more with burning gold.
+And here, above all the Eleusinian mysteries of the human heart are laid
+bare, without the necessity of revealing your own. But I am detaining
+you too long. Your languid blossoms reproach me. When you come here
+again, do not forget that we have here thought and felt in unison."
+
+Just as he was leaving the library, Mrs. Linwood entered. She started on
+seeing him, and her eye rested on me with an anxious, troubled look.
+
+"You are become an early riser, my son," she said.
+
+"You encourage so excellent a habit, do you not, my mother?"
+
+"Certainly; but it seems to me a walk in the fresh morning air would be
+more health-giving than a seat within walls, damp with the mould of
+antiquity."
+
+"We have brought the dewy morning within doors," said he; while I,
+gathering flowers, basket, and hat, waited for Mrs. Linwood to move,
+that I might leave the room. She stood between me and the threshold, and
+for the first time I noticed in her face a resemblance to her son. It
+might be because a slight cloud rested on her brow.
+
+"You will not have time to arrange your flowers this morning," she
+gravely observed to me. "It is almost the breakfast hour, and you are
+still in your garden costume."
+
+My eyes bowed beneath her mildly rebuking glance, and the fear of her
+displeasure chilled the warm rapture which had left its glow upon my
+cheek.
+
+"Let me assist you," he cried, in an animated tone. "It was I who
+encroached on your time, and must bear the blame, if blame indeed there
+be. There is a homely proverb, that 'many hands make light work.' Come,
+let us prove its truth."
+
+I thought Mrs. Linwood sighed, as he followed me into the drawing-room,
+and with quick, graceful fingers, made ample amends for the negligence
+be had caused. His light, careless manner restored me to ease, and at
+breakfast Mrs. Linwood's countenance wore its usual expression of calm
+benevolence.
+
+Had I done wrong? I had sought no clandestine interview. Why should I?
+It was foolish to wish to look at the beautiful flower girl; but it was
+a natural, innocent wish, born of something purer and better than vanity
+and self-love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+I lingered after school was dismissed, to ask permission of Mr. Regulus
+to attend the commencement. It was Mrs. Linwood's wish, and of course a
+law to me.
+
+"Will you release me one week before the session closes?" I asked, "Mrs.
+Linwood does not wish to leave me behind, but I do not care much to go."
+
+"Of course I will release you, my child, but it will seem as if the
+flower season were past when you are gone. I wonder now, how I ever
+taught without your assistance. I wonder what I shall do when you leave
+me?"
+
+"Mrs. Linwood wished me to say to you," said I, quite touched by his
+kind, affectionate manner, "that she does not wish me to renew our
+engagement. She will take me to town next winter, satisfied for the
+present with the discipline I have experienced under your guardian
+care."
+
+"So soon!" he exclaimed, "I was not prepared for this."
+
+"So soon, Mr. Regulus? I have been with you one long year."
+
+"It may have seemed long to you, but it has been short as a dream to me.
+A very pleasant time has it been, too pleasant to last."
+
+He took up his dark, formidable ferula, and leaned his forehead
+thoughtfully upon it.
+
+"And it has been pleasant to me, Mr. Regulus. I dreaded it very much at
+first, but every step I have taken in the path of instruction has been
+made smooth and green beneath my feet. No dull, lagging hour has dragged
+me backward in my daily duties. The dear children have been good and
+affectionate, and you, my dear master, have crowned me with loving
+kindness from day to day. How shall I convince you of my gratitude, and
+what return can I make for your even parental care?"
+
+I spoke earnestly, for my heart was in my words. His unvarying
+gentleness and tenderness to me, (since that one fiery shower that
+converted for a time the Castalian fountain into a Dead Sea,) had won my
+sincere and deep regard. He had seemed lately rather more reserved than
+usual, and I valued still more his undisguised expressions of interest
+and affection.
+
+"You owe me nothing," said he, and I could not help noticing an unwonted
+trepidation in his manner, and on one sallow cheek a deep flush was
+spreading. "Long years of kindness, tenfold to mine, could not atone for
+the harshness and injustice of which I was once guilty. You will go into
+the world and blush like Waller's rose, to be so admired. You will be
+surrounded by new friends, new lovers, and look back to these walls as
+to a prison-house, and to me, as the grim jailer of your youth."
+
+"No indeed, Mr. Regulus; you wrong yourself and me. Memory will hang
+many a sweet garland on these classic walls, and will turn gratefully to
+you, as the benefactor of my childhood, the mentor of my growing years."
+
+My voice choked. A strange dread took possession of me, he looked so
+agitated, so little like himself. His hand trembled so that it dropped
+the ruler, that powerful hand, in whose strong grasp I had seen the pale
+delinquent writhe in terror. I hardly know what I dreaded, but the air
+seemed thick and oppressive, and I longed to escape into the open
+sunshine.
+
+"Gabriella, my child," said he, "wait one moment. I did not think it
+would require so much courage to confess so much weakness. I have been
+indulging in dreams so wild, yet so sweet, that I fear to breathe them,
+knowing that I must wake to the cold realities of life. I know not how
+it is, but you have twined yourself about my heart so gradually, so
+gently, but so strongly, that I cannot separate you from it. A young and
+fragrant vine, you have covered it with beauty and freshness. You have
+diffused within it an atmosphere of spring. You thought the cold
+mathematician, the stern philosopher could not feel, but I tell thee,
+child, we are the very ones that _can_ and _do_ feel. There is as much
+difference between our love and the boyish passion which passes for
+love, as there is between the flash of the glowworm and the welding heat
+that fuses bars of steel. Oh! Gabriella, do not laugh at this
+confession, or deem it lightly made. I hope nothing,--I ask nothing; and
+yet if you could,--if you would trust your orphan youth to my keeping, I
+would guard it as the most sacred trust God ever gave to man."
+
+He paused from intense emotion, and wiped the drops of perspiration from
+his forehead, while I stood ready to sink with shame and sorrow. No glow
+of triumph, no elation of grateful vanity warmed my heart, or exalted my
+pride. I felt humbled, depressed. Where I had been accustomed to look up
+with respect, I could not bear to look down in pity, it was so strange,
+so unexpected. I was stunned, bewildered. The mountain had lost its
+crown,--it had fallen in an avalanche at my feet.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Regulus!" said I, when I at last liberated my imprisoned voice,
+"you honor me too much. I never dreamed of such a,--such a distinction.
+I am not worthy of it,--indeed I am not. It makes me very unhappy to
+think of your cherishing such feelings for me, who have looked up to you
+so long with so much veneration and respect. I will always esteem and
+revere you, dear Mr. Regulus,--always think of you with gratitude and
+affection; but do not, I entreat you, ever allude again to any other
+sentiment. You do not know how very miserable it makes me."
+
+I tried to express myself in the gentlest manner possible, but the poor
+man had lost all command of his feelings. He had confined them in his
+breast so long, that the moment he released them, they swelled and rose
+like the genius liberated from the chest of the fisherman, and refused
+to return to the prison-house they had quitted. His brows contracted,
+his lips quivered, and turning aside with a spasmodic gesture, he
+covered his face with his handkerchief.
+
+I could not bear this,--it quite broke my heart. I felt as remorseful as
+if every tear he was hiding was a drop of blood. Walking hastily to him,
+and laying my hand on his arm, I exclaimed,--
+
+"Don't, my dear master!" and burst into tears myself.
+
+How foolish we must have appeared to a bystander, who knew the cause of
+our tears,--one weeping that he loved too well, the other that she could
+not love in return. How ridiculous to an uninterested person would that
+tall, awkward, grave man seem, in love with a young girl so much his
+junior, so childlike and so unconscious of the influence she had
+acquired.
+
+"How foolish this is!" cried he, as if participating in these
+sentiments. Then removing the handkerchief from his face, he ran his
+fingers vigorously through his hair, till it stood up frantically round
+his brow, drew the sleeves of his coat strenuously over his wrists, and
+straightening himself to his tall height, seemed resolved to be a man
+once more. I smiled afterwards, when I recollected his figure; but I did
+not then,--thank heaven, I did not smile then,--I would not have done it
+for "the crown the Bourbons lost."
+
+Anxious to close a scene so painful, I approached the door though with a
+lingering, hesitating step. I wanted to say something, but knew not what
+to utter.
+
+"You will let me be your friend still," said he, taking my hand in both
+his. "You will not think worse of me, for a weakness which has so much
+to excuse it. And, Gabriella, my dear child, should the time ever come,
+when you need a friend and counsellor, should the sky so bright now be
+darkened with clouds, remember there is one who would willingly die to
+save you from sorrow or evil. Will you remember this?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Regulus, how could I forget it?"
+
+"There are those younger and more attractive," he continued, "who may
+profess more, and yet feel less. I would not, however, be unjust. God
+save me from the meanness of envy, the baseness of jealousy. I fear I
+did not do justice to young Clyde, when I warned you of his attentions.
+I believe he is a highly honorable young man. Ernest Linwood,"--he
+paused, and his shaded eyes sought mine, with a glance of penetrating
+power,--"is, I am told, a man of rare and fascinating qualities. He is
+rich beyond his need, and will occupy a splendid position in the social
+world. His mother will probably have very exalted views with regard to
+the connections he may form. Forgive me if I am trespassing on forbidden
+ground. I did not mean,--I have no right,"--
+
+He stopped, for my confusion was contagious. My face crimsoned, even my
+fingers were suffused with the rosy hue of shame. Nor was it shame
+alone. Indignation mingled with it its deeper dye.
+
+"If you suppose, Mr. Regulus," said I, in a wounded and excited tone,
+"that _I_ have any aspirations, that would conflict with Mrs. Linwood's
+ambitious views, you wrong me very much. Oh! if I thought that he, that
+she, that you, or anybody in the world could believe such a thing"--
+
+I could not utter another word. I remembered Mrs. Linwood's countenance
+when she entered the library. I remembered many things, which might
+corroborate my fears.
+
+"You are as guileless as the unweaned lamb, Gabriella, and long, long
+may you remain so," he answered, with a gentleness that disarmed my
+anger. "Mine was an unprompted suggestion, about as wise, I perceive, as
+my remarks usually are. I am a sad blunderer. May heaven pardon the pain
+I have caused, for the sake of my pure intentions. I do not believe it
+possible for a designing thought to enter your mind, or a feeling to
+find admittance into your heart, that angels might not cherish. But you
+are so young and inexperienced, so unsuspecting and confiding;--but no
+matter, God bless you, and keep you forever under his most holy
+guardianship!"
+
+Wringing my hand so hard that it ached long afterwards, he turned away,
+and descended the steps more rapidly than he had ever done before. In
+his excitement he forgot his hat, and was pursuing his way bareheaded,
+through the sunny atmosphere.
+
+"He must not go through town in that way, for the boys to laugh at him,"
+thought I, catching up his hat and running to the door.
+
+"Mr. Regulus!" I cried, waving it above my head, to attract his
+attention.
+
+He started, turned, saw the hat, run his fingers through his long hair,
+smiled, and came back. I met him more than half way.
+
+"I did not know that I had left my head, as well as my heart behind,"
+said he, with a sickly effort to be facetious; "thank you, God bless you
+once again."
+
+With another iron pressure of my aching hand, he dashed his hat on his
+lion-like head and left me.
+
+I walked home as one in a dream, wondering if this interview were real
+or ideal; wondering if the juice of the milk-white flower, "made purple
+by love's wand," had been squeezed by fairy fingers into the eyes of my
+preceptor, in his slumbering hours, to cause this strange passion;
+wondering why the spirit of love, like the summer wind, stealing softly
+through the whispering boughs, breathes where it listeth, and we cannot
+tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; and wondering most of all
+if--but I cannot describe the thoughts that drifted through my mind,
+vague and changing as the clouds that went hurrying after each other
+over the deep blue ether.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Commencement day!--a day of feverish anxiety and excitement to the young
+student, who is to step forth before the public eye, a candidate for the
+laurels of fame;--a day of weariness and stiffness to the dignified
+professors, obliged to sit hour after hour, listening to the florid
+eloquence whose luxuriance they have in vain attempted to prune, or
+trying to listen while the spirit yawns and stretches itself to its
+drowsy length;--a day of intense interest to the young maiden, who sees
+among the youthful band of aspirants one who is the "bright particular
+star" round which her pure and trembling hopes revolve.
+
+It was a day of excitement to me, for every thing was novel, and
+therefore interesting. It was the first time I had ever been in a dense
+crowd, and I felt the electric fluid, always collected where the great
+heart of humanity is throbbing, thrilling in my veins, and ready to
+flash at the master-stroke of eloquence. I was dazzled by the brilliant
+display of beauty and fashion that lighted up the classic walls as with
+living sunbeams. Such clusters of mimic blossoms and flowing ringlets
+wreathed together round fair, blooming faces; such a cloud of soft, airy
+drapery floating over lithe figures, swaying forward like light boughs
+agitated by the wind; such a fluttering of snowy fans, making the cool,
+pleasant sound of rain drops pattering among April leaves; such bright
+eager eyes, turned at every sounding step towards the open door,--I had
+never looked upon the like before. I sat in a dream of delight, without
+thinking that it might be thought vulgar to _appear_ delighted, and
+still more to express undisguised admiration.
+
+I dared not look to the platform, where the faculty and students were
+arranged in imposing ranks, for there was one pair of familiar,
+sparkling eyes, that were sure to beat mine back with their steadfast
+gaze. I did not like this persevering scrutiny, for I was sure it would
+attract the attention of others, and then draw it on myself. He had
+grown taller, Richard Clyde had, since I had seen him, his countenance
+was more manly, his manner more polished. He had been with us the
+evening before, but the room was crowded with company, and I was careful
+not to give him a moment's opportunity of speaking to me alone. But I
+read too well in his sincere and earnest eyes, that time had wrought no
+change in the fervor of his feelings, or the constancy of his
+attachment.
+
+Mrs. Linwood, though surrounded by friends of the most distinguished
+character, honored him by signal marks of attention. I was proud of him
+as a friend. Why did he wish to be more?
+
+"What a fine young man Clyde is!" I heard some one remark who sat behind
+us. "It is said he is the most promising student in the university."
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "I have heard that several wealthy gentlemen in
+Boston are going to send him to Europe to complete his education, as his
+own income will not allow him to incur the expense."
+
+"That is a great compliment," observed the first voice, "and I
+have no doubt he deserves it. They say, too, that he is betrothed
+to a young girl in the country, very pretty, but in most indigent
+circumstances,--an early attachment,--children's romance."
+
+Was it possible that village gossip had reached these venerable walls?
+But hark to the other voice.
+
+"I have heard so, but they say she has been adopted by a rich lady,
+whose name I have forgotten. Her own mother was of very mysterious and
+disreputable character, I am told, whom no one visited or respected.
+Quite an outcast."
+
+I started as if an arrow had passed through my ears, or rather entered
+them, for it seemed quivering there. Never before had I heard one
+sullying word breathed on the spotless snow of my mother's character. Is
+it strange that the cold, venomous tongue of slander, hissing at my very
+back, should make me shudder and recoil as if a serpent were there?
+
+A hand touched my shoulder, lightly, gently, but I knew its touch,
+though never felt but once before. I looked up involuntarily, and met
+the eyes of Ernest Linwood, who was standing close to the seat I
+occupied. I did not know he was there. He had wedged the crowd silently,
+gradually, till he reached the spot he had quitted soon after our
+entrance, to greet his former class mates. I knew by his countenance
+that he had heard all, and a sick, deadly feeling came over me. He, to
+hear my mother's name made a byword and reproach, myself alluded to as
+the indigent daughter of an outcast,--he, who seemed already lifted as
+high above me on the eagle wings of fortune, as the eyry of the
+king-bird is above the nest of the swallow,--it was more than I could
+bear.
+
+I said I knew by his countenance that he had heard all. I never saw such
+an expression as his face wore,--such burning indignation, such
+withering scorn. I trembled to think of the central fires from which
+such flames darted. As he caught my glance, an instantaneous change came
+over it. Compassion softened every lineament. Still his eye of power
+held me down. It said, "be quiet, be calm,--I am near, be not afraid."
+
+"I wish I could get you a glass of water," said he, in a low voice, for
+I suppose I looked deadly pale; "but it would be impossible I fear in
+this crowd,--the aisles are impenetrable."
+
+"Thank you," I answered, "there is no need,--but if I could only leave."
+
+I looked despairingly at the masses of living beings on every side,
+crowding the pews, filling the aisles, standing on the window-sills, on
+the tops of the pews, leaning from the gallery,--and felt that I was a
+prisoner. The sultry air of August, confined in the chapel walls, and
+deprived of its vital principle by so many heaving lungs, weighed
+oppressively on mine. I could feel behind me the breathing of the lips
+of slander, and it literally seemed to scorch me. Ernest took my fan
+from my hand and fanned me without intermission, or I think I must have
+fainted.
+
+As I sat with downcast eyes, whose drooping lashes were heavy with
+unshed tears, I saw a glass of water held before me by an unsteady hand.
+I looked up and saw Richard Clyde, his student's robe of flowing black
+silk gathered up by his left arm, who had literally forced his way
+through a triple row of men. We were very near the platform, there being
+but one row of pews between.
+
+I drank the water eagerly, gratefully. Even before those blistering
+words were uttered, I had felt as if a glass of cold water would be
+worth all the gems of the East; now it was life itself.
+
+"Are you ill, Gabriella?" whispered Mrs. Linwood, who with Edith sat
+directly in front, and whose eyes had watched anxiously the motions of
+Richard. "Ah! I see this heat is killing you."
+
+"_That is she_, I do believe," hissed the serpent tongue behind me.
+
+"Hush, she may hear you."
+
+All was again still around me, the stillness of the multitudinous sea,
+for every wave of life heaved restlessly, producing a kind of murmur,
+like that of rustling leaves in an autumnal forest. Then a sound loud as
+the thunders of the roaring ocean came rushing on the air. It was the
+burst of acclamation which greeted Richard Clyde, first in honor though
+last in time. I bent my ear to listen, but the words blent confusedly
+together, forming one wave of utterance, that rolled on without leaving
+one idea behind. I knew he was eloquent, from the enthusiastic applause
+which occasionally interrupted him, but I had lost the power of
+perception; and had Demosthenes risen from his grave, it would scarcely
+have excited in me any emotion.
+
+Was this my introduction to that world,--that great world, of which I
+had heard and thought and dreamed so much? How soon had my garlands
+faded,--my fine gold become dim! Could they not have spared me one day,
+_me_, who had never injured them? And yet they might aim their barbed
+darts at me. I would not care for that,--oh, no, it was not that. It was
+the blow that attacked an angel mother's fame. O my mother! could they
+not spare thee even in thy grave, where the wicked are said to cease
+from troubling and the weary are at rest? Could they not let thee sleep
+in peace, thou tempest-tost and weary hearted, even in the dark and
+narrow house, sacred from the footstep of the living?
+
+Another thundering burst of applause called my spirit from the
+grass-grown sod, made damp and green by the willow's shade, to the
+crowded church and the bustle and confusion of life. Then followed the
+presentation of the parchment rolls and the ceremonies usual at the
+winding up of this time-honored day. It all seemed like unmeaning
+mummery to me. The majestic president, with his little flat black cap,
+set like a tile on the top of his head, was a man of pasteboard and
+springs, and even the beautiful figures that lighted up the walls had
+lost their coloring and life. There was, indeed, a wondrous change,
+independent of that within my own soul. The excessive heat had wilted
+these flowers of loveliness and faded their bright hues. Their uncurled
+ringlets hung dangling down their cheeks, whose roses were heightened to
+an unbecoming crimson, or withered to a sickly pallor; their gossamer
+drapery, deprived of its delicate stiffening, flapped like the loose
+sails of a vessel wet by the spray. Here and there was a blooming
+maiden, still as fair and cool as if sprinkled with dew, round whom the
+atmosphere seemed refreshed as by the sparkling of a _jet d'eau_. These,
+like myself, were novices, who had brought with them the dewy innocence
+of life's morning hours; but they had not, like me, heard the hissing of
+the adder among their roses.
+
+"Be calm,--be courageous," said Ernest, in a scarcely audible tone, as
+bending down he gave the fan into my hand; "the arrow rebounds from an
+impenetrable surface."
+
+As we turned to leave the church, I felt my hand drawn round the arm of
+Richard Clyde. How he had cleft the living mass so quickly I could not
+tell; but he had made his way where an arrow could hardly penetrate. I
+looked round for Edith,--but Ernest watched over her, like an earthly
+providence. My backward glance to her prevented my seeing the faces of
+those who were seated behind me. But what mattered it? They were
+strangers, and heaven grant that they would ever remain so.
+
+"Are you entirely recovered?" asked Richard, in an anxious tone. "I
+never saw any one's countenance change so instantaneously as yours. You
+were as white as your cambric handkerchief. You are not accustomed to
+such stifling crowds, where we seem plunged in an exhausted receiver."
+
+"I never wish to be in such another," I answered, with emphasis. "I
+never care to leave home again."
+
+"I am sorry your first impressions should have been so
+disagreeable,--but I hope you have been interested in some small degree.
+You do not know what inspiration there was in your presence. At first, I
+thought I would rather be shot from the cannon's mouth than speak in
+your hearing; but after the first shock, you were like a fountain of
+living waters playing on my soul."
+
+Poor Richard! how could I tell him that I had not heard understandingly
+one sentence that he uttered? or how could I explain the cause of my
+mental distraction? He had cast his pearls to the wind; his diamonds to
+the sand.
+
+Mrs. Linwood was a guest of the president, who was an intimate and
+valued friend. I would have given worlds for a little solitary nook,
+where I could hide myself from every eye; for a seat beneath the wild
+oaks that girdled the cottage of my childhood; but the house was
+thronged with the literati of the State, and wherever I turned I met the
+gaze of strangers. If I could have seen Mrs. Linwood alone, or Edith
+alone, and told them how wantonly, how cruelly my feelings had been
+wounded, it would have relieved the fulness, the oppression of my heart.
+But that was impossible. Mrs. Linwood's commanding social position, her
+uncommon and varied powers of conversation, the excellence and dignity
+of her character, made her the cynosure of the literary circle. Edith,
+too, from her exquisite loveliness, the sweetness of her disposition,
+and her personal misfortune, which endeared her to her friends by the
+tenderness and sympathy it excited, was a universal favorite; and all
+these attractive qualities in both were gilded and enhanced by the
+wealth which enabled them to impart, even more than they received. They
+were at home here,--they were in the midst of friends, whose society was
+congenial to their tastes, and I resolved, whatever I might suffer, not
+to mar their enjoyment by my selfish griefs. Ernest had heard
+all,--perhaps he believed all. He did not know my mother. He had never
+seen that face of heavenly purity and holy sorrow. Why should he not
+believe?
+
+One thing I could do. I could excuse myself from dinner and thus secure
+an hour's quietude. I gave no false plea, when I urged a violent
+headache as the reason for my seclusion. My temples ached and throbbed
+as if trying to burst from a metallic band, and the sun rays, though
+sifted through curtains of folding lace, fell like needle points on my
+shrinking eyes.
+
+"Poor Gabriella!" said Edith, laying her cool soft hand on my hot brow,
+"I did not think you were such a tender, green-house plant. I cannot
+bear to leave you here, when you could enjoy such an intellectual
+banquet below. Let me stay with you. I fear you are really very ill. How
+unfortunate!"
+
+"No, no, dear Edith; you must not think of such a thing. Just close
+those blinds, and give me that fan, and I shall be very comfortable
+here. If possible let no one come in. If I could sleep, this paroxysm
+will pass over."
+
+"There, sleep if you can, dear Gabriella, and be bright for the evening
+party. You knew the dresses mamma gave us for the occasion, both alike.
+I could not think of wearing mine, unless you were with me,--and you
+look so charmingly in white!"
+
+Edith had such a sweet, coaxing way with her, she magnetized pain and
+subdued self-distrust. The mere touch of her gentle hand had allayed the
+fever of my brain, and one glance of her loving blue eye tempered the
+anguish of my spirit. She lingered, unwilling to leave me,--drew the
+blinds together, making a soft twilight amid the glare of day, saturated
+my handkerchief with cologne and laid it on my temples, and placing a
+beautiful bouquet of flowers, an offering to herself, on my pillow,
+kissed me, and left me.
+
+I watched the sound of her retreating footsteps, or rather of her
+crutches, till they were no longer heard; then burying my face in my
+pillow, the sultry anguish of my heart was drenched in tears. Oh! what a
+relieving shower! It was the thunder-shower of the tropics, not the
+slow, drizzling rain of colder climes. I wept till the pillow was as wet
+as the turf on which the heavens have been weeping. I clasped it to my
+bosom as a shield against invisible foes, but there was no _sympathy_ in
+its downy softness. I sighed for a pillow beneath whose gentle heavings
+the heart of human kindness beats, I yearned to lay my head on a
+mother's breast. Yea, cold and breathless as it was now, beneath the
+clods of the valley, it would still be a sacred resting-place to me. The
+long pressure of the grave-sods could not crush out the impression of
+that love, stronger than death, deeper than the grave.
+
+Had the time arrived when I might claim the manuscript, left as a
+hallowed legacy to the orphan, who had no other inheritance? Had I
+awakened to the knowledge of woman's destiny to love and suffer? Dare I
+ask myself this question? Through the morning twilight of my heart, was
+not a star trembling, whose silver rays would never be quenched, save in
+the nightshades of death? Was it not time to listen to the warning
+voice, whose accents, echoing from the tomb, must have the power and
+grandeur of prophecy? Yes! I would ask Mrs. Linwood for my mother's
+history, as soon as we returned to Grandison Place; and if I found the
+shadow of disgrace rested on the memory of her I so loved and
+worshipped, I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, to avoid
+that searching eye, which, next to the glance of Omnipotence, I would
+shun in guilt and shame.
+
+"They say!" Who are _they_? who are the cowled monks, the hooded friars
+who glide with shrouded faces in the procession of life, muttering in an
+unknown tongue words of mysterious import? Who are _they_? the midnight
+assassins of reputation, who lurk in the by-lanes of society, with
+dagger tongues sharpened by invention and envenomed by malice, to draw
+the blood of innocence, and, hyena-like, banquet on the dead? Who are
+_they_? They are a multitude no man can number, black-stoled familiars
+of the inquisition of slander, searching for victims in every city,
+town, and village, wherever the heart of humanity throbs, or the ashes
+of mortality find rest.
+
+Oh, coward, coward world--skulkers! Give me the bold brigand, who
+thunders along the highways with flashing weapon that cuts the sunbeams
+as well as the shades. Give me the pirate, who _unfurls_ the black flag,
+emblem of his terrible trade, and _shows_ the plank which your doomed
+feet must tread; but save me from the _they-sayers_ of society, whose
+knives are hidden in a velvet sheath, whose bridge of death, is woven of
+flowers; and who spread, with invisible poison, even the spotless
+whiteness of the winding-sheet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+"Gabriella, awake!"
+
+"Mother, is the day dawning?"
+
+"My child, the sun is near his setting; you have slumbered long."
+
+I dreamed it was my mother's voice that awakened me,--then it seemed the
+voice of Richard Clyde, and I was lying under the great shadow of the
+oak, where he had found me years before half drowned in tears.
+
+"Gabriella, my dear,--it is time to dress for the evening."
+
+This time I recognized the accents of Mrs. Linwood, and I rose at once
+to a sitting position, wondering if it were the rising or the declining
+day that shone around me. Sleep had left its down on my harassed
+spirits, and its balm on my aching head. I felt languid, but tranquil;
+and when Mrs. Linwood affectionately but decidedly urged upon me the
+necessity of rising and preparing to descend to the drawing-room, I
+submissively obeyed. She must have seen that I had been in tears, but
+she made no allusion to them. Her manner was unusually kind and tender;
+but there was an expression in her serene but commanding eye, that bade
+me rise superior to the weakness that had subdued me. Had her son spoken
+of the cause of my emotion?
+
+A few moments after, Edith entered, and her mother rejoined her friends
+below.
+
+Edith held in her hand a fresh bouquet of the most exquisite green-house
+plants, among which the scarlet geranium exhibited its glowing blossoms.
+She held it towards me, turned it like a prism in various directions to
+catch the changing rays, while its odoriferous breath perfumed the whole
+apartment.
+
+"I am glad you have another, Edith," I said, looking at the wilted
+flowers on my pillow. "These have fulfilled their mission most sweetly.
+I have no doubt they inspired soothing dreams, though I cannot remember
+them distinctly."
+
+"Oh! these are _yours_," she answered, "sent by a friend who was quite
+distressed at your absence from the dinner-table. Cannot you guess the
+donor?"
+
+"It will not require much acuteness," replied I, taking the flowers, and
+though I could not help admiring their beauty, and feeling grateful for
+the attention, a shade of regret clouded their welcome; "I have so few
+friends it is easy to conjecture who thus administers to my
+gratification."
+
+"Well, who is it? You do not hazard the utterance of the name."
+
+"No one but Richard Clyde would think of giving me a token like this.
+They are very, _very_ sweet, and yet I wish he had not sent them."
+
+"Ungrateful Gabriella! No one but Richard! A host of common beings
+melted into one, could not make the equal of the friend who made me the
+bearer of this charming offering. Is the gift of Ernest greeted with
+such indifference?"
+
+"Ernest!" I repeated, and the blood bounded in my veins like a stream
+leaping over a mountain rock. "Is he indeed so kind?"
+
+I bent my head over the beautiful messengers, to hide the joy too deep
+for words, the gratitude too intense for the gift. As I thus looked down
+into the heart of the flowers, I caught a glimpse of something white
+folded among the green leaves. Edith's back was turned as she smoothed
+the folds of an India muslin dress that lay upon the bed. I drew out the
+paper with a tremulous hand, and read these few pencilled words:--
+
+"Sweet flower girl of the north! be not cast down. The most noxious wind
+changes not the purity of marble; neither can an idle breath shake the
+confidence born of unsullied innocence."
+
+These words pencilled by his own hand, were addressed to _me_. They were
+embalmed in fragrance and imbedded in bloom, and henceforth they were
+engraven on tablets on which the hand of man had never before traced a
+character, which the whole world might not peruse.
+
+Oh, what magic there was in those little words! Slander had lost its
+sting, and malice its venom, at least for the present hour. I put the
+talisman in my bosom and the flowers in water,--for _they_ might fade.
+
+There was no one in the room but Edith and myself. She sat on the side
+of the bed, a cloud of white fleecy drapery floating over her lap; a
+golden arrow, the very last in the day, God's quiver darted through the
+half-open blinds into the clusters of her fair ringlets. She was the
+most unaffected of human beings, and yet her every attitude was the
+perfection of grace, as if she sat as a model to the sculptor. I thought
+there was a shade of sadness on her brow. Perhaps she had seen me
+conceal the note, and imagined something clandestine and mysterious
+between me and her brother, that brother whose exclusive devotion had
+constituted the chief happiness of her life. Though it was a simple
+note, and the words were few, intended only to comfort and sustain, they
+were of such priceless value to me, I could not bear that even Edith's
+eye should become familiar with its contents. But her love and
+confidence were too dear to be sacrificed to a refinement of romance.
+
+"Dear Edith," said I, putting the note in her hand, and an arm round her
+neck, "it was a gift of consolation you brought me;" and then I told her
+all that I had over-heard, and of the exceeding bitterness of my
+anguish.
+
+"I know it,--mamma and I both know it,--brother told us. I did not speak
+of it, for you looked as if you had forgotten it after I came in, and I
+did not wish you to recall it. You must forget it, indeed you must. Such
+cruel insinuations can never alienate from you the friends who love you.
+They rather bind you closer to our hearts. Come, we have no time to
+lose. You know we must assist each other."
+
+I insisted on being her handmaid first, and lingered over her toilet
+till she literally escaped from my hands and drew behind the lace
+curtains like a star behind a cloud. Our dresses were alike, as the
+generous Edith had willed. They were of the most exquisite India muslin,
+simply but elegantly decorated with the finest of lace. I had never
+before been arrayed for an evening party, and as the gauzy fulness of
+drapery fell so softly and redundantly over the form I had been
+accustomed to see in the sad-colored robes of mourning, I hardly
+recognized my own lineaments. There was something so light, so ethereal
+and graceful in the dress, my spirit caught its airiness and seemed
+borne upwards as on wings of down. I was about to clasp on my precious
+necklace and bracelets of hair, when observing Edith's beautiful pearl
+ornaments, corresponding so well with the delicacy and whiteness of her
+apparel, I laid them aside, resolving to wear no added decoration but
+the flowers, consecrated as the gift of Ernest.
+
+"Come here, Gabriella, let me arrange that fall of lace behind," said
+Edith, extending a beautiful arm, on which the pearl-drops lay like dew
+on a lily. Both arms passed round my neck, and I found it encircled like
+her own with pearls. Then turning me round, she clasped first one arm,
+and then the other with fairy links of pearl, and then she flung a
+roseate of these ocean flowers round my head, smiling all the time and
+uttering exclamations of delighted admiration.
+
+"Now don't cry, Gabriella dear. You look so cool--so fair--so like a
+snowdrop glittering with dew. And don't put your arms round my neck,
+beautiful as they are, quite so close. You will spoil my lace, darling.
+You must just wear and keep the pearls for the love of me. Mamma
+sanctions the gift, so you need have no scruples about accepting them.
+Remember, now, we must have no more _diamonds_, not one, though of the
+purest water and sparkling in heaven's own setting."
+
+What could I say, in answer to such abounding kindness? In spite of her
+prohibition the diamonds would mingle with the pearls; but the sunbeams
+shone on them both.
+
+What a day had this been to me! It seemed as if I had lived years in the
+short space of a few hours. I had never felt so utterly miserable, not
+even over my mother's new made grave. I had never felt so supremely
+happy,--so buoyant with hope and joy. The flowers of Ernest, the pearls
+of Edith, came to me with a message as gladdening as that which waked
+the silver harp-strings of the morning stars. I did not, I dared not
+misunderstand the meaning of the first. They were sent as balm to a
+wounded spirit; as breathers of hope to the ear of despair; but it was
+_his_ hand that administered the balm; _his_ spirit that inspired the
+strain.
+
+"How radiant you look, Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, her sweet blue eyes
+resting on me with affectionate delight. "I am so glad to see you come
+out of the cloud. Now you justify our _pride_ as well as our affection."
+
+"But I--but all of us look so earthly at your side, Edith"--
+
+"Hush! flatterer--and yet, who would not prefer the beauty of earth, to
+the cold idealism of spirit loveliness? I have never sought the
+admiration of men. If I look lovely in the eyes of Ernest, it is all I
+desire. Perhaps all would not believe me; but you will. I yield you the
+empire of every heart but his. There, I would not willingly occupy the
+_second_ place. A strange kind of jealousy, Gabriella; but I am just so
+weak."
+
+She smiled, nay even laughed,--called herself very weak, very foolish,
+but said she could not help it. She believed she was the most selfish of
+human beings, and feared that this was the right hand to be cut off, the
+right eye to be plucked out. I was pained to hear her talk in this way;
+for I thought if any one ever gained the heart of Ernest, it would be
+dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Edith's friendship. But it was only
+a jesting way of expressing her exceeding love, after all. She was not
+selfish; she was all that was disinterested and kind.
+
+I followed her down stairs into a blaze of light, that at first dazzled
+and bewildered me. The chandeliers with their myriad pendants of
+glittering crystal emitted thousands of brilliant coruscations, like
+wintry boughs loaded with icicles and sparkling in a noonday sun. While
+through the open windows, the departing twilight mingled its soft
+duskiness with the splendors of the mimic day.
+
+Ernest Linwood and Richard Clyde were standing near the entrance of the
+door to greet us. The former immediately advanced and gave me his arm,
+and Richard walked by the side of Edith. I heard him sigh as they fell
+behind us, and my heart echoed the sound. Yet how could he sigh with
+Edith at his side? As I walked through the illuminated drawing-room,
+escorted by one on whom the eyes of the fashionable world were eagerly
+bent, I could not help being conscious of the glances that darted on me
+from every direction. Ernest Linwood was the loadstar of the scene, and
+whoever he distinguished by his attention must be conspicuous by
+association. I felt this, but no embarrassment agitated my step or dyed
+my cheek with blushes. The deep waters were stirred, stirred to their
+inmost depths, but the surface was calm and unruffled. Mrs. Linwood was
+at the head of the room, the centre of an intellectual circle. She was
+dressed, as usual, in silver gray; but the texture of her dress was the
+richest satin, shaded by blonde. The effect was that of a cloud with a
+silver lining, and surely it was a fitting attire for one who knew how
+to give brightness to the darkest shadows of life.
+
+As we approached her, her countenance lighted up with pride and
+pleasure. I saw she was gratified by my appearance; that she was not
+ashamed of her protégée. Yet as we came nearer, I observed an expression
+of the most tender anxiety, approaching to sadness, come over her brow.
+How proud she was of her son! She looked upon him with a glance that
+would have been idolatry, had not God said, "Thou shalt not make unto
+thyself idols, for I am a jealous God."
+
+She took my hand, and I saw her eye follow the soft tracery of
+pearl-flowers that enwreathed neck, arms, and brow. She knew who had
+thus adorned me, and her approving smile sanctioned the gifts.
+
+"I rejoice to see you look so well, my dear child," she said, "I feared
+you might lose the enjoyment of the evening; but I see no one who has a
+brighter prospect before them now."
+
+She introduced me to the friends who surrounded her, and wished to give
+me a seat near her; but Ernest resisted the movement, and with a smiling
+bow passed on.
+
+"I am not disposed to release you quite so soon," said he, passing out
+into the piazza. "I see very plainly that if I relinquish my position it
+will not be easy to secure it again. I am delighted. I am charmed,
+Gabriella, to see that you have the firmness to resist, as well as the
+sensibility to feel. I am delighted, too, to see you in the only livery
+youth and innocence should wear in a festal scene like this. I abhor the
+gaudy tinselry which loads the devotees of fashion, indicative of false
+tastes and false principles; but white and pearls remind me of every
+thing pure and holy in nature. In the Bible we read of the white robes
+of angels and saints. Who ever dreamed of clothing them, in imagination,
+in dark or party-colored garments? In mythology, the graces, the nymphs,
+and the muses are represented in snowy garments. In spotless white the
+bride is led to the marriage shrine, and in white she is prepared for
+the last sublime espousals. Do you know," added he, suddenly changing
+the theme, as if conscious he was touching upon something too solemn,
+"why I selected the scarlet geranium for one of the blossoms of your
+bouquet? The first time I saw you, it glowed in the darkness of your
+hair like coral in the ocean's heart."
+
+While he was speaking he broke a sprig from the bouquet and placed it in
+a wave of my hair, behind the band of pearls.
+
+"Earth and ocean bring you their tribute," said he, and "heaven too," he
+added; for as we passed by the pillars, a moon-beam glided in and laid
+its silver touch on my brow.
+
+"It is Edith's hand that thus adorned me," I answered, unwilling he
+should believe I had been consulting my own ambitious taste. "Had I been
+left to myself, I should have sought no ornament but these beautiful
+flowers, doubly precious for the feelings of kindness and compassion
+that consecrated their mission."
+
+"Compassion, Gabriella! I should as soon think of compassionating the
+star that shines brightest in the van of night. Compassion looks down;
+kindness implies an equal ground; admiration looks up with the gaze of
+the astronomer and the worship of the devotee."
+
+"You forget I am but a simple, village rustic. Such exaggerated
+compliments would suit better the brilliant dames of the city. I would
+rather a thousand times you would say, 'Gabriella, I do feel kindly
+towards you,' than utter any thing so formal, and apparently so
+insincere."
+
+I was really hurt. I thought he was mocking my credulity, or measuring
+the height and depth of my girlish vanity. I did not want to be compared
+to a star, a lone and distant star, nor to think of him as an astronomer
+gazing up at me with telescopic eye. My heart was overflowing with
+gentle, natural thoughts. I wanted human sympathy, not cold and
+glittering compliments.
+
+"And do you expect to hear the language of nature here, with the buzz of
+empty tongues and the echo of unmeaning laughs in the ear; where, if a
+word of sentiment were over-heard, it would be bandied from lip to lip
+with hollow mockery? Come with me into the garden, where the flowers
+blush in their folded leaves, beneath the love-light of yon gentle moon,
+where the stilly dews whisper sweet thoughts to the listening heart, and
+I will tell you what I have learned in Grandison Place, under the elm
+tree's shade, by the flower girl in the library, and from a thousand
+sources of which you have never dreamed."
+
+He took the hand which rested lightly on his arm, and drawing it closer
+to his side led the way to the steps of the piazza. I had dreamed of a
+moment like this in the golden reveries of romance, and imagined it a
+foretaste of heaven, but now I trembled and hesitated like the fearful
+fluttering spirit before the opening gates of paradise. I dared not
+yield to the almost irresistible temptation. No figures were gliding
+along the solitary paths, no steps were brushing away the dew-stars that
+had fallen from the sky. We should be alone in the moonlight solitude;
+but the thoughts of Mrs. Linwood and of Edith would find us out.
+
+"No, no!" I cried, shrinking from the gentle force that urged me
+forward; "do not ask me now. It would be better to remain where we are.
+Do you not think so?"
+
+"Certainly, if you wish it," he said, and his voice had an altered tone,
+like that of a sweet instrument suddenly untuned; "but there is only one
+_now_, for those who fear to trust me, Gabriella."
+
+"To trust _you_,--oh you cannot, do not misunderstand me thus!"
+
+"Why else do you shrink, as if I were leading you to a path of thorns
+instead of one margined with flowers?"
+
+"I fear the observations of the world, since the bitter lesson of the
+morning."
+
+"Your fear! You attach more value to the passing remarks of strangers,
+than the feelings of one who was beginning to believe he had found one
+pure votary of nature and of truth. It is well. I have monopolized your
+attention too long."
+
+Calmly and coldly he spoke, and the warm light of his eye went out like
+lightning, leaving the cloud gloom behind it. I was about to ask him to
+lead me back to his mother, in a tone as cold and altered as his own,
+when I saw her approaching us with a lady whom I had observed at the
+chapel; for her large, black eyes seemed magnetizing me, whenever I met
+their gaze. She was tall, beyond the usual height of her sex, finely
+formed, firm and compact as a marble pillar. A brow of bold expansion,
+features of the Roman contour, clearly cut and delicately marked; an
+expression of recklessness, independence, and self-reliance were the
+most striking characteristics of the young lady, whom Mrs. Linwood
+introduced as Miss Melville, the daughter of an early friend of hers.
+
+"Miss Margaret Melville," she repeated, looking at her son, who stood,
+leaning with an air of stately indifference against a pillar of the
+piazza. I had withdrawn my hand from his arm, and felt as if the breadth
+of the frozen ocean was between us.
+
+"Does Mr. Ernest Linwood forget his old friend so easily?" she asked, in
+a clear, ringing voice, extending a fair ungloved hand. "Do you not
+remember Madge Wildfire, or Meg the Dauntless, as the students used to
+call me? Or have I become so civilized and polished that you do not
+recognize me?"
+
+"I did not indeed," said he, receiving the offered hand with more grace
+than eagerness, "but it is not so much the fault of _my_ memory, as the
+marvellous change in yourself. I must not say improvement, as that would
+imply that there was a time when you were susceptible of it."
+
+"You may say just what you please, for I like frankness and
+straightforwardness as well as I ever did; better,--a great deal better,
+for I know its value more. And you, Ernest, I cannot call you any thing
+else, you are another and yet the same. The same stately, statue-like
+being I used to try in vain to teaze and torment. It seems so long since
+we have met, I expected to have seen you quite bent and hoary with age.
+Do tell me something of your transatlantic experience."
+
+While she was speaking in that peculiar tone of voice which reminded one
+of a distant clarion, Richard Clyde came to me on the other side, and
+seeing that she wished to engage the conversation of Ernest, which she
+probably thought I had engrossed too long, I took the offered arm of
+Richard and returned to the drawing-room. Seeing a table covered with
+engravings, I directed our steps there, that subjects of conversation
+might be suggested independent of ourselves.
+
+"How exquisite these are!" I exclaimed, taking up the first within my
+reach and expatiating on its beauties, without really comprehending one
+with my preoccupied and distant thoughts. "These Italian landscapes are
+always charming."
+
+"I believe that is a picture of the Boston Common," said he, smiling at
+my mistake; "but surely no Italian landscape can boast of such
+magnificent trees and such breadth of verdure. It is a whole casket of
+emeralds set in the granite heart of a great city. And see in the centre
+that pure, sparkling diamond, sending out such rays of coolness and
+delight,--I wonder you did not recognize it."
+
+"I have seen it only in winter, when the trees exhibited their wintry
+dreariness, and little boys were skating on the diamond surface of that
+frozen water. It looked very different then."
+
+"Mr. Linwood could explain these engravings," said he, drawing forward
+some which indeed represented Italian ruins, grand and ivy mantled,
+where the owl might well assert her solitary domain. "He has two great
+advantages, an eye enlightened by travel, and a taste fastidious by
+nature."
+
+"I do not admire fastidiousness," I answered; "I do not like to have
+defects pointed out to me, which my own ignorance does not discover.
+There is more pleasure in imagining beauties than in finding out
+faults."
+
+"Will you think it a presuming question, a too inquisitive one," he
+said, holding up an engraving between himself and the light, "if I ask
+your candid opinion of Mr. Linwood? Is the world right in the character
+it has given? Has he all the peculiarities and fascinations it ascribes
+to him?"
+
+He spoke in a careless manner, or rather tried to do so, but his eye
+burned with intense emotion. Had he asked me this question a short time
+previous, conscious blushes would have dyed my cheeks, for a "murderous
+guilt shows not itself more soon," than the feelings I attempt to
+conceal; but my sensibility had been wounded, my pride roused, and my
+heart chilled. I had discovered within myself a spirit which, like the
+ocean bark, rises with the rising wave.
+
+"If Mr. Linwood _had_ faults," I answered, and I could not help smiling
+at the attempted composure and real perturbation of his manner, "I would
+not speak of them. Peculiarities he may have, for they are inseparable
+from genius,--fascinations"--here their remembrance was too strong for
+my assumed indifference, and my sacred love of truth compelled me to
+utter,--"fascinations he certainly possesses."
+
+"In what do they consist?" he asked. "Beyond an extremely gentlemanly
+exterior, I do not perceive any peculiar claims to admiration."
+
+Hurt as I had been by Ernest's altered manner, I was disposed to do
+justice to his merits, and the more Richard seemed desirous to
+depreciate him, the more I was willing to exalt him. If he was capable
+of the meanness of envy, I was resolved to punish him. I did him
+injustice. He was not envious, but jealous; and it is impossible for
+jealousy and justice ever to go hand in hand.
+
+"In what do they consist?" I repeated. At that moment I saw him through
+the window, standing just where I had left him, leaning with folded arms
+against the pillar, with the moonlight shining gloriously on his brow.
+Miss Melville stood near him, talking with great animation, emphasizing
+her words with quick, decided gesticulation, while he seemed a passive
+listener. I had seen handsomer gentlemen, perhaps,--but never one so
+perfectly elegant and refined in appearance. The pale transparency of
+his complexion had the purity and delicacy of alabaster without its
+whiteness, seen by that clear, silvery light.
+
+"In what do they consist? In powers of conversation as rich as they are
+varied, in versatility of talents, in rare cultivation of mind and
+polish of manner. Let me see. I must give you a complete inventory of
+his accomplishments. He reads most charmingly, plays superbly, and sings
+divinely. Would you know his virtues? He is a most devoted son, a
+paragon of brothers, and a miracle of a host."
+
+I believe there is a dash of coquetry in every woman's nature. There
+must have been in mine, or I could not have gone on, watching the red
+thermometer in Richard's cheek, rising higher and higher, though what I
+said was truth, unembellished by imagination. It was what they _who run
+might read_. I did not speak of those more subtle traits which, were
+invisible to the common eye, those characters which, like invisible
+writing, are brought out by a warm and glowing element.
+
+"I am glad to hear you speak so openly in his praise," said Richard,
+with a brightening countenance; "even if I deserved such a tribute, I
+should not wish to know that you had paid it to me. I would prize more
+one silent glance, one conscious blush, than the most labored eulogium
+the most eloquent lips could utter."
+
+"But I do praise you very much," I answered; "ask Mrs. Linwood, and
+Edith, and Mr. Regulus. Ask Mr. Linwood himself."
+
+"Never speak of me to _him_, Gabriella. Let my feelings be _sacred_, if
+they are lonely. You know your power; use it gently, exert it kindly."
+
+The smile of assumed gaiety faded from my lips, as his grave, earnest,
+sincere accents went down into my soul. Could I trifle even for a moment
+with an affection so true and constant?
+
+Oh, wayward and unappreciating heart! Why could I not return this love,
+which might have made me so happy? Why was there no spirit-echo to _his_
+voice; no quickened pulsations at the sound of _his_ coming footsteps?
+
+"This is no place, Richard, to talk of ourselves, or I would try to
+convince you that I am incapable of speaking lightly of your feelings,
+or betraying them to a human being, even to Mrs. Linwood; but let us
+speak of something else now. Do you not feel very happy that you are
+free,--no more a slave to hours or rules; free to come and go, when and
+where you please, with the whole earth to roam in,
+
+    "Heart within and God o'erhead?"
+
+"No! I am sad. After being at anchor so long, to be suddenly set
+drifting, to be the sport of the winds of destiny, the cable chain of
+habit and association broken, one feels dizzy and bewildered. I never
+knew till now how strong the classmate bond of union is, how sacred the
+brotherhood, how binding the tie. We, who have been treading the same
+path for four long years, must now diverge, east, west, north, and
+south, the great cardinal points of life. In all human probability we
+shall never all meet again, till the mysterious problem of our destiny
+is solved."
+
+He paused, impressed by the solemnity of this idea, then added, in his
+natural, animated manner.
+
+"There is one hope, Gabriella, to which I have looked forward as the
+sheet-anchor of my soul; if that fails me, I do not care what becomes of
+me. Sometimes it has burned so brightly, it has been my morning and
+evening star, my rising, but unsetting sun. To-night the star is dim.
+Clouds of doubt and apprehension gather over it. Gabriella,--I cannot
+live in this suspense, and yet I could not bear the confirmation of my
+fears. Better to doubt than to despair."
+
+"Richard, why will you persist in talking of what cannot be explained
+here? Shall we not meet hereafter, and have abundant opportunities for
+conversation, free and uninterrupted? Look around, and see how
+differently other people are conversing. How lightly and carelessly
+their words come and go, mingled with merry laughter! Edith is at the
+piano. Let us go where we can listen, we cannot do it here."
+
+"I _am_ very selfish!" said he, yielding to my suggestion. "I have
+promised my classmates to introduce them to you. I see some of them,
+bending reproachful glances this way. I must redeem my character, so as
+not to incur disgrace in the parting hour."
+
+Then followed introductions pressing on each other, till I was weary of
+hearing my own name, Miss Lynn. I never did like to be called Miss.
+Still it was an unspeakable relief to me, to be released from the
+necessity of repressing the feelings of others, and guarding my own. It
+was a relief to hear those unmeaning sayings which are the current coin
+of society, and to utter without effort the first light thought that
+came floating on the surface. The rest of the evening I was surrounded
+by strangers, and the most exacting vanity might have been satisfied
+with the incense I received. I knew that the protection of Mrs. Linwood
+gave a _prestige_ to me that would not otherwise have been mine, but I
+could not help perceiving that Edith, the heiress, all lovely as she
+was, was not half as much courted and admired as the _daughter of the
+outcast_. I was too young, too much of a novice, not to be pleased with
+the attention I attracted; but when the heart is awakened, vanity has
+but little power. It is a cold, vapory conceit, that vanishes before the
+inner warmth and light, which, like the sun in the firmament, "shineth
+brighter and brighter to the perfect day."
+
+After Edith retired from the instrument there was a buzz, and a
+sensation, and Miss Melville, or Meg the Dauntless, as I could not help
+mentally calling her, was escorted to the piano by Ernest. What a
+contrast she presented to the soft, retiring, ethereal Edith, whose
+every motion suggested the idea of music! Though her arm was linked in
+that of Ernest, she walked independently of him, dashing through the
+company with a brave, military air, and taking a seat as if a flourish
+of trumpets had heralded her approach. At first I was startled by the
+loud crash of the keys, as she threw her hands upon them with all her
+force, laughing at the wild dissonance of the sound; but as she
+continued, harmony, if not sweetness, rose out of the chaos. She
+evidently understood the science of music, and enjoyed it too. She did
+not sing, and while she was playing the most brilliant polkas, waltzes,
+and variations with the most wonderful execution, she talked and laughed
+with those around the instrument, or looked round the apartment, and
+nodded to this one and that, her great black eyes flashing like chain
+lightning. Her playing seemed to have a magical effect. No one could
+keep their feet still. Even the dignified president patted his, marking
+the measure of her prancing fingers. I could have danced wildly myself,
+for I never heard any thing so inspiring to the animal spirits as those
+wizard strains. Every countenance was lighted with animation, save one,
+and that was Ernest's. He stood immovable, pale, cold, and
+self-involved, like a being from another sphere. I remembered how
+differently he looked when he wooed me to the garden's moonlight walks,
+and how the warm and gentle thoughts that then beamed in his eyes seemed
+frozen and dead, and I wondered if they were extinguished forever.
+
+"How stupid!" exclaimed Miss Melville, suddenly stopping, and turning
+round on the pivot of the music stool till she commanded a full view of
+the drawing-room. "I thought you would all be dancing by this time.
+There is no use in playing to such inanimate mortals. And you," said
+she, suddenly turning to Ernest, "you remind me of the prince, the
+enchanted prince in the Arabian Nights, only he was half marble, you are
+a whole statue. You do not like music. I pity you."
+
+"I have my own peculiar tastes," he answered quietly; "some nerves are
+more delicately strung than others."
+
+"Do you imply that _my_ playing is too loud for delicate nerves? Why,
+that is nothing to what I can do. That is my company music. When I am at
+home I give full scope to my powers."
+
+"We are perfectly satisfied with the specimen we have heard," said he,
+smiling; how could he help it? and every one laughed, none more heartily
+than the gay musician herself. I never heard such a laugh before, so
+merry, so contagious; such a rich, round, ringing laugh; dying away one
+moment, then bursting out again in such a chorus!
+
+All at once she fixed her eyes on me, and starting up, came directly to
+me, planting her tall, finely formed, firm-set figure in the midst of
+the group around me.
+
+"Come, _you_ must play and sing too. I have no doubt your style will
+suit Mr. Linwood's delicate nerves."
+
+"I never play," I answered.
+
+"Nor sing?"
+
+"Only at home."
+
+"You have a face of music, I am sure."
+
+"Thank you. I have a heart to appreciate it; that is a great gift."
+
+"But why don't you sing and play? How do you expect to pass current in
+society, without being able to hang on the instrument as I do, or creep
+over it with mouselike fingers as most young ladies do? I suppose you
+are very learned--very accomplished? How many languages do you speak?"
+
+"Only two at present," I answered, excessively amused by her
+eccentricity, and falling into her vein with a facility that quite
+surprised myself. "I generally find the English tongue sufficient to
+express my ideas."
+
+"I suppose one of the two is German. You will be considered a mere
+nobody here, if you do not understand German. It is the fashion; the
+paroxysm; German literature, German taste, and German transcendentalism;
+I have tried them all, but they will not do for me. I must have sunshine
+and open air. I must see where I am going, and understand what I am
+doing. I abhor mysticism, as I do deceit. Are you frank, Miss Gabriella?
+You have such a pretty name, I shall take the liberty of using it. Lynn
+is too short; it sounds like an abbreviation of Linwood."
+
+"If you mean by frankness, a disposition to tell all I think and feel, I
+am not frank," I answered, without noticing her last remark, which
+created a smile in others.
+
+"You do not like to hear people express _all_ their thoughts, good, bad,
+or indifferent?"
+
+"Indeed I do not. I like to have them winnowed before they are uttered."
+
+"Then you will not like _me_, and I am sorry for it. I have taken an
+amazing fancy to you. Never mind; I shall take you by storm when we get
+to Grandison Place. Do you know I am going home with you? Are you not
+delighted?"
+
+She burst into one of her great, rich laughs, at the sight of my
+dismayed countenance. I really felt annihilated at the thought. There
+was something so overpowering, so redundant about her, I expected to be
+weighed down,--overshadowed. She going to Grandison Place! Alas, what a
+transformation there would be! Adieu to the quiet walks, the evening
+readings, the morning flower gatherings; adieu to sentiment and
+tranquillity, to poetry and romance. Why had Mrs. Linwood invited so
+strange a guest? Perhaps she was self-invited.
+
+"I tell you what I am going for," she said, bending her face to mine and
+speaking in a whisper that sounded like a whistle in my ear; "I am going
+to animate that man of stone. Why have not you done it, juxtaposited as
+you are? You do not make use of the fire-arms with which nature has
+supplied you. If I had such a pair of eyes, I would slay like David my
+tens of thousands every day."
+
+"The difficulty would be in finding victims," I answered. "The
+inhabitants of the town where I reside do not number more than two or
+three thousand."
+
+"Oh! I would make it populous. I would draw worshippers from the four
+points of the earth,--and yet it would be a greater triumph to subdue
+one proud, hitherto impregnable heart."
+
+Her eyes flashed like gunpowder as she uttered this, _sotto voce_ it is
+true, but still loud enough to be heard half across the room.
+
+"Goodby," she suddenly exclaimed, "they are beckoning me; I must go; try
+to like me, precious creature; I shall be quite miserable if you do
+not."
+
+Then passing her arm round me, an arm firm, polished, and white as
+ivory, she gave me a loud, emphatic kiss, laughed, and left me almost as
+much confused as if one of the other sex had taken the same liberty.
+
+"Is she," thought I, "a young man in disguise?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+What am I writing?
+
+Sometimes I throw down the pen, saying to myself, "it is all folly, all
+verbiage. There is a history within worth perusing, but I cannot bring
+it forth to light. I turn over page after page with the fingers of
+thought. I see characters glowing or darkened with passion,--lines
+alternately bright and shadowy, distinct and obscure, and it seems an
+easy thing to make a transcript of these for the outward world."
+
+Easy! it requires the recording angel's pen to register the history of
+the human heart. "The thoughts that breathe, the thoughts that burn,"
+how can they be expressed? The mere act of clothing them in words makes
+them grow cold and dull. The molten gold, the fused iron hardens and
+chills in the forming mould.
+
+Easy! "Oh yes," the critic says, "it is an easy thing to write; only
+follow nature, and you cannot err." But nature is as broad as the
+universe, as high as the heavens, and as deep as the seas. It is but a
+small portion we can condense even on hundreds of pages of foolscap
+paper. If that portion be of love, the cold philosopher turns away in
+disdain and talks of romantic maids and moonstruck boys, as if the
+subject were fit alone for them. And yet love is the great motive
+principle of nature, the burning sun of the social system. Blot it out,
+and every other feeling and passion would sink in the darkness of
+eternal night. Byron's awful dream would be realized,--darkness would
+indeed be the universe. They who praise a writer for omitting love from
+the page which purports to be a record of life, would praise God for
+creating a world, over whose sunless realms no warmth or light was
+diffused, (if such a creation were possible,)--a world without flowers
+or music, without hope or joy.
+
+But as the sun is only an emanation from the first great fountain of
+light and glory, so love is but an effluence from the eternal source of
+love divine.
+
+"Bright effluence of bright essence increate." And woe to her, who,
+forgetting this heavenly union, bathes her heart in the earthly stream,
+without seeking the living spring whence it flows; who worships the
+fire-ray that falls upon the altar, without giving glory to him from
+whom it descended. The stream will become a stagnant pool, exhaling
+pestilence and death; the fire-ray will kindle a devouring flame,
+destroying the altar, with the gift and the heart a _burning bush_, that
+will blaze forever without consuming.
+
+Whither am I wandering?
+
+Imagine me now, in a very different scene to the president's illuminated
+drawing-room. Instead of the wild buzzing of mingling voices, I hear the
+mournful sighing of the breeze through the weeping grave trees; and ever
+and anon there comes a soft, stealing sound through the long, swaying
+grass, like the tread of invisible feet. I am alone with my mother's
+spirit. The manuscript, that is to reveal the mystery of my parentage,
+is in my hand. The hour is come, when without violating the commands of
+the dead, I may claim it as my own, and remove the hermetic seal which
+death has stamped. Where else could I read it? My own room, once so
+serenely quiet, was no longer a sanctuary,--for Margaret Melville dashed
+through the house, swinging open the doors as abruptly as a March wind,
+and her laugh filled every nook and corner of the capacious mansion. How
+could I unseal the sacred history of my mother's sorrows within the
+sound of that loud, echoing ha, ha?
+
+I could not; so I stole away to a spot, where sacred silence has set up
+its everlasting throne. The sun had not yet gone down, but the shadows
+of the willows lengthened on the grass. I sat at the foot of the grave
+leaning against a marble slab, and unsealed, with cold and trembling
+hands, my mother's _heart_, for so that manuscript seemed to me.
+
+At first I could not see the lines, for my tears rained down so fast
+they threatened to obliterate the delicate characters; but after
+repeated efforts I acquired composure enough to read the following brief
+and thrilling history. It was the opening of the sixth seal of my life.
+The stars of hope fell, as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she
+is shaken by a mighty wind, and the heaven of my happiness departed as a
+scroll when it is rolled together, and the mountains and islands of
+human trust were moved out of their places.
+
+
+MY MOTHER'S HISTORY.
+
+"Gabriella, before your eyes shall rest on these pages, mine will be
+closed in the slumbers of death. Let not your heart be troubled, my only
+beloved, at the record of wrongs which no longer corrode; of sorrows
+which are all past away. 'In my Father's house are many mansions,' and
+one of them is prepared for me. It is my Saviour's promise, and I
+believe it as firmly as if I saw the golden streets of the New
+Jerusalem, where that heavenly mansion is built.
+
+"Weep not, then, my child, my orphan darling, over a past which cannot
+be recalled; let not its shadow rest too darkly upon you,--if there is
+joy in the present, be grateful; if there is hope in the future,
+rejoice.
+
+"You have often asked me to tell you where I lived when I was a little
+child; whether my home was a gray cottage like ours, in the woods; and
+whether I had a mother whom I loved as dearly as you loved me. I have
+told you that my first feeble life-wail mingled with her dying groan,
+and you wondered how one could live without a mother's love.
+
+"I was born in that rugged fortress, whose embattled walls are washed by
+the majestic Bay of Chesapeake. My father held a captain's commission in
+the army, and was stationed for many years at this magnificent,
+insulated bulwark. My father, at the time of my mother's death, was a
+young and gallant officer, and I was his only child. It is not strange
+that he should marry again; for the grief of man seldom survives the
+allotted period of mourning, and it was natural that he should select a
+gay and brilliant woman, for the second choice is generally a striking
+contrast to the first. My mother, I am told, was one of those gentle,
+dove-like, pensive beings, who nestled in her husband's heart, and knew
+no world beyond. My step-mother loved the world and its pleasures better
+than husband, children, and home. She had children of her own, who were
+more the objects of her pride than her love. Every day, they were
+dressed for exhibition, petted and caressed, and then sent back to the
+nursery, where they could not interfere with the pleasures of their
+fashionable mamma. Could I expect those tender cares which the yearning
+heart of childhood craves, as its daily sustenance? She was not harsh or
+despotic, but careless and indifferent. She did not care for me; and
+provided I kept out of her way, she was willing I should amuse myself in
+the best manner I pleased. My father was kind and caressing, when he had
+leisure to indulge his parental sensibilities; but he could not
+sympathize in my childish joys and sorrows, for I dared not confide them
+to him. He was a man, and, moreover, there was something in the gilded
+pomp of his martial dress, that inspired too much awe for childish
+familiarity. I used to gaze at him, when he appeared on military parade,
+as if he were one of the demi-gods of the ancient world. He had an erect
+and warlike bearing, a proud, firm step, and his gold epaulette with its
+glittering tassels flashing in the sunbeams, his crimson sash
+contrasting so splendidly with the military blue, his shining sword and
+waving plume,--all impressed me with a grandeur that was overpowering.
+It dazzled my eye, but did not warm my young heart.
+
+"As I grew older, I exhibited a remarkable love of reading, and as no
+one took the trouble to direct my tastes, I seized every book which came
+within my reach and devoured it, with the avidity of a hungry and
+unoccupied mind. My father was a gentleman of pure and elegant taste,
+and had he dreamed that I was exposed, without guardianship, to
+dangerous influences, he would have shielded and warned me. But he
+believed the care of children under twelve years of age devolved on
+their mother, and he was always engrossed with the duties of a
+profession which he passionately loved, or the society of his brother
+officers, usually so fascinating and convivial.
+
+"I used to take my book, which was generally some wild, impassioned
+romance, and wandering to the ramparts, seat myself by the shining
+pyramids of cannon-balls; and while the blue waves of the Chesapeake
+rolled in murmuring music by, or, lashed by the ocean wind, heaved in
+foaming billows, roaring against the walls, I yielded myself to the
+wizard spell of genius and passion. The officers as they passed would
+try to break the enchantment by gay and sportive words, but all in vain.
+I have sat there, drenched by the salt sea-spray, and knew it not. I was
+called the little bookworm, the prodigy, the _dream-girl_, a name you
+have inherited, my darling Gabriella; and my father seemed proud of the
+reputation I had established. But while my imagination was
+preternaturally developed, my heart was slumbering, and my soul
+unconscious of life's great aim.
+
+"Thus unguarded by precept, unguided by example, I was sent from home to
+a boarding-school, where I acquired the usual education and
+accomplishments obtained at fashionable female seminaries. During my
+absence from home, my two step-sisters, who were thought too young to
+accompany me, and my infant step-brother, died in the space of one week,
+smitten by that destroying angel of childhood, the scarlet fever.
+
+"I had been at school two years when I made my first visit home. My
+step-mother was then in the weeds of mourning, and of course excluded
+herself in a measure from gay society; but I marvelled that sorrow had
+not impaired the bloom of her cheek, or quenched the sparkle of her
+cold, bright eye. Her heart was not buried in the grave of her
+children,--it belonged to the world, to which she panted to return.
+
+"But my father mourned. There was a shadow on his manly brow, which I
+had never seen before. I was, now, his only child, the representative of
+his once beloved Rosalie, and the pure, fond love of his early years
+revived again in me. I look back upon those two months, when I basked in
+the sunshine of parental tenderness for the first, the _only_ time, as a
+portion of my life most dear and holy. I sighed when I thought of the
+years when we had been comparatively so far apart, and my heart grew to
+his with tender adhesiveness and growing love. The affections, which my
+worldly step-mother had chilled and repressed, and which the death of
+his other children had blighted, were now all mine, renovated and
+warmed.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella! very precious is a father's love. It is an emblem of the
+love of God for the dependent beings he has created; so kind, so
+protecting, so strong, and yet so tender! Would to God, my poor,
+defrauded child, you could have known what this God-resembling love
+is,--but your orphanage has been the most sad, the most dreary,--the
+most unhallowed. Almighty Father of the universe, have mercy on my
+child! Protect and bless her when this wasting, broken heart no longer
+beats; when the frail shield of a mother's love is taken from her, and
+she is left _alone_--_alone_--_alone_. Oh! my God, have pity--have pity!
+Forsake her not!"
+
+The paper was blistered with the tears of the writer. I dropped it on
+the grave, unable to go on. I cast myself on the grass-covered mould,
+and pressed it to my bosom, as if there was vitality in the cold clods.
+
+"Oh, my mother!" I exclaimed, and strange and dreary sounded my voice in
+that breathing stillness. "Has God heard thy prayers? Will he hear the
+cries of the fatherless? Will he have pity on my forsaken youth?"
+
+I would have given worlds to have realized that this mighty God was
+near; that he indeed cared with a father's love for the orphan mourner,
+committed in faith to his all-embracing arms. But I still worshipped him
+as far-off, enthroned on high, in the heaven of heavens, which cannot
+contain the full glory of his presence. I saw him on the burning
+mountain, in the midst of thunder and lightning and smoke,--a God of
+consuming fire, before whose breath earthly joys and hopes withered and
+dried, like blossoms cast into the furnace.
+
+But did not God once hide his face of love from his own begotten Son?
+And shall not the _eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani_ of the forsaken heart
+sometimes ascend amid the woes and trials and wrongs of life, from the
+great mountain of human misery, the smoking Sinai, whose clouded summit
+quakes with the footsteps of Deity?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+I again resumed the manuscript, trembling for the revelations which it
+might make.
+
+"Never again," wrote my mother, "did I behold my noble, gallant father.
+His death was sudden, as if shot down in the battle field, without one
+warning weakness or pain. In the green summer of his days he fell, and
+long did my heart vibrate from the shock. How desolate to me was the
+home to which I returned! The household fire was indeed extinguished.
+The household god laid low. I saw at one glance that in my breast alone
+his memory was enshrined; that there alone was sacred incense burning.
+Mrs. Lynn, (I will speak of her by her name hereafter,) though only one
+year had passed since his death, was assuming those light, coquettish
+airs which accord as little with the robes of widowhood as the hues of
+the rainbow or the garlands of spring.
+
+"I saw with exquisite pain and shame, that she looked upon me as a rival
+of her maturer charms, and gladly yielded to my wish for retirement. She
+always spoke of me as 'the child,' the 'little bookworm,' impressing
+upon the minds of all the idea of my extreme juvenility. I _was_ young;
+but I had arrived to years of womanhood, and my stature equalled hers.
+
+"I will pass on to the scene which decided my destiny. I do not wish to
+swell the volume of my life. Let it be brief as it is sad.
+
+"Very near the fortress is another rocky bulwark, rising out of the
+waves in stern and rugged majesty, known by the peculiar name of the
+Rip-Raps. It is the work of man, who paved the ocean bed with rocks, and
+conceived the design of a lofty castle, from whose battlements the
+star-spangled banner should wave, and whose massy turrets should
+perpetuate the honors of Carolina's most gifted son. The design was
+grand, but has never been completed. It has, however, finished
+apartments, which form a kind of summer hotel, where many statesmen
+often resort, that they may lay down, for a while, the burden of care,
+and breathe an atmosphere pure from political corruption, and cool from
+party zeal and strife.
+
+"At the time of which I speak the chief magistrate of the nation sought
+refuge there for a short while, from the oppressive responsibilities of
+his exalted station, and regardless of his wish for retirement, or
+rather irresistibly impelled to pay honors to one whose brows were
+wreathed with the soldier's laurel as well as the statesman's crown,
+every one sought his rocky and wave-washed retreat.
+
+"Mrs. Lynn joined a party of ladies, who, escorted by officers, went
+over in barges to be introduced to the gallant veteran. The martial
+spirit of my father throbbed high in my bosom, and I longed to behold
+one, whom he would have delighted to honor. Mrs. Lynn did not urge me,
+but there were others who supplied her deficiency, and convinced me I
+was not considered an intruder. Among the gentlemen who composed our
+party was a stranger, by the name of St. James, to whom Mrs. Lynn paid
+the most exclusive attention. She was still in the bloom of womanhood,
+and though far from being beautiful, was showy and attractive. All the
+embellishments of dress were called into requisition to enhance the
+charms of nature, and to produce the illusion of youth. She always
+sought the admiration of strangers, and Mr. St. James was sufficiently
+distinguished in appearance to render him worthy of her fascinations. I
+merely noticed that he had a fine person, a graceful air, and a musical
+voice; then casting my eyes on the sea-green waters, over which our
+light barge was bounding, I did not lift them again till we were near
+the dark gray rocks of the Rip-Raps, and I beheld on the brink of the
+stone steps we were to ascend, a tall and stately form, whose foam-white
+locks were rustling in the breeze of ocean. There he stood, like the
+statue of liberty, throned on a granite cliff, with waves rolling below
+and sunbeams resting on his brow.
+
+"As we stepped from the barge and ascended the rugged steps, the
+chieftain bent his warlike figure and drew us to the platform with all
+the grace and gallantry of youth. As I was the youngest of the party, he
+received me with the most endearing familiarity. I almost thought he was
+going to kiss me, so close he brought his bronzed cheek to mine.
+
+"'God bless you, my child!' said he, taking both hands in his and
+looking earnestly in my face. 'I knew your father well. He was a gallant
+officer,--a noble, honest man. Peace to his ashes! The soldier fills an
+honored grave.'
+
+"This tribute to my father's memory filled my eyes with tears, while my
+cheek glowed with gratified pride. I was proud that I was a soldier's
+daughter, proud to hear his praise from the lips of valor and of rank.
+
+"I had brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers as a girlish offering to
+the veteran. I had been thinking of something pretty and poetical to say
+when I presented it, but the words died on my lips, and I extended it in
+silence with the trembling hand of diffidence.
+
+"'Now,' said he, with a benignant smile, turning the flowers round and
+round, as if admiring them all, 'I am the envy of every young man
+present. They would all exchange the laurels of the soldier for the
+blossoms gathered by the hand of beauty.'
+
+"'Let me have the privilege of holding them for you, sir, while we
+remain,' said Mr. St. James, with a courtly grace consistent with the
+name he bore, and they were submitted with equal courtesy to his
+keeping.
+
+"These are trifles to relate, my Gabriella, but they had an influence on
+my life and yours. They laid the foundation of a dislike and jealousy in
+the mind of my step-mother, that embittered all our future intercourse.
+'The child' was distinguished, not only by the hero who was the lion of
+the scene, but by the stranger she was resolved to charm, and her
+usually bright countenance was clouded with malice and discontent.
+Forgetful of politeness, she hurried away those who came in the same
+barge with herself, anxious to see me immured once more in the walls of
+the Fort.
+
+"After our distinguished host had bidden farewell to his elder guests,
+whom he accompanied to the steps, he turned to me with a look so benign
+and affectionate I never shall forget it, and stooping, kissed my
+forehead.
+
+"'As your father's friend, and your country's father, dear child, permit
+me'--he said, then giving my hand to St. James, who was waiting to
+assist me into the barge, bowed a dignified adieu.
+
+"'You do indeed make us envy you, sir,' cried St. James, as he stood
+with uncovered head in the centre of the boat, while it glided from the
+walls, and holding up the bouquet which he had had the boldness to
+retain.
+
+"The statesman smiled and shook his snow-crowned head, and there he
+stood, long after we receded from the rocks, his tall, erect figure
+defined on the dark blue sky.
+
+"I never saw that noble form again. The brave old soldier died a soldier
+of the Cross, and fills a Christian's grave. He sleeps in death,
+embosomed in the quiet shades he loved best in life.
+
+    'And Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
+    To deck the turf that wraps his clay.'
+
+"I did not think of paying this tribute to his memory; but that scene
+was so indelibly stamped on my mind, I could not help delineating it. It
+was then and there I first beheld your father.
+
+"The barge was rowed by eight soldiers, dressed in uniform, and their
+oars all dipped and flashed with simultaneous motion. Nothing could be
+more harmoniously beautiful; but the restless spirit of Mrs. Lynn
+suggested a change.
+
+"'Raise the sail,' she exclaimed, 'this is too monotonous. I prefer it a
+thousand times to rowing.'
+
+"'I beg, I entreat, madam,' cried I, unable to repress my apprehensions,
+'do not have it done now. I am very foolish, but I cannot help it,
+indeed I cannot.'
+
+"I was not accustomed to the water as she was, having been absent so
+long; and even when a child, I had an unconquerable dread of sailing.
+She knew this, and it prompted her suggestion.
+
+"'Affectation of fear may be pardoned in a _child_, Rosalie,' said she,
+with a sarcastic smile, 'but it is nevertheless very unbecoming.'
+
+"'Do not indulge one apprehension,' exclaimed St. James, stepping over
+one of the seats and sitting down at my side. 'I am one of the best
+sailors in the world. _Non timui--Cæsarem vehis._ Give the sails to the
+winds, boys. I will make them my vassals.'
+
+"His eyes beamed with conscious power, as the white sheet unrolled and
+swelled gracefully in the breeze. It was strange, all my fears were
+gone, and I felt as serene a confidence as if his vaunting words were
+true. The strong will, the magic smile were acting on me like a spell,
+and I yielded unresistingly to their influence.
+
+"Mrs. Lynn would gladly have revoked her commands, since they had called
+forth such an expression of interest for me; but the boat swept on with
+triumphant speed, and even I participated in the exhilaration of its
+motion. Just before we reached the shore, Mrs. Lynn bent forward and
+took the flowers from the hand of St. James before he was aware of her
+design.
+
+"'Is that mignonette which is so oppressively fragrant?' she asked,
+lifting the bouquet to her nose. She was seated near the side of the
+barge, and her head was gracefully inclined. Whether from accident or
+design, I think it was the latter, the flowers dropped into the river.
+
+"In the flashing of an eye-glance, St. James leaped over the boat side,
+seized the flowers, held them up in triumph over his head, and swam to
+the shore. He stood there with dripping garments and smiling lips as we
+landed, while the paleness of terror still blanched my face, and its
+agitation palpitated in my heart.
+
+"'I must deny myself the pleasure of escorting you to the threshold,'
+said he, glancing at me, while he shook the brine-drops from his arms.
+His head had not been submerged. He had held that royally above the
+waves. 'But,' added he, with graceful gallantry, 'I have rescued a
+trophy which I had silently vowed to guard with my life;--a treasure
+doubly consecrated by the touch of valor and the hand of beauty.'
+
+"'Well,' exclaimed Mrs. Lynn, as soon as we were at home, tossing her
+bonnet disdainfully on the sofa, 'if I ever was disgusted with boldness
+and affectation I have been to-day. But one thing let me tell you, Miss
+Rosalie, if you cannot learn more propriety of manners, if you make such
+sickening efforts to attract the attention of strangers, I will never
+allow you to go in public, at least in company with me.'
+
+"I was perfectly thunderstruck. She had never given such an exhibition
+of temper before. I had always thought her cold and selfish, but she
+seemed to have a careless good-nature, which did not prepare me for this
+ebullition of passion. I did not reflect that this was the first time I
+had clashed with her interests,--that inordinate vanity is the parent of
+envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness.
+
+"I did not attempt to reply, but hastily turned to leave the room. She
+had been my father's wife, and the sacredness of _his_ name shielded her
+from disrespect.
+
+"'Stop, Miss,' she cried, 'and hear what I have to say. If Mr. St. James
+calls this evening, you are not to make your appearance. He was only
+making sport of your childishness to-day, and cares no more for you than
+the sands of the sea-shore. He is no company for you, I assure you. He
+is a gentleman of the world, and has no taste for the bread and butter
+misses just let loose from a boarding-school. Do you hear me?'
+
+"'I do, madam.'
+
+"'Do you mean to obey?'
+
+"'I do, madam.'
+
+"I will not attempt to describe my feelings that night as I sat alone in
+my room, and heard the voice of St. James mingling with my
+step-mother's, which was modulated to its sweetest, most seductive tone.
+The desolateness of my future life spread out before me. A home without
+love! Oh, what dreariness! Oh, what iciness! Had my father lived, how
+different it would have been. I thought of the happy vacation, when he
+opened his warm heart and took me in, and then I wept to think how cold
+the world seemed since he had left it.
+
+"It was a midsummer's night, and all the windows were open to admit the
+sea-born breeze. They were open, but bars of gauze wire were put up at
+the windows and doors to exclude the mosquitos. A very small balcony
+opened out of my room, where I usually sat listening to the inspiring
+strains of the band, that, marching on the ramparts, sent their rich,
+thrilling notes in rolling echoes over the moonlight waves.
+
+"It was playing now, that martial band, and the bay was one sheet of
+burning silver. I had never seen it look so resplendently beautiful, and
+I could not help thinking that beneath that gently rippling glory, there
+was peace for the sad and persecuted heart. As I sat there leaning on
+the railing, gazing into the shining depths of ocean, St. James passed.
+It was very early in the evening. Why had he left so soon? He started,
+paused, turned, and approached the balcony.
+
+"'Why are you so cruel as to refuse to see me, after showing such
+knightly devotion to your cause?' he asked, leaning on the side of the
+balcony and looking earnestly in my face, on which the tear-drops were
+still glittering.
+
+"'I have not refused,' I answered hastily, 'but do not wait to talk with
+me now. Mrs. Lynn would be much displeased; she would consider it very
+improper. I pray you not to think me rude, but indeed I must retire.'
+
+"I rose in an agony of terror, lest my step-mother should hear his
+voice, and wreak her wrath on me.
+
+"'Fear not,' he cried, catching my hand and detaining me. 'She is
+engaged with company, who will not hasten away as I have done. I will
+not stay long, nor utter one syllable that is not in harmony with the
+holy tranquillity of the hour. I am a stranger in name, but is there not
+something that tells you I was born to be your friend? I know there
+is,--I see it in your ingenuous, confiding eye. Only answer me one
+question,--Was it your _own will_, or the will of another that governed
+your actions to-night?'
+
+"'The will of another,' I answered. 'Let that be a sufficient reason for
+urging your departure. If I am forbidden to see you in the parlor, I
+shall certainly be upbraided for speaking with you here.'
+
+"It was very imprudent in me to speak so freely of my step-mother's
+conduct. No questions of his should have drawn from me such an
+assertion. But I was so young and inexperienced, and I had been goaded
+almost to madness by her stinging rebukes. It was natural that I should
+wish to vindicate myself from the charge of rudeness her
+misrepresentations would bring against me.
+
+"'I find you in sadness and tears,' said he, in a low, gentle tone; so
+low it scarcely rose above the murmuring waves. 'They should not be the
+companions of beauty and youth. Let me be your friend,--let me teach you
+how to banish them.'
+
+"'No, no,' I cried, frightened at my own boldness in continuing the
+conversation so long. 'You are not my friend, or you would not expose me
+to censure. Indeed you are not.'
+
+"'I am gone; but tell me one thing,--you are not a prisoner?'
+
+"'O no; heaven forbid.'
+
+"'You walk on the ramparts.'
+
+"'Sometimes.'
+
+"'Adieu,--we shall meet again.'
+
+"He was gone, and sweetly lingered in my ear the echo of his gently
+persuasive voice. He had vanished like the bark that had just glided
+along the waters, and like that had left a wake of brightness behind.
+
+"I could not sleep. Excitement kept me wakeful and restless. I heard the
+measured tread of the sentinel walking his 'lonely round,' and it did
+not sound louder than the beating of my own heart. Hark! a soft, breezy
+sound steals up just beneath my window. It is the vibration of the
+guitar,--a deeptoned, melodious voice accompanies it. It is the voice of
+St. James. He sings, and the strains fall upon the stilly night, soft as
+the silver dew.
+
+"Gabriella, I told you with my dying lips never to unseal this
+manuscript till you were awakened to woman's destiny,--_love_. If you do
+not sympathize with my emotions, lay it down, my child, the hour is not
+yet come. If you have never heard a voice, whose faintest tones sink
+into the lowest depths of your soul,--if you have never met a glance,
+whose lightning rays penetrate to the innermost recesses of the heart,
+reseal these pages. The feelings with which you cannot sympathize will
+seem weakness and folly, and a daughter must not scorn a mother's bosom
+record.
+
+"Remember how lonely, how unfriended I was. The only eye that had beamed
+on me with love was closed in death, the only living person on whom I
+had any claims was cruel and unkind. Blame me not that I listened to a
+stranger's accents, that I received his image into my heart, that I
+enthroned it there, and paid homage to the kingly guest.
+
+"It is in vain to linger thus. I met him again and again. I learned to
+measure time and space by one line--where he _was_, and where he was
+_not_. I learned to bear harshness, jeering, and wrong, because a door
+of escape was opened, and the roses of paradise seemed blushing beyond.
+I suffered him to be my friend--lover--husband."
+
+I dropped the manuscript that I might clasp my hands in an ecstasy of
+gratitude--
+
+"My God,--I thank thee!" I exclaimed, sinking on my knees, and repeating
+the emphatic words: "_friend--lover-husband_." "God of my mother,
+forgive my dark misgivings."
+
+Now I could look up. Now I could hold the paper with a firm hand. There
+was nothing in store that I could not bear to hear, no misfortune I had
+not courage to meet. Alas! alas!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+"Yes," continued my mother; "we were married within heaven dedicated
+walls by a man of God, and the blessing of the holy, blessed, and
+glorious Trinity was pronounced upon our union. Remember this, my dearly
+beloved child, remember that in the bosom of the church, surrounded by
+all the solemnities of religion, with the golden ring, the uttered vow,
+and on bended knee, I was wedded to Henry Gabriel St. James.
+
+"My step-mother refused to be present. She had sufficient regard to the
+world's opinion to plead indisposition as an excuse; but it was a false
+one. She never forgave me for winning the love of the man whom she had
+herself resolved to charm, and from the hour of our introduction to the
+day of my marriage, my life was clouded by the gloom of her ill temper.
+
+"We immediately departed for New York, where St. James resided, and our
+bridal home was adorned with all the elegancies which classic taste
+could select, and prodigal love lavish upon its idol. I was happy then,
+beyond the dream of imagination. St. James was the fondest, the kindest,
+the tenderest--O my God! must I add--the falsest of human beings? I did
+not love him then--I worshipped, I adored him. I have told you that my
+childish imagination was fed by wild, impassioned romances, and I had
+made to myself an ideal image, round which, like the maid of France, I
+hung the garlands of fancy, and knelt before its shrine.
+
+"Whatever has been my after fate, I have known the felicity of loving in
+all its length and breadth and strength. And he, too, loved me
+passionately, devotedly. Strong indeed must have been the love that
+triumphed over principle, honor, and truth, that broke the most sacred
+of human ties, and dared the vengeance of retributive Heaven.
+
+"St. James was an artist. He was not dependent entirely on his genius
+for his subsistence, though his fortune was not large enough to enable
+him to live in splendid indolence. He had been in Europe for the last
+few years, wandering amid the ruins of Italy, studying the grand old
+masters, summering in the valleys of Switzerland, beneath the shadow of
+its mountain heights, and polishing his bold, masterly sketches among
+the elegant artists of Paris.
+
+"With what rapture I listened to his glowing descriptions of foreign
+lands, and what beautiful castles we built where we were to dwell
+together in the golden clime of Italy or the sunny bowers of France!
+
+"At length, my Gabriella, you were given to my arms, and the deep, pure
+fountain of a mother's love welled in my youthful bosom. But my life was
+wellnigh a sacrifice to yours. For weeks it hung trembling on a thread
+slender and weak as the gossamer's web. St. James watched over me, as
+none but guardian angels could watch, and I had another faithful and
+devoted nurse, our good and matchless Peggy. To her unsleeping
+vigilance, her strong heart and untiring arm, I owe in a great measure
+the restoration of my health, or rather the preservation of my life; my
+health was never entirely renovated.
+
+"When you were about five or six months old, St. James came to me with a
+troubled countenance. He was summoned away, very unexpectedly. He would
+probably be obliged to go as far as Texas before his return; he might be
+absent a month. Business of a perplexing nature, which it was impossible
+to explain then, called him from me, but he would shorten as much as
+possible the days of absence which would be dreary and joyless to him. I
+was overwhelmed with grief at the thought of his leaving me; my nerves
+were still weak, and I wept in all the abandonment of sorrow. I feared
+for him the dangers that beset the path of the traveller--sickness,
+death; but I feared not for his honor or truth. I relied upon his
+integrity, as I did upon the promises of the Holy Scriptures. I did hot
+urge him to explain the motives of his departure, satisfied that they
+were just and honorable.
+
+"Oh! little did I think,--when he clasped me in a parting embrace when
+he committed us both so tenderly and solemnly to the guardianship of our
+Heavenly Father,--little did I think I should so soon seek to rend him
+from my heart as a vile, accursed monster; that I should shrink from the
+memory of his embraces as from the coils of the serpent, the fangs of
+the wolf. God in his mercy veils the future, or who could bear the
+burden of coming woe!
+
+"A few days after his departure, as I was seated in the nursery,
+watching your innocent witcheries as you lay cradled in the lap of
+Peggy, I was told a lady wished to see me. It was too early an hour for
+fashionable calls, and I went into the parlor expecting to meet one of
+those ministering spirits, who go about on errands of mercy, seeking the
+aid of the rich for the wants of the poor.
+
+"A lady was standing with her back to the door, seemingly occupied in
+gazing at a picture over the mantel-piece, an exquisite painting of St.
+James. Her figure was slight and graceful, and she struck me at once as
+having a foreign air. She turned round at my entrance, exhibiting a pale
+and agitated countenance; a countenance which though not beautiful, was
+painfully interesting. She had a soft olive complexion, and a full
+melancholy black eye, surcharged with tears.
+
+"I motioned her to a seat, for I could not speak. Her agitation was
+contagious, and I waited in silent trepidation to learn the mystery of
+her emotion.
+
+"'Forgave me this intrusion,' said she, in hesitating accents; 'you look
+so young, so innocent, so lovely, my heart misgives me. I cannot, I dare
+not.'
+
+"She spoke in French, a language of which I was mistress, and I
+recognized at once the land of her birth. She paused, as if unable to
+proceed, while I sat, pale and cold as marble, wondering what awful
+revelation she would, but dared not make. Had she come to tell me of my
+husband's death,--was my first agonized thought, and I faintly
+articulated,--
+
+"'My husband!'
+
+"'_Your_ husband! Poor, deluded young creature. Alas! alas! I can
+forgive him for deserting me, but not for deceiving and destroying you.'
+
+"I started to my feet with a galvanic spring. My veins tingled as if
+fire were running through them, and my hair rose, startling with
+electric horror. I grasped her arm with a force she might have felt
+through covering steel, and looking her steadfastly in the face,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"'He _is_ my husband; mine in the face of God and man. He is _my_
+husband, and the father of my child. I will proclaim it in the face of
+earth and heaven. I will proclaim it till my dying day. How dare you
+come to me with slanders so vile, false, unprincipled woman?'
+
+"She recoiled a few steps from me, and held up her deprecating hands.
+
+"'Have pity upon me, for I am very wretched,' she cried; 'were it not
+for my child I would die in silence and despair, rather than rouse you
+from your fatal dream, but I cannot see him robbed of his rights. I
+cannot see another usurping the name and place he was born to fill.
+Madam,' continued she, discarding her supplicating tone, and speaking
+with dignity and force, 'I am no false, unprincipled woman, inventing
+tales which I cannot corroborate. I am a wife, as pure in heart, as
+upright in purpose as you can be,--a mother as tender. Forsaken by him
+whom in spite of my wrongs I still too fondly love, I have left my
+native land, crossed the ocean's breadth, come a stranger to a strange
+country, that I might appeal to you for redress, and tell you that if
+you still persist in calling him your own, it will be in defiance of the
+laws of man and the canons of the living God.'
+
+"As she thus went on, her passions became roused, and flashed and
+darkened in her face with alternations so quick they mocked the sight.
+She spoke with the rapid tongue and impressive gesticulation of her
+country, and God's truth was stamped on every word. I felt it,--I knew
+it. She was no base, lying impostor. She was a wronged and suffering
+woman;--and he,--the idol of my soul,--the friend, lover, _husband_ of
+my youth,--no, no! he could not be a villain! She was mad,--ha, ha,--she
+was mad! Bursting into a wild, hysteric laugh, I sunk back on the sofa,
+repeating,--
+
+"'Poor thing, she is mad! I wonder I did not know it sooner.'
+
+"'No, madam, I am not mad,' she cried, in calmer tones; 'I sometimes
+wish I were. I am in the full possession of my reason, as I can
+abundantly prove. But little more than three years since, I was married
+to Gabriel Henry St. James, in Paris, my native city, and here is the
+certificate which proves the truth of my assertion.'
+
+"Taking a paper from her pocket-book, she held it towards me, so that I
+could read the writing, still retaining it in her own hand. I did not
+blame her,--oh, no! I should have done the same. I saw, what seemed
+blazing in fire, the names of Henry Gabriel St. James and Therésa
+Josephine La Fontaine united in marriage by the usual formula of the
+church.
+
+"I did not attempt to snatch it from her, or to destroy the fatal paper.
+I gazed upon it till the characters swelled out like black chords, and
+writhed in snaky convolutions.
+
+"'Do you recognize this?' she asked, taking from her bosom a gold case,
+and touching a spring. It flew open and revealed the handsome features
+of St. James, beaming with the same expression as when I first beheld
+him, an expression I remembered but too well. She turned it in the case,
+and I saw written on the back in gold letters, 'For my beloved wife,
+Therésa Josephine.'
+
+"It was enough. The certificate might be a forgery, her tale a lie; but
+this all but breathing picture, these indubitable words, were proofs of
+blasting power. Cold, icy shiverings ran through my frame,--a cold,
+benumbing weight pressed down my heart,--a black abyss opened before
+me,--the earth heaved and gave way beneath me. With a shriek that seemed
+to breathe out my life, I fell forward at the feet of her whom I had so
+guiltlessly wronged."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus far had I read, with clenching teeth and rigid limbs, and brow on
+which chill, deadly drops were slowly gathering, when my mother's shriek
+seemed suddenly to ring in my ears,--the knell of a broken heart, a
+ruined frame,--and I sprang up and looked wildly round me. Where was I?
+Who was I?
+
+Were the heavens turned to brass and the sun to blood, or was yon
+saffron belt the gold of declining day,--yon crimson globe, the sun
+rolling through a hazy, sultry atmosphere? What meant that long green
+mound stretching at my side, that broken shaft, twined with the cypress
+vine? I clasped both hands over my temples, as these questions drifted
+through my mind, then bending my knees, I sunk lower and lower, till my
+head rested on the grave. I was conscious of but one wish--to stay there
+and die. The bolt of indelible disgrace quivered in my heart; why should
+I wish to live?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+I did not become insensible, but I was dead to surrounding objects, dead
+to the present, dead to the future. The past, the terrible, the
+inexorable past, was upon me, trampling me, grinding me with iron heel,
+into the dust of the grave. I could not move, for its nightmare weight
+crushed me. I could not see, for its blackness shrouded me; nor hear,
+for its shrieks deafened me. Had I remained long in that awful
+condition, I should have become a maniac.
+
+"Gabriella!" said a voice, which at any other moment would have wakened
+a thrill of rapture, "Gabriella, speak,--look up. Why do you do this?
+Why will you not speak? Do you not hear me?"
+
+I did try to speak, but my tongue seemed frozen. I did try to lift my
+head, but in vain.
+
+Ernest Linwood, for it was he, knelt down by me, and putting his arms
+round me, raised me from the ground, without any volition of my own. I
+know not what state I was in. I was perfectly conscious; but had no more
+power over the movement of a muscle than if I were dead. My eyes were
+closed, and my head drooped on his breast, as he raised me, bowed by its
+own weight. I was in a kind of conscious catalepsy. He was alarmed,
+terrified. As he afterwards told me, he really believed me dead, and
+clasping me to him with an energy of which he was not aware, adjured me
+in the most tender and passionate manner to speak and tell him that I
+lived.
+
+"Gabriella, my flower-girl, my darling!" he cried, pressing my cheek
+with those pure, despairing kisses with which love hallows death. Had I
+indeed passed the boundaries of life, for my spirit alone was conscious
+of caresses, whose remembrance thrilled through my being.
+
+The reaction was instantaneous. The chilled blood grew warm and rushed
+through every vein with wild rapidity. Then I became physically
+conscious, and glowing with confusion I raised myself from my reclining
+position, and attempted to look up into the face of Ernest. But I could
+not do it. Contending emotions deprived me of the power of self-command.
+
+"This is madness, Gabriella! This is suicide!" he exclaimed, lifting me
+from the grave, and still supporting me with his arm. "Why do you come
+here to nurse a grief so far beyond the limits of reason and religion?
+Why do you give your friends such exquisite pain, yourself such
+unnecessary misery?"
+
+"Do not reproach me," I cried. "You know not what cause I have for
+anguish and despair."
+
+"Despair, Gabriella! You cannot know the meaning of that word. Despair
+belongs to guilt, and even that is not hopeless. And why do you come to
+this lone place of graves to weep, as if human sympathy were denied to
+your sorrows? Is not my mother kind,--is not Edith tender and
+affectionate? Am not I worthy to be trusted, as a friend,--a
+protector,--a redresser; and if need be, an avenger of wrongs?"
+
+"My own wrongs I might reveal; but those of the dead are sacred," I
+answered, stooping down and gathering up the manuscript, which was half
+concealed in the long, damp grass. "But do not think me ungrateful. What
+I owe to your mother and Edith words can never tell. In every prayer I
+breathe to heaven I shall call down blessings on their head. And you
+too,--you have been more than kind. I never can forget it."
+
+"If it be not too presumptuous, I will unite your name with theirs, and
+pray that God may bless you, now and ever more."
+
+"This will never do," said he, drawing me forcibly from the mournful
+place. "You _must_ confide in my mother, Gabriella. A dark secret is a
+plague spot in the heart. Confide in my mother. It is due to her
+maternal love and guardianship. And beware of believing that any thing
+independent _of yourself_ can alienate her affections. Can you walk? If
+it were not for leaving you alone, I would go and return with the
+carriage."
+
+"Oh, yes; I am quite well and strong again."
+
+"Then lean on me, Gabriella. Shrink not from an arm which would gladly
+protect you from every danger and every wrong. Let us hasten, lest I
+utter words which I would not for worlds associate with a scene so cold
+and sad. Not where the shadow of death falls--no--not here."
+
+He hurried me through the gate, and then paused.
+
+"Rest here a moment," said he, "and recover your composure. We may meet
+with those who would wonder to see you thus, with your hair wildly
+flowing, your scarf loose and disordered."
+
+"Thank you," I exclaimed, my thoughts coming to the surface, and resting
+there with shame. I had forgotten that my bonnet was in my hand, that my
+comb had fallen, leaving my hair loose and dishevelled. Gathering up its
+length, and twisting it in thick folds around my head, I confined it
+with my bonnet, and smoothing my thin scarf, I took his arm in silence,
+and walked on through the purple gloom of twilight that deepened before
+us. Slight shivers ran through my frame. The dampness of the grave-yard
+clung to me, and the night dews were beginning to fall.
+
+"Are you cold, Gabriella?" he asked, folding my light mantle more
+closely round me. "You are not sufficiently protected from the dewy air.
+You are weary and chill. You do not lean on me. You do not confide in
+me."
+
+"In whom should I confide, then? Without father, brother, or protector,
+in whom should I confide, if ungrateful and untrusting I turn from you?"
+
+As I said this, I suffered my arm to rest more firmly on his, for my
+steps were indeed weary, and we were now ascending the hill. My heart
+was deeply touched by his kindness, and the involuntary ejaculations he
+uttered, the involuntary caresses he bestowed, when he believed me
+perfectly unconscious, were treasured sacredly there. We were now by the
+large elm-tree that shaded the way-side, beneath whose boughs I had so
+often paused to gaze on the valley below. Without speaking, he led me to
+this resting-place, and we both looked back, as wayfarers are wont to do
+when they stop in an ascending path.
+
+Calmly the shadows rested on the landscape, softly yet darkly they
+rolled down the slope of the neighboring hills and the distant
+mountains. In thin curlings, the gray smoke floated upwards and lay
+slumberously among the fleecy clouds. Here and there a mansion, lifted
+above the rest, shed from its glowing windows the reflection of
+departing day. Bright on the dusky gold of the west the evening-star
+shone and throbbed, like a pure love-thought in the heart of night; and,
+dimly glimmering above the horizon, the giant pen seemed writing the
+Mene Tekel of my clouded destiny on the palace walls of heaven.
+
+As we thus stood, lifted above the valley, involved in shadows, silent
+and alone, I could hear the beating of my heart, louder and louder in
+the breathing stillness.
+
+"Gabriella!" said Ernest, in a low voice, and that _master-chord_ which
+no hand but his had touched, thrilled at the sound. "If the spot on
+which we stand were a desert island, and the valley stretching around us
+the wide waste of ocean, and we the only beings in the solitude of
+nature, with your hand thus clasped in mine, and my heart thus throbbing
+near, with a love so strong, so deep, it would be to you in place of the
+whole world beside,--tell me, could you be happy?"
+
+"I could," was the low, irresistible answer; and my soul, like an
+illuminated temple, flashed with inward light. I covered my eyes to keep
+in the dazzling rays. I forgot the sad history of wrongs and disgrace
+which I had just been perusing;--I forgot that such words had breathed
+into my mother's ear, and that she believed them. I only remembered that
+Ernest Linwood loved me, and _that_ love surrounded me with a luminous
+atmosphere, in which joy and hope fluttered their heavenly wings.
+
+How slight a thing will change the current of thought! I caught a
+glimpse of the granite walls of Grandison Place, and darkened by the
+shades, they seemed to frown upon me with their high turret and lofty
+colonnade, so ancestral and imposing. Then I remembered Mrs. Linwood and
+Edith,--then I remembered my mother, my _father_, and all the light went
+out in my heart.
+
+"I had forgotten,--oh, how much I had forgotten," I cried, endeavoring
+to release myself from the arm that only tightened its hold. "Your
+mother never would forgive my presumption if she thought,--if she knew."
+
+"My mother loves you; but even if she did not, I am free to act, free to
+choose, as every man should be. I love and _revere_ my mother, but there
+is a passion stronger than filial love and reverence, which goes on
+conquering and to conquer. She will not, she cannot oppose me."
+
+"But Edith, dear Edith, who loves you so devotedly! She will hate me if
+I dare to supplant her."
+
+"A sister never can be supplanted,--and least of all such a sister as
+Edith, Gabriella. If you do not feel that love so expands, so enlarges
+the heart, that it makes room for all the angels in heaven, you could
+not share my island home."
+
+"If you knew all,--if I could tell you all," I cried,--and again I felt
+the barbed anguish that prostrated me at the grave,--"and you _shall_
+know,--your generous love demands this confidence. When your mother has
+read the history of my parentage, I will place it in your hands; though
+my mother's character is as exalted and spotless as your own, there is a
+cloud over my name that will for ever rest upon it. Knowing _that_, you
+cannot, you will not wish to unite your noble, brilliant destiny with
+mine. This hour will be remembered as a dream, a bright, but fleeting
+dream."
+
+"What do I care for the past?" he exclaimed, detaining me as I
+endeavored to move on. "Talk not of a clouded name. Will not mine absorb
+it? What shaft of malice can pierce you, with my arm as a defence, and
+my bosom as a shield? Gabriella, it is you that I love, not the dead and
+buried past. You are the representative of all present joy and hope. I
+ask for nothing but your love,--your exclusive, boundless love,--a love
+that will be ready to sacrifice every thing but innocence and integrity
+for me,--that will cling to me in woe as in weal, in shame as in honor,
+in death as in life. Such is the love I give; and such I ask in return.
+Is it mine? Tell me not of opposing barriers; only tell me what your
+heart this moment dictates; forgetful of the past, regardless of the
+future? Is this love mine?"
+
+"It is," I answered, looking up through fast-falling tears. "Why will
+you wring this confession from me, when you only know it too well?"
+
+"One question more, Gabriella, for your truth-telling lips to answer. Is
+this love only given in _return_? Did it not spring spontaneously forth
+from the warmth and purity of your own heart, without waiting the avowal
+of mine? Gratitude is not love. It is _stone_, not bread, to a spirit as
+exacting as mine."
+
+Again the truth was forced from me by his unconquerable will,--a will
+that opened the secret valves of thought, and rolled away the rock from
+the fountain of feeling. Even then I felt the despotism as well as the
+strength of his love.
+
+I cannot, I dare not, repeat all that he uttered. It would be deemed too
+extravagant, too high-wrought. And so it was. Let woman tremble rather
+than exult, when she is the object of a passion so intense. The devotion
+of her whole being cannot satisfy its inordinate demands. Though the
+flame of the sacrifice ascend to heaven, it still cries, "Bring gifts to
+the altar,--bring the wine of the banquet,--the incense of the
+temple,--the fuel of the hearth-stone. Bring all, and still I crave.
+Give all, I ask for more."
+
+Not then was this warning suggested. To be wildly, passionately loved,
+was my heart's secret prayer. Life itself would be a willing sacrifice
+to this devotion. Suspicion that stood sentinel at the door of Faith,
+Distrust that threw its shadow over the sunshine of truth, and Jealousy,
+doubting, yet adoring still, would be welcomed as household guests, if
+the attendants of this impassioned love. Such was the dream of my
+girlhood.
+
+When we entered the lawn, lights began to glimmer in the house. I
+trembled at the idea of meeting Mrs. Linwood, or the Amazonian Meg.
+There was a side door through which I might pass unobserved, and by this
+ingress I sought my chamber and locked the door. A lamp was burning on
+the table. Had I lingered abroad so late? Had the absence of Ernest been
+observed?
+
+I sat down on the side of the bed, threw off my bonnet and scarf, shook
+my hair over my shoulders, and pushed it back with both hands from my
+throbbing temples. I wanted room. Such crowding thoughts, such
+overflowing emotions, could not be compressed in those four walls. I
+rose and walked the room back and forth, without fear of being
+over-heard, on the soft carpet of velvet roses. What revelations had
+been made known to me since I had quitted that room! How low I had been
+degraded,--how royally exalted! A child unentitled to her father's
+name!--a maiden, endowed with a princely heart! I walked as one in a
+dream, doubting my own identity. But one master thought governed every
+other.
+
+"He loves me!" I repeated to myself. "Ernest Linwood loves me! Whatever
+be the future, that present bliss is mine. I have tasted woman's
+highest, holiest joy,--the joy of loving and being beloved. Sorrow and
+trial may be mine; but this remembrance will remain, a blessed light
+through the darkness of time,--'a star on eternity's ocean.'"
+
+As I passed and repassed the double mirror, my reflected figure seemed
+an apparition gliding by my side, I paused and stood before one of them,
+and I thought of the time when, first awakened to the consciousness of
+personal influence, I gazed on my own image. Some writer has said, "that
+every woman is beautiful when she loves." There certainly is a light,
+coming up from the enkindled heart, bright as the solar ray, yet pure
+and soft as moonlight, which throws an illusion over the plainest
+features and makes them for the moment charming. I saw the flower-girl
+of the library in the mirror, and then I knew that the artist had
+intended her as the idealization of Love's image.
+
+And then I remembered the morning when we sat together in the library,
+and he took the roses from my basket and scattered the leaves at my
+feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+A thundering rap at the door startled my meditations. I knew there was
+but one pair of knuckles in the house capable of beating such a tattoo,
+and I recoiled from admitting such a boisterous guest.
+
+"Gabriella, Gabriella!" rung a voice through the passage. "Are you
+asleep? Are you dead? Open the door, pray, or I shall kill myself
+squeezing in through the key-hole."
+
+With a deep sigh of vexation, I opened the door, and she sprang in with
+the momentum of a ball hurled by a bat.
+
+"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, catching me round the waist and
+turning me to the light, "what _have_ you been doing? where _have_ you
+been staying? Ill!--tired!--it is all a sham. He need not try to impose
+on me such a story as that. I never saw you look so brilliantly well.
+Your cheeks and lips are red like the damask rose, and your eyes,--I
+never saw such eyes before. Come here and look in the glass. Ill!--ha,
+ha!"
+
+"I have been ill," I answered, shrinking from her reckless hand, "and I
+was very tired; I feel better now."
+
+"Yes, I should think you did. You rested long enough by the way, Heaven
+knows; we saw you climbing the hill at sunset, and the lamps were
+lighted before you came in. I was going after you, but Mrs. Linwood
+would not let me. Ah! you have animated the statue, thou modern
+Pygmaliona. You have turned back into flesh this enchanted man of stone.
+Tell it in Gath, publish it in Askelon; but the daughters of fashion
+will mourn, the tribes of the neglected will envy."
+
+"I cannot match you in brilliant speeches, Miss Melville."
+
+"Call me Miss Melville again, if you dare. Call me Madge, or Meg; but as
+sure as you mount the stilts of ceremony, I will whisk you off at the
+risk of breaking your neck. Hark! there is the supper bell. Come, just
+as you are. You never looked so charming. That wild flow of the hair is
+perfectly bewitching. I don't wonder Mr. Invincible has grounded his
+weapons, not I. If I were a young man,--ha, ha!"
+
+"I sometimes fear you are," I cried. At this remark she burst into such
+a wild fit of laughter, I thought she never would cease. It drowned the
+ringing of the bell, and still kept gushing over afresh.
+
+"Ask Mrs. Linwood to excuse me from supper," said I; "I do not wish any,
+indeed I do not."
+
+Well, I am not one of the air plants; I must have something more
+substantial than sentiment, or I should pine with green and yellow
+hunger, not melancholy. I never cried but once, that I recollect, and
+that was when a favorite black cat of mine was killed,--maliciously,
+villanously killed, by an old maid, just because she devoured her
+favorite Canary. No, with the daughter of Jephthah, I exclaimed,--
+
+    'Let my memory still be thy pride,
+    And forget not I smiled as I died.'
+
+Shutting, or rather slamming the door, she bounded down the stairs with
+the steps of the chamois.
+
+I had not finished my mother's history, but I had passed the _breakers_.
+There could be nothing beyond so fearful and wrecking. The remainder was
+brief, and written at times with a weak and failing hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How long I remained in that deadly swoon," continued the manuscript, "I
+know not. When I recovered, I was lying on my bed, with Peggy standing
+on one side and a physician on the other. As soon as I looked up, Peggy
+burst into tears.
+
+"'Thank God!' she sobbed, 'I thought she was dead.'
+
+"'Hush!' said the doctor; 'let her be kept perfectly quiet. Give her
+this composing draught, and let no one be admitted to her chamber,--not
+even her child.'
+
+"Child! it all came back to me. Where was she, that dreadful woman?
+Starting up in bed, I looked wildly round the room for the haunting
+phantom,--she was not a reality,--I must have had a terrible dream.
+
+"'Yes!' said the doctor, answering the expression of my countenance,
+'you have had a shocking nightmare. Drink this, and you will awake
+refreshed.'
+
+"Yielding passively, I drank the colorless fluid he offered me, and
+sinking back on my pillow passed into a deep and tranquil sleep. When I
+awoke, the silence and darkness of night brooded around me. My mind now
+was clear as crystal, and every image appeared with startling
+distinctness. I lay still and calm, revolving what course to pursue; and
+as I lay and revolved, doubts of the truth of her story grew stronger
+and stronger. All my husband's love and tenderness rose in remembrance,
+vindicating his aspersed honor. She had forged the tale,--she had stolen
+the picture,--she was an impostor and a wretch.
+
+"At morning light, I awakened Peggy, and demanded of her what had
+occurred during my insensible state, and what had become of the strange
+woman. Peggy said that the piercing shrieks of the stranger brought her
+to the parlor, where I lay like a corpse on the carpet, and she kneeling
+over me, ringing her hands, and uttering unintelligible words.
+
+"'You have killed her,' cried Peggy, pushing back the stranger, and
+taking me in her strong arms.
+
+"'_Je le sais, mon Dieu, je le sais_,' exclaimed she, lifting her
+clasped hands to heaven. Peggy did not understand French, but she
+repeated the words awkwardly enough, yet I could interpret them.
+
+"As they found it impossible to recall me to life, a physician was
+summoned, and as soon as he came the stranger disappeared.
+
+"'Don't think of her anymore,' said Peggy; 'don't, Mrs. St. James,--I
+don't believe a word of her story,--she's crazy,--she's a lunatic, you
+may be sure she is,--she looked stark mad.'
+
+"I tried to believe this assertion, but something told me she was no
+maniac. I tried to believe her an impostor,--I asserted she was,--but if
+so, she transcended all the actresses in the world. I could not eat, I
+could not bear you, my darling Gabriella, to be brought into my
+presence. Your innocent smiles were daggers to my heart.
+
+"But she came again, Therésa, the avenger,--she came followed by a
+woman, leading by the hand a beautiful boy.
+
+"Here was proof that needed no confirmation. Every infantine feature
+bore the similitude of St. James. The eyes, the smile, his miniature
+self was there. I no longer doubted,--no longer hesitated.
+
+"'Leave me,' I cried, and despair lent me calmness. 'I resign all claims
+to the name, the fortune, and the affections of him who has so cruelly
+wronged us. Not for worlds would I remain even one day longer in the
+home he has desecrated by his crimes. Respect my sorrows, and leave me.
+You may return to-morrow.'
+
+"'_Oh, juste ciel!_' she exclaimed. '_Je suis trés malheureuse._'
+
+"Snatching her child in her arms, and raising it as high as her strength
+could lift it, she called upon God to witness that it was only for his
+sake she had asserted her legal rights; that, having lost the heart of
+her husband, all she wished was to die. Then, sinking on her knees
+before me, she entreated me to forgive her the wretchedness she had
+caused.
+
+"'_I_ forgive _you_?' I cried. 'Alas! it is I should supplicate your
+forgiveness. I do ask it in the humility of a broken heart. But
+go--go--if you would not see me die.'
+
+"Terrified at my ghastly countenance, Peggy commanded the nurse to take
+the child from the room. Therésa followed with lingering steps, casting
+back upon me a glance of pity and remorse. I never saw her again.
+
+"'And now, Peggy,' said I, 'you are the only friend I have in the wide
+world. Yet I must leave you. With my child in my arms, I am going forth,
+like Hagar, into the wilderness of life. I have money enough to save me
+from immediate want. Heaven will guard the future.'
+
+"'And where will you go?' asked Peggy, passing the back of her hand over
+her eyes.
+
+"'Alas, I know not. I have no one to counsel me, no one to whom I can
+turn for assistance or go for shelter. Even my Heavenly Father hideth
+his face from me.'
+
+"'Oh, Mrs. St. James!'
+
+"'Call me not by that accursed name. Call me Rosalie. It was a dying
+mother's gift, and they cannot rob me of that.'
+
+"'Miss Rosalie, I will never quit you. There is nobody in the world I
+love half as well, and if you will let me stay with you, I will wait on
+you, and take care of the baby all the days of my life.'
+
+"Then she told me how she came from New England to live with a brother,
+who had since died of consumption, and how she was going back, because
+she did not like to live in a great city, when the doctor got her to
+come to nurse me in sickness, and how she had learned to love me so well
+she could not bear the thoughts of going away from me. She told me, too,
+how quiet and happy people could live in that part of the country; how
+they could get along upon almost nothing at all, and be just as private
+as they pleased, and nobody would pester them or make them afraid.
+
+"She knew exactly how she came to the city, and we could go the same
+way, only we would wind about a little and not go to the place where she
+used to live, so that folks need ask no questions or know any thing
+about us.
+
+"With a childlike dependence, as implicit as your own, and as
+instinctive, I threw myself on Peggy's strong heart and great common
+sense. With equal judgment and energy, she arranged every thing for our
+departure. She had the resolution and fortitude of a man, with the
+tenderness and fidelity of a woman. I submitted myself entirely to her
+guidance, saying, 'It was well.' But when I was alone, I clasped you in
+agony to my bosom, and prostrating myself before the footstool of
+Jehovah, I prayed for a bolt to strike us, mother and child together,
+that we might be spared the bitter cup of humiliation and woe. One
+moment I dared to think of mingling our life blood together in the grave
+of the suicide; the next, with streaming eyes, I implored forgiveness
+for the impious thought.
+
+"It is needless to dwell minutely on the circumstances of our departure.
+We left that beautiful mansion, once the abode of love and happiness,
+now a dungeon house of despair;--we came to this lone, obscure spot,
+where I resumed my father's name, and gave it to you. At first,
+curiosity sought out the melancholy stranger, but Peggy's
+incommunicativeness and sound judgment baffled its scrutiny. In a little
+while, we were suffered to remain in the seclusion we desired. Here you
+have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence,
+unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon
+your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a
+father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human
+goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of
+revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice
+shall speak; for the time may come, when a knowledge of your parentage
+will be indispensable, and concealment be considered a crime.
+
+"Should you hereafter win the love of an honorable and noble heart, (for
+such are sometimes found,) every honorable and noble feeling will prompt
+you to candor and truth, with regard to your personal relations. I need
+not tell you this.
+
+"And now, my darling child, I leave you one solemn dying charge. Should
+it ever be your lot to meet that guilty, erring father, whose care you
+have never known, whose name you have never borne, let no vindictive
+memories rise against him.
+
+"Tell him, I forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven by my Heavenly
+Father, for all my sins and transgressions, and my idolatrous love of
+him. Tell him, that now, as life is ebbing slowly away like the sands of
+the hour-glass, and I can calmly look back upon the past, I bless him
+for being the means of leading my wandering footsteps to the green
+fields and still pastures of the great Shepherd of Israel. Had he never
+prepared for me the bitter cup of sorrow, I had not perchance tasted the
+purple juice which my Saviour trod the wine-press of God's wrath to
+obtain. Had not 'lover and friend been taken from me,' I might not have
+turned to the Friend of sinners; the Divine Love of mankind. Tell him
+then, oh Gabriella! that I not only forgave, but blessed him with the
+heart of a woman and the spirit of a Christian.
+
+"I had a dream, a strange, wild dream last night, which I am constrained
+to relate. I am not superstitious, but its echo lingers in my soul.
+
+"I dreamed that your father was exposed to some mysterious danger, that
+you alone could avert. That I saw him plunging down into an awful abyss,
+lower and lower; and that he called on you, Gabriella, to save him, in a
+voice that might have rent the heavens; and then they seemed to open,
+and you appeared distant as a star, yet distinct and fair as an angel,
+slowly descending right over the yawning chasm. You stretched out your
+arms towards him, and drew him upward as if by an invisible chain. As he
+rose, the dark abyss was transformed to beds of roses, whose fragrance
+was so intensely sweet it waked me. It was but a dream, my Gabriella,
+but it may be that God destined you to fulfil a glorious mission: to
+lead your erring father back to the God he has forsaken. It may be, that
+through you, an innocent and injured child, the heart sundered on earth
+may be reunited in heaven.
+
+"One more charge, my best beloved. In whatever situation of life you may
+be placed, remember our boundless obligations to the faithful Peggy, and
+never, never, be separated from her. Repay to her as far as possible the
+long, long debt of love and devotion due from us both. She has literally
+forsaken all to follow me and mine; and if there is a crown laid up in
+heaven for the true, self-sacrificing heart, that crown will one day be
+hers.
+
+"The pen falls from my hand. Farewell trembles on my lips. Oh! at this
+moment I feel the triumph of faith, the glory of religion.
+
+    "'Other refuge have I none;
+      Hangs my helpless soul on _thee_;
+    Leave, oh, leave me not alone,
+      Still support and comfort me.'
+
+"Not me alone, O compassionate and blessed Saviour! but the dear, the
+precious, the only one I leave behind. To thine exceeding love, to the
+care of a mighty God, the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, I now
+commit her. 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is naught on
+earth which I desire beside thee.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+Edith came in, as usual, before she retired for the night, and expressed
+affectionate concern for my indisposition; but there was an air of
+constraint, which I could not help perceiving. My eyes fell before hers,
+with conscious guilt. For had I not robbed her of that first place in
+her brother's heart, which she had so long claimed as her inalienable
+right?
+
+I had one duty to perform, and I resolved to do it before I laid my head
+on the pillow. With the manuscript in my hand, I sought the chamber of
+Mrs. Linwood. She sat before a small table, her head resting
+thoughtfully on her hand, with an open Bible before her. She looked up
+at my entrance, with a countenance of gentle seriousness, and extended
+her hand affectionately.
+
+Walking hastily towards her, I knelt at her feet, and laying the
+manuscript in her lap, burst into tears.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I cried, "will your love and kindness survive the
+knowledge of all these pages will reveal? Will a mother's virtues cancel
+the record of a father's guilt? Can you cherish and protect me still?"
+
+She bent over me and took me in her arms, while tears trembled in her
+eyes.
+
+"I know all, my dear child," she said; "there is nothing new to be
+revealed. Your mother gave me, on her death-bed, a brief history of her
+life, and it only increased your claims on my maternal care. Do you
+think it possible, Gabriella, that I could be so unjust and unkind, as
+to visit the sins of a father on the head of an innocent and unoffending
+child? No; believe me, nothing but your own conduct could ever alienate
+my affections or confidence."
+
+"Teach me to deserve it, dear Mrs. Linwood,--teach me how to prove my
+love, my gratitude, and veneration."
+
+"By confiding in me as a mother, trusting me as a friend, and seeking me
+as a guide and counsellor in this most dangerous season of youth and
+temptation, you are very dear to me, Gabriella. Next to my own son and
+daughter, I love you, nor do I consider their happiness a more sacred
+deposit than yours."
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I exclaimed, covering my burning face with my hands,
+and again bowing it on her lap--"Ask me anything,--and nothing shall be
+held back--I cannot--I dare not--perhaps I ought not--"
+
+"Tell me that my son loves you?"
+
+I started and trembled; but as soon as the words passed her lips I
+gathered courage to meet whatever she might say.
+
+"If it be indeed so," I answered, "should not the revelation come from
+him, rather than me?"
+
+"There needs no formal declaration. I have seen it, known it, even
+before yourselves were conscious of its existence--this all engrossing
+passion. Before my son's return I foresaw it, with the prescience of
+maternal love. I knew your young, imaginative heart would find its ideal
+in him, and that his fastidious taste and sensitive, reserved nature
+would be charmed by your simplicity, freshness, and genius. I knew it,
+and yet I could not warn you. For when did youth ever believe the
+cautions of age, or passion listen to the voice of truth?"
+
+"Warn _me_, madam? Oh, you mean him, not _me_. I never had the
+presumption to think myself his equal; never sought, never aspired to
+his love. You believe me, Mrs. Linwood--tell me, you believe me in
+this?"
+
+"I do, Gabriella. Your heart opened as involuntarily and as inevitably
+to receive him, as the flower unfolds itself to the noonday sun. It is
+your destiny; but would to God I could oppose it, that I could
+substitute for you a happier, if less brilliant lot."
+
+"A happier lot than to be the wife of Ernest? Oh! Mrs. Linwood, Heaven
+offers nothing to the eye of faith more blissful, more divine."
+
+"Alas! my child, such is always the dream of love like yours, and from
+such dreams there must be a day of awakening. God never intended their
+realization in this world. You look up to me with wondering and
+reproachful glance. You have feared me, Gabriella, feared that I would
+oppose my son's choice, if it rested on one so lowly as you believe
+yourself. You are mistaken--I have no right to dictate to him. He is
+more than of age, has an independent fortune and an independent will.
+The husband lifts his wife to his own position in society, and his name
+annihilates hers. The knowledge of your father's character gives me
+pain, and the possibility of his ever claiming you as his child is a
+source of deep inquietude,--but it is chiefly for you I tremble, for you
+I suffer, my beloved Gabriella."
+
+I looked up in consternation and alarm. What invisible sword hung
+trembling over the future?
+
+"Ernest," she began, then stopping, she raised me from my kneeling
+attitude, led me to a sofa, and made me seat myself at her side.
+"Ernest," she continued, holding my hand tenderly in hers, "has many
+noble and attractive qualities. He is just, generous, and honorable; he
+is upright, honest, and true; the shadow of deceit never passed over his
+soul, the stain of a mean action never rested on his conduct. But,"--and
+her hand involuntarily tightened around mine,--"he has qualities fatal
+to the peace of those who love him,--fatal to his own happiness;
+suspicion haunts him like a dark shadow,--jealousy, like a serpent, lies
+coiled in his heart."
+
+"He has told me all this," I cried, with a sigh of relief,--"but I fear
+not,--my confidence shall be so entire, there shall be no room for
+suspicion,--my love so perfect it shall cast out jealousy."
+
+"So I once thought and reasoned in all the glow of youthful enthusiasm,
+but experience came with its icy touch, and enthusiasm, hope, joy, and
+love itself faded and died. The dark passions of Ernest are
+hereditary,--they belong to the blood that flows in his veins,--they are
+part and lot of his existence,--they are the phantoms that haunted his
+father's path, and cast their chill shadows over the brief years of my
+married life. The remembrance of what I have suffered myself, makes me
+tremble for her who places her happiness in my son's keeping. A woman
+cannot be happy unless she is trusted."
+
+"Not if she is beloved!" I exclaimed. "It seems to me that love should
+cover every fault, and jealousy be pardoned without an effort, since it
+is a proof of the strength and fervor of one's affection. Let me be
+loved,--I ask no more."
+
+"You love my son, Gabriella?"
+
+"Love him!" I repeated,--"oh that you could look into my heart!"
+
+Blushing at the fervor of my manner, I turned my crimson face from her
+gaze. Then I remembered that he knew not yet what might place an
+insurmountable barrier between us, and I entreated Mrs. Linwood to tell
+him what I wanted courage to relate.
+
+"I will, my child, but it will make no difference with him. His high,
+chivalrous sense of honor will make the circumstances of your birth but
+a new claim on his protection,--and his purposes are as immovable as his
+passions are strong. But let us talk no more to-night. It is late, and
+you need rest. We will renew the subject when you are more composed--I
+might say both. I could not give you a greater proof of my interest in
+your happiness, than the allusion I have made to my past life. Never
+before have I lifted the curtain from errors which death has sanctified.
+Let the confidence be sacred. Ernest and Edith must never know that a
+shadow rested on their father's virtues. Nothing but the hope of saving
+you from the sufferings which once were mine, could have induced me to
+rend the veil from the temple of my heart."
+
+"How solemn, how chilling are your words," said I, feeling very faint
+and sad. "I wish I had not heard them. Do joy and sorrow always thus go
+hand in hand? In the last few hours I have known the two great extremes
+of life. I have been plunged into the depths of despair and raised to
+the summit of hope. I am dizzy and weak by the sudden transition. I will
+retire, dear madam, for my head feels strangely bewildered."
+
+Mrs. Linwood embraced me with unusual tenderness, kissed me on both
+cheeks, and accompanied me to the door with a fervent "God bless you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+As soon as I reached my chamber, I threw myself on my bed, which seemed
+to roll beneath me with a billowy motion. Never had I felt so strangely,
+so wildly. Confused images crowded through my brain. I moved on an
+undulating surface. Now, it was the swelling and sinking of the blue
+gray waves of ocean,--then, the heaving green of the churchyard, billows
+of death, over which the wind blew damp and chill. I had left the lamp
+unextinguished, where its light reflected the rosy red of the curtains,
+and that became a fiery meteor shooting through crimson clouds, and
+leaving a lurid track behind it.
+
+I sat up in bed; frightened at the wild confusion of my brain, I passed
+my hands over my eyes to remove the illusion, but in vain. The massy
+wardrobe changed to the rocky walls of the Rip Raps, and above it I saw
+the tall form of the white-locked chief. The carpet, with its clusters
+of mimic flowers, on a pale gray ground, was a waste of waters, covered
+with roses, among which St. James was swimming and trying to grasp them.
+
+"What is the matter?" I cried, clasping my burning hands. "Am I asleep,
+and are these images but the visions of a feverish imagination?"
+
+"You dream, my love," answered the low, deep voice of Ernest; "but my
+mother is coming to awaken you with a cold and icy hand. I have
+scattered roses over you while you slept, but her blighting touch has
+withered them."
+
+Thus vision after vision succeeded each other, hurrying along like
+clouds in a tempestuous sky. I suppose I must have slept at last, but
+the morning found me in a state of utter exhaustion. Nervous excitement,
+sitting so long on the damp grass, and lingering out in the dewy evening
+air, brought on an illness which confined me to my bed many days. Dr.
+Harlowe threatened to put me in a strait-jacket and send me to a lunatic
+asylum, if I did not behave better in future.
+
+"I must take you home with me," he said; "our quiet, humdrum mode of
+life is better for you, after all. Your little rocking chair stands
+exactly where you used to sit in it. I do not like to see any one else
+occupy it. I get in disgrace with my wife every day, now you are not by
+me to hang up my hat and remind me by a glance to shake the dust from my
+feet. Such a quick pulse as this will never do, my child."
+
+For a week I was kept in a darkened room, and perfect quietude was
+commanded. The doctor came every day, and sometimes several times a day,
+with his smiling, sunny countenance, and anxious, affectionate heart.
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith stole gently in and out, with steps soft as
+falling snowflakes, and Margaret Melville was not permitted to enter at
+all. Every morning fresh flowers were laid upon my pillow, which I knew
+were gathered by the hand of Ernest, and they whispered to me of such
+sweet things my languid senses _ached_ to hear them.
+
+One day, while in this passive, languishing, dreamy condition, having
+fallen into tranquil slumbers, I was left a few moments alone. I was
+awakened by a stronger touch than that of Edith's fairy hand.
+
+"Why, how do you do, darling? How do you do?" cried a hearty, gay voice,
+that echoed like a bugle in the stillness of the room. "The doctor said
+you were getting well, and I determined I would not be kept out any
+longer. What in the world do they banish _me_ for? I am the best nurse
+in the universe, strong as a lion, and wakeful as an owl. What do they
+shut you up in this dark room for?--just to give you the blues!--It is
+all nonsense. I am going to put back these curtains, and let in some
+light,--you will become etiolated. I want to see how you look."
+
+Dashing at the curtains, she tossed two of them back as high as she
+could throw them, letting in a flood of sunshine to my weak and dazzled
+eyes.
+
+"Don't! don't!" I entreated, getting dreadfully nervous and agitated; "I
+cannot bear it,--indeed I cannot."
+
+"Yes you can; you will be better in a moment,--it is only coming out of
+darkness into marvellous light,--a sudden change, that is all. You do
+look white,--white, delicate, and sweet as a water-lily. I have a great
+mind to invite Ernest up to see you, you look so interesting. He has
+been like a distracted man, a wandering Jew, an unlaid ghost, ever since
+you have been ill. And poor Richard Clyde comes every night to inquire
+after you, with such a woebegone countenance. And that great, ugly,
+magnificent creature of a teacher, he has been too,--you certainly are a
+consequential little lady."
+
+Thus she rattled on, without dreaming of the martyrdom she was
+inflicting on my weakened nerves.
+
+"I have no doubt you mean to be kind," said I, ready to cry from
+weakness and irritation; "but if you will only drop the curtains and
+leave me, I will be so very grateful."
+
+"There--the curtains are down. I am not going to speak another word--I
+am a perfect lamb--I will bathe your head with cologne, and put you to
+sleep nicely."
+
+Stepping across the room, as she thought, very softly, but making more
+noise than Edith would in a week, she seized a bottle of cologne, and
+coming close to the bedside, bent over me, so that her great, black eyes
+almost touched mine. Had they been a pair of pistols, I could not have
+recoiled with greater terror.
+
+"Don't!" again I murmured,--"I am very weak."
+
+"Hush! I am going to put you to sleep."
+
+Pouring the cologne in her hand, till it dripped all over the
+counterpane and pillow, she deluged my hair, and patted my forehead as
+she would a colt's that she wanted to stand still. In mute despair I
+submitted to her _tender mercies_, certain I should die, if some one did
+not come to my relief, when the door softly opened, and Mrs. Linwood
+entered.
+
+"Heaven be praised," thought I,--I had not strength to say it. Tears of
+weariness and vexation were mingling with the drops with which she had
+saturated my hair.
+
+"Margaret," said Mrs. Linwood, in a tone of serious displeasure, "what
+have you been doing? I left her in a sweet sleep, and now I find her
+wan, tearful, and agitated. You will worry her into a relapse."
+
+"All she needs now is cheerful company, I am sure," she answered
+demurely; "you all make her so tender and baby-like, she never will have
+any strength again. I've been as soft as a cooing dove. Dr. Harlowe
+would have been delighted with me."
+
+"You _must_ go, Margaret, indeed you must. _You_ may think yourself a
+dove, but others have a different opinion."
+
+"Going, going, gone!" she cried, giving me a vehement kiss and
+vanishing.
+
+The consequence of this energetic visit was a relapse; and Dr. Harlowe
+was as angry as his nature admitted when he learned the cause.
+
+"That wild-cat must not remain here," said he, shaking his head. "She
+will kill my gentle patient. Where did you find her, Mrs. Linwood? From
+what menagerie has she broken loose?"
+
+"She is the daughter of an early and very dear friend of mine," replied
+Mrs. Linwood, smiling; "a very original and independent young lady, I
+grant she is."
+
+"What in the world did you bring her here for?" asked the doctor
+bluntly; "I intend to chain her, while my child is sick."
+
+"She wished to make a visit in the country, and I thought her wild
+good-humor would be a counterpoise to the poetry and romance of
+Grandison Place."
+
+"You have other more attractive and tractable guests. You will not
+object to my depriving you for a short time of her. May I invite her
+home with me?"
+
+"Certainly,--but she will not accept the invitation. She is not
+acquainted with Mrs. Harlowe."
+
+"That makes no difference,--she will go with me, I am positive."
+
+They conversed in a low tone in one of the window recesses, but I heard
+what they said; and when Mrs. Linwood afterwards told me that Meg the
+Dauntless had gone off with the doctor in high glee, I was inexpressibly
+relieved, for I had conceived an unconquerable terror of her. There was
+other company in the house, as Edith had prophesied, but in a mansion so
+large and so admirably arranged, an invalid might be kept perfectly
+quiet without interfering with the social enjoyment of others.
+
+I was slowly but surely recovering. At night Edith had her harp placed
+in the upper piazza, and sang and played some of her sweetest and most
+soothing strains. Another voice, too, mingled at times with the
+breeze-like swelling of the thrilling chords, and a hand whose
+master-touch my spirit recognized, swept the trembling strings.
+
+How long it seemed since I had stood with _him_ under the shade of the
+broad elm-tree! With what fluctuating emotions I looked forward to
+meeting him again!
+
+At length the doctor pronounced me able to go down stairs.
+
+"I am going to keep the wild-cat till you are a little stronger," he
+said. "She has made herself acquainted with the whole neighborhood, and
+keeps us in a state of perpetual mirth and excitement. What do you think
+she has done? She has actually made Mr. Regulus escort her on horseback
+into the country, and says she is resolved to captivate him."
+
+I could not help laughing at the idea of my tall, awkward master, a
+knight-errant to this queen of the amazons.
+
+"How would you like to be supplanted by her?" he mischievously asked.
+
+"As an assistant teacher?"
+
+"As an assistant for life. Poor Regulus! he was quite sick during your
+absence; and when I accused him of being in love, the simple-hearted
+creature confessed the fact and owned the soft impeachment. I really
+feel very sorry for him. He has a stupendous heart, and a magnificent
+brain. You ought to have treated him better. He would be to you a tower
+of strength in the day of trouble. Little girl, you ought to be proud of
+such a conquest."
+
+"It filled me with sorrow and shame," I answered, "and had he not
+himself betrayed the secret, it never would have been known. It seemed
+too deep a humiliation for one whom I so much respected and revered, to
+bow a supplicant to me. You do not know how unhappy it made me."
+
+"You must get hardened to these things, Gabriella. As you seem to be
+quite a dangerous young lady, destined to do great havoc in the world,
+it will not do to be too sensitive on the subject. But remember, you
+must not dispose of your heart without consulting me. And at any rate,
+wait three years longer for your judgment to mature."
+
+The conscious color rose to my cheek. He took my hand, and placed his
+fingers on my throbbing pulse.
+
+"Too quick, too quick," said he, looking gravely in my face. "This will
+never do. When I bring the wild-cat back, I mean to carry you off. It
+will do you good to stay a while with my good, methodical, unromantic
+wife. I can take you round to visit my patients with me. I have a new
+buggy, larger than the one in which we had such a famous ride together."
+
+The associations connected with that ride were so sad, I wished he had
+not mentioned it; yet the conversation had done me good. It kept me from
+dwelling too exclusively on one engrossing subject.
+
+"Now give me your arm," said the doctor, "and let me have the privilege
+of escorting you down stairs."
+
+As we descended, he put his arm round me, for I was weaker than he
+thought I was, and my knees bent under me.
+
+"We doctors ought not to have jealous wives, my dear, ought we? My dear,
+good woman has not one particle of jealousy in her composition. She
+never looks after my heart; but keeps a wonderfully sharp eye on my head
+and feet. A very sensible person, Mrs. Harlowe is."
+
+There was intentional kindness in this apparent levity. He saw I was
+agitated, and wished to divert my thoughts. Perhaps he read more deeply
+than I imagined, for those who seem to glance lightly on the surface of
+feeling only, often penetrate to its depths.
+
+The drawing-room was divided by folding doors, which were seldom closed,
+and in the four corners of each division were crimson lounges, of
+luxurious and graceful form. Company generally gathered in the front
+part, but the backroom was equally pleasant, as it opened into the
+flower-garden through a balcony shaded by vines.
+
+"Come in here, and rest awhile," said the doctor, leading me into the
+back parlor; "it will be a pleasant surprise to Mrs. Linwood. I did not
+tell her I was going to bring you down."
+
+As we entered, I saw Ernest Linwood half reclining on a lounge with a
+book in his hand, which hung listlessly at his side. As he looked up,
+his pale face lighted suddenly and brilliantly as burning gas. He rose,
+threw down his book, came hastily forward, took my hand, and drawing it
+from the doctor's arm, twined it round his own.
+
+"How well you look!" he exclaimed. "Dr. Harlowe, we owe you ten thousand
+thanks."
+
+"This is a strange way of showing it," said the doctor, looking round
+him with a comical expression, "to deprive me of my companion, and leave
+me as lonely as Simon Stylites on the top of his pillar."
+
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith, who had seen our entrance, came forward and
+congratulated me on my convalescence. It was the first time I had ever
+been ill, and the pleasure of being released from durance was like that
+of a weary child let loose from school. I was grateful and happy. The
+assurance I received from the first glance of Ernest, that what his
+mother had promised to reveal had made no change in his feelings; that
+the love, which I had almost begun to think an illusion of my own brain,
+was a real existing passion, filled me with unspeakable joy. The
+warnings of Mrs. Linwood had no power to weaken my faith and hope. Had
+she not told me that _her_ love had died? I felt that mine was immortal.
+
+The impression made by my mother's sad history was still too fresh and
+deep, and too much of the languor of indisposition still clung to me to
+admit of my being gay; but it was pleasant to hear the cheerful laugh
+and lively conversation, showing that the tide of social life ran clear
+and high. Several new guests had arrived, whom I had not seen before, to
+whom I was introduced; but as Dr. Harlowe commanded me to be a good girl
+and remain quietly in a corner, a passing introduction limited the
+intercourse of the evening.
+
+Just as the doctor was taking leave, a loud, merry ha, ha! came leaping
+up the steps, followed by the amazonian form of Madge Wildfire, leaning
+on the arm of Mr. Regulus.
+
+"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" exclaimed Ernest.
+
+"Shade of Esculapius!" cried the doctor, recoiling from the threshold.
+
+"Glad to see me? I know you are. Taken you all by storm. Found this
+gentleman wandering like a troubled spirit by the way-side, and pressed
+him into service. I shall make a gallant knight of him yet, My dear
+soul!" she cried, spying me out and rushing towards me, "I am so glad to
+see you here, escaped from the ruthless hands of the doctor. I never saw
+such a despot in my life, except _one_;" here she looked laughingly and
+defiantly at Ernest,--"he would out-Nero Nero himself, if he had the
+opportunity."
+
+"If I were the autocrat of Russia I would certainly exercise the right
+of banishment," he answered quietly.
+
+During this sportive encounter, Mr. Regulus came up to greet me. I had
+not seen him since our memorable interview in the academy, and his
+sallow face glowed with embarrassment. I rose to meet him, anxious to
+show him every mark of respect and esteem. I asked him to take a seat on
+the sofa by me, and ventured to congratulate him on the exceedingly
+entertaining acquaintance he had made.
+
+"A very extraordinary young lady," he cried, "amazingly merry, and
+somewhat bold. I had not the most remote idea of coming here, when I
+left home; but suddenly I found her arm linked in mine, and was told
+that I must escort her _nolens volens_."
+
+"Indeed! I thought you came to inquire after my health, and was feeling
+_so_ grateful!"
+
+"I did not know I should have the pleasure of seeing _you_, and I did
+not hope you would welcome me with so much cordiality. I have made many
+inquiries after you; indeed, I have scarcely thought of any thing else
+since you were ill. You look pale, Gabriella. Are you sure you are quite
+well, my child?"
+
+The old endearing epithet! It touched me.
+
+"I do not feel strong enough to move Mount Atlas, but well enough to
+enjoy the society of my friends. I never appreciated it so highly
+before."
+
+"You have no idea how I miss you," he said, taking my fan and drawing
+his thumb over it, as if he were feeling the edge of his ferula. "The
+season of summer lingers, but the flowers no longer bloom for me. The
+birds sing, but their notes have lost their melody. My perception of the
+beautiful has grown dim, but the remembrance of it can never fade. I
+never knew before what the pleasures of memory truly were."
+
+"I recollect a copy you once set me, Mr. Regulus,--'Sweet is the memory
+of absent friends,'--I thought it such a charming one!"
+
+"Do you remember that?" he asked, with a delighted countenance.
+
+"Yes! I remember all the copies you ever set me. Teachers should be very
+careful what sentiments they write, for they are never forgotten. Don't
+you recollect how all the pupils once laughed at a mistake in
+punctuation of mine? The copy was, 'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as
+well as the poor.' As the line was not quite filled, you added
+_Gabriella_, after making a full period. I forgot the stop and wrote,
+'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as well as the poor Gabriella.' The
+ridicule of the scholars taught me the importance of punctuation. Our
+mistakes are our best lessons, after all."
+
+"And do you remember these trifles?" he repeated. "How strange! It shows
+you have the heart of a child still. I love to hear you recall them."
+
+"I could fill a volume with these reminiscences. I believe I will write
+one, one of these days, and you shall be the hero."
+
+A merry altercation at the door attracted our attention. Dr. Harlowe was
+endeavoring to persuade Madge to go back with him, but she strenuously
+refused.
+
+"I never could stay more than ten days at a time in one place in my
+life. Besides, I have worn out my welcome, I know I have. Your house is
+not new. It jars too much when I walk. I saw Mrs. Harlowe looking
+ruefully at some cracked glass and china, and then at me, as much as to
+say, 'It is all your doings, you young romp.'"
+
+"Very likely," cried the doctor, laughing heartily, "but it only makes
+me more anxious to secure you. You are a safety-valve in the house. All
+my misdemeanors escape unreproved in the presence of your superior
+recklessness."
+
+I never saw any one enjoy a jest more than Dr. Harlowe. He really liked
+the dashing and untamable Madge. He was fond of young companions; and
+though his wife was such a _superior woman_, and such an incomparable
+housekeeper, there was nothing very exhilarating about her.
+
+"I can't go," said Madge; "I must stay and take care of Gabriella."
+
+"If you play any of your wild pranks on her again," said the doctor, "it
+were better for you that you had never been born."
+
+With this threat he departed; and it seemed as if a dozen people had
+been added to the household in the person of the dauntless Meg. I never
+saw any one with such a flow of animal spirits, with so much oxygen in
+their composition. I should think the vital principle in such a
+constitution would burn out sooner than in others, like a flame fed by
+alcohol. She was older than myself, and yet had no more apparent
+reflection than a child of five years old. It was impossible to make her
+angry. The gravest rebuke, the most cutting sarcasm, were received with
+a merry twinkle of the eye or a rich swell of laughter. She was bold,
+masculine, wild, and free, and I feared her as much as I would the
+wild-cat, after whom the doctor had christened her,--yet there was
+something about her that I liked. It was probably the interest she
+professed in me, which must have been genuine. It was impossible for her
+to affect any thing.
+
+Who would dream of any one sporting with such a man as Mr. Regulus? Yet
+she treated him exactly as if he were a great boy. He had paid us his
+parting salutations, and was half-way down the steps before she was
+aware of his intended departure.
+
+"You are not going so soon, indeed you are not," she exclaimed, running
+after him, seizing his hat, and setting it jauntily on her own head. Her
+abundant hair prevented it from falling over her face. "I brought you
+here to stay all the evening; and stay you must and shall. What do you
+want to go back to your musty old bachelor's room for, when there is
+such delightful company here?"
+
+Taking hold of his arm and whirling him briskly round, she led him back
+into the parlor, laughing and triumphant.
+
+She looked so saucy, so jaunty, so full of nerve and adventure, with the
+large hat pitched on one side of her head, I could not help saying,--
+
+"What a pity she were not a man!"
+
+Mr. Regulus did not appear as awkward as might be supposed. There was a
+latent spark of fun and frolic in his large brain, to which her wild
+hand applied the match; and though I know he felt the disappointment of
+his affections sorely, deeply, he yielded himself to her assault with
+tolerable grace and readiness.
+
+Supper was always an unceremonious meal, sent round on waiters, from a
+round table in the back parlor, at which Mrs. Linwood presided.
+Gentlemen took their cups standing or walking, just as it happened; and
+ladies, too, though they were generally seated. Ernest drew a light
+table to the lounge where I sat; and sitting by me, said, as I was an
+invalid, I should be peculiarly favored.
+
+"Methinks she is not the only favored one," said the sweet voice of
+Edith, as she floated near.
+
+"There is room for you, dear Edith," said I, moving closer to the arm of
+the sofa, and leaving a space for her between us.
+
+"Room on the sofa, Edith," added he, moving towards me, and making a
+space for her on his right, "and tenfold room in my heart."
+
+He took her hand and drew her down to his side.
+
+"This is as it should be," he said, looking from one to the other with a
+radiant countenance. "Thus would I ever bind to my heart the two
+loveliest, dearest, best."
+
+Edith bent her head, and kissed the hand which held hers. As she looked
+up I saw that her eyes were glistening.
+
+"What would mamma say?" she asked, trying to conceal her emotion.
+"Surely there can be none dearer and better than she is."
+
+"Nay, Edith," said he, passing his arm tenderly round her waist; "you
+might as well say, if I singled out two bright, especial stars from the
+firmament, that I did not think the moon fair or excellent. The love I
+bear my mother is so exalted by reverence, it stands apart by itself
+like the queen of night, serene and holy, moving in a distinct and lofty
+sphere. There is one glory of the sun, Edith, and another glory of the
+moon, and one star differeth from another in glory. Yet they are all
+glorious in themselves, and all proclaim the goodness and glory of the
+Creator."
+
+"I have heard it said," observed Edith, in a low, tremulous tone, "that
+when love takes possession of the heart, the natural affections have
+comparatively little strength; that it is to them as is the ocean to its
+tributaries. I know nothing of it by experience, nor do I wish to, if it
+has power to diminish the filial and sisterly tenderness which
+constitutes my chief joy."
+
+"My dear Edith, it is not so. Every pure and generous affection expands
+the heart, and gives it new capacities for loving. Have you not heard of
+heaven,--'the more angels the more room?' So it is with the human heart.
+It is elastic, and enlarges with every lawful claimant to be admitted
+into its sanctuary. It is true there is a love which admits of no
+rivalry;" here his eye turned involuntarily to me, "which enshrines but
+one object, which dwells in the inner temple, the angel of angels. But
+other affections do not become weaker in consequence of its strength. We
+may not see the fire-flame burn as brightly when the sun shines upon it,
+but the flame is burning still."
+
+"Gabriella does not speak," said Edith, with an incredulous wave of her
+golden locks. "Tell me, Gabriella, are his words true?"
+
+"I am not a very good metaphysician," I answered, "but I should think
+the heart very narrow, that could accommodate only those whom Nature
+placed in it. It seems to me but a refined species of selfishness."
+
+The color crimsoned on Edith's fair cheek. I had forgotten what she had
+said to me of her own exclusive affection. I sympathized so entirely in
+his sentiments, expressed with such beautiful enthusiasm, I forgot every
+thing else. The moment I had spoken, memory rebuked my transient
+oblivion. She must believe it an intentional sarcasm. How could I be so
+careless of the feelings of one so gentle and so kind?
+
+"I know _I_ am selfish," she said. "I have told you my weakness,--sin it
+may be,--and I deserve the reproach."
+
+"You cannot think I meant it as such. You know I could not. I had
+forgotten what I have heard you previously utter. I was thinking only of
+the present. Forgive me, Edith, for being so thoughtless and impulsive;
+for being so selfish myself."
+
+"I am wrong," said Edith, ingenuously. "I suppose conscience applied the
+words. Brother, you, who are the cause of the offence, must make my
+peace."
+
+"It is already made," answered I, holding out my hand to meet hers; "if
+you acquit me of intentional wrong, I ask no more."
+
+As our hands united before him, he clasped them both in one of his own.
+
+"A triune band," said he, earnestly, "that never must be broken. Edith,
+Gabriella, remember this. Love each other now, love each other forever,
+even as I love ye both."
+
+I was sensitive and childish from recent indisposition, or I should have
+had more self-control. I could not prevent the tears from rushing to my
+eyes and stealing down my cheeks. As we were sitting by ourselves, in a
+part of the room less brilliantly lighted than the rest, and as we all
+conversed in a low voice, this little scene was not conspicuous, though
+it might have possibly been observed.
+
+Those in the front room seemed exceedingly merry. Madge had placed a
+table before herself and Mr. Regulus, in imitation of Ernest, and had
+piled his plate with quantities of cake, as high as a pyramid. A gay
+group surrounded the table, that seemed floating on a tide of laughter;
+or rather making an eddy, in 'which their spirits were whirling.'
+
+As soon as supper was over, she told Mr. Regulus to lead her to the
+piano, as she was literally dying to play. There was no instrument at
+Dr. Harlowe's but a jew's-harp, and the tongue of that was broken. As
+she seated herself at the piano, Mr. Regulus reached forward and took up
+a violin which was lying upon it.
+
+"Do you play?" she asked eagerly.
+
+"I used to play a good deal when a boy, but that was a long time ago,"
+he answered, drawing the bow across the strings with no unskilful hand.
+
+"Delightful, charming!" she exclaimed. "Can you play '_Come, haste to
+the wedding_?'"
+
+He replied by giving the inspiring air, which she accompanied in her
+wild, exciting manner, laughing and shaking her head with irrepressible
+glee. I was astonished to see my dignified tutor thus lending himself
+for the amusement of the evening. I should have thought as soon of
+Jupiter playing a dancing tune, as Mr. Regulus. But he not only played
+well, he seemed to enjoy it. I was prepared now, to see him on the floor
+dancing with Madge, though I sincerely hoped he would not permit himself
+to be exhibited in that manner. Madge was resolved upon this triumph,
+and called loudly to Edith to come and take her place at the instrument,
+and play the liveliest waltz in the universe for her and Mr. Regulus.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Melville," said he, laying down his violin and resuming
+his usual grave and dignified manner, "I am no dancing bear."
+
+"Come, Mr. Regulus, I have no doubt you dance as charmingly as you play.
+Besides, you would not be so ungallant as to refuse a lady's request."
+
+"Not a _lady-like_ request," he answered, with a shrewd cast of the eye
+under his beetling brows.
+
+This sarcasm was received with acclamation; but Meg lifted her brow as
+dauntless as ever and laughed as loudly.
+
+I began to feel weary of mirth in which I could not sympathize. Mrs.
+Linwood came to me, and saying I looked pale and wan, insisted upon my
+retiring. To this I gladly assented. The little misunderstanding between
+Edith and myself weighed heavily on my spirits, and I longed to be
+alone.
+
+Just as we were crossing the hall of entrance, Richard Clyde came in. He
+greeted me with so much feeling, such earnest, unaffected pleasure, yet
+a pleasure so chastened by sensibility, I realized, perhaps for the
+first time, the value of the heart I had rejected.
+
+"You have been ill, Gabriella," said he, retaining for a moment the hand
+he had taken. "You look pale and languid. You do not know how much your
+friends have suffered on your account, or how grateful they feel for
+your convalesence."
+
+"I did not think I was of so much consequence," I replied. "It is well
+to be sick now and then, so as to be able to appreciate the kindness of
+friends."
+
+"You must suffer us to go now, Richard," said Mrs. Linwood moving
+towards the staircase; "you will find merry company in the parlor ready
+to entertain you. As Gabriella is no longer a prisoner, you will have
+future opportunities of seeing her."
+
+"I must embrace them soon," said he, sadly. "I expect to leave this
+place before long,--my friends, and my country."
+
+"You, Richard?" I exclaimed. Then I remembered the remarks I had heard
+on commencement day, of his being sent to Europe to complete his
+education. I regretted to lose the champion of my childhood, the friend
+of my youth, and my countenance expressed my emotion.
+
+"I have a great deal to say to you, Gabriella," said he, in a low tone.
+"May I see you to-morrow?"
+
+"Certainly,--that is, I think, I hope so." A glance that flashed on me
+from the doorway arrested my stammering tongue. Ernest was standing
+there, observing the interview, and the dark passion of which his mother
+had warned me clouded his brow. Snatching my hand from Richard, I bade
+him a hasty good-night, and ascended the stairs, with a prophetic heart.
+
+Yet, while I felt the shadow on his brow stealing darkly over me, I
+repeated to myself,--
+
+    "The keenest pangs the wretched find,
+      Are rapture to the dreary void,
+    The leafless desert of the mind,
+      The waste of feelings unemployed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+The interview with Richard Clyde the next day, was a painfully agitating
+one. I had no conception till then, how closely and strongly love and
+hope had twined their fibres round him; or how hard would be the task of
+rending them from him. Why could I not appreciate the value of his
+frank, noble, and confiding nature? It may be because we had been
+children together, and that familiarity was unfavorable to the growth of
+love in one of my poetic nature. I _must_ look up. The cloud crowned
+cliff did not appall my high-reaching eye.
+
+"I shall not see you again, Gabriella," said he, as he wrung my hand in
+parting. "I shall not see you again before my departure,--I would not
+for worlds renew the anguish of this moment. I do not reproach you,--you
+have never deceived me. My own hopes have been building a bridge of
+flowers over a dark abyss. But, by the Heaven that hears me, Gabriella,
+the keenest pang I now experience is not for my own loss, it is the
+dread I feel for you."
+
+"Not one word more, Richard, if you love me. I have been tender of your
+feelings,--respect mine. There is but one thing on earth I prize more
+than your friendship. Let me cherish that for the sacred memory of _auld
+lang syne_."
+
+"Farewell, then, Gabriella, best and only beloved! May the hand wither
+that ever falls too heavily on that trusting heart, should we never meet
+again!"
+
+He drew me suddenly closely to him, kissed me passionately, and was
+gone.
+
+"Had you confided in me fully," said Mrs. Linwood, in speaking to me
+afterwards of Richard, "I should never have advised a correspondence
+which must have strengthened his attachment. Having the highest opinion
+of his principles and disposition, and believing you regarded him with
+modest affection, I urged this intercourse as a binding link between
+you. You must have perceived my wishes on this subject."
+
+"If I have erred, it was from mistaken delicacy. I thought I had no
+right to betray an unreturned affection. It was not from a want of
+confidence in you."
+
+"If you could have loved Richard, it would have been well for you, my
+dear Gabriella; but I know the heart admits of no coercion, and least of
+all a heart like yours. I no longer warn, for it is in vain; but I would
+counsel and instruct. If you _do_ become the wife of my son, you will
+assume a responsibility as sacred as it is deep. Not alone for your
+happiness do I tremble, O Gabriella,--I fear,--I dread, for him."
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Linwood, when I love him so exclusively, so devotedly; when I
+feel that I must love him forever--"
+
+"It is the very exclusiveness and strength of your devotion that I fear.
+You will love him too well for your _own_ peace,--too well for _his_
+good. Far better is a rational, steadfast attachment, that neither rises
+above the worth of the object, nor sinks below it, than the two great
+extremes, idolatry and indifference. The first is a violation of the
+commands of God,--the last, of the rights of man. Remember, my child,
+that it is not by the exhibition of idolatrous affection, that a wife
+secures a husband's happiness. It is by patient _continuance_ in
+well-doing, that she works out the salvation of her wedded peace. Sit
+down by me, Gabriella; draw up your work-table; for one can listen best
+when their hands are busy. I have a great deal that I wish to say, and I
+cannot talk as well with your eyes bent so earnestly on me."
+
+I obeyed her without trepidation. I felt the need of her guiding
+counsels, and resolved to lay them up in my heart, and make them the
+rule and guide of my life.
+
+"When a young girl marries a man whom she has been taught to believe
+perfection," continued Mrs. Linwood, "and after marriage discovers her
+golden idol to be an image of wood and clay, she may be permitted to sit
+down and weep a while over her vanished dreams. But when she _knows_ the
+imperfections of him she loves; when she _knows_ they are of a nature to
+try, as with seven-fold heat, the strength and purity of her affection;
+when with this conviction she breathes her wedded vows, she has no right
+to upbraid him. She has walked with open eyes into the furnace, and she
+must not shrink from the flames. She must fold over her woman's heart
+the wings of an angel. She must look up to God, and be silent."
+
+"When innocent of blame, surely she should defend herself from
+accusation," cried I.
+
+"Certainly,--in the spirit of gentleness and Christian love. But she
+must not murmur; she must not complain. But it is not the accusation
+that admits of defence, the arrow that flies at noonday, that is most to
+be feared. It is the cold, inscrutable glance, the chilled and altered
+manner, the suspicion that walketh in darkness,--it is these that try
+the strength of woman's love, and gnaw with slow but certain tooth the
+cable-chain that holds the anchor of her fidelity. These are the evil
+spirits which prayer and fasting alone can cast out. They may fly before
+the uplifted eye and bended knee, but never before the flash of anger or
+the word of recrimination."
+
+"What a solemn view you give me of married life!" I exclaimed, while the
+work dropped from my hands. "What fearful responsibilities you place
+before me,--I tremble, I dare not meet them."
+
+"It is not too late,--the irrevocable vow is not yet breathed,--the path
+is not yet entered. If the mere description of duties makes you turn
+pale with dread, what will the reality be? I do not seek to terrify, but
+to convince. I received you as a precious charge from a dying mother,
+and I vowed over her grave to love, protect, and cherish you, as my own
+daughter. I saw the peculiar dangers to which you were liable from your
+ardent genius and exquisite sensibility, and I suffered you to pass
+through a discipline which my wealth made unnecessary, and which you
+have nobly borne. I did not wish my son to love you, not because you
+were the child of obscurity, but because I had constituted myself the
+guardian of your happiness, and I feared it would be endangered by a
+union with him. How dear is your happiness to me,--how holy I deem the
+charge I have assumed,--you may know by my telling you this. Never
+mother idolized a son as I do Ernest. He is precious as my heart's best
+blood,--he is the one idol that comes between me and my God. My love is
+more intense for the anxiety I feel on his account. If I could have
+prevented his loving;--but how could I, in the constant presence of an
+object so formed to inspire all the romance of love? I knew the serpent
+slept in the bottom of the fountain, and when the waters were stirred it
+would wake and uncoil. Gabriella!" she added, turning towards me, taking
+both hands in hers, and looking me in the face with her clear, eloquent,
+dark gray eyes, "you may be the angel commissioned by Providence to work
+out the earthly salvation of my son, to walk with him through the fiery
+furnace, to guard him in the lion's den, which his own passions may
+create. If to the love that hopeth all, the faith that believeth all,
+you add the charity that _endureth_ all, miracles may follow an
+influence so exalted, and, I say it with reverence, so divine."
+
+It is impossible to give but a faint idea of the power of Mrs. Linwood's
+language and manner. There was no vehemence, no gesticulation. Her eye
+did not flash or sparkle; it burned with a steady, penetrating light.
+Her voice did not rise in tone, but it gave utterance to her words in a
+full, deep stream of thought, inexhaustible and clear. I have heard it
+said that she talked "like a book," and so she did,--like the book of
+heavenly wisdom. Her sentiments were "apples of gold in pictures of
+silver," and worthy to be enshrined in a diamond casket.
+
+As I listened, I caught a portion of her sublime spirit, and felt equal
+to the duties which I had a short time before recoiled from
+contemplating.
+
+"I am very young and inexperienced," I answered, "and too apt to be
+governed by the impulses of the present moment. I dare not promise what
+I may be too weak to perform; but dearest madam, all that a feeble girl,
+strengthened and inspired by love, and leaning humbly on an Almighty
+arm, can do, I pledge myself to do. In looking forward to the future, I
+have thought almost exclusively of being ever near the one beloved
+object, living in the sunshine of his smile, and drinking in the music
+of his voice. Life seemed an elysian dream, from which care and sorrow
+must be for ever banished. You have roused me to nobler views, and given
+existence a nobler aim. I blush for my selfishness. I will henceforth
+think less of being happy myself, than of making others happy; less of
+_happiness_ than _duty_; and every sacrifice that principle requires
+shall be made light, as well as holy, by love."
+
+"Only cherish such feelings, my child," said Mrs. Linwood, warmly
+embracing me, "and you will be the daughter of my choice, as well as my
+adoption. My blessing, and the blessing of approving God, will be yours.
+The woman, who limits her ambition to the triumphs of beauty and the
+influence of personal fascination, receives the retribution of her folly
+and her sin in the coldness and alienation of her husband, and the
+indifference, if not the contempt of the world. She, whose highest aim
+is intellectual power, will make her home like the eyrie of the eagle,
+lofty, but bleak. While she, whose affections alone are the foundation
+of her happiness, will find that the nest of the dove, though pleasant
+and downy in the sunshine, will furnish no shelter from the fierce
+storms and tempestuous winds of life."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Linwood! Is domestic happiness a houseless wanderer? Has it no
+home on earth?"
+
+"Yes, my love, in the heart of the woman whose highest aim is the glory
+of God,--whose next, the excellence and happiness of her husband; who
+considers her talents, her affections, and her beauty as gifts from the
+Almighty hand, for whose use she must one day render an account; whose
+heart is a censer where holy incense is constantly ascending, perfuming
+and sanctifying the atmosphere of home. Such is the woman who pleaseth
+the Lord. Such, I trust, will be my beloved Gabriella."
+
+By conversations like these, almost daily renewed, did this admirable,
+high-minded, and God-fearing woman endeavor to prepare me for the
+exalted position to which love had raised me. This was a happy period of
+my life. The absence of Richard Clyde, though a source of regret, was a
+great blessing, as it removed the most prominent object of jealousy from
+Ernest's path. An occasional cloud, a sudden coldness, and an
+unaccountable reserve, sometimes reminded me of the dangerous passion
+whose shadow too often follows the footsteps of love. But in the
+retirement of rural life, surrounded by the sweet, pure influences of
+nature, the best elements of character were called into exercise.
+
+The friends whom Mrs. Linwood gathered around her were not the idle
+devotees of fashion,--the parasites of wealth; but intelligent, literary
+people, whose society was a source of improvement as well as pleasure.
+Sometimes, circumstances of commanding character forced her to receive
+as guests those whom her judgment would never have selected, as in the
+case of Madge Wildfire; but in general it was a distinction to be
+invited to Grandison Place, whose elegant hospitalities were the boast
+of the town to which it belonged.
+
+The only drawback to my happiness was the pensiveness that hung like a
+soft cloud over the spirits of Edith. She was still kind and
+affectionate to me; but the sweet unreserve of former intercourse was
+gone. I had come between her and her brother's heart. I was the shadow
+on her dial of flowers, that made their bloom wither. I never walked
+with Ernest alone without fearing to give her pain. I never sat with him
+on the seat beneath the elm, in the starry eventide, or at moonlight's
+hour, without feeling that she followed us in secret with a saddened
+glance.
+
+At first, whenever he came to me to walk with him, I would say,--
+
+"Wait till I go for Edith."
+
+"Very well," he would answer, "if there is nothing in your heart that
+pleads for a nearer communion than that which we enjoy in the presence
+of others, a dearer interchange of thought and feeling, let Edith, let
+the whole world come."
+
+"It is for her sake, not mine, I speak,--I cannot bear the soft reproach
+of her loving eye!"
+
+"A sister's affection must not be too exacting," was the reply. "All
+that the fondest brother can bestow, I give to Edith; but there are
+gifts she may not share,--an inner temple she cannot enter,--reserved
+alone for you. Come, the flowers are wasting their fragrance, the stars
+their lustre!"
+
+How could I plead for Edith, after being silenced by such arguments? And
+how could I tell her that I had interceded for her in vain? I never
+imagined before that a sister's love could be _jealous_; but the same
+hereditary passion which was transmitted to his bosom through a father's
+blood, reigned in hers, though in a gentler form.
+
+Every one who has studied human nature must have observed predominant
+family traits, as marked as the attributes of different trees and
+blossoms,--traits which, descending from parent to children,
+individualize them from the great family of mankind. In some, pride
+towers and spreads like the great grove tree of India, the branches
+taking root and forming trunks which put forth a wealth of foliage, rank
+and unhealthy. In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the
+winds and waves of opinion cannot move. In a few, jealousy coils itself
+with lengthening fold, which, like the serpent that wrapped itself round
+Laocoon and his sons, makes parents and children its unhappy victims.
+
+And so it is with the virtues, which, thanks be to God, who setteth the
+solitary in families, are also hereditary. How often do we hear it
+said,--"She is lovely, charitable, and pious,--so was her mother before
+her;" "He is an upright and honorable man,--he came from a noble stock."
+"That youth has a sacred love of truth,--it is his best
+inheritance,--his father's word was equivalent to his bond."
+
+If this be true, it shows the duty of parents in an awfully commanding
+manner. Let them rend out the eye that gives dark and distorted views of
+God and man. Let them cut off the hand that offends and the foot that
+errs, rather than entail on others evils, which all eternity cannot
+remedy. Better transmit to posterity the blinded eye, the maimed and
+halting foot, that knows the narrow path to eternal life, than the dark
+passions that desolate earth, and unfit the soul for the joys of heaven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+I have now arrived at a period in my life, at which the novelist would
+pause,--believing the history of woman ceases to interest as soon as an
+accepted lover and consenting friends appear ready to usher the heroine
+into the temple of Hymen. But there is a _life within life_, which is
+never revealed till it is intertwined with another's. In the depth of
+the heart there is a lower deep, which is never sounded save by the hand
+that wears the _wedding-ring_. There is a talisman in its golden circle,
+more powerful than those worn by the genii of the East.
+
+I love to linger among the beautiful shades of Grandison Place, to
+wander over its velvet lawn, its gravel walks, its winding avenues, to
+gaze on the lovely valley its height commanded whether in the intense
+lights and strong shadows of downward day, or the paler splendor and
+deeper shadows of moonlit night. I love those girdling mountains,--grand
+winding stairs of heaven--on which my spirit has so often climbed, then
+stepping to the clouds, looked through their "golden vistas" into the
+mysteries of the upper world.
+
+O thou charming home of my youth what associations cluster round thee!
+Thy noble trees rustle their green leaves in the breezes of memory. Thy
+moonlight walks are trodden by invisible footsteps. Would I had never
+left thee, Paradise of my heart! Would I had never tasted the fruit of
+the tree of knowledge, which, though golden to the eye, turns to ashes
+on the lips!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Ernest urged me to appoint a period for our marriage, I was
+startled--alarmed. I thought not of hastening to my destiny quite so
+soon. I was too young. I must wait at least two years before assuming
+the responsibilities of a wife.
+
+"Two years!--two centuries!" he exclaimed. "Why should we wait? I have
+wealth, which woos you to enjoy it. I have arrived at the fulness of
+manhood, and you are in the rosetime of your life. Why should we wait?
+For circumstances to divide,--for time to chill,--or death to destroy?
+No, no; when you gave me your heart, you gave me yourself; and I claim
+you as my own, without formal scruples or unnecessary delay."
+
+Mrs. Linwood exerted all her eloquence with her son to induce him to
+defer the union at least one year, till I had seen something of the
+world,--till I was better acquainted with my own heart.
+
+"Yes! wait till she loses the freshness and simplicity that won me,--the
+sweetness and ingenuousness that enchained me!" he cried impetuously.
+"Wait till she has been flattered and spoiled by a vain and deceiving
+world; till she learns to prize the admiration of many better than the
+true love of one; till she becomes that tinsel thing my soul abhors, a
+false and worldly woman. No! give her to me now," he added, clasping me
+to his heart with irresistible tenderness and passion. "Give her to me
+now, in the bloom of her innocence, the flower of her youth, and I will
+enshrine her in my heart as in a crystal vase, which they must break to
+harm her."
+
+The strong love and the strong will united were not to be opposed. Mrs.
+Linwood was forced to yield; and when once her consent was given, mine
+was supposed to be granted. She wished the wedding to be consummated in
+the city, in a style consistent with his splendid fortune, and then our
+rank in society; and therefore proposed the first month in winter, when
+they usually took possession of their habitation in town.
+
+He objected to this with all the earnestness of which he was master. It
+was sacrilege, he said, to call in a gazing world, to make a mockery of
+the holiest feelings of the heart, and to crush under an icy mountain of
+ceremony the spontaneous flowers of nature and of love. He detested
+fashionable crowds on any occasion, and most of all on this. Let it be
+at Grandison Place, the cradle of his love, in the glorious time of the
+harvest-moon, that mellow, golden season, when the earth wraps herself
+as the
+
+      "Sacred bride of heaven,
+    Worthy the passion of a God."
+
+So entirely did I harmonize with him in his preference for Grandison
+Place, that I was willing the time should be anticipated, for the sake
+of the retirement and tranquillity secured.
+
+Madge Wildfire had returned to the city, declaring that lovers were the
+most selfish and insipid people in the world,--that she was tired of
+flirting with Ursa Major, as she called Mr. Regulus,--tired of teazing
+Dr. Harlowe,--tired of the country and of herself.
+
+The night before she left, she came to me in quite a subdued mood.
+
+"I am really sorry you are going to be married," she cried. "If I were
+you, I would not put on chains before I had tasted the sweets of
+liberty. Only think, you have not come out yet, as the protégée of the
+rich, the aristocratic Mrs. Linwood. What a sensation you would make in
+Boston next winter if you had sense enough to preserve your freedom.
+Ernest Linwood knows well enough what he is about, when he hastens the
+wedding so vehemently. He knows, if you once go into the world, you will
+be surrounded by admirers who may eclipse and supplant him. But I tell
+thee one thing, my dear creature, you will have no chance to shine as a
+belle, as the wife of Ernest. If he does not prove a second Bluebeard,
+my name is not Meg the Dauntless."
+
+"I detest a married belle," I answered with warmth. "The woman who aims
+at such a distinction is false, heartless, and unprincipled. I would
+bless the watching love that shielded me from a name so odious."
+
+"It is a mighty fine thing to be loved, I suppose," said Meg with a
+resounding laugh, "but I know nothing about it and never shall. Mamma
+and Mrs. Linwood are great friends, you know, or have been; and mamma
+thought it would be wondrous fine for young Miss Hopeful to captivate
+Mr. Splendidus. But he did not _take_. I did not suit his delicate
+nerves. Well, I wish you joy, my precious soul. He loves you, there is
+no doubt of that. He never sees, never looks at any one else. If you
+speak, he is all ear; if you move, all eye. I wonder how it will be a
+year hence,--ha, ha!"
+
+Her laugh grated on my nerves, but I concealed the irritation it caused,
+for it was useless to be angry with Meg. She must have had a heart, for
+she was a woman, but the avenue to it was impervious. It was still an
+untravelled wilderness, and bold must be the explorer who dared to
+penetrate its luxuriant depths.
+
+Circumstances connected with the property bequeathed by his uncle, made
+it indispensable that Ernest should be in New York the coming winter;
+and he made arrangements to pass our first bridal season in the great
+empire city. He wrote to a friend resident there, to engage a house and
+have it furnished for our reception.
+
+"For never," said he, "will I carry bride of mine, to make her home in a
+fashionable hotel. I would as soon plunge her in the roaring vortex on
+Norway's coast."
+
+"And must we be separated from your mother and Edith?" I asked,
+trembling at the thought of being removed from Mrs. Linwood's maternal
+counsels and cares; "will they not share our bridal home?"
+
+"I would have the early days of our married life sacred even from their
+participation," he answered, with that eloquence of the eye which no
+woman's heart could resist. "I would have my wife learn to rely on me
+alone for happiness;--to find in my boundless devotion, my unutterable
+love, an equivalent for all she is called upon to resign. If she cannot
+consent to this, no spark from heaven has kindled the flame of the
+altar; the sacrifice is cold, and unworthy of acceptance."
+
+"For myself, I ask nothing, wish for nothing but your companionship," I
+answered, with the fervor of truth and youth, "but I was thinking of
+them, whom I shall rob of a son and brother so inexpressibly dear."
+
+"We shall meet next summer in these lovely shades. We shall all be happy
+together once more. In the mean time, all the elegancies and luxuries
+that love can imagine and wealth supply shall be yours,--
+
+    "Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint
+    The home to which, if love fulfils its prayers,
+    This hand would lead thee, listen,"--
+
+And taking me by the hand, he led me out into the beautiful avenue in
+which we had so often wandered, and continued, in the words of that
+charming play which he had read aloud in the early days of our
+acquaintance, with a thrilling expression which none but himself could
+give--
+
+            "We'll have no friends
+    That are not lovers; no ambition, save
+    To excel them all in love; we'll read no books
+    That are not tales of love; that we may smile
+    To think how poorly eloquence of words
+    Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!
+    And when night comes, amidst the breathless heavens,
+    We'll guess what star shall be our home when love
+    Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light
+    Steals through the mists of alabaster lamps,
+    And every air be heavy with the sighs
+    Of orange groves, and music from sweet lutes,
+    And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth
+    I' the midst of roses!"
+
+"Dost thou like the picture?"
+
+How could I help answering, in the words of the impassioned Pauline,--
+
+"Was ever young imaginative girl wooed in strains of sweeter romance?"
+
+Was there ever a fairer prospect of felicity, if love, pure, intense
+love, constitutes the happiness of wedded life?
+
+I will not swell these pages by describing the village wonder and
+gossip, when it was known that the orphan girl of the old gray cottage
+was exalted to so splendid a destiny; nor the congratulations of
+friends; the delight and exultation of Dr. Harlowe, who said he had
+discovered it all by my pulse long before; nor the deeply interesting
+and characteristic scene with Mr. Regulus; nor the parting interview
+with Mrs. Linwood and Edith.
+
+Yes, I will give a brief sketch of the last hour spent with Edith, the
+night before the wedding. We were to be married in the morning, and
+immediately commence our bridal journey.
+
+Edith had never alluded to her own feelings respecting her brother's
+marriage, since the evening of the only misunderstanding we ever had in
+our sisterly intercourse; and it was a subject I could not introduce.
+The delicate, gauzy reserve in which she enfolded herself was as
+impenetrable to me as an ancient warrior's armor.
+
+Now, when the whole household was wrapped in silence, and the lamps
+extinguished, and I sat in my night robe in the recess of the window,
+she came and sat down beside me. We could see each other's faces by the
+silver starlight It glittered on the tear drops in the eyes of both. I
+put my arms around her, and, laying my head on her bosom, poured out all
+the love, gratitude, and affection with which my full heart was
+burdened.
+
+"Forgive me, my beloved Gabriella," she cried, "my apparent coldness and
+estrangement. On my knees I have asked forgiveness of my heavenly
+Father. With my arms round your neck, and your heart next mine, I ask
+forgiveness of you. Try not to think less of me for the indulgence of a
+too selfish and exacting spirit, but remember me as the poor little
+cripple, who for years found her brother's arm her strength and her
+stay, and learned to look up to him as the representative of Providence,
+as the protecting angel of her life. Only make him happy, my own dear
+sister, and I will yield him, not to your stronger, but your equal love.
+His only fault is loving you too well, in depreciating too much his own
+transcendent powers. You cannot help being happy with _him_, with a
+being so noble and refined. If he ever wounds you by suspicion and
+jealousy, bear all, and forgive all, for the sake of his exceeding
+love,--for my sake, Gabriella, and for the sake of the dear Redeemer who
+died for love of you."
+
+Dear, lovely, angelic Edith! noble, inestimable Mrs. Linwood!--dearly
+beloved home of my orphan years,--grave of my mother, farewell!
+
+Farewell!--the bride of Ernest must not, cannot weep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+The early portion of my married life was more like a dream of heaven
+than a reality of earth. All, and _more_ than I had ever imagined of
+wedded happiness, I realized. The intimate and constant companionship of
+such a being as Ernest, so intellectual, so refined, so highly gifted,
+so loving and impassioned, was a privilege beyond the common destiny of
+women. A hundred times I said to myself in the exultant consciousness of
+joy,--
+
+"How little his mother knows him! The jealousy of the lover has yielded
+to the perfect confidence of the husband. Our hearts are now too closely
+entwined for the shadow of a cloud to pass between them. He says
+himself, that it would be impossible ever to doubt a love so pure and so
+entire as mine."
+
+Our home was as retired as it was possible to be in the heart of a great
+metropolis. It was near one of those beautiful parks which in summer
+give such an aspect of life and purity to surrounding objects, with
+their grassy lawns, graceful shade trees, and fountains of silvery
+brightness playing in the sunshine, and diffusing such a cool, delicious
+atmosphere, in the midst of heat, dust, and confusion. In winter, even,
+these parks give inexpressible relief to the eye, and freedom to the
+mind, that shrinks from the compression of high brick walls, and longs
+for a more expanded view of the heavens than can be obtained through
+turreted roofs, that seem to meet as they tower.
+
+It made but little difference to me now, for my heaven was within. The
+external world, of which I believed myself wholly independent, seemed
+but a shell enclosing the richness and fragrance of our love. The
+luxuries and elegancies of my own home were prized chiefly as proofs of
+Ernest's watchful and generous love.
+
+The friend to whom he had written to prepare a residence, was fortunate
+in securing one which he believed exactly suited to his fastidious and
+classic taste. A gentleman of fortune had just completed and furnished
+an elegant establishment, when unexpected circumstances compelled him to
+leave his country to be absent several years.
+
+I do not think Ernest would have fitted up our bridal home in so showy
+and magnificent a style; but his love for the beautiful and graceful was
+gratified, and he was pleased with my enthusiastic admiration and
+delight.
+
+I sometimes imagined myself in an enchanted palace, when wandering
+through the splendid suite of apartments adorned with such oriental
+luxury. The gentleman whose taste had presided over the building of the
+mansion, had travelled all over Europe, and passed several years in the
+East. He had brought home with him the richest and rarest models of
+Eastern architecture, and fashioned his own mansion after them. Ernest
+had not purchased it, for the owner was not willing to sell; he was
+anxious, however, to secure occupants who would appreciate its elegance,
+and guard it from injury.
+
+Ah! little did I think when eating my bread and milk from the china bowl
+bordered by flowers, when a silver spoon seemed something grand and
+massy in the midst of general poverty, that I should ever be the
+mistress of such a magnificent mansion. I had thought Grandison Place
+luxuriously elegant; but what was it compared to this? How shall I begin
+to describe it? or shall I describe it at all? I always like myself to
+know how to localize a friend, to know their surroundings and realities,
+and all that fills up the picture of their life. A friend! Have I made
+friends of my readers? I trust there are some who have followed the
+history of Gabriella Lynn with sufficient interest, to wish to learn
+something of her experience of the married life.
+
+Come, then, with me, and I will devote this chapter to a palace, which
+might indeed fulfil the prayers of the most princely love.
+
+This beautiful apartment, adorned with paintings and statues of the most
+exquisite workmanship, is a reception room, from which you enter the
+parlor and find yourself winding through fluted pillars of ingrained
+marble, from the centre of which curtains of blue and silver, sweeping
+back and wreathing the columns, form an arch beneath which queens might
+be proud to walk. The walls are glittering with silver and blue, and all
+the decorations of the apartment exhibit the same beautiful union. The
+ceiling above is painted in fresco, where cherubs, lovely as the dream
+of love, spread their wings of silvery tinted azure and draw their fairy
+bows.
+
+Passing through this glittering colonnade into a kind of airy room, you
+pause on the threshold, imagining yourself in a fairy grotto. We will
+suppose it moonlight; for it was by moonlight I first beheld this
+enchanting scene. We arrived at night, and Ernest conducted me himself
+through a home which appeared to me more like a dream of the imagination
+than a creation of man. I saw that _he_ was surprised; that he was
+unprepared for such elaborate splendor. He had told his friend to spare
+no expense; but he was not aware that any one had introduced such
+Asiatic magnificence into our cities. I believe I will describe my own
+first impressions, instead of anticipating yours.
+
+The mellowness of autumn still lingered in the atmosphere,--for the
+season of the harvest-moon is the most beautiful in the world. The
+glorious orb illumined the fairy grotto with a radiance as intense as
+the noonday sun's. It clothed the polished whiteness of the marble
+statues with a drapery of silver, sparkled on the fountain's tossing
+wreaths, converted the spray that rose from the bosom of the marble
+basin below into a delicate web of silver lace-work, and its beams,
+reflected from walls of looking-glass, multiplied, to apparent infinity,
+fountains, statues, trees, and flowers, till my dazzled eyes could
+scarcely distinguish the shadow from the substance. The air was perfumed
+with the delicious odor of tropic blossoms, and filled with the sweet
+murmurs of the gushing fountain.
+
+"Oh! how beautiful! how enchanting!" I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of
+admiration. "This must be ideal. Reality never presented any thing so
+brilliant, so exquisite as this. Oh, Ernest, surely this is a place to
+dream of, not a home to live in?"
+
+"It does, indeed," he answered, "transcend my expectations; but if it
+pleases your eye, Gabriella, it cannot go beyond my wishes."
+
+"Oh yes, it delights my eye, but my heart asked nothing but you. I fear
+you will never know how well I love you, in the midst of such regal
+splendor. If you ever doubt me, Ernest, take me to that island home you
+once described, and you will there learn that on you, and you alone, I
+rely for happiness."
+
+He believed me. I knew he did; for he drew me to his bosom, and amid a
+thousand endearing protestations, told me he did not believe it possible
+ever to doubt a love, which irradiated me at that moment, as the moon
+did the Fairy Grotto.
+
+He led me around the marble basin that received the waters of the
+fountain, and which was margined by sea-shells, from which luxuriant
+flowers were gushing, and explained the beautiful figures standing so
+white, so "coldly sweet, so deadly fair," in the still and solemn
+moonlight. I knew the history of each statue as he named them, but I
+questioned him, that I might have the delight of hearing his charming
+and poetic descriptions.
+
+"Is this a daughter of Danaus?" I asked, stopping before a young and
+exquisitely lovely female, holding up to the fountain an urn, through
+whose perforated bottom the waters seemed eternally dripping.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Is it Hypermestra, the only one of all the fifty who had a woman's
+heart, punished by her father for rescuing her husband from the awful
+doom which her obedient sisters so cruelly inflicted on theirs."
+
+"I believe it is one of the savage forty-nine, who were condemned by the
+judges of the infernal regions to fill bottomless vessels with water,
+through the unending days of eternity. She does not look much like a
+bride of blood, does she, with that face of softly flowing contour, and
+eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more
+divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified
+and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do
+not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a
+light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic
+nature, when such examples are recorded of her perfidy and
+heartlessness?"
+
+"But she is a fabulous being, Ernest."
+
+"Fables have their origin in truth, my Gabriella. Cannot you judge, by
+the shadow, of the form that casts it? The mythology of Greece and Rome
+shows what estimate was placed on human character at the time it was
+written. The attributes of men and women were ascribed to gods and
+goddesses, and by their virtues and crimes we may judge of the moral
+tone of ancient society. Had there been no perfidious wives, the
+daughters of Danaus had never been born of the poet's brain, and
+embodied by the sculptor's hand. Had woman always been as true as she is
+fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated
+down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image
+of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely
+are they intertwined."
+
+"Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and
+betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or
+the beautiful and avenging Medea. Had man never been false to his vows,
+we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the
+poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira. Ah! this is lovely!"
+
+"Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library?
+This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and
+whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness
+and freshness of eternal youth. Do you not trace a resemblance to
+yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble,
+breathe the eloquence of love? How charmingly the moonbeams play upon
+her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow!"
+
+He paused, while the murmurs of the fountain seemed to swell to supply
+the music of his voice. Then he passed on to a lovely Bachanter with ivy
+and vine wreaths on her clustering locks, to a Hebe catching crystal
+drops instead of nectar in her lifted cup; and then we turned and looked
+at all these classic figures reflected in the mural mirrors and at the
+myriad fountains tossing their glittering wreaths, and at the myriad
+basins receiving the cooling showers.
+
+"I only regret," said Ernest, "that I had not designed all this
+expressly for your enjoyment; that the taste of another furnished the
+banquet at which your senses are now revelling."
+
+"But I owe it all to you. You might as well sigh to be the sculptor of
+the statues, the Creator of the flowers. Believe me, I am sufficiently
+grateful. My heart could not bear a greater burden of gratitude."
+
+"Gratitude!" he repeated, "Gabriella, as you value my love, never speak
+to me of gratitude. It is the last feeling I wish to inspire. It may be
+felt for a benefactor, a superior, but not a lover and a husband."
+
+"But when all these characters are combined in one, what language can we
+use to express the full, abounding heart? Methinks mine cannot contain,
+even now, the emotions that swell it almost to suffocation, I am not
+worthy of so much happiness. It is greater than I can bear."
+
+I leaned my head on his shoulder, and tears and smiles mingling together
+relieved the oppression of my grateful, blissful heart. I really felt
+too happy. The intensity of my joy was painful, from its excess.
+
+"This is yours," said he, as we afterwards stood in an apartment whose
+vaulted ceiling, formed of ground crystal and lighted above by gas,
+resembled the softest lustre of moonlight. The hangings of the beds and
+windows were of the richest azure-colored satin, fringed with silver,
+which seemed the livery of the mansion.
+
+"And this is yours," he added, lifting a damask curtain, which fell over
+a charming little recess that opened into a beautiful flower bed. "This
+is a kiosk, where you can sit in the moonlight and make garlands of
+poetry, which Regulus cannot wither."
+
+"How came you so familiar with the mysteries of this enchanted palace?
+Is it not novel to you, as well as to me?"
+
+"Do you not recollect that I left you at the hotel for a short time,
+after our arrival? I accompanied my friend hither, and received from him
+the clue to these magic apartments. This is a bathing-room," said he,
+opening one, where a marble bath and ewer, and every luxurious appliance
+reminded one of Eastern luxury. Even the air had a soft languor in it,
+as if perfumed breaths had mingled there.
+
+"I should like to see the former mistress of this palace," said I,
+gazing round with a bewildered smile; "she was probably some magnificent
+Eastern sultana who reclined under that royal canopy, and received
+sherbet from the hands of kneeling slaves. She little dreamed of the
+rustic successor who would tread her marble halls, and revel in the
+luxuries prepared for her."
+
+"She was a very elegant and intellectual woman, I am told," replied
+Ernest, "who accompanied her husband in his travels, and assisted him in
+every enterprise, by the energy of her mind and the constancy of her
+heart, and whose exquisite taste directed the formation of this graceful
+structure. She painted the frescos on the ceiling of the boudoir, and
+that richly tinted picture of an Italian sunset is the work of her hand.
+This house and its decorations are not as costly as many others in this
+city, but it has such an air of Asiatic magnificence it produces an
+illusion on the eye. I wish, myself, it was not quite so showy, but it
+makes such a charming contrast to the simplicity and freshness of your
+character I cannot wish it otherwise."
+
+"I fear I shall be spoiled. I shall imagine myself one of those
+dark-eyed houris, who dwell in the bowers of paradise and welcome the
+souls of the brave."
+
+"That is no inappropriate comparison," said he; "but you must not
+believe me an Eastern satrap, Gabriella, who dares not enter his wife's
+apartment without seeing the signal of admittance at the door. Here is
+another room opening into this; and pressing a spring, a part of the
+dividing walls slid back, revealing an apartment of similar dimensions,
+and furnished with equal elegance.
+
+"This," added he, "was arranged by the master of the mansion for his own
+accommodation. Here is his library, which seems a mass of burnished
+gold, from the splendid binding of the books. By certain secret springs
+the light can be so graduated in this room, that you can vary it from
+the softest twilight to the full blaze of day."
+
+"The Arabian Nights dramatized!" I exclaimed. "I fear we are walking
+over trap-doors, whose secret mouths are ready to yawn on the
+unsuspecting victim."
+
+"Beware then, Gabriella,--I may be one of the genii, whose terrible
+power no mortal can evade, who can read the thoughts of the heart as
+easily as the printed page. How would you like to be perused so
+closely?"
+
+"Would that you could read every thought of my heart, Ernest, every
+emotion of my soul, then you would know, what words can never
+express,--the height and depth of my love and devotion--I will not _say_
+gratitude--since you reject and disown it,--but that I must ever feel.
+Can I ever forget the generosity, the magnanimity, which, overlooking
+the cloud upon my birth, has made me the sharer of your princely
+destiny, the mistress of a home like this?"
+
+"You do not care for it, only as the expression of my affection; I am
+sure you do not," he repeated, and his dark gray eye seemed to read the
+inmost depths of thought.
+
+"Oh, no! a cottage or a palace would be alike to me, provided you are
+near me. It seems to me now as if I should awake in the morning, and
+find I had been in a dream. I am not sure that you have not a magic ring
+on your finger that produces this illusion."
+
+But the morning sunbeams flashed on the softly murmuring fountain, on
+the white polished forms of the Grecian myths, on the trailing
+luxuriance of the tropic blossoms. They glanced in on the glittering
+drapery that wreathed the marble columns, and lighted the crystal dome
+over my head with a mild, subdued radiance.
+
+A boudoir which I had not seen the evening before elicited my morning
+admiration,--it was furnished with such exquisite elegance, and
+contained so many specimens of the fine arts. Two rosewood cabinets,
+inlaid with pearl, were filled with _chefs-d'[oe]uvres_ from the hands
+of masters, collected in the old world. They were locked; but through
+the glass doors I could gaze and admire, and make them all my own. An
+elegant escritoire was open on the table, the only thing with which I
+could associate the idea of utility. Yes, there was a harp, that seemed
+supported by a marble cherub,--a most magnificent instrument. I sighed
+to think it was useless to me; but Ernest's hand would steal music from
+its silent strings.
+
+And now behold me installed as mistress of this luxurious mansion, an
+utter stranger in the heart of a great metropolis!
+
+It was now that I understood the reserve of Ernest's character. It was
+impossible that we should remain altogether strangers, living in a style
+which wealth only could sanction. Mr. Harland, the gentleman with whom
+Ernest had corresponded, moved in the circles of fashion and
+distinction, and he introduced his friends and acquaintances, being
+himself a frequent and agreeable visitor. Ernest received our guest with
+elegance and politeness,--these attributes were inseparable from
+himself,--but there was a coldness and reserve that seemed to forbid all
+approach to intimacy. Fearful of displeasing him, I repressed the
+natural frankness and social warmth of my nature, and I am sure our
+visitors often departed, chilled and disappointed. The parlor was lined
+with mirrors, and I could not turn without seeing myself reflected on
+every side; and not only myself, but an eye that watched my every
+movement, and an ear that drank in my every word. How could I feel at
+ease, or do justice to those powers of pleasing with which nature may
+have gifted me?
+
+Sometimes, though very seldom, Ernest was not present; and then my
+spirits rebounded from this unnatural constraint, and I laughed and
+talked like other people. The youthful brightness of my feelings flashed
+forth, and I forgot that a _clouded star_ presided over my young life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+I would not give the impression that, at this time, I felt hurt at the
+coldness and reserve of Ernest, as exhibited in society. I was fearful
+of displeasing him by showing too much pleasure in what did not appear
+to interest him; but when the door was closed on the departing guest and
+he exclaimed,--
+
+"Thank heaven! we are once more alone!"
+
+I could not help echoing the sentiment which brought us so close to each
+other, and rejoiced with him that formality and restraint no longer
+interfered with the freedom of love and the joys of home. He never
+appeared so illumined with intellect, so glowing with feeling, as in
+moments like these; and I was flattered that a mind so brilliant, and a
+heart so warm, reserved their brightness and their warmth for me. If he
+was happy with me, and me only, how supremely blest should I be, with a
+companion so intellectual and fascinating! If Edith were but near, so
+that I could say to her occasionally, "How happy I am!" if Mrs. Linwood
+were with me to know that nothing had yet arisen to disturb the heaven
+of our wedded happiness; if excellent Dr. Harlowe could only call in
+once in a while, with his pleasant words and genial smiles; or kindly
+feeling, awkward Mr. Regulus, I should not have a wish ungratified.
+
+It is true I sometimes wished I had something to do, but we had
+supernumerary servants, and if I found any employment it must have been
+similar to that of Jack the bean-boy, who poured his beans on the floor
+and then picked them up again. I was fond of sewing. But the wardrobe of
+a young bride is generally too well supplied; at least mine was, to
+admit of much exercise with the needle. I was passionately fond of
+reading, and of hearing Ernest read; and many an hour every day was
+devoted to books. But the mind, like the body, can digest only a certain
+quantity of food, and is oppressed by an excessive portion.
+
+Had Ernest welcomed society, our superb parlor would have been thronged
+with nightly guests; but he put up bars of ceremony against such
+intrusion; polished silver they were, it is true, but they were felt to
+be heavy and strong. He never visited himself, that is, socially. He
+paid formal calls, as he would an inevitable tax, rejoicing when the
+wearisome task was over; out beyond the limits of ceremony he could not
+be persuaded to pass.
+
+Gradually our evening visitors became few,--the cold season advanced,
+the fountain ceased to play in the grotto, and the beautiful flowers
+were inclosed in the green-house.
+
+Our rooms were warmed by furnaces below, which diffused a summer
+temperature through the house. In mine, the heat came up through an
+exquisite Etruscan vase, covered with flowers, which seemed to emit odor
+as well as warmth, and threw the illusion of spring over the dullness
+and gloom of winter. But I missed the glowing hearth of Mrs. Linwood,
+the brightness and heartiness of her winter fireside.
+
+I never shall forget how I started with horror, when I was conscious of
+a feeling of _ennui_, even in the presence of Ernest. It was not
+possible I should be weary of the joys of heaven, if I were capable of
+sighing in my own Eden bower. I tried to banish the impression; it
+WOULD return, and with it self-reproach and shame.
+
+If Ernest had not been lifted by wealth above the necessity of exertion;
+had he been obliged to exercise the talents with which he was so
+liberally endowed for his own support and the benefit of mankind; had he
+some profession which compelled him to mingle in the world, till the too
+exquisite edge of his sensibilities were blunted by contact with firmer,
+rougher natures, what a blessing it would have been! With what pride
+would I have seen him go forth to his daily duties, sure that he was
+imparting and receiving good. With what rapture would I have welcomed
+his returning footstep!
+
+Oh! had he been a _poor_ man, he would have been a _great_ man. He was
+not obliged to toil, either physically or mentally; and indolence is
+born of luxury, and morbid sensibility luxuriates in the lap of
+indolence. Forms of beauty and grandeur wait in the marble quarry for
+the hand of genius and skill. Ingots of gold sleep in the mine, till the
+explorer fathoms its depths and brings to light the hidden treasures.
+Labor is the slave of the lamp of life, who alone keeps its flame from
+waxing dim. When a child, I looked upon poverty as man's greatest curse;
+but I now thought differently. To feel that every wish is gratified,
+every want supplied, is almost as dreary as to indulge the wish, and
+experience the want, without the means of satisfying the cravings of one
+or the urgency of the other.
+
+Had Ernest been a poor man, he would not have had time to think
+unceasingly of me. His mind would have been occupied with sterner
+thoughts and more exalted cares. But rich as he was, I longed to see him
+live for something nobler than personal enjoyment, to know that he
+possessed a higher aim than love for me. I did not feel worthy to fill
+the capacities of that noble heart. I wanted him to love me less, that I
+might have something more to desire.
+
+"Of what are you thinking so deeply, sweet wife?" he asked, when I had
+been unconsciously indulging in a long, deep reverie. "What great
+subject knits so severely that fair young brow?" he repeated, sitting by
+me, and taking my hand in his.
+
+I blushed, for my thoughts were making bold excursions.
+
+"I was thinking," I answered, looking bravely in his face, "what a
+blessed thing it must be to do good, to have the will as well as the
+power to bless mankind."
+
+"Tell me what scheme of benevolence my little philanthropist is forming.
+What mighty engine would she set in motion to benefit her species?"
+
+"I was thinking how happy a person must feel, who was able to establish
+an asylum for the blind or the insane, a hospital for the sick, or a
+home for the orphan. I was thinking how delightful it would be to go out
+into the byways of poverty, the abodes of sickness and want, and bid
+their inmates follow me, where comfort and ease and plenty awaited them.
+I was thinking, if I were a man, how I would love to be called the
+friend and benefactor of mankind; but, being a woman, how proud and
+happy I should be to follow in the footsteps of such a good and glorious
+being, and hear the blessings bestowed upon his name."
+
+I spoke with earnestness, and my cheeks glowed with enthusiasm. I felt
+the clasp of his hand tighten as he drew me closer to his side.
+
+"You have been thinking," he said, in his peculiarly grave, melodious
+accents, "that I am leading a self-indulging, too luxurious life?"
+
+"Not you--not you alone, dearest Ernest; but both of us," I cried,
+feeling a righteous boldness, I did not dream that I possessed. "Do not
+the purple and the fine linen of luxury enervate the limbs which they
+clothe? Is there no starving Lazarus, who may rebuke us hereafter for
+the sumptuous fare over which we have revelled? I know how generous, how
+compassionate you are; how ready you are to relieve the sufferings
+brought before your eye; but how little we witness here! how few
+opportunities we have of doing good! Ought they not to be sought? May
+they not be found everywhere in this great thoroughfare of humanity?"
+
+"You shall find my purse as deep as your charities, my lovely
+monitress," he answered, while his countenance beamed with approbation.
+"My bounty as boundless as your desires. But, in a great city like this,
+it is difficult to distinguish between willing degradation and
+meritorious poverty. You could not go into the squalid dens of want and
+sin, without soiling the whiteness of your spirit, by familiarity with
+scenes which I would not have you conscious of passing in the world.
+There are those who go about as missionaries of good among the lowest
+dregs of the populace, whom you can employ as agents for your bounty.
+There are benevolent associations, through which your charities can flow
+in full and refreshing streams. Remember, I place no limits to your
+generosities. As to your magnificent plans of establishing asylums and
+public institutions for the lame, the halt, and the blind, perhaps my
+single means might not be able to accomplish them,--delightful as it
+would be to have an angel following in my footsteps, and binding up the
+wounds of suffering humanity."
+
+He smiled with radiant good-humor at my Quixotic schemes. Then he told
+me, that since he had been in the city he had given thousands to the
+charitable associations which spread in great lifegiving veins through
+every part of the metropolis.
+
+"You think I am living in vain, my Gabriella," he said, rising and
+walking the length of the splendid apartment and again returning,
+"because I do not have my allotted daily task to perform; because I do
+not go forth, like the lawyer, with a green bag under my arm; like the
+minister, with a sermon in my pocket; or the doctor, with powders and
+pills. If necessity imposed such tasks on me, I suppose I should perform
+them with as good a grace as the rest; but surely it would ill become me
+to enter the lists with my needier brethren, and take the bread from
+their desiring lips. Every profession is crowded. Even woman is pressing
+into the throng, and claiming precedence of man, in the great struggle
+of life. It seems to me, that it is the duty of those on whom fortune
+has lavished her gifts, to step aside and give room to others, who are
+less liberally endowed. We _may_ live in luxury; but by so doing, our
+wealth is scattered among the multitude, the useful arts are encouraged,
+and much is done for the establishment of that golden mean, which reason
+and philosophy have so long labored to secure."
+
+As he thus spoke calmly, yet energetically, moving back and forth under
+the arches of glittering azure, his pale, transparent complexion lighted
+up glowingly. My eyes followed him with exulting affection. I wondered
+at the presumption of which I had been guilty. He had been doing good in
+secret, while I imagined him forgetful of the sacred legacy, left by
+Christ to the rich. I had wronged him in thought, and I told him so.
+
+"You asked me of what I was thinking," I said, "and you draw my thoughts
+from me as by magic. I have not told you all. _I_ do not sigh for other
+society; but I fear you will become weary of mine."
+
+"Do we ever weary of moonlight, or the sweet, fresh air of heaven? No,
+Gabriella; remain just as you are, ingenuous, confiding, and true, and I
+desire no other companionship. You so entirely fill my heart, there is
+no room for more. You never have had, never will have a rival. You have
+a power over me, such as woman seldom, exercises over man. Love, with
+most men, is the pastime and gladdener of life; with me it is life
+itself. A fearful responsibility is resting on you, my own, dear bride;
+but do not tremble. I do not think it is possible for you to deceive me,
+for you are truth itself. I begin to think you have changed my nature,
+and inspired me with trust and confidence in all mankind."
+
+I did not make any professions, any promises, in answer to his avowal;
+but if ever a fervent prayer rose from the human heart, it ascended from
+mine, that I might prove worthy of this trust, that I might preserve it
+unblemished, with a constant reference to the eye that cannot be
+deceived, and the judgment that cannot err.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+The first misfortune of my married life, came in the person of Margaret
+Melville. She burst into the boudoir one morning like a young tornado,
+seizing me in her strong arms, and giving me a shower of kisses, before
+I had time to recover from my astonishment.
+
+Ernest and myself were seated side by side by the escritoire. He was
+reading,--I was writing to Edith, little dreaming of the interruption at
+hand.
+
+"My dear creature," she exclaimed, with one of her inimitable ringing
+laughs, "how _do_ you _do_? You didn't think of seeing me, I know you
+didn't. Where did I come from? I dropped down from the upper
+regions,--you do not believe that. Well, I came with a party of friends,
+who wanted me to keep them alive. They are stopping at the Astor House.
+By the way, my trunks are there,--you may send for them as soon as you
+please. (Her trunks! she had come for a long visit, then!) There is my
+bonnet, mantilla, and gloves,--here _I_ am, body and soul,--what a
+glorious lounge,--good old Cr[oe]sus, what a palace you are in,--I never
+saw any thing so magnificent! Why, this is worth getting married for! If
+I ever marry, it shall be to a rich man, and one who will let me do just
+as I please, too."
+
+Ernest in vain endeavored to conceal his vexation at this unexpected
+innovation on the elegant quietude and romantic seclusion of our home.
+His countenance expressed it but too plainly, and Margaret, careless as
+she was, must have observed it. It did not appear to disconcert her,
+however. She had not waited for an invitation,--she did not trouble
+herself about a welcome. She had come for her own amusement, and
+provided that was secured, she cared not for our gratification.
+
+I can hardly explain my own feelings. I always dreaded coming in contact
+with her rudeness; there was no sympathy in our natures, and yet I
+experienced a sensation of relief while listening to her bubbling and
+effervescent nonsense. My mind had been kept on so high a tone, there
+was a strain, a tension, of which I was hardly conscious till the
+bowstring was slackened. Besides, she was associated with the
+recollections of Grandison Place,--she was a young person of my own sex,
+and she could talk to me of Mrs. Linwood, and Edith, and the friends of
+my rural life. So I tried to become reconciled to the visitation, and to
+do the honors of a hostess with as good a grace as possible.
+
+Ernest took refuge in the library from her wild rattling, and then she
+poured into my ear the idle gossip she had heard the evening before.
+
+"It never will do," she cried, catching a pair of scissors from my
+work-box, and twirling them on the ends of her fingers at the imminent
+risk of their flying into my eyes,--"you must put a stop to this Darby
+and Joan way of living,--you will be the byword of the fashionable
+world,--I heard several gentlemen talking about you last night. They
+said your husband was so exclusive and jealous he would not let the sun
+look upon you if he could help it,--that he had the house lighted
+through the roof, so that no one could peep at you through the windows.
+Oh! I cannot repeat half the ridiculous things they said, but I am sure
+your ears must have burned from the compliments they paid you, at least
+those who have had the good-luck to catch a glimpse of your face. They
+all agreed that Ernest was a frightful ogre, who ought to be put in a
+boiling cauldron, for immuring you so closely,--I am going to tell him
+so."
+
+"Don't, Margaret, don't! If you have any regard for my feelings, don't,
+I entreat you, ever repeat one word of this unmeaning gossip to him. He
+is so peculiarly sensitive, he would shrink still more from social
+intercourse. What a shame it is to talk of him in this manner. I am sure
+I have as much liberty as I wish. He is ready to gratify every desire of
+my heart He has made me the happiest of human beings."
+
+"Oh! I know all that, of course. Who would not be happy in such a palace
+as this?"
+
+"It is not the splendor with which he has surrounded me," I answered,
+gravely, "but the love which is my earthly Providence, which constitutes
+my felicity. You may tell these _busy idlers_, who are so interested in
+my domestic happiness, that I thank my husband for excluding me from
+companions so inferior to himself,--so incapable of appreciating the
+purity and elevation of his character."
+
+"Well, my precious soul, don't be angry with them. You are a jewel of a
+wife, and I dare say he is a diamond of a husband; but you cannot stop
+peoples' tongues. They _will_ talk when folks set themselves up as
+exclusives. But let me tell you one thing, my pretty creature!--I am not
+going to be shut up in a cage while I am here, I assure you. I am
+determined to see all the lions; go to all fashionable places of
+amusement, all attractive exhibitions, theatres, concerts, panoramas,
+every thing that promises the least particle of enjoyment. I shall
+parade Broadway, frequent Stewart's marble palace, and make myself the
+belle of the city. And you are to go with me, my dear,--for am I not
+your guest, and are you not bound to minister to my gratification? As
+for your ogre, he may go or stay, just as he pleases. There will be
+plenty who will be glad enough to take his place."
+
+I did not expect that she would have the audacity to say this to Ernest;
+but she did. I had never asked him to take me to places of public
+amusement, because I knew he did not wish it. Sometimes, when I saw in
+the morning papers that a celebrated actor was to appear in a fine
+drama, my heart throbbed with momentary desire, and my lips opened to
+express it. But delicacy and pride always restrained its expression. I
+waited for him to say,--
+
+"Gabriella, would you like to go?"
+
+The morning after her arrival she ransacked the papers, and fastening on
+the column devoted to amusements, read its contents aloud, to the
+evident annoyance of Ernest.
+
+"Niblo's Garden, the inimitable Ravels--_La Fête champétre_,--dancing on
+the tight-rope, etc. Yes, that's it. We will go there to-night,
+Gabriella. I have been dying to see the Ravels. Cousin Ernest,--you did
+not know that you were my cousin, did you?--but you are. Our mothers
+have been climbing the genealogical tree, and discovered our collateral
+branches. Cousin Ernest, go and get us tickets before the best seats are
+secured. What an unpromising countenance! Never mind. Mr. Harland said
+he would be only too happy to attend Gabriella and myself to any place
+of amusement or party of pleasure. You are not obliged to go, unless you
+choose. Is he, Gabriella?"
+
+"I certainly should not think of going without him," I answered, vexed
+to discover how much I really wished to go.
+
+"But you wish to go,--you know you do. Poor, dear little soul! You have
+never been anywhere,--you have seen nothing,--you live as close and
+demure as a church mouse,--while this man-monster, who has nothing in
+the universe to do, from morning till night, but wait upon you and
+contribute to your gratification, keeps you at home, like a bird in a
+cage, just to look at and admire. It is too selfish. If _you_ will not
+tell him so, _I_ will. He shall hear the truth from somebody."
+
+"Margaret!" I said, frightened at the pale anger of Ernest's
+countenance.
+
+"You dare not look me in the face and say that you do not wish to go,
+Gabriella? You know you dare not."
+
+"I desire nothing contrary to my husband's wishes."
+
+"You are a little simpleton, then,--and I don't care what people say. It
+is a sin to encourage him in such selfishness and despotism."
+
+She laughed, but her lips curled with scorn.
+
+Ernest took up a pearl paper-cutter from the table, and bent it, till it
+broke like glass in his fingers. He did not know what he was doing.
+Madge only laughed the louder. She enjoyed his anger and my trepidation.
+
+"A pretty thing to make a scene of!" she exclaimed. "Here I come all the
+way from Boston to make you a visit,--expecting you would do every thing
+to make me happy, as other folks do, when friends visit them. I propose
+a quiet, respectable amusement, in my own frank, go-ahead way,--and
+lo!--my lord frowns, and my lady trembles, and both, occupied in
+watching each other's emotions, forget they have a guest to entertain,
+as well as a friend to gratify."
+
+"You might wait till I have refused to accompany you, Miss Melville,"
+said Ernest, in a cold, calm voice. "You know me incapable of such
+rudeness. But I cannot allow even a lady to make such unpardonable
+allusions to my domestic feelings and conduct. If a man cannot find a
+sanctuary from insult in his own home, he may well bar his doors against
+intrusion, and if he has the spirit of a man, he will."
+
+"She is only jesting," said I, with a beseeching glance. "You know Madge
+of old,--she never says any thing she really thinks. How can you be
+excited by any remarks of hers?"
+
+"Cousin Ernest," cried Madge, while the _laughing devil_ in her great
+black eyes tried to shrink into a hiding-place, "have you not manliness
+to forgive me, when the rash humor which my mother gave me makes me
+forgetful?"
+
+She held out her hand with an ardent desire for reconciliation. She
+found she had a spirit to contend with, stronger than she imagined; and
+for the moment she was subdued.
+
+"Not your mother, Margaret," replied Ernest, taking the offered hand
+with a better grace than I anticipated. "She is gentle and womanly, like
+my own. I know not whence you derived your wickedness."
+
+"It is all original. I claim the sole credit of it. Father and mother
+both saints. I am a moral tangent, flying off between them. Well, we are
+friends again; are we not?"
+
+"We are at peace," he answered. "You know the conditions, now; and I
+trust will respect them."
+
+"We are all going to Niblo's," she cried eagerly; "that is one
+condition."
+
+"Certainly," he answered; and he could not help smiling at the
+adroitness with which she changed positions with him.
+
+"Will you really like to go, Gabriella?" he asked, turning to me; and
+his countenance beamed with all its wonted tenderness.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed I will. I am sure it will be delightful."
+
+"And have you ever desired to partake of pleasures, without telling me
+of your wishes?"
+
+"I do not know that I can call the transient emotion I have felt, a
+desire," I answered; blushing that I had ever cherished thoughts which I
+was unwilling to disclose. "I believe curiosity is natural to youth and
+inexperience."
+
+"Perfect love casteth out fear, Gabriella. You must promise to tell me
+every wish of your heart; and be assured, if consistent with reason, it
+shall be gratified."
+
+Delighted at so pleasant a termination to so inauspicious a beginning, I
+looked forward to the evening's entertainment with bright and elastic
+spirits. Once, as my eye rested on the fragments of pearl, I sighed to
+think how easily the pearls of sensibility, as well as all the frail and
+delicate treasures of life, might be crushed by the hand of passion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+I was surprised, when I found myself in a lofty dome, brilliantly
+illuminated by gas, instead of the ample flower-garden my imagination
+had described. I hardly know what idea I had formed; but I expected to
+be seated in the open air, in the midst of blossoming plants, and
+singing birds, and trees, on whose branches variegated lamps were
+burning. Ernest smiled when I told him of my disappointment.
+
+"So it is with the illusions of life," said he. "They all pass away. The
+garden which you passed before the entrance, has given its name to the
+place; and even that, the encroaching steps of business will trample
+on."
+
+Mr. Harland escorted Meg, who was in exuberant spirits, and as usual
+attracted the public gaze by her dashing and reckless demeanor.
+Conspicuous, from her superior height, her large, roving black eyes, and
+her opera cloak of brilliant cherry color, I felt sheltered from
+observation in her vicinity, and hoped that Ernest would find I could
+mingle in public scenes without drawing any peculiar attention. Indeed,
+I was so absorbed by the graceful and expressive pantomime, the novelty
+and variety of the scenic decorations, that I thought not where I was,
+or who I was. To city dwellers, a description of these would be as
+unnecessary as uninteresting; but perhaps some young country girl, as
+inexperienced as myself in fashionable amusements, may like to follow my
+glowing impressions.
+
+One scene I remember, which had on me the effect of enchantment.
+
+The stage represented one of those rural fêtes, where the peasantry of
+France gather on the village green, to mingle in the exhilarating dance.
+An aged couple came forward, hand in hand, in coarse grey overcoats,
+wooden sabots, and flapped hats, fastened by gray handkerchiefs under
+their chins. Two tight ropes were stretched parallel to each other,
+about eight or ten feet above the stage, and extended over the
+parquette. A light ladder rested against them, on each side. The aged
+couple tottered to the ladder, and attempted to ascend; but, at the
+first step, they fell and rolled on the ground.
+
+"Poor creatures!" said I, trembling for their safety. "Why will they
+make such a ridiculous attempt? Why will not some of the bystanders
+prevent them, instead of urging them with such exulting shouts?"
+
+"They deserve to suffer for their folly," answered Ernest, laughing.
+"Age should not ape the agility of youth. Perhaps they will do better
+than you anticipate."
+
+After repeated attempts and failures, they stood, balancing themselves
+painfully on the ropes, clinging to each other's hands, and apparently
+trembling with terror.
+
+"They _will_ fall!" I exclaimed, catching hold of Ernest's arm, and
+covering my eyes. "I cannot bear to look at them. There! how dreadfully
+they stagger."
+
+Again I covered my eyes, resolved to shut out the catastrophe of their
+broken necks and mangled limbs,--when thunders of acclamation shook the
+house; and, looking up, I beheld a transformation that seemed
+supernatural. The old great-coats, clumsy sabots, and hats, were
+scattered to the ground; and two youthful figures, glittering in white
+and silver, light and graceful as "feathered Mercuries," stood, hand in
+hand, poised on one foot, on the tight-drawn ropes. They danced. I never
+realized before the music of motion. Now, they floated downwards like
+softly rolling clouds; then vaulted upwards like two white-winged birds,
+with sunbeams shining on their plumage. A bright, fearless smile
+illumined their countenances; their dark, waving locks shone in the
+dazzling light.
+
+Ernest seemed to enjoy my rapture. "I take more pleasure," he said,
+"watching your vivid emotions, than in witnessing this wonderfully
+graceful exhibition. What a perfect child of nature you are, Gabriella.
+You should thank me for keeping you somewhat aloof from the fascinations
+of the world. It is only in the shade, that the dew remains on the
+flower."
+
+I do not think one glance of mine had wandered from the stage, save to
+meet the eye of Ernest. We sat in the second row of boxes, about
+half-way distant from the stage and the centre. I knew that every seat
+was crowded, but I did not observe the occupants. Meg, who cared as much
+about the audience as the performers, kept her opera-glass busy in
+gazing on those who were remote, and her own bold, magnificent eyes in
+examining those in her vicinity.
+
+"Gabriella!" she whispered, "do look at that gentleman in the next box,
+one seat in advance of us. He has been gazing at you for an hour
+steadily. Do you know him?"
+
+I shook my head, and made a motion, enjoining silence. I did not think
+Ernest had heard her, and I did not wish his attention directed towards
+an impertinence of this kind. It would make him angry, and he seemed to
+have enjoyed the evening.
+
+"Why don't you look?" again whispered Meg. "He may leave the box. He is
+certainly trying to magnetize you."
+
+Impelled by growing curiosity, I glanced in the direction she indicated,
+and met the unreceding gaze of a pair of dark, intense eyes, that seemed
+to burn in their sockets. Their owner was a gentleman, who appeared
+about forty years of age, of a very striking figure, and features
+originally handsome, but wearing the unmistakable stamp of dissipation.
+I blushed at his bold and steadfast scrutiny, and drew involuntarily
+nearer to Ernest. Ernest observed his undaunted stare, and his brows
+contracted over his flashing eyes. The gentleman, perceiving this,
+turned towards the stage, and seemed absorbed in admiration of the
+graceful and inimitable Ravels.
+
+"Scoundrel!" muttered Ernest, leaning forward so as to interpose a
+barrier to his insolence.
+
+"Did you speak to me, cousin Ernest?" asked Meg, with affected
+simplicity.
+
+He made no reply; and as the stranger did not turn again, I became so
+interested in the performance as to forget his bold ness. During the
+interlude between the plays, I begged Ernest to get me a glass of water.
+Meg made the same request of Mr. Harland, and for a short time we were
+left alone.
+
+The moment the gentlemen had left the box, the stranger rose and stepped
+into the box behind him, which brought him on a line with us, and close
+to me, as I was seated next to the partition. I did not look him in the
+face; but I could not help being conscious of his movements, and of the
+probing gaze he again fixed on me. I wished I had not asked for the
+water. I could have borne the faintness and oppression caused by the
+odor of the gas better than that dark, unshrinking glance. I dreaded the
+anger of Ernest on his return. I feared he would openly resent an
+insolence so publicly and perseveringly displayed. We were side by side,
+with only the low partition of the boxes between us, so near that I felt
+his burning breath on my cheek,--a breath in which the strong perfume of
+orris-root could not overcome the fumes of the narcotic weed. I tried to
+move nearer Meg, but her back was partially turned to me, in the act of
+conversing with some gentleman who had just entered the box, and she was
+planted on her seat firm as a marble statue.
+
+The stranger's hand rested on the partition, and a note fell into my
+lap.
+
+"Conceal this from your husband," said a low, quick voice, scarcely
+above a whisper, "or his life shall be the forfeit as well as mine."
+
+As he spoke, he lifted his right hand, exhibiting a miniature in its
+palm, in golden setting. One moment it flashed on my gaze, then
+vanished, but that glance was enough. I recognized the lovely features
+of my mother, though blooming with youth, and beaming with hope and joy.
+
+To snatch up the note and hide it in my bosom, was an act as instinctive
+as the beating of my heart. It was my father, then, from whose scorching
+gaze I had been shrinking with such unutterable dread and loathing,--the
+being whom she had once so idolatrously loved, whom in spite of her
+wrongs she continued to love,--the being who had destroyed her peace,
+broken her heart, and laid her in a premature grave--the being whom her
+dying lips commanded me to forgive, whom her prophetic dream warned me
+to protect from unknown danger. My father! I had imagined him dead, so
+many years had elapsed since my mother's flight. I had thought of him as
+a fabulous being. I dreamed not of encountering him, and if I had, I
+should have felt secure, for how could he recognize _me_? My father!
+cold and sick I turned away, shivering with indescribable apprehension.
+He had destroyed my mother,--he had come to destroy me. That secret
+note,--that note which I was to conceal, or meet so awful a penalty,
+seemed to scorch the bosom that throbbed wildly against its folds.
+
+All that I have described occurred in the space of a few moments. Before
+Ernest returned, the stranger had resumed his seat,--(I cannot, oh, I
+cannot call him _father_,)--and there was no apparent cause for my
+unconquerable emotion. Meg, who was laughing and talking with her
+companions, had observed nothing. The secret was safe, on which I was
+told two lives depended. Two,--I might say _three_, since one was the
+life of Ernest.
+
+I attempted to take the glass of water, but my hand shook so I could not
+hold it. I dared not look in the face of Ernest, lest he should read in
+mine all that had occurred.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked, anxiously. "Gabriella, has any thing
+alarmed you during my absence?"
+
+"The odor of the gas sickens me," I answered, evading the question; "if
+you are willing, I should like to return home."
+
+"You seem strangely affected in crowds," said he, in an undertone, and
+bending on me a keen, searching glance. "I remember on commencement day
+you were similarly agitated."
+
+"I do indeed seem destined to suffer on such occasions," I answered, a
+sharp pang darting through my heart. I read suspicion in his altered
+countenance. The flower leaves were beginning to wither. "If Miss
+Melville is willing, I should like to return."
+
+"What is that you say about going home?" cried Meg, turning quickly
+round. "What in the world is this, Gabriella? You look as if you had
+seen a ghost!"
+
+"Whatever she has seen, it is probable you have been equally favored,
+Miss Melville, since you were together," said Ernest, in the same cold
+undertone. The orchestra was playing a magnificent overture, there was
+laughter and merriment around us, so the conversation in our box was not
+over-heard.
+
+"I!" exclaimed Meg. "I have not seen any thing but one sociable looking
+neighbor. I should not wonder if his eyes had blistered her face, they
+have been glowing on her so intensely."
+
+As she raised her voice, the stranger turned his head, and again I met
+them,--those strange, basilisk eyes. They seemed to drink my heart's
+blood. It is scarcely metaphorical to say so, for every glance left a
+cold, deadly feeling behind.
+
+"Come, Gabriella," said Ernest; "if Miss Melville wishes it, she can
+remain with Mr. Harland. I will send back the carriage for them."
+
+"To be sure I wish it," cried Meg. "They say the best part of the
+amusement is to come. Gabriella has a poor opinion of my nursing, so I
+will not cast my pearls away. I am glad _I_ have not any nerves, my dear
+little sensitive plant. It _is_ a terrible thing to be too attractive to
+venture abroad!"
+
+The latter part of the sentence was uttered in a whisper, while
+suppressed laughter convulsed her frame.
+
+Ernest did not open his lips as he conducted me from the theatre to the
+carriage, and not a word was spoken during our homeward ride. The
+rattling of the pavements was a relief to the cold silence. Instead of
+occupying the same seat with me, Ernest took the one opposite; and as we
+passed the street lamps they flashed on his face, and it seemed that of
+a statue, so cold and impressive it looked. What did he suspect? What
+had I done to cause this deep displeasure? He knew not of the note which
+I had concealed, of the words which still hissed in my ears. The bold
+gaze of the stranger would naturally excite his anger against him, but
+why should it estrange him from me? I had yet to learn the wiles and the
+madness of his bosom enemy.
+
+When I took his hand, as he assisted me from the carriage I started, for
+it was as chill as ice, and the fingers, usually so pliant and gentle in
+their fold, were inflexible as marble. I thought I should have fallen to
+the pavement; but exerting all the resolution of which I was mistress, I
+entered the house, and passed under the dim glitter of the silvery
+drapery into my own apartment.
+
+I had barely strength to reach the sofa, on which I sunk in a state of
+utter exhaustion. I feared I was going to faint, and then they would
+loosen my dress and discover the fatal note.
+
+"Wine!" said I to the chambermaid, who was folding my opera cloak, which
+I had dropped on the floor; "give me wine. I am faint."
+
+I remembered the red wine which Dr. Harlowe gave me, after my midnight
+run through the dark woods, and how it infused new life into my sinking
+frame. Since then I had been afraid to drink it, for the doctor had
+laughingly assured me, that it had intoxicated, while it sustained. Now,
+I wanted strength and courage, and it came to me, after swallowing the
+glowing draught. I lifted my head, and met the cold glance of Ernest
+without shivering. I dared to speak and ask him the cause of his anger.
+
+"The cause!" repeated he, his eyes kindling with passion. "Who was the
+bold libertine, before whose unlicensed gaze you blushed and trembled,
+not with indignation, such as a pure and innocent woman ought to feel;
+but with the bashful confusion the veteran _roué_ delights to behold?
+Who was this man, whose presence caused you such overpowering emotion,
+and who exchanged with you glances of such mysterious meaning? Tell me,
+for I _will_ know."
+
+Oh that I had dared to answer, "He is my father. Covered with shame and
+humiliation, I acknowledge my parentage, which makes me so unworthy to
+bear your unsullied name. My darkened spirit would hide itself behind a
+cloud, to escape the villain whom nature disowns and reason abhors."
+But, unknowing the contents of the mysterious note, unknowing the
+consequences to himself which might result from its disclosure,
+remembering the injunction of my dying mother, to be to him a guardian
+angel in the hour of danger,--I could not save myself from blame by
+revealing the truth. I could not stain my lips with a falsehood.
+
+"I never saw that man before," I replied. "Most husbands would think
+modest confusion more becoming in a wife, than the indignation which he
+usually deems it his own prerogative to exhibit. If I have been
+insulted, methinks you should wreak your vengeance on the offender,
+instead of me,--the innocent sufferer. It would be more manly."
+
+"Would you have had me make the theatre a scene of strife and
+bloodshed?" he exclaimed.
+
+"No! neither would I have you bring warring passions into the peaceful
+bosom of your own home."
+
+"Is this you?" he cried, looking me sternly and sorrowfully in the face.
+"Is this the gentle and tender Gabriella, who speaks in such a tone of
+bitterness and scorn?"
+
+"I did not know that I spoke bitterly!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Ernest, you
+have roused in me a spirit of resistance I tremble to feel! You madden
+me by your reproaches! You wrong me by your suspicions! I meant to be
+gentle and forbearing; but the worm will writhe under the foot that
+grinds it into dust. Alas! how little we know ourselves!"
+
+With anguish that cannot be described, I clasped my hands tightly over
+my heart, that ached with intolerable pangs. I had lost him,--lost his
+love,--lost his confidence. Had I seen him in his grave, I could
+scarcely have felt more utter desolation.
+
+"I told you what I was," he cried, the pale severity of his countenance
+changing to the most stormy agitation. "I told you that the cloud which
+hung over my cradle would follow me to the grave; that suspicion and
+jealousy were the twin-born phantoms of my soul. Why, then, rash and
+blind, have you committed your happiness into my keeping? You were
+warned, and yet you hastened to your doom."
+
+"Because I believed that you loved me; because I loved and trusted, with
+a love and faith more deep and strong than woman ever knew."
+
+"And I have destroyed them. I knew it would be so. I knew that I would
+prove a faithless guardian to a charge too dear. Gabriella, I am a
+wretch,--deserving your hatred and indignation. I have insulted your
+innocence, by suspicions I should blush to admit. Love, too strong for
+reason, converts me at times into a madman. I do not ask you to forgive
+me; but if you could conceive of the agonies I endure, you would pity
+me, were I your direst foe."
+
+Remorse, sorrow, tenderness, and love, all swept over his countenance,
+and gave pathos to his voice. I rose and sprang to his arms, that opened
+to receive me, and I clung to his neck, and wept upon his bosom, till it
+seemed that my life would dissolve itself in tears. Oh! it seemed that I
+had leaped over a yawning abyss to reach him, that I had found him just
+as I was losing him for ever. I was once more in the banqueting-house of
+joy, and "his banner over me was love."
+
+"Never again, my husband, never close your heart against me. I have no
+other home, no other refuge, no other world, than your arms."
+
+"You have forgiven me too soon, my Gabriella. You should impose upon me
+some penalty equal to the offence, if such indeed there be. Oh! most
+willingly would I cut off the hand so tenderly clasped in yours and cast
+it into the flames, if by so doing I could destroy the fiend who tempts
+me to suspect fidelity, worthy of eternal trust. You think I give myself
+up without a struggle to the demon passion, in whose grasp you have seen
+me writhing; but you know not, dream not, how I wrestle with it in
+secret, and what prayers I send up to God for deliverance. It seems
+impossible now that I should ever doubt, ever wrong you again, and yet I
+dare not promise. Oh! I dare not promise; for when the whirlwind of
+passion rises, I know not what I do."
+
+Had I not been conscious that I was concealing something from him, that
+while he was restoring to me his confidence, I was deceiving him, I
+should have been perfectly happy in this hour of reconciliation. But as
+he again and again clasped me to his bosom, and lavished upon me the
+tenderest caresses, I involuntarily shrunk from the pressure, lest he
+should feel the note, which seemed to flutter, so quick and loud my
+heart beat against it.
+
+"We are neither of us fit for the fashionable world, my Gabriella," said
+he; "we have hearts and souls fitted for a purer, holier atmosphere than
+the one we now breathe. If we had some 'bright little isle of our own,'
+where we were safe from jarring contact with ruder natures, remote from
+the social disturbances which interrupt the harmony of life, where we
+could live for love and God, then, my Gabriella, I would not envy the
+angels around the throne. No scene like this to-night would ever mar the
+heaven of our wedded bliss."
+
+Ernest did not know himself. Even in Crusoe's desert isle, if the print
+of human footsteps were discovered on the sand, and had he flown to the
+uttermost parts of the earth, the phantom created by his own diseased
+imagination would have pursued him like the giant form that haunted from
+pole to pole the unhappy Frankenstein. Man cannot escape from his own
+passions; and in solitude their waves beat against his bosom, like the
+eternal dashing of the tide, scarcely perceived amidst the active sounds
+of day, but roaring and thundering in the deep stillness of the midnight
+hour.
+
+"We were happy here before Margaret came," I answered; "happy as it was
+possible for mortals to be. How strange that she should have come
+unasked, remain unurged, without dreaming of the possibility of her
+being otherwise than a welcome guest!"
+
+"There should be laws to prevent households from such intrusions," said
+Ernest, with warmth. "I consider such persons as great offenders against
+the peace of society as the midnight robber or the lurking assassin.
+Margaret Melville cares for nothing but her own gratification. A
+contemptible love of fun and frolic is the ruling passion of her life.
+How false, how artificial is that system where there is no redress for
+encroachments of this kind! Were I to act honestly and as I ought, I
+should say to her at once, 'leave us,--your presence is
+intolerable,--there is no more affinity between us than between glass
+and brass.' But what would my mother say? What would the world say? What
+would you say, my own dear wife, who desire her departure even as I do
+myself?"
+
+"I should be very much shocked, of course. If she had the least
+sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling, she would read all this in your
+countenance and manners. I often fear she will perceive in mine, the
+repulsion I cannot help experiencing. For your mother's sake I wish to
+be kind to Margaret."
+
+"Do you know, Gabriella, she once wished me to think of her as a wife?
+That was before her character was formed, however,--when its wild,
+untamable elements revelled in the morning freedom of girlhood, and
+reason and judgment were not expected to exert their restraining
+influence. Think of such an union, my flower-girl, my Mimosa. Do I
+deserve quite so severe a punishment?"
+
+"You would have lived in a perpetual fever of jealousy, or a state of
+open anarchy. There would have been some memorable scenes in your diary,
+I am certain."
+
+"Jealousy! The idea of being jealous of such a being as Margaret! The
+'rhinoceran bear' might inspire the passion as soon. No, Gabriella, I do
+not believe I could be jealous of another woman in the world, for I
+cannot conceive of the possibility of my ever loving another; and the
+intensity of my love creates a trembling fear, that a treasure so
+inestimable, so unspeakably dear, may be snatched from my arms. It is
+not so much distrust of you, as myself. I fear the casket is not worthy
+of the jewel it enshrines."
+
+"Be just to yourself, Ernest, and then you will be just to all mankind."
+
+"The truth is, Gabriella, I have no self-esteem. A celebrated German
+phrenologist examined my head, and pronounced it decidedly deficient in
+the swelling organ of self-appreciation."
+
+He took my hand and placed it on his head, amid his soft, luxuriant dark
+hair, and it certainly met no elevation. I was not skilled in the
+science of phrenology, and there might be a defect in the formation of
+his head; but on his noble brow, it seemed to me that "every God had set
+its seal," and left the impress of his own divinity.
+
+We started, for the steps of Madge were heard rushing up the marble
+stairs, and the sound of her laugh swept before her, and pressed against
+the door like a strong gale.
+
+Oh Madge! that any one should ever have thought of you as the wife of
+Ernest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+It was not till the next morning that I dared to read the contents of
+the note. It was in the magnificent bathing-room, on whose retirement no
+one ever intruded, that I perused these pencilled lines, evidently
+written with a hasty and agitated hand.
+
+"Can it be that I have found a daughter? Yes! in those lovely features I
+trace the living semblance of my beloved Rosalie. Where is she, my
+child? Where is your angel mother, whom I have sought sorrowing so many
+years? They tell me that you are married,--that it is your husband who
+watches you with such jealous scrutiny. He must not know who I am. I am
+a reckless, desperate man. It would be dangerous to us both to meet.
+Guard my secret as you expect to find your grave peaceful, your eternity
+free from remorse. When can I see you alone? Where can I meet you? I am
+in danger, distress,--ruin and death are hanging over me,--I must flee
+from the city; but I must see you, my child, my sweet, my darling
+Gabriella. I must learn the fate of my lost Rosalie.
+
+"The curtain falls,--I dare not write more. Walk in the ---- Park
+to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, where I will wait your coming. Come
+alone,--I ask only a few moments. A father pleads with his child! As you
+hope for an answer to your dying prayers, come, child of my
+Rosalie,--child of my own sad heart."
+
+Once,--twice,--thrice I read these lines,--the death-warrant of my
+wedded peace. How could I resist so solemn an appeal, without violating
+the commands of a dying mother? How could I meet him, without incurring
+the displeasure of my husband? What possibility was there of my leaving
+home alone, when Ernest scarcely ever left me; when, after his return,
+if he chanced to go out, he always asked me how I had passed the time of
+his absence? How could I preserve outward composure, with such a secret
+burning in my heart? A sigh, involuntarily breathed,--a tear, forcing
+its way beneath the quivering lash, would expose me to suspicion and
+distress. What could I, should I do? I was alone, now; and I yielded
+momentarily to an agony of apprehension, that almost drove me mad. On
+one side, a guilty, ruined parent; on the other, a jealous husband,
+whose anger was to me a consuming fire. No, no; I could never expose
+myself again to that. I trembled at the recollection of those pale,
+inflexible features, and that eye of stormy splendor. The lightning bolt
+was less terrible and scathing. Yet, to turn a deaf ear to a father's
+prayer; to disregard a mother's injunction; to incur, perhaps, the guilt
+of parricide; to hazard the judgments of the Almighty;--how awful the
+alternative!
+
+I sank down on my knees, and laid my head on the marble slab on which I
+had been seated. I tried to pray; but hysterical sobs choked my words.
+
+"Have pity upon me, O my heavenly Father!" at length I exclaimed,
+raising my clasped hands to heaven. "Have pity upon me, and direct me in
+the right path. Give me courage to do right, and leave the result unto
+Thee. I float on a stormy current, without pilot or helm. I sink beneath
+the whelming billows. Help, Lord! or I perish!"
+
+Before I rose from my knees, it seemed as if invisible arms surrounded
+me,--bearing me up, above the dark and troubled waters. I felt as if God
+would open a way for me to walk in; and I resolved to leave the event in
+his hands. Had I applied to an earthly counsellor, with wisdom to
+direct, they might have told me, that one who had been guilty of the
+crime my father had committed, had forfeited every claim on a daughter's
+heart. That I had no right to endanger a husband's happiness, or to
+sacrifice my own peace, in consequence of his rash demand. No
+instinctive attraction drew me to this mysterious man. Instead of the
+yearnings of filial affection, I felt for him an unconquerable
+repugnance. His letter touched me, but his countenance repelled. His
+bold, unreceding eye;--not thus should a father gaze upon his child.
+
+Upon what apparent trifles the events of our life sometimes depend! At
+the breakfast table, Madge suddenly asked what day of the month it was.
+
+Then I remembered that it was the day appointed for a meeting of the
+ladies composing a benevolent association, of which I had been lately
+made a member. After the conversation with Ernest, in which I had
+expressed such an anxiety to do good, he had supplied me bountifully
+with means, so that my purse was literally overflowing. I had met the
+society once, and had gone _alone_. The hour of the meeting was _ten_.
+What a coincidence! Was Providence opening a way in which my doubting
+feet should walk? When I mentioned the day of the month, I added,
+
+"Our Society for the Relief of Invalid Seamstresses meets this morning.
+I had forgotten it, till your question reminded me that this was the
+day."
+
+"Do not your coffers need replenishing, fair Lady Bountiful?" asked
+Ernest. "This is an association founded on principles which I revere. If
+any class of females merit the sympathy and kind offices of the generous
+sisterhood, it is that, whose services are so ill repaid, and whose
+lives must be one long drawn sigh of weariness and anxiety. Give, my
+Gabriella, to your heart's content; and if one pale cheek is colored
+with the glow of hope, one dim eye lighted with joy, something will be
+added to the sum of human happiness."
+
+Ernest was unusually kind and tender. He watched me as the fond mother
+does the child, whom she has perhaps too severely chided. He seemed to
+wish to atone for the pain he had given, and to assure me by his manner
+that his confidence was perfectly restored.
+
+"I shall avail myself of your absence," said he, "to pay some of my
+epistolary debts. They have weighed heavy on my conscience for some
+time."
+
+"And I," said Madge, "have engaged to spend the day with Miss Haven. You
+can drop me on the way."
+
+Madge had behaved unusually well during the morning, and did not harass
+me at the breakfast table, as I feared she would, about the bold
+stranger at the theatre. Perhaps my pale cheeks spoke too plainly of the
+sufferings of the evening, and she had a heart after all.
+
+As I went into my room to prepare for going out, my hands trembled so
+that I could scarcely fasten the ribbons of my bonnet. Every thing
+seemed to facilitate my filial duty; but the more easy seemed its
+accomplishment, the more I shrunk from the thought of deceiving Ernest,
+in this hour of restored tranquillity and abounding love. I loathed the
+idea of deceiving any one,--but Ernest, my lover, my husband,--how could
+I beguile his new-born confidence?
+
+He came in, and wrapped me up in my ermine-trimmed cloak, warning me of
+exposing myself to the morning air, which was of wintry bleakness.
+
+"You must bring back the roses which I have banished from your cheeks,"
+said he, kissing them with a tenderness and gentleness that made my
+heart ache with anguish. I did not deserve these caresses; and if my
+purpose were discovered, would they not be the last?
+
+Shuddering, as I asked myself this question, I turned towards him, as if
+to daguerreotype on my heart every lineament of his striking and
+expressive face. How beautiful was his countenance this moment, softened
+by tenderness, so delicately pale, yet so lustrous, like the moonlight
+night!
+
+"Oh, Ernest!" said I, throwing my arms around him, with a burst of
+irrepressible emotion, "I am not worthy of the love you bear me, but yet
+I prize it far more than life. If the hour comes when it is withdrawn
+from me, I pray Heaven it may be my last."
+
+"It can never be withdrawn, my Gabriella. You may cast it from your
+bosom, and it may wither, like the flower trampled by the foot of man;
+but by my own act it never can be destroyed. Nor by yours either, my
+beloved wife. At this moment I have a trust in you as entire as in
+heaven itself. I look back with wonder and remorse on the dark delusions
+to which I have submitted myself. But the spell is broken; the demon
+laid. Sorrow has had its season; but joy hath come in the morning.
+Smile, my darling Gabriella, in token of forgiveness and peace."
+
+I tried to smile, but the tears would gather into my eyes.
+
+"Foolish girl!" he cried. A loud laugh rung under the silken arches.
+Madge stood in the open door, her great black eyes brimming with mirth.
+
+"When you have finished your parting ceremonies," she exclaimed, "I
+think we had better start. One would think you were going to Kamschatka
+or Terra del Fuego, instead of Broadway. Oh dear! what a ridiculous
+thing it is to see people in love with each other, after they are
+married! Come, Gabriella; you can carry his miniature with you."
+
+As the carriage rolled from the gate, I was so agitated at the thought
+of the approaching interview I could not speak. Madge rattled away, in
+her usual light manner; but I did not attempt to answer her. I leaned
+back in the carriage, revolving the best way of accomplishing my design.
+After leaving Madge, instead of going to the lady's, at whose house the
+society met, I ordered the coachman to drive to one of the fashionable
+stores and leave me.
+
+"Return in an hour," said I, as I left the carriage. "You will find me
+at Mrs. Brahan's. Drive the horses out to the Battery for exercise, as
+you usually do."
+
+As I gave these orders, my heart beat so fast I could hardly articulate
+with distinctness. Yet there was nothing in them to excite suspicion.
+The horses were high-fed and little used, gay and spirited, and when we
+shopped or made morning calls, the coachman was in the habit of driving
+them about, to subdue their fiery speed.
+
+I should make too conspicuous an appearance in the park, in my elegant
+cloak, trimmed with costly ermine and bonnet shaded with snowy plumes. I
+would be recognized at once, for the bride of the jealous Ernest was an
+object of interest and curiosity. To obviate this difficulty, I
+purchased a large gray shawl, of soft, yielding material, that
+completely covered my cloak; a thick, green veil, through which my
+features could not be discerned, and walked with rapid steps through the
+hurrying crowd that thronged the side-walks towards the ---- Park.
+
+It was too early an hour for the usual gathering of children and nurses.
+Indeed, at this cold, wintry season, the warm nursery was a more
+comfortable and enticing place.
+
+The park presented a dreary, desolate aspect. No fountain tossed up its
+silvery waters, falling in rainbows back to earth. The leafless branches
+of the trees shone coldly in the thin glazing of frostwork and creaked
+against each other, as the bleak wind whistled through them. Here and
+there, a ruddy-faced Irish woman, wrapped in a large blanket-shawl, with
+a coarse straw bonnet blown back from her head, breasted the breeze with
+a little trotting child, who took half a dozen steps to one of hers,
+tugging hard at her hand. It was not likely I should meet a fashionable
+acquaintance at this early hour; and if I did, I was shrouded from
+recognition.
+
+I had scarcely passed the revolving gate, before I saw a gentleman
+approaching from the opposite entrance with rapid and decided steps. He
+was tall and stately, and had that unmistakable air of high-breeding
+which, being once acquired, can never be entirely lost. As he came
+nearer, I could distinguish the features of the stranger; features
+which, seen by daylight, exhibited still more plainly the stamp of
+recklessness, dissipation, and vice. They had once been handsome, but
+alas! alas! was this the man who had captivated the hearts of two lovely
+women, and then broken them? Where was the fascination which had
+enthralled alike the youthful Rosalie and the impassioned Therésa? Was
+this, indeed, the once gallant and long beloved St. James?
+
+"You have come," he exclaimed, eagerly grasping my hand and pressing it
+in his. "I bless you, my daughter,--and may God forever bless you for
+listening to a father's prayer!"
+
+"I have come," I answered, in low, trembling accents, for indescribable
+agitation almost choked my utterance,--"but I can not,--dare not linger.
+It was cruel in you to bind me to secrecy. Had it not been for the
+mother,--whose dying words"--
+
+"And is she dead,--the wronged,--the angel Rosalie? How vainly I have
+sought her,--and thee, my cherub little one! My sufferings have avenged
+her wrongs."
+
+He turned away, and covered his face with his handkerchief. I saw his
+breast heave with suppressed sobs. It is an awful thing to see a strong
+man weep,--especially when the tears are wrung by the agonies of
+remorse. I felt for him the most intense pity,--the most entire
+forgiveness,--yet I recoiled from his approach,--I shrunk from the touch
+of his dry and nervous hand. I felt polluted, degraded, by the contact.
+
+"My mother told me, if I ever met you, to give you not only her
+forgiveness, but her blessing. She blessed you, for the sufferings that
+weaned her from earth and chastened her spirit for a holier and happier
+world. She bade me tell you, that in spite of her wrongs she had never
+ceased to love you. In obedience to her dying will, I have shown you a
+daughter's duty so far as to meet you here, and learn what I can do for
+one placed in the awful circumstances in which you declare yourself to
+be. Speak quickly and briefly, for on every passing moment the whole
+happiness of my life hangs trembling."
+
+"Only let me see your face for the few moments we are together, that I
+may carry its remembrance to my grave,--that face so like your
+mother's."
+
+"What can I do?" I exclaimed, removing the veil as I spoke,--for there
+was no one near; and I could not refuse a petition so earnest. "Oh, tell
+me quickly what I can do. What dreadful doom is impending over you?"
+
+"You are beautiful, my child,--very, very beautiful," said he; while his
+dark, sunken eyes seemed to burn me with the intensity of their gaze.
+
+"Talk not to me of beauty, at a moment like this!" I exclaimed, stamping
+my foot in the agony of my impatience. "I cannot, will not stay, unless
+to aid you. Your presence is awful! for it reminds me of my mother's
+wrongs,--my own clouded birth."
+
+"I deserve this, and far more," he cried, in tones of the most object
+humility. "Oh, my child, I am brought very low;--I am a lost and ruined
+man. Maddened by your mother's desertion, I became reckless,--desperate.
+I fled from the home another had usurped. I became the prey of villains,
+who robbed me of my fortune at the gaming table. Another, and another
+step;--lower and lower still I sunk. I cannot tell you the story of my
+ruin. Enough, I am lost! The sword of the violated law gleams over my
+head. Every moment it may fall. I dare not remain another day in this
+city. I dare not stay in my native land. If I do, yonder dismal Tombs
+will be my life-long abode."
+
+"Fly, then,--fly this moment," I cried. "What madness! to linger in the
+midst of danger and disgrace!"
+
+"Alas! my daughter, I am penniless. I had laid aside a large sum,
+sufficient for the emergency; but a wretch robbed me of all, only two
+nights since. Humiliating as it is, I must turn beggar to my child. Your
+husband is a Dives; I, the Lazarus, who am perishing at his gate."
+
+"Ask him. He is noble and generous. He will fill your purse with gold,
+and aid you to escape. Go to him at once. You know not his princely
+heart."
+
+"Never! On you alone I depend. I will not ask a favor of man, to save my
+soul from perdition. Girl! have you no power over the wealth that must
+be rusting in your coffers? Are you not trusted with the key to your
+household treasures?"
+
+"Do you think I would take his gold clandestinely?" I asked, glowing
+with indignation, and recoiling from the expression of his eager,
+burning eye. We were walking slowly during this exciting conversation;
+and, cold as it was, the moisture gathered on my brow. "Here is a purse,
+given me for a holier purpose. Take it, and let me go."
+
+"Thank you,--bless you, my child! but this will only relieve present
+necessity. It will not carry me in safety to distant climes. Bless you!
+but take it back, take it back. I can only meet my doom!"
+
+"I _will_ go to my husband!" I exclaimed with sudden resolution; "I
+_will_ tell him all, and he, and he alone shall aid you. I will not
+wrong him by acting without his knowledge. You have no right to endanger
+my life-long peace. You have destroyed my mother; must her child too be
+sacrificed?"
+
+"I see there is but one path of escape," he cried, snatching a pistol
+from his breast, and turning the muzzle to his heart. "Fool, dolt, idiot
+that I am! I dreamed of salvation from a daughter's hand, but I have
+forfeited a father's name, a father's affection. Gabriella, you might
+save me, but I blame you not. Do not curse me, though I fill a felon's
+grave;--better that than the dungeon--the scaffold."
+
+"What would you do?" I whispered hoarsely, seizing his arm with
+spasmodic grasp.
+
+"Die, before I am betrayed."
+
+"I will not betray you; what sum will suffice for your emergency? Name
+it."
+
+"As many thousands as there are hundreds there," pointing to the purse.
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"Gabriella, you must have jewels worth a prince's ransom; you had
+diamonds last night on your neck and arms that would redeem your
+father's life. Each gem is but a drop of water in the deep sea of _his_
+riches. His uncle was a modern Cr[oe]sus, and he, his sole heir."
+
+"How know you this?" I asked.
+
+"Every one knows it. The rich are the cities on the hill-tops, seen afar
+off. You hesitate,--you tremble. Keep your diamonds,--but remember they
+will eat like burning coals into your flesh."
+
+Fierce and deadly passions gleamed from his eye. He clenched the pistol
+so tight that his nails turned of a purplish blue.
+
+No one was near us, to witness a scene so strange and appalling. The
+thundering sounds of city life were rolling along the great thoroughfare
+of the metropolis, now rattling, shrill, and startling, then roaring,
+swelling, and subsiding again, like the distant surf; but around us,
+there was silence and space. In the brief moment that we stood face to
+face, my mind was at work with preternatural activity. I remembered that
+I had a set of diamonds,--the bridal gift of Mrs. Linwood,--a superb and
+costly set, which I had left a week previous in the hands of the
+jeweller, that he might remedy a slight defect in the clasps. Those
+which I wore at the theatre, and which had attracted his insatiate eye,
+were the gift of Ernest. He had clasped them around my neck and arms, as
+he was about to lead me to the altar, and hallowed the offering with a
+bridegroom's kiss. I could have given my heart's blood sooner than the
+radiant pledge of wedded faith and love.
+
+I could go to the jewellers,--get possession of the diamonds, and thus
+redeem my guilty parent from impending ruin. Then, the waves of the
+Atlantic would roll between us, and I would be spared the humiliation
+and agony of another scene like this. I told him to follow me at a short
+distance; that I would get the jewels; that he could receive them from
+me in the street in the midst of the jostling crowd without observation.
+
+"It is the last time," I cried, "the last time I ever act without my
+husband's knowledge. I have obeyed my mother, I have fulfilled my duty,
+at the risk of all my soul holds dear. And now, as you hope to meet
+hereafter her, who, if angels can sorrow, still mourns over your
+transgressions, quit the dark path you are now treading, and devote your
+future life to penitence and prayer. Oh! by my mother's wrongs and woes,
+and by my own, by the mighty power of God and a Saviour's dying love, I
+entreat you to repent, forsake your sins, and live, live, forever more."
+
+Tears gushed from my eyes and checked my utterance. Oh! how sad, how
+dreadful, to address a father thus.
+
+"Gabriella!" he exclaimed, "you are an angel. Pray for me, pray for me,
+thou pure and holy being, and forgive the sins that you say are not
+beyond the reach of God's mercy, I dare not, not here,--yet for one dear
+embrace, my child, I would willingly meet the tortures of the
+prison-house and the scaffold."
+
+I recoiled with horror at the suggestion. I would not have had his arms
+around me for worlds. I could not call him _father_. I pitied,--wept for
+him; but I shrunk with loathing from his presence. Dropping my veil over
+my face, I turned hastily, gained the street, pressed on through the
+moving mass without looking to the right or left, till I reached the
+shop where my jewels were deposited,--took them without waiting for
+explanation or inquiry, hurried back till I met St. James, slipped the
+casket into his eager hand, and pressed on without uttering a syllable.
+Never shall I forget the expression of his countenance as he received
+the casket. The fierce, wild, exulting flash of his dark sunken eye,
+whose reddish blackness seemed suddenly to ignite and burn like heated
+iron. There was something demoniac in its glare, and it haunted me in my
+dreams long, long afterwards.
+
+I did not look back, but hurried on, rejoicing that rapidity of motion
+was too customary in Broadway to attract attention. Before I arrived at
+the place of meeting, I wished to divest myself of the shawl which I had
+used as a disguise; and it was no difficult matter, where poverty is met
+in all its forms of wretchedness and woe.
+
+"Take this, my good woman," said I, throwing the soft gray covering over
+the shoulders of a thin, shivering, haggard looking female, on whose
+face chill penury was written in withering lines. "You are cold and
+suffering."
+
+"Bless your sweet face. God Almighty bless you!" was wafted to my ears,
+in tremulous accents,--for I did not stop to meet her look of wonder,
+gratitude, and ecstasy. I did not deserve her blessing; but the garment
+sheltered her meagre frame, and she went on her way rejoicing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+
+When I entered Mrs. Brahan's drawing-room, I was in a kind of
+somnambulism,--moving, walking, seeing, yet hardly conscious of what I
+was doing, or what was passing around me. She was the president of the
+association, and a very charming woman.
+
+"We feared we were not going to see you this morning," she said,
+glancing at a French clock, which showed the lateness of the hour; "but
+we esteem it a privilege to have you with us, even for a short time. We
+know," she added, with a smile, "what a sacrifice we impose on Mr.
+Linwood, when we deprive him of your society."
+
+"Yes!" cried a sprightly young lady, with whom I was slightly
+acquainted, "we all consider it an event, when we can catch a glimpse of
+Mrs. Linwood. Her appearance at the theatre last night created as great
+a sensation as would a new constellation in the zodiac."
+
+These allusions to my husband's exclusive devotion brought the color to
+my cheeks, and the soft, warm air of the room stole soothingly round me.
+I tried to rouse myself to a consciousness of the present, and
+apologized for my delay with more ease and composure than I expected.
+
+When the treasurer received the usual funds, I was obliged to throw
+myself on her leniency.
+
+"I have disposed of my purse since I left home," said I, with a guilty
+blush, "but I will double my contribution at the next meeting."
+
+"It is no matter," was the reply. "You have already met your
+responsibilities,--far more than met them,--your reputation for
+benevolence is already too well established for us to doubt that your
+will is equal to your power."
+
+Whenever I went into society, I realized the distinction of being the
+wife of the rich and exclusive Ernest Linwood, the mistress of the
+oriental palace, as Mrs. Brahan called our dwelling-place. I always
+found myself flattered and caressed, and perhaps something was owing to
+personal attraction. I never presumed on the distinction awarded me;
+never made myself or mine the subjects of conversation, or sought to
+engross the attention of others. I had always remembered the obscurity
+of my early life, the cloud upon my birth, not abjectly, but _proudly_.
+I was too proud to arrogate to myself any credit for the adventitious
+circumstances which had raised me above the level of others,--too proud
+of the love that had given the elevation, to exalt myself as worthy of
+it.
+
+"I think you must be the happiest being in the world, Mrs. Linwood,"
+said the sprightly young lady, who had taken a seat by my side, and who
+had the brightest, most sparkling countenance I ever saw. "You live in
+such a beautiful, _beautiful_ place, with such an elegant husband, too!
+What a life of enchantment yours must be! Do you know you are the envy
+of all the young ladies of the city?"
+
+"I hope not," I answered, trying to respond in the same sportive strain;
+and every one knows, that when the heart is oppressed by secret anxiety,
+it is easier to be gay than cheerful. "I hope not; as I might be in
+danger of being exhaled by some subtle perfume. I have heard of the art
+of poisoning being brought to such perfection, that it can be
+communicated by a flower or a ring."
+
+"It must be a very fascinating study," she said, laughingly. "I intend
+to take lessons, though I think throwing vitriol in the face and marring
+its beauty, is the most effectual way of removing a rival."
+
+"I thought you were discussing the wants and miseries of the sewing
+sisterhood," said Mrs. Brahan, coming near us. "What started so horrible
+a theme?"
+
+"Mr. Linwood's perfections," said the young lady, with a gay smile.
+
+"He has one great fault," observed Mrs. Brahan; "he keeps you too close
+a prisoner, my dear. I fear he is very selfish. Tell him so from me; for
+he must not expect to monopolize a jewel formed to adorn and beautify
+the world."
+
+She spoke sportively, benignantly, without knowing the deep truth of her
+words. She knew that my husband sought retirement; that I seldom went
+abroad without him. But she knew not, dreamed not, of the strength of
+the master-passion that governed his actions.
+
+Gradually the company dispersed. As I came so late, I remained a little
+behind the rest, attracted by a painting in the back parlor. I suppose I
+inherited from my father a love of the fine arts; for I never could pass
+a statue or a picture without pausing to gaze upon it.
+
+This represented a rocky battlement, rising in the midst of the deep
+blue sea. The silvery glimmer of moonlight shone on the rippling waves;
+moonlight breaking through dark clouds,--producing the most dazzling
+contrast of light and shade. A large vessel, in full sail, glided along
+in the gloom of the shadows; a little skiff floated on the
+white-crested, sparkling, shining tide. The flag of our country waved
+from the rocky tower. I seemed gazing on a familiar scene. Those wave
+washed battlements; that floating banner; the figures of soldiers
+marching on the ramparts, with folded arms and measured tread,--all
+appeared like the embodiment of a dream.
+
+"What does this represent?" I asked.
+
+"Fortress Monroe, on Chesapeake Bay."
+
+"I thought so. Who was the artist?"
+
+"I think his name was St. James. It is on the picture, near the frame.
+Yes,--Henry Gabriel St. James. What a beautiful name! Poor fellow!--I
+believe he had a sad fate! Mr. Brahan could tell you something of his
+history. He purchased this house of him seventeen years ago. What is the
+matter, Mrs. Linwood?"
+
+I sank on the nearest seat, incapable of supporting myself. I was in the
+house where I was born,--where my mother passed the brief period of her
+wedded happiness; whence she was driven, a wronged, despairing woman,
+with me, an unconscious infant, in her arms. It was my father's glowing
+sketch on which I was gazing,--that father whom I had so recently
+met,--a criminal, evading the demands of justice; a man who had lost all
+his original brightness,--a being of sin and misery.
+
+Mrs. Brahan rang for water; but I did not faint.
+
+"I have taken a long walk this morning," I said, "and your rooms are
+warm. I feel better, now. And this house belonged to the artist? I feel
+interested in his story."
+
+"I wish Mr. Brahan were here; but I will tell you all I recollect. It
+was a long time ago; and what we hear from others of individuals in whom
+we have no personal interest, is soon forgotten. Do you really feel
+better? Well, I believe St. James, the artist, was a highly
+accomplished, gifted man. He was married to a beautiful young wife, and
+I think had one child. Of course he was supremely happy. It seems he was
+called away from home very suddenly, was gone a few months, and when he
+returned, he found his wife and child fled, and a stranger claiming her
+name and place. I never heard this mystery explained; but it is said,
+she disappeared as suddenly as she came, while he sought by every means
+to recover his lost treasure, but in vain. His reason at one time
+forsook him, and his health declined. At length, unable to remain where
+every thing reminded him of his departed happiness, he resolved to leave
+the country and go to foreign climes. Mr. Brahan, who wished to purchase
+at that time, was pleased with the house,--bought it, and brought me
+here, a bride. He has altered and improved it a great deal, but many
+things remain just as they were. You seem interested. There is something
+mysterious and romantic connected with it. Oh! here is Mr. Brahan
+himself; he can relate it far better than I can."
+
+After the usual courtesies of meeting, she resumed the subject, and told
+her husband how much interested I was in the history of the unfortunate
+artist.
+
+"Ah yes!" cried he; "poor fellow!--he was sore beset. Two women claimed
+him as wives,--and he lost both. I never heard a clear account of this
+part of his life; for when I knew him, he was just emerging from
+insanity, and it was supposed his mind was still clouded. He was very
+reserved on the subject of his personal misfortunes. I only know it was
+the loss of the wife whom he acknowledged that unsettled his reason. He
+was a magnificent looking fellow,--full of genius and feeling. He told
+me he was going to Italy,--and very likely he died of a broken heart,
+beneath its sunny and genial skies. He was a fine artist. That picture
+has inspiration in it. Look at the reflection of the moon in the water.
+How tremulous it is! You can almost see the silver rippling beneath that
+gliding boat. He was a man of genius. There is no doubt he was."
+
+"I should like to show Mrs. Linwood the picture which you found in the
+closet of his studio," said Mrs. Brahan. "Do you know, I think there is
+a resemblance to herself?"
+
+"So there is," exclaimed Mr. Brahan, as if making a sudden discovery.
+"Her face has haunted me since I first beheld her, and I have just
+discovered where I have seen its semblance. If you will walk up stairs,
+I will show it to you."
+
+Almost mechanically I followed up the winding stairs, so often pressed
+by the feet now mouldering side by side beneath the dark coffin lid,
+into the room where my now degraded parent gave form and coloring to the
+dreams of imagination, or the shadows of memory. The walls were arching,
+and lighted from above. Mr. Brahan had converted it into a library, and
+it was literally lined with books on every side but one. Suspended on
+that, in a massy gilt frame, was a sketch which arrested my gaze, and it
+had no power to wander. The head alone was finished,--but such a head! I
+recognized at once my mother's features; not as I had seen them faded by
+sorrow, but in the soft radiance of love and happiness. They did not
+wear the rosy brightness of the miniature I had seen in my father's
+hand, which was probably taken immediately after her marriage. This
+picture represented her as my imagination pictured her after my birth,
+when the tender anxieties of the mother softened and subdued the
+splendor of her girlish beauty; those eyes,--those unforgotten eyes,
+with their long, curling lashes, and expression of heavenly
+sweetness,--how they seemed to bend on me,--the child she had so much
+loved! I longed to kneel before it, to appeal to it, by every holy and
+endearing epithet,--to reach the cold, unconscious canvas, and cover it
+with my kisses and my tears. But I could only gaze and gaze, and the
+strong spell that bound me was mistaken for the ecstasy of admiration,
+such as genius only can awaken.
+
+"There is a wonderful resemblance," said Mr. Brahan, breaking the
+silence. "I shall feel great pride henceforth in saying, I have an
+admirable likeness of Mrs. Linwood."
+
+"I ought to feel greatly flattered," I answered with a quick drawn
+breath; "it certainly is very lovely."
+
+"It has the loveliest expression I ever saw in woman's countenance,"
+observed Mr. Brahan. "Perhaps, after making such a remark, I ought not
+to say, that in that chiefly lies its resemblance to yourself, but it is
+emphatically so."
+
+"She must be too much accustomed to compliments to mind yours, my dear,"
+said Mrs. Brahan. "I think Mrs. Linwood has the advantage of the
+picture, for she has the bloom and light of life. No painting can supply
+these."
+
+"There is something in the perfect repose of a picture," said I,
+withdrawing my eyes from my mother's seraphic countenance; "something in
+its serene, unchanging beauty, that is a type of immortality, of the
+divine rest of the soul. Life is restless, and grows tremulous as we
+gaze."
+
+"O that that picture were mine!" I unconsciously uttered, as I turned to
+take a last look on leaving the apartment.
+
+"I do not know that it is mine to give," said Mr. Brahan, "as I found it
+here after purchasing the house. The one below was presented me by St.
+James himself. If, however, you will allow me to send it to Mr. Linwood,
+I really think he has the best right to it, on account of its remarkable
+resemblance to yourself."
+
+"Oh no, indeed," I exclaimed; "I did not mean, did not think of such a
+thing. It was a childish way of expressing my admiration of the
+painting. If you will give me the privilege of sometimes calling to look
+at it, I shall be greatly indebted."
+
+I hurried down stairs, fearful of committing myself in some way, so as
+to betray the secret of my birth.
+
+"I wish you would come and see us often, Mrs. Linwood," said Mrs.
+Brahan, as I bade her adieu. "We are not very fashionable; but if I read
+your character aright, you will not dislike us on that account. A young
+person, who is almost a stranger in a great city like this, sometimes
+feels the want of an older friend. Let me be that friend."
+
+"Thank you, dear madam," I answered, returning the cordial pressure of
+her hand; "you do not know how deeply I appreciate your proffered
+friendship, or how happy I shall be to cultivate it."
+
+With many kind and polite expressions, they both accompanied me to the
+door, and I left them with the conviction that wedded happiness might be
+perfect after the experience of seventeen years.
+
+When alone in the carriage, I tried to compose my agitated and excited
+mind. So much had been crowded into the space of a few hours, that it
+seemed as if days must have passed since I left home. I tried to
+reconcile what I had _heard_ with what I had _seen_ of my father; but I
+could not identify the magnificent artist, the man of genius and of
+feeling, with the degenerate being from whom I had recoiled one hour
+ago. Could a long career of guilt and shame thus deface and obliterate
+that divine and godlike image, in which man was formed? He must have
+loved my mother. Desperation for her loss had plunged him into the
+wildest excesses of dissipation. From my soul I pitied him. I would
+never cease to pray for him, never regret what I had done to save him
+from ruin, even if my own happiness were wrecked by the act. I had tried
+to do what was right, and God, who seeth the heart, would forgive me, if
+wrong was the result.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+
+Letters from Mrs. Linwood and Edith waited me at home. Their perusal
+gave me an opportunity to collect my thoughts, and an excuse to talk of
+them, of Grandison Place, rather than of topics connected with the
+present. Yet all the time I was reading Mrs. Linwood's expression of
+trusting affection, I said to myself,--
+
+"What would she say, if she knew I had parted with her splendid gift,
+unknown to my husband, whose happiness she committed so solemnly to my
+keeping?"
+
+I told Ernest of the interesting circumstances connected with Mr.
+Brahan's house, and of the picture of my mother I so longed that I
+should see. The wish was gratified sooner than I anticipated; for that
+very evening, it was sent to me by Mr. Brahan, with a very elegant note,
+in which he asked me to take charge of it till the rightful owner
+appeared to claim it as his own.
+
+"It _is_ like you, Gabriella," said Ernest, gazing with evident
+admiration on the beauteous semblance; "and it is an exquisite painting
+too. You must cherish this picture as a proof of your mother's beauty
+and your father's genius."
+
+I did cherish it, as a household divinity. I almost worshipped it, for
+though I did not burn before it frankincense and myrrh, I offered to it
+the daily incense of memory and love.
+
+As Margaret consented to remain a week with her friend Miss Haven, we
+were left in quiet possession of our elegant leisure, and Ernest openly
+rejoiced in her absence. He read aloud to me, played and sung with
+thrilling melody, and drew out all his powers of fascination for my
+entertainment. The fear of his discovering my clandestine meeting grew
+fainter and fainter as day after day passed, without a circumstance
+arising which would lead to detection.
+
+One evening, Mr. Harland, with several other gentlemen, was with us.
+Ernest was unusually affable, and of course my spirits rose in
+proportion. In the course of conversation, Mr. Harland remarked that he
+had a _bet_ for me to decide.
+
+"I cannot consent to be an umpire," said I. "I dislike betting in
+ladies, and if gentlemen indulge in it, they must refer to their own
+sex, not ours."
+
+"But it has reference to yourself," he cried, "and you alone _can_
+decide."
+
+"To me!" I exclaimed, involuntarily glancing at Ernest.
+
+"Yes! A friend of mine insists that he saw you walking in the ---- Park,
+the other morning, with a gentleman, who was too tall for Mr. Linwood.
+That you wore a gray shawl and green veil, but that your air and figure
+could not possibly be mistaken. I told him, in the first place, that you
+never dressed in that style; in the second, that he was too far from you
+to distinguish you from another; and in the third, that it was
+impossible you should be seen walking with any gentleman but your
+husband, as he never gave them an opportunity. As he offered a high
+wager, and I accepted it, I feel no small interest in the decision."
+
+"Tell your friend, Mr. Harland," exclaimed Ernest, rising from his seat,
+and turning pale as marble, "that I will not permit my wife's name to be
+bandied from lip to lip in the public street, nor her movements made a
+subject for low and vulgar betting."
+
+"Mr. Linwood!" cried Mr. Harland, rising too, with anger flashing from
+his eyes, "do you apply those remarks to me?"
+
+"I make no application," answered Ernest, with inexpressible
+haughtiness; "but I again assert, that the freedom taken with my wife's
+name is unwarrantable, and _shall_ not be repeated."
+
+"If Mrs. Linwood considers herself insulted," cried Mr. Harland, "I am
+ready to offer _her_ any apology she may desire. Of one thing she may be
+assured: no disrespect was intended by the gentleman to whom I allude,
+and she certainly cannot think that I would forget her claims as a lady,
+and as the wife of the man whom I had reason to believe my friend."
+
+He spoke the last sentence with strong emphasis, and the blood mounted
+high in the pale face of Ernest. I could only bow, as Mr. Harland
+concluded, in acceptance of the apology, for I saw a thunder-cloud
+darkening over me, and knew it would break in terror over my head.
+
+"I have spoken hastily, Mr. Harland," said Ernest. "If I have said any
+thing wounding to your feelings, as a gentleman, I recall it. But you
+may tell your friend, that the next time he asserts that he has seen
+Mrs. Linwood walking with a stranger, in a public place, when I _know_
+she was in company with some of the first ladies of the city for
+benevolent designs, I shall call him to account for such gross
+misrepresentations."
+
+And I heard this in silence,--without contradiction.
+
+Oh! how must the woman feel who has deceived her husband for a guilty
+purpose, when I, whose motives were pure and upright, suffered such
+unutterable anguish in the prospect of detection? If I were hardened
+enough to deny the assertion,--if I could only have laughed and wondered
+at the preposterous mistake,--if I could have assumed an air of
+indifference and composure, my secret might have been safe. But I was a
+novice in deception; and burning blushes, and pale, cold shadows
+alternately flitted across my face.
+
+It was impossible to resume the conversation interrupted by a scene so
+distressing to some, so disagreeable to all. One by one our guests
+retired, and I was left alone with Ernest.
+
+The chandeliers were glittering overhead, the azure curtains received
+their light in every sweeping fold, cherubs smiled bewitchingly from the
+arching ceiling, and roses that looked as if they might have blossomed
+by "Bendemere's stream," blushed beneath my feet,--yet I would gladly
+have exchanged all this splendor for a spot in the furthest isle of the
+ocean, a lone and barren spot, where the dark glance which I _felt_, but
+did not see, could not penetrate.
+
+I sat with downcast eyes and wildly throbbing heart, trying to summon
+resolution to meet the trial I saw there was no means of escaping. If he
+questioned, I must answer. I could not, dared not, utter a falsehood,
+and evasion would be considered equivalent to it.
+
+He walked back and forth the whole length of the parlor, two or three
+times, without speaking, then stopped directly in front of me, still
+silent. Unable to bear the intolerable oppression of my feelings, I
+started up and attempted to leave the room; but he arrested me by the
+arm, and his waxen fingers seemed hardened to steel.
+
+"Gabriella!"
+
+His voice sounded so distant, so cold!
+
+"Ernest!"
+
+I raised my eyes, and for a moment we looked each other in the face.
+There was fascination in his glance, and yet it had the dagger's
+keenness.
+
+"What is the meaning of what I have just heard? What is the meaning of a
+report, which I should have regarded as the idle wind, did not your
+overwhelming confusion establish its truth? Tell me, for I am not a man
+to be tampered with, as you will find to your cost."
+
+"I cannot answer when addressed in such a tone. Oh, I cannot."
+
+"Gabriella! this is not a moment to trifle. Tell me, without
+prevarication,--were you, or were you not in the Park, walking with a
+gentleman, on the morning you left for Mrs. Brahan's? Answer me,--yes,
+or no."
+
+Had he spoken with gentleness,--had he seemed moved to sorrow as well as
+indignation, I would have thrown myself at his feet, and deprecated his
+anger; but my spirit rose in rebellion at the stern despotism of his
+manner, and nerved itself to resist his coercive will.
+
+Truly is it said, "We know not what manner of spirit we are of."
+
+I little thought how high mine could rebound from the strong pressure
+which, in anticipation, crushed it to the dust.
+
+I felt firm to endure, strong to resist.
+
+"Ernest! I have done you no wrong," I answered, raising my eyes to his
+pale, dark countenance. "I have done nothing to merit the displeasure
+which makes you forget the courtesy of a gentleman, as well as the
+tenderness of a husband."
+
+"Then it was a false report," he exclaimed,--a ray of light flashing
+from his clouded eyes,--"you could not look me in the face and speak in
+that tone unless you were innocent! Why did you not deny it at once?"
+
+"Only listen to me, Ernest," I cried; "only give me a patient, gentle
+hearing, and I will give you a history, which I am certain will convert
+your indignation into sympathy, and free me from suspicion or blame."
+
+I armed myself with resolution to tell him all. My father was in all
+probability far away on the billows of the Atlantic. My disclosures
+could not affect him now. My promise of secrecy did not extend into the
+future. I would gladly have withheld from my husband the knowledge of
+his degradation, for it was humiliating to the child to reveal the
+parent's shame. Criminal he knew him to be, with regard to my mother,
+but Ernest had said, when gazing on her picture, he almost forgave the
+crime which had so much to extenuate it. The gambler, the profligate,
+the lost, abandoned being, who had thrown himself so abjectly on my
+compassion: in these characters, the high-minded Ernest would spurn him
+with withering indignation. Yet as the interview had been observed, and
+his suspicions excited, it was my duty to make an unreserved
+confession,--and I did. Conscious of the purity of my motives, and
+assured that he must eventually acquit me of blame, I told him all, from
+the note he dropped into my lap at the theatre, to the diamond casket
+given in parting to his desperate hand. I told him all my struggles, my
+fears, my agonies,--dwelling most of all on the agony I suffered in
+being compelled to deceive _him_.
+
+Silently, immovably he heard me, never interrupting me by question or
+explanation. He had seated himself on a sofa when I began, motioning me
+to sit down by him, but I drew forward a low footstool and sat at his
+feet, looking up with the earnestness of truth and the confidence of
+innocence. Oh! he could not help but acquit me,--he could not help but
+pity me. I had done him injustice in believing it possible for him to
+condemn me for an act of filial obedience, involving so much
+self-sacrifice and anguish. He would clasp me to his bosom,--he would
+fold me in his arms,--he would call me his "own, darling Gabriella."
+
+A pause,--a chilling pause succeeded the deep-drawn breath with which I
+closed the confession. Cold, bitter cold, fell that silence on my
+hoping, trembling, yet glowing heart. He was leaning on his elbow,--his
+hand covered his brow.
+
+"Ernest," at length I said, "you have heard my explanation. Am I, or am
+I not, acquitted?"
+
+He started as if from a trance, clasped his hands tightly together, and
+lifted them above his head,--then springing up, he drew back from me, as
+if I were a viper coiling at his feet.
+
+"Your father!" he exclaimed with withering scorn. "Your father! The tale
+is marvellously conceived and admirably related. Do you expect me to
+believe that that bold libertine, who made you the object of his
+unrepressed admiration, was your father? Why, that man was not old
+enough to be your father,--and if ever profligacy was written on a human
+countenance, its damning lines were traced on his. Your father! Away
+with a subterfuge so vile and flimsy, a falsehood so wanton and
+sacrilegious."
+
+Should I live a thousand years, I never could forget the awful shock of
+that moment, the whirlwind of passion that raged in my bosom. To be
+accused of _falsehood_, and such a falsehood, by Ernest, after my
+truthful, impassioned revelation;--it was what I could not, would not
+bear. My heart seemed a boiling cauldron, whence the hot blood rushed in
+burning streams to face, neck, and hands. My eyes flashed, my lips
+quivered with indignation.
+
+"Is it I, your wife, whom you accuse of falsehood?" I exclaimed; "dare
+you repeat an accusation so vile?"
+
+"Did you not _act_ a falsehood, when you so grossly deceived me, by
+pretending to go on an errand of benevolence, when in reality you were
+bound to a disgraceful assignation? What veteran _intriguante_ ever
+arranged any thing more coolly, more deliberately? Even if the story of
+that man's being your father were not false, what trust could I ever
+repose in one so skilled in deception, so artful, and so perfidious?"
+
+"Ernest, you will rue what you say now, to your dying day; you will rue
+it at the judgment bar of heaven; you are doing me the cruellest wrong
+man ever inflicted on woman."
+
+The burning current in my veins was cooling,--a chill, benumbing sense
+of injustice and injury was settling on every feeling. I looked in his
+face, and its classic beauty vanished, even its lineaments seemed
+changed, the illusion of love was passing away; with indescribable
+horror I felt this; it was like the opening of a deep, dark abyss. Take
+away my love for Ernest, and what would be left of life?
+Darkness--despair--annihilation. I thought not, recked not then of his
+lost love for me; I only dreaded ceasing to love _him_, dreaded that
+congelation of the heart more terrible than death.
+
+"Where is the note?" he asked suddenly. "Show me the warrant for this
+secret meeting."
+
+"I destroyed it."
+
+Again a thunder-gust swept over his countenance. I ought to have kept
+it, I ought to have anticipated a moment like this, but my judgment was
+obscure by fear.
+
+"You destroyed it!"
+
+"Yes; and well might I dread a disclosure which has brought on a scene
+so humbling to us both. Let it not continue; you have heard from me
+nothing but plain and holy truth; I have nothing to say in my defence.
+Had I acted differently, you yourself would despise and condemn me."
+
+"Had you come to me as you ought to have done, asking my counsel and
+assistance, I would have met the wretch who sought to beguile you; I
+would have detected the imposter, if you indeed believed the tale; I
+would have saved you from the shame of a public exposure, and myself the
+misery, the tortures of this hour."
+
+"Did he not threaten your life and his own? Did he not appeal to me in
+the most solemn and awful manner not to betray him?"
+
+"You might have known the man who urged you to deceive your husband to
+be a villain."
+
+"Alas! alas! I know him to be a villain; and yet he is my father."
+
+"He is not your father! I know he is not. I would swear it before a
+court of justice. I would swear it before the chancery of the skies!"
+
+"Would to heaven that your words were true. Would to heaven my being
+were not derived from such a polluted source. But I know too well that
+he _is_ my father; and that he has entailed on me everlasting sorrow.
+You admit, that if he is an impostor, I was myself deceived. You recall
+your fearful accusation."
+
+"My God!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands, and looking wildly upwards,
+"I know not what to believe. I would give worlds, were they mine, for
+the sweet confidence forever lost! The cloud was passing away from my
+soul. Sunshine, hope, love, joy, were there. I was wrapped in the dreams
+of Elysium! Why have you so cruelly awakened me? If you had deceived me
+once, why not go on; deny the accusation; fool, dupe me,--do any thing
+but convince me that where I have so blindly worshipped, I have been so
+treacherously betrayed."
+
+I pitied him,--from the bottom of my soul I pitied him, his countenance
+expressed such exceeding bitter anguish. I saw that passion obscured his
+reason; that while under its dominion he was incapable of perceiving the
+truth. I remembered the warning accents of his mother: "You have no
+right to complain." I remembered her Christian injunction, "to endure
+all;" and my own promise, with God's help, to do it. All at once, it
+seemed as if my guardian angel stood before me, with a countenance of
+celestial sweetness shaded by sorrow; and I trembled as I gazed. I had
+bowed my shoulder to the cross; but as soon as the burden galled and
+oppressed me, I had hurled it from me, exclaiming, "it was greater than
+I could bear." I _had_ deceived, though not betrayed him. I _had_ put
+myself in the power of a villain, and exposed myself to the tongue of
+slander. I had expected, dreaded his anger; and was it not partly just?
+
+As these thoughts darted through my mind with the swiftness and power of
+lightning, love returned in all its living warmth, and anguish in
+proportion to the wound it had received. I was borne down irresistibly
+by the weight of my emotions. My knees bent under me. I bowed my face on
+the sofa; and tears, hot and fast as tropic rain, gushed from my eyes. I
+wept for him even more than myself,--wept for the "dark-spotted flower"
+twined with the roses of love.
+
+I heard him walking the room with troubled steps; and every step sounded
+as mournful to me as the earth-fall on the coffin-lid. Their echo was
+scarcely audible on the soft, yielding carpet; yet they seemed loud and
+heavy to my excited ear. Then I heard him approach the sofa, and stop,
+close to the spot where I knelt. My heart almost ceased beating; when he
+suddenly knelt at my side, and put his arms around me.
+
+"Gabriella!" said he, "if I have done you wrong, may God forgive me; but
+I never can forgive myself."
+
+Accents of love issuing from the grave could hardly have been more
+thrilling or unexpected. I turned, and leaning my head on his shoulder,
+I felt myself drawn closer and closer to the heart from which I believed
+myself for ever estranged. I entreated his forgiveness for having
+deceived him. I told him, for I believed it then, that the purity of the
+motive did not justify the act; and I promised in the most solemn manner
+never again, under any circumstances, to bind myself to do any thing
+unknown to him, or even to act spontaneously without his knowledge. In
+the rapture of reconciliation, I was willing to give any pledge as a
+security for love, without realizing that jealousy was a Shylock,
+exacting the fulfilment of the bond,--the pound of flesh "nearest the
+heart." Yes, more exacting still, for _he_ paused, when forbidden to
+spill the red life-drops, and dropped the murderous knife.
+
+And Ernest,--with what deep self-abasement he acknowledged the errors
+into which blind passion had led him. With what anguish he reflected on
+the disgraceful charge he had brought against me. Yes; even with tears,
+he owned his injustice and madness, and begged me to forget and forgive.
+
+"What have I done?" he cried, when, after our passionate emotions having
+subsided, we sat hand in hand, still pale and trembling, but subdued and
+grateful, like two mariners escaped from wreck, watching the billows
+roaring back from the shore. "What have I done, that this curse should
+be entailed upon me? In these paroxysms of madness, I am no more master
+of myself than the maniac who hurls his desperate hand in the face of
+Omnipotence. Reason has no power,--love no influence. Dark clouds rush
+across my mind, shutting out the light of truth. My heart freezes, as in
+a wintry storm. O, Gabriella! you can have no conception of what I
+suffer, while I writhe in the tempter's grasp. It is said God never
+allows man to be tempted beyond his powers of resistance. I dare not
+question the word of the Most High, but in the hour of temptation I feel
+like an infant contending with the Philistine giant. But, oh! the joy,
+the rapture when the paroxysm is past,--when light dawns on the
+darkness, when warmth comes meltingly over the ice and snow, when reason
+resumes its sway, and love its empire,--oh! my beloved! it is life
+renewed--it is a resurrection from the dead,--it is Paradise regained in
+the heart."
+
+Those who have floated along on a smooth, tranquil tide, clear of the
+breakers and whirlpools and rocks, or whose bark has lain on stagnant
+waters, on which a green and murky shade is beginning to gather, with no
+breeze to fan them or to curl the dull and lifeless pool, will accuse me
+of exaggeration, and say such scenes never occurred in the actual
+experience of wedded life; that I am writing a romance, instead of a
+reality.
+
+I answer them, that I am drawing the sketch as faithfully as the artist,
+who transfers the living form to the canvas; that as it is scarcely
+possible to exaggerate the dying agonies of the malefactor transfixed by
+the dagger, and writhing in protracted tortures, that the painter may
+immortalize himself by the death-throes on which he is gazing; so the
+agonies of him,
+
+    "Who doubts, yet does, suspects, yet fondly loves,"
+
+cannot be described in colors too deep and strong. Prometheus bound to
+the rock, with the beak of the vulture in his bleeding breast, suffering
+daily renewing pangs, his wounds healed only to be torn open afresh, is
+an emblem of the victim of that vulture passion, which the word of God
+declares to be cruel and insatiable as the grave.
+
+No; my pen is too weak to describe either the terrors of the storm or
+the halcyon peace, the heavenly joy that succeeded. I yielded to the
+exquisite bliss of reconciliation, without daring to give one glance to
+the future. I had chosen my destiny. I had said, "Let me be loved,--I
+ask no more!"
+
+I was loved, even to the madness of idolatry. My prayer was granted.
+Then let me "lay my hand upon my mouth, and my mouth in the dust." I had
+rather be the stormy petrel, whose wings dip into ocean's foaming brine,
+than the swallow nestling under the barn-eaves of the farmer, or in the
+chimney of the country homestead,--
+
+    "Better to stand the lightning's shock,
+    Than moulder piecemeal on the rock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+
+It was fortunate for me that Margaret was absent during this exciting
+scene. When she returned, she was too much occupied with relating the
+pleasures she had enjoyed to think of what might have occurred in her
+absence.
+
+"I am dying with impatience," she cried, "perfectly consuming with
+curiosity. Here is a letter from my mother, in which she says a
+gentleman, a particular friend of mine, is coming to the city, and that
+she has requested him to take charge of me back to Boston. She does not
+mention his name, and I have not the most remote idea who he is. She
+says she is very happy that her wild girl should be escorted by a person
+of so much dignity and worth. Dignity! I expect he is one of the
+ex-presidents or wise statesmen, whom Mrs. Linwood has recommended to my
+patronage. I have a great admiration for great men, large, tall men, men
+whose heads you can distinguish in a crowd and see in a distant
+procession. They look as if they could protect one in the day of
+trouble."
+
+"Do _you_ ever think of such a day, Margaret?"
+
+"Sometimes I do. I think more than you give me credit for. I can think
+more in one minute than you slow folks can in a week. Who can this be? I
+remember a description I admire very much. It is in some old poem of
+Scott's, I believe,--
+
+    'Bold, firm, and high, his stature tall,'
+
+did something, looked like something, I have forgotten what. I know it
+was something grand, however."
+
+"You must be thinking of Mr. Regulus," said I, laughing, as memory
+brought before me some of his inimitable _quackeries_. "He is the
+tallest gentleman I have ever seen, and though not very graceful, has a
+very imposing figure, especially in a crowd."
+
+"I think Mr. Regulus one of the finest looking men I ever saw," cried
+Madge. "He has a head very much like Webster's, and his eyebrows are
+exactly like his. If he were in a conspicuous station, every one would
+be raving about his mountainous head and cavernous eyes and majestic
+figure. He is worth a dozen of _some_ people, who shall be nameless. I
+have no doubt he will be president of the United States, one of these
+days."
+
+"I never heard you make so sensible a remark, Margaret. I thought you
+were amusing yourself with my respected teacher. I am glad you
+appreciate his uncommon merits."
+
+Madge laughed very loud, but she actually blushed. The first symptom of
+womanhood I had ever seen her exhibit! It was a strange phenomenon, and
+I marvelled what it could mean.
+
+To my unutterable astonishment and delight, a few evenings after, my
+quondam preceptor was ushered into the parlor; and strangely looked his
+tall, large figure in the midst of the oriental lightness and splendor
+through which it moved. After greeting me with the most heart-felt
+feeling, and Madge with a half shy, half dignified manner, he gazed
+around him with the simplicity and wondering admiration of a child. He
+was probably comparing the beautiful drapery, that seemed like the azure
+robe of night with its stars of glory gleaming through, with the plain
+green curtains that shaded the windows of the academy, the graceful and
+luxurious divan with the high-backed chair which was my village throne.
+
+"Beautiful, charming!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands slowly and
+gently. "You remind me of the queen of a fairy palace. I shall not dare
+to call you my child or little girl again. Scherezade or Fatima will
+seem more appropriate."
+
+"Oh no, Mr. Regulus! I had rather hear you call me child, than any thing
+else in the world. It carries me back to the dear old academy, the
+village green, the elm trees' shade, and all the sweet memories of
+youth."
+
+"One would think you had a long backward journey to take, from the
+saddened heights of experience," said Ernest; and there was that
+indescribable something in his voice and countenance, which I had
+learned too well to interpret, that told me he was not pleased with my
+remark. He did not want me to have a memory further back than my first
+meeting with him,--a hope with which he was not intertwined.
+
+"You may call _me_ child, Mr. Regulus, as much as you please," cried
+Madge, her eyes sparkling with unusual brilliancy. "I wish I were a
+little school-girl again, privileged to romp as much as I pleased. When
+I did any thing wrong then, it was always passed over. 'Oh! she's but a
+child, she will get sobered when she is grown.' Now if I laugh a little
+louder and longer than other people, they stare and lift up their eyes,
+and I have no doubt pray for me as a castaway from grace and favor."
+
+"Margaret!" said I, reproachfully.
+
+"There! exactly as I described. Every sportive word I utter, it is
+Margaret, or Madge, or Meg, in such a grave, rebuking tone!"
+
+"Perhaps it is only when you jest on serious subjects, that you meet a
+kindly check," observed Mr. Regulus, with grave simplicity; "there are
+so many legitimate themes of mirth, so many light frameworks, round
+which the flowers of wit and fancy can twine, it is better to leave the
+majestic temple of religion, untouched by the hand of levity."
+
+"I did not intend to speak profanely," said Margaret, hastily,--and the
+color visibly deepened on her cheek; "neither did I know that you were a
+religious character, Mr. Regulus. I thought you were a very good sort of
+man, and all that; but I did not think you had so much of the minister
+about you."
+
+"It is a great pity, Miss Margaret, that interest in religion should be
+considered a minister's exclusive privilege. But I hope I have not said
+any thing wounding. It was far from my intention. I am a sad blunderer,
+however, as Gabriella knows full well."
+
+I was charmed with my straightforward, simple, and excellent teacher. I
+had never seen him appear to such advantage. He had on an entirely new
+suit of the finest black broadcloth, that fitted him quite _à la mode_;
+a vest of the most dazzling whiteness; and his thick black hair had
+evidently been under the smoothing hands of a fashionable barber. His
+head seemed much reduced in size; while his massy, intellectual forehead
+displayed a bolder sweep of outline, relieved of the shadows that
+obscured its phrenological beauty.
+
+He had seen Mrs. Linwood and Edith in Boston. They were both well, and
+looking anxiously forward to the summer reunion at Grandison Place. Dr.
+Harlowe sent me many characteristic messages,--telling me my little
+rocking-chair was waiting for me at my favorite window, and that he had
+not learned to rub his shoes on the mat, or to hang up his hat yet.
+
+"Does he call me the wild-cat, still?" asked Madge.
+
+"I believe so. He told me to say that he had his house repaired, so that
+you could visit him without endangering Mrs. Harlowe's china."
+
+"The monster! Well, he shall give me a new name, when I see him again.
+But tell me, Mr. Regulus, who is the very dignified and excellent
+gentleman whom mamma says is coming to escort me home? I have been
+expiring with curiosity to know."
+
+"I do not know of any one answering to that description, Miss Margaret,"
+replied Mr. Regulus, blushing, and passing his hands over his knees. "I
+saw your mother at Mrs. Linwood's; and when she learned I was coming to
+this city, she said she would be very much obliged to me, if I would
+take charge of you, on my return."
+
+"Then you did not come on purpose for me, Mr. Regulus," said Madge, with
+a saucy smile.
+
+"Oh no,--I had business, and a very earnest desire to see my young
+friend, Gabriella. If I can, however, combine the useful with the
+agreeable, I shall be very well pleased."
+
+"By the useful, you mean, seeing me safe in my mamma's arms," said
+Madge, demurely.
+
+"Certainly, Miss Margaret."
+
+Even Ernest laughed at this peculiar compliment; and Madge bit her lips,
+half in vexation, half in merriment. I hardly knew what to think of
+Margaret. She was certainly the most eccentric being I ever saw. She,
+who seemed to care for the opinion of no one,--reckless, defying, and
+apparently heartless, showed more deference for Mr. Regulus, more
+solicitude for his attention, than I had ever seen her manifest for
+another's. Was it possible that this strange, wild girl, was attracted
+by the pure, unvarnished qualities of this "great grown boy," as Dr.
+Harlowe called him? It is impossible to account for the fascination
+which one being exercises over another; and from the days of Desdemona
+to the present hour, we seldom hear of an approaching marriage, without
+hearing at the same time some one exclaim, "that it is strange,--most
+passing strange."
+
+The moment I admitted the possibility of his exercising a secret
+influence over Madge, I looked upon him with new interest. He had the
+intense, deep-set eye, which is said to tame the wild beasts of the
+forest, and perhaps its glance had subdued the animal nature that
+triumphed over her more ethereal attributes. I hoped most devoutly that
+my supposition might be true; for genuine affection exalts both the
+giver and receiver, and opens ten thousand avenues to joy and good.
+
+"You do not look quite so rosy as you did in the country," said he,
+looking earnestly at me. "The dissipation of a city life does not agree
+with our wild-wood flowers. They need a purer atmosphere."
+
+"Gabriella is taken very good care of," cried Madge, looking
+significantly at Ernest. "She is not allowed to hurt herself by
+dissipation, I assure you."
+
+"Do you imply that she needs a restraining influence to keep her from
+excess?" asked Ernest. He spoke lightly, but he never spoke without
+meaning something.
+
+"No, indeed. She is the model wife of the nineteenth century. She is
+'wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.' Solomon must have seen her
+with prophetic eye, when he wrote the last chapter of Proverbs."
+
+"Mock praise is the severest censure, Margaret," said I.
+
+"No such thing. I mean every word I say. Show me a young and beautiful
+wife, almost bride, immuring herself as you do, and never seen in public
+but clinging to her husband's arm, shrinking from admiration and
+blushing at a glance, and I will show you another Solomon."
+
+"Though you may speak in ridicule," said Ernest, with a contracted brow,
+"you have awarded her the most glorious meed woman can receive. The
+fashion that sanctions a wife in receiving the attentions of any
+gentleman but her husband, is the most corrupt and demoralizing in the
+world. It makes wedded vows a mockery, and marriage an unholy and
+heartless rite."
+
+"Do you expect to revolutionize society?" she asked.
+
+"No; but I expect to keep my wife unspotted from the world."
+
+"I am glad she has so watchful a guardian," said Mr. Regulus, regarding
+me with his old-fashioned, earnest tenderness. "We hear very flattering
+accounts," he added, addressing me, "of our young friend, Richard Clyde.
+He will return next summer, after a year's absence, having acquired as
+much benefit as most young men do in two or three."
+
+I could not help blushing, for I knew the eyes of Ernest were on me. He
+could never hear the name of Richard with indifference, and the prospect
+of his return was far from being a source of pleasure to him. Richard
+was very dear to me as a friend, and I was proud of his growing honors.
+Yet I dared not manifest the interest I felt.
+
+Never had I been so supremely happy, as since my reconciliation with
+Ernest. I felt that he had something to forgive, much to forgive, and
+that he was magnanimous to do it, considering the weakness with which he
+struggled. Never had I loved him so entirely, or felt such confidence in
+my future happiness. Yet the moment the name of Richard Clyde was
+mentioned, it sounded like a prophecy of evil.
+
+Oh that he would transfer to Edith the affections given to me, and then
+he could bind Ernest to his heart by the sacred bonds of fraternity!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+
+The few days which Mr. Regulus passed in the city, were happy ones to
+me. He had never visited it before; and Ernest showed him more respect
+and attention than I had seen him bestow on other men. I had never
+betrayed the _romance_ of the academy; and not dreaming that my
+preceptor had ever been my lover, he tolerated the regard he manifested,
+believing it partook of the paternal character. Perhaps, had he remained
+long, he would have considered even this an infringement on his rights;
+but, to my unspeakable joy, nothing occurred to cloud our domestic
+horizon during his stay. Once or twice when the name of Richard Clyde
+was mentioned, I saw the shadow of _coming events_ on the brow of
+Ernest; but it passed away, and the evil day of his return seemed very
+far off.
+
+I could not regret Margaret's departure. There was so entire a
+dissimilarity in our characters, and though I have no doubt she
+cherished for me all the friendship she was capable of feeling, it was
+of that masculine cast, that I could not help shrinking from its
+manifestations. Her embraces were so stringent, her kisses so loud and
+resounding, I could not receive them without embarrassment, though no
+one but Ernest might be near.
+
+The evening before she left, she was in an unusually gentle mood. We
+were alone in my chamber, and she actually sat still several moments
+without speaking. This was something as ominous as the pause that
+precedes the earth's spasmodic throes. I have not spoken of Margaret's
+destructive propensities, but they were developed in a most
+extraordinary manner. She had a habit of seizing hold of every thing she
+looked at, and if it chanced to be of delicate materials, it often
+shivered in her grasp. I do not wonder poor Mrs. Harlowe trembled for
+her glass and china, for scarcely a day passed that her path was not
+strewed with ruins, whose exquisite fragments betrayed the costly fabric
+she had destroyed. Now it was a beautiful porcelain vase, which she
+would have in her hands to examine and admire, then an alabaster
+statuette or frail crystal ornament. If I dropped a kid glove, she
+invariably attempted to put it on, and her hand being much larger than
+mine, she as invariably tore it in shreds. She would laugh, roll up her
+eyes, and exclaim, "shocking! why this could not be worth anything! I
+will let it alone next time."
+
+I cannot say but that these daily proofs of carelessness and
+destructiveness were trials of the temper and constant gratings on the
+nerves. It was difficult to smile with a frowning heart, for such wanton
+disregard for the property and feelings of others must pain that nice
+moral sense which is connected with the great law of self-preservation.
+
+This evening, she seized a beautiful perfume bottle that stood on my
+toilet, and opening it, spilled it half on her handkerchief, though one
+drop would fill the whole apartment with richest odor.
+
+"Do not break that bottle, Margaret; it is very beautiful, and Ernest
+gave it me this very morning."
+
+"Oh! nonsense, I am the most careful creature in the world. Once in a
+while, to be sure,--but then accidents will happen, you know. O
+Gabriella I have something to tell you. Mr. Harland wants me to marry
+him,--ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"Well, you seemed pleased, Margaret. He is an accomplished gentleman,
+and an agreeable one. Do you like him?"
+
+"No! I liked him very well, till he wanted me to like him better, and
+now I detest him. He is all froth,--does not know much more than I do
+myself. No, no,--that will never do."
+
+"Perhaps you like some one else better?" said I, thinking if Margaret
+was ever caught in the matrimonial noose, it must be a _lasso_, such as
+are thrown round the neck of the wild horses of the prairies.
+
+"What makes you say that?" she asked, quickly, and my beautiful essence
+bottle was demolished by some sudden jerk which brought it in contact
+with the marble table. "The brittle thing!" she exclaimed, tossing the
+fragments on the carpet, at the risk of cutting our slippers and
+wounding our feet. "I would not thank Ernest for such baby trifles,--I
+was scarcely touching it. What makes you think I like anybody better?"
+
+"I merely asked the question," I answered, closing my work box, and
+drawing it nearer, so that her depredating fingers could not reach it.
+She had already destroyed half its contents.
+
+"I do like somebody a great deal better," she said, tossing her hair
+over her forehead and veiling her eyes; "but if you guessed till
+doomsday, you could not imagine who it is."
+
+"I pity him, whoever it may be," said I, laughing.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You are no more fit to be a wife, Madge, than a child of five years
+old. You have no more thought or consideration, foresight or care."
+
+"I am two years older than you are, notwithstanding."
+
+"I fear if you live to be a hundred, you will never have the qualities
+necessary to secure your own happiness and that of another in the close,
+knitting bonds of wedded life."
+
+I spoke more seriously than I intended. I was thinking of Mr. Regulus,
+and most devoutly hoped for his sake, this wild, nondescript girl would
+never reach his heart through the medium of his vanity. She certainly
+paid him the most dangerous kind of flattery, because it was indirect.
+
+"You do not know what a sensible man might make of me," she said,
+shaking her head. "I really wish,--I do not know--but I sometimes
+think"--
+
+She stopped and leaned her head on her hand, and her hair fell shadingly
+over her face.
+
+"What, Margaret? I should like exceedingly to know your inmost thoughts
+and feelings. You seem to think and feel so little;--and yet, in every
+woman's heart there must be a fountain,--or else what a desert
+waste,--what a dreary wilderness it must be."
+
+She did not speak, but put both hands over her face and bent it
+downwards, while her shoulders moved up and down with a spasmodic
+motion. I thought she was shaking with suppressed laughter; and though I
+could not imagine what had excited her mirth, I had known her convulsed
+by a ridiculous thought of her own, in the midst of general seriousness.
+
+But all at once unmistakable sobs broke forth, and I found she was
+crying heartily, genuinely,--crying without any self control, with all
+the abandonment of a child.
+
+"Margaret!" I exclaimed, laying my hand gently on her quivering
+shoulder, "what is the matter? What can have excited you in this manner?
+Don't, Madge,--you terrify me."
+
+"I can't help it," she sobbed. "Now I have began, I can't stop. O dear,
+what a fool I am! There is nothing the matter with me. I don't know what
+makes me cry; but I can't help it,--I hate myself,--I can't bear myself,
+and yet I can't change myself. Nobody that I care for will ever love me.
+I am such a hoyden--such a romp--I disgust every one that comes near me;
+and yet I can't be gentle and sweet like you, if I die. I used to think
+because I made everybody laugh, they liked me. People said, 'Oh! there's
+Madge, she will keep us alive.' And I thought it was a fine thing to be
+called Wild Madge, and Meg the Dauntless; I begin to hate the names; I
+begin to blush when I think of myself."
+
+And Margaret lifted her head, and the feelings of lately awakened
+womanhood crimsoned her cheeks, and streamed from her eyes. I was
+electrified. What prophet hand had smitten the rock? What power had
+drawn up the rosy fluid from the Artesian well of her heart?
+
+"My dear Margaret," I cried, "I hail this moment as the dawn of a new
+life in your soul. Your childhood has lingered long, but the moment you
+feel that you have the heart of a woman, you will discard the follies of
+a child. Now you begin to live, when you are conscious of the golden
+moments you have wasted, the noble capacities you have never yet
+exerted. Oh Margaret, I feel more and more every day I live, that I was
+born for something more than the enjoyment of the passing moment,--that
+life was given for a more exalted purpose than self-gratification, and
+that as we use or abuse this gift of God we become heirs of glory or of
+shame."
+
+Margaret listened with a subdued countenance and a long drawn sigh. She
+strenuously wiped away the traces of her tears, and shook back the hair
+from her brow, with a resolute motion.
+
+"You despise me--I know you do," she said, gloomily.
+
+"No, indeed," I answered, "I never liked you half as well before; I
+doubted your sensibility. Now, I see you can feel, and feel acutely. I
+shall henceforth think of you with interest, and speak of you with
+tenderness."
+
+"You are the dearest, sweetest creature in the world," she exclaimed,
+putting both arms around me with unwonted gentleness; "I shall always
+love you, and will try to remember all you have said to me to-night. We
+shall meet in the summer, and you shall see, oh yes, you shall see. Dear
+me--what a fright I have made of myself."
+
+She had risen, and was glancing at herself in the Psyche, which,
+supported by two charming Cupids, reflected the figure full length.
+
+"I never will cry again if I can help it," she exclaimed. "These horrid
+red circles round the eyes,--and my eyes, too, are as red as a rabbit's.
+The heroines of novels are always said to look lovelier in tears; but
+you are the only person I ever saw who looked pretty after weeping."
+
+"Did you ever see me weep, Madge?"
+
+"I have noticed more than you think I have,--and believe me, Gabriella,
+Ernest will have to answer for every tear he draws from those angel eyes
+of yours."
+
+"Margaret, you know not what you say. Ernest loves me ten thousand times
+better than I deserve. He lavishes on me a wealth of love that humbles
+me with a consciousness of my own demerits. His only fault is loving me
+too well. Never never breathe before Mrs. Linwood or Edith,--before a
+human being, the sentiment you uttered now. Never repeat the idle gossip
+you may have heard. If you do speak of us, say that I have known woman's
+happiest, most blissful lot. And that I would rather be the wife of
+Ernest one year, than live a life of endless duration with any other."
+
+"It must be a pleasant thing to be loved," said Margaret, and her black
+eyes flashed through the red shade of tears.
+
+"And to love," I repeated. "It is more blessed to give, than to
+receive."
+
+A sympathetic chord was touched,--there was music in it. Who ever saw a
+person weep genuine tears, without feeling the throbbings of
+humanity,--the drawings of the chain that binds together all the sons
+and daughters of Adam? If there are such beings, I pity them.
+
+Let them keep as far from me as the two ends of the rainbow are from
+each other. The breath of the Deity has frozen within them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+
+The morning of Margaret's departure, when Mr. Regulus was standing with
+gloves and hat in hand waiting her readiness, it happened that I was
+alone in the parlor with him a few moments.
+
+"You will have a pleasant journey," said I. "You will find Margaret an
+entertaining companion."
+
+"O yes!" he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "but I fear
+she will excite too much remark by her wild antics. I do not like to be
+noticed by strangers."
+
+"She will accommodate herself to your wishes, I know she will. You have
+great influence over her."
+
+"Me! oh no!" he cried, with equal surprise and simplicity.
+
+"Yes, indeed you have. Talk to her rationally, as if you had confidence
+in her good-sense, Mr. Regulus, and you will really find some golden
+wheat buried in the chaff. Talk to her feelingly, as if you appealed to
+her sensibility, and you may discover springs where you believe no
+waters flow."
+
+"It is like telling me to search for spring flowers, when the ground is
+all covered with snow,--to look at the moon shining, when the night is
+as dark as ebony. But I am thinking of you, Gabriella, more than of her.
+I rejoice to find you the same artless child of nature that sat at my
+feet years ago in the green-wood shade. But beautiful as is your palace
+home, I long to see you again in our lovely valley among the birds and
+the flowers. I long to see you on the green lawn of Grandison Place."
+
+"I do feel more at home at Grandison Place," I answered. "I would give
+more for the velvet lawn, the dear old elm, the oaken avenue, than for
+all the magnificence of this princely mansion."
+
+"But you are happy here, my child?"
+
+"I have realized the brightest dreams of youth."
+
+"God be praised!--and you have forgiven my past folly,--you think of me
+as preceptor, elder brother, friend."
+
+"My dear master!" I exclaimed, and tears, such as glisten in the eyes of
+childhood, gathered in mine. I _was_ a child again, in my mother's
+presence, and the shade-trees of the gray cottage seemed rustling around
+me.
+
+The entrance of Margaret interrupted the conversation. She never
+appeared to better advantage than in her closely fitting riding dress,
+which displayed the symmetry of her round and elastic figure. I looked
+at her with interest, for I had seen those saucy, brilliant eyes
+suffused with tears, and those red, merry lips quivering with womanly
+sensibility. I hoped good things of Margaret, and though I could not
+regret her departure, I thought leniently of her faults, and resolved to
+forget them.
+
+"Just like Margaret," said I, gathering up the beautiful drapery, on
+which she had trodden as she left the room, and rent from the shaft that
+confined its folds. She stopped not to see the mischief she had done,
+for she was so accustomed to hear a crash and dash behind her, it is not
+probable she even noticed it.
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Ernest, before the echo of their departing
+footsteps had died on the ear. "Thank God! we are once more alone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Harland had visited us but seldom since the words of passion which
+might have been followed by a scene of strife, but for woman's
+restraining presence, had fallen from the lips of Ernest. One evening,
+he called and asked a private interview with Ernest, and they
+immediately passed into the library. I saw that his countenance was
+disturbed, and vague apprehensions filled my mind. I could hear their
+voices in earnest, excited tones; and though I knew there was no
+revelation to be made which Ernest had not already heard from me, I felt
+a conviction amounting to certainty, that this mysterious interview had
+some connection with my unhappy father, and boded evil to me. Mr.
+Harland did not probably remain more than an hour, but every moment
+seemed an hour, drawn out by suspense and apprehension. He reëntered the
+parlor with Ernest, but left immediately; while Ernest walked silently
+back and forth, as he always did when agitated,--his brows contracted
+with stern, intense thought. He was excessively pale, and though his
+eyes did not emit the lightning glance of passion, they flashed and
+burned like heated metal.
+
+I dared not ask him the cause of his emotion, I could only watch him
+with quick-drawn breath, and lips sealed with dread. Suddenly he put his
+hand in his bosom, and snatching thence the fatal casket I had left in
+my father's crime-stained hands, he hurled it to the floor, and trampled
+it under his feet.
+
+"Behold," he cried, with inexpressible bitterness and grief, "my
+mother's gift, her sacred bridal gift,--desecrated, polluted,
+lost,--worse than lost! I will not upbraid you. I would spare you the
+pang I myself endure,--but think of the agonies in which a spirit like
+mine must writhe, to know that _your_ name, that the name of my _wife_
+is blazoned to the world, associated with that of a vile forger, an
+abandoned villain, whose crimes are even now blackening the newspapers,
+and glutting the greedy appetite of slander! O rash, misguided girl!
+what demon tempted you to such fatal imprudence?"
+
+I sat immovable, frozen, my eyes fixed upon the carpet, my hands as cold
+as ice, and my lips, as they touched each other, chill as icicles. In
+moments of sudden anguish I never lost consciousness, as many do, but
+while my physical powers were crushed, my mind seemed to acquire
+preternatural sensibility. I suffered as we do in dreams, intensely,
+exquisitely, when every nerve is unsheathed, and the spirit naked to the
+dagger's stroke. He stopped as he uttered this impassioned adjuration,
+and his countenance changed instantaneously as he gazed on mine.
+
+"Cruel, cruel that I am!" he cried, sitting down by me, and wrapping his
+arms around me; "I did not know what I was saying. I meant to be gentle
+and forbearing, but strong passion rushed over me like a whirlwind.
+Forgive me, Gabriella, my darling, forgive me. Let the world say what it
+will, I know that you are pure and true. I care not for the money,--I
+care not for the jewels,--but an unspotted name. Oh! where now are the
+'liveried angels' that will guard it from pollution?"
+
+As he folded me in his arms, and pressed his cheek to mine, as if
+striving to infuse into it vital warmth, I felt the electric fluid
+flowing into my benumbed system. Whatever had occurred, he had not cast
+me off; and with him to sustain me, I was strong to meet the exigencies
+of the moment. I looked up in his face, and he read the expression of my
+soul,--I know he did, for he clasped me closer to him, and the fire of
+his eyes grew dim,--dim, through glistening tears. And then he told me
+all my beseeching glances sought. More than a week before, even before
+that, he had learned that a forgery had been committed in his name,
+involving a very large sum of money. Liberal rewards had been offered
+for the discovery of the villain, and that day he had been brought to
+the city. My diamonds, on whose setting Mrs. Linwood had had my name
+engraven, were found in his possession. He had not spoken to me of the
+forgery, not wishing to trouble me, he said, on a subject of such minor
+importance. It was the publicity given to my name, in association with
+his, that caused the bitterness of his anguish. And I,--I knew that my
+father had robbed my husband in the vilest, most insidious manner; that
+he had drawn upon himself the awful doom of a forger, a dungeon home, a
+living death.
+
+My father! the man whom my mother had loved. The remembrance of this
+love, so long-enduring, so much forgiving, hung like a glory round him.
+It was the halo of a saint encircling the brow of the malefactor.
+
+"Will they not suppose the jewels were stolen?" I asked, with the
+calmness of desperation. "Surely the world cannot know they were given
+by me; and though it is painful to be associated with so dark a
+transaction, I see not, dear Ernest, why my reputation should be clouded
+by this?"
+
+"Alas! Gabriella,--you were seen by more than one walking with him in
+the park. You were seen entering the jeweller's shop, and afterwards
+meeting him in Broadway. Even in the act of giving your shawl to the
+poor shivering woman, you were watched. You believed yourself
+unremarked; but the blind man might as well think himself unseen walking
+in the blaze of noonday, because his own eyes are bound by the fillet of
+darkness, as _you_ expect to pass unnoticed through a gaping throng. Mr.
+Harland told me of these things, that I might be prepared to repel the
+arrows of slander which would inevitably be aimed at the bosom of my
+wife."
+
+"But you told him that it was my father. That it was to save him from
+destruction I gave them. Oh Ernest, you told him all!"
+
+"I have no right to reveal your secret, Gabriella. If he be indeed your
+father, let eternal secrecy veil his name. Would you indeed consent that
+the world should know that it was your father who had committed so dark
+a crime? Would you, Gabriella?"
+
+"I would far rather be covered with ignominy as a daughter, than
+disgrace as a wife," I answered, while burning blushes dyed my cheeks at
+the possibility of the last. "The first will not reflect shame or
+humiliation on you. You have raised me generously, magnanimously, to
+your own position; and though the world may say that you yielded to
+weakness in loving me,--a poor and simple girl.--Nay, nay; I recall my
+words, Ernest; I will not wrong myself, because clouds and darkness
+gather round me. You did not _stoop_, or lower yourself, by wedding me.
+Love made us equal. My proud, aspiring love, looked up; yours bent to
+meet its worship,--and both united, as the waves of ocean unite, in
+fulness, depth, and strength,--and, like them, have found their level.
+Let the world know that I am the daughter of St. James; that, moved by
+his prayers and intimidated by his threats, I met him and attempted to
+save him from ruin. They may say that I was rash and imprudent; but they
+dare not call me guilty. There is a voice in every heart which is not
+palsied, or deadened, or dumb, that will plead in my defence. The child
+who endeavors to shield a father from destruction, however low and
+steeped in sin he may be, cannot be condemned. If I am, I care not; but
+oh, Ernest, as your wife, let me not suffer reproach,--for your sake, my
+husband, far more than mine."
+
+As thus I pleaded with all the eloquence and earnestness of my nature,
+with my hands clasped in his, their firm, close, yet gentle fold grew
+firmer, closer still; and the cloud passing away from his countenance,
+it became luminous as I gazed.
+
+"You are right,--you are true," said he, "my dear, my noble Gabriella.
+Every shadow of a doubt vanishes before the testimony of your unselfish
+heart. Why did I not see this subject in the same clear, just light?
+Because my eyes are too often blinded by the mists of passion. Yes! you
+have pointed out the only way of extrication. The story of your mother's
+wrongs will not necessarily be exposed; and if it is, the sacred ægis of
+your filial love will guard it from desecration. We shall not remain
+here long. Spring will soon return; and in the sweet quietude of rural
+life, we will forget the tumultuous scenes of this modern Babel. You
+will not wish to return?"
+
+"No! never, never. That unhappy man! what will be his doom?"
+
+"Probably life-long imprisonment. Had I known who the offender was, I
+would have prayed the winds and waves to bear him to Icelandic seas,
+rather than have had his crime published to the world. It is, however,
+the retribution of heaven; and we must submit."
+
+"It seems so strange," said I, "to think of him alive, whose existence
+so long seemed to me a blank. When I was a child, I used to indulge in
+wild dreams about my unknown parent. I pictured him as one of the gods
+of mythology, veiling his divinity in flesh for the love of the fairest
+of the daughters of men. The mystery that wrapped his name was, to my
+imagination, like the cloud mantling the noonday sun. With such views of
+my lineage, which, though they became subdued as I grew older, were
+still exaggerated and romantic,--think of the awful plunge into the
+disgraceful truth. It seems to me that I should have died on my mother's
+grave, had not your arms of love raised me,--had you not breathed into
+my ear words that called me back from the cold grasp of death itself. In
+the brightness of the future I forgot the gloom of the past. Oh! had I
+supposed that he lived,--that he would come to bring on me public shame
+and sorrow, and through me, on you, my husband, I never would have
+exposed you to the sufferings of this night."
+
+And I clung to him with an entireness of confidence, a fulness of
+gratitude that swelled my heart almost to bursting. His face, beaming
+with unclouded love and trust, seemed to me as the face of an angel. I
+cared not for obloquy or shame, since he believed me true. I remembered
+the words of the tender, the devoted Gertrude:--
+
+    "I have been with thee in thine hour
+      Of glory and of bliss,
+    Doubt not its memory's living power
+      To strengthen me in this."
+
+But though my mind was buoyed up by the exaltation of my feelings, my
+physical powers began to droop. I inherited something of my mother's
+constitutional weakness; and, suddenly as the leaden weight falls when a
+clock has run down and the machinery ceases to play, a heavy burden of
+lethargy settled down upon me, and I was weak and helpless as a child.
+Dull pain throbbed in my brain, as if it were girdled by a hard,
+tightening band.
+
+It was several days before I left my bed, and more than a week before I
+quitted my chamber. The recollection of Ernest's tender watchfulness
+during these days of illness, even now suffuses my eyes with tears. Had
+I been a dying infant he could not have hung over me with more anxious,
+unslumbering care. Oh! whatever were his faults, his virtues redeemed
+them all. Oh! the unfathomable depths of his love! I was then willing to
+die, so fearful was I of passing out of this heavenly light of home joy
+into the coldness of doubt, the gloom of suspicion.
+
+Ernest, with all his proneness to exaggerate the importance of my
+actions, did not do so in reference to this unhappy transaction.
+Paragraphs were inserted in the papers, in which the initials of my name
+were inserted in large capitals to attract the gazing eye. The meeting
+in the Park, the jewels found in the possession of the forger, the
+abrupt manner in which they were taken from the jeweller's shop, even
+the gray shawl and green veil, were minutely described. Ernest had made
+enemies by the haughty reserve of his manners and the exclusiveness of
+his habits, and they stabbed him in secret where he was most vulnerable.
+
+A brief sketch of the real circumstances and the causes which led to
+them, was published in reply. It was written with manly boldness, but
+guarded delicacy, and rescued my name from the fierce clutch of slander.
+Then followed glowing eulogiums on the self-sacrificing daughter, the
+young and beautiful wife, till Ernest's sensitive spirit must have bled
+over the notoriety given to her, whom he considered as sacred as the
+priestess of some holy temple, and whose name was scarcely to be
+mentioned but in prayer.
+
+The only comment he made on them was,--
+
+"My mother and Edith will see these."
+
+"I will write and tell them all," I answered; "it will be too painful to
+you."
+
+"We will both write," he said; and we did.
+
+"You blame yourself too much," cried he, when he perused my letter.
+
+"You speak too kindly, too leniently of me," said I, after reading his;
+"yet I am glad and grateful. Your mother will judge me from the facts,
+and nothing that you or I can say will warp or influence her judgment.
+She understands so clearly the motives of action,--she reads so closely
+your character and mine, I feel that her decision will be as righteous
+as the decree of eternal justice. Oh that I were with her now, for my
+soul looks to her as an ark of safety. Like the poor weary dove, it
+longs to repose its drooping wings and fold them in trembling joy on her
+sheltering breast."
+
+I will not speak of the trial, the condemnation, or the agony I felt,
+when I learned that my father was doomed to expiate his crime by
+solitary confinement for ten long years. Could Ernest have averted this
+fate from him, for my sake he would have done it; but the majesty of the
+law was supreme, and no individual effort could change its just decree.
+My affections were not wounded, for I never could recall his image
+without personal repugnance, but my mother's remembrance was associated
+with him;--I remembered her dying injunctions,--her prophetic dream. I
+thought of the heaven which he had forfeited, the God whose commandments
+he had broken, the Saviour whose mercy he had scorned. I wanted to go to
+him,--to minister to him in his lonely cell,--to try to rouse him to a
+sense of his transgressions,--to lead him to the God he had forsaken,
+the Redeemer he had rejected, the heaven from which my mother seemed
+stretching her spirit arms to woo him to her embrace.
+
+"My mother dreamed that I drew him from a black abyss," said I to
+Ernest; "she dreamed that I was the guardian angel of his soul. Let me
+go to him,--let me fulfil my mission. I shudder when I look around me in
+these palace walls, and think that a parent groans in yonder dismal
+tombs."
+
+"_I_ will go," replied Ernest; "I will tell him your filial wish, and if
+I find you can do him good, I will accompany you there."
+
+"I _can_ do him good,--I can pity and forgive him,--I can talk to him of
+my mother, and that will lead him to think of heaven. 'I was sick and in
+prison and ye came unto me.' Oh, thus our Saviour said, identifying
+himself with the sons of ignominy and sorrow. Go, and if you find his
+heart softened by repentance, pour balm and oil into the wounds that sin
+has made. Go, and let me follow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+
+"And did you see him, Ernest?" I asked, with trembling eagerness.
+
+"I did, Gabriella. I went to him as your representative, without one
+vindictive, bitter feeling. I proffered kindness, forgiveness, and every
+comfort the law would permit a condemned criminal to enjoy. They were
+rejected fiercely, disdainfully,--he rejected them all."
+
+"Alas! and me, Ernest; does he refuse consolation from me?"
+
+"He will not see you. 'I ask no sympathy,' he cried, in hoarse and
+sullen accents. 'I desire no fellowship; alone I have sinned,--alone I
+will suffer,--alone I will die.' Weep not, my Gabriella, over this
+hardened wretch; I do not believe he is your father; I am more and more
+convinced that he is an impostor."
+
+"But he has my mother's miniature; he recognized me from my resemblance
+to it; he called me by name; he knew all the circumstances of my
+infantine life. I would give worlds to believe your assertion, but the
+curse clings to me. He _is_,--he must be my father."
+
+"Mr. Brahan, who knew your father personally, and who is deeply
+interested in the disclosures recently made, has visited him also. He
+says there is a most extraordinary resemblance; and though seventeen
+years of sinful indulgence leave terrible traces on the outward man, he
+does not doubt his identity. But I cannot, will not admit it. Think of
+him no more, Gabriella; banish him, and every thing connected with this
+horrible event, from your mind. In other scenes you will recover from
+the shock occasioned by it; and even now the tongue of rumor is busy
+with more recent themes. Mr. Brahan will visit him from time to time
+and, if possible, learn something of the mystery of his life. Whatever
+is learned will be communicated to me. What! weeping still, my
+Gabriella?"
+
+"It is dreadful to think of sin and crime in the abstract; but when it
+comes before us in the person of a father!"
+
+"No more! no more! Dismiss the subject. Let it be henceforth a dark
+dream, forgotten if possible; or if remembered, be it as a dispensation
+of Providence, to be borne in silence and submission. Strange as it may
+seem, all that I have suffered of humiliation and anguish in this _real_
+trial, cannot be compared to the agony caused by one of my own dark
+imaginings."
+
+I tried to obey the injunctions of Ernest; but though my lips were
+silent, it was impossible to check the current of thought, or to
+obliterate the dark remembrance of the past. My spirits lost their
+elasticity, the roses on my cheek grew pale.
+
+Spring came, not as in the country, with the rich garniture of living
+green, clothing hill, valley, and lawn,--the blossoming of flowers,--the
+warbling of birds,--the music of waters,--and all the beauty, life, and
+glory of awakening nature. But the fountain played once more in the
+grotto, the vine-wreaths frolicked again round their graceful shells,
+the statues looked at their pure faces in the shining mural wall.
+
+I cared not for these. This was not my home. I saw the faces of Mrs.
+Linwood and Edith in the mirror of memory. I saw the purple hills, the
+smiling vale, the quiet churchyard, the white, broken shaft, gleaming
+through the willow boughs, and the moonbeams resting in solemn glory
+there.
+
+Never shall I forget my emotions when, on quitting the city, I caught a
+glimpse of that gloomy and stupendous granite pile which looms up in the
+midst of grandeur and magnificence, an awful monitor to human depravity.
+Well does it become its chill, funereal name. Shadows deeper than the
+darkness of the grave hang within its huge Egyptian columns. Corruption
+more loathsome than the mouldering remains of mortality dwells in those
+lone and accursed cells. I gazed on the massy walls, as they frowned on
+the soft blue sky, till their shadow seemed to darken the heavens. I
+thought of the inmate of one lonely cell; of the sighs and tears, the
+curses and wailings that had gone up from that abode of shame, despair,
+and misery; and I wondered why the Almighty did not rend the heavens and
+come down and bare the red right arm of vengeance over a world so
+blackened by sin, so stained by crime, and so given up to the dominion
+of the spirit of evil.
+
+Ernest drew me back from the window of the carriage, that I might not
+behold this grim fortification against the powers of darkness; but it
+was not till we had quitted the walls of the metropolis, and inhaled a
+purer atmosphere, that I began to breathe more freely. The tender green
+of the fields, the freshness of the atmosphere, the indescribable odor
+of spring that embalmed the gale, awakened softer, happier thoughts. The
+footsteps of divine love were visible on the landscape. The voice of God
+was heard, breathing of mercy, through the cool green boughs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+
+Once more at Grandison Place! Once more on the breezy height which
+commanded the loveliest valley creation ever formed! Light, bloom, joy
+came back to eye, cheek, and heart, as I hailed again the scene where
+the day-spring of love dawned on my life.
+
+"God made the country."
+
+Yes! I felt this truth in every bounding vein. "God made the
+country,"--with its rich sweep of verdant plains, its blue winding
+streams, shedding freshness and murmuring music through the smiling
+fields; its silver dews, its golden sunsets, and all its luxuriance and
+greenness and bloom. The black shadow of the _Tombs_ did not darken this
+Eden of my youth.
+
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith--I was with them once more. Mrs. Linwood, in her
+soft twilight robe of silver grey; and Edith, with her wealth of golden
+locks, and eye of heaven's own azure.
+
+"You must not leave us again," said Mrs. Linwood, as she clasped us both
+in her maternal arms. "There are but few of us, and we should not be
+separated. Absence is the shadow of death, and falls coldly on the
+heart."
+
+She glanced towards Edith, whose beautiful face was paler and thinner
+than it was wont to be. She had pined for the brother of whom I had
+robbed her; for the world offered her nothing to fill the void left in
+the depths of her loving heart. We were all happier together. We cannot
+give ourselves up to the dominion of an exclusive passion, whatever it
+may be, without an outrage to nature, which sooner or later revenges the
+wrong inflicted. With all my romantic love for Ernest, I had often
+sighed for the companionship of one of my own sex; and now, restored to
+Edith, whom I had always regarded a little lower than the angels, I felt
+that if love was more rapturous than friendship, it was not more divine.
+
+They knew that I had suffered. They had sympathized with me, pitied
+me,--(if Mrs. Linwood blamed me for imprudence, she never expressed it);
+and I felt that they loved me better for having passed under the cloud.
+There was no allusion made to the awful events which were present in the
+minds of all, on our first reunion. If Mrs. Linwood noticed, that after
+the glow of excitement faded from my cheek it was paler than it was wont
+to be, she did not tell me so, but her kiss was more tender, her glance
+more kind. There was something in her mild, expressive eyes, that I
+translated thus:--
+
+"Thank God that another hand than Ernest's has stolen the rose from thy
+cheek of youth. Better, far better to be humbled by a father's crimes,
+than blighted by a husband's jealousy."
+
+This evening reminded me so much of the first I ever passed with Ernest.
+He asked Edith for the music of her harp; and I sat in the recess of the
+window, in the shadow of the curtains, through whose transparent drapery
+the moonbeams stole in and kissed my brow. Ernest came and sat down
+beside me, and my hand was clasped in his. As the sweet strains floated
+round us, they seemed to mingle with the moonlight, and my spirit was
+borne up on waves of brightness and melody. Always before, when
+listening to Edith's angelic voice, I had wished for the same enchanting
+power. I had felt that thus I could sing, I could play, had art
+developed the gifts of nature, only with deeper passion and sensibility;
+but now I listened without conscious desire,--passive, happy, willing to
+receive, without desiring to impart. I felt like the pilgrim who, after
+a sultry day of weariness, pauses by a cool spring, and, laying himself
+down beneath its gushing, suffers the stream to flow over him,--till,
+penetrated by their freshness, his soul seems a fountain of living
+waters. Oh! the divine rapture of repose, after restlessness and
+conflict! I had passed the breakers. Henceforth my life would be calm
+and placid as the beams that illumined the night.
+
+And now I am tempted to lay down the pen. I would not weary thee, friend
+of my lonely hours, whoever thou art, by a repetition of scenes which
+show how poor and weak are the strongest human resolutions, when
+temptations assail and passions rise with the swell and the might of the
+stormy billows. But if I record weaknesses and errors, such as seldom
+sadden the annals of domestic life, it is that God may be glorified in
+the humiliation of man. It is that the light of the sun of righteousness
+may be seen to arise with healing in his beams, while the mists of error
+and the clouds of passion are left rolling below.
+
+Yes! We were all happy for a while, and in the midst of such pure,
+reviving influences, I became blooming and elastic as a mountain maid.
+Dr. Harlowe was the same kind, genial, warm-hearted friend. Mr. Regulus,
+the same--no, he was changed,--improved, softened still more than when
+he surprised me by his graces, in my metropolitan home. He looked
+several years younger, and a great deal handsomer.
+
+Had Margaret wrought this improvement? Had she indeed supplanted me in
+my tutor's guileless heart? I inquired of Edith after the wild creature,
+whom I suspected some secret influence was beginning to tame.
+
+"Oh! you have no idea how Madge is improved, since her visit to you,"
+she answered. "She sometimes talks sensibly for five minutes at a time,
+and I have actually caught her singing and playing a sentimental air.
+Mamma says if she were in love with a man of sense and worth, he might
+make of her a most invaluable character."
+
+"Mr. Regulus, for instance!" said I.
+
+Edith laughed most musically.
+
+"Mr. Regulus in love! that would be a farce."
+
+"I have seen that farce performed," said Dr. Harlowe, who happened to
+come in at that moment, and caught her last words. "I have seen Mr.
+Regulus as much in love as--let me see," glancing at me, "as Richard
+Clyde."
+
+Much as I liked Dr. Harlowe I felt angry with him for an allusion, which
+always called the cloud to Ernest's brow, and the blush to my cheek.
+
+"Do tell me the object of his romantic passion?" cried Edith, who seemed
+excessively amused at the idea.
+
+"Am I telling tales out of school?" asked the doctor, looking merrily at
+me. "Do you not know the young enchantress, who has turned all the heads
+in our town, not excepting the shoemaker's apprentice and the tailor's
+journeyman? Poor Mr. Regulus could not escape the fascination. The old
+story of Beauty and the Beast,--only Beauty was inexorable this time."
+
+"Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, with unutterable astonishment; "he always
+called her his child. Who would have believed it? Why, Gabriella, how
+many victims have your chariot wheels of conquest rolled over?"
+
+"I am afraid if _I_ had not been a married man, she would have added me
+to the number," said the doctor, with much gravity. "I am not certain
+that Mrs. Harlowe is not jealous, in secret, of my public devotion."
+
+Who would believe that light words like these, carelessly uttered, and
+forgotten with the breath that formed them, should rankle like arrows in
+a breast where reason was enthroned? But it was even so. The allusion to
+Richard Clyde, the revelation of Mr. Regulus' romantic attachment, even
+the playful remarks of Dr. Harlowe relative to his wife's jealousy, were
+gall and wormwood, embittering the feelings of Ernest. He frowned, bit
+his lip, rose, and walked into the piazza. His mother's eyes followed
+him with that look which I had so often seen before our marriage, and
+which I now understood too well. I made an involuntary movement to
+follow him, but her glance commanded me to remain. The doctor, who was
+in a merry mood, continued his sportive remarks, without appearing to
+notice the darkened countenance and absence of Ernest. I talked and
+smiled too at his good-humored sallies, that he might not perceive my
+anxious, wounded feelings.
+
+A little while after Mr. Regulus called, and Ernest accompanied him to
+the parlor door with an air of such freezing coldness, I wonder it did
+not congeal his warm and unsuspecting heart. And there Ernest stood with
+folded arms, leaning back against the wall just within the door, stern
+and silent, casting a dark shadow on my soul. Poor Mr. Regulus,--now he
+knew he had been my lover, he would scarcely permit him to be my friend.
+
+"Oh!" thought I, blushing to think how moody and strange he must seem to
+others,--"surely my happiness is based on sand, since the transient
+breath of others can shake it from its foundation. If it depended on
+myself, I would guard every look, word, and action, with never sleeping
+vigilance;--but how can I be secured against the casual sayings of
+others, words unmeaning as a child's, and as devoid of harm? I might as
+well make cables of water and walls of foam, as build up a fabric of
+domestic felicity without confidence as the foundation stone."
+
+As these thoughts arose in my mind, my heart grew hard and rebellious.
+The golden chain of love clanked and chafed against the bosom it
+attempted to imprison.
+
+"I will not," I repeated to myself, "alienate from me, by coolness and
+gloom, the friends who have loved me from my orphan childhood. Let him
+be morose and dark, if he will; I will not follow his example. I will
+not be the slave of his mad caprices."
+
+"No," whispered _the angel over my right shoulder_, "but you will be the
+forbearing, gentle wife, who promised to _endure all_, knowing his
+infirmity, before you breathed your wedded vows. You are loved beyond
+the sober reality of common life. Your prayer is granted. You dare not
+murmur. You have held out your cup for the red wine. There is fire in
+its glow. You cannot turn it into water now. There is no divine wanderer
+on earth to reverse the miracle of Cana. 'Peace' is woman's watchword,
+and heaven's holiest, latest legacy."
+
+As I listened to the angel's whisper, the voices of those around me
+entered not my ear. I was as far away from them as if pillowed on the
+clouds, whose silver edges crinkled round the moon.
+
+As soon as our guests had departed, Ernest went up to Edith, and putting
+his arm round her, drew her to the harp.
+
+"Sing for me, Edith, for my spirit is dark and troubled. You alone have
+power to soothe it. You are the David of the haunted Saul."
+
+She looked up in his face suddenly, and leaned her head on his shoulder.
+Perhaps at that moment she felt the joy of being to him all that she had
+been, before he had known and loved me. He had appealed to her, in the
+hour of darkness. He had passed me by, as though I were not there. He
+sat down close to her as she played, so close that her fair ringlets
+swept against his cheek; and as she sang, she turned towards him with
+such a loving smile,--such a sweet, happy expression,--just as she used
+to wear! I always loved to hear Edith sing; but now my spirit did not
+harmonize with the strains. Again a stinging sense of injustice
+quickened the pulsations of my heart. Again I asked myself, "What had I
+done, that he should look coldly on me, pass me with averted eye, and
+seek consolation from another?"
+
+I could not sit still and listen, for I was left _alone_. I rose and
+stole from the room,--stole out into the dewy night, under the heavy,
+drooping shade-boughs, and sat down wearily, leaning my head against the
+hard, rough bark. Never had I seen a more enchanting night. A thin mist
+rose from the bosom of the valley and hovered like a veil of silvery
+gauze over its rich depth of verdure. It floated round the edge of the
+horizon, subduing its outline of dazzling blue, and rolled off among the
+hills in soft, yet darkening convolutions. And high above me, serene and
+holy, the moon leaned over a ledge of slate-colored clouds, whose margin
+was plated with her beams, and looked pensively and solemnly on the pale
+and sad young face uplifted to her own. The stilly dews slept at my
+feet. They hung tremulously on the branches over my head, and sparkled
+on the spring blossoms that gave forth their inmost perfume to the
+atmosphere of night. Every thing was so calm, so peaceful, so intensely
+lovely,--and yet there was something deadly and chilling mingled with
+the celestial beauty of the scene. The lace clung in damp folds to my
+bosom. The hair fell heavy with moisture against my temples.
+
+I heard a step softly crushing the grass near me. I did not look up, for
+I thought it was the step of Ernest; but my pulse throbbed with a
+quickened motion.
+
+"Gabriella, my child, you must not sit here in this chill damp evening
+air."
+
+It was Mrs. Linwood, who took me by the hand and drew me from the seat.
+It was not Ernest. He had not missed me. He had not feared for me the
+chill dews of night.
+
+"I do not feel cold," I answered, with a slight shudder.
+
+"Come in," she repeated, leading me to the house with gentle force.
+
+"Not there," I said, shrinking from the open door of the parlor, through
+which I could see Ernest, with his head leaning on both hands, while his
+elbows rested on the back of Edith's chair. She was still singing, and
+the notes of her voice, sweet as they were, like the odor of the
+night-flowers, had something languishing and oppressive. I hurried by,
+and ascended the stairs. Mrs. Linwood followed me to the door of my
+apartment, then taking me by both hands, she looked me full in the face,
+with a mildly reproachful glance.
+
+"O, Gabriella! if your spirit sink thus early, if you cannot bear the
+burden you have assumed, in the bright morning hour of love, how will
+you be able to support it in the sultry noon of life, or in the
+weariness of its declining day? You are very young,--you have a long
+pilgrimage before you. If you droop now, where will be the strength to
+sustain in a later, darker hour?"
+
+"I shall not meet it," I answered, trying in vain to repress the rising
+sob. "I do not wish a long life, unless it be happier than it now
+promises to be."
+
+"What! so young, and so hopeless! Where is the strength and vitality of
+your love? The fervor and steadfastness of your faith? My child, you
+have borne nothing yet, and you promised to hope all and endure all. Be
+strong, be patient, be hopeful, and you shall yet reap your reward."
+
+"Alas! my mother, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
+
+"There is no task appointed to man or woman," she answered, "which may
+not be performed, through the power of God and the influences of the
+Holy Spirit. Remember this, my beloved daughter; and remember, too, that
+the heart which _bends_ will not _break_. Good-night! We had better not
+renew this theme. 'Patient continuance in well-doing;' let this be your
+motto, and if happiness in this world be not your reward, immortality
+and glory in the next will be yours."
+
+I looked after her as she gently retreated, and as the light glanced on
+the folds of her silver gray dress, she seemed to me as one of the
+shining ones revealed in the pilgrim's vision. At that moment _her_
+esteem and approbation seemed as precious to me as Ernest's love. I
+entered my chamber, and sitting down quietly in my beloved recess,
+repeated over and over again the Christian motto, which the lips of Mrs.
+Linwood uttered in parting,--"Patient continuance in well-doing."
+
+I condemned myself for the feelings I had been indulging. I had felt
+bitter towards Edith for smiling so sweetly in her brother's face, when
+it had turned so coldly from me. I was envious of her power to soothe
+the restless spirit I had so unconsciously troubled. As I thus communed
+with my own heart, I unbound my hair, that the air might exhale the mist
+which had gathered in its folds. I brushed out the damp tresses, till,
+self-mesmerized, a soft haziness stole over my senses, and though I did
+not sleep, I was on the borders of the land of dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+
+I suppose I must have slept, though I was not conscious of it, for I did
+not hear Ernest enter the room, and yet when I looked again, he was
+sitting in the opposite window, still as a statue, looking out into the
+depths of night. I started as if I had seen a spirit, for I believed
+myself alone, and I did not feel less lonely now. There was something
+dejected in his attitude, and he sighed heavily as he turned and leaned
+his forehead against the window sash.
+
+I rose, and softly approaching him laid my hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Are you angry with me, Ernest?" I asked.
+
+He did not answer, or turn towards me; but I felt a tremulous motion of
+his shoulder, and knew that he heard me.
+
+"What have I done to displease you, dear Ernest?" again I asked. "Will
+you not speak to me and tell me, at least, in what I have offended?"
+
+"I am not offended," he answered, without looking up; "I am not angry,
+but grieved, wounded, and unhappy."
+
+"And will you not tell me the cause of your grief? Is not sympathy in
+sorrow the wife's holiest privilege?"
+
+"Gabriella, you mock me!" he exclaimed, suddenly rising and speaking in
+a low, stern voice. "You know that you are yourself the cause of my
+grief, and your words are as hollow as your actions are vain. Did you
+not promise, solemnly promise never to deceive me again, after having
+caused me such agony by the deception I yet freely forgave?"
+
+"Tell me, Ernest, in what have I deceived? If I know myself, every word
+and action has been as clear and open as noonday."
+
+"Did you ever tell me your teacher was your lover,--he with whom you
+were so intimately associated when I first knew you? You suffered me to
+believe that he was to you in the relation almost of a father. I
+received him as such in my own home. I lavished upon him every
+hospitable attention, as the friend and guide of your youth, and now you
+suffer me to hear from others that his romantic love was the theme of
+village gossip, that your names are still associated by idle tongues."
+
+"I always believed before that unrequited love was not a theme for vain
+boasting, that it was a secret too sacred to be divulged even to the
+dearest and the nearest."
+
+"But every one who has been so unfortunate as to be associated with you,
+seems to have been the victims of unrequited love. The name of Richard
+Clyde is familiar to all as the model of despairing lovers, and even Dr.
+Harlowe addresses you in a strain of unpardonable levity."
+
+"O Ernest, cannot you spare even him?"
+
+"You asked me the cause of my displeasure, and I have told you the
+source of my grief, otherwise I had been silent. There must be something
+wrong, Gabriella, or you would not be the subject of such remarks.
+Edith, all lovely as she is, passes on without exciting them. The most
+distant allusion to a lover should be considered an insult by a wedded
+woman and most especially in her husband's presence."
+
+"I have never sought admiration or love," said I, every feeling of
+delicacy and pride rising to repel an insinuation so unjust. "When they
+have been mine, they were spontaneous gifts, offered nobly, and if not
+accepted, at least declined with gratitude and sensibility. If I have
+been so unfortunate as to win what your lovely sister might more justly
+claim, it has been by the exercise of no base allurement or meritricious
+attractions. I appeal to your own experience, and if it does not acquit
+me, I am for ever silent."
+
+Coldly and proudly my eye met his, as we stood face to face in the light
+of the midnight moon. I, who had looked up to him with the reverence due
+to a superior being, felt that I was above him now. He was the slave of
+an unjust passion, the dupe of a distempered fancy, and as such unworthy
+of my respect and love. As I admitted this truth, I shuddered with that
+vague horror we feel in dreams, when we recoil from the brink of
+something, we know not what. I trembled when his lips opened, fearful he
+would say something more irrational and unmanly still.
+
+"O Ernest!" I cried, all at once yielding to the emotions that were
+bearing me down with such irresistible power, "you frighten me, you fill
+me with unspeakable dread. There seems a deep abyss yawning between us,
+and I stand upon one icy brink and you on the other, and the chasm
+widens, and I stretch out my arms in vain to reach you, and I call, and
+nothing but a dreary echo answers, and I look into my heart and do not
+find you there. Save me, Ernest, save me,--my husband, save yourself
+from a doom so dreadful!"
+
+Excited by the awful picture of desolation I had drawn, I slid down upon
+my knees and raised my clasped hands, as if pleading for life beneath
+the axe of the executioner. I must have been the very personification of
+despair, with my hair wildly sweeping round me, and hands locked in
+agony.
+
+"To live on, live on together, year after year, cold and estranged,
+without love, without hope,"--I continued, unable to check the words
+that came now as in a rushing tide,--"Oh! is it not dreadful, Ernest,
+even to think of? There is no evil I could not bear while we loved one
+another. If poverty came,--welcome, welcome. I could toil and smile, if
+I only toiled for you, if I were only _trusted_, only _believed_. There
+is no sacrifice I would not make to prove my faith. Do you demand my
+right hand?--cut it off; my right eye?--pluck it out;--I withhold
+nothing. I would even lay my heart bleeding at your feet in attestation
+of my truth. But what can I do, when the idle breath of others, over
+which I have no power, shakes the tottering fabric of your confidence,
+and I am buried beneath the ruins?"
+
+"You have never loved like me, Gabriella, or you would never dream of
+the possibility of its being extinguished," said he, in a tone of
+indescribable wretchedness. "I may alienate you from me, by the
+indulgence of insane passions, by accusations repented as soon as
+uttered,--I may revile and persecute,--but I can never cease to love
+you."
+
+"O Ernest!" It was all gone,--pride, anger, despair, were gone. The
+first glance of returning love,--the first acknowledgment of uttered
+wrong, were enough for me. I was in his arms, next to his heart, and the
+last hours seemed a dream of darkness. I was happy again; but I trembled
+even in the joy of reconciliation. I realized on what a slender thread
+my wedded happiness was hanging, and knew that it must one day break.
+Moments like these were like those green and glowing spots found on the
+volcano's burning edge. The lava of passion might sweep over them quick
+as the lightning's flash, and beauty and bloom be covered with ashes and
+desolation.
+
+And so the cloud passed by,--and Ernest was, if possible, more tender
+and devoted, and I tried to cast off the prophetic sadness that would at
+times steal over the brightness of the future. I was literally giving up
+all for him. I no longer derived pleasure from the society of Mr.
+Regulus. I dreaded the sportive sallies of Dr. Harlowe. I looked forward
+with terror to the return of Richard Clyde. I grew nervous and restless.
+The color would come and go in my face, like the flashes of the aurora
+borealis, and my heart would palpitate suddenly and painfully, as if
+some unknown evil were impending. Did I now say, as I did a few months
+after my marriage, that I preferred the stormy elements in which I
+moved, to the usual calm of domestic life? Did I exult, as the billows
+swelled beneath me and bore me up on their foaming crests, in the power
+of raising the whirlwind and the tempest? No; I sighed for rest,--for
+still waters and tranquil skies.
+
+It is strange, that a subject which has entirely escaped the mind, when
+associations naturally recall it, will sometimes return and haunt it,
+when nothing seems favorable for its reception.
+
+During my agitated interview with my unhappy father, I had forgotten
+Therésa La Fontaine, and the boy whose birthright I had unconsciously
+usurped. Mr. Brahan, in speaking of St. James and his _two_ wives, said
+they had both disappeared in a mysterious manner. That boy, if living,
+was my brother, my half-brother, the legitimate inheritor of my name,--a
+name, alas! he might well blush to bear. _If living_, where was he, and
+who was he? Was he the heir of his father's vices, and was he conscious
+of his ignominious career? These questions constantly recurred, now
+there was no oracle near to answer. Once, and only once, I mentioned
+them to Mrs. Linwood.
+
+"You had better not attempt to lift the veil which covers the past," she
+answered, in her most decided manner. "Think of the suffering, not to
+say disgrace, attached to the discovery of your father,--and let this
+brother be to you as though he had never been. Tempt not Providence, by
+indulging one wish on the subject, which might lead to shame and sorrow.
+Ernest has acted magnanimously with regard to the circumstances, which
+must have been galling beyond expression to one of his proud and
+sensitive nature. And I, Gabriella,--though out of delicacy to you,--I
+have forborne any allusion to the events of the last winter, have
+suffered most deeply and acutely on their account. I have suffered for
+myself, as well as my son. If there is any thing in this world to be
+prized next to a blameless conscience, it is an unspotted name. Well is
+it for you, that your own is covered with one, which from generation to
+generation has been pure and honorable. Well is it for you, that your
+husband's love is stronger than his pride, or he might reproach you for
+a father's ignominy. Remember this, when you feel that you have wrongs
+to forgive. And as you value your own happiness and ours, never, my
+child, seek to discover a brother, whom you would probably blush to
+acknowledge, and my son be compelled to disown."
+
+She spoke with dignity and emphasis, while the pride of a virtuous and
+honored ancestry, though subdued by Christian grace, darkened her eyes
+and glowed on her usually colorless cheek. I realized then all her
+forbearance and delicacy. I understood what a deep wound her family
+pride must have received, and how bitterly she must have regretted a
+union, which exposed her son to contact with degradation and crime.
+
+"I would not have spoken as I have, my daughter," she added, in a
+softened tone, "but with your limited knowledge of the world, you cannot
+understand the importance attached to unblemished associations. And
+never mention the subject to Ernest, if you would not revive memories
+that had better slumber for ever."
+
+She immediately resumed her kind and gracious manner, but I never forgot
+the lesson she had given. My proud spirit needed no second warning.
+Never had I felt so crushed, so humiliated by the remembrance of my
+father's crimes. That he _was_ my father I had never dared to doubt.
+Even Ernest relinquished the hope he had cherished, as time passed on,
+and no letter from Mr. Brahan threw any new light on the dark
+relationship; though removed from the vicinity of the dismal Tombs, the
+dark, gigantic walls cast their lengthening shadow over the fresh green
+fields and blossoming meadows, and dimmed the glory of the landscape.
+
+The shadow of the Tombs met the shadow in my heart, and together they
+produced a chill atmosphere. I sighed for that perfect love which
+casteth out fear; that free, joyous intercourse of thought and feeling,
+born of undoubting confidence.
+
+Could I live over again the first year of my wedded life, with the
+experience that now enlightens me, I would pursue a very different
+course of action. A passion so wild and strong as that which darkened my
+domestic happiness, should be resisted with the energy of reason,
+instead of being indulged with the weakness of fear. Every sacrifice
+made to appease its violence only paved the way for a greater. Every act
+of my life had reference to this one master-passion. I scarcely ever
+spoke without watching the countenance of Ernest to see the effect of my
+words. If it was overcast or saddened, I feared I had given utterance to
+an improper sentiment, and then I blushed in silence. Very unfortunate
+was it for him, that I thus fed and strengthened the serpent that should
+have been strangled in the cradle of our love; and his mother
+unconsciously did the same. She believed him afflicted by a hereditary
+malady which should inspire pity, and be treated with gentleness rather
+than resistance. Edith, too,--if a cloud passed over his brow, she
+exerted every winning and endearing sisterly art to chase the gloom.
+
+The history of man for six thousand years shows, that in the exercise of
+unlimited power he becomes a despot. Kingly annals confirm the truth of
+this, and domestic records proclaim it with a thundering tongue. There
+must be a restraining influence on human passion, or its turbulent waves
+swell higher and higher, till they sweep over the landmarks of reason,
+honor and love. The mighty hand of God is alone powerful enough to curb
+the raging billows. He alone can say, "peace, be still." But he has
+ministers on earth appointed to do his pleasure, and if they fulfil
+their task He may not be compelled to reveal himself in flaming fire as
+the God of retributive justice.
+
+I know that Ernest loved me, with all his heart, soul, and strength; but
+mingled with this deep, strong love, there was the alloy of
+selfishness,--the iron of a despotic will. There was the jealousy of
+power, as well as the jealousy of love, unconsciously exercised and
+acquiring by indulgence a growing strength.
+
+My happiness was the first desire of his heart, the first aim of his
+life; but I must be made happy in _his_ way, and by his means. His hand,
+fair, soft, and delicate as a woman's,--that hand, with its gentle,
+warm, heart-thrilling pressure, was nevertheless the hand of Procrustes;
+and though he covered the iron bed with the flowers of love, the spirit
+sometimes writhed under the coercion it endured.
+
+"You are not well," said Dr. Harlowe, as we met him during an evening
+walk. "I do not like that fluctuating color, or that quick, irregular
+breathing."
+
+Ernest started as if he had heard my death-warrant; and, taking my hand,
+he began to count my quickly throbbing pulse.
+
+"That will never do," said the doctor, smiling. "Her pulse will beat
+three times as fast under your fingers as mine, if you have been married
+nearly a year. It is not a good pulse. You had better take care of her."
+
+"He takes a great deal too much care of me, doctor," I cried. "Do not
+make him think I am an invalid, or he will make a complete hothouse
+plant of me."
+
+"Who ever saw an invalid with such a color as that?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Too bright--too mutable," answered the doctor, shaking his head. "She
+is right. You keep her too close. Let her run wild, like any other
+country girl. Let her rise early and go out into the barnyard, see the
+cows milked, inhale their odorous breathings, wander in the fields among
+the new-mown hay, let her rake it into mounds and throw herself on the
+fragrant heaps, as I have seen her do when a little school-girl. Let her
+do just as she pleases, go where she pleases, stay as long as she
+pleases, in the open air and free sunshine; and mark my words, she will
+wear on her cheeks the steady bloom of the milkmaid, instead of the
+flitting rosiness of the sunset cloud."
+
+"I am not conscious of imposing so much restraint on her actions as your
+words imply," said Ernest, a flush of displeasure passing over his pale
+and anxious countenance.
+
+"Make her take a ride on horseback every morning and evening," continued
+Dr. Harlowe, with perfect coolness, without taking any notice of the
+interruption. "Best exercise in the world. Fine rides for equestrians
+through the green woods around here. If that does not set her right,
+carry her to the roaring Falls of Niagara, or the snowy hills of New
+Hampshire, or the Catskill Mountains, or the Blue Ridge. I cannot let
+the flower of the village droop and fade."
+
+As he finished the sentence, the merry tones of his voice became grave
+and subdued. He spoke as one having the authority of science and
+experience, as well as the privilege of affection. I looked down to hide
+the moisture that glistened in my eyes.
+
+"How would you like to travel as the doctor has suggested, Gabriella?"
+asked Ernest, who seemed much moved by the doctor's remarks. "You know I
+would go to"--
+
+"Nova Zembla, if she wished it," interrupted the doctor, "but that is
+too far and too cold. Begin with a shorter journey. I wish I could
+accompany you, but I cannot plead as an excuse my wife's delicacy of
+constitution. Her health is as uniform as her temper; and even if life
+and death were at stake, she would not leave her housekeeping in other
+hands. Neither would she close her doors and turn her locks, lest moth
+and rust should corrupt, and thieves break in and steal. But pardon me.
+I have given you no opportunity to answer your husband's question."
+
+"I shall only feel too happy to avail myself of his unnecessary fears
+with regard to my health," I answered. "It will be a charming way of
+passing the summer, if Mrs. Linwood and Edith will consent."
+
+Dr. Harlowe accompanied us home, and nothing was talked of but the
+intended journey. The solicitude of Ernest was painfully roused, and he
+seemed ready to move heaven and earth to facilitate our departure.
+
+"I am sorry to close Grandison Place in the summer season," said Mrs.
+Linwood; "it looks so inhospitable. Besides, I have many friends who
+anticipate passing the sultry season here."
+
+"Let them travel with you, if they wish," said the doctor bluntly. "That
+is no reason why you should stay at home."
+
+"Poor Madge!" cried Edith, who was delighted with the arrangement the
+doctor had suggested. "She will be so disappointed."
+
+"Let her come," said Dr. Harlowe. "I will take charge of the wild-cat,
+and if I find her too mighty for me, I will get Mr. Regulus to assist me
+in keeping her in order. Let her come, by all means."
+
+"Supposing we write and ask her to accompany us," said Mrs. Linwood.
+"Her exuberant spirits will be subdued by the exercise of travelling,
+and she may prove a most exhilarating companion."
+
+"What, four ladies to one gentleman!" exclaimed Edith. "Poor Ernest!
+when he will have thoughts and eyes but for one!"
+
+"I would sooner travel with the Falls of Niagara, or the boiling springs
+of Geyser," cried Ernest, with an instinctive shudder. "We should have
+to take a carpenter, a glazier, an upholsterer, and a seamstress, to
+repair the ruins she would strew in our path."
+
+"If Richard Clyde were about to return a little earlier in the season,"
+said the doctor, looking at Edith, "he would be a delightful acquisition
+to your party. He would divide with your brother the heavy
+responsibility of being the guardian of so many household treasures."
+
+"Let us start as early as possible," exclaimed Ernest. The name of
+Richard Clyde was to his impatient, jealous spirit, as is the rowel to
+the fiery steed.
+
+"And what will become of all our beautiful flowers, and our rich,
+ripening fruit?" I asked. "Must they waste their sweetness and value on
+the unappreciating air?"
+
+"I think we must make Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Regulus the guardians and
+participators of both," said Mrs. Linwood.
+
+"Give him the flowers, and leave the fruit to me," cried Dr. Harlowe,
+emphatically.
+
+"That the sick, the poor, and the afflicted may be benefited by the
+act," replied Mrs. Linwood. "Let it be so, Doctor,--and may many a
+blessing which has once been mine, reward your just and generous
+distribution of the abounding riches of Grandison Place."
+
+I left one sacred charge with the preceptor of my childhood.
+
+"Let not the flowers and shrubbery around my mother's grave, and the
+grave of Peggy, wilt and die for want of care."
+
+"They shall not. They shall be tenderly and carefully nurtured."
+
+"And if Margaret comes during our absence, be kind and attentive to her,
+for my sake, Mr. Regulus."
+
+"I will! I will! and for her own too. The wild girl has a heart, I
+believe she has; a good and honest heart."
+
+"You discovered it during your homeward journey from New York. I thought
+you would," said I, pleased to see a flush light up the student's olive
+cheek. I thought of the sensible Benedict and the wild Beatrice, and the
+drama of other lives passed before the eye of imagination.
+
+Gloomy must the walls of Grandison Place appear during the absence of
+its inmates,--that city set upon a hill that could not be hid, whose
+illuminated windows glittered on the vale below with beacon splendor,
+and discoursed of genial hospitality and kindly charity to the
+surrounding shadows. Sadly must the evening gale sigh through the noble
+oaks, whose branches met over the winding avenue, and lonely the
+elm-tree wave its hundred arms above the unoccupied seat,--that seat,
+beneath whose breezy shade I had first beheld the pale, impassioned, and
+haunting face of Ernest Linwood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+
+It is not my intention to describe our journey; and I fear it will
+indeed be an act of supererogation to attempt to give an idea of those
+majestic Falls, whose grandeur and whose glory have so long been the
+theme of the painter's pencil and the poet's lyre. Never shall I forget
+the moment when my spirit plunged into the roar and the foam, the
+thunders and the rainbows of Niagara. I paused involuntarily a hundred
+paces from the brink of the cataract. I was about to realize one of the
+magnificent dreams of my youthful imagination. I hesitated and trembled.
+I felt something of the trepidation, the blissful tremor that agitated
+my whole being when Ernest asked me into the moonlight garden at
+Cambridge, and I thought he was going to tell me that he loved me. The
+emotions I was about to experience would never come again, and I knew
+when once past could never be anticipated as now, with indescribable
+awe. I felt something as Moses did when he stood in the hollow of the
+rock, as the glory of the Lord was about to pass by. And surely no
+grander exhibition of God's glory ever burst on mortal eye, than this
+mighty volume of water, rushing, roaring, plunging, boiling, foaming,
+tossing its foam like snow into the face of heaven, throwing up rainbow
+after rainbow from unfathomable abysses, then sinking gradually into a
+sluggish calm, as if exhausted by the stupendous efforts it had made.
+
+Clinging to the arm of Ernest, I drew nearer and nearer, till all
+personal fear was absorbed in a sense of overpowering magnificence. I
+was a part of that glorious cataract; I participated in the mighty
+struggle; I panted with the throes of the pure, dark, tremendous
+element, vassal at once and conqueror of man; triumphed in the gorgeous
+_arcs-en-ciel_ that rested like angels of the Lord above the mist and
+the foam and the thunders of watery strife, and reposed languidly with
+the subsiding waves that slept like weary warriors after the din and
+strife of battle, the frown of contention lingering on their brows, and
+the smile of disdain still curling their lips.
+
+Oh, how poor, how weak seemed the conflict of human passion in the
+presence of this sublime, this wondrous spectacle! I could not speak,--I
+could scarcely breathe,--I was borne down, overpowered, almost
+annihilated. My knees bent, my hands involuntarily clasped themselves
+over the arm of Ernest, and in this attitude of intense adoration I
+looked up and whispered, "God,--eternity."
+
+"Enthusiast!" exclaimed he; but his countenance was luminous with the
+light that glowed on mine. He put his arm around me, but did not attempt
+to raise me. Edith and her mother were near, in company with a friend
+who had been our fellow-traveller from New England, and who had extended
+his journey beyond its prescribed limits for the sake of being our
+companion. I looked towards Edith with tremulous interest. As she stood
+leaning on her crutches, her garments fluttering in the breeze, I almost
+expected to see her borne from us like down upon the wind, and floating
+on the bosom of that mighty current.
+
+I said I did not mean to attempt a description of scenes which have
+baffled the genius and eloquence of man.
+
+"Now I am content to die!" said an ancient traveller, when the colossal
+shadow of the Egyptian pyramids first fell on his weary frame. But what
+are those huge, unmoving monuments of man's ambition, compared to this
+grandest of creation's mysteries, whose deep and thundering voice is
+repeating, day after day and night after night,--"forever and ever," and
+whose majestic motion, rushing onward, plunging downward, never pausing,
+never resting, is emblematic of the sublime march of Deity, from
+everlasting to everlasting,--from eternity to eternity?
+
+Shall I ever forget the moment when I stood on Termination Rock, beyond
+which no mortal foot has ever penetrated? I stood in a shroud of gray
+mist, wrapping me on every side,--above, below, around. I shuddered, as
+if the hollow, reverberating murmurs that filled my ears were the knell
+of the departed sun. That cold, gray mist; it penetrated the depths of
+my spirit; it drenched, drowned it, filled it with vague, ghost-like
+images of dread and horror. I cast one glance behind, and saw a gleam of
+heaven's sunny blue, one bright dazzling gleam flashing between the
+rugged rock and the rushing waters. It was as if the veil of the temple
+of nature were rent, and the glory of God shone through the fissure.
+
+"Let us return," said I to Ernest. "I feel as if I had passed through
+the valley of the shadow of death. Is it not sacrilegious to penetrate
+so deeply into the mysteries of nature?"
+
+"O Gabriella!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing through the shrouding
+mist like burning stars, "how I wish you felt with me! Were it possible
+to build a home on this shelving rock, I would willingly dwell here
+forever, surrounded by this veiling mist. With you thus clasped in my
+arms, I could be happy, in darkness and clouds, in solitude and
+dreariness, anywhere, everywhere,--with the conviction that you loved
+me, and that you looked for happiness alone to me."
+
+"As this moment," I answered, drawing more closely to him, "I fear as if
+I would rather stay here and die, than return to the world and mingle in
+its jarring elements. I would far rather, Ernest, make my winding-sheet
+of those cold, unfathomable waters, than live to feel again the anguish
+of being doubted by you."
+
+"That is all past, my Gabriella,--all past. My nature is renewed and
+purified. I feel within me new-born strength and power of resistance. By
+the God of yon roaring cataract--"
+
+"No,--no, Ernest, do not promise,--I dare not hear you, we are so weak,
+and temptations are so strong."
+
+"Do you distrust yourself, or me?"
+
+"Both, Ernest. I never, never felt how poor and vain and frail we are,
+till I stood, as now, in the presence of the power of the Almighty."
+
+His countenance changed instantaneously. "To what temptations do you
+allude?" he asked. "I can imagine none that could shake my fidelity to
+you. My constancy is as firm as this rock. Those rushing waves could not
+move it. Why do you check a vow which I dare to make in the very face of
+Omnipotence?"
+
+"I doubt not your faith or constancy, most beloved Ernest; I doubt not
+my own. You know what I do fear,--misconstruction and suspicion. But let
+us not speak, let us not think of the past. Let us look forward to the
+future, with true and earnest spirits, praying God to help us in
+weakness and error. Only think, Ernest, we have that within us more
+mighty than that descending flood. These souls of ours will still live
+in immortal youth, when that whelming tide ceases to roll, when the
+firmament shrivels like a burning scroll. I never realized it so fully,
+so grandly, as now. I shall carry from this rock something I did not
+bring. I have received a baptism standing here, purer than fire, gentle
+as dew, yet deep and pervading as ocean. I cannot describe what I mean,
+but I feel it. Before I came, it seemed as if a great wall of adamant
+rose between me and heaven; now there is nothing but this veil of mist."
+
+As we turned to leave this region of blinding spray and mysterious
+shadows, Ernest repeated, in his most melodious accents, a passage from
+Schiller's magnificent poem of the diver.
+
+    "And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,
+      As when fire is with water commixed and contending;
+    And the spray of its wrath to the welkin upsoars,
+      And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending.
+    And it never _will_ rest, nor from travail be free,
+    Like a sea, that is laboring the birth of a sea."
+
+Never did I experience a more exultant emotion than when we emerged into
+the clear air and glorious sunshine,--when I felt the soft, rich, green
+grass beneath, and the blue illimitable heavens smiling above. I had
+come out of darkness into marvellous light. I was drenched with light as
+I had previously been by the cold, gray mist. I remembered another verse
+of the immortal poem I had learned from the lips of Ernest:--
+
+    "Happy they, whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice,
+      The air and the sky that to mortals are given;
+    May the horror below never more find a voice,
+      Nor man stretch too far the wide mercy of heaven.
+    Never more, never more may he lift from the sight
+    The veil which is woven with terror and night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+
+Amid the rainbows of the cataract, Edith's heart caught the first
+glowing tinge of romance.
+
+We were wandering along the path that zones the beautiful island, whose
+name, unpoetic as it is, recalls one of the brilliant constellations of
+the zodiac; and Edith had seated herself on a rustic bench, under the
+massy dome of a spreading beech, and, taking off her bonnet, suffered
+her hair to float according to its own wild will on the rising breeze.
+
+She did not observe a young man at a little distance, leaning back
+against an aged birch, on whose silvery bark the dark outlines of his
+figure were finely daguerreotyped. He was the beau ideal of an artist,
+with his long brown hair carelessly pushed back from his white temples,
+his portfolio in his left hand, his pencil in his right, and his dark,
+restless eyes glancing round him with the fervor of enthusiasm, while
+they beamed with the inspiration of genius. He was evidently sketching
+the scene, which with bold, rapid lines he was transferring to the
+paper. All at once his gaze was fixed on Edith, and he seemed
+spellbound. I did not wonder,--for a lovelier, more ethereal object
+never arrested the glance of admiration. Again his pencil moved, and I
+knew he was attempting to delineate her features. I was fearful lest she
+should move and dissolve the charm; but she sat as still as the tree,
+whose gray trunk formed an artistic background to her slight figure.
+
+As soon as Ernest perceived the occupation of the young artist, he made
+a motion towards Edith, but I laid my hand on his arm.
+
+"Do not," I said; "she will make such a beautiful picture."
+
+"I do not like that a stranger should take so great a liberty," he
+replied, in an accent of displeasure.
+
+"Forgive the artist," I pleaded, "for the sake of the temptation."
+
+The young man, perceiving that he was observed, blushed with the most
+ingenuous modesty, took up his hat that was lying on the grass, put his
+paper and pencil in his portfolio, and walked away into the wilderness
+of stately and majestic trees, that rose dome within dome, pillar within
+pillar, like a grand cathedral. We followed slowly in the beaten path,
+through the dark green maples, the bright-leaved luxuriant beech trees,
+and the quivering aspens, whose trembling leaves seem instinct with
+human sensibility. And all the time we wandered through the magnificent
+aisles of the island, the deep roar of the cataract, like the symphony
+of a great organ, rolled solemnly through the leafy solitude, and
+mingled with the rustling of the forest boughs.
+
+In the evening the young artist sought an introduction to our party. His
+name was Julian, and had the advantage of romantic association. I was
+glad that Ernest gave him a cordial reception, for I was extremely
+prepossessed in his favor. Even the wild idea that he might be my
+unknown brother, had entered my mind. I remembered Mrs. Linwood's advice
+too well to express it. I even tried to banish it, as absurd and
+irrational; but it would cling to me,--and gave an interest to the young
+stranger which, though I dared not manifest, I could not help feeling.
+Fortunately his undisguised admiration of Edith was a safeguard to me.
+He was too artless to conceal it, yet too modest to express it. It was
+evinced by the mute eloquence of eyes that gazed upon her, as on a
+celestial being; and the listening ear, that seemed to drink in the
+lowest sound of her sweet, low voice. He was asked to exhibit his
+sketches, which were pronounced bold, splendid, and masterly.
+
+Edith was leaning on her brother's shoulder, when she recognized her own
+likeness, most faithfully and gracefully executed. She started, blushed,
+and looked towards young Julian, whose expressive eyes were riveted on
+her face, as if deprecating her displeasure. There were no traces of it
+on her lovely countenance; even a smile played on her lips, at the faint
+reflection of her own loveliness.
+
+And thus commenced an acquaintance, or I might say an attachment, as
+sudden and romantic as is ever described in the pages of the novelist.
+As soon as the diffidence that veiled his first introduction wore away,
+he called forth his peculiar powers of pleasing, and Edith was not
+insensible to their fascination. Since her brother's marriage, she had
+felt a vacuum in her heart, which often involved her in a soft cloud of
+pensiveness. She was unthroned, and like an uncrowned queen she sighed
+over the remembrance of her former royalty. It was not strange that the
+devotion of Julian, the enthusiasm of his character, the fervor of his
+language, the ardor, the grace of his manner, should have captivated her
+imagination and touched her heart. I never saw any one so changed in so
+short a time. The contrast was almost as great, to her former self, as
+between a placid silver lake, and the foam of the torrent sparkling and
+flashing with rainbows. Her countenance had lost its air of divine
+repose, and varied with every emotion of her soul. She was a thousand
+times more beautiful, and I loved her far more than I had ever done
+before. There was something unnatural in her exclusive, jealous love of
+her brother, but now she acknowledged the supremacy of the great law of
+woman's destiny. Like a flower, suddenly shaken by a southern gale, and
+giving out the most delicious perfumes unknown before, her heart
+fluttered and expanded and yielded both its hidden sweetnesses.
+
+"We must not encourage him," said Mrs. Linwood to her son. "We do not
+know who he is; we do not know his family or his lineage; we must
+withdraw Edith from the influence of his fascinations."
+
+I did not blame her, but I felt the sting to my heart's core. She saw
+the wound she had unconsciously made, and hastened to apply a balm.
+
+"The husband either exalts, or lowers, a wife to the position he
+occupies," said she, looking kindly at me. "She loses her own identity
+in his. Poverty would present no obstacle, for she has wealth sufficient
+to be disinterested,--but my daughter must take a stainless name, if she
+relinquish her own. But why do I speak thus? My poor, crippled child!
+She has disowned the thought of marriage. She has chosen voluntarily an
+unwedded lot. She does not, cannot, will not think with any peculiar
+interest of this young stranger. No, no,--my Edith is set apart by her
+misfortunes, as some enshrined and holy being, whom man must vainly
+love."
+
+I had never seen Mrs. Linwood so much agitated. Her eyes glistened, her
+voice faltered with emotion. Ernest, too, seemed greatly troubled. They
+had both been accustomed to look upon Edith as consecrated to a vestal
+life; and as she had hitherto turned coldly and decidedly from the
+addresses of men, they believed her inaccessible to the vows of love and
+the bonds of wedlock. The young Julian was a poet as well as an artist;
+his pictures were considered masterpieces of genius in the painting
+galleries of the cities; he was, as report said, and as he himself
+modestly but decidedly affirmed, by birth and education a gentleman; he
+had the prestige of a rising fame,--but he was a stranger. I remembered
+my mother's history, and the youth of St. James seemed renewed in this
+interesting young man. I trembled for the future happiness of Edith,
+who, whatever might be her decision with regard to marriage, now
+unmistakably and romantically loved. Again I asked myself, "might not
+this young man be the son of the unfortunate Therésa, who under an
+assumed name was concealing the unhappy circumstances of his birth?"
+
+"Let us leave this place," said Ernest, "and put a stop at once to the
+danger we dread. Are you willing, Gabriella, to quit these sublime Falls
+to-morrow?"
+
+"I shall carry them with me," I answered, laughingly. "They are
+henceforth a part of my own being."
+
+"They will prove rather an inconvenient accompaniment," replied he; "and
+if we turn our face on our return to the White Mountains, will you bring
+them back also?"
+
+"Certainly. Take me the whole world over, and every thing of beauty and
+sublimity will cling to my soul inseparably and forever."
+
+"Will you ask Edith, if she will be ready?"
+
+She was in the room which she occupied with her mother, and there I
+sought her. She was reading what seemed to be a letter; but as I
+approached her I saw that it was poetry, and from her bright blushes, I
+imagined it an effusion of young Julian's. She did not conceal it, but
+looked up with such a radiant expression of joy beaming through a shade
+of bashfulness, I shrunk from the task imposed upon me.
+
+"Dear Edith," said I, laying my hand on her beautiful hair, "your
+brother wishes to leave here to-morrow. Will you be ready?"
+
+She started, trembled, then turned aside her face, but I could see the
+starting tear and the deepened blush.
+
+"Of course I will," she answered, after a moment's pause. "It is far
+better that we should go,--I know it is,--but it would have been better
+still, had we never come."
+
+"And why, my darling sister? You have seemed very happy."
+
+"Too happy, Gabriella. All future life must pay the penalty due to a
+brief infatuation. I have discovered and betrayed the weakness, the
+madness of my heart. I know too well why Ernest has hastened our
+departure."
+
+"Dearest Edith," said I, sitting down by her and taking her hand in both
+mine, "do not reproach yourself for a sensibility so natural, so
+innocent, nay more, so noble. Do not, from mistaken delicacy, sacrifice
+your own happiness, and that of another which is, I firmly believe,
+forever intertwined with it. Confide in your mother,--confide in your
+brother, who think you have made a solemn resolution to live a single
+life. They do not know this young man; but give them an opportunity of
+knowing him. Cast him not off, if you love him; for I would almost stake
+my life upon his integrity and honor."
+
+"Blessings, Gabriella, for this generous confidence!" she exclaimed,
+throwing her arms round me, with all the impulsiveness of childhood;
+"but it is all in vain. Do you think I would take advantage of Julian's
+uncalculating love, and entail upon him for life the support and
+guardianship of this frail, helpless form? Do you think I would hang a
+dead, dull weight on the wings of his young ambition? Oh, no! You do not
+know me, Gabriella."
+
+"I know you have very wrong views of yourself," I answered; "and I fear
+you will do great wrong to others, if you do not change them. You are
+not helpless. No bird of the wild-wood wings their way more fearlessly
+and lightly than yourself. You are not frail now. Health glows on your
+cheek and beams in your eye. You cling to a resolution conceived in
+early youth, before you recovered from the effects of a painful malady.
+A dull weight! Why, Edith, you would rest like down on his mounting
+wings. You would give them a more heavenly flight. Do not, beloved
+Edith, indulge these morbid feelings. There is a love, stronger, deeper
+than a sister's affection. You feel it now. You forgive me for loving
+Ernest. You forgive him for loving me. I believe Julian worthy of your
+heart. Give him hope, give him time, and he will come erelong, crowned
+with laurels, and lay them smiling at your feet."
+
+"Dear, inspiring Gabriella!" she exclaimed, "you infuse new life and joy
+into my inmost soul. I feel as if I could discard these crutches and
+walk on air. No; I am not helpless. If there was need, I could toil for
+him I loved with all a woman's zeal. These hands could minister to his
+necessities, this heart be a shield and buckler in the hour of danger.
+Thank Heaven, I am lifted above want, and how blest to share the gifts
+of fortune with one they would so nobly grace! But do you really think
+that I ought to indulge such dreams? Am not I a cripple? Has not God set
+a mark upon me?"
+
+"No,--you shall not call yourself one. You are only lifted above the
+gross earth, because you are more angelic than the rest of us. I hear
+your mother's coming footsteps; I will leave you together, that you may
+reveal to her all that is passing in your heart."
+
+I left her; and as I passed Mrs. Linwood on the stairs, and met her
+anxious eyes, I said: "Edith has the heart of a woman. I know by my own
+experience how gently you will deal with it."
+
+She kissed me without speaking; but I read in her expressive countenance
+that mingled look of grief and resignation with which we follow a friend
+to that bourne where we cannot follow them. Edith was lost to her. She
+was willing to forsake her mother for the stranger's home,--she who
+seemed bound to her by the dependence of childhood, as well as the close
+companionship of riper years. I read this in her saddened glance; but I
+did not deem her selfish. Other feelings, too, doubtless blended with
+her own personal regrets. She had no reason to look upon marriage as a
+state of perfect felicity. Her own had been unhappy. She knew the dark
+phantom that haunted our wedded hours; and what if the same hereditary
+curse should cling to Edith,--who might become morbidly sensitive on
+account of her personal misfortune?
+
+Knowing it was the last evening of our stay, I felt as if every moment
+were lost, passed within doors. It seemed to me, now, as if I had
+literally seen nothing, so stupendously did images of beauty and
+grandeur grow upon my mind, and so consciously and surprisingly did my
+mind expand to receive them.
+
+The hour of sunset approached,--the last sunset that I should behold,
+shining in golden glory on the sheeted foam of the Falls. And then I
+saw, what I never expect to witness again, till I see the eternal
+rainbows round about the throne of God,--three entire respondent
+circles, one glowing with seven-fold beams within the other, full,
+clear, distinct as the starry stripes of our country's banner,--no
+fracture in the smooth, majestic curves,--no dimness in the gorgeous
+dyes.
+
+And moonlight,--moonlight on the Falls! I have read of moonlight on the
+ruins of the Coliseum; in the mouldering remains of Grecian elegance and
+Roman magnificence; but what is it compared to this? The eternal youth,
+the undecaying grandeur of nature, illumined by that celestial light
+which lends glory to ruins, and throws the illusion of beauty over the
+features of decay!
+
+Edith wandered with Julian in the stilly moonlight, and their low voices
+were heard by each other amid the din of the roaring cataract.
+
+Ernest was troubled. He was jealous even of a sister's love, and looked
+coldly on the aspiring Julian.
+
+"He must prove himself worthy of Edith," he said. "He must not follow
+her to Grandison Place, till he can bring credentials, establishing his
+claims to confidence and regard."
+
+Before we parted at night Edith drew me aside, and told me that her
+mother had consented to leave the decision of her destiny to _time_,
+which would either prove Julian's claims to her love, or convince her
+that he was unworthy of her regard. He was not permitted to accompany
+her home; but she was sure he would follow, with testimonials, such as a
+prince need not blush to own.
+
+"How strange, how very strange it seems," she said, her eyes beaming
+with that soft and sunny light which comes from the day-spring of the
+heart, "for me to look forward to a future such as now I see, through a
+flowery vista of hope and love. How strange, that in so short a time so
+mighty a change should be wrought! Had Ernest remained single, my heart
+would have known no vacuum, so entirely did he fill, so exclusively did
+he occupy it. But since his marriage it has seemed a lonely temple with
+a deserted shrine. Julian has strewed flowers upon the altar, and their
+fragrance has perfumed my life. Even if they wither, their odor will
+remain and shed sweetness over my dying hour."
+
+Sweet, angelic Edith! may no untimely blight fall on thy garland of
+love, no thorns be found with its glowing blossoms, no canker-worm of
+jealousy feed on their early bloom.
+
+The morning of our departure, as I looked back where Julian stood, pale
+and agitated, following the receding form of Edith, with a glance of the
+most intense emotion, I saw a gentleman approach the pillar against
+which he was leaning, whose appearance riveted my attention. He was a
+stranger, who had probably arrived the evening before, and, preoccupied
+as Julian was, he extended his hand eagerly to meet the grasp of his. He
+was tall, much taller than Julian, and of a very stately mien. He looked
+as if he might be in the meridian of life, and yet his hair, originally
+black, was mingled with snowy locks around the temples, and on the crown
+of his head. I saw this as he lifted his hat on approaching Julian, with
+the firm, proud step which indicates intellectual power. What was there
+about this stranger that haunted me long after the thunders of the
+cataract had ceased to reverberate on the ear? Where had I seen a
+countenance and figure resembling his? Why did I feel an irresistible
+desire to check the rolling wheels that bore me every moment further
+from that stately form with its crown of living snow?
+
+"How long will you remain in that uncomfortable position?" asked Ernest.
+The spell was broken. I turned, and met the glance that needed no
+explanation. This earnest scrutiny of a stranger excited his
+displeasure; and I did not wonder, when I thought of the strange
+fascination I had experienced. I blushed, and drew my veil over my
+face,--resolving henceforth to set a guard over my eyes as well as my
+lips. It was the first dark-flashing glance I had met since I had left
+Grandison Place. It was the last expiring gleam of a baleful flame. I
+knew it must be; and, leaning back in the carriage, I sunk into one of
+those reveries which I used to indulge in childhood,--when the gates of
+sunset opened to admit my wandering spirit, and the mysteries of
+cloud-land were revealed to the dream-girl's eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+
+The very evening after our return, while Dr. Harlowe was giving an
+account of his stewardship, and congratulating Edith and myself on the
+bloom and animation we had acquired, a gentleman was announced, and
+Richard Clyde entered. The heart-felt, joyous welcome due to the friend
+who is just returned from a foreign land, greeted his entrance. Had I
+known of his coming, I might have repressed the pleasure that now
+spontaneously rose; but I forgot every thing at this moment, but the
+companion of my childhood, the sympathizing mourner by my mother's
+grave, the unrequited lover, but the true and constant friend. He was so
+much improved in person and manners; he was so self-possessed, so manly,
+so frank, so cordial! He came among us like a burst of sunshine; and we
+all--all but _one_--felt his genial influence. He came into the family
+like a long absent son and brother. Why could not Ernest have welcomed
+him as such? Why did he repel with coldness and suspicion the honest,
+ingenuous heart that longed to meet his with fraternal warmth and
+confidence? I could not help drawing comparisons unfavorable to Ernest.
+He, who had travelled through the same regions, who had drank of the
+same inspiring streams of knowledge as the young student, who came fresh
+and buoyant from the classic halls where he had himself gained honor and
+distinction,--he, sat cold and reserved, while Richard dispensed life
+and brightness on all around.
+
+"Oh, how much this is like home!" he exclaimed, when the lateness of the
+hour compelled him to depart; "how happy, how grateful I am, to meet so
+kind, so dear a welcome. It warmed my heart, in anticipation, beyond the
+Atlantic waves. I remembered the maternal kindness that cheered and
+sustained me in my collegiate probation, and blessed my dawning manhood.
+I remembered Edith's heavenly music, and Gabriella's."
+
+He had become so excited by the recollections he was clothing in words,
+that he lost the command of his voice as soon as he mentioned my name.
+Perhaps the associations connected with it were more powerful than he
+imagined; but whatever was the cause he stopped abruptly, bowed, and
+left the room.
+
+Mrs. Linwood followed him into the passage, and I heard her telling him
+that he must consider Grandison Place his home indeed, for she felt that
+she had welcomed back another beloved son. She was evidently hurt by the
+chilling reserve of Ernest's manners, and wished to make up for it by
+the cordial warmth of her own.
+
+"There goes as fine a youth as ever quickened the pulses of a maiden's
+heart," said Dr. Harlowe, as Richard's quick steps were heard on the
+gravel walk; "I am proud of him, we all ought to be proud of him. He is
+a whole-souled, whole-hearted, right-minded young man, worth a dozen of
+your fashionable milk-sops. He is a right down splendid fellow. I cannot
+imagine why this sly little puss was so blind to his merits; but I
+suppose the greater glory dimmed the less."
+
+Good, excellent Dr. Harlowe! Why was he always saying something to rouse
+the slumbering serpent in the bosom of Ernest? Slumbering, did I say?
+Alas! it was already awakened, and watching for its prey. The doctor had
+the simplicity of a child, but the shrewdness of a man. Had he dreamed
+of the suffering Ernest's unfortunate temperament caused, he would have
+blistered his tongue sooner than have given me a moment's pain. He
+suspected him of jealousy, of the folly, not the madness of jealousy,
+and mischievously liked to sport with a weakness which he supposed
+evaporated with the cloud of the brow, or vanished in the lightning of
+the eye. He little imagined the stormy gust that swept over us after his
+departure.
+
+"Mother!" exclaimed Ernest, as soon as the doctor had closed the door,
+in a tone which I had never heard him use to her before, "I will no
+longer tolerate that man's impertinence and presumption. He never comes
+here that he does not utter insulting words, which no gentleman should
+allow in his own house. It is not the first, nor the second, nor the
+third time that he has insulted me through my wife. His superior age,
+and your profound respect for him, shall no longer prevent the
+expression of my indignation. I shall let him know on what terms he ever
+again darkens this threshold."
+
+"Ernest!" cried his mother, with a look in which indignation and grief
+struggled for mastery, "do you forget that it is your mother whom you
+are addressing?--that it is her threshold not yours on which you have
+laid this withering ban?"
+
+"Had not Dr. Harlowe been your friend, and this house yours, I should
+have told him my sentiments long since; but while I would not forget my
+respect as a son, I must remember my dignity as a husband, and I will
+allow no man to treat my wife with the familiarity he uses, polluting
+her wedded ears with allusions to her despairing lovers, and endeavoring
+indirectly to alienate her affections from me."
+
+"Stop, Ernest, you are beside yourself," said Mrs. Linwood, and the
+mounting color in her face deepened to crimson,--"you shall not thus
+asperse a good and guileless man. Your insane passion drives you from
+reason, from honor, and from right. It dwarfs the fair proportions of
+your mind, and deforms its moral beauty. I have been wrong, sinful,
+weak, in yielding to your infirmity, and trying by every gentle and
+persuasive means to lead you into the green pastures and by the still
+waters of domestic peace. I have counselled Gabriella, when I have seen
+her young heart breaking under the weight of your suspicions, to bow
+meekly and let the storm pass over her. But I do so no more. I will tell
+her to stand firm and undaunted, and breast the tempest. I will stand by
+her side, and support her in my arms, and shield her with my breast.
+Come, Gabriella, come, my child; if my son _will_ be unjust, _will_ be
+insane, I will at least protect you from the consequences of his guilty
+rashness."
+
+I sprang into her arms that opened to enfold me, and hid my face on her
+breast. I could not bear to look upon the humiliation of Ernest, who
+stood like one transfixed by his mother's rebuking glance. I trembled
+like an aspen, there was something so fearful in the roused indignation
+of one usually so calm and self-possessed. Edith sunk upon a seat in a
+passion of tears, and "oh, brother!--oh, mother!" burst through
+thick-coming sobs from her quivering lips.
+
+"Mother!" exclaimed Ernest,--and his voice sounded hollow and
+unnatural,--"I have reason to be angry,--I do not deserve this stern
+rebuke,--you know not how much I have borne and forborne for your sake.
+But if my mother teaches that rebellion to my will is a wife's duty, it
+is time indeed that we should part."
+
+"Oh, Ernest!" cried Edith; "oh, my brother! you will break my heart."
+
+And rising, she seemed to fly to his side, and throwing her arms round
+his neck, she lifted up her voice and wept aloud.
+
+"Hush, my daughter, hush, Edith," said her mother. "I wish my son to
+hear me, and if they were the last words I ever expected to utter, they
+could not be more solemn. I have loved you, Ernest, with a love
+bordering on idolatry,--with a pride most sinful in a Christian
+parent,--but even the strength of a mother's love will yield at last
+before the stormy passions that desolate her home. The spirit of the
+Spartan mother, who told her son when he left her for the battle field,
+'to return _with_ his shield, or _on_ it,' animates my bosom. I had far,
+far rather weep over the grave of my son, than live to blush for his
+degeneracy."
+
+"And I would far rather be in my grave, this moment," he answered, in
+the same hoarse, deep undertone, "than suffer the agonies of the last
+few hours. Let me die,--let me die at once; then take this young man to
+your bosom, where he has already supplanted me. Make him your son in a
+twofold sense, for, by the heaven that hears me, I believe you would
+bless the hour that gave him the right to Gabriella's love."
+
+"Father, forgive him, he knows not what he utters," murmured his mother,
+lifting her joined hands to heaven. I still clung to her in trembling
+awe, forgetting my own sorrow in the depth and sacredness of hers.
+"Ernest," she said, in a louder tone, "I cannot continue this painful
+scene. I will go to my own chamber and pray for you; pray for your
+release from the dominion of the powers of darkness. Oh, my son! I
+tremble for you. You are standing on the brink of a terrible abyss. The
+fiend that lurked in the bowers of Eden, and made its flowers dim with
+the smoke of fraternal blood, is whispering in your ear. Beware, my son,
+beware. Every sigh and tear caused by the indulgence of unhallowed
+passion, cries as loud to Almighty God for vengeance as Abel's reeking
+blood. Come, Gabriella, I leave him to reflection and prayer. I leave
+him to God and his own soul. Come, Edith, leave him and follow me."
+
+There was something so commanding in her accent and manner I dared not
+resist her, though I longed to remain and whisper words of peace and
+love to my unhappy husband. I knew that his soul must be crushed into
+the dust, and my heart bled for his sufferings. Edith, too, withdrew her
+clinging arms, for she dared not disobey her mother, and slowly and
+sadly followed us up the winding stairs.
+
+"Go to bed, my child," said she to Edith, when we reached the upper
+platform. "May God in his mercy spare you from witnessing another scene
+like this."
+
+"Oh, mother! I never shall feel happy again. My poor brother! you did
+not see him, mother, when you left him. You did not look upon him, or
+you could not have left him. There was death on his face. Forgive him,
+dear mother! take him back to your heart."
+
+"And do you think he is not here?" she exclaimed, pressing her hands on
+her heart, as if trying to sustain herself under an intense pain. "Do
+you think he suffers alone? Do you think I have left him, but for his
+good? Do you think I would not now gladly fold him in my arms and bathe
+his soul in the overflowing tenderness of maternal love? O child, child!
+Earth has no sounding line to fathom the depths of a mother's heart.
+Good-night. God bless you, my darling Edith."
+
+"And Gabriella?"
+
+"Will remain with me."
+
+Mrs. Linwood, whose left arm still encircled me, brought me into her
+chamber, and closed the door. She was excessively pale, and I
+mechanically gave her a glass of water. She thanked me; and seating
+herself at a little table, on which an astral lamp was burning, she
+began to turn the leaves of a Bible, which always lay there. I observed
+that her hands trembled and that her lips quivered.
+
+"There is but one fountain which can refresh the fainting spirit," she
+said, laying her hand on the sacred volume. "It is the fountain of
+living waters, which, whosoever will, may drink, and receive immortal
+strength."
+
+She turned the leaves, but there was mist over her vision,--she could
+not distinguish the well-known characters.
+
+"Read for me, my beloved Gabriella," said she, rising and motioning me
+to the seat she had quitted. "I was looking for the sixty-second Psalm."
+
+She seated herself in the shadow of the curtain, while I nerved myself
+for the appointed task. My voice was at first low and tremulous, but as
+the sound of the words reached my ear, they penetrated my soul, like a
+strain of solemn music. I felt the divine influence of those breathings
+of humanity, sanctified by the inspiration of the Deity. I felt the same
+consciousness of man's insignificance as when I listened to Niagara's
+eternal roar. And yet, if God cared for us, there was exaltation and
+glory in the thought.
+
+"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within
+me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of
+my countenance and my God."
+
+"Go on," said Mrs. Linwood, as I paused on this beautiful and consoling
+verse; "your voice is sweet, my child, and there is balm in every
+hallowed word."
+
+I turned to the ninety-first Psalm, which I had so often read to my own
+dear mother, and which I had long known by heart; then the hundred and
+sixteenth, which was a favorite of Ernest's. My voice faltered. I
+thought of him in loneliness and anguish, and my tears blotted the
+sacred lines. We both remained silent, for the awe of God's spirit was
+upon us, and the atmosphere made holy by the incense of His breath.
+
+A low, faint knock at the door. "Come in," said Mrs. Linwood, supposing
+it a servant. She started, when the door opened, and Ernest, pale as a
+ghost, stood on the threshold. I made a movement towards him, but he did
+not look at me. His eyes were riveted on his mother, who had half risen
+at his entrance, but sunk back on her seat. He passed by me, and
+approaching the window where she sat, knelt at her feet, and bowed his
+head in her lap.
+
+"Mother," said he, in broken accents, "I come, like the returning
+prodigal. I have sinned against Heaven and thee, and am no more worthy
+to be called thy son,--give me but the hireling's place, provided it be
+near thy heart."
+
+"And have I found thee again, my son, my Ernest, my beloved, my only
+one?" she cried, bending down and clasping her arms around him.
+"Heavenly Father! I thank thee for this hour."
+
+Never had I loved them both as I did at that moment, when the holy tears
+of penitence and pardon mingled on their cheeks, and baptized their
+spirits as in a regenerating shower. My own tears flowed in unison; but
+I drew back, feeling as if it were sacrilege to intrude on such a scene.
+My first impulse was to steal from the room, leaving them to the
+unwitnessed indulgence of their sacred emotions; but I must pass them,
+and I would not that even the hem of my garments should rustle against
+them.
+
+Mrs. Linwood was the first to recognize my presence; she raised her head
+and beckoned me to approach. As I obeyed her motion, Ernest rose from
+his knees, and taking my hand, held it for a moment closely, firmly in
+his own; he did not embrace me, as he had always done in the transports
+of reconciliation; he seemed to hold me from him in that controlling
+grasp, and there was something thrilling, yet repelling, in the dark
+depths of his eyes that held me bound to the spot where I stood.
+
+"Remain with my mother, Gabriella," said he; "I give you back to her
+guardianship, till I have done penance for the sins of this night. The
+lips that have dared to speak to a mother, and such a mother, the words
+of bitterness and passion, are unworthy to receive the pledge of love.
+My eyes are opened to the enormity of my offence, and I abhor myself in
+dust and ashes; my spirit shall clothe itself in garments of sackcloth
+and mourning, and drink of the bitter cup of humiliation. Hear, then, my
+solemn vow;--nay, my mother, nay, Gabriella,--I must, I will speak. My
+Saviour fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, he, who
+knew not sin, and shall not I, vile as a malefactor, accursed as a
+leper, do something to prove my penitence and self-abasement? For forty
+days I abjure love, joy, domestic endearments, and social pleasures,--I
+will live on bread and water,--I will sleep on the uncarpeted floor,--or
+pass my nights under the canopy of heaven."
+
+Pale and shuddering I listened to this wild, stem vow, fearing that his
+reason was forsaking him. No martyr at the stake ever wore an expression
+of more sublime self-sacrifice.
+
+"Alas, my son!" exclaimed his mother, "one tear such as you have shed
+this hour is worth a hundred rash vows. Vain and useless are they as the
+iron bed, the girdle of steel, the scourge of the fanatic, who expects
+to force by self-inflicted tortures the gates of heaven to open. Do you
+realize to what sufferings you are dooming the hearts that love you, and
+whose happiness is bound up in yours? Do you realize that you are making
+our home dark and gloomy as the dungeons of the Inquisition?"
+
+"Not so, my mother; Gabriella shall be free as air, free as before she
+breathed her marriage vows. To your care I commit her. Let not one
+thought of me cloud the sunshine of the domestic board, or wither one
+garland of household joy. I have imposed this penance on myself in
+expiation of my offences as a son and as a husband. If I am wrong, may a
+merciful God forgive me. The words are uttered, and cannot be recalled.
+I cannot add perjury to the dark list of my transgressions. Farewell,
+mother; farewell, Gabriella; pray for me. Your prayers will call down
+ministering angels, who shall come to me in the hour of nature's agony,
+to relieve and sustain me."
+
+He left us, closed the door, and passed down the stairs, which gave a
+faint echo to his retreating footsteps. We looked at each other in grief
+and amazement, and neither of us spoke for several minutes.
+
+"My poor, misguided boy!" at length burst from his mother's pale lips,
+"I fear I was too harsh,--I probed him too deeply,--I have driven him to
+the verge of madness. Oh! how difficult it is to deal with a spirit so
+strangely, so unhappily constituted! I have tried indulgence, and the
+evil seemed to grow with alarming rapidity. I have exercised a parent's
+authority, and behold the result. I can do nothing now, but obey his
+parting injunction,--pray for him."
+
+She folded her hands across her knees, and looked down in deep,
+revolving thought.
+
+Forty days of gloom and estrangement! Forty days! Oh! what a wilderness
+would life be during those long, long days! And what was there beyond? I
+dared not think. A dreary shadow of coming desolation,--like the cold,
+gray mist which wrapped me as I stood on the rocks of Niagara, hung over
+the future. Would I lift it if I could? Oh, no! Perish the hand that
+would anticipate the day of God's revealing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+
+Ernest, faithful to his vow, slept on the floor in the library, and
+though he sat down at the table with us, he tasted nothing but bread and
+water. A stranger might not have observed any striking difference in his
+manners, but he had forbidden himself even the glance of affection, and
+his eye studiously and severely avoided mine. From the table he returned
+to the library, and shut himself up till the next bell summoned us to
+our now joyless and uncomfortable meals.
+
+I cannot describe the tortures I endured during this season of unnatural
+and horrible constraint. It sometimes seemed as if I should grow crazy;
+and poor Edith was scarcely less unhappy. It was now that Mrs. Linwood
+showed her extraordinary powers of self-control, her wisdom, and
+intellectual strength. Calmly and serenely she fulfilled her usual
+duties, as mistress of her household and benefactress of the village. To
+visitors and friends she was the same hospitable and charming hostess
+that had thrown such enchantment over the granite walls of Grandison
+Place. She had marked out the line of duty for Edith and myself, which
+we tried to follow, but it was often with sinking hearts and faltering
+footsteps.
+
+"If Ernest from a mistaken sense of duty has bound himself by a painful
+and unnatural vow," said she, in that tone of grave sweetness which was
+so irresistible, "_we_ must not forget the social and domestic duties of
+life. A threefold responsibility rests upon us, for we must endeavor to
+bear the burden he has laid down. He must not see the unlimited power he
+has over our happiness, a power he is now unconsciously abusing. Smile,
+my children, indulge in all innocent recreations; let me hear once more
+your voices echoing on the lawn; let me hear the soothing notes of my
+Edith's harp; let me see my Gabriella's fingers weaving as wont, sweet
+garlands of flowers."
+
+And now, the house began to be filled up with visitors from the city,
+who had been anxiously waiting the return of Mrs. Linwood. The character
+of Ernest for eccentricity and moodiness was so well known, that the
+peculiar situation in which he had placed himself did not attract
+immediate attention. But I knew I must appear, what I in reality was for
+the time, a neglected and avoided wife; and most bitterly, keenly did I
+suffer in consequence of this impression. In spite of the pain it had
+caused, I was proud of Ernest's exclusive devotion, and the notice it
+attracted. I knew I was, by the mortification I experienced, when that
+devotion was withdrawn. It is true, I knew he was inflicting on himself
+torments to which the fabled agonies of Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Ixion
+combined could not be compared; but others did not; they saw the averted
+eye, the coldness, the distance, the estrangement, but they did not,
+could not see, the bleeding heart, the agonized spirit hidden beneath
+the veil.
+
+I ought to mention here the reason that Mr. Regulus did not come as
+usual to welcome us on our return. He had been appointed professor of
+mathematics in ---- College, and had given up the charge of the academy
+where he had taught so many years with such indefatigable industry and
+distinguished success. He was now visiting in Boston, but immediately on
+his return was to depart to the scene of his new labors.
+
+Mr. Regulus, or, as we should now call him, Professor Regulus, had so
+long been considered a fixture in town, this change in his destiny
+created quite a sensation in the circle in which he moved. It seemed
+impossible to do without him. He was as much a part of the academy as
+the colossal pen, whose gilded feathers still swept the blue of ether.
+Were it not for the blight that had fallen on my social joys, I should
+have mourned the loss of this steadfast friend of my orphan years; but
+now I could not regret it. The mildew of suspicion rested on our
+intercourse, and all its pleasant bloom was blasted. He was in Boston.
+Had he gone to ask the dauntless Meg to be the companion of his life, in
+the more exalted sphere in which he was about to move? And would she
+indeed suffer her "wild heart to be tamed by a loving hand?"
+
+What delightful evenings we might now have enjoyed had not the dark
+passion of Ernest thrown such a chilling shadow over the household!
+Richard came almost every night, for it was his _home_. He loved and
+reverenced Mrs. Linwood, as if she were his own mother. Edith was to him
+as a sweet and gentle sister; and though never by word or action he
+manifested a feeling for me which I might not sanction and return as the
+wife of another, I knew, that no one had supplanted me in his
+affections, that I was still the Gabriella whom he had enshrined in his
+boyish heart,--in "all save hope the same." He saw that I was unhappy,
+and he pitied me. The bright sparkle of his eye always seemed quenched
+when it turned to me, and his voice when it addressed me had a gentler,
+more subdued tone. But his spirit was so sparkling, so elastic, his
+manners so kind and winning, his conversation so easy and graceful, it
+was impossible for sadness or constraint to dwell long in his presence.
+Did I never contrast his sunny temper, his unselfish disposition, his
+happy, genial temperament, with the darkness and moodiness and despotism
+of Ernest? Did I never sigh that I had not given my young heart to one
+who would have trusted me even as he loved, and surrounded me with a
+golden atmosphere of confidence, calm and beautiful as an unclouded
+autumn sky? Did I not tremble at the thought of passing my whole life in
+the midst of the tropic storms, the thunders and lightnings of passions?
+
+And yet I loved Ernest with all the intensity of my first affection. I
+would have sacrificed my life to have given peace to his troubled and
+warring spirit. His self-imposed sufferings almost maddened me. My
+heart, as it secretly clung to him and followed his lonely steps as,
+faithful to his frantic vow, he withdrew from domestic and social
+intercourse,--longed to express its emotions in words as wildly
+impassioned as these:--
+
+    "Thou hast called me thine angel in moments of bliss,
+    Still thine angel I'll prove 'mid the horrors of this.
+    Through the furnace unshrinking thy steps I'll pursue,
+    And shield thee, and save thee, and perish there too."
+
+Oh, most beloved, yet most wretched and deluded husband, why was this
+dark thread,--this cable cord, I might say,--twisted with the pure and
+silvery virtues of thy character?
+
+In the midst of this unhappy state of things, Margaret Melville arrived.
+She returned with Mr. Regulus, who brought her one beautiful evening, at
+the soft, twilight hour, to Grandison Place. Whether it was the subdued
+light in which we first beheld her, or the presence of her dignified
+companion, she certainly was much softened. Her boisterous laugh was
+quite melodized, and her step did not make the crystal drops of the
+girandoles tinkle as ominously as they formerly did. Still, it seemed as
+if a dozen guests had arrived in her single person. There was such
+superabundant vitality about her. As for Mr. Regulus, he was certainly
+going on even unto perfection, for his improvement in the graces was as
+progressive and as steady as the advance of the rolling year. I could
+not but notice the extreme elegance of his dress. He was evidently "at
+some cost to entertain himself."
+
+"Come up stairs with me, darling," said she to me, catching my hand and
+giving it an emphatic squeeze; "help me to lay aside this uncomfortable
+riding dress,--besides," she whispered, "I have so much to tell you."
+
+As we left the room and passed Mr. Regulus, who was standing near the
+door, the glance she cast upon him, bright, smiling, triumphant, and
+happy, convinced me that my conjectures were right.
+
+"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, as soon as we were in my own chamber,
+throwing herself down on the first seat she saw, and shaking her hair
+loose over her shoulders, "I am so glad to see you. You do not know how
+happy I am,--I mean how glad I am,--you did not expect me, did you?"
+
+"I thought Mr. Regulus had gone to see you, but I did not know that he
+would be fortunate enough to bring you back with him. He discovered last
+winter, I have no doubt, what a pleasant travelling companion you were."
+
+"Oh, Gabriella, I could tell you something so strange, so funny,"--and
+here she burst into one of her old ringing laughs, that seemed perfectly
+uncontrollable.
+
+"I think I can guess what it is," I said, assisting her at her toilet,
+which was never an elaborate business with her. "You and Mr. Regulus are
+very good friends, perhaps betrothed lovers. Is that so very strange?"
+
+"Who told you?" she exclaimed, turning quickly round, her cheeks
+crimsoned and her eyes sparkling most luminously,--"who told you such
+nonsense?"
+
+"It does not require any supernatural knowledge to know this," I
+answered. "I anticipated it when you were in New York, and most
+sincerely do I congratulate you on the possession of so excellent and
+noble a heart. Prize it, dear Margaret, and make yourself worthy of all
+it can, of all it will impart, to ennoble and exalt your own."
+
+"Ah! I fear I never shall be worthy of it," she cried, giving me an
+enthusiastic embrace, and turning aside her head to hide a starting
+tear; "but I do prize it, Gabriella, beyond all words."
+
+"Ah, you little gypsy!" she exclaimed, suddenly resuming her old wild
+manner, "why did you not prize it yourself? He has told me all about the
+romantic scenes of the academy,--he says you transformed him from a
+rough boor into a feeling, tender-hearted man,--that you stole into his
+very inmost being, like the breath of heaven, and made the barren
+wilderness blossom like the rose. Ah! you ought to hear how beautifully
+he talks of you. But I am not jealous of you."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" I involuntarily cried.
+
+"You may well say that," said she, looking earnestly in my face; "you
+may well say that, darling. But where is Ernest? I have not seen him
+yet."
+
+"He is in the library, I believe. He is not very well; and you know he
+never enjoys company much."
+
+"The same jealous, unreasonable being he ever was, I dare say," she
+vehemently exclaimed. "It is a shame, and a sin, and a burning sin, for
+him to go on as he does. Mr. Regulus says he could weep tears of blood
+to think how you have sacrificed yourself to him."
+
+"Margaret,--Margaret! If you have one spark of love for me,--one feeling
+of respect and regard for Mrs. Linwood, your mother's friend and your
+own, never, never speak of Ernest's peculiarities. I cannot deny them; I
+cannot deny that they make me unhappy, and fill me with sad forebodings;
+but he is my husband,--and I cannot hear him spoken of with bitterness.
+He is my husband; and I love him in spite of his wayward humors, with
+all the romance of girlish passion, and all the tenderness of wedded
+love."
+
+"Is love so strong as to endure every thing?" she asked.
+
+"It is so divine as to forgive every thing," I answered.
+
+"Well! you are an angel, and I will try to set a guard on these wild
+lips, so that they shall not say aught to wound that dear, precious,
+blessed little heart of yours. I will be just as good as I can be; and
+if I forget myself once in a while, you must forgive me,--for the old
+Adam is in me yet. There, how does that look?"
+
+She had dressed herself in a plain white muslin, with a white sash
+carelessly tied; and a light fall of lace was the only covering to her
+magnificent arms and neck.
+
+"Why, you look like a bride, Margaret," said I. "Surely, you must think
+Mrs. Linwood is going to have a party to-night. Never mind,--we will all
+admire you as much as if you were a bride. Let me twist some of these
+white rosebuds in your hair, to complete the illusion."
+
+I took some from the vase that stood upon my toilet, and wreathed them
+in her black, shining locks. She clapped her hands joyously as she
+surveyed her image in the mirror; then laughed long and merrily, and
+asked if she did not look like a fool.
+
+"Do you think there is any thing peculiar in my dress?" she suddenly
+asked, pulling the lace rather strenuously, considering its gossamer
+texture. "I do not wish to look ridiculous."
+
+"No, indeed. It is like Edith's and mine. We always wear white muslin in
+summer, you know; but you never seemed to care much about dressing here
+in the country. I never saw you look so well, so handsome, Madge."
+
+"Thank you. Let us go down. But, stop one moment. Do you think Mrs.
+Linwood will think it strange that I should come here with Mr. Regulus?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"What do you think she will say about our--our engagement?"
+
+"She will be very much pleased. I heard her say that if you should
+become attached to a man of worth and talents such as he possesses, you
+would become a good and noble woman."
+
+"Did she say that? Heaven bless her, body and soul. I wonder how she
+could have any trust or faith in such a Greenland bear as I have been. I
+will not say _am_, for I think I have improved some, don't you?"
+
+"Yes! and I believe it is only the dawn of a beautiful day of
+womanhood."
+
+Margaret linked her arm in mine with a radiant smile and a vivid blush,
+and tripped down stairs with a lightness almost miraculous. Mr. Regulus
+was standing at the foot of the stairs leaning on the bannisters, in a
+musing attitude. As soon as he saw us, his countenance lighted up with a
+joyful animation, and he offered his arm to Margaret with eager
+gallantry. I wondered I had not discovered before how very good looking
+he was. Never, till he visited us in New York, had I thought of him but
+as an awkward, rather homely gentleman. Now his smile was quite
+beautiful, and as I accompanied them into the drawing-room, I thought
+they were quite a splendid-looking pair. Mrs. Linwood was in the front
+room, which was quite filled with guests and now illuminated for the
+night.
+
+"Not now," I heard Margaret whisper, drawing back a little; "wait a few
+moments."
+
+"Oh! it will be all over in a second," said he, taking her hand and
+leading her up to Mrs. Linwood, who raised her eyes with surprise at the
+unwonted ceremony of their approach, and the blushing trepidation of
+Margaret's manner.
+
+"Permit me to introduce Mrs. Regulus," said he, with a low bow; and
+though he reddened to the roots of his hair, he looked round with a
+smiling and triumphant glance. Margaret curtsied with mock humility down
+to the ground, then breaking loose from his hand, she burst into one of
+her Madge Wildfire laughs, and attempted to escape from the room. But
+she was intercepted by Dr. Harlowe, who caught her by the arm and kissed
+her with audible good-will, declaring it was a physician's fee. The
+announcement of the marriage was received with acclamation and clapping
+of hands. You should have heard Edith laugh; it was like the chime of
+silvery bells. It was so astonishing she could not, would not believe
+it. It was exactly like one of Meg's wild pranks to play such a farce.
+But it was a solemn truth. Margaret, the bride of the morning, became
+the presiding queen of the evening; and had it not been for the lonely
+occupant of the library, how gaily and happily the hours would have
+flown by. How must the accents of mirth that echoed through the hall
+torture, if they reached his morbid and sensitive ear! If I could only
+go to him and tell him the cause of the unwonted merriment; but I dared
+not do it. It would be an infringement of the sacredness of his
+expiatory vow. He would know it, however, at the supper table; but no!
+he did not appear at the supper table. He sent a message to his mother,
+that he did not wish any, and the hospitable board was filled without
+him.
+
+"I can hardly forgive you, Margaret," said Mrs. Linwood, "for not giving
+us an opportunity of providing a wedding feast. How much better it would
+have been to have had the golden ring and fatted calf of welcome, than
+this plain, every-day meal."
+
+"Your every-day meals are better than usual wedding feasts," replied
+Margaret, "and I do not see why one should eat more on such an occasion
+than any other. You know _I_ care nothing for the good things of this
+life, though Mr. Regulus may be disappointed."
+
+"Indeed, you are mistaken," said Mr. Regulus, blushing. "I think so
+little of what I eat and drink, I can hardly tell the difference between
+tea and coffee."
+
+This was literally true, and many a trick had been played upon him at
+his boarding place while seated at his meals, with an open book at the
+left side of his plate, and his whole mind engaged in its contents.
+
+"Mrs. Regulus," said Dr. Harlowe, giving due accent to her new name,
+"is, as everyone must perceive, one of those ethereal beings who care
+for nothing more substantial than beefsteak, plum-pudding, and
+mince-pie. Perhaps an airy slice of roast turkey might also tempt her
+abstemiousness!"
+
+"Take care, Doctor,--I have some one to protect me now against your
+lawless tongue," cried Madge, with inimitable good-humor.
+
+"Come and dine with us to-morrow, and you shall prove my words a libel,
+if you please. I cannot say that my wife will be able to give you any
+thing better than Mrs. Linwood's poor fare, but it shall be sweetened by
+a heart-warm welcome, and we will drink the health of the bonny bride in
+a glass of ruby wine!"
+
+And was it possible that no note was taken of the strange absence of the
+master of the table? Was it no check to social joy and convivial
+pleasure? It undoubtedly was, in the first place; but Margaret's
+exhilarating presence neutralized the effect produced by his absence on
+the spirits of the guests. The occasion, too, was so unexpected, so
+inspiring, that even I, sad and troubled as I was, could not help
+yielding in some degree to its gladdening influence.
+
+After supper I had a long and delightful conversation with my
+metamorphosed preceptor. He spoke of his marriage with all the
+ingenuousness and simplicity of a child. He thanked me for having told
+him, when I parted from him in New York that he had an influence over
+Margaret that he had not dreamed of possessing. It made him, he said,
+more observant of her, and more careful of himself, till he ready found
+her a pleasant study. And somehow, when he had returned to his country
+home, it seemed dull without her; and he found himself thinking of her,
+and then writing to her, and then going to see her,--till, to his
+astonishment, he found himself a lover and a husband. His professorship,
+too, happened to come at the exact moment, for it emboldened him with
+hopes of success he could not have cherished as a village teacher.
+
+"How the wild creature happened to love me, a grave, ungainly pedagogue,
+I cannot divine," he added; "but if gratitude, tenderness, and the most
+implicit confidence in her truth and affection can make her happy, she
+shall never regret her heart's choice."
+
+_Confidence_ did he say? Happy, thrice happy Margaret!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+
+It was an evening of excitement. Edith sang, and Margaret played some of
+her elfin strains, and Mr. Regulus made music leap joyously from the
+sounding violin. There was one in the lonely library who might have made
+sweeter music than all, whose spirit's chords were all jangled and
+tuneless, and whose ear seemed closed to the concord of melodious
+sounds. _My_ soul was not tuned to harmony now, but still there was
+something soothing in its influence, and it relieved me from the
+necessity of talking, the exertion of _seeming_ what I could not _be_.
+It was a luxury to glide unnoticed on the stream of thought, though dark
+the current, and leading into troubled waters. It was a luxury to think
+that the sighs of the heart might breathe unheard in the midst of the
+soft rolling waves of Edith's melody, or the dashing billows of
+Margaret's. Sometimes when I imagined myself entirely unobserved, and
+suffered the cloud of sadness that brooded over my spirits to float
+outwards, if I accidentally raised my eyes, I met those of Richard Clyde
+fixed on me with an expression of such intense and thrilling sympathy, I
+would start with a vague consciousness of guilt for having elicited such
+expressive glances.
+
+Madge was playing as only Madge could play, and Edith standing near the
+door that opened into the saloon in the front parlor. She looked
+unusually pale, and her countenance was languid. Was she thinking of
+Julian, the young artist at the Falls, and wondering if the brief
+romance of their love were indeed a dream? All at once a change, quick
+as the electric flash, passed over her face. A bright, rosy cloud rolled
+over its pallor, like morning breaking in Alpine snows. Even the paly
+gold of her hair seemed to catch the glory that so suddenly and
+absolutely illumined her. She was looking into the saloon, and I
+followed the direction of her kindling eyes. Julian was at that moment
+crossing the threshold. She had seen him ascending the steps, and her
+heart sprang forth to meet him. I saw her hesitate, look round for her
+mother, who was not near her, then, while the rosy cloud deepened to
+crimson, she floated into the saloon.
+
+I went to Mrs. Linwood, who was in the back parlor, to tell her of the
+arrival of the new guest. She started and changed color. His coming was
+the seal of Edith's destiny. "I will not come," he had said to her in
+parting, "till I can bring abundant testimonials of my spotless lineage
+and irreproachable reputation."
+
+I had drawn her apart from the company, expecting she would be agitated
+by the annunciation.
+
+"Should not Ernest know of this?" I asked. "He did not abjure all the
+rites of hospitality. Oh, for Edith's sake, tell him of Julian's
+arrival, and entreat him to come forth and welcome him."
+
+"I have been to him once and urged him to greet Mr. Regulus, and merely
+offer him the usual congratulations on his marriage, but he persistingly
+refused. I fear he is killing himself by this spirit-scourging vow. I
+never saw him look so pale and wretched as he does to-night. I dread
+more and more the consequences of this self-inflicted martyrdom."
+
+As I looked up in Mrs. Linwood's face, on which the light of the
+chandelier resplendently shone, I observed lines of care on her smooth
+brow, which were not there two weeks before. The engraver was doing his
+work delicately, secretly, but he was at work, and it was Ernest's hand
+that guided the steel as it left its deepening grooves.
+
+"O! that I dared to go to him!" said I; "may I, dear mother? I can but
+be denied. I will speak to him as a friend, coldly if it must be, but
+let me speak to him. He can but bid me leave him."
+
+"You too, my darling," said she, in a low, sad-toned voice, "you are
+wilting like a flower deprived of sunshine and dew. But go. Take this
+key. He locks himself within, and all you can do he will not grant
+admittance. The only way is to use this pass-key, which you must return
+to me. I must go and welcome Julian."
+
+She put the key in my hand, and turned away with a sigh. I trembled at
+my own audacity. I had never forced myself into his presence, for the
+dullness of his vow was upon me, and the hand that would have removed
+the icy barrier he had raised between us was numbed by its coldness.
+
+The way that led to the library was winding, sweeping by the lofty
+staircase, and terminating in a kind of picture gallery. Some of these
+were relics of the old Italian masters, and their dark, rich coloring
+came out in the lamp light with gloomy splendor. I had seen them a
+hundred times, but never had they impressed me with such lurid grandeur
+as now. One by one, the dark lines started on the canvas glowing with
+strange life, and standing out in bold, sublime relief. I hurried by
+them and stood in front of the library door with the key trembling in my
+hand. I heard no sound within. All was still as death. Perhaps,
+exhausted by his lonely vigils, he slept, and it would be cruel to
+awaken him. Perhaps he would frown on me in anger, for not respecting
+the sanctity of his vow. I had seen him at noon, but he did not speak or
+look at me; and as his mother said, he had never appeared so pale, so
+heart-worn, and so wretched. He was evidently ill and suffering, though
+to his mother's anxious inquiries he declared himself well, perfectly
+well. There was one thing which made me glad. The gay, mingling laughs,
+the sounds of social joy, of music and mirth, came so softened through
+the long winding avenue, that they broke against the library in a soft,
+murmuring wave that could not be heard within.
+
+Why did I stand trembling and irresolute, as if I had no right to
+penetrate that lonely apartment? He was my husband, and a wife's
+agonized solicitude had drawn me to him. If he repulsed me, I could but
+turn away and weep;--and was not my pillow wet with nightly tears?
+
+Softly I turned the key, and the door opened, as if touched by invisible
+hands. He did not hear me,--I know he did not,--for he sat at the upper
+end of the room, on a window seat, leaning back against the drapery of
+the curtain that fell darkly behind him. His face was turned towards the
+window, through whose parted damask the starry night looked in. But
+though his face was partially turned from me, I could see its contour
+and its hue as distinctly as those of the marble busts that surrounded
+him. He looked scarcely less hueless and cold, and his hand, that lay
+embedded in his dark wavy hair, gleamed white and transparent as
+alabaster. I stood just within the door, with suspended breath and
+wildly palpitating heart, praying for courage to break the spell that
+bound me to the spot. All my strength was gone. I felt myself a guilty
+intruder in that scene of self-humiliation, penance, and prayer. Though
+reason condemned his conduct, and mourned over his infatuation, the
+holiness of his purpose shone around him and sanctified him from
+ridicule and contempt. There was something pure, spiritual, almost
+unearthly in his countenance; but suffering and languor cast a shadow
+over it, that appealed to human sympathy.
+
+If he would only move, only turn towards me! The Israelites, at the foot
+of the cloud-girdled mount, whose fiery zone they were forbidden to
+pass, could scarcely have felt more awe and dread than I did, strange
+and weak as it may seem. I moved nearer, still more near, till my shadow
+fell upon him. Then he started and rose to his feet, and looked upon me,
+like one suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.
+
+"Gabriella!" he exclaimed.
+
+Oh! I cannot describe the inexpressible softness, tenderness, and music
+of his accent. It was as if the whole heart were melting into that
+single word. All my preconceived resolutions vanished, all coldness,
+alienation, and constraint. "I had found him whom my soul loved." My
+arms were twined around him,--I was clasped to his bosom with the most
+passionate emotion, and the hearts so violently wrenched asunder once
+more throbbed against each other.
+
+"Ernest, beloved Ernest!"
+
+"Temptress, sorceress!" he suddenly exclaimed, pushing me from him with
+frenzied gesture,--"you have come to destroy my soul,--I have broken my
+solemn vow,--I have incurred the vengeance of Almighty God. Peace was
+flowing over me like a river, but now all the waves and billows of
+passion are gone over me. I sink,--I perish, and you, you,--Gabriella,
+it is you who plunge me in the black abyss of perjury and guilt."
+
+I was terrified at the dark despair that settled on his brow. I feared
+his reason was forsaking him, and that I, in my rashness, had
+accelerated his doom.
+
+"Do not, do not talk so dreadfully, Ernest. Forgive me, if I have done
+wrong in coming. Forgive me, if for one moment I recalled you to the
+tenderness you have so long abjured. But mine is the offence, and mine
+be the sorrow. Do not, I pray you, blame yourself so cruelly for my
+transgression, if it indeed be one. Oh, Ernest, how pale, how wretched
+you look! You are killing yourself and me,--your mother too. We cannot
+live in this state of alienation. The time of your vow is only half
+expired,--only twenty days are past, and they seem twenty years of woe.
+Dear Ernest, you are tempting God by this. One tear of penitence, one
+look of faith, one prayer to Christ for mercy, are worth more than years
+of penance and lonely torture. Revoke this rash vow. Come back to us, my
+Ernest,--come down from the wilderness, leave the desolate places of
+despair, and come where blessings wait you. Your mother waits to bless
+you,--Edith waits you to greet and welcome her Julian,--Margaret, a
+happy bride, waits your friendly congratulations. Come, and disperse by
+your presence the shadow that rests on the household."
+
+"Would you indeed counsel me to break a solemn vow, Gabriella? It may
+have been rash; but it was a vow; and were I to break it, I should feel
+forever dishonored in the sight of God and man."
+
+"Which, think you, had more weight when placed in the scales of eternal
+justice, Herod's rash vow, or the life of the holy prophet sacrificed to
+fulfil it? O Ernest!--wild, impulsive words forced from the lips of
+passion should never be made guides of action. It is wrong, I know, to
+speak unwisely and madly, but doubly, trebly wrong to act so."
+
+As thus I pleaded and reasoned and entreated, I kept my earnest gaze on
+his face, and eagerly watched,--watched with trembling hope and fear the
+effect of my words. I had drawn back from him as far as the width of the
+library, and my hands were clasped together and pressed upon my bosom. I
+did not know that I stood directly beneath the picture of the Italian
+flower-girl, till I saw his glance uplifted from my face to hers, with
+an expression that recalled the morning when he found me gazing on her
+features, in all the glow of youth, love, joy, and hope. Then I
+remembered how he had scattered my rose leaves beneath his feet, and
+what a prophetic sadness had then shaded my spirits.
+
+"Alas! my poor Gabriella," he cried, looking down from the picture to
+me, with an expression of the tenderest compassion; "Alas, my
+flower-girl! how have I wilted your blooming youth! You are pale, my
+girl, and sad,--that bewitching smile no longer parts your glowing lips.
+Would to God I had never crossed your path of roses with my withering
+footsteps! Would to God I had never linked your young, confiding heart
+to mine, so blasted by suspicion, so consumed by jealousy's baleful
+fires! Yet, Heaven knows I meant to make you happy. I meant to watch
+over you as tenderly as the mother over her new-born infant,--as holily
+as the devotee over the shrine of the saint he adores. How faithless I
+have been to this guardianship of love, you know too well. I have been a
+madman, a monster,--you know I have,--worthy of eternal detestation. But
+you have not suffered alone. Remorse--unquenchable fire;
+remorse--undying worm, avenges every pang I have inflicted on you.
+Remorse goaded me to desperation,--desperation prompted the expiatory
+vow. It must be fulfilled, or I shall forfeit my self-respect, my honor,
+and truth. But I shall be better, stronger,--I feel I shall, after
+passing this stern ordeal. It will soon be over, and I have a confidence
+so firm that it has the strength of conviction, that in this lonely
+conflict with the powers of darkness I shall come off conqueror, through
+God's assisting angels."
+
+He spoke with fervor, and his countenance lighted up with enthusiasm.
+Bodily weakness and languor had disappeared, and his transparent cheek
+glowed with the excitement of his feelings.
+
+"If you are really thus supported by divine enthusiasm," I said, with an
+involuntary kindling of admiration, "perhaps I ought to submit in
+silence, where I cannot understand. Forgive me before I leave you,
+Ernest, this rash intrusion. We may forgive even our enemies."
+
+"Forgive, Gabriella! Oh! if you knew the flood of joy and rapture that
+for one moment deluged my soul! I dare not recall it. Forgive, O my
+God!"
+
+He turned away, covered his face with his left hand, and made a
+repelling gesture with the other. I understood the motion, and obeyed
+it.
+
+"Farewell, Ernest," said I, slowly retreating; "may angels minister to
+you and bear up your spirit on their wings of love!"
+
+I looked back, on the threshold, and met his glance then turned towards
+me. Had I been one of the angels I invoked, it could not have been more
+adoring.
+
+And thus we parted; and when I attempted to describe the interview to
+his mother, I wept and sobbed as if I had been paying a visit to his
+grave. And yet I was glad that I had been, glad that I had bridged the
+gulf that separated us, though but momentarily.
+
+Perhaps some may smile at this record. I have no doubt they will, and
+pronounce the character of Ernest unnatural and _impossible_. But in all
+his idiosyncrasy, he is the Ernest Linwood of Grandison Place, just such
+as I have delineated him, just such as I knew and loved. I know that
+there are scenes that have seemed, that will seem, overwrought, and I
+have often been tempted to throw down the pen, regretting the task I
+have undertaken. But, were we permitted to steal behind the scenes of
+many a life drama, what startling discoveries would we make! Reality
+goes beyond the wildest imaginings of romance,--beyond the majestic
+sweep of human genius. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor imagination
+conceived, the wild extent to which the passions of man may go. The
+empire of passion is veiled, and its battle ground is secret Who beheld
+the interview in the library, which I have just described? Who saw him
+kneeling at his mother's feet at the midnight hour? Or who witnessed our
+scenes of agony and reconciliation in the palace walls of our winter
+home? Ah! the world sees only the surface of the great deep of the
+heart. It has never plunged into the innermost main,--never beheld the
+seething and the rolling of the unfathomable mystery:--
+
+    "And where is the diver so stout to go,--
+    I ask ye again--to the deep below?"
+
+Well do I remember the thrilling legend of the roaring whirlpools, the
+golden goblet, and the dauntless diver, and well do I read its meaning.
+
+O Ernest! I have cast the golden goblet of happiness into a maelstrom,
+and he alone, who walked unsinking the waves of Galilee, can bring back
+the lost treasure from the dark and boiling vortex.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+
+Julian was worthy of Edith. His parentage was honorable and pure, his
+connections irreproachable, and his own character noble and unblemished.
+Reason could oppose no obstacle, and the young artist was received into
+the family as the betrothed of the lovely lame girl.
+
+The romantic idea which had suggested itself to my mind, that he might
+be the son of Therésa and my own half-brother, had vanished before the
+testimonies of his birth. Another daydream too. I had always looked
+forward to the hour when Richard would transfer his affections to Edith,
+and be rewarded by her love for his youthful disappointment. But she was
+destined to reign in undivided sovereignty over a heart that had never
+been devoted to another; to be loved with all the fervor of passion and
+all the enthusiasm of genius.
+
+It was the day of social gathering at Dr. Harlowe's; but I remained at
+home. I felt as if I could not be missed from the circle in which Madge,
+in bridal charms, sparkled a ruby gem, and the fairer Edith shone, a
+living pearl. Though scarcely one year a wife, the discipline of my
+wedded experience had so chastened and subdued me, I seemed to myself
+quite a matron, beside those on whom the morning glow of love and hope
+were beaming. Madge and Edith were both older than myself, and yet I had
+begun to live far earlier.
+
+In the later part of the day, Mrs. Linwood, who had also remained at
+home, asked me to accompany her in a ride. She wished to visit several
+who were sick and afflicted, and I always felt it a privilege to be her
+companion.
+
+"Will you object to calling here?" she asked, when we approached the old
+gray cottage, once my mother's home and my own. "There is a sick woman
+here, whom I wish to see. You can walk about the green skirting the
+woods, if you prefer. This enchanting breeze will give new life to your
+body and new brightness to your spirits."
+
+I thanked her for the permission, knowing well the kind regard to my
+feelings which induced her to give it. She knew sad memories must hang
+around the apartments where my mother and the faithful Peggy had
+suffered and died; and that it would be a trial to me to see strangers
+occupying the places so hallowed by association.
+
+Time had been at work on that old cottage, with its noiseless but
+effacing fingers. And its embroidering fingers too, for the roof from
+which many a shingle had fallen, was green with garlands of moss,
+wrought into the damp and mouldering wood with exquisite grace and
+skill. I turned away with a sigh, and beheld infancy by the side of the
+humble ruin, the oriental palace which was my bridal home, and wondered
+at the marvellous changes of life.
+
+I wandered to the welling spring by whose gushing waters I had so often
+sat, indulging the wild poetry of my childish imagination. I gazed
+around, scarcely recognizing the once enchanting spot. A stone had
+literally rolled against the mouth of the fountain, and the crystal
+diamonds no longer sparkled in the basin below. An awkward pump, put up
+near the cabin, explained this appearance of neglect and wildness. The
+soft grassy slope where I used to recline and watch the fountain's
+silvery play, was overgrown with tall, rank, rustling weeds, among which
+I could distinguish the deadly bloom and sickening odor of the
+nightshade. There was a rock covered with the brightest, richest
+covering of dark green moss, on which I seated myself, and gave myself
+up to the memories of the past. Perhaps this was the same rock on which
+Richard Clyde and I had often sat side by side, and watched the shadows
+of twilight purple the valley.
+
+I untied my bonnet and laid it on the long grass, for I was shaded from
+the western sun, and the breeze blew fresh and pure from the hills he
+was about to crown with a right royal diadem. While I thus sat, I heard
+footsteps quick and eager echoing behind, and Richard Clyde bounded down
+the slope and threw himself on the ground at my side.
+
+"Thank heaven," he exclaimed, "I have found you, Gabriella, and found
+you alone!"
+
+His manner was hurried and agitated, his eyes had a wild expression, and
+tossing aside his hat, he wiped thick-coming drops of perspiration from
+his forehead.
+
+His words, and the unusual excitement of his manner, alarmed me.
+
+"What has happened, Richard? Where have you sought me? What tidings have
+you to communicate? Speak, and tell me, for I tremble with fear."
+
+"I am so agitated," he cried, sitting down on the rock at my side, and
+taking one of my hands in his. I started, for his was so icy cold and
+tremulous, and his face was as pale as Ernest's. He looked like one who
+had escaped some terrible danger, and in whose bosom horror and
+gratitude were struggling for mastery.
+
+"Is it of Ernest you have come to tell me?" I asked, with blanched lips.
+
+"No, no, no! I know nothing of him. It is of myself,--of you, I would
+speak. I have just made the most astonishing discovery! Never till now
+have I heard your real name and early history. O! Gabriella you whom I
+have loved so long with such fervor, such passion, such idolatry,--you
+(O righteous God forgive me!) are the daughter of my father,--for
+Therésa La Fontaine was my own mother. Gabriella,--sister,--beloved!"
+
+He clasped me to his bosom; he kissed me again and again, weeping and
+sobbing like a child. In broken words he deplored his sinful passion,
+entreating me to forgive him, to love him as a brother, to cling to him
+as a friend, and feel that there was one who would live to protect, or
+die to defend me. Bewildered and enraptured by this most unthought of
+and astounding discovery, my heart acknowledged its truth and glowed
+with gratitude and joy. Richard, the noble-hearted, gallant Richard, was
+my brother! My soul's desire was satisfied. How I had yearned for a
+brother! and to find him,--and such a brother! Oh I joy unspeakable. Oh!
+how strange,--how passing strange,--how almost passing credulity!
+
+At any moment this discovery would have been welcomed with rapture. But
+now, when the voluntary estrangement of Ernest had thrown my warm
+affections back for the time into my own bosom, to pine for want of
+cherishing, it came like a burst of sunshine after a long and dreary
+darkness,--like the music of gushing waters to the feverish and thirsty
+pilgrim.
+
+My heart was too full for questions, and his for explanations. They
+would come in due time. He was _my brother_,--that was enough. Ernest
+could not be jealous of a brother's love. He would own with pride the
+fraternal bond, and forget the father's crimes in the son's virtues.
+
+It seemed but a moment since Richard had called me sister. Neither of us
+had spoken, for tears choked our words; but our arms were still
+entwined, and my head rested on his bosom, in all the abandonment of
+nature's holiest feelings. All at once I heard a rustling in the grass,
+soft and stealthy like a gliding snake. I raised my head, looked back,
+looked up.
+
+Merciful Father of heaven and earth! did I not then pass the agonies of
+death?
+
+I saw a face,--my God! how dark, how deadly, how terrible it was! I knew
+that face, and my heart was rifted as if by a thunderbolt.
+
+The loud report of a pistol, and a shriek such as never before
+issued from mortal lips, bursting from mine, were simultaneous
+sounds. Richard fell back with a deep groan. Then there seemed a
+rushing sound as the breaking up of the great deep, a heaving and
+tossing like the throes of an earthquake; then a sinking, sinking,
+lower and lower, and then a cloud black as night and heavy as iron
+came lowering and crushing me,--me, and the bleeding Richard. All was
+darkness,--silence,--oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+
+A light, soft and glimmering as morning twilight, floated round me. Was
+it the dawn of an eternal morning, or the lingering radiance of life's
+departing day? Did my spirit animate the motionless body extended on
+that snowy bed, or was it hovering, faint and invisible, above the
+confines of mortality?
+
+I was just awakened to the consciousness of existence,--a dim, vague
+consciousness, such as one feels in a dissolving dream. I seemed
+involved in a white, transparent cloud, and reclining on one of those
+downy-looking cloud-beds that I have seen waiting to receive the sinking
+sun.
+
+While thus I lay, living the dawning life of infancy, the white cloud
+softly rolled on one side, and a figure appeared in the opening, that
+belonged to a previous state of existence. I had seen its mild
+lineaments in another world; but when,--how long ago?
+
+My eyes rested on the features of the lady till they grew more and more
+familiar, but there was a white cloud round her face, that threw a
+mournful shadow over it,--_that_ I had never seen before. Again my
+eyelids closed, and I seemed passing away, where, I knew not; yet
+consciousness remained. I felt soft, trembling kisses breathed upon my
+face, and tears too, mingling with their balm. With a delicious
+perception of tenderness, watchfulness, and love, I sunk into a deep,
+deep sleep.
+
+When I awoke, the silver lustre of an astral lamp, shaded by a screen,
+glimmered in the apartment and quivered like moonbeams in the white
+drapery that curtained the bed. I knew where I was,--I was in my own
+chamber, and the lady who sat by my bedside, and whose profile I beheld
+through the parted folds of the curtains, was Mrs. Linwood. And yet, how
+strange! It must have been years since we had met, for the lovely brown
+of her hair was now a pale silver gray, and age had laid its withering
+hand on her brow. With a faint cry, I ejaculated her name, and attempted
+to raise my head from the pillow, but in vain. I had no power of motion.
+Even the exertion of uttering her name was beyond my strength. She rose,
+bent over me, looked earnestly and long into the eyes uplifted to her
+face, then dropping on her knees and clasping her hands, her spirit went
+upwards in silent prayer.
+
+As thus she knelt, and I gazed on her upturned countenance, shaded by
+that strange, mournful, silver cloud, my thoughts began to shape
+themselves slowly and gradually, as the features of a landscape through
+dissolving mists. They trembled as the foliage trembles in the breeze
+that disperses the vapors. Images of the past gained distinctness of
+outline and coloring, and all at once, like the black hull, broken mast,
+and rent sails of a wrecked vessel, one awful scene rose before me. The
+face, like that of the angel of death, the sound terrible as the
+thunders of doom, the bleeding body that my arms encircled, the
+destroying husband,--the victim brother,--all came back to me;
+life,--memory,--grief,--horror,--all came back.
+
+"Ernest! Richard!" burst in anguish from my feeble lips.
+
+"They live! my child, they live!" said Mrs. Linwood, rising from her
+knees and taking my passive hand in both hers; "but ask nothing now; you
+have been very ill, you are weak as an infant; you must be tranquil,
+patient, and submissive; and grateful, too, to a God of infinite mercy.
+When you are stronger I will talk to you, but not now. You must yield
+yourself to my guidance, in the spirit of an unweaned child."
+
+"They live!" repeated I to myself, "my God, I bless thee! I lie at thy
+footstool. I am willing to die; I long to die. Let the waves of eternity
+roll over my soul."
+
+Husband and brother! they lived, and yet neither came to me on my couch
+of sickness. But Richard! had not I seen him bleeding, insensible, the
+image of death? he lived, yet he might be on the borders of the grave.
+But she had commanded me to be silent, submissive, and grateful; and I
+tried to obey her. My physical weakness was such, it subdued the
+paroxysms of mental agony, and the composing draught which she gave me
+was a blessed Nepenthe, producing oblivion and repose.
+
+The next day I recognized Dr. Harlowe, the excellent and beloved
+physician. When I called him by name, as he stood by the bed, counting
+my languid pulse, the good man turned aside his head to hide the
+womanish tears that moistened his cheeks. Then looking down on me with a
+benignant smile, he said, smoothing my hair on my forehead, as if I were
+a little child--
+
+"Be a good girl; keep quiet; be patient as a lamb, and you will soon be
+well."
+
+"How long have I been ill, Doctor?" I asked. "I am very foolish, I know;
+but it seems as if even you look older than you did."
+
+"Never mind, my dear, how long you have been sick. I mean to have you
+well in a short time. Perhaps I do look a little older, for I have
+forgotten to shave this morning."
+
+While he was speaking, I caught a glimpse of the lawn through a slight
+opening in the window curtain, and I uttered an exclamation of amazement
+and alarm. The trees which I had last beheld clothed in a foliage of
+living green, were covered with the golden tints of autumn; and here and
+there a naked bough, with prophetic desolation, waved its arm across the
+sky.
+
+Where had my spirit been while the waning year had rolled on? Where was
+Ernest? Where was Richard? Why was I forsaken and alone?
+
+These questions quivered on my tongue, and would have utterance.
+
+"Tell me, Doctor,--I cannot live in this dreadful suspense."
+
+He sat down by me, still holding my hand in his, and promised to tell
+me, if I would be calm and passive. He told me that for two months I had
+been in a state of alternate insensibility and delirium, that they had
+despaired of my life, and that they welcomed me as one risen from the
+grave. He told me that Ernest had left home, in consequence of the
+prayers of his mother, till Richard should recover from the effects of
+his wound, which they at first feared would prove fatal; that Richard
+was convalescent, was under the same roof with me, and would see me as
+soon as I could bear the meeting.
+
+"Ernest knows that he is my brother,--he knows that I am innocent," I
+exclaimed, my whole soul trembling on his answer.
+
+"I trust he knows it now," he replied, with a troubled countenance. "His
+mother has written and told him all. We were ignorant ourselves of this,
+you must recollect, till Richard was able to explain it."
+
+"And he went away believing me a wretch!" I cried, in a tone of
+unutterable agony. "He will never, never return!"
+
+"My dear child," replied Dr. Harlowe, in an accent of kind authority,
+"you have no right to murmur; you have been spared the most awful
+infliction a sovereign God could lay upon you,--a brother's life taken
+by a husband's hand. Praise the Almighty day and night, bless Him
+without ceasing, that He has lifted from your bosom this weight of woe.
+Be reconciled to your husband's absence. Mourn not for a separation
+which may prove the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon both. All may
+yet be well. _It will be_, if God wills it; and if He wills it not, my
+dear child, you must then lay your hand on your mouth, and your mouth in
+the dust, and say, 'It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth good in His
+sight.'"
+
+"I know it,--I feel it," I answered, tears raining on my pillow; "but
+let me see my brother. It will do me good."
+
+"By and by," said he; "he is not very strong himself yet. The young
+rascal! if he had only confided to me the secret with which his heart
+was bursting! But there is no use in crying over burnt bread. We must
+keep it out of the fire next time."
+
+The entrance of Edith checked this conversation, and it was well. She
+came with her usual gentle motion, and fair, pitying countenance, and
+diffused around her an atmosphere of divine repose. My brain, relieved
+of the dreadful tension of suspense, throbbed soft and cool beneath the
+snow of her loving fingers. She, too, was pale and wan, but she smiled
+upon me with glistening eyes, and whispered words of sweetest
+consolation.
+
+It was not till after the lapse of several days that I was permitted to
+see Richard, and then the doctor said he deserved a good whipping for
+insisting on coming. He came into the room leaning on the arm of Dr.
+Harlowe, and supported on the other side by Mrs. Linwood. He looked like
+the shadow of his former self,--so white, so thin and languid, and his
+countenance showed as plainly as words could speak, that he was struck
+with the same sad change in me.
+
+"Now no heroics, no scene," said the doctor; "say how do you do, and
+shake hands, but not one bit of sentiment,--I forbid that entirely."
+
+"My sister, my dear sister!" said Richard, bending down and kissing my
+forehead. He reeled as he lifted his head, and would have fallen had not
+Dr. Harlowe's strong arm supported him.
+
+I longed to embrace him with all a sister's fondness, and pour out on
+his bosom all my sorrow and my love; but the doctor was imperative, and
+made him recline in an easy-chair by the bedside, threatening him with
+instant dismission if he were not perfectly quiet and obedient. I saw
+Richard start and shudder, as his eyes rested on my left arm, which hung
+over the counterpane. The sleeve of my loose robe had slipped up, baring
+the arm below the elbow. The start, the shudder, the look of anguish,
+made me involuntarily raise it, and then I saw a scar, as of a recently
+healed wound just below the elbow. I understood it all. The ball that
+had penetrated his back, had passed through my arm, and thus prevented
+it from reaching the citadel of life. That feeble arm had been his
+safeguard and his shield; it had intercepted the bolt of death; it had
+barricaded, as it were, the gates of hell.
+
+Mrs. Linwood, who was standing by me, stooped down, kissed the scar, and
+drew the sleeve gently over it. As she bowed her head, and I saw the
+silver shadow on her late dark, brown hair, I felt how intense must have
+been the suffering that wrought this wondrous change,--and I resolved to
+bear unmurmuring my own sorrows, rather than add a feather's weight to
+her burden of woe.
+
+I remembered how the queenly locks of Marie Antoinette were whitened in
+one night of agony. Perhaps my own dark tresses were crowned by
+premature snow. I had not seen myself since the green of summer had
+passed into the "sere and yellow leaf," and perhaps the blight of my
+heart was visible on my brow. When I was alone with Edith, I surprised
+her by asking if my hair were not white. She smiled, and bringing a
+toilet glass, held it before me. What was my astonishment to see my hair
+curling in short waves round my face, like the locks of childhood! And
+such a face,--so white, so colorless. I hardly recognized myself, and
+pushing back the glass, I burst into tears.
+
+"Dear Gabriella!" said Edith, quite distressed, "I am sorry they cut off
+your beautiful hair. But the doctor said it must be done. It does not
+spoil you, though. You do not know how sweetly childish it makes you
+look."
+
+"I care not for the looks, Edith; it is not that. But it is so dreadful
+to think of so many changes, and I unconscious of all. Such a long,
+dreary blank! Where was my soul wandering? What fearful scenes may
+hereafter dawn on my memory? Beauty! No, Edith; think not I weep for the
+cloud that has passed over it. The only eyes in which I desired to
+appear lovely, will never behold me more."
+
+"You will not be the only sufferer, Gabriella," said Edith, mournfully.
+"A dreadful blow has fallen upon us all; but for our mother's sake, if
+not for a greater, we must endeavor to submit."
+
+"Tell me, Edith, what I dare not ask of her, tell me where _he_ is gone,
+and tell me the particulars of those first dark hours when my soul was
+in such awful eclipse. I _must_ know; and when once told, I shall be
+resigned, whatever be my fate."
+
+Edith seated herself on the side of the bed, and leaned back so that I
+could not look in her face. Then putting her arms round me, she drew me
+towards her, and made me rest against her shoulder.
+
+"If you grieve to listen, think how painful it is for me to relate,"
+said she.
+
+"I will," I answered; "I shall have strength to hear whatever you have
+fortitude to tell."
+
+"You must not ask a minute description of what will always be involved
+in my remembrance in a horror of thick darkness. I know not how I got
+home from Dr. Harlowe's, where the tidings reached me. My mother brought
+you in the carriage, supported in her arms; and when I first saw you,
+you were lying just where you are now, perfectly insensible. Richard was
+carried to Dr. Harlowe's on a litter, and it was _then_ feared he might
+not live."
+
+Edith's voice faltered.
+
+"It was after sunset. The saloon was dark, and all was gloom and
+confusion in the household. Mamma and I were standing by your bed, with
+our backs to the door, when we heard a hoarse, low voice behind us,
+saying,--
+
+"'Is she dead?'
+
+"We turned, and beheld Ernest right in the door way, looking more like a
+spectre than a human being.
+
+"'No, no,' answered my mother; and almost running to meet him, she
+seized him by the arm, drew him into the chamber, and closed the door.
+He struggled to be released; but she seemed to have the strength of
+numbers in her single grasp.
+
+"'She is not dead,' said she, pointing to the bed, 'though she hears,
+sees, knows nothing; but Richard will die, and you will be arrested as a
+murderer. You must not linger here one moment. Go, and save yourself
+from the consequences of this fatal act. Go, if you would not see me,
+your mother, die in agony at your feet."
+
+"Oh! Gabriella, had you seen her then, her who has such sublime
+self-control, prostrate at his feet, wringing her hands and entreating
+him to fly before it was too late, you would not wonder that the morning
+sun shone on her silver hair.
+
+"'I will not fly the death for which I groan,' cried Ernest. 'Had I ten
+thousand lives, I would loathe and curse them all.'
+
+"'Parricide, parricide,' exclaimed my mother, 'wo, wo be to him who
+spurns a kneeling mother's prayer.'
+
+"'Oh! my mother,' cried he, endeavoring to raise her from the ground,
+while he shook as if with ague shiverings. 'I do not spurn you; but why
+should I live, with a brand blacker than Cain's on my heart and
+soul,--crushed, smitten, dishonored, and undone?'
+
+"'Forbear, my son. This blighted form is sacred as it is spotless. Has
+not blood quenched your maniac passion?'
+
+"The eyes of Ernest flashed with lurid fire.
+
+"'Locked in each other's arms they fell,' he muttered through his shut
+teeth, 'heart to heart, mother. I saw them, and God, who will judge me,
+saw them. No, she is _false, false, false_,--_false_ as the lost angels
+who fell from paradise into the burning pit of doom.'
+
+"But what am I doing, Gabriella? I did not mean to repeat this. I had
+become so excited by the remembrance of that terrible scene, I knew not
+what I was saying. You cannot bear it. I must not go on. What would my
+mother, what would Dr. Harlowe say, if they knew of this?"
+
+I entreated her to continue. I told her that nothing she had said was
+half so dreadful as my imagination had depicted, that I grew strong with
+my need of strength.
+
+"And you and your mother believed him," I said, with astonishing
+calmness; "you knew not that Richard was my brother."
+
+"Had it not been for your wounded arm," replied Edith, laying her hand
+gently on the scar, "we should have supposed he was under a strong
+delusion to believe a lie. Appearances were against you, and your
+condemnation was my brother's palliation, if not acquittal. My mother
+continued her supplications, mingled with tears and sighs that seemed to
+rend the life from her bosom; and I, Gabriella, do you think _I_ was
+silent and passive? I, who would willingly have laid down my life for
+his? We prevailed,--he yielded,--he left us in the darkness of
+night,--the darkness of despair. It is more than two months since, and
+we have received no tidings of the wanderer. My mother urged him to go
+to New York and remain till he heard the fate of Richard. She has
+written to him there, again and again, but as yet has received no
+answer."
+
+"And he went without one farewell look of her whom he deemed so
+vile,--so lost?" said I, pressing Edith's hand against my cold and
+sinking heart.
+
+"No, Gabriella. His last act was to kneel by your side, and pray God to
+forgive you both. Twice he went to the door, then coming back he bent
+over you as if he would clasp you in his arms; then with a wild
+ejaculation he turned away. Never saw I such anguish in the human
+countenance."
+
+"I have but one question more to ask," said I, after a long pause, whose
+dreariness was that which follows the falling of the clods in the grave
+hollow. "How did Ernest know that Richard was with me, when we left him
+alone in the library?"
+
+"Dr. Harlowe accidentally alluded to your father's history before
+Richard, who, you recollect, was in foreign lands during the excitement
+it caused, and had never heard the circumstances. As soon as he heard
+the name of St. James, I saw him start, and turn to the doctor with a
+flushed and eager countenance. Then he drew him one side, and they
+conversed together some time in a low undertone; and Richard's face, red
+one moment and white the next, flashed with strange and shifting
+emotions. At the time when your father's name obtained such unhappy
+notoriety, and yours through him, in the public papers, my mother
+confided to Dr. Harlowe, who was greatly troubled on your account, the
+particulars of your mother's life. She thought it due to your mother's
+memory, and his steady friendship. I know not how much he told Richard,
+whose manner evidently surprised him, but we all noticed that he was
+greatly agitated; and then he abruptly took leave. He came immediately
+here, and inquired for you, asked where you were gone, and hurried away
+as if on an errand of life and death. Ernest, who was passing along the
+winding gallery, heard him, and followed."
+
+Another dreary pause. Then I remembered Julian, and the love-light that
+had illumined them both that memorable evening. Edith had not once
+alluded to her own clouded hopes. She seemed to have forgotten herself
+in her mother's griefs and mine.
+
+"And Julian, my beloved Edith? There is a future for you, a happy one,
+is there not?"
+
+"I do not expect happiness," she answered, with a sigh; "but Julian's
+love will gild the gloom of sorrow, and be the rainbow of my clouded
+days. He will return in the winter, and then perhaps he will not leave
+me again. I cannot quit my mother; but he can take a son's place in her
+desolated home. No garlands of roses will twine round my bridal hours,
+for they are all withered, all but the rose of Sharon, Gabriella, whose
+sacred bloom can never fade away. It is the only flower worth
+cherishing,--the only one without thorns, and without blight."
+
+Softly withdrawing her supporting arms, she suffered me to sink back on
+the pillow, gave me a reviving cordial, drew the curtains, and taking up
+a book, seemed absorbed in its contents. I closed my eyes and appeared
+to sleep, that she might not suppose her narration had banished repose.
+I had anticipated all she uttered; but the certainty of desolation is
+different to the agonies of suspense. I could have borne the separation
+from Ernest; but that he should believe me the false, guilty wretch I
+had seemed to be, inflicted pangs sharper than the vulture's beak or the
+arrow's barb. If he had left the country, as there was every reason to
+suppose he had, with this conviction, he never would return; and the
+loneliness and dreariness of a widowhood more sad than that which death
+creates, would settle down darkly and heavily on my young life.
+
+I did not blame him for the rash deed he had wrought, for it was a
+madman's act. When I recalled the circumstances, I did not wonder at the
+frantic passion that dyed his hand in blood; and yet I could not blame
+myself. Had I shrunk from a brother's embrace, I should have been either
+more or less than woman. I had yielded to a divine impulse, and could
+appeal to nature and Heaven for justification.
+
+But I had sinned. I had broken the canons of the living God, and
+deserved a fearful chastisement. I had made unto myself an idol, and no
+pagan idolater ever worshipped at his unhallowed shrine with more blind
+devotion. I had been true to Ernest, but false to my Maker, the one
+great and _jealous_ God. I had lived but for one object, and that object
+was withdrawn, leaving all creation a blank.
+
+I stood upon the lonely strand, the cold waves beating against my feet,
+and the bleak winds piercing through my unsheltered heart. I stretched
+out my arms to the wild waste of waters, in whose billows my life-boat
+was whelmed, and I called, but there was none to answer. I cried for
+help, but none came. Then I looked up to heaven, and high above the
+darkness of the tempest and the gloom of the deep, one star shining in
+solitary glory arrested my despairing gaze. I had seen it before with
+the eye of faith, but never beaming with such holy lustre as now, when
+all other lights were withdrawn.
+
+    "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
+      Dawn on my darkness, and lend me thine aid.
+    Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
+      Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."
+
+Why, tender and pitying Saviour, do we wait for the night time of sorrow
+to fathom the depths of thy love and compassion? Why must every fountain
+of earthly joy be dried up, before we bow to taste the waters of Kedron;
+and every blossom of love be withered, before we follow thee to the
+garden of Gethsemane?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+
+Though the circumstance of discovering a brother in the lover of my
+youth seems more like romance than reality, nothing could be more simple
+and natural than the explanation of the mystery. His recollection did
+not go back to the period recorded in my mother's manuscript, when he
+was brought as a lawful heir to the home in which my early infancy was
+sheltered. His first remembrances were associated with a mother's sorrow
+and loneliness,--with an humble dwelling in one of the by-lanes of the
+city of New York, where she toiled with her needle for their daily
+bread.
+
+"I remember," said Richard, "how I used to sit on a low stool at my
+mother's feet, and watch her, as she wrought in muslin the most
+beautiful flowers and devices, with a skill and rapidity which seemed
+miraculous to me. Young as I was, I used to wonder that any one could
+look so sad, while producing such charming figures. Once, I recollect,
+the needle resisted her efforts to draw it through the muslin. She threw
+it from her, and taking another from the needle-case met with no better
+success.
+
+"'_Oh! mon Dieu!_' she cried, dropping her work in her lap and clasping
+her hands, 'my tears rust them.'
+
+"'And why do you let so many fall, mother?' I asked. 'Where do they all
+come from?'
+
+"'From a breaking heart,' she answered, and I never forgot her looks or
+her words. The breaking heart became an image in my mind, almost as
+distinct as the rusted steel. For a long time I was afraid to jump or
+bound about the room, lest the fracture in my mother's heart should be
+made wider, and more tears come gushing through.
+
+"But she did not always weep. She taught me to read, while she toiled
+with her needle, and she told me tales of the genii and of fairy-land,
+at twilight hour, or as she used to say, '_entre le loup et le chien_,'
+in her own expressive, idiomatic language. She told me, too, stories
+from the Bible, before I was able to read them, of Isaac bound on the
+sacrificial pyre, with his father kneeling by him, ready to plunge the
+knife in his young heart, when the angels called to him out of heaven to
+stay his uplifted hand; of Joseph's wondrous history, from his coat of
+many colors, fatal cause of fraternal jealousy, to the royal robes and
+golden chain with which Pharaoh invested him; of David, the
+shepherd-boy, the minstrel monarch, the conqueror of Philistia's giant
+chief. It was thus she employed the dim hours between the setting sun
+and the rising stars; but the moment she lighted her lonely lamp she
+again plied her busy needle, though alas! too often rusted with her
+tears.
+
+"Thus my early childhood passed,--and every day my heart twined more
+closely round my mother's heart, and I began to form great plans of
+future achievements to be wrought for her. I would be a second Joseph
+and go to some distant land and win fame, and honors, and wealth, and
+send for her that I might lay them all at her feet. She would not, at
+first, recognize her boy in the purple and fine linen of his sumptuous
+attire; but I would fall on her neck, and lift up my voice and weep
+aloud, and then she would know her child. A mother's tears, Gabriella,
+nurture great aspirations in a child.
+
+"I used to accompany her to the shop when she carried home her work. It
+was there she first met the gentleman whose name I bear. Their
+acquaintance commenced through me, to whom he seemed peculiarly
+attracted, and he won my admiring gratitude by the gifts he lavished
+upon me. He came often to see my mother, and though at first she shrunk
+from his visits, she gradually came to welcome him as a friend and a
+benefactor.
+
+"One evening, I think I was about eight or nine years old, she took me
+in her arms, and told me, with many tears, that Mr. Clyde, the good and
+kind gentleman whom I loved so much, had offered to be a father to me,
+and was going to take us both to a pleasant home in the country, where I
+could run about in the green fields, and be free as the birds of the
+air. She told me that perhaps my own father was living, but that he had
+left her so long their union was annulled by law, and that she had a
+right to marry another, and that she did so that I might have a father
+and protector. She explained this simply, so that I understood it all,
+and I understood too why she wished me to drop my own name and take that
+of her future husband. It was associated with so much sorrow and wrong,
+it was painful to her ear, and Mr. Clyde wished me to adopt his own. He
+was a good and honorable man, and I cherish his memory with reverence
+and gratitude. If the fissure in my mother's heart was not healed, it
+closed, and tears no longer dripped through.
+
+"Our country home was pleasant and comfortable, and I revelled in the
+delights of nature, with all the wild passion of a bird let loose from
+the imprisoning cage. I went to school,--I was in the world of
+action,--the energies of incipient manhood awoke and struggled in my
+bosom. We remained about two years in this rural residence, situated in
+the western part of New York, when Mr. Clyde was called to attend a
+dying father, who lived in this town, Gabriella, not very far from the
+little cottage in the woods where I first knew you. He took my mother
+and myself with him, for she was in feeble health, and he thought the
+journey would invigorate her. It did not. A child of sunny France, she
+languished under the bleaker New England skies. She was never able to
+return; and he who came to bury a father, soon laid a beloved wife by
+the side of the aged. My heart went down to the grave with her, and it
+was long before its resurrection. My step-father was completely crushed
+by the blow, for he loved her as such a woman deserved to be loved, and
+mourned as few mourn. He remained with his aged mother in the old
+homestead, which she refused to leave, and I was placed in the academy
+under the charge of Mr. Regulus, where I first knew and loved you, my
+own sister, my darling, beloved Gabriella."
+
+If I had loved Richard before, how much more did I love him now, after
+hearing his simple and affecting history, so similar to my own. As I had
+never loved him otherwise than as a brother, the revelation which had
+caused such a terrible revulsion in his feelings was a sacred sanction
+to mine. His nerves still vibrated from the shock, and he could not
+pronounce the word sister without a tremulousness of voice which
+betrayed internal agitation.
+
+He had but little more to relate. His step-father was dead, and as there
+was found to be a heavy mortgage on his estate, he was left with a
+moderate income, sufficient to give him an education and a start in
+life. His expenses in Europe had been defrayed by some liberal
+gentlemen, who still considered themselves the guardians of his
+reputation and his fortunes.
+
+It was painful to me to tell the story of our father's crimes, of which
+he had heard but a slight outline. When I described our interview in the
+Park, he knit his brows over his flashing eyes, and his whole frame
+quivered with emotion.
+
+"My poor sister! what a dreadful scene for you. What have you not
+suffered! but you shall never know another sorrow from which I can
+shield you, another wrong from which I can defend."
+
+"O Richard! when I think of him in his lonely dungeon, alone with
+remorse and horror; when I think of my mother's dying injunctions, I
+feel as if I must go to him, and fulfil the holy mission she bade me
+perform. Read her manuscript; you have a right to its contents, though
+they will rend your heart to peruse them; take it with you to your own
+room, when you go, for I cannot look on and see you read words that have
+been driven like burning arrows through my soul."
+
+When I again met Richard, I could see in his bloodshot eyes what
+thoughts were bleeding within.
+
+"My mother left me the same awful legacy," said he. "She left her
+forgiveness, if he lived; oblivion of all her wrongs, if dead. Oh! what
+bolt of vengeance is red enough for the wretch who could destroy the
+happiness of two such women as your mother and mine! All-righteous
+Providence, may thy retributive fires--"
+
+"Stop! stop!" I cried, throwing my arms round him, and arresting his
+fearful words, "he is our father, you must not curse him. By our
+mothers' ashes, by their angels, now perhaps hovering over us, forbear,
+my brother, forbear."
+
+"God help me," he exclaimed, his lips turning to an ashy paleness, "I
+did not know what I was about to say; but is it not enough to drive one
+mad, to think of the fountain of one's life being polluted, poisoned,
+and accursed?"
+
+"One drop of the Saviour's blood can cleanse and make it pure, my
+brother, if he were only led to the foot of the cross."
+
+Richard's countenance changed; a crimson flush swept over his face, and
+then left it colorless.
+
+"My hand is not worthy to lead him there," he cried, "and if it were, I
+fear there is no mercy for so hardened, so inveterate a transgressor."
+
+"There _is_, Richard, there _is_. Let the expiring thief bear witness to
+a Saviour's illimitable love. Oh! it is sinful to set bounds to God's
+immeasurable mercy. Let us go together, my brother. My mother's dream
+may yet be realized. Who knows but our weak, filial hands, may lift our
+unhappy father from the black abyss of sin and impenitence, Almighty God
+assisting us? If heavenly blessings are promised to him who turns a soul
+from the error of his ways, think, Richard, how divine the joy, if it be
+an erring parent's soul, thus reclaimed and brought home to God? Let us
+go, as soon as we have strength to commence the journey. I cannot remain
+here, where every thing reminds me of my blighted hopes and ruined
+happiness. It seems so like a grave, Richard."
+
+"I wonder you do not hate. I wonder you do not curse me," exclaimed he,
+with sudden vehemence, "for it is my rashness that has wrought this
+desolation. Dearly have you purchased a most unworthy brother. Would I
+had never claimed you, Gabriella; never rolled down such a dark cloud on
+your heart and home."
+
+"Say not so, my beloved brother. The cloud was on my heart already, and
+you have scarcely made it darker or more chilling. I feel as if I had
+been living amid the thunderstorms of tropic regions, where even in
+sunshine electric fires are flashing. Before this shock came, my soul
+was sick and weary of the conflicts of wild and warring passions. Oh!
+you know not how often I have sighed for a brother's heart to lean upon,
+even when wedded joys were brightest,--how much more must I prize the
+blessing now! Surely never brother and sister had more to bind them to
+each other, than you and I, Richard. Suffering and sorrow, life's
+holiest sacraments, have hallowed and strengthened the ties of nature."
+
+It was not long before we were able to ride abroad with Mrs. Linwood and
+Edith, and it was astonishing how rapidly we advanced in restoration to
+health. I could perceive that we were objects of intense interest and
+curiosity, from the keen and eager glances that greeted us on every
+side; for the fearful tragedy of which I had been the heroine, had cast
+a shadow over the town and its surroundings. Its rumor had swept beyond
+the blue hills, and Grandison Place was looked upon as the theatre of a
+dark and bloody drama. This was all natural. Seldom is the history of
+every-day life marked by events as romantic and thrilling as those
+compressed in my brief experience of eighteen years. And of all the
+deep, vehement passions, whose exhibition excites the popular mind,
+there is none that takes such strong hold as jealousy, the terrible
+hydra of the human heart.
+
+I believe I was generally beloved, and that a deep feeling of sympathy
+for my misfortunes pervaded the community, for I had never been elated
+by prosperity; but Ernest, whose exclusiveness and reserve was deemed
+haughtiness, was far from being popular. Mrs. Linwood was revered by
+all, and blessed as the benefactress of the poor and the comforter of
+the afflicted; but she was lifted by fortune above the social level of
+the community, and few, very few were on terms of intimacy with the
+inmates of the Granite Castle, as Grandison Place was often called. Its
+massy stone walls, its turreted roof, sweeping lawn, and elevated
+position, seemed emblematic of the aristocracy of its owners; and though
+the blessings of the lower classes, and the respect and reverence of the
+higher, rested upon it, there was a mediocral one, such as is found in
+every community, that looked with envy on those, whose characters they
+could not appreciate, because they were lifted so high above their own
+level.
+
+I have spoken of Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Regulus as the most valued friends
+of the family; but there was one whom it would be ungrateful in me to
+omit, and whose pure and sacred traits came forth in the dark hours
+through which I had just passed, like those worlds of light which _are
+never seen by day_. I allude to Mr. Somerville, the pastor of the
+parish, and who might truly be called a man of God. The aged minister,
+who had presided over the church during my mother's life, had been
+gathered to his fathers, and his name was treasured, a golden sheaf, in
+the garner of memory. The successor, who had to walk in the holy
+footprints he had left in the valley, was obliged to take heed to his
+steps and to shake the dust of earth from his sandals as he went along.
+In our day of sunshine he had stood somewhat aloof, for he felt his
+mission was to the poor and lowly, to the sons and daughters of want and
+affliction; but as soon as sickness and sorrow darkened the household,
+he came with lips distilling balm, and hands ready to pour oil on the
+bruised and wounded heart.
+
+Methinks I see him now, as when he knelt by my bedside, after I aroused
+from my long and deadly trance. No outward graces adorned his person,
+but the beauty of holiness was on his brow, and its low, sweet music in
+his somewhat feeble accents. It seemed to me as if an angel were
+pleading for me, and my soul, emerging as it were from the cold waves of
+oblivion, thrilled with new-born life. Had my spirit been nearer to God
+during its unconscious wanderings, and brought back with it impressions
+of celestial glory never conceived before? I know not; but I know that a
+change had passed over it, and that I felt the reality of that eternity,
+which had seemed before a grand and ever-receding shadow.
+
+Every day, during Richard's illness and mine, came our good and beloved
+pastor, and he always left a track of light behind him. I always felt
+nearer heaven when he departed than when he came, for its kingdom was
+within him.
+
+To him I confided my wish to accompany my brother on his filial mission,
+and he warmly approved it.
+
+"As surely as I believe the Lord has put it into your heart to go," said
+he, "do I believe that a blessing will follow you."
+
+Mrs. Linwood was more tardy in her sanction.
+
+"My dear child," she said, looking at me with the tenderest compassion,
+"you do not know what is before you. What will you do in that great city
+without female friendship and sympathy? You and Richard, both so young
+and inexperienced in the ways of the world. I will not, however, put any
+obstacle in his path, for man may go unshrinking where woman may not
+tread. But you, my Gabriella, must remain with me."
+
+"Here, where the phantom of Ernest haunts my every step, where the echo
+of his voice is heard in every gale, and the shadow of departed joy
+comes between me and the sunshine of heaven? What can I do here but
+remind you by my presence of him, whom I have banished for ever from
+your arms? Let me go, my own dear mother, for I cannot remain passive
+here. I shall not want female sympathy and guardianship, for Mrs. Brahan
+is all that is kind and tender, and knows enough of my sad history to be
+entitled to unbounded confidence. I will write to her, and be guided by
+her, as if she were another Mrs. Linwood."
+
+She yielded at last, and so did Dr. Harlowe, who cheered me by his
+cordial approval. He said it was the best thing I could do for myself;
+for change of scene, and a strong motive of action, might save me from
+becoming a confirmed invalid. Edith wept, but made no opposition. She
+believed I was in the path of duty, and that it would be made smooth
+beneath my feet.
+
+No tidings from Ernest came to interrupt the dreary blank of his
+absence,--the same continuity of anxiety and uncertainty stretching on
+into a hopeless futurity. Again and again I said to myself--
+
+"Better so a thousand times, than to live as I have done, scathed by the
+lightning of jealousy. Even if he returned, I could not, with the fear
+of God now before me, renew our unblest wedlock. The hand of violence
+has sundered us, and my heart fibres must ever bleed from the wrench,
+but they will not again intwine. He has torn himself ruthlessly from me;
+and the shattered vine, rent from its stay, is beginning to cling to the
+pillars of God's temple. It is for _him_ I pray, for _him_ I mourn,
+rather than myself. It is for his happiness, rather than my own
+justification, that I desire him to know the history of my innocence. I
+am willing to drink the cup of humiliation even to the dregs, if it may
+not pass from me; but spare him, O Heavenly Father, the bitter, bitter
+chalice."
+
+It was a bleak morning in early winter, that we commenced our journey to
+that city, where little more than a year ago I had gone a young and
+happy bride. As we rode along the winding avenue, I looked out on the
+dry russet lawn, the majestic skeleton of the great elm, stripped of the
+foliage and hues of life, and saw the naked branches of the oaks
+clinging to each other in sad fraternity, and heard the wind whistling
+through them as through the shrouds of a vessel. With an involuntary
+shiver I drew nearer to Richard, and hid my face from the prophetic
+desolation of nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+
+On our arrival in New York, we stopped at the ---- hotel till private
+lodgings could be obtained. We both wished to be as retired as possible
+from public observation, and for this purpose I remained in my room,
+where Richard, as my brother, had the privilege of visiting me. I was
+anxious he should go immediately to Mr. Brahan's; for, added to my
+desire to be under the influence of her feminine regard, I cherished a
+faint hope that through him I might learn something of Ernest's
+mysterious exile.
+
+They both returned with Richard; and while Mr. Brahan remained with him
+below, she came to my chamber, and welcomed me with a warmth and
+tenderness that melted, while it cheered.
+
+"You must not stay here one hour longer," said she, pressing one hand in
+hers, while she laid the other caressingly on my short, curling hair.
+"You must go with me, and feel as much at home as with your own Mrs.
+Linwood. I pass a great many lonely hours, while my husband is absent
+engaged in business; and it will be a personal favor to me. Indeed, you
+must not refuse."
+
+I said something about leaving my brother, while I expressed my
+gratitude for her kindness.
+
+"Mr. Brahan will arrange that," she said; "you may be assured he shall
+be cared for. You have not unpacked your trunk; and here is your bonnet
+and mantilla ready to be resumed. You did not think I would suffer you
+to remain among strangers, when my heart has been yearning to meet you
+for weary months?"
+
+With gentle earnestness she overcame all my scruples; and it was but a
+little time before I found myself established as a guest in the house
+where I first beheld the light of existence. How strange it seemed, that
+the children of the two betrayed and injured beings who had been made
+exiles from that roof, should be received beneath its shelter after the
+lapse of so many years!
+
+Mrs. Brahan accompanied me to the chamber prepared for my reception; and
+had I been her own daughter she could not have lavished upon me more
+affectionate cares. The picture of my mother, which I had returned when
+we left the city, was hanging on the wall; and the eyes and lips of
+heavenly sweetness seemed to welcome her sad descendant to the home of
+her infancy. As I stood gazing upon it with mingled grief and adoration,
+Mrs. Brahan encircled me with her arm, and told me she understood now
+the history of that picture, and the mystery of its wonderful
+resemblance to me. I had not seen her since the notoriety my name had
+acquired, in consequence of the diamonds and my father's arrest; and she
+knew me now as the daughter of that unhappy man. Did she know the
+circumstances of the discovery of my brother, and my husband's flight? I
+dared not ask; but I read so much sympathy and compassion in her
+countenance, and so much tenderness in her manners, I thought she had
+fathomed the depth of my sorrows.
+
+"You look like a girl of fifteen," she said, passing her fingers through
+my carelessly waving locks. "Your hair was very beautiful, but I can
+scarcely regret its loss."
+
+"I may look more juvenile,--I believe I do, for every one tells me so;
+but the youth and bloom of my heart are gone for ever."
+
+"For ever from the lips of the young, and from those more advanced in
+life, mean very different things," answered Mrs. Brahan. "I have no
+doubt you have happier hours in store, and you will look back to these
+as morning shadows melting off in the brightening sunshine."
+
+"Do you know all that has happened, dear Mrs. Brahan, since I left your
+city?"
+
+"The rumor of the distressing circumstances which attended the discovery
+of your brother reached us even here, and our hearts bled for you. But
+all will yet be well. The terrible shock you have sustained will be a
+death blow to the passion that has caused you so much misery. Forgive
+me, if I make painful allusions; but I cannot suffer you to sink into
+the gloom of despondency."
+
+"I try to look upward. I do think the hopes which have no home on earth,
+have found rest in heaven."
+
+"But why, my dear young friend, do you close your heart to earthly hope?
+Surely, when your husband returns, you may anticipate a joyful reunion."
+
+"When he returns! Alas! his will be a life-long exile. Believing what he
+does, he will never, never return."
+
+"But you have written and explained every thing?"
+
+"How can I write,--when I know not where to direct, when I know not to
+what region he has wandered, or what resting-place he has found?"
+
+"But Mr. Harland!" said she, with a look of troubled surprise. "You
+might learn through him?"
+
+"Mrs. Linwood has written repeatedly to Mr. Harland, and received no
+answer. She concluded that he had left the city, but knew not how to
+ascertain his address."
+
+"Then you did not know that he had gone to India? I thought,--I
+believed,--is it possible that you are not aware"--
+
+"Of what?" I exclaimed, catching hold of her arm, for my brain reeled
+and my sight darkened.
+
+"That Mr. Linwood accompanied him," she answered, turning pale at the
+agitation her words excited. To India! that distant, deadly clime! To
+India, without one farewell, one parting token to her whom he left
+apparently on the brink of the grave!
+
+By the unutterable anguish of that moment, I knew the delusion that had
+veiled my motives. I had thought it was only to reclaim a lost parent
+that I had come, but I found it was the hope of meeting the deluded
+wanderer, more than filial piety, that had urged my departure.
+
+"To India!" I cried, and my spirit felt the tossings of the wild billows
+that lay rolling between. "Then we are indeed parted,--parted for ever!"
+
+"Why, t'is but a step from ocean to ocean, from clime to clime," she
+said in kind, assuring accents. "Men think nothing of such a voyage, for
+science has furnished wings which bear them over space with the speed of
+an eagle. If you knew not his destination, I should think you would
+rejoice rather than mourn, to be relieved of the torture of suspense.
+Had I known that you were ignorant of the fact, I should have written
+months ago."
+
+"Is it certain that he is gone?" I asked. "Did you see him? Did Mr.
+Brahan? How did you learn, what we have vainly sought to know?"
+
+"Mr. Brahan had business with Mr. Harland, and having neglected some
+important items, followed him on board the ship in which he embarked. It
+was at night, and he remained but a short time; but he caught a glimpse
+of your husband, whom he immediately recognized, but who gave him no
+opportunity of speaking to him. Knowing he was a friend of Mr.
+Harland's, he supposed he had come on board to bid him farewell, though
+he was not aware of his being in the city. When we heard the rumor of
+the tragic scenes in which he acted so dread a part, and connected it
+with the time of Mr. Harland's departure, Mr. Brahan recalled Mr.
+Linwood's unexpected appearance in the ship, and the mystery was
+explained. But we dreamed not that his departure was unknown to you. If
+you had only written to us!"
+
+It was strange that I had never thought of the possibility of their
+knowing any thing connected with Ernest. Mr. Harland was the only
+gentleman with whom he was on terms of intimacy, the only one to whom we
+thought of applying in the extremity of anxiety.
+
+"Has the ship been heard from? What was its name?" I asked, unconscious
+of the folly of my first question.
+
+"Not yet. It was called the 'Star of the East.' A beautiful and
+hope-inspiring name. Mr. Brahan can give you Mr. Harland's address. You
+can write to your husband through him. Every thing is as clear as
+noonday. Do you not already inhale the fragrance of the opening flowers
+of joy?"
+
+I tried to smile, but I fear it was a woful attempt. Even the scent of
+the roses had been crushed out of my heart.
+
+"Your brother is an exceedingly interesting young man," she observed,
+perceiving that I could not speak without painful agitation of Ernest.
+"I have never seen a stranger who won my regard so instantaneously."
+
+"Dear Richard!" I cried, "he is all that he seems, and far more. The
+noblest, kindest, and best. How sad that such a cloud darkens his young
+manhood!"
+
+"It will serve as a background to his filial virtues and bring them out
+in bright and beautiful relief. I admire, I honor him a thousand times
+more than if he were the heir of an unspotted name, a glorious ancestry.
+A father's crimes cannot reflect shame on a son so pure and upright.
+Besides, he bears another name, and the world knows not his clouded
+lineage."
+
+My heart warmed at her generous praises of Richard, who was every day
+more and more endeared to my affections. Where was he now? Had he
+commenced his mission, and gone to the gloomy cell where his father was
+imprisoned? He did not wish me to accompany him the first time. What a
+meeting it must be! He had never consciously beheld his father. The
+father had no knowledge of his deserted son. In the dungeon's gloom, the
+living grave of hope, joy, and fame, the recognition would take place.
+With what feelings would the poor, blasted criminal behold the noble
+boy, on whom he had never bestowed one parental care, coming like an
+angel, if not to unbar his prison doors, to unlock for him the golden
+gates of heaven!
+
+I was too weary for my journey, too much exhausted from agitation to
+wait for Richard's return, but I could not lay my head on the pillow
+before writing to Mrs. Linwood and Edith, and telling them the tidings I
+had learned of the beloved exile. And now the first stormy emotions had
+subsided, gratitude, deep and holy gratitude, triumphed over every other
+feeling. Far, far away as he was, he was with a friend; he was in all
+human probability safe, and he could learn in time how deeply he had
+wronged me.
+
+Often, on bended knees, with weeping eyes and rending sighs had I
+breathed this prayer,--"Only let him know that I am still worthy of his
+love, and I am willing to resign it,--let me be justified in his sight,
+and I am willing to devote my future life to _Thee_."
+
+The path was opening, the way clearing, and my faith and resignation
+about to be proved. I recognized the divine arrangement of Providence in
+the apparently accidental circumstances of my life, and my soul
+vindicated the justice as well as adored the mercy of the Most High.
+
+A voice seemed whispering in my ear, "O thou afflicted and tossed with
+tempests! there is a haven where thy weary bark shall find rest. I, who
+once bore the burden of life, know its sorrows and temptations, its
+wormwood and its gall. I bore the infirmities of man, that I might pity
+and forgive; I bore the crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear the
+roses of Paradise; I drained the dregs of human agony, that thou
+mightest drink the wine of immortality. Is not my love passing the love
+of man, and worth the sacrifice of earth's fleeting joys?"
+
+As the heavenly accents seemed to die away, like a strain of sweet, low
+harmony, came murmuring the holy refrain--
+
+    "Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
+    Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+
+Richard had visited the Tombs, but had not seen his father. The sight,
+the air, the ponderous gloom of the awful prison-house, was as much as
+he had fortitude to bear; and though he had at first thought preferred
+meeting him in the shadows of night, he recoiled from its additional
+horrors.
+
+Poor fellow! I felt heart-sick for him. On one side the memory of his
+mother's wrongs,--on the other, his father's sufferings and disgrace. I
+knew by my own bitter experience the conflict he was enduring.
+
+"After we have once met," he said, "the bitterest pang will be over."
+
+When he returned, I was shocked at the suffering his countenance
+expressed. I sat down by him in silence, and took his hand in mine, for
+I saw that his heart was full.
+
+"I cannot take you _there_, Gabriella," were the first words he uttered.
+"If my nerves are all unstrung, how will yours sustain the shock? He
+told me not to bring you, that your presence would only aggravate his
+sufferings."
+
+"Did I not come to share your duties, Richard? and will it not be easier
+to go hand in hand, though we do tread a thorny path? I have heard of
+women who devote their whole lives to visiting the dungeons of the
+doomed, and pouring oil and balm into the wounds of penitence and
+remorse; women who know nothing of the prisoner, but that he is a sinful
+and suffering son of Adam,--angels of compassion, following with lowly
+hearts the footsteps of their divine Master. O my brother, think me not
+so weak and selfish. I will convince you that I have fortitude, though
+you believe it not. Dr. Harlowe thinks I have a great deal. But,
+Richard, is it too painful to speak of the interview you so much
+dreaded? Does _he_ look more wretched than you feared?"
+
+"Look, Gabriella! Oh, he is a wreck, a melancholy wreck of a once noble
+man. Worn, haggard, gloomy, and despairing, he is the very
+personification of a sin-blasted being, a lost, ruined spirit. I had
+prepared myself for something mournful and degraded, but not for such a
+sight as this. O what an awful thing it is to give oneself up to the
+dominion of evil, till one seems to live, and move, and have their being
+in it! How awful to be consumed by slow, baleful fires, till nothing but
+smouldering ashes and smoking cinders are left! My God! Gabriella, I
+never realized before what _accursed_ meant."
+
+He started up, and walked up and down the room, just as Ernest used to
+do, unable to control the vehemence of his emotions.
+
+"Father!" he exclaimed, "how I could have loved, revered, adored my
+father, had he been what my youthful heart has so panted to embrace. I
+loved my mother,--Heaven knows I did; but there always seemed majesty as
+well as beauty in the name of father, and I longed to reverence, as well
+as to love. Mr. Clyde was a good man, and I honored him; he was my
+benefactor, and I was grateful to him,--but he wanted the intellectual
+grandeur, to which my soul longed to pay homage. I was always forming an
+image in my own mind of what a father should be,--pure, upright, and
+commanding,--a being to whom I could look up as to an earthly divinity,
+who could satisfy the wants of my venerating nature."
+
+"It is thus I have done," I cried, struck by the peculiar sympathy of
+our feelings. "In the dreams of my childhood, a vague but glorious form
+reigned with the sovereignty of a king and the sanctity of a
+high-priest, and imagination offered daily incense at its throne. Never,
+till I read my mother's history, was the illusion dispelled. But how did
+he welcome you, Richard? Surely he was glad and proud to find a son in
+you."
+
+"He is no longer capable of pride or joy. He is burnt out, as it were.
+But he did at last show some emotion, when made to believe that I was
+the son of Therésa." His hand trembled, and his hard, sunken eye
+momentarily softened. "Did you come here to mock and upbraid me?" he
+cried, concealing his sensibility under a kind of fierce sullenness.
+"What wrong have I done you? I deserted you, it is true, but I saved you
+from the influence of my accursed example, which might have dragged you
+to the burning jaws of hell. Go, and leave me to my doom. Leave me in
+the living grave my own unhallowed hands have dug. I want no sympathy,
+no companionship,--and least of all, yours. Every time I look on you, I
+feel as if coals of fire were eating in my heart."
+
+"Remorse, Richard," I exclaimed, "remorse! Oh! he feels. Our
+ministrations will not be in vain. Did you tell him that I was with you,
+that I came to comfort and to do him good?"
+
+"I did; but he bade me tell you, that if he wanted comfort, it could not
+come through you,--that he would far rather his tortures were increased
+than diminished, that he might, he said, become inured to sufferings,
+which would continue as long as Almighty vengeance could inflict and
+immortality endure. My dear sister, I ought not to repeat such things,
+but the words ring in my ears like a funeral knell."
+
+"Let us not speak of him any more at present," he added, reseating
+himself at my side, and he took my hand and pressed it on his throbbing
+temples. "There is sweetness in a sister's sympathy, balm in her gentle
+touch."
+
+Mrs. Brahan, who had considerately left us alone, soon entered, saying
+it was luncheon time, and that a glass of wine would do us all good. Mr.
+Brahan followed her, whose intelligent and animated conversation drew
+our minds from the subjects that engrossed our thoughts. It was well for
+me that I had an opportunity of becoming so intimately acquainted with a
+married pair like Mr. and Mrs. Brahan. It convinced me that the most
+perfect confidence was compatible with the fondest love, and that the
+purest happiness earth is capable of imparting, is found in the union of
+two constant, trusting hearts.
+
+"We have been married seventeen years," said Mrs. Brahan, in a glow of
+grateful affection, "and I have never seen a cloud of distrust on my
+husband's brow. We have had cares,--as who has not,--but they have only
+made us more dear to each, other, by calling forth mutual tenderness and
+sympathy. Ours was not one of those romantic attachments which partake
+of the wildness of insanity, but a serene, steady flame, that burns
+brighter and brighter as life rolls on."
+
+She spoke out of the abundance of her heart, without meaning to contrast
+her own bright lot with mine, but I could not help envying her this
+unclouded sunshine of love. I tried to rejoice with her, without sighing
+for my own darker destiny; but there is an alloy of selfishness in the
+purest gold of our natures. At least, there is in mine.
+
+There was another happy pair,--Mr. Regulus and his wild Madge. A letter
+from her, forwarded by Mrs. Linwood soon after our arrival in New York,
+breathed, in her own characteristic language, the most perfect felicity,
+mingled with heart-felt sympathy and affection. Their bridal hours were
+saddened by my misfortunes; and they were compelled to leave me when I
+was unconscious of their departure. Margaret was delighted with every
+thing around and about her,--the place, the people, and most of all her
+husband; though, in imitation of the Swedish wife, she called him her
+bear, her buffalo, and mastadon. The exuberant energies of her
+character, that had been rioting in all their native wildness, had now a
+noble framework to grasp round, and would in time form a beautiful
+domestic bower, beneath whose shade all household joys and graces would
+bloom and multiply.
+
+I have anticipated the reception of this letter, but I feared I might
+forget to mention it. It is delightful to see a fine character gradually
+wrought out of seemingly rough and unpromising elements. It is beautiful
+to witness the triumph of pure, disinterested affection in the heart of
+woman. It is sweet to know that the angel of wedded love scatters
+thornless flowers in some happy homes,--that there are some thresholds
+not sprinkled by blood, but guarded by confidence, which the _destroying
+demon_ of the household is not permitted to pass over.
+
+I do not like to turn back to myself, lest they who follow me should
+find the path too shadowy and thorny. But is it not said that they who
+go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall come again rejoicing,
+bending under the weight of golden sheaves?
+
+I wrote to Ernest for the first time, for we had never been parted
+before. Again and again I commenced, and threw down the pen in despair.
+My heart seemed locked, closed as with Bastile bars. What words of mine
+could pierce through the cloud of infamy in which his remembrance
+wrapped me? He would not believe my strange, improbable tale. He would
+cast it from him as a device of the evil spirit, and brand me with a
+deeper curse. No! if he was so willing to cast me off, to leave me so
+coldly and cruelly, without one farewell line, one wish to know whether
+I were living or dead, let him be. Why should I intrude my vindication
+on him, when he cared not to hear it? He had no right to believe me
+guilty. Had a winged spirit from another sphere come and told me that
+_he_ was false, I would have spurned the accusation, and clung to him
+more closely and more confidingly.
+
+"But you knew his infirmity," whispered accusing conscience, "even
+before you loved him; and have you not seen him writhing at your feet in
+agonies of remorse, for the indulgence of passions more torturing to
+himself than to you! It is you who have driven him from country and
+home, innocently, it is true, but he is not less a wanderer and an
+exile. Write and tell him the simple, holy truth, then folding your
+hands meekly over your heart, leave the result to the disposal of the
+God of futurity."
+
+Then words came like water rushing through breaking ice. They came
+without effort or volition, and I knew not what they were till I saw
+them looking at me from the paper, like my own image reflected in a
+glass. Had I been writing a page for the book of God's remembrance, it
+could not have been more nakedly true. I do believe there is inspiration
+now given to the spirit in the extremity of its need, and that we often
+speak and write as if moved by the Holy Ghost, and language comes to us
+in a Pentecostal shower, burning with heaven's fire, and tongues of
+flame are put in our mouth, and our spirits move as with the wings of a
+mighty wind.
+
+I recollect the closing sentence of the letter. I knew it contained my
+fate; and yet I felt that I had not the power to change it.
+
+"Come back to your country, your mother, and Edith. I do not bid you
+come back to me, for it seems that the distance that separates us is too
+immeasurable to be overcome. I remember telling you, when the midnight
+moon was shining upon us in the solitude of our chamber, that I saw as
+in a vision a frightful abyss opening between us, and I stood on one icy
+brink and you on the other, and I saw you receding further and further
+from me, and my arms vainly sought to reach over the cold chasm, and my
+own voice came back to me in mournful echoes. That vision is realized.
+Our hearts can never again meet till that gulf is closed, and confidence
+firm as a rock makes a bridge for our souls.
+
+"I have loved you as man never should be loved, and that love can never
+pass away. But from the deathlike trance in which you left me, my spirit
+has risen with holier views of life and its duties. An union, so
+desolated by storms of passion as ours has been, must be sinful and
+unhallowed in the sight of God. It has been severed by the hand of
+violence, and never, with my consent, will be renewed, unless we can
+make a new covenant, to which the bow of heaven's peace shall be an
+everlasting sign; till passion shall be exalted by esteem, love
+sustained by confidence, and religion pure and undefiled be the
+sovereign principle of our lives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+
+The Tombs!--shall I ever forget my first visit to that dismal abode of
+crime, woe, and despair?--never!
+
+I had nerved myself for the trial, and went with the spirit of a martyr,
+though with blanched cheek and faltering step, into the heart of that
+frowning pile, on which I could never gaze without shuddering.
+
+Clinging to the arm of Richard, I felt myself borne along through cold
+and dreary walls, that seemed to my startled ear echoing with sighs and
+groans and curses, upward through dark galleries, and passed ponderous
+iron doors that reminded me of Milton's description of the gates of
+hell, till the prison officer who preceded us paused before one of those
+grim portals, and inserting a massy key, a heavy grating sound scraped
+and lacerated my ear.
+
+"Wait one moment," I gasped, leaning almost powerless on the shoulder of
+Richard.
+
+"I feared so," said he, passing his arm around me, his eyes expressing
+the most intense sensibility. "I knew you could not bear it. Let us
+return,--I was wrong to permit your coming in the first place."
+
+"No, no,--I am able to go in now,--the shock is over,--I am quite strong
+now."
+
+And raising my head, I drew a quick, painful breath, passed through the
+iron door into the narrow cell, where the gloom of eternal twilight
+darkly hung.
+
+At first I could not distinguish the objects within, for a mist was over
+my sight, which deepened the shadows of the dungeon walls. But as my eye
+became accustomed to the dimness, I saw a tall, emaciated figure rising
+from the bed, which nearly filled the limited space which inclosed us. A
+narrow aperture in the deep, massy stone, admitted all the light which
+illumined us after the iron door slowly closed.
+
+The dark, sunken eyes of the prisoner gleamed like the flash of an
+expiring taper, wild and fitful, on our entering forms. He was
+dreadfully altered,--I should scarcely have recognized him through the
+gloomy shade of his long-neglected hair, and thick, unshorn beard.
+
+"Father," said Richard, trying to speak in a cheerful tone, "I have
+brought you a comforter. A daughter's presence must be more soothing
+than a son's."
+
+I held out my hand as Richard spoke, and he took it as if it were
+marble. No tenderness softened his countenance,--he rather seemed to
+recoil from me than to welcome. I noticed a great difference in his
+reception of Richard. He grasped his hand, and perused his features as
+if he could not withdraw his gaze.
+
+"Are you indeed my son?" he asked, in an unsteady tone. "Do you not mock
+me? Tell me once more, are you Therésa's child?"
+
+"As surely as I believe her an angel in heaven, I am."
+
+"Yes,--yes, you have her brow and smile; but why have you come to me
+again, when I commanded you to stay away? And why have you brought this
+pale girl here, when she loathes me as an incarnate fiend?"
+
+"No,--no," I exclaimed, sinking down on the foot of the bed, in
+hopelessness of spirit, "I pity, forgive, pray for you, weep for you."
+
+"I want neither pity, forgiveness, nor prayers," he sullenly answered.
+"I want nothing but freedom, and that you cannot give. Go back to your
+husband, and tell him I curse him for the riches that tempted me, and
+you for the jewels that betrayed. You might have given me gold instead
+of diamonds, and then I would have been safe from the hell-hounds of
+law. Curse on the sordid fear"--
+
+"Stop," cried Richard, seizing the arm he had raised in imprecation, and
+fixing on him an eye of stem command. "You shall not wound her ears with
+such foul blasphemy. Utter another word of reproach to her, and I will
+leave you for ever to the doom you merit. Is this the return you make
+for her filial devotion? Betrayer of her mother, robber of her husband,
+coward as well as villain, how dare you blast her with your impious
+curse?"
+
+Richard forgot at that moment he was speaking to a father, in the
+intensity of his indignation and scorn. His eye burned, his lip
+quivered, he looked as if he could have hurled him against the granite
+walls.
+
+St. James quailed and writhed out of his grasp. His face turned the hue
+of ashes, and he staggered back like a drunken man.
+
+"I did not mean to curse her," he cried. "I am mad half the time, and
+know not what I say. Who would not be mad, cut off from communion with
+their kind, in such a den as this, with fiends whispering, and devils
+tempting, and know that it is not for a day, a week, a month, nor even a
+year; but for ten long years! And what will life be then, supposing I
+drag out its hated length through imprisonment, and horror, and despair?
+What is it now? A worn shred, a shivelled scroll, a blasted remnant of
+humanity!"
+
+He sat down again on the side of the bed, and leaning forward, bent his
+face downward and buried it in his hands. Groans, that seemed to tear
+his breast as they forced their passage, burst spasmodically from his
+lips. Oh! if that travailing soul, travailing in sin and sorrow, would
+cast itself on the bosom of Divine Mercy, would prostrate itself at the
+foot of the cross, till the scarlet dye of crime was washed white in a
+Saviour's blood! What were ten years of imprisonment and anguish, to
+eternal ages burning with the unquenchable fires of remorse!
+
+"O father!" I cried, moved by an irresistible impulse, and approaching
+him with trembling steps, "these prison walls may become the house of
+God, the gate of heaven, dark and dismal as they are. The Saviour will
+come and dwell with you, if you only look up to him in penitence and
+faith; and he will make them blissful with his presence. He went into
+the den of lions. He walked through the fiery furnace. He can rend these
+iron doors and give you the glorious liberty of the children of God. If
+I could only speak as I feel, if I only knew how to convince and
+persuade;--but alas! my tongue is weak, my words are cold. Richard will
+you not help me?"
+
+"If he will not listen to you, Gabriella, he would not be persuaded
+though an angel spoke."
+
+"Why do you care about my soul?" asked the prisoner, lifting his head
+from his knees, and rolling his bloodshot eyes upon me.
+
+"Because you are my father," I answered,--overcoming my trepidation, and
+speaking with fervor and energy,--"because my mother prayed for you, and
+my Saviour died for you."
+
+"Your mother!" he exclaimed; "who was she, that she should pray for me?"
+
+"My mother!" I repeated, fearing his mind was becoming unsettled; "if
+you have forgotten her, I do not wish to recall her."
+
+"I remember now,--her name was Rosalie," he said, and a strange
+expression passed over his countenance. "I was thinking of my poor
+Therésa."
+
+He looked at Richard as he spoke, and something like parental tenderness
+softened his features. Degraded as he was, unworthy as it seemed he must
+ever have been of woman's love, I could not help a pang of exquisite
+pain at the thought of my mother's being forgotten, while Therésa was
+remembered with apparent tenderness. When I met him in the Park, he
+expressed exceeding love for me for her sake,--he spoke of her as the
+beloved of his youth, as the being whose loss had driven him to
+desperation and made him the wretch and outcast he was. And now, no
+chord of remembrance vibrated at her name, no ray of fondness for her
+child played upon the sacrifice I was offering. It was a sordid
+deception then,--his pretended tenderness,--to gain access to my
+husband's gold; and I turned, heart-sick and loathing away. As I did so,
+I caught a glimpse of a book that looked like the Bible on a little
+table, between the bed and the wall. With an involuntary motion I
+reached forward and opened it.
+
+"I am so glad," I cried, looking at Richard. "I wanted to bring one; but
+I thought I would ask permission."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed St. James, with a ghastly smile, "we all have Bibles, I
+believe. Like the priest's blessing, they cost nothing."
+
+"But you read it, father!" said Richard, anxiously. "You cannot fail to
+find light and comfort in it. You cannot be altogether lonely with such
+a companion."
+
+"What is the use of reading what one cannot understand?" cried he, in a
+gloomy tone. "Your mother was a Catholic. She did not read the Bible,
+and if there is a heaven above, it was made for such as she."
+
+"My mother _did_ read her Bible," answered Richard, with solemnity. "She
+taught me to read it, making a table of her knees, while her hands
+toiled for our subsistence. It was a lamp to her path, a balm to her
+sorrows. She lived according to its precepts. She died, believing in its
+promises."
+
+The glistening eyes of Richard seemed to magnetize his father, so
+earnest, so steadfast was his gaze.
+
+"Have you _her_ Bible?" he asked, in a husky voice.
+
+"I have; it was her dying gift."
+
+"Bring it, and read to me the chapters she loved best. Perhaps--who
+knows? Great God! I was once a praying child at my mother's knee."
+
+Richard grasped his father's hand with a strong emotion,
+
+"I will bring it, father. We will read it together, and her spirit will
+breathe into our hearts. The pages are marked by her pencil, blistered
+by her tears."
+
+"Yes, bring it!" he repeated. "Who knows? Just heaven!--who knows?"
+
+Who, indeed, did know what influence that book, embalmed in such sacred
+memories, might have on the sinner's blasted heart? The fierceness and
+sullenness that had repelled and terrified me on our first entrance had
+passed away, and sensibility roused from an awful paralysis, started at
+the ruins it beheld. There was hope, since he could feel. Richard's
+filial mission might not be in vain. But _mine_ was. I realized this
+before I left the cell, and resolved to yield to him the task which I
+had hoped to share. I could not help feeling grieved and disappointed,
+not so much on my own account, as for the indifference manifested to my
+mother's memory,--that mother who had loved him, even to her dying hour.
+
+My heart hardened against him; but when I rose to go, and looked round
+on the narrow and dismal tomb in which he was inclosed, and then on his
+hollow cheek and wasted frame, and thought in all human probability
+those walls would prove his grave, it melted with the tenderest
+compassion.
+
+"Is there any thing I can do for your comfort?" I asked, trying in vain
+to keep back the rushing tears. "Can I send you any thing to do you
+good? If you wish to see me again, tell Richard, and I will come; but I
+do not wish to be in the way. He, I see, can do every thing I could do,
+and far more. I thought a daughter could draw so near a father's heart!"
+
+I stopped, choked with emotion which seemed contagious, for Richard
+turned aside and took up his handkerchief, which had dropped upon the
+bed. St. James was agitated. He gave the hand which I extended a
+spasmodic pressure, and looked from me to Richard, and then back again,
+with a peculiar, hesitating expression.
+
+"Forgive me," said he, in a gentler accent than I had yet heard him use,
+"my harsh, fierce words; as I told you, it was a demon's utterance, not
+mine. You would have saved me, I know you would. I made you unhappy, and
+plunged into perdition myself. No, you had better not come again. You
+are too lovely, too tender for this grim place. My boy will come; and
+you, you, my child, may pray for me, if you do not think it mockery to
+ask God to pardon a wretch like me."
+
+I looked in his face, inexpressibly affected by the unexpected
+gentleness of his words and manner. Surely the spirit of God was
+beginning to move over the stagnant waters of sin and despair. I was
+about to leave him,--the lonely,--the doomed. I, too, was lonely and
+doomed.
+
+"Father!" I cried, and with an impulse of pity and anguish I threw my
+arms round him and wept as if my heart was breaking; "I would willingly
+wear out my life in prayer for you, but O, pray for yourself. One prayer
+from your heart would be worth ten thousand of mine."
+
+I thought not of the haggard form I was embracing; I thought of the
+immortal soul that inhabited it; and it seemed a sacred ruin. He clasped
+me convulsively to him one moment, then suddenly withdrawing his arms,
+he pushed me towards Richard,--not harshly, but as if bidding him take
+care of me; and throwing himself on the bed, he turned his face
+downward, so that his long black hair covered it from sight.
+
+"Let us go," said Richard, in a low voice; "we had better leave him
+now."
+
+As we were passing very softly out of the cell, he raised his head
+partially, and calling to Richard, said,--
+
+"Come back, my son, to-morrow. I have something to tell you. I ought to
+do it now, while you are both here, but to-morrow will do; and don't
+forget your mother's Bible."
+
+Again we traversed the stone galleries, the dismal stairs, and our
+footsteps left behind us a cold, sepulchral sound. Neither of us spoke,
+for a kind of funeral silence solemnized our hearts. I looked at one of
+the figures that were gliding along the upper galleries, though there
+were many of them,--prisoners, who being condemned for lighter offences
+than murder or forgery, were allowed to walk under the eye of a keeper.
+I was conscious of passing them, but they only seemed to deepen the
+gloom, like ravens and bats flapping their wings in a deserted tower.
+
+As we came into the light of day, which, struggling through massy ridges
+of darkness, burst between the grand and gloomy columns that supported
+the fabric, I felt as if a great stone were rolling from my breast I
+raised the veil, which I had drawn closely over my face, to inhale the
+air that flowed from the world without I was coming out of darkness into
+light, out of imprisonment into freedom, sunshine, and the breath of
+heaven.
+
+There were men traversing the vestibule in many directions; and Richard
+hurried me on, that I might escape the gaze of curiosity or the stare of
+impertinence. Against one of the pillars which we passed, a gentleman
+was standing, whose figure was so striking as to attract my abstracted
+eye. I had seen him before. I knew him instantaneously, though I had
+only had a passing glimpse of him the morning we left the Falls. It was
+the gentleman who had accosted Julian, and who had stamped himself so
+indelibly on my memory. And now, as I came nearer, I was struck by a
+resemblance in his air and features to our unhappy father. It is true
+there was the kind of difference there is between a fallen spirit and an
+angel of light; for the expression of the stranger's face was noble and
+dignified, as if conscious that he still wore undefaced the image of his
+Maker. He lifted his hat as we passed, with that graceful courtesy which
+marks the gentleman, and I again noticed that the dark waves of his hair
+were mingled with snow. It reminded me of those wreaths of frost I had
+seen hanging from the evergreens of Grandison Place.
+
+The singularity of the place, the earnestness of his gaze, and the
+extraordinary attraction I felt towards him, brought the warm, bright
+color to my cheeks, and I instinctively dropped the veil which I had
+raised a moment before. As we entered the carriage, which had been kept
+in waiting, the horses, high-spirited and impatient, threatened to break
+loose from the driver's control,--when the stranger, coming rapidly
+forward, stood at their heads till their transient rebellion was over.
+It was but an instant; for as Richard leaned from the carriage window to
+thank him, the horses dashed forward, and I only caught one more glimpse
+of his fine, though pensive features.
+
+"Richard, did you not perceive a resemblance to our father in this
+gentleman, noble and distinguished as he appears? I was struck with it
+at the first glance."
+
+"Yes, there is a likeness; but not greater than we very often see
+strangers bearing to each other. My father must once have been a fine
+looking man, though now so sad a wreck. A life of sinful indulgence,
+followed by remorse and retribution, leaves terrible scars on the face
+as well as the soul."
+
+"But how strange it is, that we are sometimes so drawn towards
+strangers, as by a loadstone's power! I saw this gentleman once before,
+at the Falls of Niagara, and I felt the same sudden attraction that I do
+now. I may never see him again. It is not probable that I ever shall;
+but it will be impossible for me to forget him. I feel as if he must
+have some influence on my destiny; and such a confidence in his noble
+qualities, that if I were in danger I would appeal to him for
+protection, and in sorrow, for sympathy and consolation. You smile,
+Richard. I dare say it all sounds foolish to you, but it is even so."
+
+"Not foolish, but romantic, my own darling sister. I like such
+sentiments. I like any thing better than the stereotyped thoughts of the
+world. You have a right to be romantic, Gabriella, for your life has
+been one of strange and thrilling interest."
+
+"Yes; strange indeed!" I answered, while my soul rolled back on the
+billows of the past, wondering at the storms that heaved them so high,
+when life to many seemed smooth as a sea of glass. Then I thought how
+sweet the haven of eternal repose must be to the wave-worn mariner; how
+much sweeter to one who had had a tempestuous voyage, than one who had
+been floating on a tranquil current; and the closing verse of an old
+hymn came melodiously to my recollection:--
+
+    "There will I bathe my weary soul
+      In seas of endless rest,
+    And not a wave of trouble roll
+      Across my peaceful breast."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+
+What a contrast did the large, airy, pleasant nursery room of Mrs.
+Brahan present, to the narrow cell I had so lately quitted! I
+accompanied her there after dinner, while Richard, anxious to follow up
+the impression he had made, returned to the prison, taking with him his
+mother's Bible. I had hardly thought of the communication which he said
+he wished to make, till I saw Richard depart. Then it recurred to me;
+but it did not seem possible that it could interest or affect me much,
+though it might my brother.
+
+I have not spoken of Mrs. Brahan's children, because I have had so much
+to say of others; but she had children, and very lovely ones, who were
+the crowning blessings of her home. Her eldest were at school, but there
+were three inmates of the nursery, from five to ten years of age,
+adorned with the sweetest charms of childhood, brightness, purity, and
+bloom. She called them playfully her three little graces; and I never
+admired her so much, as when she made herself a child in their midst,
+and participated in their innocent amusements. After supper they were
+brought into the parlor to be companions of their father one hour, which
+he devoted exclusively to their instruction and recreation; but after
+dinner Mrs. Brahan took the place of the nurse, or rather governess, and
+I felt it a privilege to be with her, it made me feel so entirely at
+home, and the presence of childhood freshened and enlivened the spirits.
+It seemed as if fairy fingers were scattering rose-leaves on my heart.
+Was it possible that these young, innocent creatures would ever become
+hardened by worldliness, polluted by sin, or saddened by sorrow? And yet
+the doomed dweller of the Tombs had said that morning, "that he was once
+a praying child at his mother's knee!" How would that mother have felt,
+if, when his innocent hands were folded on her lap and his cherub lips
+repeated words which perhaps angels interpreted, she could have looked
+into future years, and beheld the condemned and blasted being in whose
+withering veins her own lifeblood was flowing?
+
+While I was reclining on the children's bed and the youngest little girl
+was playing with my ringlets, as short and childish as her own, I was
+told a gentleman was in the parlor, who inquired for me.
+
+"Cannot I excuse myself?" I asked of Mrs. Brahan. "I did not wish any
+one to know that I was in the city. I did not wish to meet any of my
+former acquaintances."
+
+Then it suddenly flashed into my mind, that it might be some one who
+brought tidings of Ernest, some one who had met the "Star of the East,"
+on his homeward voyage. There was nothing wild in the idea, and when I
+mentioned it to Mrs. Brahan, she said it was possible, and that I had
+better go down. Supposing it was a messenger of evil! I felt as if I had
+borne all I could bear, and live. Then all at once I thought of the
+stranger whom I had seen in the vestibule of the prison, and I was sure
+it was he. But who was he, and why had he come? I was obliged to stop at
+the door, to command my agitation, so nervous had I been made by the
+shock from which I had not yet recovered. My cheeks burned, but my hands
+were cold as ice.
+
+Yes, it was he. The moment I opened the door, I recognized him, the
+stately stranger of the Tombs. He was standing in front of the beautiful
+painting of the fortress, and his face was from me. But he turned at my
+entrance, and advanced eagerly to meet me. He was excessively pale, and
+varying emotions swept over his countenance, like clouds drifted by a
+stormy wind. Taking both my hands in his, he drew me towards him, with a
+movement I had no power to resist, and looked in my face with eyes in
+which every passion of the soul seemed concentrated, but in which joy
+like a sun-ray shone triumphant.
+
+Even before he opened his arms and clasped me to his bosom, I felt an
+invisible power drawing me to his heart, and telling me I had a right to
+be there.
+
+"Gabriella! child of my Rosalie! my own lost darling!" he exclaimed, in
+broken accents, folding me closer and closer in his arms, as if fearing
+I would vanish from his embrace. "Gracious God! I thank thee,--Heavenly
+Father! I bless thee for this hour. After long years of mourning, and
+bereavement, and loneliness, to find a treasure so dear, to feel a joy
+so holy! Oh, my God, what shall I render unto Thee for all thy
+benefits!"
+
+Then he bowed his head on my neck, and I felt hot tears gushing from his
+eyes, and sobs, like the deep, passionate sobs of childhood, convulsing
+his breast.
+
+Yes, he _was_ my father. I knew it,--I felt it, as if the voice of God
+had spoken from the clouds of heaven to proclaim it. He was my father,
+the beloved of my angelic mother, and he had never wronged her, never.
+He had not been the deceiver, but the deceived. Without a word of
+explanation I believed this, for it was written as if in sunbeams on his
+noble brow. The dreams of my childhood were all embodied in him; and
+overpowered by reverence, love, gratitude, and joy, I slid from his
+arms, and on bended knees and with clasped hands, looked up in his face
+and repeated again and again the sacred name of "Father."
+
+It is impossible to describe such bewildering, such intense emotions.
+Seldom, except in dreams, are they felt, when the spirit seems free from
+the fetters of earth. Even when I found myself sitting by his side,
+still encircled in his arms and leaning on his heart, I could scarcely
+convince myself that the scene was real.
+
+"And Richard, my brother!" I cried, beginning to feel bewildered at the
+mysteries that were to be unravelled; "joy is not perfect till he shares
+it with me."
+
+"Will it make you unhappy, my darling Gabriella, to know that Richard is
+your cousin, instead of your brother?"
+
+I pressed my hands on my forehead, for it ached with the quick,
+lightning-like thoughts that flashed through my brain.
+
+"And he, the inmate of yon dismal cell?" I exclaimed, anticipating, as
+if by intuition, the reply,--
+
+"Is my brother, my twin brother, whom in youth our mother could not
+distinguish from myself. This fatal resemblance has caused all my woe.
+Therésa la Fontaine was _his_ wife and Richard is _his_ son, not mine."
+
+How simple, how natural, all this seemed! Why had not my mother dreamed
+of the possibility of such a thing! Knowing the existence of this
+brother, why had she not at once found in him the solution of the dark
+problem, which was the enigma as well as anguish of her life?
+
+"My unhappy brother!" said he, while a dark shade rested on his brow;
+"little did I think, when I visited his dungeon this morning, of the
+revelation he would make! I have been an exile and a wanderer many
+years, or I might perhaps have learned sooner what a blessing Heaven has
+been guarding for my sad and lonely heart. I saw you as you passed out
+of the prison, and your resemblance to my beloved Rosalie struck me, as
+an electric shock."
+
+"And yours to him whom I believed my father, had the same effect on me.
+How strange it was, that then I felt as if I would give worlds to call
+_you_ father, instead of the wretched being I had just quitted."
+
+"Then you are willing to acknowledge me, my beloved, my lovely
+daughter," said he, pressing a father's kiss on my forehead, from which
+his hand fondly put back the clustering locks. "My daughter! let me
+repeat the name. My daughter! how sweet, how holy it sounds! Had _she_
+lived, or had she only known before she died, the constancy and purity
+of my love; but forgive me, thou Almighty chastener of man's erring
+heart! I dare not murmur. She knows all this now. She has given me her
+divine forgiveness."
+
+"She left it with me, father, to give you; not only her forgiveness, but
+her undying love, and her dying blessing."
+
+Withdrawing the arm with which he still embraced me, he bowed his face
+on his hands, and I hardly dared to breathe lest I should disturb the
+sacredness of his emotions. "She knows all this now." My heart repeated
+the words. Methought the wings of her spirit were hovering round
+us,--her husband and her child,--whom the hand of God had brought
+together after years of alienation and sorrow. And other thoughts
+pressed down upon me. By and by, when we were all united in that world,
+where we should know even as we are known, Ernest would read my heart,
+by the light of eternity, and then he would know how I loved him. There
+would be no more suspicion, or jealousy, or estrangement, but perfect
+love and perfect joy would absorb the memory of sorrow.
+
+"And you are married, my Gabriella?" were the first words my father
+said, when he again turned towards me. "How difficult to realize; and
+you looking so very young. Young as you really are, you cheat the eye of
+several years of youth!"
+
+"I was very ill, and when I woke to consciousness, I found myself shorn
+of the glory of womanhood,--my long hair."
+
+"You are so like my Rosalie. Your face, your eyes, your smile; and I
+feel that you have her pure and loving heart. Heaven preserve it from
+the blight that fell on hers!"
+
+The smile faded from my lip, and a quick sigh that I could not repress
+saddened its expression. The eyes of my father were bent anxiously on
+me.
+
+"I long to see the husband of my child," said he. "Is he not with you?"
+
+"No, my father, he is far away. Do not speak of him now, I can only
+think of you."
+
+"If he is faithless to a charge so dear," exclaimed St. James, with a
+kindling glance.
+
+"Nay, father; but I have so much to tell, so much to hear, my brain is
+dizzy with the thought. You shall have all my confidence, believe me you
+shall; and oh, how sweet it is to think that I have a father's breast to
+lean upon, a father's arms to shelter me, though the storms of life may
+blow cold and dreary round me,--and such a father!--after feeling such
+anguish and shame from my supposed parentage. Poor Richard! how I pity
+him!"
+
+"You love him, then? Believing him your brother, you have loved him as
+such?"
+
+"I could not love him better were he indeed my brother. He was the
+friend of my childhood," and a crimson hue stole over my face at the
+remembrance of a love more passionate than a brother's. "He is gifted
+with every good and noble quality, every pure and generous
+feeling,--friend, brother, cousin--it matters not which--he will ever be
+the same to me."
+
+Then I spoke of Mrs. Linwood, my adopted mother,--of my incalculable
+obligations, my unutterable gratitude, love, and admiration,--of the
+lovely Edith and her sisterly affection, and I told him how I longed
+that he should see them, and that _they_ should know that I had a
+father, whom I was proud to acknowledge, instead of one who reflected
+disgrace even on them.
+
+"Oh! I have so much to tell, so much to hear," I again repeated. "I know
+not when or where we shall begin. It is so bewildering, so strange, so
+like a dream. I fear to let go your hand lest you vanish from my sight
+and I lose you forever."
+
+"Ah, my child, you cannot feel as I do. You have enshrined other images
+in your heart, but mine is a lonely temple, into which you come as a
+divinity to be worshipped, as well as a daughter to be loved. I did not
+expect such implicit faith, such undoubting confidence. I feared you
+would shrink from a stranger, and require proofs of the truth of his
+assertions. I dared not hope for a greeting so tender, a trust so
+spontaneous."
+
+"Oh! I should as soon doubt that God was my Father in heaven, as you my
+father on earth. I _know_ it, I do not _believe_ it."
+
+I think my feelings must have been something like a blind person's on
+first emerging from the darkness that has wrapped him from his birth. He
+does not ask, when the sunbeams fall on his unclouded vision, _if it be
+light_. He knows it is, because it fills his new-born capacities for
+sight,--he knows it is, by the shadows that roll from before it. I knew
+it was my father, because he met all the wants of my yearning filial
+nature, because I felt him worthy of honor, admiration, reverence, and
+love.
+
+I know not how long I had been with him, when Mr. Brahan entered; and
+though it had been seventeen years since he had seen him, he immediately
+recognized the artist he had so much admired.
+
+"I have found a daughter, sir," said St. James, grasping his hand with
+fervor. He could not add another word, and no other was necessary.
+
+"I told her so," cried Mr. Brahan, after expressing the warmest
+congratulations; "I told her husband so. I knew the wretch who assumes
+your name was an impostor, though he wonderfully resembles yourself."
+
+"He has a right to the name he bears," answered my father, and his
+countenance clouded as it always did when he alluded to his brother. "We
+are twin brothers, and our extraordinary resemblance in youth and early
+manhood caused mistakes as numerous as those recorded in the Comedy of
+Errors, and laid the foundation of a tragedy seldom found in the
+experience of life."
+
+While they were conversing, I stole from the room and ran up stairs to
+tell Mrs. Brahan the wondrous tidings. Her sympathy was as heart-felt as
+I expected,--her surprise less. She never could believe that man my
+father. Mr. Brahan always said he was an impostor, only he had no means
+to prove it.
+
+"How beautiful!" she said, her eyes glistening with sympathetic emotion,
+"that he should find you here, in his own wedded home,--the place of
+your birth,--the spot sanctified by the holiest memories of love. Has
+not your filial mission been blest? Has not Providence led you by a way
+you little dreamed of? My dear Gabriella, you must not indulge another
+sad misgiving or gloomy fear. Indeed you must not."
+
+"I know I ought not; but come and see my father."
+
+"What is he like?" she asked, with a smile.
+
+"Like the dream of my childhood, when I imagined him one of the sons of
+God, such as once came down to earth."
+
+"Romantic child!" she exclaimed; but when she saw my father, I read
+admiration as well as respect in her speaking eye, and I was satisfied
+with the impression he had made.
+
+Richard came soon after informed by his father of all I could tell him
+and a great deal more, which he subsequently related to me. I think he
+was happier to know that he was cousin, than when he believed himself my
+brother. The transition from a lover to a brother was too painful. He
+could not divest himself of the idea of guilt, which, however
+involuntary, made him shudder in remembrance. But a cousin! The
+tenderness of natural affection and the memories of love, might unite in
+a bond so near and dear, and hallow each other.
+
+In the joy of my emancipation from imagined disgrace, I did not forget
+that the cloud still rested darkly on him,--that he still groaned under
+the burden which had been lifted from my soul. He told me that he had
+hope of his father's ultimate regeneration,--that he had found him much
+softened,--that he wept at the sight of Therésa's Bible, and still more
+when he read aloud to him the chapters which gave most consolation to
+her dying hours.
+
+The unexpected visit of his brother, from whom he had been so long
+separated, and whom he supposed was dead, had stirred still deeper the
+abysses of memoir and feeling.
+
+I will now turn a little while from myself, and give a brief history of
+the twin brothers, as I learned it from my father's lips, and Richard's,
+who narrated to me the story of _his_ father's life as he heard it in
+the dungeon of the Tombs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+
+Henry Gabriel and Gabriel Henry St. James, were born in the Highlands of
+New York. Their father was of English extraction, though of American
+birth; their mother the daughter of a French refugee, who had sought
+shelter in the land of freedom from the storms of the Revolution. So the
+elements of three nations mingled in their veins.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in their childhood, but their resemblance
+to each other, which was so perfect that their own mother was not able
+to distinguish the one from the other. Perhaps either of them, seen
+separately, would not have excited extraordinary interest, but together
+they formed an image of dual beauty as rare as it was attractive. They
+were remarkable for their fine physical development, their blooming
+health, and its usual accompaniments, sunniness of temper, and gaiety of
+spirits; but even in early childhood these twin-born bodies showed that
+they were vitalized by far different souls. Their father was a
+sea-captain; and while Gabriel would climb his knees and listen with
+eager delight to tales of ocean life and stirring adventures, Henry,
+seated at his mother's feet, with his hands clasped on her lap and his
+eyes riveted on her face, would gather up her gently sparkling words in
+his young heart, and they became a pavement of diamonds, indestructible
+as it was bright and pure.
+
+As they grew older, the master-passion of each became more apparent.
+Gabriel made mimic boats and ships, and launched them on the bosom of a
+stream which flowed back of their dwelling, an infant argosy freighted
+with golden hopes. Henry drew figures on the sandy shore, of birds and
+beasts and creeping things, and converted every possible material into
+tablets for the impressions of his dawning genius. Gabriel was his
+father's darling, Henry was mother's beloved. I said she could not
+distinguish her twin-born boys; but when she looked into their eyes,
+there was something in the earnest depths of Henry's, an answering
+expression of love and sensibility, which she sought in vain in his
+brother's. The soul of the sea-dreaming boy was not with her; it was
+following the father on the foaming paths of ocean.
+
+"My boys shall go with me on my next voyage," said the captain. "It is
+time to think of making men of them. They have been poring over books
+long enough to have a holiday; and, by the living Jove, they shall have
+it. It is the ruin of boys to be tied to their mother's apron strings
+after they are twelve years old. They are fit for nothing but peddlers
+or colporteurs."
+
+Gabriel clapped his hands exultingly; but Henry drew closer to his
+mother's side.
+
+"My hero, my young brave," cried the captain, slapping his favorite boy
+on the shoulder, "you are worth a dozen such girl-boys as your brother.
+Let him be a kitten and cry mew, if he will, while you climb the
+topgallant-mast and make ladders of the clouds."
+
+"I am as brave as he is," said Henry, straightening his youthful figure,
+and looking at his father with a kindling eye. "I am not afraid of the
+water; but who will protect my mother, if I go away with you?"
+
+"Bravo! There is some spirit in the boy after all," exclaimed the
+captain, who loved his wife with the devotion and constancy of a sailor.
+"He has chosen an honorable post, and by heaven I will not force him to
+leave it. I see that nature, when she gave us twins, intended we should
+go shares in our boys. It is just. Gabriel shall go with me, but the
+silver cup of fortune may after all find its way in Henry's sack."
+
+Thus at twelve years of age the twin brothers separated, and from that
+era their life-paths diverged into a constantly widening angle.
+
+The captain discovered too late the error he had committed in
+cultivating the roving propensities of his son, to the exclusion of
+steady, nobler pursuits. He had intended merely to give him a holiday,
+and a taste of a seafaring life; but after revelling in the joys of
+freedom, he found it impossible to bind him down to the restraints of
+scholastic life. He wanted him to go to college, but the young rover
+bravely refused obedience to parental authority, saying, that one genius
+in a family was enough; and the father, gazing with pride on the wild,
+handsome, and dauntless boy, said there was no use in twisting the vine
+the wrong way, and yielded to his will. Henry, imbosomed in classic
+shades, gathered the fruits of science and the flowers of literature,
+while his genius as an artist, though apparently dormant, waited the
+Ithuriel touch of opportunity to wake into life and action.
+
+Captain St. James had prospered in his enterprises and acquired a
+handsome fortune, so that his sons would not be dependent on their own
+exertions for support. Gabriel unfortunately knew this circumstance too
+well, and on the faith of his father's fortune indulged in habits of
+extravagance and dissipation as ruinous as they were disgraceful. The
+captain did not live to witness the complete degradation of his favorite
+son. His vessel was wrecked on a homeward voyage, and the waves became
+the sailor's winding-sheet. His wife did not long survive him. She died,
+pining for the genial air of her own sunny clime, leaving the impress of
+her virtues and her graces on the character of one of her sons. Alas for
+the other!
+
+Free now from parental restraint, as he had long been from moral
+obligations, Gabriel plunged into the wildest excesses of dissipation.
+In vain Henry lifted his warning voice, in vain he extended his guardian
+hand, to save him who had now become the slave as well as the votary of
+vice. His soul clave to his brother with a tenderness of affection,
+which neither his selfishness nor vices, not even his crimes, could
+destroy. A gambler, a roueé, every thing but a drunkard, he at length
+became involved in so disgraceful a transaction, he was compelled for
+safety to flee the country; and Henry, ignorant what course he had
+taken, gave him up in despair, and tried to forget the existence of one
+whose remembrance could only awaken sorrow and shame. He went to Europe,
+as has been previously related, and with the eye of a painter and the
+heart of a poet, travelled from clime to clime, and garnered up in his
+imagination the sublimities of nature and the wonders of art. His genius
+grew and blossomed amid the warm and fostering influences of an elder
+world, till it formed, as it were, a bower around him, in whose
+perennial shades he could retire from haunting memories and uncongenial
+associations.
+
+In the mean time, Gabriel had found refuge in his mother's native land.
+During his wild, roving life, he had mingled much with foreigners, and
+acquired a perfect knowledge of the French language,--I should rather
+say his knowledge was perfected by practice, for the twin brothers had
+been taught from infancy the melodious and expressive language of their
+mother's native clime. The facility with which he conversed, and his
+extremely handsome person, were advantages whose value he well knew how
+to appreciate, and to make subservient to his use.
+
+It was at this time that he became acquainted with Therésa Josephine La
+Fontaine, and his worn and sated passions were quickened into new life.
+She was not beautiful, "but fair and excellent," and of a character that
+exercises a commanding influence over the heart of man. Had he known her
+before habits of selfish indulgence had become, like the Ethiopian's
+skin and the leopard's spots, too deep and indelible for chemic art to
+change, she might perhaps have saved him from the transgressor's doom.
+She loved him with all the ardor of her pure, yet impassioned nature,
+and fully believed that her heart was given to one of the sons of light,
+instead of the children of darkness. For awhile his sin-dyed spirit
+seemed to bleach in the whitening atmosphere that surrounded him, for a
+father's as well as a husband's joy was his. But at length the demon of
+ennui possessed him. Satan was discontented in the bowers of Paradise.
+Gabriel sighed for his profligate companions, in the bosom of wedded
+love and joy. He left home on a false pretence, and never returned. It
+was long before Therésa admitted a doubt of his faith, and it was not
+till a rumor of his marriage in America reached her ear, that she
+believed it possible that he could deceive and betray her. An American
+traveller from New York, who knew Henry St. James and was unconscious of
+the existence of his brother, spoke of his marriage and his beautiful
+bride in terms that roused every dormant passion in the breast of the
+deserted Therésa. Yet she waited long in the hope and the faith of
+woman's trusting heart, clinging to the belief of her husband's
+integrity and truth, with woman's fond adhesiveness. At length, when she
+had but convincing reason to believe herself a betrayed and abandoned
+wife, she took her boy in her arms, crossed the ocean waste, landed in
+New York, and by the aid of a directory sought the home of Henry St.
+James, deeming herself the legitimate mistress of the mansion she made
+desolate by her presence. The result of her visit has been already told.
+She unconsciously destroyed the happiness of others, without securing
+her own. It is not strange, that in the moment of agony and distraction
+caused by the revelation made by Therésa, Rosalie should not have
+noticed in the marriage certificate the difference between the names of
+Henry Gabriel and Gabriel Henry St. James.
+
+Henry St. James had been summoned to Texas, then the Botany Bay of
+America, by his unhappy brother, who had there commenced a new career of
+sin and misery. He had gambled away his fortune, killed a man in a scene
+of strife and blasphemy, been convicted of homicide, escaped from the
+sentence, and, lurking in by-lanes and accursed places, fell sick, and
+wrote to his brother to come and save him from infamy and death.
+
+How could he wound the spotless ears of Rosalie by the tale of his
+brother's guilt and shame? He had never spoken to her of his existence,
+the subject was so exquisitely painful, for he believed himself for ever
+separated from him, and why should his blasted name cast a shadow over
+the heaven of his domestic happiness?
+
+Alter having raised his miserable brother from the gulf of degradation
+in which he had plunged, and given him the means of establishing himself
+in some honorable situation, which he promised to seek, he returned to
+find his home occupied by strangers, his wife and child fled, his
+happiness wrecked, and his peace destroyed. The deluded and half frantic
+Therésa, believing him to be her husband, appealed to him, by the memory
+of their former love and wedded felicity, to forgive the steps she had
+taken that she might assert the claims of her deserted boy. Maddened by
+the loss of the wife whom he adored, he became for the time a maniac;
+and so terrible was his indignation and despair, the unhappy victim of
+his brother's perfidy fled trembling and dismayed from his presence.
+
+In the calmer moments that succeeded the first paroxysms of his agony,
+Henry thought of his brother and of the extraordinary resemblance they
+bore to each other, and the mystery which frenzied passion had at first
+veiled from his eyes was partially revealed to his understanding. Could
+he then have seen her, and could she prove that she was the wife of
+Gabriel, he would have protected her with a brother's care and
+tenderness. But his first thought was for Rosalie,--the young, the
+beloved, the deceived, the fugitive Rosalie, of whose flight no clue
+could be discovered, no trace be found. The servants could throw no
+light on the mystery, for she had left in the darkness and silence of
+night. They only knew that Peggy disappeared at the same time, and was
+probably her companion. This circumstance afforded a faint relief to
+Henry's distracted mind, for he knew Peggy's physical strength and moral
+courage, as well as her remarkable attachment to his lovely and gentle
+wife. But whither had they gone? The natural supposition was, that she
+would throw herself on the protection of her step-mother, as the only
+person on whom she had any legitimate claims,--unkind as she had
+formerly been. He immediately started for the embattled walls of
+Fortress Monroe,--but before his departure, he put advertisements in
+every paper, which, if they met her eye, she could not fail to
+understand. Alas! they never reached the gray cottage imbosomed in New
+England woods!
+
+In vain he sought her in the wave-washed home of her childhood. He met
+with no sympathy from the slighted and jealous step-mother, who had
+destroyed the only link that bound them together, the name of her
+father. She had married again, and disowned all interest in the daughter
+of her former husband. She went still further, and wreaked her vengeance
+on St. James for the wounds he had inflicted on her vanity, by aspersing
+and slandering the innocent Rosalie. He left her in indignation and
+disgust, and wandered without guide or compass, like another Orpheus in
+search of the lost Eurydice. Had he known Peggy's native place, he might
+have turned in the right direction, but he was ignorant of every thing
+but her name and virtues. At length, weary and desponding, he resolved
+to seek in foreign lands, and in devotion to his art, oblivion of his
+sorrows. Just before his departure he met his brother, and told him of
+the circumstances which banished him from home and country. Gabriel,
+whose love for Therésa had been the one golden vein in the dark ore of
+his nature, was awakened to bitter, though short-lived remorse, not only
+for the ruin he brought on her, but the brother, whose fraternal
+kindness had met with so sad a requital. Touched by the exhibition of
+his grief and self-reproach, Henry committed to his keeping a miniature
+of Rosalie, of which he had a duplicate, that he might be able to
+identify her, and Gabriel promised, if he discovered one trace of his
+wife and child, that he would write to his brother and recall him.
+
+They parted. Henry went to Italy, where images of ideal loveliness
+mingled with, though they could not supplant, the taunting memories of
+his native clime. As an artist, and as a man, he was admired, respected,
+and beloved; and he found consolation, though not happiness. The one
+great sorrow of his life fell like a mountain shadow over his heart; but
+it darkened its brightness without chilling its warmth. He was still the
+sympathizing friend of humanity, the comforter of the afflicted, the
+benefactor of the poor.
+
+In the mean time Gabriel continued his reckless and dissolute course,
+sometimes on land, sometimes on sea, an adventurer, a speculator, a
+gambler, and a wretch. Destiny chanced to throw him into the vortex of
+corruption boiling in the heart of New York, when I went there, the
+bride of Ernest. He had seen me in the street, before he met me at the
+theatre; and, struck by my resemblance to the miniature which his
+brother had given him, he inquired and learned my name and history, as
+well as the wealth and rank of my husband. Confirmed in his suspicion
+that I was the child of Rosalie, he resolved to fill his empty pockets
+with my husband's gold, by making me believe that _he_ was my father,
+and appealing to my filial compassion. Not satisfied with his success,
+he forged the note, whose discovery was followed by detection,
+conviction, imprisonment, and despair.
+
+The only avenue to his seared and hardened heart had been found by the
+son of Therésa, coming to him like a messenger from heaven, in all his
+purity, excellence, and filial piety, not to avenge a mother's wrongs,
+but to cheer and illumine a guilty father's doom. His brother, too,
+seemed sent by Providence at this moment, that he might receive the
+daughter whom, from motives of the basest selfishness, he had claimed as
+his own.
+
+When I first saw my father at the Falls, he had just returned to his
+native land, in company with Julian, the young artist. Urged by one of
+those irresistible impulses which may be the pressure of an angel's
+hand, his spirit turned to the soil where he now firmly believed the
+ashes of his Rosalie reposed. He and Julian parted on their first
+arrival, met again on the morning of our departure, and travelled
+together through some of the glowing and luxuriant regions of the West.
+After Julian left him to visit Grandison Place, he lingered amid scenes
+where nature revelled in all its primeval grandeur and original
+simplicity, sketching its boldest and most attractive features, till,
+God-directed, he came to the city over which the memory of his brief
+wedded life trembled like a misty star throbbing on the lonely heart of
+night. Hearing that a St. James was in the dungeons of the Tombs, a
+convicted forger, he at once knew that it must be his brother. There he
+sought him, and learned from him that the child of Rosalie lived, though
+Rosalie was a more.
+
+As simple as sad, was the solution of my life's mystery.
+
+Concealment was the fatal source of our sorrows. Even the noble Henry
+St. James erred in concealing his twin brotherhood, though woe and
+disgrace tarnished the once golden link. Rosalie and Therésa both erred,
+in not giving their children their father's name, though they believed
+it accursed by perjury and guilt.
+
+Truth, and truth alone, is safe and omnipotent: "The eternal days of God
+are hers." Man may weave, but she will undeceive; man may arrange, but
+God will dispose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+
+I told my father the history of my youth and womanhood, of my marriage
+and widowhood, with feelings similar to those with which I poured out my
+soul into the compassionate bosom of my Heavenly Father. He listened,
+pitied, wept over, and then consoled me.
+
+"He must prove himself worthy of so sacred a trust," said he, clasping
+me to his bosom with all a father's tenderness, and all a mother's love,
+"before I ever commit it to his keeping. Never again, with my consent,
+shall you be given back to his arms, till 'the seed of the woman has
+bruised the serpent's head.'"
+
+"I will never leave you again, dear father, under any circumstances,
+whatever they may be. Rest assured, that come weal, come woe, we will
+never be separated. Not even for a husband's unclouded confidence, would
+I forsake a father's sacred, new-found love."
+
+"We must wait, and hope, and trust, my beloved daughter. Every thing
+will work together for the good of those that love God. I believe that
+now, fully, reverentially. Sooner or later all the ways of Providence
+will be justified to man, and made clear as the noonday sun."
+
+He looked up to heaven, and his fine countenance beamed with holy
+resignation and Christian faith. Oh! how I loved this dear, excellent,
+noble father! Every hour, nay, every moment I might say, my filial love
+and reverence increased. My feelings were so new, so overpowering, I
+could not analyze them. They were sweet as the strains of Edith's harp,
+yet grand as the roaring of ocean's swelling waves. The bliss of
+confidence, the rapture of repose, the sublimity of veneration, the
+tenderness of love, all blended like the dyes of the rainbow, and
+spanned with an arch of peace the retreating clouds of my soul.
+
+"When shall we go to Grandison Place?" he asked. "I long to pour a
+father's gratitude into the ear of your benefactress. I long to visit
+the grave of my Rosalie."
+
+"To-morrow, to-day,--now, dear father, whenever you speak the word;
+provided we are not separated, I do not mind how soon."
+
+He smiled at my eagerness.
+
+"Not quite so much haste, my daughter. I cannot leave to Richard the
+sole task of ministering to the soul of my unhappy brother. His
+conscience is quickened, his feeling softened, and it may be that the
+day of grace is begun. His frame is weak and worn, his blood feverish,
+and drop by drop is slowly drying in his veins. I never saw any one so
+fearfully altered. Truly is it said, that 'the wages of sin is death.'
+Oh! if after herding with the swine and feeding on the husks of earth,
+he comes a repentant prodigal to his father's home, it matters not how
+soon he passes from that living tomb."
+
+My father's words were prophetic. The prisoner's wasted frame was
+consuming slowly, almost imperceptibly, like steel when rust corrodes
+it. Richard and my father were with him every day, and gathered round
+him every comfort which the law permitted, to soften the horrors of
+imprisonment. Not in vain were their labors of love. God blessed them.
+The rock was blasted. The waters gushed forth. Like the thief on the
+cross, he turned his dying glance on his Saviour, and acknowledged him
+to be the Son of God. But it was long before the fiery serpents of
+remorse were deadened by the sight of the brazen reptile, glittering
+with supernatural radiance on the uplifted eye of faith. The struggle
+was fearful and agonizing, but the victory triumphant.
+
+Had he needed me, I would have gone to him, and I often pleaded
+earnestly with my father to take me with him; but he said he did not
+wish me to be exposed to such harrowing scenes, and that Richard
+combined the tenderness of a daughter with the devotion of a son. Poor
+Richard! his pale cheeks and heavy eyes bore witness to the protracted
+sufferings of his father, but he bore up bravely, sustained by the hope
+of his soul's emancipation from the bondage of sin.
+
+The prisoner must have had an iron constitution. The wings of his spirit
+flapped with such violence against its skeleton bars, the vulture-beak
+of remorse dipping all the time into the quivering, bleeding heart, it
+is astonishing how long it resisted even after flesh and blood seemed
+wasted away. Day after day he lingered; but as his soul gradually
+unsheathed itself, clearer views of God and eternity played upon its
+surface, till it flashed and burned, like a sword in the sunbeams of
+heaven.
+
+At length he died, with the hand of his son clasped in his, the bible of
+Therésa laid against his heart, and his brother kneeling in prayer by
+his bedside. Death came softly, gently, like an angel of release, and
+left the seal of peace on that brow, indented in life by the
+thunder-scars of sin and crime.
+
+After the first shock, Richard could not help feeling his father's death
+an unspeakable blessing, accompanied by such circumstances. In the grave
+his transgressions would be forgotten, or remembered only to forgive. He
+must now rise, shake off the sackcloth and ashes from his spirit, and
+put on the beautiful garments of true manhood. The friends, who had
+taken such an interest in his education, must not be disappointed in the
+career they had marked out. Arrangements had been made for him to study
+his profession with one of the most eminent lawyers of Boston, and he
+was anxious to commence immediately, that he might find in mental
+excitement an antidote to morbid sensibility and harrowing memory.
+
+My father's wishes and my own turned to Grandison Place, and we prepared
+at once for our departure. I had informed Mrs. Linwood by letters of the
+events which I have related, and received her heart-felt
+congratulations. She expressed an earnest desire to see my father, but
+honored too much the motives that induced him to remain, to wish him to
+hasten. Now those motives no longer existed, I wrote to announce our
+coming, and soon after we bade adieu to one of the most charming abodes
+of goodness, hospitality, and pure domestic happiness I have ever known.
+
+"You must write and tell me of all the changes of your changing
+destiny," said Mrs. Brahan, when she gave me the parting embrace; "no
+one can feel more deeply interested in them than myself. I feel in a
+measure associated with the scenes of your life-drama, for this is the
+place of your nativity, and it was under this roof you were united to
+your noble and inestimable father. Be of good cheer. Good news will
+come, wafted from beyond the Indian seas, and your second bridal morn
+will be fairer than the first."
+
+I thanked her with an overflowing heart. I did not, like _her_, see the
+day-star of hope arising over that second bridal morn, but the sweet
+pathetic minor tone breathed in my ear the same holy strain:--
+
+    "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
+      Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
+    Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
+      Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+
+I wish my father could have seen the home of my youth, when he first
+beheld it, in the greenness of spring or the bloom of summer; but white,
+cold, and dazzling was the lawn, and bleak, bare, and leafless the grand
+old elms and the stately brotherhood of oaks that guarded the avenue.
+
+With pride, gratitude, joy, and a thousand mingling emotions, I
+introduced my father into a dwelling consecrated by so many
+recollections of happiness and woe. The cloud was removed from my birth,
+the stain from my lineage. I could now exult in my parentage and glory
+in my father.
+
+Julian was there, and welcomed St. James with enthusiastic pleasure,
+who, on his part, seemed to cherish for him even parental affection.
+With joy and triumph beaming in his eyes and glowing on his cheek,
+Julian took the lovely Edith by the hand, and introduced her as his
+bride. Still occupying her usual place in her mother's home, in all her
+sweetness, simplicity, and spirituality, it was difficult to believe any
+change had come over her destiny. She had not waited for my presence,
+because she knew the bridal wreath woven for her would recall the
+blighted bloom of mine. She had no festal wedding. She could not, while
+her brother's fate was wrapped in uncertainty and gloom.
+
+One Sunday evening, after Mr. Somerville had dismissed the congregation
+with the usual benediction, Julian led Edith to the altar, and her
+mother stood by her side till the solemn words were uttered that made
+them one. So simple and holy were the nuptial rites of the wealthy and
+beautiful heiress of Grandison Place.
+
+My father spoke in exalted terms of the young artist, of his virtues and
+his genius, the singleness of his heart, the uprightness of his
+principles, and the warmth and purity of his affections. Had he, my
+father, needed any passport to the favor of Mrs. Linwood, he could not
+have had a surer one; but her noble nature instantaneously recognized
+his congenial and exalted worth. He had that in his air, his
+countenance, and manner, that distinguished him from the sons of men, as
+the planets are distinguished by their clear, intense, and steadfast
+lustre among the starry ranks of heaven.
+
+I gave him the manuscript my mother had left me, and at his request
+pointed out the road and the diverging path that led to the spot where
+her grave was made. I did not ask to accompany him, for I felt his
+emotions were too sacred for even his daughter to witness. I mourned
+that the desolation of winter was added to the dreariness of death; that
+a pall of snow, white as her winding-sheet and cold as her clay, covered
+the churchyard. In summer, when the grass was of an emerald green and
+the willows waved their weeping branches with a gentle rustle against
+the clustering roses, whose breath perfumed and whose blossoms
+beautified the place of graves, it was sweet, though sad, to wander amid
+the ruins of life, and meditate on its departed joys.
+
+The broken shaft, twined with a drooping wreath carved in bas-relief,
+which rose above my mother's ashes, and the marble stone which marked
+the grave of Peggy, were erected the year after their deaths. The money
+which rewarded my services in the academy had been thus appropriated, or
+rather a portion of it. The remainder had been given to the poor, as
+Mrs. Linwood always supplied my wardrobe, as she did Edith's, and left
+no want of my own to satisfy, not even a wish to indulge. I mention this
+here, because it occurred to my mind that I had not done Mrs. Linwood
+perfect justice with regard to the motives which induced her to
+discipline my character.
+
+I did not see my father for hours after his return. He retired to his
+chamber, and did not join the family circle till the evening lamps were
+lighted. He looked excessively pale, even wan, and his countenance
+showed how much he had suffered. Edith was singing when he came in, and
+he made a motion for her to continue; for it was evident he did not wish
+to converse. I sat down by him without speaking; and putting his arm
+round me, he drew me closely to his side. The plaintive melody of
+Edith's voice harmonized with the melancholy tone of his feelings, and
+seemed to shed on his soul a balmy and delicious softness. His spirit
+was with my mother in the dreams of the past, rather than the hopes of
+the future; and the memory of its joys lived again in music's heavenly
+breath.
+
+It is a blessed thing to be remembered in death as my mother was. Her
+image was enshrined in her husband's heart, in the bloom and freshness
+of unfaded youth, as he had last beheld her,--and such it would ever
+remain. He had not seen the mournful process of fading and decay. To
+him, she was the bride of immortality; and his love partook of her own
+freshness and youth and bloom. Genius is _La fontaine de jouvence_, in
+whose bright, deep waters the spirit bathes and renews its morning
+prime. It is the well-spring of the heart,--the Castaly of the soul. St.
+James had lived amid forms of ideal beauty, till his spirit was imbued
+with their loveliness as with the fragrance of flowers, and he breathed
+an atmosphere pure as the world's first spring. He was _young_, though
+past the meridian of life. There was but one mark of age upon his
+interesting and noble person, and that was the snowy shade that softened
+his raven hair,--foam of the waves of time, showing they had been lashed
+by the storms, or driven against breakers and reefs of destiny.
+
+The first time I took him into the library, he stopped before the
+picture of Ernest. I did not tell him whose it was. He gazed upon it
+long and earnestly.
+
+"What a countenance!" he exclaimed. "I can see the lights and shades of
+feeling flashing and darkening over it. It has the troubled splendor of
+a tropic night, when clouds and moonbeams are struggling. Is it a
+portrait, or an ideal picture?"
+
+"It is Ernest,--it is my husband," I answered; and it seemed to me as if
+all the ocean surges that rolled between us were pressing their cold
+weight on my heart.
+
+"My poor girl! my beloved Gabriella! All your history is written there."
+
+I threw myself in his arms, and wept. Had I seen Ernest dead at my feet,
+I could not have felt more bitter grief. I had never indulged it so
+unrestrainedly before in his presence, for I had always thought more of
+him than myself; and in trying to cheer him, I had found cheerfulness.
+Now I remembered only Ernest's idolatrous love, and his sorrows and
+sufferings, forgetting my own wrongs; and I felt there would always be
+an aching void which even a father's and brother's tenderness (for
+brother I still called Richard) could never fill.
+
+"Oh, my father," I cried, "bear with my weakness,--bear with me a little
+while. There is comfort in weeping on a father's bosom, even for a loss
+like mine. I shall never see him again. He is dead, or if living, is
+dead to me. You cannot blame me, father. You see there a faint semblance
+of what he is,--splendid, fascinating, and haunting, though at times so
+dark and fearful. No words of mine can give an idea of the depth, the
+strength, the madness of his love. It has been the blessing and the
+bane, the joy and the terror, the angel and the demon of my life. I know
+it was sinful in its wild excess, and mine was sinful, too, in its blind
+idolatry, and I know the blessing of God could not hallow such a union.
+But how can I help feeling the dearth, the coldness, the weariness
+following such passionate emotions? How can I help feeling at times,
+that the sun of my existence is set, and a long, dark night before me?"
+
+He did not answer,--he only pressed me convulsively to his heart, and I
+felt one hot tear, and then another and another falling on my brow.
+
+Oh! it is cruel to wring tears from the strong heart of man; cruel,
+above all, to wring them from a father's heart,--that heart whose own
+sorrows had lately bled afresh. Every drop fell heavy and burning as
+molten lead on my conscience. I had been yielding to a selfish burst of
+grief, thoughtless of the agony I was inflicting.
+
+"Forgive me, father!" I cried, "forgive me! On my knees, too, I will
+pray my Heavenly Father to forgive the rebel who dares to murmur at his
+chastisements, when new and priceless blessings gladden her life. I
+thought I had learned submission,--and I have, father, I have kissed in
+love and faith the Almighty hand that laid me low. This has been a dark
+moment, but it is passed."
+
+I kissed his hand, and pressed it softly over my glistening eyes.
+
+"Forgive you, my child!" he repeated, "for a sorrow so natural, so
+legitimate, and which has so much to justify it! I have wondered at your
+fortitude and disinterested interest in others,--I have wondered at your
+Christian submission, your unmurmuring resignation, and I wonder still.
+But you must not consider your destiny as inevitably sad and lonely. You
+have not had time yet to receive tidings from India. If, after the
+letter you have written, your husband does not return with a heart
+broken by penitence and remorse, and his dark and jealous passions slain
+by the sword of conviction, piercing two-edged and sharp to the very
+marrow of his spirit, he is not worthy of thee, my spotless, precious
+child; and the illusion of love will pass away, showing him to be
+selfish, tyrannical, and cruel, a being to be shunned and pitied, but no
+longer loved. Do not shudder at the picture I have drawn. The soul that
+speaks from those eyes of thousand meanings," added he, looking at the
+portrait that gazed upon us with powerful and thrilling glance, "must
+have some grand and redeeming qualities. I trust in God that it will
+rise above the ashes of passion, purified and regenerated. Then your
+happiness will have a new foundation, whose builder and maker is God."
+
+"Oh! dear father!" was all I could utter. He spoke like one who had the
+gift of prophecy, and my spirit caught the inspiration of his words.
+
+I have not spoken of Richard, for I had so much to say of my father, but
+I did not forget him. He accompanied us to Grandison Place, though he
+remained but a few days. I could not help feeling sad to see how the
+sparkling vivacity of his youth had passed away, the diamond brightness
+which reminded one of rippling waters in their sunbeams. But if less
+brilliant, he was far more interesting. Stronger, deeper, higher
+qualities were developed. The wind-shaken branches of thought stretched
+with a broader sweep. The roots of his growing energies, wrenched by the
+storm, struck firmer and deeper, and the wounded bark gave forth a pure
+and invigorating odor.
+
+I walked with him, the evening before his departure, in the avenue from
+which the snow had been swept, leaving a smooth, wintry surface below. I
+was wrapped in furs, and the cold, frosty air braced me like a pair of
+strong arms.
+
+I had so much to say to Richard, and now I was alone with him. I walked
+on in silence, feeling as if words had never been invented to express
+our ideas.
+
+"You will never feel the want of a father's care and affection," at
+length I said. "My father could not love you better if you were his own
+son; and surely no own brother could be dearer, Richard, than you are
+and ever will be to me. You must not look mournfully on the past, but
+forward into a brightening future."
+
+"I have but one object in life now," he answered, "and that is, to
+improve the talents God has given me for the benefit of mankind. I am
+not conscious of any personal hope or ambition, but a strong sense of
+duty acts upon me, and will save me from the corrosion of disappointment
+and the listlessness of despair."
+
+"But you will not always feel so, Richard. You will experience a strong
+reaction soon, and new-born hopes and aspirations will shine gloriously
+to guide you upward and onward in your bright career. Think how young
+you are yet, Richard."
+
+"The consciousness of youth does not always bring joy. It cannot, when
+youthful hopes are blighted, Gabriella. One cannot tear up at once the
+deep-rooted affections of years. Never was a love planted deeper, firmer
+than mine for you, before the soil of the heart had known the hardening
+winds of destiny. Start not, Gabriella, I am not going to utter one
+sentiment which, as a wife, you need blush to hear; but the parting
+hour, like that of death, is an honest one, and I must speak as I feel.
+May you never know or imagine my wretchedness when I believed you to be
+my sister, knowing that though innocent, I had been guilty, and that I
+could not love you merely with a brother's love. Thank heaven! you are
+my cousin. Ten thousand winning sweetnesses cluster round this dear
+relationship. The dearest, the strongest, the purest I have ever known."
+
+"You will know a stronger, a dearer one, dear Richard,--you do not know
+yet how strong."
+
+"I shall never think of my own happiness, Gabriella, till I am assured
+of yours."
+
+"Then I will try to be happy for your sake."
+
+"And if it should be that the ties severed by misfortune and distance
+are never renewed, you will remain with your father, and I will make my
+home with you, and it will be the business of both our lives to make you
+happy. No flower of the green-house was ever more tenderly cherished and
+guarded than you shall be, best beloved of so many hearts!"
+
+"Thank you, oh, thank you, for all your tenderness, so far beyond my
+worth. Friend, brother, cousin, with you and such a father to love me, I
+ought to be the happiest and most grateful of human beings. But tell me
+one thing, dear Richard, before we part; do you forgive Ernest the wrong
+he has done you, freely and fully?"
+
+"From the bottom of my heart I do."
+
+"And should we ever meet again, may I tell him so?"
+
+"Tell him I have nothing to forgive, for, believing as he did, vengeance
+could not wing a bolt of wrath too red, too deadly. But I would not
+recall the past. Your father beckons us,--he fears the frosty evening
+air for you, but it has given a glowing rose to your cheeks!"
+
+My father stood on the threshold to greet us, with that benign smile,
+that beautiful, winning smile that had so long been slumbering on his
+face, but which grew brighter and brighter every time it beamed on my
+soul.
+
+The last evening of Richard's stay was not sad. Dr. Harlowe and Mr.
+Somerville were with us; and though the events with which he had been
+associated had somewhat sobered the doctor's mirthful propensities, the
+geniality of his character was triumphant over every circumstance.
+
+My father expressed to him the most fervent gratitude for his parental
+kindness to me, as well as for a deeper, holier debt.
+
+"You owe me nothing," said Dr. Harlowe; "and even if you did, and were
+the debt ten times beyond your grateful appreciation of it, I should
+consider myself repaid by the privilege of calling you my friend."
+
+No one could speak with more feeling or dignity than the doctor, when
+the right chord was touched. He told me he had never seen the man he
+admired so much as my father; and how proud and happy it made me to have
+him say so, and know that his words were true! No one who has not felt
+as I did, the mortification, the shame and anguish of believing myself
+the daughter of a convicted criminal, can understand the intense, the
+almost worshipping reverence with which I regarded my late-found parent.
+To feel pride instead of humiliation, exultation instead of shame, and
+love instead of abhorrence, how great the contrast, how unspeakable the
+relief, how sublime and holy the gratitude!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+
+The snows of winter melted, the diamond icicles dropped from the trees,
+the glittering fetters slipped from the streams, and nature came forth a
+captive released from bondage, glowing with the joy of emancipation.
+
+Nothing could be more beautiful, more glorious, than the valley in its
+vernal garniture. Such affluence of verdure; such rich, sweeping
+foliage; such graceful undulation of hill and dale; such exquisite
+blending of light and shade; such pure, rejoicing breezes; such blue,
+resplendent skies never before met, making _a tableau vivant_ on which
+the eye of the great Creator must look down with delight.
+
+It was the first time Mrs. Linwood had witnessed the opening of spring
+at Grandison Place, and her faded spirits revived in the midst of its
+blooming splendor. She bad preferred its comparative retirement during
+the past winter, and, in spite of the solicitations of her friends,
+refused to go to the metropolis. My father and Julian both felt an
+artist's rapture at the prospect unrolled in a grand panorama around
+them, and transferred to the canvas many a glowing picture. It was
+delightful to watch the progress of these new creations,--but far more
+interesting when the human face was the subject of the pencil. Edith and
+myself were multiplied into so many charming forms, it is strange we
+were not made vain by gazing on them.
+
+I was very grasping in my wishes, and wanted quite a picture gallery of
+my friends,--Mrs. Linwood, Edith, and Dr. Harlowe; and my indulgent
+father made masterly sketches of all for his exacting daughter. And thus
+day succeeded day, and no wave from Indian seas wafted tidings of the
+absent husband and son. No "Star of the East" dawned on the nightshades
+of my heart. And the raven voice kept echoing in my ear, "Never more,
+never more." There had been a terrible gale sweeping along the whole
+eastern coast of the Atlantic, and many a ship had gone down, freighted
+with an argosy richer than gold,--the treasures of human hearts. I did
+not speak my fears, but the sickness of dread settled on my spirits, in
+spite of the almost super-human efforts I made to shake it from them.
+When my eyes were fixed on my father's paintings, I could see nothing
+but storm-lashed billows, wrecking ships, and pale, drowning mariners. I
+could see that Mrs. Linwood and Edith participated in my apprehensions,
+though they did not give them utterance. We hardly dared to look in each
+other's faces, lest we should betray to each other thoughts which we
+would, but could not conceal.
+
+The library had been converted into my father's studio. He usually
+painted in the mornings as well as Julian; and in the afternoon we rode,
+or walked as inclination prompted, and the evenings were devoted to
+sewing, conversation, and music.
+
+One afternoon, after returning from a ride about sunset, I went into the
+library for a book which I had left there. I never went there alone
+without stopping to gaze at the picture of Ernest, which every day
+acquired a stronger fascination. "Those eyes of a thousand meanings," as
+my father had said, followed me with thrilling intensity whenever I
+moved, and if I paused they fixed themselves on me as if never more to
+be withdrawn. Just now, as I entered, a crimson ray of the setting sun,
+struggling in through the curtained windows, fell warmly on the face,
+and gave it such a lifelike glow, that I actually started, as if life
+indeed were there.
+
+As I have said before, the library was remote from the front part of the
+house, and even Margaret's loud, voluble laugh did not penetrate its
+deep retirement. I know not how long, but it must have been very long
+that I stood gazing at the picture, for the crimson ray had faded into a
+soft twilight haze, and the face seemed gradually receding further and
+further from me.
+
+The door opened. Never, never, shall I feel as I did then till I meet my
+mother's spirit in another world. A pale hand rested, as if for support,
+on the latch of the door,--a face pale as the statues, but lighted up by
+eyes of burning radiance, flashed like an apparition upon me. I stood as
+in a nightmare, incapable of motion or utterance, and a cloud rolled
+over my sight. But I knew that Ernest was at my feet, that his face was
+buried in the folds of my dress, and his voice in deep, tremulous music,
+murmuring in my ear.
+
+"Gabriella! beloved Gabriella! I am not worthy to be called thy husband;
+but banish me not, my own and only love!"
+
+At the sound of that voice, my paralyzed senses burst the fetters that
+enthralled them, and awoke to life so keen, there was agony in the
+awakening. Every plan that reason had suggested and judgment approved
+was forgotten or destroyed, and love, all-conquering, unconquerable
+love, reigned over every thought, feeling, and emotion. I sunk upon my
+knees before him,--I encircled his neck with my arms,--I called him by
+every dear and tender name the vocabulary of love can furnish,--I wept
+upon his bosom showers of blissful and relieving tears. Thus we knelt
+and wept, locked in each other's arms, and again and again Ernest
+repeated--
+
+"I am not worthy to be thy husband," and I answered again and again--
+
+"I love thee, Ernest. God, who knoweth all things, knows, and he only,
+how I love thee."
+
+It is impossible to describe such scenes. Those who have never known
+them, must deem them high-wrought and extravagant those who _have_, cold
+and imperfect. It is like trying to paint chain-lightning, or the
+coruscations of the aurora borealis. I thought not how he came. What
+cared I, when he was with me, when his arms were round me, his heart
+answering to the throbs of mine? Forgotten were suspicion, jealousy,
+violence, and wrong,--nothing remained but the memory of love.
+
+As the shades of twilight deepened, his features seemed more distinct,
+for the mist which tears had left dissolved, and I could see how wan and
+shadowy he looked, and how delicate, even to sickliness, the hue of his
+transparent complexion. Traces of suffering were visible in every
+lineament, but they seemed left by the ground-swell of passion, rather
+than its deeper ocean waves.
+
+"You have seen your mother?" at length I said, feeling that I must no
+longer keep him from her, "and Edith? And oh, Ernest! have you seen my
+father? Do you know I have a father, whom I glory in acknowledging? Do
+you know that the cloud is removed from my birth, the stigma from my
+name? Oh, my husband, mine is a strange, eventful history!"
+
+"Mr. Brahan told me of the discovery of your father, and of the death of
+his unhappy brother. I have not seen him yet. But my mother! When I left
+her, Gabriella, she had not one silver hair. _My_ hand sprinkled that
+premature snow."
+
+"It matters not now, dear Ernest," I cried, pained by the torturing
+sighs that spoke the depth of his remorse. "Flowers will bloom sweetly
+under that light snow. Edith is happy. We will all be happy,--my father
+too,--come and see him, Ernest,--come, and tell me, if I have need to
+blush for my lineage."
+
+"Not for your lineage, but your husband. What must this noble father
+think of me?"
+
+"Every thing that is kind and Christian. He has sustained my faith, fed
+my hopes, and prophesied this hour of reunion. Come, the moment you have
+seen him, you will trust, revere, and love him."
+
+With slow and lingering steps we walked the winding gallery that led
+from the library, and entered the parlor, whose lights seemed dazzling
+in contrast to the soft gloom we had left behind.
+
+Hand in hand we approached my father, who stood with his back to one of
+the windows, his tall and stately figure nobly defined. I tried to utter
+the words, "My husband! my father!" but my parted lips were mute. I
+threw myself into his arms, with a burst of emotion that was
+irrepressible, and he grasped the hand of Ernest and welcomed and blest
+him in warm, though faltering accents. Then Edith came with her sweet
+April face, and hung once more upon her brother's neck, and his mother
+again embraced him, and Julian walked to the window and looked abroad,
+to hide the tears which he thought a stain upon his manhood.
+
+It was not till after the excitement of the hour had subsided, that we
+realized how weak and languid Ernest really was. He was obliged to
+confess how much he had suffered from illness and fatigue, and that his
+strength was completely exhausted. As he reclined on one of the sofas,
+the crimson hue of the velvet formed such a startling contrast to the
+pallor of his complexion, it gave him an appearance almost unearthly.
+
+"You have been ill, my son," said Mrs. Linwood, watching him with
+intense anxiety.
+
+"I have been on the confines of the spirit world, my mother; so near as
+to see myself by the light it reflected. Death is the solar microscope
+of life. It shows a hideous mass, where all seemed fair and pure."
+
+He laid his hand over his eyes with a nervous shudder.
+
+"But I am well now," he added; "I am only suffering from fatigue and
+excitement. Gabriella's letter found me leaning over the grave. It
+raised me, restored me, brought me back to life, to hope, to love, and
+home."
+
+He told us, in the course of the evening, how he had found Mr. Harland
+on the eve of embarking for India, and that he offered to be his
+companion; and how he had written to his mother before his voyage,
+telling her of his destination, and entreating her to write if she were
+still willing to call him her son. The letter came not to relieve the
+agonies of suspense, and mine contained the first tidings he received
+from his native land. It found him, as he had said, on a sick-bed, and
+its contents imparted new life to his worn and tortured being. He
+immediately took passage in a home bound ship, though so weak he was
+obliged to be carried on board in a litter. Mr. Harland accompanied him
+to New York, where on debarking they had met Mr. Brahan, who had given
+him a brief sketch of my visit, and the events that marked it.
+
+As I sat by him on a low seat, with his hand clasped in mine, while he
+told me in a low voice of the depth of his penitence, the agonies of his
+remorse, and the hope of God's pardon that had dawned on what he
+supposed the night clouds of death, I saw him start as if in sudden
+pain. The lace sleeve had fallen back from my left arm. His eyes were
+fixed on the wound he had inflicted. He bent his head forward, and
+pressed his lips on the scar.
+
+"They shall look upon him whom they have pierced," he murmured. "O my
+Saviour I could thy murderers feel pangs of deeper remorse at the sight
+of thy scarred hands and wounded side?"
+
+"Never think of it again, dear Ernest. I did not know it, did not feel
+it. It never gave me a moment's pang."
+
+"Yes, I remember well why you did not suffer."
+
+"But you must not remember. If you love me, Ernest, make no allusion to
+the past. The future is ours; youth and hope are ours; and the promises
+of God, sure and steadfast, are ours. I feel as Noah and his children
+felt when they stepped from the ark on dry land, and saw the waters of
+the deluge retreating, and the rainbow smiling on its clouds. What to
+them were the storms they had weathered, the dangers they had overcome?
+They were all past. Oh, my husband, let us believe that ours are past,
+and let us trust forever in the God of our fathers."
+
+"I do--I do, my Gabriella. My faith has hitherto been a cold
+abstraction; now it is a living, vital flame, burning with steady and
+increasing light."
+
+At this moment Edith, who had seated herself at the harp, remembering
+well the soothing influence of music on her brother's soul, touched its
+resounding strings; and the magnificent strains of the _Gloria in
+Excelsis_,
+
+      --"rose like a stream
+    Of rich distilled perfume."
+
+I never heard any thing sound so sweet and heavenly. It came in, a
+sublime chorus to the thoughts we had been uttering. It reminded me of
+the song of the morning stars, the anthem of the angels over the manger
+of Bethlehem,--so highly wrought were my feelings,--so softly, with such
+swelling harmony, had the notes stolen on the ear.
+
+Ernest raised himself from his reclining position, and his countenance
+glowed with rapture. I had never seen it wear such an expression before.
+"Old things had passed away,--all things had become new."
+
+"There is peace,--there is pardon," said he, in a voice too low for any
+ear but mine, when the last strain melted away,--"there is joy in heaven
+over the repenting sinner, there is joy on earth over the returning
+prodigal."
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Two years and more have passed since my heart responded to the strains
+of the _Gloria in Excelsis_, as sung by Edith on the night of her
+brother's return.
+
+Come to this beautiful cottage on the sea-shore, where we have retired
+from the heat of summer, and you can tell by a glance whether time has
+scattered blossoms or thorns in my path, during its rapid flight.
+
+Come into the piazza that faces the beach, and you can look out on an
+ocean of molten gold, crimsoned here and there by the rays of the
+setting sun, and here and there melting off into a kind of burning
+silver. A glorious breeze is beginning to curl the face of the waters,
+and to swell the white sails of the skiffs and light vessels that skim
+the tide like birds of the air, apparently instinct with life and
+gladness. It rustles through the foliage, the bright, green foliage,
+that contrasts so dazzlingly with the smooth, white, sandy beach,--it
+lifts the soft, silky locks of that beautiful infant, that is cradled so
+lovingly in my father's arms. Oh! whose do you think that smiling cherub
+is, with such dark, velvet eyes, and pearly skin, and mouth of heavenly
+sweetness? It is mine, it is my own darling Rosalie, my pearl, my
+sunbeam, my flower, my every sweet and precious name in one.
+
+But let me not speak of her first, the youngest pilgrim to this sea-beat
+shore. There are others who claim the precedence. There is one on my
+right hand, whom if you do not remember with admiration and respect, it
+is because my pen has had no power to bring her character before you, in
+all its moral excellence and Christian glory. You have not forgotten
+Mrs. Linwood. Her serene gray eye is turned to the apparently
+illimitable ocean, now slowly rolling and deeply murmuring, as if its
+mighty heart were stirred to its inmost core, by a consciousness of its
+own grandeur. There is peace on her thoughtful, placid brow, and long,
+long may it rest there.
+
+The young man on my left is recognized at once, for there is no one like
+him, my high-souled, gallant Richard. His eye sparkles with much of its
+early quick-flashing light. The shadow of the dismal Tombs no longer
+clouds, though it tempers, the brightness of his manhood. _He_ knows,
+though the world does not, that his father fills a convict's grave, and
+this remembrance chastens his pride, without humiliating him with the
+consciousness of disgrace. He is rapidly making himself a name and fame
+in the high places of society. Men of talent take him by the hand and
+welcome him as a younger brother to their ranks, and fair and charming
+women smile upon and flatter him by the most winning attentions. He
+passes on from flower to flower, without seeking to gather one to place
+in his bosom, though he loves to inhale their fragrance and admire their
+bloom.
+
+"One of these days you will think of marrying," said a friend, while
+congratulating him on his brilliant prospects.
+
+"When I can find another Gabriella," he answered.
+
+Ah! Richard, there are thousands better and lovelier than Gabriella; and
+you will yet find an angel spirit in woman's form, who will reward your
+filial virtues, and scatter the roses of love in the green path of fame.
+
+Do you see that graceful figure floating along on the white beach, with
+a motion like the flowing wave, with hair like the sunbeams, and eye as
+when
+
+    "The blue sky trembles on a cloud of purest white?"
+
+and he who walks by her side, with the romantic, beaming countenance,
+now flashing with the enthusiasm, now shaded by the sensibility of
+genius? They are the fair-haired Edith, and the artist Julian. He has
+laid aside for awhile the pencil and the pallette, to drink in with us
+the invigorating breezes of ocean. Let them pass on. They are happy.
+
+Another couple is slowly following, taller, larger, more of the "earth,
+earthy." Do you not recognize my quondam tutor and the once dauntless
+Meg? It is his midsummer vacation, and they, too, have come to breathe
+an atmosphere cooled by sea-born gales, and to renew the socialities of
+friendship amid grand and inspiring influences. They walk on
+thoughtfully, pensively, sometimes looking down on the smooth,
+continuous beach, then upward to the mellow and glowing heavens. A
+softening shade has _womanized_ the bold brow of Madge, and her red lip
+has a more subdued tint. She, the care-defying, laughter-breathing,
+untamable Madge, has known not only the refining power of love, but the
+chastening touch of sorrow. She has given a lovely infant back to the
+God who gave it, and is thus linked to the world of angels. But she has
+treasures on earth still dearer. She leans on a strong arm and a true
+heart. Let them pass on. They, too, are happy.
+
+My dear father! He is younger and handsomer than he was two years since,
+for happiness is a wonderful rejuvenator. His youth is renewed in ours,
+his Rosalie lives again in the cherub who bears her name, and in whom
+his eye traces the similitude of her beauty. Father! never since the
+hour when I first addressed thee by that holy name, have I bowed my knee
+in prayer without a thanksgiving to God for the priceless blessing
+bestowed in thee.
+
+There is one more figure in this sea-side group, dearer, more
+interesting than all the rest to me. No longer the wan and languid
+wanderer returned from Indian shores, worn by remorse, and tortured by
+memory. The light, if not the glow of health, illumines his face, and a
+firmer, manlier tone exalts its natural delicacy of coloring.
+
+Do you not perceive a change in that once dark, though splendid
+countenance? Is there not more peace and softness, yet more dignity and
+depth of thought? I will not say that clouds never obscure its serenity,
+nor lightnings never dart across its surface, for life is still a
+conflict, and the passions, though chained as vassals by the victor hand
+of religion, will sometimes clank their fetters and threaten to resume
+their lost dominion; but they have not trampled underfoot the new-born
+blossoms of wedded joy. I am happy, as happy as a pilgrim and sojourner
+ought to be; and even now, there is danger of my forgetting, in the
+fulness of my heart's content, that eternal country, whither we are all
+hastening.
+
+We love each other as fondly, but less idolatrously. That little child
+has opened a channel in which our purified affections flow together
+towards the fountain of all love and joy. Its fairy fingers are leading
+us gently on in the paths of domestic harmony and peace.
+
+My beloved Ernest! my darling Rosalie! how beautiful they both seem, in
+the beams of the setting sun, that are playing in glory round them! and
+how melodiously and pensively, yet grandly does the music of the
+murmuring waves harmonize with the minor tone of tenderness breathing in
+our hearts!
+
+We, too, are passing on in the procession of life, and the waves of time
+that are rolling behind us will wash away the print of our footsteps,
+and others will follow, and others still, but few will be tossed on
+stormier seas, or be anchored at last in a more blissful haven.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+T. B. PETERSON and BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.
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+and all others in want of good and fast selling books, which will be
+supplied at very Low Prices.
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+
+
+MRS. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH'S WORKS.
+
+
+    Victor's Triumph
+    A Beautiful Fiend
+    The Artist's Love
+    A Noble Lord
+    Lost Heir of Linlithgow
+    Tried for her Life
+    Cruel as the Grave
+    The Maiden Widow
+    The Family Doom
+    Prince of Darkness
+    The Bride's Fate
+    The Changed Brides
+    How He Won Her
+    Fair Play
+    Fallen Pride
+    The Christmas Guest
+    The Widow's Son
+    The Bride of Llewellyn
+    The Fortune Seeker
+    The Fatal Marriage
+    The Deserted Wife
+    The Bridal Eve
+    The Lost Heiress
+    The Two Sisters
+    Lady of the Isle
+    The Three Beauties
+    Vivia; or the Secret of Power
+    The Missing Bride
+    Love's Labor Won
+    The Gipsy's Prophecy
+    Haunted Homestead
+    Wife's Victory
+    Allworth Abbey
+    The Mother-in-Law
+    Retribution
+    India; Pearl of Pearl River
+    Curse of Clifton
+    Discarded Daughter
+
+
+
+
+MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Bellehood and Bondage
+    The Old Countess
+    Lord Hope's Choice
+    The Reigning Belle
+    A Noble Woman
+    Palaces and Prisons
+    Married in Haste
+    Wives and Widows
+    Ruby Gray's Strategy
+    The Soldiers' Orphans
+    Silent Struggles
+    The Rejected Wife
+    The Wife's Secret
+    Mary Derwent
+    Fashion and Famine
+    The Curse of Gold
+    Mabel's Mistake
+    The Old Homestead
+    Doubly False
+    The Heiress
+    The Gold Brick
+
+
+
+
+MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ'S WORKS.
+
+
+    Ernest Linwood
+    The Planter's Northern Bride
+    Courtship and Marriage
+    Rena; or, the Snow Bird
+    Marcus Warland
+    Love after Marriage
+    Eoline; or Magnolia Vale
+    The Lost Daughter
+    The Banished Son
+    Helen and Arthur
+    Linda; or, the Young Pilot of the Belle Creole
+    Robert Graham; the Sequel to "Linda; or Pilot of Belle Creole"
+
+
+
+
+JAMES A. MAITLAND'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Watchman
+    The Wanderer
+    The Lawyer's Story
+    Diary of an Old Doctor
+    Sartaroe
+    The Three Cousins
+    The Old Patroon; or the Great Van Broek Property
+
+
+
+
+T. A. TROLLOPE'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Sealed Packet
+    Garstang Grange
+    Gemma
+    Leonora Casaloni
+    Dream Numbers
+    Marietta
+    Beppo, the Conscript
+
+
+
+
+FREDRIKA BREMER'S WORKS.
+
+
+    Father and Daughter
+    The Four Sisters
+    The Neighbors
+    The Home
+    Life in the Old World. In two volumes.
+
+
+
+
+MISS ELIZA A. DUPUY'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Hidden Sin
+    The Dethroned Heiress
+    The Gipsy's Warning
+    All For Love
+    The Mysterious Guest
+    Why Did He Marry Her?
+    Who Shall be Victor
+    Was He Guilty
+    The Cancelled Will
+    The Planter's Daughter
+    Michael Rudolph; or, the Bravest of the Brave
+
+
+
+
+EMERSON BENNETT'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Border Rover
+    Clara Moreland
+    The Forged Will
+    Bride of the Wilderness
+    Ellen Norbury
+    Kate Clarendon
+    Viola; or Adventures in the Far South-West
+    The Heiress of Bellefonte
+    The Pioneer's Daughter
+
+
+
+
+DOESTICKS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Doesticks' Letters
+    Plu-Ri-Bus-Tah
+    The Elephant Club
+    Witches of New York
+
+
+
+
+WILKIE COLLINS' BEST WORKS.
+
+
+    Basil; or, The Crossed Path
+    The Dead Secret
+    Hide and Seek
+    After Dark
+    Miss or Mrs?
+    Mad Monkton
+    Sights a-Foot
+    The Stolen Mask
+    The Queen's Revenge
+    The Yellow Mask
+    Sister Rose
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES LEVER'S BEST WORKS.
+
+
+    Charles O'Malley
+    Harry Lorrequer
+    Jack Hinton
+    Tom Burke of Ours
+    Knight of Gwynne
+    Arthur O'Leary
+    Con Cregan
+    Davenport Dunn
+    Horace Templeton
+    Kate O'Donoghue
+    A Rent in a Cloud
+    St. Patrick's Eve
+    Ten Thousand a Year, in one volume
+    The Diary of a Medical Student, by author "Ten Thousand a Year"
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Great Expectations
+    Bleak House
+    Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Master Humphrey's Clock
+    American Notes; and the Uncommercial Traveller
+    Hunted Down; and other Reprinted Pieces
+    The Holly-Tree Inn; and other Stories
+    The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens
+    Our Mutual Friend
+    Pickwick Papers
+    Tale of Two Cities
+    Nicholas Nickleby
+    David Copperfield
+    Oliver Twist
+    Christmas Stories
+    Sketches by "Boz"
+    Barnaby Rudge
+    Martin Chuzzlewit
+    Old Curiosity Shop
+    Little Dorrit
+    Dombey and Son
+    Dickens' New Stories
+    Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Master Humphrey's Clock
+    American Notes; and the Uncommercial Traveller
+    Hunted Down: and other Reprinted Pieces
+    The Holly-Tree Inn; and other Stories
+    The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Mysteries Court of London
+    Rose Foster
+    Caroline of Brunswick
+    Venetia Trelawney
+    Lord Saxondale
+    Count Christoval
+    Rosa Lambert
+    Mary Price
+    Eustace Quentin
+    Joseph Wilmot
+    Banker's Daughter
+    Kenneth
+    The Rye-House Plot
+    The Necromancer
+    The Opera Dancer
+    Child of Waterloo
+    Robert Bruce
+    The Gipsy Chief
+    Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
+    Wallace, Hero of Scotland
+    Isabella Vincent
+    Vivian Bertram
+    Countess of Lascelles
+    Duke of Marchmont
+    Massacre of Glencoe
+    Loves of the Harem
+    The Soldier's Wife
+    May Middleton
+    Ellen Percy
+    Agnes Evelyn
+    Pickwick Abroad
+    Parricide
+    Discarded Queen
+    Life in Paris
+    Countess and the Page
+    Edgar Montrose
+    The Ruined Gamester
+    Clifford and the Actress
+    Queen Joanna; or the Mysteries of the Court of Naples
+    Ciprina; or, the Secrets of a Picture Gallery
+
+
+
+
+MISS PARDOE'S POPULAR WORKS.
+
+
+    Confessions of a Pretty Woman
+    The Wife's Trials
+    The Jealous Wife
+    The Rival Beauties
+    Romance of the Harem
+    The Adopted Heir
+    The Earl's Secret
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ernest Linwood, by Caroline Lee Hentz
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ernest Linwood, by Caroline Lee Hentz
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ernest Linwood
+       or, The Inner Life of the Author
+
+Author: Caroline Lee Hentz
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2007 [EBook #20462]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST LINWOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>ERNEST LINWOOD;</h1>
+
+<h3>OR,</h3>
+
+<h2>THE INNER LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.</h2>
+
+<h2>BY MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ.</h2>
+
+<p>AUTHOR OF "LINDA; OR, THE YOUNG PILOT OF THE BELLE CREOLE," "THE
+BANISHED SON," "COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE; OR, THE JOYS AND SORROWS OF
+AMERICAN LIFE," "THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE; OR, SCENES IN MRS. HENTZ
+CHILDHOOD," "LOVE AFTER MARRIAGE," "MARCUS WARLAND; OR, THE LONG MOSS
+SPRING," "EOLINE; OR, MAGNOLIA VALE; OR, THE HEIRESS OF GLENMORE,"
+"HELEN AND ARTHUR; OR, MISS THUSA'S SPINNING-WHEEL," "RENA; OR, THE SNOW
+BIRD," "THE LOST DAUGHTER," "ROBERT GRAHAM;" A SEQUEL TO "LINDA," ETC.</p>
+
+
+<h4>PHILADELPHIA:<br />
+T. B. PETERSON &amp; BROTHERS;<br />
+306 CHESTNUT STREET.</h4>
+
+<h4>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by T. B.
+PETERSON &amp; BROTHERS</h4>
+
+<h4>In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and
+for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou hast called me thine angel in moments of bliss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still thine angel I'll prove mid the horrors of this.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the furnace unshrinking thy steps I'll pursue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shield thee, and save thee, and perish there too."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">CHAPTER LIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LIV">CHAPTER LIV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LV">CHAPTER LV.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LVI">CHAPTER LVI.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LVII">CHAPTER LVII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LVIII">CHAPTER LVIII.</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LIX">CHAPTER LIX.</a><br />
+<a href="#CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#T_B_PETERSON_and_BROTHERS_PUBLICATIONS">T. B. PETERSON and BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1>ERNEST LINWOOD.</h1>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+
+<p>With an incident of my childhood I will commence the record of my life.
+It stands out in bold prominence, rugged and bleak, through the haze of
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>I was only twelve years old. He might have spoken less harshly. He might
+have remembered and pitied my youth and sensitiveness, that tall,
+powerful, hitherto kind man,&mdash;my preceptor, and, as I believed, my
+friend. Listen to what he did say, in the presence of the whole school
+of boys, as well as girls, assembled on that day to hear the weekly
+exercises read, written on subjects which the master had given us the
+previous week.</p>
+
+<p>One by one, we were called up to the platform, where he sat enthroned in
+all the majesty of the Olympian king-god. One by one, the manuscripts
+were read by their youthful authors,&mdash;the criticisms uttered, which
+marked them with honor or shame,&mdash;gliding figures passed each other,
+going and returning, while a hasty exchange of glances, betrayed the
+flash of triumph, or the gloom of disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella Lynn!" The name sounded like thunder in my ears. I rose,
+trembling, blushing, feeling as if every pair of eyes in the hall were
+burning like redhot balls on my face. I tried to move, but my feet were
+glued to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella Lynn!"</p>
+
+<p>The tone was louder, more commanding, and I dared not resist the
+mandate. The greater fear conquered the less. With a desperate effort I
+walked, or rather rushed, up the steps, the paper fluttering in my hand,
+as if blown upon by a strong wind.</p>
+
+<p>"A little less haste would be more decorous, Miss."</p>
+
+<p>The shadow of a pair of beetling brows rolled darkly over me. Had I
+stood beneath an overhanging cliff, with the ocean waves dashing at my
+feet, I could not have felt more awe or dread. A mist settled on my
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Read,"&mdash;cried the master, waving his ferula with a commanding
+gesture,&mdash;"our time is precious."</p>
+
+<p>I opened my lips, but no sound issued from my paralyzed tongue. With a
+feeling of horror, which the intensely diffident can understand, and
+only they, I turned and was about to fly back to my seat, when a large,
+strong hand pressed its weight upon my shoulder, and arrested my flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay where you are," exclaimed Mr. Regulus. "Have I not lectured you a
+hundred times on this preposterous shame-facedness of yours? Am I a
+Draco, with laws written in blood, a tyrant, scourging with an iron rod,
+that you thus shrink and tremble before me? Read, or suffer the penalty
+due to disobedience and waywardness."</p>
+
+<p>Thus threatened, I commenced in a husky, faltering voice the reading of
+lines which, till that moment, I had believed glowing with the
+inspiration of genius. Now, how flat and commonplace they seemed! It was
+the first time I had ever ventured to reveal to others the talent hidden
+with all a miser's vigilance in my bosom casket. I had lisped in
+rhyme,&mdash;I had improvised in rhyme,&mdash;I had dreamed in poetry, when the
+moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lustre;&mdash;I had
+<i>thought</i> poetry at the sunset hour, amid twilight shadows and midnight
+darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at
+noonday recess at my solitary desk; but no human being, save my mother,
+knew of the young dream-girl's poetic raptures.</p>
+
+<p>One of those irresistible promptings of the spirit which all have felt,
+and to which many have yielded, induced me at this era to break loose
+from my shell and come forth, as I imagined, a beautiful and brilliant
+butterfly, soaring up above the gaze of my astonished and admiring
+companions. Yes; with all my diffidence I anticipated a scene of
+triumph, a dramatic scene, which would terminate perhaps in a crown of
+laurel, or a public ovation.</p>
+
+<p>Lowly self-estimation is by no means a constant accompaniment of
+diffidence. The consciousness of possessing great powers and deep
+sensibility often creates bashfulness. It is their veil and guard while
+maturing and strengthening. It is the flower-sheath, that folds the
+corolla, till prepared to encounter the sun's burning rays.</p>
+
+<p>"Read!"</p>
+
+<p>I did read,&mdash;one stanza. I could not go on though the scaffold were the
+doom of my silence.</p>
+
+<p>"What foolery is this! Give it to me."</p>
+
+<p>The paper was pulled from my clinging fingers. Clearing his throat with
+a loud and prolonged hem,&mdash;then giving a flourish of his ruler on the
+desk, he read, in a tone of withering derision, the warm breathings of a
+child's heart and soul, struggling after immortality,&mdash;the spirit and
+trembling utterance of long cherished, long imprisoned yearnings.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when after years of reflection I look back on that
+never-to-be-forgotten moment, I can form a true estimate of the poem
+subjected to that fiery ordeal, I wonder the paper did not scorch and
+shrivel up like a burning scroll. It did not deserve ridicule. The
+thoughts were fresh and glowing, the measure correct, the versification
+melodious. It was the genuine offspring of a young imagination, urged by
+the "strong necessity" of giving utterance to its bright idealities, the
+sighings of a heart looking beyond its lowly and lonely destiny. Ah! Mr.
+Regulus, you were cruel then.</p>
+
+<p>Methinks I see him,&mdash;hear him now, weighing in the iron scales of
+criticism every springing, winged idea, cutting and slashing the words
+till it seemed to me they dropped blood,&mdash;then glancing from me to the
+living rows of benches with such a cold, sarcastic smile.</p>
+
+<p>"What a barbarous, unfeeling monster!" perhaps I hear some one exclaim.</p>
+
+<p>No, he was not. He could be very kind and indulgent. He had been kind
+and generous to me. He gave me my tuition, and had taken unwearied pains
+with my lessons. He could forgive great offences, but had no toleration
+for little follies. He really thought it a sinful waste of time to write
+poetry in school. He had given me a subject for composition, a useful,
+practical one, but not at all to my taste, and I had ventured to
+disregard it. I had jumped over the rock, and climbed up to the flowers
+that grew above it. He was a thorough mathematician, a celebrated
+grammarian, a renowned geographer and linguist, but I then thought he
+had no more ear for poetry or music, no more eye for painting,&mdash;the
+painting of God, or man,&mdash;than the stalled ox, or the Greenland seal. I
+did him injustice, and he was unjust to me. I had not intended to slight
+or scorn the selection he had made, but I could not write upon it,&mdash;I
+could not help my thoughts flowing into rhyme.</p>
+
+<p>Can the stream help gliding and rippling through its flowery margins?
+Can the bird help singing and warbling upward into the deep blue sky,
+sending down a silver shower of melody as it flies?</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps some may think I am swelling small things into great; but
+incidents and actions are to be judged by their results, by their
+influence in the formation of character, and the hues they reflect on
+futurity. Had I received encouragement instead of rebuke, praise instead
+of ridicule,&mdash;had he taken me by the hand and spoken some such kindly
+words as these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This is very well for a little girl like you. Lift up that downcast
+face, nor blush and tremble, as if detected in a guilty act. You must
+not spend too much time in the reveries of imagination, for this is a
+working-day world, my child. Even the birds have to build their nests,
+and the coral insect is a mighty laborer. The gift of song is sweet, and
+may be made an instrument of the Creator's glory. The first notes of the
+lark are feeble, compared to his heaven-high strains. The fainter dawn
+precedes the risen day."</p>
+
+<p>Oh! had he addressed me in indulgent words as these, who knows but that,
+like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved? Who knows but
+that the golden gates of the Eden of immortality might have opened to
+admit the wandering Peri to her long-lost home? I might have been the
+priestess of a shrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered
+burning incense at my altar. I might have won the laurel crown, and
+found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves. I
+might,&mdash;but it matters not. The divine spark is undying, and though
+circumstances may smother the flame it enkindles, it glows in the bosom
+with unquenchable fire.</p>
+
+<p>I remember very well what the master said, instead of the imagined words
+I have written.</p>
+
+<p>"Poetry, is it?&mdash;or something you meant to be called by that name?
+Nonsense, child&mdash;folly&mdash;moon-beam hallucination! Child! do you know that
+this is an unpardonable waste of time? Do you remember that
+opportunities of improvement are given you to enable you hereafter to
+secure an honorable independence? This accounts for your reveries over
+the blackboard, your indifference to mathematics, that grand and
+glorious science! Poetry! ha, ha! I began to think you did not
+understand the use of capitals,&mdash;ha, ha!"</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever imagine how a tender loaf of bread must feel when cut into
+slices by the sharpened knife? How the young bark feels when the iron
+wedge is driven through it with cleaving force? I think <i>I</i> can, by the
+experience of that hour. I stood with quivering lip, burning cheek, and
+panting breast,&mdash;my eyes riveted on the paper which he flourished in his
+left hand, pointing <i>at</i> it with the forefinger of his right.</p>
+
+<p>"He shall not go on,"&mdash;said I to myself, exasperation giving me
+boldness,&mdash;"he shall not read what I have written of my mother. I will
+die sooner. He may insult <i>my</i> poverty but hers shall be sacred, and her
+sorrows too."</p>
+
+<p>I sprang forward, forgetting every thing in the fear of hearing <i>her</i>
+name associated with derision, and attempted to get possession of the
+manuscript. A fly might as well attempt to wring the trunk of the
+elephant.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, little poetess, you are getting bold. I should like to see you
+try that again. You had better keep quiet."</p>
+
+<p>A resolute glance of the keen, black eye, resolute, yet twinkling with
+secret merriment, and he was about to commence another stanza.</p>
+
+<p>I jumped up with the leap of the panther. I could not loosen his strong
+grasp, but I tore the paper from round his fingers, ran down the steps
+through the rows of desks and benches, without looking to the right or
+left, and flew without bonnet or covering out into the broad sunlight
+and open air.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back, this moment!"</p>
+
+<p>The thundering voice of the master rolled after me, like a heavy stone,
+threatening to crush me as it rolled. I bounded on before it with
+constantly accelerating speed.</p>
+
+<p>"Go back,&mdash;never!"</p>
+
+<p>I said this to myself. I repeated it aloud to the breeze that came
+coolly and soothingly through the green boughs, to fan the burning
+cheeks of the fugitive. At length the dread of pursuit subsiding, I
+slackened my steps, and cast a furtive glance behind me. The cupola of
+the academy gleamed white through the oak trees that surrounded it, and
+above them the glittering vane, fashioned in the form of a giant pen,
+seemed writing on the azure page of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>My home,&mdash;the little cottage in the woods, was one mile distant. There
+was a by-path, a foot-path, as it was called, which cut the woods in a
+diagonal line, and which had been trodden hard and smooth by the feet of
+the children. Even at mid-day there was twilight in that solitary path,
+and when the shadows deepened and lengthened on the plain, they
+concentrated into gloominess there. The moment I turned into that path,
+I was supreme. It was <i>mine</i>. The public road, the thoroughfare leading
+through the heart of the town, belonged to the world. I was obliged to
+walk there like other people, with mincing steps, and bonnet tied primly
+under the chin, according to the rule and plummet line of school-girl
+propriety. But in my own little by-path, I could do just as I pleased. I
+could run with my bonnet swinging in my hand, and my hair floating like
+the wild vine of the woods. I could throw myself down on the grass at
+the foot of the great trees, and looking up into the deep, distant sky,
+indulge my own wondrous imaginings.</p>
+
+<p>I did so now. I cast myself panting on the turf, and turning my face
+downward instead of upward, clasped my hands over it, and the hot tears
+gushed in scalding streams through my fingers, till the pillow of earth
+was all wet as with a shower.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, they did me good, those fast-gushing tears! There was comfort, there
+was luxury in them. Bless God for tears! How they cool the dry and
+sultry heart! How they refresh the fainting virtues! How they revive the
+dying affections!</p>
+
+<p>The image of my pale sweet, gentle mother rose softly through the
+falling drops. A rainbow seemed to crown her with its seven-fold beams.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother!&mdash;would she will me to go back where the giant pen dipped
+its glittering nib into the deep blue ether?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Get up, Gabriella,&mdash;you must not lie here on the damp ground. Get
+up,&mdash;it is almost night. What <i>will</i> your mother say? what <i>will</i> she
+think has become of you?"</p>
+
+<p>I started up, bewildered and alarmed, passing my hands dreamily over my
+swollen eyelids. Heavy shadows hung over the woods. Night was indeed
+approaching. I had fallen into a deep sleep, and knew it not.</p>
+
+<p>It was Richard Clyde who awakened me. His schoolmaster called him Dick,
+but I thought it sounded vulgar, and he was always Richard to me. A boy
+of fifteen, the hardest student in the academy, and, next to my mother
+and Peggy, the best friend I had in the world. I had no brother, and
+many a time had he acted a brother's part, when I had needed a manly
+champion. Yet my mother had enjoined on me such strict reserve in my
+intercourse with the boy pupils, and my disposition was so shy, our
+acquaintance had never approached familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean to shake you so hard," said he, stepping back a few
+paces as he spoke, "but I never knew any one sleep so like a log before.
+I feared for a moment that you were dead."</p>
+
+<p>"It would not be much matter if I were," I answered, hardly knowing what
+I said, for a dull weight pressed on my brain, and despondency had
+succeeded excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gabriella! is it not wicked to say that?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you had been treated as badly as I have, you would feel like saying
+it too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" he exclaimed, energetically, "you have been treated badly,
+shamefully, and I told the master so to his face."</p>
+
+<p>"You! You did not, Richard. You only thought so. You would not have told
+him so for all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"But I did, though! As soon as you ran out of school, it seemed as if he
+made but one step to the door, and his face looked as black as night. I
+thought if he overtook you, he might,&mdash;I did not know what he would do,
+he was so angry. I sat near the door, and I jumped right up and faced
+him on the threshold. 'Don't, sir, don't! I cried; she is a little girl,
+and you a great strong man.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What is that to you, sirrah?' he exclaimed, and the forked lightning
+ran out of his eye right down my backbone. It aches yet, Gabriella.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is a great deal, Sir,' I answered, as bold as a lion. 'You have
+treated her cruelly enough already. It would be cowardly to pursue
+her.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Richard! how dared you say that? Did he not strike you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He lifted his hand; but instead of flinching, I made myself as tall as
+I could, and looked at him right steadfastly. You do not know how pale
+he looked, when I stopped him on the threshold. His very lips turned
+white&mdash;I declare there is something grand in a great passion. It makes
+one look somehow so different from common folks. Well, now, as soon as
+he raised his hand to strike me, a red flush shot into his face, like
+the blaze of an inward fire. It was shame,&mdash;anger made him white&mdash;but
+shame turned him as red as blood. His arm dropped down to his
+side,&mdash;then he laid his hand on the top of his head,&mdash;'Stay after
+school,' said he, 'I must talk with you.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And did you?" I asked, hanging with breathless interest on his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have just left him."</p>
+
+<p>"He has not expelled you, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but he says I must ask his pardon before the whole school
+to-morrow. It amounts to the same thing. I will never do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry this has happened," said I. "Oh! that I had never written
+that foolish, foolish poetry. It has done so much mischief."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not to blame, Gabriella. He had no business to laugh at it; it
+was beautiful&mdash;all the boys say so. I have no doubt you will be a great
+poetess one of these days. He ought to have been proud of it, instead of
+making fun of you. It was so mean."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must go back to school, Richard. You are the best scholar. The
+master is proud of you, and will not give you up. I would not have it
+said that <i>I</i> was the cause of your leaving, for twice your weight in
+solid gold."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you not despise me if I asked pardon, when I have done no wrong;
+to appear ashamed of what I glory in; to act the part of a coward, after
+publicly proclaiming <i>him</i> to be one?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is hard," said I, "but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>We were walking homeward all the while we were talking, and at every
+step my spirits sank lower and lower. How different every thing seemed
+now, from what it did an hour ago. True, I had been treated with
+harshness, but I had no right to rebel as I had done. Had I kissed the
+rod, it would have lost its sting,&mdash;had I borne the smart with patience
+and gentleness, my companions would have sympathized with and pitied me;
+it would not have been known beyond the walls of the academy. But now,
+it would be blazoned through the whole town. The expulsion of so
+distinguished a scholar as Richard Clyde would be the nine days' gossip,
+the village wonder. And I should be pointed out as the presumptuous
+child, whose disappointed vanity, irascibility, and passion had created
+rebellion and strife in a hitherto peaceful seminary. I, the recipient
+of the master's favors, an ingrate and a wretch! My mother would know
+this&mdash;my gentle, pale-faced mother.</p>
+
+<p>Our little cottage was now visible, with its low walls of grayish white,
+and vine-encircled windows.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard," said I, walking as slowly as possible, though it was growing
+darker every moment, "I feel very unhappy. I will go and see the master
+in the morning and ask him to punish me for both. I will humble myself
+for your sake, for you have been my champion, and I never will forget it
+as long as I live. I was wrong to rush out of school as I did,&mdash;wrong to
+tear the paper from his hands,&mdash;and I am willing to tell him so now. It
+shall all be right yet, Richard,&mdash;indeed it shall."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall not humble yourself for me, Gabriella; I like a girl of
+spirit."</p>
+
+<p>We had now reached the little gate that opened into our own green yard.
+I could see my mother looking from the window for her truant child. My
+heart began to palpitate, for no Catholic ever made more faithful
+confessions to his absolving priest, than I to my only parent. Were I
+capable of concealing any thing from her, I should have thought myself
+false and deceitful. With feelings of love and reverence kindred to
+those with which I regarded my Heavenly Father, I looked up to her, the
+incarnate angel of my life. This expression has been so often used it
+does not seem to mean much; but when I say it, I mean all the filial
+heart is capable of feeling. I was poor in fortune, but in her goodness
+rich. I was a lonely child, but sad and pensive as she was, she was a
+fountain of social joy to me. Then, she was so beautiful&mdash;so very, very
+lovely!</p>
+
+<p>I caught the light of her pensive smile through the dimness of the hour.
+She was so accustomed to my roaming in the woods, she had suffered no
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"If my mother thinks it right, you will not object to my going to see
+Mr. Regulus," said I, as Richard lifted the gate-latch for me to enter.</p>
+
+<p>"For yourself, no; but not for me. I can take care of myself,
+Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke proudly. He did not quite come up to my childish idea of a boy
+hero, but I admired his self-reliance and bravery. I did not want him to
+despise me or my lack of spirit. I began to waver in my good resolution.</p>
+
+<p>My mother called me, in that soft, gentle tone, so full of music and of
+love.</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes I had told her all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If I thought any language of mine could do justice to her character, I
+would try to describe my mother. Were I to <i>speak</i> of her, my voice
+would choke at the mention of her name. As I write, a mist gathers over
+my eyes. Grief for the loss of such a being is immortal, as the love of
+which it is born.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that we were poor,&mdash;but ours was not abject poverty,
+hereditary poverty,&mdash;though <i>I</i> had never known affluence, or even that
+sufficiency which casts out the fear of want. I knew that my mother was
+the child of wealth, and that she had been nurtured in elegance and
+splendor. I inherited from her the most fastidious tastes, without the
+means of gratifying them. I felt that I had a right to be wealthy, and
+that misfortune alone had made my mother poor, had made her an alien
+from her kindred and the scenes of her nativity. I felt a strange pride
+in this conviction. Indeed there was a singular union of pride and
+diffidence in my character, that kept me aloof from my young companions,
+and closed up the avenues to the social joys of childhood.</p>
+
+<p>My mother thought a school life would counteract the influence of her
+own solitary habits and example. She did not wish me to be a hermit
+child, and for this reason accepted the offer Mr. Regulus made through
+the minister to become a pupil in the academy. She might have sent me to
+the free schools in the neighborhood, but she did not wish me to form
+associations incompatible with the refinement she had so carefully
+cultivated in me. She might have continued to teach me at home, for she
+was mistress of every accomplishment, but she thought the discipline of
+an institution like this would give tone and firmness to my poetic and
+dreaming mind. She wanted me to become practical,&mdash;she wanted to see the
+bark growing and hardening over the exposed and delicate fibres. She
+anticipated for me the cold winds and beating rains of an adverse
+destiny. I knew she did, though she had never told me so in words. I
+read it in the anxious, wistful, prophetic expression of her soft, deep
+black eyes, whenever they rested on me. Those beautiful, mysterious
+eyes!</p>
+
+<p>There was a mystery about her that gave power to her excellence and
+beauty. Through the twilight shades of her sorrowful loneliness, I could
+trace only the dim outline of her past life. I was fatherless,&mdash;and
+annihilation, as well as death, seemed the doom of him who had given me
+being. I was forbidden to mention his name. No similitude of his
+features, no token of his existence, cherished by love and hallowed by
+reverence, invested him with the immortality of memory. It was as if he
+had never been.</p>
+
+<p>Thus mantled in mystery, his image assumed a sublimity and grandeur in
+my imagination, dark and oppressive as night. I would sit and ponder
+over his mystic attributes, till he seemed like those gods of mythology,
+who, veiling their divinity in clouds, came down and wooed the daughters
+of men. A being so lovely and good as my mother would never have loved a
+common mortal. Perhaps he was some royal exile, who had found her in his
+wanderings a beauteous flower, but dared not transplant her to the
+garden of kings.</p>
+
+<p>My mother little thought, when I sat in my simple calico dress, my
+school-book open on my knees, conning my daily lessons, or seeming so to
+do, what wild, absurd ideas were revelling in my brain. She little
+thought how high the "aspiring blood" of mine mounted in that lowly,
+woodland cottage.</p>
+
+<p>I told her the history of my humiliation, passion, and flight,&mdash;of
+Richard Clyde's brave defence and undaunted resolution,&mdash;of my sorrow on
+his account,&mdash;of my shame and indignation on my own.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor Gabriella!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not angry with me, my mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Angry! No, my child, it was a hard trial,&mdash;very hard for one so young.
+I did not think Mr. Regulus capable of so much unkindness. He has
+cancelled this day a debt of gratitude."</p>
+
+<p>"My poor Gabriella," she again repeated, laying her delicate hand gently
+on my head. "I fear you have a great deal to contend with in this rough
+world. The flowers of poesy are sweet, but poverty is a barren soil, my
+child. The dew that moistens it, is tears."</p>
+
+<p>I felt a tear on my hand as she spoke. Child as I was, I thought that
+tear more holy and precious than the dew of heaven. Flowers nurtured by
+such moisture must be sweet.</p>
+
+<p>"I will never write any more," I exclaimed, with desperate resolution.
+"I will never more expose myself to ridicule and contempt."</p>
+
+<p>"Write as you have hitherto done, for my gratification and your own.
+Your simple strains have beguiled my lonely hours. But had I known your
+purpose, I would have warned you of the consequences. The child who
+attempts to soar above its companions is sure to be dragged down by the
+hand of envy. Your teacher saw in your effusion an unpardonable effort
+to rise above himself,&mdash;to diverge from the beaten track. You may have
+indulged too much in the dreams of imagination. You may have neglected
+your duties as a pupil. Lay your hand on your heart and ask it to
+reply."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke so calmly, so soothingly, so rationally, the fever of
+imagination subsided. I saw the triumph of reason and principle in her
+own self-control,&mdash;for, when I was describing the scene, her mild eye
+flashed, and her pale cheek colored with an unwonted depth of hue. She
+had to struggle with her own emotions, that she might subdue mine.</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask him to pardon Richard Clyde, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"The act would become your gratitude, but I fear it would avail nothing.
+If he has required submission of him, he will hardly accept yours as a
+substitute."</p>
+
+<p>"Must I ask him to forgive me? Must I return?"</p>
+
+<p>I hung breathlessly on her reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till morning, my daughter. We shall both feel differently then. I
+would not have you yield to the dictates of passion, neither would I
+have you forfeit your self-respect. I must not rashly counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not let her go back at all," exclaimed a firm, decided voice.
+"They ain't fit to hold the water to wash her hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Peggy," said my mother, rebukingly, "you forget yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I always try to do that," she replied, while she placed on the table my
+customary supper of bread and milk.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed you do," answered my mother, gratefully,&mdash;"kind and
+faithful friend. But humility becometh my child better than pride."</p>
+
+<p>Peggy looked hard at my mother, with a mixture of reverence, pity, and
+admiration in her clear, honest eye, then taking a coarse towel, she
+rubbed a large silver spoon, till it shone brighter and brighter, and
+laid it by the side of my bowl. She had first spread a white napkin
+under it, to give my simple repast an appearance of neatness and
+gentility. The bowl itself was white, with a wreath of roses round the
+rim, both inside and out. Those rosy garlands had been for years the
+delight of my eyes. I always hailed the appearance of the glowing
+leaves, when the milky fluid sunk below them, with a fresh appreciation
+of their beauty. They gave an added relish to the Arcadian meal. They
+fed my love of the beautiful and the pure. That large, bright silver
+spoon,&mdash;I was never weary of admiring that also. It was massive&mdash;it was
+grand&mdash;and whispered a tale of former grandeur. Indeed, though the
+furniture of our cottage was of the simplest, plainest kind, there were
+many things indicative of an earlier state of luxury and elegance. My
+mother always used a golden thimble,&mdash;she had a toilet case inlaid with
+pearl, and many little articles appropriate only to wealth, and which
+wealth only purchases. These were never displayed, but I had seen them,
+and made them the corner-stones of many an airy castle.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>And who was Peggy?</p>
+
+<p>She was one of the best and noblest women God ever made. She was a
+treasury of heaven's own influences.</p>
+
+<p>And yet she wore the form of a servant, and like her divine Master,
+there was "no beauty" in her that one should desire to look upon her.</p>
+
+<p>She had followed my mother through good report and ill report. She had
+clung to her in her fallen fortunes as something sacred, almost divine.
+As the Hebrew to the ark of the covenant,&mdash;as the Greek to his country's
+palladium,&mdash;as the children of Freedom to the star-spangled banner,&mdash;so
+she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost worshipped.
+I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble,
+self-sacrificing, devoted friend. I did not know it then&mdash;at least not
+all&mdash;not half. I knew that she labored most abundantly for us,&mdash;that she
+ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an
+empress, anticipating her slightest wants and wishes, deprecating her
+gratitude, and seeming ashamed of her own goodness and industry. I knew
+that her plain sewing, assisted by my mother's elegant needle-work,
+furnished us the means of support; but I had always known it so, and it
+seemed all natural and right. Peggy was strong and robust. The burden of
+toil rested lightly on her sturdy shoulders. It seemed to me that she
+was born with us and for us,&mdash;that she belonged to us as rightfully as
+the air we breathed, and the light that illumined us. It never entered
+my mind that we could live without Peggy, or that Peggy could live
+without us.</p>
+
+<p>My mother's health was very delicate. She could not sew long without
+pressing her hand on her aching side, and then Peggy would draw her work
+gently from her with her large, kind hand, make her lie down and rest,
+or walk out in the fresh air, till the waxen hue was enlivened on her
+pallid cheek. She would urge her to go into the garden and gather
+flowers for Gabriella, "because the poor child loved so to see them in
+the room." We had a sweet little garden, where Peggy delved at early
+sunrise and evening twilight. Without ever seeming hurried or
+overtasked, she accomplished every thing. We had the earliest
+vegetables, and the latest. We had fruit, we had flowers, all the result
+of Peggy's untiring, providing hand. The surplus vegetables and fruit
+she carried to the village market, and though they brought but a trifle
+in a country town, where every thing was so abundant, yet Peggy said,
+"we must not despise the day of small gains." She took the lead in all
+business matters in-doors and out-doors. She never asked my mother if
+she had better do this and that; she went right ahead, doing what she
+thought right and best, in every thing pertaining to the drudgery of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>When I was a little child, I used to ask her many a question about the
+mystery of my life. I asked her about my father, of my kindred, and the
+place of my birth.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Gabriella," she would answer, "you mustn't ask questions. Your
+mother does not wish it. She has forbidden me to say one word of all you
+want to know. When you are old enough you shall learn every thing. Be
+quiet&mdash;be patient. It is best that you should be. But of one thing rest
+assured, if ever there was a saint in this world, your mother is one."</p>
+
+<p>I never doubted this. I should have doubted as soon the saintliness of
+those who wear the golden girdles of Paradise. I am glad of this. I have
+sometimes doubted the love and mercy of my Heavenly Father, but never
+the purity and excellence of my mother. Ah, yes! once when sorely
+tempted.</p>
+
+<p>We retired very early in our secluded, quiet home. We had no evening
+visitors to charm away the sober hours, and time marked by the sands of
+the hour-glass always seems to glide more slowly. That solemn-looking
+hour-glass! How I used to gaze on each dropping particle, watching the
+upward segment gradually becoming more and more transparent, and the
+lower as gradually darkening. It was one of Peggy's inherited treasures,
+and she reverenced it next to her Bible. The glass had been broken and
+mended with putty, which formed a dark, diagonal line across the
+venerable crystal. This antique chronometer occupied the central place
+on the mantel-piece, its gliding sands, though voiceless, for ever
+whispering of ebbing time and everlasting peace. "Passing away, passing
+away," seemed continually issuing from each meeting cone. I have no
+doubt the contemplation of this ancient, solemn instrument, which old
+Father Time is always represented as grasping in one unclenching hand,
+while he brandishes in the other the merciless scythe, had a lasting
+influence on my character.</p>
+
+<p>That night, it was long before I fell asleep. I lay awake thinking of
+the morning's dawn. The starlight abroad, that came in through the upper
+part of the windows, glimmered on the dark frame and glassy surface of
+the old timepiece, which stood out in bold relief from the whitewashed
+wall behind it. Before I knew it, I was composing a poem on that old
+hour-glass. It was a hoary pilgrim, travelling on a lone and sea-beat
+shore, towards a dim and distant goal, and the print of his footsteps on
+the wave-washed sands, guided others in the same lengthening journey.
+The scene was before me. I saw the ancient traveller, his white locks
+streaming in the ocean blast; I heard the deep murmur of the restless
+tide; I saw the footsteps; and they looked like sinking graves; when all
+at once, in the midst of my solemn inspiration, a stern mocking face
+came between me and the starlight night, the jeering voice of my master
+was in my ears, a dishonored fragment was fluttering in my hand. The
+vision fled; I turned my head on my pillow and wept.</p>
+
+<p>You may say such thoughts and visions were strangely precocious in a
+child of twelve years old. I suppose they were; but I never remember
+being a child. My sad, gentle mother, the sober, earnest, practical
+Peggy, were the companions of my infancy, instead of children of my own
+age. The sunlight of my young life was not reflected from the golden
+locks of childhood, its radiant smile and unclouded eye. I was defrauded
+of the sweetest boon of that early season, a confidence that this world
+is the happiest, fairest, best of worlds, the residence of joy, beauty,
+and goodness.</p>
+
+<p>A thoughtful child! I do not like to hear it. What has a little child to
+do with thought? That sad, though glorious reversion of our riper and
+darker years?</p>
+
+<p>Ah me! I never recollect the time that my spirit was not travelling to
+grasp some grown idea, to fathom the mystery of my being, to roll away
+the shadows that surrounded me, groping for light, toiling, then
+dreaming, not resting. It was no wonder I was weary before my journey
+was well begun.</p>
+
+<p>"What a remarkable countenance Gabriella has!" I then often heard it
+remarked. "Her features are childish, but her eyes have such a peculiar
+depth of expression,&mdash;so wild, and yet so wise."</p>
+
+<p>I wish I had a picture of myself taken at this period of my life. I have
+no doubt I looked older then than I do now.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I knew the path which led from the boarding-place of Mr. Regulus crossed
+the one which I daily traversed. I met him exactly at the point of
+intersection, under the shadow of a great, old oak. The dew of the
+morning glittered on the shaded grass. The clear light blue of the
+morning sky smiled through upward quivering leaves. Every thing looked
+bright and buoyant, and as I walked on, girded with a resolute purpose,
+my spirit caught something of the animation and inspiration of the
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>The master saw me as I approached, and I expected to see a frown darken
+his brow. I felt brave, however, for I was about to plead for another,
+not myself. He did not frown, neither did he smile. He seemed willing to
+meet me,&mdash;he even slackened his pace till I came up. I felt a sultry
+glow on my cheek when I faced him, and my breath came quick and short. I
+was not so very brave after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Regulus," said I, "do not expel Richard Clyde,&mdash;do not disgrace
+him, because he thought I was not kindly dealt with. I am sorry I ran
+from school as I did,&mdash;I am sorry I wrote the poem,&mdash;I hardly knew what
+I was doing when I snatched the paper from your hands. I suppose Richard
+hardly knew what he was doing when he stopped you at the door."</p>
+
+<p>I did not look up while I was speaking, for had I met an angry glance I
+should have rebelled.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad I have met you, Gabriella," said he, in a tone so gentle, I
+lifted my eyes in amazement. His beamed with unusual kindness beneath
+his shading brows. Gone was the mocking gleam,&mdash;gone the deriding smile.
+He looked serious, earnest, almost sad, but not severe. Looking at his
+watch, and then at the golden vane, as if that too were a chronometer,
+he turned towards the old oak, and throwing himself carelessly on a seat
+formed of a broken branch, partially severed from the trunk, motioned me
+to sit down on the grass beside him. Quick as lightning I obeyed him,
+untying my bonnet and pushing it back from my head. I could scarcely
+believe the evidence of my senses. There reclined the formidable master,
+like a great, overgrown boy, his attitude alone banishing all restraint
+and fear, and I, perched on a mossy rock, that looked as if placed there
+on purpose for me to sit down upon, all my wounded and exasperated
+feelings completely drowned in a sudden overflow of pleasant emotions. I
+had expected scolding, rebuke, denial,&mdash;I had armed myself for a
+struggle of power,&mdash;I had resolved to hazard a martyr's doom.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the magic of kindness on a child's heart!&mdash;a lonely, sensitive,
+proud, yearning heart like mine!&mdash;'Tis the witch-hazel wand that shows
+where the deep fountain is secretly welling. I was ashamed of the tears
+that <i>would</i> gather into my eyes. I shook my hair forward to cover them,
+and played with the green leaves within my reach.</p>
+
+<p>The awful space between me and this tall, stern, learned man seemed
+annihilated. I had never seen him before, divested of the insignia of
+authority, beyond the walls of the academy. I had always been compelled
+to look up to him before; now we were on a level, on the green sward of
+the wild-wood. God above, nature around, no human faces near, no fear of
+man to check the promptings of ingenuous feeling. Softly the folded
+flower petals of the heart began to unfurl. The morning breeze caught
+their fragrance and bore it up to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"You thought me harsh and unkind, Gabriella," said the master in a low,
+subdued voice, "and I fear I was so yesterday. I intended to do you
+good. I began sportively, but when I saw you getting excited and angry,
+I became angry and excited too. My temper, which is by no means gentle,
+had been previously much chafed, and, as is too often the case, the
+irritation, caused by the offences of many, burst forth on one, perhaps
+the most innocent of all. Little girl, you have been studying the
+history of France; do you remember its Louises?&mdash;Louis the Fourteenth
+was a profligate, unprincipled, selfish king. Louis the Fifteenth,
+another God-defying, self-adoring sensualist. Louis the Sixteenth one of
+the most amiable, just, Christian monarchs the world ever saw. Yet the
+accumulated wrongs under which the nation had been groaning during the
+reign of his predecessors, were to be avenged in his person,&mdash;innocent,
+heroic sufferer that he was. This is a most interesting historic fact,
+and bears out wonderfully the truth of God's words. But I did not mean
+to give a lecture on history. It is out of place here. I meant to do you
+good yesterday, and discourage you from becoming an idle rhymer&mdash;a vain
+dreamer. You are not getting angry I hope, little girl, for I am kind
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir,&mdash;no, indeed, sir," I answered, with my face all in a glow.</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother, I am told, wishes you to be educated for a teacher, a
+profession which requires as much training as the Spartan youth endured,
+when fitted to be the warriors of the land. Why, you should be preparing
+yourself a coat of mail, instead of embroidering a silken suit. How do
+you expect to get through the world, child,&mdash;and it is a hard world to
+the poor, a cold world to the friendless,&mdash;how do you expect to get
+along through the briars and thorns, over the rocks and the hills with
+nothing but a blush on your cheek, a tear in your eye, and a sentimental
+song on your lips? Independence is the reward of the working mind, the
+thinking brain, and the earnest heart."</p>
+
+<p>He grew really eloquent as he went on. He raised his head to an erect
+position, and ran his fingers through his bushy locks. I cannot remember
+all he said, but every word he uttered had meaning in it. I appreciated
+for the first time the difficulties and trials of a teacher's vocation.
+I had thought before, that it was the pupil only who bore the burden of
+endurance. It had never entered my mind that the crown of authority
+covered the thorns of care, that the wide sweep of command wearied more
+than the restraint of subjection. I was flattered by the manner in which
+he addressed me, the interest he expressed in my future prospects. I
+found myself talking freely to him of myself, of my hopes and my fears.
+I forgot the tyrant of yesterday in the friend of to-day. I remember one
+thing he said, which is worth recording.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very unfortunate when a child, in consequence of a facility of
+making rhyme, is led to believe herself a poetess,&mdash;or, in other words,
+a prodigy. She is praised and flattered by injudicious friends, till she
+becomes inflated by vanity and exalted by pride. She wanders idly,
+without aim or goal, in the flowery paths of poesy, forgetful of the
+great highway of knowledge, not made alone for the chariot wheels of
+kings, but the feet of the humblest wayfarer."</p>
+
+<p>When he began to address me, he remembered that I was a child, but
+before he finished the sentence he forgot my age, and his thoughts and
+language swelled and rose to the comprehension of manhood. But I
+understood him. Perhaps there was something in my fixed and fascinated
+glance that made him conscious of my full appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no friends to praise and flatter me," I simply answered. "I have
+loved to sing in rhyme as the little birds sing, because God gave me the
+power."</p>
+
+<p>He looked pleased. He even laid his hand on my head and smiled. Not the
+cold smile of yesterday, but quite a genial smile. I could hardly
+believe it the same face, it softened and transformed it so. I
+involuntarily drew nearer to him, drawn by that powerful magnetism,
+which every human heart feels more or less.</p>
+
+<p>The great brazen tongue of the town clock rang discordantly on the sweet
+stillness of the morning hour. The master rose and motioned me to follow
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard Clyde is forgiven. Tell him so. Let the past be forgotten, or
+remembered only to make us wiser and better."</p>
+
+<p>We entered the academy together, to the astonishment of the pupils, who
+were gathered in little clusters, probably discussing the events of
+yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Clyde was not there, but he came the next day, and the scene in
+which we were both such conspicuous actors was soon forgotten. It had,
+however, an abiding influence on me. A new motive for exertion was born
+within me,&mdash;affection for my master,&mdash;and the consequence was, ambition
+to excel, that I might be rewarded by his approbation.</p>
+
+<p>Bid he ever again treat me with harshness and severity? No,&mdash;never. I
+have often wondered why he manifested such unusual and wanton disregard
+of my feelings then, that one, only time. It is no matter now. It is a
+single blot on a fair page.</p>
+
+<p>Man is a strangely inconsistent being. His soul is the battle ground of
+the warring angels of good and evil. As one or the other triumphs, he
+exhibits the passions of a demon or the attributes of a God.</p>
+
+<p>Could we see this hidden war field, would it not be grand? What were the
+plains of Marathon, the pass of Thermopyl&aelig;, or Cann&aelig; paved with golden
+rings, compared to it?</p>
+
+<p>Let us for a moment imagine the scene. Not the moment of struggle, but
+the pause that succeeds. The angels of good have triumphed, and though
+the plumage of their wings may droop, they are white and dazzling so as
+no "fuller of earth could whiten them." The moonlight of peace rests
+upon the battle field, where evil passions lie wounded and trampled
+under feet. Strains of victorious music float in the air; but it comes
+from those who have triumphed in the conflict and entered into rest,
+those who behold the conflict from afar. It is so still, that one can
+almost hear the trees of Paradise rustle in the ambrosial gales of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Is this poetry? Is it sacrilege? If so, forgive me, thou great Inspirer
+of thought,&mdash;"my spirit would fain not wander from thee."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The life of a school-girl presents but few salient points to arrest the
+interest. It is true, every day had its history, and every rising and
+setting sun found something added to the volume of my life. But there
+seems so little to describe! I could go on for ever, giving utterance to
+thoughts that used to crowd in my young brain, thoughts that would
+startle as well as amuse,&mdash;but I fear they might become monotonous to
+the reader.</p>
+
+<p>I had become a hard student. My mother wished me to fit myself for a
+teacher. It was enough.</p>
+
+<p>It was not, however, without many struggles. I had acquired this
+submission to her wishes. Must I forever be a slave to hours? Must I
+weave for others the chain whose daily restraint chafed and galled my
+free, impatient spirit? Must I bear the awful burden of authority, that
+unlovely appendage to youth? Must I voluntarily assume duties to which
+the task of the criminal that tramps, tramps day after day the revolving
+tread-mill, seems light; for that is mere physical labor and monotony,
+not the wear and tear of mind, heart, and soul?</p>
+
+<p>"What else can you do, my child?" asked my mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I could sew."</p>
+
+<p>My mother smiled and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Your skill does not lie in handicraft," she said, "that would never
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"I could toil as a servant. I would far rather do it."</p>
+
+<p>I had worked myself up to a belief in my own sincerity when I said this,
+but had any tongue but mine suggested the idea, how would my aspiring
+blood have burned with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the most honorable path to independence a friendless young girl
+can choose,&mdash;almost the only one," said my mother, suppressing a deep
+sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother! I am not friendless. How can I be, with you and Peggy?"</p>
+
+<p>"But we are not immortal, my child. Every day loosens my frail hold of
+earthly things, and even Peggy's strong arm will in time grow weak. Your
+young strength will then be <i>her</i> stay and support."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother! as if I could live when you are taken from me! What do I
+live for, but you? What have I on earth but thee? Other children have
+father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and friends. If one is
+taken from them, they have others left to love and care for them, but I
+have nobody in the wide world but you. I could not, would not live
+without you."</p>
+
+<p>I spoke with passionate earnestness. Life without my mother! The very
+thought was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more
+than pale,&mdash;it was wan&mdash;it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under
+her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure
+looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her
+eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when throwing my arms across
+her lap, I laid my face upon them, and wept and sobbed as if the doom of
+the motherless were already mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Grief does not kill, my Gabriella," she said, tenderly caressing me.
+"It is astonishing how much the human heart can bear without breaking.
+Sorrow may dry up, drop by drop, the fountain of life, but it is
+generally the work of years. The heart lives, though every source of joy
+be dead,&mdash;lives without one well-spring of happiness to quench its
+burning thirst,&mdash;lives in the midst of desolation, darkness, and
+despair. Oh, my Gabriella," she continued, with a burst of feeling that
+swept over her with irresistible power, and bowed her as before a stormy
+gust, "would to God that we might die together,&mdash;that the same almighty
+mandate would free us both from this prison-house of sorrow and of sin.
+I have prayed for resignation,&mdash;I have prayed for faith; but, O my God!
+I am rebellious, I am weak, I have suffered and struggled so long."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke in a tone of physical as well as menial agony. I was looking
+up in her face, and it seemed as if a dark shadow rolled over it. I
+sprang to my feet and screamed. Peggy, who was already on the threshold,
+caught her as she fell forward, and laid her on the bed as if she were a
+little child. She was in a fainting fit. I had seen her before in these
+deathlike swoons, but never had I watched with such shuddering dread to
+see the dawn of awakening life break upon her face. I stood at her
+pillow scarcely less pale and cold than herself.</p>
+
+<p>"This is all your doings, Miss Gabriella," muttered Peggy, while busily
+engaged in the task of restoration. "If you don't want to kill your
+mother, you must keep out of your tantrums. What's the use of going on
+so, I wonder,&mdash;and what's the use of my watching her as carefully as if
+she was made of glass, when you come like a young hurricane and break
+her into atoms. There,&mdash;go away and keep quiet. Let her be till she gets
+over this turn. I know exactly what's best for her."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with authority, and I obeyed as if the voice of a superior
+were addressing me. I obeyed,&mdash;but not till I had seen the hue of
+returning life steal over the marble pallor of her cheek. I wandered
+into the garden, but the narrow paths, the precise formed beds, the
+homely aspect of vegetable nature, filled me with a strange loathing. I
+felt suffocated, oppressed,&mdash;I jumped over the railing and plunged into
+the woods,&mdash;the wild, ample woods,&mdash;my home,&mdash;my wealth,&mdash;my God-granted
+inheritance. I sat down under the oaks, and fixed my eyes upwards on the
+mighty dome that seemed resting on the strong forest trees. I heard
+nothing but the soft rustling of the leaves,&mdash;I saw nothing but the
+lonely magnificence of nature.</p>
+
+<p>Here I became calm. It seemed a matter of perfect indifference to me
+then what I did, or what became of me,&mdash;whether I was henceforth to be a
+teacher, a seamstress, or a servant. Every consideration was swallowed
+in one,&mdash;every fear lost in one absorbing dread. I had but one
+prayer,&mdash;"Let my mother live, or let me die with her!"</p>
+
+<p>Poverty offered no privation, toil no weariness, suffering no pang,
+compared to the one great evil which my imagination grasped with firm
+and desperate clench.</p>
+
+<p>Three years had passed since I had lain a weeping child under the shadow
+of the oaks, smarting from the lash of derision, burning with shame,
+shrinking with humiliation. I was now fifteen years old,&mdash;at that age
+when youth turns trembling from the dizzy verge of childhood to a
+mother's guardian arms, a mother's sheltering heart. How weak, how
+puerile now seemed the emotions, which three years ago had worn such a
+majestic semblance.</p>
+
+<p>I was but a foolish child then,&mdash;what was I now? A child still, but
+somewhat wiser, not more worldly wise. I knew no more of the world, of
+what is called the world, than I did of those golden cities seen through
+the cloud-vistas of sunset. It seemed as grand, as remote, and as
+inaccessible.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment I turned my gaze towards the distant cloud-turrets
+gleaming above, walls on which chariots and horsemen of fire seemed
+passing and repassing, and I was conscious of but one deep, earnest
+thought,&mdash;"my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>One prayer, sole and agonizing, trembled on my lips:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Take her not from me, O my God! I will drink the cup of poverty and
+humiliation to the dregs if thou wilt, without a murmur, but spare, O
+spare my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>God did spare her for a little while. The dark hands on the dial-plate
+of destiny once moved back at the mighty breath of prayer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Gabriella,&mdash;is it you? How glad I am to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>That clear, distinct, ringing voice!&mdash;I knew it well, though a year had
+passed since I had heard its sound. The three years which made me, as I
+said before, a <i>wiser child</i>, had matured my champion, the boy of
+fifteen, into a youth of eighteen, a collegian of great promise and
+signal endowments. I felt very sorry when he left the academy, for he
+had been my steadfast friend and defender, and a great assistant in my
+scholastic tasks. But after he entered a college, I felt as if there
+were a great gulf between us, never more to be passed over. I had very
+superb ideas of collegians. I had seen them during their holidays, which
+they frequently came into the country to spend, dashing through the
+streets like the wild huntsmen, on horses that struck fire as they flew
+along. I had seen them lounging in the streets, with long, wild hair,
+and corsair visages and Byronian collars, and imagined them a most
+formidable race of beings. I did not know that these were the
+<i>scape-goats</i> of their class, suspended for rebellion, or expelled for
+greater offences,&mdash;that having lost their character as students, they
+were resolved to distinguish themselves as dandies, the lowest ambition
+a son of Adam's race can feel. It is true, I did not dream that Richard
+Clyde could be transformed into their image, but I thought some
+marvellous change must take place, which would henceforth render him as
+much a stranger to me as though we had never met.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when I heard the clear, glad accents of his voice, so natural, so
+unchanged, I looked up with a glance of delighted recognition into the
+young student's manly face. My first sensation was pleasure, the
+pleasure which congenial youth inspires, my next shame, for the
+homeliness of my occupation. I was standing by a beautiful bubbling
+spring, at the foot of a little hill near my mother's cottage. The
+welling spring, the rock over which it gushed, the trees which bent
+their branches over the fountain to guard it from the sunbeams, the
+sweet music the falling waters,&mdash;all these were romantic and
+picturesque. I might imagine myself "a nymph, a naiad, or a grace." Or,
+had I carried a pitcher in my hand, I might have thought myself another
+Rebecca, and poised on my shoulder the not ungraceful burden. But I was
+dipping water from the spring, in a tin pail, of a broad, clumsy,
+unclassic form,&mdash;too heavy for the shoulder, and extremely difficult to
+carry in the hand, in consequence of the small, wiry handle. In my
+confusion I dropped the pail, which went gaily floating to the opposite
+side of the spring, entirely out of my reach. The strong, bubbling
+current bore it upward, and it danced and sparkled and turned its sides
+of mimic silver, first one way and then the other, as if rejoicing in
+its liberty.</p>
+
+<p>Richard laughed, his old merry laugh, and jumping on the rock over which
+the waters were leaping, caught the pail, and waved it as a trophy over
+his head. Then stooping down he filled it to the brim, gave one spring
+to the spot where I stood, whirled the bucket upside down and set it
+down on the grass without spilling a drop.</p>
+
+<p>"That is too large and heavy for you to carry, Gabriella," said he.
+"Look at the palm of your hand, there is quite a red groove there made
+by that iron handle."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," I answered, twisting my handkerchief carelessly round the
+tingling palm, "I must get used to it. Peggy is sick and there is no one
+to carry water now but myself. When she is well, she will never let me
+do any thing of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"You should not," said he, decidedly. "You are not strong enough,&mdash;you
+must get another servant.&mdash;I will inquire in the village myself this
+morning, and send you one."</p>
+
+<p>"O no, my mother would never consent to a stranger coming into the
+family. Besides, no one could take Peggy's place. She is less a servant
+than a friend."</p>
+
+<p>I turned away to hide the tears that I could not keep back. Peggy's
+illness, though not of an alarming character, showed that even her iron
+constitution was not exempt from the ills which flesh is heir to,&mdash;that
+the strong pillar on which we leaned so trustingly <i>could</i> vibrate and
+shake, and what would become of us if it were prostrated to the earth;
+the lonely column of fidelity and truth, to which we clung so
+adhesively; the sheet anchor which had kept us from sinking beneath the
+waves of adversity? I had scarcely realized Peggy's mortality before,
+she seemed so strong, so energetic, so untiring. I would as soon have
+thought of the sun's being weary in its mighty task as of Peggy's strong
+arm waxing weak. I felt very sad, and the meeting with Richard Clyde,
+which had excited a momentary joy, now deepened my sadness. He looked so
+bright, so prosperous, so full of hope and life. He was no longer the
+school-boy whom I could meet on equal terms, but the student entered on
+a public career of honor and distinction,&mdash;the son of ambition, whose
+gaze was already fixed on the distant hill-tops of fame. There was
+nothing in his countenance or manner that gave this impression, but my
+own morbid sensitiveness. The dawning feelings of womanhood made me
+blush for the plainness and childishness of my dress, and then I was
+ashamed of my shame, and blushed the more deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to see you again," I said, stooping to raise my brimming
+pail,&mdash;"I suppose I must not call you Richard now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, I hope and trust none of my old friends will begin to Mr.
+Clyde me for a long time to come, and least, I mean most of all, you,
+Gabriella. We were always such exceedingly good friends, you know. But
+don't be in such a hurry, I have a thousand questions to ask, a thousand
+things to tell."</p>
+
+<p>"I should love to hear them all, Richard, but I cannot keep my mother
+waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Before I could get hold of the handle of the pail, he had seized it and
+was swinging it along with as much ease as if he had a bunch of roses in
+his hand. We ascended the little hill together, he talking all the time,
+in a spirited, joyous manner, laughing at his awkwardness as he stumbled
+against a rolling stone, wishing he was a school-boy again in the old
+academy, whose golden vane was once an object of such awe and admonition
+in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, Gabriella," he asked, changing from subject to subject with
+marvellous rapidity, "do you ever write poetry now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have given that up, as one of the follies of my childhood, one of the
+dreams of my youth."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, you must be a very venerable person,&mdash;you talk of the youthful
+follies you have discarded, the dreams from which you have awakened, as
+if you were a real centenarian. I wonder if there are not some incipient
+wrinkles on your face."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me earnestly, saucily; and I involuntarily put up my hands,
+as if to hide the traces of care his imagination was drawing.</p>
+
+<p>"I really do feel old sometimes," said I, smiling at the mock scrutiny
+of his gaze, "and it is well I do. You know I am going to be a teacher,
+and youth will be my greatest objection."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, I do not want you to be a teacher. You were not born for one.
+You will not be happy as one,&mdash;you are too impulsive, too sensitive, too
+poetic in your temperament. You are the last person in the world who
+ought to think of such a vocation."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you advise me, then, to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water,
+in preference?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would advise you to continue your studies, to read, write poetry,
+ramble about the woods and commune with nature, as you so love to do,
+and not think of assuming the duties of a woman, while you are yet
+nothing but a child. Oh! it is the most melancholy thing in the world to
+me, to see a person trying to get beyond their years. You must not do
+it, Gabriella. I wish I could make you stop <i>thinking</i> for one year. I
+do not like to see a cheek as young as yours pale with overmuch thought.
+Do you know you are getting very like your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"My mother!" I exclaimed, with a glow of pleasure at the fancied
+resemblance, "why, she is the most beautiful person I have yet
+seen,&mdash;there is, there can be no likeness."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is, though. You speak as if you thought yourself quite ugly.
+I wonder if you do. Ugly and old. Strange self-estimation for a pretty
+girl of fifteen!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you learn to flatter in college," said I, "but I do not care
+about being flattered, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very much mistaken if you think I am trying to flatter you. I
+may do so a year or two hence if I chance to meet you in company, but
+here, in this rural solitude, with the very element of truth in my hand,
+I could not deceive, if I were the most accomplished courtier in the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>We had reached the top of the green acclivity which we bad been
+ascending, I fear with somewhat tardy steps. We could see the road
+through an opening in the trees,&mdash;a road little travelled, but leading
+to the central street of the town. The unusual sound of carriage wheels
+made me turn my head in that direction, and a simultaneous exclamation
+of Richard's fixed my attention.</p>
+
+<p>A very elegant carriage, drawn by a pair of large shining bay horses was
+rolling along with aristocratic slowness. The silver-plated harness
+glittered so in the sun, it at first dazzled my eyes, so that I could
+discern nothing distinctly. Then I saw the figures of two ladies seated
+on the back seat in light, airy dresses, and of two gentlemen on
+horseback, riding behind. I had but a glimpse of all this, for the
+carriage rolled on. The riders disappeared; but, as a flash of lightning
+reveals to us glimpses of the cloud cities of heaven which we remember
+long after the electric gates are closed, so the vision remained on my
+memory, and had I never again beheld the youthful form nearest to us, I
+should remember it still. It was that of a young girl, with very fair
+flaxen hair, curling in profuse ringlets on each side of her face, which
+was exquisitely fair, and lighted up with a soft rosiness like the
+dawning of morning. A blue scarf, of the color of her eyes, floated over
+her shoulders and fluttered from the window of the carriage. As I gazed
+on this bright apparition, Richard, to my astonishment, lifted his hat
+from his brow and bowed low to the smiling stranger, who returned the
+salutation with graceful ease. The lady on the opposite side was hidden
+by the fair-haired girl, and both were soon hidden by the thick branches
+that curtained the road.</p>
+
+<p>"The Linwoods!" said Richard, glancing merrily at the tin pail, which
+shone so conspicuously bright in the sunshine. "You must have heard of
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never."</p>
+
+<p>"Not heard of the new-comers! Haven't you heard that Mrs. Linwood has
+purchased the famous old Grandison Place, that has stood so long in
+solitary grandeur, had it fitted up in modern style, and taken
+possession of it for a country residence? Is it possible that you are
+such a little nun, that you have heard nothing of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I go nowhere; no one comes to see us; I might as well be a nun."</p>
+
+<p>"But at school?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not been since last autumn. But that fair, beautiful young lady,
+is she a daughter of Mrs. Linwood?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is,&mdash;Edith Linwood. Rather a romantic name, is it not? Do you think
+her beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>"The loveliest creature I ever looked upon. I should be quite miserable
+if I thought I never should look upon her again. And you know her,&mdash;she
+bowed to you. How sorry I am she should see you performing such an
+humble office for a little rustic like me!"</p>
+
+<p>"She will think none the worse of me for it. If she did, I should
+despise her. But she is no heartless belle,&mdash;Edith Linwood is not. She
+is an angel of goodness and sweetness, if all they say of her be true. I
+do not know her very well. She has a brother with whom I am slightly
+acquainted, and through him I have been introduced into the family. Mrs.
+Linwood is a noble, excellent woman,&mdash;I wish you knew her. I wish you
+knew Edith,&mdash;I wish you knew them all. They would appreciate you. I am
+sure they would."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> know them!" I exclaimed, glancing at our lowly cottage, my simple
+dress, and contrasting them mentally with the lordly dwelling and costly
+apparel of these favorites of nature and of fortune. "They appreciate
+<i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you think Edith Linwood the most enviable of human beings.
+Rich, lovely, with the power of gratifying every wish, and of dispensing
+every good, she would gladly exchange this moment with you, and dip
+water from yon bubbling spring."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" I cried. "How can she help being happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"She does seem happy, but she is lame, and her health is very delicate.
+She cannot walk one step without crutches, on which she swings herself
+along very lightly and gracefully, it is true; but think you not she
+would not give all her wealth to be able to walk with your bounding
+steps, and have your elastic frame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Crutches!" said I, sorrowfully, "why she looked as if she might have
+wings on her shoulders. It <i>is</i> sad."</p>
+
+<p>"She is not an object of pity. You will not think she is when you know
+her. I only wanted to convince you, that you might be an object of envy
+to one who seems so enviable to you."</p>
+
+<p>I would gladly have lingered where I was, within the sound of Richard
+Clyde's frank and cheerful voice, but I thought of poor Peggy thirsting
+for a cooling draught, and my conscience smote me for being a laggard in
+my duty. It is true, the scene, which may seem long in description,
+passed in a very brief space of time, and though Richard said a good
+many things, he talked very fast, without seeming hurried either.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall see you again at the spring," said he, as he turned from the
+gate. "You must consider me as the Aquarius of your domestic Zodiac. I
+should like to be my father's camel-driver, if that were Jacob's well."</p>
+
+<p>I could not help smiling at his gay nonsense,&mdash;his presence had been so
+brightening, so comforting. I had gone down to the spring sad and
+desponding. I returned with a countenance so lighted up, a color so
+heightened, that my mother looked at me with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I had ministered to Peggy, who seemed mortified and ashamed
+because of her sickness, and distressed beyond measure at being waited
+upon. I told my mother of my interview with Richard, of his kindness in
+carrying the water, the vision of the splendid carriage, of its
+beautiful occupants, the fitting up of the old Grandison Place, and all
+that Richard had related to me.</p>
+
+<p>She listened with a troubled countenance. "Surely, young Clyde will not
+be so inconsiderate, so officious, as to induce those ladies to visit
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed, mother. He is not officious. He knows you would not like to
+see them. He would not think of such a thing."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," I repeated to myself, as I exerted myself bravely in my new
+offices, as nurse and housekeeper, "there is no danger of that fair
+creature seeking out this little obscure spot. She will probably ask
+Richard Clyde who the little country girl was, whose water-pail he was
+so gallantly carrying, and I know he will speak kindly of me, though he
+will laugh at being caught in such an awkward predicament. Perhaps to
+amuse her, he will tell her of my flight from the academy and the scenes
+which resulted, and she will ask him to show her the poem, rendered so
+immortal. Then merrily will her silver laughter ring through the lofty
+hall. I have wandered all over Grandison Place when it was a deserted
+mansion. No one saw me, for it is far back from the street, all
+embosomed in shade, and it reminded me of some old castle with its
+turreted roof and winding galleries. I wonder how it looks now." I was
+falling into one of my old-fashioned dreams, when a moan from Peggy
+wakened me, and I sprang to her bedside with renewed alarm.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Yes, Peggy was very sick; but she would not acknowledge it. It was
+nothing but a violent headache,&mdash;a sudden cold; she would be up and
+doing in the morning. The doctor! No, indeed, she would have nothing to
+do with doctors. She had never taken a dose of medicine in her life, and
+never would, of her own freewill. Sage tea was worth all the pills and
+nostrums in the world. On the faith of her repeated assertions, that she
+felt a great deal better and would be quite well in the morning, we
+slept, my mother and myself, leaving the lamp dimly burning by the
+solemn hour-glass.</p>
+
+<p>About midnight we were awakened by the wild ravings of delirious
+agony,&mdash;those sounds so fearful in themselves, so awful in the silence
+and darkness of night, so indescribably awful in the solitude of our
+lonely dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>Peggy had struggled with disease like "the strong man prepared to run a
+race," but it had now seized her with giant grasp, and she lay helpless
+and writhing, with the fiery fluid burning in her veins, sending dark,
+red flashes to her cheeks and brow. Her eyes had a fierce, lurid glare,
+and she tossed her head from side to side on the pillow with the wild
+restlessness of an imprisoned animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" cried my mother, looking as white as the sheets, and
+trembling all over as in an ague-fit. "What shall we do? She will die
+unless a doctor can see her. Oh, my child, what can we do? It is
+dreadful to be alone in the woods, when sickness and death are in the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> will go for the doctor, mother, if you are not afraid to stay alone
+with Peggy," cried I, in hurried accents, wrapping a shawl round me as I
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>My mother wrung her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! this is terrible," she exclaimed. "How dim and dark it looks
+abroad. I cannot let you go alone, at midnight. It cannot be less than a
+mile to Dr. Harlowe's. No, no; I cannot let you go."</p>
+
+<p>"And Peggy must die, then. <i>She</i> must die who has served us so
+faithfully, and lived alone for us! Oh, mother, let me go I will fly on
+the wings of the wind. You will hardly miss me before I return. I am not
+afraid of the darkness. I am not afraid of the lonely woods. I only fear
+leaving you alone with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Go," said my mother, in a faint voice. "God will protect you. I feel
+that He will, my good, brave Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>I kissed her white cheek with passionate tenderness, cast a glance of
+anguish on Peggy's fearfully altered face, then ran out into the chill,
+dark midnight. At first I could scarcely discern the sandy path I had so
+often trodden, for no moon lighted up the gloom of the hour, and even
+the stars glimmered faintly through a grey and cloudy atmosphere. As I
+hurried along, the wind came sighing through the trees with such
+inexpressible sadness, it seemed whispering mournfully of the dark
+secrets of nature. Then it deepened into a dull, roaring sound, like the
+murmurs of the ocean tide; but even as I went on the melancholy wind
+pursued me like an invisible spirit, winding around me its chill,
+embracing arms.</p>
+
+<p>I seemed the only living thing in the cold, illimitable night. A thick
+horror brooded over me. The sky was a mighty pall, sweeping down with
+heavy cloud-fringes, the earth a wide grave. I did not fear, that is, I
+feared not man, or beast or ghost, but an unspeakable awe and dread was
+upon me. I dreaded the great God, whose presence filled with
+insupportable grandeur the lonely night. My heart was hard as granite.
+<i>I</i> could not have prayed, had I known that Peggy's life would be given
+in answer to my prayer. I could not say, "Our Father, who art in
+heaven," as I had so often done at my mother's knee, in the sweet,
+childlike spirit of filial love and submission. My Father's face was
+hidden, and behind the thick clouds of darkness I saw a stern,
+vindictive Being, to whom the smoke of human suffering was more
+acceptable than frankincense and myrrh.</p>
+
+<p>I compared myself wandering alone in darkness and sorrow, on such an
+awful errand, to the fair, smiling being cradled in wealth, then
+doubtless sleeping in her bed of down, watched by attending menials. Oh!
+rebel that I was, did I not need the chastening discipline, never
+exerted but in wisdom and in love?</p>
+
+<p>Before I knew it, I was at Dr. Harlowe's door. All was dark and still.
+The house was of brick, and it loomed up gloriously as I approached. It
+seemed to frown repulsively with its beetling eaves, as I lifted the
+knocker and let it fall with startling force. In a moment I heard
+footsteps moving and saw a light glimmering through the blinds. He was
+at home, then,&mdash;I had accomplished my mission. It was no matter if I
+died, since Peggy might be saved. I really thought I was going to die, I
+felt so dull and faint and breathless. I sunk down on the stone steps,
+just as the door was opened by Dr. Harlowe himself, whom I had seen, but
+never addressed before. Placing his left hand above his eyes, he looked
+out, in search of the messenger who had roused him from his slumber. I
+tried to rise, but was too much exhausted. I could scarcely make my
+errand understood. I had run a mile without stopping, and now I <i>had</i>
+stopped, my limbs seemed turned into lead and my head to ice.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor child!" said the doctor, in the kindest manner imaginable. "You
+should not have come yourself at this hour. It was hardly safe.
+Why,&mdash;you have run yourself completely out of breath. Come in, while
+they are putting my horse in the buggy. I must give <i>you</i> some medicine
+before we start."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped down and almost lifted me from the step where I was seated,
+and led me into what appeared to me quite a sumptuous apartment, being
+handsomely carpeted and having long crimson curtains to the windows. He
+made me sit down on a sofa, while he went to a closet, and pouring out a
+generous glass of wine, insisted upon my drinking it. I obeyed him
+mechanically, for life seemed glowing in the ruddy fluid. It was. It
+came back in warmth to my chilled and sinking heart. I felt it stealing
+like a gentle fire through my whole system,&mdash;burning gently, steadily on
+my cheek, and kindling into light my heavy and tear-dimmed eyes. It was
+the first glass I had ever tasted, and it ran like electricity through
+my veins. Had the doctor been aware of my previous abstinence, he might
+not have thought it safe to have offered me the brimming glass. Had I
+reflected one moment I should have swallowed it less eagerly; but I
+seemed sinking, sinking into annihilation, when its reviving warmth
+restored me. I felt as if I had wings, and could fly over the dreary
+space my weary feet had so lately overcome.</p>
+
+<p>"You feel better, my dear," said the doctor, with a benevolent smile, as
+he watched the effect of his prescription. "You must not make so
+dangerous an experiment again as running such a distance at this time of
+night. Peggy's life is very precious, I dare say, and so is yours. Are
+you ready to ride? My buggy is not very large, but I think it will
+accommodate us both. We will see."</p>
+
+<p>Though it was the first time I had ever spoken with Dr. Harlowe, I felt
+as much confidence in his kindness and benevolence as if I had known him
+for years. There was something so frank and genial about him, he seemed,
+like the wine I had been quaffing, warming to the heart. There was
+barely room for me, slender as I was, for the carriage was constructed
+for the accommodation of the doctor alone; but I did not feel
+embarrassed, or as if I were intruding. He drove very rapidly,
+conversing the whole time in a pleasant, cheering voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Peggy must be a very valuable person," he said, "for you to venture out
+so bravely in her cause. We must cure her, by all means."</p>
+
+<p>I expatiated on her virtues with all the eloquence of gratitude.
+Something must have emboldened my shy tongue,&mdash;something more than the
+hope, born of the doctor's heart-reviving words.</p>
+
+<p>"He is come&mdash;he is come," I exclaimed, springing from the buggy to the
+threshold, with the quickness of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! how dim and sickly and sad every thing appeared in that little
+chamber! I turned and looked at the doctor, wondering if he had ever
+entered one so sad before. Peggy lay in an uneasy slumber, her arms
+thrown above her head, in a wild, uncomfortable attitude. My mother sat
+leaning against the head of the bed, pale and statue-like, with her
+hand, white as marble, partly hidden in her dark and loosely braided
+hair. The doctor glanced at the bed, then at my mother, and his glance
+riveted on her. Surprise warmed into admiration,&mdash;admiration stood
+checked by reverence. He advanced a few steps into the room, and made
+her as lowly a bow as if she were an empress. She rose without speaking
+and motioned me to hand him a chair; but waiving the offered civility,
+he went up to the side of the bed and laid his fingers quietly on the
+pulse of his patient. He stood gravely counting the ticking of life's
+great chronometer, while my mother leaned forward with pale, parted
+lips, and I gazed upon him as if the issues of life and death were in
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had been called sooner," said he, with a slight contraction of
+the brows, "but we will do all we can to relieve her."</p>
+
+<p>He called for a basin and linen bandage, and taking a lancet from his
+pocket, held up the sharp, gleaming point to the light. I shuddered, I
+had never seen any one bled, and it seemed to me an awful operation.</p>
+
+<p>"You will hold the basin," said he, directing me with his calm,
+benignant eye. "You are a brave girl,&mdash;you will not shrink, as some
+foolish persons do, at the sight of blood. This side, if you please, my
+dear."</p>
+
+<p>Ashamed to forfeit the confidence he had in my bravery, or rather moral
+courage, I grasped the basin with both hands, and held it firm, though
+my lips quivered and my cheek blanched.</p>
+
+<p>Peggy, awakened by the pressure of the bandage, began to rave and
+struggle, and I feared it would be impossible to subdue her into
+sufficient quietness; but delirious as she was, there was something in
+the calm, authoritative tones of Dr. Harlowe's voice, that seemed
+irresistible. She became still, and lay with her half-closed eyes fixed
+magnetically on his face. As the dark-red blood spouted into the basin,
+I started, and would have recoiled had not a strong controlling
+influence been exerted over me. The gates of life were opened. How easy
+for life itself to pass away in that deep crimson tide!</p>
+
+<p>"This is the poetry of our profession," said the doctor, binding up the
+wound with all a woman's gentleness.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Peggy, who could ever associate the idea of poetry with her! I
+could not help smiling as I looked at her sturdy arm, through whose
+opaque surface the blue wandering of the veins was vainly sought.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said he, after giving her a comforting draught, "she will
+sleep, and <i>you</i> must sleep, madam," turning respectfully to my mother;
+"you have not strength enough to resist fatigue,&mdash;your daughter will
+have two to nurse instead of one, if you do not follow my advice."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot sleep," replied my mother.</p>
+
+<p>"But you can rest, madam; it is your duty. What did I come here for, but
+to relieve your cares? Go with your mother, my dear, and after a while
+you may come back and help me."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind, sir," she answered. With a graceful bend of the head
+she passed from the room, while his eyes followed her with an expression
+of intense interest.</p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder. Even I, accustomed as I was to watch her every motion,
+was struck by the exceeding grace of her manner. She did not ask the
+doctor what he thought of Peggy, though I saw the words trembling on her
+lips. She dared not do it.</p>
+
+<p>From that night the seclusion of our cottage home was broken up. Disease
+had entered and swept down the barriers of circumstance curiosity had so
+long respected. We felt the drawings of that golden chain of sympathy
+which binds together the great family of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Peggy's disease was a fever, of a peculiar and malignant character. It
+was the first case which occurred; but it spread through the town, so
+that scarcely a family was exempt from its ravages. Several died after a
+few days' sickness, and it was said purplish spots appeared after death,
+making ghostly contrast with its livid pallor. The alarm and terror of
+the community rendered it difficult to obtain nurses for the sick; but,
+thanks to the benevolent exertions of Dr. Harlowe, we were never left
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Clyde, too, came every day, and sometimes two or three times a
+day to the spring, to know what he could do for us. No brother could be
+kinder. Ah! how brightly, how vividly deeds of kindness stand out on the
+dark background of sickness and sorrow! I never, never can forget that
+era of my existence, when the destroying angel seemed winnowing the
+valley with his terrible wings,&mdash;when human life was blown away as chaff
+before a strong wind. Strange! the sky was as blue and benignant, the
+air as soft and serene, as if health and joy were revelling in the
+green-wood shade. The gentle rustling of the foliage, the sweet, glad
+warbling of the birds, the silver sparkling of the streamlets, and the
+calm, deep flowing of the distant river, all seemed in strange
+discordance with the throes of agony, the wail of sorrow, and the knell
+of death.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time I had ever been brought face to face with sickness
+and pain. The constitutional fainting fits of my mother were indicative
+of weakness, and caused momentary terror; but how different to this
+mysterious, terrible malady, this direct visitation from the Almighty!
+Here we could trace no second causes, no imprudence in diet, no exposure
+to the night air, no predisposing influences. It came sudden and
+powerful as the bolt of heaven. It came in sunshine and beauty, without
+herald and warning, whispering in deep, thrilling accents: "Be still,
+and know that I am God."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I do not wish to dwell too long on this sad page of my young life, but
+sad as it is, it is followed by another so dark, I know not whether my
+trembling hand should attempt to unfold it. Indeed, I fear I have
+commenced a task I had better have left alone. I know, however, I have
+scenes to relate full of the wildest romance, and that though what I
+have written may be childish and commonplace, I have that to relate
+which will interest, if the development of life's deepest passions have
+power to do so.</p>
+
+<p>The history of a human heart! a true history of that mystery of
+mysteries! a description of that city of our God, more magnificent than
+the streets of the New Jerusalem! This is what I have commenced to
+write. I will go on.</p>
+
+<p>For nine days Peggy wrestled with the destroying angel. During that
+time, nineteen funerals had darkened the winding avenue which led to the
+grave-yard, and she who was first attacked lingered last. It was
+astonishing how my mother sustained herself during these days and nights
+of intense anxiety. She seemed unconscious of fatigue, passive, enduring
+as the marble statue she resembled. She ate nothing,&mdash;she did not sleep.
+I know not what supported her. Dr. Harlowe brought her some of that
+generous wine which had infused such life into my young veins, and
+forced her to swallow it, but it never brought any color to her hueless
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the ninth day, Peggy sunk into a deathlike stupor. Her
+mind had wandered during all her sickness, though most of the time she
+lay in a deep lethargy, from which nothing could rouse her.</p>
+
+<p>"Go down to the spring and breathe the fresh air," said the doctor;
+"there should be perfect quiet here,&mdash;a few hours will decide her fate."</p>
+
+<p>I went down to the spring, where the twilight shades were gathering. The
+air came with balmy freshness to my anxious, feverish brow. I scooped up
+the cold water in the hollow of my hand and bathed my face. I shook my
+hair over my shoulders, and dashed the water over every disordered
+tress. I began to breathe more freely. The burning weight, the
+oppression, the suffocation were passing away, but a dreary sense of
+misery, of coming desolation remained. I sat down on the long grass, and
+leaning my head on my clasped hands, watched the drops as they fell from
+my dropping hair on the mossy rock below.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not too damp for you here?"</p>
+
+<p>I knew Richard Clyde was by me,&mdash;I heard his light footsteps on the
+sward, but I did not look up.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not as damp as the grave will be," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk so, Gabriella, don't. I cannot bear to hear you. This will
+be all over soon, and it will be to you like a dark and troubled dream."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I know it will be all over soon. We shall all lie in the
+churchyard together,&mdash;Peggy, my mother, and I,&mdash;and you will plant a
+white rose over my mother's grave, will you not? Not over mine. No
+flowers have bloomed for me in life,&mdash;it would be nothing to place them
+over my sleeping dust."</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella! You are excited,&mdash;you are ill. Give me your hand. I know you
+have a feverish pulse."</p>
+
+<p>I laid my hand on his, with an involuntary motion. Though it was moist
+with the drops that had been oozing over it, it had a burning heat. He
+startled at its touch.</p>
+
+<p>"You are ill,&mdash;you are feverish!" he cried. "The close air of that
+little room has been killing you. I knew it would. You should have gone
+to Mrs. Linwood's, you and your mother, when she sent for you. Peggy
+would have been abundantly cared for."</p>
+
+<p>"What, leave her here to die!&mdash;her, so good, so faithful, and
+affectionate, who would have died a thousand times over for us. Oh
+Richard, how can you speak of such a thing! Peggy is dying now,&mdash;I know
+that she is. I never looked on death, but I saw its shadow on her livid
+face. Why did Dr. Harlowe send me away? I am not afraid to see her die.
+Hark! my mother calls me."</p>
+
+<p>I started up, but my head was dizzy, and I should have fallen had not
+Richard put his arm around me.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor girl," said he, "I wish I had a sister to be with and comfort you.
+These are dark hours for us all, for we feel the pressure of God
+Almighty's hand. I do not wonder that you are crushed. You, so young and
+tender. But bear up, Gabriella. The day-spring will yet dawn, and the
+shadows fly away."</p>
+
+<p>So he kept talking, soothingly, kindly, keeping me out in the balminess
+and freshness of the evening, while the fever atmosphere burned within.
+I knew not how long I sat. I knew not when I returned to the house. I
+have forgotten that. But I remember standing that night over a still,
+immovable form, on whose pale, peaceful brow, those purplish spots, of
+which I had heard in awful whispers, were distinctly visible. The
+tossing arms were crossed reposingly over the pulseless bosom,&mdash;the
+restless limbs were rigid as stone. I remember seeing my mother, whom
+they tried to lead into another chamber,&mdash;my mother, usually so calm and
+placid,&mdash;throw herself wildly on that humble, fever-blasted form, and
+cling to it in an agony of despair. It was only by the exertion of main
+force that she was separated from it and carried to her own apartment.
+There she fell into one of those deadly fainting fits, from which the
+faithful, affectionate Peggy had so often brought her back to life.</p>
+
+<p>Never shall I forget that awful night. The cold presence of mortality in
+its most appalling form, the shadow of my mother's doom that was rolling
+heavily down upon me with prophetic darkness, the dismal preparations,
+the hurrying steps echoing so drearily through the midnight gloom; the
+cold burden of life, the mystery of death, the omnipotence of God, the
+unfathomableness of Eternity,&mdash;all pressed upon me with such a crushing
+weight, my spirit gasped and fainted beneath the burden.</p>
+
+<p>One moment it seemed that worlds would not tempt me to look again on
+that shrouded form, so majestic in its dread immobility,&mdash;its cold, icy
+calmness,&mdash;then drawn by an awful fascination, I would gaze and gaze as
+if my straining eyes could penetrate the depths of that abyss, which no
+sounding line has ever reached.</p>
+
+<p>I saw her laid in her lowly grave. My mother, too, was there. Dr.
+Harlowe did every thing but command her to remain at home, but she would
+not stay behind.</p>
+
+<p>"I would follow her to her last home," said she, "if I had to walk
+barefoot over a path of thorns."</p>
+
+<p>Only one sun rose on her unburied form,&mdash;its setting rays fell on a
+mound of freshly heaved sods, where a little while before was a mournful
+cavity.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood sent her beautiful carriage to take us to the churchyard.
+Slowly it rolled along behind the shadow of the dark, flapping pall.
+Very few beside ourselves were present, so great a panic pervaded the
+community; and very humble was the position Peggy occupied in the world.
+People wondered at the greatness of our grief, for she was <i>only</i> a
+servant. They did not know all that she was to us,&mdash;how could they? Even
+I dreamed not then of the magnitude of our obligations.</p>
+
+<p>I never shall forget the countenance of my mother as she sat leaning
+from the carriage windows, for she was too feeble to stand during the
+burial, while I stood with Dr. Harlowe at the head of the grave. The sun
+was just sinking behind the blue undulation of the distant hills, and a
+mellow, golden lustre calmly settled on the level plain around us. It
+lighted up her pallid features with a kind of unearthly glow, similar to
+that which rested on the marble monuments gleaming through the weeping
+willows. Every thing looked as serene and lovely, as green and
+rejoicing, as if there were no such things as sickness and death in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>My mother's eyes wandered slowly over the whole inclosure, shut in by
+the plain white railing, edged with black,&mdash;gleamed on every gray stone,
+white slab, and green hillock,&mdash;rested a moment on me, then turned
+towards heaven, with such an expression!</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, my mother, oh, not yet!" I cried aloud in an agony that could
+not be repressed, clinging to Dr. Harlowe's arm as if every earthly stay
+and friend were sliding from my grasp. I knew the meaning of that mute,
+expressive glance. She was measuring her own grave by the side of
+Peggy's clay cold bed,&mdash;she was commending her desolate orphan to the
+Father of the fatherless, the God of the widow. She knew she would soon
+be there, and I knew it too. And after the first sharp pang,&mdash;after the
+arrow of conviction fastened in my heart,&mdash;I pressed it there with a
+kind of stern, vindictive joy, triumphing in my capacity of suffering. I
+wonder if any one ever felt as I did,&mdash;I wonder if any worm of the dust
+ever writhed so impotently under the foot of Almighty God!</p>
+
+<p>O kind and compassionate Father! Now I know thou art kind even in thy
+chastisements, merciful even in thy judgments, by the bitter chalice I
+have drained, by all the waves and billows that have gone over me, by
+anguish, humiliation, repentance, and prayer. Forgive, forgive! for I
+knew not what I was doing!</p>
+
+<p>From that night my mother never left her bed. The fever spared her, but
+she wilted like the grass beneath the scythe of the mower. Gone was the
+unnatural excitement which had sustained her the last nine days; severed
+the silver cord so long dimmed by secret tears.</p>
+
+<p>Thank heaven! I was not doomed to see her tortured by pain, or raving in
+delirious agony,&mdash;to see those exquisite features distorted by
+frenzy,&mdash;or to hear that low, sweet voice untuned, the key-note of
+reason lost.</p>
+
+<p>Thank heaven! even death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so
+lovely.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I said, death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so lovely. Week
+after week she lingered, almost imperceptibly fading, passing away like
+a soft rolling cloud that melts into the sky. The pestilence had stayed
+its ravages. The terror, the thick gloom had passed by.</p>
+
+<p>If I looked abroad at sunset, I could see the windows of the village
+mansions, crimsoned and glowing with the last flames of day; but no
+light was reflected on our darkened home. It was all in shadow. And at
+night, when the windows of Grandison Place were all illuminated,
+glittering off by itself like a great lantern, the traveller could
+scarcely have caught the glimmering ray of the little lamp dimly burning
+in our curtained room.</p>
+
+<p>Do you think I was resigned? That because I was dumb, I lay like a lamb
+before the stroke of the shearer? I will tell you how resigned, how
+submissive I was. I have read of the tortures of the Inquisition. I have
+read of one who was chained on his back to the dungeon floor, without
+the power to move one muscle,&mdash;hand and foot, body and limb bound. As he
+lay thus prone, looking up, ever upwards, he saw a circular knife,
+slowly descending, swinging like a pendulum, swinging nearer and nearer;
+and he knew that every breath he drew it came nearer and nearer, and
+that he <i>must</i> feel anon the cold, sharp edge. Yet he lay still,
+immovable, frozen, waiting, with his glazed eyes fixed on the terrible
+weapon. Such was <i>my</i> resignation&mdash;<i>my</i> submission.</p>
+
+<p>Friends gathered around the desolate; but they could not avert the
+descending stroke. Mrs. Linwood came, with her angelic looking daughter,
+and their presence lighted up, momentarily, our saddened dwelling, as if
+they had been messengers from heaven,&mdash;they were so kind, so
+sympathizing, so unobtrusive. When Edith first crossed our threshold,
+she did indeed look like one of those ministering spirits, sent to watch
+over those who shall be heirs of salvation. She seemed to float forward,
+light and airy as the down wafted by the summer gale. Her crutches, the
+ends of which were wrapped with something soft and velvety, so as to
+muffle their sound, rather added than detracted from the interest and
+grace of her appearance, so gracefully they sustained her fair,
+white-robed form, just lifting it above the earth.</p>
+
+<p>A little while before, I should have shrunk with nervous diffidence from
+the approach of guests like these. I should have contrasted painfully
+the splendor of their position with the lowliness of our own,&mdash;but now,
+what were wealth or rank or earthly distinctions to me?</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting by my mother's bed, fanning her slumbers, as they entered.
+Mrs. Linwood walked noiselessly forward, took the fan gently from my
+hand, and motioned me to resign my seat to her. I did so mechanically,
+for it seemed she had a right to be there. Then Edith took me by the
+hand and looked in my face with an expression of such sweet, unaffected
+sympathy, I turned aside to hide the quick-gushing tears. Not a word was
+uttered, yet I knew they came to soothe and comfort.</p>
+
+<p>When my mother opened her eyes and saw the face of a stranger bending
+over her, she started and trembled; but there was something in the mild,
+Christian countenance of Mrs. Linwood that disarmed her fears, and
+inspired confidence. The pride which had hitherto repelled the advances
+of friendship, was all chastened and subdued. Death, the great leveller,
+had entered the house, and the mountains of human distinction flowed
+down at his presence.</p>
+
+<p>"I am come to nurse you," said Mrs. Linwood, taking my mother's pale,
+emaciated hand and pressing it in both her own. "Do not look upon me as
+a stranger, but as a friend&mdash;a sister. You will let me stay, will you
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>She seemed soliciting a favor, not conferring one.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you,&mdash;bless you!" answered my mother, her large dark eyes fixed
+with thrilling intensity on her face. Then she added, in a lower voice,
+glancing towards me, "<i>she</i> will not be left friendless, then. You will
+remember <i>her</i> when I am gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly, tenderly, even with a mother's care," replied Mrs. Linwood,
+tears suffusing her mild eyes, and testifying the sincerity of her
+words.</p>
+
+<p>My mother laid Mrs. Linwood's hand on her heart, whose languid beating
+scarcely stirred the linen that covered it; then looking up to heaven,
+her lips moved in silent prayer. A smile, faint but beautiful, passed
+over her features, and left its sweetness on her face. From that hour to
+the death-hour Mrs. Linwood did minister to her, as a loving sister
+would have done. Edith often accompanied her mother and tried to comfort
+me, but I was then inaccessible to comfort, as I was deaf to hope. When
+she stayed away, I missed the soft floating of her airy figure, the
+pitying glance of her heavenly blue eye; but when she came, I said to
+myself,</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Her</i> mother is not dying. How can she sympathize with me? She is the
+favorite of Him who is crushing me beneath the iron hand of His wrath."</p>
+
+<p>Thus impious were my thoughts, but no one read them on my pale, drooping
+brow. Mrs. Linwood praised my filial devotion, my fortitude and heroism.
+Dr. Harlowe had told her how I had braved the terrors of midnight
+solitude through the lonely woods, to bring him to a servant's bedside.
+Richard Clyde had interested her in my behalf. She told me I had many
+friends for one so young and so retiring. Oh! she little knew how coldly
+fell the words of praise on the dull ear of despair. I smiled at the
+thought of needing kindness and protection when <i>she</i> was gone. As if it
+were possible for me to survive my mother!</p>
+
+<p>Had she not herself told me that grief did not kill? But I believed her
+not.</p>
+
+<p>Do you ask if I felt no curiosity then, about the mystery of my
+parentage? I had been looking forward to the time when I should be
+deemed old enough to know my mother's history of which my imagination
+had woven such a web of mystery and romance,&mdash;when I should hear
+something of that father whose memory was curtained by such an
+impenetrable veil. But now it mattered not. Had I known that the blood
+of kings was in my veins, it would not have wakened one throb of
+ambition, kindled one ray of joy. I cared not for my lineage or kindred.
+I would not have disturbed the serenity that seemed settling on my
+mother's departing spirit, by one question relative to her past life,
+for the wealth of the Indies.</p>
+
+<p>She gave to Mrs. Linwood a manuscript which she had written while I was
+at school, and which was to have been committed to Peggy's care;&mdash;for
+surely Peggy, the strong, the robust, unwearied Peggy, would survive
+her, the frail, delicate, and stricken one!</p>
+
+<p>She told me this the night before she died, when at her own request I
+was left alone with her. I knew it was for the last time, but I had been
+looking forward steadily to this hour,&mdash;looking as I said before, as the
+iron-bound prisoner to the revolving knife, and like him I was outwardly
+calm. I knelt beside her and looked on her shadowy form, her white,
+transparent skin, her dark, still lustrous, though sunken eyes, till it
+seemed that her spirit, almost disembodied, mingled mysteriously with
+mine, in earnest of a divine communion.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank God, my Gabriella," she said, laying her hand blessingly on my
+bowed head, "that you submit to His holy will, in a spirit of childlike
+submission. I thank Him for raising up such a friend as Mrs. Linwood,
+when friend and comforter seemed taken from us. Love her, confide in
+her, be grateful to her, my child. Be grateful to God for sending her to
+soothe my dying hours with promises of protection and love for you, my
+darling, my child, my poor orphan Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh mother," I cried, "I do not submit,&mdash;I cannot,&mdash;I cannot! Dreadful
+thoughts are in my heart&mdash;oh, my mother, God is very terrible. Leave me
+not alone to meet his awful judgments. Put your arms round me, my
+mother, and let me lie close to your bosom, I will not hurt you, I will
+lie so gently there. Death cannot separate us, when we cling so close
+together. Leave me not alone in the world, so cold, so dark, so
+dreary,&mdash;oh, leave me not alone!" Thus I clung to her, in the
+abandonment of despair, while words rushed unhidden from my lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my Gabriella, my child, my poor smitten lamb!" she cried, and I
+felt her heart fluttering against mine like a dying bird. "Sorrow has
+bereft you of reason,&mdash;you know not what you say. Gabriella, it is an
+awful thing to resist the Almighty God. Submission is the heritage of
+dust and ashes. <i>I</i> have been proud and rebellious, smarting under a
+sense of unmerited chastisement and wrong. Because man was false, I
+thought God unjust,&mdash;but now, on this dying bed, the illusion of passion
+is dispelled, and I see Him as He is, longsuffering, compassionate, and
+indulgent, in all his loving-kindness and tender mercy, strong to
+deliver and mighty to save. I feel that I have needed all the discipline
+of sorrow through which I have passed, to bring my proud and troubled
+soul, a sin-sick, life weary wanderer, to my Father's footstool. What
+matters now, my Gabriella, that I have trod a thorny path, if it lead to
+heaven at last? How short the journey,&mdash;how long the rest! Oh, beloved
+child, bow to the hand that smites thee, for the stubborn will <i>must</i> be
+broken. Wait not, like me, till it be ground into dust."</p>
+
+<p>She paused breathless and exhausted, but I answered not. Low sobs came
+gaspingly from my bosom, on which a mountain of ice seemed freezing.</p>
+
+<p>"If we could die together," she continued, with increasing solemnity,
+"if I could bear you in these feeble arms to the mercy-seat of God, and
+know you were safe from temptation, and sorrow, and sin, the bitterness
+of death would be passed. It is a fearful thing to live, my child, far
+more fearful than to die,&mdash;but life is the trial of faith, and death the
+victory."</p>
+
+<p>"And now," she added, "before my spirit wings its upward flight, receive
+my dying injunction. If you live to years of womanhood, and your heart
+awakens to love,&mdash;as, alas, for woman's destiny it will,&mdash;then read my
+life and sad experience, and be warned by my example. Mrs. Linwood is
+intrusted with the manuscript, blotted with your mother's tears. Oh,
+Gabriella, by all your love and reverence for the memory of the
+dead,&mdash;by the scarlet dye that can be made white as wool,&mdash;by your own
+hope in a Saviour's mercy, forgive the living,&mdash;if living <i>he</i> indeed
+be!"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes closed as she uttered these words, and a purplish gloom
+gathered beneath her eyes. The doctor came in and administered ether,
+which partially revived her. I have never been able to inhale it since,
+without feeling sick and faint, and recalling the deadly odor of that
+chamber of mourning.</p>
+
+<p>About daybreak, I heard Dr. Harlowe say in the lowest whisper to Mrs.
+Linwood that <i>she</i> could not live more than one hour. He turned the
+hour-glass as he spoke. She had collected all the energies of life in
+that parting interview,&mdash;nothing remained but a faint, fluttering,
+quick-drawn breath.</p>
+
+<p>I sat looking at the hour-glass, counting every gliding sand, till each
+little, almost invisible particle, instead of dropping into the crystal
+receptacle, seemed to fall on my naked heart like the mountain rock. O
+my God! there are only two or three sands left, and my mother's life
+hangs on the last sinking grain. Some one rises with noiseless steps to
+turn the glass.</p>
+
+<p>With a shriek that might have arrested the departing spirit, I sprang
+forward and fell senseless on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>I remember nothing that passed during the day. I was told afterwards,
+that when I recovered from the fainting fit, the doctor, apprehensive of
+spasms, gave me a powerful anodyne to quiet my tortured nerves. When I
+became conscious of what was passing around me, the moon was shining on
+the bed where I lay, and the shadow of the softly rustling leaves
+quivering on the counterpane. I was alone, but I heard low, murmuring
+voices in the next room, and there was a light there more dim and
+earthly than the pale splendor that enveloped me. I leaned forward on my
+elbow and looked beyond the open door. The plain white curtains of the
+bed were looped up on each side, and the festoons swayed heavily in the
+night air, which made the flame of the lamp dim and wavering. A form
+reclined on the bed, but the face was <i>all covered</i>, though it was a
+midsummer's night. As I looked, I remembered all, and I rose and glided
+through the moonlight to the spot where my mother slept. Sustained by
+unnatural excitement, I seemed borne on air, and as much separated from
+the body as the spirit so lately divorced from that unbreathing clay; it
+was the effect of the opiate I had taken, but the pale watchers in the
+death-chamber shuddered at my unearthly appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"Let there be no light here but light from heaven," said I,
+extinguishing the fitful lamp-flame; and the room was immediately
+illuminated with a white, ghostly lustre. Then kneeling by the bed, I
+folded back the linen sheet, gazed with folded hands, and dry, dilated
+eyes on the mystery of death. The moon, "that sun of the sleepless,"
+that star of the mourner, shone full on her brow, and I smiled to see
+how divinely fair, how placid, how angelic she looked. Her dark, shining
+hair, the long dark lashes that pencilled her white cheek, alone
+prevented her from seeming a statue of the purest marble, fashioned
+after some Grecian model. Beauty and youth had come back to her reposing
+features, and peace and rapture too. A smile, such as no living lips
+ever wore, lingered round her mouth and softened its mute expression.
+She was happy. God had given his beloved rest. She was happy. It was not
+death on which I was gazing; it was life,&mdash;the dawn of immortal, of
+eternal life. Angels were watching around her. I did not see them, but I
+felt the shadow of their snow-white wings. I felt them fanning my brow
+and softly lifting the locks that fell darkly against the sheet, so
+chilly white. Others might have thought it the wind sighing through the
+leafy lattice-work; but the presence of angels was real to me,&mdash;and who
+can say they were not hovering there?</p>
+
+<p>That scene is past, but its remembrance is undying. The little cottage
+is inhabited by strangers. The grass grows rank near the brink of the
+fountain, and the mossy stone once moistened by my tears has rolled down
+and choked its gushing. My mother sleeps by the side of the faithful
+Peggy, beneath a willow that weeps over a broken shaft,&mdash;fitting
+monument for a broken heart.</p>
+
+<p>I will not dwell on the desolation of orphanage. It cannot be described.
+My Maker only knows the bitterness of my grief for days, weeks, even
+months. But time gradually warms the cold clay over the grave of love;
+then the grass springs up, and the flowers bloom, and the waste places
+of life become beautiful with hope, and the wilderness blossoms like the
+rose.</p>
+
+<p>But oh, my mother! my gentle, longsuffering mother! thou hast never been
+forgotten. By day and by night, in sunshine and shadow, in joy and in
+sorrow, thou art with me, a holy spirit, a hallowed memory, a chastening
+influence, that passeth not away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>What a change, from the little gray cottage in the woods to the pillared
+walls of Grandison Place.</p>
+
+<p>This ancestral looking mansion was situated on the brow of a long,
+winding hill, which commanded a view of the loveliest valley in the
+world. A bold, sweeping outline of distant hills, here and there
+swelling into mountains, and crowned with a deeper, mistier blue,
+divided the rich green of the earth from the azure of the heavens. Far
+as the eye could reach, it beheld the wildest luxuriance of nature
+refined and subdued by the hand of cultivation and taste. Man had
+reverenced the grandeur of the Creator, and made the ploughshare turn
+aside from the noble shade-tree, and left the streams rejoicing in their
+margins of verdure; and far off, far away beneath the shadow of the
+misty blue hills,&mdash;of a paler, more leaden hue,&mdash;the waters of the great
+sea seemed ready to roll down on the vale, that lay smiling before it.</p>
+
+<p>Built of native granite, with high massive walls and low turreted roof,
+Grandison Place rose above the surrounding buildings in castellated
+majesty. It stood in the centre of a spacious lawn, zoned by a girdle of
+oaks, beneath whose dense shade the dew sparkled even at noonday. Within
+this zone was a hedge of cedar, so smooth, with twigs so thickly
+interwoven, that the gossamer thought it a framework, on which to
+stretch its transparent web in the morning sun. Near the house the lawn
+was margined with beds of the rarest and most beautiful flowers, queen
+roses, and all the fragrant populace of the floral world. But the
+grandest and most beautiful feature of all was a magnificent elm-tree,
+standing right in the centre of the green inclosure, toweling upward,
+sweeping downward, spreading on either side its lordly branches, "from
+storms a shelter and from heat a shade."</p>
+
+<p>I never saw so noble a tree. I loved it,&mdash;I reverenced it. I associated
+with it the idea of strength and protection. Had I seen the woodman's
+axe touch its bark, I should have felt as if blood would stream from its
+venerable trunk. A circular bench with a back formed of boughs woven in
+checker-work surrounded it, and at twilight the soft sofas in the
+drawing-room were left vacant for this rustic seat.</p>
+
+<p>Edith loved it, and when she sat there with her crutches leaning against
+the rough back, whose gray tint subdued the bright lustre of her golden
+hair, I would throw myself on the grass at her feet and gaze upon her,
+as the embodiment of human loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>One would suppose that I felt awkward and strange in the midst of such
+unaccustomed magnificence; but it was not so. It seemed natural and
+right for me to be there. I trod the soft, rich, velvety carpeting with
+a step as unembarrassed as when I traversed the grassy lawn. I was as
+much at home among the splendors of art as the beauties of nature,&mdash;both
+seemed my birthright.</p>
+
+<p>I felt the deepest, most unbounded gratitude for my benefactress; but
+there was nothing abject in it. I knew that giving did not impoverish
+her; that the food I ate was not as much to her as the crumbs that fell
+from my mother's table; that the room I occupied was but one in a suite
+of elegant apartments; yet this did not diminish my sense of obligation.
+It lightened it, however, of its oppressive weight.</p>
+
+<p>My room was next to Edith's. The only difference in the furniture was in
+the color of the hangings. The curtains and bed drapery of mine were
+pink, hers blue. Both opened into an upper piazza, whose lofty pillars
+were wreathed with flowering vines, and crowned with Corinthian
+capitals. Surely my love for the beautiful ought to have been satisfied;
+and so it was,&mdash;but it was long, long before my heart opened to receive
+its influence. The clods that covered my mother's ashes laid too heavily
+upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood had a great deal of company from the city, which was but a
+short journey from Grandison Place. As they were mostly transient
+guests, I saw but little of them. My extreme youth, and deep mourning
+dress, were sufficient reasons for withdrawing from the family circle
+when strangers enlarged it. Edith was three years older than myself, and
+was of course expected to assist her mother in the honors of
+hospitality. She loved society, moreover, and entered into its innocent
+pleasures with the delight of a young, genial nature. It was difficult
+to think of her as a young lady, she was so extremely juvenile in her
+appearance; and her lameness, by giving her an air of childish
+dependence, added to the illusion caused by her fair, clustering
+ringlets and infantine rosiness of complexion. She wanted to bring me
+forward;&mdash;she coaxed, caressed, and playfully threatened, nor desisted
+till her mother said, with grave tenderness&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The heart cannot be forced, Edith; Gabriella is but a child, and should
+be allowed the freedom of a child. The restraints of social life, once
+assumed, are not easily thrown aside. Let her do just as she pleases."</p>
+
+<p>And so I did; and it pleased me to wander about the lawn; to sit and
+read under the great elm-tree; to make garlands of myrtle and sweet
+running vine flowers for Edith's beautiful hair; to walk the piazza,
+when moonlight silvered the columns and covered with white glory the
+granite walls, while the fountain of poetry down in the depths of my
+soul welled and trembled in the heavenly lustre.</p>
+
+<p>It pleased me to sit in the library, or rather to stand and move about
+there, for at that time I did not like to sit anywhere but on the grass
+or the oaken bench. The old poets were there in rich binding, all the
+classics, and the choicest specimens of modern literature. There were
+light, airy, movable steps, so as to reach to the topmost shelves, and
+there I loved to poise myself, like a bird on the spray, peeping into
+this book and that, gathering here and there a golden grain or sweet
+scented flower for the garner of thought, or the bower of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>There were statues in niches made to receive them,&mdash;the gods and
+goddesses of Greece and Rome, in their cold, severe beauty, all
+passionless and pure, in spite of the glowing mythology that called them
+into existence. There were paintings, too, that became a part of my
+being, I took them in with such intense, gazing eyes. Indeed, the house
+was lined with them. I could not walk through a room without stopping to
+admire some work of genius, some masterpiece of art.</p>
+
+<p>I over-heard Dr. Harlowe say to Mrs. Linwood, that it was a pity I were
+not at school, I was so very young. As if I were not at school all the
+time! As if those grand old books were not teachers; those breathing
+statues, those gorgeous paintings were not teachers; as if the noble
+edifice itself, with its magnificent surroundings, the billowy heave of
+the distant mountains, the glimpses of the sublime sea, the fair expanse
+of the beautiful valley, were not teachers!</p>
+
+<p>Oh! they little knew what lessons I was learning. They little knew how
+the soul of the silent orphan girl was growing within her,&mdash;how her
+imagination, like flowers, was nourished in stillness and secrecy by the
+air and the sunshine, the dew and the shower.</p>
+
+<p>I had other teachers, too, in the lonely churchyard; very solemn they
+were, and gentle too, and I loved their voiceless instructions better
+than the sounding eloquence of words.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Regulus thought with Dr. Harlowe, that it was a pity I was not at
+school. He called to see Mrs. Linwood and asked her to use her influence
+to induce me to return as a pupil to the academy. She left it to my
+decision, but I shrunk from the thought of contact with the rude village
+children. I felt as if I had learned all Mr. Regulus could teach me. I
+was under greater masters now. Yet I was grateful for the interest he
+manifested in me. I had no vindictive remembrance of the poem he had so
+ruthlessly murdered. Innumerable acts of after kindness had obliterated
+the impression, or rather covered it with a growth of pleasant memories.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you given up entirely the idea of being a teacher yourself?" he
+asked, in a low voice, "or has the kindness of friends rendered it
+superfluous? I do not ask from curiosity out a deep interest in your
+future welfare."</p>
+
+<p>This was a startling question. I had not thought of the subject since I
+had entered my new home. Why should I think of the drudgery of life,
+pillowed on the downy couch of luxury and ease? I was forgetting that I
+was but the recipient of another's bounty,&mdash;a guest, but not a child of
+the household.</p>
+
+<p>Low as was his voice, I knew Mrs. Linwood heard and understood him, for
+her eyes rested on me with a peculiar expression of anxiety and
+interest. She did not speak, and I knew not what to utter. A burning
+glow rose to my cheeks, and my heart fluttered with painful
+apprehension. It was all a dream, then. That home of affluence was not
+mine,&mdash;it was only the asylum of my first days of orphanage. The
+maternal tenderness of Mrs. Linwood was nothing more than compassion and
+Christian charity, and the sisterly affection of the lovely Edith but
+the overflowing of the milk of human kindness. These were my first,
+flashing thoughts; then the inherent pride of my nature rose to sustain
+me. I would never be a willing burden to any one. I would toil day and
+night, sooner than eat the bread of dependence. It would have been far
+better to have left me in the humble cottage where they found me, to
+commence my life of drudgery at once, than to have given me a taste of
+luxury and affluence, to heighten, by force of contrast, privation and
+labor.</p>
+
+<p>"I will commence teaching immediately," I answered, trying in vain to
+speak with firmness, "if you think I am not too young, and a situation
+can be obtained;" "that is," I added, I fear a little proudly, "if Mrs.
+Linwood approve."</p>
+
+<p>"It must not be thought of <i>at present</i>," she answered, speaking to Mr.
+Regulus. "Gabriella is too young yet to assume the burden of authority.
+Her physical powers are still undeveloped. Besides, we shall pass the
+winter in the metropolis. Next summer we will talk about it."</p>
+
+<p>"They speak of adding a primary department to the academy," said my
+former master, "which will be under female superintendence. If this <i>is</i>
+done, and she would accept the situation, I think I have influence
+enough to secure it for her."</p>
+
+<p>"We will see to that hereafter," said Mrs. Linwood; "but of one thing I
+am assured, if Gabriella ever wishes to assume duties so honorable and
+so feminine, she would think it a privilege to be under your especial
+guardianship, and within reach of your experience and counsel."</p>
+
+<p>I tried to speak, and utter an assent to this wise and decided remark,
+but I could not. I felt the tears gushing into my eyes, and hastily
+rising, I left the room. I did not go out on the lawn, for I saw Edith's
+white robes under the trees, and I knew the guests of the city were with
+her. I ran up stairs to my own apartment, or that which was called mine,
+and, sitting down in an embrasure of the window, drew aside the rosy
+damask and gazed around me.</p>
+
+<p>Do not judge me too harshly. I was ungrateful; I knew I was. My heart
+rose against Mrs. Linwood for her cold decision. I forgot, for the
+moment, her holy ministrations to my dying mother, her care and
+protection of me, when left desolate and alone. I forgot that I had no
+claims on her beyond what her compassion granted. I realized all at once
+that I was poor and dependent, though basking in the sunshine of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>In justice to myself I must say, that the bitterest tears I then shed
+were caused by disappointment in Mrs. Linwood's exalted character. I had
+imagined her "bounty as boundless as the sea, her love as deep." Now the
+noble proportion of her virtues seemed dwarfed, their luxuriance
+stinted, and withering too.</p>
+
+<p>While I was thus cheating my benefactress of her fair perfections, she
+came in with her usual quiet and stilly step, and sat down beside me.
+The consciousness of what was passing in my mind, made the guilty blood
+rush warm to my face.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been weeping, Gabriella," she said, in gentle accents; "your
+feelings are wounded, you think me cold, perhaps unkind."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madam, what have I said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, my dear child, and yet I have read every thing. Your ingenuous
+countenance expressed on my entrance as plain as words could utter,
+'Hate me, for I am an ingrate.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You do, indeed, read very closely."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you look as closely into my heart, Gabriella, were my face as
+transparent as yours, you would understand at once my apparent coldness
+as anxiety for your highest good. Did I consult my own pleasure, without
+regard to that discipline by which the elements of character are wrought
+into beauty and fitness, I should cherish no wish but to see you ever
+near me as now, indulging the sweet dreams of youth, only the more
+fascinating for being shadowed with melancholy. I would save you, if
+possible, from becoming the victim of a diseased imagination, or too
+morbid a sensibility."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up, impressed with her calm, earnest tones, and as I listened,
+conscience upbraided me with injustice and ingratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a period in every young girl's life, my dear Gabriella, when
+she is in danger of becoming a vain and idle dreamer, when the
+amusements of childhood have ceased to interest, and the shadow of
+woman's destiny involves the pleasures of youth. The mind is occupied
+with vague imaginings, the heart with restless cravings for unknown
+blessings. With your vivid imagination and deep sensibility, your love
+of reverie and abstraction, there is great danger of your yielding
+unconsciously to habits the more fatal in their influence, because
+apparently as innocent as they are insidious and pernicious. A life of
+active industry and usefulness is the only safeguard from temptation and
+sin."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how every true word she uttered ennobled her in my estimation, while
+it humbled myself. Idler that I was in my Father's vineyard, I was
+holding out my hands for the clustering grapes, whose purple juice is
+for him who treadeth the wine-press.</p>
+
+<p>"Were my own Edith physically strong," she added, "I would ask no nobler
+vocation for her than the one suggested to you this day. I should
+rejoice to see her passing through a discipline so chastening and
+exalting. I should rejoice to see her exercising the faculties which God
+has given her for the benefit of her kind. The possession of wealth does
+not exempt one from the active duties of life, from self-sacrifice,
+industry and patient continuance in well-doing. The little I have done
+for you, all that I can do, is but a drop from the fountain, and were it
+ten times more would never be missed. It is not that I would give less,
+but I would require more. While I live, this shall ever be your home,
+where you shall feel a mother's care, protection, and tenderness; but I
+want you to form habits of self-reliance, independence, and usefulness,
+which will remain your friends, though other friends should be taken
+from you."</p>
+
+<p>Dear, excellent Mrs. Linwood! how my proud, rebellious heart melted
+before her! What resolutions I formed to be always governed by her
+influence, and guided by her counsels! How vividly her image rises
+before me, as she then looked, in her customary dress of pale, silver
+gray, her plain yet graceful lace cap, simply parted hair, and calm,
+benevolent countenance.</p>
+
+<p>She was the most unpretending of human beings. She moved about the house
+with a step as stilly as the falling dews. Indeed, such was her walk
+through life. She seemed born to teach mankind unostentatious charity.
+Yet, under this mild, calm exterior, she had a strong, controlling will,
+which all around her felt and acknowledged. From the moment she drew the
+fan from my hand, at my mother's bedside, to the hour I left her
+dwelling, she acted upon me with a force powerful as the sun, and as
+benignant too.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If I do not pass more rapidly over these early scenes, I shall never
+finish my book.</p>
+
+<p>Book!&mdash;am I writing a book? No, indeed! This is only a record of my
+heart's life, written at random and carelessly thrown aside, sheet after
+sheet, sibylline leaves from the great book of fate. The wind may blow
+them away, a spark consume them. I may myself commit them to the flames.
+I am tempted to do so at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>I once thought it a glorious thing to be an author,&mdash;to touch the
+electric wire of sentiment, and know that thousands would thrill at the
+shock,&mdash;to speak, and believe that unborn millions would hear the music
+of those echoing words,&mdash;to possess the wand of the enchanter, the ring
+of the genii, the magic key to the temple of temples, the pass-word to
+the universe of mind. I once had such visions as these, but they are
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>To touch the electric wire, and feel the bolt scathing one's own
+brain,&mdash;to speak, to hear the dreary echo of one's voice return through
+the desert waste,&mdash;to enter the temple and find nothing but ruins and
+desolation,&mdash;to lay a sacrifice on the altar, and see no fire from
+heaven descend in token of acceptance,&mdash;to stand the priestess of a
+lonely shrine, uttering oracles to the unheeding wind,&mdash;is not such too
+often the doom of those who have looked to fame as their heritage,
+believing genius their dower?</p>
+
+<p>Heaven save me from such a destiny. Better the daily task, the measured
+duty, the chained-down spirit, the girdled heart.</p>
+
+<p>A year after Mrs. Linwood pointed out to me the path of duty, I began to
+walk in it. I have passed the winter in the city, but it was one of deep
+seclusion to me. I welcomed with rapture our return to the country, and
+had so far awakened from dream-life, as to prepare myself with
+steadiness of purpose for the realities of my destiny.</p>
+
+<p>Edith rebelled against her mother's decision. There was no need of such
+a thing. I was too young, too delicate, too sensitive for so rough a
+task. There was a plenty of robust country girls to assist Mr. Regulus,
+if he wanted them to, without depriving her of her companion and sister.
+She appealed to Dr. Harlowe, in her sweet, bewitching way, which always
+seemed irresistible; but he only gave her a genial smile, called me "a
+brave little girl," and bade me "God speed." "I wish Richard Clyde were
+here," said she, in her own artless, half-childish manner, "I am sure he
+would be on my side. I wish brother Ernest would come home, he would
+decide the question. Oh, Gabriella, if you only knew brother Ernest!"</p>
+
+<p>If I have not mentioned this <i>brother Ernest</i> before, it is not because
+I had not heard his name repeated a thousand times. He was the only son
+and brother of the family, who, having graduated with the first honors
+at the college of his native State, was completing his education in
+Germany, at the celebrated University of Gottingen. There was a picture
+of him in the library, taken just before he left the country, on which I
+had gazed, till it was to me a living being. It was a dark, fascinating
+face,&mdash;a face half of sunshine and half shadow, a face of mysterious
+meanings; as different from Edith's as night from morning. It reminded
+me of the head of Byron, but it expressed deeper sensibility, and the
+features were even more symmetrically handsome.</p>
+
+<p>Edith, who was as frank and artless as a child, was always talking of
+her brother, of his brilliant talents, his genius, and peculiarities.
+She showed me his letters, which were written with extraordinary beauty
+and power, though the sentiments were somewhat obscured by a
+transcendental mistiness belonging to the atmosphere he breathed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest never was like anybody else," said Edith; "he is the most
+singular, but the most fascinating of human beings. Oh Gabriella, I long
+to have him come back, that you may know and admire him."</p>
+
+<p>Though I knew by ten thousand signs that this absent son was the first
+object of Mrs. Linwood's thoughts, she seldom talked of him to me. She
+often, when Edith was indulging in her enthusiastic descriptions of him,
+endeavored to change the conversation and turn my thoughts in other
+channels.</p>
+
+<p>But why do I speak of Ernest Linwood here? It is premature. I was about
+to describe a little part of my experience as a village teacher.</p>
+
+<p>Edith had a beautiful little pony, gentle as a lamb, yet very spirited
+withal, (for lame though she was, she was a graceful and fearless
+equestrian,) which it was arranged that I should ride every morning,
+escorted by a servant, who carried the pony back for Edith's use. Dr.
+Harlowe, who resided near the academy, said I was always to dine at his
+house, and walk home in the evening. They must not make too much of a
+fine lady of me. I must exercise, if I would gather the roses of health.
+Surely no young girl could begin the ordeal of duty under kinder, more
+favoring auspices.</p>
+
+<p>After the first dreaded morning when Mr. Regulus, tall, stately, and
+imposing, ushered me into the apartment where I was to preside with
+delegated authority, led me up a low flight of steps and waved his hand
+towards a high magisterial arm-chair which was to be my future throne, I
+felt a degree of self-confidence that surprised and encouraged me. Every
+thing was so novel, so fresh, it imparted an elasticity to my spirits I
+had not felt in Mrs. Linwood's luxurious home. Then there was something
+self-sustaining, inspiring in the consciousness of intellectual exertion
+and moral courage, in the thought that I was doing some little good in
+the world, that I was securing the approbation of Mrs. Linwood and of
+the excellent Dr. Harlowe. The children, who had most of them been my
+fellow pupils, looked upon Gabriella Lynn, the prot&eacute;g&eacute;e of the rich Mrs.
+Linwood, as a different being from Gabriella Lynn of the little gray
+cottage in the woods. I have no doubt they thought it very grand to ride
+on that beautiful pony, with its saddle-cloth of blue and silver, and
+glittering martingale, escorted by a servant too! Had they been disposed
+to rebel at my authority, they would not have dared to do so, for Mr.
+Regulus, jealous for my new dignity, watched over it with an eagle eye.</p>
+
+<p>Where were the chains, whose prophetic clanking had chilled my misgiving
+heart? They were transformed to flowery garlands, of daily renewing
+fragrance and bloom. My desk was literally covered with blossoms while
+their season lasted, and little fairy fingers were always twining with
+wreaths the dark hair they loved to arrange according to their own
+juvenile fancies.</p>
+
+<p>My noon hours at Dr. Harlowe's, were pleasant episodes in my daily life.
+Mrs. Harlowe was an excellent woman. She was called by the villagers "a
+most superior woman,"&mdash;and so she was, if admirable housekeeping and
+devotion to her husband's interests entitled her to the praise. She was
+always busy; but the doctor, though he had a wide sweep of practice in
+the surrounding country, always seemed at leisure. There was something
+so cheerful, so encouraging about him, despondency fled from his
+presence and gave place to hope.</p>
+
+<p>I love to recall this era of my life. If I have known deeper happiness,
+more exalted raptures, they were dearly purchased by the sacrifice of
+the peace, the salubrity of mind I then enjoyed. I had a little room of
+my own there, where I was as much at home as I was at Mrs. Linwood's.
+There was a place for my bonnet and parasol, a shelf for my books, a low
+rocking-chair placed at the pleasantest window for me; and, knowing Mrs.
+Harlowe's methodical habits, I was always careful to leave every thing,
+as I found it, in Quaker-like order. This was the smallest return I
+could make for her hospitality, and she appreciated it far beyond its
+merits. The good doctor, with all his virtues, tried the patience of his
+wife sometimes beyond its limits, by his excessive carelessness. He
+<i>would</i> forget to hang his hat in the hall, and toss it on the bright,
+polished mahogany table. He <i>would</i> forget to use the scraper by the
+steps, or the mat by the door, and leave tracks on the clean floor or
+nice carpet. These little things really worried her; I could see they
+did. She never said any thing; but she would get up, take up the hat,
+brush the table with her handkerchief, and hang the hat in its right
+place, or send the house-girl with the broom after his disfiguring
+tracks.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, my dear," he would say with imperturbable
+good-nature,&mdash;"really, I am too forgetful. I must have a self-regulating
+machine attached to my movements,&mdash;a portable duster and hat-catcher.
+But, the blessed freedom of home. It constitutes half its joy. Dear me!
+I would not exchange the privilege of doing as I please for the
+emperorship of the celestial realms."</p>
+
+<p>But, pleasant as were my noon rests, my homeward walks were pleasanter
+still. The dream-girl, after being awake for long hours to the practical
+duties of life, loved to ramble alone, till she felt herself involved in
+the soft haziness of thought, which was to the soul what the blue
+mistiness was to the distant hills. I could wander then alone to the
+churchyard, and yield myself unmolested to the sacred influences of
+memory. Do you remember my asking Richard Clyde to plant a white rose by
+my mother's grave? He had done so, soon after her burial, and now, when
+rather more than a year had passed, it was putting forth fair buds and
+blossoms, and breathing of renovation over the ruins of life. I never
+saw this rose-tree without blessing the hand which planted it; and I
+loved to sit on the waving grass and listen to the soft summer wind
+stealing through it, rustling among the dry blades and whispering with
+the green ones.</p>
+
+<p>There was one sentence that fell from my mother's dying lips which ever
+came to me in the sighs of the gale, fraught with mournful mystery.
+"Because man was <i>false</i>, I dared to think God was unjust." And had she
+not adjured me by every precious and every solemn consideration, "to
+forgive the <i>living</i>, if living <i>he</i> indeed was?"</p>
+
+<p>I knew these words referred to my father; and what a history of wrong
+and sorrow was left for my imagination to fill up! Living!&mdash;my father
+living! Oh! there is no grave so deep as that dug by the hand of neglect
+or desertion! He had been dead to my mother,&mdash;he had been dead to me. I
+shuddered at the thought of breathing the same vital element. He who had
+broken a mother's heart must be a fiend, worthy of eternal abhorrence.</p>
+
+<p>"If you live to years of womanhood," said my expiring mother, "and your
+heart awakens to love, as alas for woman's destiny it will, then read my
+life's sad experience, and be warned by my example."</p>
+
+<p>Sad prophetess! Death has consecrated thy prediction, but it is yet
+unfulfilled. When will womanhood commence, on whose horizon the morning
+star of love is to rise in clouded lustre?</p>
+
+<p>Surely I am invested with a woman's dignity, in that great arm-chair,
+behind the green-covered desk. I feel very much like a blown rose,
+surrounded by the rose-bud garland of childhood. Yet Dr. Harlowe calls
+me "little girl," and Mr. Regulus "my child," when the pupils are not
+by; then it is "Miss Gabriella." They forget that I am sixteen, and that
+I have grown taller and more womanly in the last year; but the awakening
+heart has not yet throbbed at its dawning destiny, the day-star of love
+has not risen on its slumbers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"I wish you had a vacation too," said Richard Clyde, as we ascended
+together the winding hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we should not have these pleasant walks," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I should not be returning from school at this hour every day, and
+you would not happen to overtake me as you do now."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know it is accident, Gabriella? How do you know but I wander
+about the woods, a restless ghost, till glad ringing voices chiming
+together, announce that you are free, and that I am at liberty to play
+guardian and knight, as I did three or four years ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you would not waste your time so foolishly, and because I do
+not need a guardian now. I am in authority, you know, and no one molests
+or makes me afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, you need a guardian more than ever, and I shall remain
+true to my boyish allegiance."</p>
+
+<p>Richard always had a gay, dashing way of talking, and his residence in
+college had certainly not subdued the gay spirit of chivalry that
+sparkled in his eye. He had grown much taller since I had seen him last,
+his face was more intellectual and altogether improved, and his dress
+was elegantly, though not foppishly, fashionable. He was an exceedingly
+agreeable companion. Even when I was most shy and sensitive, I felt at
+ease with him. When I say that I looked upon him something as an elder
+brother, I mean what I express,&mdash;not the sickly affectation with which
+young girls sometimes strive to hide a deeper feeling,&mdash;I remembered his
+steady school-boy friendship, his sympathy in the dark days of anguish
+and despair, and more than all, the rose, the sacred rose he had planted
+at my mother's grave.</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him for this, with a choking voice and a moistened eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not thank me," said he; "I had a mother once,&mdash;she, too, is gone.
+The world may contain for us many friends, but never but one mother,
+Gabriella. I was only ten years old when mine was taken from me, but her
+influence is around me still, a safeguard and a blessing."</p>
+
+<p>Words so full of feeling and reverence were more impressive falling from
+lips usually sparkling with gaiety and wit. We walked in silence up the
+gradual ascent, till we came to a fine old elm, branching out by the
+way-side, and we paused to rest under its boughs. As we did so, we
+turned towards the valley we were leaving behind, and beheld it
+stretching, a magnificent panorama, to the east and the west, the north
+and the south, wearing every shade of green, from the deep, rich hue of
+the stately corn to the brighter emerald of the oat fields, and the
+dazzling verdure of the pasture-land; and over all this glowing
+landscape the golden glory of approaching sunset hung like a royal
+canopy, whose purple fringes rested on the distant mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful!" I exclaimed with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful!" he echoed with equal fervor.</p>
+
+<p>"You are but mocking my words, Richard,&mdash;you are not looking at the
+enchanting prospect."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am,&mdash;a very enchanting one."</p>
+
+<p>"How foolish!" I cried, for I could not but understand the emphasis of
+his smiling glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Why am I more foolish in admiring one beautiful prospect than you
+another, Gabriella? You solicited my admiration for one charming view,
+while my eyes were riveted on another. If we are both sincere, we are
+equally wise."</p>
+
+<p>"But it seems so unnecessary to take the pains to compliment me, when
+you know me so well, and when I know myself so well too."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt your self-knowledge very much. I do not believe, in the first
+place, that you are aware how wonderfully you are improved. You do not
+look the same girl you did a year ago. You have grown taller, fairer,
+brighter, Gabriella. I did not expect to see this, when I heard you had
+shut yourself up in the academy again, under the shadow of old Regulus's
+beetling brows."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure he is not old, Richard; he is in the very prime of manhood."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Professor Regulus, then. We boys have a habit of speaking of our
+teachers in this way. I know it is a bad one, but we all fall into it.
+All our college professors have a metaphorical name, with the venerable
+epithet attached to it, which you condemn.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not like it at all; it sounds so disrespectful, and, pardon me for
+saying it, even coarse."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a great respect for Mr. Regulus."</p>
+
+<p>"I have; he is one of my best friends."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say he is; I should like to be in his place. You have another
+great friend, old Dr. Harlowe."</p>
+
+<p>"There, again. Why, Dr. Harlowe is almost young, at least very far from
+being old. He is one of the finest looking men I ever saw, and one of
+the best. You college students must be a very presuming set of young
+men."</p>
+
+<p>I spoke gravely, for I was really vexed that any one whom I esteemed as
+much as I did Richard, should adopt the vulgarisms he once despised.</p>
+
+<p>"We <i>are</i> a barbarous, rude set," he answered with redeeming frankness.
+"We show exactly what a savage man is and would ever be, without the
+refining influence of women. If it were not for our vacations, we would
+soon get beyond the reach of civilization. Be not angry with my
+roughness, most gentle Gabriella. Pass over it your smoothing touch, and
+it shall have the polish of marble, without its coldness."</p>
+
+<p>We had resumed our walk, and the granite walls of Grandison Place began
+to loom up above the surrounding shade.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a noble mansion," said he. "How admirably such a residence must
+harmonize with your high, romantic thoughts. But there is one thing that
+impresses me with wonder,&mdash;that Mrs. Linwood, so rich, so liberal too,
+with only one daughter, should allow you, her adopted child, to devote
+your young hours to the drudgery of teaching. It seems so unnecessary,
+so inconsistent with her usual munificence of action."</p>
+
+<p>The glow of wounded pride warmed my cheek. I had become happy in my
+vocation, but I could not bear to hear it depreciated, nor the motives
+of my benefactress misunderstood and misrepresented.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Linwood is as wise as she is kind," I answered, hastily. "It is my
+happiness and good she consults, not her own pleasure. Giving does not
+impoverish either her ample purse or her generous heart. She knows my
+nature, knows that I could not bear the stagnation of a life of
+luxurious ease."</p>
+
+<p>"Edith can,&mdash;why not you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are so different. She was born for the position she occupies. She is
+one of the lilies of the valley, that toil not, neither do they spin,
+yet they fulfil a lovely mission. Do not try to make me discontented
+with a lot, so full of blessings, Richard. Surely no orphan girl was
+ever more tenderly cherished, more abundantly cared for."</p>
+
+<p>"Discontented!" he exclaimed, "heaven forbid! I must be a wretched
+blunderer. I am saying something wrong all the time, with a heart full
+of most excellent intentions. Discontented! no, indeed; I have only the
+unfortunate habit of speaking before I think. I shall grow wiser as I
+grow older, I trust."</p>
+
+<p>He reached up to a branch that bent over the way-side, and breaking it
+off, began to strip it of its green leaves and scatter them in the path.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think me angry, Richard?" I asked, catching some of the
+leaves, before they fell to the ground. "I once felt all that you
+express; and I was doubly wrong; I was guilty of ingratitude, you only
+of thoughtlessness."</p>
+
+<p>"When does Mrs. Linwood expect her son?" he asked abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Next summer, I believe; I do not exactly know."</p>
+
+<p>"He will take strong hold of your poetic imagination. There is something
+'grand, gloomy, and peculiar' about him; a mystery of reserve, which oft
+amounts to haughtiness. I am but very little acquainted with him, and
+probably never shall be. Should we chance to meet in society, we would
+be two parallel lines, never uniting, however near we might approach.
+Besides, he is a number of years older than myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you call him old Mr. Linwood," said I, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>We had now entered the gate, and met Mrs. Linwood and Edith walking in
+the avenue, if Edith could be said to walk, borne on as she was by her
+softly falling crutches. She looked so exceedingly lovely, I wondered
+that Richard did not burst forth in expressions of irrepressible
+admiration. I was never weary of gazing on her beauty. Even after an
+absence of a few hours, it dawned upon me with new lustre, like that of
+the rising day. I wondered that any one ever looked at any one else in
+her presence. As for myself, I felt annihilated by her dazzling
+fairness, as the little star is absorbed by the resplendent moon.</p>
+
+<p>Strange, all beautiful as she was she did not attract, as one would
+suppose, the admiration of the other sex. Perhaps there was something
+cold and shadowy in the ethereality of her loveliness, a want of
+sympathy with man's more earthly, passionate nature. It is very certain,
+the beauty which woman most admires often falls coldly on the gaze of
+man. Edith had the face of an angel; but hers was not the darkening eye
+and changing cheek that "pale passion loves." Did the sons of God come
+down to earth, as they did in olden time, to woo the daughters of men,
+they might have sought her as their bride. She was not cold, however;
+she was not passionless. She had a woman's heart, formed to enshrine an
+idol of clay, believing it imperishable as its own love.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood gave Richard a cordial greeting. I had an unaccountable
+fear that she would not be pleased that he escorted me home so
+frequently, though this was the first time he had accompanied me to the
+lawn. She urged him to remain and pass the evening, or rather asked him,
+for he required no urging. I am sure it must have been a happy one to
+him. Edith played upon her harp, which had been newly strung. She seemed
+the very personification of one of Ossian's blue-eyed maids, with her
+white, rising hands, and long, floating locks.</p>
+
+<p>I was passionately fond of music, and had my talent been early
+cultivated I would doubtless have excelled. I cared not much about the
+piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In
+imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impassioned strains of Italy,
+or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of
+thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords,
+the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the
+divine string, and "called angels down."</p>
+
+<p>When I retired that night and saw the reflection of myself full length,
+in the large pier-glass, between the rosy folds of the sweeping damask,
+I could not help recalling what Richard Clyde had said of my personal
+improvement. Was he sincere, when with apparent enthusiasm he had
+applied to me the epithet, <i>beautiful</i>? No, he could not be; and yet his
+eyes had emphasized the language of his lips.</p>
+
+<p>I was not vain. Few young girls ever thought less of their personal
+appearance. I lived so much in the world within, that I gave but little
+heed to the fashion of my outward form. It seemed so poor an expression
+of the glowing heart, the heaven-born soul.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time I looked upon myself with reference to the eyes of
+others, and I tried to imagine the youthful figure on which I gazed as
+belonging to another, and not myself. Were the outlines softened by the
+dark-flowing sable, classic and graceful? Was there beauty in the oval
+cheek, now wearing the warm bloom of the brunette, or the dark,
+long-lashed eye, which drooped with the burden of unuttered thoughts?</p>
+
+<p>As I asked myself these questions, I smiled at my folly; and as the
+image smiled back upon the original, there was such a light, such a
+glow, such a living soul passed before me, that for one moment a
+triumphant consciousness swelled my bosom, a new revelation beamed on my
+understanding,&mdash;the consciousness of woman's hitherto unknown
+power,&mdash;the revelation of woman's destiny.</p>
+
+<p>And connected with this, there came the remembrance of that haunting
+face in the library, which I had only seen on canvas, but which was to
+me a breathing reality,&mdash;that face which, even on the cold, silent wall,
+had no repose; but dark, restless, and impassioned, was either a history
+of past disappointment, or a prophecy of future suffering.</p>
+
+<p>The moment of triumph was brief. A pale shadow seemed to flit behind me
+and dim the bright image reflected in the mirror. It wore the sad, yet
+lovely lineaments of my departed mother.</p>
+
+<p>O how vain were youth and beauty, if thus they faded and vanished away!
+How mournful was love thus wedded to sorrow! how mysterious the nature
+in which they were united!</p>
+
+<p>A shower of tears washed away the vain emotions I blushed to have felt.
+But I could not be as though I had never known them. I could not recall
+the guileless simplicity of childhood, its sweet unconsciousness and
+contentment, in the present joy.</p>
+
+<p>O foolish, foolish Gabriella! Art thou no longer a child?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Regulus still called me "child." We had quite a scene in the academy
+one day after the school was dismissed, and I was preparing as usual to
+return home.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you give me a few moments' conversation, Miss Gabriella?" said he,
+clearing his throat with one of those hems which once sounded so awful.
+He looked awkward and disconcerted, while my face flushed with
+trepidation. Had I been guilty of any omitted duty or committed offence?
+Had I suffered an error on the blackboard to pass unnoticed, or allowed
+a mistake in grammar to be unconnected? What <i>had</i> I done?</p>
+
+<p>I stood nervously pulling the fingers of my gloves, waiting for him to
+commence the conversation he had sought. Another hem!&mdash;then he moved the
+inkstand about a foot further from him, for he was standing close to his
+desk, as if to gather round him every imposing circumstance, then he
+took up the ruler and measured it with his eye, run his finger along the
+edge, as if it were of razor sharpness.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he going to punish me?" thought I. "It looks ominous."</p>
+
+<p>I would not assist him by one word; but maintaining a provoking silence,
+took up a pair of compasses and made a circle on the green cloth that
+covered the desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Gabriella," at length he said, "you must forgive me for taking the
+liberty of an old friend. Nothing but the most disinterested regard for
+your&mdash;your reputation&mdash;could induce me to mention a subject&mdash;so&mdash;so
+very&mdash;very peculiar."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "my reputation, Mr. Regulus?"</p>
+
+<p>I felt the blood bubbling like boiling water, up into my cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not wish to alarm or distress you," he continued, becoming more
+self-possessed, as my agitation increased. "You know a young girl, left
+without her natural guardians, especially if she is so unfortunate as to
+be endowed with those charms which too often attract the shafts of envy
+and stir up the venom of malice,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Regulus!" I interrupted, burning with impatience and indignation,
+"tell me what you mean. Has any one dared to slander me,&mdash;and for what?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one would dare to breathe aught of evil against you in my presence,"
+said he, with great dignity; "but the covert whisper may pass from lip
+to lip, and the meaning glance flash from eye to eye, when your friend
+and protector is not near to shield you from aspersion, and vindicate
+your fame."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop," I exclaimed; "you terrify&mdash;you destroy me!"</p>
+
+<p>The room spun round like a top. Every thing looked misty and black. I
+caught hold of Mr. Regulus's arm to keep me from falling. Foes in
+ambush, glittering tomahawks, deadly scalping-knives, were less terrible
+than my dark imaginings.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me," cried my master, seating me in his great arm-chair and
+fanning me with an atlas which he caught from his desk, "I did not mean
+to frighten you, my child. I wanted to advise, to counsel you, to
+<i>prevent</i> misconstruction and unkind remark. My motives are pure, indeed
+they are; you believe they are, do you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do," I answered, passing my hand over my eyes, to clear
+away the dark specks that still floated over them; "but if you have any
+regard for my feelings, speak at once, plainly and openly. I will be
+grateful for any advice prompted by kindness, and expressed without
+mystery."</p>
+
+<p>"I only thought," said he, becoming again visibly embarrassed, "that I
+would suggest the propriety of your not permitting young Clyde to
+accompany you home so often. The extraordinary interest he took in you
+as a boy, renders his present attentions more liable to remark. A young
+girl in your situation, my child, cannot be too particular, too much on
+her guard. College boys are wild fellows. They are not safe companions
+for innocence and simplicity like yours."</p>
+
+<p>"And is this all?" I asked, drawing a long breath, and feeling as if
+Mont Blanc had rolled from my breast.</p>
+
+<p>"It is."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have heard no invidious remarks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, Gabriella, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear master," said I, rising with a joyous spring from my chair. "I
+thank you from the bottom of my heart for your anxious care of my good
+name. But I am sure Mrs. Linwood would not have sanctioned an
+impropriety. I have always felt towards Richard as I imagine I would
+towards a brother, were I so blest as to have one. He has made my lonely
+walks very pleasant by his lively and intelligent conversation. Still, I
+do not care to have him accompany me so often. I would rather that he
+would not. I will tell him so. I dare say you are right, Mr. Regulus; I
+know you are. I know so little of the world, I may offend its rules
+without being aware of it."</p>
+
+<p>I felt so unspeakably relieved, so happy that the mountain of slander
+which my imagination had piled up was reduced to an <i>anticipated</i>
+molehill, that my spirits rebounded even to gaiety. I laughed at the
+sight of my torn glove, for I had actually pulled off the fingers by my
+nervous twitches.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were going to apply the spatula. I feared you thought me
+guilty of writing another poem, Mr. Regulus; what else could make you
+look so formidable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Gabriella, let bygones be bygones. I was very harsh, very
+disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never
+forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a
+softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the
+young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses
+and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if
+it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its
+fragrance, and bless my Maker for shedding beauty and sweetness to
+gladden my way. The perception of the beautiful grows and strengthens in
+me. The love of nature, a new-born flower, blooms in my heart, and
+diffuses a sweet balminess unknown before. Even poetry, my child&mdash;do not
+laugh at me&mdash;has begun to unfold its mystic beauties to my imagination.
+I was reading the other evening that charming paraphrase of the
+nineteenth Psalm: 'The spacious firmament on high,' and I was
+exceedingly struck with its melodious rhythm; and when I looked up
+afterwards to the starry heavens, to the moon walking in her brightness,
+to the blue and boundless ether, they seemed to bend over me in love, to
+come nearer than they had ever done before. I could hear the whisper of
+that divine voice, which is heard in the rustling of the forest trees,
+the gurgling of the winding stream, and the rush of the mountain
+cataract; and every day," he added, with solemnity, "I love man more,
+because God has made him my brother."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, and his countenance glowed with the fervor of his feelings.
+With an involuntary expression of reverence and tenderness, I held out
+my hand and exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My dear master&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You forgive me, then," taking my hand in both his, and burying it in
+his large palms; "you do not think me officious and overbearing?"</p>
+
+<p>"O no, sir, I have nothing to forgive, but much to be grateful for;
+thank you, I must go, for I have a long walk to take&mdash;<i>alone</i>."</p>
+
+<p>With an emphasis on the last word I bade him adieu, ran down the steps,
+and went on musing so deeply on my singular interview with Mr. Regulus,
+that I attempted to walk through a tree by the way-side. A merry laugh
+rang close to my ear, and Richard Clyde sprang over the fence right
+before me.</p>
+
+<p>"It should have opened and imprisoned you, as a truant dryad," said he.
+"Of what <i>are</i> you thinking, Gabriella, that you forget the
+impenetrability of matter, the opacity of bark and the incapability of
+flesh and blood to cleave asunder the ligneous fibres which oppose it,
+as the sonorous Johnson would have observed on a similar occasion."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of you, Richard," I answered with resolute frankness.</p>
+
+<p>"Of me!" he exclaimed, while his eyes sparkled with animated pleasure.
+"Oh, walk through all the trees of Grandison Place, if you will honor me
+with one passing thought."</p>
+
+<p>"You know you have always been like a brother to me, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know exactly how a brother feels. You have taken my fraternal
+regard for granted, but I am sure I have never professed any."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, if I have believed actions more expressive than words. I
+shall never commit a similar error."</p>
+
+<p>With deeply wounded and indignant feelings, I walked rapidly on, without
+deigning to look at one so heartless and capricious. Mr. Regulus was
+right. He was not a proper companion. I would never allow him to walk
+with me again.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not familiar enough with my light, mocking way, Gabriella?" he
+cried, keeping pace with my accelerated steps. "Do not you know me well
+enough to understand when I am serious and when jesting? I have never
+professed fraternal regard, because I know a brother cannot feel half
+the&mdash;the interest for you that I do. I thought you knew it,&mdash;I dare not
+say more,&mdash;I cannot say less."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, do not say any more," said I, shrinking with indefinable dread;
+"I do not want any professions. I meant not to call them forth. If I
+alluded to you as a brother, it was because I wished to speak to you
+with the frankness of a sister. It is better that you should not walk
+with me from school,&mdash;it is not proper,&mdash;people will make remarks."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let them make them,&mdash;who cares?"</p>
+
+<p>"I care, a great deal. I will not be the subject of village gossip."</p>
+
+<p>"Who put this idea in your head, Gabriella? I know it did not originate
+there. You are too artless, too unsuspicious. Oh! I know," he added,
+with a heightened color and a raised tone, "you have been kept after
+school; you have had a lecture on propriety; you cannot deny it."</p>
+
+<p>"I neither deny nor affirm any thing. It makes no difference who
+suggested it. My own judgment tells me it is right."</p>
+
+<p>"The old fellow is jealous," said he with a laugh of derision, "but he
+cannot control my movements. The road is wide enough for us both, and
+the world is wider still."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you say any thing so absurd and ridiculous?" I exclaimed; and
+vexed as I was, I could not help laughing at his preposterous
+suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I know it is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear
+of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing
+wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble
+independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of
+breath, a puff of empty air."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust I have sufficient independence to do what is right and
+sufficient prudence to avoid, if possible, the imputation of wrong," I
+replied, with grave earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! upright judge!&mdash;oh! excellent young sage!" exclaimed Richard, with
+mock reverence. "Wisdom becometh thee so well, I shall be tempted to
+quarrel hereafter with thy smiles. But seriously, Gabriella, I crave
+permission to walk courteously home with you this evening, for it is the
+last of my vacation. To-morrow I leave you, and it will be months before
+we meet again."</p>
+
+<p>"I might have spared you and myself this foolish scene, then," said I,
+deeply mortified at its result. "I have incurred your ridicule, perhaps
+your contempt, in vain. We might have parted friends, at least."</p>
+
+<p>"No, by heavens! Gabriella, not friends; we must be something more, or
+less than friends. I did not think to say this now, but I can hold it
+back no longer. And why should I? 'All my faults perchance thou
+knowest.' As was the boy, as is the youth, so most likely will be the
+man. No! if you love me, Gabriella,&mdash;if I may look forward to the day
+when I shall be to you friend, brother, guardian, lover, all in one,&mdash;I
+shall have such a motive for excellence, such a spring to ambition, that
+I will show the world the pattern of a man, such as they never saw
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had not said this," I answered, averting from his bright and
+earnest eye my confused and troubled glance. "We should be so much
+happier as friends. We are so young, too. It will be time enough years
+hence to talk of such things."</p>
+
+<p>"Too young to love! We are in the very spring-time of our life,&mdash;the
+season of blossoms and fragrance, music and love,&mdash;oh, daughter of
+poetry! is it you who utter such a thought? Would you wait for the
+sultry summer, the dry autumn, to cultivate the morning flower of
+Paradise?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not dream you had so much hidden romance," said I, smiling at his
+metaphorical language, and endeavoring to turn the conversation in a new
+channel. "I thought you mocked at sentiment and poetic raptures."</p>
+
+<p>"Love works miracles, Gabriella. You do not answer. You evade the
+subject on which all my life's future depends. Is there no chord in your
+heart that vibrates in harmony with mine? Are there no memories
+associated with the oak trees of the wood, the mossy stone at the
+fountain, the sacred rose of the grave, propitious to my early and
+ever-growing love?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with a depth of feeling of which I had never thought him
+possessed. Sincerity and truth dignified every look and tone. Yes! there
+were undying memories, now wakened in all their strength, of the
+youthful champion of my injured rights, the sympathizing companion of my
+darkest hours; the friend, who stood by me when other friends were
+unknown. There was many a responsive chord that thrilled at his voice,
+and there was another note, a sweet triumphant note never struck before.
+The new-born consciousness of woman's power, the joy of being beloved,
+the regal sense of newly acquired dominion swelled in my bosom and
+flashed from my eye. But <i>the master-chord was silent</i>. I knew, I felt
+even then, that there was a golden string, down in the very depths of my
+heart, too deep for his hand to touch.</p>
+
+<p>I felt grieved and glad. Grieved that I could not give a full response
+to his generous offering,&mdash;glad that I had capacities of loving, he,
+with all his excellences, could never fill. I tried to tell him what I
+felt, to express friendship, gratitude, and esteem; but he would not
+hear me,&mdash;he would not let me go on.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; say nothing now," said he impetuously. "I have been premature.
+You do not know your own heart. You do love me,&mdash;you will love me. You
+must not, you shall not deny me the privilege of hope. I will maintain
+the vantage ground on which I stand,&mdash;first friend, first lover, and
+even Ernest Linwood cannot drive me from it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest Linwood!" I exclaimed, startled and indignant. "You know he can
+never be any thing to me. You know my immeasurable obligations to his
+mother. His name shall be sacred from levity."</p>
+
+<p>"It is. He is the last person whom I would lightly name. He has
+brilliant talents and a splendid position; but woe to the woman who
+places her happiness in his keeping. He confides in no one,&mdash;so the
+world describes him,&mdash;is jealous and suspicious even in
+friendship;&mdash;what would he be in love?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know not. I care not,&mdash;only for his mother's and Edith's sake. Again
+I say, he is nothing to me. Richard, you trouble me very much by your
+strange way of talking. You have no idea how you have made my head ache.
+Please speak of common subjects, for I would not meet Mrs. Linwood so
+troubled, so agitated, for any consideration. See how beautiful the
+sunlight falls is the lawn! How graceful that white cloud floats down
+the golden west! As Wilson says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Even in its very motion there is rest.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Yes! the sunlight is very beautiful, and the cloud is very graceful,
+and you are beautiful and graceful in your dawning coquetry, the more so
+because you know it not. Well&mdash;obedience to-day, reward to-morrow,
+Gabriella. That was one of my old copies at the academy."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember another, which was a favorite of Mr. Regulus&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'To-morrow never yet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On any human being rose and set.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A few more light repartees, and we were at Mrs. Linwood's gate.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not come in?" said I, half asserting, half interrogating.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure I will. Edith promised me some of her angelic harp music. I
+come like Saul to have the evil spirit of discontent subdued by its
+divine influence."</p>
+
+<p>Richard was a favorite of Mrs. Linwood. Whether it was that by a woman's
+intuition she discovered the state of feeling existing between us, or
+whether it was his approaching departure, she was especially kind to him
+this evening; she expressed a more than usual interest in his future
+prospects.</p>
+
+<p>"This is your last year in college," I heard her say to him. "In a few
+months you will feel the dignity and responsibility of manhood. You will
+come out from the seclusion of college life into the wide, wide world,
+and of its myriad paths, so intricate, yet so trodden, you must choose
+one. You are looking forward now, eagerly, impatiently, but then you
+will pause and tremble. I pity the young man when he first girds himself
+for the real duties of life. The change from thought to action, from
+dreams to realities, from hope to fruition or <i>disappointment</i>, is so
+sudden, so great, he requires the wisdom which is only bought by
+experience, the strength gained only by exercise. But it is well," she
+added, with great expression, "it is well as it is. If youth could
+command the experience of age, it would lose the enthusiasm and zeal
+necessary for the conception of great designs; it would lose the
+brightness, the energy of hope, and nothing would be attempted, because
+every thing would be thought in vain. I did not mean to give you an
+essay," she said, smiling at her own earnestness, "but a young friend on
+the threshold of manhood is deeply interesting to me. I feel constrained
+to give him my best counsels, my fervent prayers."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, dear Madam, a thousand times," he answered his countenance
+lighted up with grateful pleasure; "you do not know what inspiration
+there is in the conviction that we are cared for by the pure and the
+good. Selfish as we are, there are few of us who strive to excel for
+ourselves alone. We must feel that there are some hearts, who bear us in
+remembrance, who will exult in our successes, and be made happier by our
+virtues."</p>
+
+<p>He forgot himself, and though he addressed Mrs. Linwood, his eye sought
+mine, while uttering the closing words. I was foolish enough to blush at
+his glance, and still more at the placid, intelligent smile of Mrs.
+Linwood. It seemed to say,</p>
+
+<p>"I understand it all; it is all right, just as it should be. There is no
+danger of Richard's being forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>I was provoked by <i>her</i> smile, <i>his</i> glance, and my own foolish blush.
+As for him, he really did seem inspired. He talked of the profession he
+had chosen as the noblest and the best, a profession which had commanded
+the most exalted talents and most magnificent geniuses in the world. He
+was not holy enough for the ministry; he had too great reverence and
+regard for human life to be a physician; but he believed nature had
+created him for a lawyer, for that much abused, yet glorious being, an
+honest lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I must have been nervous, in consequence of the exciting
+scenes through which I had passed, but there was something in his florid
+eloquence, animated gestures, and evident desire to make a grand
+impression, that strangely affected my risibles; I had always thought
+him so natural before. I tried to keep from laughing; I compressed my
+lips, and turning my head, looked steadily from the window, but a sudden
+stammering, then a pause, showed that my unconquerable rudeness was
+observed. I was sobered at once, but dared not look round, lest I should
+meet Mrs. Linwood's reproving glance. He soon after asked Edith for a
+parting song, and while listening to her sweet voice, as it mingled with
+the breezy strains of the harp, my excited spirit recovered its
+equilibrium. I thought with regret and pain, of the levity, so unwonted
+in me, which had wounded a heart so frank and true, and found as much
+difficulty in keeping back my tears, as a moment before I had done my
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Edith had finished her song, he rose to take leave. He came
+to me last, to the little recess in the window where I stood, and
+extended his hand as he had done to Mrs. Linwood and Edith. He looked
+hurt rather than angry, disappointed rather than sad.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me," said I, in a low voice; "I value your friendship too much
+to lose it without an effort."</p>
+
+<p>The tears were in my eyes; I could not help it. I was sorry, for they
+expressed far more than I meant to convey. I knew it at once by the
+altered, beaming expression of his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me smiles or tears, dear Gabriella," he answered, in the same
+undertone; "only do not forget me, only think of me as I wish to be
+remembered."</p>
+
+<p>He pressed my hand warmly, energetically, while uttering these words;
+then, without giving me time to reply, bowed again to Mrs. Linwood and
+left the room.</p>
+
+<p>"A very fine, promising young man," said Mrs. Linwood, with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"A most intelligent, agreeable companion," added the gentle Edith,
+looking smilingly at me, as if expecting me to say something.</p>
+
+<p>"Very," responded I, in a constrained manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" she asked, laying her soft, white hand on my shoulders,
+and looking archly in my face; "is that all, Gabriella?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, you are mistaken," said I, hastily; "he is nothing more,&mdash;and
+yet I am wrong to say that,&mdash;he has been,&mdash;he is like a brother to me,
+Edith, and never will be any thing more."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, these brother friends!" she exclaimed, with a burst of musical
+laughter, "how very near they seem! But wait, Gabriella, till you see
+<i>my</i> brother,&mdash;he is one to boast of."</p>
+
+<p>"Edith!" said her mother. Edith turned her blue eyes from me to her
+mother, with a look of innocent surprise. The tone seemed intended to
+check her,&mdash;yet what had she said?</p>
+
+<p>"You should not raise expectations in Gabriella which will not be
+realized," observed Mrs. Linwood, in that quiet tone of hers which had
+so much power. "Ernest, however dear he may be to us as a son and
+brother, has peculiar traits which sometimes repel the admiration of
+strangers. His impenetrable reserve chills the warmth of enthusiasm,
+while the fitfulness of his morals produces constant inquietude. He was
+born under a clouded star, and the horoscope of his destiny is darkened
+by its influence."</p>
+
+<p>"I love him better for his lights and shadows," said Edith, "he keeps
+one always thinking of him."</p>
+
+<p>"When would this shadowy, flashing being appear, who kept one always
+thinking of him?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>As I had made an engagement with Mr. Regulus for one year, I remained
+with Dr. Harlowe's family during the winter months, while Mrs. Linwood
+and Edith returned to the city.</p>
+
+<p>The only novelty of that wintry season was the first correspondence of
+my life. Could any thing prove more strikingly my isolated position in
+the world than this single fact? It was quite an era in my existence
+when I received Mrs. Linwood's and Edith's first letters; and when I
+answered them, it seemed to me my heart was flowing out in a gushing
+stream of expression, that had long sought vent. I knew they must have
+smiled at my exuberance of language, for the young enthusiast always
+luxuriates under epistolary influences. I had another correspondent, a
+very unexpected one, Richard Clyde, who, sanctioned by Mrs. Linwood,
+begged permission to write to me as a <i>friend</i>. How could I refuse, when
+Mrs. Linwood said it would be a source of intellectual improvement as
+well as pleasure? These letters occupied much of my leisure time, and
+were escape-pipes to an imagination of the high-pressure kind. My old
+love of rhyming, too, rose from the ashes of former humiliation, and I
+wove many a garland of poesy, though no one but myself inhaled their
+fragrance or admired their bloom.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So in the solitude of my chamber, in the loneliness of my heart, in the
+breathing stillness of the night, blossomed the moon-born flowers of
+poesy, to beautify and gladden my youth.</p>
+
+<p>Thus glided away the last tranquil season of my life. As was one day, so
+was the next. Mrs. Harlowe's clock-work virtues, which never run down,
+the doctor's agreeable carelessness and imperturbable good-humor, the
+exceeding kindness of Mr. Regulus, who grew so gentle, that he almost
+seemed melancholy,&mdash;all continued the same. In reading, writing,
+thinking, feeling, hoping, reaching forward to an uncertain future, the
+season of fireside enjoyments and comforts passed,&mdash;spring,&mdash;summer.
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith returned, and I was once more installed in that
+charming apartment, amid whose rosy decorations "I seemed," as Edith
+said, "a fairy queen." I walked once more in the moon-lighted colonnade,
+in the shadow of the granite walls, and felt that I was born to be
+there.</p>
+
+<p>One evening as I returned home, I saw Edith coming through the lawn to
+meet me, so rapidly that she seemed borne on wings,&mdash;her white drapery
+fell in such full folds over her crutches it entirely concealed them,
+and they made no sound on the soft, thick grass. Her face was perfectly
+radiant.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gabriella," she exclaimed, "he is coming,&mdash;brother is coming
+home,&mdash;he will be here in less than a week,&mdash;oh! I am so happy!"</p>
+
+<p>And the sweet, affectionate creature leaned her head on my shoulder, and
+actually sobbed in the fulness of her joy. My own heart palpitated with
+strange emotions, with mingled curiosity, eagerness, and dread.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Edith," I cried, putting my arms around her, and kissing her fair,
+infantine cheek, "I rejoice with you,&mdash;I could envy you if I dared. What
+a blessing it must be to have a brother capable of inspiring so much
+love!"</p>
+
+<p>"He shall be your brother too, Gabriella! For, are you not my sister?
+and of course he must be your brother. Come, let us sit down under the
+dear old elm and talk about him, for my heart is so full that I can
+speak and think of nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"And now," added she, as we sat under the kingly canopy of verdure,&mdash;on
+a carpet of living velvet,&mdash;"let me tell you why I love Ernest so very,
+very dearly. My father died when I was a little child, a little feeble
+child, a cripple as well as an invalid. Ernest is four years older than
+myself, and though when I was a little child he was but a very young
+boy, he always seemed a protector and guardian to me. He never cared
+about play like other children, loving his book better than any thing
+else, but willing to leave even that to amuse and gratify me. Oh! I used
+to suffer so much, so dreadfully,&mdash;I could not lie down, I could not sit
+up without pain,&mdash;no medicine would give me any relief. Hour after hour
+would Ernest hold me in his arms, and carry me about in the open air,
+never owning he was weary while he could give me one moment's ease. No
+one thought I would live beyond childhood, and I have no doubt many
+believed that death would be a blessing to the poor, crippled child.
+They did not know how dear life was to me in spite of all my sufferings;
+for had I always been well, I never should have known those tender,
+cherishing cares which have filled my heart with so much love. It is so
+sweet to be petted and caressed as I have been!"</p>
+
+<p>"It did not need sickness and suffering to make <i>you</i> beloved, Edith," I
+cried, twisting my fingers in her soft, golden curls. "Who could help
+loving you and wishing to caress you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes it did, Gabriella; my Heavenly Father knew that it did, or He would
+never have laid upon me His chastening hand. Sickness and pain have been
+my only chastisements, and they are all past. I am not very strong, but
+I am well; and though a cripple, my wooden feet serve me wonderfully
+well. I am so used to them now, they seem a part of myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I can never think of you as walking," I said, taking one of the
+crutches that leaned against the tree. The part which fitted under the
+arm was covered with a cushion of blue velvet, and the rosewood staff
+was mounted with silver. "You manage these so gracefully, one scarcely
+misses your feet."</p>
+
+<p>"But Ernest, dear Ernest," interrupted she, "let us talk of him. You
+must not be influenced too much by my mother's words. She adores him,
+but her standard of perfection is so exalted few can attain it. The very
+excess of her love makes her alive to his defects. She knows your vivid
+imagination, and fears my lavish praises will lead you to expect a being
+of super-human excellence. Oh, another thing I wanted to tell you. The
+uncle, for whom he was named, has died and left him a splendid fortune,
+which he did not need very much, you know. Had it not been for this
+circumstance, he would not have come back till autumn; and now he will
+be here in a week,&mdash;in less than a week. Oh, Gabriella, Grandison Place
+must shine for its master's welcome."</p>
+
+<p>Another splendid fortune added to his own! Further and further still,
+seemed he removed from me. But what difference did it make? Why did I
+think of him in reference to myself? How dared I do it, foolish and
+presumptuous girl! Then, he was seven years older than myself. How
+mature! He would probably look upon me as a little girl; and if he
+granted me the honors of womanhood, the student of Gottingen, the heir
+of two great fortunes would scarcely notice the village teacher, save as
+the orphan prot&eacute;g&eacute;e of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>I did not indulge these thoughts. I repelled them, for they were selfish
+and uncomfortable. If every one recorded their thoughts as I do, would
+they not, like me, pray for the blotting angel's tears?</p>
+
+<p>In one week! How soon!</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood, quiet and serene as she was, participated in Edith's
+joyful excitement. She departed from her usual reliance on the subject,
+and checked not Edith's glowing warmth.</p>
+
+<p>In a family so wealthy, a dwelling so abounding in all the elegancies
+and luxuries of life, the coming of a prince would not have occasioned
+any necessary disturbance. The chamber of the son and brother had been
+long prepared, but now the fastidious eye of affection discovered many
+deficiencies. The pictures must be changed in position; some wanted
+more, some less light; the curtains were too heavy, the flower vases too
+gorgeous.</p>
+
+<p>"Does he mind these things much?" I ventured to ask.</p>
+
+<p>"He likes to see every thing round him elegant and classic," replied
+Edith; "he has the most fastidious taste in the world. I am so glad,
+Gabriella, that you are pretty, that you are really classically
+beautiful, for he will think so much more of you for being so. He ought
+not, perhaps; but one cannot help having a fine taste. He cannot abide
+any thing coarse or unrefined."</p>
+
+<p>"He will not think of me at all, I am sure he will not," I answered,
+while a vivid blush of pleasure at her sweet flattery stole over my
+cheek.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was my office to gather and arrange the flowers, to adorn the
+mansion, in consequence of Edith's lameness. This I did every morning
+while they were sparkling with dew and the fragrance of night still
+imprisoned in their folded petals. I delighted in the task; but now I
+could not help feeling unusual solicitude about my floral mission. I
+rose earlier than usual, and made fearful havoc in the garden and the
+green-house. My apron dripped with blossoms every step I took, and the
+carpet was literally strewed with flowers. The fairest and sweetest were
+selected for the room <i>not yet occupied</i>; and though one day after
+another passed away and he came not, the scent of the blossoms lingered
+in the apartment, and diffusing in it an atmosphere of home love,
+prepared it for the wanderer's return.</p>
+
+<p>Every afternoon the carriage was sent to the depot, which was several
+miles from Grandison Place, to meet the traveller, and again and again
+it returned empty.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go ourselves," said Mrs. Linwood, beginning to be restless and
+anxious. And they went&mdash;she and Edith. Though it was Saturday and I was
+free, I did not accompany them, for I felt that a stranger to him should
+not "intermeddle with their joy."</p>
+
+<p>Partaking of the restlessness of baffled expectation, I could not fix my
+mind on any occupation. I seated myself in the window recess and began
+to read, but my eyes were constantly wandering to the road, watching for
+the dust cloud that would roll before the advancing carriage.
+Dissatisfied with myself, I strolled out on the lawn, and seating myself
+on the rustic bench with my back to the gate, resolutely fastened my
+eyes to the pages I had been vainly fluttering.</p>
+
+<p>Shall I tell how foolish I had been? Though I said to myself a hundred
+times, "he will not look at me, or notice me at all," I had taken
+unusual pains with my dress, which though still characterized with the
+simplicity of mourning, was relieved of its severity of outline. A fall
+of lace softened the bands of the neck and arms, which were embellished
+by a necklace and bracelets, which I valued more than any earthly
+possession. They were the gift of Mrs. Linwood, who, having won from the
+grave a portion of my mother's beautiful dark hair, had it wrought with
+exquisite skill, and set in massy gold, as memorials of love stronger
+than death. Thus doubly precious, I cherished them as holy amulets, made
+sacred by the living as well as the dead. Edith had woven in my hair
+some scarlet geraniums, my favorite flower. Though not very elaborately
+adorned, I had an impression I was looking my best, and I could not help
+thinking while I sat half veiled by foliage, half gilded by light, how
+romantic it would be, if a magnificent stranger should suddenly approach
+and as suddenly draw back, on seeing my dark, waving hair, instead of
+the golden locks of Edith. I became so absorbed in painting this little
+scene, which enlarged and glowed under the pencil of imagination, that I
+did not hear the opening of the gate or footsteps crossing the lawn. I
+thought a shadow passed over the sunshine. The figure of a stranger
+stood between me and the glowing west. I started up with an
+irrepressible exclamation. I knew, at the first glance, that it was
+Ernest Linwood, the living embodiment of that haunting image, so long
+drawn on my youthful fancy. I should have known him in the farthest
+isles of the ocean, from the painting in the library, the descriptions
+of Edith, and the sketches of my own imagination. His complexion had the
+pale, transparent darkness of eastern climes, and his eye a kind of
+shadowy splendor, impossible to describe, but which reminded me at once
+of his mother's similitude of the "clouded star." He was not above the
+common height of man, yet he gave me an impression of power and dignity,
+such as mere physical force could never inspire.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this Grandison Place? my home?" he asked, lifting his hat with
+gentlemanly grace from his brows. His voice, too, had that cultivated,
+well-modulated tone, which always marks the gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"It is, sir," I answered, trying to speak without embarrassment. "Mr.
+Linwood, I presume."</p>
+
+<p>I thought I had made a mistake in his name, it sounded so strange. I had
+never heard him called any thing but Ernest Linwood, and Mr. Linwood had
+such a stiff, formal sound, I was quite disgusted with it.</p>
+
+<p>He again bowed, and looked impatiently towards the house.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw a young female and thought it might be my sister, or I should not
+have intruded. Shall I find her,&mdash;shall I find my mother within?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have gone to meet you,&mdash;they have been looking for you these many
+days; I know not how you have missed them."</p>
+
+<p>"By coming another road. I jumped from the carriage and walked on, too
+impatient to wait its slow motions in ascending the hill. And they have
+gone to meet me. They really wish to see me back again!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with deep feeling. The home thoughts and affections of years
+thrilled from his tone. This seemed one of those self-evident truths,
+that required no confirmation, and I made no answer. I wondered if I
+ought to ask him to walk in,&mdash;him, the master and the heir; whether I
+should ask him to take a seat on the oaken settee, where he could watch
+the carriage, ascending the winding hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not let me disturb you," he said, looking at me with a questioning,
+penetrating glance, then added, "am I guilty of the rudeness of not
+recognizing a former acquaintance, who has passed from childhood to
+youth, during my years of absence?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," I answered, again wondering if politeness required me to
+introduce myself. "I am a stranger to you, though for two years your
+mother's home has been mine. My name is Lynn,&mdash;Gabriella Lynn."</p>
+
+<p>I was vexed with myself for this awkward introduction. I did not know
+what I ought to say, and painful blushes dyed my cheeks. I would not
+have mentioned my name at all, only, if his mother and sister delayed
+their coming, he might feel awkward himself, from not knowing what to
+call me.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's prot&eacute;g&eacute;e!" said he, his countenance lightening as he spoke.
+"Edith has mentioned you in her letters; but I expected to see a little
+girl, not the young lady, whom I find presiding genius here."</p>
+
+<p>My self-respect was gratified that he did not look upon me as a child,
+and there was something so graceful and unostentatious in his air and
+manner, my self-possession came back without an effort to recall it.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you walk in?" I asked, now convinced it was right.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you; I am so weary of the confinement of the carriage, I like the
+freedom of the open air. I like this rich, velvet grass. How beautiful,
+how magnificent!" he exclaimed, his eye taking in the wide sweep of
+landscape, here and there darkened with shade, and at intervals
+literally blazing with the crimson sunlight,&mdash;then sweeping on over the
+swelling mountains, so grand in their purple drapery and golden crowns.
+"How exquisitely beautiful! My mother could not have selected a lovelier
+spot,&mdash;and these old granite walls! how antique, how classic they are!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and examined them, with a pleased yet criticizing eye. He
+walked up and down the velvet lawn with a firm, yet restless step,
+stopping occasionally to measure with his glance the towering oaks and
+the gigantic elm. I began to be uneasy at the protracted absence of Mrs.
+Linwood, and kept my eyes fixed upon the road, whose dark, rich,
+slatish-colored surface, seen winding through green margins, resembled a
+stream of deep water, it was so smooth and uniform. I knew how full must
+be the heart of the traveller. I did not wish to interrupt his
+meditations even by a look.</p>
+
+<p>We saw it coming,&mdash;the family carriage. I saw his pale cheek flush at my
+joyous exclamation. He moved rapidly towards the gate, while I ran into
+the house, up stairs and into my own room, that I might not intrude on
+moments too sacred for curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while, I could hear the sound of their mingling voices
+coming up the long flight of marble steps, across the wide piazza, and
+then they came soft and muffled from the drawing-room below. At first,
+forgetful of self, I sympathized in their joy. I rejoiced for my
+benefactress, I rejoiced for the tender and affectionate Edith. But
+after sitting there a long time alone, and of course forgotten in the
+rapture of this family reunion, thoughts of self began to steal over and
+chill the ardor of my sympathetic emotions. I could not help feeling
+myself a mote in the dazzling sunshine of their happiness. I could not
+help experiencing, in all its bitterness, the isolation of my own
+destiny. I remembered the lamentation of the aged and solitary Indian,
+"that not a drop of his blood flowed in the veins of a living being." So
+it was with me. To my knowledge, I had not a living relative. Friends
+were kind,&mdash;some were more than kind; but oh! there are capacities for
+love friends can never fill. There are niches in the temple of the heart
+made for household gods, and if they are left vacant, no other images,
+though of the splendor of the Grecian statuary, can remove its
+desolation. <i>Deep calleth unto deep</i>, and when no answer cometh, the
+waves beat against the lonely strand and murmur themselves away.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to check all selfish, repining feelings. I tried to keep from
+envying Edith, but I could not.</p>
+
+<p>"O that I, too, had a brother!"</p>
+
+<p>Was the cry of my craving heart, and it would not be stilled. I wiped
+away tear after tear, resolving each should be the last, but the
+fountain was full, and every heaving sigh made it overflow.</p>
+
+<p>At length I heard the sound of Edith's crutches on the stairs, faint and
+muffled, but I knew it from all other sounds. She could mount and
+descend the stairs as lightly as a bird, in spite of her infirmity.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! truant!" she cried, as she opened the door, "you need not think to
+hide yourself here all night; we want you to come and help us to be
+happy, for I am so happy I know not what to do."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes sparkled most brilliantly through those drops of joy, as
+different to the tears I had been shedding as the morning dew is to
+December's wintry rain.</p>
+
+<p>"But what are you doing, Gabriella?" she added, sitting down beside me
+and drawing my hand from my eyes. "In tears! I have been almost crying
+my eyes out; but you do not look happy. I thought you loved me so well,
+you would feel happy because I am so. Do you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will hate me for my selfishness, dear Edith. I did think of you for
+a long time, and rejoice in your happiness. Then I began to think how
+lonely and unconnected I am, and I have been wicked enough to envy your
+treasures of affection for ever denied to me. I felt as if there was no
+one to love me in the wide world. But you have remembered me, Edith,
+even in the depth of your joy, ingrate that I am. Forgive me," said I,
+passing my arms round her beautiful white neck. "I will try to be good
+after this."</p>
+
+<p>She kissed me, and told me to bathe my eyes and come right down, her
+mother said I must. Ernest had inquired what had become of me, and he
+would think it strange if I hid myself in this way.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have seen him, Gabriella," she cried, and her tongue ran glibly
+while I plunged my face in a basin of cold water, ashamed of the traces
+of selfish sorrow. "You have seen my own dear brother Ernest. And only
+think of your getting the first glimpse of him! What <i>did</i> you think of
+him? What <i>do</i> you think of him now? Is he not handsome? Is there not
+something very striking, very attractive about him? Is he not different
+from any one you ever saw before?"</p>
+
+<p>"There <i>is</i> something very striking in his appearance," I answered,
+smiling at the number and rapidity of her questions, "but I was so
+disconcerted, so foolish, I hardly dared to look him in the face. Has he
+changed since you saw him last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much,&mdash;rather paler, I think; but perhaps it is only fatigue, or
+the languor following intense excitement. I feel myself as if all my
+strength were gone. I cannot describe my sensations when I saw him
+standing in the open gateway. I let mamma get out first. I thought it
+was her right to receive the first embrace of welcome; but when he
+turned to me, I threw myself on his neck, discarding my crutches, and
+clung to him, just as I used to do when a little, helpless, suffering
+child. And would you believe it, Gabriella? he actually shed tears. I
+did not expect so much sensibility. I feared the world had hardened
+him,&mdash;but it has not. Make haste and come down with me. I long to look
+at him again. Here, let me put back this scarlet geranium. You do not
+know how pretty it looks. Brother said&mdash;no&mdash;I will not tell you what he
+said. Yes, I will. He said he had no idea the charming young girl, with
+such a classic face and aristocratic bearing, was mother's little
+prot&eacute;g&eacute;e."</p>
+
+<p>"You asked him, Edith, I know you did."</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing I did,&mdash;there was no harm in it. Come, I want you to see
+mamma; she looks so young and handsome. Joy is such a beautifier."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is," said I, as I gazed at <i>her</i> star-bright eyes and
+blush-rose cheeks. We entered the drawing-room together, where Ernest
+was seated on the sofa by his mother, with her hand clasped in his.
+Edith was right,&mdash;she did look younger and handsomer than I had ever
+seen her. She was usually pale and her face was calm. Now a breeze had
+stirred the waters, and the sunshine quivered on the rippling surface.</p>
+
+<p>They rose as we entered, and came forward to meet us. My old trepidation
+returned. Would Mrs. Linwood introduce me,&mdash;and if she did, in what
+manner? Would there be any thing in her air or countenance to imply that
+I was a dependent on her bounty, rather than an adopted daughter of the
+household? Hush,&mdash;these proud whispers. Listen, how kindly she speaks.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Gabriella, this is my son, Ernest. You know it already, and he
+knows that you are the child of my adoption. Nevertheless, I must
+introduce you to each other."</p>
+
+<p>Surprised and touched by the maternal kindness of her manner, (I ought
+not to have been surprised, for she was always kind,) I looked up, and I
+know that gratitude and sensibility passed from my heart to my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I must claim the privilege of an adopted brother," said he, extending
+his hand, and I thought he smiled. Perhaps I was mistaken. His
+countenance had a way of suddenly lighting up, which I learned to
+compare to sunshine breaking through clouds. The hand in which he took
+mine was so white, so delicately moulded, it looked as if it might have
+belonged to a woman,&mdash;but he was a student, the heir of wealth, not the
+son of labor, the inheritor of the primeval curse. It is a trifle to
+mention,&mdash;the hand of an intellectual man,&mdash;but I had been so accustomed
+to the large, muscular fingers of Mr. Regulus, which seemed formed to
+wield the weapon of authority, that I could not but notice the contrast.</p>
+
+<p>How pleasantly, how delightfully the evening passed away! I sat in my
+favorite recess, half shaded by the light drapery of the window; while
+Ernest took a seat at his mother's side, and Edith occupied a low
+ottoman at his feet. One arm was thrown across his lap, and her eyes
+were lifted to his face with an expression of the most idolizing
+affection. And all the while he was talking, his hand passed caressingly
+over her fair flaxen hair, or lingered amidst its glistering ringlets.
+It was a beautiful picture of sisterly and fraternal love,&mdash;the fairest
+I had ever seen. The fairest! it was the first, the only one. I had
+never realized before the exceeding beauty and holiness of this tender
+tie. As I looked upon Edith in her graceful, endearing attitude, so
+expressive of dependence and love, many a sentence descriptive of a
+brother's tenderness floated up to the surface of memory. I remembered
+part of a beautiful hymn,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Fair mansions in my Father's house<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For all his children wait;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I, your elder <i>brother</i> go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To open wide the gate."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Saviour of mankind called himself our brother,&mdash;stamping with the
+seal of divinity the dear relationship.</p>
+
+<p>I had imagined I felt for Richard Clyde a sister's regard. No, no! Cold
+were my sentiments to those that beamed in Edith's upturned eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest described his travels, his life abroad, and dwelt on the
+peculiarities of German character, its high, imaginative traits, its
+mysticism and superstition, till his tongue warmed into enthusiasm,&mdash;and
+<i>one</i> of his hearers at least felt the inspiration of his eloquence. His
+mother had said he was reserved! I began to think I did not know the
+right meaning of the word. If he paused and seemed about to relapse into
+silence, Edith would draw a long breath, as if she had just been
+inhaling some exhilarating gas, and exclaim,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! do go on, brother; it is so long since we have heard you talk; it
+is such a luxury to hear a person talk, who really <i>says</i> something."</p>
+
+<p>"I never care about talking, unless I do have something to <i>say</i>," he
+answered, "but I think I have monopolized attention long enough. As a
+guest, I have a right to be entertained. Have you forgotten my love for
+music, Edith?"</p>
+
+<p>"O no! I remember all your favorite airs, and have played them a
+thousand times at least. Do you wish to hear me now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I do; I have heard nothing so sweet as your voice, dear
+Edith, since I heard your last parting song."</p>
+
+<p>He rose and moved the harp forward, and seated her at the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>"Does not Miss Lynn play?" he asked, running his fingers carelessly over
+the glittering strings.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Miss Lynn?" repeated Edith, with a look of inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>I laughed at her surprise and my own. It was the first time I had ever
+heard myself called so, and I looked round involuntarily to see who and
+where "Miss Lynn" was.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gabriella!" cried Edith, "I did not know whom you meant. I assure
+you, brother, there is no Miss Lynn here; it is Gabriella&mdash;<i>our
+Gabriella</i>&mdash;that is her name; you must not call her by any other."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be happy to avail myself of the privilege of uttering so
+charming a name. Does Miss Gabriella play?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, that is not right yet, Ernest; you must drop the Miss. Do not
+answer him, Gabriella, till he knows his lesson better."</p>
+
+<p>"Does Gabriella play?"</p>
+
+<p>The name came gravely and melodiously from his tongue. The distance
+between us seemed wonderfully diminished by the mere breathing my
+Christian name.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not," I answered, "but my love of music amounts to a passion. I am
+never so happy as when listening to Edith's voice and harp."</p>
+
+<p>"She has never taken lessons," said Edith; "if she had, she would have
+made a splendid musician, I am confident she would. Dear mother, when we
+go to the city next winter, Gabriella must go with us, and she must have
+music-masters, and we will play and sing together. She has taught in
+that old academy long enough, I am sure she has."</p>
+
+<p>"I think Gabriella has been taking some very important lessons herself,
+while teaching in the old academy, which chances to be quite new, at
+least her part of it," answered Mrs. Linwood; "but I have no intention
+of suffering her to remain there too long; she has borne the discipline
+admirably."</p>
+
+<p>As I turned a grateful glance to Mrs. Linwood, my heart throbbing with
+delight at the prospect of emancipation, I met the eyes, the earnest,
+perusing eyes of her son. I drew back further into the shadow of the
+curtain, but the risen moon was shining upon my face, and silvering the
+lace drapery that floated round me. Edith whispered something to her
+brother, glancing towards me her smiling eyes, then sweeping her fingers
+lightly over the harp-strings, began one of the songs that Ernest loved.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetly as she always sang, I had never heard her sing so sweetly
+before. It seemed indeed "Joy's ecstatic trial," so airily her fingers
+sparkled over the chords, so clearly and cheerily she warbled each
+animated note.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you love sad songs best, Ernest, but I cannot sing them
+to-night," she said, pushing the instrument from her.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a little German air, which I think I may recollect," said he,
+drawing the harp towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Ernest!" cried Edith and his mother in the same breath, "you play
+on the harp!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at their astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"I took lessons while in Germany. A fellow-student taught me,&mdash;a
+glorious musician, and a native of the land of music,&mdash;Italy. There, the
+very atmosphere breathes of harmony."</p>
+
+<p>The very first note he called forth, I felt a master's touch was on the
+chords, and leaning forward I held my breath to listen. The strains rose
+rich and murmuring like an ocean breeze, then died away soft as wave
+falls on wave in the moonlight night. He sang a simple, pathetic air,
+with such deep feeling, such tender, passionate emotion, that tears
+involuntarily moistened my eyes. All the slumbering music of my being
+responded. It was thus <i>I</i> could sing,&mdash;<i>I</i> could play,&mdash;I knew I could.
+And when he rose and resumed his seat by his mother, I could scarcely
+restrain myself from touching the same chords,&mdash;the chords still
+quivering from his magic hand.</p>
+
+<p>"O brother!" exclaimed Edith, "what a charming surprise! I never heard
+any thing so thrillingly sweet! You do not know how happy you have made
+me. One more,&mdash;only one more,&mdash;Ernest."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget your brother is from a long and weary journey, Edith, and we
+have many an evening before us, I trust, of domestic joy like this,"
+said Mrs. Linwood, ringing for the night-lamps. "To-morrow is the
+hallowed rest-day of the Lord, and our hearts, so long restless from
+expectation, will feel the grateful calm of assured happiness. One who
+returns after a long journey to the bosom of home, in health and safety,
+has peculiar calls for gratitude and praise. He should bless the God of
+the traveller for having given his angels charge concerning him, and
+shielding him from unknown dangers. You feel all this, my son."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with an anxious, questioning glance. She feared that
+the mysticism of Germany might have obscured the brightness of his
+Christian faith.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> grateful, my mother," he answered with deep seriousness,
+"grateful to God for the blessings of this hour. This has been one of
+the happiest evenings of my life. Surely it is worth years of absence to
+be welcomed to such a home, and by such pure, loving hearts,&mdash;hearts in
+which I can trust without hypocrisy and without guile."</p>
+
+<p>"Believe all hearts true, my son, till you prove them false."</p>
+
+<p>"Faith is a gift of heaven, not an act of human will," he replied. Then
+I remembered what Richard Clyde had said of him, and I thought of it
+again when alone in my chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Edith peeped in through the door that divided our rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"Have we not had a charming evening?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>very</i>," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"How fond you are of that little adverb <i>very</i>," she exclaimed with a
+laugh; "you make it sound so expressively. Well, is not Ernest very
+interesting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very."</p>
+
+<p>"The most interesting person you ever saw?"</p>
+
+<p>"You question me too closely, Edith. It will not do for me to speak as
+extravagantly as you do. I am not his sister, and the praise that falls
+so sweetly from your tongue, would sound bold and inappropriate from
+mine. I never knew before how strong a sister's love could be, Edith.
+Surely you can never feel a stronger passion."</p>
+
+<p>"Never," she cried earnestly, and coming in, she sat down on the side of
+the bed and unbound the ribbon from her slender waist. "The misfortune
+that has set me apart from my youthful companions will prevent me from
+indulging in the dreams of love. I know my mother does not wish me to
+marry, and I have never thought of the possibility of leaving her. I
+would not dare to give this frail frame and too tenderly indulged heart
+into the keeping of one who could never, never bestow the love, the
+boundless love, which has surrounded me from infancy, like the firmament
+of heaven. I have been sought in marriage more than once, it might be
+for reputed wealth or for imagined charms; but when I compared my
+would-be lovers to Ernest, they faded into such utter insignificance, I
+could scarcely pardon their presumption. I do not think he has ever
+loved himself. I do not think he has ever seen one worthy of his love. I
+believe it would kill me, Gabriella, to know that he loved another
+better than myself."</p>
+
+<p>For the first time I thought Edith selfish, and that she carried the
+romance of sisterly affection too far.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish him, then, to be an old bachelor!" said I, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! don't apply to him such a horrid name. I did not think of that.
+Good night, darling. Mamma would scold me, if she knew I was up talking
+nonsense, instead of being in bed and asleep, like a good, obedient
+child." She kissed me and retired but it was long before I fell asleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next morning, as I was coming up the steps with my white muslin
+apron fall of gathered flowers, I met Ernest Linwood. I was always an
+early riser. Dear, faithful Peggy had taught me this rural habit, and I
+have reason to bless her for it.</p>
+
+<p>"I see where you get your roses," said he; I knew he did not mean the
+roses in my apron, and those to which he alluded grew brighter as he
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I indebted to you for the beautiful flowers in my own apartment?" he
+asked, as he turned back and entered the house with me, "or was it
+Edith's sisterly hand placed them there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you pleased with them?" I said, with a childish delight. It seemed
+to me a great thing that he had noticed them at all. "As Edith is lame,
+she indulges me in carrying out her own sweet tastes. I assure you I
+esteem it an inestimable privilege."</p>
+
+<p>"You love flowers, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes, passionately. I have almost an idolatrous love for them."</p>
+
+<p>"And does it not make you sad to see them wither away, in spite of your
+passionate love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but others bloom in their stead. 'T is but a change from blossom
+to blossom."</p>
+
+<p>"You deceive yourself," he said, and there was something chilling in his
+tone, "it is not love you feel for them, for that is unchangeable, and
+admits but one object."</p>
+
+<p>"I was not speaking of human love," I answered, busily arranging the
+flowers in their vases, in which I had already placed some icy cold
+water. He walked up and down the room, stopping occasionally to observe
+the process, and making some passing remark. I was astonished at finding
+myself so much at ease. I suppose the awe he inspired, like the fear of
+ghosts, subsided at the dawning of morning. There was something so
+exhilarating in the pure fresh air, in the dewy brightness of the hour,
+in the exercise of roaming through a wilderness of sweets, that my
+spirits were too elastic to be held down. He seemed to take an interest
+in watching me, and even altered the position of some white roses, which
+he said wanted a shading of green.</p>
+
+<p>"And what are these beautiful clusters laid aside for?" he asked, taking
+up some which I had deposited on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," I answered, after a slight hesitation, "that Edith would
+like them for your room."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is only to please Edith you place them there, not to please
+yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should not dare to do it to please myself," I hastily replied.</p>
+
+<p>I thought I must have said something wrong, for he turned away with a
+peculiar smile. I colored with vexation, and was glad that Edith came in
+to divert his attention from me.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could be more gentle and affectionate than his greeting. He went
+up and kissed her, as if she were a little child, put his arm round her,
+and taking one of her crutches, made her lean on him for support. I
+understood something of the secret of her idolatry.</p>
+
+<p>Where was the impenetrable reserve of which his mother had spoken?</p>
+
+<p>I had not yet seen him in society. As he talked with Edith, his head
+slightly bent and his profile turned towards me, I could look at him
+unobserved, and I was struck even more than the evening before with the
+transparent paleness of his complexion. Dark, delicate, and smooth as
+alabaster, it gave an air of extreme refinement and sensibility to his
+face, without detracting from its manliness or intellectual power. It
+was a face to peruse, to study, to think of,&mdash;it was a baffling,
+haunting face. Hieroglyphics of thought were there, too mysterious for
+the common eye to interpret. It was a dark lantern, flashing light
+before it, itself all in shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a shame that you must leave us, Gabriella," said Edith, when
+after breakfast her pony was brought to the door. "Ernest," added she,
+turning to him, "I am <i>so</i> glad you are come. You must persuade mamma to
+lay her commands on Gabriella, and not permit her to make such a slave
+of herself. I feel guilty to be at home doing nothing and she toiling
+six long hours."</p>
+
+<p>"It is Gabriella's own choice," cried Mrs. Linwood, a slight flush
+crossing her cheek. "Is it not, my child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your wisdom guided my choice, dear madam," I answered, "and I thank you
+for it."</p>
+
+<p>"It would seem more natural to think of Miss&mdash;of Gabriella&mdash;as a pupil,
+than a teacher," observed Ernest, "if youth is the criterion by which we
+judge."</p>
+
+<p>"I am seventeen&mdash;in my eighteenth year," said I eagerly, urged by an
+unaccountable desire that he should not think me too young.</p>
+
+<p>"A very grave and reverend age!" said he sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>I thought Mrs. Linwood looked unusually serious, and fearing I had said
+something wrong, I hastened to depart. Dearly as I loved my
+benefactress, it was not "that perfect love which casteth out fear." As
+her benevolence was warm, her justice was inflexible. Hers was the kind
+hand, but the firm nerves that could sustain a friend, while the knife
+of the surgeon entered the quivering flesh. She shrunk not from
+inflicting pain, if it was for another's good; but if she wounded with
+one hand, she strewed balm with the other. Her influence was strong,
+controlling, almost irresistible. Like the sunshine that forced the
+wind-blown traveller to throw aside his cloak, the warmth of her
+kindness penetrated, but it also <i>compelled</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I had a growing conviction that though she called me her adopted child,
+she did not wish me to presume upon her kindness so far as to look upon
+her son in the familiar light of a brother. There was no fear of my
+transgressing her wishes in this respect. I had already lost my
+dread,&mdash;my awe was melting away, but I could no more approach him with
+familiarity than if fourfold bars of gold surrounded him. I had another
+conviction, that she encouraged and wished me to return the attachment
+of Richard Clyde. Her urgent advice had induced me to accept the
+proffered correspondence with him,&mdash;a compliance which I afterwards
+bitterly regretted. He professed to write only as a <i>friend</i>, according
+to the bond, but amid the evergreen wreath of friendship, he concealed
+the glowing flowers of love. He was to return home in a few weeks. The
+commencement was approaching, which was to liberate him from scholastic
+fetters and crown him with the honors of manhood.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," thought I, "should Richard make me dread his return, when I would
+gladly welcome him with joy? Why in wishing to be more than a friend,
+does he make me desire that he should be less? And now Ernest Linwood is
+come back, of whom he so strangely warned me, methinks I dread him more
+than ever."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood would attend the commencement. I had heard her tell Richard
+so. I had heard her repeat her intention since her son's return. <i>He</i>,
+of course, would feel interested in meeting his old class mates and
+friends. They would all feel interested in seeing and hearing how
+Richard Clyde sustained his proud distinction.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, especially," said Edith with a smile, which, sweet as it
+was, I thought extremely silly. I blushed with vexation, when Ernest,
+lifting his grave eyes from his book, asked who was Richard Clyde.</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen him when he was quite a youth," answered his mother, "but
+have probably forgotten him. He is a young man of great promise, and has
+been awarded the first honors of his class. I feel a deep interest in
+him for his own sake, and moreover I am indebted to him for my
+introduction to our own Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" repeated her son, and glancing towards me, his countenance
+lighted up with a sudden look of intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>Why need Mrs. Linwood have said that? Why need she have associated him
+so intimately and significantly with me? And why could I not keep down
+the rising crimson, which might be attributed to another source than
+embarrassment? I opened my lips to deny any interest in Richard beyond
+that of friendly acquaintanceship; but Mrs. Linwood's mild, serene, yet
+resolute eyes, beat mine down and choked my eager utterance.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes said as clearly as words could say, "what matters it to my son,
+how little or how great an interest you feel in Richard Clyde or any
+other person?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must accompany us, Gabriella," she said, with great kindness. "You
+have never witnessed this gathering of the literati of our State, and I
+know of no one who would enjoy it more. It will be quite an intellectual
+banquet."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, but I cannot accept the invitation," I answered,
+suppressing a sigh, not of disappointment at the necessity of refusal,
+but of mortification at the inference that would probably be drawn from
+this conversation. "My vacation does not begin till afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can intercede with Mr. Regulus to release you," said Mrs.
+Linwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you,&mdash;I do not wish to go,&mdash;indeed I would much rather not,
+unless," I added, fearful I had spoken too energetically, "you have an
+urgent desire that I should."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish very much to make you happy, and I think you would enjoy far
+more than you now anticipate. But there is time enough to decide. There
+will be a fortnight hence."</p>
+
+<p>"But the dresses, mamma," cried Edith; "you know she will need new
+dresses if she goes, and they will require some time to prepare."</p>
+
+<p>"As Gabriella will not <i>come out</i>, as it is called, till next winter,"
+replied Mrs. Linwood, "it is not a matter of so much consequence as you
+imagine. Simplicity is much more charming than ornament in the dress of
+a very young girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you, mother," observed Ernest, without lifting his eyes
+from his book, "especially where artificial ornaments are superfluous."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not think you were listening to our remarks about dress," said
+Edith. "This is something quite new, brother."</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>not</i> listening, and yet I hear. So be very careful not to betray
+yourself in my presence. But perhaps I had better retire to the library,
+then you can discuss with more freedom the mysteries of the toilet and
+the fascinations of dress."</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;no. We have nothing to say that you may not hear;" but he rose and
+withdrew. Did he mean to imply that "artificial ornaments would be
+superfluous" to me? No,&mdash;it was only a general remark, and it would be
+vanity of vanities to apply it to myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to do one thing to gratify me, dear Gabriella," continued
+Edith. "Please lay aside your mourning and assume a more cheerful garb.
+You have worn it two long years. Only think how long! It will be so
+refreshing to see you in white or delicate colors."</p>
+
+<p>I looked down at my mourning garments, and all the sorrow typified by
+their dark hue rolled back upon my heart. The awful scenes they
+commemorated,&mdash;the throes of agony which rent away life from the strong,
+the slow wasting of the feeble, the solemnity of death, the gloom of the
+grave, the anguish of bereavement, the abandonment of desolation that
+followed,&mdash;all came back. I lived them all over in one passing moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I never, never wish to lay aside the badges of mourning," I exclaimed;
+and, covering my face with my handkerchief, tears gushed unrestrainedly.
+"I shall never cease to mourn for my mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean to grieve you, Gabriella," cried Edith, putting her arms
+round me with sympathizing tenderness. "I thought time had softened your
+anguish, and that you could bear to speak of it now."</p>
+
+<p>"And so she ought," said Mrs. Linwood, in a tone of mild rebuke. "Time
+is God's ministering angel, commissioned to bind up the wounds of sorrow
+and to heal the bleeding heart. The same natural law which bids flowers
+to spring up and adorn the grave-sod causes the blossoms of hope to
+bloom again in the bosom of bereavement. Memory should be immortal, but
+mourning should last but a season."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant that I never should forget her," I cried, my tears flowing
+gently under her subduing accents. "Dear Mrs. Linwood, you have made it
+impossible for me always to mourn. Yet there are times, when her
+remembrance comes over me with such a power that I am borne down by it
+to the level of my first deep anguish. These are not frequent now. I
+some times fear there is danger of my being too happy after sustaining
+such a loss."</p>
+
+<p>"Beware, my dear child, of cherishing the morbid sensibility which
+believes happiness inconsistent with the remembrance of departed
+friends. Life to your mother, since your recollection of her, was a sad
+boon. As she possessed the faith, and died the death of the Christian,
+you are authorized to believe that she now possesses an exceeding and
+eternal weight of glory. Can you take in the grandeur of the idea,&mdash;<i>a
+weight of glory</i>? Contrast it with the burden of care under which you
+saw her crushed, and you will then be willing to exchange mourning for
+the oil of joy, and the spirit of heaviness for the garment of praise."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> willing, dear Mrs. Linwood, my kindest friend, my second mother.
+I will in all things be guided by your counsel and moulded by your will.
+No, oh no, I would not for worlds rob my mother of the glorious
+inheritance purchased by a Saviour's blood. But tell me one thing,&mdash;must
+we all pass through tribulation before entering the kingdom of heaven?
+Must we all travel with bleeding feet the thorny path of suffering,
+before being admitted into the presence of God?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Bible must answer you, my child. Do you remember, in the
+apocalyptic vision, when it was asked, 'What are these, which are
+arrayed in white robes? and whence come they?' It was answered, 'These
+are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their
+robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and
+night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among
+them."</p>
+
+<p>I remembered them well.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," I said, "that is not all."</p>
+
+<p>"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the
+sun light on them, nor any heat."</p>
+
+<p>She paused, and her voice became tremulous from deep emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"One verse more," I cried, "only one."</p>
+
+<p>"For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and
+shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe all
+tears from their eyes."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a few moments. All words seemed vain and
+sacrilegious after this sublimest language of revelation.</p>
+
+<p>At length I said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Let me wear white, the livery of my mother, in heaven. 'T is a sin to
+mourn for her whose tears the hand of God has wiped away."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>One week, and another week passed by, and every evening was as charming
+as the first of the return of Ernest Linwood. In that fortnight were
+compressed the social and intellectual joys of a lifetime. Music,
+reading, and conversation filled the measure of the evening hours. Such
+music, such reading, and such conversation as I never heard before. I
+had been accustomed to read aloud a great deal to my own dear mother, to
+Mrs. Linwood, and to my young pupils also, and I had reason to think I
+could read remarkably well; but I could not read like Ernest,&mdash;I never
+heard any one that could. He infused his own soul into the soul of the
+author, and brought out his deepest meanings. When he read poetry I sat
+like one entranced, bound by the double spell of genius and music. Mrs.
+Linwood could sew; Edith could sew or net, but I could do nothing but
+listen. I could feel the blood tingling to my finger ends, the veins
+throbbing in my temples, and the color coming and going in my cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"You love poetry," said he once, pausing, and arresting my fascinated
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Love it," I exclaimed, sighing in the fulness of delight, "it is the
+passion of my soul."</p>
+
+<p>"You have three passions, music, flowers, and poetry," said he, with a
+smile that seemed to mock the extravagance of my language, "which is the
+regal one, the passion of passions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly imagine the existence of one without the other," I
+answered, "their harmony is so entire; flowers are silent poetry, and
+poetry is written music."</p>
+
+<p>"And music?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the breath of heaven, the language of angels. As the voice of Echo
+lingered in the woods, where she loved to wander, when her beauteous
+frame had vanished, so music remains to show the angel nature we have
+lost."</p>
+
+<p>I blushed at having said so much, but the triune passion warmed my soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella is a poetess herself," said Edith, "and may well speak of the
+magic of numbers. She has a portfolio, filled with papers written, like
+Ezekiel's scroll, within and without. I wish you would let me get it,
+Gabriella,&mdash;do."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" I answered, "I never wrote but one poem for exhibition,
+and the experience of that hour was sufficient for a lifetime."</p>
+
+<p>"You were but a child then, Gabriella. Mr. Regulus would give it a very
+different reception now, I know he would," said Edith.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is a child's story, will you not relate it?" asked Ernest; "you
+have excited my curiosity."</p>
+
+<p>"Curiosity, brother, I thought you possessed none."</p>
+
+<p>"Interest is a better word. If I understand aright, the buddings of
+Gabriella's genius met with an untimely blight."</p>
+
+<p>I know not how it was, but I felt in an exceedingly ingenuous mood, and
+I related this episode in my childish history without reserve. I touched
+lightly on the championship of Richard Clyde, but I was obliged to
+introduce it. I had forgotten that he was associated with the narration,
+or I should have been silent.</p>
+
+<p>"This youthful knight, and the hero of commencement day are one, then,"
+observed Ernest. "He is a fortunate youth, with the myrtle and the
+laurel both entwining his brows; you must be proud of your champion."</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>grateful</i> to him," I replied, resolved to make a bold effort to
+remove the impression I knew he had received. Mrs. Linwood was not
+present, or I could not have spoken as I did. "He defended me because he
+thought I was oppressed; he befriended me because my friends were few.
+He has the generous spirit of chivalry which cannot see wrong without
+seeking to redress it, or suffering without wishing to relieve it. I am
+under unspeakable obligations to him, for he it was who spoke kindly of
+the obscure little girl to your mother and sister, and obtained for me
+the priceless blessing of their love."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say <i>they</i> feel very grateful to him, likewise," said he, in a
+tone of genuine feeling. "I acknowledge <i>my</i> share of the obligation.
+But is he so disinterested as to claim no recompense, or does he find
+that chivalry, like goodness, is its own exceeding great reward?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I regarded him as a brother, till now Edith has convinced me
+I am mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" he asked, with so peculiar an expression, I forgot what I was
+going to say.</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" he repeated, while Edith leaned towards him and laid her hand
+on his.</p>
+
+<p>"By showing me how strong and fervent a sister's love can be."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes flashed; they looked like fountains of light, full to
+overflowing. His arm involuntarily encircled Edith, and a smile,
+beautiful as a woman's, curled his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"How he does love her!" thought I; "strong indeed must be the counter
+charm, that can rival hers."</p>
+
+<p>I had never seen his spirits so light as they were the remainder of the
+evening. They rose even to gaiety; and again I wondered what had become
+of the reserve and moodiness whose dark shadow had preceded his
+approach.</p>
+
+<p>"We are so happy now," said Edith, when we were alone, "I dread the
+interruption of company. Ernest does not care for it, and if it be of an
+uncongenial kind, he wraps himself in a mantle of reserve, that neither
+sun nor wind can unfold. After commencement, our house will be
+overflowing with city friends. They will return with us, and we shall
+not probably be alone again for the whole summer."</p>
+
+<p>She sighed at the anticipation, and I echoed the sound. I was somebody
+now; but what a nobody I should dwindle into, in comparison with the
+daughters of wealth and fashion who would gather at Grandison Place!</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest must like you very much, Gabriella, or he would not show the
+interest he does in all that concerns you. You do not know what a
+compliment he pays you, because you have not seen him in company with
+other young girls. I have sometimes felt quite distressed at his
+indifference when they have been my guests. He has such a contempt for
+affectation and display, that he cannot entirely conceal it. He is not
+apt to express his opinion of any one, but there are indirect ways of
+discovering it. I found him this morning in the library, standing before
+that beautiful picture of the Italian flower girl, which you admire so
+much. He was so absorbed, that he did not perceive my entrance, till I
+stole behind him and laid my hand on his shoulder. 'Do you not see a
+likeness?' he asked. 'To whom?' 'To Gabriella.' 'To Gabriella!' I
+repeated. 'Yes, it is like her, but I never observed it before.' 'A very
+striking resemblance,' he said, 'only she has more mind in her face.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That enchanting picture like me!" I exclaimed, "impossible! There is,
+there can be no likeness. It is nothing but association. He knows I am
+the flower-girl of the house, and that is the reason he thought of me."</p>
+
+<p>I tried to speak with indifference, but my voice trembled with delight.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, when I came in from the garden, all laden with
+flowers, an irresistible impulse drew me to the library. It was very
+early. The hush of repose still lingered over the household, and that
+particular apartment, in which the silent eloquence of books, paintings,
+and statues hung like a solemn spell, seemed in such deep quietude, I
+started at the light echo of my own footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>I stole with guilty consciousness towards the picture, in whose
+lineaments the fastidious eye of Ernest Linwood had traced a similitude
+to mine. They were all engraven on my memory, but now they possessed a
+new fascination; and I stood before it, gazing into the soft, dark
+depths of the eyes, in which innocent mildness and bashful tenderness
+were mingled like the <i>clare-obscure</i> of an Italian moonlight; gazing on
+the dawning smile that seemed to play over the beautiful and glowing
+lips, and the bright, rich, dark hair, so carelessly, gracefully
+arranged you could almost see the balmy breezes of her native clime
+rustling amid the silken tresses; on the charming contour of the head
+and neck, slightly turned as if about to look back and give a parting
+glance at the garden she had reluctantly quitted.</p>
+
+<p>As I thus stood, with my hands loaded with blossoms, a flower basket
+suspended from my arm, and a straw hat such as shepherdesses wear, on my
+head,&mdash;my garden costume,&mdash;involuntarily imitating the attitude of the
+lovely flower girl, the door, which had been left ajar, silently opened,
+and Ernest Linwood entered.</p>
+
+<p>Had I been detected in the act of stealing or counterfeiting money, I
+could not have felt more intense shame. He knew what brought me there. I
+saw it in his penetrating eye, his half-suppressed smile; and, ready to
+sink with mortification, I covered my face with the roses I held in my
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you admire the picture?" he asked, advancing to where I stood; "do
+you perceive the resemblance?"</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head without answering; I was too much disconcerted to speak.
+What would he think of my despicable vanity, my more than childish
+foolishness?</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to see we have congenial tastes," he said, with a smile in
+his voice. "I came on purpose to gaze on that charming representation of
+youth and innocence, without dreaming that its original was by it."</p>
+
+<p>"Original!" I repeated. "Surely you do mock me,&mdash;'t is but a fancy
+sketch,&mdash;and in nought but youth and flowers resembles me."</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot see ourselves, and it is well we cannot. The image reflected
+from the mirror is but a cold, faint shadow of the living, breathing
+soul. But why this deep confusion,&mdash;that averted face and downcast eye?
+Have I offended by my intrusion? Do you wish me to withdraw, and yield
+to you the privilege of solitary admiration?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I who am the intruder," I answered, looking wistfully towards the
+door, through which I was tempted to rush at once. "I thought you had
+not risen,&mdash;I thought,&mdash;I came"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And why did you come at this hour, Gabriella? and what has caused such
+excessive embarrassment? Will you not be ingenuous enough to tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will," answered I, calmed by the gentle composure of his manner, "if
+you will assert that you do not know already."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not <i>know</i>, but I can <i>imagine</i>. Edith has betrayed my admiration
+of that picture. You came to justify my taste, and to establish beyond a
+doubt the truth of the likeness."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed! I did not; I cannot explain the impulse which led me
+hither. I only wish I had resisted it as I ought."</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I must have looked quite miserable, from the efforts he made
+to restore my self-complacency. He took the basket from my arm and
+placed it on the table, moved a chair forward for me, and another for
+himself, as if preparing for a morning <i>t&ecirc;te &agrave; t&ecirc;te</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"What would Mrs. Linwood say, if she saw me here at this early hour
+alone with her son?" thought I, obeying his motion, and tossing my hat
+on the light stairs that were winding up behind me. I did not fell the
+possibility of declining the interview, for there was a power about him
+which overmastered without their knowing it the will of others.</p>
+
+<p>"If you knew how much more pleasing is the innocent shame and artless
+sensibility you manifest, than the ease and assurance of the practised
+worldling, you would not blush for the impulse which drew you hither. To
+the sated taste and weary eye, simplicity and truth are refreshing as
+the spring-time of nature after its dreary winter. The cheek that
+blushes, the eye that moistens, and the heart that palpitates, are
+sureties of indwelling purity and candor. What a pity that they are as
+evanescent as the bloom of these flowers and the fragrance they exhale!
+You have never been in what is called the great world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. I passed one winter in Boston; but I was in deep mourning and
+did not go into society. Besides, your mother thought me too young. It
+was more than a year ago."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be considered old enough this winter. Do you not look forward
+with eager anticipations and bright hopes to the realization of youth's
+golden dreams?"</p>
+
+<p>"I as often look forward with dread as hope. I am told they who see much
+of the world, lose their faith in human virtue, their belief in
+sincerity, their implicit trust in what seems good and fair. All the
+pleasures of the world would not be an equivalent for the loss of
+these."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you possess all these now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I do. I am sure I ought. I have never yet been deceived. I
+should doubt that the setting sun would rise again, as soon as the truth
+of those who have professed to love me. Your mother, Edith&mdash;and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Richard Clyde," he added, with a smile, and that truth-searching glance
+which often brought unbidden words to my lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have perfect reliance in his friendship."</p>
+
+<p>"And in his love," he added; "why not finish the sentence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I have no right to betray his confidence,&mdash;even supposing your
+assertion to be true. I have spoken of the only feeling, whose existence
+I am willing to admit, and even that was drawn from me. What if <i>I</i> turn
+inquisitor?" said I, suddenly emboldened to look in his face. "Have
+<i>you</i>, who have seen so much more of life, experienced the chilling
+influences which you deprecate for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am naturally suspicious and distrustful," he answered. "Have you
+never been told so?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I have, it required your own assertion to make me believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not see the shadow on my brow? It has been there since my cradle
+hours. It was born with me, and is a part of myself,&mdash;just as much as
+the shadow I cast upon the sunshine. I can no more remove it than I
+could the thunder-cloud from Jehovah's arch."</p>
+
+<p>I trembled at the strength of his language, and it seemed as if the
+shadow were stealing over my own soul. His employment was prophetic. He
+was pulling the rose-leaves from my basket, and scattering them
+unconsciously on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"See what I have done," said he, looking down on the wreck.</p>
+
+<p>"So the roses of confidence are scattered and destroyed by the cruel
+hand of mistrust," cried I, stooping to gather the fallen petals.</p>
+
+<p>"Let them be," said he, sadly, "you cannot restore them."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it; but I can remove the ruins."</p>
+
+<p>I was quite distressed at the turn the conversation had taken. I could
+not bear to think that one to whom the Creator had been so bountiful of
+his gifts, should appreciate so little the blessings given. He, to talk
+of shadows, in the blazing noonday of fortune; to pant with thirst, when
+wave swelling after wave of pure crystal water wooed with refreshing
+coolness his meeting lips.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, starver in the midst of God's plenty! think of the wretched sons of
+famine, and be wise.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have a strange power over me," said he, rising and walking to
+one of the alcoves, in which the books were arranged. "Seldom indeed do
+I allude to my own individuality. Forget it. I have been very happy
+lately. My soul, like a high mountain, lifts itself into the sunshine,
+leaving the vapors and clouds rolling below. I have been breathing an
+atmosphere pure and fresh as the world's first morning, redolent with
+the fragrance of Eden's virgin blossoms."</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment, then approaching his own portrait, glanced from it
+to the flower girl, and back again from the flower girl to his own
+image.</p>
+
+<p>"Clouds and sunshine," he exclaimed, "flowers and thorns; such is the
+union nature loves. And is it not well? Clouds temper the dazzle of the
+sunbeams,&mdash;thorns protect the tender flowers. Have you read many of
+these books?" he asked, with a sudden transition.</p>
+
+<p>"A great many," I answered, unspeakably relieved to hear him resume his
+natural tone and manner; "too many for my mind's good."</p>
+
+<p>"How so? These are all select works,&mdash;golden sheaves of knowledge,
+gathered from the chaff and bound by the reaping hand."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that I cannot read with moderation. My rapid eye takes in more
+than my judgment can criticize or my memory retain. That is one reason
+why I like to hear another read. Sound does not travel with the rapidity
+of light, and then the echo lingers in the ear."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It is charming when the eye of one and the ear of another dwell in
+sympathy on the same inspiring sentiments; when the reader, glowing with
+enthusiasm, turns from the page before him to a living page, printed by
+the hand of God, in fair, divine characters. It is like looking from the
+shining heavens to a clear, crystallized stream, and seeing its glories
+reflected there, and our own image likewise, tremulously bright."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" thought I, "how many times have I thus listened; but has he ever
+thus read?"</p>
+
+<p>I wish I could recollect all the conversation of the morning,&mdash;it was so
+rich and varied. I sat, unconscious of the fading flowers and the
+passing moments; unconscious of the faint vibration of that <i>deep, under
+chord</i>, which breathes in low, passionate strains, life's tender and
+pathetic mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you like this room," he continued. "Here you can sit, queen
+of the past, surrounded by beings more glorious than those that walk the
+earth or dwell in air or sea. You travel not, yet the wonders of earth's
+various climes are around and about you. Buried cities are exhumed at
+your bidding, and their dim palaces glitter once more with burning gold.
+And here, above all the Eleusinian mysteries of the human heart are laid
+bare, without the necessity of revealing your own. But I am detaining
+you too long. Your languid blossoms reproach me. When you come here
+again, do not forget that we have here thought and felt in unison."</p>
+
+<p>Just as he was leaving the library, Mrs. Linwood entered. She started on
+seeing him, and her eye rested on me with an anxious, troubled look.</p>
+
+<p>"You are become an early riser, my son," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"You encourage so excellent a habit, do you not, my mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; but it seems to me a walk in the fresh morning air would be
+more health-giving than a seat within walls, damp with the mould of
+antiquity."</p>
+
+<p>"We have brought the dewy morning within doors," said he; while I,
+gathering flowers, basket, and hat, waited for Mrs. Linwood to move,
+that I might leave the room. She stood between me and the threshold, and
+for the first time I noticed in her face a resemblance to her son. It
+might be because a slight cloud rested on her brow.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not have time to arrange your flowers this morning," she
+gravely observed to me. "It is almost the breakfast hour, and you are
+still in your garden costume."</p>
+
+<p>My eyes bowed beneath her mildly rebuking glance, and the fear of her
+displeasure chilled the warm rapture which had left its glow upon my
+cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me assist you," he cried, in an animated tone. "It was I who
+encroached on your time, and must bear the blame, if blame indeed there
+be. There is a homely proverb, that 'many hands make light work.' Come,
+let us prove its truth."</p>
+
+<p>I thought Mrs. Linwood sighed, as he followed me into the drawing-room,
+and with quick, graceful fingers, made ample amends for the negligence
+be had caused. His light, careless manner restored me to ease, and at
+breakfast Mrs. Linwood's countenance wore its usual expression of calm
+benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>Had I done wrong? I had sought no clandestine interview. Why should I?
+It was foolish to wish to look at the beautiful flower girl; but it was
+a natural, innocent wish, born of something purer and better than vanity
+and self-love.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I lingered after school was dismissed, to ask permission of Mr. Regulus
+to attend the commencement. It was Mrs. Linwood's wish, and of course a
+law to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you release me one week before the session closes?" I asked, "Mrs.
+Linwood does not wish to leave me behind, but I do not care much to go."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will release you, my child, but it will seem as if the
+flower season were past when you are gone. I wonder now, how I ever
+taught without your assistance. I wonder what I shall do when you leave
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Linwood wished me to say to you," said I, quite touched by his
+kind, affectionate manner, "that she does not wish me to renew our
+engagement. She will take me to town next winter, satisfied for the
+present with the discipline I have experienced under your guardian
+care."</p>
+
+<p>"So soon!" he exclaimed, "I was not prepared for this."</p>
+
+<p>"So soon, Mr. Regulus? I have been with you one long year."</p>
+
+<p>"It may have seemed long to you, but it has been short as a dream to me.
+A very pleasant time has it been, too pleasant to last."</p>
+
+<p>He took up his dark, formidable ferula, and leaned his forehead
+thoughtfully upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"And it has been pleasant to me, Mr. Regulus. I dreaded it very much at
+first, but every step I have taken in the path of instruction has been
+made smooth and green beneath my feet. No dull, lagging hour has dragged
+me backward in my daily duties. The dear children have been good and
+affectionate, and you, my dear master, have crowned me with loving
+kindness from day to day. How shall I convince you of my gratitude, and
+what return can I make for your even parental care?"</p>
+
+<p>I spoke earnestly, for my heart was in my words. His unvarying
+gentleness and tenderness to me, (since that one fiery shower that
+converted for a time the Castalian fountain into a Dead Sea,) had won my
+sincere and deep regard. He had seemed lately rather more reserved than
+usual, and I valued still more his undisguised expressions of interest
+and affection.</p>
+
+<p>"You owe me nothing," said he, and I could not help noticing an unwonted
+trepidation in his manner, and on one sallow cheek a deep flush was
+spreading. "Long years of kindness, tenfold to mine, could not atone for
+the harshness and injustice of which I was once guilty. You will go into
+the world and blush like Waller's rose, to be so admired. You will be
+surrounded by new friends, new lovers, and look back to these walls as
+to a prison-house, and to me, as the grim jailer of your youth."</p>
+
+<p>"No indeed, Mr. Regulus; you wrong yourself and me. Memory will hang
+many a sweet garland on these classic walls, and will turn gratefully to
+you, as the benefactor of my childhood, the mentor of my growing years."</p>
+
+<p>My voice choked. A strange dread took possession of me, he looked so
+agitated, so little like himself. His hand trembled so that it dropped
+the ruler, that powerful hand, in whose strong grasp I had seen the pale
+delinquent writhe in terror. I hardly know what I dreaded, but the air
+seemed thick and oppressive, and I longed to escape into the open
+sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, my child," said he, "wait one moment. I did not think it
+would require so much courage to confess so much weakness. I have been
+indulging in dreams so wild, yet so sweet, that I fear to breathe them,
+knowing that I must wake to the cold realities of life. I know not how
+it is, but you have twined yourself about my heart so gradually, so
+gently, but so strongly, that I cannot separate you from it. A young and
+fragrant vine, you have covered it with beauty and freshness. You have
+diffused within it an atmosphere of spring. You thought the cold
+mathematician, the stern philosopher could not feel, but I tell thee,
+child, we are the very ones that <i>can</i> and <i>do</i> feel. There is as much
+difference between our love and the boyish passion which passes for
+love, as there is between the flash of the glowworm and the welding heat
+that fuses bars of steel. Oh! Gabriella, do not laugh at this
+confession, or deem it lightly made. I hope nothing,&mdash;I ask nothing; and
+yet if you could,&mdash;if you would trust your orphan youth to my keeping, I
+would guard it as the most sacred trust God ever gave to man."</p>
+
+<p>He paused from intense emotion, and wiped the drops of perspiration from
+his forehead, while I stood ready to sink with shame and sorrow. No glow
+of triumph, no elation of grateful vanity warmed my heart, or exalted my
+pride. I felt humbled, depressed. Where I had been accustomed to look up
+with respect, I could not bear to look down in pity, it was so strange,
+so unexpected. I was stunned, bewildered. The mountain had lost its
+crown,&mdash;it had fallen in an avalanche at my feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Regulus!" said I, when I at last liberated my imprisoned voice,
+"you honor me too much. I never dreamed of such a,&mdash;such a distinction.
+I am not worthy of it,&mdash;indeed I am not. It makes me very unhappy to
+think of your cherishing such feelings for me, who have looked up to you
+so long with so much veneration and respect. I will always esteem and
+revere you, dear Mr. Regulus,&mdash;always think of you with gratitude and
+affection; but do not, I entreat you, ever allude again to any other
+sentiment. You do not know how very miserable it makes me."</p>
+
+<p>I tried to express myself in the gentlest manner possible, but the poor
+man had lost all command of his feelings. He had confined them in his
+breast so long, that the moment he released them, they swelled and rose
+like the genius liberated from the chest of the fisherman, and refused
+to return to the prison-house they had quitted. His brows contracted,
+his lips quivered, and turning aside with a spasmodic gesture, he
+covered his face with his handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>I could not bear this,&mdash;it quite broke my heart. I felt as remorseful as
+if every tear he was hiding was a drop of blood. Walking hastily to him,
+and laying my hand on his arm, I exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, my dear master!" and burst into tears myself.</p>
+
+<p>How foolish we must have appeared to a bystander, who knew the cause of
+our tears,&mdash;one weeping that he loved too well, the other that she could
+not love in return. How ridiculous to an uninterested person would that
+tall, awkward, grave man seem, in love with a young girl so much his
+junior, so childlike and so unconscious of the influence she had
+acquired.</p>
+
+<p>"How foolish this is!" cried he, as if participating in these
+sentiments. Then removing the handkerchief from his face, he ran his
+fingers vigorously through his hair, till it stood up frantically round
+his brow, drew the sleeves of his coat strenuously over his wrists, and
+straightening himself to his tall height, seemed resolved to be a man
+once more. I smiled afterwards, when I recollected his figure; but I did
+not then,&mdash;thank heaven, I did not smile then,&mdash;I would not have done it
+for "the crown the Bourbons lost."</p>
+
+<p>Anxious to close a scene so painful, I approached the door though with a
+lingering, hesitating step. I wanted to say something, but knew not what
+to utter.</p>
+
+<p>"You will let me be your friend still," said he, taking my hand in both
+his. "You will not think worse of me, for a weakness which has so much
+to excuse it. And, Gabriella, my dear child, should the time ever come,
+when you need a friend and counsellor, should the sky so bright now be
+darkened with clouds, remember there is one who would willingly die to
+save you from sorrow or evil. Will you remember this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Regulus, how could I forget it?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are those younger and more attractive," he continued, "who may
+profess more, and yet feel less. I would not, however, be unjust. God
+save me from the meanness of envy, the baseness of jealousy. I fear I
+did not do justice to young Clyde, when I warned you of his attentions.
+I believe he is a highly honorable young man. Ernest Linwood,"&mdash;he
+paused, and his shaded eyes sought mine, with a glance of penetrating
+power,&mdash;"is, I am told, a man of rare and fascinating qualities. He is
+rich beyond his need, and will occupy a splendid position in the social
+world. His mother will probably have very exalted views with regard to
+the connections he may form. Forgive me if I am trespassing on forbidden
+ground. I did not mean,&mdash;I have no right,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, for my confusion was contagious. My face crimsoned, even my
+fingers were suffused with the rosy hue of shame. Nor was it shame
+alone. Indignation mingled with it its deeper dye.</p>
+
+<p>"If you suppose, Mr. Regulus," said I, in a wounded and excited tone,
+"that <i>I</i> have any aspirations, that would conflict with Mrs. Linwood's
+ambitious views, you wrong me very much. Oh! if I thought that he, that
+she, that you, or anybody in the world could believe such a thing"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I could not utter another word. I remembered Mrs. Linwood's countenance
+when she entered the library. I remembered many things, which might
+corroborate my fears.</p>
+
+<p>"You are as guileless as the unweaned lamb, Gabriella, and long, long
+may you remain so," he answered, with a gentleness that disarmed my
+anger. "Mine was an unprompted suggestion, about as wise, I perceive, as
+my remarks usually are. I am a sad blunderer. May heaven pardon the pain
+I have caused, for the sake of my pure intentions. I do not believe it
+possible for a designing thought to enter your mind, or a feeling to
+find admittance into your heart, that angels might not cherish. But you
+are so young and inexperienced, so unsuspecting and confiding;&mdash;but no
+matter, God bless you, and keep you forever under his most holy
+guardianship!"</p>
+
+<p>Wringing my hand so hard that it ached long afterwards, he turned away,
+and descended the steps more rapidly than he had ever done before. In
+his excitement he forgot his hat, and was pursuing his way bareheaded,
+through the sunny atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>"He must not go through town in that way, for the boys to laugh at him,"
+thought I, catching up his hat and running to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Regulus!" I cried, waving it above my head, to attract his
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>He started, turned, saw the hat, run his fingers through his long hair,
+smiled, and came back. I met him more than half way.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know that I had left my head, as well as my heart behind,"
+said he, with a sickly effort to be facetious; "thank you, God bless you
+once again."</p>
+
+<p>With another iron pressure of my aching hand, he dashed his hat on his
+lion-like head and left me.</p>
+
+<p>I walked home as one in a dream, wondering if this interview were real
+or ideal; wondering if the juice of the milk-white flower, "made purple
+by love's wand," had been squeezed by fairy fingers into the eyes of my
+preceptor, in his slumbering hours, to cause this strange passion;
+wondering why the spirit of love, like the summer wind, stealing softly
+through the whispering boughs, breathes where it listeth, and we cannot
+tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; and wondering most of all
+if&mdash;but I cannot describe the thoughts that drifted through my mind,
+vague and changing as the clouds that went hurrying after each other
+over the deep blue ether.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Commencement day!&mdash;a day of feverish anxiety and excitement to the young
+student, who is to step forth before the public eye, a candidate for the
+laurels of fame;&mdash;a day of weariness and stiffness to the dignified
+professors, obliged to sit hour after hour, listening to the florid
+eloquence whose luxuriance they have in vain attempted to prune, or
+trying to listen while the spirit yawns and stretches itself to its
+drowsy length;&mdash;a day of intense interest to the young maiden, who sees
+among the youthful band of aspirants one who is the "bright particular
+star" round which her pure and trembling hopes revolve.</p>
+
+<p>It was a day of excitement to me, for every thing was novel, and
+therefore interesting. It was the first time I had ever been in a dense
+crowd, and I felt the electric fluid, always collected where the great
+heart of humanity is throbbing, thrilling in my veins, and ready to
+flash at the master-stroke of eloquence. I was dazzled by the brilliant
+display of beauty and fashion that lighted up the classic walls as with
+living sunbeams. Such clusters of mimic blossoms and flowing ringlets
+wreathed together round fair, blooming faces; such a cloud of soft, airy
+drapery floating over lithe figures, swaying forward like light boughs
+agitated by the wind; such a fluttering of snowy fans, making the cool,
+pleasant sound of rain drops pattering among April leaves; such bright
+eager eyes, turned at every sounding step towards the open door,&mdash;I had
+never looked upon the like before. I sat in a dream of delight, without
+thinking that it might be thought vulgar to <i>appear</i> delighted, and
+still more to express undisguised admiration.</p>
+
+<p>I dared not look to the platform, where the faculty and students were
+arranged in imposing ranks, for there was one pair of familiar,
+sparkling eyes, that were sure to beat mine back with their steadfast
+gaze. I did not like this persevering scrutiny, for I was sure it would
+attract the attention of others, and then draw it on myself. He had
+grown taller, Richard Clyde had, since I had seen him, his countenance
+was more manly, his manner more polished. He had been with us the
+evening before, but the room was crowded with company, and I was careful
+not to give him a moment's opportunity of speaking to me alone. But I
+read too well in his sincere and earnest eyes, that time had wrought no
+change in the fervor of his feelings, or the constancy of his
+attachment.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood, though surrounded by friends of the most distinguished
+character, honored him by signal marks of attention. I was proud of him
+as a friend. Why did he wish to be more?</p>
+
+<p>"What a fine young man Clyde is!" I heard some one remark who sat behind
+us. "It is said he is the most promising student in the university."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was the reply. "I have heard that several wealthy gentlemen in
+Boston are going to send him to Europe to complete his education, as his
+own income will not allow him to incur the expense."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a great compliment," observed the first voice, "and I
+have no doubt he deserves it. They say, too, that he is betrothed
+to a young girl in the country, very pretty, but in most indigent
+circumstances,&mdash;an early attachment,&mdash;children's romance."</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible that village gossip had reached these venerable walls?
+But hark to the other voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard so, but they say she has been adopted by a rich lady,
+whose name I have forgotten. Her own mother was of very mysterious and
+disreputable character, I am told, whom no one visited or respected.
+Quite an outcast."</p>
+
+<p>I started as if an arrow had passed through my ears, or rather entered
+them, for it seemed quivering there. Never before had I heard one
+sullying word breathed on the spotless snow of my mother's character. Is
+it strange that the cold, venomous tongue of slander, hissing at my very
+back, should make me shudder and recoil as if a serpent were there?</p>
+
+<p>A hand touched my shoulder, lightly, gently, but I knew its touch,
+though never felt but once before. I looked up involuntarily, and met
+the eyes of Ernest Linwood, who was standing close to the seat I
+occupied. I did not know he was there. He had wedged the crowd silently,
+gradually, till he reached the spot he had quitted soon after our
+entrance, to greet his former class mates. I knew by his countenance
+that he had heard all, and a sick, deadly feeling came over me. He, to
+hear my mother's name made a byword and reproach, myself alluded to as
+the indigent daughter of an outcast,&mdash;he, who seemed already lifted as
+high above me on the eagle wings of fortune, as the eyry of the
+king-bird is above the nest of the swallow,&mdash;it was more than I could
+bear.</p>
+
+<p>I said I knew by his countenance that he had heard all. I never saw such
+an expression as his face wore,&mdash;such burning indignation, such
+withering scorn. I trembled to think of the central fires from which
+such flames darted. As he caught my glance, an instantaneous change came
+over it. Compassion softened every lineament. Still his eye of power
+held me down. It said, "be quiet, be calm,&mdash;I am near, be not afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could get you a glass of water," said he, in a low voice, for
+I suppose I looked deadly pale; "but it would be impossible I fear in
+this crowd,&mdash;the aisles are impenetrable."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," I answered, "there is no need,&mdash;but if I could only leave."</p>
+
+<p>I looked despairingly at the masses of living beings on every side,
+crowding the pews, filling the aisles, standing on the window-sills, on
+the tops of the pews, leaning from the gallery,&mdash;and felt that I was a
+prisoner. The sultry air of August, confined in the chapel walls, and
+deprived of its vital principle by so many heaving lungs, weighed
+oppressively on mine. I could feel behind me the breathing of the lips
+of slander, and it literally seemed to scorch me. Ernest took my fan
+from my hand and fanned me without intermission, or I think I must have
+fainted.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat with downcast eyes, whose drooping lashes were heavy with
+unshed tears, I saw a glass of water held before me by an unsteady hand.
+I looked up and saw Richard Clyde, his student's robe of flowing black
+silk gathered up by his left arm, who had literally forced his way
+through a triple row of men. We were very near the platform, there being
+but one row of pews between.</p>
+
+<p>I drank the water eagerly, gratefully. Even before those blistering
+words were uttered, I had felt as if a glass of cold water would be
+worth all the gems of the East; now it was life itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill, Gabriella?" whispered Mrs. Linwood, who with Edith sat
+directly in front, and whose eyes had watched anxiously the motions of
+Richard. "Ah! I see this heat is killing you."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That is she</i>, I do believe," hissed the serpent tongue behind me.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, she may hear you."</p>
+
+<p>All was again still around me, the stillness of the multitudinous sea,
+for every wave of life heaved restlessly, producing a kind of murmur,
+like that of rustling leaves in an autumnal forest. Then a sound loud as
+the thunders of the roaring ocean came rushing on the air. It was the
+burst of acclamation which greeted Richard Clyde, first in honor though
+last in time. I bent my ear to listen, but the words blent confusedly
+together, forming one wave of utterance, that rolled on without leaving
+one idea behind. I knew he was eloquent, from the enthusiastic applause
+which occasionally interrupted him, but I had lost the power of
+perception; and had Demosthenes risen from his grave, it would scarcely
+have excited in me any emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Was this my introduction to that world,&mdash;that great world, of which I
+had heard and thought and dreamed so much? How soon had my garlands
+faded,&mdash;my fine gold become dim! Could they not have spared me one day,
+<i>me</i>, who had never injured them? And yet they might aim their barbed
+darts at me. I would not care for that,&mdash;oh, no, it was not that. It was
+the blow that attacked an angel mother's fame. O my mother! could they
+not spare thee even in thy grave, where the wicked are said to cease
+from troubling and the weary are at rest? Could they not let thee sleep
+in peace, thou tempest-tost and weary hearted, even in the dark and
+narrow house, sacred from the footstep of the living?</p>
+
+<p>Another thundering burst of applause called my spirit from the
+grass-grown sod, made damp and green by the willow's shade, to the
+crowded church and the bustle and confusion of life. Then followed the
+presentation of the parchment rolls and the ceremonies usual at the
+winding up of this time-honored day. It all seemed like unmeaning
+mummery to me. The majestic president, with his little flat black cap,
+set like a tile on the top of his head, was a man of pasteboard and
+springs, and even the beautiful figures that lighted up the walls had
+lost their coloring and life. There was, indeed, a wondrous change,
+independent of that within my own soul. The excessive heat had wilted
+these flowers of loveliness and faded their bright hues. Their uncurled
+ringlets hung dangling down their cheeks, whose roses were heightened to
+an unbecoming crimson, or withered to a sickly pallor; their gossamer
+drapery, deprived of its delicate stiffening, flapped like the loose
+sails of a vessel wet by the spray. Here and there was a blooming
+maiden, still as fair and cool as if sprinkled with dew, round whom the
+atmosphere seemed refreshed as by the sparkling of a <i>jet d'eau</i>. These,
+like myself, were novices, who had brought with them the dewy innocence
+of life's morning hours; but they had not, like me, heard the hissing of
+the adder among their roses.</p>
+
+<p>"Be calm,&mdash;be courageous," said Ernest, in a scarcely audible tone, as
+bending down he gave the fan into my hand; "the arrow rebounds from an
+impenetrable surface."</p>
+
+<p>As we turned to leave the church, I felt my hand drawn round the arm of
+Richard Clyde. How he had cleft the living mass so quickly I could not
+tell; but he had made his way where an arrow could hardly penetrate. I
+looked round for Edith,&mdash;but Ernest watched over her, like an earthly
+providence. My backward glance to her prevented my seeing the faces of
+those who were seated behind me. But what mattered it? They were
+strangers, and heaven grant that they would ever remain so.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you entirely recovered?" asked Richard, in an anxious tone. "I
+never saw any one's countenance change so instantaneously as yours. You
+were as white as your cambric handkerchief. You are not accustomed to
+such stifling crowds, where we seem plunged in an exhausted receiver."</p>
+
+<p>"I never wish to be in such another," I answered, with emphasis. "I
+never care to leave home again."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry your first impressions should have been so
+disagreeable,&mdash;but I hope you have been interested in some small degree.
+You do not know what inspiration there was in your presence. At first, I
+thought I would rather be shot from the cannon's mouth than speak in
+your hearing; but after the first shock, you were like a fountain of
+living waters playing on my soul."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Richard! how could I tell him that I had not heard understandingly
+one sentence that he uttered? or how could I explain the cause of my
+mental distraction? He had cast his pearls to the wind; his diamonds to
+the sand.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood was a guest of the president, who was an intimate and
+valued friend. I would have given worlds for a little solitary nook,
+where I could hide myself from every eye; for a seat beneath the wild
+oaks that girdled the cottage of my childhood; but the house was
+thronged with the literati of the State, and wherever I turned I met the
+gaze of strangers. If I could have seen Mrs. Linwood alone, or Edith
+alone, and told them how wantonly, how cruelly my feelings had been
+wounded, it would have relieved the fulness, the oppression of my heart.
+But that was impossible. Mrs. Linwood's commanding social position, her
+uncommon and varied powers of conversation, the excellence and dignity
+of her character, made her the cynosure of the literary circle. Edith,
+too, from her exquisite loveliness, the sweetness of her disposition,
+and her personal misfortune, which endeared her to her friends by the
+tenderness and sympathy it excited, was a universal favorite; and all
+these attractive qualities in both were gilded and enhanced by the
+wealth which enabled them to impart, even more than they received. They
+were at home here,&mdash;they were in the midst of friends, whose society was
+congenial to their tastes, and I resolved, whatever I might suffer, not
+to mar their enjoyment by my selfish griefs. Ernest had heard
+all,&mdash;perhaps he believed all. He did not know my mother. He had never
+seen that face of heavenly purity and holy sorrow. Why should he not
+believe?</p>
+
+<p>One thing I could do. I could excuse myself from dinner and thus secure
+an hour's quietude. I gave no false plea, when I urged a violent
+headache as the reason for my seclusion. My temples ached and throbbed
+as if trying to burst from a metallic band, and the sun rays, though
+sifted through curtains of folding lace, fell like needle points on my
+shrinking eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Gabriella!" said Edith, laying her cool soft hand on my hot brow,
+"I did not think you were such a tender, green-house plant. I cannot
+bear to leave you here, when you could enjoy such an intellectual
+banquet below. Let me stay with you. I fear you are really very ill. How
+unfortunate!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, dear Edith; you must not think of such a thing. Just close
+those blinds, and give me that fan, and I shall be very comfortable
+here. If possible let no one come in. If I could sleep, this paroxysm
+will pass over."</p>
+
+<p>"There, sleep if you can, dear Gabriella, and be bright for the evening
+party. You knew the dresses mamma gave us for the occasion, both alike.
+I could not think of wearing mine, unless you were with me,&mdash;and you
+look so charmingly in white!"</p>
+
+<p>Edith had such a sweet, coaxing way with her, she magnetized pain and
+subdued self-distrust. The mere touch of her gentle hand had allayed the
+fever of my brain, and one glance of her loving blue eye tempered the
+anguish of my spirit. She lingered, unwilling to leave me,&mdash;drew the
+blinds together, making a soft twilight amid the glare of day, saturated
+my handkerchief with cologne and laid it on my temples, and placing a
+beautiful bouquet of flowers, an offering to herself, on my pillow,
+kissed me, and left me.</p>
+
+<p>I watched the sound of her retreating footsteps, or rather of her
+crutches, till they were no longer heard; then burying my face in my
+pillow, the sultry anguish of my heart was drenched in tears. Oh! what a
+relieving shower! It was the thunder-shower of the tropics, not the
+slow, drizzling rain of colder climes. I wept till the pillow was as wet
+as the turf on which the heavens have been weeping. I clasped it to my
+bosom as a shield against invisible foes, but there was no <i>sympathy</i> in
+its downy softness. I sighed for a pillow beneath whose gentle heavings
+the heart of human kindness beats, I yearned to lay my head on a
+mother's breast. Yea, cold and breathless as it was now, beneath the
+clods of the valley, it would still be a sacred resting-place to me. The
+long pressure of the grave-sods could not crush out the impression of
+that love, stronger than death, deeper than the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Had the time arrived when I might claim the manuscript, left as a
+hallowed legacy to the orphan, who had no other inheritance? Had I
+awakened to the knowledge of woman's destiny to love and suffer? Dare I
+ask myself this question? Through the morning twilight of my heart, was
+not a star trembling, whose silver rays would never be quenched, save in
+the nightshades of death? Was it not time to listen to the warning
+voice, whose accents, echoing from the tomb, must have the power and
+grandeur of prophecy? Yes! I would ask Mrs. Linwood for my mother's
+history, as soon as we returned to Grandison Place; and if I found the
+shadow of disgrace rested on the memory of her I so loved and
+worshipped, I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, to avoid
+that searching eye, which, next to the glance of Omnipotence, I would
+shun in guilt and shame.</p>
+
+<p>"They say!" Who are <i>they</i>? who are the cowled monks, the hooded friars
+who glide with shrouded faces in the procession of life, muttering in an
+unknown tongue words of mysterious import? Who are <i>they</i>? the midnight
+assassins of reputation, who lurk in the by-lanes of society, with
+dagger tongues sharpened by invention and envenomed by malice, to draw
+the blood of innocence, and, hyena-like, banquet on the dead? Who are
+<i>they</i>? They are a multitude no man can number, black-stoled familiars
+of the inquisition of slander, searching for victims in every city,
+town, and village, wherever the heart of humanity throbs, or the ashes
+of mortality find rest.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, coward, coward world&mdash;skulkers! Give me the bold brigand, who
+thunders along the highways with flashing weapon that cuts the sunbeams
+as well as the shades. Give me the pirate, who <i>unfurls</i> the black flag,
+emblem of his terrible trade, and <i>shows</i> the plank which your doomed
+feet must tread; but save me from the <i>they-sayers</i> of society, whose
+knives are hidden in a velvet sheath, whose bridge of death, is woven of
+flowers; and who spread, with invisible poison, even the spotless
+whiteness of the winding-sheet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Gabriella, awake!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, is the day dawning?"</p>
+
+<p>"My child, the sun is near his setting; you have slumbered long."</p>
+
+<p>I dreamed it was my mother's voice that awakened me,&mdash;then it seemed the
+voice of Richard Clyde, and I was lying under the great shadow of the
+oak, where he had found me years before half drowned in tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, my dear,&mdash;it is time to dress for the evening."</p>
+
+<p>This time I recognized the accents of Mrs. Linwood, and I rose at once
+to a sitting position, wondering if it were the rising or the declining
+day that shone around me. Sleep had left its down on my harassed
+spirits, and its balm on my aching head. I felt languid, but tranquil;
+and when Mrs. Linwood affectionately but decidedly urged upon me the
+necessity of rising and preparing to descend to the drawing-room, I
+submissively obeyed. She must have seen that I had been in tears, but
+she made no allusion to them. Her manner was unusually kind and tender;
+but there was an expression in her serene but commanding eye, that bade
+me rise superior to the weakness that had subdued me. Had her son spoken
+of the cause of my emotion?</p>
+
+<p>A few moments after, Edith entered, and her mother rejoined her friends
+below.</p>
+
+<p>Edith held in her hand a fresh bouquet of the most exquisite green-house
+plants, among which the scarlet geranium exhibited its glowing blossoms.
+She held it towards me, turned it like a prism in various directions to
+catch the changing rays, while its odoriferous breath perfumed the whole
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you have another, Edith," I said, looking at the wilted
+flowers on my pillow. "These have fulfilled their mission most sweetly.
+I have no doubt they inspired soothing dreams, though I cannot remember
+them distinctly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! these are <i>yours</i>," she answered, "sent by a friend who was quite
+distressed at your absence from the dinner-table. Cannot you guess the
+donor?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will not require much acuteness," replied I, taking the flowers, and
+though I could not help admiring their beauty, and feeling grateful for
+the attention, a shade of regret clouded their welcome; "I have so few
+friends it is easy to conjecture who thus administers to my
+gratification."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who is it? You do not hazard the utterance of the name."</p>
+
+<p>"No one but Richard Clyde would think of giving me a token like this.
+They are very, <i>very</i> sweet, and yet I wish he had not sent them."</p>
+
+<p>"Ungrateful Gabriella! No one but Richard! A host of common beings
+melted into one, could not make the equal of the friend who made me the
+bearer of this charming offering. Is the gift of Ernest greeted with
+such indifference?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest!" I repeated, and the blood bounded in my veins like a stream
+leaping over a mountain rock. "Is he indeed so kind?"</p>
+
+<p>I bent my head over the beautiful messengers, to hide the joy too deep
+for words, the gratitude too intense for the gift. As I thus looked down
+into the heart of the flowers, I caught a glimpse of something white
+folded among the green leaves. Edith's back was turned as she smoothed
+the folds of an India muslin dress that lay upon the bed. I drew out the
+paper with a tremulous hand, and read these few pencilled words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sweet flower girl of the north! be not cast down. The most noxious wind
+changes not the purity of marble; neither can an idle breath shake the
+confidence born of unsullied innocence."</p>
+
+<p>These words pencilled by his own hand, were addressed to <i>me</i>. They were
+embalmed in fragrance and imbedded in bloom, and henceforth they were
+engraven on tablets on which the hand of man had never before traced a
+character, which the whole world might not peruse.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, what magic there was in those little words! Slander had lost its
+sting, and malice its venom, at least for the present hour. I put the
+talisman in my bosom and the flowers in water,&mdash;for <i>they</i> might fade.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one in the room but Edith and myself. She sat on the side
+of the bed, a cloud of white fleecy drapery floating over her lap; a
+golden arrow, the very last in the day, God's quiver darted through the
+half-open blinds into the clusters of her fair ringlets. She was the
+most unaffected of human beings, and yet her every attitude was the
+perfection of grace, as if she sat as a model to the sculptor. I thought
+there was a shade of sadness on her brow. Perhaps she had seen me
+conceal the note, and imagined something clandestine and mysterious
+between me and her brother, that brother whose exclusive devotion had
+constituted the chief happiness of her life. Though it was a simple
+note, and the words were few, intended only to comfort and sustain, they
+were of such priceless value to me, I could not bear that even Edith's
+eye should become familiar with its contents. But her love and
+confidence were too dear to be sacrificed to a refinement of romance.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Edith," said I, putting the note in her hand, and an arm round her
+neck, "it was a gift of consolation you brought me;" and then I told her
+all that I had over-heard, and of the exceeding bitterness of my
+anguish.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it,&mdash;mamma and I both know it,&mdash;brother told us. I did not speak
+of it, for you looked as if you had forgotten it after I came in, and I
+did not wish you to recall it. You must forget it, indeed you must. Such
+cruel insinuations can never alienate from you the friends who love you.
+They rather bind you closer to our hearts. Come, we have no time to
+lose. You know we must assist each other."</p>
+
+<p>I insisted on being her handmaid first, and lingered over her toilet
+till she literally escaped from my hands and drew behind the lace
+curtains like a star behind a cloud. Our dresses were alike, as the
+generous Edith had willed. They were of the most exquisite India muslin,
+simply but elegantly decorated with the finest of lace. I had never
+before been arrayed for an evening party, and as the gauzy fulness of
+drapery fell so softly and redundantly over the form I had been
+accustomed to see in the sad-colored robes of mourning, I hardly
+recognized my own lineaments. There was something so light, so ethereal
+and graceful in the dress, my spirit caught its airiness and seemed
+borne upwards as on wings of down. I was about to clasp on my precious
+necklace and bracelets of hair, when observing Edith's beautiful pearl
+ornaments, corresponding so well with the delicacy and whiteness of her
+apparel, I laid them aside, resolving to wear no added decoration but
+the flowers, consecrated as the gift of Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, Gabriella, let me arrange that fall of lace behind," said
+Edith, extending a beautiful arm, on which the pearl-drops lay like dew
+on a lily. Both arms passed round my neck, and I found it encircled like
+her own with pearls. Then turning me round, she clasped first one arm,
+and then the other with fairy links of pearl, and then she flung a
+roseate of these ocean flowers round my head, smiling all the time and
+uttering exclamations of delighted admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't cry, Gabriella dear. You look so cool&mdash;so fair&mdash;so like a
+snowdrop glittering with dew. And don't put your arms round my neck,
+beautiful as they are, quite so close. You will spoil my lace, darling.
+You must just wear and keep the pearls for the love of me. Mamma
+sanctions the gift, so you need have no scruples about accepting them.
+Remember, now, we must have no more <i>diamonds</i>, not one, though of the
+purest water and sparkling in heaven's own setting."</p>
+
+<p>What could I say, in answer to such abounding kindness? In spite of her
+prohibition the diamonds would mingle with the pearls; but the sunbeams
+shone on them both.</p>
+
+<p>What a day had this been to me! It seemed as if I had lived years in the
+short space of a few hours. I had never felt so utterly miserable, not
+even over my mother's new made grave. I had never felt so supremely
+happy,&mdash;so buoyant with hope and joy. The flowers of Ernest, the pearls
+of Edith, came to me with a message as gladdening as that which waked
+the silver harp-strings of the morning stars. I did not, I dared not
+misunderstand the meaning of the first. They were sent as balm to a
+wounded spirit; as breathers of hope to the ear of despair; but it was
+<i>his</i> hand that administered the balm; <i>his</i> spirit that inspired the
+strain.</p>
+
+<p>"How radiant you look, Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, her sweet blue eyes
+resting on me with affectionate delight. "I am so glad to see you come
+out of the cloud. Now you justify our <i>pride</i> as well as our affection."</p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;but all of us look so earthly at your side, Edith"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! flatterer&mdash;and yet, who would not prefer the beauty of earth, to
+the cold idealism of spirit loveliness? I have never sought the
+admiration of men. If I look lovely in the eyes of Ernest, it is all I
+desire. Perhaps all would not believe me; but you will. I yield you the
+empire of every heart but his. There, I would not willingly occupy the
+<i>second</i> place. A strange kind of jealousy, Gabriella; but I am just so
+weak."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, nay even laughed,&mdash;called herself very weak, very foolish,
+but said she could not help it. She believed she was the most selfish of
+human beings, and feared that this was the right hand to be cut off, the
+right eye to be plucked out. I was pained to hear her talk in this way;
+for I thought if any one ever gained the heart of Ernest, it would be
+dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Edith's friendship. But it was only
+a jesting way of expressing her exceeding love, after all. She was not
+selfish; she was all that was disinterested and kind.</p>
+
+<p>I followed her down stairs into a blaze of light, that at first dazzled
+and bewildered me. The chandeliers with their myriad pendants of
+glittering crystal emitted thousands of brilliant coruscations, like
+wintry boughs loaded with icicles and sparkling in a noonday sun. While
+through the open windows, the departing twilight mingled its soft
+duskiness with the splendors of the mimic day.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest Linwood and Richard Clyde were standing near the entrance of the
+door to greet us. The former immediately advanced and gave me his arm,
+and Richard walked by the side of Edith. I heard him sigh as they fell
+behind us, and my heart echoed the sound. Yet how could he sigh with
+Edith at his side? As I walked through the illuminated drawing-room,
+escorted by one on whom the eyes of the fashionable world were eagerly
+bent, I could not help being conscious of the glances that darted on me
+from every direction. Ernest Linwood was the loadstar of the scene, and
+whoever he distinguished by his attention must be conspicuous by
+association. I felt this, but no embarrassment agitated my step or dyed
+my cheek with blushes. The deep waters were stirred, stirred to their
+inmost depths, but the surface was calm and unruffled. Mrs. Linwood was
+at the head of the room, the centre of an intellectual circle. She was
+dressed, as usual, in silver gray; but the texture of her dress was the
+richest satin, shaded by blonde. The effect was that of a cloud with a
+silver lining, and surely it was a fitting attire for one who knew how
+to give brightness to the darkest shadows of life.</p>
+
+<p>As we approached her, her countenance lighted up with pride and
+pleasure. I saw she was gratified by my appearance; that she was not
+ashamed of her prot&eacute;g&eacute;e. Yet as we came nearer, I observed an expression
+of the most tender anxiety, approaching to sadness, come over her brow.
+How proud she was of her son! She looked upon him with a glance that
+would have been idolatry, had not God said, "Thou shalt not make unto
+thyself idols, for I am a jealous God."</p>
+
+<p>She took my hand, and I saw her eye follow the soft tracery of
+pearl-flowers that enwreathed neck, arms, and brow. She knew who had
+thus adorned me, and her approving smile sanctioned the gifts.</p>
+
+<p>"I rejoice to see you look so well, my dear child," she said, "I feared
+you might lose the enjoyment of the evening; but I see no one who has a
+brighter prospect before them now."</p>
+
+<p>She introduced me to the friends who surrounded her, and wished to give
+me a seat near her; but Ernest resisted the movement, and with a smiling
+bow passed on.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not disposed to release you quite so soon," said he, passing out
+into the piazza. "I see very plainly that if I relinquish my position it
+will not be easy to secure it again. I am delighted. I am charmed,
+Gabriella, to see that you have the firmness to resist, as well as the
+sensibility to feel. I am delighted, too, to see you in the only livery
+youth and innocence should wear in a festal scene like this. I abhor the
+gaudy tinselry which loads the devotees of fashion, indicative of false
+tastes and false principles; but white and pearls remind me of every
+thing pure and holy in nature. In the Bible we read of the white robes
+of angels and saints. Who ever dreamed of clothing them, in imagination,
+in dark or party-colored garments? In mythology, the graces, the nymphs,
+and the muses are represented in snowy garments. In spotless white the
+bride is led to the marriage shrine, and in white she is prepared for
+the last sublime espousals. Do you know," added he, suddenly changing
+the theme, as if conscious he was touching upon something too solemn,
+"why I selected the scarlet geranium for one of the blossoms of your
+bouquet? The first time I saw you, it glowed in the darkness of your
+hair like coral in the ocean's heart."</p>
+
+<p>While he was speaking he broke a sprig from the bouquet and placed it in
+a wave of my hair, behind the band of pearls.</p>
+
+<p>"Earth and ocean bring you their tribute," said he, and "heaven too," he
+added; for as we passed by the pillars, a moon-beam glided in and laid
+its silver touch on my brow.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Edith's hand that thus adorned me," I answered, unwilling he
+should believe I had been consulting my own ambitious taste. "Had I been
+left to myself, I should have sought no ornament but these beautiful
+flowers, doubly precious for the feelings of kindness and compassion
+that consecrated their mission."</p>
+
+<p>"Compassion, Gabriella! I should as soon think of compassionating the
+star that shines brightest in the van of night. Compassion looks down;
+kindness implies an equal ground; admiration looks up with the gaze of
+the astronomer and the worship of the devotee."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget I am but a simple, village rustic. Such exaggerated
+compliments would suit better the brilliant dames of the city. I would
+rather a thousand times you would say, 'Gabriella, I do feel kindly
+towards you,' than utter any thing so formal, and apparently so
+insincere."</p>
+
+<p>I was really hurt. I thought he was mocking my credulity, or measuring
+the height and depth of my girlish vanity. I did not want to be compared
+to a star, a lone and distant star, nor to think of him as an astronomer
+gazing up at me with telescopic eye. My heart was overflowing with
+gentle, natural thoughts. I wanted human sympathy, not cold and
+glittering compliments.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you expect to hear the language of nature here, with the buzz of
+empty tongues and the echo of unmeaning laughs in the ear; where, if a
+word of sentiment were over-heard, it would be bandied from lip to lip
+with hollow mockery? Come with me into the garden, where the flowers
+blush in their folded leaves, beneath the love-light of yon gentle moon,
+where the stilly dews whisper sweet thoughts to the listening heart, and
+I will tell you what I have learned in Grandison Place, under the elm
+tree's shade, by the flower girl in the library, and from a thousand
+sources of which you have never dreamed."</p>
+
+<p>He took the hand which rested lightly on his arm, and drawing it closer
+to his side led the way to the steps of the piazza. I had dreamed of a
+moment like this in the golden reveries of romance, and imagined it a
+foretaste of heaven, but now I trembled and hesitated like the fearful
+fluttering spirit before the opening gates of paradise. I dared not
+yield to the almost irresistible temptation. No figures were gliding
+along the solitary paths, no steps were brushing away the dew-stars that
+had fallen from the sky. We should be alone in the moonlight solitude;
+but the thoughts of Mrs. Linwood and of Edith would find us out.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" I cried, shrinking from the gentle force that urged me
+forward; "do not ask me now. It would be better to remain where we are.
+Do you not think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, if you wish it," he said, and his voice had an altered tone,
+like that of a sweet instrument suddenly untuned; "but there is only one
+<i>now</i>, for those who fear to trust me, Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>"To trust <i>you</i>,&mdash;oh you cannot, do not misunderstand me thus!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why else do you shrink, as if I were leading you to a path of thorns
+instead of one margined with flowers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear the observations of the world, since the bitter lesson of the
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Your fear! You attach more value to the passing remarks of strangers,
+than the feelings of one who was beginning to believe he had found one
+pure votary of nature and of truth. It is well. I have monopolized your
+attention too long."</p>
+
+<p>Calmly and coldly he spoke, and the warm light of his eye went out like
+lightning, leaving the cloud gloom behind it. I was about to ask him to
+lead me back to his mother, in a tone as cold and altered as his own,
+when I saw her approaching us with a lady whom I had observed at the
+chapel; for her large, black eyes seemed magnetizing me, whenever I met
+their gaze. She was tall, beyond the usual height of her sex, finely
+formed, firm and compact as a marble pillar. A brow of bold expansion,
+features of the Roman contour, clearly cut and delicately marked; an
+expression of recklessness, independence, and self-reliance were the
+most striking characteristics of the young lady, whom Mrs. Linwood
+introduced as Miss Melville, the daughter of an early friend of hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Margaret Melville," she repeated, looking at her son, who stood,
+leaning with an air of stately indifference against a pillar of the
+piazza. I had withdrawn my hand from his arm, and felt as if the breadth
+of the frozen ocean was between us.</p>
+
+<p>"Does Mr. Ernest Linwood forget his old friend so easily?" she asked, in
+a clear, ringing voice, extending a fair ungloved hand. "Do you not
+remember Madge Wildfire, or Meg the Dauntless, as the students used to
+call me? Or have I become so civilized and polished that you do not
+recognize me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not indeed," said he, receiving the offered hand with more grace
+than eagerness, "but it is not so much the fault of <i>my</i> memory, as the
+marvellous change in yourself. I must not say improvement, as that would
+imply that there was a time when you were susceptible of it."</p>
+
+<p>"You may say just what you please, for I like frankness and
+straightforwardness as well as I ever did; better,&mdash;a great deal better,
+for I know its value more. And you, Ernest, I cannot call you any thing
+else, you are another and yet the same. The same stately, statue-like
+being I used to try in vain to teaze and torment. It seems so long since
+we have met, I expected to have seen you quite bent and hoary with age.
+Do tell me something of your transatlantic experience."</p>
+
+<p>While she was speaking in that peculiar tone of voice which reminded one
+of a distant clarion, Richard Clyde came to me on the other side, and
+seeing that she wished to engage the conversation of Ernest, which she
+probably thought I had engrossed too long, I took the offered arm of
+Richard and returned to the drawing-room. Seeing a table covered with
+engravings, I directed our steps there, that subjects of conversation
+might be suggested independent of ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>"How exquisite these are!" I exclaimed, taking up the first within my
+reach and expatiating on its beauties, without really comprehending one
+with my preoccupied and distant thoughts. "These Italian landscapes are
+always charming."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that is a picture of the Boston Common," said he, smiling at
+my mistake; "but surely no Italian landscape can boast of such
+magnificent trees and such breadth of verdure. It is a whole casket of
+emeralds set in the granite heart of a great city. And see in the centre
+that pure, sparkling diamond, sending out such rays of coolness and
+delight,&mdash;I wonder you did not recognize it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen it only in winter, when the trees exhibited their wintry
+dreariness, and little boys were skating on the diamond surface of that
+frozen water. It looked very different then."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Linwood could explain these engravings," said he, drawing forward
+some which indeed represented Italian ruins, grand and ivy mantled,
+where the owl might well assert her solitary domain. "He has two great
+advantages, an eye enlightened by travel, and a taste fastidious by
+nature."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not admire fastidiousness," I answered; "I do not like to have
+defects pointed out to me, which my own ignorance does not discover.
+There is more pleasure in imagining beauties than in finding out
+faults."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you think it a presuming question, a too inquisitive one," he
+said, holding up an engraving between himself and the light, "if I ask
+your candid opinion of Mr. Linwood? Is the world right in the character
+it has given? Has he all the peculiarities and fascinations it ascribes
+to him?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in a careless manner, or rather tried to do so, but his eye
+burned with intense emotion. Had he asked me this question a short time
+previous, conscious blushes would have dyed my cheeks, for a "murderous
+guilt shows not itself more soon," than the feelings I attempt to
+conceal; but my sensibility had been wounded, my pride roused, and my
+heart chilled. I had discovered within myself a spirit which, like the
+ocean bark, rises with the rising wave.</p>
+
+<p>"If Mr. Linwood <i>had</i> faults," I answered, and I could not help smiling
+at the attempted composure and real perturbation of his manner, "I would
+not speak of them. Peculiarities he may have, for they are inseparable
+from genius,&mdash;fascinations"&mdash;here their remembrance was too strong for
+my assumed indifference, and my sacred love of truth compelled me to
+utter,&mdash;"fascinations he certainly possesses."</p>
+
+<p>"In what do they consist?" he asked. "Beyond an extremely gentlemanly
+exterior, I do not perceive any peculiar claims to admiration."</p>
+
+<p>Hurt as I had been by Ernest's altered manner, I was disposed to do
+justice to his merits, and the more Richard seemed desirous to
+depreciate him, the more I was willing to exalt him. If he was capable
+of the meanness of envy, I was resolved to punish him. I did him
+injustice. He was not envious, but jealous; and it is impossible for
+jealousy and justice ever to go hand in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"In what do they consist?" I repeated. At that moment I saw him through
+the window, standing just where I had left him, leaning with folded arms
+against the pillar, with the moonlight shining gloriously on his brow.
+Miss Melville stood near him, talking with great animation, emphasizing
+her words with quick, decided gesticulation, while he seemed a passive
+listener. I had seen handsomer gentlemen, perhaps,&mdash;but never one so
+perfectly elegant and refined in appearance. The pale transparency of
+his complexion had the purity and delicacy of alabaster without its
+whiteness, seen by that clear, silvery light.</p>
+
+<p>"In what do they consist? In powers of conversation as rich as they are
+varied, in versatility of talents, in rare cultivation of mind and
+polish of manner. Let me see. I must give you a complete inventory of
+his accomplishments. He reads most charmingly, plays superbly, and sings
+divinely. Would you know his virtues? He is a most devoted son, a
+paragon of brothers, and a miracle of a host."</p>
+
+<p>I believe there is a dash of coquetry in every woman's nature. There
+must have been in mine, or I could not have gone on, watching the red
+thermometer in Richard's cheek, rising higher and higher, though what I
+said was truth, unembellished by imagination. It was what they <i>who run
+might read</i>. I did not speak of those more subtle traits which, were
+invisible to the common eye, those characters which, like invisible
+writing, are brought out by a warm and glowing element.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear you speak so openly in his praise," said Richard,
+with a brightening countenance; "even if I deserved such a tribute, I
+should not wish to know that you had paid it to me. I would prize more
+one silent glance, one conscious blush, than the most labored eulogium
+the most eloquent lips could utter."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do praise you very much," I answered; "ask Mrs. Linwood, and
+Edith, and Mr. Regulus. Ask Mr. Linwood himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Never speak of me to <i>him</i>, Gabriella. Let my feelings be <i>sacred</i>, if
+they are lonely. You know your power; use it gently, exert it kindly."</p>
+
+<p>The smile of assumed gaiety faded from my lips, as his grave, earnest,
+sincere accents went down into my soul. Could I trifle even for a moment
+with an affection so true and constant?</p>
+
+<p>Oh, wayward and unappreciating heart! Why could I not return this love,
+which might have made me so happy? Why was there no spirit-echo to <i>his</i>
+voice; no quickened pulsations at the sound of <i>his</i> coming footsteps?</p>
+
+<p>"This is no place, Richard, to talk of ourselves, or I would try to
+convince you that I am incapable of speaking lightly of your feelings,
+or betraying them to a human being, even to Mrs. Linwood; but let us
+speak of something else now. Do you not feel very happy that you are
+free,&mdash;no more a slave to hours or rules; free to come and go, when and
+where you please, with the whole earth to roam in,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Heart within and God o'erhead?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"No! I am sad. After being at anchor so long, to be suddenly set
+drifting, to be the sport of the winds of destiny, the cable chain of
+habit and association broken, one feels dizzy and bewildered. I never
+knew till now how strong the classmate bond of union is, how sacred the
+brotherhood, how binding the tie. We, who have been treading the same
+path for four long years, must now diverge, east, west, north, and
+south, the great cardinal points of life. In all human probability we
+shall never all meet again, till the mysterious problem of our destiny
+is solved."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, impressed by the solemnity of this idea, then added, in his
+natural, animated manner.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one hope, Gabriella, to which I have looked forward as the
+sheet-anchor of my soul; if that fails me, I do not care what becomes of
+me. Sometimes it has burned so brightly, it has been my morning and
+evening star, my rising, but unsetting sun. To-night the star is dim.
+Clouds of doubt and apprehension gather over it. Gabriella,&mdash;I cannot
+live in this suspense, and yet I could not bear the confirmation of my
+fears. Better to doubt than to despair."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard, why will you persist in talking of what cannot be explained
+here? Shall we not meet hereafter, and have abundant opportunities for
+conversation, free and uninterrupted? Look around, and see how
+differently other people are conversing. How lightly and carelessly
+their words come and go, mingled with merry laughter! Edith is at the
+piano. Let us go where we can listen, we cannot do it here."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> very selfish!" said he, yielding to my suggestion. "I have
+promised my classmates to introduce them to you. I see some of them,
+bending reproachful glances this way. I must redeem my character, so as
+not to incur disgrace in the parting hour."</p>
+
+<p>Then followed introductions pressing on each other, till I was weary of
+hearing my own name, Miss Lynn. I never did like to be called Miss.
+Still it was an unspeakable relief to me, to be released from the
+necessity of repressing the feelings of others, and guarding my own. It
+was a relief to hear those unmeaning sayings which are the current coin
+of society, and to utter without effort the first light thought that
+came floating on the surface. The rest of the evening I was surrounded
+by strangers, and the most exacting vanity might have been satisfied
+with the incense I received. I knew that the protection of Mrs. Linwood
+gave a <i>prestige</i> to me that would not otherwise have been mine, but I
+could not help perceiving that Edith, the heiress, all lovely as she
+was, was not half as much courted and admired as the <i>daughter of the
+outcast</i>. I was too young, too much of a novice, not to be pleased with
+the attention I attracted; but when the heart is awakened, vanity has
+but little power. It is a cold, vapory conceit, that vanishes before the
+inner warmth and light, which, like the sun in the firmament, "shineth
+brighter and brighter to the perfect day."</p>
+
+<p>After Edith retired from the instrument there was a buzz, and a
+sensation, and Miss Melville, or Meg the Dauntless, as I could not help
+mentally calling her, was escorted to the piano by Ernest. What a
+contrast she presented to the soft, retiring, ethereal Edith, whose
+every motion suggested the idea of music! Though her arm was linked in
+that of Ernest, she walked independently of him, dashing through the
+company with a brave, military air, and taking a seat as if a flourish
+of trumpets had heralded her approach. At first I was startled by the
+loud crash of the keys, as she threw her hands upon them with all her
+force, laughing at the wild dissonance of the sound; but as she
+continued, harmony, if not sweetness, rose out of the chaos. She
+evidently understood the science of music, and enjoyed it too. She did
+not sing, and while she was playing the most brilliant polkas, waltzes,
+and variations with the most wonderful execution, she talked and laughed
+with those around the instrument, or looked round the apartment, and
+nodded to this one and that, her great black eyes flashing like chain
+lightning. Her playing seemed to have a magical effect. No one could
+keep their feet still. Even the dignified president patted his, marking
+the measure of her prancing fingers. I could have danced wildly myself,
+for I never heard any thing so inspiring to the animal spirits as those
+wizard strains. Every countenance was lighted with animation, save one,
+and that was Ernest's. He stood immovable, pale, cold, and
+self-involved, like a being from another sphere. I remembered how
+differently he looked when he wooed me to the garden's moonlight walks,
+and how the warm and gentle thoughts that then beamed in his eyes seemed
+frozen and dead, and I wondered if they were extinguished forever.</p>
+
+<p>"How stupid!" exclaimed Miss Melville, suddenly stopping, and turning
+round on the pivot of the music stool till she commanded a full view of
+the drawing-room. "I thought you would all be dancing by this time.
+There is no use in playing to such inanimate mortals. And you," said
+she, suddenly turning to Ernest, "you remind me of the prince, the
+enchanted prince in the Arabian Nights, only he was half marble, you are
+a whole statue. You do not like music. I pity you."</p>
+
+<p>"I have my own peculiar tastes," he answered quietly; "some nerves are
+more delicately strung than others."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you imply that <i>my</i> playing is too loud for delicate nerves? Why,
+that is nothing to what I can do. That is my company music. When I am at
+home I give full scope to my powers."</p>
+
+<p>"We are perfectly satisfied with the specimen we have heard," said he,
+smiling; how could he help it? and every one laughed, none more heartily
+than the gay musician herself. I never heard such a laugh before, so
+merry, so contagious; such a rich, round, ringing laugh; dying away one
+moment, then bursting out again in such a chorus!</p>
+
+<p>All at once she fixed her eyes on me, and starting up, came directly to
+me, planting her tall, finely formed, firm-set figure in the midst of
+the group around me.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, <i>you</i> must play and sing too. I have no doubt your style will
+suit Mr. Linwood's delicate nerves."</p>
+
+<p>"I never play," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor sing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only at home."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a face of music, I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I have a heart to appreciate it; that is a great gift."</p>
+
+<p>"But why don't you sing and play? How do you expect to pass current in
+society, without being able to hang on the instrument as I do, or creep
+over it with mouselike fingers as most young ladies do? I suppose you
+are very learned&mdash;very accomplished? How many languages do you speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only two at present," I answered, excessively amused by her
+eccentricity, and falling into her vein with a facility that quite
+surprised myself. "I generally find the English tongue sufficient to
+express my ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose one of the two is German. You will be considered a mere
+nobody here, if you do not understand German. It is the fashion; the
+paroxysm; German literature, German taste, and German transcendentalism;
+I have tried them all, but they will not do for me. I must have sunshine
+and open air. I must see where I am going, and understand what I am
+doing. I abhor mysticism, as I do deceit. Are you frank, Miss Gabriella?
+You have such a pretty name, I shall take the liberty of using it. Lynn
+is too short; it sounds like an abbreviation of Linwood."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean by frankness, a disposition to tell all I think and feel, I
+am not frank," I answered, without noticing her last remark, which
+created a smile in others.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not like to hear people express <i>all</i> their thoughts, good, bad,
+or indifferent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I do not. I like to have them winnowed before they are uttered."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will not like <i>me</i>, and I am sorry for it. I have taken an
+amazing fancy to you. Never mind; I shall take you by storm when we get
+to Grandison Place. Do you know I am going home with you? Are you not
+delighted?"</p>
+
+<p>She burst into one of her great, rich laughs, at the sight of my
+dismayed countenance. I really felt annihilated at the thought. There
+was something so overpowering, so redundant about her, I expected to be
+weighed down,&mdash;overshadowed. She going to Grandison Place! Alas, what a
+transformation there would be! Adieu to the quiet walks, the evening
+readings, the morning flower gatherings; adieu to sentiment and
+tranquillity, to poetry and romance. Why had Mrs. Linwood invited so
+strange a guest? Perhaps she was self-invited.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you what I am going for," she said, bending her face to mine and
+speaking in a whisper that sounded like a whistle in my ear; "I am going
+to animate that man of stone. Why have not you done it, juxtaposited as
+you are? You do not make use of the fire-arms with which nature has
+supplied you. If I had such a pair of eyes, I would slay like David my
+tens of thousands every day."</p>
+
+<p>"The difficulty would be in finding victims," I answered. "The
+inhabitants of the town where I reside do not number more than two or
+three thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I would make it populous. I would draw worshippers from the four
+points of the earth,&mdash;and yet it would be a greater triumph to subdue
+one proud, hitherto impregnable heart."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes flashed like gunpowder as she uttered this, <i>sotto voce</i> it is
+true, but still loud enough to be heard half across the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodby," she suddenly exclaimed, "they are beckoning me; I must go; try
+to like me, precious creature; I shall be quite miserable if you do
+not."</p>
+
+<p>Then passing her arm round me, an arm firm, polished, and white as
+ivory, she gave me a loud, emphatic kiss, laughed, and left me almost as
+much confused as if one of the other sex had taken the same liberty.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she," thought I, "a young man in disguise?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>What am I writing?</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I throw down the pen, saying to myself, "it is all folly, all
+verbiage. There is a history within worth perusing, but I cannot bring
+it forth to light. I turn over page after page with the fingers of
+thought. I see characters glowing or darkened with passion,&mdash;lines
+alternately bright and shadowy, distinct and obscure, and it seems an
+easy thing to make a transcript of these for the outward world."</p>
+
+<p>Easy! it requires the recording angel's pen to register the history of
+the human heart. "The thoughts that breathe, the thoughts that burn,"
+how can they be expressed? The mere act of clothing them in words makes
+them grow cold and dull. The molten gold, the fused iron hardens and
+chills in the forming mould.</p>
+
+<p>Easy! "Oh yes," the critic says, "it is an easy thing to write; only
+follow nature, and you cannot err." But nature is as broad as the
+universe, as high as the heavens, and as deep as the seas. It is but a
+small portion we can condense even on hundreds of pages of foolscap
+paper. If that portion be of love, the cold philosopher turns away in
+disdain and talks of romantic maids and moonstruck boys, as if the
+subject were fit alone for them. And yet love is the great motive
+principle of nature, the burning sun of the social system. Blot it out,
+and every other feeling and passion would sink in the darkness of
+eternal night. Byron's awful dream would be realized,&mdash;darkness would
+indeed be the universe. They who praise a writer for omitting love from
+the page which purports to be a record of life, would praise God for
+creating a world, over whose sunless realms no warmth or light was
+diffused, (if such a creation were possible,)&mdash;a world without flowers
+or music, without hope or joy.</p>
+
+<p>But as the sun is only an emanation from the first great fountain of
+light and glory, so love is but an effluence from the eternal source of
+love divine.</p>
+
+<p>"Bright effluence of bright essence increate." And woe to her, who,
+forgetting this heavenly union, bathes her heart in the earthly stream,
+without seeking the living spring whence it flows; who worships the
+fire-ray that falls upon the altar, without giving glory to him from
+whom it descended. The stream will become a stagnant pool, exhaling
+pestilence and death; the fire-ray will kindle a devouring flame,
+destroying the altar, with the gift and the heart a <i>burning bush</i>, that
+will blaze forever without consuming.</p>
+
+<p>Whither am I wandering?</p>
+
+<p>Imagine me now, in a very different scene to the president's illuminated
+drawing-room. Instead of the wild buzzing of mingling voices, I hear the
+mournful sighing of the breeze through the weeping grave trees; and ever
+and anon there comes a soft, stealing sound through the long, swaying
+grass, like the tread of invisible feet. I am alone with my mother's
+spirit. The manuscript, that is to reveal the mystery of my parentage,
+is in my hand. The hour is come, when without violating the commands of
+the dead, I may claim it as my own, and remove the hermetic seal which
+death has stamped. Where else could I read it? My own room, once so
+serenely quiet, was no longer a sanctuary,&mdash;for Margaret Melville dashed
+through the house, swinging open the doors as abruptly as a March wind,
+and her laugh filled every nook and corner of the capacious mansion. How
+could I unseal the sacred history of my mother's sorrows within the
+sound of that loud, echoing ha, ha?</p>
+
+<p>I could not; so I stole away to a spot, where sacred silence has set up
+its everlasting throne. The sun had not yet gone down, but the shadows
+of the willows lengthened on the grass. I sat at the foot of the grave
+leaning against a marble slab, and unsealed, with cold and trembling
+hands, my mother's <i>heart</i>, for so that manuscript seemed to me.</p>
+
+<p>At first I could not see the lines, for my tears rained down so fast
+they threatened to obliterate the delicate characters; but after
+repeated efforts I acquired composure enough to read the following brief
+and thrilling history. It was the opening of the sixth seal of my life.
+The stars of hope fell, as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she
+is shaken by a mighty wind, and the heaven of my happiness departed as a
+scroll when it is rolled together, and the mountains and islands of
+human trust were moved out of their places.</p>
+
+
+<p>MY MOTHER'S HISTORY.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, before your eyes shall rest on these pages, mine will be
+closed in the slumbers of death. Let not your heart be troubled, my only
+beloved, at the record of wrongs which no longer corrode; of sorrows
+which are all past away. 'In my Father's house are many mansions,' and
+one of them is prepared for me. It is my Saviour's promise, and I
+believe it as firmly as if I saw the golden streets of the New
+Jerusalem, where that heavenly mansion is built.</p>
+
+<p>"Weep not, then, my child, my orphan darling, over a past which cannot
+be recalled; let not its shadow rest too darkly upon you,&mdash;if there is
+joy in the present, be grateful; if there is hope in the future,
+rejoice.</p>
+
+<p>"You have often asked me to tell you where I lived when I was a little
+child; whether my home was a gray cottage like ours, in the woods; and
+whether I had a mother whom I loved as dearly as you loved me. I have
+told you that my first feeble life-wail mingled with her dying groan,
+and you wondered how one could live without a mother's love.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in that rugged fortress, whose embattled walls are washed by
+the majestic Bay of Chesapeake. My father held a captain's commission in
+the army, and was stationed for many years at this magnificent,
+insulated bulwark. My father, at the time of my mother's death, was a
+young and gallant officer, and I was his only child. It is not strange
+that he should marry again; for the grief of man seldom survives the
+allotted period of mourning, and it was natural that he should select a
+gay and brilliant woman, for the second choice is generally a striking
+contrast to the first. My mother, I am told, was one of those gentle,
+dove-like, pensive beings, who nestled in her husband's heart, and knew
+no world beyond. My step-mother loved the world and its pleasures better
+than husband, children, and home. She had children of her own, who were
+more the objects of her pride than her love. Every day, they were
+dressed for exhibition, petted and caressed, and then sent back to the
+nursery, where they could not interfere with the pleasures of their
+fashionable mamma. Could I expect those tender cares which the yearning
+heart of childhood craves, as its daily sustenance? She was not harsh or
+despotic, but careless and indifferent. She did not care for me; and
+provided I kept out of her way, she was willing I should amuse myself in
+the best manner I pleased. My father was kind and caressing, when he had
+leisure to indulge his parental sensibilities; but he could not
+sympathize in my childish joys and sorrows, for I dared not confide them
+to him. He was a man, and, moreover, there was something in the gilded
+pomp of his martial dress, that inspired too much awe for childish
+familiarity. I used to gaze at him, when he appeared on military parade,
+as if he were one of the demi-gods of the ancient world. He had an erect
+and warlike bearing, a proud, firm step, and his gold epaulette with its
+glittering tassels flashing in the sunbeams, his crimson sash
+contrasting so splendidly with the military blue, his shining sword and
+waving plume,&mdash;all impressed me with a grandeur that was overpowering.
+It dazzled my eye, but did not warm my young heart.</p>
+
+<p>"As I grew older, I exhibited a remarkable love of reading, and as no
+one took the trouble to direct my tastes, I seized every book which came
+within my reach and devoured it, with the avidity of a hungry and
+unoccupied mind. My father was a gentleman of pure and elegant taste,
+and had he dreamed that I was exposed, without guardianship, to
+dangerous influences, he would have shielded and warned me. But he
+believed the care of children under twelve years of age devolved on
+their mother, and he was always engrossed with the duties of a
+profession which he passionately loved, or the society of his brother
+officers, usually so fascinating and convivial.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to take my book, which was generally some wild, impassioned
+romance, and wandering to the ramparts, seat myself by the shining
+pyramids of cannon-balls; and while the blue waves of the Chesapeake
+rolled in murmuring music by, or, lashed by the ocean wind, heaved in
+foaming billows, roaring against the walls, I yielded myself to the
+wizard spell of genius and passion. The officers as they passed would
+try to break the enchantment by gay and sportive words, but all in vain.
+I have sat there, drenched by the salt sea-spray, and knew it not. I was
+called the little bookworm, the prodigy, the <i>dream-girl</i>, a name you
+have inherited, my darling Gabriella; and my father seemed proud of the
+reputation I had established. But while my imagination was
+preternaturally developed, my heart was slumbering, and my soul
+unconscious of life's great aim.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus unguarded by precept, unguided by example, I was sent from home to
+a boarding-school, where I acquired the usual education and
+accomplishments obtained at fashionable female seminaries. During my
+absence from home, my two step-sisters, who were thought too young to
+accompany me, and my infant step-brother, died in the space of one week,
+smitten by that destroying angel of childhood, the scarlet fever.</p>
+
+<p>"I had been at school two years when I made my first visit home. My
+step-mother was then in the weeds of mourning, and of course excluded
+herself in a measure from gay society; but I marvelled that sorrow had
+not impaired the bloom of her cheek, or quenched the sparkle of her
+cold, bright eye. Her heart was not buried in the grave of her
+children,&mdash;it belonged to the world, to which she panted to return.</p>
+
+<p>"But my father mourned. There was a shadow on his manly brow, which I
+had never seen before. I was, now, his only child, the representative of
+his once beloved Rosalie, and the pure, fond love of his early years
+revived again in me. I look back upon those two months, when I basked in
+the sunshine of parental tenderness for the first, the <i>only</i> time, as a
+portion of my life most dear and holy. I sighed when I thought of the
+years when we had been comparatively so far apart, and my heart grew to
+his with tender adhesiveness and growing love. The affections, which my
+worldly step-mother had chilled and repressed, and which the death of
+his other children had blighted, were now all mine, renovated and
+warmed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gabriella! very precious is a father's love. It is an emblem of the
+love of God for the dependent beings he has created; so kind, so
+protecting, so strong, and yet so tender! Would to God, my poor,
+defrauded child, you could have known what this God-resembling love
+is,&mdash;but your orphanage has been the most sad, the most dreary,&mdash;the
+most unhallowed. Almighty Father of the universe, have mercy on my
+child! Protect and bless her when this wasting, broken heart no longer
+beats; when the frail shield of a mother's love is taken from her, and
+she is left <i>alone</i>&mdash;<i>alone</i>&mdash;<i>alone</i>. Oh! my God, have pity&mdash;have pity!
+Forsake her not!"</p>
+
+<p>The paper was blistered with the tears of the writer. I dropped it on
+the grave, unable to go on. I cast myself on the grass-covered mould,
+and pressed it to my bosom, as if there was vitality in the cold clods.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my mother!" I exclaimed, and strange and dreary sounded my voice in
+that breathing stillness. "Has God heard thy prayers? Will he hear the
+cries of the fatherless? Will he have pity on my forsaken youth?"</p>
+
+<p>I would have given worlds to have realized that this mighty God was
+near; that he indeed cared with a father's love for the orphan mourner,
+committed in faith to his all-embracing arms. But I still worshipped him
+as far-off, enthroned on high, in the heaven of heavens, which cannot
+contain the full glory of his presence. I saw him on the burning
+mountain, in the midst of thunder and lightning and smoke,&mdash;a God of
+consuming fire, before whose breath earthly joys and hopes withered and
+dried, like blossoms cast into the furnace.</p>
+
+<p>But did not God once hide his face of love from his own begotten Son?
+And shall not the <i>eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani</i> of the forsaken heart
+sometimes ascend amid the woes and trials and wrongs of life, from the
+great mountain of human misery, the smoking Sinai, whose clouded summit
+quakes with the footsteps of Deity?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I again resumed the manuscript, trembling for the revelations which it
+might make.</p>
+
+<p>"Never again," wrote my mother, "did I behold my noble, gallant father.
+His death was sudden, as if shot down in the battle field, without one
+warning weakness or pain. In the green summer of his days he fell, and
+long did my heart vibrate from the shock. How desolate to me was the
+home to which I returned! The household fire was indeed extinguished.
+The household god laid low. I saw at one glance that in my breast alone
+his memory was enshrined; that there alone was sacred incense burning.
+Mrs. Lynn, (I will speak of her by her name hereafter,) though only one
+year had passed since his death, was assuming those light, coquettish
+airs which accord as little with the robes of widowhood as the hues of
+the rainbow or the garlands of spring.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw with exquisite pain and shame, that she looked upon me as a rival
+of her maturer charms, and gladly yielded to my wish for retirement. She
+always spoke of me as 'the child,' the 'little bookworm,' impressing
+upon the minds of all the idea of my extreme juvenility. I <i>was</i> young;
+but I had arrived to years of womanhood, and my stature equalled hers.</p>
+
+<p>"I will pass on to the scene which decided my destiny. I do not wish to
+swell the volume of my life. Let it be brief as it is sad.</p>
+
+<p>"Very near the fortress is another rocky bulwark, rising out of the
+waves in stern and rugged majesty, known by the peculiar name of the
+Rip-Raps. It is the work of man, who paved the ocean bed with rocks, and
+conceived the design of a lofty castle, from whose battlements the
+star-spangled banner should wave, and whose massy turrets should
+perpetuate the honors of Carolina's most gifted son. The design was
+grand, but has never been completed. It has, however, finished
+apartments, which form a kind of summer hotel, where many statesmen
+often resort, that they may lay down, for a while, the burden of care,
+and breathe an atmosphere pure from political corruption, and cool from
+party zeal and strife.</p>
+
+<p>"At the time of which I speak the chief magistrate of the nation sought
+refuge there for a short while, from the oppressive responsibilities of
+his exalted station, and regardless of his wish for retirement, or
+rather irresistibly impelled to pay honors to one whose brows were
+wreathed with the soldier's laurel as well as the statesman's crown,
+every one sought his rocky and wave-washed retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Lynn joined a party of ladies, who, escorted by officers, went
+over in barges to be introduced to the gallant veteran. The martial
+spirit of my father throbbed high in my bosom, and I longed to behold
+one, whom he would have delighted to honor. Mrs. Lynn did not urge me,
+but there were others who supplied her deficiency, and convinced me I
+was not considered an intruder. Among the gentlemen who composed our
+party was a stranger, by the name of St. James, to whom Mrs. Lynn paid
+the most exclusive attention. She was still in the bloom of womanhood,
+and though far from being beautiful, was showy and attractive. All the
+embellishments of dress were called into requisition to enhance the
+charms of nature, and to produce the illusion of youth. She always
+sought the admiration of strangers, and Mr. St. James was sufficiently
+distinguished in appearance to render him worthy of her fascinations. I
+merely noticed that he had a fine person, a graceful air, and a musical
+voice; then casting my eyes on the sea-green waters, over which our
+light barge was bounding, I did not lift them again till we were near
+the dark gray rocks of the Rip-Raps, and I beheld on the brink of the
+stone steps we were to ascend, a tall and stately form, whose foam-white
+locks were rustling in the breeze of ocean. There he stood, like the
+statue of liberty, throned on a granite cliff, with waves rolling below
+and sunbeams resting on his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"As we stepped from the barge and ascended the rugged steps, the
+chieftain bent his warlike figure and drew us to the platform with all
+the grace and gallantry of youth. As I was the youngest of the party, he
+received me with the most endearing familiarity. I almost thought he was
+going to kiss me, so close he brought his bronzed cheek to mine.</p>
+
+<p>"'God bless you, my child!' said he, taking both hands in his and
+looking earnestly in my face. 'I knew your father well. He was a gallant
+officer,&mdash;a noble, honest man. Peace to his ashes! The soldier fills an
+honored grave.'</p>
+
+<p>"This tribute to my father's memory filled my eyes with tears, while my
+cheek glowed with gratified pride. I was proud that I was a soldier's
+daughter, proud to hear his praise from the lips of valor and of rank.</p>
+
+<p>"I had brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers as a girlish offering to
+the veteran. I had been thinking of something pretty and poetical to say
+when I presented it, but the words died on my lips, and I extended it in
+silence with the trembling hand of diffidence.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now,' said he, with a benignant smile, turning the flowers round and
+round, as if admiring them all, 'I am the envy of every young man
+present. They would all exchange the laurels of the soldier for the
+blossoms gathered by the hand of beauty.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Let me have the privilege of holding them for you, sir, while we
+remain,' said Mr. St. James, with a courtly grace consistent with the
+name he bore, and they were submitted with equal courtesy to his
+keeping.</p>
+
+<p>"These are trifles to relate, my Gabriella, but they had an influence on
+my life and yours. They laid the foundation of a dislike and jealousy in
+the mind of my step-mother, that embittered all our future intercourse.
+'The child' was distinguished, not only by the hero who was the lion of
+the scene, but by the stranger she was resolved to charm, and her
+usually bright countenance was clouded with malice and discontent.
+Forgetful of politeness, she hurried away those who came in the same
+barge with herself, anxious to see me immured once more in the walls of
+the Fort.</p>
+
+<p>"After our distinguished host had bidden farewell to his elder guests,
+whom he accompanied to the steps, he turned to me with a look so benign
+and affectionate I never shall forget it, and stooping, kissed my
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"'As your father's friend, and your country's father, dear child, permit
+me'&mdash;he said, then giving my hand to St. James, who was waiting to
+assist me into the barge, bowed a dignified adieu.</p>
+
+<p>"'You do indeed make us envy you, sir,' cried St. James, as he stood
+with uncovered head in the centre of the boat, while it glided from the
+walls, and holding up the bouquet which he had had the boldness to
+retain.</p>
+
+<p>"The statesman smiled and shook his snow-crowned head, and there he
+stood, long after we receded from the rocks, his tall, erect figure
+defined on the dark blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw that noble form again. The brave old soldier died a soldier
+of the Cross, and fills a Christian's grave. He sleeps in death,
+embosomed in the quiet shades he loved best in life.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'And Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To deck the turf that wraps his clay.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I did not think of paying this tribute to his memory; but that scene
+was so indelibly stamped on my mind, I could not help delineating it. It
+was then and there I first beheld your father.</p>
+
+<p>"The barge was rowed by eight soldiers, dressed in uniform, and their
+oars all dipped and flashed with simultaneous motion. Nothing could be
+more harmoniously beautiful; but the restless spirit of Mrs. Lynn
+suggested a change.</p>
+
+<p>"'Raise the sail,' she exclaimed, 'this is too monotonous. I prefer it a
+thousand times to rowing.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I beg, I entreat, madam,' cried I, unable to repress my apprehensions,
+'do not have it done now. I am very foolish, but I cannot help it,
+indeed I cannot.'</p>
+
+<p>"I was not accustomed to the water as she was, having been absent so
+long; and even when a child, I had an unconquerable dread of sailing.
+She knew this, and it prompted her suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"'Affectation of fear may be pardoned in a <i>child</i>, Rosalie,' said she,
+with a sarcastic smile, 'but it is nevertheless very unbecoming.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do not indulge one apprehension,' exclaimed St. James, stepping over
+one of the seats and sitting down at my side. 'I am one of the best
+sailors in the world. <i>Non timui&mdash;C&aelig;sarem vehis.</i> Give the sails to the
+winds, boys. I will make them my vassals.'</p>
+
+<p>"His eyes beamed with conscious power, as the white sheet unrolled and
+swelled gracefully in the breeze. It was strange, all my fears were
+gone, and I felt as serene a confidence as if his vaunting words were
+true. The strong will, the magic smile were acting on me like a spell,
+and I yielded unresistingly to their influence.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Lynn would gladly have revoked her commands, since they had called
+forth such an expression of interest for me; but the boat swept on with
+triumphant speed, and even I participated in the exhilaration of its
+motion. Just before we reached the shore, Mrs. Lynn bent forward and
+took the flowers from the hand of St. James before he was aware of her
+design.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is that mignonette which is so oppressively fragrant?' she asked,
+lifting the bouquet to her nose. She was seated near the side of the
+barge, and her head was gracefully inclined. Whether from accident or
+design, I think it was the latter, the flowers dropped into the river.</p>
+
+<p>"In the flashing of an eye-glance, St. James leaped over the boat side,
+seized the flowers, held them up in triumph over his head, and swam to
+the shore. He stood there with dripping garments and smiling lips as we
+landed, while the paleness of terror still blanched my face, and its
+agitation palpitated in my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"'I must deny myself the pleasure of escorting you to the threshold,'
+said he, glancing at me, while he shook the brine-drops from his arms.
+His head had not been submerged. He had held that royally above the
+waves. 'But,' added he, with graceful gallantry, 'I have rescued a
+trophy which I had silently vowed to guard with my life;&mdash;a treasure
+doubly consecrated by the touch of valor and the hand of beauty.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' exclaimed Mrs. Lynn, as soon as we were at home, tossing her
+bonnet disdainfully on the sofa, 'if I ever was disgusted with boldness
+and affectation I have been to-day. But one thing let me tell you, Miss
+Rosalie, if you cannot learn more propriety of manners, if you make such
+sickening efforts to attract the attention of strangers, I will never
+allow you to go in public, at least in company with me.'</p>
+
+<p>"I was perfectly thunderstruck. She had never given such an exhibition
+of temper before. I had always thought her cold and selfish, but she
+seemed to have a careless good-nature, which did not prepare me for this
+ebullition of passion. I did not reflect that this was the first time I
+had clashed with her interests,&mdash;that inordinate vanity is the parent of
+envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not attempt to reply, but hastily turned to leave the room. She
+had been my father's wife, and the sacredness of <i>his</i> name shielded her
+from disrespect.</p>
+
+<p>"'Stop, Miss,' she cried, 'and hear what I have to say. If Mr. St. James
+calls this evening, you are not to make your appearance. He was only
+making sport of your childishness to-day, and cares no more for you than
+the sands of the sea-shore. He is no company for you, I assure you. He
+is a gentleman of the world, and has no taste for the bread and butter
+misses just let loose from a boarding-school. Do you hear me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do, madam.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you mean to obey?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do, madam.'</p>
+
+<p>"I will not attempt to describe my feelings that night as I sat alone in
+my room, and heard the voice of St. James mingling with my
+step-mother's, which was modulated to its sweetest, most seductive tone.
+The desolateness of my future life spread out before me. A home without
+love! Oh, what dreariness! Oh, what iciness! Had my father lived, how
+different it would have been. I thought of the happy vacation, when he
+opened his warm heart and took me in, and then I wept to think how cold
+the world seemed since he had left it.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a midsummer's night, and all the windows were open to admit the
+sea-born breeze. They were open, but bars of gauze wire were put up at
+the windows and doors to exclude the mosquitos. A very small balcony
+opened out of my room, where I usually sat listening to the inspiring
+strains of the band, that, marching on the ramparts, sent their rich,
+thrilling notes in rolling echoes over the moonlight waves.</p>
+
+<p>"It was playing now, that martial band, and the bay was one sheet of
+burning silver. I had never seen it look so resplendently beautiful, and
+I could not help thinking that beneath that gently rippling glory, there
+was peace for the sad and persecuted heart. As I sat there leaning on
+the railing, gazing into the shining depths of ocean, St. James passed.
+It was very early in the evening. Why had he left so soon? He started,
+paused, turned, and approached the balcony.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why are you so cruel as to refuse to see me, after showing such
+knightly devotion to your cause?' he asked, leaning on the side of the
+balcony and looking earnestly in my face, on which the tear-drops were
+still glittering.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have not refused,' I answered hastily, 'but do not wait to talk with
+me now. Mrs. Lynn would be much displeased; she would consider it very
+improper. I pray you not to think me rude, but indeed I must retire.'</p>
+
+<p>"I rose in an agony of terror, lest my step-mother should hear his
+voice, and wreak her wrath on me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fear not,' he cried, catching my hand and detaining me. 'She is
+engaged with company, who will not hasten away as I have done. I will
+not stay long, nor utter one syllable that is not in harmony with the
+holy tranquillity of the hour. I am a stranger in name, but is there not
+something that tells you I was born to be your friend? I know there
+is,&mdash;I see it in your ingenuous, confiding eye. Only answer me one
+question,&mdash;Was it your <i>own will</i>, or the will of another that governed
+your actions to-night?'</p>
+
+<p>"'The will of another,' I answered. 'Let that be a sufficient reason for
+urging your departure. If I am forbidden to see you in the parlor, I
+shall certainly be upbraided for speaking with you here.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was very imprudent in me to speak so freely of my step-mother's
+conduct. No questions of his should have drawn from me such an
+assertion. But I was so young and inexperienced, and I had been goaded
+almost to madness by her stinging rebukes. It was natural that I should
+wish to vindicate myself from the charge of rudeness her
+misrepresentations would bring against me.</p>
+
+<p>"'I find you in sadness and tears,' said he, in a low, gentle tone; so
+low it scarcely rose above the murmuring waves. 'They should not be the
+companions of beauty and youth. Let me be your friend,&mdash;let me teach you
+how to banish them.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, no,' I cried, frightened at my own boldness in continuing the
+conversation so long. 'You are not my friend, or you would not expose me
+to censure. Indeed you are not.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am gone; but tell me one thing,&mdash;you are not a prisoner?'</p>
+
+<p>"'O no; heaven forbid.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You walk on the ramparts.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Sometimes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Adieu,&mdash;we shall meet again.'</p>
+
+<p>"He was gone, and sweetly lingered in my ear the echo of his gently
+persuasive voice. He had vanished like the bark that had just glided
+along the waters, and like that had left a wake of brightness behind.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not sleep. Excitement kept me wakeful and restless. I heard the
+measured tread of the sentinel walking his 'lonely round,' and it did
+not sound louder than the beating of my own heart. Hark! a soft, breezy
+sound steals up just beneath my window. It is the vibration of the
+guitar,&mdash;a deeptoned, melodious voice accompanies it. It is the voice of
+St. James. He sings, and the strains fall upon the stilly night, soft as
+the silver dew.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, I told you with my dying lips never to unseal this
+manuscript till you were awakened to woman's destiny,&mdash;<i>love</i>. If you do
+not sympathize with my emotions, lay it down, my child, the hour is not
+yet come. If you have never heard a voice, whose faintest tones sink
+into the lowest depths of your soul,&mdash;if you have never met a glance,
+whose lightning rays penetrate to the innermost recesses of the heart,
+reseal these pages. The feelings with which you cannot sympathize will
+seem weakness and folly, and a daughter must not scorn a mother's bosom
+record.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember how lonely, how unfriended I was. The only eye that had beamed
+on me with love was closed in death, the only living person on whom I
+had any claims was cruel and unkind. Blame me not that I listened to a
+stranger's accents, that I received his image into my heart, that I
+enthroned it there, and paid homage to the kingly guest.</p>
+
+<p>"It is in vain to linger thus. I met him again and again. I learned to
+measure time and space by one line&mdash;where he <i>was</i>, and where he was
+<i>not</i>. I learned to bear harshness, jeering, and wrong, because a door
+of escape was opened, and the roses of paradise seemed blushing beyond.
+I suffered him to be my friend&mdash;lover&mdash;husband."</p>
+
+<p>I dropped the manuscript that I might clasp my hands in an ecstasy of
+gratitude&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My God,&mdash;I thank thee!" I exclaimed, sinking on my knees, and repeating
+the emphatic words: "<i>friend&mdash;lover-husband</i>." "God of my mother,
+forgive my dark misgivings."</p>
+
+<p>Now I could look up. Now I could hold the paper with a firm hand. There
+was nothing in store that I could not bear to hear, no misfortune I had
+not courage to meet. Alas! alas!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Yes," continued my mother; "we were married within heaven dedicated
+walls by a man of God, and the blessing of the holy, blessed, and
+glorious Trinity was pronounced upon our union. Remember this, my dearly
+beloved child, remember that in the bosom of the church, surrounded by
+all the solemnities of religion, with the golden ring, the uttered vow,
+and on bended knee, I was wedded to Henry Gabriel St. James.</p>
+
+<p>"My step-mother refused to be present. She had sufficient regard to the
+world's opinion to plead indisposition as an excuse; but it was a false
+one. She never forgave me for winning the love of the man whom she had
+herself resolved to charm, and from the hour of our introduction to the
+day of my marriage, my life was clouded by the gloom of her ill temper.</p>
+
+<p>"We immediately departed for New York, where St. James resided, and our
+bridal home was adorned with all the elegancies which classic taste
+could select, and prodigal love lavish upon its idol. I was happy then,
+beyond the dream of imagination. St. James was the fondest, the kindest,
+the tenderest&mdash;O my God! must I add&mdash;the falsest of human beings? I did
+not love him then&mdash;I worshipped, I adored him. I have told you that my
+childish imagination was fed by wild, impassioned romances, and I had
+made to myself an ideal image, round which, like the maid of France, I
+hung the garlands of fancy, and knelt before its shrine.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever has been my after fate, I have known the felicity of loving in
+all its length and breadth and strength. And he, too, loved me
+passionately, devotedly. Strong indeed must have been the love that
+triumphed over principle, honor, and truth, that broke the most sacred
+of human ties, and dared the vengeance of retributive Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"St. James was an artist. He was not dependent entirely on his genius
+for his subsistence, though his fortune was not large enough to enable
+him to live in splendid indolence. He had been in Europe for the last
+few years, wandering amid the ruins of Italy, studying the grand old
+masters, summering in the valleys of Switzerland, beneath the shadow of
+its mountain heights, and polishing his bold, masterly sketches among
+the elegant artists of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"With what rapture I listened to his glowing descriptions of foreign
+lands, and what beautiful castles we built where we were to dwell
+together in the golden clime of Italy or the sunny bowers of France!</p>
+
+<p>"At length, my Gabriella, you were given to my arms, and the deep, pure
+fountain of a mother's love welled in my youthful bosom. But my life was
+wellnigh a sacrifice to yours. For weeks it hung trembling on a thread
+slender and weak as the gossamer's web. St. James watched over me, as
+none but guardian angels could watch, and I had another faithful and
+devoted nurse, our good and matchless Peggy. To her unsleeping
+vigilance, her strong heart and untiring arm, I owe in a great measure
+the restoration of my health, or rather the preservation of my life; my
+health was never entirely renovated.</p>
+
+<p>"When you were about five or six months old, St. James came to me with a
+troubled countenance. He was summoned away, very unexpectedly. He would
+probably be obliged to go as far as Texas before his return; he might be
+absent a month. Business of a perplexing nature, which it was impossible
+to explain then, called him from me, but he would shorten as much as
+possible the days of absence which would be dreary and joyless to him. I
+was overwhelmed with grief at the thought of his leaving me; my nerves
+were still weak, and I wept in all the abandonment of sorrow. I feared
+for him the dangers that beset the path of the traveller&mdash;sickness,
+death; but I feared not for his honor or truth. I relied upon his
+integrity, as I did upon the promises of the Holy Scriptures. I did hot
+urge him to explain the motives of his departure, satisfied that they
+were just and honorable.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! little did I think,&mdash;when he clasped me in a parting embrace when
+he committed us both so tenderly and solemnly to the guardianship of our
+Heavenly Father,&mdash;little did I think I should so soon seek to rend him
+from my heart as a vile, accursed monster; that I should shrink from the
+memory of his embraces as from the coils of the serpent, the fangs of
+the wolf. God in his mercy veils the future, or who could bear the
+burden of coming woe!</p>
+
+<p>"A few days after his departure, as I was seated in the nursery,
+watching your innocent witcheries as you lay cradled in the lap of
+Peggy, I was told a lady wished to see me. It was too early an hour for
+fashionable calls, and I went into the parlor expecting to meet one of
+those ministering spirits, who go about on errands of mercy, seeking the
+aid of the rich for the wants of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>"A lady was standing with her back to the door, seemingly occupied in
+gazing at a picture over the mantel-piece, an exquisite painting of St.
+James. Her figure was slight and graceful, and she struck me at once as
+having a foreign air. She turned round at my entrance, exhibiting a pale
+and agitated countenance; a countenance which though not beautiful, was
+painfully interesting. She had a soft olive complexion, and a full
+melancholy black eye, surcharged with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I motioned her to a seat, for I could not speak. Her agitation was
+contagious, and I waited in silent trepidation to learn the mystery of
+her emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"'Forgave me this intrusion,' said she, in hesitating accents; 'you look
+so young, so innocent, so lovely, my heart misgives me. I cannot, I dare
+not.'</p>
+
+<p>"She spoke in French, a language of which I was mistress, and I
+recognized at once the land of her birth. She paused, as if unable to
+proceed, while I sat, pale and cold as marble, wondering what awful
+revelation she would, but dared not make. Had she come to tell me of my
+husband's death,&mdash;was my first agonized thought, and I faintly
+articulated,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'My husband!'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Your</i> husband! Poor, deluded young creature. Alas! alas! I can
+forgive him for deserting me, but not for deceiving and destroying you.'</p>
+
+<p>"I started to my feet with a galvanic spring. My veins tingled as if
+fire were running through them, and my hair rose, startling with
+electric horror. I grasped her arm with a force she might have felt
+through covering steel, and looking her steadfastly in the face,
+exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'He <i>is</i> my husband; mine in the face of God and man. He is <i>my</i>
+husband, and the father of my child. I will proclaim it in the face of
+earth and heaven. I will proclaim it till my dying day. How dare you
+come to me with slanders so vile, false, unprincipled woman?'</p>
+
+<p>"She recoiled a few steps from me, and held up her deprecating hands.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have pity upon me, for I am very wretched,' she cried; 'were it not
+for my child I would die in silence and despair, rather than rouse you
+from your fatal dream, but I cannot see him robbed of his rights. I
+cannot see another usurping the name and place he was born to fill.
+Madam,' continued she, discarding her supplicating tone, and speaking
+with dignity and force, 'I am no false, unprincipled woman, inventing
+tales which I cannot corroborate. I am a wife, as pure in heart, as
+upright in purpose as you can be,&mdash;a mother as tender. Forsaken by him
+whom in spite of my wrongs I still too fondly love, I have left my
+native land, crossed the ocean's breadth, come a stranger to a strange
+country, that I might appeal to you for redress, and tell you that if
+you still persist in calling him your own, it will be in defiance of the
+laws of man and the canons of the living God.'</p>
+
+<p>"As she thus went on, her passions became roused, and flashed and
+darkened in her face with alternations so quick they mocked the sight.
+She spoke with the rapid tongue and impressive gesticulation of her
+country, and God's truth was stamped on every word. I felt it,&mdash;I knew
+it. She was no base, lying impostor. She was a wronged and suffering
+woman;&mdash;and he,&mdash;the idol of my soul,&mdash;the friend, lover, <i>husband</i> of
+my youth,&mdash;no, no! he could not be a villain! She was mad,&mdash;ha, ha,&mdash;she
+was mad! Bursting into a wild, hysteric laugh, I sunk back on the sofa,
+repeating,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Poor thing, she is mad! I wonder I did not know it sooner.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, madam, I am not mad,' she cried, in calmer tones; 'I sometimes
+wish I were. I am in the full possession of my reason, as I can
+abundantly prove. But little more than three years since, I was married
+to Gabriel Henry St. James, in Paris, my native city, and here is the
+certificate which proves the truth of my assertion.'</p>
+
+<p>"Taking a paper from her pocket-book, she held it towards me, so that I
+could read the writing, still retaining it in her own hand. I did not
+blame her,&mdash;oh, no! I should have done the same. I saw, what seemed
+blazing in fire, the names of Henry Gabriel St. James and Ther&eacute;sa
+Josephine La Fontaine united in marriage by the usual formula of the
+church.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not attempt to snatch it from her, or to destroy the fatal paper.
+I gazed upon it till the characters swelled out like black chords, and
+writhed in snaky convolutions.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you recognize this?' she asked, taking from her bosom a gold case,
+and touching a spring. It flew open and revealed the handsome features
+of St. James, beaming with the same expression as when I first beheld
+him, an expression I remembered but too well. She turned it in the case,
+and I saw written on the back in gold letters, 'For my beloved wife,
+Ther&eacute;sa Josephine.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was enough. The certificate might be a forgery, her tale a lie; but
+this all but breathing picture, these indubitable words, were proofs of
+blasting power. Cold, icy shiverings ran through my frame,&mdash;a cold,
+benumbing weight pressed down my heart,&mdash;a black abyss opened before
+me,&mdash;the earth heaved and gave way beneath me. With a shriek that seemed
+to breathe out my life, I fell forward at the feet of her whom I had so
+guiltlessly wronged."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Thus far had I read, with clenching teeth and rigid limbs, and brow on
+which chill, deadly drops were slowly gathering, when my mother's shriek
+seemed suddenly to ring in my ears,&mdash;the knell of a broken heart, a
+ruined frame,&mdash;and I sprang up and looked wildly round me. Where was I?
+Who was I?</p>
+
+<p>Were the heavens turned to brass and the sun to blood, or was yon
+saffron belt the gold of declining day,&mdash;yon crimson globe, the sun
+rolling through a hazy, sultry atmosphere? What meant that long green
+mound stretching at my side, that broken shaft, twined with the cypress
+vine? I clasped both hands over my temples, as these questions drifted
+through my mind, then bending my knees, I sunk lower and lower, till my
+head rested on the grave. I was conscious of but one wish&mdash;to stay there
+and die. The bolt of indelible disgrace quivered in my heart; why should
+I wish to live?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I did not become insensible, but I was dead to surrounding objects, dead
+to the present, dead to the future. The past, the terrible, the
+inexorable past, was upon me, trampling me, grinding me with iron heel,
+into the dust of the grave. I could not move, for its nightmare weight
+crushed me. I could not see, for its blackness shrouded me; nor hear,
+for its shrieks deafened me. Had I remained long in that awful
+condition, I should have become a maniac.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!" said a voice, which at any other moment would have wakened
+a thrill of rapture, "Gabriella, speak,&mdash;look up. Why do you do this?
+Why will you not speak? Do you not hear me?"</p>
+
+<p>I did try to speak, but my tongue seemed frozen. I did try to lift my
+head, but in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest Linwood, for it was he, knelt down by me, and putting his arms
+round me, raised me from the ground, without any volition of my own. I
+know not what state I was in. I was perfectly conscious; but had no more
+power over the movement of a muscle than if I were dead. My eyes were
+closed, and my head drooped on his breast, as he raised me, bowed by its
+own weight. I was in a kind of conscious catalepsy. He was alarmed,
+terrified. As he afterwards told me, he really believed me dead, and
+clasping me to him with an energy of which he was not aware, adjured me
+in the most tender and passionate manner to speak and tell him that I
+lived.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, my flower-girl, my darling!" he cried, pressing my cheek
+with those pure, despairing kisses with which love hallows death. Had I
+indeed passed the boundaries of life, for my spirit alone was conscious
+of caresses, whose remembrance thrilled through my being.</p>
+
+<p>The reaction was instantaneous. The chilled blood grew warm and rushed
+through every vein with wild rapidity. Then I became physically
+conscious, and glowing with confusion I raised myself from my reclining
+position, and attempted to look up into the face of Ernest. But I could
+not do it. Contending emotions deprived me of the power of self-command.</p>
+
+<p>"This is madness, Gabriella! This is suicide!" he exclaimed, lifting me
+from the grave, and still supporting me with his arm. "Why do you come
+here to nurse a grief so far beyond the limits of reason and religion?
+Why do you give your friends such exquisite pain, yourself such
+unnecessary misery?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not reproach me," I cried. "You know not what cause I have for
+anguish and despair."</p>
+
+<p>"Despair, Gabriella! You cannot know the meaning of that word. Despair
+belongs to guilt, and even that is not hopeless. And why do you come to
+this lone place of graves to weep, as if human sympathy were denied to
+your sorrows? Is not my mother kind,&mdash;is not Edith tender and
+affectionate? Am not I worthy to be trusted, as a friend,&mdash;a
+protector,&mdash;a redresser; and if need be, an avenger of wrongs?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own wrongs I might reveal; but those of the dead are sacred," I
+answered, stooping down and gathering up the manuscript, which was half
+concealed in the long, damp grass. "But do not think me ungrateful. What
+I owe to your mother and Edith words can never tell. In every prayer I
+breathe to heaven I shall call down blessings on their head. And you
+too,&mdash;you have been more than kind. I never can forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"If it be not too presumptuous, I will unite your name with theirs, and
+pray that God may bless you, now and ever more."</p>
+
+<p>"This will never do," said he, drawing me forcibly from the mournful
+place. "You <i>must</i> confide in my mother, Gabriella. A dark secret is a
+plague spot in the heart. Confide in my mother. It is due to her
+maternal love and guardianship. And beware of believing that any thing
+independent <i>of yourself</i> can alienate her affections. Can you walk? If
+it were not for leaving you alone, I would go and return with the
+carriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I am quite well and strong again."</p>
+
+<p>"Then lean on me, Gabriella. Shrink not from an arm which would gladly
+protect you from every danger and every wrong. Let us hasten, lest I
+utter words which I would not for worlds associate with a scene so cold
+and sad. Not where the shadow of death falls&mdash;no&mdash;not here."</p>
+
+<p>He hurried me through the gate, and then paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Rest here a moment," said he, "and recover your composure. We may meet
+with those who would wonder to see you thus, with your hair wildly
+flowing, your scarf loose and disordered."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," I exclaimed, my thoughts coming to the surface, and resting
+there with shame. I had forgotten that my bonnet was in my hand, that my
+comb had fallen, leaving my hair loose and dishevelled. Gathering up its
+length, and twisting it in thick folds around my head, I confined it
+with my bonnet, and smoothing my thin scarf, I took his arm in silence,
+and walked on through the purple gloom of twilight that deepened before
+us. Slight shivers ran through my frame. The dampness of the grave-yard
+clung to me, and the night dews were beginning to fall.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you cold, Gabriella?" he asked, folding my light mantle more
+closely round me. "You are not sufficiently protected from the dewy air.
+You are weary and chill. You do not lean on me. You do not confide in
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"In whom should I confide, then? Without father, brother, or protector,
+in whom should I confide, if ungrateful and untrusting I turn from you?"</p>
+
+<p>As I said this, I suffered my arm to rest more firmly on his, for my
+steps were indeed weary, and we were now ascending the hill. My heart
+was deeply touched by his kindness, and the involuntary ejaculations he
+uttered, the involuntary caresses he bestowed, when he believed me
+perfectly unconscious, were treasured sacredly there. We were now by the
+large elm-tree that shaded the way-side, beneath whose boughs I had so
+often paused to gaze on the valley below. Without speaking, he led me to
+this resting-place, and we both looked back, as wayfarers are wont to do
+when they stop in an ascending path.</p>
+
+<p>Calmly the shadows rested on the landscape, softly yet darkly they
+rolled down the slope of the neighboring hills and the distant
+mountains. In thin curlings, the gray smoke floated upwards and lay
+slumberously among the fleecy clouds. Here and there a mansion, lifted
+above the rest, shed from its glowing windows the reflection of
+departing day. Bright on the dusky gold of the west the evening-star
+shone and throbbed, like a pure love-thought in the heart of night; and,
+dimly glimmering above the horizon, the giant pen seemed writing the
+Mene Tekel of my clouded destiny on the palace walls of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>As we thus stood, lifted above the valley, involved in shadows, silent
+and alone, I could hear the beating of my heart, louder and louder in
+the breathing stillness.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!" said Ernest, in a low voice, and that <i>master-chord</i> which
+no hand but his had touched, thrilled at the sound. "If the spot on
+which we stand were a desert island, and the valley stretching around us
+the wide waste of ocean, and we the only beings in the solitude of
+nature, with your hand thus clasped in mine, and my heart thus throbbing
+near, with a love so strong, so deep, it would be to you in place of the
+whole world beside,&mdash;tell me, could you be happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could," was the low, irresistible answer; and my soul, like an
+illuminated temple, flashed with inward light. I covered my eyes to keep
+in the dazzling rays. I forgot the sad history of wrongs and disgrace
+which I had just been perusing;&mdash;I forgot that such words had breathed
+into my mother's ear, and that she believed them. I only remembered that
+Ernest Linwood loved me, and <i>that</i> love surrounded me with a luminous
+atmosphere, in which joy and hope fluttered their heavenly wings.</p>
+
+<p>How slight a thing will change the current of thought! I caught a
+glimpse of the granite walls of Grandison Place, and darkened by the
+shades, they seemed to frown upon me with their high turret and lofty
+colonnade, so ancestral and imposing. Then I remembered Mrs. Linwood and
+Edith,&mdash;then I remembered my mother, my <i>father</i>, and all the light went
+out in my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I had forgotten,&mdash;oh, how much I had forgotten," I cried, endeavoring
+to release myself from the arm that only tightened its hold. "Your
+mother never would forgive my presumption if she thought,&mdash;if she knew."</p>
+
+<p>"My mother loves you; but even if she did not, I am free to act, free to
+choose, as every man should be. I love and <i>revere</i> my mother, but there
+is a passion stronger than filial love and reverence, which goes on
+conquering and to conquer. She will not, she cannot oppose me."</p>
+
+<p>"But Edith, dear Edith, who loves you so devotedly! She will hate me if
+I dare to supplant her."</p>
+
+<p>"A sister never can be supplanted,&mdash;and least of all such a sister as
+Edith, Gabriella. If you do not feel that love so expands, so enlarges
+the heart, that it makes room for all the angels in heaven, you could
+not share my island home."</p>
+
+<p>"If you knew all,&mdash;if I could tell you all," I cried,&mdash;and again I felt
+the barbed anguish that prostrated me at the grave,&mdash;"and you <i>shall</i>
+know,&mdash;your generous love demands this confidence. When your mother has
+read the history of my parentage, I will place it in your hands; though
+my mother's character is as exalted and spotless as your own, there is a
+cloud over my name that will for ever rest upon it. Knowing <i>that</i>, you
+cannot, you will not wish to unite your noble, brilliant destiny with
+mine. This hour will be remembered as a dream, a bright, but fleeting
+dream."</p>
+
+<p>"What do I care for the past?" he exclaimed, detaining me as I
+endeavored to move on. "Talk not of a clouded name. Will not mine absorb
+it? What shaft of malice can pierce you, with my arm as a defence, and
+my bosom as a shield? Gabriella, it is you that I love, not the dead and
+buried past. You are the representative of all present joy and hope. I
+ask for nothing but your love,&mdash;your exclusive, boundless love,&mdash;a love
+that will be ready to sacrifice every thing but innocence and integrity
+for me,&mdash;that will cling to me in woe as in weal, in shame as in honor,
+in death as in life. Such is the love I give; and such I ask in return.
+Is it mine? Tell me not of opposing barriers; only tell me what your
+heart this moment dictates; forgetful of the past, regardless of the
+future? Is this love mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," I answered, looking up through fast-falling tears. "Why will
+you wring this confession from me, when you only know it too well?"</p>
+
+<p>"One question more, Gabriella, for your truth-telling lips to answer. Is
+this love only given in <i>return</i>? Did it not spring spontaneously forth
+from the warmth and purity of your own heart, without waiting the avowal
+of mine? Gratitude is not love. It is <i>stone</i>, not bread, to a spirit as
+exacting as mine."</p>
+
+<p>Again the truth was forced from me by his unconquerable will,&mdash;a will
+that opened the secret valves of thought, and rolled away the rock from
+the fountain of feeling. Even then I felt the despotism as well as the
+strength of his love.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot, I dare not, repeat all that he uttered. It would be deemed too
+extravagant, too high-wrought. And so it was. Let woman tremble rather
+than exult, when she is the object of a passion so intense. The devotion
+of her whole being cannot satisfy its inordinate demands. Though the
+flame of the sacrifice ascend to heaven, it still cries, "Bring gifts to
+the altar,&mdash;bring the wine of the banquet,&mdash;the incense of the
+temple,&mdash;the fuel of the hearth-stone. Bring all, and still I crave.
+Give all, I ask for more."</p>
+
+<p>Not then was this warning suggested. To be wildly, passionately loved,
+was my heart's secret prayer. Life itself would be a willing sacrifice
+to this devotion. Suspicion that stood sentinel at the door of Faith,
+Distrust that threw its shadow over the sunshine of truth, and Jealousy,
+doubting, yet adoring still, would be welcomed as household guests, if
+the attendants of this impassioned love. Such was the dream of my
+girlhood.</p>
+
+<p>When we entered the lawn, lights began to glimmer in the house. I
+trembled at the idea of meeting Mrs. Linwood, or the Amazonian Meg.
+There was a side door through which I might pass unobserved, and by this
+ingress I sought my chamber and locked the door. A lamp was burning on
+the table. Had I lingered abroad so late? Had the absence of Ernest been
+observed?</p>
+
+<p>I sat down on the side of the bed, threw off my bonnet and scarf, shook
+my hair over my shoulders, and pushed it back with both hands from my
+throbbing temples. I wanted room. Such crowding thoughts, such
+overflowing emotions, could not be compressed in those four walls. I
+rose and walked the room back and forth, without fear of being
+over-heard, on the soft carpet of velvet roses. What revelations had
+been made known to me since I had quitted that room! How low I had been
+degraded,&mdash;how royally exalted! A child unentitled to her father's
+name!&mdash;a maiden, endowed with a princely heart! I walked as one in a
+dream, doubting my own identity. But one master thought governed every
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"He loves me!" I repeated to myself. "Ernest Linwood loves me! Whatever
+be the future, that present bliss is mine. I have tasted woman's
+highest, holiest joy,&mdash;the joy of loving and being beloved. Sorrow and
+trial may be mine; but this remembrance will remain, a blessed light
+through the darkness of time,&mdash;'a star on eternity's ocean.'"</p>
+
+<p>As I passed and repassed the double mirror, my reflected figure seemed
+an apparition gliding by my side, I paused and stood before one of them,
+and I thought of the time when, first awakened to the consciousness of
+personal influence, I gazed on my own image. Some writer has said, "that
+every woman is beautiful when she loves." There certainly is a light,
+coming up from the enkindled heart, bright as the solar ray, yet pure
+and soft as moonlight, which throws an illusion over the plainest
+features and makes them for the moment charming. I saw the flower-girl
+of the library in the mirror, and then I knew that the artist had
+intended her as the idealization of Love's image.</p>
+
+<p>And then I remembered the morning when we sat together in the library,
+and he took the roses from my basket and scattered the leaves at my
+feet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A thundering rap at the door startled my meditations. I knew there was
+but one pair of knuckles in the house capable of beating such a tattoo,
+and I recoiled from admitting such a boisterous guest.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, Gabriella!" rung a voice through the passage. "Are you
+asleep? Are you dead? Open the door, pray, or I shall kill myself
+squeezing in through the key-hole."</p>
+
+<p>With a deep sigh of vexation, I opened the door, and she sprang in with
+the momentum of a ball hurled by a bat.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, catching me round the waist and
+turning me to the light, "what <i>have</i> you been doing? where <i>have</i> you
+been staying? Ill!&mdash;tired!&mdash;it is all a sham. He need not try to impose
+on me such a story as that. I never saw you look so brilliantly well.
+Your cheeks and lips are red like the damask rose, and your eyes,&mdash;I
+never saw such eyes before. Come here and look in the glass. Ill!&mdash;ha,
+ha!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been ill," I answered, shrinking from her reckless hand, "and I
+was very tired; I feel better now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I should think you did. You rested long enough by the way, Heaven
+knows; we saw you climbing the hill at sunset, and the lamps were
+lighted before you came in. I was going after you, but Mrs. Linwood
+would not let me. Ah! you have animated the statue, thou modern
+Pygmaliona. You have turned back into flesh this enchanted man of stone.
+Tell it in Gath, publish it in Askelon; but the daughters of fashion
+will mourn, the tribes of the neglected will envy."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot match you in brilliant speeches, Miss Melville."</p>
+
+<p>"Call me Miss Melville again, if you dare. Call me Madge, or Meg; but as
+sure as you mount the stilts of ceremony, I will whisk you off at the
+risk of breaking your neck. Hark! there is the supper bell. Come, just
+as you are. You never looked so charming. That wild flow of the hair is
+perfectly bewitching. I don't wonder Mr. Invincible has grounded his
+weapons, not I. If I were a young man,&mdash;ha, ha!"</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes fear you are," I cried. At this remark she burst into such
+a wild fit of laughter, I thought she never would cease. It drowned the
+ringing of the bell, and still kept gushing over afresh.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Mrs. Linwood to excuse me from supper," said I; "I do not wish any,
+indeed I do not."</p>
+
+<p>Well, I am not one of the air plants; I must have something more
+substantial than sentiment, or I should pine with green and yellow
+hunger, not melancholy. I never cried but once, that I recollect, and
+that was when a favorite black cat of mine was killed,&mdash;maliciously,
+villanously killed, by an old maid, just because she devoured her
+favorite Canary. No, with the daughter of Jephthah, I exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Let my memory still be thy pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And forget not I smiled as I died.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Shutting, or rather slamming the door, she bounded down the stairs with
+the steps of the chamois.</p>
+
+<p>I had not finished my mother's history, but I had passed the <i>breakers</i>.
+There could be nothing beyond so fearful and wrecking. The remainder was
+brief, and written at times with a weak and failing hand.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"How long I remained in that deadly swoon," continued the manuscript, "I
+know not. When I recovered, I was lying on my bed, with Peggy standing
+on one side and a physician on the other. As soon as I looked up, Peggy
+burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"'Thank God!' she sobbed, 'I thought she was dead.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Hush!' said the doctor; 'let her be kept perfectly quiet. Give her
+this composing draught, and let no one be admitted to her chamber,&mdash;not
+even her child.'</p>
+
+<p>"Child! it all came back to me. Where was she, that dreadful woman?
+Starting up in bed, I looked wildly round the room for the haunting
+phantom,&mdash;she was not a reality,&mdash;I must have had a terrible dream.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes!' said the doctor, answering the expression of my countenance,
+'you have had a shocking nightmare. Drink this, and you will awake
+refreshed.'</p>
+
+<p>"Yielding passively, I drank the colorless fluid he offered me, and
+sinking back on my pillow passed into a deep and tranquil sleep. When I
+awoke, the silence and darkness of night brooded around me. My mind now
+was clear as crystal, and every image appeared with startling
+distinctness. I lay still and calm, revolving what course to pursue; and
+as I lay and revolved, doubts of the truth of her story grew stronger
+and stronger. All my husband's love and tenderness rose in remembrance,
+vindicating his aspersed honor. She had forged the tale,&mdash;she had stolen
+the picture,&mdash;she was an impostor and a wretch.</p>
+
+<p>"At morning light, I awakened Peggy, and demanded of her what had
+occurred during my insensible state, and what had become of the strange
+woman. Peggy said that the piercing shrieks of the stranger brought her
+to the parlor, where I lay like a corpse on the carpet, and she kneeling
+over me, ringing her hands, and uttering unintelligible words.</p>
+
+<p>"'You have killed her,' cried Peggy, pushing back the stranger, and
+taking me in her strong arms.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Je le sais, mon Dieu, je le sais</i>,' exclaimed she, lifting her
+clasped hands to heaven. Peggy did not understand French, but she
+repeated the words awkwardly enough, yet I could interpret them.</p>
+
+<p>"As they found it impossible to recall me to life, a physician was
+summoned, and as soon as he came the stranger disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't think of her anymore,' said Peggy; 'don't, Mrs. St. James,&mdash;I
+don't believe a word of her story,&mdash;she's crazy,&mdash;she's a lunatic, you
+may be sure she is,&mdash;she looked stark mad.'</p>
+
+<p>"I tried to believe this assertion, but something told me she was no
+maniac. I tried to believe her an impostor,&mdash;I asserted she was,&mdash;but if
+so, she transcended all the actresses in the world. I could not eat, I
+could not bear you, my darling Gabriella, to be brought into my
+presence. Your innocent smiles were daggers to my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"But she came again, Ther&eacute;sa, the avenger,&mdash;she came followed by a
+woman, leading by the hand a beautiful boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Here was proof that needed no confirmation. Every infantine feature
+bore the similitude of St. James. The eyes, the smile, his miniature
+self was there. I no longer doubted,&mdash;no longer hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"'Leave me,' I cried, and despair lent me calmness. 'I resign all claims
+to the name, the fortune, and the affections of him who has so cruelly
+wronged us. Not for worlds would I remain even one day longer in the
+home he has desecrated by his crimes. Respect my sorrows, and leave me.
+You may return to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Oh, juste ciel!</i>' she exclaimed. '<i>Je suis tr&eacute;s malheureuse.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>"Snatching her child in her arms, and raising it as high as her strength
+could lift it, she called upon God to witness that it was only for his
+sake she had asserted her legal rights; that, having lost the heart of
+her husband, all she wished was to die. Then, sinking on her knees
+before me, she entreated me to forgive her the wretchedness she had
+caused.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>I</i> forgive <i>you</i>?' I cried. 'Alas! it is I should supplicate your
+forgiveness. I do ask it in the humility of a broken heart. But
+go&mdash;go&mdash;if you would not see me die.'</p>
+
+<p>"Terrified at my ghastly countenance, Peggy commanded the nurse to take
+the child from the room. Ther&eacute;sa followed with lingering steps, casting
+back upon me a glance of pity and remorse. I never saw her again.</p>
+
+<p>"'And now, Peggy,' said I, 'you are the only friend I have in the wide
+world. Yet I must leave you. With my child in my arms, I am going forth,
+like Hagar, into the wilderness of life. I have money enough to save me
+from immediate want. Heaven will guard the future.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And where will you go?' asked Peggy, passing the back of her hand over
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"'Alas, I know not. I have no one to counsel me, no one to whom I can
+turn for assistance or go for shelter. Even my Heavenly Father hideth
+his face from me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, Mrs. St. James!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Call me not by that accursed name. Call me Rosalie. It was a dying
+mother's gift, and they cannot rob me of that.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Rosalie, I will never quit you. There is nobody in the world I
+love half as well, and if you will let me stay with you, I will wait on
+you, and take care of the baby all the days of my life.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then she told me how she came from New England to live with a brother,
+who had since died of consumption, and how she was going back, because
+she did not like to live in a great city, when the doctor got her to
+come to nurse me in sickness, and how she had learned to love me so well
+she could not bear the thoughts of going away from me. She told me, too,
+how quiet and happy people could live in that part of the country; how
+they could get along upon almost nothing at all, and be just as private
+as they pleased, and nobody would pester them or make them afraid.</p>
+
+<p>"She knew exactly how she came to the city, and we could go the same
+way, only we would wind about a little and not go to the place where she
+used to live, so that folks need ask no questions or know any thing
+about us.</p>
+
+<p>"With a childlike dependence, as implicit as your own, and as
+instinctive, I threw myself on Peggy's strong heart and great common
+sense. With equal judgment and energy, she arranged every thing for our
+departure. She had the resolution and fortitude of a man, with the
+tenderness and fidelity of a woman. I submitted myself entirely to her
+guidance, saying, 'It was well.' But when I was alone, I clasped you in
+agony to my bosom, and prostrating myself before the footstool of
+Jehovah, I prayed for a bolt to strike us, mother and child together,
+that we might be spared the bitter cup of humiliation and woe. One
+moment I dared to think of mingling our life blood together in the grave
+of the suicide; the next, with streaming eyes, I implored forgiveness
+for the impious thought.</p>
+
+<p>"It is needless to dwell minutely on the circumstances of our departure.
+We left that beautiful mansion, once the abode of love and happiness,
+now a dungeon house of despair;&mdash;we came to this lone, obscure spot,
+where I resumed my father's name, and gave it to you. At first,
+curiosity sought out the melancholy stranger, but Peggy's
+incommunicativeness and sound judgment baffled its scrutiny. In a little
+while, we were suffered to remain in the seclusion we desired. Here you
+have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence,
+unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon
+your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a
+father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human
+goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of
+revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice
+shall speak; for the time may come, when a knowledge of your parentage
+will be indispensable, and concealment be considered a crime.</p>
+
+<p>"Should you hereafter win the love of an honorable and noble heart, (for
+such are sometimes found,) every honorable and noble feeling will prompt
+you to candor and truth, with regard to your personal relations. I need
+not tell you this.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my darling child, I leave you one solemn dying charge. Should
+it ever be your lot to meet that guilty, erring father, whose care you
+have never known, whose name you have never borne, let no vindictive
+memories rise against him.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him, I forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven by my Heavenly
+Father, for all my sins and transgressions, and my idolatrous love of
+him. Tell him, that now, as life is ebbing slowly away like the sands of
+the hour-glass, and I can calmly look back upon the past, I bless him
+for being the means of leading my wandering footsteps to the green
+fields and still pastures of the great Shepherd of Israel. Had he never
+prepared for me the bitter cup of sorrow, I had not perchance tasted the
+purple juice which my Saviour trod the wine-press of God's wrath to
+obtain. Had not 'lover and friend been taken from me,' I might not have
+turned to the Friend of sinners; the Divine Love of mankind. Tell him
+then, oh Gabriella! that I not only forgave, but blessed him with the
+heart of a woman and the spirit of a Christian.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a dream, a strange, wild dream last night, which I am constrained
+to relate. I am not superstitious, but its echo lingers in my soul.</p>
+
+<p>"I dreamed that your father was exposed to some mysterious danger, that
+you alone could avert. That I saw him plunging down into an awful abyss,
+lower and lower; and that he called on you, Gabriella, to save him, in a
+voice that might have rent the heavens; and then they seemed to open,
+and you appeared distant as a star, yet distinct and fair as an angel,
+slowly descending right over the yawning chasm. You stretched out your
+arms towards him, and drew him upward as if by an invisible chain. As he
+rose, the dark abyss was transformed to beds of roses, whose fragrance
+was so intensely sweet it waked me. It was but a dream, my Gabriella,
+but it may be that God destined you to fulfil a glorious mission: to
+lead your erring father back to the God he has forsaken. It may be, that
+through you, an innocent and injured child, the heart sundered on earth
+may be reunited in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"One more charge, my best beloved. In whatever situation of life you may
+be placed, remember our boundless obligations to the faithful Peggy, and
+never, never, be separated from her. Repay to her as far as possible the
+long, long debt of love and devotion due from us both. She has literally
+forsaken all to follow me and mine; and if there is a crown laid up in
+heaven for the true, self-sacrificing heart, that crown will one day be
+hers.</p>
+
+<p>"The pen falls from my hand. Farewell trembles on my lips. Oh! at this
+moment I feel the triumph of faith, the glory of religion.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Other refuge have I none;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hangs my helpless soul on <i>thee</i>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leave, oh, leave me not alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Still support and comfort me.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Not me alone, O compassionate and blessed Saviour! but the dear, the
+precious, the only one I leave behind. To thine exceeding love, to the
+care of a mighty God, the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, I now
+commit her. 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is naught on
+earth which I desire beside thee.'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Edith came in, as usual, before she retired for the night, and expressed
+affectionate concern for my indisposition; but there was an air of
+constraint, which I could not help perceiving. My eyes fell before hers,
+with conscious guilt. For had I not robbed her of that first place in
+her brother's heart, which she had so long claimed as her inalienable
+right?</p>
+
+<p>I had one duty to perform, and I resolved to do it before I laid my head
+on the pillow. With the manuscript in my hand, I sought the chamber of
+Mrs. Linwood. She sat before a small table, her head resting
+thoughtfully on her hand, with an open Bible before her. She looked up
+at my entrance, with a countenance of gentle seriousness, and extended
+her hand affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>Walking hastily towards her, I knelt at her feet, and laying the
+manuscript in her lap, burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I cried, "will your love and kindness survive the
+knowledge of all these pages will reveal? Will a mother's virtues cancel
+the record of a father's guilt? Can you cherish and protect me still?"</p>
+
+<p>She bent over me and took me in her arms, while tears trembled in her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I know all, my dear child," she said; "there is nothing new to be
+revealed. Your mother gave me, on her death-bed, a brief history of her
+life, and it only increased your claims on my maternal care. Do you
+think it possible, Gabriella, that I could be so unjust and unkind, as
+to visit the sins of a father on the head of an innocent and unoffending
+child? No; believe me, nothing but your own conduct could ever alienate
+my affections or confidence."</p>
+
+<p>"Teach me to deserve it, dear Mrs. Linwood,&mdash;teach me how to prove my
+love, my gratitude, and veneration."</p>
+
+<p>"By confiding in me as a mother, trusting me as a friend, and seeking me
+as a guide and counsellor in this most dangerous season of youth and
+temptation, you are very dear to me, Gabriella. Next to my own son and
+daughter, I love you, nor do I consider their happiness a more sacred
+deposit than yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I exclaimed, covering my burning face with my hands,
+and again bowing it on her lap&mdash;"Ask me anything,&mdash;and nothing shall be
+held back&mdash;I cannot&mdash;I dare not&mdash;perhaps I ought not&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me that my son loves you?"</p>
+
+<p>I started and trembled; but as soon as the words passed her lips I
+gathered courage to meet whatever she might say.</p>
+
+<p>"If it be indeed so," I answered, "should not the revelation come from
+him, rather than me?"</p>
+
+<p>"There needs no formal declaration. I have seen it, known it, even
+before yourselves were conscious of its existence&mdash;this all engrossing
+passion. Before my son's return I foresaw it, with the prescience of
+maternal love. I knew your young, imaginative heart would find its ideal
+in him, and that his fastidious taste and sensitive, reserved nature
+would be charmed by your simplicity, freshness, and genius. I knew it,
+and yet I could not warn you. For when did youth ever believe the
+cautions of age, or passion listen to the voice of truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Warn <i>me</i>, madam? Oh, you mean him, not <i>me</i>. I never had the
+presumption to think myself his equal; never sought, never aspired to
+his love. You believe me, Mrs. Linwood&mdash;tell me, you believe me in
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, Gabriella. Your heart opened as involuntarily and as inevitably
+to receive him, as the flower unfolds itself to the noonday sun. It is
+your destiny; but would to God I could oppose it, that I could
+substitute for you a happier, if less brilliant lot."</p>
+
+<p>"A happier lot than to be the wife of Ernest? Oh! Mrs. Linwood, Heaven
+offers nothing to the eye of faith more blissful, more divine."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my child, such is always the dream of love like yours, and from
+such dreams there must be a day of awakening. God never intended their
+realization in this world. You look up to me with wondering and
+reproachful glance. You have feared me, Gabriella, feared that I would
+oppose my son's choice, if it rested on one so lowly as you believe
+yourself. You are mistaken&mdash;I have no right to dictate to him. He is
+more than of age, has an independent fortune and an independent will.
+The husband lifts his wife to his own position in society, and his name
+annihilates hers. The knowledge of your father's character gives me
+pain, and the possibility of his ever claiming you as his child is a
+source of deep inquietude,&mdash;but it is chiefly for you I tremble, for you
+I suffer, my beloved Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up in consternation and alarm. What invisible sword hung
+trembling over the future?</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest," she began, then stopping, she raised me from my kneeling
+attitude, led me to a sofa, and made me seat myself at her side.
+"Ernest," she continued, holding my hand tenderly in hers, "has many
+noble and attractive qualities. He is just, generous, and honorable; he
+is upright, honest, and true; the shadow of deceit never passed over his
+soul, the stain of a mean action never rested on his conduct. But,"&mdash;and
+her hand involuntarily tightened around mine,&mdash;"he has qualities fatal
+to the peace of those who love him,&mdash;fatal to his own happiness;
+suspicion haunts him like a dark shadow,&mdash;jealousy, like a serpent, lies
+coiled in his heart."</p>
+
+<p>"He has told me all this," I cried, with a sigh of relief,&mdash;"but I fear
+not,&mdash;my confidence shall be so entire, there shall be no room for
+suspicion,&mdash;my love so perfect it shall cast out jealousy."</p>
+
+<p>"So I once thought and reasoned in all the glow of youthful enthusiasm,
+but experience came with its icy touch, and enthusiasm, hope, joy, and
+love itself faded and died. The dark passions of Ernest are
+hereditary,&mdash;they belong to the blood that flows in his veins,&mdash;they are
+part and lot of his existence,&mdash;they are the phantoms that haunted his
+father's path, and cast their chill shadows over the brief years of my
+married life. The remembrance of what I have suffered myself, makes me
+tremble for her who places her happiness in my son's keeping. A woman
+cannot be happy unless she is trusted."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if she is beloved!" I exclaimed. "It seems to me that love should
+cover every fault, and jealousy be pardoned without an effort, since it
+is a proof of the strength and fervor of one's affection. Let me be
+loved,&mdash;I ask no more."</p>
+
+<p>"You love my son, Gabriella?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love him!" I repeated,&mdash;"oh that you could look into my heart!"</p>
+
+<p>Blushing at the fervor of my manner, I turned my crimson face from her
+gaze. Then I remembered that he knew not yet what might place an
+insurmountable barrier between us, and I entreated Mrs. Linwood to tell
+him what I wanted courage to relate.</p>
+
+<p>"I will, my child, but it will make no difference with him. His high,
+chivalrous sense of honor will make the circumstances of your birth but
+a new claim on his protection,&mdash;and his purposes are as immovable as his
+passions are strong. But let us talk no more to-night. It is late, and
+you need rest. We will renew the subject when you are more composed&mdash;I
+might say both. I could not give you a greater proof of my interest in
+your happiness, than the allusion I have made to my past life. Never
+before have I lifted the curtain from errors which death has sanctified.
+Let the confidence be sacred. Ernest and Edith must never know that a
+shadow rested on their father's virtues. Nothing but the hope of saving
+you from the sufferings which once were mine, could have induced me to
+rend the veil from the temple of my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"How solemn, how chilling are your words," said I, feeling very faint
+and sad. "I wish I had not heard them. Do joy and sorrow always thus go
+hand in hand? In the last few hours I have known the two great extremes
+of life. I have been plunged into the depths of despair and raised to
+the summit of hope. I am dizzy and weak by the sudden transition. I will
+retire, dear madam, for my head feels strangely bewildered."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood embraced me with unusual tenderness, kissed me on both
+cheeks, and accompanied me to the door with a fervent "God bless you!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>As soon as I reached my chamber, I threw myself on my bed, which seemed
+to roll beneath me with a billowy motion. Never had I felt so strangely,
+so wildly. Confused images crowded through my brain. I moved on an
+undulating surface. Now, it was the swelling and sinking of the blue
+gray waves of ocean,&mdash;then, the heaving green of the churchyard, billows
+of death, over which the wind blew damp and chill. I had left the lamp
+unextinguished, where its light reflected the rosy red of the curtains,
+and that became a fiery meteor shooting through crimson clouds, and
+leaving a lurid track behind it.</p>
+
+<p>I sat up in bed; frightened at the wild confusion of my brain, I passed
+my hands over my eyes to remove the illusion, but in vain. The massy
+wardrobe changed to the rocky walls of the Rip Raps, and above it I saw
+the tall form of the white-locked chief. The carpet, with its clusters
+of mimic flowers, on a pale gray ground, was a waste of waters, covered
+with roses, among which St. James was swimming and trying to grasp them.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" I cried, clasping my burning hands. "Am I asleep,
+and are these images but the visions of a feverish imagination?"</p>
+
+<p>"You dream, my love," answered the low, deep voice of Ernest; "but my
+mother is coming to awaken you with a cold and icy hand. I have
+scattered roses over you while you slept, but her blighting touch has
+withered them."</p>
+
+<p>Thus vision after vision succeeded each other, hurrying along like
+clouds in a tempestuous sky. I suppose I must have slept at last, but
+the morning found me in a state of utter exhaustion. Nervous excitement,
+sitting so long on the damp grass, and lingering out in the dewy evening
+air, brought on an illness which confined me to my bed many days. Dr.
+Harlowe threatened to put me in a strait-jacket and send me to a lunatic
+asylum, if I did not behave better in future.</p>
+
+<p>"I must take you home with me," he said; "our quiet, humdrum mode of
+life is better for you, after all. Your little rocking chair stands
+exactly where you used to sit in it. I do not like to see any one else
+occupy it. I get in disgrace with my wife every day, now you are not by
+me to hang up my hat and remind me by a glance to shake the dust from my
+feet. Such a quick pulse as this will never do, my child."</p>
+
+<p>For a week I was kept in a darkened room, and perfect quietude was
+commanded. The doctor came every day, and sometimes several times a day,
+with his smiling, sunny countenance, and anxious, affectionate heart.
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith stole gently in and out, with steps soft as
+falling snowflakes, and Margaret Melville was not permitted to enter at
+all. Every morning fresh flowers were laid upon my pillow, which I knew
+were gathered by the hand of Ernest, and they whispered to me of such
+sweet things my languid senses <i>ached</i> to hear them.</p>
+
+<p>One day, while in this passive, languishing, dreamy condition, having
+fallen into tranquil slumbers, I was left a few moments alone. I was
+awakened by a stronger touch than that of Edith's fairy hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, darling? How do you do?" cried a hearty, gay voice,
+that echoed like a bugle in the stillness of the room. "The doctor said
+you were getting well, and I determined I would not be kept out any
+longer. What in the world do they banish <i>me</i> for? I am the best nurse
+in the universe, strong as a lion, and wakeful as an owl. What do they
+shut you up in this dark room for?&mdash;just to give you the blues!&mdash;It is
+all nonsense. I am going to put back these curtains, and let in some
+light,&mdash;you will become etiolated. I want to see how you look."</p>
+
+<p>Dashing at the curtains, she tossed two of them back as high as she
+could throw them, letting in a flood of sunshine to my weak and dazzled
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't! don't!" I entreated, getting dreadfully nervous and agitated; "I
+cannot bear it,&mdash;indeed I cannot."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes you can; you will be better in a moment,&mdash;it is only coming out of
+darkness into marvellous light,&mdash;a sudden change, that is all. You do
+look white,&mdash;white, delicate, and sweet as a water-lily. I have a great
+mind to invite Ernest up to see you, you look so interesting. He has
+been like a distracted man, a wandering Jew, an unlaid ghost, ever since
+you have been ill. And poor Richard Clyde comes every night to inquire
+after you, with such a woebegone countenance. And that great, ugly,
+magnificent creature of a teacher, he has been too,&mdash;you certainly are a
+consequential little lady."</p>
+
+<p>Thus she rattled on, without dreaming of the martyrdom she was
+inflicting on my weakened nerves.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no doubt you mean to be kind," said I, ready to cry from
+weakness and irritation; "but if you will only drop the curtains and
+leave me, I will be so very grateful."</p>
+
+<p>"There&mdash;the curtains are down. I am not going to speak another word&mdash;I
+am a perfect lamb&mdash;I will bathe your head with cologne, and put you to
+sleep nicely."</p>
+
+<p>Stepping across the room, as she thought, very softly, but making more
+noise than Edith would in a week, she seized a bottle of cologne, and
+coming close to the bedside, bent over me, so that her great, black eyes
+almost touched mine. Had they been a pair of pistols, I could not have
+recoiled with greater terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" again I murmured,&mdash;"I am very weak."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! I am going to put you to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>Pouring the cologne in her hand, till it dripped all over the
+counterpane and pillow, she deluged my hair, and patted my forehead as
+she would a colt's that she wanted to stand still. In mute despair I
+submitted to her <i>tender mercies</i>, certain I should die, if some one did
+not come to my relief, when the door softly opened, and Mrs. Linwood
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven be praised," thought I,&mdash;I had not strength to say it. Tears of
+weariness and vexation were mingling with the drops with which she had
+saturated my hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret," said Mrs. Linwood, in a tone of serious displeasure, "what
+have you been doing? I left her in a sweet sleep, and now I find her
+wan, tearful, and agitated. You will worry her into a relapse."</p>
+
+<p>"All she needs now is cheerful company, I am sure," she answered
+demurely; "you all make her so tender and baby-like, she never will have
+any strength again. I've been as soft as a cooing dove. Dr. Harlowe
+would have been delighted with me."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>must</i> go, Margaret, indeed you must. <i>You</i> may think yourself a
+dove, but others have a different opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"Going, going, gone!" she cried, giving me a vehement kiss and
+vanishing.</p>
+
+<p>The consequence of this energetic visit was a relapse; and Dr. Harlowe
+was as angry as his nature admitted when he learned the cause.</p>
+
+<p>"That wild-cat must not remain here," said he, shaking his head. "She
+will kill my gentle patient. Where did you find her, Mrs. Linwood? From
+what menagerie has she broken loose?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is the daughter of an early and very dear friend of mine," replied
+Mrs. Linwood, smiling; "a very original and independent young lady, I
+grant she is."</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world did you bring her here for?" asked the doctor
+bluntly; "I intend to chain her, while my child is sick."</p>
+
+<p>"She wished to make a visit in the country, and I thought her wild
+good-humor would be a counterpoise to the poetry and romance of
+Grandison Place."</p>
+
+<p>"You have other more attractive and tractable guests. You will not
+object to my depriving you for a short time of her. May I invite her
+home with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly,&mdash;but she will not accept the invitation. She is not
+acquainted with Mrs. Harlowe."</p>
+
+<p>"That makes no difference,&mdash;she will go with me, I am positive."</p>
+
+<p>They conversed in a low tone in one of the window recesses, but I heard
+what they said; and when Mrs. Linwood afterwards told me that Meg the
+Dauntless had gone off with the doctor in high glee, I was inexpressibly
+relieved, for I had conceived an unconquerable terror of her. There was
+other company in the house, as Edith had prophesied, but in a mansion so
+large and so admirably arranged, an invalid might be kept perfectly
+quiet without interfering with the social enjoyment of others.</p>
+
+<p>I was slowly but surely recovering. At night Edith had her harp placed
+in the upper piazza, and sang and played some of her sweetest and most
+soothing strains. Another voice, too, mingled at times with the
+breeze-like swelling of the thrilling chords, and a hand whose
+master-touch my spirit recognized, swept the trembling strings.</p>
+
+<p>How long it seemed since I had stood with <i>him</i> under the shade of the
+broad elm-tree! With what fluctuating emotions I looked forward to
+meeting him again!</p>
+
+<p>At length the doctor pronounced me able to go down stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to keep the wild-cat till you are a little stronger," he
+said. "She has made herself acquainted with the whole neighborhood, and
+keeps us in a state of perpetual mirth and excitement. What do you think
+she has done? She has actually made Mr. Regulus escort her on horseback
+into the country, and says she is resolved to captivate him."</p>
+
+<p>I could not help laughing at the idea of my tall, awkward master, a
+knight-errant to this queen of the amazons.</p>
+
+<p>"How would you like to be supplanted by her?" he mischievously asked.</p>
+
+<p>"As an assistant teacher?"</p>
+
+<p>"As an assistant for life. Poor Regulus! he was quite sick during your
+absence; and when I accused him of being in love, the simple-hearted
+creature confessed the fact and owned the soft impeachment. I really
+feel very sorry for him. He has a stupendous heart, and a magnificent
+brain. You ought to have treated him better. He would be to you a tower
+of strength in the day of trouble. Little girl, you ought to be proud of
+such a conquest."</p>
+
+<p>"It filled me with sorrow and shame," I answered, "and had he not
+himself betrayed the secret, it never would have been known. It seemed
+too deep a humiliation for one whom I so much respected and revered, to
+bow a supplicant to me. You do not know how unhappy it made me."</p>
+
+<p>"You must get hardened to these things, Gabriella. As you seem to be
+quite a dangerous young lady, destined to do great havoc in the world,
+it will not do to be too sensitive on the subject. But remember, you
+must not dispose of your heart without consulting me. And at any rate,
+wait three years longer for your judgment to mature."</p>
+
+<p>The conscious color rose to my cheek. He took my hand, and placed his
+fingers on my throbbing pulse.</p>
+
+<p>"Too quick, too quick," said he, looking gravely in my face. "This will
+never do. When I bring the wild-cat back, I mean to carry you off. It
+will do you good to stay a while with my good, methodical, unromantic
+wife. I can take you round to visit my patients with me. I have a new
+buggy, larger than the one in which we had such a famous ride together."</p>
+
+<p>The associations connected with that ride were so sad, I wished he had
+not mentioned it; yet the conversation had done me good. It kept me from
+dwelling too exclusively on one engrossing subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Now give me your arm," said the doctor, "and let me have the privilege
+of escorting you down stairs."</p>
+
+<p>As we descended, he put his arm round me, for I was weaker than he
+thought I was, and my knees bent under me.</p>
+
+<p>"We doctors ought not to have jealous wives, my dear, ought we? My dear,
+good woman has not one particle of jealousy in her composition. She
+never looks after my heart; but keeps a wonderfully sharp eye on my head
+and feet. A very sensible person, Mrs. Harlowe is."</p>
+
+<p>There was intentional kindness in this apparent levity. He saw I was
+agitated, and wished to divert my thoughts. Perhaps he read more deeply
+than I imagined, for those who seem to glance lightly on the surface of
+feeling only, often penetrate to its depths.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing-room was divided by folding doors, which were seldom closed,
+and in the four corners of each division were crimson lounges, of
+luxurious and graceful form. Company generally gathered in the front
+part, but the backroom was equally pleasant, as it opened into the
+flower-garden through a balcony shaded by vines.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in here, and rest awhile," said the doctor, leading me into the
+back parlor; "it will be a pleasant surprise to Mrs. Linwood. I did not
+tell her I was going to bring you down."</p>
+
+<p>As we entered, I saw Ernest Linwood half reclining on a lounge with a
+book in his hand, which hung listlessly at his side. As he looked up,
+his pale face lighted suddenly and brilliantly as burning gas. He rose,
+threw down his book, came hastily forward, took my hand, and drawing it
+from the doctor's arm, twined it round his own.</p>
+
+<p>"How well you look!" he exclaimed. "Dr. Harlowe, we owe you ten thousand
+thanks."</p>
+
+<p>"This is a strange way of showing it," said the doctor, looking round
+him with a comical expression, "to deprive me of my companion, and leave
+me as lonely as Simon Stylites on the top of his pillar."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood and Edith, who had seen our entrance, came forward and
+congratulated me on my convalescence. It was the first time I had ever
+been ill, and the pleasure of being released from durance was like that
+of a weary child let loose from school. I was grateful and happy. The
+assurance I received from the first glance of Ernest, that what his
+mother had promised to reveal had made no change in his feelings; that
+the love, which I had almost begun to think an illusion of my own brain,
+was a real existing passion, filled me with unspeakable joy. The
+warnings of Mrs. Linwood had no power to weaken my faith and hope. Had
+she not told me that <i>her</i> love had died? I felt that mine was immortal.</p>
+
+<p>The impression made by my mother's sad history was still too fresh and
+deep, and too much of the languor of indisposition still clung to me to
+admit of my being gay; but it was pleasant to hear the cheerful laugh
+and lively conversation, showing that the tide of social life ran clear
+and high. Several new guests had arrived, whom I had not seen before, to
+whom I was introduced; but as Dr. Harlowe commanded me to be a good girl
+and remain quietly in a corner, a passing introduction limited the
+intercourse of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the doctor was taking leave, a loud, merry ha, ha! came leaping
+up the steps, followed by the amazonian form of Madge Wildfire, leaning
+on the arm of Mr. Regulus.</p>
+
+<p>"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" exclaimed Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Shade of Esculapius!" cried the doctor, recoiling from the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to see me? I know you are. Taken you all by storm. Found this
+gentleman wandering like a troubled spirit by the way-side, and pressed
+him into service. I shall make a gallant knight of him yet, My dear
+soul!" she cried, spying me out and rushing towards me, "I am so glad to
+see you here, escaped from the ruthless hands of the doctor. I never saw
+such a despot in my life, except <i>one</i>;" here she looked laughingly and
+defiantly at Ernest,&mdash;"he would out-Nero Nero himself, if he had the
+opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were the autocrat of Russia I would certainly exercise the right
+of banishment," he answered quietly.</p>
+
+<p>During this sportive encounter, Mr. Regulus came up to greet me. I had
+not seen him since our memorable interview in the academy, and his
+sallow face glowed with embarrassment. I rose to meet him, anxious to
+show him every mark of respect and esteem. I asked him to take a seat on
+the sofa by me, and ventured to congratulate him on the exceedingly
+entertaining acquaintance he had made.</p>
+
+<p>"A very extraordinary young lady," he cried, "amazingly merry, and
+somewhat bold. I had not the most remote idea of coming here, when I
+left home; but suddenly I found her arm linked in mine, and was told
+that I must escort her <i>nolens volens</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! I thought you came to inquire after my health, and was feeling
+<i>so</i> grateful!"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know I should have the pleasure of seeing <i>you</i>, and I did
+not hope you would welcome me with so much cordiality. I have made many
+inquiries after you; indeed, I have scarcely thought of any thing else
+since you were ill. You look pale, Gabriella. Are you sure you are quite
+well, my child?"</p>
+
+<p>The old endearing epithet! It touched me.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not feel strong enough to move Mount Atlas, but well enough to
+enjoy the society of my friends. I never appreciated it so highly
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no idea how I miss you," he said, taking my fan and drawing
+his thumb over it, as if he were feeling the edge of his ferula. "The
+season of summer lingers, but the flowers no longer bloom for me. The
+birds sing, but their notes have lost their melody. My perception of the
+beautiful has grown dim, but the remembrance of it can never fade. I
+never knew before what the pleasures of memory truly were."</p>
+
+<p>"I recollect a copy you once set me, Mr. Regulus,&mdash;'Sweet is the memory
+of absent friends,'&mdash;I thought it such a charming one!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember that?" he asked, with a delighted countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! I remember all the copies you ever set me. Teachers should be very
+careful what sentiments they write, for they are never forgotten. Don't
+you recollect how all the pupils once laughed at a mistake in
+punctuation of mine? The copy was, 'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as
+well as the poor.' As the line was not quite filled, you added
+<i>Gabriella</i>, after making a full period. I forgot the stop and wrote,
+'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as well as the poor Gabriella.' The
+ridicule of the scholars taught me the importance of punctuation. Our
+mistakes are our best lessons, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you remember these trifles?" he repeated. "How strange! It shows
+you have the heart of a child still. I love to hear you recall them."</p>
+
+<p>"I could fill a volume with these reminiscences. I believe I will write
+one, one of these days, and you shall be the hero."</p>
+
+<p>A merry altercation at the door attracted our attention. Dr. Harlowe was
+endeavoring to persuade Madge to go back with him, but she strenuously
+refused.</p>
+
+<p>"I never could stay more than ten days at a time in one place in my
+life. Besides, I have worn out my welcome, I know I have. Your house is
+not new. It jars too much when I walk. I saw Mrs. Harlowe looking
+ruefully at some cracked glass and china, and then at me, as much as to
+say, 'It is all your doings, you young romp.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely," cried the doctor, laughing heartily, "but it only makes
+me more anxious to secure you. You are a safety-valve in the house. All
+my misdemeanors escape unreproved in the presence of your superior
+recklessness."</p>
+
+<p>I never saw any one enjoy a jest more than Dr. Harlowe. He really liked
+the dashing and untamable Madge. He was fond of young companions; and
+though his wife was such a <i>superior woman</i>, and such an incomparable
+housekeeper, there was nothing very exhilarating about her.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go," said Madge; "I must stay and take care of Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>"If you play any of your wild pranks on her again," said the doctor, "it
+were better for you that you had never been born."</p>
+
+<p>With this threat he departed; and it seemed as if a dozen people had
+been added to the household in the person of the dauntless Meg. I never
+saw any one with such a flow of animal spirits, with so much oxygen in
+their composition. I should think the vital principle in such a
+constitution would burn out sooner than in others, like a flame fed by
+alcohol. She was older than myself, and yet had no more apparent
+reflection than a child of five years old. It was impossible to make her
+angry. The gravest rebuke, the most cutting sarcasm, were received with
+a merry twinkle of the eye or a rich swell of laughter. She was bold,
+masculine, wild, and free, and I feared her as much as I would the
+wild-cat, after whom the doctor had christened her,&mdash;yet there was
+something about her that I liked. It was probably the interest she
+professed in me, which must have been genuine. It was impossible for her
+to affect any thing.</p>
+
+<p>Who would dream of any one sporting with such a man as Mr. Regulus? Yet
+she treated him exactly as if he were a great boy. He had paid us his
+parting salutations, and was half-way down the steps before she was
+aware of his intended departure.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going so soon, indeed you are not," she exclaimed, running
+after him, seizing his hat, and setting it jauntily on her own head. Her
+abundant hair prevented it from falling over her face. "I brought you
+here to stay all the evening; and stay you must and shall. What do you
+want to go back to your musty old bachelor's room for, when there is
+such delightful company here?"</p>
+
+<p>Taking hold of his arm and whirling him briskly round, she led him back
+into the parlor, laughing and triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>She looked so saucy, so jaunty, so full of nerve and adventure, with the
+large hat pitched on one side of her head, I could not help saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity she were not a man!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Regulus did not appear as awkward as might be supposed. There was a
+latent spark of fun and frolic in his large brain, to which her wild
+hand applied the match; and though I know he felt the disappointment of
+his affections sorely, deeply, he yielded himself to her assault with
+tolerable grace and readiness.</p>
+
+<p>Supper was always an unceremonious meal, sent round on waiters, from a
+round table in the back parlor, at which Mrs. Linwood presided.
+Gentlemen took their cups standing or walking, just as it happened; and
+ladies, too, though they were generally seated. Ernest drew a light
+table to the lounge where I sat; and sitting by me, said, as I was an
+invalid, I should be peculiarly favored.</p>
+
+<p>"Methinks she is not the only favored one," said the sweet voice of
+Edith, as she floated near.</p>
+
+<p>"There is room for you, dear Edith," said I, moving closer to the arm of
+the sofa, and leaving a space for her between us.</p>
+
+<p>"Room on the sofa, Edith," added he, moving towards me, and making a
+space for her on his right, "and tenfold room in my heart."</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand and drew her down to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"This is as it should be," he said, looking from one to the other with a
+radiant countenance. "Thus would I ever bind to my heart the two
+loveliest, dearest, best."</p>
+
+<p>Edith bent her head, and kissed the hand which held hers. As she looked
+up I saw that her eyes were glistening.</p>
+
+<p>"What would mamma say?" she asked, trying to conceal her emotion.
+"Surely there can be none dearer and better than she is."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Edith," said he, passing his arm tenderly round her waist; "you
+might as well say, if I singled out two bright, especial stars from the
+firmament, that I did not think the moon fair or excellent. The love I
+bear my mother is so exalted by reverence, it stands apart by itself
+like the queen of night, serene and holy, moving in a distinct and lofty
+sphere. There is one glory of the sun, Edith, and another glory of the
+moon, and one star differeth from another in glory. Yet they are all
+glorious in themselves, and all proclaim the goodness and glory of the
+Creator."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard it said," observed Edith, in a low, tremulous tone, "that
+when love takes possession of the heart, the natural affections have
+comparatively little strength; that it is to them as is the ocean to its
+tributaries. I know nothing of it by experience, nor do I wish to, if it
+has power to diminish the filial and sisterly tenderness which
+constitutes my chief joy."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Edith, it is not so. Every pure and generous affection expands
+the heart, and gives it new capacities for loving. Have you not heard of
+heaven,&mdash;'the more angels the more room?' So it is with the human heart.
+It is elastic, and enlarges with every lawful claimant to be admitted
+into its sanctuary. It is true there is a love which admits of no
+rivalry;" here his eye turned involuntarily to me, "which enshrines but
+one object, which dwells in the inner temple, the angel of angels. But
+other affections do not become weaker in consequence of its strength. We
+may not see the fire-flame burn as brightly when the sun shines upon it,
+but the flame is burning still."</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella does not speak," said Edith, with an incredulous wave of her
+golden locks. "Tell me, Gabriella, are his words true?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not a very good metaphysician," I answered, "but I should think
+the heart very narrow, that could accommodate only those whom Nature
+placed in it. It seems to me but a refined species of selfishness."</p>
+
+<p>The color crimsoned on Edith's fair cheek. I had forgotten what she had
+said to me of her own exclusive affection. I sympathized so entirely in
+his sentiments, expressed with such beautiful enthusiasm, I forgot every
+thing else. The moment I had spoken, memory rebuked my transient
+oblivion. She must believe it an intentional sarcasm. How could I be so
+careless of the feelings of one so gentle and so kind?</p>
+
+<p>"I know <i>I</i> am selfish," she said. "I have told you my weakness,&mdash;sin it
+may be,&mdash;and I deserve the reproach."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot think I meant it as such. You know I could not. I had
+forgotten what I have heard you previously utter. I was thinking only of
+the present. Forgive me, Edith, for being so thoughtless and impulsive;
+for being so selfish myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I am wrong," said Edith, ingenuously. "I suppose conscience applied the
+words. Brother, you, who are the cause of the offence, must make my
+peace."</p>
+
+<p>"It is already made," answered I, holding out my hand to meet hers; "if
+you acquit me of intentional wrong, I ask no more."</p>
+
+<p>As our hands united before him, he clasped them both in one of his own.</p>
+
+<p>"A triune band," said he, earnestly, "that never must be broken. Edith,
+Gabriella, remember this. Love each other now, love each other forever,
+even as I love ye both."</p>
+
+<p>I was sensitive and childish from recent indisposition, or I should have
+had more self-control. I could not prevent the tears from rushing to my
+eyes and stealing down my cheeks. As we were sitting by ourselves, in a
+part of the room less brilliantly lighted than the rest, and as we all
+conversed in a low voice, this little scene was not conspicuous, though
+it might have possibly been observed.</p>
+
+<p>Those in the front room seemed exceedingly merry. Madge had placed a
+table before herself and Mr. Regulus, in imitation of Ernest, and had
+piled his plate with quantities of cake, as high as a pyramid. A gay
+group surrounded the table, that seemed floating on a tide of laughter;
+or rather making an eddy, in 'which their spirits were whirling.'</p>
+
+<p>As soon as supper was over, she told Mr. Regulus to lead her to the
+piano, as she was literally dying to play. There was no instrument at
+Dr. Harlowe's but a jew's-harp, and the tongue of that was broken. As
+she seated herself at the piano, Mr. Regulus reached forward and took up
+a violin which was lying upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you play?" she asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to play a good deal when a boy, but that was a long time ago,"
+he answered, drawing the bow across the strings with no unskilful hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Delightful, charming!" she exclaimed. "Can you play '<i>Come, haste to
+the wedding</i>?'"</p>
+
+<p>He replied by giving the inspiring air, which she accompanied in her
+wild, exciting manner, laughing and shaking her head with irrepressible
+glee. I was astonished to see my dignified tutor thus lending himself
+for the amusement of the evening. I should have thought as soon of
+Jupiter playing a dancing tune, as Mr. Regulus. But he not only played
+well, he seemed to enjoy it. I was prepared now, to see him on the floor
+dancing with Madge, though I sincerely hoped he would not permit himself
+to be exhibited in that manner. Madge was resolved upon this triumph,
+and called loudly to Edith to come and take her place at the instrument,
+and play the liveliest waltz in the universe for her and Mr. Regulus.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Miss Melville," said he, laying down his violin and resuming
+his usual grave and dignified manner, "I am no dancing bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Mr. Regulus, I have no doubt you dance as charmingly as you play.
+Besides, you would not be so ungallant as to refuse a lady's request."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a <i>lady-like</i> request," he answered, with a shrewd cast of the eye
+under his beetling brows.</p>
+
+<p>This sarcasm was received with acclamation; but Meg lifted her brow as
+dauntless as ever and laughed as loudly.</p>
+
+<p>I began to feel weary of mirth in which I could not sympathize. Mrs.
+Linwood came to me, and saying I looked pale and wan, insisted upon my
+retiring. To this I gladly assented. The little misunderstanding between
+Edith and myself weighed heavily on my spirits, and I longed to be
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we were crossing the hall of entrance, Richard Clyde came in. He
+greeted me with so much feeling, such earnest, unaffected pleasure, yet
+a pleasure so chastened by sensibility, I realized, perhaps for the
+first time, the value of the heart I had rejected.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been ill, Gabriella," said he, retaining for a moment the hand
+he had taken. "You look pale and languid. You do not know how much your
+friends have suffered on your account, or how grateful they feel for
+your convalesence."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not think I was of so much consequence," I replied. "It is well
+to be sick now and then, so as to be able to appreciate the kindness of
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"You must suffer us to go now, Richard," said Mrs. Linwood moving
+towards the staircase; "you will find merry company in the parlor ready
+to entertain you. As Gabriella is no longer a prisoner, you will have
+future opportunities of seeing her."</p>
+
+<p>"I must embrace them soon," said he, sadly. "I expect to leave this
+place before long,&mdash;my friends, and my country."</p>
+
+<p>"You, Richard?" I exclaimed. Then I remembered the remarks I had heard
+on commencement day, of his being sent to Europe to complete his
+education. I regretted to lose the champion of my childhood, the friend
+of my youth, and my countenance expressed my emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a great deal to say to you, Gabriella," said he, in a low tone.
+"May I see you to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly,&mdash;that is, I think, I hope so." A glance that flashed on me
+from the doorway arrested my stammering tongue. Ernest was standing
+there, observing the interview, and the dark passion of which his mother
+had warned me clouded his brow. Snatching my hand from Richard, I bade
+him a hasty good-night, and ascended the stairs, with a prophetic heart.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, while I felt the shadow on his brow stealing darkly over me, I
+repeated to myself,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The keenest pangs the wretched find,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are rapture to the dreary void,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leafless desert of the mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The waste of feelings unemployed."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The interview with Richard Clyde the next day, was a painfully agitating
+one. I had no conception till then, how closely and strongly love and
+hope had twined their fibres round him; or how hard would be the task of
+rending them from him. Why could I not appreciate the value of his
+frank, noble, and confiding nature? It may be because we had been
+children together, and that familiarity was unfavorable to the growth of
+love in one of my poetic nature. I <i>must</i> look up. The cloud crowned
+cliff did not appall my high-reaching eye.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not see you again, Gabriella," said he, as he wrung my hand in
+parting. "I shall not see you again before my departure,&mdash;I would not
+for worlds renew the anguish of this moment. I do not reproach you,&mdash;you
+have never deceived me. My own hopes have been building a bridge of
+flowers over a dark abyss. But, by the Heaven that hears me, Gabriella,
+the keenest pang I now experience is not for my own loss, it is the
+dread I feel for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not one word more, Richard, if you love me. I have been tender of your
+feelings,&mdash;respect mine. There is but one thing on earth I prize more
+than your friendship. Let me cherish that for the sacred memory of <i>auld
+lang syne</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, then, Gabriella, best and only beloved! May the hand wither
+that ever falls too heavily on that trusting heart, should we never meet
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew me suddenly closely to him, kissed me passionately, and was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Had you confided in me fully," said Mrs. Linwood, in speaking to me
+afterwards of Richard, "I should never have advised a correspondence
+which must have strengthened his attachment. Having the highest opinion
+of his principles and disposition, and believing you regarded him with
+modest affection, I urged this intercourse as a binding link between
+you. You must have perceived my wishes on this subject."</p>
+
+<p>"If I have erred, it was from mistaken delicacy. I thought I had no
+right to betray an unreturned affection. It was not from a want of
+confidence in you."</p>
+
+<p>"If you could have loved Richard, it would have been well for you, my
+dear Gabriella; but I know the heart admits of no coercion, and least of
+all a heart like yours. I no longer warn, for it is in vain; but I would
+counsel and instruct. If you <i>do</i> become the wife of my son, you will
+assume a responsibility as sacred as it is deep. Not alone for your
+happiness do I tremble, O Gabriella,&mdash;I fear,&mdash;I dread, for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Mrs. Linwood, when I love him so exclusively, so devotedly; when I
+feel that I must love him forever&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the very exclusiveness and strength of your devotion that I fear.
+You will love him too well for your <i>own</i> peace,&mdash;too well for <i>his</i>
+good. Far better is a rational, steadfast attachment, that neither rises
+above the worth of the object, nor sinks below it, than the two great
+extremes, idolatry and indifference. The first is a violation of the
+commands of God,&mdash;the last, of the rights of man. Remember, my child,
+that it is not by the exhibition of idolatrous affection, that a wife
+secures a husband's happiness. It is by patient <i>continuance</i> in
+well-doing, that she works out the salvation of her wedded peace. Sit
+down by me, Gabriella; draw up your work-table; for one can listen best
+when their hands are busy. I have a great deal that I wish to say, and I
+cannot talk as well with your eyes bent so earnestly on me."</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed her without trepidation. I felt the need of her guiding
+counsels, and resolved to lay them up in my heart, and make them the
+rule and guide of my life.</p>
+
+<p>"When a young girl marries a man whom she has been taught to believe
+perfection," continued Mrs. Linwood, "and after marriage discovers her
+golden idol to be an image of wood and clay, she may be permitted to sit
+down and weep a while over her vanished dreams. But when she <i>knows</i> the
+imperfections of him she loves; when she <i>knows</i> they are of a nature to
+try, as with seven-fold heat, the strength and purity of her affection;
+when with this conviction she breathes her wedded vows, she has no right
+to upbraid him. She has walked with open eyes into the furnace, and she
+must not shrink from the flames. She must fold over her woman's heart
+the wings of an angel. She must look up to God, and be silent."</p>
+
+<p>"When innocent of blame, surely she should defend herself from
+accusation," cried I.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly,&mdash;in the spirit of gentleness and Christian love. But she
+must not murmur; she must not complain. But it is not the accusation
+that admits of defence, the arrow that flies at noonday, that is most to
+be feared. It is the cold, inscrutable glance, the chilled and altered
+manner, the suspicion that walketh in darkness,&mdash;it is these that try
+the strength of woman's love, and gnaw with slow but certain tooth the
+cable-chain that holds the anchor of her fidelity. These are the evil
+spirits which prayer and fasting alone can cast out. They may fly before
+the uplifted eye and bended knee, but never before the flash of anger or
+the word of recrimination."</p>
+
+<p>"What a solemn view you give me of married life!" I exclaimed, while the
+work dropped from my hands. "What fearful responsibilities you place
+before me,&mdash;I tremble, I dare not meet them."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not too late,&mdash;the irrevocable vow is not yet breathed,&mdash;the path
+is not yet entered. If the mere description of duties makes you turn
+pale with dread, what will the reality be? I do not seek to terrify, but
+to convince. I received you as a precious charge from a dying mother,
+and I vowed over her grave to love, protect, and cherish you, as my own
+daughter. I saw the peculiar dangers to which you were liable from your
+ardent genius and exquisite sensibility, and I suffered you to pass
+through a discipline which my wealth made unnecessary, and which you
+have nobly borne. I did not wish my son to love you, not because you
+were the child of obscurity, but because I had constituted myself the
+guardian of your happiness, and I feared it would be endangered by a
+union with him. How dear is your happiness to me,&mdash;how holy I deem the
+charge I have assumed,&mdash;you may know by my telling you this. Never
+mother idolized a son as I do Ernest. He is precious as my heart's best
+blood,&mdash;he is the one idol that comes between me and my God. My love is
+more intense for the anxiety I feel on his account. If I could have
+prevented his loving;&mdash;but how could I, in the constant presence of an
+object so formed to inspire all the romance of love? I knew the serpent
+slept in the bottom of the fountain, and when the waters were stirred it
+would wake and uncoil. Gabriella!" she added, turning towards me, taking
+both hands in hers, and looking me in the face with her clear, eloquent,
+dark gray eyes, "you may be the angel commissioned by Providence to work
+out the earthly salvation of my son, to walk with him through the fiery
+furnace, to guard him in the lion's den, which his own passions may
+create. If to the love that hopeth all, the faith that believeth all,
+you add the charity that <i>endureth</i> all, miracles may follow an
+influence so exalted, and, I say it with reverence, so divine."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to give but a faint idea of the power of Mrs. Linwood's
+language and manner. There was no vehemence, no gesticulation. Her eye
+did not flash or sparkle; it burned with a steady, penetrating light.
+Her voice did not rise in tone, but it gave utterance to her words in a
+full, deep stream of thought, inexhaustible and clear. I have heard it
+said that she talked "like a book," and so she did,&mdash;like the book of
+heavenly wisdom. Her sentiments were "apples of gold in pictures of
+silver," and worthy to be enshrined in a diamond casket.</p>
+
+<p>As I listened, I caught a portion of her sublime spirit, and felt equal
+to the duties which I had a short time before recoiled from
+contemplating.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very young and inexperienced," I answered, "and too apt to be
+governed by the impulses of the present moment. I dare not promise what
+I may be too weak to perform; but dearest madam, all that a feeble girl,
+strengthened and inspired by love, and leaning humbly on an Almighty
+arm, can do, I pledge myself to do. In looking forward to the future, I
+have thought almost exclusively of being ever near the one beloved
+object, living in the sunshine of his smile, and drinking in the music
+of his voice. Life seemed an elysian dream, from which care and sorrow
+must be for ever banished. You have roused me to nobler views, and given
+existence a nobler aim. I blush for my selfishness. I will henceforth
+think less of being happy myself, than of making others happy; less of
+<i>happiness</i> than <i>duty</i>; and every sacrifice that principle requires
+shall be made light, as well as holy, by love."</p>
+
+<p>"Only cherish such feelings, my child," said Mrs. Linwood, warmly
+embracing me, "and you will be the daughter of my choice, as well as my
+adoption. My blessing, and the blessing of approving God, will be yours.
+The woman, who limits her ambition to the triumphs of beauty and the
+influence of personal fascination, receives the retribution of her folly
+and her sin in the coldness and alienation of her husband, and the
+indifference, if not the contempt of the world. She, whose highest aim
+is intellectual power, will make her home like the eyrie of the eagle,
+lofty, but bleak. While she, whose affections alone are the foundation
+of her happiness, will find that the nest of the dove, though pleasant
+and downy in the sunshine, will furnish no shelter from the fierce
+storms and tempestuous winds of life."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Linwood! Is domestic happiness a houseless wanderer? Has it no
+home on earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my love, in the heart of the woman whose highest aim is the glory
+of God,&mdash;whose next, the excellence and happiness of her husband; who
+considers her talents, her affections, and her beauty as gifts from the
+Almighty hand, for whose use she must one day render an account; whose
+heart is a censer where holy incense is constantly ascending, perfuming
+and sanctifying the atmosphere of home. Such is the woman who pleaseth
+the Lord. Such, I trust, will be my beloved Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>By conversations like these, almost daily renewed, did this admirable,
+high-minded, and God-fearing woman endeavor to prepare me for the
+exalted position to which love had raised me. This was a happy period of
+my life. The absence of Richard Clyde, though a source of regret, was a
+great blessing, as it removed the most prominent object of jealousy from
+Ernest's path. An occasional cloud, a sudden coldness, and an
+unaccountable reserve, sometimes reminded me of the dangerous passion
+whose shadow too often follows the footsteps of love. But in the
+retirement of rural life, surrounded by the sweet, pure influences of
+nature, the best elements of character were called into exercise.</p>
+
+<p>The friends whom Mrs. Linwood gathered around her were not the idle
+devotees of fashion,&mdash;the parasites of wealth; but intelligent, literary
+people, whose society was a source of improvement as well as pleasure.
+Sometimes, circumstances of commanding character forced her to receive
+as guests those whom her judgment would never have selected, as in the
+case of Madge Wildfire; but in general it was a distinction to be
+invited to Grandison Place, whose elegant hospitalities were the boast
+of the town to which it belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The only drawback to my happiness was the pensiveness that hung like a
+soft cloud over the spirits of Edith. She was still kind and
+affectionate to me; but the sweet unreserve of former intercourse was
+gone. I had come between her and her brother's heart. I was the shadow
+on her dial of flowers, that made their bloom wither. I never walked
+with Ernest alone without fearing to give her pain. I never sat with him
+on the seat beneath the elm, in the starry eventide, or at moonlight's
+hour, without feeling that she followed us in secret with a saddened
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>At first, whenever he came to me to walk with him, I would say,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I go for Edith."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he would answer, "if there is nothing in your heart that
+pleads for a nearer communion than that which we enjoy in the presence
+of others, a dearer interchange of thought and feeling, let Edith, let
+the whole world come."</p>
+
+<p>"It is for her sake, not mine, I speak,&mdash;I cannot bear the soft reproach
+of her loving eye!"</p>
+
+<p>"A sister's affection must not be too exacting," was the reply. "All
+that the fondest brother can bestow, I give to Edith; but there are
+gifts she may not share,&mdash;an inner temple she cannot enter,&mdash;reserved
+alone for you. Come, the flowers are wasting their fragrance, the stars
+their lustre!"</p>
+
+<p>How could I plead for Edith, after being silenced by such arguments? And
+how could I tell her that I had interceded for her in vain? I never
+imagined before that a sister's love could be <i>jealous</i>; but the same
+hereditary passion which was transmitted to his bosom through a father's
+blood, reigned in hers, though in a gentler form.</p>
+
+<p>Every one who has studied human nature must have observed predominant
+family traits, as marked as the attributes of different trees and
+blossoms,&mdash;traits which, descending from parent to children,
+individualize them from the great family of mankind. In some, pride
+towers and spreads like the great grove tree of India, the branches
+taking root and forming trunks which put forth a wealth of foliage, rank
+and unhealthy. In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the
+winds and waves of opinion cannot move. In a few, jealousy coils itself
+with lengthening fold, which, like the serpent that wrapped itself round
+Laocoon and his sons, makes parents and children its unhappy victims.</p>
+
+<p>And so it is with the virtues, which, thanks be to God, who setteth the
+solitary in families, are also hereditary. How often do we hear it
+said,&mdash;"She is lovely, charitable, and pious,&mdash;so was her mother before
+her;" "He is an upright and honorable man,&mdash;he came from a noble stock."
+"That youth has a sacred love of truth,&mdash;it is his best
+inheritance,&mdash;his father's word was equivalent to his bond."</p>
+
+<p>If this be true, it shows the duty of parents in an awfully commanding
+manner. Let them rend out the eye that gives dark and distorted views of
+God and man. Let them cut off the hand that offends and the foot that
+errs, rather than entail on others evils, which all eternity cannot
+remedy. Better transmit to posterity the blinded eye, the maimed and
+halting foot, that knows the narrow path to eternal life, than the dark
+passions that desolate earth, and unfit the soul for the joys of heaven.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I have now arrived at a period in my life, at which the novelist would
+pause,&mdash;believing the history of woman ceases to interest as soon as an
+accepted lover and consenting friends appear ready to usher the heroine
+into the temple of Hymen. But there is a <i>life within life</i>, which is
+never revealed till it is intertwined with another's. In the depth of
+the heart there is a lower deep, which is never sounded save by the hand
+that wears the <i>wedding-ring</i>. There is a talisman in its golden circle,
+more powerful than those worn by the genii of the East.</p>
+
+<p>I love to linger among the beautiful shades of Grandison Place, to
+wander over its velvet lawn, its gravel walks, its winding avenues, to
+gaze on the lovely valley its height commanded whether in the intense
+lights and strong shadows of downward day, or the paler splendor and
+deeper shadows of moonlit night. I love those girdling mountains,&mdash;grand
+winding stairs of heaven&mdash;on which my spirit has so often climbed, then
+stepping to the clouds, looked through their "golden vistas" into the
+mysteries of the upper world.</p>
+
+<p>O thou charming home of my youth what associations cluster round thee!
+Thy noble trees rustle their green leaves in the breezes of memory. Thy
+moonlight walks are trodden by invisible footsteps. Would I had never
+left thee, Paradise of my heart! Would I had never tasted the fruit of
+the tree of knowledge, which, though golden to the eye, turns to ashes
+on the lips!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When Ernest urged me to appoint a period for our marriage, I was
+startled&mdash;alarmed. I thought not of hastening to my destiny quite so
+soon. I was too young. I must wait at least two years before assuming
+the responsibilities of a wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Two years!&mdash;two centuries!" he exclaimed. "Why should we wait? I have
+wealth, which woos you to enjoy it. I have arrived at the fulness of
+manhood, and you are in the rosetime of your life. Why should we wait?
+For circumstances to divide,&mdash;for time to chill,&mdash;or death to destroy?
+No, no; when you gave me your heart, you gave me yourself; and I claim
+you as my own, without formal scruples or unnecessary delay."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood exerted all her eloquence with her son to induce him to
+defer the union at least one year, till I had seen something of the
+world,&mdash;till I was better acquainted with my own heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! wait till she loses the freshness and simplicity that won me,&mdash;the
+sweetness and ingenuousness that enchained me!" he cried impetuously.
+"Wait till she has been flattered and spoiled by a vain and deceiving
+world; till she learns to prize the admiration of many better than the
+true love of one; till she becomes that tinsel thing my soul abhors, a
+false and worldly woman. No! give her to me now," he added, clasping me
+to his heart with irresistible tenderness and passion. "Give her to me
+now, in the bloom of her innocence, the flower of her youth, and I will
+enshrine her in my heart as in a crystal vase, which they must break to
+harm her."</p>
+
+<p>The strong love and the strong will united were not to be opposed. Mrs.
+Linwood was forced to yield; and when once her consent was given, mine
+was supposed to be granted. She wished the wedding to be consummated in
+the city, in a style consistent with his splendid fortune, and then our
+rank in society; and therefore proposed the first month in winter, when
+they usually took possession of their habitation in town.</p>
+
+<p>He objected to this with all the earnestness of which he was master. It
+was sacrilege, he said, to call in a gazing world, to make a mockery of
+the holiest feelings of the heart, and to crush under an icy mountain of
+ceremony the spontaneous flowers of nature and of love. He detested
+fashionable crowds on any occasion, and most of all on this. Let it be
+at Grandison Place, the cradle of his love, in the glorious time of the
+harvest-moon, that mellow, golden season, when the earth wraps herself
+as the</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Sacred bride of heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Worthy the passion of a God."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So entirely did I harmonize with him in his preference for Grandison
+Place, that I was willing the time should be anticipated, for the sake
+of the retirement and tranquillity secured.</p>
+
+<p>Madge Wildfire had returned to the city, declaring that lovers were the
+most selfish and insipid people in the world,&mdash;that she was tired of
+flirting with Ursa Major, as she called Mr. Regulus,&mdash;tired of teazing
+Dr. Harlowe,&mdash;tired of the country and of herself.</p>
+
+<p>The night before she left, she came to me in quite a subdued mood.</p>
+
+<p>"I am really sorry you are going to be married," she cried. "If I were
+you, I would not put on chains before I had tasted the sweets of
+liberty. Only think, you have not come out yet, as the prot&eacute;g&eacute;e of the
+rich, the aristocratic Mrs. Linwood. What a sensation you would make in
+Boston next winter if you had sense enough to preserve your freedom.
+Ernest Linwood knows well enough what he is about, when he hastens the
+wedding so vehemently. He knows, if you once go into the world, you will
+be surrounded by admirers who may eclipse and supplant him. But I tell
+thee one thing, my dear creature, you will have no chance to shine as a
+belle, as the wife of Ernest. If he does not prove a second Bluebeard,
+my name is not Meg the Dauntless."</p>
+
+<p>"I detest a married belle," I answered with warmth. "The woman who aims
+at such a distinction is false, heartless, and unprincipled. I would
+bless the watching love that shielded me from a name so odious."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a mighty fine thing to be loved, I suppose," said Meg with a
+resounding laugh, "but I know nothing about it and never shall. Mamma
+and Mrs. Linwood are great friends, you know, or have been; and mamma
+thought it would be wondrous fine for young Miss Hopeful to captivate
+Mr. Splendidus. But he did not <i>take</i>. I did not suit his delicate
+nerves. Well, I wish you joy, my precious soul. He loves you, there is
+no doubt of that. He never sees, never looks at any one else. If you
+speak, he is all ear; if you move, all eye. I wonder how it will be a
+year hence,&mdash;ha, ha!"</p>
+
+<p>Her laugh grated on my nerves, but I concealed the irritation it caused,
+for it was useless to be angry with Meg. She must have had a heart, for
+she was a woman, but the avenue to it was impervious. It was still an
+untravelled wilderness, and bold must be the explorer who dared to
+penetrate its luxuriant depths.</p>
+
+<p>Circumstances connected with the property bequeathed by his uncle, made
+it indispensable that Ernest should be in New York the coming winter;
+and he made arrangements to pass our first bridal season in the great
+empire city. He wrote to a friend resident there, to engage a house and
+have it furnished for our reception.</p>
+
+<p>"For never," said he, "will I carry bride of mine, to make her home in a
+fashionable hotel. I would as soon plunge her in the roaring vortex on
+Norway's coast."</p>
+
+<p>"And must we be separated from your mother and Edith?" I asked,
+trembling at the thought of being removed from Mrs. Linwood's maternal
+counsels and cares; "will they not share our bridal home?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would have the early days of our married life sacred even from their
+participation," he answered, with that eloquence of the eye which no
+woman's heart could resist. "I would have my wife learn to rely on me
+alone for happiness;&mdash;to find in my boundless devotion, my unutterable
+love, an equivalent for all she is called upon to resign. If she cannot
+consent to this, no spark from heaven has kindled the flame of the
+altar; the sacrifice is cold, and unworthy of acceptance."</p>
+
+<p>"For myself, I ask nothing, wish for nothing but your companionship," I
+answered, with the fervor of truth and youth, "but I was thinking of
+them, whom I shall rob of a son and brother so inexpressibly dear."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall meet next summer in these lovely shades. We shall all be happy
+together once more. In the mean time, all the elegancies and luxuries
+that love can imagine and wealth supply shall be yours,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The home to which, if love fulfils its prayers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This hand would lead thee, listen,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And taking me by the hand, he led me out into the beautiful avenue in
+which we had so often wandered, and continued, in the words of that
+charming play which he had read aloud in the early days of our
+acquaintance, with a thrilling expression which none but himself could
+give&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"We'll have no friends<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That are not lovers; no ambition, save<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To excel them all in love; we'll read no books<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That are not tales of love; that we may smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To think how poorly eloquence of words<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when night comes, amidst the breathless heavens,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll guess what star shall be our home when love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Steals through the mists of alabaster lamps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every air be heavy with the sighs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of orange groves, and music from sweet lutes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I' the midst of roses!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Dost thou like the picture?"</p>
+
+<p>How could I help answering, in the words of the impassioned Pauline,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Was ever young imaginative girl wooed in strains of sweeter romance?"</p>
+
+<p>Was there ever a fairer prospect of felicity, if love, pure, intense
+love, constitutes the happiness of wedded life?</p>
+
+<p>I will not swell these pages by describing the village wonder and
+gossip, when it was known that the orphan girl of the old gray cottage
+was exalted to so splendid a destiny; nor the congratulations of
+friends; the delight and exultation of Dr. Harlowe, who said he had
+discovered it all by my pulse long before; nor the deeply interesting
+and characteristic scene with Mr. Regulus; nor the parting interview
+with Mrs. Linwood and Edith.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I will give a brief sketch of the last hour spent with Edith, the
+night before the wedding. We were to be married in the morning, and
+immediately commence our bridal journey.</p>
+
+<p>Edith had never alluded to her own feelings respecting her brother's
+marriage, since the evening of the only misunderstanding we ever had in
+our sisterly intercourse; and it was a subject I could not introduce.
+The delicate, gauzy reserve in which she enfolded herself was as
+impenetrable to me as an ancient warrior's armor.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when the whole household was wrapped in silence, and the lamps
+extinguished, and I sat in my night robe in the recess of the window,
+she came and sat down beside me. We could see each other's faces by the
+silver starlight It glittered on the tear drops in the eyes of both. I
+put my arms around her, and, laying my head on her bosom, poured out all
+the love, gratitude, and affection with which my full heart was
+burdened.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, my beloved Gabriella," she cried, "my apparent coldness and
+estrangement. On my knees I have asked forgiveness of my heavenly
+Father. With my arms round your neck, and your heart next mine, I ask
+forgiveness of you. Try not to think less of me for the indulgence of a
+too selfish and exacting spirit, but remember me as the poor little
+cripple, who for years found her brother's arm her strength and her
+stay, and learned to look up to him as the representative of Providence,
+as the protecting angel of her life. Only make him happy, my own dear
+sister, and I will yield him, not to your stronger, but your equal love.
+His only fault is loving you too well, in depreciating too much his own
+transcendent powers. You cannot help being happy with <i>him</i>, with a
+being so noble and refined. If he ever wounds you by suspicion and
+jealousy, bear all, and forgive all, for the sake of his exceeding
+love,&mdash;for my sake, Gabriella, and for the sake of the dear Redeemer who
+died for love of you."</p>
+
+<p>Dear, lovely, angelic Edith! noble, inestimable Mrs. Linwood!&mdash;dearly
+beloved home of my orphan years,&mdash;grave of my mother, farewell!</p>
+
+<p>Farewell!&mdash;the bride of Ernest must not, cannot weep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The early portion of my married life was more like a dream of heaven
+than a reality of earth. All, and <i>more</i> than I had ever imagined of
+wedded happiness, I realized. The intimate and constant companionship of
+such a being as Ernest, so intellectual, so refined, so highly gifted,
+so loving and impassioned, was a privilege beyond the common destiny of
+women. A hundred times I said to myself in the exultant consciousness of
+joy,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How little his mother knows him! The jealousy of the lover has yielded
+to the perfect confidence of the husband. Our hearts are now too closely
+entwined for the shadow of a cloud to pass between them. He says
+himself, that it would be impossible ever to doubt a love so pure and so
+entire as mine."</p>
+
+<p>Our home was as retired as it was possible to be in the heart of a great
+metropolis. It was near one of those beautiful parks which in summer
+give such an aspect of life and purity to surrounding objects, with
+their grassy lawns, graceful shade trees, and fountains of silvery
+brightness playing in the sunshine, and diffusing such a cool, delicious
+atmosphere, in the midst of heat, dust, and confusion. In winter, even,
+these parks give inexpressible relief to the eye, and freedom to the
+mind, that shrinks from the compression of high brick walls, and longs
+for a more expanded view of the heavens than can be obtained through
+turreted roofs, that seem to meet as they tower.</p>
+
+<p>It made but little difference to me now, for my heaven was within. The
+external world, of which I believed myself wholly independent, seemed
+but a shell enclosing the richness and fragrance of our love. The
+luxuries and elegancies of my own home were prized chiefly as proofs of
+Ernest's watchful and generous love.</p>
+
+<p>The friend to whom he had written to prepare a residence, was fortunate
+in securing one which he believed exactly suited to his fastidious and
+classic taste. A gentleman of fortune had just completed and furnished
+an elegant establishment, when unexpected circumstances compelled him to
+leave his country to be absent several years.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think Ernest would have fitted up our bridal home in so showy
+and magnificent a style; but his love for the beautiful and graceful was
+gratified, and he was pleased with my enthusiastic admiration and
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes imagined myself in an enchanted palace, when wandering
+through the splendid suite of apartments adorned with such oriental
+luxury. The gentleman whose taste had presided over the building of the
+mansion, had travelled all over Europe, and passed several years in the
+East. He had brought home with him the richest and rarest models of
+Eastern architecture, and fashioned his own mansion after them. Ernest
+had not purchased it, for the owner was not willing to sell; he was
+anxious, however, to secure occupants who would appreciate its elegance,
+and guard it from injury.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! little did I think when eating my bread and milk from the china bowl
+bordered by flowers, when a silver spoon seemed something grand and
+massy in the midst of general poverty, that I should ever be the
+mistress of such a magnificent mansion. I had thought Grandison Place
+luxuriously elegant; but what was it compared to this? How shall I begin
+to describe it? or shall I describe it at all? I always like myself to
+know how to localize a friend, to know their surroundings and realities,
+and all that fills up the picture of their life. A friend! Have I made
+friends of my readers? I trust there are some who have followed the
+history of Gabriella Lynn with sufficient interest, to wish to learn
+something of her experience of the married life.</p>
+
+<p>Come, then, with me, and I will devote this chapter to a palace, which
+might indeed fulfil the prayers of the most princely love.</p>
+
+<p>This beautiful apartment, adorned with paintings and statues of the most
+exquisite workmanship, is a reception room, from which you enter the
+parlor and find yourself winding through fluted pillars of ingrained
+marble, from the centre of which curtains of blue and silver, sweeping
+back and wreathing the columns, form an arch beneath which queens might
+be proud to walk. The walls are glittering with silver and blue, and all
+the decorations of the apartment exhibit the same beautiful union. The
+ceiling above is painted in fresco, where cherubs, lovely as the dream
+of love, spread their wings of silvery tinted azure and draw their fairy
+bows.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through this glittering colonnade into a kind of airy room, you
+pause on the threshold, imagining yourself in a fairy grotto. We will
+suppose it moonlight; for it was by moonlight I first beheld this
+enchanting scene. We arrived at night, and Ernest conducted me himself
+through a home which appeared to me more like a dream of the imagination
+than a creation of man. I saw that <i>he</i> was surprised; that he was
+unprepared for such elaborate splendor. He had told his friend to spare
+no expense; but he was not aware that any one had introduced such
+Asiatic magnificence into our cities. I believe I will describe my own
+first impressions, instead of anticipating yours.</p>
+
+<p>The mellowness of autumn still lingered in the atmosphere,&mdash;for the
+season of the harvest-moon is the most beautiful in the world. The
+glorious orb illumined the fairy grotto with a radiance as intense as
+the noonday sun's. It clothed the polished whiteness of the marble
+statues with a drapery of silver, sparkled on the fountain's tossing
+wreaths, converted the spray that rose from the bosom of the marble
+basin below into a delicate web of silver lace-work, and its beams,
+reflected from walls of looking-glass, multiplied, to apparent infinity,
+fountains, statues, trees, and flowers, till my dazzled eyes could
+scarcely distinguish the shadow from the substance. The air was perfumed
+with the delicious odor of tropic blossoms, and filled with the sweet
+murmurs of the gushing fountain.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! how beautiful! how enchanting!" I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of
+admiration. "This must be ideal. Reality never presented any thing so
+brilliant, so exquisite as this. Oh, Ernest, surely this is a place to
+dream of, not a home to live in?"</p>
+
+<p>"It does, indeed," he answered, "transcend my expectations; but if it
+pleases your eye, Gabriella, it cannot go beyond my wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, it delights my eye, but my heart asked nothing but you. I fear
+you will never know how well I love you, in the midst of such regal
+splendor. If you ever doubt me, Ernest, take me to that island home you
+once described, and you will there learn that on you, and you alone, I
+rely for happiness."</p>
+
+<p>He believed me. I knew he did; for he drew me to his bosom, and amid a
+thousand endearing protestations, told me he did not believe it possible
+ever to doubt a love, which irradiated me at that moment, as the moon
+did the Fairy Grotto.</p>
+
+<p>He led me around the marble basin that received the waters of the
+fountain, and which was margined by sea-shells, from which luxuriant
+flowers were gushing, and explained the beautiful figures standing so
+white, so "coldly sweet, so deadly fair," in the still and solemn
+moonlight. I knew the history of each statue as he named them, but I
+questioned him, that I might have the delight of hearing his charming
+and poetic descriptions.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this a daughter of Danaus?" I asked, stopping before a young and
+exquisitely lovely female, holding up to the fountain an urn, through
+whose perforated bottom the waters seemed eternally dripping.</p>
+
+<p>"It is."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it Hypermestra, the only one of all the fifty who had a woman's
+heart, punished by her father for rescuing her husband from the awful
+doom which her obedient sisters so cruelly inflicted on theirs."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it is one of the savage forty-nine, who were condemned by the
+judges of the infernal regions to fill bottomless vessels with water,
+through the unending days of eternity. She does not look much like a
+bride of blood, does she, with that face of softly flowing contour, and
+eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more
+divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified
+and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do
+not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a
+light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic
+nature, when such examples are recorded of her perfidy and
+heartlessness?"</p>
+
+<p>"But she is a fabulous being, Ernest."</p>
+
+<p>"Fables have their origin in truth, my Gabriella. Cannot you judge, by
+the shadow, of the form that casts it? The mythology of Greece and Rome
+shows what estimate was placed on human character at the time it was
+written. The attributes of men and women were ascribed to gods and
+goddesses, and by their virtues and crimes we may judge of the moral
+tone of ancient society. Had there been no perfidious wives, the
+daughters of Danaus had never been born of the poet's brain, and
+embodied by the sculptor's hand. Had woman always been as true as she is
+fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated
+down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image
+of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely
+are they intertwined."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and
+betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or
+the beautiful and avenging Medea. Had man never been false to his vows,
+we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the
+poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira. Ah! this is lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library?
+This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and
+whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness
+and freshness of eternal youth. Do you not trace a resemblance to
+yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble,
+breathe the eloquence of love? How charmingly the moonbeams play upon
+her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow!"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, while the murmurs of the fountain seemed to swell to supply
+the music of his voice. Then he passed on to a lovely Bachanter with ivy
+and vine wreaths on her clustering locks, to a Hebe catching crystal
+drops instead of nectar in her lifted cup; and then we turned and looked
+at all these classic figures reflected in the mural mirrors and at the
+myriad fountains tossing their glittering wreaths, and at the myriad
+basins receiving the cooling showers.</p>
+
+<p>"I only regret," said Ernest, "that I had not designed all this
+expressly for your enjoyment; that the taste of another furnished the
+banquet at which your senses are now revelling."</p>
+
+<p>"But I owe it all to you. You might as well sigh to be the sculptor of
+the statues, the Creator of the flowers. Believe me, I am sufficiently
+grateful. My heart could not bear a greater burden of gratitude."</p>
+
+<p>"Gratitude!" he repeated, "Gabriella, as you value my love, never speak
+to me of gratitude. It is the last feeling I wish to inspire. It may be
+felt for a benefactor, a superior, but not a lover and a husband."</p>
+
+<p>"But when all these characters are combined in one, what language can we
+use to express the full, abounding heart? Methinks mine cannot contain,
+even now, the emotions that swell it almost to suffocation, I am not
+worthy of so much happiness. It is greater than I can bear."</p>
+
+<p>I leaned my head on his shoulder, and tears and smiles mingling together
+relieved the oppression of my grateful, blissful heart. I really felt
+too happy. The intensity of my joy was painful, from its excess.</p>
+
+<p>"This is yours," said he, as we afterwards stood in an apartment whose
+vaulted ceiling, formed of ground crystal and lighted above by gas,
+resembled the softest lustre of moonlight. The hangings of the beds and
+windows were of the richest azure-colored satin, fringed with silver,
+which seemed the livery of the mansion.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is yours," he added, lifting a damask curtain, which fell over
+a charming little recess that opened into a beautiful flower bed. "This
+is a kiosk, where you can sit in the moonlight and make garlands of
+poetry, which Regulus cannot wither."</p>
+
+<p>"How came you so familiar with the mysteries of this enchanted palace?
+Is it not novel to you, as well as to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not recollect that I left you at the hotel for a short time,
+after our arrival? I accompanied my friend hither, and received from him
+the clue to these magic apartments. This is a bathing-room," said he,
+opening one, where a marble bath and ewer, and every luxurious appliance
+reminded one of Eastern luxury. Even the air had a soft languor in it,
+as if perfumed breaths had mingled there.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see the former mistress of this palace," said I,
+gazing round with a bewildered smile; "she was probably some magnificent
+Eastern sultana who reclined under that royal canopy, and received
+sherbet from the hands of kneeling slaves. She little dreamed of the
+rustic successor who would tread her marble halls, and revel in the
+luxuries prepared for her."</p>
+
+<p>"She was a very elegant and intellectual woman, I am told," replied
+Ernest, "who accompanied her husband in his travels, and assisted him in
+every enterprise, by the energy of her mind and the constancy of her
+heart, and whose exquisite taste directed the formation of this graceful
+structure. She painted the frescos on the ceiling of the boudoir, and
+that richly tinted picture of an Italian sunset is the work of her hand.
+This house and its decorations are not as costly as many others in this
+city, but it has such an air of Asiatic magnificence it produces an
+illusion on the eye. I wish, myself, it was not quite so showy, but it
+makes such a charming contrast to the simplicity and freshness of your
+character I cannot wish it otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear I shall be spoiled. I shall imagine myself one of those
+dark-eyed houris, who dwell in the bowers of paradise and welcome the
+souls of the brave."</p>
+
+<p>"That is no inappropriate comparison," said he; "but you must not
+believe me an Eastern satrap, Gabriella, who dares not enter his wife's
+apartment without seeing the signal of admittance at the door. Here is
+another room opening into this; and pressing a spring, a part of the
+dividing walls slid back, revealing an apartment of similar dimensions,
+and furnished with equal elegance.</p>
+
+<p>"This," added he, "was arranged by the master of the mansion for his own
+accommodation. Here is his library, which seems a mass of burnished
+gold, from the splendid binding of the books. By certain secret springs
+the light can be so graduated in this room, that you can vary it from
+the softest twilight to the full blaze of day."</p>
+
+<p>"The Arabian Nights dramatized!" I exclaimed. "I fear we are walking
+over trap-doors, whose secret mouths are ready to yawn on the
+unsuspecting victim."</p>
+
+<p>"Beware then, Gabriella,&mdash;I may be one of the genii, whose terrible
+power no mortal can evade, who can read the thoughts of the heart as
+easily as the printed page. How would you like to be perused so
+closely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would that you could read every thought of my heart, Ernest, every
+emotion of my soul, then you would know, what words can never
+express,&mdash;the height and depth of my love and devotion&mdash;I will not <i>say</i>
+gratitude&mdash;since you reject and disown it,&mdash;but that I must ever feel.
+Can I ever forget the generosity, the magnanimity, which, overlooking
+the cloud upon my birth, has made me the sharer of your princely
+destiny, the mistress of a home like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not care for it, only as the expression of my affection; I am
+sure you do not," he repeated, and his dark gray eye seemed to read the
+inmost depths of thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! a cottage or a palace would be alike to me, provided you are
+near me. It seems to me now as if I should awake in the morning, and
+find I had been in a dream. I am not sure that you have not a magic ring
+on your finger that produces this illusion."</p>
+
+<p>But the morning sunbeams flashed on the softly murmuring fountain, on
+the white polished forms of the Grecian myths, on the trailing
+luxuriance of the tropic blossoms. They glanced in on the glittering
+drapery that wreathed the marble columns, and lighted the crystal dome
+over my head with a mild, subdued radiance.</p>
+
+<p>A boudoir which I had not seen the evening before elicited my morning
+admiration,&mdash;it was furnished with such exquisite elegance, and
+contained so many specimens of the fine arts. Two rosewood cabinets,
+inlaid with pearl, were filled with <i>chefs-d'[oe]uvres</i> from the hands
+of masters, collected in the old world. They were locked; but through
+the glass doors I could gaze and admire, and make them all my own. An
+elegant escritoire was open on the table, the only thing with which I
+could associate the idea of utility. Yes, there was a harp, that seemed
+supported by a marble cherub,&mdash;a most magnificent instrument. I sighed
+to think it was useless to me; but Ernest's hand would steal music from
+its silent strings.</p>
+
+<p>And now behold me installed as mistress of this luxurious mansion, an
+utter stranger in the heart of a great metropolis!</p>
+
+<p>It was now that I understood the reserve of Ernest's character. It was
+impossible that we should remain altogether strangers, living in a style
+which wealth only could sanction. Mr. Harland, the gentleman with whom
+Ernest had corresponded, moved in the circles of fashion and
+distinction, and he introduced his friends and acquaintances, being
+himself a frequent and agreeable visitor. Ernest received our guest with
+elegance and politeness,&mdash;these attributes were inseparable from
+himself,&mdash;but there was a coldness and reserve that seemed to forbid all
+approach to intimacy. Fearful of displeasing him, I repressed the
+natural frankness and social warmth of my nature, and I am sure our
+visitors often departed, chilled and disappointed. The parlor was lined
+with mirrors, and I could not turn without seeing myself reflected on
+every side; and not only myself, but an eye that watched my every
+movement, and an ear that drank in my every word. How could I feel at
+ease, or do justice to those powers of pleasing with which nature may
+have gifted me?</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, though very seldom, Ernest was not present; and then my
+spirits rebounded from this unnatural constraint, and I laughed and
+talked like other people. The youthful brightness of my feelings flashed
+forth, and I forgot that a <i>clouded star</i> presided over my young life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I would not give the impression that, at this time, I felt hurt at the
+coldness and reserve of Ernest, as exhibited in society. I was fearful
+of displeasing him by showing too much pleasure in what did not appear
+to interest him; but when the door was closed on the departing guest and
+he exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thank heaven! we are once more alone!"</p>
+
+<p>I could not help echoing the sentiment which brought us so close to each
+other, and rejoiced with him that formality and restraint no longer
+interfered with the freedom of love and the joys of home. He never
+appeared so illumined with intellect, so glowing with feeling, as in
+moments like these; and I was flattered that a mind so brilliant, and a
+heart so warm, reserved their brightness and their warmth for me. If he
+was happy with me, and me only, how supremely blest should I be, with a
+companion so intellectual and fascinating! If Edith were but near, so
+that I could say to her occasionally, "How happy I am!" if Mrs. Linwood
+were with me to know that nothing had yet arisen to disturb the heaven
+of our wedded happiness; if excellent Dr. Harlowe could only call in
+once in a while, with his pleasant words and genial smiles; or kindly
+feeling, awkward Mr. Regulus, I should not have a wish ungratified.</p>
+
+<p>It is true I sometimes wished I had something to do, but we had
+supernumerary servants, and if I found any employment it must have been
+similar to that of Jack the bean-boy, who poured his beans on the floor
+and then picked them up again. I was fond of sewing. But the wardrobe of
+a young bride is generally too well supplied; at least mine was, to
+admit of much exercise with the needle. I was passionately fond of
+reading, and of hearing Ernest read; and many an hour every day was
+devoted to books. But the mind, like the body, can digest only a certain
+quantity of food, and is oppressed by an excessive portion.</p>
+
+<p>Had Ernest welcomed society, our superb parlor would have been thronged
+with nightly guests; but he put up bars of ceremony against such
+intrusion; polished silver they were, it is true, but they were felt to
+be heavy and strong. He never visited himself, that is, socially. He
+paid formal calls, as he would an inevitable tax, rejoicing when the
+wearisome task was over; out beyond the limits of ceremony he could not
+be persuaded to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually our evening visitors became few,&mdash;the cold season advanced,
+the fountain ceased to play in the grotto, and the beautiful flowers
+were inclosed in the green-house.</p>
+
+<p>Our rooms were warmed by furnaces below, which diffused a summer
+temperature through the house. In mine, the heat came up through an
+exquisite Etruscan vase, covered with flowers, which seemed to emit odor
+as well as warmth, and threw the illusion of spring over the dullness
+and gloom of winter. But I missed the glowing hearth of Mrs. Linwood,
+the brightness and heartiness of her winter fireside.</p>
+
+<p>I never shall forget how I started with horror, when I was conscious of
+a feeling of <i>ennui</i>, even in the presence of Ernest. It was not
+possible I should be weary of the joys of heaven, if I were capable of
+sighing in my own Eden bower. I tried to banish the impression; it
+<span class="smcap">WOULD</span> return, and with it self-reproach and shame.</p>
+
+<p>If Ernest had not been lifted by wealth above the necessity of exertion;
+had he been obliged to exercise the talents with which he was so
+liberally endowed for his own support and the benefit of mankind; had he
+some profession which compelled him to mingle in the world, till the too
+exquisite edge of his sensibilities were blunted by contact with firmer,
+rougher natures, what a blessing it would have been! With what pride
+would I have seen him go forth to his daily duties, sure that he was
+imparting and receiving good. With what rapture would I have welcomed
+his returning footstep!</p>
+
+<p>Oh! had he been a <i>poor</i> man, he would have been a <i>great</i> man. He was
+not obliged to toil, either physically or mentally; and indolence is
+born of luxury, and morbid sensibility luxuriates in the lap of
+indolence. Forms of beauty and grandeur wait in the marble quarry for
+the hand of genius and skill. Ingots of gold sleep in the mine, till the
+explorer fathoms its depths and brings to light the hidden treasures.
+Labor is the slave of the lamp of life, who alone keeps its flame from
+waxing dim. When a child, I looked upon poverty as man's greatest curse;
+but I now thought differently. To feel that every wish is gratified,
+every want supplied, is almost as dreary as to indulge the wish, and
+experience the want, without the means of satisfying the cravings of one
+or the urgency of the other.</p>
+
+<p>Had Ernest been a poor man, he would not have had time to think
+unceasingly of me. His mind would have been occupied with sterner
+thoughts and more exalted cares. But rich as he was, I longed to see him
+live for something nobler than personal enjoyment, to know that he
+possessed a higher aim than love for me. I did not feel worthy to fill
+the capacities of that noble heart. I wanted him to love me less, that I
+might have something more to desire.</p>
+
+<p>"Of what are you thinking so deeply, sweet wife?" he asked, when I had
+been unconsciously indulging in a long, deep reverie. "What great
+subject knits so severely that fair young brow?" he repeated, sitting by
+me, and taking my hand in his.</p>
+
+<p>I blushed, for my thoughts were making bold excursions.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking," I answered, looking bravely in his face, "what a
+blessed thing it must be to do good, to have the will as well as the
+power to bless mankind."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what scheme of benevolence my little philanthropist is forming.
+What mighty engine would she set in motion to benefit her species?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking how happy a person must feel, who was able to establish
+an asylum for the blind or the insane, a hospital for the sick, or a
+home for the orphan. I was thinking how delightful it would be to go out
+into the byways of poverty, the abodes of sickness and want, and bid
+their inmates follow me, where comfort and ease and plenty awaited them.
+I was thinking, if I were a man, how I would love to be called the
+friend and benefactor of mankind; but, being a woman, how proud and
+happy I should be to follow in the footsteps of such a good and glorious
+being, and hear the blessings bestowed upon his name."</p>
+
+<p>I spoke with earnestness, and my cheeks glowed with enthusiasm. I felt
+the clasp of his hand tighten as he drew me closer to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been thinking," he said, in his peculiarly grave, melodious
+accents, "that I am leading a self-indulging, too luxurious life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not you&mdash;not you alone, dearest Ernest; but both of us," I cried,
+feeling a righteous boldness, I did not dream that I possessed. "Do not
+the purple and the fine linen of luxury enervate the limbs which they
+clothe? Is there no starving Lazarus, who may rebuke us hereafter for
+the sumptuous fare over which we have revelled? I know how generous, how
+compassionate you are; how ready you are to relieve the sufferings
+brought before your eye; but how little we witness here! how few
+opportunities we have of doing good! Ought they not to be sought? May
+they not be found everywhere in this great thoroughfare of humanity?"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall find my purse as deep as your charities, my lovely
+monitress," he answered, while his countenance beamed with approbation.
+"My bounty as boundless as your desires. But, in a great city like this,
+it is difficult to distinguish between willing degradation and
+meritorious poverty. You could not go into the squalid dens of want and
+sin, without soiling the whiteness of your spirit, by familiarity with
+scenes which I would not have you conscious of passing in the world.
+There are those who go about as missionaries of good among the lowest
+dregs of the populace, whom you can employ as agents for your bounty.
+There are benevolent associations, through which your charities can flow
+in full and refreshing streams. Remember, I place no limits to your
+generosities. As to your magnificent plans of establishing asylums and
+public institutions for the lame, the halt, and the blind, perhaps my
+single means might not be able to accomplish them,&mdash;delightful as it
+would be to have an angel following in my footsteps, and binding up the
+wounds of suffering humanity."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled with radiant good-humor at my Quixotic schemes. Then he told
+me, that since he had been in the city he had given thousands to the
+charitable associations which spread in great lifegiving veins through
+every part of the metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>"You think I am living in vain, my Gabriella," he said, rising and
+walking the length of the splendid apartment and again returning,
+"because I do not have my allotted daily task to perform; because I do
+not go forth, like the lawyer, with a green bag under my arm; like the
+minister, with a sermon in my pocket; or the doctor, with powders and
+pills. If necessity imposed such tasks on me, I suppose I should perform
+them with as good a grace as the rest; but surely it would ill become me
+to enter the lists with my needier brethren, and take the bread from
+their desiring lips. Every profession is crowded. Even woman is pressing
+into the throng, and claiming precedence of man, in the great struggle
+of life. It seems to me, that it is the duty of those on whom fortune
+has lavished her gifts, to step aside and give room to others, who are
+less liberally endowed. We <i>may</i> live in luxury; but by so doing, our
+wealth is scattered among the multitude, the useful arts are encouraged,
+and much is done for the establishment of that golden mean, which reason
+and philosophy have so long labored to secure."</p>
+
+<p>As he thus spoke calmly, yet energetically, moving back and forth under
+the arches of glittering azure, his pale, transparent complexion lighted
+up glowingly. My eyes followed him with exulting affection. I wondered
+at the presumption of which I had been guilty. He had been doing good in
+secret, while I imagined him forgetful of the sacred legacy, left by
+Christ to the rich. I had wronged him in thought, and I told him so.</p>
+
+<p>"You asked me of what I was thinking," I said, "and you draw my thoughts
+from me as by magic. I have not told you all. <i>I</i> do not sigh for other
+society; but I fear you will become weary of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Do we ever weary of moonlight, or the sweet, fresh air of heaven? No,
+Gabriella; remain just as you are, ingenuous, confiding, and true, and I
+desire no other companionship. You so entirely fill my heart, there is
+no room for more. You never have had, never will have a rival. You have
+a power over me, such as woman seldom, exercises over man. Love, with
+most men, is the pastime and gladdener of life; with me it is life
+itself. A fearful responsibility is resting on you, my own, dear bride;
+but do not tremble. I do not think it is possible for you to deceive me,
+for you are truth itself. I begin to think you have changed my nature,
+and inspired me with trust and confidence in all mankind."</p>
+
+<p>I did not make any professions, any promises, in answer to his avowal;
+but if ever a fervent prayer rose from the human heart, it ascended from
+mine, that I might prove worthy of this trust, that I might preserve it
+unblemished, with a constant reference to the eye that cannot be
+deceived, and the judgment that cannot err.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The first misfortune of my married life, came in the person of Margaret
+Melville. She burst into the boudoir one morning like a young tornado,
+seizing me in her strong arms, and giving me a shower of kisses, before
+I had time to recover from my astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest and myself were seated side by side by the escritoire. He was
+reading,&mdash;I was writing to Edith, little dreaming of the interruption at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear creature," she exclaimed, with one of her inimitable ringing
+laughs, "how <i>do</i> you <i>do</i>? You didn't think of seeing me, I know you
+didn't. Where did I come from? I dropped down from the upper
+regions,&mdash;you do not believe that. Well, I came with a party of friends,
+who wanted me to keep them alive. They are stopping at the Astor House.
+By the way, my trunks are there,&mdash;you may send for them as soon as you
+please. (Her trunks! she had come for a long visit, then!) There is my
+bonnet, mantilla, and gloves,&mdash;here <i>I</i> am, body and soul,&mdash;what a
+glorious lounge,&mdash;good old Cr[oe]sus, what a palace you are in,&mdash;I never
+saw any thing so magnificent! Why, this is worth getting married for! If
+I ever marry, it shall be to a rich man, and one who will let me do just
+as I please, too."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest in vain endeavored to conceal his vexation at this unexpected
+innovation on the elegant quietude and romantic seclusion of our home.
+His countenance expressed it but too plainly, and Margaret, careless as
+she was, must have observed it. It did not appear to disconcert her,
+however. She had not waited for an invitation,&mdash;she did not trouble
+herself about a welcome. She had come for her own amusement, and
+provided that was secured, she cared not for our gratification.</p>
+
+<p>I can hardly explain my own feelings. I always dreaded coming in contact
+with her rudeness; there was no sympathy in our natures, and yet I
+experienced a sensation of relief while listening to her bubbling and
+effervescent nonsense. My mind had been kept on so high a tone, there
+was a strain, a tension, of which I was hardly conscious till the
+bowstring was slackened. Besides, she was associated with the
+recollections of Grandison Place,&mdash;she was a young person of my own sex,
+and she could talk to me of Mrs. Linwood, and Edith, and the friends of
+my rural life. So I tried to become reconciled to the visitation, and to
+do the honors of a hostess with as good a grace as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest took refuge in the library from her wild rattling, and then she
+poured into my ear the idle gossip she had heard the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>"It never will do," she cried, catching a pair of scissors from my
+work-box, and twirling them on the ends of her fingers at the imminent
+risk of their flying into my eyes,&mdash;"you must put a stop to this Darby
+and Joan way of living,&mdash;you will be the byword of the fashionable
+world,&mdash;I heard several gentlemen talking about you last night. They
+said your husband was so exclusive and jealous he would not let the sun
+look upon you if he could help it,&mdash;that he had the house lighted
+through the roof, so that no one could peep at you through the windows.
+Oh! I cannot repeat half the ridiculous things they said, but I am sure
+your ears must have burned from the compliments they paid you, at least
+those who have had the good-luck to catch a glimpse of your face. They
+all agreed that Ernest was a frightful ogre, who ought to be put in a
+boiling cauldron, for immuring you so closely,&mdash;I am going to tell him
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, Margaret, don't! If you have any regard for my feelings, don't,
+I entreat you, ever repeat one word of this unmeaning gossip to him. He
+is so peculiarly sensitive, he would shrink still more from social
+intercourse. What a shame it is to talk of him in this manner. I am sure
+I have as much liberty as I wish. He is ready to gratify every desire of
+my heart He has made me the happiest of human beings."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I know all that, of course. Who would not be happy in such a palace
+as this?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not the splendor with which he has surrounded me," I answered,
+gravely, "but the love which is my earthly Providence, which constitutes
+my felicity. You may tell these <i>busy idlers</i>, who are so interested in
+my domestic happiness, that I thank my husband for excluding me from
+companions so inferior to himself,&mdash;so incapable of appreciating the
+purity and elevation of his character."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my precious soul, don't be angry with them. You are a jewel of a
+wife, and I dare say he is a diamond of a husband; but you cannot stop
+peoples' tongues. They <i>will</i> talk when folks set themselves up as
+exclusives. But let me tell you one thing, my pretty creature!&mdash;I am not
+going to be shut up in a cage while I am here, I assure you. I am
+determined to see all the lions; go to all fashionable places of
+amusement, all attractive exhibitions, theatres, concerts, panoramas,
+every thing that promises the least particle of enjoyment. I shall
+parade Broadway, frequent Stewart's marble palace, and make myself the
+belle of the city. And you are to go with me, my dear,&mdash;for am I not
+your guest, and are you not bound to minister to my gratification? As
+for your ogre, he may go or stay, just as he pleases. There will be
+plenty who will be glad enough to take his place."</p>
+
+<p>I did not expect that she would have the audacity to say this to Ernest;
+but she did. I had never asked him to take me to places of public
+amusement, because I knew he did not wish it. Sometimes, when I saw in
+the morning papers that a celebrated actor was to appear in a fine
+drama, my heart throbbed with momentary desire, and my lips opened to
+express it. But delicacy and pride always restrained its expression. I
+waited for him to say,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, would you like to go?"</p>
+
+<p>The morning after her arrival she ransacked the papers, and fastening on
+the column devoted to amusements, read its contents aloud, to the
+evident annoyance of Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Niblo's Garden, the inimitable Ravels&mdash;<i>La F&ecirc;te champ&eacute;tre</i>,&mdash;dancing on
+the tight-rope, etc. Yes, that's it. We will go there to-night,
+Gabriella. I have been dying to see the Ravels. Cousin Ernest,&mdash;you did
+not know that you were my cousin, did you?&mdash;but you are. Our mothers
+have been climbing the genealogical tree, and discovered our collateral
+branches. Cousin Ernest, go and get us tickets before the best seats are
+secured. What an unpromising countenance! Never mind. Mr. Harland said
+he would be only too happy to attend Gabriella and myself to any place
+of amusement or party of pleasure. You are not obliged to go, unless you
+choose. Is he, Gabriella?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly should not think of going without him," I answered, vexed
+to discover how much I really wished to go.</p>
+
+<p>"But you wish to go,&mdash;you know you do. Poor, dear little soul! You have
+never been anywhere,&mdash;you have seen nothing,&mdash;you live as close and
+demure as a church mouse,&mdash;while this man-monster, who has nothing in
+the universe to do, from morning till night, but wait upon you and
+contribute to your gratification, keeps you at home, like a bird in a
+cage, just to look at and admire. It is too selfish. If <i>you</i> will not
+tell him so, <i>I</i> will. He shall hear the truth from somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret!" I said, frightened at the pale anger of Ernest's
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"You dare not look me in the face and say that you do not wish to go,
+Gabriella? You know you dare not."</p>
+
+<p>"I desire nothing contrary to my husband's wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a little simpleton, then,&mdash;and I don't care what people say. It
+is a sin to encourage him in such selfishness and despotism."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, but her lips curled with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest took up a pearl paper-cutter from the table, and bent it, till it
+broke like glass in his fingers. He did not know what he was doing.
+Madge only laughed the louder. She enjoyed his anger and my trepidation.</p>
+
+<p>"A pretty thing to make a scene of!" she exclaimed. "Here I come all the
+way from Boston to make you a visit,&mdash;expecting you would do every thing
+to make me happy, as other folks do, when friends visit them. I propose
+a quiet, respectable amusement, in my own frank, go-ahead way,&mdash;and
+lo!&mdash;my lord frowns, and my lady trembles, and both, occupied in
+watching each other's emotions, forget they have a guest to entertain,
+as well as a friend to gratify."</p>
+
+<p>"You might wait till I have refused to accompany you, Miss Melville,"
+said Ernest, in a cold, calm voice. "You know me incapable of such
+rudeness. But I cannot allow even a lady to make such unpardonable
+allusions to my domestic feelings and conduct. If a man cannot find a
+sanctuary from insult in his own home, he may well bar his doors against
+intrusion, and if he has the spirit of a man, he will."</p>
+
+<p>"She is only jesting," said I, with a beseeching glance. "You know Madge
+of old,&mdash;she never says any thing she really thinks. How can you be
+excited by any remarks of hers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ernest," cried Madge, while the <i>laughing devil</i> in her great
+black eyes tried to shrink into a hiding-place, "have you not manliness
+to forgive me, when the rash humor which my mother gave me makes me
+forgetful?"</p>
+
+<p>She held out her hand with an ardent desire for reconciliation. She
+found she had a spirit to contend with, stronger than she imagined; and
+for the moment she was subdued.</p>
+
+<p>"Not your mother, Margaret," replied Ernest, taking the offered hand
+with a better grace than I anticipated. "She is gentle and womanly, like
+my own. I know not whence you derived your wickedness."</p>
+
+<p>"It is all original. I claim the sole credit of it. Father and mother
+both saints. I am a moral tangent, flying off between them. Well, we are
+friends again; are we not?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are at peace," he answered. "You know the conditions, now; and I
+trust will respect them."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all going to Niblo's," she cried eagerly; "that is one
+condition."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," he answered; and he could not help smiling at the
+adroitness with which she changed positions with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you really like to go, Gabriella?" he asked, turning to me; and
+his countenance beamed with all its wonted tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, indeed I will. I am sure it will be delightful."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you ever desired to partake of pleasures, without telling me
+of your wishes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know that I can call the transient emotion I have felt, a
+desire," I answered; blushing that I had ever cherished thoughts which I
+was unwilling to disclose. "I believe curiosity is natural to youth and
+inexperience."</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect love casteth out fear, Gabriella. You must promise to tell me
+every wish of your heart; and be assured, if consistent with reason, it
+shall be gratified."</p>
+
+<p>Delighted at so pleasant a termination to so inauspicious a beginning, I
+looked forward to the evening's entertainment with bright and elastic
+spirits. Once, as my eye rested on the fragments of pearl, I sighed to
+think how easily the pearls of sensibility, as well as all the frail and
+delicate treasures of life, might be crushed by the hand of passion.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was surprised, when I found myself in a lofty dome, brilliantly
+illuminated by gas, instead of the ample flower-garden my imagination
+had described. I hardly know what idea I had formed; but I expected to
+be seated in the open air, in the midst of blossoming plants, and
+singing birds, and trees, on whose branches variegated lamps were
+burning. Ernest smiled when I told him of my disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is with the illusions of life," said he. "They all pass away. The
+garden which you passed before the entrance, has given its name to the
+place; and even that, the encroaching steps of business will trample
+on."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harland escorted Meg, who was in exuberant spirits, and as usual
+attracted the public gaze by her dashing and reckless demeanor.
+Conspicuous, from her superior height, her large, roving black eyes, and
+her opera cloak of brilliant cherry color, I felt sheltered from
+observation in her vicinity, and hoped that Ernest would find I could
+mingle in public scenes without drawing any peculiar attention. Indeed,
+I was so absorbed by the graceful and expressive pantomime, the novelty
+and variety of the scenic decorations, that I thought not where I was,
+or who I was. To city dwellers, a description of these would be as
+unnecessary as uninteresting; but perhaps some young country girl, as
+inexperienced as myself in fashionable amusements, may like to follow my
+glowing impressions.</p>
+
+<p>One scene I remember, which had on me the effect of enchantment.</p>
+
+<p>The stage represented one of those rural f&ecirc;tes, where the peasantry of
+France gather on the village green, to mingle in the exhilarating dance.
+An aged couple came forward, hand in hand, in coarse grey overcoats,
+wooden sabots, and flapped hats, fastened by gray handkerchiefs under
+their chins. Two tight ropes were stretched parallel to each other,
+about eight or ten feet above the stage, and extended over the
+parquette. A light ladder rested against them, on each side. The aged
+couple tottered to the ladder, and attempted to ascend; but, at the
+first step, they fell and rolled on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor creatures!" said I, trembling for their safety. "Why will they
+make such a ridiculous attempt? Why will not some of the bystanders
+prevent them, instead of urging them with such exulting shouts?"</p>
+
+<p>"They deserve to suffer for their folly," answered Ernest, laughing.
+"Age should not ape the agility of youth. Perhaps they will do better
+than you anticipate."</p>
+
+<p>After repeated attempts and failures, they stood, balancing themselves
+painfully on the ropes, clinging to each other's hands, and apparently
+trembling with terror.</p>
+
+<p>"They <i>will</i> fall!" I exclaimed, catching hold of Ernest's arm, and
+covering my eyes. "I cannot bear to look at them. There! how dreadfully
+they stagger."</p>
+
+<p>Again I covered my eyes, resolved to shut out the catastrophe of their
+broken necks and mangled limbs,&mdash;when thunders of acclamation shook the
+house; and, looking up, I beheld a transformation that seemed
+supernatural. The old great-coats, clumsy sabots, and hats, were
+scattered to the ground; and two youthful figures, glittering in white
+and silver, light and graceful as "feathered Mercuries," stood, hand in
+hand, poised on one foot, on the tight-drawn ropes. They danced. I never
+realized before the music of motion. Now, they floated downwards like
+softly rolling clouds; then vaulted upwards like two white-winged birds,
+with sunbeams shining on their plumage. A bright, fearless smile
+illumined their countenances; their dark, waving locks shone in the
+dazzling light.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest seemed to enjoy my rapture. "I take more pleasure," he said,
+"watching your vivid emotions, than in witnessing this wonderfully
+graceful exhibition. What a perfect child of nature you are, Gabriella.
+You should thank me for keeping you somewhat aloof from the fascinations
+of the world. It is only in the shade, that the dew remains on the
+flower."</p>
+
+<p>I do not think one glance of mine had wandered from the stage, save to
+meet the eye of Ernest. We sat in the second row of boxes, about
+half-way distant from the stage and the centre. I knew that every seat
+was crowded, but I did not observe the occupants. Meg, who cared as much
+about the audience as the performers, kept her opera-glass busy in
+gazing on those who were remote, and her own bold, magnificent eyes in
+examining those in her vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!" she whispered, "do look at that gentleman in the next box,
+one seat in advance of us. He has been gazing at you for an hour
+steadily. Do you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head, and made a motion, enjoining silence. I did not think
+Ernest had heard her, and I did not wish his attention directed towards
+an impertinence of this kind. It would make him angry, and he seemed to
+have enjoyed the evening.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you look?" again whispered Meg. "He may leave the box. He is
+certainly trying to magnetize you."</p>
+
+<p>Impelled by growing curiosity, I glanced in the direction she indicated,
+and met the unreceding gaze of a pair of dark, intense eyes, that seemed
+to burn in their sockets. Their owner was a gentleman, who appeared
+about forty years of age, of a very striking figure, and features
+originally handsome, but wearing the unmistakable stamp of dissipation.
+I blushed at his bold and steadfast scrutiny, and drew involuntarily
+nearer to Ernest. Ernest observed his undaunted stare, and his brows
+contracted over his flashing eyes. The gentleman, perceiving this,
+turned towards the stage, and seemed absorbed in admiration of the
+graceful and inimitable Ravels.</p>
+
+<p>"Scoundrel!" muttered Ernest, leaning forward so as to interpose a
+barrier to his insolence.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you speak to me, cousin Ernest?" asked Meg, with affected
+simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>He made no reply; and as the stranger did not turn again, I became so
+interested in the performance as to forget his bold ness. During the
+interlude between the plays, I begged Ernest to get me a glass of water.
+Meg made the same request of Mr. Harland, and for a short time we were
+left alone.</p>
+
+<p>The moment the gentlemen had left the box, the stranger rose and stepped
+into the box behind him, which brought him on a line with us, and close
+to me, as I was seated next to the partition. I did not look him in the
+face; but I could not help being conscious of his movements, and of the
+probing gaze he again fixed on me. I wished I had not asked for the
+water. I could have borne the faintness and oppression caused by the
+odor of the gas better than that dark, unshrinking glance. I dreaded the
+anger of Ernest on his return. I feared he would openly resent an
+insolence so publicly and perseveringly displayed. We were side by side,
+with only the low partition of the boxes between us, so near that I felt
+his burning breath on my cheek,&mdash;a breath in which the strong perfume of
+orris-root could not overcome the fumes of the narcotic weed. I tried to
+move nearer Meg, but her back was partially turned to me, in the act of
+conversing with some gentleman who had just entered the box, and she was
+planted on her seat firm as a marble statue.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger's hand rested on the partition, and a note fell into my
+lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Conceal this from your husband," said a low, quick voice, scarcely
+above a whisper, "or his life shall be the forfeit as well as mine."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, he lifted his right hand, exhibiting a miniature in its
+palm, in golden setting. One moment it flashed on my gaze, then
+vanished, but that glance was enough. I recognized the lovely features
+of my mother, though blooming with youth, and beaming with hope and joy.</p>
+
+<p>To snatch up the note and hide it in my bosom, was an act as instinctive
+as the beating of my heart. It was my father, then, from whose scorching
+gaze I had been shrinking with such unutterable dread and loathing,&mdash;the
+being whom she had once so idolatrously loved, whom in spite of her
+wrongs she continued to love,&mdash;the being who had destroyed her peace,
+broken her heart, and laid her in a premature grave&mdash;the being whom her
+dying lips commanded me to forgive, whom her prophetic dream warned me
+to protect from unknown danger. My father! I had imagined him dead, so
+many years had elapsed since my mother's flight. I had thought of him as
+a fabulous being. I dreamed not of encountering him, and if I had, I
+should have felt secure, for how could he recognize <i>me</i>? My father!
+cold and sick I turned away, shivering with indescribable apprehension.
+He had destroyed my mother,&mdash;he had come to destroy me. That secret
+note,&mdash;that note which I was to conceal, or meet so awful a penalty,
+seemed to scorch the bosom that throbbed wildly against its folds.</p>
+
+<p>All that I have described occurred in the space of a few moments. Before
+Ernest returned, the stranger had resumed his seat,&mdash;(I cannot, oh, I
+cannot call him <i>father</i>,)&mdash;and there was no apparent cause for my
+unconquerable emotion. Meg, who was laughing and talking with her
+companions, had observed nothing. The secret was safe, on which I was
+told two lives depended. Two,&mdash;I might say <i>three</i>, since one was the
+life of Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>I attempted to take the glass of water, but my hand shook so I could not
+hold it. I dared not look in the face of Ernest, lest he should read in
+mine all that had occurred.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" he asked, anxiously. "Gabriella, has any thing
+alarmed you during my absence?"</p>
+
+<p>"The odor of the gas sickens me," I answered, evading the question; "if
+you are willing, I should like to return home."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem strangely affected in crowds," said he, in an undertone, and
+bending on me a keen, searching glance. "I remember on commencement day
+you were similarly agitated."</p>
+
+<p>"I do indeed seem destined to suffer on such occasions," I answered, a
+sharp pang darting through my heart. I read suspicion in his altered
+countenance. The flower leaves were beginning to wither. "If Miss
+Melville is willing, I should like to return."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that you say about going home?" cried Meg, turning quickly
+round. "What in the world is this, Gabriella? You look as if you had
+seen a ghost!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever she has seen, it is probable you have been equally favored,
+Miss Melville, since you were together," said Ernest, in the same cold
+undertone. The orchestra was playing a magnificent overture, there was
+laughter and merriment around us, so the conversation in our box was not
+over-heard.</p>
+
+<p>"I!" exclaimed Meg. "I have not seen any thing but one sociable looking
+neighbor. I should not wonder if his eyes had blistered her face, they
+have been glowing on her so intensely."</p>
+
+<p>As she raised her voice, the stranger turned his head, and again I met
+them,&mdash;those strange, basilisk eyes. They seemed to drink my heart's
+blood. It is scarcely metaphorical to say so, for every glance left a
+cold, deadly feeling behind.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Gabriella," said Ernest; "if Miss Melville wishes it, she can
+remain with Mr. Harland. I will send back the carriage for them."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure I wish it," cried Meg. "They say the best part of the
+amusement is to come. Gabriella has a poor opinion of my nursing, so I
+will not cast my pearls away. I am glad <i>I</i> have not any nerves, my dear
+little sensitive plant. It <i>is</i> a terrible thing to be too attractive to
+venture abroad!"</p>
+
+<p>The latter part of the sentence was uttered in a whisper, while
+suppressed laughter convulsed her frame.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest did not open his lips as he conducted me from the theatre to the
+carriage, and not a word was spoken during our homeward ride. The
+rattling of the pavements was a relief to the cold silence. Instead of
+occupying the same seat with me, Ernest took the one opposite; and as we
+passed the street lamps they flashed on his face, and it seemed that of
+a statue, so cold and impressive it looked. What did he suspect? What
+had I done to cause this deep displeasure? He knew not of the note which
+I had concealed, of the words which still hissed in my ears. The bold
+gaze of the stranger would naturally excite his anger against him, but
+why should it estrange him from me? I had yet to learn the wiles and the
+madness of his bosom enemy.</p>
+
+<p>When I took his hand, as he assisted me from the carriage I started, for
+it was as chill as ice, and the fingers, usually so pliant and gentle in
+their fold, were inflexible as marble. I thought I should have fallen to
+the pavement; but exerting all the resolution of which I was mistress, I
+entered the house, and passed under the dim glitter of the silvery
+drapery into my own apartment.</p>
+
+<p>I had barely strength to reach the sofa, on which I sunk in a state of
+utter exhaustion. I feared I was going to faint, and then they would
+loosen my dress and discover the fatal note.</p>
+
+<p>"Wine!" said I to the chambermaid, who was folding my opera cloak, which
+I had dropped on the floor; "give me wine. I am faint."</p>
+
+<p>I remembered the red wine which Dr. Harlowe gave me, after my midnight
+run through the dark woods, and how it infused new life into my sinking
+frame. Since then I had been afraid to drink it, for the doctor had
+laughingly assured me, that it had intoxicated, while it sustained. Now,
+I wanted strength and courage, and it came to me, after swallowing the
+glowing draught. I lifted my head, and met the cold glance of Ernest
+without shivering. I dared to speak and ask him the cause of his anger.</p>
+
+<p>"The cause!" repeated he, his eyes kindling with passion. "Who was the
+bold libertine, before whose unlicensed gaze you blushed and trembled,
+not with indignation, such as a pure and innocent woman ought to feel;
+but with the bashful confusion the veteran <i>rou&eacute;</i> delights to behold?
+Who was this man, whose presence caused you such overpowering emotion,
+and who exchanged with you glances of such mysterious meaning? Tell me,
+for I <i>will</i> know."</p>
+
+<p>Oh that I had dared to answer, "He is my father. Covered with shame and
+humiliation, I acknowledge my parentage, which makes me so unworthy to
+bear your unsullied name. My darkened spirit would hide itself behind a
+cloud, to escape the villain whom nature disowns and reason abhors."
+But, unknowing the contents of the mysterious note, unknowing the
+consequences to himself which might result from its disclosure,
+remembering the injunction of my dying mother, to be to him a guardian
+angel in the hour of danger,&mdash;I could not save myself from blame by
+revealing the truth. I could not stain my lips with a falsehood.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw that man before," I replied. "Most husbands would think
+modest confusion more becoming in a wife, than the indignation which he
+usually deems it his own prerogative to exhibit. If I have been
+insulted, methinks you should wreak your vengeance on the offender,
+instead of me,&mdash;the innocent sufferer. It would be more manly."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have had me make the theatre a scene of strife and
+bloodshed?" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"No! neither would I have you bring warring passions into the peaceful
+bosom of your own home."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this you?" he cried, looking me sternly and sorrowfully in the face.
+"Is this the gentle and tender Gabriella, who speaks in such a tone of
+bitterness and scorn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know that I spoke bitterly!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Ernest, you
+have roused in me a spirit of resistance I tremble to feel! You madden
+me by your reproaches! You wrong me by your suspicions! I meant to be
+gentle and forbearing; but the worm will writhe under the foot that
+grinds it into dust. Alas! how little we know ourselves!"</p>
+
+<p>With anguish that cannot be described, I clasped my hands tightly over
+my heart, that ached with intolerable pangs. I had lost him,&mdash;lost his
+love,&mdash;lost his confidence. Had I seen him in his grave, I could
+scarcely have felt more utter desolation.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you what I was," he cried, the pale severity of his countenance
+changing to the most stormy agitation. "I told you that the cloud which
+hung over my cradle would follow me to the grave; that suspicion and
+jealousy were the twin-born phantoms of my soul. Why, then, rash and
+blind, have you committed your happiness into my keeping? You were
+warned, and yet you hastened to your doom."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I believed that you loved me; because I loved and trusted, with
+a love and faith more deep and strong than woman ever knew."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have destroyed them. I knew it would be so. I knew that I would
+prove a faithless guardian to a charge too dear. Gabriella, I am a
+wretch,&mdash;deserving your hatred and indignation. I have insulted your
+innocence, by suspicions I should blush to admit. Love, too strong for
+reason, converts me at times into a madman. I do not ask you to forgive
+me; but if you could conceive of the agonies I endure, you would pity
+me, were I your direst foe."</p>
+
+<p>Remorse, sorrow, tenderness, and love, all swept over his countenance,
+and gave pathos to his voice. I rose and sprang to his arms, that opened
+to receive me, and I clung to his neck, and wept upon his bosom, till it
+seemed that my life would dissolve itself in tears. Oh! it seemed that I
+had leaped over a yawning abyss to reach him, that I had found him just
+as I was losing him for ever. I was once more in the banqueting-house of
+joy, and "his banner over me was love."</p>
+
+<p>"Never again, my husband, never close your heart against me. I have no
+other home, no other refuge, no other world, than your arms."</p>
+
+<p>"You have forgiven me too soon, my Gabriella. You should impose upon me
+some penalty equal to the offence, if such indeed there be. Oh! most
+willingly would I cut off the hand so tenderly clasped in yours and cast
+it into the flames, if by so doing I could destroy the fiend who tempts
+me to suspect fidelity, worthy of eternal trust. You think I give myself
+up without a struggle to the demon passion, in whose grasp you have seen
+me writhing; but you know not, dream not, how I wrestle with it in
+secret, and what prayers I send up to God for deliverance. It seems
+impossible now that I should ever doubt, ever wrong you again, and yet I
+dare not promise. Oh! I dare not promise; for when the whirlwind of
+passion rises, I know not what I do."</p>
+
+<p>Had I not been conscious that I was concealing something from him, that
+while he was restoring to me his confidence, I was deceiving him, I
+should have been perfectly happy in this hour of reconciliation. But as
+he again and again clasped me to his bosom, and lavished upon me the
+tenderest caresses, I involuntarily shrunk from the pressure, lest he
+should feel the note, which seemed to flutter, so quick and loud my
+heart beat against it.</p>
+
+<p>"We are neither of us fit for the fashionable world, my Gabriella," said
+he; "we have hearts and souls fitted for a purer, holier atmosphere than
+the one we now breathe. If we had some 'bright little isle of our own,'
+where we were safe from jarring contact with ruder natures, remote from
+the social disturbances which interrupt the harmony of life, where we
+could live for love and God, then, my Gabriella, I would not envy the
+angels around the throne. No scene like this to-night would ever mar the
+heaven of our wedded bliss."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest did not know himself. Even in Crusoe's desert isle, if the print
+of human footsteps were discovered on the sand, and had he flown to the
+uttermost parts of the earth, the phantom created by his own diseased
+imagination would have pursued him like the giant form that haunted from
+pole to pole the unhappy Frankenstein. Man cannot escape from his own
+passions; and in solitude their waves beat against his bosom, like the
+eternal dashing of the tide, scarcely perceived amidst the active sounds
+of day, but roaring and thundering in the deep stillness of the midnight
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>"We were happy here before Margaret came," I answered; "happy as it was
+possible for mortals to be. How strange that she should have come
+unasked, remain unurged, without dreaming of the possibility of her
+being otherwise than a welcome guest!"</p>
+
+<p>"There should be laws to prevent households from such intrusions," said
+Ernest, with warmth. "I consider such persons as great offenders against
+the peace of society as the midnight robber or the lurking assassin.
+Margaret Melville cares for nothing but her own gratification. A
+contemptible love of fun and frolic is the ruling passion of her life.
+How false, how artificial is that system where there is no redress for
+encroachments of this kind! Were I to act honestly and as I ought, I
+should say to her at once, 'leave us,&mdash;your presence is
+intolerable,&mdash;there is no more affinity between us than between glass
+and brass.' But what would my mother say? What would the world say? What
+would you say, my own dear wife, who desire her departure even as I do
+myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be very much shocked, of course. If she had the least
+sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling, she would read all this in your
+countenance and manners. I often fear she will perceive in mine, the
+repulsion I cannot help experiencing. For your mother's sake I wish to
+be kind to Margaret."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Gabriella, she once wished me to think of her as a wife?
+That was before her character was formed, however,&mdash;when its wild,
+untamable elements revelled in the morning freedom of girlhood, and
+reason and judgment were not expected to exert their restraining
+influence. Think of such an union, my flower-girl, my Mimosa. Do I
+deserve quite so severe a punishment?"</p>
+
+<p>"You would have lived in a perpetual fever of jealousy, or a state of
+open anarchy. There would have been some memorable scenes in your diary,
+I am certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Jealousy! The idea of being jealous of such a being as Margaret! The
+'rhinoceran bear' might inspire the passion as soon. No, Gabriella, I do
+not believe I could be jealous of another woman in the world, for I
+cannot conceive of the possibility of my ever loving another; and the
+intensity of my love creates a trembling fear, that a treasure so
+inestimable, so unspeakably dear, may be snatched from my arms. It is
+not so much distrust of you, as myself. I fear the casket is not worthy
+of the jewel it enshrines."</p>
+
+<p>"Be just to yourself, Ernest, and then you will be just to all mankind."</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is, Gabriella, I have no self-esteem. A celebrated German
+phrenologist examined my head, and pronounced it decidedly deficient in
+the swelling organ of self-appreciation."</p>
+
+<p>He took my hand and placed it on his head, amid his soft, luxuriant dark
+hair, and it certainly met no elevation. I was not skilled in the
+science of phrenology, and there might be a defect in the formation of
+his head; but on his noble brow, it seemed to me that "every God had set
+its seal," and left the impress of his own divinity.</p>
+
+<p>We started, for the steps of Madge were heard rushing up the marble
+stairs, and the sound of her laugh swept before her, and pressed against
+the door like a strong gale.</p>
+
+<p>Oh Madge! that any one should ever have thought of you as the wife of
+Ernest.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was not till the next morning that I dared to read the contents of
+the note. It was in the magnificent bathing-room, on whose retirement no
+one ever intruded, that I perused these pencilled lines, evidently
+written with a hasty and agitated hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Can it be that I have found a daughter? Yes! in those lovely features I
+trace the living semblance of my beloved Rosalie. Where is she, my
+child? Where is your angel mother, whom I have sought sorrowing so many
+years? They tell me that you are married,&mdash;that it is your husband who
+watches you with such jealous scrutiny. He must not know who I am. I am
+a reckless, desperate man. It would be dangerous to us both to meet.
+Guard my secret as you expect to find your grave peaceful, your eternity
+free from remorse. When can I see you alone? Where can I meet you? I am
+in danger, distress,&mdash;ruin and death are hanging over me,&mdash;I must flee
+from the city; but I must see you, my child, my sweet, my darling
+Gabriella. I must learn the fate of my lost Rosalie.</p>
+
+<p>"The curtain falls,&mdash;I dare not write more. Walk in the &mdash;&mdash; Park
+to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, where I will wait your coming. Come
+alone,&mdash;I ask only a few moments. A father pleads with his child! As you
+hope for an answer to your dying prayers, come, child of my
+Rosalie,&mdash;child of my own sad heart."</p>
+
+<p>Once,&mdash;twice,&mdash;thrice I read these lines,&mdash;the death-warrant of my
+wedded peace. How could I resist so solemn an appeal, without violating
+the commands of a dying mother? How could I meet him, without incurring
+the displeasure of my husband? What possibility was there of my leaving
+home alone, when Ernest scarcely ever left me; when, after his return,
+if he chanced to go out, he always asked me how I had passed the time of
+his absence? How could I preserve outward composure, with such a secret
+burning in my heart? A sigh, involuntarily breathed,&mdash;a tear, forcing
+its way beneath the quivering lash, would expose me to suspicion and
+distress. What could I, should I do? I was alone, now; and I yielded
+momentarily to an agony of apprehension, that almost drove me mad. On
+one side, a guilty, ruined parent; on the other, a jealous husband,
+whose anger was to me a consuming fire. No, no; I could never expose
+myself again to that. I trembled at the recollection of those pale,
+inflexible features, and that eye of stormy splendor. The lightning bolt
+was less terrible and scathing. Yet, to turn a deaf ear to a father's
+prayer; to disregard a mother's injunction; to incur, perhaps, the guilt
+of parricide; to hazard the judgments of the Almighty;&mdash;how awful the
+alternative!</p>
+
+<p>I sank down on my knees, and laid my head on the marble slab on which I
+had been seated. I tried to pray; but hysterical sobs choked my words.</p>
+
+<p>"Have pity upon me, O my heavenly Father!" at length I exclaimed,
+raising my clasped hands to heaven. "Have pity upon me, and direct me in
+the right path. Give me courage to do right, and leave the result unto
+Thee. I float on a stormy current, without pilot or helm. I sink beneath
+the whelming billows. Help, Lord! or I perish!"</p>
+
+<p>Before I rose from my knees, it seemed as if invisible arms surrounded
+me,&mdash;bearing me up, above the dark and troubled waters. I felt as if God
+would open a way for me to walk in; and I resolved to leave the event in
+his hands. Had I applied to an earthly counsellor, with wisdom to
+direct, they might have told me, that one who had been guilty of the
+crime my father had committed, had forfeited every claim on a daughter's
+heart. That I had no right to endanger a husband's happiness, or to
+sacrifice my own peace, in consequence of his rash demand. No
+instinctive attraction drew me to this mysterious man. Instead of the
+yearnings of filial affection, I felt for him an unconquerable
+repugnance. His letter touched me, but his countenance repelled. His
+bold, unreceding eye;&mdash;not thus should a father gaze upon his child.</p>
+
+<p>Upon what apparent trifles the events of our life sometimes depend! At
+the breakfast table, Madge suddenly asked what day of the month it was.</p>
+
+<p>Then I remembered that it was the day appointed for a meeting of the
+ladies composing a benevolent association, of which I had been lately
+made a member. After the conversation with Ernest, in which I had
+expressed such an anxiety to do good, he had supplied me bountifully
+with means, so that my purse was literally overflowing. I had met the
+society once, and had gone <i>alone</i>. The hour of the meeting was <i>ten</i>.
+What a coincidence! Was Providence opening a way in which my doubting
+feet should walk? When I mentioned the day of the month, I added,</p>
+
+<p>"Our Society for the Relief of Invalid Seamstresses meets this morning.
+I had forgotten it, till your question reminded me that this was the
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not your coffers need replenishing, fair Lady Bountiful?" asked
+Ernest. "This is an association founded on principles which I revere. If
+any class of females merit the sympathy and kind offices of the generous
+sisterhood, it is that, whose services are so ill repaid, and whose
+lives must be one long drawn sigh of weariness and anxiety. Give, my
+Gabriella, to your heart's content; and if one pale cheek is colored
+with the glow of hope, one dim eye lighted with joy, something will be
+added to the sum of human happiness."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest was unusually kind and tender. He watched me as the fond mother
+does the child, whom she has perhaps too severely chided. He seemed to
+wish to atone for the pain he had given, and to assure me by his manner
+that his confidence was perfectly restored.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall avail myself of your absence," said he, "to pay some of my
+epistolary debts. They have weighed heavy on my conscience for some
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," said Madge, "have engaged to spend the day with Miss Haven. You
+can drop me on the way."</p>
+
+<p>Madge had behaved unusually well during the morning, and did not harass
+me at the breakfast table, as I feared she would, about the bold
+stranger at the theatre. Perhaps my pale cheeks spoke too plainly of the
+sufferings of the evening, and she had a heart after all.</p>
+
+<p>As I went into my room to prepare for going out, my hands trembled so
+that I could scarcely fasten the ribbons of my bonnet. Every thing
+seemed to facilitate my filial duty; but the more easy seemed its
+accomplishment, the more I shrunk from the thought of deceiving Ernest,
+in this hour of restored tranquillity and abounding love. I loathed the
+idea of deceiving any one,&mdash;but Ernest, my lover, my husband,&mdash;how could
+I beguile his new-born confidence?</p>
+
+<p>He came in, and wrapped me up in my ermine-trimmed cloak, warning me of
+exposing myself to the morning air, which was of wintry bleakness.</p>
+
+<p>"You must bring back the roses which I have banished from your cheeks,"
+said he, kissing them with a tenderness and gentleness that made my
+heart ache with anguish. I did not deserve these caresses; and if my
+purpose were discovered, would they not be the last?</p>
+
+<p>Shuddering, as I asked myself this question, I turned towards him, as if
+to daguerreotype on my heart every lineament of his striking and
+expressive face. How beautiful was his countenance this moment, softened
+by tenderness, so delicately pale, yet so lustrous, like the moonlight
+night!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ernest!" said I, throwing my arms around him, with a burst of
+irrepressible emotion, "I am not worthy of the love you bear me, but yet
+I prize it far more than life. If the hour comes when it is withdrawn
+from me, I pray Heaven it may be my last."</p>
+
+<p>"It can never be withdrawn, my Gabriella. You may cast it from your
+bosom, and it may wither, like the flower trampled by the foot of man;
+but by my own act it never can be destroyed. Nor by yours either, my
+beloved wife. At this moment I have a trust in you as entire as in
+heaven itself. I look back with wonder and remorse on the dark delusions
+to which I have submitted myself. But the spell is broken; the demon
+laid. Sorrow has had its season; but joy hath come in the morning.
+Smile, my darling Gabriella, in token of forgiveness and peace."</p>
+
+<p>I tried to smile, but the tears would gather into my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Foolish girl!" he cried. A loud laugh rung under the silken arches.
+Madge stood in the open door, her great black eyes brimming with mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"When you have finished your parting ceremonies," she exclaimed, "I
+think we had better start. One would think you were going to Kamschatka
+or Terra del Fuego, instead of Broadway. Oh dear! what a ridiculous
+thing it is to see people in love with each other, after they are
+married! Come, Gabriella; you can carry his miniature with you."</p>
+
+<p>As the carriage rolled from the gate, I was so agitated at the thought
+of the approaching interview I could not speak. Madge rattled away, in
+her usual light manner; but I did not attempt to answer her. I leaned
+back in the carriage, revolving the best way of accomplishing my design.
+After leaving Madge, instead of going to the lady's, at whose house the
+society met, I ordered the coachman to drive to one of the fashionable
+stores and leave me.</p>
+
+<p>"Return in an hour," said I, as I left the carriage. "You will find me
+at Mrs. Brahan's. Drive the horses out to the Battery for exercise, as
+you usually do."</p>
+
+<p>As I gave these orders, my heart beat so fast I could hardly articulate
+with distinctness. Yet there was nothing in them to excite suspicion.
+The horses were high-fed and little used, gay and spirited, and when we
+shopped or made morning calls, the coachman was in the habit of driving
+them about, to subdue their fiery speed.</p>
+
+<p>I should make too conspicuous an appearance in the park, in my elegant
+cloak, trimmed with costly ermine and bonnet shaded with snowy plumes. I
+would be recognized at once, for the bride of the jealous Ernest was an
+object of interest and curiosity. To obviate this difficulty, I
+purchased a large gray shawl, of soft, yielding material, that
+completely covered my cloak; a thick, green veil, through which my
+features could not be discerned, and walked with rapid steps through the
+hurrying crowd that thronged the side-walks towards the &mdash;&mdash; Park.</p>
+
+<p>It was too early an hour for the usual gathering of children and nurses.
+Indeed, at this cold, wintry season, the warm nursery was a more
+comfortable and enticing place.</p>
+
+<p>The park presented a dreary, desolate aspect. No fountain tossed up its
+silvery waters, falling in rainbows back to earth. The leafless branches
+of the trees shone coldly in the thin glazing of frostwork and creaked
+against each other, as the bleak wind whistled through them. Here and
+there, a ruddy-faced Irish woman, wrapped in a large blanket-shawl, with
+a coarse straw bonnet blown back from her head, breasted the breeze with
+a little trotting child, who took half a dozen steps to one of hers,
+tugging hard at her hand. It was not likely I should meet a fashionable
+acquaintance at this early hour; and if I did, I was shrouded from
+recognition.</p>
+
+<p>I had scarcely passed the revolving gate, before I saw a gentleman
+approaching from the opposite entrance with rapid and decided steps. He
+was tall and stately, and had that unmistakable air of high-breeding
+which, being once acquired, can never be entirely lost. As he came
+nearer, I could distinguish the features of the stranger; features
+which, seen by daylight, exhibited still more plainly the stamp of
+recklessness, dissipation, and vice. They had once been handsome, but
+alas! alas! was this the man who had captivated the hearts of two lovely
+women, and then broken them? Where was the fascination which had
+enthralled alike the youthful Rosalie and the impassioned Ther&eacute;sa? Was
+this, indeed, the once gallant and long beloved St. James?</p>
+
+<p>"You have come," he exclaimed, eagerly grasping my hand and pressing it
+in his. "I bless you, my daughter,&mdash;and may God forever bless you for
+listening to a father's prayer!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have come," I answered, in low, trembling accents, for indescribable
+agitation almost choked my utterance,&mdash;"but I can not,&mdash;dare not linger.
+It was cruel in you to bind me to secrecy. Had it not been for the
+mother,&mdash;whose dying words"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And is she dead,&mdash;the wronged,&mdash;the angel Rosalie? How vainly I have
+sought her,&mdash;and thee, my cherub little one! My sufferings have avenged
+her wrongs."</p>
+
+<p>He turned away, and covered his face with his handkerchief. I saw his
+breast heave with suppressed sobs. It is an awful thing to see a strong
+man weep,&mdash;especially when the tears are wrung by the agonies of
+remorse. I felt for him the most intense pity,&mdash;the most entire
+forgiveness,&mdash;yet I recoiled from his approach,&mdash;I shrunk from the touch
+of his dry and nervous hand. I felt polluted, degraded, by the contact.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother told me, if I ever met you, to give you not only her
+forgiveness, but her blessing. She blessed you, for the sufferings that
+weaned her from earth and chastened her spirit for a holier and happier
+world. She bade me tell you, that in spite of her wrongs she had never
+ceased to love you. In obedience to her dying will, I have shown you a
+daughter's duty so far as to meet you here, and learn what I can do for
+one placed in the awful circumstances in which you declare yourself to
+be. Speak quickly and briefly, for on every passing moment the whole
+happiness of my life hangs trembling."</p>
+
+<p>"Only let me see your face for the few moments we are together, that I
+may carry its remembrance to my grave,&mdash;that face so like your
+mother's."</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do?" I exclaimed, removing the veil as I spoke,&mdash;for there
+was no one near; and I could not refuse a petition so earnest. "Oh, tell
+me quickly what I can do. What dreadful doom is impending over you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are beautiful, my child,&mdash;very, very beautiful," said he; while his
+dark, sunken eyes seemed to burn me with the intensity of their gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Talk not to me of beauty, at a moment like this!" I exclaimed, stamping
+my foot in the agony of my impatience. "I cannot, will not stay, unless
+to aid you. Your presence is awful! for it reminds me of my mother's
+wrongs,&mdash;my own clouded birth."</p>
+
+<p>"I deserve this, and far more," he cried, in tones of the most object
+humility. "Oh, my child, I am brought very low;&mdash;I am a lost and ruined
+man. Maddened by your mother's desertion, I became reckless,&mdash;desperate.
+I fled from the home another had usurped. I became the prey of villains,
+who robbed me of my fortune at the gaming table. Another, and another
+step;&mdash;lower and lower still I sunk. I cannot tell you the story of my
+ruin. Enough, I am lost! The sword of the violated law gleams over my
+head. Every moment it may fall. I dare not remain another day in this
+city. I dare not stay in my native land. If I do, yonder dismal Tombs
+will be my life-long abode."</p>
+
+<p>"Fly, then,&mdash;fly this moment," I cried. "What madness! to linger in the
+midst of danger and disgrace!"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my daughter, I am penniless. I had laid aside a large sum,
+sufficient for the emergency; but a wretch robbed me of all, only two
+nights since. Humiliating as it is, I must turn beggar to my child. Your
+husband is a Dives; I, the Lazarus, who am perishing at his gate."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him. He is noble and generous. He will fill your purse with gold,
+and aid you to escape. Go to him at once. You know not his princely
+heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Never! On you alone I depend. I will not ask a favor of man, to save my
+soul from perdition. Girl! have you no power over the wealth that must
+be rusting in your coffers? Are you not trusted with the key to your
+household treasures?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I would take his gold clandestinely?" I asked, glowing
+with indignation, and recoiling from the expression of his eager,
+burning eye. We were walking slowly during this exciting conversation;
+and, cold as it was, the moisture gathered on my brow. "Here is a purse,
+given me for a holier purpose. Take it, and let me go."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you,&mdash;bless you, my child! but this will only relieve present
+necessity. It will not carry me in safety to distant climes. Bless you!
+but take it back, take it back. I can only meet my doom!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>will</i> go to my husband!" I exclaimed with sudden resolution; "I
+<i>will</i> tell him all, and he, and he alone shall aid you. I will not
+wrong him by acting without his knowledge. You have no right to endanger
+my life-long peace. You have destroyed my mother; must her child too be
+sacrificed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see there is but one path of escape," he cried, snatching a pistol
+from his breast, and turning the muzzle to his heart. "Fool, dolt, idiot
+that I am! I dreamed of salvation from a daughter's hand, but I have
+forfeited a father's name, a father's affection. Gabriella, you might
+save me, but I blame you not. Do not curse me, though I fill a felon's
+grave;&mdash;better that than the dungeon&mdash;the scaffold."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do?" I whispered hoarsely, seizing his arm with
+spasmodic grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Die, before I am betrayed."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not betray you; what sum will suffice for your emergency? Name
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"As many thousands as there are hundreds there," pointing to the purse.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, you must have jewels worth a prince's ransom; you had
+diamonds last night on your neck and arms that would redeem your
+father's life. Each gem is but a drop of water in the deep sea of <i>his</i>
+riches. His uncle was a modern Cr[oe]sus, and he, his sole heir."</p>
+
+<p>"How know you this?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Every one knows it. The rich are the cities on the hill-tops, seen afar
+off. You hesitate,&mdash;you tremble. Keep your diamonds,&mdash;but remember they
+will eat like burning coals into your flesh."</p>
+
+<p>Fierce and deadly passions gleamed from his eye. He clenched the pistol
+so tight that his nails turned of a purplish blue.</p>
+
+<p>No one was near us, to witness a scene so strange and appalling. The
+thundering sounds of city life were rolling along the great thoroughfare
+of the metropolis, now rattling, shrill, and startling, then roaring,
+swelling, and subsiding again, like the distant surf; but around us,
+there was silence and space. In the brief moment that we stood face to
+face, my mind was at work with preternatural activity. I remembered that
+I had a set of diamonds,&mdash;the bridal gift of Mrs. Linwood,&mdash;a superb and
+costly set, which I had left a week previous in the hands of the
+jeweller, that he might remedy a slight defect in the clasps. Those
+which I wore at the theatre, and which had attracted his insatiate eye,
+were the gift of Ernest. He had clasped them around my neck and arms, as
+he was about to lead me to the altar, and hallowed the offering with a
+bridegroom's kiss. I could have given my heart's blood sooner than the
+radiant pledge of wedded faith and love.</p>
+
+<p>I could go to the jewellers,&mdash;get possession of the diamonds, and thus
+redeem my guilty parent from impending ruin. Then, the waves of the
+Atlantic would roll between us, and I would be spared the humiliation
+and agony of another scene like this. I told him to follow me at a short
+distance; that I would get the jewels; that he could receive them from
+me in the street in the midst of the jostling crowd without observation.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the last time," I cried, "the last time I ever act without my
+husband's knowledge. I have obeyed my mother, I have fulfilled my duty,
+at the risk of all my soul holds dear. And now, as you hope to meet
+hereafter her, who, if angels can sorrow, still mourns over your
+transgressions, quit the dark path you are now treading, and devote your
+future life to penitence and prayer. Oh! by my mother's wrongs and woes,
+and by my own, by the mighty power of God and a Saviour's dying love, I
+entreat you to repent, forsake your sins, and live, live, forever more."</p>
+
+<p>Tears gushed from my eyes and checked my utterance. Oh! how sad, how
+dreadful, to address a father thus.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!" he exclaimed, "you are an angel. Pray for me, pray for me,
+thou pure and holy being, and forgive the sins that you say are not
+beyond the reach of God's mercy, I dare not, not here,&mdash;yet for one dear
+embrace, my child, I would willingly meet the tortures of the
+prison-house and the scaffold."</p>
+
+<p>I recoiled with horror at the suggestion. I would not have had his arms
+around me for worlds. I could not call him <i>father</i>. I pitied,&mdash;wept for
+him; but I shrunk with loathing from his presence. Dropping my veil over
+my face, I turned hastily, gained the street, pressed on through the
+moving mass without looking to the right or left, till I reached the
+shop where my jewels were deposited,&mdash;took them without waiting for
+explanation or inquiry, hurried back till I met St. James, slipped the
+casket into his eager hand, and pressed on without uttering a syllable.
+Never shall I forget the expression of his countenance as he received
+the casket. The fierce, wild, exulting flash of his dark sunken eye,
+whose reddish blackness seemed suddenly to ignite and burn like heated
+iron. There was something demoniac in its glare, and it haunted me in my
+dreams long, long afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>I did not look back, but hurried on, rejoicing that rapidity of motion
+was too customary in Broadway to attract attention. Before I arrived at
+the place of meeting, I wished to divest myself of the shawl which I had
+used as a disguise; and it was no difficult matter, where poverty is met
+in all its forms of wretchedness and woe.</p>
+
+<p>"Take this, my good woman," said I, throwing the soft gray covering over
+the shoulders of a thin, shivering, haggard looking female, on whose
+face chill penury was written in withering lines. "You are cold and
+suffering."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless your sweet face. God Almighty bless you!" was wafted to my ears,
+in tremulous accents,&mdash;for I did not stop to meet her look of wonder,
+gratitude, and ecstasy. I did not deserve her blessing; but the garment
+sheltered her meagre frame, and she went on her way rejoicing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When I entered Mrs. Brahan's drawing-room, I was in a kind of
+somnambulism,&mdash;moving, walking, seeing, yet hardly conscious of what I
+was doing, or what was passing around me. She was the president of the
+association, and a very charming woman.</p>
+
+<p>"We feared we were not going to see you this morning," she said,
+glancing at a French clock, which showed the lateness of the hour; "but
+we esteem it a privilege to have you with us, even for a short time. We
+know," she added, with a smile, "what a sacrifice we impose on Mr.
+Linwood, when we deprive him of your society."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" cried a sprightly young lady, with whom I was slightly
+acquainted, "we all consider it an event, when we can catch a glimpse of
+Mrs. Linwood. Her appearance at the theatre last night created as great
+a sensation as would a new constellation in the zodiac."</p>
+
+<p>These allusions to my husband's exclusive devotion brought the color to
+my cheeks, and the soft, warm air of the room stole soothingly round me.
+I tried to rouse myself to a consciousness of the present, and
+apologized for my delay with more ease and composure than I expected.</p>
+
+<p>When the treasurer received the usual funds, I was obliged to throw
+myself on her leniency.</p>
+
+<p>"I have disposed of my purse since I left home," said I, with a guilty
+blush, "but I will double my contribution at the next meeting."</p>
+
+<p>"It is no matter," was the reply. "You have already met your
+responsibilities,&mdash;far more than met them,&mdash;your reputation for
+benevolence is already too well established for us to doubt that your
+will is equal to your power."</p>
+
+<p>Whenever I went into society, I realized the distinction of being the
+wife of the rich and exclusive Ernest Linwood, the mistress of the
+oriental palace, as Mrs. Brahan called our dwelling-place. I always
+found myself flattered and caressed, and perhaps something was owing to
+personal attraction. I never presumed on the distinction awarded me;
+never made myself or mine the subjects of conversation, or sought to
+engross the attention of others. I had always remembered the obscurity
+of my early life, the cloud upon my birth, not abjectly, but <i>proudly</i>.
+I was too proud to arrogate to myself any credit for the adventitious
+circumstances which had raised me above the level of others,&mdash;too proud
+of the love that had given the elevation, to exalt myself as worthy of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must be the happiest being in the world, Mrs. Linwood,"
+said the sprightly young lady, who had taken a seat by my side, and who
+had the brightest, most sparkling countenance I ever saw. "You live in
+such a beautiful, <i>beautiful</i> place, with such an elegant husband, too!
+What a life of enchantment yours must be! Do you know you are the envy
+of all the young ladies of the city?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not," I answered, trying to respond in the same sportive strain;
+and every one knows, that when the heart is oppressed by secret anxiety,
+it is easier to be gay than cheerful. "I hope not; as I might be in
+danger of being exhaled by some subtle perfume. I have heard of the art
+of poisoning being brought to such perfection, that it can be
+communicated by a flower or a ring."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a very fascinating study," she said, laughingly. "I intend
+to take lessons, though I think throwing vitriol in the face and marring
+its beauty, is the most effectual way of removing a rival."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were discussing the wants and miseries of the sewing
+sisterhood," said Mrs. Brahan, coming near us. "What started so horrible
+a theme?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Linwood's perfections," said the young lady, with a gay smile.</p>
+
+<p>"He has one great fault," observed Mrs. Brahan; "he keeps you too close
+a prisoner, my dear. I fear he is very selfish. Tell him so from me; for
+he must not expect to monopolize a jewel formed to adorn and beautify
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke sportively, benignantly, without knowing the deep truth of her
+words. She knew that my husband sought retirement; that I seldom went
+abroad without him. But she knew not, dreamed not, of the strength of
+the master-passion that governed his actions.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the company dispersed. As I came so late, I remained a little
+behind the rest, attracted by a painting in the back parlor. I suppose I
+inherited from my father a love of the fine arts; for I never could pass
+a statue or a picture without pausing to gaze upon it.</p>
+
+<p>This represented a rocky battlement, rising in the midst of the deep
+blue sea. The silvery glimmer of moonlight shone on the rippling waves;
+moonlight breaking through dark clouds,&mdash;producing the most dazzling
+contrast of light and shade. A large vessel, in full sail, glided along
+in the gloom of the shadows; a little skiff floated on the
+white-crested, sparkling, shining tide. The flag of our country waved
+from the rocky tower. I seemed gazing on a familiar scene. Those wave
+washed battlements; that floating banner; the figures of soldiers
+marching on the ramparts, with folded arms and measured tread,&mdash;all
+appeared like the embodiment of a dream.</p>
+
+<p>"What does this represent?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Fortress Monroe, on Chesapeake Bay."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so. Who was the artist?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think his name was St. James. It is on the picture, near the frame.
+Yes,&mdash;Henry Gabriel St. James. What a beautiful name! Poor fellow!&mdash;I
+believe he had a sad fate! Mr. Brahan could tell you something of his
+history. He purchased this house of him seventeen years ago. What is the
+matter, Mrs. Linwood?"</p>
+
+<p>I sank on the nearest seat, incapable of supporting myself. I was in the
+house where I was born,&mdash;where my mother passed the brief period of her
+wedded happiness; whence she was driven, a wronged, despairing woman,
+with me, an unconscious infant, in her arms. It was my father's glowing
+sketch on which I was gazing,&mdash;that father whom I had so recently
+met,&mdash;a criminal, evading the demands of justice; a man who had lost all
+his original brightness,&mdash;a being of sin and misery.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brahan rang for water; but I did not faint.</p>
+
+<p>"I have taken a long walk this morning," I said, "and your rooms are
+warm. I feel better, now. And this house belonged to the artist? I feel
+interested in his story."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Mr. Brahan were here; but I will tell you all I recollect. It
+was a long time ago; and what we hear from others of individuals in whom
+we have no personal interest, is soon forgotten. Do you really feel
+better? Well, I believe St. James, the artist, was a highly
+accomplished, gifted man. He was married to a beautiful young wife, and
+I think had one child. Of course he was supremely happy. It seems he was
+called away from home very suddenly, was gone a few months, and when he
+returned, he found his wife and child fled, and a stranger claiming her
+name and place. I never heard this mystery explained; but it is said,
+she disappeared as suddenly as she came, while he sought by every means
+to recover his lost treasure, but in vain. His reason at one time
+forsook him, and his health declined. At length, unable to remain where
+every thing reminded him of his departed happiness, he resolved to leave
+the country and go to foreign climes. Mr. Brahan, who wished to purchase
+at that time, was pleased with the house,&mdash;bought it, and brought me
+here, a bride. He has altered and improved it a great deal, but many
+things remain just as they were. You seem interested. There is something
+mysterious and romantic connected with it. Oh! here is Mr. Brahan
+himself; he can relate it far better than I can."</p>
+
+<p>After the usual courtesies of meeting, she resumed the subject, and told
+her husband how much interested I was in the history of the unfortunate
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah yes!" cried he; "poor fellow!&mdash;he was sore beset. Two women claimed
+him as wives,&mdash;and he lost both. I never heard a clear account of this
+part of his life; for when I knew him, he was just emerging from
+insanity, and it was supposed his mind was still clouded. He was very
+reserved on the subject of his personal misfortunes. I only know it was
+the loss of the wife whom he acknowledged that unsettled his reason. He
+was a magnificent looking fellow,&mdash;full of genius and feeling. He told
+me he was going to Italy,&mdash;and very likely he died of a broken heart,
+beneath its sunny and genial skies. He was a fine artist. That picture
+has inspiration in it. Look at the reflection of the moon in the water.
+How tremulous it is! You can almost see the silver rippling beneath that
+gliding boat. He was a man of genius. There is no doubt he was."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to show Mrs. Linwood the picture which you found in the
+closet of his studio," said Mrs. Brahan. "Do you know, I think there is
+a resemblance to herself?"</p>
+
+<p>"So there is," exclaimed Mr. Brahan, as if making a sudden discovery.
+"Her face has haunted me since I first beheld her, and I have just
+discovered where I have seen its semblance. If you will walk up stairs,
+I will show it to you."</p>
+
+<p>Almost mechanically I followed up the winding stairs, so often pressed
+by the feet now mouldering side by side beneath the dark coffin lid,
+into the room where my now degraded parent gave form and coloring to the
+dreams of imagination, or the shadows of memory. The walls were arching,
+and lighted from above. Mr. Brahan had converted it into a library, and
+it was literally lined with books on every side but one. Suspended on
+that, in a massy gilt frame, was a sketch which arrested my gaze, and it
+had no power to wander. The head alone was finished,&mdash;but such a head! I
+recognized at once my mother's features; not as I had seen them faded by
+sorrow, but in the soft radiance of love and happiness. They did not
+wear the rosy brightness of the miniature I had seen in my father's
+hand, which was probably taken immediately after her marriage. This
+picture represented her as my imagination pictured her after my birth,
+when the tender anxieties of the mother softened and subdued the
+splendor of her girlish beauty; those eyes,&mdash;those unforgotten eyes,
+with their long, curling lashes, and expression of heavenly
+sweetness,&mdash;how they seemed to bend on me,&mdash;the child she had so much
+loved! I longed to kneel before it, to appeal to it, by every holy and
+endearing epithet,&mdash;to reach the cold, unconscious canvas, and cover it
+with my kisses and my tears. But I could only gaze and gaze, and the
+strong spell that bound me was mistaken for the ecstasy of admiration,
+such as genius only can awaken.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a wonderful resemblance," said Mr. Brahan, breaking the
+silence. "I shall feel great pride henceforth in saying, I have an
+admirable likeness of Mrs. Linwood."</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to feel greatly flattered," I answered with a quick drawn
+breath; "it certainly is very lovely."</p>
+
+<p>"It has the loveliest expression I ever saw in woman's countenance,"
+observed Mr. Brahan. "Perhaps, after making such a remark, I ought not
+to say, that in that chiefly lies its resemblance to yourself, but it is
+emphatically so."</p>
+
+<p>"She must be too much accustomed to compliments to mind yours, my dear,"
+said Mrs. Brahan. "I think Mrs. Linwood has the advantage of the
+picture, for she has the bloom and light of life. No painting can supply
+these."</p>
+
+<p>"There is something in the perfect repose of a picture," said I,
+withdrawing my eyes from my mother's seraphic countenance; "something in
+its serene, unchanging beauty, that is a type of immortality, of the
+divine rest of the soul. Life is restless, and grows tremulous as we
+gaze."</p>
+
+<p>"O that that picture were mine!" I unconsciously uttered, as I turned to
+take a last look on leaving the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know that it is mine to give," said Mr. Brahan, "as I found it
+here after purchasing the house. The one below was presented me by St.
+James himself. If, however, you will allow me to send it to Mr. Linwood,
+I really think he has the best right to it, on account of its remarkable
+resemblance to yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, indeed," I exclaimed; "I did not mean, did not think of such a
+thing. It was a childish way of expressing my admiration of the
+painting. If you will give me the privilege of sometimes calling to look
+at it, I shall be greatly indebted."</p>
+
+<p>I hurried down stairs, fearful of committing myself in some way, so as
+to betray the secret of my birth.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would come and see us often, Mrs. Linwood," said Mrs.
+Brahan, as I bade her adieu. "We are not very fashionable; but if I read
+your character aright, you will not dislike us on that account. A young
+person, who is almost a stranger in a great city like this, sometimes
+feels the want of an older friend. Let me be that friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, dear madam," I answered, returning the cordial pressure of
+her hand; "you do not know how deeply I appreciate your proffered
+friendship, or how happy I shall be to cultivate it."</p>
+
+<p>With many kind and polite expressions, they both accompanied me to the
+door, and I left them with the conviction that wedded happiness might be
+perfect after the experience of seventeen years.</p>
+
+<p>When alone in the carriage, I tried to compose my agitated and excited
+mind. So much had been crowded into the space of a few hours, that it
+seemed as if days must have passed since I left home. I tried to
+reconcile what I had <i>heard</i> with what I had <i>seen</i> of my father; but I
+could not identify the magnificent artist, the man of genius and of
+feeling, with the degenerate being from whom I had recoiled one hour
+ago. Could a long career of guilt and shame thus deface and obliterate
+that divine and godlike image, in which man was formed? He must have
+loved my mother. Desperation for her loss had plunged him into the
+wildest excesses of dissipation. From my soul I pitied him. I would
+never cease to pray for him, never regret what I had done to save him
+from ruin, even if my own happiness were wrecked by the act. I had tried
+to do what was right, and God, who seeth the heart, would forgive me, if
+wrong was the result.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Letters from Mrs. Linwood and Edith waited me at home. Their perusal
+gave me an opportunity to collect my thoughts, and an excuse to talk of
+them, of Grandison Place, rather than of topics connected with the
+present. Yet all the time I was reading Mrs. Linwood's expression of
+trusting affection, I said to myself,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What would she say, if she knew I had parted with her splendid gift,
+unknown to my husband, whose happiness she committed so solemnly to my
+keeping?"</p>
+
+<p>I told Ernest of the interesting circumstances connected with Mr.
+Brahan's house, and of the picture of my mother I so longed that I
+should see. The wish was gratified sooner than I anticipated; for that
+very evening, it was sent to me by Mr. Brahan, with a very elegant note,
+in which he asked me to take charge of it till the rightful owner
+appeared to claim it as his own.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> like you, Gabriella," said Ernest, gazing with evident
+admiration on the beauteous semblance; "and it is an exquisite painting
+too. You must cherish this picture as a proof of your mother's beauty
+and your father's genius."</p>
+
+<p>I did cherish it, as a household divinity. I almost worshipped it, for
+though I did not burn before it frankincense and myrrh, I offered to it
+the daily incense of memory and love.</p>
+
+<p>As Margaret consented to remain a week with her friend Miss Haven, we
+were left in quiet possession of our elegant leisure, and Ernest openly
+rejoiced in her absence. He read aloud to me, played and sung with
+thrilling melody, and drew out all his powers of fascination for my
+entertainment. The fear of his discovering my clandestine meeting grew
+fainter and fainter as day after day passed, without a circumstance
+arising which would lead to detection.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, Mr. Harland, with several other gentlemen, was with us.
+Ernest was unusually affable, and of course my spirits rose in
+proportion. In the course of conversation, Mr. Harland remarked that he
+had a <i>bet</i> for me to decide.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot consent to be an umpire," said I. "I dislike betting in
+ladies, and if gentlemen indulge in it, they must refer to their own
+sex, not ours."</p>
+
+<p>"But it has reference to yourself," he cried, "and you alone <i>can</i>
+decide."</p>
+
+<p>"To me!" I exclaimed, involuntarily glancing at Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! A friend of mine insists that he saw you walking in the &mdash;&mdash; Park,
+the other morning, with a gentleman, who was too tall for Mr. Linwood.
+That you wore a gray shawl and green veil, but that your air and figure
+could not possibly be mistaken. I told him, in the first place, that you
+never dressed in that style; in the second, that he was too far from you
+to distinguish you from another; and in the third, that it was
+impossible you should be seen walking with any gentleman but your
+husband, as he never gave them an opportunity. As he offered a high
+wager, and I accepted it, I feel no small interest in the decision."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell your friend, Mr. Harland," exclaimed Ernest, rising from his seat,
+and turning pale as marble, "that I will not permit my wife's name to be
+bandied from lip to lip in the public street, nor her movements made a
+subject for low and vulgar betting."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Linwood!" cried Mr. Harland, rising too, with anger flashing from
+his eyes, "do you apply those remarks to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I make no application," answered Ernest, with inexpressible
+haughtiness; "but I again assert, that the freedom taken with my wife's
+name is unwarrantable, and <i>shall</i> not be repeated."</p>
+
+<p>"If Mrs. Linwood considers herself insulted," cried Mr. Harland, "I am
+ready to offer <i>her</i> any apology she may desire. Of one thing she may be
+assured: no disrespect was intended by the gentleman to whom I allude,
+and she certainly cannot think that I would forget her claims as a lady,
+and as the wife of the man whom I had reason to believe my friend."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke the last sentence with strong emphasis, and the blood mounted
+high in the pale face of Ernest. I could only bow, as Mr. Harland
+concluded, in acceptance of the apology, for I saw a thunder-cloud
+darkening over me, and knew it would break in terror over my head.</p>
+
+<p>"I have spoken hastily, Mr. Harland," said Ernest. "If I have said any
+thing wounding to your feelings, as a gentleman, I recall it. But you
+may tell your friend, that the next time he asserts that he has seen
+Mrs. Linwood walking with a stranger, in a public place, when I <i>know</i>
+she was in company with some of the first ladies of the city for
+benevolent designs, I shall call him to account for such gross
+misrepresentations."</p>
+
+<p>And I heard this in silence,&mdash;without contradiction.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! how must the woman feel who has deceived her husband for a guilty
+purpose, when I, whose motives were pure and upright, suffered such
+unutterable anguish in the prospect of detection? If I were hardened
+enough to deny the assertion,&mdash;if I could only have laughed and wondered
+at the preposterous mistake,&mdash;if I could have assumed an air of
+indifference and composure, my secret might have been safe. But I was a
+novice in deception; and burning blushes, and pale, cold shadows
+alternately flitted across my face.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to resume the conversation interrupted by a scene so
+distressing to some, so disagreeable to all. One by one our guests
+retired, and I was left alone with Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>The chandeliers were glittering overhead, the azure curtains received
+their light in every sweeping fold, cherubs smiled bewitchingly from the
+arching ceiling, and roses that looked as if they might have blossomed
+by "Bendemere's stream," blushed beneath my feet,&mdash;yet I would gladly
+have exchanged all this splendor for a spot in the furthest isle of the
+ocean, a lone and barren spot, where the dark glance which I <i>felt</i>, but
+did not see, could not penetrate.</p>
+
+<p>I sat with downcast eyes and wildly throbbing heart, trying to summon
+resolution to meet the trial I saw there was no means of escaping. If he
+questioned, I must answer. I could not, dared not, utter a falsehood,
+and evasion would be considered equivalent to it.</p>
+
+<p>He walked back and forth the whole length of the parlor, two or three
+times, without speaking, then stopped directly in front of me, still
+silent. Unable to bear the intolerable oppression of my feelings, I
+started up and attempted to leave the room; but he arrested me by the
+arm, and his waxen fingers seemed hardened to steel.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice sounded so distant, so cold!</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest!"</p>
+
+<p>I raised my eyes, and for a moment we looked each other in the face.
+There was fascination in his glance, and yet it had the dagger's
+keenness.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the meaning of what I have just heard? What is the meaning of a
+report, which I should have regarded as the idle wind, did not your
+overwhelming confusion establish its truth? Tell me, for I am not a man
+to be tampered with, as you will find to your cost."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot answer when addressed in such a tone. Oh, I cannot."</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella! this is not a moment to trifle. Tell me, without
+prevarication,&mdash;were you, or were you not in the Park, walking with a
+gentleman, on the morning you left for Mrs. Brahan's? Answer me,&mdash;yes,
+or no."</p>
+
+<p>Had he spoken with gentleness,&mdash;had he seemed moved to sorrow as well as
+indignation, I would have thrown myself at his feet, and deprecated his
+anger; but my spirit rose in rebellion at the stern despotism of his
+manner, and nerved itself to resist his coercive will.</p>
+
+<p>Truly is it said, "We know not what manner of spirit we are of."</p>
+
+<p>I little thought how high mine could rebound from the strong pressure
+which, in anticipation, crushed it to the dust.</p>
+
+<p>I felt firm to endure, strong to resist.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest! I have done you no wrong," I answered, raising my eyes to his
+pale, dark countenance. "I have done nothing to merit the displeasure
+which makes you forget the courtesy of a gentleman, as well as the
+tenderness of a husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it was a false report," he exclaimed,&mdash;a ray of light flashing
+from his clouded eyes,&mdash;"you could not look me in the face and speak in
+that tone unless you were innocent! Why did you not deny it at once?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only listen to me, Ernest," I cried; "only give me a patient, gentle
+hearing, and I will give you a history, which I am certain will convert
+your indignation into sympathy, and free me from suspicion or blame."</p>
+
+<p>I armed myself with resolution to tell him all. My father was in all
+probability far away on the billows of the Atlantic. My disclosures
+could not affect him now. My promise of secrecy did not extend into the
+future. I would gladly have withheld from my husband the knowledge of
+his degradation, for it was humiliating to the child to reveal the
+parent's shame. Criminal he knew him to be, with regard to my mother,
+but Ernest had said, when gazing on her picture, he almost forgave the
+crime which had so much to extenuate it. The gambler, the profligate,
+the lost, abandoned being, who had thrown himself so abjectly on my
+compassion: in these characters, the high-minded Ernest would spurn him
+with withering indignation. Yet as the interview had been observed, and
+his suspicions excited, it was my duty to make an unreserved
+confession,&mdash;and I did. Conscious of the purity of my motives, and
+assured that he must eventually acquit me of blame, I told him all, from
+the note he dropped into my lap at the theatre, to the diamond casket
+given in parting to his desperate hand. I told him all my struggles, my
+fears, my agonies,&mdash;dwelling most of all on the agony I suffered in
+being compelled to deceive <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Silently, immovably he heard me, never interrupting me by question or
+explanation. He had seated himself on a sofa when I began, motioning me
+to sit down by him, but I drew forward a low footstool and sat at his
+feet, looking up with the earnestness of truth and the confidence of
+innocence. Oh! he could not help but acquit me,&mdash;he could not help but
+pity me. I had done him injustice in believing it possible for him to
+condemn me for an act of filial obedience, involving so much
+self-sacrifice and anguish. He would clasp me to his bosom,&mdash;he would
+fold me in his arms,&mdash;he would call me his "own, darling Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>A pause,&mdash;a chilling pause succeeded the deep-drawn breath with which I
+closed the confession. Cold, bitter cold, fell that silence on my
+hoping, trembling, yet glowing heart. He was leaning on his elbow,&mdash;his
+hand covered his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest," at length I said, "you have heard my explanation. Am I, or am
+I not, acquitted?"</p>
+
+<p>He started as if from a trance, clasped his hands tightly together, and
+lifted them above his head,&mdash;then springing up, he drew back from me, as
+if I were a viper coiling at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father!" he exclaimed with withering scorn. "Your father! The tale
+is marvellously conceived and admirably related. Do you expect me to
+believe that that bold libertine, who made you the object of his
+unrepressed admiration, was your father? Why, that man was not old
+enough to be your father,&mdash;and if ever profligacy was written on a human
+countenance, its damning lines were traced on his. Your father! Away
+with a subterfuge so vile and flimsy, a falsehood so wanton and
+sacrilegious."</p>
+
+<p>Should I live a thousand years, I never could forget the awful shock of
+that moment, the whirlwind of passion that raged in my bosom. To be
+accused of <i>falsehood</i>, and such a falsehood, by Ernest, after my
+truthful, impassioned revelation;&mdash;it was what I could not, would not
+bear. My heart seemed a boiling cauldron, whence the hot blood rushed in
+burning streams to face, neck, and hands. My eyes flashed, my lips
+quivered with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it I, your wife, whom you accuse of falsehood?" I exclaimed; "dare
+you repeat an accusation so vile?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not <i>act</i> a falsehood, when you so grossly deceived me, by
+pretending to go on an errand of benevolence, when in reality you were
+bound to a disgraceful assignation? What veteran <i>intriguante</i> ever
+arranged any thing more coolly, more deliberately? Even if the story of
+that man's being your father were not false, what trust could I ever
+repose in one so skilled in deception, so artful, and so perfidious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest, you will rue what you say now, to your dying day; you will rue
+it at the judgment bar of heaven; you are doing me the cruellest wrong
+man ever inflicted on woman."</p>
+
+<p>The burning current in my veins was cooling,&mdash;a chill, benumbing sense
+of injustice and injury was settling on every feeling. I looked in his
+face, and its classic beauty vanished, even its lineaments seemed
+changed, the illusion of love was passing away; with indescribable
+horror I felt this; it was like the opening of a deep, dark abyss. Take
+away my love for Ernest, and what would be left of life?
+Darkness&mdash;despair&mdash;annihilation. I thought not, recked not then of his
+lost love for me; I only dreaded ceasing to love <i>him</i>, dreaded that
+congelation of the heart more terrible than death.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the note?" he asked suddenly. "Show me the warrant for this
+secret meeting."</p>
+
+<p>"I destroyed it."</p>
+
+<p>Again a thunder-gust swept over his countenance. I ought to have kept
+it, I ought to have anticipated a moment like this, but my judgment was
+obscure by fear.</p>
+
+<p>"You destroyed it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and well might I dread a disclosure which has brought on a scene
+so humbling to us both. Let it not continue; you have heard from me
+nothing but plain and holy truth; I have nothing to say in my defence.
+Had I acted differently, you yourself would despise and condemn me."</p>
+
+<p>"Had you come to me as you ought to have done, asking my counsel and
+assistance, I would have met the wretch who sought to beguile you; I
+would have detected the imposter, if you indeed believed the tale; I
+would have saved you from the shame of a public exposure, and myself the
+misery, the tortures of this hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he not threaten your life and his own? Did he not appeal to me in
+the most solemn and awful manner not to betray him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You might have known the man who urged you to deceive your husband to
+be a villain."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! alas! I know him to be a villain; and yet he is my father."</p>
+
+<p>"He is not your father! I know he is not. I would swear it before a
+court of justice. I would swear it before the chancery of the skies!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would to heaven that your words were true. Would to heaven my being
+were not derived from such a polluted source. But I know too well that
+he <i>is</i> my father; and that he has entailed on me everlasting sorrow.
+You admit, that if he is an impostor, I was myself deceived. You recall
+your fearful accusation."</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands, and looking wildly upwards,
+"I know not what to believe. I would give worlds, were they mine, for
+the sweet confidence forever lost! The cloud was passing away from my
+soul. Sunshine, hope, love, joy, were there. I was wrapped in the dreams
+of Elysium! Why have you so cruelly awakened me? If you had deceived me
+once, why not go on; deny the accusation; fool, dupe me,&mdash;do any thing
+but convince me that where I have so blindly worshipped, I have been so
+treacherously betrayed."</p>
+
+<p>I pitied him,&mdash;from the bottom of my soul I pitied him, his countenance
+expressed such exceeding bitter anguish. I saw that passion obscured his
+reason; that while under its dominion he was incapable of perceiving the
+truth. I remembered the warning accents of his mother: "You have no
+right to complain." I remembered her Christian injunction, "to endure
+all;" and my own promise, with God's help, to do it. All at once, it
+seemed as if my guardian angel stood before me, with a countenance of
+celestial sweetness shaded by sorrow; and I trembled as I gazed. I had
+bowed my shoulder to the cross; but as soon as the burden galled and
+oppressed me, I had hurled it from me, exclaiming, "it was greater than
+I could bear." I <i>had</i> deceived, though not betrayed him. I <i>had</i> put
+myself in the power of a villain, and exposed myself to the tongue of
+slander. I had expected, dreaded his anger; and was it not partly just?</p>
+
+<p>As these thoughts darted through my mind with the swiftness and power of
+lightning, love returned in all its living warmth, and anguish in
+proportion to the wound it had received. I was borne down irresistibly
+by the weight of my emotions. My knees bent under me. I bowed my face on
+the sofa; and tears, hot and fast as tropic rain, gushed from my eyes. I
+wept for him even more than myself,&mdash;wept for the "dark-spotted flower"
+twined with the roses of love.</p>
+
+<p>I heard him walking the room with troubled steps; and every step sounded
+as mournful to me as the earth-fall on the coffin-lid. Their echo was
+scarcely audible on the soft, yielding carpet; yet they seemed loud and
+heavy to my excited ear. Then I heard him approach the sofa, and stop,
+close to the spot where I knelt. My heart almost ceased beating; when he
+suddenly knelt at my side, and put his arms around me.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!" said he, "if I have done you wrong, may God forgive me; but
+I never can forgive myself."</p>
+
+<p>Accents of love issuing from the grave could hardly have been more
+thrilling or unexpected. I turned, and leaning my head on his shoulder,
+I felt myself drawn closer and closer to the heart from which I believed
+myself for ever estranged. I entreated his forgiveness for having
+deceived him. I told him, for I believed it then, that the purity of the
+motive did not justify the act; and I promised in the most solemn manner
+never again, under any circumstances, to bind myself to do any thing
+unknown to him, or even to act spontaneously without his knowledge. In
+the rapture of reconciliation, I was willing to give any pledge as a
+security for love, without realizing that jealousy was a Shylock,
+exacting the fulfilment of the bond,&mdash;the pound of flesh "nearest the
+heart." Yes, more exacting still, for <i>he</i> paused, when forbidden to
+spill the red life-drops, and dropped the murderous knife.</p>
+
+<p>And Ernest,&mdash;with what deep self-abasement he acknowledged the errors
+into which blind passion had led him. With what anguish he reflected on
+the disgraceful charge he had brought against me. Yes; even with tears,
+he owned his injustice and madness, and begged me to forget and forgive.</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done?" he cried, when, after our passionate emotions having
+subsided, we sat hand in hand, still pale and trembling, but subdued and
+grateful, like two mariners escaped from wreck, watching the billows
+roaring back from the shore. "What have I done, that this curse should
+be entailed upon me? In these paroxysms of madness, I am no more master
+of myself than the maniac who hurls his desperate hand in the face of
+Omnipotence. Reason has no power,&mdash;love no influence. Dark clouds rush
+across my mind, shutting out the light of truth. My heart freezes, as in
+a wintry storm. O, Gabriella! you can have no conception of what I
+suffer, while I writhe in the tempter's grasp. It is said God never
+allows man to be tempted beyond his powers of resistance. I dare not
+question the word of the Most High, but in the hour of temptation I feel
+like an infant contending with the Philistine giant. But, oh! the joy,
+the rapture when the paroxysm is past,&mdash;when light dawns on the
+darkness, when warmth comes meltingly over the ice and snow, when reason
+resumes its sway, and love its empire,&mdash;oh! my beloved! it is life
+renewed&mdash;it is a resurrection from the dead,&mdash;it is Paradise regained in
+the heart."</p>
+
+<p>Those who have floated along on a smooth, tranquil tide, clear of the
+breakers and whirlpools and rocks, or whose bark has lain on stagnant
+waters, on which a green and murky shade is beginning to gather, with no
+breeze to fan them or to curl the dull and lifeless pool, will accuse me
+of exaggeration, and say such scenes never occurred in the actual
+experience of wedded life; that I am writing a romance, instead of a
+reality.</p>
+
+<p>I answer them, that I am drawing the sketch as faithfully as the artist,
+who transfers the living form to the canvas; that as it is scarcely
+possible to exaggerate the dying agonies of the malefactor transfixed by
+the dagger, and writhing in protracted tortures, that the painter may
+immortalize himself by the death-throes on which he is gazing; so the
+agonies of him,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who doubts, yet does, suspects, yet fondly loves,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>cannot be described in colors too deep and strong. Prometheus bound to
+the rock, with the beak of the vulture in his bleeding breast, suffering
+daily renewing pangs, his wounds healed only to be torn open afresh, is
+an emblem of the victim of that vulture passion, which the word of God
+declares to be cruel and insatiable as the grave.</p>
+
+<p>No; my pen is too weak to describe either the terrors of the storm or
+the halcyon peace, the heavenly joy that succeeded. I yielded to the
+exquisite bliss of reconciliation, without daring to give one glance to
+the future. I had chosen my destiny. I had said, "Let me be loved,&mdash;I
+ask no more!"</p>
+
+<p>I was loved, even to the madness of idolatry. My prayer was granted.
+Then let me "lay my hand upon my mouth, and my mouth in the dust." I had
+rather be the stormy petrel, whose wings dip into ocean's foaming brine,
+than the swallow nestling under the barn-eaves of the farmer, or in the
+chimney of the country homestead,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Better to stand the lightning's shock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than moulder piecemeal on the rock."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was fortunate for me that Margaret was absent during this exciting
+scene. When she returned, she was too much occupied with relating the
+pleasures she had enjoyed to think of what might have occurred in her
+absence.</p>
+
+<p>"I am dying with impatience," she cried, "perfectly consuming with
+curiosity. Here is a letter from my mother, in which she says a
+gentleman, a particular friend of mine, is coming to the city, and that
+she has requested him to take charge of me back to Boston. She does not
+mention his name, and I have not the most remote idea who he is. She
+says she is very happy that her wild girl should be escorted by a person
+of so much dignity and worth. Dignity! I expect he is one of the
+ex-presidents or wise statesmen, whom Mrs. Linwood has recommended to my
+patronage. I have a great admiration for great men, large, tall men, men
+whose heads you can distinguish in a crowd and see in a distant
+procession. They look as if they could protect one in the day of
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Do <i>you</i> ever think of such a day, Margaret?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I do. I think more than you give me credit for. I can think
+more in one minute than you slow folks can in a week. Who can this be? I
+remember a description I admire very much. It is in some old poem of
+Scott's, I believe,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Bold, firm, and high, his stature tall,'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>did something, looked like something, I have forgotten what. I know it
+was something grand, however."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be thinking of Mr. Regulus," said I, laughing, as memory
+brought before me some of his inimitable <i>quackeries</i>. "He is the
+tallest gentleman I have ever seen, and though not very graceful, has a
+very imposing figure, especially in a crowd."</p>
+
+<p>"I think Mr. Regulus one of the finest looking men I ever saw," cried
+Madge. "He has a head very much like Webster's, and his eyebrows are
+exactly like his. If he were in a conspicuous station, every one would
+be raving about his mountainous head and cavernous eyes and majestic
+figure. He is worth a dozen of <i>some</i> people, who shall be nameless. I
+have no doubt he will be president of the United States, one of these
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard you make so sensible a remark, Margaret. I thought you
+were amusing yourself with my respected teacher. I am glad you
+appreciate his uncommon merits."</p>
+
+<p>Madge laughed very loud, but she actually blushed. The first symptom of
+womanhood I had ever seen her exhibit! It was a strange phenomenon, and
+I marvelled what it could mean.</p>
+
+<p>To my unutterable astonishment and delight, a few evenings after, my
+quondam preceptor was ushered into the parlor; and strangely looked his
+tall, large figure in the midst of the oriental lightness and splendor
+through which it moved. After greeting me with the most heart-felt
+feeling, and Madge with a half shy, half dignified manner, he gazed
+around him with the simplicity and wondering admiration of a child. He
+was probably comparing the beautiful drapery, that seemed like the azure
+robe of night with its stars of glory gleaming through, with the plain
+green curtains that shaded the windows of the academy, the graceful and
+luxurious divan with the high-backed chair which was my village throne.</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful, charming!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands slowly and
+gently. "You remind me of the queen of a fairy palace. I shall not dare
+to call you my child or little girl again. Scherezade or Fatima will
+seem more appropriate."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, Mr. Regulus! I had rather hear you call me child, than any thing
+else in the world. It carries me back to the dear old academy, the
+village green, the elm trees' shade, and all the sweet memories of
+youth."</p>
+
+<p>"One would think you had a long backward journey to take, from the
+saddened heights of experience," said Ernest; and there was that
+indescribable something in his voice and countenance, which I had
+learned too well to interpret, that told me he was not pleased with my
+remark. He did not want me to have a memory further back than my first
+meeting with him,&mdash;a hope with which he was not intertwined.</p>
+
+<p>"You may call <i>me</i> child, Mr. Regulus, as much as you please," cried
+Madge, her eyes sparkling with unusual brilliancy. "I wish I were a
+little school-girl again, privileged to romp as much as I pleased. When
+I did any thing wrong then, it was always passed over. 'Oh! she's but a
+child, she will get sobered when she is grown.' Now if I laugh a little
+louder and longer than other people, they stare and lift up their eyes,
+and I have no doubt pray for me as a castaway from grace and favor."</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret!" said I, reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"There! exactly as I described. Every sportive word I utter, it is
+Margaret, or Madge, or Meg, in such a grave, rebuking tone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is only when you jest on serious subjects, that you meet a
+kindly check," observed Mr. Regulus, with grave simplicity; "there are
+so many legitimate themes of mirth, so many light frameworks, round
+which the flowers of wit and fancy can twine, it is better to leave the
+majestic temple of religion, untouched by the hand of levity."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not intend to speak profanely," said Margaret, hastily,&mdash;and the
+color visibly deepened on her cheek; "neither did I know that you were a
+religious character, Mr. Regulus. I thought you were a very good sort of
+man, and all that; but I did not think you had so much of the minister
+about you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great pity, Miss Margaret, that interest in religion should be
+considered a minister's exclusive privilege. But I hope I have not said
+any thing wounding. It was far from my intention. I am a sad blunderer,
+however, as Gabriella knows full well."</p>
+
+<p>I was charmed with my straightforward, simple, and excellent teacher. I
+had never seen him appear to such advantage. He had on an entirely new
+suit of the finest black broadcloth, that fitted him quite <i>&agrave; la mode</i>;
+a vest of the most dazzling whiteness; and his thick black hair had
+evidently been under the smoothing hands of a fashionable barber. His
+head seemed much reduced in size; while his massy, intellectual forehead
+displayed a bolder sweep of outline, relieved of the shadows that
+obscured its phrenological beauty.</p>
+
+<p>He had seen Mrs. Linwood and Edith in Boston. They were both well, and
+looking anxiously forward to the summer reunion at Grandison Place. Dr.
+Harlowe sent me many characteristic messages,&mdash;telling me my little
+rocking-chair was waiting for me at my favorite window, and that he had
+not learned to rub his shoes on the mat, or to hang up his hat yet.</p>
+
+<p>"Does he call me the wild-cat, still?" asked Madge.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe so. He told me to say that he had his house repaired, so that
+you could visit him without endangering Mrs. Harlowe's china."</p>
+
+<p>"The monster! Well, he shall give me a new name, when I see him again.
+But tell me, Mr. Regulus, who is the very dignified and excellent
+gentleman whom mamma says is coming to escort me home? I have been
+expiring with curiosity to know."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know of any one answering to that description, Miss Margaret,"
+replied Mr. Regulus, blushing, and passing his hands over his knees. "I
+saw your mother at Mrs. Linwood's; and when she learned I was coming to
+this city, she said she would be very much obliged to me, if I would
+take charge of you, on my return."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you did not come on purpose for me, Mr. Regulus," said Madge, with
+a saucy smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no,&mdash;I had business, and a very earnest desire to see my young
+friend, Gabriella. If I can, however, combine the useful with the
+agreeable, I shall be very well pleased."</p>
+
+<p>"By the useful, you mean, seeing me safe in my mamma's arms," said
+Madge, demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, Miss Margaret."</p>
+
+<p>Even Ernest laughed at this peculiar compliment; and Madge bit her lips,
+half in vexation, half in merriment. I hardly knew what to think of
+Margaret. She was certainly the most eccentric being I ever saw. She,
+who seemed to care for the opinion of no one,&mdash;reckless, defying, and
+apparently heartless, showed more deference for Mr. Regulus, more
+solicitude for his attention, than I had ever seen her manifest for
+another's. Was it possible that this strange, wild girl, was attracted
+by the pure, unvarnished qualities of this "great grown boy," as Dr.
+Harlowe called him? It is impossible to account for the fascination
+which one being exercises over another; and from the days of Desdemona
+to the present hour, we seldom hear of an approaching marriage, without
+hearing at the same time some one exclaim, "that it is strange,&mdash;most
+passing strange."</p>
+
+<p>The moment I admitted the possibility of his exercising a secret
+influence over Madge, I looked upon him with new interest. He had the
+intense, deep-set eye, which is said to tame the wild beasts of the
+forest, and perhaps its glance had subdued the animal nature that
+triumphed over her more ethereal attributes. I hoped most devoutly that
+my supposition might be true; for genuine affection exalts both the
+giver and receiver, and opens ten thousand avenues to joy and good.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not look quite so rosy as you did in the country," said he,
+looking earnestly at me. "The dissipation of a city life does not agree
+with our wild-wood flowers. They need a purer atmosphere."</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella is taken very good care of," cried Madge, looking
+significantly at Ernest. "She is not allowed to hurt herself by
+dissipation, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you imply that she needs a restraining influence to keep her from
+excess?" asked Ernest. He spoke lightly, but he never spoke without
+meaning something.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed. She is the model wife of the nineteenth century. She is
+'wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.' Solomon must have seen her
+with prophetic eye, when he wrote the last chapter of Proverbs."</p>
+
+<p>"Mock praise is the severest censure, Margaret," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"No such thing. I mean every word I say. Show me a young and beautiful
+wife, almost bride, immuring herself as you do, and never seen in public
+but clinging to her husband's arm, shrinking from admiration and
+blushing at a glance, and I will show you another Solomon."</p>
+
+<p>"Though you may speak in ridicule," said Ernest, with a contracted brow,
+"you have awarded her the most glorious meed woman can receive. The
+fashion that sanctions a wife in receiving the attentions of any
+gentleman but her husband, is the most corrupt and demoralizing in the
+world. It makes wedded vows a mockery, and marriage an unholy and
+heartless rite."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you expect to revolutionize society?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No; but I expect to keep my wife unspotted from the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad she has so watchful a guardian," said Mr. Regulus, regarding
+me with his old-fashioned, earnest tenderness. "We hear very flattering
+accounts," he added, addressing me, "of our young friend, Richard Clyde.
+He will return next summer, after a year's absence, having acquired as
+much benefit as most young men do in two or three."</p>
+
+<p>I could not help blushing, for I knew the eyes of Ernest were on me. He
+could never hear the name of Richard with indifference, and the prospect
+of his return was far from being a source of pleasure to him. Richard
+was very dear to me as a friend, and I was proud of his growing honors.
+Yet I dared not manifest the interest I felt.</p>
+
+<p>Never had I been so supremely happy, as since my reconciliation with
+Ernest. I felt that he had something to forgive, much to forgive, and
+that he was magnanimous to do it, considering the weakness with which he
+struggled. Never had I loved him so entirely, or felt such confidence in
+my future happiness. Yet the moment the name of Richard Clyde was
+mentioned, it sounded like a prophecy of evil.</p>
+
+<p>Oh that he would transfer to Edith the affections given to me, and then
+he could bind Ernest to his heart by the sacred bonds of fraternity!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The few days which Mr. Regulus passed in the city, were happy ones to
+me. He had never visited it before; and Ernest showed him more respect
+and attention than I had seen him bestow on other men. I had never
+betrayed the <i>romance</i> of the academy; and not dreaming that my
+preceptor had ever been my lover, he tolerated the regard he manifested,
+believing it partook of the paternal character. Perhaps, had he remained
+long, he would have considered even this an infringement on his rights;
+but, to my unspeakable joy, nothing occurred to cloud our domestic
+horizon during his stay. Once or twice when the name of Richard Clyde
+was mentioned, I saw the shadow of <i>coming events</i> on the brow of
+Ernest; but it passed away, and the evil day of his return seemed very
+far off.</p>
+
+<p>I could not regret Margaret's departure. There was so entire a
+dissimilarity in our characters, and though I have no doubt she
+cherished for me all the friendship she was capable of feeling, it was
+of that masculine cast, that I could not help shrinking from its
+manifestations. Her embraces were so stringent, her kisses so loud and
+resounding, I could not receive them without embarrassment, though no
+one but Ernest might be near.</p>
+
+<p>The evening before she left, she was in an unusually gentle mood. We
+were alone in my chamber, and she actually sat still several moments
+without speaking. This was something as ominous as the pause that
+precedes the earth's spasmodic throes. I have not spoken of Margaret's
+destructive propensities, but they were developed in a most
+extraordinary manner. She had a habit of seizing hold of every thing she
+looked at, and if it chanced to be of delicate materials, it often
+shivered in her grasp. I do not wonder poor Mrs. Harlowe trembled for
+her glass and china, for scarcely a day passed that her path was not
+strewed with ruins, whose exquisite fragments betrayed the costly fabric
+she had destroyed. Now it was a beautiful porcelain vase, which she
+would have in her hands to examine and admire, then an alabaster
+statuette or frail crystal ornament. If I dropped a kid glove, she
+invariably attempted to put it on, and her hand being much larger than
+mine, she as invariably tore it in shreds. She would laugh, roll up her
+eyes, and exclaim, "shocking! why this could not be worth anything! I
+will let it alone next time."</p>
+
+<p>I cannot say but that these daily proofs of carelessness and
+destructiveness were trials of the temper and constant gratings on the
+nerves. It was difficult to smile with a frowning heart, for such wanton
+disregard for the property and feelings of others must pain that nice
+moral sense which is connected with the great law of self-preservation.</p>
+
+<p>This evening, she seized a beautiful perfume bottle that stood on my
+toilet, and opening it, spilled it half on her handkerchief, though one
+drop would fill the whole apartment with richest odor.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not break that bottle, Margaret; it is very beautiful, and Ernest
+gave it me this very morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! nonsense, I am the most careful creature in the world. Once in a
+while, to be sure,&mdash;but then accidents will happen, you know. O
+Gabriella I have something to tell you. Mr. Harland wants me to marry
+him,&mdash;ha, ha, ha!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you seemed pleased, Margaret. He is an accomplished gentleman,
+and an agreeable one. Do you like him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! I liked him very well, till he wanted me to like him better, and
+now I detest him. He is all froth,&mdash;does not know much more than I do
+myself. No, no,&mdash;that will never do."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you like some one else better?" said I, thinking if Margaret
+was ever caught in the matrimonial noose, it must be a <i>lasso</i>, such as
+are thrown round the neck of the wild horses of the prairies.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you say that?" she asked, quickly, and my beautiful essence
+bottle was demolished by some sudden jerk which brought it in contact
+with the marble table. "The brittle thing!" she exclaimed, tossing the
+fragments on the carpet, at the risk of cutting our slippers and
+wounding our feet. "I would not thank Ernest for such baby trifles,&mdash;I
+was scarcely touching it. What makes you think I like anybody better?"</p>
+
+<p>"I merely asked the question," I answered, closing my work box, and
+drawing it nearer, so that her depredating fingers could not reach it.
+She had already destroyed half its contents.</p>
+
+<p>"I do like somebody a great deal better," she said, tossing her hair
+over her forehead and veiling her eyes; "but if you guessed till
+doomsday, you could not imagine who it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I pity him, whoever it may be," said I, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are no more fit to be a wife, Madge, than a child of five years
+old. You have no more thought or consideration, foresight or care."</p>
+
+<p>"I am two years older than you are, notwithstanding."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear if you live to be a hundred, you will never have the qualities
+necessary to secure your own happiness and that of another in the close,
+knitting bonds of wedded life."</p>
+
+<p>I spoke more seriously than I intended. I was thinking of Mr. Regulus,
+and most devoutly hoped for his sake, this wild, nondescript girl would
+never reach his heart through the medium of his vanity. She certainly
+paid him the most dangerous kind of flattery, because it was indirect.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know what a sensible man might make of me," she said,
+shaking her head. "I really wish,&mdash;I do not know&mdash;but I sometimes
+think"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped and leaned her head on her hand, and her hair fell shadingly
+over her face.</p>
+
+<p>"What, Margaret? I should like exceedingly to know your inmost thoughts
+and feelings. You seem to think and feel so little;&mdash;and yet, in every
+woman's heart there must be a fountain,&mdash;or else what a desert
+waste,&mdash;what a dreary wilderness it must be."</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak, but put both hands over her face and bent it
+downwards, while her shoulders moved up and down with a spasmodic
+motion. I thought she was shaking with suppressed laughter; and though I
+could not imagine what had excited her mirth, I had known her convulsed
+by a ridiculous thought of her own, in the midst of general seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>But all at once unmistakable sobs broke forth, and I found she was
+crying heartily, genuinely,&mdash;crying without any self control, with all
+the abandonment of a child.</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret!" I exclaimed, laying my hand gently on her quivering
+shoulder, "what is the matter? What can have excited you in this manner?
+Don't, Madge,&mdash;you terrify me."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," she sobbed. "Now I have began, I can't stop. O dear,
+what a fool I am! There is nothing the matter with me. I don't know what
+makes me cry; but I can't help it,&mdash;I hate myself,&mdash;I can't bear myself,
+and yet I can't change myself. Nobody that I care for will ever love me.
+I am such a hoyden&mdash;such a romp&mdash;I disgust every one that comes near me;
+and yet I can't be gentle and sweet like you, if I die. I used to think
+because I made everybody laugh, they liked me. People said, 'Oh! there's
+Madge, she will keep us alive.' And I thought it was a fine thing to be
+called Wild Madge, and Meg the Dauntless; I begin to hate the names; I
+begin to blush when I think of myself."</p>
+
+<p>And Margaret lifted her head, and the feelings of lately awakened
+womanhood crimsoned her cheeks, and streamed from her eyes. I was
+electrified. What prophet hand had smitten the rock? What power had
+drawn up the rosy fluid from the Artesian well of her heart?</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Margaret," I cried, "I hail this moment as the dawn of a new
+life in your soul. Your childhood has lingered long, but the moment you
+feel that you have the heart of a woman, you will discard the follies of
+a child. Now you begin to live, when you are conscious of the golden
+moments you have wasted, the noble capacities you have never yet
+exerted. Oh Margaret, I feel more and more every day I live, that I was
+born for something more than the enjoyment of the passing moment,&mdash;that
+life was given for a more exalted purpose than self-gratification, and
+that as we use or abuse this gift of God we become heirs of glory or of
+shame."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret listened with a subdued countenance and a long drawn sigh. She
+strenuously wiped away the traces of her tears, and shook back the hair
+from her brow, with a resolute motion.</p>
+
+<p>"You despise me&mdash;I know you do," she said, gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," I answered, "I never liked you half as well before; I
+doubted your sensibility. Now, I see you can feel, and feel acutely. I
+shall henceforth think of you with interest, and speak of you with
+tenderness."</p>
+
+<p>"You are the dearest, sweetest creature in the world," she exclaimed,
+putting both arms around me with unwonted gentleness; "I shall always
+love you, and will try to remember all you have said to me to-night. We
+shall meet in the summer, and you shall see, oh yes, you shall see. Dear
+me&mdash;what a fright I have made of myself."</p>
+
+<p>She had risen, and was glancing at herself in the Psyche, which,
+supported by two charming Cupids, reflected the figure full length.</p>
+
+<p>"I never will cry again if I can help it," she exclaimed. "These horrid
+red circles round the eyes,&mdash;and my eyes, too, are as red as a rabbit's.
+The heroines of novels are always said to look lovelier in tears; but
+you are the only person I ever saw who looked pretty after weeping."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see me weep, Madge?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have noticed more than you think I have,&mdash;and believe me, Gabriella,
+Ernest will have to answer for every tear he draws from those angel eyes
+of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret, you know not what you say. Ernest loves me ten thousand times
+better than I deserve. He lavishes on me a wealth of love that humbles
+me with a consciousness of my own demerits. His only fault is loving me
+too well. Never never breathe before Mrs. Linwood or Edith,&mdash;before a
+human being, the sentiment you uttered now. Never repeat the idle gossip
+you may have heard. If you do speak of us, say that I have known woman's
+happiest, most blissful lot. And that I would rather be the wife of
+Ernest one year, than live a life of endless duration with any other."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a pleasant thing to be loved," said Margaret, and her black
+eyes flashed through the red shade of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"And to love," I repeated. "It is more blessed to give, than to
+receive."</p>
+
+<p>A sympathetic chord was touched,&mdash;there was music in it. Who ever saw a
+person weep genuine tears, without feeling the throbbings of
+humanity,&mdash;the drawings of the chain that binds together all the sons
+and daughters of Adam? If there are such beings, I pity them.</p>
+
+<p>Let them keep as far from me as the two ends of the rainbow are from
+each other. The breath of the Deity has frozen within them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The morning of Margaret's departure, when Mr. Regulus was standing with
+gloves and hat in hand waiting her readiness, it happened that I was
+alone in the parlor with him a few moments.</p>
+
+<p>"You will have a pleasant journey," said I. "You will find Margaret an
+entertaining companion."</p>
+
+<p>"O yes!" he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "but I fear
+she will excite too much remark by her wild antics. I do not like to be
+noticed by strangers."</p>
+
+<p>"She will accommodate herself to your wishes, I know she will. You have
+great influence over her."</p>
+
+<p>"Me! oh no!" he cried, with equal surprise and simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed you have. Talk to her rationally, as if you had confidence
+in her good-sense, Mr. Regulus, and you will really find some golden
+wheat buried in the chaff. Talk to her feelingly, as if you appealed to
+her sensibility, and you may discover springs where you believe no
+waters flow."</p>
+
+<p>"It is like telling me to search for spring flowers, when the ground is
+all covered with snow,&mdash;to look at the moon shining, when the night is
+as dark as ebony. But I am thinking of you, Gabriella, more than of her.
+I rejoice to find you the same artless child of nature that sat at my
+feet years ago in the green-wood shade. But beautiful as is your palace
+home, I long to see you again in our lovely valley among the birds and
+the flowers. I long to see you on the green lawn of Grandison Place."</p>
+
+<p>"I do feel more at home at Grandison Place," I answered. "I would give
+more for the velvet lawn, the dear old elm, the oaken avenue, than for
+all the magnificence of this princely mansion."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are happy here, my child?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have realized the brightest dreams of youth."</p>
+
+<p>"God be praised!&mdash;and you have forgiven my past folly,&mdash;you think of me
+as preceptor, elder brother, friend."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear master!" I exclaimed, and tears, such as glisten in the eyes of
+childhood, gathered in mine. I <i>was</i> a child again, in my mother's
+presence, and the shade-trees of the gray cottage seemed rustling around
+me.</p>
+
+<p>The entrance of Margaret interrupted the conversation. She never
+appeared to better advantage than in her closely fitting riding dress,
+which displayed the symmetry of her round and elastic figure. I looked
+at her with interest, for I had seen those saucy, brilliant eyes
+suffused with tears, and those red, merry lips quivering with womanly
+sensibility. I hoped good things of Margaret, and though I could not
+regret her departure, I thought leniently of her faults, and resolved to
+forget them.</p>
+
+<p>"Just like Margaret," said I, gathering up the beautiful drapery, on
+which she had trodden as she left the room, and rent from the shaft that
+confined its folds. She stopped not to see the mischief she had done,
+for she was so accustomed to hear a crash and dash behind her, it is not
+probable she even noticed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" exclaimed Ernest, before the echo of their departing
+footsteps had died on the ear. "Thank God! we are once more alone."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mr. Harland had visited us but seldom since the words of passion which
+might have been followed by a scene of strife, but for woman's
+restraining presence, had fallen from the lips of Ernest. One evening,
+he called and asked a private interview with Ernest, and they
+immediately passed into the library. I saw that his countenance was
+disturbed, and vague apprehensions filled my mind. I could hear their
+voices in earnest, excited tones; and though I knew there was no
+revelation to be made which Ernest had not already heard from me, I felt
+a conviction amounting to certainty, that this mysterious interview had
+some connection with my unhappy father, and boded evil to me. Mr.
+Harland did not probably remain more than an hour, but every moment
+seemed an hour, drawn out by suspense and apprehension. He re&euml;ntered the
+parlor with Ernest, but left immediately; while Ernest walked silently
+back and forth, as he always did when agitated,&mdash;his brows contracted
+with stern, intense thought. He was excessively pale, and though his
+eyes did not emit the lightning glance of passion, they flashed and
+burned like heated metal.</p>
+
+<p>I dared not ask him the cause of his emotion, I could only watch him
+with quick-drawn breath, and lips sealed with dread. Suddenly he put his
+hand in his bosom, and snatching thence the fatal casket I had left in
+my father's crime-stained hands, he hurled it to the floor, and trampled
+it under his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Behold," he cried, with inexpressible bitterness and grief, "my
+mother's gift, her sacred bridal gift,&mdash;desecrated, polluted,
+lost,&mdash;worse than lost! I will not upbraid you. I would spare you the
+pang I myself endure,&mdash;but think of the agonies in which a spirit like
+mine must writhe, to know that <i>your</i> name, that the name of my <i>wife</i>
+is blazoned to the world, associated with that of a vile forger, an
+abandoned villain, whose crimes are even now blackening the newspapers,
+and glutting the greedy appetite of slander! O rash, misguided girl!
+what demon tempted you to such fatal imprudence?"</p>
+
+<p>I sat immovable, frozen, my eyes fixed upon the carpet, my hands as cold
+as ice, and my lips, as they touched each other, chill as icicles. In
+moments of sudden anguish I never lost consciousness, as many do, but
+while my physical powers were crushed, my mind seemed to acquire
+preternatural sensibility. I suffered as we do in dreams, intensely,
+exquisitely, when every nerve is unsheathed, and the spirit naked to the
+dagger's stroke. He stopped as he uttered this impassioned adjuration,
+and his countenance changed instantaneously as he gazed on mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Cruel, cruel that I am!" he cried, sitting down by me, and wrapping his
+arms around me; "I did not know what I was saying. I meant to be gentle
+and forbearing, but strong passion rushed over me like a whirlwind.
+Forgive me, Gabriella, my darling, forgive me. Let the world say what it
+will, I know that you are pure and true. I care not for the money,&mdash;I
+care not for the jewels,&mdash;but an unspotted name. Oh! where now are the
+'liveried angels' that will guard it from pollution?"</p>
+
+<p>As he folded me in his arms, and pressed his cheek to mine, as if
+striving to infuse into it vital warmth, I felt the electric fluid
+flowing into my benumbed system. Whatever had occurred, he had not cast
+me off; and with him to sustain me, I was strong to meet the exigencies
+of the moment. I looked up in his face, and he read the expression of my
+soul,&mdash;I know he did, for he clasped me closer to him, and the fire of
+his eyes grew dim,&mdash;dim, through glistening tears. And then he told me
+all my beseeching glances sought. More than a week before, even before
+that, he had learned that a forgery had been committed in his name,
+involving a very large sum of money. Liberal rewards had been offered
+for the discovery of the villain, and that day he had been brought to
+the city. My diamonds, on whose setting Mrs. Linwood had had my name
+engraven, were found in his possession. He had not spoken to me of the
+forgery, not wishing to trouble me, he said, on a subject of such minor
+importance. It was the publicity given to my name, in association with
+his, that caused the bitterness of his anguish. And I,&mdash;I knew that my
+father had robbed my husband in the vilest, most insidious manner; that
+he had drawn upon himself the awful doom of a forger, a dungeon home, a
+living death.</p>
+
+<p>My father! the man whom my mother had loved. The remembrance of this
+love, so long-enduring, so much forgiving, hung like a glory round him.
+It was the halo of a saint encircling the brow of the malefactor.</p>
+
+<p>"Will they not suppose the jewels were stolen?" I asked, with the
+calmness of desperation. "Surely the world cannot know they were given
+by me; and though it is painful to be associated with so dark a
+transaction, I see not, dear Ernest, why my reputation should be clouded
+by this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! Gabriella,&mdash;you were seen by more than one walking with him in
+the park. You were seen entering the jeweller's shop, and afterwards
+meeting him in Broadway. Even in the act of giving your shawl to the
+poor shivering woman, you were watched. You believed yourself
+unremarked; but the blind man might as well think himself unseen walking
+in the blaze of noonday, because his own eyes are bound by the fillet of
+darkness, as <i>you</i> expect to pass unnoticed through a gaping throng. Mr.
+Harland told me of these things, that I might be prepared to repel the
+arrows of slander which would inevitably be aimed at the bosom of my
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>"But you told him that it was my father. That it was to save him from
+destruction I gave them. Oh Ernest, you told him all!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no right to reveal your secret, Gabriella. If he be indeed your
+father, let eternal secrecy veil his name. Would you indeed consent that
+the world should know that it was your father who had committed so dark
+a crime? Would you, Gabriella?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would far rather be covered with ignominy as a daughter, than
+disgrace as a wife," I answered, while burning blushes dyed my cheeks at
+the possibility of the last. "The first will not reflect shame or
+humiliation on you. You have raised me generously, magnanimously, to
+your own position; and though the world may say that you yielded to
+weakness in loving me,&mdash;a poor and simple girl.&mdash;Nay, nay; I recall my
+words, Ernest; I will not wrong myself, because clouds and darkness
+gather round me. You did not <i>stoop</i>, or lower yourself, by wedding me.
+Love made us equal. My proud, aspiring love, looked up; yours bent to
+meet its worship,&mdash;and both united, as the waves of ocean unite, in
+fulness, depth, and strength,&mdash;and, like them, have found their level.
+Let the world know that I am the daughter of St. James; that, moved by
+his prayers and intimidated by his threats, I met him and attempted to
+save him from ruin. They may say that I was rash and imprudent; but they
+dare not call me guilty. There is a voice in every heart which is not
+palsied, or deadened, or dumb, that will plead in my defence. The child
+who endeavors to shield a father from destruction, however low and
+steeped in sin he may be, cannot be condemned. If I am, I care not; but
+oh, Ernest, as your wife, let me not suffer reproach,&mdash;for your sake, my
+husband, far more than mine."</p>
+
+<p>As thus I pleaded with all the eloquence and earnestness of my nature,
+with my hands clasped in his, their firm, close, yet gentle fold grew
+firmer, closer still; and the cloud passing away from his countenance,
+it became luminous as I gazed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right,&mdash;you are true," said he, "my dear, my noble Gabriella.
+Every shadow of a doubt vanishes before the testimony of your unselfish
+heart. Why did I not see this subject in the same clear, just light?
+Because my eyes are too often blinded by the mists of passion. Yes! you
+have pointed out the only way of extrication. The story of your mother's
+wrongs will not necessarily be exposed; and if it is, the sacred &aelig;gis of
+your filial love will guard it from desecration. We shall not remain
+here long. Spring will soon return; and in the sweet quietude of rural
+life, we will forget the tumultuous scenes of this modern Babel. You
+will not wish to return?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! never, never. That unhappy man! what will be his doom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably life-long imprisonment. Had I known who the offender was, I
+would have prayed the winds and waves to bear him to Icelandic seas,
+rather than have had his crime published to the world. It is, however,
+the retribution of heaven; and we must submit."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems so strange," said I, "to think of him alive, whose existence
+so long seemed to me a blank. When I was a child, I used to indulge in
+wild dreams about my unknown parent. I pictured him as one of the gods
+of mythology, veiling his divinity in flesh for the love of the fairest
+of the daughters of men. The mystery that wrapped his name was, to my
+imagination, like the cloud mantling the noonday sun. With such views of
+my lineage, which, though they became subdued as I grew older, were
+still exaggerated and romantic,&mdash;think of the awful plunge into the
+disgraceful truth. It seems to me that I should have died on my mother's
+grave, had not your arms of love raised me,&mdash;had you not breathed into
+my ear words that called me back from the cold grasp of death itself. In
+the brightness of the future I forgot the gloom of the past. Oh! had I
+supposed that he lived,&mdash;that he would come to bring on me public shame
+and sorrow, and through me, on you, my husband, I never would have
+exposed you to the sufferings of this night."</p>
+
+<p>And I clung to him with an entireness of confidence, a fulness of
+gratitude that swelled my heart almost to bursting. His face, beaming
+with unclouded love and trust, seemed to me as the face of an angel. I
+cared not for obloquy or shame, since he believed me true. I remembered
+the words of the tender, the devoted Gertrude:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I have been with thee in thine hour<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of glory and of bliss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doubt not its memory's living power<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To strengthen me in this."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But though my mind was buoyed up by the exaltation of my feelings, my
+physical powers began to droop. I inherited something of my mother's
+constitutional weakness; and, suddenly as the leaden weight falls when a
+clock has run down and the machinery ceases to play, a heavy burden of
+lethargy settled down upon me, and I was weak and helpless as a child.
+Dull pain throbbed in my brain, as if it were girdled by a hard,
+tightening band.</p>
+
+<p>It was several days before I left my bed, and more than a week before I
+quitted my chamber. The recollection of Ernest's tender watchfulness
+during these days of illness, even now suffuses my eyes with tears. Had
+I been a dying infant he could not have hung over me with more anxious,
+unslumbering care. Oh! whatever were his faults, his virtues redeemed
+them all. Oh! the unfathomable depths of his love! I was then willing to
+die, so fearful was I of passing out of this heavenly light of home joy
+into the coldness of doubt, the gloom of suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest, with all his proneness to exaggerate the importance of my
+actions, did not do so in reference to this unhappy transaction.
+Paragraphs were inserted in the papers, in which the initials of my name
+were inserted in large capitals to attract the gazing eye. The meeting
+in the Park, the jewels found in the possession of the forger, the
+abrupt manner in which they were taken from the jeweller's shop, even
+the gray shawl and green veil, were minutely described. Ernest had made
+enemies by the haughty reserve of his manners and the exclusiveness of
+his habits, and they stabbed him in secret where he was most vulnerable.</p>
+
+<p>A brief sketch of the real circumstances and the causes which led to
+them, was published in reply. It was written with manly boldness, but
+guarded delicacy, and rescued my name from the fierce clutch of slander.
+Then followed glowing eulogiums on the self-sacrificing daughter, the
+young and beautiful wife, till Ernest's sensitive spirit must have bled
+over the notoriety given to her, whom he considered as sacred as the
+priestess of some holy temple, and whose name was scarcely to be
+mentioned but in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>The only comment he made on them was,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My mother and Edith will see these."</p>
+
+<p>"I will write and tell them all," I answered; "it will be too painful to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"We will both write," he said; and we did.</p>
+
+<p>"You blame yourself too much," cried he, when he perused my letter.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak too kindly, too leniently of me," said I, after reading his;
+"yet I am glad and grateful. Your mother will judge me from the facts,
+and nothing that you or I can say will warp or influence her judgment.
+She understands so clearly the motives of action,&mdash;she reads so closely
+your character and mine, I feel that her decision will be as righteous
+as the decree of eternal justice. Oh that I were with her now, for my
+soul looks to her as an ark of safety. Like the poor weary dove, it
+longs to repose its drooping wings and fold them in trembling joy on her
+sheltering breast."</p>
+
+<p>I will not speak of the trial, the condemnation, or the agony I felt,
+when I learned that my father was doomed to expiate his crime by
+solitary confinement for ten long years. Could Ernest have averted this
+fate from him, for my sake he would have done it; but the majesty of the
+law was supreme, and no individual effort could change its just decree.
+My affections were not wounded, for I never could recall his image
+without personal repugnance, but my mother's remembrance was associated
+with him;&mdash;I remembered her dying injunctions,&mdash;her prophetic dream. I
+thought of the heaven which he had forfeited, the God whose commandments
+he had broken, the Saviour whose mercy he had scorned. I wanted to go to
+him,&mdash;to minister to him in his lonely cell,&mdash;to try to rouse him to a
+sense of his transgressions,&mdash;to lead him to the God he had forsaken,
+the Redeemer he had rejected, the heaven from which my mother seemed
+stretching her spirit arms to woo him to her embrace.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother dreamed that I drew him from a black abyss," said I to
+Ernest; "she dreamed that I was the guardian angel of his soul. Let me
+go to him,&mdash;let me fulfil my mission. I shudder when I look around me in
+these palace walls, and think that a parent groans in yonder dismal
+tombs."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> will go," replied Ernest; "I will tell him your filial wish, and if
+I find you can do him good, I will accompany you there."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>can</i> do him good,&mdash;I can pity and forgive him,&mdash;I can talk to him of
+my mother, and that will lead him to think of heaven. 'I was sick and in
+prison and ye came unto me.' Oh, thus our Saviour said, identifying
+himself with the sons of ignominy and sorrow. Go, and if you find his
+heart softened by repentance, pour balm and oil into the wounds that sin
+has made. Go, and let me follow."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"And did you see him, Ernest?" I asked, with trembling eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"I did, Gabriella. I went to him as your representative, without one
+vindictive, bitter feeling. I proffered kindness, forgiveness, and every
+comfort the law would permit a condemned criminal to enjoy. They were
+rejected fiercely, disdainfully,&mdash;he rejected them all."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! and me, Ernest; does he refuse consolation from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will not see you. 'I ask no sympathy,' he cried, in hoarse and
+sullen accents. 'I desire no fellowship; alone I have sinned,&mdash;alone I
+will suffer,&mdash;alone I will die.' Weep not, my Gabriella, over this
+hardened wretch; I do not believe he is your father; I am more and more
+convinced that he is an impostor."</p>
+
+<p>"But he has my mother's miniature; he recognized me from my resemblance
+to it; he called me by name; he knew all the circumstances of my
+infantine life. I would give worlds to believe your assertion, but the
+curse clings to me. He <i>is</i>,&mdash;he must be my father."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Brahan, who knew your father personally, and who is deeply
+interested in the disclosures recently made, has visited him also. He
+says there is a most extraordinary resemblance; and though seventeen
+years of sinful indulgence leave terrible traces on the outward man, he
+does not doubt his identity. But I cannot, will not admit it. Think of
+him no more, Gabriella; banish him, and every thing connected with this
+horrible event, from your mind. In other scenes you will recover from
+the shock occasioned by it; and even now the tongue of rumor is busy
+with more recent themes. Mr. Brahan will visit him from time to time
+and, if possible, learn something of the mystery of his life. Whatever
+is learned will be communicated to me. What! weeping still, my
+Gabriella?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is dreadful to think of sin and crime in the abstract; but when it
+comes before us in the person of a father!"</p>
+
+<p>"No more! no more! Dismiss the subject. Let it be henceforth a dark
+dream, forgotten if possible; or if remembered, be it as a dispensation
+of Providence, to be borne in silence and submission. Strange as it may
+seem, all that I have suffered of humiliation and anguish in this <i>real</i>
+trial, cannot be compared to the agony caused by one of my own dark
+imaginings."</p>
+
+<p>I tried to obey the injunctions of Ernest; but though my lips were
+silent, it was impossible to check the current of thought, or to
+obliterate the dark remembrance of the past. My spirits lost their
+elasticity, the roses on my cheek grew pale.</p>
+
+<p>Spring came, not as in the country, with the rich garniture of living
+green, clothing hill, valley, and lawn,&mdash;the blossoming of flowers,&mdash;the
+warbling of birds,&mdash;the music of waters,&mdash;and all the beauty, life, and
+glory of awakening nature. But the fountain played once more in the
+grotto, the vine-wreaths frolicked again round their graceful shells,
+the statues looked at their pure faces in the shining mural wall.</p>
+
+<p>I cared not for these. This was not my home. I saw the faces of Mrs.
+Linwood and Edith in the mirror of memory. I saw the purple hills, the
+smiling vale, the quiet churchyard, the white, broken shaft, gleaming
+through the willow boughs, and the moonbeams resting in solemn glory
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Never shall I forget my emotions when, on quitting the city, I caught a
+glimpse of that gloomy and stupendous granite pile which looms up in the
+midst of grandeur and magnificence, an awful monitor to human depravity.
+Well does it become its chill, funereal name. Shadows deeper than the
+darkness of the grave hang within its huge Egyptian columns. Corruption
+more loathsome than the mouldering remains of mortality dwells in those
+lone and accursed cells. I gazed on the massy walls, as they frowned on
+the soft blue sky, till their shadow seemed to darken the heavens. I
+thought of the inmate of one lonely cell; of the sighs and tears, the
+curses and wailings that had gone up from that abode of shame, despair,
+and misery; and I wondered why the Almighty did not rend the heavens and
+come down and bare the red right arm of vengeance over a world so
+blackened by sin, so stained by crime, and so given up to the dominion
+of the spirit of evil.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest drew me back from the window of the carriage, that I might not
+behold this grim fortification against the powers of darkness; but it
+was not till we had quitted the walls of the metropolis, and inhaled a
+purer atmosphere, that I began to breathe more freely. The tender green
+of the fields, the freshness of the atmosphere, the indescribable odor
+of spring that embalmed the gale, awakened softer, happier thoughts. The
+footsteps of divine love were visible on the landscape. The voice of God
+was heard, breathing of mercy, through the cool green boughs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Once more at Grandison Place! Once more on the breezy height which
+commanded the loveliest valley creation ever formed! Light, bloom, joy
+came back to eye, cheek, and heart, as I hailed again the scene where
+the day-spring of love dawned on my life.</p>
+
+<p>"God made the country."</p>
+
+<p>Yes! I felt this truth in every bounding vein. "God made the
+country,"&mdash;with its rich sweep of verdant plains, its blue winding
+streams, shedding freshness and murmuring music through the smiling
+fields; its silver dews, its golden sunsets, and all its luxuriance and
+greenness and bloom. The black shadow of the <i>Tombs</i> did not darken this
+Eden of my youth.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood and Edith&mdash;I was with them once more. Mrs. Linwood, in her
+soft twilight robe of silver grey; and Edith, with her wealth of golden
+locks, and eye of heaven's own azure.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not leave us again," said Mrs. Linwood, as she clasped us both
+in her maternal arms. "There are but few of us, and we should not be
+separated. Absence is the shadow of death, and falls coldly on the
+heart."</p>
+
+<p>She glanced towards Edith, whose beautiful face was paler and thinner
+than it was wont to be. She had pined for the brother of whom I had
+robbed her; for the world offered her nothing to fill the void left in
+the depths of her loving heart. We were all happier together. We cannot
+give ourselves up to the dominion of an exclusive passion, whatever it
+may be, without an outrage to nature, which sooner or later revenges the
+wrong inflicted. With all my romantic love for Ernest, I had often
+sighed for the companionship of one of my own sex; and now, restored to
+Edith, whom I had always regarded a little lower than the angels, I felt
+that if love was more rapturous than friendship, it was not more divine.</p>
+
+<p>They knew that I had suffered. They had sympathized with me, pitied
+me,&mdash;(if Mrs. Linwood blamed me for imprudence, she never expressed it);
+and I felt that they loved me better for having passed under the cloud.
+There was no allusion made to the awful events which were present in the
+minds of all, on our first reunion. If Mrs. Linwood noticed, that after
+the glow of excitement faded from my cheek it was paler than it was wont
+to be, she did not tell me so, but her kiss was more tender, her glance
+more kind. There was something in her mild, expressive eyes, that I
+translated thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God that another hand than Ernest's has stolen the rose from thy
+cheek of youth. Better, far better to be humbled by a father's crimes,
+than blighted by a husband's jealousy."</p>
+
+<p>This evening reminded me so much of the first I ever passed with Ernest.
+He asked Edith for the music of her harp; and I sat in the recess of the
+window, in the shadow of the curtains, through whose transparent drapery
+the moonbeams stole in and kissed my brow. Ernest came and sat down
+beside me, and my hand was clasped in his. As the sweet strains floated
+round us, they seemed to mingle with the moonlight, and my spirit was
+borne up on waves of brightness and melody. Always before, when
+listening to Edith's angelic voice, I had wished for the same enchanting
+power. I had felt that thus I could sing, I could play, had art
+developed the gifts of nature, only with deeper passion and sensibility;
+but now I listened without conscious desire,&mdash;passive, happy, willing to
+receive, without desiring to impart. I felt like the pilgrim who, after
+a sultry day of weariness, pauses by a cool spring, and, laying himself
+down beneath its gushing, suffers the stream to flow over him,&mdash;till,
+penetrated by their freshness, his soul seems a fountain of living
+waters. Oh! the divine rapture of repose, after restlessness and
+conflict! I had passed the breakers. Henceforth my life would be calm
+and placid as the beams that illumined the night.</p>
+
+<p>And now I am tempted to lay down the pen. I would not weary thee, friend
+of my lonely hours, whoever thou art, by a repetition of scenes which
+show how poor and weak are the strongest human resolutions, when
+temptations assail and passions rise with the swell and the might of the
+stormy billows. But if I record weaknesses and errors, such as seldom
+sadden the annals of domestic life, it is that God may be glorified in
+the humiliation of man. It is that the light of the sun of righteousness
+may be seen to arise with healing in his beams, while the mists of error
+and the clouds of passion are left rolling below.</p>
+
+<p>Yes! We were all happy for a while, and in the midst of such pure,
+reviving influences, I became blooming and elastic as a mountain maid.
+Dr. Harlowe was the same kind, genial, warm-hearted friend. Mr. Regulus,
+the same&mdash;no, he was changed,&mdash;improved, softened still more than when
+he surprised me by his graces, in my metropolitan home. He looked
+several years younger, and a great deal handsomer.</p>
+
+<p>Had Margaret wrought this improvement? Had she indeed supplanted me in
+my tutor's guileless heart? I inquired of Edith after the wild creature,
+whom I suspected some secret influence was beginning to tame.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you have no idea how Madge is improved, since her visit to you,"
+she answered. "She sometimes talks sensibly for five minutes at a time,
+and I have actually caught her singing and playing a sentimental air.
+Mamma says if she were in love with a man of sense and worth, he might
+make of her a most invaluable character."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Regulus, for instance!" said I.</p>
+
+<p>Edith laughed most musically.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Regulus in love! that would be a farce."</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen that farce performed," said Dr. Harlowe, who happened to
+come in at that moment, and caught her last words. "I have seen Mr.
+Regulus as much in love as&mdash;let me see," glancing at me, "as Richard
+Clyde."</p>
+
+<p>Much as I liked Dr. Harlowe I felt angry with him for an allusion, which
+always called the cloud to Ernest's brow, and the blush to my cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell me the object of his romantic passion?" cried Edith, who seemed
+excessively amused at the idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I telling tales out of school?" asked the doctor, looking merrily at
+me. "Do you not know the young enchantress, who has turned all the heads
+in our town, not excepting the shoemaker's apprentice and the tailor's
+journeyman? Poor Mr. Regulus could not escape the fascination. The old
+story of Beauty and the Beast,&mdash;only Beauty was inexorable this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, with unutterable astonishment; "he always
+called her his child. Who would have believed it? Why, Gabriella, how
+many victims have your chariot wheels of conquest rolled over?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid if <i>I</i> had not been a married man, she would have added me
+to the number," said the doctor, with much gravity. "I am not certain
+that Mrs. Harlowe is not jealous, in secret, of my public devotion."</p>
+
+<p>Who would believe that light words like these, carelessly uttered, and
+forgotten with the breath that formed them, should rankle like arrows in
+a breast where reason was enthroned? But it was even so. The allusion to
+Richard Clyde, the revelation of Mr. Regulus' romantic attachment, even
+the playful remarks of Dr. Harlowe relative to his wife's jealousy, were
+gall and wormwood, embittering the feelings of Ernest. He frowned, bit
+his lip, rose, and walked into the piazza. His mother's eyes followed
+him with that look which I had so often seen before our marriage, and
+which I now understood too well. I made an involuntary movement to
+follow him, but her glance commanded me to remain. The doctor, who was
+in a merry mood, continued his sportive remarks, without appearing to
+notice the darkened countenance and absence of Ernest. I talked and
+smiled too at his good-humored sallies, that he might not perceive my
+anxious, wounded feelings.</p>
+
+<p>A little while after Mr. Regulus called, and Ernest accompanied him to
+the parlor door with an air of such freezing coldness, I wonder it did
+not congeal his warm and unsuspecting heart. And there Ernest stood with
+folded arms, leaning back against the wall just within the door, stern
+and silent, casting a dark shadow on my soul. Poor Mr. Regulus,&mdash;now he
+knew he had been my lover, he would scarcely permit him to be my friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" thought I, blushing to think how moody and strange he must seem to
+others,&mdash;"surely my happiness is based on sand, since the transient
+breath of others can shake it from its foundation. If it depended on
+myself, I would guard every look, word, and action, with never sleeping
+vigilance;&mdash;but how can I be secured against the casual sayings of
+others, words unmeaning as a child's, and as devoid of harm? I might as
+well make cables of water and walls of foam, as build up a fabric of
+domestic felicity without confidence as the foundation stone."</p>
+
+<p>As these thoughts arose in my mind, my heart grew hard and rebellious.
+The golden chain of love clanked and chafed against the bosom it
+attempted to imprison.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not," I repeated to myself, "alienate from me, by coolness and
+gloom, the friends who have loved me from my orphan childhood. Let him
+be morose and dark, if he will; I will not follow his example. I will
+not be the slave of his mad caprices."</p>
+
+<p>"No," whispered <i>the angel over my right shoulder</i>, "but you will be the
+forbearing, gentle wife, who promised to <i>endure all</i>, knowing his
+infirmity, before you breathed your wedded vows. You are loved beyond
+the sober reality of common life. Your prayer is granted. You dare not
+murmur. You have held out your cup for the red wine. There is fire in
+its glow. You cannot turn it into water now. There is no divine wanderer
+on earth to reverse the miracle of Cana. 'Peace' is woman's watchword,
+and heaven's holiest, latest legacy."</p>
+
+<p>As I listened to the angel's whisper, the voices of those around me
+entered not my ear. I was as far away from them as if pillowed on the
+clouds, whose silver edges crinkled round the moon.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as our guests had departed, Ernest went up to Edith, and putting
+his arm round her, drew her to the harp.</p>
+
+<p>"Sing for me, Edith, for my spirit is dark and troubled. You alone have
+power to soothe it. You are the David of the haunted Saul."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up in his face suddenly, and leaned her head on his shoulder.
+Perhaps at that moment she felt the joy of being to him all that she had
+been, before he had known and loved me. He had appealed to her, in the
+hour of darkness. He had passed me by, as though I were not there. He
+sat down close to her as she played, so close that her fair ringlets
+swept against his cheek; and as she sang, she turned towards him with
+such a loving smile,&mdash;such a sweet, happy expression,&mdash;just as she used
+to wear! I always loved to hear Edith sing; but now my spirit did not
+harmonize with the strains. Again a stinging sense of injustice
+quickened the pulsations of my heart. Again I asked myself, "What had I
+done, that he should look coldly on me, pass me with averted eye, and
+seek consolation from another?"</p>
+
+<p>I could not sit still and listen, for I was left <i>alone</i>. I rose and
+stole from the room,&mdash;stole out into the dewy night, under the heavy,
+drooping shade-boughs, and sat down wearily, leaning my head against the
+hard, rough bark. Never had I seen a more enchanting night. A thin mist
+rose from the bosom of the valley and hovered like a veil of silvery
+gauze over its rich depth of verdure. It floated round the edge of the
+horizon, subduing its outline of dazzling blue, and rolled off among the
+hills in soft, yet darkening convolutions. And high above me, serene and
+holy, the moon leaned over a ledge of slate-colored clouds, whose margin
+was plated with her beams, and looked pensively and solemnly on the pale
+and sad young face uplifted to her own. The stilly dews slept at my
+feet. They hung tremulously on the branches over my head, and sparkled
+on the spring blossoms that gave forth their inmost perfume to the
+atmosphere of night. Every thing was so calm, so peaceful, so intensely
+lovely,&mdash;and yet there was something deadly and chilling mingled with
+the celestial beauty of the scene. The lace clung in damp folds to my
+bosom. The hair fell heavy with moisture against my temples.</p>
+
+<p>I heard a step softly crushing the grass near me. I did not look up, for
+I thought it was the step of Ernest; but my pulse throbbed with a
+quickened motion.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, my child, you must not sit here in this chill damp evening
+air."</p>
+
+<p>It was Mrs. Linwood, who took me by the hand and drew me from the seat.
+It was not Ernest. He had not missed me. He had not feared for me the
+chill dews of night.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not feel cold," I answered, with a slight shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," she repeated, leading me to the house with gentle force.</p>
+
+<p>"Not there," I said, shrinking from the open door of the parlor, through
+which I could see Ernest, with his head leaning on both hands, while his
+elbows rested on the back of Edith's chair. She was still singing, and
+the notes of her voice, sweet as they were, like the odor of the
+night-flowers, had something languishing and oppressive. I hurried by,
+and ascended the stairs. Mrs. Linwood followed me to the door of my
+apartment, then taking me by both hands, she looked me full in the face,
+with a mildly reproachful glance.</p>
+
+<p>"O, Gabriella! if your spirit sink thus early, if you cannot bear the
+burden you have assumed, in the bright morning hour of love, how will
+you be able to support it in the sultry noon of life, or in the
+weariness of its declining day? You are very young,&mdash;you have a long
+pilgrimage before you. If you droop now, where will be the strength to
+sustain in a later, darker hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not meet it," I answered, trying in vain to repress the rising
+sob. "I do not wish a long life, unless it be happier than it now
+promises to be."</p>
+
+<p>"What! so young, and so hopeless! Where is the strength and vitality of
+your love? The fervor and steadfastness of your faith? My child, you
+have borne nothing yet, and you promised to hope all and endure all. Be
+strong, be patient, be hopeful, and you shall yet reap your reward."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my mother, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no task appointed to man or woman," she answered, "which may
+not be performed, through the power of God and the influences of the
+Holy Spirit. Remember this, my beloved daughter; and remember, too, that
+the heart which <i>bends</i> will not <i>break</i>. Good-night! We had better not
+renew this theme. 'Patient continuance in well-doing;' let this be your
+motto, and if happiness in this world be not your reward, immortality
+and glory in the next will be yours."</p>
+
+<p>I looked after her as she gently retreated, and as the light glanced on
+the folds of her silver gray dress, she seemed to me as one of the
+shining ones revealed in the pilgrim's vision. At that moment <i>her</i>
+esteem and approbation seemed as precious to me as Ernest's love. I
+entered my chamber, and sitting down quietly in my beloved recess,
+repeated over and over again the Christian motto, which the lips of Mrs.
+Linwood uttered in parting,&mdash;"Patient continuance in well-doing."</p>
+
+<p>I condemned myself for the feelings I had been indulging. I had felt
+bitter towards Edith for smiling so sweetly in her brother's face, when
+it had turned so coldly from me. I was envious of her power to soothe
+the restless spirit I had so unconsciously troubled. As I thus communed
+with my own heart, I unbound my hair, that the air might exhale the mist
+which had gathered in its folds. I brushed out the damp tresses, till,
+self-mesmerized, a soft haziness stole over my senses, and though I did
+not sleep, I was on the borders of the land of dreams.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I suppose I must have slept, though I was not conscious of it, for I did
+not hear Ernest enter the room, and yet when I looked again, he was
+sitting in the opposite window, still as a statue, looking out into the
+depths of night. I started as if I had seen a spirit, for I believed
+myself alone, and I did not feel less lonely now. There was something
+dejected in his attitude, and he sighed heavily as he turned and leaned
+his forehead against the window sash.</p>
+
+<p>I rose, and softly approaching him laid my hand on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you angry with me, Ernest?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer, or turn towards me; but I felt a tremulous motion of
+his shoulder, and knew that he heard me.</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done to displease you, dear Ernest?" again I asked. "Will
+you not speak to me and tell me, at least, in what I have offended?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not offended," he answered, without looking up; "I am not angry,
+but grieved, wounded, and unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"And will you not tell me the cause of your grief? Is not sympathy in
+sorrow the wife's holiest privilege?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella, you mock me!" he exclaimed, suddenly rising and speaking in
+a low, stern voice. "You know that you are yourself the cause of my
+grief, and your words are as hollow as your actions are vain. Did you
+not promise, solemnly promise never to deceive me again, after having
+caused me such agony by the deception I yet freely forgave?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Ernest, in what have I deceived? If I know myself, every word
+and action has been as clear and open as noonday."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever tell me your teacher was your lover,&mdash;he with whom you
+were so intimately associated when I first knew you? You suffered me to
+believe that he was to you in the relation almost of a father. I
+received him as such in my own home. I lavished upon him every
+hospitable attention, as the friend and guide of your youth, and now you
+suffer me to hear from others that his romantic love was the theme of
+village gossip, that your names are still associated by idle tongues."</p>
+
+<p>"I always believed before that unrequited love was not a theme for vain
+boasting, that it was a secret too sacred to be divulged even to the
+dearest and the nearest."</p>
+
+<p>"But every one who has been so unfortunate as to be associated with you,
+seems to have been the victims of unrequited love. The name of Richard
+Clyde is familiar to all as the model of despairing lovers, and even Dr.
+Harlowe addresses you in a strain of unpardonable levity."</p>
+
+<p>"O Ernest, cannot you spare even him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You asked me the cause of my displeasure, and I have told you the
+source of my grief, otherwise I had been silent. There must be something
+wrong, Gabriella, or you would not be the subject of such remarks.
+Edith, all lovely as she is, passes on without exciting them. The most
+distant allusion to a lover should be considered an insult by a wedded
+woman and most especially in her husband's presence."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never sought admiration or love," said I, every feeling of
+delicacy and pride rising to repel an insinuation so unjust. "When they
+have been mine, they were spontaneous gifts, offered nobly, and if not
+accepted, at least declined with gratitude and sensibility. If I have
+been so unfortunate as to win what your lovely sister might more justly
+claim, it has been by the exercise of no base allurement or meritricious
+attractions. I appeal to your own experience, and if it does not acquit
+me, I am for ever silent."</p>
+
+<p>Coldly and proudly my eye met his, as we stood face to face in the light
+of the midnight moon. I, who had looked up to him with the reverence due
+to a superior being, felt that I was above him now. He was the slave of
+an unjust passion, the dupe of a distempered fancy, and as such unworthy
+of my respect and love. As I admitted this truth, I shuddered with that
+vague horror we feel in dreams, when we recoil from the brink of
+something, we know not what. I trembled when his lips opened, fearful he
+would say something more irrational and unmanly still.</p>
+
+<p>"O Ernest!" I cried, all at once yielding to the emotions that were
+bearing me down with such irresistible power, "you frighten me, you fill
+me with unspeakable dread. There seems a deep abyss yawning between us,
+and I stand upon one icy brink and you on the other, and the chasm
+widens, and I stretch out my arms in vain to reach you, and I call, and
+nothing but a dreary echo answers, and I look into my heart and do not
+find you there. Save me, Ernest, save me,&mdash;my husband, save yourself
+from a doom so dreadful!"</p>
+
+<p>Excited by the awful picture of desolation I had drawn, I slid down upon
+my knees and raised my clasped hands, as if pleading for life beneath
+the axe of the executioner. I must have been the very personification of
+despair, with my hair wildly sweeping round me, and hands locked in
+agony.</p>
+
+<p>"To live on, live on together, year after year, cold and estranged,
+without love, without hope,"&mdash;I continued, unable to check the words
+that came now as in a rushing tide,&mdash;"Oh! is it not dreadful, Ernest,
+even to think of? There is no evil I could not bear while we loved one
+another. If poverty came,&mdash;welcome, welcome. I could toil and smile, if
+I only toiled for you, if I were only <i>trusted</i>, only <i>believed</i>. There
+is no sacrifice I would not make to prove my faith. Do you demand my
+right hand?&mdash;cut it off; my right eye?&mdash;pluck it out;&mdash;I withhold
+nothing. I would even lay my heart bleeding at your feet in attestation
+of my truth. But what can I do, when the idle breath of others, over
+which I have no power, shakes the tottering fabric of your confidence,
+and I am buried beneath the ruins?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have never loved like me, Gabriella, or you would never dream of
+the possibility of its being extinguished," said he, in a tone of
+indescribable wretchedness. "I may alienate you from me, by the
+indulgence of insane passions, by accusations repented as soon as
+uttered,&mdash;I may revile and persecute,&mdash;but I can never cease to love
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"O Ernest!" It was all gone,&mdash;pride, anger, despair, were gone. The
+first glance of returning love,&mdash;the first acknowledgment of uttered
+wrong, were enough for me. I was in his arms, next to his heart, and the
+last hours seemed a dream of darkness. I was happy again; but I trembled
+even in the joy of reconciliation. I realized on what a slender thread
+my wedded happiness was hanging, and knew that it must one day break.
+Moments like these were like those green and glowing spots found on the
+volcano's burning edge. The lava of passion might sweep over them quick
+as the lightning's flash, and beauty and bloom be covered with ashes and
+desolation.</p>
+
+<p>And so the cloud passed by,&mdash;and Ernest was, if possible, more tender
+and devoted, and I tried to cast off the prophetic sadness that would at
+times steal over the brightness of the future. I was literally giving up
+all for him. I no longer derived pleasure from the society of Mr.
+Regulus. I dreaded the sportive sallies of Dr. Harlowe. I looked forward
+with terror to the return of Richard Clyde. I grew nervous and restless.
+The color would come and go in my face, like the flashes of the aurora
+borealis, and my heart would palpitate suddenly and painfully, as if
+some unknown evil were impending. Did I now say, as I did a few months
+after my marriage, that I preferred the stormy elements in which I
+moved, to the usual calm of domestic life? Did I exult, as the billows
+swelled beneath me and bore me up on their foaming crests, in the power
+of raising the whirlwind and the tempest? No; I sighed for rest,&mdash;for
+still waters and tranquil skies.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange, that a subject which has entirely escaped the mind, when
+associations naturally recall it, will sometimes return and haunt it,
+when nothing seems favorable for its reception.</p>
+
+<p>During my agitated interview with my unhappy father, I had forgotten
+Ther&eacute;sa La Fontaine, and the boy whose birthright I had unconsciously
+usurped. Mr. Brahan, in speaking of St. James and his <i>two</i> wives, said
+they had both disappeared in a mysterious manner. That boy, if living,
+was my brother, my half-brother, the legitimate inheritor of my name,&mdash;a
+name, alas! he might well blush to bear. <i>If living</i>, where was he, and
+who was he? Was he the heir of his father's vices, and was he conscious
+of his ignominious career? These questions constantly recurred, now
+there was no oracle near to answer. Once, and only once, I mentioned
+them to Mrs. Linwood.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better not attempt to lift the veil which covers the past," she
+answered, in her most decided manner. "Think of the suffering, not to
+say disgrace, attached to the discovery of your father,&mdash;and let this
+brother be to you as though he had never been. Tempt not Providence, by
+indulging one wish on the subject, which might lead to shame and sorrow.
+Ernest has acted magnanimously with regard to the circumstances, which
+must have been galling beyond expression to one of his proud and
+sensitive nature. And I, Gabriella,&mdash;though out of delicacy to you,&mdash;I
+have forborne any allusion to the events of the last winter, have
+suffered most deeply and acutely on their account. I have suffered for
+myself, as well as my son. If there is any thing in this world to be
+prized next to a blameless conscience, it is an unspotted name. Well is
+it for you, that your own is covered with one, which from generation to
+generation has been pure and honorable. Well is it for you, that your
+husband's love is stronger than his pride, or he might reproach you for
+a father's ignominy. Remember this, when you feel that you have wrongs
+to forgive. And as you value your own happiness and ours, never, my
+child, seek to discover a brother, whom you would probably blush to
+acknowledge, and my son be compelled to disown."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with dignity and emphasis, while the pride of a virtuous and
+honored ancestry, though subdued by Christian grace, darkened her eyes
+and glowed on her usually colorless cheek. I realized then all her
+forbearance and delicacy. I understood what a deep wound her family
+pride must have received, and how bitterly she must have regretted a
+union, which exposed her son to contact with degradation and crime.</p>
+
+<p>"I would not have spoken as I have, my daughter," she added, in a
+softened tone, "but with your limited knowledge of the world, you cannot
+understand the importance attached to unblemished associations. And
+never mention the subject to Ernest, if you would not revive memories
+that had better slumber for ever."</p>
+
+<p>She immediately resumed her kind and gracious manner, but I never forgot
+the lesson she had given. My proud spirit needed no second warning.
+Never had I felt so crushed, so humiliated by the remembrance of my
+father's crimes. That he <i>was</i> my father I had never dared to doubt.
+Even Ernest relinquished the hope he had cherished, as time passed on,
+and no letter from Mr. Brahan threw any new light on the dark
+relationship; though removed from the vicinity of the dismal Tombs, the
+dark, gigantic walls cast their lengthening shadow over the fresh green
+fields and blossoming meadows, and dimmed the glory of the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>The shadow of the Tombs met the shadow in my heart, and together they
+produced a chill atmosphere. I sighed for that perfect love which
+casteth out fear; that free, joyous intercourse of thought and feeling,
+born of undoubting confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Could I live over again the first year of my wedded life, with the
+experience that now enlightens me, I would pursue a very different
+course of action. A passion so wild and strong as that which darkened my
+domestic happiness, should be resisted with the energy of reason,
+instead of being indulged with the weakness of fear. Every sacrifice
+made to appease its violence only paved the way for a greater. Every act
+of my life had reference to this one master-passion. I scarcely ever
+spoke without watching the countenance of Ernest to see the effect of my
+words. If it was overcast or saddened, I feared I had given utterance to
+an improper sentiment, and then I blushed in silence. Very unfortunate
+was it for him, that I thus fed and strengthened the serpent that should
+have been strangled in the cradle of our love; and his mother
+unconsciously did the same. She believed him afflicted by a hereditary
+malady which should inspire pity, and be treated with gentleness rather
+than resistance. Edith, too,&mdash;if a cloud passed over his brow, she
+exerted every winning and endearing sisterly art to chase the gloom.</p>
+
+<p>The history of man for six thousand years shows, that in the exercise of
+unlimited power he becomes a despot. Kingly annals confirm the truth of
+this, and domestic records proclaim it with a thundering tongue. There
+must be a restraining influence on human passion, or its turbulent waves
+swell higher and higher, till they sweep over the landmarks of reason,
+honor and love. The mighty hand of God is alone powerful enough to curb
+the raging billows. He alone can say, "peace, be still." But he has
+ministers on earth appointed to do his pleasure, and if they fulfil
+their task He may not be compelled to reveal himself in flaming fire as
+the God of retributive justice.</p>
+
+<p>I know that Ernest loved me, with all his heart, soul, and strength; but
+mingled with this deep, strong love, there was the alloy of
+selfishness,&mdash;the iron of a despotic will. There was the jealousy of
+power, as well as the jealousy of love, unconsciously exercised and
+acquiring by indulgence a growing strength.</p>
+
+<p>My happiness was the first desire of his heart, the first aim of his
+life; but I must be made happy in <i>his</i> way, and by his means. His hand,
+fair, soft, and delicate as a woman's,&mdash;that hand, with its gentle,
+warm, heart-thrilling pressure, was nevertheless the hand of Procrustes;
+and though he covered the iron bed with the flowers of love, the spirit
+sometimes writhed under the coercion it endured.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not well," said Dr. Harlowe, as we met him during an evening
+walk. "I do not like that fluctuating color, or that quick, irregular
+breathing."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest started as if he had heard my death-warrant; and, taking my hand,
+he began to count my quickly throbbing pulse.</p>
+
+<p>"That will never do," said the doctor, smiling. "Her pulse will beat
+three times as fast under your fingers as mine, if you have been married
+nearly a year. It is not a good pulse. You had better take care of her."</p>
+
+<p>"He takes a great deal too much care of me, doctor," I cried. "Do not
+make him think I am an invalid, or he will make a complete hothouse
+plant of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Who ever saw an invalid with such a color as that?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Too bright&mdash;too mutable," answered the doctor, shaking his head. "She
+is right. You keep her too close. Let her run wild, like any other
+country girl. Let her rise early and go out into the barnyard, see the
+cows milked, inhale their odorous breathings, wander in the fields among
+the new-mown hay, let her rake it into mounds and throw herself on the
+fragrant heaps, as I have seen her do when a little school-girl. Let her
+do just as she pleases, go where she pleases, stay as long as she
+pleases, in the open air and free sunshine; and mark my words, she will
+wear on her cheeks the steady bloom of the milkmaid, instead of the
+flitting rosiness of the sunset cloud."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not conscious of imposing so much restraint on her actions as your
+words imply," said Ernest, a flush of displeasure passing over his pale
+and anxious countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Make her take a ride on horseback every morning and evening," continued
+Dr. Harlowe, with perfect coolness, without taking any notice of the
+interruption. "Best exercise in the world. Fine rides for equestrians
+through the green woods around here. If that does not set her right,
+carry her to the roaring Falls of Niagara, or the snowy hills of New
+Hampshire, or the Catskill Mountains, or the Blue Ridge. I cannot let
+the flower of the village droop and fade."</p>
+
+<p>As he finished the sentence, the merry tones of his voice became grave
+and subdued. He spoke as one having the authority of science and
+experience, as well as the privilege of affection. I looked down to hide
+the moisture that glistened in my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"How would you like to travel as the doctor has suggested, Gabriella?"
+asked Ernest, who seemed much moved by the doctor's remarks. "You know I
+would go to"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nova Zembla, if she wished it," interrupted the doctor, "but that is
+too far and too cold. Begin with a shorter journey. I wish I could
+accompany you, but I cannot plead as an excuse my wife's delicacy of
+constitution. Her health is as uniform as her temper; and even if life
+and death were at stake, she would not leave her housekeeping in other
+hands. Neither would she close her doors and turn her locks, lest moth
+and rust should corrupt, and thieves break in and steal. But pardon me.
+I have given you no opportunity to answer your husband's question."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall only feel too happy to avail myself of his unnecessary fears
+with regard to my health," I answered. "It will be a charming way of
+passing the summer, if Mrs. Linwood and Edith will consent."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Harlowe accompanied us home, and nothing was talked of but the
+intended journey. The solicitude of Ernest was painfully roused, and he
+seemed ready to move heaven and earth to facilitate our departure.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to close Grandison Place in the summer season," said Mrs.
+Linwood; "it looks so inhospitable. Besides, I have many friends who
+anticipate passing the sultry season here."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them travel with you, if they wish," said the doctor bluntly. "That
+is no reason why you should stay at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Madge!" cried Edith, who was delighted with the arrangement the
+doctor had suggested. "She will be so disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>"Let her come," said Dr. Harlowe. "I will take charge of the wild-cat,
+and if I find her too mighty for me, I will get Mr. Regulus to assist me
+in keeping her in order. Let her come, by all means."</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing we write and ask her to accompany us," said Mrs. Linwood.
+"Her exuberant spirits will be subdued by the exercise of travelling,
+and she may prove a most exhilarating companion."</p>
+
+<p>"What, four ladies to one gentleman!" exclaimed Edith. "Poor Ernest!
+when he will have thoughts and eyes but for one!"</p>
+
+<p>"I would sooner travel with the Falls of Niagara, or the boiling springs
+of Geyser," cried Ernest, with an instinctive shudder. "We should have
+to take a carpenter, a glazier, an upholsterer, and a seamstress, to
+repair the ruins she would strew in our path."</p>
+
+<p>"If Richard Clyde were about to return a little earlier in the season,"
+said the doctor, looking at Edith, "he would be a delightful acquisition
+to your party. He would divide with your brother the heavy
+responsibility of being the guardian of so many household treasures."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us start as early as possible," exclaimed Ernest. The name of
+Richard Clyde was to his impatient, jealous spirit, as is the rowel to
+the fiery steed.</p>
+
+<p>"And what will become of all our beautiful flowers, and our rich,
+ripening fruit?" I asked. "Must they waste their sweetness and value on
+the unappreciating air?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think we must make Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Regulus the guardians and
+participators of both," said Mrs. Linwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him the flowers, and leave the fruit to me," cried Dr. Harlowe,
+emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"That the sick, the poor, and the afflicted may be benefited by the
+act," replied Mrs. Linwood. "Let it be so, Doctor,&mdash;and may many a
+blessing which has once been mine, reward your just and generous
+distribution of the abounding riches of Grandison Place."</p>
+
+<p>I left one sacred charge with the preceptor of my childhood.</p>
+
+<p>"Let not the flowers and shrubbery around my mother's grave, and the
+grave of Peggy, wilt and die for want of care."</p>
+
+<p>"They shall not. They shall be tenderly and carefully nurtured."</p>
+
+<p>"And if Margaret comes during our absence, be kind and attentive to her,
+for my sake, Mr. Regulus."</p>
+
+<p>"I will! I will! and for her own too. The wild girl has a heart, I
+believe she has; a good and honest heart."</p>
+
+<p>"You discovered it during your homeward journey from New York. I thought
+you would," said I, pleased to see a flush light up the student's olive
+cheek. I thought of the sensible Benedict and the wild Beatrice, and the
+drama of other lives passed before the eye of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Gloomy must the walls of Grandison Place appear during the absence of
+its inmates,&mdash;that city set upon a hill that could not be hid, whose
+illuminated windows glittered on the vale below with beacon splendor,
+and discoursed of genial hospitality and kindly charity to the
+surrounding shadows. Sadly must the evening gale sigh through the noble
+oaks, whose branches met over the winding avenue, and lonely the
+elm-tree wave its hundred arms above the unoccupied seat,&mdash;that seat,
+beneath whose breezy shade I had first beheld the pale, impassioned, and
+haunting face of Ernest Linwood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is not my intention to describe our journey; and I fear it will
+indeed be an act of supererogation to attempt to give an idea of those
+majestic Falls, whose grandeur and whose glory have so long been the
+theme of the painter's pencil and the poet's lyre. Never shall I forget
+the moment when my spirit plunged into the roar and the foam, the
+thunders and the rainbows of Niagara. I paused involuntarily a hundred
+paces from the brink of the cataract. I was about to realize one of the
+magnificent dreams of my youthful imagination. I hesitated and trembled.
+I felt something of the trepidation, the blissful tremor that agitated
+my whole being when Ernest asked me into the moonlight garden at
+Cambridge, and I thought he was going to tell me that he loved me. The
+emotions I was about to experience would never come again, and I knew
+when once past could never be anticipated as now, with indescribable
+awe. I felt something as Moses did when he stood in the hollow of the
+rock, as the glory of the Lord was about to pass by. And surely no
+grander exhibition of God's glory ever burst on mortal eye, than this
+mighty volume of water, rushing, roaring, plunging, boiling, foaming,
+tossing its foam like snow into the face of heaven, throwing up rainbow
+after rainbow from unfathomable abysses, then sinking gradually into a
+sluggish calm, as if exhausted by the stupendous efforts it had made.</p>
+
+<p>Clinging to the arm of Ernest, I drew nearer and nearer, till all
+personal fear was absorbed in a sense of overpowering magnificence. I
+was a part of that glorious cataract; I participated in the mighty
+struggle; I panted with the throes of the pure, dark, tremendous
+element, vassal at once and conqueror of man; triumphed in the gorgeous
+<i>arcs-en-ciel</i> that rested like angels of the Lord above the mist and
+the foam and the thunders of watery strife, and reposed languidly with
+the subsiding waves that slept like weary warriors after the din and
+strife of battle, the frown of contention lingering on their brows, and
+the smile of disdain still curling their lips.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how poor, how weak seemed the conflict of human passion in the
+presence of this sublime, this wondrous spectacle! I could not speak,&mdash;I
+could scarcely breathe,&mdash;I was borne down, overpowered, almost
+annihilated. My knees bent, my hands involuntarily clasped themselves
+over the arm of Ernest, and in this attitude of intense adoration I
+looked up and whispered, "God,&mdash;eternity."</p>
+
+<p>"Enthusiast!" exclaimed he; but his countenance was luminous with the
+light that glowed on mine. He put his arm around me, but did not attempt
+to raise me. Edith and her mother were near, in company with a friend
+who had been our fellow-traveller from New England, and who had extended
+his journey beyond its prescribed limits for the sake of being our
+companion. I looked towards Edith with tremulous interest. As she stood
+leaning on her crutches, her garments fluttering in the breeze, I almost
+expected to see her borne from us like down upon the wind, and floating
+on the bosom of that mighty current.</p>
+
+<p>I said I did not mean to attempt a description of scenes which have
+baffled the genius and eloquence of man.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I am content to die!" said an ancient traveller, when the colossal
+shadow of the Egyptian pyramids first fell on his weary frame. But what
+are those huge, unmoving monuments of man's ambition, compared to this
+grandest of creation's mysteries, whose deep and thundering voice is
+repeating, day after day and night after night,&mdash;"forever and ever," and
+whose majestic motion, rushing onward, plunging downward, never pausing,
+never resting, is emblematic of the sublime march of Deity, from
+everlasting to everlasting,&mdash;from eternity to eternity?</p>
+
+<p>Shall I ever forget the moment when I stood on Termination Rock, beyond
+which no mortal foot has ever penetrated? I stood in a shroud of gray
+mist, wrapping me on every side,&mdash;above, below, around. I shuddered, as
+if the hollow, reverberating murmurs that filled my ears were the knell
+of the departed sun. That cold, gray mist; it penetrated the depths of
+my spirit; it drenched, drowned it, filled it with vague, ghost-like
+images of dread and horror. I cast one glance behind, and saw a gleam of
+heaven's sunny blue, one bright dazzling gleam flashing between the
+rugged rock and the rushing waters. It was as if the veil of the temple
+of nature were rent, and the glory of God shone through the fissure.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us return," said I to Ernest. "I feel as if I had passed through
+the valley of the shadow of death. Is it not sacrilegious to penetrate
+so deeply into the mysteries of nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"O Gabriella!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing through the shrouding
+mist like burning stars, "how I wish you felt with me! Were it possible
+to build a home on this shelving rock, I would willingly dwell here
+forever, surrounded by this veiling mist. With you thus clasped in my
+arms, I could be happy, in darkness and clouds, in solitude and
+dreariness, anywhere, everywhere,&mdash;with the conviction that you loved
+me, and that you looked for happiness alone to me."</p>
+
+<p>"As this moment," I answered, drawing more closely to him, "I fear as if
+I would rather stay here and die, than return to the world and mingle in
+its jarring elements. I would far rather, Ernest, make my winding-sheet
+of those cold, unfathomable waters, than live to feel again the anguish
+of being doubted by you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is all past, my Gabriella,&mdash;all past. My nature is renewed and
+purified. I feel within me new-born strength and power of resistance. By
+the God of yon roaring cataract&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;no, Ernest, do not promise,&mdash;I dare not hear you, we are so weak,
+and temptations are so strong."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you distrust yourself, or me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both, Ernest. I never, never felt how poor and vain and frail we are,
+till I stood, as now, in the presence of the power of the Almighty."</p>
+
+<p>His countenance changed instantaneously. "To what temptations do you
+allude?" he asked. "I can imagine none that could shake my fidelity to
+you. My constancy is as firm as this rock. Those rushing waves could not
+move it. Why do you check a vow which I dare to make in the very face of
+Omnipotence?"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt not your faith or constancy, most beloved Ernest; I doubt not
+my own. You know what I do fear,&mdash;misconstruction and suspicion. But let
+us not speak, let us not think of the past. Let us look forward to the
+future, with true and earnest spirits, praying God to help us in
+weakness and error. Only think, Ernest, we have that within us more
+mighty than that descending flood. These souls of ours will still live
+in immortal youth, when that whelming tide ceases to roll, when the
+firmament shrivels like a burning scroll. I never realized it so fully,
+so grandly, as now. I shall carry from this rock something I did not
+bring. I have received a baptism standing here, purer than fire, gentle
+as dew, yet deep and pervading as ocean. I cannot describe what I mean,
+but I feel it. Before I came, it seemed as if a great wall of adamant
+rose between me and heaven; now there is nothing but this veil of mist."</p>
+
+<p>As we turned to leave this region of blinding spray and mysterious
+shadows, Ernest repeated, in his most melodious accents, a passage from
+Schiller's magnificent poem of the diver.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As when fire is with water commixed and contending;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the spray of its wrath to the welkin upsoars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And it never <i>will</i> rest, nor from travail be free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a sea, that is laboring the birth of a sea."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Never did I experience a more exultant emotion than when we emerged into
+the clear air and glorious sunshine,&mdash;when I felt the soft, rich, green
+grass beneath, and the blue illimitable heavens smiling above. I had
+come out of darkness into marvellous light. I was drenched with light as
+I had previously been by the cold, gray mist. I remembered another verse
+of the immortal poem I had learned from the lips of Ernest:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Happy they, whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The air and the sky that to mortals are given;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May the horror below never more find a voice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor man stretch too far the wide mercy of heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never more, never more may he lift from the sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The veil which is woven with terror and night."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Amid the rainbows of the cataract, Edith's heart caught the first
+glowing tinge of romance.</p>
+
+<p>We were wandering along the path that zones the beautiful island, whose
+name, unpoetic as it is, recalls one of the brilliant constellations of
+the zodiac; and Edith had seated herself on a rustic bench, under the
+massy dome of a spreading beech, and, taking off her bonnet, suffered
+her hair to float according to its own wild will on the rising breeze.</p>
+
+<p>She did not observe a young man at a little distance, leaning back
+against an aged birch, on whose silvery bark the dark outlines of his
+figure were finely daguerreotyped. He was the beau ideal of an artist,
+with his long brown hair carelessly pushed back from his white temples,
+his portfolio in his left hand, his pencil in his right, and his dark,
+restless eyes glancing round him with the fervor of enthusiasm, while
+they beamed with the inspiration of genius. He was evidently sketching
+the scene, which with bold, rapid lines he was transferring to the
+paper. All at once his gaze was fixed on Edith, and he seemed
+spellbound. I did not wonder,&mdash;for a lovelier, more ethereal object
+never arrested the glance of admiration. Again his pencil moved, and I
+knew he was attempting to delineate her features. I was fearful lest she
+should move and dissolve the charm; but she sat as still as the tree,
+whose gray trunk formed an artistic background to her slight figure.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Ernest perceived the occupation of the young artist, he made
+a motion towards Edith, but I laid my hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not," I said; "she will make such a beautiful picture."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not like that a stranger should take so great a liberty," he
+replied, in an accent of displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive the artist," I pleaded, "for the sake of the temptation."</p>
+
+<p>The young man, perceiving that he was observed, blushed with the most
+ingenuous modesty, took up his hat that was lying on the grass, put his
+paper and pencil in his portfolio, and walked away into the wilderness
+of stately and majestic trees, that rose dome within dome, pillar within
+pillar, like a grand cathedral. We followed slowly in the beaten path,
+through the dark green maples, the bright-leaved luxuriant beech trees,
+and the quivering aspens, whose trembling leaves seem instinct with
+human sensibility. And all the time we wandered through the magnificent
+aisles of the island, the deep roar of the cataract, like the symphony
+of a great organ, rolled solemnly through the leafy solitude, and
+mingled with the rustling of the forest boughs.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening the young artist sought an introduction to our party. His
+name was Julian, and had the advantage of romantic association. I was
+glad that Ernest gave him a cordial reception, for I was extremely
+prepossessed in his favor. Even the wild idea that he might be my
+unknown brother, had entered my mind. I remembered Mrs. Linwood's advice
+too well to express it. I even tried to banish it, as absurd and
+irrational; but it would cling to me,&mdash;and gave an interest to the young
+stranger which, though I dared not manifest, I could not help feeling.
+Fortunately his undisguised admiration of Edith was a safeguard to me.
+He was too artless to conceal it, yet too modest to express it. It was
+evinced by the mute eloquence of eyes that gazed upon her, as on a
+celestial being; and the listening ear, that seemed to drink in the
+lowest sound of her sweet, low voice. He was asked to exhibit his
+sketches, which were pronounced bold, splendid, and masterly.</p>
+
+<p>Edith was leaning on her brother's shoulder, when she recognized her own
+likeness, most faithfully and gracefully executed. She started, blushed,
+and looked towards young Julian, whose expressive eyes were riveted on
+her face, as if deprecating her displeasure. There were no traces of it
+on her lovely countenance; even a smile played on her lips, at the faint
+reflection of her own loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>And thus commenced an acquaintance, or I might say an attachment, as
+sudden and romantic as is ever described in the pages of the novelist.
+As soon as the diffidence that veiled his first introduction wore away,
+he called forth his peculiar powers of pleasing, and Edith was not
+insensible to their fascination. Since her brother's marriage, she had
+felt a vacuum in her heart, which often involved her in a soft cloud of
+pensiveness. She was unthroned, and like an uncrowned queen she sighed
+over the remembrance of her former royalty. It was not strange that the
+devotion of Julian, the enthusiasm of his character, the fervor of his
+language, the ardor, the grace of his manner, should have captivated her
+imagination and touched her heart. I never saw any one so changed in so
+short a time. The contrast was almost as great, to her former self, as
+between a placid silver lake, and the foam of the torrent sparkling and
+flashing with rainbows. Her countenance had lost its air of divine
+repose, and varied with every emotion of her soul. She was a thousand
+times more beautiful, and I loved her far more than I had ever done
+before. There was something unnatural in her exclusive, jealous love of
+her brother, but now she acknowledged the supremacy of the great law of
+woman's destiny. Like a flower, suddenly shaken by a southern gale, and
+giving out the most delicious perfumes unknown before, her heart
+fluttered and expanded and yielded both its hidden sweetnesses.</p>
+
+<p>"We must not encourage him," said Mrs. Linwood to her son. "We do not
+know who he is; we do not know his family or his lineage; we must
+withdraw Edith from the influence of his fascinations."</p>
+
+<p>I did not blame her, but I felt the sting to my heart's core. She saw
+the wound she had unconsciously made, and hastened to apply a balm.</p>
+
+<p>"The husband either exalts, or lowers, a wife to the position he
+occupies," said she, looking kindly at me. "She loses her own identity
+in his. Poverty would present no obstacle, for she has wealth sufficient
+to be disinterested,&mdash;but my daughter must take a stainless name, if she
+relinquish her own. But why do I speak thus? My poor, crippled child!
+She has disowned the thought of marriage. She has chosen voluntarily an
+unwedded lot. She does not, cannot, will not think with any peculiar
+interest of this young stranger. No, no,&mdash;my Edith is set apart by her
+misfortunes, as some enshrined and holy being, whom man must vainly
+love."</p>
+
+<p>I had never seen Mrs. Linwood so much agitated. Her eyes glistened, her
+voice faltered with emotion. Ernest, too, seemed greatly troubled. They
+had both been accustomed to look upon Edith as consecrated to a vestal
+life; and as she had hitherto turned coldly and decidedly from the
+addresses of men, they believed her inaccessible to the vows of love and
+the bonds of wedlock. The young Julian was a poet as well as an artist;
+his pictures were considered masterpieces of genius in the painting
+galleries of the cities; he was, as report said, and as he himself
+modestly but decidedly affirmed, by birth and education a gentleman; he
+had the prestige of a rising fame,&mdash;but he was a stranger. I remembered
+my mother's history, and the youth of St. James seemed renewed in this
+interesting young man. I trembled for the future happiness of Edith,
+who, whatever might be her decision with regard to marriage, now
+unmistakably and romantically loved. Again I asked myself, "might not
+this young man be the son of the unfortunate Ther&eacute;sa, who under an
+assumed name was concealing the unhappy circumstances of his birth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us leave this place," said Ernest, "and put a stop at once to the
+danger we dread. Are you willing, Gabriella, to quit these sublime Falls
+to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall carry them with me," I answered, laughingly. "They are
+henceforth a part of my own being."</p>
+
+<p>"They will prove rather an inconvenient accompaniment," replied he; "and
+if we turn our face on our return to the White Mountains, will you bring
+them back also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. Take me the whole world over, and every thing of beauty and
+sublimity will cling to my soul inseparably and forever."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you ask Edith, if she will be ready?"</p>
+
+<p>She was in the room which she occupied with her mother, and there I
+sought her. She was reading what seemed to be a letter; but as I
+approached her I saw that it was poetry, and from her bright blushes, I
+imagined it an effusion of young Julian's. She did not conceal it, but
+looked up with such a radiant expression of joy beaming through a shade
+of bashfulness, I shrunk from the task imposed upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Edith," said I, laying my hand on her beautiful hair, "your
+brother wishes to leave here to-morrow. Will you be ready?"</p>
+
+<p>She started, trembled, then turned aside her face, but I could see the
+starting tear and the deepened blush.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will," she answered, after a moment's pause. "It is far
+better that we should go,&mdash;I know it is,&mdash;but it would have been better
+still, had we never come."</p>
+
+<p>"And why, my darling sister? You have seemed very happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Too happy, Gabriella. All future life must pay the penalty due to a
+brief infatuation. I have discovered and betrayed the weakness, the
+madness of my heart. I know too well why Ernest has hastened our
+departure."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest Edith," said I, sitting down by her and taking her hand in both
+mine, "do not reproach yourself for a sensibility so natural, so
+innocent, nay more, so noble. Do not, from mistaken delicacy, sacrifice
+your own happiness, and that of another which is, I firmly believe,
+forever intertwined with it. Confide in your mother,&mdash;confide in your
+brother, who think you have made a solemn resolution to live a single
+life. They do not know this young man; but give them an opportunity of
+knowing him. Cast him not off, if you love him; for I would almost stake
+my life upon his integrity and honor."</p>
+
+<p>"Blessings, Gabriella, for this generous confidence!" she exclaimed,
+throwing her arms round me, with all the impulsiveness of childhood;
+"but it is all in vain. Do you think I would take advantage of Julian's
+uncalculating love, and entail upon him for life the support and
+guardianship of this frail, helpless form? Do you think I would hang a
+dead, dull weight on the wings of his young ambition? Oh, no! You do not
+know me, Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you have very wrong views of yourself," I answered; "and I fear
+you will do great wrong to others, if you do not change them. You are
+not helpless. No bird of the wild-wood wings their way more fearlessly
+and lightly than yourself. You are not frail now. Health glows on your
+cheek and beams in your eye. You cling to a resolution conceived in
+early youth, before you recovered from the effects of a painful malady.
+A dull weight! Why, Edith, you would rest like down on his mounting
+wings. You would give them a more heavenly flight. Do not, beloved
+Edith, indulge these morbid feelings. There is a love, stronger, deeper
+than a sister's affection. You feel it now. You forgive me for loving
+Ernest. You forgive him for loving me. I believe Julian worthy of your
+heart. Give him hope, give him time, and he will come erelong, crowned
+with laurels, and lay them smiling at your feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, inspiring Gabriella!" she exclaimed, "you infuse new life and joy
+into my inmost soul. I feel as if I could discard these crutches and
+walk on air. No; I am not helpless. If there was need, I could toil for
+him I loved with all a woman's zeal. These hands could minister to his
+necessities, this heart be a shield and buckler in the hour of danger.
+Thank Heaven, I am lifted above want, and how blest to share the gifts
+of fortune with one they would so nobly grace! But do you really think
+that I ought to indulge such dreams? Am not I a cripple? Has not God set
+a mark upon me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;you shall not call yourself one. You are only lifted above the
+gross earth, because you are more angelic than the rest of us. I hear
+your mother's coming footsteps; I will leave you together, that you may
+reveal to her all that is passing in your heart."</p>
+
+<p>I left her; and as I passed Mrs. Linwood on the stairs, and met her
+anxious eyes, I said: "Edith has the heart of a woman. I know by my own
+experience how gently you will deal with it."</p>
+
+<p>She kissed me without speaking; but I read in her expressive countenance
+that mingled look of grief and resignation with which we follow a friend
+to that bourne where we cannot follow them. Edith was lost to her. She
+was willing to forsake her mother for the stranger's home,&mdash;she who
+seemed bound to her by the dependence of childhood, as well as the close
+companionship of riper years. I read this in her saddened glance; but I
+did not deem her selfish. Other feelings, too, doubtless blended with
+her own personal regrets. She had no reason to look upon marriage as a
+state of perfect felicity. Her own had been unhappy. She knew the dark
+phantom that haunted our wedded hours; and what if the same hereditary
+curse should cling to Edith,&mdash;who might become morbidly sensitive on
+account of her personal misfortune?</p>
+
+<p>Knowing it was the last evening of our stay, I felt as if every moment
+were lost, passed within doors. It seemed to me, now, as if I had
+literally seen nothing, so stupendously did images of beauty and
+grandeur grow upon my mind, and so consciously and surprisingly did my
+mind expand to receive them.</p>
+
+<p>The hour of sunset approached,&mdash;the last sunset that I should behold,
+shining in golden glory on the sheeted foam of the Falls. And then I
+saw, what I never expect to witness again, till I see the eternal
+rainbows round about the throne of God,&mdash;three entire respondent
+circles, one glowing with seven-fold beams within the other, full,
+clear, distinct as the starry stripes of our country's banner,&mdash;no
+fracture in the smooth, majestic curves,&mdash;no dimness in the gorgeous
+dyes.</p>
+
+<p>And moonlight,&mdash;moonlight on the Falls! I have read of moonlight on the
+ruins of the Coliseum; in the mouldering remains of Grecian elegance and
+Roman magnificence; but what is it compared to this? The eternal youth,
+the undecaying grandeur of nature, illumined by that celestial light
+which lends glory to ruins, and throws the illusion of beauty over the
+features of decay!</p>
+
+<p>Edith wandered with Julian in the stilly moonlight, and their low voices
+were heard by each other amid the din of the roaring cataract.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest was troubled. He was jealous even of a sister's love, and looked
+coldly on the aspiring Julian.</p>
+
+<p>"He must prove himself worthy of Edith," he said. "He must not follow
+her to Grandison Place, till he can bring credentials, establishing his
+claims to confidence and regard."</p>
+
+<p>Before we parted at night Edith drew me aside, and told me that her
+mother had consented to leave the decision of her destiny to <i>time</i>,
+which would either prove Julian's claims to her love, or convince her
+that he was unworthy of her regard. He was not permitted to accompany
+her home; but she was sure he would follow, with testimonials, such as a
+prince need not blush to own.</p>
+
+<p>"How strange, how very strange it seems," she said, her eyes beaming
+with that soft and sunny light which comes from the day-spring of the
+heart, "for me to look forward to a future such as now I see, through a
+flowery vista of hope and love. How strange, that in so short a time so
+mighty a change should be wrought! Had Ernest remained single, my heart
+would have known no vacuum, so entirely did he fill, so exclusively did
+he occupy it. But since his marriage it has seemed a lonely temple with
+a deserted shrine. Julian has strewed flowers upon the altar, and their
+fragrance has perfumed my life. Even if they wither, their odor will
+remain and shed sweetness over my dying hour."</p>
+
+<p>Sweet, angelic Edith! may no untimely blight fall on thy garland of
+love, no thorns be found with its glowing blossoms, no canker-worm of
+jealousy feed on their early bloom.</p>
+
+<p>The morning of our departure, as I looked back where Julian stood, pale
+and agitated, following the receding form of Edith, with a glance of the
+most intense emotion, I saw a gentleman approach the pillar against
+which he was leaning, whose appearance riveted my attention. He was a
+stranger, who had probably arrived the evening before, and, preoccupied
+as Julian was, he extended his hand eagerly to meet the grasp of his. He
+was tall, much taller than Julian, and of a very stately mien. He looked
+as if he might be in the meridian of life, and yet his hair, originally
+black, was mingled with snowy locks around the temples, and on the crown
+of his head. I saw this as he lifted his hat on approaching Julian, with
+the firm, proud step which indicates intellectual power. What was there
+about this stranger that haunted me long after the thunders of the
+cataract had ceased to reverberate on the ear? Where had I seen a
+countenance and figure resembling his? Why did I feel an irresistible
+desire to check the rolling wheels that bore me every moment further
+from that stately form with its crown of living snow?</p>
+
+<p>"How long will you remain in that uncomfortable position?" asked Ernest.
+The spell was broken. I turned, and met the glance that needed no
+explanation. This earnest scrutiny of a stranger excited his
+displeasure; and I did not wonder, when I thought of the strange
+fascination I had experienced. I blushed, and drew my veil over my
+face,&mdash;resolving henceforth to set a guard over my eyes as well as my
+lips. It was the first dark-flashing glance I had met since I had left
+Grandison Place. It was the last expiring gleam of a baleful flame. I
+knew it must be; and, leaning back in the carriage, I sunk into one of
+those reveries which I used to indulge in childhood,&mdash;when the gates of
+sunset opened to admit my wandering spirit, and the mysteries of
+cloud-land were revealed to the dream-girl's eye.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The very evening after our return, while Dr. Harlowe was giving an
+account of his stewardship, and congratulating Edith and myself on the
+bloom and animation we had acquired, a gentleman was announced, and
+Richard Clyde entered. The heart-felt, joyous welcome due to the friend
+who is just returned from a foreign land, greeted his entrance. Had I
+known of his coming, I might have repressed the pleasure that now
+spontaneously rose; but I forgot every thing at this moment, but the
+companion of my childhood, the sympathizing mourner by my mother's
+grave, the unrequited lover, but the true and constant friend. He was so
+much improved in person and manners; he was so self-possessed, so manly,
+so frank, so cordial! He came among us like a burst of sunshine; and we
+all&mdash;all but <i>one</i>&mdash;felt his genial influence. He came into the family
+like a long absent son and brother. Why could not Ernest have welcomed
+him as such? Why did he repel with coldness and suspicion the honest,
+ingenuous heart that longed to meet his with fraternal warmth and
+confidence? I could not help drawing comparisons unfavorable to Ernest.
+He, who had travelled through the same regions, who had drank of the
+same inspiring streams of knowledge as the young student, who came fresh
+and buoyant from the classic halls where he had himself gained honor and
+distinction,&mdash;he, sat cold and reserved, while Richard dispensed life
+and brightness on all around.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how much this is like home!" he exclaimed, when the lateness of the
+hour compelled him to depart; "how happy, how grateful I am, to meet so
+kind, so dear a welcome. It warmed my heart, in anticipation, beyond the
+Atlantic waves. I remembered the maternal kindness that cheered and
+sustained me in my collegiate probation, and blessed my dawning manhood.
+I remembered Edith's heavenly music, and Gabriella's."</p>
+
+<p>He had become so excited by the recollections he was clothing in words,
+that he lost the command of his voice as soon as he mentioned my name.
+Perhaps the associations connected with it were more powerful than he
+imagined; but whatever was the cause he stopped abruptly, bowed, and
+left the room.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood followed him into the passage, and I heard her telling him
+that he must consider Grandison Place his home indeed, for she felt that
+she had welcomed back another beloved son. She was evidently hurt by the
+chilling reserve of Ernest's manners, and wished to make up for it by
+the cordial warmth of her own.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes as fine a youth as ever quickened the pulses of a maiden's
+heart," said Dr. Harlowe, as Richard's quick steps were heard on the
+gravel walk; "I am proud of him, we all ought to be proud of him. He is
+a whole-souled, whole-hearted, right-minded young man, worth a dozen of
+your fashionable milk-sops. He is a right down splendid fellow. I cannot
+imagine why this sly little puss was so blind to his merits; but I
+suppose the greater glory dimmed the less."</p>
+
+<p>Good, excellent Dr. Harlowe! Why was he always saying something to rouse
+the slumbering serpent in the bosom of Ernest? Slumbering, did I say?
+Alas! it was already awakened, and watching for its prey. The doctor had
+the simplicity of a child, but the shrewdness of a man. Had he dreamed
+of the suffering Ernest's unfortunate temperament caused, he would have
+blistered his tongue sooner than have given me a moment's pain. He
+suspected him of jealousy, of the folly, not the madness of jealousy,
+and mischievously liked to sport with a weakness which he supposed
+evaporated with the cloud of the brow, or vanished in the lightning of
+the eye. He little imagined the stormy gust that swept over us after his
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!" exclaimed Ernest, as soon as the doctor had closed the door,
+in a tone which I had never heard him use to her before, "I will no
+longer tolerate that man's impertinence and presumption. He never comes
+here that he does not utter insulting words, which no gentleman should
+allow in his own house. It is not the first, nor the second, nor the
+third time that he has insulted me through my wife. His superior age,
+and your profound respect for him, shall no longer prevent the
+expression of my indignation. I shall let him know on what terms he ever
+again darkens this threshold."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest!" cried his mother, with a look in which indignation and grief
+struggled for mastery, "do you forget that it is your mother whom you
+are addressing?&mdash;that it is her threshold not yours on which you have
+laid this withering ban?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had not Dr. Harlowe been your friend, and this house yours, I should
+have told him my sentiments long since; but while I would not forget my
+respect as a son, I must remember my dignity as a husband, and I will
+allow no man to treat my wife with the familiarity he uses, polluting
+her wedded ears with allusions to her despairing lovers, and endeavoring
+indirectly to alienate her affections from me."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, Ernest, you are beside yourself," said Mrs. Linwood, and the
+mounting color in her face deepened to crimson,&mdash;"you shall not thus
+asperse a good and guileless man. Your insane passion drives you from
+reason, from honor, and from right. It dwarfs the fair proportions of
+your mind, and deforms its moral beauty. I have been wrong, sinful,
+weak, in yielding to your infirmity, and trying by every gentle and
+persuasive means to lead you into the green pastures and by the still
+waters of domestic peace. I have counselled Gabriella, when I have seen
+her young heart breaking under the weight of your suspicions, to bow
+meekly and let the storm pass over her. But I do so no more. I will tell
+her to stand firm and undaunted, and breast the tempest. I will stand by
+her side, and support her in my arms, and shield her with my breast.
+Come, Gabriella, come, my child; if my son <i>will</i> be unjust, <i>will</i> be
+insane, I will at least protect you from the consequences of his guilty
+rashness."</p>
+
+<p>I sprang into her arms that opened to enfold me, and hid my face on her
+breast. I could not bear to look upon the humiliation of Ernest, who
+stood like one transfixed by his mother's rebuking glance. I trembled
+like an aspen, there was something so fearful in the roused indignation
+of one usually so calm and self-possessed. Edith sunk upon a seat in a
+passion of tears, and "oh, brother!&mdash;oh, mother!" burst through
+thick-coming sobs from her quivering lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!" exclaimed Ernest,&mdash;and his voice sounded hollow and
+unnatural,&mdash;"I have reason to be angry,&mdash;I do not deserve this stern
+rebuke,&mdash;you know not how much I have borne and forborne for your sake.
+But if my mother teaches that rebellion to my will is a wife's duty, it
+is time indeed that we should part."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ernest!" cried Edith; "oh, my brother! you will break my heart."</p>
+
+<p>And rising, she seemed to fly to his side, and throwing her arms round
+his neck, she lifted up her voice and wept aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, my daughter, hush, Edith," said her mother. "I wish my son to
+hear me, and if they were the last words I ever expected to utter, they
+could not be more solemn. I have loved you, Ernest, with a love
+bordering on idolatry,&mdash;with a pride most sinful in a Christian
+parent,&mdash;but even the strength of a mother's love will yield at last
+before the stormy passions that desolate her home. The spirit of the
+Spartan mother, who told her son when he left her for the battle field,
+'to return <i>with</i> his shield, or <i>on</i> it,' animates my bosom. I had far,
+far rather weep over the grave of my son, than live to blush for his
+degeneracy."</p>
+
+<p>"And I would far rather be in my grave, this moment," he answered, in
+the same hoarse, deep undertone, "than suffer the agonies of the last
+few hours. Let me die,&mdash;let me die at once; then take this young man to
+your bosom, where he has already supplanted me. Make him your son in a
+twofold sense, for, by the heaven that hears me, I believe you would
+bless the hour that gave him the right to Gabriella's love."</p>
+
+<p>"Father, forgive him, he knows not what he utters," murmured his mother,
+lifting her joined hands to heaven. I still clung to her in trembling
+awe, forgetting my own sorrow in the depth and sacredness of hers.
+"Ernest," she said, in a louder tone, "I cannot continue this painful
+scene. I will go to my own chamber and pray for you; pray for your
+release from the dominion of the powers of darkness. Oh, my son! I
+tremble for you. You are standing on the brink of a terrible abyss. The
+fiend that lurked in the bowers of Eden, and made its flowers dim with
+the smoke of fraternal blood, is whispering in your ear. Beware, my son,
+beware. Every sigh and tear caused by the indulgence of unhallowed
+passion, cries as loud to Almighty God for vengeance as Abel's reeking
+blood. Come, Gabriella, I leave him to reflection and prayer. I leave
+him to God and his own soul. Come, Edith, leave him and follow me."</p>
+
+<p>There was something so commanding in her accent and manner I dared not
+resist her, though I longed to remain and whisper words of peace and
+love to my unhappy husband. I knew that his soul must be crushed into
+the dust, and my heart bled for his sufferings. Edith, too, withdrew her
+clinging arms, for she dared not disobey her mother, and slowly and
+sadly followed us up the winding stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Go to bed, my child," said she to Edith, when we reached the upper
+platform. "May God in his mercy spare you from witnessing another scene
+like this."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother! I never shall feel happy again. My poor brother! you did
+not see him, mother, when you left him. You did not look upon him, or
+you could not have left him. There was death on his face. Forgive him,
+dear mother! take him back to your heart."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you think he is not here?" she exclaimed, pressing her hands on
+her heart, as if trying to sustain herself under an intense pain. "Do
+you think he suffers alone? Do you think I have left him, but for his
+good? Do you think I would not now gladly fold him in my arms and bathe
+his soul in the overflowing tenderness of maternal love? O child, child!
+Earth has no sounding line to fathom the depths of a mother's heart.
+Good-night. God bless you, my darling Edith."</p>
+
+<p>"And Gabriella?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will remain with me."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood, whose left arm still encircled me, brought me into her
+chamber, and closed the door. She was excessively pale, and I
+mechanically gave her a glass of water. She thanked me; and seating
+herself at a little table, on which an astral lamp was burning, she
+began to turn the leaves of a Bible, which always lay there. I observed
+that her hands trembled and that her lips quivered.</p>
+
+<p>"There is but one fountain which can refresh the fainting spirit," she
+said, laying her hand on the sacred volume. "It is the fountain of
+living waters, which, whosoever will, may drink, and receive immortal
+strength."</p>
+
+<p>She turned the leaves, but there was mist over her vision,&mdash;she could
+not distinguish the well-known characters.</p>
+
+<p>"Read for me, my beloved Gabriella," said she, rising and motioning me
+to the seat she had quitted. "I was looking for the sixty-second Psalm."</p>
+
+<p>She seated herself in the shadow of the curtain, while I nerved myself
+for the appointed task. My voice was at first low and tremulous, but as
+the sound of the words reached my ear, they penetrated my soul, like a
+strain of solemn music. I felt the divine influence of those breathings
+of humanity, sanctified by the inspiration of the Deity. I felt the same
+consciousness of man's insignificance as when I listened to Niagara's
+eternal roar. And yet, if God cared for us, there was exaltation and
+glory in the thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within
+me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of
+my countenance and my God."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Mrs. Linwood, as I paused on this beautiful and consoling
+verse; "your voice is sweet, my child, and there is balm in every
+hallowed word."</p>
+
+<p>I turned to the ninety-first Psalm, which I had so often read to my own
+dear mother, and which I had long known by heart; then the hundred and
+sixteenth, which was a favorite of Ernest's. My voice faltered. I
+thought of him in loneliness and anguish, and my tears blotted the
+sacred lines. We both remained silent, for the awe of God's spirit was
+upon us, and the atmosphere made holy by the incense of His breath.</p>
+
+<p>A low, faint knock at the door. "Come in," said Mrs. Linwood, supposing
+it a servant. She started, when the door opened, and Ernest, pale as a
+ghost, stood on the threshold. I made a movement towards him, but he did
+not look at me. His eyes were riveted on his mother, who had half risen
+at his entrance, but sunk back on her seat. He passed by me, and
+approaching the window where she sat, knelt at her feet, and bowed his
+head in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," said he, in broken accents, "I come, like the returning
+prodigal. I have sinned against Heaven and thee, and am no more worthy
+to be called thy son,&mdash;give me but the hireling's place, provided it be
+near thy heart."</p>
+
+<p>"And have I found thee again, my son, my Ernest, my beloved, my only
+one?" she cried, bending down and clasping her arms around him.
+"Heavenly Father! I thank thee for this hour."</p>
+
+<p>Never had I loved them both as I did at that moment, when the holy tears
+of penitence and pardon mingled on their cheeks, and baptized their
+spirits as in a regenerating shower. My own tears flowed in unison; but
+I drew back, feeling as if it were sacrilege to intrude on such a scene.
+My first impulse was to steal from the room, leaving them to the
+unwitnessed indulgence of their sacred emotions; but I must pass them,
+and I would not that even the hem of my garments should rustle against
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood was the first to recognize my presence; she raised her head
+and beckoned me to approach. As I obeyed her motion, Ernest rose from
+his knees, and taking my hand, held it for a moment closely, firmly in
+his own; he did not embrace me, as he had always done in the transports
+of reconciliation; he seemed to hold me from him in that controlling
+grasp, and there was something thrilling, yet repelling, in the dark
+depths of his eyes that held me bound to the spot where I stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Remain with my mother, Gabriella," said he; "I give you back to her
+guardianship, till I have done penance for the sins of this night. The
+lips that have dared to speak to a mother, and such a mother, the words
+of bitterness and passion, are unworthy to receive the pledge of love.
+My eyes are opened to the enormity of my offence, and I abhor myself in
+dust and ashes; my spirit shall clothe itself in garments of sackcloth
+and mourning, and drink of the bitter cup of humiliation. Hear, then, my
+solemn vow;&mdash;nay, my mother, nay, Gabriella,&mdash;I must, I will speak. My
+Saviour fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, he, who
+knew not sin, and shall not I, vile as a malefactor, accursed as a
+leper, do something to prove my penitence and self-abasement? For forty
+days I abjure love, joy, domestic endearments, and social pleasures,&mdash;I
+will live on bread and water,&mdash;I will sleep on the uncarpeted floor,&mdash;or
+pass my nights under the canopy of heaven."</p>
+
+<p>Pale and shuddering I listened to this wild, stem vow, fearing that his
+reason was forsaking him. No martyr at the stake ever wore an expression
+of more sublime self-sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, my son!" exclaimed his mother, "one tear such as you have shed
+this hour is worth a hundred rash vows. Vain and useless are they as the
+iron bed, the girdle of steel, the scourge of the fanatic, who expects
+to force by self-inflicted tortures the gates of heaven to open. Do you
+realize to what sufferings you are dooming the hearts that love you, and
+whose happiness is bound up in yours? Do you realize that you are making
+our home dark and gloomy as the dungeons of the Inquisition?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, my mother; Gabriella shall be free as air, free as before she
+breathed her marriage vows. To your care I commit her. Let not one
+thought of me cloud the sunshine of the domestic board, or wither one
+garland of household joy. I have imposed this penance on myself in
+expiation of my offences as a son and as a husband. If I am wrong, may a
+merciful God forgive me. The words are uttered, and cannot be recalled.
+I cannot add perjury to the dark list of my transgressions. Farewell,
+mother; farewell, Gabriella; pray for me. Your prayers will call down
+ministering angels, who shall come to me in the hour of nature's agony,
+to relieve and sustain me."</p>
+
+<p>He left us, closed the door, and passed down the stairs, which gave a
+faint echo to his retreating footsteps. We looked at each other in grief
+and amazement, and neither of us spoke for several minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor, misguided boy!" at length burst from his mother's pale lips,
+"I fear I was too harsh,&mdash;I probed him too deeply,&mdash;I have driven him to
+the verge of madness. Oh! how difficult it is to deal with a spirit so
+strangely, so unhappily constituted! I have tried indulgence, and the
+evil seemed to grow with alarming rapidity. I have exercised a parent's
+authority, and behold the result. I can do nothing now, but obey his
+parting injunction,&mdash;pray for him."</p>
+
+<p>She folded her hands across her knees, and looked down in deep,
+revolving thought.</p>
+
+<p>Forty days of gloom and estrangement! Forty days! Oh! what a wilderness
+would life be during those long, long days! And what was there beyond? I
+dared not think. A dreary shadow of coming desolation,&mdash;like the cold,
+gray mist which wrapped me as I stood on the rocks of Niagara, hung over
+the future. Would I lift it if I could? Oh, no! Perish the hand that
+would anticipate the day of God's revealing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Ernest, faithful to his vow, slept on the floor in the library, and
+though he sat down at the table with us, he tasted nothing but bread and
+water. A stranger might not have observed any striking difference in his
+manners, but he had forbidden himself even the glance of affection, and
+his eye studiously and severely avoided mine. From the table he returned
+to the library, and shut himself up till the next bell summoned us to
+our now joyless and uncomfortable meals.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot describe the tortures I endured during this season of unnatural
+and horrible constraint. It sometimes seemed as if I should grow crazy;
+and poor Edith was scarcely less unhappy. It was now that Mrs. Linwood
+showed her extraordinary powers of self-control, her wisdom, and
+intellectual strength. Calmly and serenely she fulfilled her usual
+duties, as mistress of her household and benefactress of the village. To
+visitors and friends she was the same hospitable and charming hostess
+that had thrown such enchantment over the granite walls of Grandison
+Place. She had marked out the line of duty for Edith and myself, which
+we tried to follow, but it was often with sinking hearts and faltering
+footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>"If Ernest from a mistaken sense of duty has bound himself by a painful
+and unnatural vow," said she, in that tone of grave sweetness which was
+so irresistible, "<i>we</i> must not forget the social and domestic duties of
+life. A threefold responsibility rests upon us, for we must endeavor to
+bear the burden he has laid down. He must not see the unlimited power he
+has over our happiness, a power he is now unconsciously abusing. Smile,
+my children, indulge in all innocent recreations; let me hear once more
+your voices echoing on the lawn; let me hear the soothing notes of my
+Edith's harp; let me see my Gabriella's fingers weaving as wont, sweet
+garlands of flowers."</p>
+
+<p>And now, the house began to be filled up with visitors from the city,
+who had been anxiously waiting the return of Mrs. Linwood. The character
+of Ernest for eccentricity and moodiness was so well known, that the
+peculiar situation in which he had placed himself did not attract
+immediate attention. But I knew I must appear, what I in reality was for
+the time, a neglected and avoided wife; and most bitterly, keenly did I
+suffer in consequence of this impression. In spite of the pain it had
+caused, I was proud of Ernest's exclusive devotion, and the notice it
+attracted. I knew I was, by the mortification I experienced, when that
+devotion was withdrawn. It is true, I knew he was inflicting on himself
+torments to which the fabled agonies of Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Ixion
+combined could not be compared; but others did not; they saw the averted
+eye, the coldness, the distance, the estrangement, but they did not,
+could not see, the bleeding heart, the agonized spirit hidden beneath
+the veil.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to mention here the reason that Mr. Regulus did not come as
+usual to welcome us on our return. He had been appointed professor of
+mathematics in &mdash;&mdash; College, and had given up the charge of the academy
+where he had taught so many years with such indefatigable industry and
+distinguished success. He was now visiting in Boston, but immediately on
+his return was to depart to the scene of his new labors.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Regulus, or, as we should now call him, Professor Regulus, had so
+long been considered a fixture in town, this change in his destiny
+created quite a sensation in the circle in which he moved. It seemed
+impossible to do without him. He was as much a part of the academy as
+the colossal pen, whose gilded feathers still swept the blue of ether.
+Were it not for the blight that had fallen on my social joys, I should
+have mourned the loss of this steadfast friend of my orphan years; but
+now I could not regret it. The mildew of suspicion rested on our
+intercourse, and all its pleasant bloom was blasted. He was in Boston.
+Had he gone to ask the dauntless Meg to be the companion of his life, in
+the more exalted sphere in which he was about to move? And would she
+indeed suffer her "wild heart to be tamed by a loving hand?"</p>
+
+<p>What delightful evenings we might now have enjoyed had not the dark
+passion of Ernest thrown such a chilling shadow over the household!
+Richard came almost every night, for it was his <i>home</i>. He loved and
+reverenced Mrs. Linwood, as if she were his own mother. Edith was to him
+as a sweet and gentle sister; and though never by word or action he
+manifested a feeling for me which I might not sanction and return as the
+wife of another, I knew, that no one had supplanted me in his
+affections, that I was still the Gabriella whom he had enshrined in his
+boyish heart,&mdash;in "all save hope the same." He saw that I was unhappy,
+and he pitied me. The bright sparkle of his eye always seemed quenched
+when it turned to me, and his voice when it addressed me had a gentler,
+more subdued tone. But his spirit was so sparkling, so elastic, his
+manners so kind and winning, his conversation so easy and graceful, it
+was impossible for sadness or constraint to dwell long in his presence.
+Did I never contrast his sunny temper, his unselfish disposition, his
+happy, genial temperament, with the darkness and moodiness and despotism
+of Ernest? Did I never sigh that I had not given my young heart to one
+who would have trusted me even as he loved, and surrounded me with a
+golden atmosphere of confidence, calm and beautiful as an unclouded
+autumn sky? Did I not tremble at the thought of passing my whole life in
+the midst of the tropic storms, the thunders and lightnings of passions?</p>
+
+<p>And yet I loved Ernest with all the intensity of my first affection. I
+would have sacrificed my life to have given peace to his troubled and
+warring spirit. His self-imposed sufferings almost maddened me. My
+heart, as it secretly clung to him and followed his lonely steps as,
+faithful to his frantic vow, he withdrew from domestic and social
+intercourse,&mdash;longed to express its emotions in words as wildly
+impassioned as these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou hast called me thine angel in moments of bliss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still thine angel I'll prove 'mid the horrors of this.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the furnace unshrinking thy steps I'll pursue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shield thee, and save thee, and perish there too."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Oh, most beloved, yet most wretched and deluded husband, why was this
+dark thread,&mdash;this cable cord, I might say,&mdash;twisted with the pure and
+silvery virtues of thy character?</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this unhappy state of things, Margaret Melville arrived.
+She returned with Mr. Regulus, who brought her one beautiful evening, at
+the soft, twilight hour, to Grandison Place. Whether it was the subdued
+light in which we first beheld her, or the presence of her dignified
+companion, she certainly was much softened. Her boisterous laugh was
+quite melodized, and her step did not make the crystal drops of the
+girandoles tinkle as ominously as they formerly did. Still, it seemed as
+if a dozen guests had arrived in her single person. There was such
+superabundant vitality about her. As for Mr. Regulus, he was certainly
+going on even unto perfection, for his improvement in the graces was as
+progressive and as steady as the advance of the rolling year. I could
+not but notice the extreme elegance of his dress. He was evidently "at
+some cost to entertain himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Come up stairs with me, darling," said she to me, catching my hand and
+giving it an emphatic squeeze; "help me to lay aside this uncomfortable
+riding dress,&mdash;besides," she whispered, "I have so much to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>As we left the room and passed Mr. Regulus, who was standing near the
+door, the glance she cast upon him, bright, smiling, triumphant, and
+happy, convinced me that my conjectures were right.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, as soon as we were in my own chamber,
+throwing herself down on the first seat she saw, and shaking her hair
+loose over her shoulders, "I am so glad to see you. You do not know how
+happy I am,&mdash;I mean how glad I am,&mdash;you did not expect me, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Mr. Regulus had gone to see you, but I did not know that he
+would be fortunate enough to bring you back with him. He discovered last
+winter, I have no doubt, what a pleasant travelling companion you were."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gabriella, I could tell you something so strange, so funny,"&mdash;and
+here she burst into one of her old ringing laughs, that seemed perfectly
+uncontrollable.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can guess what it is," I said, assisting her at her toilet,
+which was never an elaborate business with her. "You and Mr. Regulus are
+very good friends, perhaps betrothed lovers. Is that so very strange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?" she exclaimed, turning quickly round, her cheeks
+crimsoned and her eyes sparkling most luminously,&mdash;"who told you such
+nonsense?"</p>
+
+<p>"It does not require any supernatural knowledge to know this," I
+answered. "I anticipated it when you were in New York, and most
+sincerely do I congratulate you on the possession of so excellent and
+noble a heart. Prize it, dear Margaret, and make yourself worthy of all
+it can, of all it will impart, to ennoble and exalt your own."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I fear I never shall be worthy of it," she cried, giving me an
+enthusiastic embrace, and turning aside her head to hide a starting
+tear; "but I do prize it, Gabriella, beyond all words."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you little gypsy!" she exclaimed, suddenly resuming her old wild
+manner, "why did you not prize it yourself? He has told me all about the
+romantic scenes of the academy,&mdash;he says you transformed him from a
+rough boor into a feeling, tender-hearted man,&mdash;that you stole into his
+very inmost being, like the breath of heaven, and made the barren
+wilderness blossom like the rose. Ah! you ought to hear how beautifully
+he talks of you. But I am not jealous of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven forbid!" I involuntarily cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You may well say that," said she, looking earnestly in my face; "you
+may well say that, darling. But where is Ernest? I have not seen him
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"He is in the library, I believe. He is not very well; and you know he
+never enjoys company much."</p>
+
+<p>"The same jealous, unreasonable being he ever was, I dare say," she
+vehemently exclaimed. "It is a shame, and a sin, and a burning sin, for
+him to go on as he does. Mr. Regulus says he could weep tears of blood
+to think how you have sacrificed yourself to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret,&mdash;Margaret! If you have one spark of love for me,&mdash;one feeling
+of respect and regard for Mrs. Linwood, your mother's friend and your
+own, never, never speak of Ernest's peculiarities. I cannot deny them; I
+cannot deny that they make me unhappy, and fill me with sad forebodings;
+but he is my husband,&mdash;and I cannot hear him spoken of with bitterness.
+He is my husband; and I love him in spite of his wayward humors, with
+all the romance of girlish passion, and all the tenderness of wedded
+love."</p>
+
+<p>"Is love so strong as to endure every thing?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It is so divine as to forgive every thing," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! you are an angel, and I will try to set a guard on these wild
+lips, so that they shall not say aught to wound that dear, precious,
+blessed little heart of yours. I will be just as good as I can be; and
+if I forget myself once in a while, you must forgive me,&mdash;for the old
+Adam is in me yet. There, how does that look?"</p>
+
+<p>She had dressed herself in a plain white muslin, with a white sash
+carelessly tied; and a light fall of lace was the only covering to her
+magnificent arms and neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you look like a bride, Margaret," said I. "Surely, you must think
+Mrs. Linwood is going to have a party to-night. Never mind,&mdash;we will all
+admire you as much as if you were a bride. Let me twist some of these
+white rosebuds in your hair, to complete the illusion."</p>
+
+<p>I took some from the vase that stood upon my toilet, and wreathed them
+in her black, shining locks. She clapped her hands joyously as she
+surveyed her image in the mirror; then laughed long and merrily, and
+asked if she did not look like a fool.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think there is any thing peculiar in my dress?" she suddenly
+asked, pulling the lace rather strenuously, considering its gossamer
+texture. "I do not wish to look ridiculous."</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed. It is like Edith's and mine. We always wear white muslin in
+summer, you know; but you never seemed to care much about dressing here
+in the country. I never saw you look so well, so handsome, Madge."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. Let us go down. But, stop one moment. Do you think Mrs.
+Linwood will think it strange that I should come here with Mr. Regulus?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think she will say about our&mdash;our engagement?"</p>
+
+<p>"She will be very much pleased. I heard her say that if you should
+become attached to a man of worth and talents such as he possesses, you
+would become a good and noble woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she say that? Heaven bless her, body and soul. I wonder how she
+could have any trust or faith in such a Greenland bear as I have been. I
+will not say <i>am</i>, for I think I have improved some, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! and I believe it is only the dawn of a beautiful day of
+womanhood."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret linked her arm in mine with a radiant smile and a vivid blush,
+and tripped down stairs with a lightness almost miraculous. Mr. Regulus
+was standing at the foot of the stairs leaning on the bannisters, in a
+musing attitude. As soon as he saw us, his countenance lighted up with a
+joyful animation, and he offered his arm to Margaret with eager
+gallantry. I wondered I had not discovered before how very good looking
+he was. Never, till he visited us in New York, had I thought of him but
+as an awkward, rather homely gentleman. Now his smile was quite
+beautiful, and as I accompanied them into the drawing-room, I thought
+they were quite a splendid-looking pair. Mrs. Linwood was in the front
+room, which was quite filled with guests and now illuminated for the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"Not now," I heard Margaret whisper, drawing back a little; "wait a few
+moments."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it will be all over in a second," said he, taking her hand and
+leading her up to Mrs. Linwood, who raised her eyes with surprise at the
+unwonted ceremony of their approach, and the blushing trepidation of
+Margaret's manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me to introduce Mrs. Regulus," said he, with a low bow; and
+though he reddened to the roots of his hair, he looked round with a
+smiling and triumphant glance. Margaret curtsied with mock humility down
+to the ground, then breaking loose from his hand, she burst into one of
+her Madge Wildfire laughs, and attempted to escape from the room. But
+she was intercepted by Dr. Harlowe, who caught her by the arm and kissed
+her with audible good-will, declaring it was a physician's fee. The
+announcement of the marriage was received with acclamation and clapping
+of hands. You should have heard Edith laugh; it was like the chime of
+silvery bells. It was so astonishing she could not, would not believe
+it. It was exactly like one of Meg's wild pranks to play such a farce.
+But it was a solemn truth. Margaret, the bride of the morning, became
+the presiding queen of the evening; and had it not been for the lonely
+occupant of the library, how gaily and happily the hours would have
+flown by. How must the accents of mirth that echoed through the hall
+torture, if they reached his morbid and sensitive ear! If I could only
+go to him and tell him the cause of the unwonted merriment; but I dared
+not do it. It would be an infringement of the sacredness of his
+expiatory vow. He would know it, however, at the supper table; but no!
+he did not appear at the supper table. He sent a message to his mother,
+that he did not wish any, and the hospitable board was filled without
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly forgive you, Margaret," said Mrs. Linwood, "for not giving
+us an opportunity of providing a wedding feast. How much better it would
+have been to have had the golden ring and fatted calf of welcome, than
+this plain, every-day meal."</p>
+
+<p>"Your every-day meals are better than usual wedding feasts," replied
+Margaret, "and I do not see why one should eat more on such an occasion
+than any other. You know <i>I</i> care nothing for the good things of this
+life, though Mr. Regulus may be disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, you are mistaken," said Mr. Regulus, blushing. "I think so
+little of what I eat and drink, I can hardly tell the difference between
+tea and coffee."</p>
+
+<p>This was literally true, and many a trick had been played upon him at
+his boarding place while seated at his meals, with an open book at the
+left side of his plate, and his whole mind engaged in its contents.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Regulus," said Dr. Harlowe, giving due accent to her new name,
+"is, as everyone must perceive, one of those ethereal beings who care
+for nothing more substantial than beefsteak, plum-pudding, and
+mince-pie. Perhaps an airy slice of roast turkey might also tempt her
+abstemiousness!"</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, Doctor,&mdash;I have some one to protect me now against your
+lawless tongue," cried Madge, with inimitable good-humor.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and dine with us to-morrow, and you shall prove my words a libel,
+if you please. I cannot say that my wife will be able to give you any
+thing better than Mrs. Linwood's poor fare, but it shall be sweetened by
+a heart-warm welcome, and we will drink the health of the bonny bride in
+a glass of ruby wine!"</p>
+
+<p>And was it possible that no note was taken of the strange absence of the
+master of the table? Was it no check to social joy and convivial
+pleasure? It undoubtedly was, in the first place; but Margaret's
+exhilarating presence neutralized the effect produced by his absence on
+the spirits of the guests. The occasion, too, was so unexpected, so
+inspiring, that even I, sad and troubled as I was, could not help
+yielding in some degree to its gladdening influence.</p>
+
+<p>After supper I had a long and delightful conversation with my
+metamorphosed preceptor. He spoke of his marriage with all the
+ingenuousness and simplicity of a child. He thanked me for having told
+him, when I parted from him in New York that he had an influence over
+Margaret that he had not dreamed of possessing. It made him, he said,
+more observant of her, and more careful of himself, till he ready found
+her a pleasant study. And somehow, when he had returned to his country
+home, it seemed dull without her; and he found himself thinking of her,
+and then writing to her, and then going to see her,&mdash;till, to his
+astonishment, he found himself a lover and a husband. His professorship,
+too, happened to come at the exact moment, for it emboldened him with
+hopes of success he could not have cherished as a village teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"How the wild creature happened to love me, a grave, ungainly pedagogue,
+I cannot divine," he added; "but if gratitude, tenderness, and the most
+implicit confidence in her truth and affection can make her happy, she
+shall never regret her heart's choice."</p>
+
+<p><i>Confidence</i> did he say? Happy, thrice happy Margaret!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was an evening of excitement. Edith sang, and Margaret played some of
+her elfin strains, and Mr. Regulus made music leap joyously from the
+sounding violin. There was one in the lonely library who might have made
+sweeter music than all, whose spirit's chords were all jangled and
+tuneless, and whose ear seemed closed to the concord of melodious
+sounds. <i>My</i> soul was not tuned to harmony now, but still there was
+something soothing in its influence, and it relieved me from the
+necessity of talking, the exertion of <i>seeming</i> what I could not <i>be</i>.
+It was a luxury to glide unnoticed on the stream of thought, though dark
+the current, and leading into troubled waters. It was a luxury to think
+that the sighs of the heart might breathe unheard in the midst of the
+soft rolling waves of Edith's melody, or the dashing billows of
+Margaret's. Sometimes when I imagined myself entirely unobserved, and
+suffered the cloud of sadness that brooded over my spirits to float
+outwards, if I accidentally raised my eyes, I met those of Richard Clyde
+fixed on me with an expression of such intense and thrilling sympathy, I
+would start with a vague consciousness of guilt for having elicited such
+expressive glances.</p>
+
+<p>Madge was playing as only Madge could play, and Edith standing near the
+door that opened into the saloon in the front parlor. She looked
+unusually pale, and her countenance was languid. Was she thinking of
+Julian, the young artist at the Falls, and wondering if the brief
+romance of their love were indeed a dream? All at once a change, quick
+as the electric flash, passed over her face. A bright, rosy cloud rolled
+over its pallor, like morning breaking in Alpine snows. Even the paly
+gold of her hair seemed to catch the glory that so suddenly and
+absolutely illumined her. She was looking into the saloon, and I
+followed the direction of her kindling eyes. Julian was at that moment
+crossing the threshold. She had seen him ascending the steps, and her
+heart sprang forth to meet him. I saw her hesitate, look round for her
+mother, who was not near her, then, while the rosy cloud deepened to
+crimson, she floated into the saloon.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Mrs. Linwood, who was in the back parlor, to tell her of the
+arrival of the new guest. She started and changed color. His coming was
+the seal of Edith's destiny. "I will not come," he had said to her in
+parting, "till I can bring abundant testimonials of my spotless lineage
+and irreproachable reputation."</p>
+
+<p>I had drawn her apart from the company, expecting she would be agitated
+by the annunciation.</p>
+
+<p>"Should not Ernest know of this?" I asked. "He did not abjure all the
+rites of hospitality. Oh, for Edith's sake, tell him of Julian's
+arrival, and entreat him to come forth and welcome him."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been to him once and urged him to greet Mr. Regulus, and merely
+offer him the usual congratulations on his marriage, but he persistingly
+refused. I fear he is killing himself by this spirit-scourging vow. I
+never saw him look so pale and wretched as he does to-night. I dread
+more and more the consequences of this self-inflicted martyrdom."</p>
+
+<p>As I looked up in Mrs. Linwood's face, on which the light of the
+chandelier resplendently shone, I observed lines of care on her smooth
+brow, which were not there two weeks before. The engraver was doing his
+work delicately, secretly, but he was at work, and it was Ernest's hand
+that guided the steel as it left its deepening grooves.</p>
+
+<p>"O! that I dared to go to him!" said I; "may I, dear mother? I can but
+be denied. I will speak to him as a friend, coldly if it must be, but
+let me speak to him. He can but bid me leave him."</p>
+
+<p>"You too, my darling," said she, in a low, sad-toned voice, "you are
+wilting like a flower deprived of sunshine and dew. But go. Take this
+key. He locks himself within, and all you can do he will not grant
+admittance. The only way is to use this pass-key, which you must return
+to me. I must go and welcome Julian."</p>
+
+<p>She put the key in my hand, and turned away with a sigh. I trembled at
+my own audacity. I had never forced myself into his presence, for the
+dullness of his vow was upon me, and the hand that would have removed
+the icy barrier he had raised between us was numbed by its coldness.</p>
+
+<p>The way that led to the library was winding, sweeping by the lofty
+staircase, and terminating in a kind of picture gallery. Some of these
+were relics of the old Italian masters, and their dark, rich coloring
+came out in the lamp light with gloomy splendor. I had seen them a
+hundred times, but never had they impressed me with such lurid grandeur
+as now. One by one, the dark lines started on the canvas glowing with
+strange life, and standing out in bold, sublime relief. I hurried by
+them and stood in front of the library door with the key trembling in my
+hand. I heard no sound within. All was still as death. Perhaps,
+exhausted by his lonely vigils, he slept, and it would be cruel to
+awaken him. Perhaps he would frown on me in anger, for not respecting
+the sanctity of his vow. I had seen him at noon, but he did not speak or
+look at me; and as his mother said, he had never appeared so pale, so
+heart-worn, and so wretched. He was evidently ill and suffering, though
+to his mother's anxious inquiries he declared himself well, perfectly
+well. There was one thing which made me glad. The gay, mingling laughs,
+the sounds of social joy, of music and mirth, came so softened through
+the long winding avenue, that they broke against the library in a soft,
+murmuring wave that could not be heard within.</p>
+
+<p>Why did I stand trembling and irresolute, as if I had no right to
+penetrate that lonely apartment? He was my husband, and a wife's
+agonized solicitude had drawn me to him. If he repulsed me, I could but
+turn away and weep;&mdash;and was not my pillow wet with nightly tears?</p>
+
+<p>Softly I turned the key, and the door opened, as if touched by invisible
+hands. He did not hear me,&mdash;I know he did not,&mdash;for he sat at the upper
+end of the room, on a window seat, leaning back against the drapery of
+the curtain that fell darkly behind him. His face was turned towards the
+window, through whose parted damask the starry night looked in. But
+though his face was partially turned from me, I could see its contour
+and its hue as distinctly as those of the marble busts that surrounded
+him. He looked scarcely less hueless and cold, and his hand, that lay
+embedded in his dark wavy hair, gleamed white and transparent as
+alabaster. I stood just within the door, with suspended breath and
+wildly palpitating heart, praying for courage to break the spell that
+bound me to the spot. All my strength was gone. I felt myself a guilty
+intruder in that scene of self-humiliation, penance, and prayer. Though
+reason condemned his conduct, and mourned over his infatuation, the
+holiness of his purpose shone around him and sanctified him from
+ridicule and contempt. There was something pure, spiritual, almost
+unearthly in his countenance; but suffering and languor cast a shadow
+over it, that appealed to human sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>If he would only move, only turn towards me! The Israelites, at the foot
+of the cloud-girdled mount, whose fiery zone they were forbidden to
+pass, could scarcely have felt more awe and dread than I did, strange
+and weak as it may seem. I moved nearer, still more near, till my shadow
+fell upon him. Then he started and rose to his feet, and looked upon me,
+like one suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! I cannot describe the inexpressible softness, tenderness, and music
+of his accent. It was as if the whole heart were melting into that
+single word. All my preconceived resolutions vanished, all coldness,
+alienation, and constraint. "I had found him whom my soul loved." My
+arms were twined around him,&mdash;I was clasped to his bosom with the most
+passionate emotion, and the hearts so violently wrenched asunder once
+more throbbed against each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest, beloved Ernest!"</p>
+
+<p>"Temptress, sorceress!" he suddenly exclaimed, pushing me from him with
+frenzied gesture,&mdash;"you have come to destroy my soul,&mdash;I have broken my
+solemn vow,&mdash;I have incurred the vengeance of Almighty God. Peace was
+flowing over me like a river, but now all the waves and billows of
+passion are gone over me. I sink,&mdash;I perish, and you, you,&mdash;Gabriella,
+it is you who plunge me in the black abyss of perjury and guilt."</p>
+
+<p>I was terrified at the dark despair that settled on his brow. I feared
+his reason was forsaking him, and that I, in my rashness, had
+accelerated his doom.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not, do not talk so dreadfully, Ernest. Forgive me, if I have done
+wrong in coming. Forgive me, if for one moment I recalled you to the
+tenderness you have so long abjured. But mine is the offence, and mine
+be the sorrow. Do not, I pray you, blame yourself so cruelly for my
+transgression, if it indeed be one. Oh, Ernest, how pale, how wretched
+you look! You are killing yourself and me,&mdash;your mother too. We cannot
+live in this state of alienation. The time of your vow is only half
+expired,&mdash;only twenty days are past, and they seem twenty years of woe.
+Dear Ernest, you are tempting God by this. One tear of penitence, one
+look of faith, one prayer to Christ for mercy, are worth more than years
+of penance and lonely torture. Revoke this rash vow. Come back to us, my
+Ernest,&mdash;come down from the wilderness, leave the desolate places of
+despair, and come where blessings wait you. Your mother waits to bless
+you,&mdash;Edith waits you to greet and welcome her Julian,&mdash;Margaret, a
+happy bride, waits your friendly congratulations. Come, and disperse by
+your presence the shadow that rests on the household."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you indeed counsel me to break a solemn vow, Gabriella? It may
+have been rash; but it was a vow; and were I to break it, I should feel
+forever dishonored in the sight of God and man."</p>
+
+<p>"Which, think you, had more weight when placed in the scales of eternal
+justice, Herod's rash vow, or the life of the holy prophet sacrificed to
+fulfil it? O Ernest!&mdash;wild, impulsive words forced from the lips of
+passion should never be made guides of action. It is wrong, I know, to
+speak unwisely and madly, but doubly, trebly wrong to act so."</p>
+
+<p>As thus I pleaded and reasoned and entreated, I kept my earnest gaze on
+his face, and eagerly watched,&mdash;watched with trembling hope and fear the
+effect of my words. I had drawn back from him as far as the width of the
+library, and my hands were clasped together and pressed upon my bosom. I
+did not know that I stood directly beneath the picture of the Italian
+flower-girl, till I saw his glance uplifted from my face to hers, with
+an expression that recalled the morning when he found me gazing on her
+features, in all the glow of youth, love, joy, and hope. Then I
+remembered how he had scattered my rose leaves beneath his feet, and
+what a prophetic sadness had then shaded my spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my poor Gabriella," he cried, looking down from the picture to
+me, with an expression of the tenderest compassion; "Alas, my
+flower-girl! how have I wilted your blooming youth! You are pale, my
+girl, and sad,&mdash;that bewitching smile no longer parts your glowing lips.
+Would to God I had never crossed your path of roses with my withering
+footsteps! Would to God I had never linked your young, confiding heart
+to mine, so blasted by suspicion, so consumed by jealousy's baleful
+fires! Yet, Heaven knows I meant to make you happy. I meant to watch
+over you as tenderly as the mother over her new-born infant,&mdash;as holily
+as the devotee over the shrine of the saint he adores. How faithless I
+have been to this guardianship of love, you know too well. I have been a
+madman, a monster,&mdash;you know I have,&mdash;worthy of eternal detestation. But
+you have not suffered alone. Remorse&mdash;unquenchable fire;
+remorse&mdash;undying worm, avenges every pang I have inflicted on you.
+Remorse goaded me to desperation,&mdash;desperation prompted the expiatory
+vow. It must be fulfilled, or I shall forfeit my self-respect, my honor,
+and truth. But I shall be better, stronger,&mdash;I feel I shall, after
+passing this stern ordeal. It will soon be over, and I have a confidence
+so firm that it has the strength of conviction, that in this lonely
+conflict with the powers of darkness I shall come off conqueror, through
+God's assisting angels."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with fervor, and his countenance lighted up with enthusiasm.
+Bodily weakness and languor had disappeared, and his transparent cheek
+glowed with the excitement of his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are really thus supported by divine enthusiasm," I said, with an
+involuntary kindling of admiration, "perhaps I ought to submit in
+silence, where I cannot understand. Forgive me before I leave you,
+Ernest, this rash intrusion. We may forgive even our enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive, Gabriella! Oh! if you knew the flood of joy and rapture that
+for one moment deluged my soul! I dare not recall it. Forgive, O my
+God!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned away, covered his face with his left hand, and made a
+repelling gesture with the other. I understood the motion, and obeyed
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Ernest," said I, slowly retreating; "may angels minister to
+you and bear up your spirit on their wings of love!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked back, on the threshold, and met his glance then turned towards
+me. Had I been one of the angels I invoked, it could not have been more
+adoring.</p>
+
+<p>And thus we parted; and when I attempted to describe the interview to
+his mother, I wept and sobbed as if I had been paying a visit to his
+grave. And yet I was glad that I had been, glad that I had bridged the
+gulf that separated us, though but momentarily.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps some may smile at this record. I have no doubt they will, and
+pronounce the character of Ernest unnatural and <i>impossible</i>. But in all
+his idiosyncrasy, he is the Ernest Linwood of Grandison Place, just such
+as I have delineated him, just such as I knew and loved. I know that
+there are scenes that have seemed, that will seem, overwrought, and I
+have often been tempted to throw down the pen, regretting the task I
+have undertaken. But, were we permitted to steal behind the scenes of
+many a life drama, what startling discoveries would we make! Reality
+goes beyond the wildest imaginings of romance,&mdash;beyond the majestic
+sweep of human genius. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor imagination
+conceived, the wild extent to which the passions of man may go. The
+empire of passion is veiled, and its battle ground is secret Who beheld
+the interview in the library, which I have just described? Who saw him
+kneeling at his mother's feet at the midnight hour? Or who witnessed our
+scenes of agony and reconciliation in the palace walls of our winter
+home? Ah! the world sees only the surface of the great deep of the
+heart. It has never plunged into the innermost main,&mdash;never beheld the
+seething and the rolling of the unfathomable mystery:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And where is the diver so stout to go,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I ask ye again&mdash;to the deep below?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Well do I remember the thrilling legend of the roaring whirlpools, the
+golden goblet, and the dauntless diver, and well do I read its meaning.</p>
+
+<p>O Ernest! I have cast the golden goblet of happiness into a maelstrom,
+and he alone, who walked unsinking the waves of Galilee, can bring back
+the lost treasure from the dark and boiling vortex.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Julian was worthy of Edith. His parentage was honorable and pure, his
+connections irreproachable, and his own character noble and unblemished.
+Reason could oppose no obstacle, and the young artist was received into
+the family as the betrothed of the lovely lame girl.</p>
+
+<p>The romantic idea which had suggested itself to my mind, that he might
+be the son of Ther&eacute;sa and my own half-brother, had vanished before the
+testimonies of his birth. Another daydream too. I had always looked
+forward to the hour when Richard would transfer his affections to Edith,
+and be rewarded by her love for his youthful disappointment. But she was
+destined to reign in undivided sovereignty over a heart that had never
+been devoted to another; to be loved with all the fervor of passion and
+all the enthusiasm of genius.</p>
+
+<p>It was the day of social gathering at Dr. Harlowe's; but I remained at
+home. I felt as if I could not be missed from the circle in which Madge,
+in bridal charms, sparkled a ruby gem, and the fairer Edith shone, a
+living pearl. Though scarcely one year a wife, the discipline of my
+wedded experience had so chastened and subdued me, I seemed to myself
+quite a matron, beside those on whom the morning glow of love and hope
+were beaming. Madge and Edith were both older than myself, and yet I had
+begun to live far earlier.</p>
+
+<p>In the later part of the day, Mrs. Linwood, who had also remained at
+home, asked me to accompany her in a ride. She wished to visit several
+who were sick and afflicted, and I always felt it a privilege to be her
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you object to calling here?" she asked, when we approached the old
+gray cottage, once my mother's home and my own. "There is a sick woman
+here, whom I wish to see. You can walk about the green skirting the
+woods, if you prefer. This enchanting breeze will give new life to your
+body and new brightness to your spirits."</p>
+
+<p>I thanked her for the permission, knowing well the kind regard to my
+feelings which induced her to give it. She knew sad memories must hang
+around the apartments where my mother and the faithful Peggy had
+suffered and died; and that it would be a trial to me to see strangers
+occupying the places so hallowed by association.</p>
+
+<p>Time had been at work on that old cottage, with its noiseless but
+effacing fingers. And its embroidering fingers too, for the roof from
+which many a shingle had fallen, was green with garlands of moss,
+wrought into the damp and mouldering wood with exquisite grace and
+skill. I turned away with a sigh, and beheld infancy by the side of the
+humble ruin, the oriental palace which was my bridal home, and wondered
+at the marvellous changes of life.</p>
+
+<p>I wandered to the welling spring by whose gushing waters I had so often
+sat, indulging the wild poetry of my childish imagination. I gazed
+around, scarcely recognizing the once enchanting spot. A stone had
+literally rolled against the mouth of the fountain, and the crystal
+diamonds no longer sparkled in the basin below. An awkward pump, put up
+near the cabin, explained this appearance of neglect and wildness. The
+soft grassy slope where I used to recline and watch the fountain's
+silvery play, was overgrown with tall, rank, rustling weeds, among which
+I could distinguish the deadly bloom and sickening odor of the
+nightshade. There was a rock covered with the brightest, richest
+covering of dark green moss, on which I seated myself, and gave myself
+up to the memories of the past. Perhaps this was the same rock on which
+Richard Clyde and I had often sat side by side, and watched the shadows
+of twilight purple the valley.</p>
+
+<p>I untied my bonnet and laid it on the long grass, for I was shaded from
+the western sun, and the breeze blew fresh and pure from the hills he
+was about to crown with a right royal diadem. While I thus sat, I heard
+footsteps quick and eager echoing behind, and Richard Clyde bounded down
+the slope and threw himself on the ground at my side.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank heaven," he exclaimed, "I have found you, Gabriella, and found
+you alone!"</p>
+
+<p>His manner was hurried and agitated, his eyes had a wild expression, and
+tossing aside his hat, he wiped thick-coming drops of perspiration from
+his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>His words, and the unusual excitement of his manner, alarmed me.</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened, Richard? Where have you sought me? What tidings have
+you to communicate? Speak, and tell me, for I tremble with fear."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so agitated," he cried, sitting down on the rock at my side, and
+taking one of my hands in his. I started, for his was so icy cold and
+tremulous, and his face was as pale as Ernest's. He looked like one who
+had escaped some terrible danger, and in whose bosom horror and
+gratitude were struggling for mastery.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it of Ernest you have come to tell me?" I asked, with blanched lips.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no! I know nothing of him. It is of myself,&mdash;of you, I would
+speak. I have just made the most astonishing discovery! Never till now
+have I heard your real name and early history. O! Gabriella you whom I
+have loved so long with such fervor, such passion, such idolatry,&mdash;you
+(O righteous God forgive me!) are the daughter of my father,&mdash;for
+Ther&eacute;sa La Fontaine was my own mother. Gabriella,&mdash;sister,&mdash;beloved!"</p>
+
+<p>He clasped me to his bosom; he kissed me again and again, weeping and
+sobbing like a child. In broken words he deplored his sinful passion,
+entreating me to forgive him, to love him as a brother, to cling to him
+as a friend, and feel that there was one who would live to protect, or
+die to defend me. Bewildered and enraptured by this most unthought of
+and astounding discovery, my heart acknowledged its truth and glowed
+with gratitude and joy. Richard, the noble-hearted, gallant Richard, was
+my brother! My soul's desire was satisfied. How I had yearned for a
+brother! and to find him,&mdash;and such a brother! Oh I joy unspeakable. Oh!
+how strange,&mdash;how passing strange,&mdash;how almost passing credulity!</p>
+
+<p>At any moment this discovery would have been welcomed with rapture. But
+now, when the voluntary estrangement of Ernest had thrown my warm
+affections back for the time into my own bosom, to pine for want of
+cherishing, it came like a burst of sunshine after a long and dreary
+darkness,&mdash;like the music of gushing waters to the feverish and thirsty
+pilgrim.</p>
+
+<p>My heart was too full for questions, and his for explanations. They
+would come in due time. He was <i>my brother</i>,&mdash;that was enough. Ernest
+could not be jealous of a brother's love. He would own with pride the
+fraternal bond, and forget the father's crimes in the son's virtues.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed but a moment since Richard had called me sister. Neither of us
+had spoken, for tears choked our words; but our arms were still
+entwined, and my head rested on his bosom, in all the abandonment of
+nature's holiest feelings. All at once I heard a rustling in the grass,
+soft and stealthy like a gliding snake. I raised my head, looked back,
+looked up.</p>
+
+<p>Merciful Father of heaven and earth! did I not then pass the agonies of
+death?</p>
+
+<p>I saw a face,&mdash;my God! how dark, how deadly, how terrible it was! I knew
+that face, and my heart was rifted as if by a thunderbolt.</p>
+
+<p>The loud report of a pistol, and a shriek such as never before
+issued from mortal lips, bursting from mine, were simultaneous
+sounds. Richard fell back with a deep groan. Then there seemed a
+rushing sound as the breaking up of the great deep, a heaving and
+tossing like the throes of an earthquake; then a sinking, sinking,
+lower and lower, and then a cloud black as night and heavy as iron
+came lowering and crushing me,&mdash;me, and the bleeding Richard. All was
+darkness,&mdash;silence,&mdash;oblivion.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A light, soft and glimmering as morning twilight, floated round me. Was
+it the dawn of an eternal morning, or the lingering radiance of life's
+departing day? Did my spirit animate the motionless body extended on
+that snowy bed, or was it hovering, faint and invisible, above the
+confines of mortality?</p>
+
+<p>I was just awakened to the consciousness of existence,&mdash;a dim, vague
+consciousness, such as one feels in a dissolving dream. I seemed
+involved in a white, transparent cloud, and reclining on one of those
+downy-looking cloud-beds that I have seen waiting to receive the sinking
+sun.</p>
+
+<p>While thus I lay, living the dawning life of infancy, the white cloud
+softly rolled on one side, and a figure appeared in the opening, that
+belonged to a previous state of existence. I had seen its mild
+lineaments in another world; but when,&mdash;how long ago?</p>
+
+<p>My eyes rested on the features of the lady till they grew more and more
+familiar, but there was a white cloud round her face, that threw a
+mournful shadow over it,&mdash;<i>that</i> I had never seen before. Again my
+eyelids closed, and I seemed passing away, where, I knew not; yet
+consciousness remained. I felt soft, trembling kisses breathed upon my
+face, and tears too, mingling with their balm. With a delicious
+perception of tenderness, watchfulness, and love, I sunk into a deep,
+deep sleep.</p>
+
+<p>When I awoke, the silver lustre of an astral lamp, shaded by a screen,
+glimmered in the apartment and quivered like moonbeams in the white
+drapery that curtained the bed. I knew where I was,&mdash;I was in my own
+chamber, and the lady who sat by my bedside, and whose profile I beheld
+through the parted folds of the curtains, was Mrs. Linwood. And yet, how
+strange! It must have been years since we had met, for the lovely brown
+of her hair was now a pale silver gray, and age had laid its withering
+hand on her brow. With a faint cry, I ejaculated her name, and attempted
+to raise my head from the pillow, but in vain. I had no power of motion.
+Even the exertion of uttering her name was beyond my strength. She rose,
+bent over me, looked earnestly and long into the eyes uplifted to her
+face, then dropping on her knees and clasping her hands, her spirit went
+upwards in silent prayer.</p>
+
+<p>As thus she knelt, and I gazed on her upturned countenance, shaded by
+that strange, mournful, silver cloud, my thoughts began to shape
+themselves slowly and gradually, as the features of a landscape through
+dissolving mists. They trembled as the foliage trembles in the breeze
+that disperses the vapors. Images of the past gained distinctness of
+outline and coloring, and all at once, like the black hull, broken mast,
+and rent sails of a wrecked vessel, one awful scene rose before me. The
+face, like that of the angel of death, the sound terrible as the
+thunders of doom, the bleeding body that my arms encircled, the
+destroying husband,&mdash;the victim brother,&mdash;all came back to me;
+life,&mdash;memory,&mdash;grief,&mdash;horror,&mdash;all came back.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest! Richard!" burst in anguish from my feeble lips.</p>
+
+<p>"They live! my child, they live!" said Mrs. Linwood, rising from her
+knees and taking my passive hand in both hers; "but ask nothing now; you
+have been very ill, you are weak as an infant; you must be tranquil,
+patient, and submissive; and grateful, too, to a God of infinite mercy.
+When you are stronger I will talk to you, but not now. You must yield
+yourself to my guidance, in the spirit of an unweaned child."</p>
+
+<p>"They live!" repeated I to myself, "my God, I bless thee! I lie at thy
+footstool. I am willing to die; I long to die. Let the waves of eternity
+roll over my soul."</p>
+
+<p>Husband and brother! they lived, and yet neither came to me on my couch
+of sickness. But Richard! had not I seen him bleeding, insensible, the
+image of death? he lived, yet he might be on the borders of the grave.
+But she had commanded me to be silent, submissive, and grateful; and I
+tried to obey her. My physical weakness was such, it subdued the
+paroxysms of mental agony, and the composing draught which she gave me
+was a blessed Nepenthe, producing oblivion and repose.</p>
+
+<p>The next day I recognized Dr. Harlowe, the excellent and beloved
+physician. When I called him by name, as he stood by the bed, counting
+my languid pulse, the good man turned aside his head to hide the
+womanish tears that moistened his cheeks. Then looking down on me with a
+benignant smile, he said, smoothing my hair on my forehead, as if I were
+a little child&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Be a good girl; keep quiet; be patient as a lamb, and you will soon be
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"How long have I been ill, Doctor?" I asked. "I am very foolish, I know;
+but it seems as if even you look older than you did."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, my dear, how long you have been sick. I mean to have you
+well in a short time. Perhaps I do look a little older, for I have
+forgotten to shave this morning."</p>
+
+<p>While he was speaking, I caught a glimpse of the lawn through a slight
+opening in the window curtain, and I uttered an exclamation of amazement
+and alarm. The trees which I had last beheld clothed in a foliage of
+living green, were covered with the golden tints of autumn; and here and
+there a naked bough, with prophetic desolation, waved its arm across the
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>Where had my spirit been while the waning year had rolled on? Where was
+Ernest? Where was Richard? Why was I forsaken and alone?</p>
+
+<p>These questions quivered on my tongue, and would have utterance.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Doctor,&mdash;I cannot live in this dreadful suspense."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down by me, still holding my hand in his, and promised to tell
+me, if I would be calm and passive. He told me that for two months I had
+been in a state of alternate insensibility and delirium, that they had
+despaired of my life, and that they welcomed me as one risen from the
+grave. He told me that Ernest had left home, in consequence of the
+prayers of his mother, till Richard should recover from the effects of
+his wound, which they at first feared would prove fatal; that Richard
+was convalescent, was under the same roof with me, and would see me as
+soon as I could bear the meeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest knows that he is my brother,&mdash;he knows that I am innocent," I
+exclaimed, my whole soul trembling on his answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust he knows it now," he replied, with a troubled countenance. "His
+mother has written and told him all. We were ignorant ourselves of this,
+you must recollect, till Richard was able to explain it."</p>
+
+<p>"And he went away believing me a wretch!" I cried, in a tone of
+unutterable agony. "He will never, never return!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child," replied Dr. Harlowe, in an accent of kind authority,
+"you have no right to murmur; you have been spared the most awful
+infliction a sovereign God could lay upon you,&mdash;a brother's life taken
+by a husband's hand. Praise the Almighty day and night, bless Him
+without ceasing, that He has lifted from your bosom this weight of woe.
+Be reconciled to your husband's absence. Mourn not for a separation
+which may prove the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon both. All may
+yet be well. <i>It will be</i>, if God wills it; and if He wills it not, my
+dear child, you must then lay your hand on your mouth, and your mouth in
+the dust, and say, 'It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth good in His
+sight.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it,&mdash;I feel it," I answered, tears raining on my pillow; "but
+let me see my brother. It will do me good."</p>
+
+<p>"By and by," said he; "he is not very strong himself yet. The young
+rascal! if he had only confided to me the secret with which his heart
+was bursting! But there is no use in crying over burnt bread. We must
+keep it out of the fire next time."</p>
+
+<p>The entrance of Edith checked this conversation, and it was well. She
+came with her usual gentle motion, and fair, pitying countenance, and
+diffused around her an atmosphere of divine repose. My brain, relieved
+of the dreadful tension of suspense, throbbed soft and cool beneath the
+snow of her loving fingers. She, too, was pale and wan, but she smiled
+upon me with glistening eyes, and whispered words of sweetest
+consolation.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till after the lapse of several days that I was permitted to
+see Richard, and then the doctor said he deserved a good whipping for
+insisting on coming. He came into the room leaning on the arm of Dr.
+Harlowe, and supported on the other side by Mrs. Linwood. He looked like
+the shadow of his former self,&mdash;so white, so thin and languid, and his
+countenance showed as plainly as words could speak, that he was struck
+with the same sad change in me.</p>
+
+<p>"Now no heroics, no scene," said the doctor; "say how do you do, and
+shake hands, but not one bit of sentiment,&mdash;I forbid that entirely."</p>
+
+<p>"My sister, my dear sister!" said Richard, bending down and kissing my
+forehead. He reeled as he lifted his head, and would have fallen had not
+Dr. Harlowe's strong arm supported him.</p>
+
+<p>I longed to embrace him with all a sister's fondness, and pour out on
+his bosom all my sorrow and my love; but the doctor was imperative, and
+made him recline in an easy-chair by the bedside, threatening him with
+instant dismission if he were not perfectly quiet and obedient. I saw
+Richard start and shudder, as his eyes rested on my left arm, which hung
+over the counterpane. The sleeve of my loose robe had slipped up, baring
+the arm below the elbow. The start, the shudder, the look of anguish,
+made me involuntarily raise it, and then I saw a scar, as of a recently
+healed wound just below the elbow. I understood it all. The ball that
+had penetrated his back, had passed through my arm, and thus prevented
+it from reaching the citadel of life. That feeble arm had been his
+safeguard and his shield; it had intercepted the bolt of death; it had
+barricaded, as it were, the gates of hell.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood, who was standing by me, stooped down, kissed the scar, and
+drew the sleeve gently over it. As she bowed her head, and I saw the
+silver shadow on her late dark, brown hair, I felt how intense must have
+been the suffering that wrought this wondrous change,&mdash;and I resolved to
+bear unmurmuring my own sorrows, rather than add a feather's weight to
+her burden of woe.</p>
+
+<p>I remembered how the queenly locks of Marie Antoinette were whitened in
+one night of agony. Perhaps my own dark tresses were crowned by
+premature snow. I had not seen myself since the green of summer had
+passed into the "sere and yellow leaf," and perhaps the blight of my
+heart was visible on my brow. When I was alone with Edith, I surprised
+her by asking if my hair were not white. She smiled, and bringing a
+toilet glass, held it before me. What was my astonishment to see my hair
+curling in short waves round my face, like the locks of childhood! And
+such a face,&mdash;so white, so colorless. I hardly recognized myself, and
+pushing back the glass, I burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Gabriella!" said Edith, quite distressed, "I am sorry they cut off
+your beautiful hair. But the doctor said it must be done. It does not
+spoil you, though. You do not know how sweetly childish it makes you
+look."</p>
+
+<p>"I care not for the looks, Edith; it is not that. But it is so dreadful
+to think of so many changes, and I unconscious of all. Such a long,
+dreary blank! Where was my soul wandering? What fearful scenes may
+hereafter dawn on my memory? Beauty! No, Edith; think not I weep for the
+cloud that has passed over it. The only eyes in which I desired to
+appear lovely, will never behold me more."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not be the only sufferer, Gabriella," said Edith, mournfully.
+"A dreadful blow has fallen upon us all; but for our mother's sake, if
+not for a greater, we must endeavor to submit."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Edith, what I dare not ask of her, tell me where <i>he</i> is gone,
+and tell me the particulars of those first dark hours when my soul was
+in such awful eclipse. I <i>must</i> know; and when once told, I shall be
+resigned, whatever be my fate."</p>
+
+<p>Edith seated herself on the side of the bed, and leaned back so that I
+could not look in her face. Then putting her arms round me, she drew me
+towards her, and made me rest against her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"If you grieve to listen, think how painful it is for me to relate,"
+said she.</p>
+
+<p>"I will," I answered; "I shall have strength to hear whatever you have
+fortitude to tell."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not ask a minute description of what will always be involved
+in my remembrance in a horror of thick darkness. I know not how I got
+home from Dr. Harlowe's, where the tidings reached me. My mother brought
+you in the carriage, supported in her arms; and when I first saw you,
+you were lying just where you are now, perfectly insensible. Richard was
+carried to Dr. Harlowe's on a litter, and it was <i>then</i> feared he might
+not live."</p>
+
+<p>Edith's voice faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"It was after sunset. The saloon was dark, and all was gloom and
+confusion in the household. Mamma and I were standing by your bed, with
+our backs to the door, when we heard a hoarse, low voice behind us,
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Is she dead?'</p>
+
+<p>"We turned, and beheld Ernest right in the door way, looking more like a
+spectre than a human being.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, no,' answered my mother; and almost running to meet him, she
+seized him by the arm, drew him into the chamber, and closed the door.
+He struggled to be released; but she seemed to have the strength of
+numbers in her single grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"'She is not dead,' said she, pointing to the bed, 'though she hears,
+sees, knows nothing; but Richard will die, and you will be arrested as a
+murderer. You must not linger here one moment. Go, and save yourself
+from the consequences of this fatal act. Go, if you would not see me,
+your mother, die in agony at your feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Gabriella, had you seen her then, her who has such sublime
+self-control, prostrate at his feet, wringing her hands and entreating
+him to fly before it was too late, you would not wonder that the morning
+sun shone on her silver hair.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will not fly the death for which I groan,' cried Ernest. 'Had I ten
+thousand lives, I would loathe and curse them all.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Parricide, parricide,' exclaimed my mother, 'wo, wo be to him who
+spurns a kneeling mother's prayer.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh! my mother,' cried he, endeavoring to raise her from the ground,
+while he shook as if with ague shiverings. 'I do not spurn you; but why
+should I live, with a brand blacker than Cain's on my heart and
+soul,&mdash;crushed, smitten, dishonored, and undone?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Forbear, my son. This blighted form is sacred as it is spotless. Has
+not blood quenched your maniac passion?'</p>
+
+<p>"The eyes of Ernest flashed with lurid fire.</p>
+
+<p>"'Locked in each other's arms they fell,' he muttered through his shut
+teeth, 'heart to heart, mother. I saw them, and God, who will judge me,
+saw them. No, she is <i>false, false, false</i>,&mdash;<i>false</i> as the lost angels
+who fell from paradise into the burning pit of doom.'</p>
+
+<p>"But what am I doing, Gabriella? I did not mean to repeat this. I had
+become so excited by the remembrance of that terrible scene, I knew not
+what I was saying. You cannot bear it. I must not go on. What would my
+mother, what would Dr. Harlowe say, if they knew of this?"</p>
+
+<p>I entreated her to continue. I told her that nothing she had said was
+half so dreadful as my imagination had depicted, that I grew strong with
+my need of strength.</p>
+
+<p>"And you and your mother believed him," I said, with astonishing
+calmness; "you knew not that Richard was my brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Had it not been for your wounded arm," replied Edith, laying her hand
+gently on the scar, "we should have supposed he was under a strong
+delusion to believe a lie. Appearances were against you, and your
+condemnation was my brother's palliation, if not acquittal. My mother
+continued her supplications, mingled with tears and sighs that seemed to
+rend the life from her bosom; and I, Gabriella, do you think <i>I</i> was
+silent and passive? I, who would willingly have laid down my life for
+his? We prevailed,&mdash;he yielded,&mdash;he left us in the darkness of
+night,&mdash;the darkness of despair. It is more than two months since, and
+we have received no tidings of the wanderer. My mother urged him to go
+to New York and remain till he heard the fate of Richard. She has
+written to him there, again and again, but as yet has received no
+answer."</p>
+
+<p>"And he went without one farewell look of her whom he deemed so
+vile,&mdash;so lost?" said I, pressing Edith's hand against my cold and
+sinking heart.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Gabriella. His last act was to kneel by your side, and pray God to
+forgive you both. Twice he went to the door, then coming back he bent
+over you as if he would clasp you in his arms; then with a wild
+ejaculation he turned away. Never saw I such anguish in the human
+countenance."</p>
+
+<p>"I have but one question more to ask," said I, after a long pause, whose
+dreariness was that which follows the falling of the clods in the grave
+hollow. "How did Ernest know that Richard was with me, when we left him
+alone in the library?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Harlowe accidentally alluded to your father's history before
+Richard, who, you recollect, was in foreign lands during the excitement
+it caused, and had never heard the circumstances. As soon as he heard
+the name of St. James, I saw him start, and turn to the doctor with a
+flushed and eager countenance. Then he drew him one side, and they
+conversed together some time in a low undertone; and Richard's face, red
+one moment and white the next, flashed with strange and shifting
+emotions. At the time when your father's name obtained such unhappy
+notoriety, and yours through him, in the public papers, my mother
+confided to Dr. Harlowe, who was greatly troubled on your account, the
+particulars of your mother's life. She thought it due to your mother's
+memory, and his steady friendship. I know not how much he told Richard,
+whose manner evidently surprised him, but we all noticed that he was
+greatly agitated; and then he abruptly took leave. He came immediately
+here, and inquired for you, asked where you were gone, and hurried away
+as if on an errand of life and death. Ernest, who was passing along the
+winding gallery, heard him, and followed."</p>
+
+<p>Another dreary pause. Then I remembered Julian, and the love-light that
+had illumined them both that memorable evening. Edith had not once
+alluded to her own clouded hopes. She seemed to have forgotten herself
+in her mother's griefs and mine.</p>
+
+<p>"And Julian, my beloved Edith? There is a future for you, a happy one,
+is there not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not expect happiness," she answered, with a sigh; "but Julian's
+love will gild the gloom of sorrow, and be the rainbow of my clouded
+days. He will return in the winter, and then perhaps he will not leave
+me again. I cannot quit my mother; but he can take a son's place in her
+desolated home. No garlands of roses will twine round my bridal hours,
+for they are all withered, all but the rose of Sharon, Gabriella, whose
+sacred bloom can never fade away. It is the only flower worth
+cherishing,&mdash;the only one without thorns, and without blight."</p>
+
+<p>Softly withdrawing her supporting arms, she suffered me to sink back on
+the pillow, gave me a reviving cordial, drew the curtains, and taking up
+a book, seemed absorbed in its contents. I closed my eyes and appeared
+to sleep, that she might not suppose her narration had banished repose.
+I had anticipated all she uttered; but the certainty of desolation is
+different to the agonies of suspense. I could have borne the separation
+from Ernest; but that he should believe me the false, guilty wretch I
+had seemed to be, inflicted pangs sharper than the vulture's beak or the
+arrow's barb. If he had left the country, as there was every reason to
+suppose he had, with this conviction, he never would return; and the
+loneliness and dreariness of a widowhood more sad than that which death
+creates, would settle down darkly and heavily on my young life.</p>
+
+<p>I did not blame him for the rash deed he had wrought, for it was a
+madman's act. When I recalled the circumstances, I did not wonder at the
+frantic passion that dyed his hand in blood; and yet I could not blame
+myself. Had I shrunk from a brother's embrace, I should have been either
+more or less than woman. I had yielded to a divine impulse, and could
+appeal to nature and Heaven for justification.</p>
+
+<p>But I had sinned. I had broken the canons of the living God, and
+deserved a fearful chastisement. I had made unto myself an idol, and no
+pagan idolater ever worshipped at his unhallowed shrine with more blind
+devotion. I had been true to Ernest, but false to my Maker, the one
+great and <i>jealous</i> God. I had lived but for one object, and that object
+was withdrawn, leaving all creation a blank.</p>
+
+<p>I stood upon the lonely strand, the cold waves beating against my feet,
+and the bleak winds piercing through my unsheltered heart. I stretched
+out my arms to the wild waste of waters, in whose billows my life-boat
+was whelmed, and I called, but there was none to answer. I cried for
+help, but none came. Then I looked up to heaven, and high above the
+darkness of the tempest and the gloom of the deep, one star shining in
+solitary glory arrested my despairing gaze. I had seen it before with
+the eye of faith, but never beaming with such holy lustre as now, when
+all other lights were withdrawn.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dawn on my darkness, and lend me thine aid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Star of the East, the horizon adorning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Why, tender and pitying Saviour, do we wait for the night time of sorrow
+to fathom the depths of thy love and compassion? Why must every fountain
+of earthly joy be dried up, before we bow to taste the waters of Kedron;
+and every blossom of love be withered, before we follow thee to the
+garden of Gethsemane?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Though the circumstance of discovering a brother in the lover of my
+youth seems more like romance than reality, nothing could be more simple
+and natural than the explanation of the mystery. His recollection did
+not go back to the period recorded in my mother's manuscript, when he
+was brought as a lawful heir to the home in which my early infancy was
+sheltered. His first remembrances were associated with a mother's sorrow
+and loneliness,&mdash;with an humble dwelling in one of the by-lanes of the
+city of New York, where she toiled with her needle for their daily
+bread.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," said Richard, "how I used to sit on a low stool at my
+mother's feet, and watch her, as she wrought in muslin the most
+beautiful flowers and devices, with a skill and rapidity which seemed
+miraculous to me. Young as I was, I used to wonder that any one could
+look so sad, while producing such charming figures. Once, I recollect,
+the needle resisted her efforts to draw it through the muslin. She threw
+it from her, and taking another from the needle-case met with no better
+success.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Oh! mon Dieu!</i>' she cried, dropping her work in her lap and clasping
+her hands, 'my tears rust them.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And why do you let so many fall, mother?' I asked. 'Where do they all
+come from?'</p>
+
+<p>"'From a breaking heart,' she answered, and I never forgot her looks or
+her words. The breaking heart became an image in my mind, almost as
+distinct as the rusted steel. For a long time I was afraid to jump or
+bound about the room, lest the fracture in my mother's heart should be
+made wider, and more tears come gushing through.</p>
+
+<p>"But she did not always weep. She taught me to read, while she toiled
+with her needle, and she told me tales of the genii and of fairy-land,
+at twilight hour, or as she used to say, '<i>entre le loup et le chien</i>,'
+in her own expressive, idiomatic language. She told me, too, stories
+from the Bible, before I was able to read them, of Isaac bound on the
+sacrificial pyre, with his father kneeling by him, ready to plunge the
+knife in his young heart, when the angels called to him out of heaven to
+stay his uplifted hand; of Joseph's wondrous history, from his coat of
+many colors, fatal cause of fraternal jealousy, to the royal robes and
+golden chain with which Pharaoh invested him; of David, the
+shepherd-boy, the minstrel monarch, the conqueror of Philistia's giant
+chief. It was thus she employed the dim hours between the setting sun
+and the rising stars; but the moment she lighted her lonely lamp she
+again plied her busy needle, though alas! too often rusted with her
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus my early childhood passed,&mdash;and every day my heart twined more
+closely round my mother's heart, and I began to form great plans of
+future achievements to be wrought for her. I would be a second Joseph
+and go to some distant land and win fame, and honors, and wealth, and
+send for her that I might lay them all at her feet. She would not, at
+first, recognize her boy in the purple and fine linen of his sumptuous
+attire; but I would fall on her neck, and lift up my voice and weep
+aloud, and then she would know her child. A mother's tears, Gabriella,
+nurture great aspirations in a child.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to accompany her to the shop when she carried home her work. It
+was there she first met the gentleman whose name I bear. Their
+acquaintance commenced through me, to whom he seemed peculiarly
+attracted, and he won my admiring gratitude by the gifts he lavished
+upon me. He came often to see my mother, and though at first she shrunk
+from his visits, she gradually came to welcome him as a friend and a
+benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>"One evening, I think I was about eight or nine years old, she took me
+in her arms, and told me, with many tears, that Mr. Clyde, the good and
+kind gentleman whom I loved so much, had offered to be a father to me,
+and was going to take us both to a pleasant home in the country, where I
+could run about in the green fields, and be free as the birds of the
+air. She told me that perhaps my own father was living, but that he had
+left her so long their union was annulled by law, and that she had a
+right to marry another, and that she did so that I might have a father
+and protector. She explained this simply, so that I understood it all,
+and I understood too why she wished me to drop my own name and take that
+of her future husband. It was associated with so much sorrow and wrong,
+it was painful to her ear, and Mr. Clyde wished me to adopt his own. He
+was a good and honorable man, and I cherish his memory with reverence
+and gratitude. If the fissure in my mother's heart was not healed, it
+closed, and tears no longer dripped through.</p>
+
+<p>"Our country home was pleasant and comfortable, and I revelled in the
+delights of nature, with all the wild passion of a bird let loose from
+the imprisoning cage. I went to school,&mdash;I was in the world of
+action,&mdash;the energies of incipient manhood awoke and struggled in my
+bosom. We remained about two years in this rural residence, situated in
+the western part of New York, when Mr. Clyde was called to attend a
+dying father, who lived in this town, Gabriella, not very far from the
+little cottage in the woods where I first knew you. He took my mother
+and myself with him, for she was in feeble health, and he thought the
+journey would invigorate her. It did not. A child of sunny France, she
+languished under the bleaker New England skies. She was never able to
+return; and he who came to bury a father, soon laid a beloved wife by
+the side of the aged. My heart went down to the grave with her, and it
+was long before its resurrection. My step-father was completely crushed
+by the blow, for he loved her as such a woman deserved to be loved, and
+mourned as few mourn. He remained with his aged mother in the old
+homestead, which she refused to leave, and I was placed in the academy
+under the charge of Mr. Regulus, where I first knew and loved you, my
+own sister, my darling, beloved Gabriella."</p>
+
+<p>If I had loved Richard before, how much more did I love him now, after
+hearing his simple and affecting history, so similar to my own. As I had
+never loved him otherwise than as a brother, the revelation which had
+caused such a terrible revulsion in his feelings was a sacred sanction
+to mine. His nerves still vibrated from the shock, and he could not
+pronounce the word sister without a tremulousness of voice which
+betrayed internal agitation.</p>
+
+<p>He had but little more to relate. His step-father was dead, and as there
+was found to be a heavy mortgage on his estate, he was left with a
+moderate income, sufficient to give him an education and a start in
+life. His expenses in Europe had been defrayed by some liberal
+gentlemen, who still considered themselves the guardians of his
+reputation and his fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>It was painful to me to tell the story of our father's crimes, of which
+he had heard but a slight outline. When I described our interview in the
+Park, he knit his brows over his flashing eyes, and his whole frame
+quivered with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor sister! what a dreadful scene for you. What have you not
+suffered! but you shall never know another sorrow from which I can
+shield you, another wrong from which I can defend."</p>
+
+<p>"O Richard! when I think of him in his lonely dungeon, alone with
+remorse and horror; when I think of my mother's dying injunctions, I
+feel as if I must go to him, and fulfil the holy mission she bade me
+perform. Read her manuscript; you have a right to its contents, though
+they will rend your heart to peruse them; take it with you to your own
+room, when you go, for I cannot look on and see you read words that have
+been driven like burning arrows through my soul."</p>
+
+<p>When I again met Richard, I could see in his bloodshot eyes what
+thoughts were bleeding within.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother left me the same awful legacy," said he. "She left her
+forgiveness, if he lived; oblivion of all her wrongs, if dead. Oh! what
+bolt of vengeance is red enough for the wretch who could destroy the
+happiness of two such women as your mother and mine! All-righteous
+Providence, may thy retributive fires&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop! stop!" I cried, throwing my arms round him, and arresting his
+fearful words, "he is our father, you must not curse him. By our
+mothers' ashes, by their angels, now perhaps hovering over us, forbear,
+my brother, forbear."</p>
+
+<p>"God help me," he exclaimed, his lips turning to an ashy paleness, "I
+did not know what I was about to say; but is it not enough to drive one
+mad, to think of the fountain of one's life being polluted, poisoned,
+and accursed?"</p>
+
+<p>"One drop of the Saviour's blood can cleanse and make it pure, my
+brother, if he were only led to the foot of the cross."</p>
+
+<p>Richard's countenance changed; a crimson flush swept over his face, and
+then left it colorless.</p>
+
+<p>"My hand is not worthy to lead him there," he cried, "and if it were, I
+fear there is no mercy for so hardened, so inveterate a transgressor."</p>
+
+<p>"There <i>is</i>, Richard, there <i>is</i>. Let the expiring thief bear witness to
+a Saviour's illimitable love. Oh! it is sinful to set bounds to God's
+immeasurable mercy. Let us go together, my brother. My mother's dream
+may yet be realized. Who knows but our weak, filial hands, may lift our
+unhappy father from the black abyss of sin and impenitence, Almighty God
+assisting us? If heavenly blessings are promised to him who turns a soul
+from the error of his ways, think, Richard, how divine the joy, if it be
+an erring parent's soul, thus reclaimed and brought home to God? Let us
+go, as soon as we have strength to commence the journey. I cannot remain
+here, where every thing reminds me of my blighted hopes and ruined
+happiness. It seems so like a grave, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you do not hate. I wonder you do not curse me," exclaimed he,
+with sudden vehemence, "for it is my rashness that has wrought this
+desolation. Dearly have you purchased a most unworthy brother. Would I
+had never claimed you, Gabriella; never rolled down such a dark cloud on
+your heart and home."</p>
+
+<p>"Say not so, my beloved brother. The cloud was on my heart already, and
+you have scarcely made it darker or more chilling. I feel as if I had
+been living amid the thunderstorms of tropic regions, where even in
+sunshine electric fires are flashing. Before this shock came, my soul
+was sick and weary of the conflicts of wild and warring passions. Oh!
+you know not how often I have sighed for a brother's heart to lean upon,
+even when wedded joys were brightest,&mdash;how much more must I prize the
+blessing now! Surely never brother and sister had more to bind them to
+each other, than you and I, Richard. Suffering and sorrow, life's
+holiest sacraments, have hallowed and strengthened the ties of nature."</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before we were able to ride abroad with Mrs. Linwood and
+Edith, and it was astonishing how rapidly we advanced in restoration to
+health. I could perceive that we were objects of intense interest and
+curiosity, from the keen and eager glances that greeted us on every
+side; for the fearful tragedy of which I had been the heroine, had cast
+a shadow over the town and its surroundings. Its rumor had swept beyond
+the blue hills, and Grandison Place was looked upon as the theatre of a
+dark and bloody drama. This was all natural. Seldom is the history of
+every-day life marked by events as romantic and thrilling as those
+compressed in my brief experience of eighteen years. And of all the
+deep, vehement passions, whose exhibition excites the popular mind,
+there is none that takes such strong hold as jealousy, the terrible
+hydra of the human heart.</p>
+
+<p>I believe I was generally beloved, and that a deep feeling of sympathy
+for my misfortunes pervaded the community, for I had never been elated
+by prosperity; but Ernest, whose exclusiveness and reserve was deemed
+haughtiness, was far from being popular. Mrs. Linwood was revered by
+all, and blessed as the benefactress of the poor and the comforter of
+the afflicted; but she was lifted by fortune above the social level of
+the community, and few, very few were on terms of intimacy with the
+inmates of the Granite Castle, as Grandison Place was often called. Its
+massy stone walls, its turreted roof, sweeping lawn, and elevated
+position, seemed emblematic of the aristocracy of its owners; and though
+the blessings of the lower classes, and the respect and reverence of the
+higher, rested upon it, there was a mediocral one, such as is found in
+every community, that looked with envy on those, whose characters they
+could not appreciate, because they were lifted so high above their own
+level.</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Regulus as the most valued friends
+of the family; but there was one whom it would be ungrateful in me to
+omit, and whose pure and sacred traits came forth in the dark hours
+through which I had just passed, like those worlds of light which <i>are
+never seen by day</i>. I allude to Mr. Somerville, the pastor of the
+parish, and who might truly be called a man of God. The aged minister,
+who had presided over the church during my mother's life, had been
+gathered to his fathers, and his name was treasured, a golden sheaf, in
+the garner of memory. The successor, who had to walk in the holy
+footprints he had left in the valley, was obliged to take heed to his
+steps and to shake the dust of earth from his sandals as he went along.
+In our day of sunshine he had stood somewhat aloof, for he felt his
+mission was to the poor and lowly, to the sons and daughters of want and
+affliction; but as soon as sickness and sorrow darkened the household,
+he came with lips distilling balm, and hands ready to pour oil on the
+bruised and wounded heart.</p>
+
+<p>Methinks I see him now, as when he knelt by my bedside, after I aroused
+from my long and deadly trance. No outward graces adorned his person,
+but the beauty of holiness was on his brow, and its low, sweet music in
+his somewhat feeble accents. It seemed to me as if an angel were
+pleading for me, and my soul, emerging as it were from the cold waves of
+oblivion, thrilled with new-born life. Had my spirit been nearer to God
+during its unconscious wanderings, and brought back with it impressions
+of celestial glory never conceived before? I know not; but I know that a
+change had passed over it, and that I felt the reality of that eternity,
+which had seemed before a grand and ever-receding shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Every day, during Richard's illness and mine, came our good and beloved
+pastor, and he always left a track of light behind him. I always felt
+nearer heaven when he departed than when he came, for its kingdom was
+within him.</p>
+
+<p>To him I confided my wish to accompany my brother on his filial mission,
+and he warmly approved it.</p>
+
+<p>"As surely as I believe the Lord has put it into your heart to go," said
+he, "do I believe that a blessing will follow you."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Linwood was more tardy in her sanction.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child," she said, looking at me with the tenderest compassion,
+"you do not know what is before you. What will you do in that great city
+without female friendship and sympathy? You and Richard, both so young
+and inexperienced in the ways of the world. I will not, however, put any
+obstacle in his path, for man may go unshrinking where woman may not
+tread. But you, my Gabriella, must remain with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Here, where the phantom of Ernest haunts my every step, where the echo
+of his voice is heard in every gale, and the shadow of departed joy
+comes between me and the sunshine of heaven? What can I do here but
+remind you by my presence of him, whom I have banished for ever from
+your arms? Let me go, my own dear mother, for I cannot remain passive
+here. I shall not want female sympathy and guardianship, for Mrs. Brahan
+is all that is kind and tender, and knows enough of my sad history to be
+entitled to unbounded confidence. I will write to her, and be guided by
+her, as if she were another Mrs. Linwood."</p>
+
+<p>She yielded at last, and so did Dr. Harlowe, who cheered me by his
+cordial approval. He said it was the best thing I could do for myself;
+for change of scene, and a strong motive of action, might save me from
+becoming a confirmed invalid. Edith wept, but made no opposition. She
+believed I was in the path of duty, and that it would be made smooth
+beneath my feet.</p>
+
+<p>No tidings from Ernest came to interrupt the dreary blank of his
+absence,&mdash;the same continuity of anxiety and uncertainty stretching on
+into a hopeless futurity. Again and again I said to myself&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Better so a thousand times, than to live as I have done, scathed by the
+lightning of jealousy. Even if he returned, I could not, with the fear
+of God now before me, renew our unblest wedlock. The hand of violence
+has sundered us, and my heart fibres must ever bleed from the wrench,
+but they will not again intwine. He has torn himself ruthlessly from me;
+and the shattered vine, rent from its stay, is beginning to cling to the
+pillars of God's temple. It is for <i>him</i> I pray, for <i>him</i> I mourn,
+rather than myself. It is for his happiness, rather than my own
+justification, that I desire him to know the history of my innocence. I
+am willing to drink the cup of humiliation even to the dregs, if it may
+not pass from me; but spare him, O Heavenly Father, the bitter, bitter
+chalice."</p>
+
+<p>It was a bleak morning in early winter, that we commenced our journey to
+that city, where little more than a year ago I had gone a young and
+happy bride. As we rode along the winding avenue, I looked out on the
+dry russet lawn, the majestic skeleton of the great elm, stripped of the
+foliage and hues of life, and saw the naked branches of the oaks
+clinging to each other in sad fraternity, and heard the wind whistling
+through them as through the shrouds of a vessel. With an involuntary
+shiver I drew nearer to Richard, and hid my face from the prophetic
+desolation of nature.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>On our arrival in New York, we stopped at the &mdash;&mdash; hotel till private
+lodgings could be obtained. We both wished to be as retired as possible
+from public observation, and for this purpose I remained in my room,
+where Richard, as my brother, had the privilege of visiting me. I was
+anxious he should go immediately to Mr. Brahan's; for, added to my
+desire to be under the influence of her feminine regard, I cherished a
+faint hope that through him I might learn something of Ernest's
+mysterious exile.</p>
+
+<p>They both returned with Richard; and while Mr. Brahan remained with him
+below, she came to my chamber, and welcomed me with a warmth and
+tenderness that melted, while it cheered.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not stay here one hour longer," said she, pressing one hand in
+hers, while she laid the other caressingly on my short, curling hair.
+"You must go with me, and feel as much at home as with your own Mrs.
+Linwood. I pass a great many lonely hours, while my husband is absent
+engaged in business; and it will be a personal favor to me. Indeed, you
+must not refuse."</p>
+
+<p>I said something about leaving my brother, while I expressed my
+gratitude for her kindness.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Brahan will arrange that," she said; "you may be assured he shall
+be cared for. You have not unpacked your trunk; and here is your bonnet
+and mantilla ready to be resumed. You did not think I would suffer you
+to remain among strangers, when my heart has been yearning to meet you
+for weary months?"</p>
+
+<p>With gentle earnestness she overcame all my scruples; and it was but a
+little time before I found myself established as a guest in the house
+where I first beheld the light of existence. How strange it seemed, that
+the children of the two betrayed and injured beings who had been made
+exiles from that roof, should be received beneath its shelter after the
+lapse of so many years!</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brahan accompanied me to the chamber prepared for my reception; and
+had I been her own daughter she could not have lavished upon me more
+affectionate cares. The picture of my mother, which I had returned when
+we left the city, was hanging on the wall; and the eyes and lips of
+heavenly sweetness seemed to welcome her sad descendant to the home of
+her infancy. As I stood gazing upon it with mingled grief and adoration,
+Mrs. Brahan encircled me with her arm, and told me she understood now
+the history of that picture, and the mystery of its wonderful
+resemblance to me. I had not seen her since the notoriety my name had
+acquired, in consequence of the diamonds and my father's arrest; and she
+knew me now as the daughter of that unhappy man. Did she know the
+circumstances of the discovery of my brother, and my husband's flight? I
+dared not ask; but I read so much sympathy and compassion in her
+countenance, and so much tenderness in her manners, I thought she had
+fathomed the depth of my sorrows.</p>
+
+<p>"You look like a girl of fifteen," she said, passing her fingers through
+my carelessly waving locks. "Your hair was very beautiful, but I can
+scarcely regret its loss."</p>
+
+<p>"I may look more juvenile,&mdash;I believe I do, for every one tells me so;
+but the youth and bloom of my heart are gone for ever."</p>
+
+<p>"For ever from the lips of the young, and from those more advanced in
+life, mean very different things," answered Mrs. Brahan. "I have no
+doubt you have happier hours in store, and you will look back to these
+as morning shadows melting off in the brightening sunshine."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know all that has happened, dear Mrs. Brahan, since I left your
+city?"</p>
+
+<p>"The rumor of the distressing circumstances which attended the discovery
+of your brother reached us even here, and our hearts bled for you. But
+all will yet be well. The terrible shock you have sustained will be a
+death blow to the passion that has caused you so much misery. Forgive
+me, if I make painful allusions; but I cannot suffer you to sink into
+the gloom of despondency."</p>
+
+<p>"I try to look upward. I do think the hopes which have no home on earth,
+have found rest in heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"But why, my dear young friend, do you close your heart to earthly hope?
+Surely, when your husband returns, you may anticipate a joyful reunion."</p>
+
+<p>"When he returns! Alas! his will be a life-long exile. Believing what he
+does, he will never, never return."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have written and explained every thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I write,&mdash;when I know not where to direct, when I know not to
+what region he has wandered, or what resting-place he has found?"</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. Harland!" said she, with a look of troubled surprise. "You
+might learn through him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Linwood has written repeatedly to Mr. Harland, and received no
+answer. She concluded that he had left the city, but knew not how to
+ascertain his address."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you did not know that he had gone to India? I thought,&mdash;I
+believed,&mdash;is it possible that you are not aware"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of what?" I exclaimed, catching hold of her arm, for my brain reeled
+and my sight darkened.</p>
+
+<p>"That Mr. Linwood accompanied him," she answered, turning pale at the
+agitation her words excited. To India! that distant, deadly clime! To
+India, without one farewell, one parting token to her whom he left
+apparently on the brink of the grave!</p>
+
+<p>By the unutterable anguish of that moment, I knew the delusion that had
+veiled my motives. I had thought it was only to reclaim a lost parent
+that I had come, but I found it was the hope of meeting the deluded
+wanderer, more than filial piety, that had urged my departure.</p>
+
+<p>"To India!" I cried, and my spirit felt the tossings of the wild billows
+that lay rolling between. "Then we are indeed parted,&mdash;parted for ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, t'is but a step from ocean to ocean, from clime to clime," she
+said in kind, assuring accents. "Men think nothing of such a voyage, for
+science has furnished wings which bear them over space with the speed of
+an eagle. If you knew not his destination, I should think you would
+rejoice rather than mourn, to be relieved of the torture of suspense.
+Had I known that you were ignorant of the fact, I should have written
+months ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it certain that he is gone?" I asked. "Did you see him? Did Mr.
+Brahan? How did you learn, what we have vainly sought to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Brahan had business with Mr. Harland, and having neglected some
+important items, followed him on board the ship in which he embarked. It
+was at night, and he remained but a short time; but he caught a glimpse
+of your husband, whom he immediately recognized, but who gave him no
+opportunity of speaking to him. Knowing he was a friend of Mr.
+Harland's, he supposed he had come on board to bid him farewell, though
+he was not aware of his being in the city. When we heard the rumor of
+the tragic scenes in which he acted so dread a part, and connected it
+with the time of Mr. Harland's departure, Mr. Brahan recalled Mr.
+Linwood's unexpected appearance in the ship, and the mystery was
+explained. But we dreamed not that his departure was unknown to you. If
+you had only written to us!"</p>
+
+<p>It was strange that I had never thought of the possibility of their
+knowing any thing connected with Ernest. Mr. Harland was the only
+gentleman with whom he was on terms of intimacy, the only one to whom we
+thought of applying in the extremity of anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Has the ship been heard from? What was its name?" I asked, unconscious
+of the folly of my first question.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet. It was called the 'Star of the East.' A beautiful and
+hope-inspiring name. Mr. Brahan can give you Mr. Harland's address. You
+can write to your husband through him. Every thing is as clear as
+noonday. Do you not already inhale the fragrance of the opening flowers
+of joy?"</p>
+
+<p>I tried to smile, but I fear it was a woful attempt. Even the scent of
+the roses had been crushed out of my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Your brother is an exceedingly interesting young man," she observed,
+perceiving that I could not speak without painful agitation of Ernest.
+"I have never seen a stranger who won my regard so instantaneously."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Richard!" I cried, "he is all that he seems, and far more. The
+noblest, kindest, and best. How sad that such a cloud darkens his young
+manhood!"</p>
+
+<p>"It will serve as a background to his filial virtues and bring them out
+in bright and beautiful relief. I admire, I honor him a thousand times
+more than if he were the heir of an unspotted name, a glorious ancestry.
+A father's crimes cannot reflect shame on a son so pure and upright.
+Besides, he bears another name, and the world knows not his clouded
+lineage."</p>
+
+<p>My heart warmed at her generous praises of Richard, who was every day
+more and more endeared to my affections. Where was he now? Had he
+commenced his mission, and gone to the gloomy cell where his father was
+imprisoned? He did not wish me to accompany him the first time. What a
+meeting it must be! He had never consciously beheld his father. The
+father had no knowledge of his deserted son. In the dungeon's gloom, the
+living grave of hope, joy, and fame, the recognition would take place.
+With what feelings would the poor, blasted criminal behold the noble
+boy, on whom he had never bestowed one parental care, coming like an
+angel, if not to unbar his prison doors, to unlock for him the golden
+gates of heaven!</p>
+
+<p>I was too weary for my journey, too much exhausted from agitation to
+wait for Richard's return, but I could not lay my head on the pillow
+before writing to Mrs. Linwood and Edith, and telling them the tidings I
+had learned of the beloved exile. And now the first stormy emotions had
+subsided, gratitude, deep and holy gratitude, triumphed over every other
+feeling. Far, far away as he was, he was with a friend; he was in all
+human probability safe, and he could learn in time how deeply he had
+wronged me.</p>
+
+<p>Often, on bended knees, with weeping eyes and rending sighs had I
+breathed this prayer,&mdash;"Only let him know that I am still worthy of his
+love, and I am willing to resign it,&mdash;let me be justified in his sight,
+and I am willing to devote my future life to <i>Thee</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The path was opening, the way clearing, and my faith and resignation
+about to be proved. I recognized the divine arrangement of Providence in
+the apparently accidental circumstances of my life, and my soul
+vindicated the justice as well as adored the mercy of the Most High.</p>
+
+<p>A voice seemed whispering in my ear, "O thou afflicted and tossed with
+tempests! there is a haven where thy weary bark shall find rest. I, who
+once bore the burden of life, know its sorrows and temptations, its
+wormwood and its gall. I bore the infirmities of man, that I might pity
+and forgive; I bore the crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear the
+roses of Paradise; I drained the dregs of human agony, that thou
+mightest drink the wine of immortality. Is not my love passing the love
+of man, and worth the sacrifice of earth's fleeting joys?"</p>
+
+<p>As the heavenly accents seemed to die away, like a strain of sweet, low
+harmony, came murmuring the holy refrain&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Star of the East, the horizon adorning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Richard had visited the Tombs, but had not seen his father. The sight,
+the air, the ponderous gloom of the awful prison-house, was as much as
+he had fortitude to bear; and though he had at first thought preferred
+meeting him in the shadows of night, he recoiled from its additional
+horrors.</p>
+
+<p>Poor fellow! I felt heart-sick for him. On one side the memory of his
+mother's wrongs,&mdash;on the other, his father's sufferings and disgrace. I
+knew by my own bitter experience the conflict he was enduring.</p>
+
+<p>"After we have once met," he said, "the bitterest pang will be over."</p>
+
+<p>When he returned, I was shocked at the suffering his countenance
+expressed. I sat down by him in silence, and took his hand in mine, for
+I saw that his heart was full.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot take you <i>there</i>, Gabriella," were the first words he uttered.
+"If my nerves are all unstrung, how will yours sustain the shock? He
+told me not to bring you, that your presence would only aggravate his
+sufferings."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not come to share your duties, Richard? and will it not be easier
+to go hand in hand, though we do tread a thorny path? I have heard of
+women who devote their whole lives to visiting the dungeons of the
+doomed, and pouring oil and balm into the wounds of penitence and
+remorse; women who know nothing of the prisoner, but that he is a sinful
+and suffering son of Adam,&mdash;angels of compassion, following with lowly
+hearts the footsteps of their divine Master. O my brother, think me not
+so weak and selfish. I will convince you that I have fortitude, though
+you believe it not. Dr. Harlowe thinks I have a great deal. But,
+Richard, is it too painful to speak of the interview you so much
+dreaded? Does <i>he</i> look more wretched than you feared?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Gabriella! Oh, he is a wreck, a melancholy wreck of a once noble
+man. Worn, haggard, gloomy, and despairing, he is the very
+personification of a sin-blasted being, a lost, ruined spirit. I had
+prepared myself for something mournful and degraded, but not for such a
+sight as this. O what an awful thing it is to give oneself up to the
+dominion of evil, till one seems to live, and move, and have their being
+in it! How awful to be consumed by slow, baleful fires, till nothing but
+smouldering ashes and smoking cinders are left! My God! Gabriella, I
+never realized before what <i>accursed</i> meant."</p>
+
+<p>He started up, and walked up and down the room, just as Ernest used to
+do, unable to control the vehemence of his emotions.</p>
+
+<p>"Father!" he exclaimed, "how I could have loved, revered, adored my
+father, had he been what my youthful heart has so panted to embrace. I
+loved my mother,&mdash;Heaven knows I did; but there always seemed majesty as
+well as beauty in the name of father, and I longed to reverence, as well
+as to love. Mr. Clyde was a good man, and I honored him; he was my
+benefactor, and I was grateful to him,&mdash;but he wanted the intellectual
+grandeur, to which my soul longed to pay homage. I was always forming an
+image in my own mind of what a father should be,&mdash;pure, upright, and
+commanding,&mdash;a being to whom I could look up as to an earthly divinity,
+who could satisfy the wants of my venerating nature."</p>
+
+<p>"It is thus I have done," I cried, struck by the peculiar sympathy of
+our feelings. "In the dreams of my childhood, a vague but glorious form
+reigned with the sovereignty of a king and the sanctity of a
+high-priest, and imagination offered daily incense at its throne. Never,
+till I read my mother's history, was the illusion dispelled. But how did
+he welcome you, Richard? Surely he was glad and proud to find a son in
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"He is no longer capable of pride or joy. He is burnt out, as it were.
+But he did at last show some emotion, when made to believe that I was
+the son of Ther&eacute;sa." His hand trembled, and his hard, sunken eye
+momentarily softened. "Did you come here to mock and upbraid me?" he
+cried, concealing his sensibility under a kind of fierce sullenness.
+"What wrong have I done you? I deserted you, it is true, but I saved you
+from the influence of my accursed example, which might have dragged you
+to the burning jaws of hell. Go, and leave me to my doom. Leave me in
+the living grave my own unhallowed hands have dug. I want no sympathy,
+no companionship,&mdash;and least of all, yours. Every time I look on you, I
+feel as if coals of fire were eating in my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Remorse, Richard," I exclaimed, "remorse! Oh! he feels. Our
+ministrations will not be in vain. Did you tell him that I was with you,
+that I came to comfort and to do him good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did; but he bade me tell you, that if he wanted comfort, it could not
+come through you,&mdash;that he would far rather his tortures were increased
+than diminished, that he might, he said, become inured to sufferings,
+which would continue as long as Almighty vengeance could inflict and
+immortality endure. My dear sister, I ought not to repeat such things,
+but the words ring in my ears like a funeral knell."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us not speak of him any more at present," he added, reseating
+himself at my side, and he took my hand and pressed it on his throbbing
+temples. "There is sweetness in a sister's sympathy, balm in her gentle
+touch."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brahan, who had considerately left us alone, soon entered, saying
+it was luncheon time, and that a glass of wine would do us all good. Mr.
+Brahan followed her, whose intelligent and animated conversation drew
+our minds from the subjects that engrossed our thoughts. It was well for
+me that I had an opportunity of becoming so intimately acquainted with a
+married pair like Mr. and Mrs. Brahan. It convinced me that the most
+perfect confidence was compatible with the fondest love, and that the
+purest happiness earth is capable of imparting, is found in the union of
+two constant, trusting hearts.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been married seventeen years," said Mrs. Brahan, in a glow of
+grateful affection, "and I have never seen a cloud of distrust on my
+husband's brow. We have had cares,&mdash;as who has not,&mdash;but they have only
+made us more dear to each, other, by calling forth mutual tenderness and
+sympathy. Ours was not one of those romantic attachments which partake
+of the wildness of insanity, but a serene, steady flame, that burns
+brighter and brighter as life rolls on."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke out of the abundance of her heart, without meaning to contrast
+her own bright lot with mine, but I could not help envying her this
+unclouded sunshine of love. I tried to rejoice with her, without sighing
+for my own darker destiny; but there is an alloy of selfishness in the
+purest gold of our natures. At least, there is in mine.</p>
+
+<p>There was another happy pair,&mdash;Mr. Regulus and his wild Madge. A letter
+from her, forwarded by Mrs. Linwood soon after our arrival in New York,
+breathed, in her own characteristic language, the most perfect felicity,
+mingled with heart-felt sympathy and affection. Their bridal hours were
+saddened by my misfortunes; and they were compelled to leave me when I
+was unconscious of their departure. Margaret was delighted with every
+thing around and about her,&mdash;the place, the people, and most of all her
+husband; though, in imitation of the Swedish wife, she called him her
+bear, her buffalo, and mastadon. The exuberant energies of her
+character, that had been rioting in all their native wildness, had now a
+noble framework to grasp round, and would in time form a beautiful
+domestic bower, beneath whose shade all household joys and graces would
+bloom and multiply.</p>
+
+<p>I have anticipated the reception of this letter, but I feared I might
+forget to mention it. It is delightful to see a fine character gradually
+wrought out of seemingly rough and unpromising elements. It is beautiful
+to witness the triumph of pure, disinterested affection in the heart of
+woman. It is sweet to know that the angel of wedded love scatters
+thornless flowers in some happy homes,&mdash;that there are some thresholds
+not sprinkled by blood, but guarded by confidence, which the <i>destroying
+demon</i> of the household is not permitted to pass over.</p>
+
+<p>I do not like to turn back to myself, lest they who follow me should
+find the path too shadowy and thorny. But is it not said that they who
+go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall come again rejoicing,
+bending under the weight of golden sheaves?</p>
+
+<p>I wrote to Ernest for the first time, for we had never been parted
+before. Again and again I commenced, and threw down the pen in despair.
+My heart seemed locked, closed as with Bastile bars. What words of mine
+could pierce through the cloud of infamy in which his remembrance
+wrapped me? He would not believe my strange, improbable tale. He would
+cast it from him as a device of the evil spirit, and brand me with a
+deeper curse. No! if he was so willing to cast me off, to leave me so
+coldly and cruelly, without one farewell line, one wish to know whether
+I were living or dead, let him be. Why should I intrude my vindication
+on him, when he cared not to hear it? He had no right to believe me
+guilty. Had a winged spirit from another sphere come and told me that
+<i>he</i> was false, I would have spurned the accusation, and clung to him
+more closely and more confidingly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you knew his infirmity," whispered accusing conscience, "even
+before you loved him; and have you not seen him writhing at your feet in
+agonies of remorse, for the indulgence of passions more torturing to
+himself than to you! It is you who have driven him from country and
+home, innocently, it is true, but he is not less a wanderer and an
+exile. Write and tell him the simple, holy truth, then folding your
+hands meekly over your heart, leave the result to the disposal of the
+God of futurity."</p>
+
+<p>Then words came like water rushing through breaking ice. They came
+without effort or volition, and I knew not what they were till I saw
+them looking at me from the paper, like my own image reflected in a
+glass. Had I been writing a page for the book of God's remembrance, it
+could not have been more nakedly true. I do believe there is inspiration
+now given to the spirit in the extremity of its need, and that we often
+speak and write as if moved by the Holy Ghost, and language comes to us
+in a Pentecostal shower, burning with heaven's fire, and tongues of
+flame are put in our mouth, and our spirits move as with the wings of a
+mighty wind.</p>
+
+<p>I recollect the closing sentence of the letter. I knew it contained my
+fate; and yet I felt that I had not the power to change it.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back to your country, your mother, and Edith. I do not bid you
+come back to me, for it seems that the distance that separates us is too
+immeasurable to be overcome. I remember telling you, when the midnight
+moon was shining upon us in the solitude of our chamber, that I saw as
+in a vision a frightful abyss opening between us, and I stood on one icy
+brink and you on the other, and I saw you receding further and further
+from me, and my arms vainly sought to reach over the cold chasm, and my
+own voice came back to me in mournful echoes. That vision is realized.
+Our hearts can never again meet till that gulf is closed, and confidence
+firm as a rock makes a bridge for our souls.</p>
+
+<p>"I have loved you as man never should be loved, and that love can never
+pass away. But from the deathlike trance in which you left me, my spirit
+has risen with holier views of life and its duties. An union, so
+desolated by storms of passion as ours has been, must be sinful and
+unhallowed in the sight of God. It has been severed by the hand of
+violence, and never, with my consent, will be renewed, unless we can
+make a new covenant, to which the bow of heaven's peace shall be an
+everlasting sign; till passion shall be exalted by esteem, love
+sustained by confidence, and religion pure and undefiled be the
+sovereign principle of our lives."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIV" id="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Tombs!&mdash;shall I ever forget my first visit to that dismal abode of
+crime, woe, and despair?&mdash;never!</p>
+
+<p>I had nerved myself for the trial, and went with the spirit of a martyr,
+though with blanched cheek and faltering step, into the heart of that
+frowning pile, on which I could never gaze without shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>Clinging to the arm of Richard, I felt myself borne along through cold
+and dreary walls, that seemed to my startled ear echoing with sighs and
+groans and curses, upward through dark galleries, and passed ponderous
+iron doors that reminded me of Milton's description of the gates of
+hell, till the prison officer who preceded us paused before one of those
+grim portals, and inserting a massy key, a heavy grating sound scraped
+and lacerated my ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait one moment," I gasped, leaning almost powerless on the shoulder of
+Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared so," said he, passing his arm around me, his eyes expressing
+the most intense sensibility. "I knew you could not bear it. Let us
+return,&mdash;I was wrong to permit your coming in the first place."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no,&mdash;I am able to go in now,&mdash;the shock is over,&mdash;I am quite strong
+now."</p>
+
+<p>And raising my head, I drew a quick, painful breath, passed through the
+iron door into the narrow cell, where the gloom of eternal twilight
+darkly hung.</p>
+
+<p>At first I could not distinguish the objects within, for a mist was over
+my sight, which deepened the shadows of the dungeon walls. But as my eye
+became accustomed to the dimness, I saw a tall, emaciated figure rising
+from the bed, which nearly filled the limited space which inclosed us. A
+narrow aperture in the deep, massy stone, admitted all the light which
+illumined us after the iron door slowly closed.</p>
+
+<p>The dark, sunken eyes of the prisoner gleamed like the flash of an
+expiring taper, wild and fitful, on our entering forms. He was
+dreadfully altered,&mdash;I should scarcely have recognized him through the
+gloomy shade of his long-neglected hair, and thick, unshorn beard.</p>
+
+<p>"Father," said Richard, trying to speak in a cheerful tone, "I have
+brought you a comforter. A daughter's presence must be more soothing
+than a son's."</p>
+
+<p>I held out my hand as Richard spoke, and he took it as if it were
+marble. No tenderness softened his countenance,&mdash;he rather seemed to
+recoil from me than to welcome. I noticed a great difference in his
+reception of Richard. He grasped his hand, and perused his features as
+if he could not withdraw his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you indeed my son?" he asked, in an unsteady tone. "Do you not mock
+me? Tell me once more, are you Ther&eacute;sa's child?"</p>
+
+<p>"As surely as I believe her an angel in heaven, I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;yes, you have her brow and smile; but why have you come to me
+again, when I commanded you to stay away? And why have you brought this
+pale girl here, when she loathes me as an incarnate fiend?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;no," I exclaimed, sinking down on the foot of the bed, in
+hopelessness of spirit, "I pity, forgive, pray for you, weep for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I want neither pity, forgiveness, nor prayers," he sullenly answered.
+"I want nothing but freedom, and that you cannot give. Go back to your
+husband, and tell him I curse him for the riches that tempted me, and
+you for the jewels that betrayed. You might have given me gold instead
+of diamonds, and then I would have been safe from the hell-hounds of
+law. Curse on the sordid fear"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stop," cried Richard, seizing the arm he had raised in imprecation, and
+fixing on him an eye of stem command. "You shall not wound her ears with
+such foul blasphemy. Utter another word of reproach to her, and I will
+leave you for ever to the doom you merit. Is this the return you make
+for her filial devotion? Betrayer of her mother, robber of her husband,
+coward as well as villain, how dare you blast her with your impious
+curse?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard forgot at that moment he was speaking to a father, in the
+intensity of his indignation and scorn. His eye burned, his lip
+quivered, he looked as if he could have hurled him against the granite
+walls.</p>
+
+<p>St. James quailed and writhed out of his grasp. His face turned the hue
+of ashes, and he staggered back like a drunken man.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean to curse her," he cried. "I am mad half the time, and
+know not what I say. Who would not be mad, cut off from communion with
+their kind, in such a den as this, with fiends whispering, and devils
+tempting, and know that it is not for a day, a week, a month, nor even a
+year; but for ten long years! And what will life be then, supposing I
+drag out its hated length through imprisonment, and horror, and despair?
+What is it now? A worn shred, a shivelled scroll, a blasted remnant of
+humanity!"</p>
+
+<p>He sat down again on the side of the bed, and leaning forward, bent his
+face downward and buried it in his hands. Groans, that seemed to tear
+his breast as they forced their passage, burst spasmodically from his
+lips. Oh! if that travailing soul, travailing in sin and sorrow, would
+cast itself on the bosom of Divine Mercy, would prostrate itself at the
+foot of the cross, till the scarlet dye of crime was washed white in a
+Saviour's blood! What were ten years of imprisonment and anguish, to
+eternal ages burning with the unquenchable fires of remorse!</p>
+
+<p>"O father!" I cried, moved by an irresistible impulse, and approaching
+him with trembling steps, "these prison walls may become the house of
+God, the gate of heaven, dark and dismal as they are. The Saviour will
+come and dwell with you, if you only look up to him in penitence and
+faith; and he will make them blissful with his presence. He went into
+the den of lions. He walked through the fiery furnace. He can rend these
+iron doors and give you the glorious liberty of the children of God. If
+I could only speak as I feel, if I only knew how to convince and
+persuade;&mdash;but alas! my tongue is weak, my words are cold. Richard will
+you not help me?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he will not listen to you, Gabriella, he would not be persuaded
+though an angel spoke."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you care about my soul?" asked the prisoner, lifting his head
+from his knees, and rolling his bloodshot eyes upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are my father," I answered,&mdash;overcoming my trepidation, and
+speaking with fervor and energy,&mdash;"because my mother prayed for you, and
+my Saviour died for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother!" he exclaimed; "who was she, that she should pray for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"My mother!" I repeated, fearing his mind was becoming unsettled; "if
+you have forgotten her, I do not wish to recall her."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember now,&mdash;her name was Rosalie," he said, and a strange
+expression passed over his countenance. "I was thinking of my poor
+Ther&eacute;sa."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Richard as he spoke, and something like parental tenderness
+softened his features. Degraded as he was, unworthy as it seemed he must
+ever have been of woman's love, I could not help a pang of exquisite
+pain at the thought of my mother's being forgotten, while Ther&eacute;sa was
+remembered with apparent tenderness. When I met him in the Park, he
+expressed exceeding love for me for her sake,&mdash;he spoke of her as the
+beloved of his youth, as the being whose loss had driven him to
+desperation and made him the wretch and outcast he was. And now, no
+chord of remembrance vibrated at her name, no ray of fondness for her
+child played upon the sacrifice I was offering. It was a sordid
+deception then,&mdash;his pretended tenderness,&mdash;to gain access to my
+husband's gold; and I turned, heart-sick and loathing away. As I did so,
+I caught a glimpse of a book that looked like the Bible on a little
+table, between the bed and the wall. With an involuntary motion I
+reached forward and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad," I cried, looking at Richard. "I wanted to bring one; but
+I thought I would ask permission."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," exclaimed St. James, with a ghastly smile, "we all have Bibles, I
+believe. Like the priest's blessing, they cost nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"But you read it, father!" said Richard, anxiously. "You cannot fail to
+find light and comfort in it. You cannot be altogether lonely with such
+a companion."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the use of reading what one cannot understand?" cried he, in a
+gloomy tone. "Your mother was a Catholic. She did not read the Bible,
+and if there is a heaven above, it was made for such as she."</p>
+
+<p>"My mother <i>did</i> read her Bible," answered Richard, with solemnity. "She
+taught me to read it, making a table of her knees, while her hands
+toiled for our subsistence. It was a lamp to her path, a balm to her
+sorrows. She lived according to its precepts. She died, believing in its
+promises."</p>
+
+<p>The glistening eyes of Richard seemed to magnetize his father, so
+earnest, so steadfast was his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you <i>her</i> Bible?" he asked, in a husky voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I have; it was her dying gift."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring it, and read to me the chapters she loved best. Perhaps&mdash;who
+knows? Great God! I was once a praying child at my mother's knee."</p>
+
+<p>Richard grasped his father's hand with a strong emotion,</p>
+
+<p>"I will bring it, father. We will read it together, and her spirit will
+breathe into our hearts. The pages are marked by her pencil, blistered
+by her tears."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, bring it!" he repeated. "Who knows? Just heaven!&mdash;who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>Who, indeed, did know what influence that book, embalmed in such sacred
+memories, might have on the sinner's blasted heart? The fierceness and
+sullenness that had repelled and terrified me on our first entrance had
+passed away, and sensibility roused from an awful paralysis, started at
+the ruins it beheld. There was hope, since he could feel. Richard's
+filial mission might not be in vain. But <i>mine</i> was. I realized this
+before I left the cell, and resolved to yield to him the task which I
+had hoped to share. I could not help feeling grieved and disappointed,
+not so much on my own account, as for the indifference manifested to my
+mother's memory,&mdash;that mother who had loved him, even to her dying hour.</p>
+
+<p>My heart hardened against him; but when I rose to go, and looked round
+on the narrow and dismal tomb in which he was inclosed, and then on his
+hollow cheek and wasted frame, and thought in all human probability
+those walls would prove his grave, it melted with the tenderest
+compassion.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any thing I can do for your comfort?" I asked, trying in vain
+to keep back the rushing tears. "Can I send you any thing to do you
+good? If you wish to see me again, tell Richard, and I will come; but I
+do not wish to be in the way. He, I see, can do every thing I could do,
+and far more. I thought a daughter could draw so near a father's heart!"</p>
+
+<p>I stopped, choked with emotion which seemed contagious, for Richard
+turned aside and took up his handkerchief, which had dropped upon the
+bed. St. James was agitated. He gave the hand which I extended a
+spasmodic pressure, and looked from me to Richard, and then back again,
+with a peculiar, hesitating expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me," said he, in a gentler accent than I had yet heard him use,
+"my harsh, fierce words; as I told you, it was a demon's utterance, not
+mine. You would have saved me, I know you would. I made you unhappy, and
+plunged into perdition myself. No, you had better not come again. You
+are too lovely, too tender for this grim place. My boy will come; and
+you, you, my child, may pray for me, if you do not think it mockery to
+ask God to pardon a wretch like me."</p>
+
+<p>I looked in his face, inexpressibly affected by the unexpected
+gentleness of his words and manner. Surely the spirit of God was
+beginning to move over the stagnant waters of sin and despair. I was
+about to leave him,&mdash;the lonely,&mdash;the doomed. I, too, was lonely and
+doomed.</p>
+
+<p>"Father!" I cried, and with an impulse of pity and anguish I threw my
+arms round him and wept as if my heart was breaking; "I would willingly
+wear out my life in prayer for you, but O, pray for yourself. One prayer
+from your heart would be worth ten thousand of mine."</p>
+
+<p>I thought not of the haggard form I was embracing; I thought of the
+immortal soul that inhabited it; and it seemed a sacred ruin. He clasped
+me convulsively to him one moment, then suddenly withdrawing his arms,
+he pushed me towards Richard,&mdash;not harshly, but as if bidding him take
+care of me; and throwing himself on the bed, he turned his face
+downward, so that his long black hair covered it from sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go," said Richard, in a low voice; "we had better leave him
+now."</p>
+
+<p>As we were passing very softly out of the cell, he raised his head
+partially, and calling to Richard, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come back, my son, to-morrow. I have something to tell you. I ought to
+do it now, while you are both here, but to-morrow will do; and don't
+forget your mother's Bible."</p>
+
+<p>Again we traversed the stone galleries, the dismal stairs, and our
+footsteps left behind us a cold, sepulchral sound. Neither of us spoke,
+for a kind of funeral silence solemnized our hearts. I looked at one of
+the figures that were gliding along the upper galleries, though there
+were many of them,&mdash;prisoners, who being condemned for lighter offences
+than murder or forgery, were allowed to walk under the eye of a keeper.
+I was conscious of passing them, but they only seemed to deepen the
+gloom, like ravens and bats flapping their wings in a deserted tower.</p>
+
+<p>As we came into the light of day, which, struggling through massy ridges
+of darkness, burst between the grand and gloomy columns that supported
+the fabric, I felt as if a great stone were rolling from my breast I
+raised the veil, which I had drawn closely over my face, to inhale the
+air that flowed from the world without I was coming out of darkness into
+light, out of imprisonment into freedom, sunshine, and the breath of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>There were men traversing the vestibule in many directions; and Richard
+hurried me on, that I might escape the gaze of curiosity or the stare of
+impertinence. Against one of the pillars which we passed, a gentleman
+was standing, whose figure was so striking as to attract my abstracted
+eye. I had seen him before. I knew him instantaneously, though I had
+only had a passing glimpse of him the morning we left the Falls. It was
+the gentleman who had accosted Julian, and who had stamped himself so
+indelibly on my memory. And now, as I came nearer, I was struck by a
+resemblance in his air and features to our unhappy father. It is true
+there was the kind of difference there is between a fallen spirit and an
+angel of light; for the expression of the stranger's face was noble and
+dignified, as if conscious that he still wore undefaced the image of his
+Maker. He lifted his hat as we passed, with that graceful courtesy which
+marks the gentleman, and I again noticed that the dark waves of his hair
+were mingled with snow. It reminded me of those wreaths of frost I had
+seen hanging from the evergreens of Grandison Place.</p>
+
+<p>The singularity of the place, the earnestness of his gaze, and the
+extraordinary attraction I felt towards him, brought the warm, bright
+color to my cheeks, and I instinctively dropped the veil which I had
+raised a moment before. As we entered the carriage, which had been kept
+in waiting, the horses, high-spirited and impatient, threatened to break
+loose from the driver's control,&mdash;when the stranger, coming rapidly
+forward, stood at their heads till their transient rebellion was over.
+It was but an instant; for as Richard leaned from the carriage window to
+thank him, the horses dashed forward, and I only caught one more glimpse
+of his fine, though pensive features.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard, did you not perceive a resemblance to our father in this
+gentleman, noble and distinguished as he appears? I was struck with it
+at the first glance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there is a likeness; but not greater than we very often see
+strangers bearing to each other. My father must once have been a fine
+looking man, though now so sad a wreck. A life of sinful indulgence,
+followed by remorse and retribution, leaves terrible scars on the face
+as well as the soul."</p>
+
+<p>"But how strange it is, that we are sometimes so drawn towards
+strangers, as by a loadstone's power! I saw this gentleman once before,
+at the Falls of Niagara, and I felt the same sudden attraction that I do
+now. I may never see him again. It is not probable that I ever shall;
+but it will be impossible for me to forget him. I feel as if he must
+have some influence on my destiny; and such a confidence in his noble
+qualities, that if I were in danger I would appeal to him for
+protection, and in sorrow, for sympathy and consolation. You smile,
+Richard. I dare say it all sounds foolish to you, but it is even so."</p>
+
+<p>"Not foolish, but romantic, my own darling sister. I like such
+sentiments. I like any thing better than the stereotyped thoughts of the
+world. You have a right to be romantic, Gabriella, for your life has
+been one of strange and thrilling interest."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; strange indeed!" I answered, while my soul rolled back on the
+billows of the past, wondering at the storms that heaved them so high,
+when life to many seemed smooth as a sea of glass. Then I thought how
+sweet the haven of eternal repose must be to the wave-worn mariner; how
+much sweeter to one who had had a tempestuous voyage, than one who had
+been floating on a tranquil current; and the closing verse of an old
+hymn came melodiously to my recollection:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There will I bathe my weary soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In seas of endless rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not a wave of trouble roll<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Across my peaceful breast."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LV" id="CHAPTER_LV"></a>CHAPTER LV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>What a contrast did the large, airy, pleasant nursery room of Mrs.
+Brahan present, to the narrow cell I had so lately quitted! I
+accompanied her there after dinner, while Richard, anxious to follow up
+the impression he had made, returned to the prison, taking with him his
+mother's Bible. I had hardly thought of the communication which he said
+he wished to make, till I saw Richard depart. Then it recurred to me;
+but it did not seem possible that it could interest or affect me much,
+though it might my brother.</p>
+
+<p>I have not spoken of Mrs. Brahan's children, because I have had so much
+to say of others; but she had children, and very lovely ones, who were
+the crowning blessings of her home. Her eldest were at school, but there
+were three inmates of the nursery, from five to ten years of age,
+adorned with the sweetest charms of childhood, brightness, purity, and
+bloom. She called them playfully her three little graces; and I never
+admired her so much, as when she made herself a child in their midst,
+and participated in their innocent amusements. After supper they were
+brought into the parlor to be companions of their father one hour, which
+he devoted exclusively to their instruction and recreation; but after
+dinner Mrs. Brahan took the place of the nurse, or rather governess, and
+I felt it a privilege to be with her, it made me feel so entirely at
+home, and the presence of childhood freshened and enlivened the spirits.
+It seemed as if fairy fingers were scattering rose-leaves on my heart.
+Was it possible that these young, innocent creatures would ever become
+hardened by worldliness, polluted by sin, or saddened by sorrow? And yet
+the doomed dweller of the Tombs had said that morning, "that he was once
+a praying child at his mother's knee!" How would that mother have felt,
+if, when his innocent hands were folded on her lap and his cherub lips
+repeated words which perhaps angels interpreted, she could have looked
+into future years, and beheld the condemned and blasted being in whose
+withering veins her own lifeblood was flowing?</p>
+
+<p>While I was reclining on the children's bed and the youngest little girl
+was playing with my ringlets, as short and childish as her own, I was
+told a gentleman was in the parlor, who inquired for me.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot I excuse myself?" I asked of Mrs. Brahan. "I did not wish any
+one to know that I was in the city. I did not wish to meet any of my
+former acquaintances."</p>
+
+<p>Then it suddenly flashed into my mind, that it might be some one who
+brought tidings of Ernest, some one who had met the "Star of the East,"
+on his homeward voyage. There was nothing wild in the idea, and when I
+mentioned it to Mrs. Brahan, she said it was possible, and that I had
+better go down. Supposing it was a messenger of evil! I felt as if I had
+borne all I could bear, and live. Then all at once I thought of the
+stranger whom I had seen in the vestibule of the prison, and I was sure
+it was he. But who was he, and why had he come? I was obliged to stop at
+the door, to command my agitation, so nervous had I been made by the
+shock from which I had not yet recovered. My cheeks burned, but my hands
+were cold as ice.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it was he. The moment I opened the door, I recognized him, the
+stately stranger of the Tombs. He was standing in front of the beautiful
+painting of the fortress, and his face was from me. But he turned at my
+entrance, and advanced eagerly to meet me. He was excessively pale, and
+varying emotions swept over his countenance, like clouds drifted by a
+stormy wind. Taking both my hands in his, he drew me towards him, with a
+movement I had no power to resist, and looked in my face with eyes in
+which every passion of the soul seemed concentrated, but in which joy
+like a sun-ray shone triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>Even before he opened his arms and clasped me to his bosom, I felt an
+invisible power drawing me to his heart, and telling me I had a right to
+be there.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella! child of my Rosalie! my own lost darling!" he exclaimed, in
+broken accents, folding me closer and closer in his arms, as if fearing
+I would vanish from his embrace. "Gracious God! I thank thee,&mdash;Heavenly
+Father! I bless thee for this hour. After long years of mourning, and
+bereavement, and loneliness, to find a treasure so dear, to feel a joy
+so holy! Oh, my God, what shall I render unto Thee for all thy
+benefits!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he bowed his head on my neck, and I felt hot tears gushing from his
+eyes, and sobs, like the deep, passionate sobs of childhood, convulsing
+his breast.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, he <i>was</i> my father. I knew it,&mdash;I felt it, as if the voice of God
+had spoken from the clouds of heaven to proclaim it. He was my father,
+the beloved of my angelic mother, and he had never wronged her, never.
+He had not been the deceiver, but the deceived. Without a word of
+explanation I believed this, for it was written as if in sunbeams on his
+noble brow. The dreams of my childhood were all embodied in him; and
+overpowered by reverence, love, gratitude, and joy, I slid from his
+arms, and on bended knees and with clasped hands, looked up in his face
+and repeated again and again the sacred name of "Father."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe such bewildering, such intense emotions.
+Seldom, except in dreams, are they felt, when the spirit seems free from
+the fetters of earth. Even when I found myself sitting by his side,
+still encircled in his arms and leaning on his heart, I could scarcely
+convince myself that the scene was real.</p>
+
+<p>"And Richard, my brother!" I cried, beginning to feel bewildered at the
+mysteries that were to be unravelled; "joy is not perfect till he shares
+it with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Will it make you unhappy, my darling Gabriella, to know that Richard is
+your cousin, instead of your brother?"</p>
+
+<p>I pressed my hands on my forehead, for it ached with the quick,
+lightning-like thoughts that flashed through my brain.</p>
+
+<p>"And he, the inmate of yon dismal cell?" I exclaimed, anticipating, as
+if by intuition, the reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is my brother, my twin brother, whom in youth our mother could not
+distinguish from myself. This fatal resemblance has caused all my woe.
+Ther&eacute;sa la Fontaine was <i>his</i> wife and Richard is <i>his</i> son, not mine."</p>
+
+<p>How simple, how natural, all this seemed! Why had not my mother dreamed
+of the possibility of such a thing! Knowing the existence of this
+brother, why had she not at once found in him the solution of the dark
+problem, which was the enigma as well as anguish of her life?</p>
+
+<p>"My unhappy brother!" said he, while a dark shade rested on his brow;
+"little did I think, when I visited his dungeon this morning, of the
+revelation he would make! I have been an exile and a wanderer many
+years, or I might perhaps have learned sooner what a blessing Heaven has
+been guarding for my sad and lonely heart. I saw you as you passed out
+of the prison, and your resemblance to my beloved Rosalie struck me, as
+an electric shock."</p>
+
+<p>"And yours to him whom I believed my father, had the same effect on me.
+How strange it was, that then I felt as if I would give worlds to call
+<i>you</i> father, instead of the wretched being I had just quitted."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are willing to acknowledge me, my beloved, my lovely
+daughter," said he, pressing a father's kiss on my forehead, from which
+his hand fondly put back the clustering locks. "My daughter! let me
+repeat the name. My daughter! how sweet, how holy it sounds! Had <i>she</i>
+lived, or had she only known before she died, the constancy and purity
+of my love; but forgive me, thou Almighty chastener of man's erring
+heart! I dare not murmur. She knows all this now. She has given me her
+divine forgiveness."</p>
+
+<p>"She left it with me, father, to give you; not only her forgiveness, but
+her undying love, and her dying blessing."</p>
+
+<p>Withdrawing the arm with which he still embraced me, he bowed his face
+on his hands, and I hardly dared to breathe lest I should disturb the
+sacredness of his emotions. "She knows all this now." My heart repeated
+the words. Methought the wings of her spirit were hovering round
+us,&mdash;her husband and her child,&mdash;whom the hand of God had brought
+together after years of alienation and sorrow. And other thoughts
+pressed down upon me. By and by, when we were all united in that world,
+where we should know even as we are known, Ernest would read my heart,
+by the light of eternity, and then he would know how I loved him. There
+would be no more suspicion, or jealousy, or estrangement, but perfect
+love and perfect joy would absorb the memory of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are married, my Gabriella?" were the first words my father
+said, when he again turned towards me. "How difficult to realize; and
+you looking so very young. Young as you really are, you cheat the eye of
+several years of youth!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was very ill, and when I woke to consciousness, I found myself shorn
+of the glory of womanhood,&mdash;my long hair."</p>
+
+<p>"You are so like my Rosalie. Your face, your eyes, your smile; and I
+feel that you have her pure and loving heart. Heaven preserve it from
+the blight that fell on hers!"</p>
+
+<p>The smile faded from my lip, and a quick sigh that I could not repress
+saddened its expression. The eyes of my father were bent anxiously on
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"I long to see the husband of my child," said he. "Is he not with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my father, he is far away. Do not speak of him now, I can only
+think of you."</p>
+
+<p>"If he is faithless to a charge so dear," exclaimed St. James, with a
+kindling glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, father; but I have so much to tell, so much to hear, my brain is
+dizzy with the thought. You shall have all my confidence, believe me you
+shall; and oh, how sweet it is to think that I have a father's breast to
+lean upon, a father's arms to shelter me, though the storms of life may
+blow cold and dreary round me,&mdash;and such a father!&mdash;after feeling such
+anguish and shame from my supposed parentage. Poor Richard! how I pity
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>"You love him, then? Believing him your brother, you have loved him as
+such?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could not love him better were he indeed my brother. He was the
+friend of my childhood," and a crimson hue stole over my face at the
+remembrance of a love more passionate than a brother's. "He is gifted
+with every good and noble quality, every pure and generous
+feeling,&mdash;friend, brother, cousin&mdash;it matters not which&mdash;he will ever be
+the same to me."</p>
+
+<p>Then I spoke of Mrs. Linwood, my adopted mother,&mdash;of my incalculable
+obligations, my unutterable gratitude, love, and admiration,&mdash;of the
+lovely Edith and her sisterly affection, and I told him how I longed
+that he should see them, and that <i>they</i> should know that I had a
+father, whom I was proud to acknowledge, instead of one who reflected
+disgrace even on them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I have so much to tell, so much to hear," I again repeated. "I know
+not when or where we shall begin. It is so bewildering, so strange, so
+like a dream. I fear to let go your hand lest you vanish from my sight
+and I lose you forever."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my child, you cannot feel as I do. You have enshrined other images
+in your heart, but mine is a lonely temple, into which you come as a
+divinity to be worshipped, as well as a daughter to be loved. I did not
+expect such implicit faith, such undoubting confidence. I feared you
+would shrink from a stranger, and require proofs of the truth of his
+assertions. I dared not hope for a greeting so tender, a trust so
+spontaneous."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I should as soon doubt that God was my Father in heaven, as you my
+father on earth. I <i>know</i> it, I do not <i>believe</i> it."</p>
+
+<p>I think my feelings must have been something like a blind person's on
+first emerging from the darkness that has wrapped him from his birth. He
+does not ask, when the sunbeams fall on his unclouded vision, <i>if it be
+light</i>. He knows it is, because it fills his new-born capacities for
+sight,&mdash;he knows it is, by the shadows that roll from before it. I knew
+it was my father, because he met all the wants of my yearning filial
+nature, because I felt him worthy of honor, admiration, reverence, and
+love.</p>
+
+<p>I know not how long I had been with him, when Mr. Brahan entered; and
+though it had been seventeen years since he had seen him, he immediately
+recognized the artist he had so much admired.</p>
+
+<p>"I have found a daughter, sir," said St. James, grasping his hand with
+fervor. He could not add another word, and no other was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"I told her so," cried Mr. Brahan, after expressing the warmest
+congratulations; "I told her husband so. I knew the wretch who assumes
+your name was an impostor, though he wonderfully resembles yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"He has a right to the name he bears," answered my father, and his
+countenance clouded as it always did when he alluded to his brother. "We
+are twin brothers, and our extraordinary resemblance in youth and early
+manhood caused mistakes as numerous as those recorded in the Comedy of
+Errors, and laid the foundation of a tragedy seldom found in the
+experience of life."</p>
+
+<p>While they were conversing, I stole from the room and ran up stairs to
+tell Mrs. Brahan the wondrous tidings. Her sympathy was as heart-felt as
+I expected,&mdash;her surprise less. She never could believe that man my
+father. Mr. Brahan always said he was an impostor, only he had no means
+to prove it.</p>
+
+<p>"How beautiful!" she said, her eyes glistening with sympathetic emotion,
+"that he should find you here, in his own wedded home,&mdash;the place of
+your birth,&mdash;the spot sanctified by the holiest memories of love. Has
+not your filial mission been blest? Has not Providence led you by a way
+you little dreamed of? My dear Gabriella, you must not indulge another
+sad misgiving or gloomy fear. Indeed you must not."</p>
+
+<p>"I know I ought not; but come and see my father."</p>
+
+<p>"What is he like?" she asked, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Like the dream of my childhood, when I imagined him one of the sons of
+God, such as once came down to earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Romantic child!" she exclaimed; but when she saw my father, I read
+admiration as well as respect in her speaking eye, and I was satisfied
+with the impression he had made.</p>
+
+<p>Richard came soon after informed by his father of all I could tell him
+and a great deal more, which he subsequently related to me. I think he
+was happier to know that he was cousin, than when he believed himself my
+brother. The transition from a lover to a brother was too painful. He
+could not divest himself of the idea of guilt, which, however
+involuntary, made him shudder in remembrance. But a cousin! The
+tenderness of natural affection and the memories of love, might unite in
+a bond so near and dear, and hallow each other.</p>
+
+<p>In the joy of my emancipation from imagined disgrace, I did not forget
+that the cloud still rested darkly on him,&mdash;that he still groaned under
+the burden which had been lifted from my soul. He told me that he had
+hope of his father's ultimate regeneration,&mdash;that he had found him much
+softened,&mdash;that he wept at the sight of Ther&eacute;sa's Bible, and still more
+when he read aloud to him the chapters which gave most consolation to
+her dying hours.</p>
+
+<p>The unexpected visit of his brother, from whom he had been so long
+separated, and whom he supposed was dead, had stirred still deeper the
+abysses of memoir and feeling.</p>
+
+<p>I will now turn a little while from myself, and give a brief history of
+the twin brothers, as I learned it from my father's lips, and Richard's,
+who narrated to me the story of <i>his</i> father's life as he heard it in
+the dungeon of the Tombs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVI" id="CHAPTER_LVI"></a>CHAPTER LVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Henry Gabriel and Gabriel Henry St. James, were born in the Highlands of
+New York. Their father was of English extraction, though of American
+birth; their mother the daughter of a French refugee, who had sought
+shelter in the land of freedom from the storms of the Revolution. So the
+elements of three nations mingled in their veins.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing remarkable in their childhood, but their resemblance
+to each other, which was so perfect that their own mother was not able
+to distinguish the one from the other. Perhaps either of them, seen
+separately, would not have excited extraordinary interest, but together
+they formed an image of dual beauty as rare as it was attractive. They
+were remarkable for their fine physical development, their blooming
+health, and its usual accompaniments, sunniness of temper, and gaiety of
+spirits; but even in early childhood these twin-born bodies showed that
+they were vitalized by far different souls. Their father was a
+sea-captain; and while Gabriel would climb his knees and listen with
+eager delight to tales of ocean life and stirring adventures, Henry,
+seated at his mother's feet, with his hands clasped on her lap and his
+eyes riveted on her face, would gather up her gently sparkling words in
+his young heart, and they became a pavement of diamonds, indestructible
+as it was bright and pure.</p>
+
+<p>As they grew older, the master-passion of each became more apparent.
+Gabriel made mimic boats and ships, and launched them on the bosom of a
+stream which flowed back of their dwelling, an infant argosy freighted
+with golden hopes. Henry drew figures on the sandy shore, of birds and
+beasts and creeping things, and converted every possible material into
+tablets for the impressions of his dawning genius. Gabriel was his
+father's darling, Henry was mother's beloved. I said she could not
+distinguish her twin-born boys; but when she looked into their eyes,
+there was something in the earnest depths of Henry's, an answering
+expression of love and sensibility, which she sought in vain in his
+brother's. The soul of the sea-dreaming boy was not with her; it was
+following the father on the foaming paths of ocean.</p>
+
+<p>"My boys shall go with me on my next voyage," said the captain. "It is
+time to think of making men of them. They have been poring over books
+long enough to have a holiday; and, by the living Jove, they shall have
+it. It is the ruin of boys to be tied to their mother's apron strings
+after they are twelve years old. They are fit for nothing but peddlers
+or colporteurs."</p>
+
+<p>Gabriel clapped his hands exultingly; but Henry drew closer to his
+mother's side.</p>
+
+<p>"My hero, my young brave," cried the captain, slapping his favorite boy
+on the shoulder, "you are worth a dozen such girl-boys as your brother.
+Let him be a kitten and cry mew, if he will, while you climb the
+topgallant-mast and make ladders of the clouds."</p>
+
+<p>"I am as brave as he is," said Henry, straightening his youthful figure,
+and looking at his father with a kindling eye. "I am not afraid of the
+water; but who will protect my mother, if I go away with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo! There is some spirit in the boy after all," exclaimed the
+captain, who loved his wife with the devotion and constancy of a sailor.
+"He has chosen an honorable post, and by heaven I will not force him to
+leave it. I see that nature, when she gave us twins, intended we should
+go shares in our boys. It is just. Gabriel shall go with me, but the
+silver cup of fortune may after all find its way in Henry's sack."</p>
+
+<p>Thus at twelve years of age the twin brothers separated, and from that
+era their life-paths diverged into a constantly widening angle.</p>
+
+<p>The captain discovered too late the error he had committed in
+cultivating the roving propensities of his son, to the exclusion of
+steady, nobler pursuits. He had intended merely to give him a holiday,
+and a taste of a seafaring life; but after revelling in the joys of
+freedom, he found it impossible to bind him down to the restraints of
+scholastic life. He wanted him to go to college, but the young rover
+bravely refused obedience to parental authority, saying, that one genius
+in a family was enough; and the father, gazing with pride on the wild,
+handsome, and dauntless boy, said there was no use in twisting the vine
+the wrong way, and yielded to his will. Henry, imbosomed in classic
+shades, gathered the fruits of science and the flowers of literature,
+while his genius as an artist, though apparently dormant, waited the
+Ithuriel touch of opportunity to wake into life and action.</p>
+
+<p>Captain St. James had prospered in his enterprises and acquired a
+handsome fortune, so that his sons would not be dependent on their own
+exertions for support. Gabriel unfortunately knew this circumstance too
+well, and on the faith of his father's fortune indulged in habits of
+extravagance and dissipation as ruinous as they were disgraceful. The
+captain did not live to witness the complete degradation of his favorite
+son. His vessel was wrecked on a homeward voyage, and the waves became
+the sailor's winding-sheet. His wife did not long survive him. She died,
+pining for the genial air of her own sunny clime, leaving the impress of
+her virtues and her graces on the character of one of her sons. Alas for
+the other!</p>
+
+<p>Free now from parental restraint, as he had long been from moral
+obligations, Gabriel plunged into the wildest excesses of dissipation.
+In vain Henry lifted his warning voice, in vain he extended his guardian
+hand, to save him who had now become the slave as well as the votary of
+vice. His soul clave to his brother with a tenderness of affection,
+which neither his selfishness nor vices, not even his crimes, could
+destroy. A gambler, a roue&eacute;, every thing but a drunkard, he at length
+became involved in so disgraceful a transaction, he was compelled for
+safety to flee the country; and Henry, ignorant what course he had
+taken, gave him up in despair, and tried to forget the existence of one
+whose remembrance could only awaken sorrow and shame. He went to Europe,
+as has been previously related, and with the eye of a painter and the
+heart of a poet, travelled from clime to clime, and garnered up in his
+imagination the sublimities of nature and the wonders of art. His genius
+grew and blossomed amid the warm and fostering influences of an elder
+world, till it formed, as it were, a bower around him, in whose
+perennial shades he could retire from haunting memories and uncongenial
+associations.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, Gabriel had found refuge in his mother's native land.
+During his wild, roving life, he had mingled much with foreigners, and
+acquired a perfect knowledge of the French language,&mdash;I should rather
+say his knowledge was perfected by practice, for the twin brothers had
+been taught from infancy the melodious and expressive language of their
+mother's native clime. The facility with which he conversed, and his
+extremely handsome person, were advantages whose value he well knew how
+to appreciate, and to make subservient to his use.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that he became acquainted with Ther&eacute;sa Josephine La
+Fontaine, and his worn and sated passions were quickened into new life.
+She was not beautiful, "but fair and excellent," and of a character that
+exercises a commanding influence over the heart of man. Had he known her
+before habits of selfish indulgence had become, like the Ethiopian's
+skin and the leopard's spots, too deep and indelible for chemic art to
+change, she might perhaps have saved him from the transgressor's doom.
+She loved him with all the ardor of her pure, yet impassioned nature,
+and fully believed that her heart was given to one of the sons of light,
+instead of the children of darkness. For awhile his sin-dyed spirit
+seemed to bleach in the whitening atmosphere that surrounded him, for a
+father's as well as a husband's joy was his. But at length the demon of
+ennui possessed him. Satan was discontented in the bowers of Paradise.
+Gabriel sighed for his profligate companions, in the bosom of wedded
+love and joy. He left home on a false pretence, and never returned. It
+was long before Ther&eacute;sa admitted a doubt of his faith, and it was not
+till a rumor of his marriage in America reached her ear, that she
+believed it possible that he could deceive and betray her. An American
+traveller from New York, who knew Henry St. James and was unconscious of
+the existence of his brother, spoke of his marriage and his beautiful
+bride in terms that roused every dormant passion in the breast of the
+deserted Ther&eacute;sa. Yet she waited long in the hope and the faith of
+woman's trusting heart, clinging to the belief of her husband's
+integrity and truth, with woman's fond adhesiveness. At length, when she
+had but convincing reason to believe herself a betrayed and abandoned
+wife, she took her boy in her arms, crossed the ocean waste, landed in
+New York, and by the aid of a directory sought the home of Henry St.
+James, deeming herself the legitimate mistress of the mansion she made
+desolate by her presence. The result of her visit has been already told.
+She unconsciously destroyed the happiness of others, without securing
+her own. It is not strange, that in the moment of agony and distraction
+caused by the revelation made by Ther&eacute;sa, Rosalie should not have
+noticed in the marriage certificate the difference between the names of
+Henry Gabriel and Gabriel Henry St. James.</p>
+
+<p>Henry St. James had been summoned to Texas, then the Botany Bay of
+America, by his unhappy brother, who had there commenced a new career of
+sin and misery. He had gambled away his fortune, killed a man in a scene
+of strife and blasphemy, been convicted of homicide, escaped from the
+sentence, and, lurking in by-lanes and accursed places, fell sick, and
+wrote to his brother to come and save him from infamy and death.</p>
+
+<p>How could he wound the spotless ears of Rosalie by the tale of his
+brother's guilt and shame? He had never spoken to her of his existence,
+the subject was so exquisitely painful, for he believed himself for ever
+separated from him, and why should his blasted name cast a shadow over
+the heaven of his domestic happiness?</p>
+
+<p>Alter having raised his miserable brother from the gulf of degradation
+in which he had plunged, and given him the means of establishing himself
+in some honorable situation, which he promised to seek, he returned to
+find his home occupied by strangers, his wife and child fled, his
+happiness wrecked, and his peace destroyed. The deluded and half frantic
+Ther&eacute;sa, believing him to be her husband, appealed to him, by the memory
+of their former love and wedded felicity, to forgive the steps she had
+taken that she might assert the claims of her deserted boy. Maddened by
+the loss of the wife whom he adored, he became for the time a maniac;
+and so terrible was his indignation and despair, the unhappy victim of
+his brother's perfidy fled trembling and dismayed from his presence.</p>
+
+<p>In the calmer moments that succeeded the first paroxysms of his agony,
+Henry thought of his brother and of the extraordinary resemblance they
+bore to each other, and the mystery which frenzied passion had at first
+veiled from his eyes was partially revealed to his understanding. Could
+he then have seen her, and could she prove that she was the wife of
+Gabriel, he would have protected her with a brother's care and
+tenderness. But his first thought was for Rosalie,&mdash;the young, the
+beloved, the deceived, the fugitive Rosalie, of whose flight no clue
+could be discovered, no trace be found. The servants could throw no
+light on the mystery, for she had left in the darkness and silence of
+night. They only knew that Peggy disappeared at the same time, and was
+probably her companion. This circumstance afforded a faint relief to
+Henry's distracted mind, for he knew Peggy's physical strength and moral
+courage, as well as her remarkable attachment to his lovely and gentle
+wife. But whither had they gone? The natural supposition was, that she
+would throw herself on the protection of her step-mother, as the only
+person on whom she had any legitimate claims,&mdash;unkind as she had
+formerly been. He immediately started for the embattled walls of
+Fortress Monroe,&mdash;but before his departure, he put advertisements in
+every paper, which, if they met her eye, she could not fail to
+understand. Alas! they never reached the gray cottage imbosomed in New
+England woods!</p>
+
+<p>In vain he sought her in the wave-washed home of her childhood. He met
+with no sympathy from the slighted and jealous step-mother, who had
+destroyed the only link that bound them together, the name of her
+father. She had married again, and disowned all interest in the daughter
+of her former husband. She went still further, and wreaked her vengeance
+on St. James for the wounds he had inflicted on her vanity, by aspersing
+and slandering the innocent Rosalie. He left her in indignation and
+disgust, and wandered without guide or compass, like another Orpheus in
+search of the lost Eurydice. Had he known Peggy's native place, he might
+have turned in the right direction, but he was ignorant of every thing
+but her name and virtues. At length, weary and desponding, he resolved
+to seek in foreign lands, and in devotion to his art, oblivion of his
+sorrows. Just before his departure he met his brother, and told him of
+the circumstances which banished him from home and country. Gabriel,
+whose love for Ther&eacute;sa had been the one golden vein in the dark ore of
+his nature, was awakened to bitter, though short-lived remorse, not only
+for the ruin he brought on her, but the brother, whose fraternal
+kindness had met with so sad a requital. Touched by the exhibition of
+his grief and self-reproach, Henry committed to his keeping a miniature
+of Rosalie, of which he had a duplicate, that he might be able to
+identify her, and Gabriel promised, if he discovered one trace of his
+wife and child, that he would write to his brother and recall him.</p>
+
+<p>They parted. Henry went to Italy, where images of ideal loveliness
+mingled with, though they could not supplant, the taunting memories of
+his native clime. As an artist, and as a man, he was admired, respected,
+and beloved; and he found consolation, though not happiness. The one
+great sorrow of his life fell like a mountain shadow over his heart; but
+it darkened its brightness without chilling its warmth. He was still the
+sympathizing friend of humanity, the comforter of the afflicted, the
+benefactor of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time Gabriel continued his reckless and dissolute course,
+sometimes on land, sometimes on sea, an adventurer, a speculator, a
+gambler, and a wretch. Destiny chanced to throw him into the vortex of
+corruption boiling in the heart of New York, when I went there, the
+bride of Ernest. He had seen me in the street, before he met me at the
+theatre; and, struck by my resemblance to the miniature which his
+brother had given him, he inquired and learned my name and history, as
+well as the wealth and rank of my husband. Confirmed in his suspicion
+that I was the child of Rosalie, he resolved to fill his empty pockets
+with my husband's gold, by making me believe that <i>he</i> was my father,
+and appealing to my filial compassion. Not satisfied with his success,
+he forged the note, whose discovery was followed by detection,
+conviction, imprisonment, and despair.</p>
+
+<p>The only avenue to his seared and hardened heart had been found by the
+son of Ther&eacute;sa, coming to him like a messenger from heaven, in all his
+purity, excellence, and filial piety, not to avenge a mother's wrongs,
+but to cheer and illumine a guilty father's doom. His brother, too,
+seemed sent by Providence at this moment, that he might receive the
+daughter whom, from motives of the basest selfishness, he had claimed as
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>When I first saw my father at the Falls, he had just returned to his
+native land, in company with Julian, the young artist. Urged by one of
+those irresistible impulses which may be the pressure of an angel's
+hand, his spirit turned to the soil where he now firmly believed the
+ashes of his Rosalie reposed. He and Julian parted on their first
+arrival, met again on the morning of our departure, and travelled
+together through some of the glowing and luxuriant regions of the West.
+After Julian left him to visit Grandison Place, he lingered amid scenes
+where nature revelled in all its primeval grandeur and original
+simplicity, sketching its boldest and most attractive features, till,
+God-directed, he came to the city over which the memory of his brief
+wedded life trembled like a misty star throbbing on the lonely heart of
+night. Hearing that a St. James was in the dungeons of the Tombs, a
+convicted forger, he at once knew that it must be his brother. There he
+sought him, and learned from him that the child of Rosalie lived, though
+Rosalie was a more.</p>
+
+<p>As simple as sad, was the solution of my life's mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Concealment was the fatal source of our sorrows. Even the noble Henry
+St. James erred in concealing his twin brotherhood, though woe and
+disgrace tarnished the once golden link. Rosalie and Ther&eacute;sa both erred,
+in not giving their children their father's name, though they believed
+it accursed by perjury and guilt.</p>
+
+<p>Truth, and truth alone, is safe and omnipotent: "The eternal days of God
+are hers." Man may weave, but she will undeceive; man may arrange, but
+God will dispose.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVII" id="CHAPTER_LVII"></a>CHAPTER LVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I told my father the history of my youth and womanhood, of my marriage
+and widowhood, with feelings similar to those with which I poured out my
+soul into the compassionate bosom of my Heavenly Father. He listened,
+pitied, wept over, and then consoled me.</p>
+
+<p>"He must prove himself worthy of so sacred a trust," said he, clasping
+me to his bosom with all a father's tenderness, and all a mother's love,
+"before I ever commit it to his keeping. Never again, with my consent,
+shall you be given back to his arms, till 'the seed of the woman has
+bruised the serpent's head.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I will never leave you again, dear father, under any circumstances,
+whatever they may be. Rest assured, that come weal, come woe, we will
+never be separated. Not even for a husband's unclouded confidence, would
+I forsake a father's sacred, new-found love."</p>
+
+<p>"We must wait, and hope, and trust, my beloved daughter. Every thing
+will work together for the good of those that love God. I believe that
+now, fully, reverentially. Sooner or later all the ways of Providence
+will be justified to man, and made clear as the noonday sun."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up to heaven, and his fine countenance beamed with holy
+resignation and Christian faith. Oh! how I loved this dear, excellent,
+noble father! Every hour, nay, every moment I might say, my filial love
+and reverence increased. My feelings were so new, so overpowering, I
+could not analyze them. They were sweet as the strains of Edith's harp,
+yet grand as the roaring of ocean's swelling waves. The bliss of
+confidence, the rapture of repose, the sublimity of veneration, the
+tenderness of love, all blended like the dyes of the rainbow, and
+spanned with an arch of peace the retreating clouds of my soul.</p>
+
+<p>"When shall we go to Grandison Place?" he asked. "I long to pour a
+father's gratitude into the ear of your benefactress. I long to visit
+the grave of my Rosalie."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, to-day,&mdash;now, dear father, whenever you speak the word;
+provided we are not separated, I do not mind how soon."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at my eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite so much haste, my daughter. I cannot leave to Richard the
+sole task of ministering to the soul of my unhappy brother. His
+conscience is quickened, his feeling softened, and it may be that the
+day of grace is begun. His frame is weak and worn, his blood feverish,
+and drop by drop is slowly drying in his veins. I never saw any one so
+fearfully altered. Truly is it said, that 'the wages of sin is death.'
+Oh! if after herding with the swine and feeding on the husks of earth,
+he comes a repentant prodigal to his father's home, it matters not how
+soon he passes from that living tomb."</p>
+
+<p>My father's words were prophetic. The prisoner's wasted frame was
+consuming slowly, almost imperceptibly, like steel when rust corrodes
+it. Richard and my father were with him every day, and gathered round
+him every comfort which the law permitted, to soften the horrors of
+imprisonment. Not in vain were their labors of love. God blessed them.
+The rock was blasted. The waters gushed forth. Like the thief on the
+cross, he turned his dying glance on his Saviour, and acknowledged him
+to be the Son of God. But it was long before the fiery serpents of
+remorse were deadened by the sight of the brazen reptile, glittering
+with supernatural radiance on the uplifted eye of faith. The struggle
+was fearful and agonizing, but the victory triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>Had he needed me, I would have gone to him, and I often pleaded
+earnestly with my father to take me with him; but he said he did not
+wish me to be exposed to such harrowing scenes, and that Richard
+combined the tenderness of a daughter with the devotion of a son. Poor
+Richard! his pale cheeks and heavy eyes bore witness to the protracted
+sufferings of his father, but he bore up bravely, sustained by the hope
+of his soul's emancipation from the bondage of sin.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner must have had an iron constitution. The wings of his spirit
+flapped with such violence against its skeleton bars, the vulture-beak
+of remorse dipping all the time into the quivering, bleeding heart, it
+is astonishing how long it resisted even after flesh and blood seemed
+wasted away. Day after day he lingered; but as his soul gradually
+unsheathed itself, clearer views of God and eternity played upon its
+surface, till it flashed and burned, like a sword in the sunbeams of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>At length he died, with the hand of his son clasped in his, the bible of
+Ther&eacute;sa laid against his heart, and his brother kneeling in prayer by
+his bedside. Death came softly, gently, like an angel of release, and
+left the seal of peace on that brow, indented in life by the
+thunder-scars of sin and crime.</p>
+
+<p>After the first shock, Richard could not help feeling his father's death
+an unspeakable blessing, accompanied by such circumstances. In the grave
+his transgressions would be forgotten, or remembered only to forgive. He
+must now rise, shake off the sackcloth and ashes from his spirit, and
+put on the beautiful garments of true manhood. The friends, who had
+taken such an interest in his education, must not be disappointed in the
+career they had marked out. Arrangements had been made for him to study
+his profession with one of the most eminent lawyers of Boston, and he
+was anxious to commence immediately, that he might find in mental
+excitement an antidote to morbid sensibility and harrowing memory.</p>
+
+<p>My father's wishes and my own turned to Grandison Place, and we prepared
+at once for our departure. I had informed Mrs. Linwood by letters of the
+events which I have related, and received her heart-felt
+congratulations. She expressed an earnest desire to see my father, but
+honored too much the motives that induced him to remain, to wish him to
+hasten. Now those motives no longer existed, I wrote to announce our
+coming, and soon after we bade adieu to one of the most charming abodes
+of goodness, hospitality, and pure domestic happiness I have ever known.</p>
+
+<p>"You must write and tell me of all the changes of your changing
+destiny," said Mrs. Brahan, when she gave me the parting embrace; "no
+one can feel more deeply interested in them than myself. I feel in a
+measure associated with the scenes of your life-drama, for this is the
+place of your nativity, and it was under this roof you were united to
+your noble and inestimable father. Be of good cheer. Good news will
+come, wafted from beyond the Indian seas, and your second bridal morn
+will be fairer than the first."</p>
+
+<p>I thanked her with an overflowing heart. I did not, like <i>her</i>, see the
+day-star of hope arising over that second bridal morn, but the sweet
+pathetic minor tone breathed in my ear the same holy strain:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Star of the East, the horizon adorning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVIII" id="CHAPTER_LVIII"></a>CHAPTER LVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I wish my father could have seen the home of my youth, when he first
+beheld it, in the greenness of spring or the bloom of summer; but white,
+cold, and dazzling was the lawn, and bleak, bare, and leafless the grand
+old elms and the stately brotherhood of oaks that guarded the avenue.</p>
+
+<p>With pride, gratitude, joy, and a thousand mingling emotions, I
+introduced my father into a dwelling consecrated by so many
+recollections of happiness and woe. The cloud was removed from my birth,
+the stain from my lineage. I could now exult in my parentage and glory
+in my father.</p>
+
+<p>Julian was there, and welcomed St. James with enthusiastic pleasure,
+who, on his part, seemed to cherish for him even parental affection.
+With joy and triumph beaming in his eyes and glowing on his cheek,
+Julian took the lovely Edith by the hand, and introduced her as his
+bride. Still occupying her usual place in her mother's home, in all her
+sweetness, simplicity, and spirituality, it was difficult to believe any
+change had come over her destiny. She had not waited for my presence,
+because she knew the bridal wreath woven for her would recall the
+blighted bloom of mine. She had no festal wedding. She could not, while
+her brother's fate was wrapped in uncertainty and gloom.</p>
+
+<p>One Sunday evening, after Mr. Somerville had dismissed the congregation
+with the usual benediction, Julian led Edith to the altar, and her
+mother stood by her side till the solemn words were uttered that made
+them one. So simple and holy were the nuptial rites of the wealthy and
+beautiful heiress of Grandison Place.</p>
+
+<p>My father spoke in exalted terms of the young artist, of his virtues and
+his genius, the singleness of his heart, the uprightness of his
+principles, and the warmth and purity of his affections. Had he, my
+father, needed any passport to the favor of Mrs. Linwood, he could not
+have had a surer one; but her noble nature instantaneously recognized
+his congenial and exalted worth. He had that in his air, his
+countenance, and manner, that distinguished him from the sons of men, as
+the planets are distinguished by their clear, intense, and steadfast
+lustre among the starry ranks of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>I gave him the manuscript my mother had left me, and at his request
+pointed out the road and the diverging path that led to the spot where
+her grave was made. I did not ask to accompany him, for I felt his
+emotions were too sacred for even his daughter to witness. I mourned
+that the desolation of winter was added to the dreariness of death; that
+a pall of snow, white as her winding-sheet and cold as her clay, covered
+the churchyard. In summer, when the grass was of an emerald green and
+the willows waved their weeping branches with a gentle rustle against
+the clustering roses, whose breath perfumed and whose blossoms
+beautified the place of graves, it was sweet, though sad, to wander amid
+the ruins of life, and meditate on its departed joys.</p>
+
+<p>The broken shaft, twined with a drooping wreath carved in bas-relief,
+which rose above my mother's ashes, and the marble stone which marked
+the grave of Peggy, were erected the year after their deaths. The money
+which rewarded my services in the academy had been thus appropriated, or
+rather a portion of it. The remainder had been given to the poor, as
+Mrs. Linwood always supplied my wardrobe, as she did Edith's, and left
+no want of my own to satisfy, not even a wish to indulge. I mention this
+here, because it occurred to my mind that I had not done Mrs. Linwood
+perfect justice with regard to the motives which induced her to
+discipline my character.</p>
+
+<p>I did not see my father for hours after his return. He retired to his
+chamber, and did not join the family circle till the evening lamps were
+lighted. He looked excessively pale, even wan, and his countenance
+showed how much he had suffered. Edith was singing when he came in, and
+he made a motion for her to continue; for it was evident he did not wish
+to converse. I sat down by him without speaking; and putting his arm
+round me, he drew me closely to his side. The plaintive melody of
+Edith's voice harmonized with the melancholy tone of his feelings, and
+seemed to shed on his soul a balmy and delicious softness. His spirit
+was with my mother in the dreams of the past, rather than the hopes of
+the future; and the memory of its joys lived again in music's heavenly
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>It is a blessed thing to be remembered in death as my mother was. Her
+image was enshrined in her husband's heart, in the bloom and freshness
+of unfaded youth, as he had last beheld her,&mdash;and such it would ever
+remain. He had not seen the mournful process of fading and decay. To
+him, she was the bride of immortality; and his love partook of her own
+freshness and youth and bloom. Genius is <i>La fontaine de jouvence</i>, in
+whose bright, deep waters the spirit bathes and renews its morning
+prime. It is the well-spring of the heart,&mdash;the Castaly of the soul. St.
+James had lived amid forms of ideal beauty, till his spirit was imbued
+with their loveliness as with the fragrance of flowers, and he breathed
+an atmosphere pure as the world's first spring. He was <i>young</i>, though
+past the meridian of life. There was but one mark of age upon his
+interesting and noble person, and that was the snowy shade that softened
+his raven hair,&mdash;foam of the waves of time, showing they had been lashed
+by the storms, or driven against breakers and reefs of destiny.</p>
+
+<p>The first time I took him into the library, he stopped before the
+picture of Ernest. I did not tell him whose it was. He gazed upon it
+long and earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"What a countenance!" he exclaimed. "I can see the lights and shades of
+feeling flashing and darkening over it. It has the troubled splendor of
+a tropic night, when clouds and moonbeams are struggling. Is it a
+portrait, or an ideal picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is Ernest,&mdash;it is my husband," I answered; and it seemed to me as if
+all the ocean surges that rolled between us were pressing their cold
+weight on my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor girl! my beloved Gabriella! All your history is written there."</p>
+
+<p>I threw myself in his arms, and wept. Had I seen Ernest dead at my feet,
+I could not have felt more bitter grief. I had never indulged it so
+unrestrainedly before in his presence, for I had always thought more of
+him than myself; and in trying to cheer him, I had found cheerfulness.
+Now I remembered only Ernest's idolatrous love, and his sorrows and
+sufferings, forgetting my own wrongs; and I felt there would always be
+an aching void which even a father's and brother's tenderness (for
+brother I still called Richard) could never fill.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my father," I cried, "bear with my weakness,&mdash;bear with me a little
+while. There is comfort in weeping on a father's bosom, even for a loss
+like mine. I shall never see him again. He is dead, or if living, is
+dead to me. You cannot blame me, father. You see there a faint semblance
+of what he is,&mdash;splendid, fascinating, and haunting, though at times so
+dark and fearful. No words of mine can give an idea of the depth, the
+strength, the madness of his love. It has been the blessing and the
+bane, the joy and the terror, the angel and the demon of my life. I know
+it was sinful in its wild excess, and mine was sinful, too, in its blind
+idolatry, and I know the blessing of God could not hallow such a union.
+But how can I help feeling the dearth, the coldness, the weariness
+following such passionate emotions? How can I help feeling at times,
+that the sun of my existence is set, and a long, dark night before me?"</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer,&mdash;he only pressed me convulsively to his heart, and I
+felt one hot tear, and then another and another falling on my brow.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! it is cruel to wring tears from the strong heart of man; cruel,
+above all, to wring them from a father's heart,&mdash;that heart whose own
+sorrows had lately bled afresh. Every drop fell heavy and burning as
+molten lead on my conscience. I had been yielding to a selfish burst of
+grief, thoughtless of the agony I was inflicting.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, father!" I cried, "forgive me! On my knees, too, I will
+pray my Heavenly Father to forgive the rebel who dares to murmur at his
+chastisements, when new and priceless blessings gladden her life. I
+thought I had learned submission,&mdash;and I have, father, I have kissed in
+love and faith the Almighty hand that laid me low. This has been a dark
+moment, but it is passed."</p>
+
+<p>I kissed his hand, and pressed it softly over my glistening eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive you, my child!" he repeated, "for a sorrow so natural, so
+legitimate, and which has so much to justify it! I have wondered at your
+fortitude and disinterested interest in others,&mdash;I have wondered at your
+Christian submission, your unmurmuring resignation, and I wonder still.
+But you must not consider your destiny as inevitably sad and lonely. You
+have not had time yet to receive tidings from India. If, after the
+letter you have written, your husband does not return with a heart
+broken by penitence and remorse, and his dark and jealous passions slain
+by the sword of conviction, piercing two-edged and sharp to the very
+marrow of his spirit, he is not worthy of thee, my spotless, precious
+child; and the illusion of love will pass away, showing him to be
+selfish, tyrannical, and cruel, a being to be shunned and pitied, but no
+longer loved. Do not shudder at the picture I have drawn. The soul that
+speaks from those eyes of thousand meanings," added he, looking at the
+portrait that gazed upon us with powerful and thrilling glance, "must
+have some grand and redeeming qualities. I trust in God that it will
+rise above the ashes of passion, purified and regenerated. Then your
+happiness will have a new foundation, whose builder and maker is God."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! dear father!" was all I could utter. He spoke like one who had the
+gift of prophecy, and my spirit caught the inspiration of his words.</p>
+
+<p>I have not spoken of Richard, for I had so much to say of my father, but
+I did not forget him. He accompanied us to Grandison Place, though he
+remained but a few days. I could not help feeling sad to see how the
+sparkling vivacity of his youth had passed away, the diamond brightness
+which reminded one of rippling waters in their sunbeams. But if less
+brilliant, he was far more interesting. Stronger, deeper, higher
+qualities were developed. The wind-shaken branches of thought stretched
+with a broader sweep. The roots of his growing energies, wrenched by the
+storm, struck firmer and deeper, and the wounded bark gave forth a pure
+and invigorating odor.</p>
+
+<p>I walked with him, the evening before his departure, in the avenue from
+which the snow had been swept, leaving a smooth, wintry surface below. I
+was wrapped in furs, and the cold, frosty air braced me like a pair of
+strong arms.</p>
+
+<p>I had so much to say to Richard, and now I was alone with him. I walked
+on in silence, feeling as if words had never been invented to express
+our ideas.</p>
+
+<p>"You will never feel the want of a father's care and affection," at
+length I said. "My father could not love you better if you were his own
+son; and surely no own brother could be dearer, Richard, than you are
+and ever will be to me. You must not look mournfully on the past, but
+forward into a brightening future."</p>
+
+<p>"I have but one object in life now," he answered, "and that is, to
+improve the talents God has given me for the benefit of mankind. I am
+not conscious of any personal hope or ambition, but a strong sense of
+duty acts upon me, and will save me from the corrosion of disappointment
+and the listlessness of despair."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will not always feel so, Richard. You will experience a strong
+reaction soon, and new-born hopes and aspirations will shine gloriously
+to guide you upward and onward in your bright career. Think how young
+you are yet, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"The consciousness of youth does not always bring joy. It cannot, when
+youthful hopes are blighted, Gabriella. One cannot tear up at once the
+deep-rooted affections of years. Never was a love planted deeper, firmer
+than mine for you, before the soil of the heart had known the hardening
+winds of destiny. Start not, Gabriella, I am not going to utter one
+sentiment which, as a wife, you need blush to hear; but the parting
+hour, like that of death, is an honest one, and I must speak as I feel.
+May you never know or imagine my wretchedness when I believed you to be
+my sister, knowing that though innocent, I had been guilty, and that I
+could not love you merely with a brother's love. Thank heaven! you are
+my cousin. Ten thousand winning sweetnesses cluster round this dear
+relationship. The dearest, the strongest, the purest I have ever known."</p>
+
+<p>"You will know a stronger, a dearer one, dear Richard,&mdash;you do not know
+yet how strong."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never think of my own happiness, Gabriella, till I am assured
+of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will try to be happy for your sake."</p>
+
+<p>"And if it should be that the ties severed by misfortune and distance
+are never renewed, you will remain with your father, and I will make my
+home with you, and it will be the business of both our lives to make you
+happy. No flower of the green-house was ever more tenderly cherished and
+guarded than you shall be, best beloved of so many hearts!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, oh, thank you, for all your tenderness, so far beyond my
+worth. Friend, brother, cousin, with you and such a father to love me, I
+ought to be the happiest and most grateful of human beings. But tell me
+one thing, dear Richard, before we part; do you forgive Ernest the wrong
+he has done you, freely and fully?"</p>
+
+<p>"From the bottom of my heart I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And should we ever meet again, may I tell him so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him I have nothing to forgive, for, believing as he did, vengeance
+could not wing a bolt of wrath too red, too deadly. But I would not
+recall the past. Your father beckons us,&mdash;he fears the frosty evening
+air for you, but it has given a glowing rose to your cheeks!"</p>
+
+<p>My father stood on the threshold to greet us, with that benign smile,
+that beautiful, winning smile that had so long been slumbering on his
+face, but which grew brighter and brighter every time it beamed on my
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>The last evening of Richard's stay was not sad. Dr. Harlowe and Mr.
+Somerville were with us; and though the events with which he had been
+associated had somewhat sobered the doctor's mirthful propensities, the
+geniality of his character was triumphant over every circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>My father expressed to him the most fervent gratitude for his parental
+kindness to me, as well as for a deeper, holier debt.</p>
+
+<p>"You owe me nothing," said Dr. Harlowe; "and even if you did, and were
+the debt ten times beyond your grateful appreciation of it, I should
+consider myself repaid by the privilege of calling you my friend."</p>
+
+<p>No one could speak with more feeling or dignity than the doctor, when
+the right chord was touched. He told me he had never seen the man he
+admired so much as my father; and how proud and happy it made me to have
+him say so, and know that his words were true! No one who has not felt
+as I did, the mortification, the shame and anguish of believing myself
+the daughter of a convicted criminal, can understand the intense, the
+almost worshipping reverence with which I regarded my late-found parent.
+To feel pride instead of humiliation, exultation instead of shame, and
+love instead of abhorrence, how great the contrast, how unspeakable the
+relief, how sublime and holy the gratitude!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIX" id="CHAPTER_LIX"></a>CHAPTER LIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The snows of winter melted, the diamond icicles dropped from the trees,
+the glittering fetters slipped from the streams, and nature came forth a
+captive released from bondage, glowing with the joy of emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could be more beautiful, more glorious, than the valley in its
+vernal garniture. Such affluence of verdure; such rich, sweeping
+foliage; such graceful undulation of hill and dale; such exquisite
+blending of light and shade; such pure, rejoicing breezes; such blue,
+resplendent skies never before met, making <i>a tableau vivant</i> on which
+the eye of the great Creator must look down with delight.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time Mrs. Linwood had witnessed the opening of spring
+at Grandison Place, and her faded spirits revived in the midst of its
+blooming splendor. She bad preferred its comparative retirement during
+the past winter, and, in spite of the solicitations of her friends,
+refused to go to the metropolis. My father and Julian both felt an
+artist's rapture at the prospect unrolled in a grand panorama around
+them, and transferred to the canvas many a glowing picture. It was
+delightful to watch the progress of these new creations,&mdash;but far more
+interesting when the human face was the subject of the pencil. Edith and
+myself were multiplied into so many charming forms, it is strange we
+were not made vain by gazing on them.</p>
+
+<p>I was very grasping in my wishes, and wanted quite a picture gallery of
+my friends,&mdash;Mrs. Linwood, Edith, and Dr. Harlowe; and my indulgent
+father made masterly sketches of all for his exacting daughter. And thus
+day succeeded day, and no wave from Indian seas wafted tidings of the
+absent husband and son. No "Star of the East" dawned on the nightshades
+of my heart. And the raven voice kept echoing in my ear, "Never more,
+never more." There had been a terrible gale sweeping along the whole
+eastern coast of the Atlantic, and many a ship had gone down, freighted
+with an argosy richer than gold,&mdash;the treasures of human hearts. I did
+not speak my fears, but the sickness of dread settled on my spirits, in
+spite of the almost super-human efforts I made to shake it from them.
+When my eyes were fixed on my father's paintings, I could see nothing
+but storm-lashed billows, wrecking ships, and pale, drowning mariners. I
+could see that Mrs. Linwood and Edith participated in my apprehensions,
+though they did not give them utterance. We hardly dared to look in each
+other's faces, lest we should betray to each other thoughts which we
+would, but could not conceal.</p>
+
+<p>The library had been converted into my father's studio. He usually
+painted in the mornings as well as Julian; and in the afternoon we rode,
+or walked as inclination prompted, and the evenings were devoted to
+sewing, conversation, and music.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, after returning from a ride about sunset, I went into the
+library for a book which I had left there. I never went there alone
+without stopping to gaze at the picture of Ernest, which every day
+acquired a stronger fascination. "Those eyes of a thousand meanings," as
+my father had said, followed me with thrilling intensity whenever I
+moved, and if I paused they fixed themselves on me as if never more to
+be withdrawn. Just now, as I entered, a crimson ray of the setting sun,
+struggling in through the curtained windows, fell warmly on the face,
+and gave it such a lifelike glow, that I actually started, as if life
+indeed were there.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said before, the library was remote from the front part of the
+house, and even Margaret's loud, voluble laugh did not penetrate its
+deep retirement. I know not how long, but it must have been very long
+that I stood gazing at the picture, for the crimson ray had faded into a
+soft twilight haze, and the face seemed gradually receding further and
+further from me.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened. Never, never, shall I feel as I did then till I meet my
+mother's spirit in another world. A pale hand rested, as if for support,
+on the latch of the door,&mdash;a face pale as the statues, but lighted up by
+eyes of burning radiance, flashed like an apparition upon me. I stood as
+in a nightmare, incapable of motion or utterance, and a cloud rolled
+over my sight. But I knew that Ernest was at my feet, that his face was
+buried in the folds of my dress, and his voice in deep, tremulous music,
+murmuring in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Gabriella! beloved Gabriella! I am not worthy to be called thy husband;
+but banish me not, my own and only love!"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of that voice, my paralyzed senses burst the fetters that
+enthralled them, and awoke to life so keen, there was agony in the
+awakening. Every plan that reason had suggested and judgment approved
+was forgotten or destroyed, and love, all-conquering, unconquerable
+love, reigned over every thought, feeling, and emotion. I sunk upon my
+knees before him,&mdash;I encircled his neck with my arms,&mdash;I called him by
+every dear and tender name the vocabulary of love can furnish,&mdash;I wept
+upon his bosom showers of blissful and relieving tears. Thus we knelt
+and wept, locked in each other's arms, and again and again Ernest
+repeated&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am not worthy to be thy husband," and I answered again and again&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I love thee, Ernest. God, who knoweth all things, knows, and he only,
+how I love thee."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to describe such scenes. Those who have never known
+them, must deem them high-wrought and extravagant those who <i>have</i>, cold
+and imperfect. It is like trying to paint chain-lightning, or the
+coruscations of the aurora borealis. I thought not how he came. What
+cared I, when he was with me, when his arms were round me, his heart
+answering to the throbs of mine? Forgotten were suspicion, jealousy,
+violence, and wrong,&mdash;nothing remained but the memory of love.</p>
+
+<p>As the shades of twilight deepened, his features seemed more distinct,
+for the mist which tears had left dissolved, and I could see how wan and
+shadowy he looked, and how delicate, even to sickliness, the hue of his
+transparent complexion. Traces of suffering were visible in every
+lineament, but they seemed left by the ground-swell of passion, rather
+than its deeper ocean waves.</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen your mother?" at length I said, feeling that I must no
+longer keep him from her, "and Edith? And oh, Ernest! have you seen my
+father? Do you know I have a father, whom I glory in acknowledging? Do
+you know that the cloud is removed from my birth, the stigma from my
+name? Oh, my husband, mine is a strange, eventful history!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Brahan told me of the discovery of your father, and of the death of
+his unhappy brother. I have not seen him yet. But my mother! When I left
+her, Gabriella, she had not one silver hair. <i>My</i> hand sprinkled that
+premature snow."</p>
+
+<p>"It matters not now, dear Ernest," I cried, pained by the torturing
+sighs that spoke the depth of his remorse. "Flowers will bloom sweetly
+under that light snow. Edith is happy. We will all be happy,&mdash;my father
+too,&mdash;come and see him, Ernest,&mdash;come, and tell me, if I have need to
+blush for my lineage."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for your lineage, but your husband. What must this noble father
+think of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every thing that is kind and Christian. He has sustained my faith, fed
+my hopes, and prophesied this hour of reunion. Come, the moment you have
+seen him, you will trust, revere, and love him."</p>
+
+<p>With slow and lingering steps we walked the winding gallery that led
+from the library, and entered the parlor, whose lights seemed dazzling
+in contrast to the soft gloom we had left behind.</p>
+
+<p>Hand in hand we approached my father, who stood with his back to one of
+the windows, his tall and stately figure nobly defined. I tried to utter
+the words, "My husband! my father!" but my parted lips were mute. I
+threw myself into his arms, with a burst of emotion that was
+irrepressible, and he grasped the hand of Ernest and welcomed and blest
+him in warm, though faltering accents. Then Edith came with her sweet
+April face, and hung once more upon her brother's neck, and his mother
+again embraced him, and Julian walked to the window and looked abroad,
+to hide the tears which he thought a stain upon his manhood.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till after the excitement of the hour had subsided, that we
+realized how weak and languid Ernest really was. He was obliged to
+confess how much he had suffered from illness and fatigue, and that his
+strength was completely exhausted. As he reclined on one of the sofas,
+the crimson hue of the velvet formed such a startling contrast to the
+pallor of his complexion, it gave him an appearance almost unearthly.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been ill, my son," said Mrs. Linwood, watching him with
+intense anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been on the confines of the spirit world, my mother; so near as
+to see myself by the light it reflected. Death is the solar microscope
+of life. It shows a hideous mass, where all seemed fair and pure."</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand over his eyes with a nervous shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am well now," he added; "I am only suffering from fatigue and
+excitement. Gabriella's letter found me leaning over the grave. It
+raised me, restored me, brought me back to life, to hope, to love, and
+home."</p>
+
+<p>He told us, in the course of the evening, how he had found Mr. Harland
+on the eve of embarking for India, and that he offered to be his
+companion; and how he had written to his mother before his voyage,
+telling her of his destination, and entreating her to write if she were
+still willing to call him her son. The letter came not to relieve the
+agonies of suspense, and mine contained the first tidings he received
+from his native land. It found him, as he had said, on a sick-bed, and
+its contents imparted new life to his worn and tortured being. He
+immediately took passage in a home bound ship, though so weak he was
+obliged to be carried on board in a litter. Mr. Harland accompanied him
+to New York, where on debarking they had met Mr. Brahan, who had given
+him a brief sketch of my visit, and the events that marked it.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat by him on a low seat, with his hand clasped in mine, while he
+told me in a low voice of the depth of his penitence, the agonies of his
+remorse, and the hope of God's pardon that had dawned on what he
+supposed the night clouds of death, I saw him start as if in sudden
+pain. The lace sleeve had fallen back from my left arm. His eyes were
+fixed on the wound he had inflicted. He bent his head forward, and
+pressed his lips on the scar.</p>
+
+<p>"They shall look upon him whom they have pierced," he murmured. "O my
+Saviour I could thy murderers feel pangs of deeper remorse at the sight
+of thy scarred hands and wounded side?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never think of it again, dear Ernest. I did not know it, did not feel
+it. It never gave me a moment's pang."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember well why you did not suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must not remember. If you love me, Ernest, make no allusion to
+the past. The future is ours; youth and hope are ours; and the promises
+of God, sure and steadfast, are ours. I feel as Noah and his children
+felt when they stepped from the ark on dry land, and saw the waters of
+the deluge retreating, and the rainbow smiling on its clouds. What to
+them were the storms they had weathered, the dangers they had overcome?
+They were all past. Oh, my husband, let us believe that ours are past,
+and let us trust forever in the God of our fathers."</p>
+
+<p>"I do&mdash;I do, my Gabriella. My faith has hitherto been a cold
+abstraction; now it is a living, vital flame, burning with steady and
+increasing light."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Edith, who had seated herself at the harp, remembering
+well the soothing influence of music on her brother's soul, touched its
+resounding strings; and the magnificent strains of the <i>Gloria in
+Excelsis</i>,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&mdash;"rose like a stream<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of rich distilled perfume."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I never heard any thing sound so sweet and heavenly. It came in, a
+sublime chorus to the thoughts we had been uttering. It reminded me of
+the song of the morning stars, the anthem of the angels over the manger
+of Bethlehem,&mdash;so highly wrought were my feelings,&mdash;so softly, with such
+swelling harmony, had the notes stolen on the ear.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest raised himself from his reclining position, and his countenance
+glowed with rapture. I had never seen it wear such an expression before.
+"Old things had passed away,&mdash;all things had become new."</p>
+
+<p>"There is peace,&mdash;there is pardon," said he, in a voice too low for any
+ear but mine, when the last strain melted away,&mdash;"there is joy in heaven
+over the repenting sinner, there is joy on earth over the returning
+prodigal."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION</h2>
+
+
+<p>Two years and more have passed since my heart responded to the strains
+of the <i>Gloria in Excelsis</i>, as sung by Edith on the night of her
+brother's return.</p>
+
+<p>Come to this beautiful cottage on the sea-shore, where we have retired
+from the heat of summer, and you can tell by a glance whether time has
+scattered blossoms or thorns in my path, during its rapid flight.</p>
+
+<p>Come into the piazza that faces the beach, and you can look out on an
+ocean of molten gold, crimsoned here and there by the rays of the
+setting sun, and here and there melting off into a kind of burning
+silver. A glorious breeze is beginning to curl the face of the waters,
+and to swell the white sails of the skiffs and light vessels that skim
+the tide like birds of the air, apparently instinct with life and
+gladness. It rustles through the foliage, the bright, green foliage,
+that contrasts so dazzlingly with the smooth, white, sandy beach,&mdash;it
+lifts the soft, silky locks of that beautiful infant, that is cradled so
+lovingly in my father's arms. Oh! whose do you think that smiling cherub
+is, with such dark, velvet eyes, and pearly skin, and mouth of heavenly
+sweetness? It is mine, it is my own darling Rosalie, my pearl, my
+sunbeam, my flower, my every sweet and precious name in one.</p>
+
+<p>But let me not speak of her first, the youngest pilgrim to this sea-beat
+shore. There are others who claim the precedence. There is one on my
+right hand, whom if you do not remember with admiration and respect, it
+is because my pen has had no power to bring her character before you, in
+all its moral excellence and Christian glory. You have not forgotten
+Mrs. Linwood. Her serene gray eye is turned to the apparently
+illimitable ocean, now slowly rolling and deeply murmuring, as if its
+mighty heart were stirred to its inmost core, by a consciousness of its
+own grandeur. There is peace on her thoughtful, placid brow, and long,
+long may it rest there.</p>
+
+<p>The young man on my left is recognized at once, for there is no one like
+him, my high-souled, gallant Richard. His eye sparkles with much of its
+early quick-flashing light. The shadow of the dismal Tombs no longer
+clouds, though it tempers, the brightness of his manhood. <i>He</i> knows,
+though the world does not, that his father fills a convict's grave, and
+this remembrance chastens his pride, without humiliating him with the
+consciousness of disgrace. He is rapidly making himself a name and fame
+in the high places of society. Men of talent take him by the hand and
+welcome him as a younger brother to their ranks, and fair and charming
+women smile upon and flatter him by the most winning attentions. He
+passes on from flower to flower, without seeking to gather one to place
+in his bosom, though he loves to inhale their fragrance and admire their
+bloom.</p>
+
+<p>"One of these days you will think of marrying," said a friend, while
+congratulating him on his brilliant prospects.</p>
+
+<p>"When I can find another Gabriella," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! Richard, there are thousands better and lovelier than Gabriella; and
+you will yet find an angel spirit in woman's form, who will reward your
+filial virtues, and scatter the roses of love in the green path of fame.</p>
+
+<p>Do you see that graceful figure floating along on the white beach, with
+a motion like the flowing wave, with hair like the sunbeams, and eye as
+when</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The blue sky trembles on a cloud of purest white?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and he who walks by her side, with the romantic, beaming countenance,
+now flashing with the enthusiasm, now shaded by the sensibility of
+genius? They are the fair-haired Edith, and the artist Julian. He has
+laid aside for awhile the pencil and the pallette, to drink in with us
+the invigorating breezes of ocean. Let them pass on. They are happy.</p>
+
+<p>Another couple is slowly following, taller, larger, more of the "earth,
+earthy." Do you not recognize my quondam tutor and the once dauntless
+Meg? It is his midsummer vacation, and they, too, have come to breathe
+an atmosphere cooled by sea-born gales, and to renew the socialities of
+friendship amid grand and inspiring influences. They walk on
+thoughtfully, pensively, sometimes looking down on the smooth,
+continuous beach, then upward to the mellow and glowing heavens. A
+softening shade has <i>womanized</i> the bold brow of Madge, and her red lip
+has a more subdued tint. She, the care-defying, laughter-breathing,
+untamable Madge, has known not only the refining power of love, but the
+chastening touch of sorrow. She has given a lovely infant back to the
+God who gave it, and is thus linked to the world of angels. But she has
+treasures on earth still dearer. She leans on a strong arm and a true
+heart. Let them pass on. They, too, are happy.</p>
+
+<p>My dear father! He is younger and handsomer than he was two years since,
+for happiness is a wonderful rejuvenator. His youth is renewed in ours,
+his Rosalie lives again in the cherub who bears her name, and in whom
+his eye traces the similitude of her beauty. Father! never since the
+hour when I first addressed thee by that holy name, have I bowed my knee
+in prayer without a thanksgiving to God for the priceless blessing
+bestowed in thee.</p>
+
+<p>There is one more figure in this sea-side group, dearer, more
+interesting than all the rest to me. No longer the wan and languid
+wanderer returned from Indian shores, worn by remorse, and tortured by
+memory. The light, if not the glow of health, illumines his face, and a
+firmer, manlier tone exalts its natural delicacy of coloring.</p>
+
+<p>Do you not perceive a change in that once dark, though splendid
+countenance? Is there not more peace and softness, yet more dignity and
+depth of thought? I will not say that clouds never obscure its serenity,
+nor lightnings never dart across its surface, for life is still a
+conflict, and the passions, though chained as vassals by the victor hand
+of religion, will sometimes clank their fetters and threaten to resume
+their lost dominion; but they have not trampled underfoot the new-born
+blossoms of wedded joy. I am happy, as happy as a pilgrim and sojourner
+ought to be; and even now, there is danger of my forgetting, in the
+fulness of my heart's content, that eternal country, whither we are all
+hastening.</p>
+
+<p>We love each other as fondly, but less idolatrously. That little child
+has opened a channel in which our purified affections flow together
+towards the fountain of all love and joy. Its fairy fingers are leading
+us gently on in the paths of domestic harmony and peace.</p>
+
+<p>My beloved Ernest! my darling Rosalie! how beautiful they both seem, in
+the beams of the setting sun, that are playing in glory round them! and
+how melodiously and pensively, yet grandly does the music of the
+murmuring waves harmonize with the minor tone of tenderness breathing in
+our hearts!</p>
+
+<p>We, too, are passing on in the procession of life, and the waves of time
+that are rolling behind us will wash away the print of our footsteps,
+and others will follow, and others still, but few will be tossed on
+stormier seas, or be anchored at last in a more blissful haven.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>THE END.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="T_B_PETERSON_and_BROTHERS_PUBLICATIONS" id="T_B_PETERSON_and_BROTHERS_PUBLICATIONS"></a>T. B. PETERSON and BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3>NEW BOOKS ISSUED EVERY WEEK.</h3>
+
+<p>Comprising the most entertaining and absorbing Works published, suitable
+for all persons, by the best writers in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Orders solicited from Booksellers, Librarians, Canvassers, News Agents,
+and all others in want of good and fast selling books, which will be
+supplied at very Low Prices.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MRS. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Victor's Triumph<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Beautiful Fiend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Artist's Love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Noble Lord<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lost Heir of Linlithgow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tried for her Life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cruel as the Grave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Maiden Widow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Family Doom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prince of Darkness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Bride's Fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Changed Brides<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How He Won Her<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair Play<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fallen Pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Christmas Guest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Widow's Son<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Bride of Llewellyn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Fortune Seeker<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Fatal Marriage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Deserted Wife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Bridal Eve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Lost Heiress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Two Sisters<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lady of the Isle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Three Beauties<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vivia; or the Secret of Power<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Missing Bride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love's Labor Won<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Gipsy's Prophecy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Haunted Homestead<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wife's Victory<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Allworth Abbey<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Mother-in-Law<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Retribution<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">India; Pearl of Pearl River<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Curse of Clifton<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Discarded Daughter<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bellehood and Bondage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Old Countess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lord Hope's Choice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Reigning Belle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Noble Woman<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Palaces and Prisons<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Married in Haste<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wives and Widows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ruby Gray's Strategy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Soldiers' Orphans<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silent Struggles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Rejected Wife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Wife's Secret<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mary Derwent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fashion and Famine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Curse of Gold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mabel's Mistake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Old Homestead<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doubly False<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Heiress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Gold Brick<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ernest Linwood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Planter's Northern Bride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Courtship and Marriage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rena; or, the Snow Bird<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Marcus Warland<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love after Marriage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eoline; or Magnolia Vale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Lost Daughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Banished Son<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Helen and Arthur<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Linda; or, the Young Pilot of the Belle Creole<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robert Graham; the Sequel to "Linda; or Pilot of Belle Creole"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>JAMES A. MAITLAND'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Watchman<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Wanderer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Lawyer's Story<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Diary of an Old Doctor<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sartaroe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Three Cousins<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Old Patroon; or the Great Van Broek Property<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>T. A. TROLLOPE'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Sealed Packet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Garstang Grange<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gemma<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leonora Casaloni<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dream Numbers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Marietta<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beppo, the Conscript<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>FREDRIKA BREMER'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Father and Daughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Four Sisters<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Neighbors<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Home<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life in the Old World. In two volumes.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MISS ELIZA A. DUPUY'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Hidden Sin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Dethroned Heiress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Gipsy's Warning<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All For Love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Mysterious Guest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why Did He Marry Her?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who Shall be Victor<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was He Guilty<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Cancelled Will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Planter's Daughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Michael Rudolph; or, the Bravest of the Brave<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>EMERSON BENNETT'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Border Rover<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clara Moreland<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Forged Will<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bride of the Wilderness<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ellen Norbury<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kate Clarendon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Viola; or Adventures in the Far South-West<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Heiress of Bellefonte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Pioneer's Daughter<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>DOESTICKS' WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Doesticks' Letters<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plu-Ri-Bus-Tah<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Elephant Club<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Witches of New York<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>WILKIE COLLINS' BEST WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Basil; or, The Crossed Path<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Dead Secret<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hide and Seek<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After Dark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Miss or Mrs?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mad Monkton<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sights a-Foot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Stolen Mask<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Queen's Revenge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Yellow Mask<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sister Rose<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHARLES LEVER'S BEST WORKS.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Charles O'Malley<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Harry Lorrequer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jack Hinton<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom Burke of Ours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knight of Gwynne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arthur O'Leary<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Con Cregan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Davenport Dunn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Horace Templeton<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kate O'Donoghue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Rent in a Cloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">St. Patrick's Eve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ten Thousand a Year, in one volume<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Diary of a Medical Student, by author "Ten Thousand a Year"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHARLES DICKENS' WORKS.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Great Expectations<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bleak House<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Master Humphrey's Clock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">American Notes; and the Uncommercial Traveller<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hunted Down; and other Reprinted Pieces<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Holly-Tree Inn; and other Stories<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our Mutual Friend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pickwick Papers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tale of Two Cities<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nicholas Nickleby<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">David Copperfield<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oliver Twist<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Christmas Stories<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sketches by "Boz"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Barnaby Rudge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Martin Chuzzlewit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Curiosity Shop<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Little Dorrit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dombey and Son<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dickens' New Stories<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Master Humphrey's Clock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">American Notes; and the Uncommercial Traveller<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hunted Down: and other Reprinted Pieces<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Holly-Tree Inn; and other Stories<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ALEXANDER DUMAS' WORKS.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Count of Monte-Cristo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Edmond Dantes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Three Guardsmen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twenty Years After<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bragelonne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Iron Mask<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Louise La Valliere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Diana of Meridor<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Adventures of a Marquis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love and Liberty<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Memoirs of a Physician<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Queen's Necklace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Six Years Later<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Countess of Charny<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Andree de Taverney<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Chevalier<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forty-five Guardsmen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Iron Hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Conscript<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Countess of Monte-Cristo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Camille; or, The Fate of a Coquette, (La Dame Aux Camelias,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Fallen Angel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Felina de Chambure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Horrors of Paris<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sketches in France<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Isabel of Bavaria<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twin Lieutenants<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man with Five Wives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">George; or, Isle of France<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Annette; or, Lady of Pearls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Madame De Chamblay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Black Tulip<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Corsican Brothers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Count of Moret<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mohicans of Paris<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Marriage Verdict<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Buried Alive<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS' WORKS.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mysteries Court of London<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose Foster<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Caroline of Brunswick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Venetia Trelawney<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lord Saxondale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Count Christoval<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rosa Lambert<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mary Price<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eustace Quentin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joseph Wilmot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Banker's Daughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kenneth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Rye-House Plot<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Necromancer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Opera Dancer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Child of Waterloo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Robert Bruce<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Gipsy Chief<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wallace, Hero of Scotland<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Isabella Vincent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vivian Bertram<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Countess of Lascelles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Duke of Marchmont<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Massacre of Glencoe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loves of the Harem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Soldier's Wife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May Middleton<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ellen Percy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Agnes Evelyn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pickwick Abroad<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Parricide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Discarded Queen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life in Paris<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Countess and the Page<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Edgar Montrose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Ruined Gamester<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clifford and the Actress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Queen Joanna; or the Mysteries of the Court of Naples<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ciprina; or, the Secrets of a Picture Gallery<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MISS PARDOE'S POPULAR WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Confessions of a Pretty Woman<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Wife's Trials<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Jealous Wife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Rival Beauties<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Romance of the Harem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Adopted Heir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Earl's Secret<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ernest Linwood, by Caroline Lee Hentz
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST LINWOOD ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ernest Linwood, by Caroline Lee Hentz
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ernest Linwood
+       or, The Inner Life of the Author
+
+Author: Caroline Lee Hentz
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2007 [EBook #20462]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERNEST LINWOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            ERNEST LINWOOD;
+
+                                  OR,
+
+                     THE INNER LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
+
+                      BY MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ.
+
+
+AUTHOR OF "LINDA; OR, THE YOUNG PILOT OF THE BELLE CREOLE," "THE
+BANISHED SON," "COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE; OR, THE JOYS AND SORROWS OF
+AMERICAN LIFE," "THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE; OR, SCENES IN MRS. HENTZ
+CHILDHOOD," "LOVE AFTER MARRIAGE," "MARCUS WARLAND; OR, THE LONG MOSS
+SPRING," "EOLINE; OR, MAGNOLIA VALE; OR, THE HEIRESS OF GLENMORE,"
+"HELEN AND ARTHUR; OR, MISS THUSA'S SPINNING-WHEEL," "RENA; OR, THE SNOW
+BIRD," "THE LOST DAUGHTER," "ROBERT GRAHAM;" A SEQUEL TO "LINDA," ETC.
+
+
+PHILADELPHIA:
+T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
+306 CHESTNUT STREET.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by T. B.
+PETERSON & BROTHERS
+
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and
+for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Thou hast called me thine angel in moments of bliss,
+    Still thine angel I'll prove mid the horrors of this.
+    Through the furnace unshrinking thy steps I'll pursue,
+    And shield thee, and save thee, and perish there too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ERNEST LINWOOD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+With an incident of my childhood I will commence the record of my life.
+It stands out in bold prominence, rugged and bleak, through the haze of
+memory.
+
+I was only twelve years old. He might have spoken less harshly. He might
+have remembered and pitied my youth and sensitiveness, that tall,
+powerful, hitherto kind man,--my preceptor, and, as I believed, my
+friend. Listen to what he did say, in the presence of the whole school
+of boys, as well as girls, assembled on that day to hear the weekly
+exercises read, written on subjects which the master had given us the
+previous week.
+
+One by one, we were called up to the platform, where he sat enthroned in
+all the majesty of the Olympian king-god. One by one, the manuscripts
+were read by their youthful authors,--the criticisms uttered, which
+marked them with honor or shame,--gliding figures passed each other,
+going and returning, while a hasty exchange of glances, betrayed the
+flash of triumph, or the gloom of disappointment.
+
+"Gabriella Lynn!" The name sounded like thunder in my ears. I rose,
+trembling, blushing, feeling as if every pair of eyes in the hall were
+burning like redhot balls on my face. I tried to move, but my feet were
+glued to the floor.
+
+"Gabriella Lynn!"
+
+The tone was louder, more commanding, and I dared not resist the
+mandate. The greater fear conquered the less. With a desperate effort I
+walked, or rather rushed, up the steps, the paper fluttering in my hand,
+as if blown upon by a strong wind.
+
+"A little less haste would be more decorous, Miss."
+
+The shadow of a pair of beetling brows rolled darkly over me. Had I
+stood beneath an overhanging cliff, with the ocean waves dashing at my
+feet, I could not have felt more awe or dread. A mist settled on my
+eyes.
+
+"Read,"--cried the master, waving his ferula with a commanding
+gesture,--"our time is precious."
+
+I opened my lips, but no sound issued from my paralyzed tongue. With a
+feeling of horror, which the intensely diffident can understand, and
+only they, I turned and was about to fly back to my seat, when a large,
+strong hand pressed its weight upon my shoulder, and arrested my flight.
+
+"Stay where you are," exclaimed Mr. Regulus. "Have I not lectured you a
+hundred times on this preposterous shame-facedness of yours? Am I a
+Draco, with laws written in blood, a tyrant, scourging with an iron rod,
+that you thus shrink and tremble before me? Read, or suffer the penalty
+due to disobedience and waywardness."
+
+Thus threatened, I commenced in a husky, faltering voice the reading of
+lines which, till that moment, I had believed glowing with the
+inspiration of genius. Now, how flat and commonplace they seemed! It was
+the first time I had ever ventured to reveal to others the talent hidden
+with all a miser's vigilance in my bosom casket. I had lisped in
+rhyme,--I had improvised in rhyme,--I had dreamed in poetry, when the
+moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lustre;--I had
+_thought_ poetry at the sunset hour, amid twilight shadows and midnight
+darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at
+noonday recess at my solitary desk; but no human being, save my mother,
+knew of the young dream-girl's poetic raptures.
+
+One of those irresistible promptings of the spirit which all have felt,
+and to which many have yielded, induced me at this era to break loose
+from my shell and come forth, as I imagined, a beautiful and brilliant
+butterfly, soaring up above the gaze of my astonished and admiring
+companions. Yes; with all my diffidence I anticipated a scene of
+triumph, a dramatic scene, which would terminate perhaps in a crown of
+laurel, or a public ovation.
+
+Lowly self-estimation is by no means a constant accompaniment of
+diffidence. The consciousness of possessing great powers and deep
+sensibility often creates bashfulness. It is their veil and guard while
+maturing and strengthening. It is the flower-sheath, that folds the
+corolla, till prepared to encounter the sun's burning rays.
+
+"Read!"
+
+I did read,--one stanza. I could not go on though the scaffold were the
+doom of my silence.
+
+"What foolery is this! Give it to me."
+
+The paper was pulled from my clinging fingers. Clearing his throat with
+a loud and prolonged hem,--then giving a flourish of his ruler on the
+desk, he read, in a tone of withering derision, the warm breathings of a
+child's heart and soul, struggling after immortality,--the spirit and
+trembling utterance of long cherished, long imprisoned yearnings.
+
+Now, when after years of reflection I look back on that
+never-to-be-forgotten moment, I can form a true estimate of the poem
+subjected to that fiery ordeal, I wonder the paper did not scorch and
+shrivel up like a burning scroll. It did not deserve ridicule. The
+thoughts were fresh and glowing, the measure correct, the versification
+melodious. It was the genuine offspring of a young imagination, urged by
+the "strong necessity" of giving utterance to its bright idealities, the
+sighings of a heart looking beyond its lowly and lonely destiny. Ah! Mr.
+Regulus, you were cruel then.
+
+Methinks I see him,--hear him now, weighing in the iron scales of
+criticism every springing, winged idea, cutting and slashing the words
+till it seemed to me they dropped blood,--then glancing from me to the
+living rows of benches with such a cold, sarcastic smile.
+
+"What a barbarous, unfeeling monster!" perhaps I hear some one exclaim.
+
+No, he was not. He could be very kind and indulgent. He had been kind
+and generous to me. He gave me my tuition, and had taken unwearied pains
+with my lessons. He could forgive great offences, but had no toleration
+for little follies. He really thought it a sinful waste of time to write
+poetry in school. He had given me a subject for composition, a useful,
+practical one, but not at all to my taste, and I had ventured to
+disregard it. I had jumped over the rock, and climbed up to the flowers
+that grew above it. He was a thorough mathematician, a celebrated
+grammarian, a renowned geographer and linguist, but I then thought he
+had no more ear for poetry or music, no more eye for painting,--the
+painting of God, or man,--than the stalled ox, or the Greenland seal. I
+did him injustice, and he was unjust to me. I had not intended to slight
+or scorn the selection he had made, but I could not write upon it,--I
+could not help my thoughts flowing into rhyme.
+
+Can the stream help gliding and rippling through its flowery margins?
+Can the bird help singing and warbling upward into the deep blue sky,
+sending down a silver shower of melody as it flies?
+
+Perhaps some may think I am swelling small things into great; but
+incidents and actions are to be judged by their results, by their
+influence in the formation of character, and the hues they reflect on
+futurity. Had I received encouragement instead of rebuke, praise instead
+of ridicule,--had he taken me by the hand and spoken some such kindly
+words as these:--
+
+"This is very well for a little girl like you. Lift up that downcast
+face, nor blush and tremble, as if detected in a guilty act. You must
+not spend too much time in the reveries of imagination, for this is a
+working-day world, my child. Even the birds have to build their nests,
+and the coral insect is a mighty laborer. The gift of song is sweet, and
+may be made an instrument of the Creator's glory. The first notes of the
+lark are feeble, compared to his heaven-high strains. The fainter dawn
+precedes the risen day."
+
+Oh! had he addressed me in indulgent words as these, who knows but that,
+like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved? Who knows but
+that the golden gates of the Eden of immortality might have opened to
+admit the wandering Peri to her long-lost home? I might have been the
+priestess of a shrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered
+burning incense at my altar. I might have won the laurel crown, and
+found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves. I
+might,--but it matters not. The divine spark is undying, and though
+circumstances may smother the flame it enkindles, it glows in the bosom
+with unquenchable fire.
+
+I remember very well what the master said, instead of the imagined words
+I have written.
+
+"Poetry, is it?--or something you meant to be called by that name?
+Nonsense, child--folly--moon-beam hallucination! Child! do you know that
+this is an unpardonable waste of time? Do you remember that
+opportunities of improvement are given you to enable you hereafter to
+secure an honorable independence? This accounts for your reveries over
+the blackboard, your indifference to mathematics, that grand and
+glorious science! Poetry! ha, ha! I began to think you did not
+understand the use of capitals,--ha, ha!"
+
+Did you ever imagine how a tender loaf of bread must feel when cut into
+slices by the sharpened knife? How the young bark feels when the iron
+wedge is driven through it with cleaving force? I think _I_ can, by the
+experience of that hour. I stood with quivering lip, burning cheek, and
+panting breast,--my eyes riveted on the paper which he flourished in his
+left hand, pointing _at_ it with the forefinger of his right.
+
+"He shall not go on,"--said I to myself, exasperation giving me
+boldness,--"he shall not read what I have written of my mother. I will
+die sooner. He may insult _my_ poverty but hers shall be sacred, and her
+sorrows too."
+
+I sprang forward, forgetting every thing in the fear of hearing _her_
+name associated with derision, and attempted to get possession of the
+manuscript. A fly might as well attempt to wring the trunk of the
+elephant.
+
+"Really, little poetess, you are getting bold. I should like to see you
+try that again. You had better keep quiet."
+
+A resolute glance of the keen, black eye, resolute, yet twinkling with
+secret merriment, and he was about to commence another stanza.
+
+I jumped up with the leap of the panther. I could not loosen his strong
+grasp, but I tore the paper from round his fingers, ran down the steps
+through the rows of desks and benches, without looking to the right or
+left, and flew without bonnet or covering out into the broad sunlight
+and open air.
+
+"Come back, this moment!"
+
+The thundering voice of the master rolled after me, like a heavy stone,
+threatening to crush me as it rolled. I bounded on before it with
+constantly accelerating speed.
+
+"Go back,--never!"
+
+I said this to myself. I repeated it aloud to the breeze that came
+coolly and soothingly through the green boughs, to fan the burning
+cheeks of the fugitive. At length the dread of pursuit subsiding, I
+slackened my steps, and cast a furtive glance behind me. The cupola of
+the academy gleamed white through the oak trees that surrounded it, and
+above them the glittering vane, fashioned in the form of a giant pen,
+seemed writing on the azure page of heaven.
+
+My home,--the little cottage in the woods, was one mile distant. There
+was a by-path, a foot-path, as it was called, which cut the woods in a
+diagonal line, and which had been trodden hard and smooth by the feet of
+the children. Even at mid-day there was twilight in that solitary path,
+and when the shadows deepened and lengthened on the plain, they
+concentrated into gloominess there. The moment I turned into that path,
+I was supreme. It was _mine_. The public road, the thoroughfare leading
+through the heart of the town, belonged to the world. I was obliged to
+walk there like other people, with mincing steps, and bonnet tied primly
+under the chin, according to the rule and plummet line of school-girl
+propriety. But in my own little by-path, I could do just as I pleased. I
+could run with my bonnet swinging in my hand, and my hair floating like
+the wild vine of the woods. I could throw myself down on the grass at
+the foot of the great trees, and looking up into the deep, distant sky,
+indulge my own wondrous imaginings.
+
+I did so now. I cast myself panting on the turf, and turning my face
+downward instead of upward, clasped my hands over it, and the hot tears
+gushed in scalding streams through my fingers, till the pillow of earth
+was all wet as with a shower.
+
+Oh, they did me good, those fast-gushing tears! There was comfort, there
+was luxury in them. Bless God for tears! How they cool the dry and
+sultry heart! How they refresh the fainting virtues! How they revive the
+dying affections!
+
+The image of my pale sweet, gentle mother rose softly through the
+falling drops. A rainbow seemed to crown her with its seven-fold beams.
+
+Dear mother!--would she will me to go back where the giant pen dipped
+its glittering nib into the deep blue ether?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"Get up, Gabriella,--you must not lie here on the damp ground. Get
+up,--it is almost night. What _will_ your mother say? what _will_ she
+think has become of you?"
+
+I started up, bewildered and alarmed, passing my hands dreamily over my
+swollen eyelids. Heavy shadows hung over the woods. Night was indeed
+approaching. I had fallen into a deep sleep, and knew it not.
+
+It was Richard Clyde who awakened me. His schoolmaster called him Dick,
+but I thought it sounded vulgar, and he was always Richard to me. A boy
+of fifteen, the hardest student in the academy, and, next to my mother
+and Peggy, the best friend I had in the world. I had no brother, and
+many a time had he acted a brother's part, when I had needed a manly
+champion. Yet my mother had enjoined on me such strict reserve in my
+intercourse with the boy pupils, and my disposition was so shy, our
+acquaintance had never approached familiarity.
+
+"I did not mean to shake you so hard," said he, stepping back a few
+paces as he spoke, "but I never knew any one sleep so like a log before.
+I feared for a moment that you were dead."
+
+"It would not be much matter if I were," I answered, hardly knowing what
+I said, for a dull weight pressed on my brain, and despondency had
+succeeded excitement.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella! is it not wicked to say that?"
+
+"If you had been treated as badly as I have, you would feel like saying
+it too."
+
+"Yes!" he exclaimed, energetically, "you have been treated badly,
+shamefully, and I told the master so to his face."
+
+"You! You did not, Richard. You only thought so. You would not have told
+him so for all the world."
+
+"But I did, though! As soon as you ran out of school, it seemed as if he
+made but one step to the door, and his face looked as black as night. I
+thought if he overtook you, he might,--I did not know what he would do,
+he was so angry. I sat near the door, and I jumped right up and faced
+him on the threshold. 'Don't, sir, don't! I cried; she is a little girl,
+and you a great strong man.'
+
+"'What is that to you, sirrah?' he exclaimed, and the forked lightning
+ran out of his eye right down my backbone. It aches yet, Gabriella.
+
+"'It is a great deal, Sir,' I answered, as bold as a lion. 'You have
+treated her cruelly enough already. It would be cowardly to pursue
+her.'"
+
+"Oh, Richard! how dared you say that? Did he not strike you?"
+
+"He lifted his hand; but instead of flinching, I made myself as tall as
+I could, and looked at him right steadfastly. You do not know how pale
+he looked, when I stopped him on the threshold. His very lips turned
+white--I declare there is something grand in a great passion. It makes
+one look somehow so different from common folks. Well, now, as soon as
+he raised his hand to strike me, a red flush shot into his face, like
+the blaze of an inward fire. It was shame,--anger made him white--but
+shame turned him as red as blood. His arm dropped down to his
+side,--then he laid his hand on the top of his head,--'Stay after
+school,' said he, 'I must talk with you.'"
+
+"And did you?" I asked, hanging with breathless interest on his words.
+
+"Yes; I have just left him."
+
+"He has not expelled you, Richard?"
+
+"No; but he says I must ask his pardon before the whole school
+to-morrow. It amounts to the same thing. I will never do it."
+
+"I am so sorry this has happened," said I. "Oh! that I had never written
+that foolish, foolish poetry. It has done so much mischief."
+
+"You are not to blame, Gabriella. He had no business to laugh at it; it
+was beautiful--all the boys say so. I have no doubt you will be a great
+poetess one of these days. He ought to have been proud of it, instead of
+making fun of you. It was so mean."
+
+"But you must go back to school, Richard. You are the best scholar. The
+master is proud of you, and will not give you up. I would not have it
+said that _I_ was the cause of your leaving, for twice your weight in
+solid gold."
+
+"Would you not despise me if I asked pardon, when I have done no wrong;
+to appear ashamed of what I glory in; to act the part of a coward, after
+publicly proclaiming _him_ to be one?"
+
+"It is hard," said I, "but--"
+
+We were walking homeward all the while we were talking, and at every
+step my spirits sank lower and lower. How different every thing seemed
+now, from what it did an hour ago. True, I had been treated with
+harshness, but I had no right to rebel as I had done. Had I kissed the
+rod, it would have lost its sting,--had I borne the smart with patience
+and gentleness, my companions would have sympathized with and pitied me;
+it would not have been known beyond the walls of the academy. But now,
+it would be blazoned through the whole town. The expulsion of so
+distinguished a scholar as Richard Clyde would be the nine days' gossip,
+the village wonder. And I should be pointed out as the presumptuous
+child, whose disappointed vanity, irascibility, and passion had created
+rebellion and strife in a hitherto peaceful seminary. I, the recipient
+of the master's favors, an ingrate and a wretch! My mother would know
+this--my gentle, pale-faced mother.
+
+Our little cottage was now visible, with its low walls of grayish white,
+and vine-encircled windows.
+
+"Richard," said I, walking as slowly as possible, though it was growing
+darker every moment, "I feel very unhappy. I will go and see the master
+in the morning and ask him to punish me for both. I will humble myself
+for your sake, for you have been my champion, and I never will forget it
+as long as I live. I was wrong to rush out of school as I did,--wrong to
+tear the paper from his hands,--and I am willing to tell him so now. It
+shall all be right yet, Richard,--indeed it shall."
+
+"You shall not humble yourself for me, Gabriella; I like a girl of
+spirit."
+
+We had now reached the little gate that opened into our own green yard.
+I could see my mother looking from the window for her truant child. My
+heart began to palpitate, for no Catholic ever made more faithful
+confessions to his absolving priest, than I to my only parent. Were I
+capable of concealing any thing from her, I should have thought myself
+false and deceitful. With feelings of love and reverence kindred to
+those with which I regarded my Heavenly Father, I looked up to her, the
+incarnate angel of my life. This expression has been so often used it
+does not seem to mean much; but when I say it, I mean all the filial
+heart is capable of feeling. I was poor in fortune, but in her goodness
+rich. I was a lonely child, but sad and pensive as she was, she was a
+fountain of social joy to me. Then, she was so beautiful--so very, very
+lovely!
+
+I caught the light of her pensive smile through the dimness of the hour.
+She was so accustomed to my roaming in the woods, she had suffered no
+alarm.
+
+"If my mother thinks it right, you will not object to my going to see
+Mr. Regulus," said I, as Richard lifted the gate-latch for me to enter.
+
+"For yourself, no; but not for me. I can take care of myself,
+Gabriella."
+
+He spoke proudly. He did not quite come up to my childish idea of a boy
+hero, but I admired his self-reliance and bravery. I did not want him to
+despise me or my lack of spirit. I began to waver in my good resolution.
+
+My mother called me, in that soft, gentle tone, so full of music and of
+love.
+
+In ten minutes I had told her all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+If I thought any language of mine could do justice to her character, I
+would try to describe my mother. Were I to _speak_ of her, my voice
+would choke at the mention of her name. As I write, a mist gathers over
+my eyes. Grief for the loss of such a being is immortal, as the love of
+which it is born.
+
+I have said that we were poor,--but ours was not abject poverty,
+hereditary poverty,--though _I_ had never known affluence, or even that
+sufficiency which casts out the fear of want. I knew that my mother was
+the child of wealth, and that she had been nurtured in elegance and
+splendor. I inherited from her the most fastidious tastes, without the
+means of gratifying them. I felt that I had a right to be wealthy, and
+that misfortune alone had made my mother poor, had made her an alien
+from her kindred and the scenes of her nativity. I felt a strange pride
+in this conviction. Indeed there was a singular union of pride and
+diffidence in my character, that kept me aloof from my young companions,
+and closed up the avenues to the social joys of childhood.
+
+My mother thought a school life would counteract the influence of her
+own solitary habits and example. She did not wish me to be a hermit
+child, and for this reason accepted the offer Mr. Regulus made through
+the minister to become a pupil in the academy. She might have sent me to
+the free schools in the neighborhood, but she did not wish me to form
+associations incompatible with the refinement she had so carefully
+cultivated in me. She might have continued to teach me at home, for she
+was mistress of every accomplishment, but she thought the discipline of
+an institution like this would give tone and firmness to my poetic and
+dreaming mind. She wanted me to become practical,--she wanted to see the
+bark growing and hardening over the exposed and delicate fibres. She
+anticipated for me the cold winds and beating rains of an adverse
+destiny. I knew she did, though she had never told me so in words. I
+read it in the anxious, wistful, prophetic expression of her soft, deep
+black eyes, whenever they rested on me. Those beautiful, mysterious
+eyes!
+
+There was a mystery about her that gave power to her excellence and
+beauty. Through the twilight shades of her sorrowful loneliness, I could
+trace only the dim outline of her past life. I was fatherless,--and
+annihilation, as well as death, seemed the doom of him who had given me
+being. I was forbidden to mention his name. No similitude of his
+features, no token of his existence, cherished by love and hallowed by
+reverence, invested him with the immortality of memory. It was as if he
+had never been.
+
+Thus mantled in mystery, his image assumed a sublimity and grandeur in
+my imagination, dark and oppressive as night. I would sit and ponder
+over his mystic attributes, till he seemed like those gods of mythology,
+who, veiling their divinity in clouds, came down and wooed the daughters
+of men. A being so lovely and good as my mother would never have loved a
+common mortal. Perhaps he was some royal exile, who had found her in his
+wanderings a beauteous flower, but dared not transplant her to the
+garden of kings.
+
+My mother little thought, when I sat in my simple calico dress, my
+school-book open on my knees, conning my daily lessons, or seeming so to
+do, what wild, absurd ideas were revelling in my brain. She little
+thought how high the "aspiring blood" of mine mounted in that lowly,
+woodland cottage.
+
+I told her the history of my humiliation, passion, and flight,--of
+Richard Clyde's brave defence and undaunted resolution,--of my sorrow on
+his account,--of my shame and indignation on my own.
+
+"My poor Gabriella!"
+
+"You are not angry with me, my mother?"
+
+"Angry! No, my child, it was a hard trial,--very hard for one so young.
+I did not think Mr. Regulus capable of so much unkindness. He has
+cancelled this day a debt of gratitude."
+
+"My poor Gabriella," she again repeated, laying her delicate hand gently
+on my head. "I fear you have a great deal to contend with in this rough
+world. The flowers of poesy are sweet, but poverty is a barren soil, my
+child. The dew that moistens it, is tears."
+
+I felt a tear on my hand as she spoke. Child as I was, I thought that
+tear more holy and precious than the dew of heaven. Flowers nurtured by
+such moisture must be sweet.
+
+"I will never write any more," I exclaimed, with desperate resolution.
+"I will never more expose myself to ridicule and contempt."
+
+"Write as you have hitherto done, for my gratification and your own.
+Your simple strains have beguiled my lonely hours. But had I known your
+purpose, I would have warned you of the consequences. The child who
+attempts to soar above its companions is sure to be dragged down by the
+hand of envy. Your teacher saw in your effusion an unpardonable effort
+to rise above himself,--to diverge from the beaten track. You may have
+indulged too much in the dreams of imagination. You may have neglected
+your duties as a pupil. Lay your hand on your heart and ask it to
+reply."
+
+She spoke so calmly, so soothingly, so rationally, the fever of
+imagination subsided. I saw the triumph of reason and principle in her
+own self-control,--for, when I was describing the scene, her mild eye
+flashed, and her pale cheek colored with an unwonted depth of hue. She
+had to struggle with her own emotions, that she might subdue mine.
+
+"May I ask him to pardon Richard Clyde, mother?"
+
+"The act would become your gratitude, but I fear it would avail nothing.
+If he has required submission of him, he will hardly accept yours as a
+substitute."
+
+"Must I ask him to forgive me? Must I return?"
+
+I hung breathlessly on her reply.
+
+"Wait till morning, my daughter. We shall both feel differently then. I
+would not have you yield to the dictates of passion, neither would I
+have you forfeit your self-respect. I must not rashly counsel."
+
+"I would not let her go back at all," exclaimed a firm, decided voice.
+"They ain't fit to hold the water to wash her hands."
+
+"Peggy," said my mother, rebukingly, "you forget yourself."
+
+"I always try to do that," she replied, while she placed on the table my
+customary supper of bread and milk.
+
+"Yes, indeed you do," answered my mother, gratefully,--"kind and
+faithful friend. But humility becometh my child better than pride."
+
+Peggy looked hard at my mother, with a mixture of reverence, pity, and
+admiration in her clear, honest eye, then taking a coarse towel, she
+rubbed a large silver spoon, till it shone brighter and brighter, and
+laid it by the side of my bowl. She had first spread a white napkin
+under it, to give my simple repast an appearance of neatness and
+gentility. The bowl itself was white, with a wreath of roses round the
+rim, both inside and out. Those rosy garlands had been for years the
+delight of my eyes. I always hailed the appearance of the glowing
+leaves, when the milky fluid sunk below them, with a fresh appreciation
+of their beauty. They gave an added relish to the Arcadian meal. They
+fed my love of the beautiful and the pure. That large, bright silver
+spoon,--I was never weary of admiring that also. It was massive--it was
+grand--and whispered a tale of former grandeur. Indeed, though the
+furniture of our cottage was of the simplest, plainest kind, there were
+many things indicative of an earlier state of luxury and elegance. My
+mother always used a golden thimble,--she had a toilet case inlaid with
+pearl, and many little articles appropriate only to wealth, and which
+wealth only purchases. These were never displayed, but I had seen them,
+and made them the corner-stones of many an airy castle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+And who was Peggy?
+
+She was one of the best and noblest women God ever made. She was a
+treasury of heaven's own influences.
+
+And yet she wore the form of a servant, and like her divine Master,
+there was "no beauty" in her that one should desire to look upon her.
+
+She had followed my mother through good report and ill report. She had
+clung to her in her fallen fortunes as something sacred, almost divine.
+As the Hebrew to the ark of the covenant,--as the Greek to his country's
+palladium,--as the children of Freedom to the star-spangled banner,--so
+she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost worshipped.
+I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble,
+self-sacrificing, devoted friend. I did not know it then--at least not
+all--not half. I knew that she labored most abundantly for us,--that she
+ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an
+empress, anticipating her slightest wants and wishes, deprecating her
+gratitude, and seeming ashamed of her own goodness and industry. I knew
+that her plain sewing, assisted by my mother's elegant needle-work,
+furnished us the means of support; but I had always known it so, and it
+seemed all natural and right. Peggy was strong and robust. The burden of
+toil rested lightly on her sturdy shoulders. It seemed to me that she
+was born with us and for us,--that she belonged to us as rightfully as
+the air we breathed, and the light that illumined us. It never entered
+my mind that we could live without Peggy, or that Peggy could live
+without us.
+
+My mother's health was very delicate. She could not sew long without
+pressing her hand on her aching side, and then Peggy would draw her work
+gently from her with her large, kind hand, make her lie down and rest,
+or walk out in the fresh air, till the waxen hue was enlivened on her
+pallid cheek. She would urge her to go into the garden and gather
+flowers for Gabriella, "because the poor child loved so to see them in
+the room." We had a sweet little garden, where Peggy delved at early
+sunrise and evening twilight. Without ever seeming hurried or
+overtasked, she accomplished every thing. We had the earliest
+vegetables, and the latest. We had fruit, we had flowers, all the result
+of Peggy's untiring, providing hand. The surplus vegetables and fruit
+she carried to the village market, and though they brought but a trifle
+in a country town, where every thing was so abundant, yet Peggy said,
+"we must not despise the day of small gains." She took the lead in all
+business matters in-doors and out-doors. She never asked my mother if
+she had better do this and that; she went right ahead, doing what she
+thought right and best, in every thing pertaining to the drudgery of
+life.
+
+When I was a little child, I used to ask her many a question about the
+mystery of my life. I asked her about my father, of my kindred, and the
+place of my birth.
+
+"Miss Gabriella," she would answer, "you mustn't ask questions. Your
+mother does not wish it. She has forbidden me to say one word of all you
+want to know. When you are old enough you shall learn every thing. Be
+quiet--be patient. It is best that you should be. But of one thing rest
+assured, if ever there was a saint in this world, your mother is one."
+
+I never doubted this. I should have doubted as soon the saintliness of
+those who wear the golden girdles of Paradise. I am glad of this. I have
+sometimes doubted the love and mercy of my Heavenly Father, but never
+the purity and excellence of my mother. Ah, yes! once when sorely
+tempted.
+
+We retired very early in our secluded, quiet home. We had no evening
+visitors to charm away the sober hours, and time marked by the sands of
+the hour-glass always seems to glide more slowly. That solemn-looking
+hour-glass! How I used to gaze on each dropping particle, watching the
+upward segment gradually becoming more and more transparent, and the
+lower as gradually darkening. It was one of Peggy's inherited treasures,
+and she reverenced it next to her Bible. The glass had been broken and
+mended with putty, which formed a dark, diagonal line across the
+venerable crystal. This antique chronometer occupied the central place
+on the mantel-piece, its gliding sands, though voiceless, for ever
+whispering of ebbing time and everlasting peace. "Passing away, passing
+away," seemed continually issuing from each meeting cone. I have no
+doubt the contemplation of this ancient, solemn instrument, which old
+Father Time is always represented as grasping in one unclenching hand,
+while he brandishes in the other the merciless scythe, had a lasting
+influence on my character.
+
+That night, it was long before I fell asleep. I lay awake thinking of
+the morning's dawn. The starlight abroad, that came in through the upper
+part of the windows, glimmered on the dark frame and glassy surface of
+the old timepiece, which stood out in bold relief from the whitewashed
+wall behind it. Before I knew it, I was composing a poem on that old
+hour-glass. It was a hoary pilgrim, travelling on a lone and sea-beat
+shore, towards a dim and distant goal, and the print of his footsteps on
+the wave-washed sands, guided others in the same lengthening journey.
+The scene was before me. I saw the ancient traveller, his white locks
+streaming in the ocean blast; I heard the deep murmur of the restless
+tide; I saw the footsteps; and they looked like sinking graves; when all
+at once, in the midst of my solemn inspiration, a stern mocking face
+came between me and the starlight night, the jeering voice of my master
+was in my ears, a dishonored fragment was fluttering in my hand. The
+vision fled; I turned my head on my pillow and wept.
+
+You may say such thoughts and visions were strangely precocious in a
+child of twelve years old. I suppose they were; but I never remember
+being a child. My sad, gentle mother, the sober, earnest, practical
+Peggy, were the companions of my infancy, instead of children of my own
+age. The sunlight of my young life was not reflected from the golden
+locks of childhood, its radiant smile and unclouded eye. I was defrauded
+of the sweetest boon of that early season, a confidence that this world
+is the happiest, fairest, best of worlds, the residence of joy, beauty,
+and goodness.
+
+A thoughtful child! I do not like to hear it. What has a little child to
+do with thought? That sad, though glorious reversion of our riper and
+darker years?
+
+Ah me! I never recollect the time that my spirit was not travelling to
+grasp some grown idea, to fathom the mystery of my being, to roll away
+the shadows that surrounded me, groping for light, toiling, then
+dreaming, not resting. It was no wonder I was weary before my journey
+was well begun.
+
+"What a remarkable countenance Gabriella has!" I then often heard it
+remarked. "Her features are childish, but her eyes have such a peculiar
+depth of expression,--so wild, and yet so wise."
+
+I wish I had a picture of myself taken at this period of my life. I have
+no doubt I looked older then than I do now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+I knew the path which led from the boarding-place of Mr. Regulus crossed
+the one which I daily traversed. I met him exactly at the point of
+intersection, under the shadow of a great, old oak. The dew of the
+morning glittered on the shaded grass. The clear light blue of the
+morning sky smiled through upward quivering leaves. Every thing looked
+bright and buoyant, and as I walked on, girded with a resolute purpose,
+my spirit caught something of the animation and inspiration of the
+scene.
+
+The master saw me as I approached, and I expected to see a frown darken
+his brow. I felt brave, however, for I was about to plead for another,
+not myself. He did not frown, neither did he smile. He seemed willing to
+meet me,--he even slackened his pace till I came up. I felt a sultry
+glow on my cheek when I faced him, and my breath came quick and short. I
+was not so very brave after all.
+
+"Master Regulus," said I, "do not expel Richard Clyde,--do not disgrace
+him, because he thought I was not kindly dealt with. I am sorry I ran
+from school as I did,--I am sorry I wrote the poem,--I hardly knew what
+I was doing when I snatched the paper from your hands. I suppose Richard
+hardly knew what he was doing when he stopped you at the door."
+
+I did not look up while I was speaking, for had I met an angry glance I
+should have rebelled.
+
+"I am glad I have met you, Gabriella," said he, in a tone so gentle, I
+lifted my eyes in amazement. His beamed with unusual kindness beneath
+his shading brows. Gone was the mocking gleam,--gone the deriding smile.
+He looked serious, earnest, almost sad, but not severe. Looking at his
+watch, and then at the golden vane, as if that too were a chronometer,
+he turned towards the old oak, and throwing himself carelessly on a seat
+formed of a broken branch, partially severed from the trunk, motioned me
+to sit down on the grass beside him. Quick as lightning I obeyed him,
+untying my bonnet and pushing it back from my head. I could scarcely
+believe the evidence of my senses. There reclined the formidable master,
+like a great, overgrown boy, his attitude alone banishing all restraint
+and fear, and I, perched on a mossy rock, that looked as if placed there
+on purpose for me to sit down upon, all my wounded and exasperated
+feelings completely drowned in a sudden overflow of pleasant emotions. I
+had expected scolding, rebuke, denial,--I had armed myself for a
+struggle of power,--I had resolved to hazard a martyr's doom.
+
+Oh, the magic of kindness on a child's heart!--a lonely, sensitive,
+proud, yearning heart like mine!--'Tis the witch-hazel wand that shows
+where the deep fountain is secretly welling. I was ashamed of the tears
+that _would_ gather into my eyes. I shook my hair forward to cover them,
+and played with the green leaves within my reach.
+
+The awful space between me and this tall, stern, learned man seemed
+annihilated. I had never seen him before, divested of the insignia of
+authority, beyond the walls of the academy. I had always been compelled
+to look up to him before; now we were on a level, on the green sward of
+the wild-wood. God above, nature around, no human faces near, no fear of
+man to check the promptings of ingenuous feeling. Softly the folded
+flower petals of the heart began to unfurl. The morning breeze caught
+their fragrance and bore it up to heaven.
+
+"You thought me harsh and unkind, Gabriella," said the master in a low,
+subdued voice, "and I fear I was so yesterday. I intended to do you
+good. I began sportively, but when I saw you getting excited and angry,
+I became angry and excited too. My temper, which is by no means gentle,
+had been previously much chafed, and, as is too often the case, the
+irritation, caused by the offences of many, burst forth on one, perhaps
+the most innocent of all. Little girl, you have been studying the
+history of France; do you remember its Louises?--Louis the Fourteenth
+was a profligate, unprincipled, selfish king. Louis the Fifteenth,
+another God-defying, self-adoring sensualist. Louis the Sixteenth one of
+the most amiable, just, Christian monarchs the world ever saw. Yet the
+accumulated wrongs under which the nation had been groaning during the
+reign of his predecessors, were to be avenged in his person,--innocent,
+heroic sufferer that he was. This is a most interesting historic fact,
+and bears out wonderfully the truth of God's words. But I did not mean
+to give a lecture on history. It is out of place here. I meant to do you
+good yesterday, and discourage you from becoming an idle rhymer--a vain
+dreamer. You are not getting angry I hope, little girl, for I am kind
+now."
+
+"No, sir,--no, indeed, sir," I answered, with my face all in a glow.
+
+"Your mother, I am told, wishes you to be educated for a teacher, a
+profession which requires as much training as the Spartan youth endured,
+when fitted to be the warriors of the land. Why, you should be preparing
+yourself a coat of mail, instead of embroidering a silken suit. How do
+you expect to get through the world, child,--and it is a hard world to
+the poor, a cold world to the friendless,--how do you expect to get
+along through the briars and thorns, over the rocks and the hills with
+nothing but a blush on your cheek, a tear in your eye, and a sentimental
+song on your lips? Independence is the reward of the working mind, the
+thinking brain, and the earnest heart."
+
+He grew really eloquent as he went on. He raised his head to an erect
+position, and ran his fingers through his bushy locks. I cannot remember
+all he said, but every word he uttered had meaning in it. I appreciated
+for the first time the difficulties and trials of a teacher's vocation.
+I had thought before, that it was the pupil only who bore the burden of
+endurance. It had never entered my mind that the crown of authority
+covered the thorns of care, that the wide sweep of command wearied more
+than the restraint of subjection. I was flattered by the manner in which
+he addressed me, the interest he expressed in my future prospects. I
+found myself talking freely to him of myself, of my hopes and my fears.
+I forgot the tyrant of yesterday in the friend of to-day. I remember one
+thing he said, which is worth recording.
+
+"It is very unfortunate when a child, in consequence of a facility of
+making rhyme, is led to believe herself a poetess,--or, in other words,
+a prodigy. She is praised and flattered by injudicious friends, till she
+becomes inflated by vanity and exalted by pride. She wanders idly,
+without aim or goal, in the flowery paths of poesy, forgetful of the
+great highway of knowledge, not made alone for the chariot wheels of
+kings, but the feet of the humblest wayfarer."
+
+When he began to address me, he remembered that I was a child, but
+before he finished the sentence he forgot my age, and his thoughts and
+language swelled and rose to the comprehension of manhood. But I
+understood him. Perhaps there was something in my fixed and fascinated
+glance that made him conscious of my full appreciation.
+
+"I have no friends to praise and flatter me," I simply answered. "I have
+loved to sing in rhyme as the little birds sing, because God gave me the
+power."
+
+He looked pleased. He even laid his hand on my head and smiled. Not the
+cold smile of yesterday, but quite a genial smile. I could hardly
+believe it the same face, it softened and transformed it so. I
+involuntarily drew nearer to him, drawn by that powerful magnetism,
+which every human heart feels more or less.
+
+The great brazen tongue of the town clock rang discordantly on the sweet
+stillness of the morning hour. The master rose and motioned me to follow
+him.
+
+"Richard Clyde is forgiven. Tell him so. Let the past be forgotten, or
+remembered only to make us wiser and better."
+
+We entered the academy together, to the astonishment of the pupils, who
+were gathered in little clusters, probably discussing the events of
+yesterday.
+
+Richard Clyde was not there, but he came the next day, and the scene in
+which we were both such conspicuous actors was soon forgotten. It had,
+however, an abiding influence on me. A new motive for exertion was born
+within me,--affection for my master,--and the consequence was, ambition
+to excel, that I might be rewarded by his approbation.
+
+Bid he ever again treat me with harshness and severity? No,--never. I
+have often wondered why he manifested such unusual and wanton disregard
+of my feelings then, that one, only time. It is no matter now. It is a
+single blot on a fair page.
+
+Man is a strangely inconsistent being. His soul is the battle ground of
+the warring angels of good and evil. As one or the other triumphs, he
+exhibits the passions of a demon or the attributes of a God.
+
+Could we see this hidden war field, would it not be grand? What were the
+plains of Marathon, the pass of Thermopylae, or Cannae paved with golden
+rings, compared to it?
+
+Let us for a moment imagine the scene. Not the moment of struggle, but
+the pause that succeeds. The angels of good have triumphed, and though
+the plumage of their wings may droop, they are white and dazzling so as
+no "fuller of earth could whiten them." The moonlight of peace rests
+upon the battle field, where evil passions lie wounded and trampled
+under feet. Strains of victorious music float in the air; but it comes
+from those who have triumphed in the conflict and entered into rest,
+those who behold the conflict from afar. It is so still, that one can
+almost hear the trees of Paradise rustle in the ambrosial gales of
+heaven.
+
+Is this poetry? Is it sacrilege? If so, forgive me, thou great Inspirer
+of thought,--"my spirit would fain not wander from thee."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The life of a school-girl presents but few salient points to arrest the
+interest. It is true, every day had its history, and every rising and
+setting sun found something added to the volume of my life. But there
+seems so little to describe! I could go on for ever, giving utterance to
+thoughts that used to crowd in my young brain, thoughts that would
+startle as well as amuse,--but I fear they might become monotonous to
+the reader.
+
+I had become a hard student. My mother wished me to fit myself for a
+teacher. It was enough.
+
+It was not, however, without many struggles. I had acquired this
+submission to her wishes. Must I forever be a slave to hours? Must I
+weave for others the chain whose daily restraint chafed and galled my
+free, impatient spirit? Must I bear the awful burden of authority, that
+unlovely appendage to youth? Must I voluntarily assume duties to which
+the task of the criminal that tramps, tramps day after day the revolving
+tread-mill, seems light; for that is mere physical labor and monotony,
+not the wear and tear of mind, heart, and soul?
+
+"What else can you do, my child?" asked my mother.
+
+"I could sew."
+
+My mother smiled and shook her head.
+
+"Your skill does not lie in handicraft," she said, "that would never
+do."
+
+"I could toil as a servant. I would far rather do it."
+
+I had worked myself up to a belief in my own sincerity when I said this,
+but had any tongue but mine suggested the idea, how would my aspiring
+blood have burned with indignation.
+
+"It is the most honorable path to independence a friendless young girl
+can choose,--almost the only one," said my mother, suppressing a deep
+sigh.
+
+"Oh, mother! I am not friendless. How can I be, with you and Peggy?"
+
+"But we are not immortal, my child. Every day loosens my frail hold of
+earthly things, and even Peggy's strong arm will in time grow weak. Your
+young strength will then be _her_ stay and support."
+
+"Oh, mother! as if I could live when you are taken from me! What do I
+live for, but you? What have I on earth but thee? Other children have
+father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and friends. If one is
+taken from them, they have others left to love and care for them, but I
+have nobody in the wide world but you. I could not, would not live
+without you."
+
+I spoke with passionate earnestness. Life without my mother! The very
+thought was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more
+than pale,--it was wan--it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under
+her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure
+looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her
+eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when throwing my arms across
+her lap, I laid my face upon them, and wept and sobbed as if the doom of
+the motherless were already mine.
+
+"Grief does not kill, my Gabriella," she said, tenderly caressing me.
+"It is astonishing how much the human heart can bear without breaking.
+Sorrow may dry up, drop by drop, the fountain of life, but it is
+generally the work of years. The heart lives, though every source of joy
+be dead,--lives without one well-spring of happiness to quench its
+burning thirst,--lives in the midst of desolation, darkness, and
+despair. Oh, my Gabriella," she continued, with a burst of feeling that
+swept over her with irresistible power, and bowed her as before a stormy
+gust, "would to God that we might die together,--that the same almighty
+mandate would free us both from this prison-house of sorrow and of sin.
+I have prayed for resignation,--I have prayed for faith; but, O my God!
+I am rebellious, I am weak, I have suffered and struggled so long."
+
+She spoke in a tone of physical as well as menial agony. I was looking
+up in her face, and it seemed as if a dark shadow rolled over it. I
+sprang to my feet and screamed. Peggy, who was already on the threshold,
+caught her as she fell forward, and laid her on the bed as if she were a
+little child. She was in a fainting fit. I had seen her before in these
+deathlike swoons, but never had I watched with such shuddering dread to
+see the dawn of awakening life break upon her face. I stood at her
+pillow scarcely less pale and cold than herself.
+
+"This is all your doings, Miss Gabriella," muttered Peggy, while busily
+engaged in the task of restoration. "If you don't want to kill your
+mother, you must keep out of your tantrums. What's the use of going on
+so, I wonder,--and what's the use of my watching her as carefully as if
+she was made of glass, when you come like a young hurricane and break
+her into atoms. There,--go away and keep quiet. Let her be till she gets
+over this turn. I know exactly what's best for her."
+
+She spoke with authority, and I obeyed as if the voice of a superior
+were addressing me. I obeyed,--but not till I had seen the hue of
+returning life steal over the marble pallor of her cheek. I wandered
+into the garden, but the narrow paths, the precise formed beds, the
+homely aspect of vegetable nature, filled me with a strange loathing. I
+felt suffocated, oppressed,--I jumped over the railing and plunged into
+the woods,--the wild, ample woods,--my home,--my wealth,--my God-granted
+inheritance. I sat down under the oaks, and fixed my eyes upwards on the
+mighty dome that seemed resting on the strong forest trees. I heard
+nothing but the soft rustling of the leaves,--I saw nothing but the
+lonely magnificence of nature.
+
+Here I became calm. It seemed a matter of perfect indifference to me
+then what I did, or what became of me,--whether I was henceforth to be a
+teacher, a seamstress, or a servant. Every consideration was swallowed
+in one,--every fear lost in one absorbing dread. I had but one
+prayer,--"Let my mother live, or let me die with her!"
+
+Poverty offered no privation, toil no weariness, suffering no pang,
+compared to the one great evil which my imagination grasped with firm
+and desperate clench.
+
+Three years had passed since I had lain a weeping child under the shadow
+of the oaks, smarting from the lash of derision, burning with shame,
+shrinking with humiliation. I was now fifteen years old,--at that age
+when youth turns trembling from the dizzy verge of childhood to a
+mother's guardian arms, a mother's sheltering heart. How weak, how
+puerile now seemed the emotions, which three years ago had worn such a
+majestic semblance.
+
+I was but a foolish child then,--what was I now? A child still, but
+somewhat wiser, not more worldly wise. I knew no more of the world, of
+what is called the world, than I did of those golden cities seen through
+the cloud-vistas of sunset. It seemed as grand, as remote, and as
+inaccessible.
+
+At this moment I turned my gaze towards the distant cloud-turrets
+gleaming above, walls on which chariots and horsemen of fire seemed
+passing and repassing, and I was conscious of but one deep, earnest
+thought,--"my mother!"
+
+One prayer, sole and agonizing, trembled on my lips:--
+
+"Take her not from me, O my God! I will drink the cup of poverty and
+humiliation to the dregs if thou wilt, without a murmur, but spare, O
+spare my mother!"
+
+God did spare her for a little while. The dark hands on the dial-plate
+of destiny once moved back at the mighty breath of prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"Gabriella,--is it you? How glad I am to see you!"
+
+That clear, distinct, ringing voice!--I knew it well, though a year had
+passed since I had heard its sound. The three years which made me, as I
+said before, a _wiser child_, had matured my champion, the boy of
+fifteen, into a youth of eighteen, a collegian of great promise and
+signal endowments. I felt very sorry when he left the academy, for he
+had been my steadfast friend and defender, and a great assistant in my
+scholastic tasks. But after he entered a college, I felt as if there
+were a great gulf between us, never more to be passed over. I had very
+superb ideas of collegians. I had seen them during their holidays, which
+they frequently came into the country to spend, dashing through the
+streets like the wild huntsmen, on horses that struck fire as they flew
+along. I had seen them lounging in the streets, with long, wild hair,
+and corsair visages and Byronian collars, and imagined them a most
+formidable race of beings. I did not know that these were the
+_scape-goats_ of their class, suspended for rebellion, or expelled for
+greater offences,--that having lost their character as students, they
+were resolved to distinguish themselves as dandies, the lowest ambition
+a son of Adam's race can feel. It is true, I did not dream that Richard
+Clyde could be transformed into their image, but I thought some
+marvellous change must take place, which would henceforth render him as
+much a stranger to me as though we had never met.
+
+Now, when I heard the clear, glad accents of his voice, so natural, so
+unchanged, I looked up with a glance of delighted recognition into the
+young student's manly face. My first sensation was pleasure, the
+pleasure which congenial youth inspires, my next shame, for the
+homeliness of my occupation. I was standing by a beautiful bubbling
+spring, at the foot of a little hill near my mother's cottage. The
+welling spring, the rock over which it gushed, the trees which bent
+their branches over the fountain to guard it from the sunbeams, the
+sweet music the falling waters,--all these were romantic and
+picturesque. I might imagine myself "a nymph, a naiad, or a grace." Or,
+had I carried a pitcher in my hand, I might have thought myself another
+Rebecca, and poised on my shoulder the not ungraceful burden. But I was
+dipping water from the spring, in a tin pail, of a broad, clumsy,
+unclassic form,--too heavy for the shoulder, and extremely difficult to
+carry in the hand, in consequence of the small, wiry handle. In my
+confusion I dropped the pail, which went gaily floating to the opposite
+side of the spring, entirely out of my reach. The strong, bubbling
+current bore it upward, and it danced and sparkled and turned its sides
+of mimic silver, first one way and then the other, as if rejoicing in
+its liberty.
+
+Richard laughed, his old merry laugh, and jumping on the rock over which
+the waters were leaping, caught the pail, and waved it as a trophy over
+his head. Then stooping down he filled it to the brim, gave one spring
+to the spot where I stood, whirled the bucket upside down and set it
+down on the grass without spilling a drop.
+
+"That is too large and heavy for you to carry, Gabriella," said he.
+"Look at the palm of your hand, there is quite a red groove there made
+by that iron handle."
+
+"Never mind," I answered, twisting my handkerchief carelessly round the
+tingling palm, "I must get used to it. Peggy is sick and there is no one
+to carry water now but myself. When she is well, she will never let me
+do any thing of the kind."
+
+"You should not," said he, decidedly. "You are not strong enough,--you
+must get another servant.--I will inquire in the village myself this
+morning, and send you one."
+
+"O no, my mother would never consent to a stranger coming into the
+family. Besides, no one could take Peggy's place. She is less a servant
+than a friend."
+
+I turned away to hide the tears that I could not keep back. Peggy's
+illness, though not of an alarming character, showed that even her iron
+constitution was not exempt from the ills which flesh is heir to,--that
+the strong pillar on which we leaned so trustingly _could_ vibrate and
+shake, and what would become of us if it were prostrated to the earth;
+the lonely column of fidelity and truth, to which we clung so
+adhesively; the sheet anchor which had kept us from sinking beneath the
+waves of adversity? I had scarcely realized Peggy's mortality before,
+she seemed so strong, so energetic, so untiring. I would as soon have
+thought of the sun's being weary in its mighty task as of Peggy's strong
+arm waxing weak. I felt very sad, and the meeting with Richard Clyde,
+which had excited a momentary joy, now deepened my sadness. He looked so
+bright, so prosperous, so full of hope and life. He was no longer the
+school-boy whom I could meet on equal terms, but the student entered on
+a public career of honor and distinction,--the son of ambition, whose
+gaze was already fixed on the distant hill-tops of fame. There was
+nothing in his countenance or manner that gave this impression, but my
+own morbid sensitiveness. The dawning feelings of womanhood made me
+blush for the plainness and childishness of my dress, and then I was
+ashamed of my shame, and blushed the more deeply.
+
+"I am glad to see you again," I said, stooping to raise my brimming
+pail,--"I suppose I must not call you Richard now."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I hope and trust none of my old friends will begin to Mr.
+Clyde me for a long time to come, and least, I mean most of all, you,
+Gabriella. We were always such exceedingly good friends, you know. But
+don't be in such a hurry, I have a thousand questions to ask, a thousand
+things to tell."
+
+"I should love to hear them all, Richard, but I cannot keep my mother
+waiting."
+
+Before I could get hold of the handle of the pail, he had seized it and
+was swinging it along with as much ease as if he had a bunch of roses in
+his hand. We ascended the little hill together, he talking all the time,
+in a spirited, joyous manner, laughing at his awkwardness as he stumbled
+against a rolling stone, wishing he was a school-boy again in the old
+academy, whose golden vane was once an object of such awe and admonition
+in his eyes.
+
+"By the way, Gabriella," he asked, changing from subject to subject with
+marvellous rapidity, "do you ever write poetry now?"
+
+"I have given that up, as one of the follies of my childhood, one of the
+dreams of my youth."
+
+"Really, you must be a very venerable person,--you talk of the youthful
+follies you have discarded, the dreams from which you have awakened, as
+if you were a real centenarian. I wonder if there are not some incipient
+wrinkles on your face."
+
+He looked at me earnestly, saucily; and I involuntarily put up my hands,
+as if to hide the traces of care his imagination was drawing.
+
+"I really do feel old sometimes," said I, smiling at the mock scrutiny
+of his gaze, "and it is well I do. You know I am going to be a teacher,
+and youth will be my greatest objection."
+
+"No, no, I do not want you to be a teacher. You were not born for one.
+You will not be happy as one,--you are too impulsive, too sensitive, too
+poetic in your temperament. You are the last person in the world who
+ought to think of such a vocation."
+
+"Would you advise me, then, to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water,
+in preference?"
+
+"I would advise you to continue your studies, to read, write poetry,
+ramble about the woods and commune with nature, as you so love to do,
+and not think of assuming the duties of a woman, while you are yet
+nothing but a child. Oh! it is the most melancholy thing in the world to
+me, to see a person trying to get beyond their years. You must not do
+it, Gabriella. I wish I could make you stop _thinking_ for one year. I
+do not like to see a cheek as young as yours pale with overmuch thought.
+Do you know you are getting very like your mother?"
+
+"My mother!" I exclaimed, with a glow of pleasure at the fancied
+resemblance, "why, she is the most beautiful person I have yet
+seen,--there is, there can be no likeness."
+
+"But there is, though. You speak as if you thought yourself quite ugly.
+I wonder if you do. Ugly and old. Strange self-estimation for a pretty
+girl of fifteen!"
+
+"I suppose you learn to flatter in college," said I, "but I do not care
+about being flattered, I assure you."
+
+"You are very much mistaken if you think I am trying to flatter you. I
+may do so a year or two hence if I chance to meet you in company, but
+here, in this rural solitude, with the very element of truth in my hand,
+I could not deceive, if I were the most accomplished courtier in the
+world."
+
+We had reached the top of the green acclivity which we bad been
+ascending, I fear with somewhat tardy steps. We could see the road
+through an opening in the trees,--a road little travelled, but leading
+to the central street of the town. The unusual sound of carriage wheels
+made me turn my head in that direction, and a simultaneous exclamation
+of Richard's fixed my attention.
+
+A very elegant carriage, drawn by a pair of large shining bay horses was
+rolling along with aristocratic slowness. The silver-plated harness
+glittered so in the sun, it at first dazzled my eyes, so that I could
+discern nothing distinctly. Then I saw the figures of two ladies seated
+on the back seat in light, airy dresses, and of two gentlemen on
+horseback, riding behind. I had but a glimpse of all this, for the
+carriage rolled on. The riders disappeared; but, as a flash of lightning
+reveals to us glimpses of the cloud cities of heaven which we remember
+long after the electric gates are closed, so the vision remained on my
+memory, and had I never again beheld the youthful form nearest to us, I
+should remember it still. It was that of a young girl, with very fair
+flaxen hair, curling in profuse ringlets on each side of her face, which
+was exquisitely fair, and lighted up with a soft rosiness like the
+dawning of morning. A blue scarf, of the color of her eyes, floated over
+her shoulders and fluttered from the window of the carriage. As I gazed
+on this bright apparition, Richard, to my astonishment, lifted his hat
+from his brow and bowed low to the smiling stranger, who returned the
+salutation with graceful ease. The lady on the opposite side was hidden
+by the fair-haired girl, and both were soon hidden by the thick branches
+that curtained the road.
+
+"The Linwoods!" said Richard, glancing merrily at the tin pail, which
+shone so conspicuously bright in the sunshine. "You must have heard of
+them?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Not heard of the new-comers! Haven't you heard that Mrs. Linwood has
+purchased the famous old Grandison Place, that has stood so long in
+solitary grandeur, had it fitted up in modern style, and taken
+possession of it for a country residence? Is it possible that you are
+such a little nun, that you have heard nothing of this?"
+
+"I go nowhere; no one comes to see us; I might as well be a nun."
+
+"But at school?"
+
+"I have not been since last autumn. But that fair, beautiful young lady,
+is she a daughter of Mrs. Linwood?"
+
+"She is,--Edith Linwood. Rather a romantic name, is it not? Do you think
+her beautiful?"
+
+"The loveliest creature I ever looked upon. I should be quite miserable
+if I thought I never should look upon her again. And you know her,--she
+bowed to you. How sorry I am she should see you performing such an
+humble office for a little rustic like me!"
+
+"She will think none the worse of me for it. If she did, I should
+despise her. But she is no heartless belle,--Edith Linwood is not. She
+is an angel of goodness and sweetness, if all they say of her be true. I
+do not know her very well. She has a brother with whom I am slightly
+acquainted, and through him I have been introduced into the family. Mrs.
+Linwood is a noble, excellent woman,--I wish you knew her. I wish you
+knew Edith,--I wish you knew them all. They would appreciate you. I am
+sure they would."
+
+"_I_ know them!" I exclaimed, glancing at our lowly cottage, my simple
+dress, and contrasting them mentally with the lordly dwelling and costly
+apparel of these favorites of nature and of fortune. "They appreciate
+_me_!"
+
+"I suppose you think Edith Linwood the most enviable of human beings.
+Rich, lovely, with the power of gratifying every wish, and of dispensing
+every good, she would gladly exchange this moment with you, and dip
+water from yon bubbling spring."
+
+"Impossible!" I cried. "How can she help being happy?"
+
+"She does seem happy, but she is lame, and her health is very delicate.
+She cannot walk one step without crutches, on which she swings herself
+along very lightly and gracefully, it is true; but think you not she
+would not give all her wealth to be able to walk with your bounding
+steps, and have your elastic frame?"
+
+"Crutches!" said I, sorrowfully, "why she looked as if she might have
+wings on her shoulders. It _is_ sad."
+
+"She is not an object of pity. You will not think she is when you know
+her. I only wanted to convince you, that you might be an object of envy
+to one who seems so enviable to you."
+
+I would gladly have lingered where I was, within the sound of Richard
+Clyde's frank and cheerful voice, but I thought of poor Peggy thirsting
+for a cooling draught, and my conscience smote me for being a laggard in
+my duty. It is true, the scene, which may seem long in description,
+passed in a very brief space of time, and though Richard said a good
+many things, he talked very fast, without seeming hurried either.
+
+"I shall see you again at the spring," said he, as he turned from the
+gate. "You must consider me as the Aquarius of your domestic Zodiac. I
+should like to be my father's camel-driver, if that were Jacob's well."
+
+I could not help smiling at his gay nonsense,--his presence had been so
+brightening, so comforting. I had gone down to the spring sad and
+desponding. I returned with a countenance so lighted up, a color so
+heightened, that my mother looked at me with surprise.
+
+As soon as I had ministered to Peggy, who seemed mortified and ashamed
+because of her sickness, and distressed beyond measure at being waited
+upon. I told my mother of my interview with Richard, of his kindness in
+carrying the water, the vision of the splendid carriage, of its
+beautiful occupants, the fitting up of the old Grandison Place, and all
+that Richard had related to me.
+
+She listened with a troubled countenance. "Surely, young Clyde will not
+be so inconsiderate, so officious, as to induce those ladies to visit
+us?"
+
+"No, indeed, mother. He is not officious. He knows you would not like to
+see them. He would not think of such a thing."
+
+"No, no," I repeated to myself, as I exerted myself bravely in my new
+offices, as nurse and housekeeper, "there is no danger of that fair
+creature seeking out this little obscure spot. She will probably ask
+Richard Clyde who the little country girl was, whose water-pail he was
+so gallantly carrying, and I know he will speak kindly of me, though he
+will laugh at being caught in such an awkward predicament. Perhaps to
+amuse her, he will tell her of my flight from the academy and the scenes
+which resulted, and she will ask him to show her the poem, rendered so
+immortal. Then merrily will her silver laughter ring through the lofty
+hall. I have wandered all over Grandison Place when it was a deserted
+mansion. No one saw me, for it is far back from the street, all
+embosomed in shade, and it reminded me of some old castle with its
+turreted roof and winding galleries. I wonder how it looks now." I was
+falling into one of my old-fashioned dreams, when a moan from Peggy
+wakened me, and I sprang to her bedside with renewed alarm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Yes, Peggy was very sick; but she would not acknowledge it. It was
+nothing but a violent headache,--a sudden cold; she would be up and
+doing in the morning. The doctor! No, indeed, she would have nothing to
+do with doctors. She had never taken a dose of medicine in her life, and
+never would, of her own freewill. Sage tea was worth all the pills and
+nostrums in the world. On the faith of her repeated assertions, that she
+felt a great deal better and would be quite well in the morning, we
+slept, my mother and myself, leaving the lamp dimly burning by the
+solemn hour-glass.
+
+About midnight we were awakened by the wild ravings of delirious
+agony,--those sounds so fearful in themselves, so awful in the silence
+and darkness of night, so indescribably awful in the solitude of our
+lonely dwelling.
+
+Peggy had struggled with disease like "the strong man prepared to run a
+race," but it had now seized her with giant grasp, and she lay helpless
+and writhing, with the fiery fluid burning in her veins, sending dark,
+red flashes to her cheeks and brow. Her eyes had a fierce, lurid glare,
+and she tossed her head from side to side on the pillow with the wild
+restlessness of an imprisoned animal.
+
+"Good God!" cried my mother, looking as white as the sheets, and
+trembling all over as in an ague-fit. "What shall we do? She will die
+unless a doctor can see her. Oh, my child, what can we do? It is
+dreadful to be alone in the woods, when sickness and death are in the
+house."
+
+"_I_ will go for the doctor, mother, if you are not afraid to stay alone
+with Peggy," cried I, in hurried accents, wrapping a shawl round me as I
+spoke.
+
+My mother wrung her hands.
+
+"Oh! this is terrible," she exclaimed. "How dim and dark it looks
+abroad. I cannot let you go alone, at midnight. It cannot be less than a
+mile to Dr. Harlowe's. No, no; I cannot let you go."
+
+"And Peggy must die, then. _She_ must die who has served us so
+faithfully, and lived alone for us! Oh, mother, let me go I will fly on
+the wings of the wind. You will hardly miss me before I return. I am not
+afraid of the darkness. I am not afraid of the lonely woods. I only fear
+leaving you alone with her."
+
+"Go," said my mother, in a faint voice. "God will protect you. I feel
+that He will, my good, brave Gabriella."
+
+I kissed her white cheek with passionate tenderness, cast a glance of
+anguish on Peggy's fearfully altered face, then ran out into the chill,
+dark midnight. At first I could scarcely discern the sandy path I had so
+often trodden, for no moon lighted up the gloom of the hour, and even
+the stars glimmered faintly through a grey and cloudy atmosphere. As I
+hurried along, the wind came sighing through the trees with such
+inexpressible sadness, it seemed whispering mournfully of the dark
+secrets of nature. Then it deepened into a dull, roaring sound, like the
+murmurs of the ocean tide; but even as I went on the melancholy wind
+pursued me like an invisible spirit, winding around me its chill,
+embracing arms.
+
+I seemed the only living thing in the cold, illimitable night. A thick
+horror brooded over me. The sky was a mighty pall, sweeping down with
+heavy cloud-fringes, the earth a wide grave. I did not fear, that is, I
+feared not man, or beast or ghost, but an unspeakable awe and dread was
+upon me. I dreaded the great God, whose presence filled with
+insupportable grandeur the lonely night. My heart was hard as granite.
+_I_ could not have prayed, had I known that Peggy's life would be given
+in answer to my prayer. I could not say, "Our Father, who art in
+heaven," as I had so often done at my mother's knee, in the sweet,
+childlike spirit of filial love and submission. My Father's face was
+hidden, and behind the thick clouds of darkness I saw a stern,
+vindictive Being, to whom the smoke of human suffering was more
+acceptable than frankincense and myrrh.
+
+I compared myself wandering alone in darkness and sorrow, on such an
+awful errand, to the fair, smiling being cradled in wealth, then
+doubtless sleeping in her bed of down, watched by attending menials. Oh!
+rebel that I was, did I not need the chastening discipline, never
+exerted but in wisdom and in love?
+
+Before I knew it, I was at Dr. Harlowe's door. All was dark and still.
+The house was of brick, and it loomed up gloriously as I approached. It
+seemed to frown repulsively with its beetling eaves, as I lifted the
+knocker and let it fall with startling force. In a moment I heard
+footsteps moving and saw a light glimmering through the blinds. He was
+at home, then,--I had accomplished my mission. It was no matter if I
+died, since Peggy might be saved. I really thought I was going to die, I
+felt so dull and faint and breathless. I sunk down on the stone steps,
+just as the door was opened by Dr. Harlowe himself, whom I had seen, but
+never addressed before. Placing his left hand above his eyes, he looked
+out, in search of the messenger who had roused him from his slumber. I
+tried to rise, but was too much exhausted. I could scarcely make my
+errand understood. I had run a mile without stopping, and now I _had_
+stopped, my limbs seemed turned into lead and my head to ice.
+
+"My poor child!" said the doctor, in the kindest manner imaginable. "You
+should not have come yourself at this hour. It was hardly safe.
+Why,--you have run yourself completely out of breath. Come in, while
+they are putting my horse in the buggy. I must give _you_ some medicine
+before we start."
+
+He stooped down and almost lifted me from the step where I was seated,
+and led me into what appeared to me quite a sumptuous apartment, being
+handsomely carpeted and having long crimson curtains to the windows. He
+made me sit down on a sofa, while he went to a closet, and pouring out a
+generous glass of wine, insisted upon my drinking it. I obeyed him
+mechanically, for life seemed glowing in the ruddy fluid. It was. It
+came back in warmth to my chilled and sinking heart. I felt it stealing
+like a gentle fire through my whole system,--burning gently, steadily on
+my cheek, and kindling into light my heavy and tear-dimmed eyes. It was
+the first glass I had ever tasted, and it ran like electricity through
+my veins. Had the doctor been aware of my previous abstinence, he might
+not have thought it safe to have offered me the brimming glass. Had I
+reflected one moment I should have swallowed it less eagerly; but I
+seemed sinking, sinking into annihilation, when its reviving warmth
+restored me. I felt as if I had wings, and could fly over the dreary
+space my weary feet had so lately overcome.
+
+"You feel better, my dear," said the doctor, with a benevolent smile, as
+he watched the effect of his prescription. "You must not make so
+dangerous an experiment again as running such a distance at this time of
+night. Peggy's life is very precious, I dare say, and so is yours. Are
+you ready to ride? My buggy is not very large, but I think it will
+accommodate us both. We will see."
+
+Though it was the first time I had ever spoken with Dr. Harlowe, I felt
+as much confidence in his kindness and benevolence as if I had known him
+for years. There was something so frank and genial about him, he seemed,
+like the wine I had been quaffing, warming to the heart. There was
+barely room for me, slender as I was, for the carriage was constructed
+for the accommodation of the doctor alone; but I did not feel
+embarrassed, or as if I were intruding. He drove very rapidly,
+conversing the whole time in a pleasant, cheering voice.
+
+"Peggy must be a very valuable person," he said, "for you to venture out
+so bravely in her cause. We must cure her, by all means."
+
+I expatiated on her virtues with all the eloquence of gratitude.
+Something must have emboldened my shy tongue,--something more than the
+hope, born of the doctor's heart-reviving words.
+
+"He is come--he is come," I exclaimed, springing from the buggy to the
+threshold, with the quickness of lightning.
+
+Oh! how dim and sickly and sad every thing appeared in that little
+chamber! I turned and looked at the doctor, wondering if he had ever
+entered one so sad before. Peggy lay in an uneasy slumber, her arms
+thrown above her head, in a wild, uncomfortable attitude. My mother sat
+leaning against the head of the bed, pale and statue-like, with her
+hand, white as marble, partly hidden in her dark and loosely braided
+hair. The doctor glanced at the bed, then at my mother, and his glance
+riveted on her. Surprise warmed into admiration,--admiration stood
+checked by reverence. He advanced a few steps into the room, and made
+her as lowly a bow as if she were an empress. She rose without speaking
+and motioned me to hand him a chair; but waiving the offered civility,
+he went up to the side of the bed and laid his fingers quietly on the
+pulse of his patient. He stood gravely counting the ticking of life's
+great chronometer, while my mother leaned forward with pale, parted
+lips, and I gazed upon him as if the issues of life and death were in
+his hands.
+
+"I wish I had been called sooner," said he, with a slight contraction of
+the brows, "but we will do all we can to relieve her."
+
+He called for a basin and linen bandage, and taking a lancet from his
+pocket, held up the sharp, gleaming point to the light. I shuddered, I
+had never seen any one bled, and it seemed to me an awful operation.
+
+"You will hold the basin," said he, directing me with his calm,
+benignant eye. "You are a brave girl,--you will not shrink, as some
+foolish persons do, at the sight of blood. This side, if you please, my
+dear."
+
+Ashamed to forfeit the confidence he had in my bravery, or rather moral
+courage, I grasped the basin with both hands, and held it firm, though
+my lips quivered and my cheek blanched.
+
+Peggy, awakened by the pressure of the bandage, began to rave and
+struggle, and I feared it would be impossible to subdue her into
+sufficient quietness; but delirious as she was, there was something in
+the calm, authoritative tones of Dr. Harlowe's voice, that seemed
+irresistible. She became still, and lay with her half-closed eyes fixed
+magnetically on his face. As the dark-red blood spouted into the basin,
+I started, and would have recoiled had not a strong controlling
+influence been exerted over me. The gates of life were opened. How easy
+for life itself to pass away in that deep crimson tide!
+
+"This is the poetry of our profession," said the doctor, binding up the
+wound with all a woman's gentleness.
+
+Poor Peggy, who could ever associate the idea of poetry with her! I
+could not help smiling as I looked at her sturdy arm, through whose
+opaque surface the blue wandering of the veins was vainly sought.
+
+"And now," said he, after giving her a comforting draught, "she will
+sleep, and _you_ must sleep, madam," turning respectfully to my mother;
+"you have not strength enough to resist fatigue,--your daughter will
+have two to nurse instead of one, if you do not follow my advice."
+
+"I cannot sleep," replied my mother.
+
+"But you can rest, madam; it is your duty. What did I come here for, but
+to relieve your cares? Go with your mother, my dear, and after a while
+you may come back and help me."
+
+"You are very kind, sir," she answered. With a graceful bend of the head
+she passed from the room, while his eyes followed her with an expression
+of intense interest.
+
+It is no wonder. Even I, accustomed as I was to watch her every motion,
+was struck by the exceeding grace of her manner. She did not ask the
+doctor what he thought of Peggy, though I saw the words trembling on her
+lips. She dared not do it.
+
+From that night the seclusion of our cottage home was broken up. Disease
+had entered and swept down the barriers of circumstance curiosity had so
+long respected. We felt the drawings of that golden chain of sympathy
+which binds together the great family of mankind.
+
+Peggy's disease was a fever, of a peculiar and malignant character. It
+was the first case which occurred; but it spread through the town, so
+that scarcely a family was exempt from its ravages. Several died after a
+few days' sickness, and it was said purplish spots appeared after death,
+making ghostly contrast with its livid pallor. The alarm and terror of
+the community rendered it difficult to obtain nurses for the sick; but,
+thanks to the benevolent exertions of Dr. Harlowe, we were never left
+alone.
+
+Richard Clyde, too, came every day, and sometimes two or three times a
+day to the spring, to know what he could do for us. No brother could be
+kinder. Ah! how brightly, how vividly deeds of kindness stand out on the
+dark background of sickness and sorrow! I never, never can forget that
+era of my existence, when the destroying angel seemed winnowing the
+valley with his terrible wings,--when human life was blown away as chaff
+before a strong wind. Strange! the sky was as blue and benignant, the
+air as soft and serene, as if health and joy were revelling in the
+green-wood shade. The gentle rustling of the foliage, the sweet, glad
+warbling of the birds, the silver sparkling of the streamlets, and the
+calm, deep flowing of the distant river, all seemed in strange
+discordance with the throes of agony, the wail of sorrow, and the knell
+of death.
+
+It was the first time I had ever been brought face to face with sickness
+and pain. The constitutional fainting fits of my mother were indicative
+of weakness, and caused momentary terror; but how different to this
+mysterious, terrible malady, this direct visitation from the Almighty!
+Here we could trace no second causes, no imprudence in diet, no exposure
+to the night air, no predisposing influences. It came sudden and
+powerful as the bolt of heaven. It came in sunshine and beauty, without
+herald and warning, whispering in deep, thrilling accents: "Be still,
+and know that I am God."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+I do not wish to dwell too long on this sad page of my young life, but
+sad as it is, it is followed by another so dark, I know not whether my
+trembling hand should attempt to unfold it. Indeed, I fear I have
+commenced a task I had better have left alone. I know, however, I have
+scenes to relate full of the wildest romance, and that though what I
+have written may be childish and commonplace, I have that to relate
+which will interest, if the development of life's deepest passions have
+power to do so.
+
+The history of a human heart! a true history of that mystery of
+mysteries! a description of that city of our God, more magnificent than
+the streets of the New Jerusalem! This is what I have commenced to
+write. I will go on.
+
+For nine days Peggy wrestled with the destroying angel. During that
+time, nineteen funerals had darkened the winding avenue which led to the
+grave-yard, and she who was first attacked lingered last. It was
+astonishing how my mother sustained herself during these days and nights
+of intense anxiety. She seemed unconscious of fatigue, passive, enduring
+as the marble statue she resembled. She ate nothing,--she did not sleep.
+I know not what supported her. Dr. Harlowe brought her some of that
+generous wine which had infused such life into my young veins, and
+forced her to swallow it, but it never brought any color to her hueless
+cheeks.
+
+On the morning of the ninth day, Peggy sunk into a deathlike stupor. Her
+mind had wandered during all her sickness, though most of the time she
+lay in a deep lethargy, from which nothing could rouse her.
+
+"Go down to the spring and breathe the fresh air," said the doctor;
+"there should be perfect quiet here,--a few hours will decide her fate."
+
+I went down to the spring, where the twilight shades were gathering. The
+air came with balmy freshness to my anxious, feverish brow. I scooped up
+the cold water in the hollow of my hand and bathed my face. I shook my
+hair over my shoulders, and dashed the water over every disordered
+tress. I began to breathe more freely. The burning weight, the
+oppression, the suffocation were passing away, but a dreary sense of
+misery, of coming desolation remained. I sat down on the long grass, and
+leaning my head on my clasped hands, watched the drops as they fell from
+my dropping hair on the mossy rock below.
+
+"Is it not too damp for you here?"
+
+I knew Richard Clyde was by me,--I heard his light footsteps on the
+sward, but I did not look up.
+
+"It is not as damp as the grave will be," I answered.
+
+"Don't talk so, Gabriella, don't. I cannot bear to hear you. This will
+be all over soon, and it will be to you like a dark and troubled dream."
+
+"Yes; I know it will be all over soon. We shall all lie in the
+churchyard together,--Peggy, my mother, and I,--and you will plant a
+white rose over my mother's grave, will you not? Not over mine. No
+flowers have bloomed for me in life,--it would be nothing to place them
+over my sleeping dust."
+
+"Gabriella! You are excited,--you are ill. Give me your hand. I know you
+have a feverish pulse."
+
+I laid my hand on his, with an involuntary motion. Though it was moist
+with the drops that had been oozing over it, it had a burning heat. He
+startled at its touch.
+
+"You are ill,--you are feverish!" he cried. "The close air of that
+little room has been killing you. I knew it would. You should have gone
+to Mrs. Linwood's, you and your mother, when she sent for you. Peggy
+would have been abundantly cared for."
+
+"What, leave her here to die!--her, so good, so faithful, and
+affectionate, who would have died a thousand times over for us. Oh
+Richard, how can you speak of such a thing! Peggy is dying now,--I know
+that she is. I never looked on death, but I saw its shadow on her livid
+face. Why did Dr. Harlowe send me away? I am not afraid to see her die.
+Hark! my mother calls me."
+
+I started up, but my head was dizzy, and I should have fallen had not
+Richard put his arm around me.
+
+"Poor girl," said he, "I wish I had a sister to be with and comfort you.
+These are dark hours for us all, for we feel the pressure of God
+Almighty's hand. I do not wonder that you are crushed. You, so young and
+tender. But bear up, Gabriella. The day-spring will yet dawn, and the
+shadows fly away."
+
+So he kept talking, soothingly, kindly, keeping me out in the balminess
+and freshness of the evening, while the fever atmosphere burned within.
+I knew not how long I sat. I knew not when I returned to the house. I
+have forgotten that. But I remember standing that night over a still,
+immovable form, on whose pale, peaceful brow, those purplish spots, of
+which I had heard in awful whispers, were distinctly visible. The
+tossing arms were crossed reposingly over the pulseless bosom,--the
+restless limbs were rigid as stone. I remember seeing my mother, whom
+they tried to lead into another chamber,--my mother, usually so calm and
+placid,--throw herself wildly on that humble, fever-blasted form, and
+cling to it in an agony of despair. It was only by the exertion of main
+force that she was separated from it and carried to her own apartment.
+There she fell into one of those deadly fainting fits, from which the
+faithful, affectionate Peggy had so often brought her back to life.
+
+Never shall I forget that awful night. The cold presence of mortality in
+its most appalling form, the shadow of my mother's doom that was rolling
+heavily down upon me with prophetic darkness, the dismal preparations,
+the hurrying steps echoing so drearily through the midnight gloom; the
+cold burden of life, the mystery of death, the omnipotence of God, the
+unfathomableness of Eternity,--all pressed upon me with such a crushing
+weight, my spirit gasped and fainted beneath the burden.
+
+One moment it seemed that worlds would not tempt me to look again on
+that shrouded form, so majestic in its dread immobility,--its cold, icy
+calmness,--then drawn by an awful fascination, I would gaze and gaze as
+if my straining eyes could penetrate the depths of that abyss, which no
+sounding line has ever reached.
+
+I saw her laid in her lowly grave. My mother, too, was there. Dr.
+Harlowe did every thing but command her to remain at home, but she would
+not stay behind.
+
+"I would follow her to her last home," said she, "if I had to walk
+barefoot over a path of thorns."
+
+Only one sun rose on her unburied form,--its setting rays fell on a
+mound of freshly heaved sods, where a little while before was a mournful
+cavity.
+
+Mrs. Linwood sent her beautiful carriage to take us to the churchyard.
+Slowly it rolled along behind the shadow of the dark, flapping pall.
+Very few beside ourselves were present, so great a panic pervaded the
+community; and very humble was the position Peggy occupied in the world.
+People wondered at the greatness of our grief, for she was _only_ a
+servant. They did not know all that she was to us,--how could they? Even
+I dreamed not then of the magnitude of our obligations.
+
+I never shall forget the countenance of my mother as she sat leaning
+from the carriage windows, for she was too feeble to stand during the
+burial, while I stood with Dr. Harlowe at the head of the grave. The sun
+was just sinking behind the blue undulation of the distant hills, and a
+mellow, golden lustre calmly settled on the level plain around us. It
+lighted up her pallid features with a kind of unearthly glow, similar to
+that which rested on the marble monuments gleaming through the weeping
+willows. Every thing looked as serene and lovely, as green and
+rejoicing, as if there were no such things as sickness and death in the
+world.
+
+My mother's eyes wandered slowly over the whole inclosure, shut in by
+the plain white railing, edged with black,--gleamed on every gray stone,
+white slab, and green hillock,--rested a moment on me, then turned
+towards heaven, with such an expression!
+
+"Not yet, my mother, oh, not yet!" I cried aloud in an agony that could
+not be repressed, clinging to Dr. Harlowe's arm as if every earthly stay
+and friend were sliding from my grasp. I knew the meaning of that mute,
+expressive glance. She was measuring her own grave by the side of
+Peggy's clay cold bed,--she was commending her desolate orphan to the
+Father of the fatherless, the God of the widow. She knew she would soon
+be there, and I knew it too. And after the first sharp pang,--after the
+arrow of conviction fastened in my heart,--I pressed it there with a
+kind of stern, vindictive joy, triumphing in my capacity of suffering. I
+wonder if any one ever felt as I did,--I wonder if any worm of the dust
+ever writhed so impotently under the foot of Almighty God!
+
+O kind and compassionate Father! Now I know thou art kind even in thy
+chastisements, merciful even in thy judgments, by the bitter chalice I
+have drained, by all the waves and billows that have gone over me, by
+anguish, humiliation, repentance, and prayer. Forgive, forgive! for I
+knew not what I was doing!
+
+From that night my mother never left her bed. The fever spared her, but
+she wilted like the grass beneath the scythe of the mower. Gone was the
+unnatural excitement which had sustained her the last nine days; severed
+the silver cord so long dimmed by secret tears.
+
+Thank heaven! I was not doomed to see her tortured by pain, or raving in
+delirious agony,--to see those exquisite features distorted by
+frenzy,--or to hear that low, sweet voice untuned, the key-note of
+reason lost.
+
+Thank heaven! even death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so
+lovely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+I said, death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so lovely. Week
+after week she lingered, almost imperceptibly fading, passing away like
+a soft rolling cloud that melts into the sky. The pestilence had stayed
+its ravages. The terror, the thick gloom had passed by.
+
+If I looked abroad at sunset, I could see the windows of the village
+mansions, crimsoned and glowing with the last flames of day; but no
+light was reflected on our darkened home. It was all in shadow. And at
+night, when the windows of Grandison Place were all illuminated,
+glittering off by itself like a great lantern, the traveller could
+scarcely have caught the glimmering ray of the little lamp dimly burning
+in our curtained room.
+
+Do you think I was resigned? That because I was dumb, I lay like a lamb
+before the stroke of the shearer? I will tell you how resigned, how
+submissive I was. I have read of the tortures of the Inquisition. I have
+read of one who was chained on his back to the dungeon floor, without
+the power to move one muscle,--hand and foot, body and limb bound. As he
+lay thus prone, looking up, ever upwards, he saw a circular knife,
+slowly descending, swinging like a pendulum, swinging nearer and nearer;
+and he knew that every breath he drew it came nearer and nearer, and
+that he _must_ feel anon the cold, sharp edge. Yet he lay still,
+immovable, frozen, waiting, with his glazed eyes fixed on the terrible
+weapon. Such was _my_ resignation--_my_ submission.
+
+Friends gathered around the desolate; but they could not avert the
+descending stroke. Mrs. Linwood came, with her angelic looking daughter,
+and their presence lighted up, momentarily, our saddened dwelling, as if
+they had been messengers from heaven,--they were so kind, so
+sympathizing, so unobtrusive. When Edith first crossed our threshold,
+she did indeed look like one of those ministering spirits, sent to watch
+over those who shall be heirs of salvation. She seemed to float forward,
+light and airy as the down wafted by the summer gale. Her crutches, the
+ends of which were wrapped with something soft and velvety, so as to
+muffle their sound, rather added than detracted from the interest and
+grace of her appearance, so gracefully they sustained her fair,
+white-robed form, just lifting it above the earth.
+
+A little while before, I should have shrunk with nervous diffidence from
+the approach of guests like these. I should have contrasted painfully
+the splendor of their position with the lowliness of our own,--but now,
+what were wealth or rank or earthly distinctions to me?
+
+I was sitting by my mother's bed, fanning her slumbers, as they entered.
+Mrs. Linwood walked noiselessly forward, took the fan gently from my
+hand, and motioned me to resign my seat to her. I did so mechanically,
+for it seemed she had a right to be there. Then Edith took me by the
+hand and looked in my face with an expression of such sweet, unaffected
+sympathy, I turned aside to hide the quick-gushing tears. Not a word was
+uttered, yet I knew they came to soothe and comfort.
+
+When my mother opened her eyes and saw the face of a stranger bending
+over her, she started and trembled; but there was something in the mild,
+Christian countenance of Mrs. Linwood that disarmed her fears, and
+inspired confidence. The pride which had hitherto repelled the advances
+of friendship, was all chastened and subdued. Death, the great leveller,
+had entered the house, and the mountains of human distinction flowed
+down at his presence.
+
+"I am come to nurse you," said Mrs. Linwood, taking my mother's pale,
+emaciated hand and pressing it in both her own. "Do not look upon me as
+a stranger, but as a friend--a sister. You will let me stay, will you
+not?"
+
+She seemed soliciting a favor, not conferring one.
+
+"Thank you,--bless you!" answered my mother, her large dark eyes fixed
+with thrilling intensity on her face. Then she added, in a lower voice,
+glancing towards me, "_she_ will not be left friendless, then. You will
+remember _her_ when I am gone."
+
+"Kindly, tenderly, even with a mother's care," replied Mrs. Linwood,
+tears suffusing her mild eyes, and testifying the sincerity of her
+words.
+
+My mother laid Mrs. Linwood's hand on her heart, whose languid beating
+scarcely stirred the linen that covered it; then looking up to heaven,
+her lips moved in silent prayer. A smile, faint but beautiful, passed
+over her features, and left its sweetness on her face. From that hour to
+the death-hour Mrs. Linwood did minister to her, as a loving sister
+would have done. Edith often accompanied her mother and tried to comfort
+me, but I was then inaccessible to comfort, as I was deaf to hope. When
+she stayed away, I missed the soft floating of her airy figure, the
+pitying glance of her heavenly blue eye; but when she came, I said to
+myself,
+
+"_Her_ mother is not dying. How can she sympathize with me? She is the
+favorite of Him who is crushing me beneath the iron hand of His wrath."
+
+Thus impious were my thoughts, but no one read them on my pale, drooping
+brow. Mrs. Linwood praised my filial devotion, my fortitude and heroism.
+Dr. Harlowe had told her how I had braved the terrors of midnight
+solitude through the lonely woods, to bring him to a servant's bedside.
+Richard Clyde had interested her in my behalf. She told me I had many
+friends for one so young and so retiring. Oh! she little knew how coldly
+fell the words of praise on the dull ear of despair. I smiled at the
+thought of needing kindness and protection when _she_ was gone. As if it
+were possible for me to survive my mother!
+
+Had she not herself told me that grief did not kill? But I believed her
+not.
+
+Do you ask if I felt no curiosity then, about the mystery of my
+parentage? I had been looking forward to the time when I should be
+deemed old enough to know my mother's history of which my imagination
+had woven such a web of mystery and romance,--when I should hear
+something of that father whose memory was curtained by such an
+impenetrable veil. But now it mattered not. Had I known that the blood
+of kings was in my veins, it would not have wakened one throb of
+ambition, kindled one ray of joy. I cared not for my lineage or kindred.
+I would not have disturbed the serenity that seemed settling on my
+mother's departing spirit, by one question relative to her past life,
+for the wealth of the Indies.
+
+She gave to Mrs. Linwood a manuscript which she had written while I was
+at school, and which was to have been committed to Peggy's care;--for
+surely Peggy, the strong, the robust, unwearied Peggy, would survive
+her, the frail, delicate, and stricken one!
+
+She told me this the night before she died, when at her own request I
+was left alone with her. I knew it was for the last time, but I had been
+looking forward steadily to this hour,--looking as I said before, as the
+iron-bound prisoner to the revolving knife, and like him I was outwardly
+calm. I knelt beside her and looked on her shadowy form, her white,
+transparent skin, her dark, still lustrous, though sunken eyes, till it
+seemed that her spirit, almost disembodied, mingled mysteriously with
+mine, in earnest of a divine communion.
+
+"I thank God, my Gabriella," she said, laying her hand blessingly on my
+bowed head, "that you submit to His holy will, in a spirit of childlike
+submission. I thank Him for raising up such a friend as Mrs. Linwood,
+when friend and comforter seemed taken from us. Love her, confide in
+her, be grateful to her, my child. Be grateful to God for sending her to
+soothe my dying hours with promises of protection and love for you, my
+darling, my child, my poor orphan Gabriella."
+
+"Oh mother," I cried, "I do not submit,--I cannot,--I cannot! Dreadful
+thoughts are in my heart--oh, my mother, God is very terrible. Leave me
+not alone to meet his awful judgments. Put your arms round me, my
+mother, and let me lie close to your bosom, I will not hurt you, I will
+lie so gently there. Death cannot separate us, when we cling so close
+together. Leave me not alone in the world, so cold, so dark, so
+dreary,--oh, leave me not alone!" Thus I clung to her, in the
+abandonment of despair, while words rushed unhidden from my lips.
+
+"Oh, my Gabriella, my child, my poor smitten lamb!" she cried, and I
+felt her heart fluttering against mine like a dying bird. "Sorrow has
+bereft you of reason,--you know not what you say. Gabriella, it is an
+awful thing to resist the Almighty God. Submission is the heritage of
+dust and ashes. _I_ have been proud and rebellious, smarting under a
+sense of unmerited chastisement and wrong. Because man was false, I
+thought God unjust,--but now, on this dying bed, the illusion of passion
+is dispelled, and I see Him as He is, longsuffering, compassionate, and
+indulgent, in all his loving-kindness and tender mercy, strong to
+deliver and mighty to save. I feel that I have needed all the discipline
+of sorrow through which I have passed, to bring my proud and troubled
+soul, a sin-sick, life weary wanderer, to my Father's footstool. What
+matters now, my Gabriella, that I have trod a thorny path, if it lead to
+heaven at last? How short the journey,--how long the rest! Oh, beloved
+child, bow to the hand that smites thee, for the stubborn will _must_ be
+broken. Wait not, like me, till it be ground into dust."
+
+She paused breathless and exhausted, but I answered not. Low sobs came
+gaspingly from my bosom, on which a mountain of ice seemed freezing.
+
+"If we could die together," she continued, with increasing solemnity,
+"if I could bear you in these feeble arms to the mercy-seat of God, and
+know you were safe from temptation, and sorrow, and sin, the bitterness
+of death would be passed. It is a fearful thing to live, my child, far
+more fearful than to die,--but life is the trial of faith, and death the
+victory."
+
+"And now," she added, "before my spirit wings its upward flight, receive
+my dying injunction. If you live to years of womanhood, and your heart
+awakens to love,--as, alas, for woman's destiny it will,--then read my
+life and sad experience, and be warned by my example. Mrs. Linwood is
+intrusted with the manuscript, blotted with your mother's tears. Oh,
+Gabriella, by all your love and reverence for the memory of the
+dead,--by the scarlet dye that can be made white as wool,--by your own
+hope in a Saviour's mercy, forgive the living,--if living _he_ indeed
+be!"
+
+Her eyes closed as she uttered these words, and a purplish gloom
+gathered beneath her eyes. The doctor came in and administered ether,
+which partially revived her. I have never been able to inhale it since,
+without feeling sick and faint, and recalling the deadly odor of that
+chamber of mourning.
+
+About daybreak, I heard Dr. Harlowe say in the lowest whisper to Mrs.
+Linwood that _she_ could not live more than one hour. He turned the
+hour-glass as he spoke. She had collected all the energies of life in
+that parting interview,--nothing remained but a faint, fluttering,
+quick-drawn breath.
+
+I sat looking at the hour-glass, counting every gliding sand, till each
+little, almost invisible particle, instead of dropping into the crystal
+receptacle, seemed to fall on my naked heart like the mountain rock. O
+my God! there are only two or three sands left, and my mother's life
+hangs on the last sinking grain. Some one rises with noiseless steps to
+turn the glass.
+
+With a shriek that might have arrested the departing spirit, I sprang
+forward and fell senseless on the floor.
+
+I remember nothing that passed during the day. I was told afterwards,
+that when I recovered from the fainting fit, the doctor, apprehensive of
+spasms, gave me a powerful anodyne to quiet my tortured nerves. When I
+became conscious of what was passing around me, the moon was shining on
+the bed where I lay, and the shadow of the softly rustling leaves
+quivering on the counterpane. I was alone, but I heard low, murmuring
+voices in the next room, and there was a light there more dim and
+earthly than the pale splendor that enveloped me. I leaned forward on my
+elbow and looked beyond the open door. The plain white curtains of the
+bed were looped up on each side, and the festoons swayed heavily in the
+night air, which made the flame of the lamp dim and wavering. A form
+reclined on the bed, but the face was _all covered_, though it was a
+midsummer's night. As I looked, I remembered all, and I rose and glided
+through the moonlight to the spot where my mother slept. Sustained by
+unnatural excitement, I seemed borne on air, and as much separated from
+the body as the spirit so lately divorced from that unbreathing clay; it
+was the effect of the opiate I had taken, but the pale watchers in the
+death-chamber shuddered at my unearthly appearance.
+
+"Let there be no light here but light from heaven," said I,
+extinguishing the fitful lamp-flame; and the room was immediately
+illuminated with a white, ghostly lustre. Then kneeling by the bed, I
+folded back the linen sheet, gazed with folded hands, and dry, dilated
+eyes on the mystery of death. The moon, "that sun of the sleepless,"
+that star of the mourner, shone full on her brow, and I smiled to see
+how divinely fair, how placid, how angelic she looked. Her dark, shining
+hair, the long dark lashes that pencilled her white cheek, alone
+prevented her from seeming a statue of the purest marble, fashioned
+after some Grecian model. Beauty and youth had come back to her reposing
+features, and peace and rapture too. A smile, such as no living lips
+ever wore, lingered round her mouth and softened its mute expression.
+She was happy. God had given his beloved rest. She was happy. It was not
+death on which I was gazing; it was life,--the dawn of immortal, of
+eternal life. Angels were watching around her. I did not see them, but I
+felt the shadow of their snow-white wings. I felt them fanning my brow
+and softly lifting the locks that fell darkly against the sheet, so
+chilly white. Others might have thought it the wind sighing through the
+leafy lattice-work; but the presence of angels was real to me,--and who
+can say they were not hovering there?
+
+That scene is past, but its remembrance is undying. The little cottage
+is inhabited by strangers. The grass grows rank near the brink of the
+fountain, and the mossy stone once moistened by my tears has rolled down
+and choked its gushing. My mother sleeps by the side of the faithful
+Peggy, beneath a willow that weeps over a broken shaft,--fitting
+monument for a broken heart.
+
+I will not dwell on the desolation of orphanage. It cannot be described.
+My Maker only knows the bitterness of my grief for days, weeks, even
+months. But time gradually warms the cold clay over the grave of love;
+then the grass springs up, and the flowers bloom, and the waste places
+of life become beautiful with hope, and the wilderness blossoms like the
+rose.
+
+But oh, my mother! my gentle, longsuffering mother! thou hast never been
+forgotten. By day and by night, in sunshine and shadow, in joy and in
+sorrow, thou art with me, a holy spirit, a hallowed memory, a chastening
+influence, that passeth not away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+What a change, from the little gray cottage in the woods to the pillared
+walls of Grandison Place.
+
+This ancestral looking mansion was situated on the brow of a long,
+winding hill, which commanded a view of the loveliest valley in the
+world. A bold, sweeping outline of distant hills, here and there
+swelling into mountains, and crowned with a deeper, mistier blue,
+divided the rich green of the earth from the azure of the heavens. Far
+as the eye could reach, it beheld the wildest luxuriance of nature
+refined and subdued by the hand of cultivation and taste. Man had
+reverenced the grandeur of the Creator, and made the ploughshare turn
+aside from the noble shade-tree, and left the streams rejoicing in their
+margins of verdure; and far off, far away beneath the shadow of the
+misty blue hills,--of a paler, more leaden hue,--the waters of the great
+sea seemed ready to roll down on the vale, that lay smiling before it.
+
+Built of native granite, with high massive walls and low turreted roof,
+Grandison Place rose above the surrounding buildings in castellated
+majesty. It stood in the centre of a spacious lawn, zoned by a girdle of
+oaks, beneath whose dense shade the dew sparkled even at noonday. Within
+this zone was a hedge of cedar, so smooth, with twigs so thickly
+interwoven, that the gossamer thought it a framework, on which to
+stretch its transparent web in the morning sun. Near the house the lawn
+was margined with beds of the rarest and most beautiful flowers, queen
+roses, and all the fragrant populace of the floral world. But the
+grandest and most beautiful feature of all was a magnificent elm-tree,
+standing right in the centre of the green inclosure, toweling upward,
+sweeping downward, spreading on either side its lordly branches, "from
+storms a shelter and from heat a shade."
+
+I never saw so noble a tree. I loved it,--I reverenced it. I associated
+with it the idea of strength and protection. Had I seen the woodman's
+axe touch its bark, I should have felt as if blood would stream from its
+venerable trunk. A circular bench with a back formed of boughs woven in
+checker-work surrounded it, and at twilight the soft sofas in the
+drawing-room were left vacant for this rustic seat.
+
+Edith loved it, and when she sat there with her crutches leaning against
+the rough back, whose gray tint subdued the bright lustre of her golden
+hair, I would throw myself on the grass at her feet and gaze upon her,
+as the embodiment of human loveliness.
+
+One would suppose that I felt awkward and strange in the midst of such
+unaccustomed magnificence; but it was not so. It seemed natural and
+right for me to be there. I trod the soft, rich, velvety carpeting with
+a step as unembarrassed as when I traversed the grassy lawn. I was as
+much at home among the splendors of art as the beauties of nature,--both
+seemed my birthright.
+
+I felt the deepest, most unbounded gratitude for my benefactress; but
+there was nothing abject in it. I knew that giving did not impoverish
+her; that the food I ate was not as much to her as the crumbs that fell
+from my mother's table; that the room I occupied was but one in a suite
+of elegant apartments; yet this did not diminish my sense of obligation.
+It lightened it, however, of its oppressive weight.
+
+My room was next to Edith's. The only difference in the furniture was in
+the color of the hangings. The curtains and bed drapery of mine were
+pink, hers blue. Both opened into an upper piazza, whose lofty pillars
+were wreathed with flowering vines, and crowned with Corinthian
+capitals. Surely my love for the beautiful ought to have been satisfied;
+and so it was,--but it was long, long before my heart opened to receive
+its influence. The clods that covered my mother's ashes laid too heavily
+upon it.
+
+Mrs. Linwood had a great deal of company from the city, which was but a
+short journey from Grandison Place. As they were mostly transient
+guests, I saw but little of them. My extreme youth, and deep mourning
+dress, were sufficient reasons for withdrawing from the family circle
+when strangers enlarged it. Edith was three years older than myself, and
+was of course expected to assist her mother in the honors of
+hospitality. She loved society, moreover, and entered into its innocent
+pleasures with the delight of a young, genial nature. It was difficult
+to think of her as a young lady, she was so extremely juvenile in her
+appearance; and her lameness, by giving her an air of childish
+dependence, added to the illusion caused by her fair, clustering
+ringlets and infantine rosiness of complexion. She wanted to bring me
+forward;--she coaxed, caressed, and playfully threatened, nor desisted
+till her mother said, with grave tenderness--
+
+"The heart cannot be forced, Edith; Gabriella is but a child, and should
+be allowed the freedom of a child. The restraints of social life, once
+assumed, are not easily thrown aside. Let her do just as she pleases."
+
+And so I did; and it pleased me to wander about the lawn; to sit and
+read under the great elm-tree; to make garlands of myrtle and sweet
+running vine flowers for Edith's beautiful hair; to walk the piazza,
+when moonlight silvered the columns and covered with white glory the
+granite walls, while the fountain of poetry down in the depths of my
+soul welled and trembled in the heavenly lustre.
+
+It pleased me to sit in the library, or rather to stand and move about
+there, for at that time I did not like to sit anywhere but on the grass
+or the oaken bench. The old poets were there in rich binding, all the
+classics, and the choicest specimens of modern literature. There were
+light, airy, movable steps, so as to reach to the topmost shelves, and
+there I loved to poise myself, like a bird on the spray, peeping into
+this book and that, gathering here and there a golden grain or sweet
+scented flower for the garner of thought, or the bower of imagination.
+
+There were statues in niches made to receive them,--the gods and
+goddesses of Greece and Rome, in their cold, severe beauty, all
+passionless and pure, in spite of the glowing mythology that called them
+into existence. There were paintings, too, that became a part of my
+being, I took them in with such intense, gazing eyes. Indeed, the house
+was lined with them. I could not walk through a room without stopping to
+admire some work of genius, some masterpiece of art.
+
+I over-heard Dr. Harlowe say to Mrs. Linwood, that it was a pity I were
+not at school, I was so very young. As if I were not at school all the
+time! As if those grand old books were not teachers; those breathing
+statues, those gorgeous paintings were not teachers; as if the noble
+edifice itself, with its magnificent surroundings, the billowy heave of
+the distant mountains, the glimpses of the sublime sea, the fair expanse
+of the beautiful valley, were not teachers!
+
+Oh! they little knew what lessons I was learning. They little knew how
+the soul of the silent orphan girl was growing within her,--how her
+imagination, like flowers, was nourished in stillness and secrecy by the
+air and the sunshine, the dew and the shower.
+
+I had other teachers, too, in the lonely churchyard; very solemn they
+were, and gentle too, and I loved their voiceless instructions better
+than the sounding eloquence of words.
+
+Mr. Regulus thought with Dr. Harlowe, that it was a pity I was not at
+school. He called to see Mrs. Linwood and asked her to use her influence
+to induce me to return as a pupil to the academy. She left it to my
+decision, but I shrunk from the thought of contact with the rude village
+children. I felt as if I had learned all Mr. Regulus could teach me. I
+was under greater masters now. Yet I was grateful for the interest he
+manifested in me. I had no vindictive remembrance of the poem he had so
+ruthlessly murdered. Innumerable acts of after kindness had obliterated
+the impression, or rather covered it with a growth of pleasant memories.
+
+"Have you given up entirely the idea of being a teacher yourself?" he
+asked, in a low voice, "or has the kindness of friends rendered it
+superfluous? I do not ask from curiosity out a deep interest in your
+future welfare."
+
+This was a startling question. I had not thought of the subject since I
+had entered my new home. Why should I think of the drudgery of life,
+pillowed on the downy couch of luxury and ease? I was forgetting that I
+was but the recipient of another's bounty,--a guest, but not a child of
+the household.
+
+Low as was his voice, I knew Mrs. Linwood heard and understood him, for
+her eyes rested on me with a peculiar expression of anxiety and
+interest. She did not speak, and I knew not what to utter. A burning
+glow rose to my cheeks, and my heart fluttered with painful
+apprehension. It was all a dream, then. That home of affluence was not
+mine,--it was only the asylum of my first days of orphanage. The
+maternal tenderness of Mrs. Linwood was nothing more than compassion and
+Christian charity, and the sisterly affection of the lovely Edith but
+the overflowing of the milk of human kindness. These were my first,
+flashing thoughts; then the inherent pride of my nature rose to sustain
+me. I would never be a willing burden to any one. I would toil day and
+night, sooner than eat the bread of dependence. It would have been far
+better to have left me in the humble cottage where they found me, to
+commence my life of drudgery at once, than to have given me a taste of
+luxury and affluence, to heighten, by force of contrast, privation and
+labor.
+
+"I will commence teaching immediately," I answered, trying in vain to
+speak with firmness, "if you think I am not too young, and a situation
+can be obtained;" "that is," I added, I fear a little proudly, "if Mrs.
+Linwood approve."
+
+"It must not be thought of _at present_," she answered, speaking to Mr.
+Regulus. "Gabriella is too young yet to assume the burden of authority.
+Her physical powers are still undeveloped. Besides, we shall pass the
+winter in the metropolis. Next summer we will talk about it."
+
+"They speak of adding a primary department to the academy," said my
+former master, "which will be under female superintendence. If this _is_
+done, and she would accept the situation, I think I have influence
+enough to secure it for her."
+
+"We will see to that hereafter," said Mrs. Linwood; "but of one thing I
+am assured, if Gabriella ever wishes to assume duties so honorable and
+so feminine, she would think it a privilege to be under your especial
+guardianship, and within reach of your experience and counsel."
+
+I tried to speak, and utter an assent to this wise and decided remark,
+but I could not. I felt the tears gushing into my eyes, and hastily
+rising, I left the room. I did not go out on the lawn, for I saw Edith's
+white robes under the trees, and I knew the guests of the city were with
+her. I ran up stairs to my own apartment, or that which was called mine,
+and, sitting down in an embrasure of the window, drew aside the rosy
+damask and gazed around me.
+
+Do not judge me too harshly. I was ungrateful; I knew I was. My heart
+rose against Mrs. Linwood for her cold decision. I forgot, for the
+moment, her holy ministrations to my dying mother, her care and
+protection of me, when left desolate and alone. I forgot that I had no
+claims on her beyond what her compassion granted. I realized all at once
+that I was poor and dependent, though basking in the sunshine of wealth.
+
+In justice to myself I must say, that the bitterest tears I then shed
+were caused by disappointment in Mrs. Linwood's exalted character. I had
+imagined her "bounty as boundless as the sea, her love as deep." Now the
+noble proportion of her virtues seemed dwarfed, their luxuriance
+stinted, and withering too.
+
+While I was thus cheating my benefactress of her fair perfections, she
+came in with her usual quiet and stilly step, and sat down beside me.
+The consciousness of what was passing in my mind, made the guilty blood
+rush warm to my face.
+
+"You have been weeping, Gabriella," she said, in gentle accents; "your
+feelings are wounded, you think me cold, perhaps unkind."
+
+"Oh, madam, what have I said?"
+
+"Nothing, my dear child, and yet I have read every thing. Your ingenuous
+countenance expressed on my entrance as plain as words could utter,
+'Hate me, for I am an ingrate.'"
+
+"You do, indeed, read very closely."
+
+"Could you look as closely into my heart, Gabriella, were my face as
+transparent as yours, you would understand at once my apparent coldness
+as anxiety for your highest good. Did I consult my own pleasure, without
+regard to that discipline by which the elements of character are wrought
+into beauty and fitness, I should cherish no wish but to see you ever
+near me as now, indulging the sweet dreams of youth, only the more
+fascinating for being shadowed with melancholy. I would save you, if
+possible, from becoming the victim of a diseased imagination, or too
+morbid a sensibility."
+
+I looked up, impressed with her calm, earnest tones, and as I listened,
+conscience upbraided me with injustice and ingratitude.
+
+"There is a period in every young girl's life, my dear Gabriella, when
+she is in danger of becoming a vain and idle dreamer, when the
+amusements of childhood have ceased to interest, and the shadow of
+woman's destiny involves the pleasures of youth. The mind is occupied
+with vague imaginings, the heart with restless cravings for unknown
+blessings. With your vivid imagination and deep sensibility, your love
+of reverie and abstraction, there is great danger of your yielding
+unconsciously to habits the more fatal in their influence, because
+apparently as innocent as they are insidious and pernicious. A life of
+active industry and usefulness is the only safeguard from temptation and
+sin."
+
+Oh, how every true word she uttered ennobled her in my estimation, while
+it humbled myself. Idler that I was in my Father's vineyard, I was
+holding out my hands for the clustering grapes, whose purple juice is
+for him who treadeth the wine-press.
+
+"Were my own Edith physically strong," she added, "I would ask no nobler
+vocation for her than the one suggested to you this day. I should
+rejoice to see her passing through a discipline so chastening and
+exalting. I should rejoice to see her exercising the faculties which God
+has given her for the benefit of her kind. The possession of wealth does
+not exempt one from the active duties of life, from self-sacrifice,
+industry and patient continuance in well-doing. The little I have done
+for you, all that I can do, is but a drop from the fountain, and were it
+ten times more would never be missed. It is not that I would give less,
+but I would require more. While I live, this shall ever be your home,
+where you shall feel a mother's care, protection, and tenderness; but I
+want you to form habits of self-reliance, independence, and usefulness,
+which will remain your friends, though other friends should be taken
+from you."
+
+Dear, excellent Mrs. Linwood! how my proud, rebellious heart melted
+before her! What resolutions I formed to be always governed by her
+influence, and guided by her counsels! How vividly her image rises
+before me, as she then looked, in her customary dress of pale, silver
+gray, her plain yet graceful lace cap, simply parted hair, and calm,
+benevolent countenance.
+
+She was the most unpretending of human beings. She moved about the house
+with a step as stilly as the falling dews. Indeed, such was her walk
+through life. She seemed born to teach mankind unostentatious charity.
+Yet, under this mild, calm exterior, she had a strong, controlling will,
+which all around her felt and acknowledged. From the moment she drew the
+fan from my hand, at my mother's bedside, to the hour I left her
+dwelling, she acted upon me with a force powerful as the sun, and as
+benignant too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+If I do not pass more rapidly over these early scenes, I shall never
+finish my book.
+
+Book!--am I writing a book? No, indeed! This is only a record of my
+heart's life, written at random and carelessly thrown aside, sheet after
+sheet, sibylline leaves from the great book of fate. The wind may blow
+them away, a spark consume them. I may myself commit them to the flames.
+I am tempted to do so at this moment.
+
+I once thought it a glorious thing to be an author,--to touch the
+electric wire of sentiment, and know that thousands would thrill at the
+shock,--to speak, and believe that unborn millions would hear the music
+of those echoing words,--to possess the wand of the enchanter, the ring
+of the genii, the magic key to the temple of temples, the pass-word to
+the universe of mind. I once had such visions as these, but they are
+passed.
+
+To touch the electric wire, and feel the bolt scathing one's own
+brain,--to speak, to hear the dreary echo of one's voice return through
+the desert waste,--to enter the temple and find nothing but ruins and
+desolation,--to lay a sacrifice on the altar, and see no fire from
+heaven descend in token of acceptance,--to stand the priestess of a
+lonely shrine, uttering oracles to the unheeding wind,--is not such too
+often the doom of those who have looked to fame as their heritage,
+believing genius their dower?
+
+Heaven save me from such a destiny. Better the daily task, the measured
+duty, the chained-down spirit, the girdled heart.
+
+A year after Mrs. Linwood pointed out to me the path of duty, I began to
+walk in it. I have passed the winter in the city, but it was one of deep
+seclusion to me. I welcomed with rapture our return to the country, and
+had so far awakened from dream-life, as to prepare myself with
+steadiness of purpose for the realities of my destiny.
+
+Edith rebelled against her mother's decision. There was no need of such
+a thing. I was too young, too delicate, too sensitive for so rough a
+task. There was a plenty of robust country girls to assist Mr. Regulus,
+if he wanted them to, without depriving her of her companion and sister.
+She appealed to Dr. Harlowe, in her sweet, bewitching way, which always
+seemed irresistible; but he only gave her a genial smile, called me "a
+brave little girl," and bade me "God speed." "I wish Richard Clyde were
+here," said she, in her own artless, half-childish manner, "I am sure he
+would be on my side. I wish brother Ernest would come home, he would
+decide the question. Oh, Gabriella, if you only knew brother Ernest!"
+
+If I have not mentioned this _brother Ernest_ before, it is not because
+I had not heard his name repeated a thousand times. He was the only son
+and brother of the family, who, having graduated with the first honors
+at the college of his native State, was completing his education in
+Germany, at the celebrated University of Gottingen. There was a picture
+of him in the library, taken just before he left the country, on which I
+had gazed, till it was to me a living being. It was a dark, fascinating
+face,--a face half of sunshine and half shadow, a face of mysterious
+meanings; as different from Edith's as night from morning. It reminded
+me of the head of Byron, but it expressed deeper sensibility, and the
+features were even more symmetrically handsome.
+
+Edith, who was as frank and artless as a child, was always talking of
+her brother, of his brilliant talents, his genius, and peculiarities.
+She showed me his letters, which were written with extraordinary beauty
+and power, though the sentiments were somewhat obscured by a
+transcendental mistiness belonging to the atmosphere he breathed.
+
+"Ernest never was like anybody else," said Edith; "he is the most
+singular, but the most fascinating of human beings. Oh Gabriella, I long
+to have him come back, that you may know and admire him."
+
+Though I knew by ten thousand signs that this absent son was the first
+object of Mrs. Linwood's thoughts, she seldom talked of him to me. She
+often, when Edith was indulging in her enthusiastic descriptions of him,
+endeavored to change the conversation and turn my thoughts in other
+channels.
+
+But why do I speak of Ernest Linwood here? It is premature. I was about
+to describe a little part of my experience as a village teacher.
+
+Edith had a beautiful little pony, gentle as a lamb, yet very spirited
+withal, (for lame though she was, she was a graceful and fearless
+equestrian,) which it was arranged that I should ride every morning,
+escorted by a servant, who carried the pony back for Edith's use. Dr.
+Harlowe, who resided near the academy, said I was always to dine at his
+house, and walk home in the evening. They must not make too much of a
+fine lady of me. I must exercise, if I would gather the roses of health.
+Surely no young girl could begin the ordeal of duty under kinder, more
+favoring auspices.
+
+After the first dreaded morning when Mr. Regulus, tall, stately, and
+imposing, ushered me into the apartment where I was to preside with
+delegated authority, led me up a low flight of steps and waved his hand
+towards a high magisterial arm-chair which was to be my future throne, I
+felt a degree of self-confidence that surprised and encouraged me. Every
+thing was so novel, so fresh, it imparted an elasticity to my spirits I
+had not felt in Mrs. Linwood's luxurious home. Then there was something
+self-sustaining, inspiring in the consciousness of intellectual exertion
+and moral courage, in the thought that I was doing some little good in
+the world, that I was securing the approbation of Mrs. Linwood and of
+the excellent Dr. Harlowe. The children, who had most of them been my
+fellow pupils, looked upon Gabriella Lynn, the protegee of the rich Mrs.
+Linwood, as a different being from Gabriella Lynn of the little gray
+cottage in the woods. I have no doubt they thought it very grand to ride
+on that beautiful pony, with its saddle-cloth of blue and silver, and
+glittering martingale, escorted by a servant too! Had they been disposed
+to rebel at my authority, they would not have dared to do so, for Mr.
+Regulus, jealous for my new dignity, watched over it with an eagle eye.
+
+Where were the chains, whose prophetic clanking had chilled my misgiving
+heart? They were transformed to flowery garlands, of daily renewing
+fragrance and bloom. My desk was literally covered with blossoms while
+their season lasted, and little fairy fingers were always twining with
+wreaths the dark hair they loved to arrange according to their own
+juvenile fancies.
+
+My noon hours at Dr. Harlowe's, were pleasant episodes in my daily life.
+Mrs. Harlowe was an excellent woman. She was called by the villagers "a
+most superior woman,"--and so she was, if admirable housekeeping and
+devotion to her husband's interests entitled her to the praise. She was
+always busy; but the doctor, though he had a wide sweep of practice in
+the surrounding country, always seemed at leisure. There was something
+so cheerful, so encouraging about him, despondency fled from his
+presence and gave place to hope.
+
+I love to recall this era of my life. If I have known deeper happiness,
+more exalted raptures, they were dearly purchased by the sacrifice of
+the peace, the salubrity of mind I then enjoyed. I had a little room of
+my own there, where I was as much at home as I was at Mrs. Linwood's.
+There was a place for my bonnet and parasol, a shelf for my books, a low
+rocking-chair placed at the pleasantest window for me; and, knowing Mrs.
+Harlowe's methodical habits, I was always careful to leave every thing,
+as I found it, in Quaker-like order. This was the smallest return I
+could make for her hospitality, and she appreciated it far beyond its
+merits. The good doctor, with all his virtues, tried the patience of his
+wife sometimes beyond its limits, by his excessive carelessness. He
+_would_ forget to hang his hat in the hall, and toss it on the bright,
+polished mahogany table. He _would_ forget to use the scraper by the
+steps, or the mat by the door, and leave tracks on the clean floor or
+nice carpet. These little things really worried her; I could see they
+did. She never said any thing; but she would get up, take up the hat,
+brush the table with her handkerchief, and hang the hat in its right
+place, or send the house-girl with the broom after his disfiguring
+tracks.
+
+"Pardon me, my dear," he would say with imperturbable
+good-nature,--"really, I am too forgetful. I must have a self-regulating
+machine attached to my movements,--a portable duster and hat-catcher.
+But, the blessed freedom of home. It constitutes half its joy. Dear me!
+I would not exchange the privilege of doing as I please for the
+emperorship of the celestial realms."
+
+But, pleasant as were my noon rests, my homeward walks were pleasanter
+still. The dream-girl, after being awake for long hours to the practical
+duties of life, loved to ramble alone, till she felt herself involved in
+the soft haziness of thought, which was to the soul what the blue
+mistiness was to the distant hills. I could wander then alone to the
+churchyard, and yield myself unmolested to the sacred influences of
+memory. Do you remember my asking Richard Clyde to plant a white rose by
+my mother's grave? He had done so, soon after her burial, and now, when
+rather more than a year had passed, it was putting forth fair buds and
+blossoms, and breathing of renovation over the ruins of life. I never
+saw this rose-tree without blessing the hand which planted it; and I
+loved to sit on the waving grass and listen to the soft summer wind
+stealing through it, rustling among the dry blades and whispering with
+the green ones.
+
+There was one sentence that fell from my mother's dying lips which ever
+came to me in the sighs of the gale, fraught with mournful mystery.
+"Because man was _false_, I dared to think God was unjust." And had she
+not adjured me by every precious and every solemn consideration, "to
+forgive the _living_, if living _he_ indeed was?"
+
+I knew these words referred to my father; and what a history of wrong
+and sorrow was left for my imagination to fill up! Living!--my father
+living! Oh! there is no grave so deep as that dug by the hand of neglect
+or desertion! He had been dead to my mother,--he had been dead to me. I
+shuddered at the thought of breathing the same vital element. He who had
+broken a mother's heart must be a fiend, worthy of eternal abhorrence.
+
+"If you live to years of womanhood," said my expiring mother, "and your
+heart awakens to love, as alas for woman's destiny it will, then read my
+life's sad experience, and be warned by my example."
+
+Sad prophetess! Death has consecrated thy prediction, but it is yet
+unfulfilled. When will womanhood commence, on whose horizon the morning
+star of love is to rise in clouded lustre?
+
+Surely I am invested with a woman's dignity, in that great arm-chair,
+behind the green-covered desk. I feel very much like a blown rose,
+surrounded by the rose-bud garland of childhood. Yet Dr. Harlowe calls
+me "little girl," and Mr. Regulus "my child," when the pupils are not
+by; then it is "Miss Gabriella." They forget that I am sixteen, and that
+I have grown taller and more womanly in the last year; but the awakening
+heart has not yet throbbed at its dawning destiny, the day-star of love
+has not risen on its slumbers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+"I wish you had a vacation too," said Richard Clyde, as we ascended
+together the winding hill.
+
+"Then we should not have these pleasant walks," I answered.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, I should not be returning from school at this hour every day, and
+you would not happen to overtake me as you do now."
+
+"How do you know it is accident, Gabriella? How do you know but I wander
+about the woods, a restless ghost, till glad ringing voices chiming
+together, announce that you are free, and that I am at liberty to play
+guardian and knight, as I did three or four years ago?"
+
+"Because you would not waste your time so foolishly, and because I do
+not need a guardian now. I am in authority, you know, and no one molests
+or makes me afraid."
+
+"Nevertheless, you need a guardian more than ever, and I shall remain
+true to my boyish allegiance."
+
+Richard always had a gay, dashing way of talking, and his residence in
+college had certainly not subdued the gay spirit of chivalry that
+sparkled in his eye. He had grown much taller since I had seen him last,
+his face was more intellectual and altogether improved, and his dress
+was elegantly, though not foppishly, fashionable. He was an exceedingly
+agreeable companion. Even when I was most shy and sensitive, I felt at
+ease with him. When I say that I looked upon him something as an elder
+brother, I mean what I express,--not the sickly affectation with which
+young girls sometimes strive to hide a deeper feeling,--I remembered his
+steady school-boy friendship, his sympathy in the dark days of anguish
+and despair, and more than all, the rose, the sacred rose he had planted
+at my mother's grave.
+
+I thanked him for this, with a choking voice and a moistened eye.
+
+"Do not thank me," said he; "I had a mother once,--she, too, is gone.
+The world may contain for us many friends, but never but one mother,
+Gabriella. I was only ten years old when mine was taken from me, but her
+influence is around me still, a safeguard and a blessing."
+
+Words so full of feeling and reverence were more impressive falling from
+lips usually sparkling with gaiety and wit. We walked in silence up the
+gradual ascent, till we came to a fine old elm, branching out by the
+way-side, and we paused to rest under its boughs. As we did so, we
+turned towards the valley we were leaving behind, and beheld it
+stretching, a magnificent panorama, to the east and the west, the north
+and the south, wearing every shade of green, from the deep, rich hue of
+the stately corn to the brighter emerald of the oat fields, and the
+dazzling verdure of the pasture-land; and over all this glowing
+landscape the golden glory of approaching sunset hung like a royal
+canopy, whose purple fringes rested on the distant mountains.
+
+"How beautiful!" I exclaimed with enthusiasm.
+
+"How beautiful!" he echoed with equal fervor.
+
+"You are but mocking my words, Richard,--you are not looking at the
+enchanting prospect."
+
+"Yes, I am,--a very enchanting one."
+
+"How foolish!" I cried, for I could not but understand the emphasis of
+his smiling glance.
+
+"Why am I more foolish in admiring one beautiful prospect than you
+another, Gabriella? You solicited my admiration for one charming view,
+while my eyes were riveted on another. If we are both sincere, we are
+equally wise."
+
+"But it seems so unnecessary to take the pains to compliment me, when
+you know me so well, and when I know myself so well too."
+
+"I doubt your self-knowledge very much. I do not believe, in the first
+place, that you are aware how wonderfully you are improved. You do not
+look the same girl you did a year ago. You have grown taller, fairer,
+brighter, Gabriella. I did not expect to see this, when I heard you had
+shut yourself up in the academy again, under the shadow of old Regulus's
+beetling brows."
+
+"I am sure he is not old, Richard; he is in the very prime of manhood."
+
+"Well, Professor Regulus, then. We boys have a habit of speaking of our
+teachers in this way. I know it is a bad one, but we all fall into it.
+All our college professors have a metaphorical name, with the venerable
+epithet attached to it, which you condemn.
+
+"I do not like it at all; it sounds so disrespectful, and, pardon me for
+saying it, even coarse."
+
+"You have a great respect for Mr. Regulus."
+
+"I have; he is one of my best friends."
+
+"I dare say he is; I should like to be in his place. You have another
+great friend, old Dr. Harlowe."
+
+"There, again. Why, Dr. Harlowe is almost young, at least very far from
+being old. He is one of the finest looking men I ever saw, and one of
+the best. You college students must be a very presuming set of young
+men."
+
+I spoke gravely, for I was really vexed that any one whom I esteemed as
+much as I did Richard, should adopt the vulgarisms he once despised.
+
+"We _are_ a barbarous, rude set," he answered with redeeming frankness.
+"We show exactly what a savage man is and would ever be, without the
+refining influence of women. If it were not for our vacations, we would
+soon get beyond the reach of civilization. Be not angry with my
+roughness, most gentle Gabriella. Pass over it your smoothing touch, and
+it shall have the polish of marble, without its coldness."
+
+We had resumed our walk, and the granite walls of Grandison Place began
+to loom up above the surrounding shade.
+
+"That is a noble mansion," said he. "How admirably such a residence must
+harmonize with your high, romantic thoughts. But there is one thing that
+impresses me with wonder,--that Mrs. Linwood, so rich, so liberal too,
+with only one daughter, should allow you, her adopted child, to devote
+your young hours to the drudgery of teaching. It seems so unnecessary,
+so inconsistent with her usual munificence of action."
+
+The glow of wounded pride warmed my cheek. I had become happy in my
+vocation, but I could not bear to hear it depreciated, nor the motives
+of my benefactress misunderstood and misrepresented.
+
+"Mrs. Linwood is as wise as she is kind," I answered, hastily. "It is my
+happiness and good she consults, not her own pleasure. Giving does not
+impoverish either her ample purse or her generous heart. She knows my
+nature, knows that I could not bear the stagnation of a life of
+luxurious ease."
+
+"Edith can,--why not you?"
+
+"We are so different. She was born for the position she occupies. She is
+one of the lilies of the valley, that toil not, neither do they spin,
+yet they fulfil a lovely mission. Do not try to make me discontented
+with a lot, so full of blessings, Richard. Surely no orphan girl was
+ever more tenderly cherished, more abundantly cared for."
+
+"Discontented!" he exclaimed, "heaven forbid! I must be a wretched
+blunderer. I am saying something wrong all the time, with a heart full
+of most excellent intentions. Discontented! no, indeed; I have only the
+unfortunate habit of speaking before I think. I shall grow wiser as I
+grow older, I trust."
+
+He reached up to a branch that bent over the way-side, and breaking it
+off, began to strip it of its green leaves and scatter them in the path.
+
+"You do not think me angry, Richard?" I asked, catching some of the
+leaves, before they fell to the ground. "I once felt all that you
+express; and I was doubly wrong; I was guilty of ingratitude, you only
+of thoughtlessness."
+
+"When does Mrs. Linwood expect her son?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"Next summer, I believe; I do not exactly know."
+
+"He will take strong hold of your poetic imagination. There is something
+'grand, gloomy, and peculiar' about him; a mystery of reserve, which oft
+amounts to haughtiness. I am but very little acquainted with him, and
+probably never shall be. Should we chance to meet in society, we would
+be two parallel lines, never uniting, however near we might approach.
+Besides, he is a number of years older than myself."
+
+"I suppose you call him old Mr. Linwood," said I, laughing.
+
+We had now entered the gate, and met Mrs. Linwood and Edith walking in
+the avenue, if Edith could be said to walk, borne on as she was by her
+softly falling crutches. She looked so exceedingly lovely, I wondered
+that Richard did not burst forth in expressions of irrepressible
+admiration. I was never weary of gazing on her beauty. Even after an
+absence of a few hours, it dawned upon me with new lustre, like that of
+the rising day. I wondered that any one ever looked at any one else in
+her presence. As for myself, I felt annihilated by her dazzling
+fairness, as the little star is absorbed by the resplendent moon.
+
+Strange, all beautiful as she was she did not attract, as one would
+suppose, the admiration of the other sex. Perhaps there was something
+cold and shadowy in the ethereality of her loveliness, a want of
+sympathy with man's more earthly, passionate nature. It is very certain,
+the beauty which woman most admires often falls coldly on the gaze of
+man. Edith had the face of an angel; but hers was not the darkening eye
+and changing cheek that "pale passion loves." Did the sons of God come
+down to earth, as they did in olden time, to woo the daughters of men,
+they might have sought her as their bride. She was not cold, however;
+she was not passionless. She had a woman's heart, formed to enshrine an
+idol of clay, believing it imperishable as its own love.
+
+Mrs. Linwood gave Richard a cordial greeting. I had an unaccountable
+fear that she would not be pleased that he escorted me home so
+frequently, though this was the first time he had accompanied me to the
+lawn. She urged him to remain and pass the evening, or rather asked him,
+for he required no urging. I am sure it must have been a happy one to
+him. Edith played upon her harp, which had been newly strung. She seemed
+the very personification of one of Ossian's blue-eyed maids, with her
+white, rising hands, and long, floating locks.
+
+I was passionately fond of music, and had my talent been early
+cultivated I would doubtless have excelled. I cared not much about the
+piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In
+imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impassioned strains of Italy,
+or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of
+thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords,
+the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the
+divine string, and "called angels down."
+
+When I retired that night and saw the reflection of myself full length,
+in the large pier-glass, between the rosy folds of the sweeping damask,
+I could not help recalling what Richard Clyde had said of my personal
+improvement. Was he sincere, when with apparent enthusiasm he had
+applied to me the epithet, _beautiful_? No, he could not be; and yet his
+eyes had emphasized the language of his lips.
+
+I was not vain. Few young girls ever thought less of their personal
+appearance. I lived so much in the world within, that I gave but little
+heed to the fashion of my outward form. It seemed so poor an expression
+of the glowing heart, the heaven-born soul.
+
+For the first time I looked upon myself with reference to the eyes of
+others, and I tried to imagine the youthful figure on which I gazed as
+belonging to another, and not myself. Were the outlines softened by the
+dark-flowing sable, classic and graceful? Was there beauty in the oval
+cheek, now wearing the warm bloom of the brunette, or the dark,
+long-lashed eye, which drooped with the burden of unuttered thoughts?
+
+As I asked myself these questions, I smiled at my folly; and as the
+image smiled back upon the original, there was such a light, such a
+glow, such a living soul passed before me, that for one moment a
+triumphant consciousness swelled my bosom, a new revelation beamed on my
+understanding,--the consciousness of woman's hitherto unknown
+power,--the revelation of woman's destiny.
+
+And connected with this, there came the remembrance of that haunting
+face in the library, which I had only seen on canvas, but which was to
+me a breathing reality,--that face which, even on the cold, silent wall,
+had no repose; but dark, restless, and impassioned, was either a history
+of past disappointment, or a prophecy of future suffering.
+
+The moment of triumph was brief. A pale shadow seemed to flit behind me
+and dim the bright image reflected in the mirror. It wore the sad, yet
+lovely lineaments of my departed mother.
+
+O how vain were youth and beauty, if thus they faded and vanished away!
+How mournful was love thus wedded to sorrow! how mysterious the nature
+in which they were united!
+
+A shower of tears washed away the vain emotions I blushed to have felt.
+But I could not be as though I had never known them. I could not recall
+the guileless simplicity of childhood, its sweet unconsciousness and
+contentment, in the present joy.
+
+O foolish, foolish Gabriella! Art thou no longer a child?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Mr. Regulus still called me "child." We had quite a scene in the academy
+one day after the school was dismissed, and I was preparing as usual to
+return home.
+
+"Will you give me a few moments' conversation, Miss Gabriella?" said he,
+clearing his throat with one of those hems which once sounded so awful.
+He looked awkward and disconcerted, while my face flushed with
+trepidation. Had I been guilty of any omitted duty or committed offence?
+Had I suffered an error on the blackboard to pass unnoticed, or allowed
+a mistake in grammar to be unconnected? What _had_ I done?
+
+I stood nervously pulling the fingers of my gloves, waiting for him to
+commence the conversation he had sought. Another hem!--then he moved the
+inkstand about a foot further from him, for he was standing close to his
+desk, as if to gather round him every imposing circumstance, then he
+took up the ruler and measured it with his eye, run his finger along the
+edge, as if it were of razor sharpness.
+
+"Is he going to punish me?" thought I. "It looks ominous."
+
+I would not assist him by one word; but maintaining a provoking silence,
+took up a pair of compasses and made a circle on the green cloth that
+covered the desk.
+
+"Miss Gabriella," at length he said, "you must forgive me for taking the
+liberty of an old friend. Nothing but the most disinterested regard for
+your--your reputation--could induce me to mention a subject--so--so
+very--very peculiar."
+
+"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "my reputation, Mr. Regulus?"
+
+I felt the blood bubbling like boiling water, up into my cheek.
+
+"I do not wish to alarm or distress you," he continued, becoming more
+self-possessed, as my agitation increased. "You know a young girl, left
+without her natural guardians, especially if she is so unfortunate as to
+be endowed with those charms which too often attract the shafts of envy
+and stir up the venom of malice,"--
+
+"Mr. Regulus!" I interrupted, burning with impatience and indignation,
+"tell me what you mean. Has any one dared to slander me,--and for what?"
+
+"No one would dare to breathe aught of evil against you in my presence,"
+said he, with great dignity; "but the covert whisper may pass from lip
+to lip, and the meaning glance flash from eye to eye, when your friend
+and protector is not near to shield you from aspersion, and vindicate
+your fame."
+
+"Stop," I exclaimed; "you terrify--you destroy me!"
+
+The room spun round like a top. Every thing looked misty and black. I
+caught hold of Mr. Regulus's arm to keep me from falling. Foes in
+ambush, glittering tomahawks, deadly scalping-knives, were less terrible
+than my dark imaginings.
+
+"Bless me," cried my master, seating me in his great arm-chair and
+fanning me with an atlas which he caught from his desk, "I did not mean
+to frighten you, my child. I wanted to advise, to counsel you, to
+_prevent_ misconstruction and unkind remark. My motives are pure, indeed
+they are; you believe they are, do you not?"
+
+"Certainly I do," I answered, passing my hand over my eyes, to clear
+away the dark specks that still floated over them; "but if you have any
+regard for my feelings, speak at once, plainly and openly. I will be
+grateful for any advice prompted by kindness, and expressed without
+mystery."
+
+"I only thought," said he, becoming again visibly embarrassed, "that I
+would suggest the propriety of your not permitting young Clyde to
+accompany you home so often. The extraordinary interest he took in you
+as a boy, renders his present attentions more liable to remark. A young
+girl in your situation, my child, cannot be too particular, too much on
+her guard. College boys are wild fellows. They are not safe companions
+for innocence and simplicity like yours."
+
+"And is this all?" I asked, drawing a long breath, and feeling as if
+Mont Blanc had rolled from my breast.
+
+"It is."
+
+"And you have heard no invidious remarks?"
+
+"Not yet, Gabriella, but--"
+
+"My dear master," said I, rising with a joyous spring from my chair. "I
+thank you from the bottom of my heart for your anxious care of my good
+name. But I am sure Mrs. Linwood would not have sanctioned an
+impropriety. I have always felt towards Richard as I imagine I would
+towards a brother, were I so blest as to have one. He has made my lonely
+walks very pleasant by his lively and intelligent conversation. Still, I
+do not care to have him accompany me so often. I would rather that he
+would not. I will tell him so. I dare say you are right, Mr. Regulus; I
+know you are. I know so little of the world, I may offend its rules
+without being aware of it."
+
+I felt so unspeakably relieved, so happy that the mountain of slander
+which my imagination had piled up was reduced to an _anticipated_
+molehill, that my spirits rebounded even to gaiety. I laughed at the
+sight of my torn glove, for I had actually pulled off the fingers by my
+nervous twitches.
+
+"I thought you were going to apply the spatula. I feared you thought me
+guilty of writing another poem, Mr. Regulus; what else could make you
+look so formidable?"
+
+"Ah! Gabriella, let bygones be bygones. I was very harsh, very
+disagreeable then. I wonder you have ever forgiven me; I have never
+forgiven myself. I know not how it is, but it seems to me that a
+softening change has come over me. I feel more tenderly towards the
+young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses
+and errors of my kind. I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if
+it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its
+fragrance, and bless my Maker for shedding beauty and sweetness to
+gladden my way. The perception of the beautiful grows and strengthens in
+me. The love of nature, a new-born flower, blooms in my heart, and
+diffuses a sweet balminess unknown before. Even poetry, my child--do not
+laugh at me--has begun to unfold its mystic beauties to my imagination.
+I was reading the other evening that charming paraphrase of the
+nineteenth Psalm: 'The spacious firmament on high,' and I was
+exceedingly struck with its melodious rhythm; and when I looked up
+afterwards to the starry heavens, to the moon walking in her brightness,
+to the blue and boundless ether, they seemed to bend over me in love, to
+come nearer than they had ever done before. I could hear the whisper of
+that divine voice, which is heard in the rustling of the forest trees,
+the gurgling of the winding stream, and the rush of the mountain
+cataract; and every day," he added, with solemnity, "I love man more,
+because God has made him my brother."
+
+He paused, and his countenance glowed with the fervor of his feelings.
+With an involuntary expression of reverence and tenderness, I held out
+my hand and exclaimed,--
+
+"My dear master--"
+
+"You forgive me, then," taking my hand in both his, and burying it in
+his large palms; "you do not think me officious and overbearing?"
+
+"O no, sir, I have nothing to forgive, but much to be grateful for;
+thank you, I must go, for I have a long walk to take--_alone_."
+
+With an emphasis on the last word I bade him adieu, ran down the steps,
+and went on musing so deeply on my singular interview with Mr. Regulus,
+that I attempted to walk through a tree by the way-side. A merry laugh
+rang close to my ear, and Richard Clyde sprang over the fence right
+before me.
+
+"It should have opened and imprisoned you, as a truant dryad," said he.
+"Of what _are_ you thinking, Gabriella, that you forget the
+impenetrability of matter, the opacity of bark and the incapability of
+flesh and blood to cleave asunder the ligneous fibres which oppose it,
+as the sonorous Johnson would have observed on a similar occasion."
+
+"I was thinking of you, Richard," I answered with resolute frankness.
+
+"Of me!" he exclaimed, while his eyes sparkled with animated pleasure.
+"Oh, walk through all the trees of Grandison Place, if you will honor me
+with one passing thought."
+
+"You know you have always been like a brother to me, Richard."
+
+"I don't know exactly how a brother feels. You have taken my fraternal
+regard for granted, but I am sure I have never professed any."
+
+"Pardon me, if I have believed actions more expressive than words. I
+shall never commit a similar error."
+
+With deeply wounded and indignant feelings, I walked rapidly on, without
+deigning to look at one so heartless and capricious. Mr. Regulus was
+right. He was not a proper companion. I would never allow him to walk
+with me again.
+
+"Are you not familiar enough with my light, mocking way, Gabriella?" he
+cried, keeping pace with my accelerated steps. "Do not you know me well
+enough to understand when I am serious and when jesting? I have never
+professed fraternal regard, because I know a brother cannot feel half
+the--the interest for you that I do. I thought you knew it,--I dare not
+say more,--I cannot say less."
+
+"No, no, do not say any more," said I, shrinking with indefinable dread;
+"I do not want any professions. I meant not to call them forth. If I
+alluded to you as a brother, it was because I wished to speak to you
+with the frankness of a sister. It is better that you should not walk
+with me from school,--it is not proper,--people will make remarks."
+
+"Well, let them make them,--who cares?"
+
+"I care, a great deal. I will not be the subject of village gossip."
+
+"Who put this idea in your head, Gabriella? I know it did not originate
+there. You are too artless, too unsuspicious. Oh! I know," he added,
+with a heightened color and a raised tone, "you have been kept after
+school; you have had a lecture on propriety; you cannot deny it."
+
+"I neither deny nor affirm any thing. It makes no difference who
+suggested it. My own judgment tells me it is right."
+
+"The old fellow is jealous," said he with a laugh of derision, "but he
+cannot control my movements. The road is wide enough for us both, and
+the world is wider still."
+
+"How can you say any thing so absurd and ridiculous?" I exclaimed; and
+vexed as I was, I could not help laughing at his preposterous
+suggestion.
+
+"Because I know it is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear
+of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing
+wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble
+independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of
+breath, a puff of empty air."
+
+"I trust I have sufficient independence to do what is right and
+sufficient prudence to avoid, if possible, the imputation of wrong," I
+replied, with grave earnestness.
+
+"Oh! upright judge!--oh! excellent young sage!" exclaimed Richard, with
+mock reverence. "Wisdom becometh thee so well, I shall be tempted to
+quarrel hereafter with thy smiles. But seriously, Gabriella, I crave
+permission to walk courteously home with you this evening, for it is the
+last of my vacation. To-morrow I leave you, and it will be months before
+we meet again."
+
+"I might have spared you and myself this foolish scene, then," said I,
+deeply mortified at its result. "I have incurred your ridicule, perhaps
+your contempt, in vain. We might have parted friends, at least."
+
+"No, by heavens! Gabriella, not friends; we must be something more, or
+less than friends. I did not think to say this now, but I can hold it
+back no longer. And why should I? 'All my faults perchance thou
+knowest.' As was the boy, as is the youth, so most likely will be the
+man. No! if you love me, Gabriella,--if I may look forward to the day
+when I shall be to you friend, brother, guardian, lover, all in one,--I
+shall have such a motive for excellence, such a spring to ambition, that
+I will show the world the pattern of a man, such as they never saw
+before."
+
+"I wish you had not said this," I answered, averting from his bright and
+earnest eye my confused and troubled glance. "We should be so much
+happier as friends. We are so young, too. It will be time enough years
+hence to talk of such things."
+
+"Too young to love! We are in the very spring-time of our life,--the
+season of blossoms and fragrance, music and love,--oh, daughter of
+poetry! is it you who utter such a thought? Would you wait for the
+sultry summer, the dry autumn, to cultivate the morning flower of
+Paradise?"
+
+"I did not dream you had so much hidden romance," said I, smiling at his
+metaphorical language, and endeavoring to turn the conversation in a new
+channel. "I thought you mocked at sentiment and poetic raptures."
+
+"Love works miracles, Gabriella. You do not answer. You evade the
+subject on which all my life's future depends. Is there no chord in your
+heart that vibrates in harmony with mine? Are there no memories
+associated with the oak trees of the wood, the mossy stone at the
+fountain, the sacred rose of the grave, propitious to my early and
+ever-growing love?"
+
+He spoke with a depth of feeling of which I had never thought him
+possessed. Sincerity and truth dignified every look and tone. Yes! there
+were undying memories, now wakened in all their strength, of the
+youthful champion of my injured rights, the sympathizing companion of my
+darkest hours; the friend, who stood by me when other friends were
+unknown. There was many a responsive chord that thrilled at his voice,
+and there was another note, a sweet triumphant note never struck before.
+The new-born consciousness of woman's power, the joy of being beloved,
+the regal sense of newly acquired dominion swelled in my bosom and
+flashed from my eye. But _the master-chord was silent_. I knew, I felt
+even then, that there was a golden string, down in the very depths of my
+heart, too deep for his hand to touch.
+
+I felt grieved and glad. Grieved that I could not give a full response
+to his generous offering,--glad that I had capacities of loving, he,
+with all his excellences, could never fill. I tried to tell him what I
+felt, to express friendship, gratitude, and esteem; but he would not
+hear me,--he would not let me go on.
+
+"No, no; say nothing now," said he impetuously. "I have been premature.
+You do not know your own heart. You do love me,--you will love me. You
+must not, you shall not deny me the privilege of hope. I will maintain
+the vantage ground on which I stand,--first friend, first lover, and
+even Ernest Linwood cannot drive me from it."
+
+"Ernest Linwood!" I exclaimed, startled and indignant. "You know he can
+never be any thing to me. You know my immeasurable obligations to his
+mother. His name shall be sacred from levity."
+
+"It is. He is the last person whom I would lightly name. He has
+brilliant talents and a splendid position; but woe to the woman who
+places her happiness in his keeping. He confides in no one,--so the
+world describes him,--is jealous and suspicious even in
+friendship;--what would he be in love?"
+
+"I know not. I care not,--only for his mother's and Edith's sake. Again
+I say, he is nothing to me. Richard, you trouble me very much by your
+strange way of talking. You have no idea how you have made my head ache.
+Please speak of common subjects, for I would not meet Mrs. Linwood so
+troubled, so agitated, for any consideration. See how beautiful the
+sunlight falls is the lawn! How graceful that white cloud floats down
+the golden west! As Wilson says:--
+
+    'Even in its very motion there is rest.'"
+
+"Yes! the sunlight is very beautiful, and the cloud is very graceful,
+and you are beautiful and graceful in your dawning coquetry, the more so
+because you know it not. Well--obedience to-day, reward to-morrow,
+Gabriella. That was one of my old copies at the academy."
+
+"I remember another, which was a favorite of Mr. Regulus--
+
+    'To-morrow never yet
+    On any human being rose and set.'"
+
+A few more light repartees, and we were at Mrs. Linwood's gate.
+
+"You will not come in?" said I, half asserting, half interrogating.
+
+"To be sure I will. Edith promised me some of her angelic harp music. I
+come like Saul to have the evil spirit of discontent subdued by its
+divine influence."
+
+Richard was a favorite of Mrs. Linwood. Whether it was that by a woman's
+intuition she discovered the state of feeling existing between us, or
+whether it was his approaching departure, she was especially kind to him
+this evening; she expressed a more than usual interest in his future
+prospects.
+
+"This is your last year in college," I heard her say to him. "In a few
+months you will feel the dignity and responsibility of manhood. You will
+come out from the seclusion of college life into the wide, wide world,
+and of its myriad paths, so intricate, yet so trodden, you must choose
+one. You are looking forward now, eagerly, impatiently, but then you
+will pause and tremble. I pity the young man when he first girds himself
+for the real duties of life. The change from thought to action, from
+dreams to realities, from hope to fruition or _disappointment_, is so
+sudden, so great, he requires the wisdom which is only bought by
+experience, the strength gained only by exercise. But it is well," she
+added, with great expression, "it is well as it is. If youth could
+command the experience of age, it would lose the enthusiasm and zeal
+necessary for the conception of great designs; it would lose the
+brightness, the energy of hope, and nothing would be attempted, because
+every thing would be thought in vain. I did not mean to give you an
+essay," she said, smiling at her own earnestness, "but a young friend on
+the threshold of manhood is deeply interesting to me. I feel constrained
+to give him my best counsels, my fervent prayers."
+
+"Thank you, dear Madam, a thousand times," he answered his countenance
+lighted up with grateful pleasure; "you do not know what inspiration
+there is in the conviction that we are cared for by the pure and the
+good. Selfish as we are, there are few of us who strive to excel for
+ourselves alone. We must feel that there are some hearts, who bear us in
+remembrance, who will exult in our successes, and be made happier by our
+virtues."
+
+He forgot himself, and though he addressed Mrs. Linwood, his eye sought
+mine, while uttering the closing words. I was foolish enough to blush at
+his glance, and still more at the placid, intelligent smile of Mrs.
+Linwood. It seemed to say,
+
+"I understand it all; it is all right, just as it should be. There is no
+danger of Richard's being forgotten."
+
+I was provoked by _her_ smile, _his_ glance, and my own foolish blush.
+As for him, he really did seem inspired. He talked of the profession he
+had chosen as the noblest and the best, a profession which had commanded
+the most exalted talents and most magnificent geniuses in the world. He
+was not holy enough for the ministry; he had too great reverence and
+regard for human life to be a physician; but he believed nature had
+created him for a lawyer, for that much abused, yet glorious being, an
+honest lawyer.
+
+I suppose I must have been nervous, in consequence of the exciting
+scenes through which I had passed, but there was something in his florid
+eloquence, animated gestures, and evident desire to make a grand
+impression, that strangely affected my risibles; I had always thought
+him so natural before. I tried to keep from laughing; I compressed my
+lips, and turning my head, looked steadily from the window, but a sudden
+stammering, then a pause, showed that my unconquerable rudeness was
+observed. I was sobered at once, but dared not look round, lest I should
+meet Mrs. Linwood's reproving glance. He soon after asked Edith for a
+parting song, and while listening to her sweet voice, as it mingled with
+the breezy strains of the harp, my excited spirit recovered its
+equilibrium. I thought with regret and pain, of the levity, so unwonted
+in me, which had wounded a heart so frank and true, and found as much
+difficulty in keeping back my tears, as a moment before I had done my
+laughter.
+
+As soon as Edith had finished her song, he rose to take leave. He came
+to me last, to the little recess in the window where I stood, and
+extended his hand as he had done to Mrs. Linwood and Edith. He looked
+hurt rather than angry, disappointed rather than sad.
+
+"Forgive me," said I, in a low voice; "I value your friendship too much
+to lose it without an effort."
+
+The tears were in my eyes; I could not help it. I was sorry, for they
+expressed far more than I meant to convey. I knew it at once by the
+altered, beaming expression of his countenance.
+
+"Give me smiles or tears, dear Gabriella," he answered, in the same
+undertone; "only do not forget me, only think of me as I wish to be
+remembered."
+
+He pressed my hand warmly, energetically, while uttering these words;
+then, without giving me time to reply, bowed again to Mrs. Linwood and
+left the room.
+
+"A very fine, promising young man," said Mrs. Linwood, with emphasis.
+
+"A most intelligent, agreeable companion," added the gentle Edith,
+looking smilingly at me, as if expecting me to say something.
+
+"Very," responded I, in a constrained manner.
+
+"Is that all?" she asked, laying her soft, white hand on my shoulders,
+and looking archly in my face; "is that all, Gabriella?"
+
+"Indeed, you are mistaken," said I, hastily; "he is nothing more,--and
+yet I am wrong to say that,--he has been,--he is like a brother to me,
+Edith, and never will be any thing more."
+
+"Oh, these brother friends!" she exclaimed, with a burst of musical
+laughter, "how very near they seem! But wait, Gabriella, till you see
+_my_ brother,--he is one to boast of."
+
+"Edith!" said her mother. Edith turned her blue eyes from me to her
+mother, with a look of innocent surprise. The tone seemed intended to
+check her,--yet what had she said?
+
+"You should not raise expectations in Gabriella which will not be
+realized," observed Mrs. Linwood, in that quiet tone of hers which had
+so much power. "Ernest, however dear he may be to us as a son and
+brother, has peculiar traits which sometimes repel the admiration of
+strangers. His impenetrable reserve chills the warmth of enthusiasm,
+while the fitfulness of his morals produces constant inquietude. He was
+born under a clouded star, and the horoscope of his destiny is darkened
+by its influence."
+
+"I love him better for his lights and shadows," said Edith, "he keeps
+one always thinking of him."
+
+"When would this shadowy, flashing being appear, who kept one always
+thinking of him?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+As I had made an engagement with Mr. Regulus for one year, I remained
+with Dr. Harlowe's family during the winter months, while Mrs. Linwood
+and Edith returned to the city.
+
+The only novelty of that wintry season was the first correspondence of
+my life. Could any thing prove more strikingly my isolated position in
+the world than this single fact? It was quite an era in my existence
+when I received Mrs. Linwood's and Edith's first letters; and when I
+answered them, it seemed to me my heart was flowing out in a gushing
+stream of expression, that had long sought vent. I knew they must have
+smiled at my exuberance of language, for the young enthusiast always
+luxuriates under epistolary influences. I had another correspondent, a
+very unexpected one, Richard Clyde, who, sanctioned by Mrs. Linwood,
+begged permission to write to me as a _friend_. How could I refuse, when
+Mrs. Linwood said it would be a source of intellectual improvement as
+well as pleasure? These letters occupied much of my leisure time, and
+were escape-pipes to an imagination of the high-pressure kind. My old
+love of rhyming, too, rose from the ashes of former humiliation, and I
+wove many a garland of poesy, though no one but myself inhaled their
+fragrance or admired their bloom.
+
+    "As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean,
+    Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,--"
+
+So in the solitude of my chamber, in the loneliness of my heart, in the
+breathing stillness of the night, blossomed the moon-born flowers of
+poesy, to beautify and gladden my youth.
+
+Thus glided away the last tranquil season of my life. As was one day, so
+was the next. Mrs. Harlowe's clock-work virtues, which never run down,
+the doctor's agreeable carelessness and imperturbable good-humor, the
+exceeding kindness of Mr. Regulus, who grew so gentle, that he almost
+seemed melancholy,--all continued the same. In reading, writing,
+thinking, feeling, hoping, reaching forward to an uncertain future, the
+season of fireside enjoyments and comforts passed,--spring,--summer.
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith returned, and I was once more installed in that
+charming apartment, amid whose rosy decorations "I seemed," as Edith
+said, "a fairy queen." I walked once more in the moon-lighted colonnade,
+in the shadow of the granite walls, and felt that I was born to be
+there.
+
+One evening as I returned home, I saw Edith coming through the lawn to
+meet me, so rapidly that she seemed borne on wings,--her white drapery
+fell in such full folds over her crutches it entirely concealed them,
+and they made no sound on the soft, thick grass. Her face was perfectly
+radiant.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella," she exclaimed, "he is coming,--brother is coming
+home,--he will be here in less than a week,--oh! I am so happy!"
+
+And the sweet, affectionate creature leaned her head on my shoulder, and
+actually sobbed in the fulness of her joy. My own heart palpitated with
+strange emotions, with mingled curiosity, eagerness, and dread.
+
+"Dear Edith," I cried, putting my arms around her, and kissing her fair,
+infantine cheek, "I rejoice with you,--I could envy you if I dared. What
+a blessing it must be to have a brother capable of inspiring so much
+love!"
+
+"He shall be your brother too, Gabriella! For, are you not my sister?
+and of course he must be your brother. Come, let us sit down under the
+dear old elm and talk about him, for my heart is so full that I can
+speak and think of nothing else."
+
+"And now," added she, as we sat under the kingly canopy of verdure,--on
+a carpet of living velvet,--"let me tell you why I love Ernest so very,
+very dearly. My father died when I was a little child, a little feeble
+child, a cripple as well as an invalid. Ernest is four years older than
+myself, and though when I was a little child he was but a very young
+boy, he always seemed a protector and guardian to me. He never cared
+about play like other children, loving his book better than any thing
+else, but willing to leave even that to amuse and gratify me. Oh! I used
+to suffer so much, so dreadfully,--I could not lie down, I could not sit
+up without pain,--no medicine would give me any relief. Hour after hour
+would Ernest hold me in his arms, and carry me about in the open air,
+never owning he was weary while he could give me one moment's ease. No
+one thought I would live beyond childhood, and I have no doubt many
+believed that death would be a blessing to the poor, crippled child.
+They did not know how dear life was to me in spite of all my sufferings;
+for had I always been well, I never should have known those tender,
+cherishing cares which have filled my heart with so much love. It is so
+sweet to be petted and caressed as I have been!"
+
+"It did not need sickness and suffering to make _you_ beloved, Edith," I
+cried, twisting my fingers in her soft, golden curls. "Who could help
+loving you and wishing to caress you?"
+
+"Yes it did, Gabriella; my Heavenly Father knew that it did, or He would
+never have laid upon me His chastening hand. Sickness and pain have been
+my only chastisements, and they are all past. I am not very strong, but
+I am well; and though a cripple, my wooden feet serve me wonderfully
+well. I am so used to them now, they seem a part of myself."
+
+"I can never think of you as walking," I said, taking one of the
+crutches that leaned against the tree. The part which fitted under the
+arm was covered with a cushion of blue velvet, and the rosewood staff
+was mounted with silver. "You manage these so gracefully, one scarcely
+misses your feet."
+
+"But Ernest, dear Ernest," interrupted she, "let us talk of him. You
+must not be influenced too much by my mother's words. She adores him,
+but her standard of perfection is so exalted few can attain it. The very
+excess of her love makes her alive to his defects. She knows your vivid
+imagination, and fears my lavish praises will lead you to expect a being
+of super-human excellence. Oh, another thing I wanted to tell you. The
+uncle, for whom he was named, has died and left him a splendid fortune,
+which he did not need very much, you know. Had it not been for this
+circumstance, he would not have come back till autumn; and now he will
+be here in a week,--in less than a week. Oh, Gabriella, Grandison Place
+must shine for its master's welcome."
+
+Another splendid fortune added to his own! Further and further still,
+seemed he removed from me. But what difference did it make? Why did I
+think of him in reference to myself? How dared I do it, foolish and
+presumptuous girl! Then, he was seven years older than myself. How
+mature! He would probably look upon me as a little girl; and if he
+granted me the honors of womanhood, the student of Gottingen, the heir
+of two great fortunes would scarcely notice the village teacher, save as
+the orphan protegee of his mother.
+
+I did not indulge these thoughts. I repelled them, for they were selfish
+and uncomfortable. If every one recorded their thoughts as I do, would
+they not, like me, pray for the blotting angel's tears?
+
+In one week! How soon!
+
+Mrs. Linwood, quiet and serene as she was, participated in Edith's
+joyful excitement. She departed from her usual reliance on the subject,
+and checked not Edith's glowing warmth.
+
+In a family so wealthy, a dwelling so abounding in all the elegancies
+and luxuries of life, the coming of a prince would not have occasioned
+any necessary disturbance. The chamber of the son and brother had been
+long prepared, but now the fastidious eye of affection discovered many
+deficiencies. The pictures must be changed in position; some wanted
+more, some less light; the curtains were too heavy, the flower vases too
+gorgeous.
+
+"Does he mind these things much?" I ventured to ask.
+
+"He likes to see every thing round him elegant and classic," replied
+Edith; "he has the most fastidious taste in the world. I am so glad,
+Gabriella, that you are pretty, that you are really classically
+beautiful, for he will think so much more of you for being so. He ought
+not, perhaps; but one cannot help having a fine taste. He cannot abide
+any thing coarse or unrefined."
+
+"He will not think of me at all, I am sure he will not," I answered,
+while a vivid blush of pleasure at her sweet flattery stole over my
+cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+It was my office to gather and arrange the flowers, to adorn the
+mansion, in consequence of Edith's lameness. This I did every morning
+while they were sparkling with dew and the fragrance of night still
+imprisoned in their folded petals. I delighted in the task; but now I
+could not help feeling unusual solicitude about my floral mission. I
+rose earlier than usual, and made fearful havoc in the garden and the
+green-house. My apron dripped with blossoms every step I took, and the
+carpet was literally strewed with flowers. The fairest and sweetest were
+selected for the room _not yet occupied_; and though one day after
+another passed away and he came not, the scent of the blossoms lingered
+in the apartment, and diffusing in it an atmosphere of home love,
+prepared it for the wanderer's return.
+
+Every afternoon the carriage was sent to the depot, which was several
+miles from Grandison Place, to meet the traveller, and again and again
+it returned empty.
+
+"Let us go ourselves," said Mrs. Linwood, beginning to be restless and
+anxious. And they went--she and Edith. Though it was Saturday and I was
+free, I did not accompany them, for I felt that a stranger to him should
+not "intermeddle with their joy."
+
+Partaking of the restlessness of baffled expectation, I could not fix my
+mind on any occupation. I seated myself in the window recess and began
+to read, but my eyes were constantly wandering to the road, watching for
+the dust cloud that would roll before the advancing carriage.
+Dissatisfied with myself, I strolled out on the lawn, and seating myself
+on the rustic bench with my back to the gate, resolutely fastened my
+eyes to the pages I had been vainly fluttering.
+
+Shall I tell how foolish I had been? Though I said to myself a hundred
+times, "he will not look at me, or notice me at all," I had taken
+unusual pains with my dress, which though still characterized with the
+simplicity of mourning, was relieved of its severity of outline. A fall
+of lace softened the bands of the neck and arms, which were embellished
+by a necklace and bracelets, which I valued more than any earthly
+possession. They were the gift of Mrs. Linwood, who, having won from the
+grave a portion of my mother's beautiful dark hair, had it wrought with
+exquisite skill, and set in massy gold, as memorials of love stronger
+than death. Thus doubly precious, I cherished them as holy amulets, made
+sacred by the living as well as the dead. Edith had woven in my hair
+some scarlet geraniums, my favorite flower. Though not very elaborately
+adorned, I had an impression I was looking my best, and I could not help
+thinking while I sat half veiled by foliage, half gilded by light, how
+romantic it would be, if a magnificent stranger should suddenly approach
+and as suddenly draw back, on seeing my dark, waving hair, instead of
+the golden locks of Edith. I became so absorbed in painting this little
+scene, which enlarged and glowed under the pencil of imagination, that I
+did not hear the opening of the gate or footsteps crossing the lawn. I
+thought a shadow passed over the sunshine. The figure of a stranger
+stood between me and the glowing west. I started up with an
+irrepressible exclamation. I knew, at the first glance, that it was
+Ernest Linwood, the living embodiment of that haunting image, so long
+drawn on my youthful fancy. I should have known him in the farthest
+isles of the ocean, from the painting in the library, the descriptions
+of Edith, and the sketches of my own imagination. His complexion had the
+pale, transparent darkness of eastern climes, and his eye a kind of
+shadowy splendor, impossible to describe, but which reminded me at once
+of his mother's similitude of the "clouded star." He was not above the
+common height of man, yet he gave me an impression of power and dignity,
+such as mere physical force could never inspire.
+
+"Is this Grandison Place? my home?" he asked, lifting his hat with
+gentlemanly grace from his brows. His voice, too, had that cultivated,
+well-modulated tone, which always marks the gentleman.
+
+"It is, sir," I answered, trying to speak without embarrassment. "Mr.
+Linwood, I presume."
+
+I thought I had made a mistake in his name, it sounded so strange. I had
+never heard him called any thing but Ernest Linwood, and Mr. Linwood had
+such a stiff, formal sound, I was quite disgusted with it.
+
+He again bowed, and looked impatiently towards the house.
+
+"I saw a young female and thought it might be my sister, or I should not
+have intruded. Shall I find her,--shall I find my mother within?"
+
+"They have gone to meet you,--they have been looking for you these many
+days; I know not how you have missed them."
+
+"By coming another road. I jumped from the carriage and walked on, too
+impatient to wait its slow motions in ascending the hill. And they have
+gone to meet me. They really wish to see me back again!"
+
+He spoke with deep feeling. The home thoughts and affections of years
+thrilled from his tone. This seemed one of those self-evident truths,
+that required no confirmation, and I made no answer. I wondered if I
+ought to ask him to walk in,--him, the master and the heir; whether I
+should ask him to take a seat on the oaken settee, where he could watch
+the carriage, ascending the winding hill.
+
+"Do not let me disturb you," he said, looking at me with a questioning,
+penetrating glance, then added, "am I guilty of the rudeness of not
+recognizing a former acquaintance, who has passed from childhood to
+youth, during my years of absence?"
+
+"No, sir," I answered, again wondering if politeness required me to
+introduce myself. "I am a stranger to you, though for two years your
+mother's home has been mine. My name is Lynn,--Gabriella Lynn."
+
+I was vexed with myself for this awkward introduction. I did not know
+what I ought to say, and painful blushes dyed my cheeks. I would not
+have mentioned my name at all, only, if his mother and sister delayed
+their coming, he might feel awkward himself, from not knowing what to
+call me.
+
+"My mother's protegee!" said he, his countenance lightening as he spoke.
+"Edith has mentioned you in her letters; but I expected to see a little
+girl, not the young lady, whom I find presiding genius here."
+
+My self-respect was gratified that he did not look upon me as a child,
+and there was something so graceful and unostentatious in his air and
+manner, my self-possession came back without an effort to recall it.
+
+"Will you walk in?" I asked, now convinced it was right.
+
+"Thank you; I am so weary of the confinement of the carriage, I like the
+freedom of the open air. I like this rich, velvet grass. How beautiful,
+how magnificent!" he exclaimed, his eye taking in the wide sweep of
+landscape, here and there darkened with shade, and at intervals
+literally blazing with the crimson sunlight,--then sweeping on over the
+swelling mountains, so grand in their purple drapery and golden crowns.
+"How exquisitely beautiful! My mother could not have selected a lovelier
+spot,--and these old granite walls! how antique, how classic they are!"
+
+He turned and examined them, with a pleased yet criticizing eye. He
+walked up and down the velvet lawn with a firm, yet restless step,
+stopping occasionally to measure with his glance the towering oaks and
+the gigantic elm. I began to be uneasy at the protracted absence of Mrs.
+Linwood, and kept my eyes fixed upon the road, whose dark, rich,
+slatish-colored surface, seen winding through green margins, resembled a
+stream of deep water, it was so smooth and uniform. I knew how full must
+be the heart of the traveller. I did not wish to interrupt his
+meditations even by a look.
+
+We saw it coming,--the family carriage. I saw his pale cheek flush at my
+joyous exclamation. He moved rapidly towards the gate, while I ran into
+the house, up stairs and into my own room, that I might not intrude on
+moments too sacred for curiosity.
+
+In a little while, I could hear the sound of their mingling voices
+coming up the long flight of marble steps, across the wide piazza, and
+then they came soft and muffled from the drawing-room below. At first,
+forgetful of self, I sympathized in their joy. I rejoiced for my
+benefactress, I rejoiced for the tender and affectionate Edith. But
+after sitting there a long time alone, and of course forgotten in the
+rapture of this family reunion, thoughts of self began to steal over and
+chill the ardor of my sympathetic emotions. I could not help feeling
+myself a mote in the dazzling sunshine of their happiness. I could not
+help experiencing, in all its bitterness, the isolation of my own
+destiny. I remembered the lamentation of the aged and solitary Indian,
+"that not a drop of his blood flowed in the veins of a living being." So
+it was with me. To my knowledge, I had not a living relative. Friends
+were kind,--some were more than kind; but oh! there are capacities for
+love friends can never fill. There are niches in the temple of the heart
+made for household gods, and if they are left vacant, no other images,
+though of the splendor of the Grecian statuary, can remove its
+desolation. _Deep calleth unto deep_, and when no answer cometh, the
+waves beat against the lonely strand and murmur themselves away.
+
+I tried to check all selfish, repining feelings. I tried to keep from
+envying Edith, but I could not.
+
+"O that I, too, had a brother!"
+
+Was the cry of my craving heart, and it would not be stilled. I wiped
+away tear after tear, resolving each should be the last, but the
+fountain was full, and every heaving sigh made it overflow.
+
+At length I heard the sound of Edith's crutches on the stairs, faint and
+muffled, but I knew it from all other sounds. She could mount and
+descend the stairs as lightly as a bird, in spite of her infirmity.
+
+"Ah! truant!" she cried, as she opened the door, "you need not think to
+hide yourself here all night; we want you to come and help us to be
+happy, for I am so happy I know not what to do."
+
+Her eyes sparkled most brilliantly through those drops of joy, as
+different to the tears I had been shedding as the morning dew is to
+December's wintry rain.
+
+"But what are you doing, Gabriella?" she added, sitting down beside me
+and drawing my hand from my eyes. "In tears! I have been almost crying
+my eyes out; but you do not look happy. I thought you loved me so well,
+you would feel happy because I am so. Do you not?"
+
+"You will hate me for my selfishness, dear Edith. I did think of you for
+a long time, and rejoice in your happiness. Then I began to think how
+lonely and unconnected I am, and I have been wicked enough to envy your
+treasures of affection for ever denied to me. I felt as if there was no
+one to love me in the wide world. But you have remembered me, Edith,
+even in the depth of your joy, ingrate that I am. Forgive me," said I,
+passing my arms round her beautiful white neck. "I will try to be good
+after this."
+
+She kissed me, and told me to bathe my eyes and come right down, her
+mother said I must. Ernest had inquired what had become of me, and he
+would think it strange if I hid myself in this way.
+
+"And you have seen him, Gabriella," she cried, and her tongue ran glibly
+while I plunged my face in a basin of cold water, ashamed of the traces
+of selfish sorrow. "You have seen my own dear brother Ernest. And only
+think of your getting the first glimpse of him! What _did_ you think of
+him? What _do_ you think of him now? Is he not handsome? Is there not
+something very striking, very attractive about him? Is he not different
+from any one you ever saw before?"
+
+"There _is_ something very striking in his appearance," I answered,
+smiling at the number and rapidity of her questions, "but I was so
+disconcerted, so foolish, I hardly dared to look him in the face. Has he
+changed since you saw him last?"
+
+"Not much,--rather paler, I think; but perhaps it is only fatigue, or
+the languor following intense excitement. I feel myself as if all my
+strength were gone. I cannot describe my sensations when I saw him
+standing in the open gateway. I let mamma get out first. I thought it
+was her right to receive the first embrace of welcome; but when he
+turned to me, I threw myself on his neck, discarding my crutches, and
+clung to him, just as I used to do when a little, helpless, suffering
+child. And would you believe it, Gabriella? he actually shed tears. I
+did not expect so much sensibility. I feared the world had hardened
+him,--but it has not. Make haste and come down with me. I long to look
+at him again. Here, let me put back this scarlet geranium. You do not
+know how pretty it looks. Brother said--no--I will not tell you what he
+said. Yes, I will. He said he had no idea the charming young girl, with
+such a classic face and aristocratic bearing, was mother's little
+protegee."
+
+"You asked him, Edith, I know you did."
+
+"Supposing I did,--there was no harm in it. Come, I want you to see
+mamma; she looks so young and handsome. Joy is such a beautifier."
+
+"I think it is," said I, as I gazed at _her_ star-bright eyes and
+blush-rose cheeks. We entered the drawing-room together, where Ernest
+was seated on the sofa by his mother, with her hand clasped in his.
+Edith was right,--she did look younger and handsomer than I had ever
+seen her. She was usually pale and her face was calm. Now a breeze had
+stirred the waters, and the sunshine quivered on the rippling surface.
+
+They rose as we entered, and came forward to meet us. My old trepidation
+returned. Would Mrs. Linwood introduce me,--and if she did, in what
+manner? Would there be any thing in her air or countenance to imply that
+I was a dependent on her bounty, rather than an adopted daughter of the
+household? Hush,--these proud whispers. Listen, how kindly she speaks.
+
+"My dear Gabriella, this is my son, Ernest. You know it already, and he
+knows that you are the child of my adoption. Nevertheless, I must
+introduce you to each other."
+
+Surprised and touched by the maternal kindness of her manner, (I ought
+not to have been surprised, for she was always kind,) I looked up, and I
+know that gratitude and sensibility passed from my heart to my eyes.
+
+"I must claim the privilege of an adopted brother," said he, extending
+his hand, and I thought he smiled. Perhaps I was mistaken. His
+countenance had a way of suddenly lighting up, which I learned to
+compare to sunshine breaking through clouds. The hand in which he took
+mine was so white, so delicately moulded, it looked as if it might have
+belonged to a woman,--but he was a student, the heir of wealth, not the
+son of labor, the inheritor of the primeval curse. It is a trifle to
+mention,--the hand of an intellectual man,--but I had been so accustomed
+to the large, muscular fingers of Mr. Regulus, which seemed formed to
+wield the weapon of authority, that I could not but notice the contrast.
+
+How pleasantly, how delightfully the evening passed away! I sat in my
+favorite recess, half shaded by the light drapery of the window; while
+Ernest took a seat at his mother's side, and Edith occupied a low
+ottoman at his feet. One arm was thrown across his lap, and her eyes
+were lifted to his face with an expression of the most idolizing
+affection. And all the while he was talking, his hand passed caressingly
+over her fair flaxen hair, or lingered amidst its glistering ringlets.
+It was a beautiful picture of sisterly and fraternal love,--the fairest
+I had ever seen. The fairest! it was the first, the only one. I had
+never realized before the exceeding beauty and holiness of this tender
+tie. As I looked upon Edith in her graceful, endearing attitude, so
+expressive of dependence and love, many a sentence descriptive of a
+brother's tenderness floated up to the surface of memory. I remembered
+part of a beautiful hymn,--
+
+    "Fair mansions in my Father's house
+      For all his children wait;
+    And I, your elder _brother_ go,
+      To open wide the gate."
+
+The Saviour of mankind called himself our brother,--stamping with the
+seal of divinity the dear relationship.
+
+I had imagined I felt for Richard Clyde a sister's regard. No, no! Cold
+were my sentiments to those that beamed in Edith's upturned eyes.
+
+Ernest described his travels, his life abroad, and dwelt on the
+peculiarities of German character, its high, imaginative traits, its
+mysticism and superstition, till his tongue warmed into enthusiasm,--and
+_one_ of his hearers at least felt the inspiration of his eloquence. His
+mother had said he was reserved! I began to think I did not know the
+right meaning of the word. If he paused and seemed about to relapse into
+silence, Edith would draw a long breath, as if she had just been
+inhaling some exhilarating gas, and exclaim,--
+
+"Oh! do go on, brother; it is so long since we have heard you talk; it
+is such a luxury to hear a person talk, who really _says_ something."
+
+"I never care about talking, unless I do have something to _say_," he
+answered, "but I think I have monopolized attention long enough. As a
+guest, I have a right to be entertained. Have you forgotten my love for
+music, Edith?"
+
+"O no! I remember all your favorite airs, and have played them a
+thousand times at least. Do you wish to hear me now?"
+
+"Certainly, I do; I have heard nothing so sweet as your voice, dear
+Edith, since I heard your last parting song."
+
+He rose and moved the harp forward, and seated her at the instrument.
+
+"Does not Miss Lynn play?" he asked, running his fingers carelessly over
+the glittering strings.
+
+"Who is Miss Lynn?" repeated Edith, with a look of inquiry.
+
+I laughed at her surprise and my own. It was the first time I had ever
+heard myself called so, and I looked round involuntarily to see who and
+where "Miss Lynn" was.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella!" cried Edith, "I did not know whom you meant. I assure
+you, brother, there is no Miss Lynn here; it is Gabriella--_our
+Gabriella_--that is her name; you must not call her by any other."
+
+"I shall be happy to avail myself of the privilege of uttering so
+charming a name. Does Miss Gabriella play?"
+
+"No, no, that is not right yet, Ernest; you must drop the Miss. Do not
+answer him, Gabriella, till he knows his lesson better."
+
+"Does Gabriella play?"
+
+The name came gravely and melodiously from his tongue. The distance
+between us seemed wonderfully diminished by the mere breathing my
+Christian name.
+
+"I do not," I answered, "but my love of music amounts to a passion. I am
+never so happy as when listening to Edith's voice and harp."
+
+"She has never taken lessons," said Edith; "if she had, she would have
+made a splendid musician, I am confident she would. Dear mother, when we
+go to the city next winter, Gabriella must go with us, and she must have
+music-masters, and we will play and sing together. She has taught in
+that old academy long enough, I am sure she has."
+
+"I think Gabriella has been taking some very important lessons herself,
+while teaching in the old academy, which chances to be quite new, at
+least her part of it," answered Mrs. Linwood; "but I have no intention
+of suffering her to remain there too long; she has borne the discipline
+admirably."
+
+As I turned a grateful glance to Mrs. Linwood, my heart throbbing with
+delight at the prospect of emancipation, I met the eyes, the earnest,
+perusing eyes of her son. I drew back further into the shadow of the
+curtain, but the risen moon was shining upon my face, and silvering the
+lace drapery that floated round me. Edith whispered something to her
+brother, glancing towards me her smiling eyes, then sweeping her fingers
+lightly over the harp-strings, began one of the songs that Ernest loved.
+
+Sweetly as she always sang, I had never heard her sing so sweetly
+before. It seemed indeed "Joy's ecstatic trial," so airily her fingers
+sparkled over the chords, so clearly and cheerily she warbled each
+animated note.
+
+"I know you love sad songs best, Ernest, but I cannot sing them
+to-night," she said, pushing the instrument from her.
+
+"There is a little German air, which I think I may recollect," said he,
+drawing the harp towards him.
+
+"You, Ernest!" cried Edith and his mother in the same breath, "you play
+on the harp!"
+
+He smiled at their astonishment.
+
+"I took lessons while in Germany. A fellow-student taught me,--a
+glorious musician, and a native of the land of music,--Italy. There, the
+very atmosphere breathes of harmony."
+
+The very first note he called forth, I felt a master's touch was on the
+chords, and leaning forward I held my breath to listen. The strains rose
+rich and murmuring like an ocean breeze, then died away soft as wave
+falls on wave in the moonlight night. He sang a simple, pathetic air,
+with such deep feeling, such tender, passionate emotion, that tears
+involuntarily moistened my eyes. All the slumbering music of my being
+responded. It was thus _I_ could sing,--_I_ could play,--I knew I could.
+And when he rose and resumed his seat by his mother, I could scarcely
+restrain myself from touching the same chords,--the chords still
+quivering from his magic hand.
+
+"O brother!" exclaimed Edith, "what a charming surprise! I never heard
+any thing so thrillingly sweet! You do not know how happy you have made
+me. One more,--only one more,--Ernest."
+
+"You forget your brother is from a long and weary journey, Edith, and we
+have many an evening before us, I trust, of domestic joy like this,"
+said Mrs. Linwood, ringing for the night-lamps. "To-morrow is the
+hallowed rest-day of the Lord, and our hearts, so long restless from
+expectation, will feel the grateful calm of assured happiness. One who
+returns after a long journey to the bosom of home, in health and safety,
+has peculiar calls for gratitude and praise. He should bless the God of
+the traveller for having given his angels charge concerning him, and
+shielding him from unknown dangers. You feel all this, my son."
+
+She looked at him with an anxious, questioning glance. She feared that
+the mysticism of Germany might have obscured the brightness of his
+Christian faith.
+
+"I _am_ grateful, my mother," he answered with deep seriousness,
+"grateful to God for the blessings of this hour. This has been one of
+the happiest evenings of my life. Surely it is worth years of absence to
+be welcomed to such a home, and by such pure, loving hearts,--hearts in
+which I can trust without hypocrisy and without guile."
+
+"Believe all hearts true, my son, till you prove them false."
+
+"Faith is a gift of heaven, not an act of human will," he replied. Then
+I remembered what Richard Clyde had said of him, and I thought of it
+again when alone in my chamber.
+
+Edith peeped in through the door that divided our rooms.
+
+"Have we not had a charming evening?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, _very_," I answered.
+
+"How fond you are of that little adverb _very_," she exclaimed with a
+laugh; "you make it sound so expressively. Well, is not Ernest very
+interesting?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"The most interesting person you ever saw?"
+
+"You question me too closely, Edith. It will not do for me to speak as
+extravagantly as you do. I am not his sister, and the praise that falls
+so sweetly from your tongue, would sound bold and inappropriate from
+mine. I never knew before how strong a sister's love could be, Edith.
+Surely you can never feel a stronger passion."
+
+"Never," she cried earnestly, and coming in, she sat down on the side of
+the bed and unbound the ribbon from her slender waist. "The misfortune
+that has set me apart from my youthful companions will prevent me from
+indulging in the dreams of love. I know my mother does not wish me to
+marry, and I have never thought of the possibility of leaving her. I
+would not dare to give this frail frame and too tenderly indulged heart
+into the keeping of one who could never, never bestow the love, the
+boundless love, which has surrounded me from infancy, like the firmament
+of heaven. I have been sought in marriage more than once, it might be
+for reputed wealth or for imagined charms; but when I compared my
+would-be lovers to Ernest, they faded into such utter insignificance, I
+could scarcely pardon their presumption. I do not think he has ever
+loved himself. I do not think he has ever seen one worthy of his love. I
+believe it would kill me, Gabriella, to know that he loved another
+better than myself."
+
+For the first time I thought Edith selfish, and that she carried the
+romance of sisterly affection too far.
+
+"You wish him, then, to be an old bachelor!" said I, smiling.
+
+"Oh! don't apply to him such a horrid name. I did not think of that.
+Good night, darling. Mamma would scold me, if she knew I was up talking
+nonsense, instead of being in bed and asleep, like a good, obedient
+child." She kissed me and retired but it was long before I fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+The next morning, as I was coming up the steps with my white muslin
+apron fall of gathered flowers, I met Ernest Linwood. I was always an
+early riser. Dear, faithful Peggy had taught me this rural habit, and I
+have reason to bless her for it.
+
+"I see where you get your roses," said he; I knew he did not mean the
+roses in my apron, and those to which he alluded grew brighter as he
+spoke.
+
+"Am I indebted to you for the beautiful flowers in my own apartment?" he
+asked, as he turned back and entered the house with me, "or was it
+Edith's sisterly hand placed them there?"
+
+"Are you pleased with them?" I said, with a childish delight. It seemed
+to me a great thing that he had noticed them at all. "As Edith is lame,
+she indulges me in carrying out her own sweet tastes. I assure you I
+esteem it an inestimable privilege."
+
+"You love flowers, then?"
+
+"O yes, passionately. I have almost an idolatrous love for them."
+
+"And does it not make you sad to see them wither away, in spite of your
+passionate love?"
+
+"Yes, but others bloom in their stead. 'T is but a change from blossom
+to blossom."
+
+"You deceive yourself," he said, and there was something chilling in his
+tone, "it is not love you feel for them, for that is unchangeable, and
+admits but one object."
+
+"I was not speaking of human love," I answered, busily arranging the
+flowers in their vases, in which I had already placed some icy cold
+water. He walked up and down the room, stopping occasionally to observe
+the process, and making some passing remark. I was astonished at finding
+myself so much at ease. I suppose the awe he inspired, like the fear of
+ghosts, subsided at the dawning of morning. There was something so
+exhilarating in the pure fresh air, in the dewy brightness of the hour,
+in the exercise of roaming through a wilderness of sweets, that my
+spirits were too elastic to be held down. He seemed to take an interest
+in watching me, and even altered the position of some white roses, which
+he said wanted a shading of green.
+
+"And what are these beautiful clusters laid aside for?" he asked, taking
+up some which I had deposited on the table.
+
+"I thought," I answered, after a slight hesitation, "that Edith would
+like them for your room."
+
+"Then it is only to please Edith you place them there, not to please
+yourself?"
+
+"I should not dare to do it to please myself," I hastily replied.
+
+I thought I must have said something wrong, for he turned away with a
+peculiar smile. I colored with vexation, and was glad that Edith came in
+to divert his attention from me.
+
+Nothing could be more gentle and affectionate than his greeting. He went
+up and kissed her, as if she were a little child, put his arm round her,
+and taking one of her crutches, made her lean on him for support. I
+understood something of the secret of her idolatry.
+
+Where was the impenetrable reserve of which his mother had spoken?
+
+I had not yet seen him in society. As he talked with Edith, his head
+slightly bent and his profile turned towards me, I could look at him
+unobserved, and I was struck even more than the evening before with the
+transparent paleness of his complexion. Dark, delicate, and smooth as
+alabaster, it gave an air of extreme refinement and sensibility to his
+face, without detracting from its manliness or intellectual power. It
+was a face to peruse, to study, to think of,--it was a baffling,
+haunting face. Hieroglyphics of thought were there, too mysterious for
+the common eye to interpret. It was a dark lantern, flashing light
+before it, itself all in shadow.
+
+"It is a shame that you must leave us, Gabriella," said Edith, when
+after breakfast her pony was brought to the door. "Ernest," added she,
+turning to him, "I am _so_ glad you are come. You must persuade mamma to
+lay her commands on Gabriella, and not permit her to make such a slave
+of herself. I feel guilty to be at home doing nothing and she toiling
+six long hours."
+
+"It is Gabriella's own choice," cried Mrs. Linwood, a slight flush
+crossing her cheek. "Is it not, my child?"
+
+"Your wisdom guided my choice, dear madam," I answered, "and I thank you
+for it."
+
+"It would seem more natural to think of Miss--of Gabriella--as a pupil,
+than a teacher," observed Ernest, "if youth is the criterion by which we
+judge."
+
+"I am seventeen--in my eighteenth year," said I eagerly, urged by an
+unaccountable desire that he should not think me too young.
+
+"A very grave and reverend age!" said he sarcastically.
+
+I thought Mrs. Linwood looked unusually serious, and fearing I had said
+something wrong, I hastened to depart. Dearly as I loved my
+benefactress, it was not "that perfect love which casteth out fear." As
+her benevolence was warm, her justice was inflexible. Hers was the kind
+hand, but the firm nerves that could sustain a friend, while the knife
+of the surgeon entered the quivering flesh. She shrunk not from
+inflicting pain, if it was for another's good; but if she wounded with
+one hand, she strewed balm with the other. Her influence was strong,
+controlling, almost irresistible. Like the sunshine that forced the
+wind-blown traveller to throw aside his cloak, the warmth of her
+kindness penetrated, but it also _compelled_.
+
+I had a growing conviction that though she called me her adopted child,
+she did not wish me to presume upon her kindness so far as to look upon
+her son in the familiar light of a brother. There was no fear of my
+transgressing her wishes in this respect. I had already lost my
+dread,--my awe was melting away, but I could no more approach him with
+familiarity than if fourfold bars of gold surrounded him. I had another
+conviction, that she encouraged and wished me to return the attachment
+of Richard Clyde. Her urgent advice had induced me to accept the
+proffered correspondence with him,--a compliance which I afterwards
+bitterly regretted. He professed to write only as a _friend_, according
+to the bond, but amid the evergreen wreath of friendship, he concealed
+the glowing flowers of love. He was to return home in a few weeks. The
+commencement was approaching, which was to liberate him from scholastic
+fetters and crown him with the honors of manhood.
+
+"Why," thought I, "should Richard make me dread his return, when I would
+gladly welcome him with joy? Why in wishing to be more than a friend,
+does he make me desire that he should be less? And now Ernest Linwood is
+come back, of whom he so strangely warned me, methinks I dread him more
+than ever."
+
+Mrs. Linwood would attend the commencement. I had heard her tell Richard
+so. I had heard her repeat her intention since her son's return. _He_,
+of course, would feel interested in meeting his old class mates and
+friends. They would all feel interested in seeing and hearing how
+Richard Clyde sustained his proud distinction.
+
+"Gabriella, especially," said Edith with a smile, which, sweet as it
+was, I thought extremely silly. I blushed with vexation, when Ernest,
+lifting his grave eyes from his book, asked who was Richard Clyde.
+
+"You have seen him when he was quite a youth," answered his mother, "but
+have probably forgotten him. He is a young man of great promise, and has
+been awarded the first honors of his class. I feel a deep interest in
+him for his own sake, and moreover I am indebted to him for my
+introduction to our own Gabriella."
+
+"Indeed!" repeated her son, and glancing towards me, his countenance
+lighted up with a sudden look of intelligence.
+
+Why need Mrs. Linwood have said that? Why need she have associated him
+so intimately and significantly with me? And why could I not keep down
+the rising crimson, which might be attributed to another source than
+embarrassment? I opened my lips to deny any interest in Richard beyond
+that of friendly acquaintanceship; but Mrs. Linwood's mild, serene, yet
+resolute eyes, beat mine down and choked my eager utterance.
+
+Her eyes said as clearly as words could say, "what matters it to my son,
+how little or how great an interest you feel in Richard Clyde or any
+other person?"
+
+"You must accompany us, Gabriella," she said, with great kindness. "You
+have never witnessed this gathering of the literati of our State, and I
+know of no one who would enjoy it more. It will be quite an intellectual
+banquet."
+
+"I thank you, but I cannot accept the invitation," I answered,
+suppressing a sigh, not of disappointment at the necessity of refusal,
+but of mortification at the inference that would probably be drawn from
+this conversation. "My vacation does not begin till afterwards."
+
+"I think I can intercede with Mr. Regulus to release you," said Mrs.
+Linwood.
+
+"Thank you,--I do not wish to go,--indeed I would much rather not,
+unless," I added, fearful I had spoken too energetically, "you have an
+urgent desire that I should."
+
+"I wish very much to make you happy, and I think you would enjoy far
+more than you now anticipate. But there is time enough to decide. There
+will be a fortnight hence."
+
+"But the dresses, mamma," cried Edith; "you know she will need new
+dresses if she goes, and they will require some time to prepare."
+
+"As Gabriella will not _come out_, as it is called, till next winter,"
+replied Mrs. Linwood, "it is not a matter of so much consequence as you
+imagine. Simplicity is much more charming than ornament in the dress of
+a very young girl."
+
+"I agree with you, mother," observed Ernest, without lifting his eyes
+from his book, "especially where artificial ornaments are superfluous."
+
+"I did not think you were listening to our remarks about dress," said
+Edith. "This is something quite new, brother."
+
+"I am _not_ listening, and yet I hear. So be very careful not to betray
+yourself in my presence. But perhaps I had better retire to the library,
+then you can discuss with more freedom the mysteries of the toilet and
+the fascinations of dress."
+
+"No,--no. We have nothing to say that you may not hear;" but he rose and
+withdrew. Did he mean to imply that "artificial ornaments would be
+superfluous" to me? No,--it was only a general remark, and it would be
+vanity of vanities to apply it to myself.
+
+"I want you to do one thing to gratify me, dear Gabriella," continued
+Edith. "Please lay aside your mourning and assume a more cheerful garb.
+You have worn it two long years. Only think how long! It will be so
+refreshing to see you in white or delicate colors."
+
+I looked down at my mourning garments, and all the sorrow typified by
+their dark hue rolled back upon my heart. The awful scenes they
+commemorated,--the throes of agony which rent away life from the strong,
+the slow wasting of the feeble, the solemnity of death, the gloom of the
+grave, the anguish of bereavement, the abandonment of desolation that
+followed,--all came back. I lived them all over in one passing moment.
+
+"I never, never wish to lay aside the badges of mourning," I exclaimed;
+and, covering my face with my handkerchief, tears gushed unrestrainedly.
+"I shall never cease to mourn for my mother."
+
+"I did not mean to grieve you, Gabriella," cried Edith, putting her arms
+round me with sympathizing tenderness. "I thought time had softened your
+anguish, and that you could bear to speak of it now."
+
+"And so she ought," said Mrs. Linwood, in a tone of mild rebuke. "Time
+is God's ministering angel, commissioned to bind up the wounds of sorrow
+and to heal the bleeding heart. The same natural law which bids flowers
+to spring up and adorn the grave-sod causes the blossoms of hope to
+bloom again in the bosom of bereavement. Memory should be immortal, but
+mourning should last but a season."
+
+"I meant that I never should forget her," I cried, my tears flowing
+gently under her subduing accents. "Dear Mrs. Linwood, you have made it
+impossible for me always to mourn. Yet there are times, when her
+remembrance comes over me with such a power that I am borne down by it
+to the level of my first deep anguish. These are not frequent now. I
+some times fear there is danger of my being too happy after sustaining
+such a loss."
+
+"Beware, my dear child, of cherishing the morbid sensibility which
+believes happiness inconsistent with the remembrance of departed
+friends. Life to your mother, since your recollection of her, was a sad
+boon. As she possessed the faith, and died the death of the Christian,
+you are authorized to believe that she now possesses an exceeding and
+eternal weight of glory. Can you take in the grandeur of the idea,--_a
+weight of glory_? Contrast it with the burden of care under which you
+saw her crushed, and you will then be willing to exchange mourning for
+the oil of joy, and the spirit of heaviness for the garment of praise."
+
+"I _am_ willing, dear Mrs. Linwood, my kindest friend, my second mother.
+I will in all things be guided by your counsel and moulded by your will.
+No, oh no, I would not for worlds rob my mother of the glorious
+inheritance purchased by a Saviour's blood. But tell me one thing,--must
+we all pass through tribulation before entering the kingdom of heaven?
+Must we all travel with bleeding feet the thorny path of suffering,
+before being admitted into the presence of God?"
+
+"The Bible must answer you, my child. Do you remember, in the
+apocalyptic vision, when it was asked, 'What are these, which are
+arrayed in white robes? and whence come they?' It was answered, 'These
+are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their
+robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'"
+
+"Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and
+night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among
+them."
+
+I remembered them well.
+
+"Go on," I said, "that is not all."
+
+"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the
+sun light on them, nor any heat."
+
+She paused, and her voice became tremulous from deep emotion.
+
+"One verse more," I cried, "only one."
+
+"For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and
+shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe all
+tears from their eyes."
+
+There was silence for a few moments. All words seemed vain and
+sacrilegious after this sublimest language of revelation.
+
+At length I said,--
+
+"Let me wear white, the livery of my mother, in heaven. 'T is a sin to
+mourn for her whose tears the hand of God has wiped away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+One week, and another week passed by, and every evening was as charming
+as the first of the return of Ernest Linwood. In that fortnight were
+compressed the social and intellectual joys of a lifetime. Music,
+reading, and conversation filled the measure of the evening hours. Such
+music, such reading, and such conversation as I never heard before. I
+had been accustomed to read aloud a great deal to my own dear mother, to
+Mrs. Linwood, and to my young pupils also, and I had reason to think I
+could read remarkably well; but I could not read like Ernest,--I never
+heard any one that could. He infused his own soul into the soul of the
+author, and brought out his deepest meanings. When he read poetry I sat
+like one entranced, bound by the double spell of genius and music. Mrs.
+Linwood could sew; Edith could sew or net, but I could do nothing but
+listen. I could feel the blood tingling to my finger ends, the veins
+throbbing in my temples, and the color coming and going in my cheek.
+
+"You love poetry," said he once, pausing, and arresting my fascinated
+glance.
+
+"Love it," I exclaimed, sighing in the fulness of delight, "it is the
+passion of my soul."
+
+"You have three passions, music, flowers, and poetry," said he, with a
+smile that seemed to mock the extravagance of my language, "which is the
+regal one, the passion of passions?"
+
+"I can hardly imagine the existence of one without the other," I
+answered, "their harmony is so entire; flowers are silent poetry, and
+poetry is written music."
+
+"And music?" he asked.
+
+"Is the breath of heaven, the language of angels. As the voice of Echo
+lingered in the woods, where she loved to wander, when her beauteous
+frame had vanished, so music remains to show the angel nature we have
+lost."
+
+I blushed at having said so much, but the triune passion warmed my soul.
+
+"Gabriella is a poetess herself," said Edith, "and may well speak of the
+magic of numbers. She has a portfolio, filled with papers written, like
+Ezekiel's scroll, within and without. I wish you would let me get it,
+Gabriella,--do."
+
+"Impossible!" I answered, "I never wrote but one poem for exhibition,
+and the experience of that hour was sufficient for a lifetime."
+
+"You were but a child then, Gabriella. Mr. Regulus would give it a very
+different reception now, I know he would," said Edith.
+
+"If it is a child's story, will you not relate it?" asked Ernest; "you
+have excited my curiosity."
+
+"Curiosity, brother, I thought you possessed none."
+
+"Interest is a better word. If I understand aright, the buddings of
+Gabriella's genius met with an untimely blight."
+
+I know not how it was, but I felt in an exceedingly ingenuous mood, and
+I related this episode in my childish history without reserve. I touched
+lightly on the championship of Richard Clyde, but I was obliged to
+introduce it. I had forgotten that he was associated with the narration,
+or I should have been silent.
+
+"This youthful knight, and the hero of commencement day are one, then,"
+observed Ernest. "He is a fortunate youth, with the myrtle and the
+laurel both entwining his brows; you must be proud of your champion."
+
+"I am _grateful_ to him," I replied, resolved to make a bold effort to
+remove the impression I knew he had received. Mrs. Linwood was not
+present, or I could not have spoken as I did. "He defended me because he
+thought I was oppressed; he befriended me because my friends were few.
+He has the generous spirit of chivalry which cannot see wrong without
+seeking to redress it, or suffering without wishing to relieve it. I am
+under unspeakable obligations to him, for he it was who spoke kindly of
+the obscure little girl to your mother and sister, and obtained for me
+the priceless blessing of their love."
+
+"I dare say _they_ feel very grateful to him, likewise," said he, in a
+tone of genuine feeling. "I acknowledge _my_ share of the obligation.
+But is he so disinterested as to claim no recompense, or does he find
+that chivalry, like goodness, is its own exceeding great reward?"
+
+"I thought I regarded him as a brother, till now Edith has convinced me
+I am mistaken."
+
+"How so?" he asked, with so peculiar an expression, I forgot what I was
+going to say.
+
+"How so?" he repeated, while Edith leaned towards him and laid her hand
+on his.
+
+"By showing me how strong and fervent a sister's love can be."
+
+His eyes flashed; they looked like fountains of light, full to
+overflowing. His arm involuntarily encircled Edith, and a smile,
+beautiful as a woman's, curled his lips.
+
+"How he does love her!" thought I; "strong indeed must be the counter
+charm, that can rival hers."
+
+I had never seen his spirits so light as they were the remainder of the
+evening. They rose even to gaiety; and again I wondered what had become
+of the reserve and moodiness whose dark shadow had preceded his
+approach.
+
+"We are so happy now," said Edith, when we were alone, "I dread the
+interruption of company. Ernest does not care for it, and if it be of an
+uncongenial kind, he wraps himself in a mantle of reserve, that neither
+sun nor wind can unfold. After commencement, our house will be
+overflowing with city friends. They will return with us, and we shall
+not probably be alone again for the whole summer."
+
+She sighed at the anticipation, and I echoed the sound. I was somebody
+now; but what a nobody I should dwindle into, in comparison with the
+daughters of wealth and fashion who would gather at Grandison Place!
+
+"Ernest must like you very much, Gabriella, or he would not show the
+interest he does in all that concerns you. You do not know what a
+compliment he pays you, because you have not seen him in company with
+other young girls. I have sometimes felt quite distressed at his
+indifference when they have been my guests. He has such a contempt for
+affectation and display, that he cannot entirely conceal it. He is not
+apt to express his opinion of any one, but there are indirect ways of
+discovering it. I found him this morning in the library, standing before
+that beautiful picture of the Italian flower girl, which you admire so
+much. He was so absorbed, that he did not perceive my entrance, till I
+stole behind him and laid my hand on his shoulder. 'Do you not see a
+likeness?' he asked. 'To whom?' 'To Gabriella.' 'To Gabriella!' I
+repeated. 'Yes, it is like her, but I never observed it before.' 'A very
+striking resemblance,' he said, 'only she has more mind in her face.'"
+
+"That enchanting picture like me!" I exclaimed, "impossible! There is,
+there can be no likeness. It is nothing but association. He knows I am
+the flower-girl of the house, and that is the reason he thought of me."
+
+I tried to speak with indifference, but my voice trembled with delight.
+
+The next morning, when I came in from the garden, all laden with
+flowers, an irresistible impulse drew me to the library. It was very
+early. The hush of repose still lingered over the household, and that
+particular apartment, in which the silent eloquence of books, paintings,
+and statues hung like a solemn spell, seemed in such deep quietude, I
+started at the light echo of my own footsteps.
+
+I stole with guilty consciousness towards the picture, in whose
+lineaments the fastidious eye of Ernest Linwood had traced a similitude
+to mine. They were all engraven on my memory, but now they possessed a
+new fascination; and I stood before it, gazing into the soft, dark
+depths of the eyes, in which innocent mildness and bashful tenderness
+were mingled like the _clare-obscure_ of an Italian moonlight; gazing on
+the dawning smile that seemed to play over the beautiful and glowing
+lips, and the bright, rich, dark hair, so carelessly, gracefully
+arranged you could almost see the balmy breezes of her native clime
+rustling amid the silken tresses; on the charming contour of the head
+and neck, slightly turned as if about to look back and give a parting
+glance at the garden she had reluctantly quitted.
+
+As I thus stood, with my hands loaded with blossoms, a flower basket
+suspended from my arm, and a straw hat such as shepherdesses wear, on my
+head,--my garden costume,--involuntarily imitating the attitude of the
+lovely flower girl, the door, which had been left ajar, silently opened,
+and Ernest Linwood entered.
+
+Had I been detected in the act of stealing or counterfeiting money, I
+could not have felt more intense shame. He knew what brought me there. I
+saw it in his penetrating eye, his half-suppressed smile; and, ready to
+sink with mortification, I covered my face with the roses I held in my
+hands.
+
+"Do you admire the picture?" he asked, advancing to where I stood; "do
+you perceive the resemblance?"
+
+I shook my head without answering; I was too much disconcerted to speak.
+What would he think of my despicable vanity, my more than childish
+foolishness?
+
+"I am glad to see we have congenial tastes," he said, with a smile in
+his voice. "I came on purpose to gaze on that charming representation of
+youth and innocence, without dreaming that its original was by it."
+
+"Original!" I repeated. "Surely you do mock me,--'t is but a fancy
+sketch,--and in nought but youth and flowers resembles me."
+
+"We cannot see ourselves, and it is well we cannot. The image reflected
+from the mirror is but a cold, faint shadow of the living, breathing
+soul. But why this deep confusion,--that averted face and downcast eye?
+Have I offended by my intrusion? Do you wish me to withdraw, and yield
+to you the privilege of solitary admiration?"
+
+"It is I who am the intruder," I answered, looking wistfully towards the
+door, through which I was tempted to rush at once. "I thought you had
+not risen,--I thought,--I came"--
+
+"And why did you come at this hour, Gabriella? and what has caused such
+excessive embarrassment? Will you not be ingenuous enough to tell me?"
+
+"I will," answered I, calmed by the gentle composure of his manner, "if
+you will assert that you do not know already."
+
+"I do not _know_, but I can _imagine_. Edith has betrayed my admiration
+of that picture. You came to justify my taste, and to establish beyond a
+doubt the truth of the likeness."
+
+"No, indeed! I did not; I cannot explain the impulse which led me
+hither. I only wish I had resisted it as I ought."
+
+I suppose I must have looked quite miserable, from the efforts he made
+to restore my self-complacency. He took the basket from my arm and
+placed it on the table, moved a chair forward for me, and another for
+himself, as if preparing for a morning _tete a tete_.
+
+"What would Mrs. Linwood say, if she saw me here at this early hour
+alone with her son?" thought I, obeying his motion, and tossing my hat
+on the light stairs that were winding up behind me. I did not fell the
+possibility of declining the interview, for there was a power about him
+which overmastered without their knowing it the will of others.
+
+"If you knew how much more pleasing is the innocent shame and artless
+sensibility you manifest, than the ease and assurance of the practised
+worldling, you would not blush for the impulse which drew you hither. To
+the sated taste and weary eye, simplicity and truth are refreshing as
+the spring-time of nature after its dreary winter. The cheek that
+blushes, the eye that moistens, and the heart that palpitates, are
+sureties of indwelling purity and candor. What a pity that they are as
+evanescent as the bloom of these flowers and the fragrance they exhale!
+You have never been in what is called the great world?"
+
+"Never. I passed one winter in Boston; but I was in deep mourning and
+did not go into society. Besides, your mother thought me too young. It
+was more than a year ago."
+
+"You will be considered old enough this winter. Do you not look forward
+with eager anticipations and bright hopes to the realization of youth's
+golden dreams?"
+
+"I as often look forward with dread as hope. I am told they who see much
+of the world, lose their faith in human virtue, their belief in
+sincerity, their implicit trust in what seems good and fair. All the
+pleasures of the world would not be an equivalent for the loss of
+these."
+
+"And do you possess all these now?"
+
+"I think I do. I am sure I ought. I have never yet been deceived. I
+should doubt that the setting sun would rise again, as soon as the truth
+of those who have professed to love me. Your mother, Edith--and"--
+
+"Richard Clyde," he added, with a smile, and that truth-searching glance
+which often brought unbidden words to my lips.
+
+"Yes; I have perfect reliance in his friendship."
+
+"And in his love," he added; "why not finish the sentence?"
+
+"Because I have no right to betray his confidence,--even supposing your
+assertion to be true. I have spoken of the only feeling, whose existence
+I am willing to admit, and even that was drawn from me. What if _I_ turn
+inquisitor?" said I, suddenly emboldened to look in his face. "Have
+_you_, who have seen so much more of life, experienced the chilling
+influences which you deprecate for me?"
+
+"I am naturally suspicious and distrustful," he answered. "Have you
+never been told so?"
+
+"If I have, it required your own assertion to make me believe it."
+
+"Do you not see the shadow on my brow? It has been there since my cradle
+hours. It was born with me, and is a part of myself,--just as much as
+the shadow I cast upon the sunshine. I can no more remove it than I
+could the thunder-cloud from Jehovah's arch."
+
+I trembled at the strength of his language, and it seemed as if the
+shadow were stealing over my own soul. His employment was prophetic. He
+was pulling the rose-leaves from my basket, and scattering them
+unconsciously on the floor.
+
+"See what I have done," said he, looking down on the wreck.
+
+"So the roses of confidence are scattered and destroyed by the cruel
+hand of mistrust," cried I, stooping to gather the fallen petals.
+
+"Let them be," said he, sadly, "you cannot restore them."
+
+"I know it; but I can remove the ruins."
+
+I was quite distressed at the turn the conversation had taken. I could
+not bear to think that one to whom the Creator had been so bountiful of
+his gifts, should appreciate so little the blessings given. He, to talk
+of shadows, in the blazing noonday of fortune; to pant with thirst, when
+wave swelling after wave of pure crystal water wooed with refreshing
+coolness his meeting lips.
+
+Oh, starver in the midst of God's plenty! think of the wretched sons of
+famine, and be wise.
+
+"You must have a strange power over me," said he, rising and walking to
+one of the alcoves, in which the books were arranged. "Seldom indeed do
+I allude to my own individuality. Forget it. I have been very happy
+lately. My soul, like a high mountain, lifts itself into the sunshine,
+leaving the vapors and clouds rolling below. I have been breathing an
+atmosphere pure and fresh as the world's first morning, redolent with
+the fragrance of Eden's virgin blossoms."
+
+He paused a moment, then approaching his own portrait, glanced from it
+to the flower girl, and back again from the flower girl to his own
+image.
+
+"Clouds and sunshine," he exclaimed, "flowers and thorns; such is the
+union nature loves. And is it not well? Clouds temper the dazzle of the
+sunbeams,--thorns protect the tender flowers. Have you read many of
+these books?" he asked, with a sudden transition.
+
+"A great many," I answered, unspeakably relieved to hear him resume his
+natural tone and manner; "too many for my mind's good."
+
+"How so? These are all select works,--golden sheaves of knowledge,
+gathered from the chaff and bound by the reaping hand."
+
+"I mean that I cannot read with moderation. My rapid eye takes in more
+than my judgment can criticize or my memory retain. That is one reason
+why I like to hear another read. Sound does not travel with the rapidity
+of light, and then the echo lingers in the ear."
+
+"Yes. It is charming when the eye of one and the ear of another dwell in
+sympathy on the same inspiring sentiments; when the reader, glowing with
+enthusiasm, turns from the page before him to a living page, printed by
+the hand of God, in fair, divine characters. It is like looking from the
+shining heavens to a clear, crystallized stream, and seeing its glories
+reflected there, and our own image likewise, tremulously bright."
+
+"Oh!" thought I, "how many times have I thus listened; but has he ever
+thus read?"
+
+I wish I could recollect all the conversation of the morning,--it was so
+rich and varied. I sat, unconscious of the fading flowers and the
+passing moments; unconscious of the faint vibration of that _deep, under
+chord_, which breathes in low, passionate strains, life's tender and
+pathetic mirror.
+
+"I am glad you like this room," he continued. "Here you can sit, queen
+of the past, surrounded by beings more glorious than those that walk the
+earth or dwell in air or sea. You travel not, yet the wonders of earth's
+various climes are around and about you. Buried cities are exhumed at
+your bidding, and their dim palaces glitter once more with burning gold.
+And here, above all the Eleusinian mysteries of the human heart are laid
+bare, without the necessity of revealing your own. But I am detaining
+you too long. Your languid blossoms reproach me. When you come here
+again, do not forget that we have here thought and felt in unison."
+
+Just as he was leaving the library, Mrs. Linwood entered. She started on
+seeing him, and her eye rested on me with an anxious, troubled look.
+
+"You are become an early riser, my son," she said.
+
+"You encourage so excellent a habit, do you not, my mother?"
+
+"Certainly; but it seems to me a walk in the fresh morning air would be
+more health-giving than a seat within walls, damp with the mould of
+antiquity."
+
+"We have brought the dewy morning within doors," said he; while I,
+gathering flowers, basket, and hat, waited for Mrs. Linwood to move,
+that I might leave the room. She stood between me and the threshold, and
+for the first time I noticed in her face a resemblance to her son. It
+might be because a slight cloud rested on her brow.
+
+"You will not have time to arrange your flowers this morning," she
+gravely observed to me. "It is almost the breakfast hour, and you are
+still in your garden costume."
+
+My eyes bowed beneath her mildly rebuking glance, and the fear of her
+displeasure chilled the warm rapture which had left its glow upon my
+cheek.
+
+"Let me assist you," he cried, in an animated tone. "It was I who
+encroached on your time, and must bear the blame, if blame indeed there
+be. There is a homely proverb, that 'many hands make light work.' Come,
+let us prove its truth."
+
+I thought Mrs. Linwood sighed, as he followed me into the drawing-room,
+and with quick, graceful fingers, made ample amends for the negligence
+be had caused. His light, careless manner restored me to ease, and at
+breakfast Mrs. Linwood's countenance wore its usual expression of calm
+benevolence.
+
+Had I done wrong? I had sought no clandestine interview. Why should I?
+It was foolish to wish to look at the beautiful flower girl; but it was
+a natural, innocent wish, born of something purer and better than vanity
+and self-love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+I lingered after school was dismissed, to ask permission of Mr. Regulus
+to attend the commencement. It was Mrs. Linwood's wish, and of course a
+law to me.
+
+"Will you release me one week before the session closes?" I asked, "Mrs.
+Linwood does not wish to leave me behind, but I do not care much to go."
+
+"Of course I will release you, my child, but it will seem as if the
+flower season were past when you are gone. I wonder now, how I ever
+taught without your assistance. I wonder what I shall do when you leave
+me?"
+
+"Mrs. Linwood wished me to say to you," said I, quite touched by his
+kind, affectionate manner, "that she does not wish me to renew our
+engagement. She will take me to town next winter, satisfied for the
+present with the discipline I have experienced under your guardian
+care."
+
+"So soon!" he exclaimed, "I was not prepared for this."
+
+"So soon, Mr. Regulus? I have been with you one long year."
+
+"It may have seemed long to you, but it has been short as a dream to me.
+A very pleasant time has it been, too pleasant to last."
+
+He took up his dark, formidable ferula, and leaned his forehead
+thoughtfully upon it.
+
+"And it has been pleasant to me, Mr. Regulus. I dreaded it very much at
+first, but every step I have taken in the path of instruction has been
+made smooth and green beneath my feet. No dull, lagging hour has dragged
+me backward in my daily duties. The dear children have been good and
+affectionate, and you, my dear master, have crowned me with loving
+kindness from day to day. How shall I convince you of my gratitude, and
+what return can I make for your even parental care?"
+
+I spoke earnestly, for my heart was in my words. His unvarying
+gentleness and tenderness to me, (since that one fiery shower that
+converted for a time the Castalian fountain into a Dead Sea,) had won my
+sincere and deep regard. He had seemed lately rather more reserved than
+usual, and I valued still more his undisguised expressions of interest
+and affection.
+
+"You owe me nothing," said he, and I could not help noticing an unwonted
+trepidation in his manner, and on one sallow cheek a deep flush was
+spreading. "Long years of kindness, tenfold to mine, could not atone for
+the harshness and injustice of which I was once guilty. You will go into
+the world and blush like Waller's rose, to be so admired. You will be
+surrounded by new friends, new lovers, and look back to these walls as
+to a prison-house, and to me, as the grim jailer of your youth."
+
+"No indeed, Mr. Regulus; you wrong yourself and me. Memory will hang
+many a sweet garland on these classic walls, and will turn gratefully to
+you, as the benefactor of my childhood, the mentor of my growing years."
+
+My voice choked. A strange dread took possession of me, he looked so
+agitated, so little like himself. His hand trembled so that it dropped
+the ruler, that powerful hand, in whose strong grasp I had seen the pale
+delinquent writhe in terror. I hardly know what I dreaded, but the air
+seemed thick and oppressive, and I longed to escape into the open
+sunshine.
+
+"Gabriella, my child," said he, "wait one moment. I did not think it
+would require so much courage to confess so much weakness. I have been
+indulging in dreams so wild, yet so sweet, that I fear to breathe them,
+knowing that I must wake to the cold realities of life. I know not how
+it is, but you have twined yourself about my heart so gradually, so
+gently, but so strongly, that I cannot separate you from it. A young and
+fragrant vine, you have covered it with beauty and freshness. You have
+diffused within it an atmosphere of spring. You thought the cold
+mathematician, the stern philosopher could not feel, but I tell thee,
+child, we are the very ones that _can_ and _do_ feel. There is as much
+difference between our love and the boyish passion which passes for
+love, as there is between the flash of the glowworm and the welding heat
+that fuses bars of steel. Oh! Gabriella, do not laugh at this
+confession, or deem it lightly made. I hope nothing,--I ask nothing; and
+yet if you could,--if you would trust your orphan youth to my keeping, I
+would guard it as the most sacred trust God ever gave to man."
+
+He paused from intense emotion, and wiped the drops of perspiration from
+his forehead, while I stood ready to sink with shame and sorrow. No glow
+of triumph, no elation of grateful vanity warmed my heart, or exalted my
+pride. I felt humbled, depressed. Where I had been accustomed to look up
+with respect, I could not bear to look down in pity, it was so strange,
+so unexpected. I was stunned, bewildered. The mountain had lost its
+crown,--it had fallen in an avalanche at my feet.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Regulus!" said I, when I at last liberated my imprisoned voice,
+"you honor me too much. I never dreamed of such a,--such a distinction.
+I am not worthy of it,--indeed I am not. It makes me very unhappy to
+think of your cherishing such feelings for me, who have looked up to you
+so long with so much veneration and respect. I will always esteem and
+revere you, dear Mr. Regulus,--always think of you with gratitude and
+affection; but do not, I entreat you, ever allude again to any other
+sentiment. You do not know how very miserable it makes me."
+
+I tried to express myself in the gentlest manner possible, but the poor
+man had lost all command of his feelings. He had confined them in his
+breast so long, that the moment he released them, they swelled and rose
+like the genius liberated from the chest of the fisherman, and refused
+to return to the prison-house they had quitted. His brows contracted,
+his lips quivered, and turning aside with a spasmodic gesture, he
+covered his face with his handkerchief.
+
+I could not bear this,--it quite broke my heart. I felt as remorseful as
+if every tear he was hiding was a drop of blood. Walking hastily to him,
+and laying my hand on his arm, I exclaimed,--
+
+"Don't, my dear master!" and burst into tears myself.
+
+How foolish we must have appeared to a bystander, who knew the cause of
+our tears,--one weeping that he loved too well, the other that she could
+not love in return. How ridiculous to an uninterested person would that
+tall, awkward, grave man seem, in love with a young girl so much his
+junior, so childlike and so unconscious of the influence she had
+acquired.
+
+"How foolish this is!" cried he, as if participating in these
+sentiments. Then removing the handkerchief from his face, he ran his
+fingers vigorously through his hair, till it stood up frantically round
+his brow, drew the sleeves of his coat strenuously over his wrists, and
+straightening himself to his tall height, seemed resolved to be a man
+once more. I smiled afterwards, when I recollected his figure; but I did
+not then,--thank heaven, I did not smile then,--I would not have done it
+for "the crown the Bourbons lost."
+
+Anxious to close a scene so painful, I approached the door though with a
+lingering, hesitating step. I wanted to say something, but knew not what
+to utter.
+
+"You will let me be your friend still," said he, taking my hand in both
+his. "You will not think worse of me, for a weakness which has so much
+to excuse it. And, Gabriella, my dear child, should the time ever come,
+when you need a friend and counsellor, should the sky so bright now be
+darkened with clouds, remember there is one who would willingly die to
+save you from sorrow or evil. Will you remember this?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Regulus, how could I forget it?"
+
+"There are those younger and more attractive," he continued, "who may
+profess more, and yet feel less. I would not, however, be unjust. God
+save me from the meanness of envy, the baseness of jealousy. I fear I
+did not do justice to young Clyde, when I warned you of his attentions.
+I believe he is a highly honorable young man. Ernest Linwood,"--he
+paused, and his shaded eyes sought mine, with a glance of penetrating
+power,--"is, I am told, a man of rare and fascinating qualities. He is
+rich beyond his need, and will occupy a splendid position in the social
+world. His mother will probably have very exalted views with regard to
+the connections he may form. Forgive me if I am trespassing on forbidden
+ground. I did not mean,--I have no right,"--
+
+He stopped, for my confusion was contagious. My face crimsoned, even my
+fingers were suffused with the rosy hue of shame. Nor was it shame
+alone. Indignation mingled with it its deeper dye.
+
+"If you suppose, Mr. Regulus," said I, in a wounded and excited tone,
+"that _I_ have any aspirations, that would conflict with Mrs. Linwood's
+ambitious views, you wrong me very much. Oh! if I thought that he, that
+she, that you, or anybody in the world could believe such a thing"--
+
+I could not utter another word. I remembered Mrs. Linwood's countenance
+when she entered the library. I remembered many things, which might
+corroborate my fears.
+
+"You are as guileless as the unweaned lamb, Gabriella, and long, long
+may you remain so," he answered, with a gentleness that disarmed my
+anger. "Mine was an unprompted suggestion, about as wise, I perceive, as
+my remarks usually are. I am a sad blunderer. May heaven pardon the pain
+I have caused, for the sake of my pure intentions. I do not believe it
+possible for a designing thought to enter your mind, or a feeling to
+find admittance into your heart, that angels might not cherish. But you
+are so young and inexperienced, so unsuspecting and confiding;--but no
+matter, God bless you, and keep you forever under his most holy
+guardianship!"
+
+Wringing my hand so hard that it ached long afterwards, he turned away,
+and descended the steps more rapidly than he had ever done before. In
+his excitement he forgot his hat, and was pursuing his way bareheaded,
+through the sunny atmosphere.
+
+"He must not go through town in that way, for the boys to laugh at him,"
+thought I, catching up his hat and running to the door.
+
+"Mr. Regulus!" I cried, waving it above my head, to attract his
+attention.
+
+He started, turned, saw the hat, run his fingers through his long hair,
+smiled, and came back. I met him more than half way.
+
+"I did not know that I had left my head, as well as my heart behind,"
+said he, with a sickly effort to be facetious; "thank you, God bless you
+once again."
+
+With another iron pressure of my aching hand, he dashed his hat on his
+lion-like head and left me.
+
+I walked home as one in a dream, wondering if this interview were real
+or ideal; wondering if the juice of the milk-white flower, "made purple
+by love's wand," had been squeezed by fairy fingers into the eyes of my
+preceptor, in his slumbering hours, to cause this strange passion;
+wondering why the spirit of love, like the summer wind, stealing softly
+through the whispering boughs, breathes where it listeth, and we cannot
+tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; and wondering most of all
+if--but I cannot describe the thoughts that drifted through my mind,
+vague and changing as the clouds that went hurrying after each other
+over the deep blue ether.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Commencement day!--a day of feverish anxiety and excitement to the young
+student, who is to step forth before the public eye, a candidate for the
+laurels of fame;--a day of weariness and stiffness to the dignified
+professors, obliged to sit hour after hour, listening to the florid
+eloquence whose luxuriance they have in vain attempted to prune, or
+trying to listen while the spirit yawns and stretches itself to its
+drowsy length;--a day of intense interest to the young maiden, who sees
+among the youthful band of aspirants one who is the "bright particular
+star" round which her pure and trembling hopes revolve.
+
+It was a day of excitement to me, for every thing was novel, and
+therefore interesting. It was the first time I had ever been in a dense
+crowd, and I felt the electric fluid, always collected where the great
+heart of humanity is throbbing, thrilling in my veins, and ready to
+flash at the master-stroke of eloquence. I was dazzled by the brilliant
+display of beauty and fashion that lighted up the classic walls as with
+living sunbeams. Such clusters of mimic blossoms and flowing ringlets
+wreathed together round fair, blooming faces; such a cloud of soft, airy
+drapery floating over lithe figures, swaying forward like light boughs
+agitated by the wind; such a fluttering of snowy fans, making the cool,
+pleasant sound of rain drops pattering among April leaves; such bright
+eager eyes, turned at every sounding step towards the open door,--I had
+never looked upon the like before. I sat in a dream of delight, without
+thinking that it might be thought vulgar to _appear_ delighted, and
+still more to express undisguised admiration.
+
+I dared not look to the platform, where the faculty and students were
+arranged in imposing ranks, for there was one pair of familiar,
+sparkling eyes, that were sure to beat mine back with their steadfast
+gaze. I did not like this persevering scrutiny, for I was sure it would
+attract the attention of others, and then draw it on myself. He had
+grown taller, Richard Clyde had, since I had seen him, his countenance
+was more manly, his manner more polished. He had been with us the
+evening before, but the room was crowded with company, and I was careful
+not to give him a moment's opportunity of speaking to me alone. But I
+read too well in his sincere and earnest eyes, that time had wrought no
+change in the fervor of his feelings, or the constancy of his
+attachment.
+
+Mrs. Linwood, though surrounded by friends of the most distinguished
+character, honored him by signal marks of attention. I was proud of him
+as a friend. Why did he wish to be more?
+
+"What a fine young man Clyde is!" I heard some one remark who sat behind
+us. "It is said he is the most promising student in the university."
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "I have heard that several wealthy gentlemen in
+Boston are going to send him to Europe to complete his education, as his
+own income will not allow him to incur the expense."
+
+"That is a great compliment," observed the first voice, "and I
+have no doubt he deserves it. They say, too, that he is betrothed
+to a young girl in the country, very pretty, but in most indigent
+circumstances,--an early attachment,--children's romance."
+
+Was it possible that village gossip had reached these venerable walls?
+But hark to the other voice.
+
+"I have heard so, but they say she has been adopted by a rich lady,
+whose name I have forgotten. Her own mother was of very mysterious and
+disreputable character, I am told, whom no one visited or respected.
+Quite an outcast."
+
+I started as if an arrow had passed through my ears, or rather entered
+them, for it seemed quivering there. Never before had I heard one
+sullying word breathed on the spotless snow of my mother's character. Is
+it strange that the cold, venomous tongue of slander, hissing at my very
+back, should make me shudder and recoil as if a serpent were there?
+
+A hand touched my shoulder, lightly, gently, but I knew its touch,
+though never felt but once before. I looked up involuntarily, and met
+the eyes of Ernest Linwood, who was standing close to the seat I
+occupied. I did not know he was there. He had wedged the crowd silently,
+gradually, till he reached the spot he had quitted soon after our
+entrance, to greet his former class mates. I knew by his countenance
+that he had heard all, and a sick, deadly feeling came over me. He, to
+hear my mother's name made a byword and reproach, myself alluded to as
+the indigent daughter of an outcast,--he, who seemed already lifted as
+high above me on the eagle wings of fortune, as the eyry of the
+king-bird is above the nest of the swallow,--it was more than I could
+bear.
+
+I said I knew by his countenance that he had heard all. I never saw such
+an expression as his face wore,--such burning indignation, such
+withering scorn. I trembled to think of the central fires from which
+such flames darted. As he caught my glance, an instantaneous change came
+over it. Compassion softened every lineament. Still his eye of power
+held me down. It said, "be quiet, be calm,--I am near, be not afraid."
+
+"I wish I could get you a glass of water," said he, in a low voice, for
+I suppose I looked deadly pale; "but it would be impossible I fear in
+this crowd,--the aisles are impenetrable."
+
+"Thank you," I answered, "there is no need,--but if I could only leave."
+
+I looked despairingly at the masses of living beings on every side,
+crowding the pews, filling the aisles, standing on the window-sills, on
+the tops of the pews, leaning from the gallery,--and felt that I was a
+prisoner. The sultry air of August, confined in the chapel walls, and
+deprived of its vital principle by so many heaving lungs, weighed
+oppressively on mine. I could feel behind me the breathing of the lips
+of slander, and it literally seemed to scorch me. Ernest took my fan
+from my hand and fanned me without intermission, or I think I must have
+fainted.
+
+As I sat with downcast eyes, whose drooping lashes were heavy with
+unshed tears, I saw a glass of water held before me by an unsteady hand.
+I looked up and saw Richard Clyde, his student's robe of flowing black
+silk gathered up by his left arm, who had literally forced his way
+through a triple row of men. We were very near the platform, there being
+but one row of pews between.
+
+I drank the water eagerly, gratefully. Even before those blistering
+words were uttered, I had felt as if a glass of cold water would be
+worth all the gems of the East; now it was life itself.
+
+"Are you ill, Gabriella?" whispered Mrs. Linwood, who with Edith sat
+directly in front, and whose eyes had watched anxiously the motions of
+Richard. "Ah! I see this heat is killing you."
+
+"_That is she_, I do believe," hissed the serpent tongue behind me.
+
+"Hush, she may hear you."
+
+All was again still around me, the stillness of the multitudinous sea,
+for every wave of life heaved restlessly, producing a kind of murmur,
+like that of rustling leaves in an autumnal forest. Then a sound loud as
+the thunders of the roaring ocean came rushing on the air. It was the
+burst of acclamation which greeted Richard Clyde, first in honor though
+last in time. I bent my ear to listen, but the words blent confusedly
+together, forming one wave of utterance, that rolled on without leaving
+one idea behind. I knew he was eloquent, from the enthusiastic applause
+which occasionally interrupted him, but I had lost the power of
+perception; and had Demosthenes risen from his grave, it would scarcely
+have excited in me any emotion.
+
+Was this my introduction to that world,--that great world, of which I
+had heard and thought and dreamed so much? How soon had my garlands
+faded,--my fine gold become dim! Could they not have spared me one day,
+_me_, who had never injured them? And yet they might aim their barbed
+darts at me. I would not care for that,--oh, no, it was not that. It was
+the blow that attacked an angel mother's fame. O my mother! could they
+not spare thee even in thy grave, where the wicked are said to cease
+from troubling and the weary are at rest? Could they not let thee sleep
+in peace, thou tempest-tost and weary hearted, even in the dark and
+narrow house, sacred from the footstep of the living?
+
+Another thundering burst of applause called my spirit from the
+grass-grown sod, made damp and green by the willow's shade, to the
+crowded church and the bustle and confusion of life. Then followed the
+presentation of the parchment rolls and the ceremonies usual at the
+winding up of this time-honored day. It all seemed like unmeaning
+mummery to me. The majestic president, with his little flat black cap,
+set like a tile on the top of his head, was a man of pasteboard and
+springs, and even the beautiful figures that lighted up the walls had
+lost their coloring and life. There was, indeed, a wondrous change,
+independent of that within my own soul. The excessive heat had wilted
+these flowers of loveliness and faded their bright hues. Their uncurled
+ringlets hung dangling down their cheeks, whose roses were heightened to
+an unbecoming crimson, or withered to a sickly pallor; their gossamer
+drapery, deprived of its delicate stiffening, flapped like the loose
+sails of a vessel wet by the spray. Here and there was a blooming
+maiden, still as fair and cool as if sprinkled with dew, round whom the
+atmosphere seemed refreshed as by the sparkling of a _jet d'eau_. These,
+like myself, were novices, who had brought with them the dewy innocence
+of life's morning hours; but they had not, like me, heard the hissing of
+the adder among their roses.
+
+"Be calm,--be courageous," said Ernest, in a scarcely audible tone, as
+bending down he gave the fan into my hand; "the arrow rebounds from an
+impenetrable surface."
+
+As we turned to leave the church, I felt my hand drawn round the arm of
+Richard Clyde. How he had cleft the living mass so quickly I could not
+tell; but he had made his way where an arrow could hardly penetrate. I
+looked round for Edith,--but Ernest watched over her, like an earthly
+providence. My backward glance to her prevented my seeing the faces of
+those who were seated behind me. But what mattered it? They were
+strangers, and heaven grant that they would ever remain so.
+
+"Are you entirely recovered?" asked Richard, in an anxious tone. "I
+never saw any one's countenance change so instantaneously as yours. You
+were as white as your cambric handkerchief. You are not accustomed to
+such stifling crowds, where we seem plunged in an exhausted receiver."
+
+"I never wish to be in such another," I answered, with emphasis. "I
+never care to leave home again."
+
+"I am sorry your first impressions should have been so
+disagreeable,--but I hope you have been interested in some small degree.
+You do not know what inspiration there was in your presence. At first, I
+thought I would rather be shot from the cannon's mouth than speak in
+your hearing; but after the first shock, you were like a fountain of
+living waters playing on my soul."
+
+Poor Richard! how could I tell him that I had not heard understandingly
+one sentence that he uttered? or how could I explain the cause of my
+mental distraction? He had cast his pearls to the wind; his diamonds to
+the sand.
+
+Mrs. Linwood was a guest of the president, who was an intimate and
+valued friend. I would have given worlds for a little solitary nook,
+where I could hide myself from every eye; for a seat beneath the wild
+oaks that girdled the cottage of my childhood; but the house was
+thronged with the literati of the State, and wherever I turned I met the
+gaze of strangers. If I could have seen Mrs. Linwood alone, or Edith
+alone, and told them how wantonly, how cruelly my feelings had been
+wounded, it would have relieved the fulness, the oppression of my heart.
+But that was impossible. Mrs. Linwood's commanding social position, her
+uncommon and varied powers of conversation, the excellence and dignity
+of her character, made her the cynosure of the literary circle. Edith,
+too, from her exquisite loveliness, the sweetness of her disposition,
+and her personal misfortune, which endeared her to her friends by the
+tenderness and sympathy it excited, was a universal favorite; and all
+these attractive qualities in both were gilded and enhanced by the
+wealth which enabled them to impart, even more than they received. They
+were at home here,--they were in the midst of friends, whose society was
+congenial to their tastes, and I resolved, whatever I might suffer, not
+to mar their enjoyment by my selfish griefs. Ernest had heard
+all,--perhaps he believed all. He did not know my mother. He had never
+seen that face of heavenly purity and holy sorrow. Why should he not
+believe?
+
+One thing I could do. I could excuse myself from dinner and thus secure
+an hour's quietude. I gave no false plea, when I urged a violent
+headache as the reason for my seclusion. My temples ached and throbbed
+as if trying to burst from a metallic band, and the sun rays, though
+sifted through curtains of folding lace, fell like needle points on my
+shrinking eyes.
+
+"Poor Gabriella!" said Edith, laying her cool soft hand on my hot brow,
+"I did not think you were such a tender, green-house plant. I cannot
+bear to leave you here, when you could enjoy such an intellectual
+banquet below. Let me stay with you. I fear you are really very ill. How
+unfortunate!"
+
+"No, no, dear Edith; you must not think of such a thing. Just close
+those blinds, and give me that fan, and I shall be very comfortable
+here. If possible let no one come in. If I could sleep, this paroxysm
+will pass over."
+
+"There, sleep if you can, dear Gabriella, and be bright for the evening
+party. You knew the dresses mamma gave us for the occasion, both alike.
+I could not think of wearing mine, unless you were with me,--and you
+look so charmingly in white!"
+
+Edith had such a sweet, coaxing way with her, she magnetized pain and
+subdued self-distrust. The mere touch of her gentle hand had allayed the
+fever of my brain, and one glance of her loving blue eye tempered the
+anguish of my spirit. She lingered, unwilling to leave me,--drew the
+blinds together, making a soft twilight amid the glare of day, saturated
+my handkerchief with cologne and laid it on my temples, and placing a
+beautiful bouquet of flowers, an offering to herself, on my pillow,
+kissed me, and left me.
+
+I watched the sound of her retreating footsteps, or rather of her
+crutches, till they were no longer heard; then burying my face in my
+pillow, the sultry anguish of my heart was drenched in tears. Oh! what a
+relieving shower! It was the thunder-shower of the tropics, not the
+slow, drizzling rain of colder climes. I wept till the pillow was as wet
+as the turf on which the heavens have been weeping. I clasped it to my
+bosom as a shield against invisible foes, but there was no _sympathy_ in
+its downy softness. I sighed for a pillow beneath whose gentle heavings
+the heart of human kindness beats, I yearned to lay my head on a
+mother's breast. Yea, cold and breathless as it was now, beneath the
+clods of the valley, it would still be a sacred resting-place to me. The
+long pressure of the grave-sods could not crush out the impression of
+that love, stronger than death, deeper than the grave.
+
+Had the time arrived when I might claim the manuscript, left as a
+hallowed legacy to the orphan, who had no other inheritance? Had I
+awakened to the knowledge of woman's destiny to love and suffer? Dare I
+ask myself this question? Through the morning twilight of my heart, was
+not a star trembling, whose silver rays would never be quenched, save in
+the nightshades of death? Was it not time to listen to the warning
+voice, whose accents, echoing from the tomb, must have the power and
+grandeur of prophecy? Yes! I would ask Mrs. Linwood for my mother's
+history, as soon as we returned to Grandison Place; and if I found the
+shadow of disgrace rested on the memory of her I so loved and
+worshipped, I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, to avoid
+that searching eye, which, next to the glance of Omnipotence, I would
+shun in guilt and shame.
+
+"They say!" Who are _they_? who are the cowled monks, the hooded friars
+who glide with shrouded faces in the procession of life, muttering in an
+unknown tongue words of mysterious import? Who are _they_? the midnight
+assassins of reputation, who lurk in the by-lanes of society, with
+dagger tongues sharpened by invention and envenomed by malice, to draw
+the blood of innocence, and, hyena-like, banquet on the dead? Who are
+_they_? They are a multitude no man can number, black-stoled familiars
+of the inquisition of slander, searching for victims in every city,
+town, and village, wherever the heart of humanity throbs, or the ashes
+of mortality find rest.
+
+Oh, coward, coward world--skulkers! Give me the bold brigand, who
+thunders along the highways with flashing weapon that cuts the sunbeams
+as well as the shades. Give me the pirate, who _unfurls_ the black flag,
+emblem of his terrible trade, and _shows_ the plank which your doomed
+feet must tread; but save me from the _they-sayers_ of society, whose
+knives are hidden in a velvet sheath, whose bridge of death, is woven of
+flowers; and who spread, with invisible poison, even the spotless
+whiteness of the winding-sheet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+"Gabriella, awake!"
+
+"Mother, is the day dawning?"
+
+"My child, the sun is near his setting; you have slumbered long."
+
+I dreamed it was my mother's voice that awakened me,--then it seemed the
+voice of Richard Clyde, and I was lying under the great shadow of the
+oak, where he had found me years before half drowned in tears.
+
+"Gabriella, my dear,--it is time to dress for the evening."
+
+This time I recognized the accents of Mrs. Linwood, and I rose at once
+to a sitting position, wondering if it were the rising or the declining
+day that shone around me. Sleep had left its down on my harassed
+spirits, and its balm on my aching head. I felt languid, but tranquil;
+and when Mrs. Linwood affectionately but decidedly urged upon me the
+necessity of rising and preparing to descend to the drawing-room, I
+submissively obeyed. She must have seen that I had been in tears, but
+she made no allusion to them. Her manner was unusually kind and tender;
+but there was an expression in her serene but commanding eye, that bade
+me rise superior to the weakness that had subdued me. Had her son spoken
+of the cause of my emotion?
+
+A few moments after, Edith entered, and her mother rejoined her friends
+below.
+
+Edith held in her hand a fresh bouquet of the most exquisite green-house
+plants, among which the scarlet geranium exhibited its glowing blossoms.
+She held it towards me, turned it like a prism in various directions to
+catch the changing rays, while its odoriferous breath perfumed the whole
+apartment.
+
+"I am glad you have another, Edith," I said, looking at the wilted
+flowers on my pillow. "These have fulfilled their mission most sweetly.
+I have no doubt they inspired soothing dreams, though I cannot remember
+them distinctly."
+
+"Oh! these are _yours_," she answered, "sent by a friend who was quite
+distressed at your absence from the dinner-table. Cannot you guess the
+donor?"
+
+"It will not require much acuteness," replied I, taking the flowers, and
+though I could not help admiring their beauty, and feeling grateful for
+the attention, a shade of regret clouded their welcome; "I have so few
+friends it is easy to conjecture who thus administers to my
+gratification."
+
+"Well, who is it? You do not hazard the utterance of the name."
+
+"No one but Richard Clyde would think of giving me a token like this.
+They are very, _very_ sweet, and yet I wish he had not sent them."
+
+"Ungrateful Gabriella! No one but Richard! A host of common beings
+melted into one, could not make the equal of the friend who made me the
+bearer of this charming offering. Is the gift of Ernest greeted with
+such indifference?"
+
+"Ernest!" I repeated, and the blood bounded in my veins like a stream
+leaping over a mountain rock. "Is he indeed so kind?"
+
+I bent my head over the beautiful messengers, to hide the joy too deep
+for words, the gratitude too intense for the gift. As I thus looked down
+into the heart of the flowers, I caught a glimpse of something white
+folded among the green leaves. Edith's back was turned as she smoothed
+the folds of an India muslin dress that lay upon the bed. I drew out the
+paper with a tremulous hand, and read these few pencilled words:--
+
+"Sweet flower girl of the north! be not cast down. The most noxious wind
+changes not the purity of marble; neither can an idle breath shake the
+confidence born of unsullied innocence."
+
+These words pencilled by his own hand, were addressed to _me_. They were
+embalmed in fragrance and imbedded in bloom, and henceforth they were
+engraven on tablets on which the hand of man had never before traced a
+character, which the whole world might not peruse.
+
+Oh, what magic there was in those little words! Slander had lost its
+sting, and malice its venom, at least for the present hour. I put the
+talisman in my bosom and the flowers in water,--for _they_ might fade.
+
+There was no one in the room but Edith and myself. She sat on the side
+of the bed, a cloud of white fleecy drapery floating over her lap; a
+golden arrow, the very last in the day, God's quiver darted through the
+half-open blinds into the clusters of her fair ringlets. She was the
+most unaffected of human beings, and yet her every attitude was the
+perfection of grace, as if she sat as a model to the sculptor. I thought
+there was a shade of sadness on her brow. Perhaps she had seen me
+conceal the note, and imagined something clandestine and mysterious
+between me and her brother, that brother whose exclusive devotion had
+constituted the chief happiness of her life. Though it was a simple
+note, and the words were few, intended only to comfort and sustain, they
+were of such priceless value to me, I could not bear that even Edith's
+eye should become familiar with its contents. But her love and
+confidence were too dear to be sacrificed to a refinement of romance.
+
+"Dear Edith," said I, putting the note in her hand, and an arm round her
+neck, "it was a gift of consolation you brought me;" and then I told her
+all that I had over-heard, and of the exceeding bitterness of my
+anguish.
+
+"I know it,--mamma and I both know it,--brother told us. I did not speak
+of it, for you looked as if you had forgotten it after I came in, and I
+did not wish you to recall it. You must forget it, indeed you must. Such
+cruel insinuations can never alienate from you the friends who love you.
+They rather bind you closer to our hearts. Come, we have no time to
+lose. You know we must assist each other."
+
+I insisted on being her handmaid first, and lingered over her toilet
+till she literally escaped from my hands and drew behind the lace
+curtains like a star behind a cloud. Our dresses were alike, as the
+generous Edith had willed. They were of the most exquisite India muslin,
+simply but elegantly decorated with the finest of lace. I had never
+before been arrayed for an evening party, and as the gauzy fulness of
+drapery fell so softly and redundantly over the form I had been
+accustomed to see in the sad-colored robes of mourning, I hardly
+recognized my own lineaments. There was something so light, so ethereal
+and graceful in the dress, my spirit caught its airiness and seemed
+borne upwards as on wings of down. I was about to clasp on my precious
+necklace and bracelets of hair, when observing Edith's beautiful pearl
+ornaments, corresponding so well with the delicacy and whiteness of her
+apparel, I laid them aside, resolving to wear no added decoration but
+the flowers, consecrated as the gift of Ernest.
+
+"Come here, Gabriella, let me arrange that fall of lace behind," said
+Edith, extending a beautiful arm, on which the pearl-drops lay like dew
+on a lily. Both arms passed round my neck, and I found it encircled like
+her own with pearls. Then turning me round, she clasped first one arm,
+and then the other with fairy links of pearl, and then she flung a
+roseate of these ocean flowers round my head, smiling all the time and
+uttering exclamations of delighted admiration.
+
+"Now don't cry, Gabriella dear. You look so cool--so fair--so like a
+snowdrop glittering with dew. And don't put your arms round my neck,
+beautiful as they are, quite so close. You will spoil my lace, darling.
+You must just wear and keep the pearls for the love of me. Mamma
+sanctions the gift, so you need have no scruples about accepting them.
+Remember, now, we must have no more _diamonds_, not one, though of the
+purest water and sparkling in heaven's own setting."
+
+What could I say, in answer to such abounding kindness? In spite of her
+prohibition the diamonds would mingle with the pearls; but the sunbeams
+shone on them both.
+
+What a day had this been to me! It seemed as if I had lived years in the
+short space of a few hours. I had never felt so utterly miserable, not
+even over my mother's new made grave. I had never felt so supremely
+happy,--so buoyant with hope and joy. The flowers of Ernest, the pearls
+of Edith, came to me with a message as gladdening as that which waked
+the silver harp-strings of the morning stars. I did not, I dared not
+misunderstand the meaning of the first. They were sent as balm to a
+wounded spirit; as breathers of hope to the ear of despair; but it was
+_his_ hand that administered the balm; _his_ spirit that inspired the
+strain.
+
+"How radiant you look, Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, her sweet blue eyes
+resting on me with affectionate delight. "I am so glad to see you come
+out of the cloud. Now you justify our _pride_ as well as our affection."
+
+"But I--but all of us look so earthly at your side, Edith"--
+
+"Hush! flatterer--and yet, who would not prefer the beauty of earth, to
+the cold idealism of spirit loveliness? I have never sought the
+admiration of men. If I look lovely in the eyes of Ernest, it is all I
+desire. Perhaps all would not believe me; but you will. I yield you the
+empire of every heart but his. There, I would not willingly occupy the
+_second_ place. A strange kind of jealousy, Gabriella; but I am just so
+weak."
+
+She smiled, nay even laughed,--called herself very weak, very foolish,
+but said she could not help it. She believed she was the most selfish of
+human beings, and feared that this was the right hand to be cut off, the
+right eye to be plucked out. I was pained to hear her talk in this way;
+for I thought if any one ever gained the heart of Ernest, it would be
+dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Edith's friendship. But it was only
+a jesting way of expressing her exceeding love, after all. She was not
+selfish; she was all that was disinterested and kind.
+
+I followed her down stairs into a blaze of light, that at first dazzled
+and bewildered me. The chandeliers with their myriad pendants of
+glittering crystal emitted thousands of brilliant coruscations, like
+wintry boughs loaded with icicles and sparkling in a noonday sun. While
+through the open windows, the departing twilight mingled its soft
+duskiness with the splendors of the mimic day.
+
+Ernest Linwood and Richard Clyde were standing near the entrance of the
+door to greet us. The former immediately advanced and gave me his arm,
+and Richard walked by the side of Edith. I heard him sigh as they fell
+behind us, and my heart echoed the sound. Yet how could he sigh with
+Edith at his side? As I walked through the illuminated drawing-room,
+escorted by one on whom the eyes of the fashionable world were eagerly
+bent, I could not help being conscious of the glances that darted on me
+from every direction. Ernest Linwood was the loadstar of the scene, and
+whoever he distinguished by his attention must be conspicuous by
+association. I felt this, but no embarrassment agitated my step or dyed
+my cheek with blushes. The deep waters were stirred, stirred to their
+inmost depths, but the surface was calm and unruffled. Mrs. Linwood was
+at the head of the room, the centre of an intellectual circle. She was
+dressed, as usual, in silver gray; but the texture of her dress was the
+richest satin, shaded by blonde. The effect was that of a cloud with a
+silver lining, and surely it was a fitting attire for one who knew how
+to give brightness to the darkest shadows of life.
+
+As we approached her, her countenance lighted up with pride and
+pleasure. I saw she was gratified by my appearance; that she was not
+ashamed of her protegee. Yet as we came nearer, I observed an expression
+of the most tender anxiety, approaching to sadness, come over her brow.
+How proud she was of her son! She looked upon him with a glance that
+would have been idolatry, had not God said, "Thou shalt not make unto
+thyself idols, for I am a jealous God."
+
+She took my hand, and I saw her eye follow the soft tracery of
+pearl-flowers that enwreathed neck, arms, and brow. She knew who had
+thus adorned me, and her approving smile sanctioned the gifts.
+
+"I rejoice to see you look so well, my dear child," she said, "I feared
+you might lose the enjoyment of the evening; but I see no one who has a
+brighter prospect before them now."
+
+She introduced me to the friends who surrounded her, and wished to give
+me a seat near her; but Ernest resisted the movement, and with a smiling
+bow passed on.
+
+"I am not disposed to release you quite so soon," said he, passing out
+into the piazza. "I see very plainly that if I relinquish my position it
+will not be easy to secure it again. I am delighted. I am charmed,
+Gabriella, to see that you have the firmness to resist, as well as the
+sensibility to feel. I am delighted, too, to see you in the only livery
+youth and innocence should wear in a festal scene like this. I abhor the
+gaudy tinselry which loads the devotees of fashion, indicative of false
+tastes and false principles; but white and pearls remind me of every
+thing pure and holy in nature. In the Bible we read of the white robes
+of angels and saints. Who ever dreamed of clothing them, in imagination,
+in dark or party-colored garments? In mythology, the graces, the nymphs,
+and the muses are represented in snowy garments. In spotless white the
+bride is led to the marriage shrine, and in white she is prepared for
+the last sublime espousals. Do you know," added he, suddenly changing
+the theme, as if conscious he was touching upon something too solemn,
+"why I selected the scarlet geranium for one of the blossoms of your
+bouquet? The first time I saw you, it glowed in the darkness of your
+hair like coral in the ocean's heart."
+
+While he was speaking he broke a sprig from the bouquet and placed it in
+a wave of my hair, behind the band of pearls.
+
+"Earth and ocean bring you their tribute," said he, and "heaven too," he
+added; for as we passed by the pillars, a moon-beam glided in and laid
+its silver touch on my brow.
+
+"It is Edith's hand that thus adorned me," I answered, unwilling he
+should believe I had been consulting my own ambitious taste. "Had I been
+left to myself, I should have sought no ornament but these beautiful
+flowers, doubly precious for the feelings of kindness and compassion
+that consecrated their mission."
+
+"Compassion, Gabriella! I should as soon think of compassionating the
+star that shines brightest in the van of night. Compassion looks down;
+kindness implies an equal ground; admiration looks up with the gaze of
+the astronomer and the worship of the devotee."
+
+"You forget I am but a simple, village rustic. Such exaggerated
+compliments would suit better the brilliant dames of the city. I would
+rather a thousand times you would say, 'Gabriella, I do feel kindly
+towards you,' than utter any thing so formal, and apparently so
+insincere."
+
+I was really hurt. I thought he was mocking my credulity, or measuring
+the height and depth of my girlish vanity. I did not want to be compared
+to a star, a lone and distant star, nor to think of him as an astronomer
+gazing up at me with telescopic eye. My heart was overflowing with
+gentle, natural thoughts. I wanted human sympathy, not cold and
+glittering compliments.
+
+"And do you expect to hear the language of nature here, with the buzz of
+empty tongues and the echo of unmeaning laughs in the ear; where, if a
+word of sentiment were over-heard, it would be bandied from lip to lip
+with hollow mockery? Come with me into the garden, where the flowers
+blush in their folded leaves, beneath the love-light of yon gentle moon,
+where the stilly dews whisper sweet thoughts to the listening heart, and
+I will tell you what I have learned in Grandison Place, under the elm
+tree's shade, by the flower girl in the library, and from a thousand
+sources of which you have never dreamed."
+
+He took the hand which rested lightly on his arm, and drawing it closer
+to his side led the way to the steps of the piazza. I had dreamed of a
+moment like this in the golden reveries of romance, and imagined it a
+foretaste of heaven, but now I trembled and hesitated like the fearful
+fluttering spirit before the opening gates of paradise. I dared not
+yield to the almost irresistible temptation. No figures were gliding
+along the solitary paths, no steps were brushing away the dew-stars that
+had fallen from the sky. We should be alone in the moonlight solitude;
+but the thoughts of Mrs. Linwood and of Edith would find us out.
+
+"No, no!" I cried, shrinking from the gentle force that urged me
+forward; "do not ask me now. It would be better to remain where we are.
+Do you not think so?"
+
+"Certainly, if you wish it," he said, and his voice had an altered tone,
+like that of a sweet instrument suddenly untuned; "but there is only one
+_now_, for those who fear to trust me, Gabriella."
+
+"To trust _you_,--oh you cannot, do not misunderstand me thus!"
+
+"Why else do you shrink, as if I were leading you to a path of thorns
+instead of one margined with flowers?"
+
+"I fear the observations of the world, since the bitter lesson of the
+morning."
+
+"Your fear! You attach more value to the passing remarks of strangers,
+than the feelings of one who was beginning to believe he had found one
+pure votary of nature and of truth. It is well. I have monopolized your
+attention too long."
+
+Calmly and coldly he spoke, and the warm light of his eye went out like
+lightning, leaving the cloud gloom behind it. I was about to ask him to
+lead me back to his mother, in a tone as cold and altered as his own,
+when I saw her approaching us with a lady whom I had observed at the
+chapel; for her large, black eyes seemed magnetizing me, whenever I met
+their gaze. She was tall, beyond the usual height of her sex, finely
+formed, firm and compact as a marble pillar. A brow of bold expansion,
+features of the Roman contour, clearly cut and delicately marked; an
+expression of recklessness, independence, and self-reliance were the
+most striking characteristics of the young lady, whom Mrs. Linwood
+introduced as Miss Melville, the daughter of an early friend of hers.
+
+"Miss Margaret Melville," she repeated, looking at her son, who stood,
+leaning with an air of stately indifference against a pillar of the
+piazza. I had withdrawn my hand from his arm, and felt as if the breadth
+of the frozen ocean was between us.
+
+"Does Mr. Ernest Linwood forget his old friend so easily?" she asked, in
+a clear, ringing voice, extending a fair ungloved hand. "Do you not
+remember Madge Wildfire, or Meg the Dauntless, as the students used to
+call me? Or have I become so civilized and polished that you do not
+recognize me?"
+
+"I did not indeed," said he, receiving the offered hand with more grace
+than eagerness, "but it is not so much the fault of _my_ memory, as the
+marvellous change in yourself. I must not say improvement, as that would
+imply that there was a time when you were susceptible of it."
+
+"You may say just what you please, for I like frankness and
+straightforwardness as well as I ever did; better,--a great deal better,
+for I know its value more. And you, Ernest, I cannot call you any thing
+else, you are another and yet the same. The same stately, statue-like
+being I used to try in vain to teaze and torment. It seems so long since
+we have met, I expected to have seen you quite bent and hoary with age.
+Do tell me something of your transatlantic experience."
+
+While she was speaking in that peculiar tone of voice which reminded one
+of a distant clarion, Richard Clyde came to me on the other side, and
+seeing that she wished to engage the conversation of Ernest, which she
+probably thought I had engrossed too long, I took the offered arm of
+Richard and returned to the drawing-room. Seeing a table covered with
+engravings, I directed our steps there, that subjects of conversation
+might be suggested independent of ourselves.
+
+"How exquisite these are!" I exclaimed, taking up the first within my
+reach and expatiating on its beauties, without really comprehending one
+with my preoccupied and distant thoughts. "These Italian landscapes are
+always charming."
+
+"I believe that is a picture of the Boston Common," said he, smiling at
+my mistake; "but surely no Italian landscape can boast of such
+magnificent trees and such breadth of verdure. It is a whole casket of
+emeralds set in the granite heart of a great city. And see in the centre
+that pure, sparkling diamond, sending out such rays of coolness and
+delight,--I wonder you did not recognize it."
+
+"I have seen it only in winter, when the trees exhibited their wintry
+dreariness, and little boys were skating on the diamond surface of that
+frozen water. It looked very different then."
+
+"Mr. Linwood could explain these engravings," said he, drawing forward
+some which indeed represented Italian ruins, grand and ivy mantled,
+where the owl might well assert her solitary domain. "He has two great
+advantages, an eye enlightened by travel, and a taste fastidious by
+nature."
+
+"I do not admire fastidiousness," I answered; "I do not like to have
+defects pointed out to me, which my own ignorance does not discover.
+There is more pleasure in imagining beauties than in finding out
+faults."
+
+"Will you think it a presuming question, a too inquisitive one," he
+said, holding up an engraving between himself and the light, "if I ask
+your candid opinion of Mr. Linwood? Is the world right in the character
+it has given? Has he all the peculiarities and fascinations it ascribes
+to him?"
+
+He spoke in a careless manner, or rather tried to do so, but his eye
+burned with intense emotion. Had he asked me this question a short time
+previous, conscious blushes would have dyed my cheeks, for a "murderous
+guilt shows not itself more soon," than the feelings I attempt to
+conceal; but my sensibility had been wounded, my pride roused, and my
+heart chilled. I had discovered within myself a spirit which, like the
+ocean bark, rises with the rising wave.
+
+"If Mr. Linwood _had_ faults," I answered, and I could not help smiling
+at the attempted composure and real perturbation of his manner, "I would
+not speak of them. Peculiarities he may have, for they are inseparable
+from genius,--fascinations"--here their remembrance was too strong for
+my assumed indifference, and my sacred love of truth compelled me to
+utter,--"fascinations he certainly possesses."
+
+"In what do they consist?" he asked. "Beyond an extremely gentlemanly
+exterior, I do not perceive any peculiar claims to admiration."
+
+Hurt as I had been by Ernest's altered manner, I was disposed to do
+justice to his merits, and the more Richard seemed desirous to
+depreciate him, the more I was willing to exalt him. If he was capable
+of the meanness of envy, I was resolved to punish him. I did him
+injustice. He was not envious, but jealous; and it is impossible for
+jealousy and justice ever to go hand in hand.
+
+"In what do they consist?" I repeated. At that moment I saw him through
+the window, standing just where I had left him, leaning with folded arms
+against the pillar, with the moonlight shining gloriously on his brow.
+Miss Melville stood near him, talking with great animation, emphasizing
+her words with quick, decided gesticulation, while he seemed a passive
+listener. I had seen handsomer gentlemen, perhaps,--but never one so
+perfectly elegant and refined in appearance. The pale transparency of
+his complexion had the purity and delicacy of alabaster without its
+whiteness, seen by that clear, silvery light.
+
+"In what do they consist? In powers of conversation as rich as they are
+varied, in versatility of talents, in rare cultivation of mind and
+polish of manner. Let me see. I must give you a complete inventory of
+his accomplishments. He reads most charmingly, plays superbly, and sings
+divinely. Would you know his virtues? He is a most devoted son, a
+paragon of brothers, and a miracle of a host."
+
+I believe there is a dash of coquetry in every woman's nature. There
+must have been in mine, or I could not have gone on, watching the red
+thermometer in Richard's cheek, rising higher and higher, though what I
+said was truth, unembellished by imagination. It was what they _who run
+might read_. I did not speak of those more subtle traits which, were
+invisible to the common eye, those characters which, like invisible
+writing, are brought out by a warm and glowing element.
+
+"I am glad to hear you speak so openly in his praise," said Richard,
+with a brightening countenance; "even if I deserved such a tribute, I
+should not wish to know that you had paid it to me. I would prize more
+one silent glance, one conscious blush, than the most labored eulogium
+the most eloquent lips could utter."
+
+"But I do praise you very much," I answered; "ask Mrs. Linwood, and
+Edith, and Mr. Regulus. Ask Mr. Linwood himself."
+
+"Never speak of me to _him_, Gabriella. Let my feelings be _sacred_, if
+they are lonely. You know your power; use it gently, exert it kindly."
+
+The smile of assumed gaiety faded from my lips, as his grave, earnest,
+sincere accents went down into my soul. Could I trifle even for a moment
+with an affection so true and constant?
+
+Oh, wayward and unappreciating heart! Why could I not return this love,
+which might have made me so happy? Why was there no spirit-echo to _his_
+voice; no quickened pulsations at the sound of _his_ coming footsteps?
+
+"This is no place, Richard, to talk of ourselves, or I would try to
+convince you that I am incapable of speaking lightly of your feelings,
+or betraying them to a human being, even to Mrs. Linwood; but let us
+speak of something else now. Do you not feel very happy that you are
+free,--no more a slave to hours or rules; free to come and go, when and
+where you please, with the whole earth to roam in,
+
+    "Heart within and God o'erhead?"
+
+"No! I am sad. After being at anchor so long, to be suddenly set
+drifting, to be the sport of the winds of destiny, the cable chain of
+habit and association broken, one feels dizzy and bewildered. I never
+knew till now how strong the classmate bond of union is, how sacred the
+brotherhood, how binding the tie. We, who have been treading the same
+path for four long years, must now diverge, east, west, north, and
+south, the great cardinal points of life. In all human probability we
+shall never all meet again, till the mysterious problem of our destiny
+is solved."
+
+He paused, impressed by the solemnity of this idea, then added, in his
+natural, animated manner.
+
+"There is one hope, Gabriella, to which I have looked forward as the
+sheet-anchor of my soul; if that fails me, I do not care what becomes of
+me. Sometimes it has burned so brightly, it has been my morning and
+evening star, my rising, but unsetting sun. To-night the star is dim.
+Clouds of doubt and apprehension gather over it. Gabriella,--I cannot
+live in this suspense, and yet I could not bear the confirmation of my
+fears. Better to doubt than to despair."
+
+"Richard, why will you persist in talking of what cannot be explained
+here? Shall we not meet hereafter, and have abundant opportunities for
+conversation, free and uninterrupted? Look around, and see how
+differently other people are conversing. How lightly and carelessly
+their words come and go, mingled with merry laughter! Edith is at the
+piano. Let us go where we can listen, we cannot do it here."
+
+"I _am_ very selfish!" said he, yielding to my suggestion. "I have
+promised my classmates to introduce them to you. I see some of them,
+bending reproachful glances this way. I must redeem my character, so as
+not to incur disgrace in the parting hour."
+
+Then followed introductions pressing on each other, till I was weary of
+hearing my own name, Miss Lynn. I never did like to be called Miss.
+Still it was an unspeakable relief to me, to be released from the
+necessity of repressing the feelings of others, and guarding my own. It
+was a relief to hear those unmeaning sayings which are the current coin
+of society, and to utter without effort the first light thought that
+came floating on the surface. The rest of the evening I was surrounded
+by strangers, and the most exacting vanity might have been satisfied
+with the incense I received. I knew that the protection of Mrs. Linwood
+gave a _prestige_ to me that would not otherwise have been mine, but I
+could not help perceiving that Edith, the heiress, all lovely as she
+was, was not half as much courted and admired as the _daughter of the
+outcast_. I was too young, too much of a novice, not to be pleased with
+the attention I attracted; but when the heart is awakened, vanity has
+but little power. It is a cold, vapory conceit, that vanishes before the
+inner warmth and light, which, like the sun in the firmament, "shineth
+brighter and brighter to the perfect day."
+
+After Edith retired from the instrument there was a buzz, and a
+sensation, and Miss Melville, or Meg the Dauntless, as I could not help
+mentally calling her, was escorted to the piano by Ernest. What a
+contrast she presented to the soft, retiring, ethereal Edith, whose
+every motion suggested the idea of music! Though her arm was linked in
+that of Ernest, she walked independently of him, dashing through the
+company with a brave, military air, and taking a seat as if a flourish
+of trumpets had heralded her approach. At first I was startled by the
+loud crash of the keys, as she threw her hands upon them with all her
+force, laughing at the wild dissonance of the sound; but as she
+continued, harmony, if not sweetness, rose out of the chaos. She
+evidently understood the science of music, and enjoyed it too. She did
+not sing, and while she was playing the most brilliant polkas, waltzes,
+and variations with the most wonderful execution, she talked and laughed
+with those around the instrument, or looked round the apartment, and
+nodded to this one and that, her great black eyes flashing like chain
+lightning. Her playing seemed to have a magical effect. No one could
+keep their feet still. Even the dignified president patted his, marking
+the measure of her prancing fingers. I could have danced wildly myself,
+for I never heard any thing so inspiring to the animal spirits as those
+wizard strains. Every countenance was lighted with animation, save one,
+and that was Ernest's. He stood immovable, pale, cold, and
+self-involved, like a being from another sphere. I remembered how
+differently he looked when he wooed me to the garden's moonlight walks,
+and how the warm and gentle thoughts that then beamed in his eyes seemed
+frozen and dead, and I wondered if they were extinguished forever.
+
+"How stupid!" exclaimed Miss Melville, suddenly stopping, and turning
+round on the pivot of the music stool till she commanded a full view of
+the drawing-room. "I thought you would all be dancing by this time.
+There is no use in playing to such inanimate mortals. And you," said
+she, suddenly turning to Ernest, "you remind me of the prince, the
+enchanted prince in the Arabian Nights, only he was half marble, you are
+a whole statue. You do not like music. I pity you."
+
+"I have my own peculiar tastes," he answered quietly; "some nerves are
+more delicately strung than others."
+
+"Do you imply that _my_ playing is too loud for delicate nerves? Why,
+that is nothing to what I can do. That is my company music. When I am at
+home I give full scope to my powers."
+
+"We are perfectly satisfied with the specimen we have heard," said he,
+smiling; how could he help it? and every one laughed, none more heartily
+than the gay musician herself. I never heard such a laugh before, so
+merry, so contagious; such a rich, round, ringing laugh; dying away one
+moment, then bursting out again in such a chorus!
+
+All at once she fixed her eyes on me, and starting up, came directly to
+me, planting her tall, finely formed, firm-set figure in the midst of
+the group around me.
+
+"Come, _you_ must play and sing too. I have no doubt your style will
+suit Mr. Linwood's delicate nerves."
+
+"I never play," I answered.
+
+"Nor sing?"
+
+"Only at home."
+
+"You have a face of music, I am sure."
+
+"Thank you. I have a heart to appreciate it; that is a great gift."
+
+"But why don't you sing and play? How do you expect to pass current in
+society, without being able to hang on the instrument as I do, or creep
+over it with mouselike fingers as most young ladies do? I suppose you
+are very learned--very accomplished? How many languages do you speak?"
+
+"Only two at present," I answered, excessively amused by her
+eccentricity, and falling into her vein with a facility that quite
+surprised myself. "I generally find the English tongue sufficient to
+express my ideas."
+
+"I suppose one of the two is German. You will be considered a mere
+nobody here, if you do not understand German. It is the fashion; the
+paroxysm; German literature, German taste, and German transcendentalism;
+I have tried them all, but they will not do for me. I must have sunshine
+and open air. I must see where I am going, and understand what I am
+doing. I abhor mysticism, as I do deceit. Are you frank, Miss Gabriella?
+You have such a pretty name, I shall take the liberty of using it. Lynn
+is too short; it sounds like an abbreviation of Linwood."
+
+"If you mean by frankness, a disposition to tell all I think and feel, I
+am not frank," I answered, without noticing her last remark, which
+created a smile in others.
+
+"You do not like to hear people express _all_ their thoughts, good, bad,
+or indifferent?"
+
+"Indeed I do not. I like to have them winnowed before they are uttered."
+
+"Then you will not like _me_, and I am sorry for it. I have taken an
+amazing fancy to you. Never mind; I shall take you by storm when we get
+to Grandison Place. Do you know I am going home with you? Are you not
+delighted?"
+
+She burst into one of her great, rich laughs, at the sight of my
+dismayed countenance. I really felt annihilated at the thought. There
+was something so overpowering, so redundant about her, I expected to be
+weighed down,--overshadowed. She going to Grandison Place! Alas, what a
+transformation there would be! Adieu to the quiet walks, the evening
+readings, the morning flower gatherings; adieu to sentiment and
+tranquillity, to poetry and romance. Why had Mrs. Linwood invited so
+strange a guest? Perhaps she was self-invited.
+
+"I tell you what I am going for," she said, bending her face to mine and
+speaking in a whisper that sounded like a whistle in my ear; "I am going
+to animate that man of stone. Why have not you done it, juxtaposited as
+you are? You do not make use of the fire-arms with which nature has
+supplied you. If I had such a pair of eyes, I would slay like David my
+tens of thousands every day."
+
+"The difficulty would be in finding victims," I answered. "The
+inhabitants of the town where I reside do not number more than two or
+three thousand."
+
+"Oh! I would make it populous. I would draw worshippers from the four
+points of the earth,--and yet it would be a greater triumph to subdue
+one proud, hitherto impregnable heart."
+
+Her eyes flashed like gunpowder as she uttered this, _sotto voce_ it is
+true, but still loud enough to be heard half across the room.
+
+"Goodby," she suddenly exclaimed, "they are beckoning me; I must go; try
+to like me, precious creature; I shall be quite miserable if you do
+not."
+
+Then passing her arm round me, an arm firm, polished, and white as
+ivory, she gave me a loud, emphatic kiss, laughed, and left me almost as
+much confused as if one of the other sex had taken the same liberty.
+
+"Is she," thought I, "a young man in disguise?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+What am I writing?
+
+Sometimes I throw down the pen, saying to myself, "it is all folly, all
+verbiage. There is a history within worth perusing, but I cannot bring
+it forth to light. I turn over page after page with the fingers of
+thought. I see characters glowing or darkened with passion,--lines
+alternately bright and shadowy, distinct and obscure, and it seems an
+easy thing to make a transcript of these for the outward world."
+
+Easy! it requires the recording angel's pen to register the history of
+the human heart. "The thoughts that breathe, the thoughts that burn,"
+how can they be expressed? The mere act of clothing them in words makes
+them grow cold and dull. The molten gold, the fused iron hardens and
+chills in the forming mould.
+
+Easy! "Oh yes," the critic says, "it is an easy thing to write; only
+follow nature, and you cannot err." But nature is as broad as the
+universe, as high as the heavens, and as deep as the seas. It is but a
+small portion we can condense even on hundreds of pages of foolscap
+paper. If that portion be of love, the cold philosopher turns away in
+disdain and talks of romantic maids and moonstruck boys, as if the
+subject were fit alone for them. And yet love is the great motive
+principle of nature, the burning sun of the social system. Blot it out,
+and every other feeling and passion would sink in the darkness of
+eternal night. Byron's awful dream would be realized,--darkness would
+indeed be the universe. They who praise a writer for omitting love from
+the page which purports to be a record of life, would praise God for
+creating a world, over whose sunless realms no warmth or light was
+diffused, (if such a creation were possible,)--a world without flowers
+or music, without hope or joy.
+
+But as the sun is only an emanation from the first great fountain of
+light and glory, so love is but an effluence from the eternal source of
+love divine.
+
+"Bright effluence of bright essence increate." And woe to her, who,
+forgetting this heavenly union, bathes her heart in the earthly stream,
+without seeking the living spring whence it flows; who worships the
+fire-ray that falls upon the altar, without giving glory to him from
+whom it descended. The stream will become a stagnant pool, exhaling
+pestilence and death; the fire-ray will kindle a devouring flame,
+destroying the altar, with the gift and the heart a _burning bush_, that
+will blaze forever without consuming.
+
+Whither am I wandering?
+
+Imagine me now, in a very different scene to the president's illuminated
+drawing-room. Instead of the wild buzzing of mingling voices, I hear the
+mournful sighing of the breeze through the weeping grave trees; and ever
+and anon there comes a soft, stealing sound through the long, swaying
+grass, like the tread of invisible feet. I am alone with my mother's
+spirit. The manuscript, that is to reveal the mystery of my parentage,
+is in my hand. The hour is come, when without violating the commands of
+the dead, I may claim it as my own, and remove the hermetic seal which
+death has stamped. Where else could I read it? My own room, once so
+serenely quiet, was no longer a sanctuary,--for Margaret Melville dashed
+through the house, swinging open the doors as abruptly as a March wind,
+and her laugh filled every nook and corner of the capacious mansion. How
+could I unseal the sacred history of my mother's sorrows within the
+sound of that loud, echoing ha, ha?
+
+I could not; so I stole away to a spot, where sacred silence has set up
+its everlasting throne. The sun had not yet gone down, but the shadows
+of the willows lengthened on the grass. I sat at the foot of the grave
+leaning against a marble slab, and unsealed, with cold and trembling
+hands, my mother's _heart_, for so that manuscript seemed to me.
+
+At first I could not see the lines, for my tears rained down so fast
+they threatened to obliterate the delicate characters; but after
+repeated efforts I acquired composure enough to read the following brief
+and thrilling history. It was the opening of the sixth seal of my life.
+The stars of hope fell, as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she
+is shaken by a mighty wind, and the heaven of my happiness departed as a
+scroll when it is rolled together, and the mountains and islands of
+human trust were moved out of their places.
+
+
+MY MOTHER'S HISTORY.
+
+"Gabriella, before your eyes shall rest on these pages, mine will be
+closed in the slumbers of death. Let not your heart be troubled, my only
+beloved, at the record of wrongs which no longer corrode; of sorrows
+which are all past away. 'In my Father's house are many mansions,' and
+one of them is prepared for me. It is my Saviour's promise, and I
+believe it as firmly as if I saw the golden streets of the New
+Jerusalem, where that heavenly mansion is built.
+
+"Weep not, then, my child, my orphan darling, over a past which cannot
+be recalled; let not its shadow rest too darkly upon you,--if there is
+joy in the present, be grateful; if there is hope in the future,
+rejoice.
+
+"You have often asked me to tell you where I lived when I was a little
+child; whether my home was a gray cottage like ours, in the woods; and
+whether I had a mother whom I loved as dearly as you loved me. I have
+told you that my first feeble life-wail mingled with her dying groan,
+and you wondered how one could live without a mother's love.
+
+"I was born in that rugged fortress, whose embattled walls are washed by
+the majestic Bay of Chesapeake. My father held a captain's commission in
+the army, and was stationed for many years at this magnificent,
+insulated bulwark. My father, at the time of my mother's death, was a
+young and gallant officer, and I was his only child. It is not strange
+that he should marry again; for the grief of man seldom survives the
+allotted period of mourning, and it was natural that he should select a
+gay and brilliant woman, for the second choice is generally a striking
+contrast to the first. My mother, I am told, was one of those gentle,
+dove-like, pensive beings, who nestled in her husband's heart, and knew
+no world beyond. My step-mother loved the world and its pleasures better
+than husband, children, and home. She had children of her own, who were
+more the objects of her pride than her love. Every day, they were
+dressed for exhibition, petted and caressed, and then sent back to the
+nursery, where they could not interfere with the pleasures of their
+fashionable mamma. Could I expect those tender cares which the yearning
+heart of childhood craves, as its daily sustenance? She was not harsh or
+despotic, but careless and indifferent. She did not care for me; and
+provided I kept out of her way, she was willing I should amuse myself in
+the best manner I pleased. My father was kind and caressing, when he had
+leisure to indulge his parental sensibilities; but he could not
+sympathize in my childish joys and sorrows, for I dared not confide them
+to him. He was a man, and, moreover, there was something in the gilded
+pomp of his martial dress, that inspired too much awe for childish
+familiarity. I used to gaze at him, when he appeared on military parade,
+as if he were one of the demi-gods of the ancient world. He had an erect
+and warlike bearing, a proud, firm step, and his gold epaulette with its
+glittering tassels flashing in the sunbeams, his crimson sash
+contrasting so splendidly with the military blue, his shining sword and
+waving plume,--all impressed me with a grandeur that was overpowering.
+It dazzled my eye, but did not warm my young heart.
+
+"As I grew older, I exhibited a remarkable love of reading, and as no
+one took the trouble to direct my tastes, I seized every book which came
+within my reach and devoured it, with the avidity of a hungry and
+unoccupied mind. My father was a gentleman of pure and elegant taste,
+and had he dreamed that I was exposed, without guardianship, to
+dangerous influences, he would have shielded and warned me. But he
+believed the care of children under twelve years of age devolved on
+their mother, and he was always engrossed with the duties of a
+profession which he passionately loved, or the society of his brother
+officers, usually so fascinating and convivial.
+
+"I used to take my book, which was generally some wild, impassioned
+romance, and wandering to the ramparts, seat myself by the shining
+pyramids of cannon-balls; and while the blue waves of the Chesapeake
+rolled in murmuring music by, or, lashed by the ocean wind, heaved in
+foaming billows, roaring against the walls, I yielded myself to the
+wizard spell of genius and passion. The officers as they passed would
+try to break the enchantment by gay and sportive words, but all in vain.
+I have sat there, drenched by the salt sea-spray, and knew it not. I was
+called the little bookworm, the prodigy, the _dream-girl_, a name you
+have inherited, my darling Gabriella; and my father seemed proud of the
+reputation I had established. But while my imagination was
+preternaturally developed, my heart was slumbering, and my soul
+unconscious of life's great aim.
+
+"Thus unguarded by precept, unguided by example, I was sent from home to
+a boarding-school, where I acquired the usual education and
+accomplishments obtained at fashionable female seminaries. During my
+absence from home, my two step-sisters, who were thought too young to
+accompany me, and my infant step-brother, died in the space of one week,
+smitten by that destroying angel of childhood, the scarlet fever.
+
+"I had been at school two years when I made my first visit home. My
+step-mother was then in the weeds of mourning, and of course excluded
+herself in a measure from gay society; but I marvelled that sorrow had
+not impaired the bloom of her cheek, or quenched the sparkle of her
+cold, bright eye. Her heart was not buried in the grave of her
+children,--it belonged to the world, to which she panted to return.
+
+"But my father mourned. There was a shadow on his manly brow, which I
+had never seen before. I was, now, his only child, the representative of
+his once beloved Rosalie, and the pure, fond love of his early years
+revived again in me. I look back upon those two months, when I basked in
+the sunshine of parental tenderness for the first, the _only_ time, as a
+portion of my life most dear and holy. I sighed when I thought of the
+years when we had been comparatively so far apart, and my heart grew to
+his with tender adhesiveness and growing love. The affections, which my
+worldly step-mother had chilled and repressed, and which the death of
+his other children had blighted, were now all mine, renovated and
+warmed.
+
+"Oh, Gabriella! very precious is a father's love. It is an emblem of the
+love of God for the dependent beings he has created; so kind, so
+protecting, so strong, and yet so tender! Would to God, my poor,
+defrauded child, you could have known what this God-resembling love
+is,--but your orphanage has been the most sad, the most dreary,--the
+most unhallowed. Almighty Father of the universe, have mercy on my
+child! Protect and bless her when this wasting, broken heart no longer
+beats; when the frail shield of a mother's love is taken from her, and
+she is left _alone_--_alone_--_alone_. Oh! my God, have pity--have pity!
+Forsake her not!"
+
+The paper was blistered with the tears of the writer. I dropped it on
+the grave, unable to go on. I cast myself on the grass-covered mould,
+and pressed it to my bosom, as if there was vitality in the cold clods.
+
+"Oh, my mother!" I exclaimed, and strange and dreary sounded my voice in
+that breathing stillness. "Has God heard thy prayers? Will he hear the
+cries of the fatherless? Will he have pity on my forsaken youth?"
+
+I would have given worlds to have realized that this mighty God was
+near; that he indeed cared with a father's love for the orphan mourner,
+committed in faith to his all-embracing arms. But I still worshipped him
+as far-off, enthroned on high, in the heaven of heavens, which cannot
+contain the full glory of his presence. I saw him on the burning
+mountain, in the midst of thunder and lightning and smoke,--a God of
+consuming fire, before whose breath earthly joys and hopes withered and
+dried, like blossoms cast into the furnace.
+
+But did not God once hide his face of love from his own begotten Son?
+And shall not the _eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani_ of the forsaken heart
+sometimes ascend amid the woes and trials and wrongs of life, from the
+great mountain of human misery, the smoking Sinai, whose clouded summit
+quakes with the footsteps of Deity?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+I again resumed the manuscript, trembling for the revelations which it
+might make.
+
+"Never again," wrote my mother, "did I behold my noble, gallant father.
+His death was sudden, as if shot down in the battle field, without one
+warning weakness or pain. In the green summer of his days he fell, and
+long did my heart vibrate from the shock. How desolate to me was the
+home to which I returned! The household fire was indeed extinguished.
+The household god laid low. I saw at one glance that in my breast alone
+his memory was enshrined; that there alone was sacred incense burning.
+Mrs. Lynn, (I will speak of her by her name hereafter,) though only one
+year had passed since his death, was assuming those light, coquettish
+airs which accord as little with the robes of widowhood as the hues of
+the rainbow or the garlands of spring.
+
+"I saw with exquisite pain and shame, that she looked upon me as a rival
+of her maturer charms, and gladly yielded to my wish for retirement. She
+always spoke of me as 'the child,' the 'little bookworm,' impressing
+upon the minds of all the idea of my extreme juvenility. I _was_ young;
+but I had arrived to years of womanhood, and my stature equalled hers.
+
+"I will pass on to the scene which decided my destiny. I do not wish to
+swell the volume of my life. Let it be brief as it is sad.
+
+"Very near the fortress is another rocky bulwark, rising out of the
+waves in stern and rugged majesty, known by the peculiar name of the
+Rip-Raps. It is the work of man, who paved the ocean bed with rocks, and
+conceived the design of a lofty castle, from whose battlements the
+star-spangled banner should wave, and whose massy turrets should
+perpetuate the honors of Carolina's most gifted son. The design was
+grand, but has never been completed. It has, however, finished
+apartments, which form a kind of summer hotel, where many statesmen
+often resort, that they may lay down, for a while, the burden of care,
+and breathe an atmosphere pure from political corruption, and cool from
+party zeal and strife.
+
+"At the time of which I speak the chief magistrate of the nation sought
+refuge there for a short while, from the oppressive responsibilities of
+his exalted station, and regardless of his wish for retirement, or
+rather irresistibly impelled to pay honors to one whose brows were
+wreathed with the soldier's laurel as well as the statesman's crown,
+every one sought his rocky and wave-washed retreat.
+
+"Mrs. Lynn joined a party of ladies, who, escorted by officers, went
+over in barges to be introduced to the gallant veteran. The martial
+spirit of my father throbbed high in my bosom, and I longed to behold
+one, whom he would have delighted to honor. Mrs. Lynn did not urge me,
+but there were others who supplied her deficiency, and convinced me I
+was not considered an intruder. Among the gentlemen who composed our
+party was a stranger, by the name of St. James, to whom Mrs. Lynn paid
+the most exclusive attention. She was still in the bloom of womanhood,
+and though far from being beautiful, was showy and attractive. All the
+embellishments of dress were called into requisition to enhance the
+charms of nature, and to produce the illusion of youth. She always
+sought the admiration of strangers, and Mr. St. James was sufficiently
+distinguished in appearance to render him worthy of her fascinations. I
+merely noticed that he had a fine person, a graceful air, and a musical
+voice; then casting my eyes on the sea-green waters, over which our
+light barge was bounding, I did not lift them again till we were near
+the dark gray rocks of the Rip-Raps, and I beheld on the brink of the
+stone steps we were to ascend, a tall and stately form, whose foam-white
+locks were rustling in the breeze of ocean. There he stood, like the
+statue of liberty, throned on a granite cliff, with waves rolling below
+and sunbeams resting on his brow.
+
+"As we stepped from the barge and ascended the rugged steps, the
+chieftain bent his warlike figure and drew us to the platform with all
+the grace and gallantry of youth. As I was the youngest of the party, he
+received me with the most endearing familiarity. I almost thought he was
+going to kiss me, so close he brought his bronzed cheek to mine.
+
+"'God bless you, my child!' said he, taking both hands in his and
+looking earnestly in my face. 'I knew your father well. He was a gallant
+officer,--a noble, honest man. Peace to his ashes! The soldier fills an
+honored grave.'
+
+"This tribute to my father's memory filled my eyes with tears, while my
+cheek glowed with gratified pride. I was proud that I was a soldier's
+daughter, proud to hear his praise from the lips of valor and of rank.
+
+"I had brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers as a girlish offering to
+the veteran. I had been thinking of something pretty and poetical to say
+when I presented it, but the words died on my lips, and I extended it in
+silence with the trembling hand of diffidence.
+
+"'Now,' said he, with a benignant smile, turning the flowers round and
+round, as if admiring them all, 'I am the envy of every young man
+present. They would all exchange the laurels of the soldier for the
+blossoms gathered by the hand of beauty.'
+
+"'Let me have the privilege of holding them for you, sir, while we
+remain,' said Mr. St. James, with a courtly grace consistent with the
+name he bore, and they were submitted with equal courtesy to his
+keeping.
+
+"These are trifles to relate, my Gabriella, but they had an influence on
+my life and yours. They laid the foundation of a dislike and jealousy in
+the mind of my step-mother, that embittered all our future intercourse.
+'The child' was distinguished, not only by the hero who was the lion of
+the scene, but by the stranger she was resolved to charm, and her
+usually bright countenance was clouded with malice and discontent.
+Forgetful of politeness, she hurried away those who came in the same
+barge with herself, anxious to see me immured once more in the walls of
+the Fort.
+
+"After our distinguished host had bidden farewell to his elder guests,
+whom he accompanied to the steps, he turned to me with a look so benign
+and affectionate I never shall forget it, and stooping, kissed my
+forehead.
+
+"'As your father's friend, and your country's father, dear child, permit
+me'--he said, then giving my hand to St. James, who was waiting to
+assist me into the barge, bowed a dignified adieu.
+
+"'You do indeed make us envy you, sir,' cried St. James, as he stood
+with uncovered head in the centre of the boat, while it glided from the
+walls, and holding up the bouquet which he had had the boldness to
+retain.
+
+"The statesman smiled and shook his snow-crowned head, and there he
+stood, long after we receded from the rocks, his tall, erect figure
+defined on the dark blue sky.
+
+"I never saw that noble form again. The brave old soldier died a soldier
+of the Cross, and fills a Christian's grave. He sleeps in death,
+embosomed in the quiet shades he loved best in life.
+
+    'And Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
+    To deck the turf that wraps his clay.'
+
+"I did not think of paying this tribute to his memory; but that scene
+was so indelibly stamped on my mind, I could not help delineating it. It
+was then and there I first beheld your father.
+
+"The barge was rowed by eight soldiers, dressed in uniform, and their
+oars all dipped and flashed with simultaneous motion. Nothing could be
+more harmoniously beautiful; but the restless spirit of Mrs. Lynn
+suggested a change.
+
+"'Raise the sail,' she exclaimed, 'this is too monotonous. I prefer it a
+thousand times to rowing.'
+
+"'I beg, I entreat, madam,' cried I, unable to repress my apprehensions,
+'do not have it done now. I am very foolish, but I cannot help it,
+indeed I cannot.'
+
+"I was not accustomed to the water as she was, having been absent so
+long; and even when a child, I had an unconquerable dread of sailing.
+She knew this, and it prompted her suggestion.
+
+"'Affectation of fear may be pardoned in a _child_, Rosalie,' said she,
+with a sarcastic smile, 'but it is nevertheless very unbecoming.'
+
+"'Do not indulge one apprehension,' exclaimed St. James, stepping over
+one of the seats and sitting down at my side. 'I am one of the best
+sailors in the world. _Non timui--Caesarem vehis._ Give the sails to the
+winds, boys. I will make them my vassals.'
+
+"His eyes beamed with conscious power, as the white sheet unrolled and
+swelled gracefully in the breeze. It was strange, all my fears were
+gone, and I felt as serene a confidence as if his vaunting words were
+true. The strong will, the magic smile were acting on me like a spell,
+and I yielded unresistingly to their influence.
+
+"Mrs. Lynn would gladly have revoked her commands, since they had called
+forth such an expression of interest for me; but the boat swept on with
+triumphant speed, and even I participated in the exhilaration of its
+motion. Just before we reached the shore, Mrs. Lynn bent forward and
+took the flowers from the hand of St. James before he was aware of her
+design.
+
+"'Is that mignonette which is so oppressively fragrant?' she asked,
+lifting the bouquet to her nose. She was seated near the side of the
+barge, and her head was gracefully inclined. Whether from accident or
+design, I think it was the latter, the flowers dropped into the river.
+
+"In the flashing of an eye-glance, St. James leaped over the boat side,
+seized the flowers, held them up in triumph over his head, and swam to
+the shore. He stood there with dripping garments and smiling lips as we
+landed, while the paleness of terror still blanched my face, and its
+agitation palpitated in my heart.
+
+"'I must deny myself the pleasure of escorting you to the threshold,'
+said he, glancing at me, while he shook the brine-drops from his arms.
+His head had not been submerged. He had held that royally above the
+waves. 'But,' added he, with graceful gallantry, 'I have rescued a
+trophy which I had silently vowed to guard with my life;--a treasure
+doubly consecrated by the touch of valor and the hand of beauty.'
+
+"'Well,' exclaimed Mrs. Lynn, as soon as we were at home, tossing her
+bonnet disdainfully on the sofa, 'if I ever was disgusted with boldness
+and affectation I have been to-day. But one thing let me tell you, Miss
+Rosalie, if you cannot learn more propriety of manners, if you make such
+sickening efforts to attract the attention of strangers, I will never
+allow you to go in public, at least in company with me.'
+
+"I was perfectly thunderstruck. She had never given such an exhibition
+of temper before. I had always thought her cold and selfish, but she
+seemed to have a careless good-nature, which did not prepare me for this
+ebullition of passion. I did not reflect that this was the first time I
+had clashed with her interests,--that inordinate vanity is the parent of
+envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness.
+
+"I did not attempt to reply, but hastily turned to leave the room. She
+had been my father's wife, and the sacredness of _his_ name shielded her
+from disrespect.
+
+"'Stop, Miss,' she cried, 'and hear what I have to say. If Mr. St. James
+calls this evening, you are not to make your appearance. He was only
+making sport of your childishness to-day, and cares no more for you than
+the sands of the sea-shore. He is no company for you, I assure you. He
+is a gentleman of the world, and has no taste for the bread and butter
+misses just let loose from a boarding-school. Do you hear me?'
+
+"'I do, madam.'
+
+"'Do you mean to obey?'
+
+"'I do, madam.'
+
+"I will not attempt to describe my feelings that night as I sat alone in
+my room, and heard the voice of St. James mingling with my
+step-mother's, which was modulated to its sweetest, most seductive tone.
+The desolateness of my future life spread out before me. A home without
+love! Oh, what dreariness! Oh, what iciness! Had my father lived, how
+different it would have been. I thought of the happy vacation, when he
+opened his warm heart and took me in, and then I wept to think how cold
+the world seemed since he had left it.
+
+"It was a midsummer's night, and all the windows were open to admit the
+sea-born breeze. They were open, but bars of gauze wire were put up at
+the windows and doors to exclude the mosquitos. A very small balcony
+opened out of my room, where I usually sat listening to the inspiring
+strains of the band, that, marching on the ramparts, sent their rich,
+thrilling notes in rolling echoes over the moonlight waves.
+
+"It was playing now, that martial band, and the bay was one sheet of
+burning silver. I had never seen it look so resplendently beautiful, and
+I could not help thinking that beneath that gently rippling glory, there
+was peace for the sad and persecuted heart. As I sat there leaning on
+the railing, gazing into the shining depths of ocean, St. James passed.
+It was very early in the evening. Why had he left so soon? He started,
+paused, turned, and approached the balcony.
+
+"'Why are you so cruel as to refuse to see me, after showing such
+knightly devotion to your cause?' he asked, leaning on the side of the
+balcony and looking earnestly in my face, on which the tear-drops were
+still glittering.
+
+"'I have not refused,' I answered hastily, 'but do not wait to talk with
+me now. Mrs. Lynn would be much displeased; she would consider it very
+improper. I pray you not to think me rude, but indeed I must retire.'
+
+"I rose in an agony of terror, lest my step-mother should hear his
+voice, and wreak her wrath on me.
+
+"'Fear not,' he cried, catching my hand and detaining me. 'She is
+engaged with company, who will not hasten away as I have done. I will
+not stay long, nor utter one syllable that is not in harmony with the
+holy tranquillity of the hour. I am a stranger in name, but is there not
+something that tells you I was born to be your friend? I know there
+is,--I see it in your ingenuous, confiding eye. Only answer me one
+question,--Was it your _own will_, or the will of another that governed
+your actions to-night?'
+
+"'The will of another,' I answered. 'Let that be a sufficient reason for
+urging your departure. If I am forbidden to see you in the parlor, I
+shall certainly be upbraided for speaking with you here.'
+
+"It was very imprudent in me to speak so freely of my step-mother's
+conduct. No questions of his should have drawn from me such an
+assertion. But I was so young and inexperienced, and I had been goaded
+almost to madness by her stinging rebukes. It was natural that I should
+wish to vindicate myself from the charge of rudeness her
+misrepresentations would bring against me.
+
+"'I find you in sadness and tears,' said he, in a low, gentle tone; so
+low it scarcely rose above the murmuring waves. 'They should not be the
+companions of beauty and youth. Let me be your friend,--let me teach you
+how to banish them.'
+
+"'No, no,' I cried, frightened at my own boldness in continuing the
+conversation so long. 'You are not my friend, or you would not expose me
+to censure. Indeed you are not.'
+
+"'I am gone; but tell me one thing,--you are not a prisoner?'
+
+"'O no; heaven forbid.'
+
+"'You walk on the ramparts.'
+
+"'Sometimes.'
+
+"'Adieu,--we shall meet again.'
+
+"He was gone, and sweetly lingered in my ear the echo of his gently
+persuasive voice. He had vanished like the bark that had just glided
+along the waters, and like that had left a wake of brightness behind.
+
+"I could not sleep. Excitement kept me wakeful and restless. I heard the
+measured tread of the sentinel walking his 'lonely round,' and it did
+not sound louder than the beating of my own heart. Hark! a soft, breezy
+sound steals up just beneath my window. It is the vibration of the
+guitar,--a deeptoned, melodious voice accompanies it. It is the voice of
+St. James. He sings, and the strains fall upon the stilly night, soft as
+the silver dew.
+
+"Gabriella, I told you with my dying lips never to unseal this
+manuscript till you were awakened to woman's destiny,--_love_. If you do
+not sympathize with my emotions, lay it down, my child, the hour is not
+yet come. If you have never heard a voice, whose faintest tones sink
+into the lowest depths of your soul,--if you have never met a glance,
+whose lightning rays penetrate to the innermost recesses of the heart,
+reseal these pages. The feelings with which you cannot sympathize will
+seem weakness and folly, and a daughter must not scorn a mother's bosom
+record.
+
+"Remember how lonely, how unfriended I was. The only eye that had beamed
+on me with love was closed in death, the only living person on whom I
+had any claims was cruel and unkind. Blame me not that I listened to a
+stranger's accents, that I received his image into my heart, that I
+enthroned it there, and paid homage to the kingly guest.
+
+"It is in vain to linger thus. I met him again and again. I learned to
+measure time and space by one line--where he _was_, and where he was
+_not_. I learned to bear harshness, jeering, and wrong, because a door
+of escape was opened, and the roses of paradise seemed blushing beyond.
+I suffered him to be my friend--lover--husband."
+
+I dropped the manuscript that I might clasp my hands in an ecstasy of
+gratitude--
+
+"My God,--I thank thee!" I exclaimed, sinking on my knees, and repeating
+the emphatic words: "_friend--lover-husband_." "God of my mother,
+forgive my dark misgivings."
+
+Now I could look up. Now I could hold the paper with a firm hand. There
+was nothing in store that I could not bear to hear, no misfortune I had
+not courage to meet. Alas! alas!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+"Yes," continued my mother; "we were married within heaven dedicated
+walls by a man of God, and the blessing of the holy, blessed, and
+glorious Trinity was pronounced upon our union. Remember this, my dearly
+beloved child, remember that in the bosom of the church, surrounded by
+all the solemnities of religion, with the golden ring, the uttered vow,
+and on bended knee, I was wedded to Henry Gabriel St. James.
+
+"My step-mother refused to be present. She had sufficient regard to the
+world's opinion to plead indisposition as an excuse; but it was a false
+one. She never forgave me for winning the love of the man whom she had
+herself resolved to charm, and from the hour of our introduction to the
+day of my marriage, my life was clouded by the gloom of her ill temper.
+
+"We immediately departed for New York, where St. James resided, and our
+bridal home was adorned with all the elegancies which classic taste
+could select, and prodigal love lavish upon its idol. I was happy then,
+beyond the dream of imagination. St. James was the fondest, the kindest,
+the tenderest--O my God! must I add--the falsest of human beings? I did
+not love him then--I worshipped, I adored him. I have told you that my
+childish imagination was fed by wild, impassioned romances, and I had
+made to myself an ideal image, round which, like the maid of France, I
+hung the garlands of fancy, and knelt before its shrine.
+
+"Whatever has been my after fate, I have known the felicity of loving in
+all its length and breadth and strength. And he, too, loved me
+passionately, devotedly. Strong indeed must have been the love that
+triumphed over principle, honor, and truth, that broke the most sacred
+of human ties, and dared the vengeance of retributive Heaven.
+
+"St. James was an artist. He was not dependent entirely on his genius
+for his subsistence, though his fortune was not large enough to enable
+him to live in splendid indolence. He had been in Europe for the last
+few years, wandering amid the ruins of Italy, studying the grand old
+masters, summering in the valleys of Switzerland, beneath the shadow of
+its mountain heights, and polishing his bold, masterly sketches among
+the elegant artists of Paris.
+
+"With what rapture I listened to his glowing descriptions of foreign
+lands, and what beautiful castles we built where we were to dwell
+together in the golden clime of Italy or the sunny bowers of France!
+
+"At length, my Gabriella, you were given to my arms, and the deep, pure
+fountain of a mother's love welled in my youthful bosom. But my life was
+wellnigh a sacrifice to yours. For weeks it hung trembling on a thread
+slender and weak as the gossamer's web. St. James watched over me, as
+none but guardian angels could watch, and I had another faithful and
+devoted nurse, our good and matchless Peggy. To her unsleeping
+vigilance, her strong heart and untiring arm, I owe in a great measure
+the restoration of my health, or rather the preservation of my life; my
+health was never entirely renovated.
+
+"When you were about five or six months old, St. James came to me with a
+troubled countenance. He was summoned away, very unexpectedly. He would
+probably be obliged to go as far as Texas before his return; he might be
+absent a month. Business of a perplexing nature, which it was impossible
+to explain then, called him from me, but he would shorten as much as
+possible the days of absence which would be dreary and joyless to him. I
+was overwhelmed with grief at the thought of his leaving me; my nerves
+were still weak, and I wept in all the abandonment of sorrow. I feared
+for him the dangers that beset the path of the traveller--sickness,
+death; but I feared not for his honor or truth. I relied upon his
+integrity, as I did upon the promises of the Holy Scriptures. I did hot
+urge him to explain the motives of his departure, satisfied that they
+were just and honorable.
+
+"Oh! little did I think,--when he clasped me in a parting embrace when
+he committed us both so tenderly and solemnly to the guardianship of our
+Heavenly Father,--little did I think I should so soon seek to rend him
+from my heart as a vile, accursed monster; that I should shrink from the
+memory of his embraces as from the coils of the serpent, the fangs of
+the wolf. God in his mercy veils the future, or who could bear the
+burden of coming woe!
+
+"A few days after his departure, as I was seated in the nursery,
+watching your innocent witcheries as you lay cradled in the lap of
+Peggy, I was told a lady wished to see me. It was too early an hour for
+fashionable calls, and I went into the parlor expecting to meet one of
+those ministering spirits, who go about on errands of mercy, seeking the
+aid of the rich for the wants of the poor.
+
+"A lady was standing with her back to the door, seemingly occupied in
+gazing at a picture over the mantel-piece, an exquisite painting of St.
+James. Her figure was slight and graceful, and she struck me at once as
+having a foreign air. She turned round at my entrance, exhibiting a pale
+and agitated countenance; a countenance which though not beautiful, was
+painfully interesting. She had a soft olive complexion, and a full
+melancholy black eye, surcharged with tears.
+
+"I motioned her to a seat, for I could not speak. Her agitation was
+contagious, and I waited in silent trepidation to learn the mystery of
+her emotion.
+
+"'Forgave me this intrusion,' said she, in hesitating accents; 'you look
+so young, so innocent, so lovely, my heart misgives me. I cannot, I dare
+not.'
+
+"She spoke in French, a language of which I was mistress, and I
+recognized at once the land of her birth. She paused, as if unable to
+proceed, while I sat, pale and cold as marble, wondering what awful
+revelation she would, but dared not make. Had she come to tell me of my
+husband's death,--was my first agonized thought, and I faintly
+articulated,--
+
+"'My husband!'
+
+"'_Your_ husband! Poor, deluded young creature. Alas! alas! I can
+forgive him for deserting me, but not for deceiving and destroying you.'
+
+"I started to my feet with a galvanic spring. My veins tingled as if
+fire were running through them, and my hair rose, startling with
+electric horror. I grasped her arm with a force she might have felt
+through covering steel, and looking her steadfastly in the face,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"'He _is_ my husband; mine in the face of God and man. He is _my_
+husband, and the father of my child. I will proclaim it in the face of
+earth and heaven. I will proclaim it till my dying day. How dare you
+come to me with slanders so vile, false, unprincipled woman?'
+
+"She recoiled a few steps from me, and held up her deprecating hands.
+
+"'Have pity upon me, for I am very wretched,' she cried; 'were it not
+for my child I would die in silence and despair, rather than rouse you
+from your fatal dream, but I cannot see him robbed of his rights. I
+cannot see another usurping the name and place he was born to fill.
+Madam,' continued she, discarding her supplicating tone, and speaking
+with dignity and force, 'I am no false, unprincipled woman, inventing
+tales which I cannot corroborate. I am a wife, as pure in heart, as
+upright in purpose as you can be,--a mother as tender. Forsaken by him
+whom in spite of my wrongs I still too fondly love, I have left my
+native land, crossed the ocean's breadth, come a stranger to a strange
+country, that I might appeal to you for redress, and tell you that if
+you still persist in calling him your own, it will be in defiance of the
+laws of man and the canons of the living God.'
+
+"As she thus went on, her passions became roused, and flashed and
+darkened in her face with alternations so quick they mocked the sight.
+She spoke with the rapid tongue and impressive gesticulation of her
+country, and God's truth was stamped on every word. I felt it,--I knew
+it. She was no base, lying impostor. She was a wronged and suffering
+woman;--and he,--the idol of my soul,--the friend, lover, _husband_ of
+my youth,--no, no! he could not be a villain! She was mad,--ha, ha,--she
+was mad! Bursting into a wild, hysteric laugh, I sunk back on the sofa,
+repeating,--
+
+"'Poor thing, she is mad! I wonder I did not know it sooner.'
+
+"'No, madam, I am not mad,' she cried, in calmer tones; 'I sometimes
+wish I were. I am in the full possession of my reason, as I can
+abundantly prove. But little more than three years since, I was married
+to Gabriel Henry St. James, in Paris, my native city, and here is the
+certificate which proves the truth of my assertion.'
+
+"Taking a paper from her pocket-book, she held it towards me, so that I
+could read the writing, still retaining it in her own hand. I did not
+blame her,--oh, no! I should have done the same. I saw, what seemed
+blazing in fire, the names of Henry Gabriel St. James and Theresa
+Josephine La Fontaine united in marriage by the usual formula of the
+church.
+
+"I did not attempt to snatch it from her, or to destroy the fatal paper.
+I gazed upon it till the characters swelled out like black chords, and
+writhed in snaky convolutions.
+
+"'Do you recognize this?' she asked, taking from her bosom a gold case,
+and touching a spring. It flew open and revealed the handsome features
+of St. James, beaming with the same expression as when I first beheld
+him, an expression I remembered but too well. She turned it in the case,
+and I saw written on the back in gold letters, 'For my beloved wife,
+Theresa Josephine.'
+
+"It was enough. The certificate might be a forgery, her tale a lie; but
+this all but breathing picture, these indubitable words, were proofs of
+blasting power. Cold, icy shiverings ran through my frame,--a cold,
+benumbing weight pressed down my heart,--a black abyss opened before
+me,--the earth heaved and gave way beneath me. With a shriek that seemed
+to breathe out my life, I fell forward at the feet of her whom I had so
+guiltlessly wronged."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus far had I read, with clenching teeth and rigid limbs, and brow on
+which chill, deadly drops were slowly gathering, when my mother's shriek
+seemed suddenly to ring in my ears,--the knell of a broken heart, a
+ruined frame,--and I sprang up and looked wildly round me. Where was I?
+Who was I?
+
+Were the heavens turned to brass and the sun to blood, or was yon
+saffron belt the gold of declining day,--yon crimson globe, the sun
+rolling through a hazy, sultry atmosphere? What meant that long green
+mound stretching at my side, that broken shaft, twined with the cypress
+vine? I clasped both hands over my temples, as these questions drifted
+through my mind, then bending my knees, I sunk lower and lower, till my
+head rested on the grave. I was conscious of but one wish--to stay there
+and die. The bolt of indelible disgrace quivered in my heart; why should
+I wish to live?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+I did not become insensible, but I was dead to surrounding objects, dead
+to the present, dead to the future. The past, the terrible, the
+inexorable past, was upon me, trampling me, grinding me with iron heel,
+into the dust of the grave. I could not move, for its nightmare weight
+crushed me. I could not see, for its blackness shrouded me; nor hear,
+for its shrieks deafened me. Had I remained long in that awful
+condition, I should have become a maniac.
+
+"Gabriella!" said a voice, which at any other moment would have wakened
+a thrill of rapture, "Gabriella, speak,--look up. Why do you do this?
+Why will you not speak? Do you not hear me?"
+
+I did try to speak, but my tongue seemed frozen. I did try to lift my
+head, but in vain.
+
+Ernest Linwood, for it was he, knelt down by me, and putting his arms
+round me, raised me from the ground, without any volition of my own. I
+know not what state I was in. I was perfectly conscious; but had no more
+power over the movement of a muscle than if I were dead. My eyes were
+closed, and my head drooped on his breast, as he raised me, bowed by its
+own weight. I was in a kind of conscious catalepsy. He was alarmed,
+terrified. As he afterwards told me, he really believed me dead, and
+clasping me to him with an energy of which he was not aware, adjured me
+in the most tender and passionate manner to speak and tell him that I
+lived.
+
+"Gabriella, my flower-girl, my darling!" he cried, pressing my cheek
+with those pure, despairing kisses with which love hallows death. Had I
+indeed passed the boundaries of life, for my spirit alone was conscious
+of caresses, whose remembrance thrilled through my being.
+
+The reaction was instantaneous. The chilled blood grew warm and rushed
+through every vein with wild rapidity. Then I became physically
+conscious, and glowing with confusion I raised myself from my reclining
+position, and attempted to look up into the face of Ernest. But I could
+not do it. Contending emotions deprived me of the power of self-command.
+
+"This is madness, Gabriella! This is suicide!" he exclaimed, lifting me
+from the grave, and still supporting me with his arm. "Why do you come
+here to nurse a grief so far beyond the limits of reason and religion?
+Why do you give your friends such exquisite pain, yourself such
+unnecessary misery?"
+
+"Do not reproach me," I cried. "You know not what cause I have for
+anguish and despair."
+
+"Despair, Gabriella! You cannot know the meaning of that word. Despair
+belongs to guilt, and even that is not hopeless. And why do you come to
+this lone place of graves to weep, as if human sympathy were denied to
+your sorrows? Is not my mother kind,--is not Edith tender and
+affectionate? Am not I worthy to be trusted, as a friend,--a
+protector,--a redresser; and if need be, an avenger of wrongs?"
+
+"My own wrongs I might reveal; but those of the dead are sacred," I
+answered, stooping down and gathering up the manuscript, which was half
+concealed in the long, damp grass. "But do not think me ungrateful. What
+I owe to your mother and Edith words can never tell. In every prayer I
+breathe to heaven I shall call down blessings on their head. And you
+too,--you have been more than kind. I never can forget it."
+
+"If it be not too presumptuous, I will unite your name with theirs, and
+pray that God may bless you, now and ever more."
+
+"This will never do," said he, drawing me forcibly from the mournful
+place. "You _must_ confide in my mother, Gabriella. A dark secret is a
+plague spot in the heart. Confide in my mother. It is due to her
+maternal love and guardianship. And beware of believing that any thing
+independent _of yourself_ can alienate her affections. Can you walk? If
+it were not for leaving you alone, I would go and return with the
+carriage."
+
+"Oh, yes; I am quite well and strong again."
+
+"Then lean on me, Gabriella. Shrink not from an arm which would gladly
+protect you from every danger and every wrong. Let us hasten, lest I
+utter words which I would not for worlds associate with a scene so cold
+and sad. Not where the shadow of death falls--no--not here."
+
+He hurried me through the gate, and then paused.
+
+"Rest here a moment," said he, "and recover your composure. We may meet
+with those who would wonder to see you thus, with your hair wildly
+flowing, your scarf loose and disordered."
+
+"Thank you," I exclaimed, my thoughts coming to the surface, and resting
+there with shame. I had forgotten that my bonnet was in my hand, that my
+comb had fallen, leaving my hair loose and dishevelled. Gathering up its
+length, and twisting it in thick folds around my head, I confined it
+with my bonnet, and smoothing my thin scarf, I took his arm in silence,
+and walked on through the purple gloom of twilight that deepened before
+us. Slight shivers ran through my frame. The dampness of the grave-yard
+clung to me, and the night dews were beginning to fall.
+
+"Are you cold, Gabriella?" he asked, folding my light mantle more
+closely round me. "You are not sufficiently protected from the dewy air.
+You are weary and chill. You do not lean on me. You do not confide in
+me."
+
+"In whom should I confide, then? Without father, brother, or protector,
+in whom should I confide, if ungrateful and untrusting I turn from you?"
+
+As I said this, I suffered my arm to rest more firmly on his, for my
+steps were indeed weary, and we were now ascending the hill. My heart
+was deeply touched by his kindness, and the involuntary ejaculations he
+uttered, the involuntary caresses he bestowed, when he believed me
+perfectly unconscious, were treasured sacredly there. We were now by the
+large elm-tree that shaded the way-side, beneath whose boughs I had so
+often paused to gaze on the valley below. Without speaking, he led me to
+this resting-place, and we both looked back, as wayfarers are wont to do
+when they stop in an ascending path.
+
+Calmly the shadows rested on the landscape, softly yet darkly they
+rolled down the slope of the neighboring hills and the distant
+mountains. In thin curlings, the gray smoke floated upwards and lay
+slumberously among the fleecy clouds. Here and there a mansion, lifted
+above the rest, shed from its glowing windows the reflection of
+departing day. Bright on the dusky gold of the west the evening-star
+shone and throbbed, like a pure love-thought in the heart of night; and,
+dimly glimmering above the horizon, the giant pen seemed writing the
+Mene Tekel of my clouded destiny on the palace walls of heaven.
+
+As we thus stood, lifted above the valley, involved in shadows, silent
+and alone, I could hear the beating of my heart, louder and louder in
+the breathing stillness.
+
+"Gabriella!" said Ernest, in a low voice, and that _master-chord_ which
+no hand but his had touched, thrilled at the sound. "If the spot on
+which we stand were a desert island, and the valley stretching around us
+the wide waste of ocean, and we the only beings in the solitude of
+nature, with your hand thus clasped in mine, and my heart thus throbbing
+near, with a love so strong, so deep, it would be to you in place of the
+whole world beside,--tell me, could you be happy?"
+
+"I could," was the low, irresistible answer; and my soul, like an
+illuminated temple, flashed with inward light. I covered my eyes to keep
+in the dazzling rays. I forgot the sad history of wrongs and disgrace
+which I had just been perusing;--I forgot that such words had breathed
+into my mother's ear, and that she believed them. I only remembered that
+Ernest Linwood loved me, and _that_ love surrounded me with a luminous
+atmosphere, in which joy and hope fluttered their heavenly wings.
+
+How slight a thing will change the current of thought! I caught a
+glimpse of the granite walls of Grandison Place, and darkened by the
+shades, they seemed to frown upon me with their high turret and lofty
+colonnade, so ancestral and imposing. Then I remembered Mrs. Linwood and
+Edith,--then I remembered my mother, my _father_, and all the light went
+out in my heart.
+
+"I had forgotten,--oh, how much I had forgotten," I cried, endeavoring
+to release myself from the arm that only tightened its hold. "Your
+mother never would forgive my presumption if she thought,--if she knew."
+
+"My mother loves you; but even if she did not, I am free to act, free to
+choose, as every man should be. I love and _revere_ my mother, but there
+is a passion stronger than filial love and reverence, which goes on
+conquering and to conquer. She will not, she cannot oppose me."
+
+"But Edith, dear Edith, who loves you so devotedly! She will hate me if
+I dare to supplant her."
+
+"A sister never can be supplanted,--and least of all such a sister as
+Edith, Gabriella. If you do not feel that love so expands, so enlarges
+the heart, that it makes room for all the angels in heaven, you could
+not share my island home."
+
+"If you knew all,--if I could tell you all," I cried,--and again I felt
+the barbed anguish that prostrated me at the grave,--"and you _shall_
+know,--your generous love demands this confidence. When your mother has
+read the history of my parentage, I will place it in your hands; though
+my mother's character is as exalted and spotless as your own, there is a
+cloud over my name that will for ever rest upon it. Knowing _that_, you
+cannot, you will not wish to unite your noble, brilliant destiny with
+mine. This hour will be remembered as a dream, a bright, but fleeting
+dream."
+
+"What do I care for the past?" he exclaimed, detaining me as I
+endeavored to move on. "Talk not of a clouded name. Will not mine absorb
+it? What shaft of malice can pierce you, with my arm as a defence, and
+my bosom as a shield? Gabriella, it is you that I love, not the dead and
+buried past. You are the representative of all present joy and hope. I
+ask for nothing but your love,--your exclusive, boundless love,--a love
+that will be ready to sacrifice every thing but innocence and integrity
+for me,--that will cling to me in woe as in weal, in shame as in honor,
+in death as in life. Such is the love I give; and such I ask in return.
+Is it mine? Tell me not of opposing barriers; only tell me what your
+heart this moment dictates; forgetful of the past, regardless of the
+future? Is this love mine?"
+
+"It is," I answered, looking up through fast-falling tears. "Why will
+you wring this confession from me, when you only know it too well?"
+
+"One question more, Gabriella, for your truth-telling lips to answer. Is
+this love only given in _return_? Did it not spring spontaneously forth
+from the warmth and purity of your own heart, without waiting the avowal
+of mine? Gratitude is not love. It is _stone_, not bread, to a spirit as
+exacting as mine."
+
+Again the truth was forced from me by his unconquerable will,--a will
+that opened the secret valves of thought, and rolled away the rock from
+the fountain of feeling. Even then I felt the despotism as well as the
+strength of his love.
+
+I cannot, I dare not, repeat all that he uttered. It would be deemed too
+extravagant, too high-wrought. And so it was. Let woman tremble rather
+than exult, when she is the object of a passion so intense. The devotion
+of her whole being cannot satisfy its inordinate demands. Though the
+flame of the sacrifice ascend to heaven, it still cries, "Bring gifts to
+the altar,--bring the wine of the banquet,--the incense of the
+temple,--the fuel of the hearth-stone. Bring all, and still I crave.
+Give all, I ask for more."
+
+Not then was this warning suggested. To be wildly, passionately loved,
+was my heart's secret prayer. Life itself would be a willing sacrifice
+to this devotion. Suspicion that stood sentinel at the door of Faith,
+Distrust that threw its shadow over the sunshine of truth, and Jealousy,
+doubting, yet adoring still, would be welcomed as household guests, if
+the attendants of this impassioned love. Such was the dream of my
+girlhood.
+
+When we entered the lawn, lights began to glimmer in the house. I
+trembled at the idea of meeting Mrs. Linwood, or the Amazonian Meg.
+There was a side door through which I might pass unobserved, and by this
+ingress I sought my chamber and locked the door. A lamp was burning on
+the table. Had I lingered abroad so late? Had the absence of Ernest been
+observed?
+
+I sat down on the side of the bed, threw off my bonnet and scarf, shook
+my hair over my shoulders, and pushed it back with both hands from my
+throbbing temples. I wanted room. Such crowding thoughts, such
+overflowing emotions, could not be compressed in those four walls. I
+rose and walked the room back and forth, without fear of being
+over-heard, on the soft carpet of velvet roses. What revelations had
+been made known to me since I had quitted that room! How low I had been
+degraded,--how royally exalted! A child unentitled to her father's
+name!--a maiden, endowed with a princely heart! I walked as one in a
+dream, doubting my own identity. But one master thought governed every
+other.
+
+"He loves me!" I repeated to myself. "Ernest Linwood loves me! Whatever
+be the future, that present bliss is mine. I have tasted woman's
+highest, holiest joy,--the joy of loving and being beloved. Sorrow and
+trial may be mine; but this remembrance will remain, a blessed light
+through the darkness of time,--'a star on eternity's ocean.'"
+
+As I passed and repassed the double mirror, my reflected figure seemed
+an apparition gliding by my side, I paused and stood before one of them,
+and I thought of the time when, first awakened to the consciousness of
+personal influence, I gazed on my own image. Some writer has said, "that
+every woman is beautiful when she loves." There certainly is a light,
+coming up from the enkindled heart, bright as the solar ray, yet pure
+and soft as moonlight, which throws an illusion over the plainest
+features and makes them for the moment charming. I saw the flower-girl
+of the library in the mirror, and then I knew that the artist had
+intended her as the idealization of Love's image.
+
+And then I remembered the morning when we sat together in the library,
+and he took the roses from my basket and scattered the leaves at my
+feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+A thundering rap at the door startled my meditations. I knew there was
+but one pair of knuckles in the house capable of beating such a tattoo,
+and I recoiled from admitting such a boisterous guest.
+
+"Gabriella, Gabriella!" rung a voice through the passage. "Are you
+asleep? Are you dead? Open the door, pray, or I shall kill myself
+squeezing in through the key-hole."
+
+With a deep sigh of vexation, I opened the door, and she sprang in with
+the momentum of a ball hurled by a bat.
+
+"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, catching me round the waist and
+turning me to the light, "what _have_ you been doing? where _have_ you
+been staying? Ill!--tired!--it is all a sham. He need not try to impose
+on me such a story as that. I never saw you look so brilliantly well.
+Your cheeks and lips are red like the damask rose, and your eyes,--I
+never saw such eyes before. Come here and look in the glass. Ill!--ha,
+ha!"
+
+"I have been ill," I answered, shrinking from her reckless hand, "and I
+was very tired; I feel better now."
+
+"Yes, I should think you did. You rested long enough by the way, Heaven
+knows; we saw you climbing the hill at sunset, and the lamps were
+lighted before you came in. I was going after you, but Mrs. Linwood
+would not let me. Ah! you have animated the statue, thou modern
+Pygmaliona. You have turned back into flesh this enchanted man of stone.
+Tell it in Gath, publish it in Askelon; but the daughters of fashion
+will mourn, the tribes of the neglected will envy."
+
+"I cannot match you in brilliant speeches, Miss Melville."
+
+"Call me Miss Melville again, if you dare. Call me Madge, or Meg; but as
+sure as you mount the stilts of ceremony, I will whisk you off at the
+risk of breaking your neck. Hark! there is the supper bell. Come, just
+as you are. You never looked so charming. That wild flow of the hair is
+perfectly bewitching. I don't wonder Mr. Invincible has grounded his
+weapons, not I. If I were a young man,--ha, ha!"
+
+"I sometimes fear you are," I cried. At this remark she burst into such
+a wild fit of laughter, I thought she never would cease. It drowned the
+ringing of the bell, and still kept gushing over afresh.
+
+"Ask Mrs. Linwood to excuse me from supper," said I; "I do not wish any,
+indeed I do not."
+
+Well, I am not one of the air plants; I must have something more
+substantial than sentiment, or I should pine with green and yellow
+hunger, not melancholy. I never cried but once, that I recollect, and
+that was when a favorite black cat of mine was killed,--maliciously,
+villanously killed, by an old maid, just because she devoured her
+favorite Canary. No, with the daughter of Jephthah, I exclaimed,--
+
+    'Let my memory still be thy pride,
+    And forget not I smiled as I died.'
+
+Shutting, or rather slamming the door, she bounded down the stairs with
+the steps of the chamois.
+
+I had not finished my mother's history, but I had passed the _breakers_.
+There could be nothing beyond so fearful and wrecking. The remainder was
+brief, and written at times with a weak and failing hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How long I remained in that deadly swoon," continued the manuscript, "I
+know not. When I recovered, I was lying on my bed, with Peggy standing
+on one side and a physician on the other. As soon as I looked up, Peggy
+burst into tears.
+
+"'Thank God!' she sobbed, 'I thought she was dead.'
+
+"'Hush!' said the doctor; 'let her be kept perfectly quiet. Give her
+this composing draught, and let no one be admitted to her chamber,--not
+even her child.'
+
+"Child! it all came back to me. Where was she, that dreadful woman?
+Starting up in bed, I looked wildly round the room for the haunting
+phantom,--she was not a reality,--I must have had a terrible dream.
+
+"'Yes!' said the doctor, answering the expression of my countenance,
+'you have had a shocking nightmare. Drink this, and you will awake
+refreshed.'
+
+"Yielding passively, I drank the colorless fluid he offered me, and
+sinking back on my pillow passed into a deep and tranquil sleep. When I
+awoke, the silence and darkness of night brooded around me. My mind now
+was clear as crystal, and every image appeared with startling
+distinctness. I lay still and calm, revolving what course to pursue; and
+as I lay and revolved, doubts of the truth of her story grew stronger
+and stronger. All my husband's love and tenderness rose in remembrance,
+vindicating his aspersed honor. She had forged the tale,--she had stolen
+the picture,--she was an impostor and a wretch.
+
+"At morning light, I awakened Peggy, and demanded of her what had
+occurred during my insensible state, and what had become of the strange
+woman. Peggy said that the piercing shrieks of the stranger brought her
+to the parlor, where I lay like a corpse on the carpet, and she kneeling
+over me, ringing her hands, and uttering unintelligible words.
+
+"'You have killed her,' cried Peggy, pushing back the stranger, and
+taking me in her strong arms.
+
+"'_Je le sais, mon Dieu, je le sais_,' exclaimed she, lifting her
+clasped hands to heaven. Peggy did not understand French, but she
+repeated the words awkwardly enough, yet I could interpret them.
+
+"As they found it impossible to recall me to life, a physician was
+summoned, and as soon as he came the stranger disappeared.
+
+"'Don't think of her anymore,' said Peggy; 'don't, Mrs. St. James,--I
+don't believe a word of her story,--she's crazy,--she's a lunatic, you
+may be sure she is,--she looked stark mad.'
+
+"I tried to believe this assertion, but something told me she was no
+maniac. I tried to believe her an impostor,--I asserted she was,--but if
+so, she transcended all the actresses in the world. I could not eat, I
+could not bear you, my darling Gabriella, to be brought into my
+presence. Your innocent smiles were daggers to my heart.
+
+"But she came again, Theresa, the avenger,--she came followed by a
+woman, leading by the hand a beautiful boy.
+
+"Here was proof that needed no confirmation. Every infantine feature
+bore the similitude of St. James. The eyes, the smile, his miniature
+self was there. I no longer doubted,--no longer hesitated.
+
+"'Leave me,' I cried, and despair lent me calmness. 'I resign all claims
+to the name, the fortune, and the affections of him who has so cruelly
+wronged us. Not for worlds would I remain even one day longer in the
+home he has desecrated by his crimes. Respect my sorrows, and leave me.
+You may return to-morrow.'
+
+"'_Oh, juste ciel!_' she exclaimed. '_Je suis tres malheureuse._'
+
+"Snatching her child in her arms, and raising it as high as her strength
+could lift it, she called upon God to witness that it was only for his
+sake she had asserted her legal rights; that, having lost the heart of
+her husband, all she wished was to die. Then, sinking on her knees
+before me, she entreated me to forgive her the wretchedness she had
+caused.
+
+"'_I_ forgive _you_?' I cried. 'Alas! it is I should supplicate your
+forgiveness. I do ask it in the humility of a broken heart. But
+go--go--if you would not see me die.'
+
+"Terrified at my ghastly countenance, Peggy commanded the nurse to take
+the child from the room. Theresa followed with lingering steps, casting
+back upon me a glance of pity and remorse. I never saw her again.
+
+"'And now, Peggy,' said I, 'you are the only friend I have in the wide
+world. Yet I must leave you. With my child in my arms, I am going forth,
+like Hagar, into the wilderness of life. I have money enough to save me
+from immediate want. Heaven will guard the future.'
+
+"'And where will you go?' asked Peggy, passing the back of her hand over
+her eyes.
+
+"'Alas, I know not. I have no one to counsel me, no one to whom I can
+turn for assistance or go for shelter. Even my Heavenly Father hideth
+his face from me.'
+
+"'Oh, Mrs. St. James!'
+
+"'Call me not by that accursed name. Call me Rosalie. It was a dying
+mother's gift, and they cannot rob me of that.'
+
+"'Miss Rosalie, I will never quit you. There is nobody in the world I
+love half as well, and if you will let me stay with you, I will wait on
+you, and take care of the baby all the days of my life.'
+
+"Then she told me how she came from New England to live with a brother,
+who had since died of consumption, and how she was going back, because
+she did not like to live in a great city, when the doctor got her to
+come to nurse me in sickness, and how she had learned to love me so well
+she could not bear the thoughts of going away from me. She told me, too,
+how quiet and happy people could live in that part of the country; how
+they could get along upon almost nothing at all, and be just as private
+as they pleased, and nobody would pester them or make them afraid.
+
+"She knew exactly how she came to the city, and we could go the same
+way, only we would wind about a little and not go to the place where she
+used to live, so that folks need ask no questions or know any thing
+about us.
+
+"With a childlike dependence, as implicit as your own, and as
+instinctive, I threw myself on Peggy's strong heart and great common
+sense. With equal judgment and energy, she arranged every thing for our
+departure. She had the resolution and fortitude of a man, with the
+tenderness and fidelity of a woman. I submitted myself entirely to her
+guidance, saying, 'It was well.' But when I was alone, I clasped you in
+agony to my bosom, and prostrating myself before the footstool of
+Jehovah, I prayed for a bolt to strike us, mother and child together,
+that we might be spared the bitter cup of humiliation and woe. One
+moment I dared to think of mingling our life blood together in the grave
+of the suicide; the next, with streaming eyes, I implored forgiveness
+for the impious thought.
+
+"It is needless to dwell minutely on the circumstances of our departure.
+We left that beautiful mansion, once the abode of love and happiness,
+now a dungeon house of despair;--we came to this lone, obscure spot,
+where I resumed my father's name, and gave it to you. At first,
+curiosity sought out the melancholy stranger, but Peggy's
+incommunicativeness and sound judgment baffled its scrutiny. In a little
+while, we were suffered to remain in the seclusion we desired. Here you
+have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence,
+unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon
+your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a
+father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human
+goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of
+revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice
+shall speak; for the time may come, when a knowledge of your parentage
+will be indispensable, and concealment be considered a crime.
+
+"Should you hereafter win the love of an honorable and noble heart, (for
+such are sometimes found,) every honorable and noble feeling will prompt
+you to candor and truth, with regard to your personal relations. I need
+not tell you this.
+
+"And now, my darling child, I leave you one solemn dying charge. Should
+it ever be your lot to meet that guilty, erring father, whose care you
+have never known, whose name you have never borne, let no vindictive
+memories rise against him.
+
+"Tell him, I forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven by my Heavenly
+Father, for all my sins and transgressions, and my idolatrous love of
+him. Tell him, that now, as life is ebbing slowly away like the sands of
+the hour-glass, and I can calmly look back upon the past, I bless him
+for being the means of leading my wandering footsteps to the green
+fields and still pastures of the great Shepherd of Israel. Had he never
+prepared for me the bitter cup of sorrow, I had not perchance tasted the
+purple juice which my Saviour trod the wine-press of God's wrath to
+obtain. Had not 'lover and friend been taken from me,' I might not have
+turned to the Friend of sinners; the Divine Love of mankind. Tell him
+then, oh Gabriella! that I not only forgave, but blessed him with the
+heart of a woman and the spirit of a Christian.
+
+"I had a dream, a strange, wild dream last night, which I am constrained
+to relate. I am not superstitious, but its echo lingers in my soul.
+
+"I dreamed that your father was exposed to some mysterious danger, that
+you alone could avert. That I saw him plunging down into an awful abyss,
+lower and lower; and that he called on you, Gabriella, to save him, in a
+voice that might have rent the heavens; and then they seemed to open,
+and you appeared distant as a star, yet distinct and fair as an angel,
+slowly descending right over the yawning chasm. You stretched out your
+arms towards him, and drew him upward as if by an invisible chain. As he
+rose, the dark abyss was transformed to beds of roses, whose fragrance
+was so intensely sweet it waked me. It was but a dream, my Gabriella,
+but it may be that God destined you to fulfil a glorious mission: to
+lead your erring father back to the God he has forsaken. It may be, that
+through you, an innocent and injured child, the heart sundered on earth
+may be reunited in heaven.
+
+"One more charge, my best beloved. In whatever situation of life you may
+be placed, remember our boundless obligations to the faithful Peggy, and
+never, never, be separated from her. Repay to her as far as possible the
+long, long debt of love and devotion due from us both. She has literally
+forsaken all to follow me and mine; and if there is a crown laid up in
+heaven for the true, self-sacrificing heart, that crown will one day be
+hers.
+
+"The pen falls from my hand. Farewell trembles on my lips. Oh! at this
+moment I feel the triumph of faith, the glory of religion.
+
+    "'Other refuge have I none;
+      Hangs my helpless soul on _thee_;
+    Leave, oh, leave me not alone,
+      Still support and comfort me.'
+
+"Not me alone, O compassionate and blessed Saviour! but the dear, the
+precious, the only one I leave behind. To thine exceeding love, to the
+care of a mighty God, the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, I now
+commit her. 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is naught on
+earth which I desire beside thee.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+Edith came in, as usual, before she retired for the night, and expressed
+affectionate concern for my indisposition; but there was an air of
+constraint, which I could not help perceiving. My eyes fell before hers,
+with conscious guilt. For had I not robbed her of that first place in
+her brother's heart, which she had so long claimed as her inalienable
+right?
+
+I had one duty to perform, and I resolved to do it before I laid my head
+on the pillow. With the manuscript in my hand, I sought the chamber of
+Mrs. Linwood. She sat before a small table, her head resting
+thoughtfully on her hand, with an open Bible before her. She looked up
+at my entrance, with a countenance of gentle seriousness, and extended
+her hand affectionately.
+
+Walking hastily towards her, I knelt at her feet, and laying the
+manuscript in her lap, burst into tears.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I cried, "will your love and kindness survive the
+knowledge of all these pages will reveal? Will a mother's virtues cancel
+the record of a father's guilt? Can you cherish and protect me still?"
+
+She bent over me and took me in her arms, while tears trembled in her
+eyes.
+
+"I know all, my dear child," she said; "there is nothing new to be
+revealed. Your mother gave me, on her death-bed, a brief history of her
+life, and it only increased your claims on my maternal care. Do you
+think it possible, Gabriella, that I could be so unjust and unkind, as
+to visit the sins of a father on the head of an innocent and unoffending
+child? No; believe me, nothing but your own conduct could ever alienate
+my affections or confidence."
+
+"Teach me to deserve it, dear Mrs. Linwood,--teach me how to prove my
+love, my gratitude, and veneration."
+
+"By confiding in me as a mother, trusting me as a friend, and seeking me
+as a guide and counsellor in this most dangerous season of youth and
+temptation, you are very dear to me, Gabriella. Next to my own son and
+daughter, I love you, nor do I consider their happiness a more sacred
+deposit than yours."
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I exclaimed, covering my burning face with my hands,
+and again bowing it on her lap--"Ask me anything,--and nothing shall be
+held back--I cannot--I dare not--perhaps I ought not--"
+
+"Tell me that my son loves you?"
+
+I started and trembled; but as soon as the words passed her lips I
+gathered courage to meet whatever she might say.
+
+"If it be indeed so," I answered, "should not the revelation come from
+him, rather than me?"
+
+"There needs no formal declaration. I have seen it, known it, even
+before yourselves were conscious of its existence--this all engrossing
+passion. Before my son's return I foresaw it, with the prescience of
+maternal love. I knew your young, imaginative heart would find its ideal
+in him, and that his fastidious taste and sensitive, reserved nature
+would be charmed by your simplicity, freshness, and genius. I knew it,
+and yet I could not warn you. For when did youth ever believe the
+cautions of age, or passion listen to the voice of truth?"
+
+"Warn _me_, madam? Oh, you mean him, not _me_. I never had the
+presumption to think myself his equal; never sought, never aspired to
+his love. You believe me, Mrs. Linwood--tell me, you believe me in
+this?"
+
+"I do, Gabriella. Your heart opened as involuntarily and as inevitably
+to receive him, as the flower unfolds itself to the noonday sun. It is
+your destiny; but would to God I could oppose it, that I could
+substitute for you a happier, if less brilliant lot."
+
+"A happier lot than to be the wife of Ernest? Oh! Mrs. Linwood, Heaven
+offers nothing to the eye of faith more blissful, more divine."
+
+"Alas! my child, such is always the dream of love like yours, and from
+such dreams there must be a day of awakening. God never intended their
+realization in this world. You look up to me with wondering and
+reproachful glance. You have feared me, Gabriella, feared that I would
+oppose my son's choice, if it rested on one so lowly as you believe
+yourself. You are mistaken--I have no right to dictate to him. He is
+more than of age, has an independent fortune and an independent will.
+The husband lifts his wife to his own position in society, and his name
+annihilates hers. The knowledge of your father's character gives me
+pain, and the possibility of his ever claiming you as his child is a
+source of deep inquietude,--but it is chiefly for you I tremble, for you
+I suffer, my beloved Gabriella."
+
+I looked up in consternation and alarm. What invisible sword hung
+trembling over the future?
+
+"Ernest," she began, then stopping, she raised me from my kneeling
+attitude, led me to a sofa, and made me seat myself at her side.
+"Ernest," she continued, holding my hand tenderly in hers, "has many
+noble and attractive qualities. He is just, generous, and honorable; he
+is upright, honest, and true; the shadow of deceit never passed over his
+soul, the stain of a mean action never rested on his conduct. But,"--and
+her hand involuntarily tightened around mine,--"he has qualities fatal
+to the peace of those who love him,--fatal to his own happiness;
+suspicion haunts him like a dark shadow,--jealousy, like a serpent, lies
+coiled in his heart."
+
+"He has told me all this," I cried, with a sigh of relief,--"but I fear
+not,--my confidence shall be so entire, there shall be no room for
+suspicion,--my love so perfect it shall cast out jealousy."
+
+"So I once thought and reasoned in all the glow of youthful enthusiasm,
+but experience came with its icy touch, and enthusiasm, hope, joy, and
+love itself faded and died. The dark passions of Ernest are
+hereditary,--they belong to the blood that flows in his veins,--they are
+part and lot of his existence,--they are the phantoms that haunted his
+father's path, and cast their chill shadows over the brief years of my
+married life. The remembrance of what I have suffered myself, makes me
+tremble for her who places her happiness in my son's keeping. A woman
+cannot be happy unless she is trusted."
+
+"Not if she is beloved!" I exclaimed. "It seems to me that love should
+cover every fault, and jealousy be pardoned without an effort, since it
+is a proof of the strength and fervor of one's affection. Let me be
+loved,--I ask no more."
+
+"You love my son, Gabriella?"
+
+"Love him!" I repeated,--"oh that you could look into my heart!"
+
+Blushing at the fervor of my manner, I turned my crimson face from her
+gaze. Then I remembered that he knew not yet what might place an
+insurmountable barrier between us, and I entreated Mrs. Linwood to tell
+him what I wanted courage to relate.
+
+"I will, my child, but it will make no difference with him. His high,
+chivalrous sense of honor will make the circumstances of your birth but
+a new claim on his protection,--and his purposes are as immovable as his
+passions are strong. But let us talk no more to-night. It is late, and
+you need rest. We will renew the subject when you are more composed--I
+might say both. I could not give you a greater proof of my interest in
+your happiness, than the allusion I have made to my past life. Never
+before have I lifted the curtain from errors which death has sanctified.
+Let the confidence be sacred. Ernest and Edith must never know that a
+shadow rested on their father's virtues. Nothing but the hope of saving
+you from the sufferings which once were mine, could have induced me to
+rend the veil from the temple of my heart."
+
+"How solemn, how chilling are your words," said I, feeling very faint
+and sad. "I wish I had not heard them. Do joy and sorrow always thus go
+hand in hand? In the last few hours I have known the two great extremes
+of life. I have been plunged into the depths of despair and raised to
+the summit of hope. I am dizzy and weak by the sudden transition. I will
+retire, dear madam, for my head feels strangely bewildered."
+
+Mrs. Linwood embraced me with unusual tenderness, kissed me on both
+cheeks, and accompanied me to the door with a fervent "God bless you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+As soon as I reached my chamber, I threw myself on my bed, which seemed
+to roll beneath me with a billowy motion. Never had I felt so strangely,
+so wildly. Confused images crowded through my brain. I moved on an
+undulating surface. Now, it was the swelling and sinking of the blue
+gray waves of ocean,--then, the heaving green of the churchyard, billows
+of death, over which the wind blew damp and chill. I had left the lamp
+unextinguished, where its light reflected the rosy red of the curtains,
+and that became a fiery meteor shooting through crimson clouds, and
+leaving a lurid track behind it.
+
+I sat up in bed; frightened at the wild confusion of my brain, I passed
+my hands over my eyes to remove the illusion, but in vain. The massy
+wardrobe changed to the rocky walls of the Rip Raps, and above it I saw
+the tall form of the white-locked chief. The carpet, with its clusters
+of mimic flowers, on a pale gray ground, was a waste of waters, covered
+with roses, among which St. James was swimming and trying to grasp them.
+
+"What is the matter?" I cried, clasping my burning hands. "Am I asleep,
+and are these images but the visions of a feverish imagination?"
+
+"You dream, my love," answered the low, deep voice of Ernest; "but my
+mother is coming to awaken you with a cold and icy hand. I have
+scattered roses over you while you slept, but her blighting touch has
+withered them."
+
+Thus vision after vision succeeded each other, hurrying along like
+clouds in a tempestuous sky. I suppose I must have slept at last, but
+the morning found me in a state of utter exhaustion. Nervous excitement,
+sitting so long on the damp grass, and lingering out in the dewy evening
+air, brought on an illness which confined me to my bed many days. Dr.
+Harlowe threatened to put me in a strait-jacket and send me to a lunatic
+asylum, if I did not behave better in future.
+
+"I must take you home with me," he said; "our quiet, humdrum mode of
+life is better for you, after all. Your little rocking chair stands
+exactly where you used to sit in it. I do not like to see any one else
+occupy it. I get in disgrace with my wife every day, now you are not by
+me to hang up my hat and remind me by a glance to shake the dust from my
+feet. Such a quick pulse as this will never do, my child."
+
+For a week I was kept in a darkened room, and perfect quietude was
+commanded. The doctor came every day, and sometimes several times a day,
+with his smiling, sunny countenance, and anxious, affectionate heart.
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith stole gently in and out, with steps soft as
+falling snowflakes, and Margaret Melville was not permitted to enter at
+all. Every morning fresh flowers were laid upon my pillow, which I knew
+were gathered by the hand of Ernest, and they whispered to me of such
+sweet things my languid senses _ached_ to hear them.
+
+One day, while in this passive, languishing, dreamy condition, having
+fallen into tranquil slumbers, I was left a few moments alone. I was
+awakened by a stronger touch than that of Edith's fairy hand.
+
+"Why, how do you do, darling? How do you do?" cried a hearty, gay voice,
+that echoed like a bugle in the stillness of the room. "The doctor said
+you were getting well, and I determined I would not be kept out any
+longer. What in the world do they banish _me_ for? I am the best nurse
+in the universe, strong as a lion, and wakeful as an owl. What do they
+shut you up in this dark room for?--just to give you the blues!--It is
+all nonsense. I am going to put back these curtains, and let in some
+light,--you will become etiolated. I want to see how you look."
+
+Dashing at the curtains, she tossed two of them back as high as she
+could throw them, letting in a flood of sunshine to my weak and dazzled
+eyes.
+
+"Don't! don't!" I entreated, getting dreadfully nervous and agitated; "I
+cannot bear it,--indeed I cannot."
+
+"Yes you can; you will be better in a moment,--it is only coming out of
+darkness into marvellous light,--a sudden change, that is all. You do
+look white,--white, delicate, and sweet as a water-lily. I have a great
+mind to invite Ernest up to see you, you look so interesting. He has
+been like a distracted man, a wandering Jew, an unlaid ghost, ever since
+you have been ill. And poor Richard Clyde comes every night to inquire
+after you, with such a woebegone countenance. And that great, ugly,
+magnificent creature of a teacher, he has been too,--you certainly are a
+consequential little lady."
+
+Thus she rattled on, without dreaming of the martyrdom she was
+inflicting on my weakened nerves.
+
+"I have no doubt you mean to be kind," said I, ready to cry from
+weakness and irritation; "but if you will only drop the curtains and
+leave me, I will be so very grateful."
+
+"There--the curtains are down. I am not going to speak another word--I
+am a perfect lamb--I will bathe your head with cologne, and put you to
+sleep nicely."
+
+Stepping across the room, as she thought, very softly, but making more
+noise than Edith would in a week, she seized a bottle of cologne, and
+coming close to the bedside, bent over me, so that her great, black eyes
+almost touched mine. Had they been a pair of pistols, I could not have
+recoiled with greater terror.
+
+"Don't!" again I murmured,--"I am very weak."
+
+"Hush! I am going to put you to sleep."
+
+Pouring the cologne in her hand, till it dripped all over the
+counterpane and pillow, she deluged my hair, and patted my forehead as
+she would a colt's that she wanted to stand still. In mute despair I
+submitted to her _tender mercies_, certain I should die, if some one did
+not come to my relief, when the door softly opened, and Mrs. Linwood
+entered.
+
+"Heaven be praised," thought I,--I had not strength to say it. Tears of
+weariness and vexation were mingling with the drops with which she had
+saturated my hair.
+
+"Margaret," said Mrs. Linwood, in a tone of serious displeasure, "what
+have you been doing? I left her in a sweet sleep, and now I find her
+wan, tearful, and agitated. You will worry her into a relapse."
+
+"All she needs now is cheerful company, I am sure," she answered
+demurely; "you all make her so tender and baby-like, she never will have
+any strength again. I've been as soft as a cooing dove. Dr. Harlowe
+would have been delighted with me."
+
+"You _must_ go, Margaret, indeed you must. _You_ may think yourself a
+dove, but others have a different opinion."
+
+"Going, going, gone!" she cried, giving me a vehement kiss and
+vanishing.
+
+The consequence of this energetic visit was a relapse; and Dr. Harlowe
+was as angry as his nature admitted when he learned the cause.
+
+"That wild-cat must not remain here," said he, shaking his head. "She
+will kill my gentle patient. Where did you find her, Mrs. Linwood? From
+what menagerie has she broken loose?"
+
+"She is the daughter of an early and very dear friend of mine," replied
+Mrs. Linwood, smiling; "a very original and independent young lady, I
+grant she is."
+
+"What in the world did you bring her here for?" asked the doctor
+bluntly; "I intend to chain her, while my child is sick."
+
+"She wished to make a visit in the country, and I thought her wild
+good-humor would be a counterpoise to the poetry and romance of
+Grandison Place."
+
+"You have other more attractive and tractable guests. You will not
+object to my depriving you for a short time of her. May I invite her
+home with me?"
+
+"Certainly,--but she will not accept the invitation. She is not
+acquainted with Mrs. Harlowe."
+
+"That makes no difference,--she will go with me, I am positive."
+
+They conversed in a low tone in one of the window recesses, but I heard
+what they said; and when Mrs. Linwood afterwards told me that Meg the
+Dauntless had gone off with the doctor in high glee, I was inexpressibly
+relieved, for I had conceived an unconquerable terror of her. There was
+other company in the house, as Edith had prophesied, but in a mansion so
+large and so admirably arranged, an invalid might be kept perfectly
+quiet without interfering with the social enjoyment of others.
+
+I was slowly but surely recovering. At night Edith had her harp placed
+in the upper piazza, and sang and played some of her sweetest and most
+soothing strains. Another voice, too, mingled at times with the
+breeze-like swelling of the thrilling chords, and a hand whose
+master-touch my spirit recognized, swept the trembling strings.
+
+How long it seemed since I had stood with _him_ under the shade of the
+broad elm-tree! With what fluctuating emotions I looked forward to
+meeting him again!
+
+At length the doctor pronounced me able to go down stairs.
+
+"I am going to keep the wild-cat till you are a little stronger," he
+said. "She has made herself acquainted with the whole neighborhood, and
+keeps us in a state of perpetual mirth and excitement. What do you think
+she has done? She has actually made Mr. Regulus escort her on horseback
+into the country, and says she is resolved to captivate him."
+
+I could not help laughing at the idea of my tall, awkward master, a
+knight-errant to this queen of the amazons.
+
+"How would you like to be supplanted by her?" he mischievously asked.
+
+"As an assistant teacher?"
+
+"As an assistant for life. Poor Regulus! he was quite sick during your
+absence; and when I accused him of being in love, the simple-hearted
+creature confessed the fact and owned the soft impeachment. I really
+feel very sorry for him. He has a stupendous heart, and a magnificent
+brain. You ought to have treated him better. He would be to you a tower
+of strength in the day of trouble. Little girl, you ought to be proud of
+such a conquest."
+
+"It filled me with sorrow and shame," I answered, "and had he not
+himself betrayed the secret, it never would have been known. It seemed
+too deep a humiliation for one whom I so much respected and revered, to
+bow a supplicant to me. You do not know how unhappy it made me."
+
+"You must get hardened to these things, Gabriella. As you seem to be
+quite a dangerous young lady, destined to do great havoc in the world,
+it will not do to be too sensitive on the subject. But remember, you
+must not dispose of your heart without consulting me. And at any rate,
+wait three years longer for your judgment to mature."
+
+The conscious color rose to my cheek. He took my hand, and placed his
+fingers on my throbbing pulse.
+
+"Too quick, too quick," said he, looking gravely in my face. "This will
+never do. When I bring the wild-cat back, I mean to carry you off. It
+will do you good to stay a while with my good, methodical, unromantic
+wife. I can take you round to visit my patients with me. I have a new
+buggy, larger than the one in which we had such a famous ride together."
+
+The associations connected with that ride were so sad, I wished he had
+not mentioned it; yet the conversation had done me good. It kept me from
+dwelling too exclusively on one engrossing subject.
+
+"Now give me your arm," said the doctor, "and let me have the privilege
+of escorting you down stairs."
+
+As we descended, he put his arm round me, for I was weaker than he
+thought I was, and my knees bent under me.
+
+"We doctors ought not to have jealous wives, my dear, ought we? My dear,
+good woman has not one particle of jealousy in her composition. She
+never looks after my heart; but keeps a wonderfully sharp eye on my head
+and feet. A very sensible person, Mrs. Harlowe is."
+
+There was intentional kindness in this apparent levity. He saw I was
+agitated, and wished to divert my thoughts. Perhaps he read more deeply
+than I imagined, for those who seem to glance lightly on the surface of
+feeling only, often penetrate to its depths.
+
+The drawing-room was divided by folding doors, which were seldom closed,
+and in the four corners of each division were crimson lounges, of
+luxurious and graceful form. Company generally gathered in the front
+part, but the backroom was equally pleasant, as it opened into the
+flower-garden through a balcony shaded by vines.
+
+"Come in here, and rest awhile," said the doctor, leading me into the
+back parlor; "it will be a pleasant surprise to Mrs. Linwood. I did not
+tell her I was going to bring you down."
+
+As we entered, I saw Ernest Linwood half reclining on a lounge with a
+book in his hand, which hung listlessly at his side. As he looked up,
+his pale face lighted suddenly and brilliantly as burning gas. He rose,
+threw down his book, came hastily forward, took my hand, and drawing it
+from the doctor's arm, twined it round his own.
+
+"How well you look!" he exclaimed. "Dr. Harlowe, we owe you ten thousand
+thanks."
+
+"This is a strange way of showing it," said the doctor, looking round
+him with a comical expression, "to deprive me of my companion, and leave
+me as lonely as Simon Stylites on the top of his pillar."
+
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith, who had seen our entrance, came forward and
+congratulated me on my convalescence. It was the first time I had ever
+been ill, and the pleasure of being released from durance was like that
+of a weary child let loose from school. I was grateful and happy. The
+assurance I received from the first glance of Ernest, that what his
+mother had promised to reveal had made no change in his feelings; that
+the love, which I had almost begun to think an illusion of my own brain,
+was a real existing passion, filled me with unspeakable joy. The
+warnings of Mrs. Linwood had no power to weaken my faith and hope. Had
+she not told me that _her_ love had died? I felt that mine was immortal.
+
+The impression made by my mother's sad history was still too fresh and
+deep, and too much of the languor of indisposition still clung to me to
+admit of my being gay; but it was pleasant to hear the cheerful laugh
+and lively conversation, showing that the tide of social life ran clear
+and high. Several new guests had arrived, whom I had not seen before, to
+whom I was introduced; but as Dr. Harlowe commanded me to be a good girl
+and remain quietly in a corner, a passing introduction limited the
+intercourse of the evening.
+
+Just as the doctor was taking leave, a loud, merry ha, ha! came leaping
+up the steps, followed by the amazonian form of Madge Wildfire, leaning
+on the arm of Mr. Regulus.
+
+"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" exclaimed Ernest.
+
+"Shade of Esculapius!" cried the doctor, recoiling from the threshold.
+
+"Glad to see me? I know you are. Taken you all by storm. Found this
+gentleman wandering like a troubled spirit by the way-side, and pressed
+him into service. I shall make a gallant knight of him yet, My dear
+soul!" she cried, spying me out and rushing towards me, "I am so glad to
+see you here, escaped from the ruthless hands of the doctor. I never saw
+such a despot in my life, except _one_;" here she looked laughingly and
+defiantly at Ernest,--"he would out-Nero Nero himself, if he had the
+opportunity."
+
+"If I were the autocrat of Russia I would certainly exercise the right
+of banishment," he answered quietly.
+
+During this sportive encounter, Mr. Regulus came up to greet me. I had
+not seen him since our memorable interview in the academy, and his
+sallow face glowed with embarrassment. I rose to meet him, anxious to
+show him every mark of respect and esteem. I asked him to take a seat on
+the sofa by me, and ventured to congratulate him on the exceedingly
+entertaining acquaintance he had made.
+
+"A very extraordinary young lady," he cried, "amazingly merry, and
+somewhat bold. I had not the most remote idea of coming here, when I
+left home; but suddenly I found her arm linked in mine, and was told
+that I must escort her _nolens volens_."
+
+"Indeed! I thought you came to inquire after my health, and was feeling
+_so_ grateful!"
+
+"I did not know I should have the pleasure of seeing _you_, and I did
+not hope you would welcome me with so much cordiality. I have made many
+inquiries after you; indeed, I have scarcely thought of any thing else
+since you were ill. You look pale, Gabriella. Are you sure you are quite
+well, my child?"
+
+The old endearing epithet! It touched me.
+
+"I do not feel strong enough to move Mount Atlas, but well enough to
+enjoy the society of my friends. I never appreciated it so highly
+before."
+
+"You have no idea how I miss you," he said, taking my fan and drawing
+his thumb over it, as if he were feeling the edge of his ferula. "The
+season of summer lingers, but the flowers no longer bloom for me. The
+birds sing, but their notes have lost their melody. My perception of the
+beautiful has grown dim, but the remembrance of it can never fade. I
+never knew before what the pleasures of memory truly were."
+
+"I recollect a copy you once set me, Mr. Regulus,--'Sweet is the memory
+of absent friends,'--I thought it such a charming one!"
+
+"Do you remember that?" he asked, with a delighted countenance.
+
+"Yes! I remember all the copies you ever set me. Teachers should be very
+careful what sentiments they write, for they are never forgotten. Don't
+you recollect how all the pupils once laughed at a mistake in
+punctuation of mine? The copy was, 'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as
+well as the poor.' As the line was not quite filled, you added
+_Gabriella_, after making a full period. I forgot the stop and wrote,
+'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as well as the poor Gabriella.' The
+ridicule of the scholars taught me the importance of punctuation. Our
+mistakes are our best lessons, after all."
+
+"And do you remember these trifles?" he repeated. "How strange! It shows
+you have the heart of a child still. I love to hear you recall them."
+
+"I could fill a volume with these reminiscences. I believe I will write
+one, one of these days, and you shall be the hero."
+
+A merry altercation at the door attracted our attention. Dr. Harlowe was
+endeavoring to persuade Madge to go back with him, but she strenuously
+refused.
+
+"I never could stay more than ten days at a time in one place in my
+life. Besides, I have worn out my welcome, I know I have. Your house is
+not new. It jars too much when I walk. I saw Mrs. Harlowe looking
+ruefully at some cracked glass and china, and then at me, as much as to
+say, 'It is all your doings, you young romp.'"
+
+"Very likely," cried the doctor, laughing heartily, "but it only makes
+me more anxious to secure you. You are a safety-valve in the house. All
+my misdemeanors escape unreproved in the presence of your superior
+recklessness."
+
+I never saw any one enjoy a jest more than Dr. Harlowe. He really liked
+the dashing and untamable Madge. He was fond of young companions; and
+though his wife was such a _superior woman_, and such an incomparable
+housekeeper, there was nothing very exhilarating about her.
+
+"I can't go," said Madge; "I must stay and take care of Gabriella."
+
+"If you play any of your wild pranks on her again," said the doctor, "it
+were better for you that you had never been born."
+
+With this threat he departed; and it seemed as if a dozen people had
+been added to the household in the person of the dauntless Meg. I never
+saw any one with such a flow of animal spirits, with so much oxygen in
+their composition. I should think the vital principle in such a
+constitution would burn out sooner than in others, like a flame fed by
+alcohol. She was older than myself, and yet had no more apparent
+reflection than a child of five years old. It was impossible to make her
+angry. The gravest rebuke, the most cutting sarcasm, were received with
+a merry twinkle of the eye or a rich swell of laughter. She was bold,
+masculine, wild, and free, and I feared her as much as I would the
+wild-cat, after whom the doctor had christened her,--yet there was
+something about her that I liked. It was probably the interest she
+professed in me, which must have been genuine. It was impossible for her
+to affect any thing.
+
+Who would dream of any one sporting with such a man as Mr. Regulus? Yet
+she treated him exactly as if he were a great boy. He had paid us his
+parting salutations, and was half-way down the steps before she was
+aware of his intended departure.
+
+"You are not going so soon, indeed you are not," she exclaimed, running
+after him, seizing his hat, and setting it jauntily on her own head. Her
+abundant hair prevented it from falling over her face. "I brought you
+here to stay all the evening; and stay you must and shall. What do you
+want to go back to your musty old bachelor's room for, when there is
+such delightful company here?"
+
+Taking hold of his arm and whirling him briskly round, she led him back
+into the parlor, laughing and triumphant.
+
+She looked so saucy, so jaunty, so full of nerve and adventure, with the
+large hat pitched on one side of her head, I could not help saying,--
+
+"What a pity she were not a man!"
+
+Mr. Regulus did not appear as awkward as might be supposed. There was a
+latent spark of fun and frolic in his large brain, to which her wild
+hand applied the match; and though I know he felt the disappointment of
+his affections sorely, deeply, he yielded himself to her assault with
+tolerable grace and readiness.
+
+Supper was always an unceremonious meal, sent round on waiters, from a
+round table in the back parlor, at which Mrs. Linwood presided.
+Gentlemen took their cups standing or walking, just as it happened; and
+ladies, too, though they were generally seated. Ernest drew a light
+table to the lounge where I sat; and sitting by me, said, as I was an
+invalid, I should be peculiarly favored.
+
+"Methinks she is not the only favored one," said the sweet voice of
+Edith, as she floated near.
+
+"There is room for you, dear Edith," said I, moving closer to the arm of
+the sofa, and leaving a space for her between us.
+
+"Room on the sofa, Edith," added he, moving towards me, and making a
+space for her on his right, "and tenfold room in my heart."
+
+He took her hand and drew her down to his side.
+
+"This is as it should be," he said, looking from one to the other with a
+radiant countenance. "Thus would I ever bind to my heart the two
+loveliest, dearest, best."
+
+Edith bent her head, and kissed the hand which held hers. As she looked
+up I saw that her eyes were glistening.
+
+"What would mamma say?" she asked, trying to conceal her emotion.
+"Surely there can be none dearer and better than she is."
+
+"Nay, Edith," said he, passing his arm tenderly round her waist; "you
+might as well say, if I singled out two bright, especial stars from the
+firmament, that I did not think the moon fair or excellent. The love I
+bear my mother is so exalted by reverence, it stands apart by itself
+like the queen of night, serene and holy, moving in a distinct and lofty
+sphere. There is one glory of the sun, Edith, and another glory of the
+moon, and one star differeth from another in glory. Yet they are all
+glorious in themselves, and all proclaim the goodness and glory of the
+Creator."
+
+"I have heard it said," observed Edith, in a low, tremulous tone, "that
+when love takes possession of the heart, the natural affections have
+comparatively little strength; that it is to them as is the ocean to its
+tributaries. I know nothing of it by experience, nor do I wish to, if it
+has power to diminish the filial and sisterly tenderness which
+constitutes my chief joy."
+
+"My dear Edith, it is not so. Every pure and generous affection expands
+the heart, and gives it new capacities for loving. Have you not heard of
+heaven,--'the more angels the more room?' So it is with the human heart.
+It is elastic, and enlarges with every lawful claimant to be admitted
+into its sanctuary. It is true there is a love which admits of no
+rivalry;" here his eye turned involuntarily to me, "which enshrines but
+one object, which dwells in the inner temple, the angel of angels. But
+other affections do not become weaker in consequence of its strength. We
+may not see the fire-flame burn as brightly when the sun shines upon it,
+but the flame is burning still."
+
+"Gabriella does not speak," said Edith, with an incredulous wave of her
+golden locks. "Tell me, Gabriella, are his words true?"
+
+"I am not a very good metaphysician," I answered, "but I should think
+the heart very narrow, that could accommodate only those whom Nature
+placed in it. It seems to me but a refined species of selfishness."
+
+The color crimsoned on Edith's fair cheek. I had forgotten what she had
+said to me of her own exclusive affection. I sympathized so entirely in
+his sentiments, expressed with such beautiful enthusiasm, I forgot every
+thing else. The moment I had spoken, memory rebuked my transient
+oblivion. She must believe it an intentional sarcasm. How could I be so
+careless of the feelings of one so gentle and so kind?
+
+"I know _I_ am selfish," she said. "I have told you my weakness,--sin it
+may be,--and I deserve the reproach."
+
+"You cannot think I meant it as such. You know I could not. I had
+forgotten what I have heard you previously utter. I was thinking only of
+the present. Forgive me, Edith, for being so thoughtless and impulsive;
+for being so selfish myself."
+
+"I am wrong," said Edith, ingenuously. "I suppose conscience applied the
+words. Brother, you, who are the cause of the offence, must make my
+peace."
+
+"It is already made," answered I, holding out my hand to meet hers; "if
+you acquit me of intentional wrong, I ask no more."
+
+As our hands united before him, he clasped them both in one of his own.
+
+"A triune band," said he, earnestly, "that never must be broken. Edith,
+Gabriella, remember this. Love each other now, love each other forever,
+even as I love ye both."
+
+I was sensitive and childish from recent indisposition, or I should have
+had more self-control. I could not prevent the tears from rushing to my
+eyes and stealing down my cheeks. As we were sitting by ourselves, in a
+part of the room less brilliantly lighted than the rest, and as we all
+conversed in a low voice, this little scene was not conspicuous, though
+it might have possibly been observed.
+
+Those in the front room seemed exceedingly merry. Madge had placed a
+table before herself and Mr. Regulus, in imitation of Ernest, and had
+piled his plate with quantities of cake, as high as a pyramid. A gay
+group surrounded the table, that seemed floating on a tide of laughter;
+or rather making an eddy, in 'which their spirits were whirling.'
+
+As soon as supper was over, she told Mr. Regulus to lead her to the
+piano, as she was literally dying to play. There was no instrument at
+Dr. Harlowe's but a jew's-harp, and the tongue of that was broken. As
+she seated herself at the piano, Mr. Regulus reached forward and took up
+a violin which was lying upon it.
+
+"Do you play?" she asked eagerly.
+
+"I used to play a good deal when a boy, but that was a long time ago,"
+he answered, drawing the bow across the strings with no unskilful hand.
+
+"Delightful, charming!" she exclaimed. "Can you play '_Come, haste to
+the wedding_?'"
+
+He replied by giving the inspiring air, which she accompanied in her
+wild, exciting manner, laughing and shaking her head with irrepressible
+glee. I was astonished to see my dignified tutor thus lending himself
+for the amusement of the evening. I should have thought as soon of
+Jupiter playing a dancing tune, as Mr. Regulus. But he not only played
+well, he seemed to enjoy it. I was prepared now, to see him on the floor
+dancing with Madge, though I sincerely hoped he would not permit himself
+to be exhibited in that manner. Madge was resolved upon this triumph,
+and called loudly to Edith to come and take her place at the instrument,
+and play the liveliest waltz in the universe for her and Mr. Regulus.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Melville," said he, laying down his violin and resuming
+his usual grave and dignified manner, "I am no dancing bear."
+
+"Come, Mr. Regulus, I have no doubt you dance as charmingly as you play.
+Besides, you would not be so ungallant as to refuse a lady's request."
+
+"Not a _lady-like_ request," he answered, with a shrewd cast of the eye
+under his beetling brows.
+
+This sarcasm was received with acclamation; but Meg lifted her brow as
+dauntless as ever and laughed as loudly.
+
+I began to feel weary of mirth in which I could not sympathize. Mrs.
+Linwood came to me, and saying I looked pale and wan, insisted upon my
+retiring. To this I gladly assented. The little misunderstanding between
+Edith and myself weighed heavily on my spirits, and I longed to be
+alone.
+
+Just as we were crossing the hall of entrance, Richard Clyde came in. He
+greeted me with so much feeling, such earnest, unaffected pleasure, yet
+a pleasure so chastened by sensibility, I realized, perhaps for the
+first time, the value of the heart I had rejected.
+
+"You have been ill, Gabriella," said he, retaining for a moment the hand
+he had taken. "You look pale and languid. You do not know how much your
+friends have suffered on your account, or how grateful they feel for
+your convalesence."
+
+"I did not think I was of so much consequence," I replied. "It is well
+to be sick now and then, so as to be able to appreciate the kindness of
+friends."
+
+"You must suffer us to go now, Richard," said Mrs. Linwood moving
+towards the staircase; "you will find merry company in the parlor ready
+to entertain you. As Gabriella is no longer a prisoner, you will have
+future opportunities of seeing her."
+
+"I must embrace them soon," said he, sadly. "I expect to leave this
+place before long,--my friends, and my country."
+
+"You, Richard?" I exclaimed. Then I remembered the remarks I had heard
+on commencement day, of his being sent to Europe to complete his
+education. I regretted to lose the champion of my childhood, the friend
+of my youth, and my countenance expressed my emotion.
+
+"I have a great deal to say to you, Gabriella," said he, in a low tone.
+"May I see you to-morrow?"
+
+"Certainly,--that is, I think, I hope so." A glance that flashed on me
+from the doorway arrested my stammering tongue. Ernest was standing
+there, observing the interview, and the dark passion of which his mother
+had warned me clouded his brow. Snatching my hand from Richard, I bade
+him a hasty good-night, and ascended the stairs, with a prophetic heart.
+
+Yet, while I felt the shadow on his brow stealing darkly over me, I
+repeated to myself,--
+
+    "The keenest pangs the wretched find,
+      Are rapture to the dreary void,
+    The leafless desert of the mind,
+      The waste of feelings unemployed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+The interview with Richard Clyde the next day, was a painfully agitating
+one. I had no conception till then, how closely and strongly love and
+hope had twined their fibres round him; or how hard would be the task of
+rending them from him. Why could I not appreciate the value of his
+frank, noble, and confiding nature? It may be because we had been
+children together, and that familiarity was unfavorable to the growth of
+love in one of my poetic nature. I _must_ look up. The cloud crowned
+cliff did not appall my high-reaching eye.
+
+"I shall not see you again, Gabriella," said he, as he wrung my hand in
+parting. "I shall not see you again before my departure,--I would not
+for worlds renew the anguish of this moment. I do not reproach you,--you
+have never deceived me. My own hopes have been building a bridge of
+flowers over a dark abyss. But, by the Heaven that hears me, Gabriella,
+the keenest pang I now experience is not for my own loss, it is the
+dread I feel for you."
+
+"Not one word more, Richard, if you love me. I have been tender of your
+feelings,--respect mine. There is but one thing on earth I prize more
+than your friendship. Let me cherish that for the sacred memory of _auld
+lang syne_."
+
+"Farewell, then, Gabriella, best and only beloved! May the hand wither
+that ever falls too heavily on that trusting heart, should we never meet
+again!"
+
+He drew me suddenly closely to him, kissed me passionately, and was
+gone.
+
+"Had you confided in me fully," said Mrs. Linwood, in speaking to me
+afterwards of Richard, "I should never have advised a correspondence
+which must have strengthened his attachment. Having the highest opinion
+of his principles and disposition, and believing you regarded him with
+modest affection, I urged this intercourse as a binding link between
+you. You must have perceived my wishes on this subject."
+
+"If I have erred, it was from mistaken delicacy. I thought I had no
+right to betray an unreturned affection. It was not from a want of
+confidence in you."
+
+"If you could have loved Richard, it would have been well for you, my
+dear Gabriella; but I know the heart admits of no coercion, and least of
+all a heart like yours. I no longer warn, for it is in vain; but I would
+counsel and instruct. If you _do_ become the wife of my son, you will
+assume a responsibility as sacred as it is deep. Not alone for your
+happiness do I tremble, O Gabriella,--I fear,--I dread, for him."
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Linwood, when I love him so exclusively, so devotedly; when I
+feel that I must love him forever--"
+
+"It is the very exclusiveness and strength of your devotion that I fear.
+You will love him too well for your _own_ peace,--too well for _his_
+good. Far better is a rational, steadfast attachment, that neither rises
+above the worth of the object, nor sinks below it, than the two great
+extremes, idolatry and indifference. The first is a violation of the
+commands of God,--the last, of the rights of man. Remember, my child,
+that it is not by the exhibition of idolatrous affection, that a wife
+secures a husband's happiness. It is by patient _continuance_ in
+well-doing, that she works out the salvation of her wedded peace. Sit
+down by me, Gabriella; draw up your work-table; for one can listen best
+when their hands are busy. I have a great deal that I wish to say, and I
+cannot talk as well with your eyes bent so earnestly on me."
+
+I obeyed her without trepidation. I felt the need of her guiding
+counsels, and resolved to lay them up in my heart, and make them the
+rule and guide of my life.
+
+"When a young girl marries a man whom she has been taught to believe
+perfection," continued Mrs. Linwood, "and after marriage discovers her
+golden idol to be an image of wood and clay, she may be permitted to sit
+down and weep a while over her vanished dreams. But when she _knows_ the
+imperfections of him she loves; when she _knows_ they are of a nature to
+try, as with seven-fold heat, the strength and purity of her affection;
+when with this conviction she breathes her wedded vows, she has no right
+to upbraid him. She has walked with open eyes into the furnace, and she
+must not shrink from the flames. She must fold over her woman's heart
+the wings of an angel. She must look up to God, and be silent."
+
+"When innocent of blame, surely she should defend herself from
+accusation," cried I.
+
+"Certainly,--in the spirit of gentleness and Christian love. But she
+must not murmur; she must not complain. But it is not the accusation
+that admits of defence, the arrow that flies at noonday, that is most to
+be feared. It is the cold, inscrutable glance, the chilled and altered
+manner, the suspicion that walketh in darkness,--it is these that try
+the strength of woman's love, and gnaw with slow but certain tooth the
+cable-chain that holds the anchor of her fidelity. These are the evil
+spirits which prayer and fasting alone can cast out. They may fly before
+the uplifted eye and bended knee, but never before the flash of anger or
+the word of recrimination."
+
+"What a solemn view you give me of married life!" I exclaimed, while the
+work dropped from my hands. "What fearful responsibilities you place
+before me,--I tremble, I dare not meet them."
+
+"It is not too late,--the irrevocable vow is not yet breathed,--the path
+is not yet entered. If the mere description of duties makes you turn
+pale with dread, what will the reality be? I do not seek to terrify, but
+to convince. I received you as a precious charge from a dying mother,
+and I vowed over her grave to love, protect, and cherish you, as my own
+daughter. I saw the peculiar dangers to which you were liable from your
+ardent genius and exquisite sensibility, and I suffered you to pass
+through a discipline which my wealth made unnecessary, and which you
+have nobly borne. I did not wish my son to love you, not because you
+were the child of obscurity, but because I had constituted myself the
+guardian of your happiness, and I feared it would be endangered by a
+union with him. How dear is your happiness to me,--how holy I deem the
+charge I have assumed,--you may know by my telling you this. Never
+mother idolized a son as I do Ernest. He is precious as my heart's best
+blood,--he is the one idol that comes between me and my God. My love is
+more intense for the anxiety I feel on his account. If I could have
+prevented his loving;--but how could I, in the constant presence of an
+object so formed to inspire all the romance of love? I knew the serpent
+slept in the bottom of the fountain, and when the waters were stirred it
+would wake and uncoil. Gabriella!" she added, turning towards me, taking
+both hands in hers, and looking me in the face with her clear, eloquent,
+dark gray eyes, "you may be the angel commissioned by Providence to work
+out the earthly salvation of my son, to walk with him through the fiery
+furnace, to guard him in the lion's den, which his own passions may
+create. If to the love that hopeth all, the faith that believeth all,
+you add the charity that _endureth_ all, miracles may follow an
+influence so exalted, and, I say it with reverence, so divine."
+
+It is impossible to give but a faint idea of the power of Mrs. Linwood's
+language and manner. There was no vehemence, no gesticulation. Her eye
+did not flash or sparkle; it burned with a steady, penetrating light.
+Her voice did not rise in tone, but it gave utterance to her words in a
+full, deep stream of thought, inexhaustible and clear. I have heard it
+said that she talked "like a book," and so she did,--like the book of
+heavenly wisdom. Her sentiments were "apples of gold in pictures of
+silver," and worthy to be enshrined in a diamond casket.
+
+As I listened, I caught a portion of her sublime spirit, and felt equal
+to the duties which I had a short time before recoiled from
+contemplating.
+
+"I am very young and inexperienced," I answered, "and too apt to be
+governed by the impulses of the present moment. I dare not promise what
+I may be too weak to perform; but dearest madam, all that a feeble girl,
+strengthened and inspired by love, and leaning humbly on an Almighty
+arm, can do, I pledge myself to do. In looking forward to the future, I
+have thought almost exclusively of being ever near the one beloved
+object, living in the sunshine of his smile, and drinking in the music
+of his voice. Life seemed an elysian dream, from which care and sorrow
+must be for ever banished. You have roused me to nobler views, and given
+existence a nobler aim. I blush for my selfishness. I will henceforth
+think less of being happy myself, than of making others happy; less of
+_happiness_ than _duty_; and every sacrifice that principle requires
+shall be made light, as well as holy, by love."
+
+"Only cherish such feelings, my child," said Mrs. Linwood, warmly
+embracing me, "and you will be the daughter of my choice, as well as my
+adoption. My blessing, and the blessing of approving God, will be yours.
+The woman, who limits her ambition to the triumphs of beauty and the
+influence of personal fascination, receives the retribution of her folly
+and her sin in the coldness and alienation of her husband, and the
+indifference, if not the contempt of the world. She, whose highest aim
+is intellectual power, will make her home like the eyrie of the eagle,
+lofty, but bleak. While she, whose affections alone are the foundation
+of her happiness, will find that the nest of the dove, though pleasant
+and downy in the sunshine, will furnish no shelter from the fierce
+storms and tempestuous winds of life."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Linwood! Is domestic happiness a houseless wanderer? Has it no
+home on earth?"
+
+"Yes, my love, in the heart of the woman whose highest aim is the glory
+of God,--whose next, the excellence and happiness of her husband; who
+considers her talents, her affections, and her beauty as gifts from the
+Almighty hand, for whose use she must one day render an account; whose
+heart is a censer where holy incense is constantly ascending, perfuming
+and sanctifying the atmosphere of home. Such is the woman who pleaseth
+the Lord. Such, I trust, will be my beloved Gabriella."
+
+By conversations like these, almost daily renewed, did this admirable,
+high-minded, and God-fearing woman endeavor to prepare me for the
+exalted position to which love had raised me. This was a happy period of
+my life. The absence of Richard Clyde, though a source of regret, was a
+great blessing, as it removed the most prominent object of jealousy from
+Ernest's path. An occasional cloud, a sudden coldness, and an
+unaccountable reserve, sometimes reminded me of the dangerous passion
+whose shadow too often follows the footsteps of love. But in the
+retirement of rural life, surrounded by the sweet, pure influences of
+nature, the best elements of character were called into exercise.
+
+The friends whom Mrs. Linwood gathered around her were not the idle
+devotees of fashion,--the parasites of wealth; but intelligent, literary
+people, whose society was a source of improvement as well as pleasure.
+Sometimes, circumstances of commanding character forced her to receive
+as guests those whom her judgment would never have selected, as in the
+case of Madge Wildfire; but in general it was a distinction to be
+invited to Grandison Place, whose elegant hospitalities were the boast
+of the town to which it belonged.
+
+The only drawback to my happiness was the pensiveness that hung like a
+soft cloud over the spirits of Edith. She was still kind and
+affectionate to me; but the sweet unreserve of former intercourse was
+gone. I had come between her and her brother's heart. I was the shadow
+on her dial of flowers, that made their bloom wither. I never walked
+with Ernest alone without fearing to give her pain. I never sat with him
+on the seat beneath the elm, in the starry eventide, or at moonlight's
+hour, without feeling that she followed us in secret with a saddened
+glance.
+
+At first, whenever he came to me to walk with him, I would say,--
+
+"Wait till I go for Edith."
+
+"Very well," he would answer, "if there is nothing in your heart that
+pleads for a nearer communion than that which we enjoy in the presence
+of others, a dearer interchange of thought and feeling, let Edith, let
+the whole world come."
+
+"It is for her sake, not mine, I speak,--I cannot bear the soft reproach
+of her loving eye!"
+
+"A sister's affection must not be too exacting," was the reply. "All
+that the fondest brother can bestow, I give to Edith; but there are
+gifts she may not share,--an inner temple she cannot enter,--reserved
+alone for you. Come, the flowers are wasting their fragrance, the stars
+their lustre!"
+
+How could I plead for Edith, after being silenced by such arguments? And
+how could I tell her that I had interceded for her in vain? I never
+imagined before that a sister's love could be _jealous_; but the same
+hereditary passion which was transmitted to his bosom through a father's
+blood, reigned in hers, though in a gentler form.
+
+Every one who has studied human nature must have observed predominant
+family traits, as marked as the attributes of different trees and
+blossoms,--traits which, descending from parent to children,
+individualize them from the great family of mankind. In some, pride
+towers and spreads like the great grove tree of India, the branches
+taking root and forming trunks which put forth a wealth of foliage, rank
+and unhealthy. In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the
+winds and waves of opinion cannot move. In a few, jealousy coils itself
+with lengthening fold, which, like the serpent that wrapped itself round
+Laocoon and his sons, makes parents and children its unhappy victims.
+
+And so it is with the virtues, which, thanks be to God, who setteth the
+solitary in families, are also hereditary. How often do we hear it
+said,--"She is lovely, charitable, and pious,--so was her mother before
+her;" "He is an upright and honorable man,--he came from a noble stock."
+"That youth has a sacred love of truth,--it is his best
+inheritance,--his father's word was equivalent to his bond."
+
+If this be true, it shows the duty of parents in an awfully commanding
+manner. Let them rend out the eye that gives dark and distorted views of
+God and man. Let them cut off the hand that offends and the foot that
+errs, rather than entail on others evils, which all eternity cannot
+remedy. Better transmit to posterity the blinded eye, the maimed and
+halting foot, that knows the narrow path to eternal life, than the dark
+passions that desolate earth, and unfit the soul for the joys of heaven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+I have now arrived at a period in my life, at which the novelist would
+pause,--believing the history of woman ceases to interest as soon as an
+accepted lover and consenting friends appear ready to usher the heroine
+into the temple of Hymen. But there is a _life within life_, which is
+never revealed till it is intertwined with another's. In the depth of
+the heart there is a lower deep, which is never sounded save by the hand
+that wears the _wedding-ring_. There is a talisman in its golden circle,
+more powerful than those worn by the genii of the East.
+
+I love to linger among the beautiful shades of Grandison Place, to
+wander over its velvet lawn, its gravel walks, its winding avenues, to
+gaze on the lovely valley its height commanded whether in the intense
+lights and strong shadows of downward day, or the paler splendor and
+deeper shadows of moonlit night. I love those girdling mountains,--grand
+winding stairs of heaven--on which my spirit has so often climbed, then
+stepping to the clouds, looked through their "golden vistas" into the
+mysteries of the upper world.
+
+O thou charming home of my youth what associations cluster round thee!
+Thy noble trees rustle their green leaves in the breezes of memory. Thy
+moonlight walks are trodden by invisible footsteps. Would I had never
+left thee, Paradise of my heart! Would I had never tasted the fruit of
+the tree of knowledge, which, though golden to the eye, turns to ashes
+on the lips!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Ernest urged me to appoint a period for our marriage, I was
+startled--alarmed. I thought not of hastening to my destiny quite so
+soon. I was too young. I must wait at least two years before assuming
+the responsibilities of a wife.
+
+"Two years!--two centuries!" he exclaimed. "Why should we wait? I have
+wealth, which woos you to enjoy it. I have arrived at the fulness of
+manhood, and you are in the rosetime of your life. Why should we wait?
+For circumstances to divide,--for time to chill,--or death to destroy?
+No, no; when you gave me your heart, you gave me yourself; and I claim
+you as my own, without formal scruples or unnecessary delay."
+
+Mrs. Linwood exerted all her eloquence with her son to induce him to
+defer the union at least one year, till I had seen something of the
+world,--till I was better acquainted with my own heart.
+
+"Yes! wait till she loses the freshness and simplicity that won me,--the
+sweetness and ingenuousness that enchained me!" he cried impetuously.
+"Wait till she has been flattered and spoiled by a vain and deceiving
+world; till she learns to prize the admiration of many better than the
+true love of one; till she becomes that tinsel thing my soul abhors, a
+false and worldly woman. No! give her to me now," he added, clasping me
+to his heart with irresistible tenderness and passion. "Give her to me
+now, in the bloom of her innocence, the flower of her youth, and I will
+enshrine her in my heart as in a crystal vase, which they must break to
+harm her."
+
+The strong love and the strong will united were not to be opposed. Mrs.
+Linwood was forced to yield; and when once her consent was given, mine
+was supposed to be granted. She wished the wedding to be consummated in
+the city, in a style consistent with his splendid fortune, and then our
+rank in society; and therefore proposed the first month in winter, when
+they usually took possession of their habitation in town.
+
+He objected to this with all the earnestness of which he was master. It
+was sacrilege, he said, to call in a gazing world, to make a mockery of
+the holiest feelings of the heart, and to crush under an icy mountain of
+ceremony the spontaneous flowers of nature and of love. He detested
+fashionable crowds on any occasion, and most of all on this. Let it be
+at Grandison Place, the cradle of his love, in the glorious time of the
+harvest-moon, that mellow, golden season, when the earth wraps herself
+as the
+
+      "Sacred bride of heaven,
+    Worthy the passion of a God."
+
+So entirely did I harmonize with him in his preference for Grandison
+Place, that I was willing the time should be anticipated, for the sake
+of the retirement and tranquillity secured.
+
+Madge Wildfire had returned to the city, declaring that lovers were the
+most selfish and insipid people in the world,--that she was tired of
+flirting with Ursa Major, as she called Mr. Regulus,--tired of teazing
+Dr. Harlowe,--tired of the country and of herself.
+
+The night before she left, she came to me in quite a subdued mood.
+
+"I am really sorry you are going to be married," she cried. "If I were
+you, I would not put on chains before I had tasted the sweets of
+liberty. Only think, you have not come out yet, as the protegee of the
+rich, the aristocratic Mrs. Linwood. What a sensation you would make in
+Boston next winter if you had sense enough to preserve your freedom.
+Ernest Linwood knows well enough what he is about, when he hastens the
+wedding so vehemently. He knows, if you once go into the world, you will
+be surrounded by admirers who may eclipse and supplant him. But I tell
+thee one thing, my dear creature, you will have no chance to shine as a
+belle, as the wife of Ernest. If he does not prove a second Bluebeard,
+my name is not Meg the Dauntless."
+
+"I detest a married belle," I answered with warmth. "The woman who aims
+at such a distinction is false, heartless, and unprincipled. I would
+bless the watching love that shielded me from a name so odious."
+
+"It is a mighty fine thing to be loved, I suppose," said Meg with a
+resounding laugh, "but I know nothing about it and never shall. Mamma
+and Mrs. Linwood are great friends, you know, or have been; and mamma
+thought it would be wondrous fine for young Miss Hopeful to captivate
+Mr. Splendidus. But he did not _take_. I did not suit his delicate
+nerves. Well, I wish you joy, my precious soul. He loves you, there is
+no doubt of that. He never sees, never looks at any one else. If you
+speak, he is all ear; if you move, all eye. I wonder how it will be a
+year hence,--ha, ha!"
+
+Her laugh grated on my nerves, but I concealed the irritation it caused,
+for it was useless to be angry with Meg. She must have had a heart, for
+she was a woman, but the avenue to it was impervious. It was still an
+untravelled wilderness, and bold must be the explorer who dared to
+penetrate its luxuriant depths.
+
+Circumstances connected with the property bequeathed by his uncle, made
+it indispensable that Ernest should be in New York the coming winter;
+and he made arrangements to pass our first bridal season in the great
+empire city. He wrote to a friend resident there, to engage a house and
+have it furnished for our reception.
+
+"For never," said he, "will I carry bride of mine, to make her home in a
+fashionable hotel. I would as soon plunge her in the roaring vortex on
+Norway's coast."
+
+"And must we be separated from your mother and Edith?" I asked,
+trembling at the thought of being removed from Mrs. Linwood's maternal
+counsels and cares; "will they not share our bridal home?"
+
+"I would have the early days of our married life sacred even from their
+participation," he answered, with that eloquence of the eye which no
+woman's heart could resist. "I would have my wife learn to rely on me
+alone for happiness;--to find in my boundless devotion, my unutterable
+love, an equivalent for all she is called upon to resign. If she cannot
+consent to this, no spark from heaven has kindled the flame of the
+altar; the sacrifice is cold, and unworthy of acceptance."
+
+"For myself, I ask nothing, wish for nothing but your companionship," I
+answered, with the fervor of truth and youth, "but I was thinking of
+them, whom I shall rob of a son and brother so inexpressibly dear."
+
+"We shall meet next summer in these lovely shades. We shall all be happy
+together once more. In the mean time, all the elegancies and luxuries
+that love can imagine and wealth supply shall be yours,--
+
+    "Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint
+    The home to which, if love fulfils its prayers,
+    This hand would lead thee, listen,"--
+
+And taking me by the hand, he led me out into the beautiful avenue in
+which we had so often wandered, and continued, in the words of that
+charming play which he had read aloud in the early days of our
+acquaintance, with a thrilling expression which none but himself could
+give--
+
+            "We'll have no friends
+    That are not lovers; no ambition, save
+    To excel them all in love; we'll read no books
+    That are not tales of love; that we may smile
+    To think how poorly eloquence of words
+    Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!
+    And when night comes, amidst the breathless heavens,
+    We'll guess what star shall be our home when love
+    Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light
+    Steals through the mists of alabaster lamps,
+    And every air be heavy with the sighs
+    Of orange groves, and music from sweet lutes,
+    And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth
+    I' the midst of roses!"
+
+"Dost thou like the picture?"
+
+How could I help answering, in the words of the impassioned Pauline,--
+
+"Was ever young imaginative girl wooed in strains of sweeter romance?"
+
+Was there ever a fairer prospect of felicity, if love, pure, intense
+love, constitutes the happiness of wedded life?
+
+I will not swell these pages by describing the village wonder and
+gossip, when it was known that the orphan girl of the old gray cottage
+was exalted to so splendid a destiny; nor the congratulations of
+friends; the delight and exultation of Dr. Harlowe, who said he had
+discovered it all by my pulse long before; nor the deeply interesting
+and characteristic scene with Mr. Regulus; nor the parting interview
+with Mrs. Linwood and Edith.
+
+Yes, I will give a brief sketch of the last hour spent with Edith, the
+night before the wedding. We were to be married in the morning, and
+immediately commence our bridal journey.
+
+Edith had never alluded to her own feelings respecting her brother's
+marriage, since the evening of the only misunderstanding we ever had in
+our sisterly intercourse; and it was a subject I could not introduce.
+The delicate, gauzy reserve in which she enfolded herself was as
+impenetrable to me as an ancient warrior's armor.
+
+Now, when the whole household was wrapped in silence, and the lamps
+extinguished, and I sat in my night robe in the recess of the window,
+she came and sat down beside me. We could see each other's faces by the
+silver starlight It glittered on the tear drops in the eyes of both. I
+put my arms around her, and, laying my head on her bosom, poured out all
+the love, gratitude, and affection with which my full heart was
+burdened.
+
+"Forgive me, my beloved Gabriella," she cried, "my apparent coldness and
+estrangement. On my knees I have asked forgiveness of my heavenly
+Father. With my arms round your neck, and your heart next mine, I ask
+forgiveness of you. Try not to think less of me for the indulgence of a
+too selfish and exacting spirit, but remember me as the poor little
+cripple, who for years found her brother's arm her strength and her
+stay, and learned to look up to him as the representative of Providence,
+as the protecting angel of her life. Only make him happy, my own dear
+sister, and I will yield him, not to your stronger, but your equal love.
+His only fault is loving you too well, in depreciating too much his own
+transcendent powers. You cannot help being happy with _him_, with a
+being so noble and refined. If he ever wounds you by suspicion and
+jealousy, bear all, and forgive all, for the sake of his exceeding
+love,--for my sake, Gabriella, and for the sake of the dear Redeemer who
+died for love of you."
+
+Dear, lovely, angelic Edith! noble, inestimable Mrs. Linwood!--dearly
+beloved home of my orphan years,--grave of my mother, farewell!
+
+Farewell!--the bride of Ernest must not, cannot weep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+The early portion of my married life was more like a dream of heaven
+than a reality of earth. All, and _more_ than I had ever imagined of
+wedded happiness, I realized. The intimate and constant companionship of
+such a being as Ernest, so intellectual, so refined, so highly gifted,
+so loving and impassioned, was a privilege beyond the common destiny of
+women. A hundred times I said to myself in the exultant consciousness of
+joy,--
+
+"How little his mother knows him! The jealousy of the lover has yielded
+to the perfect confidence of the husband. Our hearts are now too closely
+entwined for the shadow of a cloud to pass between them. He says
+himself, that it would be impossible ever to doubt a love so pure and so
+entire as mine."
+
+Our home was as retired as it was possible to be in the heart of a great
+metropolis. It was near one of those beautiful parks which in summer
+give such an aspect of life and purity to surrounding objects, with
+their grassy lawns, graceful shade trees, and fountains of silvery
+brightness playing in the sunshine, and diffusing such a cool, delicious
+atmosphere, in the midst of heat, dust, and confusion. In winter, even,
+these parks give inexpressible relief to the eye, and freedom to the
+mind, that shrinks from the compression of high brick walls, and longs
+for a more expanded view of the heavens than can be obtained through
+turreted roofs, that seem to meet as they tower.
+
+It made but little difference to me now, for my heaven was within. The
+external world, of which I believed myself wholly independent, seemed
+but a shell enclosing the richness and fragrance of our love. The
+luxuries and elegancies of my own home were prized chiefly as proofs of
+Ernest's watchful and generous love.
+
+The friend to whom he had written to prepare a residence, was fortunate
+in securing one which he believed exactly suited to his fastidious and
+classic taste. A gentleman of fortune had just completed and furnished
+an elegant establishment, when unexpected circumstances compelled him to
+leave his country to be absent several years.
+
+I do not think Ernest would have fitted up our bridal home in so showy
+and magnificent a style; but his love for the beautiful and graceful was
+gratified, and he was pleased with my enthusiastic admiration and
+delight.
+
+I sometimes imagined myself in an enchanted palace, when wandering
+through the splendid suite of apartments adorned with such oriental
+luxury. The gentleman whose taste had presided over the building of the
+mansion, had travelled all over Europe, and passed several years in the
+East. He had brought home with him the richest and rarest models of
+Eastern architecture, and fashioned his own mansion after them. Ernest
+had not purchased it, for the owner was not willing to sell; he was
+anxious, however, to secure occupants who would appreciate its elegance,
+and guard it from injury.
+
+Ah! little did I think when eating my bread and milk from the china bowl
+bordered by flowers, when a silver spoon seemed something grand and
+massy in the midst of general poverty, that I should ever be the
+mistress of such a magnificent mansion. I had thought Grandison Place
+luxuriously elegant; but what was it compared to this? How shall I begin
+to describe it? or shall I describe it at all? I always like myself to
+know how to localize a friend, to know their surroundings and realities,
+and all that fills up the picture of their life. A friend! Have I made
+friends of my readers? I trust there are some who have followed the
+history of Gabriella Lynn with sufficient interest, to wish to learn
+something of her experience of the married life.
+
+Come, then, with me, and I will devote this chapter to a palace, which
+might indeed fulfil the prayers of the most princely love.
+
+This beautiful apartment, adorned with paintings and statues of the most
+exquisite workmanship, is a reception room, from which you enter the
+parlor and find yourself winding through fluted pillars of ingrained
+marble, from the centre of which curtains of blue and silver, sweeping
+back and wreathing the columns, form an arch beneath which queens might
+be proud to walk. The walls are glittering with silver and blue, and all
+the decorations of the apartment exhibit the same beautiful union. The
+ceiling above is painted in fresco, where cherubs, lovely as the dream
+of love, spread their wings of silvery tinted azure and draw their fairy
+bows.
+
+Passing through this glittering colonnade into a kind of airy room, you
+pause on the threshold, imagining yourself in a fairy grotto. We will
+suppose it moonlight; for it was by moonlight I first beheld this
+enchanting scene. We arrived at night, and Ernest conducted me himself
+through a home which appeared to me more like a dream of the imagination
+than a creation of man. I saw that _he_ was surprised; that he was
+unprepared for such elaborate splendor. He had told his friend to spare
+no expense; but he was not aware that any one had introduced such
+Asiatic magnificence into our cities. I believe I will describe my own
+first impressions, instead of anticipating yours.
+
+The mellowness of autumn still lingered in the atmosphere,--for the
+season of the harvest-moon is the most beautiful in the world. The
+glorious orb illumined the fairy grotto with a radiance as intense as
+the noonday sun's. It clothed the polished whiteness of the marble
+statues with a drapery of silver, sparkled on the fountain's tossing
+wreaths, converted the spray that rose from the bosom of the marble
+basin below into a delicate web of silver lace-work, and its beams,
+reflected from walls of looking-glass, multiplied, to apparent infinity,
+fountains, statues, trees, and flowers, till my dazzled eyes could
+scarcely distinguish the shadow from the substance. The air was perfumed
+with the delicious odor of tropic blossoms, and filled with the sweet
+murmurs of the gushing fountain.
+
+"Oh! how beautiful! how enchanting!" I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of
+admiration. "This must be ideal. Reality never presented any thing so
+brilliant, so exquisite as this. Oh, Ernest, surely this is a place to
+dream of, not a home to live in?"
+
+"It does, indeed," he answered, "transcend my expectations; but if it
+pleases your eye, Gabriella, it cannot go beyond my wishes."
+
+"Oh yes, it delights my eye, but my heart asked nothing but you. I fear
+you will never know how well I love you, in the midst of such regal
+splendor. If you ever doubt me, Ernest, take me to that island home you
+once described, and you will there learn that on you, and you alone, I
+rely for happiness."
+
+He believed me. I knew he did; for he drew me to his bosom, and amid a
+thousand endearing protestations, told me he did not believe it possible
+ever to doubt a love, which irradiated me at that moment, as the moon
+did the Fairy Grotto.
+
+He led me around the marble basin that received the waters of the
+fountain, and which was margined by sea-shells, from which luxuriant
+flowers were gushing, and explained the beautiful figures standing so
+white, so "coldly sweet, so deadly fair," in the still and solemn
+moonlight. I knew the history of each statue as he named them, but I
+questioned him, that I might have the delight of hearing his charming
+and poetic descriptions.
+
+"Is this a daughter of Danaus?" I asked, stopping before a young and
+exquisitely lovely female, holding up to the fountain an urn, through
+whose perforated bottom the waters seemed eternally dripping.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Is it Hypermestra, the only one of all the fifty who had a woman's
+heart, punished by her father for rescuing her husband from the awful
+doom which her obedient sisters so cruelly inflicted on theirs."
+
+"I believe it is one of the savage forty-nine, who were condemned by the
+judges of the infernal regions to fill bottomless vessels with water,
+through the unending days of eternity. She does not look much like a
+bride of blood, does she, with that face of softly flowing contour, and
+eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more
+divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified
+and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do
+not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a
+light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic
+nature, when such examples are recorded of her perfidy and
+heartlessness?"
+
+"But she is a fabulous being, Ernest."
+
+"Fables have their origin in truth, my Gabriella. Cannot you judge, by
+the shadow, of the form that casts it? The mythology of Greece and Rome
+shows what estimate was placed on human character at the time it was
+written. The attributes of men and women were ascribed to gods and
+goddesses, and by their virtues and crimes we may judge of the moral
+tone of ancient society. Had there been no perfidious wives, the
+daughters of Danaus had never been born of the poet's brain, and
+embodied by the sculptor's hand. Had woman always been as true as she is
+fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated
+down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image
+of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely
+are they intertwined."
+
+"Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and
+betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or
+the beautiful and avenging Medea. Had man never been false to his vows,
+we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the
+poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira. Ah! this is lovely!"
+
+"Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library?
+This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and
+whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness
+and freshness of eternal youth. Do you not trace a resemblance to
+yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble,
+breathe the eloquence of love? How charmingly the moonbeams play upon
+her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow!"
+
+He paused, while the murmurs of the fountain seemed to swell to supply
+the music of his voice. Then he passed on to a lovely Bachanter with ivy
+and vine wreaths on her clustering locks, to a Hebe catching crystal
+drops instead of nectar in her lifted cup; and then we turned and looked
+at all these classic figures reflected in the mural mirrors and at the
+myriad fountains tossing their glittering wreaths, and at the myriad
+basins receiving the cooling showers.
+
+"I only regret," said Ernest, "that I had not designed all this
+expressly for your enjoyment; that the taste of another furnished the
+banquet at which your senses are now revelling."
+
+"But I owe it all to you. You might as well sigh to be the sculptor of
+the statues, the Creator of the flowers. Believe me, I am sufficiently
+grateful. My heart could not bear a greater burden of gratitude."
+
+"Gratitude!" he repeated, "Gabriella, as you value my love, never speak
+to me of gratitude. It is the last feeling I wish to inspire. It may be
+felt for a benefactor, a superior, but not a lover and a husband."
+
+"But when all these characters are combined in one, what language can we
+use to express the full, abounding heart? Methinks mine cannot contain,
+even now, the emotions that swell it almost to suffocation, I am not
+worthy of so much happiness. It is greater than I can bear."
+
+I leaned my head on his shoulder, and tears and smiles mingling together
+relieved the oppression of my grateful, blissful heart. I really felt
+too happy. The intensity of my joy was painful, from its excess.
+
+"This is yours," said he, as we afterwards stood in an apartment whose
+vaulted ceiling, formed of ground crystal and lighted above by gas,
+resembled the softest lustre of moonlight. The hangings of the beds and
+windows were of the richest azure-colored satin, fringed with silver,
+which seemed the livery of the mansion.
+
+"And this is yours," he added, lifting a damask curtain, which fell over
+a charming little recess that opened into a beautiful flower bed. "This
+is a kiosk, where you can sit in the moonlight and make garlands of
+poetry, which Regulus cannot wither."
+
+"How came you so familiar with the mysteries of this enchanted palace?
+Is it not novel to you, as well as to me?"
+
+"Do you not recollect that I left you at the hotel for a short time,
+after our arrival? I accompanied my friend hither, and received from him
+the clue to these magic apartments. This is a bathing-room," said he,
+opening one, where a marble bath and ewer, and every luxurious appliance
+reminded one of Eastern luxury. Even the air had a soft languor in it,
+as if perfumed breaths had mingled there.
+
+"I should like to see the former mistress of this palace," said I,
+gazing round with a bewildered smile; "she was probably some magnificent
+Eastern sultana who reclined under that royal canopy, and received
+sherbet from the hands of kneeling slaves. She little dreamed of the
+rustic successor who would tread her marble halls, and revel in the
+luxuries prepared for her."
+
+"She was a very elegant and intellectual woman, I am told," replied
+Ernest, "who accompanied her husband in his travels, and assisted him in
+every enterprise, by the energy of her mind and the constancy of her
+heart, and whose exquisite taste directed the formation of this graceful
+structure. She painted the frescos on the ceiling of the boudoir, and
+that richly tinted picture of an Italian sunset is the work of her hand.
+This house and its decorations are not as costly as many others in this
+city, but it has such an air of Asiatic magnificence it produces an
+illusion on the eye. I wish, myself, it was not quite so showy, but it
+makes such a charming contrast to the simplicity and freshness of your
+character I cannot wish it otherwise."
+
+"I fear I shall be spoiled. I shall imagine myself one of those
+dark-eyed houris, who dwell in the bowers of paradise and welcome the
+souls of the brave."
+
+"That is no inappropriate comparison," said he; "but you must not
+believe me an Eastern satrap, Gabriella, who dares not enter his wife's
+apartment without seeing the signal of admittance at the door. Here is
+another room opening into this; and pressing a spring, a part of the
+dividing walls slid back, revealing an apartment of similar dimensions,
+and furnished with equal elegance.
+
+"This," added he, "was arranged by the master of the mansion for his own
+accommodation. Here is his library, which seems a mass of burnished
+gold, from the splendid binding of the books. By certain secret springs
+the light can be so graduated in this room, that you can vary it from
+the softest twilight to the full blaze of day."
+
+"The Arabian Nights dramatized!" I exclaimed. "I fear we are walking
+over trap-doors, whose secret mouths are ready to yawn on the
+unsuspecting victim."
+
+"Beware then, Gabriella,--I may be one of the genii, whose terrible
+power no mortal can evade, who can read the thoughts of the heart as
+easily as the printed page. How would you like to be perused so
+closely?"
+
+"Would that you could read every thought of my heart, Ernest, every
+emotion of my soul, then you would know, what words can never
+express,--the height and depth of my love and devotion--I will not _say_
+gratitude--since you reject and disown it,--but that I must ever feel.
+Can I ever forget the generosity, the magnanimity, which, overlooking
+the cloud upon my birth, has made me the sharer of your princely
+destiny, the mistress of a home like this?"
+
+"You do not care for it, only as the expression of my affection; I am
+sure you do not," he repeated, and his dark gray eye seemed to read the
+inmost depths of thought.
+
+"Oh, no! a cottage or a palace would be alike to me, provided you are
+near me. It seems to me now as if I should awake in the morning, and
+find I had been in a dream. I am not sure that you have not a magic ring
+on your finger that produces this illusion."
+
+But the morning sunbeams flashed on the softly murmuring fountain, on
+the white polished forms of the Grecian myths, on the trailing
+luxuriance of the tropic blossoms. They glanced in on the glittering
+drapery that wreathed the marble columns, and lighted the crystal dome
+over my head with a mild, subdued radiance.
+
+A boudoir which I had not seen the evening before elicited my morning
+admiration,--it was furnished with such exquisite elegance, and
+contained so many specimens of the fine arts. Two rosewood cabinets,
+inlaid with pearl, were filled with _chefs-d'[oe]uvres_ from the hands
+of masters, collected in the old world. They were locked; but through
+the glass doors I could gaze and admire, and make them all my own. An
+elegant escritoire was open on the table, the only thing with which I
+could associate the idea of utility. Yes, there was a harp, that seemed
+supported by a marble cherub,--a most magnificent instrument. I sighed
+to think it was useless to me; but Ernest's hand would steal music from
+its silent strings.
+
+And now behold me installed as mistress of this luxurious mansion, an
+utter stranger in the heart of a great metropolis!
+
+It was now that I understood the reserve of Ernest's character. It was
+impossible that we should remain altogether strangers, living in a style
+which wealth only could sanction. Mr. Harland, the gentleman with whom
+Ernest had corresponded, moved in the circles of fashion and
+distinction, and he introduced his friends and acquaintances, being
+himself a frequent and agreeable visitor. Ernest received our guest with
+elegance and politeness,--these attributes were inseparable from
+himself,--but there was a coldness and reserve that seemed to forbid all
+approach to intimacy. Fearful of displeasing him, I repressed the
+natural frankness and social warmth of my nature, and I am sure our
+visitors often departed, chilled and disappointed. The parlor was lined
+with mirrors, and I could not turn without seeing myself reflected on
+every side; and not only myself, but an eye that watched my every
+movement, and an ear that drank in my every word. How could I feel at
+ease, or do justice to those powers of pleasing with which nature may
+have gifted me?
+
+Sometimes, though very seldom, Ernest was not present; and then my
+spirits rebounded from this unnatural constraint, and I laughed and
+talked like other people. The youthful brightness of my feelings flashed
+forth, and I forgot that a _clouded star_ presided over my young life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+I would not give the impression that, at this time, I felt hurt at the
+coldness and reserve of Ernest, as exhibited in society. I was fearful
+of displeasing him by showing too much pleasure in what did not appear
+to interest him; but when the door was closed on the departing guest and
+he exclaimed,--
+
+"Thank heaven! we are once more alone!"
+
+I could not help echoing the sentiment which brought us so close to each
+other, and rejoiced with him that formality and restraint no longer
+interfered with the freedom of love and the joys of home. He never
+appeared so illumined with intellect, so glowing with feeling, as in
+moments like these; and I was flattered that a mind so brilliant, and a
+heart so warm, reserved their brightness and their warmth for me. If he
+was happy with me, and me only, how supremely blest should I be, with a
+companion so intellectual and fascinating! If Edith were but near, so
+that I could say to her occasionally, "How happy I am!" if Mrs. Linwood
+were with me to know that nothing had yet arisen to disturb the heaven
+of our wedded happiness; if excellent Dr. Harlowe could only call in
+once in a while, with his pleasant words and genial smiles; or kindly
+feeling, awkward Mr. Regulus, I should not have a wish ungratified.
+
+It is true I sometimes wished I had something to do, but we had
+supernumerary servants, and if I found any employment it must have been
+similar to that of Jack the bean-boy, who poured his beans on the floor
+and then picked them up again. I was fond of sewing. But the wardrobe of
+a young bride is generally too well supplied; at least mine was, to
+admit of much exercise with the needle. I was passionately fond of
+reading, and of hearing Ernest read; and many an hour every day was
+devoted to books. But the mind, like the body, can digest only a certain
+quantity of food, and is oppressed by an excessive portion.
+
+Had Ernest welcomed society, our superb parlor would have been thronged
+with nightly guests; but he put up bars of ceremony against such
+intrusion; polished silver they were, it is true, but they were felt to
+be heavy and strong. He never visited himself, that is, socially. He
+paid formal calls, as he would an inevitable tax, rejoicing when the
+wearisome task was over; out beyond the limits of ceremony he could not
+be persuaded to pass.
+
+Gradually our evening visitors became few,--the cold season advanced,
+the fountain ceased to play in the grotto, and the beautiful flowers
+were inclosed in the green-house.
+
+Our rooms were warmed by furnaces below, which diffused a summer
+temperature through the house. In mine, the heat came up through an
+exquisite Etruscan vase, covered with flowers, which seemed to emit odor
+as well as warmth, and threw the illusion of spring over the dullness
+and gloom of winter. But I missed the glowing hearth of Mrs. Linwood,
+the brightness and heartiness of her winter fireside.
+
+I never shall forget how I started with horror, when I was conscious of
+a feeling of _ennui_, even in the presence of Ernest. It was not
+possible I should be weary of the joys of heaven, if I were capable of
+sighing in my own Eden bower. I tried to banish the impression; it
+WOULD return, and with it self-reproach and shame.
+
+If Ernest had not been lifted by wealth above the necessity of exertion;
+had he been obliged to exercise the talents with which he was so
+liberally endowed for his own support and the benefit of mankind; had he
+some profession which compelled him to mingle in the world, till the too
+exquisite edge of his sensibilities were blunted by contact with firmer,
+rougher natures, what a blessing it would have been! With what pride
+would I have seen him go forth to his daily duties, sure that he was
+imparting and receiving good. With what rapture would I have welcomed
+his returning footstep!
+
+Oh! had he been a _poor_ man, he would have been a _great_ man. He was
+not obliged to toil, either physically or mentally; and indolence is
+born of luxury, and morbid sensibility luxuriates in the lap of
+indolence. Forms of beauty and grandeur wait in the marble quarry for
+the hand of genius and skill. Ingots of gold sleep in the mine, till the
+explorer fathoms its depths and brings to light the hidden treasures.
+Labor is the slave of the lamp of life, who alone keeps its flame from
+waxing dim. When a child, I looked upon poverty as man's greatest curse;
+but I now thought differently. To feel that every wish is gratified,
+every want supplied, is almost as dreary as to indulge the wish, and
+experience the want, without the means of satisfying the cravings of one
+or the urgency of the other.
+
+Had Ernest been a poor man, he would not have had time to think
+unceasingly of me. His mind would have been occupied with sterner
+thoughts and more exalted cares. But rich as he was, I longed to see him
+live for something nobler than personal enjoyment, to know that he
+possessed a higher aim than love for me. I did not feel worthy to fill
+the capacities of that noble heart. I wanted him to love me less, that I
+might have something more to desire.
+
+"Of what are you thinking so deeply, sweet wife?" he asked, when I had
+been unconsciously indulging in a long, deep reverie. "What great
+subject knits so severely that fair young brow?" he repeated, sitting by
+me, and taking my hand in his.
+
+I blushed, for my thoughts were making bold excursions.
+
+"I was thinking," I answered, looking bravely in his face, "what a
+blessed thing it must be to do good, to have the will as well as the
+power to bless mankind."
+
+"Tell me what scheme of benevolence my little philanthropist is forming.
+What mighty engine would she set in motion to benefit her species?"
+
+"I was thinking how happy a person must feel, who was able to establish
+an asylum for the blind or the insane, a hospital for the sick, or a
+home for the orphan. I was thinking how delightful it would be to go out
+into the byways of poverty, the abodes of sickness and want, and bid
+their inmates follow me, where comfort and ease and plenty awaited them.
+I was thinking, if I were a man, how I would love to be called the
+friend and benefactor of mankind; but, being a woman, how proud and
+happy I should be to follow in the footsteps of such a good and glorious
+being, and hear the blessings bestowed upon his name."
+
+I spoke with earnestness, and my cheeks glowed with enthusiasm. I felt
+the clasp of his hand tighten as he drew me closer to his side.
+
+"You have been thinking," he said, in his peculiarly grave, melodious
+accents, "that I am leading a self-indulging, too luxurious life?"
+
+"Not you--not you alone, dearest Ernest; but both of us," I cried,
+feeling a righteous boldness, I did not dream that I possessed. "Do not
+the purple and the fine linen of luxury enervate the limbs which they
+clothe? Is there no starving Lazarus, who may rebuke us hereafter for
+the sumptuous fare over which we have revelled? I know how generous, how
+compassionate you are; how ready you are to relieve the sufferings
+brought before your eye; but how little we witness here! how few
+opportunities we have of doing good! Ought they not to be sought? May
+they not be found everywhere in this great thoroughfare of humanity?"
+
+"You shall find my purse as deep as your charities, my lovely
+monitress," he answered, while his countenance beamed with approbation.
+"My bounty as boundless as your desires. But, in a great city like this,
+it is difficult to distinguish between willing degradation and
+meritorious poverty. You could not go into the squalid dens of want and
+sin, without soiling the whiteness of your spirit, by familiarity with
+scenes which I would not have you conscious of passing in the world.
+There are those who go about as missionaries of good among the lowest
+dregs of the populace, whom you can employ as agents for your bounty.
+There are benevolent associations, through which your charities can flow
+in full and refreshing streams. Remember, I place no limits to your
+generosities. As to your magnificent plans of establishing asylums and
+public institutions for the lame, the halt, and the blind, perhaps my
+single means might not be able to accomplish them,--delightful as it
+would be to have an angel following in my footsteps, and binding up the
+wounds of suffering humanity."
+
+He smiled with radiant good-humor at my Quixotic schemes. Then he told
+me, that since he had been in the city he had given thousands to the
+charitable associations which spread in great lifegiving veins through
+every part of the metropolis.
+
+"You think I am living in vain, my Gabriella," he said, rising and
+walking the length of the splendid apartment and again returning,
+"because I do not have my allotted daily task to perform; because I do
+not go forth, like the lawyer, with a green bag under my arm; like the
+minister, with a sermon in my pocket; or the doctor, with powders and
+pills. If necessity imposed such tasks on me, I suppose I should perform
+them with as good a grace as the rest; but surely it would ill become me
+to enter the lists with my needier brethren, and take the bread from
+their desiring lips. Every profession is crowded. Even woman is pressing
+into the throng, and claiming precedence of man, in the great struggle
+of life. It seems to me, that it is the duty of those on whom fortune
+has lavished her gifts, to step aside and give room to others, who are
+less liberally endowed. We _may_ live in luxury; but by so doing, our
+wealth is scattered among the multitude, the useful arts are encouraged,
+and much is done for the establishment of that golden mean, which reason
+and philosophy have so long labored to secure."
+
+As he thus spoke calmly, yet energetically, moving back and forth under
+the arches of glittering azure, his pale, transparent complexion lighted
+up glowingly. My eyes followed him with exulting affection. I wondered
+at the presumption of which I had been guilty. He had been doing good in
+secret, while I imagined him forgetful of the sacred legacy, left by
+Christ to the rich. I had wronged him in thought, and I told him so.
+
+"You asked me of what I was thinking," I said, "and you draw my thoughts
+from me as by magic. I have not told you all. _I_ do not sigh for other
+society; but I fear you will become weary of mine."
+
+"Do we ever weary of moonlight, or the sweet, fresh air of heaven? No,
+Gabriella; remain just as you are, ingenuous, confiding, and true, and I
+desire no other companionship. You so entirely fill my heart, there is
+no room for more. You never have had, never will have a rival. You have
+a power over me, such as woman seldom, exercises over man. Love, with
+most men, is the pastime and gladdener of life; with me it is life
+itself. A fearful responsibility is resting on you, my own, dear bride;
+but do not tremble. I do not think it is possible for you to deceive me,
+for you are truth itself. I begin to think you have changed my nature,
+and inspired me with trust and confidence in all mankind."
+
+I did not make any professions, any promises, in answer to his avowal;
+but if ever a fervent prayer rose from the human heart, it ascended from
+mine, that I might prove worthy of this trust, that I might preserve it
+unblemished, with a constant reference to the eye that cannot be
+deceived, and the judgment that cannot err.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+The first misfortune of my married life, came in the person of Margaret
+Melville. She burst into the boudoir one morning like a young tornado,
+seizing me in her strong arms, and giving me a shower of kisses, before
+I had time to recover from my astonishment.
+
+Ernest and myself were seated side by side by the escritoire. He was
+reading,--I was writing to Edith, little dreaming of the interruption at
+hand.
+
+"My dear creature," she exclaimed, with one of her inimitable ringing
+laughs, "how _do_ you _do_? You didn't think of seeing me, I know you
+didn't. Where did I come from? I dropped down from the upper
+regions,--you do not believe that. Well, I came with a party of friends,
+who wanted me to keep them alive. They are stopping at the Astor House.
+By the way, my trunks are there,--you may send for them as soon as you
+please. (Her trunks! she had come for a long visit, then!) There is my
+bonnet, mantilla, and gloves,--here _I_ am, body and soul,--what a
+glorious lounge,--good old Cr[oe]sus, what a palace you are in,--I never
+saw any thing so magnificent! Why, this is worth getting married for! If
+I ever marry, it shall be to a rich man, and one who will let me do just
+as I please, too."
+
+Ernest in vain endeavored to conceal his vexation at this unexpected
+innovation on the elegant quietude and romantic seclusion of our home.
+His countenance expressed it but too plainly, and Margaret, careless as
+she was, must have observed it. It did not appear to disconcert her,
+however. She had not waited for an invitation,--she did not trouble
+herself about a welcome. She had come for her own amusement, and
+provided that was secured, she cared not for our gratification.
+
+I can hardly explain my own feelings. I always dreaded coming in contact
+with her rudeness; there was no sympathy in our natures, and yet I
+experienced a sensation of relief while listening to her bubbling and
+effervescent nonsense. My mind had been kept on so high a tone, there
+was a strain, a tension, of which I was hardly conscious till the
+bowstring was slackened. Besides, she was associated with the
+recollections of Grandison Place,--she was a young person of my own sex,
+and she could talk to me of Mrs. Linwood, and Edith, and the friends of
+my rural life. So I tried to become reconciled to the visitation, and to
+do the honors of a hostess with as good a grace as possible.
+
+Ernest took refuge in the library from her wild rattling, and then she
+poured into my ear the idle gossip she had heard the evening before.
+
+"It never will do," she cried, catching a pair of scissors from my
+work-box, and twirling them on the ends of her fingers at the imminent
+risk of their flying into my eyes,--"you must put a stop to this Darby
+and Joan way of living,--you will be the byword of the fashionable
+world,--I heard several gentlemen talking about you last night. They
+said your husband was so exclusive and jealous he would not let the sun
+look upon you if he could help it,--that he had the house lighted
+through the roof, so that no one could peep at you through the windows.
+Oh! I cannot repeat half the ridiculous things they said, but I am sure
+your ears must have burned from the compliments they paid you, at least
+those who have had the good-luck to catch a glimpse of your face. They
+all agreed that Ernest was a frightful ogre, who ought to be put in a
+boiling cauldron, for immuring you so closely,--I am going to tell him
+so."
+
+"Don't, Margaret, don't! If you have any regard for my feelings, don't,
+I entreat you, ever repeat one word of this unmeaning gossip to him. He
+is so peculiarly sensitive, he would shrink still more from social
+intercourse. What a shame it is to talk of him in this manner. I am sure
+I have as much liberty as I wish. He is ready to gratify every desire of
+my heart He has made me the happiest of human beings."
+
+"Oh! I know all that, of course. Who would not be happy in such a palace
+as this?"
+
+"It is not the splendor with which he has surrounded me," I answered,
+gravely, "but the love which is my earthly Providence, which constitutes
+my felicity. You may tell these _busy idlers_, who are so interested in
+my domestic happiness, that I thank my husband for excluding me from
+companions so inferior to himself,--so incapable of appreciating the
+purity and elevation of his character."
+
+"Well, my precious soul, don't be angry with them. You are a jewel of a
+wife, and I dare say he is a diamond of a husband; but you cannot stop
+peoples' tongues. They _will_ talk when folks set themselves up as
+exclusives. But let me tell you one thing, my pretty creature!--I am not
+going to be shut up in a cage while I am here, I assure you. I am
+determined to see all the lions; go to all fashionable places of
+amusement, all attractive exhibitions, theatres, concerts, panoramas,
+every thing that promises the least particle of enjoyment. I shall
+parade Broadway, frequent Stewart's marble palace, and make myself the
+belle of the city. And you are to go with me, my dear,--for am I not
+your guest, and are you not bound to minister to my gratification? As
+for your ogre, he may go or stay, just as he pleases. There will be
+plenty who will be glad enough to take his place."
+
+I did not expect that she would have the audacity to say this to Ernest;
+but she did. I had never asked him to take me to places of public
+amusement, because I knew he did not wish it. Sometimes, when I saw in
+the morning papers that a celebrated actor was to appear in a fine
+drama, my heart throbbed with momentary desire, and my lips opened to
+express it. But delicacy and pride always restrained its expression. I
+waited for him to say,--
+
+"Gabriella, would you like to go?"
+
+The morning after her arrival she ransacked the papers, and fastening on
+the column devoted to amusements, read its contents aloud, to the
+evident annoyance of Ernest.
+
+"Niblo's Garden, the inimitable Ravels--_La Fete champetre_,--dancing on
+the tight-rope, etc. Yes, that's it. We will go there to-night,
+Gabriella. I have been dying to see the Ravels. Cousin Ernest,--you did
+not know that you were my cousin, did you?--but you are. Our mothers
+have been climbing the genealogical tree, and discovered our collateral
+branches. Cousin Ernest, go and get us tickets before the best seats are
+secured. What an unpromising countenance! Never mind. Mr. Harland said
+he would be only too happy to attend Gabriella and myself to any place
+of amusement or party of pleasure. You are not obliged to go, unless you
+choose. Is he, Gabriella?"
+
+"I certainly should not think of going without him," I answered, vexed
+to discover how much I really wished to go.
+
+"But you wish to go,--you know you do. Poor, dear little soul! You have
+never been anywhere,--you have seen nothing,--you live as close and
+demure as a church mouse,--while this man-monster, who has nothing in
+the universe to do, from morning till night, but wait upon you and
+contribute to your gratification, keeps you at home, like a bird in a
+cage, just to look at and admire. It is too selfish. If _you_ will not
+tell him so, _I_ will. He shall hear the truth from somebody."
+
+"Margaret!" I said, frightened at the pale anger of Ernest's
+countenance.
+
+"You dare not look me in the face and say that you do not wish to go,
+Gabriella? You know you dare not."
+
+"I desire nothing contrary to my husband's wishes."
+
+"You are a little simpleton, then,--and I don't care what people say. It
+is a sin to encourage him in such selfishness and despotism."
+
+She laughed, but her lips curled with scorn.
+
+Ernest took up a pearl paper-cutter from the table, and bent it, till it
+broke like glass in his fingers. He did not know what he was doing.
+Madge only laughed the louder. She enjoyed his anger and my trepidation.
+
+"A pretty thing to make a scene of!" she exclaimed. "Here I come all the
+way from Boston to make you a visit,--expecting you would do every thing
+to make me happy, as other folks do, when friends visit them. I propose
+a quiet, respectable amusement, in my own frank, go-ahead way,--and
+lo!--my lord frowns, and my lady trembles, and both, occupied in
+watching each other's emotions, forget they have a guest to entertain,
+as well as a friend to gratify."
+
+"You might wait till I have refused to accompany you, Miss Melville,"
+said Ernest, in a cold, calm voice. "You know me incapable of such
+rudeness. But I cannot allow even a lady to make such unpardonable
+allusions to my domestic feelings and conduct. If a man cannot find a
+sanctuary from insult in his own home, he may well bar his doors against
+intrusion, and if he has the spirit of a man, he will."
+
+"She is only jesting," said I, with a beseeching glance. "You know Madge
+of old,--she never says any thing she really thinks. How can you be
+excited by any remarks of hers?"
+
+"Cousin Ernest," cried Madge, while the _laughing devil_ in her great
+black eyes tried to shrink into a hiding-place, "have you not manliness
+to forgive me, when the rash humor which my mother gave me makes me
+forgetful?"
+
+She held out her hand with an ardent desire for reconciliation. She
+found she had a spirit to contend with, stronger than she imagined; and
+for the moment she was subdued.
+
+"Not your mother, Margaret," replied Ernest, taking the offered hand
+with a better grace than I anticipated. "She is gentle and womanly, like
+my own. I know not whence you derived your wickedness."
+
+"It is all original. I claim the sole credit of it. Father and mother
+both saints. I am a moral tangent, flying off between them. Well, we are
+friends again; are we not?"
+
+"We are at peace," he answered. "You know the conditions, now; and I
+trust will respect them."
+
+"We are all going to Niblo's," she cried eagerly; "that is one
+condition."
+
+"Certainly," he answered; and he could not help smiling at the
+adroitness with which she changed positions with him.
+
+"Will you really like to go, Gabriella?" he asked, turning to me; and
+his countenance beamed with all its wonted tenderness.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed I will. I am sure it will be delightful."
+
+"And have you ever desired to partake of pleasures, without telling me
+of your wishes?"
+
+"I do not know that I can call the transient emotion I have felt, a
+desire," I answered; blushing that I had ever cherished thoughts which I
+was unwilling to disclose. "I believe curiosity is natural to youth and
+inexperience."
+
+"Perfect love casteth out fear, Gabriella. You must promise to tell me
+every wish of your heart; and be assured, if consistent with reason, it
+shall be gratified."
+
+Delighted at so pleasant a termination to so inauspicious a beginning, I
+looked forward to the evening's entertainment with bright and elastic
+spirits. Once, as my eye rested on the fragments of pearl, I sighed to
+think how easily the pearls of sensibility, as well as all the frail and
+delicate treasures of life, might be crushed by the hand of passion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+I was surprised, when I found myself in a lofty dome, brilliantly
+illuminated by gas, instead of the ample flower-garden my imagination
+had described. I hardly know what idea I had formed; but I expected to
+be seated in the open air, in the midst of blossoming plants, and
+singing birds, and trees, on whose branches variegated lamps were
+burning. Ernest smiled when I told him of my disappointment.
+
+"So it is with the illusions of life," said he. "They all pass away. The
+garden which you passed before the entrance, has given its name to the
+place; and even that, the encroaching steps of business will trample
+on."
+
+Mr. Harland escorted Meg, who was in exuberant spirits, and as usual
+attracted the public gaze by her dashing and reckless demeanor.
+Conspicuous, from her superior height, her large, roving black eyes, and
+her opera cloak of brilliant cherry color, I felt sheltered from
+observation in her vicinity, and hoped that Ernest would find I could
+mingle in public scenes without drawing any peculiar attention. Indeed,
+I was so absorbed by the graceful and expressive pantomime, the novelty
+and variety of the scenic decorations, that I thought not where I was,
+or who I was. To city dwellers, a description of these would be as
+unnecessary as uninteresting; but perhaps some young country girl, as
+inexperienced as myself in fashionable amusements, may like to follow my
+glowing impressions.
+
+One scene I remember, which had on me the effect of enchantment.
+
+The stage represented one of those rural fetes, where the peasantry of
+France gather on the village green, to mingle in the exhilarating dance.
+An aged couple came forward, hand in hand, in coarse grey overcoats,
+wooden sabots, and flapped hats, fastened by gray handkerchiefs under
+their chins. Two tight ropes were stretched parallel to each other,
+about eight or ten feet above the stage, and extended over the
+parquette. A light ladder rested against them, on each side. The aged
+couple tottered to the ladder, and attempted to ascend; but, at the
+first step, they fell and rolled on the ground.
+
+"Poor creatures!" said I, trembling for their safety. "Why will they
+make such a ridiculous attempt? Why will not some of the bystanders
+prevent them, instead of urging them with such exulting shouts?"
+
+"They deserve to suffer for their folly," answered Ernest, laughing.
+"Age should not ape the agility of youth. Perhaps they will do better
+than you anticipate."
+
+After repeated attempts and failures, they stood, balancing themselves
+painfully on the ropes, clinging to each other's hands, and apparently
+trembling with terror.
+
+"They _will_ fall!" I exclaimed, catching hold of Ernest's arm, and
+covering my eyes. "I cannot bear to look at them. There! how dreadfully
+they stagger."
+
+Again I covered my eyes, resolved to shut out the catastrophe of their
+broken necks and mangled limbs,--when thunders of acclamation shook the
+house; and, looking up, I beheld a transformation that seemed
+supernatural. The old great-coats, clumsy sabots, and hats, were
+scattered to the ground; and two youthful figures, glittering in white
+and silver, light and graceful as "feathered Mercuries," stood, hand in
+hand, poised on one foot, on the tight-drawn ropes. They danced. I never
+realized before the music of motion. Now, they floated downwards like
+softly rolling clouds; then vaulted upwards like two white-winged birds,
+with sunbeams shining on their plumage. A bright, fearless smile
+illumined their countenances; their dark, waving locks shone in the
+dazzling light.
+
+Ernest seemed to enjoy my rapture. "I take more pleasure," he said,
+"watching your vivid emotions, than in witnessing this wonderfully
+graceful exhibition. What a perfect child of nature you are, Gabriella.
+You should thank me for keeping you somewhat aloof from the fascinations
+of the world. It is only in the shade, that the dew remains on the
+flower."
+
+I do not think one glance of mine had wandered from the stage, save to
+meet the eye of Ernest. We sat in the second row of boxes, about
+half-way distant from the stage and the centre. I knew that every seat
+was crowded, but I did not observe the occupants. Meg, who cared as much
+about the audience as the performers, kept her opera-glass busy in
+gazing on those who were remote, and her own bold, magnificent eyes in
+examining those in her vicinity.
+
+"Gabriella!" she whispered, "do look at that gentleman in the next box,
+one seat in advance of us. He has been gazing at you for an hour
+steadily. Do you know him?"
+
+I shook my head, and made a motion, enjoining silence. I did not think
+Ernest had heard her, and I did not wish his attention directed towards
+an impertinence of this kind. It would make him angry, and he seemed to
+have enjoyed the evening.
+
+"Why don't you look?" again whispered Meg. "He may leave the box. He is
+certainly trying to magnetize you."
+
+Impelled by growing curiosity, I glanced in the direction she indicated,
+and met the unreceding gaze of a pair of dark, intense eyes, that seemed
+to burn in their sockets. Their owner was a gentleman, who appeared
+about forty years of age, of a very striking figure, and features
+originally handsome, but wearing the unmistakable stamp of dissipation.
+I blushed at his bold and steadfast scrutiny, and drew involuntarily
+nearer to Ernest. Ernest observed his undaunted stare, and his brows
+contracted over his flashing eyes. The gentleman, perceiving this,
+turned towards the stage, and seemed absorbed in admiration of the
+graceful and inimitable Ravels.
+
+"Scoundrel!" muttered Ernest, leaning forward so as to interpose a
+barrier to his insolence.
+
+"Did you speak to me, cousin Ernest?" asked Meg, with affected
+simplicity.
+
+He made no reply; and as the stranger did not turn again, I became so
+interested in the performance as to forget his bold ness. During the
+interlude between the plays, I begged Ernest to get me a glass of water.
+Meg made the same request of Mr. Harland, and for a short time we were
+left alone.
+
+The moment the gentlemen had left the box, the stranger rose and stepped
+into the box behind him, which brought him on a line with us, and close
+to me, as I was seated next to the partition. I did not look him in the
+face; but I could not help being conscious of his movements, and of the
+probing gaze he again fixed on me. I wished I had not asked for the
+water. I could have borne the faintness and oppression caused by the
+odor of the gas better than that dark, unshrinking glance. I dreaded the
+anger of Ernest on his return. I feared he would openly resent an
+insolence so publicly and perseveringly displayed. We were side by side,
+with only the low partition of the boxes between us, so near that I felt
+his burning breath on my cheek,--a breath in which the strong perfume of
+orris-root could not overcome the fumes of the narcotic weed. I tried to
+move nearer Meg, but her back was partially turned to me, in the act of
+conversing with some gentleman who had just entered the box, and she was
+planted on her seat firm as a marble statue.
+
+The stranger's hand rested on the partition, and a note fell into my
+lap.
+
+"Conceal this from your husband," said a low, quick voice, scarcely
+above a whisper, "or his life shall be the forfeit as well as mine."
+
+As he spoke, he lifted his right hand, exhibiting a miniature in its
+palm, in golden setting. One moment it flashed on my gaze, then
+vanished, but that glance was enough. I recognized the lovely features
+of my mother, though blooming with youth, and beaming with hope and joy.
+
+To snatch up the note and hide it in my bosom, was an act as instinctive
+as the beating of my heart. It was my father, then, from whose scorching
+gaze I had been shrinking with such unutterable dread and loathing,--the
+being whom she had once so idolatrously loved, whom in spite of her
+wrongs she continued to love,--the being who had destroyed her peace,
+broken her heart, and laid her in a premature grave--the being whom her
+dying lips commanded me to forgive, whom her prophetic dream warned me
+to protect from unknown danger. My father! I had imagined him dead, so
+many years had elapsed since my mother's flight. I had thought of him as
+a fabulous being. I dreamed not of encountering him, and if I had, I
+should have felt secure, for how could he recognize _me_? My father!
+cold and sick I turned away, shivering with indescribable apprehension.
+He had destroyed my mother,--he had come to destroy me. That secret
+note,--that note which I was to conceal, or meet so awful a penalty,
+seemed to scorch the bosom that throbbed wildly against its folds.
+
+All that I have described occurred in the space of a few moments. Before
+Ernest returned, the stranger had resumed his seat,--(I cannot, oh, I
+cannot call him _father_,)--and there was no apparent cause for my
+unconquerable emotion. Meg, who was laughing and talking with her
+companions, had observed nothing. The secret was safe, on which I was
+told two lives depended. Two,--I might say _three_, since one was the
+life of Ernest.
+
+I attempted to take the glass of water, but my hand shook so I could not
+hold it. I dared not look in the face of Ernest, lest he should read in
+mine all that had occurred.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked, anxiously. "Gabriella, has any thing
+alarmed you during my absence?"
+
+"The odor of the gas sickens me," I answered, evading the question; "if
+you are willing, I should like to return home."
+
+"You seem strangely affected in crowds," said he, in an undertone, and
+bending on me a keen, searching glance. "I remember on commencement day
+you were similarly agitated."
+
+"I do indeed seem destined to suffer on such occasions," I answered, a
+sharp pang darting through my heart. I read suspicion in his altered
+countenance. The flower leaves were beginning to wither. "If Miss
+Melville is willing, I should like to return."
+
+"What is that you say about going home?" cried Meg, turning quickly
+round. "What in the world is this, Gabriella? You look as if you had
+seen a ghost!"
+
+"Whatever she has seen, it is probable you have been equally favored,
+Miss Melville, since you were together," said Ernest, in the same cold
+undertone. The orchestra was playing a magnificent overture, there was
+laughter and merriment around us, so the conversation in our box was not
+over-heard.
+
+"I!" exclaimed Meg. "I have not seen any thing but one sociable looking
+neighbor. I should not wonder if his eyes had blistered her face, they
+have been glowing on her so intensely."
+
+As she raised her voice, the stranger turned his head, and again I met
+them,--those strange, basilisk eyes. They seemed to drink my heart's
+blood. It is scarcely metaphorical to say so, for every glance left a
+cold, deadly feeling behind.
+
+"Come, Gabriella," said Ernest; "if Miss Melville wishes it, she can
+remain with Mr. Harland. I will send back the carriage for them."
+
+"To be sure I wish it," cried Meg. "They say the best part of the
+amusement is to come. Gabriella has a poor opinion of my nursing, so I
+will not cast my pearls away. I am glad _I_ have not any nerves, my dear
+little sensitive plant. It _is_ a terrible thing to be too attractive to
+venture abroad!"
+
+The latter part of the sentence was uttered in a whisper, while
+suppressed laughter convulsed her frame.
+
+Ernest did not open his lips as he conducted me from the theatre to the
+carriage, and not a word was spoken during our homeward ride. The
+rattling of the pavements was a relief to the cold silence. Instead of
+occupying the same seat with me, Ernest took the one opposite; and as we
+passed the street lamps they flashed on his face, and it seemed that of
+a statue, so cold and impressive it looked. What did he suspect? What
+had I done to cause this deep displeasure? He knew not of the note which
+I had concealed, of the words which still hissed in my ears. The bold
+gaze of the stranger would naturally excite his anger against him, but
+why should it estrange him from me? I had yet to learn the wiles and the
+madness of his bosom enemy.
+
+When I took his hand, as he assisted me from the carriage I started, for
+it was as chill as ice, and the fingers, usually so pliant and gentle in
+their fold, were inflexible as marble. I thought I should have fallen to
+the pavement; but exerting all the resolution of which I was mistress, I
+entered the house, and passed under the dim glitter of the silvery
+drapery into my own apartment.
+
+I had barely strength to reach the sofa, on which I sunk in a state of
+utter exhaustion. I feared I was going to faint, and then they would
+loosen my dress and discover the fatal note.
+
+"Wine!" said I to the chambermaid, who was folding my opera cloak, which
+I had dropped on the floor; "give me wine. I am faint."
+
+I remembered the red wine which Dr. Harlowe gave me, after my midnight
+run through the dark woods, and how it infused new life into my sinking
+frame. Since then I had been afraid to drink it, for the doctor had
+laughingly assured me, that it had intoxicated, while it sustained. Now,
+I wanted strength and courage, and it came to me, after swallowing the
+glowing draught. I lifted my head, and met the cold glance of Ernest
+without shivering. I dared to speak and ask him the cause of his anger.
+
+"The cause!" repeated he, his eyes kindling with passion. "Who was the
+bold libertine, before whose unlicensed gaze you blushed and trembled,
+not with indignation, such as a pure and innocent woman ought to feel;
+but with the bashful confusion the veteran _roue_ delights to behold?
+Who was this man, whose presence caused you such overpowering emotion,
+and who exchanged with you glances of such mysterious meaning? Tell me,
+for I _will_ know."
+
+Oh that I had dared to answer, "He is my father. Covered with shame and
+humiliation, I acknowledge my parentage, which makes me so unworthy to
+bear your unsullied name. My darkened spirit would hide itself behind a
+cloud, to escape the villain whom nature disowns and reason abhors."
+But, unknowing the contents of the mysterious note, unknowing the
+consequences to himself which might result from its disclosure,
+remembering the injunction of my dying mother, to be to him a guardian
+angel in the hour of danger,--I could not save myself from blame by
+revealing the truth. I could not stain my lips with a falsehood.
+
+"I never saw that man before," I replied. "Most husbands would think
+modest confusion more becoming in a wife, than the indignation which he
+usually deems it his own prerogative to exhibit. If I have been
+insulted, methinks you should wreak your vengeance on the offender,
+instead of me,--the innocent sufferer. It would be more manly."
+
+"Would you have had me make the theatre a scene of strife and
+bloodshed?" he exclaimed.
+
+"No! neither would I have you bring warring passions into the peaceful
+bosom of your own home."
+
+"Is this you?" he cried, looking me sternly and sorrowfully in the face.
+"Is this the gentle and tender Gabriella, who speaks in such a tone of
+bitterness and scorn?"
+
+"I did not know that I spoke bitterly!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Ernest, you
+have roused in me a spirit of resistance I tremble to feel! You madden
+me by your reproaches! You wrong me by your suspicions! I meant to be
+gentle and forbearing; but the worm will writhe under the foot that
+grinds it into dust. Alas! how little we know ourselves!"
+
+With anguish that cannot be described, I clasped my hands tightly over
+my heart, that ached with intolerable pangs. I had lost him,--lost his
+love,--lost his confidence. Had I seen him in his grave, I could
+scarcely have felt more utter desolation.
+
+"I told you what I was," he cried, the pale severity of his countenance
+changing to the most stormy agitation. "I told you that the cloud which
+hung over my cradle would follow me to the grave; that suspicion and
+jealousy were the twin-born phantoms of my soul. Why, then, rash and
+blind, have you committed your happiness into my keeping? You were
+warned, and yet you hastened to your doom."
+
+"Because I believed that you loved me; because I loved and trusted, with
+a love and faith more deep and strong than woman ever knew."
+
+"And I have destroyed them. I knew it would be so. I knew that I would
+prove a faithless guardian to a charge too dear. Gabriella, I am a
+wretch,--deserving your hatred and indignation. I have insulted your
+innocence, by suspicions I should blush to admit. Love, too strong for
+reason, converts me at times into a madman. I do not ask you to forgive
+me; but if you could conceive of the agonies I endure, you would pity
+me, were I your direst foe."
+
+Remorse, sorrow, tenderness, and love, all swept over his countenance,
+and gave pathos to his voice. I rose and sprang to his arms, that opened
+to receive me, and I clung to his neck, and wept upon his bosom, till it
+seemed that my life would dissolve itself in tears. Oh! it seemed that I
+had leaped over a yawning abyss to reach him, that I had found him just
+as I was losing him for ever. I was once more in the banqueting-house of
+joy, and "his banner over me was love."
+
+"Never again, my husband, never close your heart against me. I have no
+other home, no other refuge, no other world, than your arms."
+
+"You have forgiven me too soon, my Gabriella. You should impose upon me
+some penalty equal to the offence, if such indeed there be. Oh! most
+willingly would I cut off the hand so tenderly clasped in yours and cast
+it into the flames, if by so doing I could destroy the fiend who tempts
+me to suspect fidelity, worthy of eternal trust. You think I give myself
+up without a struggle to the demon passion, in whose grasp you have seen
+me writhing; but you know not, dream not, how I wrestle with it in
+secret, and what prayers I send up to God for deliverance. It seems
+impossible now that I should ever doubt, ever wrong you again, and yet I
+dare not promise. Oh! I dare not promise; for when the whirlwind of
+passion rises, I know not what I do."
+
+Had I not been conscious that I was concealing something from him, that
+while he was restoring to me his confidence, I was deceiving him, I
+should have been perfectly happy in this hour of reconciliation. But as
+he again and again clasped me to his bosom, and lavished upon me the
+tenderest caresses, I involuntarily shrunk from the pressure, lest he
+should feel the note, which seemed to flutter, so quick and loud my
+heart beat against it.
+
+"We are neither of us fit for the fashionable world, my Gabriella," said
+he; "we have hearts and souls fitted for a purer, holier atmosphere than
+the one we now breathe. If we had some 'bright little isle of our own,'
+where we were safe from jarring contact with ruder natures, remote from
+the social disturbances which interrupt the harmony of life, where we
+could live for love and God, then, my Gabriella, I would not envy the
+angels around the throne. No scene like this to-night would ever mar the
+heaven of our wedded bliss."
+
+Ernest did not know himself. Even in Crusoe's desert isle, if the print
+of human footsteps were discovered on the sand, and had he flown to the
+uttermost parts of the earth, the phantom created by his own diseased
+imagination would have pursued him like the giant form that haunted from
+pole to pole the unhappy Frankenstein. Man cannot escape from his own
+passions; and in solitude their waves beat against his bosom, like the
+eternal dashing of the tide, scarcely perceived amidst the active sounds
+of day, but roaring and thundering in the deep stillness of the midnight
+hour.
+
+"We were happy here before Margaret came," I answered; "happy as it was
+possible for mortals to be. How strange that she should have come
+unasked, remain unurged, without dreaming of the possibility of her
+being otherwise than a welcome guest!"
+
+"There should be laws to prevent households from such intrusions," said
+Ernest, with warmth. "I consider such persons as great offenders against
+the peace of society as the midnight robber or the lurking assassin.
+Margaret Melville cares for nothing but her own gratification. A
+contemptible love of fun and frolic is the ruling passion of her life.
+How false, how artificial is that system where there is no redress for
+encroachments of this kind! Were I to act honestly and as I ought, I
+should say to her at once, 'leave us,--your presence is
+intolerable,--there is no more affinity between us than between glass
+and brass.' But what would my mother say? What would the world say? What
+would you say, my own dear wife, who desire her departure even as I do
+myself?"
+
+"I should be very much shocked, of course. If she had the least
+sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling, she would read all this in your
+countenance and manners. I often fear she will perceive in mine, the
+repulsion I cannot help experiencing. For your mother's sake I wish to
+be kind to Margaret."
+
+"Do you know, Gabriella, she once wished me to think of her as a wife?
+That was before her character was formed, however,--when its wild,
+untamable elements revelled in the morning freedom of girlhood, and
+reason and judgment were not expected to exert their restraining
+influence. Think of such an union, my flower-girl, my Mimosa. Do I
+deserve quite so severe a punishment?"
+
+"You would have lived in a perpetual fever of jealousy, or a state of
+open anarchy. There would have been some memorable scenes in your diary,
+I am certain."
+
+"Jealousy! The idea of being jealous of such a being as Margaret! The
+'rhinoceran bear' might inspire the passion as soon. No, Gabriella, I do
+not believe I could be jealous of another woman in the world, for I
+cannot conceive of the possibility of my ever loving another; and the
+intensity of my love creates a trembling fear, that a treasure so
+inestimable, so unspeakably dear, may be snatched from my arms. It is
+not so much distrust of you, as myself. I fear the casket is not worthy
+of the jewel it enshrines."
+
+"Be just to yourself, Ernest, and then you will be just to all mankind."
+
+"The truth is, Gabriella, I have no self-esteem. A celebrated German
+phrenologist examined my head, and pronounced it decidedly deficient in
+the swelling organ of self-appreciation."
+
+He took my hand and placed it on his head, amid his soft, luxuriant dark
+hair, and it certainly met no elevation. I was not skilled in the
+science of phrenology, and there might be a defect in the formation of
+his head; but on his noble brow, it seemed to me that "every God had set
+its seal," and left the impress of his own divinity.
+
+We started, for the steps of Madge were heard rushing up the marble
+stairs, and the sound of her laugh swept before her, and pressed against
+the door like a strong gale.
+
+Oh Madge! that any one should ever have thought of you as the wife of
+Ernest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+It was not till the next morning that I dared to read the contents of
+the note. It was in the magnificent bathing-room, on whose retirement no
+one ever intruded, that I perused these pencilled lines, evidently
+written with a hasty and agitated hand.
+
+"Can it be that I have found a daughter? Yes! in those lovely features I
+trace the living semblance of my beloved Rosalie. Where is she, my
+child? Where is your angel mother, whom I have sought sorrowing so many
+years? They tell me that you are married,--that it is your husband who
+watches you with such jealous scrutiny. He must not know who I am. I am
+a reckless, desperate man. It would be dangerous to us both to meet.
+Guard my secret as you expect to find your grave peaceful, your eternity
+free from remorse. When can I see you alone? Where can I meet you? I am
+in danger, distress,--ruin and death are hanging over me,--I must flee
+from the city; but I must see you, my child, my sweet, my darling
+Gabriella. I must learn the fate of my lost Rosalie.
+
+"The curtain falls,--I dare not write more. Walk in the ---- Park
+to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, where I will wait your coming. Come
+alone,--I ask only a few moments. A father pleads with his child! As you
+hope for an answer to your dying prayers, come, child of my
+Rosalie,--child of my own sad heart."
+
+Once,--twice,--thrice I read these lines,--the death-warrant of my
+wedded peace. How could I resist so solemn an appeal, without violating
+the commands of a dying mother? How could I meet him, without incurring
+the displeasure of my husband? What possibility was there of my leaving
+home alone, when Ernest scarcely ever left me; when, after his return,
+if he chanced to go out, he always asked me how I had passed the time of
+his absence? How could I preserve outward composure, with such a secret
+burning in my heart? A sigh, involuntarily breathed,--a tear, forcing
+its way beneath the quivering lash, would expose me to suspicion and
+distress. What could I, should I do? I was alone, now; and I yielded
+momentarily to an agony of apprehension, that almost drove me mad. On
+one side, a guilty, ruined parent; on the other, a jealous husband,
+whose anger was to me a consuming fire. No, no; I could never expose
+myself again to that. I trembled at the recollection of those pale,
+inflexible features, and that eye of stormy splendor. The lightning bolt
+was less terrible and scathing. Yet, to turn a deaf ear to a father's
+prayer; to disregard a mother's injunction; to incur, perhaps, the guilt
+of parricide; to hazard the judgments of the Almighty;--how awful the
+alternative!
+
+I sank down on my knees, and laid my head on the marble slab on which I
+had been seated. I tried to pray; but hysterical sobs choked my words.
+
+"Have pity upon me, O my heavenly Father!" at length I exclaimed,
+raising my clasped hands to heaven. "Have pity upon me, and direct me in
+the right path. Give me courage to do right, and leave the result unto
+Thee. I float on a stormy current, without pilot or helm. I sink beneath
+the whelming billows. Help, Lord! or I perish!"
+
+Before I rose from my knees, it seemed as if invisible arms surrounded
+me,--bearing me up, above the dark and troubled waters. I felt as if God
+would open a way for me to walk in; and I resolved to leave the event in
+his hands. Had I applied to an earthly counsellor, with wisdom to
+direct, they might have told me, that one who had been guilty of the
+crime my father had committed, had forfeited every claim on a daughter's
+heart. That I had no right to endanger a husband's happiness, or to
+sacrifice my own peace, in consequence of his rash demand. No
+instinctive attraction drew me to this mysterious man. Instead of the
+yearnings of filial affection, I felt for him an unconquerable
+repugnance. His letter touched me, but his countenance repelled. His
+bold, unreceding eye;--not thus should a father gaze upon his child.
+
+Upon what apparent trifles the events of our life sometimes depend! At
+the breakfast table, Madge suddenly asked what day of the month it was.
+
+Then I remembered that it was the day appointed for a meeting of the
+ladies composing a benevolent association, of which I had been lately
+made a member. After the conversation with Ernest, in which I had
+expressed such an anxiety to do good, he had supplied me bountifully
+with means, so that my purse was literally overflowing. I had met the
+society once, and had gone _alone_. The hour of the meeting was _ten_.
+What a coincidence! Was Providence opening a way in which my doubting
+feet should walk? When I mentioned the day of the month, I added,
+
+"Our Society for the Relief of Invalid Seamstresses meets this morning.
+I had forgotten it, till your question reminded me that this was the
+day."
+
+"Do not your coffers need replenishing, fair Lady Bountiful?" asked
+Ernest. "This is an association founded on principles which I revere. If
+any class of females merit the sympathy and kind offices of the generous
+sisterhood, it is that, whose services are so ill repaid, and whose
+lives must be one long drawn sigh of weariness and anxiety. Give, my
+Gabriella, to your heart's content; and if one pale cheek is colored
+with the glow of hope, one dim eye lighted with joy, something will be
+added to the sum of human happiness."
+
+Ernest was unusually kind and tender. He watched me as the fond mother
+does the child, whom she has perhaps too severely chided. He seemed to
+wish to atone for the pain he had given, and to assure me by his manner
+that his confidence was perfectly restored.
+
+"I shall avail myself of your absence," said he, "to pay some of my
+epistolary debts. They have weighed heavy on my conscience for some
+time."
+
+"And I," said Madge, "have engaged to spend the day with Miss Haven. You
+can drop me on the way."
+
+Madge had behaved unusually well during the morning, and did not harass
+me at the breakfast table, as I feared she would, about the bold
+stranger at the theatre. Perhaps my pale cheeks spoke too plainly of the
+sufferings of the evening, and she had a heart after all.
+
+As I went into my room to prepare for going out, my hands trembled so
+that I could scarcely fasten the ribbons of my bonnet. Every thing
+seemed to facilitate my filial duty; but the more easy seemed its
+accomplishment, the more I shrunk from the thought of deceiving Ernest,
+in this hour of restored tranquillity and abounding love. I loathed the
+idea of deceiving any one,--but Ernest, my lover, my husband,--how could
+I beguile his new-born confidence?
+
+He came in, and wrapped me up in my ermine-trimmed cloak, warning me of
+exposing myself to the morning air, which was of wintry bleakness.
+
+"You must bring back the roses which I have banished from your cheeks,"
+said he, kissing them with a tenderness and gentleness that made my
+heart ache with anguish. I did not deserve these caresses; and if my
+purpose were discovered, would they not be the last?
+
+Shuddering, as I asked myself this question, I turned towards him, as if
+to daguerreotype on my heart every lineament of his striking and
+expressive face. How beautiful was his countenance this moment, softened
+by tenderness, so delicately pale, yet so lustrous, like the moonlight
+night!
+
+"Oh, Ernest!" said I, throwing my arms around him, with a burst of
+irrepressible emotion, "I am not worthy of the love you bear me, but yet
+I prize it far more than life. If the hour comes when it is withdrawn
+from me, I pray Heaven it may be my last."
+
+"It can never be withdrawn, my Gabriella. You may cast it from your
+bosom, and it may wither, like the flower trampled by the foot of man;
+but by my own act it never can be destroyed. Nor by yours either, my
+beloved wife. At this moment I have a trust in you as entire as in
+heaven itself. I look back with wonder and remorse on the dark delusions
+to which I have submitted myself. But the spell is broken; the demon
+laid. Sorrow has had its season; but joy hath come in the morning.
+Smile, my darling Gabriella, in token of forgiveness and peace."
+
+I tried to smile, but the tears would gather into my eyes.
+
+"Foolish girl!" he cried. A loud laugh rung under the silken arches.
+Madge stood in the open door, her great black eyes brimming with mirth.
+
+"When you have finished your parting ceremonies," she exclaimed, "I
+think we had better start. One would think you were going to Kamschatka
+or Terra del Fuego, instead of Broadway. Oh dear! what a ridiculous
+thing it is to see people in love with each other, after they are
+married! Come, Gabriella; you can carry his miniature with you."
+
+As the carriage rolled from the gate, I was so agitated at the thought
+of the approaching interview I could not speak. Madge rattled away, in
+her usual light manner; but I did not attempt to answer her. I leaned
+back in the carriage, revolving the best way of accomplishing my design.
+After leaving Madge, instead of going to the lady's, at whose house the
+society met, I ordered the coachman to drive to one of the fashionable
+stores and leave me.
+
+"Return in an hour," said I, as I left the carriage. "You will find me
+at Mrs. Brahan's. Drive the horses out to the Battery for exercise, as
+you usually do."
+
+As I gave these orders, my heart beat so fast I could hardly articulate
+with distinctness. Yet there was nothing in them to excite suspicion.
+The horses were high-fed and little used, gay and spirited, and when we
+shopped or made morning calls, the coachman was in the habit of driving
+them about, to subdue their fiery speed.
+
+I should make too conspicuous an appearance in the park, in my elegant
+cloak, trimmed with costly ermine and bonnet shaded with snowy plumes. I
+would be recognized at once, for the bride of the jealous Ernest was an
+object of interest and curiosity. To obviate this difficulty, I
+purchased a large gray shawl, of soft, yielding material, that
+completely covered my cloak; a thick, green veil, through which my
+features could not be discerned, and walked with rapid steps through the
+hurrying crowd that thronged the side-walks towards the ---- Park.
+
+It was too early an hour for the usual gathering of children and nurses.
+Indeed, at this cold, wintry season, the warm nursery was a more
+comfortable and enticing place.
+
+The park presented a dreary, desolate aspect. No fountain tossed up its
+silvery waters, falling in rainbows back to earth. The leafless branches
+of the trees shone coldly in the thin glazing of frostwork and creaked
+against each other, as the bleak wind whistled through them. Here and
+there, a ruddy-faced Irish woman, wrapped in a large blanket-shawl, with
+a coarse straw bonnet blown back from her head, breasted the breeze with
+a little trotting child, who took half a dozen steps to one of hers,
+tugging hard at her hand. It was not likely I should meet a fashionable
+acquaintance at this early hour; and if I did, I was shrouded from
+recognition.
+
+I had scarcely passed the revolving gate, before I saw a gentleman
+approaching from the opposite entrance with rapid and decided steps. He
+was tall and stately, and had that unmistakable air of high-breeding
+which, being once acquired, can never be entirely lost. As he came
+nearer, I could distinguish the features of the stranger; features
+which, seen by daylight, exhibited still more plainly the stamp of
+recklessness, dissipation, and vice. They had once been handsome, but
+alas! alas! was this the man who had captivated the hearts of two lovely
+women, and then broken them? Where was the fascination which had
+enthralled alike the youthful Rosalie and the impassioned Theresa? Was
+this, indeed, the once gallant and long beloved St. James?
+
+"You have come," he exclaimed, eagerly grasping my hand and pressing it
+in his. "I bless you, my daughter,--and may God forever bless you for
+listening to a father's prayer!"
+
+"I have come," I answered, in low, trembling accents, for indescribable
+agitation almost choked my utterance,--"but I can not,--dare not linger.
+It was cruel in you to bind me to secrecy. Had it not been for the
+mother,--whose dying words"--
+
+"And is she dead,--the wronged,--the angel Rosalie? How vainly I have
+sought her,--and thee, my cherub little one! My sufferings have avenged
+her wrongs."
+
+He turned away, and covered his face with his handkerchief. I saw his
+breast heave with suppressed sobs. It is an awful thing to see a strong
+man weep,--especially when the tears are wrung by the agonies of
+remorse. I felt for him the most intense pity,--the most entire
+forgiveness,--yet I recoiled from his approach,--I shrunk from the touch
+of his dry and nervous hand. I felt polluted, degraded, by the contact.
+
+"My mother told me, if I ever met you, to give you not only her
+forgiveness, but her blessing. She blessed you, for the sufferings that
+weaned her from earth and chastened her spirit for a holier and happier
+world. She bade me tell you, that in spite of her wrongs she had never
+ceased to love you. In obedience to her dying will, I have shown you a
+daughter's duty so far as to meet you here, and learn what I can do for
+one placed in the awful circumstances in which you declare yourself to
+be. Speak quickly and briefly, for on every passing moment the whole
+happiness of my life hangs trembling."
+
+"Only let me see your face for the few moments we are together, that I
+may carry its remembrance to my grave,--that face so like your
+mother's."
+
+"What can I do?" I exclaimed, removing the veil as I spoke,--for there
+was no one near; and I could not refuse a petition so earnest. "Oh, tell
+me quickly what I can do. What dreadful doom is impending over you?"
+
+"You are beautiful, my child,--very, very beautiful," said he; while his
+dark, sunken eyes seemed to burn me with the intensity of their gaze.
+
+"Talk not to me of beauty, at a moment like this!" I exclaimed, stamping
+my foot in the agony of my impatience. "I cannot, will not stay, unless
+to aid you. Your presence is awful! for it reminds me of my mother's
+wrongs,--my own clouded birth."
+
+"I deserve this, and far more," he cried, in tones of the most object
+humility. "Oh, my child, I am brought very low;--I am a lost and ruined
+man. Maddened by your mother's desertion, I became reckless,--desperate.
+I fled from the home another had usurped. I became the prey of villains,
+who robbed me of my fortune at the gaming table. Another, and another
+step;--lower and lower still I sunk. I cannot tell you the story of my
+ruin. Enough, I am lost! The sword of the violated law gleams over my
+head. Every moment it may fall. I dare not remain another day in this
+city. I dare not stay in my native land. If I do, yonder dismal Tombs
+will be my life-long abode."
+
+"Fly, then,--fly this moment," I cried. "What madness! to linger in the
+midst of danger and disgrace!"
+
+"Alas! my daughter, I am penniless. I had laid aside a large sum,
+sufficient for the emergency; but a wretch robbed me of all, only two
+nights since. Humiliating as it is, I must turn beggar to my child. Your
+husband is a Dives; I, the Lazarus, who am perishing at his gate."
+
+"Ask him. He is noble and generous. He will fill your purse with gold,
+and aid you to escape. Go to him at once. You know not his princely
+heart."
+
+"Never! On you alone I depend. I will not ask a favor of man, to save my
+soul from perdition. Girl! have you no power over the wealth that must
+be rusting in your coffers? Are you not trusted with the key to your
+household treasures?"
+
+"Do you think I would take his gold clandestinely?" I asked, glowing
+with indignation, and recoiling from the expression of his eager,
+burning eye. We were walking slowly during this exciting conversation;
+and, cold as it was, the moisture gathered on my brow. "Here is a purse,
+given me for a holier purpose. Take it, and let me go."
+
+"Thank you,--bless you, my child! but this will only relieve present
+necessity. It will not carry me in safety to distant climes. Bless you!
+but take it back, take it back. I can only meet my doom!"
+
+"I _will_ go to my husband!" I exclaimed with sudden resolution; "I
+_will_ tell him all, and he, and he alone shall aid you. I will not
+wrong him by acting without his knowledge. You have no right to endanger
+my life-long peace. You have destroyed my mother; must her child too be
+sacrificed?"
+
+"I see there is but one path of escape," he cried, snatching a pistol
+from his breast, and turning the muzzle to his heart. "Fool, dolt, idiot
+that I am! I dreamed of salvation from a daughter's hand, but I have
+forfeited a father's name, a father's affection. Gabriella, you might
+save me, but I blame you not. Do not curse me, though I fill a felon's
+grave;--better that than the dungeon--the scaffold."
+
+"What would you do?" I whispered hoarsely, seizing his arm with
+spasmodic grasp.
+
+"Die, before I am betrayed."
+
+"I will not betray you; what sum will suffice for your emergency? Name
+it."
+
+"As many thousands as there are hundreds there," pointing to the purse.
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"Gabriella, you must have jewels worth a prince's ransom; you had
+diamonds last night on your neck and arms that would redeem your
+father's life. Each gem is but a drop of water in the deep sea of _his_
+riches. His uncle was a modern Cr[oe]sus, and he, his sole heir."
+
+"How know you this?" I asked.
+
+"Every one knows it. The rich are the cities on the hill-tops, seen afar
+off. You hesitate,--you tremble. Keep your diamonds,--but remember they
+will eat like burning coals into your flesh."
+
+Fierce and deadly passions gleamed from his eye. He clenched the pistol
+so tight that his nails turned of a purplish blue.
+
+No one was near us, to witness a scene so strange and appalling. The
+thundering sounds of city life were rolling along the great thoroughfare
+of the metropolis, now rattling, shrill, and startling, then roaring,
+swelling, and subsiding again, like the distant surf; but around us,
+there was silence and space. In the brief moment that we stood face to
+face, my mind was at work with preternatural activity. I remembered that
+I had a set of diamonds,--the bridal gift of Mrs. Linwood,--a superb and
+costly set, which I had left a week previous in the hands of the
+jeweller, that he might remedy a slight defect in the clasps. Those
+which I wore at the theatre, and which had attracted his insatiate eye,
+were the gift of Ernest. He had clasped them around my neck and arms, as
+he was about to lead me to the altar, and hallowed the offering with a
+bridegroom's kiss. I could have given my heart's blood sooner than the
+radiant pledge of wedded faith and love.
+
+I could go to the jewellers,--get possession of the diamonds, and thus
+redeem my guilty parent from impending ruin. Then, the waves of the
+Atlantic would roll between us, and I would be spared the humiliation
+and agony of another scene like this. I told him to follow me at a short
+distance; that I would get the jewels; that he could receive them from
+me in the street in the midst of the jostling crowd without observation.
+
+"It is the last time," I cried, "the last time I ever act without my
+husband's knowledge. I have obeyed my mother, I have fulfilled my duty,
+at the risk of all my soul holds dear. And now, as you hope to meet
+hereafter her, who, if angels can sorrow, still mourns over your
+transgressions, quit the dark path you are now treading, and devote your
+future life to penitence and prayer. Oh! by my mother's wrongs and woes,
+and by my own, by the mighty power of God and a Saviour's dying love, I
+entreat you to repent, forsake your sins, and live, live, forever more."
+
+Tears gushed from my eyes and checked my utterance. Oh! how sad, how
+dreadful, to address a father thus.
+
+"Gabriella!" he exclaimed, "you are an angel. Pray for me, pray for me,
+thou pure and holy being, and forgive the sins that you say are not
+beyond the reach of God's mercy, I dare not, not here,--yet for one dear
+embrace, my child, I would willingly meet the tortures of the
+prison-house and the scaffold."
+
+I recoiled with horror at the suggestion. I would not have had his arms
+around me for worlds. I could not call him _father_. I pitied,--wept for
+him; but I shrunk with loathing from his presence. Dropping my veil over
+my face, I turned hastily, gained the street, pressed on through the
+moving mass without looking to the right or left, till I reached the
+shop where my jewels were deposited,--took them without waiting for
+explanation or inquiry, hurried back till I met St. James, slipped the
+casket into his eager hand, and pressed on without uttering a syllable.
+Never shall I forget the expression of his countenance as he received
+the casket. The fierce, wild, exulting flash of his dark sunken eye,
+whose reddish blackness seemed suddenly to ignite and burn like heated
+iron. There was something demoniac in its glare, and it haunted me in my
+dreams long, long afterwards.
+
+I did not look back, but hurried on, rejoicing that rapidity of motion
+was too customary in Broadway to attract attention. Before I arrived at
+the place of meeting, I wished to divest myself of the shawl which I had
+used as a disguise; and it was no difficult matter, where poverty is met
+in all its forms of wretchedness and woe.
+
+"Take this, my good woman," said I, throwing the soft gray covering over
+the shoulders of a thin, shivering, haggard looking female, on whose
+face chill penury was written in withering lines. "You are cold and
+suffering."
+
+"Bless your sweet face. God Almighty bless you!" was wafted to my ears,
+in tremulous accents,--for I did not stop to meet her look of wonder,
+gratitude, and ecstasy. I did not deserve her blessing; but the garment
+sheltered her meagre frame, and she went on her way rejoicing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+
+When I entered Mrs. Brahan's drawing-room, I was in a kind of
+somnambulism,--moving, walking, seeing, yet hardly conscious of what I
+was doing, or what was passing around me. She was the president of the
+association, and a very charming woman.
+
+"We feared we were not going to see you this morning," she said,
+glancing at a French clock, which showed the lateness of the hour; "but
+we esteem it a privilege to have you with us, even for a short time. We
+know," she added, with a smile, "what a sacrifice we impose on Mr.
+Linwood, when we deprive him of your society."
+
+"Yes!" cried a sprightly young lady, with whom I was slightly
+acquainted, "we all consider it an event, when we can catch a glimpse of
+Mrs. Linwood. Her appearance at the theatre last night created as great
+a sensation as would a new constellation in the zodiac."
+
+These allusions to my husband's exclusive devotion brought the color to
+my cheeks, and the soft, warm air of the room stole soothingly round me.
+I tried to rouse myself to a consciousness of the present, and
+apologized for my delay with more ease and composure than I expected.
+
+When the treasurer received the usual funds, I was obliged to throw
+myself on her leniency.
+
+"I have disposed of my purse since I left home," said I, with a guilty
+blush, "but I will double my contribution at the next meeting."
+
+"It is no matter," was the reply. "You have already met your
+responsibilities,--far more than met them,--your reputation for
+benevolence is already too well established for us to doubt that your
+will is equal to your power."
+
+Whenever I went into society, I realized the distinction of being the
+wife of the rich and exclusive Ernest Linwood, the mistress of the
+oriental palace, as Mrs. Brahan called our dwelling-place. I always
+found myself flattered and caressed, and perhaps something was owing to
+personal attraction. I never presumed on the distinction awarded me;
+never made myself or mine the subjects of conversation, or sought to
+engross the attention of others. I had always remembered the obscurity
+of my early life, the cloud upon my birth, not abjectly, but _proudly_.
+I was too proud to arrogate to myself any credit for the adventitious
+circumstances which had raised me above the level of others,--too proud
+of the love that had given the elevation, to exalt myself as worthy of
+it.
+
+"I think you must be the happiest being in the world, Mrs. Linwood,"
+said the sprightly young lady, who had taken a seat by my side, and who
+had the brightest, most sparkling countenance I ever saw. "You live in
+such a beautiful, _beautiful_ place, with such an elegant husband, too!
+What a life of enchantment yours must be! Do you know you are the envy
+of all the young ladies of the city?"
+
+"I hope not," I answered, trying to respond in the same sportive strain;
+and every one knows, that when the heart is oppressed by secret anxiety,
+it is easier to be gay than cheerful. "I hope not; as I might be in
+danger of being exhaled by some subtle perfume. I have heard of the art
+of poisoning being brought to such perfection, that it can be
+communicated by a flower or a ring."
+
+"It must be a very fascinating study," she said, laughingly. "I intend
+to take lessons, though I think throwing vitriol in the face and marring
+its beauty, is the most effectual way of removing a rival."
+
+"I thought you were discussing the wants and miseries of the sewing
+sisterhood," said Mrs. Brahan, coming near us. "What started so horrible
+a theme?"
+
+"Mr. Linwood's perfections," said the young lady, with a gay smile.
+
+"He has one great fault," observed Mrs. Brahan; "he keeps you too close
+a prisoner, my dear. I fear he is very selfish. Tell him so from me; for
+he must not expect to monopolize a jewel formed to adorn and beautify
+the world."
+
+She spoke sportively, benignantly, without knowing the deep truth of her
+words. She knew that my husband sought retirement; that I seldom went
+abroad without him. But she knew not, dreamed not, of the strength of
+the master-passion that governed his actions.
+
+Gradually the company dispersed. As I came so late, I remained a little
+behind the rest, attracted by a painting in the back parlor. I suppose I
+inherited from my father a love of the fine arts; for I never could pass
+a statue or a picture without pausing to gaze upon it.
+
+This represented a rocky battlement, rising in the midst of the deep
+blue sea. The silvery glimmer of moonlight shone on the rippling waves;
+moonlight breaking through dark clouds,--producing the most dazzling
+contrast of light and shade. A large vessel, in full sail, glided along
+in the gloom of the shadows; a little skiff floated on the
+white-crested, sparkling, shining tide. The flag of our country waved
+from the rocky tower. I seemed gazing on a familiar scene. Those wave
+washed battlements; that floating banner; the figures of soldiers
+marching on the ramparts, with folded arms and measured tread,--all
+appeared like the embodiment of a dream.
+
+"What does this represent?" I asked.
+
+"Fortress Monroe, on Chesapeake Bay."
+
+"I thought so. Who was the artist?"
+
+"I think his name was St. James. It is on the picture, near the frame.
+Yes,--Henry Gabriel St. James. What a beautiful name! Poor fellow!--I
+believe he had a sad fate! Mr. Brahan could tell you something of his
+history. He purchased this house of him seventeen years ago. What is the
+matter, Mrs. Linwood?"
+
+I sank on the nearest seat, incapable of supporting myself. I was in the
+house where I was born,--where my mother passed the brief period of her
+wedded happiness; whence she was driven, a wronged, despairing woman,
+with me, an unconscious infant, in her arms. It was my father's glowing
+sketch on which I was gazing,--that father whom I had so recently
+met,--a criminal, evading the demands of justice; a man who had lost all
+his original brightness,--a being of sin and misery.
+
+Mrs. Brahan rang for water; but I did not faint.
+
+"I have taken a long walk this morning," I said, "and your rooms are
+warm. I feel better, now. And this house belonged to the artist? I feel
+interested in his story."
+
+"I wish Mr. Brahan were here; but I will tell you all I recollect. It
+was a long time ago; and what we hear from others of individuals in whom
+we have no personal interest, is soon forgotten. Do you really feel
+better? Well, I believe St. James, the artist, was a highly
+accomplished, gifted man. He was married to a beautiful young wife, and
+I think had one child. Of course he was supremely happy. It seems he was
+called away from home very suddenly, was gone a few months, and when he
+returned, he found his wife and child fled, and a stranger claiming her
+name and place. I never heard this mystery explained; but it is said,
+she disappeared as suddenly as she came, while he sought by every means
+to recover his lost treasure, but in vain. His reason at one time
+forsook him, and his health declined. At length, unable to remain where
+every thing reminded him of his departed happiness, he resolved to leave
+the country and go to foreign climes. Mr. Brahan, who wished to purchase
+at that time, was pleased with the house,--bought it, and brought me
+here, a bride. He has altered and improved it a great deal, but many
+things remain just as they were. You seem interested. There is something
+mysterious and romantic connected with it. Oh! here is Mr. Brahan
+himself; he can relate it far better than I can."
+
+After the usual courtesies of meeting, she resumed the subject, and told
+her husband how much interested I was in the history of the unfortunate
+artist.
+
+"Ah yes!" cried he; "poor fellow!--he was sore beset. Two women claimed
+him as wives,--and he lost both. I never heard a clear account of this
+part of his life; for when I knew him, he was just emerging from
+insanity, and it was supposed his mind was still clouded. He was very
+reserved on the subject of his personal misfortunes. I only know it was
+the loss of the wife whom he acknowledged that unsettled his reason. He
+was a magnificent looking fellow,--full of genius and feeling. He told
+me he was going to Italy,--and very likely he died of a broken heart,
+beneath its sunny and genial skies. He was a fine artist. That picture
+has inspiration in it. Look at the reflection of the moon in the water.
+How tremulous it is! You can almost see the silver rippling beneath that
+gliding boat. He was a man of genius. There is no doubt he was."
+
+"I should like to show Mrs. Linwood the picture which you found in the
+closet of his studio," said Mrs. Brahan. "Do you know, I think there is
+a resemblance to herself?"
+
+"So there is," exclaimed Mr. Brahan, as if making a sudden discovery.
+"Her face has haunted me since I first beheld her, and I have just
+discovered where I have seen its semblance. If you will walk up stairs,
+I will show it to you."
+
+Almost mechanically I followed up the winding stairs, so often pressed
+by the feet now mouldering side by side beneath the dark coffin lid,
+into the room where my now degraded parent gave form and coloring to the
+dreams of imagination, or the shadows of memory. The walls were arching,
+and lighted from above. Mr. Brahan had converted it into a library, and
+it was literally lined with books on every side but one. Suspended on
+that, in a massy gilt frame, was a sketch which arrested my gaze, and it
+had no power to wander. The head alone was finished,--but such a head! I
+recognized at once my mother's features; not as I had seen them faded by
+sorrow, but in the soft radiance of love and happiness. They did not
+wear the rosy brightness of the miniature I had seen in my father's
+hand, which was probably taken immediately after her marriage. This
+picture represented her as my imagination pictured her after my birth,
+when the tender anxieties of the mother softened and subdued the
+splendor of her girlish beauty; those eyes,--those unforgotten eyes,
+with their long, curling lashes, and expression of heavenly
+sweetness,--how they seemed to bend on me,--the child she had so much
+loved! I longed to kneel before it, to appeal to it, by every holy and
+endearing epithet,--to reach the cold, unconscious canvas, and cover it
+with my kisses and my tears. But I could only gaze and gaze, and the
+strong spell that bound me was mistaken for the ecstasy of admiration,
+such as genius only can awaken.
+
+"There is a wonderful resemblance," said Mr. Brahan, breaking the
+silence. "I shall feel great pride henceforth in saying, I have an
+admirable likeness of Mrs. Linwood."
+
+"I ought to feel greatly flattered," I answered with a quick drawn
+breath; "it certainly is very lovely."
+
+"It has the loveliest expression I ever saw in woman's countenance,"
+observed Mr. Brahan. "Perhaps, after making such a remark, I ought not
+to say, that in that chiefly lies its resemblance to yourself, but it is
+emphatically so."
+
+"She must be too much accustomed to compliments to mind yours, my dear,"
+said Mrs. Brahan. "I think Mrs. Linwood has the advantage of the
+picture, for she has the bloom and light of life. No painting can supply
+these."
+
+"There is something in the perfect repose of a picture," said I,
+withdrawing my eyes from my mother's seraphic countenance; "something in
+its serene, unchanging beauty, that is a type of immortality, of the
+divine rest of the soul. Life is restless, and grows tremulous as we
+gaze."
+
+"O that that picture were mine!" I unconsciously uttered, as I turned to
+take a last look on leaving the apartment.
+
+"I do not know that it is mine to give," said Mr. Brahan, "as I found it
+here after purchasing the house. The one below was presented me by St.
+James himself. If, however, you will allow me to send it to Mr. Linwood,
+I really think he has the best right to it, on account of its remarkable
+resemblance to yourself."
+
+"Oh no, indeed," I exclaimed; "I did not mean, did not think of such a
+thing. It was a childish way of expressing my admiration of the
+painting. If you will give me the privilege of sometimes calling to look
+at it, I shall be greatly indebted."
+
+I hurried down stairs, fearful of committing myself in some way, so as
+to betray the secret of my birth.
+
+"I wish you would come and see us often, Mrs. Linwood," said Mrs.
+Brahan, as I bade her adieu. "We are not very fashionable; but if I read
+your character aright, you will not dislike us on that account. A young
+person, who is almost a stranger in a great city like this, sometimes
+feels the want of an older friend. Let me be that friend."
+
+"Thank you, dear madam," I answered, returning the cordial pressure of
+her hand; "you do not know how deeply I appreciate your proffered
+friendship, or how happy I shall be to cultivate it."
+
+With many kind and polite expressions, they both accompanied me to the
+door, and I left them with the conviction that wedded happiness might be
+perfect after the experience of seventeen years.
+
+When alone in the carriage, I tried to compose my agitated and excited
+mind. So much had been crowded into the space of a few hours, that it
+seemed as if days must have passed since I left home. I tried to
+reconcile what I had _heard_ with what I had _seen_ of my father; but I
+could not identify the magnificent artist, the man of genius and of
+feeling, with the degenerate being from whom I had recoiled one hour
+ago. Could a long career of guilt and shame thus deface and obliterate
+that divine and godlike image, in which man was formed? He must have
+loved my mother. Desperation for her loss had plunged him into the
+wildest excesses of dissipation. From my soul I pitied him. I would
+never cease to pray for him, never regret what I had done to save him
+from ruin, even if my own happiness were wrecked by the act. I had tried
+to do what was right, and God, who seeth the heart, would forgive me, if
+wrong was the result.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+
+Letters from Mrs. Linwood and Edith waited me at home. Their perusal
+gave me an opportunity to collect my thoughts, and an excuse to talk of
+them, of Grandison Place, rather than of topics connected with the
+present. Yet all the time I was reading Mrs. Linwood's expression of
+trusting affection, I said to myself,--
+
+"What would she say, if she knew I had parted with her splendid gift,
+unknown to my husband, whose happiness she committed so solemnly to my
+keeping?"
+
+I told Ernest of the interesting circumstances connected with Mr.
+Brahan's house, and of the picture of my mother I so longed that I
+should see. The wish was gratified sooner than I anticipated; for that
+very evening, it was sent to me by Mr. Brahan, with a very elegant note,
+in which he asked me to take charge of it till the rightful owner
+appeared to claim it as his own.
+
+"It _is_ like you, Gabriella," said Ernest, gazing with evident
+admiration on the beauteous semblance; "and it is an exquisite painting
+too. You must cherish this picture as a proof of your mother's beauty
+and your father's genius."
+
+I did cherish it, as a household divinity. I almost worshipped it, for
+though I did not burn before it frankincense and myrrh, I offered to it
+the daily incense of memory and love.
+
+As Margaret consented to remain a week with her friend Miss Haven, we
+were left in quiet possession of our elegant leisure, and Ernest openly
+rejoiced in her absence. He read aloud to me, played and sung with
+thrilling melody, and drew out all his powers of fascination for my
+entertainment. The fear of his discovering my clandestine meeting grew
+fainter and fainter as day after day passed, without a circumstance
+arising which would lead to detection.
+
+One evening, Mr. Harland, with several other gentlemen, was with us.
+Ernest was unusually affable, and of course my spirits rose in
+proportion. In the course of conversation, Mr. Harland remarked that he
+had a _bet_ for me to decide.
+
+"I cannot consent to be an umpire," said I. "I dislike betting in
+ladies, and if gentlemen indulge in it, they must refer to their own
+sex, not ours."
+
+"But it has reference to yourself," he cried, "and you alone _can_
+decide."
+
+"To me!" I exclaimed, involuntarily glancing at Ernest.
+
+"Yes! A friend of mine insists that he saw you walking in the ---- Park,
+the other morning, with a gentleman, who was too tall for Mr. Linwood.
+That you wore a gray shawl and green veil, but that your air and figure
+could not possibly be mistaken. I told him, in the first place, that you
+never dressed in that style; in the second, that he was too far from you
+to distinguish you from another; and in the third, that it was
+impossible you should be seen walking with any gentleman but your
+husband, as he never gave them an opportunity. As he offered a high
+wager, and I accepted it, I feel no small interest in the decision."
+
+"Tell your friend, Mr. Harland," exclaimed Ernest, rising from his seat,
+and turning pale as marble, "that I will not permit my wife's name to be
+bandied from lip to lip in the public street, nor her movements made a
+subject for low and vulgar betting."
+
+"Mr. Linwood!" cried Mr. Harland, rising too, with anger flashing from
+his eyes, "do you apply those remarks to me?"
+
+"I make no application," answered Ernest, with inexpressible
+haughtiness; "but I again assert, that the freedom taken with my wife's
+name is unwarrantable, and _shall_ not be repeated."
+
+"If Mrs. Linwood considers herself insulted," cried Mr. Harland, "I am
+ready to offer _her_ any apology she may desire. Of one thing she may be
+assured: no disrespect was intended by the gentleman to whom I allude,
+and she certainly cannot think that I would forget her claims as a lady,
+and as the wife of the man whom I had reason to believe my friend."
+
+He spoke the last sentence with strong emphasis, and the blood mounted
+high in the pale face of Ernest. I could only bow, as Mr. Harland
+concluded, in acceptance of the apology, for I saw a thunder-cloud
+darkening over me, and knew it would break in terror over my head.
+
+"I have spoken hastily, Mr. Harland," said Ernest. "If I have said any
+thing wounding to your feelings, as a gentleman, I recall it. But you
+may tell your friend, that the next time he asserts that he has seen
+Mrs. Linwood walking with a stranger, in a public place, when I _know_
+she was in company with some of the first ladies of the city for
+benevolent designs, I shall call him to account for such gross
+misrepresentations."
+
+And I heard this in silence,--without contradiction.
+
+Oh! how must the woman feel who has deceived her husband for a guilty
+purpose, when I, whose motives were pure and upright, suffered such
+unutterable anguish in the prospect of detection? If I were hardened
+enough to deny the assertion,--if I could only have laughed and wondered
+at the preposterous mistake,--if I could have assumed an air of
+indifference and composure, my secret might have been safe. But I was a
+novice in deception; and burning blushes, and pale, cold shadows
+alternately flitted across my face.
+
+It was impossible to resume the conversation interrupted by a scene so
+distressing to some, so disagreeable to all. One by one our guests
+retired, and I was left alone with Ernest.
+
+The chandeliers were glittering overhead, the azure curtains received
+their light in every sweeping fold, cherubs smiled bewitchingly from the
+arching ceiling, and roses that looked as if they might have blossomed
+by "Bendemere's stream," blushed beneath my feet,--yet I would gladly
+have exchanged all this splendor for a spot in the furthest isle of the
+ocean, a lone and barren spot, where the dark glance which I _felt_, but
+did not see, could not penetrate.
+
+I sat with downcast eyes and wildly throbbing heart, trying to summon
+resolution to meet the trial I saw there was no means of escaping. If he
+questioned, I must answer. I could not, dared not, utter a falsehood,
+and evasion would be considered equivalent to it.
+
+He walked back and forth the whole length of the parlor, two or three
+times, without speaking, then stopped directly in front of me, still
+silent. Unable to bear the intolerable oppression of my feelings, I
+started up and attempted to leave the room; but he arrested me by the
+arm, and his waxen fingers seemed hardened to steel.
+
+"Gabriella!"
+
+His voice sounded so distant, so cold!
+
+"Ernest!"
+
+I raised my eyes, and for a moment we looked each other in the face.
+There was fascination in his glance, and yet it had the dagger's
+keenness.
+
+"What is the meaning of what I have just heard? What is the meaning of a
+report, which I should have regarded as the idle wind, did not your
+overwhelming confusion establish its truth? Tell me, for I am not a man
+to be tampered with, as you will find to your cost."
+
+"I cannot answer when addressed in such a tone. Oh, I cannot."
+
+"Gabriella! this is not a moment to trifle. Tell me, without
+prevarication,--were you, or were you not in the Park, walking with a
+gentleman, on the morning you left for Mrs. Brahan's? Answer me,--yes,
+or no."
+
+Had he spoken with gentleness,--had he seemed moved to sorrow as well as
+indignation, I would have thrown myself at his feet, and deprecated his
+anger; but my spirit rose in rebellion at the stern despotism of his
+manner, and nerved itself to resist his coercive will.
+
+Truly is it said, "We know not what manner of spirit we are of."
+
+I little thought how high mine could rebound from the strong pressure
+which, in anticipation, crushed it to the dust.
+
+I felt firm to endure, strong to resist.
+
+"Ernest! I have done you no wrong," I answered, raising my eyes to his
+pale, dark countenance. "I have done nothing to merit the displeasure
+which makes you forget the courtesy of a gentleman, as well as the
+tenderness of a husband."
+
+"Then it was a false report," he exclaimed,--a ray of light flashing
+from his clouded eyes,--"you could not look me in the face and speak in
+that tone unless you were innocent! Why did you not deny it at once?"
+
+"Only listen to me, Ernest," I cried; "only give me a patient, gentle
+hearing, and I will give you a history, which I am certain will convert
+your indignation into sympathy, and free me from suspicion or blame."
+
+I armed myself with resolution to tell him all. My father was in all
+probability far away on the billows of the Atlantic. My disclosures
+could not affect him now. My promise of secrecy did not extend into the
+future. I would gladly have withheld from my husband the knowledge of
+his degradation, for it was humiliating to the child to reveal the
+parent's shame. Criminal he knew him to be, with regard to my mother,
+but Ernest had said, when gazing on her picture, he almost forgave the
+crime which had so much to extenuate it. The gambler, the profligate,
+the lost, abandoned being, who had thrown himself so abjectly on my
+compassion: in these characters, the high-minded Ernest would spurn him
+with withering indignation. Yet as the interview had been observed, and
+his suspicions excited, it was my duty to make an unreserved
+confession,--and I did. Conscious of the purity of my motives, and
+assured that he must eventually acquit me of blame, I told him all, from
+the note he dropped into my lap at the theatre, to the diamond casket
+given in parting to his desperate hand. I told him all my struggles, my
+fears, my agonies,--dwelling most of all on the agony I suffered in
+being compelled to deceive _him_.
+
+Silently, immovably he heard me, never interrupting me by question or
+explanation. He had seated himself on a sofa when I began, motioning me
+to sit down by him, but I drew forward a low footstool and sat at his
+feet, looking up with the earnestness of truth and the confidence of
+innocence. Oh! he could not help but acquit me,--he could not help but
+pity me. I had done him injustice in believing it possible for him to
+condemn me for an act of filial obedience, involving so much
+self-sacrifice and anguish. He would clasp me to his bosom,--he would
+fold me in his arms,--he would call me his "own, darling Gabriella."
+
+A pause,--a chilling pause succeeded the deep-drawn breath with which I
+closed the confession. Cold, bitter cold, fell that silence on my
+hoping, trembling, yet glowing heart. He was leaning on his elbow,--his
+hand covered his brow.
+
+"Ernest," at length I said, "you have heard my explanation. Am I, or am
+I not, acquitted?"
+
+He started as if from a trance, clasped his hands tightly together, and
+lifted them above his head,--then springing up, he drew back from me, as
+if I were a viper coiling at his feet.
+
+"Your father!" he exclaimed with withering scorn. "Your father! The tale
+is marvellously conceived and admirably related. Do you expect me to
+believe that that bold libertine, who made you the object of his
+unrepressed admiration, was your father? Why, that man was not old
+enough to be your father,--and if ever profligacy was written on a human
+countenance, its damning lines were traced on his. Your father! Away
+with a subterfuge so vile and flimsy, a falsehood so wanton and
+sacrilegious."
+
+Should I live a thousand years, I never could forget the awful shock of
+that moment, the whirlwind of passion that raged in my bosom. To be
+accused of _falsehood_, and such a falsehood, by Ernest, after my
+truthful, impassioned revelation;--it was what I could not, would not
+bear. My heart seemed a boiling cauldron, whence the hot blood rushed in
+burning streams to face, neck, and hands. My eyes flashed, my lips
+quivered with indignation.
+
+"Is it I, your wife, whom you accuse of falsehood?" I exclaimed; "dare
+you repeat an accusation so vile?"
+
+"Did you not _act_ a falsehood, when you so grossly deceived me, by
+pretending to go on an errand of benevolence, when in reality you were
+bound to a disgraceful assignation? What veteran _intriguante_ ever
+arranged any thing more coolly, more deliberately? Even if the story of
+that man's being your father were not false, what trust could I ever
+repose in one so skilled in deception, so artful, and so perfidious?"
+
+"Ernest, you will rue what you say now, to your dying day; you will rue
+it at the judgment bar of heaven; you are doing me the cruellest wrong
+man ever inflicted on woman."
+
+The burning current in my veins was cooling,--a chill, benumbing sense
+of injustice and injury was settling on every feeling. I looked in his
+face, and its classic beauty vanished, even its lineaments seemed
+changed, the illusion of love was passing away; with indescribable
+horror I felt this; it was like the opening of a deep, dark abyss. Take
+away my love for Ernest, and what would be left of life?
+Darkness--despair--annihilation. I thought not, recked not then of his
+lost love for me; I only dreaded ceasing to love _him_, dreaded that
+congelation of the heart more terrible than death.
+
+"Where is the note?" he asked suddenly. "Show me the warrant for this
+secret meeting."
+
+"I destroyed it."
+
+Again a thunder-gust swept over his countenance. I ought to have kept
+it, I ought to have anticipated a moment like this, but my judgment was
+obscure by fear.
+
+"You destroyed it!"
+
+"Yes; and well might I dread a disclosure which has brought on a scene
+so humbling to us both. Let it not continue; you have heard from me
+nothing but plain and holy truth; I have nothing to say in my defence.
+Had I acted differently, you yourself would despise and condemn me."
+
+"Had you come to me as you ought to have done, asking my counsel and
+assistance, I would have met the wretch who sought to beguile you; I
+would have detected the imposter, if you indeed believed the tale; I
+would have saved you from the shame of a public exposure, and myself the
+misery, the tortures of this hour."
+
+"Did he not threaten your life and his own? Did he not appeal to me in
+the most solemn and awful manner not to betray him?"
+
+"You might have known the man who urged you to deceive your husband to
+be a villain."
+
+"Alas! alas! I know him to be a villain; and yet he is my father."
+
+"He is not your father! I know he is not. I would swear it before a
+court of justice. I would swear it before the chancery of the skies!"
+
+"Would to heaven that your words were true. Would to heaven my being
+were not derived from such a polluted source. But I know too well that
+he _is_ my father; and that he has entailed on me everlasting sorrow.
+You admit, that if he is an impostor, I was myself deceived. You recall
+your fearful accusation."
+
+"My God!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands, and looking wildly upwards,
+"I know not what to believe. I would give worlds, were they mine, for
+the sweet confidence forever lost! The cloud was passing away from my
+soul. Sunshine, hope, love, joy, were there. I was wrapped in the dreams
+of Elysium! Why have you so cruelly awakened me? If you had deceived me
+once, why not go on; deny the accusation; fool, dupe me,--do any thing
+but convince me that where I have so blindly worshipped, I have been so
+treacherously betrayed."
+
+I pitied him,--from the bottom of my soul I pitied him, his countenance
+expressed such exceeding bitter anguish. I saw that passion obscured his
+reason; that while under its dominion he was incapable of perceiving the
+truth. I remembered the warning accents of his mother: "You have no
+right to complain." I remembered her Christian injunction, "to endure
+all;" and my own promise, with God's help, to do it. All at once, it
+seemed as if my guardian angel stood before me, with a countenance of
+celestial sweetness shaded by sorrow; and I trembled as I gazed. I had
+bowed my shoulder to the cross; but as soon as the burden galled and
+oppressed me, I had hurled it from me, exclaiming, "it was greater than
+I could bear." I _had_ deceived, though not betrayed him. I _had_ put
+myself in the power of a villain, and exposed myself to the tongue of
+slander. I had expected, dreaded his anger; and was it not partly just?
+
+As these thoughts darted through my mind with the swiftness and power of
+lightning, love returned in all its living warmth, and anguish in
+proportion to the wound it had received. I was borne down irresistibly
+by the weight of my emotions. My knees bent under me. I bowed my face on
+the sofa; and tears, hot and fast as tropic rain, gushed from my eyes. I
+wept for him even more than myself,--wept for the "dark-spotted flower"
+twined with the roses of love.
+
+I heard him walking the room with troubled steps; and every step sounded
+as mournful to me as the earth-fall on the coffin-lid. Their echo was
+scarcely audible on the soft, yielding carpet; yet they seemed loud and
+heavy to my excited ear. Then I heard him approach the sofa, and stop,
+close to the spot where I knelt. My heart almost ceased beating; when he
+suddenly knelt at my side, and put his arms around me.
+
+"Gabriella!" said he, "if I have done you wrong, may God forgive me; but
+I never can forgive myself."
+
+Accents of love issuing from the grave could hardly have been more
+thrilling or unexpected. I turned, and leaning my head on his shoulder,
+I felt myself drawn closer and closer to the heart from which I believed
+myself for ever estranged. I entreated his forgiveness for having
+deceived him. I told him, for I believed it then, that the purity of the
+motive did not justify the act; and I promised in the most solemn manner
+never again, under any circumstances, to bind myself to do any thing
+unknown to him, or even to act spontaneously without his knowledge. In
+the rapture of reconciliation, I was willing to give any pledge as a
+security for love, without realizing that jealousy was a Shylock,
+exacting the fulfilment of the bond,--the pound of flesh "nearest the
+heart." Yes, more exacting still, for _he_ paused, when forbidden to
+spill the red life-drops, and dropped the murderous knife.
+
+And Ernest,--with what deep self-abasement he acknowledged the errors
+into which blind passion had led him. With what anguish he reflected on
+the disgraceful charge he had brought against me. Yes; even with tears,
+he owned his injustice and madness, and begged me to forget and forgive.
+
+"What have I done?" he cried, when, after our passionate emotions having
+subsided, we sat hand in hand, still pale and trembling, but subdued and
+grateful, like two mariners escaped from wreck, watching the billows
+roaring back from the shore. "What have I done, that this curse should
+be entailed upon me? In these paroxysms of madness, I am no more master
+of myself than the maniac who hurls his desperate hand in the face of
+Omnipotence. Reason has no power,--love no influence. Dark clouds rush
+across my mind, shutting out the light of truth. My heart freezes, as in
+a wintry storm. O, Gabriella! you can have no conception of what I
+suffer, while I writhe in the tempter's grasp. It is said God never
+allows man to be tempted beyond his powers of resistance. I dare not
+question the word of the Most High, but in the hour of temptation I feel
+like an infant contending with the Philistine giant. But, oh! the joy,
+the rapture when the paroxysm is past,--when light dawns on the
+darkness, when warmth comes meltingly over the ice and snow, when reason
+resumes its sway, and love its empire,--oh! my beloved! it is life
+renewed--it is a resurrection from the dead,--it is Paradise regained in
+the heart."
+
+Those who have floated along on a smooth, tranquil tide, clear of the
+breakers and whirlpools and rocks, or whose bark has lain on stagnant
+waters, on which a green and murky shade is beginning to gather, with no
+breeze to fan them or to curl the dull and lifeless pool, will accuse me
+of exaggeration, and say such scenes never occurred in the actual
+experience of wedded life; that I am writing a romance, instead of a
+reality.
+
+I answer them, that I am drawing the sketch as faithfully as the artist,
+who transfers the living form to the canvas; that as it is scarcely
+possible to exaggerate the dying agonies of the malefactor transfixed by
+the dagger, and writhing in protracted tortures, that the painter may
+immortalize himself by the death-throes on which he is gazing; so the
+agonies of him,
+
+    "Who doubts, yet does, suspects, yet fondly loves,"
+
+cannot be described in colors too deep and strong. Prometheus bound to
+the rock, with the beak of the vulture in his bleeding breast, suffering
+daily renewing pangs, his wounds healed only to be torn open afresh, is
+an emblem of the victim of that vulture passion, which the word of God
+declares to be cruel and insatiable as the grave.
+
+No; my pen is too weak to describe either the terrors of the storm or
+the halcyon peace, the heavenly joy that succeeded. I yielded to the
+exquisite bliss of reconciliation, without daring to give one glance to
+the future. I had chosen my destiny. I had said, "Let me be loved,--I
+ask no more!"
+
+I was loved, even to the madness of idolatry. My prayer was granted.
+Then let me "lay my hand upon my mouth, and my mouth in the dust." I had
+rather be the stormy petrel, whose wings dip into ocean's foaming brine,
+than the swallow nestling under the barn-eaves of the farmer, or in the
+chimney of the country homestead,--
+
+    "Better to stand the lightning's shock,
+    Than moulder piecemeal on the rock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+
+It was fortunate for me that Margaret was absent during this exciting
+scene. When she returned, she was too much occupied with relating the
+pleasures she had enjoyed to think of what might have occurred in her
+absence.
+
+"I am dying with impatience," she cried, "perfectly consuming with
+curiosity. Here is a letter from my mother, in which she says a
+gentleman, a particular friend of mine, is coming to the city, and that
+she has requested him to take charge of me back to Boston. She does not
+mention his name, and I have not the most remote idea who he is. She
+says she is very happy that her wild girl should be escorted by a person
+of so much dignity and worth. Dignity! I expect he is one of the
+ex-presidents or wise statesmen, whom Mrs. Linwood has recommended to my
+patronage. I have a great admiration for great men, large, tall men, men
+whose heads you can distinguish in a crowd and see in a distant
+procession. They look as if they could protect one in the day of
+trouble."
+
+"Do _you_ ever think of such a day, Margaret?"
+
+"Sometimes I do. I think more than you give me credit for. I can think
+more in one minute than you slow folks can in a week. Who can this be? I
+remember a description I admire very much. It is in some old poem of
+Scott's, I believe,--
+
+    'Bold, firm, and high, his stature tall,'
+
+did something, looked like something, I have forgotten what. I know it
+was something grand, however."
+
+"You must be thinking of Mr. Regulus," said I, laughing, as memory
+brought before me some of his inimitable _quackeries_. "He is the
+tallest gentleman I have ever seen, and though not very graceful, has a
+very imposing figure, especially in a crowd."
+
+"I think Mr. Regulus one of the finest looking men I ever saw," cried
+Madge. "He has a head very much like Webster's, and his eyebrows are
+exactly like his. If he were in a conspicuous station, every one would
+be raving about his mountainous head and cavernous eyes and majestic
+figure. He is worth a dozen of _some_ people, who shall be nameless. I
+have no doubt he will be president of the United States, one of these
+days."
+
+"I never heard you make so sensible a remark, Margaret. I thought you
+were amusing yourself with my respected teacher. I am glad you
+appreciate his uncommon merits."
+
+Madge laughed very loud, but she actually blushed. The first symptom of
+womanhood I had ever seen her exhibit! It was a strange phenomenon, and
+I marvelled what it could mean.
+
+To my unutterable astonishment and delight, a few evenings after, my
+quondam preceptor was ushered into the parlor; and strangely looked his
+tall, large figure in the midst of the oriental lightness and splendor
+through which it moved. After greeting me with the most heart-felt
+feeling, and Madge with a half shy, half dignified manner, he gazed
+around him with the simplicity and wondering admiration of a child. He
+was probably comparing the beautiful drapery, that seemed like the azure
+robe of night with its stars of glory gleaming through, with the plain
+green curtains that shaded the windows of the academy, the graceful and
+luxurious divan with the high-backed chair which was my village throne.
+
+"Beautiful, charming!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands slowly and
+gently. "You remind me of the queen of a fairy palace. I shall not dare
+to call you my child or little girl again. Scherezade or Fatima will
+seem more appropriate."
+
+"Oh no, Mr. Regulus! I had rather hear you call me child, than any thing
+else in the world. It carries me back to the dear old academy, the
+village green, the elm trees' shade, and all the sweet memories of
+youth."
+
+"One would think you had a long backward journey to take, from the
+saddened heights of experience," said Ernest; and there was that
+indescribable something in his voice and countenance, which I had
+learned too well to interpret, that told me he was not pleased with my
+remark. He did not want me to have a memory further back than my first
+meeting with him,--a hope with which he was not intertwined.
+
+"You may call _me_ child, Mr. Regulus, as much as you please," cried
+Madge, her eyes sparkling with unusual brilliancy. "I wish I were a
+little school-girl again, privileged to romp as much as I pleased. When
+I did any thing wrong then, it was always passed over. 'Oh! she's but a
+child, she will get sobered when she is grown.' Now if I laugh a little
+louder and longer than other people, they stare and lift up their eyes,
+and I have no doubt pray for me as a castaway from grace and favor."
+
+"Margaret!" said I, reproachfully.
+
+"There! exactly as I described. Every sportive word I utter, it is
+Margaret, or Madge, or Meg, in such a grave, rebuking tone!"
+
+"Perhaps it is only when you jest on serious subjects, that you meet a
+kindly check," observed Mr. Regulus, with grave simplicity; "there are
+so many legitimate themes of mirth, so many light frameworks, round
+which the flowers of wit and fancy can twine, it is better to leave the
+majestic temple of religion, untouched by the hand of levity."
+
+"I did not intend to speak profanely," said Margaret, hastily,--and the
+color visibly deepened on her cheek; "neither did I know that you were a
+religious character, Mr. Regulus. I thought you were a very good sort of
+man, and all that; but I did not think you had so much of the minister
+about you."
+
+"It is a great pity, Miss Margaret, that interest in religion should be
+considered a minister's exclusive privilege. But I hope I have not said
+any thing wounding. It was far from my intention. I am a sad blunderer,
+however, as Gabriella knows full well."
+
+I was charmed with my straightforward, simple, and excellent teacher. I
+had never seen him appear to such advantage. He had on an entirely new
+suit of the finest black broadcloth, that fitted him quite _a la mode_;
+a vest of the most dazzling whiteness; and his thick black hair had
+evidently been under the smoothing hands of a fashionable barber. His
+head seemed much reduced in size; while his massy, intellectual forehead
+displayed a bolder sweep of outline, relieved of the shadows that
+obscured its phrenological beauty.
+
+He had seen Mrs. Linwood and Edith in Boston. They were both well, and
+looking anxiously forward to the summer reunion at Grandison Place. Dr.
+Harlowe sent me many characteristic messages,--telling me my little
+rocking-chair was waiting for me at my favorite window, and that he had
+not learned to rub his shoes on the mat, or to hang up his hat yet.
+
+"Does he call me the wild-cat, still?" asked Madge.
+
+"I believe so. He told me to say that he had his house repaired, so that
+you could visit him without endangering Mrs. Harlowe's china."
+
+"The monster! Well, he shall give me a new name, when I see him again.
+But tell me, Mr. Regulus, who is the very dignified and excellent
+gentleman whom mamma says is coming to escort me home? I have been
+expiring with curiosity to know."
+
+"I do not know of any one answering to that description, Miss Margaret,"
+replied Mr. Regulus, blushing, and passing his hands over his knees. "I
+saw your mother at Mrs. Linwood's; and when she learned I was coming to
+this city, she said she would be very much obliged to me, if I would
+take charge of you, on my return."
+
+"Then you did not come on purpose for me, Mr. Regulus," said Madge, with
+a saucy smile.
+
+"Oh no,--I had business, and a very earnest desire to see my young
+friend, Gabriella. If I can, however, combine the useful with the
+agreeable, I shall be very well pleased."
+
+"By the useful, you mean, seeing me safe in my mamma's arms," said
+Madge, demurely.
+
+"Certainly, Miss Margaret."
+
+Even Ernest laughed at this peculiar compliment; and Madge bit her lips,
+half in vexation, half in merriment. I hardly knew what to think of
+Margaret. She was certainly the most eccentric being I ever saw. She,
+who seemed to care for the opinion of no one,--reckless, defying, and
+apparently heartless, showed more deference for Mr. Regulus, more
+solicitude for his attention, than I had ever seen her manifest for
+another's. Was it possible that this strange, wild girl, was attracted
+by the pure, unvarnished qualities of this "great grown boy," as Dr.
+Harlowe called him? It is impossible to account for the fascination
+which one being exercises over another; and from the days of Desdemona
+to the present hour, we seldom hear of an approaching marriage, without
+hearing at the same time some one exclaim, "that it is strange,--most
+passing strange."
+
+The moment I admitted the possibility of his exercising a secret
+influence over Madge, I looked upon him with new interest. He had the
+intense, deep-set eye, which is said to tame the wild beasts of the
+forest, and perhaps its glance had subdued the animal nature that
+triumphed over her more ethereal attributes. I hoped most devoutly that
+my supposition might be true; for genuine affection exalts both the
+giver and receiver, and opens ten thousand avenues to joy and good.
+
+"You do not look quite so rosy as you did in the country," said he,
+looking earnestly at me. "The dissipation of a city life does not agree
+with our wild-wood flowers. They need a purer atmosphere."
+
+"Gabriella is taken very good care of," cried Madge, looking
+significantly at Ernest. "She is not allowed to hurt herself by
+dissipation, I assure you."
+
+"Do you imply that she needs a restraining influence to keep her from
+excess?" asked Ernest. He spoke lightly, but he never spoke without
+meaning something.
+
+"No, indeed. She is the model wife of the nineteenth century. She is
+'wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.' Solomon must have seen her
+with prophetic eye, when he wrote the last chapter of Proverbs."
+
+"Mock praise is the severest censure, Margaret," said I.
+
+"No such thing. I mean every word I say. Show me a young and beautiful
+wife, almost bride, immuring herself as you do, and never seen in public
+but clinging to her husband's arm, shrinking from admiration and
+blushing at a glance, and I will show you another Solomon."
+
+"Though you may speak in ridicule," said Ernest, with a contracted brow,
+"you have awarded her the most glorious meed woman can receive. The
+fashion that sanctions a wife in receiving the attentions of any
+gentleman but her husband, is the most corrupt and demoralizing in the
+world. It makes wedded vows a mockery, and marriage an unholy and
+heartless rite."
+
+"Do you expect to revolutionize society?" she asked.
+
+"No; but I expect to keep my wife unspotted from the world."
+
+"I am glad she has so watchful a guardian," said Mr. Regulus, regarding
+me with his old-fashioned, earnest tenderness. "We hear very flattering
+accounts," he added, addressing me, "of our young friend, Richard Clyde.
+He will return next summer, after a year's absence, having acquired as
+much benefit as most young men do in two or three."
+
+I could not help blushing, for I knew the eyes of Ernest were on me. He
+could never hear the name of Richard with indifference, and the prospect
+of his return was far from being a source of pleasure to him. Richard
+was very dear to me as a friend, and I was proud of his growing honors.
+Yet I dared not manifest the interest I felt.
+
+Never had I been so supremely happy, as since my reconciliation with
+Ernest. I felt that he had something to forgive, much to forgive, and
+that he was magnanimous to do it, considering the weakness with which he
+struggled. Never had I loved him so entirely, or felt such confidence in
+my future happiness. Yet the moment the name of Richard Clyde was
+mentioned, it sounded like a prophecy of evil.
+
+Oh that he would transfer to Edith the affections given to me, and then
+he could bind Ernest to his heart by the sacred bonds of fraternity!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+
+The few days which Mr. Regulus passed in the city, were happy ones to
+me. He had never visited it before; and Ernest showed him more respect
+and attention than I had seen him bestow on other men. I had never
+betrayed the _romance_ of the academy; and not dreaming that my
+preceptor had ever been my lover, he tolerated the regard he manifested,
+believing it partook of the paternal character. Perhaps, had he remained
+long, he would have considered even this an infringement on his rights;
+but, to my unspeakable joy, nothing occurred to cloud our domestic
+horizon during his stay. Once or twice when the name of Richard Clyde
+was mentioned, I saw the shadow of _coming events_ on the brow of
+Ernest; but it passed away, and the evil day of his return seemed very
+far off.
+
+I could not regret Margaret's departure. There was so entire a
+dissimilarity in our characters, and though I have no doubt she
+cherished for me all the friendship she was capable of feeling, it was
+of that masculine cast, that I could not help shrinking from its
+manifestations. Her embraces were so stringent, her kisses so loud and
+resounding, I could not receive them without embarrassment, though no
+one but Ernest might be near.
+
+The evening before she left, she was in an unusually gentle mood. We
+were alone in my chamber, and she actually sat still several moments
+without speaking. This was something as ominous as the pause that
+precedes the earth's spasmodic throes. I have not spoken of Margaret's
+destructive propensities, but they were developed in a most
+extraordinary manner. She had a habit of seizing hold of every thing she
+looked at, and if it chanced to be of delicate materials, it often
+shivered in her grasp. I do not wonder poor Mrs. Harlowe trembled for
+her glass and china, for scarcely a day passed that her path was not
+strewed with ruins, whose exquisite fragments betrayed the costly fabric
+she had destroyed. Now it was a beautiful porcelain vase, which she
+would have in her hands to examine and admire, then an alabaster
+statuette or frail crystal ornament. If I dropped a kid glove, she
+invariably attempted to put it on, and her hand being much larger than
+mine, she as invariably tore it in shreds. She would laugh, roll up her
+eyes, and exclaim, "shocking! why this could not be worth anything! I
+will let it alone next time."
+
+I cannot say but that these daily proofs of carelessness and
+destructiveness were trials of the temper and constant gratings on the
+nerves. It was difficult to smile with a frowning heart, for such wanton
+disregard for the property and feelings of others must pain that nice
+moral sense which is connected with the great law of self-preservation.
+
+This evening, she seized a beautiful perfume bottle that stood on my
+toilet, and opening it, spilled it half on her handkerchief, though one
+drop would fill the whole apartment with richest odor.
+
+"Do not break that bottle, Margaret; it is very beautiful, and Ernest
+gave it me this very morning."
+
+"Oh! nonsense, I am the most careful creature in the world. Once in a
+while, to be sure,--but then accidents will happen, you know. O
+Gabriella I have something to tell you. Mr. Harland wants me to marry
+him,--ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"Well, you seemed pleased, Margaret. He is an accomplished gentleman,
+and an agreeable one. Do you like him?"
+
+"No! I liked him very well, till he wanted me to like him better, and
+now I detest him. He is all froth,--does not know much more than I do
+myself. No, no,--that will never do."
+
+"Perhaps you like some one else better?" said I, thinking if Margaret
+was ever caught in the matrimonial noose, it must be a _lasso_, such as
+are thrown round the neck of the wild horses of the prairies.
+
+"What makes you say that?" she asked, quickly, and my beautiful essence
+bottle was demolished by some sudden jerk which brought it in contact
+with the marble table. "The brittle thing!" she exclaimed, tossing the
+fragments on the carpet, at the risk of cutting our slippers and
+wounding our feet. "I would not thank Ernest for such baby trifles,--I
+was scarcely touching it. What makes you think I like anybody better?"
+
+"I merely asked the question," I answered, closing my work box, and
+drawing it nearer, so that her depredating fingers could not reach it.
+She had already destroyed half its contents.
+
+"I do like somebody a great deal better," she said, tossing her hair
+over her forehead and veiling her eyes; "but if you guessed till
+doomsday, you could not imagine who it is."
+
+"I pity him, whoever it may be," said I, laughing.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You are no more fit to be a wife, Madge, than a child of five years
+old. You have no more thought or consideration, foresight or care."
+
+"I am two years older than you are, notwithstanding."
+
+"I fear if you live to be a hundred, you will never have the qualities
+necessary to secure your own happiness and that of another in the close,
+knitting bonds of wedded life."
+
+I spoke more seriously than I intended. I was thinking of Mr. Regulus,
+and most devoutly hoped for his sake, this wild, nondescript girl would
+never reach his heart through the medium of his vanity. She certainly
+paid him the most dangerous kind of flattery, because it was indirect.
+
+"You do not know what a sensible man might make of me," she said,
+shaking her head. "I really wish,--I do not know--but I sometimes
+think"--
+
+She stopped and leaned her head on her hand, and her hair fell shadingly
+over her face.
+
+"What, Margaret? I should like exceedingly to know your inmost thoughts
+and feelings. You seem to think and feel so little;--and yet, in every
+woman's heart there must be a fountain,--or else what a desert
+waste,--what a dreary wilderness it must be."
+
+She did not speak, but put both hands over her face and bent it
+downwards, while her shoulders moved up and down with a spasmodic
+motion. I thought she was shaking with suppressed laughter; and though I
+could not imagine what had excited her mirth, I had known her convulsed
+by a ridiculous thought of her own, in the midst of general seriousness.
+
+But all at once unmistakable sobs broke forth, and I found she was
+crying heartily, genuinely,--crying without any self control, with all
+the abandonment of a child.
+
+"Margaret!" I exclaimed, laying my hand gently on her quivering
+shoulder, "what is the matter? What can have excited you in this manner?
+Don't, Madge,--you terrify me."
+
+"I can't help it," she sobbed. "Now I have began, I can't stop. O dear,
+what a fool I am! There is nothing the matter with me. I don't know what
+makes me cry; but I can't help it,--I hate myself,--I can't bear myself,
+and yet I can't change myself. Nobody that I care for will ever love me.
+I am such a hoyden--such a romp--I disgust every one that comes near me;
+and yet I can't be gentle and sweet like you, if I die. I used to think
+because I made everybody laugh, they liked me. People said, 'Oh! there's
+Madge, she will keep us alive.' And I thought it was a fine thing to be
+called Wild Madge, and Meg the Dauntless; I begin to hate the names; I
+begin to blush when I think of myself."
+
+And Margaret lifted her head, and the feelings of lately awakened
+womanhood crimsoned her cheeks, and streamed from her eyes. I was
+electrified. What prophet hand had smitten the rock? What power had
+drawn up the rosy fluid from the Artesian well of her heart?
+
+"My dear Margaret," I cried, "I hail this moment as the dawn of a new
+life in your soul. Your childhood has lingered long, but the moment you
+feel that you have the heart of a woman, you will discard the follies of
+a child. Now you begin to live, when you are conscious of the golden
+moments you have wasted, the noble capacities you have never yet
+exerted. Oh Margaret, I feel more and more every day I live, that I was
+born for something more than the enjoyment of the passing moment,--that
+life was given for a more exalted purpose than self-gratification, and
+that as we use or abuse this gift of God we become heirs of glory or of
+shame."
+
+Margaret listened with a subdued countenance and a long drawn sigh. She
+strenuously wiped away the traces of her tears, and shook back the hair
+from her brow, with a resolute motion.
+
+"You despise me--I know you do," she said, gloomily.
+
+"No, indeed," I answered, "I never liked you half as well before; I
+doubted your sensibility. Now, I see you can feel, and feel acutely. I
+shall henceforth think of you with interest, and speak of you with
+tenderness."
+
+"You are the dearest, sweetest creature in the world," she exclaimed,
+putting both arms around me with unwonted gentleness; "I shall always
+love you, and will try to remember all you have said to me to-night. We
+shall meet in the summer, and you shall see, oh yes, you shall see. Dear
+me--what a fright I have made of myself."
+
+She had risen, and was glancing at herself in the Psyche, which,
+supported by two charming Cupids, reflected the figure full length.
+
+"I never will cry again if I can help it," she exclaimed. "These horrid
+red circles round the eyes,--and my eyes, too, are as red as a rabbit's.
+The heroines of novels are always said to look lovelier in tears; but
+you are the only person I ever saw who looked pretty after weeping."
+
+"Did you ever see me weep, Madge?"
+
+"I have noticed more than you think I have,--and believe me, Gabriella,
+Ernest will have to answer for every tear he draws from those angel eyes
+of yours."
+
+"Margaret, you know not what you say. Ernest loves me ten thousand times
+better than I deserve. He lavishes on me a wealth of love that humbles
+me with a consciousness of my own demerits. His only fault is loving me
+too well. Never never breathe before Mrs. Linwood or Edith,--before a
+human being, the sentiment you uttered now. Never repeat the idle gossip
+you may have heard. If you do speak of us, say that I have known woman's
+happiest, most blissful lot. And that I would rather be the wife of
+Ernest one year, than live a life of endless duration with any other."
+
+"It must be a pleasant thing to be loved," said Margaret, and her black
+eyes flashed through the red shade of tears.
+
+"And to love," I repeated. "It is more blessed to give, than to
+receive."
+
+A sympathetic chord was touched,--there was music in it. Who ever saw a
+person weep genuine tears, without feeling the throbbings of
+humanity,--the drawings of the chain that binds together all the sons
+and daughters of Adam? If there are such beings, I pity them.
+
+Let them keep as far from me as the two ends of the rainbow are from
+each other. The breath of the Deity has frozen within them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+
+The morning of Margaret's departure, when Mr. Regulus was standing with
+gloves and hat in hand waiting her readiness, it happened that I was
+alone in the parlor with him a few moments.
+
+"You will have a pleasant journey," said I. "You will find Margaret an
+entertaining companion."
+
+"O yes!" he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "but I fear
+she will excite too much remark by her wild antics. I do not like to be
+noticed by strangers."
+
+"She will accommodate herself to your wishes, I know she will. You have
+great influence over her."
+
+"Me! oh no!" he cried, with equal surprise and simplicity.
+
+"Yes, indeed you have. Talk to her rationally, as if you had confidence
+in her good-sense, Mr. Regulus, and you will really find some golden
+wheat buried in the chaff. Talk to her feelingly, as if you appealed to
+her sensibility, and you may discover springs where you believe no
+waters flow."
+
+"It is like telling me to search for spring flowers, when the ground is
+all covered with snow,--to look at the moon shining, when the night is
+as dark as ebony. But I am thinking of you, Gabriella, more than of her.
+I rejoice to find you the same artless child of nature that sat at my
+feet years ago in the green-wood shade. But beautiful as is your palace
+home, I long to see you again in our lovely valley among the birds and
+the flowers. I long to see you on the green lawn of Grandison Place."
+
+"I do feel more at home at Grandison Place," I answered. "I would give
+more for the velvet lawn, the dear old elm, the oaken avenue, than for
+all the magnificence of this princely mansion."
+
+"But you are happy here, my child?"
+
+"I have realized the brightest dreams of youth."
+
+"God be praised!--and you have forgiven my past folly,--you think of me
+as preceptor, elder brother, friend."
+
+"My dear master!" I exclaimed, and tears, such as glisten in the eyes of
+childhood, gathered in mine. I _was_ a child again, in my mother's
+presence, and the shade-trees of the gray cottage seemed rustling around
+me.
+
+The entrance of Margaret interrupted the conversation. She never
+appeared to better advantage than in her closely fitting riding dress,
+which displayed the symmetry of her round and elastic figure. I looked
+at her with interest, for I had seen those saucy, brilliant eyes
+suffused with tears, and those red, merry lips quivering with womanly
+sensibility. I hoped good things of Margaret, and though I could not
+regret her departure, I thought leniently of her faults, and resolved to
+forget them.
+
+"Just like Margaret," said I, gathering up the beautiful drapery, on
+which she had trodden as she left the room, and rent from the shaft that
+confined its folds. She stopped not to see the mischief she had done,
+for she was so accustomed to hear a crash and dash behind her, it is not
+probable she even noticed it.
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Ernest, before the echo of their departing
+footsteps had died on the ear. "Thank God! we are once more alone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Harland had visited us but seldom since the words of passion which
+might have been followed by a scene of strife, but for woman's
+restraining presence, had fallen from the lips of Ernest. One evening,
+he called and asked a private interview with Ernest, and they
+immediately passed into the library. I saw that his countenance was
+disturbed, and vague apprehensions filled my mind. I could hear their
+voices in earnest, excited tones; and though I knew there was no
+revelation to be made which Ernest had not already heard from me, I felt
+a conviction amounting to certainty, that this mysterious interview had
+some connection with my unhappy father, and boded evil to me. Mr.
+Harland did not probably remain more than an hour, but every moment
+seemed an hour, drawn out by suspense and apprehension. He reentered the
+parlor with Ernest, but left immediately; while Ernest walked silently
+back and forth, as he always did when agitated,--his brows contracted
+with stern, intense thought. He was excessively pale, and though his
+eyes did not emit the lightning glance of passion, they flashed and
+burned like heated metal.
+
+I dared not ask him the cause of his emotion, I could only watch him
+with quick-drawn breath, and lips sealed with dread. Suddenly he put his
+hand in his bosom, and snatching thence the fatal casket I had left in
+my father's crime-stained hands, he hurled it to the floor, and trampled
+it under his feet.
+
+"Behold," he cried, with inexpressible bitterness and grief, "my
+mother's gift, her sacred bridal gift,--desecrated, polluted,
+lost,--worse than lost! I will not upbraid you. I would spare you the
+pang I myself endure,--but think of the agonies in which a spirit like
+mine must writhe, to know that _your_ name, that the name of my _wife_
+is blazoned to the world, associated with that of a vile forger, an
+abandoned villain, whose crimes are even now blackening the newspapers,
+and glutting the greedy appetite of slander! O rash, misguided girl!
+what demon tempted you to such fatal imprudence?"
+
+I sat immovable, frozen, my eyes fixed upon the carpet, my hands as cold
+as ice, and my lips, as they touched each other, chill as icicles. In
+moments of sudden anguish I never lost consciousness, as many do, but
+while my physical powers were crushed, my mind seemed to acquire
+preternatural sensibility. I suffered as we do in dreams, intensely,
+exquisitely, when every nerve is unsheathed, and the spirit naked to the
+dagger's stroke. He stopped as he uttered this impassioned adjuration,
+and his countenance changed instantaneously as he gazed on mine.
+
+"Cruel, cruel that I am!" he cried, sitting down by me, and wrapping his
+arms around me; "I did not know what I was saying. I meant to be gentle
+and forbearing, but strong passion rushed over me like a whirlwind.
+Forgive me, Gabriella, my darling, forgive me. Let the world say what it
+will, I know that you are pure and true. I care not for the money,--I
+care not for the jewels,--but an unspotted name. Oh! where now are the
+'liveried angels' that will guard it from pollution?"
+
+As he folded me in his arms, and pressed his cheek to mine, as if
+striving to infuse into it vital warmth, I felt the electric fluid
+flowing into my benumbed system. Whatever had occurred, he had not cast
+me off; and with him to sustain me, I was strong to meet the exigencies
+of the moment. I looked up in his face, and he read the expression of my
+soul,--I know he did, for he clasped me closer to him, and the fire of
+his eyes grew dim,--dim, through glistening tears. And then he told me
+all my beseeching glances sought. More than a week before, even before
+that, he had learned that a forgery had been committed in his name,
+involving a very large sum of money. Liberal rewards had been offered
+for the discovery of the villain, and that day he had been brought to
+the city. My diamonds, on whose setting Mrs. Linwood had had my name
+engraven, were found in his possession. He had not spoken to me of the
+forgery, not wishing to trouble me, he said, on a subject of such minor
+importance. It was the publicity given to my name, in association with
+his, that caused the bitterness of his anguish. And I,--I knew that my
+father had robbed my husband in the vilest, most insidious manner; that
+he had drawn upon himself the awful doom of a forger, a dungeon home, a
+living death.
+
+My father! the man whom my mother had loved. The remembrance of this
+love, so long-enduring, so much forgiving, hung like a glory round him.
+It was the halo of a saint encircling the brow of the malefactor.
+
+"Will they not suppose the jewels were stolen?" I asked, with the
+calmness of desperation. "Surely the world cannot know they were given
+by me; and though it is painful to be associated with so dark a
+transaction, I see not, dear Ernest, why my reputation should be clouded
+by this?"
+
+"Alas! Gabriella,--you were seen by more than one walking with him in
+the park. You were seen entering the jeweller's shop, and afterwards
+meeting him in Broadway. Even in the act of giving your shawl to the
+poor shivering woman, you were watched. You believed yourself
+unremarked; but the blind man might as well think himself unseen walking
+in the blaze of noonday, because his own eyes are bound by the fillet of
+darkness, as _you_ expect to pass unnoticed through a gaping throng. Mr.
+Harland told me of these things, that I might be prepared to repel the
+arrows of slander which would inevitably be aimed at the bosom of my
+wife."
+
+"But you told him that it was my father. That it was to save him from
+destruction I gave them. Oh Ernest, you told him all!"
+
+"I have no right to reveal your secret, Gabriella. If he be indeed your
+father, let eternal secrecy veil his name. Would you indeed consent that
+the world should know that it was your father who had committed so dark
+a crime? Would you, Gabriella?"
+
+"I would far rather be covered with ignominy as a daughter, than
+disgrace as a wife," I answered, while burning blushes dyed my cheeks at
+the possibility of the last. "The first will not reflect shame or
+humiliation on you. You have raised me generously, magnanimously, to
+your own position; and though the world may say that you yielded to
+weakness in loving me,--a poor and simple girl.--Nay, nay; I recall my
+words, Ernest; I will not wrong myself, because clouds and darkness
+gather round me. You did not _stoop_, or lower yourself, by wedding me.
+Love made us equal. My proud, aspiring love, looked up; yours bent to
+meet its worship,--and both united, as the waves of ocean unite, in
+fulness, depth, and strength,--and, like them, have found their level.
+Let the world know that I am the daughter of St. James; that, moved by
+his prayers and intimidated by his threats, I met him and attempted to
+save him from ruin. They may say that I was rash and imprudent; but they
+dare not call me guilty. There is a voice in every heart which is not
+palsied, or deadened, or dumb, that will plead in my defence. The child
+who endeavors to shield a father from destruction, however low and
+steeped in sin he may be, cannot be condemned. If I am, I care not; but
+oh, Ernest, as your wife, let me not suffer reproach,--for your sake, my
+husband, far more than mine."
+
+As thus I pleaded with all the eloquence and earnestness of my nature,
+with my hands clasped in his, their firm, close, yet gentle fold grew
+firmer, closer still; and the cloud passing away from his countenance,
+it became luminous as I gazed.
+
+"You are right,--you are true," said he, "my dear, my noble Gabriella.
+Every shadow of a doubt vanishes before the testimony of your unselfish
+heart. Why did I not see this subject in the same clear, just light?
+Because my eyes are too often blinded by the mists of passion. Yes! you
+have pointed out the only way of extrication. The story of your mother's
+wrongs will not necessarily be exposed; and if it is, the sacred aegis of
+your filial love will guard it from desecration. We shall not remain
+here long. Spring will soon return; and in the sweet quietude of rural
+life, we will forget the tumultuous scenes of this modern Babel. You
+will not wish to return?"
+
+"No! never, never. That unhappy man! what will be his doom?"
+
+"Probably life-long imprisonment. Had I known who the offender was, I
+would have prayed the winds and waves to bear him to Icelandic seas,
+rather than have had his crime published to the world. It is, however,
+the retribution of heaven; and we must submit."
+
+"It seems so strange," said I, "to think of him alive, whose existence
+so long seemed to me a blank. When I was a child, I used to indulge in
+wild dreams about my unknown parent. I pictured him as one of the gods
+of mythology, veiling his divinity in flesh for the love of the fairest
+of the daughters of men. The mystery that wrapped his name was, to my
+imagination, like the cloud mantling the noonday sun. With such views of
+my lineage, which, though they became subdued as I grew older, were
+still exaggerated and romantic,--think of the awful plunge into the
+disgraceful truth. It seems to me that I should have died on my mother's
+grave, had not your arms of love raised me,--had you not breathed into
+my ear words that called me back from the cold grasp of death itself. In
+the brightness of the future I forgot the gloom of the past. Oh! had I
+supposed that he lived,--that he would come to bring on me public shame
+and sorrow, and through me, on you, my husband, I never would have
+exposed you to the sufferings of this night."
+
+And I clung to him with an entireness of confidence, a fulness of
+gratitude that swelled my heart almost to bursting. His face, beaming
+with unclouded love and trust, seemed to me as the face of an angel. I
+cared not for obloquy or shame, since he believed me true. I remembered
+the words of the tender, the devoted Gertrude:--
+
+    "I have been with thee in thine hour
+      Of glory and of bliss,
+    Doubt not its memory's living power
+      To strengthen me in this."
+
+But though my mind was buoyed up by the exaltation of my feelings, my
+physical powers began to droop. I inherited something of my mother's
+constitutional weakness; and, suddenly as the leaden weight falls when a
+clock has run down and the machinery ceases to play, a heavy burden of
+lethargy settled down upon me, and I was weak and helpless as a child.
+Dull pain throbbed in my brain, as if it were girdled by a hard,
+tightening band.
+
+It was several days before I left my bed, and more than a week before I
+quitted my chamber. The recollection of Ernest's tender watchfulness
+during these days of illness, even now suffuses my eyes with tears. Had
+I been a dying infant he could not have hung over me with more anxious,
+unslumbering care. Oh! whatever were his faults, his virtues redeemed
+them all. Oh! the unfathomable depths of his love! I was then willing to
+die, so fearful was I of passing out of this heavenly light of home joy
+into the coldness of doubt, the gloom of suspicion.
+
+Ernest, with all his proneness to exaggerate the importance of my
+actions, did not do so in reference to this unhappy transaction.
+Paragraphs were inserted in the papers, in which the initials of my name
+were inserted in large capitals to attract the gazing eye. The meeting
+in the Park, the jewels found in the possession of the forger, the
+abrupt manner in which they were taken from the jeweller's shop, even
+the gray shawl and green veil, were minutely described. Ernest had made
+enemies by the haughty reserve of his manners and the exclusiveness of
+his habits, and they stabbed him in secret where he was most vulnerable.
+
+A brief sketch of the real circumstances and the causes which led to
+them, was published in reply. It was written with manly boldness, but
+guarded delicacy, and rescued my name from the fierce clutch of slander.
+Then followed glowing eulogiums on the self-sacrificing daughter, the
+young and beautiful wife, till Ernest's sensitive spirit must have bled
+over the notoriety given to her, whom he considered as sacred as the
+priestess of some holy temple, and whose name was scarcely to be
+mentioned but in prayer.
+
+The only comment he made on them was,--
+
+"My mother and Edith will see these."
+
+"I will write and tell them all," I answered; "it will be too painful to
+you."
+
+"We will both write," he said; and we did.
+
+"You blame yourself too much," cried he, when he perused my letter.
+
+"You speak too kindly, too leniently of me," said I, after reading his;
+"yet I am glad and grateful. Your mother will judge me from the facts,
+and nothing that you or I can say will warp or influence her judgment.
+She understands so clearly the motives of action,--she reads so closely
+your character and mine, I feel that her decision will be as righteous
+as the decree of eternal justice. Oh that I were with her now, for my
+soul looks to her as an ark of safety. Like the poor weary dove, it
+longs to repose its drooping wings and fold them in trembling joy on her
+sheltering breast."
+
+I will not speak of the trial, the condemnation, or the agony I felt,
+when I learned that my father was doomed to expiate his crime by
+solitary confinement for ten long years. Could Ernest have averted this
+fate from him, for my sake he would have done it; but the majesty of the
+law was supreme, and no individual effort could change its just decree.
+My affections were not wounded, for I never could recall his image
+without personal repugnance, but my mother's remembrance was associated
+with him;--I remembered her dying injunctions,--her prophetic dream. I
+thought of the heaven which he had forfeited, the God whose commandments
+he had broken, the Saviour whose mercy he had scorned. I wanted to go to
+him,--to minister to him in his lonely cell,--to try to rouse him to a
+sense of his transgressions,--to lead him to the God he had forsaken,
+the Redeemer he had rejected, the heaven from which my mother seemed
+stretching her spirit arms to woo him to her embrace.
+
+"My mother dreamed that I drew him from a black abyss," said I to
+Ernest; "she dreamed that I was the guardian angel of his soul. Let me
+go to him,--let me fulfil my mission. I shudder when I look around me in
+these palace walls, and think that a parent groans in yonder dismal
+tombs."
+
+"_I_ will go," replied Ernest; "I will tell him your filial wish, and if
+I find you can do him good, I will accompany you there."
+
+"I _can_ do him good,--I can pity and forgive him,--I can talk to him of
+my mother, and that will lead him to think of heaven. 'I was sick and in
+prison and ye came unto me.' Oh, thus our Saviour said, identifying
+himself with the sons of ignominy and sorrow. Go, and if you find his
+heart softened by repentance, pour balm and oil into the wounds that sin
+has made. Go, and let me follow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+
+"And did you see him, Ernest?" I asked, with trembling eagerness.
+
+"I did, Gabriella. I went to him as your representative, without one
+vindictive, bitter feeling. I proffered kindness, forgiveness, and every
+comfort the law would permit a condemned criminal to enjoy. They were
+rejected fiercely, disdainfully,--he rejected them all."
+
+"Alas! and me, Ernest; does he refuse consolation from me?"
+
+"He will not see you. 'I ask no sympathy,' he cried, in hoarse and
+sullen accents. 'I desire no fellowship; alone I have sinned,--alone I
+will suffer,--alone I will die.' Weep not, my Gabriella, over this
+hardened wretch; I do not believe he is your father; I am more and more
+convinced that he is an impostor."
+
+"But he has my mother's miniature; he recognized me from my resemblance
+to it; he called me by name; he knew all the circumstances of my
+infantine life. I would give worlds to believe your assertion, but the
+curse clings to me. He _is_,--he must be my father."
+
+"Mr. Brahan, who knew your father personally, and who is deeply
+interested in the disclosures recently made, has visited him also. He
+says there is a most extraordinary resemblance; and though seventeen
+years of sinful indulgence leave terrible traces on the outward man, he
+does not doubt his identity. But I cannot, will not admit it. Think of
+him no more, Gabriella; banish him, and every thing connected with this
+horrible event, from your mind. In other scenes you will recover from
+the shock occasioned by it; and even now the tongue of rumor is busy
+with more recent themes. Mr. Brahan will visit him from time to time
+and, if possible, learn something of the mystery of his life. Whatever
+is learned will be communicated to me. What! weeping still, my
+Gabriella?"
+
+"It is dreadful to think of sin and crime in the abstract; but when it
+comes before us in the person of a father!"
+
+"No more! no more! Dismiss the subject. Let it be henceforth a dark
+dream, forgotten if possible; or if remembered, be it as a dispensation
+of Providence, to be borne in silence and submission. Strange as it may
+seem, all that I have suffered of humiliation and anguish in this _real_
+trial, cannot be compared to the agony caused by one of my own dark
+imaginings."
+
+I tried to obey the injunctions of Ernest; but though my lips were
+silent, it was impossible to check the current of thought, or to
+obliterate the dark remembrance of the past. My spirits lost their
+elasticity, the roses on my cheek grew pale.
+
+Spring came, not as in the country, with the rich garniture of living
+green, clothing hill, valley, and lawn,--the blossoming of flowers,--the
+warbling of birds,--the music of waters,--and all the beauty, life, and
+glory of awakening nature. But the fountain played once more in the
+grotto, the vine-wreaths frolicked again round their graceful shells,
+the statues looked at their pure faces in the shining mural wall.
+
+I cared not for these. This was not my home. I saw the faces of Mrs.
+Linwood and Edith in the mirror of memory. I saw the purple hills, the
+smiling vale, the quiet churchyard, the white, broken shaft, gleaming
+through the willow boughs, and the moonbeams resting in solemn glory
+there.
+
+Never shall I forget my emotions when, on quitting the city, I caught a
+glimpse of that gloomy and stupendous granite pile which looms up in the
+midst of grandeur and magnificence, an awful monitor to human depravity.
+Well does it become its chill, funereal name. Shadows deeper than the
+darkness of the grave hang within its huge Egyptian columns. Corruption
+more loathsome than the mouldering remains of mortality dwells in those
+lone and accursed cells. I gazed on the massy walls, as they frowned on
+the soft blue sky, till their shadow seemed to darken the heavens. I
+thought of the inmate of one lonely cell; of the sighs and tears, the
+curses and wailings that had gone up from that abode of shame, despair,
+and misery; and I wondered why the Almighty did not rend the heavens and
+come down and bare the red right arm of vengeance over a world so
+blackened by sin, so stained by crime, and so given up to the dominion
+of the spirit of evil.
+
+Ernest drew me back from the window of the carriage, that I might not
+behold this grim fortification against the powers of darkness; but it
+was not till we had quitted the walls of the metropolis, and inhaled a
+purer atmosphere, that I began to breathe more freely. The tender green
+of the fields, the freshness of the atmosphere, the indescribable odor
+of spring that embalmed the gale, awakened softer, happier thoughts. The
+footsteps of divine love were visible on the landscape. The voice of God
+was heard, breathing of mercy, through the cool green boughs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+
+Once more at Grandison Place! Once more on the breezy height which
+commanded the loveliest valley creation ever formed! Light, bloom, joy
+came back to eye, cheek, and heart, as I hailed again the scene where
+the day-spring of love dawned on my life.
+
+"God made the country."
+
+Yes! I felt this truth in every bounding vein. "God made the
+country,"--with its rich sweep of verdant plains, its blue winding
+streams, shedding freshness and murmuring music through the smiling
+fields; its silver dews, its golden sunsets, and all its luxuriance and
+greenness and bloom. The black shadow of the _Tombs_ did not darken this
+Eden of my youth.
+
+Mrs. Linwood and Edith--I was with them once more. Mrs. Linwood, in her
+soft twilight robe of silver grey; and Edith, with her wealth of golden
+locks, and eye of heaven's own azure.
+
+"You must not leave us again," said Mrs. Linwood, as she clasped us both
+in her maternal arms. "There are but few of us, and we should not be
+separated. Absence is the shadow of death, and falls coldly on the
+heart."
+
+She glanced towards Edith, whose beautiful face was paler and thinner
+than it was wont to be. She had pined for the brother of whom I had
+robbed her; for the world offered her nothing to fill the void left in
+the depths of her loving heart. We were all happier together. We cannot
+give ourselves up to the dominion of an exclusive passion, whatever it
+may be, without an outrage to nature, which sooner or later revenges the
+wrong inflicted. With all my romantic love for Ernest, I had often
+sighed for the companionship of one of my own sex; and now, restored to
+Edith, whom I had always regarded a little lower than the angels, I felt
+that if love was more rapturous than friendship, it was not more divine.
+
+They knew that I had suffered. They had sympathized with me, pitied
+me,--(if Mrs. Linwood blamed me for imprudence, she never expressed it);
+and I felt that they loved me better for having passed under the cloud.
+There was no allusion made to the awful events which were present in the
+minds of all, on our first reunion. If Mrs. Linwood noticed, that after
+the glow of excitement faded from my cheek it was paler than it was wont
+to be, she did not tell me so, but her kiss was more tender, her glance
+more kind. There was something in her mild, expressive eyes, that I
+translated thus:--
+
+"Thank God that another hand than Ernest's has stolen the rose from thy
+cheek of youth. Better, far better to be humbled by a father's crimes,
+than blighted by a husband's jealousy."
+
+This evening reminded me so much of the first I ever passed with Ernest.
+He asked Edith for the music of her harp; and I sat in the recess of the
+window, in the shadow of the curtains, through whose transparent drapery
+the moonbeams stole in and kissed my brow. Ernest came and sat down
+beside me, and my hand was clasped in his. As the sweet strains floated
+round us, they seemed to mingle with the moonlight, and my spirit was
+borne up on waves of brightness and melody. Always before, when
+listening to Edith's angelic voice, I had wished for the same enchanting
+power. I had felt that thus I could sing, I could play, had art
+developed the gifts of nature, only with deeper passion and sensibility;
+but now I listened without conscious desire,--passive, happy, willing to
+receive, without desiring to impart. I felt like the pilgrim who, after
+a sultry day of weariness, pauses by a cool spring, and, laying himself
+down beneath its gushing, suffers the stream to flow over him,--till,
+penetrated by their freshness, his soul seems a fountain of living
+waters. Oh! the divine rapture of repose, after restlessness and
+conflict! I had passed the breakers. Henceforth my life would be calm
+and placid as the beams that illumined the night.
+
+And now I am tempted to lay down the pen. I would not weary thee, friend
+of my lonely hours, whoever thou art, by a repetition of scenes which
+show how poor and weak are the strongest human resolutions, when
+temptations assail and passions rise with the swell and the might of the
+stormy billows. But if I record weaknesses and errors, such as seldom
+sadden the annals of domestic life, it is that God may be glorified in
+the humiliation of man. It is that the light of the sun of righteousness
+may be seen to arise with healing in his beams, while the mists of error
+and the clouds of passion are left rolling below.
+
+Yes! We were all happy for a while, and in the midst of such pure,
+reviving influences, I became blooming and elastic as a mountain maid.
+Dr. Harlowe was the same kind, genial, warm-hearted friend. Mr. Regulus,
+the same--no, he was changed,--improved, softened still more than when
+he surprised me by his graces, in my metropolitan home. He looked
+several years younger, and a great deal handsomer.
+
+Had Margaret wrought this improvement? Had she indeed supplanted me in
+my tutor's guileless heart? I inquired of Edith after the wild creature,
+whom I suspected some secret influence was beginning to tame.
+
+"Oh! you have no idea how Madge is improved, since her visit to you,"
+she answered. "She sometimes talks sensibly for five minutes at a time,
+and I have actually caught her singing and playing a sentimental air.
+Mamma says if she were in love with a man of sense and worth, he might
+make of her a most invaluable character."
+
+"Mr. Regulus, for instance!" said I.
+
+Edith laughed most musically.
+
+"Mr. Regulus in love! that would be a farce."
+
+"I have seen that farce performed," said Dr. Harlowe, who happened to
+come in at that moment, and caught her last words. "I have seen Mr.
+Regulus as much in love as--let me see," glancing at me, "as Richard
+Clyde."
+
+Much as I liked Dr. Harlowe I felt angry with him for an allusion, which
+always called the cloud to Ernest's brow, and the blush to my cheek.
+
+"Do tell me the object of his romantic passion?" cried Edith, who seemed
+excessively amused at the idea.
+
+"Am I telling tales out of school?" asked the doctor, looking merrily at
+me. "Do you not know the young enchantress, who has turned all the heads
+in our town, not excepting the shoemaker's apprentice and the tailor's
+journeyman? Poor Mr. Regulus could not escape the fascination. The old
+story of Beauty and the Beast,--only Beauty was inexorable this time."
+
+"Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, with unutterable astonishment; "he always
+called her his child. Who would have believed it? Why, Gabriella, how
+many victims have your chariot wheels of conquest rolled over?"
+
+"I am afraid if _I_ had not been a married man, she would have added me
+to the number," said the doctor, with much gravity. "I am not certain
+that Mrs. Harlowe is not jealous, in secret, of my public devotion."
+
+Who would believe that light words like these, carelessly uttered, and
+forgotten with the breath that formed them, should rankle like arrows in
+a breast where reason was enthroned? But it was even so. The allusion to
+Richard Clyde, the revelation of Mr. Regulus' romantic attachment, even
+the playful remarks of Dr. Harlowe relative to his wife's jealousy, were
+gall and wormwood, embittering the feelings of Ernest. He frowned, bit
+his lip, rose, and walked into the piazza. His mother's eyes followed
+him with that look which I had so often seen before our marriage, and
+which I now understood too well. I made an involuntary movement to
+follow him, but her glance commanded me to remain. The doctor, who was
+in a merry mood, continued his sportive remarks, without appearing to
+notice the darkened countenance and absence of Ernest. I talked and
+smiled too at his good-humored sallies, that he might not perceive my
+anxious, wounded feelings.
+
+A little while after Mr. Regulus called, and Ernest accompanied him to
+the parlor door with an air of such freezing coldness, I wonder it did
+not congeal his warm and unsuspecting heart. And there Ernest stood with
+folded arms, leaning back against the wall just within the door, stern
+and silent, casting a dark shadow on my soul. Poor Mr. Regulus,--now he
+knew he had been my lover, he would scarcely permit him to be my friend.
+
+"Oh!" thought I, blushing to think how moody and strange he must seem to
+others,--"surely my happiness is based on sand, since the transient
+breath of others can shake it from its foundation. If it depended on
+myself, I would guard every look, word, and action, with never sleeping
+vigilance;--but how can I be secured against the casual sayings of
+others, words unmeaning as a child's, and as devoid of harm? I might as
+well make cables of water and walls of foam, as build up a fabric of
+domestic felicity without confidence as the foundation stone."
+
+As these thoughts arose in my mind, my heart grew hard and rebellious.
+The golden chain of love clanked and chafed against the bosom it
+attempted to imprison.
+
+"I will not," I repeated to myself, "alienate from me, by coolness and
+gloom, the friends who have loved me from my orphan childhood. Let him
+be morose and dark, if he will; I will not follow his example. I will
+not be the slave of his mad caprices."
+
+"No," whispered _the angel over my right shoulder_, "but you will be the
+forbearing, gentle wife, who promised to _endure all_, knowing his
+infirmity, before you breathed your wedded vows. You are loved beyond
+the sober reality of common life. Your prayer is granted. You dare not
+murmur. You have held out your cup for the red wine. There is fire in
+its glow. You cannot turn it into water now. There is no divine wanderer
+on earth to reverse the miracle of Cana. 'Peace' is woman's watchword,
+and heaven's holiest, latest legacy."
+
+As I listened to the angel's whisper, the voices of those around me
+entered not my ear. I was as far away from them as if pillowed on the
+clouds, whose silver edges crinkled round the moon.
+
+As soon as our guests had departed, Ernest went up to Edith, and putting
+his arm round her, drew her to the harp.
+
+"Sing for me, Edith, for my spirit is dark and troubled. You alone have
+power to soothe it. You are the David of the haunted Saul."
+
+She looked up in his face suddenly, and leaned her head on his shoulder.
+Perhaps at that moment she felt the joy of being to him all that she had
+been, before he had known and loved me. He had appealed to her, in the
+hour of darkness. He had passed me by, as though I were not there. He
+sat down close to her as she played, so close that her fair ringlets
+swept against his cheek; and as she sang, she turned towards him with
+such a loving smile,--such a sweet, happy expression,--just as she used
+to wear! I always loved to hear Edith sing; but now my spirit did not
+harmonize with the strains. Again a stinging sense of injustice
+quickened the pulsations of my heart. Again I asked myself, "What had I
+done, that he should look coldly on me, pass me with averted eye, and
+seek consolation from another?"
+
+I could not sit still and listen, for I was left _alone_. I rose and
+stole from the room,--stole out into the dewy night, under the heavy,
+drooping shade-boughs, and sat down wearily, leaning my head against the
+hard, rough bark. Never had I seen a more enchanting night. A thin mist
+rose from the bosom of the valley and hovered like a veil of silvery
+gauze over its rich depth of verdure. It floated round the edge of the
+horizon, subduing its outline of dazzling blue, and rolled off among the
+hills in soft, yet darkening convolutions. And high above me, serene and
+holy, the moon leaned over a ledge of slate-colored clouds, whose margin
+was plated with her beams, and looked pensively and solemnly on the pale
+and sad young face uplifted to her own. The stilly dews slept at my
+feet. They hung tremulously on the branches over my head, and sparkled
+on the spring blossoms that gave forth their inmost perfume to the
+atmosphere of night. Every thing was so calm, so peaceful, so intensely
+lovely,--and yet there was something deadly and chilling mingled with
+the celestial beauty of the scene. The lace clung in damp folds to my
+bosom. The hair fell heavy with moisture against my temples.
+
+I heard a step softly crushing the grass near me. I did not look up, for
+I thought it was the step of Ernest; but my pulse throbbed with a
+quickened motion.
+
+"Gabriella, my child, you must not sit here in this chill damp evening
+air."
+
+It was Mrs. Linwood, who took me by the hand and drew me from the seat.
+It was not Ernest. He had not missed me. He had not feared for me the
+chill dews of night.
+
+"I do not feel cold," I answered, with a slight shudder.
+
+"Come in," she repeated, leading me to the house with gentle force.
+
+"Not there," I said, shrinking from the open door of the parlor, through
+which I could see Ernest, with his head leaning on both hands, while his
+elbows rested on the back of Edith's chair. She was still singing, and
+the notes of her voice, sweet as they were, like the odor of the
+night-flowers, had something languishing and oppressive. I hurried by,
+and ascended the stairs. Mrs. Linwood followed me to the door of my
+apartment, then taking me by both hands, she looked me full in the face,
+with a mildly reproachful glance.
+
+"O, Gabriella! if your spirit sink thus early, if you cannot bear the
+burden you have assumed, in the bright morning hour of love, how will
+you be able to support it in the sultry noon of life, or in the
+weariness of its declining day? You are very young,--you have a long
+pilgrimage before you. If you droop now, where will be the strength to
+sustain in a later, darker hour?"
+
+"I shall not meet it," I answered, trying in vain to repress the rising
+sob. "I do not wish a long life, unless it be happier than it now
+promises to be."
+
+"What! so young, and so hopeless! Where is the strength and vitality of
+your love? The fervor and steadfastness of your faith? My child, you
+have borne nothing yet, and you promised to hope all and endure all. Be
+strong, be patient, be hopeful, and you shall yet reap your reward."
+
+"Alas! my mother, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
+
+"There is no task appointed to man or woman," she answered, "which may
+not be performed, through the power of God and the influences of the
+Holy Spirit. Remember this, my beloved daughter; and remember, too, that
+the heart which _bends_ will not _break_. Good-night! We had better not
+renew this theme. 'Patient continuance in well-doing;' let this be your
+motto, and if happiness in this world be not your reward, immortality
+and glory in the next will be yours."
+
+I looked after her as she gently retreated, and as the light glanced on
+the folds of her silver gray dress, she seemed to me as one of the
+shining ones revealed in the pilgrim's vision. At that moment _her_
+esteem and approbation seemed as precious to me as Ernest's love. I
+entered my chamber, and sitting down quietly in my beloved recess,
+repeated over and over again the Christian motto, which the lips of Mrs.
+Linwood uttered in parting,--"Patient continuance in well-doing."
+
+I condemned myself for the feelings I had been indulging. I had felt
+bitter towards Edith for smiling so sweetly in her brother's face, when
+it had turned so coldly from me. I was envious of her power to soothe
+the restless spirit I had so unconsciously troubled. As I thus communed
+with my own heart, I unbound my hair, that the air might exhale the mist
+which had gathered in its folds. I brushed out the damp tresses, till,
+self-mesmerized, a soft haziness stole over my senses, and though I did
+not sleep, I was on the borders of the land of dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+
+I suppose I must have slept, though I was not conscious of it, for I did
+not hear Ernest enter the room, and yet when I looked again, he was
+sitting in the opposite window, still as a statue, looking out into the
+depths of night. I started as if I had seen a spirit, for I believed
+myself alone, and I did not feel less lonely now. There was something
+dejected in his attitude, and he sighed heavily as he turned and leaned
+his forehead against the window sash.
+
+I rose, and softly approaching him laid my hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Are you angry with me, Ernest?" I asked.
+
+He did not answer, or turn towards me; but I felt a tremulous motion of
+his shoulder, and knew that he heard me.
+
+"What have I done to displease you, dear Ernest?" again I asked. "Will
+you not speak to me and tell me, at least, in what I have offended?"
+
+"I am not offended," he answered, without looking up; "I am not angry,
+but grieved, wounded, and unhappy."
+
+"And will you not tell me the cause of your grief? Is not sympathy in
+sorrow the wife's holiest privilege?"
+
+"Gabriella, you mock me!" he exclaimed, suddenly rising and speaking in
+a low, stern voice. "You know that you are yourself the cause of my
+grief, and your words are as hollow as your actions are vain. Did you
+not promise, solemnly promise never to deceive me again, after having
+caused me such agony by the deception I yet freely forgave?"
+
+"Tell me, Ernest, in what have I deceived? If I know myself, every word
+and action has been as clear and open as noonday."
+
+"Did you ever tell me your teacher was your lover,--he with whom you
+were so intimately associated when I first knew you? You suffered me to
+believe that he was to you in the relation almost of a father. I
+received him as such in my own home. I lavished upon him every
+hospitable attention, as the friend and guide of your youth, and now you
+suffer me to hear from others that his romantic love was the theme of
+village gossip, that your names are still associated by idle tongues."
+
+"I always believed before that unrequited love was not a theme for vain
+boasting, that it was a secret too sacred to be divulged even to the
+dearest and the nearest."
+
+"But every one who has been so unfortunate as to be associated with you,
+seems to have been the victims of unrequited love. The name of Richard
+Clyde is familiar to all as the model of despairing lovers, and even Dr.
+Harlowe addresses you in a strain of unpardonable levity."
+
+"O Ernest, cannot you spare even him?"
+
+"You asked me the cause of my displeasure, and I have told you the
+source of my grief, otherwise I had been silent. There must be something
+wrong, Gabriella, or you would not be the subject of such remarks.
+Edith, all lovely as she is, passes on without exciting them. The most
+distant allusion to a lover should be considered an insult by a wedded
+woman and most especially in her husband's presence."
+
+"I have never sought admiration or love," said I, every feeling of
+delicacy and pride rising to repel an insinuation so unjust. "When they
+have been mine, they were spontaneous gifts, offered nobly, and if not
+accepted, at least declined with gratitude and sensibility. If I have
+been so unfortunate as to win what your lovely sister might more justly
+claim, it has been by the exercise of no base allurement or meritricious
+attractions. I appeal to your own experience, and if it does not acquit
+me, I am for ever silent."
+
+Coldly and proudly my eye met his, as we stood face to face in the light
+of the midnight moon. I, who had looked up to him with the reverence due
+to a superior being, felt that I was above him now. He was the slave of
+an unjust passion, the dupe of a distempered fancy, and as such unworthy
+of my respect and love. As I admitted this truth, I shuddered with that
+vague horror we feel in dreams, when we recoil from the brink of
+something, we know not what. I trembled when his lips opened, fearful he
+would say something more irrational and unmanly still.
+
+"O Ernest!" I cried, all at once yielding to the emotions that were
+bearing me down with such irresistible power, "you frighten me, you fill
+me with unspeakable dread. There seems a deep abyss yawning between us,
+and I stand upon one icy brink and you on the other, and the chasm
+widens, and I stretch out my arms in vain to reach you, and I call, and
+nothing but a dreary echo answers, and I look into my heart and do not
+find you there. Save me, Ernest, save me,--my husband, save yourself
+from a doom so dreadful!"
+
+Excited by the awful picture of desolation I had drawn, I slid down upon
+my knees and raised my clasped hands, as if pleading for life beneath
+the axe of the executioner. I must have been the very personification of
+despair, with my hair wildly sweeping round me, and hands locked in
+agony.
+
+"To live on, live on together, year after year, cold and estranged,
+without love, without hope,"--I continued, unable to check the words
+that came now as in a rushing tide,--"Oh! is it not dreadful, Ernest,
+even to think of? There is no evil I could not bear while we loved one
+another. If poverty came,--welcome, welcome. I could toil and smile, if
+I only toiled for you, if I were only _trusted_, only _believed_. There
+is no sacrifice I would not make to prove my faith. Do you demand my
+right hand?--cut it off; my right eye?--pluck it out;--I withhold
+nothing. I would even lay my heart bleeding at your feet in attestation
+of my truth. But what can I do, when the idle breath of others, over
+which I have no power, shakes the tottering fabric of your confidence,
+and I am buried beneath the ruins?"
+
+"You have never loved like me, Gabriella, or you would never dream of
+the possibility of its being extinguished," said he, in a tone of
+indescribable wretchedness. "I may alienate you from me, by the
+indulgence of insane passions, by accusations repented as soon as
+uttered,--I may revile and persecute,--but I can never cease to love
+you."
+
+"O Ernest!" It was all gone,--pride, anger, despair, were gone. The
+first glance of returning love,--the first acknowledgment of uttered
+wrong, were enough for me. I was in his arms, next to his heart, and the
+last hours seemed a dream of darkness. I was happy again; but I trembled
+even in the joy of reconciliation. I realized on what a slender thread
+my wedded happiness was hanging, and knew that it must one day break.
+Moments like these were like those green and glowing spots found on the
+volcano's burning edge. The lava of passion might sweep over them quick
+as the lightning's flash, and beauty and bloom be covered with ashes and
+desolation.
+
+And so the cloud passed by,--and Ernest was, if possible, more tender
+and devoted, and I tried to cast off the prophetic sadness that would at
+times steal over the brightness of the future. I was literally giving up
+all for him. I no longer derived pleasure from the society of Mr.
+Regulus. I dreaded the sportive sallies of Dr. Harlowe. I looked forward
+with terror to the return of Richard Clyde. I grew nervous and restless.
+The color would come and go in my face, like the flashes of the aurora
+borealis, and my heart would palpitate suddenly and painfully, as if
+some unknown evil were impending. Did I now say, as I did a few months
+after my marriage, that I preferred the stormy elements in which I
+moved, to the usual calm of domestic life? Did I exult, as the billows
+swelled beneath me and bore me up on their foaming crests, in the power
+of raising the whirlwind and the tempest? No; I sighed for rest,--for
+still waters and tranquil skies.
+
+It is strange, that a subject which has entirely escaped the mind, when
+associations naturally recall it, will sometimes return and haunt it,
+when nothing seems favorable for its reception.
+
+During my agitated interview with my unhappy father, I had forgotten
+Theresa La Fontaine, and the boy whose birthright I had unconsciously
+usurped. Mr. Brahan, in speaking of St. James and his _two_ wives, said
+they had both disappeared in a mysterious manner. That boy, if living,
+was my brother, my half-brother, the legitimate inheritor of my name,--a
+name, alas! he might well blush to bear. _If living_, where was he, and
+who was he? Was he the heir of his father's vices, and was he conscious
+of his ignominious career? These questions constantly recurred, now
+there was no oracle near to answer. Once, and only once, I mentioned
+them to Mrs. Linwood.
+
+"You had better not attempt to lift the veil which covers the past," she
+answered, in her most decided manner. "Think of the suffering, not to
+say disgrace, attached to the discovery of your father,--and let this
+brother be to you as though he had never been. Tempt not Providence, by
+indulging one wish on the subject, which might lead to shame and sorrow.
+Ernest has acted magnanimously with regard to the circumstances, which
+must have been galling beyond expression to one of his proud and
+sensitive nature. And I, Gabriella,--though out of delicacy to you,--I
+have forborne any allusion to the events of the last winter, have
+suffered most deeply and acutely on their account. I have suffered for
+myself, as well as my son. If there is any thing in this world to be
+prized next to a blameless conscience, it is an unspotted name. Well is
+it for you, that your own is covered with one, which from generation to
+generation has been pure and honorable. Well is it for you, that your
+husband's love is stronger than his pride, or he might reproach you for
+a father's ignominy. Remember this, when you feel that you have wrongs
+to forgive. And as you value your own happiness and ours, never, my
+child, seek to discover a brother, whom you would probably blush to
+acknowledge, and my son be compelled to disown."
+
+She spoke with dignity and emphasis, while the pride of a virtuous and
+honored ancestry, though subdued by Christian grace, darkened her eyes
+and glowed on her usually colorless cheek. I realized then all her
+forbearance and delicacy. I understood what a deep wound her family
+pride must have received, and how bitterly she must have regretted a
+union, which exposed her son to contact with degradation and crime.
+
+"I would not have spoken as I have, my daughter," she added, in a
+softened tone, "but with your limited knowledge of the world, you cannot
+understand the importance attached to unblemished associations. And
+never mention the subject to Ernest, if you would not revive memories
+that had better slumber for ever."
+
+She immediately resumed her kind and gracious manner, but I never forgot
+the lesson she had given. My proud spirit needed no second warning.
+Never had I felt so crushed, so humiliated by the remembrance of my
+father's crimes. That he _was_ my father I had never dared to doubt.
+Even Ernest relinquished the hope he had cherished, as time passed on,
+and no letter from Mr. Brahan threw any new light on the dark
+relationship; though removed from the vicinity of the dismal Tombs, the
+dark, gigantic walls cast their lengthening shadow over the fresh green
+fields and blossoming meadows, and dimmed the glory of the landscape.
+
+The shadow of the Tombs met the shadow in my heart, and together they
+produced a chill atmosphere. I sighed for that perfect love which
+casteth out fear; that free, joyous intercourse of thought and feeling,
+born of undoubting confidence.
+
+Could I live over again the first year of my wedded life, with the
+experience that now enlightens me, I would pursue a very different
+course of action. A passion so wild and strong as that which darkened my
+domestic happiness, should be resisted with the energy of reason,
+instead of being indulged with the weakness of fear. Every sacrifice
+made to appease its violence only paved the way for a greater. Every act
+of my life had reference to this one master-passion. I scarcely ever
+spoke without watching the countenance of Ernest to see the effect of my
+words. If it was overcast or saddened, I feared I had given utterance to
+an improper sentiment, and then I blushed in silence. Very unfortunate
+was it for him, that I thus fed and strengthened the serpent that should
+have been strangled in the cradle of our love; and his mother
+unconsciously did the same. She believed him afflicted by a hereditary
+malady which should inspire pity, and be treated with gentleness rather
+than resistance. Edith, too,--if a cloud passed over his brow, she
+exerted every winning and endearing sisterly art to chase the gloom.
+
+The history of man for six thousand years shows, that in the exercise of
+unlimited power he becomes a despot. Kingly annals confirm the truth of
+this, and domestic records proclaim it with a thundering tongue. There
+must be a restraining influence on human passion, or its turbulent waves
+swell higher and higher, till they sweep over the landmarks of reason,
+honor and love. The mighty hand of God is alone powerful enough to curb
+the raging billows. He alone can say, "peace, be still." But he has
+ministers on earth appointed to do his pleasure, and if they fulfil
+their task He may not be compelled to reveal himself in flaming fire as
+the God of retributive justice.
+
+I know that Ernest loved me, with all his heart, soul, and strength; but
+mingled with this deep, strong love, there was the alloy of
+selfishness,--the iron of a despotic will. There was the jealousy of
+power, as well as the jealousy of love, unconsciously exercised and
+acquiring by indulgence a growing strength.
+
+My happiness was the first desire of his heart, the first aim of his
+life; but I must be made happy in _his_ way, and by his means. His hand,
+fair, soft, and delicate as a woman's,--that hand, with its gentle,
+warm, heart-thrilling pressure, was nevertheless the hand of Procrustes;
+and though he covered the iron bed with the flowers of love, the spirit
+sometimes writhed under the coercion it endured.
+
+"You are not well," said Dr. Harlowe, as we met him during an evening
+walk. "I do not like that fluctuating color, or that quick, irregular
+breathing."
+
+Ernest started as if he had heard my death-warrant; and, taking my hand,
+he began to count my quickly throbbing pulse.
+
+"That will never do," said the doctor, smiling. "Her pulse will beat
+three times as fast under your fingers as mine, if you have been married
+nearly a year. It is not a good pulse. You had better take care of her."
+
+"He takes a great deal too much care of me, doctor," I cried. "Do not
+make him think I am an invalid, or he will make a complete hothouse
+plant of me."
+
+"Who ever saw an invalid with such a color as that?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Too bright--too mutable," answered the doctor, shaking his head. "She
+is right. You keep her too close. Let her run wild, like any other
+country girl. Let her rise early and go out into the barnyard, see the
+cows milked, inhale their odorous breathings, wander in the fields among
+the new-mown hay, let her rake it into mounds and throw herself on the
+fragrant heaps, as I have seen her do when a little school-girl. Let her
+do just as she pleases, go where she pleases, stay as long as she
+pleases, in the open air and free sunshine; and mark my words, she will
+wear on her cheeks the steady bloom of the milkmaid, instead of the
+flitting rosiness of the sunset cloud."
+
+"I am not conscious of imposing so much restraint on her actions as your
+words imply," said Ernest, a flush of displeasure passing over his pale
+and anxious countenance.
+
+"Make her take a ride on horseback every morning and evening," continued
+Dr. Harlowe, with perfect coolness, without taking any notice of the
+interruption. "Best exercise in the world. Fine rides for equestrians
+through the green woods around here. If that does not set her right,
+carry her to the roaring Falls of Niagara, or the snowy hills of New
+Hampshire, or the Catskill Mountains, or the Blue Ridge. I cannot let
+the flower of the village droop and fade."
+
+As he finished the sentence, the merry tones of his voice became grave
+and subdued. He spoke as one having the authority of science and
+experience, as well as the privilege of affection. I looked down to hide
+the moisture that glistened in my eyes.
+
+"How would you like to travel as the doctor has suggested, Gabriella?"
+asked Ernest, who seemed much moved by the doctor's remarks. "You know I
+would go to"--
+
+"Nova Zembla, if she wished it," interrupted the doctor, "but that is
+too far and too cold. Begin with a shorter journey. I wish I could
+accompany you, but I cannot plead as an excuse my wife's delicacy of
+constitution. Her health is as uniform as her temper; and even if life
+and death were at stake, she would not leave her housekeeping in other
+hands. Neither would she close her doors and turn her locks, lest moth
+and rust should corrupt, and thieves break in and steal. But pardon me.
+I have given you no opportunity to answer your husband's question."
+
+"I shall only feel too happy to avail myself of his unnecessary fears
+with regard to my health," I answered. "It will be a charming way of
+passing the summer, if Mrs. Linwood and Edith will consent."
+
+Dr. Harlowe accompanied us home, and nothing was talked of but the
+intended journey. The solicitude of Ernest was painfully roused, and he
+seemed ready to move heaven and earth to facilitate our departure.
+
+"I am sorry to close Grandison Place in the summer season," said Mrs.
+Linwood; "it looks so inhospitable. Besides, I have many friends who
+anticipate passing the sultry season here."
+
+"Let them travel with you, if they wish," said the doctor bluntly. "That
+is no reason why you should stay at home."
+
+"Poor Madge!" cried Edith, who was delighted with the arrangement the
+doctor had suggested. "She will be so disappointed."
+
+"Let her come," said Dr. Harlowe. "I will take charge of the wild-cat,
+and if I find her too mighty for me, I will get Mr. Regulus to assist me
+in keeping her in order. Let her come, by all means."
+
+"Supposing we write and ask her to accompany us," said Mrs. Linwood.
+"Her exuberant spirits will be subdued by the exercise of travelling,
+and she may prove a most exhilarating companion."
+
+"What, four ladies to one gentleman!" exclaimed Edith. "Poor Ernest!
+when he will have thoughts and eyes but for one!"
+
+"I would sooner travel with the Falls of Niagara, or the boiling springs
+of Geyser," cried Ernest, with an instinctive shudder. "We should have
+to take a carpenter, a glazier, an upholsterer, and a seamstress, to
+repair the ruins she would strew in our path."
+
+"If Richard Clyde were about to return a little earlier in the season,"
+said the doctor, looking at Edith, "he would be a delightful acquisition
+to your party. He would divide with your brother the heavy
+responsibility of being the guardian of so many household treasures."
+
+"Let us start as early as possible," exclaimed Ernest. The name of
+Richard Clyde was to his impatient, jealous spirit, as is the rowel to
+the fiery steed.
+
+"And what will become of all our beautiful flowers, and our rich,
+ripening fruit?" I asked. "Must they waste their sweetness and value on
+the unappreciating air?"
+
+"I think we must make Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Regulus the guardians and
+participators of both," said Mrs. Linwood.
+
+"Give him the flowers, and leave the fruit to me," cried Dr. Harlowe,
+emphatically.
+
+"That the sick, the poor, and the afflicted may be benefited by the
+act," replied Mrs. Linwood. "Let it be so, Doctor,--and may many a
+blessing which has once been mine, reward your just and generous
+distribution of the abounding riches of Grandison Place."
+
+I left one sacred charge with the preceptor of my childhood.
+
+"Let not the flowers and shrubbery around my mother's grave, and the
+grave of Peggy, wilt and die for want of care."
+
+"They shall not. They shall be tenderly and carefully nurtured."
+
+"And if Margaret comes during our absence, be kind and attentive to her,
+for my sake, Mr. Regulus."
+
+"I will! I will! and for her own too. The wild girl has a heart, I
+believe she has; a good and honest heart."
+
+"You discovered it during your homeward journey from New York. I thought
+you would," said I, pleased to see a flush light up the student's olive
+cheek. I thought of the sensible Benedict and the wild Beatrice, and the
+drama of other lives passed before the eye of imagination.
+
+Gloomy must the walls of Grandison Place appear during the absence of
+its inmates,--that city set upon a hill that could not be hid, whose
+illuminated windows glittered on the vale below with beacon splendor,
+and discoursed of genial hospitality and kindly charity to the
+surrounding shadows. Sadly must the evening gale sigh through the noble
+oaks, whose branches met over the winding avenue, and lonely the
+elm-tree wave its hundred arms above the unoccupied seat,--that seat,
+beneath whose breezy shade I had first beheld the pale, impassioned, and
+haunting face of Ernest Linwood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+
+It is not my intention to describe our journey; and I fear it will
+indeed be an act of supererogation to attempt to give an idea of those
+majestic Falls, whose grandeur and whose glory have so long been the
+theme of the painter's pencil and the poet's lyre. Never shall I forget
+the moment when my spirit plunged into the roar and the foam, the
+thunders and the rainbows of Niagara. I paused involuntarily a hundred
+paces from the brink of the cataract. I was about to realize one of the
+magnificent dreams of my youthful imagination. I hesitated and trembled.
+I felt something of the trepidation, the blissful tremor that agitated
+my whole being when Ernest asked me into the moonlight garden at
+Cambridge, and I thought he was going to tell me that he loved me. The
+emotions I was about to experience would never come again, and I knew
+when once past could never be anticipated as now, with indescribable
+awe. I felt something as Moses did when he stood in the hollow of the
+rock, as the glory of the Lord was about to pass by. And surely no
+grander exhibition of God's glory ever burst on mortal eye, than this
+mighty volume of water, rushing, roaring, plunging, boiling, foaming,
+tossing its foam like snow into the face of heaven, throwing up rainbow
+after rainbow from unfathomable abysses, then sinking gradually into a
+sluggish calm, as if exhausted by the stupendous efforts it had made.
+
+Clinging to the arm of Ernest, I drew nearer and nearer, till all
+personal fear was absorbed in a sense of overpowering magnificence. I
+was a part of that glorious cataract; I participated in the mighty
+struggle; I panted with the throes of the pure, dark, tremendous
+element, vassal at once and conqueror of man; triumphed in the gorgeous
+_arcs-en-ciel_ that rested like angels of the Lord above the mist and
+the foam and the thunders of watery strife, and reposed languidly with
+the subsiding waves that slept like weary warriors after the din and
+strife of battle, the frown of contention lingering on their brows, and
+the smile of disdain still curling their lips.
+
+Oh, how poor, how weak seemed the conflict of human passion in the
+presence of this sublime, this wondrous spectacle! I could not speak,--I
+could scarcely breathe,--I was borne down, overpowered, almost
+annihilated. My knees bent, my hands involuntarily clasped themselves
+over the arm of Ernest, and in this attitude of intense adoration I
+looked up and whispered, "God,--eternity."
+
+"Enthusiast!" exclaimed he; but his countenance was luminous with the
+light that glowed on mine. He put his arm around me, but did not attempt
+to raise me. Edith and her mother were near, in company with a friend
+who had been our fellow-traveller from New England, and who had extended
+his journey beyond its prescribed limits for the sake of being our
+companion. I looked towards Edith with tremulous interest. As she stood
+leaning on her crutches, her garments fluttering in the breeze, I almost
+expected to see her borne from us like down upon the wind, and floating
+on the bosom of that mighty current.
+
+I said I did not mean to attempt a description of scenes which have
+baffled the genius and eloquence of man.
+
+"Now I am content to die!" said an ancient traveller, when the colossal
+shadow of the Egyptian pyramids first fell on his weary frame. But what
+are those huge, unmoving monuments of man's ambition, compared to this
+grandest of creation's mysteries, whose deep and thundering voice is
+repeating, day after day and night after night,--"forever and ever," and
+whose majestic motion, rushing onward, plunging downward, never pausing,
+never resting, is emblematic of the sublime march of Deity, from
+everlasting to everlasting,--from eternity to eternity?
+
+Shall I ever forget the moment when I stood on Termination Rock, beyond
+which no mortal foot has ever penetrated? I stood in a shroud of gray
+mist, wrapping me on every side,--above, below, around. I shuddered, as
+if the hollow, reverberating murmurs that filled my ears were the knell
+of the departed sun. That cold, gray mist; it penetrated the depths of
+my spirit; it drenched, drowned it, filled it with vague, ghost-like
+images of dread and horror. I cast one glance behind, and saw a gleam of
+heaven's sunny blue, one bright dazzling gleam flashing between the
+rugged rock and the rushing waters. It was as if the veil of the temple
+of nature were rent, and the glory of God shone through the fissure.
+
+"Let us return," said I to Ernest. "I feel as if I had passed through
+the valley of the shadow of death. Is it not sacrilegious to penetrate
+so deeply into the mysteries of nature?"
+
+"O Gabriella!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing through the shrouding
+mist like burning stars, "how I wish you felt with me! Were it possible
+to build a home on this shelving rock, I would willingly dwell here
+forever, surrounded by this veiling mist. With you thus clasped in my
+arms, I could be happy, in darkness and clouds, in solitude and
+dreariness, anywhere, everywhere,--with the conviction that you loved
+me, and that you looked for happiness alone to me."
+
+"As this moment," I answered, drawing more closely to him, "I fear as if
+I would rather stay here and die, than return to the world and mingle in
+its jarring elements. I would far rather, Ernest, make my winding-sheet
+of those cold, unfathomable waters, than live to feel again the anguish
+of being doubted by you."
+
+"That is all past, my Gabriella,--all past. My nature is renewed and
+purified. I feel within me new-born strength and power of resistance. By
+the God of yon roaring cataract--"
+
+"No,--no, Ernest, do not promise,--I dare not hear you, we are so weak,
+and temptations are so strong."
+
+"Do you distrust yourself, or me?"
+
+"Both, Ernest. I never, never felt how poor and vain and frail we are,
+till I stood, as now, in the presence of the power of the Almighty."
+
+His countenance changed instantaneously. "To what temptations do you
+allude?" he asked. "I can imagine none that could shake my fidelity to
+you. My constancy is as firm as this rock. Those rushing waves could not
+move it. Why do you check a vow which I dare to make in the very face of
+Omnipotence?"
+
+"I doubt not your faith or constancy, most beloved Ernest; I doubt not
+my own. You know what I do fear,--misconstruction and suspicion. But let
+us not speak, let us not think of the past. Let us look forward to the
+future, with true and earnest spirits, praying God to help us in
+weakness and error. Only think, Ernest, we have that within us more
+mighty than that descending flood. These souls of ours will still live
+in immortal youth, when that whelming tide ceases to roll, when the
+firmament shrivels like a burning scroll. I never realized it so fully,
+so grandly, as now. I shall carry from this rock something I did not
+bring. I have received a baptism standing here, purer than fire, gentle
+as dew, yet deep and pervading as ocean. I cannot describe what I mean,
+but I feel it. Before I came, it seemed as if a great wall of adamant
+rose between me and heaven; now there is nothing but this veil of mist."
+
+As we turned to leave this region of blinding spray and mysterious
+shadows, Ernest repeated, in his most melodious accents, a passage from
+Schiller's magnificent poem of the diver.
+
+    "And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,
+      As when fire is with water commixed and contending;
+    And the spray of its wrath to the welkin upsoars,
+      And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending.
+    And it never _will_ rest, nor from travail be free,
+    Like a sea, that is laboring the birth of a sea."
+
+Never did I experience a more exultant emotion than when we emerged into
+the clear air and glorious sunshine,--when I felt the soft, rich, green
+grass beneath, and the blue illimitable heavens smiling above. I had
+come out of darkness into marvellous light. I was drenched with light as
+I had previously been by the cold, gray mist. I remembered another verse
+of the immortal poem I had learned from the lips of Ernest:--
+
+    "Happy they, whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice,
+      The air and the sky that to mortals are given;
+    May the horror below never more find a voice,
+      Nor man stretch too far the wide mercy of heaven.
+    Never more, never more may he lift from the sight
+    The veil which is woven with terror and night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+
+Amid the rainbows of the cataract, Edith's heart caught the first
+glowing tinge of romance.
+
+We were wandering along the path that zones the beautiful island, whose
+name, unpoetic as it is, recalls one of the brilliant constellations of
+the zodiac; and Edith had seated herself on a rustic bench, under the
+massy dome of a spreading beech, and, taking off her bonnet, suffered
+her hair to float according to its own wild will on the rising breeze.
+
+She did not observe a young man at a little distance, leaning back
+against an aged birch, on whose silvery bark the dark outlines of his
+figure were finely daguerreotyped. He was the beau ideal of an artist,
+with his long brown hair carelessly pushed back from his white temples,
+his portfolio in his left hand, his pencil in his right, and his dark,
+restless eyes glancing round him with the fervor of enthusiasm, while
+they beamed with the inspiration of genius. He was evidently sketching
+the scene, which with bold, rapid lines he was transferring to the
+paper. All at once his gaze was fixed on Edith, and he seemed
+spellbound. I did not wonder,--for a lovelier, more ethereal object
+never arrested the glance of admiration. Again his pencil moved, and I
+knew he was attempting to delineate her features. I was fearful lest she
+should move and dissolve the charm; but she sat as still as the tree,
+whose gray trunk formed an artistic background to her slight figure.
+
+As soon as Ernest perceived the occupation of the young artist, he made
+a motion towards Edith, but I laid my hand on his arm.
+
+"Do not," I said; "she will make such a beautiful picture."
+
+"I do not like that a stranger should take so great a liberty," he
+replied, in an accent of displeasure.
+
+"Forgive the artist," I pleaded, "for the sake of the temptation."
+
+The young man, perceiving that he was observed, blushed with the most
+ingenuous modesty, took up his hat that was lying on the grass, put his
+paper and pencil in his portfolio, and walked away into the wilderness
+of stately and majestic trees, that rose dome within dome, pillar within
+pillar, like a grand cathedral. We followed slowly in the beaten path,
+through the dark green maples, the bright-leaved luxuriant beech trees,
+and the quivering aspens, whose trembling leaves seem instinct with
+human sensibility. And all the time we wandered through the magnificent
+aisles of the island, the deep roar of the cataract, like the symphony
+of a great organ, rolled solemnly through the leafy solitude, and
+mingled with the rustling of the forest boughs.
+
+In the evening the young artist sought an introduction to our party. His
+name was Julian, and had the advantage of romantic association. I was
+glad that Ernest gave him a cordial reception, for I was extremely
+prepossessed in his favor. Even the wild idea that he might be my
+unknown brother, had entered my mind. I remembered Mrs. Linwood's advice
+too well to express it. I even tried to banish it, as absurd and
+irrational; but it would cling to me,--and gave an interest to the young
+stranger which, though I dared not manifest, I could not help feeling.
+Fortunately his undisguised admiration of Edith was a safeguard to me.
+He was too artless to conceal it, yet too modest to express it. It was
+evinced by the mute eloquence of eyes that gazed upon her, as on a
+celestial being; and the listening ear, that seemed to drink in the
+lowest sound of her sweet, low voice. He was asked to exhibit his
+sketches, which were pronounced bold, splendid, and masterly.
+
+Edith was leaning on her brother's shoulder, when she recognized her own
+likeness, most faithfully and gracefully executed. She started, blushed,
+and looked towards young Julian, whose expressive eyes were riveted on
+her face, as if deprecating her displeasure. There were no traces of it
+on her lovely countenance; even a smile played on her lips, at the faint
+reflection of her own loveliness.
+
+And thus commenced an acquaintance, or I might say an attachment, as
+sudden and romantic as is ever described in the pages of the novelist.
+As soon as the diffidence that veiled his first introduction wore away,
+he called forth his peculiar powers of pleasing, and Edith was not
+insensible to their fascination. Since her brother's marriage, she had
+felt a vacuum in her heart, which often involved her in a soft cloud of
+pensiveness. She was unthroned, and like an uncrowned queen she sighed
+over the remembrance of her former royalty. It was not strange that the
+devotion of Julian, the enthusiasm of his character, the fervor of his
+language, the ardor, the grace of his manner, should have captivated her
+imagination and touched her heart. I never saw any one so changed in so
+short a time. The contrast was almost as great, to her former self, as
+between a placid silver lake, and the foam of the torrent sparkling and
+flashing with rainbows. Her countenance had lost its air of divine
+repose, and varied with every emotion of her soul. She was a thousand
+times more beautiful, and I loved her far more than I had ever done
+before. There was something unnatural in her exclusive, jealous love of
+her brother, but now she acknowledged the supremacy of the great law of
+woman's destiny. Like a flower, suddenly shaken by a southern gale, and
+giving out the most delicious perfumes unknown before, her heart
+fluttered and expanded and yielded both its hidden sweetnesses.
+
+"We must not encourage him," said Mrs. Linwood to her son. "We do not
+know who he is; we do not know his family or his lineage; we must
+withdraw Edith from the influence of his fascinations."
+
+I did not blame her, but I felt the sting to my heart's core. She saw
+the wound she had unconsciously made, and hastened to apply a balm.
+
+"The husband either exalts, or lowers, a wife to the position he
+occupies," said she, looking kindly at me. "She loses her own identity
+in his. Poverty would present no obstacle, for she has wealth sufficient
+to be disinterested,--but my daughter must take a stainless name, if she
+relinquish her own. But why do I speak thus? My poor, crippled child!
+She has disowned the thought of marriage. She has chosen voluntarily an
+unwedded lot. She does not, cannot, will not think with any peculiar
+interest of this young stranger. No, no,--my Edith is set apart by her
+misfortunes, as some enshrined and holy being, whom man must vainly
+love."
+
+I had never seen Mrs. Linwood so much agitated. Her eyes glistened, her
+voice faltered with emotion. Ernest, too, seemed greatly troubled. They
+had both been accustomed to look upon Edith as consecrated to a vestal
+life; and as she had hitherto turned coldly and decidedly from the
+addresses of men, they believed her inaccessible to the vows of love and
+the bonds of wedlock. The young Julian was a poet as well as an artist;
+his pictures were considered masterpieces of genius in the painting
+galleries of the cities; he was, as report said, and as he himself
+modestly but decidedly affirmed, by birth and education a gentleman; he
+had the prestige of a rising fame,--but he was a stranger. I remembered
+my mother's history, and the youth of St. James seemed renewed in this
+interesting young man. I trembled for the future happiness of Edith,
+who, whatever might be her decision with regard to marriage, now
+unmistakably and romantically loved. Again I asked myself, "might not
+this young man be the son of the unfortunate Theresa, who under an
+assumed name was concealing the unhappy circumstances of his birth?"
+
+"Let us leave this place," said Ernest, "and put a stop at once to the
+danger we dread. Are you willing, Gabriella, to quit these sublime Falls
+to-morrow?"
+
+"I shall carry them with me," I answered, laughingly. "They are
+henceforth a part of my own being."
+
+"They will prove rather an inconvenient accompaniment," replied he; "and
+if we turn our face on our return to the White Mountains, will you bring
+them back also?"
+
+"Certainly. Take me the whole world over, and every thing of beauty and
+sublimity will cling to my soul inseparably and forever."
+
+"Will you ask Edith, if she will be ready?"
+
+She was in the room which she occupied with her mother, and there I
+sought her. She was reading what seemed to be a letter; but as I
+approached her I saw that it was poetry, and from her bright blushes, I
+imagined it an effusion of young Julian's. She did not conceal it, but
+looked up with such a radiant expression of joy beaming through a shade
+of bashfulness, I shrunk from the task imposed upon me.
+
+"Dear Edith," said I, laying my hand on her beautiful hair, "your
+brother wishes to leave here to-morrow. Will you be ready?"
+
+She started, trembled, then turned aside her face, but I could see the
+starting tear and the deepened blush.
+
+"Of course I will," she answered, after a moment's pause. "It is far
+better that we should go,--I know it is,--but it would have been better
+still, had we never come."
+
+"And why, my darling sister? You have seemed very happy."
+
+"Too happy, Gabriella. All future life must pay the penalty due to a
+brief infatuation. I have discovered and betrayed the weakness, the
+madness of my heart. I know too well why Ernest has hastened our
+departure."
+
+"Dearest Edith," said I, sitting down by her and taking her hand in both
+mine, "do not reproach yourself for a sensibility so natural, so
+innocent, nay more, so noble. Do not, from mistaken delicacy, sacrifice
+your own happiness, and that of another which is, I firmly believe,
+forever intertwined with it. Confide in your mother,--confide in your
+brother, who think you have made a solemn resolution to live a single
+life. They do not know this young man; but give them an opportunity of
+knowing him. Cast him not off, if you love him; for I would almost stake
+my life upon his integrity and honor."
+
+"Blessings, Gabriella, for this generous confidence!" she exclaimed,
+throwing her arms round me, with all the impulsiveness of childhood;
+"but it is all in vain. Do you think I would take advantage of Julian's
+uncalculating love, and entail upon him for life the support and
+guardianship of this frail, helpless form? Do you think I would hang a
+dead, dull weight on the wings of his young ambition? Oh, no! You do not
+know me, Gabriella."
+
+"I know you have very wrong views of yourself," I answered; "and I fear
+you will do great wrong to others, if you do not change them. You are
+not helpless. No bird of the wild-wood wings their way more fearlessly
+and lightly than yourself. You are not frail now. Health glows on your
+cheek and beams in your eye. You cling to a resolution conceived in
+early youth, before you recovered from the effects of a painful malady.
+A dull weight! Why, Edith, you would rest like down on his mounting
+wings. You would give them a more heavenly flight. Do not, beloved
+Edith, indulge these morbid feelings. There is a love, stronger, deeper
+than a sister's affection. You feel it now. You forgive me for loving
+Ernest. You forgive him for loving me. I believe Julian worthy of your
+heart. Give him hope, give him time, and he will come erelong, crowned
+with laurels, and lay them smiling at your feet."
+
+"Dear, inspiring Gabriella!" she exclaimed, "you infuse new life and joy
+into my inmost soul. I feel as if I could discard these crutches and
+walk on air. No; I am not helpless. If there was need, I could toil for
+him I loved with all a woman's zeal. These hands could minister to his
+necessities, this heart be a shield and buckler in the hour of danger.
+Thank Heaven, I am lifted above want, and how blest to share the gifts
+of fortune with one they would so nobly grace! But do you really think
+that I ought to indulge such dreams? Am not I a cripple? Has not God set
+a mark upon me?"
+
+"No,--you shall not call yourself one. You are only lifted above the
+gross earth, because you are more angelic than the rest of us. I hear
+your mother's coming footsteps; I will leave you together, that you may
+reveal to her all that is passing in your heart."
+
+I left her; and as I passed Mrs. Linwood on the stairs, and met her
+anxious eyes, I said: "Edith has the heart of a woman. I know by my own
+experience how gently you will deal with it."
+
+She kissed me without speaking; but I read in her expressive countenance
+that mingled look of grief and resignation with which we follow a friend
+to that bourne where we cannot follow them. Edith was lost to her. She
+was willing to forsake her mother for the stranger's home,--she who
+seemed bound to her by the dependence of childhood, as well as the close
+companionship of riper years. I read this in her saddened glance; but I
+did not deem her selfish. Other feelings, too, doubtless blended with
+her own personal regrets. She had no reason to look upon marriage as a
+state of perfect felicity. Her own had been unhappy. She knew the dark
+phantom that haunted our wedded hours; and what if the same hereditary
+curse should cling to Edith,--who might become morbidly sensitive on
+account of her personal misfortune?
+
+Knowing it was the last evening of our stay, I felt as if every moment
+were lost, passed within doors. It seemed to me, now, as if I had
+literally seen nothing, so stupendously did images of beauty and
+grandeur grow upon my mind, and so consciously and surprisingly did my
+mind expand to receive them.
+
+The hour of sunset approached,--the last sunset that I should behold,
+shining in golden glory on the sheeted foam of the Falls. And then I
+saw, what I never expect to witness again, till I see the eternal
+rainbows round about the throne of God,--three entire respondent
+circles, one glowing with seven-fold beams within the other, full,
+clear, distinct as the starry stripes of our country's banner,--no
+fracture in the smooth, majestic curves,--no dimness in the gorgeous
+dyes.
+
+And moonlight,--moonlight on the Falls! I have read of moonlight on the
+ruins of the Coliseum; in the mouldering remains of Grecian elegance and
+Roman magnificence; but what is it compared to this? The eternal youth,
+the undecaying grandeur of nature, illumined by that celestial light
+which lends glory to ruins, and throws the illusion of beauty over the
+features of decay!
+
+Edith wandered with Julian in the stilly moonlight, and their low voices
+were heard by each other amid the din of the roaring cataract.
+
+Ernest was troubled. He was jealous even of a sister's love, and looked
+coldly on the aspiring Julian.
+
+"He must prove himself worthy of Edith," he said. "He must not follow
+her to Grandison Place, till he can bring credentials, establishing his
+claims to confidence and regard."
+
+Before we parted at night Edith drew me aside, and told me that her
+mother had consented to leave the decision of her destiny to _time_,
+which would either prove Julian's claims to her love, or convince her
+that he was unworthy of her regard. He was not permitted to accompany
+her home; but she was sure he would follow, with testimonials, such as a
+prince need not blush to own.
+
+"How strange, how very strange it seems," she said, her eyes beaming
+with that soft and sunny light which comes from the day-spring of the
+heart, "for me to look forward to a future such as now I see, through a
+flowery vista of hope and love. How strange, that in so short a time so
+mighty a change should be wrought! Had Ernest remained single, my heart
+would have known no vacuum, so entirely did he fill, so exclusively did
+he occupy it. But since his marriage it has seemed a lonely temple with
+a deserted shrine. Julian has strewed flowers upon the altar, and their
+fragrance has perfumed my life. Even if they wither, their odor will
+remain and shed sweetness over my dying hour."
+
+Sweet, angelic Edith! may no untimely blight fall on thy garland of
+love, no thorns be found with its glowing blossoms, no canker-worm of
+jealousy feed on their early bloom.
+
+The morning of our departure, as I looked back where Julian stood, pale
+and agitated, following the receding form of Edith, with a glance of the
+most intense emotion, I saw a gentleman approach the pillar against
+which he was leaning, whose appearance riveted my attention. He was a
+stranger, who had probably arrived the evening before, and, preoccupied
+as Julian was, he extended his hand eagerly to meet the grasp of his. He
+was tall, much taller than Julian, and of a very stately mien. He looked
+as if he might be in the meridian of life, and yet his hair, originally
+black, was mingled with snowy locks around the temples, and on the crown
+of his head. I saw this as he lifted his hat on approaching Julian, with
+the firm, proud step which indicates intellectual power. What was there
+about this stranger that haunted me long after the thunders of the
+cataract had ceased to reverberate on the ear? Where had I seen a
+countenance and figure resembling his? Why did I feel an irresistible
+desire to check the rolling wheels that bore me every moment further
+from that stately form with its crown of living snow?
+
+"How long will you remain in that uncomfortable position?" asked Ernest.
+The spell was broken. I turned, and met the glance that needed no
+explanation. This earnest scrutiny of a stranger excited his
+displeasure; and I did not wonder, when I thought of the strange
+fascination I had experienced. I blushed, and drew my veil over my
+face,--resolving henceforth to set a guard over my eyes as well as my
+lips. It was the first dark-flashing glance I had met since I had left
+Grandison Place. It was the last expiring gleam of a baleful flame. I
+knew it must be; and, leaning back in the carriage, I sunk into one of
+those reveries which I used to indulge in childhood,--when the gates of
+sunset opened to admit my wandering spirit, and the mysteries of
+cloud-land were revealed to the dream-girl's eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+
+The very evening after our return, while Dr. Harlowe was giving an
+account of his stewardship, and congratulating Edith and myself on the
+bloom and animation we had acquired, a gentleman was announced, and
+Richard Clyde entered. The heart-felt, joyous welcome due to the friend
+who is just returned from a foreign land, greeted his entrance. Had I
+known of his coming, I might have repressed the pleasure that now
+spontaneously rose; but I forgot every thing at this moment, but the
+companion of my childhood, the sympathizing mourner by my mother's
+grave, the unrequited lover, but the true and constant friend. He was so
+much improved in person and manners; he was so self-possessed, so manly,
+so frank, so cordial! He came among us like a burst of sunshine; and we
+all--all but _one_--felt his genial influence. He came into the family
+like a long absent son and brother. Why could not Ernest have welcomed
+him as such? Why did he repel with coldness and suspicion the honest,
+ingenuous heart that longed to meet his with fraternal warmth and
+confidence? I could not help drawing comparisons unfavorable to Ernest.
+He, who had travelled through the same regions, who had drank of the
+same inspiring streams of knowledge as the young student, who came fresh
+and buoyant from the classic halls where he had himself gained honor and
+distinction,--he, sat cold and reserved, while Richard dispensed life
+and brightness on all around.
+
+"Oh, how much this is like home!" he exclaimed, when the lateness of the
+hour compelled him to depart; "how happy, how grateful I am, to meet so
+kind, so dear a welcome. It warmed my heart, in anticipation, beyond the
+Atlantic waves. I remembered the maternal kindness that cheered and
+sustained me in my collegiate probation, and blessed my dawning manhood.
+I remembered Edith's heavenly music, and Gabriella's."
+
+He had become so excited by the recollections he was clothing in words,
+that he lost the command of his voice as soon as he mentioned my name.
+Perhaps the associations connected with it were more powerful than he
+imagined; but whatever was the cause he stopped abruptly, bowed, and
+left the room.
+
+Mrs. Linwood followed him into the passage, and I heard her telling him
+that he must consider Grandison Place his home indeed, for she felt that
+she had welcomed back another beloved son. She was evidently hurt by the
+chilling reserve of Ernest's manners, and wished to make up for it by
+the cordial warmth of her own.
+
+"There goes as fine a youth as ever quickened the pulses of a maiden's
+heart," said Dr. Harlowe, as Richard's quick steps were heard on the
+gravel walk; "I am proud of him, we all ought to be proud of him. He is
+a whole-souled, whole-hearted, right-minded young man, worth a dozen of
+your fashionable milk-sops. He is a right down splendid fellow. I cannot
+imagine why this sly little puss was so blind to his merits; but I
+suppose the greater glory dimmed the less."
+
+Good, excellent Dr. Harlowe! Why was he always saying something to rouse
+the slumbering serpent in the bosom of Ernest? Slumbering, did I say?
+Alas! it was already awakened, and watching for its prey. The doctor had
+the simplicity of a child, but the shrewdness of a man. Had he dreamed
+of the suffering Ernest's unfortunate temperament caused, he would have
+blistered his tongue sooner than have given me a moment's pain. He
+suspected him of jealousy, of the folly, not the madness of jealousy,
+and mischievously liked to sport with a weakness which he supposed
+evaporated with the cloud of the brow, or vanished in the lightning of
+the eye. He little imagined the stormy gust that swept over us after his
+departure.
+
+"Mother!" exclaimed Ernest, as soon as the doctor had closed the door,
+in a tone which I had never heard him use to her before, "I will no
+longer tolerate that man's impertinence and presumption. He never comes
+here that he does not utter insulting words, which no gentleman should
+allow in his own house. It is not the first, nor the second, nor the
+third time that he has insulted me through my wife. His superior age,
+and your profound respect for him, shall no longer prevent the
+expression of my indignation. I shall let him know on what terms he ever
+again darkens this threshold."
+
+"Ernest!" cried his mother, with a look in which indignation and grief
+struggled for mastery, "do you forget that it is your mother whom you
+are addressing?--that it is her threshold not yours on which you have
+laid this withering ban?"
+
+"Had not Dr. Harlowe been your friend, and this house yours, I should
+have told him my sentiments long since; but while I would not forget my
+respect as a son, I must remember my dignity as a husband, and I will
+allow no man to treat my wife with the familiarity he uses, polluting
+her wedded ears with allusions to her despairing lovers, and endeavoring
+indirectly to alienate her affections from me."
+
+"Stop, Ernest, you are beside yourself," said Mrs. Linwood, and the
+mounting color in her face deepened to crimson,--"you shall not thus
+asperse a good and guileless man. Your insane passion drives you from
+reason, from honor, and from right. It dwarfs the fair proportions of
+your mind, and deforms its moral beauty. I have been wrong, sinful,
+weak, in yielding to your infirmity, and trying by every gentle and
+persuasive means to lead you into the green pastures and by the still
+waters of domestic peace. I have counselled Gabriella, when I have seen
+her young heart breaking under the weight of your suspicions, to bow
+meekly and let the storm pass over her. But I do so no more. I will tell
+her to stand firm and undaunted, and breast the tempest. I will stand by
+her side, and support her in my arms, and shield her with my breast.
+Come, Gabriella, come, my child; if my son _will_ be unjust, _will_ be
+insane, I will at least protect you from the consequences of his guilty
+rashness."
+
+I sprang into her arms that opened to enfold me, and hid my face on her
+breast. I could not bear to look upon the humiliation of Ernest, who
+stood like one transfixed by his mother's rebuking glance. I trembled
+like an aspen, there was something so fearful in the roused indignation
+of one usually so calm and self-possessed. Edith sunk upon a seat in a
+passion of tears, and "oh, brother!--oh, mother!" burst through
+thick-coming sobs from her quivering lips.
+
+"Mother!" exclaimed Ernest,--and his voice sounded hollow and
+unnatural,--"I have reason to be angry,--I do not deserve this stern
+rebuke,--you know not how much I have borne and forborne for your sake.
+But if my mother teaches that rebellion to my will is a wife's duty, it
+is time indeed that we should part."
+
+"Oh, Ernest!" cried Edith; "oh, my brother! you will break my heart."
+
+And rising, she seemed to fly to his side, and throwing her arms round
+his neck, she lifted up her voice and wept aloud.
+
+"Hush, my daughter, hush, Edith," said her mother. "I wish my son to
+hear me, and if they were the last words I ever expected to utter, they
+could not be more solemn. I have loved you, Ernest, with a love
+bordering on idolatry,--with a pride most sinful in a Christian
+parent,--but even the strength of a mother's love will yield at last
+before the stormy passions that desolate her home. The spirit of the
+Spartan mother, who told her son when he left her for the battle field,
+'to return _with_ his shield, or _on_ it,' animates my bosom. I had far,
+far rather weep over the grave of my son, than live to blush for his
+degeneracy."
+
+"And I would far rather be in my grave, this moment," he answered, in
+the same hoarse, deep undertone, "than suffer the agonies of the last
+few hours. Let me die,--let me die at once; then take this young man to
+your bosom, where he has already supplanted me. Make him your son in a
+twofold sense, for, by the heaven that hears me, I believe you would
+bless the hour that gave him the right to Gabriella's love."
+
+"Father, forgive him, he knows not what he utters," murmured his mother,
+lifting her joined hands to heaven. I still clung to her in trembling
+awe, forgetting my own sorrow in the depth and sacredness of hers.
+"Ernest," she said, in a louder tone, "I cannot continue this painful
+scene. I will go to my own chamber and pray for you; pray for your
+release from the dominion of the powers of darkness. Oh, my son! I
+tremble for you. You are standing on the brink of a terrible abyss. The
+fiend that lurked in the bowers of Eden, and made its flowers dim with
+the smoke of fraternal blood, is whispering in your ear. Beware, my son,
+beware. Every sigh and tear caused by the indulgence of unhallowed
+passion, cries as loud to Almighty God for vengeance as Abel's reeking
+blood. Come, Gabriella, I leave him to reflection and prayer. I leave
+him to God and his own soul. Come, Edith, leave him and follow me."
+
+There was something so commanding in her accent and manner I dared not
+resist her, though I longed to remain and whisper words of peace and
+love to my unhappy husband. I knew that his soul must be crushed into
+the dust, and my heart bled for his sufferings. Edith, too, withdrew her
+clinging arms, for she dared not disobey her mother, and slowly and
+sadly followed us up the winding stairs.
+
+"Go to bed, my child," said she to Edith, when we reached the upper
+platform. "May God in his mercy spare you from witnessing another scene
+like this."
+
+"Oh, mother! I never shall feel happy again. My poor brother! you did
+not see him, mother, when you left him. You did not look upon him, or
+you could not have left him. There was death on his face. Forgive him,
+dear mother! take him back to your heart."
+
+"And do you think he is not here?" she exclaimed, pressing her hands on
+her heart, as if trying to sustain herself under an intense pain. "Do
+you think he suffers alone? Do you think I have left him, but for his
+good? Do you think I would not now gladly fold him in my arms and bathe
+his soul in the overflowing tenderness of maternal love? O child, child!
+Earth has no sounding line to fathom the depths of a mother's heart.
+Good-night. God bless you, my darling Edith."
+
+"And Gabriella?"
+
+"Will remain with me."
+
+Mrs. Linwood, whose left arm still encircled me, brought me into her
+chamber, and closed the door. She was excessively pale, and I
+mechanically gave her a glass of water. She thanked me; and seating
+herself at a little table, on which an astral lamp was burning, she
+began to turn the leaves of a Bible, which always lay there. I observed
+that her hands trembled and that her lips quivered.
+
+"There is but one fountain which can refresh the fainting spirit," she
+said, laying her hand on the sacred volume. "It is the fountain of
+living waters, which, whosoever will, may drink, and receive immortal
+strength."
+
+She turned the leaves, but there was mist over her vision,--she could
+not distinguish the well-known characters.
+
+"Read for me, my beloved Gabriella," said she, rising and motioning me
+to the seat she had quitted. "I was looking for the sixty-second Psalm."
+
+She seated herself in the shadow of the curtain, while I nerved myself
+for the appointed task. My voice was at first low and tremulous, but as
+the sound of the words reached my ear, they penetrated my soul, like a
+strain of solemn music. I felt the divine influence of those breathings
+of humanity, sanctified by the inspiration of the Deity. I felt the same
+consciousness of man's insignificance as when I listened to Niagara's
+eternal roar. And yet, if God cared for us, there was exaltation and
+glory in the thought.
+
+"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within
+me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of
+my countenance and my God."
+
+"Go on," said Mrs. Linwood, as I paused on this beautiful and consoling
+verse; "your voice is sweet, my child, and there is balm in every
+hallowed word."
+
+I turned to the ninety-first Psalm, which I had so often read to my own
+dear mother, and which I had long known by heart; then the hundred and
+sixteenth, which was a favorite of Ernest's. My voice faltered. I
+thought of him in loneliness and anguish, and my tears blotted the
+sacred lines. We both remained silent, for the awe of God's spirit was
+upon us, and the atmosphere made holy by the incense of His breath.
+
+A low, faint knock at the door. "Come in," said Mrs. Linwood, supposing
+it a servant. She started, when the door opened, and Ernest, pale as a
+ghost, stood on the threshold. I made a movement towards him, but he did
+not look at me. His eyes were riveted on his mother, who had half risen
+at his entrance, but sunk back on her seat. He passed by me, and
+approaching the window where she sat, knelt at her feet, and bowed his
+head in her lap.
+
+"Mother," said he, in broken accents, "I come, like the returning
+prodigal. I have sinned against Heaven and thee, and am no more worthy
+to be called thy son,--give me but the hireling's place, provided it be
+near thy heart."
+
+"And have I found thee again, my son, my Ernest, my beloved, my only
+one?" she cried, bending down and clasping her arms around him.
+"Heavenly Father! I thank thee for this hour."
+
+Never had I loved them both as I did at that moment, when the holy tears
+of penitence and pardon mingled on their cheeks, and baptized their
+spirits as in a regenerating shower. My own tears flowed in unison; but
+I drew back, feeling as if it were sacrilege to intrude on such a scene.
+My first impulse was to steal from the room, leaving them to the
+unwitnessed indulgence of their sacred emotions; but I must pass them,
+and I would not that even the hem of my garments should rustle against
+them.
+
+Mrs. Linwood was the first to recognize my presence; she raised her head
+and beckoned me to approach. As I obeyed her motion, Ernest rose from
+his knees, and taking my hand, held it for a moment closely, firmly in
+his own; he did not embrace me, as he had always done in the transports
+of reconciliation; he seemed to hold me from him in that controlling
+grasp, and there was something thrilling, yet repelling, in the dark
+depths of his eyes that held me bound to the spot where I stood.
+
+"Remain with my mother, Gabriella," said he; "I give you back to her
+guardianship, till I have done penance for the sins of this night. The
+lips that have dared to speak to a mother, and such a mother, the words
+of bitterness and passion, are unworthy to receive the pledge of love.
+My eyes are opened to the enormity of my offence, and I abhor myself in
+dust and ashes; my spirit shall clothe itself in garments of sackcloth
+and mourning, and drink of the bitter cup of humiliation. Hear, then, my
+solemn vow;--nay, my mother, nay, Gabriella,--I must, I will speak. My
+Saviour fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, he, who
+knew not sin, and shall not I, vile as a malefactor, accursed as a
+leper, do something to prove my penitence and self-abasement? For forty
+days I abjure love, joy, domestic endearments, and social pleasures,--I
+will live on bread and water,--I will sleep on the uncarpeted floor,--or
+pass my nights under the canopy of heaven."
+
+Pale and shuddering I listened to this wild, stem vow, fearing that his
+reason was forsaking him. No martyr at the stake ever wore an expression
+of more sublime self-sacrifice.
+
+"Alas, my son!" exclaimed his mother, "one tear such as you have shed
+this hour is worth a hundred rash vows. Vain and useless are they as the
+iron bed, the girdle of steel, the scourge of the fanatic, who expects
+to force by self-inflicted tortures the gates of heaven to open. Do you
+realize to what sufferings you are dooming the hearts that love you, and
+whose happiness is bound up in yours? Do you realize that you are making
+our home dark and gloomy as the dungeons of the Inquisition?"
+
+"Not so, my mother; Gabriella shall be free as air, free as before she
+breathed her marriage vows. To your care I commit her. Let not one
+thought of me cloud the sunshine of the domestic board, or wither one
+garland of household joy. I have imposed this penance on myself in
+expiation of my offences as a son and as a husband. If I am wrong, may a
+merciful God forgive me. The words are uttered, and cannot be recalled.
+I cannot add perjury to the dark list of my transgressions. Farewell,
+mother; farewell, Gabriella; pray for me. Your prayers will call down
+ministering angels, who shall come to me in the hour of nature's agony,
+to relieve and sustain me."
+
+He left us, closed the door, and passed down the stairs, which gave a
+faint echo to his retreating footsteps. We looked at each other in grief
+and amazement, and neither of us spoke for several minutes.
+
+"My poor, misguided boy!" at length burst from his mother's pale lips,
+"I fear I was too harsh,--I probed him too deeply,--I have driven him to
+the verge of madness. Oh! how difficult it is to deal with a spirit so
+strangely, so unhappily constituted! I have tried indulgence, and the
+evil seemed to grow with alarming rapidity. I have exercised a parent's
+authority, and behold the result. I can do nothing now, but obey his
+parting injunction,--pray for him."
+
+She folded her hands across her knees, and looked down in deep,
+revolving thought.
+
+Forty days of gloom and estrangement! Forty days! Oh! what a wilderness
+would life be during those long, long days! And what was there beyond? I
+dared not think. A dreary shadow of coming desolation,--like the cold,
+gray mist which wrapped me as I stood on the rocks of Niagara, hung over
+the future. Would I lift it if I could? Oh, no! Perish the hand that
+would anticipate the day of God's revealing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+
+Ernest, faithful to his vow, slept on the floor in the library, and
+though he sat down at the table with us, he tasted nothing but bread and
+water. A stranger might not have observed any striking difference in his
+manners, but he had forbidden himself even the glance of affection, and
+his eye studiously and severely avoided mine. From the table he returned
+to the library, and shut himself up till the next bell summoned us to
+our now joyless and uncomfortable meals.
+
+I cannot describe the tortures I endured during this season of unnatural
+and horrible constraint. It sometimes seemed as if I should grow crazy;
+and poor Edith was scarcely less unhappy. It was now that Mrs. Linwood
+showed her extraordinary powers of self-control, her wisdom, and
+intellectual strength. Calmly and serenely she fulfilled her usual
+duties, as mistress of her household and benefactress of the village. To
+visitors and friends she was the same hospitable and charming hostess
+that had thrown such enchantment over the granite walls of Grandison
+Place. She had marked out the line of duty for Edith and myself, which
+we tried to follow, but it was often with sinking hearts and faltering
+footsteps.
+
+"If Ernest from a mistaken sense of duty has bound himself by a painful
+and unnatural vow," said she, in that tone of grave sweetness which was
+so irresistible, "_we_ must not forget the social and domestic duties of
+life. A threefold responsibility rests upon us, for we must endeavor to
+bear the burden he has laid down. He must not see the unlimited power he
+has over our happiness, a power he is now unconsciously abusing. Smile,
+my children, indulge in all innocent recreations; let me hear once more
+your voices echoing on the lawn; let me hear the soothing notes of my
+Edith's harp; let me see my Gabriella's fingers weaving as wont, sweet
+garlands of flowers."
+
+And now, the house began to be filled up with visitors from the city,
+who had been anxiously waiting the return of Mrs. Linwood. The character
+of Ernest for eccentricity and moodiness was so well known, that the
+peculiar situation in which he had placed himself did not attract
+immediate attention. But I knew I must appear, what I in reality was for
+the time, a neglected and avoided wife; and most bitterly, keenly did I
+suffer in consequence of this impression. In spite of the pain it had
+caused, I was proud of Ernest's exclusive devotion, and the notice it
+attracted. I knew I was, by the mortification I experienced, when that
+devotion was withdrawn. It is true, I knew he was inflicting on himself
+torments to which the fabled agonies of Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Ixion
+combined could not be compared; but others did not; they saw the averted
+eye, the coldness, the distance, the estrangement, but they did not,
+could not see, the bleeding heart, the agonized spirit hidden beneath
+the veil.
+
+I ought to mention here the reason that Mr. Regulus did not come as
+usual to welcome us on our return. He had been appointed professor of
+mathematics in ---- College, and had given up the charge of the academy
+where he had taught so many years with such indefatigable industry and
+distinguished success. He was now visiting in Boston, but immediately on
+his return was to depart to the scene of his new labors.
+
+Mr. Regulus, or, as we should now call him, Professor Regulus, had so
+long been considered a fixture in town, this change in his destiny
+created quite a sensation in the circle in which he moved. It seemed
+impossible to do without him. He was as much a part of the academy as
+the colossal pen, whose gilded feathers still swept the blue of ether.
+Were it not for the blight that had fallen on my social joys, I should
+have mourned the loss of this steadfast friend of my orphan years; but
+now I could not regret it. The mildew of suspicion rested on our
+intercourse, and all its pleasant bloom was blasted. He was in Boston.
+Had he gone to ask the dauntless Meg to be the companion of his life, in
+the more exalted sphere in which he was about to move? And would she
+indeed suffer her "wild heart to be tamed by a loving hand?"
+
+What delightful evenings we might now have enjoyed had not the dark
+passion of Ernest thrown such a chilling shadow over the household!
+Richard came almost every night, for it was his _home_. He loved and
+reverenced Mrs. Linwood, as if she were his own mother. Edith was to him
+as a sweet and gentle sister; and though never by word or action he
+manifested a feeling for me which I might not sanction and return as the
+wife of another, I knew, that no one had supplanted me in his
+affections, that I was still the Gabriella whom he had enshrined in his
+boyish heart,--in "all save hope the same." He saw that I was unhappy,
+and he pitied me. The bright sparkle of his eye always seemed quenched
+when it turned to me, and his voice when it addressed me had a gentler,
+more subdued tone. But his spirit was so sparkling, so elastic, his
+manners so kind and winning, his conversation so easy and graceful, it
+was impossible for sadness or constraint to dwell long in his presence.
+Did I never contrast his sunny temper, his unselfish disposition, his
+happy, genial temperament, with the darkness and moodiness and despotism
+of Ernest? Did I never sigh that I had not given my young heart to one
+who would have trusted me even as he loved, and surrounded me with a
+golden atmosphere of confidence, calm and beautiful as an unclouded
+autumn sky? Did I not tremble at the thought of passing my whole life in
+the midst of the tropic storms, the thunders and lightnings of passions?
+
+And yet I loved Ernest with all the intensity of my first affection. I
+would have sacrificed my life to have given peace to his troubled and
+warring spirit. His self-imposed sufferings almost maddened me. My
+heart, as it secretly clung to him and followed his lonely steps as,
+faithful to his frantic vow, he withdrew from domestic and social
+intercourse,--longed to express its emotions in words as wildly
+impassioned as these:--
+
+    "Thou hast called me thine angel in moments of bliss,
+    Still thine angel I'll prove 'mid the horrors of this.
+    Through the furnace unshrinking thy steps I'll pursue,
+    And shield thee, and save thee, and perish there too."
+
+Oh, most beloved, yet most wretched and deluded husband, why was this
+dark thread,--this cable cord, I might say,--twisted with the pure and
+silvery virtues of thy character?
+
+In the midst of this unhappy state of things, Margaret Melville arrived.
+She returned with Mr. Regulus, who brought her one beautiful evening, at
+the soft, twilight hour, to Grandison Place. Whether it was the subdued
+light in which we first beheld her, or the presence of her dignified
+companion, she certainly was much softened. Her boisterous laugh was
+quite melodized, and her step did not make the crystal drops of the
+girandoles tinkle as ominously as they formerly did. Still, it seemed as
+if a dozen guests had arrived in her single person. There was such
+superabundant vitality about her. As for Mr. Regulus, he was certainly
+going on even unto perfection, for his improvement in the graces was as
+progressive and as steady as the advance of the rolling year. I could
+not but notice the extreme elegance of his dress. He was evidently "at
+some cost to entertain himself."
+
+"Come up stairs with me, darling," said she to me, catching my hand and
+giving it an emphatic squeeze; "help me to lay aside this uncomfortable
+riding dress,--besides," she whispered, "I have so much to tell you."
+
+As we left the room and passed Mr. Regulus, who was standing near the
+door, the glance she cast upon him, bright, smiling, triumphant, and
+happy, convinced me that my conjectures were right.
+
+"My dear creature!" she exclaimed, as soon as we were in my own chamber,
+throwing herself down on the first seat she saw, and shaking her hair
+loose over her shoulders, "I am so glad to see you. You do not know how
+happy I am,--I mean how glad I am,--you did not expect me, did you?"
+
+"I thought Mr. Regulus had gone to see you, but I did not know that he
+would be fortunate enough to bring you back with him. He discovered last
+winter, I have no doubt, what a pleasant travelling companion you were."
+
+"Oh, Gabriella, I could tell you something so strange, so funny,"--and
+here she burst into one of her old ringing laughs, that seemed perfectly
+uncontrollable.
+
+"I think I can guess what it is," I said, assisting her at her toilet,
+which was never an elaborate business with her. "You and Mr. Regulus are
+very good friends, perhaps betrothed lovers. Is that so very strange?"
+
+"Who told you?" she exclaimed, turning quickly round, her cheeks
+crimsoned and her eyes sparkling most luminously,--"who told you such
+nonsense?"
+
+"It does not require any supernatural knowledge to know this," I
+answered. "I anticipated it when you were in New York, and most
+sincerely do I congratulate you on the possession of so excellent and
+noble a heart. Prize it, dear Margaret, and make yourself worthy of all
+it can, of all it will impart, to ennoble and exalt your own."
+
+"Ah! I fear I never shall be worthy of it," she cried, giving me an
+enthusiastic embrace, and turning aside her head to hide a starting
+tear; "but I do prize it, Gabriella, beyond all words."
+
+"Ah, you little gypsy!" she exclaimed, suddenly resuming her old wild
+manner, "why did you not prize it yourself? He has told me all about the
+romantic scenes of the academy,--he says you transformed him from a
+rough boor into a feeling, tender-hearted man,--that you stole into his
+very inmost being, like the breath of heaven, and made the barren
+wilderness blossom like the rose. Ah! you ought to hear how beautifully
+he talks of you. But I am not jealous of you."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" I involuntarily cried.
+
+"You may well say that," said she, looking earnestly in my face; "you
+may well say that, darling. But where is Ernest? I have not seen him
+yet."
+
+"He is in the library, I believe. He is not very well; and you know he
+never enjoys company much."
+
+"The same jealous, unreasonable being he ever was, I dare say," she
+vehemently exclaimed. "It is a shame, and a sin, and a burning sin, for
+him to go on as he does. Mr. Regulus says he could weep tears of blood
+to think how you have sacrificed yourself to him."
+
+"Margaret,--Margaret! If you have one spark of love for me,--one feeling
+of respect and regard for Mrs. Linwood, your mother's friend and your
+own, never, never speak of Ernest's peculiarities. I cannot deny them; I
+cannot deny that they make me unhappy, and fill me with sad forebodings;
+but he is my husband,--and I cannot hear him spoken of with bitterness.
+He is my husband; and I love him in spite of his wayward humors, with
+all the romance of girlish passion, and all the tenderness of wedded
+love."
+
+"Is love so strong as to endure every thing?" she asked.
+
+"It is so divine as to forgive every thing," I answered.
+
+"Well! you are an angel, and I will try to set a guard on these wild
+lips, so that they shall not say aught to wound that dear, precious,
+blessed little heart of yours. I will be just as good as I can be; and
+if I forget myself once in a while, you must forgive me,--for the old
+Adam is in me yet. There, how does that look?"
+
+She had dressed herself in a plain white muslin, with a white sash
+carelessly tied; and a light fall of lace was the only covering to her
+magnificent arms and neck.
+
+"Why, you look like a bride, Margaret," said I. "Surely, you must think
+Mrs. Linwood is going to have a party to-night. Never mind,--we will all
+admire you as much as if you were a bride. Let me twist some of these
+white rosebuds in your hair, to complete the illusion."
+
+I took some from the vase that stood upon my toilet, and wreathed them
+in her black, shining locks. She clapped her hands joyously as she
+surveyed her image in the mirror; then laughed long and merrily, and
+asked if she did not look like a fool.
+
+"Do you think there is any thing peculiar in my dress?" she suddenly
+asked, pulling the lace rather strenuously, considering its gossamer
+texture. "I do not wish to look ridiculous."
+
+"No, indeed. It is like Edith's and mine. We always wear white muslin in
+summer, you know; but you never seemed to care much about dressing here
+in the country. I never saw you look so well, so handsome, Madge."
+
+"Thank you. Let us go down. But, stop one moment. Do you think Mrs.
+Linwood will think it strange that I should come here with Mr. Regulus?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"What do you think she will say about our--our engagement?"
+
+"She will be very much pleased. I heard her say that if you should
+become attached to a man of worth and talents such as he possesses, you
+would become a good and noble woman."
+
+"Did she say that? Heaven bless her, body and soul. I wonder how she
+could have any trust or faith in such a Greenland bear as I have been. I
+will not say _am_, for I think I have improved some, don't you?"
+
+"Yes! and I believe it is only the dawn of a beautiful day of
+womanhood."
+
+Margaret linked her arm in mine with a radiant smile and a vivid blush,
+and tripped down stairs with a lightness almost miraculous. Mr. Regulus
+was standing at the foot of the stairs leaning on the bannisters, in a
+musing attitude. As soon as he saw us, his countenance lighted up with a
+joyful animation, and he offered his arm to Margaret with eager
+gallantry. I wondered I had not discovered before how very good looking
+he was. Never, till he visited us in New York, had I thought of him but
+as an awkward, rather homely gentleman. Now his smile was quite
+beautiful, and as I accompanied them into the drawing-room, I thought
+they were quite a splendid-looking pair. Mrs. Linwood was in the front
+room, which was quite filled with guests and now illuminated for the
+night.
+
+"Not now," I heard Margaret whisper, drawing back a little; "wait a few
+moments."
+
+"Oh! it will be all over in a second," said he, taking her hand and
+leading her up to Mrs. Linwood, who raised her eyes with surprise at the
+unwonted ceremony of their approach, and the blushing trepidation of
+Margaret's manner.
+
+"Permit me to introduce Mrs. Regulus," said he, with a low bow; and
+though he reddened to the roots of his hair, he looked round with a
+smiling and triumphant glance. Margaret curtsied with mock humility down
+to the ground, then breaking loose from his hand, she burst into one of
+her Madge Wildfire laughs, and attempted to escape from the room. But
+she was intercepted by Dr. Harlowe, who caught her by the arm and kissed
+her with audible good-will, declaring it was a physician's fee. The
+announcement of the marriage was received with acclamation and clapping
+of hands. You should have heard Edith laugh; it was like the chime of
+silvery bells. It was so astonishing she could not, would not believe
+it. It was exactly like one of Meg's wild pranks to play such a farce.
+But it was a solemn truth. Margaret, the bride of the morning, became
+the presiding queen of the evening; and had it not been for the lonely
+occupant of the library, how gaily and happily the hours would have
+flown by. How must the accents of mirth that echoed through the hall
+torture, if they reached his morbid and sensitive ear! If I could only
+go to him and tell him the cause of the unwonted merriment; but I dared
+not do it. It would be an infringement of the sacredness of his
+expiatory vow. He would know it, however, at the supper table; but no!
+he did not appear at the supper table. He sent a message to his mother,
+that he did not wish any, and the hospitable board was filled without
+him.
+
+"I can hardly forgive you, Margaret," said Mrs. Linwood, "for not giving
+us an opportunity of providing a wedding feast. How much better it would
+have been to have had the golden ring and fatted calf of welcome, than
+this plain, every-day meal."
+
+"Your every-day meals are better than usual wedding feasts," replied
+Margaret, "and I do not see why one should eat more on such an occasion
+than any other. You know _I_ care nothing for the good things of this
+life, though Mr. Regulus may be disappointed."
+
+"Indeed, you are mistaken," said Mr. Regulus, blushing. "I think so
+little of what I eat and drink, I can hardly tell the difference between
+tea and coffee."
+
+This was literally true, and many a trick had been played upon him at
+his boarding place while seated at his meals, with an open book at the
+left side of his plate, and his whole mind engaged in its contents.
+
+"Mrs. Regulus," said Dr. Harlowe, giving due accent to her new name,
+"is, as everyone must perceive, one of those ethereal beings who care
+for nothing more substantial than beefsteak, plum-pudding, and
+mince-pie. Perhaps an airy slice of roast turkey might also tempt her
+abstemiousness!"
+
+"Take care, Doctor,--I have some one to protect me now against your
+lawless tongue," cried Madge, with inimitable good-humor.
+
+"Come and dine with us to-morrow, and you shall prove my words a libel,
+if you please. I cannot say that my wife will be able to give you any
+thing better than Mrs. Linwood's poor fare, but it shall be sweetened by
+a heart-warm welcome, and we will drink the health of the bonny bride in
+a glass of ruby wine!"
+
+And was it possible that no note was taken of the strange absence of the
+master of the table? Was it no check to social joy and convivial
+pleasure? It undoubtedly was, in the first place; but Margaret's
+exhilarating presence neutralized the effect produced by his absence on
+the spirits of the guests. The occasion, too, was so unexpected, so
+inspiring, that even I, sad and troubled as I was, could not help
+yielding in some degree to its gladdening influence.
+
+After supper I had a long and delightful conversation with my
+metamorphosed preceptor. He spoke of his marriage with all the
+ingenuousness and simplicity of a child. He thanked me for having told
+him, when I parted from him in New York that he had an influence over
+Margaret that he had not dreamed of possessing. It made him, he said,
+more observant of her, and more careful of himself, till he ready found
+her a pleasant study. And somehow, when he had returned to his country
+home, it seemed dull without her; and he found himself thinking of her,
+and then writing to her, and then going to see her,--till, to his
+astonishment, he found himself a lover and a husband. His professorship,
+too, happened to come at the exact moment, for it emboldened him with
+hopes of success he could not have cherished as a village teacher.
+
+"How the wild creature happened to love me, a grave, ungainly pedagogue,
+I cannot divine," he added; "but if gratitude, tenderness, and the most
+implicit confidence in her truth and affection can make her happy, she
+shall never regret her heart's choice."
+
+_Confidence_ did he say? Happy, thrice happy Margaret!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+
+It was an evening of excitement. Edith sang, and Margaret played some of
+her elfin strains, and Mr. Regulus made music leap joyously from the
+sounding violin. There was one in the lonely library who might have made
+sweeter music than all, whose spirit's chords were all jangled and
+tuneless, and whose ear seemed closed to the concord of melodious
+sounds. _My_ soul was not tuned to harmony now, but still there was
+something soothing in its influence, and it relieved me from the
+necessity of talking, the exertion of _seeming_ what I could not _be_.
+It was a luxury to glide unnoticed on the stream of thought, though dark
+the current, and leading into troubled waters. It was a luxury to think
+that the sighs of the heart might breathe unheard in the midst of the
+soft rolling waves of Edith's melody, or the dashing billows of
+Margaret's. Sometimes when I imagined myself entirely unobserved, and
+suffered the cloud of sadness that brooded over my spirits to float
+outwards, if I accidentally raised my eyes, I met those of Richard Clyde
+fixed on me with an expression of such intense and thrilling sympathy, I
+would start with a vague consciousness of guilt for having elicited such
+expressive glances.
+
+Madge was playing as only Madge could play, and Edith standing near the
+door that opened into the saloon in the front parlor. She looked
+unusually pale, and her countenance was languid. Was she thinking of
+Julian, the young artist at the Falls, and wondering if the brief
+romance of their love were indeed a dream? All at once a change, quick
+as the electric flash, passed over her face. A bright, rosy cloud rolled
+over its pallor, like morning breaking in Alpine snows. Even the paly
+gold of her hair seemed to catch the glory that so suddenly and
+absolutely illumined her. She was looking into the saloon, and I
+followed the direction of her kindling eyes. Julian was at that moment
+crossing the threshold. She had seen him ascending the steps, and her
+heart sprang forth to meet him. I saw her hesitate, look round for her
+mother, who was not near her, then, while the rosy cloud deepened to
+crimson, she floated into the saloon.
+
+I went to Mrs. Linwood, who was in the back parlor, to tell her of the
+arrival of the new guest. She started and changed color. His coming was
+the seal of Edith's destiny. "I will not come," he had said to her in
+parting, "till I can bring abundant testimonials of my spotless lineage
+and irreproachable reputation."
+
+I had drawn her apart from the company, expecting she would be agitated
+by the annunciation.
+
+"Should not Ernest know of this?" I asked. "He did not abjure all the
+rites of hospitality. Oh, for Edith's sake, tell him of Julian's
+arrival, and entreat him to come forth and welcome him."
+
+"I have been to him once and urged him to greet Mr. Regulus, and merely
+offer him the usual congratulations on his marriage, but he persistingly
+refused. I fear he is killing himself by this spirit-scourging vow. I
+never saw him look so pale and wretched as he does to-night. I dread
+more and more the consequences of this self-inflicted martyrdom."
+
+As I looked up in Mrs. Linwood's face, on which the light of the
+chandelier resplendently shone, I observed lines of care on her smooth
+brow, which were not there two weeks before. The engraver was doing his
+work delicately, secretly, but he was at work, and it was Ernest's hand
+that guided the steel as it left its deepening grooves.
+
+"O! that I dared to go to him!" said I; "may I, dear mother? I can but
+be denied. I will speak to him as a friend, coldly if it must be, but
+let me speak to him. He can but bid me leave him."
+
+"You too, my darling," said she, in a low, sad-toned voice, "you are
+wilting like a flower deprived of sunshine and dew. But go. Take this
+key. He locks himself within, and all you can do he will not grant
+admittance. The only way is to use this pass-key, which you must return
+to me. I must go and welcome Julian."
+
+She put the key in my hand, and turned away with a sigh. I trembled at
+my own audacity. I had never forced myself into his presence, for the
+dullness of his vow was upon me, and the hand that would have removed
+the icy barrier he had raised between us was numbed by its coldness.
+
+The way that led to the library was winding, sweeping by the lofty
+staircase, and terminating in a kind of picture gallery. Some of these
+were relics of the old Italian masters, and their dark, rich coloring
+came out in the lamp light with gloomy splendor. I had seen them a
+hundred times, but never had they impressed me with such lurid grandeur
+as now. One by one, the dark lines started on the canvas glowing with
+strange life, and standing out in bold, sublime relief. I hurried by
+them and stood in front of the library door with the key trembling in my
+hand. I heard no sound within. All was still as death. Perhaps,
+exhausted by his lonely vigils, he slept, and it would be cruel to
+awaken him. Perhaps he would frown on me in anger, for not respecting
+the sanctity of his vow. I had seen him at noon, but he did not speak or
+look at me; and as his mother said, he had never appeared so pale, so
+heart-worn, and so wretched. He was evidently ill and suffering, though
+to his mother's anxious inquiries he declared himself well, perfectly
+well. There was one thing which made me glad. The gay, mingling laughs,
+the sounds of social joy, of music and mirth, came so softened through
+the long winding avenue, that they broke against the library in a soft,
+murmuring wave that could not be heard within.
+
+Why did I stand trembling and irresolute, as if I had no right to
+penetrate that lonely apartment? He was my husband, and a wife's
+agonized solicitude had drawn me to him. If he repulsed me, I could but
+turn away and weep;--and was not my pillow wet with nightly tears?
+
+Softly I turned the key, and the door opened, as if touched by invisible
+hands. He did not hear me,--I know he did not,--for he sat at the upper
+end of the room, on a window seat, leaning back against the drapery of
+the curtain that fell darkly behind him. His face was turned towards the
+window, through whose parted damask the starry night looked in. But
+though his face was partially turned from me, I could see its contour
+and its hue as distinctly as those of the marble busts that surrounded
+him. He looked scarcely less hueless and cold, and his hand, that lay
+embedded in his dark wavy hair, gleamed white and transparent as
+alabaster. I stood just within the door, with suspended breath and
+wildly palpitating heart, praying for courage to break the spell that
+bound me to the spot. All my strength was gone. I felt myself a guilty
+intruder in that scene of self-humiliation, penance, and prayer. Though
+reason condemned his conduct, and mourned over his infatuation, the
+holiness of his purpose shone around him and sanctified him from
+ridicule and contempt. There was something pure, spiritual, almost
+unearthly in his countenance; but suffering and languor cast a shadow
+over it, that appealed to human sympathy.
+
+If he would only move, only turn towards me! The Israelites, at the foot
+of the cloud-girdled mount, whose fiery zone they were forbidden to
+pass, could scarcely have felt more awe and dread than I did, strange
+and weak as it may seem. I moved nearer, still more near, till my shadow
+fell upon him. Then he started and rose to his feet, and looked upon me,
+like one suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.
+
+"Gabriella!" he exclaimed.
+
+Oh! I cannot describe the inexpressible softness, tenderness, and music
+of his accent. It was as if the whole heart were melting into that
+single word. All my preconceived resolutions vanished, all coldness,
+alienation, and constraint. "I had found him whom my soul loved." My
+arms were twined around him,--I was clasped to his bosom with the most
+passionate emotion, and the hearts so violently wrenched asunder once
+more throbbed against each other.
+
+"Ernest, beloved Ernest!"
+
+"Temptress, sorceress!" he suddenly exclaimed, pushing me from him with
+frenzied gesture,--"you have come to destroy my soul,--I have broken my
+solemn vow,--I have incurred the vengeance of Almighty God. Peace was
+flowing over me like a river, but now all the waves and billows of
+passion are gone over me. I sink,--I perish, and you, you,--Gabriella,
+it is you who plunge me in the black abyss of perjury and guilt."
+
+I was terrified at the dark despair that settled on his brow. I feared
+his reason was forsaking him, and that I, in my rashness, had
+accelerated his doom.
+
+"Do not, do not talk so dreadfully, Ernest. Forgive me, if I have done
+wrong in coming. Forgive me, if for one moment I recalled you to the
+tenderness you have so long abjured. But mine is the offence, and mine
+be the sorrow. Do not, I pray you, blame yourself so cruelly for my
+transgression, if it indeed be one. Oh, Ernest, how pale, how wretched
+you look! You are killing yourself and me,--your mother too. We cannot
+live in this state of alienation. The time of your vow is only half
+expired,--only twenty days are past, and they seem twenty years of woe.
+Dear Ernest, you are tempting God by this. One tear of penitence, one
+look of faith, one prayer to Christ for mercy, are worth more than years
+of penance and lonely torture. Revoke this rash vow. Come back to us, my
+Ernest,--come down from the wilderness, leave the desolate places of
+despair, and come where blessings wait you. Your mother waits to bless
+you,--Edith waits you to greet and welcome her Julian,--Margaret, a
+happy bride, waits your friendly congratulations. Come, and disperse by
+your presence the shadow that rests on the household."
+
+"Would you indeed counsel me to break a solemn vow, Gabriella? It may
+have been rash; but it was a vow; and were I to break it, I should feel
+forever dishonored in the sight of God and man."
+
+"Which, think you, had more weight when placed in the scales of eternal
+justice, Herod's rash vow, or the life of the holy prophet sacrificed to
+fulfil it? O Ernest!--wild, impulsive words forced from the lips of
+passion should never be made guides of action. It is wrong, I know, to
+speak unwisely and madly, but doubly, trebly wrong to act so."
+
+As thus I pleaded and reasoned and entreated, I kept my earnest gaze on
+his face, and eagerly watched,--watched with trembling hope and fear the
+effect of my words. I had drawn back from him as far as the width of the
+library, and my hands were clasped together and pressed upon my bosom. I
+did not know that I stood directly beneath the picture of the Italian
+flower-girl, till I saw his glance uplifted from my face to hers, with
+an expression that recalled the morning when he found me gazing on her
+features, in all the glow of youth, love, joy, and hope. Then I
+remembered how he had scattered my rose leaves beneath his feet, and
+what a prophetic sadness had then shaded my spirits.
+
+"Alas! my poor Gabriella," he cried, looking down from the picture to
+me, with an expression of the tenderest compassion; "Alas, my
+flower-girl! how have I wilted your blooming youth! You are pale, my
+girl, and sad,--that bewitching smile no longer parts your glowing lips.
+Would to God I had never crossed your path of roses with my withering
+footsteps! Would to God I had never linked your young, confiding heart
+to mine, so blasted by suspicion, so consumed by jealousy's baleful
+fires! Yet, Heaven knows I meant to make you happy. I meant to watch
+over you as tenderly as the mother over her new-born infant,--as holily
+as the devotee over the shrine of the saint he adores. How faithless I
+have been to this guardianship of love, you know too well. I have been a
+madman, a monster,--you know I have,--worthy of eternal detestation. But
+you have not suffered alone. Remorse--unquenchable fire;
+remorse--undying worm, avenges every pang I have inflicted on you.
+Remorse goaded me to desperation,--desperation prompted the expiatory
+vow. It must be fulfilled, or I shall forfeit my self-respect, my honor,
+and truth. But I shall be better, stronger,--I feel I shall, after
+passing this stern ordeal. It will soon be over, and I have a confidence
+so firm that it has the strength of conviction, that in this lonely
+conflict with the powers of darkness I shall come off conqueror, through
+God's assisting angels."
+
+He spoke with fervor, and his countenance lighted up with enthusiasm.
+Bodily weakness and languor had disappeared, and his transparent cheek
+glowed with the excitement of his feelings.
+
+"If you are really thus supported by divine enthusiasm," I said, with an
+involuntary kindling of admiration, "perhaps I ought to submit in
+silence, where I cannot understand. Forgive me before I leave you,
+Ernest, this rash intrusion. We may forgive even our enemies."
+
+"Forgive, Gabriella! Oh! if you knew the flood of joy and rapture that
+for one moment deluged my soul! I dare not recall it. Forgive, O my
+God!"
+
+He turned away, covered his face with his left hand, and made a
+repelling gesture with the other. I understood the motion, and obeyed
+it.
+
+"Farewell, Ernest," said I, slowly retreating; "may angels minister to
+you and bear up your spirit on their wings of love!"
+
+I looked back, on the threshold, and met his glance then turned towards
+me. Had I been one of the angels I invoked, it could not have been more
+adoring.
+
+And thus we parted; and when I attempted to describe the interview to
+his mother, I wept and sobbed as if I had been paying a visit to his
+grave. And yet I was glad that I had been, glad that I had bridged the
+gulf that separated us, though but momentarily.
+
+Perhaps some may smile at this record. I have no doubt they will, and
+pronounce the character of Ernest unnatural and _impossible_. But in all
+his idiosyncrasy, he is the Ernest Linwood of Grandison Place, just such
+as I have delineated him, just such as I knew and loved. I know that
+there are scenes that have seemed, that will seem, overwrought, and I
+have often been tempted to throw down the pen, regretting the task I
+have undertaken. But, were we permitted to steal behind the scenes of
+many a life drama, what startling discoveries would we make! Reality
+goes beyond the wildest imaginings of romance,--beyond the majestic
+sweep of human genius. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor imagination
+conceived, the wild extent to which the passions of man may go. The
+empire of passion is veiled, and its battle ground is secret Who beheld
+the interview in the library, which I have just described? Who saw him
+kneeling at his mother's feet at the midnight hour? Or who witnessed our
+scenes of agony and reconciliation in the palace walls of our winter
+home? Ah! the world sees only the surface of the great deep of the
+heart. It has never plunged into the innermost main,--never beheld the
+seething and the rolling of the unfathomable mystery:--
+
+    "And where is the diver so stout to go,--
+    I ask ye again--to the deep below?"
+
+Well do I remember the thrilling legend of the roaring whirlpools, the
+golden goblet, and the dauntless diver, and well do I read its meaning.
+
+O Ernest! I have cast the golden goblet of happiness into a maelstrom,
+and he alone, who walked unsinking the waves of Galilee, can bring back
+the lost treasure from the dark and boiling vortex.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+
+Julian was worthy of Edith. His parentage was honorable and pure, his
+connections irreproachable, and his own character noble and unblemished.
+Reason could oppose no obstacle, and the young artist was received into
+the family as the betrothed of the lovely lame girl.
+
+The romantic idea which had suggested itself to my mind, that he might
+be the son of Theresa and my own half-brother, had vanished before the
+testimonies of his birth. Another daydream too. I had always looked
+forward to the hour when Richard would transfer his affections to Edith,
+and be rewarded by her love for his youthful disappointment. But she was
+destined to reign in undivided sovereignty over a heart that had never
+been devoted to another; to be loved with all the fervor of passion and
+all the enthusiasm of genius.
+
+It was the day of social gathering at Dr. Harlowe's; but I remained at
+home. I felt as if I could not be missed from the circle in which Madge,
+in bridal charms, sparkled a ruby gem, and the fairer Edith shone, a
+living pearl. Though scarcely one year a wife, the discipline of my
+wedded experience had so chastened and subdued me, I seemed to myself
+quite a matron, beside those on whom the morning glow of love and hope
+were beaming. Madge and Edith were both older than myself, and yet I had
+begun to live far earlier.
+
+In the later part of the day, Mrs. Linwood, who had also remained at
+home, asked me to accompany her in a ride. She wished to visit several
+who were sick and afflicted, and I always felt it a privilege to be her
+companion.
+
+"Will you object to calling here?" she asked, when we approached the old
+gray cottage, once my mother's home and my own. "There is a sick woman
+here, whom I wish to see. You can walk about the green skirting the
+woods, if you prefer. This enchanting breeze will give new life to your
+body and new brightness to your spirits."
+
+I thanked her for the permission, knowing well the kind regard to my
+feelings which induced her to give it. She knew sad memories must hang
+around the apartments where my mother and the faithful Peggy had
+suffered and died; and that it would be a trial to me to see strangers
+occupying the places so hallowed by association.
+
+Time had been at work on that old cottage, with its noiseless but
+effacing fingers. And its embroidering fingers too, for the roof from
+which many a shingle had fallen, was green with garlands of moss,
+wrought into the damp and mouldering wood with exquisite grace and
+skill. I turned away with a sigh, and beheld infancy by the side of the
+humble ruin, the oriental palace which was my bridal home, and wondered
+at the marvellous changes of life.
+
+I wandered to the welling spring by whose gushing waters I had so often
+sat, indulging the wild poetry of my childish imagination. I gazed
+around, scarcely recognizing the once enchanting spot. A stone had
+literally rolled against the mouth of the fountain, and the crystal
+diamonds no longer sparkled in the basin below. An awkward pump, put up
+near the cabin, explained this appearance of neglect and wildness. The
+soft grassy slope where I used to recline and watch the fountain's
+silvery play, was overgrown with tall, rank, rustling weeds, among which
+I could distinguish the deadly bloom and sickening odor of the
+nightshade. There was a rock covered with the brightest, richest
+covering of dark green moss, on which I seated myself, and gave myself
+up to the memories of the past. Perhaps this was the same rock on which
+Richard Clyde and I had often sat side by side, and watched the shadows
+of twilight purple the valley.
+
+I untied my bonnet and laid it on the long grass, for I was shaded from
+the western sun, and the breeze blew fresh and pure from the hills he
+was about to crown with a right royal diadem. While I thus sat, I heard
+footsteps quick and eager echoing behind, and Richard Clyde bounded down
+the slope and threw himself on the ground at my side.
+
+"Thank heaven," he exclaimed, "I have found you, Gabriella, and found
+you alone!"
+
+His manner was hurried and agitated, his eyes had a wild expression, and
+tossing aside his hat, he wiped thick-coming drops of perspiration from
+his forehead.
+
+His words, and the unusual excitement of his manner, alarmed me.
+
+"What has happened, Richard? Where have you sought me? What tidings have
+you to communicate? Speak, and tell me, for I tremble with fear."
+
+"I am so agitated," he cried, sitting down on the rock at my side, and
+taking one of my hands in his. I started, for his was so icy cold and
+tremulous, and his face was as pale as Ernest's. He looked like one who
+had escaped some terrible danger, and in whose bosom horror and
+gratitude were struggling for mastery.
+
+"Is it of Ernest you have come to tell me?" I asked, with blanched lips.
+
+"No, no, no! I know nothing of him. It is of myself,--of you, I would
+speak. I have just made the most astonishing discovery! Never till now
+have I heard your real name and early history. O! Gabriella you whom I
+have loved so long with such fervor, such passion, such idolatry,--you
+(O righteous God forgive me!) are the daughter of my father,--for
+Theresa La Fontaine was my own mother. Gabriella,--sister,--beloved!"
+
+He clasped me to his bosom; he kissed me again and again, weeping and
+sobbing like a child. In broken words he deplored his sinful passion,
+entreating me to forgive him, to love him as a brother, to cling to him
+as a friend, and feel that there was one who would live to protect, or
+die to defend me. Bewildered and enraptured by this most unthought of
+and astounding discovery, my heart acknowledged its truth and glowed
+with gratitude and joy. Richard, the noble-hearted, gallant Richard, was
+my brother! My soul's desire was satisfied. How I had yearned for a
+brother! and to find him,--and such a brother! Oh I joy unspeakable. Oh!
+how strange,--how passing strange,--how almost passing credulity!
+
+At any moment this discovery would have been welcomed with rapture. But
+now, when the voluntary estrangement of Ernest had thrown my warm
+affections back for the time into my own bosom, to pine for want of
+cherishing, it came like a burst of sunshine after a long and dreary
+darkness,--like the music of gushing waters to the feverish and thirsty
+pilgrim.
+
+My heart was too full for questions, and his for explanations. They
+would come in due time. He was _my brother_,--that was enough. Ernest
+could not be jealous of a brother's love. He would own with pride the
+fraternal bond, and forget the father's crimes in the son's virtues.
+
+It seemed but a moment since Richard had called me sister. Neither of us
+had spoken, for tears choked our words; but our arms were still
+entwined, and my head rested on his bosom, in all the abandonment of
+nature's holiest feelings. All at once I heard a rustling in the grass,
+soft and stealthy like a gliding snake. I raised my head, looked back,
+looked up.
+
+Merciful Father of heaven and earth! did I not then pass the agonies of
+death?
+
+I saw a face,--my God! how dark, how deadly, how terrible it was! I knew
+that face, and my heart was rifted as if by a thunderbolt.
+
+The loud report of a pistol, and a shriek such as never before
+issued from mortal lips, bursting from mine, were simultaneous
+sounds. Richard fell back with a deep groan. Then there seemed a
+rushing sound as the breaking up of the great deep, a heaving and
+tossing like the throes of an earthquake; then a sinking, sinking,
+lower and lower, and then a cloud black as night and heavy as iron
+came lowering and crushing me,--me, and the bleeding Richard. All was
+darkness,--silence,--oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+
+A light, soft and glimmering as morning twilight, floated round me. Was
+it the dawn of an eternal morning, or the lingering radiance of life's
+departing day? Did my spirit animate the motionless body extended on
+that snowy bed, or was it hovering, faint and invisible, above the
+confines of mortality?
+
+I was just awakened to the consciousness of existence,--a dim, vague
+consciousness, such as one feels in a dissolving dream. I seemed
+involved in a white, transparent cloud, and reclining on one of those
+downy-looking cloud-beds that I have seen waiting to receive the sinking
+sun.
+
+While thus I lay, living the dawning life of infancy, the white cloud
+softly rolled on one side, and a figure appeared in the opening, that
+belonged to a previous state of existence. I had seen its mild
+lineaments in another world; but when,--how long ago?
+
+My eyes rested on the features of the lady till they grew more and more
+familiar, but there was a white cloud round her face, that threw a
+mournful shadow over it,--_that_ I had never seen before. Again my
+eyelids closed, and I seemed passing away, where, I knew not; yet
+consciousness remained. I felt soft, trembling kisses breathed upon my
+face, and tears too, mingling with their balm. With a delicious
+perception of tenderness, watchfulness, and love, I sunk into a deep,
+deep sleep.
+
+When I awoke, the silver lustre of an astral lamp, shaded by a screen,
+glimmered in the apartment and quivered like moonbeams in the white
+drapery that curtained the bed. I knew where I was,--I was in my own
+chamber, and the lady who sat by my bedside, and whose profile I beheld
+through the parted folds of the curtains, was Mrs. Linwood. And yet, how
+strange! It must have been years since we had met, for the lovely brown
+of her hair was now a pale silver gray, and age had laid its withering
+hand on her brow. With a faint cry, I ejaculated her name, and attempted
+to raise my head from the pillow, but in vain. I had no power of motion.
+Even the exertion of uttering her name was beyond my strength. She rose,
+bent over me, looked earnestly and long into the eyes uplifted to her
+face, then dropping on her knees and clasping her hands, her spirit went
+upwards in silent prayer.
+
+As thus she knelt, and I gazed on her upturned countenance, shaded by
+that strange, mournful, silver cloud, my thoughts began to shape
+themselves slowly and gradually, as the features of a landscape through
+dissolving mists. They trembled as the foliage trembles in the breeze
+that disperses the vapors. Images of the past gained distinctness of
+outline and coloring, and all at once, like the black hull, broken mast,
+and rent sails of a wrecked vessel, one awful scene rose before me. The
+face, like that of the angel of death, the sound terrible as the
+thunders of doom, the bleeding body that my arms encircled, the
+destroying husband,--the victim brother,--all came back to me;
+life,--memory,--grief,--horror,--all came back.
+
+"Ernest! Richard!" burst in anguish from my feeble lips.
+
+"They live! my child, they live!" said Mrs. Linwood, rising from her
+knees and taking my passive hand in both hers; "but ask nothing now; you
+have been very ill, you are weak as an infant; you must be tranquil,
+patient, and submissive; and grateful, too, to a God of infinite mercy.
+When you are stronger I will talk to you, but not now. You must yield
+yourself to my guidance, in the spirit of an unweaned child."
+
+"They live!" repeated I to myself, "my God, I bless thee! I lie at thy
+footstool. I am willing to die; I long to die. Let the waves of eternity
+roll over my soul."
+
+Husband and brother! they lived, and yet neither came to me on my couch
+of sickness. But Richard! had not I seen him bleeding, insensible, the
+image of death? he lived, yet he might be on the borders of the grave.
+But she had commanded me to be silent, submissive, and grateful; and I
+tried to obey her. My physical weakness was such, it subdued the
+paroxysms of mental agony, and the composing draught which she gave me
+was a blessed Nepenthe, producing oblivion and repose.
+
+The next day I recognized Dr. Harlowe, the excellent and beloved
+physician. When I called him by name, as he stood by the bed, counting
+my languid pulse, the good man turned aside his head to hide the
+womanish tears that moistened his cheeks. Then looking down on me with a
+benignant smile, he said, smoothing my hair on my forehead, as if I were
+a little child--
+
+"Be a good girl; keep quiet; be patient as a lamb, and you will soon be
+well."
+
+"How long have I been ill, Doctor?" I asked. "I am very foolish, I know;
+but it seems as if even you look older than you did."
+
+"Never mind, my dear, how long you have been sick. I mean to have you
+well in a short time. Perhaps I do look a little older, for I have
+forgotten to shave this morning."
+
+While he was speaking, I caught a glimpse of the lawn through a slight
+opening in the window curtain, and I uttered an exclamation of amazement
+and alarm. The trees which I had last beheld clothed in a foliage of
+living green, were covered with the golden tints of autumn; and here and
+there a naked bough, with prophetic desolation, waved its arm across the
+sky.
+
+Where had my spirit been while the waning year had rolled on? Where was
+Ernest? Where was Richard? Why was I forsaken and alone?
+
+These questions quivered on my tongue, and would have utterance.
+
+"Tell me, Doctor,--I cannot live in this dreadful suspense."
+
+He sat down by me, still holding my hand in his, and promised to tell
+me, if I would be calm and passive. He told me that for two months I had
+been in a state of alternate insensibility and delirium, that they had
+despaired of my life, and that they welcomed me as one risen from the
+grave. He told me that Ernest had left home, in consequence of the
+prayers of his mother, till Richard should recover from the effects of
+his wound, which they at first feared would prove fatal; that Richard
+was convalescent, was under the same roof with me, and would see me as
+soon as I could bear the meeting.
+
+"Ernest knows that he is my brother,--he knows that I am innocent," I
+exclaimed, my whole soul trembling on his answer.
+
+"I trust he knows it now," he replied, with a troubled countenance. "His
+mother has written and told him all. We were ignorant ourselves of this,
+you must recollect, till Richard was able to explain it."
+
+"And he went away believing me a wretch!" I cried, in a tone of
+unutterable agony. "He will never, never return!"
+
+"My dear child," replied Dr. Harlowe, in an accent of kind authority,
+"you have no right to murmur; you have been spared the most awful
+infliction a sovereign God could lay upon you,--a brother's life taken
+by a husband's hand. Praise the Almighty day and night, bless Him
+without ceasing, that He has lifted from your bosom this weight of woe.
+Be reconciled to your husband's absence. Mourn not for a separation
+which may prove the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon both. All may
+yet be well. _It will be_, if God wills it; and if He wills it not, my
+dear child, you must then lay your hand on your mouth, and your mouth in
+the dust, and say, 'It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth good in His
+sight.'"
+
+"I know it,--I feel it," I answered, tears raining on my pillow; "but
+let me see my brother. It will do me good."
+
+"By and by," said he; "he is not very strong himself yet. The young
+rascal! if he had only confided to me the secret with which his heart
+was bursting! But there is no use in crying over burnt bread. We must
+keep it out of the fire next time."
+
+The entrance of Edith checked this conversation, and it was well. She
+came with her usual gentle motion, and fair, pitying countenance, and
+diffused around her an atmosphere of divine repose. My brain, relieved
+of the dreadful tension of suspense, throbbed soft and cool beneath the
+snow of her loving fingers. She, too, was pale and wan, but she smiled
+upon me with glistening eyes, and whispered words of sweetest
+consolation.
+
+It was not till after the lapse of several days that I was permitted to
+see Richard, and then the doctor said he deserved a good whipping for
+insisting on coming. He came into the room leaning on the arm of Dr.
+Harlowe, and supported on the other side by Mrs. Linwood. He looked like
+the shadow of his former self,--so white, so thin and languid, and his
+countenance showed as plainly as words could speak, that he was struck
+with the same sad change in me.
+
+"Now no heroics, no scene," said the doctor; "say how do you do, and
+shake hands, but not one bit of sentiment,--I forbid that entirely."
+
+"My sister, my dear sister!" said Richard, bending down and kissing my
+forehead. He reeled as he lifted his head, and would have fallen had not
+Dr. Harlowe's strong arm supported him.
+
+I longed to embrace him with all a sister's fondness, and pour out on
+his bosom all my sorrow and my love; but the doctor was imperative, and
+made him recline in an easy-chair by the bedside, threatening him with
+instant dismission if he were not perfectly quiet and obedient. I saw
+Richard start and shudder, as his eyes rested on my left arm, which hung
+over the counterpane. The sleeve of my loose robe had slipped up, baring
+the arm below the elbow. The start, the shudder, the look of anguish,
+made me involuntarily raise it, and then I saw a scar, as of a recently
+healed wound just below the elbow. I understood it all. The ball that
+had penetrated his back, had passed through my arm, and thus prevented
+it from reaching the citadel of life. That feeble arm had been his
+safeguard and his shield; it had intercepted the bolt of death; it had
+barricaded, as it were, the gates of hell.
+
+Mrs. Linwood, who was standing by me, stooped down, kissed the scar, and
+drew the sleeve gently over it. As she bowed her head, and I saw the
+silver shadow on her late dark, brown hair, I felt how intense must have
+been the suffering that wrought this wondrous change,--and I resolved to
+bear unmurmuring my own sorrows, rather than add a feather's weight to
+her burden of woe.
+
+I remembered how the queenly locks of Marie Antoinette were whitened in
+one night of agony. Perhaps my own dark tresses were crowned by
+premature snow. I had not seen myself since the green of summer had
+passed into the "sere and yellow leaf," and perhaps the blight of my
+heart was visible on my brow. When I was alone with Edith, I surprised
+her by asking if my hair were not white. She smiled, and bringing a
+toilet glass, held it before me. What was my astonishment to see my hair
+curling in short waves round my face, like the locks of childhood! And
+such a face,--so white, so colorless. I hardly recognized myself, and
+pushing back the glass, I burst into tears.
+
+"Dear Gabriella!" said Edith, quite distressed, "I am sorry they cut off
+your beautiful hair. But the doctor said it must be done. It does not
+spoil you, though. You do not know how sweetly childish it makes you
+look."
+
+"I care not for the looks, Edith; it is not that. But it is so dreadful
+to think of so many changes, and I unconscious of all. Such a long,
+dreary blank! Where was my soul wandering? What fearful scenes may
+hereafter dawn on my memory? Beauty! No, Edith; think not I weep for the
+cloud that has passed over it. The only eyes in which I desired to
+appear lovely, will never behold me more."
+
+"You will not be the only sufferer, Gabriella," said Edith, mournfully.
+"A dreadful blow has fallen upon us all; but for our mother's sake, if
+not for a greater, we must endeavor to submit."
+
+"Tell me, Edith, what I dare not ask of her, tell me where _he_ is gone,
+and tell me the particulars of those first dark hours when my soul was
+in such awful eclipse. I _must_ know; and when once told, I shall be
+resigned, whatever be my fate."
+
+Edith seated herself on the side of the bed, and leaned back so that I
+could not look in her face. Then putting her arms round me, she drew me
+towards her, and made me rest against her shoulder.
+
+"If you grieve to listen, think how painful it is for me to relate,"
+said she.
+
+"I will," I answered; "I shall have strength to hear whatever you have
+fortitude to tell."
+
+"You must not ask a minute description of what will always be involved
+in my remembrance in a horror of thick darkness. I know not how I got
+home from Dr. Harlowe's, where the tidings reached me. My mother brought
+you in the carriage, supported in her arms; and when I first saw you,
+you were lying just where you are now, perfectly insensible. Richard was
+carried to Dr. Harlowe's on a litter, and it was _then_ feared he might
+not live."
+
+Edith's voice faltered.
+
+"It was after sunset. The saloon was dark, and all was gloom and
+confusion in the household. Mamma and I were standing by your bed, with
+our backs to the door, when we heard a hoarse, low voice behind us,
+saying,--
+
+"'Is she dead?'
+
+"We turned, and beheld Ernest right in the door way, looking more like a
+spectre than a human being.
+
+"'No, no,' answered my mother; and almost running to meet him, she
+seized him by the arm, drew him into the chamber, and closed the door.
+He struggled to be released; but she seemed to have the strength of
+numbers in her single grasp.
+
+"'She is not dead,' said she, pointing to the bed, 'though she hears,
+sees, knows nothing; but Richard will die, and you will be arrested as a
+murderer. You must not linger here one moment. Go, and save yourself
+from the consequences of this fatal act. Go, if you would not see me,
+your mother, die in agony at your feet."
+
+"Oh! Gabriella, had you seen her then, her who has such sublime
+self-control, prostrate at his feet, wringing her hands and entreating
+him to fly before it was too late, you would not wonder that the morning
+sun shone on her silver hair.
+
+"'I will not fly the death for which I groan,' cried Ernest. 'Had I ten
+thousand lives, I would loathe and curse them all.'
+
+"'Parricide, parricide,' exclaimed my mother, 'wo, wo be to him who
+spurns a kneeling mother's prayer.'
+
+"'Oh! my mother,' cried he, endeavoring to raise her from the ground,
+while he shook as if with ague shiverings. 'I do not spurn you; but why
+should I live, with a brand blacker than Cain's on my heart and
+soul,--crushed, smitten, dishonored, and undone?'
+
+"'Forbear, my son. This blighted form is sacred as it is spotless. Has
+not blood quenched your maniac passion?'
+
+"The eyes of Ernest flashed with lurid fire.
+
+"'Locked in each other's arms they fell,' he muttered through his shut
+teeth, 'heart to heart, mother. I saw them, and God, who will judge me,
+saw them. No, she is _false, false, false_,--_false_ as the lost angels
+who fell from paradise into the burning pit of doom.'
+
+"But what am I doing, Gabriella? I did not mean to repeat this. I had
+become so excited by the remembrance of that terrible scene, I knew not
+what I was saying. You cannot bear it. I must not go on. What would my
+mother, what would Dr. Harlowe say, if they knew of this?"
+
+I entreated her to continue. I told her that nothing she had said was
+half so dreadful as my imagination had depicted, that I grew strong with
+my need of strength.
+
+"And you and your mother believed him," I said, with astonishing
+calmness; "you knew not that Richard was my brother."
+
+"Had it not been for your wounded arm," replied Edith, laying her hand
+gently on the scar, "we should have supposed he was under a strong
+delusion to believe a lie. Appearances were against you, and your
+condemnation was my brother's palliation, if not acquittal. My mother
+continued her supplications, mingled with tears and sighs that seemed to
+rend the life from her bosom; and I, Gabriella, do you think _I_ was
+silent and passive? I, who would willingly have laid down my life for
+his? We prevailed,--he yielded,--he left us in the darkness of
+night,--the darkness of despair. It is more than two months since, and
+we have received no tidings of the wanderer. My mother urged him to go
+to New York and remain till he heard the fate of Richard. She has
+written to him there, again and again, but as yet has received no
+answer."
+
+"And he went without one farewell look of her whom he deemed so
+vile,--so lost?" said I, pressing Edith's hand against my cold and
+sinking heart.
+
+"No, Gabriella. His last act was to kneel by your side, and pray God to
+forgive you both. Twice he went to the door, then coming back he bent
+over you as if he would clasp you in his arms; then with a wild
+ejaculation he turned away. Never saw I such anguish in the human
+countenance."
+
+"I have but one question more to ask," said I, after a long pause, whose
+dreariness was that which follows the falling of the clods in the grave
+hollow. "How did Ernest know that Richard was with me, when we left him
+alone in the library?"
+
+"Dr. Harlowe accidentally alluded to your father's history before
+Richard, who, you recollect, was in foreign lands during the excitement
+it caused, and had never heard the circumstances. As soon as he heard
+the name of St. James, I saw him start, and turn to the doctor with a
+flushed and eager countenance. Then he drew him one side, and they
+conversed together some time in a low undertone; and Richard's face, red
+one moment and white the next, flashed with strange and shifting
+emotions. At the time when your father's name obtained such unhappy
+notoriety, and yours through him, in the public papers, my mother
+confided to Dr. Harlowe, who was greatly troubled on your account, the
+particulars of your mother's life. She thought it due to your mother's
+memory, and his steady friendship. I know not how much he told Richard,
+whose manner evidently surprised him, but we all noticed that he was
+greatly agitated; and then he abruptly took leave. He came immediately
+here, and inquired for you, asked where you were gone, and hurried away
+as if on an errand of life and death. Ernest, who was passing along the
+winding gallery, heard him, and followed."
+
+Another dreary pause. Then I remembered Julian, and the love-light that
+had illumined them both that memorable evening. Edith had not once
+alluded to her own clouded hopes. She seemed to have forgotten herself
+in her mother's griefs and mine.
+
+"And Julian, my beloved Edith? There is a future for you, a happy one,
+is there not?"
+
+"I do not expect happiness," she answered, with a sigh; "but Julian's
+love will gild the gloom of sorrow, and be the rainbow of my clouded
+days. He will return in the winter, and then perhaps he will not leave
+me again. I cannot quit my mother; but he can take a son's place in her
+desolated home. No garlands of roses will twine round my bridal hours,
+for they are all withered, all but the rose of Sharon, Gabriella, whose
+sacred bloom can never fade away. It is the only flower worth
+cherishing,--the only one without thorns, and without blight."
+
+Softly withdrawing her supporting arms, she suffered me to sink back on
+the pillow, gave me a reviving cordial, drew the curtains, and taking up
+a book, seemed absorbed in its contents. I closed my eyes and appeared
+to sleep, that she might not suppose her narration had banished repose.
+I had anticipated all she uttered; but the certainty of desolation is
+different to the agonies of suspense. I could have borne the separation
+from Ernest; but that he should believe me the false, guilty wretch I
+had seemed to be, inflicted pangs sharper than the vulture's beak or the
+arrow's barb. If he had left the country, as there was every reason to
+suppose he had, with this conviction, he never would return; and the
+loneliness and dreariness of a widowhood more sad than that which death
+creates, would settle down darkly and heavily on my young life.
+
+I did not blame him for the rash deed he had wrought, for it was a
+madman's act. When I recalled the circumstances, I did not wonder at the
+frantic passion that dyed his hand in blood; and yet I could not blame
+myself. Had I shrunk from a brother's embrace, I should have been either
+more or less than woman. I had yielded to a divine impulse, and could
+appeal to nature and Heaven for justification.
+
+But I had sinned. I had broken the canons of the living God, and
+deserved a fearful chastisement. I had made unto myself an idol, and no
+pagan idolater ever worshipped at his unhallowed shrine with more blind
+devotion. I had been true to Ernest, but false to my Maker, the one
+great and _jealous_ God. I had lived but for one object, and that object
+was withdrawn, leaving all creation a blank.
+
+I stood upon the lonely strand, the cold waves beating against my feet,
+and the bleak winds piercing through my unsheltered heart. I stretched
+out my arms to the wild waste of waters, in whose billows my life-boat
+was whelmed, and I called, but there was none to answer. I cried for
+help, but none came. Then I looked up to heaven, and high above the
+darkness of the tempest and the gloom of the deep, one star shining in
+solitary glory arrested my despairing gaze. I had seen it before with
+the eye of faith, but never beaming with such holy lustre as now, when
+all other lights were withdrawn.
+
+    "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
+      Dawn on my darkness, and lend me thine aid.
+    Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
+      Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."
+
+Why, tender and pitying Saviour, do we wait for the night time of sorrow
+to fathom the depths of thy love and compassion? Why must every fountain
+of earthly joy be dried up, before we bow to taste the waters of Kedron;
+and every blossom of love be withered, before we follow thee to the
+garden of Gethsemane?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+
+Though the circumstance of discovering a brother in the lover of my
+youth seems more like romance than reality, nothing could be more simple
+and natural than the explanation of the mystery. His recollection did
+not go back to the period recorded in my mother's manuscript, when he
+was brought as a lawful heir to the home in which my early infancy was
+sheltered. His first remembrances were associated with a mother's sorrow
+and loneliness,--with an humble dwelling in one of the by-lanes of the
+city of New York, where she toiled with her needle for their daily
+bread.
+
+"I remember," said Richard, "how I used to sit on a low stool at my
+mother's feet, and watch her, as she wrought in muslin the most
+beautiful flowers and devices, with a skill and rapidity which seemed
+miraculous to me. Young as I was, I used to wonder that any one could
+look so sad, while producing such charming figures. Once, I recollect,
+the needle resisted her efforts to draw it through the muslin. She threw
+it from her, and taking another from the needle-case met with no better
+success.
+
+"'_Oh! mon Dieu!_' she cried, dropping her work in her lap and clasping
+her hands, 'my tears rust them.'
+
+"'And why do you let so many fall, mother?' I asked. 'Where do they all
+come from?'
+
+"'From a breaking heart,' she answered, and I never forgot her looks or
+her words. The breaking heart became an image in my mind, almost as
+distinct as the rusted steel. For a long time I was afraid to jump or
+bound about the room, lest the fracture in my mother's heart should be
+made wider, and more tears come gushing through.
+
+"But she did not always weep. She taught me to read, while she toiled
+with her needle, and she told me tales of the genii and of fairy-land,
+at twilight hour, or as she used to say, '_entre le loup et le chien_,'
+in her own expressive, idiomatic language. She told me, too, stories
+from the Bible, before I was able to read them, of Isaac bound on the
+sacrificial pyre, with his father kneeling by him, ready to plunge the
+knife in his young heart, when the angels called to him out of heaven to
+stay his uplifted hand; of Joseph's wondrous history, from his coat of
+many colors, fatal cause of fraternal jealousy, to the royal robes and
+golden chain with which Pharaoh invested him; of David, the
+shepherd-boy, the minstrel monarch, the conqueror of Philistia's giant
+chief. It was thus she employed the dim hours between the setting sun
+and the rising stars; but the moment she lighted her lonely lamp she
+again plied her busy needle, though alas! too often rusted with her
+tears.
+
+"Thus my early childhood passed,--and every day my heart twined more
+closely round my mother's heart, and I began to form great plans of
+future achievements to be wrought for her. I would be a second Joseph
+and go to some distant land and win fame, and honors, and wealth, and
+send for her that I might lay them all at her feet. She would not, at
+first, recognize her boy in the purple and fine linen of his sumptuous
+attire; but I would fall on her neck, and lift up my voice and weep
+aloud, and then she would know her child. A mother's tears, Gabriella,
+nurture great aspirations in a child.
+
+"I used to accompany her to the shop when she carried home her work. It
+was there she first met the gentleman whose name I bear. Their
+acquaintance commenced through me, to whom he seemed peculiarly
+attracted, and he won my admiring gratitude by the gifts he lavished
+upon me. He came often to see my mother, and though at first she shrunk
+from his visits, she gradually came to welcome him as a friend and a
+benefactor.
+
+"One evening, I think I was about eight or nine years old, she took me
+in her arms, and told me, with many tears, that Mr. Clyde, the good and
+kind gentleman whom I loved so much, had offered to be a father to me,
+and was going to take us both to a pleasant home in the country, where I
+could run about in the green fields, and be free as the birds of the
+air. She told me that perhaps my own father was living, but that he had
+left her so long their union was annulled by law, and that she had a
+right to marry another, and that she did so that I might have a father
+and protector. She explained this simply, so that I understood it all,
+and I understood too why she wished me to drop my own name and take that
+of her future husband. It was associated with so much sorrow and wrong,
+it was painful to her ear, and Mr. Clyde wished me to adopt his own. He
+was a good and honorable man, and I cherish his memory with reverence
+and gratitude. If the fissure in my mother's heart was not healed, it
+closed, and tears no longer dripped through.
+
+"Our country home was pleasant and comfortable, and I revelled in the
+delights of nature, with all the wild passion of a bird let loose from
+the imprisoning cage. I went to school,--I was in the world of
+action,--the energies of incipient manhood awoke and struggled in my
+bosom. We remained about two years in this rural residence, situated in
+the western part of New York, when Mr. Clyde was called to attend a
+dying father, who lived in this town, Gabriella, not very far from the
+little cottage in the woods where I first knew you. He took my mother
+and myself with him, for she was in feeble health, and he thought the
+journey would invigorate her. It did not. A child of sunny France, she
+languished under the bleaker New England skies. She was never able to
+return; and he who came to bury a father, soon laid a beloved wife by
+the side of the aged. My heart went down to the grave with her, and it
+was long before its resurrection. My step-father was completely crushed
+by the blow, for he loved her as such a woman deserved to be loved, and
+mourned as few mourn. He remained with his aged mother in the old
+homestead, which she refused to leave, and I was placed in the academy
+under the charge of Mr. Regulus, where I first knew and loved you, my
+own sister, my darling, beloved Gabriella."
+
+If I had loved Richard before, how much more did I love him now, after
+hearing his simple and affecting history, so similar to my own. As I had
+never loved him otherwise than as a brother, the revelation which had
+caused such a terrible revulsion in his feelings was a sacred sanction
+to mine. His nerves still vibrated from the shock, and he could not
+pronounce the word sister without a tremulousness of voice which
+betrayed internal agitation.
+
+He had but little more to relate. His step-father was dead, and as there
+was found to be a heavy mortgage on his estate, he was left with a
+moderate income, sufficient to give him an education and a start in
+life. His expenses in Europe had been defrayed by some liberal
+gentlemen, who still considered themselves the guardians of his
+reputation and his fortunes.
+
+It was painful to me to tell the story of our father's crimes, of which
+he had heard but a slight outline. When I described our interview in the
+Park, he knit his brows over his flashing eyes, and his whole frame
+quivered with emotion.
+
+"My poor sister! what a dreadful scene for you. What have you not
+suffered! but you shall never know another sorrow from which I can
+shield you, another wrong from which I can defend."
+
+"O Richard! when I think of him in his lonely dungeon, alone with
+remorse and horror; when I think of my mother's dying injunctions, I
+feel as if I must go to him, and fulfil the holy mission she bade me
+perform. Read her manuscript; you have a right to its contents, though
+they will rend your heart to peruse them; take it with you to your own
+room, when you go, for I cannot look on and see you read words that have
+been driven like burning arrows through my soul."
+
+When I again met Richard, I could see in his bloodshot eyes what
+thoughts were bleeding within.
+
+"My mother left me the same awful legacy," said he. "She left her
+forgiveness, if he lived; oblivion of all her wrongs, if dead. Oh! what
+bolt of vengeance is red enough for the wretch who could destroy the
+happiness of two such women as your mother and mine! All-righteous
+Providence, may thy retributive fires--"
+
+"Stop! stop!" I cried, throwing my arms round him, and arresting his
+fearful words, "he is our father, you must not curse him. By our
+mothers' ashes, by their angels, now perhaps hovering over us, forbear,
+my brother, forbear."
+
+"God help me," he exclaimed, his lips turning to an ashy paleness, "I
+did not know what I was about to say; but is it not enough to drive one
+mad, to think of the fountain of one's life being polluted, poisoned,
+and accursed?"
+
+"One drop of the Saviour's blood can cleanse and make it pure, my
+brother, if he were only led to the foot of the cross."
+
+Richard's countenance changed; a crimson flush swept over his face, and
+then left it colorless.
+
+"My hand is not worthy to lead him there," he cried, "and if it were, I
+fear there is no mercy for so hardened, so inveterate a transgressor."
+
+"There _is_, Richard, there _is_. Let the expiring thief bear witness to
+a Saviour's illimitable love. Oh! it is sinful to set bounds to God's
+immeasurable mercy. Let us go together, my brother. My mother's dream
+may yet be realized. Who knows but our weak, filial hands, may lift our
+unhappy father from the black abyss of sin and impenitence, Almighty God
+assisting us? If heavenly blessings are promised to him who turns a soul
+from the error of his ways, think, Richard, how divine the joy, if it be
+an erring parent's soul, thus reclaimed and brought home to God? Let us
+go, as soon as we have strength to commence the journey. I cannot remain
+here, where every thing reminds me of my blighted hopes and ruined
+happiness. It seems so like a grave, Richard."
+
+"I wonder you do not hate. I wonder you do not curse me," exclaimed he,
+with sudden vehemence, "for it is my rashness that has wrought this
+desolation. Dearly have you purchased a most unworthy brother. Would I
+had never claimed you, Gabriella; never rolled down such a dark cloud on
+your heart and home."
+
+"Say not so, my beloved brother. The cloud was on my heart already, and
+you have scarcely made it darker or more chilling. I feel as if I had
+been living amid the thunderstorms of tropic regions, where even in
+sunshine electric fires are flashing. Before this shock came, my soul
+was sick and weary of the conflicts of wild and warring passions. Oh!
+you know not how often I have sighed for a brother's heart to lean upon,
+even when wedded joys were brightest,--how much more must I prize the
+blessing now! Surely never brother and sister had more to bind them to
+each other, than you and I, Richard. Suffering and sorrow, life's
+holiest sacraments, have hallowed and strengthened the ties of nature."
+
+It was not long before we were able to ride abroad with Mrs. Linwood and
+Edith, and it was astonishing how rapidly we advanced in restoration to
+health. I could perceive that we were objects of intense interest and
+curiosity, from the keen and eager glances that greeted us on every
+side; for the fearful tragedy of which I had been the heroine, had cast
+a shadow over the town and its surroundings. Its rumor had swept beyond
+the blue hills, and Grandison Place was looked upon as the theatre of a
+dark and bloody drama. This was all natural. Seldom is the history of
+every-day life marked by events as romantic and thrilling as those
+compressed in my brief experience of eighteen years. And of all the
+deep, vehement passions, whose exhibition excites the popular mind,
+there is none that takes such strong hold as jealousy, the terrible
+hydra of the human heart.
+
+I believe I was generally beloved, and that a deep feeling of sympathy
+for my misfortunes pervaded the community, for I had never been elated
+by prosperity; but Ernest, whose exclusiveness and reserve was deemed
+haughtiness, was far from being popular. Mrs. Linwood was revered by
+all, and blessed as the benefactress of the poor and the comforter of
+the afflicted; but she was lifted by fortune above the social level of
+the community, and few, very few were on terms of intimacy with the
+inmates of the Granite Castle, as Grandison Place was often called. Its
+massy stone walls, its turreted roof, sweeping lawn, and elevated
+position, seemed emblematic of the aristocracy of its owners; and though
+the blessings of the lower classes, and the respect and reverence of the
+higher, rested upon it, there was a mediocral one, such as is found in
+every community, that looked with envy on those, whose characters they
+could not appreciate, because they were lifted so high above their own
+level.
+
+I have spoken of Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Regulus as the most valued friends
+of the family; but there was one whom it would be ungrateful in me to
+omit, and whose pure and sacred traits came forth in the dark hours
+through which I had just passed, like those worlds of light which _are
+never seen by day_. I allude to Mr. Somerville, the pastor of the
+parish, and who might truly be called a man of God. The aged minister,
+who had presided over the church during my mother's life, had been
+gathered to his fathers, and his name was treasured, a golden sheaf, in
+the garner of memory. The successor, who had to walk in the holy
+footprints he had left in the valley, was obliged to take heed to his
+steps and to shake the dust of earth from his sandals as he went along.
+In our day of sunshine he had stood somewhat aloof, for he felt his
+mission was to the poor and lowly, to the sons and daughters of want and
+affliction; but as soon as sickness and sorrow darkened the household,
+he came with lips distilling balm, and hands ready to pour oil on the
+bruised and wounded heart.
+
+Methinks I see him now, as when he knelt by my bedside, after I aroused
+from my long and deadly trance. No outward graces adorned his person,
+but the beauty of holiness was on his brow, and its low, sweet music in
+his somewhat feeble accents. It seemed to me as if an angel were
+pleading for me, and my soul, emerging as it were from the cold waves of
+oblivion, thrilled with new-born life. Had my spirit been nearer to God
+during its unconscious wanderings, and brought back with it impressions
+of celestial glory never conceived before? I know not; but I know that a
+change had passed over it, and that I felt the reality of that eternity,
+which had seemed before a grand and ever-receding shadow.
+
+Every day, during Richard's illness and mine, came our good and beloved
+pastor, and he always left a track of light behind him. I always felt
+nearer heaven when he departed than when he came, for its kingdom was
+within him.
+
+To him I confided my wish to accompany my brother on his filial mission,
+and he warmly approved it.
+
+"As surely as I believe the Lord has put it into your heart to go," said
+he, "do I believe that a blessing will follow you."
+
+Mrs. Linwood was more tardy in her sanction.
+
+"My dear child," she said, looking at me with the tenderest compassion,
+"you do not know what is before you. What will you do in that great city
+without female friendship and sympathy? You and Richard, both so young
+and inexperienced in the ways of the world. I will not, however, put any
+obstacle in his path, for man may go unshrinking where woman may not
+tread. But you, my Gabriella, must remain with me."
+
+"Here, where the phantom of Ernest haunts my every step, where the echo
+of his voice is heard in every gale, and the shadow of departed joy
+comes between me and the sunshine of heaven? What can I do here but
+remind you by my presence of him, whom I have banished for ever from
+your arms? Let me go, my own dear mother, for I cannot remain passive
+here. I shall not want female sympathy and guardianship, for Mrs. Brahan
+is all that is kind and tender, and knows enough of my sad history to be
+entitled to unbounded confidence. I will write to her, and be guided by
+her, as if she were another Mrs. Linwood."
+
+She yielded at last, and so did Dr. Harlowe, who cheered me by his
+cordial approval. He said it was the best thing I could do for myself;
+for change of scene, and a strong motive of action, might save me from
+becoming a confirmed invalid. Edith wept, but made no opposition. She
+believed I was in the path of duty, and that it would be made smooth
+beneath my feet.
+
+No tidings from Ernest came to interrupt the dreary blank of his
+absence,--the same continuity of anxiety and uncertainty stretching on
+into a hopeless futurity. Again and again I said to myself--
+
+"Better so a thousand times, than to live as I have done, scathed by the
+lightning of jealousy. Even if he returned, I could not, with the fear
+of God now before me, renew our unblest wedlock. The hand of violence
+has sundered us, and my heart fibres must ever bleed from the wrench,
+but they will not again intwine. He has torn himself ruthlessly from me;
+and the shattered vine, rent from its stay, is beginning to cling to the
+pillars of God's temple. It is for _him_ I pray, for _him_ I mourn,
+rather than myself. It is for his happiness, rather than my own
+justification, that I desire him to know the history of my innocence. I
+am willing to drink the cup of humiliation even to the dregs, if it may
+not pass from me; but spare him, O Heavenly Father, the bitter, bitter
+chalice."
+
+It was a bleak morning in early winter, that we commenced our journey to
+that city, where little more than a year ago I had gone a young and
+happy bride. As we rode along the winding avenue, I looked out on the
+dry russet lawn, the majestic skeleton of the great elm, stripped of the
+foliage and hues of life, and saw the naked branches of the oaks
+clinging to each other in sad fraternity, and heard the wind whistling
+through them as through the shrouds of a vessel. With an involuntary
+shiver I drew nearer to Richard, and hid my face from the prophetic
+desolation of nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+
+On our arrival in New York, we stopped at the ---- hotel till private
+lodgings could be obtained. We both wished to be as retired as possible
+from public observation, and for this purpose I remained in my room,
+where Richard, as my brother, had the privilege of visiting me. I was
+anxious he should go immediately to Mr. Brahan's; for, added to my
+desire to be under the influence of her feminine regard, I cherished a
+faint hope that through him I might learn something of Ernest's
+mysterious exile.
+
+They both returned with Richard; and while Mr. Brahan remained with him
+below, she came to my chamber, and welcomed me with a warmth and
+tenderness that melted, while it cheered.
+
+"You must not stay here one hour longer," said she, pressing one hand in
+hers, while she laid the other caressingly on my short, curling hair.
+"You must go with me, and feel as much at home as with your own Mrs.
+Linwood. I pass a great many lonely hours, while my husband is absent
+engaged in business; and it will be a personal favor to me. Indeed, you
+must not refuse."
+
+I said something about leaving my brother, while I expressed my
+gratitude for her kindness.
+
+"Mr. Brahan will arrange that," she said; "you may be assured he shall
+be cared for. You have not unpacked your trunk; and here is your bonnet
+and mantilla ready to be resumed. You did not think I would suffer you
+to remain among strangers, when my heart has been yearning to meet you
+for weary months?"
+
+With gentle earnestness she overcame all my scruples; and it was but a
+little time before I found myself established as a guest in the house
+where I first beheld the light of existence. How strange it seemed, that
+the children of the two betrayed and injured beings who had been made
+exiles from that roof, should be received beneath its shelter after the
+lapse of so many years!
+
+Mrs. Brahan accompanied me to the chamber prepared for my reception; and
+had I been her own daughter she could not have lavished upon me more
+affectionate cares. The picture of my mother, which I had returned when
+we left the city, was hanging on the wall; and the eyes and lips of
+heavenly sweetness seemed to welcome her sad descendant to the home of
+her infancy. As I stood gazing upon it with mingled grief and adoration,
+Mrs. Brahan encircled me with her arm, and told me she understood now
+the history of that picture, and the mystery of its wonderful
+resemblance to me. I had not seen her since the notoriety my name had
+acquired, in consequence of the diamonds and my father's arrest; and she
+knew me now as the daughter of that unhappy man. Did she know the
+circumstances of the discovery of my brother, and my husband's flight? I
+dared not ask; but I read so much sympathy and compassion in her
+countenance, and so much tenderness in her manners, I thought she had
+fathomed the depth of my sorrows.
+
+"You look like a girl of fifteen," she said, passing her fingers through
+my carelessly waving locks. "Your hair was very beautiful, but I can
+scarcely regret its loss."
+
+"I may look more juvenile,--I believe I do, for every one tells me so;
+but the youth and bloom of my heart are gone for ever."
+
+"For ever from the lips of the young, and from those more advanced in
+life, mean very different things," answered Mrs. Brahan. "I have no
+doubt you have happier hours in store, and you will look back to these
+as morning shadows melting off in the brightening sunshine."
+
+"Do you know all that has happened, dear Mrs. Brahan, since I left your
+city?"
+
+"The rumor of the distressing circumstances which attended the discovery
+of your brother reached us even here, and our hearts bled for you. But
+all will yet be well. The terrible shock you have sustained will be a
+death blow to the passion that has caused you so much misery. Forgive
+me, if I make painful allusions; but I cannot suffer you to sink into
+the gloom of despondency."
+
+"I try to look upward. I do think the hopes which have no home on earth,
+have found rest in heaven."
+
+"But why, my dear young friend, do you close your heart to earthly hope?
+Surely, when your husband returns, you may anticipate a joyful reunion."
+
+"When he returns! Alas! his will be a life-long exile. Believing what he
+does, he will never, never return."
+
+"But you have written and explained every thing?"
+
+"How can I write,--when I know not where to direct, when I know not to
+what region he has wandered, or what resting-place he has found?"
+
+"But Mr. Harland!" said she, with a look of troubled surprise. "You
+might learn through him?"
+
+"Mrs. Linwood has written repeatedly to Mr. Harland, and received no
+answer. She concluded that he had left the city, but knew not how to
+ascertain his address."
+
+"Then you did not know that he had gone to India? I thought,--I
+believed,--is it possible that you are not aware"--
+
+"Of what?" I exclaimed, catching hold of her arm, for my brain reeled
+and my sight darkened.
+
+"That Mr. Linwood accompanied him," she answered, turning pale at the
+agitation her words excited. To India! that distant, deadly clime! To
+India, without one farewell, one parting token to her whom he left
+apparently on the brink of the grave!
+
+By the unutterable anguish of that moment, I knew the delusion that had
+veiled my motives. I had thought it was only to reclaim a lost parent
+that I had come, but I found it was the hope of meeting the deluded
+wanderer, more than filial piety, that had urged my departure.
+
+"To India!" I cried, and my spirit felt the tossings of the wild billows
+that lay rolling between. "Then we are indeed parted,--parted for ever!"
+
+"Why, t'is but a step from ocean to ocean, from clime to clime," she
+said in kind, assuring accents. "Men think nothing of such a voyage, for
+science has furnished wings which bear them over space with the speed of
+an eagle. If you knew not his destination, I should think you would
+rejoice rather than mourn, to be relieved of the torture of suspense.
+Had I known that you were ignorant of the fact, I should have written
+months ago."
+
+"Is it certain that he is gone?" I asked. "Did you see him? Did Mr.
+Brahan? How did you learn, what we have vainly sought to know?"
+
+"Mr. Brahan had business with Mr. Harland, and having neglected some
+important items, followed him on board the ship in which he embarked. It
+was at night, and he remained but a short time; but he caught a glimpse
+of your husband, whom he immediately recognized, but who gave him no
+opportunity of speaking to him. Knowing he was a friend of Mr.
+Harland's, he supposed he had come on board to bid him farewell, though
+he was not aware of his being in the city. When we heard the rumor of
+the tragic scenes in which he acted so dread a part, and connected it
+with the time of Mr. Harland's departure, Mr. Brahan recalled Mr.
+Linwood's unexpected appearance in the ship, and the mystery was
+explained. But we dreamed not that his departure was unknown to you. If
+you had only written to us!"
+
+It was strange that I had never thought of the possibility of their
+knowing any thing connected with Ernest. Mr. Harland was the only
+gentleman with whom he was on terms of intimacy, the only one to whom we
+thought of applying in the extremity of anxiety.
+
+"Has the ship been heard from? What was its name?" I asked, unconscious
+of the folly of my first question.
+
+"Not yet. It was called the 'Star of the East.' A beautiful and
+hope-inspiring name. Mr. Brahan can give you Mr. Harland's address. You
+can write to your husband through him. Every thing is as clear as
+noonday. Do you not already inhale the fragrance of the opening flowers
+of joy?"
+
+I tried to smile, but I fear it was a woful attempt. Even the scent of
+the roses had been crushed out of my heart.
+
+"Your brother is an exceedingly interesting young man," she observed,
+perceiving that I could not speak without painful agitation of Ernest.
+"I have never seen a stranger who won my regard so instantaneously."
+
+"Dear Richard!" I cried, "he is all that he seems, and far more. The
+noblest, kindest, and best. How sad that such a cloud darkens his young
+manhood!"
+
+"It will serve as a background to his filial virtues and bring them out
+in bright and beautiful relief. I admire, I honor him a thousand times
+more than if he were the heir of an unspotted name, a glorious ancestry.
+A father's crimes cannot reflect shame on a son so pure and upright.
+Besides, he bears another name, and the world knows not his clouded
+lineage."
+
+My heart warmed at her generous praises of Richard, who was every day
+more and more endeared to my affections. Where was he now? Had he
+commenced his mission, and gone to the gloomy cell where his father was
+imprisoned? He did not wish me to accompany him the first time. What a
+meeting it must be! He had never consciously beheld his father. The
+father had no knowledge of his deserted son. In the dungeon's gloom, the
+living grave of hope, joy, and fame, the recognition would take place.
+With what feelings would the poor, blasted criminal behold the noble
+boy, on whom he had never bestowed one parental care, coming like an
+angel, if not to unbar his prison doors, to unlock for him the golden
+gates of heaven!
+
+I was too weary for my journey, too much exhausted from agitation to
+wait for Richard's return, but I could not lay my head on the pillow
+before writing to Mrs. Linwood and Edith, and telling them the tidings I
+had learned of the beloved exile. And now the first stormy emotions had
+subsided, gratitude, deep and holy gratitude, triumphed over every other
+feeling. Far, far away as he was, he was with a friend; he was in all
+human probability safe, and he could learn in time how deeply he had
+wronged me.
+
+Often, on bended knees, with weeping eyes and rending sighs had I
+breathed this prayer,--"Only let him know that I am still worthy of his
+love, and I am willing to resign it,--let me be justified in his sight,
+and I am willing to devote my future life to _Thee_."
+
+The path was opening, the way clearing, and my faith and resignation
+about to be proved. I recognized the divine arrangement of Providence in
+the apparently accidental circumstances of my life, and my soul
+vindicated the justice as well as adored the mercy of the Most High.
+
+A voice seemed whispering in my ear, "O thou afflicted and tossed with
+tempests! there is a haven where thy weary bark shall find rest. I, who
+once bore the burden of life, know its sorrows and temptations, its
+wormwood and its gall. I bore the infirmities of man, that I might pity
+and forgive; I bore the crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear the
+roses of Paradise; I drained the dregs of human agony, that thou
+mightest drink the wine of immortality. Is not my love passing the love
+of man, and worth the sacrifice of earth's fleeting joys?"
+
+As the heavenly accents seemed to die away, like a strain of sweet, low
+harmony, came murmuring the holy refrain--
+
+    "Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
+    Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+
+Richard had visited the Tombs, but had not seen his father. The sight,
+the air, the ponderous gloom of the awful prison-house, was as much as
+he had fortitude to bear; and though he had at first thought preferred
+meeting him in the shadows of night, he recoiled from its additional
+horrors.
+
+Poor fellow! I felt heart-sick for him. On one side the memory of his
+mother's wrongs,--on the other, his father's sufferings and disgrace. I
+knew by my own bitter experience the conflict he was enduring.
+
+"After we have once met," he said, "the bitterest pang will be over."
+
+When he returned, I was shocked at the suffering his countenance
+expressed. I sat down by him in silence, and took his hand in mine, for
+I saw that his heart was full.
+
+"I cannot take you _there_, Gabriella," were the first words he uttered.
+"If my nerves are all unstrung, how will yours sustain the shock? He
+told me not to bring you, that your presence would only aggravate his
+sufferings."
+
+"Did I not come to share your duties, Richard? and will it not be easier
+to go hand in hand, though we do tread a thorny path? I have heard of
+women who devote their whole lives to visiting the dungeons of the
+doomed, and pouring oil and balm into the wounds of penitence and
+remorse; women who know nothing of the prisoner, but that he is a sinful
+and suffering son of Adam,--angels of compassion, following with lowly
+hearts the footsteps of their divine Master. O my brother, think me not
+so weak and selfish. I will convince you that I have fortitude, though
+you believe it not. Dr. Harlowe thinks I have a great deal. But,
+Richard, is it too painful to speak of the interview you so much
+dreaded? Does _he_ look more wretched than you feared?"
+
+"Look, Gabriella! Oh, he is a wreck, a melancholy wreck of a once noble
+man. Worn, haggard, gloomy, and despairing, he is the very
+personification of a sin-blasted being, a lost, ruined spirit. I had
+prepared myself for something mournful and degraded, but not for such a
+sight as this. O what an awful thing it is to give oneself up to the
+dominion of evil, till one seems to live, and move, and have their being
+in it! How awful to be consumed by slow, baleful fires, till nothing but
+smouldering ashes and smoking cinders are left! My God! Gabriella, I
+never realized before what _accursed_ meant."
+
+He started up, and walked up and down the room, just as Ernest used to
+do, unable to control the vehemence of his emotions.
+
+"Father!" he exclaimed, "how I could have loved, revered, adored my
+father, had he been what my youthful heart has so panted to embrace. I
+loved my mother,--Heaven knows I did; but there always seemed majesty as
+well as beauty in the name of father, and I longed to reverence, as well
+as to love. Mr. Clyde was a good man, and I honored him; he was my
+benefactor, and I was grateful to him,--but he wanted the intellectual
+grandeur, to which my soul longed to pay homage. I was always forming an
+image in my own mind of what a father should be,--pure, upright, and
+commanding,--a being to whom I could look up as to an earthly divinity,
+who could satisfy the wants of my venerating nature."
+
+"It is thus I have done," I cried, struck by the peculiar sympathy of
+our feelings. "In the dreams of my childhood, a vague but glorious form
+reigned with the sovereignty of a king and the sanctity of a
+high-priest, and imagination offered daily incense at its throne. Never,
+till I read my mother's history, was the illusion dispelled. But how did
+he welcome you, Richard? Surely he was glad and proud to find a son in
+you."
+
+"He is no longer capable of pride or joy. He is burnt out, as it were.
+But he did at last show some emotion, when made to believe that I was
+the son of Theresa." His hand trembled, and his hard, sunken eye
+momentarily softened. "Did you come here to mock and upbraid me?" he
+cried, concealing his sensibility under a kind of fierce sullenness.
+"What wrong have I done you? I deserted you, it is true, but I saved you
+from the influence of my accursed example, which might have dragged you
+to the burning jaws of hell. Go, and leave me to my doom. Leave me in
+the living grave my own unhallowed hands have dug. I want no sympathy,
+no companionship,--and least of all, yours. Every time I look on you, I
+feel as if coals of fire were eating in my heart."
+
+"Remorse, Richard," I exclaimed, "remorse! Oh! he feels. Our
+ministrations will not be in vain. Did you tell him that I was with you,
+that I came to comfort and to do him good?"
+
+"I did; but he bade me tell you, that if he wanted comfort, it could not
+come through you,--that he would far rather his tortures were increased
+than diminished, that he might, he said, become inured to sufferings,
+which would continue as long as Almighty vengeance could inflict and
+immortality endure. My dear sister, I ought not to repeat such things,
+but the words ring in my ears like a funeral knell."
+
+"Let us not speak of him any more at present," he added, reseating
+himself at my side, and he took my hand and pressed it on his throbbing
+temples. "There is sweetness in a sister's sympathy, balm in her gentle
+touch."
+
+Mrs. Brahan, who had considerately left us alone, soon entered, saying
+it was luncheon time, and that a glass of wine would do us all good. Mr.
+Brahan followed her, whose intelligent and animated conversation drew
+our minds from the subjects that engrossed our thoughts. It was well for
+me that I had an opportunity of becoming so intimately acquainted with a
+married pair like Mr. and Mrs. Brahan. It convinced me that the most
+perfect confidence was compatible with the fondest love, and that the
+purest happiness earth is capable of imparting, is found in the union of
+two constant, trusting hearts.
+
+"We have been married seventeen years," said Mrs. Brahan, in a glow of
+grateful affection, "and I have never seen a cloud of distrust on my
+husband's brow. We have had cares,--as who has not,--but they have only
+made us more dear to each, other, by calling forth mutual tenderness and
+sympathy. Ours was not one of those romantic attachments which partake
+of the wildness of insanity, but a serene, steady flame, that burns
+brighter and brighter as life rolls on."
+
+She spoke out of the abundance of her heart, without meaning to contrast
+her own bright lot with mine, but I could not help envying her this
+unclouded sunshine of love. I tried to rejoice with her, without sighing
+for my own darker destiny; but there is an alloy of selfishness in the
+purest gold of our natures. At least, there is in mine.
+
+There was another happy pair,--Mr. Regulus and his wild Madge. A letter
+from her, forwarded by Mrs. Linwood soon after our arrival in New York,
+breathed, in her own characteristic language, the most perfect felicity,
+mingled with heart-felt sympathy and affection. Their bridal hours were
+saddened by my misfortunes; and they were compelled to leave me when I
+was unconscious of their departure. Margaret was delighted with every
+thing around and about her,--the place, the people, and most of all her
+husband; though, in imitation of the Swedish wife, she called him her
+bear, her buffalo, and mastadon. The exuberant energies of her
+character, that had been rioting in all their native wildness, had now a
+noble framework to grasp round, and would in time form a beautiful
+domestic bower, beneath whose shade all household joys and graces would
+bloom and multiply.
+
+I have anticipated the reception of this letter, but I feared I might
+forget to mention it. It is delightful to see a fine character gradually
+wrought out of seemingly rough and unpromising elements. It is beautiful
+to witness the triumph of pure, disinterested affection in the heart of
+woman. It is sweet to know that the angel of wedded love scatters
+thornless flowers in some happy homes,--that there are some thresholds
+not sprinkled by blood, but guarded by confidence, which the _destroying
+demon_ of the household is not permitted to pass over.
+
+I do not like to turn back to myself, lest they who follow me should
+find the path too shadowy and thorny. But is it not said that they who
+go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall come again rejoicing,
+bending under the weight of golden sheaves?
+
+I wrote to Ernest for the first time, for we had never been parted
+before. Again and again I commenced, and threw down the pen in despair.
+My heart seemed locked, closed as with Bastile bars. What words of mine
+could pierce through the cloud of infamy in which his remembrance
+wrapped me? He would not believe my strange, improbable tale. He would
+cast it from him as a device of the evil spirit, and brand me with a
+deeper curse. No! if he was so willing to cast me off, to leave me so
+coldly and cruelly, without one farewell line, one wish to know whether
+I were living or dead, let him be. Why should I intrude my vindication
+on him, when he cared not to hear it? He had no right to believe me
+guilty. Had a winged spirit from another sphere come and told me that
+_he_ was false, I would have spurned the accusation, and clung to him
+more closely and more confidingly.
+
+"But you knew his infirmity," whispered accusing conscience, "even
+before you loved him; and have you not seen him writhing at your feet in
+agonies of remorse, for the indulgence of passions more torturing to
+himself than to you! It is you who have driven him from country and
+home, innocently, it is true, but he is not less a wanderer and an
+exile. Write and tell him the simple, holy truth, then folding your
+hands meekly over your heart, leave the result to the disposal of the
+God of futurity."
+
+Then words came like water rushing through breaking ice. They came
+without effort or volition, and I knew not what they were till I saw
+them looking at me from the paper, like my own image reflected in a
+glass. Had I been writing a page for the book of God's remembrance, it
+could not have been more nakedly true. I do believe there is inspiration
+now given to the spirit in the extremity of its need, and that we often
+speak and write as if moved by the Holy Ghost, and language comes to us
+in a Pentecostal shower, burning with heaven's fire, and tongues of
+flame are put in our mouth, and our spirits move as with the wings of a
+mighty wind.
+
+I recollect the closing sentence of the letter. I knew it contained my
+fate; and yet I felt that I had not the power to change it.
+
+"Come back to your country, your mother, and Edith. I do not bid you
+come back to me, for it seems that the distance that separates us is too
+immeasurable to be overcome. I remember telling you, when the midnight
+moon was shining upon us in the solitude of our chamber, that I saw as
+in a vision a frightful abyss opening between us, and I stood on one icy
+brink and you on the other, and I saw you receding further and further
+from me, and my arms vainly sought to reach over the cold chasm, and my
+own voice came back to me in mournful echoes. That vision is realized.
+Our hearts can never again meet till that gulf is closed, and confidence
+firm as a rock makes a bridge for our souls.
+
+"I have loved you as man never should be loved, and that love can never
+pass away. But from the deathlike trance in which you left me, my spirit
+has risen with holier views of life and its duties. An union, so
+desolated by storms of passion as ours has been, must be sinful and
+unhallowed in the sight of God. It has been severed by the hand of
+violence, and never, with my consent, will be renewed, unless we can
+make a new covenant, to which the bow of heaven's peace shall be an
+everlasting sign; till passion shall be exalted by esteem, love
+sustained by confidence, and religion pure and undefiled be the
+sovereign principle of our lives."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+
+The Tombs!--shall I ever forget my first visit to that dismal abode of
+crime, woe, and despair?--never!
+
+I had nerved myself for the trial, and went with the spirit of a martyr,
+though with blanched cheek and faltering step, into the heart of that
+frowning pile, on which I could never gaze without shuddering.
+
+Clinging to the arm of Richard, I felt myself borne along through cold
+and dreary walls, that seemed to my startled ear echoing with sighs and
+groans and curses, upward through dark galleries, and passed ponderous
+iron doors that reminded me of Milton's description of the gates of
+hell, till the prison officer who preceded us paused before one of those
+grim portals, and inserting a massy key, a heavy grating sound scraped
+and lacerated my ear.
+
+"Wait one moment," I gasped, leaning almost powerless on the shoulder of
+Richard.
+
+"I feared so," said he, passing his arm around me, his eyes expressing
+the most intense sensibility. "I knew you could not bear it. Let us
+return,--I was wrong to permit your coming in the first place."
+
+"No, no,--I am able to go in now,--the shock is over,--I am quite strong
+now."
+
+And raising my head, I drew a quick, painful breath, passed through the
+iron door into the narrow cell, where the gloom of eternal twilight
+darkly hung.
+
+At first I could not distinguish the objects within, for a mist was over
+my sight, which deepened the shadows of the dungeon walls. But as my eye
+became accustomed to the dimness, I saw a tall, emaciated figure rising
+from the bed, which nearly filled the limited space which inclosed us. A
+narrow aperture in the deep, massy stone, admitted all the light which
+illumined us after the iron door slowly closed.
+
+The dark, sunken eyes of the prisoner gleamed like the flash of an
+expiring taper, wild and fitful, on our entering forms. He was
+dreadfully altered,--I should scarcely have recognized him through the
+gloomy shade of his long-neglected hair, and thick, unshorn beard.
+
+"Father," said Richard, trying to speak in a cheerful tone, "I have
+brought you a comforter. A daughter's presence must be more soothing
+than a son's."
+
+I held out my hand as Richard spoke, and he took it as if it were
+marble. No tenderness softened his countenance,--he rather seemed to
+recoil from me than to welcome. I noticed a great difference in his
+reception of Richard. He grasped his hand, and perused his features as
+if he could not withdraw his gaze.
+
+"Are you indeed my son?" he asked, in an unsteady tone. "Do you not mock
+me? Tell me once more, are you Theresa's child?"
+
+"As surely as I believe her an angel in heaven, I am."
+
+"Yes,--yes, you have her brow and smile; but why have you come to me
+again, when I commanded you to stay away? And why have you brought this
+pale girl here, when she loathes me as an incarnate fiend?"
+
+"No,--no," I exclaimed, sinking down on the foot of the bed, in
+hopelessness of spirit, "I pity, forgive, pray for you, weep for you."
+
+"I want neither pity, forgiveness, nor prayers," he sullenly answered.
+"I want nothing but freedom, and that you cannot give. Go back to your
+husband, and tell him I curse him for the riches that tempted me, and
+you for the jewels that betrayed. You might have given me gold instead
+of diamonds, and then I would have been safe from the hell-hounds of
+law. Curse on the sordid fear"--
+
+"Stop," cried Richard, seizing the arm he had raised in imprecation, and
+fixing on him an eye of stem command. "You shall not wound her ears with
+such foul blasphemy. Utter another word of reproach to her, and I will
+leave you for ever to the doom you merit. Is this the return you make
+for her filial devotion? Betrayer of her mother, robber of her husband,
+coward as well as villain, how dare you blast her with your impious
+curse?"
+
+Richard forgot at that moment he was speaking to a father, in the
+intensity of his indignation and scorn. His eye burned, his lip
+quivered, he looked as if he could have hurled him against the granite
+walls.
+
+St. James quailed and writhed out of his grasp. His face turned the hue
+of ashes, and he staggered back like a drunken man.
+
+"I did not mean to curse her," he cried. "I am mad half the time, and
+know not what I say. Who would not be mad, cut off from communion with
+their kind, in such a den as this, with fiends whispering, and devils
+tempting, and know that it is not for a day, a week, a month, nor even a
+year; but for ten long years! And what will life be then, supposing I
+drag out its hated length through imprisonment, and horror, and despair?
+What is it now? A worn shred, a shivelled scroll, a blasted remnant of
+humanity!"
+
+He sat down again on the side of the bed, and leaning forward, bent his
+face downward and buried it in his hands. Groans, that seemed to tear
+his breast as they forced their passage, burst spasmodically from his
+lips. Oh! if that travailing soul, travailing in sin and sorrow, would
+cast itself on the bosom of Divine Mercy, would prostrate itself at the
+foot of the cross, till the scarlet dye of crime was washed white in a
+Saviour's blood! What were ten years of imprisonment and anguish, to
+eternal ages burning with the unquenchable fires of remorse!
+
+"O father!" I cried, moved by an irresistible impulse, and approaching
+him with trembling steps, "these prison walls may become the house of
+God, the gate of heaven, dark and dismal as they are. The Saviour will
+come and dwell with you, if you only look up to him in penitence and
+faith; and he will make them blissful with his presence. He went into
+the den of lions. He walked through the fiery furnace. He can rend these
+iron doors and give you the glorious liberty of the children of God. If
+I could only speak as I feel, if I only knew how to convince and
+persuade;--but alas! my tongue is weak, my words are cold. Richard will
+you not help me?"
+
+"If he will not listen to you, Gabriella, he would not be persuaded
+though an angel spoke."
+
+"Why do you care about my soul?" asked the prisoner, lifting his head
+from his knees, and rolling his bloodshot eyes upon me.
+
+"Because you are my father," I answered,--overcoming my trepidation, and
+speaking with fervor and energy,--"because my mother prayed for you, and
+my Saviour died for you."
+
+"Your mother!" he exclaimed; "who was she, that she should pray for me?"
+
+"My mother!" I repeated, fearing his mind was becoming unsettled; "if
+you have forgotten her, I do not wish to recall her."
+
+"I remember now,--her name was Rosalie," he said, and a strange
+expression passed over his countenance. "I was thinking of my poor
+Theresa."
+
+He looked at Richard as he spoke, and something like parental tenderness
+softened his features. Degraded as he was, unworthy as it seemed he must
+ever have been of woman's love, I could not help a pang of exquisite
+pain at the thought of my mother's being forgotten, while Theresa was
+remembered with apparent tenderness. When I met him in the Park, he
+expressed exceeding love for me for her sake,--he spoke of her as the
+beloved of his youth, as the being whose loss had driven him to
+desperation and made him the wretch and outcast he was. And now, no
+chord of remembrance vibrated at her name, no ray of fondness for her
+child played upon the sacrifice I was offering. It was a sordid
+deception then,--his pretended tenderness,--to gain access to my
+husband's gold; and I turned, heart-sick and loathing away. As I did so,
+I caught a glimpse of a book that looked like the Bible on a little
+table, between the bed and the wall. With an involuntary motion I
+reached forward and opened it.
+
+"I am so glad," I cried, looking at Richard. "I wanted to bring one; but
+I thought I would ask permission."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed St. James, with a ghastly smile, "we all have Bibles, I
+believe. Like the priest's blessing, they cost nothing."
+
+"But you read it, father!" said Richard, anxiously. "You cannot fail to
+find light and comfort in it. You cannot be altogether lonely with such
+a companion."
+
+"What is the use of reading what one cannot understand?" cried he, in a
+gloomy tone. "Your mother was a Catholic. She did not read the Bible,
+and if there is a heaven above, it was made for such as she."
+
+"My mother _did_ read her Bible," answered Richard, with solemnity. "She
+taught me to read it, making a table of her knees, while her hands
+toiled for our subsistence. It was a lamp to her path, a balm to her
+sorrows. She lived according to its precepts. She died, believing in its
+promises."
+
+The glistening eyes of Richard seemed to magnetize his father, so
+earnest, so steadfast was his gaze.
+
+"Have you _her_ Bible?" he asked, in a husky voice.
+
+"I have; it was her dying gift."
+
+"Bring it, and read to me the chapters she loved best. Perhaps--who
+knows? Great God! I was once a praying child at my mother's knee."
+
+Richard grasped his father's hand with a strong emotion,
+
+"I will bring it, father. We will read it together, and her spirit will
+breathe into our hearts. The pages are marked by her pencil, blistered
+by her tears."
+
+"Yes, bring it!" he repeated. "Who knows? Just heaven!--who knows?"
+
+Who, indeed, did know what influence that book, embalmed in such sacred
+memories, might have on the sinner's blasted heart? The fierceness and
+sullenness that had repelled and terrified me on our first entrance had
+passed away, and sensibility roused from an awful paralysis, started at
+the ruins it beheld. There was hope, since he could feel. Richard's
+filial mission might not be in vain. But _mine_ was. I realized this
+before I left the cell, and resolved to yield to him the task which I
+had hoped to share. I could not help feeling grieved and disappointed,
+not so much on my own account, as for the indifference manifested to my
+mother's memory,--that mother who had loved him, even to her dying hour.
+
+My heart hardened against him; but when I rose to go, and looked round
+on the narrow and dismal tomb in which he was inclosed, and then on his
+hollow cheek and wasted frame, and thought in all human probability
+those walls would prove his grave, it melted with the tenderest
+compassion.
+
+"Is there any thing I can do for your comfort?" I asked, trying in vain
+to keep back the rushing tears. "Can I send you any thing to do you
+good? If you wish to see me again, tell Richard, and I will come; but I
+do not wish to be in the way. He, I see, can do every thing I could do,
+and far more. I thought a daughter could draw so near a father's heart!"
+
+I stopped, choked with emotion which seemed contagious, for Richard
+turned aside and took up his handkerchief, which had dropped upon the
+bed. St. James was agitated. He gave the hand which I extended a
+spasmodic pressure, and looked from me to Richard, and then back again,
+with a peculiar, hesitating expression.
+
+"Forgive me," said he, in a gentler accent than I had yet heard him use,
+"my harsh, fierce words; as I told you, it was a demon's utterance, not
+mine. You would have saved me, I know you would. I made you unhappy, and
+plunged into perdition myself. No, you had better not come again. You
+are too lovely, too tender for this grim place. My boy will come; and
+you, you, my child, may pray for me, if you do not think it mockery to
+ask God to pardon a wretch like me."
+
+I looked in his face, inexpressibly affected by the unexpected
+gentleness of his words and manner. Surely the spirit of God was
+beginning to move over the stagnant waters of sin and despair. I was
+about to leave him,--the lonely,--the doomed. I, too, was lonely and
+doomed.
+
+"Father!" I cried, and with an impulse of pity and anguish I threw my
+arms round him and wept as if my heart was breaking; "I would willingly
+wear out my life in prayer for you, but O, pray for yourself. One prayer
+from your heart would be worth ten thousand of mine."
+
+I thought not of the haggard form I was embracing; I thought of the
+immortal soul that inhabited it; and it seemed a sacred ruin. He clasped
+me convulsively to him one moment, then suddenly withdrawing his arms,
+he pushed me towards Richard,--not harshly, but as if bidding him take
+care of me; and throwing himself on the bed, he turned his face
+downward, so that his long black hair covered it from sight.
+
+"Let us go," said Richard, in a low voice; "we had better leave him
+now."
+
+As we were passing very softly out of the cell, he raised his head
+partially, and calling to Richard, said,--
+
+"Come back, my son, to-morrow. I have something to tell you. I ought to
+do it now, while you are both here, but to-morrow will do; and don't
+forget your mother's Bible."
+
+Again we traversed the stone galleries, the dismal stairs, and our
+footsteps left behind us a cold, sepulchral sound. Neither of us spoke,
+for a kind of funeral silence solemnized our hearts. I looked at one of
+the figures that were gliding along the upper galleries, though there
+were many of them,--prisoners, who being condemned for lighter offences
+than murder or forgery, were allowed to walk under the eye of a keeper.
+I was conscious of passing them, but they only seemed to deepen the
+gloom, like ravens and bats flapping their wings in a deserted tower.
+
+As we came into the light of day, which, struggling through massy ridges
+of darkness, burst between the grand and gloomy columns that supported
+the fabric, I felt as if a great stone were rolling from my breast I
+raised the veil, which I had drawn closely over my face, to inhale the
+air that flowed from the world without I was coming out of darkness into
+light, out of imprisonment into freedom, sunshine, and the breath of
+heaven.
+
+There were men traversing the vestibule in many directions; and Richard
+hurried me on, that I might escape the gaze of curiosity or the stare of
+impertinence. Against one of the pillars which we passed, a gentleman
+was standing, whose figure was so striking as to attract my abstracted
+eye. I had seen him before. I knew him instantaneously, though I had
+only had a passing glimpse of him the morning we left the Falls. It was
+the gentleman who had accosted Julian, and who had stamped himself so
+indelibly on my memory. And now, as I came nearer, I was struck by a
+resemblance in his air and features to our unhappy father. It is true
+there was the kind of difference there is between a fallen spirit and an
+angel of light; for the expression of the stranger's face was noble and
+dignified, as if conscious that he still wore undefaced the image of his
+Maker. He lifted his hat as we passed, with that graceful courtesy which
+marks the gentleman, and I again noticed that the dark waves of his hair
+were mingled with snow. It reminded me of those wreaths of frost I had
+seen hanging from the evergreens of Grandison Place.
+
+The singularity of the place, the earnestness of his gaze, and the
+extraordinary attraction I felt towards him, brought the warm, bright
+color to my cheeks, and I instinctively dropped the veil which I had
+raised a moment before. As we entered the carriage, which had been kept
+in waiting, the horses, high-spirited and impatient, threatened to break
+loose from the driver's control,--when the stranger, coming rapidly
+forward, stood at their heads till their transient rebellion was over.
+It was but an instant; for as Richard leaned from the carriage window to
+thank him, the horses dashed forward, and I only caught one more glimpse
+of his fine, though pensive features.
+
+"Richard, did you not perceive a resemblance to our father in this
+gentleman, noble and distinguished as he appears? I was struck with it
+at the first glance."
+
+"Yes, there is a likeness; but not greater than we very often see
+strangers bearing to each other. My father must once have been a fine
+looking man, though now so sad a wreck. A life of sinful indulgence,
+followed by remorse and retribution, leaves terrible scars on the face
+as well as the soul."
+
+"But how strange it is, that we are sometimes so drawn towards
+strangers, as by a loadstone's power! I saw this gentleman once before,
+at the Falls of Niagara, and I felt the same sudden attraction that I do
+now. I may never see him again. It is not probable that I ever shall;
+but it will be impossible for me to forget him. I feel as if he must
+have some influence on my destiny; and such a confidence in his noble
+qualities, that if I were in danger I would appeal to him for
+protection, and in sorrow, for sympathy and consolation. You smile,
+Richard. I dare say it all sounds foolish to you, but it is even so."
+
+"Not foolish, but romantic, my own darling sister. I like such
+sentiments. I like any thing better than the stereotyped thoughts of the
+world. You have a right to be romantic, Gabriella, for your life has
+been one of strange and thrilling interest."
+
+"Yes; strange indeed!" I answered, while my soul rolled back on the
+billows of the past, wondering at the storms that heaved them so high,
+when life to many seemed smooth as a sea of glass. Then I thought how
+sweet the haven of eternal repose must be to the wave-worn mariner; how
+much sweeter to one who had had a tempestuous voyage, than one who had
+been floating on a tranquil current; and the closing verse of an old
+hymn came melodiously to my recollection:--
+
+    "There will I bathe my weary soul
+      In seas of endless rest,
+    And not a wave of trouble roll
+      Across my peaceful breast."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+
+What a contrast did the large, airy, pleasant nursery room of Mrs.
+Brahan present, to the narrow cell I had so lately quitted! I
+accompanied her there after dinner, while Richard, anxious to follow up
+the impression he had made, returned to the prison, taking with him his
+mother's Bible. I had hardly thought of the communication which he said
+he wished to make, till I saw Richard depart. Then it recurred to me;
+but it did not seem possible that it could interest or affect me much,
+though it might my brother.
+
+I have not spoken of Mrs. Brahan's children, because I have had so much
+to say of others; but she had children, and very lovely ones, who were
+the crowning blessings of her home. Her eldest were at school, but there
+were three inmates of the nursery, from five to ten years of age,
+adorned with the sweetest charms of childhood, brightness, purity, and
+bloom. She called them playfully her three little graces; and I never
+admired her so much, as when she made herself a child in their midst,
+and participated in their innocent amusements. After supper they were
+brought into the parlor to be companions of their father one hour, which
+he devoted exclusively to their instruction and recreation; but after
+dinner Mrs. Brahan took the place of the nurse, or rather governess, and
+I felt it a privilege to be with her, it made me feel so entirely at
+home, and the presence of childhood freshened and enlivened the spirits.
+It seemed as if fairy fingers were scattering rose-leaves on my heart.
+Was it possible that these young, innocent creatures would ever become
+hardened by worldliness, polluted by sin, or saddened by sorrow? And yet
+the doomed dweller of the Tombs had said that morning, "that he was once
+a praying child at his mother's knee!" How would that mother have felt,
+if, when his innocent hands were folded on her lap and his cherub lips
+repeated words which perhaps angels interpreted, she could have looked
+into future years, and beheld the condemned and blasted being in whose
+withering veins her own lifeblood was flowing?
+
+While I was reclining on the children's bed and the youngest little girl
+was playing with my ringlets, as short and childish as her own, I was
+told a gentleman was in the parlor, who inquired for me.
+
+"Cannot I excuse myself?" I asked of Mrs. Brahan. "I did not wish any
+one to know that I was in the city. I did not wish to meet any of my
+former acquaintances."
+
+Then it suddenly flashed into my mind, that it might be some one who
+brought tidings of Ernest, some one who had met the "Star of the East,"
+on his homeward voyage. There was nothing wild in the idea, and when I
+mentioned it to Mrs. Brahan, she said it was possible, and that I had
+better go down. Supposing it was a messenger of evil! I felt as if I had
+borne all I could bear, and live. Then all at once I thought of the
+stranger whom I had seen in the vestibule of the prison, and I was sure
+it was he. But who was he, and why had he come? I was obliged to stop at
+the door, to command my agitation, so nervous had I been made by the
+shock from which I had not yet recovered. My cheeks burned, but my hands
+were cold as ice.
+
+Yes, it was he. The moment I opened the door, I recognized him, the
+stately stranger of the Tombs. He was standing in front of the beautiful
+painting of the fortress, and his face was from me. But he turned at my
+entrance, and advanced eagerly to meet me. He was excessively pale, and
+varying emotions swept over his countenance, like clouds drifted by a
+stormy wind. Taking both my hands in his, he drew me towards him, with a
+movement I had no power to resist, and looked in my face with eyes in
+which every passion of the soul seemed concentrated, but in which joy
+like a sun-ray shone triumphant.
+
+Even before he opened his arms and clasped me to his bosom, I felt an
+invisible power drawing me to his heart, and telling me I had a right to
+be there.
+
+"Gabriella! child of my Rosalie! my own lost darling!" he exclaimed, in
+broken accents, folding me closer and closer in his arms, as if fearing
+I would vanish from his embrace. "Gracious God! I thank thee,--Heavenly
+Father! I bless thee for this hour. After long years of mourning, and
+bereavement, and loneliness, to find a treasure so dear, to feel a joy
+so holy! Oh, my God, what shall I render unto Thee for all thy
+benefits!"
+
+Then he bowed his head on my neck, and I felt hot tears gushing from his
+eyes, and sobs, like the deep, passionate sobs of childhood, convulsing
+his breast.
+
+Yes, he _was_ my father. I knew it,--I felt it, as if the voice of God
+had spoken from the clouds of heaven to proclaim it. He was my father,
+the beloved of my angelic mother, and he had never wronged her, never.
+He had not been the deceiver, but the deceived. Without a word of
+explanation I believed this, for it was written as if in sunbeams on his
+noble brow. The dreams of my childhood were all embodied in him; and
+overpowered by reverence, love, gratitude, and joy, I slid from his
+arms, and on bended knees and with clasped hands, looked up in his face
+and repeated again and again the sacred name of "Father."
+
+It is impossible to describe such bewildering, such intense emotions.
+Seldom, except in dreams, are they felt, when the spirit seems free from
+the fetters of earth. Even when I found myself sitting by his side,
+still encircled in his arms and leaning on his heart, I could scarcely
+convince myself that the scene was real.
+
+"And Richard, my brother!" I cried, beginning to feel bewildered at the
+mysteries that were to be unravelled; "joy is not perfect till he shares
+it with me."
+
+"Will it make you unhappy, my darling Gabriella, to know that Richard is
+your cousin, instead of your brother?"
+
+I pressed my hands on my forehead, for it ached with the quick,
+lightning-like thoughts that flashed through my brain.
+
+"And he, the inmate of yon dismal cell?" I exclaimed, anticipating, as
+if by intuition, the reply,--
+
+"Is my brother, my twin brother, whom in youth our mother could not
+distinguish from myself. This fatal resemblance has caused all my woe.
+Theresa la Fontaine was _his_ wife and Richard is _his_ son, not mine."
+
+How simple, how natural, all this seemed! Why had not my mother dreamed
+of the possibility of such a thing! Knowing the existence of this
+brother, why had she not at once found in him the solution of the dark
+problem, which was the enigma as well as anguish of her life?
+
+"My unhappy brother!" said he, while a dark shade rested on his brow;
+"little did I think, when I visited his dungeon this morning, of the
+revelation he would make! I have been an exile and a wanderer many
+years, or I might perhaps have learned sooner what a blessing Heaven has
+been guarding for my sad and lonely heart. I saw you as you passed out
+of the prison, and your resemblance to my beloved Rosalie struck me, as
+an electric shock."
+
+"And yours to him whom I believed my father, had the same effect on me.
+How strange it was, that then I felt as if I would give worlds to call
+_you_ father, instead of the wretched being I had just quitted."
+
+"Then you are willing to acknowledge me, my beloved, my lovely
+daughter," said he, pressing a father's kiss on my forehead, from which
+his hand fondly put back the clustering locks. "My daughter! let me
+repeat the name. My daughter! how sweet, how holy it sounds! Had _she_
+lived, or had she only known before she died, the constancy and purity
+of my love; but forgive me, thou Almighty chastener of man's erring
+heart! I dare not murmur. She knows all this now. She has given me her
+divine forgiveness."
+
+"She left it with me, father, to give you; not only her forgiveness, but
+her undying love, and her dying blessing."
+
+Withdrawing the arm with which he still embraced me, he bowed his face
+on his hands, and I hardly dared to breathe lest I should disturb the
+sacredness of his emotions. "She knows all this now." My heart repeated
+the words. Methought the wings of her spirit were hovering round
+us,--her husband and her child,--whom the hand of God had brought
+together after years of alienation and sorrow. And other thoughts
+pressed down upon me. By and by, when we were all united in that world,
+where we should know even as we are known, Ernest would read my heart,
+by the light of eternity, and then he would know how I loved him. There
+would be no more suspicion, or jealousy, or estrangement, but perfect
+love and perfect joy would absorb the memory of sorrow.
+
+"And you are married, my Gabriella?" were the first words my father
+said, when he again turned towards me. "How difficult to realize; and
+you looking so very young. Young as you really are, you cheat the eye of
+several years of youth!"
+
+"I was very ill, and when I woke to consciousness, I found myself shorn
+of the glory of womanhood,--my long hair."
+
+"You are so like my Rosalie. Your face, your eyes, your smile; and I
+feel that you have her pure and loving heart. Heaven preserve it from
+the blight that fell on hers!"
+
+The smile faded from my lip, and a quick sigh that I could not repress
+saddened its expression. The eyes of my father were bent anxiously on
+me.
+
+"I long to see the husband of my child," said he. "Is he not with you?"
+
+"No, my father, he is far away. Do not speak of him now, I can only
+think of you."
+
+"If he is faithless to a charge so dear," exclaimed St. James, with a
+kindling glance.
+
+"Nay, father; but I have so much to tell, so much to hear, my brain is
+dizzy with the thought. You shall have all my confidence, believe me you
+shall; and oh, how sweet it is to think that I have a father's breast to
+lean upon, a father's arms to shelter me, though the storms of life may
+blow cold and dreary round me,--and such a father!--after feeling such
+anguish and shame from my supposed parentage. Poor Richard! how I pity
+him!"
+
+"You love him, then? Believing him your brother, you have loved him as
+such?"
+
+"I could not love him better were he indeed my brother. He was the
+friend of my childhood," and a crimson hue stole over my face at the
+remembrance of a love more passionate than a brother's. "He is gifted
+with every good and noble quality, every pure and generous
+feeling,--friend, brother, cousin--it matters not which--he will ever be
+the same to me."
+
+Then I spoke of Mrs. Linwood, my adopted mother,--of my incalculable
+obligations, my unutterable gratitude, love, and admiration,--of the
+lovely Edith and her sisterly affection, and I told him how I longed
+that he should see them, and that _they_ should know that I had a
+father, whom I was proud to acknowledge, instead of one who reflected
+disgrace even on them.
+
+"Oh! I have so much to tell, so much to hear," I again repeated. "I know
+not when or where we shall begin. It is so bewildering, so strange, so
+like a dream. I fear to let go your hand lest you vanish from my sight
+and I lose you forever."
+
+"Ah, my child, you cannot feel as I do. You have enshrined other images
+in your heart, but mine is a lonely temple, into which you come as a
+divinity to be worshipped, as well as a daughter to be loved. I did not
+expect such implicit faith, such undoubting confidence. I feared you
+would shrink from a stranger, and require proofs of the truth of his
+assertions. I dared not hope for a greeting so tender, a trust so
+spontaneous."
+
+"Oh! I should as soon doubt that God was my Father in heaven, as you my
+father on earth. I _know_ it, I do not _believe_ it."
+
+I think my feelings must have been something like a blind person's on
+first emerging from the darkness that has wrapped him from his birth. He
+does not ask, when the sunbeams fall on his unclouded vision, _if it be
+light_. He knows it is, because it fills his new-born capacities for
+sight,--he knows it is, by the shadows that roll from before it. I knew
+it was my father, because he met all the wants of my yearning filial
+nature, because I felt him worthy of honor, admiration, reverence, and
+love.
+
+I know not how long I had been with him, when Mr. Brahan entered; and
+though it had been seventeen years since he had seen him, he immediately
+recognized the artist he had so much admired.
+
+"I have found a daughter, sir," said St. James, grasping his hand with
+fervor. He could not add another word, and no other was necessary.
+
+"I told her so," cried Mr. Brahan, after expressing the warmest
+congratulations; "I told her husband so. I knew the wretch who assumes
+your name was an impostor, though he wonderfully resembles yourself."
+
+"He has a right to the name he bears," answered my father, and his
+countenance clouded as it always did when he alluded to his brother. "We
+are twin brothers, and our extraordinary resemblance in youth and early
+manhood caused mistakes as numerous as those recorded in the Comedy of
+Errors, and laid the foundation of a tragedy seldom found in the
+experience of life."
+
+While they were conversing, I stole from the room and ran up stairs to
+tell Mrs. Brahan the wondrous tidings. Her sympathy was as heart-felt as
+I expected,--her surprise less. She never could believe that man my
+father. Mr. Brahan always said he was an impostor, only he had no means
+to prove it.
+
+"How beautiful!" she said, her eyes glistening with sympathetic emotion,
+"that he should find you here, in his own wedded home,--the place of
+your birth,--the spot sanctified by the holiest memories of love. Has
+not your filial mission been blest? Has not Providence led you by a way
+you little dreamed of? My dear Gabriella, you must not indulge another
+sad misgiving or gloomy fear. Indeed you must not."
+
+"I know I ought not; but come and see my father."
+
+"What is he like?" she asked, with a smile.
+
+"Like the dream of my childhood, when I imagined him one of the sons of
+God, such as once came down to earth."
+
+"Romantic child!" she exclaimed; but when she saw my father, I read
+admiration as well as respect in her speaking eye, and I was satisfied
+with the impression he had made.
+
+Richard came soon after informed by his father of all I could tell him
+and a great deal more, which he subsequently related to me. I think he
+was happier to know that he was cousin, than when he believed himself my
+brother. The transition from a lover to a brother was too painful. He
+could not divest himself of the idea of guilt, which, however
+involuntary, made him shudder in remembrance. But a cousin! The
+tenderness of natural affection and the memories of love, might unite in
+a bond so near and dear, and hallow each other.
+
+In the joy of my emancipation from imagined disgrace, I did not forget
+that the cloud still rested darkly on him,--that he still groaned under
+the burden which had been lifted from my soul. He told me that he had
+hope of his father's ultimate regeneration,--that he had found him much
+softened,--that he wept at the sight of Theresa's Bible, and still more
+when he read aloud to him the chapters which gave most consolation to
+her dying hours.
+
+The unexpected visit of his brother, from whom he had been so long
+separated, and whom he supposed was dead, had stirred still deeper the
+abysses of memoir and feeling.
+
+I will now turn a little while from myself, and give a brief history of
+the twin brothers, as I learned it from my father's lips, and Richard's,
+who narrated to me the story of _his_ father's life as he heard it in
+the dungeon of the Tombs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+
+Henry Gabriel and Gabriel Henry St. James, were born in the Highlands of
+New York. Their father was of English extraction, though of American
+birth; their mother the daughter of a French refugee, who had sought
+shelter in the land of freedom from the storms of the Revolution. So the
+elements of three nations mingled in their veins.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in their childhood, but their resemblance
+to each other, which was so perfect that their own mother was not able
+to distinguish the one from the other. Perhaps either of them, seen
+separately, would not have excited extraordinary interest, but together
+they formed an image of dual beauty as rare as it was attractive. They
+were remarkable for their fine physical development, their blooming
+health, and its usual accompaniments, sunniness of temper, and gaiety of
+spirits; but even in early childhood these twin-born bodies showed that
+they were vitalized by far different souls. Their father was a
+sea-captain; and while Gabriel would climb his knees and listen with
+eager delight to tales of ocean life and stirring adventures, Henry,
+seated at his mother's feet, with his hands clasped on her lap and his
+eyes riveted on her face, would gather up her gently sparkling words in
+his young heart, and they became a pavement of diamonds, indestructible
+as it was bright and pure.
+
+As they grew older, the master-passion of each became more apparent.
+Gabriel made mimic boats and ships, and launched them on the bosom of a
+stream which flowed back of their dwelling, an infant argosy freighted
+with golden hopes. Henry drew figures on the sandy shore, of birds and
+beasts and creeping things, and converted every possible material into
+tablets for the impressions of his dawning genius. Gabriel was his
+father's darling, Henry was mother's beloved. I said she could not
+distinguish her twin-born boys; but when she looked into their eyes,
+there was something in the earnest depths of Henry's, an answering
+expression of love and sensibility, which she sought in vain in his
+brother's. The soul of the sea-dreaming boy was not with her; it was
+following the father on the foaming paths of ocean.
+
+"My boys shall go with me on my next voyage," said the captain. "It is
+time to think of making men of them. They have been poring over books
+long enough to have a holiday; and, by the living Jove, they shall have
+it. It is the ruin of boys to be tied to their mother's apron strings
+after they are twelve years old. They are fit for nothing but peddlers
+or colporteurs."
+
+Gabriel clapped his hands exultingly; but Henry drew closer to his
+mother's side.
+
+"My hero, my young brave," cried the captain, slapping his favorite boy
+on the shoulder, "you are worth a dozen such girl-boys as your brother.
+Let him be a kitten and cry mew, if he will, while you climb the
+topgallant-mast and make ladders of the clouds."
+
+"I am as brave as he is," said Henry, straightening his youthful figure,
+and looking at his father with a kindling eye. "I am not afraid of the
+water; but who will protect my mother, if I go away with you?"
+
+"Bravo! There is some spirit in the boy after all," exclaimed the
+captain, who loved his wife with the devotion and constancy of a sailor.
+"He has chosen an honorable post, and by heaven I will not force him to
+leave it. I see that nature, when she gave us twins, intended we should
+go shares in our boys. It is just. Gabriel shall go with me, but the
+silver cup of fortune may after all find its way in Henry's sack."
+
+Thus at twelve years of age the twin brothers separated, and from that
+era their life-paths diverged into a constantly widening angle.
+
+The captain discovered too late the error he had committed in
+cultivating the roving propensities of his son, to the exclusion of
+steady, nobler pursuits. He had intended merely to give him a holiday,
+and a taste of a seafaring life; but after revelling in the joys of
+freedom, he found it impossible to bind him down to the restraints of
+scholastic life. He wanted him to go to college, but the young rover
+bravely refused obedience to parental authority, saying, that one genius
+in a family was enough; and the father, gazing with pride on the wild,
+handsome, and dauntless boy, said there was no use in twisting the vine
+the wrong way, and yielded to his will. Henry, imbosomed in classic
+shades, gathered the fruits of science and the flowers of literature,
+while his genius as an artist, though apparently dormant, waited the
+Ithuriel touch of opportunity to wake into life and action.
+
+Captain St. James had prospered in his enterprises and acquired a
+handsome fortune, so that his sons would not be dependent on their own
+exertions for support. Gabriel unfortunately knew this circumstance too
+well, and on the faith of his father's fortune indulged in habits of
+extravagance and dissipation as ruinous as they were disgraceful. The
+captain did not live to witness the complete degradation of his favorite
+son. His vessel was wrecked on a homeward voyage, and the waves became
+the sailor's winding-sheet. His wife did not long survive him. She died,
+pining for the genial air of her own sunny clime, leaving the impress of
+her virtues and her graces on the character of one of her sons. Alas for
+the other!
+
+Free now from parental restraint, as he had long been from moral
+obligations, Gabriel plunged into the wildest excesses of dissipation.
+In vain Henry lifted his warning voice, in vain he extended his guardian
+hand, to save him who had now become the slave as well as the votary of
+vice. His soul clave to his brother with a tenderness of affection,
+which neither his selfishness nor vices, not even his crimes, could
+destroy. A gambler, a rouee, every thing but a drunkard, he at length
+became involved in so disgraceful a transaction, he was compelled for
+safety to flee the country; and Henry, ignorant what course he had
+taken, gave him up in despair, and tried to forget the existence of one
+whose remembrance could only awaken sorrow and shame. He went to Europe,
+as has been previously related, and with the eye of a painter and the
+heart of a poet, travelled from clime to clime, and garnered up in his
+imagination the sublimities of nature and the wonders of art. His genius
+grew and blossomed amid the warm and fostering influences of an elder
+world, till it formed, as it were, a bower around him, in whose
+perennial shades he could retire from haunting memories and uncongenial
+associations.
+
+In the mean time, Gabriel had found refuge in his mother's native land.
+During his wild, roving life, he had mingled much with foreigners, and
+acquired a perfect knowledge of the French language,--I should rather
+say his knowledge was perfected by practice, for the twin brothers had
+been taught from infancy the melodious and expressive language of their
+mother's native clime. The facility with which he conversed, and his
+extremely handsome person, were advantages whose value he well knew how
+to appreciate, and to make subservient to his use.
+
+It was at this time that he became acquainted with Theresa Josephine La
+Fontaine, and his worn and sated passions were quickened into new life.
+She was not beautiful, "but fair and excellent," and of a character that
+exercises a commanding influence over the heart of man. Had he known her
+before habits of selfish indulgence had become, like the Ethiopian's
+skin and the leopard's spots, too deep and indelible for chemic art to
+change, she might perhaps have saved him from the transgressor's doom.
+She loved him with all the ardor of her pure, yet impassioned nature,
+and fully believed that her heart was given to one of the sons of light,
+instead of the children of darkness. For awhile his sin-dyed spirit
+seemed to bleach in the whitening atmosphere that surrounded him, for a
+father's as well as a husband's joy was his. But at length the demon of
+ennui possessed him. Satan was discontented in the bowers of Paradise.
+Gabriel sighed for his profligate companions, in the bosom of wedded
+love and joy. He left home on a false pretence, and never returned. It
+was long before Theresa admitted a doubt of his faith, and it was not
+till a rumor of his marriage in America reached her ear, that she
+believed it possible that he could deceive and betray her. An American
+traveller from New York, who knew Henry St. James and was unconscious of
+the existence of his brother, spoke of his marriage and his beautiful
+bride in terms that roused every dormant passion in the breast of the
+deserted Theresa. Yet she waited long in the hope and the faith of
+woman's trusting heart, clinging to the belief of her husband's
+integrity and truth, with woman's fond adhesiveness. At length, when she
+had but convincing reason to believe herself a betrayed and abandoned
+wife, she took her boy in her arms, crossed the ocean waste, landed in
+New York, and by the aid of a directory sought the home of Henry St.
+James, deeming herself the legitimate mistress of the mansion she made
+desolate by her presence. The result of her visit has been already told.
+She unconsciously destroyed the happiness of others, without securing
+her own. It is not strange, that in the moment of agony and distraction
+caused by the revelation made by Theresa, Rosalie should not have
+noticed in the marriage certificate the difference between the names of
+Henry Gabriel and Gabriel Henry St. James.
+
+Henry St. James had been summoned to Texas, then the Botany Bay of
+America, by his unhappy brother, who had there commenced a new career of
+sin and misery. He had gambled away his fortune, killed a man in a scene
+of strife and blasphemy, been convicted of homicide, escaped from the
+sentence, and, lurking in by-lanes and accursed places, fell sick, and
+wrote to his brother to come and save him from infamy and death.
+
+How could he wound the spotless ears of Rosalie by the tale of his
+brother's guilt and shame? He had never spoken to her of his existence,
+the subject was so exquisitely painful, for he believed himself for ever
+separated from him, and why should his blasted name cast a shadow over
+the heaven of his domestic happiness?
+
+Alter having raised his miserable brother from the gulf of degradation
+in which he had plunged, and given him the means of establishing himself
+in some honorable situation, which he promised to seek, he returned to
+find his home occupied by strangers, his wife and child fled, his
+happiness wrecked, and his peace destroyed. The deluded and half frantic
+Theresa, believing him to be her husband, appealed to him, by the memory
+of their former love and wedded felicity, to forgive the steps she had
+taken that she might assert the claims of her deserted boy. Maddened by
+the loss of the wife whom he adored, he became for the time a maniac;
+and so terrible was his indignation and despair, the unhappy victim of
+his brother's perfidy fled trembling and dismayed from his presence.
+
+In the calmer moments that succeeded the first paroxysms of his agony,
+Henry thought of his brother and of the extraordinary resemblance they
+bore to each other, and the mystery which frenzied passion had at first
+veiled from his eyes was partially revealed to his understanding. Could
+he then have seen her, and could she prove that she was the wife of
+Gabriel, he would have protected her with a brother's care and
+tenderness. But his first thought was for Rosalie,--the young, the
+beloved, the deceived, the fugitive Rosalie, of whose flight no clue
+could be discovered, no trace be found. The servants could throw no
+light on the mystery, for she had left in the darkness and silence of
+night. They only knew that Peggy disappeared at the same time, and was
+probably her companion. This circumstance afforded a faint relief to
+Henry's distracted mind, for he knew Peggy's physical strength and moral
+courage, as well as her remarkable attachment to his lovely and gentle
+wife. But whither had they gone? The natural supposition was, that she
+would throw herself on the protection of her step-mother, as the only
+person on whom she had any legitimate claims,--unkind as she had
+formerly been. He immediately started for the embattled walls of
+Fortress Monroe,--but before his departure, he put advertisements in
+every paper, which, if they met her eye, she could not fail to
+understand. Alas! they never reached the gray cottage imbosomed in New
+England woods!
+
+In vain he sought her in the wave-washed home of her childhood. He met
+with no sympathy from the slighted and jealous step-mother, who had
+destroyed the only link that bound them together, the name of her
+father. She had married again, and disowned all interest in the daughter
+of her former husband. She went still further, and wreaked her vengeance
+on St. James for the wounds he had inflicted on her vanity, by aspersing
+and slandering the innocent Rosalie. He left her in indignation and
+disgust, and wandered without guide or compass, like another Orpheus in
+search of the lost Eurydice. Had he known Peggy's native place, he might
+have turned in the right direction, but he was ignorant of every thing
+but her name and virtues. At length, weary and desponding, he resolved
+to seek in foreign lands, and in devotion to his art, oblivion of his
+sorrows. Just before his departure he met his brother, and told him of
+the circumstances which banished him from home and country. Gabriel,
+whose love for Theresa had been the one golden vein in the dark ore of
+his nature, was awakened to bitter, though short-lived remorse, not only
+for the ruin he brought on her, but the brother, whose fraternal
+kindness had met with so sad a requital. Touched by the exhibition of
+his grief and self-reproach, Henry committed to his keeping a miniature
+of Rosalie, of which he had a duplicate, that he might be able to
+identify her, and Gabriel promised, if he discovered one trace of his
+wife and child, that he would write to his brother and recall him.
+
+They parted. Henry went to Italy, where images of ideal loveliness
+mingled with, though they could not supplant, the taunting memories of
+his native clime. As an artist, and as a man, he was admired, respected,
+and beloved; and he found consolation, though not happiness. The one
+great sorrow of his life fell like a mountain shadow over his heart; but
+it darkened its brightness without chilling its warmth. He was still the
+sympathizing friend of humanity, the comforter of the afflicted, the
+benefactor of the poor.
+
+In the mean time Gabriel continued his reckless and dissolute course,
+sometimes on land, sometimes on sea, an adventurer, a speculator, a
+gambler, and a wretch. Destiny chanced to throw him into the vortex of
+corruption boiling in the heart of New York, when I went there, the
+bride of Ernest. He had seen me in the street, before he met me at the
+theatre; and, struck by my resemblance to the miniature which his
+brother had given him, he inquired and learned my name and history, as
+well as the wealth and rank of my husband. Confirmed in his suspicion
+that I was the child of Rosalie, he resolved to fill his empty pockets
+with my husband's gold, by making me believe that _he_ was my father,
+and appealing to my filial compassion. Not satisfied with his success,
+he forged the note, whose discovery was followed by detection,
+conviction, imprisonment, and despair.
+
+The only avenue to his seared and hardened heart had been found by the
+son of Theresa, coming to him like a messenger from heaven, in all his
+purity, excellence, and filial piety, not to avenge a mother's wrongs,
+but to cheer and illumine a guilty father's doom. His brother, too,
+seemed sent by Providence at this moment, that he might receive the
+daughter whom, from motives of the basest selfishness, he had claimed as
+his own.
+
+When I first saw my father at the Falls, he had just returned to his
+native land, in company with Julian, the young artist. Urged by one of
+those irresistible impulses which may be the pressure of an angel's
+hand, his spirit turned to the soil where he now firmly believed the
+ashes of his Rosalie reposed. He and Julian parted on their first
+arrival, met again on the morning of our departure, and travelled
+together through some of the glowing and luxuriant regions of the West.
+After Julian left him to visit Grandison Place, he lingered amid scenes
+where nature revelled in all its primeval grandeur and original
+simplicity, sketching its boldest and most attractive features, till,
+God-directed, he came to the city over which the memory of his brief
+wedded life trembled like a misty star throbbing on the lonely heart of
+night. Hearing that a St. James was in the dungeons of the Tombs, a
+convicted forger, he at once knew that it must be his brother. There he
+sought him, and learned from him that the child of Rosalie lived, though
+Rosalie was a more.
+
+As simple as sad, was the solution of my life's mystery.
+
+Concealment was the fatal source of our sorrows. Even the noble Henry
+St. James erred in concealing his twin brotherhood, though woe and
+disgrace tarnished the once golden link. Rosalie and Theresa both erred,
+in not giving their children their father's name, though they believed
+it accursed by perjury and guilt.
+
+Truth, and truth alone, is safe and omnipotent: "The eternal days of God
+are hers." Man may weave, but she will undeceive; man may arrange, but
+God will dispose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+
+I told my father the history of my youth and womanhood, of my marriage
+and widowhood, with feelings similar to those with which I poured out my
+soul into the compassionate bosom of my Heavenly Father. He listened,
+pitied, wept over, and then consoled me.
+
+"He must prove himself worthy of so sacred a trust," said he, clasping
+me to his bosom with all a father's tenderness, and all a mother's love,
+"before I ever commit it to his keeping. Never again, with my consent,
+shall you be given back to his arms, till 'the seed of the woman has
+bruised the serpent's head.'"
+
+"I will never leave you again, dear father, under any circumstances,
+whatever they may be. Rest assured, that come weal, come woe, we will
+never be separated. Not even for a husband's unclouded confidence, would
+I forsake a father's sacred, new-found love."
+
+"We must wait, and hope, and trust, my beloved daughter. Every thing
+will work together for the good of those that love God. I believe that
+now, fully, reverentially. Sooner or later all the ways of Providence
+will be justified to man, and made clear as the noonday sun."
+
+He looked up to heaven, and his fine countenance beamed with holy
+resignation and Christian faith. Oh! how I loved this dear, excellent,
+noble father! Every hour, nay, every moment I might say, my filial love
+and reverence increased. My feelings were so new, so overpowering, I
+could not analyze them. They were sweet as the strains of Edith's harp,
+yet grand as the roaring of ocean's swelling waves. The bliss of
+confidence, the rapture of repose, the sublimity of veneration, the
+tenderness of love, all blended like the dyes of the rainbow, and
+spanned with an arch of peace the retreating clouds of my soul.
+
+"When shall we go to Grandison Place?" he asked. "I long to pour a
+father's gratitude into the ear of your benefactress. I long to visit
+the grave of my Rosalie."
+
+"To-morrow, to-day,--now, dear father, whenever you speak the word;
+provided we are not separated, I do not mind how soon."
+
+He smiled at my eagerness.
+
+"Not quite so much haste, my daughter. I cannot leave to Richard the
+sole task of ministering to the soul of my unhappy brother. His
+conscience is quickened, his feeling softened, and it may be that the
+day of grace is begun. His frame is weak and worn, his blood feverish,
+and drop by drop is slowly drying in his veins. I never saw any one so
+fearfully altered. Truly is it said, that 'the wages of sin is death.'
+Oh! if after herding with the swine and feeding on the husks of earth,
+he comes a repentant prodigal to his father's home, it matters not how
+soon he passes from that living tomb."
+
+My father's words were prophetic. The prisoner's wasted frame was
+consuming slowly, almost imperceptibly, like steel when rust corrodes
+it. Richard and my father were with him every day, and gathered round
+him every comfort which the law permitted, to soften the horrors of
+imprisonment. Not in vain were their labors of love. God blessed them.
+The rock was blasted. The waters gushed forth. Like the thief on the
+cross, he turned his dying glance on his Saviour, and acknowledged him
+to be the Son of God. But it was long before the fiery serpents of
+remorse were deadened by the sight of the brazen reptile, glittering
+with supernatural radiance on the uplifted eye of faith. The struggle
+was fearful and agonizing, but the victory triumphant.
+
+Had he needed me, I would have gone to him, and I often pleaded
+earnestly with my father to take me with him; but he said he did not
+wish me to be exposed to such harrowing scenes, and that Richard
+combined the tenderness of a daughter with the devotion of a son. Poor
+Richard! his pale cheeks and heavy eyes bore witness to the protracted
+sufferings of his father, but he bore up bravely, sustained by the hope
+of his soul's emancipation from the bondage of sin.
+
+The prisoner must have had an iron constitution. The wings of his spirit
+flapped with such violence against its skeleton bars, the vulture-beak
+of remorse dipping all the time into the quivering, bleeding heart, it
+is astonishing how long it resisted even after flesh and blood seemed
+wasted away. Day after day he lingered; but as his soul gradually
+unsheathed itself, clearer views of God and eternity played upon its
+surface, till it flashed and burned, like a sword in the sunbeams of
+heaven.
+
+At length he died, with the hand of his son clasped in his, the bible of
+Theresa laid against his heart, and his brother kneeling in prayer by
+his bedside. Death came softly, gently, like an angel of release, and
+left the seal of peace on that brow, indented in life by the
+thunder-scars of sin and crime.
+
+After the first shock, Richard could not help feeling his father's death
+an unspeakable blessing, accompanied by such circumstances. In the grave
+his transgressions would be forgotten, or remembered only to forgive. He
+must now rise, shake off the sackcloth and ashes from his spirit, and
+put on the beautiful garments of true manhood. The friends, who had
+taken such an interest in his education, must not be disappointed in the
+career they had marked out. Arrangements had been made for him to study
+his profession with one of the most eminent lawyers of Boston, and he
+was anxious to commence immediately, that he might find in mental
+excitement an antidote to morbid sensibility and harrowing memory.
+
+My father's wishes and my own turned to Grandison Place, and we prepared
+at once for our departure. I had informed Mrs. Linwood by letters of the
+events which I have related, and received her heart-felt
+congratulations. She expressed an earnest desire to see my father, but
+honored too much the motives that induced him to remain, to wish him to
+hasten. Now those motives no longer existed, I wrote to announce our
+coming, and soon after we bade adieu to one of the most charming abodes
+of goodness, hospitality, and pure domestic happiness I have ever known.
+
+"You must write and tell me of all the changes of your changing
+destiny," said Mrs. Brahan, when she gave me the parting embrace; "no
+one can feel more deeply interested in them than myself. I feel in a
+measure associated with the scenes of your life-drama, for this is the
+place of your nativity, and it was under this roof you were united to
+your noble and inestimable father. Be of good cheer. Good news will
+come, wafted from beyond the Indian seas, and your second bridal morn
+will be fairer than the first."
+
+I thanked her with an overflowing heart. I did not, like _her_, see the
+day-star of hope arising over that second bridal morn, but the sweet
+pathetic minor tone breathed in my ear the same holy strain:--
+
+    "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
+      Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
+    Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
+      Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+
+I wish my father could have seen the home of my youth, when he first
+beheld it, in the greenness of spring or the bloom of summer; but white,
+cold, and dazzling was the lawn, and bleak, bare, and leafless the grand
+old elms and the stately brotherhood of oaks that guarded the avenue.
+
+With pride, gratitude, joy, and a thousand mingling emotions, I
+introduced my father into a dwelling consecrated by so many
+recollections of happiness and woe. The cloud was removed from my birth,
+the stain from my lineage. I could now exult in my parentage and glory
+in my father.
+
+Julian was there, and welcomed St. James with enthusiastic pleasure,
+who, on his part, seemed to cherish for him even parental affection.
+With joy and triumph beaming in his eyes and glowing on his cheek,
+Julian took the lovely Edith by the hand, and introduced her as his
+bride. Still occupying her usual place in her mother's home, in all her
+sweetness, simplicity, and spirituality, it was difficult to believe any
+change had come over her destiny. She had not waited for my presence,
+because she knew the bridal wreath woven for her would recall the
+blighted bloom of mine. She had no festal wedding. She could not, while
+her brother's fate was wrapped in uncertainty and gloom.
+
+One Sunday evening, after Mr. Somerville had dismissed the congregation
+with the usual benediction, Julian led Edith to the altar, and her
+mother stood by her side till the solemn words were uttered that made
+them one. So simple and holy were the nuptial rites of the wealthy and
+beautiful heiress of Grandison Place.
+
+My father spoke in exalted terms of the young artist, of his virtues and
+his genius, the singleness of his heart, the uprightness of his
+principles, and the warmth and purity of his affections. Had he, my
+father, needed any passport to the favor of Mrs. Linwood, he could not
+have had a surer one; but her noble nature instantaneously recognized
+his congenial and exalted worth. He had that in his air, his
+countenance, and manner, that distinguished him from the sons of men, as
+the planets are distinguished by their clear, intense, and steadfast
+lustre among the starry ranks of heaven.
+
+I gave him the manuscript my mother had left me, and at his request
+pointed out the road and the diverging path that led to the spot where
+her grave was made. I did not ask to accompany him, for I felt his
+emotions were too sacred for even his daughter to witness. I mourned
+that the desolation of winter was added to the dreariness of death; that
+a pall of snow, white as her winding-sheet and cold as her clay, covered
+the churchyard. In summer, when the grass was of an emerald green and
+the willows waved their weeping branches with a gentle rustle against
+the clustering roses, whose breath perfumed and whose blossoms
+beautified the place of graves, it was sweet, though sad, to wander amid
+the ruins of life, and meditate on its departed joys.
+
+The broken shaft, twined with a drooping wreath carved in bas-relief,
+which rose above my mother's ashes, and the marble stone which marked
+the grave of Peggy, were erected the year after their deaths. The money
+which rewarded my services in the academy had been thus appropriated, or
+rather a portion of it. The remainder had been given to the poor, as
+Mrs. Linwood always supplied my wardrobe, as she did Edith's, and left
+no want of my own to satisfy, not even a wish to indulge. I mention this
+here, because it occurred to my mind that I had not done Mrs. Linwood
+perfect justice with regard to the motives which induced her to
+discipline my character.
+
+I did not see my father for hours after his return. He retired to his
+chamber, and did not join the family circle till the evening lamps were
+lighted. He looked excessively pale, even wan, and his countenance
+showed how much he had suffered. Edith was singing when he came in, and
+he made a motion for her to continue; for it was evident he did not wish
+to converse. I sat down by him without speaking; and putting his arm
+round me, he drew me closely to his side. The plaintive melody of
+Edith's voice harmonized with the melancholy tone of his feelings, and
+seemed to shed on his soul a balmy and delicious softness. His spirit
+was with my mother in the dreams of the past, rather than the hopes of
+the future; and the memory of its joys lived again in music's heavenly
+breath.
+
+It is a blessed thing to be remembered in death as my mother was. Her
+image was enshrined in her husband's heart, in the bloom and freshness
+of unfaded youth, as he had last beheld her,--and such it would ever
+remain. He had not seen the mournful process of fading and decay. To
+him, she was the bride of immortality; and his love partook of her own
+freshness and youth and bloom. Genius is _La fontaine de jouvence_, in
+whose bright, deep waters the spirit bathes and renews its morning
+prime. It is the well-spring of the heart,--the Castaly of the soul. St.
+James had lived amid forms of ideal beauty, till his spirit was imbued
+with their loveliness as with the fragrance of flowers, and he breathed
+an atmosphere pure as the world's first spring. He was _young_, though
+past the meridian of life. There was but one mark of age upon his
+interesting and noble person, and that was the snowy shade that softened
+his raven hair,--foam of the waves of time, showing they had been lashed
+by the storms, or driven against breakers and reefs of destiny.
+
+The first time I took him into the library, he stopped before the
+picture of Ernest. I did not tell him whose it was. He gazed upon it
+long and earnestly.
+
+"What a countenance!" he exclaimed. "I can see the lights and shades of
+feeling flashing and darkening over it. It has the troubled splendor of
+a tropic night, when clouds and moonbeams are struggling. Is it a
+portrait, or an ideal picture?"
+
+"It is Ernest,--it is my husband," I answered; and it seemed to me as if
+all the ocean surges that rolled between us were pressing their cold
+weight on my heart.
+
+"My poor girl! my beloved Gabriella! All your history is written there."
+
+I threw myself in his arms, and wept. Had I seen Ernest dead at my feet,
+I could not have felt more bitter grief. I had never indulged it so
+unrestrainedly before in his presence, for I had always thought more of
+him than myself; and in trying to cheer him, I had found cheerfulness.
+Now I remembered only Ernest's idolatrous love, and his sorrows and
+sufferings, forgetting my own wrongs; and I felt there would always be
+an aching void which even a father's and brother's tenderness (for
+brother I still called Richard) could never fill.
+
+"Oh, my father," I cried, "bear with my weakness,--bear with me a little
+while. There is comfort in weeping on a father's bosom, even for a loss
+like mine. I shall never see him again. He is dead, or if living, is
+dead to me. You cannot blame me, father. You see there a faint semblance
+of what he is,--splendid, fascinating, and haunting, though at times so
+dark and fearful. No words of mine can give an idea of the depth, the
+strength, the madness of his love. It has been the blessing and the
+bane, the joy and the terror, the angel and the demon of my life. I know
+it was sinful in its wild excess, and mine was sinful, too, in its blind
+idolatry, and I know the blessing of God could not hallow such a union.
+But how can I help feeling the dearth, the coldness, the weariness
+following such passionate emotions? How can I help feeling at times,
+that the sun of my existence is set, and a long, dark night before me?"
+
+He did not answer,--he only pressed me convulsively to his heart, and I
+felt one hot tear, and then another and another falling on my brow.
+
+Oh! it is cruel to wring tears from the strong heart of man; cruel,
+above all, to wring them from a father's heart,--that heart whose own
+sorrows had lately bled afresh. Every drop fell heavy and burning as
+molten lead on my conscience. I had been yielding to a selfish burst of
+grief, thoughtless of the agony I was inflicting.
+
+"Forgive me, father!" I cried, "forgive me! On my knees, too, I will
+pray my Heavenly Father to forgive the rebel who dares to murmur at his
+chastisements, when new and priceless blessings gladden her life. I
+thought I had learned submission,--and I have, father, I have kissed in
+love and faith the Almighty hand that laid me low. This has been a dark
+moment, but it is passed."
+
+I kissed his hand, and pressed it softly over my glistening eyes.
+
+"Forgive you, my child!" he repeated, "for a sorrow so natural, so
+legitimate, and which has so much to justify it! I have wondered at your
+fortitude and disinterested interest in others,--I have wondered at your
+Christian submission, your unmurmuring resignation, and I wonder still.
+But you must not consider your destiny as inevitably sad and lonely. You
+have not had time yet to receive tidings from India. If, after the
+letter you have written, your husband does not return with a heart
+broken by penitence and remorse, and his dark and jealous passions slain
+by the sword of conviction, piercing two-edged and sharp to the very
+marrow of his spirit, he is not worthy of thee, my spotless, precious
+child; and the illusion of love will pass away, showing him to be
+selfish, tyrannical, and cruel, a being to be shunned and pitied, but no
+longer loved. Do not shudder at the picture I have drawn. The soul that
+speaks from those eyes of thousand meanings," added he, looking at the
+portrait that gazed upon us with powerful and thrilling glance, "must
+have some grand and redeeming qualities. I trust in God that it will
+rise above the ashes of passion, purified and regenerated. Then your
+happiness will have a new foundation, whose builder and maker is God."
+
+"Oh! dear father!" was all I could utter. He spoke like one who had the
+gift of prophecy, and my spirit caught the inspiration of his words.
+
+I have not spoken of Richard, for I had so much to say of my father, but
+I did not forget him. He accompanied us to Grandison Place, though he
+remained but a few days. I could not help feeling sad to see how the
+sparkling vivacity of his youth had passed away, the diamond brightness
+which reminded one of rippling waters in their sunbeams. But if less
+brilliant, he was far more interesting. Stronger, deeper, higher
+qualities were developed. The wind-shaken branches of thought stretched
+with a broader sweep. The roots of his growing energies, wrenched by the
+storm, struck firmer and deeper, and the wounded bark gave forth a pure
+and invigorating odor.
+
+I walked with him, the evening before his departure, in the avenue from
+which the snow had been swept, leaving a smooth, wintry surface below. I
+was wrapped in furs, and the cold, frosty air braced me like a pair of
+strong arms.
+
+I had so much to say to Richard, and now I was alone with him. I walked
+on in silence, feeling as if words had never been invented to express
+our ideas.
+
+"You will never feel the want of a father's care and affection," at
+length I said. "My father could not love you better if you were his own
+son; and surely no own brother could be dearer, Richard, than you are
+and ever will be to me. You must not look mournfully on the past, but
+forward into a brightening future."
+
+"I have but one object in life now," he answered, "and that is, to
+improve the talents God has given me for the benefit of mankind. I am
+not conscious of any personal hope or ambition, but a strong sense of
+duty acts upon me, and will save me from the corrosion of disappointment
+and the listlessness of despair."
+
+"But you will not always feel so, Richard. You will experience a strong
+reaction soon, and new-born hopes and aspirations will shine gloriously
+to guide you upward and onward in your bright career. Think how young
+you are yet, Richard."
+
+"The consciousness of youth does not always bring joy. It cannot, when
+youthful hopes are blighted, Gabriella. One cannot tear up at once the
+deep-rooted affections of years. Never was a love planted deeper, firmer
+than mine for you, before the soil of the heart had known the hardening
+winds of destiny. Start not, Gabriella, I am not going to utter one
+sentiment which, as a wife, you need blush to hear; but the parting
+hour, like that of death, is an honest one, and I must speak as I feel.
+May you never know or imagine my wretchedness when I believed you to be
+my sister, knowing that though innocent, I had been guilty, and that I
+could not love you merely with a brother's love. Thank heaven! you are
+my cousin. Ten thousand winning sweetnesses cluster round this dear
+relationship. The dearest, the strongest, the purest I have ever known."
+
+"You will know a stronger, a dearer one, dear Richard,--you do not know
+yet how strong."
+
+"I shall never think of my own happiness, Gabriella, till I am assured
+of yours."
+
+"Then I will try to be happy for your sake."
+
+"And if it should be that the ties severed by misfortune and distance
+are never renewed, you will remain with your father, and I will make my
+home with you, and it will be the business of both our lives to make you
+happy. No flower of the green-house was ever more tenderly cherished and
+guarded than you shall be, best beloved of so many hearts!"
+
+"Thank you, oh, thank you, for all your tenderness, so far beyond my
+worth. Friend, brother, cousin, with you and such a father to love me, I
+ought to be the happiest and most grateful of human beings. But tell me
+one thing, dear Richard, before we part; do you forgive Ernest the wrong
+he has done you, freely and fully?"
+
+"From the bottom of my heart I do."
+
+"And should we ever meet again, may I tell him so?"
+
+"Tell him I have nothing to forgive, for, believing as he did, vengeance
+could not wing a bolt of wrath too red, too deadly. But I would not
+recall the past. Your father beckons us,--he fears the frosty evening
+air for you, but it has given a glowing rose to your cheeks!"
+
+My father stood on the threshold to greet us, with that benign smile,
+that beautiful, winning smile that had so long been slumbering on his
+face, but which grew brighter and brighter every time it beamed on my
+soul.
+
+The last evening of Richard's stay was not sad. Dr. Harlowe and Mr.
+Somerville were with us; and though the events with which he had been
+associated had somewhat sobered the doctor's mirthful propensities, the
+geniality of his character was triumphant over every circumstance.
+
+My father expressed to him the most fervent gratitude for his parental
+kindness to me, as well as for a deeper, holier debt.
+
+"You owe me nothing," said Dr. Harlowe; "and even if you did, and were
+the debt ten times beyond your grateful appreciation of it, I should
+consider myself repaid by the privilege of calling you my friend."
+
+No one could speak with more feeling or dignity than the doctor, when
+the right chord was touched. He told me he had never seen the man he
+admired so much as my father; and how proud and happy it made me to have
+him say so, and know that his words were true! No one who has not felt
+as I did, the mortification, the shame and anguish of believing myself
+the daughter of a convicted criminal, can understand the intense, the
+almost worshipping reverence with which I regarded my late-found parent.
+To feel pride instead of humiliation, exultation instead of shame, and
+love instead of abhorrence, how great the contrast, how unspeakable the
+relief, how sublime and holy the gratitude!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+
+The snows of winter melted, the diamond icicles dropped from the trees,
+the glittering fetters slipped from the streams, and nature came forth a
+captive released from bondage, glowing with the joy of emancipation.
+
+Nothing could be more beautiful, more glorious, than the valley in its
+vernal garniture. Such affluence of verdure; such rich, sweeping
+foliage; such graceful undulation of hill and dale; such exquisite
+blending of light and shade; such pure, rejoicing breezes; such blue,
+resplendent skies never before met, making _a tableau vivant_ on which
+the eye of the great Creator must look down with delight.
+
+It was the first time Mrs. Linwood had witnessed the opening of spring
+at Grandison Place, and her faded spirits revived in the midst of its
+blooming splendor. She bad preferred its comparative retirement during
+the past winter, and, in spite of the solicitations of her friends,
+refused to go to the metropolis. My father and Julian both felt an
+artist's rapture at the prospect unrolled in a grand panorama around
+them, and transferred to the canvas many a glowing picture. It was
+delightful to watch the progress of these new creations,--but far more
+interesting when the human face was the subject of the pencil. Edith and
+myself were multiplied into so many charming forms, it is strange we
+were not made vain by gazing on them.
+
+I was very grasping in my wishes, and wanted quite a picture gallery of
+my friends,--Mrs. Linwood, Edith, and Dr. Harlowe; and my indulgent
+father made masterly sketches of all for his exacting daughter. And thus
+day succeeded day, and no wave from Indian seas wafted tidings of the
+absent husband and son. No "Star of the East" dawned on the nightshades
+of my heart. And the raven voice kept echoing in my ear, "Never more,
+never more." There had been a terrible gale sweeping along the whole
+eastern coast of the Atlantic, and many a ship had gone down, freighted
+with an argosy richer than gold,--the treasures of human hearts. I did
+not speak my fears, but the sickness of dread settled on my spirits, in
+spite of the almost super-human efforts I made to shake it from them.
+When my eyes were fixed on my father's paintings, I could see nothing
+but storm-lashed billows, wrecking ships, and pale, drowning mariners. I
+could see that Mrs. Linwood and Edith participated in my apprehensions,
+though they did not give them utterance. We hardly dared to look in each
+other's faces, lest we should betray to each other thoughts which we
+would, but could not conceal.
+
+The library had been converted into my father's studio. He usually
+painted in the mornings as well as Julian; and in the afternoon we rode,
+or walked as inclination prompted, and the evenings were devoted to
+sewing, conversation, and music.
+
+One afternoon, after returning from a ride about sunset, I went into the
+library for a book which I had left there. I never went there alone
+without stopping to gaze at the picture of Ernest, which every day
+acquired a stronger fascination. "Those eyes of a thousand meanings," as
+my father had said, followed me with thrilling intensity whenever I
+moved, and if I paused they fixed themselves on me as if never more to
+be withdrawn. Just now, as I entered, a crimson ray of the setting sun,
+struggling in through the curtained windows, fell warmly on the face,
+and gave it such a lifelike glow, that I actually started, as if life
+indeed were there.
+
+As I have said before, the library was remote from the front part of the
+house, and even Margaret's loud, voluble laugh did not penetrate its
+deep retirement. I know not how long, but it must have been very long
+that I stood gazing at the picture, for the crimson ray had faded into a
+soft twilight haze, and the face seemed gradually receding further and
+further from me.
+
+The door opened. Never, never, shall I feel as I did then till I meet my
+mother's spirit in another world. A pale hand rested, as if for support,
+on the latch of the door,--a face pale as the statues, but lighted up by
+eyes of burning radiance, flashed like an apparition upon me. I stood as
+in a nightmare, incapable of motion or utterance, and a cloud rolled
+over my sight. But I knew that Ernest was at my feet, that his face was
+buried in the folds of my dress, and his voice in deep, tremulous music,
+murmuring in my ear.
+
+"Gabriella! beloved Gabriella! I am not worthy to be called thy husband;
+but banish me not, my own and only love!"
+
+At the sound of that voice, my paralyzed senses burst the fetters that
+enthralled them, and awoke to life so keen, there was agony in the
+awakening. Every plan that reason had suggested and judgment approved
+was forgotten or destroyed, and love, all-conquering, unconquerable
+love, reigned over every thought, feeling, and emotion. I sunk upon my
+knees before him,--I encircled his neck with my arms,--I called him by
+every dear and tender name the vocabulary of love can furnish,--I wept
+upon his bosom showers of blissful and relieving tears. Thus we knelt
+and wept, locked in each other's arms, and again and again Ernest
+repeated--
+
+"I am not worthy to be thy husband," and I answered again and again--
+
+"I love thee, Ernest. God, who knoweth all things, knows, and he only,
+how I love thee."
+
+It is impossible to describe such scenes. Those who have never known
+them, must deem them high-wrought and extravagant those who _have_, cold
+and imperfect. It is like trying to paint chain-lightning, or the
+coruscations of the aurora borealis. I thought not how he came. What
+cared I, when he was with me, when his arms were round me, his heart
+answering to the throbs of mine? Forgotten were suspicion, jealousy,
+violence, and wrong,--nothing remained but the memory of love.
+
+As the shades of twilight deepened, his features seemed more distinct,
+for the mist which tears had left dissolved, and I could see how wan and
+shadowy he looked, and how delicate, even to sickliness, the hue of his
+transparent complexion. Traces of suffering were visible in every
+lineament, but they seemed left by the ground-swell of passion, rather
+than its deeper ocean waves.
+
+"You have seen your mother?" at length I said, feeling that I must no
+longer keep him from her, "and Edith? And oh, Ernest! have you seen my
+father? Do you know I have a father, whom I glory in acknowledging? Do
+you know that the cloud is removed from my birth, the stigma from my
+name? Oh, my husband, mine is a strange, eventful history!"
+
+"Mr. Brahan told me of the discovery of your father, and of the death of
+his unhappy brother. I have not seen him yet. But my mother! When I left
+her, Gabriella, she had not one silver hair. _My_ hand sprinkled that
+premature snow."
+
+"It matters not now, dear Ernest," I cried, pained by the torturing
+sighs that spoke the depth of his remorse. "Flowers will bloom sweetly
+under that light snow. Edith is happy. We will all be happy,--my father
+too,--come and see him, Ernest,--come, and tell me, if I have need to
+blush for my lineage."
+
+"Not for your lineage, but your husband. What must this noble father
+think of me?"
+
+"Every thing that is kind and Christian. He has sustained my faith, fed
+my hopes, and prophesied this hour of reunion. Come, the moment you have
+seen him, you will trust, revere, and love him."
+
+With slow and lingering steps we walked the winding gallery that led
+from the library, and entered the parlor, whose lights seemed dazzling
+in contrast to the soft gloom we had left behind.
+
+Hand in hand we approached my father, who stood with his back to one of
+the windows, his tall and stately figure nobly defined. I tried to utter
+the words, "My husband! my father!" but my parted lips were mute. I
+threw myself into his arms, with a burst of emotion that was
+irrepressible, and he grasped the hand of Ernest and welcomed and blest
+him in warm, though faltering accents. Then Edith came with her sweet
+April face, and hung once more upon her brother's neck, and his mother
+again embraced him, and Julian walked to the window and looked abroad,
+to hide the tears which he thought a stain upon his manhood.
+
+It was not till after the excitement of the hour had subsided, that we
+realized how weak and languid Ernest really was. He was obliged to
+confess how much he had suffered from illness and fatigue, and that his
+strength was completely exhausted. As he reclined on one of the sofas,
+the crimson hue of the velvet formed such a startling contrast to the
+pallor of his complexion, it gave him an appearance almost unearthly.
+
+"You have been ill, my son," said Mrs. Linwood, watching him with
+intense anxiety.
+
+"I have been on the confines of the spirit world, my mother; so near as
+to see myself by the light it reflected. Death is the solar microscope
+of life. It shows a hideous mass, where all seemed fair and pure."
+
+He laid his hand over his eyes with a nervous shudder.
+
+"But I am well now," he added; "I am only suffering from fatigue and
+excitement. Gabriella's letter found me leaning over the grave. It
+raised me, restored me, brought me back to life, to hope, to love, and
+home."
+
+He told us, in the course of the evening, how he had found Mr. Harland
+on the eve of embarking for India, and that he offered to be his
+companion; and how he had written to his mother before his voyage,
+telling her of his destination, and entreating her to write if she were
+still willing to call him her son. The letter came not to relieve the
+agonies of suspense, and mine contained the first tidings he received
+from his native land. It found him, as he had said, on a sick-bed, and
+its contents imparted new life to his worn and tortured being. He
+immediately took passage in a home bound ship, though so weak he was
+obliged to be carried on board in a litter. Mr. Harland accompanied him
+to New York, where on debarking they had met Mr. Brahan, who had given
+him a brief sketch of my visit, and the events that marked it.
+
+As I sat by him on a low seat, with his hand clasped in mine, while he
+told me in a low voice of the depth of his penitence, the agonies of his
+remorse, and the hope of God's pardon that had dawned on what he
+supposed the night clouds of death, I saw him start as if in sudden
+pain. The lace sleeve had fallen back from my left arm. His eyes were
+fixed on the wound he had inflicted. He bent his head forward, and
+pressed his lips on the scar.
+
+"They shall look upon him whom they have pierced," he murmured. "O my
+Saviour I could thy murderers feel pangs of deeper remorse at the sight
+of thy scarred hands and wounded side?"
+
+"Never think of it again, dear Ernest. I did not know it, did not feel
+it. It never gave me a moment's pang."
+
+"Yes, I remember well why you did not suffer."
+
+"But you must not remember. If you love me, Ernest, make no allusion to
+the past. The future is ours; youth and hope are ours; and the promises
+of God, sure and steadfast, are ours. I feel as Noah and his children
+felt when they stepped from the ark on dry land, and saw the waters of
+the deluge retreating, and the rainbow smiling on its clouds. What to
+them were the storms they had weathered, the dangers they had overcome?
+They were all past. Oh, my husband, let us believe that ours are past,
+and let us trust forever in the God of our fathers."
+
+"I do--I do, my Gabriella. My faith has hitherto been a cold
+abstraction; now it is a living, vital flame, burning with steady and
+increasing light."
+
+At this moment Edith, who had seated herself at the harp, remembering
+well the soothing influence of music on her brother's soul, touched its
+resounding strings; and the magnificent strains of the _Gloria in
+Excelsis_,
+
+      --"rose like a stream
+    Of rich distilled perfume."
+
+I never heard any thing sound so sweet and heavenly. It came in, a
+sublime chorus to the thoughts we had been uttering. It reminded me of
+the song of the morning stars, the anthem of the angels over the manger
+of Bethlehem,--so highly wrought were my feelings,--so softly, with such
+swelling harmony, had the notes stolen on the ear.
+
+Ernest raised himself from his reclining position, and his countenance
+glowed with rapture. I had never seen it wear such an expression before.
+"Old things had passed away,--all things had become new."
+
+"There is peace,--there is pardon," said he, in a voice too low for any
+ear but mine, when the last strain melted away,--"there is joy in heaven
+over the repenting sinner, there is joy on earth over the returning
+prodigal."
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Two years and more have passed since my heart responded to the strains
+of the _Gloria in Excelsis_, as sung by Edith on the night of her
+brother's return.
+
+Come to this beautiful cottage on the sea-shore, where we have retired
+from the heat of summer, and you can tell by a glance whether time has
+scattered blossoms or thorns in my path, during its rapid flight.
+
+Come into the piazza that faces the beach, and you can look out on an
+ocean of molten gold, crimsoned here and there by the rays of the
+setting sun, and here and there melting off into a kind of burning
+silver. A glorious breeze is beginning to curl the face of the waters,
+and to swell the white sails of the skiffs and light vessels that skim
+the tide like birds of the air, apparently instinct with life and
+gladness. It rustles through the foliage, the bright, green foliage,
+that contrasts so dazzlingly with the smooth, white, sandy beach,--it
+lifts the soft, silky locks of that beautiful infant, that is cradled so
+lovingly in my father's arms. Oh! whose do you think that smiling cherub
+is, with such dark, velvet eyes, and pearly skin, and mouth of heavenly
+sweetness? It is mine, it is my own darling Rosalie, my pearl, my
+sunbeam, my flower, my every sweet and precious name in one.
+
+But let me not speak of her first, the youngest pilgrim to this sea-beat
+shore. There are others who claim the precedence. There is one on my
+right hand, whom if you do not remember with admiration and respect, it
+is because my pen has had no power to bring her character before you, in
+all its moral excellence and Christian glory. You have not forgotten
+Mrs. Linwood. Her serene gray eye is turned to the apparently
+illimitable ocean, now slowly rolling and deeply murmuring, as if its
+mighty heart were stirred to its inmost core, by a consciousness of its
+own grandeur. There is peace on her thoughtful, placid brow, and long,
+long may it rest there.
+
+The young man on my left is recognized at once, for there is no one like
+him, my high-souled, gallant Richard. His eye sparkles with much of its
+early quick-flashing light. The shadow of the dismal Tombs no longer
+clouds, though it tempers, the brightness of his manhood. _He_ knows,
+though the world does not, that his father fills a convict's grave, and
+this remembrance chastens his pride, without humiliating him with the
+consciousness of disgrace. He is rapidly making himself a name and fame
+in the high places of society. Men of talent take him by the hand and
+welcome him as a younger brother to their ranks, and fair and charming
+women smile upon and flatter him by the most winning attentions. He
+passes on from flower to flower, without seeking to gather one to place
+in his bosom, though he loves to inhale their fragrance and admire their
+bloom.
+
+"One of these days you will think of marrying," said a friend, while
+congratulating him on his brilliant prospects.
+
+"When I can find another Gabriella," he answered.
+
+Ah! Richard, there are thousands better and lovelier than Gabriella; and
+you will yet find an angel spirit in woman's form, who will reward your
+filial virtues, and scatter the roses of love in the green path of fame.
+
+Do you see that graceful figure floating along on the white beach, with
+a motion like the flowing wave, with hair like the sunbeams, and eye as
+when
+
+    "The blue sky trembles on a cloud of purest white?"
+
+and he who walks by her side, with the romantic, beaming countenance,
+now flashing with the enthusiasm, now shaded by the sensibility of
+genius? They are the fair-haired Edith, and the artist Julian. He has
+laid aside for awhile the pencil and the pallette, to drink in with us
+the invigorating breezes of ocean. Let them pass on. They are happy.
+
+Another couple is slowly following, taller, larger, more of the "earth,
+earthy." Do you not recognize my quondam tutor and the once dauntless
+Meg? It is his midsummer vacation, and they, too, have come to breathe
+an atmosphere cooled by sea-born gales, and to renew the socialities of
+friendship amid grand and inspiring influences. They walk on
+thoughtfully, pensively, sometimes looking down on the smooth,
+continuous beach, then upward to the mellow and glowing heavens. A
+softening shade has _womanized_ the bold brow of Madge, and her red lip
+has a more subdued tint. She, the care-defying, laughter-breathing,
+untamable Madge, has known not only the refining power of love, but the
+chastening touch of sorrow. She has given a lovely infant back to the
+God who gave it, and is thus linked to the world of angels. But she has
+treasures on earth still dearer. She leans on a strong arm and a true
+heart. Let them pass on. They, too, are happy.
+
+My dear father! He is younger and handsomer than he was two years since,
+for happiness is a wonderful rejuvenator. His youth is renewed in ours,
+his Rosalie lives again in the cherub who bears her name, and in whom
+his eye traces the similitude of her beauty. Father! never since the
+hour when I first addressed thee by that holy name, have I bowed my knee
+in prayer without a thanksgiving to God for the priceless blessing
+bestowed in thee.
+
+There is one more figure in this sea-side group, dearer, more
+interesting than all the rest to me. No longer the wan and languid
+wanderer returned from Indian shores, worn by remorse, and tortured by
+memory. The light, if not the glow of health, illumines his face, and a
+firmer, manlier tone exalts its natural delicacy of coloring.
+
+Do you not perceive a change in that once dark, though splendid
+countenance? Is there not more peace and softness, yet more dignity and
+depth of thought? I will not say that clouds never obscure its serenity,
+nor lightnings never dart across its surface, for life is still a
+conflict, and the passions, though chained as vassals by the victor hand
+of religion, will sometimes clank their fetters and threaten to resume
+their lost dominion; but they have not trampled underfoot the new-born
+blossoms of wedded joy. I am happy, as happy as a pilgrim and sojourner
+ought to be; and even now, there is danger of my forgetting, in the
+fulness of my heart's content, that eternal country, whither we are all
+hastening.
+
+We love each other as fondly, but less idolatrously. That little child
+has opened a channel in which our purified affections flow together
+towards the fountain of all love and joy. Its fairy fingers are leading
+us gently on in the paths of domestic harmony and peace.
+
+My beloved Ernest! my darling Rosalie! how beautiful they both seem, in
+the beams of the setting sun, that are playing in glory round them! and
+how melodiously and pensively, yet grandly does the music of the
+murmuring waves harmonize with the minor tone of tenderness breathing in
+our hearts!
+
+We, too, are passing on in the procession of life, and the waves of time
+that are rolling behind us will wash away the print of our footsteps,
+and others will follow, and others still, but few will be tossed on
+stormier seas, or be anchored at last in a more blissful haven.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+T. B. PETERSON and BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.
+
+
+
+
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+
+Comprising the most entertaining and absorbing Works published, suitable
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+Orders solicited from Booksellers, Librarians, Canvassers, News Agents,
+and all others in want of good and fast selling books, which will be
+supplied at very Low Prices.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH'S WORKS.
+
+
+    Victor's Triumph
+    A Beautiful Fiend
+    The Artist's Love
+    A Noble Lord
+    Lost Heir of Linlithgow
+    Tried for her Life
+    Cruel as the Grave
+    The Maiden Widow
+    The Family Doom
+    Prince of Darkness
+    The Bride's Fate
+    The Changed Brides
+    How He Won Her
+    Fair Play
+    Fallen Pride
+    The Christmas Guest
+    The Widow's Son
+    The Bride of Llewellyn
+    The Fortune Seeker
+    The Fatal Marriage
+    The Deserted Wife
+    The Bridal Eve
+    The Lost Heiress
+    The Two Sisters
+    Lady of the Isle
+    The Three Beauties
+    Vivia; or the Secret of Power
+    The Missing Bride
+    Love's Labor Won
+    The Gipsy's Prophecy
+    Haunted Homestead
+    Wife's Victory
+    Allworth Abbey
+    The Mother-in-Law
+    Retribution
+    India; Pearl of Pearl River
+    Curse of Clifton
+    Discarded Daughter
+
+
+
+
+MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Bellehood and Bondage
+    The Old Countess
+    Lord Hope's Choice
+    The Reigning Belle
+    A Noble Woman
+    Palaces and Prisons
+    Married in Haste
+    Wives and Widows
+    Ruby Gray's Strategy
+    The Soldiers' Orphans
+    Silent Struggles
+    The Rejected Wife
+    The Wife's Secret
+    Mary Derwent
+    Fashion and Famine
+    The Curse of Gold
+    Mabel's Mistake
+    The Old Homestead
+    Doubly False
+    The Heiress
+    The Gold Brick
+
+
+
+
+MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ'S WORKS.
+
+
+    Ernest Linwood
+    The Planter's Northern Bride
+    Courtship and Marriage
+    Rena; or, the Snow Bird
+    Marcus Warland
+    Love after Marriage
+    Eoline; or Magnolia Vale
+    The Lost Daughter
+    The Banished Son
+    Helen and Arthur
+    Linda; or, the Young Pilot of the Belle Creole
+    Robert Graham; the Sequel to "Linda; or Pilot of Belle Creole"
+
+
+
+
+JAMES A. MAITLAND'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Watchman
+    The Wanderer
+    The Lawyer's Story
+    Diary of an Old Doctor
+    Sartaroe
+    The Three Cousins
+    The Old Patroon; or the Great Van Broek Property
+
+
+
+
+T. A. TROLLOPE'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Sealed Packet
+    Garstang Grange
+    Gemma
+    Leonora Casaloni
+    Dream Numbers
+    Marietta
+    Beppo, the Conscript
+
+
+
+
+FREDRIKA BREMER'S WORKS.
+
+
+    Father and Daughter
+    The Four Sisters
+    The Neighbors
+    The Home
+    Life in the Old World. In two volumes.
+
+
+
+
+MISS ELIZA A. DUPUY'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Hidden Sin
+    The Dethroned Heiress
+    The Gipsy's Warning
+    All For Love
+    The Mysterious Guest
+    Why Did He Marry Her?
+    Who Shall be Victor
+    Was He Guilty
+    The Cancelled Will
+    The Planter's Daughter
+    Michael Rudolph; or, the Bravest of the Brave
+
+
+
+
+EMERSON BENNETT'S WORKS.
+
+
+    The Border Rover
+    Clara Moreland
+    The Forged Will
+    Bride of the Wilderness
+    Ellen Norbury
+    Kate Clarendon
+    Viola; or Adventures in the Far South-West
+    The Heiress of Bellefonte
+    The Pioneer's Daughter
+
+
+
+
+DOESTICKS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Doesticks' Letters
+    Plu-Ri-Bus-Tah
+    The Elephant Club
+    Witches of New York
+
+
+
+
+WILKIE COLLINS' BEST WORKS.
+
+
+    Basil; or, The Crossed Path
+    The Dead Secret
+    Hide and Seek
+    After Dark
+    Miss or Mrs?
+    Mad Monkton
+    Sights a-Foot
+    The Stolen Mask
+    The Queen's Revenge
+    The Yellow Mask
+    Sister Rose
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES LEVER'S BEST WORKS.
+
+
+    Charles O'Malley
+    Harry Lorrequer
+    Jack Hinton
+    Tom Burke of Ours
+    Knight of Gwynne
+    Arthur O'Leary
+    Con Cregan
+    Davenport Dunn
+    Horace Templeton
+    Kate O'Donoghue
+    A Rent in a Cloud
+    St. Patrick's Eve
+    Ten Thousand a Year, in one volume
+    The Diary of a Medical Student, by author "Ten Thousand a Year"
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Great Expectations
+    Bleak House
+    Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Master Humphrey's Clock
+    American Notes; and the Uncommercial Traveller
+    Hunted Down; and other Reprinted Pieces
+    The Holly-Tree Inn; and other Stories
+    The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens
+    Our Mutual Friend
+    Pickwick Papers
+    Tale of Two Cities
+    Nicholas Nickleby
+    David Copperfield
+    Oliver Twist
+    Christmas Stories
+    Sketches by "Boz"
+    Barnaby Rudge
+    Martin Chuzzlewit
+    Old Curiosity Shop
+    Little Dorrit
+    Dombey and Son
+    Dickens' New Stories
+    Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Master Humphrey's Clock
+    American Notes; and the Uncommercial Traveller
+    Hunted Down: and other Reprinted Pieces
+    The Holly-Tree Inn; and other Stories
+    The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS' WORKS.
+
+
+    Mysteries Court of London
+    Rose Foster
+    Caroline of Brunswick
+    Venetia Trelawney
+    Lord Saxondale
+    Count Christoval
+    Rosa Lambert
+    Mary Price
+    Eustace Quentin
+    Joseph Wilmot
+    Banker's Daughter
+    Kenneth
+    The Rye-House Plot
+    The Necromancer
+    The Opera Dancer
+    Child of Waterloo
+    Robert Bruce
+    The Gipsy Chief
+    Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
+    Wallace, Hero of Scotland
+    Isabella Vincent
+    Vivian Bertram
+    Countess of Lascelles
+    Duke of Marchmont
+    Massacre of Glencoe
+    Loves of the Harem
+    The Soldier's Wife
+    May Middleton
+    Ellen Percy
+    Agnes Evelyn
+    Pickwick Abroad
+    Parricide
+    Discarded Queen
+    Life in Paris
+    Countess and the Page
+    Edgar Montrose
+    The Ruined Gamester
+    Clifford and the Actress
+    Queen Joanna; or the Mysteries of the Court of Naples
+    Ciprina; or, the Secrets of a Picture Gallery
+
+
+
+
+MISS PARDOE'S POPULAR WORKS.
+
+
+    Confessions of a Pretty Woman
+    The Wife's Trials
+    The Jealous Wife
+    The Rival Beauties
+    Romance of the Harem
+    The Adopted Heir
+    The Earl's Secret
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ernest Linwood, by Caroline Lee Hentz
+
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