University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

In the week following the destruction
of his own house, Mr. Allen succeeded
in obtaining another for the
accommodation of his family till the following
summer. The rigours of the
stern season then approaching, rendering
it necessary to defer the re-building
of his own, Mrs. Harrison proposed to
Mrs. Allen to leave Ellen Bruce at the
mansion-house till she should again be
re-established in her own home. There
was such obvious advantages in this
arrangement for the child, Mrs. Harrison
pressed her request so earnestaly, and
Mrs. Allen felt that it would be so ungrateful
to refuse, that she yielded her

own inclination, and left Ellen with her
devoted friend. The presence of this
sweet child operated on Mrs. Harrison's
affections as the first breaking out of
the sun after a long series of cloudy
weather upon the physical constitution.
She had been resigned in afflictions,
patient under all those often recurring
vexations and petty disappointments
that are by general consent pronounced
more trying to human virtue than
great calamities; she had endured for
twenty years the exacting consequential
peevish selfishness of a husband, in
all respects dissimilar to herself, in most
inferior; and she had become neither
nervous, petulant, nor selfish. Indeed
so successful were her dutiful efforts,
that all her acquaintance deemed her
quite blind to her husband's faults;
and that she was not, never appeared
except when, to attain some good purpose,
her cautious and adroit approaches
to his mind betrayed that she knew
where his prejudices were stationed, and
where his passions ruled. If the hasty
affection of her youth had been alienated
by her husband's faults, their place
had been supplied by the resolution of
virtue, and by the tolerance of a tender
nature that felt more pity than aversion
for human frailty; and finally perhaps
she loved him; for neither her words
nor actions ever expressed that she
did not: if the maidenly reserve that
“never tells a love,” is the poet's eloquent
theme, the matronly virtue that
conceals the want of it, is certainly far
more deserving of the moralist's praise.

Little Ellen opened the fountain of
Mrs. Harrison's affections; and such
was the renovating influence produced
on her, that her husband, who never
dreamed whence it proceeded, remarked
how prodigiously the country winter
improved her health and spirits; and
congratulated himself upon his wise decision
to remove from the chilling airs of
the coast to the family estate, always
noted for its salubrious situation.

Every moment of leisure Mrs. Harrison
devoted to her little favourite.
She taught her every thing she was
capable of receiving at the age of five
years, in the way of formal instruction.
She was the ingenious mistress, and the
partaker of her innocent revels. She insinuated
moral, and it may be added, religious
principles into her mind, in the winning
form of stories. She warred against
the natural selfishness of childhood in
all its specious forms, and she completely
subdued an impetuosity of temper, that
had been suffered if not nurtured by
Mrs. Allen's indulgence: in short she
seemed constantly to realize that she
had the training of an immortal creature;
and to feel that so sweet a form as Ellen's
should, “envelope and contain” naught
but “celestial spirits.”

Allen began with the return of summer
the rebuilding of his house; and
assisted by the voluntary contributions
of his townsmen, he soon completed it.

The prompt benevolence of our country

people on such occasions has been
justly celebrated by a foreigner, an
observer, (perhaps a partial one) of our
manners.

The time at length arrived for Mrs.
Allen to reclaim Ellen. Mrs. Harrison
urged delay after delay, and was so
earnestly seconded by her husband, (who
had been beguiled of his uncomfortable
stateliness by the playful little creature)
that Mrs. Allen finally consented to
surrender her own inclinations, and to
make a permanent arrangement with
Mrs. Harrison, which should allow Ellen
to pass half her time at the mansion-house.
In this arrangement there was a
system of checks and balances that produced
that singular and felicitous union
of diversity of qualities which constituted
the rare perfection of Ellen's character.
Mrs. Harrison communicated her taste

and skill in drawing, her knowledge of
French and Italian, and all those arts of
female handicraft that were the fashion of
her day. Her pupil was taught curiously
to explore the records of history, and to
delight in the bright creations of poetry.

When she might have been in danger
of an exclusive taste for the occupations
of those who have the privilege of independence
and of leisure, she returned to
Mrs. Allen, to take her lessons in practical
life, to share and lighten the domestic
cares of her good friend, and to acquire
those household arts that it might be
the duty of her station to perform, and
which it is the duty of every station to
understand. Ellen might have caught
the pensiveness of Mrs. Harrison's
manner, with its grace and polish: she
might have forgotten the active duties
of life in listening with her to the melody
of nature—the music of the passing
stream, the rustling of the leaves, or the
song of the birds, or in watching the
changeful forms of the summer clouds,

as their shadows dropped on the mountain's
side, or danced in frolic humours
over the grassy fields and thick standing
corn. But for all this, the danger of
secluded life to those who possess sensibility
and taste, there was an antidote
in the occupations of Mrs. Allen's household—the
spell of imagination was dispelled
by the actual services of life.

Had Ellen been less grateful or affectionate
in her nature, she might have
loved one of her guardians to the exclusion
of the other; but she felt their
gratuitous kindness with the sensibility
of a truly generous mind; she saw in
them the parents that Providence had
provided for her orphanage, and without
any of the pride or restlessness of dependence,
her devotion to them both evinced
her eager desire that they should
realize all the beatitude of benevolence.

Had her friends been less excellent
than they were, some mischief might
have resulted to our heroine from the

diversity of their religious opinions. Both
were Christians in faith and experience,
but Mrs. Harrison was educated in the
episcopal church, and was exact in all
its observances: and Mrs. Allen, a real
descendant of the pilgrims, was as
rigid in her faith as was compatible
with the mildness of her character.
The `natural enmity' that bigots might
have found, or made, between their
respective faiths, was destroyed by the
spirit of Christianity, as it must be,
where that spirit bears rule, and the
only strife between these noble-minded
women seemed to be, which should most
sedulously cultivate the virtues of their
young friend. Mr. Harrison certainly
not remarkable for his Christian graces,
was scrupulous in maintaining all the appointments
of the established church.
He never countenanced by his august
presence the worship of the village
meeting. It was one of his favourite
observations, and he uttered it with the
pomp of an oracle, that puritanism was
the mother of rebellion. He was always
gratified with Ellen's respectful attendance
on his reading of the church service;
and he noticed more than once
how remarkably well her voice sounded
in the responses. He blamed his wife
for not making an effort to prevent
Ellen's going to the village meeting
with the Allens during her residence
with them, which he said she might
easily do, as the girl certainly had sense
enough to discern the difference between
worship and talking. Allen too,
dissatisfied with what he deemed his
wife's lukewarmness, reproved her for
not interposing her authority to prevent
Ellen from `wasting the Sabbath in hearing
a form of words read over by a man
that had no more religion than the pope,
and who all the while flattered himself
that none but an episcopal tory could go
to heaven.' Happily for the peace of our
heroine, neither of the ladies deemed it
her duty to interfere with the wishes of
the other, and she grew up, nurtured in
the spirit of our blessed religion, without
bigotry toany of the forms with whichaccident,
pride, or prejudice has invested it.

Time rolled on, and every year found
Ellen improved in loveliness: the gay
and reckless spirit of childhood gave
place to the vivacity and sensitiveness
of fifteen. Mrs. Allen deemed it inexpedient
to delay longer to communicate
to her such particulars of her
mother's history as she was at liberty to
impart. It was impossible any longer
to evade her natural and just curiosity
on the subject, and as she could not for
ever be kept in ignorance, Mrs. Allen
thought it necessary that she should
begin to fortify her mind for the evils
that might await her. Ellen received
the communication with a gentle submission
to the trials of her lot that astonished
both her friends,—for Mrs. Harrison
had long been in Mrs. Allen's confidence—she
saw that dark clouds enveloped
her; still—for hope is the element
of youth—except in some moments of

fearful apprehension, she believed that
she should yet enjoy a clear heaven and
a bright day.

The progress of time had wrought
some changes in the Allen family.
Edward, the only son, had been sent to
Vermont, to reside in the family of Mr.
Lenox his uncle, and George Lenox his
cousin, a student in Harvard university,
passed his vacations at Lansdown. The
mother of Justyn Allen had become a
widow, and had been induced by her
children to fix her residence with them;
and Mr. Allen had been persuaded by
one of his neighbours to relinquish the
toils of his farm for the easy acquisitions
of trade, and to embark all the capital
his credit could command in a mercantile
enterprise.

Mr. Harrison's infirmities had grown
with his years. He passed his time in
deprecating the encroaching spirit of
Jacobinism, and in predicting the certain
dissolution of the federal government.
His prejudices operated like a distemper,

and gave to every object a distorted
form and threatening aspect. He
saw nothing in our thriving institutions
—in the diffusion of intelligence, virtue
and prosperity through the mass of society,
but menaces of degradation and
elements of disorder. It is reported of
our chief magistrate, that during his late
visit to our northern metropolis, he exclaimed
on beholding the concourse of
well-dressed, well-behaved people assembled
to greet him, “Where are
your common people?” This exclamation,
so flattering to a just republican
pride, would have conveyed to the loyal
ears of Robert Harrison a sense of hopeless
degradation; for in his view every
elevation of the commonalty depressed
the level of the gentleman. Fortunately
for him, the respect inspired by the
good sense and benevolence of his wife
shielded him from the insults which his
folly provoked; and his connexion with
Ellen Bruce was a link between him
and his neighbours which protected him
from their open scorn.

Ellen, as her mind matured, became
every day more dear and necessary to
Mrs. Harrison, with whom, from fifteen
to eighteen, her time was passed almost
exclusively. Even Mr. Harrison condescended
to say that he could not live
without her, and his wife, availing herself
of this favourable expression, ventured
to suggest to him to make some
provision for her favourite in case of the
misfortune of his death. `He had nothing,'
he said, `to dispose of, but the
family estate, and that he thought could,
with no propriety be diverted from flowing
in its natural channel to the heir at
law,' a distant relation, residing in England.
Mrs. Harrison suggested that, as
this gentleman had a noble revenue
from his own estates, such an accession
as their little property would be but as
a drop to the ocean; and she urged that
it would be in the spirit of the known
generosity of his family to confer his
bounty on an orphan; she intimated
that Ellen was quite dependent on him,
for except a few hundred dollars inherited

from her parents, she had nothing,
and could have no rational reliance
on the Allens; for it had been for
some time whispered in Lansdown that
Allen, in his mercantile enterprise, had
met with the fate of all those who,
since the time of æsop's fish, have
aspired to some other element than that
for which Providence had destined them.
All these arguments she stated so cogently
that her husband was persuaded to comply
with her wishes, and he promised
that during a visit to Boston, whither he
was going the next week to celebrate the
king's birth-day, he would have his will
duly drawn and executed, and devise
the “family estate” to Ellen Bruce.
This good resolution shared the fate of
so many others left at the mercy of the
casualties of life. Mr. Harrison went
to Boston, and on the birth-day dined
at the British consul's with a select band
of loyalists. The illustrious occasion
and the good cheer of his host tempted
him to the excessive demonstrations of
enthusiasm common on such occasions,
and the consequence was that he died
the succeeding night of on apoplexy.

A few months subsequent to Mr.
Harrison's death, Justyn Allen also
paid the debt of nature, and in consequence
of the unfortunate issue of his
mercantile enterprise, left his wife, his
old mother, and his children, without
any provision. The loss of her husband
and the ruin of their affairs, aggravated
a mortal disease under which Mrs. Allen
had been for some time suffering; and
as if the family was destined to illustrate
the common remark that troubles never
come singly, Emily became so sickly
that a physician pronounced change of
air to be necessary to her. At this
time Susan Allen (whom our readers
may remember as the sister of Justyn
Allen, who remained finally attached
to the shaker society) arrived at
Lansdown on her way to visit a society
of her own people at Harvard. Mrs.
Allen, anxious to remove Emily from

the distressing scenes that she was conscious
awaited her at home, thankfully
accepted a proposition which her aunt
made, to take her upon this excursion for
the benefit of the ride and change of
place. Unforeseen circumstances detained
her for a long time within the
sphere of her aunt's influence; and her
mind weakened, and her spirits dejected,
she adopted, as has been seen, the strange
faith of her enthusiastic relative. In the
mean time Ellen, devoted to the care
of Mrs. Allen, allowed herself no relaxation
but that of passing a few hours occasionally
with Mrs. Harrison.

It was during one of these visits that
Mrs. Harrison inquired if Allen's affairs
were so fatally involved as to render it
necessary to surrender the house to his
creditors. Ellen believed not. “George
Lenox,” she said, “had advanced two
hundred dollars to redeem a portion of
the property.”

“George Lenox!” exclaimed Mrs.
Harrison “how, dear Ellen, has he the
ability to do so generous an act?”

“He draws on talent and industry,”
replied Ellen, “and I do not believe
his drafts will ever be dishonoured.”

“I know, my love,” rejoined Mrs.
Harrison, “that youth forms vast
expectations from those resources, but
I likewise know that they are not always
answered by ready money.”

Ellen explained to Mrs. Harrison
that young Lenox, after defraying
his expences at the university,
had that amount of money remaining—the
fruit of his industry and
economy.

“Such a gift,” said Mrs. Harrison,
“his all, was indeed most generous, and
deserves the bright reward that is glowing
on your cheek at this moment; but
still I do not quite comprehend how your
young wits have contrived to satisfy the
demand on the portion of the property redeemed
with two hundred dollars.” The
glow that had suffused Ellen's cheek
deepened as she replied “dearest Mrs.
Harrison, forgive me if I have not dealt
frankly with you; I wished to avoid exciting

your tender, but, believe me, unnecessary
solicitude about me. I have
made the best use of my little inheritance
in appropriating it to the relief of my
friends: the sum, as you know, was
originally four hundred dollars. It has
been more than doubled by Mr. Allen,
more prudent in the management of my
affairs than his own; and yesterday I
had the happiness of giving it into
George Lenox's hands, and of seeing
the joy of Mrs. Allen, when it was announced
to her by her principal creditor
that a valuable portion of her property
had been redeemed by an unknown
friend; and had you seen the expression
that lit up her sick face, when she exclaimed,
`thank God! my old mother
will not have to go forth from her son's
house to seek a shelter in her old age,
and my children, my dear children,
may come home to live again under
their father's roof.' Oh, Mrs. Harrison,
you might have envied me the pleasure
of that moment, had it cost me ten
thousand times the paltry sum I sacrificed
for it.”

“Then she is ignorant of her benefactor?”

“Yes—but do not give me that
name—benefactor! dear Mrs. Harrison,
it can only be because I owe to you an
equal debt, that you forget my obligations
to Mrs. Allen: did not she save
my helpless infancy from neglect, and
without a mother's instincts or rights,
has she not nurtured me with a mother's
tenderness?”

“You are right—you are right, my
noble-minded Ellen,” replied Mrs. Harrison,
as Ellen paused in her appeal:
“my fear of the possible evils you may
encounter (should I be removed from
you) from want and dependence afflicts
me with undue anxiety. I hope I should
have courage enough not to shrink
from any evils that menaced myself,
but when I think of your being exposed
to a cold selfish world, I feel a mother's
timidity; you, with your strange mysterious

history, Ellen, your inexperience,
your generous confiding temper,
with all that refinement that I have
foolishly, perhaps sinfully, delighted to
watch stealing over your character, with
all the graces that fit you for —”

“Oh, stop dear Mrs. Harrison, this is
strange language for you to hold, and
me to hear; my highest ambition is to
do well my duty in whatever station
Providence assigns me. This is an ambition,
as you have taught me, that cannot
be disappointed; here the race is to
the swift, and the battle to the strong.
I will not,” she added, playfully, “any
longer expose my humility to temptation;”
and she put on her hat, and stooped
to her friend for a farewell kiss, when
Mrs. Harrison said, “not yet, Ellen,
you must not go till you have explained
to me this benevolent sympathy of
yours and young Lenox's; this generous
union of your fortunes is doubtless received
by him as a good omen?”

“The event of our friend's happiness

has already interpreted the omen, and
explained all its significance,” replied
Ellen, rising and walking away from
Mrs. Harrison.

“Now come back to me, Ellen,” said
she, “and seat yourself here on my footstool,
and if your tongue will not speak
the truth, I must read it in your truth-telling
eyes and cheeks.”

Ellen turned towards her friend for
the first time in her life reluctantly;
and re-seating herself, she said with an
embarrassed air, “I scarcely can conjecture
what you expect from me.”

“I will not tax your sagacity to conjecture,
but come directly to the point
—do you love George Lenox?”

“Most certainly I do; I should be
the most ungrateful—”

“Pshaw, my dear Ellen, it is not
the love that springs from any such
dutiful source as gratitude which is in
question at this moment; but that mysterious
sentiment, inexplicable, uncontrolable
which does not require, and

seldom, I fear, admits a reason for its
existence.”

“I should be sorry, indeed, to confess
or to feel such a sentiment for any one.”

“Evading, again! Ah, dear Ellen,
the nature of the animal is known by its
doublings. You are so deep in the
science as to demand the use of technics:
tell me then, are you in love with George
Lenox?”

“Indeed I am not—you know I am
not, Mrs. Harrison.”

“I fancied I knew that you were not,
but nothing less than a gift of second
sight is infallible on such occasions; we
must go a little farther, Ellen, even at
the risk of deepening the crimson on
your cheeks—you surely are not unconscious
that Lenox is in love with you?”

“He has never told me so,” replied
Ellen.

“That may be—young Edwin `never
talked of love'—but without much experience,
you know there are expressions
that speak this passion more emphatically
than language: and, exempt as you are

from vanity, I think you cannot have
misunderstood this amiable young man's
devotion to you—his eagerness for your
society, his anxiety to gratify all your
wishes, his eye fixed on you as if he were
spell-bound—”

“O say no more,” exclaimed Ellen,
hiding her face on her friend's lap, “I
have understood George, but I hoped—”

“To be able to make an appropriate
return. Have I made out your
meaning?”

“Far from it—I hoped that our
approaching separation—that new pursuits,
new objects, would efface the accidental
preference which has arisen from
our early and confidential intercourse.”

“In short, you trusted to those accidents
over which you have no control,
to heal the wound that your kindness,
your unreserved manner, to this poor
young man has been for years deepening.”

“Oh, dear Mrs. Harrison, of what
do you suspect me—of the baseness of
coquetry?”

“No, Ellen, no, you are incapable of

trifling with the happiness of any one;
your error has arisen from inexperience.
I should have cautioned you but I am
not fit to be your guide and counsellor
in affairs of this nature, for though I
have lived more than half a century, my
secluded, childless life has offered few
opportunities of observation, and fewer
still where my sagacity has been stimulated
by interest. I forgive your surprise
and your indignation, my love, at what
you imagined my suspicion of coquetry,
for I know nothing more selfish, heartless,
base, and degrading, than for a
woman to encourage, nay permit the
growth of an affection which she has no
intention of returning.”

“I should detest such a miserable
triumph of vanity.” exclaimed Ellen;
“I should hate myself were I capable
of it, and George, kind, generous as he
is, the sufferer. What ought I to do—
can I do any thing now,” she asked,
with the impatience of a generous mind,
to repair the evil it has inflicted?”

“No, my love,” replied Mrs. Harrison,
“it is only by leaving undone, that
mischief can be avoided in affairs of this
kind. George goes to-morrow, avoid
seeing him again, if you can without
apparent design, for farewell words and
looks furnish food for the sweet and
bitter fancies of a brain-sick lover during
any interval of absence.

“The severe suffering,” she continued,
as she marked the deep melancholy that
had succeeded Ellen's usually animated
expression, “you feel at this moment,
from having been the involuntary cause
of disappointment to your friend, will
teach you in future jealously to guard
the happiness that may be exposed to
the influence of your attraction. You
are in no danger of the silly vanity of
fancying that civility means love, and of
giving importance to every trifling gallantry;
but modest—humble in your self
estimate, you are in danger of wounding
deeply the bosom that is bared to your
involuntary shafts.”

“There is no need of caution for the
future,” replied Ellen, “no one else
will ever care for me so much as George
does.”

“That may be, dear Ellen, but as you
are scarce eighteen, it is possible that
you have not finished your experience
in love affairs; if you preserve that
woe-begone visage indeed, any other
safeguard against the effect of your
charms will be quite superfluous: come,
my love, cheer up, and let me hear your
sweet voice at my dinner table, as sweet
to me as minstrelsy to an old chieftain.”

Ellen made a vain effort to recover
her spirits, and then hurried away that
she might indulge her ingenuous sorrow
without giving pain to her friend. She
was careful to follow Mrs. Harrison's
prudent counsel, and when George Lenox
came to pass his last evening with
her, he received a friendly farewell
message, with the information, that her
duty to Mrs. Allen precluded her seeing
him again. Before the morning dawned

George was in a stage-coach on his way
to the south. He passed the boundary
of Lansdown with almost as heavy a
heart as our first parent bore through
the gates of Paradise: feeling like all
true lovers, “that the world is divided
into two parts; that where she is, and
that where she is not.”

It would be difficult to say whether
Mrs. Harrison was most gratified or disappointed
by the result of her investigation
into the state of Ellen's affections.
While she lived her annuity was ample
for the support of Ellen and herself;
but nothing could be more precarious
than such a dependence, and Ellen might
be left to encounter alone the wants of
life. Young Lenox had promising
talents, and those “getting along” faculties,
that are a warrant for success: his
devoted attachment was merit in the
eyes of Mrs. Harrison; still he wanted
those refined habits, that delicacy of
taste, the result of cultivation, and those
graces of manner to all which Mrs.

Harrison from her early habits and associations,
gave (it may be) an undue importance.
There is such a taste for
learning (we use the word in its provincial
sense) pervading all ranks in New
England,—if indeed ranks can be predicated
of a society where none dare to
define the dividing lines, and few can
perceive them—that we often see those
advanced to the most conspicuous stations
in society, whose boyish years have
been spent in ploughing the narrow
fields of the patrimonial farm. There
are some disagreeable results from this
state of things, on the whole so honourable;
and Mrs. Harrison felt that in
implanting in Ellen the tastes that belonged
to the highest grades of society,
and in cultivating the habits of the
“born lady,” she had conferred a superiority
of doubtful value; and she was
almost led to regret the fastidiousness
which had been her own work, when
she felt herself compelled to trace to it
Ellen's rejection of the affection of one
who was her equal in all important respects,
and whose excellent character
and flattering prospects would have rendered
a connexion with him highly advantageous.
We said Mrs. Harrison
almost regretted the state of Ellen's
heart—we fear she did not quite, for in
common with the best individuals, she
sometimes sacrificed general and immutable
principles to the indulgence of her
favourite peculiarities.

Mrs. Allen's life closed at the end of
a few painful weeks, and Ellen, after
having performed every service for her
with the strictest fidelity, wept over her
with filial sorrow. Old Mrs. Allen soon
after joined her grandson at Eton, and
Ellen thus unfettered by duty, returned
to Mrs. Harrison's, where her life passed
happily in pursuits congenial to her
taste, till she was summoned to Vermont
by intelligence of the threatening illness
of Edward Allen.