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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76591 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  THE
+                             DESERTED WIFE.
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                     EMMA D. E. NEVITT SOUTHWORTH,
+
+                               AUTHOR OF
+
+                 “RETRIBUTION, OR THE VALE OF SHADOWS.”
+
+      “Various the ways in which our souls are tried;
+      Love often fails where most our faith relied;
+      Some wayward heart may win without a thought,
+      That which thine own by sacrifice hath bought;
+      Whilst thou, forsaken, grieving, left to pine,
+      Vainly mayst claim his plighted faith as thine;
+      Vainly with forced indulgence strive to smile
+      In the cold world, heart-broken all the while,
+      Or from its glittering and unquiet crowd,
+      Thy brain on fire, thy spirit crushed and bowed,
+      Creep home unnoticed, there to weep alone,
+      Mocked by a claim that gives thee not thine own,
+      Which leaves thee bound through all thy blighted youth
+      To him whose perjured soul hath broke its truth;
+      While the just world beholding thee bereft—
+      Scorns—not his sin—but _thee_, for being left.”
+                                              MRS. NORTON’S DREAM.
+
+                               NEW YORK:
+                  D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY.
+                             PHILADELPHIA:
+                 GEO. S. APPLETON, 164 CHESNUT-STREET.
+                               M DCCC L.
+
+
+
+
+       Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1850,
+                        BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY,
+ In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
+                      Southern District of New York.
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+
+                         DOCTOR WILLIAM ELDER,
+
+                            OF PHILADELPHIA,
+
+            WHOSE CONSTANT ASSISTANCE AND KIND ENCOURAGEMENT
+
+                  CHEERED, INSPIRED, AND SUSTAINED HER
+
+             THROUGH THE TOILS AND TRIALS OF HER VOCATION,
+
+                        This Book is Inscribed,
+
+              AS AN ASSURANCE OF GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE, BY
+
+                              THE AUTHOR.
+
+  WASHINGTON, JUNE 3, 1850.
+
+
+
+
+                             INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+                               MARRIAGE.
+
+             “Marriage is a matter of more worth
+             Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.”
+                                             _Shakspeare._
+
+            “The bloom or blight of all men’s happiness.”
+                                                    _Byron._
+
+In no other civilized country in the world is marriage contracted, or
+dissolved, with such culpable levity as in our own. In no other
+civilized country (except, perhaps, in France, just at present), can
+divorce be obtained with such facility, and upon such slight grounds.
+And it may be the very ease with which the sacred bond may be broken
+that leads many people into forming it so lightly. An obligation so
+easily annulled may be carelessly contracted. I remember an anecdote in
+point:—“Take care—this contemplated marriage of yours is a hasty
+affair—and when consummated, it is for _life_, you know—‘’Till death do
+you part,’” said a young man to his friend, who was about to enter into
+the “holy state.” “Oh, no! not necessarily—there are such things as
+_divorces_, recollect,” laughingly replied the perspective bridegroom—a
+handsome hero, of black eyes and white teeth—and his black eyes flashed,
+and his white teeth gleamed, as though he had been saying the wittiest
+thing in the world. The youth was in love—therefore his speech could not
+be taken seriously. He was jesting. _Still_ his words betrayed—that even
+then, in the heyday of his passion, a future contingency was present to
+his mind. That future contingency _arrived_—would _never_ have
+arrived—had he not known beforehand of its remedy. He married—lived with
+his young bride eighteen months. She became the mother of a little
+girl—fell into ill health—lost her beauty and attractions. He left
+her—to travel in Europe—he said—but years passed, and he never returned
+or wrote. He left her broken in heart; broken in health, injured in
+reputation; exposed to the misconstructions of the world; to the
+miseries of poverty; to the temptations of youth, of isolation, and of
+warm affections; to the pursuit of the licentious; to the calumny of the
+wicked or the thoughtless; and worse than all to bear up against—the
+doubts and suspicions of the good. She was destitute of mental
+resources—in delicate health—morbidly sensitive, and she sank—sank—under
+the accumulating miseries of her position—and died—in the twenty-second
+year of her age, and in the fourth of her wretched marriage.
+
+I was about to cite another case—a _second_ case—when the memory of a
+third; a fourth; a fifth; a _dozen_ aggravated instances of desertion,
+presented themselves to my mind, and pressed upon me, and, reader, I
+cannot trouble you with the whole of them. The evils of _misalliance_
+are irremediable, at least by foreign interference; and the miseries of
+desertion are well nigh incurable, or, “the cure is worse than the
+disease.” Let us look at the _causes_ and the means of _prevention_, of
+unhappy marriages. Yet, if you read only for the story, just skip the
+whole of this chapter, and commence at the _next_, which opens the
+drama.
+
+To go back to the beginning—a primary cause of unhappy marriage is a
+_defective moral and physical education_. In our country intellectual
+education is on a par with that of other enlightened nations of the
+earth—not so moral and physical education. Prudence, fortitude, truth,
+reverence, and fidelity, are not inculcated here as they should be.
+Industry, activity, and enterprise are our national good points of
+character, and these are impressed upon children by example, rather than
+by admonition; and our virtues, generosity, hospitality, courage, and
+patriotism, are the virtues of constitution and of circumstance, rather
+than of education.
+
+We fail to impress the duty of PRUDENCE upon our children, and hence
+rash and culpable mercantile speculation, ending in insolvency—and hence
+hasty, inconsiderate marriages, ending in bankruptcy of heart, home, and
+happiness. We fail to impress the duty of FIDELITY upon our children,
+and hence irregularity and unfaithfulness in business, embezzlement of
+funds, &c., and hence broken marriage faith and deserted families.
+
+We fail to inculcate the duty of FORTITUDE, and hence, when obligations,
+professional or matrimonial, become painful, they are too often
+abandoned.
+
+But it is PHYSICAL EDUCATION, in its relation to the happiness of
+married life, that I wish to discuss. We are still more thoughtlessly
+neglectful, and I was about to say, _fatally_ neglectful of physical,
+than of moral education. _Fatally_, because no moral education can be
+completely successful, unless assisted and supported by a good physical
+training.
+
+An instance—preach patience for ever, yet a dyspeptic _will_ be
+ill-tempered.
+
+Another—preach industry for ever, yet the weak and languid _will_ be
+lazy and idle.
+
+A third—inculcate the necessity of courage, presence of mind, by
+eloquent precept, and by the example of all the heroes and heroines of
+history, yet the nervous _will_ start if a door claps.
+
+One might go on _ad infinitum_.
+
+A defective physical education is one of the primary causes of
+unhappiness in the marriage relation. A girl cannot be a useful or a
+happy wife, and she cannot make her husband and her children happy, or
+even comfortable, unless she be a healthy woman. In Great Britain, a
+girl in delicate health never expects to be married, and her friends
+never desire it for her. American girls are proverbially delicate in
+organization, and frail in health, and their mothers were delicate
+before them, and their children will be still more delicate after them,
+unless there is a great reform in physical cultivation. Such a reform is
+happily beginning in the North. It is yet unthought of here, and in the
+West and South. Daily exercise by walking, skipping rope, calisthenics,
+horseback riding, which bring all the limbs and muscles into play; daily
+bathing in cold water on first rising in the morning; fresh air, simple,
+plain food, the disuse of coffee and tea, comfortable clothing, the
+disuse of tight ligatures, corsets, tight-waisted dresses, tight shoes,
+&c., are the best features of this excellent system of physical
+training. I believe that a young person with a good constitution to
+commence with, faithfully following these means for the preservation of
+health, with the blessing of God, will not fade or break until she is
+fifty, nor die until she is an hundred years old. I believe that youth,
+health, beauty, strength, and life can be greatly prolonged beyond their
+present average, and that we were all intended to live twice or three
+times as long as with our sad mal-treatment we do live.
+
+American children (with the exception of a very few, whose parents know
+and practise better) grow up drinking hot tea and coffee, eating hot
+meats and rich gravies and pastries, never bathing, taking little
+exercise, confined in crowded school-rooms or close house-rooms, and
+become narrow-shouldered, hollow-cheeked, pale, sickly, nervous, and
+fretful; they marry early companions as pale, sickly, nervous, and
+fretful as themselves, and have children _twice_ as pale, sickly,
+nervous, and fretful as their parents, and discord and other domestic
+miseries are such inevitable results that we _must_ pity, and can
+scarcely blame the victims. They cry out in their agony for separation,
+divorce, for reform in social laws, when the truth is, no reform would
+cure their evils without a reform in their personal habits; such a
+reform as would give health, consequently good humor, and lastly,
+happiness.
+
+Few people consider how much our _moral_ as well as our _physical_
+health depends upon exercise, cleanliness, and temperance. How much our
+happiness depends upon a free circulation, unobstructed perspiration,
+and a good digestion. How much domestic discomfort is caused by the
+querulousness of ill health. Many a man of weak and unsettled principles
+is driven to dissipation and vice, and it may be to crime, by the
+discomforts of his home, of his sickly and nervous wife, fretful and
+troublesome children.
+
+Another prominent cause of unhappy marriages, is the too unguarded and
+unrestrained association between young persons of opposite sexes in the
+same rank of society. If the dress and address of a young man are
+passable, if his conduct is unimpeachable, and his _prospects fair_,
+however otherwise unknown and untried, he may be admitted at once to the
+intimacy of a young lady, and after a brief courtship, _too_ brief to
+give either a knowledge of their own or each other’s hearts, take the
+last irrevocable step—_marriage_. And this youth of fair manners, fair
+appearance, and fair conduct, may turn out to be, if not positively
+depraved, yet weak, unstable, untried, possessing the _best reputation_,
+based upon the morality of externals, rather than the tested, sound
+integrity of heart; with the most _defective character_, totally unfit
+to guide himself, still less another, through the shoals and quicksands
+of life.
+
+In the old times of chivalry, a knight must have proved his prowess
+before he could successfully aspire to the hand of his lady love. The
+days of knight-errantry are long past, but in the age of man, or of the
+world, the days of moral warfare are never over; never over with the
+world while it exists; never over with man until death; and I would have
+some better proof of moral force in an untried young man, than a few
+weeks of acquaintance, popularity, and mere amiability of manners would
+give, before I could trust the temporal and eternal welfare of my
+daughter to his keeping. When a young girl’s heart is lost and won, it
+is too late for these prudential considerations; in this case, as in
+every other, the old proverb holds good—_Fidarsi è bene, e non fidarse e
+meglio_. The conversational acquaintanceship should be prevented from
+maturing into the dangerous intimacy. Yet do not misunderstand me; I
+would not have you pain or repulse a young heart by the coldness of
+suspicion. I would not have you shut yourselves up in a dark distrust,
+and close your doors, and guard your girls with Eastern jealousy; far
+from it, one need not run upon Scylla in avoiding Charybdis. “Moderation
+is the golden thread that holds together the bead-roll of the virtues.”
+I would have you take the middle course—“the golden mean” between
+jealous surveillance and dangerous neglect. In all other civilized and
+enlightened society in the world, young ladies are carefully guarded and
+guided, chaperoned through the mazes of life. In countries of the
+Eastern continent this system of surveillance is excessive; here, it is
+reprehensibly deficient; in England it is perfect. I confess I would
+have our manners resemble the English in _this_ respect.
+
+Still another primary cause (I speak only of _primary causes_ here,
+deeming discord, tyranny, drunkenness, infidelity, and desertion so many
+_effects_), still another primary cause of unhappiness in the marriage
+state, is that marriage is contracted too early in life. American girls
+are proverbially married too young; at an age at which even a hearty
+robust Englishwoman would scarcely be permitted to enter upon the
+responsibilities of marriage. How much more improper then must it be for
+an American girl, with her national extreme delicacy of organization, to
+take upon herself the heavy burdens and onerous duties of matrimony,
+before her feeble constitution is mature, or her frail strength
+confirmed. But our girls, with all these natural disadvantages, are
+married early, and hence the early (_proverbially_ again) wasting of
+health and life; the failing of beauty, decline of grace, and loss of
+attractions in the women; and hence the vexatious, nervous irritability
+so common in young mothers, so destructive to domestic harmony and
+happiness. How can it be otherwise with the continued tax of a young and
+increasing family upon the immature strength of the youthful wife and
+mother? Our girls are extremely fragile at best, and will ever be so,
+aye and will grow more so, unless a better system of physical education
+is generally adopted. When these delicate girls prematurely assume the
+cares and burdens of a family, they break down under it, become thin,
+pale, sickly, nervous, and fretful; no longer attractive, almost
+repulsive; and the husband, father, if his disposition be benevolent and
+protective, as is the nature of most American men, suffers martyrdom,
+devotes himself a living sacrifice to his sickly wife and large family.
+I know hundreds of such devoted men, all unconscious of their
+self-devotion, passing their lives in dull counting-houses, dark stores,
+dingy offices, dirty work-shops, or crowded school-rooms, so cheerfully!
+to provide a comfortable or a luxurious home where their wives and
+children ever live, but where they only come to snatch a hasty meal, or
+late at night to sleep. This, I think, is what Dr. Dewey calls “The
+Religion of Toil.” But if on the other hand this husband of the sickly
+wife, this father of the peevish children, this victim of early marriage
+and other abuses, happens to be selfish and unprincipled, he becomes,
+more or less, tyrant or reprobate, or he sometimes quietly _leaves_,
+goes to the West or South, to sea, or to parts unknown, and is never
+heard of again. If he be licentious as well as selfish, his wandering
+fancies fix upon some younger, fresher, fairer, or some _new_ form; then
+comes the thought of the possibility, the probability, the almost
+certainty, if he pursues it, of getting a legal enfranchisement from his
+matrimonial bonds. And this is naturally suggested by the facility with
+which divorces are granted; true, he cannot legally repudiate his wife
+while she remains faithful, but he _can_ oblige _her_ to release him, or
+break her neck, or her heart, or desert and starve her into compliance
+with his measures; or he can wrest her children from her, and make their
+restoration to her bosom the price of his release. I am not
+exaggerating, reader; if you live in a city, and will look about you,
+you will find that I speak truly. But to conclude, I reiterate, and
+insist upon this point, that the fundamental causes of unhappiness in
+married life, are a defective moral and _physical_ education—and a
+premature contraction of the matrimonial engagement.
+
+
+
+
+                           THE DESERTED WIFE.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+                         THE OLD MANSION HOUSE.
+
+               All day within the dreary house,
+               The doors upon their hinges creak;
+               The blue fly sings in the pane—the mouse
+               Behind the mouldering wainscot creeps,
+               Or from the crevice peers about.
+                                               TENNYSON.
+
+           The wild wind sweeps across the old damp floors,
+             And makes a weary and a wailing moan,
+           All night you hear the clap of broken doors,
+             That on their rusty hinges grate and groan;
+           And then old voices calling from behind
+           The worn and wormy wainscot flapping in the wind.
+                                                 MILLER.
+
+
+The character of the first settlers of Maryland and Virginia is known to
+have been very different from that of the Pilgrim Fathers—as opposite as
+the idle, gay, and dissolute cavalier to the stern, laborious, and
+self-denying Puritan. Their purpose in seeking the shores of the Western
+World was also widely different from that of the first settlers of New
+England—the object of the latter being spiritual liberty; the end of the
+former, material wealth. And their history since the first settlement of
+the country has been as broadly diverse. The children of the Pilgrim
+Fathers have reached the highest seats in the temples of Fame and
+Fortune—the descendants of the first aristocratic settlers of Maryland
+and Virginia have seen themselves outstripped in the path of success and
+honor by the children of the very menials of their father’s house. This
+is emphatically the case in Maryland. Among the friends and partizans of
+Lord Baltimore, who sought with him an Eldorado among the rolling hills
+and lovely vales, and beside the broad and beautiful rivers of Maryland,
+came many younger sons of the decayed old English nobility and gentry,
+who thought out of the wealth of the New World to found a name and a
+family here, that should rival, in power and splendor, the house from
+which they sprang. They seemed to overlook the fact that this coveted
+wealth was as yet unreclaimed from the wilderness—that nothing but
+energy, labor, and perseverance could receive and appropriate it; and
+even if at first they had observed this, it would have availed them
+little, for unlike the Pilgrim Fathers, they were deplorably destitute
+of these natural and necessary qualifications for success in a new and
+unsubdued world.
+
+With all their old ancestral pride, they also brought to these shores
+those habits of idleness, dissipation, and reckless expenditure which
+had been so destructive to their fortunes in the old country. Many
+succeeded in securing from the wilderness large estates, and upon them
+they erected handsome edifices,—the bricks, glass, and other materials
+for which were mostly imported from England to Baltimore, and brought
+down the Potomac or Patuxent rivers to the site selected for building
+(so little available then to these settlers were the fine resources of
+the country). Some of these old mansion houses are yet standing,[1] but
+like the families that own them, much decayed, and remaining merely as
+memorials of past grandeur. The descendants of these first settlers of
+Maryland and Virginia are the proudest, and _some_ of them, alas! the
+poorest of the citizens of these States. These people are _sui
+generis_—unlike any other people I ever saw or read of. Each planter on
+his own estate, great or small, productive or barren, is prouder, and
+more thoroughly convinced of his own immense personal importance, than
+any throned, crowned, and sceptred monarch in Christendom or Heatheness.
+With all this, they are brave, generous, gallant, and hospitable, even
+to extravagance. It has been entered as a complaint against the older
+counties of Maryland and Virginia, that the taverns are wretched, and
+how can it be helped? Tavern-keeping is a poor business there, because
+the doors of every planter’s house fly open to receive the traveller who
+passes near his gates—and a welcome is extended to him with the
+cheerful, genial warmth of a country gentleman to whom the exercise of
+hospitality is a delight as well as a duty. It is a very common thing to
+see a perfect stranger ride up to the gate of a Maryland or Virginia
+planter’s farm yard, with the purpose of remaining all night—or a week,
+if his convenience requires it—and he is sure of a welcome, as long as
+he pleases to stay—for him the “fatted calf” is killed, for him the butt
+of cordial broached.
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  We have one in Washington. It is an old ruin—some hundred years older
+  than the city—and stands near the junction of the Potomac and
+  Anacostia. It is haunted, of course.
+
+Northern and Western men who occasionally happen to travel through the
+lower counties of these States, put up at poor taverns, and go away to
+abuse the half savage state of society there. They should rather present
+themselves at some planter’s house, where they would be received with
+the best, as a matter of course, and invited, if it were spring, to a
+fish feast upon the banks of the nearest river, or, if it were autumn,
+to a deer hunt. Let idlers who are _ennuyés_ to death with the
+common-places of their daily life, just take a country road tour through
+the lower counties of Maryland and Virginia, and they will find
+themselves transported to the associations of two centuries ago, among
+the oldest-fashioned people, with the oldest-fashioned houses,
+furniture, and manners in the world.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down on the western shore of Maryland is a heath containing about five
+hundred acres—upon which stands an old mansion-house, in ruins, both of
+which I wish to describe. This heath is bounded on the North by the
+river P., on the South by Sachem’s Creek, on the West by a deep, dense
+forest, and on the East by the Chesapeake Bay. The heath rises gradually
+from the bay, and is relieved by clumps of pine and cedar trees,
+standing between the swells of ground as it rolls back from the water
+towards the forest, while towards the North the ground rises and
+sharpens into a steep promontory, sticking out between the junction of
+the river with the bay. Crowning the summit of this promontory, is a
+large, square, red brick old mansion-house. Around this house wave tall,
+gloomy old Lombardy poplars—like sable plumes around a hearse. Around
+the shores of the promontory runs a half-ruined low brick wall,
+inclosing the garden attached to the mansion. This garden is grown up
+with weeds and thistles. This estate was known by the name of The Heath,
+or Heath Hall, and had continued in the possession of the Churchill
+family since the first settlement of Maryland.
+
+On the opposite point of the mouth of the river was the struggling
+little village of Churchill Point,—a great colonial seaport town,
+withered in the germ—now only an occasional depot for tobacco raised in
+the immediate neighborhood, and shipped thence to Baltimore by the
+little packets that traded up and down the river, and sometimes stopped
+there to take in freight. A large old barn of a storehouse, where
+produce was left till carried away—a large, old, white-framed tavern,
+half-furnished, where passengers went to meet the packets, a
+blacksmith’s shop, a country merchant’s store, a post-office, kept by
+the widow of the late post-master, a few cottages, tenanted by wool,
+cotton, and flax dyers, by domestic counterpane and carpet weavers, and
+other country laborers, made up the staple of the village. About a
+quarter of a mile back from the village, in a clearing in the forest,
+stood the Episcopal Church of the Crucifixion. Divine service was
+performed here only once a fortnight, as the pastor had two parishes
+under his charge.[2]
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  This is frequently the case, even at this day, in remote counties of
+  Maryland.
+
+To return to Churchill Hall. This estate had once been highly valuable,
+both as to size and productiveness. Running over its natural boundaries,
+it extended beyond the river and creek, and for miles into the forest
+behind—and for fertility it was called the garden spot of Maryland. But
+many acres had passed from the possession of the family, and what was
+left was worn out by that wretched system of agriculture which has
+ruined the once highly productive lands of Maryland. I mean the
+continual drain upon the resources of the soil, without ever giving it
+rest or food; sowing a field years at a stretch, without giving it the
+repose of a single season, or the nutriment of a single bushel of
+manure. All that was left of the once beautiful farm was the sterile
+heath and ruined Hall I have described, when the estate, by the death of
+his father, passed into the possession of Ignatius, the last heir of the
+Churchills, who, and his two sisters, Sophie and Rosalie, were the only
+remaining members of the family. His poverty and his incumbrances did
+not prevent him from loving and marrying a beautiful girl in his
+neighborhood, Agatha Gormon, who left a luxurious home to share his
+poverty in the ruined Hall at the Heath; nor could his love save her
+from death, when, in the second year of her marriage, she passed away,
+leaving an infant daughter of a day old. He had loved her with an
+exclusive, absorbing passion, and from the hour of her sudden death he
+pined away, and in less than a year thereafter was laid in her
+grave—opened to receive him. The orphan heiress of a ruin and a desert,
+the infant Agatha—or, as from her wild, dark beauty, she was nicknamed,
+_Hagar_—was left in charge of his sisters. These ladies, though poor,
+were quite comfortable. The lower rooms of the old house were kept in
+tolerable order. Their table was supplied by the garden, the dairy, and
+the river, which afforded excellent fish, crabs, and oysters—while their
+pocket money was supplied by the hire of several negroes owned by them.
+The girls were beautiful—and, poor as they were, it was thought not
+impossible that they might marry well. The elder sister, Rosalie, was a
+merry, plump, golden-haired, blue-eyed lassie, with a complexion that
+the country beaux compared to strawberries and cream—she was the first
+to fulfil the happy auguries drawn for her. She was seen by a young
+merchant of Baltimore, who happened to have business at Churchill’s
+Point, and after rather a short courtship, she was wedded and carried
+off to the city home of her husband. Sophie Churchill, now bereaved and
+alone at seventeen, devoted herself with all the enthusiasm of her
+ardent, loving nature, to the care and education of her infant niece,
+and little Hagar grew passionately fond of her aunt. Her sole domestic
+was an old woman, a pure Guinea negress, who, seventy years before, in
+her childhood, had been torn from her native coast, brought to this
+country, and sold. She had served the Churchill family for three
+generations, and was nearly eighty years old—yet with the strong
+tenacity of life distinguishing the native African, she still kept up
+and at work, seemingly in all her mid-life vigor. Now, reader, I am
+telling you no invented story—so do you not think that there was
+something slightly romantic about the position of this young girl, left
+with the charge of an infant, living in an old ruin, on a bleak shore,
+and having no other companion or attendant but the old Guinea negress?
+_Real life_ is full of the picturesque and the romantic. I have never
+yet needed to cull flowers from the fields of imagination. The gardens
+of memory and tradition will furnish materials for a life of romance
+writing.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+                             THE MINISTER.
+
+                                  “——Gentleness
+          And a strange strength, a calm o’errulling strength,
+          Are mixed within him so that neither take
+          Possession from the other—neither rise
+          In mastery or passion—but both grow
+          Harmoniously together.”
+                                          W. G. SIMMS.
+
+
+Sophie Churchill was a pretty girl of round _petite_ form, of clear pale
+olive complexion, large, soft brown eyes, and dark chestnut hair. Had
+her position been different she would have been much admired and
+courted—as it was she was neglected and even slandered—yes,
+slandered—after the death of her brother, and the marriage of her only
+sister, she had, in pure ignorance of the world, kept up exactly the
+same manner of life as before. Instead of engaging some respectable
+elderly female as housekeeper and companion (which indeed her limited
+means did not allow), she preferred remaining alone, and continued to
+receive the visits not only of ladies, which of course was in perfect
+propriety, but of _gentlemen_—that is to say, of her own and her
+father’s familiar friends—the sons and brothers of their near neighbors,
+who testified their remembrance of the dead, and their respect for the
+living, by sometimes calling to see Sophie and her little charge, and by
+sometimes bringing her a brace of wild fowl, a pair of pigeons, or some
+other such game from their morning sport upon the moor; until at last
+they found that their well meant kindness to the young and pretty orphan
+was subjecting her to the invidious remarks of all the thoughtless or
+the malicious gossips of the neighborhood. Then their occasional visits
+were discontinued, and the poor girl was left almost entirely alone,
+especially as the advancing winter and the increasing severity of the
+weather precluded the visits of _ladies_ to that desolate heath. And
+desolate indeed it was upon this first winter that Sophie passed alone
+at the Hall.
+
+As early as the first of December the river was frozen over. With the
+thoughtlessness of a young girl upon whom the cares of housekeeping were
+exclusively and suddenly thrown, she had neglected to provide for the
+exigencies of the severe winters of that particular locality. She had
+even from delicacy omitted to send for the wages of the few negroes out
+on hire—and the first of December, when the ground was two feet deep in
+snow, and the river was a solid block of ice, and even the bay near the
+shore was crusted over, found Sophie Churchill destitute of the common
+necessaries of life. To augment the evils of her position, the old
+negress—who in health was in herself a host—was laid up with the
+rheumatism. At this time Sophie was so poor that her little charge (now
+three years old) possessed but one suit of clothes; and every night,
+after putting the little one to bed, would Sophie go, up to her knees in
+snow, away off to the forest, a quarter of a mile distant, to collect
+brush, to supply the fire the next day—her little arms and moderate
+strength serving to bring so small a quantity at a time that she would
+have to make this trip half-a-dozen times a night before a sufficient
+quantity was collected. Then she would have to take the bucket and go to
+a dell in the same forest to bring water, and after coming home would
+take the sleeping Hagar’s only suit of clothes and wash and iron them
+for the next day, solaced while at her work by the mutterings of the old
+negress, who, with the irritability of sickness, would growl from her
+lair—
+
+“Oh, ho! kin tote water, kin you—thought how you was to _deleky_ an’
+_saft_ (_delicate and soft_) to tote water from de spring,” &c., &c.
+
+Sophie never paid the slightest attention to this ill-temper; she seemed
+not to hear it. It was remarkable that Sophie never once in the whole
+course of her life was heard to utter a complaint, lay a charge, or make
+a reproach; and that she was perfectly unconscious of the moral beauty
+of her own patience. She merely acted out her own nature without
+thinking about it.
+
+Sophie had one faithful friend in the aged pastor of the parish—but he,
+with his multifarious duties, could seldom find time to visit her. The
+Rev. Senex May, with his young wife and only child, lived in a pretty
+cottage on the other side of the river, in a grove half way between the
+village and the forest. His youthful wife, Emily Wilde, had been an
+orphan, a governess from New England, living in the family of a wealthy
+planter in the neighborhood. Weary of her friendless, homeless, and
+unsettled life, she had given her hand where her deepest reverence had
+long been bestowed, and was very happy as “the old man’s darling.” One
+child, a boy, had blessed this singular union.
+
+Mr. May and Emily did not surmise the deep destitution into which Sophie
+Churchill had fallen. The deep snow and severe cold had prevented them
+for several weeks from crossing the river to see her.
+
+At last the weather moderated, the snow melted, the ice-bound river was
+freed, a mild dry wind from the South sprang up and dried the ground,
+the roads became passable, and the long confined and dreadfully wearied
+country neighbors geared up their vehicles of various sorts, from the
+ox-cart to the coach and pair, and from the ass’s colt to the high bred
+courser, and went “a-visiting.”
+
+It was about ten o’clock in the morning of a beautiful winter’s day,
+that Sophie caught a glimpse through the window of the old parson on his
+old horse, with Emily seated on a pillion behind him, with her arms
+around his waist. Sophie sprang to meet and greet them—and—
+
+“I knew you’d come! I _knew_ you would,” she said, as she held up her
+hands to assist Emily, who sprang from the pillion into her arms. And
+she burst into tears as she received her.
+
+Poor girl! she had been so lonesome, for so long.
+
+After greeting Mr. May, she drew Emily’s arm within her own and led the
+way to the house, while the old parson ambled leisurely up to the
+horse-block, alighted, and followed them. When they were seated in the
+parlor, and Emily had taken Hagar upon her lap and filled her apron with
+the home-made cakes she had brought, Mr. May turned to Sophie, and
+stroking her brown hair, inquired—
+
+“How has my little partridge contrived to live through this long, hard
+winter?”
+
+Sophie Churchill was thoroughly ingenuous, and in reply she gave a
+simple narrative of her life since the setting in of the winter.
+
+It was beautiful to observe, that during her narrative she had uttered
+no one word of reflection or reproach against the friends and neighbors
+who had so cruelly neglected her. She merely told without complaint, the
+simple story of her sufferings as a duty, in answer to her venerated
+pastor’s question. He heard with emotion—and—
+
+“Poor ‘stricken deer’—poor shorn lamb—aye! shorn to the very ‘quick,’”
+he said.
+
+At the conclusion of her story—
+
+“The Lord loveth whom He chasteneth, and scourgeth every child whom he
+receiveth,” he said, reverently. And then he arose and walked soberly
+and thoughtfully up and down the floor with his hands clasped behind his
+back.
+
+He was a round, stout old gentleman, wore short breeches and silk
+stockings, and had his grey hair parted over his venerable brow,
+smoothed back and plaited in a queue behind; so you may readily fancy
+him as he paced up and down the floor with his hands clasped behind him
+and his head bowed upon his chest, while he seemed to be revolving some
+plan.
+
+While he walked, Emily sat and played with Hagar on her lap; at last
+turning to Miss Churchill she said,—
+
+“Do you know, Sophie, that I am not contented at all—that I am very
+_dis_contented? I want a little girl!—I want a little girl _so bad_! I
+want one to dress, and to fix, and to play with. My boy is eight years
+old, and far too big to be dressed in trimmed clothes—too much of a man,
+in his own and his father’s opinion, to wear anything but a plain
+broadcloth jacket and trousers. And I do _so_ love to make and trim
+children’s clothes. I never go into a dry goods store and see remnants
+of pretty calico or merino, but I think what sweet frocks for a little
+girl they would make. Last fall I bought some pretty remnants of crimson
+merino and orange-colored bombazine, and a bunch of narrow black worsted
+braid to trim with, just for a notion—don’t laugh at me, Sophie; and so
+this winter, while confined to the house by the dreadful weather, I
+passed some of the dreary evenings pleasantly in making and trimming
+some little dresses, and as I had no little girl to wear them I made
+them to fit _your_ little girl, Sophie. Here they are—try one of them on
+her—_please_ try one of them on her—I want to see how they look _so
+much_!”
+
+And opening her travelling satchel she produced with glee four beautiful
+little dresses suitable for winter—a crimson, and a green merino, and a
+blue, and an orange bombazine.
+
+“And that ain’t all,” said she, diving into her satchel; “I have made
+half-a-dozen nice little petticoats, and half-a-dozen pair of pantalets,
+and I have trimmed them with thread edging, and, to complete the
+wardrobe, I bought four pairs of little shoes to match in colors each of
+the four dresses; and I have half finished at home a little black velvet
+pelisse and a little black plush hat, into which I intend to stick a
+small white plume. Won’t our little girl be nice, Sophie?”
+
+Emily’s black eyes were dancing as she dashed back the black ringlets
+that kept falling over her face, while she stooped over the basket and
+looked up for a reply.
+
+It was just Sophie Churchill’s character to receive this favor with all
+the simple, artless frankness with which it was offered. She expressed
+no surprise—spoke no thanks; she only passed her hand around Emily’s
+neck, turned her face around to meet her own, bent forward, and kissed
+her lips.
+
+“There! Now, Sophie, let us go into your chamber and dress her,” said
+Emily, setting Hagar off her lap, and beginning to replace the articles
+in the satchel, and rising to go upstairs. But her husband now
+approached her, and laying his hand affectionately on the top of her
+head, pressed her down into her seat, and took the chair by her side,
+saying,—
+
+“Emily, how would you like to have your friend Miss Churchill always
+with you?”
+
+“Oh! I should be delighted—enchanted!”
+
+“Of course—so I supposed, my dear. Come here, Sophie, my child!”
+
+Sophie was at the side-board, taking out some apples. She replaced them,
+however, and went up to her pastor.
+
+“Sophie,” said the old man, “I have to ask your forgiveness, child. I
+have sadly neglected my duty as your pastor. I should have seen that you
+were comfortably provided for. Do you forgive me, child?” said he,
+passing his arm around her waist, and drawing her up to him.
+
+Sophie looked at her pastor with embarrassed surprise, and blushed up to
+her eyes. It seemed to her such an inversion of all order for her
+venerated pastor to ask _her_ forgiveness. She only raised his hand to
+her lips in silent reverence, then stood before him waiting his further
+communication.
+
+He passed his hand once or twice across his brow, and looked at Emily
+with imploring embarrassment; but Emily could not or would not come to
+his assistance, when he said,—
+
+“Sophie Churchill, my dear, it is neither proper for you to live in this
+ruined old house in this sterile heath, nor is it christian in me to
+permit it. And now you say that people have been speaking ill of you—and
+you tell me this, without excitement, as though it were the most natural
+thing in the world, and you tell me that in consequence you are quite
+neglected, without resentment, as though it were the justest fate on
+earth. This must not go on so—Sophie, will you come and live with us? I
+do not ask you in any way to become dependent upon me, for, alas! I know
+too well the unconquerable pride of the Churchills of Heath Hall!” and
+he smiled with a half reproving, half caressing air. “This property
+well-managed is quite enough to support you and your little charge very
+handsomely. But _you_ cannot manage it! Now, Miss Churchill, what I wish
+is, to unite the little families of Heath Hall and Grove Cottage. You
+and Hagar shall come and live with us at Grove Cottage nine months in
+the year. I will repair and re-furnish a part of this old Hall, and we
+will all come down here for sea-bathing during the three summer months.
+I will also beg the privilege of catching fish, crabs, and oysters from
+your fishing landing here—and of shooting wild fowl on your moor. I will
+take upon myself the collection of all your out-standing debts, paying
+them into your own hands. Come, Miss Churchill! what say you to this
+plan of uniting our families? Though just now, for the first time,
+proposed to Emily—the project is very near to her heart. She needs a
+companion near her own age and of her own sex, and will be delighted to
+have you with her, especially as she can then have a ‘little girl to
+dress and fix,’” said he smiling—
+
+“Oh! did _you_ hear that?” laughed Emily.
+
+“Yes, my darling! I heard _that_. Well, Sophie,” he said, turning
+anxiously to Miss Churchill.
+
+He need not have beat about the subject so long, as fearing difficulty
+with Miss Churchill. Sophie was too natural, too simple, frank, and
+entirely unworldly to feel any doubts, fears, or scruples upon the
+subject. Her pastor proposed the plan—and that fact carried with it a
+weight of authority that would have constrained her acceptance of a much
+less agreeable proposition—for in her heart she liked this project—the
+only drawback being her dislike to leave as her home, the Hall of her
+own and her fathers’ nativity. She expressed her glad acquiescence in
+the plan—and Emily sealed the contract with a kiss on her brow. “Now,
+Emily, my darling, we will hurry home—the sooner that we may begin to
+fit up the rooms for Miss Churchill. This is Monday—by Saturday, Miss
+Churchill, we shall be ready for you—and on Saturday morning Emily shall
+drive over and fetch you and Hagar, so that we may all go to church
+together on Sunday. As for this old hall, it can be shut up for the
+present and left in charge of old Cumbo, who, Guinea nigger like, is
+never half so happy as when left entirely alone. You will like our
+little lad, as well as Emily loves your little girl, Miss Churchill—you
+could not help it if you were to try, my dear—and you and Emily and the
+children will be very happy—if I can make you so—for I love to see happy
+faces about me.”
+
+The old man smiled gravely and sweetly as he said this, and arose to
+take leave.
+
+“Mind, dear Sophie,” said Emily, “_we_ shall be ready—do _you_ be ready
+also—for I will be sure to be at your door early on Saturday morning.”
+
+“If it be the will of God,” said the pastor.
+
+“Oh! certainly, I always _mean that_,” said Emily.
+
+“Always _say_ it then, my dear—somehow or other my heart sank within me
+as I heard you promise so confidently to be here on Saturday morning.
+Alas! who can tell? Some of us may be in our graves Saturday morning!” A
+shadow had fallen on his brow. The two young women felt serious. He
+recovered himself with an effort, saying, “I must not darken young
+hearts with my gloom! Come! smile, Emily. Bid your friend good-by—and
+know that every event is ordered by infinite wisdom and love.” And they
+took leave and rode away.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                                 DEATH.
+
+              “Why should death be linked with fear?
+                A single breath—a low drawn sigh,
+              Can break the ties that bind us here,
+                And waft the spirit to the sky.”
+                                              MRS. WELBY.
+
+
+The pastor’s home was a pretty little white cottage, with green blinds,
+nestled among the trees from which it took its name. A piazza ran all
+around it. In summer, vines were trained to run above the window of the
+cottage and around the post of the piazza—and whole parterres of white
+lilies (Emily’s favorite flower) filled the air with fragrance. Just at
+this season the scene was rather bleak. The surrounding trees and
+overhanging vines but added by the nakedness of their branches to the
+dreariness of the aspect. The cottage was of one story—consisting of a
+middle building with two wings. In the middle part, first was an entry
+parallel with the front of the house. At each end of this entry was a
+door leading into the little wings, each of which contained a
+bed-chamber. These chambers had each a large bow window fronting on the
+piazza. The left hand room was occupied by the pastor and his wife, and
+the right hand one was fitted up for the reception of Sophie Churchill
+and her little charge. Behind each of these chambers was a little
+closet—that communicating with Emily’s room was occupied by her son;
+that opening from the room prepared for Sophie, was assigned to the use
+of their only domestic, a mulatto girl. The centre building contained,
+first in front a parlor, back of that a dining-room, then a kitchen.
+Behind the house was a vegetable garden, and a poultry yard—and still
+further behind an orchard of various fruits. In front of the cottage was
+a flower yard, and a grape walk extended from the front of the piazza
+quite down to the gate. Bee-hives were standing under the locust trees
+that were scattered over the lawn.
+
+Emily was a great housekeeper—and her parlor was a model of comfort.
+There were no framed pictures. The walls were covered with a landscape
+paper (_engraved_, not colored) representing the neighborhood of
+Jerusalem and scenes in the life of the Saviour. On the wall, on one
+side of the fire-place, was Christ blessing little children—on the other
+Christ at the marriage at Cana—the figures were nearly as large as life.
+Emily loved them like familiar friends—and this paper was a favorite
+with the old man because its grave hue, assisted by the slate-colored
+moreen curtains at the windows, and the slate-colored coverings of the
+lounges and easy chairs, shed a sober clerical sort of air over the
+room. The mantel-piece was of dark grey marble, and the very andirons,
+fender, &c., had no glaring brass about them, but were made of polished
+steel. A large and well filled book-case stood at the end of the room
+opposite the fire-place—a bronze bust of John Huss stood upon the top of
+it. _That_ was the old man’s hero. On Friday morning succeeding their
+visit to Heath Hall—this parlor was in its highest state of
+perfection—everything glittered with a sober polished steel sort of
+brilliancy—like a “friend’s” wit and humor. They were ready for Miss
+Churchill. Sophie at the Hall was preparing for her removal—all her
+small effects and Hagar’s slender stock of clothing were put in order
+and packed. On Friday morning they were quite ready. On Friday morning
+Mrs. May’s maid rode over on a side-saddle and carried a note to Sophie
+Churchill. The note was from Emily, of course, and ran thus—
+
+
+  “Come, my little partridge, are you ready to fly?—your nest in the
+  grove is quite ready—the sweetest little nest you ever saw. I have put
+  up white muslin curtains to your bed and windows, laid down a new
+  home-made carpet on your floor, whitened your hearth, and hung your
+  favorite picture of the Madonna and child over the chimney-piece.
+  Kitty and I have made some seed cakes to-day—and Mr. May has just
+  received from Baltimore Scott’s new novel of ‘Ivanhoe.’ I await your
+  arrival to cut the leaves—shall we not be happy to-morrow? I have
+  borrowed Mrs. Gardiner Green’s carryall and shall be at your door by
+  seven in the morning. I design that you shall breakfast with us, so be
+  ready for migration, my bird.
+
+                                                                “EMILY.”
+
+
+That night Emily retired to rest so full of thoughts of the morrow that
+she could not sleep. For one thing she feared that she should not wake
+early enough—her very bonnet and cloak were laid out ready to be put on
+when she should first get up; and then she was afraid her buckwheat
+cakes might not rise well on account of the cold, and _terribly_ afraid
+lest the cloud that obscured the moon should bring rain the next
+morning. At last she fell asleep, and it seemed to her that she had but
+just lost herself when she was aroused by a soft hand laid on her face.
+She threw up her own hand, half unconsciously, to remove it, when she
+heard her husband say, in feeble tones, “Emily, I am dying; get up,
+child.” She started up in vague alarm, for she was yet but half awake,
+struck a light, and passing around to the other side of the bed, let it
+shine in his face. His features were frightfully drawn and haggard, as
+though by a recent fit of agonizing pain—his voice was quiet, as he
+said,—
+
+“Blow out the candle, child, and open the window-shutters to let the
+moonbeams in, and come and sit by me, Emily.” She was wide enough awake
+now, and trembling in every limb, while she gazed upon that contorted
+countenance, and marked while he spoke the frightful ruin an hour had
+made of it.
+
+“You are ill—very ill!—let me call up Kitty and send for a physician,”
+said she, setting down the candle, and running to the door. He recalled
+her.
+
+“My Emily, come here—let Kitty sleep—do not disturb the household—send
+for no one, I insist—a college of doctors could not save me. My Emily,
+blow out the candle—it hurts me; there—now open the shutters so that I
+can see out into the free sky. Thank you, child. Now, Emily, wrap
+yourself in your cloak, and come and take this seat by my side.”
+
+Trembling with grief and terror, she did all that he requested, and
+finally, as she took the chair at the head of the bed, said,—
+
+“Oh, do give me leave to send for a physician—you have been in a fit or
+in agonizing pain, and may be so again; _do_ let me send for a
+physician.”
+
+“My child, whom would you send? Dr. Howe lives fourteen miles off; can
+you send Kitty at night so far?”
+
+“Oh! I could send her over to the village to knock up Mr. Green or some
+of the men, who will saddle a horse and go—do let me!”
+
+“Emily, before a messenger could _go_, much less _return_ with the
+doctor, it would be too late. Stay—do not leave me! I charge you do not
+leave me!”
+
+He grasped her hand convulsively, as a spasm beginning in his left
+shoulder and arm shook fearfully his whole person. Emily gazed, pale and
+cold as lead, and twice started up to call assistance, when both times
+the hand of the convulsed man tightened upon her wrist, and retained her
+in her seat. The fit at last was over, and he was looking into Emily’s
+face.
+
+“Oh! _what_ can I do for you?” she cried, “_do—do—do_ let me try
+something.” She was too much shocked for tears.
+
+“Do _only_ what I ask of you, dear child—stay by me. I am dying, Emily.”
+
+“No, no! _not_ dying, but _ill_—very ill. Oh, _what_ is the matter with
+you?”
+
+Now her tears gushed forth.
+
+“Control yourself, Emily—you can do it. _This_ is my disease, _angina
+pectoris_. I have been threatened with it long—it will do its office
+to-night. One or two more such convulsions as that and my soul will be
+released—released! Only think of that! Free to traverse the boundless
+realms of air! Stupendous it seems to me—I cannot fully realize it. One
+hour convulsed and agonizing here, the next beyond the most distant star
+we see. One moment your pale face fades from my eyes, the next the
+divine glory of the Saviour’s countenance bursts upon my vision!”
+
+A terrible convulsion now seized and shook his frame; he held Emily’s
+hand as before—the fit passed.
+
+“You will weep for the old man a few days, Emily, and only a few days.
+At first you will feel very desolate and helpless, but you will soon
+recover from that, and find an absorbing object in your son for a
+time—_that_ may also pass, for you are young.”
+
+“Shall I not awake Augustus?” asked Emily, through her streaming tears.
+
+“No, child. Do not let him look, young as he is, upon the terrors of a
+death like this—a death of physical anguish. I looked over him as he lay
+in his cot to-night and blessed him in his sleep. That is sufficient.”
+
+The muscles of his face and hands began to twitch—he struggled and
+writhed in another strong spasm. When that was over, and he had grown
+quite calm, he raised his feeble hands, and parting the soft dark hair
+from her white forehead, he said,—
+
+“I bless you, Emily—I bless you and you shall be blessed—blessed in your
+son, blessed in your friends, blessed in yourself, and blessed in your
+God.”
+
+A convulsion stronger and longer in continuance than any that had
+preceded it threatened his immediate dissolution. When, at last, it
+slowly and interruptedly subsided, his features settled into the fixity
+of death. He did not speak again, his respiration was labored and
+painful, and only when Emily attempted to move would he give any sign of
+consciousness by feebly trying to tighten his hold upon her hand; at
+last that hold relaxed, the respiration ceased, and the freed soul
+“migrated to the Great Secret.” Emily was calm and quiet now. She laid
+the venerable hands together over his bosom, composed the limbs, closed
+the eyes, and straightened the white coverlet of the bed. Then she
+resumed her seat and her watch until the morning dawned, then dressing
+herself, she went into the sleeping closet of Kitty, aroused her, told
+her what had happened, and sent her to the village to procure
+assistance. By sunrise the cottage was half-full of sympathizing
+neighbors. The pastor’s funeral took place on the fourth day after his
+death. The successor of the pastor had arrived in time to perform the
+funeral ceremonies, and after that was over remained as a temporary
+guest at the Grove. All plans of removing thither were for the present
+abandoned by Sophie Churchill.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+                             THE STRANGER.
+
+              “Erect, morose, determined, solemn, slow—
+              Who knows the man can never cease to know.”
+                                                  CRABBE.
+
+             “A fearful sign stands in thy house of life—
+             An enemy;—a fiend lurks close behind
+             The radiance of thy planet—oh! be warned!”
+                                                 COLERIDGE.
+
+
+The Rev. John Huss Withers. He had been recommended to the parish as his
+successor in case of his own demise by Mr. May. He had been a student
+some twenty years back with the old gentleman—within the last eight or
+ten years he had had charge of a congregation in one of the Northern
+cities. Very lately his charge had been resigned—and, in reply to a
+letter written by Mr. May, inquiring his reason for his resignation, he
+alleged the cause to be—domestic affliction—the _loss_ of his wife. The
+old pastor wrote back a letter full of sympathy, and attempted
+consolation, and then the correspondence was suffered to drop. There was
+no telling how much the mere circumstance of his given name, “John
+Huss,” affected the partiality of the old man in his favor.
+
+Certainly when he appeared at the grove, there was nothing very winning
+in his looks. During the funeral ceremonies, Mrs. May and Miss Churchill
+had scarcely observed him, absorbed as they were in thoughts of the
+dead. After the return from the burial ground—after Emily and Sophie had
+laid off their bonnets in Miss Churchill’s room, Emily said—
+
+“You must stay with us at least a week or two, Sophie—and we must share
+together this room that I proposed for you—I will have the crib brought
+down from the loft and put by the side of our bed for little Hagar. One
+room _must_ be given up to the use of our boarder, Mr. Withers, and I
+prefer to let him have mine, for its distressing associations affect my
+nerves dreadfully.”
+
+“Then the new preacher is to board with you, Emily?”
+
+“Yes, my love, for many good, _very good_ reasons—first, he was my
+husband’s friend, and then I am afraid to live here by myself, or I mean
+without a man about the place; and then the old ladies all tell me that
+I must receive him because it is so convenient to the church.”
+
+For her life, Sophie Churchill could not have explained the cause of the
+oppression that settled upon her heart, or the deep sigh that revealed
+the burden on her spirits without throwing it off. They went into the
+parlor, that was unoccupied, but glittering with its sober, polished
+steel lustre, and took seats; Emily, in the slate-colored damask easy
+chair, and Sophie upon the lounge of the same grave hue. By nothing
+could you have guessed the late presence of so gloomy a visitor as death
+in that sober but cheerful room.
+
+Emily, by the expressed wish of her late husband, wore no mourning—her
+dress was that she always wore in-doors—a soft and full white muslin
+wrapper, descending from her full bust, and gathered around her slender
+waist by a cord and tassel. Her soft, silky black hair was parted over
+her forehead, and hung in thick ringlets that scarcely reached her
+bosom—she leaned back serenely with her hands resting on the arms of the
+slate-colored chair. Sophie Churchill’s clear olive complexion looked
+almost fair, contrasted with her smoothly braided brown hair, her large,
+melancholy brown eyes, and her brown silk dress. Sophie leaned over the
+elbow of the lounge towards her friend, whose chair was near that end.
+Kitty came in to lay the cloth for tea, and soon a round table stood on
+the floor covered by a snow-white damask cloth, white china tea service,
+and the nice light bread and hard golden-hued butter, and clear honey,
+with the seed cakes of Emily’s preparation. The tea was placed upon the
+table and their boarder summoned from the piazza, where he had been
+promenading. He came in.
+
+He came in, lifting his hat from his head, and placing it upon a side
+stand, slowly and gravely assumed the seat at the foot of the table
+where Emily and Sophie were already seated. They raised their eyes
+simultaneously to look at him, and at once the whole aspect of the room
+seemed changed—a funeral solemnity gathered over it. Sophie, attracted
+by one of those strange spells exercised by objects of terror over us,
+could not keep her large startled eyes off him—at last he raised his
+head and looked her full in the face—her eyes fell, and a visible
+shudder shook her frame—a just perceptible smile writhed the corner of
+his mouth as he withdrew his gaze from her. Sophie did not open her
+mouth to speak during the meal; Emily dispensed her hospitalities with
+her usual graceful ease. At the end of tea they arose, Kitty entered and
+cleared the table, and Mrs. May, making an apology, left the room to
+attend to some domestic matters. Sophie was now alone with the new
+preacher. She resumed her seat at the end of the lounge, he took the
+easy chair just vacated by Emily, and drawing it closer to the side of
+Miss Churchill, he stooped forward and inquired in his singularly sweet
+tones—
+
+“You live in this neighborhood, Miss Churchill?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” she said, and her eyes dropped, and the blood mounted to her
+brow, and receding, left it pale—again that singular smile curled the
+corner of his lip.
+
+“Far from this, Miss Churchill?”
+
+“I live at Heath Hall.”
+
+“Ah! and nearly quite alone, Miss Churchill, with only one aged female
+domestic and an infant—”
+
+“And _God_!” said Sophie, raising her eyes confidently to meet his; but
+the brilliant, basilisk, greenish grey eyes seemed to freeze her
+eyeballs, and she dropped their sheltering lids again—yet she felt the
+glance of those glittering, cold, keen eyes entering her heart, and a
+chill, an icy chill, ran through all her veins. She started up and
+sought Emily.
+
+Emily was in the next room, the dining-room, where, seated in two little
+chairs at a little child’s table, covered with a white cloth, appeared
+the children, Gusty and Hagar, eating their supper of milk and
+sweetmeats. The children were at each end of the table, and Emily was
+kneeling at the side with an arm lightly clasped around each—she had
+just thus embraced the orphans, and a tear was glistening in her eye.
+She arose as Sophie entered, and said—
+
+“Why have you left the room, my love; it was so rude to Mr. Withers?”
+
+“Because I don’t like to stay with him—do _you_? How do _you_ like him,
+Emily?”
+
+“Well, dear, I don’t know. I have scarcely had an opportunity of seeing
+yet—he is grave, grave to austerity, yet that, though it may awe young
+maidens, can scarcely be deemed a fault in the Pastor of the Crucifixion
+Parish.”
+
+“Oh! it was not that—it was not that!”
+
+“What was it then, my frightened dove?”
+
+“I could not tell you! You wouldn’t understand! _He has never looked at
+you—never spoken to you._”
+
+“How you do talk at random, child—we conversed at tea.”
+
+“He has never looked at you and never spoken to you!”
+
+“My dear, you are hysterical—I must give you some morphine.” She went to
+a cupboard. But the wild fluttering of Sophie’s startled heart
+subsided—she refused the morphine, and at last they returned to the
+parlor.
+
+The next day was Good Friday, and of course there was service at the
+church, and the Rev. John Huss Withers was to preach his first sermon.
+Reader, do you happen to know what a great event the arrival of a new
+preacher is in a country neighborhood? Not only does the parish over
+which he is installed as minister, but every surrounding parish, forsake
+their own especial minister to flock to hear him.
+
+At an early hour two horses stood saddled at the gate of Grove Cottage,
+and the minister, Sophie, Emily, and her son, sallied out to mount them.
+When Sophie saw but two horses saddled, and knew that there were four
+persons to go to church, she looked with embarrassment at Emily.
+
+“You are to ride on a pillion behind Mr. Withers, Miss Churchill—and
+Gusty is to ride behind me.”
+
+The parson was already mounted, and before Sophie had time to reply, he
+rode up to where she was standing on the horse-block, stooped his giant
+arm, and lifting her lightly to the pillion, drew her arms around his
+waist and cantered off. Earth and sky swam together in Sophie’s vision
+as they went. Emily was in her saddle, and Kitty lifted up and set her
+boy behind her, and then taking the infant Hagar in her arms went into
+the house. Emily paced soberly along—Master Gusty was quarrelling all
+the way, asserting that it was _his_ right to ride and his mother ought
+to sit behind _him_, like the parson and Miss Sophie. Mr. Withers was
+waiting for them in the shadow of the forest just at its entrance. At
+another time Emily could scarcely have suppressed a smile at seeing the
+cold, dead white face and dilated eyes of Sophie Churchill, with her
+fingers, which spellbound she scarcely durst withdraw, stiff and pale as
+tallow candles thrown into strong relief upon the black broadcloth of
+the parson’s coat.
+
+“Where are your gloves, Miss Churchill?” said Emily.
+
+“I had not drawn them on, and I lost them on our ride. _I want to get
+down and go back and get them_,” said Sophie, in an imploring voice.
+
+“Mrs. May—ride forward, madam, and I will canter back with Miss
+Churchill in search of her gloves!”
+
+“No, no, no! no, I thank you!—it will be too late,” gasped Sophie—but
+even while she spoke he had wheeled his horse and was going back.
+
+“You should not have named your wish _to get down_ and return then,”
+said he, in his sweet, dear tones. They had ridden back about an eighth
+of a mile when Sophie, anxious to rejoin her other companions, said—
+
+“I think I lost my gloves about here.”
+
+Mr. Withers alighted, and placing the reins and his riding-whip in the
+hands of Miss Churchill, favored the poor girl with a look full in the
+face that froze the blood in her veins. She thought of the long ride
+they would now have to take through the forest alone, and her heart died
+within her. She watched him, nervously saw him pick up the gloves and
+turn to approach, she looked at him with the eyes of a startled fawn
+ready for flight—she met the same basilisk gaze—it maddened her—suddenly
+jerking the bit and putting whip to her horse, she sped from the spot
+like an arrow from a bow, and fled across the common with a vague idea
+of reaching her own home—he shouted:
+
+“The horse is running away with you! rein up your horse,” and flew after
+her. She reached the banks of the river—gave one frightened look behind,
+and madly urged her steed down the bank and into the rushing water
+swollen by the recent thaw. The water was deep, and her steed floundered
+and struggled with the waves just as Withers appeared at the top of the
+bank—sped down—dashed into the water and seizing the rein swayed the
+horse around—drew him to the beach, and led him dripping and struggling
+up the bank. When they were once more on firm, high ground, he paused to
+breathe the horse; the water was dripping from the dress of Sophie, and
+her wet clothes were clinging tightly about her limbs. He leaned upon
+his elbow upon the pommel of her saddle and said, gravely,
+
+“You are an interesting young lady, Miss Churchill; your feats of
+horsemanship are surprising.”
+
+Sophie’s sudden plunge-bath, and the real danger she had passed, had
+somewhat restored the tone of her nervous system by putting to flight
+her imaginary terrors. The horse had now recovered his wind and they set
+forward, the preacher leading the horse—they reached the cottage gate—he
+assisted Sophie to alight—as she reached the ground she said—
+
+“You had better push forward to church, Mr. Withers; you will be too
+late.”
+
+He took his watch calmly from his pocket and holding it near her face,
+said—
+
+“See, it wants a quarter to nine o’clock; if you hurry and change your
+dress we can get there in time.”
+
+“I am not going, sir.”
+
+“Then I shall stay home to take care of you—you need care after this
+morning’s adventure,” and so saying, he quietly began to unsaddle the
+horse.
+
+“Stop, I will go,” said Sophie, choosing the lighter evil, and she
+hurried in to change her dress.
+
+“What has happened, sir?” said Kitty, coming out.
+
+“The horse ran away with Miss Churchill,” replied he.
+
+Sophie now returned arrayed in a black silk, and was lifted tremblingly
+into her seat. They then set off at a brisk canter and soon entered the
+forest. Reader, do you like a dark forest road? If so, you would have
+been delighted with the forest road leading to this church, winding now
+through a deep dell where the branches met over head, and now up a steep
+hill over which the trees were thinly scattered. They had just entered a
+dark walk from which the thick overhanging branches excluded nearly
+every ray of light when Sophie, turning her head aside, her eyes fell
+upon some object couched in the underwood, her gaze was riveted, her
+eyes dilated, her lips fell apart, her face became ashy pale, and then a
+half-suppressed cry burst from her lips. The parson halted—turned around
+in his saddle—
+
+“What is the matter, Miss Churchill?”
+
+“Something frightened me in the bushes.”
+
+He looked scrutinizingly in every direction.
+
+“I see nothing—was it a wolf?”
+
+“No—let’s go on.”
+
+“Your heart is beating as though it would break its prison—you are
+shaking like an ague. Was it a bear?”
+
+“No, no—_do_ go on.”
+
+“_What_ was it then?”
+
+“Nothing, nothing—please go on.”
+
+“And yet you can scarcely keep your seat. Are you nervous, Miss
+Churchill?”
+
+“Yes, very.”
+
+“I should think so; you should have medical advice,” and touching his
+horse, they galloped forward.
+
+They soon entered an open forest glade in which stood the church, a red
+brick building, having the form of a cross. Many broken tombstones were
+all around it, and scattering trees to which were tied numerous horses,
+and nearly filling up the glade were hundreds of vehicles of every
+description, from the ox-cart to the splendid coach and pair. Alighting
+near a horse-block, he fastened his horse, and lifting her from the
+pillion, led her into the church, which was already crowded, and up the
+long middle aisle to the pew of Emily, which was the top pew on the
+right hand facing the pulpit; he opened the door, saw her seated, and
+passed on to his reading-desk. Emily observed the pale face and
+trembling frame of her friend, but had no opportunity of inquiring the
+cause, which she naturally associated with her delay in overtaking her.
+Nor was this opportunity afforded after church, when the congregation
+all crowded around to speak to their new minister. Mr. Gardiner Green, a
+wealthy planter, the nearest neighbor of Emily, performed the part of
+master of ceremonies. It is true that all had seen Mr. Withers at Mr.
+May’s funeral, but upon such an occasion as that, of course there could
+be but few introductions. It was an hour before the congregation were
+all in their saddles or their vehicles, and ready to disperse.
+
+When our little party were mounted and had entered the forest, the
+pastor said,
+
+“Your young friend, Miss Churchill, is a celebrated horsewoman, is she
+not, Mrs. May?”
+
+“_Very._ Sophie is the best rider of all the ladies of this county,”
+said Emily, unsuspiciously, “but what detained you so long?”
+
+“While I was hunting for Miss Churchill’s gloves, her horse suddenly
+started and ran off with her; dashed down the bank and into the river.
+She kept her seat like a heroine, and so was saved.”
+
+Emily evinced less surprise than might have been expected, merely
+remarking,
+
+“I have known Sophie Churchill to ford that river on horseback when a
+mere child.”
+
+“Yet Miss Churchill seems very timid too.”
+
+“She is. Her good horsemanship is merely habit—she has been accustomed
+to ride from infancy; but to-day Sophie certainly is nervous—what is the
+matter with you, Sophie, my love?”
+
+Sophie spoke of her fright in the forest, yet persisted in refusing to
+explain it. They reached home. Dinner was ready, the ladies laid off
+their bonnets, and all sat down to the table. Immediately after dinner
+the minister arose and retired to his chamber, and Sophie drew a long
+free breath, as though a stricture were removed from her chest.
+
+“Come into our bedroom, and let’s put on our loose wrappers and lie
+down, Sophie; it is really fatiguing these long rides to church and
+back.”
+
+And she arose, and Sophie followed her. Emily assisted her off with her
+dress, and taking a bottle of cologne, washed her face and head until
+she looked better; and then, as they rested on the bed, she said,—
+
+“Now, Sophie, tell me about this forest fright, for there is more in it
+than you would confess to any one but me.”
+
+“Perhaps you will think it imagination, or nothing, yet, as we entered
+the deep dell, just a quarter of a mile behind the church, I happened to
+turn my head, and low, crouched down to the ground, I saw—”
+
+“What?”
+
+“The wannest, most spectral face that could be conceived, with wild eyes
+and streaming hair.”
+
+“A runaway mulatto!”
+
+“I tell you _no_! The face was whiter than snow—the eyes blue, and
+blazing in their steady gaze upon me; the hair golden, streaked with
+silver. The skeleton hand was like a bird’s claw with emaciation, and
+the finger pointed to the minister.”
+
+Emily listened with an incredulous smile, then she said—
+
+“A figure conjured up by imagination, Sophie—a mere creature of your
+disordered nerves. You should read Sir Walter Scott’s letters on
+Demonology, and then you would understand. But, dear, how do you and the
+minister get on? Do you know I think you are a favorite with him.”
+
+“Oh! God forbid!” said Sophie, clasping her hands.
+
+“Why, my dear, what is the matter?”
+
+“_Oh!_ I have such an antipathy to him—such a sickening, deadly
+antipathy to him; when his eyes meet mine, or his hand falls upon mine,
+a cold chill runs all through me, and I grow blind and faint.”
+
+“Well, my love, fortunately you are not obliged to like him. Yet he will
+be very popular, Sophie. Did you observe the even unusual respect paid
+him by his congregation to-day? His sermon made a marked impression. All
+the widows and girls will be setting their caps for him, but you, I
+think, will win the prize.”
+
+“Emily, I am going home to-morrow.”
+
+“_No_, my love, no; why, what put that into your head?”
+
+“I do not like to stay here; I do not like Mr. Withers, and I do not
+like the tone of your conversation so soon after your husband’s death.”
+
+The tears overflowed Emily’s eyes.
+
+“I am wrong—I am wrong, to forget for a moment the loss of so kind a
+friend; and yet, Sophie, death never did make me gloomy. Sickness does,
+suffering does, but I quite as often envy as regret the departed. Think,
+Sophie, he has rejoined in heaven the wife of his youth and middle life,
+‘the Michal of his bloom,’ whom he loved as he never could love _me_,
+‘the Abishag of his age.’ She was his companion for time and for
+eternity; I, only a fellow-passenger for a short stage—the _end_ of his
+journey, the _beginning_ of mine.”
+
+Here a summons to tea broke up their conference. They dressed and went
+out; the minister was there before them. They sat down to tea.
+
+The next morning Sophie Churchill made an effort to return home, but she
+was overruled. It was Saturday, Emily said, and she must stay to attend
+church the next day, Easter Sunday. She complied, and attended church
+with the family, without meeting with another adventure of any sort. On
+Easter Monday Sophie mounted on Emily’s horse, and carrying little Hagar
+on her lap, set out for her home at Heath Hall, attended by Master Gusty
+Wilde May as escort, who fancied his manhood greatly accelerated by the
+honor of his office.
+
+I told you that the house at the Heath was large and square. It faced
+the bay, and a wide hall ran from the central front entrance through to
+the back—from the middle of this hall, and facing the entrance, arose
+the wide staircase, whose balustrades turned off in a scroll on each
+side of the bottom steps. Under these stairs was a large closet where
+household utensils were kept. On each side of this wide hall were
+opposite doors—the left hand door letting into the parlor, the right
+hand door into the ruinous drawing-room. The dim old parlor, with the
+sleeping-room above it, and the kitchen near it, was the only habitable
+part of the house, and even these rooms leaked in rainy weather. One
+evening, about a week from the day of her arrival at home, Sophie
+Churchill sat alone before the smouldering fire in the wide arched
+fire-place; a lamp burned on the little old spiderlegged workstand; the
+moonlight streamed through the branches of the old poplar trees that
+swayed against the four gothic-arched and curtainless front windows. The
+room was nearly bare of furniture; no carpet was on the floor; and the
+once bright-colored landscape paper on the walls illustrating Fox’s
+Christian Martyrs was torn and faded. It was a weird scene enough. The
+figures of the Martyrs were large as life. Upon the wall opposite the
+fire-place, and beside the door leading into the hall, was the
+representation of a Christian suffering the baptism of fire; and as the
+ray of the lamp flickered upon it, the form of the martyr seemed to
+writhe and quiver—seemed to dip and rise from the flames, and the
+features of his tormentors to grin and leer. Sophie was there knitting,
+and her large brown eyes were somewhat larger, with a vague terror that
+had fallen upon her spirits as soon as she was left alone. And well
+might she feel this; except the infant and the beldam, there was not a
+soul within half a mile of her, and the forest behind was known to be
+the refuge of a runaway negro—a gigantic fellow, whose depredations in
+the neighborhood were violent and frequent.
+
+At the time I write of, the most heinous crimes were sometimes
+perpetrated by fugitive slaves in their desperation; their
+motives—revenge, impending starvation, or a passionate desire for
+liberty. They are the banditti of the Southern States. The forests of
+Maryland and Virginia contain caves, once the resort of runaway negroes,
+from whence at night they issued and fell upon the unwary traveller or
+the unprotected house to levy their contributions.
+
+“Jim Hice,” the man whose depredations now spread terror through the
+neighborhood, was a fugitive not only from slavery, but from justice.
+Impelled by starvation, he had once, after watching a long time outside
+of the window to know that the coast was clear, entered the kitchen of
+an old friend and begged “a mouthful to save me from starving.” This
+friend gave him a can of whiskey, which he swallowed at a draught, and
+which, from the emptiness of his stomach, immediately intoxicated him;
+and then offered him a hunk of corn pone and a herring, which he began
+to devour like a wild beast. But before he could finish it, the door
+opened and the overseer of the estate appeared. The negro recognised
+him—his eyes flew wildly around. He sprang to the window, but was seized
+by the hands of the overseer before he could pass through it. They
+struggled for life and death—but the struggle was unequal. Soon the
+gigantic negro had hugged his captor to his bosom with one strong arm,
+while with the other hand he drew from his pocket a butcher knife and
+plunged it to the handle into his chest—then dropping him, sprang over
+his body, cleared the door, and fled to the woods.
+
+The officers of justice were soon in pursuit—a price was set upon his
+head—volunteering parties set out in search of him, and he was traced to
+the forest behind Heath Hall. There, in spite of the most vigorous hunt
+with horses and hounds in the deep dells and dense thickets of the
+forest, he remained concealed.
+
+It was a week since they had lost trace of him there—and old Cumbo had
+just brought the news to Sophie that day—hence Sophie’s dilating eyes
+and starting nerves at every sound. At last, though but eight o’clock,
+she could bear it no longer—so wrought up had her nerves become that as
+the lamp flickered against the walls, the old figures in the landscape
+paper, Fox’s Martyrs, seemed to dance and jibber in their flames. The
+rattling branches against the windows seemed the breaking, crushing
+crossbar of the burglar, while the glancing of the moonbeams between
+them seemed like the gliding about of spirits from another world. Sophie
+arose with a cautious tread, as though stealing from enemies, and opened
+the door of the great hall from the centre of which the staircase
+ascended. She held her lamp in one hand, her knitting in the other, and
+her heart was beating and her eyes half starting as she opened the door
+and prepared to bound up the stairs to her own, and little Hagar’s room.
+Somehow all her vague imaginary terrors gave way, while she held little
+Hagar in her arms, as though there was safety in the presence of infant
+innocence. She opened the door, and there before her, joining her, stood
+the gigantic negro, with wild, haggard face, and bloodshot eyes! With a
+piercing scream, Sophie dropped her candle, which was extinguished in
+the fall, and fled back into the parlor.
+
+He followed her.
+
+She had sunk, paralysed with extreme terror, into a chair.
+
+The negro stood before her again, and extending one talon-like hand,
+exclaimed—
+
+“I am not going to hurt you, Miss Sophie—give me some victuals—I am
+starving!”
+
+But Sophie only gazed at him with a startled and stony eye—her senses
+petrified.
+
+“Give me some food, Miss Churchill, I die—”
+
+_Sophie_ was dying, or seemed to be—her head had fallen back against the
+chair—her chin had dropped, and her stony eyes, started from her chalky
+face, were riveted upon her fearful visitor.
+
+_His_ eyes were hollow and fiery, and his giant frame was trembling in
+every limb. He dropped on the floor before her, and said—
+
+“Miss Sophie, Miss Sophie, look at me. I won’t hurt you—how could I hurt
+you when I can scarcely stand! Give me some victuals—I have not tasted
+food for four days. Give me some, Miss Sophie!—Oh don’t be scared at
+_me_—not at _me_—who used to ride you on my shoulder when you were a
+baby—how could _I_ hurt you?”
+
+Just then the door opened, and Sophie, with a scream of joy, bounded
+from her chair, sprang over the prostrate negro, and flew into the arms
+of old Cumbo and fainted.
+
+The pastor was behind the old woman. The negro seeing her, started up,
+ran and shook the window sash—it resisted his efforts to raise or break;
+sprang to the opposite side, tried another window in vain—then attempted
+to dart past the minister who stood in the door. Mr. Withers extended
+his arm, intercepted and captured the fugitive. He struggled—Mr. Withers
+was cool, strong, and determined—held him fast by the wrists—trying to
+get them together that he might bind them. He stood firm, while the
+negro—his eyes glaring like flame in a dark night, his teeth set, his
+thick neck swollen, his starting muscles, like knotted cords in his
+sinewy arms, fell violently from side to side in his desperate efforts
+to escape.
+
+He had been starving, and the factitious strength lent by despair soon
+failed—his struggles became fainter and fainter—and ceased as Mr.
+Withers bore him down to the floor, placed his knee upon his breast,
+crossed his wrists, and hallooed to the old woman to bring a cord to
+bind him.
+
+Old Cumbo, in a distant part of the room, was bathing her young
+mistress’s face with water—Sophia Churchill was recovering from her
+faint. The old woman hobbled up, shaking her hand in the face of the
+captive as she passed him, exclaiming, “You gallows face vilyun you!”
+went into the hall, opened a dark closet under the stairs, and drew out
+a clothes line, which she brought to Mr. Withers. He bound his prisoner
+securely, and then stood up from his labors to breathe; his eyes fell on
+the drooping form of Sophia Churchill, he walked up to her and stooping
+over her spake softly,
+
+“You have been in some danger and very great alarm, Miss Churchill; I
+thank God who inspired my visit to you this evening. I just chanced to
+knock at your hall door, as your old servant, aroused by your screams,
+had come down to your assistance; she opened the door and admitted me.”
+
+Sophia was still trembling in every limb, and the tears were trickling
+down her cheeks.
+
+“And now, Miss Churchill, I must leave you immediately to proceed to the
+village and procure an officer; the miscreant must be lodged in jail
+to-night. Don’t feel any more alarm; he is perfectly secure, or if it
+would relieve you, we can lock him up; have you a room?”
+
+“No,” said Sophia, “don’t lock him up.”
+
+“It would be altogether a work of supererogation, I think. Well, Miss
+Churchill, I will leave you now, and return within two hours.”
+
+So saying the minister took his hat and withdrew. Sophia remained
+leaning her cheek upon her hand. The old woman stood stooping over the
+negro with her hands resting on her knees, peering down in his face.
+
+“Kik—kik—kik!” (laughing), “you ready trussed for hanging up now, ain’t
+you? kik—kik—kik—kik! how you feel when git rope roun’ neck, hey? Mind,
+I gwine see you hang, hear?”
+
+“Cumbo, come away,” commanded Miss Churchill, as sternly as she knew how
+to speak.
+
+The old woman did not move nor take off her eyes from her fallen foe,
+but answered, “Oh, he one gran’ rascal, Missy, one gallows face vilyun
+as ever lib—use to drive me ’bout ’mong corn hills, when he great man,
+when he Massa Churchill oberseer—black oberseer—_black_ gemmun—_black_
+Massa! kik—kik—kik!” And the old woman snapped her fingers under the
+nose of the prisoner.
+
+The harshness of black overseers, who are often selected for their
+greater vigilance and severity, and the hatred the negroes feel towards
+them, is notorious in the Southern States.
+
+The old woman continued her abuse, the negro suffered it without reply.
+Sophia Churchill watched him
+
+               “Until the pity of her heart grew strong.”
+
+At last the old woman said,
+
+“Now I gwine out, see ef dey comin’ wid cons’ble,” and left the room.
+
+Sophia looked at the poor wretch tied like a beast for slaughter, and
+thought of the dreadful death hanging over him, until pity overcame
+terror and conquered reason. She arose, and drawing near him stealthily
+as one would approach a bound tiger, she said gently:
+
+“Jim, I’m sorry for you.”
+
+“Oh! Miss Sophia,” said he weeping.
+
+“_Very_ sorry for you. Oh! Jim, _why_ did you run away, and _why_ did
+you break into houses and rob, and _why, why_ did you stab the
+overseer?”
+
+“_Is_ he dead? tell me _that, is_ he dead, Miss Sophia?”
+
+“No, Jim, he is not dead, he has recovered, so you are free from
+blood-guiltiness.”
+
+“Thank God, then, I’m no murderer.”
+
+“But, poor wretch, your fate in this world will be the same as though
+you were. You made an assault upon the life of an overseer in his
+attempt to re-capture you; not just to _see_ what you have brought
+yourself to.”
+
+The negro wept outright.
+
+“But I did not come over here to reprove you, Jim. Jim, if I were to cut
+your bands and let you go, what would you do?” He half started up, gazed
+intently on her and said,
+
+“I would go down on my knees and bless you; I’d learn to pray, so I
+could pray for you.”
+
+“I don’t mean that; would you try to reform?”
+
+“Miss Sophia, would you believe me if I were to promise?”
+
+Sophia was silent.
+
+“There, I knew you wouldn’t, Miss Sophia, you couldn’t if you were to
+try,” and he sighed heavily.
+
+“Jim, I will let you go. I don’t know whether I am doing right or wrong,
+but I cannot bear the thought of your wretched condition, and the awful
+fate that too surely awaits you, if you are imprisoned to-night. Listen,
+Jim. I have a strong fishing-boat, moored at the beach, at the foot of
+the promontory; two oars and some fishing tackle are in it—in the little
+fishing-shed under the brow of the rock there is a sail. When I cut
+these cords, fly, take the boat, the oars, and the sail, put out into
+the bay, keep near the coast, and _up_ the bay, until you reach the
+Susquehanna; go a few miles up that, and then land. You will be in
+Pennsylvania, and you will be safe. And oh, listen! Go to work—steal no
+more, for every future crime you commit will rest upon my head for
+permitting you to escape.” Sophie was now trembling at the
+responsibility she was assuming. “Look you, Jim, resolve upon amendment,
+pray God to help, and _I_,” said she sternly, “_I_ shall pray too. I
+shall pray God to help you to reform, and I shall pray God to grant you
+a safe termination to your highly dangerous voyage, if you are _going_
+to reform; if not, if he sees your heart is hardened, I shall pray him
+in that case to let you drown or fall into the hands of your pursuers,
+that my mercy to you may not turn out cruelty to others.”
+
+She went into the kitchen, got a pone of cornbread and a knife, returned
+and cut his cords. He sprang upon his feet, and scarcely waiting to
+receive the pone she gave him, fled from the house.
+
+Sophie sat down trembling in her seat. She had been afraid of him even
+while talking to him and setting him at liberty; now she drew a long
+breath, with an inexpressible feeling of relief. But soon came other
+thoughts; her doubtful act of mercy had been a matter of feeling
+entirely, and by no means of judgment, and she did not now feel
+altogether assured of its prosperity; besides she feared that she had
+made herself in some way amenable to the laws, by assisting a felon to
+escape. Sophie was really growing sick at heart; she resolved to avoid
+an explanation and seek her rest. She went to her chamber, undressed and
+retired to bed, where, with little Hagar clasped in her arms, she tried
+to forget in the presence of innocence the scene of horror she had
+lately witnessed. Presently she heard the officers enter the room below;
+exclamations of surprise and regret (oaths were spared in the pastor’s
+presence), and then she heard old Cumbo hobbling up the stairs. She
+entered her room, exclaiming in tones of extreme indignation—
+
+“Ha! hi! _What_ do you think, Miss Soph, do you think that gallows-faced
+vilyun ain’t broke loose and _gone_!”
+
+Sophie raised herself on her elbow and looked at the old woman without
+speaking.
+
+“Yes, indeed! broke loose and _gone_! There’s no tellin’ what _he
+wouldn’t_ do, the ungrateful wretch, to break loose and go! after Massa
+Widders con’cendin’ tu him too! Oh! he’d ’ny his Saviour—_he’d_ do
+anything.”
+
+“Cumbo, will you be kind enough to go down to Mr. Withers, and tell him
+that I am sick—_very_ sick—and ask him to excuse my absence!”
+
+“An’ nuff to make you! an’ nuff to make you! I’m sick myself; I did hope
+to see that gran’ rascal hang. I did _that_, and now jes see what a
+’spointment.”
+
+And the old woman hobbled away, and soon she heard her visitors leave
+the house, speaking their regret and sympathy as they went. Old Cumbo
+came up, and spreading a pallet near her young mistress’s bed, lay down
+to sleep, or rather to talk.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+                            THE PHILOSOPHER.
+
+
+  “Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis of the voyage of
+  Life.”
+
+                                              RAMSAY ON HUMAN HAPPINESS.
+
+
+The next morning early Emily May was over at the hall. She rode her own
+saddle-horse and little Gusty rode another, behind which was fixed a
+pillion, upon which Sophie was to return to the Grove—at least, so said
+Mrs. May, for she persisted that Heath Hall was neither a safe nor a
+proper place of residence for Miss Churchill. But neither coaxing
+threats nor arguments would have prevailed with Sophie to leave the
+Heath—her antipathy to Emily’s boarder was undiminished. Emily spent the
+day with her, and at nightfall left, disappointed.
+
+That evening, after the beldam and the infant were asleep, Sophie as
+usual sat alone in her large old parlor. She felt a sense of security
+and peace, and plied her knitting-needles diligently—her thoughts
+occupied with no heavier matter than the heeling and toeing of little
+Hagar’s red worsted stockings, or at most, the well-being of her cow and
+calf, or her vegetable garden, for already upon the maiden had descended
+matronly cares. She sat there knitting, and presently a rap—a calm,
+self-possessed rap was heard at the hall door; she glanced at the old
+clock in the corner, it was seven o’clock; she passed to the door and
+reached it just as the rap was repeated; she opened it, and Mr. Withers,
+the minister, stood before her; his thin dark figure looming up in the
+moonshine.
+
+“Good evening, Miss Churchill,” said he, stepping in, taking her hand
+and pressing it gently. “You have quite recovered your fright, I trust?”
+
+“Quite, sir,” replied Sophie, laconically, as she reluctantly led the
+way into the room and set a chair for her minister on the opposite side
+of her workstand. He dropped himself into it, and extending his long
+legs towards the little fire, he said,—
+
+“You were not at church last Sabbath, Miss Sophie, and it was with a
+view of inquiring the reason of your absence that I came here—may I make
+that inquiry now?”
+
+“Except while with Mrs. May I have not been to church for many months.”
+
+“May I inquire, as your pastor, why?”
+
+“The distance is considerable; that, in Summer, would be no objection,
+but during the Winter and Spring the roads are nearly impassable to a
+foot passenger, and I have no conveyance.”
+
+“Ah!” said the minister, a gleam of pleasure lighting up his dark
+countenance, “then I am very happy in possessing the means of obviating
+that objection; having just purchased a gig, I shall be very happy in
+making a small circuit in my ride, for the purpose of taking you to
+church.”
+
+“You will be giving yourself too much trouble, sir,” said Sophie.
+
+“Not so, my dear; you must see that to _me_ at least it will be a
+pleasure.”
+
+“You are very obliging, sir.”
+
+Sophie’s eyes were fixed upon her knitting. She appeared to be counting
+the stitches. He found it very difficult to support a conversation with
+her, but he persevered, questioning her with a pastor’s privilege with a
+young parishioner, upon the state of her affairs in general, her income,
+the number of slaves on hire, the resources of her farm, her fishing
+landing, her moor, her garden, and her dairy. She gave him laconic, but
+straightforward answers, and at the end of the colloquy he mused, and,
+half to himself, said, that the place had been very much abused, that
+with ease it might yet be reclaimed, and a handsome property made of it;
+and then, at the end of an hour, he arose and took leave.
+
+Sophie rejoiced that his visit was at an end. Throughout his whole stay
+she had not once raised her eyes to his countenance.
+
+Two evenings from that, at the same hour, and in the same place, Sophie
+sat alone, a rap was heard at the door, and again she arose, opened it,
+and admitted the minister; again he found a seat at the opposite side of
+her workstand; and again he freely used his pastoral privilege of
+questioning her; but this time it was not upon external circumstances,
+but upon the operations of her mind and heart; and how adroitly he did
+it—_with his pastoral privilege_—and but for her antipathy, how easy had
+been his task, with one of Sophie’s _naiveté_. Yes, she admitted, in
+reply to his searching questions, that even she, young as she was,
+sometimes felt life to wane and sink as though her very soul was dying
+in her bosom, that sometimes life appeared to have no object worth
+pursuing.
+
+“You suffer from ennui then, Miss Churchill, perhaps you would not feel
+this so much in the company of your friend, Mrs. May, would you?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I have felt dull even with Emily.”
+
+“Do you suffer from _ennui_ when busied in your garden, your dairy, or
+at your needle-work?”
+
+“Yes, sir, for it seems to me sometimes a sad waste of life to pass it
+_only_ in feeding the stomach and clothing the back.”
+
+Sophie was certainly beginning to be more communicative; the pastor was
+drawing her out. He looked at her now with more interest than ever, as
+he said—
+
+“And yet, Miss Churchill, there is your friend, Mrs. May, who finds her
+happiness in her daily life and household duties. How do you account for
+her habitual cheerfulness; or do you suppose that she is ever a victim
+to ennui?”
+
+“_Never!_ But then Emily May is a ‘fine woman,’ every one says so—‘an
+excellent manager’—the best housekeeper in the county, and she is happy,
+busy and happy, because she deserves to be. I am, or if I could afford
+it, _should_ be idle, for I am not as fond of household work as Emily
+is, and I am discontented, and as idleness and discontent are sin, and
+sin is misery, therefore I am sometimes miserable, it is quite plain.”
+
+“Why don’t you overcome this sinful tendency then?”
+
+“As yet I have not been able to do it, I resolve—”
+
+“‘And re-resolve,’ and will be likely to ‘die the same,’ if you do not
+get to the root of your malady and understand it. Your explanation” (and
+the pastor smiled a slightly cynical smile) “is an orthodox piece of
+theology enough, as far as it goes. Idleness is certainly sinful and a
+fruitful cause of discontent, because it is opposed to the principles of
+our organization; there is no atom in the universe idle for a single
+instant, nor are we, even our bodies, _ever_ idle, even when sleeping,
+for the heart, lungs, and brain continue to perform their functions,
+even when _dead_; for when the dust returns to dust, its particles,
+through a thousand ramifications, perform a thousand services in the
+universe. And the mind? Is the mind _ever_ idle? Has the course of
+thought been once really arrested since it first began? It has flowed in
+countless millions of courses; it has been suddenly turned aside, but
+has it ever stopped? Your heart has beaten, your brain worked for twenty
+years, to what purpose? No, Miss Churchill, by _idleness_ you mean
+misdirection of energies; and by _discontent_ the pain that naturally
+follows therefrom. Listen to me, Miss Churchill.”
+
+Sophie was listening to him with interest—these thoughts, however old,
+were to the unopened mind of the young girl new and striking.
+
+“Listen, I can explain your friend’s happiness and your own misery,
+better and more satisfactorily than you have done—and by doing so,
+illustrate the lesson I wish to give you; and further and more
+completely to illustrate my theory, I must bring in another acquaintance
+of ours, Mrs. Gardiner Green; what is her character, Sophie?”
+
+“An elegant woman, all the neighbors say, but always in a bustle, always
+overheated about something, always anxious.”
+
+“I thought so! she will do for an illustration of my first class _à
+merveille_.
+
+“Listen then, Miss Churchill—the secret of happiness is _this_: the
+striking of a just balance between the desires and the faculties; if the
+desires are greater than the faculties, they will goad you on to efforts
+beyond your strength, and anxiety will destroy happiness, as in the case
+of Mrs. Gardiner Green, whose desires Heaven knows are low enough—being
+only to shine as the bright particular star of a country neighborhood—to
+have the best house, the best equipage, to wear the best dresses, and
+give the best dinners; grovelling as these wishes are, they yet exceed
+her faculties for accomplishing them—hence her eternal fret. I can
+further illustrate this class of unfortunates by a notorious name, Aaron
+Burr; brilliant as were his faculties his desires yet transcended
+them—he wished to rule alike despotically over the hearts and minds of
+men and women, and over the nations of the earth. In both these cases
+that I have cited, one from the highest, the other from the lowest grade
+of mind, the evil was the same—the balance between the faculties and the
+desires was not struck. Well, Miss Churchill, you are musing—upon what?”
+
+“I was thinking, had Aaron Burr had the power of accomplishing his
+ambitious desires, or had Mrs. Gardiner Green the ability to carry out
+her vain ones, would either be any happier?”
+
+“That involves another question of moral philosophy to which we have not
+arrived, and which we will not discuss just now. We are speaking of
+present and positive causes of unhappiness, and not of future
+contingencies, Sophie—I beg your pardon, Miss Churchill.”
+
+“Call me Sophie, I am more accustomed to that name,” said she, rather
+timidly. Truly Miss Churchill was “coming round,” and the minister felt
+it, for he replied gently,
+
+“And I am more accustomed to hear you called Sophie—and,” added he
+softly, “to _think_ of you as Sophie.”
+
+She avoided meeting his eyes, which she felt fixed upon her, and a
+strange pain, dissipating all the intellectual pleasures she was
+beginning to receive from his society, crept into her heart—she blamed
+herself for having spoken in the manner she did.
+
+He resumed,
+
+“You, Sophie, belong to the second class of my unfortunates, the class
+whose _faculties_ transcend their desires, whose peculiar torment is
+_ennui_. You, Sophie, have some noble faculty or faculties unemployed,
+and they are corroding in your bosom, and you call your suffering
+discontent. Your remedy is to discover these latent faculties (for very
+often these are as unknown or unsuspected by their possessor, as is some
+obscure physical disease), and develope and cultivate them—it is their
+suppressed life that is torturing you now—bring them out, use them, give
+them a field and you will be happy.”
+
+“But how?” said Sophie, looking up again.
+
+“I will teach you by-and-by. Pass we now to the third class, or those
+whose faculties and desires are fairly balanced, who suffer neither from
+ennui on the one side nor anxiety on the other. Your friend, Mrs. May,
+is a perfect example of this happy organization; her whole soul is in
+her house and family; she has no wish beyond the well ordering of her
+dwelling, the propriety of her dress, her table, her manners and
+conversation, and the education of her son, and her faculties are fully
+equal to, and not greater than her wishes; thus she is always calmly
+busy and serenely happy.”
+
+He now arose to take leave, and Sophie took the lamp to light him to the
+door. When they got there he held out his hand to bid her good night; he
+caught her hand, held it a moment while his glance sought her eyes, met
+them, and he murmured in a low earnest voice, “Sophie.”
+
+She withdrew her hand, dropped her eyes, and a chill crept over her
+frame. He whispered “good night,” set his hat upon his head, and walked
+off. His tall thin figure was soon seen stalking up and down the
+undulating hills that descended to the river.
+
+Two or three days passed and Miss Churchill saw no more of the minister.
+“I wonder if he will come to-night,” had been the secret thought of
+Sophie as evening approached each day; and half with dread, half with
+hope, she listened for his knock. His last visit had been on Wednesday.
+Saturday evening came. Sophie had completed her week’s work, and was
+sitting at the window with her hands folded on her lap, and looking out
+into the moonlit scene. The moon was now full, and the broad river and
+the boundless bay were reflected in its light and seen between the
+clumps of intervening trees. At last upon the path issuing from the
+clump of trees on the left, was seen the tall figure of the minister.
+Sophie withdrew from the window, and soon after Mr. Withers was admitted
+by old Cumbo, who had not yet retired to bed.
+
+“Well, Miss Churchill,” said he, advancing to her side, “have you
+succeeded in discovering those faculties, whose corrosion in idleness is
+giving you so much distress?”
+
+“I cannot flatter myself, sir, with the idea of possessing any faculties
+above the simple discharge of plain duties.”
+
+“Then you are quite happy in knitting, sewing, and watching old Cumbo
+milk the cows and weed the garden; and you never wish these occupations
+varied except by rest and recreation?”
+
+Sophie was silent. He had now taken a seat by her side on the settle
+under the window. Sophie’s eyes were riveted abstractedly on the
+opposite wall, papered with the martyrdom of St. Petronella and the four
+noble Roman ladies who suffered with her; the scene represented the
+martyrdom at the moment when life was offered the young saint as she
+stood upon the scaffold, on condition of her recantation. She stood in
+the centre of the scaffold arrayed in a scant white tunic, her white and
+slender limbs exposed, her hands clasped upon her bosom, and her fine
+blue eyes raised to heaven, her golden locks rolling to her waist;
+behind her, leaning on his axe, whose end rested on the block, stood the
+executioner; on her left hand stood the group of imperial officers, with
+their offer of mercy; on her right knelt her aged father with his grey
+locks streaming on the wind, his face upturned to hers in the anguish of
+supplication, holding towards her a babe of a few days old—_her_ babe,
+of which she had been delivered in prison—appealing to her by the
+venerableness of his own grey hairs, the innocence of its infancy, and
+the helplessness of both, to avoid death, to recant her faith, and to
+live for them; but the eyes of the saint never fell from their high
+glance, the look alike above the terror, the bribe, and the love below
+her.
+
+“Well, Miss Churchill, when you have contemplated that saint, which the
+painter has martyred worse than the Pagans, to your heart’s content, you
+will give me an answer, perhaps, or is it so familiar that you never see
+it?”
+
+“It is very familiar, sir, but it never wearies me; and now that you
+remind me of it, I sometimes, when I have nothing to do in the house,
+and when the weather is too inclement for me to go out, reproduce these
+scenes with a pencil and paper, and sometimes,” said she, blushing
+deeply, “illustrate them with pen and ink.”
+
+“You draw, and write poetry; will you permit me to see some of your
+productions?”
+
+“I try, but fail in both, sir; and if you will pardon me, I would prefer
+not to expose my folly further.”
+
+The pastor urged his point in vain, Sophie gently but firmly resisted.
+
+But at this moment old Cumbo, who had hobbled out of the room, hobbled
+back, and before Sophie suspected her purpose, thrust into the pastor’s
+hands a dilapidated old portfolio, grumbling out,
+
+“I telled her so—wouldn’t b’lieve ole nigger, how de church would be
+down on top ob her for make de image ob ebery ting in heaben above, in
+de earf beneaf, an’ de waters under de earf. I telled her how ’twould
+be.”
+
+The minister examined the contents of the portfolio with a critic’s eye;
+it was filled with very mediocre drawings, and very common-place
+versicles; in vain did the pastor look for one single stray gleam of
+genius; no more flashes of the fire divine were to be seen in her work
+than in her own soft brown eyes. The minister returned the papers to the
+portfolio, and handed it back to the old negress, who stood leaning over
+her stick in chuckling expectation of hearing her young mistress soundly
+lectured upon breaking the first commandment.
+
+“This is idleness, this is play, this is not your vocation, Miss
+Churchill,” and looking upon Sophie’s round face, large soft eyes, and
+pouting lips, he said,
+
+“I think after all, those strong faculties that want expression reside
+in your _heart_, not in your _head_, Miss Churchill.” Then, as though he
+had regretted his speech, he was suddenly silent.
+
+After a while he arose to take leave, saying as he left the house,
+
+“I will call at nine to-morrow, to take you to church, Sophie.”
+
+The next morning he called in his vehicle. He found Sophie seated at the
+window with little Hagar on her lap. She was teaching her to read, and
+her whole countenance was irradiated with the love of her work. The
+child’s little wild dark face was sparkling, too; she had succeeded in
+arousing and riveting her mind. As the eyes of the minister fell through
+the open window upon this scene he made two silent comments: “Her
+vocation is that of a teacher,” and “That child has far more genius than
+her instructress;” and then he passed by the window into the house.
+
+“Good morning, Miss Churchill. Come, we are waiting for you. Mrs.
+Gardiner Green has been kind enough to ride over with me.”
+
+Sophie gave little Hagar into the charge of old Cumbo, and went away to
+put on her bonnet. She was surprised that Mrs. Gardiner Green, who had
+scarcely ever condescended to notice her, should have been so kind upon
+this occasion; had Sophie Churchill known a little more of the world she
+would have seen nothing strange in this change. Even when seated by her
+side the affability of the lady became almost oppressive.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+                         THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT.
+
+            “A stalwart, active, soldier-looking stripling,
+            Handsome as Hercules ere his first labor,
+            With a brow of thought beyond his years,
+            When in repose, till his eye kindles up
+            In answering yours.”
+                                    WERNER.
+
+                “Behind a darker hour ascends.”
+                                                MARMION.
+
+
+The minister had discovered Sophie Churchill’s vocation by the subtle
+sympathy that existed between the instructress and the pupil, in the
+little scene he had witnessed. He was not backward in improving his
+discovery.
+
+“We are very much in need of a parish-school, Miss Churchill,” said he
+one evening as he sat with her. “I do not mean by that a free-school,
+but a school for the instruction of the younger children connected with
+the congregation. I have conversed with several of my parishioners, and
+they all favor the plan of establishing one. The circumstances of the
+surrounding neighborhood point to Heath Hall as its locality, and to the
+young lady of Heath Hall as its mistress. This has also been named and
+approved, and I come on the part of the vestry, who will resolve
+themselves into a board of school trustees, to lay the subject before
+you for consideration. What do you think of it, Miss Churchill?”
+
+“Oh, if I were only fit for it!”
+
+“You are the most proper person for it that I know. The faculty of
+teaching is a natural gift, like painting or poetry, and it is _your_
+gift; you can infuse into the mind of a tolerably intelligent child all
+your own knowledge, and not only so, but if you possess the faculty in
+its perfection, as I think you do, you can arouse the mind of a dull
+child, and inspire that of a darkened one with intelligence.”
+
+“But I am really _so_ ignorant.”
+
+“That is a matter of secondary importance—knowledge can be acquired. You
+possess the first requisite, that which never _can_ be acquired, the
+natural adaptation for the profession. Why, Sophie, I have known men of
+the finest talents and the highest attainments in science and
+literature, fine classical and mathematical scholars, who could not for
+the soul of them convey into a child’s mind the reason why you sometimes
+borrow ten and carry one in the rule of subtraction; and I have known
+such men at the head of large academies, or filling professors’ chairs
+in colleges, advanced to their post of responsibility upon account of
+their vast acquirements in knowledge and their unimpeachable morality.
+Now this would seem to be all that is required, yet people never take
+into account the attractions a profession should have for its votary. So
+these men of unimpeachable morality and unexcelled intelligence pass
+their time and spend their energies in beating the air, while their
+pupils are unimproved, except, perhaps, by the instruction of others.”
+
+“That is strange,” said Sophie.
+
+“You think it is. So a musical genius of acute ear wonders, until he
+understands how another of no ear can sing out of tune.”
+
+“I can certainly teach easily and quickly everything that I know
+thoroughly, and some things that I do not know thoroughly, for sometimes
+when trying to explain to little Hagar a subject whose boundaries are
+indistinct to me, a gleam of light breaks into my mind, and all is clear
+to my vision—clear to its fullest extent, and my little pupil, at the
+end of her lesson, knows more than her teacher did at its commencement.”
+
+“Yes, and yet you, Sophie, stand merely upon the threshold of the temple
+of knowledge, and can do what some of the high priests of the altar
+would fail in attempting. Thus a teacher’s efficiency should be judged
+not by his own reputation for natural intelligence or acquired
+knowledge, but by his ability to convey the same to his pupils, to be
+tested by the actual progress of his pupils. If people would only follow
+the natural bent of their faculties, how much swindling, cheating,
+idleness, humbuggery, hypocrisy, _misery_ would be saved; had _I_ done
+so how much—”
+
+He stopped and bit his lip.
+
+“Your pupils at first will be the youngest children of the congregation
+who are old enough to attend school. While instructing them you will be
+cultivating your own mind and adding to your stores of information; in
+this latter part of the plan I shall assist you, Miss Churchill. It will
+give me pleasure to be your teacher, for though I have no particular
+vocation for the profession, yet as it is so much easier to teach a
+grown person than a child, for in the former case the pupil meets one
+more than half way, and in the latter case one has to go _all_ the way
+and charm the pupil _out and on_, I shall have no great trouble with
+you. And by next year you will be able to take a more advanced class of
+young ladies.”
+
+Then with Sophie he explored the ruinous apartments on the other side of
+the hall, selected the old disused drawing-room as the future
+school-room, and saying that he would send carpenters and plasterers
+over in the morning, he withdrew.
+
+The next morning a carpenter, a plasterer, and a glazier came, and they
+came every day for a fortnight, and at the end of that time the boarded
+up, close, dark old drawing-room looked large, lightsome, and clean. In
+another week the school furniture arrived—a nice little mahogany desk
+for the teacher, and a dozen stained and varnished pine forms for the
+pupils.
+
+And now behold Sophie Churchill in her favorite sober brown silk dress,
+with her smoothly braided brown hair, seated at her desk presiding over
+her school, her large soft brown eyes floating serenely over the scene.
+Now no more ennui, now quickly fled the day, now pleasantly passed the
+week—the month. Is it a wonder that Sophie cherished in her heart a warm
+sentiment of gratitude towards the man who had wrought this favorable
+change in her life? The circle of her existence was vastly enlarged.
+Every Friday evening a horse and side-saddle would be sent by some one
+of her patrons to convey her to their house, where she was ever warmly
+welcomed, a loved and honored guest, to remain until Monday morning
+recalled her to her school duties. Once or twice during the week Emily
+May would accompany Gusty to school, and remain all day assisting Sophie
+at her labor. Nearly every evening now the pastor came, and gave her
+lessons in Greek and mathematics. Sophie felt so little “vocation” for
+these severe studies that nothing but the implacable will of her
+minister could have kept her to it. Worse than anything in her
+experience she dreaded his frown and his sure and stern rebuke when she
+had not accomplished her task—worse than anything except the steady
+searching gaze of his coldly brilliant green-grey eyes. _This_ froze the
+blood in her heart. And yet she felt grateful towards him; she blamed
+herself for her antipathy—her reason assured her that the _fault_ was
+not in _him_, but the _folly_ in _herself_. Her reason approved the
+pastor, the philosopher, the teacher—her instincts shrank from the man.
+With all this there was sometimes something strangely fascinating for
+her, even in his coldness, hardness, and harshness—a feeling, that if
+some element, she knew not what, were absent from his character, she
+might then meet his friendship—that something in utter discord with her
+own soul—that something that, speaking through his green-grey eyes,
+chilled and repelled her. Affairs were in this state when one Friday
+morning, early in June, Master Gusty May, on entering the school-room,
+marched up to the teacher’s desk with an air of importance, and handed
+her a note. It was from Mrs. May, and ran thus:—
+
+
+  “Dearest Sophie, do return with Gusty this evening. I have sent a
+  pillion, and you can ride behind him. There are to be grand doings at
+  Grove Cottage this evening. Kitty is beating eggs; and I am stoning
+  raisins—all this in honor of the expected arrival of Lieutenant
+  Augustus H. Wilde, United States Navy. My dear brother Gusty, his ship
+  has arrived at the Navy Yard at Norfolk—he has received his promotion,
+  and writes that he will be with me this evening. Wear your _new_ brown
+  silk dress, Sophie, for I want you to make a conquest of Master Gusty,
+  Senior, so that we can keep him here while he is on shore. And I want
+  _him_ to cut the minister out, _too_, although the whole country says
+  it will be such a ‘marvellous proper’ match—that is, between you and
+  the minister. Come.
+
+                                                                 EMILY.”
+
+
+There was another horse and side-saddle brought by another pupil to
+carry Sophie home with him that evening, but when school was dismissed,
+Master Gusty (junior, as we must call him now) marched up to the bringer
+of the rival nag, and told the “fellow” that Miss Churchill was going
+home with _him_, and that he had better carry his “beast” back again.
+
+During their ride to the Grove, Gusty informed Miss Churchill that he
+was named after his uncle, Augustus Wilde, that the latter was just made
+a lieutenant, and that he was going to try to procure a midshipman’s
+warrant for _him_ when he was a little bigger. They arrived at the Grove
+at sunset. Lieutenant Wilde was already there, and came out gallantly to
+lift Sophie from her horse—she had never seen him before, and as he came
+from the cottage door down the long grape-vine covered walk to the gate
+where her horse stood, she thought he was strikingly like his sister,
+the same silky black hair, the same dark grey eyes—he approached,
+addressed her freely and cheerfully as his sister’s familiar friend, and
+in lifting her off the pillion their eyes met—their _eyes_ met, their
+_souls_ met. The soul more or less plainly speaks through the eyes, and
+I believe that ever the truest, purest, strongest, and most lasting love
+begins with the first meeting of the eyes, in a sort of mutual
+recognition. Involuntarily his voice softened to its lowest, sweetest
+tones in addressing her, and tenderly, most tenderly he arranged her
+riding habit as he stood her on the ground, and then drawing her arm
+through his own, he gently led her up the grape walk to the house. Emily
+received her at the door with a hearty kiss, and telling her that she
+looked unusually charming, led her into the house. The pastor was
+within, of course. Emily’s parlor glittered with its clean, sober,
+drab-colored glory. The evening passed delightfully, between Emily’s
+music, Sophie’s songs, and the young lieutenant’s sea-stories,
+anecdotes, and adventures. The pastor alone was silent and moody. Never
+had Sophie Churchill passed so delightful an evening. With strangers
+generally, Sophie was as shy as the wild fawn of her native woods, and
+her large eyes would startle and dilate if she was addressed by any one,
+yet now those wild shy eyes were ever roving after another pair. As yet
+she was utterly unconscious of this truantism. At last they met that
+other pair, and she—_blushed, and looked down? No!_ That belongs to a
+more sophisticated, a more conventional being than our wild fawn of the
+Heath. No—a glad, innocent, unconscious smile broke over her face. There
+was one present who watched her with a dark and lowering brow. Happily
+Sophie did not perceive the evil eye glowering under it. The evening
+closed. She retired to rest with an elevated and happy heart. She and
+Emily slept together in the same old room—the minister occupied his own
+chamber alone, for Emily did not like to thrust her brother in upon him.
+So after everybody was gone to rest, Emily prepared a sofa bed in the
+parlor for her brother.
+
+“Emily! Emily! she is charming, charming!” said the young man, as his
+sister stooped to receive his good night kiss.
+
+“That she is, Gusty! Charming! and I am glad you find her so.
+Good-night.”
+
+“He loves you, darling—he loves you _dearly_, _sweet_ darling,” said
+Emily, hugging her friend to her bosom, “and I am so glad.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+                              YOUNG LOVE.
+
+                                 “So gaze met gaze,
+           And heart saw heart, translucid through the rays,
+           One same, harmonious, universal law,
+           Atom to atom, star to star can draw,
+           And heart to heart! Swift darts, as from the sun,
+           The strong attraction, and the charm is done.”
+                                           THE NEW TIMON.
+
+
+It was such a beautiful morning, such a holiday seeming morning—the
+green foliage all sparkling with dew in the rays of the early sun, the
+air vocal, noisy with all sorts of merry sounds, cheerful household
+sounds, gay woodland music, the crowing of roosters, the cackling of
+hens, and above all, the merry, merry, merry bursts of melody from the
+birds. Augustus Wilde and Sophie Churchill sat in the vine-clad porch of
+Grove Cottage. (Emily was in the dining-room washing up her breakfast
+things, and the minister was writing his sermon in his room.)
+
+“Do you know, Miss Churchill, that I am perpetually in danger of
+offending against the rules of etiquette, and calling you Sophie, as my
+sister calls you. Whenever I turn to address you, ‘Sophie’ springs to my
+lips. I warn you of it that you may not be offended when it comes—why,
+‘Sophie’—it just suits you—such a little shy fawn as you are—in every
+soft wave of your brown hair, in every floating beam of your tender
+eyes, in every fold of your sober dress ‘Sophie’ is revealed. I must
+call you Sophie.”
+
+They were sitting on the bench with their backs against the open window
+of Emily’s bedroom (the little chamber on the left front, that I have
+described). He now felt his ears grasped from behind and his head well
+shaken. Sophie raised her eyes and saw the white dress, black curls, and
+merry face of his sister stooping from the window over him.
+
+“Sophie, is it? Impudence! Well, Sophie, let him call you what he
+will—but don’t you call him Augustus—there is nothing august about him,
+call him ‘Gusty,’ or ‘Gusty Wilde,’ for look you!” said she, pulling
+back his head, and kissing his brow, “there is so much latent strength
+and fire in this young man’s veins that it is extremely apt to break out
+in storms—just watch him in controversy with Mr. Withers—the sudden
+anger will dart from his eyes like a spring lancet from its sheath!” She
+shook him again, and let him go.
+
+“Oh! the atrocious medical simile!—like ‘lightning from a mountain
+cloud,’ you meant.”
+
+“Like a pea from a pop-gun, more likely. Now, Miss Churchill, he said
+your air and manner _revealed_ ‘Sophie’—very well—every glance, and
+start, and spring, every interjection and exclamation in his looks,
+gestures, and conversation _exposes_ ‘Gusty Wilde.’”
+
+“_Now_, Miss Churchill, do you believe that?” inquired he, with mock
+seriousness.
+
+“No, I am sure—” began Sophie.
+
+“You are sure of nothing—he is on his good behavior now; wait and see.
+But that is not what I broke in upon you for, Mr. Wilde—I have come to
+invite you and Miss Churchill to ride with me this morning. We will
+borrow the parson’s gig, and come, I will be good. You shall drive
+Sophie, and I will ride FireFly, my pony. Come, run, Sophie, smoothe
+your hair, it is a little blown about by the breeze, and put on your
+bonnet. And _you_, Master Lieutenant, be so kind as to don your undress
+uniform at least—what is the good of having a brother in the Navy, if he
+dress like an undertaker at a funeral? Come! I want to show you off; I
+want to get half the girls in the neighborhood in love with you. Dear
+me! Am I not rich just now? Two beaux—the best of beaux for a country
+neighborhood—a preacher and an officer. Mercy! I shouldn’t wonder if my
+house became the resort of all the merry maidens and manœuvring mammas
+in —— county.”
+
+They made many calls that day before returning to a late dinner. The
+last house they called at was Mrs. Gardiner Green’s, where they were
+received and entertained by that lady and her pretty daughter Rose.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and they all went to church. Lieutenant Wilde
+sat between his sister and Miss Churchill in the front pew; there was an
+expression of serious joy upon the faces of the youth and maiden never
+seen there before—the minister, perhaps, never was less happy in his
+written sermon or its delivery, than upon this occasion. He had brought
+Sophie to church in his gig; at the close of the service he took her
+home to the Grove.
+
+The afternoon and evening passed pleasantly. Early the next morning
+Sophie returned to Heath Hall, to recommence her school duties. That day
+passed as usual; in the evening after tea, Sophie sat by the open
+window; it was a beautiful starlight night, and she delayed ordering
+lights, preferring to enjoy the cool night air, and listen to the
+pleasant night sounds by the open window. Presently a tall dark figure
+passed before the window, and in another moment the minister had entered
+and was by her side.
+
+“Good evening, Miss Churchill.”
+
+“Good evening, Mr. Withers.”
+
+He took a seat by her side, and sat with his head bowed upon his hands
+that rested upon the top of a stick held between his knees; he was
+silent a long time; at last Sophie arose to order lights.
+
+“Where are you going, Miss Churchill?”
+
+“To have candles brought.”
+
+“Sit still, Miss Churchill.”
+
+Sophie resumed her seat.
+
+“You have had a very pleasant visit to the Grove, Miss Churchill?”
+
+“Very, sir.”
+
+“Humph! you were very much pleased with Mr. Wilde?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Ah! that is very candid. But do you think, Miss Churchill, that I can
+altogether approve of the marked preference shown by a young lady in
+your circumstances for a young gentleman?”
+
+Sophie looked bewildered, dismayed. The poor girl, naturally timid, had
+been made quite cowardly by the misconceptions, misconstructions, and
+misrepresentations of others; she grew pale, and replied with a
+faltering voice—
+
+“I—I did not know—I knew—I know that my profession would seem to require
+more steadiness, gravity, and circumspection than I possess—but I was
+unconscious of any—”
+
+Her voice faltered, broke down, and she stopped short, and burst into
+tears. He answered sternly—
+
+“You know very well, Miss Churchill, that it is not your ‘profession’ I
+speak of. What can _that_ be thought to have to do with your
+preferences? No, Miss Churchill, you know very well that I allude to the
+relations subsisting between us.”
+
+“The relations subsisting between us?” faltered Sophie.
+
+“You certainly cannot successfully affect ignorance of a fact with which
+the whole county is acquainted, though it may _now_ seem convenient for
+you to attempt it.” He paused. “Well, Miss Churchill?”
+
+“I do not understand you at all, sir.”
+
+“Then all the county understands and have understood for two months
+past, that we are to be married soon, Miss Churchill.”
+
+“Oh, my God, no! You never dreamed—_I_ never dreamed of that! Oh, no! I
+had rather _die_! Oh! God knows I had!” exclaimed Sophie, wildly,
+clasping her hands and rising.
+
+He caught her hand, and pressed her trembling into her seat again.
+
+“Your aversion to me is certainly flattering—_very_ flattering, Miss
+Churchill—but it is rather late _now_ to express it. You have received
+my visits nightly for three months past—and now, to-night, for the first
+time, you express a strong and utter aversion to me.”
+
+“Oh, because _I couldn’t help it_! How could I help your coming here—how
+can I help this aversion I feel—pardon me if I have expressed it
+strongly. I have a high respect for you, and I ought to feel honored by
+your preference—any woman in the parish would. You are too good—too wise
+for me, believe me you are! I am a child—a fool! Oh! don’t think of it!
+_pray_ don’t think of it! Consider how many ladies—ladies of family and
+fortune—would be proud to wed the minister; who would throw himself away
+upon a poor, lone girl, without connexions, and without influence!”
+
+Sophie had risen in her earnestness, and stood before him with her
+clasped hands.
+
+He closed his eyes and smiled; he stretched forth his hand, and taking
+hers, drew her again to her seat, and passed his arm around her waist
+and whispered—
+
+“My little Sophie, my little fawn, you shall be Mrs. Withers in three
+weeks, just as sure as you live!”
+
+She shrank from the clasp of his arm, as though it had been the clammy
+coil of a serpent.
+
+“I will not! cannot! durst not! Mr. Withers, why don’t you marry Rose
+Green? She would have you; or Mrs. Somerville, or Mrs. Slye, or Mrs.
+Joshua Eversham, or Miss Polly Mortimer—any of them would have, would be
+proud to marry the minister of the parish.”
+
+“I know that, Miss Churchill!”
+
+“And any of these ladies would make you a good wife.”
+
+“I do not doubt it, Miss Churchill.”
+
+“Then why don’t you marry one of them?”
+
+“Because they are each ready to fall into my arms.”
+
+Sophie was wounded and became silent—she attempted to withdraw herself
+from the embrace of his arm, but every attempt was punished by a tighter
+fold.
+
+“Miss Churchill, do you know that there is an instinct in human
+nature—to speak more correctly, in _man’s_ nature, or in speaking _most_
+correctly, perhaps I should say in _my own_ nature—to pursue that which
+_flies_? Why, Sophie, when I was a lad, I always preferred to play with
+kittens that were scarey and spiteful, that would kick, scratch, and
+bite, that would resist to the death rather than with one that would
+cosily and quietly nestle down in my lap—the latter I should have shaken
+off.”
+
+“But how,” said Sophie, “if the poor kitten neither resisted nor
+caressed you—shrank and shivered and died in your hands?”
+
+“I should not give the weak thing a chance, Sophie; when the shrinking
+and shivering commenced, I should throw it heavily upon the ground, and
+thereby kill it.”
+
+Sophie shuddered.
+
+Both were silent for some time; then he spoke—
+
+“What day, Miss Churchill, between this and the first of next month will
+it please you to bestow upon me the honor of your hand?”
+
+“No day! no day! Don’t look at me so, Mr. Withers, pray don’t; it makes
+me ill—_pray don’t_—I am a mere girl, a mere child; it frightens me,
+this idea of marrying you—indeed, believe me, it does!”
+
+“Come! Miss Churchill, come! This will not do—this fickleness and
+unfaithfulness on your part will not answer; I cannot permit it. I
+thought the footing we stood upon in relation to each other well
+understood; you certainly could _not_ have misinterpreted the meaning of
+my visits here; no one else has misconceived them. Mrs. Gardiner Green
+inquired of me to-day when our marriage was to come off. I told her that
+it would take place some time this month, that I would apprise her of
+the exact day to-morrow. It is for the purpose of ascertaining your day
+that I have called this evening. Come, Sophie, satisfy me upon this
+point.”
+
+“I cannot! I cannot! God _knows_ I cannot! Oh! _Why_ do you persist in
+this? Why! why love a girl who is in no respect, of age, mind,
+education, or wealth, your equal?”
+
+“Fiddlestick! have I said I loved you? No, Sophie, thank God I have
+never yet been, never, I trust, shall be, under the influence of that
+most weak and puerile passion.”
+
+“Then, in the name of reason and of mercy, why seek to marry a girl whom
+you do not love, and who hates—no, does not _hate_, but who fears and
+recoils from you?”
+
+“Precisely because she _does_ fear and recoil from me!”
+
+“I will not marry you, then! I will not marry you then! please God to
+give me strength. Surely I am a free girl; no one has a right, or will
+attempt, or could succeed in forcing my inclinations. Come, I will be
+firm, and nothing can compel me!”
+
+“But destiny. You are in a net of circumstances from whence there is no
+escape, Sophie Churchill. Do not struggle, you will lacerate your limbs
+and waste your strength only to entangle yourself the more.”
+
+Again silence ensued. Sophie continued from time to time to try to
+extricate herself from his grasp, each attempt but serving to rivet his
+arm about her waist—at last he said—
+
+“The embrace of my arm is an emblem of the surrounding of your fate; you
+can as easily escape the one as the other.”
+
+Sophie burst into tears, and wept long and freely. He did not attempt to
+soothe or even to speak to her. At last her fit of grief and terror
+exhausted itself, and she became calm. Then she said—
+
+“Oh, I might have guessed all this sorrow from the first time I ever met
+your eye!”
+
+“Flattering again!”
+
+The clock struck. Sophie struggled.
+
+“Mr. Withers, it is ten o’clock.”
+
+“Well, Miss Churchill, I only wait my answer to return home.”
+
+“I have given you the only one I can give—take it again. I cannot give
+myself to you.”
+
+“Then I can take you, that’s all, Sophie. Mrs. Gardiner Green will call
+upon you to-morrow,” and so saying, he arose and took his leave.
+
+When left alone Sophie paced uneasily up and down the floor, saying, as
+she clasped her temples—
+
+“Am I mad or going mad? am I dreaming? Under a spell? Oh, _what_ is
+this? What is this closing around me like irresistible destiny? Why
+cannot I awake, arouse from this? I know I’m free; _why_ can’t I use my
+freedom? What a spell, what a mystery, what a horror! Oh! my Heavenly
+Father! If I could awake! I lose my free will! Oh, fate! fate! fate! thy
+hand is on me, and there is no resisting it!”
+
+Thus the pinions of her weak will fluttered in the iron grasp of a
+strong and implacable one.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+                         THE PHANTOM’S WARNING.
+
+             “Let me gaze for a moment that e’er I die
+             I may read thee, lady, a prophecy,
+             That brow may beam in glory awhile,
+             That cheek may bloom and that lip may smile,
+             But clouds shall darken that brow of snow,
+             And sorrow blight that bosom’s glow.”
+                                         MISS L. DAVIDSON.
+
+
+Scarcely was the school dismissed the next evening, before the carriage
+of Mrs. Gardiner Green drew up before the door. The liveried footman of
+Mrs. Gardiner Green descended from behind and opened the door and let
+down the steps, and Mrs. Gardiner Green hereby alighted and entered the
+hall. Sophie received the pompous lady at the door; Mrs. Gardiner Green
+took the poor girl in her arms and kissed her, then _conducted_ rather
+than followed her into the parlor. They sat down. After a little
+preliminary conversation the lady began:
+
+“My dearest Miss Churchill, I have come at the suggestion of our mutual
+friend and reverend pastor, Mr. Withers, to offer you any aid or advice
+that the present crisis of your circumstances may demand. Now no
+blushing, my dear Miss Churchill; look upon me as a mother—as a sister,”
+said the lady, quickly correcting herself. “In short, Miss Churchill, I
+have come to propose that you be married from our house.”
+
+Now this was said so coolly, taking the premises so much as a matter of
+course, that Sophie, poor cowardly Sophie, had nothing at first to say.
+
+The lady went on with her proposals, entering into all the details of
+wedding dresses, bridesmaids, brides-cake, and a vast deal of matronly
+information and advice. At last Sophie could bear it no longer; she
+arose nervously from her seat and turned to the window, every limb
+trembling, and her voice faltering as she said—
+
+“I am not going to be married to Mr. Withers, Mrs. Green—I am very sorry
+everybody seems to think so—it is not true—will you do me the favor to
+contradict it wherever you may hear it?” And now she turned towards her.
+Mrs. Gardiner Green looked perfectly aghast; she evidently knew her
+part.
+
+“Then, Miss Churchill, as your mother’s oldest friend, may I ask,—_what_
+is the meaning of the minister’s nightly visits to you?—for know, Miss
+Churchill, that unless they portend marriage, not even his sacred cloth
+will _prevent_, but rather _augment_ the scandal that will ensue. Miss
+Churchill, I would not for the world that any thoughtless or malicious
+person should hear you say what you have just said; but, Miss Churchill,
+again I ask you—why have you permitted his nightly visits for three
+months past?”
+
+“I could not help it—_how_ could I help it?—should I have thought of
+telling our minister to keep away? I thought whatever our minister said
+or did was right, and could not be misconstrued, or I am afraid, I am
+_sure_, that until now, I never thought about it.”
+
+“No, Sophie, that is it—_you never thought about it_—your
+thoughtlessness in permitting the visits of gentlemen in your
+unprotected condition had already nearly mined you, when the kindness
+and candor of Mr. Withers rescued you from the neglect and obscurity
+into which you had fallen; and now his very kindness will through your
+thoughtlessness be converted into a greater misfortune to you and
+himself, that is, if you do not marry him; but of course you will do so,
+Sophie.”
+
+Sophie Churchill was sitting before her; the palms of her hands pressed
+together; her eyes raised imploringly to the countenance of the lady.
+
+Sophie was utterly unconscious of this attitude of supplication. It was
+the involuntary appeal of a weak will to a stronger one.
+
+“Oh! I never can—I _never can_ marry that man—death—_death_ would be
+better.”
+
+“Yet, Miss Churchill, you have seemed to speak sometimes as if you took
+pleasure in his society.”
+
+“When he reads or converses I like to hear, or _have_ liked—I shall
+never like it again; but if his eye runs from his book and fixes on my
+face—I—oh!—I can’t tell you, but at the very idea of marrying him I grow
+deadly sick and faint.”
+
+Mrs. Gardiner Green, with her obtuse sensibilities, did not understand
+this, but she answered coldly—
+
+“There is no one to compel you to do justice to Mr. Withers, Miss
+Churchill—no one to force your inclinations in any way; still, as your
+mother’s friend, I must advise you to bring no reproach upon her memory
+by your lightness of conduct; as your brother’s friend I must entreat
+you not to injure the prospects of his young daughter by your
+selfishness; and as the friend of Mr. Withers, I must conjure you not to
+destroy his usefulness by your fickleness and unfaithfulness.”
+
+She continued to talk, using all the arguments of a hard woman of the
+world, with a nervous, sensitive, and somewhat visionary girl, and at
+the end of two hours more, left Sophie very well prepared to receive, or
+_rather_, very incapable of resisting her destiny and her master. It was
+near sunset when the lady’s carriage rolled away from the door. When she
+was gone Sophie sank down on the steps of the piazza, and resting her
+elbows on her knees, dropped her face into the palms of her hands, and
+gave herself up to despair. She sat there until the sun went down—she
+sat until the stars came out—she sat there until she felt a light hand
+fall upon the top of her head. She looked up, and the phantom of the
+forest dell stood before her, the same wan, spectral face—the same
+large, intense, blue eyes, blazing in their hollow sockets, surrounded
+by their livid, bluish circle—the same streaming yellow hair, with its
+streaks of grey—the same emaciated claw-like fingers. Her intense gaze
+sought and met Sophie’s eyes, and she knew that her visitor was a
+denizen of earth. She remained gazing into Sophie’s eyes a minute, and
+then she broke forth with terrible energy:—
+
+“_Do not marry him!_—risk—suffer _anything_ but that! _Do not marry
+him!_ Be true to your instincts—they warned you at your first meeting,
+they warn you _now_! Be true to your instincts! They were given you of
+God for your protection; it is a sin—it is a _sin_ to disregard them,
+and the punishment—the punishment will be more than you can bear!—a
+broken heart!—a maddened brain!—at least—_at least_ a blighted life!
+Look at me!”
+
+She tore the mantle from her breast and displayed a skeleton form, to
+which the tight skin clung.
+
+“Who are you, in the name of Heaven?”
+
+“I _am_ a shadow—a memory—a _warning_! I _was_ his wife!”
+
+“Great God!”
+
+Sophie raised her eyes just in time to see the tall figure of the
+minister near the shadowy woman, and his strong hand fell upon her
+shoulder. He had approached unperceived. She shrieked—sprang from under
+his grasp, and fled towards the river. He looked after her in dismay,
+apparently with an impulse of pursuit. When she had disappeared over the
+cliff, and down the bank, he turned to Sophie.
+
+“Who is that woman, Sophie?”
+
+“YOUR WIFE!” said the girl, raising her eyes bravely now to meet his
+gaze.
+
+“You were always a little brainsick, Miss Churchill, but really this—or
+perhaps you are only jesting.”
+
+“Do I look like jesting? Is yonder unfortunate a subject for jest?”
+
+“Then you are clearly insane—moon-struck as your lunatic visitor. Pray
+can you tell me what put such an extravagant idea into your head?”
+
+“Her own word.”
+
+“Her own word—the mad fancy of a maniac!”
+
+“At least, Mr. Withers, you will not think of pressing your suit, or
+even renewing a single visit, after such a revelation.”
+
+“Will I not? I have two urgent duties to perform now—one is to seek that
+lunatic, and have her taken care of; the other to hasten our marriage,
+Sophie, that everything seems to endanger, from naval officers to
+strolling maniacs.”
+
+“She is your wife!—I know she is! Every glance into your face deepens
+the conviction I feel.”
+
+“Do you not know that I lost my wife while living in the North?”
+
+“You lost her, but how?—by _death_? Possessions and persons are lost
+sometimes, and _found_ again. Nothing but the grave is inexorable. Come,
+has the grave inclosed your wife?”
+
+“Insulting! insolent! Take care, Sophie, you are heaping up wrath
+against a day of wrath.”
+
+“_You are!_ Were this incident known in the neighborhood—”
+
+“You would be laughed to scorn for your credulity. _Nonsense_, Sophie!
+Were the letters I brought here of so little weight?—was the
+approbation, the warm friendship of the venerable and sainted May, of
+such little worth, that the fancies of a moon-struck woman should be
+able to injure me, or should change my views and purposes towards you?
+Come, Sophie, it is best that you understand me. _I have no wife._ I
+assure you, upon my honor—my untarnished truth, Sophie, that I have no
+wife, and I _must_ have you! Your hand is the _one_ thing that I wish on
+earth, and I _must, must_ have it—_will_ have it.”
+
+Sophie was weeping bitterly. He stooped down, took her chin in his hand,
+and raised her tearful face, then sat beside her, and said, more gently
+than he had yet spoken—
+
+“Come, Sophie Churchill, I am no hypocrite, no villain, and God knows
+it. I have been the most unfortunate and the most injured man, perhaps,
+that ever lived; and some day, when you are prepared for it, you shall
+know it. As for the woman, poor creature, she must be cared for; and
+now, lest you should perchance cherish in your heart another suspicion,
+which yet you would never breathe, I will volunteer to say that I have
+never wronged that woman—never, so help me Heaven! Dismiss her from your
+mind, Sophie, and tell me, has Mrs. Gardiner Green been to see you?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” murmured Sophie.
+
+“And between you, you settled the day for our marriage.”
+
+“Yes, sir, but—”
+
+“Never mind _but_—what day did you fix?”
+
+“Mr. Withers, that is all over now—Mrs. Green, herself, if she knew—”
+
+“Never mind, my dear; what day _had_ you fixed?
+
+“Then we _had_ fixed the fifteenth.”
+
+“Thank you, Sophie!” and he sealed his thanks upon her lips, arose, and
+bidding her good night, left the spot.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+                         THE WANDERER’S DEATH.
+
+                   “Oh, ask me not to speak her fate,
+                     Oh, tempt me not to tell
+                   The sin that made her desolate,—
+                     Passion she could not quell
+                   Alas! the grave can only be
+                   Fit refuge of her misery.”
+                                           ANONYMOUS.
+
+
+“Sophie, your cheeks are pale, and a livid blue circle surrounds your
+eyes; you do not look like yourself—you are ill; do not keep school
+to-day—give a holiday and rest.” These were the words addressed by Mrs.
+May to her friend on the day succeeding the events related in the last
+chapter. She had ridden over, attended by Augustus Wilde, to spend the
+day with Sophie and help her to teach. They were standing in the
+school-room just before calling the pupils.
+
+“Yes, Miss Churchill, _do_ give a holiday to-day for my sake, as well as
+for your own,” said Lieutenant Augustus, setting his cap and riding-whip
+down upon the desk. “On Thursday my week’s leave of absence expires.
+This is the last day I shall have an opportunity of spending with you,
+and you look weary from confinement and work; everything points to a
+holiday—come!”
+
+Sophie smiled a sickly smile, and said she was very well.
+
+“But I do not think so, and I never believe a _smile_ unless the _eyes_
+smile, too,” said Emily; “now _I_ am going to give a holiday;” and so
+saying, she went into the yard, called the children together by a bell,
+and told them to go home, for there was to be no school that day. Sophie
+Churchill was ever too yielding, and now, in the languor of dejection,
+she made no opposition.
+
+“Now, Sophie, we will go a fishing,” said Mrs. May, as she returned
+after dismissing the children, “the fresh air off the bay will revive
+you.”
+
+“And I, Miss Churchill, feel very anxious for a forenoon’s frolic on the
+waters, if that is any argument,” said Lieutenant Gusty, and he sought
+Sophie’s eyes; but _they_ were bent upon the ground, or, when raised,
+their intelligence, their light, their sympathy for _him_ was gone. He
+_felt_ this, and his heart sank. Had he offended her? and how? He wished
+to speak to her, or to his sister apart, and ask the reason, but he
+could not speak to either upon the subject, in the presence of the
+other. It is a feature in human sympathy, that one may be in company
+with two equally loved and trusted friends, to _either_ of whom _apart_,
+one would confide the secret that oppresses—for there is a feeling of
+security, exclusiveness, sacredness, between _two_ friends conversing,
+that is lost when a _third_, however equally dear to both, enters in—the
+electric cord of full sympathy and confidence has but _two_ ends. The
+Jesuits understand this, for by a statute of their order it is forbidden
+that less than _three_ members go apart, or converse together. Now,
+Augustus Wilde felt this without reasoning upon it.
+
+Miss Churchill put on her bonnet, and they were soon down upon the beach
+under the promontory; the gravelly beach was clean and cool, and the
+waters blue and clear, and sparkling in the beams of the early sun, and
+all the golden clouds were reflected on their bosom. The little skiff
+was soon unmoored and they were out upon the bay; as they receded from
+the shore, Lieutenant Wilde stood up and turned to look upon the
+promontory, or rather peak, surmounted by the old hall; his eye rested a
+moment upon the towering object, and then wandered down to where the
+promontory descended into the heath, and further on, where the heath
+flattened into the moor. He had just said, while gazing on the scene, “I
+am no agriculturist, Miss Churchill, yet I never saw what _I_ think to
+be so fine an estate in all the gifts of nature as this—the moor with
+its wild fowl, the river and the bay with their fish and their
+oyster-banks, the forest in the background with its wood and its game—it
+is inconceivable how the property has been suffered to—” and then he
+stopped, started, and gazed at an object on the water between them and
+the land—
+
+“What is the matter, Augustus?” said Emily, attempting to rise. He
+pushed her down into her seat again, while he continued to gaze upon the
+floating object as it was borne upon the waves towards the beach.
+
+“What is the matter, Augustus? What are you looking at; one would think
+you saw a shark.” And now Sophie’s brown eyes were raised in silent
+inquiry.
+
+Augustus sat down, muttering “Nothing, nothing,” and pulled for a
+distant part of the shore, about midway the heath, between the
+promontory and the moor.
+
+“Are you going to land?” asked Emily.
+
+“Be quiet, will you,” muttered he, pinching her arm and glancing at
+Sophie, who had relapsed into her abstraction.
+
+Not until they had nearly reached the beach, had Sophie noticed their
+altered course; then she looked up and inquired, “Where are you going?
+Why this is not a good place to fish.”
+
+Lieutenant Wilde answered, “We think we have made it too late in the
+morning—that the sun is too high and too hot for you, Miss Churchill;
+and we think we will return to the hall.”
+
+Sophie remonstrated, declared she felt no ill effects from the heat,
+&c.; but was overruled as usual. Emily now asserting that she felt the
+rays of the sun too strong, they landed and walked to the hall. When
+they reached the parlor, Emily _purposely_ removed her bonnet and scarf
+_there_, and Sophie taking them, carried them up stairs to put away.
+When she had left the room,
+
+“_Now_, I followed your lead in coming home—tell me _why_ you came; what
+was the matter with you—what did you see on the water?”
+
+“You told me that Miss Churchill was very nervous and sensitive, did you
+not?”
+
+“I told you, that of late she is—naturally Sophie has a strong mind.”
+
+“Well, Emily, the object I saw upon the water was a dead body.”
+
+“Merciful Heaven! are you _sure_?”
+
+“_Certain._ I saw it distinctly—it was being wafted towards the beach.”
+
+“Heavenly Father! some poor negro, out fishing, drunk perhaps, fell
+overboard.”
+
+“No; a woman scantily clothed, with streaming yellow hair clinging wet
+around her swollen limbs. I am sure the body is by this time cast upon
+the beach.”
+
+“A woman with streaming yellow hair,” said Emily, as the memory of
+Sophie’s vision in the dell crossed her mind. “Can we, Augustus, get
+away from Sophie in any way, and go down to the beach?”
+
+“We must make an excuse of some sort,” said Augustus.
+
+His purpose was forestalled—for at that moment the handsome blue
+carriage and grey horses of Mrs. Gardiner Green stopped before the door;
+and the lofty lady alighted and entered the house. “How do you do, Mrs.
+May—and Lieutenant Wilde—well, this is delightful. I am so happy to see
+you. I must positively have you at the Glade to-morrow evening, to meet
+a few friends—quite an _improvised_ little affair; but where is Miss
+Churchill? I am enacting ‘mamma’ to that young lady just at the present
+crisis; and this morning I wish a private interview with her.”
+
+Emily seized this chance—and calling to little Hagar, sent her for Miss
+Churchill. When Sophie entered the room, she arose, and leaving Mrs.
+Green to explain her departure, took her brother’s arm, and saying that
+she would return in half an hour, threw her handkerchief over her head
+and strolled out into the yard; then quickening their steps, they
+hastened towards the peak. Descending the cliff by a circuitous path,
+they reached the beach; and there, immediately under the point of the
+promontory, they decried an object that, upon nearer approach, they
+found to be the dead body of a woman. Emily May, pale with awe, knelt
+down to examine the body—her brother stood in silence by her side. From
+its extreme emaciation, the body, unlike those of most drowned persons,
+was not much swollen, but lay slender and extended at length—the arms
+confined to the waist, and the slight limbs bound together by the
+winding and clinging of the long yellow hair, that in beating about the
+waters had got twisted around her. With trembling fingers Emily removed
+the tress of hair that, wet and sticking to her face, partly concealed
+the features. She gazed earnestly and sadly upon the extinguished lamp
+of that dead countenance—the blue-white complexion, the thin sharpened
+features, the round forehead polished and shining, from very emaciation,
+the ultra-marine blue eyes, stony and swollen—the small elegant nose,
+with its delicate and half-transparent nostril—the short and beautifully
+curved upper lip, drawn up now blue and stiff, and exposing the little
+pearly teeth—and lastly, the long fine golden hair with its few
+commingling threads of silver—the extremely small and slender hands,
+thin now as birds’ claws—the little naked foot, with its curved hollow
+and proud high instep.
+
+“Who _can_ she be?” asked Augustus; “do you know, Emily?”
+
+His sister shook her head; she was thinking of the vision seen by Sophie
+in the forest dell, but she deemed it best to be silent upon that
+subject at present. There was a small house under the shadow of the
+promontory, in which sails, fishing-nets, and rods, &c., were kept; into
+this house, for the present, Lieutenant Wilde conveyed the body, and
+locking the door, took possession of the key, and advising Emily to
+return to the hall, he went off to Churchill Point to summon the
+coroner.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Ridiculous, my dear! absurd, preposterous! _utterly_ preposterous! A
+crazy woman wandering through the country, and saying that she is our
+minister’s wife! and you to believe it! I shall grow thoroughly ashamed
+of you, Miss Churchill. Why, don’t you know, my dear, that is always the
+way with these lunatic vagrants, to fancy themselves some great
+personage, _always_; all I wonder at, is that your maniac was so
+moderate—they are generally queens, nothing less will serve them; even
+old Suke Ennis, you know, is the President’s wife—and carries her bosom
+full of waste papers that she says are his letters. A strolling lunatic
+suddenly appears before you, in the full of the moon, announces herself
+as the wife of the most important man she knows of, flees away at his
+approach,—and _you_, upon the strength of her moon-struck madness,
+believe, or more probably _affect_ to believe her insane statement; you
+grow ridiculous. Oh! do not, for _your own_ reputation for good sense,
+mention this to any one else. I am _mortified_ at you, _alarmed_ for
+you.”
+
+This was the manner in which Mrs. Gardiner Green received the news of
+Sophie’s strange visitor from Miss Churchill’s lips, when they had been
+left alone together.
+
+“I do not think that she was a lunatic,” said Sophie, seriously. “I
+thought she spoke sense, truth, sad, sorrowful truth.”
+
+“‘Sense,’ ‘truth,’ the maddest of them can speak sense and truth
+sometimes; but her very _statement_ proves her lunacy—do not we all know
+better—don’t we know that the wife of Mr. Withers died two years ago?”
+
+“I think that is an impression that has been generally received, but I
+think that the opinion has no good foundation in fact; now that my mind
+fixes itself upon the subject, I remember that in his letter to Mr. May,
+he speaks of the ‘loss,’ never of the _death_ of his wife.”
+
+“Oh! I have no _patience_ with you! ‘Loss,’ what could it have been but
+_death_! Think of Mr. May’s warm regard—but I will _not_ argue with you
+upon this most injurious suspicion—it is an insult to Mr. Withers to
+hear or reply to such—pshaw! No, Miss Churchill, you have seized this,
+as the drowning catch at straws, to save you from fulfilling an
+engagement, which only since the arrival of this gay young officer has
+grown distasteful to you. But I tell you plainly, Sophie—Miss Churchill,
+I should say—that if you break this engagement, as you will not, I
+think, venture to do—I shall be obliged, however unwillingly, to abandon
+you. I have a daughter,” here the proud lady drew herself up,” and I
+must consult _her_ interest before anything else. Rose Green loves you,
+Sophie Churchill, but if you wantonly trifle with your good name, I must
+sever you. Mrs. May, also, I think, could scarcely defy public opinion,
+by continuing her friendly intercourse with you.” Sophie Churchill was
+sitting with her face pale, her features rigid, her eyes fixed
+unconsciously upon her cold white fingers idly locked together on her
+lap; one or two large tears gathered in her set eyes, and slowly rolled
+down her cheeks. “Do not weep, Miss Churchill, if I talk to you plainly;
+it is to set things in a proper light before you; I speak to you as I
+would speak to Rose, under like circumstances. Your duty is very plain;
+the day of your marriage is fixed, go forward with the preparations for
+your wedding. I am here to lend you assistance, not to tolerate
+weakness, vacillation, and infidelity.”
+
+Sophie remonstrated now no more; unresistingly she suffered the
+circle of destiny to close around her. More than the force of
+circumstances—more than the _strength_ of others—more than our own
+_weakness_ does our _indolence_ leave us at the mercy of fate.
+Adverse external powers are at work upon us, surrounding us,
+contracting their circle upon us; we feel an inward reposing
+strength that, aroused, might struggle and overcome; but we are
+inert, we yield to their influence, they close upon us; we sigh, and
+call it _fate_. It was thus with Sophie Churchill. In vain the
+whisper of her true interests arose from the deeps of her soul,
+saying—“Speak! and break through this enchanted circle—_you_ are
+right, _she_ is wrong. Have faith in God, believe _yourself_, trust
+in the candor and friendship of Emily, in the intelligence,
+goodness, and _love_—yes, _love_ of Augustus; awake! arise! and save
+yourself.” Alas! the voice was heard in vain. It could not be
+_stilled_, but it was not obeyed. Still sat she there with cold
+clasped hands and rigid features, letting fate encompass her, but
+feeling in her profoundest soul the painful consciousness that _she
+herself_, and not another, was making her own misery.
+
+Emily May now entered, but Sophie was too much absorbed in her sorrow,
+Mrs. Green too much interested in the subject on hand, to notice the
+absence of Lieutenant Wilde, or the unusual seriousness of her
+countenance and manner. Emily silently took her seat, without mentioning
+the occurrence of the hour. With an instinctive fear of leaving Sophie
+alone with Emily then and there, Mrs. Gardiner Green dismissed her
+carriage and announced her intention of remaining the day, and of
+returning in the afternoon with Mrs. May. Emily observed the dejection
+of Sophie, but silently attributed it to ill health, weak nerves, &c.,
+and dwelt slightly upon the circumstance, her thoughts being engaged
+with the drowned woman then lying in the fish-house.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+That morning Mr. Withers had been requested, upon account of the sparse
+population, to form one of a coroner’s jury, to sit upon the case of a
+drowned _person_, at four o’clock in the afternoon, at Heath Hall. The
+hasty summons conveyed no further information. With a strange
+abstraction of mind he had not looked deeply into the subject of the
+note—and penning a hasty answer, he promised to be on the spot at the
+appointed hour.
+
+The dinner-table had been cleared away at Heath Hall. Mrs. Gardiner
+Green had sustained the chief burden of the conversation all day.
+Lieutenant Wilde had not returned; and to the inquiry of Mrs. Green
+relative to his absence (which, by the way, she rejoiced in), Emily had
+replied that sudden business had recalled him to the village, and there
+the subject dropped. She still refrained from mentioning the occurrence
+of the morning. Then Mrs. Gardiner Green, taking advantage of the
+momentary absence of Miss Churchill, informed Mrs. May that the marriage
+day of her dear young friend Sophie Churchill with Mr. Withers, was
+fixed for the fifteenth of the current month; that thus it would take
+place in little more than a week from that day—that the ceremony would
+be performed at her house, &c., &c. Emily received this information with
+pain and surprise, but was prevented replying by the re-entrance of
+Sophie. She was no longer at a loss to guess the reason of Miss
+Churchill’s ill looks; she turned her head away, for her heart was
+swelling and her eyes were filling with tears. They were engaged then,
+she thought. Well! well! she had hoped it would have been otherwise, but
+they were engaged—the marriage near at hand. As Emily looked from the
+window she started on observing a small cavalcade approaching the house,
+and muttering to herself—“Oh! how thoughtless, how careless of
+Augustus,” went out to meet it. It was the dead body of the drowned
+woman borne along on a litter. “Oh, _why_ have you done this, Augustus?”
+she asked of her brother, as the litter was set down in front of the
+piazza.
+
+“Why, I could not very well prevent it,” said he, pointing to the two or
+three old country magistrates in the train, “besides Miss Churchill
+cannot be shocked at what she is prepared to see—you have surely
+informed her?”
+
+“No, I have not; I should have done so, could I have guessed that they
+would have brought the body here.”
+
+“Why, dearest Emily, this was the nearest house, the coroner’s inquest
+was appointed to meet here, also.”
+
+Emily May requested them to pause with the body until she could go in
+and announce their arrival to the mistress of the mansion. She need not
+have feared for Sophie’s nerves _then_. When we are in deep trouble we
+are in excellent order to receive _bad_ news; it does not shock us,
+little can shock us when in sorrow, except joy. Let me illustrate, when
+we are already _cold_ we can bear a _cool_ draught. Sophie gave her
+consent almost indifferently for the corpse to be brought in, and the
+three ladies withdrew to the upper story. In another quarter of an hour
+it was laid out in the parlor. Emily had dropped no hint to Sophie of
+her suspicion of the identity of the drowned woman with the wanderer she
+had seen in the forest dell, and Miss Churchill was entirely without
+suspicion as to who it could be. Mrs. Gardiner Green was full of
+exclamations of wonder, grief, and horror. Four o’clock drew near, and
+the jury summoned by the coroner began to assemble; many other persons
+impelled by curiosity also came. When the room was nearly full, and the
+hour appointed for holding the inquest arrived, it entered the head of
+the coroner to request the attendance of the lady of the house as well
+as of Mrs. May, whose testimony, as one present at the finding of the
+body, was required. A message was sent upstairs, and Mrs. May and Miss
+Churchill, accompanied by Mrs. Gardiner Green, entered the room. The
+corpse was laid out upon boards in the centre of the room; it was
+covered by a black velvet pall—the body had not been uncovered since the
+assembling of the jury. The ladies entered and took their seats.
+
+“What are we waiting for now?” inquired a gentleman present.
+
+“For Mr. Withers, who is on the jury,” answered the coroner.
+
+At this moment Mr. Withers entered, and the inquest began. The coroner,
+going to the head of the bier, turned down the pall, and summoned Mr.
+Wilde to give in his evidence. At the first uncovering of the corpse,
+many had bent forward to obtain a glimpse of the face, Mr. Withers among
+the rest; he had been standing near Sophie, whom he had not omitted to
+greet, and now he leaned forward. By reason of his height, he obtained a
+good view, _for a single instant_, then covering his face with his open
+palms, he groaned forth in tones of bitter anguish—
+
+“God! Oh, God! _Fanny_,” and dropped like a lifeless mass into his
+chair. The intense curiosity of all present directed to the corpse
+prevented the agitation of the minister being observed. Lieutenant Wilde
+identified the corpse as the body found by himself in the morning. Emily
+was then summoned, and corroborated the statement of her brother. When
+she was about to leave the stand she was asked—
+
+“Did you ever see or hear of this woman before?”
+
+“I never saw her before this morning, when I saw her dead upon the
+beach.”
+
+“Did you ever hear of her before?”
+
+“Yes—no—yes!—_no_, I never—” said Emily, confused between fact and
+fancy. Her confused answer drew upon her a close cross-examination,
+during which she alluded to the vision seen in the dell by Miss
+Churchill. She was then dismissed, and Sophie Churchill called to the
+stand. Sophie had been sitting in a remote part of the room—she had not
+bent forward as others had to view the corpse—hence she had not seen it
+at all; to the examination of the witnesses she had paid slight
+attention. Not one word of Emily’s testimony had she heard, by reason of
+the low tone in which Emily spoke. She arose when called, approached the
+bier, and when told to look upon the body, and say whether she had ever
+seen it before, she languidly cast her eyes down upon it, and recognised
+the apparition of the dell—the moonlight visitor of the
+Hall—started—tottered—and with a smothered cry sank back in the arms of
+the coroner in a swoon. All the company looked dismayed. Augustus Wilde
+sprang forward to receive her, took her from the coroner’s hold, and
+telling him angrily that he had exceeded his authority, bore her into
+the air, and sitting down with her on the steps of the piazza, hastily
+loosened her dress and fanned her with his cap. Emily was by his side,
+she had followed them; Sophie opened her eyes, and then resigning her to
+Emily’s care he returned to the hall, meeting Mrs. Gardiner Green
+bustling out to look after her protegée.
+
+The verdict, “death by drowning,” was rendered, and the jury broke up.
+The coroner and magistrates had decided that the body should be buried
+from the Hall in the family burial ground, with the consent of Miss
+Churchill. The magistrates were taking their hats and preparing to
+depart, when the figure of Sophie Churchill, pale and haggard as though
+newly arisen from the grave, appeared among them.
+
+“I have testimony to give, and I _must_ give it,” she said.
+
+The magistrates looked surprised, the company eager—Mrs. Gardiner Green,
+frowning, sat down. Emily, pale and expectant, stood by Sophie’s side.
+
+“The inquest is over,” said Mrs. Green at last. “Your testimony will be
+supererogatory, Miss Churchill.”
+
+“Her deposition can be taken by a magistrate,” said Lieutenant Wilde.
+
+“Miss Churchill is not now of sound mind, she is ill, her testimony
+cannot be taken,” persisted the proud lady.
+
+Sophie Churchill was now standing by the side of the corpse—all eyes
+were turned towards her—_her_ eyes were bent straight forward across the
+room upon the bowed and shuddering figure of the minister; he _felt_ her
+gaze, he raised his head; her eyes full of deep reproach and dire
+determination encountered his—no longer cold and glittering like ice,
+and freezing the blood in her veins—oh, no! the anguish of a tortured
+soul _groaned_ through their glance—“_Mercy!_ Sophie.” That glance
+inspired Sophie’s heart with pity, but it was too late now, or _she_
+thought it was too late to retract. The magistrate commenced his
+examination. To his question—
+
+“When did you first see this woman?” she replied by relating the
+adventure in the dell. “And her finger pointed at the—at the Rev. Mr.
+Withers?”
+
+“Yes, sir,” replied Sophie, turning her head to avoid looking at the
+tortured countenance of the minister.
+
+“Did she speak?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What did she say?”
+
+“Gazing intently at me, and pointing to the minister, she said, ‘shun
+him!’”
+
+All eyes now turned in wonder and curiosity from Sophie to the minister.
+
+“Did you ever see her after this?”
+
+“Once.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+Sophie now related the visit to the Hall.
+
+“And she claimed to be Mr. Withers’s wife?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Did she appear to you to be of unsound mind?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You may stand aside.”
+
+The magistrates conversed apart for a while, then one of their number
+said,
+
+“Will Mr. Withers be kind enough to step forward?”
+
+The minister arose, and collecting and composing himself with an effort,
+approached the table—all conversation was suspended—all eyes were fixed
+upon him—he felt it.
+
+“Will Mr. Withers oblige us by telling all he may know of this
+unfortunate young person—of course we have no sort of right, _now_, to
+ask it—we appeal to the courtesy of Mr. Withers to satisfy an interest
+that we all feel in this most unfortunate young stranger?”
+
+Mr. Withers bowed, and declared himself ready to answer any question
+upon the subject.
+
+“We have no intention or desire to subject Mr. Withers to a legal
+examination,” said the first speaker, “we merely wished, that if it were
+not unpleasant, Mr. Withers would oblige us by volunteering such
+information as might be in his possession.”
+
+“Is she your _wife_, Mr. Withers?” chucklingly inquired an old country
+squire, who did not believe what he asked, but whom neither time, place,
+nor circumstance could debar from his jest. “Is she your _wife_?”
+
+“No, sir,” answered Mr. Withers, with dignity, “she is not my wife,
+gentlemen. I _do_ know this young woman, have known her from a child;
+her life for the last three years has been full of passion, sin,
+suffering, and sorrow that eventuated in insanity, and has ended as you
+may see in suicide. For the last year she has been my pensioner, and an
+inmate of the —— lunatic asylum. A few months ago I was informed by
+letter that she had escaped; yesterday evening I discovered that she was
+in this neighborhood, by coming upon her suddenly while she was
+conversing with Miss Churchill. I believe she followed me to this
+neighborhood, yet at my approach she fled. That was last night, her body
+was found this morning. This is all I have to tell, sirs.” He made a
+ceremonious bow, and retired from the table. The company gathered in
+groups to converse upon the singular event—the strange statement of the
+wanderer, given in the evidence of Miss Churchill, was scarcely
+noticed—just set down as the raving of a maniac. Withers approached
+Sophie, and, stooping, hissed in her ear, “Most cruel girl! do you deem
+what you have made me suffer? I have been stretched upon the rack, but
+you—you—_you_ are piling up wrath against a day of wrath. Mark _that_,
+Sophie Churchill!”
+
+The poor girl, after her extraordinary effort, had relapsed into utter
+languor, but she raised her languid eyes, and murmured,—
+
+“I think _you_ are.”
+
+He stopped, glanced around—no one was now observing him—stooped, and
+said,
+
+“What do you mean, Sophie? Do you think that I have ever wronged a hair
+of that poor creature’s head? No, Sophie, no—no, as I hoped to be saved,
+_never_!”
+
+He moved away from Sophie, and going to Mrs. Green, said,
+
+“My dear madam, I wish you to take Miss Churchill home with you this
+evening, and keep her there for the next two weeks; her health is sadly
+shaken by these exciting events. As for the school we must procure a
+substitute, or it must for the present be disbanded. I will remain here
+and attend to this interment.”
+
+The company were getting into their saddles to depart. Mrs. May, Mrs.
+Green, Lieutenant Wilde, and Mr. Withers, remained to tea.
+
+The golden beams of the setting sun that were shining through the
+foliage of the shade trees, making their leaves glisten like emeralds,
+and falling upon the piazza, were somewhat intercepted by the figure of
+Lieutenant Gusty as he walked up and down the piazza, ruminating to this
+effect, “Shall I now, or shall I not? I wonder if it is too early. I
+have known her only a short time, it is true, but then, how dearly I
+love her, and how wisely, the regard of my excellent sister proves. I am
+going away in a day, to stay three years; if I don’t speak now some one
+else may speak before I have another chance.” The entrance of Sophie
+from the house decided him by inspiring a sudden impulse. She had come
+out, and not seeing him, walked slowly up to the further end of the
+piazza, hung her head over the railing, and remained fixed in that
+attitude. Gusty walked rapidly up to her, and then back, and then up
+again, and then back. The third time approaching her, he said, while
+standing behind her,—
+
+“_Hem!_ Sophie, you _know_ you rather like me! and _I_ know it too,
+because Emily says so. And _I_, Sophie—well, never mind about me! So,
+Sophie, when I come back from sea again in three years from this, will
+you—will you—will you _have_ me? Now consider the circumstances, and
+don’t say, my own dear Sophie, that my proposal is _too soon_.”
+
+“_It is too late—too late_, dear Gusty,” she said, turning round; her
+eyes were fixed and despairing.
+
+“Too late,” he echoed, looking stupidly at her.
+
+“Too late,” she repeated; “I am betrothed. Even your sister—_my_ dear
+sister Emily, thinks that there is no escape _now_. I have just had a
+conversation with her.”
+
+“You—you are betrothed—to—to _whom_?”
+
+“You surely guess—to Mr. Withers.”
+
+He walked up and down the piazza with folded arms, chin bowed upon his
+bosom, eyes bent to the ground. At last he paused before her—bashfulness
+was gone now.
+
+“Look at me, Sophie! oh, my soul’s love, look at me!” She raised her
+eyes to his fine countenance—he _had_ a fine countenance. Curls black,
+silky, and shining, clustered around a brow fair, round, and polished as
+a woman’s—his dark eyes, now full of Heaven’s own love and wisdom, were
+bent upon hers.
+
+“My own loved sister—my own heart’s darling, _we_ are betrothed. Oh,
+believe it, Sophie!—believe it! _We_ are betrothed, Sophie! Listen! You
+have never loved before?”
+
+“_Never_, Gusty!”
+
+“And mine also is a virgin heart; beyond a general kindliness of feeling
+towards _all_ women, I have never loved before. Oh! Sophie, are _we_ not
+betrothed by God himself? Break through this other engagement forced
+upon you by circumstances, and give me your hand. Let us marry _this
+evening_, Sophie, and let me leave you with my sister until I come
+back—my own dear Sophie, _do this_. I would not for my soul’s salvation
+do anything or advise you to anything wrong, but indeed, my Sophie, I
+feel such a _right_ to you, such a _claim_ upon you, such a _property_
+in you, that I should feel myself wronged and ruined by any one who
+should wrest you from me.”
+
+She gazed unconsciously, entranced, up to his pure clear brow—to her it
+seemed the brow of an angel, and into his beautiful eyes, full of
+earnest strength, half pleading, half commanding, fixed upon her own.
+With an hysterical gasp and sob she fell forward; he caught her,
+strained her to his bosom. Her form was convulsed with emotion, her
+breast heaved strongly, heavily, and then her tears broke forth in
+floods; she wept abundantly upon his bosom. At last her emotion
+subsided. As the rain expends the clouds, clears the atmosphere, and
+refreshes the face of nature, so do tears relieve the heart, clear the
+brain, and renovate the system. Sophie’s emotion subsided, and then she
+quietly rose and said,
+
+“There, Gusty, it is over. Oh, my dear brother—_my brother_, let us be
+calmly wise. We may meet in heaven, but here, upon this earth below, we
+must never meet again, Gusty; we must never see each other’s face—hear
+each other’s voice again.”
+
+Here they were interrupted by the entrance of Emily, who came to tell
+Sophie that Mrs. Green was preparing to go. Sophie extended her hand to
+Augustus, who caught and pressed it to his lips. Then she re-entered the
+house.
+
+“No more of that, Augustus,” said Emily, “you must think of her no more;
+she is to be married in nine days to Mr. Withers.”
+
+The young man turned around hastily, and, with the occasional
+impetuosity of his nature, replied,
+
+“Think of her no more! Confound you, Emily! you talk as lightly, as
+composedly, of thinking of her no more, as though you spoke of a new
+coat—a visit. ‘Think of her no more!’ why, in the name of Heaven, did
+you throw us together—tell me that?”
+
+“Why? because I wished you to love and marry. Alas! I did not know,
+though it was rumored in the neighborhood, that Withers seriously
+thought of her, and could not have believed that they were engaged.” The
+young man groaned. “You will get over this when you are once more at
+sea. Come, Gusty, get up our horses, we must return home.”
+
+Mrs. Green, with Miss Churchill and Mrs. May, attended by her brother,
+left Heath Hall, and rode on to the point where three roads parted in
+company. Then Emily and her brother rode up to the carriage door and
+took leave. Augustus took Sophie’s hand in his own, their eyes met—their
+_souls_ met, in one intense and agonizing gaze, and parted. He left the
+neighborhood the next morning.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+                          AN UNEXPECTED EVENT.
+
+      “Yet it may be more lofty courage dwells
+        In one weak heart which braves an adverse fate,
+      Than his whose ardent soul indignant swells,
+        Warmed through the fight, or cheered through high debate.”
+                                          MRS. NORTON.
+
+
+A wedding was Mrs. Gardiner Green’s delight. In Maryland and Virginia, a
+country wedding promises festivity for weeks to come. The marriage
+ceremony takes place at _night_, in the presence of the _élite_ of all
+the neighboring counties. Visitors from a distance remain all night. The
+breakfast next morning is a state affair; it is followed by a
+dinner-party and ball, given at the house of the bridegroom’s parents or
+that of some of his friends. Then the nearest relations give balls in
+succession; then the most intimate friends. Generally the bride and
+bridegroom, with their attendants, remain all night at the house where
+the dinner and the ball are given. Thus a marriage in high life in the
+country throws a quiet neighborhood into convulsions for weeks, making
+it resemble a city in the height of the “season.” It is a downright
+windfall to the young men and girls, and it is a country proverb that
+“One marriage makes many.” In the approaching marriage of Miss Churchill
+and Mr. Withers there was one serious drawback to the pleasant
+anticipations of the young men and maidens. The bridegroom was a
+clergyman; therefore there could be no balls, only the wedding and
+dinner parties. Mrs. Green was in her glory—her preparations for display
+were magnificent; the wedding dresses, confectionery, &c., had been
+ordered from Baltimore and were arrived. And Sophie, she was now quite
+resigned; she had been the guest of Mrs. Green since the day of the
+inquest. Mr. Withers had recovered his composure, and was with her, as
+usual, a part of every day. Sophie’s brain and heart were in an apathy.
+The only action of her mind was an indolent surprise at the indifference
+she felt for everything going on around her, the deadness of all
+sensibility, the stillness of her nerves; even the frigid and formal
+kiss of Withers imprinted on her hand at meeting, or at parting, no
+longer sent an ague thrill through all her veins—the contentment of
+despair had come.
+
+The evening of the marriage arrived; the handsomely furnished house of
+Mrs. Gardiner Green was elegantly decorated and thrown open from attic
+to cellar to the numerous expected visitors. Mrs. Green herself,
+elegantly attired, was superintending the bridal toilet of Sophie in the
+dressing-room of the latter. The dress of Miss Churchill, prepared by
+the taste of Mrs. Green, was a white satin skirt, and over that a white
+gauze embroidered all over with silver flowers, a large white lace veil,
+looped up above her brow by a single small diamond star, leaving room to
+the slight elegant wreath of orange buds that lightly rested on her
+smoothly braided hair. Rose Green and another young lady of the
+neighborhood attended her as bridesmaids. A murmur of admiration ran
+through the crowded parlors as Sophie was led in by Mr. Withers, and the
+bridal party took their stand in the centre of the room. The bishop of
+the diocese, summoned from Baltimore, was in attendance to perform the
+ceremony. He wore the usual full wide black gown of an Episcopal
+clergyman. The bridal party stood before him cheerily; the young
+bridesmaids and groomsmen stood in reverent _attitude_, their eyes bent
+upon the ground, but the corners of their lips full of dimples, scarcely
+repressing their smiles—stern and solemn stood the tall thin figure of
+the dark bridegroom, and cold and pale and quiet Sophie waited. Once she
+raised her eyelids, but her glance fell on the black gown and solemn
+countenance of the clergyman before her, and she quickly dropped them
+again. He seemed to her the incarnation of darkest doom. She felt a
+dreary sinking of the heart as the first words of the ritual fell upon
+her ear, as the sentence of death falls upon the criminal hearing. It
+was over. It was over—friends and neighbors crowded around her with
+their congratulations. First, Emily May drew her to her bosom, and
+imprinting a kiss upon her brow, whispered hastily—
+
+“Courage, love! nothing is so illusory as the emotions of a bride; many
+a reluctant bride has become a loving and happy wife, many a hopeful and
+joyous bride has seen her happiness decay and die—courage, love.”
+
+Sophie scarcely knew who spoke these hasty words, or how she at last
+found herself seated with her husband and attendants by her side.
+Refreshments were served around, and that occupied the company for the
+next hour; then a low hum of suppressed gaiety was heard all over the
+room, among the lively young people brought together in the expectation
+of enjoyment, and now growing uneasy under the restraint put upon their
+gaiety. The young people voted the parson’s wedding a stupid affair—a
+disappointment—quite a failure. At last, Miss Rogers, the second
+bridesmaid of Sophie, a merry little maiden, not overladen with
+veneration, jumped up from her seat, and standing before the solemn
+bridegroom, said—
+
+“Now, Mr. Withers, you are very happy, or you _ought_ to be, as folks
+call the bridegroom ‘_the_ happy man,’ and you ought to be willing for
+other people who are not ‘happy’ at least to be _merry_, poor souls. Now
+we young folks who are not brides and bridegrooms want to console
+ourselves by dancing—there! and you are worse than ‘the dog in the
+manger’ if you don’t let us dance.”
+
+Mr. Withers answered,
+
+“There is a higher authority than my own, present, Miss Rogers; I refer
+you to the bishop.”
+
+The girl’s head slightly started back, and her eyes opened in an
+awe-struck gaze _an instant_, as she turned to look upon the high
+dignitary of the church. To Sophie’s sorrowing vision he had seemed the
+dark minister of a dark fate; to the merry maiden as she now looked at
+him, he appeared a jolly old gentleman enough, so she smiled merrily,
+and tripped up to him, and said with saucy shyness,
+
+“I say, Dr. Otterback, we all—we girls—want to dance; _Solomon_ danced,
+you know; now have you any objection?”
+
+The old gentleman took her chin in his fat hand and made her little
+teeth chatter like a pair of castanets, while looking down in her young
+face with a merry, genial kindness, he said—
+
+“Yes, child! a very _serious_ objection.”
+
+“Oh! Dr. Otterback, _now_, I don’t believe it; what is it? David danced,
+you know, and I never feel so happy, or thank God so much for making me,
+as when I am dancing; _now_, Dr. Otterback, what objection _can_ you
+have?”
+
+“A very serious one, my child, I tell you—_this_—the sound of a fiddle
+plays upon my feet and legs like the fingers of little Miss Rogers upon
+the piano keys—sets them in motion; can’t help it; the merriment and the
+wickedness bubbles up from the bottom of my heart, and the old man Adam
+grows too strong for me; now you wouldn’t have me pirouetting and
+pigeon-winging it all around this room, would you?”
+
+“Wouldn’t I? I should love churches and bishops better all my life
+after,” laughed the maiden.
+
+He shook his head, patted her rosy cheek, and sent her off.
+
+The rooms were crowded and close, though all the windows and doors were
+open; the night was warm, and the moon was shining brightly out of
+doors. At last one and then another couple began to stroll out into the
+lawn and garden. As a matter of etiquette the bridal party kept their
+seats much longer; all, except the little bridesmaid, Miss Rogers, who
+never minded etiquette; she mingled with the company on the lawn, until
+Mrs. Gardiner Green seeing her said—
+
+“I am astonished at you, Miss Rogers; return to your post.”
+
+Then the little maiden ran up the marble steps in front of the house,
+and there she paused, unwilling to enter the warm rooms. The company on
+the lawn had wandered off into the grove, and she stood there watching
+their departed footsteps. Her eyes wandered over the scene, and at last
+were fixed by a figure on the gravel walk approaching from the gate
+towards the house. The figure hurried nervously forward, sprang up the
+steps, and stood before her taking breath. He was a youth of perhaps
+seventeen, with a broad fair forehead and golden hair. He caught her
+hand and inquired anxiously,
+
+“Are _you_ Miss Churchill?”
+
+“No, indeed, thank Heaven, I am not Miss Churchill,” replied the maiden,
+wondering.
+
+“Where is Miss Churchill—where is she? I must see her immediately.”
+
+“Miss Churchill is no more; Mrs. Withers is in the drawing-room.”
+
+“Good God! I am too late; it is all over then!”
+
+“_Quite_; you should have come sooner; the bride-cake is even eaten up.”
+
+“Young lady—what is your name?”
+
+“Blanche Rogers.”
+
+“Miss Rogers, you can procure me an interview with—with the bride.”
+
+“I will take you in and present you with great pleasure, if,” laughed
+the young lady, “you will favor me with your credentials.”
+
+“Miss Rogers, my name is Raymond—no, I cannot tell you now; will you be
+kind enough to go to Mrs. Withers, and tell her that one wishes to see
+her for a moment at the door.”
+
+The maiden looked at him keenly, and saying to herself, “Such a boy can
+have no evil design,” replied, hesitatingly, “Yes,” and turned slowly to
+do his bidding, looking back, once or twice, suspiciously. She found
+Sophie alone with Mrs. Green. Mr. Withers was in conversation with the
+bishop in a distant part of the room.
+
+“My dear Sophie,” said she, “there is a young man out in the piazza that
+asks to see you.”
+
+“A young man?”
+
+“Well, yes; that is to say, a very young man—a boy.”
+
+Sophie arose and passed into the piazza, and, except her cold pale face,
+like a radiant visitant from the skies she looked, as her dazzling
+raiment of white and silver flashed in the moonbeams. At the further end
+of the piazza, the moonlight fell upon a slight boyish figure clad in
+deep mourning, and leaning upon the balustrade. Sophie approached him;
+he raised his head and stepped forward; she met his eyes and started,
+suppressed a scream, and trembling violently, leaned against the
+parapet, as she recognised the slender form and wan face, the intense
+gaze, the ultra-marine blue eyes, and the floating golden locks of the
+wanderer, and—
+
+“Have you, indeed, unhappy one, risen from the grave to reproach, to
+warn me?” involuntarily escaped her lips.
+
+“Be calm, Miss Churchill; I do not know what you mean by your question,
+since I have never been dead, and do not remember even to have seen, far
+less reproached or warned you.”
+
+“Who are you, then; I—I do not know whether I am sane or not. I am
+afraid my brain is reeling; who are you?”
+
+“Dear young lady, I have startled you; _why_ I do not see; will you give
+me an interview in some place where we cannot be interrupted?”
+
+“Tell me who you are?”
+
+“You are not afraid of me?”
+
+“No—oh, no; but I wish, of course, to know the name and business of one
+who calls me out at night for a private interview.”
+
+“My name is Frank Raymond Withers; I am the only son, the only _child_
+of the Reverend John Huss Withers, and Fanny Raymond.”
+
+There was a dash of bitterness in the mock ceremonious manner with which
+he announced himself. Sophie heard him with clasped hands and earnest
+downcast brow. She remained in deep thought a moment; then suddenly
+catching his hand, she said,
+
+“Yes, I _must_ have an interview with you, where none can overhear us.
+Come with me,” and retaining his hand and drawing him after her, she
+passed up the piazza, down the central marble steps, across the lawn,
+and taking a narrow path through the grove, led him down a deep dell,
+into a rustic arbor built over the spring, dropping into a seat, she
+said,
+
+“Dip me up some cold water, that I may drink, and grow strong for this
+interview.”
+
+He performed her bidding. She bathed her fevered hands and brow, she
+drank a deep draught of the lifegiving beverage, and then she composed
+herself, and said, as he stood before her,
+
+“Sit down; I _too_ have something to reveal, as well as to learn.”
+
+He took a seat opposite to her.
+
+“First, what was your purpose in seeking me, this evening?”
+
+“To save you from a marriage that could result in nothing but
+wretchedness and ruin.”
+
+“Explain yourself!”
+
+“Your husband, John Huss Withers, is—a lunatic!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“A _lunatic_!”
+
+“Gracious heavens! Oh, yes! I see it all—_all now_!—that fearful light
+in his eyes!”
+
+“And you will withdraw yourself from him before it is too late; you will
+reveal this fact and demand an immediate separation?”
+
+“Stop, stop,” said Sophie, raising her hand to her brow, “Stop, I am
+dizzy, bewildered; how came this about? how has he so successfully
+concealed it for the months that he has been with us? and is it
+_hereditary_? Tell me all about it.”
+
+“The malady is _not_ hereditary; no member of the family was ever known
+to have lost his or her reason; severe domestic affliction—trials, oh!
+trials that would have—that might have riven the strongest, firmest
+heart in two, that might have shaken into chaos the best regulated mind,
+clouded the clearest reason. Listen, Miss Churchill. Mr. Withers, my
+father, was morbidly proud, his pride was brought to the dust; he was
+delicately sensitive; he was stricken to the heart; his health gave way;
+his reason failed. With the strange cunning of a lunatic, and under the
+favor of circumstances, he has succeeded in concealing this malady from
+the world. In his first one or two attacks, _I_ was his keeper by
+chance; _after_ the first two or three, he learned by the premonitory
+symptoms when to seclude himself; and so, no symptom, no effect of his
+malady has yet appeared but this: the burning eloquence, the super-human
+power of intellect revealed in his occasional sermons; and, as long as
+it properly could be kept, in fact up to this moment, I have kept his
+secret; believing that if he knew it to be revealed, his proud and
+sensitive nature would be so shocked and wounded that the last light of
+reason would go out; that he would become a raving maniac. But, Miss
+Churchill, when I saw another person, a young girl, about to be
+sacrificed to him (for my father wrote to me, at college, of his
+approaching marriage, not deeming that I would interfere), I deemed it
+my duty to reveal his secret, at least, to his affianced bride. Now,
+Miss Churchill, you have your own fate and _his_ in your power; reveal
+his secret, save yourself. No one in the world could blame you for
+separating yourself from him.”
+
+Sophie remained with her hand pressed upon her brow, so still she might
+have been taken for a statue.
+
+“I am ready Miss Churchill, to aid your release by my testimony. Your
+marriage can be dissolved in a few days, by legislative action; do not
+be cast down.”
+
+“Oh! stop, hush!” said Sophie, “let me think—let me think. My God! help
+thy child!”
+
+She pressed her hand upon her brow tightly, then she spoke.
+
+“Say! you think the revelation of this secret would affect him very
+seriously?”
+
+“It would destroy his reason utterly, irrevocably, I think.”
+
+“You say that this malady is accidental, circumstantial, and not
+hereditary?”
+
+“Entirely—entirely the result of overwhelming affliction.”
+
+Sophie sighed deeply; “It is hard to ask a son to criminate his father;
+yet _justice_—tell me, were these afflictions brought about by _his
+sin_?
+
+The youth paused, looked down, groaned heavily, and at last hesitatingly
+replied;—
+
+“No; not by _his sin_; that were too harsh a term; by his error, or
+rather his _mistake_.”
+
+Sophie sighed more heavily than before, then she said—
+
+“Young man, you are the son of Fanny Raymond; who _was_ Fanny Raymond,
+your mother?”
+
+“She was the wife of Mr. Withers, of course.”
+
+“When did she die, and where, and under what circumstances?”
+
+The youth abruptly turned and hurried from the arbor, walked
+distractedly up and down the plat before it for some minutes, then
+returning, said in faltering tones to Sophie—
+
+“Do not ask me—_do not ask me_, I beg of you—be at ease—you are the
+bride of Mr. Withers, but you need not be his wife. Come, Sophie
+Churchill, I am ready to go with you to the house and say all, and if
+really needful, _more_, to the assembled company there than I have said
+to you. Come!”
+
+“No,” said Sophie, passing her hand thoughtfully before her brow;
+“Stop—stop,” then after awhile she held out one hand behind her to where
+the youth was standing, and said, “Raymond, come to me—sit beside
+me—unlock your inmost heart to me, poor boy. Come—I am your friend; tell
+me now why do you wish to save me by exposing your father?”
+
+He came and sat beside her, and fixing his sad blue eyes upon her face
+said—
+
+“That I might not be accessary to your misery, Miss Churchill. I have
+kept his secret and borne the risk of concealment myself; I had no right
+to suffer the life of another to be risked by my silence.”
+
+Sophie sighed again, with her head bowed upon her hand, and asked—
+
+“Is he ever so violent and dangerous, then?”
+
+“No, not positively violent, but _dangerous_, I fear, Miss Churchill.”
+
+“He has never certainly had an attack since he has been here.”
+
+“You do not know—has he never been absent?”
+
+“Yes, for days, when no one knew where he was; for in his reserve he
+would not reveal his business, and no one durst ask him.”
+
+“Ah! at such times, warned by the premonitory symptoms of his disease,
+he secluded himself—perhaps in the depths of the forest—perhaps threw
+himself on board of a packet and slipped up to Baltimore.”
+
+“Oh! how wretched, how wretched he must have been, must still be, with
+no one here to whom he dare trust his dreadful secret.”
+
+“And is it possible, Miss Churchill, that no one suspected it here—that
+no eccentricity of manner threatened to betray him to those that were
+about him every day?”
+
+Sophie took his delicate hand in hers, and pressing it kindly, said—
+
+“Raymond, do not call me Miss Churchill, or speak to me as a stranger,
+or as an indifferent acquaintance; I am so no longer; you must love me,
+and confide in me, Raymond; you and I have a mutual and a holy duty to
+perform.”
+
+“Yes,” said he, with a bitter sigh, “we must go and make this known. Oh,
+my unhappy father!”
+
+“Poor boy, you have misunderstood me; did you think,” she said, passing
+her hand over his troubled brow, smoothing away the golden ringlets, and
+looking kindly in his face, “did you think that I was going selfishly to
+expose and abandon your father? No, Raymond—no, poor boy—I am weak, and
+sometimes cowardly, but never cruel or selfish—I never wantonly
+destroyed the smallest insect, or wounded, purposely, the worst or the
+lowest human being; and since I have been sitting here, Raymond, I know
+not what sort of a strange strength has entered my soul! Yes, your
+arrival just now is providential, and with your words the spirit of God
+has descended upon me. The Lord has given me something to do for His
+sake, and endowed me with strength to do it. And you are my co-laborer,
+Raymond. To dress the wounds of this poor warrior, beaten and bruised,
+bleeding and fainting on the field of the battle of life; to raise and
+nurse him back to life and health—this is our work.”
+
+How beautiful she looked in her young devotion,—the moonlight fell upon
+her fair, pure brow, clothing it with an angelic radiance.
+
+“Oh, but the sacrifice, will you immolate yourself thus, Miss
+Churchill?”
+
+“Strange! but I do not feel it as such; I feel lifted up, elevated,
+strengthened, filled with light and a strange joy.”
+
+“Beautiful inspired one!” exclaimed the boy, with enthusiasm.
+
+“Come,” said Sophie, rising, “let us return to the house, I shall be
+missed; did your father expect you?”
+
+“He wrote that I might come if I pleased; but has he never mentioned me,
+Miss Churchill?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Why was that?”
+
+“Abstraction—forgetfulness—something.”
+
+“Come with me, then, I will present you to him.”
+
+“Oh, Miss Churchill—gentle Sophie—do you feel no inward resentment
+towards my unhappy father, for the marriage into which he has led you?”
+
+“None in the world. Is not his reason clouded, his thoughts all jarred
+and out of tune? No, I feel that he was led by, to him, a blind impulse,
+really by Providence, to the only one who could nurse him back to health
+of mind and body. Raymond, we can cure this sick heart, clear this
+clouded brain, restore this ruin. Come!”
+
+And they left the arbor, and took their way towards the house.
+
+During the interview, a revolution had taken place in Sophie’s soul; all
+her deep religious feeling, her latent passion for self-devotion, her
+enthusiasm, her benevolence, had been called forth. Thus softened by
+pity, and inspired by her own high ideal of duty, she determined to
+devote herself to the tranquility of his shrunken and tortured life,
+with one purpose—his restoration to mental and physical health. She
+passed from the arbor no joyous or reluctant bride, but a high-souled
+devotee, in possession of duty for which she must live. An hour before,
+she had seemed a trembling, shrinking, suffering victim, offered in
+_useless, objectless_ sacrifice; now, she was a cheerful, self-possessed
+human soul, who had solved the problem of her life, and held the answer
+in her hands.
+
+Among the passions of the human soul is one not often, if ever,
+mentioned as such by moralists and metaphysicians: the passion of
+self-devotion. Yet, that this certainly exists, and deserves to be
+classed with the others, is proved by the large number of human beings
+acting under its influence. It acts in religion, in love, in
+benevolence, in philanthropy, and patriotism—but it is totally distinct
+from and independent of each—a separate passion, sometimes acting alone.
+
+This passion, in its right motion, inspires the highly beneficial
+devotion of the Sister of Charity—in its perverted action, kindles the
+barren enthusiasm of the nun. A philanthropist, a patriot, under the
+rational influence of this passion, becomes as the Sister of Charity,
+one of the greatest benefactors of his race; under its irrational
+influence, becomes as the secluded nun or monk, _lost_; or as the
+fanatic, mischievous or dangerous to society.
+
+They returned to the house. Meeting Mrs. Green first, Sophie led the
+youth up to her, and presented him as the son of Mr. Withers, just
+arrived from college. The lady received him with much courtesy, asked
+him where she should send for his trunks, and whether he would not
+prefer being shown into a dressing-room before being introduced into the
+drawing-room. Expressing his thanks with a gentle grace, he named the
+village tavern as the place where his baggage lay, and declining the use
+of a _chambre de toilette_, bowed his leave, and giving his arm to
+Sophie, passed into the room; the rooms were thinned out considerably,
+most of the company had strayed out into the garden and groves.
+
+Mr. Withers was standing near the window in conversation with the
+bishop. Sophie, leaving Raymond at a short distance behind, walked up to
+him, and laying her small hand upon his arm, said gently and cheerfully—
+
+“Mr. Withers, your son has come at last—you expected him, I believe.”
+
+Withers started, more at the cheerful, genial tone in which these words
+were spoken, than at the news they conveyed. The bishop, also, whose
+kindly affectionate nature scarcely let a young person pass him without
+a caressing word or gesture,—the bishop turned around, and patting her
+chin, said archly:—
+
+“You have got over your terror, little lady; you seemed to think I was
+going to hang you when you stood up before me.”
+
+But Sophie stepped back, and beckoning Raymond to approach, presented
+him.
+
+“How do you do, Raymond? This is my son, Dr. Otterback,” were the only
+words of greeting or of introduction bestowed upon the youth by his
+father. Dr. Otterback immediately addressed his conversation to the
+young man, and Withers turned and looked in Sophie’s face; her
+countenance was serene, cheerful, kindly; what _could_ be the reason? he
+was at a loss to account for it; yet he felt the shadow and the weight
+lifting from his own heart, passing from his own brain. Love, charity,
+the very sun of the moral atmosphere when it shines out, how the vapors
+are lifted, how the clouds disperse, how all nature rises and smiles in
+its beams.
+
+“All our friends are out upon the lawn—it is pleasant there. Will you
+come out, Mr. Withers?” she asked.
+
+For the first time since she had known him, with an air of graceful
+self-possession and gallantry, he lifted her fair hand to his lips, drew
+her arm within his own, and led her forth. They sat down upon the bench
+in the piazza. At first she talked cheerfully of the nearest topics of
+conversation, the company, the night, the weather, the moon; but seeing
+that he relapsed into silence and dejection, she thought he felt
+compunction for all the ill he had wrought her, and that this
+compunction was awakened by her own kindness to him. She was not sorry
+that he felt this; yet now she wished to dissipate the gloom. Laying her
+hand timidly, gently, upon his brow, and raising from it the heavy mass
+of black hair that seemed to rest there like a cloud, she said:—
+
+“Come, clear your brow, Mr. Withers, or you will make me fear that you
+regret taking under your wing a little girl like me.”
+
+“And I _do_ regret it, Sophie—I _do_ regret it!” he said, and sighing
+heavily, he arose and paced up and down the piazza several times, and
+then threw himself into a seat far from her. She watched him there; at
+first from natural feelings of delicacy she hesitated to approach him;
+but when he dropped his head between his hands, and sigh after sigh and
+groan after groan rent his bosom, she paused no longer, but arising,
+crossed the piazza, and taking the seat by his side, and taking his
+hand, she pressed it between her own. He turned and gazed inquiringly
+into her eyes, his gaze no longer cold, brilliant, and chilling, but
+still piercing, and full of anguish. Suddenly he shut his eyes, and
+groaning “Oh Sophie!” turned away his head and attempted to withdraw his
+hand. She retained and pressed it, and again passing her soft, cool hand
+over his hot brow, she said, gently—
+
+“Come, Mr. Withers, cheer up, have faith in me. I love you.—I _do_—not,
+indeed, with the glad love of a young bride for the young husband of her
+choice, but with a feeling that will stand you in better stead—that will
+perhaps last longer and bear more—with the serious, thoughtful love one
+earnest human soul that has known isolation and sorrow can feel for
+another, desolated, tortured, suffering, yet worthy in its anguish, of
+admiration and respect.”
+
+He started up, then dropped into his seat again, exclaiming—
+
+“Sophie! I do not understand you; what is the meaning of this? What has
+brought about this strange, this—ah! but for _one_ fact—blessed change
+in your feelings towards me?”
+
+“That very fact you allude to—that _very_ fact!” then dropping her voice
+to its softest, gentlest tones she murmured—“You have a secret that
+corrodes and burns your heart out—a dreadful suffering that being
+suppressed has gained depth, and strength, and intensity—a fearful
+malady that being concealed has increased in power; let it be so no
+longer; relieve your overladen breast; pour all your sorrows into your
+wife’s bosom—she will never betray or forsake you. Oh! believe it. She
+partly knows your secret—she knows that sometimes—under some
+influences—a storm drives in your fine mind—that the clouds gather thick
+and black—the thunder roars and the lightnings flash, and that all is
+confusion, danger, and terror for a space—she also knows that when this
+storm has passed through your soul, the sun of reason shines out calm
+and bright. She knows all this, and she loves you for these sufferings.”
+
+He had grown as pale as death while she spoke, his features wearing the
+expression of deepest despair; he dropped his head upon his hands, his
+elbows resting on his knees, and groaned.
+
+“Then it is all at an end, this masquerade. When was it discovered—when
+did I betray myself, Sophie, and who knows of this besides yourself?”
+
+“Except your son, no one besides myself; and it is indispensable that I
+should know it.”
+
+“And he told you—curse—”
+
+“Oh, do not say that!”
+
+“I did not wish you to know it, Sophie; I was merciful, or selfish, or
+proud, and firm and cunning enough to keep it from you, Sophie, as I
+have kept it from every one else.”
+
+“Yes, and increased your own suffering and danger, and diminished the
+chances of cure. And, Mr. Withers, you would have suffered more in
+concealing your illness from me than from any one else. You would have
+found more difficulty in it, and dreaded more the consequences of the
+constantly threatened discovery. Now you have a friend and confidant—now
+you will be at peace, will you not?”
+
+He drew her to his bosom and blessed her. A summons to supper now called
+all the company in. He arose, and drawing her arm through his own,
+entered the house.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+                                 HAGAR.
+
+          “The wild sparkle of her eye seemed caught
+          From high—and lightened with electric thought—
+          And pleased not her the sports that please her age.”
+                                                  BYRON.
+
+
+Let me pass briefly over the events of the next few years. Four or five
+weeks of solemn merry-making, dull dinners, and duller evening parties,
+completed the wedding festivities of the minister. An agreeable change
+had passed over the appearance of the minister—his countenance had lost
+somewhat of its gloom—his manners of their austerity, and his tones
+their hard curtness. Sophie’s demeanor revealed the sober cheerfulness
+befitting a clergyman’s bride. Raymond accompanied them everywhere, and
+everywhere was the delicate beauty, and gentle grace, and pensive air of
+the boy admired. Little Hagar also accompanied them. Sophie and Hagar
+had been so united—her care and attention had been so exclusively
+devoted to Hagar, that now that another claimed a larger share of her
+time and thoughts, and now that she felt the keen eyes of the
+sprite-like child jealously following her every motion closely, she
+loved Hagar with a remorseful tenderness—strange but natural. Mothers
+sometimes feel the same for the children to whom they have given even a
+good and beloved step-father. This is an illusion, and grows out of the
+false idea that our love is like any material and mortal thing, limited
+in quantity, and that what is given to one is necessarily withdrawn from
+another. Sophie took Hagar with her wherever they went, even to evening
+parties, where the child, with the obstinacy of spoiled children in
+general and her own nature in particular, refused to go to bed as long
+as Sophie sat up.
+
+There she would sit—the only child in a room crowded with grown
+people—alone, in a corner, quite neglected, her glittering eyes glancing
+around the room, and springing off in aversion when they fell upon the
+figure of Mr. Withers. She was beginning to hate him intensely, merely
+because he occupied so much of the time and attention of Sophie, whom
+she passionately loved. Her first interview with Raymond Withers is
+worthy of relation as characteristic of both. It was the night after the
+wedding, and a large party were crowded in the sober-hued parlor of
+Emily May. Hagar had been staying at the cottage for the last few
+days—and this night she first rejoined Sophie after her marriage. Here
+she was sitting, as I have described, neglected and apparently forgotten
+in a corner. Sophie could not well approach her, and Emily, ever
+thoughtful as she was, this evening had overlooked her, in her attention
+to her guests. The child’s wild eyes were gleaming brightly, fiercely,
+under her sharply projecting brows; her preternaturally developed
+perceptive faculties were at work. Refreshments had been carried around
+twice or thrice by the servants, and they had overlooked her. At last
+she saw, it was the first time she had seen him, a delicate,
+golden-haired youth, in deep mourning, enter the room. He went directly
+up to Sophie and remained by her side. The keen eyes of the child were
+immediately riveted upon him. There was a pensiveness, a thoughtfulness
+upon his fair young brow that seemed to isolate him even among the
+crowd. He stood by the side and a little behind Sophie’s chair, and
+except when he stooped to catch an occasional word from her, he stood
+unmoved and almost unobservant in the room. Once his eyes were raised,
+and their sad gaze chanced to meet the wild eyes of the little girl
+fixed with interest on his face. He bent down, and pointing to Hagar
+spoke to Sophie. Sophie’s glance followed the indication of his finger,
+then raising her countenance to his she answered him. He immediately
+separated himself from the party, passed into the supper room, and
+returning, walked up to the child, spread her handkerchief over her lap,
+poured into it a plateful of cakes and sweetmeats, and took a seat by
+her side.
+
+“Did Sophie send me these?” inquired the child.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why did you bring them, then?”
+
+“You looked lonesome, and dull, and I thought it would amuse you.”
+
+“Ah! I thought Sophie did not send them—she never thinks of me now.”
+
+“Why do you say that?”
+
+“Because it is true; she used to keep me always by her side, or on her
+lap; now for two or three days she has left me here with Mrs. May, and
+now that she has come, she scarcely speaks to me!” exclaimed the child,
+and her black eyes flashed under her sharp brows, and her white teeth
+gleamed under her upturned lip as she spoke.
+
+A soft smile hovered an instant around the beautiful lips and under the
+golden eye-lashes of the youth, as he said—
+
+“You look so like a little playful, spiteful, black kitten, that I am
+almost afraid of your teeth and claws—however—” and stooping down he
+daintily lifted the child and set her on his lap. Then he said, “I think
+you are a jealous little girl.”
+
+“I don’t know what ‘jealous’ is, but I don’t like to be robbed of what
+is mine.”
+
+“You are selfish, I am afraid, little one—who has robbed you?”
+
+“Mr. Withers has got Sophie, and now he may have her, for I don’t care.”
+
+“You are a proud little lady.”
+
+He caressed her straight black hair, adjusted her somewhat disordered
+dress, and began to crack nuts for her, but her eyes were fixed upon the
+group at the opposite end of the room, and suddenly she said—
+
+“I wish Mr. Withers was dead—I do so!”
+
+“Oh! horror!” said the young man, now really shocked. “Revengeful, too,
+Hagar! Mr. Withers is my father.”
+
+“Is he? I did not know that—I am so sorry—but, oh! he has taken Sophie
+away from me, and now I am _so_ lonesome,” and the child burst out
+crying.
+
+                “And where have you been, my pretty lad,
+                Where have you been all day?”
+
+sang little Miss Rogers, dancing up to them—“Come, Raymond! or I beg
+your pardon—_Mr._ Raymond Withers—for you hobble-de-hoys are awful
+punctilious about your dignity—are you going to stay here nursing that
+spoiled brat all night? We are forming a round game at forfeits in the
+other room, and we want you.”
+
+“Don’t go,” whispered the child.
+
+Raymond set her off his lap, arose, and apologizing to Miss Rogers,
+gracefully declined her invitation. The maiden pouted, smiled, threw up
+her head, and tripped away.
+
+“Ain’t you good, to stay with me, instead of going with her? take me up
+again,” and she held out both her arms to him.
+
+He smiled gently, and raised her, and how beautifully broke the glad
+smile over her dark, wild countenance, as she looked up in his face.
+From that hour the youth and infant were companions, confidants, and
+friends.
+
+At this time it was that the germ of a passion, fraught with much evil
+to the whole of Hagar’s life, took root in her heart—a passion destined
+by mal-cultivation to be fostered into monstrous growth—JEALOUSY; and
+this grew out of Sophie’s thoughtless concentration of mind upon her new
+duty, just at this juncture; it is true that this mood of mind lasted
+but a few days, but in these days the seed of evil was sown.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were settled at Heath Hall. The time occupied by them in the
+wedding festivities while they were inmates of the Glade—the guests of
+Mrs. Gardiner Green—was also improved at the Heath. Workmen had been
+sent thither, and the house put in some repair. The negroes had been
+called home from hire, and set to work in clearing up the grounds—piling
+the weeds, briers, and rubbish up—drying and burning them for manure—in
+repairing old and putting up new fences, &c. The brick wall inclosing
+the garden, and running round the very edge of the promontory, had been
+mended, the garden put in order, and the wild and desolate aspect of the
+whole place somewhat ameliorated. On the day of their return to Heath
+Hall, a dinner and an evening party of course, had been given, and that
+was the last. The next day they were left quietly in possession of their
+own home.
+
+There, reader! Northern reader, and city reader, you have now some idea
+of country weddings in middle life in Maryland and Virginia,—very
+different, you will admit, from city weddings. Raymond remained with
+them until the first of September, when his college term commencing, he
+returned to the North. Hagar grieved wildly after him, and threw herself
+upon her face when the packet in which he sailed disappeared up the
+river. His return to college had been doubtful, but was decided by an
+event that had occurred about two weeks after their return to the Heath.
+Up to the day of their return, the health and spirits of Mr. Withers had
+continued to improve. In a few days after their arrival, however—after
+the new moon, and as it increased to its full, the sleep of Withers
+became disturbed, his nights were uneasy, and his days gloomy—a deadly
+pallor settled on his face—his features became haggard, his cheeks
+hollow, and his eyes sunken and glowing in their deep sockets. Now
+Sophie’s heart trembled with uneasiness, now palpitated with alarm.
+Raymond was now ever at her side with words of gentle affection and
+cheerful encouragement—the boy seemed old and wise beyond his years, by
+the preternatural development by suffering;—he requested Sophie not to
+permit his father to perceive her knowledge that the terrible crisis of
+his malady was at hand, and they both redoubled their attentions to him.
+Daily his manner became more eccentric and alarming; he would sit at the
+table gloomy and glowering without uttering a word during the meal—then
+rising up he would walk off to the forest, or the beach—Raymond
+following him at a safe distance. Sometimes he would look back before
+leaving the house, remorsefully at Sophie, would return, take her hand,
+and then with a sudden change of mood—his green eyes scintillating
+sparks of fire—fling it from him with violence, and hurry off. Raymond
+grew hourly more wretchedly anxious on Sophie’s account. Day and night
+she was exposed, alone, to the danger of his violence. One morning when
+Sophie had come down to prepare breakfast, she found Raymond already in
+the breakfast-room—he advanced to meet her.
+
+“Where is my father, Sophie?”
+
+“In his chamber—he has not slept the whole night.”
+
+“Sophie! I wish to say this to you—there is a malignity in his madness
+now that I have never seen before—it is a new feature, and it excites my
+fears for you. Sophie, leave him here in my care, and go and visit your
+friend, Mrs. May, for a few days—_do_, Sophie.”
+
+“How, Raymond! was my pledge given, my mission undertaken only for easy
+and safe duty—was there any proviso made that as soon as it became
+onerous, or dangerous, it should be abandoned? No, Raymond, I will be
+firm through these dark days—they will soon be past, and I shall feel
+repaid.”
+
+“But your life—your _life_ may be endangered.”
+
+“‘Life’—why, Raymond, of what great value is _my_ life, that it should
+not be risked in a good cause?”
+
+“I do believe, Sophie, that it was your being brought up in that room
+papered with the martyrs, that has given this singular bias to your
+character—why, Sophie, the world knowing your history in connexion with
+my father, would consider _you_ the most insane of the two.”
+
+They were standing side by side at the window, looking out upon the
+bay—its rippling waves glittering in the morning sun, its dark green
+bosom relieved by the white sails of a packet moving up the river. They
+had not heard the entrance of Withers, who approached and stood behind
+them—his face pale, his livid lips compressed, his eyes drawn in and
+glowing in their deep sockets.
+
+“But, dear Sophie,” continued the youth, “we must think of some place
+for securing your safety.”
+
+In an instant the hands of Withers fell heavily upon his neck.
+
+“Perfidious son of a perfidious mother!” he exclaimed, shaking him
+violently, “her image in heart and mind, as well as in person—traitor
+and reprobate! would you wile the love of my bride away from me? would
+you teach her your vile mother’s sin?”
+
+The delicate youth was but as a reed in his grasp. Sophie sank pale and
+helpless into a chair. Now another figure appeared upon the scene—little
+Hagar stamping and screaming, upon the floor.
+
+“Let Raymond! let my brother alone! Let him go, I say! you old Satan,
+you. I—I’ll _kill_ you—I’ll scratch your eyes out,” and clambering upon
+a chair, and then upon a table, she sprang cat-like upon the back of his
+neck. Now he was obliged to drop his hold of Raymond a moment to shake
+off the little wild-cat—he seized her, and pulling her off, hurled her
+flying through the open window! With a cry of anguish, Raymond sprang
+from the spot—from the room, and hurried around into the yard. The fall
+was not deep—the turf was soft—and the lithe, agile child had lighted on
+her feet and hands. She sprang up as Raymond came, and running to meet
+him asked anxiously,
+
+“Are you hurt? did he hurt you, Raymond?”
+
+He lifted her in his arms, and hurrying around the back way, ran up
+stairs with her.
+
+“Oh, your poor neck—only see the marks of his wicked claws on your
+pretty white neck!” exclaimed the child, and she kissed and closely
+clasped him, and wept as if her heart were broken up and gushing through
+her tears. Then raising her head with eyes flashing through her tears,
+as the lightning gleams through the rain, she said,
+
+“Oh! the bad—bad—_bad_ man! I wonder what God lets him stay here for?”
+
+“Hush—you must not ask such sinful questions.”
+
+“But I _do_ wonder—I’m sure I wouldn’t let him stay here if I could help
+it.”
+
+“You must not think such wicked thoughts,” said the youth; but he
+himself was excited and anxious, and setting Hagar down on the foot of
+her little bed said,
+
+“Now, Hagar, you must stay here—you must not come near him again
+to-day—”
+
+“I’m not afraid of him,” interrupted the child.
+
+“No, you have the fire and courage of a young tigress; but you would not
+make him angry, and so endanger Sophie’s peace, would you?”
+
+“No—he shan’t hurt Sophie; if he tries, the next time I’ll get my claws
+in his eyes and scratch them out—_right_ out! and _then_ see who he can
+hurt!”
+
+“But you are talking of my father, Hagar,” said the young man,
+reproachfully.
+
+“Oh! so I am; _that_ is the worst of it.”
+
+“Now, Hagar, promise me to stay here till I come and fetch you, will
+you?”
+
+“Yes—I will do anything in the world _you_ want me to do, Raymond, just
+see if I don’t!”
+
+“Well, then, I am going to look after Sophie, and I will be back as soon
+as I can.”
+
+He found Sophie extended in a swoon upon the floor. Withers was gone. He
+raised her and bathed her face—she revived—he set her in the deep
+arm-chair.
+
+“Hagar?” inquired she, as soon as she could speak.
+
+“Is not hurt—has neither scratch nor bruise; she is in my chamber; I
+thought it best that she should keep out of sight of my father for the
+present.”
+
+“What is to be done—where is Mr. Withers?”
+
+“I do not know where he is gone, but _you_ must seek a place of safety.”
+
+“No—no—no—I will stay here; I think I understand now why his lunacy
+takes this malignant character towards you; you remind him of—but no
+matter—but _you_, poor bereft boy, you must return immediately to your
+college—I can deal with him better alone, I am sure.”
+
+“But, Sophie, you are nervous, _unfit_ for this; the spirit indeed is
+willing, but the flesh, the _flesh_ is weak; you swooned just now—you
+have not even the firmness and courage of little Hagar.”
+
+“No, not the firmness, or the _fierceness_; but I have the courage. It
+must be as I say; you must leave here; you are too much like—poor boy, I
+did not mean to wound you, indeed I did not—you must return to your
+college, and by the time you have finished your course there, the
+absence of exciting causes, tranquillity, and sympathy will have
+restored your unfortunate father to health; then you will return and we
+shall all be happy together—courage, Raymond! God is at the helm! we
+must not forget that. He will yet guide us safely through this rough sea
+and starless night; now, Raymond, go and seek him, watch him, but keep
+out of his sight.” He left her to do her bidding.
+
+By a natural reaction the madness of Withers now assumed another aspect.
+Late in the afternoon he returned and entered not _his own_, but
+Raymond’s chamber. Sophie was in their room, and heard him come slowly
+up the stairs, enter the adjoining chamber, and throw himself upon
+Raymond’s bed. She determined to go to him, though her every nerve from
+heart to extremities was trembling and quivering. She arose and entered
+the room; the white wrapper that she wore was not whiter than her cheek,
+as she sat down by the bedside, where his long thin figure, in its black
+suit, lay extended upon the white counterpane. But what a change had
+come over him! never even in his most rational moments had she seen him
+in such a mood; his manner was subdued, the expression of his
+countenance pensive, his tones gentle. No one that had seen him in his
+ordinary manner, hard, stern, harsh, and bitter, would have recognised
+him now—alas! this mood was as unnatural to him and as much a feature in
+his lunacy as was the other of the morning; it was but the reaction of
+his phrensy. He held his hand out to her, she took it and pressed it
+between her own.
+
+“I would not go into your room, Sophie, for fear of disturbing you, and
+you come to me. Alas! and you are so pale, you tremble so much, poor
+girl, I have nearly killed you, you will give me up now!” and an
+expression of anguish convulsed his countenance.
+
+“No, no, I will not; my paleness, trembling, swooning, is a matter of
+nerves, not of will; I cannot help it, but I will not upon that account
+leave you; my flesh shrinks, but my reason does not convince me of any
+personal risk.”
+
+“And there is none to _you_, none to _you_, Sophie, believe it: in my
+maddest moments I could not hurt _you_.”
+
+At this moment, Raymond, not knowing who was in the room, entered,
+started slightly on seeing his father on the bed with Sophie sitting by
+him, but quickly recovering himself, walked up to the bed, and inquired,
+as though nothing had happened,
+
+“How are you now, sir?”
+
+“Better, calmer, my boy—but oh! Raymond, my son, why had you not kept
+out of my way? You know, you _know_ the risk you run; think if in my
+phrensy I were to do you a fatal injury, what would my after life be?
+Sophie, you see how fair and wan he is: he was more robust once, but in
+my first fit of phrensy while he was trying to save me from rushing into
+the street and exposing my madness, I dealt him a heavy blow upon the
+chest, injured his lungs, and he has never been well since.”
+
+“But he will be well,” said Sophie, as, with her eyes full of tears, she
+turned and laid her hand caressingly on Raymond’s shoulder, “he will get
+well when he has finished his studies and returns home and finds his
+father restored to health.”
+
+“But will that ever be, Sophie?” sadly inquired the unhappy man.
+
+“Oh, yes, I am sure of it,” she said. “Why, though I do not know much
+about such things, yet it appears to me so reasonable that a malady
+concealed as yours was, should increase and strengthen, instead of
+subside, and that it should darken your mind, I am not at all surprised;
+and I believe that now, relieved by communication and sympathy, it will
+gradually leave you.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+This mood also changed in a few hours. As the moon waned he relapsed
+into the gloom and reserve of his habitual manner. By the vigilance of
+Sophie and Raymond, little Hagar had been kept carefully out of his
+sight for some days, and now when she came into his presence, in his
+abstraction he scarcely observed her. Sophie felt uneasy as the Sabbath
+approached. From the relaxed nerves of the lately overstrained brain,
+Sophie knew that he could not prepare a sermon, and knew not what excuse
+could be made, and wondered what had been his course in former
+emergencies of this kind. She knew _not_, that during the very fervor
+and exaltation of insanity he had prepared a sermon, which when
+delivered on the next Sabbath would electrify the whole congregation
+with its soul-thrilling eloquence. That sermon was the talk of the whole
+county for weeks. This, the reader knows, is not an uncommon feature in
+the exalted stages of mania. The “Song of David,” written during a fit
+of insanity by Christopher Smart, a poet of the last century, with a
+rusty nail on the walls of his cell in the madhouse, is one of the most
+elevated and sublime strains of sacred poetry I ever read.
+
+The first of September arrived. Raymond was gone, and the disbanded
+school of Sophie Churchill, or as we must now call her Mrs. Withers,
+re-assembled. It was continued for a few months until the end of the
+year, when Sophie found that she would have to give it up. In one
+respect a healthful change had passed over Mr. Withers. The violence of
+his periodical attacks of lunacy gradually subsided, but with this
+change grew another feature—an exclusive, absorbing, and constantly
+increasing affection for his gentle young wife. This, from his
+idiosyncrasy, became daily more jealous and exacting; he could not
+endure to have her out of his sight; he grew jealous, not only of the
+child who occupied a portion of her time, but of the very _business_ by
+which at least half their income was provided.
+
+At the commencement of the Christmas holidays, Sophie broke up her
+school. Soon after this she received a severe shock in the news of the
+sudden death of her sister Rosalia and her husband, both of whom were
+carried off by a prevailing epidemic. This news was communicated by a
+letter from a lawyer of Baltimore, which letter also informed her that
+Mr. Withers and herself had been appointed guardians of the person and
+property of Rosalia Aguilar. This letter happened to come when the mind
+of Mr. Withers was in its least disturbed state, and therefore in a few
+days from its reception, Sophie left the Hall for Baltimore, with the
+purpose of bringing home the little Rosalia Aguilar, the second orphan
+niece committed to her charge.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+                                ROSALIA.
+
+           “A lovely being scarcely formed or moulded,
+           A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.”
+                                                       BYRON.
+
+
+“Mind, Hagar, you must be attentive to your uncle, he is not well, my
+love, and you must do nothing to annoy him—now, will you promise me,
+Hagar?” had been the earnest injunction and question of Sophie as she
+was taking leave of little Hagar the morning of her departure for
+Baltimore. The child was silent and sulky. This argued ill.
+
+“Oh, Hagar! will you let me depart in anxiety of mind when I may never
+see you again?”
+
+Hagar was still inexorable.
+
+“Will you not be gentle and good with _Raymond’s_ father?”
+
+“Yes!” said she, raising her flashing eyes, “for Raymond’s sake.”
+
+Now it must not be inferred from this that there was unmitigated
+antagonism between the wild child and her solemn uncle-in-law, but there
+was that which was far more exasperating, a capricious and fretful
+attraction. Sometimes highly amused or deeply interested in the child’s
+strong, keen, and original genius, he would take her into great favor
+for days together, keep her always with him in his study, open to her
+hungry and greedy mind stores of food, win her affections, and then, at
+some fancied irreverence or impropriety on her part, would shake her
+from his hand as though she had been a viper, and drive her from the
+room.[3] And she would fly from the house, stung and suffering, to take
+refuge in the dark woods, among the grey rocks, or on the gravelly beach
+of the surging bay. The wild child took to the wild scenes of nature, as
+naturally as the squirrel takes to the trees, the bird to the air, or
+the fish to the water; and soon she was at home there, soon she learned
+to climb a tree with the swiftness and agility of a monkey; soon she
+learned, alone, to launch the boat, and wield the oar with a skill and
+grace that nothing but instinct could have taught, and in the very
+spirit of adventure she would make long voyages of discovery up and down
+the shores of the bay. And if a storm was brewing, if the sky was
+darkened and the thunder muttering in the distance, if danger was ahead,
+so much the more tempting and exciting was the voyage to the fearless
+child. The same spirit of adventure and inquiry would lead down a
+darksome forest-path, into the deepest dells, and most tangled thickets,
+and far away into the wildest solitudes of the wilderness; and the close
+hiss of a serpent, or the distant growl of a wolf, would only send color
+to the lips and cheeks, and light to the eyes of the girl, whose ardent
+soul panted for excitement. Do you ask where she got her fiery blood
+from? I do not know exactly, perhaps the spark was transmitted from some
+Egyptian long since. All I can tell is, that the same wild spirit of
+adventure had incited several of her ancestors from time to time to
+rebellion against church and state, had sent the founder of the American
+branch into the new country, and now occasionally broke out in a
+solitary member of the house, as in Hagar. And where was Sophie while
+her little charge roamed over river, creek, and bay, forest, moor, and
+rock, at large? Absorbed in the care of her lunatic husband, fancying
+Hagar safe at play, she remained in total ignorance of the child’s
+woodland sports and salt-water voyages.
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+  Some people who are not lunatics treat their children in a less degree
+  in the same capricious way; alternating unreasonable fondness with
+  unmerited harshness; and nothing can be more fatal to the temper and
+  character of a child.
+
+Sophie had fallen into that dangerous error so common to enthusiasts—the
+exclusive absorption in one duty, to the neglect of others. Sophie’s
+self-devotion would have been good as it seemed beautiful, had it been
+governed by _moderation_. It has been ingeniously said by Hassler that
+“from its position in the solar system, neither too close nor too far
+removed from the centre of light and heat—_moderation_ would seem to be
+the peculiar virtue appropriate to our earth”—and when one thinks of it,
+it would seem the one thing needful for a better reason than mere
+locality. Moderation is the moral gauge, the moral regulator, and should
+be president of the debating society of the passions, propensities,
+sentiments, and virtues. Moderation is to the heart what reason is to
+the head. Moderation is just precisely that hair line, erroneously said
+to be invisible, that divides the right from the wrong, good from evil,
+and virtue from vice. For see: courage is a good thing, but carried
+beyond the bounds of moderation it becomes rashness—which is a bad
+thing. Cautiousness is also good, but beyond moderation it becomes
+cowardice—which is bad. Liberality on the other side of the line of
+moderation is prodigality. Even religion, piety, which is most
+excellent, stretched beyond the line of moderation becomes fanaticism,
+superstition—which is anything but worship and honor to the Creator. I
+can quote Scripture for that, “Be not righteous over much.”
+
+Poor Sophie was “over much,” and hence her self-sacrifice was not, as it
+might have been, productive of unmingled good. To Hagar it brought much
+evil, not only by leaving her to the pursuit of her own wild pleasures,
+but in subjecting her before she could understand it to the caprices of
+an unimpaired intellect excited by a nervous and bilious temperament.
+Her sentiments towards her uncle were at the time of Sophie’s departure
+a singular and most exasperating blending of affection and anger, if not
+of positive love and hatred. He would take her into favor for weeks, and
+just as she was growing confident and easy in his affection, he would
+throw her off without a cause, and treat her with freezing coldness for
+other weeks; her first feeling would be a mixed emotion of sorrow and
+anger, and that would subside into a cold dislike, fostered by his
+unkind manner; and then just as she was getting to hate him comfortably,
+feeling quite justified in entertaining the sentiment and quite
+independent in consequence, lo and behold, some unexpected, and as it
+would seem to her, some undeserved act of kindness or tenderness would
+melt the iceberg in her bosom, and she could weep in very penitence for
+all the coldness she had felt and shown.
+
+When Sophie left the Hall, Hagar, according to her promise, tamed her
+heart of fire and gave every gentle attention to her provoking uncle,
+who was now in one of his morose fits by reason of Sophie’s absence, and
+therefore was very hard to be satisfied. A week passed away, during
+which Hagar’s short stock of patience was nearly exhausted by receiving
+in return for all her attention cold looks, short replies, and
+half-suppressed grumblings—the dark sky and muttering thunder of an
+approaching storm.
+
+Affairs were in this state at the Hall when the day of Sophie’s expected
+return arrived. The packet usually put out a little boat and landed
+passengers for the Hall upon the beach under the promontory. Early in
+the afternoon, Hagar’s falcon eye descrying a sail upon the bay, she ran
+down to the promontory, sped down the rocky declivity with the agility
+and swiftness of a kid, and stood upon the sunny beach to await its
+approach. The packet swiftly approached, stopped opposite the
+promontory, and a boat put out from her side, and was swiftly rowed to
+the beach.
+
+Hagar sprang to meet her aunt, who stepped upon the sand, leading a
+little girl of about three years of age, dressed in deep mourning. Hagar
+had sprang up into Sophie’s arms and given her a quick embrace, when the
+latter putting her down, said—“Kiss your cousin, Hagar.”
+
+“Yes, kiss me, Hagar,” said the little one, “kiss me, love me—I’ve got
+no mother.” And the large bright tears rolled down her rosy cheeks.
+Hagar caressed her as a kitten might caress a young dove, with its claws
+out. And the soft sensitive pet half evaded her wire-like clasp. “Oh!
+she is a city baby, used to be nursed by _white_ nurses, and to step her
+little soft feet upon pavements, and to play with dolls in
+dressing-rooms; she shrinks from me, whose play-grounds are the forest,
+rocks, and waters—and whose toys are bows, arrows, and guns.” And Hagar
+bent forward and gazed with her keen eyes into the face of the timid
+child as they walked side by side towards the ascent of the cliff. Here
+even Sophie’s hand afforded little assistance to the unpractised feet of
+the infant as she toiled up the steep and dangerous cliff, glancing with
+terror at the sharp projecting points of the rocks sticking up ready to
+impale her soft form if she missed her footing. Hagar gazed at the
+little frightened toiler, half in pity, half in amusement, until
+suddenly the devil leaped into the eyes of the wild child, and seizing
+her cousin, she swung her upon her shoulder, and springing from the spot
+with the bound of a kid, scarcely touching the points of the rocks with
+her light feet, she flew up the steep knobs of the cliff—while Rose
+clung to her neck in deadly terror, and Sophie raised her hands in
+awe-struck astonishment. Arrived at the top safe, she set her down,
+panting, and tenderly as she knew how soothed her alarm. But from that
+moment through all her after life, Rosalia feared and shrank from Hagar.
+
+Mr. Withers received Sophie with visible pleasure and affection; drawing
+her to his bosom and pressing a kiss upon her lips. But when he stooped
+to welcome her little charge Rosalia, he suddenly drew back, shaded his
+eyes with his hands, and gazed at her; then recovering himself, he
+welcomed the orphan with a few words of encouragement and re-assurance.
+
+After the children were in bed that night, and while Withers and Sophie
+sat by the parlor fire, he said, as if half musing, “The same intense
+blue eyes, the same golden hair, except that both are softer.” Then
+suddenly turning to Sophie, and speaking earnestly, he said—“Tell me, my
+guardian angel, is it an illusion of my wayward imagination, or does
+Rosalia resemble—resemble—?”
+
+“Raymond?” suggested Sophie, with tact.
+
+“Yes, Raymond,” he replied quickly. “You have seen it then, too?”
+
+“Yes, she _does_ resemble Raymond—but that may be from her having the
+same colored hair and eyes, and the same delicately fair skin—which she
+takes from her mother, my sister Rosalia, who was of that complexion.”
+
+“Yes—but the features, the expression, that peculiar arch of the
+delicate upper lip, that sweeping curve of the upper lids falling over
+‘eyes whose light might fix the glance of any seraph gazing not on God,’
+and the elegantly carved hand and arm, and foot—the very form and
+features of—of—” he paused and sighed deeply—“of Fanny Raymond. Yes, of
+Fanny Raymond, as I knew her when a child—except that this child has
+more softness, tenderness—more lymph, if one might use the expression.”
+
+“Why do you not tell me all about it, Mr. Withers; then you would feel
+better, then there would be freer conversation between us; no starts,
+broken sentences and misapprehensions.”
+
+“Why do you wish to pry into my secrets?” asked he angrily, and rising,
+paced the floor with moody air and a dark brow. After a while he
+returned and sat down. Sophie went and sat beside him—and obtaining
+possession of his hand caressed it as she said gently,
+
+“I do not wish to pry into your secrets, believe me I do not—I only wish
+to give you peace; after so long a time, do you not know me for your
+friend?”
+
+“Well, then, Sophie, do not exasperate me by questions of my past life;
+at some periods I have very little self-control, as you very well know.”
+
+His moroseness increased from this hour, until a day or two after his
+disease broke out in phrensy. His attack had reached its crisis, passed
+it, and declined into gloom as before. Sophie had successfully guarded
+him from public exposure. Again as before, a sermon written during the
+exalted stage of his insanity, had electrified the whole country. It
+seemed strange, but it was not unprecedented in the annals of insanity,
+that one who had well nigh lost his reason, should at some periods
+perceive the points of his subject with microscopic distinctness, and
+argue them with mathematical closeness and precision. It was less
+strange, that into this perfect body of logic, his burning imagination
+should cast a soul of eloquence, fire, and life. His fame was spread all
+through the neighboring counties, and crowds flocked to hear him preach.
+Could they at some seasons have seen his heart, or even entered his
+home! And yet they knew as much, and judged as correctly of him, as many
+of us know and judge of some around and near us every day. Still he
+accomplished much good. Sophie felt this, and took heart amid her
+troubles. Truth, pure _truth_, loses none of its force and point by any
+mode of conveyance through which it reaches its object. Truth diluted
+with falsehood, comes weak and faint through any medium.
+
+It would be vain to try to give you any fair idea of the winning beauty
+and gentle grace of the little Rosalia Aguilar, whom but to look upon
+was to love. She soon became the favorite of the whole house, from its
+solemn master down to old Cumbo in the kitchen. Hagar loved her at
+first, and tried to teach her to make and use little bows and arrows,
+and to coax her off to her forest haunts, or out on the bay; but when,
+after her repeated efforts, she found the gentle and timorous child
+still shrank from her offers of entertainment, she left her alone—and
+afterwards, when she felt that the loving little beauty was winning from
+her the little hold she had upon the affections of the household, her
+heart became bitter, and the jealous trait in her character grew and
+strengthened. More than ever she took to the desolate scenes about her
+native hall. She made wider excursions upon the bay, and deeper inroads
+into the forest—in the wild wantonness of her nature she would scale the
+most difficult rocks, and skim along the very edge of the most fearful
+precipices, or climb the tallest trees, and letting herself out upon the
+frailest branches, rock up and down between earth and sky, delighted to
+tamper with danger; or if the branch beneath her broke, save herself,
+monkey-like, by an agile spring and catch at the nearest bough. Thus the
+keen perceptive faculties of the child were only employed in perfecting
+her animal strength and agility. And Sophie? had Sophie quite abandoned
+her? No; but occupied with her unhappy and exacting husband, and with
+her younger and more helpless niece, Sophie seeing Hagar always well,
+left her very much to herself. And indeed the wild child was always
+rather beyond the control of her gentle relatives. Thus passed the
+winter.
+
+The close intimacy that had subsisted between the little families of
+Heath Hall and Grove Cottage, had been considerably interrupted since
+the marriage of Sophie. She wished to preserve the secret of her
+husband, and therefore rather discouraged the continuance of the
+hitherto almost daily intercourse between the families. Emily also felt
+an aversion to the minister that had an influence in severing the close
+intimacy of the friends. And Augustus, too, being in daily attendance
+upon a school three miles in the opposite direction, found little chance
+to visit his old playmate Hagar. Emily, however, though her visits were
+few and far between, still felt in all its devotion her warm affection
+for Sophie. Other neighbors, mere acquaintances, came occasionally to
+the Hall, and sometimes spent a day there, or a day and night after the
+manner of country neighborhood visiting, but from these careless and
+uninterested observers Sophie succeeded in keeping her misfortune
+secret. The two children were objects of considerable attention from
+these visitors, and the striking contrast of their persons, manners, and
+characters, noted and commented upon, _in their presence_. The winning
+beauty and sweet confiding sociability of the fair cherub, and the wild
+shy reserve of the dark child, were compared, and sagely commented
+upon—and conclusions very disparaging to Hagar, drawn by these
+superficial critics who did not understand her. Indeed the contrast
+between these two children was so striking, that they were never passed
+by strangers or servants without some such remark as this—“Rosalia is
+beautiful, lovely—but that other child is _very_ homely.” It is very
+wrong to make remarks on the personal beauty or ugliness of children in
+their hearing. The effect is invariably injurious. It is highly
+reprehensible to draw _invidious comparisons_ between the beauty of
+children, especially before their faces. This thoughtlessness is fraught
+with the direst consequences. When you say so carelessly in their
+presence, that “Anne is prettier than Jane,” and look at Anne as though
+her accidental beauty were a virtue, and look at Jane as though she were
+in fault—think that into the fertile soil of the children’s hearts you
+have dropped the seeds of evil—the seed of vanity in the heart of Anne,
+the seed of envy into that of Jane, and the germ of discord into both.
+Upon Rosalia and Hagar these thoughtless remarks were producing the
+worst effects. Rosalia, loved, petted and praised, by the family, the
+servants and visitors, with all her gentleness and sweetness, was
+growing vain, selfish, and sensual—and loved best of all things to lie
+in some old lady’s soft lap and suck sugarplums, while the said old lady
+caressed and praised her. And she was a most endearing child; unlike
+other spoiled and petted children, she never gave way to temper—she was
+much too gentle for that. She was penetrable, sensitive, not high
+spirited. Sometimes in his wilful moods Mr. Withers would repulse her,
+though never with the asperity with which he drove Hagar from his
+presence; and she would weep, and come back, and coax and caress him
+until the madman, subdued by the power of love, would take her to his
+bosom—where nestling herself cosily, she would fall into the deep
+sleep—the reaction of her excitement; while his own stormy soul,
+mesmerized, would subside into calmness. And daily his love for her and
+his aversion to Hagar increased. Upon Hagar, too, these influences were
+producing the worst effects. Jealousy and suspicion of the few she
+loved, scorn and contempt for the opinions of others—neglect of her
+person as little worth attention, and a morbid desire to be loved
+exclusively—these were some of the evil fruits of her mal-education.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+                               THE ATTIC.
+
+    “An old joy of childhood and youth, a cat-like love of garrets.”
+                            EMERSON.
+
+
+One more circumstance, patient reader, and I have done tiring you with
+the squabbles of children. It was one that more particularly introduced
+Hagar to the notice of Mrs. May, and saved her from degenerating quite
+into a savage. It occurred some time after the events recorded in the
+last chapter. But just let me briefly sum up the history of the
+intervening time. The disease of Mr. Withers had changed in these
+respects—he was no longer subject to violent outbreaks; but his malady,
+wanting that vent, had only deepened into gloom and moroseness. He had
+lost his eloquence and power in the pulpit to that degree, that a curate
+had to be appointed to assist him, and his pay deducted from the
+minister’s small salary. This curate boarded with Emily. The farm, only
+partly reclaimed, had been suffered to relapse into desolation. The
+income arising from Sophie’s school had been, of course, cut off at its
+discontinuance; and the family at Heath Hall found themselves in
+straitened circumstances. This was felt more heavily, as the continued
+exactions of Mr. Withers upon the time and attention of his gentle and
+complying wife, left her little opportunity for those economies and
+contrivances by which a thrifty housekeeper makes the most of a narrow
+income. Raymond had not once visited the Hall, though he frequently
+wrote. Emily May, repulsed by what she supposed the coldness of Sophie,
+altogether absented herself.
+
+Gusty was absent on a voyage with his uncle, Lieutenant Wilde, who had
+made one visit to Grove Cottage, but without calling upon or even
+inquiring after Sophie.
+
+It was just before the expected return of Gusty, near the close of the
+winter, when Hagar was driven in from her rambles by the arising of a
+furious storm. She betook herself to the garret, her place of refuge in
+times of trouble. Poor little Rose, repulsed by the gloom and ill-temper
+of “uncle,” had already hidden herself there; and the children sat
+before the fireless hearth—the desolate children in the desolate scene.
+It was a large, low, square room, with two deep dormer windows facing
+the east, and looking far out upon the bay—with a dark cuddie under the
+eaves of the western wall—with a rude fire-place on the south, and
+opposite on the north, the door leading from the room into the narrow
+passage and down the stairs. The walls were very dark, and the
+plastering broken here and there. Between the two dormer windows, and
+close to the floor, was a large crevice in the wall, through which you
+might look into the long dark space between the wall and the edge of the
+roof, a space corresponding to the cuddie on the opposite side. Strange
+sounds were sometimes heard in this place, and through the crevice.
+Hagar, that child of shadows, would look with mysterious awe—for with
+its boundaries lost in obscurity, to her it seemed a dark profound
+sinking through the house down to the centre of the earth, while her
+imagination loved to people it with ghosts, gnomes, and all the
+subterranean demons she had read of in her favorite book, the Arabian
+Nights. “Listen! listen to the spirits,” she would sometimes whisper in
+wantonness to her little cousin.
+
+“I hear nothing but the rats in the cuddie,” would the matter of fact
+Rose reply. The floor of the attic was bare, the planks rude and rough,
+and worn apart in some places, leaving dark apertures, down which Hagar
+would look as into an interminable abyss, the haunt of her favorite
+gnomes. There was no furniture in this room except an old trunk without
+a top, that sometimes served Rosalia for a baby-house, and sometimes
+reversed, for a seat. Upon this trunk the children were now seated. The
+storm still raged around the old house-top—the shingles were reft off,
+whirled aloft, and sent clattering like hail-stones to the ground; the
+wind howled and shrieked about the walls, and the old windows and
+rafters writhed and groaned in the blast, like the wail of lost souls,
+and the laugh of exultant fiends. The rain was dashed in floods against
+the crazy windows, and the children sprinkled through their crevices.
+The water began to stream from the leakages in the ceiling, and to
+collect in puddles in the corners of the room. These puddles enlarging
+and approaching each other, threatened to overflow the floor. The
+children drew their trunk upon the fireless hearth. Rose’s little chubby
+arms and legs were red with cold.
+
+“Oh! how the wind’s a-blowing. I am almost frozen,” wept Rose. And they
+were. “Let’s go into the parlor,” suggested Rose.
+
+Hagar looked at her with astonishment, that she should propose to “beard
+the lion” in his present mood.
+
+“Yes, into the parlor,” persisted the child. “I’ll bet you anything that
+uncle will let us stay in the parlor this evening, and warm ourselves at
+the fire; it is so very cold, you know.”
+
+“Well! it is _my_ house, anyhow, and so for your sake, Rose, we _will_
+go down.”
+
+And hand in hand the shivering children left the attic, passed down four
+flights of back stairs, and went to the parlor door, and Rosalia peeped
+timidly in. It was the same old parlor, papered with the Christian
+martyrs that I have before described; and there sat the tall thin figure
+of Mr. Withers, dark, solemn, and lowering; and opposite sat Sophie,
+with her soft brown eyes bent over her knitting. And, oh! sight of
+luxury to the half-frozen child,—there was a glorious, glowing hickory
+fire, crackling, blazing, and roaring in the chimney. The children
+opened the door and passed in, carefully closing it after them; they
+approached the fire, Hagar with an air of defiance, Rose with a look of
+deprecation. Sophie looked at the children with remorseful tenderness,
+and made room for them, unluckily, between herself and Withers, thereby
+attracting his attention. He turned, and knitting his brows until they
+met across his nose, and fixing his eyes sternly on the children, he
+asked, in a rough tone—
+
+“What are you doing here?”
+
+“Warming ourselves!” exclaimed Hagar, raising her eyes, flashing, to his
+face.
+
+He frowned darkly on her, and half started from his seat, while Rose
+cowered at her side, and Sophie grew pale.
+
+“Be off with yourselves,” he said, in a stern under tone.
+
+Hagar planted her feet firmly on the ground, while Rosalia slunk away.
+Sophie arose, and saying, in a low tone, “Take Rose to the kitchen fire,
+dear Hagar,” prepared to follow them.
+
+“Come back, Sophie!” exclaimed Withers, in an excited tone. And she sat
+down with a patient, despairing look, merely motioning to Hagar by an
+imploring gesture, to leave the room.
+
+“Well! let’s go into the kitchen and warm ourselves at Aunt Cumbo’s
+fire,” suggested the ever hopeful Rosalia.
+
+They left the parlor by a back door that led through a sort of closet
+into the kitchen. The storm was still raging, but a good fire was
+burning on the kitchen hearth, and the tea-kettle was singing over the
+blaze, and old Cumbo was standing at a table kneading dough.
+
+“Are you going to have biscuits for supper, Aunt Cumbo?” asked Rosalia,
+in a coaxing tone, as she approached the table.
+
+“Now, what you comin’ out here botherin’ arter me for, when I am gettin’
+supper—go ’long in de house wid you.”
+
+The old woman happened to be in a bad humor.
+
+“But, Aunt Cumbo, we are cold—we want to warm ourselves,” coaxed Rose.
+“Mayn’t we warm ourselves by your fire?”
+
+“No, no, no! kitchen ain’t no place for white children, no how you can
+fix it, so go ’long in wid you.” And the rough old woman came bustling
+up to the fire-place, drove the little girls away, and began to set her
+spider and spider lid to heat.
+
+“No; this _is_ no place for us,” said Hagar, who disdained a controversy
+with a menial; and the children left the passage.
+
+Rosalia’s teeth were chattering, and she felt as though the cold had
+reached her heart.
+
+“I wish that we were both dead, Hagar,” said she, in a whimpering tone.
+
+“I don’t,” said Hagar, looking half in pity, half in scorn, at the
+wailing child. “Nor must you. You must live. You are to marry the
+President of the United States, you know.”
+
+“Oh, yes!” exclaimed the vain child, suddenly brightening up, “so I am!
+Cumbo, when she ain’t cross, says I’m pretty enough to marry him or his
+betters! And then, Hagar! oh, Hagar! then I am going to have a good fire
+all the time, in every room in the house; and I will wear _whole_ shoes
+and stockings _every_ day, and _always_ have biscuits for supper.
+And—never mind, Hagar, you shall live with me, too; and when I think of
+that, oh, Hagar! When I think of that, I have such a—such a—what do you
+call it, that keeps people up, and keeps ’em alive?”
+
+“Hope.”
+
+“Yes! ‘never give up.’ You know Gusty Wilde says ‘never give up,’ and I
+am agoing to ‘never give up.’ I am going down into the cellar, now, to
+pick up chips. Tarquins has been down there sawing wood, and I know
+there must be chips there; and we can pick up enough to make us a fire,
+and we can make a nice fire and tell stories.”
+
+And with the elasticity of childhood she led the way down to the cellar.
+It was a large, dark, musty old place, with an area partitioned off, in
+which milk, butter, fresh meat, &c., were kept in summer; in winter it
+was usually two feet deep in water; now, however, it was nearly dry. It
+was originally intended for a kitchen, and was built in the
+old-fashioned English style, with a large grate in the fire-place, with
+ovens each side, having heavy iron doors. These deep ovens, the bounds
+of which were out of sight in the darkness, seemed to Hagar like the
+entrances to subterranean caverns, the abode of ghosts. To Rose they
+were merely brick closets, that smelt very musty and unpleasant. The
+brick pavement of the cellar was decayed away, and green with mould. It
+was, however, a favorite resort with the children, for there they were
+free from persecution. They entered, and Rosalia began to fill her apron
+with chips, when Hagar spied an old worn-out flag basket, and drew it
+towards them. They both went to work, and soon filled the little basket,
+and Rosalia, taking it up in her chubby arms, began to toil up stairs
+with it. Hagar would have taken it from—but “No, Hagar,” said she, “I am
+afraid to go into the kitchen again. I’ll carry this, and _you_ go and
+steal a coal of fire, and bring the broom, so that we can sweep up the
+slop.”
+
+Hagar went into the kitchen, which she found vacant. Cumbo had gone to
+the spring. Taking a coal of fire in the tongs, and seizing the broom,
+she fled up stairs into the attic, where little Rose was already busied
+in clearing the damp rubbish from the fire-place. She received the coal
+from Hagar, and kneeling down, placed it on the hearth, collected around
+it the smallest chips, and blew it. A little blaze soon flickered on the
+hearth. She continued to add more chips as the weak flame would bear it.
+In the meantime Hagar had swept up the room. The storm had subsided. The
+little fire was burning cheeringly. The children drew the old trunk
+before it, and sat down, their arms around each other’s waist; their
+little toes stretched out to the fire; their countenances wearing that
+satisfied consciousness of having toiled for and won the comforts they
+were enjoying. And after all, it was but a little fire in a dreary old
+attic. They were not permitted to enjoy this long. Steps were heard
+approaching their retreat. The door opened, and Tar, or as he called
+himself, Tarquinius Superbus—the colored boy of all work—entered. Rose
+ran to her basket of chips, and placed herself before it.
+
+“What you dem do wid dat broom you stole from de kitchen, you little
+thieves, you? Nex’ time you gim me trouble for come up here arter you
+dem’s nonsense, I tell Mrs. Widders, an’ ef dat don’t do I tell _Mr._
+Widders—_you_ see!”
+
+With that he espied the broom, and in going around to take it, his eyes
+fell upon the little fire, and the small basket of chips. Poor Rose
+looked guilty and dismayed, but held desperately on to her property.
+Hagar watched him with a steady eye.
+
+“My good gracious ‘live—did any _soul_ ever see de like? What _will_ Mr.
+Widders say? A-wastin’ all de wood! Here’s chips enough to kindle all de
+fires in de mornin’.”
+
+And with a perspective glance at his morning’s work, when the basket of
+chips would be very convenient, the rude boy stooped down to take
+possession of the prize. Rosalia held tight her treasure. He jerked it
+from her, and in doing so, tore her little tender arms with the rough
+flags of the old basket. Having lost his temper in the struggle, the boy
+then went to the chimney, and taking the tongs, scattered the blazing
+chips, and raking the damp rubbish from the corners, extinguished the
+fire. Then with his prize he marched out of the room. Rose was sobbing
+and wiping the blood from her wounded arm. Hagar was still and silent,
+but the fire was kindling in her dark eyes; her gipsy blood was rising;
+at last she started after him, overtook him half way down the stairs,
+and seized the basket; he pulled it from her hold and fled, she pursuing
+him into the kitchen. To end the matter, he went up to the chimney,
+turned up the basket, and shook down the chips into the fire. Her gipsy
+blood was up! She ran to him as he was stooping over his work of wanton
+cruelty, and giving him a sudden push, sent him into the fire. The
+basket was crushed under his hands, and saved them from being badly
+burnt. He struggled, recovered himself, and arose. Just at this moment
+Cumbo re-entered the kitchen, and Rosalia, who had followed her cousin,
+came in.
+
+“What’s de matter now?” inquired the old woman.
+
+Hagar was too proud and Rosalia too frightened to speak.
+
+Tar gave an exaggerated account of the whole affair, as he brushed the
+smut and ashes from his sleeves. He dwelt particularly on the _waste_
+with which “de childer had burned up all de light wood for kindlin’.”
+
+Cumbo turned up the whites of her eyes in horror at the depredation.
+
+“It was only a few little chips that we picked up, and they were damp;
+and see how he scratched my arms!” said Rosalia, holding them up to
+view.
+
+Cumbo having sent in supper, felt herself in a better humor; and thought
+herself prepared to render judgment with marvellous impartiality and
+wisdom, which, seating herself, and resting her hands on her knees, she
+did to the following effect:
+
+“Tarquinus Perbus, you go right in house an’ wait on table. Massa
+Widders, he callin’ for you. An’ Rose, you putty little angel, you come
+here an’ sit on old mammy’s lap, and toast your poor little footy toes
+before dis nice fire; mammy’s got a warm biscuit for you in her bosom,
+too. An’ Hagar, you ugly, bad ting, go long right trait out dis here
+kitchen wid yourself. You’re so bad I can’t a-bear you—but ugly people
+always _is_ bad.”
+
+Now, if she had said bad people always are ugly, she might have come
+nearer the truth, or at least taught a better lesson.
+
+“I did not make myself, God made me,” said Hagar.
+
+“He didn’t! he never made anything half so ugly and bad! De debil made
+you. _He_ made my beautiful, lovely, good little Rose. Some ob dese days
+she shall be de Presiden’s wife, and _you_—you shall be her waitin’
+maid, cause nobody’s ever gwine to marry _you_—you’re too ugly and
+hateful. Go long straight out dis here kitchen now, I don’t want nuffin
+’tall to do wid you.”
+
+Hagar left the kitchen, casting back a look of inquiry at Rosalia; but
+the little girl was petted, coaxed, flattered, and tempted by the warm
+fire, and the prospect of the nice biscuit, and preferred to keep her
+seat.
+
+Hagar took her lonely way up the four flights of stairs that led to the
+attic. Arrived there she sat down moodily upon the trunk, resting her
+elbows upon her knees, and holding her thin face between the palms of
+her hands; her black elf locks were hanging wildly about her shoulders,
+and her eyes were wide open, and fixed upon the floor in a stare. She
+was bitterly reflecting that with a really kind-hearted aunt she was
+suffering all the evils of orphanage, abused by menials, pinched with
+hunger, and half frozen with cold. She was wondering, too, how it was
+that the good God had made her so ugly that she could not be loved, and
+therefore could not be good. Poor child, she never dreamed of general
+admiration, she only wished to be loved; and she had no one to tell her
+that the beauty which wins permanent affection is the beauty of
+goodness; that goodness will soften the hardest, and intellect light up
+the dullest features; that though physical beauty may excite passion,
+and intellect attract admiration, only goodness can win everlasting
+love. Within the last few months, such scenes as I have described were
+constantly occurring, and their evil influence fell on all the
+children’s after life. Some of the most serious defects in their
+characters, some of the most deplorable errors in their conduct, and the
+most dreadful misfortune of their lives, might be traced back to the
+injudicious, careless remarks of visitors, and the capricious blame or
+praise of servants, to whose care or neglect they were so much left.
+When I recollect the strong and decided bias given in childhood to my
+own character by people and circumstances over which I had no sort of
+control, and against whose evil influence I could make no sort of
+resistance; when I suffer by the effect of impressions received in
+infancy, which neither time, reason, nor religion have been able to
+efface—which only sorrow could impair by bruising the tablet; knowing as
+I know the tender impressibility of infancy, feeling as I feel the
+indelibility of such impressions, I tremble for the unseen influences
+that may surround my own young children—aye, even for the chance word
+dropped by stranger lips, and heard by infant ears; for that word may be
+a fruitful seed that shall spring up into a healthful vine, or a upas
+tree, twenty years after it is sown. Infancy is a fair page upon which
+you may write—goodness, happiness, heaven, or—sin, misery, hell. And the
+words once written, no chemical art can erase them. The substance of the
+paper itself must be rubbed through by the file of suffering before the
+writing can be effaced. Infancy is the soft metal in the moulder’s
+hands; he may shape it in the image of a fiend, or the form of an
+angel—and when finished, the statue hardens into rock, which nothing but
+the hammer of God’s providence can break; nothing but the fire of God’s
+providence can melt for re-moulding.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+                                 GUSTY.
+
+         “Thine was the shout! the song! the burst of joy!
+           Which sweet from childhood’s rosy lips resoundeth,
+         Thine was the eager spirit naught could cloy,
+           And the glad heart from which all grief reboundeth.”
+                                             MRS. NORTON
+
+
+There she sat motionless. The only sounds were the beating of the rain
+against the windows, and the racing of the rats through the cuddies. At
+last the noise of footsteps tearing up the stairs, and a voice shouting
+a sea-song startled the wild girl—she looked up just as Gusty Wilde
+burst into the room, and running up to her, caught her around the neck,
+and gave her a boisterous salute, exclaiming breathlessly,
+
+“I just got home last night, Hagar! and have been wanting to run over
+and see you so much, but mother detained me this morning, and I
+couldn’t, but you see as soon as the storm subsided a little I ran over
+here, ’specially as mother gives me a tea-party this evening in honor of
+my coming home. She has baked a plum cake, and I have brought you home a
+monkey; so, Hagar, you must return with me. I came on purpose to fetch
+you; _you_ won’t be afraid to cross the swollen river.”
+
+He was a fine, noble looking boy, stoutly built, with a full face, rosy
+complexion, clear merry blue eyes, and an abundance of soft yellow curls
+clustering thick around a brow of almost feminine whiteness. He wore a
+sailor’s blue jacket, white trousers, and tarpaulin hat. He looked at
+Hagar for her answer. Observing now for the first time the girl’s
+disconsolate air, he sat down beside her, pulled off his tarpaulin hat,
+and placing it between his knees, put his arm quietly around the neck of
+the child, and kissing her dark brow gently, inquired,
+
+“Hagar, what is the matter?”
+
+She did not reply, but remained in her first posture with her elbows on
+her knees, her chin propped up by her hands, and her black elf locks
+streaming down each side of her face. He gently put her hair back from
+her face, and tucking it behind her ears, asked kindly,
+
+“Where is Rosalia, Hagar, and why are you up here in this cold, damp
+room alone?”
+
+“How did you know that I was here?”
+
+“I met Tarquinius in the entry as I came in the house, and inquiring for
+you the first one, he told me you were here—then I ran in, upset Father
+Withers in my haste, kissed Sophie, and breaking away ran up here to
+find you. But where is Rosalia? I expected to find her with you?”
+
+“Rosalia is in old Cumbo’s lap warming herself before the kitchen fire,
+and eating biscuits—and I—am I not always alone—when storms and floods
+drive me to the house; but _they_,” added she, “shall not send me in
+again; the wild beasts bear their raging, and so will I.”
+
+“Why don’t you stay in the parlor?”
+
+“In the parlor?” laughed the girl, bitterly; “Mr. Withers’s mastiffs and
+bulldogs stay in the parlor, the old tabby cat reposes on the rug before
+the parlor fire, and Aunt Sophie’s pet rabbit has its cushion in the
+corner, but I, I am a parlor ornament, ain’t I?”
+
+“Oh! Hagar, don’t do so! it is so very ugly in a little girl to act that
+way, laughing and jibing and jeering with so much scorn and bitterness.
+Now tell me why you are banished from the parlor, if you _are_
+banished.”
+
+“Look at me! this is the best suit of clothes I have in the world; do
+you think Mr. Withers is going to let me stay in the parlor looking like
+_this_, strict as _he_ is?”
+
+Gusty glanced down at her torn and rusty calico dress—and at her, and at
+her little feet protruding through her old stockings and shoes. Then he
+said seriously, as he looked at her,
+
+“Lord, Hagar, I don’t know now how I shall take you in that trim. But
+why, child, did you not stay at the kitchen fire with Rose? That would
+have been far more comfortable than this wet, cold garret.”
+
+“I was driven from the kitchen, Gusty—driven from the kitchen because I
+paid Tarquin well for hurting Rosalia—and only think, Gusty, _just_
+think, Rosalia, who should have stuck to me, remained with the old woman
+who drove me off for protecting _her_,” and the girl turned her eyes
+flashing with scorn and bitterness towards the boy, who remarked—
+
+“Rose did that, Hagar? It was not like Rose to do that. I shall not love
+Rose if she becomes mean and selfish; but it can’t be so; something
+remains to be explained.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” laughed the wild child, “something remains to be
+explained—she was hungry and cold—and Cumbo offered to feed and warm
+her.”
+
+How unusual and how frightful is a sneer on a child’s countenance, and
+oh! what a tale of perverted nature it tells! After a while her
+countenance relapsed into its serious cast, and she said,
+
+“Since you left, Gusty, I have been quite alone; everybody has fallen
+away from me and gone to Rosalia. Every one dislikes or forgets me, and
+every one loves Rosalia.”
+
+“I have not fallen away from you, Hagar.”
+
+“No dear Gusty, _you_ have not—perhaps you _will_, though, when you see
+more of Rose—” added she, sadly and doubtingly.
+
+There was springing in her bosom the germ of that doubt of all things
+and all persons that in after life became a distinguishing and fatal
+trait in her character. Children are born with trust. The confidingness
+of childhood is proverbial, but like all other childish instincts, it is
+young and delicate, and easily crushed to death. Children _feel_ before
+they can _reason_, and the impressions of childhood being well nigh
+ineffaceable, the deceived and betrayed child is often parent to the
+sceptical and scoffing man or woman.
+
+“I will _never_ fall away from you, Hagar, nor can I see how Rosalia can
+draw me away. Can’t I love you _both_? And now, little Hagar, you must
+let me comb your hair and take you over to mother’s to tea. I should
+like to take Rose, too, but she is too tender to brave the weather this
+evening.”
+
+And in all simplicity he took from his pocket a little comb, and began
+to comb out Hagar’s elf locks. With wondrous skill he smoothed and
+arranged her long hair into a simple knot behind her head, and passing
+his hands two or three times over the surface of her hair, said
+cheerfully,
+
+“There, now, you little thing, why don’t you take pains with yourself?
+You look so much prettier, now that your hair is shining like blue-black
+satin, so that I can see my face in it. And, oh, Hagar! how I wish that
+they would let you come and live with my mother; mother wants a little
+girl so much, especially if I get my midshipman’s warrant and go to sea
+again. Oh, if you were only with mother, how good and happy she would
+make you—and you would grow pretty, too, for good girls always grow
+pretty. There, you are smiling! do you happen to know that you have the
+most beautiful smile in the world, Hagar?”
+
+“I know that Rosalia has, for everybody says so.”
+
+“Yes, Rose has a sweet, soft smile, like summer sunbeams on flowers;
+pretty enough, and common enough; but _your_ smile, Hagar—I’ll tell you
+what your smile is like. I have been at sea, near a wild coast full of
+frightful breakers, shelving rocks, dark cliffs, and murky caverns, with
+a stormy sea, a blackened sky, the whole landscape dark, gloomy, and
+terrible, until suddenly out breaks the sun, lighting up the scene which
+then becomes wild, grand, sublime! Such is your face, and such your
+smile, Hagar. I gaze breathless at the wild beauty of both.”
+
+Just at this moment, into the room broke Rosalia, and running up to
+Hagar threw her arms about her neck, exclaiming, breathlessly, while she
+thrust a biscuit into her hands,
+
+“Here, here, Hagar! I only just waited till she gave me the biscuit she
+promised, and then I came away and brought it to you! Here, here, take
+it, Hagar! I ain’t hungry—no, not a bit.”
+
+Thus would the sweet child’s native goodness sometimes break through the
+shell of selfishness that was crusting over it. Hagar, with one of her
+quick revulsions of feeling, burst into tears, and pressed the little
+one to her bosom, and Gusty, snatching her up in his arms, gleefully
+exclaimed while he ran around the room with her,
+
+“There, there, there! Hurrah! I knew it. I could have sworn my soul away
+upon the soundness of my little Rosebud! I knew there was not a really
+selfish drop of blood in little Rose’s tender heart!”
+
+Then returning and setting her down, he said, “Come, the rain has quite
+ceased, the sun is setting in golden glory, mother’s cake is done, and
+her tea is ready, and she is waiting for me, I know. Come, Rose shall
+go, too. I will carry her in my arms. And Hagar, you little savage, you
+can trip on before, and when I have got you both safe at the cottage, I
+can send word to Sophie, and keep you all night.” So saying he led the
+children from the attic.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Emily May was seated in the sober glory of her neat parlor, awaiting the
+return of Gusty. The round tea-table was covered with a white damask
+cloth, and graced by a little silver tea service. The plum cake stood in
+the centre. It was with surprise and pain that she received the
+children. Ignorant of the cause of Sophie’s neglect of them, she blamed
+her in her heart for it, and determined upon the next day to ride over,
+and use an old friend’s privilege of speaking to her upon the subject.
+The next day that visit was made, and Emily saw the wasted, sorrowing,
+patient look of her friend, the truth was partly guessed, and she
+proposed to take the children, and especially Hagar, under her own
+surveillance. To this proposition, Sophie tearfully and gratefully
+acceded. Encouraged by having gained this point, and incited by her love
+of children, she went a step further and proposed that both the children
+should be sent to the cottage as pupils, and share with Gusty the
+instructions of the young curate, her boarder. This plan was submitted
+to the decision of Mr. Withers, and having received his acquiescence,
+was immediately carried into effect. Soon the most favorable change was
+apparent in the children. Rosalia’s beauty bloomed like her type, the
+rose, refreshed by showers and sunbeams. Hagar’s black hair no longer
+hung rusty with exposure, in tangled elf locks over her shoulders, but
+was banded in satin-like folds. Their characters also seemed to undergo
+modification. Hagar retained all her individuality, her brave, free,
+wild spirit, her rather amazonian tastes, but lost the harshness and
+bitterness that made no part of it. Rosalia retained all her delicacy,
+her tenderness, yes, and sensuality, but lost the selfishness not native
+to her gentle character, or at least these things _seemed_ so. The evils
+growing in the children’s hearts were _cut down_; whether they were
+_uprooted_ or not is doubtful. Seeds of evil once taking root in
+children’s hearts are almost ineradicable. Years pass away.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are times when the current of existence frets and boils along the
+rocky channel of anxiety, among the rugged crags of care, grief, and
+wrong; there are times when it dashes thundering over the precipice of
+some awful crime or calamity—times when it stagnates in the fœtid
+marshes of indolence and despair—times when it winds on between the
+verdant banks of peace and amid the blooming isles of pleasure—and times
+when, scarce marked by ragged crag or verdant isle, it flows on without
+joy or sorrow, straight towards the ocean of eternity. Even thus calmly
+flowed the lifestream of Sophie. Relieved from gnawing anxiety upon the
+children’s account, she was able to give a more cheerful attention to
+her husband, and soon the more happy effects were apparent. The gloom
+into which he had fallen was dissipated by the sunshine of her smiles.
+She now became conscious of a calm, pure, and holy affection for him,
+such as angels may be supposed to feel for sorrowing man—such as we feel
+for objects we have nursed and cherished. This sentiment deepened into
+tenderness as she saw—what she could not fail to see—that as the rays of
+intellect emanated clearer and clearer from his brain, they but served
+to reveal the blackness of the shadow of death gathering thick and
+thicker around him. And it was beautiful yet sorrowful to see how as the
+sun of reason shone forth, all those clouds and fogs of selfishness and
+suspicion vanished from his mind. This is not strange or even unusual in
+the history of mental disease. It is a well known fact that insanity
+frequently entirely reverses the natural character; thus, under its
+influence the disinterested grow selfish and exacting, while the selfish
+become generous, the timid bold, and the bold timid, and most frequently
+the gentle and sensitive grow harsh and violent. His gloom softened into
+sadness, into seriousness, into resignation, which soon brightened into
+gentle cheerfulness, which but one thing in the world could ruffle, the
+sight of Rosalia Aguilar; then indeed the tide of memory, laden with
+bitterness, would flow over his soul filling it with sorrow. Upon this
+account Rosalia became a permanent inmate of Grove Cottage; while Hagar,
+no longer repulsed by the caprices of his disease, became his most
+assiduous, and next to Sophie his best beloved nurse and companion. Thus
+they “brightened the links of love, of sympathy;” _and this returning
+confidence and affection of her uncle, gave Hagar the antidote for the
+poison of her soul_. Thenceforth in Hagar’s vision “anger, hatred, and
+malice, and all uncharitableness,” were greater or less degrees of moral
+insanity.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+                               THE MOOR.
+
+           “—October, heaven’s delicious breath,
+           When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
+           And suns grow meek, and the meek sun grows brief,
+           And the year smiles as drawing near its death.”
+                                               BRYANT.
+
+
+It was near the close of a day late in the month of October. The level
+rays of the setting sun glanced across the green waters of the bay,
+tinting their rippling waves with emerald and jet—across the brown waste
+of the heath, mottling its rugged surface with gold and bronze upon the
+decayed edifice of the old Hall, painting its rusty walls in strongly
+contrasted colors of red and black, while its tall windows flashed back
+in lines of shining light the dazzling beams—and upon the distant forest
+whose variegated foliage reflected in topaz and in ruby light the day’s
+declining glory. It was a still, refulgent scene, the good night smile
+of nature. Presently the still life of the landscape was enlivened by
+two equestrian figures, descending the slope of the heath from the Hall,
+while their shadows stretched lengthening behind them over the dry and
+burnished turf. The figure on the right hand side was that of a youth of
+some eighteen years, clad in the undress uniform of a midshipman—whom on
+near view we recognise as our old acquaintance, Gusty Wilde May. By his
+side rode a beautiful girl of about fourteen years of age, in a graceful
+riding habit of blue cloth. She was rather full formed, very fair, with
+deep blue eyes, and wavy hair of pale gold floating about a forehead of
+transparent whiteness, with a soft, gentle manner, and a pleading air in
+the curve of her rosy lips and the downward sweep of her snowy eyelids.
+
+The youth and the maiden each rode a bay horse. They—the youth and
+maiden—not the bay horses—were conversing in a low tone as they ambled
+over the heath—
+
+“And this is all that has occurred during my long absence of three
+years.”
+
+“All, Augustus.”
+
+“Rosalia, what do you suppose were my emotions as I sailed down the bay
+this morning towards Churchill Point?”
+
+“Oh, I suppose your heart was full of happiness!”
+
+“No—every mile added more anxiety to the weight oppressing my heart as I
+drew near home, reflecting on the many and dreadful changes that might
+have passed over those I loved in these long three years, and _now_ I am
+happy, for, thank God,” said he, raising his cap reverently, “nothing
+but agreeable changes have passed over Grove Cottage and its inmates. I
+find you the sweetest little turtle-dove that ever folded its wings in a
+nest, domesticated with my mother, and forming a large portion of her
+happiness. I find my dear mother at thirty-five looking young and fresh
+as Hebe—and about—I am very much inclined to think—_tell_ me, Rosalia,
+_is_ my mother going to be married to Mr. Buncombe?”
+
+“I think so, Augustus—does that disturb you?”
+
+“Yes, Rosalia, it disturbs me—with _joy_! Dear mother—how devoted she
+has been to us, Rosalia! And now that we are all grown up, and do not
+need her constant care, and now that it may naturally be expected that
+before long we will all be getting mar——be getting separate
+establishments of _our own_—I am glad that there is no prospect of
+mother’s spending her life _alone_. And then to see how long the curate
+has waited for her! Ever since the first winter of his boarding with her
+while we were his pupils—now that is what I call genuine affection—very
+few men would have done that!”
+
+“Well, but, Gusty, he _boarded_ with her all the time—he had her society
+all the time—so what odds?”
+
+“True—I do suppose that was the secret of his patience. And now, Hagar,
+this singular girl, where are we to find her?”
+
+“She is out on the moor somewhere, with horse and hounds—she has been
+out all day.”
+
+Just as they spoke the sunset rays were intercepted by another
+equestrian figure. The slight, elegant figure of a dark complexioned
+young girl clad in a dark green riding habit, cap and plume, mounted on
+a jet black courser, came pricking over the heath, followed by a couple
+of beautiful pointers. In her hand she held a light fowling-piece, and
+at her saddle’s pommel hung a game bag filled with birds. As her falcon
+eye descried the youth and maiden, she bounded forward to meet them—she
+was at their side—and “Hagar!” “Gusty!” were the joyful words of
+recognition that simultaneously broke from their lips, as their horses
+nearly met in a shock, and he bent from his saddle, caught her to his
+bosom, and gave her a hearty kiss. It was a brother’s greeting to the
+sister of his babyhood. And—“How you have grown, Hagar!” “How tall you
+are, Gusty!” were the next words of surprise and pleasure that broke
+from their lips as they backed their horses and gazed at each other
+delightedly—“What a sportsman you are, Hagar!” “When did you come,
+Gusty?” were the next cross-question and remark spoken in the same
+breath by both.
+
+“I came scarcely an hour ago,” answered Augustus.
+
+“And you have been to the Hall?”
+
+“Yes, Rosalia and myself rode over to the Hall to see you—hearing that
+you were out, and we being impatient, could not await you there, so we
+rode out in search of you—but what a sportsman you are, Hagar! have you
+bagged anything? or only scared the birds and shot yourself?”
+
+“Enough for your supper, Master Gusty—and I guess that it will not be
+unwelcome—I rather think, it is some time since you have enjoyed the
+luxury of a canvas-back duck!” said the girl, with a dash of pique in
+her tone. Then raising her eagle eye to the sky, she quickly touched
+Gusty, and pointing immediately over head, exclaimed, “Quick, Gusty!
+look! do you see that speck—like a speck of ink in the dark blue
+zenith?”
+
+“Why, no! Who could see a speck in the zenith of such a dark sky as
+this—none but you, Hagar, whose gaze would make the sun bat his eyes!”
+
+She raised her fowling-piece, took aim, fired, and in another instant a
+rush and whirr of wings swooped down through the air, and a white
+pigeon, the hapless laggard, or perhaps the pioneer of some flock,
+dropped bleeding at their feet.
+
+“Admirable!” exclaimed Augustus.
+
+The wild girl’s dark eyes flashed under their long lashes, and her white
+teeth gleamed between her smiling lips as she noticed his surprise. But
+Rosalia gazed in tearful sorrow at the wounded and fluttering bird—and—
+
+“Poor, poor thing!” she said, “it was going home, thinking of no harm or
+danger!” and her tears fell mingling with and diluting the blood that
+crimsoned the white feathers of its bosom.
+
+“Ah! it was cruel in Hagar to kill the pigeon, wasn’t it?” inquired
+Gusty, derisively, relapsing into boyish rudeness.
+
+“No! I do not say it was cruel _in_ Hagar because she didn’t stop to
+think; but it was cruel _to_ the bird, poor, dear thing! Can’t you do
+anything for it, Gusty?”
+
+Now this was asked so naively through her tears, that Gusty, rude
+hobble-de-hoy, burst into a loud laugh, and at its end assumed gravity
+and answered,—
+
+“Yes, we can send for a surgeon!”
+
+Rosalia alighted cautiously from her horse, and kneeling down on the
+turf gazed mournfully at the glazing eyes of the bird—it fluttered
+violently once or twice, and then grew still. She burst into tears and
+sobbed convulsively.
+
+“Why, Rose!” “Why, what a baby!” exclaimed Hagar and Augustus in the
+same breath.
+
+“Oh! but, poor thing, what harm had it done? It was sailing so blithely
+through the sky, and now it is quite dead—not even gone to Heaven, where
+I wish it could go. I am sorry for you, too, Hagar, for I know you feel
+so bad about shooting the poor bird, now that it is done.” And suffering
+herself to be lifted into her saddle by Gusty, who had alighted for the
+purpose, she ambled up to the side of Hagar and held out her hand—“I
+know you are sorry, Hagar! are you not?”
+
+The face of the dark girl was sparkling with mirth.
+
+“No, my little white dove,” she answered, “not at all; and as for your
+bird, though its spirit is not probably yet in Heaven, it may be on its
+way there!”
+
+“What is that you say, Hagar?” queried Gusty.
+
+Hagar reined up her horse, and stooping, lifted the dead bird; she
+asked—
+
+“Where is the spirit, the life that animated this bird, Gusty?”
+
+“Why, _dead_, of course.”
+
+“Pooh! _this_ that I hold in my hand is dead, but the life—the
+life—where is that?”
+
+“Gone, of course, gone; where else should it be?”
+
+“‘Gone’—_where_?”
+
+“Where?—why, where?—why, gone—_away_.”
+
+“Thank you! perfectly satisfactory,” said Hagar, and her wild eyes
+flashed, and her white teeth gleamed with suppressed mirth.
+
+“Tell me—tell me, Hagar!” said little Rosalia, “do you think, _sure
+enough_, that birds _do_ go to Heaven? Sometimes _I_ think so, too; they
+are so beautiful and good, you know! But then the Holy Bible says,—‘The
+beasts that perish,’ therefore, of course, they must perish.”
+
+“Your first expressed thought may be not unscriptural, little angel—the
+_beasts_ perish; their _forms_ perish; but their _life_, through other
+transmigrations, may reach Heaven in the _human_ form!”
+
+“Why, that is the old doctrine of transmigration of souls,” said Gusty.
+
+“Not exactly, or rather, it is _more_ than that; for instance, I think
+that life continually _ascends_, never _descends_. It looks to me very
+stupid to suppose that a soul can _relapse_ into the form of a beast.
+No, life is never _lost_, but it continually _changes its locality_,
+always _ascending_; the various forms of life being the steps by which
+it reaches humanity—then Heaven. I have lived so much in the wildest
+solitudes of nature; I have seen so much _more_, so much _stronger_
+life-spirit _below_, than on a _level_ with humanity; I have felt it
+struggling up, through water, stones, and clay; through lichen, herb,
+and tree; through insects, birds, and beasts; up to its highest visible
+form, humanity; and I have grown to _dream_ that life-spirit is
+elaborated from matter; or if not so, that in the union of spirit with
+matter, spirit may be first incarnated in the lowest form of matter, and
+passing through its various stages rise to human, to angelic nature. I
+believe there is one life-God, and many lives; the souls created in His
+image—that these souls might not each have been created at a _word_, in
+a _moment_—but created, or elaborated through _long ages_. I believe
+that each soul retains its separate existence, its separate features,
+its individual self, unmixed as undivided through all its incarnations;
+for instance the spirit of a rose in ascending the scale of being will
+never enter the form of an eagle, or a lion. To illustrate nearer
+home—here is my gentle Rosalia, whose pure spirit, ages ago, might have
+slept in the pale light of a seed pearl; then, in the lapse of
+centuries, lived in the fragrance of the wood violet; then, through many
+transmigrations, reached the form of the dove, then a lamb, and lastly,
+is incarnated in the beautiful child before us.”
+
+“Then, if that were so, why can I not remember when I was a violet, and
+when I was a dove?” pertinently inquired Rosalia.
+
+“You cannot even recollect when you were an _infant_, little one—you
+cannot recollect all that happened last year, or last month; how should
+you be able to look back through a vista of past lives that the doors of
+many deaths have closed behind you. Perhaps at the close of your present
+life the whole vista may be thrown open, and you may be able to look
+back to the beginning. Oh, Rosalia! I remember that in the earliest
+years of conscious human existence, in infancy, my mind struggled as
+much backward for recollection, as forward for new knowledge.” She was
+silent awhile, and then pursuing the train of thought, she said,—“The
+analogy between material and spiritual nature seems to me to be perfect
+in all its particulars. I never saw a human being who had not his type
+in the minerals, in the vegetables, in the insects, in the birds, and in
+the beasts.”
+
+“What is my type in each?” asked Augustus.
+
+Hagar laughed as she replied,
+
+“You, Gusty, are so much modified by education—the widow’s petted
+child—that the stamp is nearly effaced, or at least smeared over;
+however, I can fancy you ascending the scale of being by these steps:
+mineral, bloodstone; vegetable, mustard; bird, the turkey; animal, the
+mastiff. There is, with all your strength, spirit, and courage, so much
+homeliness, domesticity about you, dear Gusty.”
+
+“And, Sophie, dearest Sophie, tell us all her incarnations.”
+
+“An agate—the sober-hued stone of which rosaries are made—then balm, so
+fragrant and refreshing in sickness, then the brown partridge, then the
+timid fawn, then _Sophie_.”
+
+“Good! that’s like her—now yourself, Hagar.”
+
+“The ruby, pepper, the falcon, the tiger. But these are fancies.”
+
+They rode on towards the Hall.
+
+“And oh!” said Hagar, “I tell you what character I admire—a spirit that
+has ascended through iron ore, oak, the elephant, into the form of some
+square-built, strong-minded, large-hearted, great-souled man!”
+
+“Heaven send you such an one!” exclaimed Gusty, dismounting to assist
+them from their saddles at the gate of the Hall. A servant approached to
+take charge of the horses, and leaving them in his care, our little
+party entered the house. Sophie received them at the door and conducted
+them into the parlor.
+
+It was just dusk, yet Mr. Withers, exhausted by illness, had retired to
+bed. It is years since we have seen Sophie, and she is somewhat
+changed—yet what her face had lost of infantile roundness and freshness,
+it had gained in intelligence and interest. She took her seat smilingly
+at the head of the tea-table and called the young people to seat
+themselves around her. When they were seated and served each with a cup
+of tea, she informed them that she had just written, at Mr. Withers’s
+request, to recall Raymond to the Hall, from the Theological college at
+the North, the preparatory school of which had been for two years under
+his charge.
+
+“And is it possible that he has never been at the Hall since he left it,
+the summer of your marriage, Mrs. Withers?”
+
+“Never, Gusty. He remained at college until he took his degree, and then
+passed immediately into his present business.”
+
+“He was a great friend of Hagar’s the little time he remained with you?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hagar, “_he_ loved me, _he_ never forgot or neglected me;
+even after he went away, in his letters to my aunt he always sent me a
+message until _I_ learned to write, and we have corresponded ever
+since.”
+
+“And Rosalia has never seen him?”
+
+“No,” said Hagar. “Rose did not arrive until after he had left us, and,
+as we have just told you, he has never been here since.”
+
+“And Rose will not see him now,” said Sophie, “for she leaves in one
+week for Boston for Mrs. Tresham’s school.”
+
+“And when,” inquired Gusty, “will Raymond be here?”
+
+“Not sooner than two or three weeks.”
+
+“Then Rose will _not_ see him?”
+
+“No, and I shall be so sorry,” said Rose.
+
+After further desultory conversation, they finished tea and arose from
+the table. Rosalia and Augustus remained all night, and early the next
+morning departed for the Grove Cottage. All the next week was occupied
+by Emily May in preparations for Rosalia’s departure, and, if it must
+out, in preparations for her own marriage with the Rev. Mr. Buncombe,
+the curate of the parish, the tutor of Hagar, Rosalia, and Gusty, and
+the boarder and suitor for many years of Emily May. It was for the
+purpose of getting her dear son’s consent and presence that she had
+waited these last three years, and it was for the sake of gratifying her
+pet child, Rosalia, that she now determined that the marriage should
+take place before her departure to the North. Captain Wilde, whose ship
+now lay at Norfolk, had also been summoned to attend the wedding, and
+arrived in due season. Of course Mr. Withers and Sophie had been
+solicited, and were expected to attend. Upon the evening of the marriage
+day, however, as Rosalia was performing for Emily the affectionate
+service of dressing her for the ceremony, a note was handed the latter,
+which on being opened and read was found to be an apology from Sophie
+for nonattendance. “Mr. Withers,” she said, “was very much worse, and
+required her constant care.” If there was another motive for her absence
+it was not acknowledged to her own mind, scarcely recognised by her own
+heart.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The quiet wedding was over, the routine of the quiet cottage scarcely
+disturbed by its occurrence, and the quiet bride and bridegroom had
+returned, the one to his studies, the other to her household affairs, as
+though nothing had happened. Captain Wilde had returned to his ship, and
+the pleasant intercourse between the Hall and the cottage resumed. The
+last night before the departure of Rosalia was at hand, and at the
+earnest request of Sophie, Mr. and Mrs. Buncombe had agreed to bring her
+over and spend it at the Hall. Augustus May was also of the party.
+Rosalia’s trunks had been packed and sent over early in the day, and in
+the afternoon the family from Grove Cottage rode over. It had been
+settled that Augustus May should attend Rosalia to the North. The packet
+that was to convey them to Baltimore lay at anchor under the shadow of
+the promontory.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when the carryall containing Mr. and Mrs.
+Buncombe, Rosalia, and Augustus, drew up before the gate of the Hall.
+Sophie met and conducted the party into the dining-room, where a feast
+had been prepared in honor of Rosalia’s departure. Mr. Withers, pale and
+emaciated, and propped up in a chair, was also present. It was her last
+evening at the Hall for some time to come, and so they sat up late. Mr.
+Withers, from extreme fatigue, retired early, but it was midnight before
+the remaining members of the party were in bed. Morning dawned,
+breakfast was over, adieux were wept and kissed, and as the first ray of
+the rising sun gilded the waves of the bay, Augustus handed and followed
+Rosalia into the packet for Baltimore.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+                      THE STORY OF FANNY RAYMOND.
+
+            “Have you seen but the bright lily grow
+              Before rude hands have touched it?
+            Have you marked but the fall o’ the snow
+              Before the soil hath smutched it?”
+                                                BEN JONSON.
+
+
+The disease of Mr. Withers daily advanced—his health so rapidly declined
+that he became exceedingly anxious for the arrival of Raymond, who was
+now hourly expected.
+
+“Well, Sophie, my gentle nurse,” said he one day, as she sat by his
+bedside, “your probation is drawing to a close. You have devoted
+yourself to me for eight long years, my guardian angel—to what purpose?”
+
+“To what purpose?—you have done more good in this parish than any
+minister who has preceded you for many years; for even Mr. May, with all
+his excellences, lacked that eloquence—that power of persuasion—that
+profound knowledge of and potent sway over the human heart, that nothing
+but sorrow can lend to intellect. Hearts have been moved and elevated,
+minds aroused and inspired by your wisdom. A spirit has been invoked in
+this dull neighborhood that may never be still again. I have often
+thought how infinitely productive is _one_ good word, or thought, or
+act, its influence extending down generations, still augmenting for
+ever.”
+
+“Ah! Sophie, but while all the light was shed abroad, the shadow was
+cast black and thick at home; and how it has darkened our home and your
+young life, Sophie!”
+
+“Some _must_ suffer for others,” said Sophie, abstractedly.
+
+“And _have_ you suffered so much, Sophie?” he inquired, sadly.
+
+“No!—oh, no!—I was thinking of _your_ suffering, not of my own, and I
+thought aloud.”
+
+While she spoke, Hagar entered from a ride, and brought a letter from
+Rosalia. When it had been read, and Hagar had left the room to change
+her riding habit, he said,—
+
+“How much that girl—I mean Rosalia, writes like one I know—her very
+spirit speaks through Rosalia’s pen, as her form is again before me in
+Rosalia’s person.”
+
+“You mean Fanny?”
+
+“Yes, I mean Fanny. You have never, until this moment, mentioned her
+name to me since the night of Rosalia’s arrival, when I angrily forbade
+your doing so. Often since that I have wished that you might, thus
+affording me the opportunity of telling you our sad story. I will tell
+you now, but first, will Hagar be occupied for the next hour?”
+
+“Yes, she has gone to her chamber to answer Rosalia’s letter.”
+
+“Give me a cordial, Sophie?” She did so, and revived by the stimulant,
+Withers commenced his story.
+
+“I was the only son of my mother, and she a widow, Sophie. She supported
+and schooled me by her own exertions until I was eighteen years old,
+when I fell under the notice of the Rev. Lenox May, who received me into
+his house to read theology with him. Subsequently I entered college, and
+soon after taking orders, I had the misfortune to lose my mother. She
+had lived to see the desire of her heart, however—her beloved son in
+holy orders. She had seen the ceremony of his ordination, heard him
+preach his first sermon, heard it universally praised as a miracle of
+eloquence, thoroughly believed it herself, and was ready to exclaim—‘Now
+let thy servant depart in peace.’ Sophie, I never was intended for a
+minister of the Gospel. If I have made a tolerable one it is because the
+hard blows of circumstances have hammered me into shape. Accident and my
+mother’s wishes made me one. However, soon after my ordination, I was
+called to the charge of a parish in a village on the Hudson, and the
+adulation I there received reconciled me to the profession. I was called
+handsome and eloquent. The church certainly flourished under my
+ministry. I was flattered by the circumstance _then_; _now_ I know such
+is ever the case when a young clergyman of tolerable ability is
+installed in a parish. But, Sophie, I was foster-nursed by the old
+ladies of the parish, and out of that grew all my sorrows. South of the
+village, on an eminence overlooking the river, stood the white granite
+villa of my wealthiest and most important parishioner, General Raymond.
+He was a widower, with one child—the child of his old age—Fanny, the
+sole heiress of his property. Religion, or rather, evangelical theology,
+was his passion. How sonorous rang his full-toned responses through the
+church, as standing, his stout form erect, his broad shoulders thrown
+back _à-la-militaire_, his chest expanding with self-importance, he
+called himself a ‘miserable sinner.’ On the first Sunday of my
+installation he invited me home to dinner with him, and with stately,
+old-fashioned courtesy conducted me to his carriage that stood waiting
+at the church-door, and there, as I stepped in, I first saw Fanny
+Raymond, then a child of twelve years of age, a lovely, little,
+shrinking creature, who squeezed herself quite into the corner as I took
+the seat by her side, as you have often seen a playful white kitten draw
+herself up between fear and defiance, and I instantly felt the same
+impulse to catch the lovely, shy thing to my bosom that you would have
+felt to play with the said kitten. So strong was this impulse that it
+must have spoken through look and gesture, and might have been obeyed
+but that the pompous old general followed me immediately into the
+carriage, and announced, “My daughter, Miss Raymond,” with as much
+ceremony as though the sweet child had been a woman of five-and-twenty.
+She sat there, watching me furtively, her sweet eyes flashing their soft
+shy light under the shadowy lashes, and quickly averted when met by
+mine, while rose clouds would roll up over her snowy cheeks. That sweet,
+shy spirit, whether in the violet, in the fawn, or in the timid girl,
+always attracted me, Sophie. It was your eyes, that meeting my glance,
+would startle and dilate in beautiful haze that provoked _your_ fate,
+Sophie. I would have given anything—my parish—the world, then and there
+to have caught the shrinking child to my bosom, and hugged, and kissed,
+and romped with her to my heart’s content. From that day I was a
+frequent, and always a welcome and an honored guest at the villa. Time
+passed, and I rose in popularity, winning golden opinions from all sorts
+of people, and especially from women. As long as a young minister
+remains unmarried, unappropriated, unmonopolized, he is sure to be
+popular; so _my_ popularity continued to increase for three years. While
+watching the development of the child, Fanny Raymond, I had sought the
+society of no woman. When Fanny was about fifteen years of age, I was
+sent for one day to the villa. It was to be put in possession of an
+attested copy of General Raymond’s will, by a clause of which I was
+appointed sole trustee of the estate, until Fanny should come of age. It
+was during this visit, and in the presence of one of the old ladies of
+the parish, that General Raymond remarked, ‘I am now upwards of eighty
+years old—I am failing fast; I should like to see Fanny married before
+my departure, but, alas! that is a comfort for which I dare scarcely
+pray.’ Up to that time I had not thought of aspiring to the hand of
+General Raymond’s heiress. It was my lot that evening to drive the old
+lady, my fellow-visitor, back to the village in the General’s carriage.
+It was during our ride home that the old lady, one of my foster-mothers,
+suggested to me the plan, the propriety of my paying my addresses to
+Miss Raymond, ‘For,’ said she, ‘it is the duty of a young pastor to
+consider in his marriage the welfare of his parish.’
+
+“I took her advice. I wooed Fanny Raymond—did I love her? No; but her
+extreme youth, her beauty and graceful shyness strongly attracted
+me—through that idiosyncrasy that lured me to the pursuit of such. I
+wooed her, but she avoided, fled from me. That added zest to the chase.
+I had her father’s interest, and I married her. I married her, despite
+of her reluctance, or rather _because_ of her reluctance, and despite of
+tears, prayers, and resistance. (Here notwithstanding the chastening of
+illness and sorrow, his eye and lip glowed as with the recollection of
+piquant joy.) I married her. The wild shy creature, full of emotion as a
+harp is of music, was in my power—in my grasp. Oh! the wild beating of
+my heart, when I had caught and held the fluttering bird! Did I love her
+now? Yes! as the fire loves the fuel it consumes. And _then_ she loved
+_me_, Sophie! or rather _no_, I will not profane the word that expresses
+_your_ pure affection for me, Sophie. But she grew passionately,
+insanely fond of me—she loved me as the drunkard loves the bowl he feels
+is his destruction—as the moth loves the flame that must consume it. And
+then, Sophie! _then_, she lost all attractions for me! From indifference
+I grew almost to loathe her. I struggled against this growing disgust,
+but it overmastered me. Poor Fanny! if she had not been the simplest
+child on earth, if she had possessed the slightest speck of coquetry,
+this aversion might have been delayed. Poor Fanny!” (Here, overcome by
+his feelings, he covered his brow with his hand. How quickly varying
+emotions chased each other through his heart; but this belonged to the
+high action of his disease.) “We lived with her father. Fanny became a
+mother at sixteen. General Raymond lived to bless his grandson, and then
+was gathered to his fathers. We continued to reside at the villa. I
+utterly neglected her. At the slightest display of fondness on her part,
+I grew freezingly cold. This was _real_, this was a feeling it was
+useless to struggle against, as I had found, and as at last she
+understood. Fanny grieved, suffered, and sought solace in her child. As
+years passed, she became calm, grew accustomed and reconciled to her
+lot; and how beautiful she grew as her day advanced from its morning
+freshness towards the noonday glory it was destined never to reach. How
+beautiful! At least all the parish said so. _I_ could not feel her
+beauty. Years slid serenely, imperceptibly, over us. We were prosperous.
+I had the largest property, the most elegant house, and the most
+beautiful wife in the parish. Besides which I had a growing celebrity. I
+was vain-glorious, Sophie, _not proud_. There is this difference between
+pride and vainglory: pride does _not_ depend upon the external
+circumstances of rank, wealth, fame; vainglory _does_. We sometimes
+speak of _mortifying_ pride; _pride_ is _never_ mortified; it is
+impossible—it holds itself grandly above all such influences; vanity,
+self-love, is _often_ humbled. I was vain-glorious, not only of my
+wealth, of my celebrity, of my admired wife—but most of all, of the
+_intact propriety_ of all things appertaining to me. Years slid smoothly
+over us. I never saw so beautiful a woman as Fanny was at thirty. Few of
+our women bloom into the full flower—most of them are withered in the
+bud. Fanny at thirty was the perfect rose of beauty. Why, Sophie, when I
+took her to New York city, or into any strange company, there was always
+a half-suppressed murmur of irrepressible admiration. Though I was no
+longer _proud_ of her, yet now that for long years she had ceased to
+worry me with her unwelcome caresses, there had grown up a calm
+friendship and confidence between us—she understood me, and _I thought_
+that I understood her. I never guessed the latent force of passion,
+augmenting while it slumbered in her heart (sleep is the time for
+growth), or suspected the burning lava, burning more fiercely for
+suppression under the snowy exterior of that volcanic bosom! As little
+dreamed I of impending ruin as the city under the shadow of Vesuvius!
+About this time the whole country rang with the name of one man. A man
+distinguished alike for the splendor of his genius, the audacious flight
+of his ambition, the godlike beauty of his person, and the satanic power
+of fascination that neither the honor of man nor the purity of woman
+ever withstood. You cannot fail to identify the man—but _one_ such is
+born in a cycle of centuries. One day I received an invitation to preach
+an ordination sermon upon the next Sabbath, in the city. I had, during
+the years of my ministry, received several calls to take charge of large
+city parishes; but always declined them, because our large property and
+our home lay near our village. Frequently I was invited to preach in the
+cities, and then wherever I went crowds gathered. I always took Fanny
+with me, for the beauty of the woman attracted quite as much attention
+as the genius of the man. Upon receiving this invitation to preach the
+ordination sermon, therefore, I procured a substitute to fill my pulpit,
+and taking Fanny, stepped aboard a steamboat on Saturday morning, and
+the afternoon of the same day reached the city.
+
+“It had been advertised that I was to preach at that church, and at an
+early hour it was crowded, packed. As I entered the church and led Fanny
+up the aisle, I do not know whether I was most vain of her or of myself.
+I know that my heart was swelling with vainglory as I opened the door of
+one of the front central pews under the pulpit, handed her in, and
+passed within the altar to my place. I saw from my high post that Fanny
+divided attention with me from the few who, packed into the end pews,
+could obtain a view of her. In the end pew nearest the pulpit, on my
+right hand, I was surprised and flattered to recognise the celebrated B.
+I had never had him for an auditor before. I observed that he did not
+seem to see Fanny, who sat immediately in the angle of his vision,
+notwithstanding _her_ eyes were ever furtively raking him. I was not
+surprised at this, for to say nothing of his celebrity, he was by far
+the most distinguished looking man present, both for the striking beauty
+of his person and the grace and dignity of his attitude and demeanor;
+but I _was_ slightly surprised that he had not seemed to have seen the
+vision of loveliness and light that was dazzling all other eyes. These
+were not proper thoughts for a minister of the gospel in the pulpit, but
+they were mine; and they produced their bitter fruits, brought about
+their own punishment.
+
+“At the close of the sermon, a few minutes after I had left the pulpit,
+B. came from his pew, and a mutual friend introduced him to me. My wife
+was hanging on my arm at the time of this introduction. B. spoke of our
+village, of General Raymond as having been a valued friend, &c., and of
+his own intention soon to visit the village. I, like every one else he
+ever set his eyes upon, was fascinated by his looks and manners. I
+pressed him to come—and _soon_—and entreated him to come at once to the
+villa, instead of stopping at a hotel, and to make our house his home,
+while he should find it convenient or agreeable to honor us with his
+presence.
+
+“Well, Sophie, I returned home on Monday. In the course of the week, B.
+visited us. He remained with us an honored guest for two weeks, and in
+those two weeks, Sophie!——His manner rather than his words seemed to
+reveal a warm admiration for me and everything about me. Our elegant
+house, well-chosen library, our busts and pictures, our tastefully
+planned grounds, everything seemed to give him a quiet and graceful
+delight. His manner to me seemed (for all was _seeming_) to reveal a
+charming mixture of reverence and affection. I was fascinated—drawn in.
+His manner seemed distant to my wife, _so_ distant that I never inclined
+to _jealousy_, but often to _vanity_; felt piqued that he did not appear
+to appreciate the merits of _her_, my most brilliant appendage. He
+visited little while he remained at our house; the charms of our house
+seemed to rivet him to the place. Parochial duty called me frequently
+from home; he was left to the hospitable care of my wife. They were much
+together.
+
+“The last day of his stay approached. And up to that day I was utterly
+unsuspicious of the cloud lowering black and heavy over my house!
+utterly unprepared for the descent of the thunderbolt that blasted my
+hearth! The day of his departure dawned. It had been arranged between us
+that I should drive him down to the village, in the carriage, to meet
+the steamboat that would pass in the evening. But early in the afternoon
+I was summoned to attend the bedside of a dying parishioner, at an
+opposite point of the village. I was constrained, therefore, to leave
+him, promising, however, to meet him at the steamboat hotel, before his
+departure.
+
+“I left him with Fanny—Oh! let me recall her image, as the last time I
+saw her in purity and peace: She sat in a chair by the open window,
+arrayed in a beautiful robe of light blue silk; her air and attitude I
+noticed _then_ was pensive; her elbow rested on the window-sill, and her
+arm, her beautiful arm, encircled by a diamond bracelet, emerged from
+its sleeve of silk and lace; her hand supported her drooping head, from
+which her ringlets hung like spiral curls of glittering gold. The other
+gemmed and snow-like hand hung listless by her side. Strange! I was then
+inspired with a warmth of affection towards her I had not felt for
+years. I stepped back as I was about leaving the room, and lifted the
+snow-flake hand to my lips, and then left the room and the house, for
+the first time for years, with the wish that I might be able to dispatch
+my business quickly and return soon. This caprice pursued me,
+strengthening every inch of the way, as I journeyed from her, until at
+the solemn bed of death, it was interrupted by the sight of my dying
+parishioner and his weeping family. I administered the last consolations
+of religion to the dying man, or at least I read the service for the
+sick by his bedside, and gave him the sacrament. I soon after took
+leave, and rode towards the village, where I expected to find B.,
+awaiting the steamboat. I found him in the parlor of the hotel. As the
+hour of the boat’s passing had not quite arrived, I ordered supper, and
+we supped together. Yes! we sat down once more and broke bread together!
+Oh! the power of duplicity in that bad man! Had I been the most jealous,
+as I was then the most unsuspicious of human beings, by no sign in his
+countenance or manner could I have detected a consciousness in him of
+the blasting ruin he had wrought in my home! His conversation was as
+brilliant, his manner as entertaining as ever; and his eyes sought mine
+with the same earnest sweetness that had ever lived in their expression.
+At the end of half an hour, the boat stopped at the landing, and I took
+leave of him with more regret than I had ever felt at parting with
+mortal man before or since. I pressed him to repeat his visit soon, and
+make it longer—and he promised! and bade me bear his best wishes and his
+adieux to Mrs. Withers! I mounted my horse and rode towards home, my
+thoughts strangely haunted with Fanny—how lovely she seemed in my
+thoughts! I hastened onwards. I drew near the house.
+
+“That ride home! How distinctly, how indelibly is every circumstance
+attending it imprinted on my memory! That ride home through the dark,
+cool woods, with the moonlight shimmering down through the leaves, with
+the merry chirp of insects in the trees, with the fresh dew on the
+grass; with my heart warmer, lighter, gladder, than it had been for
+years; nothing, nothing to warn me of the ruin before me! I was, except
+the stirring of a new and glad emotion, as calm as Pompeii under the
+shadow of Vesuvius. I passed through the iron gate in front of our
+house—it swung to with a loud clang behind me. To this day the clang of
+a gate sends a pang to my heart. I passed up the gravel walk between
+rows of violets whose fragrance filled the air. I recollect it so
+distinctly. To this hour the smell of violets makes me ill. I jumped
+from my horse, and throwing the bridle to a servant who came to take it,
+I hastened up the marble stairs, and into the house. The lamps were not
+lighted. ‘She is enjoying the moonlight of this cool hour,’ I said, and
+I passed into the parlor. The moon was shining through the two large
+front windows shaded with foliage, and shining in two bright square
+patches, variegated with the black shadows of the leaves on the carpet;
+and the leaves in the window and their shadows on the floor trembled in
+the rising breeze. At first I thought the room was vacant, but looking
+around, I presently discerned the form of Fanny on a sofa in the back of
+the room. She lay partly on the floor, partly on the sofa. Her dress
+disordered, her hair dishevelled, her face down, her arms thrown over
+her head in an attitude of the uttermost despair—of the last
+abandonment. Surprised, I approached her, thinking her sick, or perhaps
+sleeping. I spoke to her—she did not reply. I stooped, raised, and
+kissed her. _Then_ she bounded like a shot from under my embrace, and
+sank cowering in a distant part of the room. Wondering, I followed her,
+but she raised, turned away her head, grinding her face into the corner,
+while she threw up both arms towards me in a frantic, abjuring gesture!
+I now really fancied that in the dubious light, I had mistaken some one
+_else_ for Fanny; that this could not be she, but was probably some poor
+mad stroller. I hastened into the hall and called for lights. They were
+brought, set upon the mantel-piece, and the servant retired. I turned
+towards her. God! what a thing met my view! Ashy pale, with a wild blaze
+in her blue eyes, haggard and shuddering, she cowered in the corner, her
+hands clasping her head, her gaze riveted in phrensied despair upon me!
+I spoke to her, but she changed not her attitude. I caressed her, and
+she broke forth in raving madness. God! oh God! Sophie, how can I
+describe to you the grief, horror, _distraction_, with which I gathered
+from her raving, the shameful story of _her_ fall and of my dishonor!
+Though earth and hell swam together in my reeling reason, every fact of
+the loathsome story betrayed in her phrensied remorse struck distinctly
+on my ear. How the snake had glided nearer to her every day, fascinating
+her imagination by his brilliancy, stealing into her bosom by his sweet
+tenderness, lulling her fears and disarming her resistance by his gentle
+mesmerism, winding coil after coil of his serpent fold around her, and
+delaying until the last hour—the tender parting hour, the safe hour of
+sorrowful, tearful adieux, and non-resistance—the _unguarded_ hour, to
+strike his venomed fangs deep in her heart! How sudden was her fall—how
+quick her recovery! How terrible her remorse! And I, Sophie! _I!_—I said
+that earth and hell swam together in my reason! I felt a rushing and
+roaring in my head and ears like the coming of many waters; the earth
+rocked under my feet, and I thought the end of all things was at hand. I
+suppose I fell. **** The next link in memory was a slow, feeble
+returning to consciousness—more like a weak babe’s first coming into
+existence than like a man’s revival. The first glimmering of sensibility
+found me extended prostrated on my bed, unable to lift or turn; aye,
+even to _move_ a limb. The only fluttering life seeming to linger in my
+languid eyes, and in the weak breath hovering in my bosom and on my lips
+like a soul ready for flight. A dreary, dreary weight that I could then
+neither understand, nor throw off, lay heavy on my soul. A sorrowful,
+shadowy face, like a dream of Fanny, floated past my vision. It was the
+face of Raymond, my son, my constant attendant. Too slowly dawned reason
+and memory on the night of my intellect to endanger a shock and a
+relapse. Day by day, and hour by hour, I picked up and restrung the
+broken and scattered links in the chain of circumstances; and in a few
+days, before my physical powers were recovered sufficiently to allow me
+to speak a consecutive sentence, or utter a word above my breath, I
+understood the height and depth—the full extent of my ruin. But _she_!
+where was _she_? I saw nothing of her—heard nothing of her. For many
+days I dared not inquire. At last one day when Raymond was sitting by me
+with his shame-bowed head leaned upon his hands, my anxiety, by intense
+thought of her, had become insupportable.
+
+“‘Raymond!’ said I.
+
+He looked up sorrowfully.
+
+“‘Where is your mother, my boy?’
+
+“‘Gone!’
+
+“‘How!’
+
+“‘Fled!’
+
+“‘When?’
+
+“‘Upon the night of your attack.’
+
+“‘Where? with whom?’
+
+“‘We do not know.’
+
+“‘Has any one pursued her?’
+
+“‘No, sir.’
+
+“‘Why did not you follow her—seek, save her?’
+
+“‘My duty was by your bedside, my father?’
+
+“‘Raymond! tell me! how far is this dreadful tragedy known—how far has
+her frantic remorse, _my_ phrensied despair exposed us?’
+
+“He was silent, and when I repeated and pressed the question he bowed
+his young face upon his hands and wept. The tears trickled between his
+fingers. I understood by his silent grief that our shame was not hidden.
+After a while, ‘Raymond!’ said I. He raised his tearful face. ‘You loved
+your mother?’ He sobbed aloud.
+
+“‘Go and seek her.’
+
+“‘My place is by your side, my father.’
+
+“‘Go and seek your mother.’
+
+“‘I cannot leave you yet, sir.’
+
+“‘Go and seek and save your mother, lodge her in a place of safety, and
+then return to me.’
+
+“‘Alas! sir, you need me every moment—do not command me to leave you.’
+
+“‘Raymond! _now_ I cannot rest until I know she is found and safe, or
+_dead_, and so it is with you, boy. Raymond, do you sleep at night?’
+
+“He shook his head mournfully—_so_ mournfully. Ah! if our betrayer could
+have seen our sorrow, his heart—even _his_ heart, would have been melted
+in repentance for all the wreck he had made.
+
+“‘Raymond,’ said I, ‘she has severed the tie that bound her to _me_, but
+she is your mother still—_that_ tie nor life nor death can sever. _I_
+may not—_must_ not see her again; _you_ must go and seek her, find her,
+and find a distant, secluded asylum for her. _You_ must tend and care
+for her, and make her life as tolerable as, with her keen sensibilities,
+the memory of her awful sin will permit it to be. I give her up to you.
+To-morrow morning you must set out on your search.’
+
+“He no longer opposed my wish, perhaps it was _his_ wish too, in fact.
+Utterly exhausted by the conversation, I sank into silence.
+
+“The next morning I renewed my charge to him, and, with some difficulty,
+got him off. Now you will be surprised that I charged one so young, for
+he was but fourteen, with such a mission, but before any other would I
+have chosen that lad. Raymond was ever an earnest, thoughtful, and now a
+sorrow-stricken boy. He left me the second day.
+
+“Upon my first return to consciousness, when I was so weak, I would
+sometimes recognise a neighbor, or a parishioner, by my bedside, but,
+unwilling to meet his or her eye, I would close mine, and lie still; and
+after that I gave orders that no one should be admitted to my chamber.
+Many days passed. At last Raymond returned, with news of my poor
+fugitive. Wandering towards the south, she had been arrested. Her rare
+beauty, her insanity (for she had lost her reason), the mystery that
+enveloped her, excited interest. She had been lodged in the —— Asylum
+for the insane, and there she had been left.
+
+“Was it strange that I felt no resentment towards her? Perhaps had I
+_loved_ her more this would have been otherwise; perhaps all feeling
+of anger was drowned in _humiliation_. At length I got down stairs.
+It was impossible then to refuse myself to my visitors. They were my
+oldest and gravest parishioners. They were a long time in breaking
+the ice of the subject congealing around my heart, but when at
+length it _was_ broken, the waters of sympathy flowed freely. ‘Cut
+off this abomination from your house!’ ‘Amputate this polluted—this
+putrid limb, though it were your right hand!’ This was their advice,
+and I followed it. The necessary steps occupied me some time. The
+necessity of settling my chaotic household and arranging my future
+plan of living kept me busy for some weeks. Still even then, between
+the pauses of practical duty, my mind would suddenly fall into
+stagnation, when neither memory nor reason could be aroused, when
+only _instinct_ kept me silent or sententious, lest I should expose
+myself; into that terrible state when the mind hovers on the shadowy
+boundary of madness—the twilight hour between the day of reason and
+the night of insanity—upon the awful line dividing _conscious_ from
+_un_conscious madness! But madness affects the whole system. The
+blood was sent in rushing force and choking volume to my heart, and
+forth again with lightning speed, in lava streams, down my veins,
+impelling me to leaping phrensy! Oh! how I dreaded when this chained
+demon would burst the weak fetters of my will! This dread!—this
+dread! I dared not confide it to any one—dared not consult a
+physician. I furtively read all the books I could upon the subject,
+and took all the means I could to avert the impending—the hourly—the
+momentarily impending horror! Oh, Sophie! on God’s earth there is
+not a grief or terror like this; bearing a fiend in your bosom,
+bound by the feeblest threads of consciousness and will—threads that
+you fear and feel may be burst asunder at any moment. I walked with
+reeling brain upon the slippery edge of a dizzy precipice!—I walked,
+as it were, upon a mine that threatened every instant to explode!
+Everywhere—at home, abroad, walking, riding, in the full glory of
+noonday, in the dark watches of the night, I bore this grenade of
+the bosom! In the pulpit, Sophie—in the midst of the most closely
+reasoned argument, suddenly the blood would rush through my veins,
+and into my head, impelling me to leap, shouting, over the
+pulpit-top, and throttle some of the people before me. This
+impending horror—the constant _dread_ of it, accelerated the hour of
+its fall upon me. One day, late in the evening, I was riding home
+with Raymond. We were, as usual, _silent_, for oh, Sophie! we sat
+together long hours at home in silence—we rode together long miles
+without exchanging a word. The forest-path through which we rode was
+the same one I had passed in going home upon the evening of my
+household wreck. The shadows were as dark in the woods, the dew was
+as fresh on the grass, the chirps of the insects as blithe in the
+trees, and the silvery beams of the moonlight shimmered as brightly
+through the overhanging leaves. It was the same scene—the same!
+Every instant the excitement was rising higher in my bosom, growing
+irrepressible—uncontrollable; until, as we emerged from the
+forest-path, and passed into our yard—as the iron gate swung to with
+a clang—as the perfume of violets met me—as the dark front of the
+house loomed up in the moonlight,—everything reproducing the scene
+of that fatal evening, insanity broke forth in phrensy, and I became
+a raving maniac!
+
+“I recovered my reason to learn the value of poor Fanny’s son. I awoke
+one day from a deep sleep—I awoke refreshed, with cooler blood, calmer
+nerves, and clearer brain, than I had known for weeks, and with a full
+consciousness of all that had passed up to the hour of my loss of
+self-control. Raymond was sitting by me.
+
+“‘Raymond, what has happened?’ inquired I.
+
+“‘You have been very ill, my father.’
+
+“‘I have been MAD!—I know that right well, my boy—but tell me, how long
+did it last? what did I do? and who was with me?’ This last was the most
+important question—my heart stopped its pulsations until he answered:
+
+“‘Your attack spent its _fury in half an hour_, father—you hurt no one
+but yourself—and—no one witnessed your—your _illness_ but myself and the
+waiter who assisted me in getting you up to bed.’
+
+“‘And what did you then do? what did you give me?’
+
+“‘Nothing, father; nature did everything, and did it well—art nothing.
+Your fury spent itself as a storm spends itself—-by raging—and then it
+subsided, as a storm subsides, into perfect calmness; you fell into a
+deep sleep of exhaustion, which lasted all last night and all to-day,
+from which you have but just awaked; and you feel better _for_ the
+attack, do you not, father? It has expended the gathering vapors and
+gloom of many weeks, and you feel better?’
+
+“‘Yes, yes, quite well, calm and clear-headed; but, Raymond, with this
+interregnum in my memory, and this great change in my feelings, it seems
+to me that a long, long time, has intervened since my attack; _how_ long
+has the time really been?’
+
+“‘Not quite twenty-four hours.’
+
+“‘Has any one called to-day?’
+
+“‘No one.’
+
+“‘Then none know of this except yourself?’
+
+“‘No, sir, none know of this except myself and the waiter, who does not
+more than half comprehend it, and who, besides, is no gossip.’
+
+“‘You understand that I _wish_ no one to know of it?’
+
+“‘I understand that perfectly, my father; and it shall be my care to
+guard your secret.’
+
+“It was some time after this that I found how much I had hurt Raymond by
+a furious blow on the chest dealt in my phrensy.
+
+“From that time, Sophie, my disease became periodical; Raymond was my
+constant attendant. These repeated attacks of lunacy impaired my temper;
+I became gloomy, irascible, misanthropic. My attacks of phrensy became
+less frequent and violent, but my gloom deepened as a natural
+consequence; for unless I could have been _cured_ it was even _better_
+that these regular storms should disperse the unwholesome vapors of my
+mind. There is a wonderful analogy between the soul and the
+atmosphere—storms clear both—though in storms, both mental and
+atmospheric, there is sometimes much damage done. Well! the storms had
+well nigh ceased, but the gloom gathered thicker and thicker in my mind,
+and working up through it was one irrational wish—a desire to re-marry;
+and with this returned in all its former force my idiosyncrasy—of
+seeking the reluctant—pursuing the flying—catching the resisting—and in
+the darkening of my gloom this deepened into the desire of _torturing
+the victim_! You shudder, Sophie! but this was insanity. Every passion
+in its excess is moral insanity—-every exaggerated idiosyncrasy is
+mental insanity; and in madness, brought about by any other external
+cause, the master passion, or the distinguishing idiosyncrasy, if not
+entirely _reversed_, is exaggerated to phrensy. _My_ idiosyncrasy was
+exaggerated—because morbid. I had left my pulpit fearing that if I did
+not my pulpit would eject _me_. I had shut myself up in the villa, and
+brooded over my wish, and the readiest way of accomplishing it. At this
+time I received a letter from Mr. May, inquiring the reason of my
+resignation of my pulpit—a notice of which he had seen in the ‘Church
+Organ.’ I replied ‘domestic affliction,’—‘the _loss_ of my wife,’—she
+_was_ lost—but need I blazon my dishonor by revealing the _manner_ of
+her loss? _He_ understood, simple old man! that she was _dead_, and
+there he left it. The correspondence ceased. A few months from that time
+I received at the same moment the news of his death and a call to fill
+his pulpit. I accepted it, glad to escape from my neighborhood. I sent
+Raymond off to college—shut up the villa, leaving it in charge of old
+Jupiter, who lived at a porter’s lodge at the gate, and I came down
+here, full of my purpose of finding another wife. You, Sophie, at first
+sight, struck my fancy; as usual with my peculiar mood of love, your
+shrinking from me but lured me to the chase—but added zest to the idea
+of catching you; your avowed dislike and shuddering antipathy but served
+to intensify the desire to seize and torture you—forgive me, Sophie!
+this was insanity. Though constantly threatened with an attack of
+phrensy, I had not one single one after leaving the scene of my sorrows.
+I married you, Sophie, as I had married Fanny—in spite of your tears and
+prayers—in defiance of your antipathy and against your will. When I had
+thought it was safe to let him know it, when he could no longer
+interfere, or at least when I thought that there was no _time_ left for
+him to reach here in season,—I wrote and told Raymond—paying him the
+compliment of the _form_ of an invitation—and telling him in the same
+letter of the escape, flight, and suicide of his mother. He did not come
+in season, as you know—though he grazed the edge of ‘the nick of time.’
+
+“Now, Sophie, for another revulsion of feeling. From the time I first
+saw you, as I said, the idea of marrying you interested and amused
+me—your aversion stimulated my stagnant blood agreeably. I _lived_ in
+the thought of getting you into my power—life _came_ and waned with this
+thought. As the day of our marriage approached your antipathy thoroughly
+aroused me—I gloated over the idea of tormenting and torturing you. But
+when our marriage day drew _very_ near, you fell into apathy! That
+disappointed me. I thought you were going to die on my hands. My
+interest in you waned with your non-resistance. The wedding-day, the
+evening came, and I married you. You were then so still in your
+despair—so cold—so dead!—I felt swindled out of my enjoyment, and half
+regretted my bargain. I felt as the tyrant must feel when his victim on
+the rack expires before half the exquisite torments or the crowning
+torture is tried and suffered. Don’t shudder now, Sophie! I _was
+insane_!
+
+“Well, Sophie, I left your side to have a conversation with Dr.
+Otterback. I left you almost expiring. When I saw you again, life and
+light had returned to you. When you came up to me and laid your fair
+hand on my arm, so softly, and spoke to me so kindly, I gazed in wonder
+on your face; and, Sophie, the angel looking through your eyes subdued
+me. Your after kindness melted me into penitence. Still there were
+adverse influences at work. A mind shaken to its foundation, as mine had
+been, was not to be calmed soon, or stay calm long. The sudden sight of
+Raymond, the image of his mother, in her perfect beauty, connecting the
+present with the past so painfully, affected me more than the sight of
+Fanny herself had done. Alas! poor Fanny had been scarcely recognisable.
+I could scarcely realize the identity of that haggard wanderer of the
+heath with the resplendent beauty of the Villa. But her image lived
+again in Raymond. Never had the extraordinary resemblance struck me so
+forcibly, as when, after a long absence from _both_, I again saw
+Raymond. The associations conjured up, brought on that violent attack of
+phrensy that seized me at the Hall. Well, Sophie! my guardian angel, you
+have known all my moods since then. You know how your love has subdued
+my hate—your heaven redeemed my hell—your angel converted my demon.
+Enough, Sophie! your probation is almost over. My earthly life is
+drawing near its close. When I am gone, Raymond will be as a brother to
+you. Raymond is wealthy. Never since her separation from me have I
+appropriated a dollar of the fortune that came with his mother. I could
+not bear to do it. Now, dear Sophie! I am very tired; close the
+shutters, draw the curtains and leave the room, that I may sleep while
+you take some relaxation and refreshment.”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+                               THE STORM.
+
+        “The storm comes in fury! loud roars the wild blast—
+        Like a quivering reed, shakes the towering mast,
+        But on the bark dashes, proud, dauntless, and free,
+        She rides like a gull on the crest of the sea.”
+                                            CHARLES H. BRAINARD.
+
+
+Hagar had gone to her chamber to write a letter. Hagar’s room was on the
+third floor front, at the angle of the old hall. Its front and east
+windows overlooked the bay for many miles up and down. Its north
+windows, the bay, the moor, and forest. It was like the wild girl to
+choose this eyrie! She selected it because its lofty height commanded
+the bay,—because it was far above the inhabited parts of the house, no
+soul, except herself, occupying or ever coming near that floor, or even
+the one beneath it. Then it was very large and airy, and furnished or
+_un_furnished, to suit the singular girl’s fancy. The walls were papered
+with a German landscape paper, representing parts of the Black Forest,
+and the exploits of the Wild Huntsman. The floor was painted dark green,
+and the paint had been worn off here and there in patches; so that in
+the dusky light the room looked not unlike a wild and darksome forest
+glade, the scene of some weird revel, shown in silent pantomime. A tent
+bedstead, with hangings of faded green damask, stood at the furthest
+extremity of the room; the windows were also curtained with the same
+material. Between the front windows stood an old-fashioned escritoire,
+full of innumerable drawers, closets, and pigeon-holes, which, with one
+or two heavy old chairs, completed the original furniture of the room.
+With Hagar’s varying mood, her dark and dreamy, or her free, wild mood,
+the singular girl would close all the shutters, and draw all the
+curtains, converting the room into a shadowy scene of woodland romance,
+from which the demon figure of the Wild Huntsman would glimmer out in
+the gleam of some stray ray of sunlight flickering through a crevice in
+the closed shutters; or, throwing open the four windows to the day, she
+would let in a flood of light and air, and the prospect of half a
+hemisphere of blue sky and salt water. Her room now, as she sought it,
+was light, free, and exposed as the highest peak of the promontory; and
+the rising wind rushed through it in a strong, fresh current, swelling
+and flapping the heavy curtains like the heavy sails of a ship. She
+entered her room, and before sitting down to write, laid off and put
+away her riding habit in one of the dark closets, and went to the
+windows and drew aside, looped up and confined the curtains, to keep
+them from flapping in the wind; _reefed_ them, as a sailor would say.
+Then she gazed anxiously out upon the boundless bay, where the
+freshening gale was rolling up the waves against the advancing tide, and
+upon the darkening sky where clouds were piled like ink-hued mountains
+from horizon to zenith, and upon the distant sail of a wave-tossed
+packet that gleamed like a snow-flake on the black bosom of the water an
+instant, and then, like a snow-flake, would melt and disappear in the
+rise of an intervening wave.
+
+“God! if Raymond should be in that bark!” she cried, as her falcon
+glance descried it.
+
+Seizing her small telescope (one of her toys when a child, one of her
+jewels when a woman), she levelled it at the distant bark. She gazed
+eagerly. On struggled the frail vessel between wind and wave, tacking
+from side to side, now driven forward by the gale, now thrown back by
+the tide. She gazed anxiously. The thunder muttered in the distance. The
+gale quickened, and now stronger than the tide, drove on the fragile
+bark before it, reeling and pitching like a drunken man. She left the
+window and the room, and hurrying down stairs, hastened from the house,
+fled to the promontory, and stood upon the extreme point of the peak
+gazing out upon the waters.
+
+The sky was black as night. The bosom of the bay heaved like a strong
+heart in a strong agony. On came the vessel bounding and rebounding
+before the wind, until it was brought up suddenly by the strong current
+of the waves that whirled around the point of the promontory; and then
+it heaved and tossed between leaping and flashing waters and buffeting
+winds! There on that maelstrom it heaved and set like a guilty wish in
+an ardent soul, driven on by the gale of passion and opposed by the tide
+of conscience, and nearly wrecked between them. There it heaved and set,
+vainly struggling to round the promontory, and enter the harbor of
+Churchill’s Point. There it rolled and writhed and groaned; now raised
+by a towering wave, now thrown down a yawning ocean cavern, while the
+lightning glared, and the thunder breaking overhead rolled rumbling down
+the abyss of distance! Upon the extreme point of the peak, like the
+spirit of the storm, stood Hagar, her hair and raiment flying in the
+gale around her, her eyes fixed upon the writhing vessel. Suddenly with
+a sharp cry, scarce touching with her light foot the points of the crags
+that served her for steps, she sped down the dizzy precipice; she had
+recognised Raymond, just at the moment when the slight vessel, lifted by
+an uprearing giant wave, was pitched upon the rocks at the base of the
+promontory! Shot from the deck into the air by the sudden concussion,
+three or four men dropped into the sea at the distance. Hagar’s eyes
+with a rapid glance traversed the bosom of the waters. She saw one or
+two sturdy sailors rise, buffeting the waves and struggling to reach the
+shore. But she saw not Raymond, though with pausing brain, breathless
+lungs, and bursting heart, she watched the surface of the now subsiding
+waters. At last at some distance up the coast she saw him rise,
+struggle, catch at the air, half leap from the water, fall, turn over
+and disappear under the wave, that was colored with his blood! She
+bounded forward and sprang upon her boat. Unmooring it and casting the
+ropes behind her, she seized the oar and dashed into the midst of the
+boiling sea. Urging on her boat between flashing foam and brine, she
+passed the eddy around the point, and rode rocking forward upon the
+rising and falling waves towards the spot she had seen him sink at.
+Keeping her eyes down the current where she supposed he would be
+whirled, she again saw him rise and struggle. She pulled swiftly for the
+spot, reached it, while he, lashing the waves with his arms, seized the
+side of the boat, and turned himself suddenly and heavily in, his weight
+pitching the light skiff upon one end. Hagar, with her skill and
+presence of mind, threw her whole weight upon the oar at the other end,
+and thus righted the boat. With a look of earnest gratitude to Hagar,
+Raymond seized the other oar, and they pulled for the shore. The sudden
+storm had spent its fury. It was now passing off, like a woman’s fit of
+anger in a passion of tears, in a heavy shower of rain. They pulled for
+the shore, but Raymond pulled painfully. They reached the beach where
+the captain, mate, and two men that composed the whole crew of the small
+craft, were waiting under the drenching rain.
+
+“Are all here, all safe?” asked Raymond, as he stepped upon the sand.
+
+“All safe! thank God!” answered the skipper.
+
+“But you, Raymond, you are wounded!” said Hagar, laying her hand upon a
+bloodstained rent on the shoulder of his jacket. Even at her light touch
+he involuntarily shrank slightly as he replied—
+
+“Not much, dear Hagar.”
+
+“But you _are_,” said she, speaking rapidly, “you are pale and weak, you
+were thrown upon a sharp rock, your shoulder was struck and wounded; you
+have lost much blood; it crimsoned the wave when you first rose, though
+now it has been staunched by the cold water, and the stains are almost
+effaced—come home! oh, come! lean on my arm, Raymond, it is strong if it
+is a little one,—for once let me assist you as you have heretofore
+sustained me. Come, Raymond! come, brother! come!” and her wild eyes
+softened into gentleness, and her proud eyes into pleading, as, standing
+on a point of rock above him, she held down her hand imploringly, to
+assist in the ascent. He smiled gently, and man-like, scorned, while he
+could do without it, to receive from her the help he so much needed.
+Turning to the sailors, he told them to seek the Hall, pointing out the
+shortest path of ascent. They were quick in following his direction, and
+had reached the top of the heath and carried the news of the wreck, the
+preservation of the crew, and announced the arrival of Raymond Withers,
+while the latter was yet toiling, pale and nearly fainting, at the side
+of the cliff. Hagar climbed or waited, beside him. At length they
+reached the top, and paused. Raymond was breathless and reeling—his
+wound, started by his toil, was bleeding afresh.
+
+“My brother, why will you not let me help you?” pleaded Hagar, again
+offering her hand. He shook his head mournfully,—he was too faint to
+talk, and signed for her to lead the way to the hall, where he followed,
+painfully.
+
+In the closed and curtained chamber Mr. Withers slumbered. The noise of
+the storm faintly murmured through that inner room, only lulling him
+into deeper sleep. Sophie, in her reveries, had not thought of the
+possibility of a packet exposed to the storm, far less of Raymond’s
+danger; so that before she had thought of peril, the shipwrecked sailors
+stood before her, claiming shelter.
+
+Hagar and Raymond slowly approached the Hall, and entered it. “Now, dear
+Raymond, your father is sleeping, I think; go and change your clothes,
+and lie down and rest before you present yourself to him; your clothes
+are lost, I suppose; but come with me and I will show you into your
+father’s dressing-room; you can furnish yourself from his wardrobe.”
+Then seeing how pale he looked and noticing his bleeding wound, she
+hastily said;—“But oh! of what am I thinking? Let me call Sophie to
+dress your wound.” And conducting him into a dressing-room, she turned
+to leave him to summon Sophie. He had sunk exhausted into a deep chair,
+and holding out his arms, said, very calmly—
+
+“Come, Hagar, my little sister, you have given me no kiss of welcome
+since I came. Come, Hagar!” She started, turned, made one step towards
+him, paused, the blood rushed to her brow, then recovered herself, waved
+him a smiling denial, and left the room. And yet she had met the kiss of
+Gusty May with saucy cordiality.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+                           THE DEATH CHAMBER.
+
+                            “Death is the crown of life:
+           Were death denied, poor man would live in vain.
+           Death wounds to cure; we fall: we rise; we reign;
+           Spring from our fetters; fasten to the skies;
+           When blooming Eden freshens on our sight
+           This king of terrors is the prince of peace.”
+                                               YOUNG.
+
+
+Autumn had deadened into winter. The brilliant foliage of the autumn
+woods had been hurtled off and whirled away in the winter wind. The
+trees were bare, their branches like black ink tracings against a
+background of white. The river was frozen over, the creek was frozen
+over, the bay near the shore was crusted with ice. The ground was
+covered with snow—the sky was misty-white with clouds. In very pale
+colors was the winter landscape drawn—in very pale colors, like the
+white, wan face, and the blue-grey hair of a very old man. The pale
+cloud-mottled grey sky above; the pale green frozen bay and river, and
+the snowy ground with its black ink tracery of bare trees and forests,
+and its dark red square old Hall on the promontory. The white
+snow-clouds thickened in the air as the night fell on the 18th of
+December. The wind arose, and a driving snow-storm came on. And through
+the gathering darkness on the heath shone one beacon—a light in an upper
+chamber window of the hall. And towards it, through the driving storm,
+toiled one traveller,—a fat old gentleman on a fat old horse. It was Dr.
+Otterback on his way to the sick bed of Mr. Withers. The bishop had been
+on a tour of confirmation through his diocese, and was at that time
+sojourning over a Sabbath at Churchill’s Point. In a quarter of an hour
+more he was at the Hall, he was in the sick room. This was the scene. It
+was a large room, carpeted with a thick carpet that gave no sound to the
+footfall. The windows were curtained with dark heavy curtains, lined,
+that let no noise through them from without. A dim lamp sat on the
+hearth, and cast up high monstrous shadows to the ceiling, that loomed
+black through the dimmer darkness like shadows through the night, and
+swayed to and fro, and up and down, in the flare of the lamp. Without
+was softly heard the smothered sough of the wind and snow, like the sob
+of lost spirits wailing to enter. At the furthest end of the room from
+the windows, stood a tall, square, canopied bedstead, with the heavy
+curtains looped back to the head-posts. Upon it lies a dying man, and
+around him are gathered his family. Draw near, though it is a sight of
+anguish to see the death of a life that has been much error, and _all_
+bitterness. Draw near. His sallow face in its wreath of uncut black hair
+and whiskers, is drawn in strong relief against the pile of snow-white
+pillows that support his head. His sallow hands are laid out at length
+upon the dark coverlid. His eyes, small and black in the death
+intensity, now burn in the countenance of the bishop, who stands at the
+foot of the bed, repeating at intervals, in answer to that anguished
+gaze, such texts of Scripture as promise redemption by faith. On his
+right hand, within the shadow of the curtain, sits Sophie, very pale and
+still, her hands clasped with awe. On his left hand stands Raymond,
+leaning his elbow on the head-board and bowing his face upon his open
+hand, while the heave and fall of his chest silently betray the son’s
+sorrow for the father. By the side of Raymond, and with her fingers
+clasped in his hand, which he presses from time to time as a surge of
+emotion agitates him, stands Hagar; but her crimson cheek and glittering
+eye display more excitement than awe, in the death scene she witnesses.
+
+“You love him, Hagar!” at last very low whispered the dying man. Hagar’s
+cheek paled, while her fingers quivered slightly in the hand of Raymond.
+“Love him—_gently_, Hagar,” then he said, and turned his eyes on Sophie,
+while his sallow hand crept by the fingers towards her. She saw and
+raised the hand, rubbed it, pressed it between her own, but it grew
+colder in her clasp.
+
+“Good-bye, my guardian angel,” he said very softly, and turned his
+troubled eye again upon the bishop. Sophie saw that troubled glance, and
+silently prayed that the perturbed spirit might pass in peace. At last
+at a motion from the bishop all sank upon their knees. But Sophie, while
+she knelt, could not withdraw her gaze from the eyes that still hopeless
+sought comfort in _her_ eyes. The prayers for the dying were commenced,
+and as they progressed Sophie loved to see the anguish of expression
+soften away from his face—his brow grew calm, his eye steady, and she
+felt that at last his soul had found peace in believing. It was in a
+smile his eyes faded away from hers—in a smile that his spirit passed
+away, as sometimes after a stormy day the sun glances out beneath a bank
+of clouds, and smiling a good night, sinks. When they arose from their
+knees, the clay was vacant. The bishop closed the empty eyes, and then
+by a motion marshalled the family all from the room. Raymond at once
+sought his own chamber. The bishop followed Sophie into the parlor.
+Hagar went out into the dining-room to assist Mrs. Buncombe, who was now
+at the Hall, taking charge of its housekeeping just at this crisis. The
+tea-table was being set in great style under her direction—this was in
+honor of the bishop’s presence in the house. Hagar at once lent her a
+cheerful assistance. She began powdering some delicate tarts with loaf
+sugar. Thus life and death, luxury and decay, the table and the coffin,
+the most awful event of a lifetime, the most trivial occurrences of the
+moment, jostle each other, nor may either be entirely crowded off the
+stage of existence. Mrs. Buncombe looked very grave, and at last she
+said half reprovingly to Hagar,
+
+“You seem very cheerful, Hagar, while your uncle lies in the agonies of
+death!”
+
+“I should not be cheerful if he were in the agonies of death—he is
+released, and there was no agony. I could not have believed that a
+spirit could have been withdrawn from the body with so little pain to
+either!”
+
+“And so he is gone!” said Emily, in a tone of pity. “So he is gone.
+Well, ‘after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well!’ peace be with him!”
+
+“Yes, peace be with him. May his cradle be soft—may his nurses be
+tender—may his parents be gentle and wise, and may his present life—the
+life just commenced—be happier than his past pilgrimage, the life just
+closed!”
+
+She had spoken earnestly.
+
+“Why, what in the name of heaven are you talking of, Hagar?” asked
+Emily, in astonishment.
+
+“Of the man just dead, and the babe just born!”
+
+“I believe you are crazy, Hagar!—at least any one who did not know you
+as well as I know you, would believe so. What do you mean by such
+language?”
+
+She had finished setting the table, and had now sat down by the fire.
+Hagar was standing by her, leaning with her back against the side of the
+mantel-piece.
+
+“This is what I mean: there is no death, but only change. I do not see
+death. I cannot find death anywhere in the world. I see change, but no
+destruction—no, not even loss of identity. See how one principle—any
+principle in chemistry, for instance, will pass through a thousand
+media, assuming a thousand forms, but not losing itself, not changing
+its own individuality. Yes, one principle will pass through the mineral,
+vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and pass again circulating for ever
+without losing itself. And so with our spirit, as it struggles up
+through hardest, seemingly deadest forms of existence, to its human
+form; and from the lowest human nature up to the highest; from the
+savage to the civilized man; and from a common-place civilized man, up
+to a Howard or a Fenelon; and from a Howard, perhaps, to an angel, but
+always with more or less speed—_up! up!_—never falling, never losing,
+never retrograding, relapsing. Thus, a soul that has passed through the
+schooling of civilization, never, never in its transmigrations, relapses
+into the body of a savage. I stood by and watched the passing away of
+uncle’s spirit, and wondered to see Christians looking so sad, as though
+it were annihilation and not a journey; as though they did not see that
+God was wise enough, and good enough, and potent enough to take care of
+the soul He had brought thus far in its course. I stood by, thinking
+that around some other bed some other people were gathered, awaiting the
+arrival of a newborn infant, and that when the wail of sorrow arose in
+this room for the dead, the voice of rejoicing would be heard in that
+room for the newborn! And I watched in eagerness, in excitement, but not
+in sorrow, not in regret. Could _I_ regret that his spirit was withdrawn
+from its present racked and ruined home? No, I am glad!” she said, with
+dancing eyes.
+
+“And you really believe that, Hagar? I mean your theory of
+transmigration?”
+
+“Believe—believe,” said she, musing; “no, it does not amount to belief,
+and yet it is _more_. It is not a belief, a creed; it is a feeling, an
+impression, and a very strong conviction. To me, spiritual intuitions
+are more convincing than rational deductions. Heart convictions stronger
+than brain convictions.”
+
+“Alas! Hagar, the neglect of your infancy will never, _never_ be made up
+to you. Poor girl, your mind strays off into the wildest vagaries.
+Hagar, you should read your Bible more.”
+
+“I do read my Bible,” said Hagar, “but no _commentaries_ on it; the
+Bible itself is my commentary on nature; it interprets myself and the
+universe to me.”
+
+“You find nothing like what you fancy in the Bible.”
+
+“I find nothing that contradicts it there.”
+
+“I must get Mr. Buncombe to talk to you, Hagar.”
+
+Hagar smiled derisively.
+
+“Yes, I _will_, and I can talk to you myself; ‘There is an appointed
+time for man to die, and _after death the judgment_;’ mind, it does not
+say, after death a transmigration.”
+
+“No,” said Hagar, “it says, ‘after death—_the judgment_’—that very
+judgment may remand the soul back to earth for another probation!”
+
+“You horrify me, you positively do horrify me, Hagar!”
+
+“You horrify _me_, when you tell me that for the sins, or errors, or
+_mistakes_ even, of some sixteen or sixty years, my soul must wail in
+perdition, through the countless ages of eternity—no, no!—no, no! My
+Father!” said the wild girl, kindling into enthusiasm, “Thou never
+did’st create a soul to let it drop into the abyss—_lost_! It may take a
+long time to teach—a long time to redeem that soul—to perfect that
+soul—many times may it be remanded back to the clay—many weary
+pilgrimages may it make on earth, but the work will never be abandoned;
+the work will be accomplished. Christ did not live, and teach, and
+suffer, and die in vain—His lesson will be learned at last.”
+
+“My poor Hagar,” said Emily, fervently, “may you yet learn _His_ lesson!
+He who came to light up that darkness of the grave which the eye of man
+could not penetrate—to substitute for the thousand wild fancies, such as
+yours, of Heathenism, the holy Truth of God—He, whom you so rashly
+invoke, has said—do you not remember it, Hagar?—
+
+“‘And he shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the
+left.
+
+“‘Then shall the King say unto them on the right hand, Come, ye blessed
+of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
+of the world.
+
+“‘Then shall He also say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye
+cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
+
+“‘_And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the
+righteous into life eternal!_’
+
+“Ah, my poor, dear Hagar, how little these wild fancies of yours will
+bestead you in the trials and temptations of life. Oh! what an untrimmed
+vine you are, Hagar! May the pruning knife of God’s providence gently,
+very gently, remove all this bad over-growth.”
+
+Hagar’s fierce eyes flashed defiance at her monitress; but just then a
+vision of Raymond, in his lonely grief—of Raymond, the only
+heart-stricken mourner for the dead, passed before her mind’s eye; the
+fierceness softened in her eyes, and she glided from the room. Just at
+that moment tea was brought in, and Mr. Buncombe and Dr. Otterback
+summoned to the table, and with Emily, gathered around it.
+
+Hagar glided like a spirit up the long staircase. The storm had passed,
+and the moon was shining through the windows. She passed into an upper
+room. A dark figure intercepted at the window the rays of the moon. A
+dark figure sitting alone, with head dropped upon the arms that, folded,
+rested on the window-sill. Very softly she approached, and stood by him
+in silence. He felt her approach, however, and turning around, passed
+his arm around her waist, and, drawing her up to his side, murmured—
+
+“My own dear Hagar, you have come to me at last; you are here at last;
+why did you not come before?”
+
+“Because _then_, Raymond, I was in no condition to give you comfort in
+the mood _you_ then were; my mind was excited, enthusiastic. I could not
+feel this passing away as anything but a relief—a glory—could not think
+of it as anything to mourn for, but rather to rejoice at. Why, Raymond,
+death has been called a ‘leap in the dark,’ but to me it seems a bound
+in the light!”
+
+“Ah, but Hagar,—the flesh—the flesh—I loved my father so much; I loved
+him for all his sorrows, and because he found favor in no other heart. I
+suffered so much at the banishment endured for his sake, and now I come
+home only to light him down to the grave.”
+
+“Raymond, when you left here, some years ago, you left your cast off
+raiment in your chamber, and they packed it down in a trunk. When you
+stepped aboard the boat that carried you to the packet, I, impatient
+child! threw myself down, and screamed in anguish, at parting from my
+brother, or stretching out my arms beseechingly, called you to come
+back. Now, Raymond, according to your creed, I had better have gone and
+cast myself across your trunk—the grave of your cast off dress, and
+howled for Raymond, _coffined within_.”
+
+Raymond again answered her, for his was not after all that deep, _deep_
+grief which plunges its victim into silence.
+
+“I loved that soul-raiment—I loved that thin and wrinkled hand, that
+lately deprecated harsh judgment while it caressed me—I loved that
+tortured face, traversed as it was by its thousand seams of thought or
+suffering, and that slow pausing step. I loved it all—but _you_, Hagar,
+a woman—a girl, a young girl, and yet you have so little
+_tenderness_—the falcon, not the dove!”
+
+Hagar, at once spirited and delicate, did not repel this charge, nor did
+her mind fly back to the many nights of sleeplessness she had passed in
+the sick chamber of his father while Raymond slumbered soundly in his
+bed; nor did she know that though she had felt very _tenderly_ she had
+acted _kindly_, while the son who really loved his father so tenderly
+loved _himself_ as well, and took his rest.
+
+“Have I hurt you, Hagar?” at last he said gently.
+
+“No, I do not know that you have.”
+
+“_Have_ I hurt you, Hagar?” he said, now sadly.
+
+“No, no; I am not sensitive—not very tender of myself any more than of
+others. No, you do not understand me—that I feel _life_ so much more
+than death—so much _life_ everywhere. Why, Raymond, my feeling about _my
+own death_ is that of escape, flight, revel in liberty and light. I
+stand upon the banks of our river sometimes, and feel like gathering
+myself up for a leap across the flood; yet there I stand, fast fettered
+by flesh. I stand some mornings at early dawn at my chamber window, and,
+gazing rapturously at the morning star, my spirit uneasily flaps its
+wings for a flight! Yet there I stand fast tied to the body; so wild and
+strong is the spirit, and so heavy and fast its chains.”
+
+Yes, she spoke truly—so wild, and strong, and fierce was the spirit,
+whose fire was to be quenched in tears of blood dropped slowly from the
+heart.
+
+Sophie now came in, and observing Hagar, said,
+
+“Ah! it is right for you to be here, my love; we have a common sorrow,
+and I feel that _I_ should not have gone apart;” and she sat down with
+them.
+
+The funeral of John Huss Withers took place on the fifth day from his
+death. Dr. Otterbuck remained to officiate. Mr. Buncombe of course
+succeeded him in the rectorship of the parish of the Crucifixion. It was
+during this visit of the bishop that the Parish Church, enlarged and
+repaired, was re-christened and dedicated under the name of the
+Ascension. This was done through the suggestion of Mr. Buncombe and the
+vestry. A year passed away.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+                               THE CHASE.
+
+              “Listening how the hounds and horn
+              Cheerily rouse the slumbering morn,
+              From the side of some hoar hill
+              Through the high wood echoing shrill.”
+                                                  MILTON.
+
+
+The forest rang with the cry of the hounds and the shout of the
+huntsmen. And now the sounds would die away and now peal out upon the
+air as the chase still kept up the winding course of the river towards
+its head. One foremost in the chase drew rein upon the brink of an awful
+chasm, a deep rocky gorge full of pointed crags, among which the torrent
+roared and whirled in an agony of haste to escape from the torture. It
+was Hagar, who, with wild heart, fierce eye, and crimsoned cheek, drew
+up upon the brink. Behind her thundered the steed of one, whom hearing,
+she looked behind, reined back her hunter on his haunches, and giving
+him a cheer and shout, cleared the chasm at a bound. It was an awful
+leap. The hoofs of the horse just grazed the edges of the rocks as he
+planted them firmly and struggled up the bank.
+
+The other rider, who was no other than our friend, Gusty May, paused
+breathless on the rocky ledge and gazed at her. Her steed was dancing on
+the opposite bluff, her form was exultant, her eye flashing. Raising her
+riding cap above her head, she waved it in the air, and, with a joyous
+shout of defiance, shot down the ravine and disappeared.
+
+“Devil fetch that girl!—God bless her!—she’ll break my heart or her own
+neck, or both, yet!—I know she will! Now what the deuce is to be done?
+My horse can never take that leap—never!—the attempt would be certain
+death to both. But then if I shirk it, she will say—I know she will—the
+little limb of Old Scratch!—that I was afraid.” Gusty was in a perfect
+puzzle. “If there were an _equal_ chance now of life and death one might
+venture, but as it is—pshaw!” And so muttering, he turned his horse’s
+head, and rode up the course of the stream to where the chasm was
+narrow, and over which a rude bridge had been constructed.
+
+Hagar was the first in at the death—down in the dark ravine. Other
+hunters approached rapidly from other points, and last, upon account of
+his delay at the gorge, up rode Gusty May, just in time to see the
+hunters separate, and to attend Hagar to Heath Hall.
+
+Seeing the intense mortification depicted in his countenance, she turned
+her wild eyes on him kindly, and said,
+
+“You must get a better hunter, Gusty; I could not have spurred that
+steed to the leap.”
+
+They rode on up the dark ravine until it emerged into the sunlight, then
+they ambled over the heath towards the Hall; many clumps of trees
+diversified the rolling surface of the heath, and as they emerged from
+these, Gusty suddenly laid his hand upon Hagar’s bridle and, growing
+very red in the face, dropped it again, sighing like a sough of wind in
+the main-sail. Surprised, Hagar looked at him, which look did not
+recompose his nerves at all. He stopped his horse. Hagar shot on before.
+He set spurs to his horse and bounded after her. With a sudden freak the
+wild girl gave rein to her horse and fled over the heath. Piqued, Gusty
+drew up and ambled along at dignified leisure. After racing to the end
+of her course, Hagar whirled about and came galloping back. Gusty
+awaited her, and then they paced on together in silence, until at length
+Gusty spoke out with the air of a youth who had made up his mind _to_
+speak, let the consequences be what they might.
+
+“Yes, I _will_ speak, Hagar! You _must_ hear; though you cut so many
+shines, it is very difficult to get the chance to say a word. Hem!
+Hagar!”
+
+“Well, Master Gusty! I’m all attention.”
+
+“Well, then, I like you!”
+
+“Why, so I always flattered myself.”
+
+“Well, but I’m not joking—I _do_—I _do indeed_. I be whipped if I
+don’t!”
+
+“Really!”
+
+“Yes—and—”
+
+“Well!”
+
+“I like you more and more!”
+
+“’Pon honor, now?”
+
+“Yes, I do, Hagar. Oh! don’t look at me, you wicked witch! I like you
+so—so much! God Almighty _knows_ I do! better than I like my ship!”
+
+“Come!” said Hagar, seriously, almost sadly, “tell me what is there you
+like about me? liking is not to be lightly thrown away, if it be well
+based—come!”
+
+“Well, there is a—a—an attraction—a something in your face that
+fascinates—that—that _draws_, that _pulls_, that _nails_, that _rivets_,
+as it were!”
+
+The girl turned her sparkling face up to the sun, to hide the smile that
+was breaking through it, while she said,
+
+“Come, say that over again! Let’s hear it again, Gusty!”
+
+“Pshaw! Hagar, be serious—I love you—by my soul’s honor I do,
+Hagar!—truly, deeply, fervently! Look at me, Hagar; let me see your
+face. You are silent—you turn it quite away!” and he suddenly wheeled
+around and confronted her. “You are laughing, hard, hard girl!
+Kite’s-heart, you are laughing!”
+
+And now she flashed the full light of her eyes in his face, as she said,
+
+“I don’t know how it is that I always laugh when other people would cry.
+I believe I am a lineal descendant of the laughing philosopher. Now,
+Gusty, my childhood’s friend, I am laughing at your phantasy. You do
+_not_ love me; it is a mere illusion of the imagination. Your heart is
+cheating itself with the semblance of love, in default of the
+substance.”
+
+“How do you know that, Hagar?”
+
+“By my own heart. Love, _love_ is always mutual! and in my heart lives
+no love for you beyond the sisterly affection I must ever feel; but
+that, Gusty, is deeper and stronger than often sisters feel for
+brothers. But when you talk to me of other love, you shock and repulse
+me; and that, Gusty, teaches me that _you_ do not really love me, but
+are only self-deceived by ‘the strong necessity of loving,’ that ‘strong
+necessity of loving’ that leads so many impatient hearts to ruin.
+Listen, Gusty. Marriages are made in heaven, but most marriages are
+seldom consummated. God, who doeth all things well, places on earth the
+mutual instincts of attraction in such souls as are intended for each
+other. In the whirl and jostle of this world, it is often that these
+souls never meet, but it is oftener that the impatience of the heart to
+_love_ and to _be_ loved, leads it into the delusion that it _does_ love
+and _is_ loved. Wait, Gusty; do not add to the confusion by marrying
+when you only fancy you love. Wait, and your chance of meeting your own
+will be greater!”
+
+“But, my heart, my heart!” said Gusty.
+
+“Oh, your heart, your heart! _Still_ the wailing of the spoiled child if
+you can, but do not let it have the serpent it cries for—illusory love!”
+
+“You, who know so much about love, whom do you love, Hagar?”
+
+The color deepened to crimson on the girl’s dark cheek, and touching her
+horse, she rode forward. He followed, and again overtaking her, said,
+
+“Hagar, you have talked a great deal of nonsense. You say that love is
+always mutual?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And that a one-sided love is an illusion?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How comes it, then, that this one-sided love, this illusion, is
+sometimes so strong as to drive its victim to madness or suicide?”
+
+“In the first place, Gusty, all that _appears_ to be one-sided love, is
+_not so_. Love is often returned where it is not acknowledged—often
+proffered where it is not felt; there is so much false semblance in the
+world; and then again, Gusty, the fact of the one-sided love _being_ an
+illusion is the great cause of its eventuating in insanity. Moral
+illusions, mental illusions, are only other names for insanity.”
+
+They rode on towards the Hall in silence; then suddenly out spoke Gusty
+with energy, and said
+
+“Hagar, this is all phantasy of _yours_, not of mine. I love you—I wish
+to pass my life with you—now do not tell me that my case is hopeless.
+Hagar! do not—I will be so patient, although mother used to say that I
+was Gusty by name and Gusty by nature. Come, Hagar, let me hope, and I
+will be so—”
+
+She wheeled her horse suddenly around, and, confronting him, said, very
+earnestly,
+
+“Gusty, you must never think of me as a wife, for I can never love you
+as a wife.”
+
+“Oh, Hagar, if you would only try to like me a little—”
+
+“_Try!_” exclaimed the wild girl, and her laugh rang out upon the air,
+awaking the echoes, “_Try!_—there, I said you knew nothing about
+love—_Try!_”
+
+“Then _you_ know something of it, you have given your heart to another.
+Come, Hagar, if you want to put me out of my misery by one stunning
+blow, say that! say that!”
+
+But Hagar sprang from his side, and trotted quickly into the yard of the
+Hall, kissing her hand to him as she went. He looked after her, doubting
+whether to follow her in or not. Finally, he slowly turned aside, and
+slowly paced his horse off to his mother’s cottage.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grove Cottage was lighted up, and the lights glimmered through the
+intervening trees, as he rode up the grape walk, towards the door.
+Dismounting, and giving his horse in charge of a boy, he passed through
+the parlor into his own room immediately, scarcely noticing by a bow the
+rector or his mother, who were seated there. But the eyes of his mother
+saw his disturbance. She arose and followed him into the room. Gusty was
+sitting down on the foot of his bed, holding his temples together
+between his two hands.
+
+“What is the matter, Augustus, my dear? does your head ache?”
+
+Gusty did not reply.
+
+“_What_ is the matter, Gusty?” again she inquired, stooping down near
+him till the ends of her ringlets (for she still wore her hair in
+ringlets) brushed his cheek.
+
+“A _coup-de-soleil, belle-mère, un coup-de-soleil_.”
+
+“Gracious goodness! my dear, I never heard of such a thing at this
+season of the year! You must have your feet bathed, and ice on your
+head,” and she was hurrying off to get the requisites.
+
+“Come back, _petite maman_, the _coup-de-soleil_ flashed from Hagar
+Churchill’s eyes of fire, and struck my heart; bring ice for my heart,
+dear mother, or rather _no_, she administered enough of that,” said he,
+in a lachrymose tone. Emily Buncombe had stopped, turned round and stood
+still to hear him. When he ceased, she set the candle down on his
+dressing-table, and sitting down by his side, she said,
+
+“Indeed, I really was afraid of this—so you have lost your affections to
+Hagar?”
+
+“Couldn’t help it, mother dear.”
+
+“Gusty! you know I love you.” Gusty looked up inquiringly. “I am the
+best friend you have in the world, am I not?”
+
+“My dear mother.”
+
+“And I would not call upon you to make a sacrifice for _my_ sake, or for
+anything except duty, and your own happiness?”
+
+“Mother!”
+
+“Well, Gusty, I beg that you will give up all idea of Hagar.”
+
+“Alas! mother, she has told me as much herself.”
+
+“I am very glad of that.”
+
+“Yes, mother, _that_ was the sun stroke.”
+
+“You must not think of her any more, Gusty.”
+
+“What is the use of telling me _that_, mother, when she has rejected
+me?”
+
+“Oh!” said the mother, with maternal pique, “as to her _rejecting_ you,
+Gusty, _that_ was a girlish air—nine girls out of ten reject their
+lovers at first to try them—_you_ must resign her.”
+
+But Gusty heard nothing but the first part of the speech—jumping up, he
+caught his mother around the neck and gave her a boisterous kiss, caught
+her up in his arms, ran around the room with her, set her down,
+exclaiming,
+
+“Jupiter Tonnerre! mother, you have given me so much life, strength,
+force—what shall I do with it till to-morrow when I can carry it to
+Heath Hall and lay it at Hagar’s feet, say, mother! have you got a cord
+of wood to cut, a forest to fell—a—a—Lord! mother, if I could get hold
+of this earth I feel strong enough to hurl it through space!”
+
+Now he was walking up and down with glowing cheeks and dancing eye,
+swinging his arms and bringing his hands together with a clap, and
+turning off impatiently where the walls of the short room arrested him,
+just as you have seen a wild beast chafe in his cell. And Emily walked
+up and down uneasily behind him. At last he threw himself heavily in a
+chair. Emily came to him.
+
+“So, mother, girls mean ‘yes’ when they say ‘no,’ you can vouch for that
+by your own experience, hey, mother?”
+
+Emily had seen her mistake in having suggested this, and it added to her
+uneasiness.
+
+“Gusty,” she said, “whatever Hagar might have meant by her ‘no,’ that
+‘no’ has fully exonerated you, if your rather emphatic attentions had
+raised hopes in her bosom. You must give up all attentions to her for
+many reasons.”
+
+“And how coolly you say that! Great God! how coolly you say that! As if
+you had spoken of the mere bagatelle of giving up my _life_, of the mere
+trifle of losing my _soul_. _Hagar!_ Stop, mother, let me hold my head
+tightly—there! so! now perhaps it won’t divide through the top—now,
+mother, tell me why must I give up Hagar?”
+
+“First and least, you are not rich, and Hagar is poor. Miss Churchill is
+the sole heiress of Heath Hall and the contiguous estate; that sounds
+very grandly, but just consider that Heath Hall is a ruin that daily
+threatens to topple down upon and entomb alive its proprietor, and that
+the Heath itself is now an irreclaimable desert.”
+
+“Dearest mother, that is not like you—Hagar’s poverty! I wish—I wish she
+was nameless as well as penniless, and I wish I was commander-in-chief
+of the American army, so that I might have everything to give her, and
+she everything to receive from me.”
+
+“But it is not so, you see, Gusty; for though she may have plenty of
+need, you have nothing to bestow, you also are poor!”
+
+“Poor! _me_ poor! Mother, where am I poor at?” exclaimed Gusty, starting
+up and stretching himself—“_me poor!_ with all this strength to
+struggle, and the world to struggle against! Oh! for God’s sake, stand
+out of my way everybody! give me room! swing! sweep! lest I hurt some
+one unintentionally! I feel like Strong-back in the fairy tale, and I
+wish some one would commission me to take an island up out of the
+Atlantic and carry it across the American continent to the Pacific; or,
+mother, would you like an iceberg for a butter-cooler, or mother, say
+the word and I’ll bring you the North pole for a churning stick. And
+then, mother, I have so much faith. Hurrah! Hallelujah! haven’t I faith!
+God bless you, mother, I have ‘the faith to move mountains,’ for look
+you, mother, when I say to the mountain, ‘Be thou removed and be thou
+cast into the midst of the sea,’ I lay right hold of the mountain bodily
+and hurl it into the water myself, to put life into faith, for ‘faith
+without work is dead,’ and ‘God helps those who help themselves.’”
+
+Emily looked at him gravely and said,
+
+“That is from Hagar, that wild perverted spirit will ruin you! Oh you
+irreverend boy, what would your sainted father say if he could see you
+and hear you.”
+
+“Don’t you suppose he _does_ see and hear me, mother? _I_ do.”
+
+“I hope he watches over you. I hope his spirit will stand between you
+and that wild dark girl.”
+
+“That Hagar of the lightning! That electric Hagar whose touch might
+kindle a statue to life! Talk of a galvanic battery! Why, mother,
+everything that passes from her hands to mine is galvanized! That
+magnetic Hagar! why, mother, everything of hers is magnetized so that it
+sticks to my fingers, and I am obliged to carry it off—her glove, her
+tiny shoe, the eagle feather she wore in her riding cap. I shall be
+taken up for petty larceny yet. Hagar the magnet! Hagar the North star,
+who draws me involuntarily, inevitably after her!”
+
+“She did not draw you across Devil’s Gorge this afternoon,” said Emily,
+maliciously. Gusty wilted down all of a sudden.
+
+“Mother, who told you _that_?”
+
+“Why everybody, it is all over the neighborhood, how in _our_ woods the
+witch didn’t pursue Tam O’Shanter, but Tam O’Shanter the witch, and how
+she carried all his courage with her when she swept across the gorge.
+Come, Mr. Gusty, you have been talking very grandly, sublimely, about
+strength, and force, and impetuosity, and irresistibility, but I have
+heard very loud thunder before now that did very little damage!”
+
+“So! but you never heard very loud thunder that did not do a great deal
+of _good_! Ha! I have you there, _maman_! but never mind, mother, next
+time I ride a hunt with Hagar I’ll follow her through fire and blood,
+now mind if I don’t. I’ll purchase a hunter, then see!”
+
+“Then see you’ll break your neck; but I have a worse fear for you than
+that, Gusty, a far worse fear for you than that. This Hagar, she is the
+talk of the whole neighborhood; her eccentricity, her improprieties,
+expose her to severe animadversions.”
+
+“Her originality you mean; her independence; her free, strong, glorious
+spirit! Oh! Hagar is a chamois! you cannot expect her to trot demurely
+to the music of her own grunting, from trough to straw, like any pig!
+Hagar is an eagle! you must not look to find her waddling lazily and
+feeding fatly with barnyard ducks and geese.”
+
+“A pretty way to speak of your neighbors, Mr. May.”
+
+“Well, then, let them let Hagar alone! Mother!” said Gusty, drawing in
+his breath _hard_ between his teeth, “the anger heats and swells in my
+heart like kindling fire in a bombshell, till it tears and splits and
+flashes, until I feel the fire and see the lightning, and some of these
+days it will explode and blow myself and some others up! when I hear
+these domestic animals sitting in sage judgment on my wild deer of the
+mountains! these barn-door poultry cackling their comments on my falcon
+sailing towards the sun! Pish! pshaw! tush! tut!” exclaimed Gusty,
+jumping up in a heat, and walking the floor.
+
+“Pretty way to talk of your neighbors again, I say, Mr. May!”
+
+“Well, then, let them let Hagar ALONE!” thundered Gusty, bringing his
+hand down on the table like a hammer on the anvil. “Beg your pardon,
+mother, I did not mean that _to_ you, but _of_ them; and if that old
+gander Gardiner Green don’t make his goose and gosling stop cackling
+about Hagar, he’ll get his neck twisted for him!”
+
+Now Emily laughed—
+
+“Poor Gardiner Green, it would be a sin and a shame to persecute him for
+what he has no hand in and can’t help. Don’t you know how he fears his
+wife?”
+
+“Does—does he? very well, I’ll meet fear with fear; he shall fear
+something else worse than his wife!”
+
+“Now, very seriously, Augustus, you will afflict me very much, if you
+commit any folly for the sake of Hagar Churchill.”
+
+“But I love Hagar Churchill—love her! sympathize with her.”
+
+“She has no pity for herself, why should others pity her?”
+
+“_Pity! pity!_ did I say _pity_, mother? pity Hagar Churchill! _pity_
+that proud, free, glad spirit!”
+
+“Yes, _pity her_! that ‘proud, free, glad spirit’ is clothed with
+woman’s deep affections, prisoned in _woman’s_ fragile form, environed
+by woman’s circumstances, and chafes against them all—would break
+through them all! will break through them all! and then, high as that
+proud spirit soars, though her wings should glance in the atmosphere
+around the sun’s disk, she will be beaten back and down—_down!_ Glad as
+that high heart throbs, it will yet beat sobs that throw out tears for
+blood! Wide as that wild spirit wanders, it will yet cower, moaning upon
+the waste hearth of home.”
+
+“Good God, mother, what makes you talk so? If I thought that, I would
+scale the eyrie of the eagle, and carry off Hagar to some sweet South
+sea summer isle, where she should reign another Queen Eve over another
+Eden.”
+
+“Are we to have any supper to-night, Emily?” sang out Mr. Buncombe from
+the parlor.
+
+“Yes! I’m coming—think no more of this Hagar.”
+
+“But, mother,” interrupted Gusty, “_why_ do you have such dreadful
+forebodings for Hagar?”
+
+“I judge her fate by herself, her future by her past and present, and I
+say that, unless Providence interposes to save her as by fire, Hagar’s
+fierce, strong spirit will break her own heart and destroy her own soul!
+Come to supper.”
+
+“Destroy her own soul—come to supper—that’s a pretty brace of subjects
+to tie together, is it not now?” said Gusty.
+
+It must not be supposed that Emily had any unfriendly feelings towards
+Hagar. She did not love Hagar less, but Gusty more. And acting like a
+sober, prudent mother, she did not choose to permit Gusty to marry a
+girl who was fully as much censured as admired in the neighborhood.
+
+After supper she talked with him again, talked earnestly and for a long
+time, until Gusty rising, said,—
+
+“Seriously, mother, you ask too much—too much of me; you, with your
+cool, temperate nature, cannot sympathize with my ardent heart. Alas!
+how should you?—you, who at eighteen could marry a man of sixty (no
+disrespect, mother—I venerate my sainted father’s memory—I talk reason,
+but not disrespect)—you, I say, who could at eighteen wed a man of
+sixty, and be happy with him—you who at twenty-five, in your young
+widowhood, could keep a young lover waiting ten years, until your son
+grew up—you with your cheerful, serene temperament, how can you conceive
+my sufferings if severed from Hagar? My love for Hagar, if die it must,
+will die hard—dreadful will be its death throes; but you, mother, how
+can your quiet heart conceive of this—sympathize with this?”
+
+“A still heart is not always a _cold_ heart, Gusty, or even a _quiet_
+heart. I have tamed my heart to the will of Providence—I have learned in
+His school, and thrown down in impatience no task that He has set
+me—rebelled against no discipline He has ordained for me; and my life
+has gone smoothly, pleasantly, happily. I have gained some calm wisdom;
+I am thirty-six years old, yet my face is as smooth, my eye as clear, my
+hair as black and moist as in girlhood. I have minded God for my father,
+and He has very gently led me up the steeps of life. Believe me, Gusty,
+it is our rebellion against Him that makes all our troubles. God’s will
+is paramount, absolute, its end is our good, and He will keep us in our
+path if it be by ‘a hedge of thorns;’ seek to escape God’s providence
+and in your struggle you break and bruise yourself, and lose your
+strength. If, in the words of Scripture, you ‘kick against the pricks,’
+you will be wounded. It rests with us, Gusty, to go God’s way willingly
+and pleasantly, or to go in it rebelliously and painfully, for go God’s
+way we must. The further we stray from it the longer and more fearful
+will be the forced journey back to it and the more we wrestle against
+God’s laws and will, the more fatigued and bruised we will be, of course
+without the glory and the anguish of coming off victors. Now, Gusty,
+_my_ faith in God was only lip-acknowledged, before a slight
+circumstance made it heartfelt. It was this:—You were an infant of six
+weeks old. You had a tumor rising under your ear. It grew very large and
+painful. When I had to dress it it put you in an agony, and you would
+struggle violently and look up into my face with an imploring,
+reproachful expression, as though you would inquire _why I_ tortured
+you—_I_ whom you depended upon and whom you loved, and who loved you—why
+_I_, your mother, tortured you. That was your expression—I read it
+plainly in your countenance, Gusty, and I wept at your silent reproach.
+Your father was standing by me, and he said, ‘Emily, what is it?’ I
+replied, ‘I weep—I weep because this child cannot understand that I
+_must_ do this—that I _pain_ him to _cure_ him.’ But while I spoke,
+Gusty, darted down this truth into my heart-strings from Heaven. And so
+God, the pitiful father, wounds to heal His children, and would make
+them understand, but that they are querulous and still cry ‘why, why
+suffering? since God has power and love?’ Alas! we cannot understand,
+the dulness is ours, or we _must_ not understand, for the probation is
+ours, for some reason that will one day be revealed. It may be not from
+the deficiency of God’s power or will to reveal, but from a deficiency
+of our ability now to receive the revelation of the secret of suffering;
+and we wait or rebel—struggle against or reproach Providence for
+suffering, even as the tortured, writhing, and screaming child silently
+reproached its loving and grieving mother for her tender dressing of its
+tumor. God doeth all things well; that truth has calmed my heart, made
+my life serene and happy.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+                              THE LOVERS.
+
+             “A brow of beautiful, yet earnest thought,
+             A form of manly grace.”
+                                                 SIGOURNEY.
+
+             “That fearful love which trembles in the eyes,
+             And with a silent earthquake shakes the soul.”
+                                                 DRYDEN.
+
+
+They sat under the shed of the piazza at Heath Hall—Raymond and Hagar—in
+the same piazza that had been the stage of so many scenes of
+selfishness, tyranny, and violence—of weak resistance, or of weaker
+compliance—across the floor of which the long shadow of Withers had been
+thrown as he passed in his ghostly wooing of Sophie; before the steps of
+which the pale wanderer had paused to warn in her flight towards
+death—through which the corpse of the sinner, sufferer, and suicide, had
+been borne to the inquest—in which the declaration of love and
+despairing parting had occurred between Sophie Churchill and Augustus
+Wilde—through which Raymond had flown to pick up Hagar, when in maniac
+violence Mr. Withers had hurled her through the open window—lastly,
+through which the corpse of the poor lunatic had been carried, the
+shadow seeming to pass from the house at the same time. All was very
+quiet now. It was Spring, and the moon was shining down through the
+trellis work and vines, and the moonlight, agitated by the shadows of
+the leaves that quivered in the breeze, trembled on the floor. They sat
+together on the bench at one of the extremities of the piazza. Hagar sat
+erect—leaned back against the balustrade; her fingers were slightly
+clasped, and her fierce eyes burning into the opposite vines. Yet the
+wild girl was very gentle now; the brave girl timid; her venture was—not
+life and limb—that Hagar would at any time risk, with a kindling, not a
+smouldering cheek; her venture was—her affections!—that heart, once so
+keenly sensitive—that heart which in infancy had been stung and
+embittered until it had at last grown stiff as any other muscle under
+the action of any other bitter tonic poison! that among the forest rocks
+and streams had grown so healthy! so joyous! It was such a free, brave,
+leaping heart, that its prison-chest would scarce contain it!—it would
+leap, though, and soar to the clouds!—it did send its owner on horseback
+bounding over awful chasms, leaping five-barred gates, thundering down
+frightful descents, and sing with gladness when the feat was done! But
+now this jubilant heart was slowly trembling like a balloon in its
+descent to earth, or a wounded bird that slowly flapping its wings
+falls, and falls. Its wild liberty was going—gone. Yes, her liberty of
+thought and action was gone; no one ventured to advise, to reprove, to
+oppose the young mistress of Heath Hall; yet she felt reproof,
+opposition, powerfully. There were no substantial fetters of steel or
+iron on her slender wrists and ankles, yet the fetters encircled her
+free limbs notwithstanding! Listen, dear reader, while I tell you how
+Hagar—queen of woods and waves—Hagar, _là lionnesse de chase_,
+discovered that though no one rebuked her by word, gesture, or glance,
+she was no longer her own mistress; that she had to contend for her
+freedom, not “with flesh and blood,” but with powers and principalities
+of—something or other! There had been a high day at the Heath; under the
+auspices of Master Gusty May the hounds had met early. There had been a
+great chase, quite a steeple chase; a neck-or-nothing affair; and all
+day long, over hill and dale, rock and brake, the hunting had thundered,
+and still Hagar, the slight agile girl, on her flying black steed, had
+kept the advance; and still, with wild mirth and fearless defiance, she
+had cheered them forward! down the most precipitous steeps, through the
+most violent torrents, over the most frightful chasms, until the brush
+was taken. The hunters dispersed, and many of them rode over to Heath
+Hall, in company with Gusty May and Hagar. And there when all lips were
+carelessly, mirthfully speaking of her feats of horsemanship that day,
+and the dark girl’s cheek kindled more with the proud consciousness of
+power than with pleasure at their admiration, she sought Raymond’s face.
+Raymond never joined these hunts, his tastes did not lie that way. She
+sought Raymond’s countenance at the very moment that some one spoke of
+her leap across “Devil’s Gorge.” She sought Raymond’s countenance half
+in doubt. He heard—she felt he did, although his eyes were fixed upon
+the book before him. He disapproved—she felt, with a strange pain, a
+strange sense of loss that he did, although no glance, gesture, or frown
+betrayed rebuke. And somehow, all Hagar’s gladness escaped in a long
+drawn sigh! She felt not quite so much of a young lioness as she had a
+moment since; and the presence of the company annoyed her, and she
+wished from her soul that they would eat their suppers and go along
+home; she wished to hear Raymond speak to her alone, that she might know
+how much she had lost, and perchance recover it. Well, at last they did
+go, and Hagar, after, in the Maryland manner, seeing the last guest to
+the door herself, came back in her riding habit, which she had not yet
+had time to change—she came back, that slight, dark girl, looking so
+elegant in her graceful black habit, her shining blue-black ringlets
+glittering down her crimson cheek; her gleaming eyes and teeth were
+veiled and covered, one by the purple lips, the other by the long black
+fringes; how gentle she seemed now, gentle as the half-dozing
+leopardess, with her tusks and claws covered with the softest fur. And
+she _was_ gentle just now, she glided softly near Raymond and stood by
+him, so humbly! He did not see her attitude or expression as she stood a
+little behind and on one side of him, but he felt her there, turned
+softly, and passing his hand gently around her shoulders drew her down
+to his side. They were on the sofa between the two windows, and the
+light of the candles on the mantel-piece fell upon the picture—he drew
+her small and elegant head down upon his bosom with the radiant face
+turned towards him, and he gazed down on it as though his soul would
+escape through breath and glance, and die upon it. She could not meet
+those tender deep blue eyes, fixed so earnestly on her face; her black
+eye-lashes fell upon her crimson cheeks, and her brow burned; he stooped
+till his golden curls mingled with her black ringlets, and pressed his
+lips to hers. Quickly she whirled her head from under his arm, but
+continued to sit by him; he was silent, thoughtful, while he held her
+hand and pressed it from time to time.
+
+“Raymond!” at last she said. “Love!”
+
+“What is the matter?”
+
+“Why, dearest Raymond, you are grave, unusually grave—will you tell me
+the reason?”
+
+“If my Hagar, in her deepest heart, is conscious of having given me
+cause for pain, is not that enough?”
+
+The girl turned her glowing cheek and heaving bosom away from him; her
+heart was struggling violently with its chains, she did not speak for
+some time. At last he said—
+
+“Have I offended you; have I wounded you, Hagar?”
+
+“No—no—_neither_—you are too gentle and generous to do either, but I
+have hurt myself in your estimation.”
+
+He drew her to his bosom in the gentlest embrace, and bowed his soft
+cheek upon her face so slowly, tenderly; but she broke from his loving
+hold with a strangled sob and escaped to her eyrie. Yes, it was too
+true, her liberty was gone. The caress of love had riveted the chain of
+bondage about the maiden’s will—the kiss of love had left the mark of
+ownership upon the maiden’s cheek. Yes, the wild falcon was caught in
+the jesses. True, hers was the most gentle captor in the world, it was
+the gentleness that disarmed her, the tenderness that subdued her; still
+she _was_ caught, disarmed, subdued, and she did not like it—she could
+have reproached her own heart as though it had been a traitor, sitting
+up before her. Why, she softly inquired of herself, why should Raymond’s
+good or ill opinion bring _her_ joy or pain who utterly defied all other
+opinion? She could not tell, she could neither break her fetters nor
+understand how they came to be riveted so fast—verily, she was like the
+young wild horse of the prairie struggling with the lasso around her
+neck, unknowing how it came there, unable to shake it off. This feature
+in love was new to her; this subjugation of the will, this thorn in the
+rose, and it rankled not a little. She would do as she pleased, she said
+to herself. Sophie had never controlled her; Emily had never controlled
+her; and her horse’s hoofs had naturally and very unconsciously spurned
+dust and defiance in the faces of those who had pursued her with blame.
+Now comes this power stealing into her bosom, and gently, so gently, yet
+so tightly, winding round and round her free heart, so that in its wild
+throbs it bruised itself against the pressure. Yes, she _would_ do as
+she pleased; she would ride another hunt if only to convince herself
+that she might do so. And she did so; yet when flying over the moor or
+heath, when thundering down some declivity, or spurring her horse to
+some fearful leap, a hand of air would seem to fall upon her wrist
+arresting it, a voice of air fall on her ears forbidding her, and
+impatiently, like a young courser throwing up his head and champing the
+bit, she would shake off the hand and voice of air, and take the leap;
+but then—a pain would drop and sink heavily, more heavily, upon her
+spirits, weighing them utterly down—no more glad triumph! no more waving
+of the cap, or _if_ the cap was waved it was in defiance of the heart
+sinking like a plumb-weight through the bosom. “I _will_ do as I
+please,” many times she would say to herself. “Well, who hinders you?”
+“herself,” would say to her; “not Raymond, certainly, he never attempts
+such a thing, he only _suffers_ when he sees you thus.” So Hagar
+struggled against the power that was subduing her. It was when this
+struggle was nearly over that Hagar and Raymond sat in the piazza under
+the moonbeams, shining through the trellis work. Hagar, as I said, with
+her slight form erect, and her glittering eyes fixed upon the opposite
+end of the trellis. Raymond holding her small hand that quivered in his
+palm like the heart of a captured bird—Raymond with his graceful head
+bowed to catch her words.
+
+“Not yet, dearest Raymond, not _just yet_.”
+
+“But, Hagar, love, _why_, what _now_ hinders our marriage? Just see,
+dearest, how you have put me off! bethink you, from the time of my
+arrival at the Heath before my father’s death, I began to love you,
+would have married you, my father wished particularly to unite us and
+bless our union before he died, but you, Hagar, came daily with your
+‘not yet’ weekly, monthly; with your ‘not yet’ until the old man died
+without seeing the desire of his eyes. Was that kind, wild Hagar? Well!
+and since his death, you have said ‘not yet, do not let us join our
+hands over a scarcely closed grave,’ and I agreed with you. I took leave
+of you and returned to the charge of my preparatory school. A year
+passed, and procuring a substitute to take care of my school, I came
+again—again renewed my entreaty, and again Hagar with paling cheek
+insisted ‘not yet,’ and again I left the Hall alone. Believing, although
+you would not confess it, that your reluctance arose from an
+unwillingness to leave your native place, without consulting you I
+abandoned my business and came down here; here I have lingered weeks,
+and still Hagar pales and flushes and tells me ‘not yet.’ Now what am I
+to think of this, Hagar? _why_ not yet, do you not love me, will not my
+love make you happy?”
+
+Most tenderly he raised that little dark and fluttering hand to his
+lips, most gently he spoke as he said—
+
+“Now, my Hagar, tell me why do you insist upon this delay?”
+
+“Not insist, oh! not insist, Raymond—_plead_—I plead this delay—your
+love make me happy? oh! yes, _so_ happy I am afraid to stir for fear of
+disturbing it. I feel like a dreamer who has fallen asleep in foreign
+lands, and dreams that he is standing in his own garden—afraid to stir
+lest I wake up—not yet, dear Raymond—do not let us wake yet, do not
+break this dream, dispel this illusion, spoil this love yet!”
+
+“‘Spoil this love,’ why what do you mean by that, Hagar?”
+
+“I mean that we are so happy as we are, Raymond—now that I have partly
+tamed my wild heart to your gentle hand—now that I no longer grieve or
+wound you, or ride steeplechases, or shock the neighborhood into
+electric life by some galvanic feat of desperation; now that I am
+winning ‘golden opinions from all sorts of people,’ and no longer
+mortifying you—why we are so happy, this is such a fairy-land,
+dream-like happiness. Think, we are under the same roof, sit daily at
+the same table, ride to church together every Sunday, visit together,
+read together, ramble together, my twin-brother,” said she, suddenly
+yielding herself to his embrace with affectionate abandonment. “So we
+are _so_ happy! alas! don’t spoil it, don’t let us become a humdrum Mr.
+and Mrs. Withers yet—a tobacco-planting, corn-growing, butter-churning
+Mr. and Mrs. Withers! don’t! the very idea ‘withers’ my heart,” and the
+wild girl, wild still! laughed like the explosion of a squib.
+
+Raymond folded his long fair hands together and fell into thought; at
+last he said:
+
+“Hagar, I have always heard, read, and dreamed much about the
+_confiding_ love of woman, but I see little of it in you; how is this,
+Hagar?”
+
+“Have I want of confidence—is it that? Perhaps it is,” said the girl
+seriously. “I who neither fear to risk life, limb, nor good opinion; I
+fear, oh! how I _do_ fear to lose the affection of one who loves me; I
+fear to be too much with them, to ask anything of them; I feel as though
+I would always rather serve them than receive service from them.
+Raymond, young as I am, I have already suffered so much from wounded
+sensibilities; I know you would not readily believe this, but oh!
+listen—the first thing I loved in this wide world was Sophie; the first
+thing I remember was sleeping on her bosom every night with her sweet
+breath on my cheek; I do suppose she spoiled me, I was always with her,
+she was devoted to me, absorbed in me, until a new enthusiasm seized
+her, and she—oh! but, Raymond, forgive me, I suppose it was all right,
+only I did not comprehend it, and when I was suddenly severed from
+Sophie, I wept all night, screamed all day, and then when she continued
+to neglect me, and when after the arrival of Rosalia, all the child
+spoilers in the house and in the neighborhood left me altogether, and
+clustered around Rosalia like bees around a clover blossom; well,
+Raymond! perhaps it was my nature after all, I took to the forest for my
+home, and to animals for my companions; I consoled myself at first for
+the want of affection, and, afterwards, I grew really independent of it!
+my heart was so high and strong, I did not care for love—not I! I loved
+others in a half contemptuous right royal way, but I asked no sort of
+return; indeed, I think, it would have annoyed me; but now, Raymond! now
+I love you, and I have your love, and I tremble—I tremble lest I lose
+_that_ also; no heart has been steady to me, no human heart I mean, up
+to this time (it remains to be seen whether yours will be, Raymond)—no
+human heart, I said—my pointers, Remus and Romulus, have been, and
+dog-like always will be. Do you know, Raymond, by the way, why I called
+my two favorites Remus and Romulus?”
+
+“I guess you thought, bitter girl, that the fate of the poor twins cast
+out to the wolf to be nursed was not unlike that of little Hagar rocked
+upon the tree tops.”
+
+“Yes, that was it.”
+
+“My dear Hagar, you must forget these things; it were unmerciful to
+remember them against my unhappy father, most cruel to remember them
+against dearest Sophie, whose mild life has been one offering for
+others.”
+
+“I do not remember them ever. I only recall them when forced to the
+recollection, and when I have to account to myself, or to you, for some
+strange trait foreign to a young girl’s character, and then I recall
+them without bitterness as facts, not as injuries.”
+
+“Then, Hagar, love,” said he, “I am now perfectly serious in what I am
+about to say, I must either marry you very soon or tear myself away from
+you. Hagar, through the influence of one of my father’s old friends, I
+have been offered the situation of _attaché_ to the new embassy to the
+Court of Madrid; they sail in three weeks from Brooklyn. Come, Hagar,
+shall I go?”
+
+Hagar was silent.
+
+“Listen, Hagar,—if I go it is probable I shall remain three or four
+years—shall I go?”
+
+Hagar’s eyes burned holes in the floor.
+
+“Hagar, I am very weary of entreaty, hear me! I must either marry you or
+tear myself away from you! one or the other! and soon! Come! which shall
+I do, Hagar?”
+
+“We are very happy as we are; remain with us, this is your home, stay,
+you shall have as much of my company as you wish, the more the better; I
+will give up all my out-door amusements when you cannot accompany me, I
+will do anything in the world to gratify you—except get married—oh, not
+yet.”
+
+He jumped up—it was strange to see the gentle and graceful Raymond
+exhibit so much emotion.
+
+“‘Not yet.’ Oh! for heaven’s sake do not ring the changes on those two
+odious syllables any longer, Hagar; I am getting restive under it.”
+
+Then he dropped down into his seat again with a sigh, saying,
+
+“Bear with me; Hagar, it is not often that I lose patience, but indeed,
+my wild love, you are a trial! now hear me, Hagar. I shall write and
+accept that situation, I shall make preparations for my journey, and in
+two weeks from this night I shall leave Heath Hall to join the embassy
+that will sail in one week from that time. I shall, unless dearest Hagar
+in that time places her little hand in mine and trusts me with the care
+of her future happiness—well, Hagar?”
+
+“Well, Raymond?”
+
+“What have you to say to that?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Nothing?”
+
+“_Nothing._”
+
+“Ungentle! Unwomanly!”
+
+“Perhaps _too_ ungentle, _too_ unwomanly to be able to make you happy,
+Raymond!”
+
+“Hagar!”
+
+“Well!”
+
+“Mad girl! why do you act in this way?”
+
+“What way? I beg you to remain with us; I promise you to do everything
+to make you happy, except marry you; and you should rest content,
+especially as I wish to marry no one else.”
+
+“But why? why?”
+
+“Because I am afraid!—afraid!” said the girl.
+
+And then she arose, and wishing him good night, hurried into the room.
+As she passed in, a pale figure intercepted her further progress—
+
+“Gusty!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Yes, ‘Gusty!’”
+
+“I did not know that you were here.”
+
+“I have been here for half an hour. I passed right through the piazza,
+but you and Raymond were too deeply engaged in conversation to hear me.
+Perceiving your absorption, I would not interrupt you; I came in here,
+and borne down with fatigue, and stunned with despair (for, Hagar, the
+first words of your conversation betrayed the state of affairs between
+you and Raymond) I threw myself upon the sofa and there I lay until I
+heard you arise and enter the house—don’t be disturbed, Hagar, I only
+heard the few words as I passed through the piazza. I would not, you may
+be assured, have heard one word that I could have avoided hearing, and
+the words I heard were providential—they have been good for me, they
+have stunned, benumbed my senses into a sort of peace. Well, Hagar, when
+is it to come off?”
+
+“What, Gusty?”
+
+“You know—your marriage with Raymond!”
+
+But Hagar, wafting him a good night, fled up the stairs to bed. And
+Gusty, to avoid Raymond, whom he had not the power just now to meet in a
+friendly manner, Gusty having ascertained that Sophie was not visible,
+slunk out through the back way and disappeared.
+
+Days passed at Heath Hall, and Gusty was not seen. Raymond had written
+his letter of acceptance, had gone to Hagar’s eyrie in the fourth story,
+and leaning over the back of her chair, had read it to her. She had
+heard it with little visible emotion.
+
+“Now, Hagar, I am about to seal it. Tarquinius is mounted in the yard
+ready to take it to the post-office;—tell me, Hagar, shall I send it, or
+not?”
+
+“Just as you please.”
+
+“Then I please _not_ to send it on condition that you give me your
+hand.”
+
+“I cannot—yet I implore you to stay—do not leave us—I—I shall be very
+unhappy when you are gone.”
+
+“Marriage or flight, Hagar; those are my alternatives.”
+
+She said no more. He lingered.
+
+“Shall I send the letter, Hagar?”
+
+“As you please.”
+
+He took a wafer from her writing-desk, and sealing the letter, directed
+it; then going to the window, he beckoned Tarquinius. The boy
+dismounted, and coming into the house ascended the long flight of
+stairs, and in time entered the room. Raymond looked at Hagar as he
+slowly gave the letter into the hands of the boy. Hagar did not offer to
+interfere. Tarquinius left the room, and five minutes after she saw him
+ride out of the yard, letter in hand. Their eyes met then; there was
+sadness in the expression of both—the sadness of reproach upon Raymond’s
+face, the sadness of deprecation on Hagar’s. Indeed either of them could
+have wept, but that Raymond for his manhood, and Hagar for that early in
+her brave childhood she had made a sort of silent pledge of total
+abstinence from tears, refrained. He left the room very soon.
+
+Sophie entered it. She paced it in her soft, slow manner, and sinking
+down in one of the old leathern chairs by the window at which Hagar
+stood looking out upon the bay, she said—
+
+“Hagar, my love, I have come to have a talk with you: my dear child,
+what is the matter between you and Raymond? why have you grieved and
+repulsed him again? and, if I am not very much mistaken, permitted him
+to make arrangements for that foreign mission?”
+
+“Did he tell you that, Aunt Sophie?” said Hagar, turning around.
+
+“Of course not, my love; I met him coming down, I saw his face
+overshadowed, and I had seen just before that, the superscription of the
+letter in the hand of Tarquinius; now, what is it all about? Trust me,
+Raymond looks distressed to death.”
+
+Hagar ran her slender, dark fingers, through her glittering blue-black
+ringlets, and looked down in perplexity into the soft brown eyes of
+Sophie, raised to hers with their old look of pleading love. Then
+turning her eyes quickly away, she looked from the window; she did not
+wish to speak upon the subject.
+
+“You want a loving trust, Hagar,” said Sophie, sadly.
+
+“Perhaps I do,” as sadly replied the girl.
+
+“I never saw one so young as you with so little confidence, so little
+trust as you have—your distrust is more like a hardened man or woman of
+the world than a simple girl, a maiden not yet eighteen.”
+
+“But I am _not_ a simple girl—love, hope, trust, faith, were crushed out
+of me while I was yet an infant, and you know it; or perhaps you do not
+know it, Sophie; though you had some hand in the work.”
+
+“Hagar, love! you afflict me—tell me what you mean by that?”
+
+“Nothing! nothing!”
+
+“Nay, tell me, Hagar! I must know the meaning of your sad words.”
+
+“Nothing! nothing! I will explain nothing! account for nothing!
+investigate, analyse nothing! I will accuse no one! I did not mean to
+hint at a wrong! I was betrayed into it!”
+
+“This is growing very serious by your energy of manner, Hagar—have I
+injured you in any way?—my own dear child, do not turn away, but answer
+me.”
+
+“No, no; never lifted your finger, or raised your voice, to hurt me the
+least. Oh! nonsense, my dearest aunt! I am a scamp to make you
+sad—nothing! only _this_, that _my_ experience has so schooled me, young
+as you think I am, that I am afraid to launch my happiness in the
+uncertain seas of other hearts.”
+
+“You want faith, Hagar. Ah! Hagar, I partly guess now what you mean; but
+if you had known how much I loved you, all the time you thought I was
+neglecting you! Have faith, Hagar. Good Heavens!” said she, speaking
+with unaccustomed energy, “have faith! the world could not go on without
+faith. There is a great deal of faith in the world—social faith, and
+commercial faith; political faith, and domestic faith, and Christian
+faith, which embraces all the others; but there is not faith enough
+anywhere—and you, Hagar, are deplorably deficient; cultivate that small
+speck of faith that is in your heart until it grows strong and gives you
+happiness. You _cannot_ live without faith—with it you have all things,
+without it you have nothing. Have faith first in God, in His wisdom,
+goodness, power, and love, in His all-surrounding con”—
+
+“Oh, I do! you know I do, Sophie, and all the sin and suffering I see on
+earth does not in the least shake my faith in God—but—”
+
+“But you have little or no faith in your fellow creatures; cultivate
+that little then, Hagar. Oh! trust, and its opposite, mistrust, how
+powerful they are; the one for evil, the other for good. Trust! why,
+Hagar, it is the moral philosopher’s stone, that transmutes, not base
+metals to gold, but better, evil to good. Believe me; I think, Hagar,
+the story of the philosopher’s stone was an allegory, and meant this
+same faith. Why faith will convert the unfaithful by the very appeal it
+makes to their better nature. Faith plunges straight through all that is
+ill in a heart, and seizes on that which is good, though half smothered
+in sin, brings it out into life and action, cherishes it until it is
+strong and able to struggle with and perhaps to overcome the evil. Why,
+Hagar, just take a case: suppose a person whose interests are jostled
+with yours in the conflict of this world becomes your opponent, seems
+your enemy, gives you a great deal of trouble, perhaps works you much
+woe in one way or another, yet have faith in _him_, believe that _his_
+heart is not _all_ selfishness, nor treat it as though it were; believe
+that in that soul watches a _conscience_ that speaks for you, if it
+could be heard; in that heart a _human sympathy_ that still suffers for
+you, if it could be felt; a spark of divine and human love, in a word,
+that, however covered up and crusted over by sin and selfishness, still
+lives, may still be nursed into a healthful and regenerating flame by
+your love. Have faith in the human feeling, even of the selfish. Believe
+that somewhere down in the deeps of their souls, buried though it be,
+there lives some good that _your_ goodness might elicit; some love that
+_your_ love might arouse; some faith that _your_ faith might sustain;
+some conscience that your forbearance or forgiveness may awaken. And on
+the other hand, Hagar, mistrust of good, doubt of good, how fraught with
+evil it is; doubt chains the sinner to his sin, keeps the weak man on
+his couch of weakness. Trust is health, life; mistrust is illness,
+death.”
+
+“But, aunt, if you had been robbed by a person, for instance, would you
+trust that person with your purse?”
+
+“I do not mean superficial trust,” said Sophie; “no, perhaps I would not
+leave my purse in the way of a proved thief, unless I had some guarantee
+of his reformation; but I would have _trust_ in _his capabilities for
+reformation_, and I would run some risk of loss, if necessary, in
+advancing his reformation.”
+
+They were silent some time. Then Hagar said—
+
+“But you are mistaken, Sophie, if you think that I doubt or mistrust
+Raymond; it is not exactly that, it is a vague, undefined fear—dread.”
+
+“It is the same thing, arises from the same thing, Hagar; but conquer
+it, my dear. Come, Hagar, you love Raymond—long months ago you promised
+him your hand—you were miserable whenever he left the Hall, even for his
+northern school; you will be wretched when once he has left the shores
+of the United States—you will nearly die. I know something of that
+despair, Hagar,” said she, trembling; then suddenly stopped, as though
+frightened at her own words.
+
+“You, Sophie; why, who ever left you?”
+
+“Hush, my love, hush!” said Sophie, growing very pale.
+
+“Ah!” thought Hagar to herself, “see how she loved _Rosalia_.”
+
+“Come, Hagar, let me recall Raymond—he loves you, he deserves you—come,
+Hagar,” said Sophie, laying her hand on the dark girl’s arm and looking
+up into her face pleadingly, as though _she_ were the child, and Hagar
+the woman. But the girl shook her head; that last incident in the
+conversation, as she understood it, was not a propitious one.
+
+A few days rapidly slid away, and the morning of Raymond’s departure
+arrived. It was a very rainy day. His trunks had been corded, and were
+carried down to the beach, to await the passing of the packet in which
+he was to sail.
+
+Breakfast was over; and Sophie, Hagar, and Raymond were standing at the
+window that overlooked the bay. Raymond held a spy-glass in his hand,
+which Hagar would sometimes take from him and level at a distant object,
+and Raymond would watch, momentarily hoping, expecting, that she would
+drop a whisper, even at this last moment, and say, “Stay, Raymond.” But
+she did not. He thought her fingers quivered slightly as she returned
+him the spy-glass, and that her voice faltered as she said, “There is
+the vessel in sight, Raymond; look and see if it be not.”
+
+It was the packet.
+
+“Now she will relent,” he said to himself.
+
+The packet bore rapidly down the bay.
+
+“Good-by, dearest Sophie, _petite belle mère_,” said he, drawing Sophie
+to his bosom, and kissing her brow with an assumption of gay
+indifference.
+
+“God bless and prosper you, Raymond—God send you back to us, healthful
+in body, soul, and spirit—good-by, poor, dear Raymond—I am so sorry you
+are going again!” and Sophie sank down in the corner of the sofa, bowed
+her head, and sobbed.
+
+“Now she _will_ relent,” smiled Raymond to himself, as he went to Hagar,
+held out his arms, and said, “Farewell, love! farewell, dear, hard
+Hagar!”
+
+“I am going down to the beach with you,” said she.
+
+And then Raymond smiled more to himself, and again pressing the hand of
+the weeping Sophie, he drew Hagar’s arm within his own, and left the
+house. Hagar had thrown a large cloak over her head and shoulders, and
+Raymond hoisted a large umbrella—Tarquinius Superbus strutting before
+them with his arms full of small packets, &c. They arrived at the
+beach—stood upon the sand, with the rain pouring down from above, and
+the tide hurrying against their feet below as the boat from the packet
+was rowed towards them. He turned and looked in her face—all its
+expression was turned inwards, it was so pale, cold, blank. “_Ah! I said
+so_,” thought Raymond, “relenting little queen!” He could not take a
+lover’s leave of her there—not before the rough boatmen, who were
+devouring them with their eyes—but he took her hand and pressed it; oh!
+it was so cold and clammy! pressed it to his lips—
+
+“Farewell, dear Hagar!”
+
+No answer.
+
+“Good-by, Hagar. Do you hear me? I say, farewell!”
+
+“Yes! Good-by!” said she, almost wildly.
+
+“Well, it is _indeed_ good-by, then, Hagar?”
+
+“Yes! Good-by!” gulped Hagar.
+
+He was disappointed—oh! how deeply—he stooped, however, and said—
+
+“Hagar, I did not think that you would have held out so firmly thus
+long; now! quick! in mercy to me—in mercy to yourself—tell me to stay—it
+is not too late—put your hand in mine—that will be enough!”
+
+Hagar withdrew both hands.
+
+“Boat waitin’, zur!” now broke in the hoarse voice of the waterman.
+
+“Well, Hagar? Well?”
+
+“Good-by!”
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+“Yes! Good-by!”
+
+He caught her—he could not help it then—he strained her to his bosom,
+and kissed her—the boatmen might laugh, he did not see them—and tore
+himself away, stepped into the skiff, and was rowed to the packet. Soon
+the packet had resumed its course down the bay; and the rain poured down
+as she stood there, with Tarquinius holding the umbrella over her head.
+How pale, and cold, and still she stood, with all the fire of her
+temperament concentrated in her gaze, which burned upon the sails of the
+receding packet, until it was lost, even to her falcon glance, while the
+rain poured down around her, and the waves washed up to her. At last,
+“just to see the obstinacy of men!” she said; and turning, wandered
+listlessly home.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The packet wended its way down the bay, it was bound for the port of New
+York; the weather was bad, and grew worse; contrary winds kept it back,
+and it was many days longer than usual on the voyage. At last it
+anchored in the port of New York. Raymond went to a hotel and called for
+paper, pen, and ink, with which to write to his friends at Churchill
+Point. Having finished his letters, he took them to the Post Office, and
+after mailing them, ran his eye down the published list of letters, as
+if by hundredth hazard his name might be there. It was not. Indeed he
+did not expect to see it. It was an idle thing, he thought, but still he
+would ask the clerk if there was a letter there for him.
+
+“_What_ name, sir?”
+
+“Raymond Withers.”
+
+“Here is your letter, sir, came in this morning’s mail.”
+
+He seized the letter—just as you seized _that_ letter of yours, you
+know, reader. It—Raymond’s letter, and not yours—was from Sophie, and
+ran thus—
+
+
+  “Come home, dear Raymond. Hagar has been nearly delirious since you
+  have been gone, yet I believe she would expire before she would recall
+  you herself; however, come home; I will engage to say that we will
+  have a bright little wedding at Heath Hall, yet; indeed, so certain am
+  I of that fact, that I have engaged extra assistance, and have
+  commenced preparations.”
+
+
+The other part was in a different hand—a dear, familiar, light, airy
+hand, that seemed to skim, scarce touching the paper; it ran thus—
+
+
+  “I have come to Sophie’s writing-desk, and read over her shoulder what
+  she has just written—I, too, say—Come home, Raymond!—I place my
+  ‘little hand’ in yours.”
+
+
+In ten minutes Raymond had written an answer, being an _avant courier_
+of himself; in ten more he had penned a letter of resignation of his
+appointment; and in an hour he had removed his baggage from the packet
+to another bound by the bay to Baltimore _viâ_ Churchill Point.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just a week after sailing from New York, and three weeks from the date
+of his leaving Churchill Point, Raymond stepped from a boat upon the
+beach under the promontory, and as true as you live, reader, it was
+pouring rain just as fast as it rained upon the day of his departure.
+And there stood a slight dark girl, muffled in a black cloak, and behind
+her, with the whites of his eyes and teeth conspicuous, stood Tarquinius
+Superbus, holding an umbrella over her. It seemed to Raymond that he had
+only dozed a minute, and dreamed the last three weeks. He was by her
+side in an instant, had pressed her hand and drawn it through his arm,
+and walking on with her was bending forward and downward, looking into
+her dark and sparkling face with an expression, half affection, half
+triumph, on his superb brow and beautiful lips; but the mirth sparkling
+up from Hagar’s face defied him.
+
+“Do you know—does your little highness happen to know, Princess Hagar,
+what inconvenience you have put me to—what an agreeable three weeks I
+have passed—two weeks confined in the close cabin of a little sea-tossed
+packet, drenched with rain and beset with easterly winds which were of
+course contrary; then one week’s voyage back, in weather a little worse
+than the other, except that the wind was favorable; to say nothing of
+the seeming folly of resigning my appointment at the moment the embassy
+was to sail. You have inconvenienced the administration also, Hagar!
+think of their having to _improvise_ a successor for me at the last
+moment.”
+
+“But who would have thought that you would have been so stubborn?”
+laughed Hagar.
+
+“Stubborn! it was _you_ who were stubborn, Hagar. Good heavens! I never
+encountered such a will in my life!”
+
+“I could not have believed that you would have gone!”
+
+“I could not have believed that you would have suffered me to go.”
+
+“But I expected you to give up.”
+
+“And I wished you to yield. Where is that boy? Where is Tarquinius? Oh,
+immediately behind us; I thought so. Come, Tarquinius! come, Superbus!
+hurry home and get tea in—you waited tea for me, Hagar?”
+
+“Oh, of course.”
+
+Tarquinius toiled with all his might and main ahead; but hurrying home,
+up that steep, slippery cliff, was not such sure and expeditious work,
+and Tarquinius kept near them perforce, while poor Raymond, still
+bending forward, looked down into Hagar’s liquid eyes and lips, like
+Tantalus looked at the spring that was sparkling, leaping, and laughing
+invitation and defiance in his face.
+
+“_Oh-h!_” groaned and smiled Raymond.
+
+“Are you tired?” questioned Hagar, maliciously.
+
+“No, you monkey.”
+
+“I am afraid you are,” said Hagar.
+
+In reply to which Raymond stooped down, and lifting her lightly in his
+arms, ran up the steep with her, and set her down upon the top, then
+smilingly drew her arm again within his own, and they went to the house.
+How cheerfully the firelight and the candle-light glowed from the two
+windows under the shed of the piazza!
+
+“I love to see a light within the house at night so much!” said Raymond,
+“and I like it better even in cities than in the country—it looks so
+very cheerful; and then to go through long streets at night, in which
+the houses are closed up from top to bottom, and you only guess life
+within through a chink in the shutter—it has to me the most ungenial,
+unsocial, selfish look in the world. I always kept the windows of my
+lodgings open until I went to bed, would you believe it of me, Hagar,
+just to add a little to the cheerfulness of our dark back street.”
+
+Sophie came out to meet them smiling, with her brown eyes looking so
+loving, and conducted them in.
+
+Raymond had changed his clothes, and tea was over, and they gathered
+around the fire, Sophie with her needle-work, Hagar, the idle one, with
+a spiteful black kitten on her lap, whose antics amused her, and
+distressed Remus and Romulus, who were _couchant_ at her feet.
+
+“I love a chill, rainy evening just at this season of the year,” said
+Sophie, “because it makes it necessary to have a fire, and to gather
+around it with our work.”
+
+And then Raymond, smiling, drew from his pocket a book.
+
+“What is it, Raymond?” exclaimed both ladies in a breath,—(those were
+not the days of cheap literature, reader, nor was that the
+neighborhood)—in those days, and in that country, all “books” were
+“books.” “What is it, Raymond?”
+
+And Raymond turned the back, and held it to them.
+
+Both read in a breath—“Childe Harold,”—and both exclaimed in a breath,
+“Read to us, Raymond.”
+
+And Raymond opened the book, while Hagar pulled her kitten’s ear, and
+made it spit and bite, and Sophie counted the stitches of her knitting,
+and commenced reading, and there we will leave them for the present.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+                            HAGAR’S BRIDAL.
+
+              ‘Bride, upon thy marriage day,
+              Did the fluttering of thy breath
+              Speak of joy or woe beneath?
+              And the hue that went and came
+              O’er thy cheek like wavering flame,
+              Flowed that crimson from the unrest
+              Or the gladness of thy breast?’
+                                                  HEMANS.
+
+
+Poor Gusty had walked about several days in a stupor, “stunned by a
+sockdologer,” he said, into a stupor from which nothing could arouse
+him; he longed for the time when he should be ordered to sea, but alas!
+that time was very distant yet, he feared. He had never been at the Hall
+since what he called “that fatal evening.” Emily was happy that an end
+was put to his hopes of Hagar at any cost of present pain to him.
+
+“Gusty,” said she one morning, “do you know Hagar is to be married week
+after next?”
+
+“Yes, mother.”
+
+“Do you know that Sophie wants very much to get Rosalia home to the
+wedding?”
+
+“Does she?”
+
+“Yes—but unluckily no one seems to be travelling down in this direction
+from the neighborhood of her school, so that she cannot get an escort;
+Sophie cannot leave home to go after her, and she has no one she can
+send.”
+
+“Let me go! I carried her to school, you know; let me go and bring her
+home!” exclaimed Gusty, jumping up, very glad of a job that would stir
+his blood into a little circulation.
+
+“Then as soon as dinner, which is just ready, is over, go to Heath Hall,
+and offer your services to Mrs. Withers, Mr. May. God bless this poor
+boy!” said she, taking his head between her hands, “he thinks his sun
+has set, and left his world in darkness, and he thinks that his life is
+made a ‘howling wilderness,’ and he thinks a great many horrible
+poetical things besides, and he has a slight suspicion that if he could
+put all that he feels upon paper, he would make a great poet. Well, now,
+let me advise you to improve the time, master poet; it will be
+short—write while the fire is blazing in the heart, and the brain
+boiling over it like a pot—do, Gusty, for presently the fire will all be
+out, and the brain quiet, and the clouds will clear away from your sky,
+and the sun will rise upon your stormy night and convert it into a very
+humdrum forenoon, unsuggestive of anything but dinner.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sophie and Hagar were in conversation together in the chamber of the
+former, as Gusty rode into the yard. Sophie was trimming the white satin
+boddice of a beautiful dress that lay over the bed.
+
+“And now I shall not wear that!” said Hagar. “I do not like it, it does
+not suit me. I shall feel in borrowed plumes if I wear that; it no more
+suits me than the white feathers of the dove would suit the kite.”
+
+“But, Hagar, my love, you would not wear anything else than white, would
+you? I never heard of a bride, a young bride, wearing colors in her
+bride dress.”
+
+“But _I_ shall—I shall wear a black lace dress.”
+
+“Black! mercy, Hagar, you would make yourself so conspicuous, you would
+shock the whole neighborhood!”
+
+Hagar laughed wildly, “You know very well that _that_ is my besetting
+sin, Sophie; when this inane neighborhood is falling into an apathy, I
+feel a propensity to shock it into a little life!”
+
+“Oh! you will think more rationally of this, I know it, for I know you
+would not willingly shock Raymond—but tell me, does he seriously intend
+writing to Dr. Otterback to come down?”
+
+“Very seriously, for he _has_ gone to his room for that purpose now. You
+see, dear Sophie, that I wished it myself. I am like that poor fellow
+who was hanged at Churchill Point a year ago; who, you recollect, would
+not receive the services of a Jack Ketch in the arrangement of his
+toilet, but insisted that the high sheriff should officiate, exclaiming,
+with an expiring flash of self-respect, ‘If I _am_ to be hanged, I’ll be
+hanged by a gentleman!’[4] Now if a halter must be tied about my neck it
+shall be tied by a bishop!”
+
+Footnote 4:
+
+  A fact.
+
+The girl’s manner was full of wild gaiety. Sophie gently rebuked her for
+speaking of sad and grave subjects with wanton lightness. But the girl’s
+eyes flashed more mirth and fire than before, as she said—
+
+“Dear Sophie, how can you expect of me pity for others who have now none
+at all for myself—when I have made up my mind to be hanged or married I
+can do it; if hanging were the dish, I should not think of the horror,
+the agony, the death—my mind would leap straight through that dark,
+quick passage to the light! the joy! the immortality!”
+
+“Oh, Hagar! and you say that not reverently, but triumphantly! oh,
+Hagar! what a heart you have to break down. A young bit of a maiden, yet
+with no gentleness, no tenderness, no sympathy—a little, slight, dark
+creature, yet with the fire, courage, and fierceness of a young panther.
+Oh! Hagar, how much I fear for you!”
+
+Just at this moment a light rap was heard at the door; Sophie arose and
+opened it. It was a servant come to say that Mr. May was below stairs
+and requested to see Mrs. Withers. Sophie followed the messenger. She
+found Gusty waiting in the parlor. Sophie was not unacquainted with the
+secret that the poor fellow’s despair had betrayed to all his friends,
+but this was the first time, be it remembered, that he had visited the
+Hall since the destruction of his hopes. Sophie’s manner was unusually
+gentle and affectionate to him, so much so that poor Gusty whose heart
+was sadly suffering for sympathy, said to her suddenly at the close of
+their interview, and after all the arrangements relative to his mission
+had been agreed upon,
+
+“How much older are you than I, Sophie?”
+
+“Eight years,” answered Sophie, opening her large eyes. “Why?”
+
+“Nothing—it is too much, I suppose! but may be it is not, as I am sure I
+am a great deal taller and twice as broad shouldered, and sun-burnt and
+all that, so that I am sure I must look as old as you?”
+
+“What are you thinking of, Gusty?”
+
+“Be hanged if you do look more than a very gentle little girl after all,
+not half so self-sustained and womanly as Hagar!”
+
+“Why, Gusty?”
+
+“I mean, Sophie, will you marry me? I am very steady of my years—all to
+taking care of mother—and I shall behave myself better than you think
+for, indeed I shall.”
+
+“Why, Gusty!”
+
+“Sophie, you’ll think it strange after all that phrensy of mine for
+Hagar, that I now offer you my hand, a boy’s hand; but, Sophie, I always
+_did_ love you and like to stay with you, and now that Hagar has thrown
+me away, I feel weak, suffering, as if I wanted some one to love me
+protectingly, to nurse me, to pet me—you are the very one, Sophie! I am
+so lonesome, so miserable, feel so unnecessary in the world. I am first
+person singular, nominative case to nothing under the sun just now! I
+want some one to love so much! some dear gentle girl that will love me
+with all her heart and soul, and not feel jealous of this anguish I must
+suffer for the loss of Hagar. Come, Sophie, pity me—my manhood,
+strength, spirit, impetuosity is all melting out of me. I feel like a
+poor dog that has no owner!”
+
+“Your mother, Gusty.”
+
+“Oh! mother, has not she a husband, as well as Hagar a lover? Come,
+Sophie, you spent the first years of your youth in nursing a sick
+brain—spend the rest in nursing a sick heart—love me, Sophie. Oh, if you
+knew how I suffered, you would love me,” and Gusty fairly dropped his
+head down upon Sophie’s shoulder and _almost_ wept. She let it lie
+there—nay she caressed that young grief-bowed head, as she said,
+
+“I always have loved you, Gusty, and always shall, and will do anything
+in the world I can to make you happy.”
+
+“Thank you, dear Sophie. I thought you were too good to be proud because
+you happened to be the eldest; now, Sophie, how long will it be first,
+for I want to live with you, and lay my head upon your little shoulder,
+just so, while I talk to you of my troubles and you soothe me—when shall
+it be, Sophie?”
+
+“What be, Gusty?”
+
+“Our wedding!”
+
+“Nonsense, dear Gusty, _never_. You are mad to think of such a thing,
+Gusty!”
+
+“Then you won’t.”
+
+“Certainly not—-you were never surely serious in such a strange
+proposition! no, of course you were not! I was silly to give you a
+serious reply!”
+
+“As the Lord in Heaven hears me, I am serious—I must be loved—love me,
+Sophie.”
+
+“I _do_ love you, and _will_ love you, how can I help it? but as to
+marrying you, Gusty! nonsense! Why, see here, when I was a little girl
+of eight years old, you were a babe of a few weeks, and I used to carry
+you in my arms all over the house, and have helped to nurse and educate
+you from infancy up, at least you knew I did until of late years,” said
+Sophie, correcting herself; “now do you feel as if you still would like
+to marry your nurse, your little mother?”
+
+Gusty was silent.
+
+“No, Gusty, you will get over this in a few days, you will see some one
+else. I know by your professions to me that it is not _love_, but the
+_want_ of love, that makes you miserable—your journey will help your
+cheerfulness, too. You must set out to-morrow.”
+
+He took his hat and riding-whip to go.
+
+“Sophie, won’t you come over to mother’s and spend the evening this
+evening?—do, Sophie, it is lonesome over there, and mother and yourself
+can talk over the hundred thousand subjects of interest you have in
+hand.”
+
+“Yes, I will come, Gusty.”
+
+“Don’t bring Hagar!”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And, Sophie, mind, don’t let mother know what a fool I have been making
+myself.”
+
+“Oh, no!” smiled Sophie, and the interview closed.
+
+Gusty had to call at Churchill’s Point, it was mail-day; and Gusty,
+though his correspondence was far from extensive, always made a point of
+being present at the opening of the mail.
+
+“Here is a letter for your ma, Mr. May,” said the little old widow, who
+was post-mistress for Churchill Point.
+
+“From my Uncle Augustus,” exclaimed Gusty, as he received it,
+“postmarked Boston—ha! his ship is in port—wonder when he is coming
+down.” So musing, Gusty quickened his horse’s pace, and rode on towards
+the cottage.
+
+“A letter from uncle, mother,” said he, as he laid it on the stand by
+her side, “and Sophie has accepted my escort for her niece, and I am to
+set off in the morning. Sophie will be here with us to tea.”
+
+Emily nodded and nodded assent to everything he said, though she heard
+not half while devouring her brother’s letter.
+
+“How is he—what does he say, mother?” exclaimed Gusty, when she had
+finished reading.
+
+“He will visit us soon—he is going to be married.”
+
+“Mar—married!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“To whom?”
+
+“To a young lady, he says, whom he has known for a long time, and who
+has his warmest affections and his highest respect.”
+
+“He married, too! well everybody gets married but me—lend me the letter,
+mother, let me see all about it,” and she handed him the letter. While
+he was reading the letter, Emily looked out, and exclaimed:—
+
+“There is Sophie now! go and help her from her saddle, Gusty!” and Gusty
+went. Emily followed more at leisure, and received her friend with her
+accustomed affection, whispering in confidence, “I have made a cream
+cake for your tea, darling,” and led her in, took off her bonnet, and
+seated her near the pleasantest window. When she had carried away her
+things, and returned, sitting by her, she said suddenly, in the midst of
+a gossipping conversation:—
+
+“But, Sophie, you never ask me after my brother Augustus!”
+
+“Don’t I?” said Sophie, faintly.
+
+“Why, _no_, you know you don’t—what ever can be the reason?”
+
+“How is he—have you a letter?”
+
+“Ah! exactly—‘how is he,’ when I have reminded you to ask.”
+
+“Forgive my forgetfulness, Emily.”
+
+“His ship has returned, did you know it?”
+
+“No,” said Sophie softly.
+
+“Well, it _has_. Came in port nine days since—he is coming down to visit
+us very soon—how long has it been since you saw him, Sophie?”
+
+“I don’t know,” answered Sophie reservedly.
+
+“Let’s see, I can tell, he has only been here three times since, and
+that was while you were so taken up, that you never came near us—let’s
+see, it will be exactly eight years next Tuesday week since you met, and
+next Tuesday week I am to give a party to our bride, Hagar. He will be
+here on that day, and I fancy there will be another bride. Why, Sophie,
+what a color you have this evening—he is going to be married, and will
+probably bring his wife down—no, Sophie, it must have been the
+reflection of the sunset, for now I see you are quite pale, paler than
+usual—are you sick?”
+
+“Oh! no, no.”
+
+“A little fatigued, I suppose. (Gusty rang for tea.) Yes! a young lady
+to whom he has long been attached—she’s fainted. I wonder when Sophie
+will ever have any nerves?”
+
+“How easily she swoons! Sophie never _was_ strong,” exclaimed Emily, as
+she raised and set her back, reached a tumbler of water, and bathed her
+temples. As Sophie opened her eyes she met those of Emily, looking
+kindly, sweetly, and with a new expression, into hers. “How do you feel,
+love?” was Emily’s first question.
+
+“Better.”
+
+“What made you faint? was it fatigue?”
+
+I once told you, reader, of Sophie’s deep veneration for truth, that
+would never permit her even to prevaricate. She was silent, and Emily
+looking again into her eyes, refrained from asking her any more
+questions, but smiled to herself, as in a few minutes she said to
+Sophie:—
+
+“Now, my love, I have got to answer my brother’s letter by return mail;
+will you excuse me? I will not leave your side, but draw the stand to
+me, and write it here; it will not occupy me more than fifteen minutes.”
+She drew her writing-desk before her, and, selecting her paper,
+commenced writing, while Kitty brought in the tea-things. At last,
+looking up from her work, she said:—
+
+“I have told Augustus that you are sitting by my side while I write; now
+what shall I tell him from _you_?” Sophie was still silent. “Come,
+Sophie!”
+
+“Give him my respects.”
+
+“Fiddle-sticks! why did you not send your _duty_ at once, like a
+school-girl to her papa? your respects!” but then she looked at Sophie
+and saw her still so pale, so tremulous, that she turned and quietly
+resumed her writing.
+
+If you had been looking over her shoulder, you might have read the
+following lines:
+
+
+  “Dearest brother—dearest Augustus—welcome! first to your native
+  shores, and then soon, very soon, I hope, to your sister’s home and
+  bosom. Now concerning the subject of your letter, I must write
+  cautiously, as I perceive that _you_ recollected to do—because our
+  worthy old post-mistress takes the liberty of peeping in at the ends
+  of all private and confidential letters that pass and repass through
+  her hands.[5] She will get something indigestible if she pries into
+  this; no matter for her! About this other affair—yes, come! I have no
+  _doubt_ of it, _never_ have had from first to last, though nothing in
+  her manner, no look, word, or gesture, ever revealed the fact to me
+  until this afternoon; nay, I believe the poor thing was unconscious
+  herself, for you know I think she is one of the excellent of the
+  earth, one of God’s peculiar favorites; and through all these dark
+  days I always had a faith in her eventual happiness even in this
+  world, for the promise, Augustus, is both for _this_ world and the
+  next; hear it, ‘Godliness is profitable unto _all things_, having the
+  promise of _the life that now is_, and of that which is to come;’ and
+  listen again! for I don’t think that you attend to these things as
+  much as you ought to: ‘No man hath left house, or parents, or
+  brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, that
+  shall not receive manifold more in this _present time_, and in the
+  world to come life everlasting;’ and _her_ martyrdom, poor girl, was
+  so sincere, however mistaken—so sincere and complete, for she thought
+  it for life! It was all rayless darkness to her; the future illumined
+  only by her Christian love and faith. And she is so beautiful,
+  Augustus; so much more beautiful now at twenty-five, than she was at
+  seventeen, when you saw her last; her health and spirits have suffered
+  somewhat, but that has only lent the inexpressible charm of delicacy
+  and pensiveness to her beauty. I rejoice in you both, Augustus! I
+  rejoice in you both, and I bless you from my full heart! I rejoice in
+  the ‘more than Roman virtue’ with which you died to each other, fully
+  believing it eternal separation—with which you ever sternly wrested
+  your thoughts from the other. I, the friend of both, have never once
+  been made the medium of the slightest communication, the slightest
+  inquiry or message such as acquaintances might interchange. You _died_
+  to each other, believing it for ever, and that was right. But _this_
+  is not right; it is not right that you should bind me to secresy about
+  the subject of this letter, upon the ground that you do not know the
+  state of her mind, or how she might receive it. Come and see for
+  yourself—and even now she is looking up at me with her patient brown
+  eyes, and believing—Heaven forgive me!—no matter. Come soon
+
+Footnote 5:
+
+    Fact of a good old post-mistress in —— county, Maryland, to my own
+    serious discomfiture.
+
+                                                                “EMILY.”
+
+
+“Please, madam! the tea will get cold,” exclaimed Kitty, and Emily
+hastily sealed and directed her letter, and they sat down to the table.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The wedding-day of Hagar and Raymond dawned. They were anxiously
+awaiting the packet, which they expected would bring Rosalia and Gusty,
+and perhaps, also, Dr. Otterback, who was to come down from Baltimore.
+Afternoon came, and Hagar, trying girl! instead of secluding herself in
+the mystery of her own room until it was time to dress, Hagar was down
+on the beach with a telescope, watching the approach of a distant
+vessel. While she was intently gazing, she felt her arm twitched, and
+looking back saw Blanche Rogers, who had been domesticated for several
+days at the Hall, employed in assisting Sophie with the bridal millinery
+and confectionery.
+
+“Come, you torment! Come, you trial! it is time to dress! _time!_—high
+time! both rooms are full of company; and now I shall have to steal you
+into the house through the back way! Come!”
+
+Blanche Rogers was fully her equal in social position, besides being
+several years older than Hagar, yet not for this would the wild, proud
+girl, permit the familiarity of her address—lowering her telescope, she
+said with spirit,—
+
+“The evening dews are chill, Miss Rogers; perhaps you had better not
+expose yourself to their influence, as you are not so well accustomed to
+them as myself. _I_ watch the approach of yonder packet, and must see
+whether it contain passengers for the Hall, before I leave the beach.”
+
+“Yes, but my little self-willed, headstrong bride, it is _late_; the
+company are assembled; we have determined not to await the arrival of
+the bishop, or of the laggards, Rose and Gusty; we have settled that the
+ceremony shall proceed; we cannot wait much longer for anybody.”
+
+“I rather think you will have to wait some time longer for the bride!”
+said the girl, “unless, indeed, you could fancy the ‘tragedy of Hamlet,
+with the part of the Prince of Denmark omitted.’”
+
+“But, oh! Hagar, this is shocking!”
+
+“Is it? So much the better; you need to be shocked!”
+
+While they spoke, the vessel bore down rapidly towards the
+point—stopped—a boat was put out and rowed towards the beach, and old
+Dr. Otterback alone stepped upon the sand. The old man came smilingly
+forward, rubbing his hands and holding them out. Blanche stepped forward
+to welcome him.
+
+“Hey, Miss—Miss ——, I remember you, you monkey, though I don’t remember
+your name, or know if you have changed it.”
+
+“Miss Rogers!”
+
+“Miss—_what!_ not married yet?”
+
+“La! no, Dr. Otterback, I was waiting for _you_! Ain’t you a single man?
+You looked so much at your ease, I really thought you were, anyhow?”
+
+“And you would put me out of my ease, hey? No, I’ll tell you the reason
+you are not married; the young men are afraid of you, that is it.”
+
+“Not so, Dr. Otterback; I have twelve beaux, but I should be afraid to
+marry one of them for fear that eleven of them would hang themselves.”
+
+“_Twelve_ would hang themselves, my lady, you may be sure of that! But,
+this is Miss Churchill, if I am not mistaken,” said he, going up to
+Hagar.
+
+Hagar curtsied, blushed with all her spirit; she was embarrassed,
+abashed, as well as much disappointed. This meeting Dr. Otterback alone,
+under such circumstances, was not what she had anticipated; not what it
+would have been, covered with the shower of welcomes that would have
+attended the reception of the _whole party_, had Gusty and Rosalia been
+with him. One thing, however, if Dr. Otterback recognised her as the
+bride of the evening, he did not appear to do so. They reached the Hall.
+The whole yard and surrounding grounds of the Hall were filled with
+carriages tied to the trees. Hagar reached her room without encountering
+any of the guests—though as she passed up the long wide staircase, and
+through the passages, she could hear the half-suppressed hum of voices
+in the bed-rooms; the hushed voices of ladies who had arrived late and
+were re-arranging their toilet after their ride.
+
+Hagar did _not_ wear the threatened black lace dress; she wore just what
+she should have worn, just what, with little variety, _all_ brides wear;
+viz. a white Mechlin lace over white satin; pearls on her arms and neck,
+and a wreath of orange blossom buds twined irregularly in and out among
+her glittering blue-black tresses. But she was the most fidgety little
+bride you ever saw; her bosom rose and fell convulsively, and her little
+dark fingers twirled and twitched spasmodically, as the party stood
+before the bishop, in the midst of the assembled company; and more than
+once Raymond’s soft hand pressure and reassuring whisper were needed.
+
+It was over. Sophie lifted the veil from her head and whispered very
+softly,
+
+“God bless you, my own dear child, my foster child, my nursling. God
+make you happy.”
+
+And then Hagar’s wild eyes flew off from Sophie’s face to light on
+Raymond’s countenance, to meet his eyes; and then her expression
+changed—tragedy and comedy, deep joy, foreboding fear, comic humor and
+earnest affection were blended in the blushing and sparkling face she
+raised to meet his self-possessed and loving smile. It was strange,
+queer—a few words had been pattered over by a fat old gentleman in a
+gown; and, lo! all their relations were changed. It was curious; her
+very name and title were gone, and the girl, two minutes since a wild,
+free maiden, was now little better than a bondwoman; and the gentle
+youth who two minutes since might have sued humbly to raise the tips of
+her little dark fingers to his lips, was now invested with a lifelong
+authority over her. Yes, it _was so_ curious! and the spirited girl was
+in doubt whether to laugh or cry; and the expression of mingled emotions
+on her face blended into one of intense interest and inquiry as she met
+his gaze and smile, which she could not help fancying _patronizing and
+condescending_, as well as protective and loving! A new, extremely
+provoking feature in his smile! but perhaps she only fancied it. But
+this new relation, this new position, this new owning and being owned—it
+was very unique! very piquant! and Hagar felt it so! and her wild dark
+face gleamed and sparkled more and more all the evening; and every once
+in a while she would furtively look at Raymond as though he had been
+suddenly metamorphosed into something very awful; and if Raymond caught
+her stolen glance at such a time, her face and neck would be dyed with
+crimson.
+
+I do not mean to weary you with a description of this wedding, nor tell
+you how the chambers of Heath Hall were crowded with guests that night,
+nor how old Cumbo fretted and fumed over the preparation of the state
+dinner the next day; nor how the dancing party came off in the evening;
+nor how disappointed Sophie was at the still prolonged absence of
+Rosalia and Gusty; nor how her thoughts occasionally wandered—but I will
+not even hint at _that_. None of these things will I trouble you
+with—but come to the Tuesday upon which Mrs. Buncombe was to give her
+sober, clerical-like evening party to the newly married pair—premising
+that Rosalia and Gusty had not yet arrived. It was a beautiful evening,
+and our party from Heath Hall rode over to Grove Cottage by moonlight.
+Emily’s rooms were well lighted and well filled—and Emily herself, with
+her quiet gaiety moving about, diffusing cheerfulness around. The bridal
+party, as usual there, sat at the extremity of the room opposite the
+entrance. Sophie sat with them; her small soft hands folded lovingly
+together on the lap of her brown satin dress, and her large eyes bent in
+reverie upon them. Very far from the scene must her thoughts have
+wandered, as she did not hear the slight agitation around the front door
+of the room, or see the entrance of an officer in the full dress uniform
+of a captain in the United States Navy, who, conducted by Emily,
+approached, bowing and smiling recognition on either side; she did not
+even look up until a light finger dropped softly on her hand, and she
+raised her large eyes to behold Emily, and—
+
+“My brother, Captain Wilde, United States Navy—Mrs. Withers!” said
+Emily, presenting him with mock gravity. And Sophie mechanically arose,
+curtsied, and sank into her seat again, as though she had never set eyes
+upon him before. She did so involuntarily, and without again raising her
+eyes; a weight like destiny seemed to weigh down the eyelids. Captain
+Wilde looked right and left in search of a seat, but found none, until a
+youth, one of Raymond’s groomsmen, who was sitting by Sophie, politely
+relinquished his seat, which was as politely accepted by Captain Wilde.
+Emily moved off, leaning on the arm of the boy. Captain Wilde glanced
+all around the room—no! no one was minding him—old men were talking
+politics and agriculture, and old women gossipping scandal and
+housewifery, and young men were courting seriously or flirting
+flippantly, and young women were being courted; no one was minding
+him—no one seemed at all interested in the sayings and doings of Captain
+Augustus Wilde, United States Navy, in full dress uniform though he was.
+He turned to look at Sophie; _she_ was looking straight down at a ring
+upon the third finger of her left hand—_he_ followed her eyes and looked
+at it, too; and now, losing her presence of mind, growing very much
+confused, and blushing deeply, she began unconsciously to twist it round
+and round—while he watched the operation. At last, while apparently in
+doubt how to address her, he made a remark, startling in its profundity—
+
+“There is quite an assembly here this evening, madam.”
+
+Her reply, given in a very low tone, was equally original:
+
+“Yes, sir, a large company for so sparse a neighborhood.”
+
+“Yes, the neighborhood _is_ sparse and not increasing in population, I
+think; no new settlers coming in, while a considerable number of the old
+families are moving off. Is it not so?” said he, stooping forward, and
+looking intently upon Sophie’s varying cheek, as though life and death
+were in the answer.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“What do you suppose to be the reason?”
+
+“I really do not know.”
+
+“One thing I know to be, the deterioration of land here, owing to their
+dreadfully destructive system of agriculture—the contrast between New
+England and the Southern States is so striking in this feature of
+agriculture; don’t you think so?”
+
+“Indeed, I never think about it.”
+
+“Oh, you are not at all a _fermière_. Yes, the contrast is very
+striking; the New Englanders have raised, by the labor of their own
+hands, a naturally ungenial soil to a high state of productiveness,
+while your Maryland planters have, even with the aid of their troops of
+negroes, exhausted the fertility of a soil naturally very productive.
+Why, Mrs. Withers, I am informed that your planters, instead of manuring
+their ground, plant one third of their land in rotation every year,
+leaving two thirds to recover itself. This must exhaust land very soon.”
+
+Sophie was silent.
+
+“Warm climates and rich soils, where little labor is required to gain a
+subsistence, engender habits of indolence; now, though your climate is
+not very warm, yet I think that the original richness of your soil and
+the convenience of your gangs of negroes, first seduced your planters
+into their slovenly habits of cultivation—do you not think so?”
+
+Sophie burst into tears. Her soft heart had been filling for the last
+half hour, and it ran over in tears! First a start of surprise, then a
+bright smile, then a quick glance around the room, and a bowed head and
+a low whisper in Sophie’s ear.
+
+“_Sophie!_ the rooms are close and crowded, come, walk in the grapery
+with me!” and drawing her arm through his own, he led her forth into the
+yard, down that long shaded grape walk that led from the cottage porch
+through the yard to the cottage gate. They paused at the gate,
+separated, turned and looked at each other; the moon was shining full
+upon their faces, they could see each other serenely and distinctly. It
+was no longer Captain Augustus Wilde, bristling in his new uniform, and
+with a long string of U. S. N.’s at the end of his name, and it was no
+longer Mrs. Withers; but no—_she_ had _never_ changed, or even _seemed_
+to change. It was the Sophie and Gusty Wilde of eight years before! and
+as he gazed at her, the light kept leaping in his eyes, and,
+
+“_Oh, Sophie! my Sophie!_” and opening his arms he caught her to his
+bosom and kissed! oh! he kissed her forehead, eyes, and lips, as though
+his lips would have grown there! and then holding her head a little off
+upon his arm, the better to gaze upon her, he looked down delightedly
+into her happy, smiling face, for it _was_ a happy, smiling face now,
+and he said,
+
+“Oh, my dear Sophie! this is _deep joy_, this is _charming comicality_,
+too! It _is_, you little brown-eyed witch! To think that scarcely five
+minutes ago, you and I were sitting in yonder crowded drawing-room,
+talking of _farming_ and _agriculture_, and calling each other ‘sir’ and
+‘madam,’ ‘Mrs. Withers’ and ‘Captain Wilde,’ with our bursting hearts
+covered over with conventional trivialities, as people might cover a
+mine with straw and stubble, with a paper wall between us, which your
+flood of tears washed down. God _bless_ those tears! God _bless_ those
+eyes that had no single glance—those lips that had no single tone for
+pride or deception, my own dear Sophie! You are more affectionate, more
+tender, more gentle, more natural than I am, my own sweet-lipped,
+gentle-eyed Sophie!” and he drew her closely and kissed her again, but
+there was less ardor, more tenderness, and less passion and more
+affection in this caress.
+
+“Oh, this is sweet, it is sweet, _Sophie! Sophie!_ Why, her very name is
+something to breathe one’s soul away upon; let us sit down, my
+Sophie—this meeting, this fast-flooding joy overpowers me!” and he sank
+down upon one of the long benches that ran on either side of the whole
+length of the walk, and he opened his arms again and said,
+
+“Come, gentle Sophie, come sit beside me; lay your dear head under my
+arm, against my bosom, and let me talk to you. I am growing dizzier
+every moment; I thought I was prepared for this meeting, but, oh! my
+Sophie, I am as much stunned as though the thunder cloud of joy had but
+just broken over me! Say something rational to me, Sophie—_do_, dear
+child! You cannot? No, you cannot; you are as silly this moment, my
+gentle dove, as I am myself. But why do not you talk to me, darling?
+Your soft eyes are shining with love and joy, but you have not a word
+for me—why?”
+
+“I am thinking of you so much,” said Sophie, softly; “I am thinking,
+dearest friend, of the long, long years you have passed in desolation of
+heart, without a home, except your ship and quarters, without a fireside
+of your own, without a family circle, without affection; coming in and
+going out of port, alike unblessed, unwelcomed, and unwept, and all for
+me! for me! I am thinking of that, and wondering if life and soul could
+repay such love!”
+
+“Understand me, dearest; it was _not_ all for you—it was not, God knows,
+in the hope of ever possessing you! that would have been criminal,
+Sophie. No, dearest, when I parted with you at the carriage door upon
+that memorable evening, I carried with me, it is true, a desperate hope!
+but what am I talking of? I beg your pardon, Sophie; I said I was dizzy!
+yet this one thing permit me to say, dear Sophie; when I received a
+letter from my somewhat coolheaded sister, telling me that your marriage
+was over, and all about it, I as completely, as unreservedly, resigned
+you, as ever martyr at the stake resigned the life that was forced from
+him, without the least expectation of ever seeing you again, far less of
+this, of this!” and Captain Wilde went off into raptures again, kissing
+her again at “this” and “this.”—“No, Sophie, I made up my mind to turn
+you out of my heart. I found it hard work; though I resolved to banish
+the thought of you, I struggled with it in vain! Struggling with a
+subject of thought—banishing a subject of thought, is a contradiction in
+terms; for while you have it by the head and shoulders, trying to put it
+out, you are more intertwined with it than ever, and it holds you fast.
+And I found, Sophie, that the only way to be rid of an inconvenient and
+intrusive image, was to fly from it, and I wrenched my attention off and
+riveted it upon another subject. It is a great thing, this free will of
+ours; I just had resolved to consider you as dead. I never inquired
+after you; and Emily, soon guessing my wish, never mentioned you in one
+of her letters. I studied the ancient languages, and soon, in the
+intervals of professional duty, I became quite absorbed in digging out
+Greek roots. It is an important duty, this government of the thoughts;
+they are the avenues by which good or evil approaches the soul. Only
+three weeks since, Sophie, it was that I learned that you had been free
+for nearly eighteen months. Only three weeks since, when coming into
+Boston harbor, I found a letter in the Post Office, long waiting from
+Emily.” He fell into a reverie for a few minutes, from which he started,
+exclaiming:—
+
+“Eight years! just think of it, Sophie! Eight years! and you are so much
+more beautiful and lovable—though once I did not think that could
+possibly be—but you are _so_ beautiful, Sophie! Ah! indeed, I think that
+sorrow and thought and time are sometimes great beautifiers. You are
+_so_ lovely—and I, Sophie! Sophie, I am thirty years old, how do you
+find me?”
+
+_She replied with her eyes!_ Her head was on his bosom, and her face
+upturned to his. His arm was around her waist, and his hand fondly
+nestling over both of hers. How long they sat thus, and into what deep
+silence they would fall while their spirits mingled! At last he said
+slowly, gently breaking the holy silence, reverentially:—
+
+“My Sophie, I have but two or three days to remain in this neighborhood.
+My leave of absence was for three weeks. I was nine days in coming from
+Boston. I have twelve days left for my visit and voyage back. I must
+allow myself ten days for my return to insure punctuality. Now, it is
+demonstrated that I have but two days, to-morrow and the next day, to
+remain here.”
+
+“But why?” inquired Sophie, tearfully, “why? I always thought officers
+in returning from a voyage had a long leisure before them?”
+
+“Yes, but, my dear, I have just been appointed to take command of a
+store-ship lying in Boston Harbor.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Yes. So that I must leave. Let us see—this is Tuesday—I must leave
+Friday morning. You are not attending to me, Sophie?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I am indeed.”
+
+She had fallen into deep thought.
+
+“It may be six months before I can come again.”
+
+“Oh no, not so long as that!”
+
+“Most probably _longer_, Sophie!”
+
+She turned her face down upon his bosom, quietly weeping.
+
+“_Will you leave here with me Friday morning, Sophie?_”
+
+She did not answer.
+
+“Perhaps you think it an unlucky day. Will you go with me _Thursday_
+morning?”
+
+She raised her head, but did not reply. He drew it back upon his bosom,
+and looking down upon her blushing face, where the tear-drops lay like
+dew on the red rose, he said gently:—
+
+“I know where the trouble is, my Sophie; you are thinking what your
+neighbors will be likely to say if you marry so suddenly, to them so
+strangely—is not that it? But, Sophie, you will surely never weigh my
+affection and comfort against the gossip of a set of thoughtless
+neighbors? you will never do so,” said he earnestly, alarmed at her
+continued silence, and pressing her closely to his bosom,—“You will not
+weigh our happiness with etiquette!”
+
+“No,” she said, quietly, “not with etiquette will I weigh it, for I wish
+to go with you, Augustus; nor with duty _must_ I weigh it.”
+
+“What do you mean, dearest Sophie?” exclaimed he, anxiously.
+
+“Only this—there are some preliminaries to be arranged, that cannot be
+settled without you.”
+
+“Then, whatever they may be, they _are_ settled—just consider them
+settled, Sophie,” said he, earnestly.
+
+“But hear them; these are not things that can be despatched and
+forgotten; they may attend us some time. I would have you make no rash
+vows about them, Augustus.”
+
+“They are _settled_, I tell you, Sophie! _settled!_ Your will, your
+wishes, are enough—are paramount! Have I not confidence in you, dearest
+Sophie? More, far more, than I have in myself; they are _settled_!”
+exclaimed he, impetuously.
+
+“But you must know them to assist me.”
+
+“Very well; upon _that_ account, I will listen, darling; but first, mind
+you, Sophie, I am to understand, am I not, that when I have settled all
+these preliminaries, we are to be united, and leave _together_ on
+Thursday morning—ha! say, Sophie?”
+
+“Yes,” whispered Sophie, with a dying cadence.
+
+“Say! speak louder, Sophie. I mistrust my ears—did you say ‘yes’?”
+
+“Yes, yes!” said Sophie, blushing scarlet, with the tears in her eyes,
+“I said ‘yes.’”
+
+“Yes! Ah! stop, let me take time to take in all this idea of ‘yes.’
+Thursday morning, Sophie my wife! There is a point at which joy stuns
+one! Speak to me, Sophie!”
+
+“I think that you forget I have not told you my preliminaries.”
+
+“Oh, the preliminaries! any that _I_ have anything to do with? Never
+mind them, Sophie; but you are sure that you will not disappoint me
+Thursday morning? are you sure you will not put me off—tell me about
+dresses to be made, or a wedding party to be got up, or at least make a
+delay about breaking up housekeeping at Heath Hall? Ah, yes! certainly,
+I see now; these are the very preliminaries of which you speak; and how,
+alas! can we settle them in two days!”
+
+“Dear Augustus!” said Sophie, “do you think me so unconscious of the
+worth of your regard, and so ungrateful for it, as to think of trifling
+with it, or deferring our”—
+
+“Marriage?”
+
+“Yes; upon any but grounds of _duty_”—
+
+“Oh, dear, dear, dear! _what_ is it, then, Sophie; let us hear it quick!
+I listen, darling, punctilious little brown-eyed darling!”
+
+“Well, then, our Rosalia”—
+
+“Rosalia!”
+
+“Yes, Rosalia Aguilar—_our_ Rose, our beauty, our moonbeam, our love!”
+
+“You are enthusiastic, my Sophie!”
+
+“I am when I think of _her_! Oh, she is the very soul of love! My life
+became brighter, warmer, richer, when she came to me. That beautiful and
+loving child! her love bathes everything she looks upon in light and
+heat, as the sunbeams flood the landscapes! You will love her so much!
+She, the sweet child, loves all things—pities, spares, or ministers to
+all things, from the broken rose-tree that wants binding up, to the old
+negro toiling home at noon from his hard day’s work. I have seen the
+sweet child run and dip up a gourd of water from the bucket at the well,
+and carry to such a one, looking up so reverentially in his face, as
+though old age, toil, and suffering in any form, awoke her veneration.
+She is delicate and sensitive, too; she cannot bear the least unkind
+word or look; nor the least excess of cold or heat. This susceptible
+temperament, I think it is, that gives her such warm sympathies.”
+
+Captain Wilde was looking up with ardent admiration into the eloquent
+face of Sophie.
+
+“Ah, I see,” she continued, “that you admire her; and you will love her,
+oh! so much; your soul will go forth and bathe her with love as mine
+does. Oh, your soul will warm over her, glow over her, live around her.
+Your life will brighten into refulgence for loving Rosalia. Ah, yes! I
+see you will love her—you do love her. I see it in your speaking face.”
+
+“My own dear Sophie! I love you—_you_—my life brightens into refulgence
+in the light of _your_ love—_yours_, my Sophie, of the loving heart and
+eloquent lip.”
+
+“People have blamed me for loving Rosalia, but how can I help it? You
+will see how impossible it will be.”
+
+“Well, my beautiful Sophie (how radiant your face becomes in the praise
+of one you love), my beautiful Sophie! what has this little Rosalia to
+do with the postponement of our union?”
+
+“Merely this—Rosalia is my ward. She is now daily expected. If she
+should not arrive to-day, or to-morrow, I could not leave the
+neighborhood finally, of course, without seeing her—being assured of her
+safety—indeed, I should not like to leave her with Hagar?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Hagar is dangerous to one so tender as Rosalia. Would you put a dove in
+the guardianship of a young eagle? Hagar has a fine, high spirit—she
+would go through fire or flood to serve one she loved—but, mark you! she
+would cast that one she loved back into fire or flood if they should
+offend her. Therefore, with your consent, dear Augustus, I should wish
+to await Rosalia here, and take her with us to Boston.”
+
+Captain Wilde left her side and walked up and down the grapery for
+awhile. Then coming to her, he said,
+
+“I will write to the Department to-night for an extension of my leave of
+absence, Sophie.”
+
+“Will you? Oh! will you? I shall be so glad! Of course you will get it?”
+
+“Probably—yes; still these favors should be charily solicited, Sophie.”
+
+“I suppose so—well, if you do—I was about to say that we shall have the
+company of Hagar and Raymond, as well as that of Rosalia, on our
+journey. Raymond is appointed assistant professor at —— College, and
+they leave here in ten days.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Will not that be very agreeable?”
+
+“I do not know, my dearest; I think I prefer your undivided company. So,
+Hagar and Raymond are going North?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And what is to be done with Heath Hall?”
+
+“It _was_ to have been the residence of Rosalia and myself; now, I
+suppose, it is to be shut up and left so. We do not like to sell it.
+Indeed, it would bring but little; and some of us may like to come back
+some time to live in it. However! you know it will depend entirely upon
+the will of Raymond, for the property is now his, in right of his wife.”
+
+They had arisen now from their seats, and were sauntering slowly towards
+the house. The evening was beautiful, and the house was crowded, and
+spilling its company all over the piazza and yards. They separated and
+mingled with the guests. Once in her meandering about, Sophie felt
+herself enfolded by a pair of gentle arms and pressed to a soft, warm
+bosom. She was in Emily’s embrace—who stooped and murmured in her ear,
+“My sister! my sweet sister at last!” and let her go. Next she met
+Hagar’s wildly glancing eyes with a “Who’d have thought it?” sort of
+smile on her crimson lip, and then her hand was raised by Raymond and
+softly pressed to his lips, while his gentle eyes revealed the heartfelt
+congratulations it was yet premature to speak. And at last she rejoined
+Captain Wilde just as Hagar was giving him a pressing invitation to
+breakfast and dine at Heath Hall the next day, and just as he smiled and
+bowed acceptance.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+            “She is all simplicity,
+              A creature meek and mild,
+            Though on the eve of womanhood
+              In heart a very child.
+            She dwells among us like a star,
+              That from its bower of bliss,
+            Looks down, yet gathers not a stain
+              From aught it sees in this.”
+                                                MRS. WELBY.
+
+
+There was going to be another great day at Heath Hall; a breakfast,
+dinner, and ball. Such was Hagar’s will, and of course no one thought of
+opposing a bride in her honey-moon. Only old Cumbo swore in her wrath
+that before she would stay and cook for another such a “weddin’,” she
+would be “sold to Georgy;” which, in negro thought and dialect,
+expresses the very extremity of perdition. It was a great day at Heath
+Hall; the breakfast-table was set out under the shade between the rows
+of poplar trees, and it was loaded with the delicacies of the season,
+the peculiar delicacies of that favored neighborhood, game killed the
+day before, fresh fish, oysters, and soft crabs, caught that morning,
+&c., &c., &c. All the county, and—Captain Wilde were there, and after
+breakfast the company dispersed, and wandered over the house or grounds,
+or rowed out upon the bay at will.
+
+Hagar, Raymond, Sophie, and Captain Wilde were grouped upon the point of
+the promontory. The captain occasionally swept the whole expanse of the
+bay within range of the telescope he held to his eye, and dropped it
+with a sigh and a shake of the head. There was no sail in sight.
+
+“Have they not written to you, Mrs. Withers?”
+
+“No,” said Sophie, “not since Gusty left—we did not expect _that_; we
+expected them to hurry home with all possible expedition; oh, I grow so
+uneasy.”
+
+“Nay, do not be anxious, Sophie,” exclaimed Hagar, “if anything had
+happened you know that Gusty would have written.”
+
+“But I have been so fearful ever since that wreck,” sighed Sophie,
+paling.
+
+“That is one reason why _I_ am _not_ anxious,” said Hagar. “We have just
+had a wreck—such things do not occur frequently; that wreck will do for
+the next three or four years.”
+
+While she spoke, Tarquinius Superbus was seen strutting up the
+promontory from the hall; he came up to Sophie, and ducking his head by
+way of a salutation, said—
+
+“Mrs. Widders, madam, dere is an ’rival at de Hall, and Mrs. Buncombe,
+she ’quests you to come down.”
+
+“An arrival—have they breakfasted—who is it? Mrs. Green!”
+
+“It is Miss Aguilar and Mr. May, madam!”
+
+“Rosalia and Gusty! why did you not say so before, you stupid fellow!”
+exclaimed Hagar, “how could they have come, Sophie? They must have
+dropped from the sky. How did they come, Tarquin?”
+
+“In de poshay, Miss Rose, she ’fraid o’ water.”
+
+“Ah, that was it,” said Hagar, “I knew it was some of Rosalia’s
+cowardice and selfishness that has given you all this uneasiness,
+Sophie!”
+
+But Sophie was hurrying on, too happy to speak, far too happy.
+
+They reached the Hall.
+
+“Where is Rosalia? Where is she?” inquired Sophie, anxiously hurrying
+along in front of her party.
+
+“In her chamber, changing her travelling dress—go to her—I will attend
+her,” said Emily, as, at the same moment starting from her side, Gusty
+May sprang forward with strange gaiety in his manner, considering what
+we know of his then recent love-crosses, and grasped Sophie’s hand, and
+then Hagar’s, and then Raymond’s, and then Captain Wilde’s, shaking them
+all emphatically, joyously, as asking after everybody’s health, and
+explaining that he and Miss Aguilar had had a delightful overland
+journey in a post-chaise, because Rosalia was afraid of the water, &c.,
+&c.
+
+Sophie passed on up stairs, and Hagar was about to follow her, when
+Emily laid her hand on her shoulder, and murmured close to her ear—
+
+“Do not both of you leave your guests at the same time again, Hagar; you
+should remember the punctilious etiquette exacted by Mrs. Gardiner
+Green, and others present.”
+
+The spring of Hagar’s upper lip started as the spring of her foot was
+arrested; and with a “Mrs. Gardiner Green,” repeated in no very
+reverential tone, she stood still, especially as Raymond’s hand very
+softly fell upon her own just then.
+
+Sophie passed up stairs, and opened the door of Rosalia’s chamber,
+catching for a single instant a glimpse of this beautiful picture. The
+lovely girl reposed in a large, easy chair; her pale gold wavy hair,
+parted above her fair brow floated down her blue-veined temples, down
+her faint rose-tinted cheeks, down the tender undulations of her
+dove-like throat and bosom, and flowed upon the soft, white muslin that
+covered her form. As the door opened and Sophie flew towards her, she
+arose and dropped in her embrace; the gentle arms were around Sophie’s
+neck, the golden hair overflowing her, her soft form folded to her
+bosom, the warm heart throbbing against her heart, the warm lips pressed
+to her lips, and tears of joy slowly falling.
+
+“My love, my baby, my dove-eyed darling, welcome! welcome!” sobbed
+Sophie, pressing her again and again to her bosom. “Oh! is it possible
+that now I shall have you always with me, to see you as much as I
+please, to love you as much as I please, to kiss you! oh! my dove! my
+beauty! as often as I _must_. How have you been, Rose? how do you feel,
+Rose? are you well? are you much tired? what will you have, Rose? Come
+to the window and let me take a good look at you;” and Sophie drew her
+to the window, held her off and gazed upon her beauty as though she
+could have quaffed it up, and opening her arms, folded her again in an
+embrace, murmuring “oh! my child, my nursling, you are _so_ fair. Look
+at me, Rose; look at me, my darling! bless those dove eyes, with their
+brooding tenderness!” Then she sat down on the lounge, and drawing Rose
+to her side, passed her arms around her waist and said, looking down in
+her face lovingly, “I am going to be married soon, Rosalia; to be
+married to one whom I love, and who loves me above all things.”
+
+Rosalia’s eyes started, dilated, and then softened as she murmured, “And
+he loves you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you love him?”
+
+“Yes, darling.”
+
+Rose stole her hands up around Sophie’s, and kissed her, exclaiming
+softly,
+
+“Oh! I am so glad, so glad, Sophie, dear Sophie!”
+
+They were both silent, because Rose was bending forward before her,
+holding both her hands and gazing lovingly up into her face. At last she
+inquired,
+
+“And is he gentle and kind—in a word, is he _good_!”
+
+“Very good, my little love.”
+
+“And handsome?”
+
+Sophie smilingly replied, “I think so, darling.”
+
+“Is he young?”
+
+“Well, _yes_!”
+
+“How young?”
+
+“Thirty!”
+
+“Oh, that is _old_.”
+
+“Why, no it is not, darling—except in the estimation of ‘sweet
+sixteen.’”
+
+“And Hagar is married—how funny!—and—how _serious_. What makes me feel
+so differently about your marriage and about Hagar’s, Sophie? Your
+marriage—the idea of it fills me with still religious joy, like _church_
+music swelling from the deep-toned organ, echoing through the lofty
+arches and filling one’s soul full of love and awe, tempered by faith.
+But Hagar’s marriage affects me like martial music that attends the
+troops in their embarkation—inspiring, animating, but sad, but painful.
+Now, why is this, why does my heart fill and overflow my eyes, when I
+think of Hagar’s being a wife; surely it is a happy destiny; and why,
+tell me why, when I kneel down night and morning to say my prayers, it
+comes into my head to pray _so earnestly_ for Hagar’s happiness—why do I
+weep now that Hagar is a happy bride? she is a _happy_ bride, is she
+not?”
+
+“Just as happy as _Hagar_ is capable of being, my love.”
+
+“As happy as you are?”
+
+“She should be.”
+
+“Then why do I feel so?”
+
+“I do not know, my love; possibly you feel that Hagar is too wild to
+make a quiet wife, too fierce to make a loving one, and too self-willed
+to become a complying one; while on the other hand you rest in the
+assurance that I am sober and common-place enough to make a quiet
+fireside comfortable.”
+
+“No, that is not it, I never studied that much in my whole life. But how
+do you feel about it, Sophie?”
+
+“My love, I had some of your forebodings, but I had a better reason than
+instinct for them, and now they are about dissipated. Hagar is naturally
+wild, fierce, self-willed, and scornful—but she has the very companion I
+should have selected for her happiness. Raymond is wise, gentle, and
+firm, or he impresses me in that way. You have never seen Raymond?”
+
+“Oh, no! you know, never. Is he like uncle?”
+
+“The very opposite in many things.”
+
+“There! dear Sophie, now please send Hagar to me. I want to see Hagar so
+much—but stay! perhaps Hagar might think I ought to go to _her_; she is
+so proud. But tell her, Sophie, that I am not dressed yet, and that I
+want so much for her to hug and kiss me here, before I go down to all
+those strangers.”
+
+And Sophie pressed her hands and withdrew from the room.
+
+Soon after the door was thrown quickly open, and Hagar sprang upon her
+cousin’s neck, half cutting her soft shoulders in the wire-like embrace
+of her slender arms, while the dark brow bent over the fair one, the
+blue-black ringlets glittered over the pale golden hair, and the deep
+carnation cheek met the pale, rose-tinted face an instant, and then she
+was released.
+
+“So, Hagar, you are married! dear me, how queer! is it not? Why, Hagar,
+you don’t look at all different, not a bit like a married woman.” And
+Rose got up and stood by her, and took her hand affectionately and
+looked up merrily in her face, “dear me, no! not at all like a married
+woman; Mrs. Withers! goodness! do they call you ‘Mrs. Withers,’ Hagar?
+and do you always remember to answer to that name—and how do you like
+being married, sure enough, Hagar—Mrs. Withers, I mean? Don’t turn your
+head away and crimson and darken so, while scorn and mirth gleam and
+flash from under your eye-lashes and upper lip; and don’t laugh—don’t
+_you_ laugh if I do; it is no laughing matter; I feel it so most of the
+time when I think of it. Oh, Hagar, my only sister that I ever knew, I
+do pray for your happiness morning and evening!”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“Now tell me about Raymond, he is young, handsome, graceful,
+accomplished, and all that; but tell me, is he _gentle_?”
+
+“_Gentle!_ why do you ask, Rosalia? _Gentle!_ I gave him my hand—that is
+your fit answer, dear.”
+
+“Yes, I know—I asked because—I may say it to you without blame now,
+Hagar—because his _father_ was not gentle, you know—and—and we sometimes
+love those who are not gentle with us, Hagar,” and her soft eyes were
+suffused.
+
+“Yes,” exclaimed Hagar, “and then there is even in seeming gentleness,
+sometimes gentle strength, gentle force, gentle firmness, more
+irresistible, more inevitably enslaving, than rudeness, roughness,
+violence could be,” and the dark girl’s soul half gleamed from her
+countenance like a dagger half-drawn from its sheath.
+
+“What do you mean, Hagar—dear Hagar, what do you mean?”
+
+“Nothing! I mean that it is time for you to dress and come down—and I
+mean that you must not ask me any more questions. Come, let me be your
+dressing-maid for once, and—but no matter, I fear I should make a
+failure in the essay,” and taking up a hand-bell, she rang it at the
+door. A negro girl came in, and with her assistance the toilet of
+Rosalia was soon made. Her golden hair was arranged in ringlets; her
+dress was a light blue silk; her fair neck and arms were bare, and
+adorned with a pearl necklace and bracelets. Hagar wore a black lace
+dress. Now, as Hagar clasped the last bracelet on her arm (she did that
+for her), standing with her before the mirror, nothing could have been
+more unlike in feminine beauty than these two girls. Hagar, so small,
+straight, dark, and sparkling—Rosalia so fair, soft, and gentle.
+
+“Come, now, let us go down into the drawing-room, Rose.”
+
+“But see here, dear Hagar, I must go in the kitchen, and see Aunt[6]
+Cumbo first; I know she wants to see me so much, so do I her.”
+
+Footnote 6:
+
+  In the country parts of Maryland and Virginia, the children and young
+  people usually call the old negroes “Aunt” or “Uncle.” Further south,
+  “Mammy,” or “Daddy” so and so.
+
+“But, my dear—”
+
+“Oh, but _please_ let me, dear Hagar; for poor old Cumbo, you know, we
+must not slight her, because she is old and—no, we must not slight her;”
+and looking pleadingly at Hagar she passed out slowly before her, and
+stole down the back stairs. Hagar followed her. They went through an end
+door, and making a circuit to avoid meeting any one, reached the
+kitchen. The old woman was busy, and grumbling over her culinary
+operations before the fire, as Rose stood in her blooming loveliness in
+the door.
+
+“Aunt Cumbo, how do you do?” said she, approaching. At the sound of her
+voice the old woman dropped ladle and pan, and turning around, gazed at
+her through bleared eyes.
+
+“Oh, Aunt Cumbo, don’t you know me? It’s me—Rose,” said she, going and
+taking the black old withered hand in her own.
+
+“Oh, it’s my baby! it’s my baby! it’s my sweet, lovely baby come back to
+its old mammy again!” and the old creature fell weeping over her
+shoulders.
+
+“Oh, Rose, shake her off—don’t you see she is ruining your dress.”
+
+“Oh, no! would you hurt her poor old feelings about a dress? her poor
+old feelings!” said Rose, raising her hands and stroking her withered
+cheeks, and looking kindly into the dim face.
+
+“My baby! Oh, de little soft cotton wool hands!—bress Gor A’mighty for
+lettin’ old nigger lib to see her baby once more ‘fore she go—see if old
+mammy ain’t got anoder biscuit in her bosom for it—no, dey ain’t bake
+yet; nebber min’ she’ll save one, and you set down dere, on dat ‘tool,
+while mammy roas’ a sweet tatoe for you;” and the old creature put her
+gently down on a stool, and went to rummaging under an old locker. Again
+Rose’s eyes were full of tears, and she said in a low tone to Hagar—
+
+“She is in her second childhood, Hagar; you did not prepare her for
+this; poor old human being; nothing at all left of her but the loving
+heart. They tell me that it is the first thing that lives, and the last
+that dies.”
+
+“You had better look at your dress.”
+
+“How can she do her work?”
+
+“Mechanically—we do not wish her to work; but I believe she would die if
+she had not the privilege of cooking and grumbling; and Rose, don’t be a
+fool—she is well enough; you know it is so with all these Guinea
+negroes; they have such tenacity of vitality, that their strength of
+body outlives for years the decay of their mental faculties; besides,
+she is seldom so confused as this. Your sudden arrival has startled her,
+and jostled past and present together in her apprehension; but come now,
+Rosalia, you must come into the house;” and Rosalia went up to the fire
+and said—
+
+“Aunty!—mammy!—you will let me go into the parlor with the other ladies;
+you know—”
+
+“But, honey, de tatoe ain’t roas’ yet!” replied the old woman, as she
+raked the ashes over the sweet root.
+
+“Well, aunty, when the potatoe is done you send Tarquinius for me, and
+I’ll come out here and eat it.”
+
+“Yes, honey! yes, my baby! and when you go in house you jes speak to
+Miss Sophie ’bout ’Quinius ’Perbus; he too much mun—don’t min’ nuffin
+‘tall I say, till I have to switch him some ob dese days; you min’ now.”
+And they left the kitchen.
+
+Rosalia Aguilar had come home to no very near relations, to no mother,
+father, sister, or brother; yet never did any child returning to
+idolizing parents meet with a more tender and enthusiastic reception,
+from Sophie down to old Cumbo, and thence down to the cat that ran
+between her feet, crossing before them, rubbing her sides against them,
+and impeding her steps as she walked into the drawing-room. A low murmur
+of irrepressible admiration saluted her as she entered—old friends then
+crowded around, and new acquaintances were introduced to her, and it was
+half an hour before the beauty and the pet was left in quiet possession
+of her sofa. Sophie sat on one side of her, Captain Wilde on the other.
+At this moment Raymond Withers entered the room bowing and smiling, and
+passing up to Hagar, who stood by one of the open windows, he said—
+
+“Which is your cousin?—I have not been introduced to her yet.”
+
+“Have you not?—I will present you, then,—but first,” said Hagar,
+covertly watching his countenance, “look at her and tell me what you
+think of her. There, now you have a good opportunity of observing her
+without attracting her notice; there she is, seated between Sophie and
+Captain Wilde, talking with the latter.”
+
+Raymond’s eyes followed the indication of her glance. Rosalia’s form was
+slightly bent towards Captain Wilde, and her face was softening and
+glowing under the inspiration of their conversation. Raymond slightly
+started—his gaze became fixed—absorbed—Hagar’s eyes burned into his
+countenance, but he did not feel it.
+
+“Well,” at last she said, “what do you think of her?”
+
+He did not reply—his eyes were riveted upon the group on the sofa.
+Hagar’s eyes were fixed on his face—her lips compressed until the blood
+left them pale.
+
+“Well,” she said, again, speaking very slowly and distinctly, “what do
+you think of Rosalia?”
+
+He did not seem to hear her; his soul was absorbed. Now all the fire
+seemed to have left Hagar’s lips and cheeks, and to be concentrated in
+the intensely glowing eyes that burned into the face of her husband, and
+he did not feel it!
+
+At last a motion, a change of attitude, a raising of Rosalia’s eyes,
+dissolved the spell, and he turned to Hagar.
+
+“Well,” said she, with pale lips, “how do you like her?”
+
+“She is beautiful! beautiful! the most perfectly beautiful living thing
+I ever saw. In all my dreams of beauty, I never saw a vision of
+loveliness like that! Do but see, Hagar!—the heavenly love and
+tenderness in her air and manner; one looking at her, fears that she may
+fade into air like a vision of poetry.”
+
+“Shall I take you up and present you?” she asked, in a low voice.
+
+He might have observed—_must_ have observed, the painful constraint of
+her manner, but that his attention was so concentrated.
+
+“Shall I take you up and present you?”
+
+“No, no, love! not yet—I wish to observe her from this point a little
+longer.”
+
+She bit her lips until the blood started—her eyes seemed drawn inwards
+in their intense burning.
+
+“Well, then, will you excuse me, Raymond? I wish to leave the room.”
+
+“No, love! no! I cannot spare you—you have been away from me too long
+this morning already,” and he closed his hand firmly upon hers, while he
+still poured his gaze upon the sofa group.
+
+At last she spoke again—“Raymond,” and pressed his hand to call his
+attention,—“_Raymond!_”
+
+“Well, love!”
+
+She spoke so low that he had to stoop to catch her words.
+
+“Do you not think that if before our union you had seen Ro—”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Nothing—nothing—I had better not—see! they are looking over here—come!
+now let me introduce you.”
+
+He now first observed her pallor.
+
+“It seems to me you do not look well to-day, Hagar.”
+
+She smiled bitterly.
+
+“Perhaps not—_to you!_” she added, mentally.
+
+“Are you not well?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Why do you look so haggard, then?”
+
+“_To you?_ The force of contrast!—and your eyes are dazzled.”
+
+“I must know what you mean, Hagar, but here we are,” he whispered, as
+they paused before the sofa.
+
+Hagar presented him, and Rosalia arose, in her simple, affectionate way,
+and offered her rosy cheek to the kiss of Raymond, as her relative.
+Captain Wilde, starting from his seat, exclaimed,
+
+“Come, Withers, I will do the magnanimous, although it costs some
+self-denial, I assure you, yet you shall have my place—come, Mrs.
+Withers, senior!”
+
+And going round to Sophie he drew her arm through his own, and walked
+her away to the piazza, leaving her place to Hagar, who immediately
+assumed it.
+
+“Now!” said Sophie, her brown eyes dilated, blazing with light and joy,
+“what do you think of my Rose—is she not beautiful?—is she not sweet,
+blooming, fragrant?”
+
+“Beautiful!—stop, Sophie! don’t set me off!—you know I am ‘gusty’
+(_stormy_), when I get an imposing subject! Beautiful!—why she
+_radiates_ beauty—no one can sit by her or talk with her without
+catching beauty! growing beautiful! Did you observe that poor old
+Gardiner Green, how, as he talked with her, all the latent goodness and
+gladness that were smouldering in the bottom of his heart, was kindled
+up and broke through his face, lighting up his winter-apple cheeks and
+black eye-brows until they glowed with beauty, as an autumn landscape
+glows in the sunbeams!”
+
+“Oh, you admire her; you love her; you are a poet!”
+
+“She has made me one!”
+
+“I _knew_ you would love her—still I am so glad to _feel_ it.”
+
+“Love her! dearest Sophie! I was prepared to love her for your sake; now
+I love her for her own!”
+
+“And I _knew_ you would, as I said, and now I rejoice to feel it; now,
+then, you feel the same pleasure that I do in the thought of having the
+sweet girl with us?”
+
+“Have her with us! Yes, that is the best of it—we shall have her with
+us—by our fireside in winter, and about our piazza in summer, and all
+around us—so we can see her always, and caress her as much as we please,
+and love her as dearly, and make her beautiful being as happy as
+possible—have her with us—see here, Sophie, I am afraid I should be
+tempted to kick any fellow who should come courting her—yet of course it
+must come to that, and it will come very soon to that. Beauty and
+sensibility and susceptibility like hers will not long remain unwooed,
+unwed, in a naval station full of gay and romantic young officers; and
+even now I am afraid Hagar will be wanting her, and that Rosalia will
+prefer to go with the companion of her childhood—and that chap, Raymond,
+will take sides with them, and we shall lose the dear girl after all.”
+
+“You need not be afraid of that. Hagar does not want her. Hagar loves no
+human being, neither man, woman, nor child, no one except Raymond.
+Hagar’s affections are very concentrative. She has never loved any
+creature but Raymond, and she has loved him intensely from childhood,
+and indeed I fear there is as much tyranny as tenderness in her
+affection for her husband.”
+
+“Oh! well! never mind them, Sophie; let them torture and transport each
+other in turn, as young lovers of their temperament must for a while;
+only let them leave this charming Rosalia to light our sober, quiet
+home. What are you laughing at, you partridge?”
+
+“Thinking how very sober any home is going to be that calls such a
+boisterous fellow as you are, master.”
+
+“Humph! but, Sophie, but it will be _you_ that will make it quiet, my
+love! my dove! _you_, Sophie—come! does not my boisterousness subside
+into gentle joy by your side? Say, am I not quiet enough?—I can get
+quieter!”
+
+“No, don’t—I—I think—perhaps I like you all the more for being just what
+you are.”
+
+“Are you really contented with me, Sophie?—I have been so much afraid,
+sometimes, that my ‘boisterousness’ should shock and alarm you—now does
+it, ever?”
+
+“Never—never—it is never rude or violent, you know, Gusty, and it only
+lifts my own sober cheerfulness into agreeable gaiety.”
+
+You do not care to hear all that was said by the partners in this
+“mutual admiration” firm—they walked and talked, as long as _you_ walked
+and talked, with you remember whom—or as long as you _expect_ to walk
+and talk with, perhaps you _do not_ know whom. They did not return to
+the house until summoned to dinner. A large company sat down at table. A
+dancing party in the evening closed the day, and the guests dispersed.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+                          THE BRIDE’S PARTING.
+
+            “From the home of childhood’s glee,
+            From the days of laughter free,
+            From the love of many years,
+            Thou art gone to cares and fears;
+            To another path and guide,
+            To a bosom yet untried!
+            Bright one, oh! there well may be
+            Trembling ’midst our joy for thee.”
+                                                MRS. HEMANS.
+
+
+“Mother! is not Rosalia to stay with you?” asked Gusty May, as he
+lingered over a late breakfast with his mother.
+
+“Why, _no_, Gusty, certainly not! what put such a thing in your head?”
+
+“Why, mother, it came there naturally enough, as Rose lived with us many
+years before she went to school, and as you always seemed so fond of
+her, and she also seemed so necessary to you, I thought, of course, you
+would like to have her again.”
+
+“But you know, my dear, _why_ Rose lived with us; that reason no longer
+exists, and Rose goes with her natural guardians.”
+
+“And, mother, who _are_ her natural guardians? Two new brides, quite
+lost in the glory of their bridehood; have _they_ thought or care for
+Rosalia?”
+
+“Sophie has.”
+
+“Yes, but Sophie! Sophie is so innocent. Sophie is going to live—didn’t
+you know it? on board the store-ship.”
+
+“Ship!”
+
+“Lord bless you, _yes_, mother! aboard the store-ship uncle commands.
+There is an elegant cabin, furnished luxuriously as any city
+drawing-room, and far beyond anything you see down in this neighborhood.
+Well, as I was saying, Sophie will live there—now is that a desirable
+home for a young girl like Rosalia, among all those gay, young officers,
+with a chaperone no wider awake than Sophie is, with a guardian merry
+and wild as Uncle Gusty?—and I tell you, mother, those young officers
+are devils of fellows—you know I know them.”
+
+Emily fell into thought a moment, and then she said,
+
+“Sophie is indeed very abstracted, and my brother, as you say, is wild;
+but then there is Hagar; I think that it were better she resided with
+Hagar.”
+
+“What, mother, with Hagar! don’t you know that Raymond proposes to board
+the first year? and with the narrow salary of an under professor, will
+Raymond be able to take her? Besides, a girl dependent, as she is,
+should be made to feel that she has quite a choice of homes, that many
+hearts and doors are ready to fly open to her.”
+
+“You know that I should love to have her with me, Gusty. I will invite
+her, press her to come. I do not think, however, that either Sophie or
+my brother will be willing to resign her.”
+
+“Thank you, dear mother! thank you!” exclaimed Gusty, jumping up and
+kissing her, “oh! thank you—‘willing!’ no, I don’t indeed suppose they
+will be willing to resign her—who _could_, in fact? nevertheless, we
+must try to overrule them.”
+
+“You run quite enthusiastic upon the subject, Master Gusty!” exclaimed
+Emily, looking at him attentively.
+
+“Enthusiastic, mother! Gracious Heavens, mother! one must be cold, dead,
+yes, a _corpse_—a corpse! I mean a _statue_—one must never have _had_
+life—a statue! I should rather have said a _block of marble_—one must
+never have had _form_ not to be inspired with enthusiasm by that
+girl—that seraph!”
+
+“Hey! Master Gusty! have you fallen in love with Rosalia?”
+
+“Speak low, mother! Oh! breathe her name in flute-like tones—for,
+mother! when I speak of enthusiasm, I mean the rapt enthusiasm of the
+adoring saint for his guardian angel! the silent enthusiasm with bended
+knees, clasped hands, and upraised eyes, mother!”
+
+“Humph! not the enthusiasm for instance that Hagar inspired some weeks
+ago—a passion that was going to compel you to send the planets whirling
+against each other!” archly smiled Emily.
+
+“Mother, no more of that ‘an you love me.’”
+
+“So you have got over your phrensy for Hagar?”
+
+“Why, mother,—_of course_,” said Gusty, assuming a look of shocked
+propriety, “_of course_—you did not suppose I was going to keep on
+loving her _now_, did you?”
+
+“I should hope not, certainly; and I am glad your lips confirm my hope.”
+
+“I am a man of honor, mother!” said Gusty, dilating.
+
+“Certainly you are, my love! I am very sure of that—nevertheless, Master
+Gusty, I cannot really give you credit for the exertion of any great
+moral power in this affair. I think that your passion has been conquered
+as the Indians conquer danger when pursued by the flames of a burning
+prairie—fire by fire—love by love.”
+
+“Stop, mother! be just—despair and conscience did much for me even
+before I left her.”
+
+“And yet that was a great infatuation of yours, and now here is another
+quite as great—I am afraid you are fickle, Gusty! Have you really quite
+ceased to regret Hagar?”
+
+“Quite, mother.”
+
+“And care nothing at all about her?”
+
+“Oh! stop—_yes_, I care a great deal about her in—in a brotherly way,
+you understand! in fact, just as I always _did_, until I had to go mad
+about her, you know. Care about Hagar? yes! I guess I do! Let any fellow
+crook his finger at Hagar, and see if he don’t get his neck twisted,
+that’s all? It is singular that I should have got into such a delirium,
+is it not, though? and more singular that I should have got out of
+it—don’t you think so, mother?”
+
+“No, indeed—it is perfectly natural—the ‘harder it storms the sooner it
+is over’ is an acknowledged atmospherical fact, and by all that ever I
+have seen, it is as true of passionate as it is of atmospheric storms. I
+hope that you will never marry during the raging of any phrensy of
+passion—for, if you do, you will be very apt to make yourself and
+another miserable for the rest of your lives.”
+
+“You may well call it a phrensy—a storm, mother! Gracious Heavens! yes!
+That intoxicating Hagar! I used to reel away from her whirling,
+spinning, tipsy! That electric Hagar! she would flash into my soul blaze
+after blaze, like the lightning of a dark, tempestuous night, dazzling,
+blinding, stunning me!”
+
+“And this other?”
+
+“_And this other_—oh! stop, mother; put a long pause between _that_
+and—‘this other,’ and sink your voice low, like you were whispering in a
+church—this other dawns on my soul like a soft, rosy morn, faintly,
+gently, sweetly, and bright and brightening! Hagar broke the silence of
+my heart as with a laugh, a shout, a whoop, a halloa! ‘This other’
+_steals_ upon the ear like a soft note of music, rising and swelling
+into harmony and volume!”
+
+“My poet!”
+
+“No, mother, not your _poet_; I feel more like your _apostle_—I feel
+when I think of her more like saying my prayers—I feel while sitting by
+her as if I were doing a meritorious thing; my heart is hushed into a
+holy content and calm, such as one feels when taking a seat in the
+church while the organ is pealing ‘gloria in excelsis,’ or the preacher
+is reading ‘The Lord is in His holy temple—let all the earth keep
+silence before Him.’”
+
+“Do not be irreverent, Gusty.”
+
+“Oh, I am not, mother; indeed, so far from it, that I never thought of
+the Lord so much, worshipped the Lord so much, felt the Lord’s presence
+in all the beautiful sights and sounds of nature so much, as during that
+heavenly journey with Rosalia. Let me tell you about it, mother—good,
+best mother, you know I tell you everything—always did ever since I was
+a boy.”
+
+“Everything, Gusty?”
+
+“Well, yes—that is—_almost_ everything. Well, you know after I set out
+from here, I tried not to think of Hagar, but the more I struggled with
+the image, the more intensely I thought of her.”
+
+“Of course; you should have _fled_ from the subject, fixed your
+attention on something else—never let your thoughts struggle with a
+sinful subject—fly from it.”
+
+“Yes. Well, I was a little shy of meeting Rose—she always _was_
+delicate, sensitive, and refined—and I thought two years in a
+boarding-school had educated and refined her tastes and manners up to
+the highest fine lady standard. Well, when I got to Boston, and when I
+reached the outskirts of the town, and when I passed the gate in front
+of Mrs. Tresham’s marble and stuccoed mansion, I felt embarrassed. I had
+to recollect that I was an officer in the United States Navy, mother! I
+had to turn all the way back to my hotel, wait half a day to get a card
+engraved, put on my best new uniform, get a pair of lavender-colored
+gloves, and a cambric handkerchief—throw myself into a carriage and ride
+there (I had walked before), and all for fear Miss Aguilar should think
+me rough, countryfied. Well, I made coachee get down and ring the bell,
+take in my card, ‘Augustus W. May, U. S. N.’ Come, I thought, that would
+do—that was going it _en grand seignior_. Presently I alighted, and was
+shown into the parlor. Magnificent, mother! precisely like a wealthy
+merchant’s drawing-room; and while I was waiting there—sitting on a fine
+crimson velvet seat, lolling back with one arm grandly thrown over the
+back of the chair, throwing back my shoulders, expanding my chest; in
+fact, enlarging and dilating generally and sublimely! telling myself all
+the time that I was Aug. W. May, U. S. N.,—the door swung noiselessly
+open, and a tall lady, in stiff black satin and a turban, entered,
+followed by a lovely girl, with golden ringlets flashing down upon her
+light blue silk dress. While I arose and was flourishing my grandest
+bow, and the lady elaborating her profoundest curtsey, Rosalia, the dear
+girl! floated towards me, holding out her dear white arms, and warbling,
+‘Gusty, Gusty!’ just as when she was a baby, and I a lad. I forgot that
+I was Aug. W. May, U. S. N. I forgot Madam Tresham—and Gusty Wilde
+started—sprang—clasped Rosy in his arms, to his bosom, and kissed her
+eyes, and nose, and mouth, while the room spun round for joy! and he was
+just about to whirl Rosy all around the room in a reel, when he was
+arrested by the sight of her Royal Highness, Madam Tresham, sinking
+superbly into a chair, elevating her double chin with slow haughtiness;
+then he dropped Rose, and blushed, and bowed and sat down.
+
+“‘Your _brother_, of course, I presume, Miss Aguilar?’ she said,
+elevating her chin sublimely.
+
+“Now, she _knew_ better, of course she did; she said that out of an
+air.”
+
+“In rebuke, Gusty, and she was right; you behaved indecorously.”
+
+“See here, mother, can I help it? When my blood gives one jump from my
+heart to the top of my head and the tips of my fingers!”
+
+“Well, what did Rosalia reply?”
+
+“She said, ‘Oh, no, dear madam, he is not my brother; but we were
+brought up together,’ and the old lady said ‘Ah!’ and then I handed my
+credentials, Sophie’s letter requesting the presence of Miss Aguilar. I
+swear madam did not seem inclined to comply! however, next day we set
+off by stage for New York, because Rose was afraid of water, and we
+travelled by coach as far as Baltimore, and then, as no stage runs this
+route, we were obliged to take a chaise, and oh! was not that a
+delightful journey,—a glimpse of Heaven, mother! a specimen of life in
+Paradise, those three days’ journey in the chaise! I and Rose alone; the
+dear girl, how many times she would get out to rest the horse and walk
+by my side while I led him up the hill! Now, mother, don’t forget;
+you’ll invite Rose, won’t you?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“You love Rose, don’t you?”
+
+“Yes, as a daughter.”
+
+“And you would take her for a daughter, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Most willingly.”
+
+“That’s you, mother.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rosalia was in demand. That same morning Raymond Withers stood by the
+mantel-piece, his elbow resting upon the top, his head leaned upon his
+hand, his eyes bent down upon the slight figure of Hagar, whom he held
+in a half embrace with the other arm.
+
+“Hagar, love,” he said, in his flute-like tones.
+
+“Well, Raymond!”
+
+“What disposition is to be made of your cousin?”
+
+“Rosalia?”
+
+“Of course, Rosalia.”
+
+“She is to reside with Captain Wilde and Sophie.”
+
+“I want you to invite her to accompany us—to live with us, in fact,—to
+make one of our family.”
+
+Hagar was silent.
+
+“Well, Hagar?”
+
+She did not reply.
+
+“Will you invite her to-day, Hagar? we have but a few days left, and the
+child should know where she is going. Invite her to-day, Hagar—now!”
+
+Hagar’s eyes were rooted to the rug.
+
+“You do not reply, Hagar: perhaps you would rather _I_ should speak to
+her myself, and yet methinks it would beseem _you_ more; shall I invite
+Rosalia, or you?”
+
+“Just as you please.”
+
+“Then you speak to her, and let me know her decision, will you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“At the first opportunity.”
+
+“You speak coldly, I had almost said sullenly, Hagar. Do you not like
+this plan?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Do not press me for a reason, Raymond; why should _you_ be so anxious
+for Rosalia to become an inmate of our family?”
+
+“First, because it is only common kindness to a young relative who is
+depending upon some of us to offer her a home; and secondly, because I
+am very much pleased with Rosalia, and think that she will be quite an
+acquisition to our fireside.”
+
+Her hand was in his as she stood by his side; but her forehead was bent
+forward against the lower part of the chimney-piece, so that her long,
+extremely long blue-black ringlets hung down below her stomacher, like a
+veil concealing her face, hiding the corrugating brow, gleaming eyes,
+flushed cheek, and quivering lips.
+
+“Miss Aguilar is not dependent for a home—her father left her a small
+property.”
+
+“I do not say and did not mean that she was dependent for a roof to
+shelter her fair head, or a board to sit at, but if she has ever such a
+fortune she is a young, delicate, sensitive girl, and she _is_ dependent
+on some of us for a _home_, for kindness, tenderness, affection.”
+
+“She has all that, or will have all that with Sophie and Captain Wilde.”
+
+“Nevertheless let her feel that she is encompassed with affection—poor
+girl, she has no _parents_, let her feel that she has _friends_.”
+
+Hagar was again silent. Then he spoke.
+
+“What is your objection to our plan?”
+
+“We are going to board, as I understand, and so we have after all no
+home of our own to offer her.”
+
+“But we are _not_ going to board—I have changed my plan.”
+
+“Since when?” inquired Hagar, with a slightly sarcastic tone.
+
+“Since my tenant moved out of my house on the Hudson!” replied Raymond,
+coldly.
+
+“Oh! I did not know you owned a house anywhere.”
+
+“Probably _not_! you have no _means_ of knowing—you have just learned
+_that_ fact for the first time, as you will soon learn _others_, my
+love!”
+
+“What others?” sneered Hagar.
+
+“No matter now—invite Rosalia to come with us as I requested you, my
+dear, will you?”
+
+“Yes, I will—Raymond.”
+
+“Well, love?”
+
+“You seem very much charmed with Rosalia!”
+
+“I am—I could not tell you _how_ much charmed with her—she is a seraph!”
+
+“Raymond!” she spoke huskily now, “suppose you had met Rosalia before
+our marriage, even before our engagement?”
+
+“Well!”
+
+“Do you not think that you would have rather loved and wooed _her_ than
+_me_—that you, even now, were we free, would prefer her?”
+
+“Prefer her!”
+
+“Prefer her to _me_—could you not love Rosalia better than Hagar?” said
+she, speaking with great rapidity. “She is fair, full formed. I am
+small, thin, and dark. She is soft, gentle, sensitive. I am wild,
+fierce, and proud, proud to every one but _you_, Raymond. She is tender.
+I am hard. She is graceful. I am rude. She is all that is lovely,
+fascinating in form, features, temper, and manners. I am all that is
+repellent in person, character, and deportment—every one loves her—all
+dislike me.”
+
+“Hagar.”
+
+“Tell me, Raymond, have you not followed the stream in this general,
+this inevitable admiration and love?”
+
+“Hagar!”
+
+“Have you not claimed my hand too hastily? Do you not now regret it,
+wishing that you had waited longer and looked further—lamenting that you
+had not seen Rosalia while you were yet disengaged?”
+
+“_Hagar!_”
+
+“You do not deny it! You only echo and re-echo, ‘Hagar!’ ‘Hagar.’ Yes,
+_Hagar_! that is my name, my fit name—what strange prophetic inspiration
+was it that made them drop my proper name of Agatha and call me ‘Hagar?’
+Alas! I might have known it, Raymond! Oh! did I not _beg_ you to defer
+our marriage? Alas! what forebodings were mine! Truly coming events cast
+their shadows before! Oh! Raymond, I might have known—Rosalia has won in
+succession every heart from me—first Sophie’s, then Mr. Withers’s, the
+servants’, the neighbors’, Mrs. May’s, and lately, think of it! I _was_
+really glad of _that_, not knowing what an omen it was! lately,
+_Gusty’s_. A month ago Gusty was perfectly infatuated with my poor face,
+raved, talked of blowing his brains out. Well! two weeks ago he set out
+for Rosalia, met her again, brought her home, and now he raves more
+about Rosalia’s shoe or glove than he ever did about my whole being! And
+then! and then! oh! God, you, Raymond, _you_! If you could have seen
+yourself when I first pointed her out to you, as _I_ saw you, drunk with
+her beauty!”
+
+Her blood was kindling in her veins, while her bosom heaved and set with
+the motion of the hidden fire that blazed and died and blazed upon her
+cheeks, as you have seen a red flame in the night rise and fall waved by
+the wind—while her eyes scintillated sparks.
+
+“I wish,” she said, “that as I am so much smaller, I were soft and weak
+like other women! that I had more lymph, and so could easily melt! could
+weep! I can _not_—I am _hard_—my muscles are like tempered _steel_—they
+imprison a strong grief that rages, burns, and rends, finding no escape,
+no vent, no expression! I wish that I could weep! could die! like other
+women.”
+
+During all this rhapsody, Raymond had been looking down on her with the
+greatest calmness of attitude and expression—his head still supported by
+the arm that rested on the mantel-piece—his eyes quietly observing her.
+Now he took her hot and quivering hand and led her to the window—there
+were two chairs facing each other at this open window. He motioned her
+into one, dropping into the other himself—he took both of her hands into
+his own and gazed into her agonized countenance a minute, and then said:
+
+“Hagar! look me in the face, look me straight in the eyes, come!” and as
+she raised her eyes piercing with anguish to _his_ eyes, there was a
+sedative influence emanating from his manner that acted upon her nerves,
+reducing her to quiet, she knew not how or wherefore. He held her hands
+thus, looking straight into her fascinated eyes thus for a few moments,
+and then his flute-like tones gently stole on the silence as he said,
+
+“Hagar! I love peace, quietude, repose, benign repose. I love low tones,
+soft footsteps, gentle manners, sweet smiles, and complying tempers
+around me, and I must have them—look straight in my eyes and see if you
+do not feel that I _will_ have them? So, Hagar, no more of this tragic
+acting, if you please, my love.”
+
+Her eyes were fixed full on his, in a vague but painful surprise; she
+did not attempt yet to reply.
+
+“It is this harmonious repose that charms me so in Rosalia.”
+
+“Then why,” she murmured at last, “why were you ever attracted to one so
+every way opposite as myself?”
+
+“Because you can be made every way better; one don’t want a character
+_all_ cotton wool; a good steel spring that rebounds from pressure is
+not unpleasant in your organization. I like to know that there is a
+strength, force, energy in you when required, but I like
+it—_latent_—under perfect _command_—do you mark! and you are not,
+because you happen to have a whole magazine of artillery and ammunition,
+to fire and flame and blaze away at such a rate! _or in the least
+degree_; you must grow tame, my wild love.”
+
+“My peculiarities, then, are not altogether repulsive to you; you love
+me, despite of them all!”
+
+“I love you _because_ of them all, my Hagar; and—but _mind_!” and here
+his voice sank to a lower key and deeper tone than she had ever heard,
+and his gaze was steadily fixed on hers, “_You must place confidence in
+me_; that I demand! without that your love is worthless to me; mine to
+you. I love Rosalia, but not in the way you imagine, foolish girl. I
+would not marry her if I could. You spoke of my admiration of her last
+evening. I was ‘drunk’ with gazing on her beauty—a delicate word for a
+lady, by the way—never let me hear it from your lips again, Hagar! I was
+‘entranced,’ &c.—now observe, I will illustrate—last week you and I rode
+out together; it was a beautiful evening, and the sun was sinking like a
+world in flames, lighting up into flashing splendor half a hemisphere of
+crimson purple and gold sky, of blue water, and green hills and vales;
+and you, drawing rein upon the brink of a lofty cliff, gazed rapt upon
+the scene until your face was as a small mirror reflecting all the glow
+of the sunset—your soul seemed pouring from your eyes, until the sun
+sank behind a bank of clouds that lay like a low range of blue mountains
+immediately on the horizon, and then the spell that bound your revery
+was dissolved.” Oh! how intensely her eyes burned into _his_ eyes while
+he spoke; he continued speaking slowly. “As you, upon the brow of the
+cliff gazed, gazed on the sun-set’s glory; so _I_ gazed upon the young
+girl’s beauty!”
+
+“Ah! ah!” said she, with wild energy, “but I was upon _the brow of the
+cliff_! the brink of destruction, where a single mis-step would have
+precipitated me into ruin; and I was pouring my soul out through my
+eyes, I was entranced until the glory was lost in clouds, the light in
+darkness. Alas! _wail_ for your illustration, Raymond!” and suddenly
+springing from him she fled up the stairs to her eyrie. He stood looking
+after her a moment, and then followed her leisurely. He found her in an
+excited stillness, gazing “too earnestly for seeing” out upon the bay.
+He went up to the window, and leaning his arm upon the flap of the
+escritoire, looked down at her, looked steadily at her—and spoke:
+
+“Hagar.”
+
+She started, turned, impatiently exclaiming, “Can I not escape your eye
+and voice anywhere, _anywhere_?”
+
+“Why _no_, love, of course not!”
+
+She was turning away—“Nay, pause. Hagar, how long have we been married?”
+
+“I do not exactly know, and I do not want to calculate now; it seems to
+me much longer than it really is—a long, long time!”
+
+“Something less than six weeks? Is not this a promising beginning?”
+Hagar suppressed a groan. He drew her away to a lounge, and they sat
+down. “Hagar, do you remember the night of our first meeting? when I was
+a youth and you an infant?”
+
+“_Do I not?_”
+
+“Your first words to me—it was at Sophie’s wedding party, you
+recollect—your first words to me formed a _jealous question_, and I knew
+that you were strong and fierce and jealous, though so little even for
+your years; and your first question was a _jealous_ question.”
+
+“You have a good memory.”
+
+“I _have_! therefore do not store it with facts that will be likely to
+injure you in my estimation. Well, to go back to that evening—I loved
+the little, fierce child—it was piquant to see so much intense fire
+concentrated in so small a space. I felt that it would be interesting to
+subdue this fierceness into gentleness. I was called away from home; but
+I never forgot the interest she gave me. I returned, and the little girl
+had become a little woman—and was wilder, fiercer, more piquant than
+ever; she interested me, attracted me more than ever—and I wished to
+possess her—I do possess her. I wanted her for interest, amusement,
+occupation, use—not for _torture_! I wish her _esprit malin_ to stop
+just when and where it ceases to be _agreeable_—do you hear, love? For,
+Hagar, I have extremely keen nerves and senses; as most people of my
+complexion enjoy a moderate degree of any sort of pleasure thrillingly,
+but do not like to be shocked and stunned; things that would scarcely
+act upon a lower organization put me in pain. And now another picture,
+Hagar. Do you remember the monkey Augustus May brought you from sea,
+when you were a little girl? You kept it years until my return; you had
+educated it almost up to human intelligence; and showed it to me with so
+much pride and pleasure. I was so amused with its antics—not so much
+with what you had _taught_ it as with its _own primal_ nature, breaking
+through all. _Yes, look at me, Hagar!_ keep your eye _so_—for I want you
+to read all in my _soul_ that you find upon my _tongue_. You remember
+the day we stood upon the point of rocks between the river and bay, on
+the other side; you remember you had your monkey in your arms; you set
+it down, and I made it bound and bound for a chestnut, while we both
+laughed at its antics, until the thing, exasperated to anger, sprang
+upon my chest and set its teeth and claws into my flesh, and then! Ah!
+you grow pale, proud one! _what then, Hagar?_”
+
+She answered, and spoke low and slowly, as though the words were drawn
+from her involuntarily. “You tore it from my bosom by the heels, and
+dashed its brains out on the rocks.”
+
+“It was an involuntary impulse, Hagar, deplored, perhaps, the moment
+after; nevertheless, Hagar, you monkey!” and here he smiled a strange
+smile,—“be as spirited, fiery, and piquant as you please, but never set
+your teeth and nails into my flesh _again_—and Hagar!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I want a mark of confidence from you. Invite Miss Aguilar to stay with
+us—do you hear?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“‘Yes,’ what is that? Yes you hear, or yes you will do it?”
+
+“Yes, I hear, and I will do it.”
+
+“This day?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He kissed her forehead, arose, and sauntered out of the room. And Hagar
+sprang upon her feet with a snap of her teeth, exclaiming, “Powers and
+principalities of darkness! is this I? is this I? What is this? am I
+bewitched, enslaved? I—_I_—_I_! pale, and tremble, and obey—_I_! Come,
+Hagar!” said she, to herself, “let us go to the glass and see if we have
+changed as much in person as we have in manner during the last ten
+minutes!” and she went to the glass and glared at herself. “Would I
+submit to this, if I did not love him, if I did not want him to love
+_me_? Raymond! oh! you who looked _so_ gentle, so fair—who could think
+that under those golden lashes, in those soft eyes, lurked such spring
+lancets! And Rosalia! Was he sincere? or was he self-deceived? or
+perchance am I mistaken?”
+
+The dinner bell rang, and hastily arranging her dress, she descended the
+stairs and entered the dining-room. Raymond came forward to meet her,
+and led her to her seat at the table, whispering as he went,
+
+“Your cheek is flushed, love, and your ringlets a little dishevelled. I
+am sorry to see that; take time in future, love, even though you should
+keep people waiting a few minutes; take time to compose yourself and
+arrange your toilet.”
+
+That afternoon Rosalia Aguilar had three distinct invitations to make
+her home under the room of three distinct friends. She gratefully
+declined two—that is Emily’s and Hagar’s, in favor of Captain Wilde and
+Sophie.
+
+The next Sabbath, the whole family from Heath Hall attended divine
+service at the parish Church of the Ascension—Rev. Mr. Buncombe in the
+pulpit. It was to be the last Sunday of their stay. Mrs. Withers’s pew,
+in which sat Hagar, Raymond, Rosalia, Sophie, and Captain Wilde; and
+Mrs. Buncombe’s pew, occupied by herself and Gusty, were the two front
+pews of the middle aisle, immediately under the pulpit. After the
+morning service was over, the benediction pronounced, and the
+congregation had retired, the occupants of these front pews filed out,
+and placed themselves before the altar in the following order: Captain
+Wilde, with Sophie on his left hand, and next to her Rosalia; on his
+right hand, Gusty, while Emily, Hagar, and Raymond were grouped near.
+The preacher opened his book, and in the holy stillness of the empty
+church, commenced the marriage rites that were to unite for life Sophie
+and Augustus; he went on, finished them, the names of bride, bridegroom,
+and attendants and witnesses were affixed to the register; kisses were
+given and received; heartfelt, low-toned congratulations breathed, and
+the little party slowly left the church, got into their saddles, and
+rode over to Heath Hall, where a small party were assembled to dinner.
+
+Dear girls, have I given you love, courtship, and marriage enough in
+this and the last? Whatever you may think, there is “more truth than
+poetry” in the story I am telling you, and more sadness than either.
+
+Gusty rode by the side of Rosalia Aguilar—Rosalia was in one of her
+softest moods, and tears and smiles and blushes chased each other over
+her cheeks. She was thinking of “dearest Sophie,” and sympathizing with
+her happiness. Gusty was sighing like the wind in the main-sail. His
+mother’s invitation, backed by his own eloquence, had been inefficient
+in persuading Rosalia to remain in the neighborhood.
+
+“No, dearest Gusty,” she had said, “I should love so much to have you
+all with me; it grieves me to part with any of you, but you know, Gusty,
+that I must mind what Sophie says, and Sophie says that I must go with
+_her_; besides, as I cannot stay with all, I prefer to stay with Sophie
+and with Captain Wilde, who loves me also.”
+
+“See here, Rosalia, I—I—I—”
+
+“Don’t cry, Gusty, don’t cry—I will write to you every week, and can’t
+you come and see me?”
+
+“_Cry!_ am _I_ crying?—it’s—it’s the wind blowing in my eyes that makes
+them water—pshaw! fiddle-de-dee! _me_ cry, indeed!—but,
+Rosalia—stop—don’t ride so fast; let the folks get along before.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Oh! because—because—because it will tire the _horse_, you know, poor
+fellow.”
+
+“Oh, will it?” said Rosalia, reining up, and falling into a walk.
+
+“Yes, to be sure it will, walk him slow,—there!” and then he rode up
+close to the side of Rosalia, and said, “Rose, stop, little darling,”
+and she stopped, and turned her gentle face towards him. “Rose, look at
+me, darling,” and she looked straight in his face, with her large
+innocent eyes. “How do you like me, altogether, Rose?”
+
+“Oh! so much, so dearly, you _know_ I do, Gusty!”
+
+“Ah, my seraph!—but, Rose, could you _love_ me?”
+
+“Could I, Gusty? Why, I _do_ love you dearly.”
+
+Then he sank his voice to a low whisper, and said,
+
+“But, loving darling! you love _everybody_!—Raymond and Augustus
+included.”
+
+“But I love you better than them, Gusty—oh, ever so much better. You
+know I have known you all my life, and never knew them until last week;
+so good as they are, dear Gusty, and much as I love them, I love _you_
+the most!”
+
+“Love! love! love! Ah, my little angel, I am afraid you do not love me
+as I would have you. Do you love me well enough to _marry_ me—now—soon?
+My pay is enough to support us, and mother has consented. Sophie has a
+good opinion of me, and—and—well! what do you say, my Rosalia?”
+
+She was smiling and blushing.
+
+“Well, Rosalia?”
+
+“Why, it would be too curious! too queer! so funny. Sophie would laugh
+at us, and all the girls would make fun of us. You know I am nothing but
+a child yet—but oh! I know you are only joking.”
+
+“As the Lord in heaven hears me speak, I never was more in earnest in my
+life.”
+
+“Oh! no, Gusty! not in earnest! I do hope not in earnest.”
+
+“As the Lord lives I am, Rosalia—come, Rosalia! I see you will not drive
+me to despair—you will give me your hand, and instead of going North,
+you will just cosily settle down here, with mother. Come, put your hand
+in mine, and I will take that for yes!”
+
+“Oh, I am sorry to vex you, Gusty; indeed I am, dear Gusty, but I can’t
+get married, it is too funny!”
+
+“Do you not love me, then?”
+
+“Yes, indeed I do, Gusty.”
+
+“You _love_ me, dearest Rose?”
+
+“Yes, indeed I do, Gusty, the angels know I do!”
+
+“Then why not marry me, my sweet love?”
+
+“So! Gusty, I had just as soon marry you as any one else, only I do not
+like to marry one—”
+
+“Good heavens!—oh, gracious Providence, _hear her_!—she had as lief have
+me as _anybody else_!” roared Gusty, striking spurs to his horse and
+making him bound in the air.
+
+The girl grew pale, and hastily exclaimed,
+
+“Well, well! maybe if I was obliged to marry, I would _rather_ have you
+than anybody. Oh! don’t scare me so, Gusty! you make me weak all over,
+and—and—I feel like falling from my saddle!”
+
+And he saw, indeed, that his violence had nearly overwhelmed the
+delicate girl, who was trembling very much. He rode to her saddlebow,
+and said gently,
+
+“Rosalia, I beg your forgiveness; I have startled you by my rudeness;
+the fact is, Rosalia, I have been accustomed to Hagar, who, with
+reverence be it said, is as rough as an unripe persimmon, as sour as a
+lime, and as bitter as an aloe, and she has spoiled me for such gentle
+society as yours; now compose yourself, Rosalia, and hear me, and
+believe me when I say that if you refuse my hand—if you leave me here
+and go to the North—I—well! perhaps I shall not go mad, or blow my
+brains out, or break my heart, and die, but I shall be utterly wretched,
+and make every one miserable around me, I _know_ I shall! I begin to
+feel it now. So, Rosalia, I have to propose to you to break this matter
+to Sophie, or let me do it, and to beg you, if she shall see no improper
+haste in the project of our marriage, that you will accept me; Rosalia,
+you make me talk _so_ much, darling!—now, Rosalia, what do you say?”
+
+The girl paused, not in reflection, but in hesitation.
+
+“Dearest Rose, you give me so much pain. Rose! Rose!”
+
+“Do I? I did not mean to.”
+
+“Will you give a reply, Rose?”
+
+“Wait, Gusty, till I talk to Sophie; but, oh! no, I do not like to,
+either—it is too queer. You, Gusty, you may talk to her.”
+
+“Do you, do you say that, Rose! Tell me! tell me over again, Rose! I may
+ask your hand of Sophie and Wilde?”
+
+“Yes,” whispered Rose, the blood rising to the edges of her hair.
+
+“Oh, glory, hallelujah! God bless you, Rose! God Almighty bless you,
+Rose. Hey! stop, Lightning!” said he, suddenly jerking the bit, though
+in fact it was not the horse but Master Gusty that was bounding. “There,
+I am frightening you again, Rose! Be easy, Lightning!”
+
+“Won’t you ride on? Sophie will be waiting for us.”
+
+“Yes! yes! my angel Rose,” and they cantered on through the forest-path.
+It was the same forest-path leading from the village to the church so
+often mentioned in this story. They overtook Sophie Wilde and their
+party. Sophie was buried in thought; she was in fact just passing the
+spot where she had, eight years before, seen the apparition of the
+wanderer, and now passing the road for the last time, and under her
+peculiar circumstances, the fact was forcibly recalled to her mind.
+Rosalia paced up lovingly to her side, and kept there during her ride
+home.
+
+Soon after dinner Gusty May found an opportunity of taking Sophie aside
+and making known his wishes. His embarrassment under _all_ the
+circumstances of which _we_ are cognisant, you know, was very natural
+and amusing. Sophie Wilde (I love to call her Sophie Wilde) was not
+perhaps the person of all others to consult in such a case; it did,
+however, vaguely dawn upon her mind that a little delay might not be
+unadvisable in the proposed marriage of a youth of nineteen with a girl
+of fifteen and a half; so she said dreamily that she would “Talk with
+Captain Wilde.”
+
+Up shot Gusty, exclaiming,
+
+“‘_Talk with Captain Wilde!_’ ‘talk with Captain Wilde;’ yes! that’s it!
+that’s the tune! ‘talk with Captain Wilde.’ What’s Captain Wilde to do
+with it? I asked _you_, because she insisted you should be consulted,
+and you are her little mamma. Seems to me that you have quite
+unnecessarily elevated him to the throne. ‘Captain Wilde!’ he’s a great
+fellow, isn’t he? Captain Fiddlestick’s end! I should just like to hear
+_him_ object—I just _should_. Shouldn’t be surprised though if he
+didn’t. ‘Talk to Captain Wilde!’ oh! _de_-cidedly. _She_ said ‘Talk to
+Sophie,’ you say, ‘Talk to Captain Wilde,’ _he’ll_ ‘talk’ to Parson
+Buncombe; and while you are all ‘talk’-ing, my prospect of getting a
+pair of white kid gloves grows
+
+               “‘Small by degrees and beautifully less!’”
+
+exclaimed Gusty, ranting up and down the piazza, and flinging his
+coat-tails about. “I was born under the lost pleiad! I _know_ I was! to
+be always crossed in love! to be hammered into a poet or something by
+hard blows! I be hanged if I will. I’m to be put in the still as roses
+are, and the essence of soul, the double extract of soul distilled from
+me by fire, while flesh and muscle, life and health shrivel up like rose
+leaves in the heat! No, I be hanged if I will. Cast me into the furnace
+and see if I don’t turn out to be gunpowder, and blow somebody up! or
+spirit-gas, and set some one on fire! _that’s_ all!” and blowing, he sat
+down.
+
+“Look here, my dear Gusty,” said our bride, “don’t talk nonsense. You
+have a long leave of absence; come! go with us North. You indeed have
+the best excuse; you may be said to be in duty bound to go, as our
+groomsman, and in that capacity you must constantly attend Rosalia, and
+who knows, you may be appointed to our ship; the set of officers is not
+yet complete.”
+
+“So I may! oh, God bless you, Sophie, it took just _you_ to think of
+that! though you may not be as sensible as mother, or as brilliant as
+Hagar—yet you are better. I wish the comparative had been _good_er than
+_either_ of them! anything that is to make anybody happy, dear Sophie! I
+shall not leave it to ‘who knows’ and ‘perhaps,’ I shall beg uncle to
+get me appointed to his ship, if he can—where is he? I am going to him!
+in the meantime consider me enlisted for this Northern bridal cruise,”
+and off he went to seek Captain Wilde.
+
+I leave it to any gentleman or lady present whether it was in Captain
+Wilde’s power just that day to look rationally, sensibly, coldly, upon a
+young lover’s passion.
+
+“Why, Gusty, my boy,” he said, “you know very well that I have very
+little influence; however, I will exert that in procuring your
+appointment to my ship, and Gusty, in the meantime come on with us and
+remain until you receive orders somewhere. Rosalia is a treasure, and if
+I had the power of bestowing her, I do not know to whom I could give her
+with so much pleasure as yourself. But you must wait, Gusty, for a year
+or two—you are both somewhat too young to think of this marriage yet a
+while.”
+
+“Why, uncle, this ‘wait’-ing might be endurable if the time were passed
+with you all, and in daily company of Rosalia, to be sure.”
+
+This arrangement was finally concluded. And Emily, who loved Rosalia,
+and preferred her above all others as a future daughter-in-law, readily
+consented to forego the society of her son for the present, merely
+saying—
+
+“_When_ you marry, if you ever marry Rosalia, you must bring her home
+here and leave her with me while you are at sea, Gusty, and that is the
+only condition upon which I can consent to part with you, Gusty, for
+this term.”
+
+Of course Gusty consented and promised.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+“And so, my little dove-eyed darling is scarcely out of school, before
+she is betrothed—do you know the meaning of your vows, my little love?”
+asked Sophie, very seriously, the same afternoon as Rosalia nestled on a
+stool at her feet. And Rose dropped her blushing face in the lap of
+Sophie, and was silent. “Do you?—tell me, Rose?”
+
+“Dear Sophie, I had rather not get married—only, you know, poor Gusty,
+it would be a pity to hurt his feelings!”
+
+“You child!”
+
+“But, Sophie, I am not—not betrothed, as you suppose—no indeed, I gave
+no positive answer until I could hear what you would have to say.”
+
+“You did not!” said Sophie, suddenly. “Oh, then, my dear Rose, I beg—I
+entreat that you will bind yourself by no rash vows now—wait—you are
+heart-whole yet—wait—Gusty is going on with us—you will see more of
+him—he of you—and you will both find out whether you are fitted for each
+other. Will you promise me not to engage your hand ever without my
+consent, Rose?”
+
+“Dear Sophie, to be sure I will—I never once thought of doing
+otherwise.”
+
+This was perfectly easy for Rose, for her own inclinations were
+uninterested in the matter.
+
+Breaking up an old home, the home of many years—I had nearly said
+centuries, is not like a modern city May day flitting. A home like old
+Heath Hall, with its accumulations, its secretions of many years and
+many hearts, with its innumerable old closets, cupboards, wardrobes,
+escritoires, and “old oak chests,” with their inexhaustible treasures,
+relics, and curiosities—from the doublet and hose that the founder of
+the American branch of the family wore—with his point and ruffles
+and bonnet and plume—to the cocked hat and rusty sword of
+great-great-grandfather, and the hooped petticoat and high heeled shoes
+of his wife—from the first baby cap that the first American Churchill
+baby wore, to the lock of grey hair that was cut from his coffined head
+just before the lid was screwed down—from the veil that fell around the
+maiden at her bridal to the cap the grandmother died in—from the bullet
+extracted from the fiery-hearted son who had perished in battle, to the
+clerical black silk gown his gentle bosomed brother had worn in his
+ministry when he married, christened or blessed. Truly the organ of
+veneration must be largely developed in these old Maryland and Virginian
+families—all things linked with family associations are relics it would
+be little short of sacrilege to destroy. The cast off bridal wreath and
+veil that a northern or a city belle would generously and properly
+bestow upon some young sister or cousin, is gently lifted from her
+daughter’s brow by a Maryland mother—reverentially lifted as you have
+seen a minister raise the cloth from a communion table, and laid away a
+sacred treasure, a relic to be handled with awe and love by the children
+in future ages. The wardrobe of the dead that many northern and city
+families send to the proper destination, the backs of the ragged living,
+in Maryland and Virginia is carefully collected and packed away in
+chests and locked, and hermetically sealed as it were to moulder away to
+dust in long years. These old houses—how the very smell of their musty
+mysterious old closets and closely shaded rooms, for dreaming carries us
+back to the days when people did not understand that ventilation was
+necessary to health, to the days when we lay across grandmother’s soft
+lap, watching through our winking eyes grandmother’s dear good face,
+and, vibrating between angel dream land and her capped and spectacled
+face, dimly wondered what we were, and slipped from this vague feeling
+into sleep. These old houses have no antiquities carrying us back to the
+very ancient feudal times, it is true; but they have that which comes
+more warmly, _so_ warmly! home to the heart, all the signs of _long
+inhabitedness_. The old windows may creak in the wintry blast, and the
+wind whistle up from crevices at the very foot of the old mantel-pieces
+beside the blazing hickory fire, yet the heart is all the warmer for its
+old age, because grandfather and grandmother lived there and _their_
+grandparents before them. These old houses scattered at wide intervals
+up and down the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and
+under the Easterly shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in and out
+among the hills and through the forests between them—these old houses,
+spotting the verdure of new settlements like iron-mould—these old
+houses, many of them still inhabited by the old families, while both
+decay together, still blossoming out occasionally with young life, young
+children, remind me strongly of old mouldering tombs from which fresh
+blooming flowers are springing.
+
+“Let’s leave all things just _so_, Hagar, love,” said Sophie, as the two
+were making a tour of the old Hall, opening and examining old closets
+and chests with a view of determining what should be taken, what left,
+what burnt and what given away. “We will lock up all the rest without
+examination. I have not nerves for it, Hagar. It is like dissecting a
+heart, to explore the treasures and memorials and relics of the long ago
+dead. Let us leave them so.”
+
+“Let’s make a general bonfire of them,” said Hagar, “I never like these
+relics, they come across me unpleasantly, very—why should people
+accumulate them—storing up pangs against some day of pangs. ‘Let the
+dead past bury its dead;’ _en avant_ is my motto.
+
+Sophie looked at her with her brown eyes dilating in reverie.
+
+“Perhaps you are right after all—these relics awaken mournful, not to
+say maudlin feelings that might sleep but for their sight; nevertheless,
+_I_ could not destroy these things, neither can I consent to their
+destruction.”
+
+It was finally agreed in consultation that all things should remain just
+as they were, that the Hall should be closed, and left in charge of old
+Cumbo and Tarquinius.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Where are you going, Hagar?” said Raymond, as she sauntered from the
+breakfast-room off into the yard.
+
+“To see Starlight. I have not seen him since our marriage, and I was
+accustomed to go to his stall every morning when Tarquinius carried his
+oats.”
+
+“Why did you not ask me to attend you?” inquired Raymond, as he drew her
+hand under his arm.
+
+“Because, Mr. Raymond,” flashed Hagar’s eyes and teeth, “I love to shake
+you _off_ some time! when you set like a trammel—besides you do not like
+Starlight.”
+
+Raymond replied by drawing her arm closer and holding her hand tighter,
+while her pointers, Remus and Romulus, seeing her, sprang to her,
+bounded around her, and she stopped to caress them with her free hand.
+Raymond an instant looked annoyed, then raising the loaded end of his
+riding-whip, struck them away. Hagar snatched her hand from his arm, and
+all the fire of her race and nation was burning in the indignant gaze
+she flashed upon his brow that still remained unfurrowed by a frown in
+its superb calmness.
+
+“Well, Hagar, I am not scathed, blasted by that lightning stroke, am I?
+Nonsense, Hagar, do you suppose I am going to permit a hand I love to
+kiss to be licked over by those two curs?—pooh! go wash it.”
+
+“They are _not_ curs, they are fine splendid pointers! Look at their
+shining black coats and eyes like coals! and their _love_ has more
+generous disinterestedness than—” And here she paused, her expiring
+flash of spirit died out beneath the steady inquiring gaze of the soft,
+deep blue eyes, striking up through which came a will, a purpose, the
+strength of which was dimly guessed from the depths from which it seemed
+to come.
+
+“Than _what_, Hagar?”
+
+“Nothing!” said Hagar, as her high heart-throbbing subsided. He drew her
+arm again within his own, and they proceeded to the stables. At the
+sight of his mistress, Starlight neighed loud for joy, and breaking
+away, cantered up to meet her, pawed the ground, stretched out his head,
+and couched it in the open palms she held to receive it. Hagar smiled in
+his eyes, full of the earnestness she could not speak, and stroking his
+jet black neck, let him lay his chin upon her shoulders alternately, and
+rub his mouth upon her neck and cheek, snorting with joy between times.
+
+“See, Raymond! see,” she said, with her momentary anger all conjured
+away. “See how the very _want_ of the gift of speech makes his eyes and
+motions so eloquent! See how glad he is to see me! don’t I understand
+you, Starlight? and don’t you know every word I am saying?” said she,
+caressing him.
+
+But now her eyes fell upon Raymond, who was standing with folded arms,
+curling lip, and scornful eyes, regarding her.
+
+“Why do you look at me in that way, Raymond?”
+
+“You have no refinement, no delicacy. Your dress pawed over and soiled
+by your canine pets—your ringlets snuffed at, and your neck rubbed by
+the nose of your pony. I am glad that in a few days I shall be able to
+remove you from all these things.”
+
+“But I wish to take Starlight and Remus and Romulus with me,” said
+Hagar, as she turned away from the stable, and they sauntered on.
+
+“You cannot do so.”
+
+“Why?” she asked, anxiously.
+
+“I do not like dogs and horses myself, and I very much _dis_like your
+attachment to them, and I utterly disapprove of your use of them; when
+you cannot walk there are carriages to be had!”
+
+“You never told me that you disapproved of my habits before!”
+
+“I had no right to _express_ it before, and yet you learned it from my
+silence, and now I say it explicitly, and expect that my tastes be
+consulted in the matter.”
+
+“And you have no right to express it _now_! sir,” exclaimed the mad
+girl, with the fire flaming in her eyes. “No right to express it _now_!
+_what_ right have you _now_, more than you ever had over me? None that I
+acknowledge! None that I will bear to have you assume! None, Raymond!
+_none!_ All love! all compliance that I yield you now I would have
+yielded you before! and you know it! you know it! of my own free will!
+of my own glorious free will!—not from constraint! God in Heaven! you
+exasperate—you madden me—by attempts at constraint! Raymond! what do you
+mean by this? I do not like it. No! I will turn away, I will not look at
+your cold, spirit-killing eyes. I will not let your cold, damping,
+implacable will extinguish my life and soul as the rain puts out the
+fire. _I_ have a will! and tastes, and habits, and propensities! and
+loves and hates! yes, and conscience! that all go to make up the sum
+total of a separate individuality! a distinct life! for which _I alone_
+am accountable, and _only_ to God! How weak and worthless would my
+obedience to God be if it were fettered through a submission to _any_
+lower will. No, I will _not_ bear to have you assume any right over my
+freedom of action, and I shall take my favorites with me to the North.”
+
+A sarcastic smile fluttered around the beautiful lips and gleamed under
+the golden eye-lashes of Raymond Withers as he slightly raised his hat
+from his head with a mock bow, and sauntered away from her side, quoting
+for her benefit the very last clause of Genesis iii. and 16. It only
+needed his sarcasm to exasperate the girl to phrensy. She snapped and
+ground her teeth together, and stamped with both little feet, springing
+to the ground as though they would take root there—while anger rocked
+and flamed to and fro in her bosom like a sea of fire lashing its
+shores. Suddenly—veiling her flashing eyes and setting her gleaming
+teeth with a look of resolution, she went to the stables and calling
+Tarquinius, bade him saddle Starlight.
+
+“We will have another day together, my old friends,” said she, as the
+horse neighed joyously, and the dogs bounded around her each in
+intelligent anticipation; and in ten minutes from this Hagar was flying
+over the heath towards the forest attended by her favorites.
+
+The sun was setting in golden glory as Hagar rode into the yard at Heath
+Hall, sprang from her horse, and throwing the reins to Tarquinius walked
+leisurely towards the house, smiled and bowed salutation to the company
+assembled to enjoy the evening air in the piazza, and passed on into the
+Hall—Sophie followed her, and with the tears welling up to her eyes
+exclaimed,
+
+“Oh! Hagar, what have you done?”
+
+Hagar threw up her little glittering head of ringlets and replied with
+laughing defiance,
+
+“I have been taking one of my old days among the hills! I wished to feel
+my freedom a little, that is all! I have been galled by the too close
+pressure of my chains lately, and have broken them through for once,
+that’s all.”
+
+“How will you meet Raymond after this escapade?” said she, sadly.
+
+“Nonsense, Sophie, how will he meet _me_?” and she ran up stairs.
+
+“Be quick, dear, trying Hagar, tea is nearly ready,” said Sophie, gazing
+earnestly after her—then with a second thought, inspired by this second
+and closer glance, Sophie went up stairs to her room, found her standing
+leaning her elbow on her dressing-table, while her forehead rested upon
+the palm of her hand, and her long glittering ringlets fell half way to
+her girdle—her little figure was visibly throbbing with emotion. Sophie
+went and took the hand that was hanging down; it was burning, hot, and
+dry.
+
+“Hagar!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You are wretched, poor child, and indeed I do not wonder. Hagar, will
+you take my advice?”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“_Tell_ your husband when you meet him that you are so—_you_ have
+sinned, Hagar, and _you_ must atone for your sin; lay your small hand
+gently on his arm, and look into his face, catch his eyes, and ask him
+to forgive you.”
+
+“WHAT!” snapped the proud girl, bounding like a little bombshell; “hold
+out my wrists humbly for the gyves, and ask my master please to fasten
+them on again! No! may I die if I do!”
+
+“Oh! don’t look at it in that light, Hagar; you have wronged, outraged,
+insulted Raymond.”
+
+“Did he tell you so?” sneered Hagar.
+
+“Can I not see it, Hagar? No, he did not tell me so—do you not know
+enough of Raymond’s proud and fastidious nature to see that he _could_
+not tell me so, Hagar? No, poor misguided child, your day’s absence was
+enough. Come, Hagar, seek a reconciliation with him—you _have_ been
+wrong—say so to him at once. You will have not a moment’s peace until
+you are reconciled to your husband—seek that reconciliation at any price
+of your own sinful pride.”
+
+“I will not! cannot!”
+
+“But, Hagar, you _do_ regret this, you suffer torture.”
+
+“I can _bear_ torture! but not humiliation! degradation!”
+
+“Alas! look at you, the very flame of mental fever flickering through
+your cheeks and eyes—the freshness of your lips scorched by the dry heat
+of your breath. What a day you have had to-day, Hagar! how much your
+defiance has cost you! Come, come, bathe your eyes; after tea I will, if
+I can, talk with you again. You will be wise.”
+
+The supper bell rang, and Sophie, with a hasty charge to Hagar to make
+her toilet quickly, arose and left the room. And Hagar sprang to her
+feet with a determination to look very regal, happy, and defiant. She
+bathed her burning eyes and brow, but without cooling their fever. She
+smoothed her long glittering ringlets, and collected them under a
+jewelled comb. She changed her black riding-dress for a crimson satin,
+with full and falling sleeves, fastened a ruby bracelet on her slender
+but rounded arm, and descended the stairs, trying to draw her heart up
+blithe and high; she entered the drawing-room with head erect, expanded
+brow, and elastic step, and was passing on proudly alone, behind the
+company, who were going to the supper room, when quickly and softly at
+her side was Raymond, his graceful head, with its wavy golden hair,
+bending forward, smiling up into her face; his soft eyes radiant under
+their golden lashes, and his delicate hand seeking hers, to draw it
+through his arm, just as if nothing had happened. Her own Raymond!—her
+pride was disarmed in a moment. Sunbright was the smile of surprise,
+joy, love, and gratitude she flashed up in his gentle face, and suddenly
+it softened into tenderness; how could she have defied a gentle soul
+like his?—in truth, she would have given everything she possessed on
+earth, except Remus, Romulus, and Starlight, to have blotted out for
+ever the offence of the day. She had not expected this; she had prepared
+herself to defy the storm, not the sunshine, and her defences were all
+melted off. She was subdued, and quietly and generously resolved in her
+own mind not to shock and wound his fastidious delicacy again, and so
+they sat down to supper. The neighborhood gossip of a tea-table occupied
+the company. But Hagar continued to watch Raymond with a new feeling,
+new interest; it seemed his character was now constantly unfolding
+itself to her; new leaf after leaf was turned; she watched him covertly
+but closely. His manner was just precisely as usual; and, though she
+often caught his full eyes, not the slightest consciousness of
+remembering that anything unpleasant had occurred was to be detected in
+their glance. His countenance and manner wore their usual air of
+graceful self-possession and elegant repose, and she would have thought
+that, indeed, the occurrence of the day had dropped from his memory, but
+that once, quickly, under his breath, he had said, “Your restlessness of
+manner, your anxiety of expression, will draw attention—be at ease.”
+
+“Be at ease”—these words, though spoken in the softest key, and with the
+sweetest smile, somehow did not set her at ease; and “You will draw
+attention,” raised an anxiety that she had not felt before. Was it the
+dislike of drawing attention?—but she would wait. Oh, how she longed for
+the stupid evening to be over; it is so hard to bear calmly, cheerfully,
+a toothache or a heart-ache in company. It was long before they left the
+tea-table, and then it was long before they got ready to go home, and
+after they were all in their saddles and in their carriages on the road,
+it was long before Sophie’s smiling good night broke up the family
+circle for the evening. Sophie left the room with a congratulatory smile
+to Hagar, happy in the thought that their quarrel was made up. Raymond
+followed her, smiling, to the door, opened it, bowed her out, closed it,
+and returned; then with a sudden impulse went back, re-opened it, and
+passed out.
+
+Hagar awaited his return half an hour, and then sought her chamber. She
+expected him joyously, yet with a little undefinable anxiety. At last
+she heard his steps ascending the stairs, he opened the door, and came
+in; she turned quickly, and going to meet him, holding out both hands,
+exclaimed,
+
+“Dearest Raymond, I am so glad that we are alone, together at last, my
+heart has been ready to burst all the—” She stopped short, and gazed in
+surprise at him. How changed his aspect! was it the same Raymond that an
+hour ago was smiling, bowing, glancing, gliding through the lighted
+drawing-rooms? He stood with folded arms and curling lip; his cold eye
+crawling over her from head to foot, yet so fascinating in his beautiful
+scorn, that she could have uttered a death-cry of anguish, as love and
+pride tugged at her heart-strings. He passed her and threw himself upon
+a lounge. She had been prepared for this scorn and anger three hours
+before, but she was not now—not after having been subdued by soft
+smiles, sweet words, and gentle tones, that she had received in all
+trust—no, not now—the touch of the soft fingers that had sought and
+pressed her hand in drawing it through his arm; the touch of those soft
+fingers was yet quivering on _her_ fingers; the rays of those gentle
+eyes were yet beaming in _her_ eyes; the tones of that low, love-pitched
+voice yet breathing in her ear—no, she could not believe in this
+harshness, at _least_ she could not bear it. He was now sitting on the
+lounge, making entries in a note-book, with his usual air of elegant
+ease. She looked at him an instant, and then going up to him she stood
+before him; he continued his writing, without looking up; the flame
+flickered in and out upon her dark cheek; soon she dropped both hands
+upon his shoulders, and dropped her proud head until the long glittering
+ringlets fell each side of his cheeks, and sitting down beside him and
+dropping her face upon his bosom, she whispered softly,
+
+“Raymond, make friends with me! I will do anything in the world you wish
+me to do—come! I will leave undone all you wish me so to leave, if you
+will make friends with me again;” and a tearless heart-sob breaking from
+her lips showed how great had been the pang of her vanquished pride.
+
+He lifted her head from its resting-place, smoothed back the ringlets of
+her hair, and holding her face between the palms of his hands, gazed
+smilingly into her eyes, with a look, half of love, half triumph, and
+said,
+
+“You will? but then your ‘separate soul—will—individuality’—what are you
+to do with it all? Answer me—I want a literal reply, in words—”
+
+“I don’t know!—how do _I_ know?—don’t seek to humble me, dear Raymond—I
+am tortured!—tortured!—tortured!”
+
+“Tortured?”
+
+“Yes!—yes!” exclaimed she, wildly,—“_tortured!_”
+
+“Who tortures you, my piquant little love, my little vial of
+sal-volatile?” said he, condescendingly, caressing her.
+
+“You do, Raymond!—and myself!—myself tortures me!”
+
+“Why, so it seems.”
+
+“Yes, Raymond, understand me, and help me to understand myself. I only
+lately began to know myself. I am a strange blending of pride and
+aspiration!—and of love, and through love, fear!—the eagle and the
+dove!—alas, bear with me!—hold my throbbing temples between your cool
+hands, Raymond—_your_ hands are _always_ cool—so!—now calmly, I do not
+know that there is anything to make me wild, or angry, just now—yet
+these clashing and conflicting elements do so war in my nature—listen,
+Raymond! when you angered me this morning, and left me, the aroused
+passion of my soul heaved and set like the sea in a storm, leaping from
+its bed and lashing the shores! I could not have believed it possible
+that you _could_ have angered me so—or being angered so, that I could
+have got over it so; and now that is gone, and—never wound my poor dove
+because my eagle has stuck her beak and claws into you—”
+
+“No, love, the dove shall never be wounded, but _the claws and wings of
+the eagle shall be clipped_,” said he, looking steadily in her anguished
+eyes. “Don’t reply to me yet, Hagar, you are about to say something that
+will make more trouble between us.”
+
+Then with a dry sob and gasp, Hagar’s heart shrank into silence, and he
+smiled to see it, and all this while he was lightly caressing
+her—running his fair fingers through her glossy hair, and kissing her
+lips from time to time. At last she said—
+
+“I have been thinking what to do with my favorites, Starlight and the
+pointers.”
+
+“And has your unassisted wisdom arrived at any conclusion, my love?”
+
+“Yes, I will leave them here, in the care of Tarquinius, for a while;
+then, perhaps, after a while, when we get settled, you will not object
+to have them.”
+
+“I am sorry, love, that our thoughts did not happen to run in the same
+channel, very sorry. I made a sale of the horse and dogs to Gardiner
+Green, this morning, while you were taking your last ride with them, and
+to-night, after you came home, I sent them over to his farm by
+Tarquinius.”
+
+“NO!” exclaimed Hagar, starting violently.
+
+He held her tightly, gently compressing his arm about her waist, and
+replied, softly,
+
+“Yes, love—nay, do not start and struggle, I cannot spare you, yet—yes,
+love, they are sold.”
+
+“_My_ horse!—_mine?_—_my own!_—my dear Starlight!—and my dogs—and
+without my leave!”
+
+“Come, come!—come, come! be still, Hagar, no phrensy,” said he,
+smilingly, tauntingly caressing her, while a gentle, cruel strength
+struck out from the pressure of the soft arms that held her in a fast
+embrace; “if your eagle flaps its wings and beats its cage so violently,
+I am afraid clipping its pinions and claws will not be enough—I am
+afraid I shall have to crush it altogether,” said he, looking down into
+her eyes.
+
+She ceased to struggle, and dropped her hands clasped upon her
+lap—dropped her head upon her chest, while the color all faded from her
+cheeks, and the light from her eyes.
+
+“Hagar!”
+
+“Well!”
+
+“What is the matter, love?”
+
+“_What you please_ shall be the matter!” exclaimed she, laughing
+bitterly, while light and color suddenly flashed back into her sparkling
+face.
+
+“Come, love, you are a spirited little thing, but you will be docile by
+and by, and then—”
+
+“I wish you joy of your automaton!”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+                          THE FORSAKEN HOUSE.
+
+              “Gloom is upon thy lonely hearth,
+              Oh, silent house! once filled with mirth,
+              Sorrow is in the breezy sound
+              Of thy tall poplars whispering round.”
+                                                  HEMANS.
+
+
+The family met at breakfast the morning succeeding the events of the
+last chapter. The family—that is, with the exception of Rosalia, who had
+been spending a week at Grove Cottage, consoling Emily for the
+disappointment of losing her company for the winter, by remaining with
+her as long as possible, and indeed up to the day of the proposed
+departure. Hagar entered the breakfast-room, escorted, as usual, with
+the gentle and assiduous attention always given her, in public, by her
+husband. He led her to her place, and seated her with a graceful bow and
+sweet smile, and then assumed his own chair—smiling the morning
+salutation to Captain Wilde, who just entered the room. But Sophie
+looked at Hagar,—looked at her in astonishment. The spirited, springy
+little figure was almost languid, though she sat erect; the healthy
+crimson glow of her dark complexion had concentrated in a circumscribed
+purple spot on her cheek, leaving her contracted brow and quivering lip
+pallid; her strained glance expressed a mingled anguish and defiance.
+And then Sophie’s glance turned off from Hagar to Raymond; but his fine
+brow was perfectly smooth, his eyes smiling and his lips composed as he
+received the cup of coffee from the waiter held by Tarquinius. Sophie
+was so disturbed, upon the whole, that she could not eat her breakfast.
+This was the last day of their stay at Heath Hall. The packet that was
+to convey them to Baltimore was moored under the shadow of the
+promontory. Immediately after breakfast, both gentlemen left the house
+to superintend the removal of their baggage. Hagar arose from the table
+and went into the large old drawing-room, Sophie’s whilom school-room.
+Sophie, leaving her table in charge of the servants, followed her. She
+was walking uneasily about the floor, and seeing Sophie enter, she
+paused before the window. Sophie stole gently to her side, and passing
+her soft arms over the girl’s shoulder, stooped forward and looked
+seriously and lovingly into her anguished face, as she murmured in her
+low, sweet voice,
+
+“I must not ask you _now_, Hagar, my former question of ‘What is the
+matter between you and Raymond?’ but let me comfort you in some way. Oh,
+it is dreadful, indeed, my love, that you, a wife of scarcely two
+months—but I will say nothing of that—only I see,” said she, dropping
+her voice very low, “it is your _pride_, Hagar—don’t start, love, or
+repulse me, for you know we shall be separated very soon—it is your
+_pride_, love, that rebels against a rule every way gentle, just, and
+reasonable. Subdue it, Hagar. Your husband has been educated among the
+refinements of cultivated city society. He, himself, perhaps, among the
+most fastidious of that class. His taste is offended, his delicacy
+shocked by your wildness.”
+
+“He knew all this before. Why did he mar—”
+
+“Hush! hush! Hagar! Never think such thoughts—ask such questions. He
+loves you, Hagar—has loved you long with a constancy I have never seen
+equalled but in one instance. He loved you—let me speak plainly, Hagar,
+for your sake and his—he loved you when you were a very _un_lovely
+child—at least to every one but me.—Well, he loved you, and sought and
+gained your love. You gave yourself away to him, and now he very
+naturally expects you to conform your manners to his tastes. Hagar, if
+liberty were dearer to you than love, you should never have given
+yourself to a husband. But that is not so—you know it—it is only your
+struggle, now—and, Hagar, this struggle, this resistance of your pride,
+_must cease_. Listen! Oh, Hagar!” said she, with unaccustomed energy,
+“listen to me—to _me_. I love you, and have no possible interest except
+your own welfare, in what I say to you. Your pride must be subdued—it
+must!—_must!_ If you do not subdue it _yourself_, _he_ will, with cruel
+pain to you. Raymond’s demands are all reasonable; such requirements are
+usual—in your case any man would make them—but in one thing Raymond
+differs from most men that I know—in the possession of an indomitable
+WILL. In my long acquaintance with him, when my faculties were mature,
+and yours in the green bud, I have had an opportunity of seeing and
+knowing this. I am afraid _you_ have mistaken him—with all his fair
+complexion and golden hair; in that beautiful form lives calmly an
+immensity of force, an eternity of purpose, almost omnipotent in its
+repose, and that it would be vain to look for in more impetuous,
+seemingly stronger natures; a power that is calmly, silently surrounding
+you. You feel it—do not struggle against it—you cannot overcome it,
+cannot escape from it, and it will never be withdrawn—it will close
+around you.—Yield gracefully to it! To your submission it will be a
+loving embrace—to your proud resistance it will be a galling chain;
+cease the struggle, Hagar, and be still.”
+
+“Never! never! never!” exclaimed the proud girl, while her brow flushed
+to crimson as by the smite of shame.
+
+“But you have a traitor in your bosom that continually betrays you; or
+rather, I should say, your husband holds your heart-strings in his hand.
+You love him—yes, Hagar, _him_ only, of all the world! You do not love
+me, or anybody else. From infancy the stream of your affections has run
+in one deep and narrow channel. Let that be checked, and the waves,
+turned to flame, will roll back upon your heart consuming it. Why, see,
+Hagar, see! when your wills clash, your pride is in arms—you oppose him,
+defy him, and he meets such defiance with a calm, quiet strength, not
+yielding an inch, and you suffer, as you are suffering now. Why suffer,
+Hagar? Tame that wild heart of yours. Hagar, the great secret of the
+power he possesses over you is this: he is calm, while you are
+impetuous—he can control _himself_, and thereby _you_—he can stifle, as
+you can not, that ‘mighty hunger of the heart,’ that craves a return of
+love—he can look coldly, sternly on you for days, weeks, while his very
+soul wails for your love. You cannot do this yourself, or bear it from
+him long; in a word, dear Hagar, you have neither might nor right on
+your side.”
+
+During all this speech Hagar had been standing with her face to the
+window, with her eyes burning and burning through the glass, and Sophie
+had been standing by her side with her arm around her waist caressingly.
+
+“Come, Hagar!” she whispered low, “let me confide to you some of my own
+feelings,” and while she spoke she slightly smiled, her voice slightly
+quivered as with bashfulness or happiness, and the rose clouds rolled up
+over her cheeks, and even flushed her brow,—“I love my husband so much,
+so much, so much, with a fulness of tenderness that it seems to me could
+not be expressed, except by suffering something—sacrificing something
+for his sake. I am sure sometimes I wish he would ask me to do something
+naturally repugnant to my feelings, that I might have one opportunity of
+showing him how much I do love; to give up my very dearest wish for his
+pleasure would give me exquisite joy—a joy that I crave. I do not
+comprehend this, dear, but so it is.”
+
+“Oh, _I_ comprehend it, Sophie, perfectly; it is the very same principle
+that led the saints ages ago to scourge and starve themselves to testify
+their love to God—God forgive them the blasphemy! You, Sophie, have a
+propensity to worship, and a very decided vocation for martyrdom, which,
+unfortunately, under existing circumstances, _I_ have not!” sneered the
+scornful girl.
+
+Sophie’s brow was crimson now, and the tears swam in her eyes an
+instant, and she remained silent. At last she said,
+
+“Hagar, I must go away now; I have some arrangements to make for old
+Cumbo before we go. But before I leave you, Hagar, let me say again, you
+love your husband, and he loves you; he can stifle his affection, you
+cannot yours; his will is strong and fixed, yours impulsive and erratic.
+Your tastes and habits are in some respects opposed, and he requires you
+to conform yours to his; and, Hagar, you will have to yield—to love now,
+or to force, without love, hereafter. Yield now, dear, yield. There is
+no degradation in making a sacrifice to love.”
+
+The high-spirited girl turned flashing around upon her—pride and scorn
+seemed sparkling, scintillating from face and figure, by glance and
+gesture.
+
+“Yes, there is degradation in sacrificing _freedom_ to love—freedom to
+_anything_ but God’s law!”
+
+Sophie paused, as if in doubt whether to go on, or to return and speak
+again. Finally she went out.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rosalia returned that evening, accompanied by Gusty and the Buncombes.
+The family expected to leave Heath Hall the next morning, after an early
+breakfast. The Buncombes were to remain all night to see them off, and
+to shut up the house after their departure. Rosalia happened soon to
+perceive the cloud upon Hagar’s brow, and watching her attentively, saw
+that there was something wrong between her and Raymond; and the simple
+girl, remarking that _her_ brow was angry and _his_ serene, assumed
+immediately that he was the injured party, and so, through her
+benevolence, it happened quite naturally that her voice and smile
+softened into more than kindliness, into sisterly affection as she
+frequently addressed him. What a contrast to Hagar’s dark brow, curled
+lip, and bitter tones! It was morning and midnight, sunshine and storm,
+discord and harmony, fierceness and gentleness, scorn and reverence,
+hate and love—I had nearly said Heaven and Hell contrasted.
+
+That evening! To Hagar it was an evening to remember, to date from.
+While she sat there watching the innocent, the childlike maiden, with
+her gentle beauty and winning grace, smiling so sweetly, kindly, in
+Raymond’s face, lighting his countenance up with _real_ and not
+conventional smiles, her mind flew back to the past, and all her
+childhood came before her; she recalled the day of Rosalia’s arrival at
+the Hall, and recollected how, from that day, she had drawn away all the
+love of the household from herself; she remembered that lately Augustus
+May had well nigh adored her, until the beauty and tenderness of Rosalia
+stole his heart away—and now! now! now!—oh “_that_ way madness lay”—she
+watched them covertly through her tortured eyes, and with a gnawing pain
+at the heart—distinct as any physical pain, sharp as though a scorpion
+living there stung it to agony. Thus the seeds of evil, sown in her
+heart ten years before, were springing up into a thorn tree, that,
+lacerating her own bosom, should wound all near her. And Rosalia, too,
+with all her sweet, endearing qualities, she was vain, and often
+selfish. It was difficult to perceive this in the dear girl whose
+caressing hands and tender eyes seemed always pleading for your love.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning early the family assembled at the breakfast-table for
+the last time at Heath Hall. And that last breakfast was over, and they
+arose and went down to the beach under the promontory, where the packet
+lay already laden with their personal effects. They reached the water’s
+edge, took an affectionate leave of Emily and Mr. Buncombe, entered the
+boat that lay waiting to receive them, and were rowed to the packet. As
+soon as she had seen them safely embarked, and the vessel on her way,
+Emily took her husband’s arm, saying,
+
+“Come, let us return; we have enough to do to close up everything at the
+Hall, for one day.”
+
+The packet wended on her way, in time reaching Baltimore, where another
+vessel, bound for New York, received them.
+
+At the end of a week from leaving Churchill’s Point, they arrived safely
+in New York harbor, where the U. S. store-ship Rainbow waited to receive
+Captain Wilde and his party.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before entering upon the new scenes and deeper life of our story, let me
+recall distinctly the facts of history, and daguerreotype a set of
+pictures upon which the sun shone on Saturday, the 28th of September,
+18—. First:
+
+CHURCHILL’S POINT—HEATH HALL.
+
+On Saturday, the 28th of September, the sun shone down on the waters of
+the Chesapeake Bay, as they washed sleepily up towards the shore; on the
+lazy and shabby little village of Churchill’s Point, with its
+steep-roofed old houses, with its small interests and dead-alive look;
+upon the burnished surface of the heath bronzing under the dry heat;
+upon the changing foliage of the distant forest dropping its leaves—and
+the sun shone down warm and still upon the dark red crumbling walls, the
+closed doors and boarded windows of the old Hall, and the tall dark
+poplar trees that waved like funeral plumes around it. Old Cumbo sat in
+the kitchen door, with the accustomed red handkerchief tied over her
+white and woolly hair, while her face, black, hard, and seamed with
+wrinkles, like an Indian walnut, was bent over her work, the tying up of
+dried herbs—fit guardian of such a desolation. It was a still, deserted
+scene, filled with low sad music—the waters moaned as they washed the
+shore—the wind sighed in the distant forest, and rushing over the heath,
+wailed through the poplar trees that rocked to and fro round the
+deserted house. Nature seemed to mourn the loss of the joyous
+worshipper, the exultant young life that had vanished from the scene.
+Keep this picture in your mind for a while, for years passed and brought
+no change, but change of seasons, to it.
+
+GROVE COTTAGE.
+
+The same morning the sun shone upon the Grove, refulgent in its still
+autumn glory, and falling upon the dry leaves and red berries of the
+rose trees, stole into the quiet parlor of the Cottage, still glittering
+in its sober, polished steel-like splendor, and smiled a morning smile
+upon the parson and his calm wife, sitting within. They were seated at
+opposite sides of a round table. The parson with his manuscript upon a
+small portable writing-desk, busy in correcting his sermons for the next
+day, while he carried on a desultory chat with his wife. Emily with her
+work-box before her, embroidering a very minute cap, and sustaining at
+her leisure her part in the quiet conversation. There they sat with no
+children to bind them together, yet loving and contented as a pair of
+partridges. They could not work apart, and the parson had abandoned his
+well appointed study and handsome writing-table, and Emily had forsaken
+her elegant workstand, and he had brought his manuscript, and she had
+brought her sewing to the small, round table, large enough, though, for
+the convenience of loving partners. And every day as soon as he arose,
+the sun looked full through the front window and laughed good morning,
+and every evening he glanced obliquely through the end window and smiled
+good night, with a promise to return. Remember this picture also, dear
+reader; for years passed away and brought no change to the Buncombes,
+except a baby to Emily, a little girl, born when she was thirty-seven,
+and two grey hairs to the parson, which Emily kissed when she saw them.
+
+THE U. S. STORE SHIP RAINBOW.
+
+The sun arose the same day upon the harbor, shipping, and city of New
+York, upon Brooklyn and its Navy Yard, and upon the store-ship Rainbow
+stationed there, and shining down upon the snowy sails, the well
+polished deck, the varnished tarpaulin hats and blue jackets of the
+sailors, the red coats and glittering bayoneted muskets of the marines,
+upon the flashing epaulets of the officers, at last stole down the
+gangway into the captain’s cabin, where around an elegantly appointed
+breakfast sat our party from Heath Hall, in the following order: Sophie
+at the head of the table, blushingly doing the honors of the coffee and
+tea—on her left sat Hagar, with Raymond by her side—on her right sat
+Rosalia, and next below her Gusty; then came several young officers of
+the crew, and at the foot of the table Captain Wilde presided over the
+dish before him. It was a novel sight and scene for our visitors.
+Hagar’s lightning eyes and apprehension had taken in all the wonders of
+the ship at a glance, and she had no more to learn and nothing to wonder
+at. Sophie seemed to defer her curiosity and govern her glances, until
+the absence of her guests and the settlement of herself and effects,
+gave her full opportunity of satisfying it. But Rosalia seemed as though
+her eyes would never weary of wandering over the strange new scene.
+Captain Wilde was in the finest spirits, as well he might be; Raymond
+serene as usual—but poor Gusty looked cloudy. A disappointment had
+overshadowed him. Another passed-midshipman was appointed to the
+Rainbow, and he was ordered to sea, and to sail in five weeks, for a
+voyage of three years. So Gusty was cast down, as well _he_ might be.
+Rosalia, with her sweet benevolence, was doing all that in her lay to
+soothe and comfort him. She promised to marry him when he came back; she
+would have promised anything in the world to have raised his spirits;
+and she continued to remind him that at least they had five weeks to
+spend together yet—a long, long time, she said; and at last Gusty got
+over the first shock of his disappointment, and became cheerful. Forget
+this picture as quickly as you please, for it changed and vanished like
+the shifting combinations of the kaleidoscope, and was never
+re-produced.
+
+Immediately after breakfast, Raymond and Hagar took leave of their
+friends, and entered a steamboat bound up the river.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+                              THE RIALTO.
+
+                          “Amongst the hills,
+        Seest thou not where the villa stands? The moonbeam
+        Strikes on the granite column, and mountains
+        Rise sheltering round it.”
+                                            LADY FLORA HASTINGS.
+
+
+The sun was setting on the evening of the third day from their departure
+from New York, as Mr. and Mrs. Withers stood upon the deck of the
+steamboat Venture, and watched the approach of a village on the eastern
+bank of the Hudson. It was a village of considerable importance as to
+size, and of great beauty of locality. Nearly all the houses were
+painted white, and nestled in and out among the trees and hills. Many of
+their windows faced the river, and flashed back the golden fire of the
+setting sun. While Hagar watched the distant, but fast approaching
+village, Raymond called her attention to a mansion-house on the same
+side of the river, and which being some quarter of a mile below the
+village, was now quite opposite to them. Hagar turned and gazed with all
+a rustic’s admiration, at the splendid mansion. Let me describe it as
+she then saw it. It stood half way up a forest-covered hill, which
+formed a background to the oblong square front of white freestone, with
+its eight upper windows and four lower windows separated by the handsome
+marble portico, and blazing in the sunbeams, presented to the view.
+
+“That is an elegant villa!” exclaimed Hagar.
+
+“And it is beautiful on a nearer view,” replied her husband.
+
+“I wonder whose it is?”
+
+“It is called ‘The Rialto,’ and belongs to a gentleman who is now
+travelling.”
+
+“Then it is unoccupied.”
+
+“It has been shut up a long time, and left in the care of a porter who
+lives at the gate, _but_ at the time I was last in this neighborhood,
+which, Hagar, was when I was returning, recalled by you, the house was
+undergoing repairs, cleaning, painting, &c., preparing for the reception
+of the owner, who was about to be married and bring home his young
+bride. I suppose by this time the coverings are all removed from the
+furniture, pictures, &c., that everything is in perfect readiness for
+the reception of the master.”
+
+While he spoke the sun sank below the horizon, and the blaze faded from
+the long windows of the villa just as the boat shot past. In ten more
+minutes she had reached the village of W——.
+
+Mr. Withers conducted his wife to the nearest hotel, and leaving her
+there, returned to attend to his baggage.
+
+Hagar sought a bed-chamber with a view of arranging her dress and
+smoothing her hair, that had been ruffled by the river breeze.
+
+What were Hagar’s feelings now that she was launched alone with her
+husband, out into a strange new scene? With one who was to be her
+constant companion for perhaps fifty or sixty years—for Hagar was but
+eighteen, and Raymond twenty-eight. High spirited, but forgiving, her
+fiery anger had expended itself long since, and her pride was quiet, as
+nothing new occurred to alarm it. But another feeling was alarmed and
+aroused—her latent and deep-seated jealousy—in a silent but deadly fear
+of losing value in his estimation by comparison with the beautiful and
+gentle Rosalia, she had lost something of her proud self-confidence.
+Besides, severed from the home and friends of her childhood, from all
+early habits and associations; in a new and untried scene, a stranger
+and alone with him, she felt her dependence upon him—all this, and the
+deep, strong, and exclusive love she bore him, conspired with _another_
+circumstance to soften the fierceness of her spirit, and tame the
+wildness of her manners. Hagar arranged her travelling dress, and
+smoothed her glossy ringlets, and sat down by the window to watch the
+coming of Raymond. Could you have seen her then you would have loved her
+for the new and strange tenderness shining softly in her eyes, and
+blushing faintly through her cheeks and lips as she leaned her face upon
+her hand, while her elbow rested on the window-sill. At last the quick
+light step of Raymond was heard upon the stairs, and he entered, saying—
+
+“Come, love! are you ready?”
+
+She arose and tied her bonnet.
+
+“Yes, and impatient to see our little home, dear Raymond—for a sweet
+_little_ home I suppose it will be, to accord with your salary.”
+
+He smiled and drew her arm in his, led her down stairs, and through the
+principal entrance to where a carriage stood before the door. A coachman
+sat upon the box; a footman in livery stood holding the door open;
+Raymond handed her in, followed her, and took a seat by her side. The
+footman put up the steps, closed the door, and sprang up behind. The
+carriage was driven off. It rolled through the village, and leaving its
+lights behind, entered a broad but dark forest road.
+
+“Where are we going?” inquired Hagar.
+
+“_Home_, my love!”
+
+“I thought that we were to reside in the village?”
+
+“Did you?”
+
+“Why, yes, certainly I did.”
+
+He drew her head down upon his bosom, and smoothing back her hair,
+kissed her forehead and then her lips; he seemed more inclined to caress
+than to converse, so she asked him no more questions then. He seemed to
+love her so tenderly and truly now, that she no longer defied him. And
+she was sinking into a sort of luxurious repose—which, we hope, may
+last. The carriage had been winding up a wooded hill, where the branches
+of the tall trees met overhead, so that Hagar, looking out, could
+scarcely see the stars glimmer through the foliage; at last it emerged
+from the woods and stopped; the steps were let down, the door opened.
+Raymond sprang out and held his hand to assist Hagar; then conducted her
+through a wide gate. It was dark, and she could see only trees, with
+glimpses of sward between them; and off to her left flitting in and out
+glimpses of a white house, whose size and shape it was impossible to
+detect. Their path formed a half circle and ascended; presently emerging
+from it, they stood before a large and elegant mansion, whose appearance
+corresponded with that of the villa she had so much admired on her way
+up the river. He led her up the broad marble stairs that led to the
+front door—opened the door, from which a flood of light poured, letting
+go her hand, stepped in before her, turned, opened his arms, and said,
+in a voice of deep emotion,
+
+“Come, dear Hagar! Let me welcome you to your long, future home—welcome!
+welcome! dear wife, to arms, and bosom, and home.”
+
+Hagar threw herself into his embrace, and then he led her through a door
+opening from the left into a superb drawing-room, furnished in the old,
+gorgeous style, with a rich Turkey carpet “that stole all noises from
+the feet,” with crimson velvet, gold fringed curtains hanging from the
+windows, and opposite from the lofty arch that divided the front from
+the back room; with heavy chairs and sofas, whose crimson coverings
+harmonized with the curtains; with crystal mirrors reaching from ceiling
+to floor; with rare paintings from the old masters; with costly and
+curious lamps, whose light glowing through the stained glass shades upon
+the crimson appointments of the room, diffused a rich, subdued
+refulgence through the scene. Raymond led Hagar to one of the deep
+arm-chairs, and seating her, pulled the bell-rope. The door opened, and
+the footman who had attended them, stood a step within the room.
+
+“Request Mrs. Collins to come to us.”
+
+The man bowed and withdrew. Soon the door again opened, and a small,
+elderly woman, in a black silk dress and a neat cap, made her
+appearance.
+
+“My dear Hagar, this is our housekeeper—the excellent Mrs. Collins—she
+will show you your dressing-room; you will find your trunks all there,
+or near at hand, and will have ample time to change your travelling
+dress before supper, and we have still a long evening before us.
+To-morrow I will take you over the house,” said he, in a low voice, as
+Mrs. Collins approached them—then, “Be so good as to show Mrs. Withers
+to her rooms, Mrs. Collins,” he said aloud, and the nice little woman
+smiled, withdrew, reappeared with a lamp, and conducted our Hagar,
+silently wondering, through the passage and up the broad staircase to a
+front room immediately over the drawing-room. It was a large, light,
+airy room, with two tall front windows curtained with white dimity,
+between which stood a dressing-table with a tall, swinging mirror. At
+the opposite end of the room was a mahogany door leading into her
+bed-chamber, and on each side of the door stood two large, tall mahogany
+wardrobes; the coverings of the lounge, easy chair, &c., were white, and
+the walls were covered with paper of a white ground, over which ran a
+vine of green leaves, with here and there a small, scarlet flower. The
+carpet on the floor was of the same cheerful pattern; the room had an
+inexpressibly clean, pure, and fragrant character. Placing her keys in
+the hands of Mrs. Collins, Hagar requested her to unpack, and arrange
+her wardrobe, and then proceeded to make her toilet. And Hagar resolving
+to look her best, to do honor to the first evening passed with her
+husband in their own home, arranged her beautiful ringlets in their most
+becoming fall, arrayed herself in rich amber-colored satin, and clasped
+topaz bracelets on her arms—rubies and topazes were the only jewels
+Hagar owned—the only ones in fact that her Egypt complexion would bear.
+Her present dress and ornaments harmonized beautifully with her dark
+complexion, while her jetty brows, black eyes and eye-lashes, and long,
+black, glittering ringlets, relieved the amber-hued complexion and dress
+from sameness. She descended to the drawing-room, at the door of which
+Raymond received her, led her smiling to the sofa, and took a seat
+beside her, just as the crimson curtains were drawn each side from the
+centre of the arch, exposing a small, but elegant supper-table, with
+covers for two. Raymond arose, and offering his arm again with a smile,
+said—
+
+“You see I have to do all the honors of reception and introduction, dear
+Hagar;” and passing to the other room, placed her at the head of the
+table, before a glittering tea service of elegantly-chased silver, and
+of Sevres porcelain. “I see that you are wondering, Hagar, to find me in
+possession of a comfortable home; suspend your curiosity, dearest, until
+after supper, when I will make the very simple explanation.”
+
+And after supper, when they were seated together in the drawing-room, he
+said—
+
+“I am not wealthy, which is the second mistake which you have made about
+me; neither am I poor, as you supposed when you married me, dear girl.
+This house, just as it is, was the country-seat of my grandfather,
+General Raymond, who, holding a high office under the Government, was in
+the receipt of an ample income that enabled him to keep up this style of
+living. This income of course died with him. This house, with its
+grounds of about twenty-five acres, and a small amount of bank stock,
+was left to me. That money was withdrawn and profitably invested, and
+its proceeds bring me an annual amount equal to the salary I receive for
+conducting the Newton School. It is true that it will take every cent of
+my salary to support this style. And if you ask me, Hagar, why I, a
+young professor, choose to live in a princely house, with a complete
+establishment of servants, I tell you that it is not from
+ostentation—you know me to be too really proud for that—but from a
+constitutional love and necessity of luxury. I told you before that my
+senses were keen and delicate—I had almost said intellectual—not strong,
+or gross. Forms and colors must be agreeably contrasted, or harmoniously
+blended and grouped for my eye; sounds must be music, or those that are
+not must come subdued through the hushings of soft carpets and velvet
+curtains; all scents, but the scent of fresh and growing flowers, must
+be kept far from the rooms I occupy; my table must be supplied with food
+delicate and nutritious; and lastly, nothing but soft or elastic
+substances must come in contact with my touch—at least in my home.”
+
+“But how, with your delicate tastes, can you bear your school-room?”
+asked Hagar.
+
+“My school-room, lecture rooms, hall, &c., among which I pass just five
+hours a day, are each large, airy, clean, and _bare_; that is, bare of
+every article of furniture not strictly necessary; so that if there is
+nothing to _delight_, there is nothing to _offend_—for the rest, you
+know that teaching is my vocation, my passion. I give myself fully up to
+it during the hours of instruction, and when they are over, I return
+with revived relish for the luxuries of home—enjoyments that would pall
+upon the taste if they were not relieved by their absence during the
+hours of intellectual labor, which goes on in another place, and which
+is itself another keen enjoyment of a different and higher order; as it
+is, each relieves and enhances the other.”
+
+“But why,” asked Hagar, “keep so many and such expensive servants, to
+wait on two young people who are not rich?”
+
+“For many reasons, Hagar; for one thing it requires all of them, each in
+his or her appropriate place, to keep the house in the perfect order we
+wish, and in the second, I like to receive the services and
+veneration—not of Colonel A, B, and C, or Judge D, E, or F, but of
+people who live with me—by the way, remember that, love.”
+
+“But then,” persisted Hagar, “why keep Mrs. Collins, whose salary must
+be large?”
+
+“To oversee the others, and keep everything upon velvet, of course.”
+
+“I could do that, dear Raymond.”
+
+“But you shall not, dear Hagar. You are the lady of the mansion; but
+forget the house. I could not bear to see your brow corrugated by the
+thousand and one cares of housekeeping, or to have you come near me with
+the odor of pantries or stove-rooms hanging about you, for I should be
+sure to detect it through any disguise of perfume; and that is the great
+reason why I keep Mrs. Collins. You have nothing to do with the house,
+love. Cultivate your beauty, Hagar; refine it; you have nothing else to
+do, except to take lessons on the harp, which lessons and practice will
+help to fill up the hours of my _absence_, Hagar; for indeed, love, I
+think it would give me a brain fever to hear your unpractised fingers
+strumming discord in my ears.”
+
+“Will you permit me to inquire,” asked Hagar, “why, with your sensitive,
+delicate, and luxurious tastes, you could fancy”—
+
+“Such a wild, dark little savage as yourself?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He raised her from the sofa, and turning around, faced the full length
+mirror that occupied the space between the two windows behind it.
+
+“Look at your reflection, Hagar,” her eyes and _color_ raised at the
+same moment. “You are a little dark, sparkling creature, your effect is
+exhilarating. A languishing beauty in these languishing rooms would have
+been softness to flatness. Are not the perfumes more piquant when
+conveyed through the medium of spirits of wine? You are just _l’esprit_
+that gives life to all this soft luxury; and look again, Hagar—survey
+yourself—see, this amber dress and amber complexion suit well together;
+and this is harmony. Suppose your hair was of the same hue, then the
+_tout ensemble_ would be dull, flat, wearisome. But your ringlets fall
+black and glittering upon the amber-hued neck and bosom, and this is
+contrast. Thus contrast and harmony form the perfection of your toilet.”
+
+“I am sure I never thought of that,” said Hagar, “when wishing to do
+honor to your fine house I put on a fine dress: but now I suppose—though
+I do not care to have my mind skewered down to such trifles—I must think
+a little more of it, as I suspect that in this grand house you receive
+grand company sometimes.”
+
+“_Never_, Hagar; how do you suppose I could afford it? for if I received
+grand company I should be invited to grand dinners, and have to give
+them in return, and that would disturb the luxurious repose of our house
+and life—no, Hagar, I am too self-indulgent to be ostentatious, or even
+hospitable. I like everything upon velvet, all downy, reposing, silent,
+or breathing low music”—
+
+“Except me.”
+
+“Not _always_ excepting you—I like your spirit tempered a
+little—thus—look again into the mirror, Hagar; I said your glittering
+blue-black ringlets, smoothed and gemmed as they are, form an agreeable
+contrast to the harmony of your dress; but now suppose that black hair
+hung in the wild elf locks of the little savage of the heath, as I first
+knew her—would that be agreeable any way?—no—well! govern—as it were,
+smoothe and gem your piquancy; in a word, use your wildness as you do
+your hair,” and they turned and reseated themselves.
+
+The next morning, after breakfast, Raymond took her all over the house;
+there were two floors besides the basement and attic—on each floor four
+large rooms handsomely furnished. Through the middle of each floor ran a
+hall, from front to back, dividing the rooms in pairs; on the lower
+floor on the left hand side of the hall were the drawing-room and
+dining-room we have seen them use on the first evening of their arrival;
+on the right hand side was a large saloon, once used for balls, but now
+closed as useless. He took her through the grounds, all handsomely laid
+out; a vineyard on the right, a kitchen garden in the middle, and an
+orchard on the left, occupying the ground behind the house, and further
+behind ascended the wooded hills. A smooth lawn descending the hill
+towards the river, was dotted here and there with trees, which were now
+dropping their leaves. The orchard was laden with the finest
+fruit—apples, peaches, pears, &c., under the highest cultivation; the
+vineyard rich in clustering grapes, brought to the nearest possible
+state of perfection. This was Wednesday; on the following Monday Raymond
+resumed his professional labors, and Hagar wandered up and down the fine
+house, with every part of which she was now quite familiar, very weary
+and lonesome. She felt confined, restrained, and oppressed by her new
+state. True, she was still in the country, but not on her wild heath,
+with her horse and dogs. _This_ country was thickly settled, well
+cultivated, and closely studded with gentlemen’s seats.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+                            THE LOVE ANGEL.
+
+             “She is soft as the dew-drops that fall
+               From the lips of the sweet scented pea;
+             But then when she smiles upon _all_!
+               Can I joy that she smiles upon _me_?”
+                                                 MACKENZIE.
+
+
+Our dear Sophie, with her quiet adaptiveness, had easily and gracefully
+passed from rustic life into city life, into naval life, without losing
+any of her individuality. Her country every-day dress of brown stuff was
+now changed for a brown satin, her seal-skin shoes for patent morocco
+slippers, and her muslin collar for one of fine lace. Her smooth brown
+hair, instead of being knotted into a neat twist behind her head, was
+arranged in a beautiful braid.
+
+The inevitable knitting-needles _had_ to be plied, in sad old hall or in
+gay new state room; they were a part of Sophie, and she could as well
+have dispensed with her fingers; they were necessary to keep time with
+the music of Sophie’s serene temperament—only now they knit silken nets
+and purses instead of woollen socks. This was all the change you could
+perceive in Sophie, looking at her half across the cabin; but if you
+went and sat down beside her, you would then see that her eye was
+bright, her cheek lively, and her lip fresh, with an inward and
+emanating joy. She sat quiet enough in her cabin, with Rosalia seated on
+a cushion by her side. Rosalia loved cushions and low seats, where she
+could sit and loll upon Sophie lazily and lovingly, like a petted
+baby-girl, as she was. And Sophie loved to have her there with her
+golden hair floating over her lap. Sometimes, tired of repose, Rosalia
+would bring out her portfolio or sketch book, embroidery frame or
+guitar, or pursue some of the thousand occupations by which girls
+contrive to destroy time. These were during the morning hours before it
+was time to dress for dinner, where Captain Wilde received daily,
+several of the officers. They (Sophie and Rosalia) were quiet enough,
+yet Captain Wilde seemed to be haunted with a fear that some hour he
+should wake from a dream, and find his happiness vanished into thin air,
+by the number of times while on deck, that he would come to the gangway,
+and looking down upon his treasures, exclaim gladly, “Oh! you are
+there!”
+
+Most frequently Gusty May made a third in the cabin, his impetuous mirth
+rattling along like thunder, and then suddenly smothered with a sigh
+like a big sough of wind in the sails, and sometimes darkened by great
+clouds between his eyes and nose that threatened rain; nay, sometimes as
+he looked at Rosalia’s serene joy the rain-drops would gather in his
+eyes—though I have an idea that Gusty would have challenged any man who
+would have told him so.
+
+Sometimes when the weather was inviting, Sophie and Rosalia, attended by
+Captain Wilde or Gusty May, or both, would visit the city.
+
+Time glided swiftly away. Two weeks of Gusty’s visit were over, but
+three weeks remained before he would have to go to sea, and the clouds
+daily gathered thicker over the Gusty sky, when one day the young
+midshipman who had been appointed to take the post poor Gusty coveted so
+much, came on board for the first time. It was not in Gusty’s large,
+generous, and trusting soul, to be easily jealous, neither was it in his
+human nature to look indifferently upon the young officer, who, during
+his own absence, was to fill a post near the person of his beloved, so
+ardently desired by himself. The staff of officers on board the ship was
+small, consisting of Captain Wilde, Lieutenant Graves, a married man,
+solemn and repulsive as his name, a little freckle-faced midshipman, and
+now this new officer, this young passed-midshipman, this _Misther_
+Murphy, as Gusty maliciously emphasized his title, what was he going to
+look like? Gusty wished in his heart that he might be knock-kneed and
+cross-eyed. Alas for Gusty! Mr. Murphy, Mr. Patrick Murphy O’Murphy, a
+Southerner of Irish descent—stood six feet six inches in his boots! had
+the handsomest leg, the broadest shoulders, the fullest chest, the
+blackest whiskers, and the whitest teeth, in the service. Alas for
+Gusty! it was too much! he filled right up! he could have sobbed, gushed
+out, liquidated, deliquesced, fallen upon and overflowed the shoulders
+of the first friend that came in his way, but for his self-esteem that
+striking up through all this softness, stiffened and sustained him! Poor
+Gusty! he was in the briers until he could hear what Rosalia thought of
+“Mister Murphy,” yet he had an invincible repugnance to name him to her,
+and to ask her in so many words, what she thought of “Mr. Murphy”—_no!_
+_thumb-screws_ would not have wrung such a question from him!
+nevertheless he must arrive at her opinion of “Mr. Murphy,” or die. Mr.
+Murphy had been presented to the ladies about half an hour before
+dinner, and had dined with the Captain. After the ladies had retired
+from the table and while the gentlemen still lingered over their wine,
+Gusty slipped away and followed them into the cabin. Sophie was away
+somewhere. Rosalia was alone. He went up to her, sat down, and drew her
+on a seat by his side. After all sorts of a desultory, wild, and
+nonsensical conversation, he suddenly said to her:
+
+“Rosalia, do you like handsome men?”
+
+“Yes,” said Rosalia, calmly, “I like handsome folks.”
+
+“Pshaw! that is just like you. Who is the handsomest man now you ever
+saw in your life, Rosalia?”
+
+“Oh! _Captain Murphy, certainly_—far the handsomest person I ever saw in
+all my life!”
+
+“The d—l! I said so—Irish bog-trotter.”
+
+“Oh, don’t use profane language, dear Gusty, please.”
+
+“_Captain_, indeed, you simple girl—_he’s_ no captain!”
+
+“Ain’t he? I thought he was; indeed he _looks_ like one.”
+
+“Oh, he looks like a prince, a king, an emperor, a demi-god, don’t he?
+Ain’t he like Apollo Belvidere, now?”
+
+“Yes, I think he is,” said Rose, quietly, “just my idea of the Apollo.”
+
+“Set fire to him!” blazed Gusty.
+
+“Oh! don’t swear—please don’t”—pleaded Rose. “Why do you not like him,
+dear Gusty? _I_ do, I like him, and I am sure you ought to like him
+_because I do_—and you ought to be kind to him because, poor fellow!
+look at his melancholy blue eyes—”
+
+“Oh! his melancholy blue devils!”
+
+“Oh! Gusty, hush!” said she, softly, putting her hand on his lips.
+
+“But this is too trying! I be _whipped_ if it ain’t! I do believe the
+devil has taken my affairs under his own particular care! but I won’t
+put up with it! I be _whipped_ if I do! I’ll call this fellow out!”
+
+“Call him where?”
+
+“Call him _out_! fight him! thrash him! jump through him—crush him—grind
+him—down into an ink spot, and then erase him!”
+
+“What has he done to you, Gusty, that you hate him so, and he so
+beautiful, too?”
+
+“Done to me!” snapped Gusty. “Oh, Rose, shut up! you are such a fool!”
+
+This was too much for Rosalia—she had been growing softer every instant,
+and now melted into tears. Then Gusty’s indignation turned upon himself,
+called himself a barbarian, a brute, a monster, and begged Rosy to knock
+him down. Rose dried her morning dew tears and smiled again just as
+Sophie entered. A week passed away, and now but two weeks remained of
+the visit. A week, during which Gusty had contrived to circulate around
+his sun so rapidly and constantly as to prevent the comet Murphy from
+crossing his orbit. Still he was very unhappy in the idea of leaving his
+treasure unguarded—had serious thoughts of throwing up his
+commission—when one day on deck the young passed-midshipman, whom, by
+the way, he had treated very coldly at all times, placed himself by his
+side, and drawing his arm within his own, began to promenade the deck,
+saying,
+
+“Come, my fine fellow! I know all about it, and may be can do something
+for you. Wilde told me all about it—your love—and hopes, and
+disappointments, and everything. Now, I am going to perpetrate a real
+Irish blunder—going—what do you think—_to sea in your place_, and to let
+you stay here with this sweet girl—easy—easy, man! steady! so! hear me
+out. My father is a senator from the state of ——, is a particular friend
+of the Secretary of War. I have written to him to get our appointments
+reversed. Hush! hush! no gratitude, my _dear_ fellow, it is all
+selfishness—_Irish_ selfishness!” and his blue eyes and white teeth
+shone radiantly in the kind smile he turned upon Gusty, and Gusty, oh!
+his emotion, his joy, gratitude, and remorse, is _unreportable_!—no, not
+to be set down against him! At last, to moderate the raptures of his
+gratitude, blue eyes and white teeth assured him that _he_ wished (blue
+eyes, &c.,) particularly to visit the port of ——, whither the ship to
+which Gusty had been appointed, was bound, and that therefore he _had_ a
+selfish reason for his seeming generosity. Later in the week, Gusty
+became the repository of a love-confidence from Midshipman Murphy. At
+the end of the week the appointments were reversed. Mr. Murphy was
+ordered to the Mediterranean, and Mr. May appointed passed-midshipman of
+the good ship Rainbow.
+
+These orders were received early one morning. In the afternoon Gusty and
+the young Irishman were on deck together. They were great friends, you
+may rest assured. The following conversation occurred. Rosalia had just
+left them. She had been conversing with Gusty with all her usual calm
+and guileless affection.
+
+“It does me good to think that you will remain here with that sweet
+girl, May.”
+
+“You’re a good fellow, Murphy. God bless you.”
+
+“And you’re a _happy_ fellow, May. God _has_ blessed you.”
+
+“Happy! yes, by Jove! I only wish you knew how devilish ‘happy’ I am,”
+said Gusty, with a bitter sneer.
+
+“Why, what is the matter? jealous again, another rival?”
+
+“Oh, no! it is not that.”
+
+“What is it then?”
+
+Gusty had one great failing, an inability to keep his troubles to
+himself, a propensity to melt like a snow-drift in the sun at the first
+sympathy that shone on him.
+
+“She is very fond of you,” said Mr. Murphy.
+
+“Yes! that is just exactly what troubles me.”
+
+“Come! you are very reasonable!”
+
+“Oh! for the Lord’s sake don’t make fun of me! _don’t_! It is no jesting
+matter!”
+
+“Poor fellow! how he is to be pitied because a sweet girl annoys him
+with her love.”
+
+“See here! now don’t! I can’t stand it. Love me? _Yes, she does._ She
+loves her old, poor blind nurse Cumbo—uncle’s Newfoundland dog, Juno,
+and _me_ about in the same proportion, and in the same manner.”
+
+“Whew-ew-w!”
+
+“_Fact_ I am telling you—listen now again. I have watched her—_have I
+not?_ She will caress _me_ right before her aunt’s face, freely and
+calmly as though I were her grandmother—then dropping her arms from
+around my neck, she will call Juno and caress _her_ with equal
+affection! and then my uncle, she always runs to meet him and throws
+herself in his arms when he comes! and yourself, you remember how she
+received you, with a gentle affectionate welcome, as though you were an
+accredited candidate for a share of her universal love.”
+
+“Are you betrothed?”
+
+“Certainly, these many weeks, and when I talk of marriage she blushes
+and smiles, it is true, but not with love! only with a bashful
+repugnance to make herself a prominent object of attention as a bride.
+Yet she tells me she loves me! Oh, yes, she loves me! and the next
+minute she will throw her arms around Juno’s neck and tell her she loves
+_her_! and with _equal fervor_. And if ever I complain to her that she
+does not love me, she weeps as though I did her an injury. Nearly three
+months have I spent in trying to kindle one spark, to touch one chord of
+responsive passion in her bosom. I have poured my whole soul forth at
+her feet, and she looks at me with her calm, sweet eyes, and wonders at
+me, I know she does, for a sort of Orlando Furioso, and drives me nearly
+distracted by insisting that she _does_ love me, when I feel that she
+does _not_, or even know what she is talking about. I would give my
+commission to see her blush, tremble, shrink when I caress her—the devil
+of it is that she loves me like a baby loves her grandmother, nor does
+she dream of, nor can I awaken her to any other love! Her affections,
+her caresses are freely bestowed upon man, woman, child, or beast alike.
+I have never seen her shrink with averted eyes from the eye or
+conversation of but _one_ man, and _that_ was not in the first part of
+their acquaintance, it was only just before they parted, and now that I
+recall it, great God! it comes up before me in a new light,” said Gusty,
+in his impetuosity forgetting to whom he was talking—“they were standing
+where we now stand. I was near them. He was speaking to her of
+unimportant matters, the names of the ships, &c., he was looking at her.
+I being on the other side of him could not see his eyes, but suddenly
+she raised _her_ eyes. I felt that she met _his_—her color came and
+went, her bosom rose and fell, then turning around she held her hand out
+to me, with her face averted. I drew it through my arm and carried her
+off for a promenade. That hour I quietly ascribed her disturbance to
+bashfulness or fear, but _now_ that I recall it in connexion with the
+subject of our conversation, a new, a dreadful light seems to break over
+it, but no! Oh, God! _that_ would be too dreadful!”
+
+“But what man was this, then?”
+
+Gusty had suddenly grown quite white, and now the color rushed into his
+face, crimsoning his brow, and swelling the veins like cords.
+
+“What man was it, then, that possessed the power of agitating this calm
+beauty?”
+
+“DON’T ask me!” broke forth Gusty, “I am mad! Oh, it is just madness now
+for me to dream such horrors! stay, let me hold my head! Murphy, don’t
+mind _me_,—I am crazy! the girl’s coldness has just set me beside
+myself!”
+
+They were silent some time, and then Gusty, suddenly seizing Murphy’s
+arm, exclaimed,
+
+“Murphy, forget all my raving, will you? I am a fool! I shall be jealous
+next of her embroidery frame!”
+
+It was not so easy to forget his agitation during the half-confiding of
+the slight suspicion. The friends soon after separated.
+
+Gusty went into the cabin. He found Rosalia happy over a pair of doves,
+a parting present left for her by Mr. Murphy.
+
+“Oh, Gusty,” she said, “come look at my beautiful young doves—this white
+one is a boy, and his name is Snowflake, and this silver-grey one is a
+girl, and her name is Dewdrop!”
+
+“Umph! two new claimants for a few of the infinitesimal atoms of your
+divided heart,” said Gusty, sitting down beside her. He was indisposed
+for conversation,—he was feeling too bitterly that the profound heart of
+the beautiful and gentle girl was still unmoved.
+
+Girls who virtually pledge their affections where they cannot love, do
+not so often commit this grievous error from the authority and commands
+of parents or guardians, from the persuasion of friends, from ambition,
+or for convenience, as from a different, a more amiable, yet still more
+improper set of motives, inspired by benevolence and love of
+approbation—thus: A young girl, with the deeps of her heart yet
+undisturbed, becomes the object of an ardent admiration—her vanity is
+stimulated and gratified—she may even mistake this pleasure for
+affection, and from pure ignorance of her own and her lover’s nature,
+and of the misery she may bring upon herself and others, she continues
+to receive and encourage his attentions. His admiration deepens into
+love, then her pity is moved, and though she cannot return the
+affection, she cannot resist the suit, and the hand is bestowed without
+the heart. As far as my limited experience extends, I have reason to
+believe that benevolence, love of approbation, together with a want of
+firmness, mislead more girls into the formation of ill-considered
+engagements than any other set of causes whatsoever.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+                           AGNES AND AGATHA.
+
+            “Oh, Heaven of bliss, when the heart overflows
+            With the rapture a _mother_ only knows.”
+                                                HENRY WARE.
+
+
+Something less than a year had passed since the settlement of Mr. and
+Mrs. Withers in their new home. It was now early autumn. Let me
+introduce you into that large, beautiful, and fragrant dressing-room
+into which Mrs. Collins had conducted our Hagar upon the first night of
+her arrival. The room wears the same pure and elegant appearance that it
+presented nearly a year since—nothing is changed, except by the addition
+of one article of furniture—near the right hand front corner of the room
+stands a large rose-wood crib, with beautifully embroidered thin white
+muslin curtains drawn around it. Let us draw back the curtains and look
+within—upon a downy pillow, covered with the finest, smoothest lawn,
+repose two babes of a few weeks old; we can only see their beautiful
+heads and faces, for their tiny forms are lightly covered by the white
+silk eider down quilt. But look at their sleeping faces, and tell me who
+they resemble—their fine blue-black hair looks like floss silk—we may be
+sure that their eyes are black by the slender eye-brows traced like a
+black pencil curve, and by the long black lashes that repose upon the
+crimson cheeks; look at the noble foreheads, at the elegant features;
+look at the delicate crimson lips, with the spirited curve of the upper
+one. They are our Hagar’s children! would you not have recognised and
+claimed them if you had found them in the wilderness? They are our
+Hagar’s twins—duplicate miniatures of herself—and now her bedroom door
+opens and she comes in, pacing slowly in an India muslin wrapper, with
+her ringlets glittering down as we used to see them; she comes and
+pauses softly, bending over the infant sleepers. Now, whether it is the
+reflection of the white muslin curtains, together with her white
+dressing robe, or whether her many months sedentary in-door life, and
+her recent illness had bleached her into a blonde, is not known; but
+certainly she is many shades fairer, and much thinner than when we saw
+her last; her carnation cheek has faded to a pale rose tint, her eyes
+are not so wild and bright, they are larger, sadder; instead of a
+lightning glance, they have now an earnest gaze; and see while she
+stoops over them till the ends of her bright ringlets rest upon the
+counterpane, her bosom heaves, her cheek flushes, her lips glow and
+open, her eyes grow bright and brighter, and her soul, pouring from her
+countenance, bathes the sleepers in a libation of love and blessing. How
+earnest her eyes are! how devotional her whole air, as her lips move in
+silent heart-worship! Now the passage door opened, and Raymond enters,
+going up to his wife’s side; he stood contemplating the children in
+silence, until she took his hand, and drawing his arm around her waist,
+turned and buried her face passionately in his bosom, while her ringlets
+fell over his circling arms. Then raising her head, she pointed to the
+sleeping infants, and exclaimed with enthusiasm,
+
+“Are they not beautiful, dearest?”
+
+“Yes, love, yes—but you have asked me that question every few days for
+the last month, and I have always answered you in the same words; when
+they grow ugly, love, I will tell you.”
+
+Hagar’s eyes were again turned on her children—her soul was again
+bathing them with love.
+
+“Shall I not have to grow jealous of these little girls, who take up so
+much of your time and thoughts, love?”
+
+“Jealous of these children? of these children who make me love you?”
+exclaimed Hagar, embracing him fervently. “Oh! my husband! so much more
+than ever I loved you before! they have deepened and widened my love.
+Ah, my own! my own Raymond—_try_ my love now, and see how much stronger
+its texture is—it will bear a great deal of pulling now, Raymond—ask me
+to give up anything _now_, Raymond, and see if I make a fuss about my
+pride and dignity—my pride! as if I could set up a separate
+establishment of pride—and my dignity, as if I could not trust it in
+your keeping, Raymond, dear Raymond!—as if I _could_ have a separate
+interest or a separate will—but you loved the unblessed maiden—will you
+not love more, a great deal more, the blessed mother—say, Raymond! say!”
+Her ardent soul, inspired by her passionate affections, was kindling
+into exalted enthusiasm, and glowing through all the features of her
+beautiful face; breaking through and bearing down all screens of reserve
+or pride. “Say, Raymond! say! oh, I love you so much now—I crave such a
+fulness of return—say, Raymond! say, how much more than the unblessed
+maiden do you love the doubly blessed mother?”
+
+“My Hagar!” said he, softly, “try to be calm, love; moderate your
+enthusiasm, get used to your joy; these children have been with you long
+enough for that.”
+
+“Ah! but every time I look at them again a new joy breaks up from the
+bottom of my heart—just as though they were newly given me. And then to
+think that there are _two_—so perfectly beautiful—_two!_ God not
+satisfied to give us _one_, gives us two. Oh, blessed be God! When I
+forget to thank, to worship Him, may these dear ones forget me. Two!”
+said she, panting, and taking breath, while her color came and went—“two
+love-angels!—and so perfectly beautiful—and so perfectly alike—and so
+loving! look, Raymond!” and she turned down the counterpane, “see, lay
+them as I will, in a few minutes they are sure to attract each other, to
+subside together, as it were, until shoulder touches shoulder and cheek
+meets cheek.” And then she placed their little hands together softly,
+without waking them, her lips parted and glowed over them an instant,
+she kissed them lightly and covered them again. “And oh, what a charge!
+God has given me two pure angels to guard from contamination! I must
+pray more; I must pray a great deal; I must get the Lord to take me into
+his confidence about these children, these cherubs. Oh, thank, dearest,
+thank the Lord for the gift of these two spotless angels, and pray, pray
+that we may be enabled to present them before his throne, pure as we
+received them from his hands.” Her face was inspired, was radiant with
+love, awe, and worship, as she continued, “I receive these babes as the
+deposit of a special trust from God; he has given me two of his own most
+beautiful children, shall I not try to be worthy of his confidence? Yes!
+yes! my two angels,” said she, bending over them again. “How beautiful
+are the works of his hands! Raymond, do but look how perfectly beautiful
+they are! These little black, silky heads; these fine brows and delicate
+features.”
+
+“They are very much like _you_, love.”
+
+“They are very much like each other.”
+
+“They are duplicate copies. I cannot tell one from the other by the
+closest examination.”
+
+“Can you not, indeed, now—oh ! it is easy—I never made a mistake about
+them; this is Agnes and this is Agatha, you know.” And then she began to
+point out some infinitesimal marks of distinction, that none but a
+mother’s eye could possibly have detected. “Now do you not see?”
+
+“I do not, love; you will have to dress them differently.”
+
+“Oh! never!”
+
+“Or tie some badge upon the eldest, that I may know them apart,” smiled
+Raymond, shaking his head with all its golden waves.
+
+“And you are so handsome, Raymond!” exclaimed she, clasping his form,
+and burying her face again in his bosom. “And, oh! are we not happy? are
+we not God-blessed—are we not so entirely united—can we have an interest
+or a wish apart now? Oh, dearest Raymond, through all the ages of
+eternity you and I—are we not one?”
+
+“Dear love, be quiet, you talk so much,” said he, softly and smilingly
+lifting her head from his bosom.
+
+“Talk! oh! how can I help it, dearest Raymond, when my God-given life
+and love grows too strong for suppression? I have seen the emotions of
+other women escape in quiet tears of joy, but I am not given to tears,
+you know; there is too much fire in my composition—oh! how can I help
+talking, Raymond? I _must_ speak or consume, Raymond! Does not the horse
+neigh for joy when he feels his strong life—and what volumes of music,
+filling earth and sky, the little bird throws from his tiny chest for
+joy; the flowers bloom for joy; the trees _wave_ for joy; the streams
+_run_ for joy; the cataract leaps over its rocky precipice with a
+_shout_ of joy; nay, the _earth_—the earth _whirls_ around the sun in a
+reel of joy; and shall I, shall I with all this God-given life, this
+love, this joy, this gladness, this glory, kindling, burning, and
+glowing, striking up from my bosom—shall I suppress it? turning back to
+cold silence and ingratitude? No, Father. No, angels. No, husband. No,
+children. You shall _hear_ how happy I am in the worship of joy!—in the
+worship of joy!”
+
+You might see the fire of her ardent soul, as the flame glowed upon her
+lips, wavered over her crimson cheek, and shot in radiant glances from
+her eyes, as she spoke; now gazing with rapt inspiration on her
+children; now turning, and fervently embracing her husband, with a
+_pure_, though passionate love!
+
+“You would make a good camp-meeting subject, love,” said he, smiling.
+
+“Oh, Raymond, _now_ I understand the enthusiasm of camp-meetings; the
+ecstasy of conversion. Say they sometimes fall, or seem to fall, from
+grace, from bliss; why that is human, that is natural; the spring
+sometimes backslides into winter for days, yet we do not upon that
+account deny the presence of spring, or the approach of summer; both
+seasons, summer to the year, sanctification to the soul—with all
+impediments, all relapses and collapses; all weaknesses and falls; all
+wanderings and retrogradings—still advance—on! and up! under the
+guidance of Divinity.”
+
+“You are strangely changed, Hagar—not in your individuality, but in your
+proportions—from the positive of wild to the superlative of wildest.”
+
+“I am not wilder. Oh, Raymond! my life is deeper, higher, broader,
+fuller—for these children, for these messengers from Heaven. Let my
+heart sing its song of joy. Oh, Raymond! when we are _un_happy, even
+when we ourselves have brought the unhappiness upon us, the calmest of
+us cry out in tones of grief, bitterness, and reproach, ‘God! God!’ and
+no one complains of its extravagance! Shall we not, when we are blessed
+and happy, sing in tones of grateful rapture, ‘God! God!’”
+
+“You must be quiet, love! be calm. I just looked in to bid you good
+morning before going out. Shall you be able to come down into the
+drawing-room this evening?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Hagar, softly, and half abstractedly.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lamps were lighted in the drawing-room. Hagar was seated at her
+piano, practising a piece of new music. She was attired with taste and
+elegance in a crimson satin, that the coolness of the evening rendered
+appropriate at this season. Her hair was gemmed and braided so that the
+long ringlets held away from her cheeks and brow fell behind. In the
+first months of their marriage it had been Raymond’s pleasure to have
+her elegantly attired to receive him in the evening, and of late, it had
+grown into a habit and a necessity to herself. She sat now awaiting him.
+Presently he entered softly, and she arose, sprung, and then, with a
+sudden thought, controlled her eagerness, and went quietly to meet him.
+When he had saluted her, and they were seated, she blushingly unrolled a
+piece of manuscript music, and said,
+
+“See here, dear Raymond! I have got something here for you, something
+that you will like, something that you will glory in. I did not know
+until to-day that I could compose music; did not even suspect that I
+could; but to-day my soul has been so full of music, so bursting with
+music, that it has found expression! The hallelujahs of Christopher
+Smart, the very poet of worship, were resounding through my spirit ears;
+I wished to sing them, _had_ to sing them. I came down here, and seating
+myself before the piano, struck the keys, and in a fit of inspiration,
+set them to music—here is the music. I could not do it again; and now
+the music is infinitely inferior to the words. Oh! the words are
+sublime—a splendid pageant—a magnificent march of grand and gorgeous
+imagery, that nothing but an intellect inspired by love, and exalted by
+worship to a power of conception and expression that men call insanity,
+could have produced. They called _him_ mad! and shut him up in the
+narrow cell of a lunatic asylum, debarring him the use of books, pens,
+and ink; but even there the jubilant soul found expression. With a rusty
+nail upon the white-washed walls of his cell, he wrote his glorious
+‘Song of David,’ worthy to be bound up with the psalms of David. It is
+from this song that I have taken out these words that I have set to
+music. Oh! how I wish some great master would set them. Hear my attempt,
+Raymond, and worship with me through the words.”
+
+She went and seated herself at the piano. He followed and stood leaning
+over her chair. She played an inspiring prelude, and then her voice
+broke forth in sudden rapture that filled with volume as it soared,
+until the very atmosphere seemed inspired with life, became sentient and
+vocal, and shuddered with the burden of the grand harmony it bore!
+
+               Glorious the sun in mid-career;
+               Glorious the assembled fires appear;
+                       Glorious the comet’s train:
+               Glorious the trumpet and alarm;
+               Glorious the Almighty’s stretched-out arm;
+                       Glorious the enraptured main:
+
+               Glorious the Northern lights astream;
+               Glorious the song when God’s the theme;
+                       Glorious the thunder’s roar;
+               Glorious hosannas from the den;
+               Glorious the catholic amen;
+                       Glorious the martyr’s gore:
+
+               Glorious, more glorious is the crown
+               Of Him that brought salvation down,
+                       By meekness called thy son;
+               Thou that stupendous truth believed,
+               And now the matchless deed’s achieved,
+                       DETERMINED, DARED, and DONE.
+
+The music shuddering, fell into silence. She remained rapt in ecstasy
+long after the last notes subsided, and until Raymond, laying his hand
+softly on her head, said,
+
+“Hagar! this will not do, love; you excite yourself too much—the action
+is too high—your system is getting to be all blood—fever—fire.”
+
+“Oh! is it not grand, this song? Does any psalm of David transcend it;
+does any hymn of Watts come up to it?”
+
+“It is grand, sublime, stunning—and I do not like to be stunned, you
+know, love! Besides, I am afraid you are not very far from the state and
+fate of its author, wild Hagar! wild in your love, wild in your worship,
+and wild in your devotions, as once in your mad revels. Will you never
+grow tame? Never, I believe unless your heart be broken.”
+
+“And must the poor heart be knocked on the head, before it can behave
+itself to please people? That was the song of boding ever sung to me by
+Sophie and by Emily, when I grew too happy to contain myself. Now, why
+must my heart be broken? What harm has it done that it must be broken?
+The Lord will not break it, I feel sure; nay, if my fellow creatures in
+their error break it, my Father will bind it up again. But now, then,
+dear Raymond, what does it all mean?”
+
+“It means, Hagar, that by a happy exemption from illness, grief, or
+temptation, in fact from all the common miseries of human nature, you
+have grown arrogant in your joy, and hence your jubilant spirit.”
+
+“_Have_ I been so exempted! ‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness;’ but
+I will not recall past human wrongs, in the midst of present Divine
+blessings.”
+
+“Your past wrongs, like your present blessings, are greatly exaggerated
+by imagination, Hagar—but here is supper,” said he, arising and giving
+her his arm, just as the crimson curtains were noiselessly withdrawn
+from the arch, displaying the glittering service awaiting them.
+
+This was the last day of Hagar’s Worship of Joy. The Baptism of
+Grief—the Worship of Sorrow—did she dream that such could be?
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+                                CLOUDS.
+
+       “Life treads on life, and heart on heart,
+       We press too close in church and mart,
+       To keep a dream or grave apart.”
+                                           ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
+
+
+The next evening when Raymond returned home, he placed in the hands of
+his wife an open letter, addressed to herself in Sophie’s hand-writing.
+A year ago, Hagar would have fiercely resented this cool violation of
+her seal—now her soul was too large and joyous to cavil about her
+personal dignity, or even to think about it at all. Pressing and kissing
+the hand that brought her the letter, she sat down to read it. It was
+short. Our dear Sophie was no scribe. It ran thus:
+
+
+                                         “U.S. STORE SHIP RAINBOW,
+                                                     “October 13th, 18—.
+
+  “DEAREST HAGAR,—We, Augustus and myself, wish you and Raymond much joy
+  of your young daughters. We gladly accept your affectionate invitation
+  to visit you, and shall be with you on the first of November. Not,
+  however, as you kindly insist upon our doing, to remain with you for
+  any length of time. The fact is, that Captain Wilde is ordered to the
+  Mediterranean; and as I have no babies to prevent me, I am going out
+  with him: it is his wish, and _mine_. We cannot take Rosalia with us,
+  because being still ‘afraid of the water,’ she refuses to go. Gusty
+  has been ordered to the same service, and will sail of course at the
+  same time. He will accompany us on our visit to you, as also of course
+  will Rosalia. If you can keep Rosalia, we wish to leave her with
+  you—if not, we shall be compelled to take the dear girl to the South,
+  and place her in charge of her future mother-in-law, Emily Buncombe.
+  In either case, Captain Wilde wishes to be held responsible for her
+  board and all other expenses—as we have resolved to leave her small
+  patrimony untouched, to accumulate at compound interest. Once more
+  accept our heartfelt congratulations, and believe me always
+
+                                                “Your affectionate aunt,
+                                                        “SOPHIE WILDE.”
+
+
+Hagar’s hands, with her letter, dropped upon her lap, and she fell into
+thought.
+
+“You will write by the return mail, and accept the charge of your
+cousin, Hagar?”
+
+“Y-es,” said she, “certainly”—but a shadow fell upon her brow.
+
+He did not observe it, or appear to observe it, and continued, “And
+_when_ you write, Hagar, give them gently to understand that their hint
+concerning the payment of board was a little impertinent, to say the
+_least_, even if it were not, as I hope and wish to believe it _was_
+not, a piece of intentional arrogance on the part of Captain Wilde.”
+
+“I can tell them it was unnecessary. But I am sure no arrogance was
+meant or felt—how could they be arrogant towards _us_! If they spoke to
+us of payment, they made the mistake in the simple, straightforward
+spirit of their hearts, unsuspicious of the chance of giving offence;
+but,” said she, pondering, “I wonder when Rosalia and Gusty are to be
+married. Sophie has not given me the least idea of the time.”
+
+“Rosalia is yet too young, not quite seventeen, I believe; and Gusty not
+yet twenty—_both_ are too young; three years from the time of their
+engagement, that is two years hence, was the period assigned for their
+marriage, was it not?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hagar, still in thought.
+
+“That is, if the young lovers remained in the same mind?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hagar, and then, suddenly, she exclaimed, “You recollect
+these details better than I do; you have a good memory, Raymond.”
+
+“I always plead guilty to the charge, love.”
+
+Hagar fell deeper into thought, then sank into gloom. Was it the natural
+reaction of so much and such great excitement? Was it the rational
+sorrow at the thought of soon parting with Sophie, knowing her to be
+bound for a long and perilous sea voyage? Was it either or all these
+causes combined, that oppressed her heart and darkened her countenance?
+
+Reader, it was none of these things. A dread of the winsome beauty’s
+approach, a dread, not reasonable enough to justify her in opposing the
+measure—a dread for which she blamed herself, yet a dread that she could
+not shake off—a dread that fell dark on her brow, and struck cold to her
+bosom. A deep, up-piercing instinct; will it rise through the stages of
+doubt, suspicion, to jealousy in all its phrensy? The sin sown and
+nurtured by the wrongs of her neglected infancy, her besetting sin and
+sorrow—not dead, but long coiled in serpent-torpor in the bottom of her
+heart now revives, now rears its head.
+
+“Come, love, write your letter now before tea, so that it may go out in
+this evening’s mail,” were the words that aroused her from her
+abstraction, and she arose and left the room to do his bidding.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Immediately on rising the next morning, Hagar had, as usual, thrown on
+her dressing-gown and gone to the side of the crib to gaze upon her
+sleeping beauties. She bent over them in her morning beauty, with her
+black hair escaping from the little lace _coiffe de nuit_, and dropping
+in shining rings around her—she bent over them breathing her morning
+blessing, when her husband, having completed his toilet, came in and
+sank into an easy chair on the opposite side. He sat there looking at
+her very intently some minutes; at length he said,
+
+“Hagar, you are pale this morning.”
+
+“Am I?”
+
+“Yes, and you lose flesh daily.”
+
+“Do I?”
+
+“Do you not _perceive_ that you do?”
+
+“No, indeed, I never thought of it.”
+
+“No, you never thought of it, mind and body are alike absorbed, entirely
+absorbed by one object—the nursing of your children; flesh and beauty,
+health and life are leaving you unnoted, these children are killing
+you.”
+
+“These! these dear children, Raymond? Oh, do not bring such a charge
+against these sleeping innocents. They give me life and joy, the
+angels!”
+
+“There, love! do not go off into raptures this morning, I do implore
+you. Yes, Hagar, they are killing you; you are very delicate, always
+were, and within the last few weeks you have lost flesh and color very
+rapidly; the nursing of these two children is too great a draught upon
+your strength, it will break down your health.”
+
+“But, dear Raymond, you are mistaken. I am well and strong! thank God!
+_indeed_ I am. It is true that I am thin, I always _was_. I never was
+calm enough to get fat, but I do not think that want of flesh argues
+want of health _always_—in me I _know_ it does not. I have sound,
+unbroken health. I never had an ache or a pain in all my life—oh! except
+once,” she said, laughing and blushing—“nor even a feeling of languor.
+Fatigue after violent and long-continued exercise has only been a slight
+weariness soon agreeably lost in repose. God clothed my spirit in a good
+strong garment, and I have treated it well; though I have worn it every
+day, it is as fresh and new as a Maryland girl’s best Sunday frock.”
+
+“They are killing you, nevertheless, Hagar, I say! Your features are
+growing sharp, your hands,” and he took her delicate hand in his own,
+“your hands are nearly transparent, amberlike, and indeed the knuckles
+are growing prominent—come! Hagar, dear, you are growing ugly as well as
+ill, and, Hagar, it will not do. There is a feverishness in your manner
+also that is not healthful. Your devotion to these children is
+destroying you, and it must be moderated.”
+
+She looked at him with an expression of anxiety striking up through her
+brilliant eyes piercingly. He continued,
+
+“And, Hagar, it must be arrested.”
+
+“How? why? in what manner? in what degree? What _do_ you mean?”
+
+“I mean, love, that you must procure a substitute.”
+
+“A—_substitute_,” repeated she.
+
+“Yes, love, that is to say you must put the children out to nurse.”
+
+“Put them—put my two babies out to nurse—away from me,” faltered the
+young mother, growing very pale.
+
+“Yes, love, it is not an unusual thing among ladies in this section of
+the country—ladies especially of delicate organization as yourself; and
+in this case of _two_ children, Hagar, it is too much for you, and must
+not be thought of. Do not look so distressed, dear, it will be better
+for _you_, and better for them. Mrs. Collins will find some healthy and
+reliable woman who will be willing to take charge of them at a
+reasonable compensation, and who can be required to bring them often to
+see you. She must attend to it to-day. Come, Hagar, do not look so
+dejected; in a day or two you will grow accustomed to it, and be
+contented with knowing that they are well.”
+
+And he arose and was sauntering away. Now all the blood rushed back to
+her face, and starting up she caught his hand and drew him back to the
+side of the crib. Her bosom was heaving and setting, the color flashing
+in and out upon her cheek, but she controlled herself by a great effort,
+as, pointing to the children, she said,
+
+“You do not love babies, Raymond; no, not even your _own_, not even
+these beautiful cherubs; alas! I have not _that_ to learn now! but,
+Raymond, _I_ love them as the tigress loves her young, and as the soul
+loves her angels, and soul from body could be severed with less of pain
+and less of regret than these children from my bosom. Raymond, I know
+your indomitable strength of will; alas! I have not _that_ to learn
+either! I know your persevering inflexibility of purpose, and the power
+of carrying your purpose into effect. I know that when you make a
+proposition, or express a wish, you virtually _give a command_! and one
+you mean to have obeyed. I know all this, and I know, Raymond, your
+power of torturing me, do I not? I know that this hour is opened a
+controversy between us in which _you_ will never yield, never to my
+_opposition_, never to my prayers; never, unless I can awaken your
+parental love. Oh! Raymond, where in your soul slumbers this parental
+love—_sleeps_ your parental love in such a death-like sleep that the
+innocence and beauty of these children cannot awaken it—look at your
+children, Raymond, and withdraw your proposition, your command rather!”
+pleaded Hagar, with clasped hands and straining eyes. “Do not separate
+this beautiful little family, this perfect little family that we four
+form.”
+
+He composedly resumed his seat, looking quietly at her while she spoke;
+when she had ceased, he said,
+
+“Hagar, I make you a proposition, give you what I think a sufficient
+reason, and you answer me with a torrent of sentimental rhapsody; now
+have you said all that you have to say in opposition to my wishes? Come,
+I await your reply.”
+
+“‘Said all I have to say!’ Oh, I could talk a month, a year, until time
+exhausted the subject, if it would convince you.”
+
+“But it will not, as you rightly guess, my love, for now what does it
+all amount to, after all that you may have to say, is said? The question
+simply resolves itself into this: whether you will comply with my
+wishes, or defy the consequences of a non-compliance.”
+
+She dropped her head upon the side of the crib, and remained silent for
+some moments, and then, without raising it, she said,
+
+“Raymond, please tell me _why_, give me some reason for your wish to
+have the children sent away?”
+
+“Your health and beauty are decaying.”
+
+“But they are not!—they are not! You are _utterly_ mistaken. God knows
+that you are!”
+
+“You are feverish and excitable.”
+
+“Not feverish—it is the overflowing exuberance of health and joy!”
+
+“Come, love! contradict me in everything I say, of course. There is one
+thing, however, too harassingly plain to be covered; it is _this_—your
+suite of private apartments is converted into a nursery, of which you
+have constituted yourself chief nurse. I have borne with this for five
+or six weeks, Hagar, and now it is growing insufferable, and I must have
+a change, _will_ have a change, love! So reconcile yourself to the
+temporary loss of these children as well as you can. They are to be sent
+away for _their own_ sakes as well as for yours. _They_ must have a
+stout, hearty nurse, and _you_ must be relieved of their care; you must
+get flesh and beauty again.”
+
+Oh, the immense power of resistance that was rising and throbbing as
+though it would break through Hagar’s chest! Yet she suppressed its
+violent outbreak; she wished now, above all things, to secure her place
+in her husband’s affections; she would have yielded anything on earth to
+his wishes now, except this; nor did she understand his apparent
+indifference to their children.
+
+With a sudden impulse she threw herself in his arms, and amid kisses and
+caresses implored him to spare her the anguish of this trial. Smilingly
+he returned her caresses, smilingly he refused her prayer, and smilingly
+withdrew himself from her clasp, and was sauntering away, leaving her
+pale and trembling, when again she recalled him with a gesture. He
+returned.
+
+“Where are you going now, Raymond?”
+
+“To charge Mrs. Collins with this same business of procuring a
+nursing-place for the children.”
+
+“Do not so misconceive me, Raymond; if I am now pale and weak, it is by
+a foretaste of all I know that I must suffer in opposing your
+wishes—for, Raymond, I _must_ oppose them—I have no choice; none! I
+cannot put these children from my bosom—_can_ not; you must know it.”
+
+“We shall see, love!” said he, with a beautiful, but mocking smile, as
+he left her side.
+
+“Ah, I know your power of torturing me, Raymond—know it too well—but I
+must brace myself to bear it in this instance.”
+
+Half an hour after she met him at breakfast. He wore his usual air of
+elegant ease. He did not resume the conversation of the dressing-room,
+and when he saw that _she_ was about to speak of the subject, he
+arrested her by saying, emphatically,
+
+“Hagar, love, I will not have one word of controversy with you upon
+_this_ or any other subject—I dislike conflict. You either will or will
+not comply with my wishes; without being subjected to any action in the
+matter yourself you will, in the course of the week, have an opportunity
+of submitting to, or rebelling against, my will in this matter.”
+
+And Hagar was silenced. A few days passed, with no perceptible change in
+Raymond’s manner, and the subject was not again mentioned between them.
+Hagar’s secret uneasiness was perpetually betraying itself, and its
+expression continually repressed by the will of Raymond.
+
+At length she grew to hope that this project was abandoned, when one day
+a respectable-looking woman presented herself at the door, inquiring for
+Mrs. Withers. She was shown up into Hagar’s dressing-room. She
+introduced herself as Mrs. Barnes, the person Mr. Withers had engaged to
+take the charge of the twins, if Mrs. Withers should approve her. Hagar
+received the woman with kindness, but told her that she had no intention
+of parting with her children now, or as long as her life and health held
+out. The woman assured her that she possessed, and could produce, the
+highest credentials of respectability, capacity, &c. Hagar assured her
+that her objection was not particular, but general; that she could never
+resign the children to the care of any one; that Mr. Withers’s too great
+care for her health had induced him to mention the plan to her, but that
+she had declined it. Mrs. Barnes seemed difficult to be convinced that
+Hagar’s refusal did not arise from personal objections to herself; but
+at last took a reluctant leave. With her knowledge of his character and
+disposition, Hagar dreaded the return of Raymond that evening. With the
+wish to please him, and to disarm his resentment, she arrayed herself
+charmingly, and had everything prepared agreeably to his tastes and
+wishes, and awaited him in the drawing-room as usual. He came in,
+smiling, with his usual graceful saunter, just as the servants brought
+in the tea; the curtains were up from the arch, so that the two rooms
+were thrown into one. He met her as usual, and they sat down at the
+table apparently with their usual cheerfulness and affection. _He_
+seemed more than usually attentive to her wants. At last she said,
+
+“I have seen the woman you sent me for a nurse.”
+
+“Yes, love, I know it; she has reported to me her rejection.”
+
+This was said in a tone of cheerful content that entirely dissipated
+Hagar’s anxiety; her spirits, rebounding, arose, and she was happy.
+
+The servants were, however, in attendance, and further conversation on
+the subject ceased. Presently they arose from the table and passed into
+the drawing-room.
+
+“Shall I give you some music?” said Hagar, taking up her guitar. “I have
+been practising one of those low, lulling strains that I know you
+like—shall I give it you?” and she sank into a velvet chair and began to
+tune the instrument.
+
+“You shall give me nothing—not a song, not a caress, not a word, when we
+are alone, until you give me your _will_. If I have condescended to
+answer your questions at table, it was to prevent servants from
+talking.”
+
+He was standing before her in his dazzling beauty, looking down upon her
+with an audacious assertion of invincible power of attraction and
+torture striking up through the brilliant softness of his eyes, hovering
+around the beautiful curves of his lips, and irradiating his whole
+countenance. Hagar turned away, veiling her eyes with her jewelled
+fingers, while she rested her head upon her hand. When she looked up
+again he was gone. He did not reappear that evening. It was the first
+evening they had spent apart. Unwilling to give him any new cause of
+offence she had remained in the drawing-room until their usual hour for
+retiring, when she at length sought her own chamber. He came up after a
+while with his usual gay and graceful nonchalance of manner, but without
+noticing her by word or look until she spoke to him; then he turned and
+flashed upon her a smile, beautiful even in its taunting scorn, that
+called the indignant blood in flames to her cheeks and brow, and she
+became silent. Thus days passed. He knew how to torture her. At table—at
+the time the embargo was taken off their conversation—ostensibly to
+deceive the servants, really to afford him an opportunity of tantalizing
+her by the fascination, he assumed his usual manner of affection. Thus
+weeks passed, until the time approached for the arrival of their
+visitors. One evening he came home and threw a letter in her lap; it was
+directed in the hand-writing of Sophie. _This_ seal was _not_ broken;
+she almost wished it had been; she opened it. It contained but a few
+lines from Sophie, informing her that their party would be at The Rialto
+the next morning. She held her letter out to her husband, but he, with a
+taunting smile and graceful gesture of the hand, declined her
+confidence. A sickening faintness came over her. An unwillingness, nay,
+a strong and growing repugnance to the idea of meeting any of her
+friends—for whom, indeed, she had never possessed any very strong
+affection—just at the time she was suffering mortal anguish by this
+estrangement from her husband—a dread of the approach of the fair and
+gentle girl—her rival from infancy—a fearful presentiment of falling
+still lower in his esteem by the side of the loving and love-winning
+Rosalia, these causes all conspired to tempt, to overpower her; she
+arose, and falling upon his shoulder, with her hair dropping all over
+him, with a bursting sob, exclaimed,
+
+“Raymond! oh, _do_ make up with me! I suffer _so_ much! _so_ much from
+the loss of your love! If I could _weep_ and expend a portion of my
+grief—if I could _swoon_ and lose consciousness of it—_sleep_ and forget
+it—_die_ and leave it—_go mad_ and defy it—I should suffer less! I can
+do _neither_—since I am not soft and weak! I am strong and hard—and the
+strong live through and suffer tortures that the weak would _die_ under,
+and so escape! Yet the weak have all the sympathy, while the sufferings
+of the strong are not credited because not manifested. Raymond! oh, make
+up with me. I shall—not _die_—but suffer more than death if you do not!
+I am exiled—take me home to your bosom—to my home in your bosom again,
+Raymond!”
+
+He supported her on his arm, and smiled down a flash of triumphant love
+into her face, lighting a smile in _her_ countenance, too! She raised
+her hand, passing it gently around his neck to the back of his golden
+head, and drew his face down to meet hers; but with a quick and graceful
+toss, waving all his curls, he released his head, and smilingly
+inquired,
+
+“And so you lay down your arms, and strike your colors, my beautiful
+rebel? You subscribe to all required articles in my treaty of peace? In
+a word, you will place confidence in my ability to take care of you, and
+follow my advice in the management of our children?”
+
+She did not reply. The smile faded from her countenance. He continued,
+
+“You will place our children where they can receive better care than you
+can possibly bestow upon them.”
+
+She opened her mouth to speak—he arrested her purpose by placing his
+hand softly and smilingly on her lips, as he whispered,
+
+“Stop!—no more arguments—no more controversy—no more talk about health,
+strength, and ability—about maternal love and duty—_not one word_,
+dearest! I did not bring you here, my beauty, for debate and opposition,
+but for harmony, love, and joy. So, in one word, Hagar, do you yield or
+maintain your opposition?—yes, or no.”
+
+“I cannot! cannot!” groaned Hagar.
+
+He raised his arm, slowly stretching it out from the shoulder, while he
+turned away his head, and gently, but firmly and steadily repulsed her,
+pushing her quite away, saying, calmly, as she sank upon the sofa—
+
+“Any overtures for a reconciliation, Hagar, must in future be prefaced
+by the unconditional surrender of this point.” And he leisurely
+sauntered from the room. Not one word was exchanged between them, from
+that moment until the next morning at the breakfast-table, when he
+said—“If you are not going to use the carriage, Hagar, I will send it to
+meet your relatives—it is nearly time for the morning boat to pass.”
+
+“I do not want it,” said Hagar, and the brief conversation dropped.
+
+He soon after left the house, merely mentioning as he went out, that he
+should be home to dinner at four. In half an hour from this the carriage
+was dispatched to the steamboat landing—at the same time that Hagar went
+into her room attended by Mrs. Collins, to dress her twins for
+exhibition to her expected relatives.
+
+Following the bent of her delicate poetic fancy she would never dress
+them in anything but white, of the finest and softest material—nor ever
+place about them coral, amber, or gold, or any hard or heavy substance;
+and when she had dressed them, very lovely they looked with their little
+black, silky heads, and small features full of soft repose, as she laid
+them to sleep in the crib, so that they might wake up bright and
+beautiful when Sophie should arrive. But a deep-drawn sigh chased the
+smile from the young mother’s face, as she looked upon her treasures,
+writhing in the thought that the duties of the wife and mother should
+ever be supposed to conflict—that the happiness of the wife and mother
+should ever be placed in opposition.
+
+Then Hagar arranged her own dress, and sighed again to observe by her
+mirror how haggard she was looking—knowing this to be the effect not of
+her maternal devotion, as Raymond insisted, but of wasting anxiety
+caused by his tantalizing alternate affection and coldness—by her nights
+without sleep, and days without appetite, and consequently without
+nourishment. She had even to gather away from her face her beautiful
+ringlets; their falling, long and black, each side of her pale thin
+face, increased its pallor by contrast, while they gave it a hatchetlike
+sharpness. She had just completed her unsatisfactory toilet, when the
+roll of carriage wheels on the gravel walk leading to the house, the
+ring of the street-door bell, and soon the hushed sound of several
+softly mingling voices in the hall, announced to her the arrival of her
+guests. She hurried down to receive them. To receive them! They received
+_her_ in their full affection rather! for soon as gliding down the broad
+staircase, she saw the group advancing in the amber-hued light of the
+hall, she felt herself caught to the soft bosom of Sophie, while the
+arms of Rosalia were folded around her.
+
+“Run here, uncle! give us your hands,” exclaimed Gusty May, holding out
+both his hands to Captain Wilde, who caught them, and they laughingly
+formed a ring round the three women, clasping them all together in a
+close embrace. Sophie smilingly loosened the knot, dispersing the group;
+and Hagar giving her hand to Captain Wilde, and then to Gusty, opened
+the drawing-room door, showing them in—begging them to excuse her
+absence and amuse themselves, while she showed Sophie and Rosalia to
+their rooms. Then as she turned to attend them, Rose’s arms were around
+her again, and she said as they went up stairs,
+
+“And so you have two babies, Hagar! dear Hagar! Show them to us quickly.
+I do want to see them so much. I shall love them so dearly. I have done
+nothing but embroider caps and frocks for them since you wrote to us
+about them; so glad I was to have two dear, dear baby-cousins to sew
+for. Now I have come to be your nursery maid, Hagar, dear Hagar; not a
+useless parlor-figure, but your little nursery maid.” So warbled the
+affectionate girl in her bird-like tones, while Hagar, won by her loving
+enthusiasm, turned and caressed her.
+
+I said the house on each floor was divided by a broad central hall. The
+rooms on the right hand, first floor, were those of Hagar and Raymond,
+those on the left hand had been fitted up for the reception of their
+visitors. Hagar conducted them into their apartments; and when they had
+laid off their bonnets, brought them into her own room, to see the
+children. Their little nap was over, and the babies had waked up fresh
+and bright. Rose raised one, softly, tenderly, as though she were afraid
+of its falling to pieces even in her gentle hands; and Sophie took up
+the other. Rosalia went into her gentle love ecstasies over them, and
+even our serene Sophie was enthusiastic in her admiration of the
+children’s remarkable beauty.
+
+“But I should never be able to know the one little black-haired darling
+from the other,” said Sophie.
+
+And so said Rosalia.
+
+“Put your finger on the cheek of Agnes—now upon the cheek of Agatha;
+don’t you perceive that Agnes has firmer muscle, and, therefore, I think
+a stronger constitution than her sister.”
+
+“I am not sure that I can detect the difference,” said Sophie.
+
+Rosalia declared that _she_ could, and that she should never make a
+mistake between the babies.
+
+Raymond returned at four in the afternoon. He met his relatives with his
+habitual air of graceful gaiety. The evening passed in social festivity
+and cheerfulness. Captain Wilde and Mr. Withers were, or seemed very
+gay. Sophie and Rosalia serenely joyous. Gusty, boisterous. Hagar’s
+manner was restless and gloomy. Sophie at last perceived this, and lost
+her own cheerfulness; and soon after, as they were grouped around a
+table, examining some fine prints, Hagar felt her arm grasped tightly
+from behind, and Raymond’s voice in her ear, muttering low and quickly,
+
+“You are making your well merited wretchedness apparent to Sophie—be
+more natural; for as God in Heaven hears me, if by word, look, or
+gesture you reveal your miseries, making me a subject of speculation to
+these people—you shall suffer for it in every nerve of your body to the
+last day of your life,” and he let go her arm.
+
+Her cheek flushed, and her eye brightened with pleasure,—yes, with
+_pleasure_. To hear him break the death-like silence that even amidst
+general conversation reigned in her heart—to hear him speak to her
+alone, close to her ear, even _harsh_ words, seemed like a renewal of
+their confidential relations—seemed the more so because they _were_
+harsh words, because they expressed a command at last with which she
+could comply—conveyed a threat which implied a position, a right not yet
+abandoned; it was more _husband_-like, and she nestled closer under his
+shoulder, and taking the hand, the very hand that had grasped her arm,
+she stole it behind her, around her waist, as she whispered,
+
+“Dearest Raymond, how could you think that I would willingly betray
+uneasiness—have I been gloomy? I will be so no longer—you shall see—dear
+Raymond, smile on me—say _one_ gentle word to me; my heart has been
+starving—even the bitter bread was welcome—give me a sweet word,
+Raymond!”
+
+“Don’t be ridiculous,” were the sweet words granted to her prayer, as he
+withdrew his arm, and turned gaily to make a remark about a picture to
+Rosalia, fascinating the gentle girl’s attention by his brilliant smiles
+and glances. Hagar observed this, and her evil in ambush, her strong
+waylaying foe, began to give her trouble; nevertheless she struggled
+against its manifestation, and strove to assume cheerfulness, feeling
+that now was not the time to alienate him by offence. Her manner
+changed—flashing fitful lightnings of forced mirth across the dark gloom
+of her prevailing mood. Hagar was no actress—_this_ was worse than
+before! and soon she caught the eyes of Raymond fixed upon her—a dire
+menace striking out through their softness, and perceiving her failure,
+she grew alternately more gloomy and excited as the evening advanced—so
+that every one, even the simple-hearted Rosalia, noticed it, and turning
+her dove eyes on Raymond to read the explanation on his face, saw there
+the calmness of his superb brow, and set him down as the blameless and
+injured party.
+
+The family party broke up at an early hour. The ladies left the room
+first, and Hagar, accompanied by Sophie, attended Rosalia to the chamber
+appropriated to her use, and after seeing the timid girl in bed, and
+promising that the housemaid should sleep on a pallet in the room with
+her, because she was afraid “to stay in the dark alone,” they passed out
+into the next room, the front room, which was Sophie’s chamber. Hagar
+setting the candle upon the dressing-table, was about to bid her good
+night, when Sophie, taking her hand, detained her, looked earnestly,
+steadily, in her haggard face, and passing her arm around her waist,
+drew her up in a close but sad embrace, and said,
+
+“Hagar, my poor girl, what is the matter; are you ill in body or mind,
+or both?”
+
+“I am well,” said Hagar, withdrawing herself from her arms.
+
+“Yet I never saw you look so wretchedly, act so strangely in my life;
+what is the cause? _Do_ tell me, and let me see if I can aid you by
+sympathy or advice.”
+
+“You can do me no good,” said Hagar, pausing in perplexity a moment, as
+Sophie still held her hand and gazed pleadingly in her anguished
+countenance, “and Sophie, do not, if you please, take any further notice
+of my looks; is it not natural, by the way, that I should look rather
+thin after my illness, and with the care of two infants?” and coldly
+returning Sophie’s embrace, she bade her good night and left the room.
+Several days passed in this manner.
+
+The next Sabbath the family all went to church—all except Sophie, who
+stopped at home with the headache, Hagar, who stayed to keep her
+company, and Raymond, who remained for some purpose of his own. They
+were sitting in Hagar’s dressing-room, grouped near one of the front
+windows. The babies were awake; Sophie held Agnes, and Hagar kept the
+other, Agatha, whom she fancied to be the more delicate, on her lap.
+Hagar was looking very attentively at her child. It seemed to her that
+for days the children, especially this little one, had been declining in
+flesh; she was beginning to believe that the disturbance of her own
+health was reacting upon the children, and so maternal anxiety was added
+to her other causes of uneasiness.
+
+At this moment, Raymond entered the room, and throwing himself into an
+easy chair, inquired after Sophie’s headache, and then looking at Hagar,
+who, sitting in the cross-light, looked ten degrees thinner and
+ghastlier than ever, he said—
+
+“Sophie, will you look at your niece, and then at her children, and will
+you inform her of the fate to which she is dooming _them_, to say
+nothing of herself, by her obstinacy?”
+
+Sophie’s large eyes started, dilated, and turned in apprehension from
+Raymond to Hagar, from Hagar to the children, and she remained silent
+from perplexity. Then Raymond put her calmly in possession of the
+disputed point between himself and Hagar—keeping Hagar silent,
+meanwhile, by an occasional menace piercing through his gentle eyes; at
+ending, he said—
+
+“Now, ever since you have been here, Sophie, do you not perceive that
+all three have declined in health?”
+
+“Yes,” said Sophie, “that is too palpable to be denied.”
+
+Then turning to Hagar, she said,
+
+“Your health, and consequently your children’s health, is suffering, my
+dear Hagar.”
+
+“It is from _anxiety_,” began Hagar, when, meeting her husband’s eye,
+and recollecting herself, she ceased.
+
+“From _whatever_ cause, dear Hagar,” said he, “your health _is_ sinking,
+and you will have at length to succumb to circumstances.”
+
+A message now summoned Raymond from the room, and the two ladies were
+left alone.
+
+“Yes, dear Hagar, for the children’s sake you will have to give them
+up.”
+
+All mothers love their children, of course; Hagar’s love for her babies
+was fired with all the natural fierceness of her temperament; she would
+as soon have died as have had them severed from her. She answered,
+
+“You do not know what you are talking about, Sophie; if you were a
+mother, you would know that between my heart and these children is an
+invisible cord, and the nearer I am to them, the more natural and
+comfortable it feels; the further I am off from them, the tighter and
+more painful becomes the tension. It is uneasiness one room off—anxiety
+one flight of stairs off—I know it would be agony one street off. In
+short, I cannot bear to be severed from them.”
+
+“You need not be severed from them; get a nurse in the house.”
+
+“But Raymond does not like that idea; he does not want the fuss of a
+nurse in the house; he wishes me to put them out.”
+
+“Then Raymond is cruel and unnatural, and his plan is not to be thought
+of for a moment,” said Sophie; then she suddenly stopped, as though she
+regretted her hasty speech—a speech that Hagar immediately and
+indignantly took up, however.
+
+“Sophie, it is not like you to be so very unjust and harsh. Raymond is
+_not_ cruel!—could not _become_ so, and you know it! If he does not love
+these children very tenderly yet, why he _will_ love them, when they are
+old enough to notice and respond to his love; _besides_, I never _did_
+see a man who cared much about very _young_ children, as we do. No! you
+must do him justice, Sophie; Raymond has very delicate and sensitive
+nerves; he cannot bear roughness, discord, or any other jar of the
+nerves that more obtuse senses could brave. He is not like _me_, who
+have nerves and sinews strung for endurance rather than for enjoyment.
+He is an _epicurean_ by constitution and temperament, and I do not know
+that there is any vice in that!”
+
+“No? Do you not think that when the indulgence and cultivation of these
+delicate and luxurious habits are made the study and object of life, to
+the neglect, and perchance to the positive violation of high duties,
+that it _is_ vice, and _may be_ crime; already you see it has made him
+forget not only his children’s welfare, but _your_ happiness.”
+
+“It has _not_!” replied Hagar, indignantly; “how often must I tell you,
+Sophie, that he does not see how much he makes me suffer—at least that
+he cannot see a just reason for my suffering, because he is utterly
+blind in this—how _can_ he be expected to sympathize in a feeling in
+which he does not as yet participate? You must excuse my warmth, Sophie,
+when you exasperate me!”
+
+Sophie smilingly caressed her, as she replied,
+
+“Forgive! I sympathize with your warm partizanship, dear Hagar; besides,
+to put you in a good humor, I will say, I fully believe that half
+smothered in this down of effeminacy is a spirit of goodness that will
+never be wholly quenched, if _you_ knew how to get at it. Now _I_ can,
+always could, elicit this good spirit. You shall see.”
+
+Hagar did not altogether like Sophie’s insinuation of possessing the
+ability to manage her husband; it seemed to impair the _prestige_ of
+dignity by which her love had surrounded him; nevertheless she permitted
+her to leave the room, Sophie saying as she left,
+
+“I am his mamma, you know, Hagar! I have a right to interfere,
+especially since he has honored me with his confidence this morning;
+besides, he loves me dearly, and always did, ever since he knew me, and
+always will as long as we both live.”
+
+This was true; from the first moment of their acquaintance, Sophie, by
+her serene temperament, disinterested affections, and quiet wisdom, had
+gained, not an ascendency over his mind exactly, but a modified
+influence in his heart. She sought him out, and going to work in her
+calm, matronly manner, arranged the difficulty.
+
+The room occupied just now by herself and Captain Wilde was, after their
+departure, to be converted into a nursery, both upon account of its
+separation by the wide, central hall, from the apartments of Hagar and
+Raymond, and from its communication with the chamber of Rosalia, whose
+fear of sleeping alone, and whose love for the near neighborhood of the
+children and their nurse, combined to make the arrangement agreeable to
+her, as well as to others.
+
+The visitors remained a week after this. Gusty May had kept so close to
+his little lady love, in view of the impending separation, as to give
+others very little opportunity of cultivating her friendship. And as
+Rosalia was strongly attracted to the babies, and as Gusty was as
+strongly attracted to Rosalia, much of their time was passed in Hagar’s
+dressing-room.
+
+You should have seen them there in their innocent affection and
+familiarity, blending childlike frolic with droll, old-fashioned
+solicitude in their care of Hagar’s children. There Gusty would sit with
+Agnes across his knees, and a silk handkerchief spread over his arm, for
+fear the rougher broadcloth would irritate her cheek, chirruping to the
+infant, and calling himself “its Uncle Gusty;” and there Rosalia, with
+Agatha, whom she always would hold on her _own_ lap, because she
+persisted that this babe was the more delicate—yes! you _should_ have
+seen _her_, with her beautiful Virgin Mary face, brooding over the babe.
+
+And Gusty again! what an old granny he _did_ make of himself! feeling
+the baby’s fingers and toes, to see if they were warm enough, or cool
+enough, &c., &c., &c. One day Gusty’s heart was filling with a jest that
+was bubbling up to the corners of his mouth and eye, and leaking out of
+every crevice of his countenance. Agnes had gone to sleep in his arms—at
+last as he laid her in the crib, and while he was covering her up, his
+joke overflowed as he looked at the serene little madonna before him.
+
+“Don’t you wish these were _our_ babies, Rose?”
+
+“Yes, I do _so_ wish they were our babies—God love them! they are so
+sweet,” said Rosalia, raising her large eyes to his and looking him
+straight through the head, with her vague azure gaze!
+
+Up sprang Gusty stamping and dancing about the floor and swearing—no,
+exclaiming,
+
+“You are a baby yourself! a _snow_ baby you are! or, a fool! or both!
+why don’t you get mad? why don’t you box my ears? will _nothing_ arouse
+you? do you know I have been saying something very impudent to you?”
+
+“Have you?”
+
+“Oh! you go to Guinea! ‘_have you_.’ Yes, I have! _You_ don’t love me,
+Rose—no, not a bit!”
+
+“Yes, I do, Gusty; don’t wake the babies!”
+
+“YOU DON’T,” thundered Gusty, “and I wouldn’t have you to save your
+life.” Then he came and fell into a chair, and looking at her
+wrathfully, said, “See here, Rose; I won’t have you! I’ll court the
+first pretty girl I come across. Why don’t you answer me? what do you
+say to that? I say I’ll court the first pretty girl I come across!”
+
+“Will you?” said Rose, vaguely.
+
+“Yes, I will! and I’ll _marry_ her!”
+
+“Will you?”
+
+“_Yes_, I will; and I know several pretty girls—you need not think I
+don’t! sweet girls! that would give their eyes for me! And one lives at
+Havana, and one at Rio, and one at Genoa, and one at Havre, and one at
+Marseilles, and one at Mahon, and one at Gibraltar, and one at
+Constantinople, besides several others! Come! Now! What do you think of
+that?”
+
+“It is very natural they should all love you, Gusty, I am sure.”
+
+“Humph! is it? Well, I am going to court and marry one of them before I
+come home! What do you think of _that_?”
+
+“I think that will be very nice.”
+
+“And you’ll have no objection?”
+
+“Why no, dear Gusty, how should I?”
+
+“And you’d be very well contented?”
+
+“Yes, dear Gusty, if you were happy; I should be _so_ contented; and if
+you would move over to this country and come to see us very often—for,
+Gusty, I should weep if you should go away to live for ever!”
+
+Up jumped Gusty again—
+
+“Oh! my God! this—this—this—_creature_ will be the death of me!” then
+suddenly he dropped down upon the carpet by her side, dropped his face
+in her lap, spread up his arms over her shoulders, and sobbed, “oh!
+Rosalia—darling rose! I would not marry a _princess_ while you remained
+on earth! my pure angel! Oh, Rose, love me! love me! _please_ love me!”
+
+“I _do_ love you, Gusty—as hard as ever I can!”
+
+“You don’t—_don’t_—DON’T! you little fool, you don’t love me a bit
+better than you love old Cumbo!”
+
+“Poor old Cumbo!”
+
+“Ah, ha! there it is; you say that in the same key with which you would
+say ‘Poor young Gusty!’ if a cannon ball should carry off my head next
+month! Love me! no, that you don’t! Oh, Lord! oh, dear!” groaned Gusty,
+getting up and sinking into a chair, “oh, Lord! oh, dear!”
+
+“Are you sick, Gusty?”
+
+“Yes, I am!”
+
+“Whereabouts, dear Gusty? shall I get you anything?”
+
+“Sick at heart.”
+
+“Oh, the heart-burn!”
+
+“You shut up!” snapped Gusty, so loud as to wake both the babies, that
+immediately set up a squall of alarm.
+
+Hagar came in, broke up the conversation, and quieted the children.
+Hagar was recovering her good looks, she was fully reconciled with her
+husband. So full, so complete was their reconciliation,—so happy was she
+in their renewed love, that her latent jealousy withdrew itself out of
+sight, away down in the deep caves of her spirit, until she nearly lost
+consciousness of its existence. Sophie had informed her that the
+marriage of Gusty and Rosalia would take place immediately after his
+return, and that circumstance gave her pleasure. And the last ashes were
+thrown upon the smouldering fire of her jealousy, by her observation of
+the full and free manifestations of mutual admiration and affection
+between Captain Wilde and Rosalia, and the loving sympathy of Sophie
+with both. Hagar would now have made a strenuous effort to cast out the
+devil from her soul, but that the wily demon withdrew itself into the
+deeps, until a more convenient season.
+
+The period of their visit drew to a close. Gusty and Rosalia had a long
+parting talk the evening previous to their separation, and the usual
+amount of vows of eternal fidelity were exchanged. The next day, Sophie,
+Captain Wilde and Gusty took leave of their friends, embarked on board
+the steamboat, and in a few hours arrived at New York. In a week from
+their arrival at that city they sailed from its harbor for a cruise on
+the Mediterranean. The routine of the Rialto was resumed. The nursery
+was established upon the plan arranged by Sophie, and a woman engaged to
+take sole charge of the children. Rosalia wept a week for the loss of
+her friends, and then installed herself a self-constituted nursery
+governess in her chamber next the children. Everything went smoothly,
+harmoniously; Hagar’s serenity was restored—Rosalia’s tears
+dried—Raymond’s gaiety returned now, and everything “upon velvet.”
+
+Reader, do but look at this family; the members of which were beautiful
+in their kind as the hand of God pleased to make them, each one, from
+the youthful father to the children. Raymond, with his elegant form,
+charming face, and graceful and fascinating manners, Hagar, with her
+brilliant beauty and wit, and Rosalia, with her tenderness, formed a
+group an artist or an angel would have loved to contemplate. Alas! that
+the angel sentinels could not prevent the passage of the evil spirit to
+their Eden! Satan, wishing to enter Paradise, took the form of a
+“stripling cherub,” and so deceived Uriel, the Archangel himself;
+deceived “Uriel, one of the seven,” that stood before the throne of God.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+                               JEALOUSY.
+
+       “Foul jealousy! thou turnest love divine
+         To joyless dread, and mak’st the loving heart
+       With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine,
+         And feed itself with self consuming smart:
+         Of all the passions of the soul thou vilest art.
+                                           SPENSER’S FAIRY QUEEN.
+
+
+From a strong reluctance to take you into the deep caves of the soul,
+where evil is forged, I have paused with my pen for hours. One can
+scarcely descend into the deep hell of passion and guilt without
+becoming saturated with the brimstone, scorched in the flames. As we
+enter the mystery of iniquity let us invoke the angels to guard us.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no meaner passion than jealousy. Exclusive, concentrated,
+intense love does not always and necessarily include jealousy, and
+very ill does that base emotion accord with the high spirit, dashing
+pride—the pride of strength that distinguished Hagar. Yet, reader,
+have you never seen a fine man or woman with one physical deformity,
+infirmity? and have you never been told that such a blemish on God’s
+perfect work was the effect of injury sustained in infancy. I have
+seen a man—a Hercules in strength, an Apollo in beauty and
+grace—_crippled_—from an injury sustained in infancy through the
+thoughtlessness of parents. I have seen a woman beautiful as Venus,
+graceful as Euphrosyne—_blind_—from an injury sustained in infancy
+through the carelessness of nurses. How ill the shrunk and halting
+limb accorded with the handsome and manly figure! how ill the
+extinguished eye harmonized with the beautiful face! These misfortunes
+were not the faults of the sufferers, yet the effects of these wounds
+were felt through life, their scars were carried to the grave.
+
+And, reader, there are mental and moral deformities, infirmities—_the
+effects of injuries sustained in infancy!_ more baleful than any
+physical calamity can be, for they are the cause not only of much sorrow
+and suffering—as physical ills _may_ be—but of much _sin_, as moral and
+mental wounds and scars _must_ be, whose fatal influence pursues through
+life unto death and beyond the grave. Thus a spark of jealousy is
+dropped into an infant’s heart, it smoulders through long years, and
+finally bursts out into a destructive flame in the woman’s bosom.
+
+A little, dark, wild, shy child, whose peculiar organization demanded
+that her shyness should be conquered by kindness, her wildness tamed by
+gentleness, her self-distrust reassured by confidence, is disparaged and
+neglected, while her more beautiful companion and playmate, whose
+extreme tenderness and sensibility required the bracing process of a
+sterner training, is flattered and caressed; until wounded by the loss
+of love, the slighted child grows doubtful of herself, distrustful of
+others, and jealous of her more attractive rival, hard, proud and
+defiant to all she did _not_ love, suspicious and exacting towards the
+only one she adored; and the favored child, enervated by indulgence,
+grows more and more dependent on the love of those about her, more and
+more incapable of resisting any temptation that appeals to her through
+her affections; and these evils have grown with the growth, and
+strengthened with the strength of the children, of the girls, of the
+women. Alas! who can see the end of the interminable evil resulting from
+one small mistake in education; and from what wanton carelessness, even
+in well meaning parents and teachers, these mistakes are made; and
+sometimes how intentionally and in what good faith they are committed!
+Heaven knows there would seem to be enough to do to eradicate
+_hereditary_ evil, the roots of sin indigenous in the hearts of
+children, without laboring to sow there the seeds of errors foreign to
+the soil. The low vice of jealousy was foreign to the high temperament
+of our Hagar; yet how it had been planted, sunk, trodden deep, and
+stamped into the bottom of her heart. The mean sins of indolence,
+selfishness, and vanity were not native to the pure soil of our
+Rosalia’s bosom, yet how sedulously they had been cultivated there!
+
+Rosalia, the petted favorite, whose soft nature, while it pleaded for
+indulgence, really needed the hardening process of a strict
+training—Rosalia, still further enfeebled by fondness, has grown softer
+and weaker year by year; softer and weaker, until from very tenderness
+she is rendered incapable of resisting the solicitations of any evil
+that may tempt her through her sympathies. Rosalia has grown up gentle,
+tender, lovely, but vain, infirm, and unprincipled. Hagar, whose wild
+and shy temper needed to be wooed and won, and ameliorated by
+tenderness—Hagar still further repulsed, hardened, and alienated by
+neglect, harshness, and caprice—Hagar is still high spirited and
+faithful, but inclined to entertain envy, suspicion, and jealousy; foul
+blots on a fine character.
+
+Her jealousy of Rosalia was especially natural, and logical—I had nearly
+said inevitable—not only from the fascinating beauty of her rival from
+infancy up to womanhood, but from the very character of her ONE
+affection.
+
+Rosalia, then, the beauty, the pet, and the rival, is domesticated with
+Hagar, the jealous and the slighted girl—and with Raymond, the poetic
+and the artistic epicurean—Rosalia equally fascinating in her extreme
+beauty, in her artless grace, and in the affectionate tenderness of her
+manner and her tone, soon won the warm friendship of Raymond Withers as
+she had won the affection of every man, woman, child, and beast, that
+fell in her way. She would have been a delightful addition to the circle
+at the Rialto, a delightful fireside companion in the autumn evenings,
+could Hagar have rid herself of the vulture of jealousy gnawing in the
+bottom of her heart. Yet do not mistake Hagar, do not think more meanly
+of her than she deserves—she was not _generally_, but only
+_particularly_ envious of Rosalia; thus, had they both been in general
+society together, Hagar could have sympathized with, could have rejoiced
+in the highest success of her lifelong rival, could have been contented
+to be obscured by, to be lost under the glory of Rosalia’s charms and
+conquests; but here in her own domestic circle, here where she had
+“garnered up her heart,” she could brook no intrusion, no partnership,
+no rival; and as in this boundless universe, there _was_ but ONE, there
+ever _had been_ but ONE whom her whole soul worshipped—GOD—so on this
+wide earth there was but _one_, there had been but _one_ whom her whole
+heart adored—her _husband_. This was Hagar’s religion and her love. In
+almost every respect she was as opposite to Rosalia in mind and heart as
+she was in person and appearance. Rosalia, with a generous benevolence,
+radiating from her heart as the beams from the sun, knew no exclusive
+affection, was “innocent of the knowledge” of any particular love.
+Hagar’s soul, nearly destitute of general benevolence, was absorbed in
+one intense passion. Had a city been swallowed by an earthquake,
+overflowed by the boiling lava thrown from the crater of a burning
+volcano, carried away by an inundation of the sea, or reduced to ashes
+by a general conflagration; had a nation been exterminated by war,
+pestilence, or famine, the news would have impressed Hagar very
+slightly. _But!_ had the lightest sabre cut but marked the fair and
+regal brow of her loved one, her very heart would have dropped blood.
+Yet much as she desired his _happiness_, much she desired his
+_affections_ more! she could have borne his _death_ better than the
+_loss of his love_! she wished to be all in all to the man who was
+everything to her. Her jealousy was morbid as her love was extravagant.
+For her, his broad and high white forehead, in its superb amplitude and
+repose, expressed more majesty than the wild expanse of heaven
+itself—for her, his soft and deep blue eyes revealed more spiritual life
+than the purest dreams of her own soul—for her every expression of the
+face, every gesture of the figure, every tone of the voice revealed more
+poetry, religion, love, than the whole universe besides. Often when he
+would be writing or reading, or in any other manner occupied so as to
+prevent conversation, she would sit upon the corner of the sofa, and
+veiling the splendid fire of her eyes under their long lashes, gaze upon
+his form or face, watching its varying expression with all the
+enthusiasm of an artist, with all the inspiration of a poet, with all
+the adoration of a devotee, with all the love of a woman, a silent and
+unnoticed but enraptured worshipper! At such times, carried away, she
+would not think of herself at all—at other times a painful feeling or
+fancy of self-deficiency would torture her. All who love, who worship,
+think more or less humbly of themselves—this feeling is often morbid in
+excess or irrationality, and often itself engenders jealousy. In Hagar
+this was natural—she was not in her own estimation a tithe so handsome
+or _accomplished_ as Raymond, and in the same proportion that she adored
+his perfections she depreciated her own attractions. For him she desired
+to possess all the gifts of beauty and genius, that she might meet and
+supply the wants of his being at every avenue, that she might be the
+whole world to him, as he undoubtedly was the whole universe to her. To
+her every face looked mean, expressionless, or sensual, compared to his
+glorious countenance, in which every passion, malign or benign, became
+godlike! to her every tone was harsh and rough, or flat and dull,
+compared to his love-tuned voice—he was her music, her poetry, her love,
+her religion, her life, soul, and final destiny—her spirit sought unison
+with his spirit, ardently, impetuously; she knew in heaven, their
+redeemed souls would blend in one—in heaven they would be—_one angel_.
+Call this morbid, call this extravagant, reader, yet acknowledge that it
+was no _sudden_ passion, that this intense love of one ardent soul had
+been growing from the moment that the beautiful youth had lifted the
+little ugly infant to his knee, and thenceforth become her adoration,
+her idol, her dream of heaven. This passion had increased with years,
+every circumstance had only served to augment it, association and
+absence, meeting and parting, until their marriage, and then all the
+requirements of his regal will, all the sacrifices of her own wishes,
+all the struggles of her independence before it was subdued, all the
+death throes of her mighty pride before it was annihilated, served but
+to draw tighter, to rivet faster the chains that bound her heart to
+_his_; her separate soul, will, individuality of which she had boasted
+in her haughtiness, fled to him, cleaved to him, seemed blissfully,
+divinely lost in him—in heaven they would be one angel, that was her
+love, hope, faith, religion, her conception of heaven. Call it insanity,
+reader! many minds that pass for sane have in a greater or a less degree
+their insanity, in other words their master passion, or their besetting
+sin, or both in one.
+
+Her conjugal love was her master passion—jealousy her besetting sin—and
+her jealousy was morbid as her love was extravagant. In losing her very
+soul in his heart, she wished to FILL that heart to the exclusion of
+every other object. I repeat it here, she wished to be everything to the
+being who was everything to her—she wished for matchless beauty,
+peerless genius, not that she might be generally admired, but that she
+might meet and supply every demand of his soul. But now! but now! here
+was one more richly and rarely endowed by nature with the power of
+pleasing than herself, one who charmed all the world, and who must, she
+fancied, charm _her_ world, her universe away from her life. She wished
+to be—oh! _not_ from vanity, but from love to please _his_ poet-mind—she
+wished to be the fairest in her husband’s sight—but here was one fairer,
+oh, how much fairer than herself—she wished to be the most graceful, yet
+here was one whose every movement was the very “poetry of motion”—she
+wished that _her_ voice in household cadences, or in song, might fall
+the sweetest on his ears; yet here was one, whose artless tones were
+melodious as the fall of waters or the notes of birds.
+
+Their evenings!
+
+Rosalia would sit at the piano singing the low, sweet melodies he loved,
+while he stood at the back of her chair, turning over the music, bending
+above her, smiling benignly on her, forgetful of everything but of her
+and her song, sometimes joining his voice to hers—and she! how often at
+the end of a song she would turn around and give him a soft, beaming
+smile of affectionate pleasure, when she felt that she had pleased him.
+How little the innocent girl dreamed of the mischief she was doing—how
+indeed should she have suspected it? Had she not played and sung for
+Captain Wilde every evening on the Rainbow, and had she not always been
+rewarded by smiles, praises, caresses, and kisses, from Sophie and from
+Captain Wilde, too? No, she did not guess the evil she was causing—she
+did not guess it even when she saw, evening after evening, that Hagar
+withdrew herself from the instrument and buried herself in a distant
+deep arm-chair, or left the room. There _was one_ who observed and
+defied her displeasure—Raymond, who occasionally raising himself from
+his recumbent posture over Rosalia’s chair, would turn, and darting his
+eyes fiercely into the obscurity of Hagar’s retreat, and fixing them
+sternly upon her, would bring her by a look back to his side, sighing,
+trembling, dejected—then smiling sweetly on her, and passing his arm
+around her little waist, would hold her there, and look supremely
+blessed while thus caressing _her_ and listening to Rosalia’s music.
+
+Alas! that Hagar was not wise! Alas! for the mental cripple, for the
+moral blind, for the injury received in infancy, for the faith crushed
+out! Hagar was not wise, did not understand—she continued, whenever she
+was permitted, sullenly to withdraw herself from the group, making the
+trio a couple, and oh! fatal sign, at last she was more and more
+frequently _allowed_ to absent herself. Hagar was insane—yes, reader, in
+recalling the circumstances of this period of her life, in trying to
+understand them, I am constrained to say that Hagar was insane, not to
+have seen that _her_ presence, _her_ sympathy, together with Rosalia’s
+perfect innocence and artlessness, would have been the immediate
+antidote to any poison that _might_ have crept into the intercourse of
+these two friends—the antidote! it would have prevented the most distant
+approach of an evil thought.
+
+Jealousy seldom or never prevents, frequently suggests and causes, the
+very infidelity it fears. No evil passion is stationary, it must
+increase or decrease. Hagar’s disease was growing. At first she had only
+been jealous of his admiration, of his affection—_now_ she was growing
+doubtful of his faith. Now, because wearied out by her sullenness,
+indignant at her unjust suspicions, even while obstinate in the pursuit
+of the pleasures and gratification of the tastes that excited her envy,
+he permitted her to withdraw from his side and isolate herself in a
+distant corner. As yet Rosalia’s bosom was at perfect peace—the slight
+shadow of the evil thought, the thought now ever gnawing at Hagar’s
+heart, ever by her insane jealousy _kept before Raymond’s mind_, had not
+darkened its brightness, had not breathed on its purity. Will the evil
+retrograde, or will it advance until it shall overwhelm the gentle girl?
+Hagar, deeply as she cherished this envy, this jealousy, was yet too
+proud to breathe it to her rival; besides, it was Raymond upon whom her
+doubts fastened, not as yet upon Rosalia. The perfect simplicity, the
+maidenly frankness, the childlike affection of Rosalia, was too apparent
+and _transparent_ to expose _her_ to doubt or suspicion.
+
+Reader, how I loathe this part of my work! this analisation of an evil
+passion is as detestable a task as I should judge the dissection and
+anatomy of a putrid heart to be. If you dislike to read it as I to write
+it, you will skip it all.
+
+Sometimes Hagar would arouse herself, and throwing off at least all
+manifestation of gloom or sullenness, would make an effort to regain her
+fast ebbing power of pleasing; she also cultivated her rare talent for
+music; but she could seldom succeed in giving Raymond pleasure. He loved
+melody, and her forte was grand harmony. The grand anthems of Haydn,
+Handel, and Beethoven, lost none of their grandeur in her apprehension
+and expression. But her soul was strung upon too high a key, to give out
+sweetly the low breathing music of the melodies he loved. Thus he
+luxuriated in the bright, soft shower of Rosalia, full of melody, and
+writhed when the sublime storm of Hagar’s grand harmony flashed and
+thundered around him. Hagar saw this with anguish, oh! and this very
+anguish gave inspiration, gave additional force and expression to her
+passionate, to her gorgeous, to her awful conceptions of music! At last,
+however, she gave up the hope of ever inspiring him with admiration of
+her fierce tempests of harmony, and tried her voice and her touch upon
+the airs he loved, but here she failed—failed entirely. This was not her
+proper forte, and she had, as yet, too little control over her voice to
+manage it mechanically—to reduce it to the minor keys—she depended for
+much of her grand performance upon inspiration, and she had no
+inspiration for those low breathing melodies. Even suffering did not
+give it her; for in her hours of anguish her soul found its only
+expression in the sharp cry, the deep roar, the thunder of the grand
+harmony,—not in the sob and wail of melody. So Hagar abandoned the
+seemingly vain attempt to make her music agreeable in the drawing. She
+cultivated the art—_her_ art now by vocation and adoption—with all the
+passionate enthusiasm of her ardent nature; it became her solace, her
+soul’s expression. Her days were divided between her music and her
+children. At length, not being able to find sufficient expression, her
+soul began to struggle for freer, fuller utterance—for the revelation of
+its _own_ individual life and love, poetry and music—and Hagar became a
+poet and a musician by these steps; first she set the finest passages of
+her best loved poets to the sublimest strains of her most admired
+composers wherever they could be adapted; where they could not, she
+essayed to set the poetry to music of her own composition, as in the
+instance of Smart’s song; and then to compose words to her favorite
+strains of harmony. At last she attained the power of revealing her
+_own_ poetry—breathing her _own_ music. She was but nineteen. Her music
+and her poetry were all impromptus of sudden, irresistible
+inspiration—the expression of her life at the moment—the electric flash
+of soul, bright and gone in an instant—they were unwritten, inspired,
+expressed, and forgotten. They would come, these spasms of inspiration,
+as the blast comes, and go as it subsides; come as the tide comes, and
+go as it ebbs; come, waking the stillness of her soul as the thunder
+comes, and go as it rolls into silence; come, lighting up the blindness
+of her mind as the lightning comes, and go as it flashes out into
+darkness; come as the storm comes, and pass as it passes. They would
+come at first unexpected, unbidden, impetuous, and irresistible,—nor
+could she send them away till a more convenient season, nor could she at
+will summon them. At length she found the spell to call these
+
+                     “Spirits from the vasty deep.”
+
+She found her power, though now she played with it only for her
+pleasure. The pent-up fire of her soul—that burned in her bosom, rocking
+to and fro, lashing its shores as a sea of flame in storm—the soul that
+blazed in and out upon her cheek, and flamed through her eyes until
+their gaze seemed to scorch you; the soul found vent in poetry and in
+music.
+
+                  And she would have been happy, _but_
+
+in the grand diapason of her life was one broken chord, that left a
+blank, or gave out discord—her jealousy.
+
+One evening, as usual, Rosalia was seated at the piano, playing and
+singing one of Moore’s melodies. Raymond was seated near her, and his
+very soul seemed floating out upon the waves of the music; presently he
+arose and went to the back of her chair where he stood bending over her,
+unconsciously half embracing her. She raised her eyes and welcomed him
+by a beaming smile, without pausing in her music. Soon, however, he
+turned and looked for Hagar; she was sitting in a distant part of the
+room, buried in the shades of a deep arm-chair—her head bent forward and
+resting on her hand, while her profile was concealed by the veil of her
+ringlets. She did not look up or notice his glance. He spoke to her; she
+raised her eyes—he beckoned her to come, but with a bitter smile, she
+shook her head in refusal; then his eyes fastened on her with a fierce
+anger, piercing through their tenderness, which now for the first time
+she did not heed; then with a quick and threatening nod, he turned away
+and gave his attention up to the music. Not one whit of this dumb show
+had Rosalia noticed. At last her song was over, and rising she left the
+piano.
+
+An hour after, Raymond Withers entered the dressing-room of his wife.
+She had thrown herself upon the lounge, and her head was drooped over
+one end, while all her ringlets falling down shaded her face. He
+approached—and standing over her with folded arms, he said—
+
+“Hagar!”
+
+She did not speak or move.
+
+“_Hagar!_”
+
+She looked up, silently.
+
+“_Hagar!_ I say.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“What is the matter?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“_Nothing!_—do not speak falsely, Hagar! tell me at once, what is the
+matter?”
+
+She smiled a haggard smile, and rising, went to her dressing-glass and
+began to unclasp her bracelets. He followed, and taking her hand, led
+her back to the sofa, seated her, and stood before her, folded his arms,
+and looking steadily at her, said, sternly,
+
+“This folly must be ended just at this point; and when I ask you a
+question, Hagar, you are to reply, and not evade it. Tell me, now, the
+cause of your gloom—tell me at once, without prevarication, for I will
+know it.”
+
+“You _do_ know it,” said she, looking up through her anguished eyes at
+his calm, stern, yet beautiful face. “You do know it.”
+
+“I do _not_ know it, and I wait your answer.”
+
+“You _suspect_ it, then?”
+
+“I am not given to _suspicion_,” sneered Raymond, “and I want to hear
+the cause of your sullenness from your own lips. Come, reply!”
+
+She relapsed into silence.
+
+“Am I to have an answer from you, Hagar?”
+
+“Alas! why do you press the question? I am gloomy, I cannot conceal it,
+but I do not complain—do not _wish_ to complain.”
+
+“Of _what_ have you to ‘complain?’”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“‘_Nothing!_’—false, again! for though it is true, in fact, that you
+_have_ nothing of which to complain, it is false on your lips.”
+
+She did not repel this charge, but sat with head bowed, with chin rested
+on her breast, with clasped hands on her lap, he still standing before
+her with folded arms.
+
+“Why did you not come up to the piano when I beckoned you?”
+
+“Because I did not wish to come.”
+
+“_You ‘did not wish to come’_—insolent! but passing over the
+impertinence of your reply, Hagar, _why_ did you ‘not wish to come?’”
+
+“I was not wanted.”
+
+“I called you.”
+
+“Yet I was not needed.”
+
+“That was no business of yours; I beckoned you!”
+
+“And I am not a slave, to come at your beck!” flashed Hagar, suddenly
+raising her eyes, blazing with defiance, to meet his steady gaze.
+
+“No, you are not a slave, Hagar; you are a proud, fierce woman—yet
+Hagar, to-morrow, when I call you to my side, _you will come_!” and his
+hand dropped heavily upon her shoulder.
+
+We will drop the curtain here; these scenes are disgraceful, disgusting.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next evening they were grouped around the piano again, Rosalia was
+singing her evening song, Raymond Withers standing at the back of her
+chair, a little on the right, and Hagar stood on the other side, leaning
+with her elbow on the end of the piano, her forehead bowed upon the palm
+of her hand. Rosalia, without raising her eyes from her music, moved the
+light so that its beams fell more directly upon her notes—its beams fell
+also upon the countenance of Hagar, exposing a face so ghastly in its
+pallor, eyes so fierce in their anguish, that Raymond, evidently fearing
+lest Rosalia should notice her agony of expression, brought her, by a
+look and gesture, out of the light and into the shade of the background
+by his side; and passing his arm around her waist, drew her up to him,
+smiling down in her face, as he whispered, quickly, under his breath—
+
+“Be gentle, tender, complying, Hagar, and you shall be happy; be the
+reverse, be rude, angry, rebellious, and you shall be wretched. Yet I
+love you, Hagar, and would prefer to make you happy; do not, while I
+love you, constrain me to deeds of hate.”
+
+She did not reply; she stood still and pale within the embrace of his
+arm, and remained there all the remainder of the evening, until Rosalia
+had finished her songs.
+
+As the girl shut down the lid of the instrument, arose and turned
+towards them, she noticed Hagar, and starting, exclaimed,
+
+“Why, Hagar! how frightfully pale you are! Are you ill?”
+
+“No”—began Hagar, but Raymond, by a tight pressure of her arm, arrested
+her speech, and answered for her.
+
+“_Yes_—she is indisposed, but a night’s rest will restore her; go to
+your chamber, love,” and taking a lamp from a side-table he gave it to
+her, and opening the door, held it for her to pass out. She went.
+Rosalia, springing up at the same moment, exclaimed,
+
+“Let me go with you to your room, dear Hagar, if you are not well!”
+
+“_No!_ I am going with her. Good-night, dear Rosalia,” said Raymond,
+suddenly starting up to follow his wife. Rosalia looked distressed,
+perplexed, and finally paced slowly and thoughtfully away to the chamber
+next the nursery, where she slept.
+
+“Hagar,” said Raymond, as soon as he reached her chamber.
+
+“Well!”
+
+“How did you spend the day after I left the house this morning?”
+
+“I kept my room with a headache, with a _real_ headache, the first I
+ever had in my life.”
+
+“Is that an intended reproach?”
+
+“No, I only mentioned it as a fact.”
+
+“Where was your cousin?”
+
+“She went to town shopping with Mrs. Collins in the forenoon, and drove
+out with the children in the afternoon.”
+
+“Then she was not with you all day?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Had no opportunity of questioning you about your ill looks?”
+
+“No; I said I had the headache, and so I really had; and when I kept my
+room she understood it to be from a slight indisposition.”
+
+“But now her suspicions are excited—she sees that your misery rises from
+a deeper source than a slight physical indisposition—take care, Hagar,
+that she does not see the _cause_. She sees that there is trouble
+between us; be sure that you do not betray the reason, or, rather, the
+_un_reason of this trouble, my lady.”
+
+Hagar did not reply to this covert threat. She was not herself; a
+heaviness, a stupor, weighed down her spirit; a reaction of the
+excitement of her ardent temperament, an ebb in the high tide of her
+life, left her weak and powerless. She lay there upon the lounge in her
+dressing-room; it was yet too early to think of retiring, and Raymond,
+taking advantage of the temporary torpor of her faculties, perhaps
+mistaking her apathy for utter submission, sat down by her side, and
+said,
+
+“Hagar, I am very tired of this, very thoroughly worn out with this; we
+have been beating the air long enough, let us come to something
+substantial. I will probe this wound of yours—extract the bullet that is
+festering in your bosom; tell me now, in so many words, of what have you
+to complain?”
+
+“I do not complain.”
+
+“You _do_; not in words, certainly, but in manner; now what is it all
+about—why are you growing more sullen, ugly, and repulsive every day?”
+
+“_Do_ not ask me! Alas! have I not tried to be patient? _I_ have kept my
+thoughts and feelings down, like wronged, suffering, and desperate
+captives in the hold of a slave ship, fearing to lift the hatches even,
+lest they should break forth, spreading pestilence and death!”
+
+She looked so _unutterably wretched_ as she lay there, with her small
+hands pressed tightly upon her brow, and as her lips, quivering, sprang
+apart and closed; that Raymond, pitying her, stooped, and placing his
+hands under her arms, raised her up, and laid her head upon his bosom,
+looking kindly in her face all the while, as he said,
+
+“Hagar, I _do_ love you—always shall, always _did_, Hagar, from the
+first instant that my eye fell upon you and caught yours—from the first
+moment that I, a youth, singled you, an infant, out from all the world
+as my own—for life, past death, and through eternity, recognising you
+for my own, knowing you for my own—_claiming_ you for my own, preferring
+you, a little, ugly, perverse infant, to all the fair and gentle maidens
+of my own age, because I knew that into your little bit of a body was
+crowded and pressed the soul and life, the fire and spirit of twenty
+women—_claiming_ you for my own, and waiting until you should grow up to
+womanhood, and never fearing or dreaming that any one would ever cleave
+my life down through the middle, and bear off the other half of it—_my
+Hagar_—for when was ever _I_ jealous, Hagar?”
+
+She clasped her arms tightly around his neck, and buried her face in his
+bosom as she answered,
+
+“But my own, _own_—you know that I was not attractive,—that no one would
+wish to dispute your claim to me.”
+
+“On the contrary, I knew that you _were_ attractive, and that Gusty May
+set up a very clamorous claim to you, and that you only needed to be
+further known, to raise many aspirants to your hand among superficial
+and impetuous young men like Gusty, who, if their eye is pleased and
+fancy tickled, believe themselves in love. No, Hagar! I trusted _in
+you_—not out of you—IN YOU, for the security of our love and life.”
+
+“My own! my own! you _might_ well have trusted in me—_may_ well trust in
+me.”
+
+“I did, and shall _always_. I married the little infant when I raised
+her on my knee at that wedding party given to Sophie and my father; I
+found my little wife then, and knew that she acknowledged my claim, saw
+in her splendid eyes, fascinated to my own, that she felt and
+acknowledged me.”
+
+“Oh, I did! I did! Looking up into your face I saw a soul radiating
+there that seemed to draw my spirit up to meet it! and I felt, Raymond,
+I felt that I had for the first time met a spirit that I had neither the
+power nor the will to resist in anything _long_; for see, Raymond! I,
+who defied Sophie and your father, told _you_ the same moment, with my
+face in your bosom, that I would do anything in the world you wished me
+to do. Don’t you remember?”
+
+“Yes, love, I remember every single item.”
+
+“And I, who laughed and shouted defiance to society in following my wild
+tastes,—I, who so desperately resisted the growing and surrounding
+influence of your will, how I permitted it to close upon me at last.”
+
+“You did _not_ permit it: you had no choice of permitting. You could not
+help it, love; _that_ makes you my own, and my own for ever, Hagar!”
+
+“Yes, but are you _mine_! as surely, oh! Raymond?”
+
+“I love you, Hagar.”
+
+“You love me—you say so—will you tell, then, since this is an hour of
+tender reminiscences, of confidences, and explanation—will you tell me
+why, since you love me, you torture me so much; tell me why, when loving
+me, you make me suffer so much, and I will forgive it—indeed, I _have_
+forgiven it—could not help forgiving it!”
+
+“You have nothing to forgive, love, and you must not use the word in
+reference to me. Yes, I will tell you, Hagar, for just now I am loving
+you very much, my own especial Hagar, and perhaps I may never be in a
+mood to tell you again. Listen, then: I believe I am naturally, or
+rather apparently, very gentle and tender, am I not?”
+
+“Yes, very; but—”
+
+“At least! I have very keen and sensitive nerves, delicate features,
+fair complexion, and all that go to make up the idea of softness and
+sensibility?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“That I got from my mother.”
+
+“Your mother! Ah! you never mentioned her to me before!”
+
+“And shall never mention her again—hush! let us resume—I _have_
+sensibility, sensitiveness—_but!_ away down in the deeps of my soul have
+a perverse spirit of great strength, power, and malice—where it came
+from I do not know; how it got there I do not know—but, Hagar, you are
+rather apt to arouse it—this spirit aroused, oppresses, seeks to subdue
+even those I love, when they resist me—this spirit in its awakened
+strength takes pleasure in its calm force of resistance, of overbearing
+and bearing down opposition, and the stronger and fiercer the opposition
+the greater the pleasure of the victory. It was that spirit that incited
+me last night, but it is not always in the ascendant—there, Hagar! that
+is the secret of the attraction your strong, fierce, proud nature had
+for me! it gives me plenty of employment, life, you see. Yet, Hagar, I
+love you.”
+
+While he spoke, Hagar’s face had changed—one might say she was
+transfigured before him! her countenance grew radiant in inspiration as
+an angel’s, and her voice was softer, sweeter than you ever heard it, as
+she said,
+
+“I am glad you told me, Raymond, it has saved me and you—it is well you
+have told me. That spirit! it is, as you say, a _perverse_ spirit, an
+_evil_ spirit, a spirit from hell; and I will give it no further
+employment, no further life, Raymond—no more food; I will not nurture it
+by pride or anger. It is a spirit of hate; I will meet it by a spirit of
+love; when it comes to war with me it shall find so little resistance,
+so little to do, that it shall fall into death from inactivity.”
+
+“You, too, have your bosom’s foe, Hagar—but it is not now, as you would
+say, ‘in the ascendant.’ Yes! you are jealous! jealous of Rosalia! Oh!
+_shameful_, Hagar!”
+
+“Alas! it is true; I wish it were not; how can I help it?” said she, as
+the cloud came over her face, obscuring its glory—“_how_ can I help it?
+It is gone now, the jealousy—but it will come back again, and nearly
+madden me! I know it will; and how can I help it, when I see that I
+cannot give you any pleasure, by all my efforts; you do not like my
+singing nor my playing—you hang over Rosalia’s chair all the evening,
+and forget my very existence.”
+
+“I do not, Hagar! I never forget you for a single instant; how _can_ I
+ever forget you, when your spirit clings so closely about me always?”
+
+“Does it?” smiled Hagar. “_I_ know it does, and I am glad you feel it,
+Raymond—glad you feel it, even at her side.”
+
+“Nonsense, Hagar! I love Rosalia—or rather I should say I _like_
+Rosalia, the fair, gentle girl, as I like her soft music, as I like a
+summer prospect, as I like the fragrance of growing flowers—as _she_
+loves her pet doves. I like her because, like all other fair, sweet, and
+melodious things, her presence gives me pleasure—a pleasure that I do
+not choose to give up for your jealousy, Hagar! So I charge you, love,
+if you cannot exterminate the ‘green-eyed monster,’ do not let him
+appear before Rosalia, and frighten the poor girl away from me. God!
+Hagar, if it comes to that, you will exasperate me to phrensy.” He spoke
+with unwonted energy, but quickly controlling himself, he said in a more
+gentle tone, “Be on your guard, love—be on your guard; this is extremely
+absurd, very ridiculous, not to say unjust to me; how you worry yourself
+and me! Kiss me, my Hagar.”
+
+“‘Kiss’ you, Raymond! a thousand, thousand times!” exclaimed she; all
+her natural wildness rebounding in the spring of her spirits, “a
+thousand times, dear Raymond; and I will try never to doubt you again,”
+and she clasped her arms about his neck, and drawing down his head,
+caressed him freely and gladly as a joyous child might. Her jealousy
+seemed gone for the time—a weight was lifted off, and that evening and
+the next day she went about with dancing eyes and with an exultant step,
+as if the spring of her little foot impelled the earth forward in its
+orbit! It was the first time Raymond had fully opened his heart to her,
+and she felt grateful for the confidence; she understood many things
+that had before been dark to her, she _thought_ she understood _all_.
+
+_Had_ he indeed opened and revealed his _whole_ heart? and if so, what
+had induced him, with his proud reserve, to be so communicative? Reader,
+had Raymond Withers spoken what we have heard him speak, _two weeks
+before_, it would have been “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
+_but_ the truth;” _now_, however, in the recesses of his bosom lurked a
+sentiment as yet revealed in words to no one, as yet unrecognised by
+himself; _but_ yet a sentiment that was growing stronger day by day,
+that was already beginning to betray itself in unguarded moments.
+
+I repeat it, jealousy seldom prevents, frequently suggests the very
+infidelity it fears. It has been said that “Unjust suspicion is apt to
+lead to that which is well founded. It is often very dangerous to hint
+an evil, though to warn against it: for constant suspicion of harm puts
+an idea into the head that otherwise might never have occurred; and this
+idea once fairly in is not so easily got out. Thus it is that unjust
+jealousy gives rise to real unfaithfulness. Can there be a stronger
+argument against too ready suspicion?”[7]
+
+Footnote 7:
+
+  Ramsay on Human Happiness.
+
+Poor Hagar! through her besetting sin, through her unjust suspicion, she
+had kept the evil before his eyes until he had grown familiar with it.
+This was the more dangerous, not only from his peculiar temperament, and
+from the extreme beauty, grace, tenderness, and artlessness of the rival
+she dreaded; but also from the fact of their isolation from the
+moderating and correcting influence of general society. But incited by a
+vague consciousness of this scarcely acknowledged sentiment, he had
+opened his heart to Hagar, exposing “almost” _all_ its secrets, and now
+could she have continued to trust him, _her_ faith might have saved his
+fidelity—could she have _continued_ to trust him! but she could not—her
+waylaying sin could not be so promptly driven away for ever. Could an
+evil thought be dismissed, a guilty wish repressed, or a sinful passion
+crushed by one effort of the will, by one fell blow, many a moral
+victory we should see, many a moral hero hail, and the road to perdition
+be no longer paved with good intentions; but when blow after blow has
+been struck upon the waylaying foe, when after each repulsion it has
+retired only to rest, to gather force, to renew the attack, nothing but
+the highest moral courage and perseverance can keep up the warfare, can
+insure the victory. Hagar’s waylaying foe had only been beaten back for
+a time; a few days passed and it returned in power, in ferocity, with
+violence; for _now_ Hagar’s doubts of her husband’s fidelity of heart
+were becoming but too reasonable!
+
+Reader, shall I shock _you_, and distress myself, by a recital of some
+of the scenes that disgraced the next two or three weeks? Hagar’s
+confirmed suspicions, anguish, and terror? Raymond’s stern, calm,
+implacable repression of her passion? The death throes of her suppressed
+and smothered rage? The indomitable strength of will by which he held
+her down—so that through all this, for many weeks, the innocent and
+artless Rosalia had no suspicion of _his_ guilty passion, or of _her_
+racking jealousy! The poor girl wandered distressed and perplexed over
+the house, wondering in vain at a sorrow and an anger of which she could
+see no reasonable cause. If she inquired of Raymond, he would smile
+gaily and give her a light or an indifferent answer, and ask her for a
+song. If she inquired of Hagar, she would turn from her with a burning
+cheek and heaving bosom, without reply; if she pressed the question,
+Hagar would exclaim, in an agony,
+
+“Nothing! nothing! don’t ask me, Rosalia,” and leave the room; for
+Raymond had said to his wife, while his hand, talon-like, grasped her
+little shoulder, and his eye struck fiercely into hers,
+
+“Alarm this girl, give her one single inkling of the diabolical
+suspicions you cherish, and, as Heaven hears me, I will never see or
+speak to you thenceforth!” and she saw and felt that he would have kept
+his word. Yet, though she concealed the cause of her sorrow from
+Rosalia, she could not act the part of a hypocrite; she could not bring
+herself to feel kindly, or to act kindly, towards the girl who, however
+unconsciously, was wiling away her husband’s affections.
+
+Rosalia grew daily more dejected—pining for the love, the tenderness,
+the sympathy and confidence, the free and affectionate intercourse with
+her friends, to which she had been accustomed; which was the great
+necessity of her life; without which she could not exist. She confined
+herself as much as possible to the nursery, and to Hagar’s two children,
+who were just beginning to notice and to love her. She longed for Sophie
+and Captain Wilde, and for the sweet home like feeling she enjoyed with
+them. She was beginning to dream of them frequently, and to wake weeping
+for them. She was beginning to regret the tears that prevented her
+accompanying them, to wonder whether it were possible now to go to them.
+She was very unhappy here. She felt herself in an atmosphere of coldness
+and vague censure, that chilled and depressed her. She felt strange and
+lonesome now, yet she tried to make herself agreeable to all, exerted
+herself to cheer Hagar when she saw her depressed, to amuse Raymond when
+he was grave.
+
+One evening, after a particularly unsuccessful attempt to disperse the
+gloom of the drawing-room by her sweet music, she had sought her own
+chamber in despair; finding Mrs. Collins there engaged in sorting linen,
+she fell weeping bitterly upon the bed, and exclaiming through her sobs,
+
+“Mrs. Collins! what _is_ the matter in this house, can you tell me?”
+
+“It is not my place to tell you, Miss Aguilar, and perhaps I even do not
+know.”
+
+“But what do you _think_, then, Mrs. Collins? oh! please tell me, it is
+not from idle curiosity, but because, because I do love Hagar and
+Raymond _so_ much, and they are both _so_ unhappy, especially Hagar, and
+they will not either of them give me a bit of satisfaction, and I want
+so much to know if I can do anything to mend it; tell me what is the
+matter, Mrs. Collins?”
+
+“Young ladies should be very particular, Miss Aguilar; they may give
+trouble where they little think it.”
+
+“‘Particular,’ why, I _am_ particular, am I not? I dress myself
+carefully and practise my music every day, and that is all Sophie and
+Captain Wilde required of me; and, lo! if I were _ever_ so slovenly and
+idle, I should not think _that_ would make so much trouble; and even if
+it did, I should think that they would tell me of it—but it can never be
+_that_.”
+
+“You do not understand me, Miss Aguilar.”
+
+“What is it then you mean, Mrs. Collins?”
+
+“I mean young ladies should not make too free,” said the old lady,
+looking solemnly through her spectacles at the girl. “No, they should
+not make too free.”
+
+“‘Too free,’ ‘too free,’ _how_ too free?”
+
+“Too free—_with gentlemen_.”
+
+“Too free with gentlemen! who is too free with gentlemen? You don’t mean
+_me_, do you, Mrs. Collins; oh! no, you can’t mean me, because I do not
+see any gentlemen to be free with, you know! No, of course you don’t
+mean _me_; what do you mean, Mrs. Collins?”
+
+“I mean _you_, Miss Aguilar; I mean that _you_ must not be too free with
+gentlemen.”
+
+“But I don’t _see_ any.”
+
+“_None?_”
+
+“No, indeed! to be sure none—oh! except Raymond, but then I love _him_
+because he is dear Hagar’s husband and my relative, and because _he_ is
+_always_ good to me; so good! so gentle! so tender _always_! but of
+course you do not mean _him_, oh no! and I should like to know what you
+_do_ mean, dear Mrs. Collins?”
+
+“Have I not heard you speak of a lady, the mother of your betrothed?”
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Buncombe; why?”
+
+“You had better write to Mrs. Buncombe to come for you, and you had
+better return and remain with her until your people come back from
+foreign parts.”
+
+“Oh! I should like that, if Hagar would let me go.”
+
+“She will let you go, depend upon it.”
+
+“But now that I come to think of it, I cannot leave Hagar either; poor
+Hagar! while she is so sad, it would be a sin.”
+
+“Miss Aguilar, your cousin would prefer you to go, I am sure, and you
+had better take my advice.”
+
+“I am sure I should be glad to go if I thought Hagar could spare me, and
+I will see about it.”
+
+“_Do_, my dear child—and—do not mention that _I_ suggested it to you.”
+
+“Why not, Mrs. Collins, why must I not? I don’t love secrets, I never
+keep secrets—now why must I not say that you told me?”
+
+“Well! say so then, my dear, and say at the same time that I think you
+sickly and _weak_, _very_ weak, and that I think a visit South would
+benefit your health.”
+
+The old lady had finished folding and packing away her bed and table
+linen, and locking the clothes press she took up her candle and bidding
+Rosalia good night, left the room.
+
+Poor Rosalia! by the miserable failure of her education she had been
+sent into the world, into life, beautiful, fragrant, tempting, and
+defenceless as the conservatory exotic. Nurtured in the warm atmosphere
+of an enervating tenderness, she lived only in the love of those around
+her, and pined when it was withdrawn as the flowers languish in the
+cold. Rosalia was drooping—winter was approaching, yet the face of
+nature was not fading, withering from the withdrawal of the sun’s direct
+rays, faster than was Rosalia’s heart in the surrounding atmosphere of
+coldness. The whole house was a chill clime, in which there was but one
+spot of warmth, the crib of Hagar’s children. The whole day was a dreary
+blank, until the evening hour of music came, when she would try to
+please and cheer by her little songs. The whole family seemed strange,
+cold, or indifferent to her with one exception, Raymond Withers. _His_
+manner was always affectionate, his glance always fell gently on her
+eye, his tones smoothly, softly on her ear, his hand tenderly on her
+arm, and the doomed girl began, if not to love him only of all the
+family, at least to find return only in his love. As yet this affection
+of Rosalia was as pure as the maiden’s love for all others.
+
+Had Rosalia’s intellect and conscience, her moral accountability for the
+use of time and talent, been cultivated in the same proportion as her
+sensibilities and affections, she would not have been thrown thus
+helpless upon the tenderness and sympathy of others; she would have
+possessed a self-sustaining principle, would have found occupation in
+mental resources. But this was not so; she had been fondled, praised,
+and spoiled, until intellect was half drowned in sensibility, mind
+enervated nearly to fatuity.
+
+Days passed. Raymond Withers now too surely, terribly felt that his love
+for Rosalia was no longer pure brotherly affection. It was an intense
+and an absorbing passion. He began to struggle against its nearly
+overwhelming power—he began to avoid the charming girl. _Now_ could
+Hagar have trusted him; could she have believed in the _power_ of
+redeeming qualities that really existed in his heart; the solid
+substratum of good that lay beneath all this superficial alluvion of
+wilfulness and effeminacy; her faith might yet have saved him; saved
+herself from much anguish. As it was, Raymond Withers struggled on alone
+against the advancing power of his great temptation. He might have
+struggled longer, he might have struggled successfully, but that the
+very means he took accelerated the crisis, the catastrophe. He began to
+avoid Rosalia; declined her music; evaded her questions; repulsed her
+gentle attentions, until the guileless girl, utterly unable to
+comprehend her position, grew wretched, more wretched every day, in the
+thought that her _last friend, her only present friend_, as in her heart
+she began to style Raymond, had fallen from her; and by the fatality
+that makes us set a higher value upon a possession that is passing away,
+Rosalia began to prize his affection exceedingly—to desire its
+continuance more than all things—to lament its seeming loss
+passionately—to strive to win it back. “The clouds came on slow—slower;”
+the clouds whose vapors had been collected in, and evolved from their
+own bosoms, and raised to gather black and heavy in their sky, to break
+in thunder on their heads!
+
+Three circumstances combined to bring on the catastrophe of this
+household wreck, three circumstances, reader, that I wish you to notice,
+as I desire particularly to call attention here, and now, to the great
+importance of the formation of character in childhood and youth, and to
+the awful truth that the blackest treachery, the deepest guilt, the
+direst misery, the utmost perdition of men and women may sometimes be
+traced to the smallest, seemingly the most harmless mistakes in the
+education of boys and girls. Perhaps I have already been tedious upon
+this subject; perhaps I have dealt “in vain repetitions;” yet, in
+tracing the rise and progress of a guilty passion, can I be too emphatic
+in forcing the causes that produced this upon attention? These causes,
+then, I said there were three that conspired to bring down this
+impending thunderbolt.
+
+First, Hagar’s jealousy. We have seen how inevitably that jealousy
+sprang from a want of the faith that had been chilled to death in her
+heart by the coldness and neglect of her guardians in infancy. We have
+seen how that jealousy, by its violence, exasperated the anger of her
+husband; by its injustice (for in its commencement it was unjust),
+alienated his affections; by its pertinacity, suggested and kept before
+him the evil thought until it grew familiar. So much for the baleful
+effect of her jealousy upon Raymond. Its influence upon Rosalia may be
+summed up in a very few words—by manifesting itself in coldness and
+aversion, it threw the tender-hearted and guileless girl upon the ready
+sympathy and affection of Raymond for consolation. Do you now see the
+madness of this jealousy, and its powerful agency in bringing on the
+desolation of heart and home it feared and dreaded?
+
+Second, Rosalia’s tenderness—tenderness unsupported by strength of
+principle, heart unprotected by mind. We have seen that this softness
+was no more nor less than the feebleness of a character enervated by
+fond and foolish indulgence in her infancy. We have seen that this
+weakness made her dependent upon the love of those around her as the
+very breath of life; we have seen that when repulsed by Hagar’s
+coldness, it threw her for sympathy upon the affections of the only
+friend at hand; one whom, of all others, just at this crisis she should
+have been guarded against.
+
+Third, the self-indulgence of Raymond. A delicacy cultivated and refined
+for years into an effeminacy that _seemed_ harmless enough, yet that, as
+time passed, insidiously undermined his moral strength, rendering him
+daily more averse to self-denial, until he became incapable of
+self-resistance.
+
+Could either of several good principles now have been brought into
+exercise, it would have, even _now_, arrested the impending catastrophe;
+could Hagar, by prayer, by effort, have thrown off her jealousy, have
+practised faith, candor, charity—could she have shown kindness to
+Rosalia, who was, as yet, entirely innocent in thought, word, and
+deed—could she have pitied and forgiven Raymond, who, as yet, was
+guiltless in act or intention. Or, could Rosalia have sought aid from
+heaven, and balanced her gentleness by self-sustaining strength upon its
+feet. Or, lastly, could Raymond have awakened and aroused his great
+latent moral strength from the bathos of luxury in which it was half
+drowned; could he have risen and shaken himself like a lion in his
+strength, throwing off the moral lethargy stealing upon him; could he
+have risen as Samson arose in his might, breaking the fetters that bound
+him, they might yet have been saved.
+
+Alas! They seemed all under a spell, while the cloud of destiny came on,
+and on. A gloom settled on their hearth that nothing could dispel, a
+deep darkness stole through the house that neither sunlight nor
+firelight could brighten, a coldness gathered in their home that neither
+sun heat nor fire heat could warm, a silence fell around them that music
+itself could not break—moral gloom, moral darkness, moral cold, moral
+silence. The darkness, the shadow of the overhanging cloud of impending
+fate; the silence, the stillness that precedes the earthquake, while the
+fires rage and leap beneath; the awful stillness of the coming typhoon.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+                               TREACHERY.
+
+                           “He, in whom
+         My heart had treasured all its boast and pride,
+         Proves faithless.”
+                                             EURIPIDES’ MEDEA.
+
+
+It was the first of November; a Sabbath day; it had rained all night;
+the dawn of morning found the rain still pouring down in torrents; it
+was a dark, dark day; _so_ dark that a twilight gloom hung over all the
+rooms; so cold and wet that a damp chill pervaded the house. The family
+met at breakfast in the back drawing-room; a good fire had been kindled,
+but neither the cheerful fire nor the exhilarating coffee, could raise
+the spirits of the little party. Hagar was wretchedly pale and haggard;
+Raymond’s gaiety was so evidently assumed as not to be mistaken, even by
+the unsuspicious Rosalia. Rose looked from one to the other in
+unconcealable distress. Seeing that Raymond tried to make himself
+agreeable, while Hagar fully indulged her gloom, Rose again, as usual,
+settled it in her own mind that Hagar was the offending, and Raymond the
+suffering party. When they arose from the table, when Raymond walked to
+the front drawing-room window and stood there looking out upon the black
+sky and pouring rain, and when Hagar rising withdrew from the room and
+went up stairs, Rose looked around in perplexity, in a sort of sad
+lostness, not knowing what to do with herself, scarce feeling able to
+keep her feet, for loneliness and dreariness. At length with sudden
+inspiration she ran up stairs to seek Hagar. She entered her bed-chamber
+without knocking, and found her seated alone by the window, in an
+attitude of deep dejection. She went up to her, and throwing her arms
+around her neck, burst into tears, weeping freely over her shoulder.
+Hagar quietly disengaged her arms, and gently pushed her off. Rosalia
+sank upon a cushion at her feet, and dropping her head upon her lap,
+sobbed out—
+
+“Hagar! oh! what _is_ the matter? Hagar! tell me, what _is_ the matter?
+Oh! dear me! The house grows more sorrowful every day! Time passes like
+a funeral train leading shortly to the grave. Oh! I feel faint, sick,
+dying of gloom, of coldness and darkness in seeing your sorrow and not
+being admitted to share it, and not being able to do anything to
+alleviate it. Hagar! tell me; perhaps I _can_ do something for you; I
+love you so much, dear Hagar! and surely _love_ can help sorrow to bear
+her burden. Oh! Hagar! let me do something for you!”
+
+She was looking _so_ beautiful! _so_ winsome! with her pleading, coaxing
+attitude and expression, with her soft white fingers pressed together,
+with her blue eyes raised floating in tenderness and love to her face.
+She was looking so beautiful! so graceful! so irresistibly charming in
+her childlike humility and gentleness! Hagar thought of her husband’s
+heart, and looked at Rosalia. The fire flamed in and out upon her
+cheeks, burned on her lips, and shot lightning through her eyes;—rising,
+she pushed Rosalia off, and walked away.
+
+“Oh! it is I! It is _I_, who have offended you somehow! what have I
+done, Hagar? dear Hagar!” exclaimed Rose, following her, weeping.
+
+“Nothing! nothing! Oh! go away!”
+
+“Have I not done something to offend you?”
+
+“Nothing, Rosalia! Oh leave the room; do!”
+
+“You are angry with me!”
+
+“No! no! not with _you_!”
+
+“With whom, then?”
+
+“Rosalia! leave the room this moment when I tell you; haven’t I said
+that I would not be questioned?”
+
+“Hagar! yes, I will go. One word, let me say one word, and then I _will_
+go. Hagar, I suppose it is Raymond—you are angry with him. Hagar! oh!
+_do not_ treat him so badly, cruelly; make up with him; please _do_; see
+how unhappy he is! see how hard he tries to be pleasant; but he cannot
+disguise his sorrow. Oh! dear me! what _does_ make you two fall out so?
+Oh! dear me! I do wish I was in Heaven—_all I love here do make me
+suffer so much! so much!_” and she fell sobbing into a chair, while the
+dark clouds lowered, and the rain pattered heavily upon the window.
+
+At last Rosalia arose and left the chamber, crossed the hall, and
+entered the nursery. Mrs. Barnes and the housekeeper were both engaged
+dressing the children; they were now nearly five months old, and when
+they saw Rosalia enter, both began to bound in their nurse’s arms, to
+crow and laugh, and hold out their hands joyously to Rosalia. The clouds
+fled from the young girl’s face before the morning sun of their
+innocence and love, and a tender smile softened her gentle countenance
+as she floated towards them, murmuring in low music—
+
+“God bless my darlings! God love my angels! _they_ are glad to see me
+_always_!”
+
+As the children were now dressed she sat down in a large chair, and
+received them both into her arms, saying, as they fondled on her—
+
+“Now, Mrs. Collins, and Mrs. Barnes, _both_ of you go down to breakfast
+_together_—you must breakfast together sociably such a dreary day as
+this; I will mind the babies till you come back.”
+
+It was the custom for one of the two matrons to remain in the nursery
+while the other took her meals. This morning, glad to be relieved by
+Rosalia’s kindness, they set the room in order, mended the fire, making
+it blaze cheerfully, and then, while Rose stood up with the children,
+they wheeled the easy chair in front of it, and left the room together.
+Rose resumed her seat in front of the blazing fire; it was a large,
+deep, soft chair, whose wide arms held the maiden and the babies very
+comfortably. Rose loved luxury, and she revelled with the babies in that
+easy chair, while the fire glowed before her, and the rain pattered
+without.
+
+Let me strike out a bird’s-eye view of this family as they now stood. It
+is but daguerreotyping the sky before the descent of the thunderbolt.
+Raymond walked gloomily up and down the dim vista of the two
+drawing-rooms, pausing now and then at the windows to look out upon the
+dense, dark clouds that hung like a pall over all things, and to listen
+to the beating rain. Hagar sat gloomily in her dressing-room, gloomily
+as we once saw her sit in her childhood in the attic of Heath Hall. Her
+elbows propped upon her knees, her pale face dropped in the palms of her
+hands, while her hair fell out of curl all over her; it was an attitude
+and expression of utter desolation.—The blackened sky, the beating rain,
+were unheeded in the deeper darkness of her own heart, in this deep
+darkness where was gathering the lightning, was lurking the thunderbolt.
+Rosalia still sat in the large chair playing with the babies, fondled by
+them, talking that sweet baby-talk, melodious, but unintelligible as a
+bird-song to any one but women and children.
+
+Then the door was thrown widely back, and Hagar stood within it, with
+her thin face thrown out in ghastly relief by her black hair and black
+dress; she came towards Rosalia and paused, gazing with an expression of
+anguish striking fiercely through her set eyes. Rosalia looked up in
+surprise and distress.
+
+“Give me the children, Rosalia! give them to me! they are mine! they are
+like me! they are _all_ mine! Give them here! You shall not wile _their_
+love from me also! Give! give them to me! they are my only consolation.
+_Why_ don’t you give them to me?” exclaimed she, wildly holding out her
+arms. Rosalia, in fear and bewilderment, gazed on her with dilated and
+dilating eyes, scarcely distinguishing, certainly not comprehending, one
+word of her wild appeal. “Give! give them to me!” again exclaimed Hagar,
+snatching the children to her bosom, “and go, Rosalia! go! go! go!”
+
+Rosalia got up from the chair, and pressing both small hands upon her
+white temples, stood in amazement.
+
+“WILL you go?”
+
+Rosalia dropped her hands, clasping them together, and so left the room,
+passed down stairs in a dreary, bewildering sorrow, and entered the
+dusky drawing-room. _Raymond Withers was reclining with veiled eyes, in
+a day-dream on the lounge._ Seeing him she went and sank down on the
+carpet by his side, dropping her head upon the side of the lounge in
+childlike sorrow and humility, exclaiming—
+
+“Oh! Raymond, my heart is broken, _broken_! I am chilled to death in
+this cold, _cold_ place—oh! Raymond, where on the wide sea are my
+friends? Send me to them—_do_, Raymond; I shall _die_ if I stay
+here—_die—die_! I shall!” and heart-breaking sobs burst from her lips
+between every sentence. Up sprang Raymond from his recumbent position,
+exclaiming as the fire shot through his spirit-piercing blue eyes—
+
+“Has Hagar! has that kite, that wild-cat of mine been teasing you, poor
+dove?”
+
+“Don’t! hush! no!—oh, don’t call her ill names! don’t—it is so dreadful
+in _you two_ to quarrel so!” He was looking straight in her face. “It
+kills me to see it, Raymond! Oh! do send me to Captain Wilde and Sophie.
+I cannot please you two, though I have tried so hard to be good—oh!
+haven’t I? But you don’t love me, and you don’t seem to love each other;
+and you make each other suffer so much—_you two!_ and you make _me_
+suffer so much—and great God! what is it all about?” Her tears gushed
+forth again, she buried her face in the cushions of the lounge, and
+sobbed as though her heart were struggling in its death throes. _His_
+manner changed; he governed himself, or rather he resumed his usual
+tranquillity of attitude and expression, leaning over her fair head,
+while his elbow rested on the end of the lounge, and his moist and
+dishevelled golden locks trailed over the delicate white hand that
+supported his cheek; with the other hand he stroked her hair, stroked it
+down and down, while her bosom rose and fell, and sobbed itself into
+quietness. She was at rest—sweetly at rest. It seemed as if, baby-like,
+she had wept herself sleepy there, kneeling on the carpet by his side,
+with her face upon the cushions of his lounge, his delicate hand
+stroking her head. She was going to sleep; the sobs and sighs came
+deeper and at long and longer intervals; at last they ceased entirely,
+her head gradually turned upon its side, and she lay there in the sweet,
+deep slumber of a child that has cried itself to sleep. How beautiful
+she was in her unconscious innocence! Her hands lay folded one over the
+other upon the cushion, and her side face rested upon them; tear-drops
+sparkled on her drooping eye-lashes and on her glowing cheeks like
+bright dew on the red rose; her fresh lips were slightly apart,
+revealing the small pearly teeth, and her golden hair fell in moist and
+tangled ringlets over her.
+
+He had tranquillized _her_ passion of grief, but now as he gazed down on
+her sweet face, watching the color deepen in her cheeks, watching the
+regular rise and fall of her beautiful bosom, and the quiver of her
+crimson lip, moved by her breathing, an emotion arose swelling, heaving
+in his breast, like the mighty power of the subterranean fire rising in
+the volcano. It was advancing upon, it was overwhelming him; he must
+escape—he called her—
+
+“Rosalia! Rosalia!” She started out of her slumber, and gazed up
+bewildered for a moment. “You must go to your own room, Rosalia; you are
+not well,” said he, looking away from her.
+
+“Alas! are you angry with me too? _You_, Raymond? Every one drives me
+away, every one! Oh! Father in heaven, what have I done? Hagar sent me
+away from her, and then from the children, and now _you_ send me off.”
+
+And the child dropped her head, and wept again.
+
+“Go to your room, Rose, go,” exclaimed Raymond, rising and walking away
+in strong agitation.
+
+“Oh! Raymond, you! _you, too!_ to grow cruel to me! Oh, Raymond, what
+have I done that every one should repulse me—every one that I love!” she
+cried, following him; “oh, Raymond, if I have done anything wrong, scold
+me; I had rather stay here with you and be scolded, than go away by
+myself; tell me what I have done, that you all should repulse me so
+much, that all I love should drive me from them?”
+
+He waved her a gesture of desperate rejection as he still walked away,
+until he reached the window, where he stood, setting his teeth sternly,
+folding his arms in a strong rivet, bracing every nerve, and staring
+with set eyes unconsciously through the panes; she followed him, stood
+by his side, pleading, cooing in her dove-like tones.
+
+“Girl! you will madden me! go! go!” he exclaimed, without turning
+around.
+
+“Tell me! just tell me how I have offended you all, Raymond? Oh! I am
+_so_ unhappy! so lonesome—no one loves me now! tell me why?” She laid
+her soft hand upon his arm, and, bending forward, looked up in his face
+with her tender and coaxing gaze.
+
+The effect was electrical! Turning, he suddenly caught and strained her
+to his bosom, exclaiming, “My flower! my dove! my lamb! my angel! Rose!
+_oh, Rose!_” and pressing burning kisses upon her brow and lips between
+every breath and word. “Love you! I love you; more than life, soul,
+Heaven, God! Love you! my joy, my destiny! _love you!_ let me have you
+and die! give yourself to me, and the next hour let me die, die!” His
+arm encircled her beautiful and shuddering form like a chain of fire,
+and hot kisses rained upon her face.
+
+And she! Tides of blood rolled up and over bosom, cheek, and brow, like
+flame, and passed, and then she grew faint and weak in his grasp, the
+color all paled in her cheeks, leaving them snowy white; the light fled
+from her eyes, leaving them dim and heavy with drooping lids—aye, the
+very brightness seemed to fade from her golden ringlets, leaving the
+pale yellow hair falling away from ashy brows and temples—she seemed
+fainting, dying in his embrace; alarmed, he looked at her—his reason
+returned—he bore her to the sofa, and laying her on it knelt by her
+side, gazed mournfully at her, half believing her to be expiring.
+
+“Rosalia! oh, God! what have I done!” She shuddered from head to foot.
+“Rosalia! oh, I am _so_ sorry, _so_ sorry, Rose!” She raised her heavy
+eyelids languidly, and fixed them sorrowfully on his face, then dropped
+them as a quick flush spread over her face, faded, and left her pale,
+paler than ever. “Rose! Rose! forgive me, I was mad, mad.” Again she
+looked at him mournfully, her pale lips moved, but no sound came thence.
+“Rosalia! oh, Rosalia! speak to me—say that you forgive me, or put your
+hand in mine in token of forgiveness!” She raised one pale hand feebly,
+but it fell heavily upon the sofa again. “You _do_ forgive me, Rosalia,
+my pure angel! my holy angel! you _do_ forgive me!” Rosalia shook her
+head sadly—Raymond dropped his face into his hands and groaned; soon he
+felt his hands touched by a soft hand that struck the whole “electric
+chain” of his being; dropping his hands he saw Rosalia looking sadly,
+lovingly at him, murmuring very faintly,
+
+“Forgive _me_, the fault was _mine_—mine _first_, mine _only_; the sin
+of ignorance—alas! I have nothing to forgive! forgive _me_!”
+
+“Rose! my Rose!” She sighed deeply. He knelt by her side and gazed
+mournfully in her face. She could not bear that gaze; raising her hands
+feebly she spread them over her face. He groaned “God! my God! why do I
+love you so! she was right after all—poor Hagar!” Deep sighs broke from
+Rosalia’s bosom; she made many feeble attempts to rise and go away; he
+did not attempt to prevent her; but an overpowering weakness overcame
+her; she yielded to the spell that held her enchained, and so she
+lay—her face concealed by the veil of golden curls she had dragged
+across it; her frame shuddering from time to time until she sank in the
+collapse of exhaustion. And there he knelt—reproaching himself bitterly,
+yet sinning on—gazing eagerly with his lips struck apart at her pale
+cheek through its glittering veil of hair, watching, silently praying
+for a responsive glance. At last, he said, “Rosalia! darling Rose, go to
+your room, love; it is not safe or well to stay here—go, Rose,” she gave
+him her hand, and he raised her up.
+
+He raised her up—she stood pale, trembling, bewildered, weak; and walked
+with tottering steps towards the door. He went and opened it—held it
+open for her—she passed; and as she passed, raised her eyes to his face,
+met his eyes full of anguish looking down upon hers, turned, and threw
+herself in his arms, exclaiming,
+
+“Oh, Raymond! Raymond! you are _so_ unhappy!—_I_ am so miserable to see
+you thus! Oh! Raymond, is it I? is it I that have made you so? Tell me!
+tell me! can I dissipate it?—can I drive your sadness away? Would my
+death do it, Raymond? I would _die_ for you! Oh! Raymond, it does not
+seem to me to be wrong to love you, love you so!—to love you so!” She
+hung heavily upon his bosom.
+
+“Go! go! go! go, Rose!—go, mad girl!” he cried, tearing her away from
+his bosom, and almost fiercely pushing her through the door, and
+shutting it abruptly upon her—then walking wildly up and down the floor,
+like a chafed tiger in his cage, grinding together his teeth, and
+exclaiming,
+
+“She loves me!—loves me!—loves me!—me first!—me only!—as she never loved
+before!”
+
+Rosalia crept slowly up the stairs—reached her own room, and threw
+herself upon her bed, her senses whirling in a bewildered maze. The
+sound of the pouring rain became painfully distinct in the dead silence.
+The dinner hour arrived. The servants came in to lay the cloth. Raymond
+Withers walked to the window to conceal his still unsubdued agitation.
+When all was ready, the ladies were, as usual, summoned by a message.
+Soon Hagar entered. Raymond met her at the door, with a troubled, gloomy
+look, and giving her his arm, conducted her to the table. He looked
+around, and uneasily watched the door, but did not inquire for Rosalia.
+She, also, waited for the entrance of the girl, expecting her every
+instant. At last she said to the servant in attendance,
+
+“Let Miss Aguilar know that dinner is ready.”
+
+The man left the room and soon returned—
+
+“Miss Aguilar is not well, and begs to be excused,” he said.
+
+They raised their eyes, and met each other’s gaze of inquiry at the same
+moment, but neither asked a question, or made a comment upon her
+absence—each was silent from a private motive of his or her own. Hagar
+supposed that her harshness had deeply wounded the sensitive girl (as it
+really had), and that that was the reason of her absence—while Raymond,
+of course, _knew_ the real cause.
+
+The dreary meal was over—they arose from the table—Hagar was preparing
+to leave the room. Raymond went after her, and took her hand, looking
+with a troubled expression into her face—she met that strange look with
+a sad, inquiring gaze.
+
+“Where are you going, Hagar?”
+
+“Up stairs.”
+
+“Will you not stay, and pass the afternoon with _me_, Hagar?”
+
+She looked at him in anxious, in sorrowful perplexity.
+
+“_Do_, Hagar—I need you so much now!”
+
+“Ah! for want of more attractive company!” exclaimed she; and laughing
+bitterly, threw off his hand, and left the room.
+
+Hagar, half repenting her harshness to Rosalia, and entirely ignorant of
+the scene that followed, went to the girl’s room, to inquire concerning
+her health. She entered it. Rosalia was lying on the bed, with both open
+hands spread over her face—pressed upon her face—she did not remove them
+as Hagar entered. This Hagar attributed to resentment. She went and
+stood by her bed in silence an instant, and then called to her—
+
+“Rosalia!”
+
+She started—shuddered.
+
+“Are you ill, Rosalia?”
+
+A silent nod was her reply.
+
+“Can I do anything for you?”
+
+She shook her head, in mournful negation.
+
+“Will you have anything?—speak!”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Where are you ill?”
+
+“All over.”
+
+“What _will_ you have, Rosalia?”
+
+“_Solitude!_”
+
+“Are you angry, Rose?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I suspect you are!”
+
+“No.”
+
+Hagar went up to her, and drew her hands away from her face. The hands
+were icy cold—the face snowy pale. To avoid Hagar’s glance, she closed
+her eyes, while a shudder ran all over her frame. Hagar went into her
+own room, poured out a glass of wine, and brought it to her. She waved
+it off, and turned her face to the wall. After some further fruitless
+attempts to aid her, and after finding that all her efforts increased
+the girl’s distress, Hagar left the room, thoroughly persuaded that
+Rosalia was sulking with _her_, and determining to send Mrs. Collins in
+to her. The housekeeper entered—there was a sternness about the
+expression of her shut mouth and solid-looking chin, that we have never
+seen there before, as she looked at the languid girl.
+
+“What is the matter, Miss Aguilar?” she inquired, rather abruptly.
+
+Rose uncovered her face, and looking up with an agonized, an imploring
+expression, said—
+
+“I am sick all over, and I want to go to Sophie!”
+
+“I think if that were possible it would be very well.”
+
+“Is it not possible, then—can’t I—oh, _can’t_ I go?”
+
+“Your friends are on the sea, Miss Aguilar, I presume.”
+
+“And is there _no_ way to get to them—no way, oh, my God! to escape?”
+
+“I do not know much of these things, Miss Aguilar, but I should think it
+were quite out of the question.”
+
+“No way, oh! my God, to escape!”
+
+“What do you mean, Miss Aguilar, by that?”
+
+“I mean—oh! I mean—that I am _crazy_—and have no one to love me and take
+care of me _till I come to my senses_!” said Rose, pressing her temples.
+“I am done to death—_done to death_!”
+
+“I do not understand you, Miss Aguilar,” said the old lady, seating
+herself, and looking steadily and severely at the pale girl.
+
+“Don’t look so hard at me, Mrs. Collins, please don’t—oh! I am
+_crazy_!—yes, I must be!—yes, I must be! Oh! Mrs. Collins, I have been
+delirious—delirious within the last hour, and I am insane still!—_Insane
+still!_ I—oh! my God!—I did not know before that people _could_ be crazy
+and _know_, and not be able to get well!”
+
+“_What has turned you crazy, Miss Aguilar?_”
+
+“Oh! don’t call me ‘Miss Aguilar,’ _every time_, and don’t look so hard
+at me!” cried Rose, covering her face with her hands.
+
+“GOD is looking at you, Miss Aguilar, and you cannot cover your face
+from Him!” said the old lady, severely.
+
+“I do not wish to, indeed,” replied Rose, meekly, uncovering her face
+again, “I do not wish to; but I _do_ wish He would take me away—would
+catch me up from the earth—would send my angel mother to fetch me!”
+
+Mrs. Collins did not reply to this; she sat the bed, seemingly unwilling
+to converse with her. At last she said—
+
+“Did you ever mention to your cousin your wish to return to Maryland,
+Miss Aguilar?”
+
+“No, I did not.”
+
+The old lady looked disapprobation, but inquired—
+
+“May I presume to ask _why_, Miss Aguilar?”
+
+“I have made several attempts, but Hagar gives me no opportunity of
+speaking to her at all!”
+
+“Not to-day, Miss Aguilar?—not a half hour before this?”
+
+“Oh, to-day—to-day—I _could_ not talk to her—could not _look_ at her or
+bear her look!”
+
+The old lady now grew positively pale, and shrank away from the side of
+the girl. Rosalia followed the gesture with deprecating eyes.
+
+“You must excuse me, Miss Aguilar, but all this is very horrible—very!”
+
+She was silent again for a long time, and then she said—
+
+“You spoke, Miss Aguilar, of your wish to follow your friend, Mrs.
+Wilde; as that is quite impossible, why not now go back to Maryland to
+your future moth—to Mrs. Buncombe?”
+
+“Yes, yes; I will do that, if they will let me—I wish to do it!”
+
+“Mrs. Withers will very gladly assist your departure, Miss Aguilar.”
+
+“Will _you_ ask her?”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“Go now and do it; let it all be arranged during these rainy days, so
+that as soon as the bad weather is over I shall be able to set out; it
+is no use to put off the journey until we can write to Emily and she can
+reply to our letter or come after me; _that_ would make the interval too
+long. Some one will be travelling down to Washington just at this
+season. Yes, members of Congress will be going soon, and Hagar can send
+me with some gentleman’s family; or, at all events, I can travel alone—I
+am not afraid of water now! not now! My God! not of death in any shape
+or form. Go now! go to Hagar, Mrs. Collins!”
+
+The old lady arose and left the room, full of the darkest suspicions;
+she found Hagar in the nursery. After a little desultory conversation,
+she remarked, as composedly as she could—
+
+“I have just come from the chamber of Miss Aguilar; I think there is
+nothing as yet the matter with her health of body; her mind seems
+disturbed, disordered, depressed.”
+
+Hagar, of course, knew _that_; but attributed it to the wounded
+spirit—wounded by her own recent harshness. The old lady continued—
+
+“And she expresses a wish to return to Maryland!”
+
+“Indeed! Does she?” exclaimed Hagar, looking up.
+
+“Yes, and I think the change of air and scene would benefit her
+spirits.”
+
+The color was coming back to Hagar’s cheek, and the light to her eye.
+The old lady went on to say—
+
+“Her health is delicate, I think, and our climate is severe—very
+severe—and if I might venture, I should advise that she be sent down
+without delay to Maryland, to spend the winter.”
+
+Hagar was sitting in an attitude of aroused and hopeful thought, with
+her elbow resting on the crib, finger on her lip and eyes raised, while
+life and light were tiding back, till face and ringlets flashed bright
+again.
+
+“And she really wishes this, Mrs. Collins?”
+
+“She really does.”
+
+“Does she complain of her position here?”
+
+“N-no, not exactly—certainly she complains of _no one_—so far from that,
+she speaks as usual with the utmost affection of all.”
+
+Mrs. Collins, noticing the eloquent expression of returning hope upon
+Hagar’s face, ventured to remark—
+
+“And there are _other_ reasons why this journey should be hurried, Mrs.
+Withers”—
+
+But, with a dignified gesture of the hand, Hagar arrested her speech.
+
+“No matter for other reasons, Mrs. Collins; you have given enough. I
+will write immediately to Mrs. Buncombe, and you will be so kind as to
+go to Miss Aguilar’s room, and tell her that every arrangement shall be
+made for her journey without delay; tell her I should like to see and
+converse with her as soon as she feels well enough to receive me; and as
+you go, send the housemaid in to me.”
+
+The housekeeper left the room, and soon the maid entered it.
+
+“Sarah, go to Miss Aguilar, and tell her that you are ready to assist
+her in preparing her wardrobe for her journey—she is going to make a
+visit.”
+
+Raymond received the news of Rosalia’s intended departure in gloomy
+silence. It was a strange thing to see Raymond Withers gloomy—he who had
+borne himself through all scenes with such gay nonchalance. Rosalia
+appeared at the breakfast-table next morning, looking pale and pensive,
+and withdrew from it as soon as she possibly could.
+
+“That girl looks badly,” remarked Raymond, making an effort at
+conversation.
+
+“Yes,” replied Hagar.
+
+“Have you taken it into consideration that she cannot travel alone down
+South?”
+
+“Yes; she wishes you to inquire and procure for her an escort.”
+
+“I will do so,” said he, and turned to receive the packet of letters and
+papers from the servant, who had just brought them from the Post-office.
+He opened one or two letters, ran his eyes over them, and carelessly
+threw them aside. One, however, caught his particular attention; he
+started on seeing it—he read it with great care. Hagar arose to leave
+the room, but he arrested her by a gesture; she returned and sat down;
+he continued his reading carefully to the end, folded the letter, and
+holding it in his hand, fell into thought, lost consciousness of his
+wife’s presence, and was only aroused from his lethargy by her rising a
+second time to leave the room.
+
+“Stay, Hagar,” said he.
+
+“But wherefore? I wish to go to the children, and you seem quite
+absorbed in thought; no bad news I trust, though indeed there is no one
+from whom it is likely we should hear bad news.”
+
+“No, there is no bad news—but this _is_ rather an important mail,” said
+he, laying the letter on the table before her. “You may remember that
+Wilde has been teasing me for a long time to accept his influence in
+procuring me a post under the present administration, with which his
+political friends have considerable influence. I laughingly accepted his
+kind offer when he was here last fall, and permitted him to write his
+friends, Secretary ——, and Judge ——, about me. Here is the result. I
+need not say that it was wholly unexpected by me.”
+
+He handed her the letter—it was a notification of his appointment to the
+post of Consul at the port of ——, in the Mediterranean.
+
+“And you will accept it?” inquired she.
+
+“And I will accept it.”
+
+“And take your family with you.”
+
+“By no means, love—what should I do with you and the children on the
+voyage? in your present condition of nervous irritability too? It is not
+to be thought of for an instant!”
+
+“Oh! Raymond,” she pleaded, involuntarily clasping her hands and raising
+her eyes imploringly to his face; “oh! Raymond!”
+
+“Oh, _nonsense_, love! no extravagance, now, I beg of you—not one word,
+Hagar! I cannot bear it, cannot be annoyed, cannot!”
+
+“But, Raymond!” she persisted, laying her small hand gently on his arm,
+and looking up in his face seeking to catch his eye—“but, Raymond!”
+
+“But _folly_, Hagar! do not trouble me; I will have no controversy about
+this—I hate controversy, as you very well know—I will do what I think
+best for us all—and you must be content with that—or _appear_ content,
+and stop troubling me!” said he, averting his face.
+
+She was standing by his side, leaning over his arm, and now she passed
+her hand up around his head, and trying gently to turn it around, said,
+“Raymond, look at me; _please_ look in my face.” He looked down in her
+eyes inquiringly. She said lowly, gently, “I have a secret to tell you,
+Raymond; before you come back, I shall be a mother _again_,” and dropped
+her head upon his bosom too soon to see the slightly startled eye and
+the frown of vexation that contracted his smooth brow as he held her
+there; presently he led her to a chair and seated her—stood by her half
+embracing her shoulder, stroking her head. “_Now_ you will not go,
+Raymond; or if you go, you will take us with you, will you not?”
+
+He did not reply for some time, and then he replied gently, “Be
+reasonable, Hagar, always. I am sorry, Hagar, for this—yet you know,
+love, that men frequently have to leave their wives under such
+circumstances; men of the army and navy all have this trial to bear.”
+
+“But it is _their_ profession, _their_ duty, _they_ cannot avoid it; but
+you can, can you not, dear Raymond? You can, _at least_, take us with
+you; a privilege which, with very rare exceptions, is not enjoyed by
+those in the professions you name.”
+
+“Dear Hagar, you try my patience! Come, you are taking advantage of my
+sympathies at this moment, to worry me; have done with it—listen to me!
+this administration is in its third year—I shall probably hold this
+office nearly two years; if the same party remain in power, I shall
+probably continue to hold it—in which case I shall send for you and your
+children.”
+
+“And you _will_ go?”
+
+“Yes, love.”
+
+“And it will be rather more than a year, nearly two years, before you
+return or send for us?”
+
+“Yes, love, but what is that? Officers commonly leave their wives for
+_three_ years at a time. Come, Hagar! do not be selfish, brace yourself
+to bear a little trial that is not an unusual one among your sex.”
+
+“Oh! but this is so sudden! Great God!” and Hagar, clasping her hands,
+left the drawing-room and went to the nursery. Raymond Withers walked up
+and down the two rooms, with his hands clasped behind his back, with a
+fixed eye and a curdled cheek, not noticing the boy who entered to clear
+the table, and who was watching him attentively, and who on going to the
+kitchen, remarked in a suppressed whisper to the cook,
+
+“Well! I never did see any man look so much as though he were making a
+sale of himself to the devil, as our Mr. Withers does!”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+                             THE LONE ONE.
+
+            What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
+              What stamps the wrinkle deepest on the brow?
+            To view each loved one blighted on life’s page,
+              And be alone on earth—as I am now.
+
+
+The preparations for Rosalia’s departure for Maryland went on rapidly. A
+letter had been received from Emily Buncombe, in reply to the one
+written by Hagar, in which she expressed the great degree of pleasure
+with which she should expect the arrival of her dear adopted daughter
+Rosalia. Rose had wept over the letter—there was none of the pleasure
+expressed in her countenance, that might naturally have been expected.
+Raymond observed it, but _he_ appeared fully occupied with the winding
+up of his business, and with making arrangements for a visit to
+Washington, to receive his credentials previous to his departure on his
+foreign mission. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, that
+Raymond Withers should propose to take his young ward and cousin under
+his escort for the journey, and to see her safe in the house of her
+future mother-in-law—so perfectly natural and proper, that Hagar could
+find no word to say in objection—and Rosalia—but when did Rose ever
+object to any course proposed for her by another? She went on
+sorrowfully with her quiet preparations, and in a few days these were
+completed. The day of their departure drew near, and Hagar sank deeper
+into despair, that sometimes broke out into expressions of wildest
+anguish. Raymond wore a dark cloud of gloomy abstraction, of morose
+determination, from which the lightnings of a sudden anger would
+sometimes flash, when he would be exasperated by the wild and passionate
+grief and resistance of Hagar—sudden outbreaks of phrensied opposition
+to the overwhelming destiny coming on, slowly coming on, surely coming
+on—she felt it.
+
+“It is unreasonable, Hagar, this wild grief at the thoughts of an
+absence of but two weeks, Hagar, only two weeks. I shall be back again
+in even _less_ time, probably, and remain with you a month before my
+final departure.”
+
+“Ah! ah!”
+
+“Do you not believe me, then?”
+
+“Yes, I believe you! I believe you! but—”
+
+“But, _what_?”
+
+“I cannot! cannot shake off this avalanche of cold horror from my
+soul—it seems like direst doom bearing me down and down to perdition; it
+seems as though the end of all things were at hand.”
+
+“Hagar, it is your health, morbid nerves—you will get over this in a few
+days, after I am gone.”
+
+“After you are gone—yes, after you are gone, when all is silent for want
+of your voice, when all is dark for want of your glance, when my whole
+soul will starve for your presence—but you will no longer see my
+paleness, hear my moaning, or be troubled with my heart’s sorrow!” she
+would exclaim wildly and bitterly.
+
+“No more of this! you SHALL NOT excite yourself thus in my presence. I
+WILL NOT have it, you selfish and absurd woman! bah! why do you compel
+me to speak to you in this manner? be easy, love! go play with the
+babies, sing a song, take a ride, practise a piece of music, swallow an
+opiate, read a novel—do anything, rather than cling about and around me
+so tightly, that I shall have to hurt you in shaking you off. Go! go lie
+down, read a play.”
+
+“Read a play!” exclaimed she, bitterly.
+
+“Well, go hang yourself, then!” exclaimed he, savagely, breaking from
+her, flinging himself out of the room, and slamming the door after him.
+
+Hagar stood where he had left her, transfixed with astonishment; this
+was the first occasion upon which she had ever seen him depart from the
+Chesterfieldian propriety of his usual self-possession. Slowly she
+recovered her senses; slowly left the room and sought her children. A
+death-like calmness settled on her pallid brow, she made no further
+opposition to his plans, asked no further questions of his purposes.
+
+The night before the parting came. Their trunks were all down in the
+piazza—the carriage was even packed with the small bundles, so that
+there should be as little delay as possible in the morning, as they
+wished to reach the village in time to meet the morning boat, which
+passed about the break of day. Supper was served an hour earlier, so
+that they might all retire to rest sooner, and be up in time. At that
+supper and during that evening, Hagar’s manner was quiet—quiet as death,
+except that from under her heavy pallid eyelids, flamed out a gloomy,
+baleful fire, as she would fix her eyes upon Rosalia; in her cheek came
+in and out a flickering fire; her bosom would heave, her teeth snap with
+a spring, and her hand clinch convulsively, while a spasm would convulse
+her form. Raymond watched her with visible anxiety, sought to catch her
+now murky and fiery eye; in vain—he could not control or affect her in
+any way. They arose from the table.
+
+“Give us one more song in this room, Rosalia, before you leave it,” said
+Raymond Withers, leading her to the instrument—at the touch of his hand,
+waves of blood bathed the girl’s bosom, neck, and face, as a fire bath,
+and then receding, left her ashy pale—and tottering on the verge of a
+swoon, she sank into the music-chair, ran her fingers feebly and
+mechanically over the keys, striking a faint prelude, opened her lips to
+sing, stopped, dropped her head upon the music, and burst into
+tears—then rising suddenly, left the room. Neither Raymond nor Hagar
+attempted to prevent her—they looked at each other.
+
+“What an evening!—my last evening at home!”
+
+“Your _last_!”
+
+“Well! my last for a week or two.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“What is the matter with _you_ this evening, Mistress Hagar?”
+
+“I want a ride, an opiate, or a novel!” laughed she, sardonically, then
+suddenly she sank into a chair, and subsided into the gloom of her
+former manner—an excited gloom like a smouldering fire—he watched her
+uneasily.
+
+“Hagar.”
+
+“Well!”
+
+“Where are your children?”
+
+“Asleep in the nursery, of course; where else should they be?”
+
+“Do you not usually see them to bed yourself at this hour?”
+
+“Yes! but to-night I put them to sleep an hour earlier, that _I_ might
+spend the evening—_your last evening_, Raymond, with you!” exclaimed
+she, sarcastically.
+
+“Hagar! there is a lurking phrensy in your look and manner that annoys
+me.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Makes me uneasy.”
+
+“At last!”
+
+“There is danger in you.”
+
+“THERE IS!” she exclaimed, starting with wild energy.
+
+“HAGAR!”
+
+He caught her burning hands and held them with the strength of a vice,
+trying to catch her fiery and flying glances; at last they fell and
+struck into his own, quenching their fire in the cold, calm, liquid gaze
+of his mesmerizing eyes, then—
+
+“Hagar!” he said, very softly, “why, what a temperament you have—will
+_nothing_ quiet you?”
+
+She kept her gloomy eyes fixed upon him, and was about to reply, when
+the door opened softly, and Rosalia re-entered the room. Hagar started
+violently, and shuddered at her sudden apparition, but Raymond continued
+to hold one hand to prevent her moving, as Rosalia passed up to the
+piano, and resuming her seat, with an air of forced calmness, said—
+
+“I have come back to sing you the song, as this is the last evening of
+my stay.”
+
+There was an air of effort, of painful effort, about her singing and her
+deportment generally, very distressing to see, as if the poor girl had
+forced herself to a measure exceedingly repugnant to herself, for the
+sake of giving pleasure, or of deprecating blame. Raymond did not
+approach her while she sang; indeed he dared not yet leave the side of
+Hagar, who was now looking more like a half mesmerized maniac than
+anything else. By the time Rosalia had ceased singing, a servant entered
+with the chamber lamps on a waiter, and accepting that as a signal for
+breaking up, Raymond handed one to Rose, and bidding her good night,
+opened the door and dismissed her. Hagar, with wild eyes, sprang
+suddenly past him, and arresting Rose by grasping her arm, exclaimed,
+
+“Rosalia! secure your door on the inside to-night! _do it!_” and letting
+fall her arm she returned to the room, and sank into her seat. Raymond
+was standing before her with folded arms and severe brow.
+
+“What is the meaning of this new phrensy, Hagar?”
+
+She looked up at him with fiery and bloodshot eyes.
+
+“Raymond! I am mad! I am terrified! I am in the power of a passion I
+cannot control! a fiend I cannot resist! All this evening! all this
+evening! I have been impelled by an almost irresistible impulse!
+attracted by a terrible fascination! _to a crime!_ _to a_ CRIME! hold
+me, hold me, Raymond! keep me away from myself—I am going mad! I am! I
+am!” her eyes were fiercely blazing wide, and every vein and nerve
+visibly throbbing. He went to the side-board, poured out and handed her
+a large glass of water, which she immediately drained. Then he leaned
+his elbow on the table, and bending forward, spoke to her—
+
+“See here, Hagar, you _are not_ mad, and you _shall not_ go mad! Listen
+to me, and I will bring you to your reason very soon, and very
+thoroughly. You give way to all sorts of wild impulses—always _did_,
+always _will_—extravagant in every emotion, frantic in every passion;
+from the love of your children to the hatred of your fancied rival; from
+the adoration visited upon me to the worship tendered God; from your
+taste for horses, to your talent for harmony; all, all extravagance; I
+naturally expect it from you; but there is a limit to your license,
+mistress; you are not to grow malignant or dangerous in any way;
+harmless and quiet lunatics may go at large; phrensied, mad women must
+be confined; harmless lunatics may be permitted to remain in the house
+with children, maniacs must be kept away from them. I am going to leave
+the country. I cannot think of leaving my children within reach of a
+woman, subject to visitations of irresistible impulses and terrible
+fascinations to deeds of blood—I must see her calm. You are calm now, I
+think, Hagar! quite cooled down, are you not? Say, Hagar?”
+
+She was. The color had all faded away from her face, and she sat with
+haggard eyes fixed upon her clasped hands.
+
+“Will you retire to rest now, as we leave so early in the morning?”
+
+She arose and walked quietly to her room—he followed her after a while.
+She did not sleep all night, but lay quietly with her fingers pressed
+around her forehead. Before the first faint grey of morning dawned, Mrs.
+Collins rapped at their door to say that breakfast was ready. In half an
+hour from that the travellers had dressed, breakfasted, and stood
+grouped in the chilly hall, while the carriage was rolling up to the
+door. It stood still—the driver jumped down, opened the door, let down
+the steps, and remained waiting by its side.
+
+“Hagar!” said Raymond Withers, turning pale, as he went to her and
+opened his arms.
+
+“You last—you last!” she exclaimed, hastily kissing Rosalia, and
+turning, throwing herself into his arms.
+
+“Come, Rosalia,” said he, and drawing her arm through his own, and
+descending the stone stairs, he handed the pale and trembling girl into
+the carriage—she turned around to take a last view of her late home, and
+her eye fell upon _this picture_, a picture ever after distinctly
+present to her mind—the portico, with its slender white marble pillars
+visible in the grey of the morning, the front door partly open,
+revealing the lamplight in the passage-way, which struck across the
+stone floor and fell upon the haggard form and face of Hagar, as she
+stood there in her desolation, as she stood there leaning against the
+pillar, with her pale countenance struck out into ghastly relief by the
+dishevelled black hair falling down each side of her cheeks, and meeting
+the black boddice of her dress; but one glimpse Rosalia caught of that
+death-like face seen through the cold grey morning light, and against
+and intercepting the glancing and oblique rays of the gleaming
+lamplight, but one glimpse as the carriage door closed upon her, yet
+that despairing look was never absent from her mind; it went with her on
+her journey, pursued her through life, and unto death. The carriage
+rolled away, and Hagar, turning, fell lifeless upon the threshold of her
+own door!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+                           THE TEMPTED ANGEL.
+
+                         “A spirit pure as hers
+               Is always pure, e’en when it errs,
+               As sunshine broken in the rill,
+               Though turned astray is sunshine still.”
+                                                   MOORE.
+
+
+“You are weeping, Rosalia; why do you weep?” asked Raymond Withers,
+taking the seat by her side as soon as the carriage door was closed upon
+them; “why do you weep so, dear Rosalia?”
+
+“Alas!”
+
+“And why ‘alas,’ Rose?”
+
+“Hagar! Hagar!”
+
+“And what about her?”
+
+“She suffers so! she suffers so!”
+
+“_Can_ she suffer, Rosalia? _can_ her fierce, high nature suffer _at
+all_, Rosalia?”
+
+“Oh, can’t you see it; can’t you see it?”
+
+“I can see she is angry and defiant; but for the rest, Rosalia, I never
+saw her shed a tear in my life; did you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“When _you_ suffer you weep, do you not?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Always?”
+
+“Oh, yes!”
+
+“Very well then, Rose; when you see or hear that Hagar Withers _weeps_,
+believe that she sorrows, and not _till_ then; you are weeping still;
+weep on my bosom, Rose!” and he drew her within his arms and laid her
+head against his breast.
+
+The carriage stopped at the steamboat hotel upon the river’s side, the
+boat had not yet arrived, though day was breaking fast, and the Eastern
+horizon already looking rosy. Raymond Withers took Rosalia into the
+parlor of the hotel, and having seated her, went out and dismissed the
+carriage, and returning to her, said,
+
+“Remain here, dear Rosalia, until I step to the Post-office to see if
+there be any letter come in last night’s mail for any of us. I will
+return in five minutes.”
+
+He went out. The Post-office was near at hand; he reached it, and had
+just received a packet of letters and papers, when the sound of the
+approaching boat warned him to hurry on. Giving orders to a porter to
+carry their baggage on board, he hurried in, took Rosalia under his arm,
+hastened down to the beach, went on board, and the next moment they were
+carried rapidly down the river. Rosalia went into the ladies’ cabin to
+put off her bonnet, and Raymond retired to read his letters. One letter
+fixed his attention; it was directed in a well known hand, and
+postmarked Norfolk; he walked up and down the guards of the boat buried
+in deep thought; at length he went to the door of the ladies’ cabin, and
+calling the stewardess, told her to request Miss Aguilar to throw on her
+shawl and come up. Rosalia soon appeared at the head of the gangway. He
+offered her his arm and carried her up to the hurricane deck, that was
+at this hour vacant; they sat down on one of the rude benches
+(steamboats were not the floating palaces _then_ that they are _now_),
+the sun was just rising, and lighting up into flashing splendor the
+gorgeous glories of the landscape, the river flowed like liquid gold
+between high banks of agate and of emerald; but it was not upon the
+magnificent river scenery that he looked.
+
+“Rosalia, I have a letter here from Gusty May.”
+
+She changed color.
+
+“His ship, or rather Captain Wilde’s ship, has been in an engagement!”
+
+“Oh, my God!”
+
+“Hush—all your friends are safe.”
+
+“But, oh! _somebody’s_ friends are killed, or wounded!”
+
+“Probably, my sweet girl; but they have been in an engagement and taken
+a prize—captured a slave ship!”
+
+“Oh, sweet Providence! Sophie exposed in a battle with a pirate!”
+
+“But, my gentle girl, Sophie is _well_—but they have captured a prize,
+and Gusty May has been intrusted with the command of the vessel, and has
+brought it home—that is, to Norfolk!”
+
+“To Norfolk! Gusty now in Norfolk!” exclaimed Rosalia, growing pale.
+
+“Yes; and he writes that just as soon as he can obtain leave of absence,
+he is coming to see you”—
+
+Rosalia trembled so much that he had to pass his arm around her waist to
+keep her in her seat.
+
+“He says that he intends to call at Churchill’s Point to see his mother
+on his way to see us”—
+
+Rosalia seemed upon the verge of a swoon; he tightened his hold around
+her waist and went on speaking—
+
+“He incloses this letter to you,” and opening his own envelope, Raymond
+Withers took out a delicately folded letter and handed it to her; she
+received it with a trembling hand, broke the seal, glanced over the
+contents, the letter dropped from her stiffening fingers, her face grew
+white as death, her lips paled and fell apart, her eyes closed, and she
+sank into a swoon upon his bosom. He held her there without alarm or
+embarrassment; he stooped and picked up the letter she had let fall. He
+glanced over it—it was full of the youthful lover’s exultant young life;
+one page was filled with glowing accounts of the battle, the victory,
+the prize; another with passionate protestations of love, fervent
+aspirations after a speedy re-union, &c., &c.; but upon the page upon
+which her eyes had been fixed when she swooned, was an expression of a
+hope that she would bestow her hand upon him during his present visit,
+assuring her that he bore with him letters to that effect from Captain
+Wilde and from Sophie. Rosalia opened her eyes just before he finished
+reading it. He raised her partly off his arm, and said,
+
+“Well, Rosalia, I have read your letter or the greater part of it, do
+you care?”
+
+“No—oh, no!”
+
+“Well, Rosalia, you will probably meet your betrothed at the house of
+your intended mother-in-law.”
+
+“Oh, I had rather die! die!”
+
+“Rosalia!”
+
+“Oh, I had! I had a _thousand times_ rather die than _meet_ him! much
+less marry him!”
+
+“Rosalia, there is one way to avoid it.”
+
+She looked at him in painful inquiry.
+
+“Go with me to the Mediterranean!”
+
+She started violently—again the blood rushed in torrents to her face,
+and passing, left it pale as marble. She did not attempt a reply in
+words—he continued,
+
+“Captain Wilde is cruising in the Mediterranean. Sophie is either with
+him or residing with the family of some English or American Consul at
+some convenient seaport. I can easily find out. I can very easily take
+you to them, to Captain and Mrs. Wilde, if you would prefer that to
+living with Mrs. Buncombe.”
+
+“Oh, yes, indeed I should so prefer it, greatly prefer it, but could it
+be done? is it right that it should be done? Will Mrs. Buncombe think it
+proper? and will Hagar approve of it? I wish this letter had come a day
+sooner, so that we might have consulted Hagar!”
+
+Raymond Withers smiled a strange smile as he said,
+
+“Whatever Mrs. Buncombe may say or think, I do not imagine that Hagar
+will be much surprised, or that Sophie Wilde will fail to give you a
+most enthusiastic welcome _when she sees you_!”
+
+“If I thought it were possible, that is to say, convenient and agreeable
+all around, and perfectly right and proper in every respect, I—oh, I
+should be so happy to go! but though I do not know _why_, indeed, I am
+afraid it is not right.”
+
+“Would _I_ suggest a measure to you, Rosalia, that is not right?” he
+asked, reproachfully.
+
+“No, no—oh, certainly not—I did not mean _that_.” He looked at her
+steadily.
+
+“And yet I don’t know! I don’t know! Why do you look at me so? Why do
+you look at me so—growing beautiful and more beautiful every
+instant—growing bright and brighter until you seem, not a man, but a
+star, a sun flashing into my very _brain_, bewildering, making me dizzy!
+striking me blind with light! Ah! I am delirious again! Save me, Sophie!
+save me, mother!” and with a sharp cry, half laugh, half shriek, she
+fell into his arms. He stooped his head and whispered,
+
+“You are mine, _mine_, MINE! Rosalia, I have manœuvred, intrigued, and
+waited for this hour. I have brought a high heart to the earth, trodden
+a proud heart to the dust, crushed a strong heart to death in pursuit of
+this hour. You are mine, MINE, girl! I have bought you with a price, a
+high price! I have given up country, home, wife, and children; resigned
+integrity, pride, and ambition, and risked fair fame. Ah, God! I pay
+dearly for you, Rosalia!”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three weeks from this day Rosalia sat alone in a private parlor in one
+of the principal hotels in Washington. It was mid-winter, yet the room
+was warm, and she reclined in a snowy white muslin robe upon a crimson
+sofa that was drawn up in front of the glowing coal fire; her head
+rested on her arm upon the end of the lounge. She was changed even in
+these three weeks. The round, elastic rosy cheeks, whose bloom was
+shaded faintly and fairly off towards the transparent and azure veined
+temples, and the snowy chin and brow were changed, all were changed—the
+beautiful faint rose glow that had overspread her lovely baby-face, had
+now withdrawn and collected itself in one burning fever spot in either
+cheek, leaving her brow and temples pallid; and the liquid and floating
+light of her soft blue eyes, had now concentrated in one intense fiery
+spark in the centre of either pupil. Her attitude was still as death,
+yet an air of suppressed excitement was visible in every feature. The
+door opened, and she started up into a sitting position, as Raymond
+Withers entered; _he_ had changed _back again_, having regained all his
+old accustomed ease and eloquence; he wheeled a large easy chair to the
+fire and sank down among its cushions.
+
+“Rosalia, we leave Washington in the Norfolk boat at six o’clock
+to-morrow morning.”
+
+“Have you heard from Hagar?” asked she, faintly.
+
+“No, not a word—she is sulking, never mind her, Rose,” replied he, an
+expression of pain traversing his countenance, nevertheless. “_Why_
+recall her?”
+
+“I do not—she is ever, ever, _ever_ before me! her pale face! oh! pale
+like that of a victim strained upon the rack! I believe Hagar is dead
+and haunts me! Oh, let me go away, Raymond! let me leave you!” and her
+face suddenly grew sharp and white in anguish. He looked at her
+uneasily.
+
+“Rose!”
+
+She raised her eyes to his beautiful and resplendent countenance, and
+her own softened. He went and sat down by her side, and caressing her
+gently, said,
+
+“Rose, dear, I am no kidnapper, no pirate. I will take with me no
+unwilling companion. Speak, Rose, you shall have your will in this.
+Listen, dear, the Arrow steamboat in which we embark to-morrow
+morning, the boat that is to take me to Norfolk where the brig Argus
+awaits to convey me across the Atlantic to my destination on the
+Mediterranean—that boat you will recollect passes immediately by
+Churchill Point—how easy, Rose, to put you ashore there, where you are
+already expected—where Mrs. Buncombe already looks for you with
+impatience.”
+
+Rosalia shook as with an ague fit.
+
+“Where your betrothed, who has, no doubt, already reached there on his
+way to the Rialto, and who, having heard of your hourly expected
+arrival, awaits you with all a lover’s ardor, will meet you with all a
+lover’s enthusiasm—come, what do you say, Rose? come, Rose, come? I have
+a letter to write in which I must be guided by your decision! Come,
+Rose! come! Shall I put you on shore at Churchill Point?”
+
+“_Now_!” she exclaimed, in a tone of bitterest anguish. “_Now!_”
+
+“Well, then go back to the Rialto, return to Hagar.”
+
+“To Hagar!” she gasped, as a sharp spasm convulsed her features. “To
+Hagar! great God! death, _death_ rather.”
+
+He waited until her fearful excitement subsided, and then, while he
+gently and softly caressed and soothed her into quietude, he murmured in
+a low, sedative tone,
+
+“I know it all, dear—I know how utterly impossible it is for you to go
+to either. I only set the plans before you, that you might _feel_ the
+impossibility as deeply as I knew the impracticability of either
+project—and now you _do_ feel it! and now, my gentle dove, be
+quiet—nestle sweetly in the only bosom open to you in the whole world;”
+and he drew her within his arms and kissed away her tears. Presently,
+arising, he said, “Now I must leave you, to write a letter, love.”
+
+And going to his chamber he sat down and penned a short missive to
+Hagar. It was as follows:—
+
+
+                                       INDIAN QUEEN HOTEL,             }
+                                     Washington City, Jan. 22, 182-. }
+
+  Dearest Hagar, mine only one—
+
+  Yes, mine _only_ Hagar—there is but one Hagar, can be but one Hagar in
+  the world—after all. I shall be obliged to disappoint you and myself
+  cruelly, by leaving the country without being able to see you first.
+  The truth is this—for the last three weeks I have been dancing daily
+  attendance between the President’s mansion and the State Department,
+  in daily expectation of receiving my credentials—they were at last
+  placed in my hands only four days ago—and I am to go out in the Argus,
+  that sails from Norfolk within a week; so you see, love, the utter
+  impossibility of our meeting again before my departure—best so,
+  perhaps—I do not like parting scenes. I wrote to you that your cousin,
+  Miss Aguilar, had decided to embrace the opportunity offered by my
+  escort, to go out and rejoin her friends, Captain and Mrs. Wilde. Now,
+  Hagar, do not take any absurd fancies about this, I do implore you. I
+  have taken the greatest care of the _proprieties_, love, I assure you.
+  The day after we arrived in this city, I happened to meet Lieutenant
+  Graves, who was formerly on the store-ship Rainbow with Captain
+  Wilde—we met him there, you will recollect—well, now he is stationed
+  at the Navy Yard in this city, where he has a comfortable private
+  residence, with his wife; he invited me to his house, knowing that his
+  wife had been an almost daily companion of Mrs. Wilde and Miss Aguilar
+  while they were in Boston harbor; I mentioned the presence of Rosalia
+  in this city, and her intention of going out to the Mediterranean
+  under my protection, to rejoin her friends. As I expected, the next
+  day brought Mrs. Graves to our hotel to see Miss Aguilar, whom she
+  invited home with her to spend the weeks of her sojourn in this city;
+  nothing could have been more proper, more conventional, more
+  completely _comme-il-faut_ than this arrangement; nothing could have
+  been more _fortunate_, in fact. I bade Rosalia accept the courtesy,
+  which she did at once, and Mrs. Graves carried Miss Aguilar home,
+  within the walls of the Navy Yard, where she has remained up to this
+  day. This evening Lieutenant Graves brought her back to our hotel,
+  because we leave at a very early hour to-morrow morning. Rosalia is
+  the bearer of many letters and presents from Mrs. Graves to Mrs.
+  Wilde. All right. Now, Hagar, again—indulge no absurd fancies about
+  this! Do not make me savage! you have not answered any of my
+  letters—are you putting on airs, mistress? Well, you will get out of
+  them. I am exasperated into writing sharply to you, by knowing
+  instinctively what you will think, how you will feel, perhaps what you
+  will _say_; but hold there, Hagar. Do not make me a by-word, by giving
+  language to your suspicions. Whatever may be the broodings of your
+  insanity, do not let it break forth in ravings that will subject us to
+  calumny. You know my fastidiousness upon this point—please remember
+  it, Hagar; and remember, _too_, that your eccentricities and wildness
+  leave your sanity _questionable_ to some minds; that your jealousies
+  will be the _ravings of madness, and that mad women are not to be
+  trusted at large, or with the care of children_! So, for your own
+  sake, Hagar—for the sake of all you hold most dear, be reasonable,
+  cautious, and calm. It distresses me to write to you so, love, just
+  upon the eve of my departure, but you are _so_ crazy—and I want you to
+  try and retain the possession of your senses. Rouse yourself, love! go
+  into society, cultivate and indulge all your favorite tastes;
+  repurchase your little Arabian, and be again the gay, glad Hagar you
+  were at the Heath; cultivate your music, give concerts, in which you
+  shall be the prima donna—collect a congenial circle around
+  you—purchase all your favorite books, and everything that suits your
+  fancy—exhaust the little fund I have in bank, and let me know when it
+  is gone. When you are weary of everything else, go and visit Mrs.
+  Buncombe, at Churchill Point. Come, love, you have enough to occupy
+  you during my absence. Take care of the babies. Rosalia sends her love
+  to you—you know her aversion to writing, or any other work that
+  requires mental application, and will therefore excuse her. Do _you_
+  write to me immediately—direct your letters to Port Mahon, and send
+  them through the State Department. Why do you _not_ write to me?”
+
+
+In an hour from the moment of closing and mailing his letter, Raymond
+Withers placed Rosalia in a hack, drove to the steamboat-wharf, and
+embarked upon the Arrow, which left for Norfolk the next morning at six.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+                             THE DESOLATED.
+
+          “Thou knowest well what once I was to thee;
+          One who for love of one I loved—_for thee!_—
+          Would have done, or borne the sins of all the world;
+          Who did thy bidding at thy lightest look;
+          And had it been to have snatched an angel’s crown
+          Off her bright brow as she sat singing, throned,
+          I would have cut these heart-strings that tie down
+          My soul, and let it sail to Heaven to do it—
+          ’Spite of the thunder and the sacrilege,
+          And laid it at thy feet. I loved thee, lady!
+          I am one whose love is greater than the world’s,
+          And might have vied with God’s; a boundless ring,
+          All pressing on one point—that point, thy heart.
+          ——But, for the future,
+          I will as soon attempt to entice a star
+          To perch upon my finger, or the wind
+          To follow me like a dog, as think to keep
+          A woman’s heart again.”
+                                              FESTUS
+
+
+“Well, just once more, mother!”
+
+“But this is expensive and inconvenient, please to remember, Mr. Gusty,
+and we are not rich.”
+
+“Not rich—oh! mother, I wish you would take something from _me_—which
+you never will.”
+
+“No, Gusty, I had rather be extravagant with my own funds than with
+yours. I wish you to accumulate property, Gusty—that is to say only
+_this_—spend as little of your limited income as possible, lay by the
+balance until you get enough to purchase a piece of land and build a
+house. I do think that every young man should do that—I mean every young
+man with a fixed salary—of course men engaged in commerce may use their
+money to better advantage by investing it in trade. But, oh, Gusty, I do
+wish to see you have a house of your own so much; a home that you can
+improve and beautify to your own taste; and I do wish to see your
+Rosalia presiding over it. Come and kiss me, dear Gusty! dear fellow,
+don’t you think that I sympathize with your hopes?”
+
+Gusty laughingly sprang to his mother, and catching her around the neck,
+kissed her uproariously, saying—
+
+“_Ah, mais, maman maligne_, you will not make a feast for Rose, this
+evening!”
+
+“Oh! but, Gusty, see here! we have been making feasts every evening for
+a week past, and she has not come to eat them—and may not come this
+evening—and, Gusty, besides, if I take this little bride of yours here,
+and wish to keep her for four or five years, to save some hundred
+dollars of your salary annually, I must not make her too expensive to
+Buncombe. Dear Buncombe, he is so wise! so good! and so unobtrusive in
+his wisdom and goodness—I have already too much overlooked his interests
+and comfort in my economies and sacrifices for you and Rosalia—I must”—
+
+Up sprang Gusty, exclaiming—
+
+“If I thought that, mother, my honor”—
+
+“Is _safe_ in your mother’s keeping, Gusty, believe that.”
+
+“But, mother!”
+
+“Come, Gusty, nonsense—no high points of honor with the woman that
+brought you into the world, or with her husband either—Buncombe suffers
+many privations that you know nothing of, and could not sympathize with,
+if you did know—he wants certain books, scientific and mathematical
+instruments, &c., that he can never purchase, because he spills his
+money all over the parish; lavishing his slender means upon the poor,
+instead of influencing the rich to relieve them from their ample
+store—for Buncombe can give, but he cannot beg, even for others—that
+requires a high moral heroism in a sensitive heart like his. I have had
+to pick his pockets before he goes out, every day, else they would come
+home empty. He never economizes; never thinks of expense—not he—and when
+Rosalia is seated by our fireside, he will never think whether she costs
+us a hundred cents or a hundred dollars a year—the blessed
+soul!—nonsense, Gusty,” said she, with tears in her eyes, “you will
+break my heart if you get upon your dignity with Buncombe.”
+
+“Getting upon my impertinence, it would be, mother,” said Gusty,
+seriously, “only—well!—yes, I am sure, mother, I can leave it all to
+you—must do it, in fact—for until my marriage, I have no right to
+object, and after my marriage, there is no place where I would leave
+Rosalia but here with you; and if you will not receive any compensation,
+it cannot be helped for the present.”
+
+“You must appreciate Mr. Buncombe, Gusty!”
+
+“Oh! I _do_, mother, I _do_! I think he is an admirable—Crichton, or
+Christian—which is it, mother?—I do, indeed—I really do—your
+appreciation and affection endears him, mother! But now, mother, indeed
+it is almost four o’clock, and there is no certainty about these evening
+boats—they pass any time between five and ten—come, mother, tell Kitty
+to make a nice little supper, and not to forget the rice cakes, with
+honey sauce, that Rose likes, and then, mother, get your shawl and muff,
+and _do_ come along with me to the cliff, to watch for the boat—come,
+mother, oh, _do_ come!”
+
+Emily arose with a smile and a sigh.
+
+“Mothers with marriageable daughters make heavy complaints—the
+egotists!—but a mother with a marriageable son—a great loblolly boy, in
+love, who is always melting over her!—has not _she_ a trial? As for
+those rice cakes, Mr. Gusty, they are very well once in a long time, but
+we have had them prepared every week for your Rosalia, who has not
+appeared to partake of them; and we have had to eat them all up
+ourselves, to keep them from being wasted, and we are all getting the
+dyspepsia, and I am losing my complexion from indigestion, and whatever
+you may think, I assure you, Master Gusty, that I value the beauty of my
+complexion for the sake of my good man, quite as much, and perhaps more
+than your Rosalia values hers, for the sake of you—and as for this trip
+to the beach, Master Gusty, every afternoon, through the cold, and over
+the snow, it does not help to counteract the ill effects of the cakes
+quite as much as I could wish, because, Master Gusty, I have to stand
+upon the wet beach, in the current of wind too long, Master Gusty—and
+so, Master Gusty, you will please to be a trifle more reasonable in your
+love, if love and reason ever can coalesce in you—but, however, Master
+Gusty, I will once more take cakes and cold for your sake,” and going
+out into the kitchen, she gave the necessary orders, and returned
+enveloped in a large hood, shawl, and muff. Gusty buttoned up his great
+coat, and they set out. The walk from Grove Cottage to the promontory
+was rather long. The afternoon was clear, bright, and cold, and the
+snow, slightly crusted, crackled under their feet as they pursued their
+way towards the cliff. They reached its summit, and stood upon the
+extreme point of the peak. Emily took out her watch to note the time,
+gaily grumbling at its waste, while her son adjusted his
+pocket-telescope, and took sight up the river.
+
+“It is five o’clock, Gusty, and nearly dark besides, or would be, if it
+were not for the full moon, helping the twilight.”
+
+“It is coming, mother—the boat is coming!” exclaimed Gusty, still
+keeping his telescope pointed up the river. “It is the Arrow, mother, I
+can see the name.”
+
+The boat bore down rapidly. They turned to descend the steep and
+slippery sides of the cliff, and stood upon the frozen beach as the boat
+flew swiftly on. His heart paused as it neared—stood still as it passed.
+Let _me_ pause here. Reader, notice this party on the cold beach, and
+now cast a magician’s glance into the cabin of the boat that is passing.
+In a small state room opening from that cabin, upon the floor by the
+side of the berth, kneels Rosalia Aguilar, with her face pressed down
+upon the pillow, with the ends of the pillow held up against her head,
+to shut out every sight and sound of the shore and home she is passing,
+which is yet distinctly and fearfully present to her mind’s eye and ear.
+She sees the village, the dividing river, the heath, with its forest in
+the background; the promontory, the old Hall, with its broken garden
+wall and poplar trees; lastly, the beach, and the party on the beach.
+Emily and Gusty—she knows, she feels, that they are there waiting
+her—she knows, she feels, that they were there yesterday, and that they
+will be there to-morrow. She knows, she feels, how they will both wait
+and wonder—how one will sicken and suffer with “hope deferred”—and ah!
+reverting to another home upon the banks of a Northern river,—another
+desolated home, desolated by herself, she sees _another_ bleeding heart
+and burning brain, as she presses the pillow closer about her ears to
+shut out sights and sounds that her spirit-eyes and ears must see and
+hear—how long? Rosalia was not one to enjoy a single hour’s impunity in
+singing—yet she went on.
+
+Behold the insanity of passion that, through all the accumulating
+anguish of remorse, perseveres in sin!
+
+The boat has passed.
+
+“Again, mother!” exclaimed Gusty, with a look of deep disappointment.
+
+“Yes, and again many times, perhaps, my dear boy! Something detains her;
+perhaps we shall hear by to-night’s mail,” and they turned to leave the
+cliff.
+
+Gusty saw his mother home, and, without stopping to take supper, hurried
+off to Churchill Point, to await the arrival of the evening’s mail. He
+returned in two hours—there was no letter. The next night, and the next,
+and every night for a week longer, Emily and her son watched for Rosalia
+in vain. The mail came in twice a week, and every mail-day Gusty was
+waiting a letter at the post-office, and Emily waiting him at home. At
+last, one night, Gusty hurried in with a letter. Throwing it in his
+mother’s lap, he exclaimed,
+
+“It is for _you_; open it quick, mother, do; there is something odd
+about it; a letter addressed in Raymond Withers’s hand, and postmarked
+Norfolk. What can it mean? Do read it, mother!”
+
+Emily glanced her eyes over it, while Gusty stood pawing and champing in
+his impatience. It was merely a formal announcement from Raymond Withers
+of the change in Miss Aguilar’s plans; of her determination to go out
+under his protection and rejoin Captain Wilde and Sophie, &c., &c. Emily
+handed him the letter in silence, and watched him as he read it. Fearful
+was the picture of passion presented by Gusty! his bosom heaved in
+fierce convulsions—the blood rushed to his head, his face grew scarlet,
+the veins on his temples and forehead swelled like cords, his teeth
+ground together, his eyes glared and flashed. Crushing the letter in his
+hand, he raised it above his head, threw it hard upon the floor, set his
+foot upon the paper as though he would grind it to powder, and strode up
+and down the room shaking his clenched fist, gnashing his teeth, and
+exclaiming, as he foamed at the mouth,
+
+“Villain! wretch! dastard! God! oh, God! that months, that days, that
+even _minutes_ should pass before my heel is on his neck! my sword’s
+point in his heart!”
+
+Amazed, alarmed at his terrible excitement, Emily followed him up and
+down the room.
+
+“Gusty! dear Gusty! in the name of Heaven sit down—be calm!”
+
+But, foaming and shaking, Gusty did not heed, or even hear her.
+
+“If I had him here! If I had him here, with my foot upon his chest, my
+hands around his throat—he would be but as a reed in my grasp—a fox’s
+cub in a lion’s claws! Oh! if I had him here beneath my feet! _Oh!_ if I
+had him here! _Oh!_ if I could get at him now! _Why_ can I not clear the
+distance between us at a bound!—spring upon him! bear him down to the
+ground!—God! oh, God! I shall dash my desperate brains out before I can
+get at him!”
+
+Emily had sunk pale and trembling into her chair, quite overwhelmed by
+his frightful passion, while, like a man in a fit of hydrophobia, like a
+maniac in the height of his phrensy, like a wild beast maddened in his
+cage, he raved, and shook, and foamed!
+
+Passions, like tempests, by their own fury, soon exhaust themselves.
+Fits of passion, in some natures, spend their last fury in tears as the
+storm passes off in rain. He raged until the exasperating image of
+Raymond Withers was replaced by the subduing form of Rosalia, and anger
+was drowned in sorrow for the time. He dropped heavily upon the sofa,
+and burying his face in its large cushions, sobbed—yes, _sobbed_—
+
+“Rosalia! Oh, _Rose_, _Rose_!”
+
+Emily, much wondering at, and alarmed by, the great degree of emotion
+raised by a seemingly insufficient cause, arose, and tottering, came and
+sat beside him. He remained unconscious of her presence. She sat there
+half an hour, waiting for him to look up, before he seemed to observe
+her; at length he turned over, and revealed a face pale and ghastly, as
+by a recent fit of illness. He looked up, with an appeal for sympathy
+straining through his bloodshot eyes, piercing up to the gentle face of
+his mother.
+
+“In the name of Heaven, now, Gusty, what _does_ all this mean?” she
+inquired, anxiously.
+
+“_Mean_, mother! Ah, Heaven! _yes_, what does it mean!”
+
+“Surely, Gusty, it is extravagant to manifest all this frightful passion
+at this disappointment. I own that it was rather unkind in Rosalia to go
+off to Sophie when we were expecting her, and that it was thoughtless in
+Raymond to omit writing until the last hour, very thoughtless; but”—
+
+“Thought_less_! the calculating, forecasting demon! it was just the
+contrary—it was thought_ful_ of him!”
+
+“What do you mean, Gusty?”
+
+Could he reveal to her the fearful light that had broken upon _his_
+mind? the terrible truth that had overwhelmed him? Oh, no! at least not
+now; he remained silent, and she continued to misunderstand him. She
+went on to say—
+
+“Your disappointment blinds you—makes you unjust, Gusty; it was
+thoughtlessness, or much occupation, that prevented Raymond Withers from
+writing, to give you an opportunity of seeing Rosalia before their
+departure; and for the rest, if you can only get over the present
+disappointment, this arrangement will be better for your _pleasure_,
+whatever it may be for your purse; for look you, Gusty: suppose Rose had
+really come, as she promised, and you had married her, and, at the
+expiration of your leave of absence, left her here, as arranged; you
+would have spent only a fortnight with her, and then been separated from
+her for two or three years. Now, by this new plan, you are for the
+present disappointed, but then you will soon go out, meet her and be
+near her all the time. Nonsense, dear Gusty! You have nothing really to
+regret.”
+
+And so, in her happy blindness, she continued to talk to the despairing
+boy before her; and so, uninterruptedly, he let her talk on, while he
+lay there with his hands clasped upon his corrugated brow. At last,
+aroused by the laughing and crowing of a wakening baby in the next room,
+she went and brought her little girl out and sat down with her by
+Gusty’s side, thinking the glee of the babe, of whom he was very fond,
+would enliven him. On the contrary he became very much agitated.
+Presently he said—
+
+“Mother, dear, if it will not be too much inconvenience, put a shirt or
+two, and a pair of socks, &c., into my valise; I’m off by the morning’s
+boat for the North.”
+
+“Why, Gusty!”
+
+“Dear mother, _yes_!—I must see Hagar!”
+
+“Why must you?”
+
+“I _want_ to see her, mother—_must_ see her! I am _anxious_ about her!”
+
+“Anxious about her?”
+
+“Yes, _very_ anxious!”
+
+“And why are you so?”
+
+Without replying, Gusty arose and walked the floor with his arms folded
+and his chin bowed upon his breast.
+
+“What makes you so anxious to see Hagar, Gusty?”
+
+He paused, and looked perplexed for a few minutes, then suddenly
+replied—
+
+“Is it not natural that I should wish to see Hagar after so long an
+absence?”
+
+“But it is not so long an absence, and your resolution is so sudden.”
+
+“Well, besides, mother, finding now that it is useless to try to see
+Rosalia—for that was a ship-letter dated at Hampton Roads, and brought
+in by the pilot, you know—I wish to dissipate my chagrin, mother; is not
+that natural?”
+
+“Oh, yes! Well, I suppose you do,” said Emily.
+
+The next morning, early, Gusty May set out for the Rialto.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+                                CHANGES.
+
+                            “When sorrows come,
+            They come not single spies but in battalions.”
+                                                SHAKSPEARE.
+
+          “An eagle with a broken wing,
+          A harp with many a broken string.”
+                                              SYBIL’S LEAVES.
+
+
+From Lieutenant Augustus May to Mrs. Emily Buncombe.
+
+
+                                       “THE RIALTO, February 21st, 182-.
+
+  “DEAREST MOTHER:—Come to Hagar. Yes, come. Whatever you may have in
+  hand, put it down, pack up, and come to Hagar. You will do so when I
+  have told you all I have to tell you—alas! the worst you will not know
+  until you reach this place. I arrived at —— on the 15th of the current
+  month, early in the morning, and proceeded at once to The Rialto,
+  reached the house at about eleven o’clock, was ushered into the
+  drawing-room, and inquired after the health of the family. I was told
+  by the servant who admitted me, that Mrs. Withers had been extremely
+  ill for the last six weeks, but that she was now better, and able to
+  leave her room. I sent up to know if she could receive me—the man
+  returning told me that Mrs. Withers would be down in a few minutes.
+  Well, mother! I waited perhaps half an hour, at the end of which time
+  the door opened, and a figure—as Heaven hears me, mother, I did not
+  recognise it for Hagar! the once elegant and brilliant Hagar! a figure
+  shrouded in a black wrapper, with the hair all pushed back under a
+  sharp cornered muslin cap, that marked the outline of a countenance
+  never to be forgotten!—the pallid forehead was doubled in a dark fold
+  between the eye-brows, and above eyes strained out into such startling
+  and piercing brightness, that I shuddered and dropped my gaze before
+  them! she came on slowly, trembling, tottering, and sank into a chair,
+  in such utter feebleness; she attempted to speak, to greet me, but the
+  words died on her white lips. To see Hagar thus! our beautiful,
+  resplendent Hagar! our strong, proud, exultant Hagar! Mother, I have
+  seen death in all its phases, the soldier struck down in battle, the
+  criminal swung off from the yardarm, the old man give up the ghost in
+  his bed, and the infant fall into its last sleep in its mother’s arms,
+  yet I never realized DEATH; never! until I saw this high soul brought
+  low, this fiery soul quenched, this eagle of the sun lying wounded on
+  the earth, weltering in blood and dust. My proud sister Hagar! my
+  high-souled Hagar! would that I had suffered alone! would that I could
+  have died to have saved her! You do not comprehend her grief, or my
+  deep sympathy, mother—alas! you will understand it but too well
+  by-and-bye. Oh! well, I went to her, sat beside her, took her hand—I
+  felt that I was her brother—I pitied her, loved her, would have
+  soothed her, caressed her as when she was a little girl; but with a
+  haggard look and an adjuring gesture she repelled me, as she murmured,
+  in a hollow, church-yard voice, ‘I have been ill—ill.’ ‘I know it,
+  dearest Hagar; dearest sister, I know it all—everything—I am a fellow
+  sufferer, but no matter for that; what is my grief to your great
+  sorrow! Hagar, I am your friend—your brother for life and to death! I
+  will do anything you wish me to do—I am at your command—I will even
+  throw up my commission and come and live near you, if, by doing so, I
+  can be of any use to you. Yes, Hagar, I will do that, even if I have
+  to mend clocks for a living.’ She looked at me and faltered a reply;
+  but, oh! the words fell from her ashen lips unnatural and
+  unintelligible, like those from an automaton, and few as they were,
+  they seemed to have exhausted the small remnant of her strength, for
+  she sank back in her chair in a swoon. I flew to the bell and rung it
+  violently, and Mrs. Collins came in—seeing the state of Hagar, she
+  immediately summoned a female domestic, and bore her back to her
+  chamber. I followed them up stairs. I could not, would not stay away.
+  I followed them into her room—saw them lay her upon her bed—waited
+  until they had recovered her—saw her open her eyes, and then, and not
+  till then, I withdrew and left her to repose. She was worse the next
+  morning—the agitation occasioned by our interview had caused a
+  relapse—and, mother, that very next day, the day succeeding my
+  arrival, while she lay at the point of death, _an execution_ was
+  brought into the house, and everything swept off! all that splendid
+  furniture, together with the valuable library, and rare collections of
+  pictures, statuary, and virtue accumulated by the late General
+  Raymond—all went! I repurchased the furniture of her suite of private
+  apartments; but she shall not know that; she will naturally think, and
+  I shall permit her to think, that they were spared by creditors—and,
+  mother, if you come on here, take care that you do not undeceive her.
+  It seems that for the last two years, Mr. Raymond Withers—curse him!
+  has been living far above his income, and that as soon as his
+  creditors knew him to have left the country, they came down upon his
+  property. Hagar does not yet know the new misfortune that has fallen
+  upon her, as she was lying insensible when the sheriff’s officer took
+  the inventory of her bed-chamber, and I took the precaution that none
+  of its furniture should be disturbed. Mother, come quickly to Hagar.
+  The servants are all leaving the house, because there is no money to
+  pay them their wages. I have exceeded my furlough. I do not know what
+  will be the consequence, and cannot help it. I am cited to appear
+  before a court martial—cannot do it, of course. The devil himself
+  would not leave Hagar in her present situation. Thank God! I have got
+  a few thousand dollars in bank, and that will keep the wolf from
+  Hagar’s door for some years to come, any how! Oh, mother! do come
+  quickly. Hagar is still confined to her bed—she wants a lady with
+  her—a friend with her. Mrs. Collins, the housekeeper, and Barnes, the
+  nurse, leave at the first of March; that is close at hand, so do not
+  delay.
+
+                                              Your affectionate son,
+                                                      “AUGUSTUS W. MAY.”
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Mrs. Buncombe to Lieutenant May.
+
+
+                                        “GROVE COTTAGE, March 1st, 182-.
+
+  “You are mad, unlucky boy! I have just this moment got your letter—and
+  I am exactly horrified to death at its contents. Gusty! is this the
+  way in which you repay all my care of you? Return immediately to your
+  post, as you value my blessing. Do you not know, wretched boy, that
+  you run the risk of having your commission taken from you? Do you not
+  know, oh! dolt of a child, that you will be scandalized to death, if
+  you remain a day where you are? and all the servants leaving the
+  house, too! Oh, Heavens, Gusty! am _I_ who never risked the chance of
+  a breath of calumny, am _I_ now to suffer through the imprudence of my
+  son? What would your blessed father say if he were here to know of
+  this? If you have not already left the house, leave it immediately on
+  the receipt of this letter. I _command_ you, Gusty! return to your
+  post, and write me that you have done so, as you value my blessing,
+  Gusty! Nay, dear Gusty, I withdraw the command; I have no right to
+  make it to a grown up man—and, I _entreat_, Gusty, that you will
+  return immediately to your post, as you value my peace, Gusty.
+
+  “As to my coming to Hagar, it is not possible just now; Buncombe has
+  the rheumatism, and baby is cutting her eye-teeth; besides which,
+  Kitty has scalded her hand so badly as to be nearly useless—so that
+  you see I am the sole dependence of the family.
+
+  “As for Hagar’s anguish, it is as inexplicable as your past fury was.
+  I can well imagine her regret at parting with her husband, but as for
+  the rest, it is all mystery, and you know it has been said by them of
+  old time, that where there is mystery it is fair to presume guilt, or
+  at least some grave error. This unhappy Hagar had ever possessed the
+  unenviable gift of drawing down upon her head the ban of society—but
+  she must not pull others down with her. It is all inexplicable to me—I
+  do not understand it in the least; but I fear all is not right. Write
+  to me immediately, Gusty, and tell me that you are off. I am so uneasy
+  that I have no appetite for my dinner.
+
+                                  “Your anxious and affectionate mother,
+                                                      “EMILY BUNCOMBE.”
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. May to Mrs. Buncombe.
+
+
+                                           “THE RIALTO, March 7th, 182-.
+
+  “DEAR MOTHER:—I received your letter to-day. I am here yet, you see.
+  In all things that are right I will obey you always, if I get as big
+  as Goliath and old as Methuselah. But! when I forsake Hagar in her
+  utmost need, may God forsake me then and for ever Amen—so be it.
+  Selah. Hagar is still too ill to leave her room; still ignorant of the
+  execution. Collins, Barnes, and the rest have left the house—_all_
+  have left except a maid-of-all-work, whose wages _I_ have engaged to
+  pay. A second execution at the suit of another creditor has been
+  levied, and a second time I have had to redeem from confiscation, the
+  furniture of her rooms. As soon as Hagar is able to travel, I must get
+  her away from this; I cannot stay here for ever, paying that infernal
+  fellow’s debts, as I am now obliged to do, to keep poor Hagar from
+  being shocked to death.
+
+  “Well, mother! it is as you feared—I am cashiered! dismissed the
+  service! Well, what of it? The service has lost more than I have, by
+  the arrangement! The service has lost a gallant officer! a noble
+  fellow! a whole hearted man! _I_ say it! Moreover, they cannot cashier
+  my bones and muscles, my heart and brain, my faith, hope, and energy!
+  Besides, the blow Rosalia dealt me, has stunned, numbed me into a sort
+  of insensibility to all wounds inflicted upon myself. I am vulnerable
+  now only through Hagar.
+
+  “Well, I am cashiered! Grieve for the service, mother! not for me.
+
+                                              Your affectionate son,
+                                                      “AUGUSTUS W. MAY.”
+
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. May to Mrs. Buncombe.
+
+
+                                                “THE RIALTO, March 14th.
+
+  “DEAR MOTHER:—I wrote to you a week ago, but I cannot await your
+  answer, as I am in great haste. In naming this homestead ‘The Rialto,’
+  I presume they merely had an allusion to its locality above the
+  river—but it is appropriate in its sadder association, too. This is,
+  indeed, a ‘bridge of sighs.’ The house was sold to-day for taxes. Poor
+  Hagar is up at last—but oh! such a wreck; her beautiful hair that I
+  thought concealed under her cap, has been all cut off. She bears her
+  new trials better than I expected. Like me, her one great sorrow has
+  rendered her insensible to minor griefs. She wishes to return to her
+  own home, Heath Hall. It is upon this matter that I write to you. Do,
+  mother, have it made comfortable for her reception. She has sold all
+  her own jewels to defray the expenses of her journey. There is a
+  balance to the credit of Raymond Withers—perdition catch his soul!—at
+  the bank, but Hagar will not draw it. Prepare to receive the stricken
+  one kindly, mother, I entreat you, as you value my peace, mother!
+
+                                                  Your affectionate son,
+                                                          “A. W. MAY.”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+                              THE RETURN.
+
+                         “Oh! if indeed to _part_
+           With the soul’s loved ones be a bitter thing,
+           When we go forth in buoyancy of heart,
+           And bearing all the glories of our spring,
+                         Is it less so to _meet_
+           When these are withered? Who shall call it sweet?”
+                                               HEMANS.
+
+
+The 20th of March, 182-, was a day to be remembered for the terrible
+storm of wind, snow, and hail that visited the earth, and raged through
+these latitudes all that tremendous day and night!
+
+It was in the height of this furious tempest, that a packet might _not_
+have been seen as it toiled against wind and tide, on its way down
+Chesapeake Bay,—might _not_ have been seen, for it was as difficult to
+_see_ through the dense fall of snow, as it was to _breathe_ against the
+driving, piercing sleet that struck into every pore of the skin and
+thorax like millions of needle points.
+
+Could you have discerned that packet boat through the shrouds of falling
+snow, you would have looked upon a bark apparently carved in ice. The
+deck was blocked up with drifting snow, freezing as it fell, and still
+increasing against all the efforts of the crew. The masts struck up like
+shafts of ice, between which the crossing ropes formed a crystal
+lattice-work. The sails were stiff, stark, and glittering with sleet.
+And all—ropes, masts, and sails, grew thicker every instant,—losing
+their distinctness of form as the snow fell fast, congealing on them,
+until the bark seemed the nucleus of an avalanche, or the skeleton upon
+which the body of an iceberg was being formed.
+
+The cabin of that little packet was small, deep, and dark, and lighted
+even in the day by a tiny lamp nailed against the wall. In this low
+cabin, by the side of the narrow coffin-like berth, sat a pale and
+ghastly little woman, clothed in a black dress and simple cap, whom you
+would never recognise to be Hagar. Upon the berth lay two sleeping
+infants, of nearly twelve months old. She leans heavily with both elbows
+upon the side of the berth, and supports her drooping head upon her
+hands. She has sat thus for hours, while the tempest has raged above and
+around her. She will probably sit there for hours longer unless the
+children wake, or some one enters to rouse her from her dreamy trance.
+She does not hear the howling wind, though it beats among the ice-bound
+and rattling sails and ropes, a thundering accompaniment to its fierce
+song. She does not see the snow, though it has nearly blocked up the
+narrow gangway leading down into her cabin. She does not feel the
+penetrating and piercing cold, though her hands are purple, stiff, and
+numb. Towards the evening, Gusty May entered the cabin.
+
+“How are you now, Hagar, and how are the children?” inquired he, coming
+up to her side.
+
+She did not seem to see or hear him. He repeated his question earnestly.
+She raised her pallid brow and straining glance, and answered,
+mechanically,—
+
+“Well—we are well.”
+
+“Do the children fatigue you, Hagar? You look so weary; why do you not
+call me to help to take care of them when they tire you?”
+
+“They never tire me,” replied Hagar.
+
+“Have they brought you any dinner, Hagar? I really do not believe they
+have. No!—and your fire has been suffered to go out, while I have been
+on deck all day helping to work the vessel or clear the deck. What a
+thing it is to see a poor, dear sick girl, with two children, on the
+water in such a scuttled tub as this bark, without even a female
+attendant!”
+
+So lamenting, Gusty bustled about, replenished the fire, and going to a
+locker, brought out a glass of cordial and a cracker, which he compelled
+her to swallow, saying,
+
+“It is a ‘round, unvarnished’ truth that, if I were not here to kindle
+your fire and to hold a morsel to your lips, you would starve to death,
+Hagar! I wonder how long this dreadful apathy is going to last!”
+
+Then setting away the glass and plate, he went to shovelling away the
+snow from the gangway.
+
+“Passengers for Heath Hall!” sang out a voice from above.
+
+Gusty dropped the shovel and rushed up on deck. Hagar, her children, and
+himself, were certainly the only passengers for Heath Hall. After an
+absence of five minutes he returned.
+
+“Hagar! rouse yourself, now, dear Hagar, and answer me; we are nearly
+opposite to _Heath Hall_!”
+
+The sound of that name was sufficient to arouse her.
+
+“Speak on, Gusty, I am neither dead, deaf, asleep, nor crazy, Gusty,
+though I must often seem to you to be one or the other. Well, what were
+you saying about Heath Hall?”
+
+“We are nearly opposite to the promontory, Hagar, and we must now go
+ashore, or keep on down the bay to the Capes.”
+
+“Oh, go on shore by all means! What suggested the other alternative?”
+
+“What? Poor thing, you know nothing! It is a frightful night to go on
+shore, Hagar. We stand out a mile from the land, and cannot even see the
+shore through thick and driving hail and sleet. Then, the beach must be
+covered knee-deep with snow, and the ascent to the promontory nearly
+impracticable from ice—that is to say, for _you_, Hagar.”
+
+“For _me_—you forget, Gusty, overwhelmed, as you see me, by mental
+troubles, you know that I am nearly invincible before physical ills and
+obstacles. I can see my way through the darkest night that ever shrouded
+earth—keep my footing firm in the ascent of the most slippery and
+dangerous precipice in the world. Thank God! my physical powers are not
+destroyed yet.”
+
+“You are feeling better—your spirits are rising, Hagar.”
+
+“Oh, they are, they are, to be under the shadow of my old Hall again! I
+think that I shall no sooner step upon my native heath, than I shall
+feel life and spirits strike up through my feet, filling my whole frame
+with strength and power.”
+
+“Passengers for Heath Hall, get ready,” yelled a voice from the deck.
+
+“Come, Hagar, get the children and yourself ready quickly, while I see
+the trunks lowered to the skiff.”
+
+“But, oh! these children! these children! after all, perhaps we had
+better stay here, than expose _them_ to the storm.”
+
+“They shall not suffer from exposure to the storm; _I_ will carry the
+babies, and take care of that—so if you think that you can get along and
+keep your footing ascending the cliff, we had better go ashore
+notwithstanding all I have said; for it threatens to be a horrible
+night, and God Almighty only knows what may be the fate of the packet
+before day.”
+
+Hagar said no more, and Gusty left the cabin. Hagar wrapped her children
+up in their little warm light blankets and long cloaks, and then put on
+her own close travelling dress, and had scarcely completed her
+preparations when Gusty came down again, and assisted her with the
+children by taking charge of one while she insisted on keeping the other
+on deck. And what a deck it was! She toiled up the gangway knee-deep in
+snow, while the sharp and driving sleet cut into her face, nearly
+blinding and smothering her; it was almost impossible to see a foot in
+advance; in an instant her whole dress was covered white and stiff with
+snow, that froze as it fell. It was only her warm breath that kept mouth
+and nostrils free for breathing, and saved her from a freezing
+suffocation. Gusty kept hold of one hand; drawing her through the
+snow-drifts beneath, and the falling avalanche of sleet around, he
+guided her to the edge of the vessel, lowered the two children half
+smothered in their wrappings, to the oarsmen in the skiff, handed Hagar
+down, and descended after her; while the sleet whirling thick around
+them threatened to convert the little boat with its freight into a huge
+snowball. The two oarsmen pulled swiftly through the white tempest for
+the shore—providentially wind and tide were in their favor; they soon
+reached the beach—but, oh! what a howling wilderness of a shore it was
+upon this tremendous night! On their left the promontory, like some huge
+ice-peak of the arctic regions, loomed horribly through storm and
+darkness; while towards the right the white shore stretched away in a
+dim horizontal line—a half-guessed vague terror like the shores of the
+frozen ocean seen through the night. Using their oars as poles they
+pushed the boat through the rushing water and crusted ice, and landed it
+upon the beach immediately under the promontory. Pausing a moment to
+gather breath after their great exertions, the two men took each of them
+a child, and Gusty drew Hagar’s frost-crusted arm within his own, and
+they stepped from the boat, and struggled on through the deep snow and
+against the driving storm to the little fishing-house against the side
+of the promontory. The wind and sleet were in their face, blowing from
+behind the other side of the promontory. As they toiled on towards it
+they found the snow less and less deep, until coming under its cover
+they trod upon bare though frozen ground, and reaching the fishing-house
+found it perfectly dry, as the ground was for many yards around it; a
+better protected place than was the cabin of the ship they had left.
+Taking away the prop that fastened the door, they entered. The men stood
+holding the children. Hagar dropped upon an upturned fishing-tub; while
+Gusty, taking a small wax candle and tinder-box from the pocket of his
+great coat, struck a light, and holding it about surveyed the premises,
+as the men, giving the children to Hagar, returned to the boat to fetch
+the trunks. It was a small but tight and well-finished, weather-proof
+little place, built against the side of the promontory of rocks cut from
+its bosom; the walls were plastered, the floor paved, and an ample
+fire-place on the right of the entrance, faced a large window on the
+left. It had been built as a place of deposit for fishing tackle, and as
+a kitchen for dressing the freshly caught fish, crabs, and oysters, when
+the Churchills varied their hospitality by an improvised fish feast upon
+the beach.
+
+Gusty surveyed the capabilities of the place, poked the candle and his
+nose into holes and corners, among broken fishing-rods, old
+flag-baskets, staves of fallen down tubs, footless pots, and topless
+kettles, &c., and then sticking the candle against the side of the
+chimney, he collected some of the old flag-baskets, and breaking them
+up, piled them in the fire-place and set fire to them—they blazed and
+roared delightfully up the chimney, diffusing agreeable light and
+warmth. Then drawing a rude stool to the chimney-corner, and going up to
+Hagar, he took the two children from her arms, and told her to pull off
+her snow-covered riding habit and sit there. She did so, and held out
+her arms to receive the children back. He set them in her lap, and going
+to the pile of staves, brought and threw them on the burning embers of
+the flag-baskets, making a great fire, whose light glowed all over the
+small room, heating it pleasantly. Then he hung up her riding habit to
+dry, and digging out an old tea-kettle from the pile of rubbish, he
+clapped his hat upon his head and went out to fill it at a spring that
+bubbled from the rock by the side of the house; returning he set it on
+the fire, just as the voices of the men were heard approaching the
+cabin. They came in, each with a large trunk upon his shoulder, and
+bearing another by the handles between them. They came in and setting
+down their burdens prepared to depart and return to the packet—but
+Gusty, with a gesture, detained them, as he knelt at the side of one of
+the trunks, and opening it, took out a bottle of brandy, some spices,
+and a mug, and gave “something to protect them against suffering through
+the inclemency of the weather.”
+
+They then departed, leaving Gusty, Hagar, and the children, sole
+occupants of the cabin.
+
+“It is vain to think of trying to reach the Hall to-night, Hagar,” said
+Gusty, as he pulled off his greatcoat and hung it near the fire to thaw
+and dry. “And we must just stay here till morning,” he continued, and
+turning a tub bottom upwards he drew it up to the fire and seated
+himself, watching and tending the kettle as it progressed towards
+boiling. “If the men could possibly have stopped and lent us their
+assistance in carrying the children, I might have helped you, and—but,
+no! even then it would have been impossible on this frightful night! We
+should have got lost, and floundered about in snow-drifts until morning,
+if we had not perished before then; the snow is so much deeper than I
+had any idea of before leaving the packet,” and Gusty, taking a stick,
+and passing it through the handle, lifted the boiling kettle from the
+fire, and set it on the hearth, saying, “I am going to make you some
+spice tea, Hagar, to restore your circulation and send out a
+perspiration; you are chilled to death, your hands are livid,” and
+putting some cloves into the mug, he poured some of the boiling water
+upon it and set it down to steep.
+
+All this time, Hagar had heard his remarks without replying to them—seen
+his efforts for her comfort without acknowledging them; because, after
+her sudden rise of spirits, she had again sunk into apathy. Soon he took
+a little rude table—once used in cooking operations—and turning it
+bottom upwards, and gathering all their outside coverings that were now
+dried, he made a little warm bed for the babies, and begged Hagar to lay
+them in it. She did so, covered them up snugly, and resumed her seat.
+
+“I wish, Hagar,” said he, as he handed her the mug of spice tea, “I _do_
+wish that there was a place where you could lie down and take some
+sleep.”
+
+She smiled sadly and shook her head faintly.
+
+“I know _now_ what to do,” he said, receiving the empty mug from her
+hand and setting it on the hearth; “yes, I know what to do now,” and
+taking her riding habit, he hung it from the corner of the mantel-piece
+down against the wall behind her, and said, “Now, adjust your stool
+comfortably, Hagar, and lean upon that; you will rest better, and
+perhaps you will sleep. I shall sit here in front of the hearth, and
+watch to keep the fire going.”
+
+And so the party remained through all that stormy night. _But!_ Hagar
+had better have braved the fearful ascent of the precipice through that
+terrible storm—had better have perished in the snow—on that horrible
+night, than have lived to defy the more fatal tempest of calumny raised
+by her lodging in the fishing-house, and that soon roared and raved
+around her, striking thunderbolts upon her devoted head.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
+                          HAGAR AT HEATH HALL.
+
+                     “Nessun maggior dolore,
+               Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
+               Nella miseria.”
+                                                   DANTE.
+
+
+All night the children slept on their rude pallet, lulled by the howling
+of the storm, as it came dulled through the thick walls of the
+fishing-house. All night Hagar slumbered a fitful and uninterrupted
+slumber, more like a succession of fainting fits than a natural sleep,
+for overpowered by fatigue, she would fall into a state of deep
+insensibility, from which she would often start in terror, aroused by a
+sudden consciousness or dream of wrong, danger, or censure, of a
+terrible and impending destiny. All night Gusty sat upon the inverted
+tub drawn up between the fire-dogs, guarding his charges and keeping up
+the fire. Gusty, in whom the animal so largely predominated, found it
+very hard to keep awake—yet Gusty, who had never lost a meal’s victuals
+or a night’s sleep for any grief or disappointment he had ever
+suffered—Gusty, now that the health and comfort of others made it
+necessary for him to do so—propped his eyes open with heroic
+perseverance. Every one knows how difficult it is to keep from going to
+sleep, alone, in a quiet room over a good fire; there is something
+soporific in its genial heat, even in the day time. Gusty could have
+sworn he had not closed his eyes the whole night, yet by some
+inexplicable magic he had, or dreamed he had taken up a stick to mend
+the fire—at deep, dark, stormy midnight—and when he put it down, or when
+it fell from his hand—the instant after—it was broad, bright, glorious
+daylight! with the sun beaming a blinding light through the window,
+whose form was traced in amber radiance upon the opposite wall, near
+which Hagar stood in her travelling dress, ready for a walk, with the
+two babies standing clinging to her skirts, and gazing with baby wonder
+upon the strange scene in which they found themselves.
+
+“Lord!—yes!—well!—I declare!—so it is!” exclaimed Gusty, starting up.
+
+“I am glad you slept well, Gusty, dear, kind friend,” said Hagar.
+
+“I never SLEPT!” averred Gusty, with his eyes still wide open with
+astonishment, thinking himself bewitched.
+
+Hagar smiled sadly to herself, and did not contradict him.
+
+Gusty arose, and shook himself, like a great honest dog roused from
+slumber, and walking to the door opened it and looked out.
+
+“Oh! Hagar, come!” said he, “look out—what a glorious morning!”
+
+She went up to his side. It was indeed a gorgeous scene! The heath and
+hills were covered with crusted and brilliant snow, glittering with
+diamond dust. The forest trees carved in ice, with icicles for foliage.
+From every bough and bud dropped millions of pendent jewels. Earth wore
+a gorgeous bridal dress, bedecked with diamonds, and the morning sun
+kindled up into dazzling splendor the icy glories of the scene, until
+the snow flashed back to heaven, in lines of blinding light, a glory
+brilliant as the sun himself. Gusty shaded his eyes from the blinding
+radiance. Hagar gazed unwinking with her eagle eyes upon the landscape,
+until the fire kindled in her cheek and burned on her lips. When they
+had breathed the pure air, and enjoyed the prospect a few minutes, Gusty
+said,
+
+“You must remain here an hour, Hagar, until I go to the Hall and fetch a
+horse—it is almost impossible for you to get over these slippery and
+mountainous snow-drifts yet.”
+
+“But it will be quite impossible to get over it with a horse.”
+
+“Yes, just now it will, but in an hour or two the crust will be melted.
+Oh! this snow, deep as it is, will not last long; it comes too late in
+the season; the last offering of old winter, who turned back to make it.
+Yes, there is a great change since last night, I should think the
+thermometer had risen thirty degrees. I declare the sun begins to feel
+warm on my shoulders. Well, Hagar, stay here till I come. Oh! there are
+some crackers in my trunk, if you want them for the children, here are
+the keys,” and throwing them to her, he buttoned up his great coat, drew
+on his gloves, clapped his hat upon his head, and set out. He might have
+been gone an hour, but she heard no trampling of horse feet upon the
+snow, and so was unconscious of their approach until Gusty opened the
+door, and stood smilingly with his broad good-humored face within it.
+Behind him—standing on tiptoe, to look over his shoulder, was
+Tarquinius, grinning with delight from ear to ear, and breaking past
+them, yelping defiance like fire and sword, sprang two pointers straight
+upon Hagar, whom they overwhelmed with welcome caresses! She started
+with brightening eyes, and returned their honest fondling. Then how they
+bounded, leaped, and fell into convulsions of joy! or lay their muzzles
+out upon her lap, every hair vibrating with a still delight.
+
+“Come, Mrs. Withers, are you quite ready?” said Gusty, drawing off his
+gloves and putting them into his pocket.
+
+“Oh, yes, quite ready.”
+
+“How do you do, Tarquinius?” said she, kindly holding out her hand to
+the man that had been standing smiling and bowing his reverential
+welcome (making his _obedience_, he called it), through all this scene.
+“How is old Cumbo—how is your grandmother, Tarquin?”
+
+“Putty much de same, I tank you, ma’am—I does not see any changes.”
+
+“Yet she is very aged.”
+
+“Yes, ma’am, but her ages does not get any wusser, but commiserably
+better.”
+
+“Can she do anything for herself?”
+
+“Oh, yes, ma’am! she deforms de cookinary boderations as well as ever
+she did,” and making two or three deep bows, Tarquinius Superbus retired
+from the conference.
+
+There was an unusual kindliness in Hagar’s manner while inquiring after
+the welfare of her old nurse; one of the blessed influences of sorrow
+was beginning to manifest itself—her heart was softening, becoming
+capable of being impressed by the afflictions of others.
+
+“Hagar, come!” said Gusty, lifting up a child in each arm, and preceding
+her from the door.
+
+Hagar followed, and no sooner had she emerged into the dazzling sunlight
+upon the crusted snow, than with a neigh of joy her little jet black
+pony Starlight, bounded to meet her. She fell upon his neck, caressing
+him, as if he had been her brother, too surprised and glad to ask an
+explanation of his arrival. She patted, talked to him, and laying her
+hand upon his mane, sprang into the saddle with something of her former
+agility and gladness. She had thought the coming of the dogs accidental,
+she thought that Gusty had met them on an early hunt, and that they had
+naturally recognised an old friend and followed him to the house; but
+now that she felt herself again upon Starlight’s back, with the dogs at
+her feet, she wondered how it came so.
+
+“Sit Agatha here before me, Gusty, I can hold her with one hand, and
+guide Starlight with the other. I mean to accustom the children early to
+riding.”
+
+“And which _is_ Agatha, and which is Agnes?—hang me if I can tell,
+though I have a preference! for this little one on my left arm loves me
+the most, presses close to me, looks up in my face, and seeks my eyes;
+and if I turn away my head, she puts up her little dimpled hand upon my
+chin, and turns my face around again, till she can see my eyes. God love
+her! God bless her! the loving darling! while this other child sits
+perched upon my arm, as if it were a high chair, with closed lips and
+level gaze, with all the composed dignity of an infant princess. Now,
+which is Agatha, and which is Agnes? If my loving darling is Agatha, I
+won’t give her up.”
+
+“No, your favorite is Agnes—the other is Agatha; hand her to me; and,
+Gusty, I wish you would not manifest the slightest preference for one
+child above the other—it is a fatal cruelty. Agatha is still, because
+she has less vitality than her sister; she is more delicate, dear child.
+I discovered it the first moment I had an opportunity of comparing
+them.”
+
+Gusty placed the sedate infant in her mother’s care, and seemed very
+well pleased to be relieved from the burden, and at liberty to devote
+his whole care to the “loving darling” in his arms. And so the party set
+out over the brilliant snow, under the glorious sunshine. They reached
+the old Hall in twenty minutes’ ride. Agatha had fallen asleep on her
+mother’s bosom. They entered through the broken gate, and Hagar rode
+quite up to the piazza, and handing the sleeping babe to Tarquinius, she
+sprang from her saddle, took back the child, and entering the doorway,
+stood one moment in silent prayer, and passed on into the parlor, where
+stood old Cumbo leaning on her stick, with a red handkerchief on her
+head, tied under her chin, and forming a brilliant red frame around a
+face, black, wrinkled, and shining as a dried prune. Awed by the memory
+of Hagar’s pride and hardness, the old woman did not advance to welcome
+her, but when Hagar approached and spoke to her gently and kindly, she
+fell to crying and calling her dear “piccaninni.” Hagar looked around
+upon the scene; it appeared to her strange that everything had remained
+unchanged during the long century that her two years’ absence seemed to
+be. It was the same old parlor papered with the martyrs—with the shadows
+of the same poplar trees intercepting the sun at the windows that looked
+out upon the piazza. A good hickory fire was burning on the ample
+hearth, and a good breakfast smoking on the table. Hagar set her child
+down upon the carpet, and began to take off her travelling dress, just
+as Gusty entered, followed by Tarquinius, bearing a dish of fine white
+perch, fried, which he had just brought from the kitchen, and now set
+upon the table. They sat down to breakfast.
+
+“These are very nice, Tarquin—did you catch them?” asked Gusty, placing
+a perch upon the plate before him.
+
+“Yes, sir! I did, sir; I most in general confuses my ledger hours by
+angulating in the bay, whenever the perdition of the hemisphere
+commits.”
+
+“Ah, that’s right; has my mother—has Mrs. Buncombe been over at the Hall
+to give any directions?”
+
+“No, sor, but de reverend gen’lem’n, sir, he come ober, and dejected us
+to have ebery ting impaired, and all the molestic confairs deranged for
+Mrs. Widders, an’ so we have conveyed his ardors to de best of our
+debility.”
+
+“Thank you—you are a valuable agent!—Hagar!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I shall have to take leave of you immediately after breakfast; I must
+see my mother—she is uneasy, I know—perhaps sick. Say, are they all well
+over to the Grove, Tarquin?”
+
+“Yes, sir, de reveren gen’lem’n, he has got over his room-atism, and
+goes all over the house; but he is inflicted with a dog-matism in his
+ear, owing to Mr. Green’s big dog, Silver, jumpin’ up and bitin’ him.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Speaking of dogs, will you tell me, Gusty, how Starlight, and Remus,
+and Romulus came here?”
+
+“Came here? Why, they have been here all the time; did not you know it?”
+
+“No, indeed; tell me about it.”
+
+“In the first place, the dogs would not stay anywhere else. Gardiner
+Green tied them up, but they gnawed their rope in two and fled to the
+Hall; and then he caught them and chained them, but they kept such a
+dismal howling—”
+
+“Poor dogs!”
+
+“That Mrs. Green, who is very superstitious, insisted on their being set
+at liberty, and they immediately returned to the Hall!”
+
+“Dear, true dogs! Well, but Starlight?”
+
+“Yes, Starlight! _he_ was worse, it was a regular conspiracy. Star
+behaved like a comet—like a devil let loose. Gardiner Green mounted him
+on Sunday to ride to church, but no sooner was he prisoned on the
+saddle, than Star shot forward like a meteor, while Green fell upon his
+neck and grasped his mane; Star fled across the meadow, making the turf
+fly beneath his digging feet, fled towards the river, plunged in, swam
+it, climbed the opposite side, and took the way towards the forest. Soon
+the pointers came baying behind him. On fled Star, with Green clinging
+in deadly terror to his neck, bent on a regular steeple chase, bounding
+over the hills, tearing through the forest, springing over gates,
+leaping across chasms, till at last reaching and clearing Devil’s Gorge
+at a bound, he sent Gardiner Green spinning from his back like a shot
+from a pop-gun! and keeping on his course, arrived in a somewhat excited
+state of mind at his own stall at Heath Hall, where the pointers soon
+overtook him. Gardiner Green was picked up by those who went to look for
+him, battered, bruised, and terrified nearly to death, but not lamed,
+dead, or otherwise injured. The next morning they sent over and had
+Starlight led back; and Starlight stepped statelily forth with the
+indignant air and threatening eye of a captive king led in triumph, who
+expects yet to rise and crush his enemies.”
+
+“My noble Starlight!”
+
+“Oh! he was a hero—he was not born to be a slave, or to serve any master
+except for love.”
+
+“Like his mistress,” thought Hagar, and her brow grew dark with
+recollection.
+
+“Well, they carried him home and geared him up into Mistress Green’s
+gig—but he ran away with that, threw Mrs. Green out, spoiling her beauty
+but not seriously injuring her—kicked the gig to flinders, and brought
+the remnant of his gearing as a trophy home to the stables of Heath Hall
+that very evening. Then they put him in a cart, which he served in the
+same manner. Then they put him in a plough with another horse.”
+
+“Poor, dear Starlight—to degrade my elegant Starlight so!”
+
+“Exactly! but his highness, Prince Starlight, the Black Prince, would
+not stand it—he kicked, and reared, and plunged, and tried to excite his
+comrade to run away. And when his small-souled comrade would not, he bit
+him severely on the neck, as a punishment for helping to keep him
+prisoner. And then Gardiner Green offered ‘the black fiend’ to any one
+for half the price he gave for him. It was just at this juncture of
+affairs that I had run down here to see mother again before going the
+voyage I expected to sail on, and hearing of this, I gladly purchased
+the horse at half-price, and returned him to the stables at Heath Hall,
+for the use of Hagar if ever she should return—for, Hagar, it is
+demonstrated that he will not serve man, woman, or child, but you.”
+
+“I know that,” said Hagar, “and Gusty, I thank you, very sincerely—but I
+must repay you.”
+
+“Be hanged if you shall! I will give him to you, but as for _selling him
+to you_! I’d cut his throat first! I was very willing to pay a good
+price for him, only I was enraged with that old brute, Gardiner Green,
+for having the atrocious assurance to buy your horse and dogs without
+your consent; for, of course, Hagar, I knew perfectly well that you
+would never have agreed to the sale, and so I would not be generous! I
+was too glad to punish his fault through his tenderest point, his
+pocket.”
+
+“But,” said Hagar, choking with the unavailing effort to speak _a name_
+that had not passed her lips since its owner was lost to her sight,
+“_he_ sold them, and of course my consent was understood or
+unnecessary.”
+
+This was the first occasion upon which even the most distant allusion
+was made between Hagar and Gusty to the party that was nevertheless ever
+present to the minds of both. Gusty soon after arose from the table, and
+in taking leave of Hagar, promised that if it were possible for his
+mother to venture through the deep snow, he would bring her over in the
+afternoon.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The family of Grove Cottage had just arisen from breakfast. The parson
+had just buttoned up his greatcoat, set his hat upon his head, and was
+drawing on his wool-lined gloves for a walk to the village, when the
+door opened, and Gusty entered.
+
+“Oh! how do you do?” exclaimed Mr. Buncombe, slightly starting back with
+surprise, and then cordially shaking his hand. Gusty, returning his
+salute, passed on to where his mother sat at the head of the table.
+Emily arose with tears in her eyes. Gusty caught and folded her warmly
+to his bosom.
+
+Mr. Buncombe returned, and laying his hand upon his step-son’s shoulder,
+said—“Gusty, my boy, I am called to the sick bed of one of my
+parishioners, and must leave you. I am sorry, but I shall meet you here
+at dinner?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Oh! never mind me, my dear sir.”
+
+The parson departed, and Gusty releasing his mother, snatched up his
+infant sister, Rose, and began to cover her with caresses and praises by
+way of diverting the storm of maternal grief and resentment, that he
+felt too ready to break over his head. Emily was weeping bitterly,
+until, seeing _his_ grief and embarrassment, she arose and fell upon his
+shoulder, exclaiming,
+
+“Oh, Gusty! Gusty! you have destroyed the labor and the hopes of many
+years and cares. You have nearly broken my heart—but you are welcome,
+nevertheless! Welcome, welcome, my boy!”
+
+“Mother! _don’t_, now _don’t_—don’t make me _feel_ like a brute, when I
+_know_ I have behaved like a man!” said Gusty, setting down the child,
+and returning his mother’s embrace. “I have not merited this misfortune,
+mother; and I know that therefore, sooner or later, it will turn out
+well!”
+
+“Ah! but, Gusty, it is _such_ a blow! and you did nothing to avert, and
+will do nothing to remedy it! _Why_ did you not, why _do_ you not, even
+now, hasten to Washington, and petition to be reinstated?”
+
+“I would see the whole United States Navy swamped first, mother! No,
+much as I honor my flag, I honor myself more! and God most!”
+
+“Ah, Gusty! ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ is a very true
+proverb.”
+
+“May be so—but I’ll improve upon that, ‘God helps those who help their
+neighbors!’ I have Scripture for _that_, mother; ‘Cast thy bread upon
+the waters, and after many days it shall return, and whoso giveth,
+_lendeth_ to the Lord.’ Come, mother, I lost my commission by doing a
+higher duty than any I owed my flag, and so I am not uneasy; but,
+mother, you have not once inquired after Hagar, who landed last night in
+the midst of the storm, and who is now at the Hall.”
+
+“Well! how should I be able to think of Hagar, when I have so many
+anxieties on your account, unfortunate boy? but how is Hagar, then?”
+
+“Recovering slowly, but _very_ slowly; will you not go over to see her,
+then, this afternoon?”
+
+Emily was silent and thoughtful, and sooth to say, rather displeased at
+the proposition.
+
+“Will you not, mother? Come, mother; when you see Hagar, so wretched, so
+ill, so changed, your unjust displeasure with her will be dissipated;
+you should not indeed feel angry with her because she was the
+involuntary, the unconscious cause of my misfortune, which she does not
+even know of yet—thinking I am on furlough—and do not tell her, mother.”
+
+“Yes, but I see no _reason_ for all this wretchedness. I knew that Hagar
+madly loved her husband, but I do not see why his leaving her for two
+years should cause her to lose the power of directing her own life, and
+so cause you to lose all the hopes and prospects of yours.”
+
+Gusty mused. Could he, he thought, enlighten his mother as to the _real_
+state of affairs? After some minutes’ reflection, he determined to keep
+the secret of the elopement, veiled as it was by the foreign mission;
+both because, though his suspicions came as near truth as suspicions
+_could_ come, yet they were not fully proved—_he_ might feel very sure
+himself, yet he might not he able to assure another mind—and because he
+did not wish to inflict upon his mother another sorrow, in addition to
+the one she was now almost sinking under. He felt sure that she would
+never receive a hint from Hagar, whom self-esteem, as well as her
+continued and inevitable love for her husband, would keep silent upon
+the subject of his perfidy, and her own wrongs and sufferings.
+
+After dinner, Emily, attended by her son, rode towards Heath Hall.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Gusty May had left the breakfast-table for his walk to Grove
+Cottage, Hagar took her two children up to her own chamber—to her old
+eyrie in the third story. This room also was unchanged—except—yes! there
+sat her children’s little rose-wood crib, with all its furniture, just
+as it was before it had been sold at the third execution. There could be
+but _one_ to whom she was indebted for this delicate attention, and
+though her morbid pride was at first startled, yet her affections were
+touched by this instance of disinterested friendship.
+
+Without any pretensions, Gusty was doing everything to sanctify the uses
+of adversity to the heart of Hagar. It was impossible not to be softened
+by the kind offices of a friendship that gave everything without hope or
+even thought of return. This was Hagar’s first, her _very_ first
+experience of disinterested affection—the love of Raymond was intensely
+selfish, craving only the possession of its object, regardless of her
+affections or her happiness—and Hagar had felt that bitterly through all
+her married life, and most bitterly in her desertion. The effect of this
+selfish and cruel abandonment on the character of Hagar’s mind and
+heart, must have been most deleterious, fatal, but that the antidote was
+provided in a new phase of human sympathy revealed to her in the
+disinterested affection of one—an alien by blood—a rejected and humbled
+lover of her girlhood, a sufferer by the same treachery that laid her
+own hopes in the dust; one who, without pretending to any fine feelings,
+or expressing any fine sentiments, had quietly suppressed and concealed
+his own griefs, in ministering to her wants, in trying to alleviate her
+sorrows. Hagar’s maternity had first inspired her deepest prayer—her
+children had been the angels sent to conduct her heart to God—to whom,
+ever since, with an almost hearing, seeing, touching faith, she had
+offered all her joys, gratitudes, and praises, and where, alas! she had
+also impiously carried all her fears, complaints, and reproaches. But
+now she must ask a boon of Providence, that He would bless and prosper
+the kind soul that she was unable to benefit. This was the silent
+prayer—the silent fragrance rising from the bruised heart to
+heaven—while she loosened her babies’ clothes, and laid them in the crib
+to take their forenoon nap. And then she looked around the pleasant room
+with its agreeable associations, the extensive prospect from the windows
+of the broad river, the village with its little stir and bustle on the
+opposite side, the boundless bay with its occasional passing packet, all
+inspiring the feeling of life, liberty, and strength. If God is a kind
+father, as all his children devoutly feel and acknowledge, _Nature_ is a
+good nursing mother, and under the care of both, Hagar was even now
+beginning to feel her torpid life stir again. She was at _home_, under
+her own roof; what if the house were half a ruin—it was HER OWN. She was
+upon her own land, and though it was only a desert heath, it was HER
+OWN. There was a sense of independence in that, and of pride in the
+thought that for this home she was not indebted to Mr. Withers—for,
+though she still _must_ love him, in her high self-appreciation she now
+felt an unconquerable reluctance to receive anything from him who had
+withdrawn his love and personal protection. And then there was a sense
+of returning power in the new life that was tiding in and filling all
+her veins. Turning from the window, from which she had been gazing, her
+eye fell upon her own image in the glass; that glass which had so often
+reflected the slight dark figure of the high-spirited maiden, whose long
+blue-black ringlets glittered down a crimson cheek blushing with pride,
+_now_ gave back the form of the matron, whose fair, wan, spiritual face
+was faintly flushed with returning life, and softly shaded by the tiny
+black ringlets of the young hair just visible under the delicate lace
+border of her little cap. Hagar scarcely knew herself. It was so strange
+to see that changed picture in that frame.
+
+Returning and looking again at her children, she drew the light muslin
+curtain around them, and left the room to take a look through the house.
+She went into the large, old drawing-room hall, as it was called in
+those days, and there the first thing that met her eyes was her grand
+piano, and her harp, from the Rialto. Hagar started in surprise and
+embarrassment—the burden of obligation was beginning to feel
+oppressive—she called Tarquin in.
+
+“When did these arrive, and who brought them here?”
+
+“They ’riv’ ’tother day, ma’am, by the packet ‘Future,’ Cap’n Hope, who
+sent ’em up to the Hall by two sailors.”
+
+“With any message?”
+
+“No, ma’am, freight paid in advance—dinner is ready, Mrs. Withers,” said
+the man, throwing open the parlor door with all the ceremonious
+observance of “better days.” Hagar passed in and sat down to her
+solitary meal. It was a well served, delicate little repast, purveyed by
+the affectionate care of Cumbo and Tarquin from the rich resources of
+the Heath and bay, which were always abundantly supplied with wild game,
+water fowl, fish, crabs, oysters, &c., in their respective seasons.
+There was no danger of our Hagar starving, and that was one comfort; nor
+of her freezing, as long as the forest stood behind the Heath, and that
+was another consolation. Her dinner was scarcely over and the things
+removed from the table, when looking through the window, she saw Emily
+on her little mare with her little girl before her, and Gusty riding by
+her side. This of course was the first sight she had had of Emily for
+two years past; she hastened out to meet her. Gusty had dismounted, and
+was lifting his little sister from his mother’s lap, previous to
+assisting her from the saddle. She greeted Hagar with as much cordiality
+as could be expected under the circumstances. Hagar immediately ran, and
+lifting, caressed the little girl that was but a few months older than
+her own children. Emily’s sullen anger was somewhat softened by
+witnessing the sincere interest manifested by the youthful mother in
+_her_ child, and so they went into the house. Soon Hagar led her babies,
+who could now walk, into the room, and the two women for a time
+forgot—the one her pride, the other her anger, and both their
+antagonism, in comparing and admiring the three babies as they toddled
+about. Emily remained to tea, and forgot her displeasure so far as not
+only to suppress the fact of her son’s having been cashiered, but also
+to invite Hagar to come and spend a week at Grove cottage, as soon as
+she should be able to go out.
+
+The next morning, directly after breakfast, Gusty came over to Heath
+Hall to inquire after Hagar and the babies, and to know if she wanted
+anything.
+
+“Yes, Gusty, I want to speak to you. Come in here, Gusty,” and taking
+his hand she drew him into the drawing-room and pointed to the piano and
+harp.
+
+“Ah, yes! certainly! give me a tune!” said Gusty, blushing and
+stammering with embarrassment.
+
+“But, Gusty, _you_ sent these here!”
+
+“Oh—yes—well—what of it?”
+
+“Only _this_, Gusty, that you are _very good, too good_ for your own
+sake—but, Gusty, dear friend, you must not lavish such presents upon
+me.”
+
+“Oh! nonsense! oh, pshaw! they were sold at auction, and I bought them
+in for a mere trifle.”
+
+“Yes, but, dear friend, there are many reasons why you should not offer
+and I receive costly presents like these. Much as I dislike to do it I
+shall have to draw—upon—upon _his_ banker and pay you for them as well
+as for the horse and dogs.”
+
+“HAGAR!”
+
+“Dear Gusty, now listen to me quietly, _it must be so_; and moreover,
+dear Gusty, you must not get into the habit of visiting me every day as
+you appear inclined to do. You must never come to see me, Gusty, except
+in company with your mother.”
+
+“THUNDER!” roared Gusty. “Hagar, how have I deserved that sentence? I
+can’t stand that!”
+
+“Listen, Gusty! when I was a girl you know I did not care at all what
+people said or thought of me. I cared for nothing but to keep my Maker’s
+laws, because no one cared for me then.”
+
+“And no one cares for you _now_ as I can see!” said Gusty, rudely.
+
+“No—_but I care for others_! I care for the honor of one whose honor is
+more vulnerable through _me_ than through _himself_! Once I was
+unconnected, and if society had misunderstood, judged, and condemned me,
+I should have fallen alone! and so I had courage to do as I pleased and
+defy the fate! _now_ I am closely entwined with others, who, when _I_ am
+struck down, fall with me. I am weak, fettered, enslaved through them,
+Gusty. I cannot do as I please, and though I esteem and respect you
+beyond all other people in the world with one exception, and though your
+society would be the greatest solace in my reach, yet I must forego it,
+dear Gusty.”
+
+“You have no faith in my honor, in your own purity, or in God! that is
+just the amount of it,” growled Gusty, straightening himself up with
+tears in his eyes as he buttoned up his greatcoat. “It seems to me you
+are not yourself; you are weak.”
+
+“I am weak _through those I love_, Gusty!”
+
+“And do you, Hagar, really _hope_ to propitiate the gossips of —— county
+by this course? and do you, a deserted wife!—there it’s out! well! it
+has been _in_ both our minds continually, so it had as well come out. I
+say, do you expect to be let alone? Do you not know that the old grudge
+against your wild girlhood will be remembered, and now that an
+opportunity is offered, will be visited with fury on your head. You will
+be cast forth from here, Hagar; a ground-swell of slander and
+persecution will lift and lift you, Hagar, until you take wing. Did you
+think when I brought you to be nursed into health and strength by the
+bracing air of your native heath, that I thought that YOU would stay
+_here_? No, Hagar! I could prophesy _more_ for you, but I will not now.
+I will leave you to the force of circumstances; to the inspirations of
+your own genius—to God in fine. But you are wrong to discard me. I have
+not deserved it. _I_ say it! But I charge all this weakness of yours
+upon bodily ill health. Good morning, Hagar;” and shaking her hand
+affectionately, he clapped his hat upon his head and went out.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+It happened as Gusty had predicted. Hagar remained weeks, months at
+Heath Hall, and no one visited her—not a soul had come to welcome her
+back to her native neighborhood except the Buncombes. All sorts of evil
+reports got into circulation against her. She was, as Gusty said, a rich
+waif for the gossips of —— county. Some were contented with repeating
+that her husband had left her, that “of course he had good reason,”
+asserting that they “had always expected it.” Others declared that _she_
+had eloped from _him_, and averred that they had “said so long ago.”
+Some said positively that he had left her upon account of the intimacy
+subsisting between herself and Lieutenant May—others had discovered that
+Lieutenant May had been cashiered upon her account, &c., &c., &c. Many
+other and more fatal rumors got into circulation, and though they never
+reached the ears of Hagar, she felt them in the utter abandonment and
+solitude into which she was suffered to fall; for even Emily’s visits
+became shorter and colder, and “few and far between,” until they ceased
+altogether, and Hagar Withers was left _alone_! And it was under these
+circumstances, and when her twins were little over a year old, that her
+third child was born. It was a little, fair-skinned, blue-eyed,
+golden-haired boy—with the very soul of Raymond Withers reposing on his
+features; and Hagar, if she could not love the babe more upon that
+account, was happier in her love, because the face of the baby gave her
+back the features of her absent and lost one.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
+                                REMORSE.
+
+         “Pangs more corrosive and severe,
+           More fierce, more poignant and intense
+         Than ever hostile sword or spear
+           Waked in the breast of innocence.”
+                                             MARGARET OF ANJOU.
+
+
+Rosalia Aguilar was not one to enjoy an hour’s impunity in sinning. From
+the time of her passing Churchill’s Point—through all the days of her
+passage down the bay to Norfolk—up to the time of her embarkation—and
+through all the weeks of her long sea voyage, she had remained in a sort
+of horrid waking dream—with her life broken off in the middle, and its
+innocence and happiness wafted away—receding with the receding shores of
+her native country. Raymond vainly waited for the struggle to cease,
+when she might repose calmly in his power. The struggle _had_ ceased,
+but the issue had not been what he hoped and expected. The struggle had
+ceased—passion was conquered, and remorse was the victor, the judge, and
+the executioner. Her health declined daily; her features grew sharp, and
+her complexion of a blue transparent paleness. She became so feeble at
+last as to be almost unable to go upon deck. Every day she expressed an
+earnest wish to reach the end of her voyage. Every hour she besought
+Raymond when he should land, to place her in some quiet, obscure
+retreat, and leave her for ever—leave her to die alone—to die in peace.
+And Raymond would endeavour to soothe her, while evading her despairing
+entreaties. At last Rosalia ceased to make them, and seemed resigned to
+her destiny. And Raymond deceived himself with the fond belief that she
+was content, and pleased himself with the hope that once upon the shores
+of sunny Italy her health and spirits would return, especially when
+towards the end of the voyage, and after they had entered the
+Mediterranean, she revived so much as to be able to come on deck every
+morning and evening. In this seemingly promising state of affairs, they
+arrived at Genoa—the post of Raymond Withers’s consulship. On the voyage
+out Miss Aguilar had passed for what she really was—the ward of Captain
+and Mrs. Wilde—going out under the protection of the new Consul, to
+rejoin them. It had been the design of Raymond Withers, on reaching the
+shores of Italy, to find some convenient and obscure, but beautiful
+palazzo, buried in some fragrant grove by the side of some lovely
+stream—furnish and adorn it to please his own luxurious taste, and
+enshrine his idol there, where the privacy of the retreat would prevent
+exposure for some time. How he expected to meet the further difficulties
+that make “the way of the transgressors so hard” does not appear.
+
+They landed at Genoa. Raymond Withers took his ward at once to a hotel,
+saw her comfortably ensconced in her own apartment, and promising to
+meet her at dinner, left her for the purpose of presenting his
+credentials in the proper quarter.
+
+It was about three o’clock when he left the hotel—it was five when he
+returned, sought his own chamber, changed his dress, and sent a waiter
+to the apartment of Miss Aguilar, to know if she were ready for dinner.
+The man returned after some time, saying that he supposed the young lady
+was sleeping, as he had knocked loudly but received no answer. Raymond
+settled it in his own mind that she was taking an afternoon’s nap, and
+waited patiently for an hour, then touching the bell, he sent the waiter
+that answered it again to the chamber of Rosalia, and again the man
+returned in a few minutes, with the information that the young lady was
+still sleeping. Raymond thought that Rosalia was taking a very long
+sleep, and hoped she might awake refreshed and cheerful, and be able to
+spend the evening pleasantly with him. He ordered dinner and ate it
+alone. Then selecting a delightful little private parlor, which
+contained, among other luxuries, a grand piano, he took possession of
+it, giving directions that an elegant little supper should be prepared
+and set on the table there at ten o’clock.
+
+And there he sat waiting, promising himself an evening of delight, with
+Rosalia’s society, and his long lost luxury—music. At nine o’clock he
+sent a third time to the chamber-door, and a third time the waiter
+returned to say that no answer was given to his knock. Now, for the
+first time, a feeling of uneasiness arose in Raymond Withers’s bosom;
+and reluctant as he was to violate any of the external proprieties of
+life, whatever he might do with its moralities, he determined to go to
+her room and see what was the matter. He went, rapped at her door,
+received no answer—rapped a second time and louder, and waited,
+listening with his ear to the lock; _all was silent as death!_ Then he
+tried the lock and found it fast. In real alarm now he knocked loudly,
+beating and shaking the door, and calling on the name of Rosalia—then
+suddenly stopping while the sounds died away in silence, he put his ear
+to the key-hole and listened—_the stillness of the grave was within!_
+Terrified now, he hastened from the door to the nearest bell-rope,
+jerked it down, and broke the wires with his energetic pull, sending
+peals of alarm through the house that brought the landlord and half the
+servants in the establishment to his presence.
+
+“Are you sure that this is the room in which the young American lady was
+placed?” he inquired of the host.
+
+“Si, Signore.”
+
+“Are you _certain_?” he again asked in Italian.
+
+“Si, Signore, _certainly_,” replied the landlord in the same language.
+
+“Then I must have the door forced—the young lady entered this chamber at
+three o’clock, and though summoned both to dinner and to supper, has not
+made her appearance or replied to the call, or given, in fact, the
+slightest sign of her presence, or even of her existence! and it is now
+ten o’clock. I am extremely anxious concerning her, and must have the
+door forced. Clear away all these people, signor landlord; I did not
+want the whole establishment about my ears—and bring an instrument to
+force this lock. I tell you that I am consumed with anxiety!”
+
+“Si, Signore; what does Signore think may be the matter?” inquired the
+host, as with a wave of his hand he dismissed all his attendants and
+took a master key from his girdle.
+
+“Matter! how can I tell? the lady may be ill, dead, in a lethargy; open
+the door; _do!_ without more delay.”
+
+The landlord placed the key in the door, turned it, and throwing open
+the door, bowed, and was about to withdraw, when Raymond Withers
+recalled him by a gesture, and both entered the chamber. The room was
+unoccupied, the bed empty, and its perfectly smooth and neat appearance
+proved that it had not been slept in. Yet Rosalia’s trunks were on the
+floor; her pet doves, released from their cage, were perched upon the
+top of the dressing-glass; and even her dark blue velvet travelling
+dress and close beaver bonnet, lay upon the white Marseilles counterpane
+that covered the bed. Raymond gazed around in perplexity and distress.
+There was no other mode of exit from the room except the door by which
+they had entered, and the windows; he went to one and raised it; pshaw!
+the fall to the ground was fifty feet; a bird would have risked its neck
+in taking the flight; and Raymond turned away from the window in
+despair, to detect the landlord’s smile, which was quickly drawn in as
+he met his guest’s anxious gaze of inquiry, and replied to it by saying—
+
+“The young lady could only have left the room by the door at which we
+entered, sir—and she must have locked her door, and taken the key with
+her; and to prove it, see—there is no other means of exit from the room;
+and when we came we found the door fastened, the room vacant, and the
+key gone,” said he, pointing to the lock. Raymond Withers was half
+stupified with astonishment at her absence, and alarm for her fate.
+
+“Had she any acquaintance in the city?” inquired the host.
+
+“Oh, of course not—_not one_—she was a perfect stranger.”
+
+“She _may_ be in the house; I will inquire,” said the landlord.
+
+“_Do_, and be quick, will you?” said Raymond Withers, lifting the lamp
+from the dressing-table, where he had set it at first entering the room.
+As he raised up the light, his eyes fell on a small white note that,
+lying upon the white cover of the table, had escaped his first glance,
+so that he had set the lamp down upon it and concealed it until this
+instant. Snatching it up now, he saw that it was directed to himself in
+the hand-writing of Rosalia; he tore it open and read—
+
+
+  “Good-bye, Raymond—I am gone. Forgive me, Raymond, all the sin I have
+  caused you to commit—all the suffering I have made you undergo—and
+  when I dare to pray, I will implore the God of Mercy to bless and heal
+  you. I have left you in this abrupt manner, Raymond, because I knew
+  that you would not have suffered me to depart had you suspected my
+  intentions; nor, to tell the truth, had I the courage to brave the
+  anguish of a parting scene. I had long resolved on this. Indeed, had
+  it not been for this resolution, I should never have lived to reach
+  the land, Raymond. This resolution was the secret of my recovery at
+  sea; a temporary recovery only, I begin now to think it was, Raymond,
+  for to-night a mortal languor overpowers me; I can scarcely raise
+  myself from my chair, or draw one weary foot after the other; yet must
+  their last strength be spent in bearing me away from you, as surely as
+  my last breath shall be spent in praying for you, Raymond. I do not
+  know where I am going—towards what point of the compass my failing
+  steps will stray—to some quiet spot where I can lie down and go to
+  sleep—I have not been to sleep since _that day_!—that day when I
+  kneeled down by the side of your lounge, and, with my head upon your
+  cushion, sobbed myself to sleep, while you looked gently in my face
+  and stroked my hair, soothing into stillness the tempest in my bosom.
+  Ah, that day, when waking up, I, unfortunate! became your Eve,
+  tempting you to sin! No more, alas! I have not slept since then; for
+  though I have laid down and shut my eyes, I have never lost
+  myself—never lost consciousness of my sin—my remorse—and never lost
+  sight of one image—the image of Hagar! oh! I feel it sacrilege for me
+  to trace the letters that form her name!—of Hagar, as she stood pale
+  in the grey morning light, with her black hair streaming down her wan
+  cheeks. In that form her spirit always stands before me night and day,
+  and I cannot shut it out and sleep. I shall escape this image in
+  leaving you, Raymond, and so I shall be permitted to go to sleep and
+  die; for it was you she followed, cleaved to, not me; and this is the
+  reason, I know it, she never looks indignant and reproachful as she
+  used to look at me, even when I did not understand her look—but
+  deprecating, loving, imploring, and most wretched as she used to look
+  at you when in her anguish she forgot that other eyes than yours were
+  on her. Good-bye, Raymond! my tears are falling fast—thank God, they
+  can flow once more! they have been scorching up in their fountains so
+  long! Ah, now I understand poor Hagar’s dry sobs! and the untold agony
+  breaking forth through them! as much more awful than the grief of
+  tears as the burning sirocco of the desert is more terrible than the
+  April shower. Well, I can weep now, thank God! Come, I shall be able
+  to sleep soon; perhaps I shall even grow calm enough to die.
+  Good-bye—take care of my doves; I would like to take them with me, but
+  they would perish where I shall go to sleep. Give them to Hagar’s
+  children—there! now the tears are raining from my eyes again. Oh,
+  Raymond, I would lose my soul to save, to redeem yours! would descend
+  into hell to purchase you a place among the archangels! Good-bye!
+  good-bye! Alas! I shall write all night; I cannot tear myself from the
+  paper that yet connects me with you. Good-night, Raymond! I pour my
+  whole heart and soul, my life and immortality in one blessing, and
+  breathe it in the words, _Good-Night_!
+
+  “Why has a revolution passed through my soul within the last minute,
+  and since writing the last good night? Why do I feel now as though it
+  were a sin to leave you? Am I going crazy again? Oh, my God! Let me
+  escape while a ray of reason is left to light my path! Good-night,
+  again, and yet again! Bless, _bless_ you, Raymond! Oh, if I could
+  dissolve my being into a fragrance of blessing, and envelope you in
+  it!—into a halo of blessing, and crown you with it!—that I could do
+  what I please with my own soul, and lose it in your heart to give you
+  fuller life! Yes, I would annihilate myself and give my spirit to
+  enlarge your life; and yet I cannot do a _less_ thing—I cannot,
+  _cannot_ break the heart of a sister woman—of Hagar—even for _you_.
+  Raymond! CANNOT! do you hear and understand, Raymond? For though I
+  would give my body to be burned, and my soul to perdition for your
+  sake, I have NO RIGHT TO SACRIFICE ANOTHER! and that truth has been
+  thundered in my ears until my very brain is stunned. My senses are
+  reeling, whirling. I scarcely know where I am, what I write, where I
+  go; I only feel, oh God! that I leave you for ever—that my whole soul
+  sobs forth in bitterest anguish its wail—_Good-Night_!”
+
+
+The first part of this passionate and incoherent letter was nearly
+illegible with the marks of tears; the last sentences were traced wildly
+and scrawlingly.
+
+Seeing the excitement, the insanity under which this letter must have
+been written, and in the deepest grief for her loss, and the utmost
+alarm for her safety, he hastened from the room, and caused the
+strictest inquiries to be set on foot, that resulted, however, in
+nothing satisfactory. The chambermaid who had attended her on her first
+arrival was questioned, but could only say that just as soon as she had
+assisted the young lady in removing her travelling dress, she had been
+dismissed by her. The porter was examined, but had seen no one pass
+answering to the description of the young American lady. So all the
+people about the establishment were interrogated without any information
+being elicited. A fruitless search was kept up through all the night—no
+trace of the fugitive could be discovered. This was perhaps the very
+first night’s rest that Raymond Withers, the systematic voluptuary, had
+ever lost. Towards sunrise, after having given directions for the search
+to be kept up, he threw himself upon his bed, and overcome by anxiety,
+watching, and fatigue, slept the sleep of exhaustion. Late in the day he
+awoke, with that dreary sense of vague weight that oppresses the head
+and brain at the first awakening after a great sorrow. It was some
+minutes before the fact was clear before his eyes. Rosalia fled—Rosalia
+lost—wandering, and exposed, in all her tenderness and delicacy, to all
+the horrors of unsheltered life. This was the first time that the
+benevolence of Raymond Withers had been awakened for his victim. Her
+mental and moral throes and struggles he had not pitied, because he had
+not understood them; but the epicurean fully comprehended and greatly
+exaggerated the importance of the physical sufferings she might have to
+endure. He dressed in haste, and going out inquired anxiously if news
+had been received of Miss Aguilar. He was told that no clue had been
+found by which to trace her course. All that day was spent in a vain
+search through the city and its suburbs—all that week was devoted to
+sending messengers down all the public roads, and to the neighboring
+villages seeking the lost one; but the end of the week—the end of the
+month, found them as far from the attainment of their object as they
+were at its commencement. Once or twice it had occurred to Raymond
+Withers that she might have fled to Captain Wilde and Sophie, “her young
+heart’s cynosure,” but then he quickly recollected that Captain and Mrs.
+Wilde were a thousand miles off, at Constantinople. At last he
+determined on sending off the letters and packets that had been
+intrusted to Rosalia for Sophie, to write to Captain Wilde, and to
+mention merely the facts that Miss Aguilar had come out under his
+protection with the purpose of joining them at Constantinople—that
+immediately upon landing at Genoa she had mysteriously disappeared, and
+that though the most vigilant search had been instituted, and kept up
+even to the present moment, no clue to her retreat had been found.
+
+It has been said by some philosopher that “Without disease and pain, we
+should never know that we have a body—and without sin and remorse, never
+feel that we have a spirit.” Raymond Withers could have controverted the
+first part of this proposition by his own experiences—he was deliciously
+conscious of his bodily existence through its perfect health and keen
+enjoyments; but he could have endorsed the latter clause with a pen
+dipped in tears of blood. Through all its downy coverings of soft
+voluptuousness, his spirit had been reached and wounded to the very
+quick; and the method of his remorse was quite characteristic.
+
+By his own agony at the loss of Rosalia, he was enabled for the first
+time to understand and sympathize with the just and the greater anguish
+of Hagar at his desertion, and to comprehend in a word, the enormity of
+his offence. He might have gone on in his luxurious self-indulgence and
+self-enjoyment for years, had he not yielded to a strong temptation, and
+wounded his spirit with sin. Now all luxury palled upon his senses—he
+turned, sickened, from the choicest viands of his table—despairing from
+the most delightful prospects of nature, and from the most beautiful
+specimens of art—music was torture, and even in the deepest repose of
+his body the wounds of his spirit were most keenly felt, until the
+sensitive epicurean, who would have shrunk from the slightest abrasion
+of his delicate skin—invoked bodily pain as a relief from spiritual
+anguish.
+
+Was this illicit love cured, then? Ah, no! not when just as the cup of
+guilty pleasure had been raised to his lips, it had been dashed untasted
+to the ground—not when just as the prize was within his grasp it had
+been snatched away. Nay, that very disappointment of his hopes at the
+moment of their expected realization sharpened and intensified his
+desire, while the sin—the sin, as well as the remorse he suffered, gave
+power and depth to his passion! The boon for which he had bartered his
+soul, defied God, and lost Heaven, became by the costly purchase a
+priceless treasure.
+
+There is a crisis in the rise and progress of an evil passion, when its
+victim becomes morally insane, I had nearly written morally
+irresponsible.
+
+It is the period described in the beautiful language of Scripture, as
+the time when the Spirit of God ceases to strive with the heart of
+man—when he is given over to reprobacy of mind—when Ephraim, joined to
+his idols, is left alone—when the prodigal son receives his portion and
+is suffered to go forth and seek the desire of his heart, and find by
+bitter experience, that forbidden things may be bright to the vision but
+scorching to the touch—as the restless and eager infant permitted at
+last to catch at the coveted flame of the candle, learns by its own
+suffering that pain follows the contact of fire—in a word, when the
+unbeliever is suffered to prove for himself the bitterness of sin. Is
+this utter abandonment then? Ah, no! The heart that has sinned,
+suffered, and repents, is forgiven. The babe has burned its fingers, and
+learned that the flame is not to be touched with impunity, and we may be
+sure it will not be touched again. The returning prodigal is received
+half way without a single reproach for the past, without the exaction of
+a single pledge for the future; is received upon his experience and his
+penitence. Ephraim turning from his idols, is accepted; and the Spirit
+of God comes again to dwell in the heart that is opened to receive him.
+I say again, when a violator of the moral law suffers, it is not by the
+vengeance of a God of infinite love and mercy—but it is by a pain he
+finds in the sin itself. But this by the way.
+
+The downward progress of evil has been aptly called a gently inclined
+plane, of so gradual a descent that the sinner believes himself to be
+walking on level ground all the while. “Easy is the descent to hell,”
+said Horace, and doubtless such is most frequently the case; but there
+are instances in which the downward course is very rapid; where the
+sinner has started in a run, and after a while—and this answers to the
+crisis, the insanity of passion—_gets an impetus_ that makes a pause
+_impossible_, until he falls prostrate at the bottom of the abyss.
+
+Such was the case with Raymond Withers—he had reached the crisis of his
+moral disorder—the insanity of passion—when he was scarcely responsible
+for his acts; yet not upon this account shall he enjoy impunity for he
+could, by a little timely self-discipline, have saved himself from moral
+mania.
+
+He is answerable for the loss of his moral sanity, if not for acts of
+his phrensy. But to those acts: With the fatuity of passion, he fancied
+that were he free to seek the hand of Rosalia, her conscience would be
+quieted, her reluctance overcome, and that she would give a cheerful
+response to his love. He brooded over this idea of freedom from his
+matrimonial bonds with the pertinacity of monomania, until it seemed
+possible—next probable—then every way natural, proper, and
+desirable—finally inevitable. A savage resolution, by fair means or
+foul, to divorce his wife,—or, what was more feasible in his
+apprehension, to compel her to divorce him—a morose determination to
+recover and marry Rosalia, at any cost of his own integrity and peace,
+and others’ rights and happiness, occupied his whole thoughts. It was
+just at this crisis that he received a letter from Hagar. It was dated
+from Heath Hall, just after the birth of her son. It announced that
+fact, and gave a short but full account of all that happened since he
+left home, as well as of all her plans for the future, as far as she had
+laid them out. Could you have seen the succession of quick, short,
+self-congratulatory nods with which he read this letter, the smile of
+fiendish inspiration with which he folded it up and placed it in his
+desk, you would have given him up for lost, though you had been his very
+guardian angel!
+
+With this diabolical grimace still upon his face, Raymond Withers took
+pen and paper, sat down and wrote a reply, sealed and sent it off that
+same day by a homeward-bound vessel.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+                           THE WOUNDED EAGLE.
+
+              “Eagle, this is not thy sphere!
+              Warrior bird! what dost thou here?
+              Wherefore by the fountain’s brink
+              Dost thy royal pinion sink?
+              Wherefore on the violet’s bed
+              Lay’st thou thus thy drooping head?
+              Thou, that hold’st the blast in scorn—
+              Thou, that bear’st the wings of morn!
+              Lift thy glance! The fiery sun
+              Now his pride of place hath won!
+              And sweet sound hath filled the air,
+              For the mountain lark is there.
+              Looking on thine own bright skies—
+              Eagle! wilt thou not arise?”
+                                                  HEMANS.
+
+
+The spring and summer had passed, and autumn was at hand, yet Hagar had
+received no letter, or message, or news of her husband. True, the
+foreign mail was very irregular, interrupted, and uncertain, for those
+were not the days of steamships, and Emily had not heard from her
+brother for several months. Hagar bore the slow torture of suspense as
+well as she could, occupying herself with the care of her three
+children. She was abandoned to a life that would have been utter
+solitude, but for the society of her children and the attendance of her
+servants. At first coming home, she had regularly attended divine
+service at the parish church; but seeing that her presence there merely
+drew off the attention of the congregation from their ritual to gaze her
+out of countenance, as though she had been a monster, and feeling,
+besides, a difficulty in worshipping among a set of people, who, from
+malice or thoughtlessness, had slandered and forsaken her, she
+discontinued her attendance upon the preaching, thereby giving occasion
+for fresh calumny. The hours not occupied with her family cares were
+occasionally spent in the pursuits of her old and favorite pastimes, her
+forest hunts with horse and hounds, or her fishing excursions in a light
+skiff propelled by one oar. But she liked best her exhilarating woodland
+sports with their lifegiving power. The resumption of these healthful
+but half savage habits, gave additional offence to the conventional
+autocrats of —— county. In her rides she seldom met any one, because her
+excursions were confined to the Heath and woodlands of her own ruined
+plantation; so seldom, that when it happened, the person who had seen
+her would say, “I have met Hagar Withers,” in much the same tone that
+you might exclaim, “I have encountered the sea-serpent.” And the hearer
+would cry “Indeed! where?” with as much astonishment in the first case
+as they might be supposed to feel in the last. It happened that the
+first person who had met her in her riding costume was that princess of
+propriety, Mrs. Gardiner Green, who, taking a hasty inventory of her
+short, black, boyish looking curls clustering around her forehead and
+under her little riding cap, and the rolling collar, steel buttons, and
+coat-sleeves of her habit, had gone away and reported as follows: “She
+has cut off her hair, and dresses like _a man_!” In her perfect
+isolation, Hagar heard nothing of all this latter talk.
+
+I said that God was a kind father and Nature a tender, nursing mother;
+and that our Hagar was getting well under their care. And so it was. In
+spite of all her past wrongs, griefs, and sufferings, in defiance of all
+her present regrets, suspense, and anxieties, her spirits had rebounded
+from their long pressure; health, strength, and life were tiding back.
+The first of October found her form erect and robust, her limbs full and
+rounded, her cheeks crimson, and her eye brilliant with high health; and
+Hagar, in her returning joy, blessed her native air, woods, and waters;
+praised nature, and worshipped God for her resurrection from the dead,
+her restoration to the young exultant life of her glad childhood. And
+what were her plans for the future, and what were her thoughts of her
+husband? Perhaps wearied with the weight of the incessant thoughts, her
+mind had thrown off the burden; perhaps rebounding from the long and
+heavy pressure, her spirits had sprung away from the painful subject;
+perhaps with the natural wildness of her character she had yielded
+herself up with childish carelessness to the enjoyments of the present
+moment. She was disturbed in the midst of her enjoyments by the arrival
+of a letter bearing a foreign stamp. She found it lying on her plate
+when she took her seat at the breakfast-table one morning. It had been
+brought by Tarquinius from the Post Office late on the previous night,
+after she had gone to rest. She snatched the letter hastily, and tearing
+open its seal, read—why do Hagar’s cheeks flush, her eyes blaze with
+indignation? The letter conveyed a gross and degrading charge, a
+humiliating and cruel proposition, and a startling and alarming threat!
+yet withal, so cautiously written, as were it produced in any court, it
+would be difficult to convict the _writer_ of any more serious offence
+than outraged affection and injured confidence. It ran thus:
+
+
+                                                “GENOA, July 15th, 182-.
+
+  “HAGAR:—I have just received your letter, with its strange
+  communications—_confessions_, I should rather call them; had such a
+  blow fallen on me a year ago, when I did not know you so well, when I
+  esteemed and loved you, it would have gone nigh to destroy me! even
+  now when I can esteem you no longer, it has given me the deepest pain,
+  more for your sake than for my own, and more upon our children’s
+  account than either. Hagar, was it that Satan, after having tempted
+  you to evil, abandoned you to idiocy; was it fatuity? or, was it the
+  goading of a wounded conscience that drove you to make these shameful
+  revelations to me? Or, as is most likely, did you hope by being the
+  _first_ to tell me of what was inevitable, that with or without your
+  communications, I must soon hear, and by giving your own version of
+  the doings at the Rialto, you could thus blind me as to the _real_
+  state of the case? If you thought so, Hagar, you yourself were the
+  victim of gross self-deception. I will not reproach while judging and
+  condemning you, Hagar; that were vain and unworthy, but before
+  pronouncing sentence, I will sum up the evidence of your guilt as
+  given in your own unconscious confession, and out of your own mouth
+  condemn you, for, however you may attempt to glaze over the facts,
+  they stand thus: No sooner has your husband quitted his home, upon his
+  official duties, than lo! his place in your house is filled by the
+  lover of your girlhood, Lieutenant May, who, without delay, hastens
+  over five hundred miles of sea and land to join you: he remains with
+  you domesticated under your roof for weeks, and until the house is
+  sold over your heads, while every respectable female servant quits the
+  premises. He takes you from the neighborhood where I had left you, and
+  where I expected when I should return to find you, and carries you off
+  to Maryland. On the night of your arrival, under favor of the storm,
+  you pass the night alone together in the old fishing-house, within an
+  eighth of a mile of Heath Hall, which you might have reached in ten
+  minutes. Then your neighbors, shocked and justly indignant at the
+  audacious effrontery of this shameless disregard of public sentiment,
+  have very properly abandoned you.
+
+  “Now, then, Hagar, hear me! Since your betrayal of these disgraceful
+  circumstances to my knowledge, I feel a re-union between us to be
+  impossible. _You_ must see and feel this also—nay, you yourself could
+  not desire it. Our marriage must be annulled. _I_ could do it by
+  widely exposing your guilt, and bringing you to open shame. I am
+  unwilling to take this course, unless by rejecting the only
+  alternative that I have to offer, you leave me no other. This
+  alternative will veil your guilt from the general eye—it is a self
+  immolating proposition on my part, as I prefer to suffer in myself the
+  unmerited condemnation of society, rather than have the mother of my
+  children, however well she may deserve the fate, consigned to
+  ignominy. My proposition, in a word, is _this_—that _you yourself_
+  annul our marriage—that you divorce _me_—you can do it upon the plea
+  of my desertion of you—suppose that plea was false when I left the
+  country, it is true _now_ that I have detected your infidelity—urge
+  that plea—your suit will not be rejected, for the reason that I shall
+  not oppose it—_Do_ it, Hagar! and in return, after it _is_ done, I
+  will bind myself to leave you in quiet possession of your home and
+  children for the remainder of our lives—_Refuse_ to do it, Hagar! and
+  I will return to the United States, and with the terrible array of
+  circumstances that can be marshalled against you, I will overwhelm
+  you, divorce and degrade you, and when that is effected, remove my
+  children from the care of a dishonored woman, whom private experience,
+  public sentiment, legal justice, and legislative wisdom shall have
+  alike condemned, as unworthy of their charge. I await your reply,
+  Hagar.
+
+                                                                  R. W.”
+
+
+I wish you could have seen Hagar as she read this letter—how much more
+courageous she was in the endurance than in the anticipation of this
+evil. You would have felt how strong she had grown in her sorrows, how
+nobly she had struggled, and how grandly she had soared above them. How,
+after the first start and flash of indignation, she had read the letter
+through, and holding it open on her lap, looked straight before her with
+that air of calm superiority, of grave rebuke, with which one regards
+the ravings of intoxication.
+
+“I will not reply to this just yet,” said Hagar, to herself—and folding
+the letter, she put it in her pocket and fell into a reverie. It was
+during this reverie that Hagar was inspired with a resolution, and
+formed a highly important plan, which, in a few weeks, she prepared to
+carry into effect.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
+                             A REVELATION.
+
+                       “With wild surprise
+         As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,
+         A stupid moment motionless he stood
+         Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,
+         Speechless and fixed in all the death of woe.”
+                                             THOMSON’S SEASONS.
+
+                           “Oh! thou lost
+           And ever gentle victim—whose most fearful
+           Fate darkens earth and heaven—what thou now art
+           I know not, but if thou saw’st what I am,
+           I think thou would’st forgive him—whom his God
+           May ne’er forgive—nor his own soul.”
+                                               BYRON’S CAIN.
+
+
+From the time of his sending the letter to Hagar, Raymond Withers had
+renewed his search after Rosalia Aguilar with augmented hope and zeal.
+For the result of his proposition to her he scarcely felt a doubt. Over
+that high and proud nature, which had bowed before no will beneath the
+Supreme, he had, through the power of her strong affections, ever held
+despotic sway. Now indeed he had undertaken a more difficult task, to
+set in antagonism the two strongest, fiercest passions of her soul, to
+oppose her motherly love to her wifely affection; and though even by her
+maternal fears he should fail to extinguish her conjugal love, at least
+to silence the cry of its claims—to subdue the wife by the mother. But
+Raymond Withers was soon to learn that he had not sounded the depths,
+measured the extent, or tested the strength of the soul he wished to
+subdue; and how a few months of peace and stormy struggle and suffering
+had revolutionized her nature; that the tempest into which he had lashed
+her strong soul had only revealed from what an abyss the waves rolled up
+in their mighty power, and then subsided into passionless and profound
+calm; that the conflagration he had kindled in her high heart had only
+served to consume the dross and leave it pure and cool.
+
+It was while waiting with great impatience to receive letters from two
+opposite quarters of the world, namely, from Hagar at the Heath, and
+from Captain Wilde at Constantinople, and while expecting with extreme
+anxiety to hear news from that terra incognita, the retreat of Rosalia,
+that he received in a packet of despatches from the State Department, a
+letter from Hagar.
+
+“Now then!” exclaimed Raymond Withers, as he hastened to his own
+chamber, and shutting himself up in its privacy, broke the seal of the
+letter, running his eyes eagerly over its contents—they were as follows:
+
+
+                                      “WASHINGTON CITY, Oct. 15th, 182-.
+
+  “DEAREST RAYMOND:—Your letter, with all its insanities, is lying
+  before me. I received it two weeks since at Heath Hall, I reply to it
+  from my present residence, Washington City. Yes, I have left Heath
+  Hall for many years’ absence and wanderings perhaps, and this city is
+  only my transient home: passing over the reasons and the objects of
+  this course, I will come at once to the subjects more interesting to
+  your heart than any chance of time or tide that may happen to me can
+  be now, unless indeed such chance should remove me from the world,
+  which would be ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished,’ you think, in
+  your present state of mind. Passing also over all that is false in
+  your letter, through all that is superficial in your nature, I lay my
+  hand upon your naked heart and assert that it does not cherish one
+  single suspicion of my purity, that no man in earth or in hell could
+  infuse there one single doubt of my fidelity, because I am true—that
+  is truth—real in your convictions as in my experience, and that truth
+  will bind us together, that truth will bring you back to me. You once
+  told me that during your long and frequent absences before our
+  marriage, you trusted—to me—the spirit that even in the form of an
+  infant attracted, fascinated, and delighted you—and until passion
+  subverted my reason, and your soul was drowned in voluptuousness,
+  raised us both as one almost to Heaven. How high, how godlike you
+  appeared to me then, Raymond; aye, in very truth the image of God;
+  your tone could still the wildest tumult, your glance subdue the
+  fiercest tempest that ever arose in my stormy bosom.
+
+  “You told me that then you had trusted _in_ me, not _out_ of me; _in_
+  me, for our future union and joy. I quote your own words to assure you
+  that you may _now_ trust _not out_ of me, but _in_ me, for our _final_
+  _re_union and happiness. Your faith in me will save you, Raymond; will
+  make you whole, will redeem you, will bring you back. Does this seem
+  strange language to you, and wide of the subject of your letter? So
+  must ever the words of truth and soberness seem to one bereft of his
+  reason—as you are now—and how can one reply satisfactorily to the
+  ravings of insanity! _You_ are insane, Raymond, as ever your father
+  was in a different way; his insanity was derangement of the brain,
+  yours a disorder of the heart; his madness was mental aberration,
+  yours is moral illusion. Ah, Raymond! how much more frequent, how much
+  more horrible, how much more dangerous is moral than mental insanity!
+  and how much more heavily visited of man, however it may be met by
+  God! You are insane, Raymond! yes, brainsick, as well as heartsick
+  _now_; and in your delirium you would exact that which I must not give
+  you, and you threaten to visit an awful vengeance on my head if I do
+  not comply with your demands. I am smiling, Raymond! smiling to recall
+  a scene between a slight and fair-haired youth and his father in one
+  of his fits of lunacy; the figure of the lunatic stood up, tall, dark,
+  and threatening; the youth had dispossessed him of a razor, with which
+  he was about to cut his own throat, ‘Give it me! or I will tear your
+  heart out!!’ yelled the madman, stamping and shaking with fury, while
+  flakes of foam started from his lips. The beautiful boy stood before
+  him pale, calm, and resolute; with that spirit of indomitable
+  firmness, of invincible courage, piercing strongly, steadily through
+  the soft fire of his eyes, keeping his gaze fixed upon the lunatic,
+  until the mighty force of his _sane_ soul cast out the devil, and
+  subdued the ‘embodied storm’ before him! Do _you_ remember that scene,
+  Raymond? I was an infant of seven years old then; but, oh! how my soul
+  worshipped that sublime boy! How my spirit, that soared proudly above
+  every other sublunary authority, bowed before that godlike boy! But
+  now that lofty soul is itself struck down, that fine spirit wounded,
+  that great heart inflamed, fevered, delirious, and soars in its
+  phrensy for a weapon of self-destruction, which I will as soon give,
+  Raymond, as you would have yielded to the demands and threats of the
+  madman the razor that you withheld at the imminent peril of your life.
+  Ask me for a divorce a year hence, when you are sane, Raymond, and I
+  will give it to you—for I would not hold an unwilling mate—no, my God!
+  my whole soul recoils from the idea; but I cannot _now_ obey you,
+  Raymond; painful and humiliating as it is to me, as it _must_ be to me
+  to refuse you this! and more than that, disregard your _alleged_
+  reasons, and addressing myself to your consciousness, reply to your
+  _real_ motives.—You do not wish to be free from your matrimonial
+  engagements for the cause you have expressed; namely, a doubt of my
+  fidelity—no, Raymond! you trust in my honor as you believe in God!—No,
+  Raymond; there was an even stronger motive, if such could be, for your
+  wish. In the whole course of your letter you did not once mention the
+  name of your _compagnon-du-voyage_, Rosalia Aguilar; yet was _she_ the
+  Alpha and Omega of your thoughts? Come! I can think, speak, and write
+  of her very calmly now. You wish to marry Rosalia. Why, Raymond, you
+  will tire of her in a year, even if she lives. She is a sweet and
+  lovable girl, yet you do not love her as you _have_ loved and _will_
+  love me. You will sicken of her sweetness as a child sickens of a
+  surfeit of honey. You will loathe her very charms and graces, her
+  lovely and artless smiles and tones and gestures—that very melody of
+  motion which entrances you _now_—as only a voluptuary _can_ loathe the
+  poor beauty that he has humbled and grown sick of. And were you
+  married to her then, why then there would be _another_ deserted wife,
+  and where would it stop? Forgive me that I speak to you so, Raymond—it
+  costs me much pain—much more pain than it costs you. To take this tone
+  towards you humbles _me_ in my own estimation, more than it can you. I
+  cannot bear to look at you with any but an upraised glance. Alas! to
+  see you _now_, I have to look down with veiled eyes. Rise, Raymond,
+  rise! I want to see you aloft! my heart _needs_ to worship, as it
+  _must_ always love—_must_, Raymond! annihilate my soul, and the last
+  spark that will go out will be its love.
+
+  “I said that you would tire of that poor girl in a year if _she
+  lives_, but she will _not_ live, Raymond; the tempest of passion
+  that you have raised in her tender bosom, the hell of remorse that
+  you have kindled in her gentle soul will destroy her; she will not
+  survive the loss of her purity one year. I do not know what she
+  feels, how she looks now, but I know that she had frightfully
+  changed even before she left the Rialto, before she guessed what I
+  even _then_ knew. But _you_ know how she looks, you, perhaps, see
+  the rose you have plucked and bruised for its fragrance, withering
+  in your hands. You see her dying before you, and you fancy that if
+  you could marry her she would be at peace, get well and live. You
+  think you could cure a conscience-stricken soul by satisfying a
+  conventional law. But such would not be the case, nor can I now obey
+  you in this matter of a divorce. Ask it of me this day twelve
+  months, or any day thereafter, and I will do it. I pledge myself to
+  that. Ask it of me sanely, honestly, dispassionately, and I will do
+  it. Could I then hold you bound, if you wished to go? No! though my
+  heart-strings are your only fetters, I will snap them to free you.
+
+  “But you will not ask me to do this _when you come to yourself_. I
+  look for this result, confidently, as I expect the storm now beating
+  against my windows to cease, and the moon to shine out; quietly, as I
+  watch for the night now hanging over the earth to vanish before the
+  rising sun; patiently, as I wait for this cold, dreary winter to pass
+  away and the spring to come back. The storm in _my_ bosom has
+  subsided, the night also of my soul is passed. I have suffered and
+  outlived the greatest sorrow a human heart could feel, the worst is
+  over, and my existence is now a winter day,
+
+                          “‘Frosty but kindly.’
+
+  I am very quiet now; do you wonder at this, and that I write to you so
+  calmly—I who was an embodied whirlwind, so coolly—I whom you called
+  incarnated lightning! Listen, Raymond—the carriage wheels that carried
+  you away, seemed to have rolled over my bosom, crushing it nearly to
+  death. I felt the crush distinctly as any other physical agony—the
+  dividing crush of flesh and muscle, nerve and sinew, while with a
+  sharp cry I rolled over like a divided and quivering worm. I was
+  picked up by Mrs. Collins, who asked me what was the matter. I told
+  her that, lying in your path, an obstruction, your carriage had passed
+  over my body, cutting it in two; that one half, with my heart, was
+  dragged away with the wheels. They put me to bed, and said that I was
+  delirious—sent for a doctor, who bled, blistered, and drugged me. I
+  was ill a very long time. I moaned and laughed, prayed and blasphemed
+  by turns; they said that I was mad, but I was not, not for one moment.
+  Ah! if I had been mad, I should not have raved so! for what in all the
+  imaginings of insanity could equal the horrors of my real experience,
+  my sane consciousness? When my veins seemed running fire—when I burned
+  and burned, and held up my hands to see why they did not fall to
+  pieces in cinders and white ashes, consuming as they were in a dry
+  heat. That ‘lake of fire and brimstone!’ it was within and around me!
+  Often I threw myself out of the bed as out of a pit of coals, and in
+  my strong agony grasped and tore at the floor like one shot through
+  the heart might do. Oh! what a rack existence was then! I wished to
+  take vengeance on all who had a hand in giving me life-God and my
+  parents. Suddenly in the midst of that horrible feeling, I was struck
+  with its awful blasphemy, penetrated with the truth of God’s goodness
+  and mercy—lastly of his omnipotence; and then falling again out of my
+  bed, I rolled upon my face on the carpet and implored God in mercy to
+  take back the life He had given, the life that was consuming fire—to
+  give me the profound repose of non-existence—and if this prayer was
+  sinful, at least to annihilate the _hell_ in my heart. And now,
+  Raymond, for a strange experience. As I prayed all things seemed
+  changing around me—the air seemed stirred with angel wings, I could
+  hear their hushed flapping as they waved a delicious cold dampness
+  that seemed to cool my fevered and burning frame while it solicited
+  sleep; and all this time my heart’s wild hot throbs were subsiding
+  coolly, while it filled and filled as a reservoir with peace; and
+  every influence around me said gently, lovingly, ‘Sleep, sleep,’ and
+  the hot stringency of my eyelids was loosened, and they fell cool and
+  moist over the burning balls. And I slept and dreamed, a dream of
+  infancy—it seemed to me that I lay across grandmother’s dear, soft
+  lap, that it was summer and she was fanning me, while a delicious
+  coolness ran through all my veins, and filtered through all my flesh,
+  exhaling vapor-like from the pores of my skin, as I felt myself
+  luxuriously sleeping, breathing, and growing. Then came
+  unconsciousness—and then I woke up renewed, the fever and the agony
+  were gone, I was so cool, so quiet, that but for an aching, throbbing
+  nerve in the centre of my heart I should have thought that I was
+  happy; some element was gone, the fangs of the serpent seemed to have
+  been withdrawn, the vulture had taken wing and left my heart to grow;
+  this was only a pause in the torture, like an interval of repose in
+  travail. Soon your letter came; and, your letter written just on the
+  eve of departure, and it cast me back into the fire, and the same
+  suffering was undergone again. But the same relief came at last. I was
+  getting well. I was up, though scarcely able to stand or to speak, and
+  quivering all over like the recoiling muscles of a torn off limb, when
+  Gusty May came to see me, and the shock of his arrival threw me back a
+  third time into death and hell, for I saw that _he knew all!_ that
+  killed the last faint lingering hope I had. It was during this third
+  and worst relapse, that the executions were levied on your property.
+  Well, Raymond, I recovered of this attack also! but it was not until I
+  reached Heath Hall, and until after my third child, our boy, was born,
+  that my health was fully re-established. I am in high health, now,
+  Raymond! and cool, composed, cheerful, strong, and mistress of myself.
+  The storm of hail and snow that was raging with fury when I commenced
+  this letter, has passed, and the moon is shining bright, full, and
+  clear as a mammoth diamond, and glistening on the silvery snow, its
+  beams fall on my paper and around my head like a halo, a benediction
+  of God, a promise of happier and holier days. Farewell for the
+  present, Raymond; my home and heart are ever open for your return. I
+  do not love you too fiercely now, Raymond, for I have all eternity to
+  love you in. You are not just now my Raymond, but I am now and ever
+  thy
+
+                                                                 HAGAR.”
+
+
+It was curious—the effect of this letter upon Raymond Withers. The first
+page he had perused with a frowning brow—opening the sheet with a
+twitch, the second page he read with many a “pish!” and “pshaw!”—the
+third was conned over with a softening countenance, and at the end of
+the fourth and last he exclaimed—“What the devil sent that infernal
+temptation across my path?—poor Hagar!” And then holding the letter
+behind him, he paced slowly up and down the room, with his head bowed
+upon his chest, while remorse, tenderness, disappointment, and regret,
+mingled in the expression of his once serene countenance. This was
+strange in the fact, but natural in the circumstances. His affection for
+Hagar had engaged his whole soul. She was one to be loved long, as well
+as deeply; her unique beauty, brilliant intellect, and high spirit, from
+her very childhood, had supplied to him an inexhaustible subject of
+occupation, interest, and amusement—she had met and satisfied every want
+of his nature. It was impossible, with her strong and ardent temperament
+and ever-varying emotions, that she could become flat and uninteresting.
+His passion for Rosalia was another matter, a mere delirium of the
+senses, a moral insanity, as Hagar had at last understood and described
+it to be, and as he himself now knew it to have been—to _have been_—for
+this passion, stimulated and increased as it had at first been by her
+flight, by her continued absence, was already receding into the past.
+Raymond Withers was too much of a sensualist, and his love for Rosalia
+too much an affair of the senses to last long after she was lost to
+sight and hearing; therefore for many weeks past his passion had been
+declining, slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it was reserved for Hagar’s
+letter to reveal to him the true state of his heart. Now he felt that
+his search for Rosalia had of late been conducted from the habit of
+looking for her until he should have found her, from a fear that she was
+lost, had perished by exposure, and from a remorse not to be shaken off
+while her fate was enveloped in mystery. He was conscious now,
+especially after reading Hagar’s letter, that he was more anxious to
+hear of Rosalia’s safety than even to see her—and the more he pondered
+upon this subject, the more convinced did he feel that he no longer
+desired her presence. A strongly setting-in tide of returning affection
+for Hagar filled his bosom to the expulsion of every other love—an
+affection purified by repentance, softened by pity, and elevated by
+respect. It was strange how slowly, imperceptibly, but how thoroughly he
+had come to his senses. He read Hagar’s letter over again, and sighed
+many times during its perusal, and sometimes paused and held it on his
+knee while he tried to recollect the atrocities of his letter to her,
+and endeavored to persuade himself that it was not quite so diabolical
+as he knew it to have been. He arose and walked up and down the floor,
+with his hands holding the letter clasped behind him, and his head bowed
+upon his breast—deeply perplexed; and then he went up to the full length
+mirror that stood at one end of his luxurious dressing-room, and
+contemplating his elegant figure and really dazzling style of beauty,
+wondered impulsively if Hagar would not be very glad to get him back
+upon any terms; and then feeling ashamed of his thought, he resumed his
+walk, deeply congratulating himself that they had been preserved from
+the last degree of guilt, and that at least the door was at all times
+open for a man’s return to duty, however sternly it might be barred
+against a repenting woman, and at that thought, again he thanked God
+that Rosalia Aguilar had been snatched from him, before she had fallen
+to the lowest stage of crime. But where _was_ Rosalia? Ah! that was the
+thorn that rankled most; but there were others—how should he write to
+Hagar until she was found? and in what terms should he write?—how
+apologize for that “infernal letter,” as he called it, as he tried to
+recollect that it was not quite so bad as he remembered it to have been,
+and then, whither should he direct his letter? Where would it be likely
+to find her? Hagar was on the wing; at this last thought, he experienced
+a satisfaction in the reflection that here was something at last on her
+part to find fault with—she had no right to roam up and down the world
+without having previously informed him of her views and intentions, and
+obtained his approbation and consent. He tried to convince himself that
+this was an infringement of his rights, a rebellion against his
+authority; it was a useless effort—his heart and reason acquitted her of
+all blame, and he was left to support his own load of guilt, remorse,
+and shame, unsustained by any counterbalancing sin on her side.
+
+He was conscious of a vague but strong desire that Hagar might fall into
+some imprudence, misery, or disgrace, from which he might have the honor
+of rescuing her, so that he might be entitled to her gratitude and
+respect, and so approach her with some remnant of self-respect. The idea
+of going to her in any other character than that of protector,
+benefactor—to receive her love upon any other terms than those of honor,
+esteem—oh! this was too humiliating, and not to be thought of. He did
+not want her generosity, magnanimity, forgiveness; oh! nothing of the
+kind—the idea repulsed, revolted him—he would do nothing of the sort—no,
+he must have her love, coupled as it had been with the high respect
+reaching almost to adoration, such as she had yielded him as his due
+even from her infancy up. He felt that it was no small thing to have
+held the sovereignty over Hagar’s high spirit, and that it was no small
+humiliation to have lost it by his folly.
+
+There was now a strong attraction and as strong a repulsion about the
+idea of Hagar—the most tantalizing that could be conceived, and that
+chained him to the rack. Her letter had struck away, as by the stroke of
+a strong arm, all that stood between them, and he saw her in all her
+beauty, in her fearful but fascinating beauty!—he desired of all things
+on earth to seek her, and could scarcely restrain his impatience; but he
+could not go, it seemed impossible. True, she had written, “My heart and
+home are ever open for your return,” and though no word of _penitence_
+might be spoken by him, no tone of _pardon_ breathed by her, yet the
+_thought_—the _fact_, would exist in the experience of both, and the
+_humiliation_ for him—he could not dare it, or bear it! The difficulties
+that obstructed his return to Hagar, all growing out of his own bosom as
+they did, only provoked by opposition his strong desire to see her. He
+might now with more truth than formerly have written her down, “Hagar,
+mine only one;” for now it seemed that there was but “one Hagar in the
+universe.” After the manner of all awakened sinners, how he deplored his
+sin!—after the manner of all restored maniacs, how he cursed his
+folly!—yea, after the manner of all sobered drunkards, how he blushed
+for his degradation! And could he appear before Hagar in that guise?
+before Hagar in her recovered and greatly increased strength and pride?
+Days passed, and the strongly turning stream of feeling was increased in
+force and volume by every circumstance and every thought. Still he
+continued uneasy upon the account of Rosalia; still extremely desirous
+of hearing from Captain Wilde; but, higher, deeper, and broader—covering
+all these, was the thought of Hagar. Ah, God! the more he contemplated
+it, the more alarming it became.
+
+Hagar, not quite twenty years old, young, yet strong, high spirited,
+audacious, proud of _herself_, apart from social position or the
+estimation of others—of Hagar, beautiful, piquant, and provoking beyond
+every other woman he ever saw—of Hagar, ardent, enthusiastic, and
+impulsive—but, no! he could not receive the idea suggested by this last
+circumstance; he could not conceive that his high-souled Hagar _could_
+become the victim of her ardent temperament. No, he believed as she had
+said, in her honor, as he believed in God. But some other man’s
+sacrilegious eyes might covet _her_ as he had coveted Rosalia—and she
+was human and might be tempted. At this thought Raymond sprang up from
+the sofa, upon which he had been reclining, with a sudden love and anger
+striving in his heart, as Hagar’s irresistibly charming face, with its
+crimson cheeks and lips and eyes of splendid fire, flashed in upon his
+brain, as in the days of her highest glory.
+
+“After all, she is mine—my _own_—I have not given her up _yet_! and
+never will—_never_! I will resist to the death any effort that may be
+made to tear her from my possession! Yes, Hagar, I may lose your heart,
+but I will even _slay_, rather than give you up. What right has she to
+leave her home and travel over the world exposing herself in this
+manner? and where does she find the means? I know that she travels with
+her family, for she would die rather than be severed from one of her
+children, and above all, what is her object? I should fancy that she
+were seeking me—God grant it!—I could face her, if she humbled herself
+to seek me—but no, she will never do that. No, if I ever hope to possess
+Hagar again, I shall have to _woo_ her again.”
+
+He was interrupted in the midst of his confused thoughts by the entrance
+of his page, who brought him the post-bag: emptying it, his eye fell
+upon a letter directed in the hand-writing of Sophie Wilde. The letter
+bore date two months back; it had evidently been detained on its
+passage. It was short, nearly illegible, and evidently written in the
+most excruciating anguish of mind. It ran thus:—
+
+
+                                        “CONSTANTINOPLE, Oct. 1st, 182-.
+
+  “DEAR RAYMOND:—The receipt of your letter, with its most terrible
+  intelligence, made me ill; so ill that for three weeks I have not been
+  able to rise from my bed, and so could not, before this, answer it.
+  Captain Wilde was not with me at the time of its receipt, and is not
+  here now. I had no one but foreigners around me—so that there was none
+  to act as my amanuensis, even had I been capable of dictating. In the
+  name of God, where is Rosalia? I have been looking, and am still
+  looking with anxiety, daily, for another letter from you, telling me
+  that she is found. A thousand fears and anxieties torture my breast.
+  Tell me, did she form any ill-judged attachment on her voyage out?—and
+  was any one else missing when she went? Tell me why did you not write
+  daily to keep me advised of your progress towards the discovery of her
+  fate? Raymond, I can scarcely hold you blameless! I require her at
+  your hands! never face me again without Rosalia’s insured safety! Yet,
+  how cruel in me to write to you thus; to you, who must be severely
+  afflicted at her loss. Oh, Raymond! you do not know how much right you
+  have to be so! You are the nearest, the only relative, she has on
+  earth! I have lately received, and now possess, incontestable proof of
+  what I am about to reveal to you:—_Rosalia Withers is your own sister,
+  Raymond!_—the daughter of both your parents——”
+
+
+He read no further; the paper fell from his stiffening fingers; a mortal
+sickness, _nausea_, seized him, horror swam in upon his brain, and
+barely murmuring—
+
+“Oh, my God! what a sink of crime and infamy I have narrowly escaped!”
+he fell forward upon his face!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XL.
+                            HAGAR’S RESOLVE.
+
+         “Once more alone—and desolate, now, for ever
+           In truth the heart whose home was once in thine:
+         Once more alone on life’s terrific river,
+           All human hope, exulting I resign.
+
+         “Alone I brave the tempest and the terror,
+           Alone I guide my being’s fragile bark,
+         And bless the past with all its grief and error,
+           Since Heaven still bends above my pathway dark.
+
+         “At last I taste the joy of self-reliance;
+           At last I reverence calmly my own soul;
+         At last I glory in serene defiance
+           Of all the wrong that would my fate control.”
+                                             FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
+
+
+I must remind you that Hagar, after reading her husband’s letter, had
+fallen into a reverie that terminated in a resolve. It was inspired by a
+reflection upon her position and circumstances. She had three children,
+be it remembered, and all under three years old. She had no visible
+means of supporting herself and these children, for whom especially she
+wished to procure every comfort and every luxury that was desirable. She
+had drawn out the little balance left with his banker by Raymond
+Withers, and had used the greater part of it in paying her debts
+contracted with Gusty May; and what remained went to defray the expenses
+attending her last accouchement. She had nothing left. Winter was
+approaching, and the winters at Heath Hall, from its remarkably bleak
+and exposed situation, as well as from the ruinous state of the
+building, were felt very severely. Her own and her children’s wardrobe
+was becoming very much the worse for wear, and it was highly necessary
+that it should be replenished. In fact, poverty, absolute want, was
+staring Hagar in the face. It was proper that something should be done
+to supply her necessities before they became importunate. It was too
+late in the season now to apply to her husband for relief, even if she
+could have bowed her pride to do so. A letter could not reach him and
+its reply come to her before the spring. What should she do? To remain
+at Heath Hall through the winter was impossible. Little as the place
+_looked_ to be changed, every cold and windy day and every rainy day
+proved that no room in the house was weather-tight. When it rained the
+water streamed down into the very best room, as though it would set the
+carpet afloat. In cold weather it was even worse—the air poured in from
+all quarters, and no quantity of fire could warm the rooms. Tarquinius
+asserted with great truth, that to make a fire in the parlor was like
+trying to heat “all out of doors.” I should say, that from the bleakness
+of its situation the winter came a month sooner and remained a month
+later at the Heath, than at any other place within the same latitude.
+
+On that particular morning, when Hagar sat at the breakfast-table
+cogitating, it was cold and frosty everywhere, but it was _very_ cold
+and bleak at Heath Hall; and the old lady whom Hagar had engaged as a
+companion, leaving the table and seating herself before the immense
+blazing hickory fire, declared that while her knees were scorching off,
+her back “friz.” Hagar at first thought of disposing of some of her most
+salable property—these were her piano and harp; they might be sold in
+the neighborhood at about a tenth of their value; but how long would the
+money hold out in supplying the necessities of her family? and what was
+to be done when it was gone? Hagar next wondered if there were nothing
+she could herself do for a living; but she was forced to reject every
+plan that presented itself. Was it needle-work? How should _she_ live by
+her needle, who had not sufficient knowledge of that branch of industry
+to serve her in making and repairing her own wardrobe? Teaching? Ah!
+that was even _worse_. If to live by needle-work was difficult, to live
+by teaching was impossible. Hagar’s intellect was like her own favorite
+forest haunts, strong, vigorous, and brilliant, but wild, tangled, and
+uncultivated. She had especially laughed Lindley Murray’s grammar out of
+countenance, asserting that she could never comprehend it, and as for
+arithmetic, she refused to _try_—so that in these two highly “important
+branches of a good English education,” Hagar was wofully deficient, but
+far too honest to attempt to teach what she did not know. Still her
+thoughts recurred to her piano and harp, and it was while thinking of
+their sale that it occurred to her that she was in possession of one
+splendid and unemployed talent—and the sudden thought sent a thrill of
+joy through her heart, as she blessed God for the gift and for the
+present inspiration.
+
+She recollected hearing Raymond often say that her voice was admirably
+suited for concert practice—that he had heard all the celebrated singers
+of the day, and had never heard a voice or an execution like hers. She
+recollected to have heard that professional singers frequently made
+large fortunes. She remembered also hearing that several of these
+_artistes_ were deeply respected for the virtue and even for the piety
+of their private lives. There was nothing in Hagar’s pride to prevent
+her from embracing this career—her pride was strictly _personal_. She
+could not have been proud of her descent, of wealth, had she possessed
+it, of social position, or of any other external circumstance
+whatever—but she was proud of herself, that self that came alone into
+the world, and would go alone out of it. Hagar quickly decided upon her
+course. She was not one to renounce all the comforts, refinements, and
+elegances of life that had grown into a habit and a necessity, without
+an effort to retain them, and which she must resign without this or some
+equally lucrative plan of life. To this career she was drawn by her
+peculiar taste and genius; this would give her an opportunity of seeing
+that “world” so attractive to her eager and inquiring mind, and hitherto
+so completely hidden from her. In five minutes from the first
+inspiration of the idea, Hagar had laid out and matured all her plans.
+She determined, on her own responsibility, to have a sale and dispose of
+all her personal property that could be got rid of at any price, and
+with the proceeds to take her children and remove to Washington or
+Baltimore, and in one or the other of those cities to employ her musical
+talent in the most profitable manner. While thinking over these matters,
+and before rising from the table, she was startled by a rap at the door,
+apparently given with the butt-end of a riding-whip. To her quick “Come
+in!” Gusty May opened the door, looking half savage in his shaggy,
+white, box greatcoat, leather leggings, and foraging cap, and carrying
+in his hands a brace of canvas-back ducks. This was the first time he
+had been at the Hall since his banishment thence. She started up gladly
+to welcome him.
+
+“Good morning, Hagar! may I come in?”
+
+“Oh, yes, dear Gusty!—I am so delighted to see you!” exclaimed she, with
+brightening eyes, extending both hands to him.
+
+“Humph!—sight of me is good for sore eyes, ain’t it?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, Gusty, my best friend, why have not you been to see me all
+this dismal long time?”
+
+“Why have not I been to see you?—come, that will do. What did you tell
+me the last time I was over here!”
+
+“True! I recollect—I told you not to come again, unless you came with
+your mother, and I was right, Gusty; it was proper, both for _your_ sake
+and for mine that this should be so; only just now, Gusty, surprised and
+pleased at seeing you, I forgot myself for an instant.”
+
+“Yes! well! I came over here this morning, and took the liberty, Hagar,
+of shooting a pair of ducks on your moor. The bishop has come down to
+confirm at the church next Sunday, to-morrow, you know, and I thought
+that I would like to carry mother a pair of ducks to help out with the
+dinner, as the old bishop is very fond of our canvas-back ducks, and so,
+Hagar, having bagged my game, I could not pass the Hall like a poacher,
+without looking in.”
+
+“I am glad to see you, Gusty, notwithstanding all that I have said—do
+not I look so?”
+
+“Oh! yes, dear Hagar,” said Gusty, now for the first time seating
+himself in a chair near the fire, and setting his hat upon one side, and
+the pair of ducks on the other.
+
+“We caught—at least Tarquinius did—a fine drum yesterday evening; it is
+more than we shall use in a week, won’t you take half of it over to the
+cottage, Gusty?”
+
+Gusty mused a moment, and then replied—
+
+“No! I be hanged if I do, Hagar! You are very good, and _I_ thank you,
+but the inmates of Grove Cottage have used you too badly, Hagar! God
+forgive me for remembering and repeating it; but they have not deserved
+the slightest favor from your hands, Hagar!—I do not know how you can
+forgive them!”
+
+“See here, Gusty!” said she, laying her small hand affectionately on his
+arm, “they acted as their nature made it necessary for them to act, and
+their conduct does not grieve or anger me in the least; perhaps it
+inspires some contempt—but no, I take that back, for your sake, Gusty,
+and I assure you that their treatment gives me no pain. It is only those
+whom I love that possess any power over me, to torture me! if _you_,
+Gusty, had turned rascal on my hands, that circumstance would have
+caused me some suffering—but people I care little about! nonsense!”
+
+“It is _my mother_, though!” said Gusty, with a look of deep distress.
+
+“Yes, it is _your mother_, poor boy! Never mind, Gusty, take heart; she
+_is_ an excellent woman for all; and not the less so because she cannot
+comprehend _me_!”
+
+“Don’t let us talk any more about it, please!” said Gusty, with a look
+of deep humiliation.
+
+After a few minutes Gusty arose to go, saying, in an imploring voice, as
+he put on his hat and took up his ducks—
+
+“Hagar, if I can _ever_ be of any sort of service to you, for the Lord
+in Heaven’s sake, _do_ let me know, will you?”
+
+Hagar mused a moment, and then replied—
+
+“You _can_ be of great service to me, Gusty!”
+
+“Ah! can I? Tell me how? where? when?” exclaimed Gusty, gladly, dropping
+his ducks, doffing his hat, and reseating himself.
+
+“Not now, this is Saturday; come over and spend Monday evening with me,
+and I will tell you.”
+
+“Thank you, Hagar, thank you for this mark of confidence. I will
+certainly come. Good-by, dear Hagar.”
+
+He caught her hand, shook it heartily, and left the house. Even that day
+Hagar employed with the preliminaries of her preparations. Gusty May was
+faithful to his appointment, and Monday afternoon found him at Heath
+Hall. Hagar’s tea-table was waiting, and the old lady, her companion,
+was with her. She invited Gusty to take a seat at the board, and
+immediately after tea, when they had turned their chairs to the fire,
+and the old woman had left the room to put the children to bed, Hagar
+imparted her plan of public singing to Gusty. He was surprised, even to
+astonishment. Not understanding the nature of Hagar’s pride, he had
+deemed her _too_ proud for this career, and even ventured to hint that
+such had been his impression. Hagar smilingly disabused him of this
+erroneous idea; and then he hastened to say that as far as he himself
+was concerned he heartily approved of her plan, and pledged himself to
+do everything in his power to promote her object. The assistance she
+required from him was very slight, being only to act as her agent in the
+sale of several articles of her property. She requested him also not to
+reveal to any one her purpose in leaving the neighborhood. “Not that I
+care a great deal about it, Gusty, though I do not wish for ever to be
+on the lips of the gossips of Churchill’s Point, but, because,” said
+she, smiling archly, “it will be such a charity to afford Mrs. Gardiner
+Green and her _clique_ a subject of speculation, that will keep their
+tongues for some time off some poor unfortunate, who might otherwise
+have been their next victim, and also, because this racking and
+unsatisfied curiosity will be such a well merited punishment of their
+slandering propensities!”
+
+Gusty freely promised that he would not betray her confidence, and soon
+after took his leave. In a fortnight from this time, Hagar’s
+preparations were all complete. It was a glorious day in October, when,
+with her three children, she stepped aboard a packet bound up the bay to
+the mouth of the Potomac River and to Washington City. She had left
+Heath Hall as she had found it—namely, in the care of Cumbo and
+Tarquinius. She had not engaged a nurse or a waiting maid in the
+country, because she wished to cut off for the present all trace of her
+course, and to sink for at least a year or two to come, her old in her
+new existence. After mature deliberation she decided that Washington and
+Baltimore were both too near home for the commencement of her
+professional labors. An invincible repugnance kept her from the North,
+where she had taken her first lessons in suffering. Merely staying long
+enough in Washington to procure a nurse and a travelling maid, she
+turned her steps southward. It was under a _nom de guerre_ that Hagar
+Withers commenced her brilliant professional career at New Orleans in
+the year 182-. Every one who lived in that city at that time remembers
+the splendid concerts of Mrs. ——, a lady as remarkable for the stern
+asceticism of her private manners as for the brilliant success of her
+public career. Hagar’s greatest motive in entering upon this profession
+had been to achieve by the only means in her power an independence, and
+she had made a stern resolution of reserve, self-denial, and solitude,
+as the only way of preserving her from falling into her besetting sins
+of wildness and reckless gaiety, and towards which everything in her
+present life would conspire to draw her.
+
+Once or twice before taking the final step that was to place her so
+conspicuously before the world, while doubtful of the light in which her
+extremely fastidious husband might look upon this when it came to his
+knowledge, and while an instinct of _family_ pride, a rare thing with
+Hagar, prompted her, she thought, that she would do better to become a
+private teacher of music; but the idea was so repulsive that she quickly
+shrank from it. Her _personal_ pride, her independence, would suffer too
+much in this latter position. Her prejudices, the very few with which
+her mind was trammelled, were all against the profession; and that
+circumstance, taken with her unprotected condition, and the experience
+she had gained by the gossipping propensities of her old neighbors at
+Churchill’s Point, had fixed her firmly in the resolution she had
+formed, namely, of isolating herself with her young family during the
+hours not devoted to her public professional duties. Her winter at New
+Orleans was one chain of splendid successes, each more brilliant than
+the last. In the spring of 182-, she, still accompanied by her babies as
+a guard of cherubim, sailed from New Orleans for Havre, intending to
+make a professional tour of Europe for one year before returning to her
+native country.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Mother!” said Gusty May to Mrs. Buncombe, as they sat together in the
+parlor at Grove Cottage, a few days after Hagar’s departure from Heath
+Hall, “what do the good folks about here say of Hagar now?”
+
+“All that I have heard speak upon the subject, say that they are very
+glad she is gone to her husband—_if he can receive her_. And I am glad
+also. It has been a grief to me to absent myself from Hagar; but,
+really, you know, Gusty, she had cost me already too much, in your
+misfortunes.—I could not risk compromising my own position by her.”
+
+“It was not her fault, mother. But I am thinking of the wonderful
+charity of the folks in putting such a kind construction upon Hagar’s
+journey; strange they had not thought of accusing her of eloping with
+the captain of the packet in which she sailed! ’Pon honor, I shall begin
+to have some hope for the people of Churchill’s Point yet!” said Gusty,
+really surprised at the explanation they had given of her journey.
+
+“Hagar has given room for talk by getting into an anomalous position;
+why _should_ people find themselves in inconceivable situations? _I_
+never did, yet I was an unprotected girl.”
+
+Gusty looked at her in grave perplexity, divided between his wish to
+defend Hagar and his reverence for her; at last he said, smiling sadly—
+
+“Dear mother, Lewis Stephens, poor fellow! was drowned last summer, in a
+gale of wind!—Now, why _should_ people be drowned in a gale of wind? _I_
+never was, and _I_ have been in a gale of wind!”
+
+“Gusty, _hush_! you talk like—like a young man.”
+
+“And if I am to talk differently, I hope to God I may never live to be
+an old one.”
+
+“I deserve this from you, Gusty!” said his mother, with the tears
+welling up to her eyes.
+
+Gusty’s arms were around her neck in a moment.
+
+“Dear mother, forgive me! I meant no disrespect to you, indeed; but it
+is _so_ trying to see one of your excellent heart, so uncompromising to
+Hagar, for whom I have, God knows, a higher respect, deeper esteem, than
+for the whole world besides.”
+
+While they were conversing thus, the door opened, and Mr. Buncombe
+entered the parlor, and throwing a letter into his wife’s hand,
+exclaimed—
+
+“Well, here is the long-looked-for come at last!”
+
+It was a letter bearing a foreign stamp, and directed in the hand of
+Captain Wilde. Emily opened it hastily. Soon as she read, her face grew
+pale in consternation.
+
+“What is it, mother?” asked Gusty, approaching her.
+
+“What is it, dear Emily?” inquired her husband, leaning over her chair.
+
+“I hardly know myself; oh, heaven!”
+
+“Read it! tell us!” cried Gusty.
+
+“No one ill, I hope?” whispered the parson.
+
+“Rosalia is lost!”
+
+“LOST!” exclaimed Mr. Buncombe, in astonishment.
+
+Gusty sank upon a chair, his cheek turning white as death.
+
+“Lost! fled!” gasped Emily, still gazing on the sheet before her; “fled
+no one knows wherefore or whither!”
+
+“Inexplicable!” cried Mr. Buncombe.
+
+Gusty was devouring his mother’s face with his great eyes.
+
+“_Fled_, did you say—say _fled_, mother?”
+
+“FLED, Gusty!” sobbed Emily, “fled, my poor, dear, unfortunate
+boy!—_fled_—fled from the protection of Mr. Withers the very afternoon
+of their landing at Genoa!”
+
+Gusty jerked the letter out of his mother’s hand impulsively, and
+forgetting to apologize, ran up stairs with it, while Mr. Buncombe set
+himself to soothe and comfort Emily, and to win from her an account of
+the flight of Rosalia, with which the reader is already acquainted. Both
+were thrown into the utmost consternation by the news. To them it was a
+mystery of rayless darkness, for so far from having cast any light upon
+the subject of the flight it had announced, Captain Wilde’s letter
+expressed a faint hope that Emily might possess some clue to the fate of
+her adopted daughter.
+
+At last Emily thought of Gusty, and was preparing to go and try to
+soothe the anguish she believed he must be suffering, when the door was
+suddenly thrown open, and Gusty ran in with his countenance and manner
+highly excited as by a strange joy, exclaiming, screaming, as he waved
+the letter in circles above his head—
+
+“Hip! hip! hur-ra-a-a-a-a-a, mother! three times three now, mother! and
+special thanksgiving next Sunday, for this good, this great, this
+glorious news! Hurrah!”
+
+“_Good News!_ oh, my God, he is mad!” exclaimed Emily in extreme terror;
+“hold him, Buncombe!”
+
+“Yes, hold him, Buncombe! hold him, Buncombe! lest in his joy he bound
+like a cannon ball through the roof of the house! Hold him, Buncombe!”
+yelled Gusty, jumping into the arms of the reverend gentleman, seizing
+him about the waist, and whirling him round and round the room in a
+brisk gallopading waltz! Shriek after shriek burst from Emily’s
+terrified bosom, and brought all the household (being Kitty and a
+horse-boy) running into the room, just as Gusty had dropped the startled
+parson, and was standing panting with exertion, weeping for joy, and
+laughing for fun at the same time.
+
+“Take him into custody! secure him! before he hurts himself or somebody
+else!” exclaimed Emily, palpitating.
+
+“Take _who_ into custody?” exclaimed Gusty, looking round, “what’s
+done?”
+
+“Oh, heaven! will nobody bind him?” sobbed Emily, edging towards her
+son, cautiously.
+
+Gusty caught her to his bosom, and kissed her heartily, as he stooped
+and whispered breathlessly, his brain sobered a little by the alarm he
+had caused, but his heart still wildly throbbing with ecstatic joy—
+
+“_Mother!_ pshaw—_you_ know me! I’ll—I’ll—perhaps I’ll tell you why I’m
+overjoyed just presently; send all these gapers and starers away, and go
+and reassure his reverence, who, not being a fighting man, is bolstering
+himself up against the wall, not knowing what I am going to do next;
+there, _do_, mother! my blood is so unmanageable, it is getting up
+again! yes, here it comes! it’s going to boil over! I declare it is! I
+can’t help it! get out of my way! I won’t hurt anybody! hip! hip!
+hurrah!” and with that he bounded forward into the air, cut four or five
+capers more extravagant than the others, and ran from the room, leaving
+the assembled family dumb with astonishment.
+
+Having reached his own room, Gusty began to empty his drawers, wardrobe,
+&c., and to pack his clothing into a sea chest with great haste and
+zeal. While he was employed in this manner his mother came in, and
+tearfully sat down by him; seeing his occupation, a deeper shade of
+perplexity and anxiety came over her countenance, as she inquired:—
+
+“And what are you trying to do now, my poor, deluded boy?”
+
+Gusty took his hand out of his chest, and still resting upon one knee,
+assumed a look of profound composure, thinking doubtless that by this
+time his character for sanity was in serious danger, and replied,
+
+“Ahem! hem! Mother, as it is now near the opening of the session of
+Congress, and many of my own and my uncle’s professional and political
+friends are in Washington City, I think of going thither, and while they
+are on the spot, getting them to use their influence with the President
+to procure my reinstatement. You know, mother, this is the first good
+chance, because personal solicitation is so much more powerful than
+epistolary application.”
+
+Struck with the rationality of this reply, Emily was a little staggered
+in her opinion of his madness: however, she would try him further.
+
+“But this is a very sudden resolution, Gusty!”
+
+“Oh! I had been thinking of it for some days past, and the arrival of
+uncle’s letter, and the reminiscences of our naval life that it
+awakened, you know, suddenly inspired me with a strong desire to return
+to it—wasn’t that natural?”
+
+“Oh, yes! and I am glad! I had feared that you would have held to your
+resolution, never to apply for reinstatement.”
+
+“Ah! that resolution was one of my hasty impulses, mother! times and
+_motives_ have changed since then!” exclaimed Gusty, and he resumed his
+packing with renewed zeal.
+
+“But why pack your sea chest, Gusty?”
+
+“Why, mother, if I am reinstated, as I shall be, for my case is very
+strong, and the Hon. Chevy Chase, of New York, who lives near the
+Rialto, the scenes of my labors and sorrows, knows all about it, and is
+a friend of the President—if I am reinstated, of course, as usual, I
+shall immediately be ordered on active service, and shall need to be all
+ready.”
+
+“Nonsense, Gusty! take a change of linen in your valise, and go to
+Washington. I will prepare and pack your wardrobe and send it to you in
+a day or two, or as soon as you want it.”
+
+“Yes! that will be better! thank you, mother!” said Gusty, rising and
+seating himself on his trunk.
+
+“And Rosalia!” sighed Emily, looking in his face, “what can have become
+of her, and how do you feel about her, Gusty?”
+
+Gusty mused. He felt glad that he had never breathed to his mother a
+word of the elopement he had suspected; and now that its object had been
+defeated by Rosalia’s flight, he could not bring himself to mention it.
+He felt very little fear of Rosalia’s fate _now_. Her unexpected
+deliverance from evil at the last moment greatly strengthened his faith
+in her guardian angel, and Gusty had a great deal of faith, as we have
+seen. That Rosalia was somewhere in safety, and that she would make her
+retreat known as soon as she should hear of the arrival of any of her
+friends at Genoa, he fully believed; and it was his determination, in
+case of his being reinstated, to solicit orders on the Mediterranean
+service, and in any other case, to go out privateering in a search for
+the lost girl.
+
+“Well, Gusty, what are you thinking of?” asked Emily at last.
+
+“I am thinking, mother, that Rosalia is _safe_, and that we shall soon
+_hear_ that she is so!” said he.
+
+The next morning Gusty May set out for Washington City, where he arrived
+within the week. After a few weeks’ petitioning, struggling, and
+delaying—during which Gusty’s hopes fell and anger rose a dozen times at
+least—and during which his friends persevered while his own patience
+gave out—at “long last,” Gusty May was duly authorized to mount the
+anchor and eagle buttons and epaulette, and empowered to write himself
+down, Lieut. Aug. W. May, U. S. N. He ran down to Churchill’s Point to
+hug and kiss his mother upon this good news, and to get his chest, for
+he was ordered to join his old ship, the Rainbow, about to sail from
+Boston for the Mediterranean.
+
+Within the month, Gusty was “Once more upon the waters.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XLI.
+                            CONSTANTINOPLE.
+
+           “Once more upon the waters! yet once more,
+           And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
+           That knows its rider.”
+                                               CHILDE HAROLD.
+
+
+The good ship Rainbow weighed anchor on the 1st of January, and bore
+away from Boston harbor before a fair wind. The voyage across the
+Atlantic ocean was rather tempestuous, but in due time the vessel passed
+through the Straits of Gibraltar, and entered the Mediterranean, where
+she continued to cruise for some months, stopping at almost every other
+port but that Gusty May was so anxious to enter, namely, Genoa. Gusty
+had deluded himself with the fond idea that once in the Mediterranean he
+must come upon Rosalia Aguilar _somewhere_. He had written to Captain
+Wilde, and had also swallowed his rage and compelled himself to write to
+Raymond Withers. He had not received a line in reply from either of them
+up to the 1st of April, at which time his ship was ordered to
+Constantinople. On the 15th of April they entered the Archipelago, on
+the 25th passed through the straits of the Dardanelles, and on the 1st
+of May entered the straits of Constantinople, and anchored among a
+thousand other ships of all nations before the City of Mosques and of
+the Sultan.
+
+He inquired and found that Captain Wilde’s ship, the Cornucopia, was
+still there, though expected to sail in a few weeks.
+
+As soon as he could obtain leave of absence, he hastened in search of
+it. The ship lay opposite the lower part of the city. He found it and
+hurried on board. Captain Wilde was on deck, and hastened to receive his
+nephew—they met—clasped each other in a warm, fraternal embrace, and
+_both_ exclaimed, in _one voice_,
+
+“Rosalia! have you heard from Rosalia?” and each looked blankly and
+sadly at the other, as he murmured,
+
+“No—I was in hopes that _you_ could have given me news of her,” and then
+the final answer was simultaneously spoken by both,
+
+“Ah, _no_! all inquiries have been fruitless.”
+
+“How is my sister Emily?” asked Captain Wilde.
+
+“Well in health; but dreadfully anxious about Rosalia, of course, as we
+all are,” replied Gusty, with a deep sigh, “and Sophie—how is Sophie?”
+
+“Not well—indeed very far from it; the sudden news of Rosalia’s flight,
+or abduction, for we do not know which to suppose it, threw her into a
+fit of illness, from which she has never fully recovered?”
+
+“Poor, dear Sophie—where is she now?”
+
+“Here on board the ship with me.”
+
+“HERE! has she lived here all the time?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“And through her long illness?”
+
+“Yes—do you not know that the Turkish Government will not permit a
+foreigner to reside in the city?”
+
+“And is there no exception to this rigid exclusion?”
+
+“None, even in favor of ministers of friendly nations; _they_ are not
+permitted to reside within the walls of the city.”
+
+“And Sophie is here—introduce me to her.”
+
+“Wait, my dear Gusty, a few minutes; I must prepare her for your visit,”
+and so saying, Captain Wilde went down into the cabin, whence he
+returned in a few minutes, saying,
+
+“Come, Gusty! Sophie expects you, and she has a strange story for your
+ear also.”
+
+Gusty followed his uncle down the gangway into a large cabin, fitted up
+in the most luxurious style. The berth or sleeping apartment, at the
+upper end, opposite the entrance or gangway, was concealed by curtains
+of purple velvet, fringed with gold, and festooned with golden cord. The
+side walls were wainscoted with mahogany, and the floor covered with a
+Turkey carpet, of colors so brilliant and life-like, and texture so
+yielding, that you seemed to be stepping upon flowers. In the centre of
+the cabin stood a rose-wood table made fast to its place, and above it
+hung a splendid chandelier of cut glass and gold. Ottomans covered with
+purple velvet and fringed with gold, like the curtains, were ranged
+around the walls upon the carpet.
+
+A beautiful spring-bottomed sofa, whose upper cushions were of down,
+covered also with purple velvet to match the other hangings, was placed
+against the walls on the left hand as you entered, and facing it upon
+the opposite side, hung a large cheval mirror. About upon the walls hung
+several rare oil paintings in rich frames, and the rose-wood table was
+littered with books.
+
+“This is Sophie’s own particular retreat,” said Captain Wilde, as he
+introduced Gusty, and pointed him to a seat on the sofa. In a few
+seconds the purple velvet curtains opened, and Sophie entered. The very
+same Sophie, whom time seemed to forget to mar. The same little round
+looking figure, in its sober dress of brown satin, the same little
+sedate head with its simply braided, glossy brown hair, the same soft,
+pale face with its large, tender brown eyes, the same pensive
+countenance, and gentle manners, the same low sweet voice, the same
+every way except—yes! there _is_ a tone of deep, deep sorrow in her
+whole bearing as she approaches to greet Gusty, who rises and meets her
+more than half way. She offers her cheek to Gusty, who kisses it as he
+embraces her, and they look in each other’s face with a heart-broken
+expression of countenance, and sit down without a word spoken on either
+side! At last, trying to utter the name of Rosalia, Sophie chokes and
+bursts into tears, and weeps convulsively.
+
+“Ah! well—yes—this is it!” exclaimed Captain Wilde, sitting down and
+taking her in his arms, forgetting or disregarding the presence of
+Gusty, and muttering _sotto voce_ as he soothed her, “I sometimes wish
+we could hear that this poor girl was dead, for then Sophie would know
+that she was in Heaven, and cease to break her heart about it.”
+
+Sophie wept abundantly, and, as a fit of free weeping always acts, it
+subsided and left her heart clear, her mind refreshed, and her nerves
+calm—_temporarily_—just as an April shower leaves, _for the time_, the
+sky bright, and the earth refreshed. Then as she recovered, she
+recounted all the little she knew from Raymond Withers of Rosalia’s
+flight, and ended by reiterating that no news had been heard of her; nor
+the slightest clue had been found to her fate or her retreat.
+
+Gusty saw that neither Captain Wilde nor Sophie had the slightest
+suspicion of the elopement, well veiled as it had been; and he, on his
+part, determined not to enlighten them. On his inquiring when they had
+last heard from Raymond, he was informed that they had received but one
+letter from him, namely, the letter announcing Rosalia’s flight, but
+that they had lately heard, by a vessel direct from Genoa, that the
+American Consul was lying extremely ill of a brain fever, and that his
+life was despaired of.
+
+“Of course that is the reason he has not written to us,” said Sophie.
+
+“And I suppose that is why he has not replied to my letter, either,”
+observed Gusty.
+
+Then Sophie asked her thousand and one questions about Emily and her
+family, about Heath Hall and its inmates, and about Hagar and her
+children. To all these questions Gusty gave satisfactory replies. When
+she inquired about Hagar he merely told her that she was in high health
+and beauty, and the mother of a fine boy, thus revealing only what was
+agreeable in the truth, without afflicting Sophie by saying one word of
+the sorrow of which it was evident that she had not the slightest idea.
+If this partial concealment was not in_genu_ous, it was at least
+in_geni_ous; but I am not defending Gusty.
+
+“I have something strange to tell you about our poor dear Rosalia, but I
+am not able to tell you to-day, Gusty,” said Sophie.
+
+“Is it about anything that has occurred since you parted with her?”
+
+“Yes—and—no,” said Sophie,” but I am not strong enough for the task now.
+Come to-morrow, Gusty, and I will tell you—I must lie down now.”
+
+And indeed she looked so languid, so much as if about to faint, that
+Gusty, mentally reproaching himself for having stayed so long, arose to
+take leave.
+
+“Come and dine with us to-morrow at five, if you can leave the ship,”
+said Captain Wilde.
+
+“Yes, do Gusty,” added Sophie.
+
+“I will, certainly, with great pleasure, if I can get off,” replied
+Gusty; and raising Sophie’s pale and languid hand to his lips he turned
+and left the cabin, accompanied by Captain Wilde.
+
+“Come in the morning for the story, however, Gusty, for Sophie is too
+feeble to be worried later in the day.”
+
+The next morning as soon as he was off duty, Gusty hastened on board the
+Cornucopia. Captain Wilde met him as before, and telling him that Sophie
+was ready to receive him, conducted him into the cabin. Sophie reclined
+upon the sofa, but arose, and greeting Gusty, pointed him to the seat by
+her side. He took it, and after making several kind inquiries about her
+health, he awaited the revelation she had to make him—his interest and
+his curiosity whetted up to the keenest edge. At length she said—
+
+“I suppose, Gusty, you are waiting for this story?”
+
+“Yes, dear Sophie, with as much _im_patience as I dare to feel, seeing
+you so feeble.”
+
+“I am much stronger in the morning—well—dear knows, I hardly know where
+to commence, for I am no narrator. I suppose, Gusty, you always thought
+that Rosalia—poor Rose!—was my niece, did you not?”
+
+“Of course—_yes_!
+
+“My sister, Rosalia Churchill’s child?”
+
+“Certainly!”
+
+“Well, she is not either the one or the other!”
+
+“How?”
+
+“She is no kin to me.”
+
+“SOPHIE!”
+
+“It is true.”
+
+“You astound me!”
+
+“So was I astounded when the fact was revealed to me.”
+
+“Are you sure of this?”
+
+“Certain of it.”
+
+“Beyond a doubt?”
+
+“‘There is not a peg to hang a doubt upon.’”
+
+“Who is she then, in the name of Heaven?”
+
+“The daughter of my late husband, Mr. Withers, by his first wife—Fanny
+Raymond, and the sister of Raymond Withers!”
+
+Gusty turned all colors, and lost his voice for a time; at last seeing
+that Sophie remained silent, he exclaimed—
+
+“Great God! this cannot be true!”
+
+“I _know_ it to be true. I have incontestable proof that it is true.”
+
+“And does _he_—Raymond Withers, know this?”
+
+“Yes, I presume so.”
+
+“And how long has he known it?” asked Gusty, with a strange joy breaking
+over his face.
+
+“Only since her flight.”
+
+Gusty’s countenance fell suddenly.
+
+“Does _she_ know or suspect it?”
+
+“I presume not—poor child!”
+
+“How long have _you_ known it?”
+
+“About eight months.”
+
+“And how did you discover it?—who told you?—and why has the fact been
+kept concealed so long?”
+
+“Stay, Gusty, it was to tell you the whole story that I requested your
+visit this morning. I am about to do so.”
+
+“I am all attention—begin.”
+
+“In the first place, I do not wish to enter further upon the details of
+the early life of Mr. Withers than is absolutely necessary to make this
+story clear.”
+
+“Of course not,” winced Gusty, with a countenance expressive of having
+bitten an unripe persimmon.
+
+“You have sometimes heard the name of Fanny Raymond?”
+
+“Yes—though long
+
+                   “‘Banished from each lip and ear,
+                   Like words of wantonness or fear;’
+
+—I _have_ heard it—and I remember her sad fate.”
+
+“You will understand, then, why it is unpleasant to me to allude to her
+dark story.”
+
+“Yes, of course.”
+
+“Further than is positively unavoidable?”
+
+“I know! I know!”
+
+“Then these are the facts lately revealed to me by my deceased
+brother-in-law’s attorney—and this was the manner of it. We had been out
+here something like four or five months, when I received a packet of
+letters and papers from Mr. Linton, my late brother-in-law’s attorney,
+and my colleague in the guardianship of Rosalia and her little property.
+With this packet of letters came _one_ letter, sealed and superscribed
+in a hand-writing, the sight of which made my heart leap to my
+throat—the hand-writing, in fine, of my only sister—my dead sister,
+Rosalia. In truth, it seemed like a missive from the grave. It was
+directed ‘To Sophie Withers—care of T. Linton, attorney at law—to be
+delivered according to its address, on the 1st June, 182-.’ _That was
+Rosalia’s eighteenth birthday._”
+
+Sophie paused. Gusty waited in breathless impatience. She seemed
+strongly disinclined to recommence the recital that she had abandoned at
+the very outset.
+
+“Well?” at last ventured Gusty—“Well, Sophie?”
+
+“Alas! why have I to tell this story—I do so revolt from it, Gusty! I
+walk around and around it, fearing to approach it!”
+
+“Don’t then, Sophie,” said Gusty, with an effort at magnanimity, but
+looking very anxious.
+
+“Yes, I shall have to tell it—and may as well brace myself to the task
+now as at any other time. Listen then, Gusty, and I will endeavor to
+condense the story that was revealed to me through some half-a-dozen
+long letters, and proved by some half a score of tedious documents. You
+remember my sister Rosalia, Gusty?”
+
+“Like one of the glorious visions of my morning of life—_yes_.”
+
+“Yes, she _was_ gloriously beautiful—of your Rosalia’s complexion and
+style of beauty, but with a sparkling vivacity, flashing like sunlight
+through every look, and tone, and gesture—Rosalia Churchill’s first
+effect upon a stranger was electrical. Well! soon after we were left
+alone by the death of our brother, Mr. Aguilar, a young merchant of
+Baltimore, came down to make or finish a large contract for tobacco,
+from Mr. Gardiner Green—he saw Rosalia at church on Sunday; on Monday
+got himself presented to her by Mr. Green, who brought him to the Hall.
+He came every day to see us. At the end of a week he returned to
+Baltimore, but came back in a few days. At last he proposed for Rosalia,
+married her, and carried her off to his city home. Rosalia was very
+young and very thoughtless, and perhaps her husband was a little
+selfish, and did not wish to be troubled by the poor country relations
+of his beautiful but penniless young wife—at least that is the only way
+in which I can account for the estrangement between us that followed her
+marriage. I wrote to my sister frequently, and at first her replies were
+copious, her letters filled with vivacious descriptions of gay city
+life—of dress, visiting and receiving company—of balls, plays, and
+concerts, &c., &c., &c. This continued a few months, and then our
+correspondence began to die out. Her letters were short and few, and
+filled with apologies. I never remonstrated against this, because, you
+know, that is not my disposition. At last—and this was near the close of
+the second year—a longer interval of silence than usual followed my
+letter to her. I felt a _diffidence_ in troubling her with two letters
+at a time, for I felt that she was a fine, fashionable lady, and just
+then I was almost a pauper.”
+
+“I guess it was your quiet _pride_, Sophie.”
+
+“I am no moral philosopher, and I do not know whether it was pride or
+humility that prevented me for some time from writing a second letter to
+her; but at last I grew so restless about her—I felt so interested in
+her domestic affairs—she had been married more than a year, and I was
+anxious to know whether she had a baby. Sometimes I thought she _had_,
+and that the care of it prevented her writing to me, so I wrote and
+asked her in so many words. Her reply came, after a long time. She told
+me she had a little snowy-skinned, golden-haired, sapphire-eyed girl,
+who was said to be the picture of herself. Of course I thought,
+naturally enough, that the child was her own. I could think nothing
+else. She had not _said_ so, but could I infer anything else, Gusty?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“You see she entered into no details except very minute ones about the
+baby’s beauty, dresses, habits, and christening. This revived our
+correspondence for a little while—only for a little while—it died out,
+and finally ceased altogether. It was a year from this that I was
+married to Mr. Withers; and it was in the second year of my marriage
+that I was so unfortunate as to lose my only sister and her husband by
+the then prevailing epidemic. I was appointed by will, guardian, in
+conjunction with Mr. Linton, of the infant orphan, Rosalia, and was
+summoned to Baltimore, to receive her into my care. I went, and brought
+home the baby, Rosalia, without a single suspicion of who she really
+was. I was attracted to the child; I loved her, but not for anything of
+my sister that I saw in her, for there was really nothing. Superficial
+observers might fancy a likeness, because they both had the same snowy
+skin, tinged with a faint rose-color on the cheeks; the same glittering
+gold hair, and the same azure eyes; but to my searching eyes there was
+not a single look of my sister about her. There was a startling likeness
+to another—an unfortunate, whose strange sad fate was as
+incomprehensible to me as this child’s alarming resemblance of her.
+Still—so far was I from suspicion—so little given, as you know, Gusty,
+to marvellousness or romancery, that I considered this extraordinary
+likeness as mere fancy in me, until Mr. Withers also remarked it, in
+great agitation, and even _then_, I set it down as accidental. Mr.
+Withers grew very fond of her, and she of him. She was the only one who
+could subdue the tiger in his heart during his fits of phrensy. You know
+we brought her up as our niece, and loved her so much that had we heard
+that she was the child of the bitterest enemy in the world, we could not
+have loved her less. The panic caused by the extraordinary likeness
+passed away with years, because, in fact, as she grew up this
+resemblance declined, and her air and manner became assimilated to mine,
+so much so that people saw, even through the marked difference of
+complexion—what they called ‘a family likeness’ between two of no kin.
+Children _do_ thus grow to resemble those who bring them up—in case they
+love them. I believed her to be my niece, and only regretted that she
+had not been my daughter. You may judge, then, with what surprise I
+received this packet of papers from my coadjutor, Mr. Linton,
+accompanied by his own letter—shall I read it to you, or tell you of its
+contents?”
+
+“Is it long?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, tell me.”
+
+“Well then, listen; it appears that a few days before the death of Mr.
+Aguilar, he sent for his lawyer, T. Linton, and requested him to draw up
+a will, in which he left the remnant of his wrecked property to his wife
+Rosalia. Within a fortnight after the funeral of her husband, my sister
+was struck down by the epidemic to which he had fallen a victim. On the
+day previous to her decease she requested an interview with Mr. Linton.
+He obeyed her summons, and at her desire, drew up a second will, by
+which she bequeathed to _her daughter, Rosalia Aguilar_, all the
+property so lately devised to herself. She signed this will, and
+returning it to him, requested him to keep it _for exhibition to her
+relatives_, and to draw her up a copy, substituting the name of _Rosalia
+Aguilar Withers_, and to keep this in reserve, for, said she,
+
+“‘The _first_ will, will not give her any right to the bequest, because
+she is not my daughter.’
+
+“‘Then why say so in the first will?’ inquired the lawyer.
+
+“‘Because I do not wish to send the orphan, _orphaned_ into the world.
+As my own child, my relatives will naturally receive Rosalia with
+affection—the _prestige_ of family will be about her. As my adopted
+daughter, they may possibly look upon her with aversion as an
+interloper, who has deprived them of an inheritance. I do not say that
+it _will_ be so, but I _do_ say that this is so natural, so human a
+possibility, that I do not wish to risk it. I wish to cover my baby, my
+child; she _is_ my child in affection, if not in love—I wish, I say, to
+shelter her with _love_ during the years of her infancy and childhood,
+and during these years you must only produce the _first_ will, unless
+the discovery of her real parentage makes it necessary to produce the
+second, which will secure to her the property under _all_ circumstances.
+I have prepared a letter, in which I have given the history of my
+adoption of Rosalia Withers, and which I shall confide to you, to be
+delivered to my sister on Rosalia’s eighteenth birth day, or before, if
+unexpected circumstances should make it proper to do so.’ Well, she
+intrusted him with both wills, the real and ostensible one, and with the
+letter explanatory of the whole matter. Gusty, I am exhausted; shall I
+give you the letter to read, while I take a little repose?”
+
+Gusty looked at Sophie—she was pale and trembling with nervous
+exhaustion.
+
+“Oh! I am a brute! a brute! not to have noticed your fatigue; but I was
+so interested in Rosalia—give me the letter, Sophie, and lie down.”
+
+“It will tell you all that you wish to know, Gusty,” said she, rising,
+and handing him the letter.
+
+He received it, and left the cabin, saying to himself, “Sophie is not so
+strong to endure as she was—her heart is breaking under reiterated
+blows.” Passing Captain Wilde, and promising to be back to dinner, Gusty
+hastened to his own ship, and retired to read his letter, which, with
+its revelations, reader, shall be reserved for the next chapter.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLII.
+                              THE LETTER.
+
+               “Oh, what a tangled web we weave
+               When first we practise to deceive.”
+                                                   SCOTT.
+
+
+Gusty found himself in his own “caboose,” and opened the letter. Its
+contents were as follows:
+
+From Rosalia Aguilar to Sophie Withers.
+
+
+  “MY DEAR AND ONLY SISTER:—Long before your eye follows these lines,
+  the hand that now traces them will have moulded into dust. I write now
+  propped up in bed, and my pen drops from my hand, and my hand falls
+  from the paper every instant—ah! how difficult to write with the life
+  in my bosom palpitating, sinking, fluttering into death! yet I must
+  write. There is a secret that I must leave revealed for you, although
+  for awhile it will yet be kept from you. Hear my confession. There is
+  a little child whom never having seen, you yet love from my
+  description, and from her supposed relationship to you. And you must,
+  for years to come, still believe in her kindred claim. That little
+  girl is no child of mine—no relative of yours. Listen! this is her
+  history.
+
+  “From the first year of my married life, I wished above all things for
+  a child—but when, in the passage of time, I knew that Heaven had
+  written me childless, I wished to _adopt_ an infant—one without
+  parents, friends, or relatives—an orphan from its very birth, whom I
+  would make all my own—whom I could pass, not only upon the world, but
+  upon my relatives, as my own; for I was morbidly sensitive upon the
+  subject of my childlessness, and felt my misfortune to be a
+  mortification of which I wish to keep even you ignorant. (Now, if I
+  continue to keep even you in ignorance, it is from a less selfish
+  motive, namely, the welfare of my adopted daughter.)
+
+  “Well, Sophie! such a child as I wished to find was not so easily to
+  be discovered; but the more difficult the attainment, the more
+  desirable was the object. I brooded over the plan continually. I used
+  to drive in my carriage to alms-houses, orphan asylums, &c., and
+  became a sort of amateur baby-fancier; only I never saw a baby that
+  struck my fancy. I never betrayed even to the matrons of these
+  institutions my secret purpose in visiting them so frequently. I
+  thought it was quite time enough to make known my wishes when their
+  object, namely an eligible child for adoption, should be found. I was
+  in the habit of visiting these asylums at least once a fortnight, and
+  I got the name of being very charitable, for I had to give alms to
+  account for my visits. I grew quite into the confidence of the matrons
+  and directors, although, living as I did, quite at the opposite end of
+  the city, they knew nothing of me beyond my ‘charities,’ as they
+  called them. One day, however, the matron of the almshouse met me at
+  the door, and conducting me into the parlor, told me that she had a
+  singular circumstance to reveal, and then gave me the following
+  particulars. ‘That late on the preceding night, a woman had been seen
+  wandering bare-footed, and with wild eyes, streaming hair, tattered
+  dress, and frantic manners, through the streets of the city. When
+  accosted by passengers she would answer wildly, or turn and flee. At
+  last, that morning, she was brought before a magistrate, who, seeing
+  her lunacy, had her sent to this asylum.’
+
+  “‘She was brought here about eleven o’clock,’ continued the matron;
+  ‘she is a very remarkable looking young person, and I should think
+  within a very few days of her confinement. Will you see her?’ I
+  assented, and followed the matron to the ward in which the stranger
+  was placed. We entered a small room apart, and there I saw such a
+  wreck of a human being! an extremely emaciated figure sitting doubled
+  up on the foot of the low bed—from her thin limbs hung tattered
+  raiment, bearing the marks and stains of much travel and exposure. Her
+  elbows rested on her knees, and her talon-like hands supported her
+  wan, white face, which formed a death-like contrast to the brilliant
+  hair of mingled gold and silver threads that streamed down each side.
+  Her eyes were strained out straight before her, but fell as she saw
+  us. She was now enjoying—no, not enjoying, suffering a lucid interval.
+  I saw it in the set despair—the too rational despair of those terrible
+  eyes. I felt strongly and most painfully interested in her—I fully
+  believed her to be one of the too numerous victims of trust and
+  perfidy. I wished to talk to her—to learn, if possible, something of
+  her history—to do, if possible, something to alleviate her sufferings.
+  I could not, somehow, bring myself to speak to her confidentially in
+  the presence of the matron. I fancied that if I were left alone with
+  the poor stranger, I might win some information from her, and learn if
+  I could in any manner ameliorate her condition. I requested the matron
+  aside, to withdraw for a few minutes, to give me this opportunity. She
+  did so, and I went after her, closed the door behind her and returned,
+  drew the only chair in the room to the side of the bed, and sat down
+  in it very near her. She was sitting in the same attitude—her side
+  face was towards me—she did not notice me.
+
+  “‘I am very sorry to see you looking so unhappy,’ said I, softly as I
+  could speak, and watching her face steadily.
+
+  “She did not reply, but I saw the blue lips spring quivering apart,
+  and the white teeth glisten between them.
+
+  “‘Are you married?’ inquired I, after a long, painful pause.
+
+  “I immediately regretted my indiscreet question when I saw her turn
+  her gaze haughtily upon me, while something like scorn kindled on her
+  cheeks, writhed on her lips, flashed from her eyes, as she answered,
+  in a low and measured tone,
+
+  “‘Do you not _perceive_ that I am married?’
+
+  “I felt humbled—like a repulsed intruder—still I did wish so much to
+  benefit her that I ventured again.
+
+  “‘Can I do anything for you?’
+
+  “‘Yes!’
+
+  “‘Tell me what?’
+
+  “‘You can leave the room!’
+
+  “‘I will do so,’ said I, ‘certainly, as I do not wish, upon any
+  account to add to your discomfort,’ and rising, I left the chamber.
+
+  “The matron met me in the gallery, and in commenting upon my account
+  of my interview, she informed me that no one had been able to gain the
+  slightest intelligence of her past life, her friends, or her
+  condition, from her.
+
+  “I felt distressingly concerned for this woman. I drove over every day
+  to see her. She became accustomed to my visits—somewhat reconciled to
+  me—though her moods were variable; sometimes bitter and sullen, as I
+  had found her in my first interview; sometimes so wild and frantic as
+  to make restraint necessary; sometimes she was calm and rational. For
+  several days I made no further effort to elicit from her the story of
+  her sins, wrongs, or misfortunes. It was evident from every lineament
+  of her classic face and form, beautiful even in their extreme
+  emaciation, and from every tone and gesture in her voice and
+  manner—free from coarseness even in her sullenest or fiercest
+  mood—that she was a woman of high breeding—that she had fallen from a
+  lofty place.
+
+  “But it was not until my pity for the poor creature was changing into
+  love, and she saw it, that I could get her to take anything from me,
+  or accept any, even the most delicate, personal service.
+
+  “‘No,’ she would say, with a sardonic smile, ‘I will accept nothing; I
+  have a right to my place in this almshouse, because I have helped to
+  build and support these institutions.’
+
+  “Pity is allied to love on the one hand, and to contempt on the other;
+  and in proportion as it approaches love, it recedes from contempt.
+  When she saw that the arrogant and offensive element in my pity was
+  gone, she began to grow a little more grateful for the care I was
+  bestowing upon her. Once she said to me, in one of her few lucid
+  intervals—
+
+  “‘For months I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth; for
+  months I have never slept under a roof, or eaten anything cooked—the
+  forest has been my home—its bed of grass or under-growth my couch, its
+  foliage my curtains, the overhanging sky has been my roof, and its
+  millions of stars my lights: nuts and wild berries my food, water my
+  drink, and the side of some brook my dining-room. I had fled from the
+  cold pity and the colder alms of society to wild nature, the rough but
+  honest mother. And it was the coming on of winter, severe winter, and
+  the approach of the period of my accouchement, that drove me again
+  into the haunts of civilization for assistance.’
+
+  “The ‘mind and heart diseased’ might be detected in her most lucid
+  conversation. She was not one to reason with—I could only love her
+  into calmness and sanity. I brought over some of my own clothing, and
+  after soothing, coaxing, and caressing, administered with the most
+  delicate tact of which I was capable (for it was dangerous to let her
+  think that I considered her a child, or a fool who was to be
+  wheedled), I prevailed on her to take a bath, have her hair combed,
+  and put on comfortable clothing. It was a light blue, soft, warm,
+  French merino that I had brought her, and she looked so beautiful
+  after I had dressed her, that then I first conceived the idea of
+  bringing her home to my house. It was almost a selfish feeling in
+  me—she would occupy and interest me—nay, she had done so to the extent
+  of exorcising my familiar demon, ennui. Mr. Aguilar had sailed for
+  Liverpool, on mercantile business, a few weeks previous—it was too
+  late to consult him—I thought I would take this poor forlornity home,
+  and ask his permission when he returned. Fearful of alarming her
+  morbid pride, and her hatred of dependence, I did not name my project
+  to her then, but returned home full of it. I went busily to work and
+  prepared a chamber next to my own—I was so happy and interested in
+  fitting it up—I said to myself, as I superintended the arrangement of
+  the furniture, ‘Her emaciated and wearied limbs will repose so nicely
+  on this white, clean, downy bed; she will sit so nicely in this deep,
+  soft chair,’ and my own heart filled with a sort of delicious emotion,
+  that flowed through every vein, breathing through every pore, dilating
+  as a sponge filling with water, or a child growing as it sleeps. I
+  became deeply interested in preparing baby-linen, just as if it were
+  for myself. ‘Come,’ said I to myself, ‘I will be Pharaoh’s daughter,
+  and she shall be the mother of Moses.’ In the midst of these
+  occupations an evil thought came to me, and said, ‘You are doing all
+  this for—_whom?_—a fallen and guilty woman—a degraded outcast!’ And I
+  stopped in the middle of the floor aghast at the sudden recollection,
+  and terrified at the question of what Mr. Aguilar might say to this
+  contemplated act when he should hear of it. And as I stood, these
+  lines, read in my school days, came into my head—
+
+               “‘Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,
+               That to be hated needs but to be seen;
+               But seen too oft, familiar with its face—
+               We first endure, then _pity_, then embrace.’
+
+  “Yes, I had got to the pitying stage! I was in danger! in the whirl of
+  the maelstrom! I turned giddy, and dropped into the very easy chair I
+  was preparing for her. You used to say, Sophie, that I never prayed to
+  God until I got into trouble—which was as true then as it is now. I
+  was now in trouble—I did not wish to be disappointed of my
+  benevolence—my amusement, then, if you will call it so; and I did not
+  wish to see that poor creature suffer in the bleak chamber of the
+  wretchedly _un_provided almshouse. I was broken upon a wheel of
+  conflicting opinions and emotions. And I prayed to God, that if a
+  baleful, moral miasma was evolved from the presence of this poor
+  fellow-creature, His grace might be the purifying antidote to save me,
+  and I got up from this prayer loathing myself for a self-righteous
+  pharisee, standing afar off from the poor publican, and I saw how far
+  above the authority of the poets, philosophers and moralists, whom I
+  consulted and worshipped, was the perfect law of love—the law of
+  Christ that I had forgotten. Later in the day when this fervor had
+  subsided, as all fervor must, and when I looked at the _rationale_ of
+  the affair, it was suggested to me that if the poor creature were
+  guilty, she appeared impenitent—but I replied, ‘She is outcast,
+  beggared, and crazed—that is all I know—if she is guilty, it is known
+  to God; if she is also impenitent, she is mad; and has most likely
+  been driven so by cruelty and despair, and I will try to love her back
+  to sanity and to penitence. And in this case I have no right to judge
+  her—to pronounce her guilty. Still, Sophie, I must say, that between
+  old prejudices and new sympathy, between ill-regulated feelings and
+  unsettled opinions, I was very much in doubt as to the propriety of
+  what I was about to do in my husband’s absence. Inclination, as is but
+  too usually the case with me, weighed down the scale, and I went to
+  bring my protegé. I had some difficulty with her. I found her in a
+  very lucid state of mind. I congratulated her upon her calmness, and
+  she smiled a sad, strange smile, and said,
+
+  “‘Ah! you think me sane, rational _now_! But when I rave, rant and
+  scream! when I tear my hair and clothes! throw myself with violence on
+  the ground! call on God to strike me dead! and blaspheme because He
+  does not do it! _then_ you call me mad! phrensied! Alas! _then only_
+  am I sane, _then only_ conscious of my situation, of all I _have_
+  been, _am_, and _shall_ be; of my past, present, and future, in their
+  horrid reality; and my raving is but too reasonable! No, madam!’ she
+  said, with sorrowful bitterness, ‘it is _now_, _now_ that I am dull,
+  stupid, collapsed, _calm_ as you call it, that I am _really_ insane,
+  for I am now insensible to my condition in all its woe.’
+
+  “I asked for no explanation. I had given up that habit long ago. But
+  after a while I proposed my plan to her. She hesitated even when I
+  urged her with tears of sympathy.
+
+  “‘If I become an inmate of your house, it is right that you should
+  know my whole story, yet that I will never divulge.’
+
+  “‘No! no!’ said I, impatiently, alarmed, ‘I wish to hear nothing, will
+  hear nothing—I have nothing to do with your past—your future only
+  concerns me,’ for I was now beginning to fear her story as a
+  revelation of horrors that I should not have the courage to face.
+
+  “In short, Sophie, I took her home with me that very evening to the
+  chamber where I had had a fire already made for her reception, and I
+  spent the evening there with her.
+
+  “I kept her there two months. She grew calmer every day under my
+  nursing. At the end of two months her child was born, and from that
+  time it seemed to me that she sank every day. It is true that she
+  recovered from her accouchement, and was able to leave her room, but I
+  could see that a hectic fever had taken a deep hold of her system. I
+  was expecting Mr. Aguilar home every day literally with fear and
+  trembling. I devised a thousand excuses to make for what I had done,
+  and in the end hoped that the joy of meeting me again would lead him
+  to pardon the indiscretion of which I felt that he would accuse me.
+  Fanny Raymond (that was the name of my protegé), sometimes with her
+  quick, unusually quick perceptions, noticed my anxiety, and questioned
+  me about it. But I would smile and tell her that my sources of
+  uneasiness were like hers, incommunicable. In the midst of this, Mr.
+  Aguilar arrived. It was night when he came home. He did not see Fanny
+  that night. Early the next morning before we arose, I told him all
+  about it. He was deeply displeased; nothing but the circumstance of
+  our having just met, after an absence, could have saved me from a very
+  severe rebuke. He said that she must leave the house immediately. I
+  pleaded with him that it was the depth of winter—that she was dying of
+  consumption, or a broken heart, for they are often synonyms. He was
+  inexorable. I arose and dressed myself and wept very much, and then I
+  went to Fanny’s room and took up her child in its soft, white night
+  dress, and returning to my own chamber, went up to the bed and laid
+  the babe upon his bosom.
+
+  “‘What am I to do with the brat? Do you expect me to nurse it?’ said
+  he, as he rose up on his elbow.
+
+  “I was not afraid of his throwing it out of the window. He was
+  passionately fond of children. It was his weakness. He could not pass
+  a babe in its nurse’s arms in the street. That was one reason why I
+  was so anxious for children.
+
+  “‘It is a beautiful baby,’ said he, smoothing out its hair, that
+  looked like bright, pale yellow floss silk. ‘But here, take it! Why do
+  you bother _me_ with it?’
+
+  “The struggle in his mind was so evident.
+
+  “‘Because,’ said I, ‘its mother is dying—it has no relatives, I
+  suspect, and no one will claim it—you will adopt it I think—and I
+  hope, I pray, I do implore that you will let its poor heart-broken
+  mother pass the few days of life that remain to her under this roof
+  with her baby.’
+
+  “Useless all my prayers and tears. He was sternly determined to send
+  her off with the child back to the almshouse, he said. He admitted
+  that were the mother out of the question he would cheerfully keep the
+  child. At last I raised the infant and carried it into the next room.
+  Fanny was standing before the dressing-glass writing on the table. She
+  looked up as I came in. I never shall forget the expression of her
+  face in this world or the next, it was whiter than chalk, sterner than
+  marble. She came to me, took the child from my arms and laid it on the
+  bed without a word said, then turning to me she embraced me, kissed my
+  hands, pressed me to her bosom, and opening the door pushed me gently
+  out of her own, into my own room. _That was the last time I ever saw
+  Fanny Raymond._ An hour after that Mr. Aguilar and myself sat down to
+  the breakfast-table. I sent up word for Fanny to come down. The
+  servant returned with the news that she was out. I breakfasted without
+  any presentiment of what had occurred. After breakfast Mr. Aguilar
+  went to his counting-room and I ran up stairs to see Fanny and her
+  child. Fanny was not to be seen. The child lay in her cradle. Going up
+  to look at her I saw a folded note pinned to her bosom and directed to
+  me. I took it off, opened and read it, as well as I _could_ read the
+  scrawl. It was as follows:
+
+
+    “‘Mrs. Aguilar, your partitions are thin, or my senses very acute—at
+    all events, lying in my bed this morning, I have heard without
+    intending it, every word of your conversation with your husband. I
+    heard his stern but well meant decision, your generous defence and
+    benevolent pleading, and I blessed and bless you, kind angel, from
+    my breaking heart. “If the mother were dead ‘he’ would take the
+    child,” very well, so be it, the mother will die to secure a home
+    for her child—no weak hesitation or weaker regrets _now_. I go and
+    leave you my child. Take her, Mrs. Aguilar, and give her to your
+    husband as his daughter. Like the Jewish matron whom the Lord had
+    written childless, take the child of your handmaiden and rear it as
+    your own. She was born under your roof, she is yours. I will never
+    return to see or reclaim her. Do you know how much it has cost me to
+    write that? But I will not think! bear on, heart, a few days or
+    hours more. This child—you have been fearing all this time that she
+    was the offspring of guilt and shame, _she is not_. I said that I
+    would not tell you my story, and I will not, because it would
+    involve others. If I were guilty would I be likely to reveal my own
+    shame? If I were to say that I am innocent, should I be likely to
+    obtain credence? But this baby, I must tell the truth of her, she is
+    my husband’s child, for I have a husband, though I do not know how
+    long I may have one, nor is he in a condition to claim or take care
+    of his daughter or even of himself; nor does he suspect the
+    existence of this child, for I have been a fugitive from his house
+    five months before she was born. Therefore keep her yourself, she
+    will be a loss to no one but me who resign her. Give her your name,
+    it will make her more your own. Call her Rosalia Aguilar _Withers_.
+    Why Withers, do you ask? Well, no matter why, perhaps, because she
+    is the bud of a _wither_-ed tree.’”
+
+
+  “That was all! The mother had given up her child and fled, apparently
+  without a single regret, at least you would judge so from the _words_
+  of her letter; but that letter was nearly illegible with wild and
+  scrawling characters, and almost blotted out with tears. A lock of her
+  babe’s hair was cut off from its forehead, and one of its little socks
+  taken away, nothing else was missing. The poor mother had left
+  bareheaded and without outside covering, for her bonnet and shawl were
+  left behind. I was nearly wild with distress, and the poor forsaken
+  babe was wailing dismally for its mother, and I could not comfort it.
+  You know, Sophie, that though I am rather gentle, yet when other
+  people’s cruelties to their fellow creatures have very much distressed
+  and grieved me, that I end in getting very _angry_. Well, I sent a
+  footman to the counting-house for Mr. Aguilar, who answered my summons
+  immediately. It was the first time in all our married life that I had
+  ever had occasion to send for him, and he was alarmed. He came running
+  up stairs. I thrust the note into his hands, and it was _my_ turn to
+  look daggers at him while he read it, and it was _his_ turn to cower
+  before me.
+
+  “‘We must have her pursued, looked up, and taken care of,’ said he, in
+  a trembling voice.
+
+  “‘Oh, yes!’ said I, ‘now that she is drowned—you could find no room in
+  the house for her dying form, perhaps you will be able to find some
+  spot on God’s earth for her grave.’
+
+  “In short, Sophie, I went on in the insolent way in which, when I
+  became excited and reckless of consequences, I sometimes indulged
+  myself towards him, and which he always met with a dignified
+  forbearance that at last quite disarmed me.
+
+  “‘Do you take care of the child, my dear,’ said he, ‘while I take
+  measures to recover the unhappy mother,’ and he left the room.
+
+  “All search proved unavailing—we heard nothing of her for several
+  days, and then we heard that a person answering to her description had
+  been seen walking wildly on the bridge across the river, and the next
+  morning a handkerchief and a shoe were found floating, that when
+  brought to me I recognised as having belonged to her. These created a
+  suspicion that she perished by her own act. Well, Sophie, Mr. Aguilar
+  fell into very low spirits about it, and we redoubled our care of the
+  infant. We procured a wet-nurse, and spared no pains or expense in her
+  nurture and education. She is now four years old; she has been reared
+  in the very lap of love and luxury; but, Sophie, death is near me, at
+  least I fear so, and I must leave my poor dove, my delicate little
+  hothouse rose, to the rough ground and rude blast that make the life
+  of the orphan so hard. And, Sophie, I dare not yet let you know that
+  she is not my child in the flesh, as she is my child by adoption and
+  by an affection that could not be deeper than it is, had I brought her
+  into the world. She was born in my bed, reared in my lap, from the
+  time she was weaned she has slept with me every night. She is the
+  delight of my eyes, the rapture of my heart, she is so beautiful, so
+  angelic! But, Sophie, you will, perhaps, see _none_ of this unless you
+  think she is your _niece_, you will see only a little interloper who
+  has feloniously entered your sister’s home and heart and carried away
+  her affections and your inheritance, and so, Sophie, I will not for
+  some years permit you to know who she is. Not until her loveliness has
+  won a home in your love, of which prejudice and injustice cannot
+  deprive her. Oh, may God forgive me if this is sin.
+
+  “It occurs to me now, Sophie, that as your husband is named Withers,
+  there may be some connexion between the circumstance and the wild
+  fancy name of Withers bestowed by Fanny Raymond on her child. Still it
+  is not likely that there is, at least circumstances forbid me now to
+  investigate it.
+
+  “Sophie, this letter has been the work of a week, it has been written
+  in pain of body and pain of mind. To-morrow I must make my will. I
+  shall at the same time place this letter in the hands of Mr. Linton,
+  to be forwarded to you upon the date of the superscription, which will
+  be the eighteenth anniversary of Rosalia’s birthday, and before that
+  if necessary.
+
+  “Sophie, all is done—and the sands of life run very low. How much I
+  would give to die on your bosom, my only sister! but it may not be.
+  Stranger faces are around me—menial hands wipe the death dew from my
+  brow.
+
+  “Well! to-night perhaps my spirit may be freed and, cleaving the
+  distance between us, hover over your head as you sit chatting merrily
+  by your fireside, thinking of your gay city sister, dancing in some
+  brilliant ball-room. Then I will whisper to your spirit, a dream of
+  our loving infant years, and you shall fall into a sweet pensive
+  trance that shall last until your husband asks,
+
+  “‘What makes you so silent, Sophie?’
+
+  “And you will reply, ‘I was thinking of my sister Rose.’ And I shall
+  disappear in the thick facts around you. Shall it be so? Yes, Sophie!
+  if my freed spirit shall be _indeed_ free, it will seek you before it
+  seeks Heaven.
+
+  “I stopped, because weak tears blinded me—but a little child is
+  sitting on my bed, close to my pillow, and she is wiping with her
+  little dimpled hands, the damp dew from my brow, and her soft lips
+  kiss away the fast falling tears from my eyes—let _these_ tears be the
+  only draughts of sorrow that she drinks! Love my child, Sophie! Oh,
+  God, Sophie! if you want a guardian angel in heaven, love my child!
+
+                                                      “ROSALIA AGUILAR.”
+
+
+Gusty had finished the perusal of this letter. Gusty was no moralist—he
+was given to emotion rather than to reflection. Yet Gusty fell into deep
+thought, and the fruit of his reverie dropped in these words,
+
+“Behold the great tangled thicket of sin and misery springing from one
+small seedling of error. Behold the terrible consequences of one small
+deception—consequences so nearly fatal! FATAL! Oh, Heaven, is there a
+word in earth’s, or in hell’s vocabulary, strong enough to express the
+horror of the fate into which this deception had nearly plunged its
+victim!”
+
+And in deep thought, and with a brow of gloomy gravity, Gusty went over
+to the Cornucopia, to keep his appointment to dine. He did not get an
+opportunity of speaking to Sophie before dinner, for the officers were
+already assembled and waiting. As he entered one door, Sophie came in at
+another, and they sat down to the table. Sophie was the only lady at the
+board, and she was looking very pale and languid. Captain Wilde
+mentioned that this was her first appearance at the table since her long
+illness. Immediately after the dessert was placed upon the table, she
+arose and withdrew to her cabin. Lieutenant May made an apology, and
+followed her.
+
+“You have read the letter, Gusty?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And what do you think of it? Strange story, is it not?”
+
+“Very.”
+
+“I regret that Rosalia made any concealment from me. I do not know
+myself very well, but I do not think the knowledge of the facts would
+have affected my feelings towards Rosalia. The child that my sister
+loved as her own, would have been very dear to me for my sister’s sake
+as well as for her own, being as lovely as Rosalia.”
+
+“Yes, I am very sure of that, Sophie; and I also exceedingly regret this
+concealment; it might have led to the most horrible end.”
+
+“I do not see that.”
+
+“No, perhaps not; still it strikes me as having been very wrong, and
+wrong doing is _always_ dangerous, and sooner or later it brings its
+retribution.”
+
+“It _was_ wrong. I do not defend it. Still her motive was affection; her
+intention good. She judged me by the known characters of our neighbors,
+who are proverbially clannish—who intermarry, who have strong family
+prejudices, who would be likely to hate an alien by blood, where
+property is concerned, and that alien has been the means of
+disinheriting the family; it was the fear that I would look upon the
+child with dislike, which induced my sister to conceal her origin until
+now.”
+
+“Still, I say people ought not to be so concerned for the results of
+things—people ought to do _right_, and leave the event to God. I am
+learning and proving the good of that every day. Why, Sophie! that’s
+what _I_ did when I got into a scrape for doing good. I said ‘God is
+above all,’ and I grabbed right hold of the promises! with a good
+_will_, and held on to them! and you see the upshot! _Why, I’m
+reinstated._”
+
+“You are _what_, Gusty?”
+
+“Oh, nothing! nothing! only the devil got me into a cursed scrape, and
+the Lord got me out of it, that’s all!”
+
+“It strikes me, Gusty, that you are irreverent in your faith and
+gratitude.”
+
+“Lord! just hear you! do you suppose now the Lord wants to be worshipped
+_all_ the time with tears, and groans, and prayers, with long faces,
+drawling voices, and melancholy psalms? _No!_ I believe He likes
+variety, or we should not see so much of it in His works. Besides, I
+think the cheerful incense of a jolly good fellow’s faith and worship
+must refresh the angels sometimes! See, Sophie! remember how David
+danced before the Ark. Listen! the Jewish historian says, ‘he danced
+with all _his_ might.’ And one can still better imagine the antics he
+cut, when they read that Michal, Saul’s daughter, ‘saw King David
+leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she _despised_ him in her
+heart!’ met him with scorn and biting sarcasm—exclaiming with provoking
+irony, ‘how _glorious_ was the King of Israel to-day!’ &c., &c.; you
+know the rest. Nonsense, Sophie, the Lord don’t want to be always
+worshipped with a solemn physiognomy; at least it is not my ‘_gift_’ so
+to worship Him. Listen, Sophie! this is my theory and practice:—If any
+fellow-creature wrongs or outrages me, I walk right on board of him!
+thrash him like a man! and then forgive him like an angel! If any
+inevitable misfortune falls upon me without human agency, I blame the
+devil liberally! And if any good befalls me, I praise the Lord with all
+my soul! There, that’s _my_ orthodoxy—and if any heretic don’t like it,
+he needn’t subscribe to it. Dear me, Sophie, when I _am_ thankful, I am
+thankful sure enough; my bosom is a jolly big ball-room, and my heart
+dances a tarantula all over it.”
+
+“I do not know how you can be so thoughtlessly gay while the fate of
+Rosalia remains shrouded in mystery!”
+
+“God love your gentle sober bosom, Sophie; I have been in the deliriums,
+in the agonies, in the blues, the horrors, and the dumps, about Rosalia,
+for six months past, until—I got your—never mind—well, anyway, now it is
+_all changed_, and I feel such a faith, such a profound and joyful
+conviction of her safety, that I cannot be anxious from _doubt_, but
+only from _impatience_! Cheer up, Sophie! I wish I could infuse some of
+my own confidence into you! Go or send to Genoa. I wish _I_ could get
+leave of absence! Rosalia will turn up soon! She is not dead: if she
+_had_ been—much inquiry as has been made for her, large rewards as have
+been offered for information about her, it would have been known. She
+has found friends somewhere! and they help to conceal her, that is all!
+God is above all!”
+
+“_Conceal_ her! of what are you dreaming. Gusty?”
+
+“There it is again! I shall let the cat out of the bag, if I stay here
+another minute. Good-bye, Sophie.”
+
+“But what _did_ you mean?”
+
+“Dear Sophie, nothing! my hour is up! I _must_ go—good-bye!”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIII.
+                         ROSALIA’S WANDERINGS.
+
+            “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
+            Rough hew them as we will.”
+                                                SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+I do not know how _you_ feel, but I am fatigued with chasing up and down
+the world, from Maryland to the Mediterranean, and from the Balize to
+the Bosphorus, my eccentric set of people, who have exploded in their
+passion and blown themselves to the four winds of Heaven! I feel like an
+admiral at sea with a squadron, in which _each_ ship is in a mutiny, and
+_all_ in a storm—or like a shepherdess with a very short crook, a very
+wild watch-dog, and a very unruly flock.
+
+And now I must leave the ninety-and-nine in the wilderness, and go after
+the one that is lost—our pet-lamb, Rosalia—who, if she has escaped the
+wolf, has withal wandered too far from the fold in going out of sight.
+
+Upon the evening of her arrival at Genoa, Rosalia had been shown into
+her chamber, had been assisted off with her travelling dress by the
+chambermaid, had been supplied with some warm water for bathing; and
+then, at her own request, had been left alone. Finding herself in
+solitude, she had taken a pencil and paper, and traced the lines of her
+farewell letter to Raymond Withers. Then like one in a dream, driven by
+one force, the instinct of flight from Raymond, led by one attraction,
+the wish for distance and sleep, she began her hasty preparations for
+escape. Selecting from her wardrobe a dress that Raymond had never seen
+her wear, and therefore would be unable to describe, one also that would
+attract the least possible attention, and in which she would be able to
+glide, spirit-like and unobserved, through the gloaming—namely, a black
+velvet pelisse, black beaver bonnet, and black lace veil—she arrayed
+herself, and taking her guitar, with a vague idea of its being
+serviceable to her, she opened her door and looked cautiously out. It
+was the hour of dinner throughout the house, and the servants were all
+away from this division of the establishment. She hurried cautiously
+down the stairs, watching her opportunity, and eluding observation now
+by passing vacant galleries, now by gliding through a crowd of busy and
+hurrying waiters, she escaped from the house and stepped out into the
+street—into a broad, grand, spacious street, built up on either side
+with princely palaces, so magnificent that any one of them might have
+been considered the chief ornament of any other city. Terrified, almost
+crushed by the stupendous magnificence around her, the timid girl
+hurried through the stately streets of the gorgeous city, “Genoa the
+Proud,” as it has been styled for its grandeur. Hurrying along under the
+shadows of the palaces, gliding through the crowds of lazzaroni, the
+poor, frightened girl approached the north-western rampart. She met many
+country people coming through the gates, with tall baskets of fruit upon
+their heads, and in the crowd that was passing _into_ the city, she
+passed _out_ unchallenged and unnoticed. She found herself upon the high
+road leading through the plains, through the forest, and lastly through
+a defile of the Appenines to the city of Parma. She went on.
+
+The sun had set before she had emerged from the city, and now as she
+went up the pleasant road, bordered by beautiful herbage and fragrant
+flowers, by citron and orange groves, the soft and purple evening of
+Italy, with its clear sky and brilliant stars, was around her. The
+delicious coolness of the atmosphere stole all the heat from her veins
+as she wandered on. There seemed something in the air, or the ground,
+that strengthened her, for as she walked, her faintness and languor left
+her, and peace fell into her heart and all around her. Oh, yes! it must
+have been the pure air,—the fresh earth,—the hum of insects,—the hushed
+flutterings of birds’ wings, as they settled on their nests,—the distant
+murmur of the bay, and the nearer whisper of the breeze—in other words,
+the influence of nature, the mercy of God that was quieting her excited
+nerves, cooling her burning fever and composing her stormy bosom. True
+that she _knew_ she was a delicate, a houseless, friendless, penniless,
+and helpless wanderer in a strange country—she _knew_ this, but somehow
+she could not _feel_ it! She only felt the delicious influence of the
+evening air. A great deal of the anguish she had experienced at parting
+with Raymond had been expended in the passionate letter she had written,
+in the passionate tears she had shed. The gathered force of the storm
+had burst and was over! She was now refreshed. Instead of fainting on
+the road at every step she took, coolness and strength seemed to strike
+up from the living earth through her feet, passing into all her limbs.
+And it seemed to her childish fancy that in the low music of the
+insects, of the waters and the winds, she heard the angels whisper,
+“Come along! come along! be a good girl! we are with you!” and she
+toiled on, _led_ on, not knowing where, until the road declined and
+narrowed into a deep, cool, green forest dell, when, overpowered by a
+delicious drowsiness, she lay down to sleep. She did not feel alone or
+wretched—it was strange, but she did _not_. Nature seemed to embrace her
+in a loving, maternal, _conscious_ embrace; God seemed bending over her
+in blessing. She lay down in the green and growing leaves that seemed to
+close over her like kindred arms. She fancied in her dreamy, sleepy
+half-consciousness, that the leaves which kissed her cheek _knew_ what
+they were doing—that the large, bright, solitary star that gazed at her
+through the overhanging foliage, _loved_ as it watched her; only half
+awake, she stretched her hand up towards it, gratefully smiled, dropped
+her arms, and fell asleep!—into a sweet, healthful sleep, and dreamed a
+heavenly dream. She saw the Heath, the bay, and the river. The heath no
+longer a desert, but covered with fields of waving grain and pastures,
+that fed flocks of sheep and droves of kine. She saw the forest
+glittering green in morning dew, and the river flowing brightly on to
+the bay that flashed in the morning sun. She saw the Hall, no more a
+ruin, but rebuilt upon the old model—an imposing, yet beautiful villa of
+white freestone, with verandas running all around it; with vines twined
+about its pillars; with birds singing in their leaves, and children
+sporting under their shade. She saw Hagar in the high, bright bloom of
+health and happiness. She saw Raymond seated at his wife’s side, with
+one arm enfolding her form; she saw or _felt_ herself seated at their
+feet, her head reposing upon Hagar’s lap, and Raymond’s sedative, white
+fingers running through her ringlets; and she knew that she loved them
+_both_ well enough to give her life for them, nor could she distinguish
+any difference in the affection she bore to either. Her heart was
+filling and rising with a strange joy; she awoke. What was before her?
+The sky of Italy still bent above her—the bright star still looked down
+through the foliage upon her,—the flowers and herbs of Italy still
+bloomed around her—the high road to Parma lay before her,—but what was
+on that road? A group of men with torches, bending over her. She gazed
+in startled wonder for a moment,—she was awake and conscious again!—an
+unpardoned sinner—a fugitive and a wanderer far from her native country.
+Were these grim-looking men with torches come in pursuit of her, and
+would they carry her back to Genoa? or were they a band of the dreadful
+banditti that, inhabiting the fastnesses of the Appenines, sometimes
+poured down in hordes, scourging the country with fire and sword, even
+to the city gates? Quick as lightning all this flashed through her
+brain, and she fainted from terror before the tones of a very sweet
+voice from a carriage on the high road could reassure her, in the
+following question, apparently addressed to the men around her—
+
+“What is it, Signor Guillio?”
+
+“A woman, a young lady, I should judge, your Highness.”
+
+“_A young lady?_”
+
+“Yes, your Highness.”
+
+“Is she hurt?”
+
+“I’m afraid so, madam! I am nearly sure that the carriage wheels passed
+over her limb, and that she has fainted from the pain.”
+
+“Oh, I am _very_ sorry!—but how could she have come there? and how very
+careless to drive over her. Signora Morchero, will you have the kindness
+to alight and examine into the extent of the mischief done?”
+
+A lady now descended from the carriage, and stepping up to the recumbent
+form of the fainting girl, stooped and examined her—noticing the
+richness of her dress, the rareness of her beauty, the delicacy of her
+hands and feet, and the highbred expression of every lineament while
+trying to discover where she might have received injury.
+
+“Will you not examine her limbs, to see if they have been fractured,
+Signora?” again inquired or rather commanded the voice from the
+carriage.
+
+The lady bent down, and feeling her ankles, arose again and said—
+
+“Her limbs are not fractured, madam, I think, and the obstruction that
+the wheels passed over may have been only her guitar; still she is in a
+swoon.”
+
+“This is very extraordinary—what does she look like?”
+
+“She has the appearance of a young person of rank.”
+
+“Signor Guillio, give me your hand—I wish to alight,” said the lady in
+the carriage.
+
+The gentleman, who held a torch, passed it to a page, and went up to the
+vehicle, reverently assisting the lady to descend from her carriage.
+Leaning on his arm, she approached the prostrate girl; bidding the page
+hold the torch lower and nearer her face, the lady examined her features
+attentively. She seemed struck,—deeply interested. Indeed, it was a
+strange, beautiful picture, upon which no one could look with
+indifference; the lovely, snowy face, with its delicate Grecian profile,
+half-shaded by the luxuriant tresses of bright golden hair, and both
+thrown out into strong relief by the black velvet dress and the dark
+green pillow of leaves.
+
+“Lift her up, Signor Guillio, and place her in the hindmost carriage,
+with our page and tirewoman; lift her gently,” said the lady, “we cannot
+leave her here.”
+
+The gentleman obeyed; but just as he raised her in his arms, Rosalia
+opened her eyes; she shuddered and closed them again in fear; but the
+lady addressed her in a soothing tone, and she looked up once more.
+
+“You have lost your way, probably, young lady?”
+
+Rosalia looked up into the lady’s gentle face—she understood Italian
+imperfectly, so she answered in the affirmative, not knowing what else
+to say.
+
+“Are you hurt?” inquired the lady.
+
+Rosalia replied that she was not.
+
+“Were you going on to Parma?”
+
+Again, in her surprise and uncertainty, Rosalia replied affirmatively.
+
+“Then we can take you there,” said the lady, and turning again to the
+gentleman whom she had addressed as Signor Guillio, she said—
+
+“Put her into the carriage with the Signora Bianca, and let us proceed
+on our journey; it is late, and the air is chill.”
+
+Signor Guillio assisted the girl to arise, and, lifting her guitar, led
+her on to a plain, dark carriage, that, standing some yards behind the
+foremost one, was out of sight from the spot on which she had been
+lying. Lifting and placing her in it, he merely said to the occupant
+already there—
+
+“A traveller, Signora, whom the Grand Duchess has picked up, and intends
+carrying on with her to Parma,” and handing in the guitar, he closed the
+door, and returned to the carriage of the lady, who had already resumed
+her seat. The party moved on.
+
+The carriages rolled on. Rosalia seemed to herself to be still sleeping,
+still dreaming. Nay, _this_ position seemed more unreal than the dream
+from which she had been awakened. At length she said to her silent, and
+sulky, or weary companion—
+
+“Will you have the goodness to inform me, Signora, to whom I am indebted
+for this kindness?”
+
+“Do you not know, then?”
+
+“Indeed, I do not. I seem to myself to be dreaming, and have only a dim
+notion of how I came here; who was the benevolent lady who spoke so
+kindly to me?”
+
+“You are a very new comer into this neighborhood, as well as a
+foreigner, if you do not recognise Her Royal Highness, Maria Louisa,
+Grand Duchess of Parma, who has been spending some weeks at the sea
+side, and is now returning to her own capital.”
+
+The simple girl was struck into silence by astonishment and awe.
+
+It was near midnight when the carriages entered the gates of a fortified
+city, and rolling through the streets, at length paused before a
+magnificent palace. The party entered its portals. Rosalia was provided
+with a lodging within its precincts, by the woman who had been her
+fellow-passenger.
+
+It was about eleven o’clock the next day when she was summoned to the
+presence of the Grand Duchess. Maria Louisa was in her dressing-room
+under the hands of her ladies, who were arranging her morning toilet.
+Rosalia entered the sumptuous apartment and the august presence with
+downcast eyes and hands simply folded upon her bosom; her golden
+ringlets, parted above her high, pure brow, fell glittering down upon
+the black velvet boddice of her dress. Everything in her looks and
+motions repelled suspicion and disarmed prejudice as she floated
+gracefully on and paused meekly before the Grand Duchess.
+
+“Who and what are you—whence come you, and whither are you going, young
+girl?” inquired Maria Louisa.
+
+Rosalia raised her gentle lids to meet the noble but haughty eyes of the
+Grand Duchess, and, inspired by a sudden impulse, in meek accents begged
+permission to tell her little tale.
+
+Maria Louisa, seeing her languid appearance, pointed to a low ottoman at
+her feet, bade her seat herself and proceed. But _how_ to proceed
+without deeply inculpating Raymond, she did not know; at last she
+thought—
+
+“This great lady is so far above us, and so far away from us, that the
+full knowledge of the facts put in her possession cannot hurt
+Raymond—and at least, if I speak at all, I _must_ tell the truth,” and
+then Rosalia, in her imperfect Italian, “broken music,” told her story,
+told it truly, weeping and blushing, but not concealing her own errors,
+or sparing her own feelings. Maria Louisa listened with close attention
+and deep interest. Now, whether it was that, by reason of the narrator’s
+broken language, the Grand Duchess did not understand her errors, or
+whether because of her ingenuous confession, Maria Louisa was inclined
+to overlook or forgive them, is not known; but it is certain, that
+having fully ascertained the perfect destitution of the friendless young
+stranger, and her entire willingness to enter her service, the Grand
+Duchess, in rising to leave her dressing-room, said—
+
+“I appoint the Signora Rozzallia second assistant to my lady of the
+wardrobe,” and dismissed her. Later in the day, Her Royal Highness was
+heard to say,—“That young maiden has a perfect cherub’s face. Truth and
+goodness radiate from it.” Later in the _week_, Rosalia was called to
+sing and play before Maria Louisa; and later in the month, she became
+the favorite attendant of the Grand Duchess.
+
+A strange, vague fear and doubt kept Rosalia from writing to any of her
+friends at present. After the lapse of some weeks, she began writing to
+Sophie; but a strong dislike to expose the vice of Raymond to any of his
+own friends, caused her to destroy the letter on finding it to be
+impossible to give any true account of herself without compromising him
+with his family.
+
+Thus months elapsed, while she remained in the service of Maria Louisa,
+Grand Duchess of Parma, where we will leave her for the present.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XLIV.
+                           THE QUEEN OF SONG.
+
+              “Radiant daughter of the sun!
+              Now thy living wreath is won.
+              Crowned of Fame!—oh!—art thou not
+              Happy in that glorious lot?—
+              Happier, happier far than thou,
+              With the laurel on thy brow,
+              She that makes the humblest hearth
+              Lovely but to one on earth!”
+                                                  HEMANS.
+
+
+Two months have passed since the arrival of Gusty May at the “City of
+the Sultan,” and Captain Wilde is ordered to take command of the
+Rainbow, and carry her home—Gusty May remaining attached to the ship as
+third Lieutenant; and they sail from Constantinople, intending to touch
+at Genoa, to bring away the American Consul, who is recalled to
+Washington. It was on the first of June that the Rainbow cast anchor in
+the Gulf of Genoa, before “the City of Palaces.” Gusty’s heart was
+throbbing with anxiety to prosecute in that city and neighborhood his
+search for Rosalia, of whom they had not as yet received one word of
+intelligence. The first man that came on board to greet him on his
+arrival, was—who but Lieutenant Murphy, who was attached to the Phœnix,
+then at that port.
+
+“Well, my finest fellow in the service, how does the world treat you
+nowadays? Got struck from the navy list, for running away with a pretty
+widow, hey? You miserable sinner for getting found out! Well, where is
+this new Cleopatra, for whom this modern Marc Antony lost the world? And
+beyond all the rest, where is the ‘golden girl?‘—aye, where is _she?_
+D—l burn me if I don’t court her myself if you have failed. I’ll see if
+I can’t wake her up just a little bit—for—
+
+               “‘Oh, she is a golden girl,
+               But a man—a _man_ should woo her;
+               They who seek her shrink aback,
+               When they should like storms pursue her!’”
+
+“May I be court-martialed, keel-hauled, and dismissed the service, if I
+don’t make her Mrs. Patrick Murphy O’Murphy, and place her at the head
+of one of the handsomest establishments in fair Louisiana, if you don’t
+prevent me quickly, my boy!—for—
+
+                     ”‘Oh, she is a golden girl!’—
+
+“By the way, talking about beauties, have you seen the St. Cecilia yet?”
+
+“Saint who?”
+
+“‘Saint who,’ just hear him! where have you been all these months that
+all Europe has been sung into ecstasies, trances, hallucinations,
+heavens, by a new Orpheus—by St. Cecilia—by Hagar, the Egyptian!”
+
+“What?—who—which?—where?—when?”
+
+“Whither?—why?—wherefore?—come, go on, give us the whole list of
+interrogatories, and when you get through, I’ll begin to answer. I said,
+Hagar, the Egyptian—the Spirit of Music—the Queen of Song—Hagar of the
+Lightning, as her admirers call her—Hagar, the Gipsy—Hagar, the
+Indian—the Miser—the Prude, as her mortified lovers call her. If you
+have not seen her you must go to see her to-day; she has been in the
+city only twenty-four hours. I who saw her at Venice and at Paris, and
+was introduced to her as a countryman, I have the entrée, and will
+present you—but where the devil have you been all this time, never to
+have heard of Mrs. ——, for that is her name?”
+
+Gusty was divided between his joy and surprise at finding his old friend
+Hagar so near him, and hearing of her success, and his perplexity in
+untangling the wisp of illusions with which Mr. Murphy’s perceptions
+were fettered. They were now standing on the deck—Gusty being on duty
+could not leave the ship; Gusty looked around—sailors were passing
+about—this was no spot for a confidential communication, so he remained
+silent.
+
+“When I told you that I had the entrée to this lady’s apartments,
+Gusty—I mean to say, that I called on her once in Paris, once in Venice,
+and that I have left my card at her door to-day; she was out. She sings
+this evening, and the Grand Duchess of Parma, now on a visit to this
+city, is expected to honor her concert to-night with her presence. I
+will take you to her house this afternoon, if you wish it.”
+
+“Can you do so without her permission?”
+
+“Surely—yes. One does not need to ask permission of a lady in a foreign
+land to present a respectable countryman of her own to her.”
+
+“A countrywoman of ours,” said Gusty, willing to draw him out without
+divulging any truth there; “how is that?—have I ever heard of her?”
+
+“No, I suppose not—this is something like her career though:—last fall
+she suddenly appeared in New Orleans, gave a concert which succeeded
+brilliantly, and which was followed by a succession of splendid musical
+entertainments, each more astonishing than the last; and just as people
+began to inquire and ferret out her history, she withdrew herself from
+the city, suddenly and quietly, as though she had sunk through the
+ground—which she probably did. She arose to the surface again in the
+midst of the city of Paris—threw the musical world there into ecstasies,
+and passed on to Vienna, Venice, Naples, Genoa, tracking her way with
+music, light, and glory. She has avoided England, as she is said to have
+avoided the Northern states of her native country. She has tended
+southward, towards the sun.”
+
+“You seem to be strongly interested in this lady,” suggested Gusty, with
+a view of setting him off again, for he had paused, and fallen into a
+reverie.
+
+“Well! yes, and no—that is, I admire her—wonder at her—get absorbed in
+her—but it is an emotion of terror, awe, and admiration—such as one may
+feel in a grand storm, in the midst of sublime scenery, or, at best,
+under the canopy of a splendid starry night—but—as for what _I_ call
+being interested in a woman—that is to say, in love with her—I, or, in
+fact, anybody else, I suppose, should as soon get in love with Vesuvius
+burning.”
+
+“Yet you spoke of the malice of her disappointed lovers.”
+
+“Calling her ‘the miser,’ ‘the prude,’ ‘the Indian,’ &c., &c.,—yes, but
+man! they were not lovers of anything else but themselves. The truth is,
+this lady’s private life is one of utter _se_clusion and _ex_clusion,
+and all the _petits maitres_ in the world are piqued at the _caprice
+bizarre_ that shuts up this divine cantatrice with her children, when
+she should be giving _petits-soupers_ to their elegancies—and the vanity
+of each is interested in constituting himself an exception to this rule,
+and he is proportionately wounded and indignant when his overtures of
+acquaintanceship are rejected.”
+
+“Then the life of this singular woman is divided between her
+professional labors and her children?”
+
+“No—not her whole life—she is, among other extraordinary things, ‘a
+mighty hunter before the Lord’—and when she was in Germany last spring,
+is said to have achieved wonders in that line. But I am tired of
+this—where in thunder is the Captain? and are you to be pinned to the
+main-mast all day?”
+
+“Gone on shore to have a conference with Raymond Withers, the American
+Consul, who you know, or perhaps you do not know, is a family connexion,
+worse luck!”
+
+“No, I did not know that, but I do know that the new administration has
+recalled him.”
+
+“Yes, and we are to take him home—d—l fetch me if I think it is
+safe—doubt if the ship can reasonably be expected to go safe into port
+with such a load of sin and misery aboard!”
+
+“Why, what is the matter!”
+
+“Oh, nothing, only I hate the fellow, and cannot be expected to speak
+well of him.”
+
+“Well, about this American nightingale; will you be off duty, and shall
+I come to fetch you this afternoon?”
+
+“N-n-o, Murphy, not this afternoon,” said Gusty.
+
+“When, then?”
+
+“I’ll let you know to-morrow.”
+
+And the friends separated—the rattle-pated Murphy returning to his own
+ship, the Phœnix, then preparing to sail from the Gulf of Genoa—and
+Gusty, remaining where he was left, pacing the deck, chafing and fuming,
+and cursing the delay that kept him chained to the spot, when he was
+dying to go on shore and seek Hagar. It was late in the afternoon before
+the return of Captain Wilde released him from duty, and merely pausing
+long enough to hear that Raymond Withers was still suffering from the
+effects of his long illness, as well as from severe anxiety to hear
+tidings of his lost sister, to whose strange fate no clue had as yet
+been obtained—
+
+“Did he mention Hagar?” inquired Gusty.
+
+“Yes—that is, he said that it had been some time since he had heard from
+her, and wished particularly to know whether we had received a letter
+from her lately; of course I told him that we had not—that in fact we
+never heard from her at all—that she seemed to have dropped us—”
+
+“Did he say when he had heard from Hagar last?”
+
+“No—I inquired, but he said, vaguely, that he could not be precise to a
+day—that it had been—something over a month.”
+
+“Yes! I should think it had been—_something over a month_!” said Gusty.
+
+“What do you mean by _that_, Gusty?”
+
+“Oh, nothing! only it has been something over a month since mother wrote
+to me, and women seem to be lazier with their pens than with their
+tongues, that is all.”
+
+The truth is that now Gusty was in the Mediterranean, Emily Buncombe
+wrote to him only, making him the medium of her affectionate messages to
+the rest of her absent relatives, and Gusty, in “giving her love,”
+always suppressed any allusion to Hagar, or merely said “Hagar is well,”
+leaving it to be inferred that she was still at the Rialto. Raymond
+Withers had, as has been seen, so artfully avoided the subject of his
+domestic affairs as to leave Captain Wilde still ignorant of the
+estrangement between himself and his family. The streets were bathed in
+moonlight, as Gusty May passed through them on his way to that quarter
+of the city in which he had ascertained the residence of Hagar to be
+situated. She occupied a suite of apartments in an old palazza inhabited
+by a venerable Genoese couple. Gusty knocked loudly at the porter’s
+lodge before he could make himself heard. At last a grey-haired man
+opened the door.
+
+“Can I see Mrs. ——?” inquired he, giving the _nom de guerre_ by which
+she was professionally known.
+
+The old man shook his head, and was about to close the door in Gusty’s
+face, when he took out his card and placing it in the hands of the aged
+servitor, requested him to take it up to the lady. He did so; and in a
+few minutes returned and bidding Gusty follow him, led the way up the
+paved walk to the main entrance into the hall of the palazza, and
+throwing open a door on the right showed him in, and retired. The room
+was empty, and Gusty had ample time to notice its lofty ceiling,
+spacious extent, and the decayed splendor of its old-fashioned hangings
+and furniture before a door at the upper end opened, and a regal looking
+woman, that he scarcely recognised for Hagar, entered. She was evidently
+arrayed for the evening’s exhibition. Her dress of black velvet was
+thickly embroidered with gold; her tresses, grown out rich and beautiful
+again, were held back from her brow by a serpent whose scales were
+formed of overlapping emeralds, and whose eyes were rubies, and fell in
+long, glittering, blue-black ringlets far below her waist; her arms were
+bare, but serpent bracelets twined around them. Over her whole figure
+and costume, except that it was thrown back from her face, depended a
+large, black lace veil wrought with gold. She advanced towards the
+middle of the floor, and Gusty, starting up to meet her, held out his
+hand.
+
+“I am so happy to see you, Gusty, my dear friend, it is such a joyful
+surprise. How long have you been at this port?”
+
+“Only came in this morning.”
+
+“Sit down, Gusty,” said she, taking a seat herself.
+
+Gusty followed her example, and turned to note the change that had
+passed over her pale but noble features.
+
+“Gusty, I have been highly successful in my art since I left home, as,
+perhaps, you have heard. I have made a professional tour of Europe, and
+have only been twenty-four hours in this city. To-night I sing, and the
+Grand Duchess of Parma will honor the concert with her presence. I tell
+you all this, my dear friend, because I know you will care as much as I
+do for my little victories. I was about completing my toilet when you
+sent up your card, Gusty, and I had given orders that all persons should
+be denied. I would have admitted no soul but yourself, Gusty, and in
+very truth I am not pleased that you should see me tricked out in this
+way, but to-night I bring out Athenais, a composition of my own, and
+have to sustain the principal part, that is it! Come to me to-morrow,
+Gusty, and you shall see me, _myself_, you shall see my children, they
+are both with me; my little girls,—they are three years old, you
+know,—can sing better than they can talk, they are in bed now, and I am
+obliged to leave the house in half an hour to go to the music-rooms. I
+am usually attended by a matron who is my children’s nurse, and my own
+maid, but on this occasion will you make one of the party, Gusty?”
+
+“With great pleasure, dearest Hagar! but it is so strange to meet you
+thus; and if one may ask, why do you come to Genoa of all cities in the
+world?”
+
+“For the reason for which you would suppose that I would keep away,
+Gusty, namely, because—”
+
+“_Mr. Withers is here._”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Gusty sighed deeply, and Hagar unconsciously echoed the sigh.
+
+“Does he know that you are here, Hagar?”
+
+“I presume not.”
+
+“Will you advise him of your presence?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Then what was your object in coming here—but—pardon me, Hagar; the
+interest that I feel in you makes me impertinent, I fear.”
+
+“No, dear Gusty, not impertinent. Well! I will tell you,” she said,
+turning, and looking away from him, as a shadow overswept her forehead
+and her voice choked. “It was—unseen by him—to look upon his face and
+form once more, unheard by him, to hear his voice once more, there! that
+is it—condemn, despise me if you please—but that was my motive in coming
+to Genoa.”
+
+Gusty looked upon her high, pale brow, and remained in silent thought
+for the space of several minutes, and then he said,
+
+“I suppose you have heard very little from your friends during your
+travels, Hagar?”
+
+“_Friends!_”
+
+“Well! family connexions, then.”
+
+“I have heard _nothing_ from them.”
+
+“Captain Wilde and Sophie are in port here.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Yes—I am attached to Captain Wilde’s ship.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And we are to take the American Consul home.”
+
+“_Indeed!_”
+
+“Certainly—did you not know of his recall?”
+
+“Not one word,” replied Hagar, and she fell into profound thought.
+
+“Now I dare be sworn that you have heard nothing from Ros—”
+
+“Oh! for God’s sake, hush! exclaimed Hagar, as a spasm contracted her
+whitening features.
+
+“I must finish if it knocks you down, Hagar! so brace yourself! I say
+that you have not heard that Rosalia is the own sister of Raymond
+Withers!”
+
+“Oh! my God, _no_!” exclaimed Hagar, growing dreadfully sick.
+
+“_Hush! stop!_ be easy, listen. Rosalia is _innocent_—_do_ keep still,
+Hagar! _innocent_. I address myself to your _thought_, not to your word!
+Rosalia is pure! she fled the day of her arrival at Genoa, and has
+hidden herself ever since!”
+
+“What do you tell me, Gusty? Am I dreaming?”
+
+“I am telling you the truth, and you are not dreaming.”
+
+“And where is she? And what has put it into your head that she is
+Raymond’s sister, for _that_ part of the story I cannot believe?”
+
+Gusty looking at his watch and finding that there were at least twenty
+minutes to spare, began and told her the whole story, promising to bring
+her the documents that would prove it true the next day.
+
+“_Say nothing, however, to Captain Wilde or Sophie of my presence in the
+city._”
+
+Gusty promised that he would not, and they soon left the house for the
+concert-rooms, which they reached in ten minutes’ drive.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The concert hall was crowded—crammed. It is with only a few of the large
+and elegant audience that we have to do. The Grand Duchess of Parma and
+her suite occupied a box near the stage, and at her feet sat her
+favorite attendant, Rosalia, fanning her with a fan of ostrich feathers.
+The blue silk curtains of her box were closely drawn, concealing her
+party from the eyes of the audience, while they left a good view of the
+stage. Gusty May had a motive of his own for what he did upon arriving
+at the Hall, namely: he accompanied Hagar in at the side door, to the
+rooms in communication with the stage, and concealing himself behind the
+curtain, took a sheltered view of the audience. He wished to see if the
+American Consul was in the house. His eye fell upon Raymond Withers,
+seated in the most distant part of the house. He was the sole occupant
+of the box. With a quick nod of his head, Gusty retired, and meeting
+Hagar, who was seating herself before the harp, preparatory to the
+rising of the curtain, he said,
+
+“Mr. Withers is in the house, Hagar, but perhaps you anticipated this
+contingency?”
+
+Hagar turned very pale, and said,
+
+“I thought of it—where does he sit? for _I must not turn my eyes towards
+that quarter of the house_.”
+
+Gusty told her, adding—
+
+“I took pains to ascertain, Hagar, so that I might inform and prepare
+you, for I know that with all your strength and self-possession, the
+sudden and unexpected sight of Raymond Withers—if it did not overwhelm
+you, would at least endanger your success this evening.”
+
+Hagar thanked and dismissed him. He turned at the wing to note Hagar.
+The pallor of death was on her brow, and the arm that half embraced the
+harp trembled visibly.
+
+“Oh, this will _never_ do,” he said, “Hagar! let me bring you a glass of
+wine, or that curtain, now about to rise, will fall upon your
+_failure_.”
+
+“No, no, not wine, my heart and lungs are on fire now!—bring me
+ice-water—a large glass of ice-water; it is the only sedative for my
+feverish temperament.”
+
+Gusty departed, and returned with the desired restorative, and stood by
+her while she quaffed it,—stood by her until she was calm.
+
+“I must not fail before him, Gusty. Now leave me, and—_pray_ for me!”
+
+“Now,” thought Gusty, as he left her presence, and took his way around
+to the boxes, “I will go and take the vacant place by Mr. Raymond
+Withers’s side. It will be interesting to notice how he will look when
+that curtain rises, and gives to his view one whom he as little expects
+to see—as _I_ expect to see my poor hidden dove, Rosalia.”
+
+As Gusty said this, he passed behind a curtained box, between the
+fluttering silken drapery of which, he caught a glimpse of golden
+ringlets, flashing down the sweet, low forehead of a quickly averted
+Grecian profile, that shocked his heart into stillness an instant, then
+muttering to himself—“Why what a fool I am! That is the box of Her Royal
+Highness Maria Louisa,” passed on, and entered the box occupied by
+Raymond Withers. Gusty had not told Hagar so, but he had observed that
+the Consul was fearfully changed—his beautifully fair complexion was now
+sallow; his elegantly carved profile was now angular; from weakness or
+depression of spirits he had contracted a stoop. His dress was still
+elegant—for it was habitually so—of black throughout, relieved only by
+wristbands and collar of the most delicate linen, by a very minute but
+pure diamond pin, and by a glimpse of a watch chain that crossed his
+bosom. He was looking straight before him, towards the curtain, as
+though a strange attraction drew his eyes and thoughts there. Gusty
+entered without arresting his attention, until he said—
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Withers?”
+
+The Consul turned and greeted him with his habitually elegant
+self-possession, as though they had but parted an hour before, and
+nothing had occurred in the interval, and then gave his attention again
+to the curtain.
+
+“Very well, my prince of self-possession, sustain the character, but if
+the rising of that curtain don’t ruffle the down of your serene
+highness, I shall be in despair.”
+
+Gusty thought he would try him a little, and, as by way of opening a
+conversation with his quiet neighbor, he observed, carelessly—
+
+“You have seen this _chanteuse célèbre_ before?”
+
+“Never,” replied the Consul.
+
+“_No!_—I really thought you had, frequently.”
+
+Raymond Withers did not reply to this observation, and the attention of
+both was arrested by the rising of the curtain.
+
+Gusty looked first quickly, anxiously, upon the stage. Hagar was
+commencing her song with perfect self-possession; he next covertly
+glanced at Raymond Withers. He, with face pale as white ashes, set
+teeth, knitted brow, and fiery eye, was gazing at the songstress, who
+never turned her eyes towards him. The vast room was filling with music.
+The song was rising, swelling into a fierce tempest of grand harmony,
+like the rushing of many waters; then receding like the memory of a
+murmuring rivulet heard in infancy; now thundering on like the storm of
+battle “hurtling on the plains;” then dying away and away, distant, but
+yet distinct, like the retiring steps of spirits gliding down the steeps
+of space. The song was ended; a dead stillness, a long pause followed.
+The audience had forgotten the artist in her art—had forgotten to
+applaud until some one, perhaps really the least affected of all,
+recollected to break the tranced silence, and an avalanche of applause
+falling, shook the house to its foundation. But Gusty May looked at the
+Consul. He was sitting still and pale as an image carved in marble.
+Silence again fell upon the scene.
+
+The cantatrice had retired. Now a gentleman presenting himself before
+the audience bowed and waited to be heard. He announced that the sudden
+indisposition of Mrs. —— had for the moment, arrested the progress of
+the oratorio, but that she hoped to have the honor of appearing before
+them on the next evening—that in the meantime the entertainment would
+proceed without her. The gentleman bowed and retired. Many of the
+audience arose to leave the house, among the rest the American Consul,
+accompanied by Gusty May—whose proximity, whose very existence he seemed
+to have forgotten in the absorption of his thoughts. Raymond Withers,
+still followed by Gusty May, took his way round towards the stage door.
+Passing the box of the Grand Duchess Maria Louisa, he found it empty—and
+heard one lounger tell another, that the party had retired _because one
+of the ladies of her Royal Highness’ suite_ had fainted. They reached
+the saloon at the back of the stage. Raymond Withers, going up to the
+gentleman who had announced the illness of the _chanteuse_, inquired for
+Mrs. —— (giving her professional name).
+
+“She has just this moment left the house, signore,” replied the
+gentleman, courteously.
+
+“Will you furnish me with her address?”
+
+“I regret to say, signore, that it is not in my possession.”
+
+“Does any one here know where the lady lives?”
+
+“I fear not, signore.”
+
+Strongly suspecting some deception, Raymond Withers prosecuted his
+inquiries further without success. Beginning to feel ashamed of his
+position as a self-constituted spy, Gusty May now withdrew, leaving the
+Consul to pursue his investigations alone.
+
+Gusty hurried at once to the Palazzo Marinelli, the temporary abode of
+Hagar.
+
+“Where is Mrs. ——?” inquired he of the porter.
+
+“I do not know, signore, but she gave orders that you should be admitted
+when you called; will il signore follow me?” said the old man in
+Italian, as he preceded him to the palazzo, into the hall, and throwing
+open a door that led into a private room, retired.
+
+“Where is Mrs. ——?” again inquired Gusty, of the matron that came to
+meet him.
+
+“She was summoned from the concert, in haste, to the hotel of the Grand
+Duchess, and has gone thither. She merely stopped here an instant to say
+that if you called, I was to ask you to have the goodness to come again
+to-morrow morning.”
+
+The room was littered all over with trunks and boxes and disordered
+wearing apparel, that seemed to have been hastily thrown out of presses,
+bureaus, wardrobes, etc. Gusty thought, “This looks like a sudden
+journey, a flight,” but he said nothing, deferring his curiosity until
+the next day.
+
+“She told me that you would like to see her children, and that I was to
+show them to you,” said the woman.
+
+Gusty assented, and at her request followed her to the upper end of the
+room, where, withdrawing a white lace curtain that draped a large crib,
+she revealed the three sleeping cherubs. Gusty looked at them with a
+tender and growing interest, and then drawing back the curtain with his
+own hands, he breathed a sigh and a silent prayer for their welfare, and
+left the room and the house.
+
+It was late, very late, when Gusty returned to his ship, so that he
+found a difficulty in hiring a boat to take him thither. On his way,
+while gliding among the numerous shipping, he saw one small craft so
+remarkable for its elegance, that he could not fail to notice it; he saw
+the sailors very busy on the deck.
+
+“That is a beautiful little bark,” he said to the boatman.
+
+“Si, signore; she is the Compensation, bound for Baltimore, with the
+first tide to-morrow; they say a lady had her built; and that she
+carries away a band of German emigrants.”
+
+They were now by the side of the Rainbow, and Gusty, who in his relapse
+of abstraction had perhaps missed the latter clause of the boatman’s
+speech, paid his fare, and hastily sprang on board.
+
+Very early the next morning Gusty May arose and dressed. He came on
+deck, resolved to ask leave to go on shore immediately. The first object
+he saw was the Compensation getting under weigh. He stopped and watched
+her until, flowing before a fair wind, she was out of sight. Then,
+meeting Captain Wilde, he named his wish to go on shore, obtained leave,
+and hurried away.
+
+An hour’s hasty walk brought him to the Palazzo Marinelli.
+
+“Will you inform Mrs. —— that I have called, and let me know if she can
+receive so early?”
+
+“Mrs. —— has left the city with all her family, signore, and desired me
+to hand you this,” replied the porter, placing a thick letter in his
+hand.
+
+“Gone?—left the city—when?—where?”
+
+“At the dawn of day, signore.”
+
+Gusty looked at his letter, hastily opened it, and caught two smaller
+letters that fell from out of the large one, as he devoured its contents
+with his eyes and brain:
+
+
+  “DEAR GUSTY:—Meet me this day two months, at eight o’clock in the
+  evening, at Heath Hall. Bring with you Captain Wilde and Sophie, and
+  come prepared to receive from _my_ hand, the hand of Rosalia Withers,
+  whose best praise is, that she is worthy of _you_—whose best
+  testimonial of that fact is, that _I_ offer her to you. You bring out
+  the late Consul: I charge you, Gusty, as you value my friendship, to
+  make peace with him; nay, Gusty, as you value the blessing of God,
+  giving a long future of halcyon days, extend to your brother the right
+  hand of fellowship. I inclose two letters that I request you to
+  deliver to their respective addresses. _Au revoir_, dearest Gusty. I
+  shall precede you to Heath Hall only by a very few days.
+
+                                                                 HAGAR.”
+
+
+The two inclosed letters were directed, one to F. Raymond Withers, Esq.,
+American Consul for the city and port of Genoa—the other simply to
+Sophie Wilde.
+
+Divided between astonishment, joy, and regret, Gusty stood rooted to the
+spot for the space of five minutes after reading this letter. Then it
+flashed upon him like lightning that he had seen the ship that carried
+Hagar and her family from the shores of Italy, and such indeed was the
+fact, as upon a further investigation he proved. He hurried away to
+deliver the letter at the hotel of the American Consul, murmuring to
+himself,
+
+“Rosalia safe, found; well, I said so!—I positively _did_, the Lord
+knows it, although no one else would believe what a prophet I am!”
+
+Gusty gave the first letter to the porter at the hotel of the Consul,
+and carried the other on board the Rainbow.
+
+“F. Raymond Withers, Esq., American Consul for the port and city of
+Genoa,” had upon the previous evening returned, disappointed, fevered,
+and weary, to his sumptuous lodgings. Hastily divesting himself of his
+raiment, he fell exhausted upon his bed, and sank to sleep with a
+determination to find Hagar, and take possession of her early in the
+morning—a resolution which he carried out—in his dreams. At dawn the
+next day Raymond Withers arose, and only paused to arrange his toilet
+and to breakfast, because it was impossible to find anybody or any place
+one had to look for at such an early hour of the morning. Immediately
+after breakfast he hastened to the music-rooms to renew his inquiries;
+there he met the same gentleman who had answered his questions in such
+an unsatisfactory manner on the previous evening, but who now hastened
+to say that he had been so fortunate as to ascertain the address of the
+signora—she lived in the Palazzo Marinelli, in the north-western quarter
+of the city. The Consul, bowing his thanks, hastened thither. He was met
+by the old porter, who, in reply to his inquiries, informed him that the
+lady, with her whole family, had that morning sailed for the United
+States. Stunned with disappointment, nearly overwhelmed by despair,
+Raymond Withers returned to his hotel, there to find a present
+consolation and a future hope in the note addressed in the hand of
+Hagar, that had been left during his absence by an officer in uniform,
+as his page said. He tore the note open; it ran thus:
+
+
+  “DEAREST RAYMOND:—Meet me this day two months, at eight o’clock in the
+  evening, at Heath Hall. Come prepared to meet a new found
+  relative—your own and only sister, Rosalia,—and to unite with me in
+  bestowing her hand on one who loves her and is worthy of her. Measure
+  my wish to be reconciled with you, by your own anxiety to meet me. If
+  you ask why I have now fled your presence, and appoint a meeting of
+  some weeks’ distance—I reply, that under all the circumstances, it is
+  best. We must all be prepared by anticipation for our general
+  re-union, and I prefer to receive you in our own home, and under the
+  happiest auspices.
+
+  “HAGAR.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XLV.
+                       AN EVENING AT HEATH HALL.
+
+        Forgive and forget! why the world would be lonely,
+          The garden a wilderness left to deform,
+        If the flowers but remembered the chilling winds only,
+          And the fields gave no verdure for fear of the storm.
+                                            CHARLES SWAIN.
+
+               “I cannot think of sorrow now; and doubt
+               If e’er I felt it—’tis so dazzled from
+               My memory by this oblivious transport.”
+                                                   BYRON.
+
+
+For three months previous to the events recorded in our last chapter,
+the gossips of Churchill’s Point and its environs were thrown into a
+state of feverish conjecture as to the meaning of the new doings at
+Heath Hall.
+
+At first those who passed in sight of the old ruin, observed that a part
+of it had been pulled down, or had at last, as long predicted, _fallen_
+down, and went on their way without giving the circumstance a second
+thought. Then, as the season advanced, those who were in the habit of
+shooting water fowl on the moor belonging to the estate, or drawing a
+net for fish upon its beach, passing very near the Hall, noticed workmen
+engaged in pulling down the building. Upon being questioned, these men
+replied in a foreign language unintelligible to the inquirers. This news
+being carried straight to the village post-office, the country store,
+the tavern, and other resorts of male gossips, arrested the discussion
+of agricultural, commercial, and political subjects for the space of an
+hour. Conveyed thence to the tea-tables at home, it did not tend to
+quiet the nerves or incline to sleep the ladies of Churchill’s Point.
+There could be no intercommunication among neighbors that evening; but
+early the next morning every one went “a-visiting.” The disappointment
+was, that everybody having gone abroad in search of everybody _else_,
+nobody was at home to receive anybody. They missed each other. There
+could be no comparing of notes that day. In their rising excitement,
+they tried it next day without much better success, and dodged about the
+remainder of the week like two persons getting out of each other’s way
+on the pavement, and missing their object. At church, on Sunday,
+however, the neighbors assembled. Mrs. Buncombe was beset with questions
+that she could not answer. Mrs. Buncombe had a nervous dread of being
+supposed to be implicated in anything that might be going on at Heath
+Hall; and begged her friends to recollect that the family of that estate
+were not her blood relations, though every one seemed to be under the
+illusion that such was the case. In very truth the character of Emily
+had sadly degenerated since the death of the good and wise old parson,
+and since her marriage with a weaker, if not a worse man. But Mrs.
+Gardiner Green gave an improvised verbal invitation to “the ladies” to
+meet at tea at her house on the next evening. Sewing circles and other
+useful and agreeable Yankee inventions, had not then, and have not yet,
+travelled down to Maryland and Virginia. The Southern States are far
+behind the “Far West” in this respect. But to Mrs. Gardiner Green’s
+tea-drinking! par parenthèse, Mrs. Gardiner Green _now_ calls her
+evening assemblies “re-unions,” “at homes.” The ladies began to drop in
+at an hour that would be considered too early for _dinner_ now a days.
+Emily Buncombe went, in mood as nearly approaching the irascible as her
+indifferent nature would permit. I am not about to tell you of a
+Maryland tea-party with the tea-equipage of chased silver, upon which
+the crest and initials of the English ancestry have been religiously or
+pretendingly engraved, or of the inconceivable amount of _substantial_
+confectionery (none of your vaporish cakes and spiritual ices), all
+prepared under the eye of the mistress—no, nor of the baked canvas-back
+ducks, devilled crabs, fried oysters as large as the palm of your hand,
+or anything else, that made the ladies’ tea-drinking look like a public
+dinner given to a board of aldermen. I will not, because the bill of
+fare would run to the end of the chapter, and besides, it would make me
+hungry and I should have to stop to eat, and then I could not write. But
+I will _proceed_ to the _proceedings_ of the party. The “mysteries of
+Udolpho,” and Heath Hall were talked over, and it was decided that the
+one was as deep as the other. Emily Buncombe’s voice grew loud and sharp
+in disclaiming the least knowledge of the subject. Finally, as the
+weather was genial, it was agreed that the neighbors should get up a
+fishing festival upon the beach, and that being on the spot, they could
+take notes. Fish feasts, picnics, etc., at Heath Hall, were liberties
+that the neighborhood took without the slightest hesitation or
+compunction in the absence of the proprietor.
+
+The last of the week was fixed for the projected festival, and upon the
+day appointed the company assembled. They passed, in going to the beach,
+immediately through the grounds inclosed around the Hall. So rapid had
+been the progress of the work, that they looked upon the once damp
+cellars, now no longer damp, but excavated, cleaned, paved, and built
+up—and the foundations of the house relaid anew. Some half-dozen foreign
+looking men were at work under the direction of one in authority, who
+seemed to be an experienced architect. To all inquiries these workmen
+replied in a torrent of civil but unintelligible jargon. Tarquinius
+Superbus issued from the building covered with plaster and sawdust, and
+seeing the company, hastened away, donned his Sunday clothes, and went
+down to the beach to render assistance to the visitors that had honored
+Heath Hall with their presence. He had always been accustomed to do this
+at the command of the ever-hospitable and courteous proprietors of the
+Hall. When Tarquinius appeared, bowing and smirking his “obedience” to
+the company assembled upon the beach, he presented a fine opportunity to
+those in “pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.”
+
+He was inundated with inquiries. Tarquinius stood perplexed, bewildered.
+Tarquinius knew as little as any one on the ground; but it did not suit
+the self-conceit of Superbus to seem ignorant. Tarquinius mused—he
+thought of several lies to tell, but discarded one after the other as
+inadmissible. He seriously thought of telling the gaping listeners that
+“Mrs. Withers was drowned in the irruption of a whirlwind, and that Mr.
+Withers had married the daughter of the Pope of Rome, who had a gold
+mine for a dowager, and that they were coming to keep house at Heath
+Hall.” But he was afraid _this_ tale might be soon disproved, and
+substituted a more credible story—namely, that a large fortune had been
+left to Mr. Withers, and that Mr. and Mrs. Withers were about to return
+to Heath Hall, and had sent a staff of workmen under a German architect
+to rebuild the house. This, divested of its absurdly pompous mistakes of
+language, was about the amount of information gleaned by the picnickers.
+And this story in fine obtained credence, implicit credence. Everything
+confirmed it. Were not the workmen there? and was not the Hall being
+rebuilt in more than its pristine magnificence? With every circumstance
+that marked the progress of the redemption of the Heath and the
+rebuilding of the Hall, the esteem and respect of the neighbors for its
+proprietor increased. Every one began now to say what a sin it was to
+have slandered Hagar so—Hagar, too, who in her whole life had never been
+known to retail an item of scandal. This was not unnatural; calumny is
+more frequently the result of thoughtlessness than of malice. It was
+singular that each one now forgot that himself or herself had been most
+ingenious in his or her suspicions and explanations, and loudest in
+condemnation. There was a little “leaven of unrighteousness” in the
+“envy, hatred, and malice” of the few whose nature made them jealous of
+their friends’ prosperity; but upon the whole, the tide of popular
+feeling was setting in strongly in favor of the expected family at Heath
+Hall. The work progressed rapidly. At the end of three months you would
+not have recognised the place. From the foundation stones to the chimney
+summits, the Hall was entirely rebuilt of fine _red sandstone_, a
+beautiful dark, purplish red stone found in Maryland and Virginia. The
+walls around it were rebuilt, and the walks paved of the same material.
+The yards and gardens were cleared up, the trees trimmed, and the grass
+shaved down until it looked like velvet. The Heath was metamorphosed
+into a beautiful, clean, green sward, upon which children might roll and
+play with delight; the tangled thickets crowding here and there among
+the rolling hills were converted into beautiful groves; the muddy
+brooklets at their roots were changed into clear fountains or limpid
+springs, and seats were fixed there for the convenience of the weary or
+the contemplative passenger. At the Hall, the out-buildings were of the
+neatest and most convenient form, and every minutia of use or elegance
+received its due meed of attention. In a word, the ruin, the desolation,
+was redeemed, the wilderness reclaimed and “bloomed and blossomed like
+the rose.” People came from “far and near” to see the delightful change,
+and “Alto Rio,” the new name of the estate, cut in old English
+characters and half concealed in the oak foliage carved under the eaves
+of the house, became the synonyme for elegance and comfort through the
+whole neighborhood.
+
+It was three months from the first appearance of the workmen to the
+morning upon which a beautiful little bark was discovered moored under
+the shadow of the promontory. Her snowy sails were reefed, and a few
+neatly dressed sailors were engaged in removing a portion of the cargo
+from her polished deck to the boat that was to carry it to the beach,
+where a cart and horse waited to transport it by a circuitous path to
+the Hall. The sailors seemed to be foreigners. A great part of the cargo
+appeared to consist of elegant furniture, statuary, pictures, and
+articles of virtue, for many of the boxes, for convenience, were opened
+upon the beach. All day the little crew and the assistants from the Hall
+were engaged in unloading the vessel and conveying its freight on shore,
+and in conveying and arranging furniture in the Hall. From the moment
+that the first sight of these proceedings had been caught, a crowd of
+all the idlers and gossips of Churchill’s Point began to gather on the
+brow of the cliff to watch the operations of those upon the beach below,
+and many “Oh’s” and “Lords!” were ejaculated with gaping wonder as one
+splendid article after another was revealed to their view by the
+knockings up of the boxes upon the beach. But they were watching, if
+perchance Mr. and Mrs. Withers, with their family, were to be seen, or
+if they had come, or when they were coming. They watched and waited in
+vain. There _was_ a lady down in the luxurious cabin of that little
+craft, in which she was as much at home as in her native halls, but this
+lady waited patiently an opportunity of landing quietly after the crowd
+of gapers and starers should have dispersed. Day declined. The cargo was
+all disembarked, and even carried away. The beach was clear—the clean
+looking sailors resting on their nice deck. All was silent, still. There
+was nothing more to be seen, and the loungers began to think of their
+suppers and the marvels they had to relate thereat, and to disperse.
+
+The next morning at dawn, a little boat was brought around to the side
+of the vessel, and a lady assisted to descend into it. Then a maiden and
+three children were lowered one after the other into the skiff. Two
+sailors entered it, and taking the oars, rowed swiftly to the beach. The
+lady stepped upon the sand, the children dancing around her for joy to
+be released. Sending the youngest child, the little golden haired boy,
+before her to insure his safety, and leading the little dark-browed
+girls, the lady, followed by the maiden, began to ascend the side of the
+promontory by a flight of stone steps recently cut for the convenience
+of passengers. As the lady, with her children, reached the top of the
+flight of stairs, and stepped upon the highest point of the promontory,
+the first rays of the rising sun fell upon the head of Hagar like a
+blessing! a salutation! that her countenance flashed back in gratitude,
+in joy, as she bowed her head and knee, and reverently returned thanks.
+
+Let no one sneer. It was the overflowing love and worship of a profound
+soul deeply grateful for _past sufferings_ as for present happiness. She
+arose and led the children on to the Hall.
+
+What a different return was this to her landing in the stormy winter’s
+night more than two years before!
+
+All that day was occupied in a delightful review of the house and the
+grounds. The arrangements seemed to give Hagar the utmost pleasure. All
+the next day was spent in her elegant library, and devoted to business,
+looking into the accounts of her workmen, paying their wages, and so on.
+She gave up the third day of her arrival to pleasure, or rather to the
+preparation and anticipation of it; and while the children were left in
+the care of the maiden who loved them, Hagar employed herself in writing
+some hundred cards of invitation to all her old neighbors of the three
+nearest counties, to a festival to be given at Heath Hall on the evening
+of that day week.
+
+All these invitations were written in pale, blue ink, upon silver edged
+paper, and sealed with white wax by a seal of two doves. This is the
+Maryland fashion of announcing a marriage.
+
+“Now, tell me, dear Rosalia; are you quite satisfied—happy?” inquired
+Hagar of the gentle girl, who had looked in upon her occupation a
+moment.
+
+“Dearest Hagar! my saviour! I will call you my _sister_, when I dare!
+dearest Hagar! I have given myself to you, do with me as you please—make
+me your waiting maid—anything! I am in your hands—I am _yours_. I accept
+any destiny from you.”
+
+Hagar looked steadily with her calm eyes at the child, then said,
+
+“But, Rose—_Gusty_—do you not love him as he loves, and as he deserves
+to be loved?”
+
+“Dearest Hagar, I love _you_, wish to love you _only_, to worship, to
+serve you: dearest Hagar, what can I do for you?”
+
+“Be happy, Rose, and tell me about Gusty—do you not love him?”
+
+“Oh, yes! yes! I always _did_, you know—Hagar—” the child paused,
+trembled, grew pale; then lowering her voice, whispered, “Hagar, stoop
+down; there is something I have been dying to say to you, and never
+found courage to say it—” she paused again; Hagar’s brow grew crimson,
+and,
+
+“Do not say it then, Rose,” she murmured low.
+
+“But I must, I must; it is a rankling thorn that must be plucked out,”
+said the girl, in a suffocating voice, paling and fainting.
+
+Hagar laid down her pen, and drawing the child upon her lap, laid her
+head upon her bosom, and whispered, soothingly,
+
+“There! now say what you wish, Rosalia; as though you spoke to your
+mother, or—”
+
+“My guardian angel! You give me courage, dear Hagar! Well, listen! I
+loved—_everybody and everything_—indeed I did! the poor old negroes
+coming from their work, the blind old horses, and the crippled chickens,
+just as warmly as I loved you, beautiful Hagar! and Gusty, and
+Sophie—and—and—”
+
+“Your brother Raymond.”
+
+“Yes, I loved everybody and everything, because—because—I don’t know
+why.”
+
+“You loved the poor, ugly, and wretched, because you _pitied_ them; and
+the beautiful and happy because you _admired_ them, my child!”
+
+“May be so—I do not know—I only _love_. Well, I loved Gusty and Raymond
+_both_, and both _alike_—God knows I did! until—oh! Hagar, now
+listen—everybody seemed to forsake, or to hate me, and then I loved
+_him_ only—until—oh, now it comes—_now_ listen!”
+
+The girl buried her burning face in Hagar’s bosom, and lost her voice.
+Hagar stooped and caressed her. Rosalia resumed, whispering very low,
+
+“Until one day on the boat, very beautiful and bright he looked, and I
+threw myself in his arms, thinking no evil, only loving him dearly,
+and—_he kissed me_—it was not a _good_ kiss, like Captain Wilde’s and
+Sophie’s; it was a _dreadful_ kiss—it burned down through my cheek to
+the very centre of my spirit—it hurt me to the very heart—to the very
+quick of my soul! I got away and felt sick and guilty; felt changed and
+fallen. I was dizzy, reeling, and kept feeling at my cheek with my
+fingers, as if there was a scar there. I seemed to feel it. I was ill,
+and possessed with a mysterious fear and aversion of Raymond; yet when I
+saw my distance wounded him, I felt remorseful, and conquering my
+aversion, forced myself to keep near him. Wretched as I was, I could not
+bear to give him pain; and so, Hagar, I remained with him, and he kissed
+me so, again and again! and each kiss seemed to sink me lower and lower
+in a pit of infamy, until I could not bear the thought of ever facing
+any of my friends again. I was already fallen—lost in my own eyes. Oh!
+Hagar, listen! listen, my sister Hagar! I might have been insane, but I
+do not urge that in extenuation of my weakness. I was drawn in, and
+drawn in, like one in the whirl of a maelstrom—feeling the danger, the
+fatality—yet unable to stop myself—yet, Hagar, it was _all_
+suffering—_all_, Hagar! _all_. I felt already fallen below redemption. I
+was in the power of a will stronger than my own—and, oh! worse than all,
+I was afraid to pray; afraid to touch the bible, for fear something
+dreadful would happen to me as a judgment. I felt so sinful, _so
+sinful_. I felt ill on the voyage out. And _then_ I thought of Mary
+Magdalen, and I said, ‘If God, the Father, is of too pure eyes to behold
+iniquity, Christ will surely pity and deliver me.’”
+
+“But you should not have lost faith in God, dear Rosalia. You are the
+work of His hands, and you could not have fallen so low that the
+Father’s arm was not long enough to reach you, the Father’s hand strong
+enough to lift you, the Father’s love great enough to redeem you! Never,
+_never_ doubt it! The FATHER’S LOVE is the greatest reality of my
+experience. Oh, Rosalia! to doubt the love of God is to grieve the heart
+of God—believe it!”
+
+“Well, I prayed—_I prayed!_—and then it came into my head to run away
+when I should get to Genoa—and even if I perished from want indeed,
+Hagar, I was _willing_ to perish! But then—now here is a strange thing.
+After taking this resolution to leave him secretly, I felt a remorse at
+the idea of deceiving him, and giving him pain, and I could not bear to
+look on his confiding face. I _knew_ I was doing right in leaving him,
+yet _felt_ as if I were doing wrong!—explain this to me, Hagar—was I
+crazy?”
+
+“No, dear Rosalia; you were sane—_your_ love for him was pure and
+holy—_his_ passion for you was an illusion, an insanity. _Your_ love for
+him would have blessed and elevated him to heaven; his passion for you
+would have drawn you down to hell. Yours was divine love—his was
+fiendish passion. All powers of good and evil were striving in your
+bosom, poor Rosalia; but your angel saved you! But, Rose; do you still
+love your brother?”
+
+“Oh yes! yes! how can I help it?”
+
+“That is well, Rose—he is your only brother—he does not love you in any
+sort just now, I know; because sinful thoughts killed his love—but,
+Rose, _you_ must love him back to purity, to health and life, and _then_
+he will love you rightly. This will be difficult at first, but it will
+grow more easy every day. And Gusty, Rose! that noble man. Just give
+your whole heart, soul, and life, up to him, and think the gift—not
+enough!”
+
+“Ah, Hagar! Do I not esteem, reverence him for all you have told me of
+his goodness and greatness—only I am not worthy of him.”
+
+“He thinks you are, Rose, and you must try not to disappoint him.”
+
+“Well, now, dear Hagar, I have told you all—and you do not reproach me;
+alas! if you were to drive me away I could not complain.”
+
+Hagar caressed her fondly but gravely, and remained silent, continuing
+to write, fold, and seal her cards. At length they were all finished,
+and she requested Rosalia to ring the bell. Tarquinius answered it.
+Hagar collected her cards into a packet, and giving them to Tarquinius,
+gave orders that he should saddle a horse and ride to deliver to their
+address as many as could be forwarded that day—and to resume his circuit
+with the morning, until all should be disposed of. Then rising and
+calling Rosalia to follow her, she went into her chamber and sat down
+with the maiden to work on a beautiful white satin dress.
+
+Tarquinius Superbus mounted the most superb horse in the stable, and sat
+forth upon his mission. Never did a highland runner with the
+crois-taradh kindle a greater excitement among the rocks and glens of
+Scotland, than did Tarquinius with his missives. The first card was
+delivered at Mrs. Gardiner Green’s plantation. Mrs. Buncombe was taking
+tea with her (Emily had not called on Hagar since her arrival; but then,
+be it known, Hagar had given her no intimation of her return). The card
+was sent in and the messenger called in. He obeyed the summons, and
+stood, hat in hand, bowing and smiling, at the parlor door, where Mrs.
+Green and her guests sat at table.
+
+“A wedding at Heath Hall—and who is to be married?” was the question
+addressed to him by three or four ladies in a breath.
+
+Tarquinius did not know. He said he believed “that Mr. Withers had been
+killed in a duel with the King of Camshatka, and that Mrs. Withers was
+going to be married to the Prince of Patagonia;” and seeing several of
+the ladies for whom he had cards, present, Tarquinius, in a very
+unconventional manner, proceeded to deliver them, to save himself some
+miles of travel. Seriously doubting Tarquinius’ report and explanation
+of the mystery, the ladies all determined to accept the invitations to
+_le mariage inconnu_ to come off at Alto Rio.
+
+The day of the festival arrived.
+
+Rosalia was awakened from her morning’s dream by a soft kiss dropped on
+her forehead, and she raised her lids to see Hagar standing by her
+bedside, with brilliant eyes, arched brows, and smiling lips.
+
+“Good morning, dear Rosalia! _Good_ morning! Rise! it is a glorious
+day—see! the sun is smiling a salutation through your windows.”
+
+Rosalia, putting her two white arms up from the bed, lovingly drew down
+Hagar’s head and embraced her.
+
+“Come,” said Hagar, assisting her to rise and leading her to a window.
+“Look forth! It is an auspicious morning! All nature smiles upon your
+bridal day.”
+
+It was indeed a glad, jubilant morning! The sun had risen in cloudless
+splendor, tinting with a golden radiance the gauze-like vapor that
+rested as a veil over forest, heath, and Hall, river, cliff, and bay!
+The scene was full of freshness, light, and music!
+
+“Oh! look and listen, Rosalia, woods and waters sing and the birds pause
+to hear! listen!”
+
+“But, dearest Hagar,” said Rose, gazing forth upon the bay—“after all,
+suppose our friends do not come; a meeting appointed two months
+beforehand in a foreign country! So many things may have happened!”
+
+“Look, Rosalia!” replied Hagar, holding a letter, “they were in
+Baltimore a week ago; this letter is from Gusty, it came late last
+night. I did not get it until this morning; it is an _avant-coureur_ of
+our party. They will be with us by this evening’s boat.”
+
+Rosalia did not reply in words, but still happiness was beaming on her
+face.
+
+“Listen again, Rosalia, my darling—Emily will be over this morning to
+breakfast with us. Shame kept _her_ and pride kept _me_ from making any
+advances towards a renewal of friendly intercourse—but this morning I
+arose in a better mood. I could not feel resentment (that, however, I
+_never_ felt), but I could not feel indifference towards the mother of
+my dear, noble Gusty, and the future mother-in-law of my Rosalia. So,
+love, I wrote her a kind letter, explaining the whole affair. I told her
+that Gusty would be here this evening to fulfil an appointment, and
+begged her to come over this morning. Could we cherish a cold feeling
+towards any one to-day, love! She wrote me a line back to say that she
+would come with pleasure, and to say—what do you think, Rosalia?—that
+she would have been to see us before—wished to come, but doubted if her
+visit would be welcome? Come! I sent Tarquin immediately back with the
+carriage to bring her over to breakfast, for you know, love, that Emily
+has no conveyance but her horse—I expect her every minute—so dress
+yourself quickly, Rose, for breakfast.”
+
+Rosalia threw her arms around Hagar’s neck and thanked her. She was soon
+ready, and left her chamber accompanied by Hagar, and descended the
+stairs in time to see through the front door, Emily Buncombe alight from
+the carriage. Rosalia went timidly to meet her. Emily folded her to her
+bosom in a warm embrace, and then turned to receive Hagar’s offered
+hand. They went in to breakfast; but when Emily would have pushed a
+thousand questions as to Rosalia’s flight or abduction, and Hagar’s
+absence, the latter gravely replied that Rosalia had passed the whole of
+her time, from her landing at Genoa, first in the service of the Grand
+Duchess Maria Louisa, and afterwards with herself, and ended with the
+announcement that Rosalia was the sister of Raymond. In the stupor of
+astonishment into which this news threw Emily, she forgot to push her
+investigations about the flight any further; but made many inquiries
+concerning Rosalia’s newly discovered relationship. Hagar gave her all
+the information in her possession, and ended with announcing the fact,
+that Rosalia’s fortune, left to accumulate at compound interest as it
+had been, now amounted to the snug little sum of twenty-five thousand
+dollars; no plum, certainly, but still enough, taken with his income, to
+give Gusty a fair start in the world, at least to purchase that small
+estate, and build, ornament, and furnish that beautiful little home
+Emily was so anxious to secure for her son. These matters Hagar freely
+discussed with her, because she admitted that Emily had a personal
+interest in them. But when Mrs. Buncombe would have pried into her own
+private matters, Hagar gravely waived all interrogation, and Emily, in
+default of better information, was forced to take Tarquin’s account of
+matters and things—namely, the great fortune left to Mr. Withers in
+England. Notwithstanding this, the day was spent pleasantly, very
+pleasantly, in preparing for the evening; and Hagar, our Hagar! how can
+I describe her waiting for the evening! and how, as the hours passed,
+her brow became more and more arched and expanded, until it was open as
+the brow of hope! and how her steps became lighter and more light, until
+the spring of her little foot seemed to impel the earth upon its orbit!
+
+Day declined. Twilight was falling cool and purple over the forest,
+heath, and bay, as a packet boat wended its way down the Chesapeake,
+drawing near to Churchill’s Point. A party of passengers were collected
+on the deck—a party consisting of Captain and Mrs. Wilde, Lieutenant May
+and Raymond Withers. They were conversing gaily. The boat neared
+Churchill’s Point. The village was nearly dark and deserted; doubling
+Churchill’s Point they came in sight of Alto Rio, the new Heath Hall. It
+was brilliantly illuminated from attic to cellar. The lights streamed
+from its many windows—streamed across its lawn, revealing scores of
+carriages filling up the space between it and the water’s edge,—and
+streamed across the bay, throwing a flood of light upon the spot where
+the boat at last anchored, close by the side of another beautiful little
+craft, the Compensation, moored under the promontory. The travellers
+landed, and taking their way up the new stone steps that led up the
+ascent of the promontory, proceeded on their way towards the house,
+struck with admiration and astonishment at the marvellous changes they
+everywhere witnessed. It is true that Raymond Withers and Gusty May knew
+perfectly well the source of this sudden wealth, and even Captain Wilde
+and Sophie, since Hagar’s letter to the latter, divined it. The emotions
+of Raymond Withers were soon all merged in one strong feeling—a
+heart-burning impatience to clasp Hagar to his bosom. He thought that
+were he about to meet her in poverty, ill health, and humiliation, he
+should embrace her with as _much_ affection and with _more_
+self-respect—upon the whole, however, he was not anxious to have his
+disinterestedness submitted to this test. He had, before leaving the
+boat, bestowed the utmost attention upon his toilet, and his dress was
+now the very ideal of taste and elegance, as his person was of manly
+beauty. In the grand diapason of the reconciliation was trilling this
+one little absurd note.
+
+We will precede the party to the Hall.
+
+The lights from the Hall streamed from every window over the scene; the
+grounds in front of the Hall were blocked up with carriages. The
+verandas running around the Hall were crowded with coachmen and footmen,
+the attendants of the guests; the lower rooms of the Hall superbly
+furnished, beautifully ornamented, and brilliantly lighted, were filled
+with splendidly dressed company. An upper chamber of the house was
+occupied by three ladies; one, a young maiden, sat upon a dressing stool
+in front of a full length mirror, and two stood, one on each side,
+adorning her for the altar. Emily Buncombe looked very fine—in a
+straw-colored satin, with a pretty lace cap, trimmed with white
+snowdrops; our Hagar looked the princess that she was, in her delicate
+white lace, over a rich white satin, with her brilliant black ringlets
+collected at the back of her head by a diamond-set comb, and dropping
+gracefully upon her crimson cheeks, undulating neck and bosom. Diamond
+bracelets flashed upon her rounded arms, and a diamond necklace
+encircled her throat. It was Hagar who looked like a royal bride. But
+she was decking a bride. Not a jewel would Hagar permit to desecrate the
+maiden’s beauty. A chaste and simple dress of white silk, trimmed with
+narrow lace, leaving the full, rounded, and snowy neck and arms bare,
+and a very slight wreath of young orange blossom buds crowning her
+golden ringlets, completed her beautifully simple toilet.
+
+Two young girls from the neighborhood—young girls of twelve years old,
+selected that evening from the company below, were waiting to attend
+her. Her toilet was only just completed when a rap was heard at the
+chamber-door, and Hagar’s housekeeper entering said—
+
+“Mrs. Withers—Captain Wilde, Lieutenant May, Mr. Withers, and their
+party, have arrived.”
+
+Hagar had supposed that she would be prepared for this meeting,
+anticipated for two months past, and momentarily expected now. She had
+thought to have received him there, in her beauty, glory, and pride,
+with her regal self-possession,—but when the words “Mr. Withers has
+arrived” fell on her ear, her heart _sank down—stopped—the hand of death
+seemed on her_! Intense frost burns like fire in contact—extreme joy is
+so like pain as to be undistinguishable.
+
+“Ask him to come up,” said Hagar in a dying voice, as she stood leaning
+upon the shoulder of Rosalia for support—Rosalia still sitting on her
+dressing stool.
+
+Hagar felt that life and death were striving in her bosom—nay, she
+thought that death had come—and only prayed that her last breath might
+flow past Raymond’s cheek and hair, with her head upon his breast—as
+she leaned more heavily upon Rosalia, until her long black ringlets
+overswept and half concealed her form. Now she thought to receive him
+there! dying there! But lo! a light, quick footstep is on the
+stairs!—each footfall strikes a chord that vibrates to the centre of
+her heart! shocking all her nerves into electric life!—she
+started—sprang—color flowed richly back to her cheeks—light radiantly
+to her eyes! Like lightning she flashed from the room out into the
+dark passage.
+
+He was coming up the stairs, wondering how he should present himself
+before her, when, as he reached the landing, he saw a brilliant
+white-clad spirit gleam out across the darkness, and the next instant
+the angel was in his arms—_her_ arms about his neck—pressed to his
+bosom—her heart throbbing warmly, humanly against his own.
+
+No word was spoken yet. They had met unpremeditatedly—in silence and
+darkness—in that _pure_, though passionate embrace!
+
+What to them was all the wrong and woe of the last two dreadful years?
+Forgotten! as it had ever been. A dark background, only throwing out
+into stronger light the rapture of the present meeting—_for an
+instant_—but ah! when recollection came to one! He stooped over her and
+whispered—
+
+“Hagar! I have not one word to say for myself! not one excuse to offer
+for my weakness! not one syllable to breathe in palliation of my fault!
+Hagar, I am bankrupt!”
+
+But she drew him to a seat, for emotion was overpowering her, dropped
+upon his lap, her arms around his neck, her head upon his shoulder, her
+ringlets sweeping over him, and wept! wept!—she, from whose proud eyes
+of fiery light, bitterest _grief_ had never wrung one tear—_wept!_—as
+though the fountains of her life were broken up and gushing through her
+eyes! For _joy_, reader?—Not altogether; was not her king—_her_ king,
+discrowned before her? and though she loved him! loved him! as only high
+hearts like hers _can_ love—no _worship_ mingled with that love!
+
+But a bride was waiting to be led before the bishop. Rising, Hagar took
+his hand, and conducted him silently into the room, led him silently to
+Rosalia’s side, and laying her hand upon her shoulder, said softly,
+
+“Turn and greet your brother, Rosalia!”
+
+She arose, blushing, trembling, and Raymond Withers opening his arms,
+folded in one embrace his wife and sister to his bosom.
+
+Ten minutes after this a bridal party stood up in the middle of the
+gorgeous drawing-rooms below. Bishop Otterback performed the ceremony.
+Raymond Withers gave away the bride. Sophie Wilde removed the veil from
+the maiden’s head at the conclusion of the rites.
+
+The wedding was the most splendid festival ever given in —— county. Many
+of the guests from a distance remained all night. It was near the dawn
+of day before the visitors, those who left the house at all, dispersed,
+and those who remained had retired to rest.
+
+The sun was rising when Hagar, followed by her husband, entered the
+nursery. She led him to one little bed where the twin girls were still
+sleeping in loveliness. He stooped and kissed each brow without waking
+either. And then she drew him off to a crib, where slumbered the boy he
+had never seen. She stepped ahead of him, and lifting this child up from
+his morning sleep, stood him upon the floor in the sunlight to waken up
+in his beauty! And how sparklingly beautiful he looked with his pink
+feet on the rich carpet, and his golden curls falling in rippling,
+glittering disorder about his temples and throat, and flashing in the
+sunlight, as he stood there waking up, with his graceful head stooped
+sideways like a bird’s looking archly, shily, and half loving, half
+afraid at the handsome stranger standing near his mother. Raymond
+stooped and lifted him in his arms, and then the child, with a shout of
+clear, sweet laughter, recognised the father he had never seen before,
+expressing his delight in these words,
+
+“Oh! _you_ are beauty—like mamma!”
+
+With infants _love_ and _beauty_ are synonyms—everything they love is
+beautiful, and everything that is beautiful they love.
+
+“And what is his name, mine own Hagar?”
+
+“_Raymond!_ but for distinction sake, as well as that because he is a
+sunbeam, we will call him Ray!”
+
+The little girls now waking, and hearing their mother’s voice, arose and
+ran to greet her, and they too shared the caresses bestowed upon their
+infant brother.
+
+The beautiful family were all now united in love and joy.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later in the day, Hagar gave her husband an explanation that the reader
+must also have—she said,
+
+“You have not asked me, Raymond, about the foreigners around us; yet you
+must have wondered why I employed a dozen foreigners rather than my own
+country people—I will tell you in a very few words. All the money we
+possess was made in _Europe_, from ministering to the luxury of the
+wealthy aristocrats. But I saw numerous wretchedly poor and suffering
+peasants—many of them I found upon inquiry to be excellent artisans and
+agriculturists, who would work if they could obtain employment, and I
+said to myself, I am about to spend the money I have made here in
+rebuilding a ruin, and in reclaiming a wilderness. It will be a great
+labor, and it will only be justice to give this work to a few of the
+people among whom I made this money. I thought that if I could bring a
+dozen workmen over to this country, and give them employment for a while
+as a start, it would be but right. I had a little vessel built out
+there—I called it the ‘Compensation.’ I got a skipper and one or two
+experienced seamen—the rest of the crew consisted of the artisan
+emigrants I was to bring out. I paid them some money in advance to leave
+with their families, until they got settled in this country, and rich
+enough to send for them. I had previously sent out half-a-dozen
+mechanics under an architect, to rebuild the Hall; and in three months
+from the day of their sailing, and only one week ago, I arrived with my
+emigrant agriculturists. They are at work. I know this was right,
+Raymond, and I hope you think so.”
+
+“My noble Hagar!”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alto Rio is now the most fertile and productive plantation in Maryland.
+The Hall is the seat of elegant hospitality. Hagar is now in the
+meridian of her life, and of her well preserved beauty. Her daughters,
+Agnes and Agatha, are grown up; they are called the twin beauties; her
+son is a noble boy, he is a cadet at ——; they have no other children.
+
+Not very far from Alto Rio is another handsome villa, it is the
+residence of Captain Augustus W. May, U. S. N., and is presided over by
+a lady who would be thought surpassingly beautiful and elegant in any
+neighborhood not adorned by the presence of Hagar Withers. They have a
+numerous family of girls and boys.
+
+Sophie is again in the Mediterranean, with Captain Wilde. They have no
+family, and assert that they are contented that such is their lot, and I
+thoroughly believe them, for they love each other devotedly, and are
+never separated, Sophie going with him on all his voyages.
+
+Our old friend, Blanche Rogers—have you forgotten her?—is now at last
+the Right Rev. Mrs. Otterback; she got the bishop at last. It was at
+Gusty and Rosalia May’s wedding that the final blow that brought him to
+her feet was struck.
+
+Emily Buncombe is still mistress of Grove Cottage, and Mr. Buncombe is
+still pastor of the Church of the Ascension.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+   Page            Changed from                   Changed to
+
+         6 Tidarsi è bene, e non fidarse Fidarsi è bene, e non fidarse
+           e meglio                      e meglio
+
+        19 But Sophie only gazed at him  But Sophie only gazed at him
+           with a started                with a startled
+
+        45 found the gentle and timorous found the gentle and timorous
+           child still shrink            child still shrank
+
+        55 or rather became of her       or rather because of her
+           reluctance, and               reluctance, and
+
+        73 Raymond,  standing at the     Raymond, were standing at the
+           window that overlooked        window that overlooked
+
+        79 their slovenly habits of      their slovenly habits of
+           cultivatic.—do you not        cultivation—do you not
+
+        84 brother; yet never did only   brother; yet never did any
+           child returning to            child returning to
+
+        97 on her sheek, leaving her     on her cheek, leaving her
+           contracted brow and           contracted brow and
+
+       139 Nessum maggior dolore,        Nessun maggior dolore,
+
+       151 idea repulsed, revolted       idea repulsed, revolted
+           him—he would nothing          him—he would do nothing
+
+       152 does find the means? I know   does she find the means? I
+           that she travels              know that she travels
+
+       163 and yon see the upshot! Why,  and you see the upshot! Why,
+           I’m reinstated                I’m reinstated
+
+ unchanged protegé                       protegé
+
+ ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Used numbers for footnotes.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76591 ***