The Fatal Marriage

Lady Elizabeth presented this “maiden meek” to her household as the Lady Adelaide Deville, the bride of their young master.

“Name of de Lord, dis child a bride!” exclaimed old Nero, the body-servant of the last master, and upon that account a privileged character.

“And—dress’ in deep mournin’!” cried old Keziah, the confidential attendant of the widow.

‘“Well, Lord! I allus hearn tell as how dey had curus customs in dem dere outlandish, unchristian countries 99beyant seas, but who’d ever o’ thought as dey’d married childun?” cried old Nero.

“And ’bove all things, in widow-weeds?” exclaimed old Keziah.

“She was married at the death-bed of her father—she is in mourning for him,” kindly explained their mistress.

“Poor lambkin!” said old Nero.

“Dear little orphan-bride. But where is the bridegroom?” inquired old Keziah.

“At school, of course. The young people are not to go to housekeeping together until they arrive at a proper age,” smiled the amiable widow.

“Oh! dat make all de diffunce in de worl’,” admitted the old negroes.

The subject of the colloquy had retired to a distance, and so heard nothing.

That day the Lady Elizabeth began to settle the plan of present life for herself and daughter-in-law.

First of all it was determined that the young girl should not be sent to school, but that she should pursue her studies at home, under the supervision of her mother-in-law.

For this policy the Lady Elizabeth had several reasons, both positive and negative.

She did not wish that the young creature should enter the mixed society of a boarding-school, or make indiscriminate acquaintances, or form school-girl attachments that might in the future interfere with the singleness of her devotion to Orville.

And she did want the maiden as a companion; needed the occupation of teaching her as a pastime; and above all desired, as I stated, to melt, mould, and train this gentle girl into a model wife for her darling son! She had already succeeded in gaining the young creature’s affections. And for every other part of her work, the 100Lady Elizabeth was admirably competent, being certainly one of the most accomplished women of her age.

The education of the orphan commenced.

The mornings were devoted to what are called the higher branches of an English education, and to ancient and modern languages; and the afternoons to music on the harp and the piano, and to drawing, painting, and embroidery.

And the teacher constantly stimulated her pupil by telling her that her young bridegroom, Orville Deville, would certainly become one of the most profound scholars, as well as one of the most accomplished gentlemen of his day, and that his bride should in those respects be worthy of him.

This style of argument, that might have offended a high-spirited woman, only inspired this gentle girl to greater efforts.

One day in the week was set apart for the study of domestic economy; for, as the teacher admonished her pupil, the wife of a Maryland planter was expected to be not only a lady of quality, capable of shining in the saloon, but also a notable housekeeper, competent to direct the details of cooking a dinner, or cleaning a room. And so, upon a stated day in each week, the gentle girl patiently gave her attention to making pastry, bleaching linen, or whatever else might be the assigned lesson.

Nor was exercise neglected. Lady Elizabeth knew the full value of beauty to woman, and of health to beauty. So every morning at sunrise and every evening at sunset Adelaide, attended by old Nero, took an animating ride on horseback.

In some of these inland rides the high-born maiden would sometimes chance to meet a wild, dark, gipsyish young girl, mounted and accoutred as a huntress, and attended by hounds.

101This gipsy called herself Kate Kyte—a single sister in a circle of brothers, wild hunters of the inland hills. This strange girl, this brilliant meteor of the forest, half fascinated the gentle Adelaide, who, ever after meeting with Kate Kyte, returned home with fresher bloom and brighter eyes.

And thus visibly the maiden grew in health, spirits, and beauty.

“How pleased Orville will be with your improvement, my love,” was ever the highest praise that Lady Elizabeth bestowed upon her charge.

And naturally the maiden began to cherish a very exalted opinion of the young gentleman whose sentiments were thus constantly consulted—for whose approval such pains were taken, such preparations made. And she began to doubt that she ever, ever could be worthy to tie the shoes of Mr Orville Deville!

Once she naively breathed this doubt to his mother, who cunningly replied:

“Never fear, my pretty little love. Take pains; do the best you can, and then Orville, whose character is as amiable as it is exalted, will never complain: if your involuntary deficiencies grieve him, he will never be so unjust as to let you know it, my dear child.”

“Ah, but the very thought of such a thing is dreadful, mamma; pray teach me how I may become in every manner worthy to be called—your daughter-in-law,” would be the answer of the docile girl, who thus in effect put her head under the heel of her mother-in-law.

Meantime six months passed, and no letter had been received from the object of all this worship.

Lady Elizabeth had written many times, exhorting the delinquent to write to her, and especially to the Lady Adelaide.

At last, near the end of the year, two letters were 102received—one for each of the ladies. These letters were very eloquent, the finest passages in them having been, according to school-boy usage, freely purloined from the finest writers in the language. But the mother and daughter know nothing of this; they believed in them, admired and praised them, and set to work to answer them.

“Oh, I never, never shall be able to write a becoming reply to this beautiful letter,” said Adelaide, in despair.

“Take courage, my dear. Orville will not expect a girl of thirteen to be so accomplished a writer as himself,” said the vain mother. “And at all events, you know that you must make an attempt to write something.”

“Oh, yes, I know, and I hope Mr. Deville will not quite despise my letter,” sighed Adelaide, as she went to her task.

After spending a whole forenoon and spoiling a quire of paper, she brought a draft of the important document to Lady Elizabeth for her ladyship’s criticism.

It was a simple letter, more respectful and modest than affectionate in tone.

“This is all very well, my dear—very well indeed. But how is this? You sign yourself, ‘Your affectionate cousin, Adelaide Lorne,’” said the lady, looking up.

“Well, mamma, what should I sign?”

“How did he subscribe himself?”

“Oh, my dear mamma, you know! you read it!”

“What was it?”

“Ah, it humbles me to repeat it; but he was so very good as to write himself my ‘Devoted Admirer Orville Deville,’” said the maiden, blushing deeply.

“Ah, that was well enough, because he is lover as well as prospective husband. But you are more than his cousin; you are his bride. Your name is not Adelaide 103Lorne, but Adelaide Deville! Go, therefore, my dear, and copy your letter, and sign——”

“What, dear mamma?”

“‘Your Faithful Wife, Adelaide Deville.’”

“Oh, I should not dare!” exclaimed the maiden, catching her breath.

“Then you would rather dare to wound and offend Orville,” said the lady, with a very slight degree of coldness.

“Oh no, no! I would do any thing rather than that,” exclaimed Adelaide, retiring with the letter, which she copied and signed according to orders.

The letters were dispatched by special messenger to Baltimore, to go by the next outward-bound packet.

The next morning, at sunrise, Adelaide, attended by her old groom, was taking her usual early ride, when just upon the outskirts of the forest she heard the approach of a chase.

First on her right hand a fox burst cover, and sped like an arrow across the open country.

Next a pack of hounds, with a low, long cry, broke the thicket and fled past on his track.

Then started forth a band of well-mounted hunters, that hurled themselves like a storm across the country. There were six men and a girl—doubtless Kate Kyte and her brothers. But Adelaide could not be certain—they whirled so swiftly past—until the girl, who was the hindmost, suddenly wheeled her horse, came flying back, and confronted her. Then the young lady recognized Kate Kyte.

“Good-morning,” said the wild one.

“Good-morning; but you are losing—they will beat you!” exclaimed Adelaide, pointing to where the hunters hurled themselves down the hill and out of sight.

“Let them! I had rather talk with you than ride to the hounds this morning! Adelaide, I wish you would 104come to see me, sometime when you are out riding! I have neither mother nor sister, nor any female relative at home; nor, to be true, do I want any. Yet I do wish you would shine in upon my lodge.”

“I should be glad to do so, Kate. Which way shall I find it?”

“On the other side of that covert from which we started the fox, you know, there is a brook——”

“‘Bush Creek’—yes!”

“Follow its course for a mile, and you will reach our lodge.”

“I shall be sure to come. In the meantime, Kate, if you are in the neighborhood, come to see me at River-view. I am the last arrival, you know, and it is my right to receive the first visit,” said Adelaide, with a pretty assumption of ceremony.

Adelaide and her servant turned their horses’ heads homeward.

“Why, how fresh your color! how bright your eyes, my dear girl!” said the lady, as she met her young charge on the front piazza.

“I think it is from meeting Kate Kyte, mamma,” said the young lady, smiling.

“Kate Kyte!”

“Yes, mamma. To see her, always affects me like the sea-breeze or the mountain-air! Her free, lively, fearless manner is so exhilarating to me!”

“Go, lay off your riding-habit and come into breakfast, my dear,” said the lady, with a slight degree of coldness in her tone. Then turning to old Keziah, she said, “Attend your young mistress to her chamber.”

After breakfast, when the lady and her young charge were seated in the parlor at their morning avocations, Adelaide expressed her wish to go and see Kate Kyte at home.

105“I do not know, my dear, whether I can consent to your doing so. I must think.”

“Is there any thing to be said against her, mamma?”

“Against Kate personally? n-n-no, except that she has never had the benefit of refined female-society.”

“Surely that was her misfortune.”

“And not her fault—no! And yet such misfortune is apt to lead to faults. Katherine’s family were highly respectable; but her mother died when she was but four years old, leaving her and her six elder brothers to the sole care of their father.

“He was a wild, rollicking, fox-hunting country-squire, who, after running through the greater portion of his large property, died a few years since, leaving only an old mansion, an ill-cultivated farm, and a few old negroes to his seven children. Kate has grown up a hoyden among her fox-hunting brothers.”

“Poor Kate! She wants the company of a girl like herself; that is the reason she wishes me to visit her.”

“Yes; but upon the whole, my dear, I do not desire the acquaintance for you. Not that I object to Kate—a girl of fourteen; but her brothers—rude, uncultured young men, of ages ranging from eighteen to twenty-six—are not desirable acquaintances for Lady Adelaide Deville.”

“But, mamma, I promised Kate to go and see her. My word must be redeemed, you know. Therefore, with your permission, I must go to see her once, at least,” said the young girl, with gentle firmness.

“She is not altogether the very soft wax I thought her,” reflected the lady, as she looked upon the mild but resolved countenance of the maiden.

“Well, my dear, since it is so, you may go once, on condition that you make no more rash promises without consulting me,” said her ladyship.

So, the next morning, Adelaide, attended, as usual, by 106her old groom, Nero, set out on horseback, to make her call.

They followed the course of the narrow brook, that wound through tangled thickets between the hills, for about a mile, when they came to a rustic bridge of logs, so narrow as only to admit the passage of one horse and rider at a time. Across this bridge, on the opposite side of the brook, was a dilapidated red-brick house, in a yard shaded by old trees and enclosed by a ruinous brick wall.

Adelaide and her attendant crossed the bridge and passed through the broken gateway into the yard.

An old negro crone, in a dingy, striped linsey gown, with a plaid handkerchief tied over her head, and a face withered away until it resembled a dried prune, was stooping to the ground, engaged in gathering sticks, which she carried in her apron.

“Hey, aunty! is Miss Katherine home?” inquired the young lady of this old beldame.

“Who, honey?”

“Your young mistress.”

“Oh, no, chile! She done gone out wid de young men arter de houn’s more ’an two hours ago,” said the crone.

“Give her this, then, when she comes, and tell her that I am very sorry to have missed her, and that she must come to see me at River-view,” said Lady Adelaide, handing her card.

“Yes, honey! Lor’s a messy ’pon me, what a putty gal you is, to be sure!” said the beldame, gazing after the young lady, as the latter turned her horse’s head, recrossed the bridge, and, followed by Nero, cantered down the banks of the brook.

When they reached home, Lady Elizabeth was rejoiced by the news that the visit had been fruitless.

“Now that you have fulfilled your promise, my dear, you must go no more! It does not well become the bride 107of Orville Deville to form promiscuous acquaintances,” said her ladyship.

Thus it followed that the Lady Adelaide and Kate Kyte met no more except in their casual morning rides. And yet the fates of these two young women were inextricably intertwined. Who can resist destiny?

Time passed.

The lovely Lady Adelaide grew in beauty, grace, and wisdom. Letters from Orville came by every packet. Gradually that young gentleman had risen from copying to composing fine phrases; and his epistles, if less eloquent, were more honest in being his own productions. Adelaide, looking through his mother’s eyes, thought them perfection. Indeed, her poetic admiration of the youth, “grew with her growth and strengthened with her strength;” blended with all her thoughts, affections and purposes; colored her whole character.

Had Orville Deville lived at home, so that she could have daily seen him as he really was, probably she never would have loved him.

But she had just one short and favorable week’s acquaintance with him, and afterwards saw him only through the eyes of his mother.

Thus Orville became to her the one bright ideal of all exalted excellence! her hero and paladin! her Crichton and Bayard! the admiration of her credulous childhood! the passion, the infatuation of her youth!

This love, this adoration, this worship, as we may call it, had the happiest effect in the formation of her character. It incited her to self-examination and self-improvement. If, in her nature, she discovered any weakness, fault or folly, she set to work to eradicate it, that she might become more worthy of her hero.

In this Adelaide made but one mistake—a fatal one, 108sure to end in bitterness—she substituted man-worship for the worship of God.

When Lady Adelaide entered her sixteenth year, the Lady Elizabeth having conducted her education to the limit of her own acquirements, reluctantly concluded to place the young lady at a fashionable finishing-school in Philadelphia, where she could be instructed in dancing, waltzing, and other drawing-room accomplishments.

It was while Adelaide was still at this school, dreaming of her absent bridegroom, and trying to make herself worthy of his love, that Orville, having completed his Eton course, came home to visit his mother, previous to his contemplated entrance at Oxford.

Mr. Deville reached America at a crisis.

General Braddock had landed with his army, and was now in Virginia engaged in organizing his Provincial troops, and preparing to march against the combined French and Indian forces upon the North-Western frontier.

Every gentleman of importance resorted to his standard.

Kate Kyte’s six brothers left her in a body.

Young Orville Deville, fired with martial ardor or love of adventure—who could tell?—wished to offer his services to General Braddock.

Lady Elizabeth, a mother as proud as she was fond, could not find it in her heart to keep her young hero back from what she sanguinely flattered herself would be, for him, a path of glory. And so, with a deep heart-ache, she gave her consent and called herself a Spartan mother.

Orville applied for and received a commission in a Provincial company, and was ordered immediately to his post to drill.

This disconcerted his mother’s plan, which was, that before the time of marching he should pay a visit to Adelaide at her school.

109So, without being allowed the opportunity of seeing his bride, the young man was compelled to take a hasty leave of his mother and join his company, which soon after marched for the frontier.

How that doomed enterprise ended, history has recorded in letters of blood!

Early in September, rumors of the defeat and death of General Braddock and the massacre of his fated army reached the Atlantic coasts, spreading consternation, sorrow, and maddening anxiety!

“Who has fallen? Who has escaped?” were the terrible questions asked continually by every mother, wife, or sister who had a son, husband, or brother in the army.

Brave Kate Kyte mounted her horse and rode away alone to the western wilds to seek her lost brothers.

Lady Elizabeth Deville was almost frenzied with intense suspense. What had been the fate of Orville? Had he been killed, wounded, or carried off to a more horrible fate by the ruthless savages?

Many fugitives, wounded, worn, and starved, had wandered home from the field of blood; but not Orville!

Many others had been heard of; but not Orville!

The silence of the grave enveloped the fate of the widow’s only son.

At length she fell ill and her physician wrote for her young daughter-in-law to come home and nurse her.

Lady Adelaide arrived, herself ill with intense anxiety, yet she resolved to hide her own suffering and to nerve her failing strength to the duty of sustaining Orville’s mother. So she concealed her anxiety and sought to soothe, comfort, and cheer the invalid. And in her own young worshipping heart, she determined—should her hero have fallen—to devote her whole life to all that remained of him—his mother; and to live forever and forever, a maiden-widow for his sake.

110It was about the middle of October that they got a letter from poor Kate Kyte, who, in her fruitless search through the wilderness for her brothers, had chanced to hear that Lieutenant Deville, an officer of Braddock’s Provincials had been wounded, and was recovering at the house of a hunter in the neighborhood of Winchester.

This was the first drop of the elixir of hope that was given to cool their fever of suspense, and it nearly intoxicated them.

Messengers were dispatched to Winchester and the country round about. But before these messengers could have reached their destinations, the mother’s and the bride’s doubts were changed to joyful certainty. Lady Elizabeth received a letter, post-marked Winchester, from Orville himself, who bade his mother not to be anxious upon his account, as, though he had been wounded, he was now recovered, safe and well, in the house of Mr. Delaforêt, an intelligent, gentlemanly, and hospitable settler in the back woods.

He said never a word of Lionne.

And—he sent no message to Lady Adelaide.

At first this neglect of herself made no impression on the gentle girl;—in the overwhelming joy of knowing him to be safe, all other considerations were lost. Afterwards, when the circumstance recurred to her memory, it made her thoughtful for a while, and then she rebuked herself, saying:

“I must not be egotistical. Perhaps he did not know that I was at home.”

Lady Elizabeth, still nervous, impatient, and hypochondriacal, bade her physician answer the letter and tell her son to hasten home; for that she was ill, sinking, and dying—to see him.

To explain the startling apparition that had so terrified Lady Adelaide in her chamber, it is necessary to return to the forest home of Lionne.

At first the wild girl grieved over the parting with her 153lover, as only wilful and passionate natures like hers ever grieve over any trouble.

Her stormy bursts of sorrow were, however, only indulged in the privacy of her chamber, the seclusion of her grotto, or the still deeper solitude of the pathless wilderness.

The wildest transient grief of youth leaves no lasting impress on the brow; and thus, whenever Lionne appeared in the presence of her father, she betrayed nothing of the sorrow that occasionally shook her whole nature.

Thus passed several days.

And then, grief having exhausted its first violence, Lionne began to reason, so far as such a child of passion ever reasons, upon the folly of her own excessive lamentations over a transient separation from her lover.

And then she turned her thoughts from the bitter present to the bright past and the brighter future, to live on the memory of Orville’s visit and the anticipations of his return.

And long before there could be any rational expectation of hearing from him she began to look daily for his first letter. And oh, what a joy was that to anticipate!

What would he write? what would his missive be like? would his letter resemble his conversation?

She would soon know.

Daily, under cover of her woodland habits, she would, unquestioned by her father, ride to Winchester in quest of her letter, although the journey there and back consumed the whole day.

This forest girl was much too wild, strange, and beautiful in aspect not to excite the greatest degree of admiration, curiosity and conjecture whenever she appeared in the country town; but there was something in the flash of her eye and the flush of her cheek that effectually repelled impertinence, checked inquiry, and commanded respect.

154At last, one day, before she had time to grow seriously anxious, the longed-for letter came! At a quarter to twelve she had reached Winchester. Just at high noon the precious letter was placed in her hands.

At first the sole joy of knowing that she possessed it, holding it in her hand, and gazing upon the superscription and the seal, was enough. She felt its thickness as a miser might have done had it been lined with bank-notes; then, unobserved, she placed it in her bosom, turned her horse’s head, and rode rapidly homeward, deferring to the last hour of day and the privacy of her chamber the pleasure of reading the contents.

Thither, after supper was over and the family had separated, she repaired, locked her door, lighted her candle, and sat down by the fire to the perusal as to the most costly luxury.

It was a “love letter,” and from the man she loved! That is saying enough to make any one comprehend that every precious word within it was dwelt upon, was gloated over, was gloried in as though each were an enchanting picture, a delicious feast, a priceless treasure. Over and over she read it, and at last laid it between her cheek and the pillow, and sank into a happy sleep, to dream of its writer.

Next day she gave Nox, her pony, the extraordinary benefit of a holiday, and gathered writing-materials and went down to her grotto. From no spot but from this bower of their bliss would she answer his first letter—no other place seemed so worthy of the pleasant task. Her letter was like herself—it was a frank, fearless, impassioned outpouring of her love, and joy, and hope!

She finished it, and the next day took it to Winchester, because she would not trust this correspondence to the hands of another, even one so faithful as Vulcan.

How long she lived upon that first letter, carrying it in 155her bodice all day long, and reading it over many times—not but that she knew every word by heart, but because she loved to follow with her eye the precious tracings of his hand. Ay! how long she lived upon that first letter. And then, before that had begun to lose its freshness, she commenced looking for the second—the answer to her own.

She wondered how he would like her letter,—whether it would not make him as happy as she hoped it might, and in what terms he would acknowledge it.

She would know when he wrote. Oh, how she longed for his answer!

The first fortnight she knew she would not get that answer, and therefore she resolved not to be unreasonable.

The third week she might expect a letter, and as day by day brought disappointment, she began to grow impatient.

The fourth week her impatience increased to anxiety.

The fifth this anxiety became almost insufferable.

The sixth doubt, distrust, and jealousy assailed her heart; but she sought to subdue these agonizing emotions by appealing to his words, wherein he said:

“If you should chance to be a long time without a letter, distrust messengers, post-offices, post-masters—everybody and every thing, save me and my fidelity.”

“And I will,” said Lionne, and she just made up her mind to write to Orville again. “For no doubt his letter has miscarried, and he is at this very time expecting one from me,” she concluded. As it was now the middle of January, and her beautiful grotto was blocked up with ice and snow, so that she could not go to that favorite temple of her love to perform the pleasant task, she gathered writing-materials and went up to her chamber.

The poverty of Lionne afforded no table in her room; so she placed her paper, pens and ink upon the top of an 156old oak chest, and kneeled down on the floor beside it to commence.

She had but dated the paper, when she was interrupted by an unusual sound—the quick gallop of horses into the yard, followed immediately by a smart rap with a riding-whip at the hall door.

“That is he! he has come! oh, I might have known that he was coming!” she exclaimed, throwing down her pen and starting up, her lips apart, her checks flushed, her eyes flashing with joy!

And before the rap could be repeated, or any one else could answer it, she had sped down-stairs and through the passage, and torn open the door.

She sickened, and nearly swooned with disappointment! She could not immediately recover her presence of mind, or welcome the travellers that stood there mutely claiming her hospitality. She could not answer, or even hear the words that were next addressed to her, until they were somewhat impatiently repeated.

“Myself and brother are lost in this wilderness. Night is coming on, and we are without a lodging. Will you be kind enough to tell us where we can get one?”

Lionne passed her hand once or twice across her brow, as if to clear her vision, and then looked up.

The speaker who had addressed her was a young girl of perhaps sixteen years of age, of a small, slight figure, thin, dark face, with very fierce, black eyes, and straight, black hair, parted over her low brow, and wound up under her hat. She wore a dark-green riding-habit, somewhat stained and faded by exposure and travel, and a round, jockey riding-cap. She rode a small, but well-formed black horse, that looked as weary and weather-beaten as herself.

Her companion was a youth of fourteen, bearing a strong family likeness to his sister; he was clothed in the 157rather dilapidated uniform of a private in the Provincial troops, and mounted on a good, bay horse, now rather the worse for a surplus of road and deficiency of rest.

“Well, I declare, young lady,” said Kate Kyte, for the travellers were no other than that young huntress and her youngest brother, “well, I declare, we are not highway robbers, that you should look at us as though we told you to ‘stand and deliver!’”

“I—I beg your pardon,” said Lionne, confusedly; “but who did you say you were? What did you require?”

“Merciful Moses! we are a pair of innocent children—a poor boy and girl who have lost our way in the forest.”

“What—what do you need?” inquired Lionne in the same perplexity.

“Powers above! every thing; supper and beds; horse-feed and stalls. And if you can’t tell us where to get them, either for mercy or money, (the less said about the latter the better,) we shall wander all night hand in hand, because our horses can’t carry us any longer; eat poison-berries, because we can’t get any thing else, supposing even we can get them; and finally lie down and die, and be covered over with leaves by the robins, like the babes in the woods,” said Kate, laughing.

“Oh, come along! She’s not a-going to give us any satisfaction,” grumbled the boy, turning his horse’s head.

“Stop where you are, Hubert! The young lady is only perplexed at seeing two such savages as we are before her door. She don’t look over-civilized herself however,” added Kate, in a low voice.

“Oh, I beg you will excuse me,” said Lionne, slowly recovering her presence of mind; “I was expecting—that is to say, I——”

158“Was not expecting strangers,” said Kate, finishing the sentence for her.

“No; but the strangers are most cordially welcome!” exclaimed Lionne, with greater animation. “Of course, you must go no farther to-night. Pray dismount. My servant-man will take care of your horses and also attend your orders, sir. Young lady, you come with me. Vulcan! Vulcan, I say!”

The huge dwarf appeared from the back part of the house, and, coming forward, struck Kate with about as much astonishment as any thing she had seen in the course of her travels.

While she was still gazing on the monster, Lionne said—

“Vulcan, show this young man into a room where he can wash and change his clothes, if he wishes, before supper. Take his knapsack and carry it after him; stable and feed the horses; and then report yourself to me in the kitchen.”

“Yes, Lionne,” said the dwarf, in a tone which, though not loud or high, coming from his vast chest, sounded like a peal of deep thunder, and made Kate exclaim:

“You would be a nice one to watch beside a sick-bed, wouldn’t you?”

“Come, young lady,” said Lionne, leading the way up-stairs to her own chamber.

“My name is Kate Kyte,” said the ‘young lady.’

“Come, then, Miss Kyte.”

“I said Kate Kyte! I never miss anybody, and never missed any thing! not even the Huron’s head, through which I sent a bullet at twenty paces!”

“Good heaven! blood on that young hand!” exclaimed Lionne, shrinking from her.

“No, bless you: washed off long ago! I have cleanly habits, ma’am, as old as my riding-coat is. But there has 159been plenty of it—both ‘the blood of birds and the blood of beasts and the blood of fishes!’ So at last shedding the blood of a two-legged tiger, did not come the least bit awkwardly.”

Lionne shrank farther and farther from her as they went up the stairs.

“Now don’t grind yourself against the wall in horror of me; the blood I shed was spilled in a holy cause! The savage was just in the act of tomahawking that boy of mine, when a message from my persuader here—” she said, indicating a pocket-pistol that was stuck in her belt—“stopped him. He dropped like a felled tree! beautifully! you never saw a better fall! or a better-looking savage after he was down! I couldn’t help stooping to admire him, even before I shook hands with my brother!”

“It was dreadful!” said Lionne.

“It was justifiable! nay, indeed, it was unavoidable. I reckon you would have said so, if you had seen that unarmed boy just under the descending stroke of the tomahawk! It was a neck and neck race between hatchet and pistol! and if my bullet had been half a second later, the tomahawk would have been buried in the boy’s brain.”

“Ugh! do not let us talk any more of such horrors!”

“Why, I declare! you are not chicken-hearted, are you! Now I have as much courage as a hundred other women put together, and you look as if you had ten times as much strength, fire, and firmness as a hundred of me!”

“However that may be, I am not naturally nervous; but for a few months past, I cannot imagine for what reason, I shudder at things that once never would have attracted even my notice!”

These words of Lionne brought them into her chamber where she supplied her guest with water and towels.

Kate was not so fortunate as her brother in the possession 160of a knapsack; but she had some few necessary articles of apparel in her saddle-bags, and these, at her request, were sent for, and brought up by Vulcan.

And now behold Kate, after her toilet, in a house dress of oldish but still bright crimson merino, that perfectly fitted her lithe and slender figure, a little black lace collar around her neck, and her lustrous, straight, black hair plainly parted over her low brow, and rolled into a coil at the back of her head.

Lionne took her guest down into the sitting-room, where she was soon after joined by her brother, who had meanwhile been engaged in freshening his own dilapidated appearance.

Apologizing for the necessity of leaving them, and begging that they would amuse themselves with such materials as were at hand—intimating the few books upon the table, and the many implements and trophies of the chase—Lionne left the room, to go into the kitchen and take counsel with Vulcan about supper for her guests.

“Kate, I say,” said Hubert, putting down a richly mounted horn that he had been examining; “that is just the handsomest girl I ever saw in my life.”

“Yes; do, now, go and fall in love with a stranger, and love her better than the sister you have known all your life!”

This reply silenced Hubert, who went on with his examination of the old horns, whistles, pipes, flasks, fowling-pieces, and other implements of the chase, all of rich material and elaborate finish, at great variance with the otherwise rude aspect of the lodge and its appointments.

“Kate, I say, it’s my belief that young girl’s father is a gentleman!” said Hubert, with one more attempt at conversation.

“How do you know she has a father, foolish boy?”

“Well, most folks have, haven’t they, Kate?”

161“Why, no; you haven’t.”

“But that’s because I’m an orphan, so that I’m no example!”

“No, in truth, you are not!” retorted Kate, in a manner that once more silenced the speaker.

In fact, Kate had got hold of the first copy of Shakspeare that she had ever seen, and that wonderful book, so cosmopolitan in its interest that it charms readers of all ages, characters and conditions, had spell-bound Kate to her chair, where she sat with her feet under the table, her elbows on it, her forehead leaning on the palms of her hands, and her eyes riveted upon the open volume before her, where she remained, while Hubert strolled about looking at, taking down, and sometimes in his awkwardness throwing down various implements and trophies of the chase.

Whenever such a crash came, Kate, without taking her eyes from her book, would say—

“Don’t do any mischief, Hube!”

Or if the noise was louder than usual, she would burst out with—

“Hubert, I say, don’t break things!”

At last, while she was deep in the perusal of the “Tempest,” came a crash that caused her to start impatiently to her feet, exclaiming angrily—

“Hubert, don’t knock things about so! You make me nervous with dread lest you do some damage!”

“’Twa’n’t me at all, now! It was that girl! You better not saved me if you mean to torment the life out of me all the rest of my days!” said the grateful and polite Mr. Kyte.

Kate looked around and saw Lionne, who had come in, calmly picking up a part of an old suit of armor that Master Hubert had taken down to examine, and then 162carelessly re-hung against the door, and which, in opening, she had thrown down.

“Will you please to come into such a supper as I can offer you, although it will not furnish the luxuries of an eastern table?” said their hostess, smiling.

Kate laughingly apologized for her ludicrous mistake, reluctantly closed her book, and arose to follow her hostess.

Hubert turned eagerly from the contemplation of a pair of ten-tined antlers to the more inviting prospect of feasting upon the animal that might once have worn them.

Lionne led the way into the spacious kitchen, which was glowingly lighted up by a great hickory fire, blazing in the wide fireplace, and a pair of candles in iron candlesticks that stood upon the well spread oak-table.

There was, as usual, no table-cloth, and the supper service was of the plainest earthenware, with cheap iron cutlery; but the meal spread before the guests was both substantial and luxurious, consisting of venison steaks, roasted partridges, home-made bread and butter, and fine coffee with fresh cream. The huge dwarf stood to wait upon the table.

“I say, Kate,” said Hubert, drawing near her and speaking low, “that pretty girl with the short giant waiting on her, is like the ‘Princess and the Dwarf’ in the fairy tale, ain’t it?”

“Yes, and do you know what you are like in the same story?”

“The prince that delivered and married the princess!” inquired Hubert, rather doubtfully.

“No! the court-fool who got the bastinado for talking out of season.”

This philippic, as usual with such, at once silenced 163Hubert, who meekly took the place pointed out to him at the table, and spoke no more.

Both Kate and Hubert supped after the manner of healthy young travellers, who had ridden thirty miles, fasting, through a sharp winter day.

Lionne saw that full justice was done to her bill of fare, and felt flattered upon the doubtful subject of her housekeeping.

After supper, when they were about to adjourn to the sitting-room, Hubert said that if Mr. Vulcan would be so good as to show him the way, he would like to visit the stable, and see the condition of his horses after their severe travel.

Mr. Vulcan was so good, and with a clumsy nod—for he was too short and square to bow—he took his wolf-skin cap and led the way to the stables.

Lionne conducted her guest back to the sitting-room, mended the fire, and invited her to draw her chair nearer the hearth.

“Do you live here ‘all alone mit yerself,’ as the Dutchman would say?” inquired Kate.

“Oh, no!” answered Lionne.

“Then with only that Dwarf-Titan, like the Princess in the story, to which my brother compared you?”

“No; I have a father, who is absent to-day at Winchester, but who will be home some time to-night.”

“Well,” said Kate, “as I claimed your hospitality, I ought to tell you who I am.”

“That is a question never put by my father to a passing guest. To know that such a one is a traveller, seeking quarters, is sufficient for him.”

“Yes, very likely for him; but is it for you, with your Eve’s share of curiosity.”

“Even for me, also.”

“Well, then, that is noble, I must say! But just suppose, 164now, that I feel egotistical, and had rather talk of myself than not?”

“Why, in that case, my little egotist, go on! and I will promise you one interested and attentive listener.”

“Thank you! well, then, you must know that my father and mother both died while I was a little child.”

“Yes.”

“And left me, a solitary girl, to grow up with half a dozen brothers, all older than myself, except Hubert, here, who is a year younger!”

“I see!”

“Well, then, I grew up a boy as far as education and habits go!”

“That accounts for every thing.”

“Don’t it, though? Well, seeing that I was so much of a boy, when my brothers enlisted in the Provincial troops that were going out to fight the French and other savages, I wanted to enlist too! of course I did! but the dunder-head who was recruiting wouldn’t take me!”

“Indeed!”

“No: did you ever hear of such stupidity?”

“Never!” said Lionne, smiling.

“It was no use for me to tell him that I had never been parted from my brothers, and never would be; that we had always lived together in one band, eat and drank together, travelled together, hunted and fished together, ridden and raced together, and that now, by the grave of our parents, we would enlist and go to the war together, and, if necessary, be killed and scalped together!”

“Well, after all, I like that, Kate! But what did the recruiter answer?”

“Answer! the insolent! he said the only way in which I could get to go on the expedition would be to marry him and go as his wife!” said Kate, with flashing eyes.

“And what did you say?”

165“Nothing: my horsewhip answered for me with one sharp cut across his impudent face and mouth, that must carry the marks of the lash to this day, if he lives!”

“And then?”

“I put whip to my horse and rode to head-quarters, and went into the very presence of the great military lion himself—General Braddock. I told him all that I had told the recruiting-sergeant, and in addition, I said that I wished to go to take care of Hubert, who, being the youngest of our band, would need my protection (as it turned out he did).”

“And the General?”

“When he heard my story, he broke down into the vulgarest guffaw that ever I heard from a white man. I had left my horsewhip in its rest beside the saddle, else I don’t know what would have been the consequences. Well, I told him he might as well enlist me, for that I was not accustomed to be crossed, any more than I was to be laughed at, and that I would go to the wars in spite of him.”

“And he?”

“Just called an orderly sergeant, and sent out in all directions to inquire whether I had any parents or guardians, and kept me prisoner in a room at his quarters the whole day, until he found that I belonged to myself exclusively, when he cursed the customs of the country and set me at liberty.”

“And you thanked him, of course?”

““Didn’t I, though?” Well, my brothers marched with their company. I was left behind with no other society than old Lucy, our cook, and the hounds. It was not, however, until some time afterwards, when the great battle had been fought and lost, and the troops were massacred, scattered or carried off, that I put my threat of following the army into execution. Then, when straggler after 166straggler returned, wounded, weary and weather-beaten, bringing each the most frightful accounts of that field of blood, and I could hear nothing in regard to the fate of my brothers, I mounted my horse and set off in quest of news of them.”

“A Quixotic undertaking,” said Lionne.

“It was not so dangerous or difficult as you imagine. I just followed Braddock’s road, stopping to rest each night at the cabin of some squatter, and going forward by day and making inquiries of everybody I saw. I met several late stragglers from the battle, who had been laid up somewhere and detained by their wounds——”

“I knew of several so detained. But—did you succeed in hearing from your brothers?”

“At long last, yes! I will tell you how. It was near sunset, and I was still following the fatal road cut by Braddock’s doomed party to their own destruction, when, between the glinting lights, I thought I saw a boy riding from the opposite direction. Something in the air and manner of the figure set my heart to beating thick and fast——”

“You thought it was one of year brothers?”

“I thought it was Hubert; yes! and I would have ridden faster, only that my horse was ready to drop with fatigue. And just as the boy came around a tree in full sight, and I recognized him as Hubert and was about to shout his welcome—out from the bushes sprang one of those red demons of the forest, and whirling his tomahawk around his head in dazzling gyrations, with a terrible war-whoop he bounded upon the boy, seized him with his left hand, raised his tomahawk in his right, and would the next instant have buried it in the brain of his victim, had I not raised my pistol and sent a bullet through his head.”

“Good heaven of heavens! I wonder terror had not deprived you of your senses!”

167“No, it never does! I am woman enough to be frightened at the anticipation of evil; but when sudden danger confronts me it calms my heart and quickens my brain. For see—when I first recognized Hubert my heart was beating painfully with joy; but the instant I saw the savage spring upon him, his sudden, imminent, horrible danger steadied my nerves, my eye and my hand, and enabled me to send my shot home to its mark with the certainty of fate!”

“Kate! Kate! you are a heroine, such as in the old days of chivalry would have inspired brave knights to glorious deeds.”

“What, because I shot an Indian who was about to tomahawk my boy-brother—a thing for which I merit neither praise nor blame, nor desire any other reward than to see the lad alive and have him throw his arms around my neck and call me his best sister,—as if he had several sisters to choose from, poor fellow. I do scold him and put him down sometimes, but it is all for his good.”

“Well, go on, dear Kate, go on!”

“Well, in fact, there is but little more to tell. Hubert told me that after his company had been disbanded, his brothers had joined a troop of hunters who were going farther west to hunt the bison, and that they had directed him to return home and bring me news of their safety. He was on his road when I met him. And now, having travelled thus far on our return, we shall avail ourselves of your kindness for the night, and in the morning resume our homeward journey to the banks of the Potomac.”

“The banks of the Potomac?”

“Why, yes—there is our home.”

“What part of the Potomac?”

“North bank, near St. George’s Island.”

“St. George’s Island! Do you know a place near that called River-view?”

168“The seat of Mr. Orville Deville?—of course I do!”

“Do you know Mr. Deville?”

“Know Orville Deville? Well, now, I reckon I do, just a little! and Lady Elizabeth and Lady Adelaide, too!”

“Lady Elizabeth is his mother; but—who is Lady Adelaide?” inquired Lionne—perhaps with a vague, prophetic feeling of unaccountable jealousy—or perhaps only with that deep interest she felt for every one in any way connected with Orville Deville.

“Why, Lady Adelaide Deville, to be sure!” answered Kate.

“And—what is she to him—his cousin?”

“Yes—his half cousin and more than that—his wife!”

“His——WHAT?”

“His wife! his sweet, pretty, young wife!”

“Girl! it is false!”

“Why, what in the world ails you?” said Kate, gazing in surprise at the blanched face of her hostess.

“Oh, I am wrong! here is some misunderstanding, Kate, I am speaking of Lieutenant Orville Deville, the only son of Lady Elizabeth Deville of River-view, Maryland,” said Lionne, with a look of agonizing anxiety.

“And so am I! There is no other Orville Deville in the wide world that I know of!—Why, what is the matter with you? Are you ill?” said Kate, wondering at the increasing agitation of the forest girl.

“But—but—there must be some mistake here! it cannot be otherwise! The Mr. Deville whom I knew was an officer in his Majesty’s Provincials.”

“Yes.”

“And went in the late fatal expedition against the French and Indians.”

“Certainly—but how in the world did you know 169him, or why should you care any thing at all about him?”

“He was wounded and was missing for several weeks, during which he remained convalescing here under our care—was this the same man of whom you speak?” cried Lionne, clasping her hands in an agony of suspense.

“Why, of course it was! the very same man! couldn’t possibly have been any other! So this was the house that sheltered him! Well! I heard in Winchester, when I first passed through, that he had taken refuge in some hunter’s lodge! But, good heaven, what is the matter with you! this is very strange! you are certainly going crazy!” exclaimed Kate, staring in astonishment upon the blanched and haggard face, and wringing, writhing hands of the young mountaineer.

“But—but—I say there is something ill-comprehended between us!—There must be! The young gentleman who staid with us was a mere youth—”

“Certainly—twenty or so!”

“Therefore, you see, you must be mistaken!” said Lionne, with a pleading, prayerful gaze.

“How mistake—I tell you I know we are talking of the same man!”

“Well, granting that we are! still, you must be mistaken in supposing that he left a wife in Maryland! It could not be, you know! such a mere youth!” said Lionne, striving desperately to keep down the strong, rising passions of her soul.

“Come now, that is rich! Just as if no one ever heard of a young man marrying at the age of twenty! he married younger than that, I can tell you!”

“And you say that—that—Lady Adelaide is his—his—his——”

“His wife! what is there strange in that, to make you glare so?”

170“How do you know this?” demanded Lionne, in a tone that made Kate start and exclaim—

“My stars, don’t give tongue in that way!”

“How do you know it?” thundered Lionne, again.

“Why lord, because I know all about the family, having lived next neighbor to them for years; and because I have been acquainted with Lady Adelaide Deville ever since her marriage with Mr. Orville Deville.”

“And I say you speak falsely! FALSELY, girl! Orville Deville is NOT a villain!” gasped Lionne.

“Did I call him one? I begin to think you are crazy!” exclaimed Kate, in consternation.

“Some one—some haughty relative, or other interested party—has bribed you to beguile my ear with a lie!”

“Come now, that is a little too extravagant even for craziness! as if it were worth any one’s while to send me two hundred miles to tell you a story!”

Lionne, with a face white and still as marble, the blanched lips drawn tight across the firm-set teeth, eyes contracted and burning, and hands fiercely clenched together, sat watching the speaker.

—“Just as if it were any thing on earth to you—or to me—whether Mr. Orville Deville were married or single! But I guess how it is,” continued Kate: “the young gentleman has been passing himself off for a single man, and while lying wounded here, has been amusing himself by making love to his pretty nurse! Men will do these things in the world outside!—Ah! don’t murder me!”

With the cry and bound of a wild beast, the forest girl sprang upon the speaker and seized, shook, and tossed her as a lioness might do a kid, exclaiming, breathless the while—

“Girl! wretch! fiend! you belie him! you BELIE him! Speak! say that you belie him, before I choke the truth from your false throat!”

171Kate could say nothing, do nothing! She was but as a kid in the claws of a lioness, and so she suffered herself to be throttled, shaken and tossed until the beautiful fury had exhausted her own strength, spurned her victim away, and sunk half dead into her seat.

Then Kate, who had caught the table to steady herself while she stood looking upon Lionne, said—

“Poor girl! I can forgive your violence, because I see that you are half crazy, as I begin to fear that you have reason to be!”

“Oh, hush, hush! in pity, hush!” moaned Lionne, who sat with her face buried in her hands.

“As sure as shooting,” thought Kate, “that young man has been idly making love to this girl and has won her lion heart! Well, thank heaven! I never was in love and I hope I never shall be! So of myself I know nothing about it! But judging from newspaper-paragraphs I should think love sometimes drove passionate people mad!” Here she stole another deep, wistful glance at Lionne.

There was no look of the weak suicide about her.

Her head was now raised, her hands clasped upon her lap; every aspect of her face and form betokened strength, will, and determination; the stately head and neck, the tightly-curling, wiry black ringlets, the sternly-corrugated brow, the firmly-compressed lips, the still, contracted, glittering eyes, the strongly-knotted fingers—all combined in an expression of concentrated passion and purpose dangerous as that of a wild beast drawn up for a fatal spring!

“Ugh! Ugh!” shuddered Kate. “If this man has dealt falsely with that girl I would not be in his shoes for a kingdom! A demon in the shape of a woman will be on his track! She will hunt him to the uttermost ends of the earth, and tear him with less compunction than a leopardess would tear an antelope!—and serve him right!”

172While Kate pursued her silent reverie, Lionne slowly arose, walked up and down the floor a few turns and then paused, fixed one deep, scrutinizing gaze upon the face of her guest, and reading her whole character in that momentary study, she went up to Kate, and standing before her placed a hand upon each of the girl’s shoulders, and said:

“Kate! pardon my violence! It was madness!”

“I know it! Say no more about it!”

“Kate! if you knew all, you would not wonder! I confide in your truth; yet I cannot make you my confidante, because I am bound to secrecy, and must not break faith until I know, beyond all doubt, that faith has been broken with me!”

“Alas! I do not ask you!”

“Yet I must ask you to be kind enough to tell me all you know, or rather all you think you know of this supposed marriage of Orville Deville.”

“Well, then, sit down quietly by my side, and control yourself, and I will tell you that which I feel you ought to know.”

Lionne drew her chair to the side of her guest and sat down.

Kate commenced and related the whole history of Orville Deville’s romantic marriage.

With wonderful calmness, Lionne heard her through, and then rising and standing before Kate, she laid her hand impressively upon the girl’s breast, and said:

“Kate! I know that you are perfectly frank in telling me what you sincerely believe to be true! but, Kate! I DARE NOT believe your story! I must believe that you are misinformed, mistaken, insane even, rather than venture to credit your statement, except upon the evidence of my own senses.”

“You can have that if you take the trouble.”

“I know! I do not doubt you, Kate! but for me I 173must not convict upon hearsay evidence. Are you determined to set forward on your journey to-morrow?”

“Quite so.”

“Then I shall bear you company, if you will permit me; if not, I will follow in your trail.”

“Oh, come with me, by all means! I will give you all the aid I can!”

“I thank you! Take my hand! a hand pledged to your service henceforth. Take me to where I can have eye-and-ear witness of the truth of your story, and then, when my own senses have confirmed your statement, I will confide to you a secret, which, when you have heard, you will wonder at no after-act of mine!”

“But,” said Kate, “will your father consent to this sudden journey?”

“I know not yet! I only know that in all events the journey must be taken,” said Lionne, in a voice of desperation, at the same time raising her stately head, and listening to some sound inaudible to duller ears——

“Father has come,” she said.

And at the same moment the sound of a horse’s feet was heard approaching, and the next moment the rider was heard to dismount at the hall door, and enter the house.

Like magic Lionne cleared her brow and sprang up to meet her father.

“What, my daughter, a visitor with you? This is unexpected!” said Mr. Delaforêt, in a low voice, as he entered the room.

“A belated traveller, my father, who, with her boy-brother, claims our hospitality for the night,” replied Lionne in the same key. Then, aloud, she said—“This is Miss Kate Kyte of Bush Creek, in Maryland,—my father.”

“Miss Kyte, I am happy to see you,” said Delaforêt 174with stately courtesy. “And now, Lionne, my dear, as I have not supped, I must trouble you to send in a luncheon. What have you ready?”

“No Belshazzar’s feast, my father; yet enough wherewithal to satisfy the craving hunger of a weary traveller,” answered Lionne, gaily.

Surprised at the lightness of her tone, Kate looked up, and saw with astonishment that every vestige of grief and anxiety was banished from the beautiful countenance that she had so lately seen blanched and convulsed with anguish or deadly with fatal purpose.

Leaving Kate wondering at that marvellous self-control, Lionne passed into the kitchen, where she found the dwarf and the boy with their hands together over the embers, telling each other incredible hunting-stories, of which always the narrator was the hero.

She gave her orders to the dwarf, and invited the boy to attend her into the sitting-room, where she presented him to her father.

“A cold night, friends! so much the more need of a warm welcome. Draw all your chairs round in a circle,” said Mr. Delaforêt, stirring the great fire until it blazed again, and piling on great logs of wood.

By the time they were comfortably warm, and were beginning to back out a little from the blazing hearth, Vulcan entered bearing a tray well laden with cold fowl, venison, bread, butter, a bottle of good wine, etc., which he sat upon the centre-table.

The host drew up to the board and lunched like a hungry traveller.

When he had eaten and was filled, and the cloth was removed, as the night was growing still colder, the host piled on more logs and the circle drew in again around the glowing hearth.

And then as conversation grew fluent, the weather, the 175roads, the Indians, dogs, horses, and game were in turn discussed.

At last Mr. Delaforêt arose, and taking up a night-lamp said—

“Young ladies, I have come off one long journey to-day, and have a longer one before me to-morrow. You, too, if I mistake not, look a little tired and sleepy; and so, with your leave, I will bid you good-night. Lionne, my dear, as I set out to-morrow at daybreak, you will please give directions to have breakfast ready before my departure.”

The heart of Lionne leaped with surprise and almost with joy at this strange announcement; but controlling her emotions, she approached him, and said, calmly,

“Do you remain long away, my father?”

“Yes. My business takes me to Baltimore, where I shall remain nine or twelve days—an unprecedented absence for your father, who never within your recollection passed a single night from home. But, what matter? My brave Lionne will not fear to be left alone with Vulcan for a warder!”

“Oh, no! Do you really start at daybreak?”

“Yes. So have every thing ready. And now, good-night!” said the host; and with a courteous bow to his guests, he left the room.

“What think you of that, Kate?” inquired Lionne, as soon as the two girls were alone in their chamber.

“Think of what?” asked Kate, speaking very gently.

“Why, my father leaves here to-morrow at daybreak, so that afterward I shall be able to depart unquestioned with you.”

“Well! I think that if you have any deadly purpose in your journey, Satan is certainly aiding you in its accomplishment!”

176Lionne laughed—a strange, sardonic, fearful laugh, that made Kate shudder through all her frame.

As the house had but one extra room, which had been given to Hubert, the two girls were obliged to occupy the same bed. Kate undressed, lay down, and, already worn out with her long ride, was soon asleep.

But no slumber lighted upon the eyelids of Lionne that dreadful night! She lay with both hands clasped over her burning brow, bitter tears rising to her swollen eyes, deep groans bursting from her surcharged bosom!

A long and wretched night,—but it passed at last.

Before the earliest dawn of day Lionne heard her father stirring in his chamber.

She immediately arose, quickly dressed, and went below to attend to his early breakfast.

On entering the kitchen she found the kettle already hanging over a roaring fire, and Vulcan busy setting the table. She helped him in his task with such despatch that in a few minutes a comfortable meal was smoking on the board, and her father was called down to partake of it.

When he had eaten and was satisfied, he took a temporary leave of Lionne, and departed.

She, standing in the hall-door, watched him as he rode along down the narrow path between the ridge and the creek.

“Good-by! Good-by! Who knows whether I shall ever see your face again, my father!” she said, as the horse and his rider disappeared around a jut of the mountain.

Then she returned to the kitchen, directed Vulcan to re-arrange the breakfast-table for her friends, and went up stairs and into the bedchamber, where she found Kate still sleeping.

Unwilling to break her slumbers, Lionne went to the oak chest, upon the top of which she had left that fair 177sheet of paper intended to have been filled with a letter to Orville,—a letter now, alas! indefinitely postponed.

Kneeling, she wrote a few lines to her father, giving him to understand that she had followed her own sudden and eccentric fancy in going home with Kate Kyte for a visit of a few days, and telling him that if she were not home when he should arrive, she would at farthest be with him a very few days after. She folded, sealed, and directed this letter, and then carried it down-stairs; and explaining to Vulcan that she was going home with Miss Kyte, ordered him to give it to his master upon the return of the latter.

Vulcan started with astonishment; but he was too well accustomed to obey his imperious mistress implicitly, to raise any objections to her strange commands.

When she returned the second time to the bedchamber she found her guest awake. Seeing Lionne, Kate exclaimed:

“Good gracious, how haggard you look! has any thing happened?”

“Nothing new, except that my father left at daybreak, and that therefore all necessity for my wearing a mask and acting a part is happily over.”

Kate fixed a deep, long, wistful gaze upon the face of the unhappy girl, and then sprang out of bed and began dressing herself in great haste.

“What time is it?” she next asked.

“The sun is rising.”

“How soon can we set out?”

“As soon as you please—as soon as you have eaten breakfast, which is now waiting.”

Kate hurried on her clothes, and declared herself ready to go down-stairs.

In the passage they were joined by Hubert, who went with them to the kitchen, where they found an inviting 178morning-meal, to which the young travellers did ample justice.

While they ate, old Vulcan, at his mistress’s command, went out and saddled the three horses.

And as soon as breakfast was over the three young travellers donned their riding-caps and coats, and set forward upon their journey.

No one was so delighted as young Hubert at having the beautiful forest-girl in their company.

On the evening of the third day the party reached Bush Creek, where Kate found her old servant, Lucy, still alive and moving about, though too deeply fallen into dotage even to feel surprise at the sudden re-appearance of her young mistress and master, whom she received as calmly as though they had but just returned from a day’s hunt.

“Dear Lionne, go no farther to-night,” said Kate.

“I must! I should die of suspense otherwise!”

“At least stay to supper.”

“I cannot eat, drink, or sleep until I have been to River-view.”

“Then promise me to return, at all events, to-night.”

“Heaven help me! I cannot even promise that. When, or where, or how you will meet me again the Lord only knoweth; but I thank and bless you for your kindness, and, whatever becomes of me,—may you be happy.”

With no more pallor, or other sign of disturbance, than might rationably be accounted for by a nervous headache, Lady Adelaide entered the supper-room and glided to her place at the tea-table.

Lady Elizabeth was already seated, and Orville, who 195had been standing at the back of his chair waiting for the appearance of Adelaide, now took his place.

“Orville tells me that you were indisposed this afternoon, my dear. I hope you feel better,” said the elder lady.

“My head does not ache much now,” replied Adelaide, without raising her eyes, and proceeding to pour out the tea.

Orville smiled as in gratification, and placed on her plate the rarest delicacies of the table.

The subject of the projected journey was resumed and discussed through the whole of tea-time.

Adelaide never spoke unless she was directly appealed to, and then her answers, though gentle, were brief and vague.

At last, Lady Elizabeth, looking wistfully at her, said—

“Adelaide, love, you really look quite unwell. Does your head still ache?”

“Not much; but I believe I must beg you will allow me to retire early.”

“Certainly, my dear! sleep is really the only remedy for a nervous headache. Go at once, my child. Orville, take the light and attend your wife to her chamber-door, my son,” said Lady Elizabeth, putting one of the wax-candles in Mr. Deville’s hands.

He arose with a look of concern; but Adelaide, with a smile, took the candle from his hand, rejected his attendance, and left the room.

But as the door closed behind her, the smile died from her face, upon which a look of despair settled. She paused for a moment her bosom heaved convulsively.

“And is this the last, last time I shall ever see him? Have I taken my last look at his face, heard the last sound of his voice? And shall I never, never meet him more? Never more! Never more! Oh, words of woe insufferable! 196But what am I saying? Oh, heart, be silent! it is a crime to love him, to grieve for him, even to think of him now! he is the husband of another! and my stern duty is to go! Yes! all that I have to do lies in that little, hard word—Go.”

So saying, she walked on through the lower hall; but instead of going up the stairs, she went into the library and hunted until she found the Statute Laws of Maryland. She took the volumes to her chamber, locked her door, laid them upon the table, drew a chair, sat down and opened them.

She referred first to the laws on marriage; and she found, as she had expected, that the ceremony read over herself and Orville in their childhood, by the authority of their parents, constituted a legal marriage, indissoluble except by death or divorce.

Next she examined the laws of divorce, and found that such an act as Orville had committed, desertion, wanton abuse, etc., were all set down as just pleas for the legal breaking of a marriage-bond. She found also, oh horror! that a second marriage during the life of the first marriage-partner was a felony, punishable with imprisonment and disgrace!

She closed the volumes and fell into deep and painful thought.

Four courses were open to her.

First, to remain passively where she was, and let events take their natural direction, whatever that might turn out to be.

Secondly, to sue for divorce: that she could surely get.

Thirdly, to prosecute Orville for the bigamy, of which he would undoubtedly be convicted.

And fourthly, to sacrifice herself, by simply going away and leaving it to him to divorce her, upon the ground of wanton desertion.

197These four paths lay open before her reason. But one only was possible for her heart. She did not hesitate one moment. And if for a few moments she remained in painful thought, it was to find excuses for him and just cause for her own self-immolation.

“He has been unfortunate rather than guilty—” so ran her reverie. “No one had a right to force me, a child, upon him as his wife in his non-age! Such an arbitrary act could not morally bind him, and that it did not is proved by the fact that I was never any more to him than a little sister, while he formed a tie elsewhere.

“But unfortunately this bond, which is not a moral one, is, notwithstanding, a legal chain, not to be broken except by death or legislative action!

“If it were not a sin I would willingly die to release him! As I cannot die before my time comes, nothing remains but divorce, to free him from this unjust and hateful bond!

“If I divorce him for his unfortunate second marriage, it will cover him with unmerited dishonor and break his mother’s heart.

“Therefore, there remains but one way in which I can serve him! I can only save him by loosing myself! I will do it! I will go away and leave him to divorce me for my desertion of him!

“That will not dishonor him, and if it debase me in the eyes of the world, what odds? There is no one to be dragged down by my fall, for I am alone. Soon death will come of his own accord, and I shall rest and be forgotten—of all save God, who knows the truth!”

And thus concluding her reverie, Adelaide drew writing materials towards her, and commenced a letter of explanation and farewell to Orville.

The writing of that letter gave her more trouble than any task she had ever undertaken.

198It was blotted with frequent erasures and blistered with many tears. It was written and re-written; so anxious was she that while fully releasing him—so far as she had power to do so—she should let slip no word of reproach or grief that should give him pain, or mar the completeness of her own perfect self-sacrifice.

It was finished!

Then still pale, and weak from the passage of that moral storm, she sat with her elbow resting on the table and her head bowed down upon her hand—thinking of the marvellous change that a few hours had wrought in her destiny—looking back upon what she had done, and looking forward to what she must suffer.

She waited for all to become quiet.

First she heard Lady Elizabeth come up-stairs, attended by her maid, and enter her ladyship’s chamber on the other side of the hall.

An hour later, she heard Orville Deville softly ascend the stairs and enter his bedroom, dismissing his servant at the door, and moving cautiously, as in the fear of waking her.

Finally she heard Keziah come out of Lady Elizabeth’s chamber, pause and listen at her young lady’s door, and mutter—

“She is asleep; I will not go in to disturb her,” and then slip away softly down the stairs.

Now all was quiet. Yet still, for security, Adelaide waited another hour. Then she arose, put on a common cloth cloak and hood, such as she usually wore about the plantation, and taking “neither scrip nor staff,” quietly left her chamber, glided down-stairs, and through the hall to the front door.

In that well-kept house no lock grated and no hinge creaked. At her touch, silently the key turned, the door opened and Adelaide stood upon the threshold of the once 199happy home she was now about to leave at night, alone, unfriended and forever!

As thus for one moment she stood, she looked forth, as into the world she was about to dare!

It was a dark and starless night. So dark that it was only by feeling the coldness and dampness of the air, and extending her hand outwards, that she discovered it was snowing very fast. The wind arose with a low wail, wafting the snow into her face and bosom, as if to meet her on the threshold of her wanderings. Cold, cold greeting!

The old-fashioned clock in the corner of the hall began, with its usual croaking prelude, to strike the hour. It struck eleven.

Adelaide instinctively started! Never in her life had she been out at such an hour, or in such inclement weather! What a night and what an hour for that delicate creature to cast herself forth alone to wander until she should perish!

But a moment’s bitter reflection caused her to ask, What did it matter? The hope of youth and the sweetness of life were lost forever! as well, therefore, to perish in the cold snow-storm, as to waste slowly with the fever of a breaking heart!

She paused no longer, but closing the door softly behind her, went forth into the night and storm.

There are great crises in life, when the soul is called upon to act, suddenly, forcibly, fatally, and in so swift a flight of time, that when the action is past, and life is thereby forever changed, the same soul seems instantly to have passed, as by death, from one state of existence to another.

Thus it was with Adelaide as she passed the threshold of that door, closing it behind her, and left a home of love, light and safety, and went forth alone into darkness, storm aid peril to meet—WHAT?

It snowed all night. The ground was covered two feet deep; and it was still snowing when the family at River-view arose and went about their morning-business.

First, old Nero, who slept in the house and performed the duties of waiter, crept down into the breakfast-parlor to open the windows and light the fire.

He found great difficulty in forcing back the shutters, 209that were blocked up with drifts of snow. And when at last he succeeded in pushing them open, the snow-shrouded earth that broke cold and white upon his sight, filled him with dismay.

“Well, I ‘clar’,” he cried, in wrath—“ef dis winter ain’t jes’ like human nater! It knows how dis is its last chance, cause spring is most here, and so it’s a-doin’ of its darndest! How am I gwine to haul wood to keep up de fires t’rough dis yere?”

“Oh hush! long o’ yer perfane grumblin’ at de doin’s o’ Marster in hebben!” exclaimed Keziah, who just at this moment entered the parlor.

“Yes, you may preach, but whar I gwine to get wood to keep all dese yer fires a-goin’?”

“Yer ought always to have wood nuff on hand! Ef I seed to keepin’ of de house no better ’an you see to your dooty, things ud be at a putty pass. I gwine to take dis anyways, and you must do as yer likes,” retorted Keziah, laying hold of an armful of light wood.

“Hey! stop dat you! it’s for kindlin’ de parlor-fire.”

“An’ I wants um for kindle Miss Adely’s fire! You t’ink the likes o’ she kin git up ’doubt a fire?” cried Keziah, in defiance, as she seized the billets and fled from the room, leaving old Nero first to rave at her effrontery, and then to go out in the snow in search of more fuel.

Very softly, meanwhile, Keziah ascended the stairs and entered the deserted chamber of her young mistress.

“She is still asleep,” said Keziah, glancing at the white curtains of her bed that were still closed.

She softly put down her billets of wood, raked together the embers, kindled the fire and swept the hearth. In all this, she unavoidably made some noise, and thereupon grew uneasy lest she should disturb the slumberer, who had, the night previous, gone to bed with a nervous headache.

210“How sound she do sleep!” said Keziah, glancing at the motionless white curtains, as she left the room to bring fresh water.

She re-entered, filled the ewers, making an inevitable rattling with the crockery ware, and glancing anxiously at the bed. Then with some effort and more noise she hoisted the windows, and pushed open the shutters, sending down great drifts of snow, and letting in a flood of clouded light.

“How long she do sleep!” said Keziah, approaching the bed, and softly putting aside the curtains, for the purpose of gazing upon the beloved slumberer.

That bed, it is needless to say, was empty!

“My gracious! She hasn’t slept in dis all night! I ‘specks ole mist’ess has been sick, and she’s been sittin’ up wid her! Why couldn’t dey o’ called me?” said Keziah, with an injured air, as she hurried from this chamber into that of her old mistress.

“You may mend my fire, and hand me my wadded wrapper, Keziah, as I shall get up at once,” said Lady Elizabeth, who was lying awake.

“Yes, ma’am; I hopes you finds yourself better dis morning, ma’am,” said Keziah, looking around, expecting to find Lady Adelaide wrapped up in a shawl, and dozing in an easy chair.

“Better? Why, I am well enough! What do you mean?”

“Why, I thought how you was ill in de night, ma’am, as de reason why Miss Adely stayed long o’ you.”

“Adelaide stayed with me? Why, Adelaide has not been with me! What on earth are you thinking about, girl?”

“Miss Adely not along o’ you all night!” cried Keziah, opening her eyes wide with astonishment.

211“Why, no! What is the matter? Are you crazy?” exclaimed her mistress, impatiently.

“Well, ma’am, all I can say is, as how Lady Adelaide must be sperrited away, case she nebber slept in her own room last night!” said Keziah, in alarm.

“Never slept in her own room last night!” ejaculated Lady Elizabeth.

“No, ma’am; she didn’t.”

Lady Elizabeth’s look of astonishment gradually changed to one of enlightenment, as she said—

“Oh, very well! I dare say it is all right. And now help me on with my wrapper, and go down and see that the parlor is well warmed and the breakfast ready. I shall be down almost immediately.”

Keziah hurried below stairs to do her mistress’s bidding.

And in half an hour afterwards, when the lady descended to the breakfast-parlor, she found the room glowing with the genial warmth and light of a great hickory fire, that blazed upon the hearth, and the table smoking with fragrant coffee and an abundant breakfast, which, together with all the other home comforts, enabled the family to bid defiance to the depressing effects of the inclement weather without.

Orville Deville stood with his back to the fire, and his eyes fixed carelessly on the English paper in his hands.

“Good morning, Orville! I regret to have kept you waiting, my son. Sit down at once: but where is Adelaide?”

“She has not yet come down, I believe, madam,” said Mr. Deville, placing a chair for his mother.

“I hope she has quite recovered of her headache,” said the lady.

“I hope so, too. I have not seen her this morning. Keziah, has your young mistress got over her indisposition?” asked Mr. Deville, turning towards the waiting-woman.

212“I dunno, sir; I’ve not seen Miss Adely this morning, nyther,” said the abigail, in dismay.

“You not seen her, Keziah!” said Mr. Deville.

“You not seen her, Orville!” exclaimed Lady Elizabeth.

“How could I see her, when she wa’n’t nowheres?” said Keziah.

“What in the world is the meaning of all this?” inquired Mr. Deville, looking from the mistress to the maid.

“She did not occupy her room last night, Keziah tells me, and she has not been seen this morning, as it appears,” exclaimed Lady Elizabeth, in turn.

“Is it possible! what can it mean?” cried Orville; then, quickly controlling himself, he said, “nonsense! there can be nothing amiss. She is in some other room—in the library or the pantry. Go and look for your young mistress, Keziah, and stop gaping and staring! We live in a humdrum neighborhood, far from thieves and assassins, woman! Come, hurry! I will warrant that we find Lady Adelaide dropped asleep in the library over some old book, or else with the cook in the pantry, in close discussion of some dish that requires long and careful preparation. Go you to the lower dominions, while I ascend to the higher.”

And without another instant’s delay, Mr. Deville hurried from the breakfast-room.

The search began. Vain search! Adelaide was not in the library, nor in the pantry, nor in any of the chambers of the house, nor at any of the cabins about the plantation. No one could find even a trace of her. The servants of the farm were mustered and questioned—no one had seen or heard of her since the preceding day. The family became dreadfully alarmed. They, without a single 213clue to the cause of her disappearance, were lost in the most painful conjecture.

“How forgetful and thoughtless we are!” at length exclaimed Orville—“for while we have been searching elsewhere, she may have returned quietly to her chamber. Let us search there again.”

A plan no sooner suggested than followed up. They hurried to her chamber. It was deserted as before.

They looked around for some sign to guide them to her fate. The letter lying upon the centre-table caught the eye of Orville. He snatched it up. It was directed in her hand to himself. He tore it open, glanced over the first few lines, flushed darkly-red, then turned deadly-pale and crushing the letter in his hand, said—

“Dear mother, pray take these women out, and wait for me a few minutes in the parlor, where I will soon join you.”

“But that letter, Orville?” said the lady, anxiously.

“It is from her to me—it explains her absence: it requires to be read alone.”

“But her—Adelaide! what of her?”

“Safe, I hope! Dear mother, give me opportunity to read and reflect! I will join you in the parlor in a few minutes.”

The lady, full of wonder and anxiety, called off her women, and retreating, left her son alone.

He threw himself into the chair, by her writing-table, and again took her letter, smoothed it out, spread it before him and read it—this time carefully, and from beginning to end.

She began by assuring him that his happiness had been the dearest object of her life, and begging him to forgive her, if all these years she had ignorantly remained an obstacle to that very happiness. She entreated him to judge leniently those well-meaning but mistaken parents 214who had so unjustly forced upon his life an unnatural and hateful bond. She told him that she left with the intention of remaining away forever, that by her abandonment of him, he should be able to free himself, legally, from all engagements to her. And with her usual exquisite sense of delicacy, she refrained from mentioning the name or even alluding to the existence of Lionne. She concluded with the most affectionate messages to his mother, and the most fervent wishes for his own welfare. And she signed herself his “true friend and cousin, Adelaide Lorne.”

Orville had no reason, either from her letter or from any other circumstance, to suppose that she suspected the existence of Lionne. But he remembered his long neglect of her as his bride, and he ascribed her letter and her subsequent flight to wounded love and womanly pride. He cursed his own sin and bewailed his own follies that had separated him from her.

And if before this he had been in doubt of the strength, earnestness, and exclusiveness of his attachment to Adelaide—from this moment at least, he knew that he loved her with all the passion of his soul.

And now to seek and bring her back and make her know that he did so. But—where to seek her? where had she passed this night of storm, and where was she this morning? To what point should his first inquiries be directed?

Evidently the servants of the house and farm could give him no information.

He passed in rapid, mental review, all the possible places in which she might have spent the night. No place seemed so likely to have been her temporary shelter as Bush Creek, the deserted home of the Kytes. To that place he resolved immediately to go. He arose from the table and was about to leave the room to inform his 215mother and to order his horse, when his eyes were arrested by an object that seemed to possess the power of the Medusa’s head to turn the gazer into stone!

It was the mourning-ring with which he had wed Lionne, lying on the corner of the dressing-table, where that wild girl had left it.

For a moment he stood as if petrified, and then he snatched it up to see if there was not some mistake. There could be none! It was the very same ring, with his father’s name on the inside. While wondering at its presence there, his eyes fell upon a crumpled paper on the same dressing-table. Some instinct led him to take it up and examine it. He smoothed it out and read it.

It was his own letter to Lionne.

He understood every thing now.

He knew that she knew all. Yes, though with her delicate sense of propriety she had not even hinted at her knowledge of her rival, yet it was evident that she had been made acquainted with the relations existing between himself and Lionne.

But how had this knowledge been conveyed to her? Who had sent and who had brought the ring and the letter? He would inquire. He rang the bell vociferously.

Keziah answered it.

“Keziah, come in here, and shut the door after you.”

Keziah obeyed.

“Now, tell me, did any stranger come here yesterday?”

“While yer was all at dinner, a sort o’ wild looking young gal came here as said she brought news o’ Miss Kate Kyte, and how she wanted to see Miss Adely in her own room. I showed her up and stayed to watch her until I heard Miss Adely coming up to dress for her ride. Then I went into your room to fix things up.”

216“How long did this woman stay?”

“’Deed I dunno, sir! not long I reckon, caze I nebber saw no more of her. And Miss Adely’s headache an’ other things a-happening of, put her out of my mind until you spoke.”

“You may go.”

Keziah immediately retired to tell the colored folks below that a crazy girl, who had been at the house the evening before, had bewitched and spirited away Miss Adely.

“Yes,” said Orville, when left alone, “Lionne has pursued me, has found out my previous marriage, and has told Adelaide every thing, and has proved all that she has told! The young forest-demon! she shall gain nothing by it! Oh, accursed sin! how bitter are your fruits! Hear Adelaide! Sweet angel! where are you now, exposed to this inclement weather! Oh, I must not stay to ask! I must find you at once.” And so saying Orville hurried from the chamber and descended to the breakfast-parlor, where, his mother sat anxiously awaiting him.

Not wishing for the present to communicate to her the full extent of his sins, misfortunes and apprehensions, he merely placed the farewell letter of Adelaide in her hands, saying—

“This will partly explain her absence, my dear mother. I hope to heaven that she is safe! I am going immediately to seek her.”

And while Lady Elizabeth eagerly opened the letter, Orville rang and ordered his horse to be saddled and brought to the door.

“Dear! dear! dear! what a dreadful thing! Wounded love and jealously and pride! I cannot wonder! There never was a fair bride so cruelly ignored and neglected!” said his mother, naturally coming to the very same conclusion 217to which on first reading the letter Orville himself had come.

“It is perfectly incredible—your indifference to that sweet girl!” continued the lady.

“But I am not indifferent to her, mother! I am very far from being so! I love her! with my whole heart and soul I love her!” exclaimed the young man, his pallid brow, quivering lip, and thrilling tone indubitably attesting the truth of his statement.

“You do! Well, I must say that you take an unprecedented way of showing it!” said the lady, with pardonable sarcasm. “Where is she now? And when you find her, you will not find it so easy to reconcile her. It is proverbially difficult to estrange a woman’s heart. But, mark my words—it is next to impossible to win it back!”

“Oh, madam, I shall try, and I shall succeed. But here is Nero, to tell me that my horse is ready. I go first to inquire at Bush Creek, where I hope to find Lady Adelaide! Good-by. Bid me God-speed!” exclaimed Orville, snatching his hat and darting from the room.

And in another moment he was in his saddle, galloping rapidly towards Bush Creek.

Orville entered the sitting-room, expecting to find Adelaide.

He saw a slight female figure, wearing such a riding-dress and hat as she often wore, and sitting beside the table, with her back toward him, and her head bowed forward upon her hand.

Never doubting for an instant that this was the one of whom he came in search, he hastened forward with outstretched arms, eagerly exclaiming—

“My dearest, dearest girl! my most injured love! thank God, I find you safe at last! Only hear my exculpation, and you will forgive me!”

223With a sudden, piercing cry of joy, Lionne sprang up and cast herself into his outstretched arms!

In that wild, impulsive act, so natural to her vehement, impassioned nature, all her wrongs and all her rage was forgotten! His presence, his looks, his words, she had most naturally taken as intended for herself, and she had received them and forgiven him at once! Hear his exculpation! of course she would! In that moment of extreme bliss, she was ready to believe “all the world a liar,” and only Orville Deville true! In that sudden revulsion of feeling from despair to delight, she must have swooned but that she was so strong.

Now lifting from his bosom a face at once beaming with smiles and glittering with tears, she exclaimed, in tones vibrating with intense joy—

“Oh, Orville, are you here? are you indeed here at last? and you love me still? you have loved me ever? oh, joy! joy! joy! let me die now! Ah, Orville, within the last few days I have suffered so, and I have sinned against you so, my faithful love! I have sinned against you in my thoughts so cruelly!”

“Lionne! oh, heaven, Lionne!” exclaimed Orville Deville, never returning her warm caress, but gazing at her in a sort of panic.

“Yes! is it not strange that I could have had such wicked thoughts of you, my constant love? But you must forgive them,” she said, entirely mistaking the cause of his emotion.

“Lionne! Lionne!” he repeated mechanically, gazing upon her face.

“Why, what is the matter? Why do you look upon me so strangely, so compassionately? Oh, I see! I know now! It is because I am so changed! Oh, yes, indeed, I know I am frightfully changed, Orville! The storm that has raged in this poor, wild bosom for a week 224past, must have metamorphosed me! But never mind; you are here now, and in a few hours I shall be myself again! every trace of suffering will have left my face! But come! sit down! sit down! you too look weary.” And smiling brightly, she took his hand to draw him towards the settee.

He shrank from her touch as though her fingers had been fire, and hurrying forward threw himself upon the indicated seat, and covered his face with his hands.

Still utterly self-deceived, she followed him, took the place by his side and laid her hand affectionately on his shoulder, saying:

“Do not take this so hard, dear Orville! Indeed, I am not ill, though I look so! And though it is true that I have suffered frightfully, and my countenance betrays it, yet do not dread to look upon my face! with all its pallor it is not disfigured! Look upon me, or at least take down your hands and let me see you!”

Orville dropped his hands and raised his eyes desperately to meet her unsuspicious gaze—showing her a countenance in which deep sorrow now so far predominated over every other expression, as to confirm her in her most natural mistake of him.

He saw this confidence on her part, and his distress and embarrassment increased.

How should he enlighten her? In what terms could he bring himself to inform her that she had been deceived and forsaken?

“Lionne,” he began, in a tone that he vainly endeavored to render calm—“Lionne, I have an explanation to make to you!”

“Why, so you said when you first came in, dear Orville! And I am waiting to hear it from you! indeed I have heard it from another, who did not tell your story harshly; though only you can do yourself full justice!” she said, 225turning towards him an attentive face, bright with confiding love, in the full anticipation of hearing his perfect vindication.

How could she yet feel otherwise? At his first appearance in the room and his first words—so likely to deceive her—all her sense of injury, all her anger, and all her doubts had vanished. She saw before her the man who for months had been ever at her side, her sworn and trusted friend and companion; who had pledged to her in marriage an eternal fidelity. Here was the arm that had sustained her: the face that had always smiled upon her; the eyes that had ever followed her with glances of unutterable love; the lips that had sealed the marriage kiss upon her own; the voice that had ever dropped soft and musical, as the notes of the dove, in addressing her. His first looks and first words on coming in had expressed unfailing and unmeasured love, and upon seeing the traces of suffering upon her face, he had exhibited almost unreasonable grief—so Lionne thought, and looking upon him now, she could not doubt, she could only love. So with her countenance still beaming with happiness, she awaited his words.

“Lionne,” he commenced, “when I led you before the clergyman at Winchester, I firmly believed myself free to become your husband!”

“I am sure that you did, and that you were really so. That comedy performed by the bedside of your uncle in your childhood could not and should not have bound you,” said Lionne, confidently.

“Poor girl! undeceive yourself,” sighed Orville, gravely and sadly.

“Why, what do you mean?” inquired his companion, with perplexity, but without suspicion.

“Lionne, I was not free!”

“Oh, legally, perhaps not, but morally, certainly so! The dainty little lady at River-view admitted that!”

226“Lionne, at the time I ignorantly married you I was fast bound by the laws of Scotland to another!”

“By the unjustifiable act of worldly-minded parents when you were a child! It was a marriage only in name. Even the little lady admitted that.”

“Lionne, she admitted that in generosity, and also, perhaps, in total ignorance of the nature of her claims upon me.”

“Not so, I assure you, Orville. She fully comprehended her possession of legal rights and her lack of moral ones.”

“Lionne!” exclaimed Orville, desperately, “look at me and undeceive yourself!”

“Ah my heart!” exclaimed Lionne, with a sharp and sudden cry, and a strained and piercing gaze into his firm, set face. “What—what do you mean?”

“I mean, poor girl, that you are looking upon the husband of Lady Adelaide Deville, who possesses every right—legal, moral, and social—to be called his wife!”

“And—what—then—am—I?”

As the wronged girl asked this terrible, this unanswerable question, her eyes, fixed upon his face seemed to burn into and blast his very soul.

“And what, then, am I?” she repeated.

His brow crimsoned at the question; but meeting her gaze with eyes at once blazing with defiance and melting with compassion—for he both pitied and dreaded this wronged and reckless girl, he said—

“You at least are innocent, Lionne. The guilt—if guilt there was—is mine, solely mine, as I would also the consequences could be! I am ready to meet them, whatever they are!”

“And you think that I can be answered so! Good,” she said calmly. And her calmness was more threatening than her agitation had been.

227“How would you be answered? Lionne, speak; you have only to command! I cannot, indeed, give you my name; but all that I can give, my fortune, my services, are at your orders.”

She raised her hand to stop him, and then slowly inquired—

“Do you love the little lady at River-view?”

“Lionne, at the time that my heart and eyes were ensnared by your fatal beauty, I had never loved woman, except my mother!”

“I have been told so by you before this; that, however, is not the question. Do you love Adelaide now?”

“Lionne, when I believed that I had made you my wife, I loved only you; let that suffice you!”

“It does not, it cannot, it shall not,” she said calmly and firmly; “and I adjure you, on your honor, on your soul, answer my question—Do you now love Adelaide Lorne?”

“I know no such person as Adelaide Lorne!” exclaimed Orville, with the asperity of desperation; “but I love my honorable wife, Lady Adelaide Deville, with my whole heart!”

“It is enough,” said Lionne, very quietly.

“I recognize her perfect, her exclusive and indisputable right to my hand, fortune and heart, and in doing so, I must, of course, repudiate the claims of any other.”

“I make none,” replied the forsaken girl, as quietly as before.

Orville Deville, when driven to “define his position,” had deemed it proper to be perfectly, if even most painfully explicit. Now, however, deceived by the non-resistance of Lionne’s words and manner, he relented and looked towards her.

Her face was paler and stiller than before; her lips 228were compressed; her eyes were fixed upon the floor; her countenance was perfectly impassible.

“Lionne,” he said, in softened accents, “no one can regret more bitterly than myself, the power of that fatal passion that led me into error and you into misfortune. Pray let me repeat to you that when first attracted by your beauty, I had loved only you, and believed myself at liberty to offer you my hand. When, however, I returned to River-view, and met my child-bride after a separation from her of so many years, and found her grown up into the loveliest woman that the sun ever shone upon—when I found that her pure heart, through all the years of absence and of change, from childhood to sweet womanhood, had been single in its love and duty to me—when I found that she was, in fact, my own legal wife, bound to me as fast as Church and State could bind her; that for years she had dutifully looked upon me as her husband, and patiently waited for me to claim her as my wife, I did what any other in my position must inevitably have done! I learned to love, to adore, to worship her! Lionne, it was my fate!”

“Your love was a matter of time and place, and circumstance and policy. Good,” she said, very quietly.

Beginning to be seriously disturbed now by what he considered the unnatural calmness of her words and the perfect impassibility of her countenance, he said:

“Lionne, in all that has passed, you at least have nothing whatever to accuse yourself with. You believed yourself, as I also then believed you, an honest wife! I only have sinned—grievously, though unconsciously, sinned against you. And, Lionne, I repent from the bottom of my heart! And I shall repent to the last day of my life!”

“Peace. I do not reproach you,” she said, very smoothly.

229“I know you do not, most wronged and most forbearing girl!”

Her lip almost imperceptibly curled; that was the only sign that she had heard his last words.

“Lionne,” he said, earnestly, “go farther in generosity; say that you forgive me.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” she quietly replied.

“Noblest, most magnanimous girl——!”

He stopped as if he had been struck by lightning.

With her face white and still, her lips compressed and bloodless, her eyes fixed and glittering, and hand lifted high towards heaven, she arose and stood before him.

“I have nothing to forgive,” she said, in a low, deep, steady tone, terrible even in its smoothness: “I have nothing to forgive, but EVERY THING TO AVENGE! Our hospitality outraged! our friendship deceived! our confidence betrayed! our home desecrated! my gray-haired father brought to dishonor, and his daughter to shame!—in one fell phrase, the preservation of your worthless life by us, repaid with the ruin of ours by you! And now and here, before high heaven! here, by the majesty of my awful wrongs and sorrows, suffered at your treacherous hands!—here, for your stupendous sin, I do solemnly devote you and yours to earthly and eternal destruction! And if ever I revoke this sentence, may the doom fall a thunderbolt of destruction upon my own head, and the heads of all I love! may then my words of pardon to you become the sentence of my own temporal and eternal death!”

And with this terrible imprecation upon her lips, her arm raised high towards heaven, and her eyes blazing with malediction, the heart-scathed girl receded from the room, and was seen no more at Bush Creek.

Orville Deville remained standing where she had left 230him, spell-bound, panic-stricken, appalled by this prophetic vision of Retribution.

He was aroused by the entrance of Kate Kyte, who, without speaking, took up a seine that she was engaged in netting; and seated herself at one of the windows to work upon it.

Orville, with a pang and a start, suddenly recollected the errand that had brought him to the house, and, turning towards the young girl, he said:

“Kate, I came hither in anxious search of my wife.”

“Which of them?” inquired Kate, very dryly.

“Do not mock me, little school-mate,” said Orville, as a rush of color crimsoned his forehead, “but tell me if you have seen Lady Adelaide Deville since yesterday?”

“If I tell you that I saw her last night, it is for her sake and not for yours that I speak,” said Kate, coldly.

“Last night! how? where? at what hour, good Kate?” eagerly inquired Orville.

“At midnight, in the snow-storm, alone, outside that window,” said Kate, cruelly condensing the facts.

“Great heaven above, what is it you tell me?” cried Orville, starting up with horror, grief, and dismay in every lineament of his face. “Where is she now?”

“The Lord knows—I don’t!” said Kate, severely.

“Explain! for the love of heaven, explain!” exclaimed Orville, rushing forward, and seizing the arm of the girl, and gazing with an agony of inquiry into her face.

Kate indignantly shook off his arm, giving him a glance which, could a look have killed, must have laid him dead at her feet.

“I have nothing to explain,” she said, “except the reason why I do not now know where Lady Adelaide is to be found. Her body, I think, may sometime or other be discovered 231among the snow-drifts; her soul is probably in heaven!”

“Kate, this is torture—this is agony! For the love of heaven, be more explicit! You saw her——”

“I told you all that I saw. If you wish me to be more circumstantial, I can be so. I can tell you the relation will not be less painful. Last night, a little after midnight, while I sat at that very fire, listening to the history of your other wife, which included also the story of a hero, who repaid the preservation of his own worthless life with the ruin of his preserver, we heard amid the snow-storm a slight noise at the window, as if some poor little storm-beaten bird had pecked against the glass for admission. I looked up and screamed on seeing, at that hour, in that storm, a pale, still, sad face at the pane, and which I did not at first recognize as that of Lady Adelaide.”

“Well! well!” exclaimed Orville, breathlessly.

“This phantom raised the window, and slipped under it a little note, which was eagerly seized, and read, and carefully burned by—your other wife.”

“Kate, your words are full of well-merited bitterness. I do not quarrel with them. But Adelaide—tell me of Adelaide!”

“I have really nothing more to tell. As soon as she had slipped in the note, her face vanished from the window. And as soon as I had recovered from my panic, I jerked open the door and ran out into the night and storm to call her in. I ran up and down among the deep drifts, and amid the fast falling snow, calling and shouting, in vain! It was as dark as pitch; I could see nothing—not even my own hand, not even the snow! and I could hear nothing but the sound of my own voice!”

“Go on! go on!”

“What more would you have me say? I floundered out among the snow-drifts, in black darkness, freezing 232cold, and stifling sleet, until, tough as I am, I was near perishing at my own door. Then in despair of finding her, I gave up the search and came in. That is absolutely all that I know of her fate!”

“Kate! for heaven’s sake tell me, have you no clue, no suspicion, no vague idea, of whither she went?” asked Orville, in anguish.

“None whatever. After I came in, it occurred to me that she might possibly have had a carriage and servants in attendance, and that while I was floundering in the snow, she might have been comfortably driving homewards; but since that is not so, I fear, indeed, that she must have perished in the storm!”

“The Lord in his mercy forbid! Kate, are your brothers at home?”

“None have yet returned but Hubert.”

“I am very sorry for that. But Hubert knows every foot of the forest—I must get him to assist me ’n my search.”

“Very well, Mr. Deville. Hubert will be glad to do any thing in the service of Lady Adelaide. But he must pursue his search alone, if you please, and report his luck to your mother.”

“What do you mean by that, Kate?”

“That I do not wish my brother to become intimate with you, sir.”

“Kate, are you determined to affront me, whether I will or no?”

“I am determined to speak a few plain words to you, Mr. Deville.”

“Say on—you are a woman, and privileged.”

“The Lord knows, I wish I were not! I wish I were a man for your sake! But this is what I have to say to you, Mr. Deville. In the first place, that but for the sake of Lady Adelaide, I should not have permitted you to hold 233me in conversation so long. I told you that I had heard your story from Lionne. Now, had a woman committed the sin that you have committed, you know that she would have forever, and justly, forfeited her place in society. God never made one set of commandments for man and another for woman! He will hold both equally responsible for similar sins. In the same circumstances, I do not judge a man less guilty than a woman, but rather more so! And therefore, Mr. Deville, I judge that you have lost your title as a man of honor, and consequently forfeited all right to cross the threshold of an honorable woman! I hope you will consider this a hint to shorten your visit, and—never to repeat it!”

And before Orville Deville could recover his astonishment, Kate Kyte flounced from the room, leaving him to depart and pursue his quest of Adelaide.

“My eyes!” said Hubert, who from the kitchen had heard and understood ‘a fury in the words, but not the words,’ what a “thundering blowing-up Mr. Deville did get from both them women! Wonder what it was all about. Don’t any of the three look so very happy.”

“At dawn a traveller passed that way.”

Long before light that morning, Farmer Fieldhurst and his son John arose and put the oxen to the wagon that 237had been loaded the night previous with turkeys, geese and chickens, to go to the Bell Haven market.

After drinking a couple of large bowls of strong coffee, and eating a great pone of corn-bread, with a proportionate quantity of middling rashers and fried eggs, the worthy farmer and his son wrapped themselves up in their great, dreadnought overcoats, pulled their fox-skin caps down over their foreheads, wound thick, woollen scarfs around their throats, drew on their oxhide over-boots and coonskin gloves, mounted the wagon, and grumbling greatly at the weather, drove off. With difficulty they got through the farm-gate and out upon the open road, where a colloquy ensued as to whether it were possible to proceed.

“I say, Johnny, I don’t think we can go on,” said Mr. Fieldhurst, pausing, and squinting down at the obstructed road, obscurely seen by the faint light of dawning day.

“Yes, but dad,” said John, who rather liked the fun of struggling through the snow-drifts—and who knew, besides, what argument was most likely to influence his father—“dad, you know if we can manage to struggle through and get to market, why there’ll be so few of the country people in that we can get any price we like for our poultry.”

“That’s so,” said the farmer, reflectively; “but the roads are—very bad—drifts heavy.”

“Yes, dad, but the load is light and the beasts strong.”

“That’s so, too, Johnny—and—I don’t know as this storm is going to last above a half hour longer. I reckon we’ll try to get on, and if we can’t, why we can but turn back after all. Come up there, Taurus! Whoa!—hoy!” and cheering his beasts of burthen, the farmer drove on until they reached, at a quarter of a mile distant, the gate that led from the country road into the turnpike.

“Get down, Jack, and open the gate.”

The boy obeyed, and pushed with all his strength.

238“Well! what’s the matter?”

“There’s something agin it—a log or a sheep, or some thing in the snow,” said the boy, pushing the gate a little way open and squeezing himself through the aperture, and proceeding to kick and push at the obstructing object.

“Well!” said the farmer, impatiently.

“Lors alive, dad!” exclaimed the boy, retreating in a panic.

“What’s it?”

“It’s—it’s a woman!”

“No!” exclaimed the farmer, jumping off his seat and hurrying through the gate.

“It is though, and—dead!”

The farmer stooped and cleared away the remaining snow, and raised the fragile form in his powerful arms, exclaiming—

“Lord of heaven, it is a woman, sure enough! a woman perished in the snow here, almost at our very gates!”

“What on the yeth could have fotch her out so early in such weather, dad?” inquired John, in an awe-struck voice, cautiously approaching.

“I—don’t—know. It’s—hard—telling. Nothink oughten’t to,” said the farmer, still holding the lifeless form as if it had been that of an infant in his great arms, and peering down to examine and see if he could recognize her features.

“Who is she, dad?”

“I—can’t—tell. I thought she looked a little like Mary Jones; but ’taint her. One thing’s sartain, John. We can’t go on now. Go roll the load in the wagon level as you can, and spread the sheepskins over them. We must put her on it and take her to the house, to rouse her if she’s alive, and to send for the crowner and give her Christian burial if she is dead,” said the farmer.

They placed her tenderly in the wagon, and then with 239a great deal of pulling and tugging and calling, succeeded in turning the oxens’ heads towards home. The eastern sky was red with the coming sun when the wagon once more drove into the farm-yard.

“There! I said you’d never be able to get along,” said the farmer’s wife, who saw them from the open door of the kitchen. “Lord alive! what is that your father’s got?” she asked of John, who, followed by the farmer with the lifeless body, entered the kitchen.

“It is a poor girl, whom we found in the snow at the outer-road gate,” answered Mr. Fieldhurst, sitting down in the chair, and turning back the hood and exposing the face of Adelaide Deville.

“Dead?” asked the wife, approaching and gazing in horror upon the still, white, cold face.

“Dead or swound. Do you know her?”

“Not a bit of her—I never saw her before! Who is she? how came she to fall in the snow? where did you pick her up? was that what brought you back?” these and other questions, Mrs. Fieldhurst asked in breathless haste, and Mr. Fieldhurst answered in hurry and impatience, saying at last—

“But good gracious, Marthy, if she is not dead are you going to let her die without an effort to save her?”

“No, no, not for the world! only I was so taken aback! Here! Mary! Susan! Jane! come here all of you!”

Three blooming country girls ran out from an adjoining chamber, and on seeing the apparently dead girl in their father’s arms, were about to open their mouths in astonishment, when their mother arrested them by saying:

“There now! ask no questions! I have lost time enough already. Run, Mary, and prepare the bed in the other room, and then put coals in the warming-pan and warm it well. Go, Jane, and bring down a suit of my 240flannel underclothes and a nightgown. Susan, take some brandy and sugar and spice, with a little hot water, and make a warm cordial. Father, you and John had better go and leave us alone.”

All the directions of the housewife were promptly obeyed.

A large double blanket was laid upon the carpet before the fire, and the fair patient placed upon it, undressed and rubbed briskly by the diligent hand of the farmer’s wife.

“She is a young lady of high rank, mother, for all her coarse, gray cloak and hood! Only look at this beautiful skirt! thick, soft, blue satin, quilted as fine as the finest Marseilles—and see this upper skirt, the finest cambric, embroidered half way up to the waist. And oh! see this linen, how delicately made! real linen-cambric, fine as a cobweb, and trimmed with real thread-lace!” said Jane, in rustic wonder and admiration, as she examined article by article of the wet clothing before hanging them to the fire to dry.

“And see the soft, thick silk-stockings, mother, and the little black satin-boots, with their high, white heels! Oh, how tiny and how pretty! these never came from hereabouts! that I know; but Lors! they are quite spoiled now!” said Jane, trying to pull them into shape as she set them on the hearth to dry.

In rubbing and chafing the hands of the invalid, Mrs. Fieldhurst had noticed a diamond ring, that, even to her inexperienced eyes, appeared a jewel of inestimable value. And all this, so at variance with the personal habits of the wives and daughters of even the very wealthiest farmers around, filled her mind with vague conjectures. These did not prevent her from working with zeal for the restoration of her patient. Soon the fair form was re-clothed in warm, dry raiment, and laid in the comfortable bed. Then the friction was continued, 241and at last their efforts were rewarded with success. The white chest heaved, the fair throat throbbed, the lips trembled, closed, and gasped with the first returning breath, the snowy eyelids quivered and flew up, and the mild, mournful blue eyes looked in amazement upon the strange scene.

Mrs. Fieldhurst put a spoonful of the spiced cordial to her lips. She swallowed it mechanically, and revived by its stimulating qualities, looked around again in perplexity, and fixing her eyes in wonder upon the face of her hostess, inquired:

“What place is this? How came I here?”

“You are at John Fieldhurst’s farm, and now you must drink the rest of this and lie still, and be covered up warm to get into a sweat, and go to sleep if you can. Then, when you wake up, you shall have a warm, nourishing breakfast,” said the farmer’s wife, lifting the invalid’s head with one hand, and putting the cordial to her pale lips with the other.

Adelaide, from the mere habit of obedience, drank the prescribed restorative, and in her feeble state, overcome by its fumes, sank back upon her pillow, and before she had time to recollect or understand her real position, she fell into a deep, healthful, restoring sleep.

“I have always took notice that it isn’t good to watch a sleeper,” said Mrs. Fieldhurst. And she arose and closed the blinds, and shut up the room, and left her patient alone to repose.

“Have you made out who she is?” asked the farmer, who was warming his feet at the kitchen fire.

“No; she has scarcely come to her right mind yet; she’s dead asleep. She’ll tell us when she wakes, I reckon.”

“There’s A. D. marked on her linen, mother.”

“‘A. D.’—let’s see,” said the farmer’s wife, reflecting. 242“There’s Alice Diggs, Colonel Diggs’s youngest daughter—’taint her, I know. And there’s Anne Dawson, Mr. Plater’s overseer’s sister.”

“Dear, mother—big Anne Dawson?”

“Then there’s Abigail Drew.”

“Lord, mother, we know all them!”

“Then they are all the A. D.’s I can think of; anyways she’ll tell us who she is when she wakes,” said the farmer’s wife.

Now they had all heard the name of Lady Adelaide Deville, but so far was she removed from their sphere of thought as well as from their neighborhood, and so unlikely was she to be placed in the circumstances of their rescued wanderer, that neither her name or existence now occurred to them.

“One thing I do not like about her,” said the worthy housewife, “that is, all her clothes under her cloak and hood are much too fine. I don’t like to see an unprotected young female wear purple and fine linen and costly jewelry, like the woman of Babylon.”

While thus they freely conversed, their unfortunate guest, insensible of all her troubles, slept on in peace. She slept the sleep of deep exhaustion, consequently it was late when she awoke. Oh, what a different awakening to that of a few hours preceding, when she opened her unconscious eyes to close them soon in sleep. Now, with her awakening came first a vague but deep impression of some profound calamity, a heavy weight that could not be thrown from her heart. Then, with a slight effort of memory, and with a keen pang, came the full tide of consciousness. She remembered when and why she had left her home, how long she had wandered through the midnight, and when she had fallen and become insensible. She recollected opening her eyes a few hours before in this very bedchamber, where she could readily judge she had 243been brought by the kind-hearted people who had chanced to find her before her life became extinct. All this she knew, or judged, or recollected. There was, therefore, no occasion for her to ask questions. But how should she answer the questions that should be put to her?

Alas, with her breaking heart, she cared not how! she cared only to save the name of Deville from discreditable gossip, and she resolved to conceal her identity, and as soon as possible to leave her present place of shelter. She was in no haste to be disturbed by the presence of others. She would have liked to be alone until she could die. So she lay with her arms clasped above her head, quite still for many heavy minutes—and until the chamber door was softly opened and the farmer’s wife crept cautiously to the bedside and looked over her. Now, much as Adelaide wished to be left alone, she was incapable of even a tacit deception for that purpose, so opening her eyes, she said—

“I was not asleep.”

“How are you, then?” inquired her hostess, sitting down beside her.

“Well enough, I thank you.”

“Indeed! I am very glad you think so! You—you do not look very well!” said Mrs. Fieldhurst. Then going to the door she called to one of the young girls in the kitchen, and said—

“Susan, broil the breast of that chicken; make a round of toast and a cup of good tea, and bring it in here—quick.”

Then going back to her patient and seating herself beside the bed, she said—

“Poor girl! how came you to be out at that time of the morning in the snow-storm?”

“I had been out all night,” answered Adelaide.

“All night! powers above! how did that happen, child?”

244“My kind friend,” said Adelaide, very gently, “you see in me a poor, unfortunate girl who can give no account of herself.”

The face of the honest wife and mother clouded.

“You have been very kind to me; be kinder still by letting me depart unquestioned, and I shall always pray God to reward you.”

“She talks of praying—but then they all do that when it suits them,” thought Mrs. Fieldhurst, looking at her fair young guest and feeling completely confused and dumbfoundered by words at once so frank and so reserved. At length, recovering her speech, she said—

“Oh, if you make a mystery of it, I have done, of course.”

“You are offended, my kind hostess. I am very sorry for it.”

“No, I am not offended, but I do think after all we have done for—well! never mind, I did not mean that, either.”

“You were about to say that after all you had done for me, it was ungrateful in me not to confide in you. My kind friend, it is because I must not do so! There are many mysteries that nothing but the light of another world will make clear. This must remain one of them. Do not be displeased, but after I shall have left your house, remember me only as a poor, wandering child, whom you have saved from death.”

“I am not displeased.—There, Susan, I will take the waiter; you need not come in here. No, I am not displeased, but I think that I shall wait on you myself instead of letting my daughters do so,” said the worthy but severe matron, as she brought the waiter of refreshments to her patient. Now, Adelaide did not in the least understand the drift of these words. Her perfect innocence was armor of proof, from which the cruel arrows rebounded.

To please her hostess rather than to benefit herself, she partook slightly of the viands set before her, and then thanking 245Mrs. Fieldhurst, she said she believed that she would try to rise.

“Why?”

“To proceed on my journey.”

“You are clean crazy. It is almost night now, and though the storm is over, yet the roads are impassible, even to my old man’s team; what must they be to you?”

“I do not know; but I must attempt it.”

“Young girl, I’m afraid you could not give a very good account of yourself if you tried; but one thing certain, unless you’re perfectly desperate, and want to make way with yourself, you will not take the road to-night.”

“No—nothing on earth would drive me to wanton suicide,” said Adelaide, but with a tone and manner that caused the farmer’s wife to answer:

“But let me tell you, young girl, that people who expose themselves to death on purpose, as may be you did last night, are just as sinful as those that put a rope around their own necks or swallow poison.”

Adelaide turned paler than before as she mused—

“I never thought of that. I would not do any thing wrong. God help me, is that way of escape closed up too! Lord pity me! Lord help me! Oh! what shall I do! Oh! what shall I do! how long must I bear this heart, throbbing and burning and aching, and finding no ease at last!”

She clasped her hands upon her forehead and remained in silent anguish so long that the farmer’s wife, in a kinder tone, said to her—

“I cannot think of letting you leave us, child, until the weather is settled and the roads in good order, and that will not be for several days yet.”

“I will not go to-night, if you think I had better stay,” said Adelaide, humbly.

“Very well. I am glad you consent. And though I 246did say I would not let the girls come in, to wait on you, yet I will do everything I can myself.”

“But why not let the girls come in?” asked the innocent and unsuspicious maiden.

“Why not? humph! well I should think you might guess why not!”

“I have no contagious fever—have I?” inquired Adelaide, in perplexity.

“Not as I know of; but there be worse than catching fevers!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there, I reckon we won’t say any thing more about it—but young gals do not wander about all night in a storm alone, and try to get themselves frozen to death, for nothing!”

“Do pray explain yourself,” said Adelaide.

“Well, now, enough said! You be either the cunningest or innocentest creetur I ever saw in my life! If you don’t know what I mean, it would be a pity to tell you; and if you do, it would be no use—there! Make yourself easy,” and taking up the waiter, the farmer’s wife returned to the kitchen.

The girls had supper prepared and the table set, and their father and brother were waiting for their evening-meal.

Mrs. Fieldhurst took her place at the head of the table, and her numerous family gathered around the board.

“Well! what do you make of our find now?” asked Mr. Fieldhurst.

“I cannot make any thing at all of her,” answered his wife, who thereupon begun and related the substance of the interview that had just taken place between herself and Adelaide.

To this the young women listened with the deepest interest, the farmer and his son with curiosity.

“Well, I’ll tell you what it is, mother,” said Mr. Fieldhurst, 247“I do not think she is a bad one, because you see if she was, she need not displease you by reserve when she could so easily trump up a fair story to account for being out in the storm at night. So, until we find her out to be guilty, let us take it for granted that she is innocent.”

“I think so too,” said John.

And so said the girls.

“You are not asked to think any thing about the young tramper,” sharply exclaimed their mother.

The farmer arose from the table, took his pipe, filled and lighted it, and sat down in the chimney-corner to smoke.

John took down his fowling-piece and established himself in the other corner to clean the barrel.

The mother and her daughters busied themselves with washing up the supper-service, clearing away the table and restoring the room to order.

After which they took their knitting-work and sat down to knit, until the farmer had finished his pipe.

Then they gathered together and offered up family-worship. In his prayers, the father of this household remembered the wayfarer that had been so strangely cast upon their care.

Then they separated for the night.

The next morning the farmer’s family arose early, that the farmer and his son might breakfast by times, and once more try the road to market.

For an hour or more they were all very busy until Mr. Fieldhurst and John were fairly started. Then Mrs. Fieldhurst began to think of her guest. She bade Susan make up some delicate butter-cakes, and broil a nice slice of ham, and set fresh tea to draw, while she herself carried water in to their patient.

And so saying, she filled a ewer and opened the door of the inner room. To her surprise, she found both the 248bed and the room empty. Her clothing that she had lent to the young girl was folded neatly, and laid upon a chair. Adelaide’s own garments, that had been hanging on a wooden rack, were gone.

While Mrs. Fieldhurst was looking around in astonishment, she descried a little note stuck in the corner of the looking-glass. She took it down, opened it and read these lines written in pencil—

“Good friends: to avoid altercation and to relieve you from embarrassment I depart quietly. Last night I heard you in your evening devotions praying ‘for one in bitter need.’ For that and all your kindness to the poor wanderer may God bless you.”

“Left the house, I do declare!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife in consternation. Her next thought was cruelly unjust:

“Susan, Mary, Jane, the tramper has run off, without letting anybody know when she was going! run in all of you and help me to look over the press and the chest of drawers to see if there is nothing missing.”

With many exclamations of astonishment, the girls hurried in and assisted in the search.

It is needless to say that all was found safe.

Dashing her single spur into her horse’s flank, Lionne galloped furiously, with reeling, headlong speed, across 249the bridge and down to the road below. There the snow-drifts impeded her flight, and she had to labor heavily through them until she reached a bleak track blown clear by the winds. There she again spurred her horse and took flight as if possessed by a demon. And she was possessed by a demon. Burning, agonizing, maddening sense of wrong, roused her whole soul to a frenzy of indignation, that seemed to hail down lightning from Heaven to scathe and consume and exterminate her enemy.

Such just and fiery maledictions never bless their subject, and never, never fail to blight their object. Yet it is better to forgive; all the ends of justice are quite as well answered. Wrongs for which the law affords no remedy, never fail to receive punishment from the righteous hand of God, even in this world.

For instance, I have seen the slanderer “lying loud” against the innocent and helpless, brought to unexpected ruin.

I have seen the scornful oppressor of God’s meek poor humbled to the very dust.

I have seen the wrong-doer brought by God’s justice, overwhelmed and helpless, to the feet of his victim.

These things I have seen with my eyes in the forenoon of my life.

But what knew this wretched girl of God except his name, or of the sure retributions of this life, in anywise? Nothing.

And frantic with her wrongs, craving vengeance with all the fierce passions of her fiery soul, breathing maledictions enough to have infested a continent with plagues, she hurled herself and steed furiously along the “river-road.”

And thus she rushed wildly through the day.

Night brought her to the cabin of a pioneer. The 250owner was absent, and the cabin empty; but, with the freedom of forest-life she entered, led in her horse, found oats for him and dried venison for herself, and water from the spring for both, and after tending him, and drinking a large draught of water to cool her burning thirst, she threw herself down upon a hard straw pallet, but not to sleep; to clasp her burning brow, and roll and toss and tear at her own distracted head and breast, as though she would tear thence the insufferable agony. There came another mood, a mood that must have surprised her had her soul had any room for surprise; it was a transient return of inexpressible tenderness for her destroyer—a longing to be with him, and to sob out her great agony on his bosom; then, with unutterable accession of woe, came the remembrance that this must not and ought not to be, and then a consciousness of utter and eternal bereavement, that whirled her whole soul in a storm of frenzy.

So passed the night.

With morning came the thought—the question, who has caused me all this anguish, and why has he caused it?—bringing again the frenzied sense of insufferable wrongs, and the raging longing for vengeance. Thus burning love and bitter hatred, relenting tenderness and desolating revenge, warring incessantly, made a pandemonium of her bosom.

She resumed her journey, keeping the “river-road” along the eastern bank of the Potomac, until she reached the ferry-house opposite to Alexandria. There she crossed the river, and struck into “Braddock’s road,” leading far into the Western wilderness.

At the close of her third day’s journey, when the sun was setting behind the ridge of mountains that sheltered the lonely stone-house, she reached home.

She had been gone seven days.

251Vulcan, the giant-dwarf, was sitting in the doorway. Too accustomed to the eccentric manners of his mistress to feel surprised at her long absence or her sudden return, he grinned, nodded, and got up to open the gate. Then, on lifting his head up and meeting her eyes, he saw for the first time, the stony woe that had turned to marble every feature of that once fine face. That wistful glance was enough, and was instantly withdrawn.

Not with her usual lightsome smile and spring did Lionne greet her old attendant, and bound from the saddle. With the ghost of a smile and a faint word, she let herself drop to the ground, and gathering up the skirt of her riding-habit, now deeply soiled with mud from the great thaw, she passed sadly into the house.

“Has my father reached home yet, Vulcan?” was her first question.

“No, Lionne, you know he said nine days; it’s been but seven! he won’t be here before day after to-morrow.”

Lionne went up-stairs, threw herself on the bed and longed for death.

Mr. Delaforêt did not come upon the ninth day, nor yet upon the eighteenth. And Lionne brooded in alternate moods of fierce or sullen anguish over her deep wrongs and the most terrible manner of avenging them.

That last, fierce snow-storm had been the valedictory address of winter. The spring came on apace. Mr. Delaforêt returned; but not looking the same as when he left home. His form was drawn up, his head erect, his eye bright, his step elastic, a certain cheerful dignity in every tone and motion. His glance followed Lionne everywhere with proud joy.

Alas, Lionne did not understand, nor care for, nor even, perhaps, observe her father’s change of expression. She was too absorbed in her own wretchedness to notice his cheerfulness. She only shrunk from his gaze; and as day 252followed day, more and more sensitively she shrank from all eyes around. As the weather moderated and settled, Lionne resumed her wild forest-habits, spending her days in long rides, long walks, and long watchings in the vast solitudes of nature.

For sometime the exquisitely torturing memories awakened by the associations of her grotto, kept her from its neighborhood.

Who has not, after the loss of a beloved friend, been pierced to the heart by even the accidental, sudden sight of some place or object closely associated with the lost love?

Thus Lionne shivered in anguish at the sight of her grotto. It had been full of love and joy—it was now vacant and solitary as her own aching heart, or else filled with agonizing associations as was her desolate heart with perverted passions.

At last, however, Lionne began to try to use herself to the sight of the grotto. Her first visit there was signalized by a gush of wild grief. Her second and third were scarcely less agonizing to her heart; but at last she bore the trial with equanimity, and even began to restore the place to order and make it almost habitable.

Hay was thickly spread over the rugged floor to fill up its inequalities, and a carpet was laid down. Next a pitcher and glass were conveyed thither. Then a low chair; and finally a pillow and comforter. Here, in this grotto, Lionne spent many hours of each day; and as the season still advanced, here, unknown to her father, she came to sleep at night. One day she came down-stairs with the intention of going to her grotto, when her father called her from the door of his sitting-room.

She turned and went in.

He was sitting in his usual place beside the centre-table, his head raised and a look of proud exultation in his face, as he held out his hand to his daughter and said:

253“Lionne, you are very beautiful, my child!—I know you will be considered so in the world we are about to enter. Come near and sit down beside me, my dear.”

Lionne approached and dropped wearily in the chair that her father, with stately, old-fashioned courtesy, had placed for her accommodation.

“By the way, now that I look at you more closely, you are thin and pale, Lionne!—and—why do you wrap yourself in that large shawl? Are you not well?”

“I am well, but—cold,” said Lionne, with a shiver.

“Chills, I should not wonder! You expose yourself recklessly to the noonday sun and the midnight vapors. You must give up such wild ways, Lionne, or rather you will naturally resign them, in the world to which we are going. And in the meantime I must bring a physician from Winchester to prescribe for you.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” exclaimed Lionne in alarm: “I am not sick; I never had a chill in my life; it is but the freshness of the day that I feel.”

“Very well; I am glad to hear it. And now, my daughter,” said Mr. Delaforêt, solemnly, “I am about to speak of that which should drive chills from your heart forever!”

Lionne turned suddenly and deadly pale, but a glance at her father’s calmly exultant face reassured her. He was not about to enter upon a humiliating subject—he knew nothing of her secret.

“Lionne,” continued the recluse, “have you ever suspected your father to be other than he has seemed, the poor Scotch pioneer?”

“No, sir.”

“Then, my daughter, know me now as the Earl of Glen Lennark, and the representive of one of the oldest earldoms of the united kingdom,” said Mr. Delaforêt, with pardonable exultation. For after so many years of 254renunciation, the resumption of his title filled him with triumph.

Lionne did not seem in the least to sympathize with this feeling. She sat and gazed at her father in a sort of apathy, which he pleasantly mistook for the stupor of astonishment.

“Yes,” he continued, “and my young lioness of the forest is no longer Lionne Delaforêt, but—Lady Leonore Lorne!”

“Lorne!” exclaimed Lionne, with a half-smothered shriek, sinking back in her chair and covering her face with her hands.

“Lady Leonora, what is the meaning of this agitation?” asked her father in the utmost astonishment.

Lionne struggled with herself, and by a supreme effort regained self-command, dropped her hands from before her face, and looking up, said—

“All this that you have told me, my father, is so strange that it quite startled me.”

“You hysterical? Who would have thought it of you?”

Lionne made an effort to seem interested.

“What has happened, father, that, after all these years of seclusion and secrecy, you at last reveal to me your rank and title, and talk of going into another world?”

“My child, I was a warm partizan of Charles Edward, the young Chevalier, the last of the Stuarts. After his fatal defeat and the total dispersion of his followers, I became a fugitive and an exile. Within the last few months I have been pardoned, and restored to my rank and country.”

“Then you will return to Scotland?” asked Lionne, forcing herself to talk.

“No; first to France, where I shall place you at boarding-school for two years. At the end of which time 255I shall bring you out in London and present you at court, where I predict that the singular beauty of Leonora Lorne will rather startle those accustomed only to conventional faces.”

Lionne shivered, but did not reply.

“And now,” continued her father, “while I am making confidences, let me tell you why it was that last autumn, I, in one instance, departed from my usual rule of strict privacy, and admitted to my house young Orville Deville.”

Lionne suddenly averted her head to conceal the deadly paleness of her face.

“It was because he was my half-nephew, my step-sister, Elizabeth Lorne, having married Mr. Deville, of Maryland. You did not think, when you were succoring Mr. Deville, that you were saving the life of your own cousin!”

“No, sir,” said Lionne, with forced calmness.

“Well, my child, I have told you the great secret of my life. We leave this place on the first of July. Pack up what you need for your journey, or wish to preserve as souvenirs of your forest life. You will need clothing and many other things. Here is a purse with a hundred guineas. Take Vulcan as protection, and go to Winchester to make purchases of such things as you need,” said her father, putting a heavy purse in her hand.

Lionne took it mechanically, and with faintly spoken thanks retired from the room, and then, despair in her heart and madness in her brain, she cast the purse into a corner of the hall and rushed wildly from the house, and on, on, on frantically to the brink of the river, and walked up and down its sands.

Anon she threw herself upon her face and rolled in agony, smiting her breast, tearing her hair out by handfulls, and groaning—

“Ah, what can I do? what can I do to escape the 256coming wreck? Would that I could go mad, or break my heart and die! But I cannot! I cannot! brain and breast are too strong to give way! What shall I do? oh, what shall I do?”

Again she started to her feet, and walked wildly up and down the banks of the river, and wringing her hands and crying—

“He is so proud and happy in his reviving fortunes! He expects so much from me; alas! he has no other child but me! and I am about to turn all the sweetness of his love to gall and bitterness! to change all the glory of his triumph to the deep dishonor of——Oh, heaven! I cannot—I cannot bear it! Why can I not die? Death! Death! you are this night, as always, battening on reluctant prey! Leave your unwilling victims to-night—restore the dying to the loving, and come and take me, who am a shame to the dead and a curse to the living! Come and take me, who calls for you as the greatest boon in the gift of fate! Alas! Death will not come! he is like man! he turns away from a too-willing bride!”

She paused and gazed moodily down into the depths of the river. The water just below her was very deep, and clear, and still.

“There is peace—deep peace,” she said, musingly. “Is suicide the one great, last and unpardonable sin?—the sin for which there is no pardon, because for it there can be no repentance. I do not know that! I never saw a command in the Scripture forbidding suicide! And the old classic moralists often looked upon it as an act of virtue. Ah, I know that it is not an act of virtue, but neither can it be in all cases an unpardonable sin! I die to expiate my sin! I die to save my father from the deep dishonor of my life! I die, oh heaven, repenting that I must die!” exclaimed Lionne, and raising both hands above her head, she leaped from the bank. She felt herself 257suddenly and powerfully checked, and she fell back into the arms of—Vulcan, the Dwarf!

“You shall not die! There is no peace there or elsewhere for the self-destroyer!” said the old man, with stern solemnity.

“Oh, Vulcan! Vulcan! you know not what you have done!” exclaimed Lionne, in a voice of despair, as she cast herself down upon the sands.

“I do know, my child! I know that I have saved you from changing transient trouble into eternal misery! there is no repentance in the grave, Lionne.”

“Oh, Vulcan! Vulcan! which is worse, death, or dishonor?”

“Death,” said the old man, sturdily—“when it is the death of a suicide. But there is no need, Lionne, for the one or the other. Ah, my child! my child, whom I have known longer than you have known yourself! my child, whom for sixteen years I have carried in my arms—confide in your old servant and he will save you! Confide in your old brute, who asks no better than to lay down his life in your service!”

“Oh, Vulcan! Vulcan! you know not what you ask! You know not why I ought to die!”

“I know all, my child, and I know that you ought to live!”

“I ought to live! Oh yes, I ought to live for vengeance!”

“‘Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord.’”

“Oh-h-h!” aspirated the lost one, in a low, deep, quick, fierce tone, that thrilled to the very marrow of the hearer’s bones—“Oh-h-h! may the judgment fall from heaven, a thunderbolt of fire upon his naked head—scathing! burning! blasting! biting through brain, and heart, and vitals, until his whole nature shrivels up as a worm in the flames!”

As she spoke, her look was terrible! her eyes blazed, 258her lips glowed, her face was white as the light ashes of a living coal! One might almost fancy the vengeance she had invoked, darting, a fork-tongued serpent of fire from her lips, to strike its fangs deep in the heart of her destroyer.

“Lionne! Lionne! for the Saviour’s sake, hush! hush! Your very breath is enough to wither all the fair herbage of this fair day!” cried Vulcan, in horror.

“I know it! Oh, I know it! Oh-h! I know it!—I could cast my body in burning flames and not feel them, because of the fiercer fire in my soul! But it is a fire that shall consume my foe—mind, and soul, and spirit! flesh, and blood, and bones!”

“Oh, my child! for the Lord’s sake, be patient!”

“Don’t talk to me of patience or of the Lord! I am not patient and I am not a child of the Lord! I am a child of Satan, and will live to do the work of my father!”

“Oh, my girl! my girl! you utter blasphemies!”

“Yes! a child of Satan am I! could I not now live in his fires?”

“Poor child, you are mad! God will not hold you accountable for these ravings!” said Vulcan, gazing piteously upon her.

Lionne, felled by her own fierce passions, had fallen again upon the sands, where she writhed like a crushed worm.

Vulcan stood and folded his hands and prayed for her.

At last the “waters of Marah” flowed over her soul and quenched its fires. Her burning indignation was melted into bitter tears.

“If I had been a weak or a selfish girl——I should have deserved my fate, and yet, not suffered from it so bitterly. But I was not! the love I gave that traitor was as pure as the loves of the angels!” she exclaimed, with a burst of grief.

259“I know it! I know it, my child!” murmured the dwarf, gently.

“And he was sure of it! thence his blackest deception! Vulcan! he led me before God’s minister and made me his wife, in the sight of heaven and earth! Look! here is the certificate of our marriage!” she cried, and drawing the document from her bosom, she held it up before the dwarf.

“I knew there must have been something like that! but since you are his wife, he must be forced to acknowledge and protect you!”

“If I were his wife, he should not be forced to any thing, even if it were to save my life from death or my soul from perdition! but I am not his wife! he was married before! and this certificate is not worth the paper it is written upon!” exclaimed Lionne, fiercely tearing the instrument.

Vulcan snatched it from her hands, exclaiming—

“It is worth every thing! A gold mine should not purchase it! it is your justification and his condemnation! This instrument produced in court would consign the proud Orville Deville of River-view, the husband of the high-born Lady Adelaide, to slavery in the penal colonies for half his life! Lionne, would that not be a just and satisfactory retribution?”

“No! no! no! it would take him far away out of my reach and power! No! if I live for vengeance, I must work it out with my own hands, and watch its operation, and he must know it! No hand shall torture him but mine! no eye shall watch his writhing but mine! no soul shall know the secret that shall turn all his life to living death but me! You are right, however, about the certificate! It is a tremendous instrument of power in my hands!”

“Lionne! come home!”

“Home! home! I cannot! I dare not! Ah, Vulcan, 260did my father know what you know he would put a pistol to his forehead and blow his desperate brains out!”

“He need not know it!” said Vulcan, soothingly. “Desperate evils require desperate remedies. The brilliant life that might have been yours in the revived fortunes of your father, is, of course, forfeited. You cannot carry your deep wrongs into that world of which he so fondly speaks.”

“Therefore, you see there is nothing left me but to die,” said Lionne, in a voice of despair.

“Oh, you must not speak of death! You dare not die! You must live for the sake of that other little life that your fatal love has evoked.”

“Ah! what would you have me to do?”

“Die to your father, but live for your child!”

“Oh, what mean you?”

“Your father, who could not bear dishonor, would be strong to support grief. You must inflict upon him sorrow to save him from despair!”

“Riddles! riddles! you talk in riddles!”

“Then I will speak plainly. I know an old Indian doctress, who will attend you faithfully in your coming trial, and take charge of your child, if it lives, for a season. Your father need know nothing of this. Afterwards, Kalougoora, my Indian, will give you a safe sleeping potion, that shall put you in a state closely resembling death. You will seem to die! Your father will grieve bitterly, but other matters will demand his attention and divert his sorrow! He will return to England, and in time find happiness. Meanwhile, I will ensure your safety, and convey you to the wigwam of Kalougoora, to stay until we can fix upon some plan for the future.”

Lionne reflected for a moment and then said:

261“Vulcan, you have saved me for the present! for what after-fate—who knoweth?”

“Will you now come home, Lionne?”

“Yes,” she said, rising and giving him her hand.

For many days all Mr. Deville’s efforts to trace Adelaide were vain. Those were not the times of telegraphs, railroads, country papers and cheap postage. Instead of flying in an instant from one extremity of the continent to another, news crept slowly from house to house. Thus, though Mr. Deville never left his saddle and his emissaries never relaxed their inquiries, yet ten days had passed before they heard a rumor that a young person, answering to the description of Lady Adelaide Deville, had been found in the snow, insensible with cold, and had been conveyed to the Fieldhurst Farm, distant about thirteen miles from River-view.

Mr. Deville put spurs to his horse and galloped without delay to the house of John Fieldhurst.

There he found the tale confirmed—a beautiful young girl, apparently about fifteen or sixteen years of age, of a slight and graceful form, fair complexion, golden hair and blue eyes with a gentle manner and a sweet-toned voice, 262had been picked out of the snow and succored at the farm-house.

Her garments, like her person, bespoke her of high rank, refined habits, and delicate tastes. Her linen was marked with the initials A. D. She had remained but a night and departed silently the next day, leaving behind her a note and a costly diamond-ring.

That was all that they could tell him. They had heard nothing of her after-fate.

With a groan, Orville desired to see the ring and the note, and when they were produced he recognized both as belonging to Lady Adelaide, and took possession of them in her name. And with many thanks to the family for their succor of his bride, and many earnest requests that they would assist him in his search by making every possible inquiry for her in their neighborhood, Orville took leave and returned home.

When he entered the parlor his mother, who sat by the centre-table engaged in sewing, drew an awkward looking letter from her work basket and handed him, with the words:

“Here, Orville, I cannot help thinking that this queer-looking epistle brings news of our Adelaide—though the superscription is misspelled in a style that would be perfectly horrible, if it were not so ridiculous.”

Orville seized the letter with almost rude haste, was ill-folded, dirty, greasy, blotted, and directed to

“Did you ever in your life see such preposterous spelling?” said Lady Elizabeth.

“It strikes me that the name is spelt correctly, mother,” said Orville Deville, with a sorrowful sarcasm, as he tore the letter open and read:

“Mister awful Devil Sur,—A yung wummun like the wun yu lawst, strade 263to mi howse on Sadderdy last, whare she was tuk with a brane feever in Hur hed. pleeze kum and se if it is the saim, and obleege yores toe kummand

“John Twigs at the sine of the Myrtle.”

“It must be her, poor child! She is ill at the Myrtle Inn, on the New Cut Road. Oh, mother, you will go with me to attend her?” inquired Orville, in agitation.

“I will go with you to ascertain the facts, and if I find her I shall remain to nurse her,” said Lady Elizabeth, ringing for her maid to assist her in dressing for the ride, while Mr. Deville went out to order the carriage.

In another hour they were on their way to the Myrtle Inn, which was distant thirty miles from River-view.

As more than half the day had been consumed by Mr. Deville in his ride to and from the Fieldhurst Farm, it was now three o’clock when they set out from River-view for the inn. They drove rapidly along the Bush Creek Road until they reached Bush Creek Mill, where they turned off to the left into the country road leading through the heart of the forest, and continued their journey until they reached Fieldhurst Farm.

Here Lady Elizabeth would have alighted to make fresh inquiries, but her son, on fire with impatience, assured her that there was no more intelligence to be gained there, and ordered the coachman to turn to the right and drive faster.

They entered the New Cut Road, and after a rapid ride of six hours in all, they reached the Myrtle Inn—a large, two-story, brown-stone house, situated in a small clearing of the forest, on the left hand of the New Cut Road.

Leaving his mother seated in the carriage, Mr. Deville sprang out and ran into the quiet little bar, where his correspondent, the little, short, fat landlord, sat alone, idly smoking his pipe while waiting for a chance customer in the shape of a wagoner. This little personage laid down his pipe and inquired now he could serve the gentleman.

“My name is Deville,” said Orville.

264“Oh! the gentleman as I writ to ’bout the young woman. What a desput pity she should o’ gone crazy and wandered off, afore her friends suspicioned any thing was amiss with her head-piece,” said the host.

“Oh! that is the fortunate construction the people put upon her flight, is it?” thought Orville within himself. Aloud he inquired—

“First of all, how is the young lady?”

“She’s better, sir; but very feeble. Our doctor has fotch her through, as one may say, like a brand from the burning!”

As they spoke, Lady Elizabeth, who had alighted and hastened after her son, entered in time to hear the landlord’s report of his guest’s condition.

“I think, Orville,” she said, “that you had better remain here and gather all the details that you can get from Mr. Twigs, while I go up and see our dear girl.”

“As you think best, mother,” said Mr. Deville.

“Can you call some one to show me up to my daughter, sir?” asked Lady Elizabeth, of the landlord.

“Certainly, ma’am!—here Jenny! Jenny!”

A fair-haired, blue-eyed little girl of twelve came out from an inner room and curtsied respectfully to the strangers.

“Jenny, show this lady up to the young lady’s sick-room.”

With another curtsey, the little maiden said—

“This way, ma’am,” and conducted Lady Elizabeth through a side-door into the hall, and thence up the narrow stairs to a medium-sized front room, where, on a neat, white-draped bed, lay Adelaide, alone and apparently sleeping.

“Do you leave her alone?” inquired the lady, in a tone of displeasure.

“Oh, no, ma’am. I watch her, and had only just run 265down to get a drink of water, when father saw me and called me in,” replied the little maiden.

“You may go now, and leave me with my daughter,” said her ladyship.

The little girl withdrew quietly, closing the door after her.

Lady Elizabeth laid off her bonnet and mantle, and quietly drew a chair to the side of the bed, to wait until the patient should awake. Adelaide lay perfectly still, with her fair, transparent hands folded upon her young, saintly bosom in perfect repose, her eyelids resting upon her delicate cheek, and her long, pale hair flowing down each side of her paler face.

“Poor child! poor, sensitive child! how much she must have suffered secretly, e’er she was driven to this!” said Lady Elizabeth.

While she watched, Adelaide opened her gentle eyes, and with a slight start recognized her mother-in law.

“Lady Elizabeth! you here!” she exclaimed, in a faint tone of astonishment.

“Yes, sweet girl! I have come to take care of you until you are able to return with me!” said the elder lady, judiciously refraining from expressing the least surprise or annoyance.

“Ah! fate is against me! fate is against me!” mourned the unhappy one, covering her face with her attenuated, fair hands.

“Why should you say fate is against you, our dear one? Providence has loaded you with blessings! Youth, beauty, accomplishments, wealth, and last, but by no means least, the first and undivided love of your husband!” said the matron, soothingly.

Adelaide looked up in sad surprise, repeating almost unconsciously, “‘The first and undivided love’ of my husband.”

266“Why, surely yes! it is a truth too manifest to dwell upon! He scarcely knows another woman—scarcely shares his heart even with his mother. You have it all.”

“Is it possible she knows nothing of Lionne?” thought Adelaide, looking wistfully into the face of her mother-in-law.

The examination was satisfactory. Orville’s mother knew nothing of Orville’s duplicate marriage.

“And yet how does she account to herself for my leaving the house?” thought Adelaide.

Her thought was soon answered by Lady Elizabeth’s next observation.

“I do wonder that you should have imagined Orville cold and neglectful of you, when nothing was farther from his heart, as he will soon prove.”

“Oh,” thought Adelaide, “she thinks I left home because he slighted me!” She remained silent, while Lady Elizabeth continued talking very much in the same vein.

Orville’s partial and confiding mother knew nothing of her son’s sins, and Orville’s heart-broken young wife would not accuse her husband. Yet how to escape without exposing him?

“Will you see Orville now, my dear?” inquired Lady Elizabeth.

“Is he here?” exclaimed Adelaide, in surprise.

“Why, of course he is, my dear! Orville has been consumed with anxiety since you left. See him, my dear.”

“Oh, not to-night, please! not to-night!” said Adelaide, clasping her hands pleadingly.

“Well, certainly it is very late—nearly ten o’clock! It was nine when we got here. He must wait until to-morrow,” admitted Lady Elizabeth, who then rang and ordered the chambermaid to make her up a bed in Adelaide’s room, 267saying that she should remain with her daughter both day and night until the recovery of the latter.

And while the servant obeyed these directions, the lady who had given them went down-stairs to give her news of their patient to Orville, and to join him at their plain supper.

Orville had gathered but little further details from the landlord, and that, such as it was, proved more mortifying than satisfactory: namely, that one evening, nearly two weeks before, the young lady had reached the inn, alone, on foot, and in a complete state of exhaustion. They could do no otherwise than take her in.

That night, brain-fever had declared itself, and in the morning the chambermaid discovered her in high delirium. A purse of money was found in her pocket, but there was no clue to her identity.

At noon, when the neighborhood’s physician stopped to water his horse and brandy himself, he was called to her bedside, and had since attended her regularly. That he, John Twigs, had heard only three or four days before of the missing girl from River-view, and had written accordingly. This was all, but quite enough deeply to humiliate the proud and fastidious Devilles.

“I cannot understand at all your neglect of your beautiful bride, Orville! and neither can I comprehend how she should take it so very deeply to heart as actually to leave the house! The whole thing is incomprehensible to me!” said Lady Elizabeth.

“I did not mean to neglect her, and heaven knows I was far from indifference; but she is a morbidly sensitive child,” said Orville, suppressing all mention of Lionne, which would have explained the whole matter.

“Evidently she is so deeply, deeply hurt, that she shrinks even from hearing your name.”

268“Then I had better refrain from forcing myself upon her—for the present,” said Orville.

After supper Lady Elizabeth inspected the chamber that had been prepared for her son, to see that the room was well ventilated, the sheets were well aired, etc., and then bade him good-night and retired to Adelaide’s apartment.

“Do you sit up with her?” inquired the lady of the little girl who attended her with a lighted lamp.

“The neighbors used to when she was very ill, but now I only sleep in the room in case she wants any thing.”

“Then you may retire, and leave that duty to me for the future.”

When the little girl had left the room, Lady Elizabeth drew an arm-chair, and took her place at the side of the bed.

On looking more closely at Adelaide, she perceived, to her alarm, that the patient was not sleeping, but lying in a state of gentle delirium, and at intervals murmuring low, sad, inaudible lamentations.

By means of stooping low and listening attentively, she heard her murmur:

“Oh, lay me in the quiet earth, beneath the gentle overbending trees; let me sleep and forget—sleep and forget!”

And then followed sighs and silence. Presently the feverish lips moved again, and she said:

“I love too much, too much! My love burns whom it means to bless! and it is thrown back upon me to consume the heart and frame in which it lives! Oh, lay me down where the shade is always deep and dark, and the dew is always fresh and cool—it will draw the fire from my burning heart and beating brain, and cool me into sleep!”

269Lady Elizabeth applied such sedatives as she found at hand and as her experience had proved to be efficacious in such cases of excitement.

Presently, partially recovering from that wandering state of mind, Adelaide looked up, and recognizing Lady Elizabeth, said:

“Oh, mother, mother, there is in this world no room at all for my heart—none, none! Like Noah’s poor banished dove, it wanders over a waste of waters, finding no single spot to repose for an instant.”

To these plaintive words, Lady Elizabeth replied by the tenderest caresses, and the most affectionate words—

“You are ill now, my love, and you labor under an illusion. Your heart’s home is in your husband’s bosom.”

At that word, Adelaide shrank like a sensitive plant, and soon after relapsed into wandering and low delirium.

Lady Elizabeth passed the night in watching beside the patient’s bed.

The morning found Adelaide weaker from her night of fever and of partial delirium.

In a word, the shock of the sudden arrival of the Devilles had occasioned in Adelaide a serious relapse.

Orville, at the suggestion of his mother, returned to River-view.

Lady Elizabeth remained and nursed her patient with tenderness and skill. The physician, stimulated by the discovery of his patient’s rank and wealth, redoubled his attentions. But with the best medical advice, and the most devoted nursing, it was still a fortnight before Adelaide could leave her chamber.

Upon the third day after her first appearance in the parlor, Lady Elizabeth said to her:

“Adelaide my dear, to-morrow Orville will arrive with our travelling-carriage, and we will return home.”

270“Oh, no, no, no! I cannot! Indeed I cannot! Send me away to some far distant place, to some quiet family, where I can live, obscure and unknown, until God is willing to let me die!” pleaded the suffering girl, clasping her fragile hands and raising her beseeching eyes to the face of her protectress.

“Lady Adelaide Deville, your proposition is an insane one! Consider your husband! A wife has no right, thus, without just cause, to leave her husband! What would Orville say? What would your Christian friends—what would the world say? My dear, your proposal is perfectly preposterous.”

“Mother, you have been more than a mother to me. Hear me! bear with me! Suppose that my honor and dignity, and—and Orville’s happiness, are concerned in my going; and let me, oh, let me depart!”

“Nonsense, my dear child; you are hurt, deeply hurt, and you think that Orville does not love you; but I know that he does, and that he will soon convince you of it.”

“Oh, mother! mother! you do not know what you say! Oh, believe me, I ought not and must not return to River-view!” pleaded Adelaide, with her hands still clasped and her blue eyes still fixed beseechingly upon her companion’s face.

“My sweet child, I not only know what I say, but I know what I do! I am thirty years older than you are, Lady Adelaide; I am, besides, your guardian, and my son is your husband. We have a legal, though limited disposal of your person. I shall assuredly take you back to River-view. And Lady Adelaide is too meek and modest, as well as too conscientious, to rebel against lawful authority,” said Lady Elizabeth, with a manner that admitted of no opposition.

Adelaide dropped her hands upon her lap with a look of despair.

271“All that is left for me, then,” she thought, “is to have an explanation with Mr. Deville. Yes, painful, distressing, revolting as it is, I must see him once again, and leave it to him to explain to his mother why it is that I cannot remain under his roof.”

While Adelaide was reluctantly coming to this resolution, Lady Elizabeth relapsed into silence, fearing that further conversation might too much excite her patient.

Late that evening Orville arrived in the family-carriage.

“How is my dear Adelaide?” was his first inquiry, on meeting his mother.

“Heart-sick and brain-sick, though otherwise convalescent. I sometimes suspect that there may be more reason than appears for her sorrow,” looking wistfully into Orville’s face.

“Where is she? I must see her,” said Mr. Deville.

“You cannot, to-night! she has retired to rest, and is probably sleeping. And really, it is time that we should do the same.”

In the morning Lady Adelaide arose before her usual time, and while her mother-in-law was still sleeping, dressed herself and descended to the parlor.

At the same hour, Mr. Deville, while standing before his dressing-glass, had a note placed in his hand. It was from his young bride, requesting an immediate interview.

He hastened his toilet and descended to the parlor, where he found Adelaide, delicate, fair and languid from recent illness and present sorrow.

“My own, my dearest one, my heart’s life,” he began, softly approaching her and attempting to take her hand.

But with a look, gentle and compassionate as it was firm and repellant—a look such as that with which a pitying angel might forever banish a sinner—she stopped him.

Then with that candor and decision that often distinguishes 272the most gentle woman when called upon to act from duty, pointing to a chair near her, which he took, she said—

“Mr. Deville, I took the liberty of asking you to come here to consult with you concerning my future course in regard to Lady Elizabeth,”—she paused, passed her hand before her eyes, blushed, and seemed embarrassed.

“As for instance,” said Mr. Deville—

“—For instance, then,” continued Adelaide, with a deepening blush—“Lady Elizabeth knows nothing at all of your—your—”

“—Sins and follies you would say!”

“—Nay, your marriage with Lionne Delaforêt; and consequently, neither can she understand the imminent necessity of my withdrawing from her roof,” said Adelaide, gathering firmness.

“Lady,” said Orville, coldly and severely—“you have ventured directly to mention a subject to which it does not become one of your age, sex, and condition, even remotely to allude! What can the Lady Adelaide Deville have in common with the wild and frail girl, whom she has suffered to disturb her peace?”

“What,” said Adelaide, sadly—“a common human nature, a common woman’s heart, in a word, a common capacity for suffering the same wrongs or enjoying the same blessings.”

“I will not ask what you mean, Adelaide; but I will request you not to offend me again with the mention of that wretched girl,” said Mr. Deville, with a sternness unusual in his manner.

Delicate, gentle and retiring, how hard for her to nerve her heart to the contest now before her! a contest with the man she had from childhood exclusively and passionately loved as her husband—a contest not for her own, 273but for her rival’s and for his sake. Nevertheless, she braced her nerves by a strong effort of will, and said—

“Mr. Deville, if you please, hear me while I tell you what I have heard and seen—a subject painful to me as to you; but which needs to be discussed.”

“Adelaide, if you will take advantage of your privilege to give me pain, you must do so, of course!” he said, coldly.

Distressed, but not daunted by this sarcasm, Adelaide began and related the whole history of her interview with Lionne.

Orville, with knit brows, compressed lips and severe countenance, heard her through in silence. At the close of her narrative, when she looked inquiringly at him, he expressed neither denial, assent, nor regret, at what had passed.

“Oh, how hard! how hard under that gentle exterior he must be!” thought Adelaide, as she again resumed her speech and spoke of the note of renunciation that she had written, and of her plan of retiring from the neighborhood.

The better nature of Orville Deville was deeply stirred by her beautiful spirit of self-sacrifice.

“Here is a woman, young, beautiful and pure, who is ready to sacrifice her every good in life, that the man she loves may be happy with her rival!” he thought, as he gazed in wonder upon her angelic face.

Alas! she dared not meet that gaze! Her pure, calm, trusting love of years had been by grief sublimed to passion, so that now every glance of his strong, dark eyes, every tone of his deep voice, every touch of his compelling hand, thrilled her sensitive frame with a deep, intense, sweet madness that must have been pure rapture, but for the blasting memories that traversed her bosom liked forked lightning. Now feeling his ardent gaze upon 274her, she turned, half-fainting, away, like a lily drooping under the hot noonday sun.

He approached her again, and endeavored to take her hand, but she drew it away with a shiver, half pain, half pleasure, and trembled so visibly that Orville contented himself with drawing his chair nearer to her as he said:

“Adelaide, you have told me that you were forced upon me, and that another was the wife of my choice, that therefore you wish to leave me. In reply, I have but one thing to say and swear, namely, that you are not only my lawful wife, but the wife of my deliberate choice, and that I not only love you more than any other woman, but I love you only of all women! Further, that nothing on earth shall ever induce me to part with you;” and so saying, in a voice vibrating with his soul’s profound passion, he swiftly and softly seized her hand, turned and gazed into her face, and surprised there—a smile of joy in the depths of her soft, dark blue eyes!

“He loves me! oh, he loves me, notwithstanding all!” was the quick thought that had sent the thrill of rapture through her heart. But swift upon the track of that thought and that rapture came the Nemesis of memory, bringing anguish. Snatching her hand in horror from his clasp, she exclaimed, in a low, breathless voice:

“I must not listen to you! oh, I must not! Oh, no, no, no!”

It was too late! In that first light of joy Orville had read—not the calm love that he knew before, but the consuming passion of her heart. He caught her to his bosom, he strained her to his heart, he pressed his lips with devouring avidity to her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, and bosom, exclaiming passionately between the kisses:

“You are my wife! my own! my indisputable! no earthly power shall snatch you from my arms! none 275none! henceforth and forever you shall lie in my bosom, my wife! my own! heart of my heart! life of my life!”

Suddenly he was stopped as by a death-stroke. While still hailing kisses like a storm of fire upon her lips, her form suddenly grew heavy in his embrace, her sweet eyes closed, her lips paled, and her head fell back, with all its long, golden tresses unwinding over his arm.

“She has fainted!” he cried, in alarm, hurrying toward the sofa, where he laid her, and then rang a peal of bells that brought all the household and Lady Elizabeth Deville to the scene.

That the delicate invalid should have swooned, excited more sympathy than surprise.

Under Lady Elizabeth’s directions, she was removed to her bedchamber, where the best means were used for her relief, and where she soon recovered consciousness.

The journey home to River-view was necessarily deferred until the next day.

Leaving Adelaide reposing, Lady Elizabeth came down into the parlor to have a talk with her son.

“Orville,” she said, “I know not how you have contrived to do it, but you have very deeply offended, or rather, I should say, hopelessly estranged Adelaide. She gently but firmly refuses to accompany us to River-view. As her guardian I shall take her thither, whether she will or no; but to make the task a little less difficult, I shall have to promise that you will not seek her company, or in any way molest her; and I wish you, my son, to give me your word to that effect.”

“You have my word, mother, that I will not disturb the quiet of Lady Adelaide for—a limited time, say a week or two.”

“Certainly, that is all that I require; for, surely, Adelaide’s displeasure cannot last longer—though I ought not to call her state of feeling displeasure; it is more like 276grief. There must be more in it than I know of! Your neglect, bad as it was, could never have made such a deep and lasting impression, never! But as neither of you volunteer to enlighten me, I suppose you prefer that I should not pry into your matrimonial secrets,” said Lady Elizabeth, with a doubtful smile.

“At least it is not necessary that I should trouble you with the details of our misunderstanding, mother; it is sufficient to say that through all, Lady Adelaide Deville has not only been entirely blameless, but angelic; and however mistaken her acts, her motives were heavenly. As for me, with all my faults, I have no dearer wish for earth or heaven than the re-establishment of perfect confidence and a perfect union with her—the only woman on earth I love, except my mother.”

Again the lady smiled, ambiguously, and the conference closed.

The next morning the large family-carriage was drawn up before the inn-door, and several soft pillows that had been brought from River-view were arranged to support the invalid.

Adelaide was placed within, lying upon the pillows, and supported by Lady Elizabeth.

Orville, by his mother’s advice, rode on the box beside the driver. And thus they journeyed to River-view.

They arrived late in the afternoon.

Adelaide was immediately conveyed to her apartments, where she was laid upon a lounge and refreshments were served to her.

And sitting by her couch, her mother-in-law reiterated her promise in behalf of herself and her son, that Orville should not approach the apartment of Adelaide until she herself summoned him to her presence.

It was reported among the servants, that the Lady Adelaide, in a state of partial delirium from the approach 277of illness, had unconsciously wandered from her home; and in the absence of any knowledge of the facts, on the part of the community, this explanation of her strange conduct obtained general credence—with a single exception, that of Kate Kyte, who knew all about the matter; but who, for the sake of Lady Adelaide, continued to keep the secret.

“It” was in the second week after her return to River-view, that Lady Adelaide sent to request Kate to come and see her.

And the young Diana lost no time in complying.

When questioned by Adelaide, Kate frankly told her all she knew of what had passed at Bush Creek, and also of the relentless anger and stubborn departure of Lionne.

Adelaide heard all this with pain that was only eased by prayer.

Kate spent the day with the invalid, and after that became her frequent visitor and favorite companion.

Orville kept his promise, and never, by word or deed, molested the peace of his unhappy bride, or even betrayed a wish to seek her presence, until one day when, unexpectedly, an event occurred that promised to restore their mutual association, confidence and happiness.

Adelaide, almost heart-broken by her first, bitter sorrow, recovered very slowly from the effects of her brain fever. To avoid meeting with Orville, she confined herself to her own room, except at such hours as she knew him to be absent, when she would creep down-stairs and steal out to the broad water’s side and wander far away along the solitary beach, out of sight and hearing of every human creature. Here seated upon a cold, gray stone, 303a bleached tree-stump, or a mass of dried seaweed, she sat and watched the sea like breadth of water, finding strange solace in the thoughts suggested by the dull, leaden hue, and the troubled, yet monotonous motion and moaning of the waves.

It was like her own life!

Why is it that extreme sufferers, broken-hearted or crazed, so frequently shun the society of even their nearest friends, and seek solace in the deepest solitudes of nature—in the darkest forest’s shades, in the wildest mountain’s gorge, by the bleakest ocean shore? A metaphysical treatise might be written in answer.

Adelaide, in addition to reasons common to all the wretched, had especial ones of her own for avoiding her kind.

Friends and acquaintances, she felt, looked upon her with compassion alloyed by suspicion and distrust—even as upon a girl, morbidly sensitive, highly eccentric, and very unsafe, who was at any moment liable to lunacy.

Even the servants watched her with wonder and pity! Lady Elizabeth, grown impatient of her long-continued avoidance of Orville, characterized her conduct as a sullen resentment altogether unjustifiable and intolerable.

Mr. Deville, of all others, only knew of the cause of her illness and despair; and with him she refused to speak. Had she been of age, and mistress of herself and fortune, she would have left the house; but being still under the bonds of minority, she was forced to remain. But her resolution, to hold no communication with Orville while she should be compelled to remain under his roof, she thought was fixed as fate.

It was while affairs were in this position, that Orville, one morning, opening the Baltimore paper, was suddenly arrested by the sight of the following obituary:

On Sunday the fifteenth instant, at the residence of her father, died suddenly 304of organic disease of the heart, Leonora, only daughter of Arthur Delaforêt, Esq., in the sixteenth year of her age.

It was a tremendous shock; but, oh! what a relief!

The unhappy girl who seemed destined to be his curse through life was dead, he thought—dead, not by his act, not by her own hand, by fate! Her sorrows and his embarrassments were forever at an end! Adelaide would now have no excuse for repudiating her wifely obligations. He was impatient to inform her that the obstacle she had chosen to raise against the consummation of their marriage, was removed by the hand of destiny, and that therefore she must have no further conscientious scruples to becoming his wife in fact as she was in name. Yet the selfish and impetuous youth perceived the propriety, nay, the necessity, while informing Adelaide of the event, of waiting some time for her to recover from the shock, and to comprehend the event, before urging it as a motive for the consummation of their marriage.

It was an overclouded day, about the first of September, that Adelaide, quietly as usual, left the house and wandered down to the solitary shore. It was late in the evening, and the tide was coming in. The surface of the water was of a deep, dull gray, in harmony with the clouded heavens, in unison with her own sad heart.

“It is the tenth wave,” she said, as she watched a long, dark ridge, rolling as it rose and rising as it rolled, onward towards the shore, where it broke with a heavy sound, and covered her with a shower of foam.

“It is gone! It hurried on, joyous, confident, triumphant, to embrace the earth, broke itself upon the sands, and fell back again! Here comes another, as joyous, as confident, as triumphant; but like the other, and all the others, it will break and fall back—there, it is broken! another emblem of the vanity of human aspirations,” she said, as the last wave was shattered in thunder at her feet.

305The tide continued to advance upon the beach, the waves raising their crested heads, throwing out their arms of surf, leaping and grasping upon the shore as though they would snatch and carry off some priceless treasure, or make good an everlasting foothold.

As she gazed, other and wilder fancies crossed her mind.

“How like sentient beings are these waves! They seem as conscious of me as I of them! How they spring at me, as if to catch me in their embrace! How they lift their white hands to me! How they beckon! Now I would only have to sit still here for a few minutes longer, and they would embrace and carry me away from this troubled earth, down, down, down to the deep stillness of the middle sea! I would only have to sit still—the wooing waves would do the rest. Shall I sit quiescent, oh eager waves, and let you have your will?”

“Adelaide!”

Though the name was pronounced so softly close to her ear, Adelaide sprang to her feet in alarm, and turned sharply around to confront—Orville Deville.

“Oh, Orville! oh, Mr. Deville, is this well? I only ask for peace, yet it is denied me; I avoid you, yet you follow me!”

“Adelaide, your garments are wet with surf!”

“Not wetter than my fate with tears!”

“Adelaide, the next wave will break over your head!”

“Many waves have broken over me, even here! I like! I like the physical shock, it numbs mental pain!”

“Adelaide, come away! I have a very important communication to make to you, but I cannot make it here, not while you sit in wet clothes. The wave!” he suddenly exclaimed, as he hastily snatched her from before a black ridge of water rolling in towards the shore. It was too late! the wave leaped and broke in thunder over both! It required all his strength to withstand the shock and hold 306her firmly. When the tumult was over he bore her far up the bank and sat her down.

He was as thoroughly drenched as herself.

“So, Adelaide,” he said, “may every wave of sorrow from which I cannot save you, break over us both! I hail this as an omen—the rude baptism of our union!”

“Oh, why do you distress me with such talk, when you know this can never, never be?” she said, in despairing tones.

“Dear Adelaide, come home, get on dry garments, and then I will make you a communication.”

She allowed him to take her hand and raise her to her feet, but declining further assistance, she walked home. That evening after supper, he sent a note to her room, begging her, if she were sufficiently rested, to give him a meeting in the library, for the purpose of imparting to her the intelligence he waited to convey.

“Tell your master that I will come,” she said to the boy who brought the note.

And waiting only long enough to compose her nerves, she arose and proceeded to the library, where she found Mr. Deville. He placed a chair for her, seated himself and quietly handed her the paper, pointing out at the same time the obituary notice.

She started as her eyes fell upon the paragraph. She grew pale as she read. And when she had concluded, she raised her eyes, full of solemn questioning, to the face of Orville Deville.

“So you perceive, Adelaide,” he said, “that the miserable girl whom you chose to exalt into the importance of an obstacle to our complete union is removed!”

“Oh! but this is dreadful! dreadful! Orville! Poor thing! poor thing! And who knows how she died!”

“She died—not by her own desperate hand—not through me—but by disease—disease of the heart!”

307“Of the heart? Ah! yes, the chord most strained the soonest snaps! poor heart!”

“You afflict yourself without cause, dear Adelaide! Hers was organic disease of the heart, a fatal malady, sure to kill even amid the happiest circumstances.”

“And hers were most wretched.”

“Adelaide, she died last month! May she rest in peace! Do not you trouble your tender heart vainly!”

“And are not you troubled at her untimely death?”

“I am sorry; yet I think it best that it happened so! best for all concerned!”

“Oh, Orville! Oh, Orville! You speak so of her, of her who thought herself your wife, and who was such in truth and justice!”

“Adelaide! you are a monomaniac on that point! how is it possible that she or any other woman than yourself could be my wife! Yes, my dear, you, and only you, are mine, even as I am yours, and only yours; but I did not come here to urge unwelcome claims: I came only to inform you of the death of a poor girl in whose fate you deigned to take some interest,” said Mr. Deville, rising to leave the room, and permit her to reflect upon the new phase the supposed death of Lionne had put upon their affairs.

As he passed out of the library, he encountered his mother in the hall.

“You have been holding another interview with Adelaide?”

“Yes, madam.”

“And by your gloomy looks an unpleasant one.”

“Rather so!”

“I will tell you what, Orville, you had better travel.”

“Travel, madam?”

“Yes!—Cease to woo your unwilling bride and leave the neighborhood.”

308“Ah, to what good purpose, my dear mother, since I should take my unhappy passion along with me?”

“Why, of course, to this good purpose: to bring Adelaide to her senses. The girl is really devotedly attached to you, and has been so from her childhood; but she is now full of bitter and sullen resentment, and so long as you stay and importune her, she will avoid you.”

Now, of course, Orville Deville knew that his mother, in her ignorance of the true state of the case, misjudged Adelaide, and yet, upon the whole, he thought her advice good. She continued:

“By withdrawing yourself from her presence you will bring her to the knowledge of her own heart, and of your importance to her happiness.”

Orville dropped his head upon his breast and reflected deeply. And the longer he thought it over, the better he liked his mother’s counsel.

“I see,” continued that lady, “that you are inclined to follow my advice. Do so. Leave home for a season, and when you return I will guarantee a kinder treatment for you from Adelaide.”

“I think you are right, madam. I will be guided by your counsels,” said Orville.

Orville Deville lost no time in preparing for his journey. He was ready for departure almost before he had quite made up his mind in what direction he should travel. Finally it was determined, between his mother and himself, that he should first visit the Canadian Provinces, where he should spend the earlier portion of the autumn; that he should then proceed southward and spend the winter in the French colonies of Louisiana and Mississippi; that in the spring it should depend upon his own inclination whether he should extend his travels or return home.

His approaching departure was announced to Adelaide 309by his mother, in a manner likely to fill the mind of that young lady with self-reproach.

Entering the bride’s room early one morning, the mother of Orville sat down, and, putting a handkerchief to her eyes, said—

“Well, Adelaide, I hope that you will now be content! You have succeeded in banishing my son and your husband from his home!”

“From his home!—I, madam?” exclaimed the poor bride, in wonder and in sorrow.

“Ay, you! Your continued coldness has driven him away. He leaves home to-morrow, to travel how far, or how long, I cannot tell—to return when, if ever, I do not know!” and the lady, unused to betray emotion, dropped her face into her handkerchief and wept bitterly.

Adelaide had shed many, many tears; yet it seemed dreadful to her to see Orville’s mother weep. It appeared to her tender, conscientious, and devout heart as unfilial, cruel, sacrilegious, to sit and look upon the matron’s tears and not seek to stay them, at any sacrifice save that of principle.

“Oh, heaven help me! What shall I do?” she exclaimed, going and sinking at the feet and clasping the knees of the lady. “Madam! madam! oh, do not let me drive him away! do not! Let me go, rather! Oh, if you had permitted me to stay away when I went, this might all have been prevented. Dear madam, it is not yet too late!—let me go!”

“You are mad, Adelaide, to think of such a thing! Go! where should you go? and why should you go? It is not to be thought of! Your frenzied proposal does not even merit a serious reply! Do not affront me again by making it!” said the lady, agitated between rage and grief.

“Oh, then, what can I do for you, or him? You know that I would die for either!”

310“It is not a question of dying, but of living and loving—if that be not too late. You are Orville’s wife; give him your love! become his in reality as you are in right!”

“Oh, Lady Elizabeth, I would do any thing that is right, but——”

“I see! speak no more! you will do any thing but just what we wish! any thing but just what is your duty! You would die for us! very fine—nobody asks you; but my son, your husband, begs you to love him, and you refuse! yes, he prays for rights which he might demand, yet you, who would die for him, refuse his reasonable prayer. Go to, Lady Adelaide, I will believe no more of your professions; nor will my son plead again, nor will his mother sue for him.” And rising in anger, the lady threw off the caressing arms of Adelaide, and left the room.

“Is it my duty to submit to his love? Oh, if I could think it was, how happy I should be! And—perhaps it may be so. We have been long married, and the poor, wild girl, who innocently divided us, is dead! Is it my duty now to give myself up to my husband? Oh, wavering heart, cease! inclination sets too strongly that way to let reason and conscience have fair play! I must wait—wait for more light,” said Adelaide, as she sat deeply reflecting upon her own strange position and obligations.

Her question of duty was one that might have puzzled older and wiser heads. She was very young and inexperienced, and her difficulty was one upon which she could not seek counsel of any human being, not even of Orville’s mother, without an exposure of her husband’s sin, which she was determined never to make—no, not to his parent!

“I will pray God to direct me!” she said; “but alas! we pray God to guide us, and then we follow our own inclinations and throw the responsibility upon him! Heaven save us from self-deception!”

311So she meditated, struggled and prayed, with a purpose single to do right.

That night poor Adelaide spent in prayer, rather than in sleep.

In the morning she met the family at breakfast, with the humble, subdued, and deprecating air of one who felt herself the cause of the approaching separation.

The meal passed almost in silence. Lady Elizabeth’s tear-stained cheeks, Mr. Deville’s grave brow, and Adelaide’s pensive face, cast a deep gloom over the impending parting.

Mr. Deville suddenly broke up the sitting by rising and saying that to meet the packet-boat at Belle Haven, it was time he should be in the saddle. He took an affectionate leave of his mother, and then advanced to his bride, whose hand only he raised in silence to his lips. With her whole form drooping to faintness, Adelaide submitted to this slight caress. And the minute after, when she raised her eyes, he was gone.

“Oh, may God guide me aright, and then whatever may be my duty, may he forgive and bless my husband with great happiness,” she said.

When Orville was gone, his mother, true to her promise, gave over importuning Adelaide upon the subject of their estrangement, but her manner as well as her feelings towards her daughter-in-law underwent a great change. She grew cold and distant to Adelaide. And not the least of the poor young bride’s distress, was the displeasure of one between whom and herself had always existed the most tender, filial and maternal love—who had always been a most affectionate mother to herself, but who was still dearer to her heart as the mother of her husband.

But though Lady Elizabeth lectured Adelaide no more upon the subject of her “wifely duties,” yet she took 312care that the young bride should learn her responsibilities from other sources.

She took old Doctor Wilmot, the pastor of their parish, into her confidence; told him under the seal of secrecy that a lover’s quarrel had arisen between her children, which had terminated in a permanent estrangement on the part of the bride, and a long journey on that of the bridegroom; gave him to understand that the chief difficulty of reconciliation lay with the young lady; and finally implored his counsel.

Doctor Wilmot, who had known Adelaide from childhood, gave his opinion as follows——

“Madam, your youthful daughter-in-law has a deeply religious nature; her duty to God is her first consideration; her duty to all his creatures grows out of that. She cannot be ruled through her passions or her self-interest; because both these are subordinate to her Christian principles; she can only be governed through her conscience and her affections. The matter in hand is one too delicate to admit of my personal interference, even as the pastor and counsellor of the young lady; but I will find a way.”

Accordingly, the next Sabbath, good old Doctor Wilmot announced a course of sermons on the subject of domestic duties.

His introductory discourse, rather a dull one, was addressed to husbands, and gave umbrage, more or less, to every married man present. His second was preached from the text, “Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands even as unto the Lord,” and because his heart, for his “pet lamb’s” sake, was in his subject, this discourse, in all respects, surpassed the first.

Adelaide listened, and in her unsuspicious simplicity and meek reverence, she received every expressed opinion of this preacher as pure gospel-truth.

313She went home more disturbed because more hopeful saying to herself—“I almost believe it to be my duty, as well as my happiness, to yield to Orville.”

The next day, while she was turning this subject over in her heart, as the conspirators knew that she would—the old clergyman called.

Lady Elizabeth was out of the way.

Adelaide received him in the breakfast-room. She turned the conversation on the sermon of the day before, and in the course of their discussion she put several supposititious cases to her pastor for his adjudication. As, for instance, in such and such circumstances of the husband, what should be the wife’s course?

All these cases had reference to her own difficulty, and they received answers that eased her conscience and pleased her heart. And before the interview was ended Adelaide was almost persuaded to permit herself to be happy.

In due time letters came from Orville Deville, for Lady Elizabeth—none for Adelaide.

“Lady Adelaide, I have heard from my son—he sends 314his respects to you,” said the mother of Orville, coldly, addressing her daughter-in-law.

“I thank him; when you write, please return my best wishes for his happiness,” said the latter, quietly, though she trembled at holding out this “right hand of fellowship.”

It was the day succeeding the arrival of these letters that, in the cool of the morning, Adelaide ordered her little sail-boat, and went for a trip up the coast, as far as the mouth of Bush Creek. When she had arrived thither the beauty of the shaded stream tempted her on, and for the first time, she entered the mouth of Bush Creek for a sail up the stream.

“How far can we go, Nero?” she asked of her old helmsman.

“When de tide’s high as ’tis now, up far’s de mill, ma’am, and even furder.”

“Then we will go up to the mill and pay Kate a visit.”

“Ay, ay, ma’am!”

“This is enjoying at once a sail on the salt-water and a ramble through the forest,” said Lady Adelaide, looking with delight up at the thicket of tall trees that grew upon each bank, and whose upper branches met and overshadowed the deep but narrow stream. Nothing could be more singular, picturesque and beautiful than the effect of that little graceful shallop skimming the surface of the creek—her white sail gleaming in and out among the dark green foliage.

“We are navigating the forest instead of the ocean, Nero!” said the young lady, with a smile—“but when we get up a little farther will not the foliage interfere with the sail?”

“No, ma’am—they never meets low enough.”

They were going before a fresh wind, and might have 315flown, but for the necessity of constant tacking in follow—the serpentine windings of the stream.

At length, however, in an hour they reached the bridge below the mill, and secured the boat to the posts.

The helmsman sprang upon the bank and assisted his mistress to land.

Adelaide looked up at the old house, once so lone and desolate, now in

in the forms of four savage-looking men, with tall, spare figures, harsh features, darkly-bronzed complexions, and long, wild, black elf-locks and beards that hung upon their shoulders and breasts. They were clad in tunics and leggins of ill-dressed buckskin, and were lounging about the broken doorway and walls of the house.

“Who are those barbarians?” inquired Adelaide, with some degree of uneasiness.

“Dem? Why, dey must be Miss Kate’s older brothers come back from de hunting-grounds.”

“Gracious! they look much more savage than the savage Indians themselves.”

“So do all white men when dey grow wild,” was the sapient and truthful observation of Nero.

“Ay! the Anglo-American race are bound to excel in every thing they attempt—even when they try to be savages!” remarked Adelaide, as she entered the yard and approached the door.

The said “savages” showed their civilization by giving way and retiring with respectful bows, which Adelaide answered by a nod as she entered the house.

Kate sprang from the inner room to meet and greet her.

“Oh, Lady Adelaide, I am so glad to see you! Oh, Lady Adelaide! my brothers have come home! all safe! every one of them safe!” exclaimed the wild girl, tears of joy rushing to her dark eyes!

316“I rejoice with you, Kate! with all my heart, I rejoice with you! When did they come, my dear?”

“They got here yesterday evening! And oh, Lady Adelaide, the oddest thing—” exclaimed Kate, with a laugh and a blush, and above all a look of ludicrous embarrassment.

“Well, what is it, dear?”

“Such a find!”

“A find?”

“Yes! such a waif!”

“Waif?”

“Such a treasure trove!”

“I don’t in the least understand you, my dear.”

“Well, then, my brothers have found—open your eyes wide and look for a soft place to faint on—a baby in the forest!”

Adelaide’s eyes opened sufficiently wide; but instead of fainting, she only continued to stare in silent amazement at her informant.

“It is some poor squaw’s papoose,” at length the young lady ventured to say.

“Come in the parlor, and sit down, while I tell you; but, first of all, have you had breakfast?” asked Kate, as she installed her visitor in a pleasant seat beside the breezy front window.

“Oh, yes; before I left home,” replied her guest.

“Well, then, now listen. It is such a ‘cock-and-a-bull story,’ that if Nim’, my eldest brother, did not tell it, and my other three brothers swear to it, I shouldn’t believe it, that’s all——”

“Excuse me for interrupting you, but where is the baby?” asked Lady Adelaide, looking around.

“On my bed, in my own room, asleep, the poor little starveling!”

“Well, go on, dear; I am listening.”

317“Well, you see, they—my brothers, I mean—were on their way home, travelling on foot, when they came to a stream of water whose name they did not know. You may judge they meet many such in the wilderness.”

“Yes; well?”

“It was late in the evening, and they walked some distance up and down the banks to find a good fording-place; and while they were so hunting, the dogs pointed a place in the rocks, and when my brothers came up they found the brutes at the mouth of a dark cavern in the side of the mountain—I forgot to tell you that this stream ran at the foot of the mountain.”

“Yes; but proceed!”

“The dogs continued to point, and my brothers, with their guns cocked, crept close and listened for some sound to come from the cavern to help them judge what sort of a beast might be concealed within; for, you see, experienced hunters like them can tell from the very character of the growl what manner of beast may be in lair.”

“Yes, I know.”

“But this time never the sound of a growl issued from the cavern! That looked ugly, they thought; so Nim’, who is an impatient sort of a fellow, swore a big oath that he would bring the varmint out. So he crept closer, with his gun cocked, and—fired into the cavern——”

“Ugh!” shuddered Adelaide.

——“expecting fully to see a wild beast bound forth. But never a thing came forth! ‘The mountain’ did not even give birth to a mouse!—only the piteous, weak, wailing voice of a new-born baby, that smote their hearts with horror, for they feared no less than that they had mortally wounded an infant.”

“Oh, oh, go on! Was the child hurt?” exclaimed Adelaide, clasping her hands in excess of pity.

“Why, of course it wasn’t! Do you think I’d take it 318so easy telling you the story if it was? In a word, when the smoke cleared away, my brothers entered the dark cavern, and struck a light, and looked around. And there on a bearskin, on the floor, lay this little female Orson, too young, and wee, and helpless, even to hold out its arms to its preserver!”

“Its perfect helplessness being its greatest strength and strongest appeal.”

“Yes; well, there was not a black hair of its little head hurt. From all the savage surroundings—wampums, pouches, belts, rattlesnakes’ skins and rattles, buffaloes’ tusks, scalps, and other Indian devilisms—my brothers thought it was the home of an Indian ‘medicine,’ and that the infant was a white child, stolen from some settler’s cabin, or carried off from a massacre.”

“And they determined to rescue and take charge of the child, although it must have been a great, great care! It was very merciful of them!” said the young lady.

“My poor, rough brothers are as merciful and as gentle as—as the Lady Adelaide Deville herself.”

The young lady blushed intensely at this compliment, while Kate resumed:

“With the very best care of its rough, inexperienced nurses, the poor infant must have suffered, for when they brought it to me you never saw such an object! But come, I will show you my waif!” and so saying, Kate Kyte conducted her visitor across the front passage to her own room, on the other side of the house, where, on the bed, lay the little foundling—a wretched looking little creature, thin as a skeleton, dark as an Indian, with black hair, and great, wild, black eyes.

As Adelaide looked upon those wondrous eyes, a thrill of emotion shook her frame—her bosom heaved—her color fluctuated. Turning to Kate, in a stifled voice, she asked:

319“What day was it that this child was found?”

“On the seventeenth of August,” replied Kate, looking in wonder at the agitated countenance of Lady Adelaide.

“And Lionne died suddenly on the fifteenth,” murmured the poor bride to herself.

“Now, what ever shall I do with this infant, Lady Adelaide? If my brothers had brought me as a present a young bear, or a young panther, I might have raised the cub—but a baby! As I am a human woman, and a humane woman to boot, I don’t know what to do with it! Seriously, I am sure it will perish in my inexperienced keeping!”

“Poor little lost one!” exclaimed Lady Adelaide, gazing with deep pity upon the child. “I am afraid indeed, Kate, that you will——”

“Kill it! I am sure I shall!”

“If I were my own mistress—if I could—if I dared——”

“Ah, if you only would, Lady Adelaide, what a mercy it would be to this poor little wretch! what a blessing it would bring you!”

“I will consult Lady Elizabeth.”

“But—are you not the mistress of River-view? Can you not do as you please?”

“Not to that extent, perhaps. And I please not to abuse my prerogative. But, indeed, I should like to adopt this poor, desolate little one. True, I do not know more of infants than yourself, Kate; but then Lady Elizabeth does; and besides, we have experienced servants and nursing mothers among our people, some one of whom would take this infant to her bosom. I will speak to Lady Elizabeth.”

“Do, dear Lady Adelaide! But please don’t think that I am anxious to get rid of the poor, dear little waif! I am 320only desirous that it should be in better keeping than my own.”

“I know it, Kate. And at all events I—I will find some way of providing the babe with a proper nurse,” said the gentle girl, and stooping until her golden ringlets touched the dark cheek of the infant, she silently vowed to protect its feeble life.

Then she announced her intention of returning home, and attended by her young hostess, she left the room and the house.

“Put up the helm for River-view, Nero,” was the order given her dark helmsman as she re-entered the boat.

An hour’s sailing down the thickly shaded stream, and then a half hour’s run up the river, brought them to the landing-place at River-view.

It was now noon, and Lady Elizabeth was standing upon the front piazza, on the look-out for her son’s wife.

“You have been absent four hours; you should not have stayed so long. I feared some accident had happened,” said her ladyship.

“I went up Bush Creek—it was such a tempting sail—as far as the mill, and saw Kate. I am very sorry to have caused you any uneasiness,” replied her daughter-in-law.

“Seriously, Lady Adelaide, in one way and another, you give me a great deal of uneasiness.”

“I truly regret it; please forgive me.”

“Well, lunch is waiting. Go take off your things and cool yourself, and come to the table,” said Lady Elizabeth, somewhat mollified.

The young lady obeyed and soon joined her mother in the sitting-room.

There was never an hour in which, all other things being as usual, in which Lady Elizabeth was so good-humored as at lunch. Adelaide knew this, and therefore chose this very opportunity to speak of the little foundling at the 321mill. She told the story as it had been related by the Kytes, and if she had any private suspicions as to the parentage of the child, she reserved them to herself. She finished by saying—

“There is no one about here capable of taking charge of the poor baby; it is, in a manner, thrown upon our mercy; if we do not save it, it will perish.”

“In a word, you would like to adopt this motherless infant? Having neither parrot nor poodle, you would like to take this baby for a pet.”

“Indeed, I would like to succor the poor thing. And what says our Saviour—‘Whoso receiveth one such little one in my name, receiveth me.’”

“Well, Adelaide, I tell you honestly that if this child were an ordinary city-foundling, I would have nothing more to do with it than to send it to the county poor-house; but being, as it probably is, the child of honest parents, stolen from some cabin, and rescued from an Indian wigwam——”

“Grotto.”

“Well, from a squaw’s lair of some sort—I—have no objection to your taking it home. Yes, I think it would be a meritorious act. Polly, who has a young child and is hearty enough to nurse two, can take it to her breast. And if the pet give you pleasure, I shall be glad, my dear.”

Adelaide’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude; she suddenly took the hand of her mother-in-law and pressed it to her lips, then impulsively put her arms around the lady’s neck, and said:

“I have displeased you lately, how unwillingly you do not know. Oh, forgive me, and let us be the tender friends of old.”

“Dear child, I was displeased with you, as I might have been with a child of my own blood, who did not 322know her own mind, or heed the matters that involved her own interest. Let us trust to time and Providence to remedy all our evils. And—let our estrangement be forgotten,” said Orville’s mother, drawing her daughter-in-law to her bosom.

And thus the two were reconciled.

In the cool of the afternoon Lady Elizabeth ordered her carriage, and attended by the mulatto woman Polly, went up to Bush Creek Mill to fetch the babe.

Half smiling, half crying, Kate gave up her little charge, with the words—

“To think that in twenty-four hours I should have grown so attached to the little thing!”

“That is natural,” said the lady from River-view.

“But to think that I should be so good-for-nothing as to be incapable of taking care of one little baby!”

“Your incapacity in this single respect does not imply general worthlessness, though I should advise you, as your best friend, my dear, to apply yourself more to feminine occupation than has been your custom,” said Lady Elizabeth.

“La! what odds? Who cares what I do, or leave undone?”

“Yourself should care more than all, Kate. All who like you care. Above all, your Saviour cares,” said the lady, launching into a little lecture on the beauty of Christian womanhood and woman’s sphere, to which Kate Kyte listened in silent respect.

When the lady had finished her little sermon, she bade her woman Polly wrap up the child, and precede her, into the carriage. And as she prepared to follow her attendant, she suddenly turned to Kate, and said:

“You do not know whether the child has been baptized, or what is its name?”

“Of course we don’t! There is no mark upon its linen, 323and—it is so very young, that the probability is, it has never been christened.”

“It would be safer at least to baptize it,” said the orthodox Lady Elizabeth, as she entered her carriage.

She ordered the coachman to drive fast; and in an hour they were at home.

Lady Adelaide sprang from the front door to meet them.

The babe was carried into the house, and under the directions of Lady Adelaide, preparations for its accommodation were immediately commenced.

The family crib was brought down from the garret and made up in Adelaide’s chamber.

And from that day to the end of the month, the nimble fingers of the young lady were engaged in making up for her protégé an ample set of baby linen.

The afternoon of the first Sunday in every month was set apart in their parish church for the baptism of infants.

Accordingly during the last week in September, Lady Elizabeth said to her daughter—

“We should have your little charge baptized next Sunday. Have you thought of a name for her?”

“Yes, madam,” said Adelaide, with some hesitation, “as she also was left to perdition, we will call her after the great bard’s beautiful creation—Perdita!”

“A pretty name, as well as a rare one—it will do.”

“And, as she has no ascertained family name, we will add our own—Deville—that is if you have no objection.”

“None whatever, my dear.”

Accordingly, the next Sabbath, the infant was taken to church and given in baptism the name of Perdita Deville—a name that the negroes forthwith contracted first into “Pert,” and afterwards into “Ditto.”

As the weeks passed, the infant Perdita grew in health and beauty, and in favor with all the household. One 324circumstance only, connected with the babe, troubled the ladies; it was this:—There had been no time for consulting Orville, and the child had been adopted without the consent of the master of the house, and there was just a possibility that this addition to his family might not be acceptable to Mr. Deville.

Circumstances soon occurred that required the presence of Adelaide’s husband at home. As the fogs and rains of November came upon them, the Lady Elizabeth suffered a return of the malady that had so nearly proved fatal to her on the preceding winter.

Notwithstanding all the medical science of the village doctor, and all the skill and attention of her best of nurses, Adelaide, the strength of Lady Elizabeth rapidly declined. From her easy chair she took to the sofa, and from that to the bed. Singularly enough, now that her life was in imminent danger, she never thought of dying.

“I suppose I shall be ailing all the winter, and get well in the spring, as I did before,” she said to Adelaide.

“God grant it, dear mother,” replied her sorrowing daughter.

Still her strength decayed. She was no longer able to raise herself up in bed.

Doctor Williams, her physician, visited her twice a day. After one of his morning visits, as Adelaide attended him to the door, he suddenly said to her—

“My dear, you had better write at once for your husband to come home.”

“I—I wished to summon Mr. Deville; but Lady Elizabeth will not hear of such a thing as his visit South being cut short,” said Adelaide.

“Nevertheless, write, or permit me to do so, which will be still better. Shall I write to him?”

“I thank you, doctor, very much—pray do so,” replied Adelaide, as the physician entered his carriage, hurrying 325away to conceal her tears. Well she knew that in the doctor’s words she had heard the death-sentence of her beloved friend. A long time she wept before she could compose herself sufficiently to venture into the sick-room.

When at last she did, she was shocked to hear the invalid, unconscious of doom, speak only of worldly matters, and talk of sending to Bell Haven for drygoods, and a dressmaker to make up their winter suits! Alas, what would be their probable winter suits? A shroud for her, and deepest mourning for the rest!

The doctor kept his word, and the same night wrote to Orville Deville.

Adelaide also wrote to him. But long before either of those letters could have reached their destination, the malady of the invalid had brought her close upon the confines of the grave. She now required watching by night as well as by day.

One night, while Adelaide sat beside her, she suddenly said:

“Adelaide, my child, I feel something within my chest—giving—giving away—like the breaking up of the very central core of life. Adelaide! Adelaide! quick! I am going!”

“It is nothing but a fainting-spell, dear mother, drink this!” said the tender nurse, placing a cordial to the lips of the invalid.

“No fainting-fit was ever like this, my child! It is the breaking up of the wreck!” said the sick woman, as she took and drank the cordial.

“You feel better now?”

“A little, dear; but, Adelaide, this is death! I feel it, I know it, I am sure of it!”

“No, no, do not say so; let me send for the doctor.”

“Useless, dear, useless! nay, I will not have him sent for! Oh, that my son were here!”

326“Oh, that he were!” said Adelaide.

The invalid subsided into a soft slumber.

Adelaide slipped down-stairs and despatched a man in haste for the doctor.

When she returned to the sick-room the patient was still slumbering. From that slumber she awoke with a start, exclaiming:

“Adelaide!—quick!—some stimulant, or I sink into death!”

With the speed and silence of lightning the young lady placed the cordial to her lips.

She was somewhat revived by the draught, and as she sank back upon the pillow she said:

“Oh, Adelaide, I must not die until Orville comes!”

“Orville?” repeated the young nurse, in her perplexity not knowing what her mother-in-law meant.

“Yes, my child, though this is death, I shall live till Orville comes! for he is on his way! Far off I hear the gallop of his steed!”

“Oh, that the doctor were here,” groaned Adelaide to herself.

“I know you think I rave; but I do not! You see me dying here, and you think Orville two thousand miles away, and that I wander when I say I shall live till he comes. Oh, Adelaide, the spirits of the dying reach out to their beloved; mine has met my only son thundering through the forests of St. Mary’s, on fire to reach home! He knows not what it is that attracts, that pulls him onward—though it is the spirit of his dying mother that cannot be released until she blesses him!”

Exhausted by this long and rambling speech, the dying woman sank into a slumberous state, in which way she lay for nearly an hour.

“Oh, that the doctor were here!” said Adelaide, in despair, “surely my messenger could not have found him 327at home, and must have gone to seek him elsewhere—there, I do believe he is come!” she exclaimed, as the sound of horses’ hoofs were heard approaching the house.

In another minute a servant came to the sick-room door and rapped.

Adelaide opened it.

“Has the doctor come, Keziah?”

“No, ma’am—but some one wants to see you in the parlor,” said Keziah, mysteriously.

“Who is it?—wait here with your mistress until I return,” said Adelaide, in a breath, as she hurried down-stairs and opened the parlor-door. The room was dimly lighted by one wax candle that stood upon the mantle-piece; but its direct rays fell upon the tall and elegant figure of Adelaide’s husband.

“Mr. Deville! Oh, thank God that you have come!” exclaimed Adelaide, eagerly.

“How is my mother, Adelaide?”

“Oh, very, very ill! How providential that you should have come! Thank God! Oh, thank God!”

“Your letters mentioning my mother’s ill health, and the absence of all letters from her, made me very uneasy. At length I could bear the anxiety no longer, and set off for home. And here I am.”

“Oh, surely it was the leading of Divine Providence!”

“Can I see my dear mother at once?”

“I think so. Let me go to her first,” said Adelaide, and stealing a glance at the pale and anxious face of her husband, she left the room and hurried into the sick-chamber.

With astonishment and terror she found Lady Elizabeth sitting up in bed.

“I feel that my son has come! bring him to me, Adelaide!” she said.

Orville, who was just without the door, heard these 328words, hurried in and dropped on his knees by the bedside, exclaiming, as he kissed her hand:

“My dear mother! my dear, dear mother!”

“Adelaide, come hither,” said the dying woman, retaining her hold upon her son’s hand.

The young lady came and knelt beside her husband.

“Adelaide, whatever Orville’s offences against you may have been, you will forgive him by the death-bed of his mother!” she said, as she placed the hand of her daughter in that of her son.

“I am not my husband’s judge, dear mother; but while I live, by God’s grace I will be to him a true wife,” said the gentle lady.

“Thank God! And as you are merciful to each other’s faults, may he be merciful to you, as it is written—‘Unless ye forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you.’ ‘Forgive that ye may be forgiven.’ Now may the Lord bless and comfort you! may the Lord love you and lead you through all the trials of earth to the eternal bliss of heaven! Amen,” said the dying woman, sinking back upon her pillow.

After this she subsided into calm repose that lasted several hours, and then softly sank to her eternal rest.

Bitter was the grief of the bereaved young couple. Let us draw the vail of silence before such sacred sorrow.

The funeral of Lady Elizabeth Deville was solemnized upon the third day, and her remains were laid in the family burial-ground on the wooded hill behind River-view. During the sacred days of death and burial, not to disturb her husband by any new subject of interest, Lady Adelaide had ordered the little Perdita to be kept in the nursery or walked out into the back lawn. Thus the infant had escaped the notice of Mr. Deville.

It was the day after the funeral, while the young pair sat at breakfast in the sitting-room so often mentioned, 329that Lady Adelaide rung the bell and ordered the babe to be brought in.

“What babe?” inquired Mr. Deville.

“A desolate infant rescued from the savages by Kate Kyte’s brothers, while the latter were on their hunting-expedition in the far West. I adopted the child, hoping that the act might meet your approbation. There was no time for consulting you, but the affair is of course at your disposal,” said Lady Adelaide.

As she spoke Keziah entered with the child, now a blooming infant six months of age.

“Bring her to your master, Keziah,” said the young lady.

And the babe was brought up in front of Mr. Deville for inspection. He looked not unfavorably upon the pretty creature; and then turning and meeting the eager eyes of his wife, he smiled and said—

“Well, love, you wish to keep her?”

“If you please—oh, yes!”

“Then keep her, love. The most troublesome pet you could find, perhaps; but that is your affair.”

“And my delight!” exclaimed Adelaide, with sparkling eyes, as she caught the infant from the nurse’s arms to her own bosom.

The child danced, and crowed, and laughed, as she clasped her rosy arms around her pretty foster-mother’s neck.

The face of Orville Deville was overshadowed.

“She will give her whole heart to that black-eyed infant,” was the jealous thought that crossed his mind.

He half regretted the consent he had given to the adoption of the child; but his word was pledged, and his pledge was sacred.

With the wife’s quick instinct, the Lady Adelaide divined the cause of the cloud upon her husband’s brow, 330and hastened to dispel it by putting the infant in the arms of her nurse, with the order to take her out for a walk.

From that day Lady Adelaide was careful to avoid exciting the jealousy of her husband against the child, and only lavished caresses upon her protégé in the privacy of the nursery, or in the absence of her husband.

As the winter passed, the infant grew in strength, and beauty, and intelligence.

It was upon the afternoon of a pleasant day in May, that Orville Deville returned from the post-office and entered the sitting-room, holding an open letter in his hand.

“Our uncle, the Earl of Glen Lennark, has written to me; it is a very kind letter and a very sorrowful one!” he said, seating himself by the work-table of Lady Adelaide.

She looked up from her sewing, and he continued:

“Our uncle writes that the last of his children—his only daughter—lies in a foreign grave——”

“Oh, poor, bereaved father!” exclaimed Lady Adelaide.

“Yes, he has indeed been ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ He has seen his king dethroned, and his throne given to a stranger. He has seen his own family impoverished, scattered, or destroyed by the sword or the axe. He has had his estates confiscated, his blood attainted, and himself outlawed. He has passed years in exile, poverty and solitude. And now that he—an old and gray-haired man—is restored to his country, his home and his old hereditary honors, he loses his last-remaining, his only daughter, and finds himself without a child to inherit his ancient name and title.”

“But—could his daughter have inherited his title and landed estates?”

“By the terms of his ancient patent of nobility, the females of his line are not excluded from the succession, 331and failing heirs-male, the title and estates ‘fall to the distaff,’ as it is called.”

“So that, at the death of her father, his only daughter would have become——”

“Countess of Glen Lennark and Baroness Lockburn, in her own right, with the power of transmitting both title and estates to her heirs.”

“I think only of the personal bereavement—poor father.”

“Yes, but he thinks of his line! and he writes and invites me, as his nearest kin, his nephew and his heir, to come with my wife and spend a year with him at his castle of Glen Lennark, in the Highlands of Scotland.”

“My dear, old home! Oh, how I should be pleased to revisit it!”

“Well, love, I think that we should go,” said Mr. Deville.

And thus the voyage was agreed upon.

Rapid preparations were made for the journey. A competent steward was engaged to take charge of River-view in the absence of the proprietor.

In the midst of all her bustle of preparation, doubt troubled the bosom of Lady Adelaide—the doubt whether Mr. Deville would permit her adopted child to accompany them—whether, in a word, he would be willing to suffer the annoyance of a child and nurse, and all their paraphernalia in the confined quarters of a packet ship. Indeed, she dreaded and deferred to put the question.

He surmised her embarrassment and relieved it, by saying, with a smile, as he caressed the little pet:

“This child will be taken for ours when we present her at Glen Lennark, Adelaide.”

She understood this pleasantry as a delicate manner of authorizing her to carry Perdita along with them; and accordingly she made arrangements.

332It was upon the first Friday in June that they sailed, in a fine merchantman, from Baltimore to London.

I shall not fatigue my readers with any description of this voyage; it passed without incident worth recording; and at the end of four weeks, a rapid run for those days, the “Thetis” entered the Thames and dropped anchor off St. Katherine’s Docks.

The voyagers landed and took quarters for the day and night at the Queen’s Head, Fleet street.

Early the next morning they took the first coach for Edinboro’, where they arrived in due time, and whence they took a chaise to the post town nearest the bourne of their journey, Glen Lennark. At the small hostel, they found a carriage from the castle awaiting them. They entered it and drove slowly through a wild and rocky country, beautiful, now, in the rich luxuriance of summer. It was near sunset when they passed through a gorge and came upon the borders of a small, clear lake, set like a crystal gem in a circle of mountains diversified with snow-white rocks and clumps of dark-green firs, the whole of which was deeply reflected in the mirror of the water. In the midst of this lake was a tiny islet, a solid 333rock, from which arose the gray and hoary walls of Glen Lennark castle, an ancient feudal tower and keep, now showing marks of many centuries of storms, of war and weather bravely withstood. The waters of the little lake that surrounded this islet, had served in barbarous times as the castle moat; and a relic of the middle ages, an ancient drawbridge, whose chains and pulleys had long fallen into disuse, connected the isle with the road down which the travelling carriage had rolled. They crossed this drawbridge and entered through a high arched gateway the court-yard, and crossed to the main entrance of the castle-hall, which stood directly opposite. Here they were met by a servant out of livery, who conducted them into a modernized reception room, and with a low obeisance, went to announce their arrival to his master.

Left alone together, Mr. Deville and Lady Adelaide looked around themselves and then at each other. Their eyes met, and smiled.

“Do you remember the last time we were in this room, Adelaide?”

“I do, indeed.”

It was the room in which they had been married, at the death-bed of the old lord.

They had no opportunity for further conversation, for the door opened and their host entered—a tall, distinguished looking man, whose snow-white locks contrasted finely with his deep mourning-suit of full black velvet.

“I am very happy to welcome you, my niece and nephew, to Glen Lennark,” he said, courteously advancing and offering Adelaide and Orville each a hand.

Both arose to receive this greeting. But when Mr. Deville looked up—in spite of the changed circumstances, the altered dress, the prematurely aged face and whitened 334hair—he recognized in the Earl of Glen Lennark, his old host of the forest-lodge, the father of the lost Lionne.

“Mr. Delaforêt!” burst in stupefaction and despair from his pallid lips; for in the same moment that he made his discovery, he knew that he himself had made his aged uncle childless.

“Mr. Delaforêt no longer; but your uncle,—Glen Lennark, who, even in the wilds of America, recognized in his chance visitor, his sister’s son, and who would then and there, in exile and poverty, have made himself known to his nephew, but for prudential considerations,” said the Earl, courteously waving to his young relatives to resume their seats, while he set them the example.

Adelaide gazed in silent surprise from one to the other.

“Oh, that you had trusted me with your secret! oh, that you had told me who you were! or that I had had wit to discover our relationship!” groaned Orville, in the pangs of revived and augmented remorse.

“To what purpose? what could my fiery young relative have done for his poor exiled uncle?—he would, no doubt, have tried to move heaven and earth to restore the banished old man to his country; but at that time would have succeeded only in getting himself into trouble,” said the Earl, entirely misconceiving the cause of his nephew’s emotion.

Orville, for his part, was almost overwhelmed. In vain he struggled to banish the image of the lost Lionne and the visitations of remorse. He could not conquer, he could only partially conceal his emotion.

Adelaide also had learned in this conversation that the poor victim of her husband’s deceit had been his own, her own cousin, the only remaining child of their uncle and host, the aged man who had unconsciously invited to his house the destroyer of his daughter. Should they—could they dare to accept his hospitality and remain his guests? And in the future—could Orville venture to wear the title 335and estates gained by the death of Lionne—of Lionne, destroyed by his own act?—oh, never, never, thought Adelaide within herself: and pale and silent from these distressing reflections, she scarcely dared to raise her eyes either to her husband or her uncle.

“My fair niece looks very weary after her journey! Courage, my dear, supper will be served in a few moments; after which, Mrs. Posset will show you your apartment. Orville, do you remember the suppers in my forest-house, prepared by the hands of my poor Lionne?”

Ay, he did remember! though he had scarcely voice to say so.

“She died very suddenly,” said the earl. And then, in a faltering voice, he related all he knew or supposed of the loss of Lionne.

Each word was a dagger to the hearts of Orville Deville and his wife. The Earl not understanding the cause of their extreme emotion, and attributing it all to their excess of generous sympathy, said—

“Do not grieve for me, young people. I—am equal to my burthen, and I try to think that—‘All is for the best.’”

Very soon after supper, Lady Adelaide, acknowledging fatigue, retired to her apartment, where at a late hour she was joined by Mr. Deville. He looked pale and troubled, and well she knew the cause of his distress, though the subject of Lionne was by mutual, silent consent, avoided between them.

Yet now Adelaide could not refrain from asking:

“Shall we remain here as long as we had intended, Mr. Deville?”

“Assuredly not; we shall remain no longer than I can find a plausible excuse for departing,” he answered.

“Is such an excuse necessary?” inquired the truthful young creature.

336“Certainly, Lady Adelaide. You would not have me offend our uncle.”

A silent sigh was her only comment and so the short conference ended.

The next day a number of the county nobility and gentry were received at dinner to meet Mr. Deville, whom the Earl of Glen Lennark presented as his nearest kinsman and his heir.

This dinner was followed by reciprocal invitations from the guests which the uncle and nephew felt obliged to accept, and thus a fortnight was spent in a round of dinner parties. Of course, Lady Adelaide was frequently of the company; though she often preferred to stay at Glen Lennark, and amuse herself with her adopted child, who, by the way, had found great favor in the eyes of their host. He felt a strange attraction towards the infant; he would have her brought in every day with the dessert; he called her “Lady Adelaide’s whim;” and said that he hoped that when an heir should be born to them, the poor “whim” might not be utterly thrust aside.

“Oh, no,” said Lady Adelaide, “I should so distrust myself. I should so fear to slight my little waif, that I do believe I should be more attentive to her than to one of my own.”

“At least, if ever, when surrounded by your children, you grow tired of Perdita, send her to me,” said the Earl.

“You have taken a strange fancy to my little gipsy,” said Adelaide, smiling.

“Well, yes; shall I tell you the reason?—She is the very image of what my poor Leonora was at her age! It is one of those strange, unaccountable likenesses that we sometimes see in life! and that it is not only my fancy I will prove. Come with me into the adjoining cabinet,” said the Earl, rising from the table and giving his arm 337to his niece, and leading her into an apartment in the south turret.

It was a small, octagon-shaped room, richly carpeted, and furnished with cushioned seats running around the walls. It was lighted by one tall gothic window, of stained glass, that occupied one of the eight sides of the octagon immediately opposite the door by which they entered, and which filled another side; the remaining six, three on each hand, were hung with the portraits of the Earl, his late wife, and their four children.

“This is a sacred room to me; I call it my ‘family-circle,’” said his lordship; as he conducted his niece into this sanctuary, and led her straight up to the portrait of a child on the space at the right hand of the window.

Adelaide started and grew deadly pale. It seemed to be Perdita her very self whom she saw on the canvas before her! There was the little, lithe, willowy form; the little, elegant head; the jet black hair, rippling in thousands of tiny, glittering ringlets down about the broad forehead and crimson cheeks, and falling upon the ivory shoulders; there were the same large, fierce, intensely black eyes, with their long, fringe-like, black lashes; there was the same delicate, aquiline nose; short, curled upper lip, fierce and fine; and the full, voluptuous, lower lip, and rounded chin. And more striking than all this, there was the same little haughty air of carrying the small, queenly baby-head, the same trick of elevating the eyebrows, and protruding the under lip; the same careless way of carrying the arms; the same——oh! Lady Adelaide sickened at the thought—the suspicion that arose in her mind!

“It is a wonderful likeness, considering that the original of this portrait was a noble infant, born in this castle seventeen years ago; and that the babe, whom it so strangely resembles, was a peasant child, perhaps a half-breed, found 338in the wilds of America only a year since!—a very wonderful likeness!” said the Earl, gravely.

Lady Adelaide could not answer.

“You understand now why it is that I have formed so sudden and strong an attachment to your little protégé.”

Adelaide nodded; she could do no more; the power of speech seemed denied her.

“You are as much moved as though you considered this resemblance—uncanny—as we Scots say,” remarked the Earl.

“It seems—supernatural!” gasped Adelaide, and, without looking at another portrait, she turned to leave the turret-cabinet.

The Earl gave her his arm and led her to the door of the drawing-room, where, with a bow, he left her, to return to the dinner-table to Mr. Deville and the wine.

Lady Adelaide, pale, dizzy and trembling with the dreadful suspicion on her mind, went as fast as her failing limbs would carry her, to her own room, and locked herself within its privacy.

“Oh, should this child that I protect be really the child of Lionne, and, of—of—oh, no, my Lord, it is not so! it cannot be so! this is an accidental likeness, as my uncle thinks! The unborn child of Lionne must have perished with its wretched mother! and she ‘died and gave no sign!’ it could not have been otherwise, for the Earl gave us every particular of her death and burial; he did not know her wrongs, and he does not even suspect but that he laid a virgin daughter in the grave. I am sure of it! and yet, and yet, I know that had Lionne lived she would have been a mother; and that the age of this unknown foundling of the wilderness, that bears such a wonderful resemblance to her, corresponds to what would have been the age of her child, had she had one! I must investigate this.”

Thus Adelaide mused, until she was interrupted by the 339entrance of Keziah with the infant subject of her perplexed thoughts.

Then she took the babe from the arms of the nurse saying—

“You may leave her with me, Keziah. I can take care of her for an hour.”

When left alone with her little charge, Lady Adelaide sat the child upon her lap, and gazed long and wistfully into her great, fierce, black eyes.

“Ah, little one, you know no more of your own sad story than do I! If that lisping, silvery tongue could speak, it could tell me nothing of your origin! but, oh, if those great, bright eyes could give back again to me the images painted upon their retina before I ever saw you—what scenes they might reveal!” said the lady as she gazed upon the wondering child.

Little Perdita, impatient of the sober face of her foster mother, began to dance and laugh and lisp, and use all her infant arts to wile the lady into play; and failing of this, she twisted herself out of her fond nurse’s arms and took the responsibility of amusing herself upon the floor, until the return of Keziah.

That night, Mr. Deville having gone out to a gentleman’s party in the neighborhood, Lady Adelaide found herself and the Earl alone in the drawing-room.

The dampness of the evening rendered the small, bright wood-fire that burned in the fireplace very acceptable.

And the young lady and the old peer drew their chairs up close to the hearth.

Adelaide’s work-table, standing between them, served as a rest for the old man’s elbow.

Adelaide availed herself of the opportunity, and requested her uncle, if the recital would not be too painful to him, to relate to her all the particulars of her cousin Leonora’s last illness and death.

340With a deep sigh the Earl commenced and faithfully related every circumstance of that tragedy, so far as they were known to himself.

Adelaide listened, on the alert to detect any suspicious feature. But, when the sorrowful story was ended, she was obliged to confess to herself that there was not the slightest reason for supposing that Lionne had become a mother before she died, but every reason for believing the contrary.

Still she was deeply troubled. For many causes she hoped that her husband might shorten their visit and return immediately to America. And she resolved, as soon as she reached home, to visit the neighborhood of Singing Stream, and make inquiries on the spot concerning the family of “Mr. Delaforêt.”

She retired early to her room; but, being unable to sleep, she put on her dressing-gown, and threw herself into an easy chair, to await the coming of her husband.

It was very late when Mr. Deville came in from the supper.

“Up yet, Adelaide?” he asked, with a yawn.

“Yes—I cannot sleep, Mr. Deville. Oh, when shall we leave this house?”

“Why—are you not comfortable?”

“As comfortable as the kindest of hosts can make me; but—I thought that you also were anxious to leave?”

“So I was, and so I am; but to leave is not so easy a feat as you suppose! We came with the understanding between our uncle and ourselves that we should stay a year. And when I spoke to him of shortening our visit, pleading unexpected business as my excuse, he looked so annoyed, so incredulous, and opposed our going with so much earnestness of emotion, that I find I cannot distress him by hurrying off. I have caused him trouble enough, heaven knows, and I will occasion him no more that I can 341avoid! So, painful as it is to my feelings to remain, I must stay out the proposed period of our visit,” said Mr. Deville, most likely deceiving his own soul as to his motives.

Lady Adelaide made no comment.

“You do not approve this resolution, I suppose!” said her husband.

“Excuse me—the decision does not rest with me,” she gently replied.

“Nevertheless I should like to know your opinion, Adelaide,” he persisted, with the unconfessed desire of forcing her to agree with him.

“Indeed, I would rather not express one, knowing full well that my individual judgment would not, perhaps should not, influence the question.”

“Is that a complaint, madam?”

“Indeed, no.”

“Then I insist upon hearing your sentiments in respect to our staying here!” he said, in a tone so peremptory, as to admit of no refusal from his wife.

“Well, then,” said Adelaide, gently, “I think, under the circumstances, that it would be scarcely honorable in us to accept for a whole year the hospitality of poor Lionne’s bereaved father.”

The face of Orville Deville flushed purple with anger. He was offended, as she foresaw that he would be.

“Lady Adelaide, your words are insulting!” he said, in the deep, low, steady tones of suppressed but concentrated and intense rage. And rising, he went into the adjoining room and threw himself upon the lounge, where he passed the remainder of that night, and many nights thereafter.

Remorse, when it is not refined into repentance towards God, only hardens the heart and sours the temper. Any allusion to Lionne, the subject of his remorse, always exasperated the anger of Orville Deville, who, being a pure 342Saxon, was of course a natural despot, and would have laid the absolute law of his lordly will, not only upon his wife’s words and actions, but even upon her very thoughts. And thus against her will, he would drag forth her opinions, only to sit in harsh judgment upon them, whenever they did not happen to flatter or to please him.

Could Adelaide have blinded her own judgment as easily as she could yield her will, she might have been happier where “ignorance” would have been “bliss.” But, though her intellect could not be deceived, nor her conscience dulled—though daily, as he hardened his heart, and conformed his soul in selfishness, she wept over his decline of moral strength—yet her affections had been too long and closely bound up in him to fall away now. She loved him as devotedly as ever, the only difference being, that she loved him in fear and sorrow, instead of in pride and joy.

For days Orville Deville maintained a cold and distant demeanor towards his wife. He was evidently waiting for some sign of submission on her part. And the gentle Adelaide would readily have asked forgiveness, only that in this case self-crimination would have been a falsehood, and a betrayal of principle.

How long this estrangement would have continued is not known, for an event occurred that necessarily forced the estranged parties into confidential relations.

It is impossible to define the boundary line that separates extravagant emotions from absolute madness. Evil passions lose themselves by fine gradations in the dark shadows of insanity.

Who can adequately describe the effect of monstrous wrongs upon a temperament sensitive, ardent and impassioned as that of Lionne? Grief, shame and rage made a hell of her heart. Maddened at last by what she supposed to be the dreadful fate of her child, she had rushed from the cavern and plunged into the darkest depths of the forest. Here for many days and nights she had wandered about in a state of frenzy.

Vulcan wildly sought her through the woods in vain. At last, by heavy bribes, he gained the assistance of the old squaw in the search.

And Kalougoora, with her matchless Indian tact in 371tracing a fugitive, soon fell upon the trail of Lionne and tracked her to her lair.

There, in a thicket of undergrowth in the depths of the forest, she lay collapsed, prostrate and exhausted from madness, hunger and exposure.

Vulcan hastily constructed a rude litter of brush, upon which he placed her unresisting and almost insensible form, and with the help of Kalougoora bore it back to the lodge by the Singing Stream.

Here the wretched girl lay a long time in a state bordering upon idiocy. At length, by the united care of her faithful attendant and the skill of the old Indian doctress, Lionne slowly recovered some degree of life. And with this new life came the restlessness of a reviving sense of pain.

“I cannot stay here, Vulcan,” she said, addressing her humble friend. “I cannot stay here! every feature of this land is too fraught with agonizing associations.”

“But where will you go, then, dear mistress?”

“Anywhere! anywhere! out of this place!”

“At least you will let me attend you, wherever you go, dear mistress?”

“No! no! no! no! I will not be followed! No one that loves me, however humble, shall share my fate, my sins and sufferings!”

Vulcan did not presume to insist; but from that day he resolved never to lose trace of his wretched young mistress, but to watch over her, to protect her, and to follow her, if need should be, (to use his expression) “to the end of the world.”

And thus, one night, when Lionne, with some dark purpose goading her onward, arose and stole to the stable, and saddled her horse and set out for the East, Vulcan mounted his old mule, and, unknown to his mistress, set 372forth upon the same road, only taking care to keep out of sight in the rear.

The miserable girl reached River-view only to learn from the poor people of the neighborhood, from whom, as a stranger traveller, she received hospitality, that Mr. and Lady Adelaide Deville had gone to Scotland to spend the ensuing winter with their uncle, the Earl of Glen Lennark.

With her own deeply-wronged, awfully-bereaved father!

Some fatality led Lionne still farther to pursue her recreant husband. She was still in possession of a part of that large sum of money given her by her father some months previous, and with that she embarked in a small merchant vessel trading between Norfolk and Glasgow.

Vulcan, who, unknown to her, had followed his mistress, shipped as a seaman on the same barque. His presence here could not possibly be long concealed from her.

On the third day after sailing, she recognized him among the crew. As he was engaged with three or four others in taking in sail, she could not speak to him. But the next day, an opportunity offering, she approached and accosted him.

“Vulcan, my poor friend, why are you here?”

“Mistress, I belong to you!”

“Ah, Vulcan! why have you followed me?”

“Because I am yours.”

“Vulcan, do you know whither my dark path leads?”

“I know! I know!”

“And yet you follow me?”

“Yes.”

“Alas! why?”

“To save you, if I may! To perish with you, if I must.”

The approach of the mate cut short the colloquy, and Lionne turned sadly away.

373A short passage of four weeks brought the vessel to Glasgow.

Lionne left the vessel and commenced her journey into the Highlands.

Vulcan, who had only shipped for the voyage, received his pay and his discharge, and attended his mistress, who no longer attempted to prevent him, to Glen Lennark.

There the first news that met them from the simple peasantry was that of the death of the Earl of Glen Lennark.

Again was Lionne overwhelmed with affliction.

She threw herself down beside the wild rocky path leading through the glen, and abandoned herself to the wildest frenzy of woe. Vulcan stood in silent, respectful sympathy beside her, while her informants passed on their way with many a wondering look behind at the “poor daft stranger body” and her queer guide.

Suddenly Lionne started to her feet, turned, and taking the path leading up to the most savage fastnesses of the mountains north of Glen Lennark, disappeared among the rocks.

In great terror for her life, Vulcan followed her as fast as age and clumsiness would permit.

He found her far up in the mountain, seated upon the brink of a dreadful precipice; a shelving crag overhanging her head and overshadowing her whole form; a wild torrent raging below her feet. She sat with her black dress flowing upon the bleak rocks; her elbow resting upon her knee; her chin dropped into the palm of her hand; her long black hair streaming like a meteor around her; her fierce black eyes glaring into vacancy;—she sat—where all around was desolation—the most desolate object!

With the yearning tenderness of a mother, Vulcan stretched his arms towards her, praying—

374“Oh, mistress, come down!”

“Oh, Vulcan!” she wailed—“when that black traitor betrayed me unto death, and I arose from the grave to find my child devoured of wild beasts, I thought that fate, with all her malignity, had no more poisoned arrow left. But now! now! oh, my father! my dear, my gentle, my noble father! your heart has been broken by the loss of your child. ‘Your gray hair has been brought with sorrow to the grave!’ Oh, Vulcan, I seemed to die that he might live! Ah, it was useless all! My loss killed him even as the knowledge of my dishonor might!”

“Your misfortune, mistress! there can be no dishonor where there is no fault,” replied the poor dwarf.

“Ah, Orville! traitor! destroyer! this is but another count in the awful indictment against you!” she hissed through her clenched teeth.

Vulcan climbed to where she sat, and with almost worshipping servility cast himself down upon the rocks before her, grovelling at her feet and praying—

“Mistress! Lionne! my child! my nursling! my lady! Oh, look up! listen to me! to me, your poor old servant, who would lay down his life, and think it all too cheap a price, if it purchased you one hour’s peace! Listen to me!”

“Well, Vulcan; well, speak!”

“Lady, look up and see what life has left for you. Your child is gone; your father dead; your secret safe in one faithful heart that would be torn bleeding from its breast rather than betray that trust——”

“Do you speak, then, only to remind me of my wrongs and sorrows?”

“No, but to pray you to cast from you all memory of your wrongs and sorrows, and all thoughts of hatred and revenge: to become your better, nobler, higher self. The hereditary coronet of the Earls of Glen Lennark awaits 375your brow. Your mortal foe is at your mercy, and dares not dispute your claim. Countess of Glen Lennark, arise, dispossess the usurper, assume the insignia of your rank and the rule of your domain.”

She gazed upon the speaker with wild, amazed, incredulous eyes.

“Would you leave that unsullied coronet upon the unworthy brow of the traitor, the destroyer, the usurper?” asked Vulcan, pointedly.

She started violently.

“No, never! Vulcan, you are right. Leonora Lorne, dead to all the world else, must survive to him! The living bar to his succession; the living retribution of his crime; the living fate to all his future! I may not claim my RIGHT nor forget my WRONG; but I will hold the POWER with which both right and wrong has invested and armed me—a sword of Damocles above his head. With this invisible sword will I drive him forth from all his possessions! With this sword will I come between him and every blessing of nature! Ay, with this fire of vengeance and sword of power will I lay waste his life! Arise, let us go.”

“Lionne, my mistress, oh, think of what you do!” prayed Vulcan.

“By day and night I think of nothing else!”

“Good heavens, lady, if all is lost on earth, need all be lost in heaven too? Alas! is it well to send your own soul to ruin after your lost happiness?”

“Yes—for love I risked heaven! for HATE I would dare hades!”

Appalled by the ruthless spirit of revenge that raged in her heart, yet resolved to save her or to share her fate, Vulcan arose and followed his mistress down the step.

Seeking concealment, they found shelter in a mountain 376cavern. And from this obscurity kept watch upon the castle.

Deeply vailed and hidden in the crowd, Lionne was present at the funeral ceremony, and even looked, for the last time, upon the loved face of her father, before the coffin lid closed down upon it forever. She then concealed herself within the turret-cabinet, to hear any chance details of his last illness and death. Alas! she was not gratified. His form was hidden from the eyes; his name banished from the lips; his very memory exiled from the minds of men.

Already, as I said before, the world had turned from the grave of the dead Earl to do honor to his living successor, neither knowing nor caring to know, how the one had risen upon the fall of the other.

Lionne writhed with rage.

“The Earl of Glen Lennark lies broken hearted in his grave! His heiress wanders, a vagrant and pariah on the face of the earth! And while the old man moulders in his shroud, and the young woman sorrows in her bitterness, shall he, the miscreant, the traitor who brought the one to misery and the other to death, sit in the Earl’s seat, be hailed by his title, and enjoy his estates? No! no! no! no! not while I have power to prevent it! This hand may not be raised to grasp my father’s coronet, but it shall be lifted to hurl its usurper, his destroyer, my enemy, from his seat!”

From her hiding place in the turret-cabinet she watched the company that gathered to hear the reading of the will; she saw them go into the dining-room and take their places at the table. She listened to the fulsome flattery, the flippant conversation, and the formal toasts. She heard a toast proposed in honor of the Countess of Glen Lennark, and recognizing in that incident her best opportunity to break “the good meeting with most admired 377disorder,” she glided from her concealment, stood shrouded in mourning habiliments, and paler than a visitant from the grave, and in deep, bell-like tones, that tolled like a funeral knell through the room—uttered these startling words:

“The Countess of Glen Lennark accepts your toast and thanks your courtesy!” The effect of this speech, spoken by what seemed a spectre from the grave, might be easily imagined, if it had not already been described. The so-called Earl of Glen Lennark started to his feet; the guests arose in disorder; the Lady Adelaide dropped, swooning, from her chair.

In the general confusion that ensued, Lionne glided away and made her escape to the fastnesses of the Highlands.

Vulcan attended her, and remained as before, her sole connecting link with the outer world. From Vulcan she continued to hear news of those whom she called usurpers at the castle. With savage joy she heard of the calamity that disappointed the quasi Earl of an heir, and prostrated his wife upon a bed of illness that had nearly been one of death. She learned the horror and amazement with which Lady Adelaide regarded her (Lionne’s) appearance at the feast, and of the orders of the family physician that her ladyship should travel far from the scene of her distress.

Finally she was told of the family’s departure for the continent. And then she left her hiding place to follow them. How she kept upon their track, never revealing herself, yet never losing sight of them, waiting, like some bloodthirsty wild beast, the time to spring upon her prey, needs not to be related here at length. Suffice it to say, that when they sailed for the United States, she embarked by the next vessel bound for the same place, and that she arrived at Norfolk the very day upon which they landed at that port.

378She followed them to River-view, where, unseen and unsuspected, she hovered as some ill-omened bird of night about their path—their secret, terrible, relentless enemy, consuming with a fierce, insatiable passion of vengeance—a passion that grew by what it fed upon!

She was aware, by observation, of the fond parental hopes that had brought the young pair to their native home. And she ruthlessly resolved to thwart their hopes!

“Through his treachery my one child was left to be devoured by wild beasts! Therefore, no child of his shall be left to bless him! every one of them, as it is born, shall be offered a sacrifice to her manes! One, the first-born, the heir, has already perished! the next shall follow, and every infant his dainty wife shall live to bring, shall share the same fate!” muttered the wretched girl, as with a malignity that nothing but insanity could explain, she watched and waited to wreak her frenzied vengeance upon a being that always stands the very type of perfect innocence and perfect helplessness—“an unborn babe!”

Seldom does any other than tender cares and fervent prayers and devoted love, wait to greet an infant on its entrance into life! This child of Adelaide was met at the very threshold of existence by a fierce, terrible and relentless foe! Like the prowling leopardess, she could lurk, and watch, and wait for the time to pounce upon her prey! Nay, like the same beast, when sure of the steadiness of her eye, the length of her spring and the sharpness of her claws, she, certain of her power, could even trifle with opportunity and play with her victim! It was in this perverse spirit that she let chance after chance of stealing the new-born infant pass by, and waited for some signal opportunity when the theft of the child should be felt by the whole community, with the most tremendous effect.

Thus she waited for the christening-festival. She contrived to steal, unseen, into the house, and to conceal herself 379within the shubberies of the conservatory connecting with the drawing-rooms on the one hand and with Mr. Deville’s study on the other. Here she waited until the lamps were lighted and the guests assembled. With the savage joy of anticipated triumph, she watched the ceremonial of the baptism to its conclusion. She heard the mother’s pretty name—“Adelaide”—bestowed upon the infant. She heard the officiating clergyman invite his hearers to unite with him, in a final prayer for God’s blessing upon this “first-born daughter” of the youthful parents.

Then from her concealment in the shrubberies, she uttered the awful words—

“The first-born daughter of Orville Deville is beyond your prayers! Living, no home sheltered her infancy! Dead, no grave received her corpse! Born in a cave and devoured by wild beasts—the first-born daughter of Orville Deville is past your prayers!”

The tremendous effect produced by this horrible speech, uttered as it was, by the hollow voice of an invisible speaker, has been already described; the shock, the confusion, and the fruitless search, that followed, have been depicted.

Secure in her hiding place, Lionne, unseen, saw every thing!

She waited until the spoiled festivities of the evening came to a conclusion. She saw the guests take leave and depart.

She heard Mr. Deville persuade his wife to go to rest. She saw him enter his study and sit down to his writing-table, and then, through the vine-shaded glass door, between the conservatory and the study, unseen, she watched him at her leisure.

The conservatory was in deep darkness, the study was lighted up, so that invisible herself, she had the clearest view of him as pale, weary and disturbed, he sat leaning 380his elbow upon the table and his head upon his hand. So still he sat that she supposed he slept, and envying that repose, and drawn by an irresistible attraction, she softly opened the glass door, parted the foliage, glided into the study and stood before him.

Her form intercepting the light, her shadow falling upon his face, startled him!

He raised his eyes, and recognizing the shape or shade of the dreaded girl, he faltered forth the question—

“Lionne! why are you here?”

Then came the fearful answer—

“To warn! The wild beast growls before he springs! the serpent hisses before he stings! and I speak before I strike! Look to your child!”

And before he could recover from the panic produced by these words, she had glided away!

With the swiftness and silence of thought, she sped to the nursery, softly raised the sleeping infant in her arms, fled down the back-stairs, out through the back-door into the shrubberies, thence through the vineyard, the orchard, and the field, to the forest.

And by the time the child was missed and the search was commenced, both were lost beyond pursuit, in the interminable intricacies of the wilderness.

“What is’t ye do?—A deed without a name!”

Lionne, palpitating, excited, frenzied and hurrying with her stolen treasure through the forest, was met and 381stopped by Vulcan the dwarf, who, holding up both hands to intercept her, cried—

“Mistress! mistress! for the love of heaven, mistress!”

“Vulcan! you here again!” she exclaimed hoarsely.

“Mistress! I have never been far from you! Oh, child! what is it you do?”

“Vulcan! I bade you keep away from my sufferings and sins and perils! why have you disobeyed me?”

“Mistress, I will never forsake you! I will stand or fall by your side!”

“Then you disobey me!”

“Mistress, I serve you!”

Both—the dwarf and the wild girl—stopped and looked at each other wistfully, fixedly, defiantly—unflinching resolution in the eyes of each.

“Vulcan! you shall not ruin yourself for me!”

“Mistress, I follow you to save you, from yourself, your passions and your madness! Oh, lady! lady! what is it you do?”

“A deed of retribution!”

“Oh, lady! lady! is it the justice of retribution to avenge the guilt of the strong upon the innocence of the weak? What is that which you carry within your arms?”

“My revenge.”

“A babe! Oh, Lionne! Lionne! has sorrow so changed you that you see not even what you do? Would you punish a helpless infant and its most innocent mother for crimes in which neither could have the smallest part?”

“I would strike the heart of my destroyer were it through the hearts of as many innocents as Herod slew at Bethlehem!”

“Horrible! she is a fiend! treachery has transformed her into a fiend! But no! she is mad! only mad! poor 382girl! trouble has turned her brain! not perverted her heart! I will save her! I must save her!” thought the dwarf to himself. Then softly he spoke:

“Lionne, my lady, my child, listen to me. Your morning of life has been darkened with great sorrow; but it has not been cursed with any crime. Oh, take care that you do not rush from the darkness into fire, from sorrow into remorse! You have suffered through the sins of others. Oh, avoid the deeper grief of suffering through your own! Lionne, let me take back the babe to its mother, and pray God to heal your own sick, sad heart. He will do it. Lionne, give me the babe.”

“Never!” exclaimed the desperate girl, through her set teeth, invincible resolution burning in her fixed eyes.

“Lionne, what would you do with it? You would not hurt it, I know. Lionne, in three hours from this the whole country will be up in arms and upon the track of the abductor.”

“I am in the pathless forest,—they will not find me.”

“Mistress, with the trained blood-hounds used in tracking fugitives, they will hunt you through the wilderness.”

“Then I will lose myself in the greater wilderness of the city.”

“Lionne, give me the child.”

“Never, I say!—let me pass!” exclaimed the possessed girl, clutching the infant to her bosom with one arm and waving the dwarf away with the other. “Let me pass!”

“I dare not, mistress!”

“Then there is another way!” she exclaimed; and turning before he could prevent her, with the sudden bound of a tigress she fled down the way whence she came, until she reached the beach.

“Here they shall lose sight of me. Once more they shall believe me dead; but I shall live. Ha! ha! I shall live!” she cried.

383Then stripping the outer garment from the infant and her own shawl from her bosom, she dragged them through the water and wound them among the long reefs of seaweed, as if they had been cast up by the waves. Then gathering the wailing babe to her bosom, she recommenced her flight, following the course of the river, and taking care to wade along the shallow water of the beach, so that no blood-hound could scent her track.

Meanwhile, at River-view, the search was kept up with zeal and anguish. The whole constabulary force of the county was put in requisition.

As a last resort, a pack of sleuth-hounds were put upon the scent. Commencing from the crib of the lost child, they tracked the abductor through every foot of her way, through house, lawn, orchard, vineyard, field and forest up to the very spot where, an hour before, Lionne had parted from Vulcan.

There, being at fault, they sniffed about for a while, and then returning upon the scent, tracked the fugitive to the water-side. There they found the sand beat up with footprints, and the wet outside-garments of the woman and the babe swathing the seaweed and cast up on the beach.

“The wretch has destroyed herself and the babe. Heaven help the poor bereaved mother!” was the exclamation of the foremost officer who reached the spot.

When this news was taken to Orville Deville, in his library—after the first force of the shock was spent, and even beside his affliction for the loss of his child, he experienced a certain satisfaction in the thought that his ruthless enemy was now no more.

For weeks the secret of the child’s supposed death was kept from Lady Adelaide. But at length, when it was seen that heart-sickening suspense as to the babe’s fate, daily anxiety for news, and constant disappointments were more dreadful to bear than the knowledge of the 384truth could be—then that truth was gently communicated. The intelligence was received with less of apparent anguish than could have been hoped. After the horrible uncertainty, in which imagination had painted in her darkest colors the doom of the living, lost infant, the certainty that it was at rest came as a relief to the bereaved mother.

The gentle, patient, young heart, schooled in suffering, humbly accepted this sorrow as the will of Heaven.

“Better so,” she said, “oh! much better so, than that the babe should have lived exposed to all the evils that dreadful woman would have brought upon her!” And so the meek head was bowed in resignation.

It was the fourteenth of January, and two weeks after the events related in the last chapter; it was late at night, and the snow was falling thickly; when through one of the poorest thoroughfares of New York, a slight, dark girl, thinly clad and pressing an infant to her bosom, wandered. Her gait was reeling, like that of a person under the influence of alcohol; but when she came within the glare of a street lamp, it might be seen that only cold, hunger, and fatigue had done their worst upon her. Her long, black hair hung in wild elf locks down her thin, 385dark, sharpened face; the fires of insanity smouldered in her gloomy eyes; like a lunatic, also, she talked to herself, muttering—

“Walk! Yes, I will walk, until I drop down, and then, perhaps, I may die!” And she toiled on, the snow-storm whirling around her, the stinging sleet cutting her face and neck, and penetrating every crevice of her clothing.

The few well wrapped-up passengers whom necessity had exposed to the storm, looked back as they passed her, or muttered, as she jostled them—

“Poor creature—tipsy!” or, “the wretch! she ought to be taken to the watch-house!”

The night grew darker, the storm fiercer, the streets lonelier; the steps of the solitary wanderer grew more feeble, tottering and uncertain, and her course more erratic. At length, when the strength of the wretched girl gave away beneath the accumulated burdens of famine, cold, and toil, she sank, prostrate and insensible, upon the ground.

By her fall, the miserable babe was dropped into the snow, and its feeble wail broke piteously on the stillness of that awful night.

Two wretched women in a cellar near heard this pitiable cry, and one of them came out into the blinding snow, muttering—

“What the deuce is that? sounded like a child’s cry! But, sartainly, no one would go for to drop a fo’ndlin’ at my door at this time o’ night, in this ere storm!”

Another feeble wail from the infant.

“’Tis a baby, sartain! I’ll go and get a blind lantern!” exclaimed the woman. And after darting into the darkness of the cellar, she reappeared with the lantern, and, guided by the wail of the infant, she soon found it where it had rolled away, at some distance, in the snow.

386“Now, the watch will be here in two minutes,” she said; and seizing up the child as though she really considered it a priceless treasure, she hurried into the cellar. She had not seen the girl at all.

Now, if any one makes the mistake of supposing that this woman was actuated by zealous benevolence, they may be undeceived by hearing what were her next words.

Taking the end of the candle out of the lantern, she stuck it upon a loose brick in the old wall, and then sitting down upon an inverted tub, she proceeded to examine the child, muttering—

“As likely a baby to soften the hearts of the flats as could be wished! Looks famished, looks frozen, looks sick, and with all the rest lily white, with violet-blue eyes, and golden hair! just the thing to take the hearts of the ladies! This babe’ll be worth me a dollar a day! There’s Sall there, as ain’t done nigh so well at the trade since her baby died. And more by token I mustn’t let this one die. Sall shall wake up and nurse it.”

And going to the spot where her worthless companion lay in a stupid sleep upon the floor, she shook her, saying—

“Sall! Sall! wake up! here’s luck!”

“What luck?” said the other, sleepily.

“We’re rich—that’s what we are!”

“Some of our rich ‘lations has left us a fortin’, I would’nt wonder,” said Sall, contemptuously.

“Purty nigh as good now, I can tell you!”

“What is it, then?” cried the drowsy one, impatiently sitting up.

“Why, I’ve found a fo’ndlin’, dropt right at my door; a pretty little famished, frozen thing, to melt the hearts of the ladies!” said the first woman, exhibiting the child, that had now fallen into the sleep of total exhaustion.

“Where did you find it?” said the other.

387“Dropt at our door. But here—we mustn’t let it die! Put it to your bosom and nuss it, quick!”

“If I’m to nuss this ere child, I’m to have half the profits!”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Then nuss it yourself!”

While these wretches were quarrelling over the poor infant, the watch, coming his last round, stumbled and fell over some object hidden in the snow.

“Some rowdy, drunk, who I shall have to take to the lock-up!” said the man, impatiently, as he picked himself up, and then, recovering his lantern, stooped to examine the obstacle.

“A woman, by the powers! Dead, or dead-drunk, I wonder,” said the watch, raising the form and knocking off the snow.

“Poor wretch, I think she is frozen,” continued honest Cerberus, pursuing his investigations.

“Half frozen, but not quite dead. Her heart is still beating,” he concluded, as he eased her down a moment, and took up and sprang his rattle.

In an instant several of his comrades ran from various directions to the scene of action, exclaiming:

“What’s the row? Little old Midget got more on his hands than he knows what to do with?”

“No row at all,” answered the little old man, who seemed to have been made a guardian of the night, not for cunning in detecting thieves, or strength in overcoming bullies, but simply because he was too old and weak to be in request for any other service.

“What is it, then?——Oh, a woman, tipsy! Well, take her along to the lock-up. Sure, you can manage her, as weak as you are,” said watchman number two.

“But she ain’t intoxicated, poor thing; she’s perished along of cold and hunger; an’ ef I takes her to the lock-up, 388where there ain’t no fire half the time, she’ll perish outright, she will.”

“Nonsense! Old fellow, if you’d been as long in the service as we have, you’d find you’d have to get rid of your tender feelin’s. Give her a lift, an’ let’s take her along to the watch’us. She’d perish here in two minutes longer anyway,” said number two.

“Stop! no! I can’t take her to the watch’us, long as she ain’t intoxicated—I can’t, friends. I’ve a darter of my own, Lord help her!”

“Well, what’ll you do, old Stick-in-the-mud? Bother! we can’t stay here all night, hearing you preach. Here, fellows, one of you give a lift, and we’ll take her round,” said number two, impatiently.

“No, stop, do!” said old Midget, pleading for the outcast as he would have done for his own child; “she ain’t a bad un! indeed she ain’t. I don’t know much, it’s true; but I know that by the very looks of her. Jes’ look a-there, now; look for yourself,” he added, holding the lantern close over her face; “look at her skin—clear and clean, though ever so pale; and look at her decent black coat. I mayn’t be a scholard, nor likewise a man of the world; but I know as how the bad uns don’t look like that. No, she’s some poor orphan gal come from the country to seek sarvice—that’s what she is, and she hain’t found it; and here she’s been a-wanderin’ about until night came on and the storm overtook her, and she dropped right down for dead—poor thing.”

“Jehosophat, king of Jerusalem! this here philanthrophyer ’ill stop here pitying the ’oman until she perishes in the snow. Here, you John, help me to rise her up. I’ll take her right off to the lock-up.”

“No, now don’t! Jes’ stop a bit, won’t you?”

“Stop, and let the gal die?—that’s your sort o’ pity!”

“No, jes’ gimme a lift, and help me to tote her round 389to my house; it’s just round the corner, a heap nigher than the watch-house.”

“Oh, that’s the game, is it? Well, I’ve no objection. So here goes! No, you needn’t take hold, old fellow, it’ll break your wind. I and Jack’ll carry her along. You lead the way.”

The old man lifted himself up, adjusted his lantern, and turned down the street, followed by the two young watchmen carrying the insensible form of the girl, until they reached a narrow, dark and silent alley, about midway down which they stopped before a dilapidated wooden house, of one story, with a window on each side the front door. The old man opened the door, and saying:

“This is the place, boys,” entered and struck a light.

They followed him into a poor room, with bare floor and uncurtained windows. Opposite the door by which they entered was an old stove upon the hearth. On the chimney-piece above was arranged a little stock of crockery-ware. On the right hand of the hearth, a narrow staircase led up into the loft above. On the left hand stood a spare, flat-looking bed.

“There; lay her down there, boys; my darter’ll be home presently,” said the old man.

They laid the insensible form upon the poor bed, and then one of the men said:

“We’ve got to go, you know, and so can’t be of any more help; but here’s a flask o’ brandy—I know you don’t keep such stuff about. You’d better warm some and give it to her—then rub it well into the palms of her hands and make up a big fire;” and laying the flask on the table, the man, with his companion, departed.

They had scarcely left the alley before the sound of a girlish voice was heard, and presently the door opened, and a delicate young creature, wrapped in a great warm 390shawl, accompanied by a little boy, and followed by a great, shaggy dog, entered the room.

“My poor little lamb, have you got wet?” asked the old man, going to the young girl to relieve her of her shawl.

“No, father; it’s not snowing so fast now; but it’s colder; the wind is rising. Eddy, light the fire, dear. Oh, father, the manager was so pleased with me to-night that he has promised to let me try a speaking-piece, and if I do well he’ll raise my salary, and——But who’s that you’ve got there, father?” she said, seeing for the first time the insensible form on the bed.

“It’s a poor young creetur as is most perished in the storm, if she ain’t quite dead. I found her and fetched her in.”

“Oh, father, then don’t let her lay there without help! Not a moment is to be lost! Eddy, hasten with that fire; pile in the wood. Father, dear, please fill the kettle and put it on to boil. There, Eddy, now run up into the loft and bring the blankets down off my bed,” said the young girl, who was all this time busy in removing the frozen upper garments of the patient. Her under-clothing, fortunately, was not wet.

These vigorous means were at length successful, and Lionne was restored to consciousness.

“Where am I?” was the question that first arose to her lips.

“With friends and well-wishers, poor girl,” said the old man, as he placed a cup of hot spiced brandy to her lips. She mechanically quaffed the cordial, and—in her weak state—overcome by its effects, she fell into a deep sleep.

“Father, dear, I’ll lay down beside the poor thing, so as to wake easy if she should need any thing in the night. 391You and Eddy had better go up-stairs and sleep in my bed,” said the young girl.

“Yes, Alice, darling, we will. Come, Eddy.”

And the old man and the boy went up into the loft. And Alice took off her dress and threw herself down beside the strange sleeper to rest.

When Lionne opened her eyes the next morning, their glances fell upon a poor, but clean room, with bare floor and bare windows, but with a bright dresser and a warm cooking-stove, over which a fair girl stood, making coffee.

Before full memory returned to Lionne, this girl riveted her attention. She was small and delicate, with fair skin, large, soft gray eyes, fringed with long, close, black lashes, and arched by slender, black brows; and rich masses of silky black hair waving about a forehead almost too broad and prominent for such a mere child. She wore a brown stuff gown tucked up around her waist, and revealing a gray petticoat beneath. Her sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, showing arms that would have been beautiful, but they were too thin and white—too suggestive of a slow starvation. While Lionne, in a half dreaming state, and through half vailed eyes, watched this girl, little steps were heard on the staircase, and a boy of about ten years of age came down into the kitchen. He closely resembled his sister—having the same intellectual head and face; the same broad forehead, shaded with black hair; the same black eyebrows, and long, black eyelashes, shading his large, dark eyes. He wore an old suit of coarse, gray cloth.

“You left father asleep?” inquired the girl.

“Yes, Alice,—shall I go wake him?”

“No, he was out on his beat until twelve o’clock, you know, and he must rest this morning.”

392“But you were out at the theatre until half-past, sister—and here you’ve been and got up and made the fire.”

“But I am younger, Eddy.”

“Yes, but you look weak as any thing, Lord bless you.”

“Take your book, Eddy, and sit down in the corner; sister will hear your lesson before she goes to rehearsal.”

“Ah, but do just let me help you a little first, Alice, you do look so pale,” pleaded the boy.

“Mind what sister says to you; that is the best thing you can do for her,” said Alice.

With a sigh, the boy obeyed, and was soon deeply engrossed in his study.

The young girl hushed the pleasant humming of her own voice and softened her own light footfall, lest she should disturb the young student in the chimney corner, or the poor stranger on the bed, as she went about doing her morning work.

She drew out the little pine-table, laid a coarse cloth upon it, took the little black waiter and the cups and saucers, and plates from the chimney piece, and arranged them upon the board, and finally cleared her coffee and covered up her bread to keep warm until her father should come down to breakfast.

And meanwhile, to fill up the time, because it seemed she could not afford to be idle, she went to some obscure corner of the little room, and brought thence a gay dress, whose braids of blue, red and yellow shone brilliantly upon a dark gray ground. Sitting down upon a low chair, she began busily to rip off the bright, variegated braid, and to rip out the tucks to let it down.

But before she had completed her task, footsteps were heard above, and soon the little, mild, old man came hobbling down the stairs. He came to his daughter’s side and laying his hand upon her soft hair, said: “Up so soon, Ally? and the room all tidied up, and breakfast 393ready, and you sitting down after all, sewing! always at work! so much work! all sorts of work! cooking, and washing, and ironing, and sewing, and sweeping, and cleaning, and rehearsing all day! and singing, and dancing, and acting all night! Oh, Ally! Ally! Ally!”

“Now, dear little papa, don’t be discontented! Remember how much worse off we were before we had any work at all! Better have too much than too little! I am sure I had rather be worked to death than starved to death!” replied Ally, smiling.

“And what is it you are doing now?” inquired the old man, taking a childish interest in her work and examining curiously the brilliant braids that lay in a heap by her side. “I thought I saw you sewing on all them bright things only yesterday?”

“And to-day I am ripping them off; yes, father; because yesterday they played a gay French piece, and to-night they play ‘The Quaker,’ therefore I must alter the Swiss peasant’s dress that I wore yesterday, into a Quaker dress to wear to-night, and I can do it by simply ripping off the bright braid and letting down the tucks.”

“Hum, and—maybe to-morrow you may have to sew it all on again.”

“Yes, father, these gray skirts are very convenient; they can be made very grave, or very gay by mere difference of trimming,” said Alice, cheerfully.

“But what trouble, my poor little Ally, when to think that a dollar or two more would buy you another dress, and save you all this everlasting ripping and sewing.”

“Yes, but, dear little papa, the dollar or two isn’t at hand, and therefore we must be content. And now stop grumbling and come to breakfast.”

“That poor creetur, is she awake?” whispered the old man pointing over his shoulder to the stranger on the bed.

394“I think not, father,” replied Alice, as she arose, put aside her work and prepared to set breakfast on the table.

“Yes, I am awake; I should have let you know it before hearing all your talk,” spoke the voice, from the bed.

“Oh, that don’t matter! not the least bit in the world! we haint no secrets, thank heaven! how be you, child?” said the little old man, going to the side of the bed.

“Where am I?”

“You are in the city mansion of Timberlegs Midget, Esquire, watchman in ordinary, in the sarvice of their worships the mayor and corporation of New York,” replied the little old man, who was not without his dry vein of humor.

“How came I here?”

“In going of my last rounds last night, I fell upon you, my child! yes, actually did in more’n one sense for I tumbled over you, where you lay kivered over with snow! Frien’s of mine helped to bring you here.”

“Oh! my heart! I begin to remember!” murmured the stranger to herself.

“Poor thing! you be come from down the country mayhaps?” inquired the little old fellow, compassionately.

“Yes,” replied the stranger, in an almost inaudible voice.

“I just thought so! seeking sarvice, maybe?”

“Yes,” again responded the wayfarer, as if unable to get out one other word.

“Poor child! poor child! a hard thing to find even for a city born, as I know to my sorrow: but for a stranger, a young gal seeking it—oh my! You’re an orphan, maybe?”

“Yes,” murmured the stranger, covering her face with her hands.

“Poor child! poor child! well don’t cry! you shall stay here until you can do better! I’ve a young darter of my own to larn me mercy, thank God! So now you just be easy! or if you want to get up to breakfast, I’ll 395jest go ’way till you dress. My Ally’s dried your clothes long ago.”

“Papa, dear, no, it is better for her to lie still,” said the young girl, in a whisper.

“My Ally says how it’s better for you to lie still, and my Ally’s always right; she’ll bring you coffee to the bedside; so you be easy; you’re quite altogether safe under the ruff of Timberlegs Midget, Esquire,—for short called Midge,” said the old man, smiling.

“Little papa! if ‘Timberlegs Midget, Esquire,’ commonly called Midge, don’t come right away to the table, his worship’s coffee will be cold!” said Alice, with mock gravity.

“He’s coming, child! he’s coming,” answered the little old man, trotting back to the table and seating himself in apparent trepidation.

Alice presided at the humble repast. She waited upon her father and her little brother, and then brought coffee to their guest.

When breakfast was over, the old man took his old over-coat and hat from their peg, and put himself into them.

“Now, little papa, you must not go out in the cold this morning,” said Alice, as soon as she noticed his preparations.

“My dear, I shall miss a great day’s work if I don’t! The snow is two feet deep on the sidewalks; I shall clear a goodly sum this day in shovelling it away from afore doors!”

“And get a pleurisy that will lay you up for two months!”

“You needn’t talk, Ally! Timberlegs Midget must—stop, what’s the soundorous words?—‘embark in this enterprise.’ Yes! Timberlegs Midget must embark in this enterprise!”

396And so saying, the little old man went and brought a shovel from the back-yard, and passing through the room went out at the front door and departed.

Alice hurried with her work, cleared the table and set it away, replenished the stove, swept the room, heard Eddy his lesson, made her guest as comfortable as circumstances would permit, and then put on her coarse shawl and hood to go to rehearsal.

“I am very sorry to have to leave you, but I am employed at the theatre, and every day at ten o’clock I am obliged to attend rehearsal, or be fined for staying away. I shall be back by one o’clock; Eddy will stay with you to wait on you when you need him. And when you wish to get rid of him, you can send him up-stairs.”

“I thank you,” was all that the wayfarer could answer, and Alice departed.

“Little boy, come here,” murmured the stranger, as soon as she was left alone with the lad.

Eddy approached.

“When I was found in the snow, was there——a child found?”

“A child! Lord! no, ma’am,” replied the lad, in astonishment.

“Are you sure that there was not?”

“Lord! yes, of course I am; what made you ask about a child?”

“I—I thought there had been a child found.”

“Law, ma’am, you only thought so, you know, because you were so out of your mind like. Why, long ago, when we were poor, you know, and father was in so much trouble, he took a brain fever, and what do you think he thought?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why, bless you, he thought the house was full of golden guineas! all heaped up in the corners, and packed 397up in the chests, and locked up in the cupboard! and everywhere, everywhere, piles of gold, when we hadn’t so much as a penny in the house! Sick people always think queer thoughts.”

The stranger made no comment, but covered her face with her hands, and sighed.

The lad, thinking she wished to sleep, went back to his stool and his book, where he sat perhaps an hour.

Then he arose and put away his book and replenished the fire, put on the pot, and began making such simple preparations for the midday meal as a lad of his age could manage.

At noon the old man came home, and sat down by the stove, where he remained too cold and tired even to talk, until Alice opened the door and entered the house.

Then he held out his hand to her; and when she approached, he poured six shillings into her hand, saying—

“There, my little housekeeper, take them. I have shovelled off six door-steps and sidewalks at a shilling apiece.”

“Little papa will make a fortune at this rate! but he must not go out this afternoon!”

“Indeed he doesn’t intend to, jest because he is entirely used up and done for.”

“And I am sure Ally looks the very same!” said Eddy.

The old man turned his eyes anxiously upon his daughter.

“Oh, little papa, I am only tired with standing about the scenes—that’s all! If one could sit down a little during rehearsal; but they can’t. Now just see this good boy. He has the table set and the soup all ready. I will dish it up.”

The simple meal was soon prepared and soon consumed. The stranger had been vainly urged to partake of it.

398“You will fail for want of food,” said Alice, sympathetically bending over her.

“No, I am strong enough to get up and go farther, and should have done so had I known where to find my clothes,” said the wayfarer.

“Indeed, you shall not go farther until you can fare better,” said Alice; “but as soon as father goes out, I will move you up-stairs to my room, which is more private, and where we can both sleep together, This bed belongs to father and Eddy, and you were laid upon it only because they thought you too weak to be carried farther. Oh, now I tell you, you shall be very comfortable, if you will only be cheerful.”

And with these consoling words the kind girl left the bedside of her guest and sat down to complete the arrangement of her Quaker costume for the evening’s performance. This occupied her several hours.

And then, after an early and very frugal tea, the old man walked out to report himself to the watch-station; the boy went into the back-yard to prepare wood for the next day; and Alice finding the room clear, proposed attending her charge to the chamber above.

The stranger wearily agreed, arose from the bed and followed her young hostess up the narrow flight of stairs to a small room in the garret, lighted by one front and one back dormer window.

Here was a poor but neat bed, covered with a blue, checked, woollen counterpane; a little pine table, with a blue wash-basin and pitcher; above which hung a small looking-glass; a single chair sat beside the bed; and from wooden racks each side the little fireplace hung several fancy dresses.

“This is my room; I make you very welcome to it; and hope you will be able to sleep quietly for several hours. I am sorry to say that you will be quite alone this evening, 399for my father has gone on duty, and my brother will have to attend me to the theatre. I shall leave the light burning on the chimney-piece. Good-night.” And so saying, the kind girl kissed the pallid brow of the wayfarer and withdrew.

In two minutes after, the stranger heard Alice and her little brother leave the house for the theatre, locking the door on the outside.

And then the wayfarer threw herself upon the bed, where for hours she lay, so deeply absorbed in painful thought, that ere she knew it, midnight came and brought back her humble hosts.

She heard them softly enter the house, and stealthily move about, cautioning each other in whispers not to make a noise to disturb her.

And soon she felt her kind young hostess creep to bed beside her in silence and in darkness, lest she should awaken the guest whom she supposed to be sleeping.

And thus ended the wanderer’s first day.

The next day was a day of rest for Alice. It happened that she was not wanted at the theatre. She enjoyed the rare treat of being at liberty to stay home all day and all night.

After breakfast, when her father and brother had both 400gone out, Alice and the stranger were seated together near the stove. Alice was engaged in patching her father’s coat. The stranger sat with her thin dark hands clasped upon her knees, and her great wild eyes fixed in deep thought upon the floor.

“You came to town to seek service, my father tells me. What sort of service?—Maybe I could help you to get it.”

“I do not know,” said the wanderer, vacantly.

“I should think that of a seamstress might do. Can you make dresses?”

“No.”

“Coats, vests, or pantaloons, then?”

“No.”

“Children’s clothing, then?”

“No.”

“Well, perhaps you can do plain sewing.”

“Not well.”

“Dear me, then you would not be a seamstress?”

“I could not compete with the humblest member of that craft.”

“Oh my! then the next lightest thing to do is chamber-work.”

“I know nothing about it,” said the stranger, with her hands still clasped upon her knees, and her eyes still fixed upon the floor.

“Gracious! perhaps—oh yes! I know you could take care of children? Would you take a nurse’s place?”

“Not to save myself from starving,” exclaimed the wild woman, with startling energy.

“Oh, my goodness! do you dislike innocent little ones so much!”

“Yes, I do!”

Alice looked at her guest in amazement and pity, and then, after a few minutes, said:

“I do not think you could cook?”

401“No.”

“Well, then, what sort of service did you come to town to seek?”

“I did not come to seek service at all.”

“But you told my father so.”

“It was some mistake; he misunderstood me, or else I did not know what I was talking about.”

“But if you didn’t come for that, what did you come for?”

“To lose myself,” answered the wayfarer.

“I declare you came very near succeeding! Oh, poor dear, you are heart-broken and brain-crazed about something, that’s clear enough; but you ought not to think of losing yourself. We’ll see what can be done for you,” said Alice, gently.

“You are kind, and I will tell you thus much: I came from far down the country. My father and my mother are both dead. I have no friends, no means! Despair drove me to the city!”

“Poor girl! you left the wilderness of trees for the wilderness of human beings, thinking that the last, being of your kind, would have more sympathy for you! Well, many do the like!”

“But I have found sympathy, in one case at least. Oh, I thank you! Now let us speak no more of this. In an hour I set forth again.”

“To go—whither?”

“I do not know.”

“Then you shall not leave us. Oh, I have known what it is to be very poor! You smile; you think we are poor enough now! Well, so we are. But we have been yet poorer. I have known what it is to suffer cold, hunger, and illness, at the same time; but I never was homeless; and I think that to be homeless is worse than all. And so I should expect the Lord to cast me forth 402of his care the day that I sent a desolate girl homeless from my door. So you are to stay here, until you can do better.”

“But I cannot; I must not be a burden. This little tenement is a beehive: every one is busy. I must not be a drone.”

“And you need not. I have just thought of what you can do,” said Alice. “Mr. West, our stage-director, told me, last night, that if I knew of any good-looking, respectable young girl, with a good figure and a good voice, he would thank me to bring her to the theatre, if she would come.”

“Well?”

“I think you answer the description. If you would come, I would gladly take you.”

“What is wanted of me?”

“Why, that you should fill just such a place as I do; a very humble one; but which would keep you from want.”

“But I know no more of that business than of any other.”

“It is not expected that you should; you are to learn it. Hence your humble post, and small pay. But if, with your fine figure, and face, and voice, you have also tact and talent, you will be sure to rise in your profession.”

“Is it a laborious one?”

“Yes, I am sorry to say.”

“Is it exciting?”

“Very.”

“Is it absorbing? Will it employ all my time, and thoughts, and faculties?”

“Very much so, indeed, if you attend to the business. I wish it were otherwise,” said Alice, with regret, for she now feared that her unhappy guest would cast away this last poor chance of a living; “very exacting and absorbing indeed!”

403“Then I will enter it,” exclaimed the stranger.

That night, the old watchman was told that his strange guest, who was unfit for service, would, in future, accompany his daughter to the theatre.

“Well, the Lord guard all poor young women,” was all that the old man said.

Accordingly, the next morning, Alice conducted the stranger to the only theatre that the city could then boast. They entered the old and dingy building by a basement side-door that led through a long, dark and narrow passage to the door of the manager’s office.

Alice put her hand upon the knob, and then suddenly paused, saying—

“There! now, do you know I never even thought of asking your name; and if I had gone into the manager’s office, I shouldn’t even have known how to introduce you!”

“You are like the Arabs, so delicate in hospitality that they do not even ask the name of the traveller they entertain. Well, my name is—is—’Nora Norl.”

“’Nora Norl? a queer name! well! come in, Miss Norl.”

“Not Miss, but Mistress; I have been married.”

“Married! you!” exclaimed Alice, looking in amazement and pity at her companion—“married and widowed so young!”

“Yes, married and widowed so young—yes, widowed, too, though not by death!” mentally added the stranger, whom we shall now call Mrs. Norl.

“And that is what you are breaking your heart about, the Lord help you! Well, this hurrying business will keep you from thinking of your troubles, if it does nothing else. Come, now, the manager is alone,” said Alice, peeping through the glass door, and then turning the knob and entering the room.

404The manager was alone, but apparently very busy and very impatient.

He arose and offered seats. Alice named her companion—

“Mrs. Norl, Mr. West.”

“Mrs. Norl?” questioned the manager, after a hasty bow.

“Yes, sir, Mrs. Norl, a young widow, who lives at our house, and will engage with you if she suits!” said Alice, meekly.

“Will do very well; will do quite well,” said the stage-director, with a cursory glance at the noble figure and fine, though care-worn face of the young wanderer, in whom his practical eye discerned a person above the grade of a ballet-girl. “Salary small at first; but duties unimportant, if laborious. Sing well, ma’am?”

“You will hear me upon occasion, sir, and form your own judgment,” said the stranger.

“Ah! intelligent and proud. Seen better days! Just as I thought,” muttered the manager. And then saying that he was happy to engage so promising a novice; that he had no doubt she would do well, etc.; he bowed the two young women out, with a parting request that they would come in the morning.

“Mother! sweet mother, mine! a boon! a boon!” said Perdita, playfully and coaxingly, hanging around Lady Adelaide’s neck, as they sat together next morning in their private parlor.

“Well, my dear, what is it?” inquired the latter, anxiously.

450“Mrs. Norl plays again to-night, and I want you to let me go and see her.”

“Again, to the theatre, to-night, my dear! That is too often. No, I cannot consent.”

“But, oh, mamma, you do not know how I long—how greatly I long to see her again!” pleaded Perdita, clasping her hands and fixing her eyes prayerfully on the lady’s face.

“Perdita, my dear, just consider that this is unreasonable!”

“Is it, mamma? I cannot help it! for if I am not permitted to go and see her, I do think my heart will go right out of my bosom after her! for I feel her drawing it all the while! and what should I do without my heart?”

“Perdita, you talk like a silly lover.”

“Well, mamma, I do believe that I am in love with that beautiful goddess.”

“Perdita, I cannot permit you to go again to-night! so let us hear no more of it.”

The brow of that young girl, usually so bright and frank, now grew dark and sullen. She took up her embroidery frame, sat down, turned her back towards Lady Adelaide and worked on in silence, until she saw Mr. Deville come up the stairs and enter the little room at the end of the hall, occupied by him as a study. Then she arose, followed him into the room, shut the door, and with the privileged familiarity of a dear child, sat down upon his knees, threw her arms around his neck, drew down his whiskered face to hers and kissed him.

“What does my little daughter want, now?” asked Orville Deville, gazing down into her beautiful, dark, bright face, and wondering with concealed but painful interest whether this beloved and most bewitching creature were indeed, as Lady Adelaide supposed, his child, the child of Lionne.

451“What does my little daughter want, now, that she coaxes me so sweetly,—a new necklace?”

“No, father.”

“A new gown? a hat? a spencer? Come, name your wish!”

“It is none of these things, father.”

“What is it, then? Come! speak! you will not find me hard!”

“It is to go this evening again and see Mrs. Norl!”

“My dear, no! your mother does not approve of your doing so!”

“Neither did she yesterday, but you took me, nevertheless,” said Perdita, changing countenance.

“My dear, yes, I took you, somewhat against her approbation, a circumstance which I see cause, now, to regret!”

“Father! father! do not say so! Yesterday, by speaking to mamma, you gained her consent, and you can do the same to-day.”

“No! I only silenced her opposition; and I could not do the same to-day! Perdita! your persistence is, under the circumstances, improper, indelicate, even ungrateful!”

“Why, dear father?”

“Because of Lady Adelaide’s known disapprobation!”

“But, father, I do so long with all my heart and soul to see that wondrous woman again!” exclaimed the young girl, clasping her hands and straining her eyes in the earnestness of her appeal.

“The greater reason for your not being permitted to do so! This woman has turned your head! Enough, Perdita! say no more! I regret that I ever took you thither! I shall take you no more!” said Mr. Deville, in that tone of firm determination from which his daughter knew there was no appeal.

452With an angry flush upon her dark and sullen brow, she arose and silently withdrew.

All the remainder of that day, Perdita remained in her own room, appearing only at meal times.

“That girl is certainly bewitched,” said Donald Lorne to himself; “she, usually so bright and frank, now grown go dark and reserved! I cannot understand it at all!”

But Lady Adelaide and Mr. Deville understood it well, and deeply regretted having thrown their very impressible charge in the way of that fateful woman.

The next day Mr. Deville found still more cause to regret that unfortunate step.

As he sat in his little study engaged in penning a letter to his overseer at River-view, a servant entered and handed him a note and retired. He opened it in haste and read:

“Mrs. Norl wishes to see Mr. Deville at her apartment, in the theatre building, this forenoon.”

“Shall I go—or not?” was his thought, as he held the note suspended in his hand. “I will go,” was his conclusion, as he arose, threw on his cloak, took down his hat, and sallied forth into the street. A rapid walk of ten minutes brought him to the theatre. He entered by the private or stage door, and asked of the young man in attendance, to be shown to Mrs. Norl’s room. With a bow, that official walked before him, and opening the door of an apartment beneath the stage, announced:

“Mr. Deville,” and retired.

Orville Deville entered the room.

Lionne was seated in the easy chair beside the centre-table. She was dressed in a crimson cashmere walking-habit, a mantle of sables, and wore upon her head a crimson velvet hat, with black ostrich plumes. Her dark, bright face was flushed with excitement, as, without rising, she motioned to her visitor to take a seat.

453“You have honored me with a summons to your presence, madam, and I am here,” said Mr. Deville.

Lionne bowed, and vouchsafed no further answer.

“Will you condescend to inform me to what circumstance I am indebted for this distinction, and also in what manner I can serve you?” inquired Mr. Deville, coolly.

“You shall know anon,” deliberately replied the lady.

“Will you permit me to inquire why, since this interview was imperative, why I was not summoned to your apartments, which nearly join my own, at the City Hotel?” demanded Deville.

“I never receive gentlemen in my private apartments,” replied Lionne.

“Let me at least know the business upon which you have summoned me.”

“Assuredly!——The young girl who was with you at the theatre on Monday night, why was she not brought on last night?”

“Because I did not think proper to indulge her.”

“And not because she did not desire to come! I am answered.”

“Yes; though I do not recognize your right to ask.”

“No matter. I have the means of compelling you to recognize any right which I may claim. And to-day I intend to put that means in force.”

“Explain yourself, madam!”

“I will. To-night I play Queen Katharine in Henry VIII. I wish to have that young girl present at the performance.”

“Arrogant woman! your ‘wish’ shall not be gratified. She shall not be again exposed to your syren arts!” exclaimed Deville, firmly.

“Remember that I have the means of enforcing my will!” sneered Lionne.

“Remorseless fiend, you have not! I tell you now, do 454your very worst! You have come to the end of your power over me. No more ‘black mail’ in any shape or form can be raised from me upon the sins of my youth,” exclaimed Deville, indignantly.

“Ha? is it so? Do you, then, no longer recognize, or no longer regard this document?” sneered Lionne, laying before him a copy of that fatal marriage-certificate.

“Yes, madam; I recognize and I regard it. But I no longer fear—I defy it and you!”

“Madman! to-morrow this document, exposed, must consign you to a prison!” exclaimed Lionne.

“Let it do so. The fate cannot be more dishonoring than the slavery to which its existence has condemned me for the last ten years! Lionne! I tell you, once for all, I am resolved to break the spell that binds me, and to dare the worst! Go! proclaim to the world my sins and your wrongs!”

“Orville Deville! a disposition to relent and to forgive—a disposition a stranger to my heart for years—comes over me!” said Lionne, in a changed and melting tone. “Orville Deville, my heart yearns for that child whom I saw seated at your side in the box on Monday night! Orville Deville, give her to me! My soul cries for her. She is only your adopted daughter—not dear to you, not necessary to you. Give her to me, and we are quits for life!”

“Lionne, your demand is madness, and cannot be gratified,” said Deville, firmly.

“Orville, give me that girl that my soul craves as its salvation, and I will give back into your hands these fatal documents, by the possession of which I hold your position, honor, and liberty at my disposal!”

“No, Lionne, no! I were baser than the basest could I sell for such a price a child so dear to Lady Adelaide!” said Deville, sadly, but firmly.

455“Yet she is not the child of Lady Adelaide! And my heart yearns towards her with a passion potent enough to overcome all other feelings in my bosom! Orville Deville, I adjure you to tell me—who and what is that child?” exclaimed Lionne, rising and clasping her hands, and straining her eyes upon him in the earnestness of her entreaty.

“Madam, you must permit me, for the present, to decline answering your question!”

“Orville Deville! if I free you from all the earthly consequences of your crime—if I give into your hands the only existing proof of that crime—will you give me that child?” prayed Lionne, with clasped hands.

“No, madam, I will not!” replied Deville, folding his arms.

“If, in addition to that, I consent to go far away from your sphere, and molest you no more forever, will you then give me the desired of my eyes and heart?”

“No, madam; I will not!”

“If, in addition to all the rest, I sign a paper, ceding to you the lands and lordships of Glen Lennark, then will you give me this child?”

“No, Lionne, no!” said he determinedly.

“In truth, it seems to me like madness, the desire I have to possess that girl. Deville! hitherto I have rather chosen to hold than to use the power I possess over you! By it I have chosen rather to control than to destroy you.”

“To torment me, rather. But, Lionne, your power of threatening and tormenting is at an end this day, when I resolve to dare the worst!”

“Or shall be at an end to-morrow, when, unless that girl shall be given up to me, I shall strike my last blow and—destroy you!”

456“Do so, then, madam! Give me the coup de grace, it will be a mercy!”

“You are mad to refuse an offer that I am as mad, perhaps, to make you! But if between this and to-morrow morning, you should have a lucid interval, send me word that you accept my offer; else prepare for prison and a disgraceful exposure.”

“Adelaide! the time has come when all concealments, from whatever cause, between us, must be at an end,” said Orville Deville, as with a pale and resolute brow, he stood before his wife in her dressing-room.

With eyes full of sympathy, that Christian wife took his hand, and drew him towards a chair near her sofa.

“Where is Donald and Perdita?” inquired Mr. Deville.

“With their language-master in the parlor, at their studies. They are safe for some hours.”

“It is well; for I would not be interrupted.” He paused, passed his hand across his brow, and seemed perplexed.

“Dear Orville, speak freely to me—you know that there is very little which I do not already know.”

“You know nothing! since I have told you nothing! You only conjecture, though we have conversed upon that 457conjecture as though it had been mutually recognized truth. That is past. Now all must be open and clear between us.”

Adelaide looked up at him with eyes full of anxious inquiry.

“Hear me, then, Adelaide! Lionne, when, years ago, she broke in upon your happiness, told you nothing but the truth! truth until now unacknowledged by me! Yes, Adelaide, I married her!—forgetful or ignorant of the nature of that indissoluble bond that from our childhood united me to yourself, and yielding to a violent, though false and transient excitement of the senses, I dared to unite my fate with that beautiful young lionness of the forest—afterwards discovered to be our cousin, the daughter and heiress of the banished Earl of Glen Lennark, the Lady Leonora Lorne.”

Adelaide dropped her eyes, compressed her lips, and tightly clasped her hands, as if to constrain and repress the emotion that was swelling at her heart. Mr. Deville continued—

“I was called from the side of my fatal bride to the sick-bed of my mother, where, alas! I soon learned that my mad passion was as evanescent as it had been violent, and that my hasty marriage was a crime and a felony, exposing my liberty and honor to degradation and ruin! I found you, whom, years ago, I had left a child, now grown up into a lovely and loving woman, bearing my name, everywhere recognized as my wife. I soon came to love you, not with the blind idolatry of passion, but with all the holiest devotion of my soul. I sought to forget the fatal episode of the forest, and to confirm my true marriage with you! As we were preparing for our bridal tour, Lionne came, and you know the rest!”

Adelaide dropped her head upon her bosom, and wrung 458her pale hands together, as though silently wrestling with the strong agitation that was shaking her whole frame.

Mr. Deville continued—

“The rage, grief and despair of Lionne was at first natural, justifiable! but her long-continued, persistent, ruthless malignity against me and all connected with me, is madness!”

“Let us be just! she had enough to drive her mad,” sighed Lady Adelaide.

“And now,” continued Mr. Deville, “affairs approach a crisis! The certificate of my—yes! I will speak the fatal word—felonious marriage with herself is in her possession, a terrible weapon for my destruction! She will use it!”

Lady Adelaide shuddered as with an ague fit, and covered her face with her hands.

“She will use it unless I obey the order she gives me, however unreasonable, improper, or even criminal that order may be.”

“Oh, Orville!”

“At her command I gave up, without possible explanation, the earldom of Glen Lennark.”

“It was her right and not ours, dear husband.”

“At her command I stepped down from the seat of distinction upon which the suffrages of my friends had placed me.”

Lady Adelaide clasped and unclasped her hands in troubled thought.

“And finally, when her commands become impossible to fulfil, or when she cares no longer to make them, she will still, with the relentless, ruthless malignity of her nature, use her power to crush me.”

Again Lady Adelaide shook as with an ague-fit, while she covered her pale face with her hands.

“I own, Adelaide, that in my early youth the dread of 459the possible exposure, disgrace and ruin attending a criminal trial deterred me from meeting the crisis that must come sooner or later. Longer, it were unmanly to shrink. Something must be done.” As he said this he looked inquiringly at the pale and quivering face of his wife, as though he would have discovered therein whether she had courage to meet that terrible ordeal at which he hinted. She understood his unspoken doubts, and controlling her awn agitation, she raised her face, pale and still, to that of her husband, and answered:

“Let us try to reflect what is right to be done, and do it—braving the consequences.”

“My noble wife! It is what I myself judged best. The present demand of this most unhappy woman is, that we give up to her our adopted daughter, Perdita. Were I mad enough to obey this insane command, how can I be sure that her next command would not be that I should give up you? And where would her despotism stop? I will dare and meet the trial! The essence of all crime is in the intention. I had no intention to commit a crime. The jury will understand that. Yes, once for all, I will dare the certificate!” said Mr. Deville, rising and pressing a kiss upon the brow of his wife, before leaving the room.

“And I,” murmured Lady Adelaide, “I will get the certificate from her; for I know how to appeal to that better spirit that, however confined, still lives in every human heart.”

“And I call on earth and hades to crush me with a swift destruction the day, the hour that I relent!” muttered, in low, deep thunder, a terrible voice at her side.

Adelaide started and looked up to see Lionne, the relentless, the terrible, the ubiquitous, standing before her.

Yes, the rivals were again face to face. What a picture they made! What a contrast they formed!

460Lady Adelaide, with her fair face softly shaded by her pale, golden tresses, and by the fine, semi-transparent lace of a delicate breakfast-cap, and her fragile form wrapped in a soft, snow-white, cashmere negligé, reclining on her easy chair, and—

Lionne, with her unconfined, long, glittering, black ringlets rolling fiercely back from her dark, bright, resplendent countenance,—her tall, finely-curved figure arrayed in a close-fitting black habit, and drawn up to its proudest height.

They gazed at each other—the soft, blue eyes deprecatingly; the fierce, black ones defiantly.

Lionne muttered the repetition of her cruel word:

“And I call on earth and hades to crush me with a swift destruction the day, the hour that I relent!”

“An awful adjuration of the evil powers, madam! I meet it with an appeal to the better and higher—ay, to the Best and Highest—God! and I call on Heaven to turn aside from you the curse you have invoked upon yourself; to endow you with the grace of mercy, and to bless you—forgiving others, forgiven yourself!” said Lady Adelaide, in a soft and prayerful tone.

Lionne smiled in bitter scorn.

“Will you sit down, madam?” said Lady Adelaide, putting out her hand, and drawing another chair nearer to her own.

Lionne silently threw herself into the offered seat.

“And now will you tell me in what manner I can be of service to you?” inquired Lady Adelaide, deprecatingly, for she felt herself, indeed, as it were, a lamb in the power of a lioness.

The haughty visitor hesitated, paused in deep thought for a moment, while Lady Adelaide added:

“If I can be of use to you, in any way, believe me, I shall be glad.”

461An ironical smile flitted over the face of Lionne, and in a sarcastic voice, she answered:

“Very well! I will inform you how you can be of use to me, since to ‘serve’ me will make you glad.”

Again, in that small chamber, in the persons of those two women, the powers of good and evil, of love and hate, met!

In Adelaide, all bright wisdom, all warm affection, all good purpose shone.

In Lionne, alas! dark, monomaniac, fierce passion, vindictive resolution burned.

On the brow of the first beamed the mild radiance of a pitying seraph.

On the front of the second lowered the “glory obscured” of a fallen angel.

With her blue eyes fixed appealingly upon the face of her fierce antagonist, Adelaide waited a few moments, and then said, gently:

“Pray, tell me, freely and kindly, what you would have of me.”

“Lady” began Lionne, in a tone in which irony struggled with a certain irresistible honor she was beginning to 462feel for the gentle woman into whose presence she had intruded—“Lady, you will credit me when I tell you that I came not into your presence unannounced, however unwelcome! The servant who opened the door for me breathed my name, though both you and your companion were too much occupied to hear it.”

“And—you overheard our conversation?”

“Certainly not; only your last words. I entered by one door as he went out by the other.”

“And now you will tell me what I can do for you?”

“Or rather why I came.—Yes. I came hither in fulfilment of a tryst, promise, or threat, whichever you may please to call it, made to—Orville Deville. There! his name is uttered! it will not choke me again!”

Adelaide shrank from the terrible convulsion that distorted the countenance of Lionne in uttering these words. The unhappy woman continued:

“He who laid waste my life, leaving it a blasted desert, he brought to the theatre three nights ago, a young girl, at the sight of whom my heart, so long cold, stony, dead in my bosom, warmed to life again—I seemed to live again the sweet, humane life, so long lost!—to breathe the pure air, to bask in the bright sunshine, to inhale the fragrance of the old forest, to feel my relations with nature, to taste all the sweetness of my long-lost innocent life!”

The stern voice of the speaker faltered, the dark splendor of her eyes were quenched in tears.

“Most strange!” murmured Adelaide, as sympathetic moisture dimmed her mild, blue eyes.

“Ay, strange! inexplicable! Unparalleled, I think. I knew not how it should be so. I only know ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.’”

She might well say that; for already the pure sphere 463of Adelaide, with her attendant angels, was influencing her. She continued:

“With the withdrawal of this young girl, life, and light, and warmth went out from me. Again I felt myself the disconnected, troubled spirit that I had been for years; without human love, or joy, or sympathy. From warmth and light, and life, cast out into the ‘outer darkness!’”

“You speak thus! You, the beautiful, the resplendent star of the east and the west. You, the idol of all genius-worshippers! You speak of coldness, darkness, and deadness, invested, as you are, with the dazzling blaze of this world’s most radiant glory!”

“It does not enter here,” answered Lionne, mournfully, pressing her hand upon her heart. Then pointing through the window to the full moon just risen in the east, she said:

“Look! that satellite is my type! the direct rays of the sun surrounds her with a glory that reflected, lights up all our night! Yet that glory irradiates without penetrating, without blessing her! Under the mild splendor of that light all is scathed, blasted, blackened!—a horrible hades! Such, under the glory of fame, am I!”

The deep despair of her words, her tones, and her looks, touched the sensitive heart of Adelaide, who arose, went to her, dared to lay her hand upon the glittering dark ringlets, the lioness’s mane, and whisper:

“Oh, Lionne, my cousin, for you are such, you fill me with the most painful sympathy. Would I could help you to banish from your soul the sorrowful memory of wrong and the sinful hope of revenge, for with those grievous passions would go all the suffering of your life. Peace would come; you would take your proper high position in the world; your splendid genius, now worse than wasted, would bless mankind instead of blighting yourself. Oh, Lionne! oh, my cousin, save yourself!”

464“I cannot! I cannot!” exclaimed the wretched woman, wildly throwing off the caressing hand of her better angel—“I cannot! I cannot! this bitter memory of wrong; this burning hope of revenge; it is a disease, a frenzy! I suffer from an inward anguish, a living death, from which there is no relief but in the thought and the pursuit of vengeance!”

Lady Adelaide placed her hands soothingly upon her shoulder, and would have addressed some words of comfort and counsel.

“Be still! I will not hear you! You would wile me from my purpose!”

“I would save you from yourself,” pleaded the gentle lady.

“You would save your husband! You cannot! The consummation of my life’s purpose is at hand! Tell that man from me that I came here seeking him, to warn him that, as he has disobeyed my injunction, I have accomplished my threat!”

Lady Adelaide turned ghastly pale, dropped her hold upon Lionne, and sank half fainting into the chair. Too well she knew what that threat had been.

“Tell him,” continued Lionne, vehemently, “that had he shown mercy to the last human love that bloomed in my blasted bosom, had he given me that strayed child, to whom I felt so strangely attracted, it might have been otherwise! Now all is over! all is lost! lost! lost!” and throwing her arms wildly into the air, the wretched woman, almost a maniac, rushed from the room, before the astounded Lady Adelaide could interfere to change her purpose.

The day of the trial came.

The most eminent talent in the city was retained in the case, and about equally divided between the prosecution and the defence.

The counsel of the accused had flattered Mr. Deville and his family with the fairest prognostics of a triumphant acquittal. The alleged offence was at worst but the act of youthful passion and folly; could not be called a felony, since intention constitutes the crime; and there had been 480no intention, or even consciousness, on the part of the accused, of committing the felony with which he was charged. Such was the “flattering unction” laid upon the aching hearts of the anxious family.

But the day of the trial came. The court-room, as might have been expected, was crowded.

Orville Deville was seated with his counsel.

Lionne, dressed in black, sat on the witness’ seat.

Lady Adelaide, fully believing in the triumphant vindication of her husband, and naturally shrinking from the investigation that would involve so many delicate details, readily complied with Mr. Deville’s request that she should absent herself from the trial.

I shall not trouble my reader with the full particulars of this trial. Suffice it to say, that when the accused was formally arraigned, with something of his natural arrogant disdain, he pleaded “not guilty” to the indictment.

The prosecution was carried on with great talent and rigor.

The defence was conducted with zeal and ability.

The judge, in finally charging the jury, was supposed to lean somewhat to the side of the prosecution.

The most intense anxiety was visible, not only upon the haggard face of the prisoner, but also upon the beautiful features of the principal witness against him, whenever a glimpse of those features could be caught.

Extreme interest was manifested by the audience during the interval in which the jury retired to deliberate, and yet few present looked for other than a full acquittal for the accused. The jury were absent about an hour; at the end of which they returned to the court-room.

Every person rose silently upon his feet, eagerly bending forward to catch the verdict.

Some who looked upon the accused saw that even he, 481though so confident, had, at this supreme moment, grown paler.

Lionne, quite throwing aside her vail and rising upon her feet, bent eagerly forward. Of all the faces present, hers expressed the most agonizing anxiety!

“Only behold that she-devil how impatiently she hungers for a fatal verdict,” said one of the bystanders, pointing to her wild, black eyes.

Meanwhile, the little, low-toned formula was going on between the clerk of the court and the foreman of the jury. The short colloquy was inaudible through the court room, until one tremendous word from the foreman of the jury fell like a thunderbolt upon the accused. That word of doom was—

“GUILTY.”

A panic of consternation fell upon the audience.

This was speedily broken by a wild shriek that rang through and through the court room, followed by the rushing of feet towards one point and the voices of many persons nearest the spot, crying:

“The prosecuting witness has fainted!”

Yes! it was true! Her revenge was consummated! She had hurled her destroyer down to destruction, and now, under the strong reaction of years of hatred, she herself had fallen!

It was some moments before the fainting woman could be conveyed from the room and order restored.

When all was still the judge arose and asked the convicted if he had any thing to say why the sentence of the court should not be pronounced against him.

“Yes! I have something to say! But first, I shall be obliged to one of the officers if he will procure me a glass of water.”

It was speedily procured and handed to the unhappy man. He took it in both hands, raised it slowly to his lips—paused—dropped 482the glass, which shivered at his feet—reeled for an instant—threw up his arms, and fell forward prone upon the floor, at the foot of the judge’s bench.

Several of the officers sprang to his assistance, raised him up, seated him in his chair; but—he was already dead!

When this was ascertained beyond a doubt, the court adjourned, the crowd hurried home to spread the news throughout the city, and the corpse was conveyed to an adjoining room to be examined before the coroner.

The verdict of the coroner’s jury was—“Suicide by taking prussic acid.”

The desired glass of water had merely been the cover to conceal the swallowing of the poison.

After the rising of the inquest the body was conveyed home to be prepared for burial. But who can justly describe the consternation, grief and despair that seized upon the heart of the young widow when the fatal intelligence was brought to her! The dreadful news was broken gently by the clergyman of the church to which she belonged. All that experience, discretion and kindness could do, was done to soften the severity of this terrible affliction; yet, for days after the funeral had taken place, the poor young widow lay in a darkened room, without sleep, without food, without companionship, unable to bear a ray of light, or the sound of a footfall.

She was affectionately attended by Kate Kyte, who confined herself to the parlor next that darkened chamber, to watch over her bereaved and afflicted friend.

Lady Adelaide was at length aroused from this torpor of despair by a note from Lionne. It was but a line, almost illegible from the trembling of the writer’s hand. It read:

“I am dying: for the love of heaven, come to me, 483there is something I have to reveal which you should know.”

The gentle sufferer could not withstand this appeal. Giddy, faint, and trembling, she arose from her bed, was dressed, and lifted into a carriage, and conveyed to the house where, since the fatal issue of the trial, Lionne had withdrawn herself. Leaning on the arm of her footman, she entered the house, the door of which was opened by our old acquaintance, the dwarf Vulcan.

Following this strange guide, she went to the chamber of Lionne.

What a scene met her view! This chamber was not dark. The full beams of the afternoon sun streaming through crimson-draped windows, flooded the room with ruddy light. Upon a sumptuous bed, in the centre of the room, the beautiful and gifted Lionne lay in the agonies of death. On her right hand, clothed in deep mourning, and overwhelmed with grief, knelt Perdita, burying her face in the bedclothes. On the other side stood a boy, dressed as a page, but sobbing bitterly. He and Perdita at once quitted the room.

But upon Lionne alone was the regard of the visitor riveted. There lay the beautiful wreck! Her long, purplish black hair, unconfined, streamed down each side her pallid face, and lay in disordered splendor upon the counterpane. Her jet black eyebrows looked more than ever arched above the hollowness of her face. Her large, fierce eyes were closed until the long eyelashes lay like an inky fringe upon the dead white cheeks.

Seeing Lady Adelaide enter, she extended her hand, saying:

“This is very kind.”

Forgetting the fatal injuries this woman had done her, forgetting her own sufferings at the sight of sufferings so much greater, since they were augmented by remorse and 484tended towards death, Lady Adelaide bent over the dying woman, dropping tears upon her wasted hands and sobbing in a broken voice—

“Oh, my cousin, what can I do for your relief?”

“Nothing—nothing,” tolled the deep, death-bell tones of her voice, that seemed now to sound from the depths of a vault; “nothing, for you see the ruin that I have brought upon others has crushed me also! I lived for this end! it is attained and I die!”

Here her voice sank so low that Lady Adelaide looking around and seeing a cordial upon the stand, took and placed it to her lips.

She drank and was revived.

“I have a few words to say to you, and a very few minutes to say them in,” faltered the fast-failing woman.

“They concern your daughter.—Be easy on that subject. With your consent I shall take her again. Except for her orphan grief, it will be as though she had never left me. And more—her final destiny shall be as brilliant as though——”

Lady Adelaide paused, and her pale face flushed.

“I know what you would say.—As if her birth had been legitimate,” said Lionne.

“As if her mother’s marriage had been as legal as she supposed it to be,” said Adelaide, gently.

“You are kind.”

“I mean this: had Perdita been the child of an unquestionable marriage, she would inherit your title and estate, for I never forget that you are in your own right Countess of Glen Lennark—but as the case stands, Donald Lorne will be the next Earl of Glen Lennark. He will marry Perdita.”

“How do you know that?”

“I, their adopted mother, have watched the development 485of their mutual love. I shall foster that love. They are suited to each other. They will marry. Your daughter will receive back in a happy marriage all that she has lost in her hapless birth.”

“Dear saint, I thank you as well as a woman so wretched as myself can do,” said Lionne, stretching out her hand to Lady Adelaide; “but it was not alone of my child that I thought. Lady Adelaide, you, also, had a child——”

“Two; they are with God.”

“All innocents are with God, wherever they may be. But, fair saint, you did not see your younger child die—you did not bury her; what proof have you that she is not now living?”

“Oh, don’t! Oh, the thought, the thought is too torturing! Dead, she would be with God—living, where, oh! where would she be?”

“Still with God, though still on earth. Hear me, Lady Adelaide. Be calm. I am dying, you are living; you have more strength than I have. If I can bear to tell, you can bear to listen.”

“But, my child! oh, my child! where, then, is she?” cried the lady, trembling violently.

“Safe! safe, I tell you! and not far away. Do you think I warred with children?”

“Oh! but this is agony. Where, then, is she, where?”

“Prepare yourself! Touch that bell, if you please.”

Lady Adelaide complied, and the summons was answered by the entrance of the beautiful little blue-eyed page.

Lionne pointed significantly to the child.

“No! not he. My lost child was a girl! and yet—and yet——” cried Lady Adelaide, almost upon the verge of swooning while she gazed upon the child, “if I could trust the yearning of my heart——”

“Trust your heart. The child is yours! A page’s dress 486belies her sex; it was put on for concealment. Frank, come hither.”

The child timidly approached.

Lionne took the tiny hand, and, placing it in the cold, fainting fingers of Lady Adelaide, said:

“Child, this is the gentle lady whom I promised should be your mother when I am no more. Madam, you will explain all when I am gone.”

Adelaide closed her fingers upon the little hand of the page, whom she drew towards her. For an instant she gazed with indescribable emotion upon the sweet, infantile face, and was about to gather her child to her heart, when a wild cry from Perdita, who had just entered the room, caused her to turn. She saw Perdita dart to the bedside and raise the form of Lionne, and support her head upon her bosom. And in a few more seconds Lionne, Countess of Glen Lennark, was dead!

Wild wailing shook the house, for this strange, unhappy woman had been greatly loved.

Lady Adelaide conveyed the children from the house of mourning to her own apartments, and afterwards took charge of the funeral, which was solemnized on the third day thereafter.

And when this was over, her nature, roused to superhuman strength for a few days, gave way, and a low, nervous fever prostrated the gentle lady for many weeks, but brought to her side also many sympathizing friends and comforters.

With the spring came renewed health and peace; and Lady Adelaide, accompanied by her young family, and by Kate Kyte and her husband, set sail for Scotland. At Glen Lennark the young widow was received with acclamation by the tenantry, who, with all others, persisted in calling her the Countess Dowager Glen Lennark, a title she could not repudiate without exposing secret 487family history. But the beautiful young widow, scarcely thirty years of age, was not destined to wear her days out in mourning over the past. In due time her hand was sought by the Duke of Donaldben, a gentleman in every way worthy to make her forget the sorrows of her youth, and with whom she lived a long life of nearly perfect married love and happiness.