1 10 5 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/4bdd8ab286fd377ba95741eeba328700.pdf?Expires=1792627200&Signature=jta631KYlIB5SFg9OCRIWkQgTFbnDEhKJsYJvEunidMpVI3JwGvJAgCN1WoGqRlb7yTdOl3xM0iA7ER8ZW4Opsc1OfMhqtxwU6ZMpHoBAEzd6d8u97DSBEZGO9ggY9UzcybgBYgsS4xRutal6b27btRSeL2yWuAd3S9spD5V7bFHD0G9wcjhsXeZvqEupiOrW8nyN603v6grOIrTxoE58WGDbozRmnQXYzU5IfkYTZe3N7WqLotYPWkM1Z5rbs9ilOWaKp3DkVUcJnz6oCthQYxCzY-r7YI0cgJ9z9vXFHzwWfiRowKMpqBVIn5kuPshNZoWm6XQVkIWoGYXbtBGug__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 73c5198ed3034f75a7054b05c56ef047 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1827 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE By the Author of ‘Redwood’ ------------ ‘La Nature fait le mérite, La Fortune le met en preuve.’ ------------ [118] Many fortunate travellers on the western border of Massachusetts, and not many miles from the Hudson, have been refreshed at the inn of Reliance Reynolds. Reliance, as his name indicates, was born in the good old times. We are aware that the enthusiasts about the ‘progress of the age,’ deny this golden period any but a retrospective existence, and maintain that, retrace the steps of the human family far as you will, it is like the age of chivalry, always a little behind you. But we adhere to the popular phraseology and call those, ‘good old times,’ when the Puritanical nomenclature prevailed; when such modest graces as faith and temperance had not been expelled from our taverns, kitchens, and workshops, by the heroes and heroines of romance – the Orlandos and Lorenzos, Rosamonds and Anna Matildas. Reliance belonged to the ‘good old times,’ too, in the more essential matter of downright honesty, simplicity, and respectful courtesy. His was a rare character in New England – a passive spirit, content to fill and fit the niche nature had prepared for him. It was not very high, [119] but he never aspired above it; nor very low, but he never sank below it. He was the marvel of his neighbours, for he could never be persuaded into an enterprise or speculation. He never bought a water privilege, nor an oar bed; subscribed to a county bank, or ‘moved to the West;’ or in any mode indicated that principle in man, which, in its humble operations, its restlessness, in its lofty aspirations, a longing after immortality. Reliance’s desires never passed the bounds of his premises, and were satisfied, even within them, with a very moderate share of power. He stood at his door, his hat in his hand, to receive his guests; he strictly performed the promise of his sign, and gave ‘good entertainment to man and horse;’ he rendered a moderate bill and received his dues with a complacent smile, in which gratitude was properly tempered with a just sense of his own rights. In short, as must be already quite manifest, Reliance, though a pattern landlord, is a very poor subject for a storyteller; his qualities, like the color in a ray of light, all bending and forming one hue, and his life, presenting the same monotonous harmony. We should not have forced him from his happy obscurity into the small degree of notoriety he may incur on our humble page, but for his being the adjunct of his wife, an important personage in our narrative. Mrs Reynolds, too, like her husband, performed exactly the duties of her station. She never perhaps read a line of poetry, save such as might lurk in the ‘Poet’s Corner’ of a village paper, but her whole life was an illustration of the oldfashioned couplet – ‘Honor and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honor lies.’ She never was presidentess of a ‘society for ameliorating the conditions of the Jews,’ or secretary or treasurer [120] of any of those beneficent associations that rescue the latent talents of women from obscurity and mettrent en scéne gems and flowers that might otherwise shine and exhale unnoticed and unknown; but though humble was her name and destiny, her memory is dear to the wayfaring. Quiet, order, and neatness, reigned at her bed and board. No pirates harbored in her bedsteads, no bad luck, that evil genius of housewives, curdled her cream, spoiled her butter or her bread, but her table was spread with such simple, wholesome fare as might have lit a smile on the wan visage of an old dispeptic; and this we take to be the greatest achievement of the gastronomic art. With the duties of life so peacefully and so well performed, our good hostess ought, according to all the rules of happiness, to have been happy; but it is our melancholy duty to confess she was not, and to explain the cause. She had been married many years without having any children; that blessed possession that in transmitting, the parents’ existence, seems to extend its bounds, and to render even here, the mortal immortal. In addition to the feeling, common to all women, who naturally crave the sweetest objects for their tenderest and strongest affections, Mrs Reynolds lamented her childless state with a bitterness of repining approaching to that of the Hebrew wives. With everything else in her possession that could inspire contentment, her mind was fixed on this one desired good, and, like Hannah of old, she was still a ‘woman of a sorrowful spirit.’ She had endeavoured to solace herself with the children of her kindred, and several, from time to time, had been adopted into her family; but some proved disagreeable, and others homesick, and there was always a paramount duty or affection that interfered with her’s, till finally her [121] almost extinguished hopes were gratified, and Providence gave her a child worthy all her care and love.* In the autumn of 1777, two travellers arrived just at nightfall at Reynold’s inn. Its aspect was inviting; situated in the heart of a fertile valley that had lately been refreshed by the early rains of autumn, and in its bright garb resembling a mature beauty that had happily harmonized some youthful tints with her soberer graces. A sprightly, winding stream gave life and music to the meadows. On every side the landscape was undulating and fertile, but not then as extensively cultivated as now, when, to the Tauconnuc on the south, and the lofty blue outline of the Catskills on the west, the eye ranges over a rich and enjoyed country. Beside the accidental charm of a pretty landscape, the inn had advantages peculiar to itself. Instead of being placed on the roadside, as most of our taverns are – for what reason we know not, unless a cloud of travellers’ dust be typical of a shower of gold to the vision of mine host – Reynold’s inn was separated from the highway by a court yard, shaded by two wide spreading elms, and enlivened with a profusion of autumnal flowers, marigolds, cockscombs, and china asters. There was nothing that indicated any claims to particular civility in the appearance of our travellers. They were well looking and respectably appareled; and, accordingly, having announced their determination to re- [122] main for the night, they were shown to an inner room, the parlour, par excellence, where Mrs Reynolds appeared, and having opened a door which admitted the balmy air and a view of the western sky, just then brightened by the tints of the setting sun, she received their orders for their supper, and retired without one of those remarks or inquiries by which it is usual, on such occasions to give vent to curiosity. Nothing passed between our travellers in the dull interval that elapsed before their meal was ready, to give to our readers the least clue to their origin or destiny. One of them lulled himself into a doze in the rocking chair, while the other, younger and more active and vivacious, amused himself out of doors, plucking flowers, enraging an old petulant cock turkey, and mocking the scolding of some Guinea hens, the Xantippes of the feathered race. The interval was not long. The door opened and the tea table was brought in, already spread (a mode we wish others would adopt from our pattern landlady), and spread in a manner to characterize our bountiful country. What a contrast does the evening meal of our humblest inn present to the leanness of an English tea table! A cornucopia would have been the appropriate symbol for Mrs Reynolds’s table. There were beef steaks, and ham and eggs; hot cakes and toast; bread and gingerbread; all the indigenous cakes, such as crullers and nutcakes, &c.; honey, sweetmeats, apple sauce, cheese, pickles, and an afterpiece of pies. Kind reader do not condemn our bill of fare as impertinent and vulgar. We put it down to show the sacred political economists, that, with us, instead of the population pressing on the means of subsistence, the means of subsistence presses on the population. [123] Our travellers fell to their repast with appetites whetted by a long fast and day’s ride. Not a word was spoken, till a little girl, who was sitting on the doorstep caressing a tame pigeon, perceiving that one of the guests had garnished his buttonhole with a bunch of marigolds, plucked a rose from a monthly rose bush, trained over a trellis at the door, and laid it beside his plate. He seemed struck with the modest offering, and, turning with a look of gratitude to the child, he patted her on her head, and exclaimed instinctively, ‘Merci, merci, ma petite!’ and then correcting himself, he said, in very imperfect English, ‘I thank you, my little girl.’ The child’s attention was fixed by the first word he uttered, and as he addressed his companion in French, her countenance indicated more emotion than would naturally have been excited by the simple circumstance of hearing, for the first time, a foreign language. ‘Qu’elle est belle, cette petite,’ he continued, turning to his companion; ‘c’est la beauté de mon pays – voilá, brunette, et les yeux, si grands, si noirs, et la tournure aussi – quelle grâce, quelle vivacité! Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur, c’est tout-á-fait Françoise.’ As he proceeded the child advanced nearer to him. She shook back the rich, dark curls that shaded her face, bent her head forward, half parted her bright lips, and listened with the uncertain and eager expression of one who is catching a half remembered tune, the key to a thousand awakening recollections. It was evident that she did not comprehend the purport of the words, and that it was the sound alone to which her delighted ear was stretched. A smile played about her lips, and tears gathered in her eyes, and there seemed to be a contrariety of emotions, confounding even to herself; but that which finally prevailed was indicated by her throwing her apron over [124] her head, and retreating to the doorstep, where she sat down, and for some moments, vainly attempted to stifle her sobs. She had just become tranquil, when Mrs Reynolds entered. The elder traveller said, in an interrogating tone, ‘That is your child, ma’am?’ ‘I call her mine,’ was the brief and not very satisfactory reply. ‘She resembles neither you nor your husband,’ resumed the traveller. ‘No; she does not favor us.’ ‘I fancied she had a French look.’ ‘I can’t say as to that,’ replied the landlady; ‘I never saw any French people.’ ‘My friend here is a Frenchman,’ pursued the traveller, ‘and the little girl listened to him so intently, that I thought it possible she might understand him.’ ‘No, I guess she did not sense him,’ replied Mrs Reynolds, with an air of indifference; and the turning hastily to the child, ‘Mary,’ she said, ‘there is more company; go and see if our father does not want you.’ She went and did not return. Mrs Reynolds herself removed the table. The elder gentleman sat down to write a letter; while the Frenchman walked to and fro, opened the doors, and peeped in every direction to get a glimpse of the little girl, who seemed to have taken complete possession of his imagination. Once, as she ran through the passage, he called to her, ‘Doucement! doucement! mon petit ange’ – she stopped as if she were glued to the floor. ‘How call you your name, my dear?’ ‘Mary Reynolds, sir.’ ‘Then Madame there, Mistress Reynolds, is your maman?’ ‘She is – [125] ‘Mary, what are you staying for? Here – this instant!’ screamed Mrs Reynolds from the kitchen door, in a tone that admitted no delay, and the child ran off without finishing her sentence. ‘C’est bien singulier!’ muttered the Frenchman. ‘What do you find so singular, Jaubert?’ asked his companion, who had just finished his letter, and thrown down his pen. ‘Oh! it is nothing – perhaps – but – ’ ‘“But” what, my friend?’ ‘Why, there seems to me some mystery about this child; something in her manner, I know not what, that stirs up strange thoughts and hopes in my mind. She is not one of the pale, blond beauties of your climate.’ ‘Ah! my good friend, we have all sorts of beauties in our clime. All nations, you know, have sent us their contributions. The blue eye and fair skin, the Saxon traits, certainly prevail in our Eastern States; but you know we border on New York, the asylum of the dark eyed Huguenots, and it is not impossible that to this child may have been transmitted the peculiarities of some French ancestor. Nothing is more common than a resemblance between a descendant and a far off progenitor.’ ‘Ah! it is not only the French, the Norman aspect, the – do not ridicule me – the Angely traits that attract me; but you yourself noticed how she listened to my language, and then this Mistress Reynolds does not say she is her child, but only she calls her so.’ ‘Pshaw! Is that all? It is the way of my country people, Jaubert; their indirectness is proverbial. If one of them were to say “yes” or “no,” you might suspect some deep mystery. I confess I was at first startled with the little girl’s emotion, but I soon perceived it was nothing but shame and embarrassment at [126] the curiosity she had betrayed. I see how it is Jaubert; fruitless and hopeless as is our search, you cannot bear to relinquish it, and are looking for some coup de théâtre – some sudden transition from disappointment to success.’ We have put into plain English a conversation that was supported in French, and was now broken off by the approach of Mrs Reynolds, who came to tell the travellers their bedrooms were ready. By the light of the candle she brought, discovered Mary, concealed in a corner of the passage close to the door, where, in breathless stillness, she had been listening. ‘You here, Mary!’ exclaimed the good woman; ‘I thought you had been in bed this half hour. You will make me angry with you, Mary, if you do not mind me better that this,’ she added in an under tone, and the child stole away, but without looking either very penitent or very fearful; and in truth she had cause for neither penitence nor fear, for she had only gratified an innocent and almost irrepressible inclination, and as to Dame Reynolds’s anger, it was never formidable. The travellers retired to their respective apartments, and while the landlady lingered to adjust her parlour, the letter that had been left on the table caught her eye. Nothing could be more natural than for her to look at the superscription. Painfully she spelt out the first line. ‘A Monsieur, Monsieur’ – but when she came to the next, her eye was rivetted, ‘St Jean Angely de Crève-Coeur.’ After gazing on it till she had made assurance doubly sure, she was hastening to her husband to participate the discovery with him, when, apparently changing her intentions, she retreated, bolted the door, and returned to the examination of the letter. It was unsealed. Reluctant to open it, she compromised with her conscience, and peeped in at both ends, but the writing was not perceptible, and her interest overcoming [127] her scruples, she unfolded the letter. Alas! it was in French. In vain her eye ran over the manuscript to catch some words that might serve as clues to the rest. There was nothing in all three pages she could comprehend, but ‘arrivé á New York’ – ‘la rivière d’Hudson’ – ‘le manoir de Livingston.’ She was refolding the letter, when the following postscript, inadvertently written in English, caught her eye; ‘As we have no encouragement to proceed farther in our search, and Jean and Avenel are all impatience, Jaubert will embark in the Neptune, which is to sail on the first.’ A gleam of pleasure shot across Mrs Reynolds’s face, but it soon darkened again with anxiety and perplexity. ‘Why did I open the letter?’ she asked herself. ‘Why did I look at it at all? But nobody will ever know that I have seen it unless I tell it myself; and why should I tell?’ A burst of tears concluded this mental interrogation, and proved that, however earnestly her heart might plead before the tribunal of conscience, yet the stern decision of that unerring judge was heard. Self-interest has a hard task when it would mystify the path of one who habitually walks by the clear light of truth straight onward in the path of duty. It may seem unnatural to the inexperienced, that Mrs Reynolds did not communicate her embarrassment and irresolution, from whatever cause they proceeded, to her husband; but she knew well what would be the result of a consultation; for he, good man, never viewed a subject but from one position, and we are all slow to ask advice that we foresee will be counter to our wishes. Mrs Reynolds, so far then from appealing to the constituted authority of her household, locked her discovery within her own bosom, and to avoid all suspicion and inquiry, she composed herself as soon as possible, and [128] retired to her bed, but not to sleep; and at peep of dawn, she was up and prepared to obtain all the satisfaction that indirect interrogation could procure from the travellers, and her mental resolution, invigorated by a night’s solitary reflection, was to ‘act up to her light.’ They had ordered breakfast at a very early hour, and she took care to be the only person in attendance on them. When they were seated at table, she placed herself in a rocking chair behind them, a position that happily reconciles the necessity of service with the dignity of independence, and began her meditated approaches, by saying to her own countryman, ‘I believe you left a letter here last night, sir; I laid it in the cupboard for fear of accidents.’ ‘Thank you, ma’am; I ought to have been more careful. It was a letter of some consequence.’ ‘Indeed! Well, I was thinking it might be.’ ‘Ah! what made you think so?’ Now we must premise, that neither of the parties speaking, knew anything of that sensitiveness that starts from a question as if an attack were made on private property; but they possessed, in common, the good-natured communicativeness that is said to characterize the New England people, who, in their colloquial traffic, as in other barter, hold exchange to be no robbery. Most women are born diplomatists, and Mrs Reynolds took care to reply to the last interrogatory so carefully as not to commit herself. ‘It stands to reason,’ she said, ‘a letter that is to go all the way over the wide sea to the old countries, should be of consequence.’ ‘Yes – it is a long voyage.’ ‘You have taken it yourself, perhaps, sir?’ ‘I have. I went out an officer on board one of our cruisers, and was wrecked on the coast of France.’ [129] ‘Of France! Well, we are hand and glove with the French now; but I tell my husband it seems to me like joining with our enemies against those of our own household.’ ‘Ah! Mrs Reynolds, “friends are sometimes better than kindred.” I am sure my own father’s son could not have been kinder to me than was Monsieur Angely de Crève-Coeur – hey, Jaubert?’ ‘Ah! vraiment, Monsieur! c’est un bien brave homme, Monsieur St Jean Angely.’ ‘Angely!’ said Mrs Reynolds, as if recalling some faded recollection, ‘Angely – I think I have heard that name before.’ ‘It may be. The gentleman I speak of resided some time in this country.’ ‘But it can’t be the same,’ replied Mrs Reynolds; ‘for the person I speak of lived over in Livingston’s manner; and kind to strangers he could not be, for he deserted his own flesh and blood, and went off early in the war.’ ‘It may be the same for all that, and must be. As to deserting his children, “thereby hangs a tale;” but it is a long one.’ ‘Well, sir, if you have anything to say in his favor, I am bold to say I think you ought to speak it; especially as the gentleman seems to have stood your friend in a cloudy day. The story certainly went sadly against him here.’ ‘I have not the slightest objection, ma’am, to telling the story, if you have the patience to hear it; especially as I see I must wait till Jaubert has finished two more of your nice fresh eggs – “eggs of an hour,” Mrs Reynolds.’ ‘We always calculate to have fresh eggs, sir. But what was you going to say of Mr Angely?’ she added, [130] betraying in the tremulous tones of her voice, some emotion more heart stirring than curiosity. Jaubert turned a glance of inquiry on her that was unanswered by the sudden rush of blood to her cheeks; but the narrator proceeded without noticing anything extraordinary. ‘It was my good, or ill luck,’ he said, – ‘and it is the only in the long run we can tell whether luck be good or ill – but it was my luck to be shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy, and good luck it certainly was, Jaubert, in my distress, to make such a port as the Château de Crève-Coeur – the castle, or as we should call should call it here, Mrs Reynolds, the estate of the Angely’s. A fine family they are. You may think what a pleasure it was to me to find a gentleman acquainted with my country, and speaking my language as did Mr St Jean Angely. He was kind and affable to me, and always doing something for my pleasure, but I could see he had a heaviness at his heart – that he was often talking of one thing and thinking of another – nothing like so gay as the old gentleman, his father; who was like a fall flower – one of your marigolds, Mrs Reynolds, spreading itself open to every ray of sunshine, as if there were no frosts and winter and death at hand. I felt a pity for the young man. With everything that heart could desire, and without a heart to enjoy, he seemed to me like a sick man seated at a feast of which he could not taste. The day before I was to have come away, he took me aside, and, after saying that I had won his entire confidence, he disclosed to me the following particulars: – ‘He entered the French army early in life, and while yet a hotblooded, inconsiderate youth, he killed a brother officer in a duel, and was obliged to fly to his country. He took refuge in Lisbon. Judgment, I may say mercy, too – in the dealings of Providence, Mrs Reynolds, one is always close on the track of the other – followed [131] him thither. Mr Angely found employment in a mercantile house, and was standing writing at his desk at the moment of the terrible earthquake that laid Lisbon in ruins. The timbers of the house in which he was, were pitched in such a manner as to form a sort of arch over his head, on which the falling roof was sustained, and thus he was, as it were, miraculously delivered from danger. From Lisbon he came to this country. “Mechanics,” says a Spanish proverb, “make the best pilgrims,” but, I am sure, not better than Frenchmen; for cast them where you will, they will get an honest living. Mr Angely came up into Livingston’s Manor, and there he took a fancy to a pretty Yankee girl, the only child of a widow, and married her. He earned a subsistence for his family by surveying. The country was new, and skillful surveyors scarce. After a few years his wife died and left him three children.’ ‘Three!’ repeated Mrs Reynolds, involuntarily sighing. ‘Yes, poor things! there were three of them; too many to be left in these hard times fatherless and motherless.’ ‘Ah sir! and what must we think of the father that could forsake his little children at such a time?’ ‘Think no evil, my friend; for Mr Angely did not deserve it. He was employed by Mrs Livingston, early in the war, to go down the river to survey some land near New York. There he was taken by the British as a spy, and, in spite of his remonstrances, sent to England. This was before the French had taken part with us, and he obtained leave to go to France, on giving his parole that he would not return to America. He received a parent’s welcome, and affair of the duel being nearly forgotten, a pardon was obtained for him without difficulty. If he could have forgotten his children, he would have been as happy as man could [132] be; but his anxiety for them preyed on his health and spirits; and when I arrived at the château, his friends imagined he was sinking under some unknown disease. He had not communicated to his father the fact of his marriage and the existence of his children when I arrived there. The old gentleman, kind hearted and reasonable in the main, has all the prejudices of the nobility in the old countries about birth, and his son was afraid to confess, that he had smuggled an ignoble little Yankee into the ancient family of the Crève-Coeurs. So good an opportunity as I afforded of communicating with his children, could not be passed by, and he at length summoned courage to tell the truth to his father. At first he was wroth enough, and stormed and vapored; but after a little while his kind nature got the mastery of the blood of the Crève-Coeurs, and he consented to the children being sent for – the boys, at least.’ ‘Only the boys!’ exclaimed Mrs Reynolds, feeling relieved from an insupportable weight. ‘Only the boys. But the old gentleman might have as well saved all his credit and sent for the girl too; but that was not his pleasure. Well, Monsieur Jaubert here, a relative and particular friend of the family, came out with me to take charge of the children. We found the boys without much difficulty; two noble little fellows that a king might be proud of. After waiting for some time for Monsieur Angely’s return, the overseers of the poor, believing he had abandoned his children, bound them out. The little girl had been removed to some distance from her brothers. We found the place where she had been, but not the family. The husband and wife had quarrelled, and separated, and disappeared; and all the information we could obtain, was a vague story such a child had lived there and had run away; and as nobody in these troublesome times [133] can do no more than look after their own children, this poor thing was left to her fate. Hopeless as it appears, Jaubert is not willing to give up our search. He fancies every brunette he sees is the lost Marie, and only last evening he would have persuaded me, that your black eyed little girl might be this stray scion of the Crève-Cœurs.’ Mrs Reynolds rose and left the room, and did not return till she was sufficiently composed to ask, in an assured voice, ‘What was their object in looking for the girl, if a father did not mean to reclaim her?’ ‘He did mean to reclaim and provide for her,’ replied the traveller, ‘and for that purpose I have ample funds in my hands. He only conceded to the old gentleman her remaining in the country for the present.’ ‘Had you any direction as to how you were to dispose of her?’ ‘Yes, positive orders to convey her to Boston, and place her under the guardianship of a French lady who resides there, a friend of Mr Angely—one Madame Adelon.’ ‘But could you find no trace of the child?’ ‘Not the slightest.’ ‘And you have determined to make no further inquiry?’ ‘Why should we? Inquiry is useless, and would but delay to a tempestuous season, Jaubert’s return with the boys.’ Our readers are doubtless sufficiently aware, that the adopted child of our good landlady was the missing child of Monsieur Angely. A few words will be necessary to explain how she became possessed of her. Mrs Reynolds and her husband were, two years prior to this period, approaching the close of a winter day’s ride. Their sleigh was gliding noiselessly through a dry, new fallen snow, when their attention was arrested by [134] the moanings of a child. To stop the horses and search the sufferer from whom the sounds proceeded, was the instinctive impulse of benevolence. They had not gone many yards from the road, when, nestled close to a clump of laurels, they found a little girl, her hands and feet frozen, and nearly insensible. They immediately carried her to the sleigh, and put their horses to their utmost speed; but, as they were none of the fleetest, and the nearest habitation was at several miles distance, a considerable time elapsed before they could obtain the means of restoration, and in consequence of this delay, and of severe previous suffering, it was many weeks before the child recovered. In the mean time, though Mrs Reynold’s residence was not more than thirty miles from the place where she had found the child, no inquiry was made for her. The account she gave of herself sufficiently explained this neglect. She said she had no mother; that her father had left home just after the snows melted and the birds came back; that he had left her and her two brothers, Jean and Avenel, with a woman to take care of them; that when this woman had waited a great while for their father, she grew tired and was cross to them, and then she too went away, and left them quite alone. Then she said they had nothing to eat, and she supposed they were the poor, for the men they called the overseers of the poor took her and her brothers, and separated them, and she was carried a great way off to a woman who was very cross to her, and cross to her own children, and her husband was cross too. One night he came home in a great passion, and he began to whip his wife with his big whip, and his wife beat him with the hot shovel, and she, the child, was scared, ran out of the house, and far up into a wood, to get beyond their cries; and when she would have [135] returned, the snow was falling, and she could not find the path, and she had wandered about till she was so cold and tired she could go no farther. Her name, she said, was Angely, and she believed her father was called a Frenchman. The only parental relic she possessed confirmed this statement. It was a locket which she wore suspended at her neck. It contained a lock of hair; an armorial crest was engraven on the back, and under it was inscribed, ‘St Jean Angely de Crève-Cœur.’ This simple story established the conviction, that had been gaining strength in Mrs Reynold’s mind, with every day’s attendance on the interesting child, that they had been brought together by the special providence of God; and most faithfully did she discharge the maternal duties that she believed had been this miraculously imposed on her. The little girl was on her part happy and delighted, and though she sometimes bitterly lamented her father and brothers, yet, as the impressions of childhood are slight, the recollection of them was almost effaced when the mysterious energies of memory were awakened by the sound of a language that seemed to have been utterly forgotten. These events occurred during the revolutionary war, a period of disaster and distress, when a very diligent search for a friendless child was not likely to be made, and as no inquiry ever reached Mrs Reynold’s ear, and as she deemed the foundling an orphan, she had not hesitated to appropriate her. Her name was changed from Marie Angely to Marie Reynolds; and the good woman seemed as secure and happy as any mother, save when she was reminded of the imperfection of her title by the too curious inquiries of the travellers. On these occasions, she was apt to betray a little irritability, and to veil the truth with a slight evasion, as in the instance which excited the suspicion of our sagacious Frenchman. [136] Her condition was now a pitiable one. She had the tenderness, but not the rights of a parent. She was habitually pure and upright; but now she was strongly swayed by her affections. She would have persuaded herself, that the abandonment in which she first found the child, invested her with a paramount claim; but the stranger’s story had proved that her father had not voluntarily abandoned her. Then she thought, ‘It cannot be for Mary’s interest, that I should give her up;’ and her mind took a rapid survey of the growing property of which the child was the heir apparent. But she would ask herself, ‘What do I know of the fortune of her father?’ ‘But surely he cannot, he cannot love her as I do.’ ‘Ah I do not know the feeling of a real parent;’ and a burst of tears expressed the sadness of this conviction, and obliged her abruptly to withdraw from the presence of her guests, and leave them amazed at her sudden and violent emotion, while she retired to her own apartment, to implore guidance and support from Heaven. Those who honestly ask for light to point out a way which they would fain to see, and for power to endure a burden from which their nature shrinks, are often themselves astonished at the illumination vouchsafed, and the strength imparted. This was the experience of Mrs Reynolds. She rose from her devotions with the conviction, that but one course remained to her, and with a degree of tranquility, hastened to Mary’s bedroom. The child was just risen and dressed. Without any explanation to her—she was at the moment incapable of making any—she tied her locket, her sole credential, around her neck, led her down stairs, and placing her hand in Jaubert’s, she said, ‘You have found the child!’ and then retreated to hide the emotion she could not subdue. [137] It was fortunate for her, that she was not compelled to witness the gay demonstration of Jaubert’s ecstasies. the graver, but not more equivocal manifestations of his companion’s satisfaction, and the amazement and curiosity of the little girl, who was listening to the explanation of the strangers, with childlike animation, without adverting to her approaching separation from her who had given her the affection and cares of a parent. But when she came to be severed from this kind friend, she made amends for her thoughtlessness. She clung to her as if nature had knit the bonds that united them, and, amid her cries and sobs, she promised always to remember and love her as a mother. Many have made such promises. Marie Angely kept them. ---------- Ten years subsequent to the events above narrated, a letter, of which the following is a translation, was addressed by a foreigner in a high official station in this country, to his friend. ‘DEAR BERVILLE— ‘It is, I believe, or should be, a maxim of the true church, that confession of a sin is the first step towards its expiation. ‘Let me, then, invest you with a priest’s cassock, and relieve my conscience by the relation of an odd episode in my history. When I parted from you, I was going with my friend, Robert Ellison, to visit his father, who has a beautiful place on the banks of the Hudson. Young Ellison, as you know, is a thorough republican, and does not conceal his contempt for those of his compatriots, who, professing the same principles, are really aristocrats in their prejudices and manners; who, having parted, and as they pretend voluntarily, with the substances, still grasp at the shadow. To test these false pretensions, and to mortify an absurd pride, he joyfully acquiesced in a proposition I made to him, to lay aside the pomp and circumstances of my official character, and to be presented to his friends without any of the accidental advantages with which fortune has invested me. You will inquire my motive, for you will not suspect me of the absurdity of crusading against the follies of society, the most hopeless of all crusades. No, as our own Moliére says, C’est une folie, à nulle autre seconde, De vouloir se méler de corriger le monde. My motives were then, in the first place, a love of ease, of dishabille; an impatience of the irksomeness of having the dignity of a nation to sustain; and, in the second place, I wished to ascertain how much of the favor lavished on me I should place to the account of the ambassador, and how much I might reserve to my own proper self. ‘You may call this latent vanity. I will not quarrel with you. I will not pretend that I was moved solely by a love of truth, by a pure desire to find out the realities of things; but alas! my dear Berville, if we were to abstract from the web of our motives, every thread tinged with self, would not warp and woof too disappear? Let, then, my motive be what it might, you will allow the experiment required courage. ‘We had some difficulty in settling the precise point at which to gage my pretensions. “Do not claim a drop of noble blood,” said my friend, “it would defeat your purpose. There is something cabalistic in that word ‘noble.’ The young ladies at ____ would at once invest you with the attributes of romance; and the old dowagers would persecute you with histories of their titled ances- [139] tors, and anecdotes of lords and ladies that figured in the drawing rooms of the colony. Neither must you be a plain gentleman of the fortune, though that may seem to you a sufficient descent from your high station; but fortune has everywhere her shrines and her devotees. You must be the artificer of your own fortune, a talented young man who has no rank or fortune to be spoken of. What say you to the profession of a painter, a portrait painter, since that is the only branch of the art that gets a man bread in this country.” I acceded without shrinking, secretly flattering myself that my friend either underrated my intrinsic merit, or did the world rank injustice. ‘When we arrived we found a large party of the neighbouring gentry assembled to dine at _____. I was received with great courtesy by the elder Ellison, and with kindness by Madame, on the ground, simply, of being an acquaintance of their son’s. My friend took care to prevent any elation from my reception by saying to me in a low voice, “My father, God bless him, has good sense, good feeling, and experience, and he well knows that the value of gold does not depend on the circulation it has obtained;” and truly if he had known that I bore the impress of the king’s countenance he could not have received me more graciously. There might have been more formality in his reception of the public functionary, but there could not have been more genuine hospitality. He presented me to his guests, and here I was first reminded of my disguise. Instead of the sensation I have been accustomed to see manifested in the lighting up of the face, in the deferential bow, or the blush of modesty, no emotion was visible. No eye rested on me, not a link of conversation was broken, and I was suffered, after rather an awkward passage through the ceremony, to retire to my seat, where I remained, observing, but not [140] observed, till dinner was announced. From the habit of precedence, I was advancing to lead Madame to the dining room, when I encountered my friend’s glance, and shrunk back in time to avoid what must have appeared an unpardonable impertinence. I now fell into my modest station in the rear, and offered my arm to an awkward, bashful girl, who I am sure had two left hands by the manner in which she received my courtesy, and who did not honor me so far as to look up to see who it was that had saved her from the mortifying dilemma of leaving the drawingroom alone. I helped my companion from the dish nearest to me, and waited myself till Madame, reminded by her son of her oversight, sent me a plate of soup. I was swallowing this, unmolested by any conversation addressed to me, when my friend’s father said to him, “When have you seen the French ambassador, Robert? I hoped you would have persuaded him to pay us a visit.” ‘“Perhaps he may,” replied my friend, “before the summer is over. He is at present out of the city on some excursion.” ‘“A prodigious favorite is your son with the French ambassador, as I hear from all quarters,” said a gentleman who sat next Mr Ellison. ‘“Ah! is that so, Robert? Are you intimate with Monsieur—?” ‘“He does me the honor to permit my society, sir.” Every mouth was now opened in praise of the ambassador. None of the company had seen him, but all had heard of his abilities, the charms of his conversation, his urbanity, his savoir plaire. “You must be proud of your countryman, M. Dufau?” (this was my assumed name) said my host, with that courtesy that finds a word for the humblest guest. [141] ‘I said it was certainly gratifying to my national feeling to find him approved in America, but that, perhaps it was not his merit alone that obtained him such distinguished favor; that I had understood he was a great admirer of this country, and though I should do him injustice to say “he praised, only to be praised,” yet I believed there was always a pretty accurately measured exchange in this traffic. ‘“The gentleman is right,” said an old Englishman who sat opposite to me, and who had not before vouchsafed to manifest a consciousness of my existence; “this is all French palaver in Monsieur —. He cannot be such a warm admirer of this country. The man knows better; he has been in England.” ‘I was too well acquainted with English manners to be startled by any manifestation of that conviction which an Englishman demonstrates in every part of the world, that his nation has no equal; but I instinctively defended my countryman, and eager for an opportunity to test the colloquial powers so much admired in the ambassador, I entered the lists with my English opponent, and thus stimulated, I was certainly far more eloquent than I ever had been before, on the history, the present condition, and the prospects of this country. But alas for the vanity of M. Dufau! my host, it is true, gave me all the attention he could spare from the courtesies of the table, but save his ear, I gained none but that half accorded by my contemptuous, testy, and impatient antagonist, who after barking out a few sentences at me, relapsed into a moody silence. ‘I next addressed some trifling gallantries to my bashful neighbour, fancying that she who was neglected by everybody else, would know how to appreciate my attentions; but her eyes were riveted to a fashionable beauty at the upper extremity of the table, and a half a [142] dozen “no, sirs” and “yes, sirs,” misplaced, were all the return I could obtain from her. To remain silent and passive, you know, to me, was impossible; so I next made an essay on a vinegar faced dame on my left, far in the wane of life. “If my civilities have been lead elsewhere, in this market,” thought I, “they will at least prove silver or gold.” But here I received my cruelest rebuff; for the lady, after apparently listening to me, said, “I do not understand you.” I raised my voice, but she, determining to shelter the infirmity of age at my expense, replied, “I am not so deaf, sir, but really you speak such broken English, that I cannot understand you.” This was too much, and I might have betrayed my vexation, if an intelligent and laughing glance from my friend had not restored my good humor, and a second reflection, suggesting that it was far more important to the old woman’s happiness that her vanity should remain unimpaired, than it could be to me to have mine reduced, even to fragments, I humbly begged her pardon, and relapsed into a contented silence, solacing myself with the thought, that our encounter was but an illustration of that of the china earthen jars. But I will not weary you with detailing all the trials of my philosophy, but only confess that the negligence of the servants was not the least of them—the grinning self-complacency with which these apes of their superiors signified to me that my wants might be deferred. ‘After all, my humble position would not have been so disagreeable, if I had been accustomed to it. The world’s admiration, like all other luxuries, in the end becomes necessary, and then, too, like other luxuries, ceases to be enjoyed, or even felt, till it is withdrawn and leaves an aching void. If this is Irish, set it down to my broken English. ‘After dinner, I followed the ladies to the drawingroom, and was presented by my friend to Miss —, a reigning beauty. She received me with one of those gracious smiles, that a hacknied belle always bestows on a new worshipper at her shrine. These popular favorites, be it a clergyman, politician, or beauty, are as covetous of the flatteries they receive, as a miser is of gold. No matter how unclean the vessel from which the incense rises; no matter what base alloy may mingle with the precious metal. Have you ever encountered one of those spoiled favorites in the thronged street, and tried to arrest the attention for a moment; to fix the eye that was roving for every tributary glance? If you have, you will understand without my describing it, the distrait manner with which the belle received my first compliments. Even this was not long accorded me, for a better accredited and more zealous admirer than myself appearing, she left me to my meditations, which were not rendered the more agreeable by my overhearing an old lady say, in a voice, which, though slightly depressed, she evidently made no effort to subdue to an inaudible key, “I wonder what possessed Robert Ellison to bring that French portrait painter here! How the world has changed since the Revolution! There is no longer any house where you don’t meet mixed society.” My friend had approached in time to overhear her as well as myself. “The ignorant old fool!” he exclaimed, “shall I tell her that artists are the nobility of every country?” ‘“No,” said I, “do not waste your rhetoric; there is no enlightening the ignorance of stupidity; a black substance will not reflect even the sun’s rays.” ‘Ellison then proposed that I should join a party at whist; but I complained of the heated air of the drawingroom, and, availing myself of an insignificance, I fol- [144] lowed the bent of my inclinations, a privilege the humble should not undervalue, and sauntered abroad. The evening was beautiful enough to have soothed a misanthrope, or warmed the heart of a stoic. Its peace, its salutary, sacred voice restored me to myself, and I was ashamed that ‘my tranquility had been disturbed. I contemned the folly of the artificial distinctions of life, and felt quite indifferent to them—when alone. ‘The ground in front of my friend’s house slopes to the Hudson, and is still embellished with trees of the majestic native growth. Where nature has left anything to be supplied by art, walks have been arranged and planted; but carefully, so as not to impede the view of the river, which was now in perfect repose. A sloop lay in the channel, its sails all furled, idly floating on the slumbering surface. While I was wishing my friend were with me, for I am too much of a Frenchman to relish fully even nature, the favorite companion of sentimentalists, in solitude, I saw a boat put off from the little vessel, and row slowly towards the shore. Presently a sweet female voice swelled on the stillness of the night, accompanied by the notes of a guitar, struck by a practised hand. Could any young man’s mercury resist moonlight and such music? Mine could not, and I very soon left behind me all of terra firma that intervened between me and the siren, and ensconced myself in a deeply shaded nook at the very water’s edge, where I could see and hear without being observed. The boat approached the spot where I stood, and was moored at half a dozen yards from my feet; but as my figure was in shadow, and sheltered by a thick copse of hazel bushes, I was perfectly concealed, while, by a flood of moonbeams, that poured on my unsuspicious neighbours, I saw them as plainly as if it were daylight. These were two men, whom I soon ascertained to be the captain [145] of the sloop and an attendant, and that they were going to a farm house in the neighbourhood for eggs, milk, &c. The two females were to remain in the boat till their return. The lady of the guitar was inclined to go with them as far as the oak wood on the brow of the hill; but the captain persuaded her to remain in the boat, by telling her there was a formidable dog on the place, which she might encounter. As soon as the captain was gone, her companion, an elderly, staid looking country woman, said to her, “Now, child, as I came here for your pleasure, you must sing for mine. None of your newfangled fancies, but good Old Robin Grey.” ‘“Oh, Robin Grey is a doleful ditty; but anything to reward you for indulging me in coming on shore.” ‘She then sung that touching ballad. The English, certainly the Scotch, excel us as much in the pathos of unembellished nature and truth, as we do them in all literary refinement, ingenuity, and grace. I know not how much of the tribute that gushed from my heart was paid to the poetry and music, and how much to the beautiful organ by which they were expressed, for the fair musician looked herself like one of the bright creations of poetry. I would describe her, but description is cold and quite inadequate to convey an idea of her, and of the scene with which she harmonized. It was one of nature’s sweetest accords; the balmy air, the cloudless sky, the river, reflecting like a spotless mirror the blue arch, the moon and her bright train; my enchantress, the embodied spirit of the evening, and her music the voice of nature. I might have forgotten that I was in human mould, but I had one effectual curb to my imagination; one mortal annoyance. Argus, confound him! had followed me from the house, and it was only by dint of continued coaxing and caressing that I could keep him quiet. Before the ballad was [146] finished, however, he was soothed by its monotonous sadness, and crouching at my feet, he fell asleep, I believe. I forgot him. Suddenly “the dainty spirit” changed from the low breathings of melancholy to a gay French air – the very air, Berville, that Claudine, in her mirthful moments, used to sing to us. The transition was so abrupt that it seemed as if the wing of joy had swept over the strings of her instrument. I started forth from my concealment. That was not all. Argus sprang out, too, and barking furiously, bounded towards the boat. The old woman screamed, “There is the dog!” and the young lady, not less terrified. Dropped her guitar, and, unhooking the boat, she seized an oar and pushed it off without listening to my apologies and assurances. In her agitation she dropped the oar, and her companion, still more tremulous than herself, in her attempt to regain it, lost the other, which she had instinctively grasped. As soon as the first impulse imparted to the boat was expended, it scarcely moved at all, and I had leisure to explain my sudden appearance and to say that my dog, far from being the formidable animal they imagined, was a harmless spaniel, who should immediately make all the amends in his power for the terror he had caused. I then directed him to the floating oars. He plunged into the water and brought them to me, but he either did not, or would not understand my wish that he should convey them to the boat, which, though very slowly, was evidently receding from the shore. I then, without farther hesitation, threw off my coat, swam to the boat, and receiving there the oars from Argus’s mouth, I soon reconducted the boat to its haven. There was something enchanting to me in the frankness with which my fair musician expressed her pleasure at the homage I had involuntarily paid to her art, and the grace with which she re- [147] ceived the slight service I rendered her. Perhaps I felt it the more for the mortifying experience of the day. I do not care very nicely to analyze my feelings, not to ascertain how much there was of restored self complacency in the delicious excitement of that hour.’ ‘The elderly lady, for lady she must needs be since my fair incognita called her mother, expressed a matronly solicitude about the effect of my wet garments, but I assured her that I apprehended no inconvenience from them, and I begged to be allowed to remain at my station till the return of their attendants. The circumstances of out introduction had been such as to dissipate all ceremony. Indeed, this characteristic of English manners would have as ill fitted the trustful, ingenuous, and gay disposition of my new acquaintance, as a coat of mail her light, graceful person. She sung, at my request, our popular opera airs, with more effect, because with far more feeling, than our best professed artists. She talked of music, and of the poetry of nature, with genius and taste; and she listened with that eager and pleased attention, which is the second best gift of conversation. I should have taken no note of the passage of time but for the fidgeting of the old lady, who often interrupted us with expressions of her concern at the captain’s delay, for which he, quite too soon, appeared to render an account himself. As I was compelled to take my leave, I asked my fair unknown if I might not be allowed to think of her by some more accurate designation than the “Lady of the Guitar.” ‘”My name is”—she replied promptly, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, added, “No—pardon me, your romantic designation better suits the adventure of the night.” I was vexed at my disappointment, but she chased away the shade of displeasure by the graceful playfulness with which she kissed her hand to me as the [148] boat pushed off. I lingered on the shore till she had reached the vessel, and then slowly retraced my steps towards the house. I was startled by meeting my friend, for my mind was so absorbed that I had not heard his approaching footstep. “Ah!” he exclaimed, ‘is this your philosophy? turned misanthrope at the first frown from the world?” ‘”My philosophy,” I replied, “has neither been vanquished, nor has it conquered, for I had forgotten all its trials.” ‘My friend evidently believed, notwithstanding my disclaimer, that my vanity required some indemnity for the humiliations it had sustained, and he repeated to me some assuaging compliments from his father, “But,” he concluded, “tell me, have you really turned sentimentalist, and been holding high converse with the stars?” ‘With a most brilliant star,’ I replied, and related my adventure. ‘Ellison’s curiosity was excited, and he proposed we should take our flutes, go out in the barge, and serenade the “Lady of the Guitar.” I, of course, assented, and the next half hour found us floating around the little vessel like humble satellites. We played an accompaniment and sung alternately, he in English, and I in French; but there was no token given that the offered incense was accepted; no salutation, save a coarse one from the captain, who invited us to go “on board and take some grog.” We of course declined his professional courtesy. “Then, for the Lord’s sake, lads,” he said, “stop your piping, and give us a good birth. Sleep, at this time o’ night, is better music than the jolliest tune that ever was played.” ‘Thus dismissed, and discomfited by the lady’s neglect, we resumed our oars and were preparing to return to the shore, when the cabin window was gently rais- [149] ed, and our fair incognita sung a sweet little French air, beginning “Adieu, adieu ! ” We remained, sound, motion, almost breath suspended till the song was finished.’ “So sweetly she bids us adieu, I think that she bids us return,” said my friend, and we instantly rowed our boat towards the stern of the vessel. At this moment the sash was suddenly dropped, and taking this for a definitive “Good night,” we retired. ‘Now, dear Berville, I have faithfully related the adventures of my masquerade—my boyish pastime, you may call it. Be it so. This day has been worth a year of care and dignity. I shall return to New York in a few days. Till then farewell. Yours, CONSTANT.’ But though M. Constant professed himself satisfied with his day, there was a lurking disquietude at his heart. He had written to assure himself there was nothing there he dare not express, and yet he had concluded without one alluding to the cause of his self-reproach. He had folded the letter, but he opened it, and added ;— ‘P. S. I did not describe to you my friend’s vexation that the responded song was in French. “Ah!” said he, “I see there is no chance for such poor devils as I, so long as you are neither married nor betrothed.”’ He again closed the letter, and was for a moment satisfied that there could be nothing in the nature of that which he had so frankly communicated that required concealment. He walked to the window and eyed the little vessel as a miser looks at the casket that contains [150] his treasure ; then starting from his reverie, he took from his bosom a miniature, and contemplated it steadfastly for a few moments; ‘It is my conscience that reproaches me,’ he said, ‘and not this serene, benign countenance. O Emma ! thou art equally incapable of inflicting and resenting wrong, and shall thy trust and gentleness be returned by even a transient treachery ? Am I so sure of faithfully keeping the citadel that I may parley with an enemy? ’ The result of this self-examination was a determination to burn the letter, and to dismiss forever from his mind the enchantress whose power had so swayed him from his loyalty. But though he turned from the window, resolutely closed the blind, and excluded the moonlight, which he fancied influenced his imagination as if he were a lunatic; though he went to bed and sunk into the oblivious sleep, the spirit was not laid. Imagination revelled in its triumph over the will. He was in France, in beautiful France—more beautiful now than in the visions of memory and affection. He was at his remembered haunts in his father’s grounds ; the ‘Lady of the Guitar’ was with him ; she sang his favorite songs ; he saw her sparkling glance, her glowing cheek, her rich, dark tints, ‘The embrowning of the fruit that tells How rich within, the soul of sweetness dwells;’ He heard the innocent childlike laugh, that, —‘without any control, Save the sweet one of gracefulness rung from her soul.’ Then there was interposed between him and this embodied spirit of his joyous clime a slowly moving figure; a cold, fail, pensive countenance, that had more of sorrow than resentment, but still, though its reproach was gentle, it was the reproach of the stern spectre of con- [151] science. He cast down his eyes, and they fell in the word ‘BETROTHED,’ traced in the sand at his feet. The ‘Lady of the Guitar’ was gaily advancing towards him. Another step and her flowing mantle would have swept over the word, and effaced it forever. He raised his hand to deprecate her approach, and awoke ; and while the visions of sleep still confusedly mingled with the recollections and resolutions of the preceding day, he was up and at the window ; had thrown open the blind and ascertained that the vessel still lay becalmed in the stream. That virtue is certainly to be envied, that does not need to be shielded and fortified by opportunity and circumstance. If the vessel had disappeared, the recollections of the evening might have been as evanescent and ineffectual as the dreams of the night; but there it was, in fine relief, and as motionless as if it were encased in the blue waters. In spite of M. Constant’s excellent resolutions, he lingered at the window, and returned there as if he were spellbound. Strange power that could rivet his eyes to an ill shapen little Dutch skipper! But that body did contain a spirit, and that spirit, seemingly as perturbed as his own, soon appeared, moving with a light step to and fro on the deck. The apartment M. Constant occupied, was furnished, among other luxuries, with a fine spyglass. To resist using this facility for closer communion was impossible; and by its aid he could perceive every motion of the ‘lady of his thoughts,’ almost the changes of her countenance. He saw she was gazing on the shore, and that she turned eagerly to her companion to point her attention to some object that had caught her eye, and at the same moment he perceived it was his friend, who was strolling on the shore. Ellison saw him too, and waved his handkerchief in salutation. M. Constant returned the greeting, threw down the glass, and with- [152] drew from the window with a feeling of compunction at his indulgence, as if he had again heard that word betrothed spoken. Why is it that external agents have so much influence over the mysterious operations of conscience? Why is it that its energy so often sleeps while there is no witness to the wrong we commit? ‘Keep thy heart, for out of it are the issues of life.’ After breakfast, Ellison said to M. Constant, ‘I am afraid you find your masquerade dull. Let us beguile the morning by a visit your “Lady of the Guitar.” There is nothing lends such wings to time as a pretty girl. Our guests are a dull concern.’ ‘A dull concern, when there is a beauty and a fortune among them!’ ‘Yes, a sated belle is to me as disagreeable as a pampered child; as my grandmother’s little pet Rosy, whom I saw the other day, tossing away her sugar plums, and crying “’T is not sweet enough;” and as fortune, though I am neither a philosopher not a sentimentalist, I shall never take the temple of Hymen in my way to wealth; for of all speculations, a matrimonial speculation seems to me the most hazardous, and the most disgraceful. But we loiter. Will you pay your devoirs to our unknown?’ ‘I believe not; I have letters to write this morning,’ ‘To Emma? Pardon me—I do not mean to pry into your cabinet, but if the letters are to her they may be deferred. She is a dear good soul and will find twenty apologies for every fault you commit.’ ‘If they are to her, such generosity should not be abused. No, I will not go. But on what pretext will you?’ ‘Pretext indeed! does a pilgrim seek for a pretext to visit my Lady of Loretto, or the shrine of any other saint ? Here comes the gardener with a basket of fine fruit which I have ordered to be prepared, and of which [153] I shall be the bearer to the sufferers pent in that dirty sloop this breathless August morning—from mere philanthropy you know. Commend me to Emma, ’ he added gaily; ‘I will bear witness for you that your enthusiasm for this unknown was a mere coup de la lune, and that when daylight appeared you were as loyal, and—as dull as a married man.’ Ellison’s raillery did not render the bitter pill of self-denial more palatable to M. Constant. He turned away without reply, but instead of returning to his apartment he obtained a gun, and inquiring the best direction to pursue in quest of game, he sauntered into a wooded defile that wound among the hills, and was so enclosed by them as not to afford even a glimpse of the river. Here he threw himself on the grass, took a blank leaf from his pocketbook and began a sonnet to constancy, but broke off in the middle; scribbled half a dozen odd lines from the different songs that had entranced him on the preceding evening; sketched a guitar, then rose, and still musing, pursued his way up the defile. The path he had taken led him around the base of an eminence to a rivulet that came frolicking down a hill now leaning and now loitering with the capricious humor of childhood. He traced it to its source, a clear fountain bubbling up from the earth at the foot of a high, precipitous rock. Clusters of purple and pink wild flowers hung from the clefts of the rock, wreathing its bare old front, and presenting a beautiful harmony in contrast, like infancy and old age. The rock and the sides of the fountain formed a little amphitheatre, enclosed and deeply shaded by the mountain ash, the aromatic hemlock and the lofty basswood. This sequestered retreat, with its fresh aspect and sweet exhalations, afforded a delicious refuge from the fierce heat and overpowering light of an August day. M. Constant [154] was lingering to enjoy it when his ear caught the sound of distant and animated voices. He started, and for a moment thought himself cheated by the illusions of a distempered fancy ; but, as the sounds approached nearer, he was assured of their reality, and they affected him like the most painful discord, though they were produced by the sweet, clear, penetrating voice of the unknown and the hitherto welcome tones of his friend. The impropriety of a young girl straying off into such a solitude with an acquaintance of an hour was obvious, but was perhaps more shocking to M. Constant than it would have been to a perfectly disinterested observer. It gave a dreadful jar to his preconceived notions, and contrasted, rudely enough, with the conduct of the preceding night, when the lady had, with such scrupulous delicacy, forborne to show herself on the deck of the sloop. As they drew nearer he thought there was something in the gay, familiar tones of Ellison, disgusting; and the laugh of the lady, which before had seemed the sweetest music of a youthful and innocent spirit, was now harsh and hoydenish. The strain of their conversation, too, for they were near enough to be heard distinctly, while the windings of the path prevented his being seen, though it was graceful chitchat enough, appeared to him trifling and flippant in the extreme. As they came still nearer he listened more intently, for he had a personal interest in the subject. ‘And so, my “Lady of the Guitar,”’ said Ellison, ‘you persist in preserving that scrap of paper, merely, I presume, as a specimen of the sister arts of design and poetry. You are sure those scratches are meant for a guitar, and not a jewsharp, and that the fragment is a sonnet and not a monody?’ ‘Certainly it is a sonnet; the poet says so himself. See here—“Sonnet à la Constance.”’ [155] ‘Well, it is certainly in the strain of a “lament.” My friend was in a strait ; what he would do he could not. Constancy is a very pretty theme for a boarding-school letter, but I am afraid the poor fellow will not find his inspiration in this tame virtue ?’ ‘Ah ! these tame virtues, as you call them,’ replied the lady, ‘ are the salutary food of life, while your themes of inspiration are intoxicating draughts, violent and transient in their effects.’ ‘A very sage lesson, and very well conned. Did your grandmother teach it to you ?’ ‘No matter—I have got it by heart.’ ‘O those moral New Englanders, they change all the poetry of life to wise saws. Thank heaven you have escaped from them in time to retain some portion of your mercurial nature. But now let me tell you, my sage young friend, that same paper may prove as dangerous where you are going as a match to a magazine. So let me advise you, either keep it quite to yourself, or give it to the winds.’ ‘You talk riddles, Mr Ellison; but I will not be quizzed into believing this little castaway scrap of paper can be of any import.’ ‘Let me label it for you then, if, as I see, it is to be filed among the precious stores of your pocketbook.’ There was a short pause when the lady, as M. Constant supposed, looking over Ellison’s superscription, read aloud, ‘Love’s Labor Lost,’ and then exclaimed, ‘Pshaw, Robert, how absurd !’ and tore off the offensive label, while he laughed at her vexation. M. Constant felt that it would be very embarrassing for him to be discovered as a passive listener to this coversation. He had been chained to the spot by an interest that he would gladly not have felt, but which he could not suppress. [156] Another turn would bring them directly before him. To delay longer without being seen was therefore impossible. As he put aside the rustling branches, he heard Ellison exclaim, “Ha! there are some startled quail ;’ but before his friend could take a more accurate observation, he had sprung around an angle of the rock, and was beyond sight and hearing. The gentlemen met before dinner. M. Constant was walking on the piazza, apparently moody and little disposed to sympathize with Ellison’s extravagant expressions of admiration of the unknown, or of regret that the fresh breeze was now wafting the vessel and its precious cargo far away. ‘In the name of Heaven, Constant,’ he said, ‘what has so suddenly turned you to ice? Last night you seemed to think it necessary to invent—pardon me—allege some apology for your prompt sensibility, and you said it was not the beauty, the voice, the grace, or any of the obvious and sufficient charms of this young enchantress—that was your word—that fascinated you, but it was a resemblance to the glowing beauties of your own clime ; and now, if you had been born at the north pole and she at the equator, you could not manifest less affinity.’ ‘There are certain principles,’ replied M. Constant, coldly, ‘that overcome natural affinities. I hope you have passed your morning agreeably.’ ‘Agreeably ? Delightfully ! Our incognita is more beautiful than you describe her.’ ‘Is she then still incognita to you?’ asked M. Constant with a penetrating glance. ‘Not exactly ; she favored me with her name.’ ‘Her name ! what is it ?’ ‘ Pardon me, I am under a prohibition not to tell.’ ‘The lady certainly makes marked distinctions. She is as reserved towards others, as frank to you.’ ‘She had her reasons.’ ‘Doubtless; but what were they?’ ‘Why, one was that I refused to tell her your name.’ ‘And why did you that ?’ ‘I had my reasons, too.’ M. Constant was vexed at the mystery his friend affected. H was annoyed, too, at his perfect self complacency and imperturbable good nature, and more than all, ashamed of his own irritability. He made an effort to overcome it, and to put himself on a level with Ellison. He succeeded so far in his efforts as to continue to talk of the lady with apparent nonchalance till he was summoned to dinner ; but though he tried every mode his ingenuity could devise, he could not draw from his friend the slightest allusion to the lady’s extraordinary visit to the shore, or any particular of their interview, which explained the perfect familiarity that seemed to exist between them ; and what made this mystery more inscrutable, was the tone of enthusiasm which Ellison maintained in speaking of the lady, and which no young man sincerely feels without a sentiment of respect. In spite of M. Constant’s virtuous resolutions and efforts, the ‘Lady of the Guitar’ continued to occupy his imagination, and he determined to take the surest measures to dispel an influence which he had in vain resisted. As he parted from his friend at night, he announced his intention of taking his departure the following morning. After expressing his sincere regret, Ellison said, ‘You go immediately to town ?’ ‘No, I go to Mr. Liston’s.’ ‘Ah! Is it so ?’ [158] ‘Even so. Ellison ; but no more till we meet again. I have supported my masquerade with little spirit ; but do not betray me, and we, neither of us, shall lose reputation.’ M. Constant had for a long time been on terms of intimacy and friendship with Miss Liston. This lady belonged to one of the most distinguished families in our country. She was agreeable in her person, had a fund of good sense, was well informed and perfectly amiable. Such characters are admirable in the conduct of life, if not exciting to the imagination ; that precious faculty, which, like the element of fire, the most powerful and dangerous agent, may warm, or may consume us. Long and intimate friendship between unfettered persons of different sexes is very likely to terminate, as that of M. Constant and Miss Liston terminated, in an engagement. He had a sentiment of deep and fixed affection for her, which, probably, no influence could have materially affected; but when that being crossed his path who seemed to him to realize the brightest visions of his youth, he felt a secret consciousness that the fidelity of his affection was endangered. The little mystery in which the unknown was shrouded, the very circumstance of calling her ‘the unknown,’ magnified the affair, as objects are enlarged, seen through a mist. He very wisely and prudently concluded that the surest way of dispelling all illusion, would be frankly to relate the particulars to Miss Liston, only reserving to himself certain feelings which would not be to her edification, and which he believed would be dispelled by participating their cause with her. Accordingly, at their first meeting he was meditating how he should get over the embarrassment of introducing the subject, when Miss Liston said, ‘I have a great pleasure in reserve for [159] you,’ and left him without any farther explanation, and in a few moments returned, followed by a lady, and saying as she reentered, ‘Marie Angely, you and Constant, my best friends, must not meet as strangers.’ A half suppressed exclamation burst from the lips of both. All M. Constant’s habitual grace forsook him. He overturned Miss Liston’s workstand, workbox, and working paraphernalia, in advancing to make his bow. Miss Angely’s naturally high color was heightened to a painful excess; she made an effort to reciprocate the common courtesies of an introduction, but in vain; the words faltered on her lips, and after struggling a moment with opposing feelings, the truth and simplicity of her heart triumphed and turning to Miss Liston, she said, ‘Your friend, Emma, is the gentleman I met on the river.’ Miss Liston had been the confidant of all her romantic young friend’s impressions from her moonlight interview with the stranger, and it was now her turn to suffer a full share of the embarrassment of the other parties. She looked to M. Constant for an explanation. Never had he, in the whole course of his diplomatic career, been more puzzled; but after a moment’s hesitation he followed Miss Angely in the safe path of ingenuousness and truly told all the particulars of his late adventures, concluding with a goodhumored censure of his friend Ellison, who had long and intimately known Miss Angely, and who, to gratify his mischief loving temper, had contrived the mystery which led to the rather awkward d́énouement. Thus these circumstances, which might have been woven into an intricate web of delicate embarrassment and romantic distress, that might have ended in the misery of one, perhaps of all parties, were divested of their interest and their danger by being promptly and frankly disclosed. [160] Miss Angely, whom our readers have already recognised as the little girl of the inn, had met with Miss Liston at a boarding school in Boston, where, though Miss Liston was her elder by several years, they formed an enthusiastic, and rare in the annals of boarding schools, an enduring friendship. Marie Angely had faithfully discharged the debt of gratitude to Mrs Reynolds, and though acquiring, as may be supposed, somewhat of the fastidiousness that accompanies refined education and intercourse, no one could perceive any abatement of her respect or affection for her kind protectress, or the slightest diminution of her familiarity with her. She passed a part of every summer with her, always called her mother, and, by the fidelity of her kindness and the charm of her manner, she diffused light and warmth over the whole tract of Mrs Reynolds’s existence. She linked expectations, that might have been blasted, to a happy futurity, and cherished and elevated affections, which, but for her sunny influence, would have been left to wither and perish. Oh that the fortunate and happy could know how much they have in their gift! Miss Angely had been on one of her annual visits to her humble friend, and was on her way, accompanied by her, to New York, where she was to join Miss Liston, when the incidents occurred which we have related. There is nothing in the termination of our tale to indemnify the lover of romance for its previous dullness; but it is a true story, and its materials must be received from tradition, and not supplied by imagination. M. Constant was, in the course of a few weeks, united to Miss Liston. This lady had long cherished a hope that her friend would be a permanent member of her family, and she used every art of affection to persuade her to remain with her at least so long as she should decline the suits of all the lovers who were now [161] thronging around her, attracted by her beauty, or loveliness, or the eclat she derived from her intimacy with the wife of the ambassador. M. Constant did not very warmly second his wife’s entreaties. He perhaps had a poignant recollection of certan elective affinities, and his experience taught him the truth, if indeed he had not derived it from a higher source, that, in the present infirm condition of human virtue, it is always safest and best not voluntarily to ‘enter into temptation.’ Miss Angely returned to Boston. M. Constant’s union with Miss Liston was one of uninterrupted confidence and conjugal happiness; but it was not destined to be of long duration. His wife died in about a year after their marriage. Among her papers was found a letter addressed to her husband, written in expectation of the fatal issue of the event that had terminated her life, in which she earnestly recommended her friend as her successor. In due time her request was honored. M. Constant married Miss Angely. After residing for some time in America, they went to France, where she was received as an ornament to her noble family, and acknowledged to be, ‘the brightest jewel in its coronet.’ Far from the mean pride of those who shrink from recurring to the humble stages in their progress to the heights of fortune, Madame Constant delighted in relating the vicissitudes of her life, and dwelt particularly on that period, when, as Mrs Reynolds’s handmaid, she considered herself honored in standing behind the chair of the wife of the great General Knox. ‘The longest day comes to the vesper hour.’ Madame Constant closed at Paris a life of virtue, prosperity, and happiness, in July 1827. _______________ *We would gladly have had it in our power to be exact in dates, as our story in good faith is true in all, even the least important particulars. Some few circumstances, and the ‘spoken words,’ had escaped tradition, and of course were necessarily supplied, as the proper statue receives a foot or finger from the ruder hand of modern art. The name of the heroine having been subsequently merged and forgotten in that of her husband, we have ventured to retain it. The rest we have respectfully veiled under assumed appellations. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Romance in Real Life Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. [By the Author of "Redwood."] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Legendary, edited by Nathaniel Parker Willis, 118-61. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Boston: Samuel G. Goodrich Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1828 [pub. 1827] Relation A related resource Reprinted in The Garland, pp. 198-264, Boston, 1839. Reprinted in The Diadem, New York: 1850. Collected in Tales and Sketches, By Miss Sedgwick, Author of "The Linwoods," "Hope Leslie," &c. &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1835, pp. 237-78. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Document Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Esther Hagan, Savvy Myles, and Angelica Tijerino, with Dr. Jenifer Elmore (Palm Beach Atlantic University); and Julia Carey, Sean Godbout, Emily Kay, Isabella Lopresti, Diana Villanueva, Jake Lyons, with Dr. Lucinda Damon-Bach (Salem State University), Subject The topic of the resource Historical fiction, Romance, French and American relations. Description An account of the resource An historical romance in two parts, focusing first on the Boston childhood of orphan Marie Reynolds/Angely (implied to be the long-lost daughter of a fictionalized Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur), and subsequently on Marie's mysterious meeting with and eventual marriage to a US diplomat. 1777 1787 1827 1839 adoption Alexander Pope ambassador An Essay on Man -Epistle IV Anna Matilda As You Like It Auld Robin Gray boarding school Boston Catskills class Comte de Mosloy constancy Count Louis-Guillaume Otto courtship Death Della Crusco disguise Dogs Elizabeth Livingston engagement France French Friendship General Henry Knox guitar Hannah Hannah Cowley Hudson River Huguenot Hymen I Samuel 1 inn J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur Jewsharp Lady of Loretto Le Misanthrope letters Letters from an American Farmer Lisbon locket Lorenzo Love Love’s Labour Lost marriage Massachusetts Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur Moliére Mothers music New York nobility Normandy Orlando Paris portrait painter Providence Revolutionary War Robert Livingston Robert Merry Romance Samuel Daniel Saxon Shakespeare shipwreck sonnets spy Tales and Sketches (First Series) Tauconnuc The Complaint of Rosamund The Garland The Legendary United States Xantippes https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/b99a9bd649c59491f3a690b8789403f3.pdf?Expires=1792627200&Signature=nTNNDK5cyle90LI%7EqPyExHeIPX3sFInx7l4FBFEVoAVMyqMuF330ISDE4cSKuTMvVglt5CTOepwp16Q63DTY5yWD8SGJRF%7ELZ7zjjj5PtdCu1F0GiKQGPQHa725Lxr9a-Y-6bBKOcbCn35qvqVuLFGLLf3jfNYbSRcuj9oSPY6c9zcVXj9z--V8spONXqagwoMJgoujed4reRctyurg4FXSAoUcqPKDiOpXg4FJcauFbyUPyymj6Uwx0ZcW8YAeOlViJhxXeGKrghjCw%7EDe%7ELFYqtO1eUKtUKVVkJFLWx5a0MVmM6hD775f5PrYKANfVo0hp9NTxSbGDkhKlXnVseg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c8b9e4009dbb0078bb7c87c21e66ff34 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1846 Subject The topic of the resource Stories published in 1846. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. WAS IT PROVIDENCE? BY MISS SEDGWICK. [p. 278] TAKE for example, a young girl, bred delicately in town, shut up in her nursery in her childhood,--in a boarding-house through her youth, never accustomed to either air or exercise, two things that the law of God makes essential to health. She marries; her strength is not adequate to the demands upon it. Her beauty fades away. She languishes through her hard offices of giving birth to children, suckling and watching over them, and dies early. ‘What a strange Providence, that a mother should be taken in the midst of life, from her children!’ Was it Providence ?—No—Providence had assigned her three-score years and ten; a term long enough to rear her children, and see her children's children, but she did not obey the laws on which life depends, and of course, she lost it. A father, too, was cut off in the midst of his [p. 279] days. He is a useful and distinguished citizen, and eminent in his profession. A general buzz rises on every side, of ‘What a striking Providence!’ This man has been in the habit of studying half the night, of passing his days in his office and the courts, of eating luxurious dinners, and drinking various wines. He has every day violated the laws on which health depends. Did Providence cut him off? The evil never ends here. The diseases of the father are often transmitted; and a feeble mother rarely leaves behind her vigorous children. It has been customary in some of our cities, for young ladies to walk in thin shoes, and delicate stockings in mid-winter. A healthy, blooming young girl, thus dressed in violation of Heaven's laws, pays the penalty; a checked circulation, cold, fever, and death. ‘What a sad Providence!’ exclaimed her friends. Was it Providence or her own folly? A beautiful young bride goes night after night, to parties made in honor of her marriage. She has a slightly sore throat perhaps, and the weather is inclement; but she must wear her neck and arms bare; for who ever saw a bride in a close evening dress? She is consequently seized with an inflammation of the lungs, and the grave receives her before her bridal days are over. [p. 280] ‘What a Providence!’ exclaims the world. ‘Cut off in the midst of happiness and hope!’ Alas! did she not cut the thread of her life herself? A girl in the country, exposed to our changeful climate, gets a new bonnet, instead of getting a flannel garment. A rheumatism is the consequence. Should the girl sit down tranquilly with the idea that Providence has sent the rheumatism upon her, or should she charge it on her vanity, and avoid the folly in future? Look, my young friends, at the mass of diseases that are incurred by intemperance in eating or in drinking, or in study, or in business; also being caused often by neglect of exercise, cleanliness, pure air; by indiscreet dressing, tight lacing, etc., and all is quietly imputed to Providence. Is there not impiety as well as ignorance in this? Were the physical laws strictly observed from generation to generation, there would be an end to the frightful diseases that cut life short, and of the long list of maladies that make life a torment or a trial. It is the opinion of those who best understand the physical system, that this wonderful machine, the body, this ‘goodly temper,’ would gradually decay, and men would die, as if falling asleep. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Was it Providence? Subject The topic of the resource God's will vs. human agency in relation to physical health and well-being. Description An account of the resource The narrator provides several examples of people who died, and questions whether their deaths should be attributed to God's will or human actions. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine Maria [by Miss Sedgwick]. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Mayflower, [edited by Elizabeth Oakes Smith], 278-80. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Boston: Saxton & Kelt Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1847 [pub. 1846] Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource D. Gussman Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Relation A related resource Excerpted from Chapter V: "Health a Talent" in Sedgwick's Means and Ends; or Self-Training. By the Author of "Redwood," "Hope Leslie," "Home," "Poor Rich Man," &c. Boston: Capen, Lyon, & Webb, 1839, pp. 39-42. 1846 1847 annuals Death Elizabeth Oakes Smith excess exercise fashion free will gift book God's will health illness Means and Ends; or Self-Training predestination Providence The Mayflower https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/9a1017a29aba18b1f26df7f68008b555.pdf?Expires=1792627200&Signature=frOimC60z5eKH0ty2BAacudBuxWS1BEFOwXI4LE32Kkon9q--GLZVXe7mOaGW6KEx07FbGCwo%7E4p2QpS5ReOYgr32qHeq5qBIkZuNhA8vH7JRzCWyJGtPPxnG1IvStuBxKUPpzWJS-JRfKtn%7EeoIJBiAAbqYi1zVP5A3vRf%7E1oZn9r2afBr8BFgHm8ZqLvJwr2vSO4CTgjvT1AYb7ItBN3gcRZHVzXNLEPdE4hG6BKtjRnNVR6U4X%7EC57vA8XismySg6EYsAqheQU4gphUsG3UxAQn-UVH0RJrj3lWjMWzD7lQ-LDYBvQMOgoGnXEYjVk5lp8-jdBFsGrfDijb8KVw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b2fbb734eda1566e75d4e4f6490ce428 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1847 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. WIDOWHOOD. BY MISS CATHARINE M. SEDGWICK. “For thy dear sake, I will walk patiently Through these long hours, nor call their minutes pain.” --Frances Anne Butler. [p. 165] Many, many years have passed since I was called, with other loving friends, to witness the marriage of Emily Remson to Murray Winthrop. Never was there a better-sorted pair, nor a marriage under happier auspices. They had known each other from childhood; their parents, their grandparents, were friends. There was no element of discord in their natures — they were born to an inheritance of healthy minds and hearts. They were educated with sound views of life and duty. They had the same circle of interests, tastes, and inclinations. They might be strictly called homogeneous—everything in them blending in harmony. There was no difference between them (in these days of bold assertion, to the contrary, we are old-fashioned enough to believe there is a difference), but that which distinguishes the man from the woman. Milton has said it better than any one can say it after him — [p. 166] “For contemplation he, and valour form'd, For softness she, and sweet, attractive grace.” There could not be, there never were questions of " absolute rule" and " subjection" between them, for their wills were blended in one. The families of both parties were present, and showers of prayers, and wishes, and sympathies consecrated the occasion. It was a general family festival — a “beautiful hour; when in every cloud stood a smiling angel, who, instead of rain-drops, showered down flowers.” For fifteen years life fairly kept its promise to them. There was but one flaw in their happiness, and that I have often heard Emily cheerfully say, “I ought not to wish to escape from, and I do not ; there must be something — some earthy sediment in the clearest cup ; and what could I have easier to bear than the ill-health that seems to double my husband's tenderness, and stimulate his invention to open new sources of enjoyment to me.” We often wish that our countrywomen had more health, more vigour, and more of the independence and self-reliance that spring from physical force. And the time is coming, when the want of these will cease to be their reproach, but, in the meanwhile, we thank God, that, as in all evil, there is some providential mitigation — a reflection of his love even in the tear-drop ; so the debility of our women is, in some slight degree, compensated by the gentleness, tenderness, and sympathy that accompanies it. If our wives lean, they find the strongest support — if they are weak and dependent, their husbands are, for the most part, considerate, generous, and devoted. So, assuredly, was my friend Murray Winthrop. Emily [p.167 ] was a wife after the old Israelitish pattern, leaning in her very nature; “her desire was unto her husband”— desire, without the fear of patriarchal times. She was as free as if she were unyoked, for she had no wish independent of her husband's, and certainly no enjoyment without a partition with him. It was not that she lost her distinctive character, as certain colours are deadened by the proximity of stronger ones, but like a lesser stream, she blended with a fuller one — not losing her own power, but giving more force to his. She was not one of those silly, " just as Mr. So-and-so pleases" wives, or " I have not asked husband, but just as he thinks, I shall think." Emily thought and acted freely; the mainspring was in her heart, and that brought out the perfect accord. I have never seen a happier home than theirs — sanctified by the rites of religion, and cheerful with every social blessing and virtue. Fifteen happy years passed on. They had six lovely children. They had not riches, but uniform prosperity. Winthrop had an honourable profession, and a certain income, and he delighted to surround his wife with every indulgence that could mitigate the evil of her ill-health. He could not afford a carriage, but a carryall with one horse, gave her the refreshment of a daily drive with her husband, more enjoying to her than if she had had a liveried coachman and half a dozen footmen in livery. Neither could they afford a country-seat, but they went for some happy weeks every summer to the sea-shore, or to the hill-country. They did not indulge in magnificent dinner-parties, but there was always a seat and a welcome for a friend at their table — and a good dinner, too, for Winthrop in his daily marketing, procured some dainty, to secure for Emily the blessing of a relished meal. [p. 168] She was sometimes unable to walk up and down stairs, but her husband carried her in his arms, and then, as she said, she was more to be envied than pitied. I linger in their sunshine. The fifteen years were passed! Winthrop went to New Orleans to help a beloved and only brother through an entanglement with a fraudulent merchant. In order to extricate him, Winthrop pledged a large portion of his own property. If their lives were preserved, there was no risk of final loss ; and full of life and health, they scarcely thought of the contingency. They sailed for New York. A tempest came on — The ship was dismasted and unmanageable. A part of the crew and passengers took to the boats ; Winthrop and his brother, by the captain's advice, remained on the wreck. Winthrop, at the moment they were lowering the boat, wrote in pencil on a card the following line to his wife, and gave it to one of the passengers who was abandoning the ship : — “In all events, trust in God, as I now do, my Emily. His will be done.” The wreck went down in sight of the boats! They came to land. The news was sent to Emily by the passenger who transmitted to her her husband's last token, and she was plunged at once, without the poor preparation of an apprehension, from cheerful anticipations, into the desolation of widowhood. She would gladly have covered her face and died. The light of her life was gone. Not even her children reflected one ray of light to her. The impulse to action was lost — the springs of hope were dried up. No more smoothing of rough ways for her — no more anticipation of her wants — no more defence from hardship — no more providing — no more watching; no more companionship! She was alone! alone! How did that word strike, and strike upon her heart the knell [p. 169] of her departed life. The world was no longer the world she had lived in. Thick darkness had settled upon it. It was as if the sun had vanished, and the countless starry host had passed away. Day and night returned, but not to her came their sweet uses ; meal-times brought no refreshment; she lay down to wakeful nights and troubled dreams, and awoke to feel again, and again the first blow in all its activeness and freshness. Her children were as nothing to her. One blank despair had closed the access to all other passions. There was nothing left but a capacity for suffering. Where was her religion? — alas! alas! she had loved her husband supremely. She had forsaken her God — He had not forsaken her. I have said that Emily derived no comfort from her children. In this I found some excuse for her, for it indicated to me that her mind had lost its balance, and that she had not the power to give herself to the holiest ministrations of nature. But there was one influence that seemed to reach her. Annie, her fourth child, a girl nine years old, had an uncommonly sweet voice, and when her mother was exhausted with mourning and watching, and her pulses were throbbing and every nerve was in tormenting action, she would send for Annie to sit by her bedside and sing to her. There was a magnetic influence in the child's tender voice. Her mother would become calm, and sometimes fall asleep. The poor little girl would sing on, infected with her mother's sadness, with tears in her eyes, no matter whether it were a verse from a hymn, or a stanza from a song. Her eldest sister Mary, a thoughtful girl, said to her one day, " I wish you very much, dear Annie, to learn two or three hymns through, and when you find mamma getting quiet, sing them to her." The docile child readily acquiesced. Mary, guided by the instincts of the [p. 170] highest feeling, selected the hymns, and on the next fitting occasion, when her poor mother was tranquilized, and the intervals between her heart-breaking sighs were longer, Annie sang the following beautiful hymn; she had till then sang those most familiar and hackneyed, and the words had flowed on the sound without producing any impression. The consciousness of having a purpose, varied the general monotony of her singing, and the first half line roused her mother's attention. “Weep thou, O mourner ! but in lamentation May thy Redeemer still remembered be; Strong is his arm, the God of thy salvation, Strong is his love to cheer and comfort thee. “Cold though the world be in the way before thee, Wail not in sadness, o'er the darkling tomb; God in his love, siill watcheth kindly o'er thee, Light shineth still above the clouds of gloom. “Dimmed though thine eyes be with the tears of sorrow, Night only known beneath the sky of time. Faith can behold the dawning of a morrow Glowing in smiles of love, and joy sublime. “Change, then, mourner, grief to exultation ; Firm and confiding may thy spirit be ; Strong is his arm, the God of thy salvation ; Strong is his love to cheer and comfort thee !" Before Annie finished the hymn, her mother raised her head, and leaning on her elbow, she drank in every word, as if it were inspiration addressed by Heaven to her soul. When the child had finished, she drew her to her bosom and wept, for the first time, freely, tears that relieved her burdened heart — [p. 171] tears in which other thoughts than those of grief mingled. As soon as she could speak, she said, “Annie, sing that last verse to me again.” Annie repeated it, and her mother repeated after her the last line — “Strong is His love to cheer and comfort thee!” “What love!” she added, “what patience — with me, a wretched rebel!” “Oh, don't say so, mamma !” said Annie. “I have one more hymn to sing to you, that I think is beautiful; shall I sing it?” “Yes; yes, dear child, sing on, and God grant me grace to hear,” she added, in mental prayer. Annie sang “The Angels of Grief,” of Whittier, a poet who has given to his high poetic gifts the holiest consecration. “With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb. “Yet would we say what every heart approveth — Our Father's will, Calling to Him the dear ones whom he loveth, Is mercy still. “Not upon us or ours the solemn angel Hath evil wrought; The funeral anthem is a glad evangel; The good die not.” A few moments' silence followed. Emily then kissed her [p. 172] child, with a quiet tenderness that she had not before shown, and dismissed her. She did not remain in bed, sighing and lamenting, but she arose and passed the night in walking her chamber, or on her knees. She reproached herself bitterly. She felt that she had forgotten her religious profession — that she had denied her Lord in suffering her faith and love to be consumed in the furnace from which they should have come out purified. Now, for the first, it seemed to her that she received her husband's last words to her, — " Trust in God, as I now do, my Emily. His will be done." He, in his extremity, was willing, she thought. He rose above the storm — the tempest carried away my trust. He reposed in me — he thought, in that dreadful hour, that he might commit the children to my care. I have forgotten them, and every other duty — I have lain, like a vine torn from the tree that supported it, prostrate, withering, and dying, and I am a creature endowed with a capacity to do as well as to suffer. In my prosperity, I believed I was a Christian! — how have I sunk below the requirements of this profession. Have I been patient in tribulation? Have I submitted to the fellowship of suffering — of self-forgetfulness — of self-renunciation. No, no! I have thought only of myself. I have dared to expect that life should continue the joy it has been. And now, as I am resolved to look forward, and not back, God help me! The next morning, to the astonishment of her children, Emily appeared among them. She took her accustomed place at table, and calmly served them. She even spoke to them of their father, and of the double duty that had now devolved upon her. She felt a faintness coming over, and desisted, wisely resolving to enter by degrees upon her new field of labour. [p. 173] Life had utterly changed to her. During her husband's life, she had been the object of constant indulgence, and a tenderness that fenced off not only evil, but whatever was uncomfortable and disagreeable. This is a false position; it cannot last. There is no petting in life. The school of Providence is a school of discipline and trial. Emily “Had slept, and dreamed that life was beauty — She waked, and found that life was duty.” But this duty was to make her a higher and nobler being. Till now she had been gentle, sweet, and attractive, but loving a life of passive and indulged invalidism, she had had scarcely more to do with actual affairs, than the ladies of a Haram. If she had died then, she would have left no void but in the hearts of those that loved her. She had now to seal her sorrows up in her own breast; to endure patiently and silently her own loneliness; to make sunshine for others, while she felt that her whole life must wear out in chill dreary shadow. But she had religiously resolved, and she amazed her friends with her noiseless vigour. She found, on investigation, that her income was reduced to very narrow limits. She courageously and at once reduced her expenses to her means. Some women deem it unfeminine to take care of their pecuniary affairs, and certainly their training and social arrangements are unfavourable to their qualification for this care. To Emily there was but one question; is this my duty? that ascertained she went forward and did it. She sought advice when she needed it, and aid where she required it, but, for the most part, she took care of her own concerns, and she “saw well to the ways of her household.” She provided for the education of her children; she sighed [p. 174] to be obliged to renounce advantages for them which she had once counted upon as matters of course, but “It is well,” she said, — “the necessity of putting forth all their powers and making the most of all their means is better than Harvard for my boys, and the ‘first masters’ for my girls.” She now truly honoured her husband's memory, and justified his love. She made her home a scene of cheerfulness to her children, a pleasant gathering-place to her friends. What had become of the elegant leisure, the luxurious indolence of Emily Winthrop? They had given place to virtuous, productive activity. Where was the invalidism that all the appliances of love had but served to nurture? No allopathy, homoeopathy, or hydropathy had been called in, but mental energy and heart-energy had supplied that wonderful power called nervous energy; and from day to day, and year to year her strength was equal to the demands upon it. The young maiden invested with beauty and hope and promise, strikes our imagination. The happy wife has all our sympathies; but she who extracts patience and peace from her own privations, who converts her own weakness into strength for others, who in her own waste places produces flowers and fruits for them, who walks alone through rough places leaning on the Unseen — she — the sanctified widow — has our highest reverence. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Widowhood Subject The topic of the resource Marriage, widowhood, faith, and resilience. Description An account of the resource The narrator tells the story of Emily Winthrop and her journey from wife to widow and bereavement to peace. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Mirror of Life, edited by Louisa C. Tuthill, Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1847, pp. 165-74. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Lindsay and Blakiston Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1847 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource D. Gussman Type The nature or genre of the resource Document "Absence" "Angels of Grief" "I Slept and Dreamed that Life was Beauty" 1847 allopathy duty Ellen Sturgis Hooper Frances Anne Butler gift book homeopathy hurricane hydropathy hymns invalid Israelite John Greenleaf Whittier John Milton Louisa C. Tuthill marriage Paradise Lost patriarchy Providence religion ship wreck tempest The Mirror of Life widows https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/8c2580e0d8c36d5894cd53d3bdb7ed83.pdf?Expires=1792627200&Signature=AdVtscFyW6m0750G520iRZ23Ik1yMQKrtbJsZK73naOSsWREkbvJDCxaPGuXUr6Raec2tU5JpzJkxp5yeVvCT-qfoQ388W28Von6HXixO2P6s9T2z%7EdYp5YP-JJzj%7EIiuuDs%7Eapa6edW-82Lj9hTssjNFEggRLDzzscYMTYqv1%7EWZk-BS1TA4Q2AJtygFbxo%7EMQHrW%7Eqb%7Em6yS34GAAjachO5uPsGdeWY292VYLCRwVlcTlVmr1CnAZfa%7EhukcEOXQsOynxhCHU4x4NDwrEYUMJM-oO7FNs0tLvL7ChOe9r2TQ-Tj%7EwPpBKhVuQAO4DpJwZ9RgMcQnRoi8iGTeSk7A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 3ad123f7243d39e10c7c532c80496974 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1835 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Amy Cranstoun By the author of Redwood, Hope Leslie, etc. — The famous Indian war, which ended in the destruction of the chieftain of Mount Hope and his adherents, broke out just a hundred years before our revolutionary war; a circumstance which we leave for the speculation of those who believe that certain periods of time have a mysterious relation and dependance, while we use it merely to fix the date of a domestic story, some important portions of which have been omitted on the page of history, rather we should hope from its fitness for a cabinet picture, than from its insignificance. Madam Cranstoun, at that period, resided at Providence, and was, we believe, the wife of the governor of Providence Plantations. If we are mistaken in his official dignity, we are not in the fact, that he is set down in history as a “notable gentleman.” There was living with Mrs. Cranstoun, a dependant on her bounty, an orphan niece of her husband, Amy Cranstoun. Amy had the figure of a nymph, and a face that expressed a freedom and happiness of spirit that even dependance, that most restricting and acidifying of all states, could never subdue nor sour; and an innocence and open-heartedness, without fear, and without reproach. It cannot be denied that the elderly persons of the strict community in which she lived, looked upon her as a very unapproveable and unedifying damsel; still she had the miraculous art to open a fountain of lobe in their hard bound bosoms. She had the irrepressible gayety of a child. Her elastic step seemed to keep time with the harmonious springs of youth and joy. At all times and seasons, and, it must be confessed, without any very reasonable relation to persons or circumstances, her musical voice would break forth in song, or bursts of laughter— “That without any control, But the sweet one of gracefulness, run from her soul.” Poor Amy often offended against the rigid observances of her contemporaries. She would gape, and even smile in the midst of the protracted Sabbath-service, and that in spite of the bend of her uncle’s awful brow, her aunt’s admonitory winks, and the plummet and rule example of her cousins — maiden ladies, some fifteen years older than Amy, who were so perpendicular and immovable, that our gay little friend sometimes suspected that the process of petrifaction had begun about the vital region of their hearts. Amy had a wonderful facility in committing to memory “ungodly ballads and soul-enslaving songs,” but a sort of intellectual dyspepsia when she attempted to digest sacred literature. She never repeated an answer accurately in the assembly’s catechism; and though she did not, as is reported of those “afflicted by the Salem witches,” faint at the reading of that precious little treatise entitled, “Cotton’s Milk for Babes,” she was sure to fall asleep over it, the very opposite effect to that intended by the author of this spiritual food. She reached the age of eighteen without acquiring the current virtues of her day; but her beauty, spirit, or sweet temper, or all of them united, attracted more suitors than her exemplary and well-proportioned cousins could boast through their long career. Among the rest came one Uncle Smith, the son of Deacon Smith, a precious light in Boston. Uriah was a fair, sleek, softly looking youth, grace and deliberate, and addicted to none of the “fooleries and braveries” of the coxcombs of the day. So said Madam Cranstoun to Amy, for Uriah had not, like young Edwin, “only bowed,” but had told his love — not to the niece, but most discreetly to the aunt. Madam Cranstoun, amazed at the wonder-working Providence, as she was pleased to term it, that had set before her niece the prospect of such a “companion,” communicated, to Amy, Uriah’s proposition, with all the circumlocution and emphasis a prime minister might have employed to announce a royal bounty; but most ungraciously did Amy receive it. She sat the while calmly drawing with her pencil on the blank leaf of a book, her face unmoved, except that now and then a slight but ominous smile drew up the corners of her mouth. “Cousin Amy! cousin Amy!” exclaimed her aunt, “give me that book, and let me hear you testify your thankfulness for a favor of which, sooth to say, you are abundantly unworthy.” “Well, there is the book, aunt Cranstoun, and let it speak for your ‘unworthy’ niece.” One glace at the penciled page sufficed. Amy had delineated there a striking resemblance of the overgrown angular Rosinante, on which Uriah had rid to his wooing, and for the rider she had portrayed the form of Uriah, and the face of a monkey! “Shame! shame to you, Amy!” exclaimed her aunt, “dare you thus to trifle with so serious a subject?” “The subject is too serious, I confess, aunt, to be trifled with, and therefore, being an incorrigible trifler, I must decline it altogether.” Madam Cranstoun started in dumb astonishment. “I am in earnest, aunt,” continued Amy, “Master Uriah must seek a more suitable helpmeet than your foolish niece.” “Foolish! — both foolish and wicked, Amy.” Madam Cranstoun lost her self-command. “Yea, wicked, without leave, counsel, and consultation, from and with those who have given you shelter, food, and raiment from your cradle, blindly and scoffingly to reject this little-to-be expected, and most unmerited provision for your protection and maintenance through life.” Amy’s frivolity, if it must be called by so harsh a name, vanished, while half indignant and half subdued, her cheeks burning, and tears gushing from her eyes, she said — “For food, raiment, and shelter, and for every kindly-spoken word, aunt Cranstoun, the only child of your husband’s sainted sister thanks you, and will, please God, testify her gratitude for your past bounty by every act of duty and devotion to you and yours. But I implore you, in the name of the God of the fatherless, not to drive me from the house of dependenance to a house of bondage — the vilest bondage, service without love, fetters on my affection — joyous would they be in a voluntary service, but rebellious and unprofitable in a compelled one.” Madam Crastoun’s heart was touched. She perceived there was reason as well as feelin in Amy’s appeal. “Well – well, child,” she said, “you know I do not wish to put a force upon you. I do not, nor ever did, feel you to be a heavy burden on us; I only ask you to take the proposition of Master Uriah into consideration, and try to live him, as much as it becometh a virtuous maiden to love a worthy suitor.” “Oh, aunt, ask me to do anything else, but indeed there is no use in trying to love. I did try, and for one whom, I confess, I was not in any sort worthy; and whom, beforehand, I should have deemed it right easy to love, but the more I tried the more impossible I found it.” “And for whim, I pray you, did you make this marvelous trial?” Amy was silent. “Not, I am sure, for Master James Chilton? – nor Nathanial Goodeno?” Amy shook her head. “And you would not, Amy,” continued her aunt with a more scrutinizing glance, “you would try to love that lawless young spark – I will not mention his name, since your uncle has forbidden it to be spoken within his doors.” Amy felt her face and neck flushing and burning, and to avert the right inference from her treacherous blushes, she did what may be most pithily expressed by a vulgar proverb, ‘jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire.’ “No, no, aunt,” she said, “he to whom I allude is far – far away, and has I trust forgotten me.” “Surely – surely, Amy, you do not mean Wickliffe Wilson?” “I do, aunt,” replied Amy, with an irrepressible smile that abated the virtue of her humble tone of voice.” “Oh, Amy!” exclaimed her aunt, in a voice of sorrow and rebuke, “you amaze and distress me. I knew you to be giddy and trifling to a degree, but I never before thought you a senseless ad hardhearted.” She paused, and then added, as if a sudden light had broken upon her, “Ah, I see it all now! Little did I think when Wickliffe was spending his precious time, day after day, in teaching you the tongues, that Satan was spreading a snare for him. How could the learned and pious youth suffer his affections to be wasted upon such a piece of laughing idlesse! Wickliffe Wilson, the honored son of an honored sire! the gifted youth! the hope of the plantation! Amy, Amy, was it for that his eye lacked its lustre, his cheek became sunken and pale, and his heart waxed faint! – love of you, Amy, that has sent him forth from his father’s house, and from his native land, and without one accusing word or look?” Amy burst into tears. “He was most generous,” she said, “I would have done any thing to manifest my gratitude to him, and as I truly told you, aunt, I did try in earnest to love him.” “O pshaw, child! – I see through it all. You could not choose but have loved him, had not your unbridled affections strayed another way. The sooner you recall them the better, for never – never shall you wed with Lovell Reeve – a foil, a contrast truly to the worthy youth Wickliffe!” This pursued, Amy turned and stood at bay. “Aunt Cranstoun,” she said, “worthy and noble as Wickliffe may be, and I grant him so, Lovell Reeve, in all gentlemanly points, in all high sentiment and right feeling, is his equal – his equal in every think but yours and my uncle’s esteem; and I have long believed, without the courage to tell you so, that some one has traduced him to you.” “Nay, Amy, his own ill deeds dispraise him. Did he not join the galliards of Boston, in their assemblings for dancing and other forbidden frolics? Did he not aid and abet – nay, was he not the sole instigator and agent in conveying dame Hyslop beyond the Massachusetts, after it was well nigh proven that she was the confederate and vowed servant of Satan, in bewitching Levi Norton’s children? – and was not Lovell Reeve foremost, and ringleader of those ungodly youths, who discredited the right of assistants, and openly opposed the driving forth of the Quakers, and the extirpation of their blasphemous heresy?” “I believe, aunt, he has done all this.” “And still you dare to even him with one, who is in full communion and fair standing with the church, and whose walk has been, like pious Samuel’s, even from his youth, in all godliness.” “Oh, aunt, the Scripture says there be divers gifts; Wickliffe’s are not Lovell’s, neither, under favor I say it, are Lovell’s, Wickliffe’s. And now,” she continued, throwing herself on her knees before her aunt, and clasping her hands, “Now, my dear aunt, that I have boldly foregone maidenly modesty, and spoken, in some measure as I feel, of my true-love, let me plead with you, by all your care for my well-being – by all your gentle; womanly thoughts and memories – by that pure and interchanged affection which Lovell and I have plighted before God, I beseech ye let me follow the biddings of my heart, and profess before the world what I have revealed to you, instead of hiding it like a guilty passion in the depths of my heart – you do feel for us! – you cannot help it – Oh speak to my uncle.” Amy had skillfully touched a powerful spring. Her aunt was affected by her half voluntary confidence; but though the ling congealed sources of sympathy were soften, they were not melted, and when Amy mentioned her uncle, the subject, in Madam Cranstoun, reverted to its old light. “Rise, my child,” she said, “it ill becomes you to put yourself in the posture of a silly damsel of romance. Your uncle and I cannot recede from a decision made after and due and prayerful deliberation. I now perceive that you are apprised of the youth Lovell having applied to us – not as he should have done before communing with you, - for leave to make suit to you, to which we answered with a full negative, and stated our reasons therefor, which were he of a right temper, would have been satisfactory. We have fully warned him not to urge you to an act of disobedience, and secured his compliance by informing him that an marriage bounty, which your uncle might purpose, would be withheld in case of your failure in duty due.” “You mistake his spirit – he spurned the threat, and urged me to forfeit my uncle’s gift; and by me troth, aunt, it was not in the wealth of the Indies to hold me back, but I did fear to violate my duty to you, and I hoped you would grant my prayer when I dared to make it to you.” “Never, Amy, never. I commend you in as far as you have acted wisely in the past; and for the future I command you to dismiss Lovell Reeve from your mind.” “I cannot. I may control the outward act, but how eradicate the image blended with every thought and affection?” “This is girlish talk, Amy. Be humble and teachable, child. Remember they youth ever errs in judgment. But guided by those, who are both wise and experienced; and then, Amy, if you should still be privileged with the favor of worthy Master Wickliffe’s love, you may yet be mated to our acceptance and your own profit.” “Heaven forbid,” thought Amy. Her aunt proceeded, “ I see that thou art self-willed, but take heed – the judgment of Heaven may light upon thee – consider duly – go thy apartment, and commune with thy heart.” Amy obeyed with alacrity; for in these communings she found the only indulgence of an affection, which neither her conscience nor her judgment forbad. Amy’s conscience, though it did not act in obedience to the laws Madam Cranstoun could have prescribed, was a faithful monitor, and Amy was obedient to its monitions. Clandestine proceedings were abhorrent to the integrity of her character. Every delicate woman instinctively revolts from an elopement and a secret marriage. Amy had maintained a firm negative to Lovell’s entreaties. With the confidence of her most happy temper she believed that some favorable circumstances would occur, some influence come, she knew not whence, to shift the wind in her favor. But – when she had put aside her pride and her maidenly reserve, and freely confessed her love to her aunt, and found her unrelenting, and resolved to maintain her power in its utmost rigor – Amy felt a spirit of insurrection rising in her heart, that probably, but for the strange events that followed, would soon have broken out into open rebellion. There were throbbings at her heart at the thought of escape from thralldom; when, at this treacherous moment, a servant tapped at the door to announce “that Wimple, the Boston Pedlar, was in the hall with his box full of nick-nacks, that he was sure would pleasure Miss Amy’s eye.” “Tell him,” said Amy, in a tone that indicated nothing could pleasure her at the moment, “tell him I want nothing.” “Pray do not send him that word, Miss Amy! – Madam has huffed him already; and Miss Prudence and Miss Tempy have bought nothing but knives and whalebones. They were sharp and stiff enough already! – and besides, Wimple bade me tell you he has a violet ribbon, just the color of your eyes.” Perhaps curious to ascertain the color of her eyes, or it may be, like most frail mortals, not deaf to flattery, Amy descended to the hall. She found her aunt and cousins, attracted by the pretty assortment of merchandise, still hovering about the pedlar’s box, inquiring prices, cheapening the articles they meant to buy, and vouchsafing a few grains or praise to such as they did not want. “Ah, my service to you, Mistress Amy,” said Wimple, “it would be ill luck to my box to leave the plantations without seeing you.” “And ill fortune to me, Wimple. But where is the ribbon Judith told me of!” “The ribbon! – what ribbon, my young lady? – ah, I remember,” added Wimple, as the luring message he had transmitted recurred to him, “it should be here – or here – it was of the violet dye, young lady – the flower – and something else I’ve seen – looks as if a drop from the blue sky had fallen into it – the ribbon is clear gone, but here is a pair of gloves, a nice fit for you.” “They are just the color I have been looking for, for a full half hour to no purpose,” said Miss Prudence, “so it is but fair I should have the first trial.” Wimple looked disconcerted – “Indeed, my young lady,” he said, with a discreet emphasis on young, not enough to imply sarcasm, and just enough to seem earnest, “indeed, my young lady, they are a thought too small for you,” and suiting the action to the word, he adroitly measured the glove against the back of Miss Prudence’s broad, sinewy hand; she turned away satisfied, or piqued. Wimple, too politic to leave a shadow on the mind of a customer, added, “I will suit you, Miss Prudy, next time, for one of my brethren in the walking line, is expected from Acadie with French nackeries, and he’ll be sure to bring gloves; - such as these with pretty devices are much sought after, by the Boston gallants, for love-tokens.” “Let me look at the gloves before you purchase,” interposed Madam Cranstoun, whose ear was offended by Wimple’s professional vaunt; “I do not approve these braveries that feed vanity, and draw truant eyes at meeting.” Wimple adroitly exchanged the gloves designed for Amy, for a pair of embroidered with a monumental device, saying, “Madam Cranstoun will certainly approve the wholesome lesson wisely wrought here.” Madam Cranstoun returned the gloves with a cold remark, that she believed they would do no harm; and Wimple unsuspected slipped the right pair into Amy’s hand, contriving as he did so let her see the corner of a note within the glove. “Never mind the ‘pay this time, Mistress Amy,” he said. Amy understood him, dropped a silver penny in his hand, and quickly disappeared. She then returned to her room, bolted her door, and kissing the gloves, – those fated gloves – she read the following note: “My beloved Amy; and yet mine, since your own cruel sentence makes those barriers impassable which tyranny has erected? Still you are mine by your own most precious confession; by vows registered in Heaven, and which not all the power of all the uncles and aunts in christendom can make void. I have something to communicate that I cannot trust to paper – meet me, I beseech you, on Tuesday the 5th, at 7 o’clock, P.M., under the elm tree, just beyond the cove. If you refuse me this boon, I shall fear the freezing atmosphere in which you live has chilled the warm precincts of your heart. At seven, dear Amy, – remember, 7 P.M. of Tuesday the 5th – farewell till then.” “Tuesday the 5th,” had come, and “7 P.M.” drew nigh, when Amy put on the memorable gloves, which were wrought with a bunch of forget-me-nots, tied with a true-love know; and sheltering herself in a dark silk cloak and hood, she eluded all the argus eyes aout the mansion, and reached the place of rendezvous. “He is not here!” she exclaimed, as her foot touched the spot; “there is yet one minute to spare,” she added, looking at her watch; “yet it should have been Lovell, not I, who came the minute too soon – next time,” she concluded, drawing off one of her gloves, “Lovell shall wear the forget-me-not.” Poor Lovell! he would not have broken the thousandth part of a minute in his appointment; but the most faithful are not exempted from the cross accidents of life. His horse, in passing a treacherous causeway, had broken his leg. Lovell did not hesitate to abandon him, and hurried on with all the speed that vigorous and agile limbs, and a most impatient spirit, could supply; but even love cannot travel like a sound horse, and when Lovell reached the cove it was a quarter past seven. There was still enough of twilight left, for him to discern the print of Amy’s little foot on the white sand. He bent and kissed it, then sprang up the bank and onward to the elm-tree – she was not there! He thought that in the spirit of sportive retaliation for his delay, she might have hidden in some shaded recess. He explored every recess, penetrated every possible hiding-place, he pronounced, and imploringly repeated, her name, but all in vain. “She must have been here!” he exclaimed, “I could not mistake the print of any other foot for her’s – Oh Amy, could you not wait one quarter of an hour for me! – Can any thing have happened to her? – She may have been followed hither by some evil-minded person!” Apprehensions accumulate most rapidly where the safety of a defenseless object, and the dearest one in life, is at stake. Lovell reiterated Amy’s name in a voice of agony; he looked over, again and again, the places he had already thoroughly searched; he then returned to the cove, there was not mark there of a returning footstep; she could not then have gone back that way. He remounted the bank, intending to extend his search farther up the river. After passing some willows, the shore was rocky, and just beyond the rocks was a thicket of saplings, and tangled bushes that led to the water’s edge. “She could not have passed here,” he said. Something caught his eye at the bottom of the rock. He descended, and just on the margin of the river he found on of Amy’s gloves, one of the pair which he had sent by Wimple, and on the sand was imprinted the mark of a small foot, that must have been recently there. His head became giddy with terrific apprehensions, and now, as he looked up the rock, he saw the fibrous plants that grew from their fissures had been freshly uprooted, and appeared as if their insufficient aid had been resorted to. The mind will not at once surrender itself to despair. It was barely possible that some acquaintance had been sailing on the river, and that, to avoid surmises, Amy had returned to town in the boat. But there was the glove! – Amy would not have carelessly dropped his love-token – and the uprooted plants! Still there was a ray of hope, and in one half hour Lovell burst into Governor Cranstoun’s parlor, and darting his eyes around the formal circle, he explained its glance by asking in one breath, “Is Amy here? – has no one seen her?” The family all rose, startled at his wild appearance. “Is the youth crazy?” asked Madam Cranstoun. “This intrusion is unlooked for, and manifestly indecorous!” said the governor. “Will no one answer me?” exclaimed Lovell, and snatching a hand-bell from the table, he returned to the hall and rang it furiously. The servants, alarmed, obeyed the summons. “Have any of you seen Mistress Amy?” he asked, “and when? – and where?” All looked amazed, non answered. “For the love of Heaven speak, - go to her room – search every where.” “Hold, young man!” said Governor Cranstoun, “you are mad.” “Mad? – I shall be mad! – she is lost! – it may be, murdered.” The last word, articulated as it was in a broken and suppressed voice, penetrated to every heart, and instantly every mouth was opened, every room was searched, and every corner of the mansion in an uproar and confusion. “I saw her before tea,” said one. “I saw her go out the side gate!” said another. “Yes,” said Miss Prudence, “and I saw her from my window, and thought then she was going on a wild goose chase.” The alarm soon spread from the governor’s family to the town; alarm-bells were ring, and the men in separate and small bands went out on a scout in every direction. The search was continued for days, and not relinquished till neither reason nor hope held out the slightest probability of success. But after the people had returned to their usual occupations, and Amy’s disappearance had become an old story, it continued to be as acutely felt by Lovell Reeve, as at the first terrible moment of conviction that she was gone. He abandoned his ordinary pursuits, forsook his accustomed haunts; and worn and wasted wandered over the country, seeking and inquiring, but finding nothing to feed his hopes, which were only kept alive by the undying fires of love. Amy’s disappearance was just about the period of the death of the heroic Indian, king Philip. A few of his old comrades still maintained a feeble resistance to the English. Lovell sometimes encountered their parties in the fastness of the savage forests. They answered his questions patiently, and treated him kindly; probably his wild and haggard aspect impressed them with the belief that he was suffering from one of those visitations of Heaven, which elicit far more tenderness and respect from the savage than the civilized man. On one occasion, at late twilight, he had thrown himself down in a little nook made by the turning of a brook that ran rambling past it, and wearied and exhausted he had opened his wallet, when he heard some one striding down the rocky hill above him. From the dimensions of the figure he mistook it for that of a man, but as it approached nearer, her perceived it to be a young Indian woman. Her head was thrown back, her brow painfully contracted, and her eye fixed, and indicating a mind abstracted from all outward things. She threw herself on the ground, almost at the feet of Lovell, without seeing him. Her check was hollow, and her limbs tremulous; but she seemed as if some passionate grief obscured the sense of corporeal wants. Lovell spoke to her; asked her whither she came” where she was going? to which she replied, in such imperfect English, that she conveyed no meaning to Lovell. One word alone he understood, and that was the name of the famous Annowon, the Indian chieftain, who had been the companion of Philip’s father, the tried and trusted associate of Philip himself, and who, still unsubdued, though hunted like a beast of prey, maintained his national independance in the gloomy depth of a forest – all that was left of the wide domain inherited from his fathers. Lovell offered the woman a portion of his evening mean; she took it eagerly, devouring it ravenously, and then drawing her blanket over her head, she pillowed it on the rock, and was soon lost in deep sleep. Poor Lovell envied her short oblivion, and continued, hour after hour, watching the stars on their courses, till at last nature overcoming his sense of misert, he too fell asleep. When he awoke in the morning, the Indian woman had disappeared. On the crushed grass where she had lain there was something that quickened Lovell’s pulses. He sprang forward, seized, and examine it – it was Amy’s glove. The mate he had worn in his bosom, from the fatal hour of her disappearance. But alas! the woman who had possessed this clew had gone. H shouted, he ran hither and yon, calling in the most supplicating voice, but he was only answered by the forest echoes. He had, however obtained some light; and vague, and feeble as it was, it might prove a guiding beam over the weary waste that had encompassed him. Annowon either did possess the secret of Amy’s fate, or could command it. This conclusion made, Lovell instantly conceived a project, and set forward to execute it. — We return to where we left out little friend Amy. She was startled from her mental reproaches of her lover by the plash of oars, and, turning, she saw a canoe rowing through the cove, and stealthily close into the shore. There were two Indians in the canoe, but as there were many friendly natives in the vicinity of Providence, she was not alarmed till the canoe, having turned the ledge of rocks and disappeared, she saw the Indians coming up the bank towards her. Escape was impossible. The one was the old man, the other a youth. The young man asked her to come with them. The elder, without ceremony, seized her arm and dragged her forward. She resisted with all her might, shrieking the name of Lovell, and vainly hoping he might be near enough to hear her voice, but that hope soon vanished. She was thrust into the canoe, and it was rapidly rowed down the stream to a swampy landing-place, where the Indians disembarked, drew their canoe up into the thicket, and began their scramble through the morass. In the short itme that had passed since Amy had relinquished the hope of a rescue, she had, with her strong native good sense, surveyed her position, and made up her mind as to her mode of conduct. In carrying her resolve into execution she was sustained by an unconquerable, a Heaven-inspired cheerfulness of spirit, that like a cleaf meridian sun brightened even the darkest objects. Poor girl! she needed all its power. The Indians were amazed to see her, instead of lagging, press forward without a word or sigh of complaint. The elder of her captors she soon ascertained to be the far-famed Annowon, now verging to old age, but still retaining many of the attributes of vigorous manhood, a fiery eye, an upright person, and a firm step; the younger was Mantunno, a young man of two and twenty, an exception to, rather than a specimen of his race. His aspect was that of a man of peace and gentleness. His voice was sympathetic, as he ever and anon cheered on his captive, and where the passes were most difficult he carried her, sinking to his knees in the bogs, till he reached a firm foot-hold. Thus they proceeded till they approached a place, which still, after the passage of more than a century and a half, retains the name of “Annowon’s rock.” This rock, or rather ledge of rocks, for it extends from 70 to 80 feet, was then inaccessible except from one point, being nearly surrounded by a morass which, before the land was drained, was covered with water. Near its base the rocks have deep recesses and shelving places, and being well hedged in with felled treed and dried bushes, they afforded a sort of sheltered nest for these wild denizens of the woods. A beacon-light had penetrated through the tangled wood, guiding Amy’s step over the slippery rocks and trembling mosses, but the way suddenly became more difficult; the poor girl’s heart of grace failed, and exhausted she sunk down and burst into tears. The old Indian muttered, “Telula cry? – never.” “Telula no woman,” replied the young man, and taking out poor little friend in his arms, he strided on through bush and through brake, till emerging suddenly, they came upon the access to their wild resting-place, and as the now unimpeded light streamed cheerfully up from it and shone on Amy’s face, Mantunno saw there a tolerable successful effort at a smile of gratitude, which wen very near to his heart. Refreshed by her rest in the Indian’s arm, and encouraged by the wilderness and novelty of the scene, – for Amy’s was a somewhat romantic and most buoyant spirit, – she descended the ledge of rocks, sometimes upheld by Mantunno, sometimes sustaining herself on a foothold that seemed scarcely qualified to afford support for a bird, and sometimes holding fast by branches of the trees that here and there had forced themselves through the crevices of the rocks. This she reached safely the broad base of the ledge, and looking around her at various distances, and imperfectly, as the firelight glanced athwart them, she saw small groups of Indians. Near her a bright fire was burning under a caldron, from which issued fumes so savory, that considering the gross appetites of which common souls are compounded, they would have been much more like, than those strains the poet magnifies, to “create a soul under the ribs of death.” Tending this caldron was a tall bony Indian girl; her features were large, and expressive of turbulent passions, but without a particle of the feminine softness that is common to young woman of all hues. She looked like a vulture, eager to grasp a dove in its talons, as she fixed her eyes on poor little Amy. Some broken sentences she spoke to the youth, in her native tongue, complaining of his protracted absence and her wearisome solitude, and then turned her eye again on Amy, as if she longed to know, but would not ask, why the little garden-blossom had been brought to their wild home. Mantunno neither heeded her words nor her looks. He was busied in making a bead of dry mosses and leaves for his captive, and forming a bower for her, by interweaving branches of the hemlocks and cedars that were growing in abundance around them. Annowon called loudly for supper, and Telula served I, but without eating herself or offering a portion to Amy till bidden by Annowon, when she filled a wooden trencher and set it before her, and Amy, in pursuance of her resolution to sustain her strength and spirits by all human means, and we suspect befriended by an honest appetite; ate as heartily as if she had been at her uncle’s table – the best in ‘Providence Plantations.’ After she had finished her singular meal, she thanked Mantunno for the bed he had spread for her, bade him “good night,” in the sweetest tone of her sweet voice, and crept into her little bower, where, after commending herself to God, she fell asleep, pondering over the chances of reunion to Lovell Reeve, Oh, what lessons may be learned from those who act according to the dictates of wise nature! Mantunno laid himself down at a little distance from Amy’s bower, and long into the watches of the night Telula observed his wakeful eye fixed on it, as a miser watches the casket that contains his treasure. But when at last his sense were locked in sleep, Telula drew near the old man, who, as he sat leaning against the rock, looked like a portion of it, so rigid were his features, so sharp and immoveable the outline of his bony figure. “Father,” asked Telula, in her own language, “is this Yengee girl yours, or Mantunno’s captive?” “Mine.” “My father is wise! –” said Telula, in that tone which converts an affirmation into a negative. “And why am I not wise, Telula.” “Was I not wretched enough yesterday?” “And why more wretched now? “Did he ever pile the mosses for my head to rest upon? – Did he ever weave a curtain around my bed? – Did he ever watch my sleep as the eagle watches its nestling? Mantunno’s soul is as the pale-faces! He would fain mate with them.” “What mean you, Telula?” “This girl! – this girl! – why did ye bring her hither?” The vehement tones of Telula’s voice, and the flood of tears she poured out, seemed, rather than her words, to have conveyed her meaning to the old man. He fixed his eye on her and said, “Ye would not surely wed your mother’s sister’s son?” “I would.” “This is worse than all! – I charge ye, Telula, as you love your life, never to speak – never to think of this again.” “I cannot obey you.” Both reverted to silence; but the subject was for ever fixed in the minds of both. The marriage of cousins was regarded as an abomination by some, if not by all the Indian tribes, and their strict adherence to the Hebrew law in this particular is urged by some of our antiquaries as among the proofs of their descent from the ten lost tribes. Annowon had met with losses and miseries in every shape. His wives were dead – his children had gone like flowers from the hill-side – his people had vanished – his brother Philip had been slain in battle, and his body hacked in pieces by the sacrilegious knives of the Yengees – and some fifty followers, and this barren rock on which the sun shone, and the showers fell in vain, was all that was left of his tribe and their wide domain; and now this unlawful passion of the last of his race seemed to him to fill up the measure of his sorrows. He had seized Amy from an impulse of hostility to her race; he had learned from her high connexions, and he now purposed either to make her a victim of his vengeance, or an instrument in obtaining his own terms in the treaty that, in his moments of despair, he contemplated making with the English. In the mean time, if Amy could be made to subserve the purpose of extinguishing Telula’s hopes and affection, so much the better; – her hopes, she might; her affection, as it proved, could outlive hope. When Amy awoke, she felt, as every one does in coming out of a kind of oblivion of sleep, the full weight of her calamity. She seemed translated to a new world. Every object around her was savage, and the Indians themselves seemed, not creatures of her kind, but meet offspring of the rocks and tangled forest. But as the morning advanced her courage returned. As she felt the cheering influence of the sun, and heard the notes of familiar birds – the voices of old friends – her spirit revived, and she came forth from her bower so serene, bright, and beautiful, that Mantunno exclaimed, in his own language, “The morning star!” Telula’s jealous ear caught the words, and she darted a glance first at Amy, and then at him, that made her recoil. And filled him with alarm. He was aware of Telula’s strong passions, he was aware of her love for him, and that one look had revealed to him what she might feel towards a rival. Day after fay passed on, and he never left the rock save when he was sure that his grandfather’s presence secured Amy’s safety. Telula saw his distrust, and it sunk deep into her soul. When he was present, his eye continually rested on Amy; when he was absent, it was plain his heart still lingered with her. The brilliant feathers of birds, their curious eggs, wild flowers, and every pretty treasure of the forest, were laid at her feet, and Mantunno was sufficiently rewarded with a kindly beam of Amy’s blue eye, or a faint smile from her bright lip, when Telula felt that she would have given life for one such proof of his love. The miserable girl’s jealousy was inflamed in every way. The old man permitted and encouraged Mantunno’s devotion, and Amy, believing, from her own experience, love to be the most generous of all sentiments, cherished it by smiles and kindness. Telula neither ate nor slept. Her form wasted, and her face became so haggard, that Amy shrink from her as from some blinding demon. One evening, just at twilight, Mantunno and Amy were alone together. It was a rare chance, and Amy eagerly seized it to urge a suit she had long mediated. She entreated the young Indian, by all his love of his own people and kindred – by all his friendship for her, to guide her back to her home. “But,” he tenderly remonstrated, “you have neither father nor mother, sister nor brother – they make home.” Amy wept bitterly. “Oh!” he continued, in the universal language of loving nature, “let my home by thy home, and my people thy people!” Amy was rather stunned by this proposition. She soon recovered her self-possession, and replied courageously, “Mantunno, I have not, it is true, father nor mother, sister nor brother, but there is one dearer to me than all these, and I am his promised bride.” The Indian threw himself on the ground and wished he were dead. At this moment Telula, returning from a half-frenzied wandering, had led herself down the rocks, her eyes fixed on them, but unseen and unheard them. She heard Amy say, as she approached near them, “Oh rise, my good friend, I shall always love you for your kindness”— Telula did not wait to hear her out. One word only, love, of which she felt the full import, penetrated to her brain. She instantly resolved on a project, to which, though most abhorrent to her national feelings, she was stimulated by her resentment towards Annowon, and by the maddening passions of love and jealousy. She sprang towards Amy, tore apart a ribbon, by which was suspended the glove, Lovell’s precious gift, and thrusting it into her own bosom, mounted the rock like a wild-car, and went forth brooding on her purpose, in her better mind dismissing it, and then again goaded on by her insane passion, seeking the means of its execution. Old Annowon was afflicted and soured by Telula’s protracted absence. He became sullen and crabbed, and wreaked his bitter feelings on poor Amy. He imposed domestic offices on her, compelled her to bring water, and feed the fire. Mantunno saw her fragile form bending under burdens; he felt, like the liver in the play, that “such baseness ne’er had like executor,” and fain would he have given the strongest proof of love a savage could give, by performing these ignoble, womanly offices himself; but the old man harshly forbade him, and asked him “when it was he served Telula?” Poor Amy’s heart sink as her hopes abates. She was yet far from despairing, but each day seemed an age to her. Mantunno’s kindness was undiminished, but now her soul revoled from itl even the crabbedness of the old man was more tolerable to her. Still, save in the tears that would unbidden now and then steal from her eyes, she did not betray the sadness of her heart. Two weeks had elapsed, and nothing was yet heard of Telula, though Annowon had sought her in all the forest hunts of his dispersed and hunted tribe. He retuned one night, wearied, and more sad than sullen, threw himself on his mat. Amy heard him groading, and at intervals repeating the same words, “What says he?” she asked of Mantunno. “He repeats, “my people! my children! Telula! all gone!” With the instinct of her sex, Amy tried to comfort him. She offered him his favorite drink, unbidden prepared his evening meal, and, with earnest words, prated him to take it. He declined her kindness, but he seemed touched by it, and drawing her towards him, he said, “Ah, child, bright days are written on they smooth brow, and the promise of friends and lovers stamped on thy beautiful face.” “Oh, then,” said Amy, eagerly availing herself of the first auspicious moment, “restore me to my friends – do not make me wear out my life in bondage and doing strange tasks. I shall soon die if I hear not the voices of my kindred! – Oh, think how hard it must be not to hear the language of your own people! not sit to eat with those of your own color! to live on without a smile, and die without one to mourn you.” “Amy! Amy!” exclaimed Mantunno involuntarily. The exclamation seemed to dry the fountain of pity that Amy had opened in the old man’s bosom. “Ye are the child of my enemies,” he said, “and like all the pale-faces, ye have misery and ruin in your track – go to your bed, child – go to your bed.” Amy crept into her little bower, and in the anguish of her heart she mentally reproached her lover. “Ah!” she thought, “had I been Lovell, and he been me, I would not have rested till every white man in the colonies was on foot, till every den in the forest was searched; but alas! alas! men do not love as we love!’ Far into the night she resolved these bitter thoughts, but finally, true to herself and true to Lovell, she fell asleep, alleging very good reasons why Lovell could not have found her. While all around him slept, Annowon was awake, gloomily pondering the past, more gloomily the future. The evening fire had gone out. The moon looked down smilingly, just as she had looked in his happiest days, on the stern home of the old warrior. Her silvery beams fell on the branches as they waved in the light breeze; shone on the flowers that, projecting from the crevices, hung over the rocks; penetrated even the recess where Annowon’s trusty followers were sleeping; defined Mantunno’s graceful figure as he lay near Amy’s bower, dreaming of the lovely form within it; fell on that form modestly wrapped in a cloak, and played over her fair cheek and bright hair – the fairest and brightest that ever rested on a leafy pillow in the wild world. Annowon was suddenly startled from his abstraction, and looking up, he saw Telula creeping slowly and cautiously down the rocks. Annowon, as soon as he had recovered from his first joyous sensation of surprise, perceived the shadow of some person following her cast back upon the rock, and then another, and another, but these shadows were so confounded with that of a large basket that Telula carried, and constantly shifted from arm to arm. That they conveyed no definite information to Annowon; and he, as little expecting treachery from Telula as from his own soul, was not alarmed, till an Indian, instantly followed by others, grasped the branch of a tree, swung down the last descent, and round an angle of the rock, and darting into the recess where Annowon’s followers were sleeping, butchered them. At the same moment the old chief himself was seized. Telula rushed past him, rent open the bower as if it were a spider’s web, drew a hatchet from beneath her blanket and raised it over Amy; Mantunno sprang forward and interposed his person in time to save Amy – by the sacrifice of his own life! As his body fell at her feet, Telula recoiled, then again raising her arm and flourishing the hatched in the air, she purposed surer aim at the “Yengee girl,” but Amy was already far up the rock, in the arms of Lovell Reeve! Telula gazed after her, she felt Mantunno’s warm blood dripping from her hatchet on her arm, and sunk senseless beside his body. It had all passed like a flash of lightning, that uproots and tears asunder that which was fast rooted and bound together. Annowon turned his eye from the bloody tragedy, and saw himself in the hands of Captain Church, the famous vanquisher of King Philip. He then, as history records, took from his bosom two most curious bits of wampum, and some other consecrated trifles, that had been a portion of Philip’s royal insignia, and kneeling, surrendered them to Church, with the ceremony and feeling with which a faithful follower yields the banner of his chieftain. He then sunk down, and covered his face with his hands, saying, “I have done – I am the last of my people!” We have not space to relate Annowon’s fate. It fills one of those pages that we could wish expunged from the history of christians. It is not necessary to detail the particulars that led to the catastrophe we have described. We have faintly intimated them. The curious reader will find them at large in the contemporaneous histories. We have added some circumstances not there recorded, and we have learned from the veracious source, “the best authority,” that Telula was afterwards seen on the shores of the blue Ontario, where, among the wild people who confounded inspiration with insanity, she was reverenced and cherished. Lovell Reeve, with his rescued betrothed, proceeded forthwith to Governor Cranstoun’s, and no one thenceforth opposing his right to her, it was soon confirmed by the solemn ceremonial of marriage. The only exception to the general kindness lavished on Amy, was a remark from one of her discreet cousins, – on whom a wedding seems not to have had its usual benign influence, – “that young ladies must expect to pay dearly for evening assignations with clandestine lovers.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Amy Cranstoun Subject The topic of the resource Love, Religion, Native Americans, Abduction, Tragedy Description An account of the resource Amy Cranstoun, an orphan, lives with her religious aunt and uncle in a Providence community. Her aunt attempts to convince Amy to reject her frivolous behavior and settle down to marry. Unbeknownst to her aunt, Amy is having an affair with Lovell Reeve, a controversial figure in the religious community. One night, when Amy is secretly meeting with Reeve, she is abducted by Native Americans. Amy grows close with a Native American, Matunno, who is falling in love with her. Lovell Reeve's desperate search for Amy allows her family to accept him. However, a Native American woman, Telula, is spiteful towards Amy, because she loves Mantunno. Telula's actions lead to tragedy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catherine M., the author of "Redwood" and "Hope Leslie." Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived "Amy Cranstoun." By the author of "Redwood" and "Hope Leslie." In The Magnolia, edited by Henry W. Herbert, 145-76. New York, 1836 [pub. 1835]. Volume reissued as The Snow Flake, 145-76. New York, 1853 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Magnolia (1836), The Snow Flake (1853) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource S. Riggins Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Annowon Benjamin Church captivity conscience Historical fiction King Philip Mount Hope Native Americans orphans Providence Puritans Quakers Romance sacrifice Satan The Magnolia https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/5cb7ee30556c0d0997d5f94d11646ef5.pdf?Expires=1792627200&Signature=BpAA039kWFUrxqMhdthp3KaZW-0TgiBIrbGejpII8ZR-M-Z9rPlr5ix4PfXxslQrQx-MwXQu9gRQGWHmyG9nArwSJ4fWhSdruLPcLsvQn6nkIpw-KNzc7%7EpCTUG0%7EU%7Ea-Gi-xDFMuFmOKtvvxNrwAfR5MpSlM40LJUEDWEchiMkiD-6kv6w-Agfelo0JqzhryRD3Md9GJoqQtfN4S9AMssNGmTfiMQ2shfckWaDj79WQKGqhz8u54D%7E5pOQoTbADbGcwphu-gog7vznm6Pc3T7oZkmRaSchdHKvOZZhdADn%7EqAPL-Ae9izDd7mlIGf0pmT-qxruorCDij8WLvMfUUg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 3bd02176d8e31744eaa0d53a63344f10 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1842 Subject The topic of the resource Stories published in 1842. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. The Irish Girl. By the author of “Hope Leslie,” &c. “My peace is gone, My heart is heavy; I shall find it never And never more.” “Now sit down, Margaret, child, and rest you—here by my bedside. How comfortable my bed feels! It always has the right lay when you fix it, Margaret. Come, sit down; the work is all done up, and done as well as I could do it myself—even the outside of the teakettle is as clean as a china cup. It’s a mystery to me, Margaret, how you learned such tidy ways in a shanty.” “It’s not always that I have lived in a shanty, Mrs. Ray.” “Don’t turn your back to me, Margaret; draw your chair closer to my bed. I want to have a little talk with you, Margaret. I feel myself going down hill, and I don’t know how long I may be spared.” “God forbid you should be taken, Mrs. Ray, dear—you, that are so good to them that’s near and them that’s far off.” “You must not flatter me, Margaret,” said the old woman, in a tone of voice that indicated anything but displeasure. “And do you think I’d be after flattering you, Mrs. Ray—you, that are mother-like to me? God knows you are kind, and it’s James says the same; and you know yourself James—God forgive him!—loves no Yankee besides you in the world.” “But I mistrust, Margaret,” said the old lady, fixing her faded gray eye on the young creature, “I mistrust James’s sister can’t say the same.” Margaret’s cheek, ordinarily pale, turned to a deep crimson. The old lady cleared her voice and continued: “It’s no crime, nor nothing like it, Margaret, to love what’s good—hem—if what’s good is what’s suitable.” This seemed a mere common-placeism, but Margaret’s cheek turned pale again, and a tear trickled over it. “You say you have not always lived in a shanty, Margaret, and that’s what l have said to our people. Says I to Sister Maxwell, ‘Margaret has had as good opportunities as the most of our mountain girls;’ says I, ‘ she can read handsomely— there’s few can read like her;’ says I, ‘I wish the minister could read so;’ says I, ‘ her reading sinks right down into the heart.’ ” “Who is flattering now, Mrs. Ray, dear?” [p. 130] “Not I, Margaret—-’tis not our way to flatter.” “Nor ours. God knows, Mrs. Ray, it’s what we feel we speak, be it good or bad.” “Well, well, Margaret, I know some does call real kind heart-words flattery, but they are no such thing, I know—we won’t talk about that now. As I was saying, judging from your reading and writing, you have seen better days—haven’t you, Margaret?” “Some ways they were better, and other ways not. I had an aunt was housekeeper at Lady Kavenagh’s—and my lady respected my aunt, and she would have me to come and live with her in the housekeeper’s room; and Miss Grace took a fancy to me, and taught me to read and write, and so forth.” “Then, after all,” said Mrs. Ray, with manifest disappointment, “your parents have always lived in a shanty?” “They lived in what we call a cabin, ma’am —thank God.” “Margaret, you forget: I’ve often told you it’s not right to use the name of God in vain as you do. You should not say ‘thank God’ when you mean nothing by it.” “Indeed, Mrs. Ray, dear, and I do mean something. I never think of my home in that cabin without thanking God in my heart, and God forgive me if I don’t thank him with my lips too. That cabin was my home, Mrs. Ray; there was a kind father and the kindest of mothers always working and caring for us. There it was my little sister—God bless her! —died; there was James, my mate, always glad to see me, and sorry to part from me; there was never a harsh word among us—we laughed and we cried together—what one loved, the other loved, and what one hated, all hated: hadn’t we what’s best in castle and palace, and not always found there? I’ve often thought, wouldn’t my Lady Kavenagh gladly change with-my mother, and rough it with loving hearts and happy faces?” “Oh, I dare say, Margaret, ladies in the old countries have it hard enough, as everyone knows who reads the newspapers; but that is nothing to the purpose. What I want to come at, Margaret, is, would you—could you be content to live in a cabin again? You would hold your head above it, wouldn’t you?” Margaret’s form dilated as she impulsively rose from her seat, and raising and clasping her hands, appealingly exclaimed, “God strike me dead, then, if I would! -- it was in a cabin that my father and mother that’s gone lived -- it was in a cabin that James and l grew up together, with one heart between us. Oh, Mrs. Ray, dear, God forgive you! -- it’s such a long time ago, I think you have forgotten what a happy thing it is to be a child at home, in your own father’s place—be it castle or cabin, it’s all the same.” “Don’t be affronted, child, and don’t cry,” said kind Mrs. Ray, wiping her eyes, and somewhat overpowered by Margaret’s vehe— [p. 131] mence; “your feelings are natural, and quite right, but there is no need of such a hurricane. I am sure my sons and daughters love me and are dutiful to me, but it’s in a quiet, regular way.” “And that’s the way of your people, Mrs. Ray, dear; but our feelings come in a storm, and you may as easy keep the winds that come howling over your Becket hills quiet, as keep them still -- but it’s not always we are feeling, and God forgive me if I have said anything to fret you—you, that are so kind to me.” “It’s a satisfaction to be kind to you, Margaret, and I don’t like to leave my work half done—so sit down again. I'll be candid with you, Margaret, and you must be candid with me, and open your heart to me as if I were your own mother.” “Ah, Mrs. Ray, dear!” Margaret kissed the old lady. “I am going to use freedom, child: who gave you that blue guard-chain that you wear round your neck day and night?” “Sure it was William Maxwell, then,” replied Margaret, in a voice scarce above her breath. Margaret was learning that some of our feelings, and those of the strongest too, are stillest. “And what have you hanging by it, Margaret?” Margaret answered by drawing out a small crucifix appended to the guard-chain, kissing it, and crossing herself. “0 Margaret, Margaret! That’s to be a cross to you indeed, I fear! I must tell you the truth; there is no thing William Maxwell’s parents have such a horror of as a Romanist, and there is nothing his father despises like an Irish person.” “But it’s not William Maxwell that’s after fearing the one or despising the other,” said Margaret. “No, that’s true. William is not a serious young man: he’s thought little about religion yet, one way or the other; but when he comes to consider, Margaret, he will feel, as we all do, that it’s a dreadful thing to be a Romanist, and pray to saints, and worship images, and so forth. And besides, I know William better than you do, Margaret—I’ve known him from his cradle—he’s my own sister’s son, and I love him, and he’s a pretty young man, but William has not resolution to go against his parent’s will, be it right or wrong. Take care, child, you’ve dropped your stitches. Now, Margaret, child, hear me patiently: consider, to-day is not forever, and them that’s young and soft like you, if their feelings are cast in one mould, they can be cast over in another.” “Will ye speak plain what you are after saying to me, “Mrs. Ray, dear?” “Be patient, child—slow and sure, you know. We can’t have everything just right in this world, Margaret: when one door is opened, another is shut—young folks must be conformable.” Margaret sighed with irrepressible impatience, and Mrs. [p. 132] Ray proceeded more directly: “It’s my opinion, Margaret, that William can nowhere find a likelier girl than you are. You have just the disposition to please Sister Maxwell, and Providence somehow seems to have set you down here, making the place for you, and you for the place, as it were; and somehow you have taken an unaccountable hold of my heart, and I can’t blame William; and so I was thinking, Margaret, as the railroad is almost done, the shanties will soon be broke up, and James will have to look for work elsewhere: you’ll have a good chance, as it were, to break up your connexions with all these people, and after a little while you will be no more an Irish girl than Belinda Anne Tracy.” Margaret’s face was turned quite away, or probably Mrs. Ray would not have proceeded: “And then as to your beads, your crucifix, your confessions, &c., the sooner you give them all up, the better, my child, for soul and body too” — “Say no more, Mrs. Ray; God forsake me if I forsake Him, and deny my parents and my people, and cast off James—heart of my heart! Better for my soul, say ye! And what would be left of my soul if all faith towards God and love to man were out of it? Oh, Mrs. Ray, I would not have thought it of you!” The poor girl wept as if her heart were broken. Mrs. Ray tried in vain to soothe her. She no more argued or persuaded; she was ashamed that she had done either. Her strong innate sense of right triumphed over the prejudices of education and society; and having begun with proposing to her young friend to abjure her faith and forsake her people, she ended with respecting the loyalty that kept her true to both. Little need be said in explanation of the relations and history of the parties introduced to our readers. Margaret O’Brien had belonged to one of the encampments of Irish that are found along the lines of our railroads, while those great works are constructing by the people who, driven forth from their own land by misery and multiplied oppressions, come here to do our roughest work, and share our bread and freedom. Their shanties, built for transient use, are constructed with the least possible expense and labour; and though perhaps adequate to their ideas of comfort, are a sad contrast to the humblest homes of our own people. There is little found in them besides strong, healthy bodies and warm hearts —the best elements of happiness in any home. Would it not be well for our people to consider more maturely than they have yet done, the designs of, Providence in sending these swarms of Irish people among us? Is it not possible that their vehement feelings, ardent affections, and illimitable generosity might mingle with our colder, and (we say it regretfully) [p. 133] more selfish natures, to the advantage of both? And at any rate, by losing the opportunity of promoting their happiness, of binding them to us by the blessed links of humanity, are we not doing a wrong to our own souls? Can good be elected to them or to ourselves by condemning their nation and deriding their religion? Margaret’s father lost his life while working on the Western Railroad by the blasting of a rock. Margaret’s mother was ill at the time: the shock of seeing his mangled body brought home without warning, occasioned, as was believed, her death. The report of the melancholy fate of these people spread through the neighbourhood, and Mrs. Ray, impelled by her Christian heart, went to look after the orphan girl. She was struck with the loveliness of her countenance, her sweet manners, and the superior decency of her habitation. “Why,” said she afterward to the Maxwells, who expressed their surprise that she should take a girl from the shanties into her family, “it wasn’t like a shanty! They were not all herded together like cattle, as they commonly are, but the place was parted off into three rooms; there were bedsteads—rough, to be sure—and there were clean sheets and decent spreads; and they had some chairs; and Margaret a little table with a drawer, all made by her brother, and a work-basket, and everything tidy on it, and a picture hanging over it”— “A picture! Some saint I dare say,” interrupted Maxwell, his lip curling. “It might be, for aught I know,” replied Mrs. Ray, meekly, “but I should not think anyone need to be the worse for a saint—the picture of one, I mean, hanging up before them. I assure you, Brother Maxwell, everything had a becoming appearance; there was considerable earthenware and silver teaspoons, and it was evident they had lived like folks; and as to the poor orphan girl, she is as neat as the neatest of our Becket girls—Belinda Anne don’t exceed her—and she is so pretty spoken and pretty looking! and as I wanted help that would be company too, I was glad to get her; and her brother having to go to work on the next section, was glad to leave her in a suitable place for one so young and comely. I hope you don’t think I did wrong, Brother Maxwell,” concluded Mrs. Ray, who, though very apt to do right from her own impulses, was rather weakly nervous as to the judgment of others. “You are an independent woman, and must judge for yourself, Mrs. Ray. Everybody knows ’tis my principle to keep clear of the Paddies. I neither eat nor drink with them, and I go not in nor out among them.” “But you sell to them,” said Mrs. Ray, with a smile that faintly [p. 134] indicated what she did not say, and what she retained, because she was a woman of peace, and rarely struck a discord ant note. The complaints she had heard from these poor strangers and wayfarers in the land, of the exorbitant prices demanded by “Brother Maxwell” for his pork and potatoes, were fermenting in her mind. “Yes, I sell to them—I take care of number one. As the Bible says, he that don’t provide for his own household is worse than an infidel.” “I take that passage in another sense, Brother Maxwell; I provide for my family by buying of them: I buy Margaret’s services, and she throws in her love, and I would not change bargains with you.” “And I should not be afraid to show books with you, Widow Ray,” retorted the sordid man. “I don’t keep any books,” replied Mrs. Ray; “there are books where both accounts are kept, and where the widow’s will probably show fairest.” Maxwell is one of those who bring dishonour on the good name of his people. His industry runs into anxious toil, his enterprise into avarice, his economy into miserliness, his sagacity into cunning, his self-preserving instincts into selfishness. Having one of the largest farms in Becket, his ruling passion is to make it larger. Enjoying and imparting never enter into his calculations; and, as was said of a far loftier person, “he had not so much joy in what he had, as trouble and agony for what he had not.” His only son and heir, William, though resembling his father, had an infusion of his mother’s more generous disposition—a sprinkling of her more attractive qualities. How the proportions were balanced, and which preponderated, will be seen by his conduct. Margaret O’Brien was much less hopeful than most young people. Early changes and sorrows had superinduced a reflectiveness and sadness on the natural vehemence and cheerfulness of her character. Life seemed to her a dark and tangled path, and she shrunk from pursuing it. She had not yet learned that there is an inner light, which always shines on the patient soul. She was silent and abstracted all the day after her conversation with Mrs. Ray. She performed her usual domestic duties negligently. “I saw plainly,” Mrs. Ray afterward said, “that the poor girl’s heart was not in them; but then, Sister Maxwell, I was only thinking how pretty she looked, and what a blessing she would be to the man—be he who he would—that should marry her. Well, we are short-sighted creatures.” As the day declined, Margaret became more restless. She was [p. 135] continually going to the door, and looking up the road. “Who are you expecting?” asked Mrs. Ray. “It’s James I am looking for—he promised he would be down some day this week.” Margaret blushed deeply, conscious that, though telling the truth, it was not the whole truth. No James came. No approaching footstep, hoof, or wheel, broke the dismal silence that surrounded the widow’s dwelling. Margaret became more and more unquiet, and at last said she would go and meet James; “that would shorten the time; and if I am not at home at tea-time, don’t wait for me, Mrs. Ray, dear; it is not very far to the shanties, and if I should be late home, there is a bright moon to-night.” Margaret was already on the threshold. Mrs. Ray called her back. “My child,” she said, “don’t stay out late; you know I am of an anxious make, and easily startled, and you are not looking yourself, Margaret, since our talk this morning; and I’m not superstitious, and don’t really believe in such things, but there has been one of the neighbor’s dogs howling unaccountably lately; and last evening I fully meant to put on my purple shawl, and when I came to take it off, it was my black one, trimmed with crape! I don’t believe in signs, but they make one feel—and if any evil were to happen to you, Margaret, I should feel just as wounded as if it were one of my own daughters.” “God—the God of the fatherless—bless you, Mrs. Ray, dear, and keep all trouble far from your door.” Margaret kissed her old friend, and promised to return as early as possible, and that promise Mrs. Ray afterward said was a great comfort to her, for she was sure “she meant to keep it.” Margaret walked hastily up the road, and took a horse-path that, passing through a wood, led by a cross cut to the railroad. Winter comes on prematurely in Becket, a high, cold mountain town. Though it was yet October, the glow and almost metallic brightness of our autumn foliage had passed away. The leaves, the summer’s wealth, lay in piles on the ground, or hung in sadly-thinned companies rustling on the branches; leaden clouds were driving over the sky, and snow falling in scattered flakes. Margaret’s way lay along a leaping and gushing mountain-stream, which to the ear of the happy called up images of courage and joy, but to Margaret it may have sounded mournful and ominous. May, we say; but there is reason to think that the poor girl was deaf to the sympathies of nature; that her mind was possessed with one idea, and that it mattered not to her whether the voices of nature were cheering or sad. She did not even pause at “Hardy’s Rock,” though that had been her “trysting-tree.” This [p. 136] was a rock easy of access from the road, but precipitous towards the stream, with a broad, flat summit. The stream below it was dammed, partly by a natural accumulation of brush and stones brought from above, and partly by art, and it set back in a deep basin. The stream, swollen to a torrent by late rains, had overflowed the margin of the basin, and covered the little strip of level ground around it to the very edge of a steep cliff, whose pines and firs were darkly reflected in it. But a few weeks before Margaret had sat on this rock with William Maxwell, and while she listened to him, had woven a wreath for her bonnet of the asters and golden-rod that were now withered like her hopes. Below the dam was a saw-mill belonging to William, and he often came down to it towards evening to see what work had been accomplished during the day. It was nearly two weeks since Margaret had seen him, and in that interval she had heard that, in rustic phrase, he was “paying attention” to a young girl, who, by the recent death of her father, had become sole proprietor of a farm adjoining Maxwell’s, and was heiress to herds, pasture-land, and much rural wealth. This young person was the Belinda Anne Tracy, of whom Mrs. Ray had spoken in the morning to Margaret with more meaning than met the ear. Uncertainty was intolerable to Margaret’s impatient Irish nature, and “It will now be ended!” she exclaimed, as, listening intently, she heard the tramp of William Maxwell’s horse long before she saw him. She was hidden by a projecting point of the rock, and he did not perceive her till he was arrested by her voice, not in a loud, but thrilling tone, pronouncing his name. “Margaret! is it you? I did not think of meeting you, but I was going this evening to see you." Margaret raised her eyes to his, and a gleam of pleasure shot through them, but they were quickly cast down again, and her lips trembled as she said, “There’s many a lonesome evening come and gone since I have seen you, William Maxwell.” “That’s true, Margaret—and it is true, too, that a man may be in one place, and his heart in another.” “Where was your heart then, William, when you was after going down to Westfield with Belinda Anne Tracy!” “With you, Margaret, and with none but you, and that’s as true as that I stand here on this solid ground; but one can’t—that is—I mean—” Margaret, with hurried and trembling hands, untied the guard-chain by which her crucifix was suspended, and kissing it, and then holding it up, she said, “I have sworn on this that I would know your true mind, William Maxwell; and if you respect yourself—if ever you respected me—if you respect this sign, of what [p. 137] is best and holiest—if you respect Him that’s above, then tell it to me.” Maxwell felt the solemnity of the adjuration, and dared not evade it; and it may be that he was glad to be forced, by a superior will, to make a communication for which he had been in vain trying to summon resolution for the last two weeks. “Margaret,” he began, in a faltering voice “it is true, as I have told you many times, I do love you as I never did, nor ever shall love another. I never spoke a false word to you: you are my first love, and you will be my last; but—but—there are others to consult; I am not free to follow my own wishes; the truth is, Margaret, my father has feelings about your people, and he never will give them up. He took a solemn oath before me and my mother: ‘I swear,’ he said, ‘I’ll cast you off forever if you marry one of the Paddy folks!’ My mother, you know, is sickly, and I am her only child; and if it went to this, it would break her heart, and so she told me— and, Margaret, if I can’t marry you, I don’t care who I marry; and so, this being the true state of the case, and no help for it that I can see, I have made as—as good as an engagement with Belinda Anne Tracy.” Margaret kept her eye steadily fixed on him till he had finished. She then drew the guard chain from the crucifix, threw it away, and pressing the crucifix to her bosom, turned off without speaking a word. William followed her. “Margaret—Margaret,” he said, “do let us part friends; you cannot be more sorry than I am; only say you forgive me!” But he spoke in vain. Margaret made no reply, except by motioning to him to leave her; and, glad to escape from the piercing rebuke of that sweet countenance—more in sorrow than in anger—he mounted his horse and rode away, bearing with him—to be forever borne —the conviction that the heaviest visitation of his father’s anger would have been light in comparison with the sense of a violated faith to this loving, true-hearted orphan stranger. Maxwell had but just disappeared when Margaret met her brother James. “Is it you, Margaret?” he said: “God’s blessing on you, then! but what are you fretting at!” “I’m not fretting, James, dear.” “Now, Margaret, what’s the use of telling me that, when you don’t so much as lift your eye to me, and your cheek is as white as that bit of muslin round your neck? Is it Mrs. Ray that’s been after chiding you?” “Mrs. Ray! No, no, James; she’s every way like our own mother to me.” “Margaret, my sister, my child—for you’ve neither father nor [p. 138] mother but me—I never yet spake his name to you; if it’s William Maxwell that frets you—if it’s true, as the boys say, that he’s false to you, I’ll break every bone in his body.” “James! you’ll break my heart speaking so. Oh, James, dear, keep God’s peace, I pray you; it’s you only in the world I love now. It’s a black world. Good-night, James. You are far from your place, and you have been hard at work; don’t go farther with me.” “I would not leave you, Margaret, dear, a step short of Mrs. Ray’s, but I have promised Mr. John Richards to meet him above the bridge there. l’ll come down tomorrow and remember, Margaret, we two are alone in the world; and for my sake, and for the sake of them that’s in their graves, keep up a brave heart. Good-night.”—“She did not answer me,” thought James. He stopped and looked after her till she was hidden from him by a turn in the road: “God’s heaviest curse will surely fall on him if he’s broke her heart, and she so young, and innocent, and beautiful to look upon!” Such blistering thoughts were in James’s mind till he joined Mr. Richards. In the meantime Margaret retraced her steps along the margin of the stream till she reached again Hardy’s Rock. The heavy clouds had rolled down over the setting sun, and left the eastern sky, where the full moon was rising, cloudless. The moonbeams glanced athwart the firs, silvering their branches, and fell on the summit of the rock; the water under it was still in deep shadow. It was on this rock that, two months before, the moon shining as it now shone, but then on summer beauty, that Margaret met her lover “With hinnied hopes around her heart, Like simmer blossoms—” there and then she had plighted faith with William Maxwell. Again she felt herself drawn to that spot—probably without any ill design—with only an intolerable sense of disappointment and misery. The scene brought back with intense vividness her past happiness. What it is to remember that under the pressure of present wretchedness, most have felt, and one has described in words never to be forgotten: “Nessun maggior delore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria;” James met Mr. Richards at the appointed place. After a few moments, he said, “James, you are thinking of one thing and talking of another. What is the matter?” James confessed he was anxious; said he had just met his sister, and that he had left her to go home alone, that she [p. 139] seemed very unhappy—and he was sorry he had left her to go home alone. Mr. Richards is a young engineer of most kind and active sympathies. James had worked under him on the railroad, and he particularly liked him. He at once entered into the good brother’s feelings. “Let us walk down the road, James,” he said; “you can easily overtake your sister, and we can as well talk over our business walking as standing here.” Accordingly, they proceeded. When they reached the little bridge we have mentioned, Mr. Richards involuntarily paused and looked down the stream, which here and there seemed playing with the moonbeams. “Why, there is your sister, James,” he said, “sitting on Hardy’s Rock." “The Lord bless ye! and so she is!” said James. The words were scarcely uttered out of his lips when Margaret slid down the steep side of the rock into the pool beneath. James uttered a wild scream, and both young men ran down the road together at their utmost speed. The place was soonest accessible by the road, but that was winding, and the distance was full an eighth of a mile. When they reached the spot, a white muslin scarf Margaret had worn was floating on the water. Both jumped in. James, impelled by the instinct of his affection, forgot he could not swim, and Richards, to his dismay, saw him sinking. He dragged him out, bade him remain quiet, and plunging in again, he very soon brought up Margaret’s body. But the time had been fatally prolonged by poor James, and every effort to restore her was unavailing. A company of Irishmen coming from their work below joined them. They entered into the scene with hand, heart, and tongue. “Ha!” said one of them, “it was Judy yesterday was afther saying, ‘He’ll never marry Margaret’ -- maning William Maxwell. It’s that Thracy girl, with houses and lands, he’s afther. Curse the Yankees, there’s no sowl in them!” “It’s not William Maxwell at all,” said another: “he’s a dacent young man; it’s his father’s rule upon him!” Richards bade them all be silent, saying it was no time now for such a discussion. “Sure that’s rasonable,” said one—“And sure I did not mane you at all, Mr. Richards,” said the man of the sweeping anathema, “for it’s an Irish heart you have, anyway, and that’s what all the boys say.” James seemed to hear nothing. He was rubbing and kissing alternately one of Margaret’s hands that was firmly closed, and he at last succeeded in taking from it the crucifix which it firmly grasped. Just at this moment a man had alighted from a wagon, and was looking on. “The Almighty be praised!” cried James, pressing the disengaged crucifix vehemently to his lips. Mar- [p. 140] garet having died with it in her hand was to him a token of infinite good. The looker on, at this action of James, turned to his companion in the wagon, saying -- “It’s only a Paddy girl,” * got in, and drove on. The Irishmen, who till then had been too much absorbed to notice him, looked up, and perceiving it was the elder Maxwell,, they uttered curses deep and loud, and threatening summary vengeance, they were following, when James interposed. “No, no,” he said, with fearful calmness, “lave him to me, boys—when her wake is over will be time enough.” Richards saw him turn away, murmur something in a low voice, lay the crucifix on Margaret’s hand, and kiss them both together. Margaret was carried to the dwelling of an Irish friend; a priest was brought, and the ceremonies of their religion were strictly observed. Immediately after the funeral, Mr. Richards, who had scarcely lost sight of James, took him aside—poor fellow, he looked as if he had lived twenty years in the three preceding days. “James,” he said, “tell me truly, did you not make a vow to revenge your sister’s death?” “Sure I did that same, sir—on her crucifix, and on the poor, dead cold hand that held it. God forgive me—but could I help it? There she lay-- dead! -- dead! -- the sweetest flower that ever blossomed trampled under their feet—when I heard the very man that had done it say, ‘ it’s only a Paddy girl!’ Oh, Mr. Richards, my heart’s blood boiled, and my father and my mother it was, and all my people, I heard crying me on to vengeance, and I did swear to take their lives—father and son; and I have made confession of the same to Father Brady.” “And that has saved you from this horrid crime, James” “Not that, sir.” “What then!” “It’s just yourself, Mr. Richards—you and Mrs. Ray. --It was just your goodness to me that stilled the howling tempest in my breast -- and for your sake and Mrs. Ray’s, I forgave all your people. It was Margaret said—they were almost her last words—‘Mrs. Ray is every way mother-like to me;’ and didn’t I see the old lad after crying hot tears over her? Sure, Mr. Richards, if there were more like you and the old lady—God bless her!—there would be an end of cruelty and hate, and love would bind all hearts together—even your people’s and mine!” ------------------------------------------------- *This expression was in fact uttered by one of our people, and heard by the brother of the girl at such a moment as we have described. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "The Irish Girl" Subject The topic of the resource Prejudice against Irish immigrants, Catholics, Protestants, love, Christian virtue. Description An account of the resource A young Irish servant is in love with a man whose father will not let him marry her because she is a “Paddy girl.” The young woman drowns, shortly after learning of her beloved's decision to marry a non-Irish woman. Her brother vows revenge, but changes his mind. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine M. By the author of "Hope Leslie," &c. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Vol. X, P. 129-140 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available John L. O'Sullivan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 1842 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource J. Robinson, D. Gussman Relation A related resource Also collected (with revisions) in: The Dollar Magazine, Vol. II, 1842 Tales and Sketches, Series two, New York. 1842. P. 191-244 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document 1842 Becket Catholics crucifix drowning God Immigrants Irish orphan Pittsfield prejudice Protestants Providence railroad religion servant shanty snow The United States Democratic Review widow