The Page: The Lovers.

Henry De Lorraine was the only son of a once proud, but now decayed lineage, and, being left an orphan at an early age, had been reared in the house of his cousin, Lord Deraine. His life there had been that of most noble youths of his day, who, either through necessity, or for the purposes of advancement, were brought up as pages in the establishments of the wealthier nobility. Lorraine, however, possessed one advantage over the other pages of his cousin: he had from the first been the companion of the Lady Isabel, the only child of his patron. Although a year or two older than himself, the want of either brother or sister, had induced Isabel to confide in him all her little difficulties; and they had grown up thus, more on the footing of children of the same parent, than as a wealthy heiress, and a poor dependant.

During the last year of their lives, however, a change had silently, and almost imperceptibly, come over their feelings toward each other. An absence of nearly a twelvemonth with his patron at a foreign court, had in part altered the sentiments of Lorraine from those of a devoted brother to the emotions of love. He left Isabel, when both thought as children; he returned and found her already a woman. During that interval new scenes, new thoughts, new emotions had successively occupied the heart of the page; and though when he came back he was still a boy in years, he had already began to feel the intenser passions of the man. Never had he seen such beauty as burst upon him when Isabel entered the room on his return. It was as if a goddess of olden Greece had been ushered into his presence, as if the inanimate statue of Pygmalion had flushed, all at once, into a breathing being. Lorraine had dreamed of loveliness, but he had never, in his brightest visions, pictured aught so fair. He had expected Isabel to be improved, although he had left her the loveliest being of the riding; but he had not imagined that she would bud forth into a flower of such surpassing, such transcendent beauty. He was awed; he was filled as if with the presence of a divinity, to which he bowed irresistibly, but in strange delight. From that hour the bosom of the warm, high-souled boy, was ruled by a passion that devoured his very existence.

But we said Isabel had changed. She too had learned to love, though not her cousin. As yet she scarcely knew it herself; the secret lay hidden in the recesses of her own bosom; and though her heart would beat more wildly, and the blood rush in deeper tints to her cheek, whenever the steed of her lover, the young Lord De Courtenay, was seen approaching her father’s gate, yet the Lady Isabel had never asked herself whence arose her emotion. Perhaps she feared to institute the inquiry. Certain it is, that like every other delicate female, she almost shrank from owning, even to herself, that her affections had strayed from their pure resting-place in her own bosom.

It was well for Lorraine’s present, though unfortunate for his future, happiness, that De Courtenay had left the country a few days prior to the page’s return. By this means he was prevented from learning, what, otherwise would have checked his growing affection even in its bud, and suffered to go on in his dreams of love, until the very existence of the endeared object became almost a part of his being.

It was some time before Isabel perceived the change which had been wrought in her cousin’s feelings toward herself, and when she did, the knowledge served more than aught else, to reveal to her the state of her own heart. She saw she could not return her cousin’s passion, though she still loved him with the same sisterly affection as ever, and with this discovery came that of her own love for De Courtenay. Although her equal in rank, and even her superior in wealth, there was a romantic gallantry in her lover which had forbade him to woo her as others of like elevated station would have done. Though, therefore, her parent would have sanctioned the alliance at once, he was yet ignorant of the love the only son of his neighbor, the earl of Wardour, bore to his daughter. And though the lady Isabel thought of her absent lover daily, there was something—it might be maiden modesty, which made her shun breathing De Courtenay’s name.

Several weeks had now elapsed, and months were beginning to pass away, since the departure of De Courtenay for Flanders. The time for his return had nearly arrived, and Isabel had even received a hasty note from him, breathing a thousand delicate flatteries, such as lovers only know how to pay and to receive, telling her to expect him at Deraine Hall, on this very afternoon—yet he came not. Why did he tarry? It was this knowledge which had made the lady Isabel watch so long from the terrace, down the avenue of her father’s park. Little did Lorraine think, as he gazed so devotedly into her face, that her thoughts even then were wandering upon another.

Let it not be fancied that the lady Isabel trifled with her cousin’s feelings. Deeply, daily was she pained at his too evident love. She longed to tell him the truth, and yet she shrank from it. She could not inflict such agony upon his heart. She would have given worlds to have had the power of returning his love, but that had long since passed from her, and like the pitying executioner, she loathed striking the blow, which she knew must eventually be struck. And thus the story of those two beings went on, and while both were full of joy and hope, one, at least, had before him to drink, a cup, as yet unseen, of the bitterest agony. Alas! for the disappointments, the worse than utter wo, which a devoted heart experiences, when it discovers that its first deep love is in vain.