Catherine Sinclair

Marion was no miser of happiness to hoard it all up for her own use, and most willingly would she have imparted a share of her present joyous feelings to Agnes, but in vain did she look for any encouragement to the frank, confiding, and sociable nature of her own disposition, from a sister who had no desire to share in the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of a disinterested attachment, such as she could neither understand nor approve.

"Perfect happiness and a hut in the country!" said Agnes, contemptuously, while the warm blood mantled into Marion's cheek, but instantly putting her features in order to look composed and indifferent, she turned the conversation to no particular subject.

Too happy to be silent, Marion next selected for her confidante the very last person upon earth whom it would have occurred to most young ladies to entrust with the progress of a love affair, while, from Sir Arthur, she received the deepest and most affectionate interest in return for all she told him, though he acted like a perfect incendiary, by adding fuel to the flame, inviting Mr. Granville to his house whenever he could come, and praising him whenever he departed.

With daily increasing solicitude, Marion's elderly confidant listened to all the simple romance of her thoughts and feelings, delighted with the overflow of a heart which had nothing to conceal. Neither overvaluing nor undervaluing the gifts of fortune, Sir Arthur felt unspeakable comfort in the belief that Marion would now be better protected and cared for through life, than could have been hoped, from the few years that remained to himself, or from the heedless indifference of her brother, who had never shown her much regard till now, when he testified his care in the way least acceptable to Marion, by an angry, resolute opposition to her marrying and settling, as he persisted in saying, "upon ninepence a-day."

The difficulty increased every week, of joining that happy circle where her most delightful hours had been passed, and a thousand impediments were now contrived by Sir Patrick to prevent Marion from visiting even at Sir Arthur's; while the young Baronet filled his house at St. John's Lodge with so many of his friends, that the Admiral laughingly observed one day, while he seemed possessed by the very spirit of raillery and good humor, "I think, Marion, your brother is actually laying siege to you now—or rather, it is turning into a blockade! I suppose he expects some of those half-witted blockheads fluttering about the house to eclipse Granville, which is of course extremely probable! Now, for the twentieth time to-day, let us discuss my nephew elect. He seems—rather amiable!"

"Seems! dear uncle Arthur! he is all that he seems, and a hundred times more! He is—need I say what he is?"

"No! no! I remember to have read novels long ago, and know all about it! Marion, you may well feel proud of being admired and beloved by one who is himself admired and beloved by all! I cannot think," added Sir Arthur, with a sly smile, "what in all the world Mr. Granville sees to fancy in you!"

"That is exactly what puzzles me! I often wonder why he likes me!"

"Because, I suppose, somehow or other, he cannot help it. Now, Marion, you have the worst of memories I know, for what Mr. Granville says; but do try if you can recollect a few of his last conversations to entertain me with. You will have so many lovers soon at St. John's Lodge, that it may perhaps become impossible to distinguish Granville from the rest, or one from another!"

"No! that can never be! Patrick's friends are scarcely my acquaintances, and not at all likely to become admirers. I feel and fully appreciate my own happiness now in being chosen and preferred by one whose thoughts and wishes are all such as my own may be ready and willing to echo—who can lead my thoughts upwards as well as onwards, whose attachment is founded on the purest sentiments—and, not the least of his attraction, dear uncle Arthur, who loves and honors you as I do!"

"Merely because I am your uncle! Depend upon it, all my great merits are eclipsed by that one! Well! I must put up with it, till he knows better! I need not send to the circulating libraries for a romance now, as there are so many to interest me at home!"

These words of Sir Arthur's referred not merely to the growing attachment of Richard and Marion, but Caroline Smythe, who was about soon to depart for England, had in the meantime become a constant and prominent member of the gay little circle at Seabeach Cottage, where her friends exerted their utmost endeavors to restore the tone of her nerves and spirits, which were still much affected by her recent alarm, and none succeeded so well in diverting her thoughts, and beguiling her time as the lively, animated Henry De Lancey, who became himself daily more entranced with the happiness of being in her society. His preference for Caroline was testified in the way most truly flattering, being more betrayed than professed, yet his whole heart was visible in every word and action, while he evidently became every day twenty times more deeply in love than at first, and the interesting countenance of Caroline grew more interesting from the additional depth of expression to be traced there. Sir Arthur, happy in the happiness of others, appeared to cast aside all care, while sunning himself in the joyous smiles of those who had so long been the dearest objects of his solicitude, and day after day the intimacy and mutual affection of all parties appeared to be riveted by fetters which never could be broken, though it sometimes crossed Marion's mind as a cause of surprise that Sir Arthur, who did nothing without reflection, should appear never once to apprehend the difficulty into which Henry's attachment would evidently plunge him.

There was something irresistible in the fascinations of young De Lancey's character, the warmth of which seemed as if it must have been nurtured beneath a brighter sun than that of others, while there was an irresistible captivation in his joyous, youthful aspect, his frank and graceful carriage. Mr. Granville, who had a genius for making society agreeable, as well as improving, treated him with the confidence and companionship of a brother, almost insensibly developing the graces of a heart fitted to awaken the deepest interest, and drawing forth a power of mind and character in Henry, of which he could scarcely before have deemed himself capable, while leading him often away from the common-place nothings of the passing hour, to the highest regions of thought and to the brightest aspirations after future distinction, after immortal wisdom and undying happiness.

"We must live and act for others," observed Mr. Granville one day in his usual tone of energetic animation. "The miser who collects useless hoards which are lost to him at death, is not more absurd in his vain pursuit, than the mere philosopher who lays up stores of knowledge to perish with himself. The good or the evil which may be done by the most insignificant individual both now and to generations yet unborn, is incalculable; and the only important question we can ask of ourselves, in which no other can be concerned, is, 'What shall I do to be saved?' That, each man must seek to ascertain for himself; and who would not say that the greatest fool on earth is he who forgets to ask it at all,—or who asks it with indifference!"

"I am more and more convinced," said Henry, "that religion is the greatest support in life, and the only one in death. On our hearts it is like the calm serene light given by the moon when she soars vividly along the heavens amidst clouds and darkness, pouring celestial light upon the earth in pure and holy splendor, beautiful and sublime, yet often how melancholy and solemnizing,

'Thoughts of immortal beauty spring to birth,

And waft the soul beyond the dreams of earth.'"

Henry scarcely ventured to tell his own heart how deeply and engrossingly he had become attached to Caroline, while in secret he remembered every word or look which had endeared her to him, with a pleasure and emotion till now unknown, and which could not but be most painful in his solitary hours of reflection, when he considered the uncertain tenure of his own situation in life, and his ignorance respecting that of Miss Smythe, though he felt soothed and comforted by the consciousness, that to her he was evidently not indifferent, and that Sir Arthur either seemed blind to their increasing preference, or pleased to witness it.

Henry had seated himself one morning in a small ante-room, repairing his fishing tackle, and though voices became audible in the drawing-room, in animated conversation, he continued perfectly heedless of what was passing, till at length his own name, spoken in accents always dear to him, irresistibly enchained his attention. Sir Arthur was requesting Caroline to sing one of his favorite melodies, and she gayly resisted his entreaties, saying, in her liveliest accents, "No! no! wait patiently till the evening. That was copied for me by Mr. De Lancey, and I promised he should be present the first time it was performed. I can refuse you nothing, Sir Arthur, so I must seek safety by flight!"

Nodding and smiling, with one of her archest looks, Caroline tripped lightly into the room, where Henry sat, so shaded by the window-curtain, that he was perfectly invisible, when a moment afterwards she was followed by Mrs. Smythe, who said in an excited tone of angry remonstrance,

"Is there no end, Caroline, to this extraordinary intimacy of yours with young De Lancey! It really is becoming absurd! Sir Arthur is very much to blame in giving it any encouragement! A youth without prospects! without so much as a name!"

"With no seat in Parliament! no diplomatic appointment! no family living! no title!" pursued Caroline, laughing. "You know, my dear aunt, I never centered all good in birth and station!"

"Neither did I suppose you would dispense with both!" replied Mrs. Smythe, in a tone of increasing bitterness, and hurrying towards the door, evidently so irritated, that she dared not trust herself to remain. "Rather than have my niece united to a nameless outcast, living upon the bounty of Sir Arthur Dunbar, or of connections who are probably disgraced by his existence, I would prefer seeing you married to the Twopenny Postman, for he at least is independent, and has something."

A glow like fire rushed through Henry's frame at these words, and before Mrs. Smythe had closed the door, the hot blood seemed boiling in his veins with agonized shame and sorrow. Pale and red by turns, he leaned his head on his hands in solitary desolation, and quivered in every nerve with grief and self-reproach. The whole harvest of his happiness seemed blasted at a single breath; his mind was a wild chaos of conflicting emotions; and one only thought rose paramount to all, that he had been held up to ridicule and contempt, perhaps deservedly, in the eyes of that one beloved being, the object of his dearest, first, and only attachment, He wreathed his hands together, and bent his head in a tempest of emotion, while the whole rich treasure of his affections and hopes lay mouldered into rubbish at his feet; for he felt and knew that all Mrs. Smythe had said, was but too painfully true. A dark extinguisher had fallen over every earth-born wish. He felt that it had been unpardonable even to desire that the happiness of another should be linked with his uncertain fate; and he struggled long, though vainly, for composure, while contemplating the destruction of that one hope which had contained the sum of all his earthly wishes.

"I will yet deserve her or die!" thought Henry, overleaping impossibilities, or, with the sanguine feelings of a young and ardent mind, not even seeing them. "My pleasing dream has ended for the present; and how could I ever expect it should be otherwise! but I cannot and will not blot out from the picture of my future life, that form which embellished every hope of my existence! Days and nights of laborious exertion shall be as nothing, if I can but prove myself worthy of Caroline,—if I can but, at the remotest period of time, call her my own. Were it not for such a prospect I should become indifferent even to myself!"

Henry's musings were disturbed by a slight noise near him, and when, with a flashing eye, he started and looked up, the very object of all his thoughts, hopes, and regrets was beside him, and he beheld Caroline, her cheeks suffused with the deepest emotion, and her downcast eyelashes sparkling with tears, while in hurried accents of extreme agitation, she spoke to him almost inaudibly:

"Is it the affairs of the nation you are so deeply meditating on, Mr. De Lancey, or your own affairs?"

"My affairs!" exclaimed Henry, in a tone of deep depression, while his dark lustrous eyes became dim and glassy with emotion. "I have no affairs! a creature of charity,—of the most generous and noble-minded benevolence,—but still a dependent on the bounty of others! In your presence I could forget the mystery and bitterness of my lot,—but I forget it too much! I am not answerable for my feelings, but I am for my actions; and I must leave you for ever! I can never know the rapture of a requited attachment; but why should I not acknowledge the feelings of admiration that must be common to all in your presence. I am a nameless outcast; but pardon my folly and infatuation in having loved you, without a hope of return. My mother perished, as you know, under fearful circumstances; and who can tell whether my father may not have died like a felon! My worst enemy can say, or suspect nothing worse than I sometimes fear; and I deserve all I suffer for having one moment forgotten the dark mystery of my lot."

"You were here, then, Mr. De Lancey, some moments ago," said Caroline, in hurried accents! "You overheard all that my aunt so imprudently said! you! you!—you—what must you think!"

"I dare not trust my lips with the expression of half what I think and feel," replied Henry, in a low, deep, broken voice, and fixing his troubled eye on Caroline. "Let me speak for once to you on that subject which another began! Let me for once relieve my heart, by saying how entirely,—how unchangeably I love you. What bright visions of hope have flitted before my fancy, all blighted now for ever! I know the utter despair that ought to attend my attachment. Love, to others a blessing, must ever be to me a curse; yet I would rather love you without a hope of return, than gain the hearts of a thousand others. I neither ask nor expect encouragement; only believe and pity me! In the long absence which awaits me from home, let me be consoled by thinking, that I am not utterly despised and forgotten,—that when time and distance have separated us, I may still preserve a place in your memory, though not perhaps remembered, as I shall remember you."

Caroline listened with deep delight to this renewed confession of Henry's long-cherished attachment. It seemed as if she could have listened for ever, but was unable to reply during several minutes of agitated silence, till at length, with a strong effort, she said in faltering accents, yet with some of her usual vivacity—

"You said this once before, and I never forgot it. You were very dull not to read my heart long ago. If I felt less I could say more. Be constant for two long years, and we may be happy! I need then consult no one's wishes but my own. Sir Arthur knows all. He has been entrusted with my thoughts from the first moment, when you told me that—that our attachment was reciprocal!"

"Can it be!" exclaimed young De Lancey, in accents of the wildest joy, while, in a transport of emotion, he clasped her hand in his own, and those words were at last spoken between them, which pledged Henry and Caroline to each other for ever. "I am not then doomed to pass through life alone and uncared for. You will accept a heart that never has loved, and never can love another! I am now afraid only of being too happy! The tide of my whole existence is changed! The two years you bid me wait shall not be wasted. For your sake I shall strenuously seek to become the architect of my own fortunes, to throw off the trammels of obscurity, to carve out for myself a name which you shall not be ashamed to hear. The world is before me, where, with buoyant hopes and resolute will, surely I may achieve something, when my ardent aim and eager hope shall be to enjoy honor first, and love hereafter. For years I have not known a moment of solitude, as your image has been my perpetual companion, and now there is no futurity of life to either of us, in which we shall not both be interested, for, believe me, no one on earth was ever loved with greater depth and constancy of attachment than yourself."

The feelings of a lifetime are sometimes concentrated in a single hour, and so it was with Henry and Caroline, who talked of the past and of the future with buoyant hopes and entire affection, but not yet with an entire confidence; for it was evident that Miss Smythe, in speaking of her own connexions and prospects, became agitated and reserved, while she concluded the conversation abruptly, by saying,

"I shall feel proud and happy to think that the motive for all your exertions is derived from a generous and disinterested attachment to myself; and whether success or failure be the consequence, we shall at last share it together, for better or for worse. All real happiness must spring from the heart. I care neither for splendor nor amusement—they are the mere outside crust visible to the vulgar eye; but friendship and—and attachment, founded on religion, these are the jewel in the casket, outweighing all else."

"Without them, none can know the greatest joys or the greatest sorrows of this world," said Henry, with emotion. "For your sake I have now a thousand ambitious desires that never would have occurred to me for myself alone. If there be anything in me deserving your regard, I wish it were ten times redoubled, and that, besides, I had fortune, talents, estates, and friends, beyond the utmost desires of all your connexions."

"Then," replied Caroline, with a penetrating look at Henry, but in a careless, off-hand tone, "if we are to suppose a shower of fairy gifts called down upon us by our own wishes, I shall, perhaps, ask to become, for your sake, very beautiful, very fascinating, and, above all, very rich."

"You have everything already, except the wealth," said Henry, warmly; "and I should abhor an heiress! I would not sacrifice my independence in life to any woman—scarcely even to you! A man's office is to confer, not to receive."

"Men of even very large fortune seem, in these days, to feel otherwise," observed Caroline, smiling. "They have a sort of mercantile idea on the subject of marrying, that it would be very presumptuous in a young lady, without sufficient capital, to expect a partnership in their house."

"I have little, indeed, to offer, and even that little based upon a mysterious uncertainty," replied Henry. "Yet unless I could bestow something besides myself, and something more than I ask in return, I never would marry. It is a mean, degrading position, for any man to be a pensioner on his wife, when even the very gifts which his affection might induce him to give her must be purchased with her own money. No! dearest Caroline, we shall be contented on very little, and we might be miserable on a great deal. Your happiness shall be my first, almost my only consideration. Our affection will be riveted by the sacrifices we daily make for each other, till it becomes woven into our very being; while, come what may, we are above adversity, and equal to prosperity, strong in mutual attachment, and in one common hope for time and for eternity."

"May we live to realize all you say," replied Caroline, with tears starting to her eyes, while a smile was on her cheek. "The picture is drawn by a masterly hand. In this world the sun itself has many dark spots, and I do not expect or hope that we shall be without our share of difficulties and sorrows; but our happiness is rooted in a soil that cannot fail, for we shall advance together, in social and unlimited confidence, through the land of fleeting shadows, to the land of bright and permanent realities, of unimaginable and unceasing enjoyment."

"How different is the happiness of the Christian from that described by the poet," said Henry.