University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

A little before one o'clock, on the same
day in which the scenes at the miliner's took
place, a gallant cavalcade, consisting of half
a dozen ladies and gentlemen, started from
the door of one of the princely mansions in
Girard Place, and, full of gaiety and spirits,
turned towards Broad street. Here they gave
the rein to their spirited horses, aud at a rapid
pace rode along this magnificent avenue,
which, but for the railroad that disfigures it,
would be without a parallel in the cities of the
Union. A few minutes swift riding brought
them into the suburbs, and after winding
through many shady lanes, and traversing
pleasant roads, adorned with citizens' villas,
they issued upon a spacious thoroughfare,
crowded with carriages, pedestrians, and
horsemen, and, soon after, descending a hill,
from which was a most delightful rural prospect
of woodland, lawn, and river, they drew
rein at the gate of the Laurel Hill Cemetery.
By the courtesy of the very gentlemanly originator
and director of this lovely spot, Mr.
Smith, the ladies were permitted, without the
trouble of dismounting, to ride through the
gravelled avenue of this exquisite place.

`Pray, Mr. Smith,' asked one of the ladies,
distinguished less by a superb green riding-habit,

that swept the ground with its flowing
folds, than by the elegance of her figure, the
dazzling beauty of her face, the perfection of
her seat in the saddle, and the admirable
maniege of her steed; `pray, Mr. Smith, do
tell me if that is one of Thom's statues of
Souter Jonny you have in that niche?'

`Ride nearer, Mrs. Wharton, where you
can look over the iron fence, and you will recognise
in it a graver friend of yours than
Souter Jonny,' said the director smiling.

`It is Old Mortality, in very truth, Percy
---Frank, did you ever see any thing so perfect.
I wish Walter Scott were of our party
and could see it. How it would delight the
good old gentleman.'

`Which of them, Scott or Mortality, sis?'
asked the young man whom she had called
Frank, the very same young gentleman that
had made Caroline Archer work a button-hole
stitch on `a hem.' A pair of fawn colored
gloves he had purchased were upon his
hands.

`Are you not ashamed, Frank, to destroy
Emmy's sentiment?' asked Percy Warton,
smiling.

`Frank has no more sentiment than Sultan
here!' she said, patting her horse upon the
arches mane. `See how intelligently he
looks, as if he were alive to the beauties of
the sculpture and had read Waverly. Out
upon you, brother Frank.'

`Believe me sis, he is trying to spell out
that tin sign hung on the statue, like a porter's
label.'

`Silence, brother! this is no place for light
conversation. Indeed, I think it will be wrong
to ride through the cemetery.'

`Trains of funeral carriages traverse it
daily,' Mrs. Wharton,' said the proprieter, `and
I always drive in in my barouche.'

`You had best ride in, Emily,' said Percy,
`as we have planned a long ride before we
return to the city, and there will be detention
in re-mounting.'

Slowly moving along the ascending and
winding avenues, the whole party, accompanied
by the attentive director, went through
the whole cemetery, lingering here and there
before a monument, and selecting lovely spots
where they thought they would love to lie
when life's cares were over.

`Elizabeth!' repeated Mrs. Wharton, pausing
before a simple block of white marble
erected above a greon grave. `How touching!
Not another word on the tomb! How
affectingly touching! Here is another

`My daughter, aged seventeen years!'
What a tale these few eloquent words tell.'

Thus they wandered through the rural
grounds of the cemetery, yet pausing a moment
on the highest part, where all its ways
met, to contemplate a prospect that has no
equal. The Schuylkill, stretched away to the
right and left, presenting on either hand the
most perfect scenery, so that it was difficult
to decide which were the lovelier, the northern
or southern view. Its banks were adorned
by groves of oak and elm, that from sloping
green hills, descended till they hung over
the water, which was black with their shadows.
Numerous villas, with laws of bright
green spread before them, studded here and
there with a copse or a group of venerable
trees, were half hid, half seen through the
torests on either shore; while the quiet and
repose of the whole was relieved and enlivened
by gaily painted canal barges, gliding beneath
the banks and filling the air with the
wild melody of their bugles.

`How lovely!' was the exclamation of all,
after they had surveyed the beauty of the
prospect.

`Do you remember Mount Auburn?' asked
Percy of Emily.

`Yes, but it is less lovely than this. Here,
methinks, I would willingly repose after death.
I never thought so of Mount Auburn. There
is a gloom and awful solemnity about its
deep glens and dark dells, fringed with pine
and cypress, that made me shudder as I entered
them. What lovelier place could
one desire, dear Percy, than beneath yonder
graceful willow---where the sun-beam is broken
into diamonds ere it falls on the sward,
and where the singing birds light and pour
forth their happy song.'

`A literary friend of mine who was here
yesterday,' said Mr. Smith, `spoke of the
same spot, and was so struck with its retired
beauty, that he was half inclined to remove
two lovely children buried at the South and
place them here.'

`It is, indeed, a lovely spot. If it were

mine, I would have a monument erected there
with simply `Percy' and `Emily' upon it,'
said Mrs. Wharton, with tenderness.

`Nay, dear Emma—this is idle!' said Percy,
with a look of distress. `We will return
to the gate, Frank, and mount our horses.
Good morning, Mr. Smith, and receive our
thanks for your kindness and courtesy. Laurel
Hill is a lovely place—but all its loveliness
will not disguise the fearful use to which
it is devoted. Allons, Emma.'

As he spoke, he unintentionally waved his
riding whip with a quick movement near the
head of her fiery horse, which started back
and reared with her so high, that, fearing she
would lose her seat and fall backward, she
struck him a smart blow with her whip. The
animal, enraged at this, bounded forward
along the avenue on a run, and with the bit
in his teeth, rapidly followed the windings of
the walk, perilling her life at every turn in
the path, and swiftly descended the excavated
road leading to the gate. Mrs. Wharton
did not lose her presence of mind, and maintained
her seat like a good horsewoman; but
all her strength and management was not
sufficient to give her command of the curb.
The gentlemen had followed, like the wind,
to intercept the horse ere he reached the gate,
and were turning the angle on the mound
that brought them in sight of it, when they
saw the horse, who found the gate closed
against him, turn short round to retrace his
steps, and throw her with the saddle, the
girth of which broke, with violence against a
column of the arch. In a moment Percy
and her brother were at her side, and supporting
her in their arms. She was bleeding
profusely from the mouth, but to the earnest
inquiries of both she replied she was not
hurt, as the saddle had broken the force of
her fall.

`I have only cut my lip, I believe,' she
said with a smile, trying to re-assure her
alarmed husband.

She put her hand to her mouth as she spoke,
and with a shriek, such as only a beautiful
woman with a fine set of teeth could give at
such a moment, almost fainted in Percy's
arms.

`My dear Emma—you are dying!' he ex
claimed in alarm. `Alas, my beautiful wife.'

`Alas, my beautiful teeth!'

`Teeth!'

`I have lost my teeth,' she said with despair.

`Nothing more. Thank heaven! I thought
you were seriously hurt.'

`My teeth, Percy! my beautiful teeth!'

`Here is one—here is another—by the
rood! here are four of them, sister Emma!'
cried Frank, gathering up from the gravel,
as he spoke, four of those brilliant teeth
which had made Mrs. Wharton's smile so
fascinating, and of which, next to Percy, she
was so, innocently, vain. `Have you lost
any more!'

`Any more!' repeated Mrs. Wharton, in
despair.

`Indeed, Emily dearest, have you suffered
no other injury than the loss of your teeth.'

`No other Percy.'

`I am thankful for the preservation of your
life.'

`You will love me no longer, Percy. I
shall be a fright! I would rather have been—'

`Killed outright, you were going to add, I
dare say, sis,' said Frank, kissing her tenderly;
`for a pretty woman to lose her life is, I
believe, a less sacrifice than to lose her beauty.
But never despair. You have got beauty
enough left to make a hundred foolish
fellows, like Percy here, fall in love with
you.'

`What shall I do! Mercy! my voice sounds
like grandma's!'

`You have the advantage, then,' said
Frank, `of knowing how you will speak
when you get to be a grandma?'

`Frank, you have no pity! What shall I
do, Percy?'

`Go to Dr. —'s, the dentist.'