University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.

The morning broke still and serene over the shores of the Chesapeake,
now in the full fruition of their summer glories, and the flowers clustering
with a rich harvest of beauties o'er hill and dale, garden and lawn, meadow
and brook. The sun was just scattering his ruddy rays over the eastern
shores, and lighting up the sleepy waters of that glorious inland sea, like a
burnished mirror clearing itself from the taint of human breath. The marine
birds soared in lazy flights along the surface, admiring their own graceful
shadows, perhaps, while out toward the ocean, they seemed like white feathers
floating lazily in the sun beams. It was a morning to give wings to the imagination,
yet the picture cannot be embodied perfectly to the mind of another,
it must be felt as well as seen. The accessaries of temperature, health, position,
and, above all, the true, mood must be present to insure its perfect enjoyment.
To exist, to breathe, is then a positive enjoyment.

Kate Spotswood was of a temperament to enjoy all these summer glories,
with a relish only known to nature's poets and painters. She was not disposed
to indulge in the dreamy mood alone, however, for at the first peep of
dawn she was in Ellen Evylin's room, and had roused up the valetudmarian.
That wakeful child of sorrow lay with her eyes as preternaturally bright as
they were the night before, and Kate saw that they had been very differently
employed than in sleeping, for her pillow was yet moist with tears. She
begged her friend to leave her to her thoughts; but no, Kate said, “she was
her physician, that her father had put her under her care, and she was now
about to administer the first prescription;” she drew the curtain from the
window, and pointed to the glorious scene without, stretching away in the
distance, until it was lost is the misty junction of the watery horizon. “Look,
dear Ellen, at those long blue pennants sweeping out towards Cape Charles,
did you ever see any thing more beautiful? see how they contrast with the
lighter blue of the sky, and now how the sun, rolling up behind, tips their
edges with crimson. Get up, dear Ellen, God never made these morning
glories to be seen in bed; it is the salutation of Heaven to Earth; nature is
just drawing the first curtain from before his altar, and we of the earth should
not reject the proffered boon.”

“Dear Kate, what an enthusiast you are?” said poor Ellen, still longing
to be alone.

“Enthusiast, Ellen? indeed I am an enthusiast, God loves enthusiasts, and
the wicked only hate them. They chime not with gross and grovelling pursuits;
they are of Heaven, not of Earth. All that is bright and lovely and
beneficent of Earth, is born of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm first discovered this
glorious land; it fired the hearts of the Crusaders; and if they recovered not
the Holy Land, did far more, for they exalted our sex to their true position

and dignity. My father, too, he is called an enthusiast by the cold-blooded
common senso men; look at him, dear Ellen, his thoughts soar forever over
those blue mountains, and that very passion will cary him one day to their
summits, and does it not ennoble his character? Is he not elevated by it; see
how pure and guileless he walks among the poor intriguing politicians who
clog his steps, and yet cannot advance one of their own. Is he not the life
and soul of the whole Colony?”

“Kate, you bear down all opposition, I give up to enthusiasm: only bring
me back to its brilliant hopes and aspirations, and you will earn your title of
Doctress, indeed!”

“That will I, my poor scared bird; you have been caged so long, that you
have forgotten how to flutter, much less fly; but come, soar along with me
among the bright wings that surround us without, and your pinlons will come
back again. You were never made, dear Ellen, to grovel, and pine, and
die among the tamer duties and every day drudgeries of life.”

“I have substituted duty for enthusiasm, Kate.”

“Duty! well, come Mrs. Duty, only give me your hand and I will trip you
over field and flower, and brae and brake, and moor and lawn, until we shall
accomplish all Mrs. Duty's task, and far more besides. I tell you, Ellen, that
duty is none the worse for a little of the genuine fire, she goes lame without
wings, and even hobbles on crutches, but clap the pinions to her, and she soars
aloft, and sips the very beauties which God created to be met half way by
such a spirit. Heaven itself is but one continued scene of enthusiasm; we
cannot form a conception of its glories without bidding good-day to Earth.”

“And leave poor old Duty behind.”

“There you are wrong, dear Ellen, to separate them; I would only clothe
the dame in brilliant bues, while you want to murder her with rags and
poverty.”

“Oh, Kate, how you do run away with the argument.”

“Not at all, Ellen, I only want to convince you that there are more ways than
one to do right, and that even doing right in in a peculiar way, is very near
a kin to doing wrong.”

“Why, Kate, one would think to hear you talk, that I had been doing something
very wrong.”

“It is not exactly that, dear Ellen, but I wish to convince you that there
are higher and nobler duties than those, with the performance of which you
satisfy your conscience.”

“You surprise me exceedingly! tell me what those high duties are?”

“A cheerful spirit is the first and greatest thing which you lack,” seeing
the poor valetudinarian burst into tears, she pushed away her woman and
threw her arms round her, while she continued:

“Nay, nay, nay, Ellen, I would not wound you for the world; I wished
rather to coax than scold you from your settled dejection.”

“Kate, you know not what I suffer, you cannot, no one can know.”

“There is the very point dearest—try it with me, no mother ever listened
to daughter with the same indulgence that I will listen to you. If your
imagination magnifies trifles into matters of importance, it is enough for me
that they are so to you, and I will look at them with your eyes. Dear Ellen, I
seek your confidence with the most sincere desire to befriend you—I promise
you I will feel too much as you feel—I will weep when you weep, and if you
cannot laugh when I laugh, why, we will e'en cry together. Dear Ellen,
throw me not off, I love you like my own, own Sister.”

“I cannot withstand your appeal, Kate, you have made a child of me, and
you must put up with my childishness.”

By this time Kate had her arm round the walst of the invalid, and was
urging her through the garden, to the grove beyond.

“Here is a lovely seat,” said she, “and we can sit here at the foot of this
old tree and talk till we are tired—or rather till you are tired, for when that
comes, then I will talk to you. The birds you see are warbling their pretty
stories among the fresh green leaves. See that mocking bird, how it chatters
to its mate, that is me, Ellen, and the silent one represents you, only I'm sure
I cannot discourse such sweet music as my prototype.”

“Dear Kate, the very sound of your voico, cheers my heart,—before I left
home, I had not walked this far, for many, many months.”

“Oh how I rejoice, that you are come at last—you don't know how I have
longed to have you here, just as now, your whole confidence mine.”

“I shall be so, Kate, and I have often wished for such a confident, but my
whole being shrinks from disclosing the weaknesses of earlier days.”

“One to hear you talk, would suppose you fifty at the least.”

“I may appear staid and sober enough, but I have not always been so.
Do you not recollect when we first met at the Capital, what a thoughtless
rattlebrain I was?”

“I recollect only that you took me captive, heart and soul, little girls as we
were, and if I remember right, I was not the only one.”

“Oh, Kate! what memories your words recall—what happiness—what
weaknesses! those of childhood, to be sure,—but is not the sturdy oak bent
when it is a twig, and grows it not so forever? You know it is so Kate,
with our sex at least. The world is all wrong in supposing that we wait to
come out into the world to prepare for the world. Those things which fix—
irretrievably fix our destiny, are the legitimate fruits of childhood—they are
matters of feeling, not of judgment. I am almost wicked enough to repine
sometimes when I think that my destiny for this life was cast and lost before
I was perfectly a responsible being, but it was doubtless so designed by an
All-Wise Providence, to teach me that this is not my true home.”

“There now, Ellen, we might begin the argument again, were I disposed
to interrupt you, but I am not. You were speaking at the time when we
first met.”

“Or rather Kate, when I first met Frank Lee. You see I can even call
his name now, which my poor fond father would no more do in my presence,
than he would explode a petard at my feet. Poor Frank was left a ward of
my father's, you know. Papa attended old Mr. Lee in his last illness, he was
unprepared to die—no will made. Papa wrote his will and agreed to accept the
trust of his two sons, Francis and Henry. He brought them from Westmoreland
with him and they went to College from our house. Oh, what
happy, joyous, frolicksome days were those of the first year. I saw no difference
in the boys, they were both my seniors, and both as brothers to me.
Those happy, happy evenings during the long winter nights, when my father
used to sit and talk to us about the structure of the earth—its revolutions,
and those of the other planets, and then of the innumerable worlds beyond—
and sometimes he would perform chemical experiments for our amusement—
in short he became a child among children, in order that they might become
men. But I went hand in hand in all their studies, aye, and plays too—they
almost made a little Amazon of me, and I really believe they would have
taken me out gunning with them, if papa had not put his veto upon it. This
he could not do however with all the unfeminine amusements into which they
forced me. You recollect my little sorrel poney, and how we three cantered
over the neighborhood of Williamsburg. Not an old fish or oyster negro, but
knew us a mile off. Oh, how merry Frank was—so full of buoyant spirits—
so exhiliarated with hope—so cheerful—so kind to every body, so obliging—
so repentant when he did wrong, so stern and steady when right. I
think I can see his pouting lip now maintaining his boyish rights.

“Do you know Kate, that I saw a fearful resemblance to the expression of

his mouth in that strange tutor last night. I know it was only a chance resemblance,
wholly accidental, but it has interested me in that young man.
When I saw him throw his eyes to the floor and become lost in a reverie, until
they had to jog him quite rudely, when it came to his turn to read, I would
have given any thing in this world to have travelled with his thoughts to
his distant home, and proscribed friends. Perhaps thought I, he too has been
left an orphan like poor Frank, and wandered as he did, from the happy scenes
of his childhood, and is now calling them up one by one, in painful pictures
of the past. I longed to compare notes with him, I know it was very foolish,
but it was all conjured up by that smile.

“Oh such an expression, never but one youth before had. It told a history—
there were years of association with it, long years of memory lent their shadows,
and that bright smile was like the dimples round a stone thrown at random
into the river, slowly receding and vanishing—leaving the shores and
their histories as if the stone had never been thrown. But where was I?
Oh! up to this time, I had never perceived any difference between the brother's,
or never analyzed it, if I had. Frank being the elder, seemed very naturally
to take the lead in everything. One circumstance I did remark, by the
by—whenever he went away to spend a day or a week, with some neighboring
youth among the gentry, we were all moped to death. Father and Harry
were as much rejoiced to see him return as I was, but this was attributed by
me at the time, to the breaking up of our little family party. I knew not but
it would have been the same if any other one had gone. I perceived not that he
was the very life and soul of our little meetings. Neither had I perceived up
to this time, that Frank was at all different from other youths of his age, he
appeared just like them to me—he dressed like the rest of the young gentry—
rode like them—talked like them. No, not exactly either—he did not talk
like common boys, for there was a winning gentleness about him mingled
with the manliness of riper years, which the old negroes used to say betokened
an early death. Alas, how true those forebodings were. You see I cannot
keep up the history of the two boys together, I so runaway with the memory
of Frank. There was no perceptible difference in their attainments at
school, more than could easily be accounted for by disparity of years. This
was not great, but two or three years is greater I believe in mental than physical
growth.

“As I began to approach my fourteenth year, now five years ago, I marked
the distinctive identity of my father's wards. I observed little things, but not
great ones—those on the surface, but nothing deeply. Henry was the more
silent of the two, more cautious, prouder and more given to the pomps and
vanities of his station. He loved to affect the gentleman even thus early,
would seldom ridc out without a servant, and loved to be waited upon for show
and ceremony's sake, as well as from convenience or actual necessity. He
could not bear a joke, of playfulness of any sort at his own expense, while he
was very willing to be amused at the expense of others; yet, when he laughed
or played, it was never with his whole heart and soul, like his brother.
You see, dear Kate, I am answering your oft repeated appeals in behalf of
Henry Lee, in giving his history.

“Henry, to tell the truth, loved self too much, and regarded others too little,
while his brother was the very reverse in every respect. Frank, you know, by
the laws of the land, inherited the bulk of his father's property, which had
been in no way disturbed by the will, except to give Harry his mother's
share, which was amply sufficient, I am told, to have made him independent,
and better off than younger brothers generally are. Yet there was now evidently
growing up a jealousy of his brother's great possessions. Though the
younger he would sneer at his brother's position, as the head of the family—
bow to him when rebuked, in mock humility.

“In all their College squabbles with other boys, Harry was sure to be the aggressor
in the quarrel, and Frank was sure to do the fighting; not that Harry
was a coward at all, but his brother was so much more of a generous
and ohivalrous nature. I have seen him come home all bloody from fighting
Harry's battles, and cannot remember an instance of the latter becoming
the champion of the other.”

“He was the younger,” said Kate.

“True, but he was the stouter and stronger too, I believe. However, give
him all the advantages of his position; I would not detract one iota from his
claims, of any kind. These distinctive marks in their character began to
develope themselves more and more every day, until the very servants
plainly showed their partiality for Frank. My father, too, impartial, calm
and temperate, as you know him to be in his feelings, could not help showing
his greater fondness for the elder brother, and this brings me to the
relation of a fact, a small one it is true, but these develope character.
Harry perceived this growing partiality of my father—if that may be called
partiality, which was nothing more than the love of good and generous actions,
and was not long in telling him of it. Not only did he charge him with
it, but he alleged that it was the result of interested motives, and grew
entirely out of his desire to secure Frank and his fortune for his daughter.
We were all present, and I am very sure that I shall never forget the
scene which succeeded. My venerable old father was terribly shocked, as
you may suppose, and he rebuked Harry, as I never heard him rebuke any
one before. If Harry had possessed any genuine feeling, he would have
shrunk into nothing, at such a withering castigation, from a source usually
so mild and gentle. But he was far from feeling remorse on the occasion,
and never retracted.

“It was a beautiful moonlight night, and I ran out into the garden, and there,
in that old summer house which you have so often chided me for making my
home, I had like to have cried my very eyes out, for mortification. I had
never had such a thought pass through my mind, any more than if Frank had
been my brother. Now that it was distinctly presented, and in such a startling
light, too, shall I confess it to you, my dear Kate, my kind confessor, that
it was not wholly unpleasant. The mortification was profound, but I fear the
poison had sunk equally deep with it. I, of course, at that age, could not
enter into a very rigid self-examination; my powers of self-analysis, if I had
even been disposed to exercise them, could not be very great, but I can trace
my feelings now, and I confess to you, that that charge, a disgraceful one if
true, carried with it a surmise that, though wholly untrue on our parts, it
might not be so on Frank's Oh, what a terrible quarrel succeeded between
those two young brothers; Frank poured down such a torrent of indignation
upon his brother, as no one could have supposed would ever issue from lips usually
so mild and gentle; and, must I confess all, it was mingled with such praises of
me, as no poor motherless girl of fourteen could hear in safety. I did not eave'sdrop,
but hearing the quarrel somewhat abate, I essayed to get to my own
room, which could only be approached through the one in which they were
sitting. I retreated to my seat again. My poor, almost heart broken father,
was already locked up in his chamber, and did not again make his appearance
that night.

“At length Henry was silenced, but not abashed or repentant, and walked
himself off in great state, declaring he would never enterour doors again. He
slept that night, truly enough, in College. When he was gone, Frank came
in search of me. You, dear Kate, can imagine my feelings; young as I was,
I was covered with shame, and must have looked to him like the guilty participator
in the interested scheme with which his brother charged me, but it
was from a very different cause.

“I was beginning to have a faint idea that the youth before me was indeed
dearer to me than a brother; and after what had been said, and feeling as I
did, how could I look him in the face? And how could he look at my evident
shame and embarrassment, without having a suspicion, at least, that that part
was true; but he was a brave, noble, generous boy; his own nature was too
bright and pure to suspect others. He seated himself on the grass at my feet,
and took both my hands, and then poured out his whole soul to me, boy as he
was, with all its generous treasures and lofty aspirations. He, too, it seemed,
had been unconscious of the slumbering passion within, until it had been
revealed sometime before by a similar scene between him and his brother,
when quite alone. Kate, I had to respond to his eloquent, pleading passion,
or else give further grounds for suspecting me of some sinister design in
future, because I had betrayed too much already to affect concealment now,
and I met his confiding nature with a frankness equal to his own.

“Oh, that bright, fair youth! how the true fervor of passion, in its first
and brightest dream, gushed from his heart. How brilliantly his graceful and
chaste imagination entwined our future lives, through vistas all green and
luxuriant with flowers, and from which even the rude blasts were most carefully
excluded. He knew little of the real world; he was as guileless and
unpractised in wickedness as a babe, and I was quite as inexperienced. Is it
surprising, then, that I listened to him with a charmed ear and a willing
heart? No, Kate; no girl reared as I had been could anticipate my sad
experience; and it springs not up in the mind by intuition. I listened and
believed; my faith was laid in the deepest foundations of my being; it was
grounded in my very soul. You, Kate, know something of a woman's love,
even in its inception; you know that it is not only a part of her being, but it
is the whole, at least, the layer upon which all else is built. But I not only
had true and unwavering faith in Frank himself, but I believed in his imaginary
paradise, which his glowing and delighted imagination had painted for
us. I believe that all of our sex spend at least the first quarter of their lives
under a similar illusion, if accident or circumstances produce not the youth
who is to walk hand in hand with us through these bowers of Eden, imagination
furnishes him at once, clothed in the same ideal colors which we throw
around the real youth, when he rises up before us. Oh, what a gorgeous
dream it is while it lasts! how its hues are thrown around every thing in our
little circumscribed world! your beautiful horizon this morning, Kate, crimson
lit, as it was, seemed poor and tame compared with these pictures, which
memory was even then rearing up over all the past. Can you wonder that
when I turn from them, and look into the cold and dreary future, my physical
strength, and even my moral courage, should sink under the withering contrast?

Even our little Eden found a tempter, I will not call him a serpent, for you
know Harry Lee and respect him, and he is often your father's guest, but I
will say that he is by no means exempt from the fierce and deadly passions of
our nature. Nay, more, and let this be the answer once for all to his suit, his
long and persevering suit, pleaded by so many able advocates. Though so
calm and high-bred in all his exterior man, he is but a common man still—all
his passions and deadly enmities are only schooled into good behavior; though
wreaths and flowers grow upon the surface, serpents slumber beneath.

“He returned to our house next morning, nothwithstanding his anathmas of
the evening before, and his stealthy and watchful jealousy very soon discovered
that there was an understanding between Frank and me, if not approved by
my father, and this brings me to the latter's view of the matter. He has
always been mother and father both, to me, consequently the most unreserved
confidence existed between us, as much so as ever existed between parent and
daughter. I went, after a sleepless night, and told him the whole story of our

youthful love and its premature revelation; for I can call it nothing else but a
discovery, and an accidental one on our parts. He was most deeply moved,
aye, and interested too, beyond that which a fond parent might be supposed to
feel, for he was struck with the novelty of such a youthful engagement. I
know that that youthful sentiment, or call it what you will has interwoven
itself into the very essence of my moral existence—it has become purified
and chastened, still more, I know, by poor Frank's untimely fate.” Here she
was interrupted for a while by her tears, but presently proceeded. “I say it
has become sublimated until it mingles with my higher sentiments, and has
become a part of my religious faith. I know of no aspirations after Heaven
and its enjoyments, that are not mixed up with thoughts of his pure spirit.”

“And yet, Ellen, you chided my enthusiasm this very morning?”

“Aye, dear Kate, not because I did not understand your feelings—I realized
them too vividly, and it brought a shudder over me to think how soon that pure
fountain of your own might be poisoned at its source.”

“Let me not interrupt you.”

“My father, I could see, was pleased in spite of himself, and in spite of
Harry's poisonous breath having been blown into our cup of happiness; but
he decided at once, that Frank must anticipate his Edinburgh course, before
determined upon, and they had a long interview that morning, the result of
which was that he was to set out forthwith. Here again, let me say that this
very thing constantly rises up in judgment against Harry. It is unjust, perhaps,
but I cannot help viewing him as in part the cause of poor Frank's
unhappy fate. True, he would have gone some time or other, like all the
youth among our gentry, to finish his education in Europe, but he would not
have gone then, and might have escaped the entanglement with your unhappy
relative's affairs, at any other time. Harry could not conceal his delight at
the new arrangement, even under his cold, proud exterior, and positively
refused to accompany his brother.

“The parting between Frank and me was at yonder town, and as you may
imagine was only supportable from the hope of our soon uniting again. My
father accompanied us to the ship, and we lay upon the water in our little
boat, waving our handkerchiefs, until that noble vessel had become a speck not
much bigger than the boat itself. I could have stayed there forever, or until
he came back, for he carried with him my present existence as well as future.
The past only is now my own, and its treasures I have been pouring out with
a lavish hand to you, my trnest and oldest friend. Harry seemed to think that
he had the whole game in his own hands, after Frank's departure—he could
not conceal his exultation—he attempted to assume his position in our family,
and even went so far as to affect his easy, careless ways and winning manners.
You know enough of that proud and haughty spirit, to estimate how
very unbecoming it appeared in him, but why need I dwell upon that particular
assumption of what was not his own—has he not assumed the hues of the
chameleon; and above all, has he not taken every thing that was Franks?”

“There, dear Ellen, I think you are a little unjust, for he, of course, must
inherit his brother's property.”

“Of course, but it is not just that—it was the indecent haste to step into
his shoes in all respects, to which I intended to allude, but perhaps I am
unjust to Harry in detailing particulars. I do not wrong him, however, in the
spirit which I attribute to him as to his past life. I know the man, Kate,
most thoroughly and intimately. Has not our childhood been spent together—and
is he not now ever at our house? No, no, Kate, I have not
wronged him on the whole—I have drawn a flattering likeness of him, and
now contrast poor Frank's personal outlines with his, and you have the two
pictures complete.” Saying which she drew forth a small picture hanging to
a ribbon, and looked at it steadily for a moment as a mother hangs over some

memento of her lost one, and then handed it to Kate. It was the miniature
of a fair haired youth, yet in his teens, in a crimson velvet dress—the ruffles
falling from his very white neck and hands, so as rather to add to the extreme
youthfulness of the general air. It was a face to look upon and remember
forever—an eye that sparkled with the high impulses of genius as well as the
flush of health and ardor of youth.

“No wonder, dear Ellen, that you cannot look upon Henry with favor, when
you cherish ever near your person such a rival as this. Oh, 'tis a noble
youth!”

“But let us put it by, Kate. It is not well for me to add to my own regrets
by hearing him praised by others. You already know all that sad part of his
history connected with your uncle's execution. You know that he fell fighting
like a hero for his rescue.”

“Would it not be well, my Ellen, to lay it out of sight altogether. I would
certainly advise the step, as the first preparation to fit you for resuming your
proper duties in society.”

“Dear Kate, what inconsistent creatures we poor mortals are—but now I
had almost taken your place, and become the enthusiast of the morning—and
you have almost taken mine, and gone to preaching of duty.”

“It is only the different lights in which circumstances place us. We are
not so dissimilar by nature as these have made us.”

“Oh, Kate, may yours never change so as to render us alike in circumstances,
as in nature, if it should so unfortunately turn out, all those brilliant
colors and gay flowers in which you are wont to clothe every thing, will be
changed to a vision of darkness. A young girl with hope blotted from the
catalogue of her attributes, is like the sky with the lights extinguished—the
longer and deeper you look into it, the blacker and more cheerless it looks. In
other words, it is despair, so far as this world is concerned. A woman who
can re-enact the scenes through which I have gone, must be like a tragedy
queen at rehearsal. No, no, Kate, we are formed for but one great trial of
this sort, and my probation is over. I long to sleep forever from the feverish
dream of this life's false hopes and bitter delusions. Death has no terrors for
me; I look at it as a kind friend, and I solemnly believe, that nothing but my
duty to the living has inspired me thus far to carry my troubles amongst the
joy of others. Yes, Kate, to make my confession the whole truth, without
reserve, there is one faint shadow at which I still cling. Do you know, that
sometimes, even yet, I cannot believe that Frank is dead? I cannot realize
it, you will say, because I was not present at the sad ceremonles. That is
something, doubtless, but I cling to things a little more substantial; two chcumstances,
so slight, that none but the hopeless could grasp at such straws.
First, then, we have never been enabled to hear those sad particulars, the last
scene I mean; and, secondly, Harry has some such faint notion himself; I will
not call it either a fear or a hope, for I cannot name it, but there is such a
surmise; and now, to conclude, let me confess further, that I came here
with the expectation of having this hope quenched or revived.”

“Indeed!” said Kate, truly surprised.

“Yes, Kate, there has been a secret funeral here, of one near and dear
to your father, and with whose death Franks was most intimately connected.
Your father has received many papers relating to these things, and I am
going to commission you sometime soon to be my embassador. Upon that
hope I live, Kate.'

“Most willingly will I assist you, for I do believe that something certain
in that matter is absolutely necessary for you, and that shall be obtained
at all events, now or hereafter; but do tell me, what funeral do you
allude to, and how could it be secret?”

“The remains of Gen. Elliot have been clandestinely removed here,

whether by your father's orders or by his friends in Europe, I know not,
but certainly with the Governor's approbation, for he had the place of
their reception prepared before the body arrived.”

“How, you astonish me! first at the facts themselves, and next at your
obtaining the information before me; but tell me how you know this to be true?”

“I received the intelligence in a letter from my papa, the very same
which enclosed your pressing invitation; he told it to me as a secret, however,
never supposing for a moment that I could divulge it to anybody,
much less that I would be down here almost as soon as the answer; and
brought, too, by this news. I obtained his permission to mention all this
to you, last night, as he said your father intended to communicate it to
the family, the first moment you were all alone.”

“This is very strange, but now I recollect, that gloomy looking structure
at the foot of the lawn, in the centre of a cluster of trees; and this accounts,
too, for papa's strange appearance the night we saw blood on his
face, and his unusually grave demeanor ever since. And this it was that
brought you to Temple Farm, a desire to pry further into these matters
that made me your confidant, after all.”

“Nay, nay, Kate, could I not as well have chosen Dorothea?”

“Yes, and got laughed at for your pains; sister has no more idea of any one
wasting away from immsterial afflictions, than she has of alchemy. Ten to
one but she would prescribe for your case a bowl of new cream, drank at her
dairy before breakfast. Dear, langhing little jade, she will never die the victim
of sentiment, depend upon it.”

“Thrice happy she,” replied Ellen with a deep drawn sigh, “such should be
all the daughters of this world, but she has yet to be tried, Kate. You may
underrate her susceptibilities.”

“I meant no more myself, Ellen—dear gool natured laughing little
baggage. I am sure I underrate her in nothing. I think this wide, wide
world, contains few such. Father lives over his own youth in her; but
we are forgetting the business in hand, and while we talk of our plans,
let us be moving towards the house slowly, the sun is getting too warm
here for you. Now let me know exactly what I am to do.”

“Why, you are to seize the first opportunity of having a private interview
with your father, at which you are to inform him how far we are
already let into his secrets, and then beg as a special favor for me the
the perusal of all the papers relating to the trial, death and attempted
rescue of General Elliot.”

“And will you, my Ellen, go into his library and pour over those piles
of musty papers, at the same table with this new private secretary of his,
for I understand that he is going to confer that vacant office, also, upon
the stranger who has so captivated him?”

“No Kate, no, we must have them in your room, and then we will
search them together, you have become interested sufficiently in my story,
to take that much interest, or if you dislike the task I will do it alone.
No mother ever read an epistle from a sick child with the same avidity that I
will pour over those musty papers.”

By this time they had reached the house, and seated themselves at the
breakfast table.