The Group of Sculpture.Chapter 1

“I have no hope in loving thee,
I only ask to love;
I brood upon my silent heart,
As on its nest the dove;
“But little have I been beloved—
Sad, silent, and alone;
And yet I feel, in loving thee,
The wide world is my own.
“Thine is the name I breathe to heaven—
Thy face is on my sleep;
I only ask that love like this
May pray for thee and weep.”
L. E. L.
“We know not love till those we love depart.”
L. E. L.

“Why will you sing that old-fashioned song, dear Annie, when you have so many much better suited to your voice?” expostulated Reginald de Vere, as he led the young songstress from her harp to a more retired seat. “I do not like your throwing away so much power and sweetness on a song which, of all others, I hate the most.”

“Do not say so, Reginald. You are not usually fastidious, or I would say, had that sweet melody Italian words instead of English, you would acknowledge its beauty, and feel it too.”

“Perhaps so, as it is not the melody, but the words I quarrel with—‘Home, sweet home.’ What charm has home ever had for me? Change the words, dear Annie, English or Italian, I care not, only remove all association of home, and I will learn to love it more.”

“Nay, Reginald; to banish such association would be to banish its greatest charm. One day you, too, may feel its truth.”

“Never, never!” he answered, passionately; “there is a blighting curse around me, which it were worse than folly to resist. I must toil on, lonely, and unblessed by one sweet tie of home—seeking for no love, and receiving none—isolated in a world! There are many others whose destiny is the same. Bound by the iron chain of fate, he is but a madman who would seek to break it.”

“Destiny—fate! I thought you had long ere this banished their baneful influence,” said Annie, in a tone of mild reproach.

“From your ear, my gentle friend, because I saw you loved not their expression; but not from my own heart. Yet you, too, believe all things to be pre-ordained; that not a sparrow falls to the ground unmarked. Then, why so start at me—is not our creed the same?”

“It cannot be, Reginald. I am not wise enough to know wherein the difference lies, I can only judge from effects; and when they are so opposed, I fancy the cause must be so also. I do believe that all things are ordained, but yet I am no fatalist.”

“Will you try and explain the distinction, for your words seem somewhat contradictory.”

“I fear they do,” she replied, simply; “and I am over bold to speak on this weighty subject at all. Your creed appears to me to consist in this: that before your birth, your path was laid down—your destiny fixed; that you are, in consequence, bound in chains, enclosed in walls, from which no effort of your own will can enable you to escape; that you must stand the bursting of the thunder-cloud—for you have no force or energy to seek shelter, no free will to choose—swayed by an irresistible impulse, and, consequently, not a responsible being. Such seems to me the creed of a fatalist.”

“And you are right. Now, then, for yours; less difficult, I should imagine, to explain, than that in which you have no interest.”

“I differ from you, Reginald. It is comparatively easy to define the subject of a passing thought or an hour’s study; but that which we feel, feel to our inmost soul, is not so easily clothed in words. I believe that an eye of love is ever watching over me—a guiding arm is ever round me; that nothing can happen to me, unless willed for my good by my Father in heaven; but I do not believe my lot in life marked out before I saw the light. Such a creed at once changes the law of love into a dark and iron-bound necessity, from which my whole soul revolts. Where would be the comfort of prayer in such a case—the blessedness of pouring forth one’s whole soul in the hour of affliction? for how could prayer avail us were our lot marked out?”

“And do you think prayer ever does? Do you believe that you are answered?”

“I do, indeed, dear Reginald; not always as our own will would dictate, but as a loving Father knows it best. I was not answered as my heart implored when my only parent was taken from me; but I was answered in the strength that was granted me to feel that he was happy, and God’s will kinder and better than my own. I am not here because it is my destiny, but because it is better for me than the calm and quiet life I have hitherto enjoyed.”

“Your creed is indeed that of a gentle, loving woman, Annie,” said her companion, more playfully; but he smiled not, for he knew how chillingly a smile will fall on young enthusiasm. “But it is too visionary, too ethereal, for cold-hearted man; perhaps not for some, but for me there are no such dreams. My heart was once full of hope and faith, and all things bright, and fond, and beautiful; but now crushed, blighted, trampled on, how may it dream again? but this is folly,” and with a strong effort he subdued emotion, and spoke more calmly. “Let us talk of something else. You alluded but now to your change of life, and I thought, sadly. Are you not happy?”

“I shall be in time, Reginald,” answered Annie, on whose fair sweet face a shade had flitted at her companion’s bitter words. “All are kind to me. My mother was Lord Ennerdale’s favourite niece, and he loves me for her sake, and so pets me that I cannot but love him most dearly.”

“And Lady Emily?”

“I shall learn to love as soon as she will let me. I fancy she thinks me but a simple romantic girl and I have not courage to undeceive her—that I can love and reverence other things besides poetry; but it is the change of circumstances that sometimes makes me sad. Clair Abbey is so far removed from Luscombe Cottage, that time has not yet reconciled me to the great change.”

“Time is slow in effecting changes in you, Annie; yet ere we meet again, trust me, you will have learned to love Clair Abbey, or changed it for another home as high in sounding, and yet more dear.”

“Changed it ere we meet again? What can you mean, Reginald?” said Annie, startled yet more by his tone than by his words, but she was not answered; for Reginald turned away directly he had spoken, his attention called by Lord Ennerdale; and another quadrille being formed, her hand was claimed, and she was led off almost unconsciously—so strangely was she preoccupied—to join it.

There had been nothing in the quiet yet earnest conversation of Reginald de Vere and Annie Grey to cause remark amongst the light-hearted group who were that night assembled in Lord Ennerdale’s hospitable halls. They had been intimate from childhood, and as Annie was almost a stranger to all present, and merely regarded as a simple country girl hardly emerged from childhood, no one was surprised that she should prefer Reginald’s society; though there were some young men who, attracted by the timid yet intelligent style of her beauty, half envied De Vere the privileges of intimacy which he so evidently enjoyed. Annie’s place seemed not amidst the followers of fashion; the long, rich, chesnut hair owned no law but that of nature, and flowed at will from her pale, high brow over a neck and shoulders, whose exquisite form and whiteness were displayed to advantage by the simple fashion of her plain black dress; the eye so “darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,” the fair soft cheek ever varying in colour, revealed every thought and feeling that stirred within. The world’s lesson of concealment and reserve she had not yet learned, for living in perfect retirement with a kind and judicious father, of whom she was the idol, her enthusiasm had been regulated, not chilled, and every high and poetic sentiment raised up to and purified in the only rest for such minds—the religion of the Bible and of Nature. Her life had passed in a small cottage on the banks of Windermere, diversified only by occasional visits to an old relation in Scotland; where, in fact, the first six months of her mourning had been passed. And there, had it not been for one cogent reason, she would have preferred remaining, as more congenial to her taste and feelings, than the form and grandeur which she imagined must surround the dwelling of an Earl.

Lord Ennerdale and his family had often sought to draw Sir Edward Grey from his seclusion, anxious to notice his child; but fearing to disturb Annie’s tranquil happiness by an introduction to a mode of life and pleasures which her very limited fortune must prohibit her enjoying, he had invariably declined these solicitations. Yet when Lord Ennerdale, notwithstanding his age and infirmities, made a rapid journey from London to Luscombe Cottage, purposely to soothe his dying hours by the assurance that his Annie was amply, even richly provided for, and therefore there could be no objection to her making Clair Abbey her future home, Sir Edward placed his weeping child in the arms of her aged uncle, and died with a prayer for both upon his lips.

But much as Annie loved and venerated her father, it was scarcely so much his last wish as the restlessness of her own heart, which, even while she preferred the simple mode of living at Kelmuir, yet reconciled her to a residence at Clair Abbey. She was restless because her quondam playmate and chosen friend, Reginald de Vere, was far away in his own most wretched home, with none to sing or smile him into peace, or cautiously and gently argue away his fits of morbid sensitiveness or overwhelming gloom. That Lord Ennerdale not only sympathised in the young man’s causes of depression, but loved his better qualities, admired his talents, and regretted his failings, was sufficient to excite the warm affections of his great-niece towards him. No spell is so powerful in opening the heart as sympathy, with regard to the character of those we love.

Clair Abbey’s great attraction, then, to Annie Grey was, that there she should constantly see Reginald; his concluding words, therefore, had both startled and pained her; but she vainly waited for their solution. She looked earnestly for Reginald to return to her; but he was constantly engaged in apparently earnest conversation with one or other of Lord Ennerdale’s guests. She was too guileless to believe he shunned her merely because he failed in courage to tell her more.

The evening closed at length; and passing along the corridor leading from the library to the stairs, a well-known step suddenly sounded behind her, and the voice of Reginald de Vere called her by name.

“I thought you intended to retire without even wishing me good night,” she said, playfully, her spirit rallying with his appearance. “What do you mean, sir, by such treatment? Be better behaved to-morrow, and I will be merciful, and forgive.”

“You must forgive me to-night, dearest Annie; for to-morrow will see me many miles on my road to Portsmouth, thence speedily to embark for Spain.”

“Portsmouth—Spain!” repeated the bewildered girl; and her hand so trembled, that the lamp she held dropped from it, and was instantly extinguished.

“Yes, Annie, to Spain!” he answered, struggling for calmness. “I am of age now; poor, but not so utterly dependent as I have been. My father’s house I will never enter more. You start, Annie, but do not—do not condemn me. Judge me by no reasoning but that of your own kind gentle heart. I can bear no more than that which I have borne. Boyhood must submit to a parent’s tyranny; but manhood owns no such law. You know how I would have loved my father, and how he has spurned me. Still I lingered, vainly striving to elicit one softer feeling, hoping—idiot that I was—that he would yet love me. But the dream is over! He drew the reins still tighter, and so snapped them; there is a measure to endurance even in a son. Do not weep thus, Annie,” he continued, conquering his own emotion to soothe hers, and passing his arm round her, as he had so often done in earlier years, when as a brother he had soothed her griefs and shared her joys. “I will not burden you with the final cause of my present resolution. I have neither means nor influence to tread the path to which my inmost soul aspires; and to toil for lingering years behind a merchant’s desk or tradesman’s counter my spirit will not bear. I have obtained a commission amongst the brave fellows now about to join General Mina in his gallant defence of the young queen; and with him these restless yearnings may be stilled in the activity of martial service, or the quiet of the grave. And who will mourn for me?” he continued, rapidly and bitterly; “who, in the wide world, will think of me, or shed one tear for me, save thine own sweet self? Oh, Annie, speak to me! Tell me you will think of me sometimes. I know there will be many, very many, to supply my place to you; but, oh, who will ever be to me as you have been?”

“And yet you have decided on this plan, endured more than ever, and told me not a word. Reginald, was this kind?” she said, struggling with the tears that nearly suffocated her.

“You were in grief already, Annie; how might I ask your sympathy in mine? I know it never was refused me. I know it would not be, even in your own sorrow; but oh, Annie, I felt if I waited to look on you again, I should fail in courage to leave England. Yet why should I linger? Changed as your prospects are, loved as you will be by those so much more deserving, what could I be to you?”

“Reginald!” murmured poor Annie, wholly unconscious of the nature of her own feelings, yet unable to utter another word.

“I know you will not forget me, Annie, dearest Annie, your nature is too good, too kind, too truthful for such change; but, fated as I am, how dare I ask for, hope for more than a sister’s love? Say you will sometimes think of me, love me as—as a brother, Annie, darling! and life will not be so wholly desolate.”

Her reply was almost inarticulate, and passionate words rose to Reginald’s lips, but they were not spoken. He led her to the door of her apartment without another word, wrung both her hands in his, bade “God bless her!” and was gone. Annie stood for a few minutes as if stunned; mechanically she loosed the wreath of white rosebuds from her hair, the fastening of her dress, which seemed to stifle her very breath, and then she sunk on her knees beside the bed, and the hot tears gushed forth; and long, long she wept, as that young guileless girl had never wept before.

Reginald de Vere was the youngest son of a private gentleman of moderate fortune, residing in a populous city in the north of Yorkshire. It is not necessary to dilate on feelings which Reginald’s own words but too painfully portrayed; the “iron rule” of tyranny is best described in the effect which it produces. The Calvinistic principles of the elder De Vere found no softening of their natural austerity in the acidity and moroseness of his temper; the evil had been increased by his union with a young Spaniard—lively, frivolous, and a Roman Catholic. How this marriage had ever come about, nobody succeeded in discovering. Strange unions there are, but seldom between such antipodes in character and feeling as were Mr. and Mrs. De Vere. Their large family grew up amidst all the evils of domestic dissension, and its subsequent misery—a father’s unjustifiable tyranny, and a mother’s as blamable weakness. Basil de Vere sought to instil his peculiarly stern doctrines in the minds of his children; his wife prayed, in their hearing, that they might be saved from such cold, comfortless belief; they shrunk from the one, and learned no religion from the other. To shield them from the father’s tyranny, the mother taught them deceit, lavished on them weak indulgences, which were to be forfeited if ever revealed. Ever witnessing and suffering the effects of dissension, what affection, what harmony could exist between themselves? The ill effects of this training were more discernible in some of their matured characters than in others; some pursued an honest course, as soon as their departure from their father’s house permitted the influence of their better qualities, but these were mostly dwelling in foreign lands; some had married with, some without his consent; and in his old age Basil de Vere found himself master of a deserted hearth, with none of his once blooming family beside him but one, and that one was Reginald. The weak indulgence of his mother had never softened for Reginald the tyranny of his father. She died in giving him birth, and he had to battle through his unhappy childhood alone. Shrinking almost in agony from his father’s voice, yearning, with all the clinging confidence of childhood, for love, but finding none, he turned in loathing from the continued scenes of discord which characterised his home. He spurned with contemptuous indignation offers of indulgence and concealment, to act as he saw others do, and thus constantly drew upon himself the enmity of his more wily brothers and sisters. He shrunk, in consequence, more and more within himself, striving to keep peace with his father, but in vain; for De Vere often raged at his children without knowing wherefore, and the calm, dignified bearing of his youngest son would chafe him into greater fury than palpable offence. But there were seeds of virtue, aye, of the “nobility of genius,” in the disposition of Reginald, that bloomed and flourished despite the unhealthy soil and blighting atmosphere in which he moved; perhaps the kindly notice of Sir Edward Grey assisted their development. The pale, silent, suffering boy had appealed irresistibly to his kind heart, and for Reginald’s sake he condescended to make acquaintance with his father.

As long as they remained in Yorkshire, Sir Edward permitted Reginald to share much of the instruction which he himself bestowed upon his Annie; a kindness so delicately and feelingly bestowed, that Reginald by slow degrees permitted his whole character to display itself to Sir Edward, and allowed himself to feel that, with so kind a friend and so sweet a companion, he was not utterly alone. Even when Sir Edward removed to Windermere their intercourse continued; for there was ever a room prepared and a warm welcome for Reginald, who turned to that cottage as a very Eden of peace and love.

As Reginald increased in years, felt more fully his own powers, and through Sir Edward’s friendly introductions associated with other families, his morbid feelings did not, as the baronet had fondly hoped, decrease, but rather strengthened, in the supposition that his fate alone was desolate. He saw happy homes and kindly hearts; no exertion, no effort, no sacrifice could make such his, and he believed an iron chain of fate was round him, dooming him to misery. The kindness of Sir Edward, of Lord Ennerdale, and others, only deepened the vain, wild yearnings for home affections—the peace, the confidence of home. A peculiarly fine organization of mind and an acute perception of character caused him to shrink with pain from general notice. The talented and gifted he admired at a distance, feeling intuitively that such would be his chosen friends; yet, from a sense of inferiority, refusing to come forward and permit his fine talents to be known; at the same time shrinking from the common herd, convinced that amongst them he should meet with neither sympathy nor appreciation. A happy home would have been all in all for Reginald; there the incipient stirrings of genius would have been fostered into bloom, and the morbid feelings too often their accompaniment regulated into peace.

The death of Sir Edward Grey and the future destination of his daughter were, however, the final cause of his determination to leave England. He knew it not himself; and if a light did flash upon the darkness, it only deepened the gloom around him, by the conviction that his doom was ever to love alone. More and more earnestly he sought to soften his father’s temper, even to conquer his own repugnance to the path of life his parent might assign him; but in vain. To enumerate all the petty miseries this struggle cost him would be impossible. The mind rises purified and spiritualized from great sorrows; but there is no relief from the trial of an unhappy home, no cure for the wounds of words. If domestic love and peace be ours, we can go forth with a firm heart and serene mind to meet the trials of the world; alas! alas! for those who have no such haven, no such stay!

Never did Reginald De Vere make a greater mistake than in the supposition that a military life would bring him the happiness for which his parched soul so thirsted. He could not associate the favourite pastime of his childhood, carving in wood, stone, or whatever material came first to hand, with the feverish yearning for exertion and excitement, which possessed his whole being. He could not feel that the one sprang from the other, or rather that the power which urged the former was secretly working in his mind, and causing an utter distaste for all mechanical employment. He was too unhappy to examine the source of his restlessness, and knew no one who could explain it for him.

Lord Ennerdale and his sons were all men of worth and talent, and firm encouragers of art and literature; but not themselves children of genius, they failed in the subtle penetration which could discover its embryo existence. Had Sir Edward lived he would have seen further; but still all his friends had dissuaded Reginald from entering on a military career, but he was firm; and in less than a week after his agitated parting with Annie, a fair wind was rapidly bearing him to the shores of Spain.

Days and weeks passed, and Annie Grey sought with persevering effort to regain her former calm and happy temperament; and she succeeded so far as to conceal from her relatives the secret of her heart. The agony of that parting moment had transformed her, as by some incomprehensible spell, from the child to the woman; and so sudden had been the transition, that she felt for days a stranger to herself. Reginald had always been dear to her, but she knew not, imagined not how dear, until that never-to-be-forgotten evening; his words returned to her again and again, and sad, desponding as they were, she would not have lost one of them. She who had been so constantly active, flitting like a spirit from one favourite employment to another, now seemed to live but on one feeling; but her mind was too well regulated to permit its unrestrained indulgence. Young as she was, dependent on herself alone for guidance in this new and absorbing state of being, thrown in quite a new position for luxury and wealth, as a cherished member of her uncle’s family, yet her character, instead of deteriorating, matured, uniting all the outward playfulness of the child with the inward graces of the woman.

Lord Ennerdale’s domestic circle formed a happy contrast to that of the ascetic Basil De Vere. His children were all married except his eldest son, Lord St. Clair, and eldest daughter, Lady Emily; but the ties of family had never been broken, and happy youth and blooming childhood were almost always round the earl. With all these Annie was speedily a favourite; and easily susceptible of kindness and affection, Clair Abbey soon became endeared to her as home.

By a strange contradiction, Annie’s interest and affection were, however, excited the strongest towards the only member of Lord Ennerdale’s family who retained reserve towards her. What there was in Lady Emily St. Clair to attract a young and lively girl, Annie herself might have found it difficult to define; for not only her appearance, but her manners were against her. Stiff, cold, even severe, she usually appeared; and when she would at times relax, and seem about to enter with warmth and kindness into Annie’s studies or pursuits, she would suddenly relapse into coldness and reserve. Sometimes, when eagerly conversing with Lord St. Clair, on the exquisite beauty of nature, or of some favourite poem, when the spirit of poetry breathed alike from her eyes and from her lips, Annie would catch the eye of Lady Emily fixed upon her sadly and pityingly; or if she smiled, the smile was peculiar, it might be even satirical; yet she was never satirical in words, nor did it seem in character—too feelingly alive to the dictates of kindness ever willingly to inflict a wound. To discover her real character was difficult; Annie judged more by her habits than her words. Lady Emily never said that her love of flowers amounted to a passion, that to have them around her in their freshness, to seek them alike from the garden and the wild, to collect, dry, and arrange them in such tasteful groups and such brilliancy of colouring, that the choicest paintings looked dim beside them, was her favourite pleasure, but Annie was ever ready with some newly discovered plant, or the moss and weed she needed—ever the first to remove the dying buds, and supply their place around her boudoir with the freshest and fairest she could select. Lady Emily never spoke of poetry, never acknowledged that she could either admire or enter into it; but there were extracts in her writing, attached sometimes to drawings, sometimes to her books of flowers, that betrayed such a refinement of taste, and acute perception of the pure, the beautiful, and the spiritual, in nature and in man, that Annie suspected she was herself a poet; but yet how could she reconcile the unimpassioned coldness of her usual mood with the light and life of poetry? Yet though fairly puzzled, Annie so judiciously assisted her researches, that Lady Emily often wondered how a mark could come so exactly in the place she wished, when the thought, for whose echo she looked, had been breathed to none; but even had these attentions escaped her notice, it must indeed have been an icy heart to withstand the sweetness of Annie’s manner; whenever her cousin’s mood was irritable, her temper somewhat ruffled, there seemed a magic around Annie not only to bear with irritation, but to reconcile the subject of that irritation to herself and all around her; and when so languid and weak as really to be ill, though she would never allow it, who so active as Annie to prevent all annoyance to the invalid, or interfere with the only pursuits she could enjoy? Yet no show of affection acknowledged these attentions; but by very slow degrees the Miss Grey changed into Anne, and finally into the pretty denomination by which she was always addressed; and the smile and tone with which she spoke to her, satisfied the orphan that she had not worked in vain.

Even if Annie’s conduct had failed to rivet the notice of Lady Emily, it had gained for her the interest and sincere affection of another. Lord St. Clair was devotedly attached to his sister, and all who had the good sense to appreciate her were sure to obtain his esteem; then in the prime of life, he foresaw no danger in his intimate association with and admiration of his young cousin, a girl but just seventeen; and it was a pleasure to him to draw her out, and repay by every kindness on his part her attention to his sister. A disappointment when very young had caused him to remain single. “I do not say I shall never marry,” he often said, in answer to his father’s solicitations on the subject; “for then I should consider myself bound not to do so, however my heart might dictate; but it is unlikely.”

Annie Grey had not, however, been domiciled many months in Clair Abbey, before Lord St. Clair’s sentiments on this subject underwent some change.

From the time of Reginald’s departure the public journals became suddenly endowed with an interest to Annie, equal to that of the most ardent politician. The disturbed state of Spain, the constant marchings and counter-marchings of General Mina’s army, prevented any regular communication from Reginald; once or twice she had heard from him direct, and treasured indeed were those letters, honourably as the young man kept to his resolution, never by one word to draw Annie into an engagement, or even an avowal that she returned his love. In the papers she often read his name among the bravest and most daring of the British soldiers. One anecdote, officially reported and communicated to Lord Ennerdale, afforded her still dearer food for fancy. The service in which he was engaged was exposed to all the horrors of civil warfare; slaughter and desolation followed in the train of both armies. Young De Vere, at the head of a picked band, had thrown himself in the very midst of a mêlée, determined on saving the unoffending women and children, and aged peasants of the opposing party, all of whom were about to be sacrificed to the misguided rage of the royal troops; the village was in flames, and the peasants, neutral before, swore to be avenged. The exertions of the young Englishman, however, worked on both parties; he calmed the excited spirits of his own men, and promised protection and safety to the oppressed. One group particularly attracted him; a young mother, clasping an infant tightly to her breast, and two fine boys, twining their arms round her, as to protect her with their own lives. Reginald did not know that it was her infant he had saved from a brutal death, but his look was arrested by the intense feeling glistening in her large dark eyes, and by the impotent passion of her eldest boy, who, clenching a huge stick, vowed he would join his father, who was a Carlist soldier, and revenge the insults offered to his mother. De Vere jestingly laid his hand on the stripling’s shoulder, declaring he was a young rebel and his prisoner. The agonized scream of the poor mother changing on the instant into the wildest accents of gratitude, as she recognised in Reginald her baby’s preserver, and to the earnest supplication that he would send them on in safety, removed all feelings of mere jest. Reginald soothed her fears, and selecting a guard of his own countrymen, on whom he could depend, sent her and her children under their care to the outposts of the Carlist camp. General Mina smiled sadly when this anecdote was told him. “The age of chivalry is over, my young friend,” he said, mournfully. “Your act was kind and generous, but I fear of little service. The Carlists are not likely to check their career of devastating warfare because we have spared one insignificant village; nor will you have any demand upon their favour should you unfortunately fall into their hands.”

“Chivalry and its romance may be over,” thought Annie, as again and again her mind reverted to its one fond theme. “But my father once told me ‘a deed can never die;’ and, even if indeed it were to do no good, surely his motives will meet with the appreciation and admiration they deserve; there must be some among the good and noble to do him justice.”

How the young heart revels in every proof, however trifling, on the worth of him it loves. The restlessness of a scarcely acknowledged passion merged into a species of glowing happiness, the basis of which Annie might have found it difficult to define. In its indulgence she forgot the distance between them, the darkening aspect of his future, the despondency breathing in his last farewell—forgot all but the passionate words, “Who will be to me as you have been?” And what will so elevate the character and purify the heart, and shed such sweet rosy flowers over every thought, and act, and feeling, as the first fresh feelings of all-hoping, all-believing love? Annie’s beauty, matured beneath the magic of such dreams, excited universal admiration; but the young girl knew it not.

“No breakfast for loiterers!” exclaimed Lord St. Clair, playfully holding up his hand, as Annie sprang through an open French window into the breakfast-room one lovely summer morning, her cottage bonnet thrown back, her luxuriant hair somewhat disordered, her cheek and eye bright with health and animation, and laughing gaily at Lord St. Clair’s threat.

“Here has Emily been looking starch and prim for the last half-hour, thinking unutterable things of the folly and romance which can be the only reason of young ladies’ early wanderings in the lonely districts about Keswick Lake. Ah, you little fox, prepared with a bribe to ward off the weight of her displeasure,” he said, as Annie laid the fruit of her researches, a rare and exquisite plant, on the table by her cousin, and Lady Emily half smiled.

“And there’s my father in a complete fever fearing that his blooming little niece had been carried off, or eaten up by one of the wild men or monsters of the mountains, and threatening to search for her himself, directly after breakfast.”

“Thank you, my dear, kind uncle,” replied Annie, gaily, bending over Lord Ennerdale to kiss his forehead. “Never be anxious about me. I have suffered no further inconvenience than extreme hunger, which I satisfied at Nanny’s cottage, by a slice of her brown bread and a cup of warm milk. No romance in that, Lord St. Clair, at least.”

“A fortunate occurrence for you, as it may save you from a lecture on the impropriety of indulging love-lorn dreams in solitude. Why, Annie, you are actually blushing; if it were not an utter impossibility for romantic young ladies to feel hungry, I should say your very looks pleaded guilty. Look at her, Emily—you had better begin.”

“No, I thank you, Henry; I never give lectures, even when deserved, in public,” was his sister’s quiet reply.

“Well, the offence brings with it its own punishment, for here come the contents of the postman’s bag, and so a truce to our sage converse; and you, Miss Annie, must eat your breakfast in meditative silence.”

“Or in perusing what she likes better. Here, my little politician; your eyes are pleading, though your lips are silent,” said Lord Ennerdale, gaily throwing to her a packet of newspapers without opening them.

“You are much too young to be a politician; besides, I hate women to dabble in politics, so give me a better reason for being the first reader of all the papers, or you shall not have them,” interposed Lord St. Clair, keeping firm hold of the packet, which he had caught.

“On my honour, I never read a word of politics,” replied Annie, half playfully, half eagerly, but blushing deeply as she met Lord St. Clair’s penetrative glance. He relinquished them with a half sigh, and bent over his despatches. Silence ensued for several minutes, each seemingly engrossed with his occupation. Lady Emily was the first to move, and after carefully sorting and arranging the flowers Annie had brought her, was about to leave the room.

“Annie, my dear child! what is the matter?” she exclaimed, in a tone which electrified her father and brother, so utterly was it unlike her usually measured accents; and startled out of all stiffness and dignity, she was at the poor girl’s side in an instant. Annie’s cheek, lips, and brow were cold and colourless as marble, and there was such rigid agony imprinted on every feature, that Lady Emily well-nigh shuddered as she gazed. “Speak to me, Annie, love! What is it? Try and speak, dearest; do not look at me with such a gaze,” she continued, as Annie slowly raised her eyes, which were bloodshot and distended, and fixed them on her face; she evidently tried to speak, but only a gasping cry escaped, and that terrible agony was lost for a time in an unconsciousness so deep that it almost seemed of death.

Lord St. Clair stood paralysed, but then he snatched up the fatal paper, and one glance sufficed to tell him all, all that he had suspected, all that for his own happiness he had feared; but he could only think of Annie then, and perceiving how ineffectual were all the usual efforts to restore animation, he threw himself on horseback, and never rested till he had found and dragged back with him the medical attendant of the family, whose skill was finally successful. Annie woke from that blessed relief of insensibility to a consciousness of such fearful suffering, that as she lay in the perfect stillness enjoined by the physician, she felt as if her brain must reel, and fail beneath it. It was not alone the death of him she loved, that the idol of her young affections was lost to her for ever, but it was the horrid nature of his fate which had so appalled her. In the gallant defence of a royal fort he had been left almost alone, all his companions falling around him; severely wounded, and overpowered by numbers, he was taken by the Carlists, dragged to their camp, and twenty-four hours afterwards shot, with other ill-fated men, literally murdered in cold blood. Three times Annie’s eyes had glared on the paragraph, reading again and again the list of the unfortunate men who had thus perished, as if Reginald’s name could not be amongst them; alas! it was there, pre-eminent, from the courage, the youth, and the official rank of the bearer. And in that dreadful stillness the whole scene rose before her, vivid as reality—ghastly figures flitted before her; and then she saw Reginald as they parted; and then full of life and excitement in the field; and then covered with blood and wounds. She seemed to see him bound and kneeling for the fatal stroke, and the shot rung in her ears, clear, sharp, and strangely loud, till she could have shrieked from the bewildering agony: she tried to banish the vision, to escape its influence, but it gained strength, and force, and colouring, and before midnight Lady Emily watched in grief and awe beside the couch where her young cousin lay, and raved in the fearful delirium of a brain fever.

Many weeks elapsed ere Annie could again take her place amongst her family; alternate fever and exhaustion had so prostrated her that her life was more than once despaired of. Had she been aware who it was so constantly and gently tended her, teaching her voice to forget its coldness, her manners its reserve, to soothe and comfort those hours of agony, she would have felt that some simple “deeds indeed could never die;” and that to her own sweetness of temper, and forbearing and active kindness, she owed the blessings of a sympathy and tenderness almost equalling a mother’s. But it was long before she was conscious of anything, or even capable of rousing herself from the lethargic stupor which still lingered even when sense and strength returned. That she sought earnestly to appear the same as usual—to evince how gratefully she felt the kindness lavished on her—to return to her employments, was very evident; but it seemed as if bodily weakness prevented all mental exertion. She shrunk in anguish from the thought that she had betrayed her love, though by neither word nor hint did her companions ever allude to the immediate occasion of her illness.

“Would she but shed tears—but speak her grief,” exclaimed Lord St. Clair to his sister, one day, after vainly endeavouring to excite a smile, “she would suffer less then; but she has never wept since; and before, the most trifling emotion, even of pleasure, would draw tears. Could you but draw forth her confidence—but make her weep. Is there no possible way?”

“I fear none: she shrinks from the slightest approach to the subject. I feel as if I dared not speak poor Reginald’s name.”

Chance, however, did that for which even Lady Emily’s courage failed. Annie was reclining, one morning, in a favourite boudoir, her eyes languidly wandering over the beautiful landscape, which stretched from the window. When last she had noticed it, the trees were bending beneath the weight of their glorious summer dress, and the gayest and brightest flowers were flinging their lavish beauties on the banks of the small but picturesque lake. The scene was still lovely, but it had changed; the trees which still retained foliage were all in the “sere and yellow leaf,” the ground was strewed with fallen leaves, the flowers were all gone, and Nature herself seemed emblematical of the change in Annie’s heart. Lady Emily watched her some time in silence, and then gently drew her attention to some beautiful groups of flowers which she had lately arranged. Annie turned from the window with a heavy sigh, and bent over the flowers; while Lady Emily continued her employments without further notice. She forgot that amongst those groups there was the plant, to find which Annie had rambled over hill and dale that fatal morning. From its extreme rarity and beauty she had placed it alone upon the page; and as Annie gazed upon it, a rush of feeling of the bright, sweet memories which had thronged her mind during that solitary ramble came back upon her—the dreams of hope, and joy, and love—with the force, the intensity of actual presence; as if they might still be realized, and the intervening time had been but a dark and troubled blank. She pushed the flower from her, and her head sunk on her clasped hands.

“My poor child, I forgot that flower was amongst them!” exclaimed Lady Emily, in a tone at once of such self-reproach and earnest sympathy, that Annie, with an uncontrollable impulse, suddenly sprung up, and folding her arms round her neck, burst into a passion of tears. All her cousin’s previous kindness she had attributed to pity for bodily suffering. That she could sympathise in her mental affliction, she had fancied—as the young are too prone to do of the colder and more experienced—was impossible; but the tone, the allusion to that little flower, betrayed that she, too, could believe in and understand the association of the material with the immaterial world; and Annie now wept upon her bosom, in the consoling consciousness that, cold as that heart seemed, it could yet feel and weep for her.

Lady Emily trembled; for the deep emotion she beheld recalled passages of equal suffering in her own life, which she had thought buried and at rest for ever. She trembled, lest in this appeal to her inmost soul her long striven-for calmness should fail, and her weakness should increase rather than soothe Annie’s anguish. Her hand shook, and her lip so quivered, that it was some minutes ere she could speak. We need not linger on the words which followed. The ice, which had seemed to close round Annie’s heart, dissolved—Reginald’s name was spoken—the fond secret of her life revealed; and from that day she found more strength to struggle with depression—to leave no effort untried to regain serenity, and conquer that worse foe to happiness, indifference, which the human heart contains. Once convinced, by the representations of affection and experience, that it was her duty actively to do, as well as passively to endure—to prove her resignation to the blow, which, though heavy, was still dealt by a Father’s hand, she did not fail. A yet more earnest desire to seek the happiness of others, and complete disregard of self—a calm and still serenity of word and look, were now her outward characteristics; while, within, though her spirit had gained new strength in its upward flight—new clinging love for that world where all is peace, the thought of the departed yet remained, gaining, it seemed, increase of power with every passing month. It had lost its absorbing anguish; but not its memories. Too truly did she feel, with that sweet chronicler of woman’s heart—
“We dream not of Love’s might,
Till Death has robed, with soft and solemn light,
The image we enshrine. Before that hour
We have but glimpses of the overmastering power
Within us laid.”

There were times when the thought would come, and so vividly, she could scarcely believe it only a thought, that Reginald might yet live, the public records be deceivers. But Lady Emily’s assurances that her father and brothers had made every inquiry, but that all the information obtained only confirmed the first statement, proved the utter fallacy of the dream.