"Child! it all came back to me. Where was she, that dreadful woman? Starting up in bed, I looked wildly round the room for the haunting phantom,—she was not a reality,—I must have had a terrible dream.

"'Yes!' said the doctor, answering the expression of my countenance, 'you have had a shocking nightmare. Drink this, and you will awake refreshed.'

"Yielding passively, I drank the colorless fluid he offered me, and sinking back on my pillow passed into a deep and tranquil sleep. When I awoke, the silence and darkness of night brooded around me. My mind now was clear as crystal, and every image appeared with startling distinctness. I lay still and calm, revolving what course to pursue; and as I lay and revolved, doubts of the truth of her story grew stronger and stronger. All my husband's love and tenderness rose in remembrance, vindicating his aspersed honor. She had forged the tale,—she had stolen the picture,—she was an impostor and a wretch.

"At morning light, I awakened Peggy, and demanded of her what had occurred during my insensible state, and what had become of the strange woman. Peggy said that the piercing shrieks of the stranger brought her to the parlor, where I lay like a corpse on the carpet, and she kneeling over me, ringing her hands, and uttering unintelligible words.

"'You have killed her,' cried Peggy, pushing back the stranger, and taking me in her strong arms.

"'Je le sais, mon Dieu, je le sais,' exclaimed she, lifting her clasped hands to heaven. Peggy did not understand French, but she repeated the words awkwardly enough, yet I could interpret them.

"As they found it impossible to recall me to life, a physician was summoned, and as soon as he came the stranger disappeared.

"'Don't think of her anymore,' said Peggy; 'don't, Mrs. St. James,—I don't believe a word of her story,—she's crazy,—she's a lunatic, you may be sure she is,—she looked stark mad.'

"I tried to believe this assertion, but something told me she was no maniac. I tried to believe her an impostor,—I asserted she was,—but if so, she transcended all the actresses in the world. I could not eat, I could not bear you, my darling Gabriella, to be brought into my presence. Your innocent smiles were daggers to my heart.

"But she came again, Theresa, the avenger,—she came followed by a woman, leading by the hand a beautiful boy.

"Here was proof that needed no confirmation. Every infantine feature bore the similitude of St. James. The eyes, the smile, his miniature self was there. I no longer doubted,—no longer hesitated.

"'Leave me,' I cried, and despair lent me calmness. 'I resign all claims to the name, the fortune, and the affections of him who has so cruelly wronged us. Not for worlds would I remain even one day longer in the home he has desecrated by his crimes. Respect my sorrows, and leave me. You may return to-morrow.'

"'Oh, juste ciel!' she exclaimed. 'Je suis tres malheureuse.'

"Snatching her child in her arms, and raising it as high as her strength could lift it, she called upon God to witness that it was only for his sake she had asserted her legal rights; that, having lost the heart of her husband, all she wished was to die. Then, sinking on her knees before me, she entreated me to forgive her the wretchedness she had caused.

"'I forgive you?' I cried. 'Alas! it is I should supplicate your forgiveness. I do ask it in the humility of a broken heart. But go—go—if you would not see me die.'

"Terrified at my ghastly countenance, Peggy commanded the nurse to take the child from the room. Theresa followed with lingering steps, casting back upon me a glance of pity and remorse. I never saw her again.

"'And now, Peggy,' said I, 'you are the only friend I have in the wide world. Yet I must leave you. With my child in my arms, I am going forth, like Hagar, into the wilderness of life. I have money enough to save me from immediate want. Heaven will guard the future.'

"'And where will you go?' asked Peggy, passing the back of her hand over her eyes.

"'Alas, I know not. I have no one to counsel me, no one to whom I can turn for assistance or go for shelter. Even my Heavenly Father hideth his face from me.'

"'Oh, Mrs. St. James!'

"'Call me not by that accursed name. Call me Rosalie. It was a dying mother's gift, and they cannot rob me of that.'

"'Miss Rosalie, I will never quit you. There is nobody in the world I love half as well, and if you will let me stay with you, I will wait on you, and take care of the baby all the days of my life.'

"Then she told me how she came from New England to live with a brother, who had since died of consumption, and how she was going back, because she did not like to live in a great city, when the doctor got her to come to nurse me in sickness, and how she had learned to love me so well she could not bear the thoughts of going away from me. She told me, too, how quiet and happy people could live in that part of the country; how they could get along upon almost nothing at all, and be just as private as they pleased, and nobody would pester them or make them afraid.

"She knew exactly how she came to the city, and we could go the same way, only we would wind about a little and not go to the place where she used to live, so that folks need ask no questions or know any thing about us.

"With a childlike dependence, as implicit as your own, and as instinctive, I threw myself on Peggy's strong heart and great common sense. With equal judgment and energy, she arranged every thing for our departure. She had the resolution and fortitude of a man, with the tenderness and fidelity of a woman. I submitted myself entirely to her guidance, saying, 'It was well.' But when I was alone, I clasped you in agony to my bosom, and prostrating myself before the footstool of Jehovah, I prayed for a bolt to strike us, mother and child together, that we might be spared the bitter cup of humiliation and woe. One moment I dared to think of mingling our life blood together in the grave of the suicide; the next, with streaming eyes, I implored forgiveness for the impious thought.

"It is needless to dwell minutely on the circumstances of our departure. We left that beautiful mansion, once the abode of love and happiness, now a dungeon house of despair;—we came to this lone, obscure spot, where I resumed my father's name, and gave it to you. At first, curiosity sought out the melancholy stranger, but Peggy's incommunicativeness and sound judgment baffled its scrutiny. In a little while, we were suffered to remain in the seclusion we desired. Here you have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence, unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice shall speak; for the time may come, when a knowledge of your parentage will be indispensable, and concealment be considered a crime.

"Should you hereafter win the love of an honorable and noble heart, (for such are sometimes found,) every honorable and noble feeling will prompt you to candor and truth, with regard to your personal relations. I need not tell you this.

"And now, my darling child, I leave you one solemn dying charge. Should it ever be your lot to meet that guilty, erring father, whose care you have never known, whose name you have never borne, let no vindictive memories rise against him.

"Tell him, I forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven by my Heavenly Father, for all my sins and transgressions, and my idolatrous love of him. Tell him, that now, as life is ebbing slowly away like the sands of the hour-glass, and I can calmly look back upon the past, I bless him for being the means of leading my wandering footsteps to the green fields and still pastures of the great Shepherd of Israel. Had he never prepared for me the bitter cup of sorrow, I had not perchance tasted the purple juice which my Saviour trod the wine-press of God's wrath to obtain. Had not 'lover and friend been taken from me,' I might not have turned to the Friend of sinners; the Divine Love of mankind. Tell him then, oh Gabriella! that I not only forgave, but blessed him with the heart of a woman and the spirit of a Christian.

"I had a dream, a strange, wild dream last night, which I am constrained to relate. I am not superstitious, but its echo lingers in my soul.

"I dreamed that your father was exposed to some mysterious danger, that you alone could avert. That I saw him plunging down into an awful abyss, lower and lower; and that he called on you, Gabriella, to save him, in a voice that might have rent the heavens; and then they seemed to open, and you appeared distant as a star, yet distinct and fair as an angel, slowly descending right over the yawning chasm. You stretched out your arms towards him, and drew him upward as if by an invisible chain. As he rose, the dark abyss was transformed to beds of roses, whose fragrance was so intensely sweet it waked me. It was but a dream, my Gabriella, but it may be that God destined you to fulfil a glorious mission: to lead your erring father back to the God he has forsaken. It may be, that through you, an innocent and injured child, the heart sundered on earth may be reunited in heaven.

"One more charge, my best beloved. In whatever situation of life you may be placed, remember our boundless obligations to the faithful Peggy, and never, never, be separated from her. Repay to her as far as possible the long, long debt of love and devotion due from us both. She has literally forsaken all to follow me and mine; and if there is a crown laid up in heaven for the true, self-sacrificing heart, that crown will one day be hers.

"The pen falls from my hand. Farewell trembles on my lips. Oh! at this moment I feel the triumph of faith, the glory of religion.

"'Other refuge have I none; Hangs my helpless soul on thee; Leave, oh, leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me.'

"Not me alone, O compassionate and blessed Saviour! but the dear, the precious, the only one I leave behind. To thine exceeding love, to the care of a mighty God, the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, I now commit her. 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is naught on earth which I desire beside thee.'"



CHAPTER XXVII.

Edith came in, as usual, before she retired for the night, and expressed affectionate concern for my indisposition; but there was an air of constraint, which I could not help perceiving. My eyes fell before hers, with conscious guilt. For had I not robbed her of that first place in her brother's heart, which she had so long claimed as her inalienable right?

I had one duty to perform, and I resolved to do it before I laid my head on the pillow. With the manuscript in my hand, I sought the chamber of Mrs. Linwood. She sat before a small table, her head resting thoughtfully on her hand, with an open Bible before her. She looked up at my entrance, with a countenance of gentle seriousness, and extended her hand affectionately.

Walking hastily towards her, I knelt at her feet, and laying the manuscript in her lap, burst into tears.

"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I cried, "will your love and kindness survive the knowledge of all these pages will reveal? Will a mother's virtues cancel the record of a father's guilt? Can you cherish and protect me still?"

She bent over me and took me in her arms, while tears trembled in her eyes.

"I know all, my dear child," she said; "there is nothing new to be revealed. Your mother gave me, on her death-bed, a brief history of her life, and it only increased your claims on my maternal care. Do you think it possible, Gabriella, that I could be so unjust and unkind, as to visit the sins of a father on the head of an innocent and unoffending child? No; believe me, nothing but your own conduct could ever alienate my affections or confidence."

"Teach me to deserve it, dear Mrs. Linwood,—teach me how to prove my love, my gratitude, and veneration."

"By confiding in me as a mother, trusting me as a friend, and seeking me as a guide and counsellor in this most dangerous season of youth and temptation, you are very dear to me, Gabriella. Next to my own son and daughter, I love you, nor do I consider their happiness a more sacred deposit than yours."

"Oh! Mrs. Linwood," I exclaimed, covering my burning face with my hands, and again bowing it on her lap—"Ask me anything,—and nothing shall be held back—I cannot—I dare not—perhaps I ought not—"

"Tell me that my son loves you?"

I started and trembled; but as soon as the words passed her lips I gathered courage to meet whatever she might say.

"If it be indeed so," I answered, "should not the revelation come from him, rather than me?"

"There needs no formal declaration. I have seen it, known it, even before yourselves were conscious of its existence—this all engrossing passion. Before my son's return I foresaw it, with the prescience of maternal love. I knew your young, imaginative heart would find its ideal in him, and that his fastidious taste and sensitive, reserved nature would be charmed by your simplicity, freshness, and genius. I knew it, and yet I could not warn you. For when did youth ever believe the cautions of age, or passion listen to the voice of truth?"

"Warn me, madam? Oh, you mean him, not me. I never had the presumption to think myself his equal; never sought, never aspired to his love. You believe me, Mrs. Linwood—tell me, you believe me in this?"

"I do, Gabriella. Your heart opened as involuntarily and as inevitably to receive him, as the flower unfolds itself to the noonday sun. It is your destiny; but would to God I could oppose it, that I could substitute for you a happier, if less brilliant lot."

"A happier lot than to be the wife of Ernest? Oh! Mrs. Linwood, Heaven offers nothing to the eye of faith more blissful, more divine."

"Alas! my child, such is always the dream of love like yours, and from such dreams there must be a day of awakening. God never intended their realization in this world. You look up to me with wondering and reproachful glance. You have feared me, Gabriella, feared that I would oppose my son's choice, if it rested on one so lowly as you believe yourself. You are mistaken—I have no right to dictate to him. He is more than of age, has an independent fortune and an independent will. The husband lifts his wife to his own position in society, and his name annihilates hers. The knowledge of your father's character gives me pain, and the possibility of his ever claiming you as his child is a source of deep inquietude,—but it is chiefly for you I tremble, for you I suffer, my beloved Gabriella."

I looked up in consternation and alarm. What invisible sword hung trembling over the future?

"Ernest," she began, then stopping, she raised me from my kneeling attitude, led me to a sofa, and made me seat myself at her side. "Ernest," she continued, holding my hand tenderly in hers, "has many noble and attractive qualities. He is just, generous, and honorable; he is upright, honest, and true; the shadow of deceit never passed over his soul, the stain of a mean action never rested on his conduct. But,"—and her hand involuntarily tightened around mine,—"he has qualities fatal to the peace of those who love him,—fatal to his own happiness; suspicion haunts him like a dark shadow,—jealousy, like a serpent, lies coiled in his heart."

"He has told me all this," I cried, with a sigh of relief,—"but I fear not,—my confidence shall be so entire, there shall be no room for suspicion,—my love so perfect it shall cast out jealousy."

"So I once thought and reasoned in all the glow of youthful enthusiasm, but experience came with its icy touch, and enthusiasm, hope, joy, and love itself faded and died. The dark passions of Ernest are hereditary,—they belong to the blood that flows in his veins,—they are part and lot of his existence,—they are the phantoms that haunted his father's path, and cast their chill shadows over the brief years of my married life. The remembrance of what I have suffered myself, makes me tremble for her who places her happiness in my son's keeping. A woman cannot be happy unless she is trusted."

"Not if she is beloved!" I exclaimed. "It seems to me that love should cover every fault, and jealousy be pardoned without an effort, since it is a proof of the strength and fervor of one's affection. Let me be loved,—I ask no more."

"You love my son, Gabriella?"

"Love him!" I repeated,—"oh that you could look into my heart!"

Blushing at the fervor of my manner, I turned my crimson face from her gaze. Then I remembered that he knew not yet what might place an insurmountable barrier between us, and I entreated Mrs. Linwood to tell him what I wanted courage to relate.

"I will, my child, but it will make no difference with him. His high, chivalrous sense of honor will make the circumstances of your birth but a new claim on his protection,—and his purposes are as immovable as his passions are strong. But let us talk no more to-night. It is late, and you need rest. We will renew the subject when you are more composed—I might say both. I could not give you a greater proof of my interest in your happiness, than the allusion I have made to my past life. Never before have I lifted the curtain from errors which death has sanctified. Let the confidence be sacred. Ernest and Edith must never know that a shadow rested on their father's virtues. Nothing but the hope of saving you from the sufferings which once were mine, could have induced me to rend the veil from the temple of my heart."

"How solemn, how chilling are your words," said I, feeling very faint and sad. "I wish I had not heard them. Do joy and sorrow always thus go hand in hand? In the last few hours I have known the two great extremes of life. I have been plunged into the depths of despair and raised to the summit of hope. I am dizzy and weak by the sudden transition. I will retire, dear madam, for my head feels strangely bewildered."

Mrs. Linwood embraced me with unusual tenderness, kissed me on both cheeks, and accompanied me to the door with a fervent "God bless you!"



CHAPTER XXVIII.

As soon as I reached my chamber, I threw myself on my bed, which seemed to roll beneath me with a billowy motion. Never had I felt so strangely, so wildly. Confused images crowded through my brain. I moved on an undulating surface. Now, it was the swelling and sinking of the blue gray waves of ocean,—then, the heaving green of the churchyard, billows of death, over which the wind blew damp and chill. I had left the lamp unextinguished, where its light reflected the rosy red of the curtains, and that became a fiery meteor shooting through crimson clouds, and leaving a lurid track behind it.

I sat up in bed; frightened at the wild confusion of my brain, I passed my hands over my eyes to remove the illusion, but in vain. The massy wardrobe changed to the rocky walls of the Rip Raps, and above it I saw the tall form of the white-locked chief. The carpet, with its clusters of mimic flowers, on a pale gray ground, was a waste of waters, covered with roses, among which St. James was swimming and trying to grasp them.

"What is the matter?" I cried, clasping my burning hands. "Am I asleep, and are these images but the visions of a feverish imagination?"

"You dream, my love," answered the low, deep voice of Ernest; "but my mother is coming to awaken you with a cold and icy hand. I have scattered roses over you while you slept, but her blighting touch has withered them."

Thus vision after vision succeeded each other, hurrying along like clouds in a tempestuous sky. I suppose I must have slept at last, but the morning found me in a state of utter exhaustion. Nervous excitement, sitting so long on the damp grass, and lingering out in the dewy evening air, brought on an illness which confined me to my bed many days. Dr. Harlowe threatened to put me in a strait-jacket and send me to a lunatic asylum, if I did not behave better in future.

"I must take you home with me," he said; "our quiet, humdrum mode of life is better for you, after all. Your little rocking chair stands exactly where you used to sit in it. I do not like to see any one else occupy it. I get in disgrace with my wife every day, now you are not by me to hang up my hat and remind me by a glance to shake the dust from my feet. Such a quick pulse as this will never do, my child."

For a week I was kept in a darkened room, and perfect quietude was commanded. The doctor came every day, and sometimes several times a day, with his smiling, sunny countenance, and anxious, affectionate heart. Mrs. Linwood and Edith stole gently in and out, with steps soft as falling snowflakes, and Margaret Melville was not permitted to enter at all. Every morning fresh flowers were laid upon my pillow, which I knew were gathered by the hand of Ernest, and they whispered to me of such sweet things my languid senses ached to hear them.

One day, while in this passive, languishing, dreamy condition, having fallen into tranquil slumbers, I was left a few moments alone. I was awakened by a stronger touch than that of Edith's fairy hand.

"Why, how do you do, darling? How do you do?" cried a hearty, gay voice, that echoed like a bugle in the stillness of the room. "The doctor said you were getting well, and I determined I would not be kept out any longer. What in the world do they banish me for? I am the best nurse in the universe, strong as a lion, and wakeful as an owl. What do they shut you up in this dark room for?—just to give you the blues!—It is all nonsense. I am going to put back these curtains, and let in some light,—you will become etiolated. I want to see how you look."

Dashing at the curtains, she tossed two of them back as high as she could throw them, letting in a flood of sunshine to my weak and dazzled eyes.

"Don't! don't!" I entreated, getting dreadfully nervous and agitated; "I cannot bear it,—indeed I cannot."

"Yes you can; you will be better in a moment,—it is only coming out of darkness into marvellous light,—a sudden change, that is all. You do look white,—white, delicate, and sweet as a water-lily. I have a great mind to invite Ernest up to see you, you look so interesting. He has been like a distracted man, a wandering Jew, an unlaid ghost, ever since you have been ill. And poor Richard Clyde comes every night to inquire after you, with such a woebegone countenance. And that great, ugly, magnificent creature of a teacher, he has been too,—you certainly are a consequential little lady."

Thus she rattled on, without dreaming of the martyrdom she was inflicting on my weakened nerves.

"I have no doubt you mean to be kind," said I, ready to cry from weakness and irritation; "but if you will only drop the curtains and leave me, I will be so very grateful."

"There—the curtains are down. I am not going to speak another word—I am a perfect lamb—I will bathe your head with cologne, and put you to sleep nicely."

Stepping across the room, as she thought, very softly, but making more noise than Edith would in a week, she seized a bottle of cologne, and coming close to the bedside, bent over me, so that her great, black eyes almost touched mine. Had they been a pair of pistols, I could not have recoiled with greater terror.

"Don't!" again I murmured,—"I am very weak."

"Hush! I am going to put you to sleep."

Pouring the cologne in her hand, till it dripped all over the counterpane and pillow, she deluged my hair, and patted my forehead as she would a colt's that she wanted to stand still. In mute despair I submitted to her tender mercies, certain I should die, if some one did not come to my relief, when the door softly opened, and Mrs. Linwood entered.

"Heaven be praised," thought I,—I had not strength to say it. Tears of weariness and vexation were mingling with the drops with which she had saturated my hair.

"Margaret," said Mrs. Linwood, in a tone of serious displeasure, "what have you been doing? I left her in a sweet sleep, and now I find her wan, tearful, and agitated. You will worry her into a relapse."

"All she needs now is cheerful company, I am sure," she answered demurely; "you all make her so tender and baby-like, she never will have any strength again. I've been as soft as a cooing dove. Dr. Harlowe would have been delighted with me."

"You must go, Margaret, indeed you must. You may think yourself a dove, but others have a different opinion."

"Going, going, gone!" she cried, giving me a vehement kiss and vanishing.

The consequence of this energetic visit was a relapse; and Dr. Harlowe was as angry as his nature admitted when he learned the cause.

"That wild-cat must not remain here," said he, shaking his head. "She will kill my gentle patient. Where did you find her, Mrs. Linwood? From what menagerie has she broken loose?"

"She is the daughter of an early and very dear friend of mine," replied Mrs. Linwood, smiling; "a very original and independent young lady, I grant she is."

"What in the world did you bring her here for?" asked the doctor bluntly; "I intend to chain her, while my child is sick."

"She wished to make a visit in the country, and I thought her wild good-humor would be a counterpoise to the poetry and romance of Grandison Place."

"You have other more attractive and tractable guests. You will not object to my depriving you for a short time of her. May I invite her home with me?"

"Certainly,—but she will not accept the invitation. She is not acquainted with Mrs. Harlowe."

"That makes no difference,—she will go with me, I am positive."

They conversed in a low tone in one of the window recesses, but I heard what they said; and when Mrs. Linwood afterwards told me that Meg the Dauntless had gone off with the doctor in high glee, I was inexpressibly relieved, for I had conceived an unconquerable terror of her. There was other company in the house, as Edith had prophesied, but in a mansion so large and so admirably arranged, an invalid might be kept perfectly quiet without interfering with the social enjoyment of others.

I was slowly but surely recovering. At night Edith had her harp placed in the upper piazza, and sang and played some of her sweetest and most soothing strains. Another voice, too, mingled at times with the breeze-like swelling of the thrilling chords, and a hand whose master-touch my spirit recognized, swept the trembling strings.

How long it seemed since I had stood with him under the shade of the broad elm-tree! With what fluctuating emotions I looked forward to meeting him again!

At length the doctor pronounced me able to go down stairs.

"I am going to keep the wild-cat till you are a little stronger," he said. "She has made herself acquainted with the whole neighborhood, and keeps us in a state of perpetual mirth and excitement. What do you think she has done? She has actually made Mr. Regulus escort her on horseback into the country, and says she is resolved to captivate him."

I could not help laughing at the idea of my tall, awkward master, a knight-errant to this queen of the amazons.

"How would you like to be supplanted by her?" he mischievously asked.

"As an assistant teacher?"

"As an assistant for life. Poor Regulus! he was quite sick during your absence; and when I accused him of being in love, the simple-hearted creature confessed the fact and owned the soft impeachment. I really feel very sorry for him. He has a stupendous heart, and a magnificent brain. You ought to have treated him better. He would be to you a tower of strength in the day of trouble. Little girl, you ought to be proud of such a conquest."

"It filled me with sorrow and shame," I answered, "and had he not himself betrayed the secret, it never would have been known. It seemed too deep a humiliation for one whom I so much respected and revered, to bow a supplicant to me. You do not know how unhappy it made me."

"You must get hardened to these things, Gabriella. As you seem to be quite a dangerous young lady, destined to do great havoc in the world, it will not do to be too sensitive on the subject. But remember, you must not dispose of your heart without consulting me. And at any rate, wait three years longer for your judgment to mature."

The conscious color rose to my cheek. He took my hand, and placed his fingers on my throbbing pulse.

"Too quick, too quick," said he, looking gravely in my face. "This will never do. When I bring the wild-cat back, I mean to carry you off. It will do you good to stay a while with my good, methodical, unromantic wife. I can take you round to visit my patients with me. I have a new buggy, larger than the one in which we had such a famous ride together."

The associations connected with that ride were so sad, I wished he had not mentioned it; yet the conversation had done me good. It kept me from dwelling too exclusively on one engrossing subject.

"Now give me your arm," said the doctor, "and let me have the privilege of escorting you down stairs."

As we descended, he put his arm round me, for I was weaker than he thought I was, and my knees bent under me.

"We doctors ought not to have jealous wives, my dear, ought we? My dear, good woman has not one particle of jealousy in her composition. She never looks after my heart; but keeps a wonderfully sharp eye on my head and feet. A very sensible person, Mrs. Harlowe is."

There was intentional kindness in this apparent levity. He saw I was agitated, and wished to divert my thoughts. Perhaps he read more deeply than I imagined, for those who seem to glance lightly on the surface of feeling only, often penetrate to its depths.

The drawing-room was divided by folding doors, which were seldom closed, and in the four corners of each division were crimson lounges, of luxurious and graceful form. Company generally gathered in the front part, but the backroom was equally pleasant, as it opened into the flower-garden through a balcony shaded by vines.

"Come in here, and rest awhile," said the doctor, leading me into the back parlor; "it will be a pleasant surprise to Mrs. Linwood. I did not tell her I was going to bring you down."

As we entered, I saw Ernest Linwood half reclining on a lounge with a book in his hand, which hung listlessly at his side. As he looked up, his pale face lighted suddenly and brilliantly as burning gas. He rose, threw down his book, came hastily forward, took my hand, and drawing it from the doctor's arm, twined it round his own.

"How well you look!" he exclaimed. "Dr. Harlowe, we owe you ten thousand thanks."

"This is a strange way of showing it," said the doctor, looking round him with a comical expression, "to deprive me of my companion, and leave me as lonely as Simon Stylites on the top of his pillar."

Mrs. Linwood and Edith, who had seen our entrance, came forward and congratulated me on my convalescence. It was the first time I had ever been ill, and the pleasure of being released from durance was like that of a weary child let loose from school. I was grateful and happy. The assurance I received from the first glance of Ernest, that what his mother had promised to reveal had made no change in his feelings; that the love, which I had almost begun to think an illusion of my own brain, was a real existing passion, filled me with unspeakable joy. The warnings of Mrs. Linwood had no power to weaken my faith and hope. Had she not told me that her love had died? I felt that mine was immortal.

The impression made by my mother's sad history was still too fresh and deep, and too much of the languor of indisposition still clung to me to admit of my being gay; but it was pleasant to hear the cheerful laugh and lively conversation, showing that the tide of social life ran clear and high. Several new guests had arrived, whom I had not seen before, to whom I was introduced; but as Dr. Harlowe commanded me to be a good girl and remain quietly in a corner, a passing introduction limited the intercourse of the evening.

Just as the doctor was taking leave, a loud, merry ha, ha! came leaping up the steps, followed by the amazonian form of Madge Wildfire, leaning on the arm of Mr. Regulus.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" exclaimed Ernest.

"Shade of Esculapius!" cried the doctor, recoiling from the threshold.

"Glad to see me? I know you are. Taken you all by storm. Found this gentleman wandering like a troubled spirit by the way-side, and pressed him into service. I shall make a gallant knight of him yet, My dear soul!" she cried, spying me out and rushing towards me, "I am so glad to see you here, escaped from the ruthless hands of the doctor. I never saw such a despot in my life, except one;" here she looked laughingly and defiantly at Ernest,—"he would out-Nero Nero himself, if he had the opportunity."

"If I were the autocrat of Russia I would certainly exercise the right of banishment," he answered quietly.

During this sportive encounter, Mr. Regulus came up to greet me. I had not seen him since our memorable interview in the academy, and his sallow face glowed with embarrassment. I rose to meet him, anxious to show him every mark of respect and esteem. I asked him to take a seat on the sofa by me, and ventured to congratulate him on the exceedingly entertaining acquaintance he had made.

"A very extraordinary young lady," he cried, "amazingly merry, and somewhat bold. I had not the most remote idea of coming here, when I left home; but suddenly I found her arm linked in mine, and was told that I must escort her nolens volens."

"Indeed! I thought you came to inquire after my health, and was feeling so grateful!"

"I did not know I should have the pleasure of seeing you, and I did not hope you would welcome me with so much cordiality. I have made many inquiries after you; indeed, I have scarcely thought of any thing else since you were ill. You look pale, Gabriella. Are you sure you are quite well, my child?"

The old endearing epithet! It touched me.

"I do not feel strong enough to move Mount Atlas, but well enough to enjoy the society of my friends. I never appreciated it so highly before."

"You have no idea how I miss you," he said, taking my fan and drawing his thumb over it, as if he were feeling the edge of his ferula. "The season of summer lingers, but the flowers no longer bloom for me. The birds sing, but their notes have lost their melody. My perception of the beautiful has grown dim, but the remembrance of it can never fade. I never knew before what the pleasures of memory truly were."

"I recollect a copy you once set me, Mr. Regulus,—'Sweet is the memory of absent friends,'—I thought it such a charming one!"

"Do you remember that?" he asked, with a delighted countenance.

"Yes! I remember all the copies you ever set me. Teachers should be very careful what sentiments they write, for they are never forgotten. Don't you recollect how all the pupils once laughed at a mistake in punctuation of mine? The copy was, 'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as well as the poor.' As the line was not quite filled, you added Gabriella, after making a full period. I forgot the stop and wrote, 'Hate not, but pity the wicked, as well as the poor Gabriella.' The ridicule of the scholars taught me the importance of punctuation. Our mistakes are our best lessons, after all."

"And do you remember these trifles?" he repeated. "How strange! It shows you have the heart of a child still. I love to hear you recall them."

"I could fill a volume with these reminiscences. I believe I will write one, one of these days, and you shall be the hero."

A merry altercation at the door attracted our attention. Dr. Harlowe was endeavoring to persuade Madge to go back with him, but she strenuously refused.

"I never could stay more than ten days at a time in one place in my life. Besides, I have worn out my welcome, I know I have. Your house is not new. It jars too much when I walk. I saw Mrs. Harlowe looking ruefully at some cracked glass and china, and then at me, as much as to say, 'It is all your doings, you young romp.'"

"Very likely," cried the doctor, laughing heartily, "but it only makes me more anxious to secure you. You are a safety-valve in the house. All my misdemeanors escape unreproved in the presence of your superior recklessness."

I never saw any one enjoy a jest more than Dr. Harlowe. He really liked the dashing and untamable Madge. He was fond of young companions; and though his wife was such a superior woman, and such an incomparable housekeeper, there was nothing very exhilarating about her.

"I can't go," said Madge; "I must stay and take care of Gabriella."

"If you play any of your wild pranks on her again," said the doctor, "it were better for you that you had never been born."

With this threat he departed; and it seemed as if a dozen people had been added to the household in the person of the dauntless Meg. I never saw any one with such a flow of animal spirits, with so much oxygen in their composition. I should think the vital principle in such a constitution would burn out sooner than in others, like a flame fed by alcohol. She was older than myself, and yet had no more apparent reflection than a child of five years old. It was impossible to make her angry. The gravest rebuke, the most cutting sarcasm, were received with a merry twinkle of the eye or a rich swell of laughter. She was bold, masculine, wild, and free, and I feared her as much as I would the wild-cat, after whom the doctor had christened her,—yet there was something about her that I liked. It was probably the interest she professed in me, which must have been genuine. It was impossible for her to affect any thing.

Who would dream of any one sporting with such a man as Mr. Regulus? Yet she treated him exactly as if he were a great boy. He had paid us his parting salutations, and was half-way down the steps before she was aware of his intended departure.

"You are not going so soon, indeed you are not," she exclaimed, running after him, seizing his hat, and setting it jauntily on her own head. Her abundant hair prevented it from falling over her face. "I brought you here to stay all the evening; and stay you must and shall. What do you want to go back to your musty old bachelor's room for, when there is such delightful company here?"

Taking hold of his arm and whirling him briskly round, she led him back into the parlor, laughing and triumphant.

She looked so saucy, so jaunty, so full of nerve and adventure, with the large hat pitched on one side of her head, I could not help saying,—

"What a pity she were not a man!"

Mr. Regulus did not appear as awkward as might be supposed. There was a latent spark of fun and frolic in his large brain, to which her wild hand applied the match; and though I know he felt the disappointment of his affections sorely, deeply, he yielded himself to her assault with tolerable grace and readiness.

Supper was always an unceremonious meal, sent round on waiters, from a round table in the back parlor, at which Mrs. Linwood presided. Gentlemen took their cups standing or walking, just as it happened; and ladies, too, though they were generally seated. Ernest drew a light table to the lounge where I sat; and sitting by me, said, as I was an invalid, I should be peculiarly favored.

"Methinks she is not the only favored one," said the sweet voice of Edith, as she floated near.

"There is room for you, dear Edith," said I, moving closer to the arm of the sofa, and leaving a space for her between us.

"Room on the sofa, Edith," added he, moving towards me, and making a space for her on his right, "and tenfold room in my heart."

He took her hand and drew her down to his side.

"This is as it should be," he said, looking from one to the other with a radiant countenance. "Thus would I ever bind to my heart the two loveliest, dearest, best."

Edith bent her head, and kissed the hand which held hers. As she looked up I saw that her eyes were glistening.

"What would mamma say?" she asked, trying to conceal her emotion. "Surely there can be none dearer and better than she is."

"Nay, Edith," said he, passing his arm tenderly round her waist; "you might as well say, if I singled out two bright, especial stars from the firmament, that I did not think the moon fair or excellent. The love I bear my mother is so exalted by reverence, it stands apart by itself like the queen of night, serene and holy, moving in a distinct and lofty sphere. There is one glory of the sun, Edith, and another glory of the moon, and one star differeth from another in glory. Yet they are all glorious in themselves, and all proclaim the goodness and glory of the Creator."

"I have heard it said," observed Edith, in a low, tremulous tone, "that when love takes possession of the heart, the natural affections have comparatively little strength; that it is to them as is the ocean to its tributaries. I know nothing of it by experience, nor do I wish to, if it has power to diminish the filial and sisterly tenderness which constitutes my chief joy."

"My dear Edith, it is not so. Every pure and generous affection expands the heart, and gives it new capacities for loving. Have you not heard of heaven,—'the more angels the more room?' So it is with the human heart. It is elastic, and enlarges with every lawful claimant to be admitted into its sanctuary. It is true there is a love which admits of no rivalry;" here his eye turned involuntarily to me, "which enshrines but one object, which dwells in the inner temple, the angel of angels. But other affections do not become weaker in consequence of its strength. We may not see the fire-flame burn as brightly when the sun shines upon it, but the flame is burning still."

"Gabriella does not speak," said Edith, with an incredulous wave of her golden locks. "Tell me, Gabriella, are his words true?"

"I am not a very good metaphysician," I answered, "but I should think the heart very narrow, that could accommodate only those whom Nature placed in it. It seems to me but a refined species of selfishness."

The color crimsoned on Edith's fair cheek. I had forgotten what she had said to me of her own exclusive affection. I sympathized so entirely in his sentiments, expressed with such beautiful enthusiasm, I forgot every thing else. The moment I had spoken, memory rebuked my transient oblivion. She must believe it an intentional sarcasm. How could I be so careless of the feelings of one so gentle and so kind?

"I know I am selfish," she said. "I have told you my weakness,—sin it may be,—and I deserve the reproach."

"You cannot think I meant it as such. You know I could not. I had forgotten what I have heard you previously utter. I was thinking only of the present. Forgive me, Edith, for being so thoughtless and impulsive; for being so selfish myself."

"I am wrong," said Edith, ingenuously. "I suppose conscience applied the words. Brother, you, who are the cause of the offence, must make my peace."

"It is already made," answered I, holding out my hand to meet hers; "if you acquit me of intentional wrong, I ask no more."

As our hands united before him, he clasped them both in one of his own.

"A triune band," said he, earnestly, "that never must be broken. Edith, Gabriella, remember this. Love each other now, love each other forever, even as I love ye both."

I was sensitive and childish from recent indisposition, or I should have had more self-control. I could not prevent the tears from rushing to my eyes and stealing down my cheeks. As we were sitting by ourselves, in a part of the room less brilliantly lighted than the rest, and as we all conversed in a low voice, this little scene was not conspicuous, though it might have possibly been observed.

Those in the front room seemed exceedingly merry. Madge had placed a table before herself and Mr. Regulus, in imitation of Ernest, and had piled his plate with quantities of cake, as high as a pyramid. A gay group surrounded the table, that seemed floating on a tide of laughter; or rather making an eddy, in 'which their spirits were whirling.'

As soon as supper was over, she told Mr. Regulus to lead her to the piano, as she was literally dying to play. There was no instrument at Dr. Harlowe's but a jew's-harp, and the tongue of that was broken. As she seated herself at the piano, Mr. Regulus reached forward and took up a violin which was lying upon it.

"Do you play?" she asked eagerly.

"I used to play a good deal when a boy, but that was a long time ago," he answered, drawing the bow across the strings with no unskilful hand.

"Delightful, charming!" she exclaimed. "Can you play 'Come, haste to the wedding?'"

He replied by giving the inspiring air, which she accompanied in her wild, exciting manner, laughing and shaking her head with irrepressible glee. I was astonished to see my dignified tutor thus lending himself for the amusement of the evening. I should have thought as soon of Jupiter playing a dancing tune, as Mr. Regulus. But he not only played well, he seemed to enjoy it. I was prepared now, to see him on the floor dancing with Madge, though I sincerely hoped he would not permit himself to be exhibited in that manner. Madge was resolved upon this triumph, and called loudly to Edith to come and take her place at the instrument, and play the liveliest waltz in the universe for her and Mr. Regulus.

"Thank you, Miss Melville," said he, laying down his violin and resuming his usual grave and dignified manner, "I am no dancing bear."

"Come, Mr. Regulus, I have no doubt you dance as charmingly as you play. Besides, you would not be so ungallant as to refuse a lady's request."

"Not a lady-like request," he answered, with a shrewd cast of the eye under his beetling brows.

This sarcasm was received with acclamation; but Meg lifted her brow as dauntless as ever and laughed as loudly.

I began to feel weary of mirth in which I could not sympathize. Mrs. Linwood came to me, and saying I looked pale and wan, insisted upon my retiring. To this I gladly assented. The little misunderstanding between Edith and myself weighed heavily on my spirits, and I longed to be alone.

Just as we were crossing the hall of entrance, Richard Clyde came in. He greeted me with so much feeling, such earnest, unaffected pleasure, yet a pleasure so chastened by sensibility, I realized, perhaps for the first time, the value of the heart I had rejected.

"You have been ill, Gabriella," said he, retaining for a moment the hand he had taken. "You look pale and languid. You do not know how much your friends have suffered on your account, or how grateful they feel for your convalesence."

"I did not think I was of so much consequence," I replied. "It is well to be sick now and then, so as to be able to appreciate the kindness of friends."

"You must suffer us to go now, Richard," said Mrs. Linwood moving towards the staircase; "you will find merry company in the parlor ready to entertain you. As Gabriella is no longer a prisoner, you will have future opportunities of seeing her."

"I must embrace them soon," said he, sadly. "I expect to leave this place before long,—my friends, and my country."

"You, Richard?" I exclaimed. Then I remembered the remarks I had heard on commencement day, of his being sent to Europe to complete his education. I regretted to lose the champion of my childhood, the friend of my youth, and my countenance expressed my emotion.

"I have a great deal to say to you, Gabriella," said he, in a low tone. "May I see you to-morrow?"

"Certainly,—that is, I think, I hope so." A glance that flashed on me from the doorway arrested my stammering tongue. Ernest was standing there, observing the interview, and the dark passion of which his mother had warned me clouded his brow. Snatching my hand from Richard, I bade him a hasty good-night, and ascended the stairs, with a prophetic heart.

Yet, while I felt the shadow on his brow stealing darkly over me, I repeated to myself,—

"The keenest pangs the wretched find, Are rapture to the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemployed."



CHAPTER XXIX.

The interview with Richard Clyde the next day, was a painfully agitating one. I had no conception till then, how closely and strongly love and hope had twined their fibres round him; or how hard would be the task of rending them from him. Why could I not appreciate the value of his frank, noble, and confiding nature? It may be because we had been children together, and that familiarity was unfavorable to the growth of love in one of my poetic nature. I must look up. The cloud crowned cliff did not appall my high-reaching eye.

"I shall not see you again, Gabriella," said he, as he wrung my hand in parting. "I shall not see you again before my departure,—I would not for worlds renew the anguish of this moment. I do not reproach you,—you have never deceived me. My own hopes have been building a bridge of flowers over a dark abyss. But, by the Heaven that hears me, Gabriella, the keenest pang I now experience is not for my own loss, it is the dread I feel for you."

"Not one word more, Richard, if you love me. I have been tender of your feelings,—respect mine. There is but one thing on earth I prize more than your friendship. Let me cherish that for the sacred memory of auld lang syne."

"Farewell, then, Gabriella, best and only beloved! May the hand wither that ever falls too heavily on that trusting heart, should we never meet again!"

He drew me suddenly closely to him, kissed me passionately, and was gone.

"Had you confided in me fully," said Mrs. Linwood, in speaking to me afterwards of Richard, "I should never have advised a correspondence which must have strengthened his attachment. Having the highest opinion of his principles and disposition, and believing you regarded him with modest affection, I urged this intercourse as a binding link between you. You must have perceived my wishes on this subject."

"If I have erred, it was from mistaken delicacy. I thought I had no right to betray an unreturned affection. It was not from a want of confidence in you."

"If you could have loved Richard, it would have been well for you, my dear Gabriella; but I know the heart admits of no coercion, and least of all a heart like yours. I no longer warn, for it is in vain; but I would counsel and instruct. If you do become the wife of my son, you will assume a responsibility as sacred as it is deep. Not alone for your happiness do I tremble, O Gabriella,—I fear,—I dread, for him."

"Oh! Mrs. Linwood, when I love him so exclusively, so devotedly; when I feel that I must love him forever—"

"It is the very exclusiveness and strength of your devotion that I fear. You will love him too well for your own peace,—too well for his good. Far better is a rational, steadfast attachment, that neither rises above the worth of the object, nor sinks below it, than the two great extremes, idolatry and indifference. The first is a violation of the commands of God,—the last, of the rights of man. Remember, my child, that it is not by the exhibition of idolatrous affection, that a wife secures a husband's happiness. It is by patient continuance in well-doing, that she works out the salvation of her wedded peace. Sit down by me, Gabriella; draw up your work-table; for one can listen best when their hands are busy. I have a great deal that I wish to say, and I cannot talk as well with your eyes bent so earnestly on me."

I obeyed her without trepidation. I felt the need of her guiding counsels, and resolved to lay them up in my heart, and make them the rule and guide of my life.

"When a young girl marries a man whom she has been taught to believe perfection," continued Mrs. Linwood, "and after marriage discovers her golden idol to be an image of wood and clay, she may be permitted to sit down and weep a while over her vanished dreams. But when she knows the imperfections of him she loves; when she knows they are of a nature to try, as with seven-fold heat, the strength and purity of her affection; when with this conviction she breathes her wedded vows, she has no right to upbraid him. She has walked with open eyes into the furnace, and she must not shrink from the flames. She must fold over her woman's heart the wings of an angel. She must look up to God, and be silent."

"When innocent of blame, surely she should defend herself from accusation," cried I.

"Certainly,—in the spirit of gentleness and Christian love. But she must not murmur; she must not complain. But it is not the accusation that admits of defence, the arrow that flies at noonday, that is most to be feared. It is the cold, inscrutable glance, the chilled and altered manner, the suspicion that walketh in darkness,—it is these that try the strength of woman's love, and gnaw with slow but certain tooth the cable-chain that holds the anchor of her fidelity. These are the evil spirits which prayer and fasting alone can cast out. They may fly before the uplifted eye and bended knee, but never before the flash of anger or the word of recrimination."

"What a solemn view you give me of married life!" I exclaimed, while the work dropped from my hands. "What fearful responsibilities you place before me,—I tremble, I dare not meet them."

"It is not too late,—the irrevocable vow is not yet breathed,—the path is not yet entered. If the mere description of duties makes you turn pale with dread, what will the reality be? I do not seek to terrify, but to convince. I received you as a precious charge from a dying mother, and I vowed over her grave to love, protect, and cherish you, as my own daughter. I saw the peculiar dangers to which you were liable from your ardent genius and exquisite sensibility, and I suffered you to pass through a discipline which my wealth made unnecessary, and which you have nobly borne. I did not wish my son to love you, not because you were the child of obscurity, but because I had constituted myself the guardian of your happiness, and I feared it would be endangered by a union with him. How dear is your happiness to me,—how holy I deem the charge I have assumed,—you may know by my telling you this. Never mother idolized a son as I do Ernest. He is precious as my heart's best blood,—he is the one idol that comes between me and my God. My love is more intense for the anxiety I feel on his account. If I could have prevented his loving;—but how could I, in the constant presence of an object so formed to inspire all the romance of love? I knew the serpent slept in the bottom of the fountain, and when the waters were stirred it would wake and uncoil. Gabriella!" she added, turning towards me, taking both hands in hers, and looking me in the face with her clear, eloquent, dark gray eyes, "you may be the angel commissioned by Providence to work out the earthly salvation of my son, to walk with him through the fiery furnace, to guard him in the lion's den, which his own passions may create. If to the love that hopeth all, the faith that believeth all, you add the charity that endureth all, miracles may follow an influence so exalted, and, I say it with reverence, so divine."

It is impossible to give but a faint idea of the power of Mrs. Linwood's language and manner. There was no vehemence, no gesticulation. Her eye did not flash or sparkle; it burned with a steady, penetrating light. Her voice did not rise in tone, but it gave utterance to her words in a full, deep stream of thought, inexhaustible and clear. I have heard it said that she talked "like a book," and so she did,—like the book of heavenly wisdom. Her sentiments were "apples of gold in pictures of silver," and worthy to be enshrined in a diamond casket.

As I listened, I caught a portion of her sublime spirit, and felt equal to the duties which I had a short time before recoiled from contemplating.

"I am very young and inexperienced," I answered, "and too apt to be governed by the impulses of the present moment. I dare not promise what I may be too weak to perform; but dearest madam, all that a feeble girl, strengthened and inspired by love, and leaning humbly on an Almighty arm, can do, I pledge myself to do. In looking forward to the future, I have thought almost exclusively of being ever near the one beloved object, living in the sunshine of his smile, and drinking in the music of his voice. Life seemed an elysian dream, from which care and sorrow must be for ever banished. You have roused me to nobler views, and given existence a nobler aim. I blush for my selfishness. I will henceforth think less of being happy myself, than of making others happy; less of happiness than duty; and every sacrifice that principle requires shall be made light, as well as holy, by love."

"Only cherish such feelings, my child," said Mrs. Linwood, warmly embracing me, "and you will be the daughter of my choice, as well as my adoption. My blessing, and the blessing of approving God, will be yours. The woman, who limits her ambition to the triumphs of beauty and the influence of personal fascination, receives the retribution of her folly and her sin in the coldness and alienation of her husband, and the indifference, if not the contempt of the world. She, whose highest aim is intellectual power, will make her home like the eyrie of the eagle, lofty, but bleak. While she, whose affections alone are the foundation of her happiness, will find that the nest of the dove, though pleasant and downy in the sunshine, will furnish no shelter from the fierce storms and tempestuous winds of life."

"Oh, Mrs. Linwood! Is domestic happiness a houseless wanderer? Has it no home on earth?"

"Yes, my love, in the heart of the woman whose highest aim is the glory of God,—whose next, the excellence and happiness of her husband; who considers her talents, her affections, and her beauty as gifts from the Almighty hand, for whose use she must one day render an account; whose heart is a censer where holy incense is constantly ascending, perfuming and sanctifying the atmosphere of home. Such is the woman who pleaseth the Lord. Such, I trust, will be my beloved Gabriella."

By conversations like these, almost daily renewed, did this admirable, high-minded, and God-fearing woman endeavor to prepare me for the exalted position to which love had raised me. This was a happy period of my life. The absence of Richard Clyde, though a source of regret, was a great blessing, as it removed the most prominent object of jealousy from Ernest's path. An occasional cloud, a sudden coldness, and an unaccountable reserve, sometimes reminded me of the dangerous passion whose shadow too often follows the footsteps of love. But in the retirement of rural life, surrounded by the sweet, pure influences of nature, the best elements of character were called into exercise.

The friends whom Mrs. Linwood gathered around her were not the idle devotees of fashion,—the parasites of wealth; but intelligent, literary people, whose society was a source of improvement as well as pleasure. Sometimes, circumstances of commanding character forced her to receive as guests those whom her judgment would never have selected, as in the case of Madge Wildfire; but in general it was a distinction to be invited to Grandison Place, whose elegant hospitalities were the boast of the town to which it belonged.

The only drawback to my happiness was the pensiveness that hung like a soft cloud over the spirits of Edith. She was still kind and affectionate to me; but the sweet unreserve of former intercourse was gone. I had come between her and her brother's heart. I was the shadow on her dial of flowers, that made their bloom wither. I never walked with Ernest alone without fearing to give her pain. I never sat with him on the seat beneath the elm, in the starry eventide, or at moonlight's hour, without feeling that she followed us in secret with a saddened glance.

At first, whenever he came to me to walk with him, I would say,—

"Wait till I go for Edith."

"Very well," he would answer, "if there is nothing in your heart that pleads for a nearer communion than that which we enjoy in the presence of others, a dearer interchange of thought and feeling, let Edith, let the whole world come."

"It is for her sake, not mine, I speak,—I cannot bear the soft reproach of her loving eye!"

"A sister's affection must not be too exacting," was the reply. "All that the fondest brother can bestow, I give to Edith; but there are gifts she may not share,—an inner temple she cannot enter,—reserved alone for you. Come, the flowers are wasting their fragrance, the stars their lustre!"

How could I plead for Edith, after being silenced by such arguments? And how could I tell her that I had interceded for her in vain? I never imagined before that a sister's love could be jealous; but the same hereditary passion which was transmitted to his bosom through a father's blood, reigned in hers, though in a gentler form.

Every one who has studied human nature must have observed predominant family traits, as marked as the attributes of different trees and blossoms,—traits which, descending from parent to children, individualize them from the great family of mankind. In some, pride towers and spreads like the great grove tree of India, the branches taking root and forming trunks which put forth a wealth of foliage, rank and unhealthy. In others, obstinacy plants itself like a rock, which the winds and waves of opinion cannot move. In a few, jealousy coils itself with lengthening fold, which, like the serpent that wrapped itself round Laocoon and his sons, makes parents and children its unhappy victims.

And so it is with the virtues, which, thanks be to God, who setteth the solitary in families, are also hereditary. How often do we hear it said,—"She is lovely, charitable, and pious,—so was her mother before her;" "He is an upright and honorable man,—he came from a noble stock." "That youth has a sacred love of truth,—it is his best inheritance,—his father's word was equivalent to his bond."

If this be true, it shows the duty of parents in an awfully commanding manner. Let them rend out the eye that gives dark and distorted views of God and man. Let them cut off the hand that offends and the foot that errs, rather than entail on others evils, which all eternity cannot remedy. Better transmit to posterity the blinded eye, the maimed and halting foot, that knows the narrow path to eternal life, than the dark passions that desolate earth, and unfit the soul for the joys of heaven.



CHAPTER XXX.

I have now arrived at a period in my life, at which the novelist would pause,—believing the history of woman ceases to interest as soon as an accepted lover and consenting friends appear ready to usher the heroine into the temple of Hymen. But there is a life within life, which is never revealed till it is intertwined with another's. In the depth of the heart there is a lower deep, which is never sounded save by the hand that wears the wedding-ring. There is a talisman in its golden circle, more powerful than those worn by the genii of the East.

I love to linger among the beautiful shades of Grandison Place, to wander over its velvet lawn, its gravel walks, its winding avenues, to gaze on the lovely valley its height commanded whether in the intense lights and strong shadows of downward day, or the paler splendor and deeper shadows of moonlit night. I love those girdling mountains,—grand winding stairs of heaven—on which my spirit has so often climbed, then stepping to the clouds, looked through their "golden vistas" into the mysteries of the upper world.

O thou charming home of my youth what associations cluster round thee! Thy noble trees rustle their green leaves in the breezes of memory. Thy moonlight walks are trodden by invisible footsteps. Would I had never left thee, Paradise of my heart! Would I had never tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which, though golden to the eye, turns to ashes on the lips!

* * * * *

When Ernest urged me to appoint a period for our marriage, I was startled—alarmed. I thought not of hastening to my destiny quite so soon. I was too young. I must wait at least two years before assuming the responsibilities of a wife.

"Two years!—two centuries!" he exclaimed. "Why should we wait? I have wealth, which woos you to enjoy it. I have arrived at the fulness of manhood, and you are in the rosetime of your life. Why should we wait? For circumstances to divide,—for time to chill,—or death to destroy? No, no; when you gave me your heart, you gave me yourself; and I claim you as my own, without formal scruples or unnecessary delay."

Mrs. Linwood exerted all her eloquence with her son to induce him to defer the union at least one year, till I had seen something of the world,—till I was better acquainted with my own heart.

"Yes! wait till she loses the freshness and simplicity that won me,—the sweetness and ingenuousness that enchained me!" he cried impetuously. "Wait till she has been flattered and spoiled by a vain and deceiving world; till she learns to prize the admiration of many better than the true love of one; till she becomes that tinsel thing my soul abhors, a false and worldly woman. No! give her to me now," he added, clasping me to his heart with irresistible tenderness and passion. "Give her to me now, in the bloom of her innocence, the flower of her youth, and I will enshrine her in my heart as in a crystal vase, which they must break to harm her."

The strong love and the strong will united were not to be opposed. Mrs. Linwood was forced to yield; and when once her consent was given, mine was supposed to be granted. She wished the wedding to be consummated in the city, in a style consistent with his splendid fortune, and then our rank in society; and therefore proposed the first month in winter, when they usually took possession of their habitation in town.

He objected to this with all the earnestness of which he was master. It was sacrilege, he said, to call in a gazing world, to make a mockery of the holiest feelings of the heart, and to crush under an icy mountain of ceremony the spontaneous flowers of nature and of love. He detested fashionable crowds on any occasion, and most of all on this. Let it be at Grandison Place, the cradle of his love, in the glorious time of the harvest-moon, that mellow, golden season, when the earth wraps herself as the

"Sacred bride of heaven, Worthy the passion of a God."

So entirely did I harmonize with him in his preference for Grandison Place, that I was willing the time should be anticipated, for the sake of the retirement and tranquillity secured.

Madge Wildfire had returned to the city, declaring that lovers were the most selfish and insipid people in the world,—that she was tired of flirting with Ursa Major, as she called Mr. Regulus,—tired of teazing Dr. Harlowe,—tired of the country and of herself.

The night before she left, she came to me in quite a subdued mood.

"I am really sorry you are going to be married," she cried. "If I were you, I would not put on chains before I had tasted the sweets of liberty. Only think, you have not come out yet, as the protegee of the rich, the aristocratic Mrs. Linwood. What a sensation you would make in Boston next winter if you had sense enough to preserve your freedom. Ernest Linwood knows well enough what he is about, when he hastens the wedding so vehemently. He knows, if you once go into the world, you will be surrounded by admirers who may eclipse and supplant him. But I tell thee one thing, my dear creature, you will have no chance to shine as a belle, as the wife of Ernest. If he does not prove a second Bluebeard, my name is not Meg the Dauntless."

"I detest a married belle," I answered with warmth. "The woman who aims at such a distinction is false, heartless, and unprincipled. I would bless the watching love that shielded me from a name so odious."

"It is a mighty fine thing to be loved, I suppose," said Meg with a resounding laugh, "but I know nothing about it and never shall. Mamma and Mrs. Linwood are great friends, you know, or have been; and mamma thought it would be wondrous fine for young Miss Hopeful to captivate Mr. Splendidus. But he did not take. I did not suit his delicate nerves. Well, I wish you joy, my precious soul. He loves you, there is no doubt of that. He never sees, never looks at any one else. If you speak, he is all ear; if you move, all eye. I wonder how it will be a year hence,—ha, ha!"

Her laugh grated on my nerves, but I concealed the irritation it caused, for it was useless to be angry with Meg. She must have had a heart, for she was a woman, but the avenue to it was impervious. It was still an untravelled wilderness, and bold must be the explorer who dared to penetrate its luxuriant depths.

Circumstances connected with the property bequeathed by his uncle, made it indispensable that Ernest should be in New York the coming winter; and he made arrangements to pass our first bridal season in the great empire city. He wrote to a friend resident there, to engage a house and have it furnished for our reception.

"For never," said he, "will I carry bride of mine, to make her home in a fashionable hotel. I would as soon plunge her in the roaring vortex on Norway's coast."

"And must we be separated from your mother and Edith?" I asked, trembling at the thought of being removed from Mrs. Linwood's maternal counsels and cares; "will they not share our bridal home?"

"I would have the early days of our married life sacred even from their participation," he answered, with that eloquence of the eye which no woman's heart could resist. "I would have my wife learn to rely on me alone for happiness;—to find in my boundless devotion, my unutterable love, an equivalent for all she is called upon to resign. If she cannot consent to this, no spark from heaven has kindled the flame of the altar; the sacrifice is cold, and unworthy of acceptance."

"For myself, I ask nothing, wish for nothing but your companionship," I answered, with the fervor of truth and youth, "but I was thinking of them, whom I shall rob of a son and brother so inexpressibly dear."

"We shall meet next summer in these lovely shades. We shall all be happy together once more. In the mean time, all the elegancies and luxuries that love can imagine and wealth supply shall be yours,—

"Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint The home to which, if love fulfils its prayers, This hand would lead thee, listen,"—

And taking me by the hand, he led me out into the beautiful avenue in which we had so often wandered, and continued, in the words of that charming play which he had read aloud in the early days of our acquaintance, with a thrilling expression which none but himself could give—

"We'll have no friends That are not lovers; no ambition, save To excel them all in love; we'll read no books That are not tales of love; that we may smile To think how poorly eloquence of words Translates the poetry of hearts like ours! And when night comes, amidst the breathless heavens, We'll guess what star shall be our home when love Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light Steals through the mists of alabaster lamps, And every air be heavy with the sighs Of orange groves, and music from sweet lutes, And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth I' the midst of roses!"

"Dost thou like the picture?"

How could I help answering, in the words of the impassioned Pauline,—

"Was ever young imaginative girl wooed in strains of sweeter romance?"

Was there ever a fairer prospect of felicity, if love, pure, intense love, constitutes the happiness of wedded life?

I will not swell these pages by describing the village wonder and gossip, when it was known that the orphan girl of the old gray cottage was exalted to so splendid a destiny; nor the congratulations of friends; the delight and exultation of Dr. Harlowe, who said he had discovered it all by my pulse long before; nor the deeply interesting and characteristic scene with Mr. Regulus; nor the parting interview with Mrs. Linwood and Edith.

Yes, I will give a brief sketch of the last hour spent with Edith, the night before the wedding. We were to be married in the morning, and immediately commence our bridal journey.

Edith had never alluded to her own feelings respecting her brother's marriage, since the evening of the only misunderstanding we ever had in our sisterly intercourse; and it was a subject I could not introduce. The delicate, gauzy reserve in which she enfolded herself was as impenetrable to me as an ancient warrior's armor.

Now, when the whole household was wrapped in silence, and the lamps extinguished, and I sat in my night robe in the recess of the window, she came and sat down beside me. We could see each other's faces by the silver starlight It glittered on the tear drops in the eyes of both. I put my arms around her, and, laying my head on her bosom, poured out all the love, gratitude, and affection with which my full heart was burdened.

"Forgive me, my beloved Gabriella," she cried, "my apparent coldness and estrangement. On my knees I have asked forgiveness of my heavenly Father. With my arms round your neck, and your heart next mine, I ask forgiveness of you. Try not to think less of me for the indulgence of a too selfish and exacting spirit, but remember me as the poor little cripple, who for years found her brother's arm her strength and her stay, and learned to look up to him as the representative of Providence, as the protecting angel of her life. Only make him happy, my own dear sister, and I will yield him, not to your stronger, but your equal love. His only fault is loving you too well, in depreciating too much his own transcendent powers. You cannot help being happy with him, with a being so noble and refined. If he ever wounds you by suspicion and jealousy, bear all, and forgive all, for the sake of his exceeding love,—for my sake, Gabriella, and for the sake of the dear Redeemer who died for love of you."

Dear, lovely, angelic Edith! noble, inestimable Mrs. Linwood!—dearly beloved home of my orphan years,—grave of my mother, farewell!

Farewell!—the bride of Ernest must not, cannot weep.



CHAPTER XXXI.

The early portion of my married life was more like a dream of heaven than a reality of earth. All, and more than I had ever imagined of wedded happiness, I realized. The intimate and constant companionship of such a being as Ernest, so intellectual, so refined, so highly gifted, so loving and impassioned, was a privilege beyond the common destiny of women. A hundred times I said to myself in the exultant consciousness of joy,—

"How little his mother knows him! The jealousy of the lover has yielded to the perfect confidence of the husband. Our hearts are now too closely entwined for the shadow of a cloud to pass between them. He says himself, that it would be impossible ever to doubt a love so pure and so entire as mine."

Our home was as retired as it was possible to be in the heart of a great metropolis. It was near one of those beautiful parks which in summer give such an aspect of life and purity to surrounding objects, with their grassy lawns, graceful shade trees, and fountains of silvery brightness playing in the sunshine, and diffusing such a cool, delicious atmosphere, in the midst of heat, dust, and confusion. In winter, even, these parks give inexpressible relief to the eye, and freedom to the mind, that shrinks from the compression of high brick walls, and longs for a more expanded view of the heavens than can be obtained through turreted roofs, that seem to meet as they tower.

It made but little difference to me now, for my heaven was within. The external world, of which I believed myself wholly independent, seemed but a shell enclosing the richness and fragrance of our love. The luxuries and elegancies of my own home were prized chiefly as proofs of Ernest's watchful and generous love.

The friend to whom he had written to prepare a residence, was fortunate in securing one which he believed exactly suited to his fastidious and classic taste. A gentleman of fortune had just completed and furnished an elegant establishment, when unexpected circumstances compelled him to leave his country to be absent several years.

I do not think Ernest would have fitted up our bridal home in so showy and magnificent a style; but his love for the beautiful and graceful was gratified, and he was pleased with my enthusiastic admiration and delight.

I sometimes imagined myself in an enchanted palace, when wandering through the splendid suite of apartments adorned with such oriental luxury. The gentleman whose taste had presided over the building of the mansion, had travelled all over Europe, and passed several years in the East. He had brought home with him the richest and rarest models of Eastern architecture, and fashioned his own mansion after them. Ernest had not purchased it, for the owner was not willing to sell; he was anxious, however, to secure occupants who would appreciate its elegance, and guard it from injury.

Ah! little did I think when eating my bread and milk from the china bowl bordered by flowers, when a silver spoon seemed something grand and massy in the midst of general poverty, that I should ever be the mistress of such a magnificent mansion. I had thought Grandison Place luxuriously elegant; but what was it compared to this? How shall I begin to describe it? or shall I describe it at all? I always like myself to know how to localize a friend, to know their surroundings and realities, and all that fills up the picture of their life. A friend! Have I made friends of my readers? I trust there are some who have followed the history of Gabriella Lynn with sufficient interest, to wish to learn something of her experience of the married life.

Come, then, with me, and I will devote this chapter to a palace, which might indeed fulfil the prayers of the most princely love.

This beautiful apartment, adorned with paintings and statues of the most exquisite workmanship, is a reception room, from which you enter the parlor and find yourself winding through fluted pillars of ingrained marble, from the centre of which curtains of blue and silver, sweeping back and wreathing the columns, form an arch beneath which queens might be proud to walk. The walls are glittering with silver and blue, and all the decorations of the apartment exhibit the same beautiful union. The ceiling above is painted in fresco, where cherubs, lovely as the dream of love, spread their wings of silvery tinted azure and draw their fairy bows.

Passing through this glittering colonnade into a kind of airy room, you pause on the threshold, imagining yourself in a fairy grotto. We will suppose it moonlight; for it was by moonlight I first beheld this enchanting scene. We arrived at night, and Ernest conducted me himself through a home which appeared to me more like a dream of the imagination than a creation of man. I saw that he was surprised; that he was unprepared for such elaborate splendor. He had told his friend to spare no expense; but he was not aware that any one had introduced such Asiatic magnificence into our cities. I believe I will describe my own first impressions, instead of anticipating yours.

The mellowness of autumn still lingered in the atmosphere,—for the season of the harvest-moon is the most beautiful in the world. The glorious orb illumined the fairy grotto with a radiance as intense as the noonday sun's. It clothed the polished whiteness of the marble statues with a drapery of silver, sparkled on the fountain's tossing wreaths, converted the spray that rose from the bosom of the marble basin below into a delicate web of silver lace-work, and its beams, reflected from walls of looking-glass, multiplied, to apparent infinity, fountains, statues, trees, and flowers, till my dazzled eyes could scarcely distinguish the shadow from the substance. The air was perfumed with the delicious odor of tropic blossoms, and filled with the sweet murmurs of the gushing fountain.

"Oh! how beautiful! how enchanting!" I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of admiration. "This must be ideal. Reality never presented any thing so brilliant, so exquisite as this. Oh, Ernest, surely this is a place to dream of, not a home to live in?"

"It does, indeed," he answered, "transcend my expectations; but if it pleases your eye, Gabriella, it cannot go beyond my wishes."

"Oh yes, it delights my eye, but my heart asked nothing but you. I fear you will never know how well I love you, in the midst of such regal splendor. If you ever doubt me, Ernest, take me to that island home you once described, and you will there learn that on you, and you alone, I rely for happiness."

He believed me. I knew he did; for he drew me to his bosom, and amid a thousand endearing protestations, told me he did not believe it possible ever to doubt a love, which irradiated me at that moment, as the moon did the Fairy Grotto.

He led me around the marble basin that received the waters of the fountain, and which was margined by sea-shells, from which luxuriant flowers were gushing, and explained the beautiful figures standing so white, so "coldly sweet, so deadly fair," in the still and solemn moonlight. I knew the history of each statue as he named them, but I questioned him, that I might have the delight of hearing his charming and poetic descriptions.

"Is this a daughter of Danaus?" I asked, stopping before a young and exquisitely lovely female, holding up to the fountain an urn, through whose perforated bottom the waters seemed eternally dripping.

"It is."

"Is it Hypermestra, the only one of all the fifty who had a woman's heart, punished by her father for rescuing her husband from the awful doom which her obedient sisters so cruelly inflicted on theirs."

"I believe it is one of the savage forty-nine, who were condemned by the judges of the infernal regions to fill bottomless vessels with water, through the unending days of eternity. She does not look much like a bride of blood, does she, with that face of softly flowing contour, and eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic nature, when such examples are recorded of her perfidy and heartlessness?"

"But she is a fabulous being, Ernest."

"Fables have their origin in truth, my Gabriella. Cannot you judge, by the shadow, of the form that casts it? The mythology of Greece and Rome shows what estimate was placed on human character at the time it was written. The attributes of men and women were ascribed to gods and goddesses, and by their virtues and crimes we may judge of the moral tone of ancient society. Had there been no perfidious wives, the daughters of Danaus had never been born of the poet's brain, and embodied by the sculptor's hand. Had woman always been as true as she is fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely are they intertwined."

"Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or the beautiful and avenging Medea. Had man never been false to his vows, we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira. Ah! this is lovely!"

"Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library? This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness and freshness of eternal youth. Do you not trace a resemblance to yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble, breathe the eloquence of love? How charmingly the moonbeams play upon her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow!"

He paused, while the murmurs of the fountain seemed to swell to supply the music of his voice. Then he passed on to a lovely Bachanter with ivy and vine wreaths on her clustering locks, to a Hebe catching crystal drops instead of nectar in her lifted cup; and then we turned and looked at all these classic figures reflected in the mural mirrors and at the myriad fountains tossing their glittering wreaths, and at the myriad basins receiving the cooling showers.

"I only regret," said Ernest, "that I had not designed all this expressly for your enjoyment; that the taste of another furnished the banquet at which your senses are now revelling."

"But I owe it all to you. You might as well sigh to be the sculptor of the statues, the Creator of the flowers. Believe me, I am sufficiently grateful. My heart could not bear a greater burden of gratitude."

"Gratitude!" he repeated, "Gabriella, as you value my love, never speak to me of gratitude. It is the last feeling I wish to inspire. It may be felt for a benefactor, a superior, but not a lover and a husband."

"But when all these characters are combined in one, what language can we use to express the full, abounding heart? Methinks mine cannot contain, even now, the emotions that swell it almost to suffocation, I am not worthy of so much happiness. It is greater than I can bear."