 | Alice May |  |
1. PART FIRST.
One cheerful autumnal morning, three years ago, a group of lovely
girls was assembled in a window of a fashionable boarding school in
one of the handsome streets crossing Mount Vernon. One or two of
them were seated with embroidery in their hands, but the rest were
standing and talking, and amusing themselves by watching the passers
by; for there was yet an idle quarter of an hour to recitations.
`Do you see that poor old man! how white his hair is, and how be
bends beneath his years, while that empty bag he carries seems a load
for him!' said a pretty blue eyed girl, in a tone of deep sympathy, with
which the expression of her face sweetly harmonized. `Open the win
dow, Ann, and let me throw to him a quarter of a dollar! I never see
an old silver-haired man, but what I think of my dear grandfather, and
for his sake love and pity him.'
`I can never see any thing romantic in an old ragged beggar,' said
a tall, grey-eyed girl, with a very high forehead, and a look like one
of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines; `If he was an aged minstrel, with a robe
and staff, and flowing locks of silver, and had a harp in his hand, and
sandals on his feet, how delighted it would be! I wish I had lived in
days of chivalry, these modern times are too common place.
`I am content to live when andwhere my life will be most a blessing
to those around me,' said the first speaker, with animation. `Do open
the money. See, he has stopped, and lifts up his aged eyes! Did you
ever behold a look of such eloquent pleading!'
`How much enthusiasm for a mere every day pauper!' said Miss
Letticia, the romantic girl, with a toss of her head.
The window was thrown up; and the example set by the benevolent
girl being followed by the others, the old man received on his tore hat
a shower of silver pieces. How lovely is charity in the young and
beautiful!
The aged beggar lifted up his venerable countenance with a grateful
look, bowed his bared and hoary head low to the pavement, and saying
in a trembling voice, `God bless you, young ladies!' went on his way.
While the window was still up, and they were looking after his feeble
steps—for we all feel an interest in the objects of our charity—a
young gentleman, well mounted upon a dark bay horse, came dashing
along. He was handsome, of a manly figure, and dressed and rode
well.
`Do shut the window down, girls,' said one of the young ladies,
laughing and retreating; `he will certainly think we have opened it on
purpose to look at him; and I don't choose to let any young gentleman
have such vain thoughts of himself—for they are all vain enough now.
See, he is looking this way!'
The young horseman seeing a bevy of pretty girls at an open window
could not well help looking at them very earnestly. Suddenly he
half reined up, his features became animated with a look of surprise
and happy recognition, and bowing with the deepest reverence while
his face crimsoned with embarrassment and joy, he continued on at
the same pace he had been before going.
`He bowed to some one of us! who knows him?' said they all.
`Not a soul I believe—he thought we were foolishly admiring him,
and so impudently acknowledged it,' said another.
`No, he looked as if he recognised one of us! Let us see who looks
conscious, as no one will speak,' said Anna Linton; `look at Alice
May's face! See her blushes and confusion. She is the one!'
Instantly every eye was fixed upon a young dark-eyed brunette not
more than seventeen years of age, whose delicately olive shaded complexion
was incardined with the richest blood; her long-fringed eyelids
were cast to the floor, and she stood silent, beautiful, conscious—her
pretty fingers picking in pieces a rose bud. Never was a maiden of
seventeen lovelier than she who now stood confessed before them, the
which the womanly comb had never desecrated, flowed darkly beautiful
in glossy waves about her finely shaped head and throat. Her
form was singularly graceful, every motion yielding to the eye a new
shape of beauty. The exquisite finish of her arm and hand, would
have made Canova an idolater. Her features were faultless. Her low,
gentle brow, with its dark-arching eyebrows, `like two delicate feathers
plucked from the black breast of the singing ummill,' was a throne
of serenity and beauty. Never were such eyes as beamed beneath!
large, languid, gentle and, but for the purity of the soul within, voluptuous!
Passion was there, but in the shape of love yet vestal and unawakened.
The young and happy heart with all its guileless emotions
unveiled and open, was ever drawing in them, to gladden and win the
hearts of all around her. None beheld her but they loved her. She
was the idol of the school, and the friend of all.
All conscious the lovely girl stood before them, and her downcast
eyes and attitude told a tale each was dying to get at the mystery of.
`Oh, where did you see him?'
`Where did you know him, Alice?'
`Is he from the south—an old lover?'
`Don't stand there blushing and making yourself look so wickedly
lovely! Do tell us!' were the questions with which she was overwhelmed.
Alice, however, laughed and blushed only the deeper, and breaking
away from them fled to her room.
2. II.
Perhaps the curiosity, raillery, and playful interference of others often
induces a young girl to think seriously of the individual about whom
she is teased, and to believe she is in love with him, whom perchance
she has met but once; when, in reality, if he had not been named to
her again after the first accidental meeting, she would never have given
him place in her thoughts. This was not, however, the case with
lovely Alice May! While she is confidentially confessing her meeting
with him to her young friend, Anna Linton, who had followed her to
her chamber and playfully teased her secret out of her, we will give it
to the reader in language of her own.
About a month previous to the period on which our briefly sketched
story is opened, a young gentleman of fortune, recently a graduate of
Harvard, whose name was Edward Orr, and who was a native of Boston,
was one morning riding on horseback, as was his favorite custom'
out of the arched gateway, he was prompted by the momentary impulse
to alight and enter. Without any definite object in view, save to enjoy
in the quiet of his soul the solemn repose of the place, he wandered
on from tomb to tomb, through dell and winding walk, enjoying the romantic
seclusion and experiencing that calm and intellectual delight,
(in which the more hallowed feelings always might,) which the solemn
loveliness of the place inspires in every properly cultivated mind.
Suddenly he emerged from a narrow path, thickly shaded by larch
trees, upon a secluded spot in the most lovely and quiet portion of the
cemetry. Before him, within a few paces, was a young girl arranged
in simple white, her straw hat fallen back from her head, her hands
folded before her, and her eyes directed towards a name upon a small,
exquisitely sculptured monument of white marble. The grace of her
fingers, the gentle earnestness of her bending attitude, the rich beauty
of her face, on which rested an expression of intellectual admiration in
which much of the heart was visible, charmed, surprised, enraptured
him! The dark trees were bending over the spot: the white marble
rose from the verdant sward in strange beauty amid the dark shades
cast by them; and she, in her white robe bending over it, seemed like
an angel watching the tomb to receive and bear heavenward the `arisen,'
when at length the trump of Gabriel should rend it open!
He feared to advance lest he should intrude upon hallowed ground.
His eye fell upon the inscription upon which her soft dark gaze was
bent so thoughtfully. It was simply
To my wife,
Mary.
20.
`What beautiful and touching eloquence in those few simple words!'
she said, in a low sweet voice that came from her heart, while he saw
that a tear glistened down her cheek. `There is a sad story of love
and hope, and joy and woe and death, couched beneath them! How
perfect the taste of the husband who in one simple line records the volumes
of his love! Thus would I be buried. My memory graven in
the hearts of those I love, my name simply carved on my tomb!'
At this moment her eyes were uplifted with the consciousness of being
intently observed, and they met those of the young man, whose
earnest admiring gaze, was not difficult to be translated by any maiden.
She slightly blushed, and instead of flying or betraying any foolish
charmed him.
`I fear, sir, you have heard some pretty nonsense! But I was not
aware I had an auditor! Yet what can be conceived more touching
than what has called forth my soliloquy,' and casting her eyes upon the
inscription, she replaced her bonnet and was retiring.
`It is indeed beautiful and touching,' said Edward lifting his hat as he
stood by the monument. `Will you have the kindness to tell me what
young bride lies buried here?'
The question was put so respectfully, his manner was so pleasing,
his face so intelligently handsome, his voice so rich and low, his eyes
so reverential yet so brilliant, that she could not resist a reply:
`I am ignorant sir.' She then added apologetically, `I have strayed
here away from my party, who calling me till they were tired left me
to myself. I must hasten to find them.'
`I fear you will not find them easy in this labarynth of walks,' said
Edward, seeing her retire. `Allow me to escort you,'
`No,' she answered playfully, yet blushing; `I think I shall not get
lost;' and bounding away he lost sight of her in a bend in the avenue.
For some moments he stood gazing where she had disappeared, and
then with a deep drawn sigh, and with a sensation of gentle melancholy
stealing over him, the first dawning of love, he slowly resumed his ramble.
Deep was the impression she made upon his heart, and as he
walked he was lost in a brown-study, of which she was the mystic volume.
He wandered how far and how long, whether five minutes or an
hour, he did not know, when he was aroused by the side of `the terrace
of tombs,' by a figure crossing his path. He looked up and saw
it was the maiden of the monument, whose image love was then busily
graving upon his heart. She was approaching him, and he saw that
she looked warm, hurried and a little alarmed.
`I am overjoyed to meet you, sir,' she said coming near with a hurried
step. `You will think me a very strange person! but I have as
you predicted, really lost myself! I have been wandering the last half
hour through a hundred paths, and this is the third time I have re-appeared
before these tombs.'
`Will you do me the honor to accept my guidance,' said Edward.
`You will think me a very foolish girl. I certainly have been very
imprudent. As I cannot hope to find my party in this wilderness, you
them in the carriage.'
The young man never felt so happy in his life, as at the moment the
lovely wanderer frankly placed her hand on his arm, and walked by
his side.
Edward was not familiar with the avenues, but listening and hearing
the distant roll of wheels along the turnpike, he carefully noted the
direction of the sound, and struck into the paths that he believed
would lead them towards the highway.
The birds that twittered and chirped in the branches that overhung
their way have not betrayed to us their conversation as they walked;
and we leave our readers to imagine what two young, ardent, intellectual,
enthusiastic persons, thus romantically cast upon each others companionship,
discoursed about at such a season.
`There is Spurzheim's tomb, and not far distant and visible from it
is the gateway,' said Edward as they emerged from a shaded avenue
which they had been slowly traversing. `I must now part from you;
but to bear with me the recollection of this hour as the happiest of my
life?'
His eyes sought hers, but they were downcast, and her blushing
face was averted. She suddenly withdrew her hand from his arm, for
footsteps and voices were heard? The next moment several young
girls preceded by two elderly ladies appeared conducted by one of the
party.
They were all looking earnest, anxious and hurried.
`Your friends?' asked Edward.
`Yes.'
At the same moment she was discovered; and they all came flying
towards her.
Amid the exclamations, embracings, chidings, wanderings, and joy
at recovering her. Alice, after being told a hundred times by half a
dozen dear voices, how much she had been sought for, how much they
believed she had been drowned in `the lake,' or had been spirited
away, or eloped with some lover, was triumphantly escorted along the
turnpike towards the city.
| Alice May | |