 | CHAPTER IX. Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
An' few there be that ken me, O;
But what care I how few they be,
I'm welcome aye to Nannie, O.”
Burns.
There are hints in Miss Leslie's letter to Everell
Fletcher, that require some amplification to be
quite intelligible to our readers. She looked upon
herself, as the unhappy, though innocent cause, of
the old Indian woman's misfortune—and, rash
as generous, she had resolved, if possible, to extricate
her. With the inconsiderate warmth of
youthful feeling, she had, before the grave and reverend
magistrates, declared her belief in Nelema's
innocence, and thereby implied a censure of
their wisdom. This was, certainly, an almost
unparalleled presumption, in those times, when
youth was accounted inferiority; but the very
circumstance that, in one light, aggravated her
fault, in another, mitigated it; and her youth,
being admitted in extenuation of her offence, she
was allowed to escape with a reproof and admonition
of moderate length—while her poor guardian
was condemned to a long and private conference,
on the urgency of reclaiming the spoiled
an object were suggested, for, as the Scotchman
said, in an analogous case, “Ilka man can manage
a wife but him that has her.”
This matter had passed over, and justice was
proceeding in her stern course, when fortune, accident,
or more truly, Providence, favoured the
benevolent wishes of our heroine. She had, as
has been seen, been carried by an unforeseen circumstance,
to the house of one of the magistrates.
There, mindful of the poor old prisoner,
whose sentence, she knew, was daily expected
from Boston; she had been watchful of every
circumstance relating to her, and when she observed
the key of her prison deposited in an
accessible place, (no one dreaming of any interference
in behalf of the condemned) she was inspired
with a sudden resolution to set her free. This
was a bold, dangerous, and unlawful interposition;
but Hope Leslie took counsel only from her
own heart, and that told her that the rights of innocence
were paramount to all other rights, and
as to danger to herself, she did not weigh it—she
did not think of it.
Digby came to the village to attend her home,
and this afforded her an opportunity of concert
with him: in the depths of the night, when
all the household were in profound sleep, she stole
from her bed, found her way to the door of
the dungeon, and leading out the prisoner, gave
her into Digby's charge, who had a canoe in waiting,
where he left her, after having supplied her with
provisions to sustain her to the vallies of the Housatonick,
if, indeed, her wasted strength should
enable her to reach there. The gratitude of the
poor old creature for her unexpected deliverance
from shameful death, is faintly touched on in
Hope's letter. She could scarcely, without magnifying
her own merit, have described the vehement
emotion with which Nelema promised that
she would devote the remnant of her miserable
days to seeking and restoring her lost sister. Again
and again, while Hope urged her departure, she
reiterated this promise, and finally, when she parted
from Digby, she repeated, as if it were a prophecy,
`She shall see her sister.'
Young persons are not apt to make a very exact
adjustment of means and ends, and our heroine
certainly placed an undue confidence in the power
of the helpless old woman, to accomplish her promise;
but she needed not this, to increase her
present joy at her success. She crept to her bed,
and was awakened in the morning, as she has herself
related, with the information of Nelema's escape.
She had now a part to play to which she
was unused—to mask her feelings, affect ignorance,
and take part in the consternation of the
assembled village. As may be imagined, her assumed
character was awkwardly enough performed,
but all were occupied with their own surmises,
and no one thought of her—no one, excepting
on her, when a suspicion that had before flashed
on his mind, was confirmed. He knew, from the
simplicity of her nature, and from her habitual
frankness, that she would not have hesitated
to avow her pleasure in Nelema's escape, if
she had not herself been accessory to it. He
watched her averted eye—he observed her unbroken
silence, and her lips that, in spite of all
her efforts, played into an inevitable smile at the
superstitious surmises of some of the wise people,
whose philosophy had never dreamed of that
every-day axiom of modern times—that super-natural
aid should not be called in to interpret
events which may be explained by natural causes.
However satisfactory Mr. Pynchon's conclusions
were to himself, he confined them, for the
present, to his own bosom. He was a merciful
man, and probably felt an emotion of joy at the
old woman's escape, that could not be suppressed
by the stern justice that had pronounced her worthy
of death. But while he easily reconciled
himself to the loss of the prisoner, he felt the necessity
of taking instant and efficient measures
to subdue to becoming deference and obedience,
the rash and lawless girl, who had dared to interpose
between justice and its victim. His heart
recoiled from punishing her openly, and he contented
himself with insisting, in a private interview
with Mr. Fletcher, on the necessity of her
removal to a stricter control than his; and recommended,
neglected authority to less indulgent hands.
Mr. Fletcher complied so far as to consent that
his favourite should be sent, for a few months, to
Boston, to the care of Madam Winthrop, whose
character being brought out by the light of her
husband's official station, was held up as a sort of
pattern throughout New-England. But we must,
for the present, pass by state characters; gallery
portraits, for the miniature picture that lies next
our heart, and which it is full time should be formally
presented to our readers, whose curiosity,
we trust, has not been sated by occasional
glimpses.
Nothing could be more unlike the authentic,
`thoroughly educated,' and thoroughly disciplined
young ladies of the present day, than Hope Leslie;
as unlike as a mountain rill to a canal—the
one leaping over rocks and precipices, sportive,
free, and beautiful, or stealing softly on, in unseen,
unpraised loveliness; the other, formed by art,
restrained within prescribed and formal limits,
and devoted to utility. Neither could any thing
in outward show, be more unlike a modern belle,
arrayed in the mode de Paris of the last Courier
des dames, than Hope Leslie, in her dress of
silk or muslin, shaped with some deference to the
fashion of the day, but more according to the
dictates of her own skill and classic taste, which
she followed, somewhat pertinaciously, in spite of
the suggestions of her experienced aunt.
Fashion had no shrines among the pilgrims; but
where she is most abjectly worshipped, it would
be treason against the paramount rights of nature,
to subject such a figure as Hope Leslie's to her
tyranny. As well might the exquisite classic statue
be arrayed in corsets, manches en gigot,
garnitures en tulle, &c. Her height was not above
the medium standard of her sex; she was delicately
formed; the high health and the uniform
habits of a country life, had endowed her with
the beauty with which poetry has invested Hebe;
while her love for exploring hill and dale, ravine
and precipice, had given her that elastic step and
ductile grace which belong to all agile animals,
and which made every accidental attitude, such,
as a painter would have selected to express the
nymphlike beauty of Camilla.
It is in vain to attempt to describe a face, whose
material beauty, though that beauty may be faultless,
is but a medium for the irradiations of the
soul. For the curious, we would, if we could, set
down the colour of our heroine's eyes; but, alas!
it was undefinable, and appeared gray, blue, hazle,
or black, as the outward light touched them,
or as they kindled by the light of her feelings.
Her rich brown hair, turned in light waves from
her sunny brow, as if it would not hide the beauty
it sheltered. Her mouth, at this early period of
her life, had nothing of the seriousness and contemplation
that events might afterwards have
sportive, joyous, and kindly feeling, and at the
slightest motion of her thoughts, curled into
smiles, as if all the breathings of her young heart
were happiness and innocence.
It may appear improbable that a girl of seventeen,
educated among the strictest sect of the puritans,
should have had the open, fearless, and gay
character of Hope Leslie; but it must be remembered
that she lived in an atmosphere of favour
and indulgence, which permits the natural qualities
to shoot forth in unrepressed luxuriance—an
atmosphere of love, that like a tropical climate,
brings forth the richest flowers and most flavorous
fruits. She was transferred from the care of the
gentlest and tenderest of mothers, to Mr. Fletcher,
who, though stern in his principles, was indulgent
in his practice; whose denying virtues were
all self-denying; and who infused into the parental
affection he felt for the daughter, something of
the romantic tenderness of the lover of her mother.
Her aunt Grafton doated on her; she was
the depository of her vanity, as well as of her affection.
To her simple tutor, she seemed to embody
all that philosophers and poets had set down in
their books, of virtue and beauty; and those of
the old and rigid, who were above, or below, the
influence of less substantial charms, regarded the
young heiress with deference. In short, she was
the petted lamb of the fold.
It has been seen that Hope Leslie was superior
to some of the prejudices of the age. This may
be explained, without attributing too much to her
natural sagacity. Those persons she most loved,
and with whom she had lived from her infancy,
were of variant religious sentiments. Her father
had belonged to the established church, and
though he had much of the gay spirit that characterized
the cavaliers of the day; he was serious and
exact in his observance of the rites of the church.
She had often been her mother's companion at the
proscribed `meeting,' and witnessed the fervor
with which she joined in the worship of a persecuted
and suffering people. Early impressions
sometimes form moulds for subsequent opinions;
and when at a more reflecting age, Hope heard
her aunt Grafton rail with natural good sense,
and with the freedom, if not the point, of mother
wit, at some of the peculiarities of the puritans,
she was led to doubt their infallibility; and like the
bird that spreads his wings and soars above the
limits by which each man fences in his own narrow
domain, she enjoyed the capacities of her nature,
and permitted her mind to expand beyond
the contracted boundaries of sectarian faith.
Her religion was pure and disinterested—no one,
therefore, should doubt its intrinsic value, though
it had not been coined into a particular form, or
received the current impress.
Though the history of our heroine, like a treasured
flower, has only left its sweetness on the
it; yet we have been compelled to infer, from
some transactions which we shall faithfully record,
that she had faults; but we leave our readers to
discover them. Who has the resolution to point
out a favourite's defects?
As our fair readers are not apt to be observant
of dates, it may be useful to remind them that Miss
Leslie's letter was written in October. In the
following May, two ships, from the mother country,
anchored at the same time in Boston-Bay.
Some passengers, from each ship, availed themselves
of the facility of the pilot-boat to go up to
the town. Among others, were two gentlemen, who
met now for the first time: the one, a youth in
manhood's earliest prime, with a frank, intelligent,
and benevolent countenance, over which, as he
strained his eyes to the shore, joy and anxiety flitted
with rapid vicissitude. The other had advanced
further into life; he might not be more than five and
thirty, possibly not so much; but his face was deeply marked
by the ravages of the passions, or perhaps
the stirring scenes of life. His eyes were black
and piercing, set near together, and overhung by
thick black brows, whose incessant motion indicated
a restless mind. The concentration of
thought, or the designing purpose, expressed
by the upper part of his face, was contradicted
by his loose, open flexible lips. His complexion
had the same puzzling contrariety—it was
hue of a bon-vivant. His nose neither turned up
nor down, was neither Grecian nor Roman. In
short, the countenance of the stranger was a
worthless dial-plate—a practical refutation of the
science of physiognomy; and as the infallible art
of phrenology was unknown to our fathers, they
were compelled to ascertain the character (as their
unlearned descendants still are) by the slow developement
of the conduct. The person of the
stranger had a certain erect and gallant bearing
that marks a man of the world, but his dress was
strictly puritanical; and his hair, so far from being
permitted the `freedom of growing long,' then
deemed `a luxurious feminine prolixity,' or being
covered with a wig, (one of the abominations that,
according to Eliot, had brought on the country
the infliction of the Pequod war,) was cropped
with exemplary precision. But though the stranger's
apparel was elaborately puritanical, still there was
a certain elegance about it, which indicated that
his taste had reluctantly yielded to his principles.
His garments were of the finest materials, and exactly
fitted to a form of striking manly symmetry.
His hair, it is true, was scrupulously clipped, but
being thick and jet black, it becomingly defined a
forehead of uncommon whiteness and beauty. In
one particular he had departed from the letter of
the law, and instead of exposing his throat by the
plain, open linen collar, usually worn, he sheltered
its ugly protuberance with a fine cambric ruff,
last exception, a nice critic could not detect the
most venial error in his apparel; yet, among the
puritans, he looked much like a `dandy quaker'
of the present day, amidst his sober-suited
brethren.
Whilst the boat, impelled by a favouring tide,
and fair breeze, glided rapidly towards the metropolis
of the now thriving colony, the gentlemen
fell into conversation with the pilot. The elder
stranger inquired if Governor Winthrop had been
re-elected?
“Yes—God bless him,” replied the sailor;
“the worthy gentleman has taken the helm once
more.”
“Has he,” asked the stranger, eagerly, “declared
for King or Parliament?”
“Ho! I don't know much about their land-tackle,”
replied the seaman; “but, to my mind, the
fastings we have had all along when the King won
the day, and the rejoicings when the Parliament
gained it, was what you might call a declaration.
Since you speak of it, I do remember I heard the
boys up in town saying, that our magistrates, at
election, did scruple about the oath, and concluded
to leave out that part which promises to bear
true faith and allegiance to our sovereign lord
King Charles.”
“So, we have thrown his Majesty overboard,
and are to sail under Parliament colours,” said
the young gentleman. “Well,” he continued,
years since, for, I remember, there were then disputes,
whether the King's ensign should be spread
there,” and he pointed to the fortifications on
Castle Island, past which the boat was, at that
moment, gliding. They scruple now about the
oath. Then their consciences rebelled against
the red cross in the ensign; which, I remember,
was called, `the Pope's gift,' `a relique of papacy,'
`an idolatrous sign,' &c.”
“Scruples of conscience are ever honourable,”
said the elder stranger; “and doubtless your Governor
has good reason for not complying with
the scripture rule—`render unto Cæsar, the things
that are Cæsar's'.”
“There is no doubt of it,” replied the seaman.
“The Governor—God bless him—knows the rules
of the good book as well as I know the ropes of
a ship; and there is no better pilot than he for all
weathers, as he shows by not joining in the hue
and cry against the good creature tobacco. Fair
winds through life, and a pleasant harbour at last,
do I wish him for this piece of christian love!”—
at the same time he illustrated his benediction by
putting a portion of the favourite luxury in his
mouth.
“I am sorry,” said the young gentleman, “that
our magistrates have volunteered a public expression
of their feelings—their sympathies, of course,
are with the Parliament party—they virtually
broke the yoke of royal authority, when they left
set on liberty by sacrificing for it every temporal
good. Now they have a right to enjoy their liberty
in peace.”
“Peace!” said the elder gentleman, emphatically—“thus
it ever is with the natural man, crying
peace—peace—where there is no peace.—
Think you, young man, that if the King were to
recover his power, he would not resume all the
privileges he has formerly granted to these people,
who—thanks to Him whose ark abideth with
them!—shew themselves so ready to cast off their
allegiance?”
“The King, no doubt,” replied the young gentleman,
“would like to resume both power and
possession; but still, I think we might retain our
own, on the principle that he had no right to give,
and in truth could not give, what was not his, and
what we have acquired, either by purchase of the
natives, or by lawful conquest, which gives us the
right to the vacuum domicilium.”
“I am happy to see, sir,” said the elder gentleman,
slightly bowing and smiling, “that your
principles, at least, are on the side of the puritans.”
“My feelings and principles both, sir; but that
does not render me insensible to the happiness of
the adverse party, or the wisdom of all parties,
which is peace; the peace which the generous
Falkland so earnestly invokes, every patriot
may ardently desire. Peace, if I may borrow a
figure from our friend the pilot here, is a fair wind
some, and may wreck both friend and foe.”
The young gentleman seemed tired of the
conversation, and turned away, fixing his eager
gaze on the shore, towards which his heart bounded.
His companion, however, was not disposed
to indulge him in silence. “This town, sir,” he
said, “appears to be familiar to you. I, alas! am
a stranger and a wanderer.” This was spoken in
a tone of unaffected seriousness.
“Of such this country is the natural home,” replied
the young man, regarding his companion
for the first time with some interest, for he had
been repelled by what seemed to him to savour of
cant, of which he had heard too much in the
mother country. “I should be happy, sir,” he
said, courteously, “to render my acquaintance
with the town of any service to you.”
The stranger bowed in acknowledgment of
the civility. “I would gladly,” he said, “find
entertainment with some godly family here. Is
Mr. Wilson still teacher of the congregation?”
“No, sir—if he were, you might securely count
on his hospitality, as it was so notorious, that,
`come in, you are heartily welcome,' was said to
be the anagram of his name. But if he is gone, the
doors in Boston are always open to the stranger.
Mr. Cotton, I believe, is the present minister—is
he not, pilot?”
“Yes—an please you, sir—but I'm thinking,”
he added, with a leer, “that that butterfly will be
ones.” The young gentleman followed the direction
of the pilot's eye, and for the first time observed
a lad, who sat on one side of the boat
leaning over, and amusing himself with lashing
the waves with a fanciful walking-stick. He
overheard the pilot's remark, and raised his head,
as it appeared involuntarily, for he immediately
averted it again, but not till he had exposed a
face of uncommon beauty. He looked about fifteen.
He had the full melting dark eye, and rich
complexion of southern climes; masses of jetty
curls parted on his forehead, shaded his temples
and neck, and “smooth as Hebe's was his
unrazored lip.” It was obvious that it was
his dress which had called forth the sailor's
sarcasm. The breast and sleeves of his jerkin
were embroidered, a deep-pointed rich lace ruff
embellished his neck, if a neck round and smooth
as alabaster could be embellished, and his head
was covered with a little fantastic Spanish hat,
decorated with feathers.
“Does that youth appertain to you, sir?” asked
the young gentleman of the elder stranger.
“Yes—he is a sort of dependant—a page of
mine,” he replied, with an embarrassed manner;
but in a moment recovering his self-possession, he
added, “I infer from the gratuitous remarks of
our very frank pilot, and from the survey you
have taken of the lad, that you think his apparel
extraordinary.”
“It might, possibly,” replied the young man,
with a smile, “offend against certain sumptuary
laws of our colony, and thus prove inconvenient
to you.”
“Roslin, do you hear,” said the master to the
page, who nodded his head without raising it;
“thy finery, boy, as I have told thee, must be retrenched;”
then turning to his companion, and
lowering his voice to a confidential tone, he
added; “the lad hath lived on the continent, and
hath there imbibed these vanities, of which I
hope in good time to reform him; perhaps his
youth hath overwrought, with my indulgence, in
suffering them thus long.”
The young gentleman courteously prevented
any further, and as he thought, unnecessary exculpation,
by saying, “that the offence was certainly
a very trifling one, and if observed at all,
would be, by the most scrupulous, considered as
venial in so young a lad.” He now again turned
his ardent gaze to the shore. “Ah! there is the
spire of the new meeting-house,” he said; “when
I went away the good people assembled under a
thatched roof, and within mud walls.”
“And I can remember,” said the pilot, “for I
was among the first comers to the wilderness,
when for weeks the congregation met under an
oak tree—and there was heart-worship there, gentlemen,
if there ever was on the ball.”
A church standing where Joy's buildings are now
located, was the only one then in Boston. The
just about the heart of the peninsula, on whose
striking and singular form, its first possessors
aver they saw written prophecies of its future
greatness. Some of its most prominent features
have been softened by time, and others changed
by the busy art of man. Wharves, whole streets,
and the noble granite market-house, (a prouder
memorial to its founder than a triumphal arch)
now stand where the deep “cove” stretched its
peaceful harbour, between the two hills that stood
like towers of defence at its extremities. That
at the north rose to the height of fifty feet above
the sea, and on its level summit stood a windmill;
towards the sea it presented an abrupt declivity,
and was fortified at its base by a strong battery.
The eastern hill was higher than its sister by some
thirty feet; it descended kindly towards the town,
and was, on that side planted with corn. Towards
the sea its steep and ragged cliffs announced that
nature had formed it for defence; and accordingly
our fathers soon fortified it with “store of
great artillery,” and changed the first pastoral
name of Cornhill, which they had given it, to the
more appropriate designation of Fort-hill. A
third hill flanked the town, rising to the height of
one hundred and thirty-eight feet. “All three,”
says Johnson, “like over-topping towers, keepe a
constant watch to foresee the approach of forrein
dangers, being furnished with a beacon, and loud
eccho, to all their sister townes.”
Shawmut, a word expressing living fountains,
was the Indian name of Boston. Tri-mountain,
its first English name, and descriptive of Beacon-hill,
which, as we are told, rose in three majestic
and lofty eminences; the most eastern of these
summits having on its brow three little hillocks. Its
present, and, as we fondly believe immortal name,
was given with characteristic reverence in honour
of one of its first pastors, Mr. Cotton, who came
from Boston, in England.
But we return from this digression to our
pilot-boat, which now had nearly reached its
landing place. A throng had gathered on the
“town-dock” in expectation of friends, or news
from friends. In vain did the young stranger's
eye explore the crowd for some familiar face; he
was obliged to check the greetings that rose
to his lips, and repress the throbbings of his heart.
“Time,” he said, “has wrought strange changes.
I fancied that even the stones in Boston would
know me; but now, I see not one welcoming
look, unless it be in those barbary and rose bushes,
that appear just as they did the last time I
scrambled over wind-mill hill.” They now landed
at the foot of this hill, and the young gentleman
told his companion, that he should go to his
old home at Governor Winthrop's, where he was
sure of finding friends to welcome him. “And
if you will accompany me thither,” he said, “I am
courtesies, which, as a stranger, you may require.”
This opportune offer was, of course accepted;
and the gentlemen proceeded like old acquaintances,
arm in arm together, after a short consultation
between the master and page, the amount
of which seemed to be that the boy should attend
him, and await without Governor Winthrop's
door, further orders.
They had not gone far, when, as they turned a
corner, two young ladies issued from the door of a
house a little in advance, and walked on without
observing them. The young gentleman quickened
his steps. “It must be she!” he exclaimed,
in a most animated tone. “There is but one
person in the world that has such tresses!” and
his eye rested on the bright golden ringlets that
peeped from beneath a chip gipsy hat, worn by
one of the ladies.
“That is not a rational conclusion of yours,”
said his companion. “Women have cunning devices,
by which to change the order of nature in
the colouring of the hair. I have seen many a
court dame arrayed in the purchased locks of her
serving-maid; besides, you know it is the vain
fashion of the day to make much use of coloured
powders, fluids, and unguents.”
“That may all be; but do you not see this
nymph's locks are, as Rosalind says, of the colour
God chooses?”
“It were better, my friend, if you explained
play; a practice to which our godless cavaliers
are much addicted; but pardon my reproof—age
has privileges.”
“I do not know,” replied the young gentleman,
“what degree of seniority may confer this privilege—if
some half dozen years, I submit to your
right; and the more readily, as I am just now
too happy to quarrel about any thing; but excuse
me, I must quicken my pace to overtake this
girl, who trips it along as if she had Mercury's
wings on those pretty feet.”
“Ah, that's a foot to leave its print in the memory,”
said the elder gentleman, in an animated
and natural tone, that eagerly as his companion
was pressing on, did not escape his observation.
They had now approached the parties they
were pursuing, near enough to hear their voices,
and catch a few words of their conversation.
“You say it's edifying, and all that,” said the
shortest of the two young ladies, in reply to what
seemed, from the tone in which it was concluded,
to have been an expostulation; “and I dare say,
dear Esther, you are quite right, for you are as
wise as Solomon, and always in the right; but
for my part, I confess, I had infinitely rather be at
home drying marigolds, and matching embroidery
silks for aunt Grafton.”
“Hope Leslie! by Heaven!” exclaimed the
young man, springing forward. The young lady
turned at the sound of her name, uttered a scream
and sudden delight, threw her arms around the
stranger's neck, and was folded in the embrace of
Everell Fletcher.
The next instant, the consciousness that the
street was an awkward place for such a demonstration
of happiness, or, perhaps, the thought that the
elegant young man before her was no longer the
play-fellow of her childhood, suffused her neck and
face with the deepest crimson; and a sort of
exculpatory exclamation of, “I was so surprised!”
burst from her lips, and extorted a smile even
from Everell's new acquaintance, whose gravity
had all the fixedness of premeditation.
For a moment, Everell's eyes were rivetted to
Hope Leslie's face, which he seemed to compare
with the image in his memory. “Yes,” he said,
as if thinking aloud, “the same face that I saw,
for the first time, peeping through my curtains,
the day Digby brought me home to Bethel—how
is Digby?—my dear father?—Mrs. Grafton?—the
Winthrops?—every body?”
“All, all well; but I must defer particulars till
I have introduced you to my friend, Miss Downing.”
“Miss Downing! is it possible!” exclaimed
Everell, and a recognition followed, which shewed,
that though he had not, before, observed the lady,
who had turned aside, and was sheltered under
the thick folds of a veil, the parties were not unknown
to each other. Miss Leslie now drew her
friend's arm within hers, and as she did so, she perceived
to remark an agitation, which it was obvious
the lady did not mean to betray, she did not
appear to notice it, and proceeded to give Everell
such particulars of his friends, as he must be most
impatient to hear. She told him that his father
was in Boston, and that in compliance with his
son's wishes, he had determined to fix his residence
there. Everell was rejoiced at this decision,
for gloomy recollections were, in his mind, always
associated with Bethel, and he was never happy
when he thought of the dangers to which Miss
Leslie was exposed there.
“My last letters from America,” he said, “informed
me that you had as yet no tidings from
your sister, or my friend Magawisca.”
“Nor have we now—still I cling to my belief,
that my poor sister will some day be restored to
me; Nelema's promise is prophecy to me.”
They had by this time reached Governor Winthrop's.
Miss Downing withdrew her arm from
her friend, with the intention of retiring to her
own apartment; but her steps faltered, and she
sunk down in the first chair she could reach, hoping
to escape all observation in the bustle of joy
occasioned by the unexpected arrival of Everell;
and she did so, excepting that her aunt called the
colour to her cheek, by saying, “My dear Esther,
you have sadly fatigued yourself—you are as pale
as death!” and Hope Leslie, noticing that Everell
friend, made, with the usual activity of a romantic
imagination, a thousand conjectures as to the nature
of their acquaintance. But there was nothing
said or done to assist her speculations, and
while the governor was looking over a letter of
introduction, presented to him by Everell's chance
acquaintance, who had announced himself by the
name of Sir Philip Gardiner, the young ladies
withdrew to their own apartment.
| CHAPTER IX. Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts | |