Chapter VI (1)

"And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poisoned--'tis too late:
Yet am I changed; though still enough the same
In strength to bear what time cannot abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing fate."
BYRON.

AGAIN 'twas night; but this time deepening into morn. In a spacious chamber, furnished with all the appliances of opulent luxury, sat a man, upon whose massive brow forty winters had traced many a deep and rugged line. He seemed one who had not been slighted by fortune, for the insignia of several illustrious orders hung upon his breast. A small cabinet table, upon which were strewed gorgeously bound books and written papers of various kinds, was drawn up beside him. The materials for writing were also there; but he heeded them not, but sat with his head leaning upon his hands apparently in abstracted meditation.

He remained in this position for full an hour, not moving a single muscle, and more like a dead than a living thing. Then he arose suddenly, and paced the apartment with a vigorous and hasty step. His limbs were firm and his form athletic; it was his _head_ only that looked old. This also lasted some time, and then he sat down once more, and, unlocking a concealed drawer, drew forth a letter and a miniature. Upon the letter he gazed long and earnestly, his look assuming an expression of mingled terror and dejection piteous to behold. Laying down the picture with a sigh, he then opened the billet and began to read, his countenance becoming each moment more careworn and haggard. And it was not strange it should be so; for it is a mournful thing to look upon the letters that once told of the throbbing affection of some friend or loved one, when the friendship is dead or merged in a deeper feeling for another, or the love is banished forever from its chosen temple. To recall the words that dropped on the page; archangels proclaiming with trumpet notes that we were the idol of one beating heart at least; to bring up again our old smile, and find it gleams, and with no Promethean power, upon affection's corse. Ah me, 'tis sad, indeed! The reader muttered to himself ever and anon, but his words were disjointed and unintelligible. He sighed, too, frequently and deeply, and even groaned aloud as he read the following passage:--

"Oh, believe me, your highness, it is fate, and not my own will, that makes me seem ungrateful! The gratitude your priceless favor has engendered in my breast is so warm, so fervid, that _my life_ would be cheerfully given in requital; but when you ask _my heart_, alas! I can only say, I have it not to give. Years ago, ere I had seen your highness, or dreamed of the possibility of our ever meeting, Love had in my heart a Minerva birth, and, though the object of it lies in a bloody grave in a stranger's land, it will live in my own weary soul while it remains on earth, and accompany it when it flees to join him. You say, 'Perhaps I have not yet been fortunate enough to win your love or attract your regard but let me beseech you at least to receive and weigh the depth, the purity, the strength of my devotion against that of other men ere you decide.' Monseignor, you _compel_, even were _I not willing to accord_, my 'esteem;' my worthless 'regard,' and all the love my father and the dead do not claim, you also have; but were I to consent to your request, and become your wife, at his own altar should I send up a perjured vow to God."

Carefully, he placed both letter and picture in the drawer from whence he had taken them; but, instead of locking it, drew forth another "billet." It was much shorter, a mere note, in fact, but seemed to contain matter as pregnant with agitation as its predecessor. He paused some time over the following postscript:--

"You tell me that the grave, in closing over the object of my love, severed the tie between him and me forever--that death pronounced a divorce which gave me liberty to form another attachment. You know not woman's love to say so. It is impossible, when once ignited, to quench it entirely. It may be unseen, the ashes may be cold; but a spark certainly slumbers beneath them, and will never, never die! Oh, your highness, let me entreat you to select some worthier object than myself upon which to lavish your affections! I can never be yours!"

The man read this to the end. When he had finished, there was a smile of mockery upon his face; but a spasmodic shudder which convulsed his frame evinced the pain which it was meant to hide. How we learn to cheat _ourselves_ by playing the hypocrite to others! The letter fell from his grasp to the floor. His head assumed its old position on his hand, and he gazed on vacancy. He remained in this posture so long that the candles one by one flickered and went out, not even perceiving, so great was his abstraction, the glare they gave just before they expired. The large gothic window immediately opposite to where he sat was open, and the air grew cooler and cooler each moment. It seemed, however, as if there were no stars in the sky--all was darkness. Suddenly, a terrific flash of lightning illumined earth and heaven, and cast a strong ruddy glare upon every object in the apartment. A tremendous peal of thunder followed, and the man started to his feet and advanced to the window. The rain was now coming down in large drops, and flash after flash of lightning, and peal after peal of thunder followed each other with astounding rapidity. The wind, which had lain motionless and dead previous to the beginning of the storm, now at one moment went rushing by with extreme violence, and the next sank into a low moan that was awful enough to blanch the cheek and palsy the heart of the stoutest. It was like the wailing voice of a God sorrowing over the sins of man, or the spirit of earth singing a dirge over vanished time.

The tenant of the chamber stood with folded arms, regardless of the fierce gusts that ever and anon dashed the heavy rain-drops in his face, and the ghastly blue tint cast upon his countenance by the lightning made him look unearthly enough to be the arbiter of the dreadful contest then raging between the shrieking storm fiends. His eye grew brighter and more glistening. There seemed a sympathy between the unchained elements in their rage and his own proud spirit. His form dilated, and he seemed to look with a strange delight upon the swaying trees bending beneath the terrific blasts of wind, and to list to the crashing thunder with a fierce joy. A magnificent oak, which had resisted every attempt of the tempest to more than shake its smaller limbs, was suddenly torn up by the very roots, and, with a rushing noise, fell to the ground. The very earth seemed to groan as it fell.

"Thus would _I_ die," exclaimed the looker on, exultingly--"thus would I die! Amid a world's agonizing throes, when the mountains seem to bend their scathed tops, and the ocean roars its submission to the storm."

As he spoke, he advanced, heedless of the elements, through the casement, and stood upon the extreme edge of the battlemented parapet. A shrill, mocking laugh greeted his concluding words, and a voice, that seemed to his excited imagination preternaturally hollow, exclaimed--

"And die thus you shall!"

For a moment he stood perfectly paralyzed; but a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he turned to meet the glare of two eyes that shone as if lit with fire from hell. The person from whom the glance proceeded held in a threatening position a long, keen-looking dagger, and the blade gleamed brightly in the electric light with which a sudden flash of lightning illumined the scene. The man who had a moment before looked defiantly upon the wrathy heavens shrank from the danger which now threatened him from a human foe. It was, however, but for a moment. He saw in the implacable countenance of the man who had so strangely come upon him, sufficient evidence of some dark and evil purpose to make him look for mischief. He suspected the existence of a danger that would tax his every energy. He turned upon the intruder a look of inquiry, firm and proud, and somewhat rebuking in its aspect. The next moment, however, recollecting that, in the intervals between the flashes, all was invisible, he put the question audibly, which before he had mutely expressed. A tremendous peal of thunder drowned the words in its frightful reverberations, and the lightning that followed showed him the arm of his foe raised to strike. Even as the blade touched his breast he caught his adversary's wrist and threw himself upon him. Powerful he found him beyond all expectations, and his cheek turned ghastly pale, for he felt hope deserting him.

The struggle was terrible; a look of vengeful despair sat on the beaded brow of one, and deep, dark, unmitigable hate gleamed in the strained eyeballs of the other. The assailed man chafed like a maimed lion in the hunter's toils, and his efforts bore that character of ruthless savageness which is the consequence of hopeless fear--of rayless despair. The other, in the proud consciousness of tried strength, dashed his dagger into the bosom of the clouded chaos that formed the atmosphere in which they fought, and, by the exertion of resistless bodily power, bore his victim back towards the verge of the parapet. _Too_ pale to seem human, like the animated statues of two contending gladiators, they rocked to and fro on its extremity. A momentary strife ensued, in which the muscles of each seemed cracking with the might of their exertions. For a single instant, the assailant seemed to give way, and the heart of his victim beat with a hope that intensity made an agony; but the relaxation was but the prelude to a more violent effort. Again they were upon the verge of the battlement--they balanced upon the edge--and then sank into the darkness. A wild, sardonic laugh, and a cry of agony that seemed to freeze the very elements and hush their destructive howl into silence, went up to heaven, succeeded by a dull, heavy sound that announced the departure of two souls to judgment.

The next day the patrol discovered, beneath the postern that opened upon the castle fosse, two mangled bodies, quite dead. The one was the Prince Carlos, Regent of Spain, and the other the Count Carlo Zanotti.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: I have liberally availed myself, in the above theory, of the hints of my talented friend, J. J. Woodward, contained in an epistolatory criticism on Bulwer's Zanoni, written to a mutual friend.]

THE ORPHAN'S DEPARTURE.

BY MARGARET FLOYD.

(_See Plate._)

THE early years of few have been so carefully guarded and protected as were those of Edith Frazier. Her father was the rector of a church in a beautiful but secluded country village in the south of England. In addition to his sincere piety and high-toned moral character, Mr. Frazier possessed a well-cultivated mind. His wife was also a superior woman, and as Edith was their only child, her early training was the object of their most careful attention. In a lovely and sequestered home, surrounded not only by the comforts and luxuries, but the elegances of life, and in close association with persons of high refinement and elevated goodness, the young girl grew slowly up to womanhood. There was no undue excitement of vanity or the passions to force her, like some hothouse plant, into an early maturity; and no unseasonable call upon her for self-reliance or exertion, which entirely blots out of some lives the sweet carelessness of girlhood. At sixteen, she was still almost a child, when the death of her mother, her first great sorrow, made her sensible for the first time that this world is not the place for that uninterrupted happiness which had, until then, been her portion.

Edith was almost heart-broken at the loss of her mother. They had been constant companions, and she missed her every moment more and more. Mr. Frazier tried to supply to his daughter the place both of father and mother, but he was a studious, reserved man, and himself suffering deeply from his bereavement, so that they did little else but remind each other constantly of their great sorrow.

About a year after Mrs. Frazier's death, finding that his daughter did not rally from the depression so foreign to her nature, Mr. Frazier proposed a tour through the northern part of England and Scotland. It was just at the beginning of the pleasant summer weather, and, arranging matters in his parish so that his absence for two or three months would not be felt, he decided to leave immediately.

On the Sunday before his departure, a stranger was seen in the little parish church. He was a man who would have been noticed in any place, and who, in a quiet country village, was an object of general attention. Tall, handsome, and with a strikingly high-bred and gentlemanlike appearance, he would have been singled out anywhere as one of nature's nobility. Edith was struck and gratified by the stranger's evident interest in the sermon her father preached that day. It was one with which he had taken especial pains, and the daughter, proud as well as fond of her father, was glad to see that he had at least one appreciative listener.

A few days after, Mr. Frazier and Edith set out on their journey. London was their first stopping-place, and several very busy days were spent there, while Edith, with the vivid interest of one to whom almost everything in that vast and crowded city was strange and new, visited the many places of interest and note within it. While they were standing in St. Paul's, the stranger who had attracted their attention in Hillcomb, their own village, a few days before, passed them with a look of evident recognition. They met again while going over Westminster Abbey; and it so happened that they were at the same time paying to the genius of Shakspeare the homage of a visit to his grave at Stratford, and that they passed each other again while strolling over the grounds around Newstead Abbey.

By this time they had advanced so far on the way to acquaintanceship, that, when they again encountered each other near the lakes in Westmoreland, the home of so many of the poets of England, a bow was the almost involuntary mark of recognition. English reserve and shyness might have prevented any more intimate intercourse, but for an accident that happened to Edith in Scotland.

Mr. Frazier, finding that the cool and bracing air of that country had as favorable an effect on his daughter's health as the wild and romantic scenery had on her mind, and being pleased with a quiet country inn which he had found, proposed that they should make it their home for two or three weeks. They could not have found a pleasanter resting-place, for Lock Lomond was spread out in its calm serenity at their feet, and Ben Lomond towered in savage grandeur above their heads.

The first person whom they recognized on taking their seats at the table of the inn was the stranger whom they had met so frequently. Edith could not repress a smile as she shyly returned the stranger's salutation, at the chance that seemed to take such a whimsical pleasure in thus bringing them together. A few days after, while walking with her father in the rude paths on the side of the mountain, she strayed a little way from him when he stopped to admire the scene from some particularly favorable point of view; and when she attempted to return, she found herself, to her dismay, so perplexed by the intricate windings of the paths that she was at a loss which to take. She called to her father and heard his voice in reply, but it grew fainter and fainter, until, at last, it could no longer be discerned. Becoming aware that every step she took only led her farther from home, she stopped to see if she could not in some way distinguish the right path. But she was so utterly bewildered that she found it to be impossible. She thought that the only thing that was left for her to do was to remain stationary; in that way she would, at least, avoid the danger of falling into the mountain streams around, or down any of the precipices.

Night closed around Edith as she sat alone under the shelter of a gray rock that jutted out from the side of the mountain. She had around her only the light shawl she had thrown on for an afternoon's walk, and it was but a slight protection from the chilling night-air. In her hurried and toilsome search after her father, she had bruised her feet and wearied herself so that she could no longer stand. She called at intervals, in the faint hope that some wanderer might hear her and come to her assistance; but her voice died away from exhaustion, and she was still alone.

It was not so much a feeling of fear that weighed upon her, for the perfect trust in her all-seeing Father, which her mother had taught her from her childhood, was a tower of strength to her in this her hour of need; and the physical discomfort she could bear; but the thought of her father's anxiety and distress on her account almost overcame her.

The stars were going out one by one, when Edith heard in the distance a faint shout. She could not answer it, but, almost as if led by some unseen spirit, it came nearer and nearer. At last she gathered voice to reply, and she had evidently been heard. She could distinguish the sound of footsteps, and at last dimly discern a man's figure as it stopped before her.

"Is this Miss Frazier?" said the man in a voice that revealed its owner to be a person of refinement and tenderness.

"Yes," said Edith, rising with difficulty.

"I am Mr. Hildreth, the gentleman whom you have met so frequently lately. I heard of your disappearance from your father, and have been seeking for some hours. Could you walk a little way with me? He is not far from here; we can soon find him."

Edith tried to walk, but found it impossible. Taking her in his arms, Mr. Hildreth carried her a little way; then meeting her father, he resigned her to him while he went before to act as a guide. With some difficulty they reached the bottom of the mountain, and obtaining a rude vehicle from some of the country people near, conveyed Edith to the inn.

The acquaintance thus begun soon ripened into a friendship. Mr. Frazier and Edith learned that Mr. Hildreth was an American from the city of New York. The letters of introduction that he had with him proved that he had a right to the best society in England, for which his polished manners and uncommon conversational powers showed that he was well fitted. He had been taking an invalid aunt to the south of France for the benefit of the climate, he told them, and after seeing her comfortably established there, he had taken advantage of a few months' leisure to travel wherever his fancy led him. He readily accepted Mr. Frazier's invitation to join him and his daughter in their tour. The similarity of taste they had shown so singularly was a sufficient evidence, he said, that any course they might take would be equally agreeable to both parties.

The next six weeks, Edith thought, were the most delightful she had ever spent. Nowhere does the society of an agreeable and intellectual person add more to the enjoyment of the company than in travelling. Although grave and quiet, Mr. Hildreth was full of thoughtfulness and observant care for the comfort of his fellow-travellers. Whenever he spoke to Edith, there was a gentle deference in his manner that, from one of his superior abilities, was irresistibly attractive.

On his side, Mr. Hildreth was no less charmed by those with whom he had been so strangely thrown. On the Sunday in which he had first seen them, he had been pleased and impressed by Mr. Frazier's sermon, and thought that he had never seen a face of more artless and attractive loveliness than Edith Frazier's. She reminded him of Chaucer's beauties, of a rose half opened and still wet with the morning dews, and of all that was most fresh and delicate in nature. Her mind answered to the promise of her countenance. Ignorant of the world and uncontaminated by it, she walked in almost unconscious innocence the simple path of duty. Her disposition, naturally cheerful and bright, had already begun to recover its buoyancy, and her happiness reacted on her graver companions, who seemed to vie with each other as to which should add most to her pleasure.

Seasons of unshaded happiness are generally as brief as bright. By the end of the six weeks, Mr. Hildreth received a letter from his aunt, who wrote urgently for his immediate presence. He took a reluctant leave of his companions, but not before he had had a long conversation with Mr. Frazier, in which he asked his permission to reveal to Edith the love that had already become a strong feeling in his heart.

Heretofore he had been thrown, he said, among a set of worldly and fashionable women, and had come to look upon simplicity and unworldliness as traits no longer to be met with among the educated and polished members of society, and Edith Frazier exhibited a character as new as attractive to him. She was the only woman that he had ever met, whose society and conversation never wearied or lost their interest to him.

Mr. Frazier's paternal pride was gratified at the tribute thus paid to Edith by a man like Mr. Hildreth, but he could not bear to think of giving up the only object of affection left to him, nor contemplate without pain the idea that his daughter's home might be in a distant land. He did all that he felt justified in doing to avert the day of separation, and pleading Edith's youth, requested Mr. Hildreth to postpone for a year his declaration. To this delay Mr. Hildreth was unwilling to consent; but at last was obliged unwillingly to yield to a probation of six months.

He left Edith, in accordance with the promise he had made Mr. Frazier, entirely unconscious of his feelings towards her, and for some time almost equally unaware of her own. She knew that the loss of his society had deprived her of the greater part of the pleasure she had taken in the new scenes through which she was journeying, but it was not until she was again settled in her own home at Hillcomb that she began to feel that Mr. Hildreth had been far more to her than a mere agreeable casual acquaintance.

This discovery mortified her extremely. She felt as though it was both wrong and humiliating, that one whom she had known so short a time, and who had shown no proof of regarding her as anything but a very young and rather pleasing girl, should engross so much of her thoughts. She resolved to use every means to crush the feelings that, new as they were, seemed to have struck their roots so deeply in her heart. But first she could not resist asking her father one question.

"Do you think we shall ever see Mr. Hildreth again, father?" said she one day, with affected indifference.

"Perhaps so," said he, quietly; "we can never tell what may happen."

"He can never have spoken to my father about coming here," thought Edith, "or he would not have seemed so uncertain about it;" and, with true feminine pride, the young girl forbore any farther mention of the one whom yet she found it impossible to forget.

Two months of the six had passed away, when Edith was called to bear another heavy trial. Her father died suddenly, leaving her unprovided for and alone in the world. Such an event was apparently the last in the world to be expected, as Mr. Frazier had always seemed to be a man in vigorous health, and with a fair prospect of long life. To a long life he had evidently looked forward, for he had made no arrangements for his cherished daughter, and had left no directions by which she might guide her future course.

In her desolation, Edith could think of but one person from whom she might expect protection; a half-sister of her father's, who resided in London. She had seen her aunt, Mrs. Burnleigh, but seldom, but knew that she was a widow in easy circumstances, with a large family of children. To her she accordingly applied, and received in return an invitation to come to her until she had decided on her future course.

With a sorrowful heart, Edith left the home where so many bright and happy years had been passed. As she sat alone waiting for the coach to pass that was to convey her to London, with no attendant but the gardener's boy, and no companion but her canary, a parting gift from Mr. Hildreth, sent to Hillcomb by him from Dover just before he embarked for France, the contrast between her present desolation and the warm, sheltering love in which she had so long lived, almost overcame her. But the lonely soon acquire the power of self-control, and Edith had already begun to learn the hard lesson of self-reliance. With an outward composure that hid the painful throbbings of her heart from her travelling companions, she took her seat in the coach, and in a few hours arrived safely at Mrs. Burnleigh's.

Edith found her aunt an apparently well-meaning, proper kind of a woman, kind and sympathizing in her manners, but who evidently had not the slightest intention of denying herself or her children the smallest luxury for the sake of her brother's orphaned daughter. For a few weeks Edith was left to the quiet indulgence of her grief, and then Mrs. Burnleigh, thinking that she had done all that society could possibly demand of her in the way of respect to her brother's memory or kindness to his child, began to sound Edith as to her intentions for the future.

The young girl, thrown so suddenly upon her own resources, had not yet begun to think for herself, and the idea of seeking a home among strangers made her heart sink within her. She begged her aunt to take upon herself the task of finding for her some position that she could fill creditably, but she hoped, she said, timidly, that it might be somewhere near her aunt, her only remaining relative.

This did not suit Mrs. Burnleigh exactly, who, being of that turn of mind that always foresees the possible evil in all cases, was not pleased with the idea that she might at any time be called upon to offer a home to her friendless relative. Like a prudent woman, however, she forbore saying anything that might reveal her true feelings, but was none the less resolved that, if two equally favorable situations offered themselves, it would be wiser for her to advise Edith to accept the one at the greatest distance.

She succeeded beyond her hopes. Coming in one day, she said to Edith, with unusual animation--

"My dear, I have found a most delightful situation for you. Two hundred pounds a year for teaching one little girl. You can speak French, can you not?"

"Yes, I have spent a year in France."

"And you play unusually well, and draw and paint beautifully, so that I think the parents of the child may consider themselves quite fortunate."

"Who are they?" asked Edith

"They are Americans--a Mr. and Mrs. Blake, from South Carolina."

Edith's heart had bounded at the mention of the country, but it sank when the state was named to which Mrs. Burnleigh wished to send her. Unlike most English girls, she knew enough of the geography of the United States to remember that a wide distance separated South Carolina from New York, so that, even if Mr. Hildreth had returned to his own country, which was unlikely, she would be almost as distant from him there as if she remained in England. The idea of going so far away from all on whom her relationship or early association gave her any claim, was exceedingly painful to her.

"Don't you think, dear aunt," said she, hesitatingly, "that I might find something to do nearer home?"

"It would be impossible for me to find you another situation so advantageous in every respect; but, if you think you could succeed, you had better make the attempt," replied Mrs. Burnleigh, coldly, while a displeased expression settled upon her face.

There were a few moments' silence, and then Edith said--

"How soon will Mr. and Mrs. Blake expect me?"

"They are now here. I have just met them at one of my friends, who had been speaking to them about you. They told me that they intended to sail for America in about two weeks, and that, if you were ready by that time, they would like you to accompany them."

"Very well," said Edith; "you can tell them that I shall be ready to go with them."

"They are charming people," said her aunt, caressingly; "I am sure, my dear, you will like them very much, and be very happy with them. Of course, I would not wish my brother's child to go where she would not be with those who are likely to take some interest in her."

Edith could not help perceiving that her aunt was relieved by the prospect of her departure; and this thought, while it strengthened her in her resolve, made her feel her isolation still more deeply.

On board the same steamer with Mr. and Mrs. Blake and Edith was a little girl, an invalid, who interested the young English girl extremely. Edith had brought her bird with her. It was the only thing she had to remind her of happier days, and she could not bear to part with it. At little Ellen's earnest request, she hung the cage in her state-room, and, before the end of the voyage, the little sick girl had become so attached to the pretty bird, whose sweet song was almost the only cheering sound she heard during the long and weary days at sea, that she could not speak of parting with it without showing by her tearful eyes the pain it gave her. Edith felt that she ought not to deprive the little sufferer of so great a pleasure, and, concealing her reluctance to give up a souvenir she had cherished so long, she told little Ellen that the bird was to be hers. The child's evident delight was some compensation to Edith for her self-denial, yet it was with a sharp pang that she watched the cage as it was put in the carriage, after the arrival of the steamer at New York, to be conveyed to the upper part of the city, while Edith, with her new friends, went on board another steamer about to sail for Charleston.

Mr. Blake's residence was among the pine forests of the State; a region healthful, it is true, but peculiarly desolate, especially to one accustomed to the soft verdure and smiling landscape of England. The tall dark trees; unceasingly sighing forth their low and mournful murmurs, seemed to Edith a fit emblem of the griefs that were henceforward to darken her life.

There was but little in her new home to call her thoughts from the sad recollections to which they were constantly recurring. Mr. Blake and his wife were very kind to her, treating her rather as a guest than one to whose services they were entitled; but they lived in a part of the country very thinly settled, their nearest neighbor being at a distance of seven or eight miles, and there was a wearying monotony in Edith's daily life that weighed upon her spirits. Gratitude for the unvarying and thoughtful kindness shown to her by Mrs. Blake induced Edith to make every exertion to regain her accustomed cheerfulness, and she had, in some measure, succeeded, when the Christmas holidays came to remind her, by the contrast between her own position and that of the persons by whom she was surrounded, more painfully of her isolation. The little family gatherings, from which she could hardly absent herself without appearing unmindful of Mrs. Blake's gentle yet urgent requests, and yet where she felt herself among them, but not of them, recalled to her so forcibly the former seasons, when her happiness and pleasure were to all around her the one thing of the greatest importance, that, for the first time since her departure from England, Edith yielded to her feelings of loneliness, and every night wet her pillow with her tears. The reply of the Shunamite woman to the prophet's inquiry about her wants, "I dwell among mine own people," came with a new and touching significance to her mind, now that she began to feel that never again would she feel the sweet security and protection implied in such a position.

On New Year's eve, Edith slipped away from the merry group assembled in Mr. Blake's parlors to indulge her sad meditations for a little while without interruption. As she stood on the porch listening to the mournful music of the pines, whose aromatic incense filled the air with its healthful fragrance, and watching the moon as it slowly waded through the clouded sky, now shining out in full brilliancy, and then almost entirely darkened as it passed behind the thick masses of vapor that were hanging in the vast concave, she thought that just such sudden alternations of darkness and light had been her lot in this life.

"The clouds hang heavily over me now," thought she; "but there will be brightness soon."

Almost at the same moment there came the sound of an approaching arrival, and Edith hastily retreated to the house. She had hardly time to mingle with the gay family party, when, hearing her name called, she turned suddenly, while a thrill of amazed delight passed over her at the familiar tone, and saw before her Mr. Hildreth, whose smile shed a light and warmth upon her heart to which it had long been a stranger.

The clouds were at once lifted off from her soul, and she was once more the light-hearted girl she had been in her English home. In the midst of her happiness there was a feeling of insecurity, a doubt as to its continuance. But that Edith would not allow herself to dwell upon. It was happiness enough for the present to think that one whom she so highly esteemed still cared enough for her to seek her out in her secluded home.

But before the last hours of the old year had passed away, walking in the serene moonlight under those pine-trees to whose mournful murmur her thoughts had been so long attuned, Edith listened with a beating heart to the avowal of the same feelings which Mr. Hildreth had confessed to her father more than a year before. What had become of all the sadness that had brooded over Edith's heart so many months? It was gone like the clouds from the sky, but not to return, like them, in a few short hours.

"How did you find me out?" asked Edith, after many more important questions had been asked and answered.

"Ah, a little bird told me where I should find the runaway."

"A bird?" said Edith, wonderingly.

"Perhaps it was the cage rather than the bird," replied Mr. Hildreth. "I had been for some two or three months in search of you, or rather your aunt, with whom I was told you were staying. But she seemed to be possessed by some perverse and wandering spirit; for, when I went to London to find her, she had just left with her family on a tour through Germany, and, when I followed her there, I learned she had gone into Italy. Into Italy I went post haste, and reached Naples just in time to learn that Mrs. Burnleigh had left the week before for Egypt and the Pyramids. No whit daunted, I was about to seek you, even if I had to go to the heart of Ethiopia, when the sudden illness of my aunt recalled me to Marseilles. Her death obliged me to return to New York; but I arranged my business there as soon as possible, and had already engaged my passage in the next steamer to Liverpool, when, walking through Fifth Avenue, my eye was attracted by a cage that I recognized instantly, by certain peculiarities, as one that I had sent you just before I left England after our pleasant tour. A sudden hope seized me that some happy impulse had led your travel-loving aunt to my very hearthstone, and I lost no time in making inquiries of the lady of the house, from whom I learned all about the little Edith for whom I had been seeking in such far away places.

"And now, dearest," he continued, after a pause, "have you any objection to a tour through Europe? I went in such haste before that, far from satisfying my curiosity, I only increased the desire to see everything more at my leisure."

"None at all," said Edith, with a smile and blush.

"Well, then, I will see how soon Mrs. Blake can spare you, and we will set off on our travels. I hope she will be very obliging about it."

She was very obliging, and gave Edith, to whom she had become strongly attached, a grand wedding in the southern fashion, which lasted two days, and she hung the pine grove with colored lamps, so that the dark woods took, for that occasion only, quite a festal appearance.

CELESTIAL PHENOMENA.--APRIL.

BY D. W. BELISLE.

LEO.--This is one of the most clearly defined and brilliant constellations in the winter hemisphere, containing an unusual number of very bright stars. It is situated east of Cancer, and comes to the meridian the sixth of this month. This constellation contains ninety-five stars visible to the naked eye.

"Two splendid stars of highest dignity,
Two of the second class the Lion boasts,
And justly figures the fierce summer's rage."

Five very bright stars in this constellation are grouped in the form of a sickle. Regulus, in the shoulder of Leo, is the lowest of this group, and forms the end of the handle in the sickle. It is the brightest star in the cluster, and is of great use to nautical men in determining their longitude at sea. Eta, a small glittering star, marks the other end of the handle, while Al Gieba Adhafera, Ras al Asad, and Lambda form the blade. Two small stars, at an equal distance from Lambda, form a small right-angled triangle. Denebola, in the brush of the tail, is a star of the first magnitude, and, with Zozma in the back, and Theta in the thigh, form a triangle whose vertex is Denebola.

According to Greek mythology, the Lion was one of the formidable animals killed by Hercules in the forests of Nemæa, and was placed by Jupiter in the heavens to commemorate the event. Egyptian mythologists claim the honor of having placed it there, asserting it was placed in the heavens to commemorate the haunting of the banks of the Nile during the heat of summer by these monsters, the river then being at its highest elevation.

* * * * *

LEO MINOR.--This constellation is of modern origin, occupying the space between Ursa Major and Leo Major. The stars in the cluster are of the third and fourth magnitude, with no particular interest attached to them. It comes to the meridian the 6th of April.

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SEXTANT.--This is a small constellation south of Leo, and contains forty-one stars, all very small and unimportant, and comes to the meridian the 6th of April. This constellation is sometimes called Urania's Sextant, in honor of one of the muses who presided over Astronomy. Urania was daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne.

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HYDRA.--This is an extraordinary constellation, winding through a vast space from east to west for more than one hundred degrees. It lies south of Cancer, Leo, and Virgo, and reaches from Canis Minor to Libra. It contains sixty stars, principally of the second, third, and fourth magnitudes. The head of Hydra may readily be distinguished by four bright stars south of Acubens, in the Crab. They form a rhomboidal figure. The three upper stars form a beautiful curve, and are too distinct and conspicuous to be forgotten when once seen. Alphard, twenty-three degrees south south-west of Regulus, is a very brilliant star of the second magnitude, and is in the heart of Hydra, and comes to the meridian twenty minutes before nine o'clock on the 1st of April. When the head of the Hydra is on the meridian, its other extremity is many degrees below the horizon, so that its whole length cannot be traced out in the heavens until its centre is on the meridian.

"Near the Equator rolls
The sparkling Hydra, proudly eminent,
To drink the Galaxy's refulgent sea;
Nearly a fourth of the encircling curve
Which girds the ecliptic his vast folds involve;
Yet ten the number of his stars diffused
O'er the long track of his enormous spires;
Chief beams his heart, sure of the second rank,
But emulous to gain the first."

According to mythology, the Hydra was a terrible monster that infested the Lake of Lerna, in the Peloponnesus. It was reported to have had a hundred heads, and, as soon as one of these was cut off, two grew in its place, unless the wound was stopped by fire.

"Art thou proportioned to the Hydra's length,
Who, by his wounds, received augmented strength?
He raised a hundred hissing heads in air;
When one I lopped, up sprang a dreadful pair."

The formidable monster was at last destroyed by Hercules, with the assistance of Iolaus, and who afterwards, dipping his arrows in the gall of the Hydra, rendered every wound inflicted by them incurable and mortal.

* * * * *

THE CUP.--This small constellation lies south of the Lion, and rests upon the Hydra. Six of the principal stars form a crescent or semi-circle, opening to the west. The crescent of the Cup is so striking and clearly defined, when the moon is absent, that no description is necessary to point it out, as it is the only one of the kind in that part of the heavens.

* * * * *

COMETS.--These objects of extraordinary interest form a part in the economy of the solar system. Since the time when the presence of a comet was considered by nations to be the sure precursor of war, famine, and pestilence, up to the present period, these visitors have created much speculation and excitement; and, no longer ago than the fall of 1853, it was predicted by an eminent "professor" that one of these waifs in the heavens would come in collision with the earth, and destroy a portion of China. This, however, like many other pieces of mischief which had been predicted it would accomplish, failed, and the professor has retired from observation covered with the laurels won by his research.

A comet, so brilliant that it could be seen at noonday, made its appearance seventy-three years before the birth of our Saviour. This date was just after the death of Julius Cæsar, and by the Romans the comet was believed to be his metamorphosed soul, armed with fire and vengeance. This comet appeared again in 1106, and then resembled the sun in brightness, being of great size, and having an immense trail.

In 1456, a large comet made its appearance. The terror it created extended through all classes, and the belief was universal that the day of judgment was at hand. At this time, the Turks, with their victorious armies, seemed destined to overrun all Europe. This added to the gloom and terror. The people became regardless of the present, and anxious only for the future. To prepare the world for its expected doom, Pope Callixtus III. ordered the Ave Maria to be repeated three times instead of twice a day, and to it was added, "Lord, save us from the Devil, the Turk, and the Comet!" and thrice each day these obnoxious personages suffered excommunication. At length, the comet began to retire from eyes in which it found no favor, and the Turks retired to their own dominions.

The comet of 1680 was of the largest size, having a trail ninety-six millions of miles in length. Dawning science, however, robbed it of its terrors, assisted by the signal failure of its illustrious predecessor.

Such are many of the fantasies which these peculiar visitors have called up. The beautiful comet of 1811, the most splendid of modern times, was considered, even by many intelligent persons, as the harbinger of the war which was declared the spring following; and the remembrance will be fresh in the minds of many of an indefinite apprehension of some dreadful catastrophe, which pervaded both continents, in anticipation of Bela's comet in 1832.

Comets, unlike the planets, observe no one direction in their orbits, but approach to and recede from their great centre of attraction in every possible direction. Some seem to come up from immeasurable depths below the ecliptic, and, having doubled the heaven's mighty cape, again plunged downward with their fiery trains,

"On the long travel of a thousand years."

Again, they seem to come from the zenith of the universe, and, after doubling their perihelion about the sun, reascend far above human vision. Others, again, seem to be dashing through the solar system in every conceivable direction, apparently in an undisturbed path; others are known, however, to obey laws like those which regulate planets. Nothing is known with certainty as to the composition of these bodies, although it is certain they contain very little matter, for they produce little or no effect on the motions of planets when passing near those bodies. Upon what errands they come, what regions they visit when they pass from view, what is the difference between them, the sun, and planets, and what is their mission in the economy of the universe, are questions often pondered over, but the solution of which is beyond the limited powers of human understanding.

MRS. MURDEN'S TWO DOLLAR SILK.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MISS BREMER'S VISIT TO COOPER'S LANDING," "GETTING INTO SOCIETY," "MUSTARD TO MIX," ETC. ETC.

"ISN'T it perfect?" said young Mrs. Murden, drawing her husband towards a shop window as she herself made a halt in front of it. "I think it is the loveliest shade I ever saw, and that satin stripe gives it such an air so perfectly genteel!"

"What?" asked Mr. Murden, simply, roused from his calculation of percentage on certain articles just consigned to him. "It" was certainly an indefinite pronoun, with all that display of elegant silks, ribbons, laces, and embroideries, so skilfully arranged to attract the promenaders of Chestnut Street.

"Why, that silk. I've stopped to look at it twice this week."

"That blue and red plaid? Yes, it is very handsome; just the pattern of your woollen shawl, isn't it?"

"Plaids!" exclaimed Mrs. Murden, contemptuously. "Why, that's only a dollar silk; besides, everybody wears plaids--they're _so common_!"

"Then a thing is not pretty when it's common?"

"Why, of course not. I heard Mrs. George Barker say yesterday that no real lady wore such gay colors on the street; that, in Paris, plain colors are all the rage. I mean that rich purple, with the thick satin stripe. It's perfect."

Young Mrs. Murden had thought the plaids the very height of fashion, until she overheard this conversation between Mrs. George Barker and her mother. Who should know what was stylish, if Mrs. George Barker did not, when she lived in a house with a marble front, had a coachman in livery, and the family arms, done in the best manner, on the panel of her crimson lined carriage?

People said she had made a mistake in the last, however; that the stately swan of the crest should have been a tailor's goose. But, then, these were people who had no carriage of their own, and were obliged to patronize omnibuses. No doubt, if they could have afforded it, the paternal awl and lapstone would have been transposed into a dagger and shield, in a similar manner; so their opinion is no manner of consequence.

Mrs. Murden had gone into Evans & Gilman's to "price," as she called it, the very plaid she now scorned--for her best silk was giving way--when she overheard its sentence pronounced by those red lips, with a shrug of the sable-caped shoulders of the fashionable lady. Mrs. Barker pronounced the purple "exceedingly stylish;" Mrs. Murden "caught the verdict as it fell;" and, from that moment, her affections were centred upon it.

Not that she had any claims to being stylish herself; on the contrary, her little home, in a far away cross street, was exceedingly plain; but the young wife had undeveloped aspirations towards a less humble sphere, shown by being, in some sort, a leader of the circle in which she visited. It was not large, or very select, but there were some well-educated, well-bred people, some very warm, true hearts, and, as the case will always be, others as empty-minded, selfish, and frivolous as if they were really in fashionable life. Mrs. Murden, as her husband sometimes noticed, had rather an inclination to court the latter party, as they dressed and furnished the most showily, and, in fact, to outvie them--a disposition which the far-sighted Mr. Murden dreaded not a little.

He was decidedly a domestic man, and, besides, as his wife often said, so her dress was put on properly, with a clean collar and undersleeves, he did not know half the time whether it was silk or calico. Indeed, he had brought quite a serious attack of pouting upon himself, by calling his wife's new green foulard a calico. You may be sure, he had entirely forgotten that purple silks were ever manufactured by the next day at dinner, when he was reminded of it by Mrs. Murden abruptly terminating a long fit of musing by the exclamation--

"I should be perfectly happy, if I had it."

Mr. Murden, foolish man, supposed at first that she meant a picture of the children, who were marvellously near of an age--two of them.

"Well, dear, when shall we take them down to Root's? Say the word." For Mr. Murden himself thought it a great pity that such remarkable beauty should be lost to the world. No doubt, Root would insist on a duplicate for his show-case.

"Root's! I was talking about _that silk_, Mr. Murden. What has Root got to do with it, I'd like to know?" Mrs. Murden seemed inclined to help to tarts before the dessert was served.

"Oh!" And Mr. Murden resumed his carver, helping himself to a second cut of beef. "Bless my soul, how much women do think of dress! Who's going to have a new one?"

"It's high time I had, dear. Only think, we've been married three years next month, and I've only had one silk in that while."

"Why, you had one in the summer--that striped frock and cape."

"That's an India; we don't call these thin things anything. I mean a good, heavy _poult de soie_, like my mazarine blue I had when we were married. It's fairly gone now, careful as I have been. It's been turned and cleaned, and now it's so shabby I hate to put it on."

"I'm sure, you never look better in any dress you've got," insisted Mr. Murden, who had very pleasant associations connected with their early married life and the dress in question.

"Why, it's a perfect fringe around the bottom, and has two great stains on the skirt. What are you thinking of, John?"

"Well, well, I'll give it up. I like it, that's all. How much will a new one cost?"

Mrs. Murden, slightly diplomatic, could not present an estimate. Her husband had told her of a business loss when he came in; it was not a very favorable moment.