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@@ -1,38 +1,4 @@
-The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Woman's Love, by Amelia Alderson Opie
-
-
-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: A Woman's Love
-
-
-Author: Amelia Alderson Opie
-
-
-
-Release Date: July 9, 2012  [eBook #40180]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S LOVE***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) from page
-images generously made available by the Google Books Library Project
-(http://books.google.com)
-
-
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40180 ***
 
 Note: Images of the original pages are available through
       the the Google Books Library Project. See
@@ -2000,10 +1966,10 @@ heartily."
 "Oh, yes!" said I, blushing, and looking very foolish, "only--"
 
 "Oh! Je comprends: apparemment c'est Mademoiselle qui ne veut pas qu'on
-rit devant elle. Hélas, belle Helène! il faut rire tant qu'on le peut,
-quand on a le bonheur de jouir souvent de votre aimable société; car il
-me semble qu'en ce cas là, on pourroit bien avoir raison de pleurer
-bientôt, et peut-être pour la vie."[3]
+rit devant elle. Hélas, belle Helène! il faut rire tant qu'on le peut,
+quand on a le bonheur de jouir souvent de votre aimable société; car il
+me semble qu'en ce cas là, on pourroit bien avoir raison de pleurer
+bientôt, et peut-être pour la vie."[3]
 
 [Footnote 3: Oh! I comprehend: you do not like any should laugh in your
 presence. Alas! beautiful Helen, one must laugh while one can, when one
@@ -2033,11 +1999,11 @@ accent which in him I have often thought an additional charm.
 "A kind-hearted man and a good Christian; for you returned good for
 evil, and repaid impertinence by making it the foundation of a
 compliment. Still, I must presume again, and tell you that I believe
-your laughs are like _jours de fête_; they do not come _every_ day."
+your laughs are like _jours de fête_; they do not come _every_ day."
 
-"Pour les jours de fête, non; ils ne me sont point venus tous les jours
-que depuis mon arrivée ici; mais à présent, Mademoiselle, tous les jours
-sont pour moi des jours de fête, et ma sainte est Sainte Helène."[5]
+"Pour les jours de fête, non; ils ne me sont point venus tous les jours
+que depuis mon arrivée ici; mais à présent, Mademoiselle, tous les jours
+sont pour moi des jours de fête, et ma sainte est Sainte Helène."[5]
 
 [Footnote 5: For holidays, no: they never came to me every day, till I
 came hither; but now, all days are holidays to me, and my saint is Saint
@@ -2058,7 +2024,7 @@ donc._"[6]
 pas les sentiments que je voudrais vous inspirer pour moi._"[7] As he
 said this, there was an expression in his dark eyes which made me turn
 mine away; and addressing my mother, I told her that our guest reminded
-me of a little French paper toy which I had seen, called _deux têtes
+me of a little French paper toy which I had seen, called _deux têtes
 sous un bonnet_; that at first view, it was a monk with a cowl on, but
 that when the cowl was thrown off, there was a gay and smiling young
 man. So it was with Mr. De Walden: when he first came, he seemed a grave
@@ -2068,9 +2034,9 @@ the first order.
 [Footnote 7: Oh, let them go away entirely! These are not the sentiments
 with which I wish to inspire you.]
 
-"De grâce, Mademoiselle, dites-moi lequel des deux caractères vous plait
-le plus; mais, ne me dites pas, je vous le demande en grâce, que je vous
-offense le moins dans mon rôle de philosophe; Hélas! auprès de vous qui
+"De grâce, Mademoiselle, dites-moi lequel des deux caractères vous plait
+le plus; mais, ne me dites pas, je vous le demande en grâce, que je vous
+offense le moins dans mon rôle de philosophe; Hélas! auprès de vous qui
 pourroit rester philosophe?"[8]
 
 [Footnote 8: In pity tell me, which of these two characters pleases you
@@ -2082,8 +2048,8 @@ characters of laugher and philosopher; and you, if you please, shall be
 the latter with my mother; you shall talk wisely and gravely with her,
 but laugh and talk nonsense now and then with me."
 
-"Vous convenez donc de la justice de ma proposition, qu'auprès de vous
-on ne peut être philosophe?"[9]
+"Vous convenez donc de la justice de ma proposition, qu'auprès de vous
+on ne peut être philosophe?"[9]
 
 [Footnote 9: You agree then to the justice of my proposition, that near
 you no one can remain a philosopher?]
@@ -3166,7 +3132,7 @@ could.
 have already conquered my horror at sight of your friend's face; and I
 see Mr. Pendarves has not only done the same, but I suspect he is
 meditating a drawing of it, to send to the Royal Society, as a _lusus
-naturæ_."
+naturæ_."
 
 In spite of himself, Seymour smiled at this speech, and replied, while I
 looked very foolish, that he was gazing at me with wonder, as he could
@@ -3579,362 +3545,4 @@ her consent, and in two months from that period we were MARRIED.
 Here ends my narrative of a WOMAN'S LOVE. When next I treat of it, it
 will be as united to a WIFE'S DUTY.
 
-
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-***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S LOVE***
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40180 ***
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-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
 <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Woman's Love, by Amelia Alderson Opie</title>
     <style type="text/css">
 
@@ -180,25 +180,9 @@ table {
     </style>
 </head>
 <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40180 ***</div>
 <h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Woman's Love, by Amelia Alderson Opie</h1>
-<p>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 <a
-href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
-<p>Title: A Woman's Love</p>
-<p>Author: Amelia Alderson Opie</p>
-<p>Release Date: July 9, 2012  [eBook #40180]</p>
-<p>Language: English</p>
-<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
-<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S LOVE***</p>
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
-<h4>E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan,<br />
-    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team<br />
-    (<a href="http://www.pgdpcanada.net">http://www.pgdpcanada.net</a>)<br />
-    from page images generously made available by the<br />
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 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 <table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
   <tr>
@@ -3753,360 +3737,6 @@ you no one can remain a philosopher?</p></div>
 
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
-<hr class="full" />
-<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S LOVE***</p>
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 </body>
 </html>
diff --git a/40180.txt b/40180.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 01479ed..0000000
--- a/40180.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3940 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Woman's Love, by Amelia Alderson Opie
-
-
-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: A Woman's Love
-
-
-Author: Amelia Alderson Opie
-
-
-
-Release Date: July 9, 2012  [eBook #40180]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S LOVE***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) from page
-images generously made available by the Google Books Library Project
-(http://books.google.com)
-
-
-
-Note: Images of the original pages are available through
-      the the Google Books Library Project. See
-      http://books.google.com/books?vid=r39ZsXIeqdUC&id
-
-
-
-
-
-THE WORKS OF MRS. AMELIA OPIE;
-
-Complete in Three Volumes.
-
-VOLUME III.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Philadelphia:
-Crissy & Markley, No. 4 Minor St.
-1848.
-
-Printed by T. K. & P. G. Collins.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS OF THIRD VOLUME.
-
-
-                                                                  PAGE
-
-    TEMPER                                                           5
-
-    A WOMAN'S LOVE                                                 175
-
-    A WIFE'S DUTY; being a continuation of a Woman's Love          209
-
-    THE TWO SONS                                                   269
-
-    THE OPPOSITE NEIGHBOUR                                         300
-
-    LOVE, MYSTERY, AND SUPERSTITION                                321
-
-    AFTER THE BALL; OR, THE TWO SIR WILLIAMS                       363
-
-    FALSE OR TRUE; OR, THE JOURNEY TO LONDON                       375
-
-    THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ODD-TEMPERED MAN                         394
-
-    ILLUSTRATIONS OF LYING, IN ALL ITS BRANCHES:
-
-    CHAP. I.--Introduction                                         414
-
-    CHAP. II.--On the Active and Passive Lies of Vanity--The
-               Stage Coach--Unexpected Discoveries                 415
-
-    CHAP. III.--On the Lies of Flattery--The Turban                427
-
-    CHAP. IV.--Lies of Fear--The Bank-Note                         431
-
-    CHAP. V.--Lies falsely called Lies of Benevolence--A
-              Tale of Potted Sprats--An Authoress and her
-              Auditors                                             434
-
-    CHAP. VI.--Lies of Convenience--Projects Defeated              437
-
-    CHAP. VII.--Lies of Interest--The Screen                       441
-
-    CHAP. VIII.--Lies of First-Rate Malignity--The Orphan          445
-
-    CHAP. IX.--Lies of Second-Rate Malignity--The Old
-               Gentleman and the Young One                         451
-
-    CHAP. X.--Lies of Benevolence--Mistaken Kindness--Father
-              and Son                                              455
-
-    CHAP. XI.--Lies of Wantonness and Practical Lies               465
-
-    CHAP. XII.--Our own Experience of the Painful Results
-                of Lying                                           467
-
-    CHAP. XIII.--Lying the most common of all Vices                470
-
-    CHAP. XIV.--Extracts from Lord Bacon, and others               471
-
-    CHAP. XV.--Observations on the Extracts from Hawkesworth
-               and others                                          478
-
-    CHAP. XVI.--Religion the only Basis of Truth                   480
-
-    CHAP. XVII.--The same subject continued                        491
-
-    Conclusion                                                     493
-
-
-
-
-A WOMAN'S LOVE, AND A WIFE'S DUTY.
-
-
-
-
-You command, and I obey: still, so conscious am I of the deceitfulness
-of the human heart, and especially of my own, that I am doubtful whether
-I am not following the dictates of self-love, when I seem to be actuated
-by friendship only; as you have repeatedly assured me, that the story of
-my life will not alone _amuse_ and _interest_ you, but also hold up to
-an injudicious and suffering friend of yours, a salutary example of the
-patient fulfilment of a _wife's duty_.
-
-There is something very gratifying to one's self-love, in being held up
-as an example: but _remember_, I beg, that while to oblige you I draw
-the veil from past occurrences, and live over again the most trying
-scenes of my life, I think myself more a warning than an example; and
-that, if I exhibit in any degree, that difficult and sometimes painful
-task--the fulfilment of a wife's duty--I at the same time exhibit the
-rash and dangerous fervour of a _Woman's Love_.
-
-I must begin my narrative, by a short account of my progenitors.
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION.
-
-
-My grandfather and the grandfather of Seymour Pendarves were brothers,
-and the younger sons of a gentleman of ancient family and large
-possessions in the county of Cornwall; some of whose paternal ancestors
-were amongst the first settlers in America. Disappointments, of which I
-never heard the detail, and dislike of their paternal home, determined
-these young men to leave their native country, and embark for the new
-world, where the family had still some land remaining, and on the
-improvement of which they determined to spend a sum of money which had
-been left them by a relation. They carried out with them, besides money,
-_enterprise_, _industry_, _integrity_, and _talents_. After they had
-been settled in Long Island three years, they found themselves rich
-enough to marry; and the beautiful daughters of an opulent American
-farmer became their wives.
-
-My grandfather had only one child--a son; but his brother had a large
-family, of whom, however, one only survived--a son also. These two
-cousins were brought up together, and were as much attached to each
-other as if they had been brothers.
-
-Never, as I have been told, was there a scene of greater domestic
-happiness, than my grandfather's house exhibited, till death deprived
-him of his beloved wife. He did not long survive her; and my uncle soon
-afterwards lost her equally-beloved sister, whose health had been
-destroyed, first by the fatigue of attendance on her sick children, and
-then by grief for their loss.
-
-George Pendarves, the sad survivor of so many dear ones, now lost his
-spirits--lost that energy which had so much distinguished him before;
-and he soon sunk under the cessation of those habits of exertion and
-temperance, which he had once practised, and, after two or three years
-of protracted suffering, died. Thus the two youthful cousins found
-themselves both orphans before they had reached the age of twenty.
-
-They had not inherited their parents' dislike of Europe. On the
-contrary, when their fathers imparted to them the learning and the
-elegant arts which they had acquired at the university, and in the
-society of England, they were impressed with respect and admiration for
-the sources whence such precious stores were derived, and resolved to
-enter themselves at an English college.
-
-Accordingly, having put a confidential agent into their farms, they set
-sail for the land of their ancestors, and arrived at PENDARVES CASTLE,
-the seat of their eldest paternal uncle, who had come into possession of
-the estates on the death of his father.
-
-At this time, my mother and Lady Helen Seymour, the daughter of Lord
-Seymour, were both on a visit there. The young Americans had now been
-some months expected, and their relations had long been amusing
-themselves with conjecturing what these SAVAGES (as they fancied them)
-would be like; while they anticipated much pleasure from beholding their
-surprise at manners, scenes, and accommodations, so different from their
-own. Nor was my mother, though she was their relation, and herself a
-Pendarves, less forward than her friend Lady Helen to hold up these
-strangers in a ridiculous view to her imagination, and to express an
-unbenevolent eagerness for the arrival of the _Yankees_.
-
-At length, they came; and it was on the evening of a ball, given by Mr.
-Pendarves, to celebrate the birth-day of his wife. The dance was begun
-before they arrived; and their uncle was called out of the room to
-receive them. He went with a heart warmed with fraternal affection,
-and yearning towards the representatives of his regretted brothers:
-but the emotion became overpowering when he beheld them; for those
-well-remembered brothers seemed to stand before him in improved
-loftiness of stature, dignity of person, and beauty of feature. From
-their mothers, they had inherited that loveliness and symmetry, which so
-peculiarly distinguish American women; and in stature they towered even
-above their father's family.
-
-The young men, at the same time, were considerably affected at sight of
-Mr. Pendarves, as he reminded them strongly of their parents. While
-these endearing recollections were uppermost in their minds, Mr.
-Pendarves at first wholly forgot how different his nephews were from the
-pictures his laughter-loving family had delighted to draw of them. But
-when he did recollect it, he enjoyed the idea of the surprise which
-their appearance would occasion.
-
-Their dress, as well as their manners, bespoke them perfect gentlemen;
-but their hair was not yet spoiled by compliance with the fashion of
-England at that period; for it curled, uncontaminated by powder, in
-glossy clustering ringlets on their open brows.
-
-Such were the young men who now followed Mr. Pendarves to the apartment
-in which his lady received her guests.
-
-"Dear me! how surprising!" cried that lady, who was very pretty, very
-volatile, and very apt to think aloud. "Are these the Yankees? Why, I
-protest they look more like Christians than savages, and are like other
-people, except that they are much handsomer than other people."
-
-This last part of her speech made some amends for the first part; but
-had she been of a contrary opinion, Mrs. Pendarves would have uttered
-it; and the glow of indignation on their cheek was succeeded by that of
-gratified vanity, for their hostess added to her compliment, by asking
-Mr. Pendarves if he was not quite proud of his nephews.
-
-He replied in the affirmative, declaring himself impatient to show them
-to the assembled family. It was therefore with cheeks dyed with becoming
-blushes, and eyes sparkling with delight at the flattering welcome which
-they had received, that they followed their uncle to the ball-room, but
-at his desire they stopped within the folding-doors, whence they
-surveyed the gay groups before them. Mr. Pendarves made his way amongst
-the dancers, and accosting his guest, Lady Helen Seymour, and Julia
-Pendarves, his niece, told them they must leave the dance a little
-while, for he must present to them the _Yankees_, who were just arrived.
-
-"I will come as soon as I have been down the dance," they both
-exclaimed. "But how unfortunate they should come to-night! for what can
-we do with them in a fine party like this? because," said Julia, "though
-they may do to laugh at in our own family circle, one should not like to
-see one's relations supply subjects for laughter to other people."
-
-The dance was now beginning, and Mr. Pendarves, smiling sarcastically as
-he listened to his niece, allowed her to dance to the bottom of it,
-secretly resolving that she should now _ask_ him for that introduction
-which she had thus delayed; and in the meanwhile he amused himself with
-watching for the first moment when Lady Helen and Julia should discover
-the two strangers, which he knew they could not fail to do, as the dance
-down which they were now going, fronted the folding-doors.
-
-Mr. Pendarves did not watch long in vain; Lady Helen and her companion
-saw them at the same instant, and were so struck with their appearance,
-that they were out in the figure, and wondered to their partners, who
-those strangers could be.
-
-"I cannot think," replied one of the gentlemen; "but they look like
-brothers, and are the finest and handsomest men I ever saw."
-
-"Julia," whispered Lady Helen, "Is it possible these can be your Yankee
-cousins? If so, I am so ashamed."
-
-"And so am I; and do look at my uncle, he is laughing at us."
-
-"Oh, it must be they, I am so shocked!"
-
-When they reached the bottom of the dance, they vainly looked towards
-Mr. Pendarves; he cruelly kept aloof. The strangers turned, however,
-eagerly round at hearing some one behind them address another by the
-name of Miss Pendarves.
-
-Their glowing cheeks, their animated looks, were not lost on their
-equally conscious observers, and Mr. Pendarves now good-naturedly came
-forward to put a stop to this embarrassing dumb show, by presenting the
-cousins to each other, and then introducing them to Lady Helen.
-
-You remember my mother, and you have seen a picture of Lady Helen; you
-will not wonder, therefore, that the sudden admiration which Lady Helen
-felt that evening for George Pendarves, and my mother for Charles, was
-as warmly returned. It even seemed that their attachment foreran that of
-their lovers, for the cousins went to college without disclosing their
-love. On their return, however, finding the dangerous objects whom they
-meant to avoid still at Pendarves, they ventured to make their
-proposals; and unsanctioned by parental authority, Lady Helen and my
-mother accepted the vows of their lovers, and pledged theirs in return.
-
-I shall pass over the consequent misery which they underwent, and simply
-state that the two friends were at last so hurried away by their
-romantic affection, that they allowed the cousins to carry them to
-Gretna Green; and that after the ceremony they embarked from the nearest
-Scotch port for America.
-
-At first Lady Helen was too happy in the new ties which she had formed,
-to feel much sorrow or much compunction when she remembered those which
-she had broken. But when she became a parent herself, and learnt the
-feelings of a mother, she thought with agonizing regret on the pains
-which she had inflicted on her own, and in the bitterness of awakened
-remorse, she supplicated to be forgiven. The answer to this letter was
-sealed with black, and was in the hand of her father! It was as follows:
-
-     "Your mother is dead, and it was your disobedience which killed
-     her. Expect, therefore, no forgiveness from me.
-
-     "SEYMOUR."
-
-A fever of the brain was the consequence of this terrible stroke, and
-her life was despaired of. In the agonies therefore of anxious
-affection, George Pendarves wrote to Lord Seymour, retorting on him his
-own blow, for he told him that his letter had _killed Lady Helen_.
-
-The wretched husband inflicted as much pain as he intended; for Lady
-Helen, however faulty, was Lord Seymour's _favourite_ child--his only
-daughter; and the next letters from America were expected with trembling
-anxiety. The information, therefore, that Lady Helen was better, was
-_received_ with gratitude, though it did not procure an offer of
-forgiveness.
-
-My mother, though not quite such a culprit as Lady Helen, because she
-was one of many daughters, left an aged grandmother and an affectionate
-uncle with whom she lived; but the former pronounced her forgiveness
-before she breathed her last, and suffered the will to remain in force
-in which he had left her a handsome legacy. Nor was her uncle himself
-slow to pronounce her pardon. She therefore had no drawbacks on her
-felicity but the sight of Lady Helen's constant dejection, which was so
-great that my father thought it right to make an effort to procure her
-the comfort of Lord Seymour's pardon.
-
-The troubles in America were now on the eve of breaking out, for it was
-the year 1772; and the joy of my birth was considerably damped to my
-affectionate parents by the increasing agitation of the country. But
-George Pendarves was too miserable and too indignant to write himself;
-he therefore gladly deputed my father to write for him. While they were
-impatiently awaiting the reply, they both busied themselves in politics,
-in order to escape from domestic uneasiness; and though undetermined
-which side to take, they were considerably inclined to espouse the cause
-of the mother country, when Lord Seymour's answer arrived, in which he
-offered Lady Helen and her husband his entire forgiveness, on condition
-that the latter took part against the rebels, as he called them, and
-accepted a commission in the English army, which would soon be joined by
-his son, Colonel Seymour.
-
-It is impossible to say which at this trying moment was the governing
-motive of George Pendarves,--whether it was chiefly political
-conviction, or whether he was influenced insensibly by the wish of
-conciliating his father-in-law, in order to restore peace to the mind of
-the woman whom he adored; but certain it is that this letter hastened
-his decision, and that my father, who loved him as a brother, coincided
-with him in that decision, and resolved to share his destiny.
-
-Accordingly, both the cousins _accepted_ commissions in the British
-army; and when Colonel Seymour met his brother-in-law at head-quarters,
-he presented to him a letter from his father, containing a fervent
-blessing for Lady Helen and himself.
-
-The husband and the brother soon after obtained permission to visit the
-one his wife, and the other his sister; and something resembling peace
-of mind, on one subject at least, returned to the patient Lady Helen,
-while with a mother's pride she put into the arms of her brother her
-only child, Seymour Pendarves, to whom, unpermitted, she had given the
-name of her family, and who was then seven years old. But now a _new_
-source of anxiety was opened upon her. Her husband was become a soldier,
-and she had to fear for his life; nor was she in a state to follow him
-to battle, as she would otherwise have done, because she had lately been
-confined with a dead child. My mother was in this respect more
-fortunate; for she was able to accompany her husband to the seat of war,
-and she persisted to do so, though both my father and his cousin
-earnestly wished her to stay with Lady Helen and myself, I being at that
-period only two years old.
-
-But my mother had set up her husband as the only idol whom she was
-called upon to worship, and before that idol she bowed down in
-singleness of adoration; nor could the inconvenience to which her
-resolution exposed him at all shake her constancy. She was equally
-insensible also to the anxiety which her leaving Lady Helen at such a
-time occasioned, both to the husband and the brother of that amiable
-being.
-
-The reply of, "It is my duty to accompany my husband as long as I can,"
-silenced all objections from others, and all the whisperings of her own
-affectionate heart; and she tore herself away, though not without
-considerable pain, from the embrace of her friend, and committed me to
-her maternal care.
-
-Dreadful was the moment of separation between Lady Helen and her
-husband: but the former bore it better than the latter; for, as her mind
-was impressed with the idea that she had deserved her afflictions, she
-believed that by patient submission to the divine will, she could alone
-show her sense of the error which she had committed. Yet, independently
-of the violence thus done to the enjoyment of affections, it was
-impossible for a feeling heart and a reflective mind to contemplate that
-awful moment without agony--that moment, when brother was about to arm
-against brother--when men speaking the same language, and hitherto
-considering themselves as subjects of the same king, were marching in
-dread array against each other, and breathing the vows of vengeance
-against those endeared to them perhaps by habits of social intercourse
-and the interchange of good offices. Such was the scene now exhibited at
-Lexington, in the April of 1775; for there the _first_ blood was spilt
-in the American contest.
-
-In that hour of deadly strife, my mother's trial was not equal to Lady
-Helen's; for she could linger around the fatal field, she could ask
-questions of stragglers from the army, and her daily suspense would end
-with every day; while other anxious wives around her, by sharing,
-soothed her uneasiness. But Lady Helen was in a sick chamber, surrounded
-by servants and by objects of interest which only served to heighten her
-distress; for, as she gazed upon her son and her charge, she knew not
-but that she was gazing at that moment upon fatherless orphans. There is
-certainly no comparison in strength between the uneasiness which can
-vent itself in _exertion_, and that which is obliged by circumstances to
-remain in _inaction_.
-
-But not at the battle of Lexington was the heart of Lady Helen doomed to
-bleed. Her husband escaped unwounded, and once more he returned to her
-and to his children. The interview was indeed short, but it was a source
-of comfort to Lady Helen, which ended but with her life. His looks--his
-words of love during that meeting, were treasured up with even a miser's
-care; for, after their parting embrace--after that happy interview, they
-_never met more_.
-
-George Pendarves fell in the next decisive battle, which was fought near
-his residence. By desire of his afflicted brother, the body was conveyed
-to his own house, which was near to that of the unconscious widow. The
-bearers mistook their orders, and conveyed it home. Lady Helen, who was
-at that moment teaching me my letters, after having set Seymour his
-lesson, broke off to listen to an unusual noise of feet in the hall;
-then gently opening the door, she leaned over the baluster to discover
-the cause. Young as I was, never can I forget the shriek she uttered,
-which told she had _discovered it_! while, wildly rushing down stairs,
-she threw herself upon the bloody corse. We, echoing her cry, followed
-her in helpless terror; but fear and horror were my only feelings. Poor
-Seymour, on the contrary, was old enough to take in the extent of the
-misery, and I yet hear his fond and fruitless exclamations of "Papa!
-dear papa!" and his vain, but still repeated supplication, that he would
-open his eyes and speak to him.
-
-Lady Helen now neither screamed, nor spoke, nor wept; but she sat in the
-_silent desolation_ of her soul on the couch by the body of Pendarves,
-with eyes as fixed and even as rayless as his. There was a something in
-this still grief which seemed to awe the by-standers into stillness
-also. No hand was lifted to remove _her_ from the _body_, nor the _body_
-from _her_. The only sounds of life were the _sobs of Seymour_, for my
-cries had been checked by alarm and the groans of the compassionate
-witnesses, or the grief of the servants. But this state of feeling could
-not last long, and I remember that Seymour destroyed it; for, looking
-terrified by his mother's changed countenance, he threw his arms
-passionately around her, conjuring her not to look so terribly, but to
-take him on her lap, and speak to him. The attendants now came up to
-take her away; but she resisted all their efforts with the violence of
-frenzy, till she sank exhausted into their arms, and could resist no
-longer. The month that ensued was a blank in the existence of Lady
-Helen: that pressure on the brain from which she had suffered so much
-before returned, and delirium, ending in insensibility, ensued. When
-consciousness was restored, her feelings of humble piety and deep
-contrition returned with it, and kissing the rod which had chastised
-her, she resolved for our sakes to struggle with her grief, and enter
-again upon a life of usefulness.
-
-My father meanwhile fought, and my mother followed his fortunes. Once he
-was brought wounded to his tent, and she was allowed to nurse him till
-he recovered. After that, she had to cross the country, and endure
-incredible hardships; but her husband lived, and hardships seemed
-nothing to her.
-
-During this time--a period of two years--I have heard Seymour Pendarves
-say, that he dreaded his mother's receiving a letter from the army,
-because it made her so wretched. He used to call my father and mother
-uncle and aunt; and when, in seeing her affliction, he asked her whether
-uncle Pendarves was shot, or aunt Pendarves ill, she was accustomed to
-reply, "No--they are indeed sufferers, but have much to be thankful for;
-for _he lives_, they are _together_, and SHE IS HAPPY!"
-
-In the October of 1777, the British army, commanded by General Burgoyne,
-under whom my father now served, and held a major's commission, were
-obliged to lay down their arms at Saratoga--yet not before my father had
-been severely wounded, and taken prisoner. This was a new trial to my
-mother's constancy; but her courage and her perseverance seemed to
-increase with the necessity for them; and had she wanted any other
-incitement to fortitude than her conjugal affection and her sense of
-duty, she would have found it in the splendid example of Lady Harriet
-Ackland, whose difficulties and dangers, in the performance of a wife's
-extremest duty, will ever form a brilliant page in the annals of English
-history.
-
-Some of the dangers and many of the difficulties of Lady Harriet, had
-been endured by my mother, but had ended in her being allowed to share
-the prison of my father; when, on the surrender of General Burgoyne's
-army, the officers were allowed to return on their parole to England.
-
-My father, therefore, was glad to hasten to that spot from choice, to
-which he might be ultimately driven by necessity; and my mother, who
-never liked America, was rejoiced to return to the dear land of her
-birth. Lady Helen, meanwhile, had undergone another sorrow; but one
-which, during its progress, had given a new interest to life. Her
-brother, Colonel Seymour, had been desperately wounded at the beginning
-of the year 1777, and had been conveyed in a litter to the house of his
-widowed sister.
-
-Had the wounds of Lady Helen's heart ever been entirely closed, this
-circumstance would have opened them afresh. "So," she was heard to say,
-"would I have nursed and watched over my husband, and tried to restore
-him to life; but to go _at once_--no _warning_--no _preparation_! But
-God's will be done!" And then she used to resume her quiet seat by the
-bedside of her brother; whom, however, neither skill nor tenderness
-could restore. He died in her arms, blessing her with his last breath.
-
-Colonel Seymour was only a younger brother; but having married an
-heiress, who died soon after, leaving no child, and bequeathing him in
-fee her large fortune, he was a rich man. This fortune, as soon as he
-was able to hold his pen, he bequeathed equally between his sister, Lady
-Helen, and her son, desiring also that his remains might be sent to
-England to be interred in the family vault of his wife.
-
-I was five years old, when my father and mother returned to us, to
-prepare for their departure to England, and to prevail on Lady Helen to
-accompany them; and I have a perfect recollection of my feelings at that
-moment--or rather, I should say, of my first seeing them; for Seymour
-and I were both in bed when they arrived. I have heard since, that my
-father's resemblance to his brother awoke in Lady Helen remembrance even
-to agony, and that he was not much less affected. I also heard that my
-mother soon hastened to gaze upon her sleeping child, and to enjoy the
-luxury of being a parent, after having been so long engrossed by the
-duty of a wife; for, though she had been confined once during her
-perils, her confinement had not added to her family.
-
-The next morning, I remember to have felt a joy--I could not tell
-why--at hearing that my father and mother were come, and that I was both
-pleased and pained when Seymour ran into the nursery, screaming out,
-"Oh, Ellen! my uncle and aunt are come, and I have seen them; but they
-are very ill-looking, poor souls! and my uncle is so lame!"
-
-"Ill-looking, and my papa lame!" thought I. It was with difficulty the
-nurse could prevail on me to obey the summons; and I behaved so ill
-when I got to their bedside, that they were glad to send me away. It was
-impossible that I could know either of them, they were really so pale
-and haggard through fatigue and suffering; and I shrunk frightened and
-averse from their embraces.
-
-True, the name of mother was associated in my mind with all that I best
-loved, for by that name I called Lady Helen. But why did I so? Because
-she had been to me the tenderest of guardians, and had fulfilled the
-duty which my real parent had been forced to resign. On returning to the
-nursery, I found Lady Helen, to whom I clung in an agony of tears,
-satisfied that _she_ was my _own dear mamma_.
-
-But when my father and mother were seated at the breakfast-table, and
-gave me some of the nice things set before them, I became less averse to
-their caresses, and before the day was over, I consented to have one
-papa and two mammas, while Seymour assured me he thought my papa, though
-_ill_, very handsome, and like his own poor papa.
-
-At first, Lady Helen shrunk from the idea of returning to England; but
-she at length consented, from consideration of the superior advantages
-which her two young charges would receive from an English education, and
-as it was evidently in conformity to her brother's intention.
-Accordingly, in the beginning of the year 1779, we arrived at Liverpool,
-bringing with us the bodies of Colonel Seymour and George Pendarves.
-
-Well was it for Lady Helen that we reached the inn at Liverpool at
-night, and that she had some hours of refreshing slumber, to prepare her
-for the surprise which awaited her the next day. While she and my
-parents were at breakfast the following morning, and Seymour and I were
-amusing ourselves with looking out at the window, we saw a very elegant
-carriage drive up to the door: our exclamations called Lady Helen to us.
-
-"What are those pretty things painted on the sides, mamma?" asked
-Seymour.
-
-"An earl's coronet, and supporters to the arms, my dear!" repeated Lady
-Helen in a faint voice, and suddenly retreating, as she saw there were
-gentlemen in the carriage, who looked up, on hearing the children's
-voices. It was her father's.
-
-Nor had time, suffering, and sickness so altered her beautiful features
-as to render them irrecognizable by a father's heart. Catching the arm
-of Lord Mountgeorge, his son, who was with him, Lord Seymour exclaimed--
-
-"O Frederic! surely I have beheld your sister!" and with trembling limbs
-he alighted, and reached the rooms bespoken for him.
-
-He was on his way from London to the seat of a gentleman near Liverpool,
-from whose house he was to proceed to his own place in the North.
-
-He now sent for the landlord, and begged to know if there were not some
-American strangers in the house; and on receiving from him a
-confirmation of his suspicions, he desired one of the waiters to tell
-Major Pendarves that a gentleman begged to see him.
-
-On entering the room, Major Pendarves took in silence the hand which the
-agitated earl in silence tendered to him. The past and the present
-rushed over the minds of both; while Lord Mountgeorge, whose emotion was
-less violent, begged the major to prepare his sister to receive them.
-
-In the meanwhile, Lord Seymour, with his heart full of his lost son,
-surveyed with respectful pity the faded cheek and altered form of the
-once-blooming Charles Pendarves.
-
-"You did not look thus when we last met," said he; "but you have
-suffered in a noble cause, and you have only lost your _health_."
-
-Here the lip of the bereaved parent quivered with agitation, and Lord
-Mountgeorge turned mournfully away.
-
-My father then rejoined his party with evident agitation.
-
-"What new sorrow awaits me?" cried Lady Helen; "for I see it is for me
-you are affected, not for yourself."
-
-"No, my friend; these tears are tears of emotion, but of pleasure also."
-
-"Pleasure!"
-
-"Yes: Lord Seymour and your brother are in the next room, and eagerly
-long to see you."
-
-The feelings which now strove for victory in Lady Helen's breast were
-too much for her weakened frame to support; and shuddering and panting,
-she caught hold of my mother to save herself from falling, while the
-scream of the terrified Seymour, as he beheld her nearly fainting on the
-sofa, was heard by the anxious expectants, who hastily entered the room.
-
-Lady Helen, who had not lost her senses, instantly sunk on one knee
-before her agitated parent, and pushing her son toward him, desired him
-to plead for his unhappy mother.
-
-"Helen!" cried Lord Seymour, in a voice broken by sobs, "you need no
-advocate but my own heart!" and Lady Helen was once more clasped to his
-bosom.
-
-"And is this fine creature my grandson?" said he, gazing with delight on
-Seymour, while he kissed his open forehead; then seating himself by his
-daughter on the sofa, while Lord Mountgeorge sat by her on the other
-side, he drew the wondering boy to his knee.
-
-My father now presented my mother and myself to Lord Seymour.
-
-"I am disappointed," said he, civilly: "I hoped, Mrs. Pendarves, that
-this lovely girl was my grandchild also."
-
-This was enough to conciliate my young heart; and I wondered to myself,
-I remember, why my Lady mamma should have seemed so sorry at seeing such
-a good-natured old gentleman; nor could I conceive why Lord Seymour, as
-he kept looking on Lady Helen, should shed so many tears.
-
-"My poor Helen!" cried he, "your face tells a tale of sad suffering--and
-Augustus, too--both gone! But they fought bravely."
-
-"Ay--but they _died_!" cried Lady Helen, clasping her hands
-convulsively.
-
-"And they shall both have a magnificent monument erected to their
-memory, my child," cried Lord Seymour.
-
-Lady Helen looked gratefully up in her father's face, as he said this.
-
-Lord Seymour now wrote to his friend, to say that he and his son were
-prevented paying him the promised visit; and the next day we all set
-forward for the seat of Lord Seymour.
-
-I forbear to describe poor Lady Helen's feelings when we reached Seymour
-Park, and what she endured, when she visited, at her own family vault,
-the remains of her beloved mother, after she had seen her husband and
-brother interred in that of the _latter_. But she had the consolation of
-knowing that Lord Seymour's resentment had made him unjust, as a mortal
-malady had long been preying on her existence.
-
-Having only visited Seymour Park in order to witness the funeral
-solemnities, my father and mother soon took their leave, and, to my
-great agony, insisted that I should accompany them on their projected
-visit to Pendarves Castle, and also to my grandfather and grandmother;
-and I well recollect the violent sorrow which I experienced when I was
-torn from Seymour and Lady Helen. I was told, however, that I should
-certainly come back to them, and not soon leave them again; and that
-pacified me. Indeed, it was my father's intention to settle near Lady
-Helen Pendarves, who meant to fit up a cottage in her park for their
-residence.
-
-When my father and his cousin first came over to England, they had found
-some property due to them in right of their father's will. This property
-was vested in the English funds, and there it had remained untouched,
-both principal and interest, for eight years. During this period, it had
-accumulated so much as to be sufficient for us to live upon, should the
-event of the war be such as to cause the confiscation of our American
-estates; and my mother had also to receive the legacy bequeathed by her
-grandmother. Their present enjoyment, therefore, was not clouded over
-(to my parents) by the fear of pecuniary distress; and after their first
-arrival at Pendarves Castle, (that scene so fraught with grief in its
-results to friends most dear to them,) they looked forward with joyful
-anticipations to the future.
-
-They were speedily joined there by my mother's uncle and her parents.
-Thither, too, Lady Helen had at last resolution to venture also; and I
-was again united to my brother Seymour, as I always called him.
-
-On leaving her carriage, Lady Helen desired to be shown to my mother's
-apartment, in order to recover herself before she saw the rest of the
-family; for she dreaded to encounter the thoughtless Mrs. Pendarves, who
-would say things that wounded the feelings in the most susceptible part.
-
-On the third day, while she was administering a nervous medicine to her
-widowed guest, she could not help exclaiming,
-
-"Poor dear! what will all the physic in the world do for you, cousin
-Helen? as the man says in the play--
-
-    'What can minister to a mind diseased?'
-
-And--
-
-    'Give physic to the dogs.'"
-
-Here my mother, with a pathetic look, motioned her to be silent--but in
-vain.
-
-"Nay, my dear Julia!" said she, "I must speak: my dear cousin Helen will
-not know else how I have cried and lain awake all night with thinking of
-her miseries."
-
-"She does not doubt your kind sympathy, dear aunt--she does not,
-indeed!"
-
-"But she cannot be sure of it, Mrs. Charles, unless I tell her of it,
-and tell her
-
-    'I cannot. But remember, such folks were,
-    And were most dear to all.'
-
-Oh! he had
-
-    ----'An eye like Mars!'
-
-and that is quite appropriate, you know, as he died in battle. I mean
-your poor husband, poor George Pendarves! not your brother--I never saw
-him."
-
-My mother looked aghast. Since the death of George Pendarves, no one had
-ever ventured to name him to Lady Helen;
-
-    "But fools rush in where angels dare not tread."
-
-And Lady Helen hid her face in agonizing surprise on my mother's
-shoulder.
-
-"Ah! one may see by your eyes that you have shed many tears. Why, they
-tell me you never knew what had happened till you saw the poor dear love
-lying dead and bleeding. There was a shock! Oh! how I pity you, dearest
-soul! I have often thought it was a mercy that you did not fall over the
-balusters, and break your neck!"
-
-"It broke my heart!" screamed out Lady Helen, in the voice of frenzy,
-unable to support any longer the horrible picture thus coarsely brought
-before her; and in another moment the house resounded with her
-hysterical cries; while Mrs. Pendarves added, she could not but think
-Lady Helen was very bad still, as she could not bear to be pitied;
-though pity was said to be very soothing--and though she,
-
-    ----"Like pity on one side,
-    Her grief-subduing voice applied."
-
-As my mother expected, Lady Helen now conceived a terror of Mrs.
-Pendarves, which nothing could conquer; and her health became so
-visibly worse, that she quitted the place the following week,
-accompanied by my father and mother, and my mother's uncle, to London,
-leaving Seymour and myself behind, to be spoiled by our too-indulgent
-relatives.
-
-In a short time, my father and mother had settled their pecuniary
-concerns, and purchased furniture for their new habitation, of which
-they now hastened to take possession; and there we soon joined them.
-
-I have detailed thus minutely the sentiments and sorrows of those with
-whom my earliest years were passed, as I believe that by them my
-character was in a great measure determined; and that I owe the merit
-which you attribute to me, and the crimes of which I am conscious, to
-having been the pupil of _Lady Helen_, and the daughter of _Julia_
-Pendarves.
-
-The next three years passed quietly away; but my parents observed with
-pain that Lady Helen's visits to Seymour Park became more and more
-frequent, though Lord Seymour had married a young wife before his
-daughter's return, who was jealous to excess of Lady Helen's influence
-over her lord, and that she had evidently lost much of her enjoyment of
-their society. The truth was, that though Lady Helen did not envy the
-happiness of my parents, it was not always that she could bear to
-witness it; because it recalled painfully to her mind the period of her
-life when _she was equally_ happy; and she had no longer that sympathy
-with my mother which is the foundation and the cement of friendly
-intercourse; so true is it, that _equality of prosperity_, like
-_equality of situation_, is necessary to give _stability_ to friendship.
-My mother, though she felt this, was too delicate openly to repine.
-
-My intercourse with her, and the benefit which I derived from her
-instructions, remained the same, for I was always allowed to accompany
-Lady Helen to Seymour Park.
-
-But, alas! the tide of sympathy towards my poor mother, which had been
-checked in Lady Helen's bosom by happiness, now flowed again with
-increased fulness, when she was summoned to console her under a sorrow
-kindred with her own.
-
-My father had been saved from the dangers of war, to perish at home by a
-_violent death_. He was thrown from his horse, struck his head against a
-stone, and died upon the spot.
-
-Lady Helen having removed her to her own house, devoted her whole
-attention to the offices of a comforter. In proportion as my poor
-mother's sense of happiness had been keen, her sense of privation was
-overwhelming.
-
-But, so curiously, so mercifully are we fashioned, that we are sometimes
-able to derive medicine for our suffering from its very excess.
-
-My mother was, as you well know, a woman of _high aspirings_, and loved
-to be pre-eminent in all things. She was proud of her conjugal love; she
-was proud of the dangers which she had dared under its influence, and
-of the sufferings to which she rose superior, to prove the tender excess
-of that love; she was proud, also, of her good fortune, in having her
-husband's life so long preserved to her, and she gloried in his devoted
-and faithful affection. But now of this idolized husband she was
-bereaved in a moment, and without any alleviating circumstances.
-
-Soothing, though painful, are the tears which we shed for those who fall
-in battle; and sweet, "like music in the dead of night," heard after
-distressing dreams, or while we are kept waking by mournful realities,
-falls the sound of a _nation's regret_ on the ear of those who weep over
-a _departed hero_.
-
-But my father died _ingloriously_, and YET my mother felt pride derived
-from that _very source_, for it made her, in her own estimation,
-_pre-eminent_ in trial; for how hard was it, after having shared her
-husband's dangers, and the struggles of war, to see him perish at home,
-the victim of an ignoble accident!
-
-"Had he died in the field of glory, I might have found," she cried,
-"some solace in his renown; and I was prepared to see him fall, when
-others fell around him. But to perish _thus_! oh! never was woman's
-trial so severe!"
-
-And thus, while descanting on the pre-eminence of her misfortunes, she
-got rid of much of their severity.
-
-You remember with what eloquence my mother used to describe what she had
-endured in America; you have also, I believe, heard her speak of the
-manner of my poor father's death: but you never heard what I have often
-listened to, with the pity which I could not utter, Lady Helen's
-assertion of her _own_ trying sorrow, when my mother had harrowed up her
-feelings by the painful comparison.
-
-"You may remember, that _you_ were happy _many years_: but I" (here
-tears choked her voice) "remember, that while you were allowed to prove
-your love by soothing the sufferings of the being whom you adored, and
-had his smile to reward you, I was forced to prove mine only in the
-privacy of solitary and almost maddening recollections. Till recently,
-_you_ have never known a _real affliction_, and I--oh! when have I _for
-years_ experienced an enjoyment?"
-
-This language used to _silence_, if it did not _convince_ my mother.
-
-But however they might dispute on the superiority of their trials, they
-loved each other the better for them, and were now scarcely ever
-separated.
-
-Hence, Seymour and I were in a measure educated together, till it was
-judged fit that he should go to a public school. This painful trial was
-imposed on Lady Helen by her relations, and approved by her own judgment
-against the suggestions of her feelings; when I was eleven, and Seymour
-near fifteen years old; and when our mothers (as I was not long in
-discovering) had projected a union between us, and had promised each
-other to do all they could to ensure it.
-
-Thus ends my _Introduction_.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Here begins, my dear friend,
-
-
-     THE HISTORY OF SEYMOUR AND HELEN PENDARVES.
-
-Forgive me, if I introduce my narrative with a very vulgar but a most
-excellent proverb--which is, that "Little pitchers have wide ears;" or,
-that children hear many things which they ought not to hear, and which
-they were certainly not intended to hear. Now, to illustrate the truth
-of this proverb, and this explanation of it.
-
-It certainly could not be the intention of two such sensible women that
-I should know I was designed for the wife of Seymour Pendarves; and yet
-they talked of their plans so openly before me, that I was perfectly
-mistress of their designs; and that precocity of mind which they had
-often remarked in me was increased so much by this consciousness, that
-while they fancied I was thinking on my doll or my baby-house, I was in
-reality meditating on my destined husband, till my heart was prepared to
-receive the passion of love at an age when it would have been better for
-me to have been ignorant of its existence. And this passion I was
-authorized to feel, and for a most engaging object! I leave you to judge
-how pleasant I found this permission--how much, young as I was, the idea
-of Seymour Pendarves now mixed itself with every thing I thought, and
-did, and said. Small was the chance, therefore, that even my highly
-honoured mother could ever succeed in changing the bent of those
-inclinations which she had herself given in the pliant hours of
-childhood and earliest youth.
-
-It was some time before Lady Helen recovered her spirits, after the
-departure of her son. I also gave myself the air of being very dejected;
-but as with me it was the season of "the tear forgot as soon as shed,"
-and of the preponderating influence of animal spirits, I bounded over
-the lawn as usual, after the first three days were gone by, and at
-length won Lady Helen from her reveries and her gloom; but I had the
-satisfaction of hearing the mothers say to each other,
-
-"What sensibility! She really seemed to regret his absence with a
-sentimental dejection unusual at those years."
-
-This idea, so flattering to my self-love, I took care to keep alive, by
-frequently inquiring how long it was to the Christmas vacation; and when
-that long-expected time arrived, and I found it settled that Lady Helen
-should meet her son at Lord Seymour's in London, and spend the holidays
-with him there, I gave way to the most violent lamentations, declaring
-that she should not go without me. Nor in this instance did I at all
-exaggerate my feelings of disappointment; for Seymour's absence made a
-sad void in my amusements, and I had looked forward to his return with
-the sincerest satisfaction. But my entreaties and my expostulations were
-equally vain.
-
-Seymour, however, wrote to me twice at least from London. These letters
-I treasured up with the fondest care, and read them once every day;
-though I could not but think there was not quite love enough in them,
-and that I was too big to be called little Helen, and to be told by my
-correspondent that he blew me a kiss. I remember, also, that when I
-showed my mother my answers, which were those of a little old woman, and
-not of an artless girl, she used to say,
-
-"I wonder where the child got those ideas."
-
-When the holidays were over, Lady Helen returned, and brought me a
-beautiful writing-box, as a present from her son, with a guitar, as a
-present from herself. We immediately began our practice upon this
-instrument; and I made a rapid progress, from the hope of being able to
-charm Seymour when we next met.
-
-But again Lady Helen went to meet her son in London; and it was not till
-two years after his first departure, that he revisited the North. Never
-shall I forget the flutter which I felt at the idea of his return; but I
-am very sure that I was more taken up, in spite of my sentimentality,
-with thinking what effect I was likely to have on him at our meeting,
-than with the idea of the pleasure which I should have in seeing him.
-Two years had made a great improvement in my person; but I was not tall
-for my age, and I was so thin, that I looked much younger than I really
-was. My glass, however, and the injudicious praises of flattering
-visiters, had told me I was handsome; and I really believe I expected to
-take Seymour's heart--of the actual possession of which I had some
-doubts--by a _coup de main_; for I had both heard and read of "love at
-first sight." Never before had I been so difficult to please in the
-shape of my frocks, which I in vain tried to persuade my wiser mother to
-alter into _gowns_--as vainly did I try to persuade her to let me have
-my hair dressed, and wear ear-rings: she coolly told me simplicity was
-the beauty of a _child's dress_; and I, swallowing as I could that
-mortifying appellation, was obliged to let my auburn ringlets fall in
-natural glossy curls into my neck, unfrizzed and untormented. But unable
-to keep my vexation to myself, to the great amusement of my mother, I
-said, rather petulantly, as I was leaving the room one day, "Well, I
-must do as you please, mamma; but I am sure Mr. Seymour Pendarves, who
-is used to London young ladies, will think me a great fright."
-
-"Mr. _who_, my dear?--whose opinion is of so much consequence to you?"
-
-"Seymour Pendarves," replied I blushing, and leaving out the _Mr._
-
-"Oh! Master Pendarves! Really, my dear, I can't think it matters much,
-what such a mere boy as that thinks; and it is enough for you that you
-are a good child, and obey your mamma."
-
-At length, Seymour arrived, and the delighted Lady Helen brought her
-idol to our house; while I gazed with wonder as well as pleasure and
-embarrassment, on the change which two years had made in my youthful
-companion. He, though only seventeen, had assumed the dress of manhood:
-his throat was tied up with a large cravat--his hair was powdered, and
-worn in a club behind, according to the then fashion--his hat was set on
-one side, and he was dressed in a grass-green coat. Nothing so smart had
-ever met my sight before; and what with his fine teeth, his dimpled
-cheek, and his sparkling eyes, I thought I had never even _read_ of any
-one so beautiful: and this lovely youth was intended to be my husband.
-But had he himself any such intentions? That I could not say; and I was
-both mortified and displeased at the way in which he first addressed me,
-even though I drew up my long neck as high as possible, to look as tall
-and womanly as I could. He flew up to me, calling me--
-
-"Dear _little_ Helen! how are you? I am so glad to see you again!"
-
-And then, in spite of my dignity, he clasped me round the neck, gave me
-a kiss which might have been heard in the next room, and left the mark
-of his metal sleeve-buttons on my throat. My mother saw my confusion,
-and, as she did not approve such familiar and boisterous ways, coolly
-said, "My daughter is not used to such rough salutations, my dear
-Seymour; and I did not expect such a remnant of the great romping boy
-from you."
-
-Alas! all remnant of youthful unrestraint and of the boy now vanished;
-natural feeling, which the sight of his early companion and playfellow
-had called forth, disappeared, and the manners of the young men of the
-world _then_ and _for ever_ replaced them. But what provoked me was,
-though he seemed to consider himself as a _man_, he never even for a
-moment treated me as a _woman_. I was his "little Helen," and his
-"chicken," and his "tiny pet;" and then, dreadful degradation! he used
-to chuck me under the chin: nay, once he asked me, pulling up his
-neck-cloth, and looking in the glass, whether the neighbourhood was
-improved, and whether there were any _fine women_ in it, who visited our
-mothers.
-
-I had a mind to answer, "What does it signify to you whether there are
-or not?" but as I dared not so reply, it was a relief to me when my
-mother came in, and put a stop to his inquiries.
-
-But never, indeed, have I since felt more jealousy than I experienced
-during Seymour's residence at home, in various ways. Soon after his
-return, I went with one of my cousins from Pendarves Castle, then on a
-visit to us, to a public walk in a neighbouring town, which was then
-much frequented, and Seymour accompanied us: I, conscious that my straw
-hat and purple ribands became me, and that my young friend, who was
-remarkably plain, served only as a foil to my charms.
-
-"Now, then," thought I, "his hour is come." While glorying in this
-imagined security, I was hurled down into the depths of despair; for we
-scarcely reached the Mall, when we met some fine showy-looking women,
-whom I thought _old_, as they seemed past five-and-twenty. Seymour, to
-my great consternation, inquired who these _lovely creatures_ were,
-declaring they were the handsomest women he had seen since he had left
-London.
-
-"My cousin can introduce you," said Harriet Pendarves.
-
-"I! not I, indeed!"
-
-"Why not, dear Helen!" cried Seymour.
-
-"Because--because I have only lately known them."
-
-"Oh! that is quite enough," he hastily returned; but I still refused.
-
-However, the ladies returned, accompanied by a young man of Seymour's
-acquaintance; and in a few minutes we beheld him laughing and talking
-with the party. My feelings at that moment still live in my memory as
-vividly as ever. I was thunder-struck. What! Seymour Pendarves, the
-friend of my childhood, to leave me for women whom he never saw before;
-and call them handsomer than any thing he had seen since he left London!
-It was in vain that two youths of my acquaintance--one of them a young
-lord--joined my deserted side: I was silent, absent, and unhappy; for
-Seymour remained with his new acquaintance.
-
-It never occurred to me to talk and laugh with my beaux, for I was a
-stranger to coquetry, and the natural feelings of my heart were allowed
-to display themselves: still, an untaught delicacy made me try to hide
-the cause of my oddness from my companions; and a headache, which was
-not feigned, was my excuse.
-
-The ladies, however, at length left the walk, and Seymour was forced to
-return to us. He immediately launched forth into rapturous praises of
-their charms and elegant manners, while I listened in angry silence, as
-I had expected him to apologize for leaving me; and nothing, I
-perceived, was further from his thoughts.
-
-"But what is the matter?" cried he. "Are you not well, Helen, that you
-do not speak?"
-
-"Not quite."
-
-"Helen has a headache," said my cousin.
-
-"Poor child!" cried Seymour kindly; "then let us go home directly; it
-grows late, and I believe you do not sit up to supper yet, Helen,
-except on great occasions."
-
-Here was an affront. I angrily replied, "Indeed, Mr. Seymour Pendarves,
-you seem to know very little about me, and to _care_ very little about
-me now."
-
-"_Mr._, and a tossed-up chin, and a flushed face! Why, really, Helen, I
-find I did _not_ know much about you: I took you for a sweet-tempered
-girl; but I have often thought you captious and pettish of late, and I
-never could imagine why; but let me tell you, Miss Helen Pendarves, that
-if you lose your good-temper, you will lose your greatest charm--_any_
-woman's greatest _charm_."
-
-This reproach I could not bear from him; for I knew, if I was become
-pettish and captious, affection for him was the cause; and I burst into
-tears. But struggling with my feelings, I sobbed out, "And I suppose,
-sir, you think I _have_ no _other_ charm than my good-temper."
-
-"_I_, Helen! No such thing: I think quite the contrary; and I do assure
-you, the ladies I have just left, they----"
-
-"O yes!" cried I, "they, I suppose, have every charm possible."
-
-"They have great charms, certainly, both of face and person; still, they
-are only _fine women_; but _you_, Helen, are quite a _little
-beauty_--only you are as yet but a _child_, you know."
-
-Away went my ill-humours, and even my jealousy; for I was sure, though
-the boy of seventeen thought it more manly to talk to women grown, I
-knew as he advanced in life, and I too, he would be of a different
-opinion; and I also knew a few years would fade the ladies whom he so
-much admired, while the same number of years would leave me still young,
-and _still a beauty_. Yes, he thought me a beauty, and he had told me
-so; and I repeated his words to myself so often, that in a reverie I
-once spoke them aloud, and my mother asked, "Child, what are you saying
-about Helen and beauty?"
-
-"Helen was a great beauty, mamma--was she not?" said I, blushing at my
-own duplicity; but the subterfuge weighed heavily on my mind, nor could
-I rest till I told the whole truth to my mother, who, in consideration
-of my ingenuousness, merely observed to me, that when, from the
-exaggeration to which even boys were much given, Seymour called me a
-beauty, he only meant I was a pretty girl: but _I_ thought
-_differently_.
-
-Seymour now remained at home full six months, with a private tutor, as
-he was too old to go back to school, and Lady Helen thought him too
-young for Oxford. During that time, my mother, from (as I suspected)
-some private information, began to form an unfavourable opinion of his
-steadiness of conduct; and the anxieties of a mother for his future
-well-being clouded the still beautiful countenance of Lady Helen.
-
-Once, as I was apparently engaged in reading, I overheard Lady Helen say
-to my mother, "Do you not discern any symptoms yet of a growing
-attachment on his side? he may be on his guard before me."
-
-"None whatever: he seems to consider her still only as a beautiful
-child; and she is certainly not at all more womanly in her appearance
-this last year."
-
-"I am sorry for it," was the answer; "for there is no guard so good for
-the morals of a young man, as a virtuous attachment."
-
-"Yes," said my mother; "and I had hoped, that by being so much with
-Helen, he would have loved her, as it were, by anticipation."
-
-I never could find out whether they _meant_ me to hear this conversation
-or not; but the assurance which it conveyed, that Seymour did not love
-me yet, was not lost upon me; and it was possible that all this was said
-for that purpose. The consequence was, that I put the strictest guard
-over my words and manners, lest Seymour should discover the attachment
-which I had with much confidence indulged; and the attachment itself, I
-resolved to resist, with all the energy possible: for surely, thought I,
-if I am too young to inspire love, I ought to be too young to feel it;
-and I am too proud to love where I am not beloved. And I kept the former
-part of my resolution, for my attachment remained unsuspected; nor did
-its strength hold out entirely uninjured against the conviction of the
-utter indifference of its object. However, an affectionate grasp of my
-hand, and a respectful salute of my cheek, replaced the boisterous
-familiarity of his greeting, when we first met.
-
-"Surely," said I to myself, "his feelings towards me have undergone a
-change;" and while hope was thus restored to my bosom, I felt that my
-former feelings would, on the slightest encouragement, return with
-undiminished force.
-
-I have since learnt--though not till long after the period in
-question--that Lady Helen had thought proper to have a conversation with
-her son on the subject nearest her heart; namely, a marriage between him
-and me, in the course of a few years.
-
-He listened to her, I found, with great surprise, but great complacency;
-only exclaiming, "But she is such a child at present, dear mother!"
-
-"But she will not always be a child," replied Lady Helen; "and though I
-believe she is quite indifferent to you _now_, I am much mistaken if
-that 'child,' as you call her, did not at your first arrival feel
-something resembling love and jealousy too."
-
-"Is it possible!" exclaimed Seymour, "and I not to be conscious of it!
-_Dear_ little Helen!" And then he recollected the scene in the walk, and
-my petulance, silence, and tears, for which he now accounted in a manner
-flattering to his vanity; and it was so new--so _piquant_, to be loved
-by a child, that he was charmed with the idea of his conquest. But then
-Lady Helen had told him he had lost this affection; and as none can bear
-to renounce the power which they have once possessed, he was resolved to
-pay me those attentions by the want of which I had been alienated. He
-was too conscious, however, to be able to act upon his resolves; and he
-had learnt to consider me in so new a light, that he felt embarrassed
-when he should have been assiduous; and though I saw a change in his
-manner during the last four days, it was far from being a favourable
-one. It was only on the last of the four days that he seemed to have
-shaken off the trammels which hung about him. That day, as I was drawing
-at the window, and he was reading aloud by his mother, I saw him lay
-down his book, and whisper in her ear.
-
-"Helen," said she, "what do you think Seymour says? He says, that he has
-now found that you are no longer a child."
-
-"Indeed!" replied I, blushing, but in a tone of pique: "and since when?
-That is a discovery which I have long made."
-
-"And since when have you _yourself_ made it, dear Helen?" said he, with
-that saucy smile of his which you have often said was irresistible.
-
-"These four years, at least," I answered, trying to avoid his eyes.
-
-"Do not fib, Helen," was his impertinent reply.
-
-"You make Helen blush, my dear son."
-
-"So much the better; she never looks so beautiful as when she blushes,
-and I dare say some little time hence, we shall have some English Priam
-exclaiming of this modern Helen--
-
-    'No wonder, Britons, that such heavenly charms
-    For ten long years have set the world in arms!'
-
-While _I_ shall sit and sing--
-
-    'Ah, Chloris! could I now but sit
-    As unconcern'd as when
-    Thy infant beauty could beget
-    Nor happiness nor pain!'"
-
-I was now so pleased, so confounded--yet so happy, that I knew not where
-to look or how to behave; but remembering that the "best part of valour
-is discretion," I fled from the danger I could not face, and had just
-presence of mind enough to run away.
-
-"What is the matter with Helen?" cried Seymour, when I was gone. "Is she
-angry?"
-
-"No," replied Lady Helen, more skilled in the nature of woman's
-feelings; "she is only conscious of being too well pleased--that's all;"
-and from that time--had not Seymour left us the next day--the chances
-are that we should soon have become lovers.
-
-I, meanwhile, had gone into my own chamber, where I found my mother. I
-threw myself into her arms, without saying a word, and hid my blushes
-and my tears in her bosom. My mother, untold, knew those tears were not
-tears of sorrow, and soon drew from me a part of the truth; for I told
-her Seymour had been so full of his compliments that I came away.
-
-During the course of that day, Seymour was continually exclaiming, "How
-provoking it is, that I should be forced to go away just now!"
-
-"Ah!" cried I, pertly enough, and insincerely too, "what will poor Miss
-Salter do?" This was the name of one of the ladies with whom he had
-fancied himself charmed.
-
-"Miss Salter!
-
-          'I think not of Miss Salter----
-    My fancy has no image now but--'"
-
-Here my mother rather pettishly interrupted him.
-
-"I think, for Miss Salter's sake, young man, it is well you are going,
-as you certainly took great pains to make her think you admired her; and
-I must say, I am no friend to coquetry, be it in man or woman."
-
-"Nor I," said Lady Helen; "and I trust the next time my son makes love,
-he will do it with his whole heart, and not mistake the illusions of
-fancy for the dictates of attachment."
-
-"I trust so too, my dear mother," he replied, "and that the object will
-be one whom you approve."
-
-The next morning he set off, and every thing at first seemed a blank to
-me. He wrote frequently during the first weeks of his residence at
-Oxford, but my mother discouraged my answering his letters, and he soon
-grew remiss in his correspondence even with Lady Helen, who found that
-his allowance, though handsome, was insufficient for his wants, and
-suspected that the life must be dissipated which required such an
-exorbitant expenditure. My mother knew that it was so; why she imparted
-what she heard to her friend, I cannot tell, because it made Lady Helen
-unhappy, and she wrote to her son in the language of expostulation. I
-was vexed to find that my mother gave such implicit credence to the
-stories of Seymour's errors, as the accounts might be exaggerated; and
-when I had once admitted that he was the victim of misrepresentation,
-pity for Seymour added force to my attachment.
-
-It seemed a very long time to me till the next vacation came; but
-Seymour passed it in London, at his grandfather's; my mother was glad,
-but I was disappointed. Nor did he come down into the country till half
-of the long vacation was expired; and after he had spent a week with
-Lady Helen, my mother took me to pay a visit to a relation of her's. In
-vain Lady Helen remonstrated, and Seymour entreated; she replied she had
-put off her journey in the expectation of seeing him in June, and she
-could no longer delay her visit. He sighed, looked conscious and
-confused, and forbore to urge her again.
-
-My mother was certainly right in thus resolving; for she knew, though I
-did not, that Lady Helen had communicated to him her views and wishes
-with regard to me; and she left home with a firmness and decision of
-manner which promised ill for the success of her hopes.
-
-When we came back, Seymour was returned to Oxford. The following
-Christmas, Lady Helen, whose health seemed evidently declining, went to
-London for the advice of physicians, and Seymour attended her home; but
-he only stayed a week, as he was under an engagement, he said, to
-accompany some friends abroad. He departed, however, with evident
-dejection and reluctance, and seemed while with us to enjoy the quiet of
-our domestic scenes; but as his actions were not regulated by a steady
-principle of _right_, and under the restraint of moral and religious
-obligation, no sooner was he removed from our purifying influence, than
-he became again the follower of pleasure, while as he was driven
-backward and forward upon the ocean of the world, my image, which his
-poor mother thought would save him from temptation, appeared to him only
-as a beacon at a distance to remind him of that shore of safety which
-the waves forbad him, however much he wished it, to approach. During the
-next term, and in spite of his dissipation, Seymour obtained a prize for
-writing the best prose essay; and he sent it to his mother just after
-some very unfavourable accounts of the society which he frequented in
-London, had reached her, and had been only too strongly confirmed by my
-mother's secret informant. These reports had not been communicated to
-me, but I happened to be present when Lady Helen received two copies of
-the essay, accompanied by a letter, in which he begged that his dearest
-friend Helen, would not only accept, but do him the favour to criticise
-the little production which he had sent, as he knew no one whose praise
-he should so highly value, or to whose censures he should pay greater
-attention. Methinks I still see the delight yet gleaming mournfully
-through tears, which beamed from Lady Helen's countenance when she
-received the essay and read the letter. Alas! that renewed and increased
-brightness was but too like the flame of an expiring taper.
-
-"My dear Julia!" cried she to my mother, in a voice almost inarticulate
-with emotion, "what a foolish thing is a fond mother's heart! Now it is
-all fear, and now all hope; now it is broken, and now healed again. This
-boy, this dear, naughty good boy! it was but yesterday I cried for his
-weakness, and now I cry for his strength."
-
-"No one, I believe, ever doubted your son's talents," said my mother
-coldly, and I thought crossly.
-
-"True," replied Lady Helen meekly; "and this prize, I own, is not proof
-of amended conduct."
-
-"I know not," cried I eagerly, "what fault poor Seymour has committed;
-but of this I am sure, that if he was so very idle as ill-natured people
-say he is, he could not have found time to write for a prize, and still
-less have been able to gain it."
-
-"Thank you, my dearest girl, for being my poor boy's advocate; for what
-you say is very just: and Seymour shall know how kindly you took his
-part."
-
-"I must beg he may not know," said my mother, angrily.
-
-"Indeed!" answered Lady Helen mournfully. "But I cannot now blame your
-change of feeling on this subject, for I myself should hesitate to give
-my daughter to a youth such as Seymour is said to be."
-
-I now turned round, and looked at Lady Helen with so alarmed and
-inquiring a countenance, that she could not withstand the appeal. She
-took my hand, and said--
-
-"Yes, Helen, your mother and I had pledged our words to each other, to
-do all in our power to promote a union between my son and you, and to
-cherish every symptom in you of a mutual attachment; but now, owing to
-some too well-founded reports, I fear, of his faulty conduct, she wishes
-to retract her promise; and here, as one of my last acts and deeds, (for
-I feel that I shall not be with you long,) I solemnly give her back that
-promise in your presence! declaring to you, my beloved child, that
-unless your mother thinks Seymour deserving of you, I cannot wish you to
-be his wife; and that it will be my parting injunction to you, Helen,
-never, never to marry an immoral man."
-
-Lady Helen had scarcely said this, while I listened with downcast eyes,
-when my mother threw herself into her arms, sobbing out convulsively,
-"My own dear generous friend! for your sake I will try to think well of
-your son, and to believe he will reform--only don't talk of dying; I
-can't bear _that_!"
-
-"But I wish to prepare you for it."
-
-"Prepare, Helen! prepare. Do you think anything can make me endure the
-idea of losing you? Oh! it will be losing all I ever loved a second
-time!"
-
-Lady Helen shook her head, but did not speak; for she knew that her
-friend must soon undergo this dreaded trial--and _she_, too, felt that
-for _some_ blows there is no such thing as _preparation_.
-
-The night that followed was the first of real agonizing sorrow which I
-had ever known. I had heard that Seymour was believed, even by his own
-mother, to be unworthy of me, and that mine was decidedly averse to that
-union which she had originally made the first desire of my heart; I had
-also heard from Lady Helen's own lips a solemn assurance that she was
-dying.
-
-At my time of life, however, the spirits are never long depressed,
-especially by an uncertain and remote sorrow; but as a captive
-butterfly, when the pressure on its wings is removed, flutters them
-again in air, with all their glittering dyes and buoyancy uninjured, so
-do the spirits of youth quickly resume their brilliancy and their
-elasticity.
-
-When I rose the next morning, I was _sure_ that Lady Helen would
-_recover_; I was sure that Seymour would _reform_, even if the reports
-concerning him were _not_ exaggerated; and I was also sure that some
-time or other I should be his wife.
-
-But, alas! Lady Helen had not spoken from momentary dejection, and still
-less from the ungenerous wish to excite interest and alarm in the hearts
-that tenderly loved her: she spoke from her deep conviction--a
-conviction only too well founded.
-
-In less than two months, she was attacked by fever and inflammation of
-the brain, such as had before seized her on the death of her husband.
-She had, however, lucid intervals; and though my mother and myself felt
-our hearts wrung by her delirious ravings--during which she called upon
-her son's name in the most affecting language--still we suffered more,
-when, on recovering her senses, she asked for this darling son, and we
-were obliged to reply that he was not yet arrived.
-
-And where--oh! where was he, at a moment like that? We knew not.
-
-As soon as Lady Helen's attack was judged to be a dangerous one, my
-mother wrote to him at Oxford, desiring him to set off immediately, or
-he might come too late; and as Oxford was only a ten hours' journey from
-home, he might have been with us the next morning, had he been at
-college. It was also term time; but yet he came _not_, though on such an
-occasion, leave of absence was easily to be obtained. My mother was too
-angry to be as wretched as I was at this distressing circumstance--for
-indignation often swallows up every other feeling, and once she hinted
-to me that he must have received the letter, and that mere idle neglect
-kept him away; but the poor invalid, who, unsuspected by us, overheard
-our conversation, exclaimed--
-
-"No, Julia; whatever are his other faults, my poor boy loves
-me--tenderly loves me; and even from a sick-bed he would hasten to his
-dying mother. Oh no! he has never received your letter--he is not in
-college."
-
-"Then where is he? In college he ought to be."
-
-"True, Julia; but he is young and thoughtless, and we ought to remember
-that we were so _once ourselves_. We ought not to have run away from our
-parents--yet we _did_ so, Julia."
-
-"We did, indeed," cried my mother, abashed and silenced.
-
-"Yes," continued Lady Helen; "and therefore I have always endeavoured to
-be mild in my judgment of other people--especially of the young."
-
-"Helen," cried my mother, "forgive me, thou blessed spirit! I will be
-merciful to him, even though it makes me unjust to----"
-
-"No, your first duty is to your daughter: but listen to me, Julia! Be
-_sure_ to convince Seymour, when I am no more, that I did not impute his
-absence to want of love, but merely to _accident_. Be _sure_ you do; for
-he will feel only too much, when he comes and finds that he has no
-longer a mother!"
-
-The afflicting image thus presented to my mind, of what would be
-Seymour's misery if he indeed arrived too late, was more than I could
-bear, and I was forced to leave the room. Soon afterwards, Lady Helen's
-senses wandered again; but when I returned, she was sensible, though
-exhausted; and as I entered, she hastily put back the curtain, and
-said--
-
-"Oh! I hoped it was my dear, dear boy!" Her breath now grew fainter, and
-she exclaimed, "Oh! where, where is he? must I die without seeing him
-once more, and giving him my blessing? Helen! Julia! be sure to speak
-very kindly to him, and tell him that I blessed him! But thy will, O
-Lord! be done!"
-
-Still, as long as consciousness remained, her eyes were anxiously turned
-towards the door, as if looking for that beloved object whom she was
-never more to see, we thought, in this world. At that moment, however,
-my watchful ear heard a quick step on the stairs, and an exclamation of
-agony, not mistaken by me.
-
-"_He_ is _here_! I am _sure_ he is here!" cried I, bending over her
-pillow; and in another moment Seymour was on his knees at the bedside.
-Never shall I forget his look of speechless woe, when he found her last
-agony approaching: but it seemed as if _affection_ struggled
-successfully with death for a few short moments. She could not speak,
-but her eyes were eloquent; and as she laid her hand upon the head of
-her child, those eyes were raised to heaven in earnest supplication:
-they then turned on him, while she reclined her head on my mother's
-bosom, and her right hand was clasped in mine. I cannot go on: the scene
-is still too present to my view.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Deep as was my affliction, it sunk into nothingness, compared with that
-of the bereaved and self-reproving son. It was really a _relief_ to me
-to see his sense of anguish suspended by his insensibility.
-
-When he recovered, there was something so full of woe, and yet of a woe
-so stern, in the look with which my mother ordered me away, that I had
-not the heart to resist it. It was near an hour before she came to me;
-and never before had I seen her so overpowered with affliction. She
-called upon Lady Helen by the tenderest names; talked of her patient
-gentleness--of the sweetness of that temper which she had so often
-tried--and reproached herself for having thus tried it. But she spoke
-not of Seymour; and deep as my regret was for the dead, it was equalled
-by my anxiety for the living. I therefore ventured to say, "But how is
-poor Seymour?"
-
-"Unfeeling girl!" cried my mother; "you can think only of him when his
-angel mother lies dead!"
-
-"_She_ would have _thanked_ me for my anxiety," I replied, rendered
-courageous by distress. "I shall go and inquire after him."
-
-"Hold, Helen! he is extremely wretched; so much so, that I could not
-bear to listen to his self-upbraidings, nor to witness his caresses of
-that hand which replied no longer to his grasp; and then his wild
-entreaties, that she would speak to him once more, and say that she
-forgave him!"
-
-"And could you have the cruelty to leave him alone in such a state?"
-cried I. "Do you think his mother would so have left _your_ child?"
-
-My mother started--"You are right!" said she: "I will return, and do my
-duty by him."
-
-"Oh! let me go with you!"
-
-"No, Helen; I must do my duty by you too--and the poor youth at this
-moment is only too dangerous."
-
-She was right, and I submitted; but I had gained my point, and she was
-gone back to the poor afflicted one. Before she went, however, she
-insisted on my going to bed; where, wearied with three nights of
-watching, I fell into a heavy slumber. But, oh! that wretchedness on
-waking, which attends the recollection of a recent affliction! and I was
-giving way to all the misery I felt, when, soon after eight in the
-morning, my mother came into my room.
-
-She told me she had not been in bed all night, for that she dared not
-leave Seymour.
-
-"How kind it was in you, my dearest mother!"
-
-"No, it was only right," she answered, in great agitation: "he was a
-bitter and penitent sufferer; and if my departed friend is conscious of
-what is passing here, I trust that she was satisfied with me, for I
-tried to do a mother's part by him. And now, my dear child, we must both
-return home: this, you know, is no place for you, Helen."
-
-"And must I go without taking leave of poor Seymour?"
-
-"What leave is there to take?"
-
-I had nothing to reply, and we came away.
-
-As my mother knew that Seymour's sleep was likely to be long, she did
-not return to the house of death for some hours; but when she did, I
-earnestly conjured her to let me accompany her. I pleaded, however, and
-wept in vain: in vain did I urge, that Seymour would think me unkind in
-forsaking him wholly at such a time as this was.
-
-My mother said she feared that Seymour would only be too ready to
-attribute his not seeing me to her commands, rather than my own
-inclinations; and, disappointed and wretched, I threw myself on the bed
-in an agony of grief, and never rose from it, feeding my distress by
-every means in my power. I must own, however, that temper and
-contrivance had some share in this self-abandonment, or sensibility,
-which I thought would at once punish my mother for her obstinacy, (as I
-called it,) and induce her to give up her resolution. How often is
-grief, like love, made up of materials which we dream not of--and how
-often has temper much to do with it! But my seeming unmixed sorrow had
-no effect on my excellent parent, whose decisions, where I was
-concerned, were the result of firm principle. Her first observation
-was--
-
-"This excessive misery, Helen, accompanied, as I see it is, with a
-degree of sullenness, is not likely to make me change my purpose, but
-rather to confirm me in it the more; because it proves to me the great
-extent of the danger to which my compliance would expose you, when you
-can thus, in spirit at least, be rebellious; and this at a time, too,
-when I want every comfort possible."
-
-These words subdued every particle of resentment in me: I threw myself
-on her neck, and assured her she should never have so to reproach me
-again; nor did I even venture to inquire for Seymour--but she was
-generous enough to speak of him unasked. She told me he woke, after a
-long sleep, more composed than she expected; "though, on his first
-waking, he started me excessively," she said, "by asking for his mother,
-and wondering to see me instead of her. My tears seemed to force back
-his recollection; and in a faint voice, and with a look of wretchedness,
-he added, 'Ah! I remember now;' and hiding his face in the pillow, he
-wept aloud.
-
-"And I--I was but a sad consoler, for I wept in silence by him. When he
-was calm again, I wished him to rise; and before I left him, in the
-fulness and tenderness of my heart, poor child! I stooped down, and
-kissed his burning forehead. But I soon repented; for he exclaimed, 'Oh!
-that was so like _her_! But she never--no, never more----' and again he
-lay almost convulsed with his feelings.
-
-"When this fresh paroxysm was over, I left him."
-
-"But I am sure," said I, "that he will be soothed by that kind kiss in
-remembrance, though it affected him painfully at the time."
-
-"Perhaps so: but his grief, violent though it be, will soon go off, and
-be after a time forgotten. Lady Helen was his mother, and he loved her;
-but she had not been the chosen playfellow of his childhood--the friend
-of his youth--the companion of his riper years--the sharer of every
-joy--the soother of every sorrow--and the being endeared to him by
-daily and confidential intercourse: and yet all these was she to _me_,
-Helen."
-
-"But, dearest mother, the love and regrets of a child are _very_
-strong."
-
-"I own it, Helen, especially when, as in the case of this miserable boy,
-self-reproach mingles with them, and deepens every pang. Helen, my
-child--my only treasure now," she added, speaking with difficulty,
-"never, never, when I shall be as she is now, may you have cause to shed
-such tears as his, Helen! Remember, there are no upbraidings so terrible
-as those of one's own heart; and for your own sake, if not for mine, be
-dutiful."
-
-I was too much affected to reply; and my mother continued--"Yes, _he_
-will recover his loss--you will recover _yours_, Helen. But what can
-ever replace to me the loss of the friend of my whole life--the sole
-relic of the joys that are past? George--Charles--Helen! you are all
-gone now! and I," (here she raised her arms with a sort of appealing
-look to heaven,) "I stand alone, unsupported, and unsupporting, too,
-like the sole remaining pillar of a once-noble temple, to speak of
-former pride and present desolation."
-
-As my mother's imagination had now entered into play, my fears for her
-health in a great degree vanished; for I knew that the grief which can
-vent itself in imagery, however gloomy, is not of that sort which preys
-rapidly on life; for it is
-
-    ----"The grief that doth not speak,
-    Falls on the burthen'd heart, and bids it break."
-
-Taking advantage of a pause, during the first part of which my mother
-seemed engaged in fervent devotion, I now ventured to ask her if Seymour
-had inquired why he did not see me. She told me that he had, and that he
-had been told in reply there were sufficient reasons for our not
-meeting: amongst the foremost of which, was the certainty that we should
-make each other _worse_, and with this reason he had seemed satisfied.
-She did not tell me, however, that he inquired for me every day; nor did
-she relate to me any of their conversation, except the one which took
-place the evening before the funeral; and _that_ she felt it to be her
-duty to disclose.
-
-"I have to inform you, my dear child," said she, "that when Seymour and
-I stood together to take our last look and last kiss before the coffin
-was closed, he suddenly seized my hand, and, wildly addressing the
-unconscious dead, conjured that pale cheek, and that closed eye, to
-appeal to my heart in his favour, and to remind me of the promised
-pledge to his mother to promote his union with you. This was the
-language of passion, and there was a strange effect in it, I
-thought--neither of which, you know, can affect me. I therefore replied,
-though not without emotion, that it was a subject which I could not
-discuss in that room. Accordingly, after he had taken many more last
-looks and leaves of the beloved dead, I led him from the chamber.
-
-"When he was calmed a little, I had resolution to resume the
-conversation; and to own the truth, Helen, I was _glad_ to discuss it,
-without the presence of that mournful object which, spite of myself,
-armed my feelings against my judgment."
-
-Here my mother walked about the room in considerable agitation; but she
-soon recovered herself.
-
-"I then related to him our conversation with Lady Helen."
-
-"And did you tell him how I defended him?" cried I.
-
-"No, certainly I did not," she coldly replied; "but I convinced him that
-his mother gave me back my promise, and that her last parting words to
-yourself should be, 'Helen, never marry an immoral man.' On hearing
-this, he exclaimed--
-
-"'Did my mother say this? Did she think me an immoral man? Oh!
-insupportable agony! Well, madam,' added he, turning fiercely round,
-'and so I suppose you have said the same to your daughter, and have
-engaged her to combat the regard she once felt for me; for I know she
-loved me once, or would have done so, for so the lips that never
-deceived assured me: but mark me, madam, I will not take a refusal from
-any lips but hers.'
-
-"'If you wish to alienate my affection entirely from you, Seymour,' I
-replied, 'you will make this appeal to Helen; for neither by letter nor
-personal application will I sanction it, till I am convinced your
-improved conduct makes you more worthy of my daughter.'
-
-"'But you deny me the motive to improvement, by forbidding my addresses
-to her.'
-
-"'O Seymour!' answered I, 'if you have no _better_ motive, such a change
-is not to be depended upon; nor would I entrust to you, under such a
-precarious alteration, the happiness of my child.'
-
-"He looked distressed, but rather proudly replied--
-
-"'Well, madam, we will talk further on this subject some other time. I
-cannot pursue it now.' And soon after I took my leave."
-
-"And will you not allow him to have one interview with me, before he
-returns to Oxford?"
-
-"No, I will not expose you to his dangerous eloquence: as he is not
-really in love with you, he would have more self-possession, and plead
-his cause so much the better."
-
-"_Not_ in love with me!"
-
-"No; his attachment is now irritated by obstacles, and also stimulated
-by fancied duty; but could he, if he really felt a virtuous passion,
-maintain a disgraceful connexion in London, as I know him to do? Helen,
-my child! what ails you?" Here her voice sounded like thunder in my
-ears, and I fainted.
-
-I had certainly been led to believe that Seymour led a life of general
-dissipation, and I had not allowed myself to attempt to define the exact
-nature of the charges against him; but when I heard him positively
-accused of an improper attachment to one individual object, a mixed
-feeling of jealousy, disgust, misery, and indignation came over me, with
-the sickness of death, and for the first time in my life I lost all
-consciousness. How long I remained insensible, I know not; but when I
-recovered, I found my mother weeping over me--not because she _had_
-feared for my life, but because she _did_ fear for my peace of mind. She
-was consoled, however, when I assured her, that from that moment I
-should think it my duty to drive Seymour Pendarves from my mind, and
-that I had no longer any difficulty in submitting to her wishes. She
-kissed me, called me her dear, good girl, and we parted for the night.
-
-The next morning was the morning of the funeral. Lady Helen had desired
-it might be a private one, and had she not, it could not have been
-otherwise; for Lord Seymour, though not an old man, was fallen into a
-state of imbecility; Lord Mountgeorge was at Lisbon, attending his dying
-wife; and Mr. Pendarves, our great-uncle, was confined in Cornwall by
-the gout.
-
-"Poor Seymour!" cried my mother, as she heard this account of the
-family; "there is much to be said in your excuse; for how completely has
-he been left to himself, amidst the dangers of a metropolis!"
-
-My mother, when she said this, was certainly _thinking aloud_; but my
-hearing her had, at that moment, no bad effect on me, as my jealousy
-remained unappeased, and my mortification unsoothed, and nothing could
-reinstate him as yet in my estimation: nay, I believed I should see him
-the next day without any emotion that could be attributed to him as the
-cause of it.
-
-When we reached the house of mourning, we found Seymour anxiously
-expecting us. On seeing me, he seized my hand, and, unable to speak,
-kissed it repeatedly, then turned away in tears; and, I must own, at
-that moment I forgot his unworthiness and my own resolution, and
-remembered only his sorrow and his apparent affection. My mother _might_
-be right, but I began to suspect she _might be wrong_. All these
-feelings, however, were soon swallowed up in those of deep and tender
-sorrow. The procession began; and, clinging to each other's arm for
-support, my mother and I followed the unsteady steps of the chief
-mourner. But why need I dwell on the details of a scene so common?
-Suffice, that Seymour did not return with us: he remained in the church,
-in order to give way to the lately suppressed agonies of his heart. My
-mother wished to do the same; but she respected the sacredness of his
-sorrow, and she could visit the vault at another time.
-
-The rest of the day was spent by Seymour in visits to those who had been
-maintained or assisted by Lady Helen, in order that he might personally
-assure them that his intention was to do all she would have done, had
-life been spared to her. Having thus performed his duty to the utmost,
-he appeared to my mother's eye to have recovered some of his usual
-brilliancy of countenance. The next night he was to return to Oxford. In
-the afternoon of that day, he called at our house, and requested to see
-my mother and _me_.
-
-I rose involuntarily, in great perturbation.
-
-"Tell Mr. Pendarves," said my mother, "that I will wait on him directly.
-Helen, my child! it is but one struggle more, and all the difficulty
-will be over; for I conclude, you, not only in obedience to my will, but
-in compliance with your own wise _wishes_, refuse to see him!"
-
-What could I say? Could I tell her that the meeting of yesterday, and
-his subsequent conduct towards his mother's dependants, had altered my
-feelings? I could not do it, and I remained above stairs.
-
-After a long conference, my mother came back to me, and I heard the
-hall-door close. Till this moment, I had hoped she would relent, and
-allow me to see him! at least, I guess so, from the cold chill which I
-felt at my heart, when I heard the noise of the closed door. However, I
-saw him from the window--I myself unseen--and his handkerchief was held
-to his eyes.
-
-When my mother returned, I observed that she had been excessively moved,
-and the traces of recent tears were on her cheeks.
-
-"Helen!" she at length said, "I trust I have done by Seymour Pendarves
-what I should wish a friend to do by a child of mine. And is he not
-_her_ child--the child of that lost, matchless being, whom I loved only
-second to yourself, since one dearer than either was removed from me?
-Yes; I admonished him as a mother would have done; and though I refused
-his request, I did it--indeed I did--with gentleness and with anguish.
-Helen," she resumed, "if ever you should doubt the affections of your
-mother, remember what, for your sake, she has undergone this day. She
-has, though her heart bled to do it, wounded that of one whom she loves
-now next to yourself, and that one, too, the child of her adored Lady
-Helen. But the sense of a mother's duty, aided by a higher power, has
-supported me through it."
-
-"And he is gone!"
-
-"Yes; and he reproached me bitterly for my cruelty, Helen; but if he
-could see me now, do you think he would censure me for hardness of
-heart?"
-
-Mournful were the hours that followed, and we retired early to rest. But
-my mother rested not. I heard her walking backward and forward in her
-room till near day-break; and till she had ceased I was too uneasy to
-close my eyes.
-
-When I rose the next day, and was walking in the garden before
-breakfast, I found my mother's windows still shut, and it was very late
-before she came down stairs. I had previously felt disposed to indulge
-my own dejection; but as soon as I saw her, all thought of myself
-vanished. For never did I see the expression of hopeless grief stronger
-than in her speaking face. As she did not talk, I vainly tried to
-converse of indifferent things. She smiled; but every smile was
-succeeded by a sigh; and once she exclaimed,
-
-"No! they cannot come to _me_, but I shall go to _them_."
-
-"Dearest mother," cried I, rising and looking up in her face, "you
-forget _me_. Surely you do not wish to leave me?"
-
-"Do not ask me," she cried, clasping me fondly to her bosom; "I fear I
-am ungrateful for my remaining blessing."
-
-From that time she struggled with her grief, and became, as you know, in
-_company_, at least, the agreeable companion; for about that time it
-was, I think, that your amiable husband succeeded to the living, and you
-came to enliven and adorn the rectory. However, as your friend, for
-whose inspection this is written, does not know any of the subsequent
-events, I shall proceed with the detail of my story.
-
-During the ensuing six weeks we had only one letter from Seymour, but
-that was a pleasant one: for he told us that he had been studying very
-hard, and had gotten another prize, and he sent us his composition,
-adding in a very touching manner, that as the eye which he most wished
-to please by his production was for ever closed, his proudest desire now
-was to have it approved by those whom he and she best loved.
-
-My mother was gratified by this compliment as well as myself; for she
-augured favourably of his amendment from this close application, and she
-owned to me in the fulness of her heart, that she had informed him, his
-obtaining my hand depended entirely on _himself_. I have said that my
-mother appeared quite recovered in company; but such was the constant
-recurrence of one anxious subject to her mind in private, that every
-thing unconnected with it soon became uninteresting to her; this was the
-renewal of virtuous friendship in another world; and she read and tried
-to procure every thing in the shape of a Sermon or Essay that had ever
-been written on the subject. One sermon, and it was a most eloquent one,
-bearing the title, "The renewal of Virtuous Friendship in another
-World,"[1] delighted her so much, that it was never out of her reach;
-and though she found it difficult to deduce from the Scriptures any
-certain grounds for this consoling doctrine, still she delighted to
-indulge in it; and as she could never rest till she had tried to convert
-others to her own opinions, especially where those opinions were likely
-to increase individual happiness, those only with whom she was not
-intimate could avoid hearing her descant on this subject, with all that
-plausible and ingenious fluency which usually attends reasoning from
-analogy and imagination. While her mind was thus employed, it ceased to
-prey on its own peace; and though her system sometimes failed to satisfy
-her, she still found a soothing conviction in the thought, that should
-we not be permitted "to know and love our friends in heaven," we should
-be sure not to be _conscious_ of the want of those who had been the
-dearest to us when on earth, but should find all the "ways of God"
-vindicated "to man."
-
-[Footnote 1: See a volume of Sermons written by the Rev. P. Houghton.]
-
-It was now, while my mother was too constantly thinking of the regretted
-dead, and I of the still tenderly-remembered living, that a new
-acquaintance was introduced to us, who had power to withdraw our
-thoughts from these interesting speculations, and fix them for some time
-at least upon himself.
-
-Methinks, my dear friend, I see you smile at this distance, and remark
-to your husband, "Now we shall see what she says of the impression which
-Count Ferdinand De Walden first made on her, for I never could
-understand how she could ever prefer another man to him."
-
-_You_ forget how very early in life my affections were turned towards
-Pendarves, and how soon I learnt to look on constancy in love as a sort
-of virtue; you also forget the "fascinating graces," and the
-"irresistible archness," to use your own expression, of Seymour's smile.
-But this is perhaps an ill-timed digression. Where was I? Oh! at the
-introduction of a new acquaintance.
-
-My parents had made an acquaintance in America with the Count De Walden,
-the elder, whom curiosity and the love of travelling had led thither. On
-the breaking out of the war, he returned to his native country,
-Switzerland, by way of England; where he was so much pleased with the
-manners of the people and constitution of the government, that he
-resolved his nephew and heir, Ferdinand De Walden, who was like himself
-a protestant, should come over and enter himself at one of the
-universities. When the time for his admission arrived, the count
-remembered with renewed interest his acquaintance with my parents and
-their cousins; and that they now resided in England. Nor was it
-difficult for him to obtain particulars of their present residence and
-situation.
-
-His uncle heard with pain that my mother, Seymour, and myself, were the
-only survivors of that happy family which he had so much loved in the
-new world. To my mother, however, he was still anxious to introduce his
-nephew; and he hoped that in Seymour he would find a durable friend at
-college; but in this expectation he could not be gratified, as he had
-resolved that Ferdinand should go to the mathematical university, and
-Seymour was of Oxford. This impossibility my mother thought a fortunate
-circumstance for Ferdinand.
-
-When De Walden came, and showed, among other letters, one of
-recommendation to Mr. Seymour Pendarves, she coldly observed, "That
-letter need not be delivered yet;" and certainly, the appearance of
-Ferdinand De Walden did not promise much congeniality of disposition and
-pursuit with Seymour; for the latter, from the light gaiety of his
-manner and countenance, seemed as if he never thought at all; and the
-former, from the grave pensiveness and reserve of his, appeared at first
-sight as if he did nothing but think. The open eye of Seymour invited
-confidence, the penetrating one of De Walden repelled it; and as the
-one, when first seen, was sure to inspire admiration if not love, the
-other was as sure to excite alarm, if not a feeling resembling aversion.
-For myself, I must own that when De Walden was presented to me by my
-mother, I experienced towards him a little of the first, though none of
-the second sensation; for I had been accustomed to look on Seymour as my
-model for personal beauty and captivation; and the young Swiss,
-therefore, had not a chance of charming me at first sight. I had not
-seen my mother so animated for years as she was on the arrival of her
-foreign guest; for she had greatly esteemed his uncle, and Ferdinand
-strongly resembled him. With him of course were associated the
-ever-remembered hours of youth and friendship, wedded love and
-happiness; and De Walden shone with a radiance not his own. But my
-mother, much to my annoyance, was not conscious of this: she insisted
-that his brilliancy was all self-derived; that if she had never known
-_his uncle_, she should still have admired _him_. By this admiration, I
-am ashamed to confess, I was piqued and mortified, because I fancied it
-interfered with the rights of Seymour; and I suspected that, if he
-should repay the regard of the mother by loving the daughter, I could
-not without disobedience remain constant to my first attachment.
-
-As De Walden was not to go to college till October, he had leave to stay
-with us till that time, since it was rather an unusual thing for a fine
-young man, unless he was a relation, to be the guest of a widow lady and
-her daughter for so long a period. I was therefore certain that my
-mother must have some particular point to carry, and that point was, I
-believed, the alienation of my heart from Seymour Pendarves. These
-suspicions certainly made me regard Ferdinand the two first days of his
-arrival with prejudiced eyes, not unmixed with fear of his keenness of
-penetration. But, in spite of myself, my fear of him vanished, and much
-of my prejudice with it, when I found that this grave sententious
-personage, who talked theology with my mother, and tried, poor man! to
-explain to us some new German philosophy, could laugh as heartily as if
-he never read and never thought, and had a sense of the ridiculous,
-which he found sometimes dangerous and troublesome to his good-breeding.
-
-This welcome discovery happened to me at breakfast, while he was reading
-to us aloud some amusing extracts from a kind of periodical paper,
-published in France by the Baron De Grimm, one of which was so
-ludicrous, that he laid down the book to laugh at his ease, while I
-exclaimed, "Is it possible?"
-
-"Is what possible, my dear?" said my mother.
-
-"That Mr. De Walden," I repeated rather uncivilly, "can laugh so very
-heartily."
-
-"_N'est-il pas permis en Angleterre, Mademoiselle?_"[2] was his answer.
-
-[Footnote 2: Is it not permitted in England?]
-
-"Oh, yes!" said I, blushing, and looking very foolish, "only--"
-
-"Oh! Je comprends: apparemment c'est Mademoiselle qui ne veut pas qu'on
-rit devant elle. Helas, belle Helene! il faut rire tant qu'on le peut,
-quand on a le bonheur de jouir souvent de votre aimable societe; car il
-me semble qu'en ce cas la, on pourroit bien avoir raison de pleurer
-bientot, et peut-etre pour la vie."[3]
-
-[Footnote 3: Oh! I comprehend: you do not like any should laugh in your
-presence. Alas! beautiful Helen, one must laugh while one can, when one
-has the happiness of being in your society; for one runs the risk of
-crying very soon, and perhaps for life.]
-
-Here was _gallantry_ too, and returning good for evil; though I was
-rude, he was polite. I was humbled and ashamed, while he with increasing
-archness said, "_Mais qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire avec votre_--'Is it
-possible?'[4] What! you think me a disciple of Crassus, and fancy me
-never laugh till I see an ass eat a thistle?" he added in his foreign
-English.
-
-[Footnote 4: But what did you mean with your 'Is it possible?']
-
-"Shall I tell you what I take you for now?" replied I, venturing to look
-up in his face, which, for the first time, animated as it now was by
-pleasantry and the consciousness of appearing to advantage, struck me
-with the conviction of its excessive physiognomical beauty; and I ceased
-to wonder at my mother's regard for him, not because he was possessed of
-great personal attractions, but because beauty of physiognomy cannot
-exist without corresponding beauty of mind, if not of heart.
-
-"Well," he replied, "and what do you take me for?" speaking with that
-accent which in him I have often thought an additional charm.
-
-"A kind-hearted man and a good Christian; for you returned good for
-evil, and repaid impertinence by making it the foundation of a
-compliment. Still, I must presume again, and tell you that I believe
-your laughs are like _jours de fete_; they do not come _every_ day."
-
-"Pour les jours de fete, non; ils ne me sont point venus tous les jours
-que depuis mon arrivee ici; mais a present, Mademoiselle, tous les jours
-sont pour moi des jours de fete, et ma sainte est Sainte Helene."[5]
-
-[Footnote 5: For holidays, no: they never came to me every day, till I
-came hither; but now, all days are holidays to me, and my saint is Saint
-Helen.]
-
-I was not yet old enough to know how to receive compliments like these
-without embarrassment; and to hide my awkwardness I exclaimed, "Why,
-what can have become of them? I have lost them; they are quite gone."
-
-"_Qu'avez-vous perdu, Mademoiselle? Permettez-moi de le chercher. Dites
-donc._"[6]
-
-[Footnote 6: But what are you seeking? let me look for it. Tell me.]
-
-"My fear and awe of you."
-
-"Fear and awe of me! _Oh! qu'ils s'en aillent tout de bon. Ce ne sont
-pas les sentiments que je voudrais vous inspirer pour moi._"[7] As he
-said this, there was an expression in his dark eyes which made me turn
-mine away; and addressing my mother, I told her that our guest reminded
-me of a little French paper toy which I had seen, called _deux tetes
-sous un bonnet_; that at first view, it was a monk with a cowl on, but
-that when the cowl was thrown off, there was a gay and smiling young
-man. So it was with Mr. De Walden: when he first came, he seemed a grave
-philosopher, and now he is an absolute lover of fun, and a laugher of
-the first order.
-
-[Footnote 7: Oh, let them go away entirely! These are not the sentiments
-with which I wish to inspire you.]
-
-"De grace, Mademoiselle, dites-moi lequel des deux caracteres vous plait
-le plus; mais, ne me dites pas, je vous le demande en grace, que je vous
-offense le moins dans mon role de philosophe; Helas! aupres de vous qui
-pourroit rester philosophe?"[8]
-
-[Footnote 8: In pity tell me, which of these two characters pleases you
-the most; but pray do not tell me that I offend you less as a
-philosopher, for who that is near you can long remain a philosopher?]
-
-"I wish you," said I, "to resemble Democritus, who united the two
-characters of laugher and philosopher; and you, if you please, shall be
-the latter with my mother; you shall talk wisely and gravely with her,
-but laugh and talk nonsense now and then with me."
-
-"Vous convenez donc de la justice de ma proposition, qu'aupres de vous
-on ne peut etre philosophe?"[9]
-
-[Footnote 9: You agree then to the justice of my proposition, that near
-you no one can remain a philosopher?]
-
-I shook my head and held up my hand at him, not knowing exactly how to
-answer: he seized it, and pressed it fervently to his lips. My mother,
-I saw, enjoyed this dialogue; but my own heart reproached me for having
-allowed myself to be amused and flattered into a sort of infidelity to
-Seymour, by a man too who would be, I foresaw, warmly encouraged by my
-mother.
-
-By this conversation, which has never been effaced from my memory, you
-will suspect that my flippancy and the evident pleasure with which I
-kept it up, were proofs that nothing but a prior attachment could have
-preserved my affections from the power of De Walden, when he once
-displayed to me all the variety of his talents, and the graces of his
-mind. Even as it was, they would have had a more certain effect, but for
-the injudicious eagerness with which my mother tried to force a
-conviction of them upon me; for then my alarmed feelings took the part
-of Seymour, and I was piqued into underrating her idol, because she
-seemed to _overrate_ him. How very rarely is it that one can obtain or
-give an opinion uninfluenced by temper, prejudice, or interest!
-
-"Is he not very handsome?" she used to say.
-
-"Yes, but I have seen a handsomer man."
-
-"Oh, you mean Seymour; he is handsomer certainly, but then he is not
-near so tall."
-
-"No, but he is better made."
-
-"That _I_ never remarked; and I hope you will only impart the result of
-your observation to _me_: others might think it indelicate. What a fine
-countenance he has!"
-
-"Yes, _sometimes_, but not always; and I prefer one that is always so: I
-like _perpetual_ rather than _occasional_ sun-shine.--It is disagreeable
-to have to watch the sun peeping out from behind clouds."
-
-"Helen, Helen!" replied my mother, "weak, foolish girl! to like what no
-one can on earth obtain--perpetual sun-shine in the moral world! And
-after all, when one considers what this life is, its _long pains_ and
-its _short pleasures_, the _riches_ of _one_ day succeeded by the
-_poverty_ of the _next_, the ties which are _firmly knit_ only to be
-_severed_ in _a moment_, and our _capacity_ and _cause_ for _enjoyment_
-never equal to our _capability_ and _cause_ of suffering; my child, what
-a _poor, thoughtless, frivolous_ being must that be, whose _lip_ can
-always _smile_, and whose _eye_ can always _sparkle_, whom fears for
-_himself_ can never _depress_, nor fears for _time_ or for _eternity_,
-or anxiety for the welfare or the peace of others, can alarm into
-_self-government_!"
-
-You know that when my mother was roused into any mental emotion, she did
-not talk, she harangued, she spoke as if she read out of a book; it was,
-as you perceive, the case now.
-
-"My dear mother," replied I, "such a being as you describe would be as
-odious to me as he could be to you; and his vivacity either of manner or
-countenance must be the result of want of feelings, affections, or
-intellect. To _such_ perpetual sun-shine, I, like you, should object.
-But then the _clouds_ must not be occasioned by the absence of
-good-humour, or by the presence of sulkiness and ill-humour, or by
-hypochondriacal tendencies."
-
-"You do not suppose, Helen," she cried, with quickness, "that De Walden
-is grave only because he is cross, and thoughtful only because he is
-hypochondriacal?"
-
-"Were we talking of individuals, mamma?"
-
-"If not, you know we were thinking of them, Helen; and I feel only too
-sensible that the pique with which you answer when I praise Ferdinand,
-springs from your still powerful attachment to Seymour."
-
-I could not deny it: but my conscience reproached me for having, from a
-feeling of jealousy on poor Seymour's account, not only seemed to
-insinuate an ill-opinion of Ferdinand, which I did not entertain, but
-for having also given unnecessary pain to my mother. Oh, my dear friend!
-how often since I lost her have I reproached myself with these little
-offences! and what I suffered for the more painful trials which I
-inflicted on her, no words can describe, no regret can atone. Sad state
-of human blindness, and human infirmity, when one seems conscious of the
-duties which one owes to a parent, only after one is utterly deprived of
-the means to atone for the neglect of them!
-
-By what I have said of my jealousy of my mother's admiration of
-Ferdinand, you will see how much I had forgiven Seymour's imputed
-ill-conduct, and how little I adhered to my resolution of forgetting
-him. His letter and his new prize had much contributed to this. The
-latter was a proof that he had been leading a regular and studious life;
-and the former declared that my mother and myself were dearer to him
-than _any one else_ in existence, and that our approbation was what he
-most coveted.--Alas! when one loves, one easily believes what the
-beloved object asserts.
-
-Still, however, spite of my constancy, De Walden, by his varied talents,
-his rational pursuits, his instructive conversation, and his active
-benevolence, gained on my esteem every day. He was constantly occupied
-himself, and his example stimulated us to equal industry.--Weeks,
-therefore, fled as if they were days; and I felt raised in my own
-estimation, by seeing myself the constant object of interest to such a
-man, and also by feeling myself able to appreciate him.
-
-If Seymour had not been able to write elegant prose, and gain prizes, my
-constancy would have been in great danger. But as it was, there was
-intellectuality on both sides; and I had only to weigh talent against
-strength of mind and extensive information, throwing a great many
-pleasant make-weights beside into the scale with the first.
-
-My feelings toward Seymour were now called into fresh vigour by a
-letter from him, informing my mother that instead of having a monument
-made on purpose for his beloved parent, which would not have been ready
-for a considerable time, he had purchased one which had been nearly
-finished for a gentleman who died before it was completed, and who had
-intended it for his wife, and which the sculptor had been desired by the
-heir-at-law not to trouble himself to complete.
-
-This monument Pendarves said had met all his ideas of simple and
-classical beauty, and it would soon be ready for the inscription. This,
-he added, he had also enclosed for the approbation of my mother and "his
-cousin Helen," as he called me; considering the former as the
-representative of his mother, and _me_ as the only woman after her whom
-he wished to consult on any of his plans.
-
-We were excessively affected at the receipt of this letter; and De
-Walden, who was present, appeared distressed at the sight of our
-emotion. "What do you think of the inscription, my dear!" asked my
-mother.
-
-"Ask Mr. De Walden what he thinks of it," I replied.
-
-It was as follows:
-
-    HERE LIETH ALL THAT WAS MORTAL
-                 OF
-      THE LADY HELEN PENDARVES.
-               READER,
-       PITY ONLY HER SURVIVORS.
-
-On the reverse side were to be the following words:--
-
-                THIS MONUMENT
-           IS ERECTED TO HER MEMORY
-       AS A TOKEN OF LOVE AND GRATITUDE,
-              BY HER ONLY CHILD,
-    WHOSE PROUDEST BOAST IT WILL ALWAYS BE,
-                 THAT HE WAS
-           THE SON OF SUCH A WOMAN.
-
-As I expected, he exclaimed in its praise; and as he was a great
-_theorizer_, he added much that delighted me, and much that consequently
-made my mother uncomfortable.
-
-"It is," cried he, "simple and comprehensive. Oh! I must know him:
-simple virtues, simple manners, and simple heart. Pompous writers not
-much real feeling--not _true_. I must know Pendarves; a good son makes a
-good friend, good every thing. When shall I see him?"
-
-My mother looked grave, and I saw that the observant eye of De Walden
-remarked our contrary emotions with surprise, if not with uneasiness.
-
-"Then, I may tell Pendarves that you like the inscription; may I,
-Helen?" said my mother.
-
-"Oh yes, that it is every thing I could wish;" and she retired to write.
-
-When she returned, it was evident that she had been weeping violently;
-and De Walden, without saying a word, took her hand and pressed it
-respectfully to his lips.
-
-This action, though it was at once feeling and affectionate, displeased
-me; for it seemed to my oblique manner of viewing such things, an injury
-to Pendarves, and in no very pleasant disposition of mind I left the
-room. Nor can I doubt but that my absence gave my mother an opportunity
-of telling De Walden all the circumstances of our situation with
-Seymour; for on my rejoining them I found my mother looking agitated,
-though also much pleased, and De Walden dejected, abstracted, and
-silent. Need I add that I had long since had the pain of discovering
-that he had conceived an attachment for me?
-
-You may easily believe that this letter from Seymour, and my mother's
-assurance that he would certainly come to see the monument put up, did
-not tend to further the suit which I foresaw in process of time would be
-urged to me by De Walden. But the monument was sent down and erected,
-and yet Pendarves did not arrive. Consequently we thought he would not
-come at all; still, as precaution is wisdom, my mother with much
-earnestness conjured me to pledge my solemn word to her, that if he came
-I would not converse with him alone, should he be ever so desirous of an
-interview, and that I would avoid him when he called at our house. This
-was a trial of my filial duty for which I was not prepared, but my
-mother was so bent on carrying her point, and she so solemnly expressed
-her conviction that his conduct when in London was not amended, that I
-gave at last the promise which she requested.
-
-"Now then," said I to myself, "I hope poor Seymour will _not_ come
-down."
-
-Lady Helen's monument was placed next that of her husband, on which, by
-desire of Lord Seymour, an account of the two families and of the manner
-of his death, had been engraved in an ostentatious manner. Consequently
-it had not been necessary for Seymour to give any additional details. My
-mother likewise had found herself at liberty, when she hung up a
-beautiful tablet to the memory of her husband, to confine herself to the
-simplicity which she loved, and these last furnished a curious contrast
-to the pompous copiousness of the first.
-
-Still it was not to enjoy the superiority of my mother's and Seymour's
-taste, that I now so often visited the church, and resumed the custom
-which I had adopted in America, of strewing the graves I honoured with
-flowers. Oh no! it was because the _mother of Seymour Pendarves_ and the
-_dearest friend of my youth_ slept beneath that spotless marble; and I
-not only gratified my own feelings, but was sure my tribute would be
-gratifying to those of Pendarves.
-
-Of _his_ father I had _no_ recollection, and of _my own_ not sufficient
-to make such a tribute, had I paid it to him, more than an act of coldly
-remembered duty; but my whole heart was interested when I performed it
-in honour of Lady Helen; and the chill and colourless marble looked warm
-and glowing, from the profusion of blooming flowers which I loved to
-scatter on it.
-
-One morning, after offering, as usual, my tribute on this precious
-monument, and while kneeling beside it, a deep sigh startled me, and I
-beheld Seymour Pendarves, who had entered at another door, standing in
-pleased contemplation of me; but the view which I allowed myself of him
-was short indeed; my promise to my mother forcibly recurred to my mind,
-and the shriek of surprise and even of alarm which I uttered on
-beholding him so unexpectedly, was succeeded by my flying with the speed
-of phrensy to the door behind me, before Seymour, thunder-struck,
-mortified, and overcome by my seeming terror on observing him, could
-recover himself sufficiently to prevent or overtake me.
-
-Alas! by the beating of my heart, and the trembling of my whole frame, I
-knew too well that on hiding myself from him depended my only chance of
-keeping my promise. I therefore took refuge in a cottage, the owner of
-which was well known to me, instead of hastening home along the park,
-where he must with ease have overtaken me. Accordingly, I followed a
-sharp turning which led through a little lane to the cottage, and making
-my way through the first room into the back one, I threw myself on a
-bed, trembling and breathless.
-
-"What is the matter, my dear young lady?" cried the cottager.
-
-"Ask no questions, but shut the door," was my answer.
-
-She obeyed me, and I listened for several minutes for the sound of rapid
-footsteps, but in vain. I felt mortified at finding that Seymour did not
-trouble himself to pursue me; still I dared not go home, lest I should
-meet him on my road. I was therefore obliged to tell the cottager that I
-had a particular reason for wishing to avoid seeing Mr. Pendarves, and I
-would thank her to watch, if she could do it unsuspected, for his
-quitting the church, and inform me which way he went.
-
-"Yes, yes," replied the woman, shaking her head, "he shall not see you
-if I can help it; for though to be sure I hear he is very good to the
-poor, folks say he is but a wild one, and they do say--"
-
-Here, with an agonizing heart, and a gesture of indignant impatience, I
-bade her begone and do as I desired. When she had disappeared, I clasped
-my hands together convulsively. I sobbed aloud in the anguish of a
-wounded spirit; "And can it be," I cried, "that he whose sweet and
-pensive countenance so full of mournful tenderness I have just gazed
-upon for a moment, and shall never be able to forget again; can he be a
-man whose notoriously profligate habits make him the theme of abuse to
-a person like this?" No; there is not one pang in the catalogue of human
-suffering so acute as that which the heart feels from the consciousness
-of the decided depravity of a being tenderly beloved.
-
-The woman on her return told me, "Mr. Pendarves was certainly seeking
-me; that he had, on leaving the church, looked round, and then ran
-several yards at full speed down the park, after which he stopped and
-she thought it probable that he would soon be past the front window, but
-she would look out and see." She did so, and having told me in a
-whisper, adding that "through a hole in the little muslin curtain I
-could see him without being seen," I was weak enough to take advantage
-of the opportunity. He walked dejectedly and with folded arms; the glow
-on his cheek, which the sight of me had deepened, was now succeeded by a
-deadly paleness; and I felt a bitterness which not even my sense of his
-errors could assuage, that he was wretched, and that I had made him so.
-My spy watched him into his own house, and only then I ventured to
-return to mine. I must say that I look back on this morning, spite of
-the sufferings which I endured, with much self-satisfaction, as I had
-completely acted up to the dictates of filial duty under the strongest
-temptation of disobeying them, as my mother was gone with De Walden to
-spend the day from home; and had I not conscientiously avoided Seymour,
-I might even without any positive infringement of duty, have exposed
-myself to the risk of seeing him undisturbed by her presence. Happily,
-however, my principles were too firm to allow me to be satisfied with
-this subterfuge, and, as I before said, I recall this day with
-satisfaction.
-
-Every hour I expected that Seymour would call, but he did not come:
-however, I saw his servant ride up to the gate, deliver a note, and wait
-for an answer. I gave it verbally to my own maid. It was, that Mrs.
-Pendarves was gone out for the whole day. Shall I confess that I _hoped_
-Seymour would, on hearing this, make an attempt to see me, though I was
-resolved to refuse him attendance; and I was _mortified_ that he did
-not? Just before I expected my mother and De Walden would return, I saw
-Seymour's servant come to the door again, and deliver another note, as
-it seemed; but when it was brought into the room, I found it was a
-letter to me! I was at once relieved, agitated, miserable and delighted;
-yet my hand trembled so much I thought I should never be able to open
-the letter. The following were its contents:--
-
-     "When this letter reaches you, Miss Pendarves, I shall be at a
-     distance from that scene which to me can now never again be a home,
-     but which is endeared to me by such tender recollections, that not
-     even by the miserable ones which now must succeed to them can they
-     be ever effaced.
-
-     "Oh, my beloved mother! could you have believed that your son could
-     be refused admittance within the doors of your dearest friend, and
-     forbidden even to speak to the playfellow and companion of his
-     childhood, and the once appointed sharer of his heart and his
-     fortunes? Could you have thought that the friend who adored you
-     would have gone from home purposely to avoid him, and to avoid his
-     just reproaches; because, without any _new_ offence on his part,
-     she had not only resolved never to allow him to address her
-     daughter, but had pledged that daughter's hand, as he is informed,
-     to another? And yet her parting words were, 'Your marriage with
-     Helen depends wholly on yourself!' These words I never have
-     forgotten; they regulated my conduct, they gave strength to my
-     resolutions; I came hither full of hope, and I go hence overwhelmed
-     with despair. For my claims, claims which I have _never resigned_,
-     have been disregarded, and Helen will be the wife of a stranger,
-     the acquaintance of yesterday!
-
-     "Nay more, at sight of me, Helen herself, the conscious Helen, fled
-     as from a pestilence! And at what a moment too, when I had
-     surprised her in an office the most flattering to your memory, and
-     the most precious to my heart!
-
-     "Cruel Helen! what have you done? and what have _I_ done to be so
-     treated? Surely it was from your mother herself that I should first
-     have heard of your intended marriage. But no: I refused to believe
-     it till your flight and your countenance of terror on seeing me
-     confirmed the horrible truth.
-
-     "But though you might not be able to tell it me yourself, why did
-     Mrs. Pendarves avoid me? why, when I wrote to tell her I was coming
-     for a single day, did she not make a point of seeing me either at
-     her own house or at mine? But I will not detain you much longer
-     from your attention to the happy stranger.
-
-     "Oh, Helen! had you continued to encourage my hopes, I might have
-     been a happiness to myself and an ornament to society. But
-     now--yes, now, it will be well if I am not a disgrace to it. But
-     why do I continue to write? Shall I tell you, Helen? It is because
-     I feel that I am addressing you for the _last time_; for the wife
-     of the Count De Walden must not, I know, receive letters from
-
-     "SEYMOUR PENDARVES."
-
-Though I now think, and you will probably think so too, that this letter
-was written full as much from the head as from the heart, you will not
-wonder that it bent me to the earth in agony; and that when my mother
-entered the hall on her return, she heard my voice uttering the tones of
-loud lamentation, and found me in the arms of the terrified servants.
-Never have I since suffered myself to be so weakly overpowered. I try to
-excuse such weakness by the state of my health at the time.
-Indisposition, and a tendency to a severe feverish cold, had prevented
-me from accompanying my mother and De Walden. Nor did the sudden
-surprise of seeing Pendarves steady my nerves, or decrease my fever; but
-these circumstances prepared the way for the letter to affect me as it
-did, and to excuse in some measure the state in which my mother beheld
-me.
-
-An open letter near me, in the hand-writing of Pendarves, accounted for
-all that she saw. I was become more composed, though I did not speak,
-and she then eagerly inquired, but she soon desisted, to express her
-surprise at the charge of having gone out purposely to avoid him; for no
-such letter had ever reached her: in consequence of some accident it did
-not arrive till the next day. She declared she could not sleep till she
-had written to Seymour to exonerate herself from so heavy a charge. I
-wished to say, "and to assure him, I hope, that I am not engaged to De
-Walden, that, on the contrary, he is not even a declared lover:" but I
-_dared_ not say this; and my mother read on--but she read hastily, and
-wished, I saw, to conceal from me the painful emotions which the letter
-occasioned her. She therefore insisted on my forgetting these
-ill-founded reproaches, as she called them; she then left me, to write
-to Seymour.
-
-The next morning Seymour's servant came to say, he was going to rejoin
-his master, and wished to know if we had any commands for him. To him,
-therefore, was consigned the exculpatory letter. But of this I had no
-knowledge at the time; for when my mother and the servant entered the
-room next day, they found me in all the restlessness of fast-increasing
-illness, and my mother, before night, was assured by the medical
-attendants, that I was suffering under a very formidable attack of the
-scarlet fever.
-
-For three days and nights my life was despaired of; and as, according to
-the merciful dispensations of Providence, "good always springs from
-evil," my mother learnt to know, from the danger of her only child, that
-life was not so valueless to her, as she was sometimes disposed to think
-it. But hope succeeding to fear, on the fourth morning from my seizure I
-was pronounced out of danger. Yet a cloud, and that a dark one, still
-hung over my mother's prospects; for I had named Seymour in my delirium,
-in such terms as convinced her that he was ever uppermost in my mind,
-and that my illness had been the consequence of misery endured on his
-account.
-
-De Walden, during this time, was in a state of painful anxiety. Scarcely
-could he be prevailed upon to keep out of the infected chamber; his
-nights were never once passed in bed, till I was declared to be in
-safety; and on my recovery, I had to experience the mortifying necessity
-of owing gratitude where I believed that I could never make an adequate
-return of affection.
-
-Well, I recovered, though I remained for many weeks thin, languid, and
-afflicted with the disagreeable local complaints which often attend on
-the subsiding of a fever like mine, particularly inflammations of the
-eyelid, and I could not bear for some time to have my eyes uncovered.
-During this period of suffering, De Walden devoted his whole time to
-amusing me. He read to me while I reclined upon the sofa, and I forgot
-my complaints while listening to his intelligent comments on what he
-read. It was therefore with considerable concern that I saw him depart
-for Cambridge, in October; but my concern was joy to his. Never did I
-see any one more agitated on such an occasion, and scarcely could the
-presence of my mother restrain the declaration of love which hovered on
-his lips, and which I dreaded to hear! but he did restrain it; for he
-had promised her that he would do so, on her assurance that the time was
-not come for its being favourably received.
-
-At Christmas he returned to us, and the surprise which he showed at
-sight of me, convinced us of the great change which had taken place in
-my appearance, in consequence, as is sometimes the case at my age, (for
-I was not yet seventeen,) of a severe fever. I was become taller by
-several inches; that is, I had become from five feet five, full five
-feet eight, and from my upright carriage, as I have heard you remark, I
-look considerably taller. But I am quite sure, that had the attachment
-of De Walden been founded on my personal appearance, it would, during
-his stay with us, have completely vanished; for my eyes were inflamed,
-my _embonpoint_ had not increased, and my colour was not only gone, but
-my complexion looked thick as well as pale. I perceived, however, no
-diminution in the ardent devotion which his manner expressed, and I
-sighed while I thought, that had Seymour Pendarves seen me, he perhaps
-would not have remained so constant.
-
-What an argument was this belief for me to try to conquer my attachment!
-But certain it is, that the example of Lady Helen and my mother
-influenced me even unconsciously to myself, and that I considered
-eternal constancy as praiseworthy, and not blameable. Love had led my
-mother and my admirable friend and monitress to leave their parents and
-country, and they had wept the loss of husbands thus exclusively
-beloved, in sacred singleness of attachment. It was in vain, therefore,
-that my mother told me love was to be conquered, and that she insinuated
-it was even indelicate to pine after an object who was perhaps unworthy,
-and certainly negligent, if not faithless. Her example, as I before
-said, had raised the passion in my estimation; the object of my love was
-one on whom my eyes had first opened, one who was associated with my
-earliest and happiest recollections, one too, who, she must remember,
-had at an early age saved my life at the hazard of his own (a story I
-shall tell by-and-by); and I could not but think she wished me to forget
-Seymour, chiefly because she preferred Ferdinand. I believe I have
-forgotten to mention, that Seymour Pendarves went abroad as soon as he
-left our village, and that he did not receive my mother's explanatory
-letter till several months after it was written.
-
-In January, De Walden returned to college, and I was still so unwell,
-that my mother wished me to change the air; and as business required her
-to undertake a journey, we set off, in February, on a tour.
-
-I have never, I believe, during my whole narrative, mentioned some of my
-relations more than once, and this has been from a wish of not
-encumbering it with unnecessary characters. The uncle with whom my
-mother had lived previously to her marriage, who occasionally spent
-months at our house, and whom we visited in return, died suddenly, at a
-very advanced age, during my illness. It was this event which called my
-mother, as one of the executors, as well as residuary legatee, from her
-home.
-
-The weather was cold, dry, February weather, and the brightness of the
-road, from the effect of frost and sun, was so painful to my eyes, that
-my mother resolved to travel all night, and repose in the day, after our
-second stage from London; and we set off for Oxford at one in the
-morning. From the ruggedness of the road, however, and the care which
-our coachman always took of our horses, we had full leisure to dwell on
-the possibility of our being robbed; when about three in the morning,
-two horsemen rode past the carriage, and one of them looked into the
-window next my mother, which she had just let down: but he rode on, and
-we were grasping each other's hand, in terrified silence, when he came
-back again, and desired the postilions to stop. Our footman, who was on
-the box, was disposed to resist this command; when a faint voice, the
-voice of the other gentleman, who now rode slowly up, conjured them to
-stop for mercy's sake, for they were not highwaymen: the first now came
-up to the window, and begged to be heard.
-
-He and his friend, he said, were Oxford students, who had been to
-London, without leave; and if they were missing another morning at
-chapel, they were liable to a punishment which they wished to avoid; but
-they should certainly have reached Oxford in excellent time, had not his
-companion been taken extremely ill; and unless we would take him in, he
-must stop at the next house, at whatever risk.
-
-You may suppose that my mother did not hesitate: she instantly desired
-the footman to assist the gentleman into the coach, and mount his
-horse--a plan which was thankfully acceded to. His companion instantly
-galloped off at full speed for Oxford.
-
-The invalid, unable to speak, sank back exhausted in one corner, and
-seemed most thankful, though he spoke almost inaudibly, for the use of
-my mother's smelling-bottle.
-
-The weather had now experienced such a change, that the frost was gone;
-though the night was so dark, that the stranger could not distinguish
-our faces, nor we his. Indeed, he appeared to be insensible of external
-objects, and heedless of sounds, for he did not always answer my
-mother's kind inquiries.
-
-I, meanwhile, was as silent as the invalid, and sat back in the coach,
-to indulge in the feelings which agitated me at the idea, that before
-long I should be in the very place which probably contained Pendarves,
-but without the remotest chance of seeing him. At length, we heard a
-village-clock strike four, and day began to dawn: my mother let down the
-glass, to feel, for a while, the refreshing breeze of morning. As she
-did this, desiring me to keep my thick veil wrapped close round my face,
-for fear of cold, the invalid said he would put his head out of the
-window, for he thought that the air would revive him. My mother drew
-back to make room for him; when, as the rays of the red and yellow dawn
-fell on his wan face, she recognized in this object of her kindness,
-Seymour Pendarves himself.
-
-He, too, as her veil was thrown back, knew her at the same moment; and
-faintly ejaculating--
-
-"Is it possible?" he turned his eyes eagerly toward me, then seized both
-her hands, and resting them on her knees, buried his face in them, and
-burst into tears; while, with the hand next me, he grasped mine, which
-was involuntarily extended towards him.
-
-A painful silence ensued--the result of most uncomfortable feelings,
-which, on the side of Pendarves, were accompanied by the most
-distressing consciousness; for we had as it were detected him in a
-breach of college rules; and, but for us, his irregularity of conduct
-might, perhaps, have exposed him to the disgrace of expulsion; so much
-for that amendment on which _alone_ depended his union with me. That was
-an event, however, which, though we knew it not, he had ceased to make
-probable; for the report of my engagement to De Walden was still
-current, wherever we were known; and if he had not known that Mr.
-Pendarves, the head of the family, knew nothing of this intended
-marriage, Seymour would have been convinced it was a fact _himself_.
-
-My mother's tears now fell silently down her cheek, and in spite of
-herself she pressed her forehead on the head of Seymour, as it still
-rested on her knees. Certain it is, that she loved him with much of a
-mother's tenderness--loved him also because he resembled his father and
-mine--and loved him still more because he was all that remained to her
-of her ever-regretted friend. The opposition to our union, therefore,
-was the strongest proof possible of the strength of her principles, and
-of her affection for me; for, though she thus loved, she rejected him,
-because she was sure that he was not likely to make her daughter happy.
-
-My mother was the first to break silence. In a voice of great feeling,
-she said, "Seymour! unhappy young man! why do I see you _here_,
-infringing college rules? and why do I see you thus? Have you been ill
-long? have you had no advice?" It was now quite day; and, as he raised
-his head, the wild wanness of his look was terrible to us both, and it
-was with difficulty that I could prevent myself from sobbing audibly,
-while I anxiously expected his answer.
-
-"Spare me! spare me!" cried he mournfully, "a painful confession of
-follies."
-
-"Did not business carry you to London, Seymour?"
-
-"No--nor kept me there. It was the search of pleasure; and I have
-scarcely been in bed for three nights. Yet no; let me do myself some
-little justice: I was unhappy, and I _am_ unhappy. By denying me all
-hope of Helen, you made me desperate, and I fled to riotous living, to
-get away from myself; therefore, do not reproach me; I am quite punished
-enough by seeing before me the intended wife of the Count de
-Walden--curses on the name! Tell me," cried he wildly, seeing that my
-mother hesitated to speak, "am I not right? Is not my Helen, as I once
-thought her, betrothed to De Walden?"
-
-"Oh, no--no!" cried I, eagerly, and I caught my mother's eye rather
-sternly fixed upon me; but I regarded it not, for I felt at the very
-bottom of my heart the sudden change from misery to joy which Seymour's
-face now exhibited. He could not speak--his heart was too full; but
-leaning back, overcome both with physical and moral exhaustion, he
-nearly fainted away. He was soon, however, roused to new energy by the
-indignation with which he listened to what my mother felt herself called
-upon to say. I shall not enter into a detail of her observations;
-suffice, that she candidly told him her objections to his being allowed
-to address me remained in full force, as did her ardent wish that I
-should marry De Walden, who had offered himself as my lover, and who
-(she was certain) would as surely make me happy in marriage, as he would
-make me _miserable_.
-
-When she had ended, he thanked her for her candour, but coldly reminded
-her that he had always said he would never take a refusal from any lips
-but mine--and he retained his resolution.
-
-"And now," said he, "the opportunity is arrived. Helen! such as I
-am--not worthy of you, I own, except as far as tender and constant love
-can make me so--I offer myself to your acceptance. Speak--Yes or No--and
-speak as your heart dictates!"
-
-I remained silent for a minute; then faltered out, sighing deeply as I
-spoke, "I have no will--can have no will--but my mother's."
-
-"Enough!" replied he, in a tone and with a look which seemed to me to be
-the climax of despair. "Hark!" cried he, "the Oxford clocks are striking
-six--why do I linger here? for here I am sure I have no longer any
-business!"
-
-He let down the glass, and desired the postilions to stop, while the
-footman rode up to the door. This little exertion seemed too much for
-him, and he sunk back quite exhausted, while my mother tried to take one
-of his hands.
-
-"Pshaw!" cried he, throwing her hand from him--"give me love or give me
-hate; no half-measures for me; nor hope, when you and your daughter have
-given me my death-blow, that I will accept of _emollients_. I thank you,
-madam, as I would a _stranger_, for your _courtesy_ in admitting me
-here, and I wish you both good morning."
-
-Again his strength failed him, and he was forced to wipe the dews of
-weakness from his forehead.
-
-"Go, I must--even if I die in the effort!" he then exclaimed.
-
-I could not bear this; and while my mother herself, greatly affected,
-held me back, I tried to catch him by the arm; and, in a voice which
-evinced the deep feeling of my soul, I exclaimed, "Stay, dear Seymour!
-you are not fit to go--you are not, indeed!" But I spoke in vain: he
-mounted his horse, assisted by the servant, while I broke from my
-mother, and stretched out my clasped hands to him in fruitless
-supplication; then giving me a look of such mixed expression, that I
-could not exactly say whether it most pained or gratified me, he was out
-of sight in a moment, while I looked after him till I could see him no
-longer; and even then I still looked, in hopes of seeing him again. I
-did see him again, just as we had entered Oxford, and were passing
-Magdalen; he _stood at the gate_; he had, therefore, _seen_ my long,
-earnest gaze, as if in search of him; and though I felt confused, I also
-felt comforted by it. In another moment we were near him, and his eyes
-met mine with an expression mournful, tender, and I thought, grateful,
-too, for the interest which I took in him. He kissed his hand to me, and
-then disappeared within the gates.
-
-"Helen!" said my mother, "I meant to have stopped here, to refresh the
-horses and ourselves; but after what I have seen this morning, I shall
-proceed immediately."
-
-She left the footman, however, behind, to bring us word the next day how
-Mr. Pendarves was. Oh! how I loved her for this kind attention! But then
-she was a rare instance of the union of strong feelings with unbending
-principle.
-
-Methinks I hear you say, "I hope you were now convinced that Seymour's
-attachment as well as Ferdinand's, was founded on too good a basis to be
-shaken by your altered looks."
-
-No, indeed, I was not; for so conscious was I that my looks were
-altered, I _never once_ lifted up my veil before Pendarves. I dare say,
-both he and my mother imputed this to the wish of hiding my emotion,
-whereas it was in fact only to hide my inflamed eyes, and my _ugliness_.
-But what a degrading confession for a heroine to make! to plead guilty
-of having bad eyes and a plain face! It is as bad as Amelia's broken
-nose. But _n'importe_: my eyes, like her nose, will get well again; and,
-like her, I shall come out a complete beauty, when no one could expect
-it.
-
-We awaited with great impatience the return of the servant, from whom we
-learnt that Mr. Pendarves had been seized with an alarming fit on
-leaving the chapel, and was pronounced to be in an inflammatory fever.
-
-"O my dear mother!" cried I, wildly, "he has no one to nurse him now
-that loves him!"
-
-"But he _shall_ have," she replied; and in another hour we were on our
-road to Oxford. My mother insisted on being admitted to the bedside of
-the unconscious sufferer, who in his delirium was ever blaming the
-cruelty of _her_ who was now watching and weeping beside his pillow.
-Long was his illness, and severe his suffering: but he struggled
-through; and the first object whom he beheld on recovering his
-recollection, was my mother leaning over him with the anxiety of a real
-parent. Never could poor Seymour recall this moment of his life without
-tears of grateful tenderness.
-
-He was too much disappointed, however, to find that her resolution not
-to allow him to address me remained in full force; for the circumstances
-on which it was founded were added to, rather than diminished. Nor could
-his assertion, that his dissipation was owing to the despair into which
-she had plunged him, at all excuse him in her eyes, for she could not
-admit that any sorrow could be an excuse for error.
-
-This, indeed, far from its being a motive to move her heart in his
-favour, closed it the more against him; as it proved she thought that
-from his weakness of character he never could deserve to be intrusted
-with the happiness of her child.
-
-Bitter, therefore, was his mortification, when, on expressing the hopes
-to which her kindness had given birth, she assured him that her
-sentiments remained unaltered.
-
-"Then, madam," cried he, "why were you so cruel as to save my life?"
-
-"Young man," she gravely replied, "was it not my duty to try to save
-your life, that you might try to amend it? Were you prepared to meet
-that terrible tribunal from which even the most perfect shrink back
-appalled?"
-
-On his complete recovery, my mother and I proceeded to the house of my
-uncle, now become our property; and thence we returned home. The
-following vacation Seymour finally left college, and again went abroad.
-
-He wrote a farewell letter to my mother, as eloquent as gratitude and
-even filial affection could make it: she wept over it and exclaimed,
-
-"Oh, that the generous-hearted creature who wrote this should not be all
-I wish him! He is like a beautiful but unsupported edifice, fair to
-behold, but dangerous to lean against!"
-
-There was one part of the letter, however, which my mother did not
-understand: I fancied that I did, though I did not own it. He assured
-her, that in spite of everything he carried more hope away in his heart
-than he had ever yet known: hope, and even a _precious conviction_ which
-he _had never known before_, and which he was sure his cousin Helen
-would wish him to possess, as it would be to him the _strongest shield_
-against _temptation_.
-
-"My dear," said my mother, after long consideration, "how stupid I have
-been not to understand this sooner! He certainly means that he is become
-very religious: and that this hope, this sweet conviction, are faith and
-another world. Dear Seymour, I am so glad! for though I do not choose
-you should marry a Methodist, and one extreme is to me as unpleasant as
-another, still I believe Methodists to be a very happy people; and I
-hope Seymour, for his own sake, will not change again."
-
-I smiled, but said nothing; for I put a very different interpretation on
-his words. As it appeared to me, his _hope_ and _conviction_ were that
-he possessed _my love_, and that my compliance with my mother's will was
-wholly against my own; for I recollected the tone in which I had replied
-to his question concerning my engagement to De Walden, "Oh, no! no!" and
-also my scream of agony in spite of his alarming weakness when he
-persevered in leaving us, and the anxiety with which I looked at him at
-the gates of Magdalen. Yes, when we exchanged that look, I felt that our
-hearts understood each other, and I was sure that the shield to which
-Seymour alluded was his conviction of my love.
-
-But alas! he was absent--De Walden was present. He came to us at the
-beginning of the long vacation, and was to remain with us till he
-returned to college.
-
-My mother now urged me to admit the addresses of De Walden, showing me
-at the same time a letter from his uncle, in which he expressed his
-earnest desire that his nephew should be a successful suitor, and
-offering to make a splendid addition to his fortune whenever he should
-become my husband. In short, could the prospect of rank and fortune,
-could manly beauty, superior sense, unspotted virtues, and uncommon
-acquirements, have made me unfaithful to my first attachment, unfaithful
-I should soon have become; but though the attentions of De Walden could
-not annihilate, they certainly weakened it. No wonder that they should
-do so, when I was so little sure of the stability of Seymour's
-affection, that I was fearful it would be weakened by any change in my
-external appearance, and as I had often heard him say, he did not admire
-tall women, I own I was weak enough to be uneasy at the growth
-consequent upon my fever; and I was glad, when we met in the coach, not
-only that my veil concealed my altered looks, but that, as I was seated,
-he could not discover my almost may-pole height.
-
-De Walden, on the contrary, admired tall women; and declared that I had
-now reached the exact height which gave majesty to the female figure
-without diminishing its grace; and as I really thought myself too tall,
-his praise (for flattery it was not) was particularly welcome to me.
-Whatever was the cause, whether I liked De Walden so well, that I liked
-Seymour so much less as to cease to be fretted by his absence, I cannot
-tell; but certain it is that I recovered my bloom, and that from the
-increase of my _embonpoint_, my mother feared I should become too fat
-for a girl of seventeen: my spirits too recovered all their former
-gaiety, so that October, the time for the departure of De Walden,
-arrived before I was conscious that he had been with us half his
-accustomed time.
-
-My mother now naturally enough augured well for the success of his suit;
-and I owned that I was no longer averse to listen to his love, but that
-I would on no account engage myself to him till I was _quite sure_ I had
-conquered my attachment to Pendarves.
-
-This was certainly conceding a great deal, and De Walden left us full of
-hope for the first time; while I, who felt much of my affection for him
-vanish when I no longer listened to the deep persuasive tones of his
-voice, should have repented having gone so far, had I not seen happiness
-beaming in my beloved mother's face.
-
-At Christmas De Walden came to us again, and I then found that in such
-cases it is impossible (to use an expressive phrase) "_to say A without
-saying B_;" I had gone so far that I was expected to go further; and but
-for the secret misgivings of my own heart, and the firm dictates of my
-own judgment, De Walden would have returned to college in January my
-betrothed husband. But, though we had not received any tidings from
-Pendarves, and my mother felt assured of his inconstancy, I persevered
-firmly in my resolution not to _engage_ myself till I _had seen him
-again_, and could be assured, by seeing him with indifference, that my
-heart had really changed its master.
-
-You will wonder, perhaps, how a man of Ferdinand's delicacy could wish
-to accept a heart which had been so long wedded to another, and that
-other a living object. But my mother had convinced herself, and had no
-difficulty in convincing him, that I was deceived in the strength of my
-former attachment; that she had originally, though unconsciously,
-directed my thoughts to him; that, like a romantic girl, I had thought
-it pretty to be in love, and that my fancied passion had been irritated
-by obstacles; but that, when once _his_ wife, I should find that _he
-alone_ had ever been the real possessor of my affections.
-
-It is curious to observe how easily even the most sensible persons can
-forget, and believe, according to their wishes. My mother had absolutely
-forgotten the proofs of my strong attachment to Seymour, which she had
-once so much deplored. She forgot my illness, which if not caused was
-increased by his letter of reproach; she forgot the tell-tale misery
-which I had exhibited on the road to Oxford, and she did not read in the
-firmness with which I still persisted to see Seymour again, a secret
-suspicion of still lingering love.
-
-But the crisis of our fates was fast approaching: I received an
-invitation to spend the months of May and June in London, with a friend
-who had once resided near us, and who had gone to reside in the
-metropolis.
-
-I felt a great desire to accept this invitation; and my mother kindly
-permitted me to go, but declined going herself, saying that it was time
-_I_ should learn to live without _her_, and _she_ without _me_.
-Accordingly, for the first time we were separated. But this separation
-was soon soothed to me by the charms of the life which I was leading. I
-was a new face: I was only seventeen, and I was _said_ to be the heiress
-of considerable property. This, you know, was an exaggeration; my
-fortune was handsome, but not very large: however, I was followed and
-courted, but none of my admirers were in my opinion at all equal to
-Seymour or De Walden: they gratified my vanity, but they failed to touch
-my heart.
-
-One day at an exhibition, I met a newly-married lady, who when single
-had been staying in the neighbourhood of my mother's uncle during our
-last visit, and was much admired both by my mother and myself. This
-meeting gave us great pleasure, and she hoped I would come and see her
-at her lodgings. I promised that I would.
-
-"But there is nothing like the time present: will you go home with me
-now, and spend a quiet day? You must come again when my husband is at
-home and I have a party; but he dines out to-day, and I shall be alone
-till evening."
-
-"But I am not dressed."
-
-"Oh! I can send for your things and your maid; and such an opportunity
-as this of telling you all about my love and my marriage may never occur
-again."
-
-I was as eager to hear as she was to tell; my friend consented to part
-with me, and I accompanied her home.
-
-In the afternoon while we were expecting two or three ladies of her
-acquaintance, and were preparing to walk with them in the park, my
-friend received a little note from her husband.
-
-"That is so like Ridley," said she. "However, this is an improvement;
-for he often goes out and invites half-a-dozen people to dinner without
-giving me any notice: but now he has only invited one man to supper, and
-has sent to let me know they are coming. His name I see is the same as
-yours, Seymour Pendarves: is he a cousin of yours?"
-
-"What!" cried I, almost gasping for breath, "Seymour Pendarves in
-England, and coming hither!"
-
-"Yes; but what is the matter, or why are you so agitated?"
-
-"If you please I will go home, I had rather go home."
-
-Mrs. Ridley looked at me with wonder and concern, but she was too
-delicate to ask me for the confidence which she saw I was not disposed
-to give. She therefore mildly replied that if I must leave her, she
-would order her servant to attend me.
-
-A few moments had restored my self-possession: and I thought that as the
-time was now arrived when I could, by seeing Pendarves, enable myself to
-judge of the real state of my heart, I should be wrong to run away from
-the opportunity.
-
-"But pray tell me," said I, "when you expect Mr. Ridley and his
-friends?"
-
-"Oh not till it is dark, not till near supper-time."
-
-Immediately (I am ashamed of my girlish folly) I had a strong desire to
-discover whether Seymour would recognise my person, altered as it was in
-height and in size; and I also wished to get over the first flutter of
-seeing him without its being perceived by him. In consequence I told
-Mrs. Ridley that Seymour was my cousin, but that he had not seen me
-_standing_ since I was grown so very tall; and I had a great wish to
-ascertain whether he would know me. "Therefore," said I, "do not order
-candles till we have sat a little while."
-
-Mrs. Ridley smiled, fully persuaded that, though I might speak the
-truth, I did not speak _all_ the truth. I was at liberty in the mean
-time, during our walk in the park, to indulge in reverie, and to try to
-strengthen my agitated nerves against the approaching interview. But
-concerning what was I now anxious?--Not so much to ascertain whether I
-loved _him_, but whether he loved _me_. Alas! this anxiety was a certain
-proof that he was still the possessor of my heart, and that of course I
-ought not to be and could not be the wife of De Walden.
-
-Just as we stopped at the door, on our return from our walk, Mr. Ridley
-was knocking at it, accompanied by Seymour. I felt myself excessively
-agitated, while I pulled my hat and veil over my face: to avoid a
-shower, we had crowded into a hackney-coach. Luckily I had not to get
-out first; but judge how I trembled when I found Seymour's hand
-presented to assist me. My foot slipped, and if he had not caught me in
-his arms, I should have fallen. Mrs. Ridley, however, good-naturedly
-observed, that she had been nearly falling herself, the step was so bad,
-and her friend _Miss Pen_ was also very short-sighted. I now walked up
-stairs, tottering as I went.
-
-"Fanny," whispered Mr. Ridley to his wife, "who is she?" She told him I
-was a Miss Pen, and she would tell him more by and by.
-
-"Pray, Fanny, when do you mean to have candles?" said Mr. Ridley.
-
-"Not yet; not till we go to take off our bonnets. I like this light, it
-is so pleasant to the eyes."
-
-"Yes, and so cheap too," replied her husband. "But I wonder you should
-like this sort of light, Fanny, for you are far removed yet from that
-period of life when _le petit jour_ is so favourable to beauty: you are
-still young enough to bear the searching light of broad-eyed day, and so
-I trust are all the ladies present; though I must own a _veil_ is always
-a suspicious circumstance," he added, coming up to me.
-
-"Yes, yes," said his wife, "I always suspect a veil is worn to conceal
-something."
-
-"But it may be worn in mercy," he added; "and perhaps it is so here, if
-I may judge of what is hidden by what is shown: if I may form an opinion
-indeed from that hand and arm, on which youth and beauty are so legibly
-written, I--"
-
-Here, confused and almost provoked, I drew on my gloves; and Mrs.
-Ridley, who loved fun, whispered her husband,
-
-"Do not go on; she is quite ugly, scarred with the confluent small-pox,
-blear-eyed, and hideous: you will be surprised when you see her face."
-
-She then begged to speak to me; and as I walked across the room in which
-we sat to join her in the next, I saw Ridley whisper Pendarves.
-
-"May be so," he replied: "but her figure and form are almost the finest
-I ever saw."
-
-"And yet I am so very tall," said I to myself with a joy that vibrated
-through my frame.
-
-The conversation now became general; and on a lady's being mentioned who
-had married a second husband before the first had been dead quite a
-year, Pendarves, to my consternation, began a violent philippic against
-women, declaring that scarcely one of us was capable of a persevering
-attachment; that the best and dearest of husbands might be forgotten in
-six months; and that those men only could expect to be happy who laid
-their plans for happiness independently of woman's love.
-
-It is strange, but true, that the indignation which this speech excited
-in me enabled me to conquer at once the agitation which had hitherto
-kept me silent. Coming hastily forward, I exclaimed, while he rose
-respectfully,
-
-"Is it for you, Mr. Seymour Pendarves, to hold such language as this?
-Have you forgotten Lady Helen, your own blessed mother, and her friend
-and yours?"
-
-So saying, while he stood confounded, self-judged, and full of wonder,
-for the voice and manner were mine, but the height and figure were no
-longer so,--I left the room; and a violent burst of tears relieved my
-oppressed heart.
-
-Mrs. Ridley then rang for a candle and considerately left me to myself.
-
-Oh! the flutter of that moment when I re-entered the drawing-room, which
-I found brilliantly lighted up! Seymour, who had I found now doubted,
-and now believed, the evidence of his ears in opposition to that of his
-sight, was standing at the window; but he turned hastily round at my
-entrance, and our eyes instantly met.
-
-"Helen!" exclaimed he, springing forward to meet me, while my hand was
-extended toward him; and I believe my countenance was equally
-encouraging. That yielded hand was pressed by turns to his lips and his
-heart; but still we neither of us spoke, and Seymour suddenly
-disappeared.
-
-Mr. Ridley, who was that _melancholy_ thing to other people a _professed
-joker_, to my great relief (as it enabled me to recover myself,) now
-came up to me bowing respectfully, and begged me to veil my face again;
-for he saw that my excessive ugliness had been too much for his poor
-friend, and he hoped for his sake, as well as that of the rest of
-mankind, I would conceal myself from sight.
-
-I told him, when his friend came back I would consider of his
-proposition, and if he approved it I would veil directly.
-
-Before Seymour returned, I asked Mr. Ridley whether he suspected who his
-presuming monitor was.
-
-"Pray, madam," he archly replied, "say that word again. What are you to
-Mr. Pendarves?"
-
-"I said 'Monitor.'"
-
-"Oh--_monitor_! I thought you were _something_ to him, but did not
-exactly _know what_. No wonder he was so alarmed at sight of you, for
-monitors, I believe, have a right to chastise their pupils; and I begin
-now to fear he will not come back. Do you use the ferule or the rod,
-Miss Pendarves?"
-
-"You have not yet answered my question, sir!"
-
-"Oh! I forgot. 'Heavens!' cried he, as you closed the door, 'is it
-possible? Could that be my cousin, Helen Pendarves? Yes, it could be no
-other; and yet'----Is that like him, madam?"
-
-"Oh! very!"
-
-"'Well,' I, in the simplicity of my heart, replied, 'your cousin she may
-be; but my wife told me her name was Pen.'
-
-"'Oh yes, it must be Helen--it was her own sweet voice and manner!'
-
-"'She is given to scolding, then--is she?' said I.
-
-"'Oh!' said he, 'she is!' But I will spare your blushes, madam; though I
-must own that I could not believe you _were_ the lady in question,
-because my wife told me you were hideous to behold, and _he_ said you
-were a beauty: besides, when he last saw you, he added, you were thin
-and short; but then he eagerly observed, that a year and a half made a
-great difference sometimes, and you had not met during that period. But
-here comes the gentleman to answer your questions himself. What I
-further said did not at all please him."
-
-"No! what was it, sir?"
-
-"That, if you were indeed Miss Helen Pendarves, you were a great
-nuisance, for that you had won and broken at least a dozen hearts; but
-that it was a comfort to know you would soon be removed from the power
-of doing further mischief, as you were going to be married to a Swiss
-gentleman, and would soon leave the kingdom."
-
-"And you told him this?" cried I, turning very faint.
-
-"Yes, I did; and he had just turned away from me, when you made your
-appearance."
-
-Seymour now entered the room; and I was, from this conversation, at no
-loss to account for the gloom which overspread his countenance, while he
-hoped Miss Pendarves was well.
-
-"My dear Fanny," said Mr. Ridley, who must have his joke, "I hope you
-will make proper apologies to this gentleman and me, for having exposed
-us to such a horrible surprise as the sight of that lady's face has
-given us. Pray, was this ungenerous plan of concealment Miss Pendarves's
-or yours?"
-
-"Her's, entirely."
-
-"But what was her motive?"
-
-"She wished to see whether her cousin would know her through her veil."
-
-"Oh! she was acting Clara in the Duenna; you know she plays Don
-Ferdinand some such trick."
-
-"True; but Ferdinand and Clara were _lovers_, not cousins."
-
-"Cannot cousins be lovers, Fanny?"
-
-Here the entrance of the servant with supper interrupted the
-conversation, and Seymour and I sat down to it with what appetite we
-could.
-
-"It is astonishing," said Mr. Ridley, "what use and habit can effect; I
-have already conquered my horror at sight of your friend's face; and I
-see Mr. Pendarves has not only done the same, but I suspect he is
-meditating a drawing of it, to send to the Royal Society, as a _lusus
-naturae_."
-
-In spite of himself, Seymour smiled at this speech, and replied, while I
-looked very foolish, that he was gazing at me with wonder, as he could
-not conceive how I had gained so many inches in height since he saw me.
-
-"I grew several inches after my fever," I replied.
-
-"Fever? When--where--what fever, Helen? I never heard you were ill."
-
-"Oh yes, I was--and my life was despaired of."
-
-"You in danger, Helen, and I never knew it!"
-
-"It was really very unkind," said Ridley, "to keep such a delightful
-piece of intelligence from you."
-
-"But _when_ was it, dear Helen?"
-
-"When I saw you on the road to Oxford, I was only just recovered."
-
-"Only just recovered! You did not look ill; but I remember you had your
-veil down, so I really did not see your face."
-
-"So, so; wearing her veil down is a common thing with her--is it? I am
-glad she is so considerate."
-
-These jokes, however, had their use; for they tended to keep under the
-indulgence of feelings which required to be restrained in both of us, in
-the presence of others.
-
-"But, when were you first seized, Helen? and what brought on your
-fever?" said Seymour, as if urged by some secret consciousness.
-
-You will not wonder that I blushed, and even stammered, as I answered,
-"I was not quite well when I saw you in the church--and--and----"
-
-"And what?"
-
-"I was seized that night, and when my mother returned, she found me very
-ill indeed!"
-
-"That night!" Here he started from his seat.
-
-"Ah Fanny!" cried Mr. Ridley, "you _would_ buy them! I always objected
-to them."
-
-"Buy what, my dear Ridley?"
-
-"These chairs; I always said they were such uneasy ones, no one could
-sit on them long--you see Mr. Pendarves can't endure them."
-
-I was very glad when Seymour sat down again; when he did, he leaned his
-elbows on the table, and gazed in my face as if he would have read the
-very bottom of my soul. But hope seemed to have supplanted despair. Mr.
-Ridley now suddenly rose, and holding his hand to his side, cried, "Oh!"
-in such a comic, yet pathetic manner, that though his wife really
-believed he was in pain, she could not help laughing; then, seizing a
-candle, he went _oh-ing_ and limping out of the room, leaning on her
-arm, and declaring he believed he must go to bed, if we would excuse
-him.
-
-There was no mistaking his motive, and Seymour was not slow to profit by
-the opportunity thus good-naturedly offered him.
-
-"Helen!" he exclaimed, seating himself by me, and seizing my hand, "is
-what I heard true--am I the most wretched of men--is this hand promised
-to De Walden?"
-
-"No--not yet promised."
-
-"Then you mean to give it to him?"
-
-"Certainly not _now_."
-
-"Why that emphasis on _now_?"
-
-"Because I am sure I do not love him sufficiently."
-
-"And since when have you found this out?"
-
-I did not answer; but my tell-tale silence emboldened him to put his own
-interpretation on what I had said; and now, for the first time,
-unrestrained by any unwelcome witness, he passionately pleaded the
-interests of his own love, and drew from me an open confession of mine.
-Nor was there long a secret of my heart which was withheld from him; and
-while he rejoiced over the certainty that his rival's hopes were
-destroyed by this interview, I rejoiced in hearing that the conviction
-he had received of my affection for him, had preserved him from
-temptations to which he would probably otherwise have yielded.
-
-"But they are returning," cried he; "tell me where you are, and promise
-to see me to-morrow, my own precious Helen! Never, never was I so happy
-before."
-
-"Nor I," I could have added; but I believe my eyes spoke for me, and I
-promised to see him the next day at eleven. He had just time to resume
-his chair when Mr. and Mrs. Ridley returned.
-
-"I have been very unwell," said Ridley, "and am so still; but I would
-come back, as she would not leave me, because I was sure, what with the
-uneasy chairs, and Miss Pen's ugly face, you would be so fretted, Mr.
-Pendarves, that you would never come hither again.
-
-"'But then, my dear,' said Fanny, 'you forget they are relations, and
-must love each other.'
-
-"'That I deny,' said I, 'if they are not both loveable.'
-
-"'And then,' says she, 'they have not met for so long a time, and have
-so much to say.'
-
-"'I don't believe that,' says I: 'if so, they would have taken care to
-meet sooner'----but pray what has happened to you both since we went
-away? Well, I declare, such roses on cheeks, and diamonds in eyes! and,
-I protest, Miss Pen has learnt to look straight-forward, and is all
-dimples and smiles! and this, too, when, for aught you both knew, I
-might be dying!"
-
-Seymour and I were now too happy not to be disposed to laugh at any
-absurdity which Ridley uttered; and never before or since did I pass so
-merry an evening. Seymour was as gay and delightful as nature intended
-him to be: you will own that the word "_fascinating_" seemed made on
-purpose to express him; and I, as he has since told me, appeared to him
-to exceed in personal appearance that evening (animated as I was with
-the consciousness of loving and being beloved) all the promises of my
-early youth; nor could he help saying--
-
-"Really, Helen, I cannot but look at you!"
-
-"That is very evident," observed Ridley.
-
-"Yes, but I mean that I look at her because--because----"
-
-"You cannot help it, and it requires no apology. I have a tendency to
-the same weakness myself."
-
-"But I mean you are so surprisingly altered--so grown--so----"
-
-"Say no more, my dear sir," cried Ridley, interrupting him, "for it must
-mortify the young lady to see how much she has outgrown your knowledge
-and your liking! and she is such a disgrace to your family, that it is a
-pity there is no chance for her changing _her name_, poor thing! those
-blear eyes must prevent that. I see very clearly, indeed, she is likely
-to die _Helen Pendarves_."
-
-This observation, much to Ridley's sorrow, evidently clouded over the
-brows of us both; for we both thought of my mother, and I of poor De
-Walden. But the cloud soon passed away; for we were together, we were
-assured of each other's love, and _we were happy_.--Nor did we hear the
-watchman call "past one o'clock," without as much surprise as pain.
-However, Pendarves walked home with me, and that walk was not less
-interesting than the evening had been.
-
-But, alas! my mother's image awaited me on my pillow. I could not help
-mourning over the blighted hopes of De Walden, nor could I drive from my
-startled fancy the suspicion that I had committed a breach of duty in
-receiving and returning vows unsanctioned by her permission, or satisfy
-my conscience that I had done right in allowing him to call on me the
-next day. But I quieted myself by resolving that I would instantly write
-to my mother, tell her what had passed, and see Seymour only that once,
-till she gave me her permission to see him more frequently.
-
-He came at eleven, and I told him what I meant to do. He fully approved,
-but declared he would not consent to meet evil more than half way, and
-give up seeing me. On the contrary, he was resolved to see me every day
-till she came; and as Mr. Pendarves our uncle was just come to his house
-in town, he meant to tell him how we were situated, and he was very sure
-that he would approve our meeting as much as possible. On leaving me he
-proceeded to lay his case before our uncle, while I sat down to write to
-my mother. It was a long letter bathed with my tears; for was I not now
-pleading almost for life and death? If I loved Pendarves when my
-affection was not fed by his professions of mutual love, how must that
-flame be now increased in fervour, when I had heard him plead his cause
-two days successively, and had enjoyed with him hours of the tenderest
-uninterrupted intercourse! Wisely had my mother acted in forbidding us
-to meet, as she wished to annihilate our partiality; for absence and
-distance are the best preventives, if not the certain cures of love.
-
-My letter, which was full of passion, regrets, apologies and pity for De
-Walden, was scarcely finished, when I was told that a gentleman who was
-going immediately into Warwickshire, and would pass close by my mother's
-door, would take charge of it. I foolishly confided it to his care; I
-say "foolishly," because the post was a surer conveyance. However, I
-could not foresee that this gentleman would fall ill on the road; that
-he would not deliver my packet till ten days after it was written; and
-that I was therefore allowed to spend many hours with Pendarves
-unprohibited; for my uncle approved our meeting, and desired our union,
-declaring that he had always thought my mother severe in her judgment of
-his nephew, and that while considering the fancied interests of her own
-child, she had disregarded his.
-
-"Besides," added he, "I am the head of the family, and I command you to
-meet as often, and to love as much, as ever you choose."
-
-Alas! I obeyed him only too well, though my judgment was not blinded to
-the certainty that he had no rights which could invalidate those of my
-mother; and though I rejoiced at not receiving her command to cease to
-receive Pendarves, I was beginning to feel uneasy at her silence, when a
-letter from her reached me, saying, she was on her road to London, where
-she would arrive that night, and should take up her abode with our
-friend Mr. Nelson.
-
-Never before had I been parted from my mother, and till I met Pendarves
-I had longed for her every day during my stay in London; but now,
-self-reproved and ashamed, I felt that a yet dearer object had acquired
-possession of my thoughts and wishes, and the once devoted child
-dreaded, rather than desired, to be re-united to one of the best of
-mothers.
-
-She came; and we met again, as we had parted, with tears; but the nature
-of those tears was altered, and neither of us would have liked to
-analyze the difference.
-
-Long and painful was the conversation we had together that night, before
-we attempted to sleep. I found my mother fully convinced that there was
-a necessity for my not marrying De Walden, a necessity of which he was
-now himself convinced; for she had gone round by Cambridge, in order to
-see him: but she was not equally convinced that there was a necessity
-for my marrying Pendarves, as all her objections to that marriage
-remained in the fullest force.
-
-The next morning she opened her heart on the subject to Mrs. Nelson, who
-was Seymour's warm advocate, and assured her, that if she made proper
-inquiries, she would find that the character of Pendarves was
-universally spoken of as unexceptionable; and that whatever might have
-been the errors of _the youth_, they were forgotten by other people in
-the merits of _the man_.
-
-"Ay, but a mother's heart can't forget them," she exclaimed, "when her
-child's happiness is at stake!" and she begged to have no private
-conversation with Seymour till the next day. In consequence, she saw him
-only in a party at my uncle's, where she was struck with the great
-improvement both of his face and person, for both now wore the
-appearance of health; and the countenance which, when she last surveyed
-it, bore the stamp of sickness and sorrow, now beamed with all the
-vivacity of youth and hope.
-
-The party was a mixed one of cards and dancing; and as she gazed on
-Pendarves when he stood talking to me, he recalled forcibly to her mind
-the image of my father, as she first beheld him in a similar scene,
-four-and-twenty years before.
-
-The next day Seymour obtained the desired interview with my mother. She
-brought forward his former errors in array against him, his debts, his
-dissipations, and his love of play; and though she expressed her
-readiness to believe him reformed, still, as he ingenuously admitted
-that his improvement was chiefly owing to my influence over him, she
-could not deem it sufficiently well-founded to obviate her objections;
-and he was still pleading, and she objecting, when Mr. Pendarves
-insisted on entering. Mrs. Nelson and I accompanied him.
-
-"I tell you what, niece," said he, "you do not use this young man well:
-you bring up a parcel of old tales, and dwell upon the naughtiness of
-them, as if he was the only young man who ever erred. I know all his
-sins; he has made me his confessor. In the affair to which you allude he
-was much more to be pitied than censured, and yielded at seventeen to
-temptations which might have overcome seven-and-thirty. Since then he
-has distinguished himself at college: he has paid all his old debts, and
-incurred no new ones; he has steered clear of the quicksands of foreign
-travel, shielded (as he says) by the hopes of one day possessing Helen,
-and by the idea that he was the object of her love; and what would you
-have more? Besides, Helen tells me he once saved her life."
-
-"I did so," cried Seymour, eagerly seizing her hands, "I did so, and you
-promised to be for ever grateful!"
-
-"How was it, my dear nephew?"
-
-"_I_ will tell you, sir," cried I, gathering hope from my mother's
-agitation. "It was at the Isle of Wight, soon after we came to England:
-he and I were playing on the shore, and I, not knowing the tide was
-coming in, paddled across a run of water to what I called a pretty
-little island, and there amused myself with picking up sea-weed, when
-the sea flowed in, and he saw that I must perish; no one was near us.
-Luckily, he spied a boat on the dry land, which, with all his boyish
-strength, he pushed off to my assistance, and jumped into it. In one
-minute more it floated towards me, just as my cries had reached the ears
-of my mother, who was reading on the rock, and who now saw my
-situation."
-
-"Helen! Helen!" cried my mother, "I can't bear it--the scene was too
-horrible to recall." But I persevered.
-
-"Seymour seized my hand just as I was sinking, and dragged me into the
-boat; but in another moment the waves came swelling round us, and,
-without oar or help, I and my preserver were both tossed to and fro upon
-the ocean."
-
-"Helen!" cried Seymour, with great feeling, and clasping me fondly to
-his heart, "I could almost wish we then had died, for then we should
-have died together!"
-
-"Go on," said my uncle, "I hope you will live together yet!"
-
-"I have not much more to tell, except that my mother's screams had now
-procured assistance, and a boat was sent out to follow our uncertain
-course. When we were overtaken, they found Seymour holding me on his
-lap, and crying over me in agony unutterable, for he thought that I was
-dead, and he had come too late. Who can paint my mother's transports,
-when she received me safe and living in her arms?"
-
-"And how she embraced me, Helen," cried Seymour, "and called me her
-noble boy--the preserver of her child! (for she saw all I had done;) and
-how she owned she should ever love me as her own child--and vowed her
-gratitude should end but with her life!"
-
-"It never _will_ end but with my life!" cried my mother, throwing
-herself on Seymour's neck. "But is your having saved my child's life an
-argument for my authorizing you to risk the happiness of that life?"
-
-"Julia, Julia, I am _ashamed_ of you!" cried my uncle. "Was there ever a
-better or more devoted wife than yourself? Yet, what did you do at
-Helen's age? You ran away from your parents, out of an ungovernable
-passion for a handsome young man."
-
-"But is my error an excuse or justification of his?"
-
-"No; but you are a proof that error can be atoned for and never
-repeated, as you have been a model for wives and mothers. But beware,
-Mrs. Pendarves, of carrying things too far; beware, lest you tempt Helen
-and Seymour to copy your example, rather than conform to your
-precepts."
-
-"Ha!" cried my mother, clasping her hands in agony.
-
-"Now, then," said Seymour, with every symptom of deep emotion, "the
-moment is come when I am authorized to obey the commands of the beloved
-dead, and fulfil the last injunctions of my mother."
-
-A pause which no one seemed inclined to break, followed this unexpected
-observation; and Seymour, taking a letter from his bosom, kissed it, and
-presented it to my mother.
-
-"'Tis Helen's hand," cried she.
-
-"And her seal, too, you observe," said Seymour: "the _envelope_, you
-perceive, is addressed to me, and I have therefore broken it; the other
-is entire."
-
-My mother read the _envelope_ to herself, and these were its contents:--
-
-     "My conscience reproaches me, my beloved son, with having too
-     lightly surrendered your rights, and probably your wishes, in
-     giving my friend back her promise to promote your union with her
-     daughter, as I know Julia's ability to act up to her strict sense
-     of a mother's duty, even at the expense of her own happiness, and
-     risk of her child's safety. But I have given up that promise, which
-     might have pleaded for you, my poor child! when I was no more, and
-     ensured to you opportunities of securing Helen's affections, which
-     may now, perhaps, be for ever denied to you. However, I may be
-     mistaken; therefore, if Helen's affections should ever be
-     _yours_--_avowedly_ yours, and her mother still withhold her
-     consent, give her the enclosed letter, and probably the voice of
-     the dead may have more power over her than that of the living.
-
-     "For your sake I have thus written, with a trembling hand, and with
-     a dying pulse; but value it as a last proof of that affection which
-     can end only with my life.
-
-     "HELEN PENDARVES."
-
-The letter to my mother was as follows:--
-
-     "I speak to you from the grave, my dearest Julia! and in behalf of
-     that child on whom my soul doted while on earth. But this letter
-     will not be given you till he is _assured_ he possesses the heart
-     of your daughter; and when, if your consent is denied to their
-     union, nothing but an act of disobedience can make them happy in
-     each other. Are you prepared, Julia, to expose them to such a
-     risk, and thus tempt the child you love to the crime of
-     disobedience? that crime which, though it dwelt but lightly on your
-     mind, weighed upon mine through the whole of my existence, as it
-     helped to plunge my mother in an untimely tomb. Perhaps you flatter
-     yourself that Helen's education has fortified her against indulging
-     her passion at the expense of her duty. But remember, that your
-     precepts are forcibly counteracted by your example.
-
-     "Anxious, however, as I am that Helen should not err, I am still
-     more anxious that my son should not lead her into error, as I feel
-     that he is doubly armed against her filial piety, by the example of
-     her mother and his own.
-
-     "And must my crime be thus perpetuated by those whom I hold most
-     dear? must the misery of my life be renewed, perhaps, in that of
-     her whom I have loved as my own child? and must my son be the cause
-     of wretchedness to the dearest of my friends, through the medium of
-     her daughter?
-
-     "Forbid it Heaven! I conjure you, my beloved Julia! by our past
-     love--by _tanta fede, e si, dolce memorie, e si lungo costume_,
-     listen to this my warning, my supplicating voice; and let your
-     consent give dignity and happiness to the union of our children.
-
-     "HELEN PENDARVES."
-
-My mother, after having read this letter, covered her face with her
-hands, and rushed out of the room. It was in a state of anxious suspense
-that we awaited her return. When she appeared, her eyes were swelled,
-but her countenance was calm, her look resigned, and her deportment, as
-usual, dignified. Her assumed composure, however, failed again, when her
-eyes met those of Pendarves.
-
-"My son!" cried she, opening her arms to him, into which Seymour threw
-himself, as much affected as she was; then, beckoning me to her, she put
-my hand in his, and prayed God to bless our union.
-
-Little of this part of my life remains to be told. My mother had given
-her consent, and in two months from that period we were MARRIED.
-
-Here ends my narrative of a WOMAN'S LOVE. When next I treat of it, it
-will be as united to a WIFE'S DUTY.
-
-
-
-***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN'S LOVE***
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