“Faithful to my promise, I have made every inquiry, Monsieur De Lacy, for the friends in regard to whose fate you were anxious when I saw you. Of the good Father Bonneville I have been able to obtain no intelligence; but Madame de Salins and Mademoiselle, her daughter, are now in London, and perhaps a letter addressed to them atnumero3 Swallow Street, may obtain for you information regarding Monsieur De Bonneville.“Accept the assurances of the constant consideration and regard ofYour devoted,Charles Du Four.”
“Faithful to my promise, I have made every inquiry, Monsieur De Lacy, for the friends in regard to whose fate you were anxious when I saw you. Of the good Father Bonneville I have been able to obtain no intelligence; but Madame de Salins and Mademoiselle, her daughter, are now in London, and perhaps a letter addressed to them atnumero3 Swallow Street, may obtain for you information regarding Monsieur De Bonneville.
“Accept the assurances of the constant consideration and regard of
Your devoted,
Charles Du Four.”
What was it that possessed me! What was it in the sight of those few words which altered in a moment all my determinations? I speak sincerely—and I looked into my own heart at the time, and have done so often since—and I believe that it was solely the awakening of old associations—the revival of the memories of happy youthful days. I pictured Father Bonneville, and Mariette and myself all living together again, as we had done in those happy days on the banks of the Rhine, and my teaching Mariette to read and write, totally forgetting that she was no longer a little girl of six or seven years old, and of our having a pretty house of our own, and a nice garden, and spending our days in pleasantness and peace. We are all dream-led in this world, and this was but one of the pleasantest dreams of my life, come back upon me to show how much the visions of imagination can effect against the realities of reason. I left the door of the post-office, where I read the letter, with my resolution fixed—and now unchangeable—to visit England as soon as Father Bonneville was well enough to undertake the voyage.
——
I was on the deck about half-past six ante meridian, on as fine a morning as ever broke upon the world. We had encountered very severe gales, varying from the north-west, at which they first began, almost all round the compass. I could not think what was in the weather. Its only object seemed to be, to battle the sea and to fret the Atlantic. One glorious thunder-storm had diversified the monotony of the voyage, and I shall never forget either the grand masses of cloud which rose up in the splendor of the evening from the sea, like the purple mountains of a new land, rising under the wand of an enchanter, or the vivid flashes of the lightning as they blazed around us during the live-long night. The thunder, I must confess, was far less loud and sublime than I have heard it on land, where rocks and mountains and forests sent it roaring through innumerable echoes.
To this storm succeeded much calmer weather, and on the morning which I now speak of, the vessel with all sail set, and a favorable wind, could barely reckon five knots an hour. There was a soft and sleepy splendor about the sky as the sun rose—a bright softness of atmosphere, almost misty—which received and retained long a tint from the rosy coloring of the sun’s early rays.
My approach to the Coast of America, after the first voyage I had ever made, had greatly disappointed me. Long, flat lines, like low islands in a river, were not the contrast one anticipated after sailing over the vast Atlantic; but as we now bore onward, I suddenly beheld upon the left, a number of immense rocky masses, of a pale violet color, with the sea, even in that calm weather, breaking furiously upon them, and not long after, on the right, some high, precipitous rocks, detached from what seemed to be the main land, and forming as I imagined the point of a peninsula, sheltering the beautiful bay into which we seemed slowly gliding.
I asked the helmsman what these two objects were; and he replied—“The Scilly Islands and the Needles.”
This then was England—the England of which all the world had heard so much—the fortress of the deep: slow to engage in warfare: resolute when once engaged: unconquerable: inexpugnable: with a vitality that defied time and change: with a progress which had something sublime in its calm, fearless, equable march. This was the England which had twice produced the conquerors of France, which had subjected a world to the influence of its science and its literature; whose sails were on every sea; whose arms were in each hemisphere; whose name was a redoubted passport in every land; whose language was spoken on the coasts of every continent. This then was England! And those rocky cliffs, and rugged peaks, in their grand, silent majesty, seemed to me the image and the emblem of the people.
As we slowly sailed on, keeping very near the coast, to get the most favorable wind, and under the directions of a pilot, steering in and out amongst banks, which added the interest of some peril to the general charm of the scenery, the aspect of the country softened. Beautiful green slopes, rich woods, gay looking towns, a picturesque country-house here and there, and a group of cottages crowning a bold cliff or nested at its foot, were seen all along the line of coast, and the very first sight of that country filled the mind with ideas of home comfort, and sweet domestic peace, and the rich prosperity of an industrious, law-fearing people, and an equable, but firm government, more strongly than the aspect of any other land I had ever seen. Oh! how all my prepossessions vanished before that sight—and when about nine o’clock I persuaded Father Bonneville to come upon deck, as we were proceeding calmly up a channel between two lands, both plainly visible, the good old man would hardly believe his eyes that this fair, sunshiny, beautiful country, was the England of which he had so often heard.
It is the most extraordinary fact I know, that no foreigner whom I have ever met with, who has never visited England, (and comparatively few of those who have,) has had the slightest idea of what the land really is, or what are its inhabitants. A Frenchman knows more of what is passing beyond the equator, than he knows of what exists on the other side of the narrow British channel.
The slow progress we made, which was not increased in speed in the least by the cursing and swearing of the pilot—one of the most blasphemous fellows I ever met with—rendered it late in the evening before we approached Portsmouth, whither we were bound to deliver a large cargo of various sorts of wood, to be employed experimentally, in the works of the great naval arsenal there established. It was some occasion of rejoicing, or of ceremony—as far as I recollect, some Prince, or great man, or foreign minister, was taking his departure from the port—and as we approached Spithead, where a number of enormous castle-like vessels were lying, the thunder of cannon from the forts seemed to make the very irresponsive sea echo.
We landed as speedily as possible; and I cannot say that the aspect of humanity did not somewhat detract from the impression of the approach. We were surrounded by a number of greedy and clamorous people, each of whom seemed to have some peculiar object to serve, and escaped from them with difficulty, into a lumbering, dirty, and foul-smelling vehicle, with a broken window, and straw under our feet. We had obtained the name of a good inn, however, and thither we ordered the coachman to drive. The appearance of the place, as we passed through the streets, was somewhat like that of the lower part of Boston; but when we reached the hotel, the aspect of all things was very different, and I must confess much more agreeable. There was a neatness, a comfortableness, an attention without servility which was very pleasant. Two rooms were shown to Father Bonneville and myself as our sleeping rooms, where every thing was clean, precise, and regular, giving one for the first time a complete notion of what is meant by the term snug. In each there was firing ready laid and only waiting to be lighted, and in the sitting-room, which was large and handsome, and connected with one of the bed-rooms, the grate was already blazing with a bright coal fire. We were scarcely installed when a waiter, with an apron as white as snow, and a linen jacket without a spot upon it, came in with a long paper in his hand, which he called a bill of fare, and asked us to choose what we would have for dinner. As Father Bonneville’s stomach was still somewhat under the influence of the sea, I selected what I thought would suit him best, and with a rapidity, truly marvellous, the table was laid with a bright clean damask cloth, and abundance of silver and glass, the fire was poked, bread, and supernumerary plates and dishes set upon a sideboard, and in three minutes after, two waiters appeared, bringing in various articles of food, while a somewhat stately personage at their head, dressed in black coat and black silk stockings, carried a silver covered dish, which he placed at the top of the table.
I had chosen plainly enough, and the cookery was plain also; but the very look of the viands, their tenderness, their excellence, might have provoked gluttony in an anchorite.
Even good Father Bonneville recovered his appetite, and a glass of wine, though savoring too much of brandy, for either his palate or my own, aided in raising his spirits which had been somewhat depressed before.
Leaning his head gently on one side after the cloth was cleared away and the waiters had disappeared, with fine, clear, tall lights upon the table, the curtains closely drawn, and the fire crackling and sparkling, and making strange faces for us in the grate, he began to talk to me about England, in a sort of dreamy memory-like manner, which made me for a moment fear that the good old man’s brain had suffered from grief, and sickness, and time, and that he was slightly wandering.
“It will be fifty years, Louis,” he said, “on the twentieth of this month, since I was last in this land of England. It was a very different land then—or I have much forgotten it. True, I saw not much of the country; for my life was in the capital—a great gloomy city, as it seemed to me, with grand and splendid things going on in it, but which—being excluded from most of them by profession—seemed like pictures in what they call a phantasmagoria, where suddenly out of grim darkness, richly robed figures rush upon you, and are lost again in a moment.”
“I never knew you had been in England, my dear friend,” I replied. “You never told me so, I think.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully, “no. But I was in London for nearly eighteen months: the chaplain to the Embassy. Your father was a boy then, Louis, and I taught him as I have taught you.”
This was coming upon a subject which I had often wished to broach, but which he had never even approached before. I know not what were the feelings which had prevented me from asking questions. Perhaps they were mingled. We recollect such sensations more indistinctly than facts that strike the eye and ear, and fix themselves upon memory by many holds. Certain I am, however, that it was not want of curiosity or interest, especially during our residence in Germany and Switzerland, where I began to think of every thing, and of my own fate and situation more than any thing else. As far as I can recollect, Father Bonneville’s careful avoidance of the subject, and a sort of dark awe I felt at removing the veil from what was evidently a mystery, a sort of impression that there was something dreadful and horrible behind, often sealed my lips at the moment I was about to speak. Now, however, I had tasted enough of sorrow in the world to have manly resolution, and though Father Bonneville’s weak state of health had prevented me from inquiring since we had again met, I asked, at once,
“Who was my father?”
He laid his hand gently upon mine, as I sat beside him, near the table, and looked in my face with an expression not to be forgotten—so mild—so tender—so sorrowful.
“Ask me no questions, Louis,” he said. “Ask me no questions just now. You will hear soon enough; and until I know why the remittances which were always made me for your support and education were withheld when I was in America, I am bound not to speak. If what I fear, is the case, my lips will be unsealed. If not, you must wait patiently yet awhile.”
I looked down gloomily on the ground for a moment, and then asked in a cold, somewhat bitter tone,
“Tell me at least, good Father, is there any thing disgraceful in my birth.”
“Nothing, nothing,” he exclaimed, clasping his hands vehemently.
“Then was my father a villain, a knave, or a coward?” I asked.
“I loved him well,” replied Father Bonneville, in a tone of deep emotion, “and so help me heaven, as I believe there never did exist upon this earth a more gallant gentleman, a more honorable and upright man, or a more sincere Christian than your father. He was only too good for his age and for his country.”
A deep silence succeeded, which continued for several minutes, and then, with a sort of gentle art, he turned the conversation to my residence in Germany, and my poor Louise—for by this time I had told him all—and strove to win me from a subject which he saw agitated me so much, by leading me to one of milder sorrow. But my heart was too full to bear it; my replies were as brief as reverence for him would permit, and thus ended our first day in England.
[To be continued.
MY MOTHER’S SPIRIT.
———
BY KNYVETT THORNTON.
———
In the deep and solemn midnight,All the household lost in sleep,Comes thy holy spirit to me,And in accents soft and lowly,Bide me not to weep!Come, thou blessed spirit, nearer,Feel the beating of my heart;How it longs to burst its fetters—How it eager pants for freedom—Now ’tis ready for the start!Oh, my mother! be thou with me;Guide my wandering steps to thee;Watch thy son in sleep or waking,And when fainting in his spirit,Guide—oh guide—his steps to thee!For I feel, if thou art near me—If thy spirit watcheth me,With its soft and faith-full eyesLooking downward from the skies,From its home in Paradise,It will ever, ever cheer me!
In the deep and solemn midnight,All the household lost in sleep,Comes thy holy spirit to me,And in accents soft and lowly,Bide me not to weep!Come, thou blessed spirit, nearer,Feel the beating of my heart;How it longs to burst its fetters—How it eager pants for freedom—Now ’tis ready for the start!Oh, my mother! be thou with me;Guide my wandering steps to thee;Watch thy son in sleep or waking,And when fainting in his spirit,Guide—oh guide—his steps to thee!For I feel, if thou art near me—If thy spirit watcheth me,With its soft and faith-full eyesLooking downward from the skies,From its home in Paradise,It will ever, ever cheer me!
In the deep and solemn midnight,All the household lost in sleep,Comes thy holy spirit to me,And in accents soft and lowly,Bide me not to weep!
In the deep and solemn midnight,
All the household lost in sleep,
Comes thy holy spirit to me,
And in accents soft and lowly,
Bide me not to weep!
Come, thou blessed spirit, nearer,Feel the beating of my heart;How it longs to burst its fetters—How it eager pants for freedom—Now ’tis ready for the start!
Come, thou blessed spirit, nearer,
Feel the beating of my heart;
How it longs to burst its fetters—
How it eager pants for freedom—
Now ’tis ready for the start!
Oh, my mother! be thou with me;Guide my wandering steps to thee;Watch thy son in sleep or waking,And when fainting in his spirit,Guide—oh guide—his steps to thee!
Oh, my mother! be thou with me;
Guide my wandering steps to thee;
Watch thy son in sleep or waking,
And when fainting in his spirit,
Guide—oh guide—his steps to thee!
For I feel, if thou art near me—If thy spirit watcheth me,With its soft and faith-full eyesLooking downward from the skies,From its home in Paradise,It will ever, ever cheer me!
For I feel, if thou art near me—
If thy spirit watcheth me,
With its soft and faith-full eyes
Looking downward from the skies,
From its home in Paradise,
It will ever, ever cheer me!
MAGDALEN.
———
BY L. L. M.
———
O’er the shining walls of SunsetDrooped the night-flag’s sable fold;Far adown the dim old forestEvening anthems slowly rolled.Up from brakes and velvet mosses,Heart-wrung pleadings faintly stole,With Death’s anguish wildly wrestled,All that night, a passing soul.Wronged and wronger here had partedIn life’s glorious summer morn,He, to win the world’s high honor,She, to shrink from man’s fierce scorn.She had sinned, and love’s sweet numbersRang from human lips no more,But around her gently murmuredVoices from the Eternal shore.Past her flowed the chiming waters,Heaven-hued flow’rets bent above;Upward rose their blended incenseTo the God whose name is Love.Downward through the forest archesSwept the pine-trees fragrant balm;O’er her fevered senses stealingWith a soft, delicious calm.Angel eyes smiled down upon her,Angel wings about her lay;And a gleam from Heaven’s bright portals,Flashed upon her upward way.Calm she lay, the great All FatherHeld her in his dear embrace;And the peace of sin forgiven,Rests upon her sweet, dead face.
O’er the shining walls of SunsetDrooped the night-flag’s sable fold;Far adown the dim old forestEvening anthems slowly rolled.Up from brakes and velvet mosses,Heart-wrung pleadings faintly stole,With Death’s anguish wildly wrestled,All that night, a passing soul.Wronged and wronger here had partedIn life’s glorious summer morn,He, to win the world’s high honor,She, to shrink from man’s fierce scorn.She had sinned, and love’s sweet numbersRang from human lips no more,But around her gently murmuredVoices from the Eternal shore.Past her flowed the chiming waters,Heaven-hued flow’rets bent above;Upward rose their blended incenseTo the God whose name is Love.Downward through the forest archesSwept the pine-trees fragrant balm;O’er her fevered senses stealingWith a soft, delicious calm.Angel eyes smiled down upon her,Angel wings about her lay;And a gleam from Heaven’s bright portals,Flashed upon her upward way.Calm she lay, the great All FatherHeld her in his dear embrace;And the peace of sin forgiven,Rests upon her sweet, dead face.
O’er the shining walls of SunsetDrooped the night-flag’s sable fold;Far adown the dim old forestEvening anthems slowly rolled.Up from brakes and velvet mosses,Heart-wrung pleadings faintly stole,With Death’s anguish wildly wrestled,All that night, a passing soul.
O’er the shining walls of Sunset
Drooped the night-flag’s sable fold;
Far adown the dim old forest
Evening anthems slowly rolled.
Up from brakes and velvet mosses,
Heart-wrung pleadings faintly stole,
With Death’s anguish wildly wrestled,
All that night, a passing soul.
Wronged and wronger here had partedIn life’s glorious summer morn,He, to win the world’s high honor,She, to shrink from man’s fierce scorn.She had sinned, and love’s sweet numbersRang from human lips no more,But around her gently murmuredVoices from the Eternal shore.
Wronged and wronger here had parted
In life’s glorious summer morn,
He, to win the world’s high honor,
She, to shrink from man’s fierce scorn.
She had sinned, and love’s sweet numbers
Rang from human lips no more,
But around her gently murmured
Voices from the Eternal shore.
Past her flowed the chiming waters,Heaven-hued flow’rets bent above;Upward rose their blended incenseTo the God whose name is Love.Downward through the forest archesSwept the pine-trees fragrant balm;O’er her fevered senses stealingWith a soft, delicious calm.
Past her flowed the chiming waters,
Heaven-hued flow’rets bent above;
Upward rose their blended incense
To the God whose name is Love.
Downward through the forest arches
Swept the pine-trees fragrant balm;
O’er her fevered senses stealing
With a soft, delicious calm.
Angel eyes smiled down upon her,Angel wings about her lay;And a gleam from Heaven’s bright portals,Flashed upon her upward way.Calm she lay, the great All FatherHeld her in his dear embrace;And the peace of sin forgiven,Rests upon her sweet, dead face.
Angel eyes smiled down upon her,
Angel wings about her lay;
And a gleam from Heaven’s bright portals,
Flashed upon her upward way.
Calm she lay, the great All Father
Held her in his dear embrace;
And the peace of sin forgiven,
Rests upon her sweet, dead face.
ROSALIE.
A SKETCH FROM LIFE.
———
BY MRS. E. L. CUSHING.
———
In a luxurious dressing-room in one of the most aristocratic mansions of Montreal, a young girl stood before a cheval-glass which gave back the full-length reflection of her lovely person, from the rich luxuriance of her rose-crowned ringlets to the sole of the fairy foot, now clad in a sylvan buskin, laced with silken strings over the delicate and naked ankle. The girl’s dress was a fanciful one—it had just been sent home from the dress-maker’s, and she was but rehearsing in it, preparatory to her appearance as the goddess Flora at a fancy-ball, to be given shortly by the officers of the garrison to theéliteof the city.
An attempt to personate the bright floral divinity of Spring might seem to argue undue vanity on the part of Alicia de Rochemont, but she had consented to do so at the suggestion of her preferred admirer, Captain Clairville, who declared that he had once met the celebrated Dutchess of S—— in that character, at a masquerade, and that she looked divinely, though even her fresh and radiant beauty was far less dazzling than that of Miss De Rochemont’s. Alicia thought every one who flattered her sincere, and so she believed the gay captain, and following his directions as to her costume, stood now before her mirror, a lovely impersonation of the ever-youthful deity who presides over the floral creation.
Her robe, of the finest tissue, changed its hues with every motion of the graceful wearer, now glowing with tints of sapphire, now assuming the hue of the rose, then fading to a tender purple, or a violet-azure, and the effect of all was softened by the transparent folds of an almost impalpable veil, which floated around the figure of the goddess, like the fleecy clouds which in the balmy nights of summer follow the bright pathway of the moon, chastening often, but never obscuring her lustre. Her white and rounded arms, bare to the shoulders, were wreathed with flowers; her hair was crowned with roses, and in one hand she carried a cornucopia filled with exquisite blossoms, which she was supposed to scatter on the earth, as she passed over it.
For a few minutes Alicia continued to survey herself with evident satisfaction—turning first to this side, then to that, and at last retreating step by step, and again slowly advancing toward her mirror, to study the full effect of her brillianttout ensemble.
“Mrs. Wetmore says, Miss,” remarked her maid, “that there will not be so beautiful a dress among them all as yours.”
“Nor so handsome a goddess,” responded Alicia, “did she not say that also, Ferris?”
“Of course she did, Miss,” returned the maid, who always stood ready to apply the unction of flattery to her young mistress—“everybody says that,” she added, “and sure if they did not, your own mirror would tell it to you.”
“But everybody might not believe what the mirror says, Ferris, though neither you nor I think it tells lies,” said Alicia. “But never mind, it is all very well, except these mock-roses, and they are such trumpery things I will not disgrace myself by wearing them,” and snatching the garland of artificial roses from her head she threw it contemptuously across the floor. “I can have abundance of natural flowers of every description except roses, and every one tells me they are not to be found.”
“Then, Miss, how can you expect to have them? Sure, they will not blow in the midst of these mountains of snow,” said Ferris.
“But Captain Clairville declares I am no true goddess without them,” said Alicia—“that the Dutchess of S—— had the loveliest crown of fragrant roses on her head, besides boquets of them in her hands and on her bosom, and that to be seen with these things of cloth and wire would make me ridiculous. No, it will never do; I must and will have real roses—roses! roses! Ferris, for the Goddess Flora, or I will go to bed and not get up again for a year.”
“Oh pray, Miss, don’t talk so,” said Ferris. “I am sure I would get roses for you if I could—but where upon earth are they to be had in the heart of this terrible winter? All the gardeners say theirs have frozen, and for that matter, Miss, I was near being frozen myself the bitter day you sent me out to ransack the suburbs for them—into every alley and corner I went without finding so much as a bud to bless myself with, though Dame Paton says hers never failed before, and in the coldest weather the Misses Franchettes were never known to be without them.”
“But you said something, Ferris, of a rose-tree which a poor girl had in some out of the way place, I forget where. Pray why cannot you get from them the flowers I want, and which indeed I must and will have?”
“Oh, la! Miss, who would have the heart to rob that bush? It blossoms but once a year, and is the only treasure of a poor girl who watches its flowers to lay them on her mother’s grave.”
“How doleful! Is it a sad-looking rose, Ferris?” asked Alicia.
“Oh no, Miss, quite gay, and the loveliest white, with just the faintest blush you ever saw,” said Ferris—“at least, so the buds looked which were just bursting open—perfect wreaths of them, which would bring ever so much money if the girl would only sell them; but no, she will not part with one, saving them all till the anniversary of her mother’s death, when she strews them over her grave, and they say it is a lovely sight to see the heap of snow which covers it all of a blush with the living roses.”
“How strange! quite sentimental, I declare,” said Alicia, adjusting her veil into more becoming folds before the mirror as she spoke. “But, then,” she added, “what a sin to throw away such lovely flowers; just now, too, when there is nowhere else a rose to be had, and so many would be thankful for them at any price. I am sure they would adorn the living more than the dead, for exposed to this frightful cold they cannot even beautify the grave many minutes before they are changed to ice.”
“Oh, Miss, old Suzanne says she has seen them lying there for days together; stiff enough to be sure, but looking blooming, and so beautiful in the white snow, and sometimes there falls a fine sleet and freezes on them, and they sparkle as if covered with diamonds; and then Rosalie, that is the name of the young girl, smiles and says the angels have wept on them—so she watches them till they change, and then throws over them the lightest snow she can find, and they settle down as the snow melts, and in the spring their faded leaves are all found lying on the green grave, sometimes quite fresh-like and sweet as it were.”
“What a fuss about nothing,” said the volatile beauty; “the girl must have lost her senses, or if she has not, other people have, to see such lovely roses perishing in the snow, and never taking the trouble to carry them away from that frozen place.”
“What, Miss, lift them from the grave!” exclaimed Ferris, with a burst of indignation that reproved the flippant selfishness of her mistress, “who would dare do such a thing? It would be the very sin of sacrilege that Father Dougherty talked of last Sunday, and I for one, would choose never to look upon another flower, rather than pluck even a leaf from those which that poor girl lays upon her mother’s grave.”
“Goodness me, Ferris, how very pathetic you are,” said Alicia, slightly coloring, with shame we hope, “but I am not so easily melted, and the roses Imusthave—fairly purchased of the girl if she will sell them, if not, by some other means, for obtain them I must; and if with your aid, Ferris, a rich reward shall be yours—if you refuse it, there are those to whom I have shown far less kindness than to you who would not so willingly disoblige me.”
“Indeed, Miss,” said Ferris, half-crying and alarmed by the dread of losing a good place, “there is nobody in the whole world that I would do so much for as you—any thing that was right, Miss, I could never disobey you in—but to rob the dead! who could do that and hope ever to have a quiet night again?”
“Nonsense!” ejaculated Alicia, with a contemptuous curl of her pretty lip, “what have you to do with the dead in this matter? I ask you to go to the living, to the girl herself once more, and tempt her with gold, which she must need, to give you these precious flowers. I do not care what you offer her, sovereigns, guineas, any thing you please, if so you win from her the roses—I am no goddess without them—but crowned with such a lovely garland, I shall rival Flora herself—walk a divinity among the men, and cause all the women to expire with envy.”
And at the bare thought of such a triumph, the spoiled little beauty crossed the room with as regal a step as though she really trod the cloudy heights of Olympus, and casting off her veil and robe of changeful hue, she wrapped her fairy form in a luxurious dressing-gown, and sunk quite exhausted into the arms of a capaciousfauteuil, from beneath the downy cushions of which she drew forth the last new novel, and soon seemingly abandoned herself to its absorbing interest.
“I will try, Miss, once more for the roses,” said Ferris, as she turned to leave the room, “unless you are willing Grayson should go—she knows the place, for she went there with me, Miss, and would, I think, be much more likely to get them than I should.”
“I care not a pin who goes, Ferris,” said Alicia, looking up from beneath the mass of silk and down in which she sat half-buried—“only let me have the roses and I will not even ask how they were got, or by whom.” And again she sunk listlessly down into what might have seemed a little bundle of embroidered silk, but for the crown of shining ringlets just visible in its midst.
——
The scene of our tale changes from the abode of wealth and fashion to the humble dwelling of poverty, with its trials and privations—from the exhibition of a spoiled and petted beauty’s vain and idle caprices, to the manifestations of a pure and noble spirit, oppressed by misfortune, yet true to its own high convictions of duty, gently submissive to the Divine hand which guided and sustained it, and ever shedding around its lowly sphere the light and peace of its own heavenly faith and love.
In a narrow cross-street of one of the most obscure suburbs of the city, stood a dilapidated house, the small attic of which was tenanted by an elderly man and his daughter, the former of whom was now lying motionless upon his bed, either insensible or asleep; and to judge from his wasted and ghastly appearance, approaching near the confines of that world where the weary spirit finds release and rest. Beside him, at a small table, sat a young girl of singularly sweet and interesting appearance, without what a common observer would designate beauty, and yet with “something than beauty dearer,” irradiating her calm, pure face; a soul-light from within, shining and giving to it that heavenly expression which reminded one of the angelic faces which beam from the breathing canvas of Raphael. Her soft, brown hair fell back in wavy curls from her smooth brow, and in her dark hazel-eyes, with their long-fringed drooping lids, there was a depth of unrevealed and gentle sensibilities, and a lurking tenderness around her mouth, which indicated timidity and sweetness—some might have thought it weakness, had not the slight and graceful curve of the upper lip rescued it from that suspicion—denoting a firm, if a gentle soul, and a courage strong to dare and endure in the path of woman’s duty, thorny and rugged though that path might chance to be.
On the small table before her lay a cluster of snow-white camelias, with a few other flowers of equal beauty. Whence, at so inclement a season, came those frail and delicate blossoms into that bare and lonely attic? A nearer glance informed the gazer that those lovely imitations of Nature’s fairest forms were of wax, moulded by the skill and taste of the young artist into such perfection as to deceive the most practiced eye. Thrown by a series of afflictive dispensations wholly upon her own resources for the support of her sick father and herself, Rosalie La Motte had exercised in turn her various accomplishments to avert the want and destitution which menaced her—but notwithstanding the elegance of the various articles which she produced, she found it difficult to obtain purchasers for them, though she did not hesitate to seek a sale for them at the shops, and even to offer them at the doors of some of the finest houses of the city. They were generally turned over with indifference and dismissed, or purchased at half their value, by those who thought more of making a good bargain than of aiding the pale and delicate girl who was so nobly struggling against poverty and misfortune.
In the disposal of her wax-flowers Rosalie had met with better success—they were too exquisite not to win admiration, and several had purchased single flowers or small bouquets without disputing the price, and so encouraged, when she could procure the materials, she continued, upon a small scale, her tasteful manufacture, and thus, for the present, was enabled to provide comforts for her father, and defray the trifling expenses of her humble home.
And thus to struggle on alone and unfriended, was indeed heroic in one born to better fortunes, and nurtured in a home of ease and indulgence, as was the young and gentle Rosalie. Early in life her father had emigrated from Lyons to New Orleans, where he established a mercantile house, which soon became one of the richest in the city. He married a lovely woman, and children gathered around him. But then troubles came, as they come to all—for they are part of life’s discipline, aiding us to solve its deep mysteries, and unveiling our spiritual sight to behold the glories of that higher life toward which the good and true are constantly ascending. An infant son died, and then a darling daughter, just budding into her tenth sweet summer. The mother was grief-stricken—the father’s energies paralyzed, and during this season of heavy trial, an ambitious and unprincipled partner of the house availed himself of the opportunity to embark in a daring and uncertain speculation, which failed, as might have been expected, involving the whole concern in irretrievable ruin.
The same messenger who brought these evil tidings to the unhappy merchant, then residing at his country seat, brought also letters from an uncle of Mr. La Motte’s on the mother’s side, who had been for many years a resident in Canada, engaged there in the lucrative North West trade. The communication from Mr. McMillan stated that he had now retired from active business, and having no home of his own, he wished his nephew to remove with his family to Montreal, that he might find one with those whom he intended as the heirs of his fortune.
Ruined in fortune, and broken down in spirit, Mr. La Motte resolved to accept his uncle’s cordial invitation, and accordingly wrote him to that effect, but unfortunately the letter never reached its destination. Again Mr. McMillan wrote, but by some untoward accident his letter went astray—and a rumor which soon after prevailed, owing to Mr. La Motte’s remaining in retirement, that he had returned with his family to France, reached the ears of his uncle, and prevented his writing again. In the meantime, the cholera broke out in the devoted city of Montreal, and Mr. McMillan was among its first victims. His life had not been such as to enable him to meet death in peace, and in the vain hope that he should thus make some atonement for his sins, he gave the whole of his property to the church, and died in the belief that its purchased masses would insure the safety of his soul.
Delayed by illness and other unforeseen causes, it was not till the autumn of that fatal year, that Mr. La Motte, with his wife and daughter, arrived in Montreal, only to meet new trial and disappointment, for the first answers to inquiries respecting his relative, informed him of his death, and the disposition of his entire property to the church. Thus left friendless, almost penniless, in a strange land, with a wife and child, bred in affluence, dependent upon him, the unfortunate La Motte was ready to sink beneath the heavy burden of his lot. But something must be done, so a small house was rented, and through the friendly services of a distant relative of his late uncle, Mr. La Motte obtained the situation of under-clerk, with a very moderate remuneration, in a mercantile house in the city.
It was a new position for one who had been for many prosperous years at the head of an extensive establishment of his own; but it averted immediate want, and enabled him to provide a shelter for those dear ones who leaned upon him—a humble one it is true, compared to the comfort and luxurious beauty of their southern home; but it was their own—and beautified by the wife’s patient sweetness, the daughter’s loving smiles and tender assiduities for the happiness of her parents, it became a haven of peace to the worn and weary man. So passed away the first year of their northern sojourn; but with the falling of the next autumn leaves, a gathering cloud threatened to overshadow their calm sky.
The change of climate and of circumstances had seriously affected Mrs. La Motte’s health—her step became feeble—a cough convulsed her slight frame, and the beautiful but fearful hectic of consumption lent its fatal lustre to her cheek and eye. She faded fast, and with the early snows of winter the broken-hearted husband and weeping daughter, saw her dear and cherished form borne forever from the humble home, which her presence had sanctified and blessed.
“Do not mourn thus bitterly, my Rosalie,” she said, on the day of her departure. “I am not leaving you, my child, but only passing from your outward sight, to be still nearer to you in thought and affection. This life, dearest, we have found one of trial and change—but we both believe that the one toward which I am rapidly advancing, upon which I shall soon enter, is one of beauty and of peace—of joy unspeakable and of endless development.”
“Yes, dear mamma, I know this,” said the weeping girl; “and for you I do rejoice—but oh, this seeming separation—how sad it is!” and a fresh burst of sorrow impeded her utterance.
“Ever think of itbutas aseemingseparation, for it is one only to the eye of sense,” said Mrs. La Motte. “That which we call death, dear Rosalie, is but a change in the mode of our existence—a continuation of life, higher, fuller, more free than that which we know here, in a world of light and beauty far more real than this.”
“Oh yes, dear mamma,” said Rosalie, “I dread death only because it severs the close-knit ties of earth—thanks to your teachings, I have always regarded it as a beautiful and benignant ministration of our Heavenly Father’s love—as the birth-day of the soul to a higher and happier life, without satiety or end. But this day, mamma, brings to me a double bereavement, for it is that on which our sweet Adalia left us—and now—and now—” She paused, covering her streaming eyes with her hand.
“Yes, and she is near me—very near—waiting to conduct me to her spirit-home,” said the mother, with a rapt look, as though she indeed gazed upon the form of her departed child—as who shall say she did not, or that our loved ones do not ever sit beside our dying pillow, as is the sweet belief, and a true one, as we think, of many.
“The dear rose-tree she planted,” resumed the dying mother, after a moment’s pause, “will soon be bright with blossoms, as on the day she left us—let its flowers, my Rosalie, cover my snowy grave, and on each anniversary of my departure, strew them there in remembrance of us both.”
“Yes—yes, dear mamma!” was all the sobbing girl could utter.
“Do so, darling child,” said the mother—“our spirits will be with you, my Rosalie—and never, never, dear one, forget while it lives, to cherish for her sweet sake, the rose-tree her young hand planted.”
“Never! my own mamma,” sobbed Rosalie; “for her dear sake and yours, it shall be a sacred thing to me always.”
It was on the first day of her illness that the little Adalia had planted this rose-tree, then a tiny thing; and before another spring came round, its flowers were strewn upon her grave. From that time the plant was watched with reverent care by the tender mother; and when she left her southern home for the colder north, this cherished thing accompanied her, though there were many others far more useful and costly that were necessarily left behind.
The death of his wife gave the final blow to Mr. La Motte’s health and spirits—still he struggled on, but evidently with a broken-heart, till finally a sudden paralysis, which partially affected the mind, and wholly prostrated the physical powers, laid him helpless upon a weary bed of pain. It was then, when every earthly stay seemed to have deserted her, that all the hidden strength and beauty of Rosalie’s character were developed.
Deprived at once of the power of active exertion, Mr. La Motte’s small income ceased—the house they occupied, humble as it was, could no longer be retained—and Rosalie, all inexperienced, felt the necessity of looking out for a less expensive abode. After long and patient search she at length discovered the old house with its unoccupied attic, where we have introduced her to the reader, and to which she removed her father, with the few articles of comfort and convenience she could afford to keep, and there for many months she had now toiled unremittingly for their support.
But amid all the toils and privations of her lot, her cheerfulness and serene temper remained unclouded—her patience unshaken—her trust and faith in her heavenly Father’s love and goodness, calm and unfaltering. Nor, helpless and often querulous through weariness and suffering as her father was, did she ever fail toward him in her task of duty, or in the constancy of her affection. He only, of the dear household band, remained to her; and the devotion she felt for him absorbed the whole of her being, except that higher sentiment which belonged to Him who had breathed into her an immortal spirit.
Her own frail and delicate appearance told, however, that the soul’s struggle for resignation and cheerfulness, though successful, had too terribly shaken the physical frame, ever to permit the flush of health and joy to invigorate it again. Short and quick, after every exertion, came the labored breath, and the slightest fatigue or emotion dyed the fair cheek with that brilliant hue, which they who know its fatal warning, tremble to behold.
——
The small apartment occupied by Rosalie and her father, though scrupulously neat and clean, was almost bare of furniture. A few necessary and very simple articles it contained, and nothing else, beside the lovely wax flowers upon the table, worthy of observation, except the tall and thriving rose-tree, whose bursting buds, fast unfolding into full-blown flowers, were consecrated to the memory of the departed. It was growing in the graceful Wedgwood vase in which the little Adalia had planted it, and before the recess of the window where it stood hung a curtain so thin as not to exclude the air, while it answered the design for which it was intended, to screen it from the curious eye of casual visitors. This curtain was now drawn aside, revealing the graceful plant in its flush of beauty, and as Rosalie sat moulding the plastic wax into exquisite floral forms with her delicate fingers, she often turned her eyes from the still and deathlike features of her father to its green branches, drooping with the weight of their clustered buds, and a sad and tender smile would linger on her lips, and a dewy lustre moisten her soft, hazel eye as she gazed—while at times some secret thought framed itself into words, and fell in broken murmurs from her tongue.
At last she rose, and advancing to the tree, lifted a trailing branch, and wound it round a stronger one for support, tears like dew-drops falling upon its bright buds as she said—
“Yes, dear mamma, the rose-tree our Adalia planted, and which you loved, is blooming for you, and once again your daughter’s hand will strew its leaves over your snowy bed. Once more! but another year—and who will shed them there? Ah! it matters not—we shall ere then be reunited where brighter flowers than those of earth will bloom for us eternally.”
A radiant smile lighted up her sweet face as she uttered these words, and her delicate cheek flushed with the lovely but fatal hectic which lurked in her system, and set the seal of truth upon her prophecy. As she turned slowly from the window she saw her father move—he had awakened, and she hastened toward the bed. The sick man looked upon his child with a vacant eye, as she tenderly bent over him. She saw that his lips were parched, and pouring some liquid into a cup, she held it to him, and he drank eagerly.
“Have you slept well, dear papa?” she gently asked, as she tenderly arranged his pillow, and smoothed the thin hair from his furrowed brow.
He turned his dreamy eye toward her, and it brightened up with loving recollections, as he scanned in silence the features so dear, and so familiar to his heart.
“Slept!” he said at last, in a low and feeble voice. “I have been sailing, Rosalie, on a broad, bright river, and angels guided my vessel. Adalia was in my arms, and she, your angel mother, sat beside me, with her patient smile, and her sunny eye that, with its look of love, ever chased the shadows from my heart.”
“Dear papa, you weary yourself,” said the anxious girl, as he paused, laboring for breath. “Rest awhile, for I know it all—mamma was with you, and you were happy.”
“Yes,” he answered with animation, “I was happy. I felt her hand in mine, and we sailed onward and onward, far away from all sights and sounds of earth, into a glorious atmosphere, golden with the light of heaven—and all around us wasHisnear presence, wrapping our souls in a garment of blessedness.”
“It is always round us, dear papa,” said Rosalie, alarmed at his increasing excitement; “always—even here in this poor room, where we seem left to drink the cup of poverty alone.”
“A dream!—but was itonlyadreamthen, Rosalie?” murmured the sick man with a troubled look.
“No, dear papa; but a visitation of angels to cheer your slumbers, and whisper to your spirit of the peace and bliss of heaven,” said the gentle daughter, imprinting a kiss of love upon his cheek.
“Yes, yes; and to tell me of her guardian care,” he said; then in a clear voice, and with a burst of joyful triumph he repeated—