died. It appeared as if Fate had set its seal upon the union it had so long forbidden, and had woven a dark thread even in the marriage bond. At least, it tore from two hearts, over which the cloud and the blast lay couched in a "grim repose," the last shelter, which, however frail and distant, seemed left to them upon the inhospitable earth! CHAPTER XXVIII. Live while ye may, yet happy pair: enjoy MILTON THE autumn and the winter passed away; Mordaunt's relation continued implacable. Algernon grieved for this, independent of worldly circumstances; for, though he had seldom seen that relation, yet he loved him for former kindness, - rather promised, to be sure, than yet shown, with the natural warmth of an affection which has but few objects. However, the old gentleman, - (a very short, very fat person, very short, and very fat people, when they are surly, are the devil and all; for the humors of their mind, like those of their body, have something corrupt and unpurgeable in them,) · wrote him one bluff, contemptuous letter, in a witty strain, for he was a bit of a humorist, disowned his connexion, and very shortly afterwards died, and left all his fortune to the very Mr. Vavasour who was at law with Mordaunt, and for whom he had always openly expressed the strongest personal dislike,—spite to one relation is a marvellous tie to another. Meanwhile the lawsuit went on less slowly than lawsuits usually do, and the final decision was very speedily to be given. We said the autumn and the winter were gone; and it was in one of those latter days in March, when like a hoyden girl subsiding into dawning womanhood, the rude weather mellows into a softer and tenderer month, that, by the side of a stream, overshadowed by many a brake and tree, from which the young blossoms sent "a message from the spring," sate two persons. "I know not, dearest Algernon," said one, who was a female, "if this is not almost the sweetest month in the year, because it is the month of hope." "Ay, Isabel; and they did it wrong who called it harsh, and dedicated it to Mars. I exult even in the fresh winds which hardier frames than mine shrink from, and I love feeling their wild breath fan my cheek as I ride against it. I remember," continued Algernon, musingly, "that on this very day three years ago, I was travelling through Germany, alone and on horseback, and I stood, not far from Ens, on the banks of the Danube; the waters of the river were disturbed and fierce, and the winds came loud and angry against my face, dashing the spray of the waves upon me, and filling my spirit with a buoyant and glad delight; and at that time I had been indulging old dreams of poetry, and had laid my philosophy aside; and in the inspiration of the moment, I lifted up my hand toward the quarter whence the winds came, and questioned them audibly of their birth-place, and their bourne; and, as the enthusiasm increased, I compared them to our human life, which a moment is, and then is not; and proceeding from folly to folly, I asked them, as if they were the weird interpreters of heaven, for a type and sign of my future lot." "And what said they?" inquired Isabel, smiling, yet smiling timidly. "They answered not," replied Mordaunt; " but a voice within me seemed to say, Look above!' and I raised my eyes, of Faith lied." but I did not see thee, love, so the Book "Nay, Algernon, what did you see?" asked Isabel, more earnestly than the question deserved. "I saw a thin cloud, alone amid many dense and dark ones scattered around; and as I gazed it seemed to take the likeness of a funeral procession, coffin, bearers, priest, all, -as clear in the cloud as I have seen them on the earth: and I shuddered as I saw; but the winds blew the vapor onward and it mingled with the broader masses of cloud; and then, Isabel, the sun shone forth for a moment, and I mistook, love, when I said you were not there, for that sun was you; but suddenly the winds ceased, and the rain came on fast and heavy: so my romance cooled, and my fever slacked, I thought on the inn at Ens, and the blessings of a wood fire, which is lighted in a moment, and I spurred on my horse accordingly. "It is very strange," said Isabel. "What, love?" whispered Algernon, kissing her cheek. "Nothing, dearest, nothing. See what a beautiful butterfly has settled on that blossom, just at your feet; it has brought you a message from Oberon, that you are not, on pain of his express displeasure, to wander out so late in these damp evenings. His majesty declares that you brush away all the dew from his own haunts, and that moreover you disturb his revels by your unholy presence. Be sure, therefore, Algernon, that you do not stir out after nightfall." Algernon smiled as he rose, "I think, Isabel, that it is rather a herald from Titania to you, begging you to go. to bed betimes, and leave the house to Puck and his fellows, instead of sitting up all night for a husband, who loves his starlit rambles and moth-worn volumes better than you. "Ay, but he does not love them better, Algernon, does he?" said Isabel, seriously; and Algernon laughed. At that instant, the deer, which lay waving their lordly antlers to and fro beneath the avenue which sloped upward from the stream to the house, rose hurriedly and in confusion, and stood gazing, with watchful eyes, upon a man advancing toward the pair. It was one of the servants with a letter. Isabel saw a faint change (which none else could have seen) in Mordaunt's countenance, as he recognised the writing and broke the seal. When he had read the letter, his eyes fell upon the ground, and then, with a slight start, he lifted them up, and gazed long and eagerly around. Wistfully did he drink, as it were, into his heart the beautiful and expanded scene which lay stretched on either side; the noble avenue which his forefathers had planted as a shelter to their sons, and which now, in its majestic growth and its waving boughs, seemed to say, "Lo! ye are repaid!" and the never silent and silver stream, by which his boyhood had sat for hours, lulled by its music, and inhaling the fragrance of the reed and wild flower that decoyed the bee to its glossy banks; and the deer, to whose melancholy belling he had listened so often in the gray twilight with a rapt and dreaming ear; and the green fern waving on the gentle hill, from whose shade his young feet had startled the hare and the infant fawn; and far and faintly gleaming through the thick trees, which clasped it as with a girdle, the old hall, so associated with vague hopes and musing dreams, and the dim legends of gone time, and the prejudiced, yet high inspiritings of ancestral pride; all seemed to sink within him, as he gazed, like the last looks of departing friends; and when Isabel, who had not dared to break a silence which partook so strongly of gloom, at length laid her hand upon his arm, and lifted her dark, deep, tender eyes to his, he said, as he drew her toward him, and a faint and sickly smile played upon his lips, and, "It is past, Isabel: henceforth we have no wealth but in each other. The cause has been decided, - and, — we are beggars! CHAPTER XXIX. We expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences, which would make a wise man tremble to think of. COWLEY. WE must suppose a lapse of four years, from the date of those events which concluded the last chapter; and, to recompense the reader, who, I know, has a little penchant for "high life," even in the last century, for having hitherto shown him human beings in a state of society not wholly artificial, I beg him to picture to himself a large room, brilliantly illuminated, and crowded "with the magnates of the land." Here (some in saltatory motion, some in sedentary rest) are dispersed various groups of young ladies and attendant swains, talking upon the subject of Lord Rochester's celebrated poem, viz.: "Nothing! and, lounging around the doors, meditating, probably, upon the same subject, stand those unhappy victims of dancing daughters, denominated "Papas." To them, unless our grandfathers differed widely from ourselves, a ball is not that consummation which my young lady readers may suppose it to be. For my part, of all felicity, to come to the present day, I, who am a quiet, melancholy, speculative person, and in such scenes, love to sit in an obscure corner, and mark the bright gleam of sunshine which flashes over the faces of these paternal sufferers, when the subject of "the next Ascot," or "T's motion," or my country farm," is suddenly started. How instantaneously their fancy transports them from the dull duties of their present situation; how gloatingly the middle-aged gentlemen dwell upon the merits of "Matilda," or the perfection of the game laws, or the singular improvement in turnips! But we return to our ball-room. The music has ceased, the dancers have broken up, and there is a general but gentle sweep towards the realm of refreshment. In the crowd, having just entered, there glided a young man of an air more distinguished and somewhat more joyous than the rest. "How do you do, Mr. Linden?" said a tall and (though somewhat passée) very handsome woman, blazing with diamonds; "are you just come ?" And here, by the way, I cannot resist pausing to observe, that a friend of mine, meditating a novel, submitted a part of the MS. to a friendly publisher. "Sir," said the bookseller, " your book is very clever, but it wants dialogue." "Dialogue?" cried my friend,—“you mistake,— it's all dialogue." 66 Ay, sir, but not what we call dialogue: we want a little conversation in fashionable life, —a little elegant chit-chat or so: and, as you must have seen so much of the beau monde, you could do it to the life: we must have something light, and witty, and entertaining." "Light, witty, and entertaining!" said our poor friend; "and how the deuse then is it to be like conversation in 'fashionable life?' When the very best conversation one can get is so insufferably dull, how do you think people will be amused by reading a copy of the very worst? " "They are amused, sir," said the publisher, "and works of this kind sell!” |