University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

There is something lovely in the name of sister,
and its utterance rarely fails to call up the warm affections
of the gentle heart. The thoughts that circle
round it are all quiet, beautiful and pure. Passion
has no place with its associations. The hopes and
fears of love, those strong emotions, powerful enough
to shatter and extinguish life itself, find no home there,
The bride is the star, the talisman of the heart, the diamond
above all price, bright and blazing in the noonday
sun; a sister, the gem of milder light, calm as the
mellow moon, and set in a coronet of pearls.

It was late in the Autumn of 18—, when a small
party of young gentlefolks were assembled at the mansion
of Doctor Gray, in one of the principal streets of
the city of Boston. The house was large, and well
furnished; and all the arrangements for the little fete,
and the fete itself were conducted with that simplicity
and propriety, which are ever the evidences of taste
and delicacy. At a moderate hour, the happy guests
departed, pleased with the hostess, the entertainment,
and with themselves. One only lingered behind, a

very youthful gentleman, who stood with his hand
upon the drawing-room door, in conversation with
Mrs. Gray, and her young, charming daughter. Mrs.
Gray remarked that it was still early, and that Henrietta
and herself would sit up for the Doctor; and
his own wishes thus seconded, the young man again
resumed his chair.

Henrietta Gray, at this period, was thirteen, half-girl,
and half-woman; an age when the maiden stops
in her childish sports, and wonders why they have
always interested her so deeply; and as she muses,
sees in the distance, fairy palaces, and green and flowery
banks, and smooth, translucent rivers—the thorns
and rough waves of the future all blissfully hidden
from her. She was not handsome: her features were
not regular, her face was too pale, her form too slight.
But then the combined expression of the whole was
pleasing. Her eyes were a liquid blue, her countenance
intelligent; and, above all, kindness beamed in
every feature; and when she spoke, her voice was like
the soothing ripple of a gentle stream.

Arthur Blane, the youth who had secured a few additional
minutes for the enjoyment of Henrietta's society,
was about two years her senior; a fair-haired, rosy
lad, of modest manners; who, as he finally bade her
good night, looked into her eyes and trembled; and
his voice sunk to a cadence almost as mellow as her
own; so true it is, that gentleness begets gentleness,
and tends to subdue all things to itself.

But Arthur Blane's footsteps had hardly died away
on the stairs, when they were heard again in a rapid

ascent; and rushing into the presence of Henrietta
and her mother, pale and affrighted, in a few broken
words, but tenderly as possible, he informed them
that an accident had befallen the Doctor. The brief
announcement was hardly ended, when the ghastly
person of Doctor Gray, senseless and bleeding, was
borne into the house. The explanation of the casualty
was, that in returning from a professional visit, in
a dark and narrow street, his carriage had been overturned
by striking against a post.

The sudden transformation of Doctor Gray's elegant
and happy mansion to a house of mourning; the wild
grief of Mrs. Gray, the heart-broken sighs of Henrietta;
and the attempts of Arthur Blane, and other
friends hastily summoned at midnight, with consternation
pictured in their faces to administer hope and
consolation; the Doctor's gradual return to consciousness;
and the doubts and apprehensions of his
medical attendants as to the final result; are of a nature
too painful to dwell on. Suffice it, that with the
morning the family were permitted to hope; and the
Doctor entered on a period of slow and painful convalescence.

Doctor Gray was, or had been, one of the most
skilful and popular physicians of the city. He was
now fifty years old; and, unfortunately having remained
a bachelor until thirty-five, during the period
of his single life he had acquired habits of conviviality
and late hours, which he had never found the
resolution to abandon. He was in the main a kind
husband, and an affectionate parent; but as evil habits,

if not vanquished, in the end are almost certain
to vanquish, so the Doctor's relish for the glee club
and the bottle had grown upon him, until it had nearly
made its last demand, in a claim for his life.

Another evil had still followed in the wake of the
Doctor's course of life. It lost him the confidence of
his friends; and for several years, while the expenses
of his family had been increasing, his business had
been diminishing. His accident, and the confinement
of several months which followed, turned the attention
of his creditors to the condition of his affairs;

and he recovered only to find himself a bankrupt
and his wife and children reduced to beggary.

At this distressing period in the history of the
Gray family, the Doctor and his three younger
children suddenly disappeared; and no trace of them
could be discovered. After a time of wonder,
of grief and despair, Mrs. Gray and Henrietta, the
sole remaining members of the household, retired
to cheap and narrow quarters in the suburbs of the
town, where the mother, overcome by the successive
shocks of her severe destiny, sunk into a condition
of imbecility.

Not so with Henrietta. Though a shadow rested
on her pale face, and the sorrows of her young life
had sunk deeply into her heart, a kind Providence
had not suffered her to be broken by their unusual
weight. She was still gentle as ever, but misfortune
is rapid in the development of character; and to
gentleness were now added an unlooked-for fortitute
and energy. Her mother, entirely incapable of effort,
and herself, were to be fed. She laid her case at the
foot of Omnipotence, and received strength. Friends,
it is true, were kind; and some relations there were,
who did not utterly forget the bereaved ones in their
affliction; but, in the main, the wants of both mother
and daughter were now to be supplied, and, for a period
of weary months and years, were supplied by the
labours of Henrietta. When not occupied with the care
of her sick parent, her needle was in active requisition:
and early and late she toiled, and toiled cheerfully, for
bread; and thanked God that it was daily given her

Among her kind friends, none were more constant
or thoughtful than Mr. and Mrs. Blane. Neither did
Arthur forget her; and to the great scandal of the
prying ones, he divided the leisure of his college
vacation pretty equally between his father's
and the homely tenement of the Grays; and as
he was an only son, of large expectations, to the
further scandal of the gossips, his parents seemed to
view his conduct with a total unconcern. Indeed, in
these visits, his mother was almost his constant companion.
When not diversified with the society of these
friends, life, with Henrietta, presented little else than
one unvarying toilsome round. Her household duties,
her struggle for sustenance, and her care of her half
idiotic and often captious parent, occupied her hands,
her thoughts, and her heart; and yet she had room
for other sorrows; and withal, was not unhappy.
The inscrutable and mysterious fate of her father and
her little brothers, was of itself a burden hard to be
borne: and yet, with all these causes of depression
bearing upon her, the consciousness of a daily effort
to perform her duty, and above all, an humble and sincere
reliance on the goodness and care of Heaven,
lightened her heart and her footsteps, and clothed her
brow with serenity. While the ills of life are scattered
with great apparent irregularity, its happiness is
dispensed with far more equal balance than is generally
imagined.

Nearly four years thus wore away, when the thread
of life, which for some months had been growing
weaker and weaker with Mrs. Gray, parted; and

Henrietta, of all her family was left. The Blanes
were with her in her affliction; and crowned their
generous kindness by offering her a home. The sympathies
of her own relatives, too, were so far awakened
by this last event, and the desolate condition of
the stricken orphan, that her aunt Totten made her a
like offer, which, for obvious reasons, Henrietta preferred
to accept. Her rooms were accordingly given
up, the humble furniture disposed of, and she became
domesticated at her aunt's.

About a month after this event, Mrs. Totten's servant,
one morning, left a couple of letters at Mr.
Blane's. One was addressed to Mrs. Blane, and the
other to Arthur; and they proved to be from Henrietta.
The one to Arthur was unsealed, and as follows:

“Dear Arthur,—At a moment like this, when I am
about to be separated from you for a time, and possibly
for ever, no feeling of delicacy must prevent my
treating you with the frankness due to your noble and
generous nature. That I love you, you will not
doubt; and I am ready, so far as my heart is concerned,
to become your wife. But I have first another
and imperative duty to discharge. My inquiries after
my lost father and brothers, have at length, as I have
reason to believe, been crowned with success. I must
go to them. Do not seek to follow me, or to trace
me out; and if Heaven preserve me, the devotion of
my life shall repay you. But if this be too hard, dear
Arthur, take back your plighted troth, and be only my
brother again.”

When these letters arrived, Arthur Blane was absent
from the city; and on his return, he hastened to
Mrs. Totten's. From that discreet lady he obtained
little additional intelligence. Henrietta was gone;
but where, if she was in possession of the secret, Mrs.
Totten was too guarded to disclose. His inquiries at
the several stage offices and elsewhere, with a view
to ascertain the direction she had taken, were equally
unsuccessful; and as this hope faded, gradually Arthur
Blane's handsome and happy face assumed a lengthened
and woe-begone expression. As months rolled
away, he sunk into a nervous listlessness, which assumed,
in the lapse of years during which he heard
nothing from his betrothed, more and more the
character of moroseness. His only relief was in travel;
and what excited a much greater amount of
remark was the circumstance that his parents, in their
old age, were also seized with a mania to see the
world. During these peregrinations, the three, often
in company, visited most of the towns in New England,
explored a large part of New York, and penetrated,
at several points, the interminable West beyond.