Chapter V: Part 5

Kate, the talented Kate, understands it all; and after smiling quietly at the gentleman’s silliness, she turns her satire upon another victim.

“Ah! my dear Mr. Cressy, how your eyes sparkled last night at the Opera—they looked like a basilisk’s.”

This gentleman’s eyes were of a very dull green color, and looked more like a cat’s than a basilisk’s, but not “seeing them as others saw them,” he replied that “he could not help it—the music always excited him so.”

“Ah! the music, Mr. Cressy; but perhaps—”

She was prevented from finishing her reply by the announcement of a gentleman who had just made his appearance in the doorway, and who was no less a personage than the elegant Augustus Nob.

To say that Mr. Augustus Nob was a small fish in this party, would be to speak what was not true; on the other hand, he was a big fish—in fact the biggest in the kettle. Any one who had witnessed the sensation produced by his announcement, would have judged so. The coquette broke off in the middle of her satire, and running toward the door, conducted him to the seat nearest to her own, where, after an elegant bow, he seated himself—a full grown lion. During the continuance of this welcome reception, various pantomimic gestures were exhibited by different members of the company. There was a general uneasy shifting of chairs—dark looks were shot toward the “elegant,” and conciliatory, and even friendly glances were exchanged among the beaux, who, forgetting for the moment their mutual jealousies, concentrated their united envy upon their common rival. If Cressy’s eyes never sparkled before, they certainly did upon this occasion; and the right leg of Fitz-rush was flung violently over the left knee, where it continued to oscillate with an occasional nervous twitching of the toes, expressive of a hardly repressed desire on the part of its owner to try the force of those little feet on the favored “elegant’s” handsome person. It was all in vain, however, Nob was evidently the successful lover, for he sat close to the graceful creature—that is, closer than any other—and chatted to her of balls and operas; and, confident of his position, he did not care a fig for the envy and jealousy which on all sides surrounded him.

And Kate showered all her attentions upon Nob, and Nob triumphed over his rivals.

Matters progressed thus for several weeks, Nob still paying marked attentions to the coquette, whose chief delight seemed to be, not only to torment her host of other lovers, but occasionally the “elegant” himself.

Augustus, however, still continued first in favor, and from the attentions which he received at the hands of Mrs. Crossley, it was conjectured by the family friends that a marriage with her daughter was not far distant. The less aspiring of Kate’s former lovers had long since “hauled their wind,” and only a few, among whom were Fitz-rush and Cressy, still continued to hang on despairingly to what was evidently a forlorn hope.

Nob openly boasted that he had run them all out of the field, and was heard triumphantly to assert that he was breaking the heart of the “deaw creatuw,” and that he “would be under the positive necessity of healing it at the hymeneal altaw.” He was “very young to marry—quite a child—but then to keep the dear sylph in suspense—oh! it would be bawbawous—positively bawbawous!”

It is not to be supposed that the cunning, the talented Kate was ignorant of these boasts on the part of the elegant Nob. No—no—Kate knew every thing, and among other things she knew Mr. Augustus Nob thoroughly; and she resolved on taking most exquisite vengeance upon him.

* * * * *

Spring—delightful spring has returned—and all nature looks as sweet as the lips of a lovely woman. The trees upon our side-walks, and in our beautiful squares, are once more covered with green and shady foliage, and from the windows of high houses hang handsome cages, from which those warbling prisoners—the mockbird, and the troupial, and the linnet and canary bird, send forth their dulcet notes, filling the streets with music and melody.

Fashionable ladies are beginning to make their appearance in the streets, unattended by gentlemen, as it is the shopping hour, and gentlemen would be only in the way. From the door of an elegant mansion in the upper part of Chestnut street issues a graceful and beautiful girl, who is proceeding down the street toward the busier part of the city. She does not loiter nor look in at the shop-windows, as ladies generally do at this hour, but walks nimbly along as though she came forth upon some preconceived errand. As she nears that part of Chestnut street which is in the neighbourhood of the State-House she lessens her gait, and walks more leisurely. She is heard to soliloquize—

“In truth, it is as much as my courage, nay, even my reputation is worth, to enter the studio of my sweet painter thus alone; but what can I do, since the dear fellow has been banished from our house by the aristocratic notions of my mother? Well, I shall risk all for him, as he would for me, I know. How happy it will make him to hear my errand. Only to think that I am forced to an elopement, or marry that ninny whom my mother has chosen for me. But I shall elope—I _shall_. Henry has so often proposed it—how happy he shall be to hear me consent; but I shall do it in my own way—that is fixed. Henry will laugh when I tell him of my plans. Some one may be with him at this moment, and deprive me of the pleasure of conversing with him; but then it is all written here, and I can see him soon again. ‘Henry Willis, Miniature Painter.’ Yes! this is the sweet fellow’s place—no one observes me enter.” So saying, the graceful girl entered a huge hall, the door of which stood open, and passing up a flight of steps, she tapped gently with her small gloved fingers upon the door of a chamber, upon which was repeated, in gold letters, the same words that were exhibited in front of the building—

“Henry Willis, Miniature Painter.”

In a moment the door opened, disclosing within the studio of an artist, the artist himself, a fine looking youth, with dark hair and slight mustache, and dressed in his painter’s blouse, while in the back-ground could be seen a prim, stiff old lady in high cap and curls, steadily and rigidly sitting for her portrait.

At sight of the new comer the artist’s countenance became bright with love and pleasure, and the exclamation “dearest!” that almost involuntarily escaped him, told that they were no strangers to each other. The young lady, on the other hand, perceiving the sitter through the half-opened door, glided back a step or two, so as to be unperceived by the latter, and taking from her reticule a folded paper, she held it out to the painter, accompanying the act with these words—“A message for you, Henry; it would have been pleasanter, perhaps, to have delivered it verbally, but you see I have been prepared for any emergency.” So saying, she delivered the paper—received a kiss upon her little gloved hand—smiled—said, “good morning!” and gracefully glided back into the street.

The artist re-entered his studio—found some excuse to dismiss the stiff old lady, and was soon buried, with beaming face and beating heart, in the contents of the paper he had just received.

He rose from its perusal like a man mad—mad from excess of joy—mad from love; and hastily striding up and down his small studio, he exclaimed, “Yes, dearest heart! any thing—any thing you wish shall be done. One week, and she shall be mine; and such a mischievous trick—but the fool deserves it, richly deserves it, for aspiring to the hand of one so immeasurably his superior. Ninny! he little knew how deeply she has loved, sweet girl! How she has deceived them—father, mother, friends—all! How sweet and how powerful is first love!”

* * * * *

Kate Crossley had often been heard to say, that whenever she married, there would be an elopement. She either had a presentiment that such would be her fate, or she so despised the modern, unromantic fashion of marrying and giving in marriage, that she was resolved that it _should_ be. Consequently, when the elegant Augustus Nob, on the first day of May, 1842, knelt before her in the most fashionable manner, and made a most fashionable declaration, quite confident of being accepted—who could have refused. He was accepted, with the proviso that it should be an elopement.

“All right!” soliloquized Augustus, as he closed the hall-door behind him; “all right, and very simple! old lady decidedly in my favwaw—reconciliation easy—carriage and four—private clergy—two days in a hotel—sent for, and all right again—simple, vewy simple, and vewy romantic, too!”

* * * * *

It was a dark night—a very dark night for the month of May—and a very cold one, too; and under the shadow of some trees that grew upon the side-walk in the upper part of Chestnut street, making the spot still darker, might be seen an elegant carriage and horses drawn close up to the curbstone.

The driver was on the box, enveloped in a great coat, and at a short distance from the carriage, and leaning against a tree, might be seen the figure of a young man, fashionably and elegantly attired. He wore a cloth cloak, loosely hanging from his shoulders, and he was evidently waiting for some one to arrive and enter the carriage with him. There were no passers by, however, to conjecture his motives and actions, as it was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and the streets were quiet. He repeatedly took out a splendid watch, and seemed impatiently waiting for some fixed hour. Presently the great bell upon the state-house tolled two. A light footstep was now heard in the distance, and a moment after a graceful woman came tripping along, and approached the carriage. The young man who had been leaning against the tree, immediately recognized the figure, and stretched out his hand to conduct her to the carriage. We will conceal the names of the lovers no longer—they were Augustus Nob and Kate Crossley.

“My dear Kate,” said he, “I have been waiting for you half an hour—how vewy cold it is!”

“No, no—not cold on such an errand as ours! But, dear Augustus,” said Kate, changing her manner, “we must be married by the Rev. Mr. C——, the good old man has been like a father to me, and I could not think of anyone else; he has promised me, and is now expecting us.”

“Oh, vewy well,” replied the lover, “you are sure he expects us?”

“Yes; I will give directions to the driver.” So saying she whispered a word in the ear of the driver, who seemed perfectly to understand her, and entered the carriage, followed by Augustus.

The driver immediately gave the whip to his horses, and turning down Chestnut, entered a cross street, and drove northward toward the district of the Northern Liberties.

The carriage drew up before the door of a handsome house in the upper part of the city, and the driver, dismounting from his box, opened the door, let down the steps, and handed the lady to the pavement. Nob thought that he saw the driver kiss his bride’s little white-gloved hand as she stepped upon the curbstone; but it was so dark he could not be sure of this. He was sure, however, that he was the most officious and impertinent driver he had ever seen; and from the slight glimpse that he caught of the fellow’s face, by the light of a street lamp, he saw that he wore a mustache, and was withal a very handsome young man.

It was no time, however, to study physiognomy, or resent imaginary insults. The door of the house was quietly opened by some one within, and Nob and his beautiful bride entered, and were shown into the drawing-room. The servant desired Kate to follow her to a dressing-room, that she might take off her bonnet, and intimated to Mr. Nob that the Rev. Mr. C—— would wait upon him in a minute.

Now it was a very strange thing that that same driver, who kissed Kate’s little hand—for he actually had kissed it—instead of staying by his horses, as every good driver should do, gave them up to another, and walked into the house close after the bride and bridegroom. It was also strange that the bride kept the elegant Mr. Augustus Nob impatiently waiting in that front parlor for at least twenty minutes; but the strangest thing of all was, that when she did make her appearance, she still had her bonnet on, as when last he saw her, and was leaning on the arm of a handsome young gentleman wearing mustaches and white kid gloves, whom the stupified Augustus at once recognized as the impertinent driver, and whom the reader may recognize as Henry Willis, the artist. Mr. Willis politely thanked Mr. Nob for having kindly attended his wife thither, and assisted him in bringing the affair to its happy termination, and added, that as he had driven the party thither, he hoped that Mr. Nob would condescend to reciprocate and take the box on their return. Nob, however, having _got the sack_ in so cruel a fashion, felt no inclination to _take the box_, and in a few moments he was among the missing. He was never again seen in the city of Brotherly Love.

The young artist and his beautiful bride entered the carriage and drove to Jones’s Hotel, where they remained until sent for by Mr. and Mrs. Crossley, which happy event occurred a day or two after. Whoever should see the modest and matronly Kate now, with her two beautiful children, would hardly credit the story that she had ever been a coquette. This, however, was positively her last adventure.

* * * * *

DEATH OF THE GIFTED.

BY JOHN WILFORD OVERALL.

Inscribe on my grave-stone—“_Here lies one whose name was writ
in water._” John Keats.

To that sweet land of lyre and song,
Of storied ancient fame,
Where deeds of old, like pilgrims throng,
To bless its mighty name;
A minstrel went, unloved, to weep,
And lay his aching heart,
Where golden skies serenely sleep.
And fruited gardens start.

’Tis bitter for the young to die,
And leave this world of ours,
Its sunshine and its sparkling sky,
Its paradise of flowers—
But oh! when tears mark every track,
And woes lead on to death,
’Tis blessedness to render back
The feeble, gasping breath!

The brightest, frailest, fairest things
That to the earth are given,
Feel first the angel’s snowy wings
To waft them home to heaven—
And like a meteor in the sky,
Or foam-beads on the wave,
They dazzle man’s bewildered eye,
And sink into the grave.

Oh! what is Genius but a part
Of Him, whose glory flings
A bliss o’er each devoted heart,
And o’er all earth-born things?—
An essence of the mind of God,
A pure ethereal light,
That wingeth at its master’s nod,
As angels to their flight.

Farewell! thou art not yet forgot,
Nor wilt thou ever be,
While earth has one sweet Eden spot,
Or stars laugh on the sea—
Thou hast thy wish, and on the bed
Where thou dost gently rest,
The summer daisy waves its head,
And blossoms o’er thy breast.

* * * * *

LINES AT PARTING.

BY T. TREVOR.

Farewell, farewell!—the brightest day must close:
And the sweet vision of my recent hours
Will fade too soon. Ah! will it not return?
The clouds that evening gathered o’er our heads
Stayed not till morn; but leave the sun more bright.
The early mist, that veiled yon green hill-side,
Has risen, and floated on the air awhile,
Then slowly vanished, and you see again
The glades, where sings the bird and bounds the deer.
And may not absence hide thee, for a time,
Then give thee fairer back? Oh! I will trust.

And as beyond the clouds I know the sun
Shines, though I see him not, my spirit’s eye
Thy form shall trace, though absent, and thy soul,
E’en when thou know’st it not, shall soft respond
To some kind thought of mine. Thus, though forever
Thy absence last, we shall not wholly part.
But now, awhile, farewell! and may each boon,
By Heav’n most prized, fall richly to thy lot.
Be every thought replete with quiet joy,
And every purpose overruled for good.

* * * * *

THE THREE CALLS.

BY H. L. JONES.

The sofas and ottomans were covered with crimson velvet; the morning sun streamed through folds of rich stuff, that tempered and warmed its light; the tread was unheard on the thick carpet, and the glowing coal sent a cheerful smile over the ample apartments.

Alice and Louisa Stanwood were employed much like other young ladies of their age, hemming long, mysterious slips of muslin, or embroidering in worsted, and now and then chatting of the last night’s party, or the gayeties of the coming evening. They were pretty, and rich, and young, and gay, and admired, and happy. They knew they had complexions and figures to be both studied and improved—at all events, not to be injured by the adoption of awkward habits. They were fully alive to the merits of the last new bonnet, and had their own opinions touching the “Elssler fling,” and the harmonies of Ole Bull. What with dressing and calling, and dining and driving, with parties, balls, and social cotillions; with sleeping good, long, renovating night’s sleep, and perhaps a little siesta after dinner, really the months, and even the years, went by with astonishing rapidity.

They had already whirled Alice into her twentieth and Louisa into her eighteenth winter. (Our city belles do not count life by summers,) yet placid smiles dwelt on their unruffled features, and even thought had passed, zephyr-like, over their brows, nor left a mark behind. Their laugh had a joyousness born of the present, in which neither hope nor memory had share. They had had no time to think, to feel, to suffer. But that there was suffering in the world they knew very well. They knew it by reading history, and the newspapers; nay, they knew, too, there was suffering of many sorts, and often and often had they dropped the sympathetic tear over the sentimental woes which the “cunning hand” of genius portrayed in the novel of the day.

Madam Stanwood, the grandmother of these fair girls, reclined in the easiest of easy chairs, her feet imbedded in the yielding “brioche,” and by her side her little reading stand, on which she had just laid down her book and spectacles. Her pale and composed features, her comely attire, her dignified deportment, had all that makes age winning and respectable; and the fond glances with which she regarded her grandchildren, spoke not less her readiness to sympathize with youth, than youth’s tenderness and respect for her; for we do, indeed, “receive but what we give,” and rarely is there an instance of heartfelt sympathy with the young, that is not cheerfully and sincerely answered.

“The history of any individual, if it were faithfully written out, would be an epic poem,” said Madam Stanwood, repeating the last lines she had been reading. “What do you think of that, my dears? Does it not startle you to look at the faces you meet in the streets, and think of the history that is so unwritten on them?”

“Undoubtedly it would, grandma, if we ever thought of reading faces; but, really, I must think there is more poetry than truth in the remark; I should sooner complain of the entire want of meaning in the faces and lives of those I meet, than be alarmed at the announcement of a history in them.”

“I declare,” said the ever laughing Louisa, “I wish something would happen to startle and confound us among our ‘dear five hundred friends,’ even a little bit of a volcano in our domestic circle would not be amiss. Such an event, now, as Mary Ware’s elopement! Think what a shaking that gave our faculties! why it lasted us full a week for steady talking.”

“Well, I don’t see but Alice or I must be packing up a small bundle, and getting a farewell letter ready for you, just for the sake of variety,” said the grandmother, gayly.

The door opened and admitted a tall and very much dressed woman, who advanced with much liveliness, and greeted the trio.

The usual topics that fill out a ten minutes’ fashionable call were discussed with great spirit and volubility by all the ladies; the guest repeated in her farewell, the vivacious interest of her salutation, and tripped lightly down to her carriage.

“There, grandmother—there is a face! Now, where is the epic poem to which it is the index?” said Alice.

“What do you read, my dears?”

“I read,” said Alice, “a life spent in much the same round of calls and visits as she has been making this morning. A mind fully occupied with the genealogies of all the families in Philadelphia, that are at all worth knowing. I dare say she knows more now about my grandfather than I do myself—she does, to be sure, if she knows any thing.” Alice stopped, and Louisa added,

“I have read something, dear grandmother, that is more objectionable than gayety in Mrs. Ellicott’s face. Gayety I love dearly in old people—I love yours—”

“Calling Mrs. Ellicott ‘old people,’ Louisa! you are certainly stark mad! with all those long white teeth glittering defiance of such a calumny.”

“Gently! gently!” said Madam Stanwood; “teeth to the contrary notwithstanding, Mrs. Ellicott is my senior by some years.”

“But how different!” exclaimed Alice, warmly, “how different her gayety and yours—as different as lightning and sunshine—”

“Nay, Alice,” said Madam Stanwood, in a serious tone, “I must protest against being compared or contrasted with Mrs. Ellicott. I asked you what you read in _her_ face. A capability, at least, of feeling and suffering?”

“You will think me satirical, grandmother; but she does make other people suffer so much, that—but I wont say it—and yet that hard face, those authoritative manners, that ever smiling mouth, put them altogether, she is just one of those persons I should think born not to suffer any thing, nor to feel much for any body.”

Madame Stanwood looked at the placid face, which had just expressed so harsh an opinion, with a melancholy smile.

“Come hither, Alice—and you, Louisa; let me teach you not to guess from the froth on the tossing wave, what is the deep calm that lies a thousand fathoms below. Long may it be before you know from the quick sympathy of experience, to detect the sigh under the smile, or to see how the lonely tears quench the conventional sparkles that seemed so brilliant.”

The young girls drew near, awed by the serious and almost sad demeanor of their relative.

“Something you said, Louisa—something that touched long silent chords in my heart. They do not make music there—they are, as your song says, ‘echoes of harp-strings, broken long ago.’ But it was of Mrs. Ellicott we were talking. I happen to know a circumstance which, as yet, is concealed from her nearest friends, except her medical adviser. This woman, so gay, so social, so alive to all that she feels or fancies her duty to society, had, only six months ago, the assurance of her physician, backed by the opinions of the first practitioners in New York, that her recovery is hopeless—absolutely hopeless.”

“Her recovery, grandmother!—is she ill?”

“She looks well—does she not? Well, she is consuming of a cancer. She has been hoping that a surgical operation might relieve her, until last June, when the result of ‘a consultation’ was announced to her, that at her advanced age it would probably be fatal. Her resolution was taken. She insisted on knowing the probable length of her life, if the disease took its course, and then forbade any allusion to it hereafter. Her own sisters, who are in the house, do not know it. She is as cheerful and as gay as ever. ‘Let no tears be shed for me while I live,’ she said, ‘mine are sorrows which would only be doubled by sharing them.’”

“That was noble!” exclaimed Alice. “Oh, how cruel, how unjust I was to her! and in the very point where she most deserves praise; for I own to you, her interest in all about her, struck me as particularly frivolous and unworthy in a woman of her age.” And Alice, in her generous haste to atone for her injustice, was in some danger of falling in love with what was, in truth, the exceptionable manner of Mrs. Ellicott.

“She is like Lady Delacour, Alice,” said Louisa, “don’t you remember, in Belinda?”

“As like as most facts are to fancies,” said Madam Stanwood, “Mrs. Ellicott, destitute of all Lady Delacour’s grace and fascination, has a simple, and almost sturdy moral strength, which gives dignity to an otherwise uninteresting character. She is not acting for point or effect at all, but expressing simply a disinterestedness and regard for others, which, under the circumstances, I own, inspires me with more respect than most martyrdoms.”

“There is the door bell!” exclaimed Louisa, “now, Alice, let us study characters, instead of talking nonsense.”

The gay Mrs. Lewis was not the counterpart of the gay Mrs. Ellicott, but the young girls looked wistfully at her, as if they, for the first time, felt the possibility that, “seeing, they might not see nor understand.” The smile and the voice, though cordial, seemed not heartfelt. For the first time they missed a sincerity, a truthfulness in the tones about them; and they silently listened, with watchful eyes, while their grandmother talked on with their visiter.

When she, too, had gone, and the gay laugh, and “good morning!” had died in the quiet room, Louisa broke silence.

“Dear me, grandmother! I feel as if I were treading on a volcano! I shan’t dare to step on the surface of society for fear of breaking in upon burning lava somewhere! I declare, this notion of people having two natures is very terrible—it quite takes away my composure.”

“And yet you have two, Louisa.”

“I, grandmother!—and where is the other, then?”

“Very soundly sleeping, my love—but some arrow, whether of joy or wo, will waken it to a life of its own. In good time—in good time. Let it rest—that other self of yours; ’twill spring up, full grown, and panoplied, some day. But tell me, Alice, how have you read Mrs. Lewis? I saw you studying her face as if you never saw it before.”

“I am ashamed to tell you how little I made out—merely that she was good-natured, and happy, and laughing all the day long.”

“So we live, my Alice; and the life that is deepest leaves no traces on our faces or manners. Society is not to be bored with individual joys or sorrows; and Mrs. Lewis has the good sense and taste to make lively visits to her friends, who have neither leisure nor desire to study the under tones in her laugh, or to see that tears and smiles wear the same channels in the face.”

“But has Mrs. Lewis’s really been an eventful life?” said Alice. “I have only known her as a woman who has been struggling somewhat to maintain her position in society, and not so rich as she would like, perhaps; but she always appears just the same, as if nothing had ever troubled her much.”

“Her life,” answered Madam Stanwood, gravely, “has been one of extraordinary mental vicissitude, though outwardly it has seemed rather uneventful. Take from her history the very common one of the loss of property, the habitual cheerfulness that has soothed, sustained, and encouraged her husband under repeated and continual losses. At one time he lost three ships in the same storm; he was prostrated, as men so often are under these reverses; but she constantly had her bright smile and ready sympathy—and that was every thing to his sick heart. Take the energy with which, in early life, she struggled against poverty, and has made herself almost, by mere strength of will, all that she was and is, and this, my dear children, implies a warfare that you cannot dream of, far less realize. Take away these minor events in her character, there is still something which makes her very interesting to me. She is childless. The prattle of her nursery ceased long ago; and the chill of death seems on the room which is now never opened. Her last child lived to be three or four years old; and she told me, not long since, that she never saw a door open, that she did not unconsciously turn toward it ‘to see her little Edith come in;’ that she never, never was out of her mind for a moment. There is something inexpressibly sad to me in her gay face, so haunted, like the Egyptian banquet, by the image of the dead. It is not so with us in general; what we have suffered we bury in our memories, and we keep the graves green sodden down in our hearts, and even in thought but strew flowers on them. But this presence of a grief perpetually with and about her, I have pitied her that she must live! I am certain I respect and love her, that she lives so disinterestedly as she does.”

“Grandmother,” said Louisa, after a hesitating pause, “has your life been an eventful one at all? I only know of you that you used not to be so cheerful as you are now; but since our mother’s death—”

“She has been our mother ever since we knew what it could mean to need one,” said Alice, fondly kissing her withered hand; “but, dearest grandmother, your face is a sealed book to us, too; you look very calm, you are very cheerful always—and yet who knows—”

Alice stopped thoughtfully, and then looking at Madam Stanwood, she saw that her eyes were tearful, and that with a strong effort she was endeavoring to preserve her composure. Placing her hand lightly on Alice’s mouth, to prevent her speaking, she said, with a smile,

“The day promises so fairly, my daughters, if you like, we will drive to see an old acquaintance, and on the way I will tell you some of those passages in my life, which I know you want to hear of, but from the relation of which I have always shrunk. Time has lessened the vividness of much I have suffered; but what we feel early in life, we feel late with a clearness it is difficult to account for. But you ought to know something of the history of your grandmother, and although I do not intend to give you a full memoir to-day, and perhaps never, I will talk with you somewhat of old days and feelings. In an hour we will go, and until then I shall be engaged in my own room.”

Alice and Louisa looked wistfully at each other, as their aged relative withdrew, but uttered not a word. Often and often they had wished, and hoped, and guessed, till they were weary of guessing what grandmamma’s life had been—for they were a little curious, though not reflective; and many a time a chance word or two had puzzled their young heads not a little; but hardly had they dared to hope that they ever should know, at all events, not before they were twenty-five—quite old women—any thing about it; and now that they were to know, _really_, it was quite too important a subject to trifle upon. So Louisa, with her mouth very much drawn down at the corners, and her eyebrows proportionably arched, withdrew to her room, as much like Madam Stanwood as possible, while Alice relapsed into her grandmother’s easy-chair. Reflection in an easy-chair is apt to glide into reverie, and thence the transition to sleep is not uncommon; and Alice was waked out of marvelous dreams, by the announcement that the carriage waited for her.

The day was fine and clear, though a little cold, and as the carriage-wheels rolled almost noiselessly over the smooth, hard road, it seemed the very afternoon of all the world for story-telling. Yet Madam Stanwood looked silently out on the landscape before them, and the young girls did not venture to speak. At last they stopped at a house where they were a good deal acquainted.

The Williamses were all at home; and a right gay set of young people they were: then there were their father and mother, and Mrs. Williams’ brother, old Colonel Morgan, who was always ready for a frolic, and the two Miss Dundasses, from Richmond. They had a very gay call. The two Miss Stanwoods flirted desperately with the old colonel, and the two Miss Dundasses beat him about the room with bouquets of bright flowers; and there was such laughing, till the tears ran, with old Mr. Williams, and such gentle and sympathizing laughter among the old ladies, and such heartfelt fun among all, that it was with some effort the Stanwoods at last left the resounding parlor for the silent carriage.

Silent it became as soon as the doors were closed, and the soft, crackling sound of the wheels brought the old associations of painful thought and anxious expectation.

At last Madam Stanwood spoke: but the words seemed rather the repetition of a record than the expression of thought.

“Saturday, the 20th of May, 1780.”

The girls listened eagerly, but no further sound escaped her. The faint color came and went on her faded cheek, her eyes closed, and the spirit within seemed unable to utter its mournful remembrances.

“I thought I could tell you,” she said at last, “but it will not come to my tongue—and perhaps it is best so—for why should your young hearts be baptized with sorrow before their time? And besides, all, every thing within and without is so different now. I scarcely recognize myself as I look back to that day. _The dark day._ You have heard of it, and the reason of it—but in those times we were not given to philosophizing. Yes, all is so changed. The skies I played under are no longer the same. They bent over a young, hopeful heart then, so blue, so clear—now they still bend over me, but they promise rest to the weary soul, and they speak soothingly of a better land.

“The brook behind my father’s house, in which my bared feet daily waded, turns the wheel of a factory; the trees that shaded our log cabin are metamorphosed into three-story houses; the country has turned into a town—and not more has the form changed than the spirit. The minds of men, trained and inured to suffering, patient, sturdy, vigorous, watchful—those were men, indeed!”

Madam Stanwood’s face, usually so benignly thoughtful, lighted up as she spoke, and she looked at the eager faces of her granddaughters with a smile. The most painful part, the beginning, had been surmounted, and she went on, less however to them than to herself.

“The twentieth of May! yes, on that day, I had reached my fifteenth birthday—on that day I met my lover for the last time. He had been drafted for a soldier. Every heart, men’s, women’s, and children’s, too, beat but to one tune, and that was their country’s freedom. We never dreamed then of detaining friend, husband, father or lover, when that country called. You know the country had been bleeding at every pore then for years. My father was a stern old man, who had been in the ‘old French war.’ My mother had been reared in a fort, and had daily loaded and handed the musket to her husband as he shouldered his axe or his scythe for his daily labor. Her sister had been carried into captivity by the Indians, and lived there among them for years before she escaped to her home. Arms, fighting, wounds, were household words with us. Judge if we were likely to think a moment of detaining Edward, though the day was fixed for our marriage. We were to have been married in June, and now it was May.

“How long it is since that day! how much has come and gone since then! and I live to tell it! It was but a few years after that the world shook with the French Revolution—and a few years more—that man of a bloody age, the expression of all that is evil and great in human nature, rose and shocked his race, comet-like, with his fierce glare, and then set forever. Our own calm Washington sleeps in his heart-honored grave, and the sighs of a grateful people whisper in the cedars above it—but then, he was living, acting, and inspiring all about him with the indomitable courage and heroic patience that animated himself. The terrors and events that stirred our hearts to agony were nigh us, even at our doors, and strong as we might be in patriotic feeling, almost every family could count its victims. I was young in years, but we grew old early then, and my mother had held her first child in her arms at fifteen years old.

“It was early in the morning—at early dawn—when I parted from him. He held me to his bosom that was covered with the simple uniform—so associated in my mind with all that was best and noblest on earth—and my bosom beat with pride as well as grief. I also could sacrifice something to my country.

“Well—that day—it wore on drearily, so drearily as you can never know; and in the afternoon some neighbors came in to talk of the army, and the destination of the regiment which had just left us. It was long after dinner—nearly two o’clock. So depressed and wretched did I feel, that when I lifted my head from my arms, where I was leaning, and gazed out on the sky, I was more soothed than startled at its strange appearance. The air seemed absolutely heavy with a darkness that came on like an army. But my thoughts had been of darkness and blood, and a sadness I could not shake off. Presently they all saw and felt it too. They sprang to the door, but it was not a storm, it was not cloudy, but just dark—the cattle came lowing into the yard, the birds flew to their nests, the fowls were already on their roosts. I cannot describe to you the consternation of our household. Superstitious persons are not wanting in any age, and you may guess that many read in the supernatural gloom a foreboding of disaster to our arms. That the day of judgment was approaching was a more common feeling, and a good many went to the minister’s house in their terror, that they might be listening to prayer. I don’t remember that I thought about it much, but it was a relief to see the sky light up as it did after two or three hours, and see nature going on her accustomed routine.

“We had no mails then, you know, my dears, and often months went on, and on, and brought no tidings to us, but what we learned from general rumor, or some chance straggler from the army. Then would come a letter from Edward, filled with all his former love, but giving no hope of his immediate return to us. Then came the project of besieging New York, and then volunteers would not do, nor new soldiers. The country demanded men who knew and could bear the fatigues of war. Oh! my children! you read and hear of the glory of war, and of the soldier who sweetly breathes his last for his country: true, the battle-field is terrible to think of, but there the groans are those of the dying, and humanity, shocked at her own barbarity, stanches the wounds, and tearfully holds the head that a few hours before she was frantic to lay in a bloody grave. But for the living death that many of our soldiers suffered before the war was over, there has been no such sympathy. The privation of clothing, of the commonest sort, the unshod feet, wearily and bleedingly marching over the snow, the shivering form, half covered by the tattered uniform, crouching over the fire in the wretched huts of the north, were scarcely less destructive than the withering heat, and wasting famine of the southern troops. Fortunately Edward did not go south until the winter, so that though he wrote of battle, he did not of sickness, and I hoped still.

“When I next heard from him he was stationed at New London. You know that terrible story, my daughters. You know that Arnold, the wretch, whom to name is to execrate forever in American bosoms, ‘Arnold the traitor,’ was sent to besiege it. He had four times the number of men that were in the fort. He attacked it on three sides at once, and though our men fought like lions, it must have been in vain. They fought in full view of their homes, of all that was dear to them in the world. Judge if they did not fight. Judge if they did not pour out their blood like water, while there was any hope. But at last they gave way—they laid down their arms. And then—they were basely murdered as they stood! Such a massacre was not known elsewhere, thank Heaven! during our whole struggle. It is enough to make one shrink from all that bears the name of man.”

Here Madam Stanwood paused. She had sketched rather than related so far, and the fair girls listened with a pained and eager interest. Most of what she had alluded to was new to them, and as they looked on one who had personally known and suffered in what had to them been only a dry “history,” she seemed transformed in their eyes. Oh! the “unwritten history” of that placid face! The written one of that heart, whose every fibre had been woven in one long web of anxiety and sorrow, and dyed in the blood of the loved and lost one! For now they saw that Edward must have been one of those who fell in that massacre. Their eager and tearful faces expressed the sympathy they did not else utter, and their aged relative understood it. She went on quietly.

“All is not yet told, my daughters. I heard that Edward had fallen, and years passed away, and still I heard nothing from him more. Then I married Mr. Stanwood—and then—and then Edward returned.”

“Returned!” exclaimed both the girls in a breath.

“Yes, he returned. The massacre was not complete. Somebody became satisfied with blood, and proposed a respite, and about forty were left living, and taken prisoners to New York. Edward lived through a long, dreadful fever, alone, without aid or attendance of any sort. Then he was sent with a hundred others to a prison-ship. God forbid your dear hearts should be saddened with all he underwent there. We heard it all. He returned to his family at last, with broken health, broken fortune—”

“And a broken heart! ah, grandmother!”

“No, his heart was not broken. What he felt I never knew, for he learned my marriage before he came back, and we never met for years. My children, my story will have been told you quite in vain, if it does not show you that hearts must live and act, and fulfill present duties, with what fortitude they may, and _not_ break—nor ‘brokenly live on.’ God gave me the strength for which I prayed, to perform my duty to my husband and children, and to set aside from my heart an image which no longer fitted such a temple. I have long ago ceased to look at him with any eyes but those of friendly interest, though the recall of so much that is connected with grief is of course painful, and you see yourselves that he is both gay and social, and by no means inclined to play the despairing lover.”

“We see!” they again spoke in a breath.

“Yes, you have seen him this afternoon. Edward—_Colonel Edward Morgan_. And here we are at home, my loves, an hour past dinner-time.”

* * * * *

FAIR WIND.

BY J. T. FIELDS.

O who can tell, that never sailed
Among the glassy seas,
How fresh and welcome breaks the morn
That ushers in a breeze!
Fair wind! Fair wind! alow, aloft,
All hands delight to cry—
As leaping through the parted waves
The good ship makes reply.

While fore and aft, all stanch and tight,
She spreads her canvas wide,
The captain walks his throne, the deck,
With more than monarch’s pride.
For well he knows the sea-bird’s wings,
So swift and sure to-day,
Will waft him many a league to-night
In triumph on his way.

Then welcome to the rushing blast
That stirs the waters now—
The white plumed heralds of the deep
Make music round her prow!
Good sea-room in the roaring gale—
Let stormy trumpets blow—
But chain ten thousand fathoms down
The sluggish calm below!

* * * * *

KITTY COLEMAN.

BY FANNY FORESTER.

An arrant piece of mischief was that Kitty Coleman, with her deep, bewildering eyes, that said all sorts of strange things to your heart, and yet looked as innocent all the time as though conducting themselves with the utmost propriety, and her warm, ripe lips, making you think at once of “the rose’s bed that a bee would choose to dream in.” And so wild and unmanagable was she—oh, it was shocking to _proper_ people to look at her! And then to hear her, too! why, she actually laughed aloud, Kitty Coleman did! I say Kitty, because everybody called her Kitty but her Aunt Martha; she was an orderly gentlewoman, who disapproved of loud laughing, romping, and nick-naming, as she did of other crimes, so she always said Miss Catharine. She thought, too, that Miss Catharine’s hair, those long, golden locks, like rays of floating sunshine, wandering about her shoulders, should be gathered up into a comb, and the little lady was once really so obliging as to make trial of the scheme, but at the first bound she made after Rover, the burnished cloud broke from its ignoble bondage, descending in a glittering shower, and the little silver comb nestled down in the deep grass, resigning its office of jailor forever. Oh, Kitty _was_ a sad romp! It is a hard thing to say of one we all loved so well; but Aunt Martha said it, and shook her head the while and sighed; and the squire, Aunt Martha’s brother, said it, and held out his arms for his pet to spring into; and serious old ladies said it, and said, too,—what a pity it was that young people now-a-days had no more regard for propriety. Even Enoch Snow, the great phrenologist, buried his fingers in those dainty locks that none but a phrenologist had a right to touch, and waiting only for a succession of peals of vocal music, which interrupted his scientific researches, to subside, declared that her organ of mirthfulness was very, very strikingly developed. This, then, placed the matter beyond all controversy; and it was henceforth expected that Kitty would do what nobody else could do, and say what nobody else had a right to say; and the sin of all, luckily for her, was to be laid upon a strange idiosyncracy, a peculiar mental, or rather cerebral conformation, over which she had no control; and so Kitty was forgiven, forgiven by all but——. We had a little story to tell.

I have heard that Cupid is blind; but of that I do not believe a word—indeed, I have “confirmation strong,” that the malicious little knave has the gift of clairvoyance, aiming at hearts wrapped in the triple foldings of selfishness, conceit, and gold. Ay, didn’t he perch himself now in the eye, and now on the lip of Kitty Coleman, and with a marvelously steady aim, imitating a personage a trifle more dreaded, “Cut down all, both great and small!” Blind! no, no—he saw a trifle too well when he counted out his arrows; and the laughing rogue was ready to burst with merriment, as he peeped into his empty quiver, and then looked abroad upon the havoc he had made. But people said that there was one who had escaped him, a winsome gallant, for whom all but Kitty Coleman had a bright glance, and a gentle word. As for Kitty, she cared not a rush for Harry Gay, and sought to annoy him all in her power; and the gentleman in his turn stalked past her with all the dignity of a great man’s ghost. Bitter, bitter enemies were Harry Gay and Kitty Coleman. One evening, just because the pretty belle was present, Harry took it into his head to be as stupid as a block or a scholar, for, notwithstanding his promising name, our young Lucifer could be stupid. Kitty Coleman was very angry, as was proper—for what right had any one to be stupid in her presence? The like never was heard of before. Kitty, in her indignation, said he did not know how to be civil; and then she sighed, doubtless at the boorishness of scholars in general, and this one in particular; and then she laughed so long and musically, that the lawyer, the school-master, the four clerks, the merchant, and Lithper Lithpet, the dandy, all joined in the chorus, though, for the life of them, they could not have told what the lady laughed at. Harry Gay drew up his head with as much dignity as though he had known the mirth was at his expense, cast contemptuous glances toward the group of nod-waiters, and then, to show his own superior taste, attached himself to the ugliest woman in the room. It was very strange that Kitty Coleman should have disregarded entirely the opinion of such a distingué gentleman, but she only laughed the louder when she saw that he was annoyed by it; indeed, his serious face seemed to infuse the very spirit, ay, the concentrated, double-distilled essence of mirth into her; and a more frolicksome creature never existed than she was, till the irritated scholar, unable to endure it any longer, disappeared in the quietest manner possible. Then all of a sudden the self-willed belle declared that she hated parties, she never would go to another; and making her adieus in the most approved don’t-care style, insisted on being taken home at once.

Harry Gay was not a native of our village; he came from one of the eastern cities to spend a summer there; and Aunt Martha said he was too well-bred to have any patience with the hoydenish manners of her romping niece. But Kitty insisted that her manners were not hoydenish; and if her heart overflowed, it was not her fault, she could not shut up all the glad feelings within her, they would leap back to the call of their kindred, gushing from other bosoms, and to all the beautiful, beautiful things of creation, as joyous in their mute eloquence as she was. Besides, the wicked little Kitty Coleman was always very angry that Aunt Martha should attempt to govern her conduct by the likings of Harry Gay; she would not be dictated to by him, even though his opinions received the sanction of her infallible aunt. But the lady made a trifling mistake on the subject matter of his interference. He did not slander her, and always waived the theme of her follies when her Aunt Martha introduced it; indeed, he never was heard to speak of the belle but once—once he swore she had no soul—(the shameless Mohammedan!) a remark which was only five minutes in reaching its object. But Kitty Coleman, though shockingly indignant, was not cast down by it. She called Harry Gay more names than he, scholar as he was, could have thought of in a month, and wound up with a remark no less formidable than the one which had excited her ire. And Kitty was right. A pretty judge of soul he, to be sure—a man that never laughed! how on earth can people who go through the world cold and still, like the clods they tread upon, pretend to know any thing about soul?