The Heiress of Greenhurst

A forest of lilies seemed to have poured both whiteness and fragrance upon the moonbeams as they fell, softly as the flower breathes, on the grim towers and fairy-like courts of the Alhambra. It was not very late, but all about the ruins lay still as midnight. The nightingales had nestled down to sleep among the roses, leaving the air which they had thrilled with 38music to the mysterious chime of hidden brooklets, the bell-like tinkle of water-drops falling into unseen fountains, and the faint ripple of leaves and roses, as they yielded their voluptuous breath to the night winds.

The sounds that came from the distant city but served to render this solitude more complete. The baying of dogs, the low tinkle of guitars, the faint, hive-like hum that rose up from the dim mass of buildings, seemed all of another world. A spirit looking down upon earth from beyond the stars, could not have felt more completely isolated than a person wandering in the Alhambra after the nightingales were asleep.

Whatever of human life had been hanging about the ruins that day should have disappeared long ago, for travelling was not so common as it is now, and few persons chose to seek the Alhambra after dark. But on this night there was a sound now and then breaking the stillness—the tread of footsteps wandering about the ruins. You heard them at intervals with long pauses, and from various points, as if some one were roaming about within the very walls of the palace.

This sound had continued some time. It issued first from that beautiful double corridor which was once the grand entrance to those enchanting scenes, that even in ruins have more than the fascinations of romance. Time, that has dimmed their first loveliness, but leaves broader scope for the imagination, which, starting from these vestiges of beauty, rebuilds, creates, becomes luxurious. Contrast, too, has its share; the bleak, almost rude severity of those grim towers, the weeds, the broken stonework, the walls tracing the uneven slopes of the hill, the ruined defences, all give a force, and brighten the exquisite grace of that little Paradise, which takes one by surprise.

Well, the footsteps, I have said, came from this corridor, once the thoroughfare of kings. Then they were heard from the gorgeous saloon on the right, composing a portion of those apartments in which the Moorish Sultanas spent their isolated lives. Then these footsteps moved towards the great tower of 39Comares, and two shadowy forms appeared moving slowly, almost languidly, between the slender columns and azulejo pillars of a gallery that leads that way.

These persons—for two were walking close together, and with footsteps so light that those of the female seemed but an echo of the harder and firmer tread of the man—these persons were not wandering in that heavenly place, you may be certain, from a desire to examine the wonderful beauty that surrounded them. They had looked a thousand times on those singular remnants of art. Besides, the gallery was almost wrapped in shadow, and the rich colours, the lace-like stucco, the dim gilding, were all flowing together unveiling the darkness, but nothing more.

They hurried on, for the dome of heavy wood that overhung them seemed gloomy and portentous as a thunder-cloud. The shadows within those noble carvings were black as ebony. The beautiful design, the long, graceful stalactites, honeycombed and dashed with gold, all breaking out as from the midnight of ages, had a sombre effect. It seemed, as I have said before, like a storm-cloud condensed over them, full of gloom and prophetic wrath. My parents had come forth in search of joy, light, beauty—things that would harmonize with the ineffable happiness that overflowed their own young hearts—and they hastened from beneath this frowning roof, with its marvel of art, its grim antiquity, as we flee from the chill of a vault to the warm sunshine.

Other persons might have lost themselves in this labyrinth of beauty, but my mother had trod those ruined halls before she could remember, and the darkness was nothing against her entire knowledge of the place. Now she stood in that miracle of beauty, the Hall of the Ambassadors, the grand Moorish state chamber which occupies the entire Comares Tower. They were no longer in darkness, for through the deep embrasures of its windows came the moonlight, falling upon the pavement in long gleams of radiance, and flowing over the rich colors like the unfolding of a silver banner.

40It fell upon the walls with their exquisite tracery heavy in themselves, but so refined by art that the golden filagree work of Genoa is scarcely more delicate, and snow itself less pure. It gilded the azulejos. By this I mean those exquisite little tiles, brilliant as the richest enamel, of various tints—blue, red, and yellow predominating—which inlaid a gorgeous recess in the wall, and glittered around that raised platform which had been the foundation of a lost throne, now glowing in gorgeous masses, as if precious stones had been imbedded in the snow-work. All this was so richly revealed, so mistily hidden, that with a full knowledge of all which the shadows kept from view, the imagination would take flight, and you felt as if the gates of Paradise must have been flung open, before even a glimpse of so much beauty could be given to mortal eyes.

For a moment even those two lovers, in the first sublime egotism of passion which was destiny to them, stood hushed and dumb as they found themselves beneath the dome of that wonderful chamber. It was before the present ribs of wood and masses of intricate carving were introduced, with all their elaborated gloom, to brood over the most graceful specimen of art that human genius ever devised. The original dome arched above them seventy feet in the air, pure, majestic, gorgeous, as if the gold and crimson of a sunset sky were striving to break through the masses of summer clouds centred there. Then they became accustomed to the light, and things grew more distinct. The glorious moonlight of southern Europe is so luminous—the darkness that it casts so deep—it leaves no beauty unrevealed—it gathers all deformity under its shadows.

Every beautiful line of art that surrounded them was not only revealed, but idealized. The noble stucco work within the dome, moulded into exquisite designs two feet deep, pure as if cut from the snow ridges of Alpujarras—the ground-work of gorgeous colors, red, blue, gold glowing out from those depths of woven whiteness—the long, delicate stalactites dripping with moonlight, and peering downward from the compartments of each deep interstice, as if the snow-work, beginning to melt, 41had frozen again into great icicles—the pure whiteness all around, the colors burning underneath, or breaking out in rich masses like belts of jewels near the pavement—all this, as I have said, made even the lovers tread across the chamber cautiously and in silence. The stillness, the glow, the moonlight, made even the stealthy tread of their footsteps a sacrilegious intrusion.

They stole into one of the deep recesses of a window, where the moonlight fell upon them full and broad. The walls were so deep that it gave them a sort of seclusion. They began to breathe more freely, and the deep spell that had rapt their hearts for an instant, gave way to the rich flood of happiness that no power on earth could long hold in abeyance.

They stood together in the recess, but with a touch of art—for entire love has always a shyness in it, a sort of holy reserve, which is the modesty of passion—Aurora’s eyes were turned aside, not exactly to the floor, but she seemed gazing upon the beautiful plain of Granada, which lay like a stretch of Paradise far below them. He was looking in her face, for there was something of wild beauty, of the shy grace which one sees in a half-tamed bird, which would have drawn the eyes of a less interested person upon the gipsy girl, as she stood there with the radiant moonlight falling upon her like a veil. As she looked forth a shade of sadness fell upon her face, singular as it was beautiful, for in her wild life the passions seldom found repose enough for that gentle twilight of the soul, sadness. But it was both strange and lovely, that unwonted softness, the first sweet hush of civilization upon her meteor-like spirit. Still he could see her eyes glitter through those curling lashes, thick, long, inky as night, but nothing could entirely shut out the wonderful radiance of those eyes.

“What are you looking at so earnestly, my bird?” said the young man, reaching forth his hand as if to draw her closer to his side.

But she hung back, and for the first time seemed to shrink from him.

42“Will you not speak? Are you afraid of me, Aurora?” he added with a tone of feeling that changed her face in an instant.

“Afraid! no, no—that is not the word—but this moment, something came over me as I looked upon our fires up the ravine yonder. It seems as if every cave were full of light this evening, and our people—my people—were rejoicing over something.”

“Well, child, and what then? Why should this make you shrink away from me thus?” questioned the young man, smiling gently upon her as he spoke.

“It may be over his return.”

She spoke the word with a sort of gasp, and of her own accord crept close to his side, drawing a deep breath as he folded her with his arm.

“His return! Of whom do you speak, little one?”

“Of—of Chaleco,” faltered the gipsy child.

“And who is Chaleco?”

“Our chief—the Gipsy Count of our people—the husband they have given to me!”

“The husband they have given to you!” cried the young Englishman, flinging aside his arm, and drawing back—“the husband, Aurora!”

Aurora started back, even as he did, for she was not a woman to be spurned, child and gipsy though she was. She did not speak, but her eyes flashed, and her lips began to curl. She was a proud wild thing, that young Gitana; and the fire of her race began to kindle up beneath the love that had smothered it so long.

“Aurora, why did you not tell me of this earlier? How could I think it—you, who in my own country would yet be so mere a child—how could I dream that you were already married?”

“I did not say that,” cried the young girl, and her eyes became dazzling in the moonlight, so eager was she to make herself understood. “It is not yet—he, Chaleco, my grandmother, 43all the tribe say that, it must be—and I know that he is to hurry home the sweetmeats and presents from Seville.”

“The sweetmeats? What have sweetmeats to do with us?”

“Nothing, I dare say; perhaps you do not use them; but with us there is no marriage without sweetmeats, a ton or more. I heard Chaleco say once that he would dance knee deep in them when I become his—his”——

She broke off, and her face became dusky with the hot blood that rushed over it, for the Englishman, spite of his anger and of his sharp interest in the subject, burst into a fit of merry laughter.

“Why do you laugh?” she said, with trembling lips—“does it please you that they will marry me to Chaleco—that my life must end then?”

“What do you mean, Aurora? I never saw you weep, but your voice seems choked with tears. Tell me what is this trouble that threatens us? What is it makes you weep, for I see now that your eyes are full, that your cheeks are wet? Come close to me, darling, say, what is it? Not my foolish laughter, I could not help it, child, the idea of dancing one’s self into married life through an ocean of sweetmeats was too ridiculous!”

“It may be,” said Aurora, gently, for the tears she was shedding had quenched all her anger. “It does not seem so to us, but then a poor child who cannot help fearing death a little, when she knows that the grave lies beyond all this, it may well trouble her.”

“The grave, Aurora!—what has driven you mad? The grave for you, my pretty wild bird? Nay, nay, leave this sort of nervousness to our fine ladies at home. Here it is pure nonsense.”

“Hush!” exclaimed my mother, and her eyes flashed like lightning as she turned them around the vast chamber. “That was a sound; surely I heard some one move.”

“I hear nothing,” said the young man, listening and speaking 44low. “It was a bat probably, flitting across the dome—these things are common, you know”——

“Yes, yes! but yonder the shadows are moving.”

“I see nothing!”

“But I did,” whispered the young girl, wildly, “I did!”

“It might have been something sweeping between the moonlight and the window,” suggested her companion, who, quite ignorant of any great danger in being watched, felt little anxiety about the matter.

“This was no cypress bough, no bat trying its wings in the night. Such movements are common here, but they do not chill one to the soul like this—see!”

The gipsy placed her little hands in those of the young man, and though she clasped her fingers hard together both her hands and arms trembled till they shook his.

“What does all this mean, Aurora?” he questioned, earnestly. “I thought nerves were only for fine ladies.”

There was a slight sarcasm in his voice, but the girl did not seem to heed it. Her great wild eyes continued to roam over the ambassador’s chamber, and she listened, not to him, but for something that seemed lurking in a distant corner of the room. At length she drew a deep breath as if inexpressibly relieved, and lifted her eyes to his again.

“It is gone,” she said, smiling uneasily—“it is gone!”

“What is gone?”

“I don’t know, but something has just left this room: I can breathe again.”

“Did you see any one depart?”

“No!”

“Did you hear it?”

“No!”

“Then how could you be certain?”

“I felt it.”

“How?”

“Did you never feel certain of a presence which you neither saw nor heard?”

45“I do not know; perhaps yes,” replied the young man, thoughtfully; “the atmosphere of a particular person sometimes does seem to enwrap us, but this is visionary speculation. I did not think these vagaries could haunt a wild, fresh, untaxed brain like yours. They have hitherto seemed to me purely the result of an over-refined intellect.”

“It seemed to me as if my grandmother were close by,” said the gipsy.

“Your grandmother! I thought she never left her cave—her home!”

“I know that—she could not reach this place—you must be right. But why should the bare thought have made me tremble if she was not here—I who never tremble, at least from dread?”

“And if not from dread, what is the power that can make you tremble?” inquired the youth, bending his mischievous eyes smilingly upon her.

She did not speak, but the little hands, still clasped in his, began to quiver like newly-caught ring-doves. Those wonderful eyes were lifted to his, luminous still, for all the dews of her young soul could not have quenched their brilliancy—but so flooded with love-light, so eloquent of the one great life passion, that the smile died on his lip. There was something almost startling in the thought that his hand had stricken the crystal rock from which such floods of brightness gushed forth. He felt like one who had, half in sport, aroused some sleeping spirit, which must henceforth be a destiny to him—an angel or a demon in his path forever.

“You almost make me tremble,” he whispered, bending forward and kissing her upturned forehead softly, and with a sort of awe. “Come, love, come, let us walk; this still moonlight lies upon us both like a winding-sheet.”

“Yes, yes, let us go,” cried the gipsy eagerly, and gliding down the spacious hall, the two moved on, seeking that exquisite colonnade from which the Moors commanded a view of the whole valley and plain in which Granada stands. Now all 46was darkness. The slender marble shafts blended and bedded in with coarse mortar, were scarcely visible. The moonbeams broke against the rude walls, and fell powerless from the beautiful arches which they had once flooded with silvery light; but the lovers walked on through all this gloom reassured, and with their thoughts all centred in each other once more. Aurora forgot her fears, and he was not of an age or temperament to yield himself long to gloomy fancies.

At length they entered a small chamber, still in good repair, and flooded with a moonlight which swept through the delicate columns of a small balcony or temple that jutted from the outer wall. The pavement seemed flagged with solid silver, the moonbeams lay so hard and unbrokenly upon it, and received these exquisite shadows as virgin ivory takes the soft traces of an artist’s pencil. The glow of rich fresco paintings broke out from the walls, brilliant as when the colors were first laid on by order of that Vandal Charles. In the soft scenic obscurity, the deformity or mutilations of time were unseen. You missed the frost-like Moorish tracery from over that bed of colors, but scarcely felt the loss amid the misty gorgeousness that replaced it.

They passed through this room and went out upon the marble colonnade. Nothing but the delicate Moorish shafts I have mentioned stood between them and the beautiful plain of Granada. Lights still sparkled in all directions over the old city, as if heaven had sent down a portion of its stars to illuminate a spot that so nearly resembled itself. The gentle undulations of the plain were broken into hills and ridges of the richest green. The soft haze blended with the moonlight where it lay upon the horizon. The mountains that overlooked all this, on the left, were cut up with ravines full of black shadows, green as emerald at the base, glittering with snow at the top.

Close by was that belt of huge dark trees, sweeping around the old fortress, with glimpses of the Darro breaking up through the dusky foliage—on the right, a dim convent nestled among 47the hills, and nearer yet, the vine-draped ascent of Sierra del Sol, with its mountain villa, its Darro waters, its orange terrace, and rose hedges, all filling the sweet night with melody and fragrance! Do you wonder that they forgot themselves?—that they looked on a scene like this filled only with a delicious sense of its beauty?

The air was balmy with fragrance, yet cool from the mountain snows, invigorating, and still voluptuous. The entire stillness, too—nothing was astir but the sweet, low sounds of nature, the rustle of myrtle thickets, the mournful shiver of a cypress tree as the wind sighed through it, the movement of a bird in its nest.

Is it strange, I say, that all this beauty became food to the love that filled their young lives with its first tumultuous emotions? That while they forgot that love, and thought only of the scene before them, it grew the stronger from neglect? When they did speak, it was in low tones, and as if a loud word might disturb the entire happiness that reigned in each full heart.

“Aurora, you have been here many times before, and at this hour, perhaps—say, have your eyes ever fallen upon the scene when it was beautiful as now?” murmured the young man, dreamily.

“I do not know; I have seen it a thousand times, but never, never felt that it was really beautiful. To-night it seems as if I had just been aroused from sleep—that all my life has been one dull stupor. I shudder at the remembrance of what I was. I pant for new scenes of beauty—new emotions, these are so full of joy. Tell me, Busne, my own, own Busne, does happiness like this never kill? I grow faint with it as one does when the orange trees are thick overhead, and burdened with blossoms. My breath comes heavily as if laden with their fragrance. I long to creep away into the shadows, yonder, and cry myself to sleep.”

“Why do you wish to weep, my bird? Tears are for the unhappy.”

48“Yet you see that I am weeping; my eyes are blinded; the lights down yonder seem floating in a mist. I cannot see, and yet I know that you are smiling there in the moonlight. It is happiness, oh, such happiness that floods my eyes.”

He was not smiling, or if he had been for one moment, the impulse died of itself the next. Educated as he had been, hemmed in by conventionalities, it was impossible not to be startled by the wildness, the depth of feeling revealed by this strange child. The very reckless innocence with which she exposed every sensation as it arose in her heart—the intensity of feeling thus betrayed made him thoughtful, nay, anxious. It was only for a brief time, however. Before Aurora could notice his abstraction it had disappeared.

“Is it, indeed, love for me, Aurora, that makes you so happy?” he questioned with fond egotism.

“I do not know; to-night I scarcely know myself. Love! it has a soft, sweet sound—but does not mean enough. Oh, if you could speak Rommany now, in our language are such words; oh, how insipid your word love is when compared to them.”

In a deep, passionate voice, the very tones of which seemed to thrill and burn into the heart, she uttered some words in pure Rommany, that language which has yet been traced to no given origin. Like ourselves, it is an outcast, vagabond dialect, which baffles investigation.

He understood nothing of what she said. But her eyes so dazzlingly brilliant; her lips kindled to a vivid red, as it were, by the burning words that passed through them; the exquisite modulations of each tone, all had a powerful effect upon the young man—powerful, but not that which might have been expected, for it filled his mind with distrust.

She did not heed the change in his countenance. Juliet herself was never more thoroughly inspired or more trusting. Crafty in all things else, our women are single-hearted as children in their love. Truth itself is not more constant. Religion does not give you a trust more perfect—religion—love 49is a religion to them, they have no better, poor, wandering creatures, bereft of all things, home, name, nationality, faith. But all people must have something that they deem holy, something upon which the soul can lean for strength and comfort. Happier nations put faith in a God, we poor outcasts have only our household affections, and we keep them sacred as your altars.

Though the gipsy adopts the faith of any nation that gives him protection, becomes Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Idolater, as the case may be, it is all a pretence. In his soul he loathes the object that he craftily seems to worship.

But the Englishman knew nothing of this. He had no idea of the rigid bonds with which antique custom hedges in the domestic affections in a gipsy household. These affections are the most sacred thing known to us. I have said that as a people we have no other religion.

With all this ignorance of our customs, how could he comprehend a creature like that, with her unreserve, her passion so vivid, that it struggled constantly for some new medium of expression, and grew impatient of the stately Spanish, and the few English words that seemed to chill every impulse as she strove to frame it into utterance. He could not believe that a woman trained to deception, wild, unchecked, nay, taught to believe the right wrong, was in everything that related to her own womanly tenderness true as gold—honest as infancy.

He shrunk from this poor child then, as her own language gushed up and swept the cold Spanish from her lips. It seemed to him that she must have uttered those words before; perhaps to some traveller-dupe like himself; perhaps to Chaleco—Chaleco. He began to dwell upon that name with jealous eagerness, and coupled it with the words of Rommany that still trembled on Aurora’s lips. For the first time he began to doubt the poor gipsy girl; yet I, who know the women of his own people to the soul, say to you most solemnly, that among the best of his fair compatriots he might have searched 50a life-time, and in vain, for a young heart so pure in every loving impulse, so thoroughly virtuous as that which beat within the velvet bodice of the little Gitana.

“Aurora, look in my face,” he said, seizing both her hands as she ceased speaking.

She did look in his face with a glance that ought to have shamed him—a glance, smiling, fond, and yet so void of evil. He might have searched in those eyes till doomsday, and found nothing there but a beautiful reflection of himself.

“Aurora, you have repeated these heathenish words before!”

He made the assertion somewhat faintly, for something in her look half-smothered the suspicion as it arose to his lips.

“Before! when?” she answered, in smiling surprise.

“To Chaleco, perhaps.”

“To Chaleco—oh, never; I could not speak thus to Chaleco,” and the poor girl shuddered at the sound of that name, as an apostate would when reminded of his old faith.

“But—your chief, this Chaleco, he has uttered them to you.”

“He—where—at what time?”

“Here, perhaps, by moonlight, as you are now standing by me.”

She looked at him with a troubled and questioning eye. He was a mystery to her then, and the child was striving to fathom the new feeling that she saw in his countenance.

“No! Chaleco never came here with me at night—never at all since we were little children! Have I not told you that he is my betrothed?”

She spoke sadly, almost in tears.

“Well, is not that a good reason why he of all others should overwhelm you with this sweet Rommany, here by moonlight, as you now stand with me?”

“Oh, that could never happen,” she exclaimed eagerly, “they would take the countship from him—they would drive us both ignominiously from the tribe; you do not know our 51ways, our laws. Of all the men in our tribe, Chaleco would not dare to seek me here.”

“Why?”

“It is not permitted; we are betrothed, and so never must be alone; it would be infamy!”

“And to be here with me, is that nothing?”

“There is no law that keeps us from seeking the Busne. It is our duty. From them we win most gold!”

The young man recoiled.

“Gold, is it for that you come?” he said bitterly. “No, no, I have offered tenfold what she has ever taken. It was not for that you came, Aurora, I had rather die than think it. Speak, child, tell me it was not for gold that you sought me!”

“I dared not go home empty-handed, for the grandame would have given me blows,” answered the poor girl, while tears began to run down her cheeks. “I could not dance to others as in former times; yet I never touched a piece of your coin without feeling all the strength leave me—without longing to hide myself from every one. Of late you have never offered money when I came.”

“I know—I know,” said the young man, quickly, “it seemed like a desecration; I could not do it.”

“Oh, how happy I was to feel this, it made me so grateful, but I was afraid of her. Sometimes I would be for hours getting home, in hopes that she would be asleep?”

“My poor child, I never thought of this. Is the old Sibyl cruel to you, then?”

“Every one is cruel to me now—every one but you; and to-night, it seems sometimes, as if you were joining them. What have I done that you should make me weep like the rest?”

“Nothing, my poor Aurora, nothing. The fault is mine; I was annoyed by what you told me of this Chaleco; it made me unreasonable.”

“Was that all?” cried the poor little gipsy, brightening up, and pressing her lips softly down into the palm of his offered hand.

52He made no answer, but drew her gently toward him, and for a time they stood together in thoughtful silence. Their eyes were bent on the same object, one that they had usually avoided; for there was little promise of tranquillity in that direction.

Amid the luxuriance of the scene before them, so full of all that might reasonably win the attention, their eyes were fascinated by one object alone, and that so dreary, so uninviting, that it aroused nothing but ideas of sin and wretchedness, unhappy subjects for hearts laden as theirs were with the first sweet impulses of affection.

They were looking towards the Barranco, that bleak ravine, cut like a huge wound in the beautiful hills, on whose barren sides the gipsy dwellings were burrowed. Even with the soft moonlight sleeping over its sterility, the ravine had a miserable aspect, choked up with great, spectre-like aloes and coarse prickly pears—with a few dusty fig trees, and stunted vines trailing themselves along the meagre soil that just served to cover them with a sparse growth of leaves.

These unseemly objects were now blended into one mass of blackness in the depth of the ravine, giving lurid force to some dozen forges in full blast, that shot their weird fires from the open caves above.

This was no unusual thing. The gipsies all over the world have been workers of iron from the beginning, and those of Granada were ever most busy at their craft after sunset. But this evening the fires seemed to glow with unusual brilliancy. Long lines of light shot across the ravine. Men and women moved to and fro before the open caves. It was a scene that Dante would have loved.

“It is strange,” said the Englishman, musingly, “it is strange that any human being could select that miserable place to live in. There is something unearthly—fiendish in the choice.”

“Choice,” answered Aurora, sadly, “whoever allows choice to the Zincali? No, no, if there is one spot on earth more dreary than another, it is set aside for them.”

53“And you, Aurora, so delicate, so full of imagination, how can you live there, burrowed up in the earth like some beautiful wild animal? Surely, surely any fate must be better than that!”

The young man looked at her earnestly. His words had not been addressed to her, but were an argument against his own conscience—a reply to some undercurrent of thought all the time going on in his mind. He was about to say something more, to utter the thought that was taking form in his own bosom, but she looked at him so earnestly—her large, fond eyes so full of innocent love-light sought his with so sweet a trust—he could not go on. The holy influence of true affections clung to his soul like fetters of gold. The evil spirit tempting him so powerfully was not strong enough to fling them off.

Her ignorance, her helplessness, what a defence it proved against all his knowledge—for young as he appeared, the stranger was an old man in experience! He had begun to live early. Youth had been swept from his path as if by a tornado. The wrong that he might do then could have none of the excuses which inexperience gives. He was no ordinary person, but had lived more in those brief years than many an old man.

She saw no second meaning in his words, but turning her eyes once more upon the Barranco, answered according to her own innocent interpretation of their import.

“It does seem dark to me now. I never felt it till lately, but the caves are very dismal, close, smoky; the air seems to smother me at night. Besides, I am afraid it is only in the old woods yonder, or up here, lifted half way into the sky, that I can breathe freely. You are looking at the ravine,” she added, “and I—now I can feel how coarse, how dark, how like a den for wild animals it seems to you—for within the last few weeks I have felt a strange love of beautiful things—for with them I can think of you.”

“Then you never think of me in connection with that infernal hollow yonder?” questioned the young man.

“What, yonder? Oh, no, within the darkness that was once 54my home, surrounded by those strong, fierce men, grimed with iron dust, and smelling of the mules they have been tending—I fold you deep in my heart, afraid to turn my thoughts that way—I bury you in my sleep, and strive not to exist till I can escape hither. It seems like two worlds, this, where you sometimes come, and yonder where I cannot even think of you.”

“But here you are happy even though I am not present.”

“Ah, yes, here I am free—here I have such dreams—oh, a thousand times brighter than any that ever come to my sleep. Sometimes I think these soft, sweet dreams are better than being with you.”

“And in these dreams are we ever separated?” questioned the youth, pursuing the same undercurrent of thought that had swept through his bosom all that evening. But she did not take his meaning; the time for reflection had not arrived; she was too busy with her own sensations for anything but dreams.

“Separated! oh, no. What would the brightest of these dreams be worth if you were not in the midst? I love to come up here just before nightfall, when the snowy top of Sierra Nevada seems sprinkled with roses, and a soft floating haze, now purple, now golden, settles upon the plain, the hills, and the beautiful old city—when the insects are nestling themselves down to sleep, and the nightingales send gushes of music through the woods. How I love to sit here, perfectly alone, while the colors float together in soft masses on the walls around, and all this vast heap of ruin shapes itself into beauty again.

“Then all that is ruinous, all that is gloomy disappears; the marble pillars glitter with gold again, a network of snow breaks over these paintings. From that marble slab in the corner, perforated in a hundred places, floats up a cloud of perfume. I feel it in my garments, and penetrating the folds of my hair. I go forth. We go forth, for you are always by my side. The long colonnade yonder glitters in the twilight; the filagree arches are tipped with a rosy hue. The shadows are all of a faint purple; 55the pavements gleam beneath our feet like beds of precious stones. The nightingales are heard more faintly as we penetrate deep into the building, overpowered by the silvery rush of fountains at play in the courts.

“The myrtle hedges rustle softly as we pass into the Court of Lions. There in my dreams I replace all that has been torn away; the hundred slender columns that support those filagree arches are once more burnished with gold. The old tints break out afresh from the capitals, wreathing their endless variety with radiant colors. The azulejo pillars glowing like twisted rainbows, all come back softened by a mental haze that creeps over me at such times.

“We leave the court—pass on through those wonderful arches, and enter the saloons which people say were once the most private retreat of the Moorish kings. But they are never in my mind—those dead monarchs. It is for another—only one—that I heap those alcoves in which sultanas have slept with silken cushions, and mingle cool drinks from the snows of Alpujarras; those decorations upon the wall, so like the rare antique lace with which queens adorn themselves—that saloon, with its great pillars of marble gleaming in the light like solid masses of pearl, and crowned with ornaments so rich, that when broken to pieces each fragment is a marvel of itself. Even these are not beautiful enough for one whom my soul makes lord of all!

“For him I bring back the past. Rare colors start up, fresh and vivid, from under that exquisite lace-work, where you can just see that they have existed. Stalactites starred with gold penetrate downward like a rich conglomeration of pearls escaping through a thousand rainbows embedded in the ceiling. It is a luxury to breathe the air in these rooms, so rich with perfumes, yet kept so pure and cool by the innumerable fountains that penetrate every corner with their dreamy murmurs.”

56

There had been no absolute disagreement between Aurora and her lover; yet with that keen intuition which belongs to love, and which becomes almost superhuman when love blends with genius in a woman’s heart, she felt that he was disturbed, that she had done something to arouse painful thoughts, which led him, for the time, away from her. She did not weep—he had told her that grief annoyed him—but in the shadow of that beautiful portico her little heart might heave, unnoticed, beneath its velvet bodice, and, spite of herself, tears would swell up into her great, mournful eyes.

“You seem weary, little one,” he said at length, taking 60heed of her drooping attitude. “Let us find a place to sit down. I also begin to feel tired; we have been wandering in the ruins these three hours!”

He moved on, and she kept by his side, with her face averted, that he might not see her tears. They crossed an angle of the court, and entering one of the arches, passed through an open door into the Sala de los Abencerrages. The marble basin of a fountain, now dry, occupied the centre of this room, and upon its rounded edge the two seated themselves.

Here the moonbeams came more faintly, penetrating the open work cloister, and throwing fantastic shadows on the pavement. Beautiful stalactites hung over them, peering downward, as it were, from a bed of shadows. Portions of the walls were dim. The rest gleamed out, with all their delicate tracery revealed, like luminous frost-work, such as you, of a colder climate, find upon your window-panes, when the mornings are unusually cold.

They had been sitting there some minutes, yet I do not think they had spoken. His arm was around her, and it is impossible that he should not have felt the swelling of her heart, for, as I have said, it was flooded with a tender grief, brought on by that hard, hard thing to bear, the first reproof from beloved lips. He was a man of strong feelings, but not one to utter those feelings much in words. A degree of proud reserve followed him even in his moments of deepest tenderness.

No man ever guessed half that was going on in his heart, and what is stranger still, no woman ever knew the whole. There might have been something of pride in his sensations when he saw the entire control that he had gained over that poor, wild heart. For what human being is above pride in that conquest which sweeps the entire life of another into his bosom? But he was touched also with a feeling of sadness, of regret for having moodily reproved her for what was, after all, the spirit of her race. Still he did not speak these regrets, but drew her closer to him, and taking her little brown hand in his, pressed it to his lips.

61He felt her heart leap against his arm, but she only crept a little closer to him, trembling all over, and smiling through her tears.

“And do you indeed love me so much?” he said, with a tone of sadness in his voice, for he was asking himself where must all this end; and the answer that presented itself made his better nature recoil.

She drew his hand toward her, and pressed her lips upon the palm. There was something peculiar and child-like in this act. With all her unreserve, it was the only outward proof that she had ever given him of the passion that was transfiguring her whole nature.

While her lips were still upon his palm, he felt her start, listen, and shudder all over. Then clinging to his arm with one hand, she turned her head and looked backward over her shoulder. It was in this chamber that the Abencerrages were supposed to have been beheaded, and a deep, broad stain, which tradition marks out as their blood, discolors half the marble fountain on which the lovers sat. Feeling her shudder, and remarking that her head was turned that way, he supposed that it must be this blood shadow which suddenly occupied her thoughts.

“Nay, how childish,” he was beginning to say; but she broke from his arm, rushed by the fountain, and seizing hold of a slender pillar at the opening of an alcove, all in shadow, as if stricken by some sudden fear, stood peering into the recess.

He arose and was going toward her, when a little object, scarcely larger than a child of ten years old, and so thin that it seemed but the shadow of something else, passed slowly by him. He would not have believed it human, but for the snake-like glitter of two eyes that gleamed their rage upon him, and gave vitality to the shadow as it passed.

Aurora still clung to the column, waving to and fro as if she must have fallen but for that support. She turned her face to his as he came up, but the pallor that lay upon it, the fear that 62quivered over limb and feature, had utterly changed her. He would not have known the face again.

“Aurora, what is this? What terrible thing has happened?” he exclaimed, reaching forth his arm to support her. But she shrank away, shuddering, and still clinging to the pillar, she writhed herself behind it, whispering hoarsely,

“It is my grandmother; she has heard us!”

The Englishman was enough affected by this to hasten into the court, and satisfy himself that the person who had passed him was indeed Aurora’s grandmother. He saw her gliding away through the shadowy side of the cloisters, and it seemed to him that muttered wrath and shrill curses were blended with the silvery rush of the fountain.

The sound struck him with strange terror. Still ignorant of the exact danger that might threaten him or the poor Gitanilla, he could not account for the cold thrill that passed through his frame as the curses pierced to his ear through the sweet fall of those waters.

He went back into the Sala de los Abencerrages, and found my mother crouching down by the marble basin, with her wild eyes turned toward the entrance.

“Was it she? Did she speak?” whispered the poor child, rising with difficulty and moving toward him.

The young man was shocked by this wild terror, so disproportioned, as he thought, to the cause. He took both her hands in his and shook them gently, hoping thus to arouse her from the trance of fear that seemed to have benumbed the very life in her veins.

“Sit down by me, Aurora—sit down, child, here in your old place, and tell me what all this means.”

He spoke with gentle authority, and without a shadow of the terror that shook every limb of her body. The sound of his clear, bold voice seemed to reassure her. She crept forward with timid hesitation, and allowed him to place her by his side.

“Now tell me, child, what troubles you thus? If that vicious 63shadow was indeed your grandmother, she has gone away quietly enough, no harm has come of it.”

“You little know,” said the Gitanilla, still keeping her eyes upon the entrance—“you little know our people, or her.”

“But what is there for me to learn? Tell me what this fear means?”

“It means,” answered the poor thing, locking her hands hard and pressing them down upon her trembling knees—“it means that they will poison me.”

“Poison you! this is the madness of fear,” exclaimed the young man, impatiently.

“Or perhaps stone me to death in some dark hollow of the mountains, the whole tribe hunting down one poor creature for her love of the Busne, Chaleco among the first.”

“Aurora, are you mad? Has this miserable little witch crazed you?”

“You will not believe me—you have not seen the poison drao scattered into the wholesome food which an enemy is to eat—or a poor girl strangled in her bed, and buried in some rude pass of the mountains, on the very day when she was to have danced at her own wedding festival.”

“But this is murder!” cried the young man. “The laws of Spain will not permit men to kill their females in cold blood.”

“Our laws are older than those of Spain,” answered the Gitanilla, with a certain degree of pride in her tone, as if she gloried in the antiquity of the very custom that was to crush her. “Our laws are older and better kept than those of the Busne; traditions do not run so far back as their origin. They are fixed and unchangeable—he who breaks them dies!”

“But what have you done, innocent child, that these laws, however strengthened by antiquity, should fall on you?”

“I love you, a Busne—one of the race we hold accursed—our enemies—our oppressors. I am alone with you, and have been for hours, here in these vast ruins. But that is nothing; that they approve so long as it brings gold; but I love you! 64I have said it in words, in my looks, every way in which love can speak when it burdens the heart with its sweet joy. She, my weird grandame, has seen this. Did I not feel that she was close by in the ambassador’s hall?”

“But they dare not kill you for that—for the innocent affection which you could not help—affection that has dreamed of no wrong.”

“She has seen us here, sitting together; she has heard me, heard you. They will believe me an outcast of the tribe, and kill me as they would a viper!”

The young man arose, walked out into the court, and began to pace up and down the glittering pavement, hurriedly, as one seeks rapid motion when some great mental or moral struggle is going on in the mind. Gradually his steps became more rapid; his brow flushed, and with an impetuous movement of one hand, as if thus dashing aside all further consideration of a harassing subject, he sought the Gitanilla again.

“Aurora,” he said, in a hurried manner, “you shall never go back into that nest of fiends—look up, child—you are mine now. They shall not touch a hair of your head, or even look upon your face again! Come, what have you to fear? I am powerful—I am rich, and I love you. I struggle against it no longer—it is a duty now, I love you! Go with me to my own country—I cannot give you this sky or these fairy ruins, but you shall be surrounded with beautiful things nevertheless. You shall study, learn; forget that miserable ravine burrowed with human fox-holes, and swarming with murderers. Come, Aurora, look up, I long to see that cold, dead color swept away. Smile, smile my bird, we will not part again.”

When a nation has but one virtue, how powerful that one must be. There is much good in every human heart that God has created, and when all that good pours itself into a single channel, it has a power and vitality which men of more diffuse cultivation little dream of.

Aurora knew nothing of her lover’s rank, of his wealth, or the thousand barriers that lay between his condition and hers. 65She was aware that sometimes, when a Gitano becomes wealthy—a rare case—he had been known to wed a Busne wife, but that such unions invariably made the Gitano an object of suspicion and dislike to his own people. If this privilege were permitted to the men, it might be—she could not tell, no case had ever come beneath her observation—extended to the females also. But then a betrothed female like herself—the promised wife of a count—how was this to be hoped? All these thoughts, full of doubt and trouble, came upon my poor mother while the Englishman stood impatiently—for his restrained manner had entirely disappeared—waiting her reply.

“They would not let me go—I am betrothed. No one of our females have ever married with the Busne,” she said, at last, in a voice that betrayed the utter despondency that possessed her.

The young man started, and a flush swept over his forehead. At first he found it difficult to speak. How very, very hard it is for a man, whose impulses are all honorable, to express a wrong wish in words! But after a brief struggle he became cold and grave. She must understand his full meaning. He would not deceive—would not even persuade her. If she went with him it must be with a full knowledge of her position, of the impossibility that any marriage could ever exist between them.

Some men would have glossed this over, covered it with transcendental poetry, smothered the sin with rose-leaves. He did nothing of the kind. Knowing the wrong, he would neither conceal this conviction from himself nor her. Therefore it was that, with a cold, almost severe conciseness, he explained himself. True, there was little merit in this; it was rather a peace offering to his own pride than a homage to truth. From all that he had heard of the gipsies, he did not believe that anything he was saying could make much difference to the Gitanilla. But it was due to himself, and so he spoke plainly.

She understood him at last. It was with great difficulty, 66for the idea entered her mind as a proposition of murder would have done. It dawned upon her by degrees, arousing and kindling the wild Gitana blood in her veins with every new thought. She heard him through, not without attempting to speak, but the effort seemed strangling her. He saw that she writhed faintly, once or twice, but heeded it not and went on.

At length she sprang up, her cheeks in a dusky blaze, her eyes full of lightning. Her little tawny hand was clenched like a vice and stamping her foot upon the pavement, she struggled for voice. It broke out at last, loud and ringing, like the cry of an angry bird.

“I am a Gitana—a Gitana. Did you take me for a Busne?”

Before he could answer, or had half recovered from the surprise into which this storm of passion threw him, she had gone. He saw her dart into the cloister, and caught one glimpse of a shadow that seemed to leap across the court, but even that had disappeared before he could reach the broad moonlight.

Clare stood in the Court of Lions, absolutely bewildered by the suddenness of what had happened. As he listened the sound of a footstep, heavier than the one he sought—but of this he did not think at the time—reached him from the lower end of the court. He moved hurriedly in that direction, and just as he reached the azulejo pillars, that still retain their first beauty in that portion of the ruin, a man came toward him, but keeping behind the columns with a sort of cowardly ferocity, like one who was seeking an opportunity to strike in the dark.

67The Englishman paused. There was something in the appearance of this man, closely as he kept to the shadows, which reminded him of an unpleasant adventure that he had met on his route to Granada. The idea was enough. He darted forward and stood face to face with the leader of a prowling band of gipsies who had robbed him, not two months before, on his way from Seville.

The man seemed to recognize him also. At first he slunk away as if with a hope of concealment, but a slight jingle of the numerous silver tags on his jacket, and a stealthy movement of the right arm downward, while his eyes followed the Englishman like a basilisk, were significant of some more vicious intent.

Slowly, and as a weary man might change his position, the gipsy drew up his figure, and a gleam of moonlight shooting through the network of an arch close by, fell upon the blade of a Manchegan knife which he held with a backward thrust of the arm, slowly raising the point to a level with the heart he wished to reach.

Few strangers are mad enough to go unarmed in Spain. The Englishman was bold as a lion too, but with all this he could not have drawn the pistol from his bosom before that knife had done its work. Still he made the effort, keeping his eyes steadily on the man, and with something of the effect which such looks have upon fierce animals. But the point of that murderous blade rose higher and higher. In another moment it would have been sped; but on the instant a sharp clutch was laid on the assassin’s arm, and the gipsy Sibyl thrust herself between the combatants.

“Back, Chaleco—begone, I say. How dare you step in between me and my right? Think you Papita wants your knife to help her?” cried the fierce old witch, grinding her sharp teeth together at each pause of her speech.

“But the wrong is mine,” answered Chaleco fiercely. “Aurora was my betrothed: let her die—let her die; but he, I will send him before!”

68He struggled with the old woman who had clutched the knife with her tawny fingers and clung to him, hissing out her wrath in his face like a wild cat.

“Die! who says Aurora shall die? Is she not mine, the grand-daughter of a count? Who shall condemn her but myself? When I have said she is guilty, then you may talk of wrong—not before. Go home. How dare you follow my grand-daughter when she goes about her work!”

But the gipsy shook her off, wrenching the knife from her clutch with a violence that flung her to the ground.

She started fiercely up. The red turban had fallen from her grey hairs, and they streamed around her like a torn banner that has once been white. Her eyes gleamed and flashed with lurid fire. She flung up her long, flail-like arms, and shrieked forth curses that seemed absolutely to blast the air around like a simoon. She spoke in Rommany, but the curses that came seething from her heart were more horrible to the Englishman, than if he had understood the words. They cowed even the gipsy chief. He gave up his knife abjectly, and casting a fierce, sullen look on the Englishman, slunk away.

This sullen submission appeased the Sibyl’s fury. She followed him into the darkest portion of the cloister, and seemed to drop suddenly down from threats to expostulations, which ended at last in low, wheedling tones, which gradually died away in the melody of the fountain.

The Englishman looked around like one in a dream. Not fifteen minutes had elapsed since he sat in the Sala de los Abencerrages, with the Gitanilla so close to him that he could hear every full throb of her heart. Had she gone forever? That storm of fiendish passion which he had just witnessed, was it real? How still, how deliciously tranquil was the Alhambra! Had that soft moonlight looked but a moment since on the assassin’s knife close to his own heart? It seemed an impossibility. He could not realize the terrible danger which even yet threatened him.

It was long before he could, by all the efforts of his strong 69will, bring his thoughts under any degree of control. But he did not leave the place, for the first reasonable reflection aroused the keenest anxiety for the Gitanilla. Her fears of death were not all fancies then. He remembered the old Sibyl’s words; she had only claimed the right of vengeance as her own. The proof which he held in his own person, was enough to convince him that no laws could prevent crime in a people to whom most crimes are held as virtues. Had he not been plundered of property, and saved from death almost by a miracle, in spite of the Spanish laws?

His anxiety regarding the poor gipsy girl became tormenting. Where could he seek her? Not at the ravine; surely she would not go there, knowing the fiendish inhabitants so well, and fearing all that she feared. The storm of her passion had been so violent it could not last. The poor child to save her own life must come back again. He would wait.

He did wait, hour after hour, till the moon went down, and nothing but the bright, holy stars kept watch over the Alhambra. He traversed the saloons, explored the cloisters, and leaving all that was beautiful behind him, wandered off among those dark red towers that harmonized better with the gloomy fears that possessed him.

Still he continued the search, clambering up those broken walls, tramping his way over wild flowers and weeds alike—called to a distance, sometimes, by the rustle of a bird, and mocked every instant by shadows that proved unreal as his hopes. But he would not believe that Aurora had left the ruins. Besides, rest was impossible. Alone in the little fonda he must have gone mad with anxiety.

Twenty times that night did he pass hurriedly through the Gate of Justice, hoping to find her returning from the woods. He searched the whole uneven sweep of those walls, clambering up the declivities, and finding relief in the physical exertion which covered his forehead and saturated his hair with moisture.

When the first rosy light of morning quivered on the snows 70of Alpujarras, he returned to the little fonda so weary, so hopelessly dejected that he could hardly stand. His fate day had come round again.

Any person who had seen that old gipsy Sibyl tearing her way up the steep ascent of the Barranca that night, must have fancied some evil spirit had broken loose, and was searching for prey among the gaunt aloes and ragged prickly pears. The sharp hiss with which she rent her garments from the harrowing thorns—the fiendish energy with which she broke away from each fresh grasp, betrayed a state of tormenting wrath which Dante alone could describe. There was a force in this bitterness, a concentration of gall that imbued her withered frame through and through with frightful power. Her aged limbs quivered with new life—she walked upright, flung aside her stick, and, grasping the thorny plants firmly with her hands, drew herself up the hill. The sharp leaves cut her like a knife, tore her hands and drew long purple lines down her lean arms; but no blood followed. Her veins seemed withered up, or barely moistened by the gall that fed them with bitter vitality.

The ravine was choked up with darkness; the fires were all out, and the caves closed. Not a sparkle of the Darro could be seen through the black mist that lay below; and the soft winds that scattered fragrance from a wilderness of blossoms on the Sierra del Sol, whose palace was crowned by a few rays of light from the dusky moon, only served to stir the stifling dust, through which the fierce old Sibyl waded ankle deep.

With all her toil, the old woman held fast to her crimson skirt, which she gathered up in front and hugged to her bosom 71attempting thus to keep a firm grasp on a mass of freshly gathered herbs, which protruded from its folds, scattering a fragrant odor upon the dusty air, as she crushed them tighter and tighter in her ascent up the hill.

At length she reached the door of her own cave and entered. The lamp which she had left burning in its niche was pouring forth a volume of mingled flame and smoke, and a few embers glowed still among the white ashes that lay in heaps under the brasier. A rustle of garments, a faint, shuddering shriek came from a dark angle of the cave as the door was flung open. The old Sibyl did not seem to heed it; but turned her eyes that way with a look of blank ferocity, and moved on without appearing to regard my poor mother who sat cowering on the ground, her limbs gathered up beneath the gorgeous masses of her dress, and her great gleaming eyes following each movement of the crone with a scared and shrinking gaze, like those of an animal which feels itself bound for the slaughter.

As if unconscious that any living thing occupied the miserable dwelling with herself, the old woman shook the herbs from her garments, crouched down by the brasier, and, bending her crooked fingers like the claws of a bird, began to rake the scattered embers in a heap from the ashes, blowing them fiercely with her lips till her face was lighted up by the glow like that of a fiend. Half stifled with the smoke, she began to strangle, and her cough sounded through the cave like the bark of a dog. Still she would not leave her work, but sat down on the floor, straightened a fold of her dusty saya between her hands, and commenced blowing up the embers, till her breath came back again.

As the liquid in the bronze vase began to simmer, she gathered up the loose herbs, and after twisting them into fragments with a ferocity that sent their juice trickling through her fingers, she cast them into the vase. Sometimes, when the stems were tough, she employed her sharp teeth, wrangling with the poisonous fibres like a wild cat over its prey.

This was a fearful proof of the insane wrath that possessed 72her, for she knew well the deadly nature of those herbs, yet remained insensible of the danger, even after her thin lips were swollen and turgid with the poison.

My poor mother, who had cowered in her corner watching all this, could endure the sight no longer; but rising slowly up, crept to her little bed-room and softly closed the door. The old woman eyed her with a sidelong glance as she crept by, but preserved silence and occupied herself with her fire.

Thus an hour passed. Huge drops of perspiration stood on the forehead of my great grandame, for the cave was becoming insufferably warm, and she still bent over her work, imbibing the steam and heat with the endurance of a salamander. At last she lifted the vase from its supporter, and placing a broken bowl upon the floor, drained off perhaps half a pint of dark liquid. This she held up to the lamp and examined closely. A gleam of horrid satisfaction was visible on her face, and she muttered, “They think of distilling the drao—who gave them the secret? Let them boast—let them fancy that the old woman is of no further use. They must come to her for their poison yet. Who else of all the tribe knows the secret, or could distil death into one sweet drop like this?”

She bent over the bowl; her head drooped. For the first time she appeared to think steadily, and mingle her thoughts with something of human feeling.

The fire went out. Heavy smoke, for which there was no outlet, gathered in a cloud of palpable darkness over her head. The poison stood cooling by her side, imbued by a thick, inky blackness, taken, as it were, from her thought; yet, for the first time that night, there was something of human feeling mingled with the bitterness of her nature. It might have been the pale, frightened face of my mother, as she glided by, that awoke a gleam of womanly regret in her fierce bosom. It might have been the memory of some foregone event which this poor child had shared with her; or the sobs that began to issue from the little bed-room, like the stifled moan of an infant, might have softened the iron of her nature.

73It is impossible for me to say which of the thousand strings in that sered heart thrilled to the touch of the guardian angel that always, while there is life, finds some tone of music in a woman’s soul. But one thing is certain, the lurid fire in those wicked eyes grew dull, and was smothered as they watched the poison drao curdle and cool beneath them.

And there was my wretched mother, all this time shut up in the little stifled hole that she called a bed-room. Up to this time, a sort of wild excitement had kept her up. Indignation, terror, a conflict of feelings, which in her return from the Alhambra had given her the speed and strength of a reindeer, still burned in her heart like fire. But the stillness of the cave—the slow, silent preparations which that old woman was making for her death—all had a power to chill even her burning excitement. The heart in her bosom seemed turning to stone. Her limbs began to shrink and quiver with physical dread. She was but a woman, poor thing, nay, a child almost, and death was terrible to her, for the Spanish Gipsy has no bright dream of an after life. They who suffer so much in this world have no hope in death, but that of black oblivion. Why should they wish to prolong misery so griping? Would they not be proscribed, crushed, trampled on through all eternity? Would the Busne grant them a place in heaven, they who have hunted our whole race up and down, till it has been glad to find shelter like serpents in the very bosom of the earth?

My mother was afraid to die. The torture that she then endured seemed preferable to that black, stony, eternal sleep, which the end of life was to her.

In her bed-room was a mutilated fragment of black marble. It was, or had been, the body of a beast joined to a human head. Though worn with time, hacked and broken, the grave, thoughtful beauty of that countenance, the solemn thought that seemed frozen into the stone, imbuing every fragment, must have won attention even from a person who looked upon it only as an antique of wonderful beauty.

This fragment of Egyptian art stood upon the base of a 74Roman pedestal, which the old Sibyl had found years before among the broken rubbish of the Alhambra. It was of a time coeval with the Roman altar, which you may yet find embedded in the Torre del Homenage, and had a value to the antiquarian of which my great grandame was fully aware. Though she would have sold anything for money, this had been an offering to her idol; and she, almost alone among our people, still kept a traditionary hold upon the faith of Egypt. How she became possessed of this antique I never knew; but it was the only thing on earth which she held sacred, and to that she rendered idolatrous devotion.

As my mother sat upon her pallet bed, feeling the unnatural strength ebb from her frame, her eyes fell upon this marble face, turned with its grand serenity of expression toward her. All at once it seemed as if she had found a friend. She remembered the old Sibyl’s faith in this block of stone, and gazed upon it with strange interest. The tumult of her feelings was hushed. The natural yearning, which exists in every female heart, for something to adore, something strong and high, from which she can claim protection, possessed her. She folded her hands in her lap and leaned forward, gazing on the marble face till her eyes were full of tears. Directly she began to sob like a child, and this was the sound that reached the old woman as she bent over her drao.

But that hard old heart soon shook off its human emotions. Brutus was not more stern in his sense of justice, nor did he show less of relenting; the laws of her people must be carried out. She would yield the power of life or death over her grandchild to no inferior member of her tribe; she alone would be judge and executioner. Perhaps there was something of mercy in this; the death she gave with her drao was easy, almost delightful; a sleepy, voluptuous languor seized upon the victim, grew sweeter, deeper, and eternal.

Such was the fate meditated for the poor girl who was sobbing in the next room. The tribe would have stoned her to death. That old Sibyl had a touch of compassion in her murderous 75designs, but she was not the less determined to kill. She took up the drao and set it in the same niche with the swaling lamp. Then she passed into the bed-room softly as a cat, closing the door after her with, great caution, as if they two had not been quite alone.

The poor Gitanilla sat, upon her miserable pallet, looking wistfully toward that antique relic of old Egypt; but she cowered down with a faint cry, as the old woman crept between her and the marble, lifting up one hand as if denouncing her for looking upon a thing that she held in reverence. What passed in that miserable little room I cannot say. My mother never spoke of it; and in her manuscript there was nothing when it came to this part of her story, but great inky scrawls that no one on earth could read.

When the old Sibyl came forth Aurora was upon the ground, her forehead resting against the idol, and murmuring some wild words through a passion of tears.

“Repeat,” said the Sibyl, standing over her, and holding up the heavy iron lamp that flared lividly over the mutilated features of the marble and the wild face of the Gitanilla. “Say it again, thus with your face where it is. If there is a lie on your lips that stone will sear them as with a red hot iron.”

“Oh, grandame, I have spoken truth, nothing but truth. See!” and with a sort of insane awe she pressed her lips upon the broken mouth of the idol two or three times.

The old woman was silent. The lamp shook in her hand; her eyes were fixed upon the idol and the poor creature that clung to it, as if she really expected to see that healthy form fall crisped and withered away from the stone.

The girl turned, clasped her grandame around the knees, and lifting up her eyes, in which was a gleam of wild confidence, exclaimed:

“I am unhurt—I am unhurt—grandame, will you believe me now?”

Still the old woman was silent.

“Grandame, mother of my mother, you will not let me die!”

76Terror and doubt again took possession of the poor thing. She clung closer to the old woman, her eyes dusky with fear; her lips growing pale again.

“Chaleco must have your life—he will not believe you; no, nor will the women of our tribe!”

“But you believe me, grandame!”

“And if I do, what then?”

“You have great power, grandame; our people acknowledge it; the stars make you their mistress. You will save me from Chaleco—from our fierce women”——

“How, little one, how? I am old, they would wrest you from my arms. They treat me like an infant already.”

“Let us leave them and seek the mountains, you and I, grandame. They will not follow us up into the snow peaks!”

“To-night I have clambered up to the Alhambra. It is the first time in ten years; to-morrow my bones will be as stiff as rusted iron. How am I to drag myself up to the mountains? How am I, a count’s wife, to leave his people?”

“I am a count’s daughter, but they wish to kill me!” answered the poor girl, sadly. “You will not let them—say, grandame, that you will save me from the Valley of Stones!”

“They are many and strong—I an old woman, feeble with years!”

“They will stone me—oh, they will stone me! and I am innocent of all they think against me!” still pleaded the Gitanilla.

The old woman was evidently troubled. She shook her head, and cast wistful glances on her broken idol, as if interrogating the stone.

“Let me go by myself, then,” cried the girl, eagerly. “I am told that countries stretch far away beyond the mountains. There they will not know that I am an outcast, and my dancing will get bread enough to eat.”

The old woman did not heed her; she was still interrogating the Egyptian stone. Quick flashes of intelligence shot across her face; some project was evidently taking form in her brain.

77“He will not believe me—Chaleco will be first among them with his story. I have no power to brave the laws, but I can baffle them. Leave old Papita alone for that.”

Now she seemed all alive with eager cunning, turning from the force of her bitter wrath into a crafty old crone, anxious to save the life of her grandchild, it is true, but exulting as much in the thoughts of baffling all the keen hate and power of her tribe.

“Get up, little one: come sit down here on the bed by my side, and let us talk,” she said, passing her hand over the head of my mother, and caressing her with a grim smile.

“You believe me innocent—you will not let them murder me.”

“Yes, yes, my star, I know you are innocent—else, you see the drao yonder—by this time it had been curdling in your blood.”

“Then you will save me! Who is so powerful? Oh, grandame, your little girl will yet live. Who shall dare to contradict the will of Papita?”

“He, Chaleco! ha! ha! he almost braved me to-night: but he shall be brought round”——

The girl turned faint, and grew paler than she had been before that night.

“No, not that!—oh, not that! Let me die, grandmother—let me die. I would rather a thousand times than marry Chaleco.”

The Sibyl laughed till her teeth shone again.

“Marry Chaleco now!—why, child, he would strangle me if I but hinted it! Oh, our people are wise in this generation, wiser than old Papita. We shall see—we shall see!”

“What shall I do, grandame? What can you think of to save me? They will tear me to pieces.”

“What shall I do?—why, take my right as a count’s widow—murder you myself—bury you myself!”

“Grandame!” exclaimed the child, with a cry of horror.

“And when they think your body deep in the Darro,” continued 78the old crone, without noticing the cry, “Papita will be sitting here with gold in her lap, and her pretty little Aurora shall be married to the Busne, and far beyond the mountains!”

Another cry, in which the love of that young heart leaped forth in an agony of joy, made the Sibyl pause; but it was only for a moment.

“Then my little one shall think of the poor old gipsy in her cave, and send more gold—more and more, till power shall indeed return to Papita.”

But my mother sat upon the pallet wringing her hands, and utterly abandoned to her grief once more. That one gleam of joy had turned upon her heart sharper than a sword. She remembered why she had fled from the Alhambra that night.

“What is this?” said the old woman, sharply. “Tears again? Bah, I am tired of them—speak!”

“Grandame,” sobbed the wretched girl, gasping for breath, for she felt that her last hold on life was going, “the Busne cannot save me—he will not marry a gipsy girl.”

“He shall!” snarled the old woman. “By that he shall!” and she pointed toward her idol.

“Grandame!” exclaimed the girl, astonished.

“Get up,” replied the Sibyl—“smooth that hair—put on the bodice of blue velvet, and the saya edged with gold, that was to have been the wedding-dress with Chaleco. Quick, or the daylight will be upon us.”

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In a little sleeping room, whitewashed till the walls looked like a snow drift, and carpeted with thick rush matting, he found Lord Clare sitting upon the side of a low camp bed, and looking hopelessly around for the garments which we have seen fluttering upon the mulberry boughs, and in the possession of Turner. A beautiful dressing-case, with its rich apparatus of gold, lay open on a little table. Above it hung a very small and very uncertain mirror, which gave to the beholder’s face the effect of a slight paralytic shock, sending one corner of the mouth shooting up toward the eyes, and another wandering off in search of the left shoulder. Lord Clare had evidently attempted to commence his own toilet, but one glance at the mirror, which appalled him with the apparition of a maniac leering over a razor, which he was brandishing as if to cut his own throat, terminated his labors at the first stage.

“Turner, take that glass away,” said the young lord, as his servant entered, “and bring me something that will throw back the features of a Christian. This makes me look like a fiend.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” muttered the servant, “everything is going crooked with us; and perhaps the looking-glass gives back the truth nearer than we calculate.”

“What are you saying, Turner?” questioned the young lord, in that quiet, gentle tone with which very proud men are apt to address inferiors.

89“A little private conversation between me and the looking-glass, my lord; nothing else.”

“It must be a very distorted argument,” said the master, smiling; “but, Turner, I heard voices at the door—what was it? You seemed disputing with some one.”

“Nothing of the sort my lord. I don’t know any one in this pestilential country worth disputing with.”

“But surely there was more than your voice; I heard another distinctly, and it seemed like that of a woman.”

“Of a fiend, my lord—an imp of darkness—an old she-wolf. Look, here are the marks of her claws on my arm; they bit through to the bone.”

“A gipsy woman?” asked Lord Clare, turning pale; “an old weird creature that looks like a child withered to the bone. Was that the person who assailed you?”

“Exactly, my lord, I couldn’t have drawn her portrait better. You may hear her prowling about the door yet; but no fear, two bolts are drawn between us!”

“And what does she want?” asked Lord Clare, in a low and agitated voice.

“Your lordship, nothing less,” replied Turner.

“Is she alone?”

“Visibly, yes; but heaven only knows how many of her infernal sisterhood may swarm around her in the air.”

“Does she seem excited—unusually so?”

“Here is an endorsement for that,” replied Turner, stretching forth his arm, and touching the sleeve of his coat, through which a drop or two of blood had oozed.

“Bring my clothes here, and when I am dressed let her come in,” said Lord Clare, abruptly; “I must see her—I must know what has been done,” he added, in an under tone. “Thank heaven! the terrible suspense will be over.”

Turner hesitated, he evidently had some dislike of encountering the Sibyl again, valiant as he was.

“If I open the door she will rush in—the old hyena.”

“No, no, address her mildly,” answered Clare; “say that I 90will receive her the moment my toilet is made. If she is restive, pacify her with a piece of gold; but go at once, I am impatient for this scene to be over.”

Turner looked at his coat-sleeve, shook his head, and cautiously undid the bolt. As he had expected, the Sibyl stood outside in the passage, her eyes blazing with fury, her whole frame quivering with impatient wrath.

“Not yet, my diamond of Golconda,” said Turner, putting her back with his left hand, while he locked the door and drew forth the key. “Cultivate patience, darling, it is a Christian virtue, very respectable and worth having; anybody’s servant in England can tell you that.”

“Your master, the Busne. Have you told him I am here?” inquired the Sibyl, subduing her evil nature into a vicious wheedle more repulsive than open malice.

“Yes, I have told him the honor intended.”

“What did he say?”

“That you are to take this piece of gold to gloat over while he is dressing!”

“And then he will see me?” cried the old woman tossing the gold away as if in contempt of a bribe. “Tell him I am the widow of a count!”

“He feels the honor, no doubt—I have had touching proofs.”

Turner glanced at his arm, and then at the old woman’s throat. The dusky red which circled it like a collar satisfied him. He turned away chuckling, and went forth to collect his master’s garments.

The moment he was gone the old gipsy turned her eyes upon the guinea that she had cast aside. Her fingers began to work; a cold gloating light came into her eyes, and creeping toward the gold as if it had been a serpent fascinating her, she clutched it eagerly, and buried it deep in her bosom.

When Turner came back he saw that the gold had disappeared, and, smiling grimly, entered his lord’s chamber, satisfied that the Sibyl was quieted for a time at least.

91A less keen observer than his old valet might have seen that Lord Clare was greatly agitated while his toilet was in progress. He moved restlessly; his cheeks blazed and faded by turns; his voice grew sharp and imperative, a thing which Turner scarcely ever remembered to have witnessed before. He seemed particularly annoyed by the valet’s rather stubborn desire to elaborate his dress, and finally ordered Turner to bring in the Sibyl and leave him.

This injunction was anything but satisfactory to the old man. Both in manner and substance it was annoying. He felt that the key to all the mysterious movements of his master, during the last month, lay in the Sibyl, who so peremptorily claimed audience of his master. Turner was greatly puzzled and highly displeased. He felt as if his master and the gipsy were depriving him of his just rights and natural perquisites in thus securing a private interview. He went forth muttering his discontent. The old woman’s inflamed throat gave him a gleam of comfort, and satisfying himself more and more that she was a dangerous person to be left alone with his master, he stationed himself very close to the door after she entered, so close that a suspicious person might have supposed him listening, especially as he had left the door very slightly ajar.

But my great grandame outmatched him over and over again in this sort of cunning. Before advancing into the room where the Englishman sat waiting for her, she closed the door and drew a bolt inside, at which Turner flung indignantly away, and took his seat on a bench beneath his lord’s window, which was open, and the muslin curtain flowing softly over it.

But scarcely had he seated himself when the window was shut down with a crash, and the curtains drawn close. Then Turner fell back against the side of the house, and struggled with the Sibyl no longer, satisfied, as most men are who essay the experiment, that in a fair struggle of wit, tact, or management, few men ever come out successfully against a woman, young or old, fair or otherwise.

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Then for the first time Turner saw the eyes of my mother, those wonderful, glorious eyes, fiery as a star, soft as the dew in a flower They were lifted to Clare’s face, fondly, wonderingly, as if she marvelled that he could thus break the delicious joy that thrilled her heart and soul. There was something of lingering terror yet in her face, but so blended with the wild, deep passion of her love, that it kindled up her features like lightning. The old woman was regarding her not with tenderness, that was impossible. If she had any, it lay so deep in that rocky old heart that no ripple of it ever disturbed the hardness of her features.

The Gitanilla drew toward her, took her rigid fingers, and pressed them to her lips and forehead. She uttered a few words in a tongue unknown to Turner, and tears crowded one after another into her great bright eyes. They must have 105been full of passionate feeling, for the hard, keen eyes of the Sibyl grew strangely dim, and with her hand she put back the jetty waves from my mother’s forehead, making the sign of some strange writing upon its bloodless surface.

They stood together thus, the bright red flounces of their sayas mingling in waves of gold lace and heavy crimson. The blue bodice of the girl pressed to the jet black velvet that clung to the form of the Sibyl like the fragment of some funeral pall. There was something terrible in their appearance. The old woman’s arms clung around that lithe form with serpentlike folds. Her turban blended, like waves of fire, with those raven tresses. It seemed like the embrace of a demon. For the lamp whirled and flared overhead, swinging to some concealed current of wind, and the smoke flung around them a dusky veil, now of heavy grey, now threaded with fire by the unsteady flame. Besides this, was the contrast of her rich youth with that terrible thing, a wicked old age.

No wonder Turner shrunk against the wall, and grew chilly without knowing why. No wonder Lord Clare was aroused from all the feelings that had enchained him till now! He started forward, and would have taken my mother from the embrace of her last and only relative. But the old woman thrust him aside, and spoke eagerly with the grand-daughter in the Rommany tongue; and in this tongue my mother answered her.

Shall I tell you what she was saying? My mother left me a record in the fragments of her journal. The Sibyl first urged her to win the Busne to the sending of more and more gold; then she extorted a promise, a fearful promise, which the poor girl kept but too faithfully.

When the Sibyl relinquished my mother from her embrace, the poor child staggered and fell away from her arms like a crushed lily. Her lips were violet color; her face more than bloodless. She seemed to be dying.

Lord Clare took her in his arms and laid her face upon his bosom. It was beautiful to see the warm flood of life come back to the mysterious influence of his touch. Her lips grew 106bright as strawberries; and tears rolled from her half-closed eyes, dropping like dew upon the peachy bloom of her cheek. You could see her tremble from head to foot, so deep, so passionate were the feelings that flooded her young being with their delicious joy.

The Sibyl looked on with grim satisfaction, but the two strange men seemed to expostulate with her, or to ask some directions. She answered them haughtily, and touching the ruby ear-rings with her finger, pointed down the passage.

They obeyed at once, each bending his head submissively as he passed the old woman. I do not know how far those ruby ear-rings were symbols of authority, but my great grandame had some mysterious claim of obedience from the descendants of those few of her people who aided her ancestress in the betrayal of Maria de Padilla, and the two men were all of our tribe who could boast of the treacherous blood that had persuaded that heroic woman to her terrible death. They believed that obedience unto death was due the last descendant of the arch-sorceress, who had most effectually worked out their national hate against the whites. To them the ruby ear-rings were a symbol of absolute power. Had my great grandame commanded them to leap into the Darro without a struggle for life, they would have done it. She only imposed secrecy, craft, and unscrupulous falsehood, and those things came so naturally that it required little authority to enforce them.

These men passed Turner without seeing him. He did not heed them, but still watched the persons who remained standing near the Egyptian idol.

The Sibyl stood directly before Lord Clare, who still half supported her grand-daughter. Now her manner was imposing, her energy sublime; the sorceress blood seemed to glow and burn in her veins as she spoke. It was to Lord Clare she addressed herself, not to the girl. The whispered words that had withered her cheek and lip, were all the farewell admonition she had to give her: but that which she said to Clare had the 107same effect. Aurora shook with terror as her relative uttered her last—it might almost be called malediction.

“Go,” she said—“go, and with you take the last drop of my blood that burns in a human heart. Take her—keep faith with her, nor dream that this marriage is less binding than if all the high priests of Spain and of your land, wherever it may be, had celebrated it in the great cathedral down yonder, with the high altar in a blaze of light, and the tomb of Queen Isabella giving sanctity to the spot. Look at your wife, how her eyes dwell upon you—how full of hope and trust they are—how wildly she wishes to be free from this dim vault, alone with you, and away from her last of kin. The blossoms that live half in sunshine, half in snow, on the Sierra Nevada, are not more stainless than this child. The hot sun that ripens the orange on the Guadalquivir is not more fervent than her passionate nature—more burning than her pride. Be just to the child, or beware of the woman. She is in your hands; make of her what you will, a gazelle or a tiger, the thing you call an angel, or the thing you fear as a fiend. That which you make her she will be, a blessing or a curse, which will cling to you for ever and ever. Free to act, free to marry, these were your words twelve hours ago. This you believed, and I, the old gipsy, mocked at your folly.

“In England, you say, and here with us, marriages are alike binding unto death—death, and nothing but death, can separate you from this child. You have sworn it before my god; she has sworn it before her god; and I have sworn by all the eternal powers that exist, high or low. Hope not to shake off Papita’s oath, or your own. Your laws—all the laws of this nation or yours are but shadows against the stern will of a woman whom nature has made strong, and treason has left desperate.

“I looked for the stars to-night. They were troubled, buried in clouds, pale and half extinguished in vapor, as the Darro flings them back when it is turbid and muddy. So it always is when I would read her fate and yours. That bespeaks”——

108“Stay!” said the earl, sternly, “you are killing her—see how white she is—how she trembles. Why torture her in this way, it can do no good?”

“I declare to you again I feel it in my soul, and read it in the stars, nothing but death shall separate you from this, my grand-daughter. Swear it again!”

She spoke to Aurora, who either from weakness, or obeying the Sibyl’s gesture, laid her hand on the forehead of the Egyptian idol, and her white lips moved as if uttering some inward vow. Turner saw this, but Lord Clare mistook the sudden recoil as an evidence of exhaustion, and with a flushed cheek sought to protect her from further persecution.

“This has gone too far,” he said; “I will submit no longer. Make what preparations you will, but in haste, for the night is wearing on.”

“It is enough,” answered the Sibyl. “I have said my say, and the oath is sworn.”

“Be in haste,” answered the earl impatiently, drawing forth his watch. “It is now past midnight.”

The old woman drew aside, and by the smoky light Turner saw that she was searching for something in the folds of her dress.

“Here,” she said, coming forth, “this trinket may be worth something to you. Our people would have crushed it up for the gold, but I would not let them.”

She held it in her hand, so that the light fell directly upon an exquisite little miniature formed like a shell, which the reader will remember as a portion of the plunder which Chaleco brought from his expedition to Seville. That side of the case was open which held the female portrait, and the light fell with peculiar brightness upon the features.

As Lord Clare saw it he recoiled, drew a sharp breath, and the sudden paleness that crept over his face was terrible.

“This, and in your hands?” he said, in a husky voice, fixing his enlarged eyes on the Sibyl. “How dare you, fiend—how dare you?”

109The old woman gave a low hiss with her tongue, and looking hard at Aurora, said, in a clear, sharp tone, “Remember the oath; you will have need; remember this face too.”

Lord Clare snatched the miniature from her hand with a violence that made the case shut with a snap, that seemed like the click of a pistol before it goes off. But my mother had seen the face, and though it made little impression at the time, when everything seemed like a dream, she remembered it in after years.

“Now,” said the earl, more fiercely than he had spoken before that night, “prepare her at once, I will remain here no longer.”

The old woman withdrew, leading my mother with her. They went into some side passage, and Turner lost sight of them, for he was too deeply interested in the movements of Lord Clare to leave his position.

The earl watched till they were out of sight, then sat down with his back against the idol, opened the miniature, gave one glance, shut it again, and bent his forehead upon the hand in which it was clenched. Thus he remained motionless till a sound of footsteps aroused him, when he sprang up, thrust the miniature in his bosom, and stood calm and immovable as a statue, ready to receive his wife. I call her his wife, and never, never while there is breath in my bosom, will I, her child, his child, admit that she was not. Are not our laws as sacred as those of England?

My mother came forward clad in the pretty attire of an English page, and so disguised, so full of that beautiful, shrinking modesty which true women always feel when presented in a doubtful position before a beloved object, that it could not fail to arouse Lord Clare from the stupor that had fallen upon him. He smiled faintly as she came forward, and drawing her arm through his, followed the Sibyl down the subterranean passage, guided by a small lamp that had stood before the Egyptian idol. They came out into the fresh night, on the very spot where the Moorish King gave up the splendor of his 110life. Lord Clare thought of this, and his heart grew heavy again.

Turner followed with long, noiseless strides, and gliding behind the Fonde like a shadow, stood by the mules which had been drawn up beneath the thick trees ready to receive the party.

An hour after, my poor mother was looking back to obtain one more last glimpse of Granada, and the gipsy Sibyl sat alone in her cave with a heap of gold in her lap, counting it over and over by the dim light that struggled down from a niche in the smoky wall.

The first bright picture upon my memory was of Greenhurst, Lord Clare’s ancestral home. It rests in my mind a background of gorgeous and hazy confusion, indistinct and mellow as a sunset cloud. Then comes a misty outline of distant mountains melting into the more clearly defined middle distance, and in the foreground a beautiful stream sleeping beneath old trees, sparkling through the hollows, and spreading out like a lake in the green meadows. A lawn rose softly upward from the banks of this river, broad and green as emerald. If you parted the soft grass, an undergrowth of the finest moss met your view like velvet beneath a wealth of embroidery. Clumps of trees shaded the lawn here and there, and on either hand, so far as the eye could reach, a park of magnificent old chestnuts, with a fine variety of oaks, filled the eye with the vast wealth of their foliage.

A dozen avenues led through this park, some of them miles 111in length, and almost all commanded some view of the old mansion. One revealed a gable cutting picturesquely against the sky; another commanded the back entrance, with its massive stonework, burdened with heavy armorial bearings, and heaped with quarterings till the herald office itself would have been puzzled to unravel them. A third opened upon the east wing, with its broad bay windows curving into old stone balconies covered with ponderous sculpture, its antique casements filled with single sheets of plate glass which shone through the ivy like flashes of a river between the trees that fringe it—thus was blended all that is gay and cheerful in our times with the sombre magnificence of the long ago, beautifully as we find the sunshine pouring its glory into the dark bosom of a forest.

This view I remember best, for it was the first object that ever fastened itself upon my memory. A waste of flower-beds, clumps of rich trees, and the wilderness, as we called a tract of land in which all the wildness of nature was carefully preserved, lay between the little antique cottage that I was born in and Greenhurst.

Lord Clare had his own rooms in that wing of the building, and a footpath bordered with wild blossoms, rich ferns, and creeping ivy, wound from a flight of stone steps that descended from his apartments, around the circular flower-beds, and through the wilderness to the jessamine porch of our dwelling. It was a well-trodden path when I first remember it; and no foot ever passed down its entire length but that of Lord Clare. Even the gardeners felt that to be in that portion of the grounds, after the master left his apartments, was an intrusion. Turner, dear, good old Turner, visited us every day, but he always came down the chestnut avenue. No other servant from the mansion ever came near us.

A Spanish woman who had learned but little English, was all the domestic we had. Lord Clare had brought her from Malaga, and had she spoken his language well, the most prying curiosity could have gained no information regarding my parents from her.

112Our cottage was the loveliest little dwelling on earth. White roses, rich golden multifloras, and the most fragrant of honeysuckles covered it to the roof. You were forced to put back a sheet of blossoms with each hand like drapery every time you opened a casement. The stone porch was sheeted over and fringed down with white jessamine: and the garden that surrounded it was a perfect labyrinth of blossoms. Crimson fuchias, purple and white petunias, verbenas of every tint, roses of every clime, heliotrope and carnations made the earth gorgeous, and the air soft with fragrance.

The peaked roof shot up among the branches of a noble elm tree, and when there was a high wind I loved to watch the old rook’s nest sway to and fro above the chimney tops, while the birds wheeled and cowered among the branches like widowers at a funeral.

The interior of the house was like a cabinet. Pictures collected from abroad, each a gem that might have been piled an inch deep with gold and its value not yet obtained, hung upon the walls. Antique cabinets of tortoise-shell and gold, lighted up with precious stones, stood in the principal room; soft, easy chairs glowing with crimson velvet; tables of Sèvres china, in which beds of flowers and masses of fruit glowed, as if just heaped together by some child that had overburdened its little arms in the garden; others of that fine mosaic only to be found in Italy; carpets from Persia, from Turkey, and one Gobelin, rendered that cottage one nest of elegance. Everything was in proportion, and selected with the most discriminating taste. Small as the building was compared to Greenhurst, it did not seem crowded, yet there was garnered up everything that Lord Clare held most precious.

It was well for us, for he could not have lived away from the beautiful. His taste, his sensuous enjoyment of material things might gain new zest by brief contrasts of the hard and the coarse, but he would not have endured them altogether. Thus it was often said that no man sustained himself under privation or the toil of travel better than he did. He not only endured 113but enjoyed it. The effort sharpened his appetite for the luxurious and the beautiful. In his whole life, heart and soul, he was an epicure.

Perhaps he had some motive beyond his own convenience in thus surrounding my mother with objects a queen might have envied. He might have wished to overwhelm her remembrance of the miserable gipsy cave in the ravine at Granada by this superb contrast, or possibly it was only a caprice, a natural desire to surround her and himself with things that enrich the intellect and charm the sense. My mother thought it a proof of affection, but she was a child. We often heap material benefits on the being who has a right to our devotion as an atonement for the deeper feeling which the heart cannot render. The man who truly loves requires no stimulant from without. He is always surrounded by the beautiful.

Another might have feared that this sudden change of condition would have set awkwardly on a creature so untutored as my mother—for remember she was a mere child, not more than sixteen when I was born—but genius adapts itself to everything; and if ever a woman of genius lived, that woman was the gipsy wife of Lord Clare. His wife, I say—his wife!—his wife! I will repeat it while I have breath; she was his wife. What had the laws of England to do with a contract made in Spain? What—but I will not go on. My blood burns—the wild Rommany blood of my mother—it has turned his blood into fire that smoulders, but will not consume. There are times when I hate myself for the English half of life that he gave me. Yet I cannot think of him, so kind, so gentle, so full of intellectual refinement, without a glow of admiration. It is his people—his nation—his laws that I hate, not him—not his memory. Indeed, at times, I feel the tears crowd into my eyes when I think of him. My hate is a bitter abstraction after all. When I reflect, it glides from him like rain from the plumage of an eagle.

You should have seen my mother in that beautiful home back of the wilderness at Greenhurst. The moist climate of 114England refreshed her beauty like dew; her lithe figure had become rounded into that graceful fullness which we find in the antique statues of Greece, still the elasticity, the wild freedom remained. She was more gentle, more quiet, almost sleepily tranquil, because the fullness of her content arose from perfect love and perfect trust. She had left nothing in Spain to regret; and every hope that she held in existence was centred at Greenhurst. Never did there exist a creature so isolated. She had no being, no thought, save in her husband. In the wide, wide world he was her only friend, her sole acquaintance even.

I do not think that she left the park once during her whole stay in England. The noble little Arabian that she rode knew every avenue and footpath in the enclosure, but never went beyond it. She did not seem to feel that there was a world outside the shadow of those old trees. She felt not the thralls of society, nor cared for its mandates more than she had done in the barranco at Granada; but a delicious and broad sense of freedom—an outgushing of her better nature made this, her new existence, perfect heaven compared to that.

With time her intellect had started into vigorous life. A teacher so beloved, with perceptions quick as lightning, had kindled up the rich ore of her nature, and you could see the flash of awakened genius in every change of her countenance. Still the world remained a dream to her; she never thought of human beings except as they were presented to her in books—and Lord Clare selected every volume that she read. He was not likely to present knowledge of conventional life to a person situated as she was, with a mind so acute and imaginative. No, it was the lore of past ages that she studied. Those noble old authors of Greece and Rome whom Clare understood so well, became familiar to her as his own voice. Without having the least idea of it, she was deeply imbued not only with classical knowledge, but with the lofty feelings that inspired those ancient authors, who seldom find themselves echoed with full tone in the mind of woman.

115Think what a character hers must have been, with all this grand poetry grafted into the wild gipsy nature.

Still my mother was not perfectly happy; a vague want haunted even her tranquil and luxurious existence. It was a feeling, not a thought, the shadowy longing of a heart loving to the centre, which finds half the soul that should have answered it clothed in mystery. She could not account for this hungry feeling. It was not suspicion—it was not a doubt, but something deeper and intangible. The love which fills a bosom like hers always flings its own shadow, for love is the sunshine of genius, and shadows ever follow the pathway of the sun.

Still, her life was very happy, not the less so, perhaps, for these wandering heart-mists. My birth had its effect also, for it seems to me that no woman thoroughly sounds the depths of her soul till she becomes a mother. I have read her journal at this period, and every sentence is a rich, wild gush of poetry; you can almost feel a torrent of blissful sighs warming the paper on which she wrote, such as a mother feels when the first-born sleeps upon her bosom for the first time.

And now I have an existence, I am a human soul growing like a flower in the warmth of that young bosom, flitting through the house and haunting my mother’s lap like a bird. The first memory that I have is like a starbeam, as quick and vivid. My mother sat in a little room somewhere in an angle of the building just at sunset. Her hair was down; the Spanish woman had unbraided the long tresses, and shaken 116them apart in dark wavy masses. They fell over the crimson cushions of her chair to the ground. The sash doors were open into a stone balcony choked up with clematis. The sunset came through in golden flashes, kindling up those black waves till they shone with a purple bloom. Her dress was crimson, of camel’s hair, I think, with a violet tinge, and flowing down her person in soft folds, that glowed in the light like pomegranates on the bough. Half over her shoulders and half upon the chair, was a cashmere shawl of that superb palmleaf pattern which looks so quiet, but is so richly gorgeous; a profusion of black lace fell around her arms and neck, contrasting the golden brown of her complexion. Her eyes—I never saw such eyes in my life—so large, so radiant, yet so soft; the lashes were black as jet, and curled upward.

It is useless. I can remember, but not describe her, that peach-like bloom, those soft lips so full, so richly red. I have no idea where I was at the time, only that I saw her sitting in that room so much like a picture, and felt that she was my mother.

She was looking into the garden with an expression of tranquil expectation on her face. I remember watching the shadows from her eyelashes as they lay so dreamily on her cheeks, for though she evidently expected some one, it was not with doubt; she was quiet as the sunbeams that fell around her, now and then turning her head a little as the Spanish woman gathered up a fresh handful of her hair, but still with her half-shut eyes fixed upon the footpath that led through the wilderness.

I sat down upon some cushions that had been left in the balcony, and watched her through the open sash till the heavy folds of hair were braided like a coronet over her head, and her look became a little anxious. Then I too began to gaze across the intervening flower-beds upon the footpath, as if a share in the watchfulness belonged to me.

At last, as the golden sunset was turning to violet, and one felt the unseen dew as it fell, I saw, through the purple mist, a 117man walking slowly along the footpath. My heart leaped, I uttered a little shout, and clasping my hands, looked up to my mother. Her lips were parted, and her eyes flashed like diamonds.

“It is the Busne—the Busne,” I said.

She took me in her arms, and smothering me with glad kisses, murmured, “My Busne, mine, mine!”

I answered back. “No, no, mine,” holding my hand to her mouth, and still shouting “mine!”

Her beautiful face grew cloudy. My words made her restive: she would not have her entire right questioned even in sport by her own child. She placed me upon the cushions, and turning away entered the room again.

My father came across the flower garden with a quicker pace. He held a light basket in his hand which I saw with a shout, making a desperate effort to clamber over the old stone balustrade, which was at least ten feet from the ground. He held up his hand reprovingly, called for me to go back, and turning a corner of the house, was in the room with my mother before I could disentangle my hands and clothes from the multiflora and clematis vines into which I had plunged.

This too was the first time that the person of my father fixed itself definitely on my remembrance. He stood leaning over my mother’s chair, holding her head back with a soft pressure of the hand upon her forehead, and gazing down into her upturned eyes with a smile that might have been playful, but for a certain undercurrent of sadness that could not escape the sharp perception of a child like me. Yet even this added to the singular beauty of his face, a strange type of beauty that combined the most delicate physical organization with a high order of mental strength. His forehead, square and high, without being absolutely massive, was white as an infant’s, and in moments of rest as smooth. But a painful thought or a disturbing event would ripple over its delicate surface like the wind over a snow-drift. The brows grew heavy; two faint lines marked themselves lengthwise upon the forehead just 118between the eyes; a peculiarity that I have never seen save in persons of high talent. The contrast between him and my mother was almost startling, he, so fair, so refined, so slender, with a reservation as if he concealed half; she, dark, vivid, resplendent, with every impulse sparkling in her eye before it reached the lip; wild as a bird—uncalculating as a child, but with passion and energy that matched his. When two such spirits move on harmoniously it is heaven, for the great elements of character are alike in each; but when they clash, alas! when they clash!

I cannot tell what feelings actuated my parents, or if anything had happened to disturb them, but they grew sad, gazing into each other’s eyes, till with a faint smile he dropped his hand from her head, saying, “am I late, Aurora!”

She answered him, and rising with a bright smile, drew the shawl around her. He sat down in her chair, and she sunk noiselessly as a woman of the Orient down to the cushions.

I was completely overlooked, but if they were forgetful, I was not. The little basket stood upon the floor, where my father had placed it. I crept that way softly, took up a layer of fragrant blossoms, and there, interspersed with vine leaves, I discovered some of the most delicious hothouse grapes, purple and amber-hued, with peaches that seemed to have been bathed in the sunset.

In my delight, I uttered an exclamation. My father looked round.

“Come hither, mischief,” he said, threatening me with his finger! “Come hither with the fruit. It is for your mother.”

She half started from her cushion, and held out both hands, as I came tottering across the carpet, with the basket in my arms. It was for her, and he brought it. That was enough to render anything precious; besides the fruit was very fine, and the hothouses at Greenhurst had produced none that season. Her eyes sparkled as she received the basket in her lap.

“There,” she said, filling my greedy hands with a peach and a bunch of grapes; “go away, little ungrateful, to forget 119papa’s kiss in searching after plunder—sit down and be quiet.”

I sat down, and while devouring my fruit, watched and listened as children will.

“How beautifully they are arranged!” said my mother, placing and replacing the peaches with her hand, for she had the eye and taste of an artist; “how rich, all the exquisite delicacy of spring blossoms with a fruity ripeness! One can almost taste the fragrance in a peach; at least, I fancy so.”

“Your fancy would almost create a reality!” said my father, smiling.

“How beautiful, how kind in you to devote so much time and so much taste all for us!” continued my mother, lifting her radiant eyes to his; “for I know who did all this, not the old gardener, nor dear good Turner, they could never have blended these leaves.”

“Nay, nay,” answered Lord Clare, over whose lips a mischievous smile had been playing, “do not fling away so much thankfulness; neither the gardener, Turner, or myself had anything to do with it. The fruit came from some kind neighbor, I fancy, who wishes to break my gardener’s heart, for not a peach or grape has ripened as yet under his supervision. I found the basket on a table in my room, and as it was prettily arranged, and looked deliciously ripe, I saved it for you and the child.”

A shade came over the superb eyes of my mother, but she smiled and murmured, “Very well, you brought them, that is real at least.”

“Yes, yes, I brought them sure enough,” he answered, laughing, as he watched me crowding one grape after another into my mouth, while I devoured the rest with my eyes. “See, it is one of Murillo’s children eating grapes. You remember the picture in Munich?”

“Yes, oh, it is very like! What eyes the creature has! How greedily she eats, she is the picture itself!” and my mother 120laughed also, the last thoroughly gleeful laugh that I ever heard from her lips.

I did not trouble myself about the Murillo, but the fruit was delicious, that was quite enough for me, so I shook my head and would have laughed too had that been possible with so many grapes in my mouth.

“Ah, what is this?” exclaimed my mother, holding up a rose-colored note which she had found among the cape jessamines that lay in a wreath between the basket and the fruit.

“This will explain who has sent the gift, I fancy,” answered my father, taking the note; “I searched for something of the kind at first, but could find nothing.”

He unfolded the paper carelessly as he spoke. She was looking up, and I had stopped eating, curious to know all about it. I shall never forget the change that came over my father as the writing struck his eye. His face, even to the lips, whitened. He felt her gaze upon him, and crushed the note in his hand, while flashes of red came and went across his forehead.

She turned pale as death, and without asking a question stood up, swaying as if a current of air swept over her. Some magnetic influence must have linked us three together. Surely the pulses in my father’s heart reached some string in ours by those subtle affinities that no wisdom has yet explained. I felt a chill creeping over me; the fruit lay neglected in my lap, I cast it aside upon the carpet, and creeping to my mother, clung to her hand, hiding myself in the folds of her robe.

My father still held the note, gazing upon it in silence, buried in thought. His face had regained its pallid composure; he seemed to have forgotten our presence. At length he looked up, but not at us, and with a forced smile broke the seal. He glanced at the contents, then held it toward my mother with the same constrained air and smile; but his hand shook, and even I could see that something very painful had come over him.

“From Marston Court.”

121This, with a date, was all the note contained. She read it over and over again. It explained nothing. It was but a single sentence, the name of a place of which she had never heard, but she looked in his face and remained pale as before. The intuition of a heart like hers is stronger than reason.

A constraint fell upon us. I crept away among my cushions, and felt the twilight darken around us. Then I sunk into a heavy-hearted sleep, for my parents were both silent, and I was soon forgotten.

When I awoke the windows were still open, and the room seemed empty. The moonbeams lay white and full upon the clematis vines, and their blossoms stirred beneath them like masses of snow. Children always turn to the light. Darkness seems unnatural to them. I crept out into the balcony, and clambering up the old balustrade, looked out on the garden. Close by the wilderness where the shadows lay deepest, I saw a man walking to and fro like a ghost. Once he came out into the moonlight, and I knew that it was my father.

A narrow flight of steps, choked up with creeping vines, ran down from the balcony. I scrambled over them on my hands and knees, tearing my way through the clematis like a wild animal, and leaving great fragments of my dress behind. I ran through the flower-beds, trampling down their sweet growth, and pausing on the verge of the shadow—for I was afraid of the dark—called out.

My father came up hurriedly with an exclamation of surprise, and evidently alarmed. His hat was off—his beautiful brown hair, damp and heavy with night dew—but his hands were hot as he lifted me up, and when I clung to his neck and laid my cheek to his, it was like fire. Moonlight gives almost supernatural brilliancy to the human eye. His glittered like stars.

“My child, my poor child,” he said, “what is the matter? How came you abroad? Your little feet are wet with dew, wet, clothes and all; what has come over us, my pet, my darling?”

122He took out his watch and looked at it in the moonlight. It was twelve o’clock. Holding me close to his bosom, he strode across the garden and up the steps, crushing the vines beneath his feet. There was no light in the chamber, but upon the cushion which she had occupied at his feet sat my mother. The moon had mounted higher, and its light fell like a great silver flag through the casement. She sat in the centre motionless and drooping like a Magdalene, with light streaming over her from the background, as we sometimes, but rarely, see in a picture.

At the noise of my father’s footstep, she started up, and came forth with a wild, wondering look.

“How is this, Aurora?” he said, in a voice of mild reproof, “I left you with the child hours ago, and now when I thought you both at rest, she is wandering away in the night, wet through and shivering with cold.”

“I did not know it. When you went out a strange numbness fell upon me. It seemed as if I were in the caves at Granada again, and that all our people were preparing to take me to the Valley of Stones, I was so passive, so still!”

“Aurora!” said my father, in a tone of bitter reproof, “you know how I loathe that subject—never mention it again—never think of it!”

“I never have thought of it till to-night,” she answered, abstractedly, “why should I?”

“And why to-night?”

“I do not know. My life has two sides, one all blackness,” here she shuddered—“the other all light; the barranca at Granada, and this house, my grandmother and you.”

Her face became radiant with affection, as she lifted it to his in the moonlight.

“Why should she come between us even in my thought? You are here, you, my child, my home. What has cast this heavy burden on my soul? It is the gipsy blood beginning to burn again: surely nothing has happened.”

She questioned him closely with her eyes, thus pleading with 123him to silence the vague doubts that haunted her; he answered faintly, “Nothing, child, nothing has happened.”

She drew a deep breath, and gave forth a faint laugh.

“Ah, how strangely I have felt. It must have been the cold night air. This England is so chilly, and you, how damp your clothes seem. Your hair is saturated! Come in, beloved, come in, my poor child, my bird of Paradise, she will perish!”

Lord Clare bore me into the chamber. Lights were obtained, and my wet garments were exchanged for a night robe of delicate linen.

“See if I do not take care of her,” said my mother, folding the cashmere shawl around me, while great tears crowded to her eyes, and she looked timidly into his face.

“I do not doubt it,” he answered, kindly, “she is warm now and getting drowsy upon your bosom. Go to rest; both need it. Do you know it is after midnight?”

He touched her forehead with his lips, and kissing me, prepared to go. She looked after him, and her great eyes said a thousand times more than she would have dared to speak.

He hesitated, said something about the necessity of being early at Greenhurst, and then, as if restraint had become irksome beyond endurance, laid his hand on the stone balustrade, and leaped over.

My mother drew me closer and closer to her bosom, as his footsteps died on the still air. I remember no more, only that in the morning I awoke in her arms with the shawl folded around me. She had not been in bed all night.

124

I sprang forward like a hunted animal, through ante-rooms, chambers, halls, and galleries. At last I stood panting and wild as an uncaged bird, in what seemed a little summer parlor, opening upon the most blooming nook of a flower garden. Broad sash windows led to the ground, flooding the room with cheerful light. If I remember correctly, for nothing but a dizzy sense of luxurious elegance reached me at the time, the apartment was filled with rich, old-fashioned furniture, which required the graceful relief of embroidered cushions, and a lavish supply of flowers to make it so cheerful as it seemed.

All the doors in that house opened without noise, and, though I rushed in madly enough, the carpets were too thick for any sound of my tumultuous approach to precede me. A lady sat in one of the low windows reading. I started and held my breath—not from fear, that from infancy had been a sentiment unknown to me—but a terrible sensation, which even now I can neither explain nor describe, seized upon me. The face of that woman was the one I had seen, in the miniature. The same grandeur of forehead, the same eyes—not beautiful in repose, but full of all the latent elements of beauty. The same blended strength and sweetness in the mouth and chin was there.

131She was in deep mourning. A crape bonnet and veil lay on the sofa by her side, and her golden hair contrasted with the sweeping sable of her bombazine dress. She was neither handsome nor young, yet the strange mesmeric influence that surrounded that woman had a thousand times more power over those who could feel it, than youth or the most perfect loveliness of form and features could have secured. Her influence over me was a sort of enchantment. I held my breath, and remember feeling a deep sentiment of pity for my mother. I had no reason for this, and was a mere child in all things, but the moment my eyes fell on that woman they filled with tears of compassion for my mother.

She was reading and did not know of my presence; but after a moment Lord Clare came hastily forward in pursuit of me, and though his footsteps gave forth no sound, and his movements were less rapid than mine, I could see that she felt his approach; for her pale cheek grew scarlet, and I saw the book tremble like a leaf in her hand. He passed me, for I stood close to the wall, and entered the room before she looked up. Then their eyes met, and hers, oh, how warmly they sparkled beneath the drooping lids after that first glance!

Lord Clare checked his footsteps, stood a moment irresolute, then advanced toward her. She rose, and I saw that both trembled, and their voices were so broken that some murmured words passed between them which escaped me. The first sentence that I understood was from the lady.

“I thought that your sister had arrived, and drove over, notwithstanding your uncousinly neglect of my note.”

“She is expected every moment,” answered Lord Clare, in a gentle but firm voice, for his self-possession had returned.

He sat down as if forced to do the honors of his house, and made some cold inquiries after the lady’s health, but without looking at her. The lady was greatly agitated, I could see that plainly enough. Her color came and went, and if she attempted to speak, her lips trembled and uttered no sound. Her eyes were fixed upon Lord Clare, and, in my whole life, I 132have never seen anything so full of the soul’s grandeur as those eyes while they slowly filled with tears. They had not uttered a word for some moments, then with a quiver not only of the lips, but of all her features, she uttered his name.

“Clarence.”

He looked up shivering like a leaf to the sound, and well he might, for never did a proud woman’s soul go more eloquently forth in a single word.

“What would you with me, Lady Jane Morton?” he said, with that measured firmness which often precedes the breaking down of a man’s stern will.

“I would say,” answered Lady Jane, and the tears rolled one by one down her burning cheeks as she spoke, “I would say that my pride, my stubbornness has wronged you.”

“It has indeed,” was the still cold reply.

“I would—I would speak of my regret.”

“What can regret avail? Lady, tell me if you have the power—what can atone for years of wasted youth—affections trampled to the dust, a life disturbed?”

“Ah, Clarence.”

How strangely the name sounded. I had never heard it in my life before, and I am sure my poor mother was ignorant that he was called Clarence. This among the rest he had hoarded from her.

“Oh, Clarence, I feel—I have long felt how cruel, how ungrateful, how miserably proud I was—but I, I, do you think I have not suffered?”

Lord Clare looked at her suddenly. An expression of painful surprise came over his pale features.

“Why should you have suffered?” he questioned, almost sternly, “because you pitied the man you had scorned?”

“Because I loved him!” The words seemed wrung from the very depths of her heart. Her face fell forward, and she buried its shame in her hands.

Lord Clare sprang to his feet. A glow of such joy as I have never seen on a human face before or since, transfigured 133him. His eyes absolutely blazed; and a smile, oh, the glory of that smile poured its sunshine over his features. It lasted but a moment, the next that beautiful joy went out. Some sharp memory convulsed his features, and he dropped back in his seat again. His eyes had fallen upon me.

She looked up and only saw the last miserable expression of his face. A faint groan burst from her lips, and you could see her noble form shrink with a sense of humiliation.

“I know—I know,” she cried, clasping her hands, and making a strong effort to subdue the anguish of disappointment that seized upon her—“my cruelty has done its work—even the poor privileges of friendship cannot be ours.”

“It is too late—too late,” said Lord Clare, turning his eyes almost fiercely upon my little form where it crouched by the wall.

“Still,” said Lady Jane, with more firmness, “I must not be condemned as heartless and unprincipled where my motives were all good, and my judgment only in fault. That which was self-sacrifice must not rest in your heart as perfidy. I was proud, unreasonable, but as I live all this was from a solemn conviction of right. I believed that the love you expressed for me”——

“Expressed!” said Lord Clare, in a tone of bitter reproach.

“Felt for me then—for I am satisfied that you did love me once.”

Here Lady Jane’s assumed strength gave way. When we speak of love as a thing that has been, what woman’s heart is there which does not swell with regret?

“I did love you,” said Lord Clare, turning his eyes away from the sight of her tears.

“And do so no longer?” was the earnest, almost supplicating reply. How full of soul that woman was—what strange fascination lay about her!

“It is too late—I cannot.” He met the expression of her eyes, those pleading, wonderful eyes, and added, “I dare not!”

134She understood him. She felt that her empire in that heart was there still, though it might be in ruins. Still she struggled hard to suppress the exhibition of this wild delight, but it broke through her tears like lightning among rain-drops. It dimpled her mouth—oh, she was beautiful then! She strove to conceal this heart-tumult, and kept her eyes upon the floor, but the lids glowed like rose-leaves, and flashes as if from great diamonds came through her dark lashes. Yes—yes, she was beautiful then! One moment of expression like that is worth a life-time of the symmetrical prettiness which ordinary men admire in common-place women. With the conviction of his continued affection Lady Jane recovered much of her composure. Her manner, unconsciously perhaps to herself, became gentle, pleading, almost tender. If she wept, smiles brightened through her tears. Now and then her voice was almost playful, and once as she lifted her eyes to his, there was a faint reflection of her mood upon Lord Clare’s face. Alas! my poor mother!

“We may never mention this subject again,” she said, with sweet meekness, “and now let me say one word in my own exculpation. We were inmates of the same family—you full of youth in its first bright vigor—I your elder by some years. It was a safe companionship—our families never dreamed of danger. I full of worldly wisdom, strong in the untaxed strength of a heart that had never truly loved, but fancied itself tried to the utmost, would have smiled in scorn had any one predicted that which followed. You loved me notwithstanding my years, my want of beauty, my poverty, you loved me—and I loved you—God only knows how completely, how fatally!”

“Go on,” said Lord Clare, who listened breathlessly.

“You,” continued Lady Jane, “brave, noble, generous, had no dread, no false shame. You would have made me lady of this mansion, the partaker of your bright young life. You gloried in the passion that won forgetfulness of all disparity between us, believing that it would secure happiness to us 135both. You offered me a hand which the proudest lady of England would have gloried in accepting. Listen to me, Clarence, I would at that moment have given up all my after existence, could I have been your wife one year, certain that the love you expressed would have endured—that you would never regret the sacrifice so readily made for me. Still, I refused you—nay, turned from professions of affection that were the sweetest, dearest sounds that ever filled my ear. You were young—I no longer so. You were rich—I a poor dependent on your father’s bounty. I was a coward, I had no courage to brave the whispers which would say that, treacherous to the hospitality of my relative, mercenary, grasping, I had used my experience to entrap the young heir of a rich earldom into an unsuitable marriage. I could not endure that the disparity of our years and my poverty should become subjects of common gossip.”

“How little I cared for that!” said Lord Clare, with a constrained smile.

“I know it—but this very generosity, this self-abnegation frightened me, I could not believe in its permanency. It seemed to me more the thanklessness of youth than a stern, settled purpose. You had forbearance for my maturity, but I, ungrateful that I was, had no faith in your youth.”

“Did you deem love a thing of years?”

“Not now, but then I did! My own feelings shocked and terrified me; they seemed unnatural, I could not forgive my heart that they had found lodgment there. So much more absorbing than anything I had ever known, they seemed like a hallucination. I distrusted the sweet madness that possessed me, and by one rash, wicked act, sought to wrench our souls apart, thinking all the time that your happiness required the effort. I left your father’s house—I—I placed an unloved man between you and me. I was mad, wicked. In one month after, when your father died, and I had not his scorn to dread, I would have given the world—but no matter what or how I have suffered—you are avenged—I am punished.”

136“Why should we revert to this?” said Lord Clare, gently. “The past is the past.”

“I have wounded your pride to save mine,” exclaimed Lady Jane, and her eyes sparkled with tears again. “It is your turn now, but if you knew—if you knew all, this bitter humiliation would be some atonement.”

“I would not soothe my wounded pride at your expense, Lady Jane, still I thank you. It is something to know that a passion which cost me so much was not altogether scorned.”

She was about to answer with some eagerness, but the sound of a carriage sweeping round the broad gravel walk to the front entrance, interrupted her. They both listened, looking earnestly at each other. Then she reached forth her hand, and said, smiling through her tears, “Cousin Clarence, we cannot be enemies, that is too unnatural”——

He wrung her hand with a sort of passion, dropped it, and rushed from the room. She stood a moment weeping, then her mouth brightened and curved into a smile, and with a proud air she swept by me, darkening the sunshine with her long, black garments. I followed her with my eyes, creeping on my hands and knees across the threshold that I might see her again, and be sure it was no fairy play I had witnessed. Then I sat down on the carpet, buried my face in the embroidery of my scarlet frock, and began to cry.

After a time, I could not tell how long, for my little soul was overflowing with emotions, I felt a hand laid gently on my head. I started, shook the long curls back from my face, and there was my father bending over me. His face was so pale and stern that I shrunk away, but he lifted me up by the arm, and grasping my hand till it pained me, led me forth.

As we approached the hall, I saw servants passing to and fro, removing packages, lap-dogs, and cushions from a travelling carriage at the door. A waiting-maid stood in the entrance, chatting directions in French and broken English, with a pretty King Charles held close to her bosom, which was amusing himself with the pink ribbons of her cap.

137“Where is Tip? Will no one bring up Tip?” cried a voice from the staircase, and directly I saw a tall, spare woman, with the faintest pink in her cheeks, and the faintest blue in her eyes, coming down the steps. She had drawn off her gloves and untied her travelling bonnet. A few long, flaxen curls streamed down her shoulders with the purple ribbons, and one sickly white hand glided down the ebony balustrades.

“Bring up Tip, I cannot do anything without Tip,” she continued to say, leaning forward and reaching out her arms for the dog, which the maid obediently brought to her.

I had a full view of this woman as she mounted the staircase fondling her dog, and from that moment loathed her from my soul. It was Lord Clare’s sister.

My father paused and drew me suddenly back as his sister appeared on the stairs. The moment she was gone we moved rapidly through the hall, took a back entrance, and entered the grounds. He walked on with long, stern strides, clasping my hand, but unconscious that I was almost leaping to hold my pace even with his. We entered the wilderness, and then, for the first time, my father spoke.

“Zana,” he said, “look at me here, in my eyes.”

I lifted my gaze to his steadily. His eyes were inflamed and full of trouble; they fell before mine, and left my little heart burning with strange triumph.

“Zana, you saw the lady?”

“Yes.”

“And heard all that she was saying?”

“Yes.”

“What was she talking about? Can you tell me?”

“I can tell you what she said, and what you answered.”

“Word for word?” questioned my father, anxiously.

“Yes, sir, word for word.”

“And you will repeat this to—to your mother?”

“No, I will not.”

“Indeed,” said Lord Clare, and I saw that his eye brightened with a look of relief, “and why not?”

138“Because I will not. She would hate that dark lady as I do—she would cry more and more—she would know all about it!”

“About what?”

“About”—I hesitated, no words came to express the ideas that were fixed upon my mind so firmly. I knew as well as he did that he loved that lady, and that my mother was a burden, but how could the infant words at my command express all this? My father seemed relieved by my hesitation, and said more gently,

“Well, well, go home, tell your mother that I have company—my sister, you will remember—and that I may not be able to see her this evening.”

“She can wait!” I answered, swelling with indignation.

He led me to the verge of our garden, pointed along the path I should take, and turned back without kissing me. I was glad of this, though he had never done it before. My little soul was up in arms against him.

I did not go home, but wandered about the wilderness searching for birds’ nests, not because I enjoyed it, but a dread of seeing my mother for the first time kept me in the woods.

Her life was more quiet than ever after this, but you would not have known her for the same being. Her eyes grew larger and so wild; her figure became lithe and tall again; all the luxuriance of her beauty fled. She suffered greatly, even a child could see that.

Greenhurst was filled with company, and we seldom saw Lord Clare. Turner came to us every day, but he too seemed changed. The rich, dry humor so long a part of his nature forsook him. His visits were short, and he said little. Thus the season wore on, and I suffered with the rest. How many hours did I remain at the foot of some great oak or chestnut, thinking of that proud lady and her interview with my father. I kept my secret; not once had I alluded to that strange visit to the hall. It weighed upon me—at times almost choked me, but I felt that it must remain my own burden.

139

When it drew toward midnight, and she saw me, to all appearance, sleeping tranquilly on the floor, I heard a movement in the room as if my mother were preparing to go out. I opened my eyes and watched.

She took up the cashmere shawl and folded it over her head and person, leaving only the face exposed, after the fashion of a Spanish mantilla. Her face looked thin, but very beautiful, surrounded by those gorgeous colors, for her cheeks were of a burning scarlet; and her eyes—in my life I have never seen an expression like theirs. It was like the reflection of a star in deep waters. She stole out through the balcony. I heard her descend to the garden, and followed, actuated, I think, by a vague dread that she was about to leave me forever.

She threaded the wilderness with a quick step, and kept her way through the grounds cut up into thickets and flower-beds 144that lay around Greenhurst. I do not think that she had ever been there before in her life, but she seemed to find the way by intuition. I followed close, but unseen, and to my surprise saw her pass into the hall by the back entrance, through which Lord Clare had led me. The door was not entirely closed after her, and I crept through. The hall was dark, but she moved noiselessly on, gliding like a shadow up the broad staircase.

Now I was guided only by the faint ripple of her garments, for the upper halls lay in perfect darkness, and she was more in advance.

I saw by the glow of light that came into the darkness, that a door had been softly opened, in which a lamp was burning, and moved along the wall till I stood in view of a bed-chamber lighted as with moonbeams, for a lamp had been placed within an alabaster vase, evidently for this subduing purpose. I saw nothing distinctly in the room, but have a vague remembrance of a cloud of azure silk and rich lace brooding in one corner of the chamber—a couch underneath, white as mountain snow, and on it that woman, asleep, and my mother gazing upon her.

The sleeper scarcely seemed to breathe. A narcotic influence was evidently upon her, which had been used to still some previous pain; but all traces of anguish had departed from her forehead, from which the bright hair was swept back, giving its broad, massive grandeur to the light. A halo of happiness lay upon her face that made your breath come quick; the wealth of a great soul seemed breaking over her noble features as she slept. The eyes underneath those broad lids were swimming in joy, that broke through like perfume from the white leaves of a rose. The atmosphere which hung about her seemed warm and fragrant, like that of an Indian summer in North America.

There stood her contrast, my gipsy mother, with the hot blood of her race burning in her eyes, her forehead, and that now firm mouth. I looked in her face, and thought she was about to spring upon her prey, for the passions burning there 145grew fierce as death. She bent down and scrutinized the sleeper, then felt in her hair, and looked sharply around the room, I thought for some weapon.

“My oath, my oath!” she muttered, casting her great eyes around, “nothing but death can separate us; why not her death?”

I sprang forward, wild with terror, and caught hold of her dress.

“Mamma, oh, mamma, come away, come away,” I pleaded, in a whisper.

She yielded to me, and walked slowly from the chamber, like one moving in a dream.

“Hush!” she said, as we stood in the hall, “I thought it had been his room. Where is it, child, you know?”

“Come away—come away!” I whispered, still keeping a firm grasp on her dress. “It is dark—I’m afraid.”

She broke from me, and I lost her. The faint sound of a foot reached me once, but I had no courage to follow, and cowered down in the hall, shivering and noiseless. It seemed to me that I remained a year in that black stillness. I could endure it no longer, but groped my way to the staircase out into the open air.

The moon was up, but overwhelmed by an ocean of clouds. Now and then a leaden gleam broke out, and this gave me courage to wait and watch.

She came forth at last, and when I sprang toward her, caught me firmly by the hand.

“Come,” she said, “the oath falls back here—the gipsy blood will not fail me when it is only us.”

“What do you mean, mamma? Have you seen him, the Busne?”

“Yes!”

“Was he awake, mamma?”

“Awake!” and her laugh was fearful. “Child, do you think he could sleep?—can ever sleep again?”

“Did he say anything? Was he sorry for striking me?”

146“Hush!” said my mother, sharply, “he has struck us both, the body for my child—the heart for me!”

“Did you strike him back, mother?”

“No, but I will. The stone that crushes me shall fall on his soul.”

Now I recognized my gipsy mother. She turned to me, and a straggling moonbeam touched her face.

“Zana, do you know what an oath is?”

“Yes, mamma, I heard you mention the word in your sleep, and so asked Turner.”

“I have sworn an oath, Zana. Will you help me keep it?”

“I will help you, mamma.”

“Let me make you strong with my kisses, Zana, you are no child.”

I clung to her, answering back that wild caress, for my heart was burning with a sense of her wrongs.

“I was a child once, mother, but that has all gone by. I am something else now; not a woman like you, but sharper, like a little dagger with bright stones on the hilt, that you sometimes fasten up your hair with. The handle is so pretty; but the point, isn’t that sharp?”

“It was well I left it behind, to-night, Zana.”

“You could not leave me behind, I would go!”

“Are you tired, Zana?”

“No.”

“Walk fast then, for we must be a long way from this before morning.”

“Where are you going, mother?”

“To keep my oath!”

We entered the cottage for the last time. My mother must have anticipated what was to happen, for she took me into her room, tore off my pretty scarlet frock, and replaced it with the garments of a little boy. Her own dress she changed also, and we left the house together, both clad in male garments, and each carrying a little bundle in our hands.

Where we went first, I do not know. The events of that 147day and night were burned upon my memory, but after that I had only a vague idea of travelling day after day—of broad, stormy seas, a river that ran with waves of dull gold, orange groves, wild hills, and at last a city in the midst of beautiful plains, filled with antique houses, and beyond with snow-capped mountains looming against the sky. The grim towers of a ruin fixed itself on my memory, frowning between the city and those mountain-tops, and when I asked my mother of the name of this city and ruin, she answered briefly, “Granada, the Alhambra,” nothing more.

I was not surprised at this, for since we left Greenhurst, she had scarcely uttered a longer sentence.

It was sunset when we came in sight of Granada. She paused in a recess of the hills, and opening our bundles, changed her dress and mine, casting away the male attire. I remember gazing at her with wonder as she stood before me in her strange dress. The blue bodice, the short crimson skirt, flowered and heavy with tarnished gold, the gorgeous kerchief knotted under her chin, this dress had been the contents of her bundle. Mine was more simple, a frock of maize-colored stuff broidered with purple. My feet and ankles were bare to the knees.

My mother bent down and kissed me.

“Are you a child now, Zana?”

“No, I am what you are.”

“Come.”

We descended into the Vega and passed through Granada long after dark. I was very tired and faint, but kept up with my mother, determined to hold firm to my promise. During our whole journey I had not once complained. We left the city and entered a deep, gloomy ravine, lighted up by a host of internal fires, that seemed to burn in the bosom of the hill. Wending along the dusty road, I saw that all the embankment was cut up into holes, from which the lights came, and that these were swarming with human beings.

We walked on, speaking to no one, till my mother stopped before one of these caves of which the door was shut. She 148paused, and for one instant I felt her tremble, but the emotion was gone in a breath, and pushing the door open, she went in.

A little old woman sat in one end of the cave, rocking to and fro on a wooden stool, beneath the beams of a smoky lamp that stood in a niche over her head. The creature arose as we entered, passed one skeleton hand over her eyes, and muttered “who comes—who dares open my door, when I once shut it for the night?”

“One who fears nothing now, not even you, grandame,” said my mother, advancing firmly up the cave.

The old woman kept her hand above those gleaming eyes, and pored keenly over the haggard face before her.

“Why have you come back?” she said, fiercely.

“To keep my oath, grandame!”

“Your oath. Is he dead, then? Is it his blood that makes your face so white!”

“No, he is safe—it may be, happy,” answered my mother, and for the first time since we left England, I heard her voice falter. “He repudiates the caloe marriage. He loves another. I saw her under his roof. He will make her his wife. Grandame, I have come back to die. It is all of my oath that I can redeem.”

“Under his roof? he will marry her. Girl, where was Papita’s poniard, that you did not strike?”

“She looked innocent in her sleep. I could not do it. She knew nothing of me, of my wrongs, or the vengeance that threatened her. A word would have stabbed her deeper than your poniard, grandame, but I could not speak it.”

“You came away, and left her alive?” shrieked the old woman fiercely.

“I could not kill the thing he loved,” answered my mother, with pale firmness.

“You came away, leaving these two traitors to marry and scoff at the gipsy!”

“The lady knows nothing, and cannot scoff at us. He will 149never revile one who could have driven her from his path by pointing to his child, and saying only, ‘he has been mine!’ but chose rather to come here and die.”

“It is useless, grandame—these frowns, the locking of those sharp teeth. The desperate have no fear. I have disgraced my people, and am ready to redeem my oath.”

“And what is this?” said Papita, touching me with a loathing scowl.

“My child, and his,” answered my mother, and I felt her fingers close tight on my hand.

“Oh, you did well to bring her. There is yet a drop of the old blood left; I see it in her face.”

The weird creature drew nearer and kissed me. I bore it without a shudder.

“Can it be to-morrow?” said my mother, calmly, as if she had been speaking of a June festival.

“Yes,” was the savage reply. “The people will not wait, Chaleco, most of all.”

“Let him be sent for.”

“No,” said the Sibyl with a touch of feeling, “he shall not gloat over your shame more than the rest. Go in yonder—you have broken one half the oath, for the rest”——

“I am ready—I am ready, only let it be soon,” said my mother—“at daylight.”

“In yonder! daylight will soon come,” answered the Sibyl, pointing to the inner room. “I will go and prepare the people. They thought you dead. How they will stare when Papita tells them of her trick. They think her old, worn out, dull—she who can throw sand in the eyes of a whole tribe.”

150

I found myself lying in a gipsy’s tent perfectly alone, dizzy, feverish, and so parched with thirst that it seemed to me one drop of water would satisfy every want I could ever have again. An earthen pitcher stood near the fresh hay on which I was lying. I reached forth my feeble hand and slanted it down, till the bottom glistened on my sight. Then I fell back weeping. It was empty, not a drop—not a drop! How terrible was that thirst. I felt the tears rushing down my cheek, and strove to gather them in my hand, thinking, poor thing, to moisten my burning lips with the drops of my own sorrow. The wind blew aside the fall of canvas that concealed the entrance to my tent, and I saw through it a glimpse of the bright morning; clover 157fields bathed in fragrant mist; soft, green meadow grasses sparkling with dew. Then the whole strength of my being centered in one great wish—water! My wild eyes were turned in every direction where the soft drops seemed flashing, dancing, leaping around me like a whirlwind of diamonds. I closed my eyes and strove to shake the hallucination from my brain. A moment’s rest, and there was another calm glimpse of the dewy morning. I wonder if Paradise ever looks half so beautiful to the angels.

Dizzy and fascinated, I crept across the tent on my hands and knees, dragging the loose hay after me, and moaning softly with each strain upon my shrinking muscles, till I crept into the deep verdure. How softly the cool dew-drops rained over me as I lay down at length in the soft meadow grass. My face, my arms, and my little, burning feet were bathed as with new life. I lay still, and laughed with a glee that frightened up a lark from her nest close by. The young ones began to flutter, and piped forth their tiny music as if to comfort the lone child that had stolen to their home, still more helpless than themselves.

I swept my hand across the grass, gathering up the dew, which I drank greedily. Then I rolled over and over, bathing my feet and my garments till my face came on a level with the young larks. They uttered a cry, and opened their little golden throats as if for food. This brought the mother-bird back again, who circled over and over us, uttering her discontent in wild gushes of song. The flutter of her plumage between my eyes and the sun—the softened notes as she grew comforted by my stillness—the flutter that seemed half smothered in thistle-down still going on in the nest—the balmy air, the bath of dew—some, perhaps all of these things slaked the fire in my veins, and I fell asleep.

Did I dream? Had I wandered off again into delirium, or was the thing real? To this day I cannot tell; but as I lay in that meadow which bounded the wayside, a long funeral procession crept by me, fringing the meadow with blackness, and 158gliding away sadly, dreamily, toward a village church, whose spire cut between me and the sky.

Time went by like thistle-down upon the wind. The sky was purple above me. Thousands and thousands of great stars twinkled dreamily through the deep stillness. The dew lay upon me like a shower. I turned softly, and as I moved, the lark stirred above her young. My sleep had been so like death that the bird feared me no longer.

If I had a connected thought it was this—the lark had come back to her young; with her soft bosom she kept them from the damp and cold night air. I was young: it was night: the dew fell like rain: I had no strength to move. Where was my mother?

I could not answer the question; my brain was too feeble, and ached beneath the confused images that crowded upon it. The funeral train, ridges of snow, heaped-up stones, flashes of crimson, as if a red mantle were floating over me, disjointed fragments like these were all the answer that came back to my heart, as it drearily asked where am I? where is my mother?

Probably another day went by; I do not know, for a heavenly sleep settled on me. But at last—it must have been sometime near noon—I saw the lark settle down by her nest with some crumbs of bread in her bill. I watched the young ones as they greedily devoured it, and a craving desire for nourishment stole over me. I envied the little ragged birdlings, and wondered how they could be so greedy and so selfish.

The mother flew away again, and I watched her with longing eyes. She might take compassion on my hunger. Surely those greedy young ones had eaten enough. She would think of me now that they were satisfied. How eagerly I watched for some dark speck in the sky, some noise that should tell me of her return! She came at last, shooting through the atmosphere like an arrow. After whirling playfully over, and again above our heads, she settled down by her nest, and I saw that her bill was distended by a fine blackberry. The largest and sauciest young one, who always crowded his brethren down into the 159nest when food appeared, rose upward with a hungry flutter and held his open bill quivering just beneath the delicious berry.

My heart swelled. I uttered an eager cry, and flung out my hand. The lark, startled in affright, dropped the fruit, and it fell into my palm. What did I care for the angry cry of the old bird, or the commotion among her nestlings? The fruit was melting away—oh, how deliciously!—between my parched lips! When that was gone, I lifted my hands imploringly to the angry bird, and asked for more. She was all the friend I had, and it seemed as if she must understand my terrible want. She went away and returned; but oh, how my poor heart ached when she lighted, and with her eye turned saucily on me, dropped a grain or two of wheat for her young!

Tears crowded to my eyes. Who would aid me—so hungry, so miserable, such a little creature, more helpless than the birds of heaven, and they so pitiless? I turned my face away; the young larks had become detestable to me. I was tempted to hurt them, to dash my hand down into the nest and exterminate the whole brood; but the very thought exhausted me, and I began to weep again with faint sighs that would have been sobs of anguish but for my prostration.

I lifted my head and strove to sit upright, looking wearily around with a vague expectation of help. At a little distance was a stone wall, and climbing over it a blackberry bush in full fruit, clusters on clusters glittering in the sunshine. The tears rained down my cheeks. I turned my eyes upon the young larks and feebly laughed out my triumph. I crept forward on my hands and knees, pulled myself along by clenching handsful of the meadow grass, and, at length, found myself prostrate and panting by the wall. Most of the fruit was above my reach, but some clusters fell low, and while my breast was heaving and my poor hands trembled with exhaustion, I began to gather and eat. Fortunately, it was impossible for me to pluck enough of the fruit to injure myself, and with the grateful taste in my mouth, I lay contemplating the clusters overhead 160with dreamy longing, wondering when I should be able to climb up the stones and gather them.

It is strange that while my senses were so acute in all things that pertained to my animal wants, all remembrance of the past had forsaken me. I could neither remember who I was, nor how I came to be alone in the meadow. My whole range of sympathy and existence went back no farther than the lark’s nest and its inmates, that had seemed to mock at my hunger in the midst of their own abundance. Was it from this that I drew my first lesson of sympathy for the destitute, and hate for the heartless rich?

Some vague remembrance of a tent that had sheltered me did seem to haunt by brain; but when I lifted myself up by the wall it had disappeared, and that, with the rest, floated away into indistinctness. It was not that all memory of the past had left me. I knew what the relations of life were—knew well that I ought to have a mother to care for me—some one to bring me food and arrange my garments; and, through the cloudiness of my ideas, one beautiful face always looked down upon me, like the rich, dark-eyed women whom we find repeated, and yet varied over and over again in Murillo’s pictures. I knew that this face should have been my mother’s, but all around it was confused, like the clouds in which the great artist sometimes buries his most ideal heads.

But even this beautiful remembrance was floating and visionary. I had no strength to grasp a continued thought. Even the aspect of nature, the meadows, the distant woods, and the gables of a building that shot up from their midst, had a novel aspect. The feeble impression thus left was like that of bright colors to an infant. I felt happier, more elastic. The world seemed very beautiful, and a keen desire for action came upon me. I tried to walk, but fell down like an infant making its first attempt. I made another effort, tottered on a few paces, and lay quietly down overcome with a desire to sleep. Then I started again, creeping, staggering a little on my feet, resting every few minutes, but all the while making progress toward 161the building whose gables I had seen in the distance. I had no definite object; the instincts of humanity alone no doubt induced me to seek a human habitation.

I must have passed over the spot where the tent had stood, for some loose hay littered the grass in one place, and among it I found a crust of dry bread. I uttered a low shout, and seizing it with both hands, sat down in the hay and began to eat voraciously. Never, never have I tasted food so delicious. I cannot think of it yet without a sensation of delight!

As I sat devouring the precious morsel, there came a sweet noise to my ear—a soft gurgle, that made me pause in my exquisite banquet and listen. Old associations were not altogether lost. I knew by the sound that a spring or brook was near, and my joy broke forth in a laugh which overpowered the flow of the waters. I crept on toward the sound, hoarding the fragments of my crust. It was a beautiful little spring gushing up from the cleft in a rock which lay cradled in a hollow close by. The rock was covered with moss and the most delicate lichen, thick with tiny, red drops, more beautiful than coral. The water rushed down in a single stream, slender and graceful as the flight of a silver arrow, and spread away with soft murmurs, through the peppermint and cowslips that lined the hollow. I drank of the water slowly, like a little epicure, enjoying the cool taste on my lips with exquisite relish. Then, enticed by the fragrance, I gathered a stem or two of the mint, and laying the moist leaves on my bread, made a meal, such as one never takes twice in a life-time.

The waters gathered in a pretty pool beneath the rock, as bright and scarcely larger than a good sized mirror. I turned, after my bread was exhausted, and saw myself reflected in the pool—not myself at the time, for I supposed it another child—a poor, little, miserable thing, in an old dress of torn and soiled embroidery, whose original richness gave force to its poverty-stricken raggedness. Her little feet were bare and white, and great, black eyes, illuminating a miserable pale face, like lamps that could never burn out, were staring at me so wildly, that I 162flung out my arms to repulse her. She also flung up her bare arms, and looked more like a weird thing than ever. The action terrified me. I burst into tears, and clambered up the hollow, looking back in terror lest the starved creature should follow me.

I arose and moved forward, still keeping the gables in view, now lying down on a bank for rest, now pausing to gather a wild berry, but always diminishing the distance between myself and the dwelling.

The night came on, but excitement kept me wakeful. I had no lonesome feelings. The skies above were crowded with stars, that seemed like smiling play-fellows glad to have me in sight. The moonbeams fell through the branches—for I was beneath trees now—and played around me like a cloud of silver butterflies. Then came the delicious scent of blossoms, the trees grew thin, and velvet turf yielded luxuriously to my naked feet. Beautiful flowers were budding around me, enameling the turf in circles, mounds, and all sort’s of intricate figures. These, like the stars, seemed old playmates. Fuchias, heliotrope, moss roses—I recognized them with a gush of joy, and talked to them softly as I stole along.

A hard, gravel walk glistened before me, sweeping around the proud old mansion whose gables I had seen. I entered it, but the gravel hurt my feet, and leaving their little prints in dew upon it, I turned an angle of the building. Now something of terror, a vague, dark, impassable memory seemed floating between me and the stars. A shadow from the building fell over me like a pall. I grew cold and began to shiver, but still moved on toward the moonlight.

163It was reached. I looked up, and before me was a great stone doorway, surmounted with masses of dark marble, chiselled so deeply that hollows seemed choked up with shadows which contrasted densely with the moonbeams on the surface. Half a dozen broad, granite steps led to the doorway. I stood upon these steps and looked upward. A strange sensation crept over me. I grew colder, weaker, and sunk upon the stones with my head resting upon the door sill. A rush of confused thoughts crowded upon my brain and stunned it. I lay motionless, but with a vague idea of existence.

The first thing that I remember was confused noises in the dwelling, that sort of bee-like hum which accompanies the uprising of a large household. Sometimes the sound of a door jarred through my whole frame, and then I would drop away into some stage of unconsciousness; it might be the sleep of pure exhaustion, or insensibility, I cannot tell.

At last there was a rustle and rush in the hall, the sound of feet and brooms set in motion, with confused voices and the ponderous movement of a door close to my head, that jarred through and through me. A tumultuous sound of voices followed, a hastily-dropped floor-brush fell across me—laughing, exclamations, bustling and noise; then I heard a woman’s voice say distinctly above the rest, “Ah! here comes one who knows something—he can tell us what it is!”

Then a voice followed that sharpened my faculties like a draught of wine, “Well, what are you chattering about the door-stead for, like so many magpies around a church steeple? Can the housekeeper find you no better business?”

“Oh, come and see for yourself,” answered a peevish voice, “is it a witch, an imp—a—a—do tell us, Mr. Turner, you who have been in foreign parts and know all sorts of outlandish creatures by heart?—look!—look!—its great black eyes are wide open now; you can see them glistening through the hair that lies all sorts of ways over its face. Gracious me, they burn into one like a live coal!”

“Stand back,” said the male voice, “stand back, and let me 164have room. The creature is human! It may be—it may be—no, no, poor, wild thing—no, no, God forbid!”

The voice was broken, eager and full of anxiety. I felt the long hair parted back from my forehead, and opening my eyes, saw a little, old face, wrinkled and contracted, but oh, how comforting!

“Those great, wild eyes—those lips pinched, blue!—this skeleton frame—no, no, not hers, thank God for that, I could not have borne it!”

“What is the creature?—what shall we do with it?” inquired the female voice.

“What is it?” said the old man, looking up from my face, “what is it? a human soul almost leaving the body—a child’s soul! What is it?—don’t you see, woman?”

“Is it dying? can it speak?” was the rejoinder.

The old man lifted me in his arms without answering, and laid my head on his shoulder. A strange gush of pleasure came over me, and my soul seemed melting away in tears—silent, quiet tears, for I was too feeble for noisy emotions. I stole one arm around his neck, and nestled my cheek close to his. Was the action familiar to the old man? With me it was natural as the infant’s habit of lifting its hands to the mother’s mouth, that it may gather her kisses.

He did not return the caress, but almost dropped me from his arms. His bosom heaved, some exclamation that he seemed about to utter broke into a groan, and directly I felt tears running down the cheek that touched mine.

“Why, what are you about, Mr. Turner? What on earth are you thinking of? Don’t you see how forlorn and ragged the creature is, and holding it against your new mourning, what has come over you?” exclaimed the housemaid, horrified and astonished.

The old man made no reply, but looked searchingly down on my old frock, as if it had some deep interest to him.

“Very well, every one to his own business,” cried the housemaid, resenting his silence, “you hug that little witch as if it 165was your own—ha, ha, who knows!—who knows! oh, if my lord could but see you!”

The old man had been holding up a fold of my frock during this speech, and was still intently examining the soiled embroidery. His thin face writhed and twitched in all its features; but when he dropped the fold, it settled into an expression of distressing certainty.

The old man looked on her with mournful sternness.

“Before heaven, I wish he could see us—his old servant, and—and—tush! woman, go about your work—go all!”

“I wonder how she come here, at any rate,” persisted the housemaid, saucily. “Gracious goodness! but the thing does seem to take to you, Mr. Turner, so natural. Isn’t it a sight to behold?”

“Peace, woman!” cried the old man, stamping his foot till it rang on the tessellated floor. “Have you no decency?”

“Decency, indeed!”

As the housemaid tossed her head, with this pert rejoinder, a tall, haughty woman came through a side door and moved toward us. Her morning dress swept the marble as she walked, and long silken tassels swayed the cord slowly to and fro, which bound the sumptuous garment to her waist. She held a tiny dog in her arms, which began to bark furiously as he saw me.

“What is all this?” she said, addressing Turner. “Something found on the door-step?—where is it? what is it like?”

“Very like a hungry, sick, dying little girl,” replied Turner, pressing me closer to him, “nothing more!”

“Who can it be? have you the least idea, Turner?” cried the lady.

“I, madam—I, how can that be?”

“Don’t hide its face, Turner. Is it pretty? Hush, Tip. Jealous already—there, there!”

While the lady was soothing her dog, Turner, with much reluctance and many distortions, turned my head upon his bosom, and the lady saw my face. She started.

166“Heavens!—why, it is a perfect little animal!” she exclaimed, drawing back. “What eyes!—how frightfully large! Mr. Turner, Mr. Turner, how very imprudent in you! It may be contagious fever or small-pox. Do take the creature away!”

She drew slowly back while giving this command, with a look of absolute terror.

“Take her away—quite away!” she kept repeating.

“Shall I leave her on the door-steps, madam?” said he, with a sort of rebuking humor.

There was something so familiar about his curt, dry way of putting the question, that I felt more at home with him than ever.

“Turner—Turner, this is trifling, inexcusable! but that you are a favorite servant of my poor brother’s, I would not endure it an instant.”

“I am a man! At least I was, till this poor, poor—there I am at it again—till she made me cry like a baby for the first time in my life; but I will obey you—I will carry her off, not that her disease is contagious—souls are not catching, at any rate, in this neighborhood.”

The old man muttered over these last words to himself; then lifting his voice said in a more respectful tone, “Madam, your orders—where am I to place the child?”

“Anywhere. It is not of the least consequence—take it down to the village. I fancy some of the tenants would like it of all things. I have no right to receive incumbrances in Lord Clare’s house during his absence.”

“Lord Clare never sent a starving fellow-creature from his door yet,” answered Turner, stoutly. “It is not in him.”

“Starving?—what horrible words! Why, no one starves on this estate.”

Turner did not listen. He was looking down into my face, his countenance stirring as one who ponders over a painful subject. I lay feebly in his arms, contented as a lamb, my little heart beating tenderly against his bosom. At last he carried me out into the open air.

167

174

One day I had wandered through the garden and out among the brave old chestnuts quite alone, for now that the family were absent, Turner allowed me to wander almost at will anywhere between the old mansion and our more humble, but not less lovely home.

This time I took one of the great chestnut avenues hitherto unexplored, which led me, by a curving sweep, to the lodge, which I just remembered having passed in my progress from the meadows, on the memorable night when Turner found me upon the door-steps. Then it had seemed like a cliff, adown which great festoons of ivy were sweeping to the ground. Now I saw the thick foliage turned and forced back here and there, to admit light into the doors and windows of a rustic cottage, which had a stir of life within, though I saw no person.

I passed this lodge with a stealthy tread, for a sense of disobedience troubled me, I knew, without having been directly told, that both Turner and Maria would disapprove my passing beyond the limits of the park; but childish curiosity, with some vague remembrance of the place, were too strong for my sense 182of right, and I passed on quite charmed with the broad slope of meadow land that lay before me, all golden, crimson and white with mid-summer blossoms. A village with a church tower in the distance rose upon my view like a glimpse of fairy land. I felt then that the world, as Turner asserted, was full of people, and longed to know more about them.

I walked along the carriage track which wound toward the village through thick hedges just out of blossom, holding my breath as I recognized here a moss-covered stone, there a hillock, upon which I had set down to rest on that wearisome night. The grass was green and fresh where the tent had been, to which my first remembrance went back, but I recollected the place well. As I stood gazing on it, the soft gurgle of waters fell upon my ear as it had then, and induced, half by a feeling that seemed like terror, half by curiosity, I moved toward the hollow, wondering if I should find that impish little figure waiting for me again.

I reached the slope, looked half timidly down, and remained breathless and lost in delight.

Upon the rock which I have mentioned covered with lichen and mossy grasses, sat a little girl, about my own age, I should think, busy with a quantity of meadow blossoms that filled the crown of a straw bonnet that stood by her side. All around her lay the gathered blossoms; her tiny feet were buried in them; they gleamed through the skirt of her muslin dress, and brightened the rock all around. She coquetted with them like a bird—bending her head on one side as she held a cluster of violets in the sun, flinging it back with a graceful curve of the neck, when they dropped into shadow, and eyeing them coyly all the time, as a robin regards the cherry he intends to appropriate at leisure.

What eyes the creature had! large and of a purplish blue, like the violets she held, and so full of smiling brightness. Never before or since have I seen a creature so beautiful, so full of graceful bloom. Her profuse hair was in disorder, falling in golden waves and curls all over her white shoulders, from 183which the transparent sleeve was drawn with knots of blue ribbon, leaving the prettiest dimples in the world exposed. Her mouth was soft, red, and smiling like ripe cherries in the sunshine, and that rosy smile, so innocent in its tenderness, so radiant with glee! Talk of women not feeling the glow of each other’s beauty; why, there is no feeling on earth so unselfish, so full of lofty, tender admiration as the love which one high-souled woman feels for the sister woman to whom her soul goes forth in sympathy. This appreciation, these attachments are not frequent in society, but when they do exist, the loves of the angels are almost realized. Sometimes the same feeling extends to children, but not often.

I looked down upon this child, thus busy with her graceful flowers, and my heart filled with the sunshine of her presence. As she trifled with her garlands, the smile broke into music on her red lips, and a few soft chirping notes, wild and untaught as a bird’s, blended richly with the flowing waters.

At last she lifted a half-twined garland high over her head, that the sunshine might kindle up its blossoms, and as her eyes were turned upward they fell upon me. The garland hung motionless in her hand; the song died on her lips, leaving them like an opening rose-bud; and her blue eyes filled with a look of pleasant wonder. Thus, for the moment, we gazed upon each other, we who were to be a destiny each to the other.

“Come,” she said at last, pushing her straw hat toward me so eagerly that a quantity of flowers rolled over the brim, through which the broad strings rippled in azure waves—“come, there is enough for us both, let us pelt the brook and hear the water laugh as it runs away with them. Here, jump to the rock, I will make room. Now for it!”

She gathered up her skirt, crushing the blossoms with her little dimpled arms, pushed back the bonnet, and left a space upon the stone for me to occupy.

I sprang down the bank breathing quickly, and with my whole frame in a joyful glow, I placed myself among the 184blossoms, wove my arms about the charming infant’s, and kissed her shoulders till she laughed aloud, as a bird breaks into music at the first sight of a kindred songster.

“Come,” said the child, her voice still rich with glee—“come, let us go to work; which will you have, violets, primroses, or some of these pretty white stars that I found by the brook?”

“All, all,” I answered, with animation, “give them to me, and mind what a pretty crown I shall make for your hair.”

She turned her great wondering eyes on me as I wove the blossoms together—the violets with golden primroses, intermingling them with leaves and spears of long grass, a white star gleaming out here and there in silvery relief.

When she saw my garland, so different from her own, in which the flowers were grouped without method, the child seemed lost in admiration. After gazing on it a moment, and then upon me, she took her own half-formed wreath and cast it upon the brooklet with a charming little pout of the lips, that was lovely almost as her smiles had been.

I went on with my coronal, enjoying the task as an author does his poem, or a painter his picture. The buds harmonized under my fingers; their symmetrical grace filled my soul with the delight which springs from a natural love of the beautiful. Even at that age I had all the feelings of an artist, all that love of praise which holds a place in those feelings.

“Ah,” said I, weaving my wreath among her golden curls, “if you could see how beautiful you are together, you and the flowers.”

“I can see,” cried the child, springing up and scattering a shower of blossoms from the folds of her frock which fell into the water, disturbing it till it looked like a shattered mirror. “No, not now, naughty thing that I am, to make the poor brook so angry with my flowers—but wait a minute, and you shall see!”

“No, no, not there!” cried I, seizing her in breathless fear, for I remembered the hideous thing that had frightened me 185from the depths of those very waters; “don’t look in the water; let us go away. It may be lurking here yet.”

“What?” questioned the child, anxiously.

“Something that I saw here once, a wild, wicked creature, with such eyes and hair”——

“What, in the water?” she asked, her blue eyes growing wider and larger.

“Yes, here in the pool, just by this rock.”

We both stood up clinging to one another. In our upright position the pool lay clear and tranquil beneath us, and impelled by that sort of fascination which in moments of affright often turns the gaze upon that which it dreads to see, our eyes fell at the same moment upon two objects reflected back as from a mirror—my little friend, so like one of those cherubs which Raphael half buries amid the transparent clouds in his pictures—and that other little friend, with whom I had become acquainted in the mirror at home.

“Ah, how came she here? Is she your friend also?” I said, pointing toward the dark brilliant child that pointed back to me, with a questioning smile as I spoke.

“Who, that?” asked my companion, waving her hand—a gesture that was sent back, as it seemed, with new grace from the water.

“Why, don’t you know it again?”

“Yes, but do you? Does it ever speak to you, or only stand looking like that?”

She gazed at me with her wondering eyes, and then at the images beneath us.

“Why, don’t you know me, there with the wreath on?—and you? it is so droll that any one should not know herself.”

I caught my breath.

“What?” I exclaimed, “does that child look like me? is it me?”

“Why, yes, who else, please?” cried my companion gaily, “see, it is your hair, so black, and your pretty frock too; and the eyes, they look like stars in the water.”

186I looked upon the two figures, the fair, blooming little beauty—the dark, earnest, haughty but sparkling face that bent over her. After a moment, I said slowly, as if speaking of a picture, “yes, it is me, and I am beautiful!”

“Indeed you are,” exclaimed the child, with a gaiety that disturbed me, for this conviction of my own loveliness gave a serious, almost sad impression to my thoughts; “papa calls me his blossom, you shall be his star. Shall she not, my own darling papa?”

I looked up and saw a gentleman standing upon the bank looking calmly, and with a gentle smile upon us as we stood. He was dressed in black, somewhat worn, and had a subdued meekness in his deportment, which won my childish heart in an instant.

“Well, Cora, are you ready to return home?” he said, with a quiet smile.

“Oh, yes, papa,” she cried, unwinding her arms from mine, and leaping from the rock. “Good-bye, come to-morrow,” she cried, clambering up the bank, and pausing at the top to shower back kisses with both hands; “do you hear? Come to-morrow, my star”——

The gentleman took her hand and led her away. I watched them till they disappeared, and then sunk upon the rock crying disconsolately. It seemed as if my life had again just begun, and was swept away into darkness.

187

The next morning Turner called, and I told him my mournful adventure. He seemed greatly interested, and, after listening very attentively, sunk into a train of thought, still holding me on his knee. At last he addressed Maria,

“This may prove a good thing for the child,” he said. “It is strange we never thought of it before. The curate’s daughter is just the companion for Zana, and as they teach her at home it is possible—but we will think more of it.”

197Turner placed me on the floor as he spoke, and, taking Maria on one side, conversed with her for some time. Meanwhile I was eager to reach the parsonage once more—I felt that Cora would be expecting me—that I might even be wanted by the broken-hearted man, whose grief had filled my whole being with sympathy.

I ran up stairs, put on my bonnet and little black silk mantilla with its rich garniture of lace, and pulling Turner by the coat, gave him and Maria a hasty good morning.

“Wait,” said the kind old fellow, seizing my hand—“wait a bit, and I will go with you. All that I dread,” he continued, turning to Maria, “is the questions that he will naturally ask.”

“Oh, but you can evade them,” answered Maria.

“Yes, by telling all that I absolutely know, nothing more nor less, and that every servant at Greenhurst can confirm; I must stick to simple facts, no conjectures nor convictions without proof; no man has a right to ask them.”

I had gathered a basket of fruit that morning before the dew was off, and buried the glowing treasure beneath a quantity of jessamine and daphna blossoms, for some intuition told me that pure white flowers were most fitted for the house of mourning. With this precious little basket on my arm, I waited impatiently for Turner to start, if he was indeed going with me. But there were hesitation and reluctance in his manner, though at last he yielded to my importunity, and we set out.

It was a pleasant walk, and my enjoyment of its beauty was perfect. I had an object, something to fix my heart upon; the dreamy portion of my life was over; I began to know myself as a thinking, acting being.

We entered the parsonage. Mr. Clarke was in the parlor, sitting in the easy-chair exactly as I had left him the day before, with his silk robe on—and his eyes, heavy with grief, were bent upon the floor. Emboldened by the affection which had sprung up in my heart for this lone man, I went up to him as his own child might have done, and kissed the hand which fell languidly by his side.

198He did not lift his eyes, but resting his hand on my head, whispered softly,

“Bless thee—bless thee, my poor orphan.”

He evidently mistook me for his own child.

“It is not little Cora, only me,” I said—“me and Mr. Turner.”

He looked up, saw Turner standing near the door, shook his head sadly, and dropped into the old position.

I swept the white blossoms, to one end of my basket and exposed the cherries underneath, red and glowing as if the sunshine that had ripened them were breaking back to the surface again.

“I picked them for you my ownself,” I said, holding up the basket—“for you and Cora.”

Poor man, his lips were white and parched; it is probable he had not tasted food all the previous day! With a patient, thoughtful smile he took a cluster of the cherries, and my heart rose as I saw how much the grateful fruit refreshed him.

“This is a strange little creature,” he said at last, addressing Turner. “She was with us yesterday; it seemed as if God had sent one of his cherubs. Truly of such is the kingdom of heaven!”

Dear old Turner, how his face began to work.

“She is a good girl—a very good girl. We’ve done all we could to spoil her like two old fools, her bonne and I; but somehow she’s too much for us; as for the spoiling, it isn’t to be done.”

I saw Cora through an open door, and laying a double handful of the cherries on her father’s robe, ran toward her. She looked pale, poor thing, and her sweet eyes were dull and heavy. She was in a little room that opened to the parlor, and, still in her long linen night-gown, and with her golden curls breaking from a tiny muslin cap, lay upon the cushions of a chintz sofa; for, it seems, she had refused to be taken entirely from her father, and he had spent his night in the easy-chair.

“Her head was aching terribly,” she said; “she had been awake some time, but papa was so still that it frightened her. 199She was afraid that he had gone to sleep like her mother, and never would wake up again.”

The quick sympathies of girlhood soon rendered us both more cheerful. She began to smile when her father’s voice reached us, and refreshed her sweet lips with my cherries, in childish forgetfulness of the sorrow that had rendered them so pale.

“I’m so glad you have come,” she said, leaving the sofa; and gathering up her night-gown till both rosy little feet were exposed upon the matting, she ran to a side door and looked out, calling, “Sarah Blake—Sarah Blake!”

A servant girl, plump and hearty, with little grey eyes, and cheeks red as the cherries in my basket, answered the summons. She looked upon me with apparent curiosity and evident kindness, and taking Cora in her arms, said, “so this is the strange little lady.”

“Isn’t she nice?” whispered Cora. “Isn’t she like a star?”

“Yes, she is a nice playmate; I’m glad you’ve found her, Miss Cora, only one would like to know just who she is.”

I sat down on the matting, as the door closed after them, and taking up the white flowers, began to weave them into a crown. It was an irresistible habit, that of sorting and combining any flowers that came within my reach. I often did this unconsciously, and with a sort of affectionate carefulness, for the rude handling of a blossom gave me pain. It seemed to me impossible that they did not suffer as a child might; so, with a light touch, I wove my garland thick and heavy with leaves and blossoms. I never felt lonely when flowers were my companions. They seemed to me like a beautiful alphabet which God had given, that I might fashion out with them the mystic language of my own heart.

The voices of Turner and the curate reached me from the next room. They were conversing in a low tone, but I could hear that the stricken man was shaking off the apathy of his grief. There was interest and depth in his tone. As they talked, the door, which had been but half on the latch, swung open a little, and I heard him say,

200“It is a strange and touching history. Have you made any effort to learn how she came in this forlorn condition?”

“Every effort that a human being could make.”

“And you have literally no information beyond the morning when you took her from the door-step?”

“None whatever.”

“Cannot she herself remember enough to give some clue?”

“Illness must have driven everything from her memory. The mere effort to recollect seems to shake her very existence. I will never attempt it again.”

“She must be of good birth,” said the curate, thoughtfully, “never did human face give more beautiful evidence of gentle blood.”

“I never doubted that,” answered Turner, quickly.

“Strange, very strange,” murmured the curate.

“Is there any hope that you will aid us, sir?” said Turner, who used few words at any time, and evidently found the prolonged deliberations of the curate annoying.

“How can you ask?” replied the curate, gently. “I thought that was settled long ago. Were she the poorest vagrant that ever craved alms, I would do my best to aid her. As it is, can I ever forget yesterday? Mr. Turner, we sometimes do find angels in our path. This one we shall not entertain unawares, I know that she will prove a blessing to this desolated house.”

I dropped the flowers in my lap, and began to listen breathlessly. His beautiful faith in my future—his solemn trust in the good that was in me, fell like an inspiration upon my soul. From that hour my devotion to that good man and his daughter was a religious obligation—yes, a religious obligation before I knew what religion meant.

“Ah! if she had only been near to help us,” said the curate, and his eyes filled with those quiet, dewy tears with which God first waters a grief-stricken heart before he lets in the sunshine to which it has become unused—tears and sunshine that sometimes freshen the soul again with more than the brightness of childhood.

201A strange thought came over me. I laid down the wreath and glided softly to the curate’s chair.

“They told us yesterday that she had gone to God,” I whispered, looking in his face with a sort of holy courage. “Is God so far off that she cannot help us?”

The curate gazed at me with a strange expression at first, then a beautiful smile parted his lips, and laying both hands on my head, he looked in my face still smiling, while his eyes slowly filled.

That moment little Cora came in. Her father reached forth his hand and drew her arm around my neck.

“Little children, love one another,” he said, and falling back in his chair, with the smile still upon his lips, he closed his eyes, but great tears forced themselves from under the lids and rolled slowly downward.

I drew back with the child, and with our arms interlinked we glided into the next room. I took up my crown of white blossoms, and, as if she read the thought in my bosom, Cora whispered, “Mamma, is it for her?” We stole through the parlor again, and went out. The curate sat with his eyes closed, and Turner had an elbow on each knee, with both hands supporting his forehead.

Without speaking a word, Cora and I turned an angle of the church and entered the grave-yard. It looked more cheerful than it had appeared the day before. Long glances of sunshine shot across it, and some stray birds had lost themselves in the cypress trees, and seemed trying to sing their way out.

We laid our garland down upon the bleak, new grave of Cora’s mother, just over the spot where we knew her cold heart was sleeping. Its faint perfume spread like an angel’s breath all over the grave, and we went softly away, feeling that she knew what we had done.

From that day my life was divided between the parsonage and the only home I had ever known. Turner had proved a more efficient consoler of the curate than a thousand sermons could have been. In the hour of his deepest grief, he had 202opened a new channel for his affections as new means of usefulness. The overpowering anguish, that had almost swept him from the earth in twenty-four hours, never returned again. He would often say, looking upon us children with a peaceful smile,

“She is with God, and He is everywhere.”

None but a good man could have been so easily won from such a grief by the simple power to aid others, for his wife had been the most devoted and loving creature that the sun ever shone upon, and her death was sudden as the flash of lightning that darts from a summer cloud. A disease of the heart, insidious and unsuspected till the moment of her death, left her lifeless, in the morning, upon the pillow to which she had retired at night with trusting prayers and innocent smiles.

Thus I became the pupil of Mr. Clarke—the sister, nay, more than the sister of his child; and now, heart and mind, my whole nature began to expand. My profound ignorance of life was slowly enlightened. The history of my native land was no longer a sealed book. I began to comprehend the distinctions that existed in society—the principles of government, the glorious advantages which follow each step that nations take toward freedom. I confess it took me a long time to comprehend why one man should, without effort of his own, possess lands which stretched from horizon to horizon, like Lord Clare, while others, who toiled from sun to sun, could scarce secure the necessaries of existence; nor have I yet solved the question satisfactorily to my sense of right.

No life can be really monotonous in which taste is gratified and knowledge acquired; certainly not where the heart is allowed to put forth its natural affections and weave them around worthy objects.

Cora and I took our lessons together, but she had little of that eager thirst for knowledge which possessed me. Gentle, caressing and indolent, to escape her lessons was a relief, while I devoured mine, and found time for the gratification of a thousand fancies that she was ready to praise, but unwilling to share.

203It is said that women of opposite natures are most likely to find sympathy with each other. I do not believe this, either in men or women. In order to perfect companionship, tastes, habits, intellectual aspirations, nay, even physical health must assimilate.

I believe no human being ever loved another more thoroughly than I loved Cora Clarke. To say that I would have given my life to save hers would be little, for life is not always the greatest sacrifice one human soul can make to another. But I would have yielded up any one of the great hopes of my existence, could the sacrifice have secured her happiness. But in less than three years I had outgrown Cora’s companionship. My love, though unbounded, had a sense of protection in it. It was the caressing attachment of a mother for her child, or an elder sister for her orphan charge.

Strange as it may seem, the companionship so essential to my character was found more thoroughly in the father than the child. He never wearied of teaching, and I never remember to have become tired of learning. My appreciation of all his arguments—and they were vast—was perfect. My love for him was more than that of a daughter for her parent.

From the time I first entered his house, I felt a conviction that, in some way, the love that I bore for these two persons would be brought into powerful action—that I should be called upon to support them in great troubles, and that my own destiny was in some mystical way bound up in them. Thus time passed happily enough, till I reached my eleventh year. Lord Clare was still abroad in the far east, it was said, and I had begun to think of him as one dwells upon the characters in a history. The name had become familiar now, and I ceased to feel any extraordinary interest in it such as had first impressed me.

Certainly I knew something of his history. Mr. Clarke had told me of the sudden and singular death which had overtaken Lady Clare on the night of her marriage, and of the great probability that the earl would never marry again, in which 204case his sister, and through her his nephew, the Etonian, would come in possession of the title and several large estates entailed with it.

One thing, I remember, interested me a good deal, for I was at the time informing myself regarding the hereditary privileges of the British nobility, and it was fixed upon my memory that this particular title, and its estates, descended alike to male or female heirs, as they happened to fall in succession, while a large property, acquired by Lord Clare’s marriage, might be disposed of by deed or will.

I still possessed Jupiter, my beautiful black pony, and frequently rode him to the parsonage, taking a canter over the park before returning home. Greenhurst remained unoccupied, except by a servant or two, and my freedom in this respect was unchecked, because Turner supposed it to be without danger of any kind.

One day—I think this was a month after I entered upon my twelfth year—I took a fine free gallop toward a portion of the park which has been mentioned as commanding a view of Marston Court.

I checked my pony on a ridge of upland, and was looking toward this house which, from the first, had contained a mysterious interest to me, when a man came suddenly from behind a clump of trees at my right, and walking up to Jupiter, threw his arm over the animal’s neck.

I was not terrified, but this abrupt movement filled me with surprise, and, without speaking a word, I bent my gaze searchingly on his face and figure.

205He was a man of middle age, spare and muscular, of swarthy complexion, and with eyes so black and burning in their glance, that mine sunk under them as if they had come in sudden contact with fire.

“What is your name?” he said, still keeping those fierce eyes on my face.

“Take your arm off Jupiter’s neck,” I answered, “he is not used to strangers.”

He laughed, revealing a row of firm, white teeth, that gave a ferocious expression to his whole countenance.

“I am almost answered,” he said, with a low chuckle, “the blood spoke out there!”

His language was broken, and his appearance strange. I was sure that he came from foreign parts, and looked at him with curiosity unmixed with fear.

“Take your arm away,” I repeated, angrily, “you shall not hurt my horse!”

He removed his arm with another laugh, and then said, in a tone that gave me a sensation nearer affright than I had yet known—

“Well, my little queen, I have taken my arm away; now tell me your name.”

“Why do you wish to know it?” I demanded.

“Perhaps I have a reason—perhaps not—only tell me, if it is no secret.”

“My name is Zana,” I answered, reddening, for somehow the subject had become painful to me.

“In England, people have two names,” he replied.

“But I have only one.”

“And that is Zana—nothing more, ha?”

“I have told you.”

“That should be enough,” he muttered, “but it is well to be certain. Where do you live?” he added.

“Down yonder,” I replied, pointing with my whip in the direction of my home.

“In a stone house, cut up with galleries, notched with 206balconies, buried in trees and smothered in flowers?” he demanded.

“That is my home,” I replied, astonished at the accuracy of his description.

“And how long have you lived there?”

“I do not know why you ask, but it is no secret. I have lived there six years.”

“That is, since about the time that Lady Clare died,” he observed, as if making a calculation.

“I believe it is,” was my answer.

He hesitated a moment, and then said, in a courteous voice,

“Who is your father?”

I had learned to blush at my incapacity to answer this question, and when it was thus abruptly put, the temper burned in my cheek. Rising up haughtily in my stirrup, I gave the bridle an abrupt pull, and poor Jupiter a lash that set him off like an arrow. He almost knocked the man down. I looked back to learn if he was harmed. He called after me in a language that I had never heard spoken before, at least that I could remember, but I understood it. The man was showering curses upon me or my horse.

After the appearance of this singular man, the monotony of my life broke up. I became restless and self-centred, speaking of his presence in the park to no one, but thinking of it with continued wonder. Some mysterious sympathy, wild and painful, but oh, how intense, drew me toward this strange being. I feared, yet longed for his presence—longed to hear again that language at once so strange and so familiar, that had fallen as yet only in curses on my ear, but still carrying a fierce sort of fascination with it.

I rode to the portion of the park where I had seen him, again and again, and sitting on my pony, searched every dingle and group of trees, expecting each moment to see him start, brigand-like, from the leafy gloom. But he did not come, and, filled with restless disappointment, I at length sunk into the ordinary occupations 207of life, but with an unsettled feeling that had never possessed me before.

By this time I knew that some mystery was attached to my life—that I was nameless, motherless, fatherless. In short, that like a wild hare or a wounded bird, I had been picked up in charity by the wayside, and in charity nurtured by that unique Spanish woman and old Turner. I felt this keenly. As ignorance was swept from my mind, the painful mystery that clung around me darkened my soul with a feeling of unspeakable desolation. I had learned what shame was, and felt it to my heart’s core every time my want of name or connections was alluded to. Still the entire force of this isolation, the effect it might have upon my after life and character, could not be felt in all its poignancy, as it was in later times. But its mistiness, the indefinite form which every thing regarding my past history took, made myself a subject of perpetual thought. Upon my memory there was a constant, but unavailing strain. There seemed to be a dark curtain in my mind, hiding all that my soul panted to know, but which I had lost all power to lift or disturb. Thus time wore heavily—heavily months and months—still I saw no more of the man whose memory hung about me like a superstition, which I had neither power nor wish to throw off.

At last an event arose that completely destroyed the beautiful, but dull quietude of our lives. Lord Clare’s sister arrived unexpectedly at Greenhurst, and a large party were to follow her and her son down from London, to spend the shooting season.

208This sudden invasion of the woods and grounds that had been exclusively ours for so many years, was a source of great annoyance to old Turner. His usual quaint good-humor was sadly disturbed. He seemed quite beside himself with anxiety, and nervously besought me to give up my usual rides, and remain confined to the house if possible during the time Lady Catherine and her son might remain at Greenhurst.

This was asking much of a young creature just verging into girlhood, and full of a strong, fresh curiosity for seeing and feeling the life of which she began to know herself a vital part. Besides, I was a creature of the open air. No bird ever felt a keener necessity for the bright atmosphere, and all the rich beauty of out-door life. Shut up in the house, I was like a wild lark in its cage, moaning, moping, and with no hearty relish of existence left in me. I wished to obey good old Turner. He was so anxious on the point, and seemed so grieved at the idea of depriving me of a single pleasure, that had the thing been possible, I would have kept myself a prisoner for weeks rather than increase his unaccountable perturbation.

But he was seldom with us now, that kind, strange man, and my confinement became terrible—when would it end? How long was I, who had never been confined in-doors a whole day in my life, unless in that one fever—how was I to endure weeks and weeks of this dull imprisonment?

It was too much. Not even to please Turner could I submit to this longer.

One day, I think it was the fourth, my restless spirit broke bounds. I took an opportunity when Maria was occupied, to steal out into the open air. Jupiter’s stable, a pretty building that might have passed for a summer-house, stood a little back from the kitchen garden, and I heard him neighing sharply, as if he, like his mistress, were beginning to rebel.

For some reason, I never knew what, except that Turner disliked to have servants about our place, the old man had always taken care of Jupiter with his own hands. With so few objects of love, I naturally often followed him to the pretty 209building where Jupiter was stalled, more like a fairy courser than the matchless pony he was.

The pleasant neigh which the animal set up as I approached, awoke all the wild-wood spirit that Turner’s interdict had kept down in my bosom so long. I ran to the stable, dragged the side-saddle with its pretty embroidered trappings from its closet, and girded it breathlessly upon Jupiter’s back. The creature seemed eager as myself to be upon the hill-side. His ears quivered with delight; he rubbed his head against my shoulder with a mellow whimper, and opened his mouth for the bit the moment he saw the embossed bridle in my hand.

Patting him on the back with a promise of speedy return, I entered the house, ran up to my room, and hurried on my habit, of soft green cloth, and the beaver hat with a long black ostrich plume that floated from one side.

The blood was hot in my cheek as I tied the hat on. Without staying to twist up the curls that floated away with the feather in picturesque confusion, I ran off to the stables, huddling up the skirt of my riding-dress with both hands.

I knew that it was wrong—that I should be sorry enough for it before night, but in my willfulness this only gave a keener zest to the enjoyment I proposed to myself.

Away we went, Jupiter and I, dashing through the trees, over the velvet sward, and across the broad avenues, along which the morning sunshine lay in rivers of light. The branches rained down their ripe brown and golden leaves on me as I passed; and a crisp white frost that lay like quicksilver among the grass, gave forth a rasping sound more exhilarating than music, as Jupiter’s feet flew over it. The air was clear and bright, with mingled frost and sunshine as it fell upon my face and swept my garments. The blood kindled like wine in my veins. I was wild with the joyousness of free motion, ready for leaping a ditch, flying through the air—any thing wild or daring that had life and quick motion in it.

Away we went toward the uplands, from which a view of Marston Court could be obtained. I thought of the strange 210man who had surprised me on that spot as we rushed along—laughed aloud as I remembered how Jupiter and I had baffled him once, how ready we were to do it again. I longed to see him, not for any specified purpose. Nothing then was important enough to have kept me motionless a moment. But abroad as I was, with a wild thirst for adventure of any kind, it would have been something like the excitement I wanted, could the mysterious language with which he cursed me have threatened us with danger once more.

But though I searched for this being, riding around and over the eminence on which he had appeared but once, nothing but the cool, beautiful solitude rewarded me. The luxurious stretch of country between me and Marston Court, brown, hazy, and many-tinted, with the picturesque old building looming up through the rich shadows—all its clear outlines drowned in soft autumnal colors—all its hoariness and age mellowed down and lost in the dreamy distance—this rare view, with the upland on which we stood, was wrapped in quiet. Not a human being was in sight.

A strange desire seized me to visit this building, which had so often charmed me with its loneliness and beauty. It was some miles distant. I knew that, but Jupiter had merely tried his strength as yet, simply breathed himself in our progress to the uplands. He had been shut up in the stable for days, and seemed as wild for action as his mistress.

“Shall we try it, Jupiter?” I said, smoothing his mane with my whip. “There is a glorious run for us, Jupiter, as we have determined to be disobedient and naughty. Ju! suppose we do something worth while?”

At the sound of my voice, the pony began to quiver his ears, and snuffed the air saucily, as if he knew some mischief was afloat, and was eager for his share.

“Come, then,” and I gathered up the bridle, shaking it gleefully. Jupiter gave his head a toss, and away we went toward Marston Court.

The eminence lay behind, and we were in a thickly wooded 211little valley, moving rather slowly, for I was charmed by broken glimpses of a small stream that flashed up from the shadows, when the having of hounds, the tramp of horses, and a wild confusion of sounds swept down the hollow. Before I could tighten my reins, a stag shot by me, so close that Jupiter reared with a wild snort, almost flinging me backward from the saddle.

The stag, a noble animal, cleared the stream with one desperate bound, and for an instant I saw him turn his great, wild eyes, glowing with pain and terror through the shadows. Blood-specked foam dropped from his jaws; and his strained limbs quivered with an agony of terror, that made me tremble upon my saddle with sympathy.

As I looked, the poor animal, whose head was beginning to droop, gave a sudden start, flung up his antlers, and with a desperate staggering leap disappeared up the valley. I had not caught my breath again, when down through the opposite gorge came a train of hounds, leaping forward with cruel ferocity, some breast to breast, others in single file, but all with great, savage eyes and open jaws, howling and baying out their blood-thirsty eagerness. They rushed by me, some on one side of Jupiter, some on the other, spotting his black coat with flakes of foam, and making him start with the fury of their noise.

For myself, I struck at the dogs with my whip, and madly flung it after them. My sympathy for the poor stag was a pang of such agony that it made me wild. But they swept away like the wind, howling back, as it seemed to me, their brutal defiance and derision of my helplessness.

Then like the rush of a tempest, heavy with thunder and red with lightning, came the hunt. The flaming uniforms; those dark horses; the long riding shirts, streaming back like dusky banners; ostrich plumes flashing blackly upon the strong current of wind created by the quick motion of their owners. All this rushed by me, as I have said, like a sudden storm.

Directly over the spot where we stood bore down the hunt, 212sweeping us away with it as a swollen stream tosses onward the straws which it encounters.

The stag was nearly run down; the hunters were becoming tired; but Jupiter was fresh as a lark, and held his own bravely with the most noble-blooded hunter of them all.

The hounds were yelling, like fiends, ahead. Some one called out that the stag was at bay. A huntsman, all in scarlet, shot out from the rest onward like an arrow. Jupiter made a sudden bound. It may be in the fierce excitement that I urged him; but he gave a great leap, and kept neck and neck with the huntsman.

Beneath a pile of rocks that choked up one end of the valley, the poor stag was run down. With his delicate fore hoofs lifted up with a desperate effort at another spring, he stood one instant with his head turned back, and his great, agonized eyes fixed upon the dogs. The rocks were too high. His poor limbs exhausted, he could not make the leap, but wheeled back and desperately tossed the first hound, who fell with a yelp upon the stones.

But the whole pack was upon him, scrambling up the rocks, and making fiercely for his throat from all points.

“Save him—save him!” I shouted, striking Jupiter with my clenched hand. “Save him—save him!”

I rushed by the huntsman. Hitherto we had kept, as I have said, neck and neck; but Jupiter felt the sting of my blow, and gave a mad bound that brought us in the midst of the dogs. I still urged him on, striving to trample down the fierce brutes beneath his hoofs. The stag knew it, I do believe. The poor animal felt that I was his friend. No human eyes ever had a deeper agony of appeal in them. I sprang from Jupiter’s back down among the dogs, and cast myself before their victim.

I saw the huntsman leap from his horse and plunge among the dogs.

“Move—come away, the hounds will tear you to pieces,” he shouted, beating fiercely about with his whip.

213“They shall not kill him; call them off, I say, these beasts shall not kill him,” I shrieked, in reply.

“That moment a hound sprang upon me, tearing my riding-skirt, and almost bringing me to the earth.”

I cried aloud, but not with fear. The excitement was terrible, but there was no cowardice in it.

“Great heavens! she will be devoured,” I heard him say; then he leaped like a flame upon the dog, and grappling him by the throat, bore him backward to the earth.

“Now run, run!” he cried, panting with the hound in his power.

“No!” I answered stoutly, “they will tear him to pieces if I do. Keep them off—keep them off.”

He made no answer, but wrestled more fiercely with the hound.

That moment the whole hunt came up, men, keepers, and women surrounding us in their gorgeous dresses like a battalion of cavalry.

I heard a clamor of voices, the shrieks of women, the excited shouts of huntsmen giving orders. Keepers rushed in among the hounds with their clubs. In a few moments the dogs were driven back crouching and snarling among their masters. I stood alone by the poor stag, with a host of eyes upon me; then, for the first time, I began to tremble.

“Here,” said a stout old squire, whose white hair fell like snow from under the close hunting cap, “here, George Irving, you have won the right to cut his throat. Thomas, where is the knife?”

A keeper came forward, presenting a sharp hunting-knife.

“You will not—you will not,” I said, clasping my hands, and standing face to face with the youth who had saved me. I felt that my lips were quivering, and that great tears were dropping like hail-stones down my burning cheeks—“you will not.”

“No,” answered the youth, taking the knife and holding it toward me. “It is not mine, this brave child was in first. I 214found her, like the stag, at bay, braving the hounds. Tell me, shall not the life of this animal be hers?”

A loud hallo answered him, echoed by a chorus of musical female voices.

The youth reached forth his knife again, but I rejected it. The stag was safe, and my heart so full of joy, that I felt it breaking all over me. The noble face before me brightened as if from the reflection of mine, and for the first time I saw that it was a very young man who had saved me. Young and—but I will not describe him—for upon his features at that moment there was something of which no language can give the least idea.

I felt the blood rushing up to my face, for now all things became clear, and I knew that a score of strange eyes were wondering at me. The feather in my hat was broken, and fell prone upon my shoulder; my skirt had been badly wrenched and mangled by the dogs; their muddy foot-prints were trampled all over it; a morbid sense of the beautiful made me shrink with shame, as I saw all those eyes fixed upon my dilapidated state.

“Where is Jupiter?” I said, turning to my young friend.

“Will you search for him, I should like to go away?”

But my pony had retreated beyond the crowd, and could not be seen. This increased my distress. I sat down upon a stone, and looking at the exhausted stag, began to think myself the most miserable object of the two.

I heard a buzz of voices around me, and could distinguish the words, “Who is it? She is strange to every one here. Where can the picturesque creature have sprung from?”

That moment a pang shot through my heart. Who indeed was I? How came I there? By a gross act of disobedience to my best friend? I felt that my face was bathed with blushes and with tears; for the first time in my life I was ashamed of myself.

A lady rode close up to me, so close that her skirts swept my shoulder.

215“Whose little girl are you?” she said. “You are by far too young for a scene like this.”

I looked up and knew the face. It was Lady Catherine Irving, a little more spare, and with a host of fine wrinkles accumulated on her haughty face, but with the same cold, white complexion; the same self-satisfied look.

“Ah, you seem to know me,” she said, settling her beaver hat with one hand. “Now tell me your name; don’t be afraid.”

“I am not afraid, not in the least,” I answered. “Why should I be?”

“True enough; what a bright little wood-nymph it is,” she continued, smiling back upon two scarlet clad gentlemen behind her. “I suppose there really is nothing superlatively frightful about me—ha!”

“Something superlatively the reverse,” answered the gentleman thus challenged.

“You hear, little wood-nymph,” she said, after appropriating this compliment with a bend of the head, “there is nothing to fear, so speak out. Where do you live? How came you among all these gentlemen and ladies?”

“I live in the park, near Greenhurst, madam, with Mr. Turner”——

“Ha!” exclaimed Lady Catherine, with a sharp glance at my face. “Go home, child—how came you here?”

“I came on my pony, madam.”

“But the hunt, what on earth brought you there?” cried the lady, seeming to become more and more displeased.

“The hunt—if all this company means that—came across me, and carried Jupiter and I along.”

“But how came you dismounted and among the hounds?”

“They were all upon the poor stag, and I could not bear it,” I replied, simply.

“Mother,” said the young man walking close to the lady and speaking in a low voice, “let us take some other time for questioning her. Lead off the party, so many persons terrify the poor child.”

216“Mount your horse then,” she replied, sharply, “I will see you again child. I must have some explanation of all this. You are right, George, this is no place. Mount—mount!”

The youth hesitated, looked at me, at the stag, and then rather wistfully at his mother.

“We are waiting,” she said, with an impatient wave of her whip, and a glance at me that brought a flash of red to my cheeks. I, in my innocence, thought that she was displeased with the torn state of my poor dress.

The youth mounted, and the hunt dispersed, breaking up into groups and pairs, and scattering a red gleam through the woods.

I was left alone, I and the poor trembling, exhausted stag, who lay partly upon his knees, gazing at me through his filmy and half shut eyes.

I looked around for Jupiter, but he was not to be seen—no living thing but the worried stag and myself in all that dim solitude.

A sense of exhaustion and of loneliness fell upon me. My heart grew mournful, and the poor stag with his stiffened limbs and the foam dried on his lips, filled me with compassion. I went down to the brook, brought up water in my hands, and bathed his mouth with it. When this was done, the animal struggled to his feet and staggered away down toward the water, leaving me alone. I felt this total desertion keenly, and burying my face in my lap, began to cry like the child I was.

I sat full ten minutes sobbing forth the desolation of my heart, when the quick tramp of a horse made me look up. I 217thought it must be Jupiter returning to his duty, but instead of him I saw the young huntsman riding gently through the trees, and now close by me.

I started up, ashamed of my tears, and looked resolutely another way, hoping to escape his notice, but he sprang off his horse and was at my side before I could dash the drops from my burning cheek.

“So you have been crying, poor child?” he said, with a sort of patronizing manliness that would have amused an older person. “No wonder, we were a set of savages to leave you here alone, and with no means of getting home.”

“It was savage!” I said, realizing for the first time how badly I had been used; “but the animals were just as cruel, the stag and Jupiter; I would not have believed it of Jupiter, he used to love me; and the very first trouble, off he goes with the rest!”

Tears came into my eyes again at this thought, but I quenched and crushed them between my eyelashes, too proud for an exposure of my keen distress at the desertion of Jupiter.

“Nay,” said the youth, smiling, “but I have come back to see after you.”

“Did you?” I replied, with a gush of gratitude; “to see after me, and for nothing else?”

“What else should bring me back?” he replied, looking around as if in search of something. “So the stag has gone too, ungrateful beast. I had a fancy to fasten some badge on his horns that he might be safe hereafter. He was a noble old fellow after all, no wonder he was glad to get away from this spot!”

“But Jupiter,” I said, with growing confidence in the youth, “what can have become of my pony? How am I to get home? Oh, if I only had been good—if I had but stayed in-doors as they told me!”

“As who told you, lady bird?”

“Mr. Turner. He knew that I had no business abroad when the country was full of strangers!”

218“And is Turner a relative? What control can he possess over you?”

“He,” I replied, kindling with wonder that any one should doubt Turner’s right to control me. “Mr. Turner, I belong to him! No one else owns me. Scarcely any one else cares for me. Why, in the wide, wide world, he is the only person who ever shall control me—dear, blessed Mr. Turner!”

“He is a whole-hearted, queer old soul, sure enough,” was the reply; “but certainly you are not his child; I never knew that he was married.”

“His child!” I cried, breathless with the thought. “I—I don’t know—how should I? I his child—his own? What put the idea into any one’s head? It sounds so strange. Do you mean that Mr. Turner is my father that people ask after so often?”

“Nay, I mean nothing—only is Mr. Turner, as you call him, married?”

“No, I think not. Maria, I am sure, isn’t married; but I never asked, never thought of it.”

He was about to answer, but that instant a low, timid neigh from behind the spur of a rock close by, made me start.

“That is Jupiter—that is Jupiter!” I exclaimed, and with this joyful shout away I bounded, gathering up my torn skirt in both arms, and full of spirit once more.

Sure enough there stood my pony, sheltered and hidden by the rock, to which the pretty creature had fled from the crowd of huntsmen. The sound of my voice called forth his neigh, and never did a dumb creature express more satisfaction at the presence of its mistress.

“There you see—you see it was not Jupiter’s fault, the dear, dear old rogue. He was so wise to creep away and wait till those hateful people were all gone!” I exclaimed triumphantly, laying my hot cheek against the glossy neck of my horse.

“And did all those people really seem so hateful?” replied the youth, caressing Jupiter.

“All! I don’t know. That lady was the only one I saw 219distinctly. The rest floated around me, surging up and down like a red cloud. But I shall never forget her!”

“And did she fill you with repulsion?—was she the hateful one?”

“I had seen her before; I knew her!”

“Indeed—where?” said the youth, in a displeased manner.

“I would rather not say—it is unpleasant to talk about,” I answered, greatly annoyed.

“But it is years since my—that is Lady Catherine, has been at Greenhurst,” he answered, thoughtfully. “Never, I think, since the very sudden death of Lady Clare. You must have mistaken her for some other person.”

I was greatly excited. The remembrance of that heartless voice, when I was taken into Greenhurst, so helpless, stung me.

“No—no,” I answered, “there are some things one never forgets, never mistakes. I have seen that face in my dreams, and hated it in my thoughts too long for any hope of that!”

The youth drew himself back, and ceased to caress my horse. There was a quiet dignity in his manner that made me ashamed of my own vehemence.

“That lady is my mother!” he said calmly, but with a tone of cold reproof in his voice.

I scanned his face with a keen wish to disbelieve him. But now that he was angry, there was a resemblance between his features and those I did in truth hate.

“I am sorry for it,” I said, with a nervous sob—“very, very!”

“Sorry for what, that she is my mother—or that you have spoken disrespectfully of her?” he questioned, more gently than before.

“I am sorry for everything that has happened to-day, and for my own part in it most of all. It began in wicked disobedience, and will end—oh, how will it end? What will Mr. Turner think of me when he knows this?”

“Why, what great sin are you crying for?” he said, smiling once more. “Certainly you are a very free-spoken little person; 220but we must not let Turner quite kill you; so don’t be afraid!”

“He kill me? What, Turner? No—no, not that. Afraid, afraid? Yes, yes, I am afraid, for I have done wrong. Oh, what will become of me? I never was afraid before—never, never.”

“But what have you done?” he asked, still more kindly.

“Mr. Turner forbade me leaving the house. He told me how wrong it was when Lady Catherine’s company might come across me at any time; he tried—oh, so much—to keep me happy in-doors; but it was of no use, I could not endure it. It was as if I were a bird beating my wings against a cage. The wickedness was in me all the time. I thought it was nonsense staying in the house, because other people might be abroad. Then it was so tempting, Mr. Turner at Greenhurst—my bonne occupied—the pony neighing for me to come and take him out. Really, after all, it seemed as if I could not help it”——

George Irving laughed so gleefully that I could not go on, but began to laugh too.

“And so you just broke loose and ran away?” he said, patting Jupiter again and again.

“Yes, I stole the horse, saddled him myself, and was off like a bird,” I replied, reassured by his laughter, and feeling the consciousness of my disobedience borne away on his merry tones.

“And here you are, full seven miles from home, all alone but for me, after braving a pack of hounds in full cry, afraid of old Turner’s frown, as if he were the Grand Mogul.”

He laughed again, but this light way of naming my benefactor awoke the conscience again in my bosom.

“It was very wrong—oh, that I had stayed at home!” I exclaimed, with a fresh pang.

“Well, well, don’t fret about it any more,” he said, with a little impatient playfulness that made me smile again. “Let me lift you to Jupiter’s back—a pretty pony he is, my little 221lady—and scamper home like a good child. Ten chances to one old Turner will know nothing about it.”

I allowed him to lift me to the saddle, and felt myself blushing as he arranged my torn skirts with evident anxiety to give them a decent appearance.

“Now,” he said, springing on his hunter, “I must put your pony to his metal again. Unless I overtake Lady Catherine before she reaches home, my position will very much resemble yours! Come, let us start as we came, neck and neck!”

“No,” said I, brightening with new spirit, “I came in ahead—your hunter fell a little behind Jupiter.”

“But try him now—his speed will be of use to us both,” was the laughing reply. “My mother will be impatient, and her anger may prove worse to bear than old Turner’s, let me tell you.”

He put his horse into a quick canter, and my pony stretched himself vigorously to keep up.

“But please leave us to ourselves!” I pleaded, breathless, with a new dread; “I do not wish to go with you to Lady Catherine!”

“Well—no, I am afraid her ladyship might prove formidable, were she to be surprised after that fashion a second time,” he replied, slightly checking his hunter, “I only propose to see you and Jupiter safe on some avenue of the park, where you can scamper home in safety. I must be in-doors before Lady Catherine, or this escapade will be difficult to account for.”

My cheek grew hot with mortified pride; I felt that he was afraid of some annoyance, perhaps ashamed of having returned for me. Without a word I drew in Jupiter with a suddenness that made him leap—wheeled him on one side, and plunged into the woods, leaving the gentleman, for a moment, unconscious of my desertion.

He followed directly, urging his hunter to a run, and calling after me as he dashed through the trees. I took no heed, and gave back no answer; the blood was burning in my temples; I felt my lips curve and quiver with insulted pride. No man or 222boy living should speak to me, or look at me, who was ashamed to do it before all the world. Then my heart began to ache even in its wrath. I had thought so well of him, his interest in my loneliness, his brave fight with the hounds—why, why did he exert all this tender strength in my behalf to wound me so cruelly afterward? He was by my side, but I kept my head averted with girlish willfulness, expressing my displeasure rudely like any other spoiled child.

“Will you not tell me why you ran away?” he said, attempting to rest one hand upon my saddle as he cantered by me.

Oh, how I longed to lift my pretty riding-whip and strike him hard across the face! I think the act would have appeased me.

“Say, child, will you explain this bit of very bad manners?” he urged, evidently determined to provoke me to some reply.

“Child!” This was too much; the whole taunt stung me into speech. I checked Jupiter, and felt the fire leap into my face as it was turned toward my persecutor. He looked grave—offended.

“Because I wish to ride alone: I’m not used to company, and don’t want any, especially of persons who are afraid or ashamed of being kind to me,” I said, half crying amid my fiery vexation.

“I am not afraid, and am not ashamed,” he answered gravely; “yet you cannot understand, child, for with all that fierce temper you are but a child!”

“I am more than twelve—thirteen, fifteen, for what any one knows,” I said, half blinding myself with tears. “I understand what it is just as well as you can tell me; you are afraid of that haughty person, your mother. You are not quite satisfied with having braved the hounds before a whole crowd of people, for a little girl who has only Mr. Turner to care for her. Oh, yes, I know—I could feel that without knowing!”

“Strange child,” he said, with a grave smile. “Who taught you all this, so young, and without the faith becoming this girlish beauty?”

The anger was burning out in my heart. There was something 223manly and reproving in his calm seriousness that subdued me. He reached out his hand, while the smile brightened all over his face.

“Come, let us be friends—you cannot keep angry with me, because I have not deserved it!”

I gave him my hand. He stooped in his saddle as if to press his lips upon it, but checked the impulse; and, holding it tight an instant, let it drop, saying very earnestly,

“I would not have wounded you for the world.”

That instant the undergrowth close by us was sharply parted, and Turner broke into the path on which we had paused.

I felt the blood leave my face, and, for the first time, trembled at the sight of my benefactor. The old man looked sternly across me to George Irving, whom he neither saluted nor addressed; but, taking Jupiter by the bit, said in a deep, husky voice, that made the heart die in my bosom,

“Zana, come away!”

I dropped the bridle, and covering my face with both gauntleted hands, cowered down upon my saddle with a keen sense of the humiliation which he was witnessing.

I listened breathlessly.

“Turner, if you will let the pony move on, I will dismount and lead my hunter while we have a little talk.”

It was Irving’s voice, and I listened breathlessly for the reply. Some seconds passed before it came; Turner’s throat seemed husky.

“To-morrow, Mr. George, I’ll be at the Hurst,” he said, “and then as much talk as pleases you; but now I must take this child home.”

“But she seems terrified; you will not—surely you will not be harsh with her?”

“Harsh with her! with Zana—was I ever harsh to you in my life, little one?” urged the old man, and the husky voice was broken up with tenderness.

I uncovered my face, and holding out both hands to the old man, turned toward young Irving.

224“You know how wrong I have been—see how forgiving, how kind, how good he is!”

The old man’s face began to work. The fine wrinkles quivered over his cheek and around his mouth, a sure sign of emotion in him. He lifted my two gloved hands and kissed them fondly. All at once he dropped my hands and went up to Irving.

“Mr. Irving—my dear Master George, forget that you have seen her—forget all about it—promise me that you will.”

“That would be difficult,” answered the youth, glancing at me with a smile.

“It would indeed,” said the old man, looking fondly in my face. “God help us—this is a bad business! At any rate, leave us now!”

The young man turned, bent his head, and wheeling his hunter, disappeared.

I spent a wakeful night, disturbed by a host of new feelings and strange thoughts, that crowded upon me like a rush of waters. All night long a review of the day’s hunt went forward in my fancy. The brilliant dresses and those strange faces circled me with a sort of fascination. Sometimes they smiled warningly, then they gibed at my torn garments—and foremost of all was the proud face of Lady Catherine. Oh, how I began to hate that woman! It was the bitter antagonism of a life-time striking root deep in my heart.

Toward morning I thought of Turner, with a pang that was punishment enough for the sin of my first disobedience. I knew 225that he was not only grieved but plunged into difficulties on my account—that all the evils he had been so anxious to guard against were already brought on by my obstinate self-indulgence.

This reflection made me heart-sick, and I turned away from the soft daylight as it broke through my room, ashamed to receive it on my ungrateful face. With faltering steps I went down stairs and seated myself in the little breakfast-room. Turner was in the garden, but though I had not the cowardice to shrink from encountering him in the house, I could not summon courage to seek him.

He saw me at the window looking sad enough, I dare say, and, coming up, gave me a handful of tiny white roses, which were the glory of a plant that he had never allowed to be touched before. I felt the tears rushing to my eyes, and creeping toward the old man, murmured in the deepest humility,

“Oh, Mr. Turner, why don’t you scold me? Why not punish my wickedness?”

“Because,” he answered, with a miserable shake of the head, “because you will be punished enough, poor thing, before night, or I am mistaken.”

“I hope so—I’m sure it would be a satisfaction to be soundly reprimanded. You break my heart with all this kindness.”

“Here comes one,” said Turner, growing red in the face, “who will not sin in that way, I can answer.”

I followed his look, and saw Lady Catherine Irving coming through the garden, walking rather quickly, and brushing down the autumn flowers with the sweep of her garments. On seeing us she resumed the stateliness usual to her movements, and stooped now and then to gather the snowy flowers of a chrysanthemum, which she seemed to examine curiously while approaching the house.

“Ah, Turner,” she said, drawing toward the window, “what a pretty little nest you have here; and what flowers! I have never seen any thing to compare with these,” and forming a ring with the thumb and fore finger of her left hand, she drew 226the white tufts softly through it, as Nero might have trifled on the day of his mother’s murder. “Why, you live here with your little family quite like fairies. No wonder you are so often absent from Greenhurst.”

“I hope that none of the duties my lord left for me to perform are neglected, madam,” answered Turner, with a degree of dignity that charmed me.

“No, no—I do not complain—far from it, good Turner—that I am here is a proof of it. Your child—I hope she was neither frightened nor hurt by the hounds.”

“No, madam,” I answered, leaning through the sash. “It was rather lonesome being left by myself with the poor stag; but the young gentleman”——

“Hush!” said Turner, sternly, glancing toward Lady Catherine, whose cheek flushed with sudden color.

I saw the color and the glitter in her eyes, more expressive still, and even Turner’s caution could not control me. I was determined to let her know that her son had returned to protect me. The remembrance that he had seemed to fear her knowledge of it only urged me on.

“The young gentleman came back and put Jupiter and me into the right path: but for that I don’t know what would have become of us.”

“Your daughter seems a bright, and—forgive me, good Turner—rather forward little thing,” said the lady, lifting the flowers softly to her lips, as she gave him a searching glance. “I am very glad though, that she is unharmed.”

Turner looked at her, and then with a restless movement at me. The color came up among his wrinkles, and his features began to work as if some unfinished resolution had set them in motion. Before he could speak, however, Lady Catherine’s voice broke in again,

“And your wife—my good Turner—really I must have a sight of her and this pretty home of yours—quite a bijou in the grounds, truly!”

Placing a richly enamelled glass to her eyes, the lady took a 227quiet survey of the building before Turner could find words to answer her.

Never had I seen the old man so agitated. The color came and went beneath his wrinkles; his thin lips grew pale and purple by turns; his state of irresolution was painful.

“I will step in and see your wife!” said Lady Catherine, dropping her glass to the full length of its Venetian chain, and looking around for the door.

Now Turner became calm; every muscle and nerve settled down. He stood more firmly on the ground, and looking his tormentor steadily in the face, answered,

“Some one must have been joking at my expense, my lady. I have no wife!”

“No wife!” exclaimed Lady Catherine, with a start that even I could see was premeditated. “No wife—and this child?”

“You are mistaken,” said Turner, “this is not my child. Yourself saw me when I took her up from your own door-stone, or rather the door-stone of Greenhurst, eight years ago.”

A cold smile curled Lady Catherine’s lip. She lifted her glass again and eyed me through it. “I remember the circumstance,” she said, and the hateful smile deepened—“I remember, too, that a child disappeared very mysteriously but a short time before from this nest—two children in fact—if my people told me aright.”

“They did tell you aright, lady,” said Turner, sternly—but she interrupted him.

“One, the elder, went out to service, I fancy. This one dropped, miraculously, on my door-step. Well, well, my good Turner, no one thinks of quarrelling with this fanciful way of adopting your own children; but her mother—unless you are really married to this woman, she must go. I cannot answer it to society—to Lord Clare, the most particular man on earth—if she is allowed to remain on the estate a day longer.”

“Madam,” said Turner, “I have said but the truth; Zana, 228there, is no more my daughter than her Spanish bonne is my wife!”

“Who is her—her father?—who is her mother then?” asked Lady Catherine.

I remarked that her voice faltered in putting this question, and she could not look in Turner’s face.

Turner regarded her firmly, and a faint smile stirred his lip. Lady Catherine saw it, and once more there arose a shade of color in her cheek.

“Lady, I can answer these questions no more than yourself, for you were present when I found the poor child.”

“And had you never seen her before?” questioned the lady.

Turner hesitated and seemed to reflect; but at last he answered firmly enough.

“It is impossible for me to say yes or no.”

The lady played with her flowers awhile, and then spoke again very softly, and with a degree of persuasion in her voice.

“Well, Turner, we will not press you too hard. I cannot forget that you were my brother’s favorite and oldest servant, and now his agent—that he trusted you.”

“He did indeed,” cried the old man, casting a glance full of affection at me.

“I am sure you would do nothing that could cast reproach on him,” continued the lady, placing a strong emphasis on the pronoun.

“Not for the universe,” ejaculated Turner.

“Yet, while you live thus—while there is a doubt left regarding this child, cannot you see that even my noble brother may be condemned as—as sanctioning—you understand—this species of immorality—on his estates?”

“But how am I to prevent this?” exclaimed Turner, after a moment of perplexed thought, during which he gazed on Lady Catherine, as if searching for some meaning in her words which they did not wholly convey.

“Let me tell you—for I have been thinking on this subject a 229good deal—she is a fine-spirited girl that, a little wild and gipsyish; but many of our guests were struck with her.”

“No wonder!” exclaimed Turner, with his face all in a glow. “Who could help it?”

“So they inquired a good deal about her, and when it came out that she lived here under your protection, of course, it led to questions and old things—nonsensical gossip about by-gone times that quite made me nervous—you understand, good Turner. So I told them what I am sure is the truth even yet—that the Spanish woman here is her mother, that she is your own child—that you are married.”

Turner shook his head.

“Then it will be so,” persisted the lady, “or as I said before, both woman and child must leave the estate.”

“You cannot be in earnest!” said Turner.

“Does it seem like earnest when you find me here at this hour of the morning?” replied the lady.

“But it was Lord Clare’s desire—his command—that I hold authority in this house until his return,” persisted Turner.

“He mentions nothing of this in his letters to us. Besides, you cannot mean to say that he has made such provisions for these females.”

“No, Zana was not here at the time; but I know, I am sure”——

“Be sure of nothing!” exclaimed Lady Catherine, with more energy than she had yet exhibited—“be sure of nothing, if you love your master, but that you can serve him best by silencing this subject of public gossip at once. Marry the woman with whom you have been so long domesticated!”

“Marry!” exclaimed Turner, with a terrible twist of the face, as if the word had not really come home to his heart till then, “marry at this time of life, and a Spanish woman. Wouldn’t it do as well, my lady, if they set me in the pillory for an hour or so!”

“It might not do so well for the girl, perhaps,” was the stern reply.

230“For her sake I would do anything!”

“It is a great pity to keep the poor thing caged up here: and what is to become of her in the end? As your daughter she can come up to the house and see something of society.”

“What, a servant, madam?” cried Turner, reddening fiercely.

“Nothing of the kind; you are no common man, Turner; and certainly that child, with her wild, arch, nay, haughty style, might pass anywhere. She shall come to the Hurst and obtain some accomplishments. I should fancy her greatly about the house. She might pick up a little education from my son’s tutor, who will be down in a week or two, and become quite an ornament to the establishment.”

“She would be an ornament to any place,” said Turner, proudly.

“Yes,” replied the lady, smiling upon me, “any man might be proud of her for a daughter. I dare say we shall be excellent friends soon—meantime think of what I have said. This is a charming place, it would be a pity for the child to leave it. To-morrow let me have your answer.”

She moved proudly away, holding up her dress, and winding carefully through the flower-beds, as if her errand had been the commonest thing in the world.

I could not realize the importance of Lady Catherine’s visit all at once. It had been carried on so quietly, so like the ordinary common-place of her patrician life, that its meaning seemed lost in sound. I could even amuse myself with the excitement of poor Turner, who, folding his arms behind him, went furiously 231pacing up and down the garden, treading everything down in his path, and wading knee deep through the tall autumn blossoms, jerking his feet among them now and then, as if it were a relief to destroy anything that came in his way.

I had never seen the old man in this mood before, and almost thought him mad, for he muttered to himself, and seemed quite unconscious that I was a witness to the scene.

At last he came by the window with a long pendant of honeysuckle trailing from his boot.

“Mr. Turner,” I said, laughing softly as he came up.

“Oh, you can be amused—easily amused—children always are!” he exclaimed savagely. “Now can you see what mischief that ride has done? Sit and laugh, truly—but what am I to do?”

“Lady Catherine says you must get married,” I answered, mischievously, for rage, instead of appalling, was invariably sure to amuse me.

“Married!” almost shrieked the old man, “and so you have brought me to that, you—you!”

The contortions of his face were too droll. I could not keep from laughing again.

“Zana,” said the old man, and tears absolutely stood in his eyes, “I was good to you—I loved you—what right had you to bring this misfortune on me? I knew that evil would come of it when I found Jupiter’s stall empty; but marriage, oh, I did not dream of that calamity.”

“And is marriage always a calamity?” I inquired, sobered by his evident feeling.

“Yes!”

He hissed forth the monosyllable as if it had been a drop of poison that burned his tongue.

“And you dislike it very much?”

“Dislike it!”

There is no describing the bitterness that he crowded into these two words.

“Then do not—for my sake do not be married. Why 232should you? I’m sure it will do me no good. I don’t care in the least for it!”

His sharp eyes brightened for an instant, and he looked at me eagerly, like a convict on whom sudden hopes of escape had dawned.

“Then you wouldn’t much mind leaving this place, Zana?” he said.

My heart sunk, but I strove to answer cheerfully.

“No, no, I—I don’t think it would seem so hard after a little!”

“And Jupiter, and Cora?”

I burst into tears.

“There now, that is it—I’m answered—I was sure it would break her little heart,” cried the old man, desperately—“I’ll do it. I’ll bind myself, hand and foot—I’ll make an eternal old fool of myself. I’ll—I’ll. It’s no use struggling, I’m sold, lost—tied up—married!”

He uttered the last word ferociously, casting it down as if it had been a rock.

“Not for me, Turner—not for me,” I said, losing all sense of the ludicrous in his genuine repugnance to the measure Lady Catherine had proposed. “I do not understand this—what on earth is the reason they cannot let us live in peace?”

“Because you must be cutting loose from my authority—cantering about like a little Nimrod in long skirts—fighting hounds—getting acquainted with young men whom you ought to hate—to hate, I say Miss Zana! Because you are a little fool, and I am an old one. Because, because—but it’s no use talking.”

I began to see my disobedience in its true light. Certainly it was impossible to comprehend why it had led to the necessity which my old benefactor so much deplored, but I felt to the bottom of my heart that this evil, whatever it was, had been brought on by myself.

“Mr. Turner,” I said, “if I stay in-doors a month, nay, a whole year, will it do any good?”

233“No—not the least!”

“What can I do? Indeed, indeed, Turner, I am very sorry,” I persisted; “but let us go away; it will be far better to leave Cora and Jupiter, the house and everything.”

Why did I lose my voice so suddenly? Why did the thought that George Irving was at Greenhurst depress my heart and speech? I felt myself growing pale, and looking despairingly around the lovely garden, for the first time realizing how dear every flower had become.

Turner looked at me wistfully, and at length went away. I saw him an hour after wandering to and fro in the wilderness. I did not leave the window, though breakfast had been long waiting. The whole conversation had bewildered me. Why should Turner dread this marriage so much—was it not right? It seemed to me a very easy thing when so much depended on it. I had never thought seriously of marriage in my whole life, and its very mysteriousness made me look upon Turner as the victim of some hidden evil. I was resolved that he should not be sacrificed. What was my bonne, friends, Jupiter, to the comfort of an old friend like him?

I went forth into the wilderness, and found him sitting at the root of a huge chestnut, with his clasped hands drooping idly down between his knees, and gazing steadfastly on the earth.

“Zana,” he said, reaching forth his hand, “sit down here, and tell me all about it. What have I been saying? Have I been very cross, darling?”

His kindness went to my heart. I sat down upon a curved root of the tree, and leaned softly against him.

“Yes, a little cross, but not half so much as I deserved,” I said, meekly. “But tell me now, Mr. Turner, what is this marriage, what is there so dreadful about it?”

“Nothing, child—nothing,” he answered, with forced cheerfulness. “I dare say it is very pleasant—very pleasant indeed to some people. I know of persons who are very fond of weddings, quite charmed with them; but for my part a funeral 234seems more the thing—there is some certainty about that. It settles a man, leaves him alone, provides for him.”

“I never saw a wedding,” said I, thoughtfully, “and but one funeral. That was very sad, Mr. Turner; if a wedding is like that, don’t be married—it is dreadful! Are weddings like that funeral ever?”

“I have seen weddings a great deal more solemn,” he answered, still gazing on the ground. “One that seemed but the mockery of a funeral, and ended in one!”

“What one was that?” I questioned, while a cold chill crept mysteriously through my veins.

“It was Lord Clare’s wedding that I was thinking of,” he answered, looking up, “and that happened three days before I found you on his door-step.”

I looked fearfully around. It seemed as if a funeral train were creeping through the woods—the ghost of some procession that lived in my memory, yet would not give itself forth.

“And do they wish your wedding to be like that?” I whispered, creeping close to him.

“Like that!” said Turner, lifting up his eyes, “God forbid! Mine, if it must be, is but the expiation of that!”

“And would Lord Clare desire it?—would he insist like Lady Catherine?” I questioned. “Would he turn me out of doors unless you married Maria, do you think?”

“He turn you out of doors—he, child? I only wish we had some way of reaching him!”

“Where is he now?”

“In Africa, the last we heard, searching for what he will never find.”

“And what is that, Mr. Turner?”

“Peace, child, peace—a thing that he will never know again on this side the grave!”

“Is he a bad man then?” I persisted, strangely enthralled by the subject.

235“Millions of worse men will live and revel after he has pined himself into the grave.”

“Let us leave this place and seek for him,” I said, filled with a sympathy so deep that my very heart trembled. “If he is unhappy, you and I may do him some good.”

“Oh, child, if you could but remember. If I had but some little proof,” he answered, gazing at me impressively.

“Proof of what, Turner?—what can you wish to prove?”

“That in which nothing but God can help me!” was the desponding reply.

“It seemed to me,” said I, pressing each hand upon my temples, for they were hot with unavailing thought—“it seemed to me as if the thing that you wish to know was beating in my brain all the time. Something there is, blank and dark in my memory—how shall I bring it forth that you may read it?”

“Wait God’s own time, my child,” answered the old man, gently taking the hands from my temples, “sooner or later that which we wish to learn will be made clear. Come now, let us go home!”

“But they will not let us stay there, and I am ready to go,” I remonstrated.

“Yes, they will let us stay now,” he answered, with a grim smile.

“Why?”

“Because I shall marry the Spanish woman to-morrow.”

There was a lingering bitterness in the emphasis placed on the words Spanish woman, that lengthened the phrase for a moment. It was the last I ever witnessed. Turner did not sacrifice himself by halves.

“Zana,” said the noble old man, as we moved slowly toward the house, “you must not tell Maria of Lady Catherine’s visit, or of—of my shameful passion after it. Women have strange ideas about love, and so on, and she might take it into her head to ask awkward questions if she knew all. Do you understand?”

236Yes, I understood perfectly. He was anxious to save the poor Spanish woman from a knowledge of his repugnance to the marriage. I promised the secrecy that he desired.

We entered the breakfast-room together. Maria had been waiting for us more than an hour, but she ran cheerfully for the coffee urn and muffins without a word of comment.

I saw Turner look at her with some appearance of interest once or twice during the meal. The queer old philosopher was evidently reconciling himself to the fate that an hour ago had half driven him mad. Maria certainly looked younger and more interesting than usual that morning. Unlike the Spanish women in general, she wore her years becomingly, the moist climate of England, and the quiet of her life conspiring to keep from her the haggard look of old age that marks even mid-life in her native land. The picturesque costume which she had never been induced to change, was also peculiarly becoming; the dark blue skirt and bodice of black cloth; the long braids of her hair, slightly tinged with snow, but gay with knots of scarlet ribbon; the healthy stoutness of her person united in rendering my faithful bonne anything but a repulsive person. I began to have less compassion for Turner, and with the mobility of youth amused myself with fancying Maria’s astonishment when she should learn what the fates had in store for her.

“Zana, child, will you see to the chrysanthemums that were trailing across the walk this morning?—they will be trodden down.”

237I looked in Turner’s face as he said this, and felt a mischievous smile quivering on my lips. The dear old fellow grew red as a winter apple, then a grave, reproving look followed, and I was glad to escape into the garden.

It was very wrong, I admit, but a curiosity to see how Turner would make love overpowered all sense of honor. I confess to lingering in sight of the windows, cautiously keeping myself out of view all the time. Turner and Maria still kept their seats by the breakfast-table. His face was toward me, but I could discern that one elbow was pressed on the table, and he sat sideways, looking hard at the opposite wall while speaking. But Maria was in full view, and a very picturesque portrait she made framed in by the open window. I watched her face as it changed from perplexity to wonder, from wonder to a strange sort of bashful pleasure. Her cheeks grew red; her great, black, Spanish eyes lighted up like those of a deer; yet she seemed ashamed of the feelings speaking there, as if they were unbecoming to her years.

All at once she arose, and, coming round the table, leaned against the window-frame. This movement brought me within hearing, but I could not escape without being discovered; so after taking one wrong step, I was forced into another still more dishonorable. At first Maria spoke in her usual broken English, which I cannot attempt to give, as its peculiarity lay rather in the tone than the words.

“This is very strange, Mr. Turner. Why do you speak of this thing now after so many years? What has happened that you talk to me of marriage? You say it is better for the child—better for us all. But why?”

“I will make a good husband to you—at any rate do the best I can!” pleaded poor Turner, sadly out of place in his love-making.

“Perhaps you have fallen in love with me all of a sudden,” said my bonne, half bitterly, half in a questioning manner, as if she faintly hoped he would assent to the idea.

“I—what, I fall in love!” cried Turner, and his face writhed 238into a miserable smile; “it isn’t in me to make a fool of myself at this age. I hope you have a better opinion of me than that.”

She answered rapidly, and partly in Spanish. There was a good deal of womanly bitterness in her voice, but I could only gather a few hasty ejaculations.

“You joke, Mr. Turner—you mock—you have found a way of amusing yourself with the lone stranger. I know that you always hated us Spaniards, but you never mocked me in this way till now.”

“There it is again,” exclaimed the poor suitor. “I guessed how it would all turn out; never did know how to manage one of the sex—never shall! Look here, Maria, I’m in earnest—very much in earnest; ask Lady Catherine—ask Zana if I’m not determined on it.”

Turner gathered himself up, moved awkwardly enough toward Maria, and taking her hand looked at it wistfully, as if quite uncertain what to do next.

“I never kissed a woman’s hand in my life,” he said, desperately, “but I’ll kiss yours, on my soul I will, if you’ll just marry me without more ado.”

She leaned heavily against the window, and said more temperately,

“Say, why have you asked this of me?”

I do not know what Turner would have replied, for, obeying the impulse of the moment, I came forward, and before either of them were aware of my approach, stood in the room.

“Tell her the whole, dear Mr. Turner,” I said, going up to Maria with a degree of reverence I had never felt for her before. “She ought to know it—she must know that you are asking her to marry you that Lady Catherine may not turn us all adrift on the world; that the people may stop pointing at me because I have no father.”

Maria flung her arms around me.

“There—there!” exclaimed Turner, moving toward the door, “you see I’ve done my best, Zana, and have got everybody 239crying. Tell her yourself, child; just arrange it between you; call for me when all’s ready; what I say I stand to.”

The old man writhed himself out of the room, leaving Maria and I together.

My good, bonne was greatly agitated, and besought me to explain the scene I had interrupted, but I could not well understand it myself. All I knew was, that this marriage had been demanded by Lady Catherine as a condition of our remaining in the house. I repeated, word for word, what I had gathered of the conversation between her and Turner, omitting only those expressions of reluctance that had escaped my benefactor. She listened attentively, but being almost a child, like myself, in English custom, could not comprehend why this necessity had arisen for any change in our condition.

“And do you hate Mr. Turner so much?” I said, breaking a fit of thoughtfulness into which she had fallen. “I thought you liked each other till now; don’t, oh, my bonne, don’t marry him if it troubles you so! You and I can get a living somehow without taking him from his place.”

“Yes—two children—why, Zana, you know more of the world than I do. Where could we go?”

“I don’t know, without Mr. Turner, what we should do,” I answered, sadly.

“Without him, why, Zana—without him we should both die!”

“Oh, Maria, my bonne, if you could but like Mr. Turner, only a little, just enough to marry him, you know!” I exclaimed, amid my tears.

“Like him, Zana? I have had nothing but him and you in the world for years,” she said, weeping.

“Then you do like him—you will marry him!” I exclaimed, full of joy.

She strained me to her bosom and kissed me in her old passionate way. I sprang from her arms the moment they were loosened, and ran off in search of Mr. Turner.

He was working in the garden, stamping the earth around a 240young laburnum tree, which he had just planted, with a sort of ferocious vehemence, as if striving to work away some lingering irritation.

“Go in and speak with her now,” I said, pulling his arm.

“No, I’ve made a fool of myself once, and that is enough!” he answered, shaking me off. “I didn’t think any woman living could have driven me to it.”

Still he moved toward the house.

That evening Mr. Turner was absent both from our cottage and the Hurst. He came back the next day with a portentous-looking paper, which he and Maria scanned over with great interest. When I asked regarding it, they told me, with a good deal of awkwardness, that it was a marriage license.

Two or three mornings after this, I was sent over to the parsonage to spend the day with Cora. Maria took more than usual care in dressing me. I went forth in a white muslin dress, fluttering with rose-colored ribbons, quite too fairy-like for my usual morning visits to this my second home. But Cora was also floating about in clouds of white muslin, with glimpses of azure here and there about her arms and bosom, as if arrayed for some festival. How flowerlike was the style of her loveliness! Those ringlets of glossy gold; the violet eyes full of softness, downcast, and yet so brilliant when she smiled; the rounded arms, the neck and shoulders, white and satiny as when I first saw them by the spring; the little foot and hand, slender and rosy: all these points of beauty are before me this instant, vividly as if painted on canvas. There is 241a reason why they should have sunk deep into my heart—a cruel reason which the hereafter will disclose.

Her father was in his clerical robes, walking up and down the little parlor gently, as he always moved, and with a soft smile on his lips, as if amusing himself with some odd fancy.

“Come in, my child,” he said, with a change of expression, brought on, I felt, by a more serious current of thought which my appearance suggested. “Come in—you will find Cora in her room.”

I paused, as was my habit, to kiss his hand in passing, but he detained me a moment, pressing his lips upon my forehead.

“God bless you,” he said, “and make you worthy of all that your friends are so willing to suffer in your behalf.”

I went away to Cora’s room. I have told you how very lovely she appeared in her pretty dress, but it is impossible to describe the graceful undulations of each movement, the bewitching softness of her smile! My own olive complexion and deep bloom seemed coarse and rude beside her.

“And so you have come to the wedding,” she said, wreathing her arm around my waist, and drawing me before the little mirror at which she had been dressing. “Isn’t it a droll affair altogether?”

“They are very kind, very good to me,” I replied, a little hurt by her air of ridicule.

“And to me!” was her laughing reply; “this is the very first wedding I shall have seen. Isn’t it charming. The people will be here from Greenhurst; the young heir, perhaps.”

Why did that spasm shoot through my heart so suddenly? I was looking upon the reflection of Cora’s beauty. It was a lovely vision, but the color went from my own cheek as I gazed on hers, and that made the contrast between us strange and darker. I remembered that George Irving would look on that lovely vision also; and the first sharp pang of jealousy known to my life tore its way through my bosom. I did not know what it was, but sickened under it as the grass withers beneath an Upas tree.

242I struggled against myself, conscious that the feeling was wrong, though ignorant of its nature, but other thoughts mingled with these selfish ones. I was astonished and hurt that strangers should force themselves upon a ceremony which the parties desired to be private. It seemed rude and cruel to the last degree.

But I was called into the parlor. Turner and Maria were in sight quietly crossing the fields together without the least pretention. Maria looked nice and matronly in her dress of soft grey silk and cap of snowy lace; Turner wore his ordinary suit of black, for he had long since flung off livery, and bore his usual business-like appearance. It was impossible to find anything to condemn in persons so free from affectation of any kind. For my part I was proud of my benefactors; there was a respectability about them that no ridicule could reach.

We entered a little church, and found it already occupied by a large party of strangers, guests from Greenhurst. I saw Turner start and change color as he went in, but pressing his thin lips together till they were almost lost among his wrinkles, he walked firmly on, holding Maria by the hand.

I saw it all, I knew that he was suffering tortures from those impertinent people, and all for my sake. It seemed as if my presence would be some support to them; and when Cora would have turned into a pew close to that occupied by Lady Catherine, I resisted and led her up to the altar.

There, on the very spot where Cora’s mother had rested in her death sleep, Turner and Maria were married. I thought of all this, and it made my heart swell with unshed tears; but Cora seemed to have forgotten it entirely. Her downcast eyes wandered sideways toward the intruders all the time. The two great mysteries of life, death and marriage, which we had witnessed, and were witnessing together by that altar stone, were driven from her mind.

The ceremony was over. Turner and his wife moved away, passing through the crowd with a serious dignity that would make itself respected. I would have followed close, but Cora 243held back, keeping on a range with the intruders. Lady Catherine was directly before us, leaning upon the arm of an old gentleman I had seen in the hunt.

“Ah, Lady Catherine, your benign goodness is felt everywhere,” he was saying. “It must have had an angel’s power in reforming this old stoic!”

“Hush,” said the lady, touching his arm with her gloved finger, “his daughter is just behind us!”

“What, the little Diana!” exclaimed the gentleman, looking over his shoulder. “I would give fifty pounds to see her again.”

“She will hear you!” whispered the lady, impatiently.

“And who is the other little elf?” cried the old squire, whose admiration was not to be subdued. “Why, dear lady, you have a new race of fairies and goddesses springing up about Greenhurst. Take heed that my friend George is not made captive.”

“I followed the old squire’s look, and saw George Irving, with another young man, fairer and taller than himself, with their eyes riveted on Cora.”

I remained with Cora all night. She was full of gleeful gossip about the wedding, and more than once spoke of the young gentleman who had looked at her so often. She did not say so admiringly, but I knew well the glow of vanity that led her thoughts that way, and the subject caused me unaccountable pain. I listened to her, therefore, with impatience, and while her beauty seemed more fascinating than ever, its brilliancy wounded me. It was a precocious and wrong feeling, I confess, but there were many passionate sensations in my heart even then, which some women live from youth to age and never know.

I was reluctant to go home—to meet Turner and Maria after the sacrifice and insult of the previous day. It seemed as if they must hate me for being the cause of it all. But deep in the morning, I put on my bonnet and prepared to return home. Cora proposed to go part way with me, and though I preferred 244to be alone, she persisted with laughing obstinacy, and flinging a scarf over her head, ran after me down the garden.

I was very willing to loiter on the way, and we turned into the fields enjoying the soft autumn air, and searching for hazelnuts along the stone fences.

We came to a thicket where the fruit was abundant, and so ripe that we had but to shake the golden husks, and the nuts came rattling in showers around us. I clambered up the wall, and seizing a heavy branch from the thicket, showered the nuts into the pretty silk apron which Cora held up with both white hands.

I think in my whole life I never saw anything so lovely as she was at that moment. The blue scarf floated back upon the wind, circling her head as you see the drapery around one of Guido’s angels; her eyes sparkled with merriment: and she shook back the curls from her face with a laugh, gleeful and mellow, as if she had fed on ripe peaches all her days.

“Stop, stop, you will smother me!” she shouted, gathering the apron in a heap, and holding up both hands to protect her curls from the shower of nuts that I was impetuously beating over her.

I paused, instantly, ashamed of the action, which had been unconscious as it was violent.

“Did the nuts hurt you?” I said, bending forward to address her.

“No, no; just a little when they struck my forehead: nothing more!” she said, still laughing, but with the rosy palm of her hand pressed to one temple that was slightly flushed.

That instant I heard the report of a fowling-piece close by, and a thrush fell, with a death shriek, down to the hazel thicket. It beat its wings about among the green leaves an instant, then fell heavily through, lodging at Cora’s feet. Her laugh died away in a sob; the poor thing grew pale as death, and I saw with a shudder that two great drops of blood had fallen upon her neck.

She dropped the nuts from her apron, and sank down to the 245earth. I sprang upright on the wall and looked around, excited and angry, for the shot had rattled against the very stones upon which I was seated.

“Great heavens! what is this? Are you hurt?” cried a voice, and I saw George Irving, with his young companion of the previous day, running toward us; while a fine pointer cleared the wall in search of the dead bird.

“I do not know; there is blood on Cora’s neck, it may be only from the bird,” I answered, leaping to the ground. “Cora, Cora, look up—are you hurt?”

I trembled from head to foot, and strove to lift her from the ground, for she made no answer. Some one cleared the wall with the leap of a deer and pushed me aside. I saw Cora lifted in the arms of a young man, and heard her begin to sob with hysterical violence.

“She is not hurt; it is not her blood!” he said, in a voice so calm, that though full of music, it grated on my ear, and with his cambric handkerchief he wiped the blood spots from her neck. “She is frightened a little, nothing more.”

“Nothing more!” exclaimed Irving, passionately, “why, is not that enough, brigands that we are, to terrify the sweet child into this state!”

I felt myself growing cold from head to foot, for Irving had taken the weeping girl from her supporter, and held her gently in his own arms. She opened her eyes—those beautiful violet eyes—and a smile broke through the tears that filled them.

I grew faint, a mist crept around me, and I leaned against the wall for support. No one seemed to observe it, for I made no noise, and they were busy with her.

“I am glad, that it is no worse; the leaves were so thick, and I looked only at the bird: Can you stand now? The blood is all away, nothing but a rosy glow on your neck is left to reproach us.”

It was Irving’s voice, and I could see dimly as through a mist that Cora still clung to him, and that he was looking into her eyes. Then I heard another voice, calm and caustic as if 246feelings like my own lay at the bottom, suppressed but observant.

“In all this you overlook the real evil,” it said, “don’t you see, Irving, that while this child does not require so much care, the other is really suffering—nay, wounded?”

I felt a sharp pain in my arm, just above the elbow, as he spoke, forgotten till then in the more bitter pang at my heart; and through the mistiness that still crept over my eyes, I saw a slender stream of crimson trickling down and dropping from my fingers.

“She is hurt indeed—a shot has gone through her arm,” exclaimed Irving, and I felt through every nerve that he had put Cora away from his support almost forcibly, and was close by me. Young as I was, the master feeling of my nature awoke then, and I started from the wall, dizzy and confused, but determined that he should not touch me.

“It is nothing,” I said, winding my handkerchief around the arm, and turning haughtily away. “Come, Cora, shall we go?”

“Let me rest, Zana, I am so tired and frightened!” she said, and her beautiful eyes filled again.

Irving’s face flushed crimson as I repulsed his offered support, and though the look with which he regarded me was regretful, it was proud too. When Cora spoke in her sweet pleading way, he bent his eyes upon her with an expression of relief, but turned to me again.

“It is an accident; you cannot suppose I wounded you on purpose,” he said, pleadingly. “Why are you so unforgiving?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” was my cold answer.

“You are wounded! Is that nothing?”

“It is nothing; and if it were, the wound was not intended for me.”

He looked at me earnestly, as if pained and embarrassed by the manner with which I received his apologies; then he turned toward Cora.

“I hope my friend is not mistaken—that I have not injured you also.”

247“No,” replied Cora, casting her eyes to the ground and blushing. “I was terrified; the feeling of blood: fear for Zana made me tremble, but I am not hurt.”

“Thank heaven!” exclaimed young Irving, and gathering up her azure scarf, he dropped it lightly over the shining gold of her hair. I watched him with burning indignation. His gentle interest in Cora, who was all unharmed, seemed a mockery to the stinging pain of my arm. I forgot how coldly I had received his sympathy, and like all impulsive but proud natures, fancied that he must read my feelings, not my actions, and judged him by the fancy.

“I must go home now, the morning is almost gone!” I said to Cora. “Are you well enough to move on?”

“No, I tremble yet,” she said sweetly; “your wound pains me more than it does yourself, Zana, it has taken away all my strength.”

“Then I will go alone,” was my curt rejoinder. “My arm bleeds.”

I started suddenly, and almost ran toward home.

Directly I heard a light step following me.

“This is unkind, cruel!” said Irving, pleading; “let me help you?”

The pride of my heart was subdued; I relaxed the speed with which I had moved, and listened with a thrill of grateful pleasure.

“You smile—your color comes back, thanks!” he said, gaily.

I could not answer. The sweet sensations that overwhelmed me were too exquisite for words.

“You will not speak to me,” said Irving, stooping forward to look in my face.

My eyes met his, I felt the lids drooping over them, and, spite of myself, began to tremble with delicious joy. Like a cup full of honey, my heart overflowed with sighs, but I could neither speak nor look him in the face. Did he understand it all? Did he read in my face all that was making a heaven in 248my heart? All I know is, that he grew silent like myself, and we moved on together through the soft atmosphere like two young creatures in a dream. At length some obstacle arose in our path. I know not how it was, but we paused and looked at each other. My eyes did not droop then, but were fascinated by the deep, earnest tenderness that filled his. I met that gaze, and kept it forever in my soul, the most solemn and beautiful memory ever known to it.

“Zana, do you love me?”

The question fell upon my ear like a whisper of expected music. I had listened for it with hushed breath, for with the soft atmosphere of love all around me, it came naturally as lightning in a summer cloud. I think he repeated the question twice before the joy at my heart sprang with a deep, delicious breath to my lips.

“Zana, do you love me?”

“Do I love you? Yes, oh, yes!”

As the words left my soul, a calm, solemn contentment brooded down like a dove upon it. The feeling was too holy and sweet for blushes. It seemed to me as if I had partaken of an angel’s nature while uttering it. Up to that moment I had never dwelt upon the thought of love, save as a pleasant household feeling. The passion of love I did not even then comprehend, notwithstanding it beat in every pulse of my warm southern blood.

He took my hand, holding it with a firm, gentle pressure, and thus we walked on softly and still as the summer air moves among the daisies. I can imagine Adam and Eve walking thus in Paradise, when the temptation first crept across their path. I can imagine them starting at the evil thing, as we did when Irving’s tutor came suddenly upon us. He was a sweet-voiced, quiet man some ten years older than Irving, and a great favorite with Lady Catherine. I did not like his manners, they were fawning and yet cold—his very humility was oppressive.

“You walk slowly,” he said, in his calm, silky way; “no wonder, it is a delightful morning.”

249Irving tightened his grasp on my hand.

“You can find the way home now,” he said, dropping it and turning away with his tutor.

“Nay, this is ungallant, Irving,” said that person, moving toward me; “you forget her arm seems hurt.”

“Yes, I had forgotten it,” was the reply, and he came back.

“Can you forgive me!”

I, too, had forgotten it.

“There is no pain left,” was my answer. “Go away with him, he troubles me.”

“And me!” was the murmured reply.

They went away together, leaving me alone with my great happiness.

It is said that love gives beauty to all material things. It may be so with others, but to me nature looked faded and insignificant that day. I longed for a rainbow in the skies; for a carpet of blossoms under my feet; for the breath of roses in every gush of air. Nothing but heaven could have matched the beautiful joy of my soul.

For three days my rich contentment lasted. During that time I scarcely seemed to have a mortal feeling. When fancy could sustain itself no longer, came the material want of his presence. My heart had fed upon its one memory over and over again. Now it grew hungry for fresh certainties. I began to think of the future, to speculate and doubt. Why had he kept away? Where was he now? Had I been dreaming—only dreaming?

I did not observe Turner and Maria in their new relations. At another time their awkward tenderness and shy love-making would have amused me, but now I scarcely remarked it, and in their embarrassment they forgot to notice me.

Perhaps they would have detected nothing remarkable had they been ever so vigilant, for I was self-centred in my own happiness, and joy like mine was too deep and dreamy for easy detection.

250

The cold dash of water on my face aroused me, and I awoke gasping for breath as if my very soul had felt the icy deluge. Only one person remained in the room, and he was so white that it seemed like waking among the dead. A heavy weight still rested on my brain, and after a struggle or two I felt myself sinking as one falls from some precipice in a dream. All at once it appeared to me that I had been pulled back with violence. My lips burned as if a handful of thorns had been drawn across them, and again my heavy eyelids were lifted. Lady Catherine had entered the room. It was the antipathy 261of our natures that dragged me violently back from unconsciousness. Instantly the pang of remembrance returned, and its agony gave me strength to hear but not to move.

“Is she conscious yet?” said Lady Catherine, touching me with the point of her satin slipper.

“She has moved a little,” answered a voice, so deep and sorrowful that my heart stood still to listen.

“Let something be done; I am sick of her! Burn feathers, bring aromatic vinegar—why, is no servant at hand?”

“You would not expose the poor child thus to our servants, mother?” was the reply.

“The poor child, indeed! George, George, this is too much! Yes, I would expose her to the lowest scullion about the place—poor child! The thief!—the”——

“Mother!”

My heart leaped at the stern rebuke conveyed in this single word. I broke through the leaden feeling that held me motionless and rose to my feet, reeling and half blind, but stung into life by the epithet that unwomanly lady had applied to me.

“Madam,” I said, striving to sweep the mist from my eyes with one hand—“madam, you are false, body and soul. You know that I could not steal the picture of my own mother. God gives to every child a mother. Who shall say that the shadow of mine can belong to any one else; or, if it did, that I might not look at it?”

She interrupted me with a bitter laugh, in sickening contrast with her usual hollow-hearted loftiness.

“The picture of your mother, and in Lord Clare’s escritoir!” she exclaimed; “upon my word, George, this impudence is sublime.”

“It was my mother!” I answered firmly, but with a swelling heart. “Mr. Irving, you believe me.”

I reached forth my hand to the young man, and he took it—held it—pressed his cold lips upon it, and thus proclaimed the noble trust that was in him, while she looked on.

“Mother!” and the words burst like fire through his white 262lips—“mother, I do believe the child innocent as God’s angels!”

These words bereft me of all strength. My limbs gave way as if they had been moulded from snow. I fell at his feet, and winding my arms about his knees, gave myself up to a passion of tears.

“George Irving, undo the coil of that serpent, spurn her away, or henceforth you are no child of mine!” burst on my ears.

I saw that wicked glare of her eyes, the white rage that shook her from head to foot. There was something horrid in this fiendish rage in a mother, and addressed to her only child. I took away my arms and arose.

“Madam, calm yourself,” I said gently, for his faith had filled my soul with solemn peace, “I shall touch him no more—see him, probably, never again. You can separate us, but I know that he believes me—it is enough!”

I left the room without another word or look, and went home.

Two days after, Greenhurst was deserted. Lady Catherine and her son, with some of their guests, had departed for the Continent. He went without a word, but had I not given him up proudly, there in the presence of his mother?

Days, weeks, months rolled on, and after this terrible excitement my outer life became a dead calm; my intellect, for once, seemed to have lost its spring, and gave itself up to dreams. For a long time my faith in Irving remained firm; and though we never received a syllable from him, it seemed every day as if I had obtained some confirmation of his love; and I solemnly believe that no doubt would ever have arisen in my mind, but that the poison was sown there by another.

Those who know how sensibly a proud heart shrinks from the idea that even a suspicion of crime can attach to it, will not think it strange that I never mentioned the scene at Greenhurst to Turner or Maria; nor the fact that I had found and recognized a picture of my mother.

263When the family left Greenhurst, young Moreton, his college mate and friend, remained at the old mansion with Mr. Upham, who had up to this time been the tutor of both. The intimacy that existed between these young men arose from the peculiar relations that Moreton held toward the family. But for the will which left Marston Court, with other property, to Lady Jane, who afterward became the wife of Lord Clare, this young man would have inherited everything that the old London banker possessed, for he was his nephew and sole relative. Thus he was in truth the natural heir of Marston Court and all the wealth that had devolved on the earl by the sudden death of his bride. Lord Clare left the country too much afflicted for any thought of the wrong that had been done this young man, but he had written to make liberal provision for his support and education, placing him in all respects on a level with his own nephew; and there was no just doubt that on Lord Clare’s return to England, a portion at least of the inheritance that had been swept from his hands by the fondness of an old man for his wife, would be restored to him.

With this just expectation, Henry Moreton remained at Greenhurst, with the tutor, who had always been a greater favorite with Lady Catherine than with the young men them selves. Indeed, it was by her arrangement that these two persons, so unequal in character, were left at the Hurst.

Cora and I sometimes met young Moreton and his tutor in our rambles, and occasionally they came for an hour to the parsonage; but my preoccupation and a certain consciousness of the shame that had been put upon me by his benefactress, forbade that degree of intimacy with Moreton that might naturally have sprung up between young persons thrown so much together. But I hardly gave Moreton thought enough to comprehend the very noble and beautiful traits of character which, with one drawback, were in every way estimable. He was very unlike Irving, with his prompt courage, his impetuous feelings, and generous forgetfulness of self. Sensitive, and at times almost timid, Moreton possessed few of those qualities 264that inspire enthusiasm in a proud young heart like mine. The extreme refinement and delicacy of his person and features sometimes aroused my admiration; but in everything he was so unlike my own idol, that I gave him nothing more than a kindly place in my regard. As for Cora, she seldom spoke to him. Though cheerful with every one else in his presence, she became demure and thoughtful, like a bird with its wings folded.

But Mr. Upham was not a man to awake measured feelings of this kind.

There certainly do exist persons endowed with intuitions so keen that they seem gifts of prophecy, and guard the soul, which but for them would be bruised and trampled under foot by the rude multitude. Are these feelings the thoughts of our guardian angels, the golden spears with which they hedge us in from harm? I know not, but it is certain no evil-minded being ever came near me that I did not feel a thrill of repulsion, certainly as light springs from flame.

True to this inward monitor, I never really liked this mild, self-possessed tutor. In spite of his silky manners, my heart always rose against him. It certainly seemed like a prejudice, and I often tried to reason it away. No human being could be kinder than this man; there was nothing noisy or unpleasant about him; indeed, there existed persons who found his humility, and deferential silence more attractive than the warm-hearted sincerity of young Irving; but I was not among them.

Nothing but the sensitive dislike that I felt for this man, would have enabled me to understand the stealthy and subtle advances which he made to obtain my regard. But though I could not read his motive for wishing to interest a creature isolated like myself, there was no mistaking his pertinacious endeavors. Still he never spoke out; never, to use a worldly term, committed himself in words, thus keeping my frank nature at a disadvantage. There was no discouraging a man who expressed himself only in tones, sighs and glances. But to a heart wholly given up to another, there is nothing so repulsive 265as the covert attentions that hint at love, which you never have the opportunity of receiving or crushing with a word.

At another time I might not have noticed Mr. Upham so closely, but in the listless state which follows the reaction of strong excitement, I was fit only for observation and thoughtfulness; besides, the fact that this man had been so long intimate with Irving, gave him a sort of painful fascination for me. Heart and brain I was a precocious girl, and the vigilance of my observation might have befitted an older and wiser person. Still I could not read him. Why did he wish to interest me? Why was he constantly talking of me to Turner, and putting Maria under cross-questions like a lawyer? Why, above all, was he so cold toward Cora, she, so strangely beautiful, so full of rustic coquetry, that a stoic must have yielded to her graceful beauty?

I had the discernment to see all that suggested these questions, but lacked the power to answer them.

It seemed to me, at times, that Cora felt and shared my dislike; but after the events that followed Turner’s wedding, the entire confidence that existed between us was, to a degree, broken off. I never made her a confidant in those feelings that filled my whole nature, and really regarded her as too much of a child, notwithstanding our years were nearly the same, for any curiosity regarding her girlish fancies or prejudices.

Still, after a time, I could not fail to see that a change of some kind had fallen upon her. More than once I observed that her eyes were heavy as with crushed tears, and that shadows lay under them sometimes for days together; but she always burst into such passions of mocking gaiety when I grew anxious about the cause, that I was overwhelmed by it.

As the second year of Irving’s absence crept on, my heart grew heavy with anxiety; I became suspicious of his faith, restless, unhappy beyond my powers of explaining. I can now trace back these feelings to looks, hints, and disjointed questions, dropped, from time to time, by Upham, with a point that stung like drops of venom, and yet with a seeming carelessness 266that had all the force of truth. But then I suffered greatly without knowing from what source the distrust and anguish came.

One thing is very certain, the forced presence of this man, his incessant attentions, accompanied with so much perseverance, served to keep my sweet Cora at a distance from me that was painful; but I could not force my pride to ask an explanation. No sister ever more truly loved another than I loved her. There was but one thing on earth I would not have sacrificed to her, and that was so much dearer than my own soul, I could have parted with one easily as the other.

Thus, as I have said, two years went by. Then news came that Lady Catherine and her son would soon be at Greenhurst. Mr. Upham gave me this intelligence one night when I was returning from the parsonage, where I had left Cora in a state of sadness that pained me, but of which she would give no explanation. “He was going that way in order to meet me,” he said, and turned back in his usual quiet fashion as if to escort me home. His eyes were fixed searchingly on my face as he proclaimed his errand, and I felt that he was keenly reading my countenance.

But I had a strong will, and though the blood leaped in my heart at the thought of seeing Irving again, it did not reach my cheek or disturb a tone of my voice.

“They will be welcome,” I said; “the place is but little changed.”

“You are forgiving as an angel,” he answered. “That last scene with Lady Catherine would have left any other heart full of bitterness.”

“And who told you of that scene?” I questioned sharply, and with a burning sense of shame.

“Who? George Irving, of course. It sent him abroad a whole year before the time allotted to him.”

“And he told you this?”

“Certainly, why not? Did you suppose me merely Irving’s tutor?” he answered, with a strange smile.

267“Why, what else are you?” I demanded.

“His friend—his confidant.”

Something in his manner put me upon my guard that evening;, and I was disinclined to continue the conversation; but he was not a man to be evaded in anything. He followed up the subject with pertinacity, and every time Irving’s name was mentioned I felt his eyes penetrating to my very thoughts. As we entered the park, I was about to turn down an avenue that led to my home, but he laid one hand on my arm and gently detained me.

“Zana,” he said, “listen to me—for one moment throw off this haughty reserve. It chills me—it is cruel, for you know that I love you—love you, Zana, as man never loved woman. Now before our little Eden is broken up by these haughty Clares—now, while I have you all to myself, let me say it!”

I looked at him in amazement. The words he had spoken seemed like sacrilege; for, to a heart that really loves, there is a sort of profanity in expressions of passion from other than the true lips.

“Zana—Zana, you are ice—you are marble—my words freeze you—this is no answer to love like mine.”

“You have said truly,” I answered. “Ice, marble, anything hard and cold is all the reply that I can give—and it is fitting, for you love me no more than I love you.”

The man turned white and stammered forth,

“You—you wrong me. Without love why should any man seek to make you his wife?”

“True,” I answered stung by his words—“true, there is something here quite incomprehensible, but it is not love.”

He broke into a passionate torrent of protestations, wrung my hand in his, and even attempted to throw his arms around me; but I retreated from him in dismay.

“You will not believe me,” he said, standing in my path pale and breathless. “You will not even believe that I love you?”

“No, I do not believe it!”

268“Who—who has poisoned your ear against me? Not that canting priest; not—not”——

“No one has ever uttered a word against you in my presence,” I replied.

“Perhaps not, but you are so positive—you may have been impressed with some evil belief against me.”

“No, I have never thought of the matter.”

“Then you are truly indifferent?”

“I am, indeed!”

“You have no regard for my feeling—no gratitude for the love that I have lavished upon you so long. There is a cause for this, and that cause is your love for George Irving.”

He looked at me with malicious scrutiny, but I had expected this, and my cheek remained cool as if he had passed an ordinary compliment.

“Inscrutable child,” he muttered, “will nothing reach you?”

“You are right,” I answered, without heeding his muttered comment. “It is my love for George Irving that makes me look upon all that you express as a wrong done to him, a mockery of the true feeling that lives in my heart, as rich wine fills a cup to the brim, leaving no space for a drop less pure than itself.”

Oh, how my soul shrunk from the smile which he turned upon me.

“Can you, vain girl—can you, for a moment, think that he loves you?—you whom his uncle abandons and his mother denounces?”

The blood burned in my cheeks and temples hotly enough now, but I answered proudly,

“My thoughts like my affections are my own, I refuse to share them.”

He smiled again, derisively.

“It is this wild dream that makes you so haughty. Dream on—I can wait!—when you awake, my homage may not seem so paltry.”

He left me abruptly, and for many minutes I stood watching 269his dusky form as it wound slowly in and out among the chestnuts. There was something serpentlike about his progress that made me thoughtful.

Why had this man sought me? Not from love, of that I was assured. Was there anything in my last scene with Lady Catherine, with which he had become acquainted, to arouse feelings of ambition or interest in a nature like his? If not, where was I to seek an explanation of his strange love-making? Now, for the first time, for hitherto my pride had kept on the outskirts of the question, I asked myself plainly why the picture of that haunting face—the face, which, without proof, I knew to be that of my mother—why it should have been found in Lord Clare’s desk?

With this question came others that made my heart quail and my cheek burn. Memories thronged upon me—Lady Catherine’s words as she urged Turner’s marriage—the half uttered sentences of George Irving—the bitter dislike which his mother evidently felt for me; all these thing crowded upon my brain so close that conviction came like lightning flashes. I was Lord Clare’s illegitimate child. My mother—great heavens, how the thought of that face in all its heavenly beauty burned in my brain! Amid sobs and tears, and a bitter, bitter sense of degradation, my soul drew a black veil over it, and turned away from a remembrance of its loveliness.

I could not follow up the subject. Indeed, Mr. Upham was overwhelmed in the feelings that rushed upon me. I forgot to question his motives—forgot him—everything in the desolation of my shame.

I went home, but asked no questions either of Turner or his wife. They could have explained nothing that I did not fully comprehend, and my soul shrunk from the idea of speaking out its shame in words.

Now all rest forsook me. I had a craving wish to know everything—to penetrate into the centre of my parents’ secret, but felt all the time that it was useless, as painful to inquire. 270The whole history was locked up in my own soul. I felt its weight there, but the struggle to drag it forth strained my whole being to no avail.

Then my conjectures began, as at first, to wander over that which was probable. Could George Irving continue to love a creature so disgraced—a wretched offshoot from his own proud ancestral tree? And if he did, where was the end, marriage? No, no, my own pride rose up in defence of his! Where, then? Oh, how dead my heart lay as I asked the question.

In a week Lady Catherine and her son arrived, but I had lost all desire to see them. Turner found no difficulty now in persuading me to keep in-doors. But George never sought me. I knew that Greenhurst rang with gaiety; that Estelle Canfield, with many other fair patricians, was filling its stately rooms with mirth and beauty, but I was forgotten. It seemed to me at times, that my heart would break. The roundness melted from my limbs; the bloom was slowly quenching itself on my cheeks; my orphanage had never been complete till then.

But Cora was left to me—the pet and darling of my life. I was still the same to her, and she was more gentle and more lovely than ever. To my surprise, the return of company to Greenhurst made little impression upon her. The girlish curiosity and excitement which had formerly annoyed me seemed extinguished in her nature. Indeed she became rather more sad than usual; and I often found her sitting alone, and so still, under the cypress tree, where her father had leaned on that funeral day.

It did not seem strange to me, this quiet sadness, thus harmonizing 271with the sorrow that dashed all joy from my own life. At another time I should have remarked it, but now it appeared natural as night tears do to the violet.

To Mr. Clarke I sometimes opened a leaf of my heart; but only to reveal the shadows that lay there, in abstract musings and mournful questions. At such times he soothed me with his sweet, Christian counsel, that left tears like dew upon every blossom of my nature. Thus I became day by day, more closely knitted to this good man and his child; and the girlish love that had been so strong merged itself into the still deeper affections of my opening womanhood. I loved them—how I loved them the reader will hereafter know!

One day, I was returning home about sunset, and alone. There was a footpath that shortened the distance across the meadows which lay between the village and Greenhurst, and I threaded it wearily, as one walks who has no object. The path led through the hazel thicket where my arm had been wounded. After clambering the wall I sat down among the bushes, weary, and so depressed that I longed to hide myself in their shelter even from the daylight.

I put back the lace that flowed from the short sleeves of my dress, and looked, through rushing tears, at the tiny white spot which the wound had left upon my arm. It was scarcely larger than a pearl, and to me infinitely more precious, for it came from him. It marked the reality of those love words that lay, even then, glowing in the bottom of my heart.

It was all over. He had gone his way in the world. I—yes, I must go mine; for to remain there in my dear old home with him so near, and yet so far away, was killing me.

I sobbed aloud; it was not often that weeping did me much good, but everything was so still—and I grew so miserably childish that the tears fell from my eyes like rain. A thrush lighted on a branch close by, and with his pretty head turned on one side, seemed regarding me with compassion. I thought of the lark’s nest, where, a child, I had slept so close to death, and wished, oh, how truly, that God had taken me then.

272While I sat thus lost in sorrow, a gush of wind swept through the thicket, and I heard some one wading through the tall, red clover tops, shaking off their sweetness upon the air I breathed.

I shrunk back, ashamed of my tears, ashamed to be seen. But the steps approached steadily towards the wall, and I sat by the path, breathless, still hoping that the hazel branches would conceal me.

But the steps diverged a little, and the thicket was parted just before me. My breath came back in a sob. I concealed my eyes with both hands, and cowered back among the bushes.

He paused. I heard a faint exclamation, and then—then I began to sob and tremble. He was at my side half-stooping, half-kneeling; his arm was around me. With one hand he drew down mine and looked into my face.

“Zana—Zana!”

I looked up and smiled.

“My poor Zana,” he said, “you have suffered—you look ill—how is this? They told me that you were happy.”

“Yes, so happy,” I replied, yielding myself for one moment to the clasp of his arm—“so happy that it is killing me.”

“Killing you,” he said, laying one hand softly upon my head, and putting it back that he might see the face so changed since we met last. “In solemn truth, I believe it is; how strangely you look, Zana, how much older—how full of soul—how worn with feeling!”

I remembered why this change had been—who and where I was. What right had he, George Irving, of Greenhurst, with his arm around the illegitimate child of his uncle? No wonder his proud mother despised me—her insults were natural—but this tenderness, these looks of love—this caressing arm—what insult could she offer so burning as that?

The fire of this thought flashed through my veins. I sprang up and cast his arm away.

“You have no right—I do not belong to you—never can—never, never!” I exclaimed. “You know it, and yet do this!”

273“I did not believe it before, not wholly, not entirely—the suspicion was too dreadful,” he answered, turning white. “I will not believe it even yet, till your lips utter it in words.”

“Why should I? You know that it is true—that a barrier of iron rests between your love and mine.”

“It is enough!” he answered, turning still more deathly pale. “Zana, it is enough—you have stung me to the soul.”

“I have not imparted to you any portion of my shame,” I answered with bitter tears.

He started as if a viper had stung him.

“Your shame, Zana!—your shame! Speak out, girl—if another had said that word!”——

We both started. He broke off sharply. Upham had crept, unseen, close to his elbow.

“Ha, Irving—so you have found the truant in her nest! Hasn’t she grown to be a bird of Paradise, but sly as ever; aint you, Zana?”

I stood in astonishment gazing at him, without uttering a word. This audacity took away my breath.

“I have just come from the parsonage,” he continued, with a quiet smile, addressing George. “My bird of birds had flown, but I left the beautiful Cora waiting with great impatience.”

Irving gave me a look that made me almost cry out—turned, leaped the wall with a single bound, and left me alone with that reptile.

He looked after George with a smile that died coldly on his lips beneath my searching glance.

“What is this?” I questioned, “your manner has changed, sir. It insults—it offends me!”

“What, you are angry because I have driven away that boyish profligate,” he answered; “the lover of Cora, the betrothed of Estelle.”

“It is false,” I cried, full of indignation.

“Ask Lady Catherine!” he replied.

“I will ask himself,” I answered.

274“Then you have promised another meeting; it will be a good excuse. But let me warn you, a second private appointment of this kind may reach Lady Catherine. I have but to drop a hint even now, and you are driven ignominiously from the estate; while he—perhaps you have forgotten that but for the bounty of his uncle and Lady Catherine Irving—he is a beggar.”

Oh, how the wretch tortured me! I felt every word he spoke like the touch of cold iron.

“Let me pass, I would go home,” I said, faint with anger and disgust.

He stepped aside, smiling coldly.

“But first,” I said, pausing, “you spoke of Cora, my friend, my sister, and of him—this must be explained.”

“I have said my say,” was his cold answer.

“Then I will ask him!”

“Of course he will confess all. It is so natural to urge a suit with one lady, while you make her the confidant of your love for another. Really your village beauties know how to deal with men who have learned morality in Paris, and love-making at Vienna.”

“But I will tell Cora of this slander.”

He smiled.

“Is it slander to say that a pretty angel like Cora Clark has captivated a roving young fellow of Irving’s taste?”

“But it is untrue—I will question her.”

“I have a great idea of unsophisticated innocence, village simplicity, and all that, Miss Zana, but really permit me to doubt if Miss Cora Clark makes you the confidant of her little love affairs.”

“She has none, she never had,” I exclaimed, with jealous anger.

He laughed again. The sound stung me like an arrow. I turned away, sprang over the wall, and walked along the footpath back to the parsonage. My progress grew slower and slower as I fell into thought, for a remembrance of the change 275in Cora’s manner oppressed me. I came in sight of the parlor window. The glow of Cora’s golden hair shone through the dusky green of the ivy leaves as she leaned out, shading her eyes with one hand as if to be certain that she saw aright. She drew back, and directly after I caught a glimpse of some male figure gliding around a corner of the church rapidly, as if to avoid observation. The figure was too slight for Mr. Clark, and at first I strove to convince myself that it might be Upham himself, who had outwalked me, concealed by a hedge that ran near and parallel with the footpath; but I cast the suspicion from me. The coldness which had uniformly marked his acquaintance with my beautiful girl forbade it.

I entered the little parlor, panting, but resolute. Cora rose to receive me, a good deal flushed, and with a look about the eyes as if she had been agitated and weeping. She did not ask the reason of my sudden return, but fixed her blue eyes with a look of affright on my face, as if prepared for, and dreading what I was about to say.

At the time, this did not strike me, but in after days I remembered it well.

“Cora,” I said, disarmed by the look of trouble on her sweet face—“Cora, my sister, tell me, who was it that just left you?”

“Why do you ask?—No one—no one has left the cottage. You—you found me alone!”

“And have you been alone all the time since I went away?” I inquired.

“I—I—not quite, my father was here. But why do you ask such questions?”

Her eyes filled, and her sweet lips began to tremble, as they always did when grieved, since she was a little child.

“Tell me one thing, Cora, was it any one from Greenhurst that I just saw going round the church.”

“You saw him then,” she said, turning pale, and sinking to her chair. “Oh, Zana!”

I too sunk upon a chair, and we sat gazing into each other’s pale face till both burst into tears.

276

It was a large chamber, full of rich, massive furniture. The windows were all muffled with waves of crimson silk, and I found myself in the hazy twilight they created, dizzy and blinded by a rush of emotions that it seemed impossible for me to control. After a little, the haze cleared from my vision, and I saw before me a tall man, attenuated almost to a shadow, sitting in a great easy-chair with his eyes closed, as if asleep.

I looked at him with a strained and eager gaze. His head rested on a cushion of purple silk, and a quantity of soft, fair locks, so lightly threaded with silver, that, in the rich twilight of the room, all traces of it were lost, lay scattered over it, with 285the purple glowing through. The face was like marble, pure and as white, but with dusky shadows all around the eyes, and a burning red in the cheeks that made me shudder. A Turkish dressing-gown of Damascus silk, spotted with gold and lined with emerald green, lay wrapped around his wasted figure. His hands were folded in the long Oriental sleeves, and I could see the crimson waves over his chest rise and fall rapidly with his sharp and frequent respiration.

I stood beside him unnoticed, for my footsteps had fallen upon the richly piled carpet lightly as an autumn leaf. The basket shook in my hands, for my limbs knocked together, and the perspiration started upon my arms and forehead. But I made no sound, forced back the tears that struggled in my heart, and stood waiting for what might befall.

Lord Clare turned feebly on his cushion, and let one pale hand fall down from his bosom.

“Turner,” he said, in a faint, low voice, “did I not ask for something?”

“Yes, my lord—some fruit. It is here.”

I approached. Lord Clare opened his eyes—those wild, blue eyes, and turned them full upon me.

I could no longer bear my weight, my limbs gave way, and I fell upon one knee, holding up the basket between my shaking hands.

Turner drew close to my side, holding his breath and trembling.

Lord Clare did not touch the fruit, but fell slowly back on the cushion with his great burning eyes upon my face.

“Turner,” he said at last, sitting upright and speaking in quick gasps—“Turner, what is this? Who is she?”

“I do not know,” answered the old man, “we found her on the door-step years ago. Be tranquil, Master Clarence. If she is the one we have sought for, there is no proof but those eyes—that face.”

Lord Clare reached out his arms, and tears smothered the painful gaze of his eyes.

286“Aurora,” he said, in a voice of such tenderness that my tears followed it, “forgive me before I die.”

Turner clasped his hands and held them up toward heaven, trembling like withered leaves, while tears rolled silently down his cheeks.

“You know, Master Clarence, it cannot be herself.”

Lord Clare turned his eyes from me to Turner, then lifting one pale hand up to his forehead, he settled it over his eyes, and directly great drops came starting from between the fingers. A feeble shudder passed over his frame, and he murmured plaintively, “No, it is her child, our child. But where is she?”

“I never learned,” answered Turner, sadly.

“Ask her, I cannot.”

“It is useless, my lord, she knows nothing!”

“She must—she must—my child was six years old. At that age children know everything,” he answered eagerly, “and Zana was very forward, my bright Zana.”

He looked at me, till I shrunk from the feverish glow of his eyes. At last he spoke, and my very heart trembled beneath the sweet pathos of his voice.

“Zana, where is your mother? Tell me, child; I cannot die till she has spoken to me again.”

I bowed down my face, and answered only with bitter sobs.

“Is she dead? Is Aurora dead that you weep, but cannot speak?” he questioned, faintly.

“Alas! I do not know!” was my agonized reply.

“My child—Zana—and not know of her mother’s fate! what unnatural thing is this?” he cried, burying his face in the long sleeves of his gown. “This child is not my daughter, Turner; Aurora’s child could not have forgotten her mother thus.”

I struggled with myself—from my innermost soul I called on God to help me—to give me back the six years of life that had been wrested from my brain. My temples throbbed; my limbs shook with the effort; it seemed as if I were going mad.

Lord Clare lifted his face; his eyes swam in tears; his pale 287lips trembled. Laying both hands on my head, he spoke to me again—spoke so tenderly I thought my heart must break before he had done.

“Zana—my daughter—my poor, lost child, what has come over you? Do not be frightened—do not tremble so. Look up in my face—let me see your eyes fully. Turner, they are her eyes, my heart answers to them, oh, how mournfully. Zana, I am your father—you should know that, altered as I am, for men do not change like children. There, love, there, stop crying; calm yourself. I have but one wish on earth now, and that depends on you.”

“On me?” I gasped.

“On you, my darling. Listen, I call you darling, does not the old word bring back some memory?”

He looked beseechingly in my face, waiting for a reply that I could not give. My head drooped forward, bowed down with the anguish of my imbecility.

“It is sweet—it thrills my heart to the centre,” I said, mournfully.

“And awakes some memory? You remember it as something heard and loved, far, far back in the past. Is it not so?”

I shook my head.

He bent forward, wound his arms lovingly around me, and, drawing me upward to his bosom, kissed my forehead.

“And this,” he said, folding me to his heart so close that I could feel every sharp pulsation. “Is there nothing familiar now?—nothing that reminds you of an old stone balcony, full of flowers, and a bright little thing leaping to her father’s bosom; and she, that wronged woman, so darkly beautiful, looking on? Child, my Aurora’s child, is there no memory like this in your soul now?”

“This tenderness has filled my heart with tears, I can find nothing else there,” I answered, sadly.

He unfolded his arms, and they dropped down, loose and helpless, like broken willow-branches, and the quick panting of his bosom made me shudder with a thought that he was dying 288I arose, and then he started upright in his chair, and fixed his flashing eyes upon me.

“Is this creature mine or not?” he said—“Aurora’s daughter or a mockery? Am I accursed among the children of the earth for one wrong act? Will this mystery walk with me to the grave? Am I a father, or childless? Girl, answer me—wring the truth from that brain! Before God I must know it, or death will not be rest. Your mother, Zana—where is your mother?”

His voice rang sharp and clear through the chamber, filling it like the scream of a wounded bird. His eyes were wild; his cheeks hueless. I cowered back, chilled to the soul by his last words. The room disappeared—everything grew white, and shuddering with cold I felt, as it were, snow drifts rushing over me, and through their paralyzing whiteness came the cry,

“Your mother, Zana, where is your mother?”

How long this lasted I do not know, but my next remembrance was of sitting upon the carpet, faint, and with a stunned feeling, as if some one had given me a heavy blow. A silver basket lay upturned by my side, and a mass of crimson fruit, matted with flowers, lay half among the frosted silver, half upon the carpet.

The room was still as death, save the short, painful sound of some one breathing near me. I struggled to my feet, and sat down in a great easy-chair which stood close by me. Then, as my sight cleared, I saw that a window had been opened, that the drapery was flung back from a massive ebony bedstead, and upon the white counterpane I saw Lord Clare lying among the folds of his gorgeous dressing-gown, pale and motionless as marble.

Turner stood over him, bathing his forehead, white almost as the sick man.

I arose and would have approached the bed, but Turner waved me back, and I left the room, sick to the very heart’s core.

I met some persons in the galleries, but passed on without 289noticing them. As I reached the lower hall, Lady Catherine Irving came in at the front entrance, apparently just from her carriage.

“How is this?” she said, turning pale with rage. “Who permitted this? How came the girl here?”

Her words had no effect upon me; the miserable preoccupation of my soul rendered them harmless. I went by her without answering, and left the house.

“See that the creature is never admitted again; I will discharge the servant who lets her in,” she continued, following me to the door.

I took no heed, but remembered her words afterward.

I wandered off in the woods, for the very thought of the close air of a house maddened me. Reflect I did not; a chaos of wild thoughts and wilder feelings possessed me.

At last I found myself on the eminence which I have described more than once, from which a view of Marston Court could be obtained. The strange man whom I had met there, years ago, came to my mind; and, singular as it may seem, I thought of him with a sort of hope which grew into a desire for his presence.

I thought of my father, for not a doubt arose within me that Lord Clare was my father—of the agonizing darkness which hung over his death-bed—of the inability which prevented me sweeping that darkness aside. What was the mysterious thread which lay upon my faculties? What human power could ever unloose it?

I looked around in anguish of heart. Was there no help? I would pray to God, humble myself like a little child at his feet, that he might mercifully enlighten me. There was hope here, and I knelt down upon the turf, bowing my face in silence before God. The effort composed me; it hastened the natural reaction which must follow any intense excitement, and in my motionless position I became calmer.

290

Chaleco came close to me and laid one hand softly on my head.

“Be tranquil—be tranquil,” he murmured, smoothing my hair from time to time.

A soft languor stole over me. I sunk slowly down upon what seemed to be a couch, and like two rose-leaves heavy with fragrance, my eyelids closed so softly that I felt a thrill as the lashes fell upon my cheek.

He kept one hand upon my head awhile, then moved it gently across my forehead and over my eyes. I felt a delicious and almost imperceptible current of air flowing coolly over my bosom and down my arms. Then the air was agitated, as if a group of angels were fanning me with their wings; the lids fell heavier still over my slumberous eyes; my limbs grew rigid, but with a sensation of exquisite repose. It began to lighten. I knew that fiery gleams were breaking and sparkling all around me. Then followed peal after peal of thunder making the tower rock, and upheaving, as it seemed, the very foundations of the building.

I was conscious of all this, but it did not disturb the languid repose into which I had fallen. The dawning consciousness of two lives—two entire beings came sweetly upon my soul. I saw my old self fading away; I was alone in the universe with 302that man; the whole past or present, for the time, held nothing but him and me. Then followed a blank like that which fills the first year of infancy, dreamy and quiet.

Pang after pang went through me after that, each sweeping the shadows from my brain; and I saw a young girl, mature in her dark bright beauty, but almost a child still, holding an infant in her lap. The little one was like its mother, the same eyes, the same rich complexion. I knew the mother well, and the child. My own soul, full of innocent love, lay in the bosom of that child.

I looked around. The two were in an old farm-house, among hills covered with purple heath; sheep grazed along the upland slopes; and cattle ranged the valleys. Men in short, plaid garments and flat bonnets watched the sheep; and the young mother carried her child to the window, that it might see the lambs play as the shepherds drove them to the fold.

While the mother stood there with her child, a stout farmer came to the window, and taking the little one from her arms began to dance it up and down in the bright air, till the silken curls blew all over its face. The mother laughed, and so did the child, gleefully, like a little bird. Then came a woman round an angle of the house; her sleeves were rolled up, leaving her round, well-shaped arms bare to the elbow. She took the child from her good man, and smoothing its curls with her plump fingers, covered it with kisses.

A shot from the hill-side made the whole group start joyfully forward. The old man shaded his eyes and looked eagerly toward the mountain. The young mother seized her child and ran forward, her eyes sparkling, and her cheeks in a glow.

Along the shore of a little lake that lay in the lap of those hills, came a young man in hunter’s dress. A gun, which he had just discharged, was thrown back upon his shoulders, and as he saw the young mother coming toward him, he flung out a white handkerchief, smiling a happy welcome.

I knew the young man’s face well, and my soul, which was in the child’s bosom, sang for joy as he came up.

303A moment of obscurity, of mistiness and shadows—then appeared before me the cottage in Greenhurst, its gardens, its dim old wilderness of trees; and now my soul leaped from event to event, scaling over all that might have been repose, and seizing upon the rugged points of that human history like a vampire.

Again and again I saw that young mother, so beautiful, so sad, that every fibre of my being ached with sympathy. It was not her face or her form alone that I saw, but all the doubt, the anguish, the humiliation of her wild, proud nature tortured my own being. I not only saw her, but felt all the changes of her soul writing themselves on my own intelligence.

Why was it that in that wonderful sleep or trance—I know not to this day what it was—but how did it happen that I could read every thought and feeling in my mother’s heart, but only the actions of my father? Did that weird being so will it, that all my burning nature should pour itself forth in sympathy for the wronged woman, and harden into iron toward the man? I saw him too, pale, struggling with indecisions, that ended in more than mental torture, but this awoke no sympathy in my bosom, none, none. Then came another upon my vision, a proud, noble woman, always clad in black, that hovered around the old dwelling where my father rested, like a raven. She was my mother’s rival; I felt it the moment her black shadow fell upon my memory. I saw her in a dim old room, and he was with her. Both were pale and in trouble; she sat watching him through her tears, and those tears shook his manhood till he trembled from head to foot. A child, dark-eyed, and with a look of intelligence beyond her years, sat crouching in a corner, with her great black eyes following every movement—I knew that child well. It was the infant who had shouted its joyous greeting to the young huntsman. Its blood was beating then in my own veins.

Again I saw the woman, beneath a clump of gnarled old oaks. She lay prone upon the earth, white as death, stiffened like a corpse; a horse dripping with sweat stood cowering on the other side of a chasm that yawned between him and the lady. 304There was that child again, peering out from a thicket, with her wild eyes gleaming with ferocious joy, as if she gloried in the stillness that lay like death upon the woman.

Then a huntsman rode up, and I saw the white face of the woman on his bosom. He kissed the face—he wept over it—he laid her on the grass, and looked piteously around for help.

Then the child sprang up like a tiger-cub from the thicket; with a bound she stood beside the two; her little form dilating, her whole attitude full of wrath. Words were spoken, between the man and the child, bitter, harsh words. Then the woman moved faintly; the child saw it; her tiny hands were clenched; her teeth locked together, and lifting her foot, she struck it fiercely down upon the lady’s bosom.

A blow from the man dashed her to the ground; confusion followed, flashes as of fire filled my vision. Then I saw the child wandering through the tall trees alone, her little features locked, her arms tightly folded.

It grew dark, so dark that under the trees the young mother, who stood by her child, could not see the fierce paleness of her face. Then I saw them both wandering like thieves along the vast mansion house. They were separated. The mother went into numberless chambers searching for some one, and holding her breath. At one moment she stood over a bed, on which the strange woman slept; then I was sure that the child was hers by the deadly blackness of her eyes as they fell on the noble sleeper. She passed out with one hand firmly clenched, though it held nothing, and wandered into the darkness again.

Once more she stood in the light, dim and faint, for the lamp that gave it was hidden under an alabaster shade, and sent forth only a few pale rays like moonbeams. I saw little that surrounded her, for my soul was searching the great agony of heart with which she stood beside that man. He was not in bed, but wrapped in a dressing-gown of some rich Oriental silk, lay upon a couch with his eyes closed and smiling.

She held her breath, and the last tender love that ever beat 305in her heart swelled up from its depths as she bent down and gathered the smile with her lips.

He started. She fell upon her knees; she locked his hand in hers; her black tresses drooped over him; oh, with what agony pleaded for a return of the love that had been the pulse of her life, the breath on her lips.

He arose and shook her off—with a mighty effort he steeled his heart and shook her off, the mother of his child, the wife of his bosom. She stood upright, pale and transfigured. For one whole minute she remained gazing on him speechless, and so still that the beating of his heart sounded clear and distinct in the room. She turned and glided into the darkness again, and she disappeared with her child, who waited for her there.

Then followed a panorama of scenery, rivers, mountains, and seas, over which the mother wandered, holding her child by the hand. At last she stood in sight of an ancient city, rich with Moorish relics, but as I turned to gaze on them a crowd of fierce human beings surrounded her, filling the air with hoarse noises, glaring at her and the child with their fierce eyes. An old woman, tiny as a child, and thin as a mummy, stood by, shouting back their reviling with defiance. Thus with whoop, and taunt, and sacrilegious gibes, they drove the poor creature onward to the mountains. Up and up she clambered with the little one still clinging to her neck, till the snow became heavy around her, and she waded knee deep through it, tottering and faint. At last the crowd surged together around a mountain peak, and pointed with hoarse shouts to a valley half choked up with stone cairns and shimmering with untrod snow.

Down into the virgin whiteness of this valley the black masses poured, treading down the snow with all their squalid ferocity doubled by contrast with its whiteness. They took the child from her mother and carried her shrieking to the outskirts of the crowd. I knew the man that held her, and read all the fierce agony of his grief as he strove to blind the child to the horrible deed that crowd was perpetrating.

I saw it all—the first unsteady whirl of stones, the fiendish 306eagerness that followed; I heard the shrieks—I felt her death agony.

Oh, how I struggled! how I pleaded with the strong will that enslaved my faculties! how I prayed that he would redeem me from the horrors of that mountain pass! But no, the curse of memory must be complete; I was compelled to live over the agony of my mother’s death.

I knew well all the time that the child and myself were one being; but as in ordinary life a person often looks upon his own sufferings with self-pity, as if he were a stranger; so I followed wearily after the little creature as they bore her, an orphan, from the Valley of Stones. I saw her growing thin, pining, pining always for the mother who was dead, till she grew into a miserable shadow, with all the life of her being burning in those large eyes. The old woman and the man kept her to themselves, but she seemed pining to death while they wandered from mountain to mountain, and at last across the seas.

Again Greenhurst arose on my vision, the old building among distant trees, the village just in sight. A gipsy’s tent stood in a hollow, back from the wayside, and in it lay the shadowy child.

The gipsy man and that weird little woman were in the tent, and from without I heard the ringing of bells and the tramp of horses, smothered and soft, as if each hoof-fall were broken with flowers.

Then I forgot the sick child and stood within the village church. He was there standing before the altar, his hand clasped that of the proud lady who had so often wandered through the drama which I was forced to witness. The bridegroom was pale as death, and she looked strangely pallid in the silvery cloud of her brocaded robe. Still she was firm, and I saw that nothing had been confided to her—that the history of my poor mother had never reached the bosom of that proud woman. He was resolute, resolute to trample down every right of another in search of his own happiness. Fool! 307fool! happiness will not be thus wickedly wrenched from the hands of the Creator. Even then, before God’s altar, he had begun to reap the whirlwind. Coming events cast their shadows all around. No wonder he grew white. No wonder the marriage vows died like snow upon his lips. No wonder that all the bridal blossoms with which the greensward glowed when they went in, had withered beneath the hot sun! Their dying fragrance fell over the noble pair as they came forth wedded man and wife. Man and wife! had he forgotten the subterranean vaults beneath the Alhambra, where my mother stood by his side with firmer faith and more devoted constancy than that woman ever knew? Was that oath forgotten? No, as he came forth into the sunshine treading down the pale blossoms as he had trampled my mother out of life, a bronzed hand, long and lean as a vulture’s claw, was thrust over his path; and night-shade fell thick among the dead blossoms. He did not see it, for the weird gipsy woman moved like a shadow among the village children; but he shrunk as if with some hidden pain, and grew paler than before.

The will that controlled mine forced me onward with the newly married pair. I saw him struggle against the leaden memories that would not be swept away. His mournful smile, as he looked on her, was full of saddened love. I could have pitied them but for my mother. I saw what they did not, her grave, that cairn of reddened stones looming before them at every step. They shuddered beneath the invisible shadow, but I knew from whence it fell.

Their route to Greenhurst was trampled over a carpet of flowers; silver and gold fell like rain among the village children; the carriage streaming with favors swept by that gipsy tent where the sick child was lying, his child, all unconscious of its double orphanage.

In the thralldom of my intellect I was forced to look on, though my strength was giving way. With shrinking terror I watched the movements of that weird murderess as she crept into Greenhurst, and with the accuracy of a bloodhound stole 308through the very apartments my mother had penetrated, crawling like a reptile close to the walls, till she stood upright in the bridal chamber. She concealed herself behind the snowy masses of drapery that fell around the bed.

While her form was shrouded in the heavy waves of silk, her dark face peered, ever and anon, through the transparent lace of the inner curtains like that of a watching fiend.

As one whose senses were locked in a single channel, I too waited and watched. People came in and out of the room, little dreaming of the fiend hidden in the snow of the curtains.

Even in its slavery my spirit sickened as I watched and saw the withered veins of that unearthly wretch swelling with murderous venom, while her victims were moving unconsciously in the next room.

The curtains rustled, that claw-like hand was thrust out, and I saw half a dozen drops flash down like diamonds into a goblet of water that had just been placed on the toilet.

Then a door opened, and the bride entered from her dressing-room alone. In the simple white of her robe she looked touching and lovely, like one subdued and humbled by the depth of her own feelings. The delicate lace of her night coif left a shadow on her temples less deep than that which lay beneath her eyes. Her bosom rose slowly and with suppressed respiration beneath the rich embroidery that embossed her night robe, and her uncovered feet fell almost timidly on the carpet; not with girlish bashfulness, but with a sort of religious awe as one visits a place of prayer afraid to enter.

She knelt down by the bed, and clasping her hands, remained still, as if some prayer lay at the bottom of her heart, which she had not the courage to breathe aloud. The broad, white eyelids were closed, and twice I saw that fiendish face glaring at her through the curtains.

She arose at length, and heaving a deep sigh, stepped into bed. As she sunk to the pillow her eye fell upon the goblet, and resting on one elbow, she reached forth her hand and drank off its contents.

309As she fell softly back to the pillows, a hoarse chuckle came through the curtains. She started, turned her face that way, and out came that black head, peering at her with its terrible eyes. A broken sigh, a shudder that made the white drapery rustle as if in a current of wind, and the bride lay with her eyes wide open staring upon the Sibyl.

The dead face grew more and more pallid; the dark one above glowed and gloated over it like a ghoul. Then the soft light was darkened, and the bridegroom leaned over his bride listening for her breath. As he stooped, the curtains opposite were flung back, the lace torn away, and like an exulting demon the old woman laughed over the living and the dead.

The scene changed, the old woman, the gipsy man and the child were in a tent at midnight. The poor little one, aroused from her torpid rest, looked wildly up as the Sibyl told of her murderous act—told of it and perished in the midst of her triumph—her old age, exhausted by the excitement of her crime, ended in death.

As the life left her body, I felt a shock run through my whole being; the past was linked with the present. Back to that gipsy tent my memory ran strong and connectedly.

I struggled in the mesmeric hands which guided my energies like steel.

“Peace,” said the man who had enthralled me, “peace, and remember.”

There was a stir in the air as if some unseen bird were fanning it with his wings, a cool and delicious feeling of rest crept over me, and as a child wakes I opened my eyes. The Spanish gipsy stood over me revealed by the quick flashes of lightning that blazed through the room. I knew that he had been my mother’s friend, that the blood in his veins was of her nation and mine. I reached forth my hand. He took it in his, and I sat up.

“You remember all now?” he said—“all that I have revealed to you—all that old Papita bade you forget?”

310“Yes, I remember—I know much, but not all; that which happened before I lived, tell me of that.”

“Not yet, you are tired!”

“Yes, but”——

A faintness came over me, my strength had received too great a shock; for a time I had no power to think or feel.

After a while, during which I had been stupefied with the very weight of my new existence, the man came close to me and took my hand.

“Child,” he said, bending over me till I could see the glitter of his eyes. “Child, are your eyes open? Is the knowledge complete?”

“Complete!” I answered, with a shudder.

“Look at me—who am I? What part have I taken in the past?”

“You are Chaleco—you loved my mother who fled with him. You bore me from the snow mountains, and warmed me in your arms when thoughts of her chilled me to the soul.”

“And is that all?”

“No, the tent. I saw you there when that fierce woman fell dead upon the earth!”

“It is complete,” he said, drawing himself up and lifting one hand to heaven, while the lightning glared upon him, “the Egyptian mysteries have lost nothing of their power,—that which was eternal in Papita lives still in Chaleco. Who shall prevail against one who holds a being like this in his grasp? 311The soul which she put to sleep I awake. Girl of the Caloe, stand up, let me see if the blood of our people is strong in your veins.”

I stood upright, planting my feet upon the floor firm as a rock. His words seemed to inspire me with wild vitality. As I looked him in the face quick gleams of lightning shot around us; my soul grew fierce and strong beneath the lurid flashes of his eyes; my own scintillated as with sparks of fire. He spoke.

“Speak—are you Caloe, or of the gentile? Base or brave? Speak the thought that is burning within you. Are you Aurora’s child or his?”

My form dilated, my bosom heaved, I felt the hot blood flashing up to my forehead.

“I am Zana, Aurora’s child,” I answered, with ineffable haughtiness. “The snow that drank her blood quenched the pale drops in my veins.”

“Come,” cried Chaleco, seizing my hand—“come and see the desolation which her rival left behind. You saw the wedding—your father’s wedding—come, now, and look at the home that was to receive the bride.”

He went to a fire-place that yawned in the chamber, and fell upon his knees. Directly I heard the clash as of flint and steel driven furiously against each other, and the empty fire-place was revealed by the storm of sparks that broke upon the sculptured stones. His wild impetuosity defeated itself; five or six times he crashed the metal in one hand against the flint which was clenched in the other. At last the fierce sparks centred in a volume, and with a flaming torch in one hand Chaleco stood up.

“You are pale,” he said, gazing sternly upon me. “Is this fear?”

“No,” I answered, subduing a thrill of awe, as the darkness which had so long enveloped me was driven back in shadows, that hung like funereal drapery in the angles and corners of the chamber—“no, I am not afraid. But that which has been revealed to me may well leave my face white.”

312He looked at me keenly, holding up the torch till its blaze flamed across my eyes. This scrutiny of my features seemed to satisfy him, for his lip curved till the white teeth gleamed through, and he muttered to himself, “It is right—the blood that has left her face burns in the heart—she is one of us.”

Muttering thus, he led the way from the chamber, sending a lurid glare backward from his torch along the damp walls of the circular staircase. Thus breaking through the shadows that gathered thick and close in the old building, he led me on. The tread of his heavy boots resounded through the vast apartments with a defiant clamor. He took no precaution to conceal his torch, which glared back from the closed windows as if the dull glass had been on fire.

We threaded galleries hung with grim old pictures, and peopled with statues, some antiques, some of bronze, and others simply of armor, the iron shells from which warriors had perished. A thrill of awe crept over me as I passed these stern counterfeits of humanity, with their grim hollows choked up with shadows. As the torchlight fell now upon the limb of a statue, now across the fierce visage of a picture, now upon the dull carvings of oak, my imagination increased the desolate grandeur, till marble, iron, and canvas seemed instinct with vitality.

This effect was not diminished by the wild look which Chaleco sent back from time to time, as I followed him.

At last we reached a door, inlaid and empanelled with precious woods. Chaleco attempted to turn the lock. It resisted, and after shaking it fiercely, he dashed one foot against it, which forced the bolt that had rusted in its socket.

“Come in,” he said, “you shall see how the widow had prepared for her young bridegroom.”

I entered, but the dull atmosphere, the damp, mouldly smell was like that of a tomb. Chaleco held up his torch, throwing its strong light in glaring flashes through the darkness. It had been a superb suit of apartments, hangings of azure silk, stained and black with mildew; Parisian carpets, from which clouds of 313dust rose at every foot-tread; gildings that time had blackened into bronze, filled my gaze with a picture of silent desolation, that made my already worn heart sink heavier and heavier in my bosom.

I shrank back. Chaleco saw it, and urged me on with a grim smile. I remembered the scene of death he had revealed to me in my unnatural sleep, and feared to look upon the place of its actual perpetration.

The chamber we entered had once been all white and superb in its adornments. The walls were yet hung with fluted satin, once rich in snowy gloss but now striped with black, for accumulations of dust had filled all the flutings. Masses of dusky lace flowed down the windows, and were entangled over the bed with many a dim cobweb, that the spiders had been years weaving among their delicate meshes. Dust and mildew had crept over the bridal whiteness of everything. The couch seemed heaped with shadows; cobwebs hung low from the gilded cornices that gleamed through them here and there with ghastly splendor.

As Chaleco lifted his torch above the couch, a bat rent its way through the lace, scattering a cloud of dust over us, and remained overhead drearily flapping his impish wings among the cobwebs, till they swayed over us like a thunder-cloud.

“Was it here the old woman killed her?” I whispered.

“No, she never reached this. It was at Greenhurst.”

“Why do you bring me here?” I said, shuddering.

“That you may see how much power there was in an old woman’s curse.”

“It is terrible,” I whispered, looking around. “My mother, has she not been fearfully avenged?”

“Avenged!” answered the gipsy; “do you call this vengeance? Not till every member of that proud house is in the dust—not till Aurora’s child triumphs over them, body and soul, shall Papita’s curse be fulfilled!”

His words fell upon me like blows; they were crushing me to the earth. I thought of George Irving. His treachery 314was forgotten; my heart only remembered his kindness—his love.

“What, all?” I questioned.

“All! Poverty, disgrace, death, these are the curses which Papita has left for you to accomplish.”

“For me?” I questioned, aghast.

“You—yes, it is your inheritance. She left it—I enforce—you accomplish it.”

As he spoke, the bat made a faint noise that struck upon my ear like the amen of a demon, and, sweeping down from his cloud of cobwebs, he made a dash at Chaleco’s torch which was extinguished by his wings.

“Give me your hand!” The gipsy seized my arm as he spoke, and led me onward in the darkness. I followed in silence, rendered desperate by all I had suffered and seen.

At length we reached the open air, and stood together upon the entrance steps. The rain had ceased, the clouds were drifting together in broken masses, leaving fissures and gleams where the cold blue was visible, winding like half frozen rivers between the dull clouds. The dense vegetation, the vines and huge elms were dripping with rain, and every leaf shone like silver when the moon, for a moment, struggled out from the clouds that overwhelmed it.

My horse stood cowering by the steps. The whole force of the storm had beat cruelly upon the poor old fellow.

Chaleco lifted me to his back, and commanding me to wait, went away. Directly he came back, mounted on what appeared to be a spirited horse, which he rode without saddle.

“Come on!” he said, striking Jupiter with his whip, “let’s be moving.”

“Where?” I questioned, sick at heart with a fear that he would not allow me to return home.

“To your inheritance—to Greenhurst.”

“But that is not my inheritance!”

“You are the child of its lord, and he is dying.”

“But I am not his heiress.”

315“Before morning you will have proof that you are his child. You know surely how to work on the repentance of a dying man. Go to him, Zana; this estate and others are his—no claim, no drawback—nothing that the English call an entail on it. One dash of his hand, and it is yours.”

“But it was hers, not his—Marston Court belonged to Lord Clare’s wife,” I said, recoiling from the idea of possessing wealth that had once belonged to my mother’s rival.

“It must be wrested from the Clares—it must be an inheritance for you and your people, Zana,” he said, riding close to me, as Jupiter picked his way along the broken road, which was left almost impassable by the storm. And he added,

“If that man dies without enriching you and your tribe by the spoils of his marriage, the curse of Papita will fall on you.”

“It is here already,” I answered, shuddering; “with nothing to trust—nothing to love—deceived, cheated, outraged. What curse can equal this?”

“Have you not deserved it?” he questioned, sternly.

“How?”

“Where was your heart? Had not the blood of our people grown pale in it? Did you give it to a Clare, and hope to go uncursed? The cry of your mother’s blood, is it nothing?”

“I did not know it—oh, would to heaven I had never known,” was my wild answer. “What am I to do?—how act?”

“Go home—be passive—let the curse work itself out. You know all—tell it to your father.”

“It will murder him!” I cried.

“Well!”

The word fell upon my ear like a blow, it was uttered so fiercely.

“Oh, don’t!—this conflict—this hardness—it kills me.”

“No, there must be death, but not for you, till the work is done.”

“Oh, what is this fearful work?”

316“Nothing, only wait. Men who know how to wait for vengeance need only be patient and look on. Death is here—I this night give you proofs that will sweep all the wealth Lord Clare controls into his daughter’s lap. Poh! child, revenge is nothing when forced, the soul that knows how to wait need not work.”

I did not comprehend the cold-blooded philosophy of his words—what young heart could? But one thing I did understand; George Irving might be independent of his mother. The property that Chaleco was grasping for me must be wrested from him. A fierce joy possessed me with the thought. If this wealth were offered to me it would place his destiny in my hands. I could withhold or restore independence to the man who had trifled with my orphanage—stolen the friend from my bosom, and uprooted my faith in human goodness. Not for one moment did I dream of taking his inheritance, but there was joy in the thought of humbling him to the dust, by restoring it with my own hands. Too young to comprehend the refined selfishness of this idea, it really seemed that there was magnanimity in this desire to humiliate a man I had loved.

As we rode on toward Greenhurst, my frame began to sink beneath the excitement that nothing human could have supported. My head reeled; the damp branches that swept across my path almost tore me from the saddle. Jupiter too was tired and worn out with the drenching storm. He staggered along the road with his head bent to the ground, ready to drop beneath my insignificant weight. Chaleco saw this, and rode closer to my side just in time to receive me on his arm as I was falling.

Without a word he lifted me to his own horse, and cast Jupiter’s bridle loose.

“Poor old fellow, let him go home,” he said with a laugh; “but as for you and I, Zana, we have more to accomplish yet.”

He held me close with his left arm, grasping the bridle with the same hand. With his right palm upon my forehead, he 317rode slowly for a while, till the strength came back to my limbs, and a certain vividness of intelligence possessed me again. Then he spoke.

“Hold tight to me, and be strong. We have lost much time that may be important.”

Without waiting for a reply, he put his horse into a sharp canter and sped on, I hardly knew or cared in what direction. At last, he dismounted and placed me upon the ground, asking abruptly if I knew the objects around me. The moon was out just then, and I looked earnestly about. It was the spot where the gipsy tent had been pitched. The spring where I had found Cora, when an infant, flowed softly on in the hollow at a little distance, and before me, where the moonbeams lay like silver upon the wet grass, I saw the meadow which had once been my sole place of refuge.

“You know the place?” said Chaleco; “it was here she died. Wait a little.”

He searched among the ferns that overhung the bank, which I have described as rising abruptly from the spring, and drew forth a pick-axe and spade covered with rust. A fragment of rock lay imbedded in the bank around which mosses and gorse of many years’ growth had crept.

With two or three blows of the pick-axe, he sent this stone crashing down into the water, which rose up in a wild shower all around as it recoiled from the rude mass.

Chaleco shook off the drops like a water-dog, and continued to turn up the earth. Directly he lifted a slab of slate rock, broad, and some inches thick, which certainly could not originally have belonged to the soil in which it lay.

Throwing this slab back, the gipsy fell upon his knees, and, groping downward, brought up a bronze box or coffer, from which he brushed the soil with reverential slowness.

“Loose the key hung around your neck by that chain of hair,” he said, holding the box up in the moonlight and searching for the lock.

I started. This was proof undoubted that the gipsy had 318never lost a clue to my identity, for no human being, except Maria, was aware that a key of antique gold and platina had always hung around my neck.

I drew it forth with a feeling of awe, and watched in silence while Chaleco fitted it in the lock. It turned with difficulty, grating in the rust, and when the lid gave way, it was with a noise that sounded upon my ear like a moan of suppressed pain.

“What is it?” I said, looking into the open box as one gazes into a coffin after it has been long closed, curious, but yet afraid.

“It is all that you will ever know of her—of your mother!” he answered with a touch of bitter sadness in his voice.

I received the box reverentially in both my hands.

“Take it,” said Chaleco, closing the lid; “read them before you sleep!”

“It seems to me that I should never sleep again.”

I said this to Chaleco, but he answered me sharply, and thrusting the spade and pick-axe aside with his foot, strode away telling me to follow. The sight of the box I held seemed to irritate him, as the scent of blood excites a wild animal. I folded it to my bosom with both arms, and though it sent a chill through every vein of my body, and made me stagger beneath its weight, I tightened my hold each moment with a painful feeling that I held the very soul of my mother close to mine.

Chaleco strode on in silence. The shadow from his broad leafed hat deepened the sombre gloom of his countenance; the moonlight which struck across the lower part of his face, revealed the ferocious compression of his mouth.

With all my fatigue, I scarcely felt the distance as we walked rapidly through the park. Chaleco did not speak till we came in sight of my home, then he paused and turned.

“Zana,” he said, speaking low and huskily—“Zana, remember you have a stern task for this night—your mother’s death to revenge—your people’s interest to secure. Read and act.”

319He spoke with an effort, and sprang away as if the presence of any human thing were a torture.

I was in the edge of our garden when he left me. A noise among the shrubs drew me onward, and I found Jupiter lying close to his stable, still saddled, and with the bridle dangling around his head.

I had no room in my heart for compassion, even for the poor old fellow. To have saved his life, I would not have set down my box for a moment; so I left him and entered the house.

A night lamp burned in the lower entrance, for Turner was still absent, and Maria supposed us both at Greenhurst. I took the lamp and went to my room.

No sense of fatigue—not even the awe that crept over me, could restrain the desire that I felt to examine the box. I placed it on the floor, fell upon my knees, and, with the lamp standing near, lifted the lid.

A quantity of folded papers, and the gleam of antique gold, floated mistily beneath my gaze. My fingers trembled as they touched the papers, yellow with age, and blackened with the written misery of my mother. I took them up, one by one, reverently, and holding my breath. It was long before I could see to distinguish one letter from another. But at last the paper ceased to rattle in my hand—the delicate letters grew distinct, and with eager eyes I devoured them.

At first, the writing was broken in its language and stiff in chirography, like the earnest attempts of a school-girl to write. The sentiments too were imperfectly expressed, and full of wild 320fancies that so appealed to my own nature that my heart answered them like an echo.

There was something child-like and exceedingly beautiful in the expressions of happiness, which broke out through all the imperfections of language and style. The poetry of a rich nature, just beginning to yield itself to the influences of civilization, spoke in every word. Never did the records of a human life seem so full of sunshine—never have I seen a register of affection so deep, and of a faith so perfect.

I read eagerly, turning over page after page, and gathering their contents at a glance. The dates changed frequently. At first, they were in Seville, then in various continental cities, where, it seems, Lord Clare had taken her after their flight from Granada, upon whose snow mountains she had at last perished.

Still, the record continued one of unbroken happiness. She invariably mentioned Lord Clare as her husband; but now and then came an expression of anxiety for the thoughtfulness that would, at times, resist all her efforts to amuse him. As the manuscript progressed, it was easy to trace the development of a vigorous mind under the influence of an intellect more powerful than itself. There was a break in the manuscript. The next date was indefinite. No town, no county, but simply the hills of Scotland.

Oh, how beautiful was the gush of affection with which she spoke of her infant! How thoroughly maternal joy expanded and deepened every feeling of her womanhood! Still it was here that I found the first trace of that sorrow which soon darkened every page. Her warm heart was dissatisfied with the measured affection with which Lord Clare received his child. She questioned the cause, finding it only in herself—her want of power to interest wholly a mind like his. She wrote of two old people who were kind to her and her little one, while Lord Clare was abroad on the hills, or absent on some of those long journeys which he occasionally made into England.

Again the scene changed, and she was at Greenhurst, so happy, so more than pleased with the beauty and comforts of the home 321which promised to be permanent at last. She described the dwelling, the rooms, with their exquisite adornments, the statuettes and pictures, with the glow of a vivid mind and warm heart. She spoke of her child—the pretty room that was prepared for it—the devotion of a woman whom Lord Clare had procured from Spain. How fearfully strange it seemed that I was the child so loved and cared for; that even then I was acting my part in the mournful drama that had left me worse than an orphan! How often did I find myself described, my eyes, the flowing wealth of my curls, the precocious vigor of my mind!

On a sudden the whole character of the manuscript changed; the delicate writing grew abrupt and broken; wild dashes appeared where sentences should have been, and a spirit of sadness pervaded every written word. She no longer spoke of Lord Clare with the exulting love that had, at first, marked her record; and every time her child was mentioned, the name seemed written in tears. Still it was but the shadow of unhappiness that appeared. No broad mention of discontent was written, but a foreboding of evil, a dread of impending bereavement fell upon the heart with every sentence.

At last it came. Lord Clare, her husband, loved another—had loved another long before he found her, a poor Gitanilla, in the ruins of the Alhambra.

With what a burst of anguish the truth was written! How terrible it must have looked, glaring on her in words formed by her own hand! Poor thing—she had attempted to dash the sentence out, but the quivering hand had only scattered it with blots; soiling the records as with mourning, but not obliterating a single word.

After this, there was no connection between the wild snatches of anguish—the pathetic despair—the pleadings for a return of love which were written in all the eloquence of desperation, and blistered with tears that stained its surface yet.

Trouble blinded my eyes as I read. My hands trembled as they grasped the paper on which her tears had fallen. My 322soul was full of my mother—tortured by her grief—swelling fiercely with a bitter sense of her wrongs.

I read on to the end. All my mother’s history was before me—I saw her as she described herself, a wild dancing girl of Granada, thrown upon the notice of a romantic and imaginative young man—that gipsy marriage in the caverns of the Alhambra was before me in all its dismal terrors. Was it a marriage, or a deception by which my mother was betrayed? Whatever it was, she believed it to be real. No doubt that she was Lord Clare’s wife ever appeared, but, in the last page, the cry of her wronged love broke out in one fierce burst of sorrow. The certainty that he loved another—had never entirely loved her—uprooted the very fibres of life. She never wrote rationally after that.

“I will go,” she wrote, and great drops as of rain blotted out half the words—“I will go to him once more, and tell him of my oath. Surely, surely he will not let me die—me, his wife, his poor Gitanilla, whose beauty is not all gone yet. This woman, does she love him as I do? Will she give up?—oh, Heaven forgive me, I gave up nothing! What had I to yield, a poor, dancing gipsy, with nothing on earth that was her own, but the beauty of which he is tired, and the heart he is breaking? But she, this woman with one husband in the grave—what can she offer that Aurora did not give? Still, oh, misery, misery, he loves her—I can see it. He thinks me blind, unconscious, content with the sparse hours that he deals out grudgingly to me and my child. Content! well, well, it may not be. I have read of jealous hearts that create by wayward suspicions the evil they dread. What if I were one of them? Oh, heavens, what happiness if it rested thus with me! Let me hope—let me hope! * * * *

“It is over, he has struck my child—the blow has reached my heart. She is at his dwelling—I too will enter it—I too will strike. Have I not sworn an oath that must be redeemed? His oath is forgotten. The gipsies remember better. * * *

“She sleeps in his house to-night; I will be there! How 323wakeful the child is! How wild and fiery are the eyes with which she has been watching me from that heap of cushions! They are closed, and I will steal away. But how come back? Will it be the last time? * * * *

“I have seen them both—he has told me all. He never loved me as he loved her, not even then, among those ruins. Never loved me! O, my God! am I mad to repeat these words over and over, as the suicide, frantic with the first blow, plunges the dagger again and again in his bosom? Why cannot words kill like daggers? They pierce deeper—they torture worse; but we live. Yes, if this pang could not wrench life away, nothing can reach this stubborn hold on existence. He has said it with his own lips—I am not loved—through all his life that woman has ever stood between me and him. I rose from my knees then and stood up. Did I entreat? No, no! Perhaps he expected it—perhaps he thought the abject gipsy blood would creep to his feet yet. * * * *

“Why was Zana waiting in the darkness of that house? How much her eyes looked like those of my grandame. Ha! my oath. It is well I kept silent there. Have I not sworn that nothing but death shall separate us two? Let them live, the despised gipsy has the courage to die. Zana, my child, gather up your strength, many dreary miles stretch between us and the caves of Granada, but death is there. Without his love, my poor little one, what can we do but die?” * * *

Here the manuscript ended. But upon one of its blank pages was written, in another hand, words that froze the tears in my heart.

It was a stern command to forsake the people of my father’s blood; and after avenging my mother’s death, return to my own tribe for ever. The words were strong with bitter hate, that seemed to burn into the paper on which they were written. The fearful document was signed Papita.

The papers dropped from my hand. I remember sitting, like one stupefied, gazing down upon a pile of gold that nearly filled the coffer, fascinated by the glitter of two antique ear-rings, set 324with great rubies, that glowed out from the mass like huge drops of blood that had petrified there. I took them up and clasped them in my ears; their history was written out in the manuscript I had just read; and I locked them with a sort of awe. They seemed a fearful link that was to drag me back to my people.

While I searched among the gold for some other token, a strange stupor crept over me, and I fell exhausted on the floor, folding my arms over the bronze box and its contents.

I slept heavily for hours, so heavily that all the sweet noises of morning failed to arouse me. This suspension of consciousness probably saved me from a brain fever, or perhaps utter frenzy. It seems that I had locked myself in, and all day Maria, unconscious of my return, had not thought of looking for me till Turner came home, for a moment, to inquire after us. He found Jupiter still saddled, wandering around the wilderness, hungry and forlorn enough. This excited his fears, and, directly, the faithful old man was knocking at my chamber door. The noise was not enough to arouse me, and receiving no answer he grew desperate, and forcing an entrance, found me prone upon the carpet with my arms around the bronze coffer, my soiled garments lying in torn masses around me, and my pale features gleaming out from beneath the scarlet kerchief, with which I had confined the riding-hat to my head.

The stillness of death itself was not more profound than the sleep into which I had fallen; but at last the gushes of fresh air they let in upon me, aromatic vinegars, and the desperate shake that Turner gave me in his terror, had their effect. I stood up, stiffened in every limb and in a sort of trance; for all consciousness was locked like ice in my bosom.

Slowly, and with many pangs, the remembrance of what had happened came back to me. The bronze coffer at my feet—the sight of my garments, brought back a consciousness of all that I had learned and suffered during the night. I took up the coffer and placed it, reverently, on a table. Turner and Maria watched me, with anxious curiosity. The box was a 325singular one, and covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics, into which the red soil of the bank had introduced itself. I took no heed of Turner’s astonishment; but, self-centred and stern, asked him if Lord Clare—I did not call him father—still lived.

“Yes,” answered the old man, and all his features commenced to quiver, “he lives—he has asked for you again and again. Where have you been, Zana?”

I did not reply. The stern duty that lay upon me hardened all my senses; the old man’s right to question me passed for nothing. I asked what time it was, as if he had not spoken.

It was four in the afternoon. Lord Clare had inquired for me so often, that Turner determined, spite of Lady Catherine’s prohibition, to bring me to his presence.

“Go,” said the old man, gently—“go change that dress, and drive, if it is possible, that deathly white from your cheek; there is no resemblance now between you and her; that icy face will disappoint him. Look like yourself, Zana—like her!”

I went at his bidding and changed my dress, and braided my hair with fingers as stiff and, it seemed to me, as nerveless as iron. The pallor did not leave my cheek; the blood flowed still and icily in my veins; all the sweet impulses of humanity seemed dead within me. I remembered a scarlet ribbon which lay in the box, with a piece of gold attached. The journal had given me its history. The gold was my father’s first gift to his gipsy wife. I remembered well finding the ribbon in his vest, and carrying it away with a sharp infantile struggle, full of glee and baby triumph. He allowed me to keep it. Yet it was her dearest maiden ornament—the earliest sacrifice that she had made to him. The event was impressed on my mind, because it brought forth the first angry word that I ever remember from my mother. On seeing me come forward, holding up the ribbon, and shouting as it floated behind me, I remember well the quick flash of her eyes, the eager bound which she made toward me, and the clutch of her hand as she wrested away my treasure.

326My father laughed lightly at the struggle, but she bore the ribbon away, and did not appear again for hours.

As this memory pressed upon my mind, I entered the room where Turner awaited me, took out the ribbon, and hung it with the gold around my neck.

“Do I look like her now?” I said, turning upon the old man with steady coldness.

He did not reply. His distended eyes were fixed on the antique rings in my ears—a sort of terror possessed him at the sight.

“Zana, where did you get those accursed things?” he said.

I did not answer, but took my mother’s journal from the coffer and closed the lid over the gold.

Turner followed me from the room, evidently filled with awe by the cold stateliness of my demeanor.

With a heart harder than the nether millstone, I entered the house which held my dying father. No misgivings of humanity possessed me—my soul was cruel in its purpose, and my footsteps fell like iron upon the tessellated vestibule.

Upon the staircase we met Lady Catherine Irving. She confronted me with her impatient wrath and ordered me back, denouncing Turner for having introduced me a second time against her commands. I listened till she had done, and then sternly pursued my way, leaving Turner behind.

I opened the door of Lord Clare’s chamber. A voice from the bed, feeble and sharp as that of an old man, called out:

“Turner, Turner, is it you? Have you found the child?”

I strode up to the bed and bent over the dying man. My hair almost touched his forehead. The glow of his great, feverish eyes spread, like fire, over my face.

When he saw me that sharp face began to quiver, and over each cheek there darted a burning spot, as if a red rose leaf had unfurled upon it. He lifted his long arms, and would have clasped them over my neck, but they fell back, quivering, upon the bed. With his lips drawn apart, and the glitter of his 327eyes growing fearful, he lay gazing at the ruby rings that weighed down my ears.

“Those, those!—the rubies! How came they here?—what demon has locked them into those ears? Out with them, Zana—out with them, they are accursed!”

He held up those pale hands and grasped eagerly at the ear-rings; but I drew back, standing upright by his bed.

“They are my inheritance,” I said; “touch them not.”

“They are accursed,” he faltered, struggling to his elbow, “the symbols of treachery and blood—they were in her ears—the sorceress—the poisoner—they were in her ears that night.”

“I know it. They belonged to old Papita, the grandame of my mother, the Gitanilla whom you married in the vaults of the Alhambra. I am her child.”

“And mine!” he cried, casting up his arms as he fell backward upon the pillows.

I drew back, repulsing those quivering arms with a motion of my hand. They fell heavily upon the bed-clothes. A groan burst from his lips, and, from beneath his closed eyelids, I saw two great tears roll slowly downward.

For one moment the heart within me was stirred with an impulse of compassion. I removed the red ribbon from my neck and flung it over his, the pure offering of my soul. He grasped the gold with both hands and held it against his heart, muttering faint prayers to himself. I took one of the pale hands in mine; the touch softened me still more. The word father trembled on my lips—another moment and I must have fallen on my knees by his side. But that instant Lady Catherine Irving laid her hand on my arm.

“Go!” she said, in a hoarse whisper. “Insolent, begone!”

I shook off her detested touch and drew myself sternly up.

“Hence, woman!” I exclaimed, pointing to the door with my hand—“hence; and leave me alone with my father!”

She turned livid with rage, but kept her ground, attempting to force me from the bed; but she might as well have tried her puny strength on a rock.

328“Catherine, go, it is my child,” said a faint voice from the bed; “leave us together.”

“It is against the physician’s orders—his mind wanders—it is madness!” exclaimed the woman, addressing Turner, who followed her; “you will bear witness, good Turner, that at the last his mind wandered.”

Lord Clare’s eyes opened, and were bent, with a look of ineffable love, upon my face.

“My child—my child!” he murmured, repeating the name as if the sound were sweet to him. Then looking at Turner, he whispered, “There must be some new proof. Those rings, take them from her—for, before the God of heaven, she is my own child.”

“He raves—he is insane!” cried Lady Catherine, attempting to push me aside.

I have said that my heart was hard as a rock when I entered that chamber. A moment of tenderness had softened it, but the presence of this woman petrified it again. Still I could not share in this unholy strife around my father’s death-bed without a shudder. My very soul revolted from the contest which might ensue if I persisted in remaining. I took the hand which had been feebly extended toward me, and pressed the journal of my mother into its clasp. He lifted up the papers, held them waving before his eyes, and muttering, “It is hers—it is hers!” cowered down into the bed and began to moan.

“What papers are those?” almost shrieked Lady Catherine, attempting to possess them, but the dying man dragged them beneath the bed-clothes. “It is forbidden him to read—he shall not attempt it!”

Lord Clare started up in bed, and pointed his long, shadowy finger toward the door.

“Woman,” he cried, in a voice that made her creep slowly backward—“woman, intermeddle no more—leave me with these papers and my God!”

The astonished and terrified woman crept abjectly from the room, with her pallid face averted.

329Lord Clare sat upright, unfolding the yellow and time-stained journal of my mother with his shaking hands.

“Fling back the curtains,” he cried. “Nay, nay, my eyes are dim—bring lights—bring lights. Ha, yes, that is the sunset, let me read it by the last sun I shall ever see!”

Turner had drawn back the bed curtains, twisting them in masses around the heavy ebony posts. But this was not enough, with a sweep of his arms he sent all the glowing silk away from the nearest window, letting in a burst of the golden sunset.

And by this light my dying father began to read the records of the heart he had broken. It was terrible to witness the eagerness with which his glittering eyes ran over the paper. New vitality had seized upon him: he sat upright and firm as an oak in the bed, which had quivered to his nervous trembling a few minutes before.

I had entered the room determined to spare no pang to the dying man—to shrink from nothing that might send back an avenging torture for all that he had dealt to my mother, but I was young and I was human. The blood that beat in his almost pulseless heart flowed in my veins also. I could not look upon him there—so pale, so full of deathly beauty—and be his executioner. I turned away resolved to spare him the details of my mother’s death. I met Lady Catherine again upon the stairs, and she shrunk back from me as if I had been a viper. It gave me no pain—I was scarcely conscious of her presence.

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I spent a most anxious night, my heart racked by a thousand wild emotions. Need I describe them? Has any human being the power of conveying to another in words the storm of jealousy, compassion, rage, and love that filled my bosom? I know that there is a great want of dignity in acknowledging that I still loved this man, that I could for an instant think of him without virtuous detestation; but I am writing of a human heart as it was, not, perhaps, as it should have been. To me George Irving seemed two beings. The man I had known, generous, wise, impetuous, all that my heart acknowledged to be grand in humanity; and the man I had heard of, treacherous, full of hypocrisy, and vile in every aspiration. I could not reconcile these clashing qualities in my mind. To my reason, George Irving was a depraved, bad man; but my heart rejected the character, and always turned leniently toward the first idea it had formed. While I pitied Cora from the bottom of my soul, and loved her so dearly that no sacrifice would have been too costly a proof of this devotion, there was jealousy 377in my heart that embittered it all. Alas, it is often much easier to act right than to feel right.

When I went for Cora, the next day, she took me to an oaken cabinet in her room, and with a sad smile—for all her pretty smiles had a shade of sadness in them now—asked me to examine some old books that lay huddled together on the shelf.

“It is singular,” she said, “but your name is written in some of these books, and Zana is a very uncommon name. Would you like to see how it is used?”

She took up a small, antique Bible, and after unclasping the cover of sandal-wood, on which some sacred story was deeply engraved, placed it open in my hands. On the fly-leaf was written, in a clear and very beautiful hand,

“Clarence, Earl of Clare, to his wife Aurora.”

A date followed this, and lower down on the page was a register, in the same bold writing, dated at the hamlet, some months after the presentation lines were written. This was the register:

“Born, June ——, Zana, daughter of Clarence, Earl of Clare, and Aurora, his wife.”

The book fell from my hands; I did not know its entire importance, or what bearing it might have on my destiny, but my heart swelled with a flood of gratitude that almost overwhelmed me. I had no idea of its legal value, but the book seemed to me of inestimable worth. In it were blended, in terms of honor, the names of my parents; how it came there I did not ask.

Cora stooped down to recover the book, but I seized it first, exclaiming, amid my sobs,

“It is mine—it is mine, Cora! Cora, I bless you—God will bless you for giving me this great happiness.”

We went down to the lake, where Chaleco waited with the little boat. He looked hard at me, as I came round the tiny cove, where he lay as if in a cradle, rocking upon the bright waters as they flowed in and out, forming ripples and ridges of diamonds among the white pebbles of the beach.

378“What is it, Zana?” he said, springing ashore, as Cora seated herself in the boat, and interrogating me in a whisper on the bank. “You look sharp set, like a hawk when it first sees its prey. What has happened up yonder?”

I took the antique little Bible from under my shawl, and opening it at the blank leaf, pointed out the writing.

He read it two or three times over, and then thrust the book into his bosom. His face was thoughtful at first, but as he pondered over the writing, muscle by muscle relaxed in his dark features, and at last they broke forth in a blaze of the most eloquent triumph; his questions came quick upon each other, like waves in a cataract.

“Where did you get that? Is it all? Who has had possession so long? Speak, Zana, I must know more.”

“Why, is it so important?” I inquired, excited by his look and manner.

“Important! why, child”——but he checked himself, inquiring more composedly how I came in possession of the book.

I told him how it had been pointed out by Cora. Without more questioning, he stepped into the boat, and bade me follow him.

When we were all seated, and the boat was shooting pleasantly across the lake, Chaleco began, in a quiet, indifferent manner, to converse with Cora. At first she was shy and reluctant to answer him, but his manner was so persuasive, his voice so winning, that it was impossible to resist their charm. After awhile he glided into the subject of the book, speaking of its antique binding, of the rare perfume which she might have noticed in the precious wood, and he went on to explain that it was used of old in the building of the Tabernacle. All this interested Cora greatly, and when he began to wonder how this singular volume could have found its way into the farmer’s dwelling, she commenced to conjecture and question about the probabilities with more apparent earnestness than himself.

379“The old people might perhaps know,” she said. “Now I think of it, they did tell me of some persons, a gentleman, lady and little child that lived with them long ago—probably they left the book; but then, how came Lord Clare’s name in it?”

“Yes, sure enough,” murmured Chaleco, cautious not to interrupt her.

“Besides, Lady Clare’s name was not Aurora, and he never would have lived here with that beautiful hunting-seat only five miles off, you know.”

“That is quite true,” acquiesced Chaleco, while I sat still, listening keenly to every word.

“You see,” continued the young girl, quite animated on the subject, “you see how impossible it is that the writing means anything; but it is in other books—that is, names are written in them, Clarence sometimes, sometimes Aurora, now and then, both names; but, Zana, I have never found that but once.”

Chaleco fell into thought, and the oars hung listlessly in his hands for some minutes. At last he spoke again, but on indifferent subjects, about the lightness of the air, and the beautiful, silvery glow that shimmered over the waters. But once in a while he would quietly revert to the book again, till I became impressed with its importance to a degree that made me restless for more information.

After sailing around and across the lake for several hours, we drew up at a little island scarcely half a mile across, that lay near the centre of the lake, green as a heap of emeralds, notwithstanding the season was advanced, and embowered by cedar and larch trees, with the richest and most mossy turf I ever trod on, carpeting it from shore to shore.

Chaleco brought forth a basket of provisions from his boat, and bade us wander about while he prepared our dinner. We waited to see him strike fire from two flint stones that he gathered from the bank, and kindle a quantity of dry sticks that lay scattered beneath the trees. When he had spitted a fowl, which, gipsy like, he preferred to cook himself after the sylvan fashion, we went away, and sat down under a clump of 380larch trees, sadly and in silence, as was natural to persons whose thoughts turned on a common and most painful subject.

I had resolved, there and then, to make my last appeal to the infatuated child. She must have guessed this from my silence and the gravity of my face, for she became wordless as myself, and as I glanced anxiously in her eyes they took the sullen, obstinate expression of one prepared to resist, and, if driven to it, defy.

We sat down together upon the grass. The delicate green foliage of the larches quivered softly over us, and the brown leaves of some trees that had felt the frost, rustled through the air and spotted the turf as with the patterns in a carpet. We remained a long time gazing on these leaves, in sad silence, but holding each other by the hand, as was our habit when little children. My heart was full of those dear old times; it killed me to think that they were gone forever—that again on this earth Cora and I could never be entire friends, friends between whom no subject is forbidden, no respect lost. When I thought of this, and knew that, the impediment lay in my heart as much as it could in her conduct, the future for us both seemed very hopeless. I can hardly describe the feelings that actuated me. Perhaps they arose from the evil felt in my own person, the result of a step like that which Cora had taken, entailed by my mother. True, the cases were not alike; my poor gipsy mother had not sinned consciously; no high moral culture had prepared her to resist temptation; no fond parent graced her with his love; but her act had plunged me, her innocent child, into fatal troubles that must haunt me though life.

It is possible, I say, that these thoughts prevented me feeling all the charity that would have been kind for the poor girl at my side; perhaps, and this is most probable, I could not forgive the companionship of her error, for it is a terrible trial to feel that one you cannot entirely respect is preferred to yourself. In striving thus to analyze the feelings that made me drop Cora’s hand for a time as we sat silently together, one thing was certain, I did not cordially love her with the affection 381of former years. Still, feelings swelled in my heart stronger and more faithful than love—gratitude, and my solemn promise to the good father; compassion for her, not unmixed, but powerful enough to have commanded any sacrifice; a firm desire to wrest her from the man who had wronged us both; all these motives influenced and urged me on to rescue that poor girl, if human eloquence and human will could accomplish it.

I attempted to speak, but my throat was parched and my faculties all lay dead for the moment; but struggling courageously with myself, I took her hand, pressing it between my own cold palms; “Cora,” I said, still in a whisper, for my voice would not come, “have you thought all this over? will you go with me to your father? Remember, love, he is ill and may not live.”

The hand began to tremble in mine, but she turned her face away.

“Let the subject drop,” she said, in a voice low and full of pain, like mine; “it is of no use talking, I will not leave him. It would kill us both; I should perish on the way.”

Now my voice returned—my heart swelled—words of persuasion, of reason, rose eloquently to my lips. I reasoned, I entreated, I portrayed the disgrace of her present position, prophesied the deeper shame and anguish sure to follow. I described the condition of her father in words that melted my own heart and flooded my face with tears. I prostrated myself before her, covering her dimpled and trembling hands with my tears, but all in vain. My passion was answered with silence or smothered monosyllables. She suffered greatly; even in the excitement of my own feelings I was sure of that. At length she broke from me, and rushed off toward the beach, evidently determined to protect herself from my importunity by the presence of Chaleco.

I had no heart to follow her, but went away in another direction, walking rapidly toward the opposite extremity of the island.

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We were in London, Chaleco, Cora and myself. The gipsy chief sat at a small table reading some pages of manuscript that had been a little before brought to him. Cora lay upon the sofa, with one white hand under her still whiter cheek, gazing with her great mournful eyes upon the dim wall opposite.

I was watching Chaleco; the burning fire in his eyes, the savage curl of triumph that now and then revealed his teeth, as we sometimes see in a noble-blooded dog, when his temper is up. This expression deepened and burned as he read on, leaf after leaf, to the end. He did not then relinquish the paper, but turned back, referring to passages and comparing them with others, sometimes remaining whole minutes pondering over a single line.

At last he laid the manuscript down, dashed his hand upon it with a violence that made the table shake, and turned his flashing eyes on me.

“It is so, Zana; it is so!”

“What is it you have been reading to yourself?” I inquired.

“Wait a minute—let me think it all over. Well, this paper is from the best solicitor known in the London courts. I laid your case before him, the Bible, some letters that I found among other books at the old sheep farmer’s, and my own knowledge.”

398“Well,” I said, “what does it all amount to?”

“Nothing but this, my little Zana, Aurora’s child, the scouted, insulted, outraged gipsy girl is, beyond all peradventure, Countess of Clare.”

“And Lady Catherine?”

“Is Lady Catherine still, nothing more.”

“But her son?”

“Oh,” replied Chaleco, with a hoarse laugh, “he is the pitiful dangler to a woman’s apron strings that he ever was.”

My blood rose, I could not endure to hear the man I had loved so deeply thus spoken of.

“Hush!” I said, looking at Cora, anxious to save her feelings rather than my own, “Irving does not deserve this; he is no idler, whatever you may think.”

I had expected to see Cora angry, as I had been, by this scornful mention of her lover, but she lay perfectly still, unimpressed and listless, without a flush or a glance to prove the wounded feelings that were torture to me. This indifference, so unlike her usual impulsiveness, surprised us both. But for her paleness and the blue shadows under her great eyes, we could not have guessed how much she had suffered since our departure from Scotland. No sick child ever resigned itself more passively to a mother’s arms than she had yielded herself to us, and no child ever pined and wasted away as she did. All her bloom was gone. Cold and delicate as wax was the hue of her countenance. The azure shadows I have spoken of, and the veins threading her temples, gave the only tinge of color visible in a face rosy as the dawn only a few weeks before.

She did not seem to hear us, though this was the first time we had mentioned her lover’s name when she was by. Even Chaleco seemed to feel compassion for the poor child, and dropped his voice, drawing closer to me.

“She does not heed,” he said, “but still it seems like hurting her when we speak of that young villain.”

“Then do not speak of him,” I rejoined, sharply; “where is the necessity?”

399“But we must speak of them—they have possession of your rights.”

“What are those rights?”

“A title—an immense property—power in this proud country—power to help the poor Caloes,” he answered with enthusiasm—“the power to redeem your mother’s name among the haughty souls that reviled her—to give back her memory to the gipsies of Granada pure as the purest among their women.”

“But they murdered her—innocent as she was, they murdered her!” I cried, shuddering and cold with memories that always froze me to the heart.

A gloomy look stole over Chaleco’s face; his hand fell loosely down, and he whispered huskily, as if to convince himself:

“I could not help it; she gave herself up. They all thought the stain of his unmarried lips was on her forehead. She would die—it was he that killed her, not the gipsies—never say it again while you live, Zana, never.”

I could not answer, but felt myself turning white and cold. He saw it, and grasped my hand, crying out with fierce exultation:

“But she is avenged, and now that we have the power, this proud woman and vile boy shall bite the dust, Zana. We will strip them, humble them, trample them beneath our gipsy feet. Aurora shall be twice avenged.”

“Let me think,” I said, drearily pressing my forehead to still the pain there; “I have tasted this revenge once, and it was terrible; when such fruit falls, dare we shake the vine again?”

“Again and again,” was the fierce cry, “till power itself fails. Are you thinking of mercy, child?”

“I am thinking of many things,” was my vague answer; “but God will help me.”

Chaleco sneered.

“He has helped us, if you choose to fancy it,” he said; 400“are not her enemies in the dust—have you not revenge in your grasp?”

“No,” I said, filled with the holy spirit my soul had invoked, “no, Chaleco, God gives revenge to no human being; it belongs to him. The memory of my dead father is before me—never again will I wrestle with these weak, human hands for power which belongs to omnipotence alone.”

Chaleco looked at me sternly; a dark frown was in his eyes.

“If I thought this,” he exclaimed, grasping the paper as if about to rend it.

He stopped, and held the paper motionless between his hands. Cora had risen from the sofa, and was leaning forward, looking at us.

“You learned that of my father, Zana,” she said, while a tender smile stole over her lips; “if anything troubles you, go back to him; I will.”

I was touched to the heart by the pathos and sweetness of these words. My soul yearned towards the suffering child, and that instant the resolve which had been floating mistily through my brain took form and shape. If the disputed estates proved to be mine, I would so endow that gentle girl, that Irving would rejoice in the chance of redeeming his prosperity by a marriage with her. Her fame at least I might partially restore.

“You are right, my Cora; I did learn all that is good in me from that noble-hearted man. You and I should never have left his side.”

“I know it,” she answered, sighing heavily, and sinking back to the sofa again; “you can go back, as for me”——

Cora broke off and began to weep. I was glad of that, poor thing. Since the first day she had not wept in my presence after our adventure in the Highlands. I left her unmolested, and went on talking with Chaleco more connectedly than we had yet conversed. In a little time he convinced me that my birth was legitimate, and my claims as heiress to Lord Clare would scarcely admit of dispute. The chain of evidence was complete. Though driven away for a little time, Chaleco had 401hovered around Greenhurst, till assured that I had found a protector, then he lingered in England under various disguises, till I was safe under the roof from which my mother had fled. More than once he had penetrated to my sick chamber, where I lay delirious with fever, when I was by chance left alone, or when the nurse slept at night. Again and again he had visited England after that, assuring himself still of my welfare and identity. In short, from the time of my mother’s death he had never lost sight of me, and up to that period the evidence of old Turner, his wife, and the Scotch farmer, left no thread wanting in the tissue of my claim.

“And if this is so, what steps must be taken?” I inquired.

“They are taken,” answered the gipsy, “Lady Catherine has been notified, so has her son.”

“Well, have they returned any reply?”

“The lady is here.”

“In London?”

“Yes, in London.”

“Did the mother come alone?” I inquired, observing that Cora had risen to her elbow, and was eagerly regarding us.

Feeling that, like myself, she was anxious to know if Irving was in town and was with the family, I asked the question, half in kindness to her, half to still my own craving desire for knowledge on this point.

“Lady Catherine, her son, and Mr. Morton came together.”

Cora uttered a faint cry, and starting up began to pace the room, as if the mention of that name had stung her energies into painful activity.

Still I was not fully answered.

“And is no other lady with them?” I persisted.

“And what if there is, how should you care?” was the answer he gave, accompanied by a look so penetrating that I shrunk from it.

Cora also turned and gazed at me with her great, tearful eyes, as a gazelle might look at the hunter that had chased him down. I felt the whole force of that appealing look, but went on asking 402questions, determined to comprehend everything, and then act as my own soul should teach.

“And did they decide on anything?” I inquired.

“The mother wishes to contest—the son advises her to yield; their friends, as usual, are on both sides.”

“And so nothing is settled?”

“Nothing.”

“I will go to them myself; rest of good cheer, Cora, you shall not always be so miserable.”

She gave me a wild glance.

“Be tranquil, and trust me, Cora,” I said, full of my project for her happiness; “it is for you this good fortune has come.”

“There is no good fortune for me on earth,” cried the poor girl, clasping her hands, “don’t, Zana, don’t smile so; it will set me to hoping impossible things.”

“Nothing is impossible,” I said, smothering the selfish regrets that would, spite of my efforts, rise against the sacrifice I meditated. “To the strong heart there can be no impossibility—here there shall be none.”

Cora came close to me, smiling so mournfully and shaking her head, as I can fancy Ophelia to have done, with a world of sorrow and one little glow of hope in her poor face.

“Perhaps he thought that I was within hearing, and so did all that to tease me.”

As this soft whisper dropped from her lips, the determination of self-sacrifice grew strong within me. Had we stood at the altar, I think, at the moment, I should have given Irving up to her; she was so trustful and helpless. I seized upon the idea; better far was it that she should fancy anything rather than believe in his faithlessness after all that I intended for her.

“It was all unfeeling pleasantry, I dare say; careless flirtations, that meant nothing.”

“Do you really think so?” she inquired, stealing closer and closer to my side.

“I do indeed think that he has no real love for any one but you, Cora.”

403“In truth?—in solemn truth, Zana?—oh, Zana, Zana, say that you cannot believe it again.”

“I do not believe in his love for—for that other person,” I said, shrinking from the utterance of Estelle’s name.

“Solemnly, you think this, Zana?”

“Solemnly.”

She drew a deep breath, looked at me so long that I could watch the joy as it broke and deepened in her violet eyes, and then, satisfied that I was sincere, sunk back to the sofa, with the most heavenly smile I ever saw beaming over her face. I sat down by her; she wove her arms around me and pressed her cheek to mine, trembling softly with that exquisite happiness which follows a crushed suspicion against those we love. I could not resist a pang of jealous envy, for it is much easier to make sacrifices to one that suffers, than to witness the joy which our self-bereavement gives. The contrast between the rich swell of happiness that broke in sighs from her lips, and the heavy sense of desolation that lay upon my poor heart, made me long to put her away.

But soon I felt her kisses wandering amid my hair and over my forehead, mingled with whispers of gratitude and smiles of hope. After all, Cora loved me, and I was making her happy. Most solemnly did I believe all that I had said of Irving. That he did not love Estelle I was certain; that self-interest had induced his professions to me I was equally convinced, for Chaleco’s words had fastened upon me when he said that Irving had sought me because he knew of the evidence I had obtained regarding my own legitimacy; and Cora, when I asked if she had mentioned the register which she found to any one beside myself, answered, “only to him;” but the tutor, Mr. Upham, had read them long ago, when he lodged a season at the hill-side cottage.

Cora had told me this on the day we left the Highlands, and from that time I looked upon Irving’s pursuit of myself as a mercenary effort to retrieve his own desperate fortunes by a marriage with his uncle’s heiress. Mr. Upham, too; his interested 404pursuit was now fully explained; but for him I had scarcely time for a contemptuous thought, so resolute had my heart become on the sacrifice of its last hope. With these impressions, I could not believe that Cora had any rival in his heart, whatever his interests might dictate. So I soothed her, and strengthened the confidence that was bringing the roses back to her cheek, even then. Poor thing, she trusted me so implicitly, and her weary heart was so glad of rest after its anguish, that she believed like a child.

That night, I wrote to Mr. Clark, saying that his child was found, and that she trusted very soon to tell him her love in the dear parsonage.

With regard to him, also, I had my benevolent dreams. There was the Marston Court living. If Lady Catherine had no right to the estate, her power to appoint an incumbent to the living did not exist, but was mine; and dear Mr. Clark, God bless him, how my heart swelled at the thought of rescuing him from his present dependence, by appointing him rector instead of the man whose character had degraded the holy office! I went into no details, but wrote a cheerful letter, full of hope, determined to wait for the unfolding of events before I explained everything.

I knew that the Clares had a town house in Picadilly, and quietly stealing out in the morning, when Chaleco was out, I called a hackney coach and drove there at once. A ponderous man, in mourning livery, opened the door, and looked well disposed to order me down the steps when he saw my humble equipage. But there was a native haughtiness in me that men 405of his class are sure to recognize, and though new to the world, I was neither timid nor awkward; besides assumption of any kind was certain to arouse all the contempt and resistance of my fiery nature.

I inquired for Lady Clare.

“She was in, and at breakfast; would I call again?”

“No; I must see the lady then.”

“An appointment?”

“No; but still my interview with this lady must be at once.”

“He did not think she would admit me, her ladyship and Mr. Irving had been closeted with their solicitors all the morning.”

“You will send up my name and inquire,” I said weary with his objections, and conscious that this was my time to speak with Lady Catherine when fresh from her consultation with the lawyers.

My imperious manner impressed him; he inquired my name.

“Zana.”

His round eyes opened with astonishment. “Miss Zana, is it?” he said, after a moment of puzzled thought.

“Zana, that is all.”

He beckoned a footman, and whispered with him. The man disappeared up some mysterious staircase in the back part of the hall. The porter returned, and seated himself in his great gothic chair, took a position, and began to eye me as stage kings sometimes survey the suppliants that come before them.

The footman came back, walking quickly, and with noiseless step, as well-bred servants usually do in England. Her ladyship would be happy to receive the young person.

I followed him in silence. Would her son be there? This thought made my limbs tremble, but I think no visible agitation marked my demeanor or my countenance.

Lady Catherine was in her dressing-room, with a small breakfast-table before her, covered with Sèvres china and glittering silver. The delicate breakfast seemed yet untasted, save that one of the cups was stained with a little chocolate.

406Lady Catherine arose, and though she did not come forward, stood up to receive me. It might have been the light which fell through curtains of pale, blue silk, but she certainly looked unusually white and haggard. I saw her thin hand clutch itself among the folds of her mourning gown, and her eyes wavered as they met mine.

There was an awkward silence as I advanced toward the table. I think she was struggling to speak calmly, for her voice was unnatural when she did address me.

“Be seated,” she said falling back to her lounge, not with her usual languid ease, but abruptly, as if in need of support, “be seated, I—I am happy to receive you.”

I sat down, firm and composed. He was absent, and as for that woman, there was nothing in her to discompose me. We seldom tremble where we do not respect.

“Your ladyship probably knows upon what subject I came,” were my first quiet words.

I saw by the motion of her whole body that she could with difficulty restrain her rage.

“Yes, and I thank you for saving me another interview with your very singular friend,” she said, with a smile that was intended to be playful, but faded to a sneer.

“What, madam, has Count Chaleco been with you?”

“If you mean that dark browed man who calls himself your protector, he has given us the honor of his company more than once.”

“I do mean him, and he is my protector!” I answered, stung by her look and tone rather than by a comprehension of her words.

“Of course. No one would think otherwise. After eloping with him in the night from Greenhurst, visiting the Highlands, and domesticating yourselves together in London, there can be, I fancy, little doubt left on that point!”

I began to comprehend her meaning. Isolated as I had been from the world, and independent of its usages, I could not mistake the sneering expression of that evil face, had the words 407failed to enlighten me. But I was not angry. Scorn of the very thought that she applied these vile imaginings to me curved my lips with a smile. I could not have forced myself into a word of explanation or defence. The woman seemed to me only a little more repulsive than before.

“Then, madam, if my friend has preceded me I shall have little to explain, and our interview will be more brief. You comprehend, doubtless, that evidence of Lord Clare’s residence with my mother in Scotland, which constitutes a legal marriage, is in our possession; that the best counsel consider me, and not your ladyship, the inheritor of his title and estates. Indeed, the record of my birth, in his own handwriting, where my mother is mentioned as his wife, is by the laws of Scotland a marriage in itself.”

“Yes, all these things have been repeated to me; but the opinion of lawyers, fortunately, is not exactly the decision of legal tribunals.”

“Then you are determined to contest my claims?”

“I am not disposed to yield mine without contest, certainly.”

“Madam,” I commenced; and now every nerve in my body began to tremble, for the great moment of my fate had arrived—“madam, in this contest, if it becomes one in an English court of law, the life and reputation of your only brother must be cruelly brought before the world; would you make no sacrifice to avoid that?”

“But if this same brother was your father also, it is for you, not me, to save his name from the scandal of a public court,” she rejoined, sharply. “The fact that he married Lady Jane while your mother was alive, I would willingly conceal.”

“No, madam, that you mistake. My mother died months before Lord Clare’s marriage?”

“How and when did she die?”

“The how does not concern your ladyship. As for the when, I was present when she died near the City of Granada, and though a child at the time, can never forget it; would to God it were possible. After that—months after it must have been, 408for we had travelled from Spain between the two events—I saw the cortége pass the tent where I lay, returning from my father’s marriage with his last wife. In this he committed no legal fault—and let us hope intended no moral wrong—though a deep wrong it was, from beginning to end; but he doubtless was unmindful of the singular law which made his first marriage binding.”

“Then what is there to conceal? Why should we shrink from investigation?” she cried.

“The wrong done to my poor mother, alas! that remains, and I would do anything, give up anything rather than have it heaped upon my father’s memory.”

“And what were these mighty wrongs, if—as you are trying to prove—he ever acknowledged her, a dancing gipsy beggar, a”——

“Hush!” said I, with a power that must have been imperative, “you shall not malign my mother.”

“Well,” she answered, waving her hand scornfully, “you are right. Her history cannot be publicly coupled with that of our house without leaving infamy upon a noble name.”

“Not her infamy, madam!”

“This is useless and impertinent, miss,” she cried, starting up fiercely; “you came for some purpose. What is it?”

“I came, if possible, to save the scandal of a law suit regarding the Clare earldom and estates. I would shield my father’s memory, and redress the wrongs of one whose fate is dearer than my own, at any sacrifice.”

“And how is this to be done unless you yield at once these preposterous claims?”

“Madam, your son!”

“Well, what of him?” she cried sharply, and with gleaming eyes.

“The succession will be his when, when”——

“When I am gone, you wish to say, but that is a frail hope. I married when a child, and the difference between Irving and myself is so little.”

409This vanity would have seemed out of character to one so full of haughty malice as the woman before me; but extreme vanity is more frequently found connected with bad qualities that with good ones, so it did not surprise me.

“But with your son some compromise may be effected. You would doubtless rather surrender the unentailed estates to him, than to one so hateful to your ladyship as I am?”

“That may be readily supposed?”

“Well, madam, to one or the other you must resign them; to me if you persist in useless and wicked resistance; to him, if—if”——

“Well, if what?”

“If by marriage with the person whom I shall select, he secures the rights which I claim to himself.”

“That is, if my son, like his uncle, will degrade himself with a gipsy stroller,” she replied, with insulting bitterness.

“Madam, this is base; that which I propose saves your son from degradation, does not impose it. It was not of myself I spoke!”

“Of whom, then? Is there another claimant?”

“No. As the legitimate and only daughter of Lord Clare, who died without will, I have the sole right to all that was his. You know that the courts will confirm this right, or I had never been thus admitted to your presence. Your eye wavers; your lips curve in terror rather than scorn. In your soul you feel that to hold possession of this house for a day is rank usurpation; your lawyers have told you all this before.”

“How did you learn that?”

“From your face, madam—from the fact that you do not spurn me from your presence as of old.”

She smiled, not scornfully, her blue lips seemed to have lost all strength for so strong an expression, but with a sort of baffled spite.

“And so you would take the estates and attach my son as an appendage—this is kind!”

“Madam, I will resign all right to these estates and title on 410the marriage day of your son—not with me, the hated gipsy, but with Cora Clark, whom he loves, and who loves him. Greenhurst and the title to rest with you as if I had never existed—all the unentailed property to be divided between your son and Mr. Morton, whose rights we cannot honestly waive.”

Her eyes opened wide with astonishment. She fell back on her sofa, and folded a hand over them, as if ashamed of appearing startled by what I had said. At last she sat upright again and looked at me searchingly.

“You will do this?”

“I will!”

“Why?—your motives?”

The tears started. I felt them crowding to my eyes.

“I wish to see them happy.”

My voice faltered; but for her presence the agony at my heart would have burst forth in a wail.

“And that will make you happy?” she said, with an icy sneer. “You will remain and witness the joy your abnegation gives.”

“Never!” I cried, yielding to the anguish that was oppressing me. “I will go among my mother’s people—go”—I thought in my innermost heart—“go to the barrancas of Granada, to die of anguish as she did by violence.”

“And you will leave this country forever?”

“Madam, I will.”

“But this girl, this Cora Clark, where is she now? Mr. Upham, the new rector, sent down orders that her father should be removed from the parsonage—where has he gone? How are you sure that Irving cares for her, or would take her at any price?”

I shrank from exposing my poor friend’s weakness to the knowledge of that heartless woman; she seemed ignorant of her son’s perfidy, and its results in giving Cora to my protection. I rejoiced at this, and guarded the secret of their mutual fault as if it had been my own life.

411“I am certain of it.”

“But you are not of age to make a resignation of these fancied claims legal, even should I consent to unite my son to this nameless girl.”

“I am of age to resist all action, and have a will strong as any law. If I am silent regarding my claims, who will or can urge them?”

“But we have only your word!” she said, softening in her tone, and interrupting her questions with intervals of thought.

“But in your heart you know that to be enough. Strive as you will, my truth will make itself believed.”

She waved her hand, rising.

“Stay here, I will speak with my son. Perhaps you have not breakfasted; ring and the man will provide fresh chocolate. After all, this is a strange offer.”

Lady Catherine went out, and I was alone, trembling, helpless, filled with desolation—the poor, poor gipsy girl. What had Cora done that she should be made so happy, and I so miserable? I sat down stupefied with the blank darkness that had fallen around my existence. The estate, the pomp, the rank that I had given up were nothing; but Irving—oh, how my poor heart quivered and shrunk from the thought that he was another’s forever and ever. In all the wide world, that desolate barranca in Granada seemed the only spot gloomy enough to conceal misery like mine!

A full hour I remained with my elbow upon the little breakfast-table seated among the cushions, unmindful of their luxurious 412softness as if they had been so many rocks heaped near me. I could only feel dumbly that with my own hand I had cast all hope from me. This thought revolved itself over and over in my mind, I could neither change nor shake it off.

At last the door opened and Lady Catherine came in, followed by her son. He was greatly changed. All the bloom of boyhood had settled into a look of thoughtful manliness; his eyes, almost sad, were deeper and more piercing; his manner, grave; traces of anxiety lingered about his eyes and mouth, making one firm and leaving shadows beneath the other. He came close to me and rested one hand on the table. I did not rise, but sat trembling and helpless beneath the reproachful pride in his glance. The apathy had left me; my heart swelled with the painful joy of his presence, and every nerve thrilled back its sympathy.

“My mother has told me of your proposal, Zana,” he said, in a clear, but not untroubled voice; “your wish is a generous one. The rights you would surrender are great, but I will not accede to this proposal.”

I started so violently that one of the Sèvres cups fell to the ground. A cry almost broke from my lips. This reprieve from my own wishes filled me with joy.

“Why, why?” I could not ask these questions aloud; they fell from my lips in broken whispers.

“Because I will not despoil you of your birthright—because I do not love the lady whom you propose for my wife.”

“Not love her, Mr. Irving; forbear!”

I could not go on; his mother’s presence checked me; but once more my heart was filled with indignation at his audacity.

“Then you refuse?” I said, rising—“you refuse to render this poor justice to one who loves, who has”——

Again I checked myself. Lady Catherine was close to the table. Irving listened patiently, and kept his eyes fastened on my face, as if asking some further explanation.

“It is possible,” I said, “that you think lightly of my claims, and thus reject the sacrifice I would make.”

413“No,” he said, “I am satisfied that your claims to the estate are valid; only this morning I joined my mother’s legal counsel in advising her to yield possession at once.”

“And this inheritance? Cora, too? Will you cast them both aside because it is Zana who offers them?”

He shook his head with a grave smile.

“The inheritance I can easily relinquish; it is not large enough to purchase a heart like mine, Zana.”

“George, George, reflect,” said Lady Catherine, who had been listening with keen anxiety; “the girl is beautiful; her mother’s family had noble blood in it.”

“Mother, hush; I will work, but not sell myself for your benefit.”

I arose, shocked by the deep hypocrisy of the man. His look, his voice, his words, how noble they were! His actions—the household traitor—how could he compel that face to look so firm and noble in its sin?

“Madam,” I said, turning to the mother, “persuade your son, for on no other terms can my father’s estate remain with you or yours.”

She bent her head, but did not speak. The woman seemed subdued; all her sarcastic spirit had left her. At last she laid her hand on Irving’s arm.

“George, George, remember there is no other way.”

He turned upon her, smiling.

“Mother, we lived honorably and well before my uncle’s death; the same means are still left to us.”

“But the title, the estates, I cannot give them up. Will you make no sacrifice to save me from this degradation?”

“Anything, mother, that an honorable man should; but to barter myself, no.”

I saw that Lady Catherine was becoming angry, and spoke,

“Madam, when I resign the inheritance, your son knows the terms. Take counsel—take time for thought. To-morrow, at this hour, I will come again, alone as now; that will be our last interview.”

414My words struck home. Lady Catherine turned white as death, and by the glitter in her eyes I saw a storm of rage mustering; I did not remain to witness it. Irving held open the door for me. Our eyes met as I passed out, and his seemed full of reproachful sorrow. Why could I not hate that man?—why not hurl back scorn for treachery?

Cora was asleep when I entered the little room which we occupied together. It was the sweetest slumber I ever witnessed—so calm, so full of infinite quietude. Worn out by the harassing sorrows of her situation, she had, up to the evening previous, been wakeful night and day, but the few words I had so rashly uttered fell like dew upon her eyelids, and all night long she had slept by my side tranquil as a bird in its nest; in her hopeful serenity she had dropped away in dreams. Thus I found her with a smile upon her lips, and a soft bloom warming the cheeks that twelve hours before had been so pale.

My own words had done all this, and they were all a deception. I had deceived myself, and worse, worse a thousand times, had misled her also. How could I tell her this?—how break up the exquisite calm of that repose with my evil tidings, for evil I now felt them to be?

The sunlight fell through a half-closed shutter, kindling up the golden tresses of her hair, as they fell over the arm folded under her cheek, and lay in masses on the crimson cushion of the sofa. I sat down by her, watching those sun gleams as they rose brighter and brighter toward her forehead. They fell at last upon her eyelids, which began to quiver; the dark brown lashes separated, and with a sleepy murmur the girl awoke.

“Oh, you have come,” she said, flinging her arms around my neck; “dear, dear Zana, I have been dreaming.”

“Dream on!” I answered, sadly; “if I only had the power to dream also!”

“Why, what is the matter, Zana, your eyes are full of tears?” she cried, looking eagerly in my face, and kissing it with passionate devotion. “Where have you been?”

415“I have been to see him, Cora.”

She held her breath, and looked at me—oh, how pleadingly—as if I could change the color of her fate, poor child.

“Well, Zana.”

I could not endure that voice, those eyes, but flung my arms around her, and held her close to my bosom as I answered—

“Forget him, Cora. Let us both forget him. He is an ingrate, a”——

I could not go on, for her cold lips were pressed wildly to mine, and she called out—

“Don’t, don’t, Zana—don’t speak such words of him!”

“He does not deserve this interposition, Cora; you cannot guess how much I was ready to sacrifice that you and he might be happy.”

“And he would not listen?” she asked, falling sadly back from my arms. “Still you thought he loved me, and were so certain of it only last night.”

“But I think it no longer. God help you, my poor Cora—with all this inheritance—and I offered it—I have no power to make him feel.”

“And you tried to bribe him into loving me; that was unkind, Zana.”

“No, Cora; other reasons which you do not comprehend influenced what I did, as well as a wish to make you happy. His mother, I think, would have yielded, but he”——

“His mother, Zana—he has no mother.”

“In one sense, perhaps not; but Lady Catherine”——

“Lady Catherine.”

“Yes, Lady Catherine, is she not George Irving’s mother?” I cried, surprised by her bewildered look and words.

“Yes, surely; but then what is George Irving to me, or Lady Catherine either, save that she in some sort controls his fortunes?”

“Cora!” I almost shrieked, seizing her hands, “what is this? Who, who is the man? Tell me it is not George Irving that you love, and I will fall down and worship you.”

416“Why, Zana, are you wild? How should I ever think of another, and he in my heart always?”

“He—who? Speak, girl, or I shall indeed be wild!”

“You act very strangely, Zana. Only now you told me that you had seen Mr. Morton, and talked with him; you gave so many painful hints about him.”

I seized her hands again, and forced down the tremulous hope in my heart.

“Cora, darling Cora,” I said, interrupting my words with quick gasps of breath, that I had no power to stifle, “tell me clearly, use few words, or my heart will break with this suspense. Was the man with whom you left Greenhurst Henry Morton?”

My emotion terrified her. She grew pale, and struggled to free her hands.

“You know it was; are you going crazy? My fingers—my fingers, you crush them.”

“And it was Morton?”

“Yes—yes!”

“And you have no love for Irving? He never said, never hinted that he wished you to love him?”

“He—no. Who ever put the idea into your head?”

I seized her in my embrace, and covered her forehead, her eyes, her hair, with rapturous kisses. I knelt at her feet, and wrung her little hand in my ecstasy till she cried out with the anguish.

“Kiss me, Cora, again, again; kneel down here, Cora, at my side, and thank God as I do. We shall be happy, darling, so happy—my head reels with the very thought of it—my heart is so full. Let me weep myself still here—here on my knees, with my forehead in your lap. Cora, Cora, it seems to me that I am dying!”

And now the tears came rushing up from the depths of my heart, and I lay upon Cora’s lap, sobbing the agony of my old grief away, as a half-drowned man lies upon the beach where the storm has tossed him. Oh, how great was the wealth of 417my existence that moment. Irving did not love another; he was mine, mine, all mine!

Chaleco came in and interrupted us. He inquired the cause of my emotion, and I told him. The tiger that my first words brought to his eyes, crouched and cowered beneath the energy of my entreaties to be freed from the pledge I had given to bury myself with his tribe in Granada. In passion like mine there is almost irresistible eloquence, and my soul was burning with it. Perhaps I looked more like my mother, thus enkindled and aroused.

“Zana,” he said, and the first tears I ever saw in his fierce eyes, burned there like a diamond. “Zana, you ask a terrible thing. Like your mother, I swore a vow to Papita. You love my enemy and hers; you cling to him and cast the gipsy aside. But even better than that, I loved her and her child. I give up my oath of vengeance. What is death, if Aurora’s child may live and love?” Chaleco went out; afterwards I remembered all the force of his words, but then my soul panted for solitude and thought. I spent the night alone, sleepless and happy as few mortals have the capacity of being on this earth.

I knew little, and cared nothing for the propriety of conventional life. On the day before, I had promised to return for Lady Catherine’s final answer to the proposal I had in my ignorance made. I went and inquired, not for her, but for Irving.

He came down to receive me, looking pale and depressed. His reception was cold, his look constrained.

To this day I cannot tell what passed between us during that interview. All that was in my heart I poured forth. I remember his astonishment and his rapture. But of what was said I have no distinct idea; all was a whirl, a vortex of emotion.

A silence that seemed like heaven followed, and then we began to talk more rationally. Oh, the exquisite happiness of that entire confidence—the beautiful, beautiful joy of knowing that I was his affianced wife, the only person he had ever 418loved! In the first sweet outgush of confidence, I told him everything. He seemed shocked and greatly surprised at Morton’s perfidy; but when I told him of Upham, and the power he had exercised over our lives, by the cruel suspicions instilled into my belief, his indignation was so mingled with sovereign contempt of the man’s pretensions, that he laughed while denouncing him.

“Poor fool,” he said, “doubtless by some means he had obtained a knowledge of your heirship during our residence at my uncle’s hunting lodge, where we spent several seasons. He is a shrewd man, our new rector. But Morton, I cannot think so badly of him. Believe me, Zana, there is some explanation behind all this. Morton is a reserved, perhaps irresolute man in some things, but I cannot think him base, though there was a time when I thought otherwise.”

“And when was that?” I asked.

“It was rumored, Zana, that he had brought a companion with him to Scotland. I heard of your disappearance from Greenhurst at the same time, and believed you to be the inmate of that little farm-house. My mother joined in that belief.”

“Poor Cora,” I said, “the odium of her fault seems all to rest on me, her best friend.”

“Let us wait before we condemn my friend,” said Irving, generously. “In his situation of unjust dependence may be found, perhaps, some excuse for all this. Believe me, dear one, Morton is not a dishonorable man.”

“He is at any rate the rightful owner of Marston Court,” I answered; “but with your leave, he shall only take possession of it as Cora’s marriage portion.”

Irving smiled, and then we began to talk of ourselves again. He drew me close to his side, bent his flushed face to mine, and whispered a thousand sweet words that have little meaning, except to the one heart, which receives them like drops of honey-dew. In our great happiness we did not notice that the door had opened, and Lady Catherine stood in the entrance coolly regarding us.

419We arose together, his arm still around me, his flushed face becoming serious and calm. “Mother,” he said, “receive Zana kindly, for this morning she has promised to be my wife.”

“Your wife! and is there no other way?” faltered the haughty woman; “must this sacrifice be made?”

“Sacrifice!” exclaimed Irving, looking down upon me with a glance of proud affection; “why, mother, I have loved the child from the first moment I saw her protecting that deer so bravely. It was this love which rendered it impossible for me to marry another.”

The great love in my heart brought with it a gentle humility unknown to my nature before. I withdrew myself from Irving’s arm, and went up to his mother, blushing and with tears in my eyes.

“O, Lady Catherine, do not look so coldly on your son. Love me a little for his sake.”

She reached forth her hand, drew me toward her, and with a regal bend of the head, kissed my cheek.

“My son,” she said, resigning herself gracefully to the inevitable, “my son, you see that a mother can make sacrifices, even though her child may refuse them.”

Before Irving could express the gratitude that broke from his eyes at this unexpected concession, Lady Catherine had withdrawn from the room. Then I remembered how long my own stay had been, and hastened with breathless shame to the hackney coach that still waited for me at the door.

The day was beautiful, and I dismissed the carriage, resolved to walk awhile before entering our lodgings. As I turned a corner a gentleman passed me hurriedly, turned back, and spoke,

“Zana,” he cried—“Zana, I have met you at last; let me hope you are disposed to recognize me as a friend, at least.”

I was too happy for indignation, otherwise his audacity would have met with a sharp rebuke. Emboldened by this gentleness, he moved on at my side, pouring forth a torrent of low-voiced protestations. A spirit of mischief seized upon me, and I answered him with playful evasions. He evidently was quite 420ignorant that the secret of my legitimacy, doubtless so long known to himself, was in my possession.

“In a few days,” he said, impressively, “I shall be enabled to claim you before the whole world. I have already taken orders, and am now going to render Lady Clare my thanks for the Marston Court living.”

I felt a smile quivering on my lips; for the first time the consciousness that my inheritance had endowed me with power, came with force to my heart.

“It will be a useless visit,” I said, very quietly. “Lady Clare withdraws the promise she has made. A man who has so long practised deceit and falsehood, is no proper person to lead others on their way to heaven. Let me answer you, Mr. Upham, the Marston Court Rectory will receive another incumbent than yourself.”

He stood aghast, looking at me. “But the living is as good as mine already. I have even notified the curate at Greenhurst to leave the parsonage.”

“No doubt; but if he leaves Greenhurst it will most certainly be to take possession of the Marston Court Rectory.”

Upham forced a laugh.

“You speak positively for Lady Clare!” he said.

“I speak simply for myself, Mr. Upham.”

That instant I reached the door of our lodgings and went in, leaving my clerical friend in a bewildered state on the sidewalk.

I entered the little parlor, expecting to find Cora there alone, but to my astonishment young Morton arose from the sofa where she was seated, and came toward me, a little pale and anxious, but with more dignity than I had ever witnessed in him before.

“Zana,” he said, “I have just come down from Scotland in search of this dear runaway!”

I drew back, annoyed. Both his manner and words offended me.

“Oh, tell her, tell her at once!” cried Cora, springing up, with a face like an April day, all flush, tears and smiles. “Tell her it was your wife who ran away from you, like a naughty, 421wicked, jealous little wretch, as she was. Zana, dear Zana, we were married all the time, but I had promised him, and could not tell, you know, because he was quite sure that Lady Catherine never would have given up any of the property, if she found out that he had fallen in love with such a poor, foolish-hearted little good-for-nothing as I was. There, Mr. Morton, do sit down and tell her all about it. Remember she is Lady Clare now, the best, most generous, the—the—well, well; no matter if I am wild, that awful secret is off my heart; I feel like a bird. Oh, if I had but wings to fly away and tell my blessed, blessed papa.”

Morton sat down upon the sofa, gathering that beautiful young wife to his bosom, and hushing her into quiet with his silent caresses.

“It was wrong and cowardly, I know,” he said, “but we were both madly in love, with no one to heed us. Lady Catherine was determined that I should follow her to Scotland, where she promised to have papers prepared, returning a portion of my old uncle Morton’s estate to me. Separation seemed dreadful to us both. It was a wild, rash act; but I persuaded Cora to come with me, forgetting all the evil that might spring from concealment, and afraid of Lady Catherine’s displeasure, for she seemed anxious for some excuse to delay the transfer. I persuaded Cora to conceal our marriage, and stay quietly in the old farm-house, till Lady Catherine’s caprices could no longer affect us; but my visits were necessarily few, for some vague rumor of her presence in Scotland reached Lady Catherine, and I was compelled to be cautious. The poor child grew restless, sad, and at last doubtful of my integrity. She was pining herself to death when you found her, and innocently completed her belief in my faithlessness.”

“I had made up my mind to brave everything, and avow that she was my wife, on the very day that Cora left Scotland. It was a desolate reception that the old people gave me. Cora, I could feel for the loneliness of your father, then.”

422“Let us go—let us go to him!” cried Cora, starting up, “it will never be quite heaven till we get home.”

“Not yet, wait a little, and we will all go together,” I said, turning to leave the room, and without waiting for a reply, I stole away, leaving those two young hearts with each other, too full of my own exquisite happiness for anything but the selfishness of solitude. * * * * *

We entered Greenhurst quietly, and after nightfall, Lady Catherine, Cora, Moreton and myself. Irving was to follow us in a few days, but Chaleco, to whom I had given all Papita’s gold for the use of his tribe, remained behind. We drew up at the parsonage. The curtains of the parlor were drawn apart, and sitting in the twilight within, was the shadowy presence of a man stooping downward, in sorrow or thoughtfulness, as if the position had become habitual.

Cora drew close to her husband, and by the faint light I could see her eyes dilate and darken with excitement. She saw that shadowy presence and struggled forward, pushing impotently at the carriage door with both hands, and crying out—

“My father! my father!”

The shadow gathered itself suddenly up, and opening the window, called out in a low, wild voice:—

“Who calls? who calls? did some one say father?”

The carriage door sprang open, Cora leaped to the ground, sped like a bird up the walk, and disappeared in the porch. Directly, there came a strange sound through the open window—mingled sobs, caresses, and holy fragments of prayer, broken up with gushes of thanksgiving. Morton fell back in the carriage. I saw him cover his face with both hands, and felt that he trembled.

“Heaven forgive me!” he muttered “heaven forgive me the misery I have caused this good man!”

I was looking toward the parlor. Mr. Clark had fallen back in his chair, and Cora was bending over him. His face was like that of a glorified saint. His lips moved, but gave 423forth nothing but broken smiles. Cora fell forward, embracing his knees. Her beautiful face was uplifted like Guido’s Hope, but with a shadow of penitent sorrow upon it.

“Father! father!”

He stooped forward and folded the sweet, tearful face to his bosom, tenderly as the mother hushes her grieved infant.

“Bless thee, oh, my child! The God of heaven bless thee!”

Faithful to the holy type of Christianity, the good man was ready to forgive with the first breath of concession, even without knowing the extent of her fault.

“Father, you forgive us; see, it is my husband; I am very, very happy, father.”

Weary with our long journey, and overcome with emotion, Cora flung her arms around that honored neck; and just as her husband came up, fainted quite away on her father’s bosom.

“Give her to me, sir,” said Morton, approaching the group, pale and agitated; “I am her husband, and with her pray your forgiveness.”

The young husband faltered; the good man looked up, with every feature of his face in commotion.

“Take her, then,” he said, placing his child in Morton’s arms; “I have only blessings to give—tears and blessings for you both.”

Morton carried his wife to the dear old couch of white dimity, which made my heart throb as I looked that way. A few moments restored her to consciousness.

“It is Zana who brings us back—bless Zana, father!” she said, faintly.

“Zana,” he exclaimed, bending over me with touching solemnity, and pressing both palms on my head, as in the olden times; “God bless thee, forever and ever, Zana!”

The very touch of those hands, quivering with joy, was a benediction. His tears fell upon my forehead, the holy tears of a Christian heart broken up with tenderness. I could not speak, but with this new baptism on my brow, entered upon my inheritance.

424My inheritance! yes. We drove to Greenhurst, for such was Lady Catherine’s wish, but I would not enter. While the servants were busy receiving her, unconscious of a new mistress, I stole off and flew like a bird to my old home. The moon was up, and I could see my way through the wilderness and across the garden, but here I paused with checked breath, for in the midst, still sheltered by trees and shadowed with vines, stood the cottage, darkened and solitary, as if every living thing had deserted it.

With a heavier tread, I went round the house to our old sitting room. Here a gleam of light stole out upon the vines, and through the window I saw Turner and his wife sitting drearily together. She was looking in his face. His eyes were turned on the blank wall, as if he did not care to receive even her sympathy.

I opened the door and stood within it attempting to speak, but with no power. Maria started up.

“Zana! Zana!”

I flung myself on her bosom. She smothered me with her kisses, while blessed old Turner stood pleading for one look at my face, that he might be sure it was his child.

We sat up all night. Not once alone, but twenty times, I was forced to repeat the romance I had been living. Over and over again they told me how heartbroken they were when old Jupiter came back with his empty saddle, and bridle trailing in the dust. For weeks old Turner had searched for me. For months he had done nothing but mourn. Jupiter had pined like the rest. My absence had flung everything into shadow.

But I was home again—home again—not for a time, but for all the days of my life—the mistress of Greenhurst and the betrothed wife of Irving. Turner kept repeating this over and over, as he walked up and down the room. He could not realize it. In truth, I think he did not quite admit all the facts to his belief, till he saw me cantering off on Jupiter’s back the next morning. Dear old Ju, what a glorious ride we had over the uplands that day!

425