CHAPTER V.

It had been a gala day in New York—a day of feasting and rejoicing—a day of triumphal processions and martial pageantry—one of America’s most honored sons, one whose days had been spent in the service of his country, and whose blood had flown more than once upon the battle-field, was the guest of the city, and its inhabitants laying aside for awhile their accustomed avocations, had assembled _en masse_ to welcome him. The old Park theatre had been converted, for that one night, into a splendid ball-room, and as darkness came on, in hundreds of dressing-rooms, the young and the lovely, ay, and many who were neither, were decking themselves for the festive scene. At a later hour innumerable carriages were rolling through the streets, bearing their precious freight to the appointed place; and hosts of tiny, satin-slippered feet tripped lightly up the broad stone steps and were lost in the crowd within. It was a splendid pageant. There were dancing plumes and sparkling gems—flashing eyes and flower-wreathed curls—the waving of banners—and over all and surrounding all, a dazzling radiance, shed from the massive chandeliers that were suspended, at no distant intervals, from the lofty ceiling. Two young men—one of them, from his foreign dress and ignorance of those around him, evidently a stranger—were leaning against one of the large pillars, engaged in earnest conversation. They used their opera-glasses quite freely, and were apparently commenting on the beauties around them. At length their attention was drawn toward the door by the hum of voices and murmurs of admiration that greeted the entrance of a young lady, who appeared leaning on the arm of a fine-looking man, old enough to be her father. She was, indeed, surpassingly beautiful, but it was the swan-like grace and elegance of her movements, the soul that breathed from her features, the depth of feeling in her violet eyes, that involuntarily fixed the attention of the observer, and awoke in his breast an interest for which he could scarcely account. She was magnificently attired in a tunic dress of light-blue satin, with a rich embroidery of silver—and costly pearls were clasped about her throat, her rounded arms, and gleamed amid the heavy masses of her braided hair.

The young men did not speak until she had crossed the room and was hidden from their sight by the intervening crowd; then drawing a long breath, the stranger asked of his companion—“Frank, in the name of all that’s beautiful, who is that lovely creature?”

“That,” said Frank Stanley, “that is Miss Munro, our belle and heiress.”

“Miss Munro!” exclaimed the other, while his color was considerably heightened, “is that Miss Munro?”

“Why yes. What is there so surprising about it? Do you know her?”

“No,” was the reply, “but I have often heard of her.” Then after a pause, he added, “Can you present me?”

“Certainly, if you wish it,” rejoined his friend, and they crossed the apartment.

“Miss Munro, permit me to present to you my friend, Mr. Gordon.” There was a low bow on the part of the gentleman, a courteous salutation on that of the lady, and after a few commonplace remarks, Elizabeth Munro was led to the dance by Frederick Gordon.

“The handsomest couple in the room by all odds,” said Frank Stanley. “I should not wonder if that should be a match yet. Gordon is half in love already, and if he undertakes to win her and does not succeed, I don’t know who can.” And with these words he turned away to join a group of friends who were chatting merrily at a little distance.

Arthur Talmadge, the young artist addressed, gazed upon the dancers sadly and earnestly for a few moments, and then murmuring—“Stanley is right—if he cannot win her who can?” he hurried from the ball-room. Nobly gifted, but poor and proud, he felt that he had nothing in common with that gay throng, and he bent his steps toward his own cheerless room.

And Frank Stanley and Arthur Talmadge were not the only ones who arrived at the same conclusion. One by one the admirers of Miss Munro—and their name was legion—dropped off until the field was left entirely to Frederick Gordon.

As may be supposed, he was not negligent in improving the advantage thus given him. Yet at the end of six months he felt no more secure of her favor than at the time of their first acquaintance. Her demeanor toward him was always courteous, and such as became a lady; she received his attentions frankly, but yet so calmly and quietly, that it was evident she felt none of the timidity of dawning love. Her cheek never brightened at his approach; her voice never faltered as she addressed him; her eye never wandered in search of him, neither did she repulse him, and so he hovered round her hoping that success would yet be his. She listened with a pleased ear to his glowing descriptions of other lands; her fine eyes were lit up with enthusiasm as he spoke of Italy, with her sunny skies, her gems of art, and her oppressed and degraded children; of Greece, with her temples, beautiful even in their decay; of Egypt, that land of fable and mystery, and of the East, thronging as it does with memories and associations that stir the heart to its innermost depths. He was a fine reader, his voice was deep and thrilling, and when he read or recited the finest passages from Shakspeare, Milton or Wordsworth,

“Lending the rhyme of the poet The beauty of his voice,”

Her cheek would glow, and her heart beat quickly. But all this might be without one throb of love for him, and he felt it. He could but observe, too, that she carefully avoided every thing like intimacy, and there was no heart communion between them—she never spoke of themselves; there was interchange of thought, but none of feeling, and strive as he might, he could not lift the veil that seemed imperviously drawn between their souls.

And when Frederick Gordon became aware of this, a shadow deeper and darker than any that he had ever before known, rested upon his pathway. He had returned from Europe fully determined to woo and win her for the sake of her wealth. Love, or any congeniality of feeling that might exist between them was but a secondary consideration. When he saw her that night in the ball-room, more beautiful almost than his wildest dream of beauty, emphatically “the star of the goodly companie;” when he learned that the proudest in the land had sued humbly yet vainly for her favor, pride came to the aid of his mercenary motives, and he resolved to bear off triumphantly the prize for which so many were contending. But when he was thrown almost daily into her presence the atmosphere of purity and goodness which surrounded her, made him feel much as we may suppose a fallen spirit might feel in the presence of an angel of light. He could not meet the glance of her clear eyes, that glance so holy, so unworldly, without a pang of remorse for the unworthy incentives that had first led him to seek her. And he learned to love her deeply—devotedly. His heart thrilled at the sound of her voice, the lightest echo of her footsteps, the mere touch of her fair hand. He would have taken her to his bosom, and called her his own sweet wife, with no other dowry than the love of her pure, trusting heart. Yes, at last even Frederick Gordon loved _disinterestedly_.

Alas, poor Lily Grey! While thy false lover was thus bowing at the shrine of another, did thy image never haunt him? Did no thought of thee ever awaken a sigh or a regret? Did he never drop a tear over thy memory?

In the large and elegant drawing-room of one of the most splendid mansions in Waverley Place, a fair girl had just listened to an impassioned declaration of love from one who stood before her, waiting breathlessly the faintest motion of her lips. But the lady spoke not; her rapidly varying color was the only evidence that she had even heard the eloquent words that had just fallen upon her ear. The young man spoke again, and this time his voice was more low and tremulous than before, for his heart was heavy with doubt and apprehension.

“Elizabeth—Miss Munro—this suspense is very, very terrible—will you not speak to me?”

A strange expression, like a sudden spasm of pain, passed over the face of the lady for a moment, and then she replied, calmly—“Did I hear you aright, Mr. Gordon? Did I understand you to say that you had never breathed words of love in the ear of another?”

The eyes of Elizabeth Munro were bent upon those of Frederick Gordon with a steady, searching gaze, and his own drooped before them. At length he said, falteringly—“Yes—no—that is, I was young—it was nothing more than a passing fancy—a mere flirtation with a pretty girl I met in the country.”

The red blood mounted to the lady’s brow, and her eye flashed as she took a small shell-comb from her hair, and the long, brown curls that it had confined fell over her neck and shoulders. Then pushing back the ringlets from her forehead, and placing her finger upon a small scar upon her temple, she said slowly—“Frederick Gordon—do you know me now?”

The young man had not moved since he had last spoken, but remained with his eyes fixed upon the carpet. At the lady’s words, however, he looked up suddenly, and brow, cheek and lip grew white—white as those of the dead. Then covering his face with his hand, as if to shut out some hateful vision, he exclaimed—“Lily Grey—Lily Grey—have you come even here to torment me?”

“She is even here,” was the quiet reply, “and I presume it is unnecessary for me to say that the man whose pretended love for Lily Grey was a ‘passing fancy,’ a ‘mere flirtation’—the man who for the sake of paltry gold so cruelly deserted the young being he had won, without a farewell word or line, can never claim the hand of Elizabeth Munro. Nay, hear me, Mr. Gordon,” she added, as he would have interrupted her, “entreaties are useless, I can never be your wife, but I wish to explain some things which are probably mysteries to you. My name is Elizabeth Grey Munro. My father always called me his Lily, and by that pet name, too, I was called by Mr. and Mrs. Mason. When I went into the country to visit them it was a childish freak of mine to be called by my middle name, and be known as simple Lily Grey, rather than as the heiress Elizabeth Munro. Had you called to see me before your sudden departure, all would have been explained; but you chose to do otherwise, and of course I could put but one construction upon your conduct—that you were merely trifling with one whom you supposed your inferior in point of wealth, and that, finding you had gone rather farther than you intended, you wished to get rid of the affair as speedily as possible. I do not hesitate now to say that I once loved you, Frederick Gordon, as you did not deserve to be loved, but that passed—passed with the knowledge of your unworthiness. When we met in the ball-room I saw at once that you did not recognize me—five years had changed the young and timid girl who blushed at your approach into the woman, calm and self-possessed as yourself. You were blinded, too, by the fashion and glitter around me, and, in short, you looked not for Lily Grey in Elizabeth Munro.”

“Oh, Lily, forgive, forgive,” implored Frederick, throwing himself at her feet. “For sweet mercy’s sake forgive and love me again as in other days, I have erred deeply—deeply—but I have repented also.”

Tears rolled down the fair girl’s cheeks as she replied, at the same time kindly extending her hand, “I do, I do forgive, for the sake of the love I once bore you—but that love I can never give you again. The chord is broken and will never vibrate more.”

The young man rose and gazed wildly upon her face, but he read nothing there to give him hope, and clasping her hand for an instant, he rushed from her presence.

* * * * *

Reader, upon one of those beautiful islands that, not far from Mackinaw, lie on the breast of Lake Huron, like the purest of emeralds in a setting of silver, there is a little, picturesque village where the magnificent steamers, that plow the lakes from Buffalo to Chicago, stop to take in wood and water. But a short distance from the village, and yet half-concealed by overshadowing trees, there stands a plain but strongly built house. There is nothing peculiar in its general appearance, and you would pass it almost unheeded, unless you chanced to perceive that the windows of the chamber in the south-east corner of the building were guarded by strong iron bars. If you looked yet more closely, you would see the form of a man, still in the prime of life, with fetters upon his wrists, his hair closely shaven, and the wild gleam of the maniac in his eye, pacing the apartment, or gazing between the bars upon the broad expanse of waters. That face, once seen, will haunt you forever! In the yard, slowly walking back and forth, with his white hair streaming in the wind and his hands folded behind him, is often seen an old man, whose bowed form and trembling limbs speak of suffering even more plainly than of age. Anguish and remorse are stamped in legible characters upon his brow, and as he moves to and fro, the words come forth slowly and mournfully from his white lips—“Oh, Amy, Amy, thy prophecy is fulfilled!”

* * * * *

One more scene—a more cheerful one we trust—and our story is ended. In a small, pleasant room, furnished with exquisite taste, half-buried in the crimson cushions of a luxurious chair, sat a young mother, and upon her lap lay her first born, a fair and delicate babe, whose tiny face seemed the miniature of the one that bent over it, save that the little rings that lay upon its forehead were of a darker hue. Very lovely was that young mother—more lovely than in the brightest days of her girlish beauty, as she reclined there in the simple, yet tasteful robe of a convalescent, her pale cheek half-shaded by the rich, brown curls that escaped from beneath her cap. Her eyes wandered often from the face of her babe to the door, and at length a glad smile sprang to her parted lips as she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. The door opened, and a fine-looking man, whose intellectual face bore the unmistakable seal of genius, entered, and exclaiming joyously—“What—you here, Elizabeth? I have no words to tell you how glad I am to see you in our little sanctum again, my own sweet wife.” He bent to kiss the lips that were raised lovingly to his. “And our precious little daughter, too—she is six weeks old to-day, is she not?”

“Yes, Arthur—and it is about time she had a name, I think. What shall we call her?”

The young husband paused for a moment, and tears gathered in his proud, dark eyes as he replied—“Let her name be Lily Grey, dearest. Had you never borne that name perhaps I could not call you mine now.” And Arthur Talmadge—no longer poor and unappreciated, toiling for his daily bread—but Arthur Talmadge, the courted and honored artist, whose fame was in all the land, pressed his wife fondly to his bosom!

* * * * *

=“SETTLING TO A JEMIMA.”=

=SUGGESTED BY “MY NOVEL.”=

=BY ALICE B. NEAL.=

Yet it was with a deep groan that I settled myself to a—Jemima. _Letter from Riccobocca to Lord L’Estrange._

“And how do you like ‘My Novel,’ Frank?”

It was a very natural question under the circumstances. We had just finished two excellent cigars. St. Julian had an exquisite choice in the article, which I could fully appreciate. The fire was shining glowing red through the polished bars of the grate—the curtains were down, and the gas lighted. The library-table was strewn with papers, and new publications, and among the rest “Blackwood,” in its unpretending brown cover, laid half open, and the paper-cutter thrust between the leaves. That knife was a great favorite with my friend, who had brought it from Switzerland. The blade was of burnished silver, the handle the delicate foot of a chamois, preserved most perfectly. _I_ might have hunted from Paris to Berne without lighting upon it; but these things always seemed to fall in the way of St. Julian, as if by the magnetic attraction of his refined taste.

The library could scarcely have been dignified by that title. It was a small room, suited to my friend’s not over ample means, and fitted up with more of the bachelor air than the lounging-rooms of most Benedicts contrive to retain. Book-cases and tables of black walnut, the books being more valuable as rare editions, than from the extent of the collection, a few excellent engravings, and one beautiful head in oil, completed the appointments. We had dined, and nuts and wine were on the table before us. Mrs. St. Julian had absented herself on the plea of nursery engagements, possibly she thought we might like to chat without even her gentle restraint, of our old bachelor days. Considerate woman! Would that more of my married friends had possessed themselves of such a household treasure!

“How do I like Bulwer’s last? Just the question you asked years ago, St. Julian, in the days of Pelham and Earnest Maltravers, when maiden aunts held up their hands in pious horror at the mere mention of his name, and young ladies doted on the “dear wicked books,” just because they were proscribed.”

“Exactly,” nodded St. Julian, knocking the silvery ashes from the tip of his Figaro.

“Bulwer is older now—and so are we, eh! and may be said to have sown the wild oats of authorship. I was bored to death by Harold.”

“And so was I. When I saw the announcement on the cover that Bulwer was about to take leave of fiction, I thought it was quite time.”

“Harold being ‘the last of the Saxons,’ a new era commenced. The Caxton’s took me by surprise—at first I did not like it. The opening chapter was a cross of Tristrim Shandy and ‘The Doctor’—the coarseness of the one, and metaphysics of the other being a little tempered—‘weakened,’ I called it, and threw the book aside. I heard everybody talking of it, and wondered how they could praise such trash.”

“Trash! the Caxton’s trash!”

“Hold—I read it afterward; it was the only thing I could find on the counter of a country bookseller to solace and support me through a long journey, otherwise, I candidly confess, I should not have chosen it. You know the route, the winter of my Floridian jaunt. Shut up in the cars passing through those North Carolina pine-lands, without interest or variety, with not a soul that I knew, or any physiognomy that I liked well enough to make acquaintance with—how I blessed the dogged obstinacy that had hitherto made it a sealed book to me. I read till the twilight deepened, and then I borrowed the conductor’s lantern, and read again.”

“And liked it as much as I do, no doubt.”

“More than I can tell you. You know I never was given to enthusiastic criticism. It was so new, so varied—the sentiment more than the incident, I mean. When ‘Alice’ was written, I should not have fancied the Caxton’s. I could not have understood the author’s reasonings—for you know it is, after all, more a philosophy than a romance.”

“Sound philosophy, too—nothing harsh or cynical in it, as one might naturally have expected from the domestic life of the author.”

“And that is the charm of ‘My Novel,’ it is the same subject continued; a homily against worldliness and selfishness, in the most charming guise, example as well as precept—and that so naturally drawn. Who does not pity Audley Egerton—giving life and soul to political ambition, or despise his sycophant Leslie, with his scheming, plotting brain.”

“Outwitted at last, of course. ‘Honesty the best policy,’ is the burden of the tale. Yet I pity Randall more than his dupe, your namesake, Frank; the one has _mens conscia recti_ to support him in all his difficulties. I can fancy Leslie’s situation exactly. Ambitious by descent, as it were, and for the honor of his ancestors, as well as for personal ease and distinction, stung by the destitution and utter neglect of his home, refined in taste, one scarcely wonders that he becomes unscrupulous of means to the end.”

“And there is Frank, as you say, so honest and honorable, so generous—I have heard many objections to the possibility of his attractions to the brilliant Marchesa. But I can understand that, too. The world-wearied woman, longing for the honorable, generous love, for the repose of just such a heart, won most of all by the _genuineness_ of the proffered love, accustomed as she had been so long to constant but unmeaning adulation.”

“Yes, I don’t think it at all unnatural; there is another thing some might think inconsistent, the union of the accomplished and elegant Riccobocca and his Jemima.”

“I confess, _I_ cannot quite understand that. There is the same doctrine in the Caxtons—Mrs. Caxton, you know; and yet Pissistratus found sympathy in a mind attuned to his own; and L’Estrange must have his Violante, after all. In this, I think, our author contradicts himself a little.”

“I do not think so,” St. Julian said, more warmly. “Bulwer’s theory seems to me, that in the close friendship of domestic life, some natures need restraint, some repose, while others, on the contrary, would be ruined without stimulus. Harley’s was one of these—Riccobocca, on the contrary, _needed_ his Jemima.”

“I see the theory, and I see it carried out in daily life. For my part, if ever I marry”—and here I involuntarily touched the rapidly thinning locks on my temples—“if ever I marry, it must be a brilliant, cultivated woman, one that would command general admiration—I hate your jealous, selfish men—one that would force me to keep up to her mark. I must confess, I wonder at half the marriages now-a-days—men of talent united to women who do not look as if they had ever opened a book in their lives, or would have the courage to criticise it if they had—good enough—amiable enough—but lacking spirit—originality.”

Here I paused in my energetic disclaimer—it was getting a little awkward; our acquaintances had often remarked the same of St. Julian, and he must know it; indeed, I had often wondered at his choice mentally; I found his eyes fixed on mine, as I faltered, with a peculiar, penetrating expression, and I fancied I saw his color heighten.

He was the first to relieve the embarrassing silence; with one of his own fine smiles he said,

“Yes, just such a wife would suit you—I know it, and you have not found her. I thought so once of myself. I am wiser now. Acknowledge”—and here the smile came and went again—“that you were thinking of my Minny that moment. Come, tell the truth, Frank—you wont offend me by doing so, I assure you.”

“Well, on oath then, I was; though I never should have said so if you had not asked me. Even intimate friendship has no right to touch on such points. Every one must decide for themselves, is my theory; and no one has a right to question the choice. I confess, I have often thought I should like to know all about it though—how, with all your fire and imagination, you could have been content with simple amiability.”

“Minny has more than that,” St. Julian said, warmly. “She has great depth of feeling, cultivation, and correct judgment. I grant she is not what the world calls brilliant—a brilliant woman never would have suited me for a wife.”

“Your opinion has changed since our college days,” I could not help saying.

“Many of my opinions,” said Frank. “But in this I was aided by one of the most brilliant women I have ever met.”

“She rejected you, I suppose, and taught you wisdom through wounded self-love.”

“No—yes—if it can be called rejection when I never offered any thing but admiration. But you shall hear all about it, if you would like it.”

“Of all things.”

“Well, then, you must not interrupt me, or ever mention it again. I believe it is a little pride in the support of my theory that urges me to the confession. Sometimes I like to bring her before me, however—but I always turn to the thought of Minny with _such_ satisfaction.”

I believed him as he said it. His face was lighted by an honest heart; I did not believe Mrs. St. Julian herself would have been wounded—tenacious as all women are of predecessors—could she have heard the conclusion.

“Beatrice—that was her name,” said St. Julian, stretching his slippered feet more comfortably toward the fire; “and I always thought no other would have suited her. She came to pass the winter in St. Louis, the first year I commenced practice there. Such an arrival, of course, made some stir in our circle; society was not as good, or as large there then as it is now. She was a widow—don’t look alarmed, Frank, you never would have believed she had been married, but for a certain ease and assured manner, not the bold, pushing way, assigned to widows generally—and vulgarly, too, let me say. They told me she was about twenty-four, with a small but comfortable income, and had married a man she could not love. He proved to be dishonorable in business transactions, though a man of fascinating manner and cultivated mind. I know a dozen such men, and could see that while she had gained much intellectually by the association, her heart must have been starved.

“I remember distinctly the first time I saw her. Anthon, my partner, visited her, and from him I had taken a dislike to her. I fancied she was in the old style, a cautious, calculating coquette, expecting general homage. I was determined she should receive none from me.

“So I rather avoided her—and we met quite by accident at the house of a mutual acquaintance. The introduction startled me—she was so unlike what I imagined—a small, coquettish figure, and face marked by vivacity; on the contrary, she was tall and stately, a superb head, well set, curved red lips, a fine quivering nostril, excuse the expression, and eyes—that haunted me for years. Those are her eyes”—and he pointed to the picture I had before remarked over the mantle—“except that no painter could ever give their changeful, thrilling light. The picture is an Italian head—I saw it in Florence, and could not resist the purchase.

“She was quiet, and rather reserved in manner. Afterward her face changed when the conversation turned upon something that interested her. I controverted some opinion she had advanced. I was a little piqued at her total neglect of me, when I had expected a display of attractions for my benefit. I shall never forget the first brilliant flash of those eyes, as they turned full upon me.

“‘You have thought much upon this subject, then,’ she said, quietly, but I fancied with a covert sarcasm.

“My comment must have betrayed my utter ignorance of the matter—but I had not expected such quick detection. I spoke at random, as I often did in those days, more to draw her attention upon myself than for any interest I had in the conversation. But I rallied, and tried to sustain my ground with all the sophistry I could command; the rest listened, and I saw all my powers of argument and wit called forth by her close and simple reasoning. She was naturally sarcastic. I saw she controlled the spirit in a measure, still her repartee humbled me not a little; pride as well as vanity was roused at the encounter. Yet she held out her hand to me in parting, with a beautiful smile, intended to be conciliating, I saw, as she said,

“‘When we meet again, I hope we shall agree more readily.’

“Anthon had often asked me to call with him at her house, for she had decided to remain with us, and her late husband’s aunt superintended her household. After this encounter, I was more determined than ever not to go, but an indescribable fascination impelled me. Her face haunted me—in business, in leisure; her eyes rose up before me; I found myself trying to recall the tones of her voice. I wished so much to hear her sing—I had been told she was an accomplished musician—I was sure she must sing enchantingly. Even in conversation, her low, clear voice thrilled you.

“She welcomed me pleasantly; almost with marked warmth, at least Anthon thought so, and rallied me afterward upon my conquest. She proposed music herself in the pauses of conversation, and sung—not with any apparent desire to win admiration, but because it was a pleasure to herself, and to us. At least, I was obliged to confess this to myself, and I felt my prejudice giving way, with every bar of her delicious music. Perhaps she counted on the power the harp possessed of old to exorcise evil spirits.

“I could but think of Lady Geraldine—the poem had just appeared then, and had been the subject of our discussion.

‘Ah! to see or hear her singing, scarce I know which is divinest. For her looks sing too—she modulates her gestures on the tune, And her mouth stirs with the song-like song: And where the notes are finest— ’Tis the eyes that shoot out oreal light, and seem to swell them on.’

“I could go on with the next stanza,” St. Julian added, taking up the volume he had referred to again.

‘Then we talked—O, how we talked! Her voice so cadenced in the talking, Made another singing of the soul—a music without bars.’

“And so for many and many an evening, for there never was moth more fascinated than I became, and yet she had never shown me any decided preference. She was a great favorite in society, and always surrounded by admirers. I wondered she could have endured half their fulsome flatteries. I used to turn from the circle in perfect disgust, mentally accusing her of coquetry and vanity. Yet, after all, it was perhaps but jealousy in me.

“So the winter passed—meeting her constantly, and we became what is called good friends.

“Sometimes she claimed my services as her escort in walks or rides. I was only too glad to be near her. I knew that those around her did not understand her as I did. That she often turned from them all to her books and music for companionship. The pride and ambition of my nature found a response in hers—the vague dissatisfaction with tame reality—the thirst for change and variety—the search for sympathy with these wild visions—all that made up my inner life.

“Every one passes through this mood in early life. With some, it is scarcely more than depression or dissatisfaction; with me, it had long been a wild unrest. This was often her mood—I was sure of it when the chords of her music deepened, or that tremulous quivering of the lip, betrayed the inward strife.

“Once we were riding—the active exercise suited her spirit, she needed the rapid excitement of a bounding steed. So we came dashing homeward, our horses covered with mud and foam, for she was more than usually self-absorbed, and seemed to forget how rapidly we rode. It was a dreary November afternoon, the sky closed in with chill, gray clouds, the fading sunlight sickly and uncertain. We were passing a recent clearing for a new bye-road to some little town. Many noble trees lay felled beside our path, and, at a little distance, we noticed a flickering flame. Some freak had prompted the woodman to fire a tall ash, that stood relieved in graceful outline. One half of the trunk was completely consumed, the fire burning upward steadily from the roots, had hollowed out a channel for itself, and, while the tree stood up bare and tall, was eating out its very heart and life. It startled me for a moment; but Beatrice reined in her horse suddenly, and pointing to it with her riding-whip, said—

“‘There—do you know what that is? Have you ever felt it?’

“Her tone—her glance conveyed all her meaning. I, too, had thought the emblem truthful. I was sure now that I understood her. But we neither of us spoke again until we reached home.

“Yet I would not tell her that I loved her—I had no right to think it was returned. Sometimes I thought so, when she turned to me with more than her usual confidence, or welcomed me with one of her loving smiles. I would have given worlds for the power to ask her, but something always repelled me. So I thought of her alone—I sought her society day after day, and from the very intensity of my feelings came a coldness and reserve that I did not feel.

“One night, she had been asked in a small circle of intimate friends to read ‘Lady Geraldine,’ aloud. Miss Barret then was almost an unknown name, even in literary circles, and Beatrice was her warm admirer. Already familiar with every line of the poem, it received new grace and power from her lips. It suited her spirit, and her presence. She lost herself in the heroine, and I hung near her, carried away by the poet’s expression of all I felt for the beautiful creature before me.

“I suppose ‘my heart was in my eyes.’ Once, she looked up; and, for an instant, her glance met my own.

“Here is the passage—

‘But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating with thunder, Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like a caul. Could you guess what word she uttered? She looked up, as if in wonder, With tears beaded on her lashes, and said—‘Bertram!’ it was all.’

“Yes—that instant glance ‘was all;’ and yet it thrilled me with love and hope. Its yearning—almost agonized—tenderness, I cannot describe to you. I never saw such a glance from woman before or since.”

St. Julian rose, and began pacing the carpet before me, as he spoke, more rapidly.

“Yet, that very night, we spoke coldly and proudly to each other. She, perhaps—well I cannot tell for what reason; but it stung me, and I answered bitterly and hastily, and said to myself I would never see her again.

“We did not meet again for more than a year, strange as it seems, moving in the same small orbit. I passed her now and then with a beating heart, as I recognized her face or form upon the side-walk: she—with the same calm smile of recognition; I—with a cold and hasty bow. I grew almost to hate her—yet I could not: in the depth of my heart, I yearned to speak to her again; though I called her selfish and a coquette, most of all, in memory of that look.

“But, at last, we met; as unexpectedly as at first, and in the same house. There was every thing to remind me of the past. She was unchanged, save a softened manner, and that her dark dress was relieved by crimson ornaments, which suited her wonderfully well.

“She came toward me with extended hand, and as if we had just met from a journey.

“‘Will you come and see me?’ she said: ‘we shall find a great deal to talk about, and I have some new songs I am sure you will like:’ and I was surprised into acquiescence. All that evening I watched her—as she moved, the centre of admiration, when she smiled, or spoke; she was so very, very beautiful!—the eloquent color, the constant play of features. Once, I _fancied_ her eyes turned toward me, with something of that remembered glance.

“I went home like one in a delirium; all my love rushed back—the stronger, that the current had been so long checked. I murmured her name—with the fondest intonations—the silence echoed ‘Beatrice! Beatrice! My arms seemed to clasp her to my heart! I seemed to shower kisses on those loving eyes! It was a mad, intoxicating dream!

“Every fibre of my frame thrilled to the welcoming pressure of her hand. She was alone, in the little winter parlor I remembered so well. A warm, crimson carpet muffled the tread, the glass doors of the conservatory stood slightly ajar, filling the atmosphere with the odorous breath of the heliotrope and sweet-scented daphne. Crimson curtains fell in heavy folds to the floor, her piano and harp stood in the accustomed places, the fire burned low, and wax lights, in massive silver candlesticks, stood at one end of the room. It was all so familiar, the gleaming of the single bust in the corner, upon its marble pedestal, the Magdalen, her favorite picture—which I wondered at at first—hung near it, and there was her own portrait, faithful to the life, with _those eyes_ looking down upon me. Perhaps she thought me sad, for she proposed music, and I leaned on the mantle and listened. At first it was a gay song; but that was not suited to her mood, and gradually she glided into those mournful strains of Schubert and Mendelssohn, which she knew to be my favorites of old.

“When she ceased—the last chords of voice and instrument still vibrating in the silence—she rose, and came slowly toward me. It was in my heart to tell her all; but she said—

“‘You have often told me I was unlike other women. It is a dangerous compliment. No woman can be happy who is unlike her sex: I have come to that conclusion at last. But, to show you that you were not mistaken in the past, I am going to tell you something about myself.’

“Here she held out her hand to me—oh! how impressive that touch, yet how kind!—and raised her eyes to mine, with a calm, searching look as a sister might have done.

“‘I understood you when we first met. We were so much alike—skeptic perhaps in heart and creed. Restless, wandering, seeking rest and finding none. It was not strange that I turned toward you—that I thought I loved you—close sympathy was the element of love I longed for. I was unhappy away from you; your words, and tone, and glance had more power over me than you ever dreamed of. I longed sometimes—in my loneliness and solitude—to hear you tell me that my love was returned, to feel your arm about me, your kiss upon my forehead, your eyes fixed on mine—as once I saw them—above all, to hear your voice murmur Beatrice, dearest! all wild passionate words—that my heart yearned for. Had you sought me then, I, no doubt, should now have been your wife!’

“Beatrice, my wife! My head swam, she must have seen my frame tremble with the thought.

“‘But we were separated,’ she said, still calmly; I wondered at her calmness, when I was so shaken, ‘and since then I am changed. Life has assumed a different hue: I am calmer’—yes, I could see that and almost curse her calmness—‘I can be thankful that you did not ask me to be your wife; we shall both be happier; and, as friends, we may still be of much use to each other.’

“‘Last night was the test of all my resolutions—at first, when I met your hand, your glance, they wavered: the old time rose before me—the old yearning for sympathy with my mad moods; but I fortified them by new purposes, and I was thankful for the trial. Shall we be friends?’

“‘But why, O, why, Beatrice,’ I said for the first time—‘why not more?’

“‘Because our natures are _too much_ alike. Both too impulsive—too sensitive—too imaginative. Life, and its trials, and associations are real. I need something to oppose the blast—we should both bend one way. The fire that raged so fiercely could but soon die out, or consume all that fed it. Do you not see this?’

“Yes, I knew, she was true, she was right; I have felt it a hundred times since, but then I only felt all I had lost—all I was so near possessing—that all hope was past. I knew it by her tone, her manner, the gentle pressure of her hand. I knew her self-control must be the effect of an irrevocable judgment—it was a mood foreign to her, and could not be long sustained.

“What more wild words I said, I can easily imagine, and her flushed cheek told me the struggle that they caused within; but I had no right thus to act upon her generous confession, and at length I listened to her gentle reasoning.

“‘If I ever marry,’ she said, ‘it must be one whose judgment is not controlled by his feelings, who can understand, yet not share, in these wild moods you would only encourage. It must be strength of will and tenderness combined that can control me. You need repose as much as I. We are friends you know—I read your heart better than you can yourself—your wife must also be firm and gentle. I should in the end only make you miserable.’”

“Well,” I said, as St. Julian paused in apparent forgetfulness of my presence.

“Well, as you say—I did not cease to hope from her impulsive moods until I knew that she was to be married. When she found it was so, she avoided me; it _was_ base to presume on her generous frankness.”

“So she is married?”

“To a man others say the very reverse of herself—but I understand it, and believe her to be happy—and I took her advice, at length, and sought out a Jemima! no, my Minny is more like Mrs. Caxton of the two, and is far too good a wife for me. Beatrice would have made me miserable, I believe.”

I smiled as he settled himself complacently in the lounging chair from which he had risen, and returned to a quiet contemplation of the fire, the very picture of the contented husband, after all that utterance of enthusiastic feeling—but when Mrs. St. Julian came quietly into the room, a few moments after, with her pretty basket of needle-work, and her cheerful, household face, I could not but think that my friend was right after all in his choice, and that I, too, after a few more hesitating years, might be glad to find myself settled to _such_ a Jemima.

* * * * *

=SNOW FLAKES.=

=BY MRS. L. G. ABELL.=

They fall, as one by one they come A silent gift of starry light, Concealing every spot and stain With robe of purest white—

As Charity, with words of peace, Her downy mantle covers o’er The little faults of those we love— So fall the snow flakes evermore.

* * * * *

=A LIFE OF VICISSITUDES.=

=BY G. P. R. JAMES.=

[Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, by George Payne Rainsford James, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.]

(_Concluded from page 618._)

THE DREAMS FULFILLED.

I slept not one wink that night. I can compare the state of my mind to nothing but a still, deep piece of water, suddenly stirred by a strong wind. Thought was a confused mass of waves, flowing one into the other, and hurrying away into some new form, ere they could be measured or defined. Toward morning, however, one of the memories the most prominent became that of the surprise which had been shown by the Count and Countess de Salins at my having seen and conversed with the Marquis de Carcassonne. I dwelt upon it. I pondered. I scrutinized it. “The murderer of my father!” I thought; “how did he murder him? Was it in a duel: by an act which good Father Bonneville, with his strong principles, might look upon as murder?” No—there must have been something more. What the count had said in regard to the other’s guilt showed that it was by no common occurrence my father fell. There must have been something more; and what that was I determined to ascertain. Not that I thought of taking vengeance on the pitiful dying worm I had seen—he was not worthy of it. The extinction of his few short hours of life would offer but poor satisfaction. “Better leave him in the hand of God,” I thought, “who knows all and sees all, and is just as well as merciful.” Nevertheless, I was determined to know how my father fell, and that without any long delay. I knew that where there is a strong will, means are rarely wanting to accomplish even the most improbable ends: but, after long meditation, I saw but one way of arriving at my object: “I will go to the old man,” I thought, “and drive him to tell me all. I will strengthen my mind, and harden my heart, and compel him to divulge the dark secret within his breast.”

Such was my first resolution, and it was that to which I recurred; but, in the mean time, another plan suggested itself, which I tried, but which failed. I thought that, very probably, the Count de Salins himself would give me information; and as the mind—especially of youth—is always fond of accomplishing more than one object at a time, I resolved to go down the very next day, and pass an hour or two with Mariette, at the same time I sought the information I required. There was one thing, however, which embarrassed me a good deal—not that it presented itself to my mind in any definite shape; but it had crossed my thoughts like a vague, unpleasant shadow more than once during the night. I do not know that I can very well explain myself distinctly—that I can make any one else, even those for whom these pages are written, and who understand me best, comprehend fully the state of my mind at that moment. I should perhaps have said, in common parlance, the state of my heart, but mind had something to do with it likewise. Let me try, however.

The Mariette of the past, the Mariette of the present, seemed to me, as it were, two beings in one. The long interval which had occurred between our parting and meeting again, rendered them, as it were, distinct—a child and a woman. But yet that interval had been bridged over by constant remembrance. I had never forgotten her. I had never ceased to think of her. She had taken such a hold of my young affections, that nothing had ever been able to remove them from her, and thin, filmy lines of thought had been carried backward and forward, between the past and the present, like the threads of a spider’s web. When we had been boy and girl, I had often looked forward to the period when we should be man and woman, and I had again and again fancied that Mariette would be my wife—my own for ever. Now we were man and woman, the process was reversed; and fancy ran back to childhood. I saw in her the sister of my early days, my dearly loved play-fellow and plaything. I began to think, indeed, that I loved her better now—not that the least particle of the former love was lost: it was the foundation of all, but another love was being built up upon it. I did not know, indeed, how far that edifice was completed. I would not examine, I would not inquire, I would not scan my own heart and its feelings, although I was conscious that all the thought and anxiety I had lately bestowed upon her could hardly arise without deeper feelings than those of boyhood, or exist without increasing them. I must not say that I _resolved_ or that I _intended_ any thing; for where Mariette was concerned, I did not pause to resolve or to intend. All I desired or looked for was, to make her happy by any means, to remove her for ever from poverty, and to share with her all I had to share. But there was one difficulty, and it was this: I knew not how to explain to her the source of my present affluence—to tell her, or her father, or her mother, that even for a short few days I had been wedded to another. In my present feelings toward her, it seemed as if I had been unfaithful to her—as if I had robbed her of a part of the affection which was her due, in giving any share of my love to poor Louise.

If I felt so, what—I asked myself, might she not feel? How might she bear the thought of being the second in my love? I knew well myself that she was not the second. That she was the first, the best beloved; but could I persuade her of that? And even if I did—would she not think my conduct the more base and wrong in having wedded another? If—by any chance—such early visions as I had indulged, had produced in her the same sort of indefinite impression—that we were bound to each other from very childhood—from which I could not divest my own mind, what would she think of my having forgot the bond, for even so short a period?

I did not know woman’s heart. I was not aware of how much less selfish, how much less exacting is woman’s love.

But let me go on with my story. These thoughts embarrassed me as I walked along toward her father’s cottage. That my previous marriage must be told, sooner or later, I well knew; but how to do it puzzled me, and the probable effect alarmed me.

As I was thus meditating, just at the turn of the lane from Lee, I came suddenly full upon Westover. He was on foot, and gazing very thoughtfully down upon the ground. I will not pause to dwell upon my feelings; for though they were bitter and bad, ungenerous and unkind, they were very transitory. So deep was his revery that he did not see me till we were close together, but then he held out his hand frankly, and I am afraid I gave mine very coldly, hardly pausing in my walk.

“Why, De Lacy!” he exclaimed, “you seem in great haste?”

“I have found out the friends I have been so long seeking, Captain Westover,” I answered, “and am now going to see them.”

“Captain Westover!” he replied. “Well: so you have found them out; and, therefore, I have had my trouble for nothing.”

His tone, more than his words, made me feel a little ashamed.

“What trouble do you allude to?” I asked.

“Two journeys to Lewisham,” he answered, laughing. “A long conversation with an old woman in a chandler’s shop, and the cross-examination of a tax-gatherer.”

“Indeed!” I said. “And why did you take all this trouble?”

“Merely to ascertain,” replied Westover, “if the lady of the rose cottage, with the beautiful eyes, was in reality your long-lost love, Marietta de Salins. My chandleress could only inform me on Saturday, that it was a French gentleman who inhabited the cottage, with his wife and daughter: that they called him the count; but count or no count, he taught French for two shillings a lesson. The tax-gatherer, she said, could tell me more about them: but the tax-gatherer happened to be absent, dunning some poor devils, I dare say, and so I came down again to-day, and discovered that it is, indeed, a Count de Salins who lives there with his wife and daughter, though how that can be, I cannot make out, for you told me that the count was dead. However, I was just now coming up to tell you what I have found out, and to force a piece of advice upon you.”

I was now heartily ashamed of the feelings with which I had met him, but I explained that I had been deceived with regard to the death of Monsieur de Salins, and then asked in our old friendly tone, what was the advice he intended to give me.

He put his arm through mine, and walked on with me.

“The fact is, De Lacy,” he said, in a meditative way, “you are furiously in love, my dear fellow—far enough gone to be as jealous as a spaniel-dog. Now do not suppose that I am angry with this—for it is very natural; nor even that I should be so, if I found out that, in your innermost thoughts, you fancied just now that I came down here upon some blackguard errand—for there are so many of us in London who care not, so long as they hold their honor fair toward men, how dishonorably they act toward women, that such a supposition might be very natural, too. I see the suspicions have vanished, however, and so now to business. Let me, however, premise one thing. It is perfectly unnatural, and out of the ordinary course of events, that one young man should take a strong and affectionate interest in another, and endeavor to serve him upon perfectly unselfish principles. This postulate is granted. As in what I am going to say, I wish to serve you, I must either be an unnatural monster of generosity, or I must have some selfish motive. That is a fair inference, I think? Well, then, I admit the selfish motives. I do wish to serve you upon principles purely personal. My motives I cannot tell you at present, but I will tell you before I return to my regiment—perhaps, at the very last minute. All this I have said, to convince you of my sincerity, in order that you may take my advice as that of a sincere friend. Now, this love of yours will hurry you on very rapidly, and, without a little prudence, we shall have nothing but marryings and givings in marriage. My advice is, be discreet and patient. Make love as much as ever you like, but do not marry in a great hurry. If you do, you may injure yourself irreparably. Things are, I trust, looking fair for you. You are young, and your fair lady must be a good deal younger. You can both afford to wait a little, and it will be much better for you to do so.”

“Very good advice, Westover,” I replied; “but could you follow it yourself in my case?”

“I have waited two years myself,” he answered, “and shall probably have to wait two years more, exactly upon the same principles—but without half the strong motives which should induce you to wait, if you knew all.”

I paused for an instant, looking down thoughtfully and somewhat bitterly.

“I do not know all, Westover,” I replied, “but I am determined that I soon will. You, indeed, seem to know more of me than I do myself; at least, if I may judge from your words at present, and I do not see why a stranger should have such information when it is denied to me.”

“No stranger,” replied Westover, shaking my hand, as we were now near the cottage door, “but however that may be, De Lacy, take my advice: be patient—be prudent; engage yourself by any ties you like; but do not hurry your marriage, at least, till I am able to speak further, and to tell you more—and now, good bye; come and see me in London; to-morrow, if you can, but come and see me often; for I do not feel very sure whether it is the living or the dead part of my regiment I am going to join in a few weeks.”

I paused for a few moments before I went up to the house; but, on knocking at the door, I was told by the little servant-girl that the count had got his class with him. I then asked for Madame de Salins. She was out, the girl said, but _Miss_ de Salins was at home. O, how horrible that frightful epithet of Miss struck me, when applied to my Mariette. I asked to see her, however, and was shown into a little room just opposite that in which I had been the day before. Mariette was sitting reading, and bright and beautiful she looked in her homely attire. She was evidently very glad to see me; and I was glad to see she was a little agitated, too; for she had been so much calmer than I was at our first meeting, that I had teazed myself with the thought ever since of her loving me less than I loved her. She told me that her father would not be free for two or three hours, but that her mother would soon be back, and would be very glad to see me. I said I would wait to see Madame de Salins, though I feared I could not remain till her father was at liberty. O, how artful I had become! By this manœuvre I gained nearly an hour of sweet conversation with Mariette, a short interview with Madame de Salins, and a good excuse for coming again on the following day.

I do not remember distinctly one word of the conversation between Mariette and myself; but I do know that, to me, it was very delightful: that we dwell much upon former times, every thought of which was full of young affection; that Mariette had forgot nothing any more than myself, and that the memories of those days seemed as dear to her as they were to me. We carried our minds so completely back to the past: we plunged into childhood again so deeply, that I almost expected she would come and sit down upon my knee, and put her arms round my neck, and coax me to give her some trifle, or to gather her some flower beyond her reach.

Then again, we talked of our wanderings and all the vicissitudes we had seen; and, once or twice, we came very near the subject of my journey to Hamburgh. When we did so, I fancied that I could see a peculiarly grave and almost sorrowful expression come into her beautiful eyes, and I remarked that she seemed quite as willing to turn the conversation in another direction as myself. However, nothing painful of any kind occurred in that short interview—short, O, how short it seemed, and how very speedy the return of Madame de Salins.

When she did come, she was very, very happy to see me. Time had made no difference in her feelings toward me. I was still to her the boy she had known and loved in France and Germany; and I felt, between Mariette and her mother, at least, there would be no need of ceremony: that with or without excuse, I should always be to them a welcome guest—nay, not a guest, a friend, a son, a brother. With Monsieur de Salins, however, it might be different, and, therefore, to make sure of another day, I forced myself to depart before he appeared.

On the following day I was there half an hour earlier than that at which I knew he would be free from his class, and that half-hour was spent with Mariette and Madame de Salins as happily as it could be.

My interview with Monsieur de Salins was not quite so satisfactory. He was as kind indeed as I could expect, and spoke of, what he called, my services to his wife and daughter with more gratitude than any little thing I had done for them could deserve. But in regard to that which was nominally the principal object of my visit, he maintained a reserve which I could not vanquish. He made use of no evasions, used no subterfuges, but met my inquiries at once with a refusal to comply. I referred to what he had said regarding the Marquis de Carcassonne, and pointed out to him that his words were calculated to excite surprise and curiosity, even if I had not previously received intimations which had equally astonished me.

“I was incautious,” replied Monsieur de Salins; “but it will be better for you, my young friend, to wait for further explanations till the time when they can be given to you by persons much better qualified to enter into all the details than I am. In fact, I deeply regret that I came near so painful a subject at all, and beg you to pardon my having done so, when taken by surprise.”

I could gain no further information from him; but I lingered yet for an hour or two in conversation with himself, Mariette, and her mother, walked with them in the little garden behind the cottage, talked of shrubs and flowers, and every thing the furthest removed from the subjects which really occupied my mind, and at length returned home, resolving to visit London, and see the Marquis de Carcassonne the next day.

I made the attempt accordingly, but was disappointed. I saw the old French apothecary in his shop, and learned from him that his lodger was out. The man seemed to have no recollection of me, and was somewhat more civil than at our previous meeting. His answer to my question was prompt and unhesitating, and I judged that he was not deceiving me. I was therefore obliged, unwillingly, to wait for another opportunity, and turned my steps toward the lodging of Westover, in Brook street. It was one of those days, however, when every one is out, and merely leaving my card, I returned to Blackheath, having accomplished nothing.

My next task was to get the Count de Salins to bring Mariette and her mother to spend a day at our cottage; and I quietly prompted Father Bonneville to ask the whole party, in his own name, for the Monday following, when the count’s class did not meet.

Etiquette, and ceremonies, and conventionalities, were very much laid aside at this time amongst the poor French emigrants. We had so much need of all the comforts and sympathies of social life, such scanty means of keeping up the stately reserves which had previously existed in France—covering, it must be confessed, a multitude of glaring vices—that we were glad to seize upon any occasion of enjoying a little friendly intercourse in a land where we were generally poor, and strangers, and by the great mass of the vulgar utterly despised.

The invitation was accepted frankly, and I set to work to devise how the day might be made to pass pleasantly for all parties. I had a very beautiful garden, now rich in flowers, and a gate at the back opened into some pleasant fields. There was nothing very striking in the scenery around, but there was a soft rural beauty rarely to be met with, so near a great capital. I planned walks in directions which we were not destined to take. I decorated our two sitting-rooms with nosegays of the flowers which Mariette had loved in childhood. I laid her little book of reading-lessons on the table, and a withered violet beside it, which she had given to me in its beauty, and which I had kept ever after between the leaves of the book. I arranged every thing, in short, as far as possible, to carry her mind back to the past, and, in my own eagerness, I felt very much like a child again myself.

One thing, however, I avoided. Neither in the dinner I had ordered, nor in any of the arrangements did I suffer any thing like great expense, or an attempt at display, to appear. Every thing was simple, though every thing was comfortable and good. As I went about early in the morning, busying myself with a thousand trifles, I could see Father Bonneville’s eyes following me, while a quiet smile played about his lips. I saw that he comprehended, in some degree at least, what was going on in my heart, and that he did not even care to conceal his amusement at the eagerness which, if he had ever known, he knew no longer.

The morning was as bright and beautiful as could be. Nature seemed to smile upon me. There might be a few clouds, but they were only such as fancy sometimes brings over a happy heart. There had been a light shower, indeed, in the night, but it had only sufficed to lay the dust and soften the ground, and render the rich unequalled verdure of England the more brilliant.

Our friends were to come to breakfast, and they appeared punctually at the hour. O, how warmly did I welcome them, and how happy did Mariette’s presence make me there. The very memory of that day is so sweet that I could dwell—even now—upon all the details with childish fondness. Fancy one of your own dreams of early delight, and spread it through a bright, glorious summer-day, and you will comprehend the passing of the next twelve hours to me.

But I must pass over much of what we did. Monsieur de Salins was suffering a good deal—as I found was still frequently the case—from the effect of his old wounds; but he sat out in the garden with Father Bonneville, while I, and Madame de Salins and Mariette, wandered about amongst the shrubs and flowers. Dinner had been ordered early, that we might not lose the cool of the evening for any ramble we might choose to take, and I suggested two or three little expeditions, all of which were determined upon in turn, but ultimately abandoned. To my surprise, however, I found, at length, that Mariette—though residing so long in the neighborhood—had never visited a spot celebrated in history, and exquisitely beautiful in itself, but which has long since lost one of its best charms from the multitudes which throng thither on a summer’s day. I speak of Greenwich park. Madame de Salins said that she had often thought of going thither with her daughter, but it was too far from their house for them to walk, and they could not afford a carriage. I pressed them both to go that evening; they were a mile nearer: we had but to cross the heath—and then I proposed to send for the pony-phaeton, and drive them over. That Madame de Salins would not hear of, and she feared the fatigue of a walk. Mariette looked a little disappointed, perhaps; and her father—who watched every look of his child’s face with earnest affection—exclaimed:

“You two go, my children. Never mind us, we will enjoy ourselves here—there can be no objection, I suppose?” he added, turning to his wife.

“Oh! none,” replied Madame de Salins, at once. “She is as safe with Louis as with a brother.”

It is but fair that fortune—who so often amuses herself with putting out of joint our best devised schemes—should, at rare intervals, make us compensation thus, by bringing about, through little accidents, that which we desire, but dare not hope for.

With Mariette’s arm drawn through mine, we set out upon our walk across the heath. I fancied that I felt a tremor in her hand, and I was glad of it—although, after all, I am not sure that it did not increase my own. It seemed as if the crisis of my fate was approaching, and I knew—I felt now, for the first time, what it is to love passionately, earnestly. When I remembered my sensations in all the events which occurred at my marriage with poor Louise—deep, strong, earnest as they were—my anxiety to spare her any pain—my ardent longing to give her any happiness—the tender, heartfelt desire to save, to cherish and to comfort her—and compared them, by one of those brief, rapid, but comprehensive glances of the mind, with all I experienced at present, I comprehended, at once, that I had never really loved till now, and that, whatever she might think, I could give to Mariette the first true offering of my heart. I had never known what it was to feel the sort of trepidation that now seized upon me. It was like a gambler’s last throw. Every thing seemed staked—hope, happiness, life itself, upon the decision of that hour. Wait? That was impossible. In the fiery eagerness that possessed my heart—in the passionate desire to know my fate, I would sooner have plunged into the sea, than wait till the dawn of another day.

There are certainly means of communication between heart and heart—call them by what name you will—sympathies—instincts, any thing you please—which go far beyond words—run before them—indicate without audible sounds, or tangible signs, or even looks, that which is passing within one bosom to another in harmony with itself. I had said nothing that I know of to make Mariette believe I loved her. My conduct toward her had been unchanged since first we met. I had been afraid to display, in any way, the feelings that were busy at my heart. But, yet I am right certain that ere we passed the garden-gate, she was conscious that her fate and mine depended on the words to be spoken during that walk. Yes, yes, yes, dear girl! Her hand trembled as it rested on my arm, and she kept a little farther from me than our early affection might have justified, as if there were some awe within her bosom at the decision which was to bring us so close to one another.

For a quarter of a mile we did not say a word; and then I began any how—sure to bring the conversation round, before I had done, to the one sole subject of my thoughts. I believe I talked great nonsense. I felt it at the time. I almost feared she would think I had drank too much wine; for I could not keep my ideas fixed upon that of which I was speaking. I soon found that utterly indifferent subjects would not do. I knew the worst part of the task that was before me, and I determined to approach it at once. Yet I did not succeed in my first attempt. I thought if I spoke of her father’s situation, of my anxious, longing desire that he and his should share in all I possessed, and if I tried to enlist her on my side in persuading him to yield any pride and prejudice which opposed my schemes, that it would naturally lead her to some inquiry as to the source of the means I possessed. I was mistaken, however. This sort of abstract consideration seemed completely to restore her calmness. She raised her beautiful eyes to mine, and said, “I need not tell you, Louis, that if it depended upon me, there would need not another word. I could be content to be dependent on your kindness—ay, and feel a sister’s claim to it likewise—without doubt or hesitation or shame; and I believe my mother, too, would have few scruples. But I know my father; and I am certain he would rather dig as a common gardener than be indebted for assistance to any one.”

She asked no questions. It seemed enough for her that I had the means of aiding her father, and that her father would not accept my aid. I saw that I must try another course, and I changed the subject somewhat abruptly. I began to talk to her of my wanderings through Switzerland, of my sports in the mountains, of the battle of Zurich, of the danger of Father Bonneville, of my being trodden down by the Austrian soldiers, and lying for long weeks in the hospital. She grew deeply interested in the details. Her color came and went. Her eyes were now raised up and sparkling, and now cast down and swimming in tears. I told her of my journey to the north, of my seeking employment in vain, of my begging my way to the gates of Hamburgh. Her hand trembled again upon my arm, and her steps wavered.

We were now within the gates of the park, and entering a long, solitary chestnut walk, near the top of the steep hill, and I felt that with the agitation which pervaded my whole frame, and her shaking limbs, we could not go much further. There was a bench near, beneath the wide spreading branches of one of the old trees, and I said, “Come, let us sit down here, dear Mariette, and I will tell you the rest.”

“Will you, Louis—will you?” she asked, with an earnestness I shall never forget.

My spirit rose and strengthened itself with the deep sense of what I owed to her, to myself, and to the dead. “I will, Mariette,” I answered, “I will tell you every thing—every thought, every feeling, as if I were reading out of the book where they are all recorded.”

She bent down her head very low, and, seated beside her, I went on. My conscience tells me that I concealed nothing, that I laid my whole heart before her. But that which seemed to strike her most, was the gentle, tender love of poor Louise.

When I ended the tale with the dear girl’s death, she seemed to have forgotten herself altogether, and gazing up in my face, with the look of a pitying angel, she said, “Poor, poor Louise! How you must have loved her!”

The blood rushed up into my cheeks, and I bent down my face as if to avoid her gaze, murmuring what was perhaps too true, “Not as much as she deserved!”

Mariette started, and I added rapidly, “Do not mistake me, dear girl, I loved her well, very well—I never loved but one better. But I loved her not with that passionate earnestness—with that deep, intense, all absorbing affection which such devotion as hers well merited. I could have seen Louise wedded to another without despair, or agony, or death. I bore her father’s rejection of me with easy, patient fortitude; and I could have put my hand to any act that would have made her happy. Oh, Mariette, let poets, and fiction-writers say what they will, to render mortal love as intense as it may be, there must be a grain of mortal selfishness in it. Passion must be blended with affection; and I have learned—learned from another, that in true love there can be no happiness, no peace, no tranquillity, no life without the loved one.”

She shook like an aspen; but her lips murmured, “From whom?”

“You,” I answered.

“Oh, Louis, Louis,” she said, “are we not both wronging her who is gone?”

“Both!” that word was sufficient; but I would not hurt her feelings by catching at it as eagerly as my heart prompted. I took her hand gently, and quietly in mine, and said in a low lone, “No, Mariette—no, dearest girl. I can never wrong her by telling you the truth. I have concealed nothing from you, my Mariette—I have not concealed from you my deep affection for her, my tenderness—my care of her— my bitter sorrow for her death. Why should I conceal any thing else from you?—why should I not tell the truth in all as well as in a part? Why should I hide from you, that though for a few short days I have been the husband of another, that though she had my esteem, my strong regard, my tenderest pity, my warm affection in a certain sense, I have never truly, really loved but you, from boyhood up to manhood—from my earliest memories to this present hour? Why should I not say to you, that I have always thought of you, dreamed of you, looked for you, longed for you? Believe me, dear Mariette, believe me! If you do not, how can I prove it to you?”

She laid her hand gently upon mine, and looking up at me with a spring-day face, with bright tears and saddened smiles, she said, “The book and the violet—do not, do not, dear Louis, think me so selfish as to be jealous in the least degree of your love for poor Louise. We will often talk of her, and when we are very, very happy ourselves, as I am sure we shall be, we will think of her, and mourning for her sad and early fate, will feel our spirits chastened, and not drain the cup of happiness too eagerly.”

I would have given worlds to have been in some dim, secluded place, where I might have thrown my arms around her, and pressed her to my heart, and told her all I felt; but I dared do no more than clasp her hand in mine in mute confirmation of the pledge her words implied. She was mine: I was hers forever. But we were very silent for nearly a quarter of an hour, and then, with our senses somewhat more collected, and our hearts more still, we began to speak of all that was to follow. I told her that on the ensuing day I should tell her father what had passed between us, and I asked, somewhat anxiously, if she thought his consent would be easily obtained.

She entertained not a doubt, she said; but yet the very suggestion seemed to startle her, and more than once, as we walked homeward, she fell into a fit of musing.

THE CONSENT.

When I went on the following day, not without some trepidation, I must own, to the little cottage inhabited by the Count de Salins, the servant girl informed me that he was far from well. It was said in a tone of denial; but I begged her to tell him that I was there, and wished much to speak with him for a few minutes. I was immediately admitted, and found him seated in his robe de chambre by a fire, though it was summer time. There were strong traces of suffering in his face, but he welcomed me kindly, saying, that the denial he directed the servant to give was not intended for me. Not knowing what effect the communication I had to make might have upon him, I hesitated whether to say all I had intended; but he led the way to it in some degree himself, saying, “I have sent dear Mariette out with her mother; for she seemed dull and not quite well, and I am not very cheerful company to-day.”

“Perhaps I can account, Monsieur de Salins,” I replied, “for Mariette’s being a little thoughtful;” and without giving myself time to pause or hesitate, I went on and told him all at once, adding, as I saw he was a good deal agitated, “I would not have intruded this subject upon you to-day, but that I promised Mariette last night I would not lose a moment in making you acquainted with every thing that had been said between us.”

For three or four minutes he sat gazing steadfastly and sternly into the fire. Then starting up, he walked several times backward and forward in the room, gnawing his lip, and gazing, as it were, at vacancy.

I was sadly alarmed; for I evidently saw that Mariette had been mistaken in counting upon his ready consent, and I feared the result of the struggle which was evidently going on within him. His silence lasted so long as to be quite terrible to me, and I watched him with an expression of eager apprehension, which he saw at once as soon as he turned his eyes upon me. When he did so, he advanced directly to me, took my hand, and wrung it hard.

“I feel like a scoundrel,” he said, to my great surprise, “I feel like a scoundrel. But never mind, Monsieur de Lacy, never mind. She shall be yours, if you will answer me one or two questions sincerely, and as I could wish. I feel like a scoundrel, but those feelings shall not weigh with me.”

“I will answer any questions, Monsieur de Salins,” I replied, “without the slightest reserve.”

“‘Twas but a day or two ago,” said Monsieur de Salins, “that you wished and proposed to share your fortune with us. I readily understood your feelings, and comprehended how the generosity of youth should wish, at any worldly sacrifice, to save from poverty and distress the friends and companions of childhood. Now, you tell me you love my daughter, and propose to marry her. Tell me, Count de Lacy—before God and your conscience—are not the motives of your first proposal mingling with your second?—in a word,” he continued, vehemently, “is not charity—charity, I say, at the bottom of the desire you now express?” and his eye ran haggardly over the scanty furniture of his little room.

“Charity! Monsieur de Salins,” I exclaimed. “Charity, between me and Mariette! Is there any thing I have on earth that is not hers? Oh, no, no; for heaven’s sake, do not entertain for one moment such very painful thoughts. Believe me,” I added, “that I am moved by one feeling alone—the deepest, strongest affection; the warmest, the most passionate love toward that dear girl, who, as you say, was the friend and companion of my childhood; whom I loved then, and only love better, more warmly now. Surely, Monsieur de Salins, you forget what Mariette is, to suppose for an instant that I could seek her with any feeling but one.”

A faint smile came upon his lip. “She is, indeed, very beautiful, and very sweet,” he said, “but Father Bonneville tells me, Monsieur de Lacy, that you have been married before.”

“True,” I answered; “and yet I have never loved any one as I love Mariette.”

“Then she shall be yours,” he said, thoughtfully, “then she shall be yours.”

But I saw that there was still a reluctance, and I said, “Listen to me for five minutes, and clear away all doubts, regarding my former marriage, from your mind.”

He seated himself again in the chair before the fire, and I related to him succinctly, and simply, all that had occurred at the time of my marriage with poor Louise. He listened attentively, and drew a deep sigh when I had done, repeating the words, “She shall be yours,” but adding, “notwithstanding every foolish prejudice.”

“I do not understand you,” I said, “although I am quite sure that no prejudice will weigh with the Count de Salins. Nor do I comprehend how he could accuse himself at any moment of feeling like a scoundrel.”

“My young friend,” he said, slowly and impressively, “I look upon every man as a scoundrel, who does not act upon the principles he professes—upon the principles he knows to be just—I mean, of course, when he has time for deliberation; for every man, in human weakness, may commit in a moment of passion, acts which his heart disavows, and which his conscience afterward condemns. But the man who hesitates to do what he knows to be right, from any motives which he cannot justify, feels like a scoundrel, and such was my case just now. I believed you to be well fitted to make Mariette happy. I felt that I ought to give my consent; and yet, there was in my breast a struggle in which I could hardly conquer. Old prejudices, absurd habitual feelings rose up against my reason and my sense of justice, and they nearly overcame me.”

“But why?” I asked, in a sorrowful tone. “Is there any thing I have ever done—is there any act in my whole life, that should exclude me from your good opinion?”

“None, none,” he said, warmly. “Do not ask me for explanations; for all I can reply, is, that there is a history attached to your family, regarding which you have been brought up in ignorance, both for your own happiness, and the happiness of others. You will learn it some day; but not from me. However, Monsieur de Lacy, the struggle is at an end; Mariette shall be yours; but not just yet. She is very young, and it will be better to wait awhile. I feel my health failing me, it is true, and I have lately been very anxious for her mother and herself. She must be yours before I die, and then such anxiety will be at an end; but I hope to linger on yet some time longer.”

“Let me ask one question, Monsieur de Salins,” I said. “Has the history attached to my family, which you mention, any reference to that Marquis de Carcassonne, whom I saw in London?”

He bowed his head quietly, and setting my teeth hard, I said, in a resolute tone, “That shall be explained, if he and I live many days longer. The blood that flows in my veins, Monsieur de Salins—every feeling that animates my heart, tells me that I have nothing to fear from opening out all the acts of my father’s life to the eyes of the whole world. I will endure this mystery no longer. If my father has been wronged—murdered, as I am told, it is for his son to do him right. If he has been traduced, it is for his son to justify his memory.”

“I cannot deny it,” said Monsieur de Salins, “and I think they have acted wrong, and are acting wrong toward you. They think they are doing it for your good, I dare say—they think it is for your interests—for your future pecuniary advantage; but there is nothing should be so dear to any one, as the memory of a parent, except, indeed, it be his own unspotted name. You have enough. I do not covet more for Mariette than I am told you possess. Strange as it may seem, I have learned from poverty, to value wealth less than I used to do—but here comes my wife,” he added, laying his hand kindly on my arm, “and our Mariette. I know their steps upon the little path. Oh, what music it is, the step of the loved, to the ear of sorrow and sickness!”

It was music to my ear, too; and the moment after, Mariette and her mother were in the room.

The instant she saw me, the dear girl’s cheek flushed, and then turned pale, but she was not kept in suspense; for her father immediately threw his arm around her, and drawing her gently toward me, put her hand in mine.

“Bless them, my dear wife,” he said, turning to Madame de Salins, “bless them; for they are united.”

Madame de Salins embraced us both with eager joy, and then threw her arms round her husband’s neck, saying, “This is all I have most desired, my husband; for I am sure Louis will be to her, all you have been to me.”

THE DROP OF GALL.

Having told Father Bonneville that I should spend two or three days in London, and directed my portmanteau to be sent to a small but comfortable hotel at the end of Brooke street, I rode straight to a livery stable, near Charing Cross, where I was accustomed to put up my horse, and left him there. I then walked on along Pall Mall, meditating my future course, with more calmness and consideration than I had hitherto given to the subject. In regard to one point, my heart was now at rest. Mariette was found—was to be mine, and I had but one great object for thought and endeavor. I had not reached the end of St. James’s street, when I saw before me, a tall, fine, stately figure, which seemed somewhat familiar to me, walking slowly, and deliberately onward, and I turned my head to look at the face as I passed.

“Good morning, Monsieur de Lacy,” said the Earl of N——, in a frank and easy tone. “Whither away so fast, this morning?”

I paused, and took the two fingers he extended to me, saying, “I am going to Brooke street, my lord.”

“Ah, to see Charles,” he answered; “well, I will walk with you part of the way,” and he put his arm through mine, leaning on me somewhat heavily.

I did not wish my thoughts interrupted, and would have gladly got rid of him, had he been any other man; but there were various vague feelings in my bosom, which made that old nobleman’s society not unpleasant to me, even then; and at his slow pace we proceeded. He was silent for a moment, and then, looking round toward me, he said, “Why you are as tall as I am, Monsieur de Lacy.”

“As nearly the same height, I suppose, as possible,” I answered. “I had thought your lordship the taller man, from your carrying yourself so upright, I imagine.”

“And from my white hair, perhaps,” replied the old nobleman. “When we see mountains capped with snow, we are often inclined to think them higher than they are. But how is this, Monsieur de Lacy, Charles tells me you are a Protestant?”

“I am so, my lord,” I replied, “and have been so for some years.”

“Keep to that, keep to that,” rejoined the Earl, with an approving nod of the head. “You will find it better for your temporal and your eternal interests.”

“There is no chance, I believe, of my changing any more, my lord,” I answered, “as my conversion from the church of Rome, was the work of patient examination and sincere conviction, I am not likely to re-tread my steps.”

“I am glad to hear it, I am very glad to hear it,” he answered, and then seemed as if he were about to say something more, but stopped short, and turned the conversation to other subjects.

“Have you heard,” he asked, “that your king, Louis the Eighteenth, is now in England? Our wise governors have refused to recognize him under that title. They wish to leave themselves a loop-hole for recognizing the usurper, and so make him call himself the Count de Lille. They will soon find the folly of such feeble and wavering policy. It is my maxim, when I draw the sword, to throw away the scabbard; but, heaven help us, we are sadly ruled.”

I inquired where the king had taken up his residence, and then said, that I should certainly go down and pay my respects to him.

“Indeed!” exclaimed the earl, with some signs of surprise. “Are you sure of a good reception? Consult Charles—you had better consult Charles. He is a very good counsellor in all such circumstances. Withdrawing as much as I can from public life, I am not the best authority in matters of this kind—and now I must leave you—good bye. Tell Charles to let me know how he is.”

Thus saying, he turned into one of the club houses in St. James’s street, and I walked on.

When I had reached the end of Brook street, and was approaching the door of the hotel, I saw two persons coming toward me, who attracted my attention by the loudness and vivacity with which they were talking French. One was a tall, thin, elderly man, dressed in black, with black silk stockings, and knee breeches. He was very well dressed: but had more the air of a dancing-master than a gentleman.

The other was a little old woman, brisk and active in all her movements, and jabbering away to her companion in her native tongue, with vast volubility. The face was very peculiar, and had it been possible for me to conceive, that a silk gown would ever cover the back, or a velvet bonnet ornament the head of my old friend Jeanette, I should have claimed acquaintance with her at once. She recognized me better, notwithstanding all the changes that had come over my personal appearance, since we parted in Switzerland.

“Bon Dieu!” she cried, stopping in the midst of the pavement, somewhat to the surprise and admiration of the passengers. “Is it possible?—yes—it must be. My dear Louis, do you not recollect Jeanette?”

“Very well, indeed, Jeanette,” I replied, taking both her hands; but the good old woman was in a state of ecstasy that defied all restraint. She cried, she laughed, and I verily believe she would have danced, too, in the middle of Brooke street, had I not held her tight by both the hands, while her companion endeavored to soothe her, by repeating a dozen times, “Mais, Jeanette, mais Mademoiselle!” There was something so indescribably ludicrous in her expression of satisfaction, that I believe that I should soon have laughed too, as well as the passengers; and as my only resource, I took her and her companion into the hotel, to which I had written to have rooms prepared for me. When she was safely seated there, and somewhat quieted, she told me in a very mysterious manner, that she had just been talking about me to “somebody,” but somebody had never told her that I was in England. Her words, and more still, her mysterious manner, raised expectations which were not fulfilled. After a good deal of pressing, I obtained from her the fact that this somebody of whom she spoke was no other than Charles Westover; and I found that the man who accompanied her was an old valet de chambre of the Earl of N——. This was not altogether satisfactory to me; but yet it was another link in the evidence, showing—to my mind beyond a doubt—that there was some connection between my own fate and the earl’s family.

I soon sent away the valet de chambre, telling him that I would take care Jeanette should return in safety; and I felt half inclined to go with her, and demand explanations of the earl himself. A very brief reflection, however, determined me to forbear; but I questioned Jeanette closely concerning my own history and that of my family. She was very unwilling to speak, evaded my questions, gave me ambiguous replies, and when pressed very hard, sought woman’s usual refuge with tears, sobbing forth, “I must not break my vow, my dear boy. I must not break my vow.”

I could not bring myself to ask her more; but I turned to another point, saying, “Well, Jeanette, if you are bound by a vow not to speak on those subjects, tell me at least, do you know any thing of the Marquis de Carcassonne?”

The poor woman’s face assumed an expression of horror not easily to be forgotten. “Know him!” she exclaimed, “know that terrible man! Oh, yes, Louis, I know him too well. He ruined as happy a family as ever lived, and destroyed as noble a gentleman as was in all the world.”

Her words seemed to change my blood to fire; but I asked as coolly as I could, “Can you tell me how it was done, Jeanette?”

“Oh no,” she answered. “I was but a poor, ignorant servant, and did not hear any of his ways and arts, at least to understand them. All I know is, what it came to. I can’t tell you any more; but he is a dreadful man. It makes me tremble even to think of him.”

“Then I will go to him, and wring it from his heart,” I answered, fiercely; “for know the whole, and expose the whole, I will.”

“Oh don’t go near him, Louis; don’t go near him,” she cried, almost in a scream; joining her hands together as if she were praying to a saint. “He is the destruction of every one who approaches him, and he will find means to destroy you, too.”

“I have seen him once,” I answered, “since I have been in England, and I will most certainly go to him again, Jeanette, and force him to confess all he has done. I have no fear of him,” I added, almost with a scoff, remembering the miserable object I had seen in Swallow street. “He cannot harm me, Jeanette.”

“Stay, stay, Louis,” she said, eagerly. “Good Father Noailles tells me he is sick, and that he must die—perhaps we could find a way without your going near him. He will be terribly afraid of death when it comes close to him. All the frightful things he has done will rise up before his eyes, when he feels that he is going to answer for them. He has sent for Father Noailles twice already, and the good man says that his mind is in a perilous state—let me try, Louis; let me try. Perhaps I can manage it.”

“Whatever you do, you must do quickly, Jeanette,” I answered; “for I can and will bear this suspense no longer.”

“Well, well, I will go this moment,” she said; “but where can I find you, Louis, to tell you what I have done?”

“Here, for the next three days,” I replied, “and after that at Blackheath. I will give you the address.”

I wrote it down for her, and then ordered a hackney coach to be called; but she did not direct it to drive to the house of the Earl of N——, which was in Berkeley Square, but to a small street in Soho.

After she was gone, I paused again to think for a short time, and I resolved, notwithstanding the hopes she held out, to see the Marquis de Carcassonne myself. There was more than one piece of information to be obtained from him, and I fancied that I could wring out of him the whole of that history which I was so anxious to learn. It would be better in the first place, I thought, to see Westover; and I hurried away to his rooms, which were somewhat farther up the street.

I found him lying on a sofa, reading; and my errand was soon told. “I come to you for advice, Westover,” I said, “advice such as none but a friend—a sincere friend, can give.” I then went on to tell him the state of cruel anxiety and agitation I was in, and expressed my intention of seeing the Marquis de Carcassonne myself. I mentioned my meeting with Jeanette, too, and that I found she had been talking with him of me and mine.

He heard the first part of what I said, gravely, and somewhat gloomily, but smiled when I mentioned Jeanette, and replied frankly, “I sent for her for the very purpose, De Lacy. It would not do for me, you know, to hold long conferences with pretty young maid-servants in my grandfather’s house, and so I thought it better to have her here. So she told you nothing?”

“Nothing,” I replied; “she asserted that she was under a vow of secrecy.”

“That is very likely,” he said; “but as to this Marquis de Carcassonne, I think you had better trust him to her. I see very well what she intends to do. She will go to the old priest Noailles, and get him to work upon the scoundrel’s mind, under the fear of death and judgment. Such men almost always become cowards at the brink of the grave; and old Noailles is his confessor, I suppose. If he confesses all, Noailles, well prompted, may, perhaps, refuse him absolution, unless he does justice, however tardy, and thus we may get at the truth at length. It is no bad scheme of the old lady.”

“Then do you not know the truth, yourself?” I asked in some surprise.

He shook his head, answering, “I have moral conviction, De Lacy, but no proof, and therefore cannot say I know the truth.”

“I will go to him myself,” I said, after thinking for a minute or two.

“Well, I do not see that it can do any harm,” replied Westover, thoughtfully; “but you had better go to him after dark, or probably you will not see him. Men suspect that both he and his apothecary carry on the lucrative occupation of spies, or at least that of conveying information and gold to France, where both are somewhat scarce just now. Then there is another thing, De Lacy. I ask you as a personal favor, if you can contrive to make this obdurate man speak, to let me know all that he has said before you communicate it to any one else—I bind you by no other engagement. Will you promise me this?”

“Willingly,” I answered; “as soon as I know the truth, I shall be glad that all the world knows it also.”

“That as we shall judge hereafter,” said Westover, with a significant smile, “and now will you stay and dine with me. We have time for a ride, or a walk, before the dinner hour.”

I declined, however, for I felt myself in no state of mind to enjoy society, and returning to the hotel, I sat there in uneasy pondering, till the sky began to turn gray. I then walked out and passed down Swallow street; but it was not yet dark enough for my purpose. I proceeded therefore to the end of the street, took a turn through those long forgotten alleys which led to St. James’s market, and walked back again, while a dingy man, with a red-flaming and stench-emitting link, ran up and down a ladder at every lamp-post before me, lighting the dim lamps, which were the only illumination of London before the modern improvement of gas. Just as I approached the door of the apothecary, I saw that worthy gentleman issue forth, with coat tightly buttoned up, and hat pressed down upon his brows, and not wishing to call him back to his shop, I passed by a few steps and then returned. When I entered I found no one but a small servant boy or apprentice at the counter, and simply saying, I wished to speak to Monsieur de Carcassonne, I approached the foot of the stairs by which I had mounted before. The boy seemed to hesitate as to whether he should try to stop me or not; but at length when I had the door leading to the staircase in my hand, he said, “You’d better take a light,” and handed me a lamp. As I mounted the steps, in a foul, close atmosphere, which below, had the odor of drugs, and above, that of confined and deteriorated air, I heard a frequent, rattling cough, sounding from the upper rooms, and I judged by the peculiar noise it made, that the life of the cougher was not worth many day’s purchase. I knocked at the door of the Marquis de Carcassonne, as a mere matter of ceremony, but without waiting, opened it and went in. I found him seated in nearly the same position as when I previously saw him, before the fire of his little stove grate; but though the room smelt of food there was no cooking going on.

He was greatly altered. His face was white and blue, and become exceedingly thin and meagre: His whole person shrunk, and his eyes full of a vivacious anxiety which I have often since remarked in the last stages of organic diseases. He had got a newspaper in his hand, which in the true French spirit he was reading eagerly, by the light of a single, sweaty, tallow candle, that required incessant snuffing; but he instantly raised his eyes above the edge of the paper, looking toward the door, with a somewhat perturbed expression of countenance. At first he gazed at me without the slightest trace of recognition on his face, but I was not in a frame of mind to be abashed or daunted by the look of any man. There was a stern, earnest determination in my heart, which could meet a sneer, or an insult, or a threat, with equal indifference.

He rose up from his chair, with habitual politeness, went through the customary bow with the customary grace, and then sank down again into his seat, unable to stand long upon his feet. I walked calmly and deliberately up to the side of the table, and without being invited, seated myself exactly before him.

I must not stay to scrutinize my feelings at that moment. It is enough to say that they were sufficiently fiendish. There he sat, the murderer of my father, the persecutor of my race—a worm—a snake—which wanted but one crush of my heel, as it seemed to me, to lie a mass of rotting corruption before me. Pity! I could feel no pity at that moment. All human charities seemed extinguished within me, and although I would not have injured the frail body for the world, yet I felt if I could have got at his spirit I would have torn it to pieces.

He looked at me in surprise and dismay, as in dull silence I drew a chair to the table and sat down, gazing fixedly at him, as if I would have looked into his very soul. He said not a word, and after a pause, I asked, “Do you know me, Marquis de Carcassonne?”

“No,” he said, in the shrill treble of age, and with a look of fear and agitation, shrinking back in his chair as far as he could. “No. The dead do not come back here below—That is a superstition—No, I do not know you, though you are like—very like.”

“I am Louis De Lacy,” I said, sternly.

“Ah!” he cried “ah!” and he put out his hand as if to push me off from him.

I could see him shiver and quake, and I went on repeating the same words: “I am Louis De Lacy, the son of him you murdered. He is before you in my person. He speaks to you by my voice. He demands that you do justice to his memory, even now, when you are trembling on the brink of that grave beyond which you will soon meet face to face. Answer me, Marquis de Carcassonne. Will you at length tell the truth? Will you do justice to the dead? Will you make the only atonement you can make to the murdered, before God puts his seal upon your obduracy, and you go to judgment for your crimes unconfessed and unrepented of?”

The old man quivered in every limb and his face was as pale as death; but he answered not a word, and I went on with a hardness of heart for which I have hardly forgiven myself yet. “You were once wealthy,” I said, “and you are now poor. You were once the inhabitant of gilded halls, and soft, luxurious apartments: You are now in a miserable garret, wretched, and dark, and gloomy. Your crimes have led not to greater wealth and opulence; not to comfort and indulgence; not to the objects of ambition and desire; but to penury, distress, and want. There is a further step before you—a deep abyss, into which you seem inclined to plunge. The grave is a colder dwelling than this, the tribunal of an all-seeing God more terrible than any you can appeal to here, the hell which you have dug for yourself, more agonizing than even your conscience at this moment.”

The very vehemence with which I spoke seemed to frustrate my own purpose, and to rouse in his decaying frame, and sinking mind, a spirit of resistance which had formerly been strong within him. He grasped the arm of his chair. He sat upright. He moved his jaw almost convulsively, and then said, with serpent bitterness, “So, so—son of a traitor. You would have me lie, would you, to recover for you your father’s estates, to clear your name from the infamy that hangs upon it, and shall hang upon it to all eternity. You would have me unsay all I have said, recant all I have sworn? But mark me, boy, I will put upon record before I die the confirmation of every charge against your treacherous father. I will leave it more deeply branded on his name than ever, that he deceived his king, betrayed his country, renounced his honor, falsified his word, and sold himself to the enemy, and his name shall stand in the annals of the world, as the blackest of traitors, and the basest of men—Ha, ha! What are your threats now, fool?”

I started up, and it was with great pain I kept my hands from him; but I mastered my first rash impulse, and I said, “Then I summon you to meet him whom you have belied and murdered, whom you still, unrepenting, and unatoning, calumniate and accuse, before the throne of Almighty God, and to answer, where falsehood is vain and cunning is of no resource, where the truth is written on tables of light, and falsehood is blotted out in everlasting darkness, where hell and eternal damnation await remorseless crime, for every word you have uttered this night! As your heart judges you, so feel, and so act. Die in peace and calm assurance, or in horror, and terror, and despair.”

He shrank back, and back, and back, into his chair, and at the last words, he pressed his trembling hands upon his eyes, as if he would have shut out the fearful images I had presented to him. His face grew livid, and his whole frame heaved, as if the torture of the eternal flame had already seized upon him.

I know not whether I should have said more or not; but a moment after I had ceased speaking, and while I still stood gazing at him, writhing before me, the door opened and a venerable looking old man, dressed in black, entered the room. He gazed an instant in surprise, at the pale and trembling wretch, and at me; and then he asked in a stern and solemn tone, “Who are you?—What have you done, young man?”

“I am Louis de Lacy,” I answered coldly. “That is the Marquis de Carcassonne, the murderer of my father. What I have done is what, if you are a priest, you should do—made a dark criminal tremble, before the way to atonement, and the gates of mercy are shut against him forever;” and without waiting for any further question, I hurried away from the room, down the dark staircase, and out into the crowded street.

LIGHT FROM THE PAST.

My thoughts were in such a state of tumult and confusion, that I cannot say I considered any thing for many minutes after I quitted the den of that old snake; but I took my way, at once, toward Westover’s lodgings, and told him all that had occurred.

“You had better have left it to Jeanette, I believe,” he replied, with that mixture of worldly knowledge and pure, high feeling which I had often remarked in him. “You do not know how often, De Lacy, things can be accomplished by inferior agents and dirty tools, which all the skill and vigor of the clear-headed and high-minded are unable to effect. You see, this good woman, and this good priest, would have no scruple whatever in employing means which you would not condescend to use. I trust you have not done much mischief—perhaps some good; but at all events, now take my advice and leave the matter in the hands of Jeanette and her revered coadjutor.”

“There is no hope; there is no chance,” I said. “The man is as hard as the nether mill-stone.”

“We cannot tell what may be done,” replied Westover. “At all events one thing is very clear—you can do nothing; so if I were you, I would take myself out of town, and not fret my spirit with thinking of it any more. By the way, how go on your affairs with the beauty amongst the roses?”

“As well as I could wish,” I replied, with a smile, for he dexterously enough brought up happier images before my eyes. “She is to be mine, but not just yet. However, I forgot to tell you, Westover, that I met your grandfather to-day, and he walked up St. James’s street with me.”

“Ha! indeed!” said Westover, with a look of pleased surprise. “What did he say? How did he act?”

“Very kindly,” I answered.

“Walked up St. James’s street with you?” repeated Westover. I nodded my head, and he asked, “Did he invite you to his house?”

“No,” I replied, “nor gave any hint of such an intention.”

A shade came over my friend’s face again, and he inquired, “What did he say?”

“Nothing very particular,” I answered. “He told me that his majesty, my king, had arrived at Yarmouth, and advised me to consult you as to whether I should go to pay my respects to him.”

“By all means,” replied Westover, eagerly, “by all means. Lose not a moment. Be one of the first. Let us set off by the stage to-morrow morning.”

“Do you propose to go with me, then?” I asked.

“Oh yes, I had better,” he replied, “I can introduce you to the king. I saw him some time ago in Livonia, and dined with him twice.”

“Perhaps that may obviate your grandfather’s objections,” I said; “for he seemed to doubt whether I should be well received.”

“I think you will,” replied Westover, musing. “I think you will. I remember some conversation with the king, which makes me judge so. He can have had no reason to change his opinion since; but at all events I will see him first and ascertain.”

He spoke very thoughtfully, and gave no explanation of the strange fact, that he should have had a conversation, referring to myself, with Louis the Eighteenth, before he ever saw me. But during the last two or three months, one circumstance after another, fact following fact, incident coming after incident, had accumulated a mass of little proofs which brought conviction to my mind, that there was some strong, though secret bond between Westover’s family and myself. However, I agreed to his proposal at once. He sent a servant to take places in the coach for the following day, and ere another night fell we were in Yarmouth.

We found that the king, with his small suite, was lodging in the same hotel with ourselves, and Westover at once sent to request an interview on the following morning, which was immediately promised, with a very courteous message in reply.

At the hour appointed he went, and I remained with some impatience, thinking him very long. Not more than half an hour, however, passed in reality, before he returned, saying, “Quick, De Lacy, his majesty will see you at once. Go to him, go to him. He is prepared for you.”

I went away accordingly, leaving him there, as he did not seem inclined to accompany me, and was introduced by a mere servant who was stationed at the door, into the poor, small drawing-room of the inn, which had been assigned to the French prince. I found an ordinary looking man, somewhat inclined to corpulence—though he was not so fat as he afterward became—standing near a table. His manners, however, if not his appearance, at once displayed the prince. He took one step forward, as if to meet me, and held out his hand to me, saying, “Monsieur De Lacy, I am very happy to see you. It is most grateful to me to receive such kind visits from my countrymen and fellows in misfortune. The attachment of some of the noblest hearts of France, is no slight compensation for all the ills I have suffered.”

I bent my head to his hand and kissed it, saying, “I trust, sire, that you never will find any of my name, or race, without that warm attachment which I am sure your majesty deserves.”

I had no intention whatsoever in this reply, of leading up to any thing; but the king seemed to think I had some particular allusion, and answered at once. “I am sure of it, Monsieur De Lacy. I always was quite sure of it. In your poor father’s case I never entertained a doubt. I was certain all through—to the very end, and am now—that he was the victim of a foul conspiracy. Kings can but act, you know, according to the lights that are permitted them, and I mean not to throw the slightest blame upon my poor brother. He acted by the advice of ministers whom he loved and respected. The judgment of a regularly constituted court had been pronounced, and he cannot be censured for having suffered it to be carried into execution, contrary to all the impulses of his own heart. I could not have done so; for I was fully convinced of your father’s innocence; but his judgment was misled by a very artful knave.”

I was greatly agitated, but I replied, “I am so little aware, sire, of my father’s fate and history, that I hardly comprehend your majesty’s meaning. With the mistaken motive of sparing me pain, I believe, I have been kept in ignorance of what I know must be a very sorrowful history.”

“Your friends were wrong, Monsieur De Lacy. Very wrong, I think,” replied the king. “It is but right and necessary that you should know the whole; for the vindication of your father’s name may be a task which you have still to fulfill. Pray sit down, and I will give you a brief account of the matter—Only let me hint, in the first place, that, for the present, you must drop the title of majesty with me. I am here only the Count de Lille.”

“I, at least, can never forget that you are a king, and my king,” I replied.

“Spoken like your father’s son,” said Louis, seating himself, and pointing to a chair, and he then proceeded thus: “Your father, Monsieur De Lacy, was a very gallant and distinguished officer, of an Irish family long settled in France. He was employed in England, for some time, in a diplomatic capacity; and a few years after, was appointed to a command in one of our East Indian possessions. War had by this time broken out between France and England, and the great preponderance of the latter country in the East, rendered the maintenance of our territories there very difficult. The derangement of the finances, and the daily increasing embarrassments of the government, prevented our commanding officers, in distant parts of the world, from receiving sufficient support. Your father was besieged by the English, in a fortress, naturally very strong, but ill-furnished with provisions, ammunition, or men. He made, what was considered by all at the time, a very gallant defense, but in the end, was forced to surrender the place upon an honorable capitulation. On his return to France, he was well received; but his friends, rather than himself, sought for some distinguishing mark of his sovereign’s favor and approval, and demanded for him a high office at the court, which I happened to know, was an object of eager ambition to a personage called the Marquis de Carcassonne—indeed, he applied to me for my interest in the matter, which I refused. Your father would certainly have obtained it; but there began to be spread rumors about the court, which soon assumed consistence and a very formidable aspect, to which various circumstances, and especially the fact of your father having married an English lady, gave undue weight. It was said that he had sold the fortress to the English; that he had surrendered long before it was necessary; that he had not obtained so favorable a capitulation as he might have done. The charges in the end became so distinct, that your father himself, demanded to be tried. He was accordingly, what we call, put in accusation, and the cause was heard. One little incident I must not forget. This Marquis de Carcassonne said, in the hearing of several persons who were sure to repeat his words, that it mattered not what was the result of the trial, as your father was sure to be pardoned, even if he were condemned. This observation was reported to the king, who said, with some warmth, that nothing should induce him to interfere with the sentence of the court, whatever it might be. At the trial, overpowering evidence, as it seemed to me, was brought forward to show the state of the fortress, and the utter impossibility of defending it longer than had been done; but on the other hand, to the surprise of every one, two letters were produced, purporting to be part of the correspondence between your father and the English general. Your father loudly declared that they were forgeries; but then came forward the Marquis de Carcassonne, who had had some correspondence with your father when in India, and swore distinctly that the letter purporting to be the prisoner’s, was verily in his handwriting. Many doubted—few believed, this assertion. Various differences were pointed out between your father’s hand and that in which the letter was written, and your father might probably have escaped. But two circumstances combined to destroy him. Public clamor was, at that time, raised to the highest pitch, in regard to the loss of our possessions in India; it was necessary that there should be some victim to atone for the faults of a feeble and inefficient ministry, and at the same time, a man was brought forward to account for the discovery of these letters, by swearing that he had found them in your father’s own cabinet. He was a mean apothecary of Paris, who was accustomed to go a good deal to the house, in attendance upon the servants. But he acknowledged the base act of having privately read and possessed himself of these documents. The man had been born upon the estates of the Marquis de Carcassonne, and brought up by his father. This rendered his evidence suspicious, at least to me; but it weighed with the judges, and the result was that your father was condemned. I need not dwell upon all the horrible events that followed. Suffice it to say, that a man as brave and honorable, I believe, as ever lived, was executed unjustly, that a stain was cast upon a high and distinguished name, and that the whole of the fine estates of the family were confiscated.”

I need hardly say with what emotion I listened to this detail, and I remained for several moments in silence, with my head bent down, and full of indignation and grief which I could not venture to express. The king saw how greatly I was affected, and very kindly strove to soothe me. “If it will be any comfort to you, Monsieur De Lacy,” he said, “I give you the most solemn assurance, that I never for a moment believed your father guilty, and that should fortune ever restore us to our own country, I shall take the necessary steps for having your father’s sentence reversed, and his memory justified. I am not singular in my opinions upon this subject; for when the people recovered their senses, after your father’s death, the indignation excited against his accusers was so great, that the apothecary who had produced the letters was forced to quit France.”

“Was his name Giraud, sire?” I asked.

The king bowed his head, and went on, “Perhaps if he is still living,” he said, “the man might be induced to tell the truth. Monsieur de Carcassonne is still living, I know, but he also found it convenient to travel, and never obtained the post for which he played so deep a game. I am inclined to think the forgery was his; for I know that he forged the letters of a woman, and we therefore may well suppose he would not scruple to forge the letters of a man.”

In the midst of all the many thoughts to which this account gave rise, one idea presented itself prominently to my mind. The king had mentioned that my mother was an English-woman. Might he not tell me who she was? But just as I was about to put the question, three other French gentlemen were introduced, and I was obliged to refrain for the time, although I determined to seek another opportunity of making the inquiry. I retired then with an expression of my gratitude, and rejoined Westover in our little sitting-room.

He inquired eagerly into the particulars of my interview with the king, and I related to him the whole.

“Is that all,” he said. “Did he tell you nothing more?”

“Nothing, Westover,” I answered, “but we were interrupted before my audience was fairly at an end. He told me,” I added, somewhat emphatically, “who my father was, and what was his unhappy fate. He did not tell me who my mother was, but that I will soon know, Westover.”

My friend mused in silence for some minutes, and then said, “Let us first see what can be made of this Marquis de Carcassonne. I have great hopes in the skill and policy of your good old Jeanette, and the priest. If we could but get the old reprobate to die a little faster, the whole thing might be settled very soon.”

“He looked very much like a dying man when I left him,” I replied.

“Nay, that would be too quick,” said Westover. “We must leave them time to work upon him. Don’t you go near him again, De Lacy, for fear you should blow the candle out when you most need the light. And now, let us go and take a sail upon the sea, and then away to London by the early coach to-morrow.”

I followed his guidance, with the full and strong conviction that he wished me well, and at an early hour on the following day, we were once more rolling on our way toward the capital. We arrived after dark, and Westover went to dine with me at my hotel. The people of the house, with the usual care and promptitude of hotel keepers, suffered the dinner to be placed upon the table, and half-eaten, before they informed me that that the old French lady whom I had seen on the day of my arrival, had been three times there to inquire for me.

“News, news, certainly,” cried Westover. “Bring me a sheet of paper, waiter. We will soon have Jeanette with us;” and writing a hurried note to the good old dame, he sent it off by a porter to his grandfather’s house. An hour, however, elapsed without any intelligence, and then the same waiter appeared, saying, with a half-suppressed grin, “She is here again, sir, asking if you have returned.”

“Show her in,” I said impatiently; “show her in directly.”

The man retired with some surprise, I believe, at my anxiety to see an ugly old woman, and certainly he did not hurry himself, for full five minutes passed before Jeanette was in the room, and the eagerness of her face showed when she entered that the delay had not been on her part.

THE CONFESSION.

“Get your hat, get your hat, Louis,” exclaimed Jeanette, rubbing her little hands, “and come away directly, or it will be too late. He will tell all, he will tell all; but he has been in a dying state since this morning. His speech seems failing, so make haste, make haste—he will tell all as soon as he sees you, he says, if you will but forgive him.”

I darted to the sideboard and took my hat. Westover started up at the same moment, exclaiming in French, “May I go with you?”

“Yes, yes,” cried Jeanette. “Come with him, come with him; the more the better; every one is a witness, and that is something.”

We darted down the stairs and away. How we got through the streets, I do not know, but we all hurried separately through the crowds, running against half a dozen people, and getting hearty benedictions for our pains. I arrived first at the apothecary’s shop, and saw at a glance as I entered, the villain himself deliberately packing up something at the counter. He looked at me with a cold, sneering expression, but said nothing, and without asking any questions I ran up the stairs at once, to the miserable room of the Marquis de Carcassonne. I opened the door unceremoniously, and went in. The sight was one full of awful solemnity—at least to me, who had never seen any one die, except by a sudden and violent death, or by a gentle, yet quick transition from the life of this world to the life of another.

On the wretched pallet bed, without a rag of curtain round it, lay the ghastly figure of the dying man. All living color had passed from his face; the swollen, bloated appearance, too, was gone. The features were sharpened and pinched; the eyes sunk; the temples collapsed; the white hair, wild and ragged. One ashy hand was stretched over the bed-clothes, holding a crucifix which lay upon his breast, and his eyes, which seemed glassy and almost immovable, were directed to the symbol of salvation.

On the table stood a large wax-taper, and between the table and the bed stood the old priest, Father Noailles, who had come in at the end of my last interview with the Marquis. His head was slightly bent, as if watching the face of the dying man, while a younger man, with a white robe on, stood at the other side of the bed, holding a small, chased silver vessel in his hands.

There was a dead silence in the room when I entered; but at the sound of my steps the priest turned round, and exclaimed, as soon as he saw me, “He is here, he is here! Henri de Carcassonne, he has come to you at length!”

The eyes of the dying man turned faint and feebly toward me, and the priest advanced a step, and grasped my hand with a tight and eager pressure.

“Forgive him,” he said; “tell him you forgive him!—if you be a man, if you be a Christian—tell him you forgive him!”

I paused with my eyes fixed upon the face of the Marquis, and some feeling of compassion entered into my heart. But I could not speak the words he wanted to draw from me—I could not pronounce forgiveness to the murderer of my father. I remained silent, while the priest repeated, more than once, “Forgive him, oh forgive him, and let him part in peace!” I heard the steps of Westover and Jeanette approaching, and I said, at length, “Has he done justice to my father’s memory? Will he—can he now do justice to it?”

The priest drew back from me and let go my hand. “Young man,” he said, in a solemn and reproving tone, “make no bargain with God! Trifle not with the command of your Saviour. It is Christ who bids you to forgive, if you would be forgiven, to love your enemies, to pray for those who hate you. Forgive him! On your soul’s salvation, I call upon you to pronounce your forgiveness of that wretched, dying old man while the words can still reach his ear, and console him at this last, dark, terrible moment—forgive him, I say!”

“Speak, De Lacy, speak,” said the voice of Westover, “for God’s sake tell him you forgive him!”

At the same moment, the hand of the dying man made a feeble movement on the cross as if he would have raised it, and an expression of imploring anxiety came into his fading eyes that touched me. I took a step forward to the side of the bed, and said, “Marquis de Carcassonne, I do forgive you, and I pray that God Almighty, for his Son’s sake, may forgive you also!”

The light of joy and relief came for an instant into the old man’s eyes, but faded away instantly; and I thought that he was a corpse.

“Stand back!” said Father Noailles, with inconceivable energy, and placing himself right before the dying man, and clasping his hands together, he swung them up and down as if he had a censer in them—whether it was to rouse his attention or not, I cannot tell—and then he exclaimed aloud, “If any fiend prevents your utterance, I command him hence in the name of the Blessed Trinity—of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

“Henri de Carcassonne, I adjure you, as you hope for pardon and life eternal, answer me before these present—Is all you have told me concerning the death of the Count de Lacy true?—and do you fully and freely consent to my making it public, without any reservation on the plea of confession? If so, say yes, or die in your sins!”

There was something inexpressibly grand and awful in his look, his tone, his manner; but something more awful was to come.

As we may suppose one would rise from the dead, the Marquis de Carcassonne suddenly raised himself in the bed, and in a clear, distinct tone replied—“It is true, so help me God—I do consent.”

The last word rattled in his throat. The effort was over. It was the flash of the expiring lamp, and the words were hardly uttered, when he fell over on his side with a ghastly swimming of his eyes.

“It is done!” said Father Noailles, solemnly, and raising the poor wretch’s head he put it on the pillow. There was now a fixed stare, a meaningless, vacant look in those glassy orbs, the moment before turned upon the confessor, which showed that “it was done” indeed. The next instant the jaw dropped, and we stood in silence round a corpse.

I thanked God at that moment, that I had pronounced the words of forgiveness; and I stood by with Westover and Jeanette, while Father Noailles, and the young man who was with him, sprinkled some holy water on the dead man’s face, and performed one or two little offices according to the customs of France and the Roman Catholic church. I would not have interrupted by a word for the world; but when the priest had done, and turned toward us with a deep sigh, I advanced and took his hand, saying, “I thank you, sir, most sincerely, for having led me to cast away the evil passion in my heart, and show some charity at last—I rejoice that I have done it, whatever be the confession that this man has made.”

“We must forgive, Monsieur de Lacy,” replied Father Noailles, mildly, “or how can we expect Christ to mediate for us. I have now to tell you, that this poor man acknowledged to me this morning, that your father had been accused unjustly, that the letters which had been brought forward at his trial were indeed forged, as many suspected, and that the count died an innocent and injured man. I took his words down, and he signed them as best he could, giving me full permission to place the statement in your hands. There was no one present but ourselves, however, and a confessor must be very cautious. It was therefore absolutely necessary that I should obtain his consent to the publication of the statement in the presence of witnesses. Here it is. It is brief, but sufficient for all purposes. He was not in a state to give full details, but there is no point unnoticed which can tend to clear the memory of your father.”

“Join me at my lodgings in half an hour,” said Westover, quietly speaking over my shoulder. “I have business which calls me away just now.”

I simply nodded assent; for my whole thoughts were occupied for a time with the subject before me, and turning to the priest I said, “I presume, Monsieur de Noailles, that this precious document will be made over to me?”

“Beyond all doubt, Monsieur de Lacy,” he said, “to you it properly belongs, but I must request you to allow me to take an attested copy of it, and must beg all here present to join in a certificate that this unhappy man authorized me fully to make the statement public.”

“That we will all willingly do,” I replied. “Perhaps you had better draw up the paper you require, yourself.”

That he declined to do, however, and with a pen and ink and paper, which had remained upon the table since the morning, I quickly wrote an attestation of the fact that Henri, Marquis de Carcassonne, had, in the presence of the subscribers, fully authorized the Reverend Pere Noailles to make known and publish all the facts which he had stated on his deathbed, in regard to the trial and execution of the late Count Louis de Lacy, as matters communicated to him, freely, and for the relief of his conscience, and not in the form of penitential confession, or under the seal of secrecy.

“I undertake,” I said, when I had signed the paper myself, and Jeanette and the young assistant had signed it also, “that Captain Westover, who has been obliged to leave us on business, shall put his name to it likewise. Now, Monsieur de Noailles, will you permit me to look at that paper? We will make a copy of it immediately; but, of course, my anxiety to see the contents is great.”

The old man placed the paper in my hands, and seated at the table beside him, I read as follows:

“I, Henri Marquis de Carcassonne, do hereby acknowledge and certify, that by various false and iniquitous charges, set on foot for objects and motives of my own, I did, many years ago, to wit in the year of our Lord 178-, cause and procure Louis, Count de Lacy, to be brought to trial for treason and dereliction of duty in the government of the possessions of the French crown in the East Indies: that I have every reason to believe the said Count de Lacy to have been totally and entirely innocent of the crimes thus laid to his charge, and, moreover, that two letters produced in court at the trial of the said count, and purporting to be parts of a correspondence between himself and Sir E. C—— were, to my certain knowledge, and with my cognizance, forged; not by myself, but a certain Giraud, apothecary to the household of the said count, for the purpose of procuring his condemnation; and that I prompted and encouraged the said Giraud to counterfeit the count’s hand, and forge the above mentioned documents, inasmuch as I found that the charges could not be sustained without them, and I feared the vengeance of the said Count de Lacy, if acquitted, on account of certain previous passages between us. I bitterly regret and repent of the crime I thus committed in procuring the death of an innocent man; and now finding that it pleases God to take me from this world, and that I have not many hours to live, I make this acknowledgment and confession solely to do justice to the memory of the said Count de Lacy, and to make atonement, as far as is in my power, for the evil and misery I have brought upon him and his family, trusting that God will accept my tardy repentance, through the merits of my Saviour Christ, I have hereunto, in my perfect senses, and with full knowledge and recollection of all the facts, set my hand, in witness of the truth of all the particulars contained herein, the above having been previously read over by me, in presence of the Reverend Pere de Noailles, having been taken down by him from my own lips.”

It seemed as if a mountain had been removed from my breast. I thought not of any advantages which might result to myself. I carried not my thoughts at all into the future. My father’s memory was cleared. His honor, his fair name was reëstablished. No crime now blackened the annals of my race, and when I turned and looked at the corpse of his murderer, I said with a free heart, and a sincere spirit, “May God forgive you, unhappy man.”

Poor Jeanette, who was by my side, and had been weeping a good deal during all these transactions, took me by the hand, saying, joyfully—

“All will go well now, Louis—all will go well. More depends upon that paper than you know. Keep it safe, keep it safe, and all will go well.”

It was necessary, however, in the first instance, to give a copy to Monsieur de Noailles, and when that was done, some further conversation ensued between us, in regard to the funeral of the Marquis de Carcassonne. I found that he had few, if any, friends in London; for long previous to his illness, he had been suspected by the principal emigrants in England of being a spy in the pay of the existing French government.

“I shall be willing to bear the expense,” I said; “if I can get any one to superintend the management.”

“From what I know,” replied Monsieur de Noailles, “I think that both the expense and trouble should fall upon the man below stairs. I have reason to believe that, for the last year, during which the Marquis has been in feeble health, Giraud has both ill-treated and plundered him, to a very great extent. The man is a hardened sinner, a scoffer, and an atheist; but the facts revealed in that document may, perhaps, frighten him into doing what is right, and I see no reason why you should be called upon, Monsieur de Lacy, to pay for that which he himself, I’m sure, is bound to do.”

I agreed perfectly in this view of the case; but we found ourselves deceived.

On descending to the shop, there was nobody in it but the boy whom I had seen there once before. He told us that Monsieur Giraud had called an hackney-coach, and had gone away in it, with three trunks. He never returned, and I conclude that, alarmed at the revelations likely to be made by the Marquis de Carcassonne in his dying moments, he fled from England, and died somewhere in obscurity. The boy told us that, before he went, he had cursed the old fool up stairs, and had said, that as he seemed determined to die with a cow’s tail in his hand, he should absent himself for a day or two, as he did not like such mummeries.

This afforded sufficient indication of his intention to induce me to request Monsieur de Noailles to make all the arrangements of the funeral in my name, and after having obtained his promise to that effect, and given him my address at Blackheath, I took my departure.

Jeanette went upon her way to Berkeley square, while I hurried on toward the lodgings of Westover, the hour of meeting which he had named having long passed.

I found a chariot, with flaming lamps, at his door, and was admitted immediately by a servant in livery, who seemed to be waiting in the hall; but before I could mount the stair-case, I was met by Westover himself, coming down with his hat on.

“Come with me, Louis,” he said; “come with me. Thank God for this night’s work.”

“Where are you going to take me?” I asked.

“Never mind at present,” he answered, “to a house where you have never been.”

My heart beat with very strange sensations; but I followed him to the carriage, and got in with him. When the door was closed, the servant touched his hat, inquiringly, and Westover said, “home.”

It was the only word he spoke during the drive, which was short enough.

At length, the carriage drew up at the door of a large house, a thundering knock resounded through the square, and we both got out and entered a hall, in which several powdered servants were standing. Westover passed them all, without a word, and I followed. We went up a magnificent stair-case, lined with old portraits, till my companion paused suddenly, laying his hand upon the lock of a door upon the first floor.

“Go in, Louis,” he said, in a low voice, “go in.”

“Will you not come in to introduce me?” I said.

“Not for the world,” he answered, “go in, Louis,” and he opened the door for me to pass.

The next moment, I found myself in a large drawing-room but faintly lighted; but there was a smaller one beyond, with a better light, and seated on a sofa there, I beheld a lady, with her handkerchief lying on the table beside her, and her eyes buried in her hands. The opening door made her look up, and I saw the beautiful but faded face of Lady Catharine covered with tears. The moment she beheld me, she sprang up from the sofa, ran forward, cast her arms round my neck, and I heard the words—“My son, my son!”

THE COLOPHON.

I must not pause to describe emotions, nor can I indeed narrate regularly, or distinctly, all that occurred during the next half hour. I had found a parent—a mother. O, how dear, how charming that name. Those who have gone on from childhood to manhood under a loved mother’s eye, and have only parted with her at the threshold of that gate which we must all pass, can form no idea of the sensations experienced by one who has never known a mother’s care, when he hears the very word mentioned—the longing, the yearning, the never-to-be satisfied desire to see the face, to hear the voice, to press the lips of her who gave us birth.

I had found a mother, and I sat beside her, with her hand clasped in mine, her head leaning on my shoulder, her eyes turned toward my face, speaking short words of love, often silent, but with a silence full of affection. For that half-hour there were no explanations, no connected conversation. All was wild and strong emotion, the first overflowings of love between parent and child, after a separation of twenty years.

We might have gone on much longer in the same way, but then there came a light knock at the door. It opened, and Westover’s voice said—

“May I come in?”

“O, yes, come in, come in, Charles,” said my mother. “Come in, my second son; my noble, my generous boy. I should not be half-happy if you did not share in the joy you have aided to bring about.”

Westover entered, and sat down by us, saying—with a smile, while he shook me warmly by the hand—

“Now, Louis, you know all.”

“No, no, he does not,” said my mother, “he knows nothing, Charles, but that his father’s name is clear, and that he has found his mother. I must tell him, as best I can, but I am afraid I shall be very confused.”

“I will help you, dear aunt,” said Westover. “It is right that he should know how it is he has been so long deprived of a mother’s care, and I am sure that in explaining, you will explain all, gently.”

“Fear not, Charles, fear not,” said Lady Catharine. “Though I have undergone much that was hard to bear, yet all is forgiven now in the joy of recovering my son—let me see how I can best tell my story—I must begin far back.”

“Some seven or eight and twenty years ago, I was a gay, wild girl, Louis, in the fashionable world of London. I had a fond and affectionate mother, who spoiled me, perhaps. A sister, next in age to myself, and a dear brother—Charles Westover’s father. There was a younger sister, too. All these were gay, light hearted, and easy in disposition, like myself; but my father was made of somewhat sterner materials. You have seen him—you know him—and I need say little more; except, that then he was moving a good deal in political life, and he had found it perhaps necessary to adopt a rigidity of principle, and a stern inflexibility of resolution, which has always kept his name high and pure in the world, but has not made one unfortunate child very happy.

“About that time, my mother died, and I was left much to my own guidance, as the eldest of the family, and I met in society a young French nobleman, the Count de Lacy, who was then Secretary of Legation here. He was wealthy, had served in the army with distinction, and my father was fond of him, often invited him to this house, and I have sat with him here, where now we sit, a hundred times, receiving feelings which I little knew were creeping into my breast. At length, he told me he loved me, and he very soon found out that I loved him. He expressed fears, however, that our affection would meet with opposition on my father’s part, and assured me that he would not have ventured to breathe his love, till he had made more progress in the earl’s regard, if he had not been suddenly recalled to France, as well as the ambassador. It was necessary, however, that my father should be immediately informed of our wishes, and De Lacy went to him for that purpose. He received a peremptory, and immediate refusal. My father said that he esteemed and liked the Count de Lacy, but that his daughter should never marry a foreigner, and a Roman Catholic.

“We both knew that my father’s resolutions were unchangeable, and those resolutions were expressed very harshly to me, who had never been accustomed to hear an unkind word from any one. They engendered feelings which they ought not to have produced—feelings almost of anger—something more than disappointment—a spirit of resistance. I felt that I could never love any one but De Lacy—that I should be miserable when he was gone—that I could only be happy as his wife. We found means to see each other. Our first object was only to say farewell, but in a moment of rash passion, he asked me to fly with him, and I fled. In every thing, he behaved with the utmost tenderness, delicacy, and honor. We reached Paris—unpursued, as I afterward found—and were immediately married by good Father Bonneville, who had been the chaplain to the embassy, and then by a Protestant clergyman.

“I wrote to my father immediately, begging forgiveness; but my letter was returned unopened, and I found that my father had given strict orders in his family, that my name should be never mentioned to him—that if ever I was inquired for by others, the reply should be simply, that I was abroad, and that no notice whatsoever should be taken in public, or in private, of my being the wife of the Count de Lacy. One is soon forgotten in a great world like this, Louis. There was some little rumor and gossiping when I first went away, but my father’s perfect calmness and reserve, his appearance of utter indifference and easy bearing, soon quelled all idle talk, and, except by my brother and my sisters, I was soon lost to remembrance. I had three children, of whom you were the second, Louis. My other lost darlings were girls. One died in the East, where De Lacy was appointed to a high command. The other died a day before her father—

She put her hand over her eyes, and paused for several moments; but then resuming her discourse, she said—

“I cannot dwell upon that terrible time. My senses left me for several weeks, and when I awoke to a consciousness of my situation, I found myself a widow, nearly penniless, stripped of all the fine estates which my husband had possessed, with one dear boy, between four and five years old, fatherless, and marked out by the terrible curse of a black stain upon his father’s name.

“Rank, station, fortune, love, hope, were all gone. The world seemed a blank void to me, and the waking from that frenzied sleep, like the recovery of a half-drowned man, was far more terrible than the death-like state which had preceded. I found, however, that besides good Father Bonneville, who had flown to me immediately, there was an English gentleman in the house, and as soon as I could bear it, I was told that he had been sent to me with a message from my father. When I could see him, I found that he was a stiff, dry, old man, but not altogether unkind, and he did not venture to give me the message he was charged to deliver for two or three days. He then, however, told me that he had a proposal to make to me, which had been reduced to writing, in my father’s own hand. It was this—”

She paused again, unable to proceed, and Westover interposed, saying—

“Let me tell him, my dear aunt?”

“The case was this, Louis, my grandfather had watched anxiously the proceedings against your father, and when he found him condemned and executed, his whole estates confiscated, and his very name attainted, he sent over to offer my Aunt Catharine a refuge in her former home—but it was only for herself,” he added, in a slow and sorrowful tone. “He exacted that you should be left behind in France—that she should resume her maiden name—that you should be brought up in utter ignorance of your connection with his family, and, as far as possible, in ignorance also of your father’s history.”

“It was a hard measure,” I said, somewhat bitterly, but Westover went on.

“On these conditions, he promised to provide for you amply—to pay for your support and education, during youth, and to settle a sufficient property upon you at his death. The reason he assigned for these harsh measures—as you will call them—was, that his name had come down unstained for many generations, and that he would never admit or acknowledge any connection with a family, which had the taint of treason upon it.”

“At first,” said my mother, taking up the tale again, “I rejected the proposal with horror, and declared that nothing would induce me to part with my child; but the good gentleman who had been sent to me, urged strongly, that by my presence and persuasions, I might induce my father to mitigate somewhat of his severity. He did not know his inflexible nature; and before I yielded, I attempted by letter to move my father. I represented humbly that, although condemned by a corrupt court, my poor husband was certainly innocent—that I knew every thing that had passed between him and the British officers—that the letters produced were forgeries—and that the time would come, when De Lacy’s name would stand out pure and clear. All I could obtain was contained in the following words of his reply: ‘If the time should ever come which you anticipate, and when your late husband’s character shall be fully justified, I will acknowledge you as his wife with pride, and receive your son as one of my own race. But till that time, I will never see him. You must never meet him voluntarily; and I beg it to be remembered, that if by a want of good faith, or even an indiscretion upon your part, he is made acquainted with his connection with myself, or is brought to England, under any false expectations from me, I will immediately stop the allowance that I propose to make him, and strike his name out of my will.’

“At first this seemed to me but little gained, but both the English gentleman, who had remained with me, and Father Bonneville, thought that it was much. They represented to me that opinion was already changing in France with regard to my husband’s case, that multitudes asserted his innocence and deplored his fate; and that the time must soon come, when he would be fully justified. My own hopes and convictions seconded their arguments, and I resolved, at length, to submit. Beggary and starvation were before me, Louis, not only for myself, but for you. I was bribed, in short, by the hope of your happiness, to sacrifice all a mother’s affections and enjoyments. Father Bonneville undertook the task of educating you; my maid Jeanette agreed to go with him to his little cure, and watch over you as a mother; and with a bitterness worse than that of death, I parted from you, and returned to England. Father Bonneville and Jeanette both solemnly bound themselves to the secrecy required—and well did they keep their word. God’s will brought you to England, no act of mine; and by a blessed chance you became acquainted with your dear Cousin Charles, who has been to me in my long widowhood and privation, the greatest comfort and consolation.”

“But how did you know Charles,” I inquired, “so much of my fate and history, if the subject was forbidden in your grandfather’s house.”

“The prohibition was not well kept toward me at all events,” replied Westover; “my father told me the whole story long ago. My Aunt Maude, whom you have seen, talked of it frequently. My grandfather himself, even, of late years—when he found out that I knew it—mentioned the matter once or twice himself. I am a great favorite of his, and when I discovered that you were in England, and perceived what sort of a person you were, I used to dash at the subject with him often; for with these stern old gentlemen, Louis, there is nothing like a little careless, rattling independence. Never do any thing that is wrong toward them—never be insolent or impertinent, but go gayly on your own way, and they learn very soon to take it as a matter of course. Every one helped me, too, I must say; for we would have done any thing in the world to comfort dear Aunt Kate. It was with this purpose that I persuaded her to go down to Blackheath on the day of the review, not intending that she should know who you were till afterward, but just that she might see you, and learn that she had seen her son; but I even persuaded the earl himself to come meet you at dinner; and he was very much pleased with you there, especially when he found that you were perfectly ignorant of your own history. The fact of your having become a Protestant, increased his good feeling toward you, and he began to take a good deal of interest in you, so that I doubt not in the least, we should have got round his lordship in the end, even if we had not obtained this important proof of your father’s innocence. As soon as he heard the facts, however, and I assured him that there could be no possible doubt, he consented at once to my bringing you here, said that his objections were at an end, that the conditions were fulfilled, and he was quite ready to acknowledge you as his grandson. In fact, Louis, he only wished for a good excuse to abandon his stern determination—and he caught at it eagerly enough.”

“Shall I not see him?” I asked.

“Not to-night, I think,” replied Westover. “He was obliged to go to the House, he said, and was gone before you arrived. The fact is, he hates what he calls scenes, and fearing there might be one here, he went away. Take my advice, therefore, and when you see him to-morrow, just shake him by the hand, as quietly as if you had been his grandson all your life, and had just come back from Buxton. He will then take the initiative himself, and make all the arrangements that are necessary.”

“But your father, Westover,” I said.

“Alas! we have lost him,” replied my mother, “but we have no second title in our family, Louis, and therefore Charles is merely Captain Westover; but you have some explanations to give, I think he told me.”

“They will be better given to-morrow, dear aunt,” said Westover. “Let us finish one volume of the book first. Jeanette has just been telling me, Louis, that you have got the precious document signed by the Marquis de Carcassonne’s own hand—show it to her, show it to her—it will do her good to see it.” My mother read it with eyes blinded by tears, and then pressed it to her lips. “Thank God, thank God!” she said. “I cannot help sometimes thinking, Louis, that the dead can see us, and if so, it must give even greater joy to the spirit of your father in glory, to see his name thus justified by the efforts of his son.”

I disclaimed much of the credit she attributed to me, and acknowledged that the principal honor was due to good Jeanette.

Jeanette was then called in and embraced us all round, kissed Charles Westover on each side of the face, and me twice on each side, called him an _excellent garçon_, and me her _chèr Louis_, and then danced for a minute for very joy, and then ran out of the room to weep, from the same cause.

We protracted our sitting till nearly midnight, and I retired with a heart lightened of its heaviest load. The next morning, I went, as had been arranged by Westover, to call upon my grandfather at his breakfast hour. I found him alone—for my mother had not come down to breakfast for years—but he received me very kindly, gave me his whole hand, and made me sit down to breakfast with him. For the first five minutes he called me Monsieur de Lacy, but it very soon got to Louis, and he talked of the news of the day, and of Charles Westover, and of the state of his health, and of his own anxiety to prevent him from joining his regiment again, while that ball was in his chest.

I followed his lead, and replied, “I dare say, sir, you might find a means, if you wished it.”

He shook his head, saying, “I don’t think it. Boys and girls are all obstinate—what means?”

“If you were to persuade some fair lady to ask him, sir,” I said, “he would never refuse her.”

“Ha—what do you mean, Miss ——?”

“I really do not know who the lady is,” I answered; “but I dare say your lordship is well aware.”

“Oh yes, I know quite well. He has been engaged to Miss —— two years; I wonder why they have not married before now.”

“I really cannot tell,” I answered; “but perhaps they do not know that you would approve—or Westover may think that he has not sufficient to keep his position as your grandson.”

“Ay, that old uncle of his, Westover,” he said, “left his fortune charged with such a jointure that nothing will come in from that till the old lady dies—”

He thought for a moment, and then added, “But all that will be speedily arranged. Why did he not speak to me about it himself?”

“I only speak myself by guess, my lord,” I answered, “and am conscious I am taking an unwarrantable liberty in mentioning the subject to you at all.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the earl, “I’m obliged to you; but I cannot be expected to think of all these things for everybody. He only told me that he intended to marry Miss ——; and I said, very well, I had no objection; for she is a very good girl, and of a very old family, though poor, desperate poor. Go and tell him, Louis, that if he likes to stay here and marry, I will make every arrangement to render him comfortable. Don’t let fortune stand in the way a moment. He shall be put at ease.”

I had a great inclination to say a good word for myself; but I forbore, and as I rose to go, the earl asked, in an ordinary tone, “Have you seen your mother this morning?”

I replied as nearly as I could in the same manner, that I had not yet; and he rejoined, “Well, go and see her before you go to Charles. You will find her in her dressing-room—you know where it is.”

I had not the most distant idea; but I did not tell him so, and merely bade him good morning.

Thus ended my first interview with the Earl of N—— as his acknowledged grandson.

Very few words more will suffice to close my little history. Charles Westover was delighted with the news I brought him, and readily agreed to retire upon half pay, and to remain in England. He insisted upon knowing how it had been brought about that I was sent with this message to him, and I gave him, half jestingly, half seriously, an account of my interview with the earl.

“I understand you, Louis, I understand you,” he said, wringing my hand hard, “and I thank you from my very heart. Nothing on earth would have induced me to ask the earl for a penny. My mother’s jointure, of course, diminishes greatly the income that descended to me from my father, and perhaps some youthful imprudences may have diminished it still more; but the earl, I dare say, did not think of either. Now all will go well; for there is not a more generous man living, when he acts spontaneously. And so you really did not speak one word about your own engagement? Well, that must be managed for you.”

“No, no,” I replied, “I will do it myself. I begin to understand his character, I think, and trust I can manage it.”

However, when I came to talk with my mother on the subject, she was terrified at the very idea—a Frenchwoman—a Roman Catholic—the daughter of a poor emigrant—she thought it would drive the earl mad.

I went down to see Mariette, nevertheless, that same day, rejoiced the heart of the Count de Salins with the news of my father’s complete exculpation, and returned the next morning to London, taking Father Bonneville with me; but I took especial care not to say one word to any one, of there being even a chance that the earl would disapprove of my choice. Some five or six days after, the earl wrote me a note to come with Westover and breakfast with him. We found him in the best humor; for some changes had taken place in the ministry which satisfied him, and toward the close of breakfast, a servant announced that Mr. Holland was in the library.

“I will be with him directly,” said the earl; and when he had finished his cup of coffee, and read a paragraph in the newspaper, to show that he was in no hurry, he rose, saying, “Now, young men, come with me.”

We followed him to the library, where we found a tall, thin lawyer, with a shaggy head of hair, and two parchments spread out upon the table. A few words passed between the earl and his man of business, and then the former took up a pen, and signed the parchment at a spot pointed out.

“This, Charles,” he said, turning to my cousin, “is a deed settling the sum of five thousand per annum upon you, till my death puts you in possession of the family estates.”

“This, Louis,” he continued, turning to me with the pen still in his hand, “is a deed, settling two thousand per annum upon you for life, and you will find yourself further remembered in my will.”

He stooped to sign the parchment, but I laid my hand upon it saying, boldly, but in a commonplace tone, “Stop, my lord, if you please.”

“Why?” he exclaimed, looking up.

“First,” I answered, “because it is quite an honor, and pleasure enough for me to be your acknowledged grandson; and secondly, because I think it right to inform you, before you do what I could in no degree expect, that I am about to be married. The engagement was formed before I had the slightest idea that I was in any way related to you, otherwise I should certainly have consulted you before I entered into it.”

I could see by Westover’s face that he thought I was going wrong, but I was not. The old man laughed, and said, “Well, boy, I have no objection to your marrying.”

“And any one I like?” I asked.

“And any one you like,” he answered. “I do not carry my superintendence beyond one generation. That is more than enough for any one.”

“Then, my dear and noble lord,” I replied, “let me add, that the one I like, is I am sure, one you will like, too, for she is as generous and as noble-minded as yourself—noble, by birth and by character—a lady in every respect—and well fitted to be admitted into your family.”

“A French-woman!” he said—“a French-woman?”

I think it was a sort of instinct dictated my reply, “One of my own countrywomen, my lord,” I answered, “the companion of my childhood, the friend of my youth. I know that you judge it best for every one to marry one of his own country—she is the daughter of the Comte de Salins, and a nobler or a purer name is not to be found for five hundred years—is not to be found in the pages of French history.”

“Well, well,” said the old earl, “I shall be very happy to see her;” and he signed the parchment, adding, “Bring her here, my good boy, bring her here. You will soon know if I like her. If I do I shall kiss her, and don’t you be jealous; if I do not I shall give her three fingers, and call her Mademoiselle;” and he laughed gayly.

Two days afterward, my mother and I brought up Mariette to visit the old earl. She was looking exquisitely lovely, her eyes full of the light of hope and happiness, her face glowing with sweet emotions, and her frame tremulous with feelings which added grace to all her graces. She leaned upon my mother’s arm, as we entered the room where the old earl received us, and I could perceive as he gazed at her, that he was surprised and struck with her extraordinary beauty. It was impossible to look upon that face and form and not be captivated. He rose from his chair at once, advanced and took her in his arms, and kissing her with more tenderness than I ever saw him display, he said, “Welcome, welcome, my dear child. If Louis does not make you a good husband, I will strike him out of my will, so see that you keep him in order.”

Westover and I were married on the same day. I have no reason to doubt that he was happy, and of my own fate I am very sure.

* * * * *

By a decree of the Cour de Cassation in the first year of the reign of Louis XVIII., by the grace of God King of France, the sentence passed upon Louis, Comte de Lacy, was, after a great many _vus_, and _interrogés_ broken, and annulled, the memory of the said count _rehabilitee_, and his family, restored to all their estates and honors. Nevertheless, we find a Count and Countess De Lacy still living in England in 1830, and there are strong and cogent reasons to believe that the very numerous family bearing that name, had by some means or another, sprung up around them.

* * * * *

=MY FOREFATHERS.=

=BY J. HUNT, JR.=

When soft falls the moonlight, and tranquil the hour, Which holds by a spell the dear scenes of the Past, How touchingly tender that mystical power Which throws o’er existence its love to the last. On the wings of Remembrance, forgetting, forgot Are the dreams of the Present, as onward we fly, To place our affections on that hallowed spot Where the bones of our forefathers mouldering lie.

Deep, pure, in the bosom’s bright innermost shrine, Are treasured the loves we inherit in Youth; E’en Age, with its weakness, serves but to refine Our early impressions of Virtue and Truth. Those silent Instructors—God grant them a Rest In mansions prepared for the holy in heart— For oft do they come from the Land of the Blest, And to us their kindly monitions impart.

* * * * *

=CLEOPATRA.=

=BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT,= =TRANSLATOR OF= =THE PROMETHEUS AND AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, ETC. ETC.=

Deliberatâ morte ferveior Lævis liburnis scilicet invideus Prevata deduci superbo, Non humilis mulier, triumpho. Horace, _Lib. I. Ode 37_.

Away! away! I would not live, Proud arbiter of life and death, Although the proffered boon of breath, Which fain thou wouldst, but canst not, give, Were Immortality. Though all, that poets love to dream, Of bright and beautiful were blent To flow in one delicious stream, Till time itself were spent; Though glories, such as never met In mortal monarch’s coronet, Were poured in one unclouded blaze On Cleopatra’s deathless days, I would not bear the wretched strife, The feverish agony of life, The little aims, the ends yet less, The hopes bud-blighted era they bloom, The joys that end in bitterness, The race that rests but in the tomb, These, these, not death, are misery. Nay! tell not me of pomp or pleasure, Of empire, or renown, or treasure, Of friendship’s faith or love’s devotion— Things treacherous as the wind-rocked ocean— For I have proved them all. Away! If there be ought to bless In rapture’s goblet, I have drained That draught misnamed of happiness, Till not a lurking drop remained Of honey-mantled gall. Oh! who would live, that once hath seen The Lamia Pleasure’s mask removed; That once hath learned how false the sheen Of all he erst so madly loved? And I have seen, have learned, the whole; Till, for the passions fierce and wild That torrent-like defied control, A wretched apathy of soul, Exhausted rapture’s gloomy child, Hath crept into my very blood, Chilling the tides that wont to flow Like lava in their scorching flood— An apathy more dull than care, More sad than pain, more still than wo— Twin sister to despair. And thinkest thou I would stoop to live On mercy such as Rome might give— Or what is Rome, and what am I, That I should bend a servile knee, The free-born daughter of the free, To her, whose victor lords have thrown Their sceptre-swords before my throne, And lost their empires at my frown? Or deemest thou, impotent and base, That I, of eldest earthly race, Will thread in slow procession pace Rome’s proud triumphal way— A crownless queen, a shameless slave, Beside thy golden chariot’s nave, With fettered heads supine to crave Plebeian pity—Roman ruth— And with unroyal tears, forsooth! “To make a Roman Holyday?” An emperor thou! and I—no more! My foot is on life’s latest shore. Away! even now I die. I feel it coursing through my veins, The peace that soon shall still my pains, And calm my ceaseless wo. Away, proud chief! I would not yield My empire for the conquered world O’er which thine eagle wing is furled— My empire in the grave. Hades shall rise my steps to greet, Ancestral kings my advent meet, Sesostris, of the man-drawn car, And Rhamses, thunderbolt of war, Amenophis, of giant frame, And Tathrak, of immortal name. The mighty Ptolemies shall rise With greeting in their glorious eyes, And cry from lips no longer dumb— “Hail, sister queen, for thou hast come Right royally thy feres among. Our thousand thrones have tarried long, Till thou shouldst mount thine own. Last, loveliest, frailest of our line, By this immortal death of thine Thou hast outdared all daring—thou Art first among us. Lo! we bow— We kneel—before thee! Sister queen, The end of fortune here is seen, Ascend thy fated throne.” And now my woman-heart is steeled; Call forth the bravest of the brave, Your reapers of the crimson field, To whom the battle-cry is breath, To look upon a woman’s death. I have outlived my love, my power, My country’s freedom, people’s name, My flush of youth, my beauty’s flower, But not, oh not! my thirst of fame. The Pyramids before me lie, Piercing the deep Egyptian sky, Memorials of the nameless dead, To build whose glory thousands bled— And I, the latest of their race, A captive in their dwelling place, Die, yet survive them all. I tell thee, when no trophies shine Upon the proud Capitoline, When Julius’ fame is all forgot, Even where his honored relics rot, Ages shall sing my fall. Proud Roman, thou hast won. But I, More gladly than thou winnest, die. Away! when crowns were on my brow, And nations did my rising greet, And Cæsar groveled at my feet, I lived not—never lived till now.

* * * * *

=REMINISCENCE.=

Not every man, I believe, takes the trouble to look back occasionally to his very earliest recollections, recalling what he may, with a view to learn how much of his character was formed by the trivial incidents of his spring-time, how much, and what, is of later origin. It would surprise one to see accurately the proportion of his habit of thought, his sensibility, his ideas of right and wrong, his reverence and his affections, how much of the underlying sympathies and poetry of his nature is associated with this early period.

Some book I was reading, or some friend I was talking with the other day, suggested the matter and left me in a revery of reminiscence.

There came back to me the memory of pleasant dreams which I was perplexed to divorce from dream-like reality, of presents and promises, of nursery tales and melodies, of first disappointments, punishments, and altercations, of all the scenery between babyhood and boyhood, and of the constant wonder amid which my mind wrought its first essays.

The quiet village street between my father’s house and place of business, was the only one I was in the custom of seeing, and at such times generally in charge of an attendant, unless, with soiled face and apron full of toys, I adventured alone to run the hazard of the occasional carriages, and finally to be found asleep beside the fence and carried home to my anxious mother. When taken to another street, I seemed to pass to another realm. I roamed admiringly through the _terra incognita_; “the Bank,” with its brick walls and slated roof, I believed the castle of Giant Despair; the huge, white, fast-closed meeting-house seemed like a desolate prison; the drivers shouted to their teams in unknown tongues; the confectioners’ windows recognized me with smiles of dazzling invitation, and sometimes a benign old man would pat my head and ask me how old I was. The bustle and business, the shops and sign-boards, all I saw and met were wondrous discoveries, identified with histories of men and things which I had spelled out from my story-books, or had heard my father read at morning-prayer.

Once or twice I wandered off there alone. But to turn the corner of Mill street was like rounding the Cape of Storms. Men in a hurry tumbled over me, rude boys threatened to swallow me, dirty-faced and ragged children of my own age eyed me in mute surprise, that almost equaled mine, or with precocious malignity and a jealousy that, I trust, did not ripen in them, plucked my clothes or my hair, or threw mud on me. And one boy—and a twinge of my sometime indignation now comes across me—I remember took away the ten-cent piece which hung on a red ribbon around my neck, and spent it for India crackers.

There was a stump fence opposite our house, where I sometimes stood for long together, looking at the great, spangling roots and dead fibres twisted in fantastic shapes, to conjure up dragons, hydras, and all grotesque and horrible creations. And the old swamp of rank, slim hemlocks, that I used to shudder at passing, with their gnarled, naked trunks, dry limbs and mossy beards. And the tangled, dark thickets and unpathed woods with cawing rooks; these all filled my mind with shapeless shadows of strange myths. How I remember the first time I clambered up the hill and looked out upon the miles of forest, like a great, green, waving ocean, while the winds strode over it, as then my heart knew its first unutterable grasping, and swelled with vague emotions that I could not fit with words.

My reverence was sincere for “big boys twelve years old,” of intrepid courage, who talked slightingly of the maternal authority, owned jack-knives, and emulated the “mouth-filling oaths” of larger men. I considered it great condescension in them to let me go with them after their cows, or when they made journeys to the pine groves after “sliver,” or the alder swamps for whistles. These were the delightful music of this period, and from such excursions I returned inflated with the consciousness of travel, my torn shoes and clayey garments telling how dear I paid for the instrument in whose possession I exulted as those whom Jubal taught erewhile. Particularly I remember my paragon of chivalry, and the Mr. Great Heart of my erudition—Bill Thayer. How I hung upon his words of daring; how I admired the gasconade with which he threatened the “Shad-Laners,” between whom and the urchins at our end of the town fierce feud existed; and how he fell from the pinnacle of my veneration when I saw him return vanquished and limping from a foray upon the Shad-Lane district.

There were two or three places about the premises which I used to love to steal into and ransack. One of these was the garret of the house. We went up through a trap-door into a space just under the roof, its bare rafters within my touch at the sides, and through which the chimneys passed. Here were white hats and faded or unfashionable garments. Here were boxes with bedding in them; barrels of feathers, both boxes and barrels of old pamphlets and newspapers—behind a chimney leaned an old “king’s arms” musket, which at length familiarity encouraged me to lay hands upon, and near it hung a cartridge-box, a knapsack, and a bayonet in its sheath. These told me all sorts of tales. I shuddered and dropped the steel when I thought of its purpose and what might have been its deeds, and of all the Bible stories of Goliath with his sword and spear, and Samson slaying Philistines. I inquired strangely of myself what war was, and the mystery of conflict and enmity enveloped my young thought, as it has many an older. To tumble those old books and papers was delightful. Sometimes a rare waif came to hand, a print or a toy-book, or something equally valuable.

Thus do I rummage the neglected attics of my own memory; thus trace the concretion of that character which I must bear forever, and the gradual development of my reason and volition in the sunlight of home and innocence.

“God help thee, Elia,” said Charles Lamb, “how art thou changed!”

B. B.

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=TO THE PICTURE OF MY CHILD.[1]=

=BY META LANDER.=

Oh! is it not a dream, my child? Is not my yearning heart beguiled? And have not then my longings wild Disturbed my wildered brain? Ah, no! the wish that night and day Hath never, never passed away— It stirred me not in vain.

Full many a dreary month has passed, Since o’er me swept that chilling blast, When on thee, child, I looked my last. Oh! since that mournful hour, How have I longed for some charmed art To trace thine image from my heart With thy rich beauty’s dower.

I see thee once again, my dove! Thy face all radiant with love— Thy parted rose-bud lips—they _move_— Oh! will they _never speak_? I list in vain, my warbling bird; There gushes forth no loving word, And tears steal down my cheek.

Thou puttest up thy month to kiss; My heart is thrilled with wildest bliss— And yet—and yet—_something_ I miss— Thought’s ever changeful play— The variant, passing moods of life— Its lights and shades in pleasant strife— A dash of Sorrow’s spray.

I look upon thy morning face, Enrapt with its sun-lighted grace— But seek in vain the faintest trace Of some o’ershadowing cloud. Alas! dear child! _it is not thou_— Sunshine laughed never on thy brow When grief did mine enshroud.

I miss thy winsome tenderness— Thy music-tones, so charmed to bless; I miss thy soothing, fond caress— Thy sweet lips on mine own. Carrie, my child! _thou_ wouldst not be Thus mute in my keen agony. _Again I am alone!_

Then hide that face from out my sight! Its radiant smile and eyes of light But mock me in my sorrow’s night— I cannot bid it stay. Too like it is, sweet one, to thee— And oh! I cannot bear to see That smile’s unbroken ray.

But hush, my heart! And would I, then, Make thee a child of grief again, And shroud thy boundless, starry ken In Time’s bewildering night. Ah, no! I would rejoice that now Ray ever round thy cherub-brow Beams of celestial light.

Freed from the cankering cares of life, Its tears—its bitterness—its strife— From all the ills with which is rife This changing, mortal coil; Oh! sweet forever be thy rest In that Elysium of the blest— Fair Eden’s genial soil.

How could I bear that thou shouldst weep? That the sad angel, Grief, should keep The key to thy dear heart, or sweep O’er thee her storm-clouds wild! Oh! let me weep my tears alone! Ne’er shall thy lips breathe sorrow’s moan, My own, my angel child!

Then while my aching heart is riven, I lift it weeping up to heaven, Exulting that to thee is given Eternal sunlight sweet! A sunlight imaged on thy brow, Which doth not mock my misery now, As thy love-glance I meet.

I look into thy moonlit eyes, Wherein thy soul clear mirrored lies, As heaven looks through the star-lit skies, The wintry night to bless. In their deep light is earnest thought— Visions with inward beauty fraught No language can express.

I gaze upon thy forehead fair, Shadowed by thy brown, clustering hair, And joy that is not written there One line of grief or pain. From that clear brow there beams a smile, Which sweetly utters all the while _Mother, we meet again!_

Oh! blest forever be that art Which hath reversed the words—_to part_, And back unto my yearning heart My darling child hath given. Around that face, in radiance bright, Circleth an aureole of light— Adumbrant sweet of heaven.

[1] By the poet-painter, T. Buchanan Read.

* * * * *

=PAQUETA.=

=BY. H. DIDIMUS.=