Ellison had been in D—— three months, and was about leaving for Cincinnati, when his lawyer called on him, and stated that he was authorized by the opposing counsel to say, that the plaintiffs in the case were willing to withdraw their suit if one hundred acres of the land in question were relinquished.
“At the same time,” remarked the lawyer, in giving this information, “it is but right for me to state my belief that the offer comes as the result of a conviction that the claim urged for the ownership of the property has no chance of a favorable termination.”
“Yet the suit may be continued for two or three years,” said Ellison.
“Yes, and they can put you to a great deal of trouble and expense.”
“And there is at least a doubt resting on the issue.”
“There is upon all legal issues.”
“Then I think we had better accept the compromise.”
“You must decide that for yourself,” said the lawyer.
“How long will the question be open?”
“For some days, I presume.”
“Very well. I will see you about it to-morrow, or at latest on the day after.”
Clara, on being informed of the new aspect the case had assumed, fully agreed with her husband that the offer of a settlement had better be met affirmatively; and this being done, the suit was withdrawn, and they were left in the peaceable possession of some four hundred acres of excellent land. The costs were nearly two hundred dollars. This made it necessary to part with more of their stock, which was effected through their agent at the East. Five more shares were sold.
The termination of this suit wrought an entire change in the views and purposes of Ellison. A residence in the West of three months had brought him in contact with people of various characters and pursuits, all eagerly bent on money-making. Towns were springing up as if by magic, and men not worth a dollar to-day were counting their thousands to-morrow. The spirit of enterprise was all around him; and it was hardly possible for him to remain unaffected by what was in the very atmosphere that he was breathing.
“Let me congratulate you on the happy termination of your suit,” said an individual with whom Ellison had some acquaintance, a day or two after all was settled. “You have now as handsome a tract of land as there is in the state; and if you manage it aright, will make out of it an independent fortune.”
This language sounded very pleasant in the ears of Ellison.
“You know the tract?” said he.
“Oh yes! Like a book. I’ve traveled over every foot of it. There is a hundred thousand dollars worth of timber on it.”
“Not so much as that.”
“There is, every dollar of it. Not as fire-wood, of course.”
“In lumber, you mean.”
“Exactly.”
The man’s name was Claxton. He had come to D——, about a year previously, with some six thousand dollars in cash, and as full of enterprize and money-loving ambition as a man could well be. The town was growing fast, and the supply of lumber, which a saw-mill of very limited capacity was turning out, so poorly met the demand, that prices ranged exceedingly high. A large landholder, whose interests were seriously affected by this high rate of lumber, made Claxton believe that he had only to erect a steam saw-mill, capable of turning out, per day, a certain number of feet of boards and scantling, and his fortune was made. Without stopping to investigate the matter beyond a certain point, and taking nearly all the statements made by the individual we have named for granted, Claxton ordered a steam-engine from Pittsburg, rented a lot of ground on the bank of the river, and forthwith commenced the erection of his mill. As soon as the citizens of D—— understood what he was about, there were enough of them to pronounce his scheme a foolish one, in which he would inevitably lose his money. But he had made all the calculations—had anticipated, like a wise man, all the difficulties; and knew, or thought he knew, exactly what he was about. It was nearly a year before he had his mill ready. By this time he was not only out of funds, but out of confidence in his scheme for making a fortune. In attempting to put his mill in operation, some of the machinery gave way, and the same result happened at the next trial. Thus expense was added to expense, and delay to delay. In the mean time, the owner of the other mill had been spurred on by the approaching competition, to increase its capacity, and was turning out lumber so fast as to cause a reduction in the price.
So soon as Claxton became aware of the fact that Ellison’s suit had come to a favorable termination, he conceived the idea of getting off upon the young artist his bad bargain with as little loss to himself as possible, and he had this purpose in his mind when he congratulated him so warmly on his release from the perplexity and uncertainty of the law.
“Trees standing in the forest, and lumber piled up ready for use in building,” said Ellison, in reply to Claxton’s suggestion, “are very different things.”
“Any man knows that. But, in the conversion of the trees into lumber, lies the means of wealth. There is not an acre of your land that will not yield sufficient lumber to bring three hundred dollars in the market.”
“Are you certain of that?” inquired Ellison.
“I know it. The tract is very heavily timbered.”
“Three hundred dollars to the acre,” said Ellison, musing; “four hundred acres—three times four are twelve. That would make the lumber on the whole four hundred acres worth over a hundred thousand dollars!”
“I know it would. And you may rest assured that the estimate is not high. I only wish I had your chances for a splendid fortune.”
“How is this lumber to be made available?” asked Ellison.
“Cut and manufacture it yourself. You’ll find that a vast deal more profitable than painting pictures. You can see that this is one of the best situated towns in the West. The supply of lumber has always been inadequate for building purposes, and, in consequence, its prosperity has been retarded. Reduce the price by a full supply, and houses will go up as by magic, and the value of property rise in all directions. At present, you could not get over fifteen dollars an acre for your land if you were to throw it into market. But go to work and clear it gradually, sawing up the timber into building materials, and, in ten years, such will be the prosperity of the place, growing out of the very fact of a full supply of cheap lumber, that every acre will command fifty dollars.”
The mind of the young man caught eagerly at this suggestion. He held long interviews with Claxton, who made estimates of various kinds for him, and gave him mathematics for every thing. They rode out to the land together, and there it was demonstrated, to a certainty, that at least seven hundred dollars worth of timber, instead of three hundred, could be obtained from every acre. Ellison saw himself worth his hundred thousand dollars, and as happy as such a realization of his hopes could make him. He went with Claxton to his mill, where the operation of every thing was fully explained to his most perfect satisfaction. Even in this enterprise a fortune was to be made, notwithstanding Claxton had no land of his own heavily timbered, and would have to pay at least two dollars for every log brought to his mill, which stood on the river bank. This site had been chosen because of the facilities it afforded for getting the raw material which could be floated down from above.
Of all this the young man talked constantly to his wife, and with a degree of confidence and enthusiasm that half won her cooler and less sanguine mind over to his views. She did not, however, like Claxton. Her woman’s true instinct perceived the quality of his mind; and she therefore had little confidence in him. In suggesting this, her husband’s reply was,
“I don’t take any thing on his recommendation. I look at facts and figures, and they cannot lie.”
There was something unanswerable in this; yet it did not satisfy the mind of Clara.
When Ellison talked to others of what was in his mind, some listened to what he said in silence; some shrugged their shoulders, and some said it wouldn’t do. He had been forewarned of this skepticism by Claxton, and was therefore prepared for it. He well understood that the people lacked true, far-seeing enterprise; were, in fact, half asleep! All objections, therefore, that were urged, rebounded from his mind without producing any rational impression.
He had already picked out a spot for the location of his mill, and was obtaining estimates for its construction, when Claxton called on him one day, with a letter in his hand, which he said he had just received from Cincinnati. It was from a brother who was engaged in the river trading business, and who owned three large steamboats. He had already made a fortune. But ill health had come upon him, and he found it necessary to retire in part from the active duties which had absorbed his attention for years. To his brother he offered most tempting inducements to give up his saw-mill scheme, unite with him, and take the active control of every thing. “If,” said the letter, “you have any difficulty in finding a person in your stupid place with enterprise enough to take your mill off of your hands, I know a man here who will relieve you; but he will want time on nearly the whole amount of the purchase. He is perfectly safe, however, possessing a large amount of property.”
Of course, Mr. Claxton, having taken a particular fancy to Ellison, and being anxious to put him fairly in the road to fortune, offered him the mill at cost; and Ellison, without asking the advice of any one—being fully impressed with the belief that he knew his own business, and had sense enough to understand a plain proposition when presented, immediately closed with the offer. The price asked was exactly cost, and to determine what this was, the bills for every thing were exhibited and taken as the basis of valuation. According to these the mill had cost six thousand dollars. And for this sum, Claxton generously consented to sell the entire concern, with all prospective benefits, to his young friend. The amount of cash to be paid down was three thousand dollars, and for the balance, notes of six, nine, and twelve months were to be given, secured by mortgage on the four hundred acres of land.
When matters assumed this aspect, Clara, who, strangely enough to the mind of Alfred, appeared to like Claxton less and less every day, suggested many doubts, and proposed that the matter should be submitted to three old residents of the place, and their advice taken as conclusive. But Alfred objected to this. They were plodders, he said, in an old beaten track, where, like horses in a mill, they had gone round and round until they were blind. They would, of course, suggest a thousand doubts and difficulties, all of which he had already solved. There was no aspect of the case in which he had not viewed it, and he understood all the bearings better than any one else.
“He is a poor sort of a man who cannot lay his course in life, and steer safely by force of his own intelligence,” said the young man, proudly.
Clara, however, was not satisfied; but having had some experience in regard to her husband’s sensitiveness when any question touching their property came up, she was afraid to say a great deal in opposition to a purpose that was so fully formed as to admit of no check without painful disturbance. So she permitted him to take his own way, neither approving nor objecting.
Alfred understood, however, from his wife’s manner, that she had little confidence in the new business upon which he was about entering.
“Happily, I will disappoint her fears,” was his consoling and strengthening reflection. “When her little property has swelled in value to fifty or sixty thousand dollars, how different will be her feelings! She will then understand the character of her husband better—will know that he is no common man.”
With a presentiment of coming trouble, Clara saw their stock sold, and three thousand dollars paid over to Claxton; but she appeared to acquiesce in the transaction so entirely, that Alfred was deceived as to her real feelings.
[To be continued.
THE PRIZE SECURED.
Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine
THE PIRATE.
———
BY HENRY B. HIRST.
———
Twelve hours along the glowing strand
The sunlight, like a flame, hath lain;
The surf is swelling on the sand,
And day is on the wane;
And, like a shadow on the shore,
The pallid plover winnows by,
And, like a ghost’s, the heron’s cry
Rises above the breakers’ roar.
And eddies down the sky.
Who saw her gliding from the stocks
Would know my gallant brigantine?
The granite teeth of rugged rocks
Have torn my ocean queen:
A royal ransom under deck,
The slave of every wave, she lies
Never, ah, nevermore to rise,
A helpless hulk—a crumbling wreck—
Before my dying eyes.
Alone! alone! alas! alone!
Not one of those who swayed the wave
Survives, to hear my dying moan,
Or give his chief a grave.
No, no, not one; alone I tread
These desolate, desert sands—alone,
Where, in the moon, as they were thrown,
My merry men lie, cold and dead
And motionless as stone.
Night after night, along the sea,
In maiden modesty of mien,
Glides, gazing mournfully on me,
My gentle Geraldine.
Her glances pierce my penitent heart,
As like a statued saint she stands—
A seraph from those unknown lands
To which my soul must soon depart,
Freed from its fleshy bands.
Sweet Geraldine! her beauty fell
On sense and soul, like light from heaven;
My heart looked up, like Dives from hell,
And prayed to be forgiven;
Love swam within her lustrous eyes,
Played in her shadowy hair.
Moved in her more than queenly air,
And floated on her silver sighs—
To drown me with despair.
O, woful day! O, woful hour!
That told me that my hopes were vain;
I felt, that second, centuries
Of agonizing pain!
Hope, tremulous with feverous fears,
Unclasped her wings, and fled;
I stood, like one whose dearest dead
Lies on the trestles—steeped in tears—
Heaven’s judgment on my head.
Why did she hate me! Wherefore blight
My penitent heart with piercing scorn?
My better angel took her flight
Despairing and forlorn:
The Fiend, who stood exulting by,
Reclaimed his trembling slave;
God saw, but would not stoop to save
The struggling wretch who dared defy
His laws, on land and wave.
O, Geraldine, I see thee fly,
Despairing, from my accursed hands:
“Better my bones should bleach,” thy cry,
“On savagest of strands
Than that my fatal charms should cause
My never—never-dying shame;
Better, O, villain, virtuous fame
With death, than life, when human laws,
And God’s, accuse my name!”
I see again thy mute, white face,
Thy pallid cheeks and bloodless lips,
Thine eyes, that shone like stars in space,
Rayless with shame’s eclipse—
As flying, ghost-like, through the night,
Fearing death less than me,
Thy heart went out beneath the sea:
An angel soul that night took flight,
A martyr ceased to be!
I walked in blood, I swam in wine,
Until my desperate, daring crew
Trembled at guilt so great as mine:
The unbelieving Jew
Who smote his God was white as snow
To that which I became;
So black was I, so steeped in shame,
The very fiends, who writhed below,
Howled when they heard my name.
Nature gave way: when I awoke
The sky was black, the sea was white;
Day, that long since had dimly broke,
Was little more than night;
And madly struggling with the waves
Careered my gallant craft;
My crew were pale, I only laughed,
And coarsely cursed the drunken knaves
Who, full of wine, still quaffed.
Night came; my men lay sunk in sleep;
I only trod the silent deck:
God’s anger walked the boisterous deep,
But little did I reck;
When in the storm, before my eyes,
My memory’s virgin queen,
The dead, the sainted Geraldine,
Stood calmly pointing to the skies,
Madonna-like in mien.
I waved her from me, and she waned;
I saw not, know not, how, or where;
A single pitying look she deigned,
Then, vanished into air.
Then came a sudden shock and crash:
In frantic haste I clasped
A fragment of a shattered mast;
I saw the boiling breakers flash,
And sense and memory passed.
When I revived, the noon-day sun
Lay swooning on the sultry sand:
I was the only human one
That ever touched the strand.
The very birds that sported round
Screamed when they neared the shore;
The trackless sands were gray and hoar;
Nor shrub, nor grass relieved the ground,
Which nothing living bore.
We were alone—I and my soul—
A timid, trembling, guilty pair,
Already near our earthly goal,
And livid with despair:
Six weary days, six sleepless nights,
We walked the painful Past:
Our crimes, like ghosts, arose and cast
Their glances on us: ah, what sights
And scenes were in that Past!
But when the moon lies on the sea,
The seraph soul of Geraldine
Night after night comes down to me,
Walking its waves of green.
Hunger and thirst like phantoms seem
Before her pitying eyes,
As pointing always to the skies,
She wanes and vanishes like a dream—
She and her pitying eyes.
I feel that I shall die to-night;
Death seems already at my heart;
My soul has plumed its wings for flight,
And struggles to depart.
I only wait for Geraldine
To take me by the hand
And lead me to that blessÉd band,
Whose forms in visions I have seen,
Walking the Better Land.
———
BY CHARLES R. CLARKE.
———
I.
The day-god lingers in the waking west,
And as I gaze upon his burning brow
My truant, willful thoughts abide no rest,
But wander forth in search of those who now,
Like me, engage perchance an idle hour
In still more idle speculation, whence,
(E’en as the case may be,) yon orb of power
Steals, begs, or borrows his magnificence:—
And as he slowly wades beyond our sight,
Methinks I hear him likened to a king,
On rosy couch retiring for the night,
Till morning stars, mild chanticleers, shall sing:
O cruel thought! to bid him sleep in state
While half the world still for their coffee wait.
II.
Yet these are pointless thoughts, the hour, the place,
Command my muse to plume her wayward wing
For some bold flight—o’er realms that bear no trace
Of other footsteps—be it mine to sing
Of that more blissful twilight of the soul—
Which poets say, steals over it in dreams,
When Want and Care resign their base control,
And tired Sense reclines ’neath Fancy’s beams.
O! years agone I loved a maiden fair,
My hopes were high and my joys Elysian:
Oft as I gazed upon her beauty rare,
Low my Fancy whispered ’tis a vision!
And now I turn and wish that o’er my soul
Such fair and pleasant twilights oftener stole.
Painted by Bonington Engraved by F. Humphrys
THE LAY OF LOVE. Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine
LOVE’S INFLUENCE.
———
BY ENNA DUVAL.
———
Thus not all love, nor every mode of love is beautiful or worthy of commendation, but that alone which excites us to love worthily. If any one seeks the friendship of another, believing him to be virtuous, for the sake of becoming better through such intercourse and affection, and is deceived, his friend turning out to be worthless, and far from the possession of virtue; yet it is honorable to have been so deceived. For such an one seems to have submitted to a kind of servitude because he would endure any thing for the sake of becoming more virtuous and wise: a disposition of mind eminently beautiful. So much, although unpremeditated, is what I have to deliver on the subject of Love, O PhÆdrus. Shelley’s Translation of the Symposium of Plato.
In looking back upon my school-girl friendships, I always select Meta Hallowell as the most interesting, and the most satisfactory to dwell upon. The influences of friendship, love, society and time, have made the most beautiful developments in her character. She was a merry, light-hearted creature; but was more remarkable at school for an affectionate disposition, and a refined and delicate taste, than for any quick perception of intellect, or even proper application. She was a butterfly, flying from one thing to another in her studies, just as the interest of the moment led her; acting as if all the duties of life were merely for amusement. I used to look at her and wonder silently how she would ever be able to endure any trouble that might come upon her in the future; she seemed so volatile, so delicate, so totally unfitted to come in contact with the thousand and one struggles and trials that spring up in every one’s life-path. “Surely,” I would say to myself, “trouble would overwhelm such a frail spirit, or harden it, and deprive it of its refined beauty.” But I have always been the very worst person in the world to judge of character; and I never could prophesy in that knowing manner, that so many wise ones do, on the effects that certain influences or circumstances would produce on different natures. Nor has experience done me any good. I am no better judge now, and although events have taken place in my own life and in my own circle that would have enlightened most persons, I am no brighter, no quicker; and I make just as many blunders as I did when I played with dreamy philosophy and the study of character at seventeen.
But I commenced with Meta Hallowell not with myself. Meta was beautiful in person as well as in spirit. She had a graceful, willowy figure, delicately developed; a sparkling, yes, a brilliant face, with eyes that were flashing or melting, just as she felt gay or sentimental; and a finely-shaped mouth, whose lips trembled with every shade of feeling, and around it hung the expression of intuitive refinement and delicacy that always hovers around the mouth if there be any refinement in a person’s nature. Then her laugh was the most musical thing in the world, and her voice the sweetest of all voices. This sounds enthusiastic, but Meta Hallowell was and is a subject worthy of enthusiasm. She has never worn out; she is better, lovelier and purer than when I first loved her in my school-days.
We left school at the same time, but our positions were very different in the world. She belonged to a gay family, and was immediately plunged into the whirl of fashionable life, while I led a very quiet, sober existence, which was well suited to my shy nature, but formed a strong contrast to pretty Meta’s sphere of action. One might have supposed our intercourse would have been broken off; on the contrary, we remained as intimate, as when we studied the same lessons, and sat at the same desk. True, a great deal of the visiting had to depend upon Meta, as home duties necessarily kept me from her; and she seldom passed a day without peeping in upon my “little nest,” as she called our cozy library; and once in a while she would enliven an evening by drinking tea with us; thus she kept me “booked up” in all the gossip and doings of the fashionable world.
She had no parents; her sister, two years her senior, and a widowed aunt, were her only near relatives. Meta and her sister were in comfortable circumstances—they had a nice little fortune apiece, which, of course, the world magnified. Their aunt had, however, quite a large life income, which, united with their own, made a very handsome appearance. Mrs. Hunsdon, the aunt, was a silly one-ideaed woman. To be fashionable, was the sole aim of her existence. She had no children, and turned all her attention to the establishment in life of her nieces. She had not cleverness, nor independence enough to be a leader in the gay world, but was always found fastened on to some distinguÉ person, whose shadow she made herself—going and coming, living and breathing as near like her model as possible; poor soul! how much labor she endured for her position in society. Her eldest niece was her exact counterpart; and at the time of Meta’s entrÉe, Miss Hallowell had secured an excellent offer from a most unexceptionable person, according to their ideas of such things; and the preparations for the approaching wedding were carried on in a grand manner. The whole town rang with Miss Hallowell’s magnificent wardrobe; the beautiful gifts presented by her husband elect; and I heard no less than a dozen different accounts of what was to be her wedding-dress; each account professing to come from Miss W., the fashionable dress-maker and modiste of the day.
One morning Meta came dancing into the library where I had snugly seated myself for a quiet hour’s study, after having settled for the day, the affairs of my little domestic kingdom.
“Ah; this is a treat,” she exclaimed, “here is true comfort;” and taking possession of her favorite lounge, she gave me a half-laughing, half-serious account of the bustle and preparatory arrangements for the approaching wedding. “How stupid is all this ceremony, Enna, dear,” she continued, “aunt fusses about, and Therese looks as grand as a queen. Then Mr. Folwell is so wearying; how Tettie can fancy him is a wonder to me. I have never heard him call her ‘dear Therese’ yet; it is always ‘Miss Hallowell’—such dignity chills me. When I marry, there shall be no grandeur about the affair. I want quiet, home love. My husband shall call me ‘Meta, darling,’ varying it once in a while with ‘angel bird,’ and all sorts of sweet expletives; he shall love me dearly, put me in a nice little home like this—just such a library; here he shall study and write, and I’ll sit beside him, sew and sing, and look at him, and bless heaven for making me so happy.”
“Why, Meta, your aunt and sister would lift their hands in horror,” I said, laughingly. “But where are you going to find such a nice lover—will Mr. Lawson be all this?”
A look of vexation overspread Meta’s pretty face as she replied, “Oh no, not Mr. Lawson. I know aunt would be delighted with him, but he is almost as stupid as the rest of them.”
“Mr. Lawson stupid!” I exclaimed. “Meta, where is your taste? He is quiet and calm, I admit, but not stupid. You naughty girl, not to love him; he is just the husband for you, madcap. To be sure he might not indulge in so many affectionate expletives, as you say your husband must, but he would watch over your happiness tenderly.”
“Better marry him yourself, Enna, since you think him so agreeable,” said Meta, a little quickly; then springing toward me, she threw her arms around me exclaiming, “I have just such a lover as I have pictured, pet one; and I depend on your assistance in my love affair.”
Now, young as I was, I was a perfect model of propriety—the idea of being an assistant in a “love affair,” frightened me out of my wits; for I was in truth, a “born old maid,” as my old nurse, Katy, used to call me.
“Me assist you?” I asked. “How can that be possible; I—who never go out any where, never see any one?”
“For that very reason,” replied Meta, laughing heartily at my fright and astonishment, “you are just the very one; and that is why I have selected you. This paragon lover of mine dislikes ceremony as much as I do. He is perfectly unexceptionable; when I tell you his name, you will admit that he is. If he had addressed Tettie, I know she would have had him—that is, if the rich Mr. Folwell had not come in the way; but, thank Heaven, he did not want Tettie!”
“Then why do you need any assistance, Meta?” I asked, in a perplexed tone.
“Because we wish to have our courtship perfectly unsuspected,” she answered. “Charles Morris—there, you see I have made no bad selection—Charles is a little embarrassed just now; some unfortunate speculations and business matters entangle him. Our engagement may last a year, and I never could endure hearing Aunt Margaret announce with such self-complacency, that her niece, Miss Meta Hallowell, was engaged, actually engaged, here, at the commencement of her first season. If we were to be married now, within a month or so, I would endeavor to bear it, but to bear it at every dinner-party, every morning visit, and every soirÉe, would surely kill me, and put an end to all Charles’s prospects of future happiness. Our plan is this, to keep perfectly quiet until his affairs are en traine, then announce our intention of marriage to Tettie and Aunt Margaret, just immediately before the ceremony, and thus avoid all talk and interference. But poor Charles says he cannot exist without seeing me once in a while as a lover, so with your permission we will chance to meet here now and then. I know he has a calling acquaintance with you—there lies his card uppermost on your card-basket.”
“Yes,” I replied. “He called yesterday. I did not know his call was intended to prepare the way for such a momentous affair as this.”
“But you will help me, Enna, pet, will you not?” said Meta, coaxingly. “There is no impropriety in it, prude”—and I consented. It was wrong, I know; mysteries and concealments rarely turn out well, and are always injudicious; but I was very young, entirely my own mistress, for my dear old father and Aunt Mary fancied I had the judgment of a woman of forty; and, moreover, I could not refuse any thing to dear Meta. I had not liked Mr. Morris heretofore; true, he was, as Meta had said, “perfectly unexceptionable,” being a young merchant of good standing in society, and having the reputation of some wealth. I knew very well that there was no fear of Mrs. Hunsdon objecting to him; but to me he had always seemed too bland, too artificial; he never, by any chance forgot himself; then I had heard a gossiping story about him, although I did not respect the source from whence it had proceeded, still it had prejudiced me against him. I had been told by a scandal-loving connection of ours, that Mr. Morris, a year before, had addressed a Miss Wilson, and would have eloped with her had not her friends interposed. This Miss Wilson was an ugly, red-haired heiress, with little brains, excessive vulgarity, but an immense estate. She was entirely out of the set of his associates, and if he had addressed her, it had been from mercenary motives. But now that I heard Meta’s account of her engagement with him, I dismissed Kate Holton’s story from my mind as a contemptible gossiping falsehood, which I should have been ashamed of listening to, and endeavored to find him as agreeable and good as dear Meta said he was.
During the ensuing winter, Meta and Mr. Morris met repeatedly at our house. We rarely received company in the evenings, therefore, they were always sure of being undisturbed. It was my father’s custom to retire early, and my good Aunt Mary is by nature unsuspicious and innocent as a child. She and I would sit in the library, sewing and knitting, listening to Meta’s merry talk; then, after Mr. Morris would join the circle, I generally proposed music, which made an excuse for Meta and her lover to go into the drawing-room, which opened on my library. Meta was a good musician, she played very finely, and had a beautiful voice. I used to declare the music sounded better from the library; so by this little piece of management on my part, the lovers were left together. After a few pieces, the music ceased, and for an hour or more their low, murmuring conversation would come soothingly on my ear like the sound of sweet melody. I used to smile as I would look around me. We would have made a pretty picture if that sweet music of loving voices could have been made visible on the canvas. I was the only observing, conscious one of the circle, for dear Aunt Mary was as unconscious as Zoe and Flirt, the little hound and pet kitten that napped comfortably on either side of the library fire. My aunt in her large easy-chair and reading-stand before her, while her knitting-needles fairly flew, would be completely absorbed in some work of fiction, her greatest delight, never dreaming that a real love-story was progressing under her eyes. She has always been an inveterate novel reader, this same Aunt Mary; but I must say for her, that this taste, so pernicious to many, preventing them from performing their daily duties with interest, making real life tame for them, has had no bad effect upon her—a more industrious, excellent woman never breathed; and it has often amused me that, although she dotes upon love-stories on paper, and can follow patiently and unwearyingly the written account of the most intricate romance, love in real life possesses but little interest for her. She breathes a different atmosphere while reading—seems in another state of existence, which completely vanishes so soon as the book is laid aside; and she takes up life and life’s duties in the most matter-of-fact, conscientious manner imaginable. I often wonder what she does with all the love stories she reads, for she never makes use of them in every day affairs; and even when a real little bit of romance which has taken place in actual life is pointed out to her, she is entirely wanting in sympathetic appreciation, regarding it as quite absurd.
The winter passed quickly on. The only event of moment that occurred was Meta’s rejection of Mr. Lawson. How Mrs. Hunsdon stormed, and the haughty Mrs. Folwell lectured, and I could not help regretting it myself—Mr. Lawson was so gentlemanly, so good. I knew it would have been far better for Meta to have loved him; his influence over her impressible nature would have been so beneficial; and when by chance once or twice I met him in company with Meta, and noticed his serious, grieved countenance, my conscience felt smitten, and in sadness I would compare him with Charles Morris, the comparison being any thing but flattering to the latter.
The spring opened upon my pair of lovers, who were still as adoring as ever. One thing I do remember as strange, and at the time it annoyed me, although I felt at the time as we do in dreams, not able to express or even realize the actual annoyance. Although Mr. Morris knew, could not help knowing, that I was fully aware of his engagement with Meta, he never once spoke openly about it to me, never hinted at it; and two or three times, when other unavoidable engagements prevented Meta from joining him at the appointed time, and on his coming in the evening, I would hand him Meta’s note of excuse, containing a love poulet for him, he would read it without remark, and, to my surprise, stay the accustomed time, entertaining Aunt Mary and myself as if he had come for that purpose. That clever authoress, Mrs. Grey, makes one of her heroines express an opinion, that certainly does apply to such men us Charles Morris. She says, “I have the highest opinion of men’s honor amongst themselves, but you may depend upon it, there is very little in the case where we women, with our interests and affections are concerned.”
The traveling season came on; and Mr. Morris promised to meet Meta at the fashionable watering-place she was going to with her aunt and Mrs. Folwell; but the season passed without his doing so—business, he said, had prevented him; and when Meta returned in the fall, she looked pale, dispirited and unhappy.
“I could not hear from Charles,” she said, “without exciting suspicion. Had you been in town, Enna, he would have written through you; but as it was, I had to pass the weary season without any intelligence from him. Nine unhappy weeks have they been, and truly, I think, even the horror I used to have of Aunt Margaret’s fuss and bustle over my engagement, has almost vanished. I think I could bear with it better than this misery of silence and separation.”
They met again—but after the interview Meta seemed still tearful and nervous. It was evident she wearied of the concealment, but her lover did not.
“I have acted very foolishly,” she said to me one evening, when, instead of meeting Mr. Morris at our house, he had sent her a note of apology filled with excuses for his unavoidable business engagements, “I entered into this secret engagement so thoughtlessly—and Heaven only knows when or where it is to end.”
We were alone. Aunt Mary, not being very well, had retired immediately after tea. Meta threw herself on the lounge, and drawing me to her, rested her head on my shoulder, and sobbed like a child. I caressed her silently, and my tears mingled with hers. Frank and open, Meta could not have a thought or shade of feeling without disclosing it to me. Her concealment of her engagement from her family, had arisen from delicacy, shyness, and the strong dash of romance in her character; then the artificial natures of her aunt and sister prevented all confidence with them, but with those she loved and depended on, she was as confiding and candid as an innocent child.
“Charles says I have grown suspicious and fretful,” she at last said, as her sobs became more quieted. “I know I am altered; our separation in the summer was so very painful to me as to make me restless in temper. I confess I am tired of concealment, and when I told him so, the other evening, I was mortified by the cold manner with which he received it. He said it had been my own proposition, that some time would necessarily elapse before we could be married, and that the same objections existed as at first to an open announcement of our engagement. I felt wounded to the quick, and when I passionately accused him of no longer loving me, he very coolly left me to become more reasonable, as he said, and came here into the library and talked to you and your aunt. I have not seen him since; no engagement should have kept him from me; he knows how wretchedly I must feel, even though I may be unreasonable, and cherish groundless suspicions; and yet his note this evening is so calm and unmoved.”
I soothed and encouraged her in the best way I could, but I thought within myself it was a cloudy affair. Again and again they met, but their meetings failed to produce happiness for Meta. He was cold—she suspicious.
“He never alludes to a past misunderstanding,” she said, one evening to me after he had left, for he no longer staid the whole evening as formerly, nor did he come so often. “When he knows we have parted miserably, and we meet again, instead of soothing and assuring me, he commences talking on some indifferent subject, as if nothing had occurred. If he has changed, why not candidly avow it? So I told him this evening, and he told me my absurd jealousy made me both selfish and unkind. Oh, Enna! I am miserable, this state of affairs cannot last much longer, it will kill me. Do tell me, Enna, am I unjust in my accusations—is not Charles altered?”
I scarcely knew what to say, and by soothings and caressings evaded a direct answer. Altered he surely was; he no longer showed any particular desire to meet her; sometimes a week and more would pass without his coming; while poor Meta rarely omitted an evening. Every night her pale, sad face rested on my shoulder, starting nervously at every noise, and then, when the carriage would come for her at ten o’clock, she would kiss me good-night with trembling lips, and disappointment in her heart; and for an hour after, I would rest my head on my pillow, her glazed and heavy eyes and wretched countenance would come up before me like a spectre.
A few mornings after this last conversation I received a visit from the Mrs. Holton who had first told me of the gossip about Mr. Morris and Miss Wilson. She had been absent from town several months, and came in upon us unexpectedly, just as we were arising from a late breakfast. I had not even read the morning paper, which I had in my hand as she entered.
“Ah! I suppose, then, you have heard the news,” she said.
“Why we rarely hear news, Kate, excepting from you,” replied Aunt Mary.
Mrs. Holton laughed, but was evidently too much interested in her new piece of gossip to notice Aunt Mary’s sarcasm. She turned to me with a malicious expression of countenance, and said, “Notwithstanding it interests you so particularly, Enna, you bear it very properly, I must confess.”
I stared, as I well might, for I could not understand a word of what she was saying.
“What is it you mean, Catharine?” said my aunt, a little decidedly. Mrs. Holton stood a little in awe of Aunt Mary, and said quickly, “Oh, I mean nothing, to be sure; I did not believe the report about Enna when I heard of it this morning, notwithstanding even Mrs. Wilson herself told me Betty had been outrageously jealous of her.”
“Mrs. Wilson!—Betty!—jealous of Enna!—what are you talking about, Catharine Holton?” exclaimed Aunt Mary, really angry, “truly that unruly member of yours does make you take strange liberties.”
“I only say what every one else says,” said Mrs. Holton, in a piqued tone, “that Mr. Morris’s attentions to Enna, have been the means of his obtaining a rich wife. That newspaper will tell you, if you choose to look at it, that yesterday he eloped with Betty Wilson. The whole affair has been managed admirably; her mother never dreamed of such a thing until the bird had flown. I went to see Mrs. Wilson this morning, as soon as I read it in the paper, and she was raving away at a terrible rate. She says she knew Betty was terribly jealous of you, Enna, all last winter; but she thought it had all blown over, as Betty had not mentioned his name for a long while.”
I have no doubt Kate Holton felt more gratification in giving this account of Mr. Morris’s and Miss Wilson’s marriage, than she had ever experienced before, for my terror and wretchedness were expressed on my face, although I listened with a forced calmness to all her gossiping details of the affair. Up to this day I am sure she thinks I was jilted by Mr. Morris, but at the time I could say nothing, so anxious was I for poor Meta. I knew that the elopement would be a town talk, for during the last few months Miss Wilson had made herself very prominent. Although not belonging to that charmed circle yclept par excellence, “society,” she had made herself a subject of conversation with them, by her splendid equipage, her rich and noisy costume, and lavish expenditure of the immense income left to her, untrammeled, by her father, two years before. Young, aristocratic beaux, with little money, had saucily pitied the “poor thing’s isolated position,” and more than one had declared his generous, self-sacrificing intention of “taking the girl, and showing her how to spend her money,” but here Charles Morris had quietly stepped in and carried her off! I may as well mention here, the part of Mrs. Holton’s recital, which I subsequently learned, was true.
Mr. Morris had, before meeting with Meta, addressed Miss Wilson. This occurred soon after the death of her father. The mother, a sensible, shrewd old woman, had influenced Miss Betty to refuse the aristocratic lover. Then he met with Meta, with whose family he had always been on intimate terms. At first I believe he was sincere, or at least as sincere as his selfish nature would permit him to be; but during the previous summer he had discovered that the silly heiress was dying of disappointed vanity and jealousy, fancying from his frequent visits to our house, that he had transferred his affections to me. By some chance they met; he found her ready to throw herself and her half million into his arms, almost without the asking, which temptation he could not, of course, withstand. This was the cause of his coldness and indifference to poor Meta, for I suppose he did not wish to give her up entirely until certain of the heiress.
Although I listened to Mrs. Holton’s conversation in dignified silence, the agony I endured was almost unbearable. I could almost have put her out of the house, so anxious was I to go to Meta—and heartily did I rejoice when this gossiping woman rose to go. As the door closed on her, Aunt Mary exclaimed, “Why, Enna, one might believe Kate Holton’s story about Mr. Morris’s jilting you was true, you look so wretchedly.”
“Do I?” asked I, with an hysteric laugh and sob mingled, and for a few moments my weeping was so violent that my poor aunt really believed it, and turning it over in her mind, innocent soul! she wondered she had not divined it before. At last, under promise of secrecy, I told her the whole affair, for I knew she would fret unceasingly.
“Poor Meta! foolish girl!” said Aunt Mary, as I concluded. “She ought to consider herself well off for being rid of him; he’s a good for nothing fellow, and she never would have been happy if she had married him.”
Just as she was taking this matter-of-fact view of the subject, the library-door opened, and in rushed Meta, looking wild and startled. Aunt Mary left us.
“Tell me, Enna,” she said, clinging to me, “have you heard any thing? I know you have, darling, for you will not look at me. Tell me all you have heard, for indeed it will be better for me. I cannot suffer more than I have these six months past;” and she sunk on the floor before me, overwhelmed with her anguish. She had heard the news from some morning visiters, and had escaped from home quietly, to come to me for comfort. The only consolation I could give, was sympathy. The whole day passed sadly enough, and I felt almost hopeless for her future, when suddenly a ray of light beamed upon me, as I heard her exclaim, “Well, thank Heaven! no one knows my miserable folly but you, Enna. I shall not be mortified and wounded by the insolent pity of society.” I saw that her pride was roused, and there is every hope for both man and woman so long as that remains. I took advantage of this, and lost no time in rousing her self-esteem. What an altered creature she seemed, pacing up and down my library a half hour afterward. I thought all the time of Queen Elizabeth’s reception of Leicester, in Kenilworth, after she had learned his perfidy to her and his poor wife, “Sweet Amy Robsart.” Meta queened it nobly over herself; and after the first struggle had passed, and the excitement of wounded pride even had passed, purer and better influences came to her aid and strengthened her. I had trembled, as I have said, for the effect of any great trouble or disappointment on Meta’s character, fearing the meet injurious consequences; this proved how I little I knew. The influence of trouble was beneficial to her, it served to quicken and strengthen her intellect; shook off the dreamy sentimentality that had hung like a mist over her fine mind, and she took a better, clearer view of life’s pursuits and duties.
A few years after this affair Meta married well and happily. Her husband is a distinguished man, and my friend leads the gay life of a woman of real society not in a little provincial circle, like that in which she had been brought up, and which had disgusted and wearied her by its silly, trifling vanities and nothings, but in stirring scenes of life, interesting herself in the grand and noble pursuits of her husband, who is a statesman and a scholar; receiving and entertaining the crowds of people who are attracted around her by her husband’s talents and her own brilliant, bewitching manners.
Our intimacy still continues; and whenever I read one of her sparkling letters, or pay her a visit, and see how healthily and heartily she enjoys life, I can scarcely conceive that she was ever the love-sick, romantic Meta Hallowell of former days; and I see with delight that she is now under the influence of the most beautiful, the most holy of all feelings—true, spiritual love; and that she retains only a smiling, pitying recollection of that season of her past life, when she had for awhile lingered in the depths of mortality, held down by the enervating influence of that hollow mockery—love for an unworthy object.
SONG.
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FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE WALTER HERRIES, ESQ.
———
Would thou wert mine own wife,
I’d fold thee in these arms,
And shield thee on this faithful breast
Secure from all alarms.
Thou shouldst be with me ever,
And in gladness or in gloom,
Thy presence like a sunbeam
Should life’s every hour illume.
The heaviest toil of life, love,
The weary weight of care,
Cheered by thy smile serene and true,
Most gladly I would bear,
And though forced by sterner duties
From thy gentle side to roam,
I would know an angel blessed me
From the fireside of my home.
Would thou wert mine own wife
Then cherished in this breast,
Thou’dst dwell in tender joyousness
A dove within her nest.
Thus, hand in hand together,
We would tread the path of life,
While flowers of joy should greet thy steps—
Oh! would thou wert my wife.
THE TWO PORTRAITS.
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BY HELEN IRVING.
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