The Disappearance.

There is nothing so dreadful as the heart’s first disappointment. To love vainly—oh! what is more agonising. We feel as if every one had turned against us; as if there was nothing left to live for in this world; as if the springs of life, and the joy of existence had departed forever from us. The loss of a friend may be compensated for, and the ruin of our fortunes can be borne without despair; but the hopelessness of a first love can never be ameliorated by aught on earth. Go where we will, the blight of the heart will continue with us. We can never forget. Hope will have dried up within us. We feel, like a stranger in a strange land, as an outcast on the world, beholding feelings in which we can take no part around us, and reminded daily of our misery by the happiness of others. Alas! for the one disappointed in a first love.

That night Isabel saw no more of her cousin. But when the whole of the next day passed, and she still did not meet him, she began to be alarmed. She feared to ask for him. Her father had been absent all day, and it was not until night that he returned. When he did, he brought the intelligence, that, in compliance with an old promise, he had that morning visited the earl of ——, an influential courtier of the neighboring county, in order to procure for Lorraine a commission. The page had, the preceding evening, begged to be allowed to join the army so eagerly, that having nothing particularly to do, and noticing and applauding his young cousin’s anxiety to assume arms, he had ridden over with him to —— castle, and after obtaining the appointment for him, had left him there, at his urgent request, with his new colonel.

“And I rejoice too at his determination,” continued Lord Deraine, “although it was somewhat of a sudden. I began almost to think that the lad was growing too effeminate, with his lute, and other lady pastimes, and forgetting the name that he bore. But I ween had you beheld his eye glisten to-day, when he was first addressed by his military title, you would have said that he was every inch a Lorraine. And God forfend that it should ever come to disgrace! My mother was a daughter of that house,” continued the aged nobleman, “and I feel a strange interest in the boy’s success. Had you seen him to-day you would have said he was a true descendant of the iron-hearted warrior who led that charge at Agincourt, which decided the fortune of the day. Were I as I once was, I would e’en go one campaign with him to learn how they fight in these degenerate days, and show them the manner in which we cavaliers of Prince Rupert used to charge the canting round-heads.”

“But pa,” said Isabel, scarcely venturing to speak, “did he leave no word—no message?”

“Oh! I had almost forgot. He sent a note to you—here it is—about some hawk, or lute, or his greyhound perhaps—did he bid you farewell, by the bye?”

Isabel felt her heart beat faster at the enquiry of her parent, but giving an evasive answer to his question, she took the note, and left the apartment. Little did Lord Deraine suspect the agony which had driven his young kinsman from his halls, or dream of the tears that Isabel shed that night over her ill-fated cousin’s epistle. It ran thus:

The tears of the maiden fell thick and fast as she perused this passionate epistle, and she sighed,

“Poor, poor Lorraine—would we had never met, or that you had never loved.”

The absence of the page was felt throughout the castle, for all had loved the generous and high-souled boy. For many a long day the old servitors loved to recall his boyish deeds, and augur a glorious career for the young soldier. And often, as Isabel sat in her splendid chamber, while twilight deepened through the gorgeously curtained windows, her thoughts would wander away after her absent cousin, and taking the melancholy hue of the hour, she would indulge in mournful memories of the past, and sigh that she could make no return to Lorraine except what was all too cold for him,—her friendship. Even De Courtenay, could he have read her thoughts at such moments, would have pardoned her that involuntary pang.