Alas! young bride, thy hymeneal altar is an altar of sacrifice. Love is not the deity who is presiding there. Little do they dream who have led thee, poor lamb! garlanded with flowers, to that altar, how innocent, how true, how good a heart they were offering up upon its strange fires. But they will know in time, and thou wilt know when it is too late.
Two years from the period of their marriage, Elliott and his wife were seated in a small room moderately well furnished. He was leaning back in a chair, with arms folded, and his chin resting on his bosom. His face was contracted into a gloomy scowl. Anna, who looked pale and troubled, was sewing and touching with her foot a cradle, in which was a babe. The little one seemed restless. Every now and then it would start and moan, or cry out. After a time it awoke and commenced screaming. The mother lifted it from the cradle and tried to hush it upon her bosom, but the babe still cried on. It was evidently in pain.
"Confound you! why don't you keep that child quiet?" exclaimed the husband, impatiently casting at the same time an angry look upon his wife.
Anna made no reply, but turned half away from him, evidently to conceal the tears that suddenly started from her eyes, and strove more earnestly to quiet the child. In this she soon succeeded.
"I believe you let her cry on purpose, whenever I am in the house, just to annoy me," her husband resumed in an ill-natured tone.
"No, Thomas, you know that I do not," Anna said.
"Say I lie, why don't you?"
"Oh, Thomas, how can you speak so to me?" And his young wife turned toward him an earnest, tearful look.
"Pah! don't try to melt me with your crying. I never believed in it.Women can cry at any moment."
There was a convulsive motion of Mrs. Elliott's head as she turned quickly away, and a choking sound in her throat. She remained silent, ten minutes passed, when her husband said in a firm voice,
"Anna, I'm going to break up."
Mrs. Elliott glanced around with a startled air.
"It's true, just what I say—your father may think that I'm going to make a slave of myself to support you, but he's mistaken. He's refused to help me in my business one single copper, though he's able enough. And now I've taken my resolution. You can go back to him as quick as you like."
Before the brutal husband had half finished the sentence, his wife was on her feet, with a cheek deadly pale, and eyes almost starting from her head. Thomas Elliott was her husband and the father of her babe, and as such she had loved him with a far deeper love than he had deserved. This had caused her to bear with coldness and neglect, and even positive unkindness without a complaint. Sacredly had she kept from her mother even a hint of the truth. Thus had she gone on almost from the first; for only a few months elapsed before she discovered that her image was dim on her husband's heart.
"You needn't stand there staring at me like one moon-struck"—he said, with bitter sarcasm and a curl of the lip. "What I say is the truth. I'm going to give up, and you've got to go home to them that are more able to support you than I am; and who have a better right, too, I'm thinking."
There was something so heartless and chilling in the words and manner of her husband, that Mrs. Elliott made no attempt to reply. Covering her face with her hands, she sunk back into the chair from which she had risen, more deeply miserable than she had ever been in her life. From this state she was aroused by the imperative question,
"Anna, what do you intend doing?"
"That is for you to say"—was her murmured reply.
"Then, I say, go home to your father, and at once."
Without a word the wife rose from her chair, with her infant in her arms, and pausing only long enough to put on her shawl and bonnet, left the house.
Mr. and Mrs. Wyman were sitting alone late on the afternoon of the same day, thinking about and conversing of their child. Neither of them felt too well satisfied with the result of her marriage. It required not even the close observation of a parent's eye, to discover that she was far from happy.
"I wish she were only single"—Mr. Wyman at length said. "She married much too young—only eighteen now, and with a cold-hearted and, I fear, unprincipled and neglectful husband. It is sad to think of it."
"But I was married as young as she was, Mr. Wyman?"
"Yes; but I flatter myself you made a better choice. Your condition at eighteen was very different from what hers is now. As I said before, I only wish she were single, and then I wouldn't care to see her married for two or three years to come."
"I can't help wishing she had refused Mr. Elliott. If she had done so, she might have been married to a much better man long before this. Mr. Carpenter is worth a dozen of him. Oh dear! this marriage is all a lottery, after all. Few prizes and many blanks. Poor Anna! she is not happy."
At this moment the door opened, and the child of whom they were speaking, with her infant in her arms, came hurriedly in. Her face was deadly pale, her lips tightly compressed, and her eyes widely distended and fixed.
"Anna!" exclaimed the mother, starting up quickly and springing toward her.
"My child, what ails you?" was eagerly asked by the father, as he, too, rose up hastily.
But there was no reply. The heart of the child was too full. She could not utter the truth. She had been sent back to her parents by her husband, but her tongue could not declare that! Pride, shame, wounded affections, combined to hold back her words. Her only reply was to lay her babe in her mother's arms, and then fling herself upon the bosom of her father.
All was mystery then, but time soon unveiled the cause of their daughter's strange and sudden appearance, and her deep anguish. The truth gradually came out that she had been deserted by her husband; or, what seemed to Mrs. Wyman more disgraceful still, had been sent home by him. Bitterly did she execrate him, but it availed nothing. Her ardent wish had been gratified. Anna was engaged at sixteen, and married soon after; but at eighteen, alas! she had come home a deserted wife and mother! And so she remained. Her husband never afterward came near her. And now, at thirty, with a daughter well grown, she remains in her father's house, a quiet, thoughtful, dreamy woman, who sees little in life that is attractive, and who rarely stirs beyond the threshold of the house that shelters her. There are those who will recognise this picture.
So much for being engaged at sixteen!
IT often happens that a daughter possesses greatly superior advantages to those enjoyed, in early years, by either her father or mother. She is not compelled to labour as hard as they were obliged to labour when young; and she is blessed with the means of education far beyond what they had. Her associations, too, are of a different order, all tending to elevate her views of life, to refine her tastes, and to give her admission into a higher grade of society than they were fitted to move in.
Unless very watchful of herself and very thoughtful of her parents, a daughter so situated will be led at times to draw comparisons between her own cultivated intellect and taste and the want of such cultivation in her parents, and to think indifferently of them, as really inferior, because not so well educated and accomplished as she is. A distrust of their judgment and a disrespect of their opinions will follow, as a natural consequence, if these thoughts and feelings be indulged. This result often takes place with thoughtless, weak-minded girls; and is followed by what is worse, a disregard to their feelings, wishes, and express commands.
A sensible daughter, who loves her parents, will hardly forget to whom she is indebted for all the superior advantages she enjoys. She will also readily perceive that the experience which her parents have acquired, and their natural strength of mind, give them a real and great superiority over her, and make their judgment, in all matters of life, far more to be depended upon than hers could possibly be. It may be that her mother has never learned to play upon the piano, has never been to a dancing-school, has never had any thing beyond the merest rudiments of an education; but she has good sense, prudence, industry, economy; understands and practises all the virtues of domestic life; has a clear, discriminating judgment; has been her husband's faithful friend and adviser for some twenty or thirty years; and has safely guarded and guided her children up to mature years. These evidences of a mother's title to her respect and fullest confidence cannot long be absent from a daughter's mind, and will prevent her acting in direct opposition to her judgment.
Thoughtless indeed must be that child who can permit an emotion of disrespect toward her parents to dwell in her bosom for more than a single moment!
Respect and love toward parents are absolutely necessary to the proper formation of the character upon that true basis which will bring into just order and subordination all the powers of the mind. Without this order and subordination there can be no true happiness. A child loves and respects his parents, because from them he derived his being, and from them receives every blessing and comfort. To them, and to them alone, does his mind turn as the authors of all the good gifts he possessed. As a mere child, it is right for him thus to regard his parents as the authors of his being and the originators of all his blessings. But as reason gains strength, and he sees more deeply into the nature and causes of things, which only takes place as the child approaches the years of maturity, it is then seen that the parents were only the agents through which life, and all the blessings accompanying it, came from God, the great Father of all. If the parents have been loved with a truly filial love, then the mind has been suitably opened and prepared for love toward God, and an obedience to his divine laws, without which there can be no true happiness. When this new and higher truth takes possession of the child's mind, it in no way diminishes his respect for his earthly parents, but increases it. He no longer obeys them because they command obedience, but he regards the truth of their precepts, and in that truth hears the voice of God speaking to him. More than ever is he now careful to listen to their wise counsels, because he perceives in them the authority of reason, which is the authority of God.
Most young ladies, on attaining the age of responsibility, will perceive a difference in the manner of their parents. Instead of opposing them, as heretofore, with authority, they will oppose them with reason, where opposition is deemed necessary. The mother, instead of saying, when she disapproves any thing, "No, my child, you cannot do it;" or, "No you must not go, dear;" will say, "I would rather not have you do so;" or, "I do not approve of your going." If you ask her reasons, she will state them, and endeavour to make you comprehend their force. It is far too often the case, that the daughter's desire to do what her mother disapproves is so active, that neither her mother's objections nor reasons are strong enough to counteract her wishes, and she follows her own inclinations instead of being guided by her mother's better judgment. In these instances, she almost always does wrong, and suffers therefore either bodily or mental pain.
Obedience in childhood is that by which we are led and guided into right actions. When we become men and women, reason takes the place of obedience; but, like a young bird just fluttering from its nest, reason at first has not much strength of wing; and we should therefore suffer the reason of those who love us, like the mother-bird, to stoop under and bear us up in our earlier efforts, lest we fall bruised and wounded to the ground. To whose reason should a young girl look to strengthen her own, so soon as to her mother's, guided as it is by love? But it too often happens that, under the first impulses of conscious freedom, no voice is regarded but the voice of inclination and passion. The mother may oppose, and warn, and urge the most serious considerations, but the daughter turns a deaf ear to all. She thinks that she knows best.
"You are not going to-night, Mary?" said a mother, coming into her daughter's room, and finding her dressing for a ball. She had been rather seriously indisposed for some days, with a cold that had fallen upon her throat and chest, which was weak, but was now something better.
"I think I will, mother, for I am much better than I was yesterday, and have improved since morning. I have promised myself so much pleasure at this ball, that I cannot think of being disappointed."
The mother shook her head.
"Mary," she replied, "you are not well enough to go out. The air is damp, and you will inevitably take more cold. Think how badly your throat has been inflamed."
"I don't think it has been soverybad, mother."
"The doctor told me it was badly inflamed, and said you would have to be very careful of yourself, or it might prove serious."
"That was some days ago. It is a great deal better now."
"But the least exposure may cause it to return."
"I will be very careful not to expose myself. I will wrap up warm and go in a carriage. I am sure there is not the least danger, mother."
"While I am sure that there is very great danger. You cannot pass from the door to the carriage, without the damp air striking upon your face, and pressing into your lungs."
"But I must not always exclude myself from the air, mother. Air and exercise, you know, the doctor says, are indispensable to health."
"Dry, not damp air. This makes the difference. But you must act for yourself, Mary. You are now a woman, and must freely act in the light of that reason which God has given you. Because I love you, and desire your welfare, I thus seek to convince you that it is wrong to expose your health to-night. Your great desire to go blinds you to the real danger, which I can fully see."
"You are over-anxious, mother," urged Mary. "I know how I feel much better than you possibly can, and I know I am well enough to go."
"I have nothing more to say, my child," returned the mother. "I wish you to act freely, but wisely. Wisely I am sure you will not act if you go to-night. A temporary illness may not alone be the consequence; your health may receive a shock from which it will never recover."
"Mother wishes to frighten me," said Mary to herself, after her mother had left the room. "But I am not to be so easily frightened. I am sorry she makes such a serious matter about my going, for I never like to do any thing that is not agreeable to her feelings. But I must go to this ball. William is to call for me at eight, and he would be as much disappointed as myself if I were not to go. As to making more cold, what of that? I would willingly pay the penalty of a pretty severe cold rather than miss the ball."
Against all her mother's earnestly urged objections, Mary went with her lover to the ball. She came home, at one o'clock, with a sharp pain through her breast, red spots on her cheeks, oppression of the chest, and considerable fever. On the next morning she was unable to rise from her bed. When the doctor, who was sent for, came in, he looked grave, and asked if there had been any exposure by which a fresh cold could be taken.
"She was at the ball last night," replied the mother.
"Not with your approval, madam?" he said quickly, looking with a stern expression into the mother's face.
"No, doctor. I urged her not to go; but Mary thought she knew best.She did not believe there was any danger."
A strong expression rose to the doctor's lips, but he repressed it, lest he should needlessly alarm the patient. On retiring from her chamber, he declared the case to be a very critical one; and so it proved to be. Mary did not leave her room for some months; and when she did, it was with a constitution so impaired that she could not endure the slightest fatigue, nor bear the least exposure. Neither change of climate nor medicine availed any thing toward restoring her to health. In this feeble state she married, about twelve months afterward, the young man who had accompanied her to the ball. One year from the period at which that happy event took place, she died, leaving to stranger hands a babe that needed all her tenderest care, and a husband almost broken-hearted at his loss.
This is not merely a picture from the imagination, and highly coloured. It is from nature, and every line is drawn with the pencil of truth. Hundreds of young women yearly sink into the grave, whose friends can trace to some similar act of imprudence, committed in direct opposition to the earnest persuasions of parents or friends, the cause of their premature decay and death. And too often other, and sometimes even worse, consequences than death, follow a disregard of the mother's voice of warning.
[From our story of "The Two Brides," we take a scene, in which some one sorrowing as those without hope may find words of consolation.]
IN the very springtime of young womanhood, the destroyer had come; and though he laid his hand upon her gently at first, yet the touch was none the less fatal. But, while her frail body wasted, her spirit remained peaceful. As the sun of her natural life sunk low in the sky, the bright auroral precursor of another day smiled along the eastern verge of her spiritual horizon. There was in her heart neither doubt, nor fear, nor shrinking.
"Dear Marion!" said Anna, dropping a tear upon her white transparent hand, as she pressed it to her lips, a few weeks after the alarming hemorrhage just mentioned; "how can you look at this event so calmly?"
They had been speaking of death, and Marion had alluded to its approach to Anna, with a strange cheerfulness, as if she felt it to be nothing more than a journey to another and far pleasanter land than that wherein she now dwelt.
"Why should I look upon this change with other than tranquil feelings?" she asked.
"Why? How can you ask such a question, sister?" returned Anna. "To me, there has been always something in the thought of death that made the blood run cold about my heart."
"This," replied Marion, with one of her sweet smiles, "is because your ideas of death have been, from the first, confused and erroneous. You thought of the cold and pulseless body; the pale winding-sheet; the narrow coffin, and the deep, dark grave. But, I do not let my thoughts rest on these. To me, death involves the idea of eternal life. I cannot think of the one without the other. Should the chrysalis tremble at the coming change?—the dull worm in its cerements shrink from the moment when, ordained by nature, it must rise into a new life, and expand its wings in the sunny air? How much less cause have I to tremble and shrink back as the hour approaches when this mortal is to put on immortality?"
"Yours is a beautiful faith," said Anna. "And its effects, as seen now that the hour from which all shrink approaches, are strongly corroborative of its truth."
"It is beautiful because it is true," replied Marion. "There is no real beauty that is not the form of something good and true."
"If I were as good as you, I might not shrink from death," remarkedAnna, with a transient sigh.
"I hope you are better than I am, dear; and think you are," saidMarion.
"Oh, no!" quickly returned Anna.
"Do you purpose evil in your heart?" asked Marion, seriously.
Anna seemed half surprised at the question.
"Evil! Evil! I hope not," she replied, as a shadow came over her face.
"It is an evil purpose only that should make us fear death, Anna; for therein lies the only cause of fear. Death, to those who love themselves and the world above every thing else, is a sad event; but to those who love God and their neighbour supremely, it is a happy change."
"That is all true," said Anna. "My reason assents to it. But, in the act of dissolution—in that mortal strife, when the soul separates itself from the body—there is something from which my heart shrinks and trembles down fainting in my bosom. Ah! In the crossing of that bourne from which no traveller has returned to tell us of what is beyond, there is something that more than half appals me."
"There is much that takes away the fear you have mentioned," replied Marion. "It is the uncertain that causes us to tremble and shrink back. But, when we know what is before us, we prepare ourselves to meet it. Attendant upon every one who dies, says a certain writer, are two angels, who keep his mind entirely above the thought of death, and in the idea of eternal life. They remain with him through the whole process—protecting him from evil spirits—and receive him into the world of spirits after his soul has fully withdrawn itself from the interior of the body. The last idea, active in the mind of the person before death, is the first idea in his mind after death, when his consciousness of life is restored; and it is some time after this conscious life returns before he is aware that he is dead. Around him he sees objects similar to those seen in the natural world. There are houses and trees, streams of water and gardens. Men and women dressed in variously fashioned garments. They walk and converse together, as we do upon earth. When, at length, he is told that he has died, and is now in a world that is spiritual instead of natural—that the body in which he is, is a body formed of spiritual instead of natural substances, he is in a measure affected with surprise, and for the most part a pleasing surprise. He wonders at the grossness of his previous ideas, which limited form and substances to material things; and now, unless he had been instructed during his life in the world, begins to comprehend the truth that man is a man from the spirit, not from the body."
Anna, who had been listening intently, drew a long breath, as Marion paused.
"Dead, and yet not know the fact!" said she, with an expression of wonder. "It seems incredible. And all this you fully believe?"
"Yes, Anna; as entirely as I believe in the existence of the sun in the firmament."
"If these doctrines can take away the fear of death, which so haunts the mind of even those who are striving to live pure lives, they are indeed a legacy of good to the world. Oh, Marion, how much I have suffered, ever since the days of my childhood, from this dreadful fear!"
"They do take away the fear of death," returned Marion; "because they remove the uncertainty which has heretofore gathered like a gloomy pall over the last hours of mortality. When the soul of lover or friend passed from this world, it seemed to plunge into a dark profound, and there came not back an echo to tell of his fate. 'The bourne from which no traveller returns!' Oh! the painful eloquence of that single line. But, now, we who receive the doctrine of which I speak, can look beyond this bourne; and though the traveller returns not, yet we know something of how he fared on his entrance into the new country."
"Then we need not fear for you," said Anna, tenderly, "when you are called to pass this bourne?"
"No, sister," replied Marion, "I know in whom I have believed, and I feel sure that it will be well with me, so far as I have shunned what is evil and sought to do good. Do not think of me as sinking into some gloomy profound; or awakening from my sleep of death, startled, amazed, or shocked by the sudden transition. Loving angels will be my companions as I descend into the valley and the shadow of death; and I will fear no evil. Upon the other side I will be received among those who have gone before, and I will scarcely feel that there has been a change. A little while I will remain there, and then pass upward to my place in heaven."
The mother of Marion entered her room at this moment, and the conversation was suspended. But it was renewed again soon after, and the gentle-hearted, spiritual-minded girl continued to talk of the other world as one preparing for a journey talks about the new country into which he is about going, and of whose geography, and the manners and customs of whose people, he has made himself conversant from books.
Not long did she remain on this side of the dark valley, through which she was to pass. A few months wound up the story of her earthly life, and she went peacefully and confidently on her way to her eternal dwelling-place. It was a sweet, sad time, when the parting hour came, and the mother, brother, and dearly loved adopted sister, gathered around Marion's bed to see her die. That angels were present, each one felt; for the sphere of tranquillity that pervaded the hearts of all was the sphere of heaven.
"God is love," said Marion, a short time before she passed away. She was holding the hand of her mother, and looking tenderly in her face. "How exquisite is my perception of this truth? It comes upon me with a power that subdues my spirit, yet fills it with ineffable peace. With what a wondrous love has he regarded us! I never had had so intense a perception of this as now."
Marion closed her eyes, and for some time lay silent, while a heavenly smile irradiated her features. Then looking up, she said, and as she spoke she took the hand of Anna and placed it within that of her mother—
"When I am gone, let the earthly love you bore me, mother, be added to that already felt for our dear Anna. Think of me as an angel, and of her as your child."
In spite of her effort to restrain them, tears gushed from the eyes of Mrs. Lee, and fell like rain over her cheeks. For a short time she bent to her dying one, and clasped her wildly to her bosom. But the calmness of a deeply laid trust in Providence was soon restored to her spirit, and she said, speaking of Anna—
"Without her, how could we part with you? I do not think I could bear it."
"I shall go before you only a little while," returned Marion, "only a very little while. A few years—how quickly they will hurry by! A few more days of labour, and your earthly tasks will be done. Then we shall meet again. And even in the days of our separation we shall not be far removed from each other. Thought will bring us spiritually near, and affection conjoin us, even though no sense of the body give token of proximity. And who knows but to me will be assigned the guardianship of the dear babe given to us by Anna? Oh! if love will secure that holy duty, then it will be mine!"
A light, as if reflected from the sun of heaven, beamed from the countenance of Marion, who closed her eyes, and, in a little while, fell off into a gentle sleep. Silently did those who loved her with more than human tenderness—for there was in their affection a love of goodness for its own sake—bend over and watch the face of the sweet sleeper, even until there came stealing upon them the fear that she would not waken again in this world. And the fear was not groundless; for thus she passed away. To her death came as a gentle messenger, to bid her go up higher. And she obeyed the summons without a mortal fear.
No passionate grief at their loss raged wildly in the bosoms of those who suffered this great bereavement. For years, the mother and son had daily striven against selfish feelings as evil; and now, comprehending with the utmost clearness that Marion's removal was, for her, a blessed change, their hearts were thankful, even while tears wet their cheeks. They mourned for her departure, because they were human; they suffered pain, for ties of love the most tender had been snapped asunder; they wept, because in weeping nature found relief. Yet, in all, peace brooded over their spirits.
When the fading, wasting form of earth which Marion's pure spirit had worn, as a garment, but now laid aside forever, was borne out, and consigned to its kindred clay, those who remained behind experienced no new emotions of grief. To them Marion still lived. This was the old mortal body, that vailed, rather than made visible, her real beauty. Now she was clothed in a spiritual body, that was transcendently beautiful, because it was the very form of good affections. To lay the useless garment aside was not, therefore, a painful task. This done, each member of the bereaved family returned to his and her life-tasks, and, in the faithful discharge of daily duties, found a sustaining power. But Marion was not lost to them. Ever present was she in their thought and affection, and often, in dreams, she was with them,—yet, never as the suffering mortal; but as the happy, glorified immortal. Beautiful was the faith upon which they leaned. To them the spiritual was not a something vague and undeterminate; but a real entity. They looked beyond the grave, into the spiritual world, as into a better country, where life was continued in higher perfection, and where were spiritual ultimates, as perfectly adapted to spiritual sense as are the ultimates of creation to the senses of the natural body.
"EDWARD is to be in London next week," said Mrs. Ravensworth; "and I trust, Edith, that you will meet him with the frankness he is entitled to receive."
Edith Hamilton, who stood behind the chair of her aunt, did not make any answer.
Mrs. Ravensworth continued—"Edward's father was your father's own brother. A man of nobler spirit never moved on English soil; and I hear that Edward is the worthy son of a worthy sire."
"If he were as pure and perfect as an angel, aunt," replied Edith, "it would be all the same to me. I have never seen him, and cannot, therefore, meet him as one who has a right to claim my hand."
"Your father gave you away when you were a child, Edith; and Edward comes now to claim you by virtue of this betrothal."
"While I love the memory of my father, and honour him as a child should honour a parent," said Edith, with much seriousness, "I do not admit his right to give me away in marriage while I was yet a child. And, moreover, I do not think the man who would seek to consummate such a marriage contract worthy of any maiden's love. Only the heart that yields a free consent is worth having, and the man who would take any other is utterly unworthy of any woman's regard. By this rule I judge Edward to be unworthy, no matter what his father may have been."
"Then you mean," said Mrs. Ravensworth, "deliberately to violate the solemn contract made by your father with the father of Edward?"
"I cannot receive Edward as anything but a stranger," replied Edith. "It will not mend the error of my father for me to commit a still greater one."
"How commit a still greater one?" inquired Mrs. Ravensworth.
"Destroy the very foundation of a true marriage—freedom of choice and consent. There would be no freedom of choice on his part, and no privilege of consent on mine. Happiness could not follow such a union, and to enter into it would be doing a great wrong. No, aunt, I cannot receive Edward in any other way than as a stranger—for such he is."
"There is a clause in your father's will that you may have forgotten, Edith," said her aunt.
"That which makes me penniless if I do not marry Edward Hamden?"
"Yes."
"No—I have not forgotten it, aunt."
"And you mean to brave that consequence?"
"In a choice of evils we always take the least." Edith's voice trembled.
Mrs. Ravensworth did not reply for some moments. While she sat silent, the half-closed door near which Edith stood, and toward which her aunt's back was turned, softly opened, and a handsome youth, between whom and Edith glances of intelligence instantly passed, presented the startled maiden with a beautiful white rose, and then noiselessly retired.
It was nearly a minute before Mrs. Ravensworth resumed the light employment in which she was engaged, and as she did so, she said—
"Many a foolish young girl gets her head turned with those gay gallants at our fashionable watering-places, and imagines that she has won a heart when the object of her vain regard never felt the throb of a truly unselfish and noble impulse."
The crimson deepened on Edith's cheeks and brow, and as she lifted her eyes, she saw herself in a large mirror opposite, with her aunt's calm eyes steadily fixed upon her. To turn her face partly away, so that it could no longer be reflected from the mirror, was the work of an instant. In a few moments she said—
"Let young and foolish girls get their heads turned if they will.But I trust I am in no danger."
"I am not so sure of that. Those who think themselves most secure are generally in the greatest danger. Who is the youth with whom you danced last evening? I don't remember to have seen him here before."
"His name is Evelyn." There was a slight tremor in Edith's voice.
"How came you to know him?"
"I met him here last season."
"You did?"
"Yes, ma'am. And I danced with him last night. Was there any harm in that?" The maiden's voice had regained its firmness.
"I didn't say there was," returned Mrs. Ravensworth, who again relapsed into silence. Not long after, she said—"I think we will return to London on Thursday."
"So soon!" Edith spoke in a disappointed voice.
"Do you find it so very pleasant here?" said the aunt, a little ironically.
"I have not complained of its being dull, aunt," replied Edith. "But if you wish to return on Thursday, I will be ready to accompany you."
Soon after this, Edith Hamilton left her aunt's room, and went to one of the drawing-rooms of the hotel at which they were staying, where she sat down near a recess window that overlooked a beautiful promenade. She had been here only a few minutes, when she was joined by a handsome youth, to whom Edith said—
"How could you venture to the door of my aunt's parlour? I'm half afraid she detected your presence, for she said, immediately afterward, that we would return to London on the day after to-morrow."
"So soon? Well, I'll be there next week, and it will be strange if, with your consent, we don't meet often."
"Edward Hamden is expected in a few days," replied Edith, her voice slightly faltering.
Her companion looked at her searchingly for a few moments, and then said—
"You have never met him?"
"Never."
"But when you do meet him, the repugnance you now feel may instantly vanish."
A shadow passed over Edith's face, and she answered in a voice that showed the remark—the tone of which conveyed more than the words themselves—to have been felt as a question of her constancy.
"Can one whose heart is all unknown to me, one who must think of me with a feeling of dislike because of bonds and pledges, prove a nearer or a dearer friend than—"
Edith did not finish the sentence. But that was not needed. The glance of rebuking tenderness cast upon her companion expressed all that her lips had failed to utter.
"But you do not know me, Edith," said the young man.
"My heart says differently," was Edith's lowly spoken reply.
Evelyn pressed the maiden's hand, and looked into her face with an earnest, loving expression.
Mrs. Ravensworth, to whose care Edith had been consigned on the death of her father, had never been pleased with the unwise contract made by the parents of her niece and Edward Hamden. The latter had been for ten years in Paris and Italy, travelling and pursuing his studies. These being completed, in obedience to the will of a deceased parent, he was about returning to London to meet his future wife. No correspondence had taken place between the parties to this unnatural contract; and, from the time of Edward's letter, when he announced to Mrs. Ravensworth his proposed visit, it was plain that his feelings were as little interested in his future partner as were hers in him.
During the two or three days that Mrs. Ravensworth and her niece remained at the watering-place, Edith and young Evelyn met frequently; but, as far as possible, at times when they supposed the particular attention of the aunt would not be drawn toward them in such a manner as to penetrate their love secret. When, at length, they parted, it was with an understanding that they were to meet in London.
On returning to the city, the thoughts of Edith reverted more directly to the fact of Edward Hamden's approaching visit; and, in spite of all her efforts to remain undisturbed in her feelings, the near approach of this event agitated her. Mrs. Ravensworth frequently alluded to the subject, and earnestly pressed upon Edith the consideration of her duty to her parent, as well as the consequences that must follow her disregard of the contract which had been made. But the more she talked on this subject, the more firm was Edith in expressing her determination not to do violence to her feelings in a matter so vital to her happiness.
The day at length came upon which Edward Hamden was to arrive. Edith appeared, in the morning, with a disturbed air. It was plain to the closely observing eyes of her aunt, that she had not passed a night of refreshing sleep.
"I trust, my dear niece," she said, after they had retired from the breakfast table, where but little food had been taken, "that you will not exhibit toward Edward, on meeting him, any of the preconceived and unjust antipathy you entertain. Let our feelings, at least, remain uncommitted for or against him."
"Aunt Helen, it is useless to talk to me in this way," Edith replied, with more than her usual warmth. "The simple fact of an obligation to love puts a gulf between us. My heart turns from him as from an enemy. I will meet him with politeness; but it must be cold and formal. To ask of me more, is to ask what I cannot give. I only wish that he possessed the manliness I would have had if similarly situated. Were this so, I would now be free by his act, not my own."
Seeing that all she urged but made the feelings of Edith oppose themselves more strongly to the young man, Mrs. Ravensworth ceased to speak upon the subject, and the former was left to brood with a deeply disturbed heart over the approaching interview with one who had come to claim a hand that she resolutely determined not to yield.
About twelve o'clock, Mrs. Ravensworth came to Edith's room and announced the arrival of Edward Hamden. The maiden's face became pale, and her lips quivered.
"If I could but be spared an interview," she murmured. "But that is more than I can ask."
"How weak you are, Edith," replied her aunt, in a tone of reproof.
"I will join you in the drawing-room in half an hour," said Edith, speaking more calmly.
Mrs. Ravensworth retired, and left Edith again to her own thoughts. She sat for nearly the whole of the time she had mentioned. Then rising hurriedly, she made a few changes in her attire; after which she descended to the drawing-room with a step that was far from being firm.
So noiselessly did she enter the apartment where Hamden awaited her, that neither her aunt nor the young man perceived her presence for some moments, and she had time to examine his appearance, and to read the lineaments of his half-averted face. While she stood thus observing him, her countenance suddenly flushed, and she bent forward with a look of surprise and eagerness. At this moment the young man became aware that she had entered, and rising up quickly, advanced to meet her.
"Evelyn!" exclaimed Edith, striking her hands together, the moment he turned toward her.
"Edith! my own Edith!" returned the young man, as he grasped her hand, and ventured a warm kiss on her beautiful lips. "Not Evelyn, but Hamden. Our parents betrothed us while we were yet too young to give or withhold consent. Both, as we grew older, felt this pledge as a heart-sickening constraint. But we met as strangers, and I saw that you were all my soul could desire. I sought your regard and won it. No obligation but love now binds us."
The young man then turned to Mrs. Ravensworth, and said—
"You see, madam, that we are not strangers."
Instead of looking surprised, Mrs. Ravensworth smiled calmly, and answered—
"No—it would be singular if you were. Love-tokens don't generally pass, nor familiar meetings take place between strangers."
"Love-tokens, Aunt Helen?" fell from the lips of Edith, as she turned partly away from Hamden, and looked inquiringly at her relative.
"Yes, dear," returned Mrs. Ravensworth. "White roses, for instance.You saw your own blushing face in the mirror, did you not?"
"The mirror! Then you saw Edward present the rose?"
"And did you know me?" inquired the young man.
"One who knew your rather as well as I did could not fail to know the son. I penetrated your love secret as soon as it was known to yourselves."
"Aunt Helen!" exclaimed Edith, hiding her face on the neck of her kind relative, "how have I been deceived!"
"Happily, I trust, love," returned Mrs. Ravensworth, tenderly.
"Most happily! My heart swells with gladness almost to bursting," came murmuring from the lips of the joyful maiden.