9 Susan began to shake, almost as Emma had done. “There is some mystery,” she breathed. Yes, something has occurred. I shrink from the task of telling it to you.” is Must you tell me? must I know it? I have been so full of peace and happiness of late.” “ You must know it, I believe. I scarcely knew whether to tell you or not, and I took counsel of Frances Maitland, when she came in just now, and she says I must. She was going to tell it you herself, but I forbade her.” Susan sat down, somewhat reassured. She thought it might be only that something had gone wrong in the household : or perhaps the dressmaker had spoilt the wedding dresses. “ Tell: me out at once, Ursula. Do not beat about the bush." “You say I looked angry,” said Ursula. “I am angry: with Emma. She has grown to love Charles Carnagie.” Susan turned white. She could not speak. “ Listen a moment, and you shall know as much as I do. After you left, Charles stayed on, sleeping at the inn, as before. I wondered, but of course it was not my business to send him away. He was much here: it was only natural that he should be. Then I noticed-it seemed to occur to my mind all in a moment-how much Emma was with him, out with him in the grounds at all times and all hours, and with him in-doors. Well, Susan, I never thought to check it, for it only seemed as natural as the other. Last night Frances Maitland ran in, at dusk, after their tea. I don't know what it was with you, but here it was a dull, dismal evening, almost foggy. • When do you expect Susan home ?'' were her first words, without saying How d’ye do, or anything—but you know her abrupt manner. Probably to-morrow,' I answered. Well, it's time she came, that's all,' said she. “I have seen what I don't like. I have suspected it some days, but I am sure of it now that Emma is too intimate with Charles Carnagie.' Susan," added Ursula, "you might have knocked me down with a feather; and then it all rose up frightfully before me, their walking out together, and their whisperings in-doors.!' “How did she mean that they were too intimate?" faltered Susan. “ What had she seen ?” “She would not say. She said she should only tell you. You had better ask her." Susan leaned her head upon her hand. “ Frances is very fanciful,” was her remark, “and if once she takes an idea in her mind, her imagination improves upon it.” “ True. You must have it out with her, what she did see, and what she did not. When Emma walked herself in, last night, it was nearly dark ; I said nothing to her. I fear she is too fond of him : it all looks like it. Of his sentiments I know nothing ; but, since this occurred, I have wondered whether she was the attraction that kept him here." How Susan bore with her feelings till evening, when they went to the Maitlands, she scarcely knew. She drew Frances aside at once. Ursula has told me,” she whispered. “ What was it you saw ?" "Only that she was clasped to Charles Carnagie's breast, crying and wailing, and he was kissing her.” 66 “Oh, Frances ! you surely never saw that !” “I saw it. If it were the last word I had to speak, I saw it,” impressively uttered Miss Maitland. “ They were bemoaning their hard fate in his being bound to you. She sobbed out that her happiness was gone for ever, and he that he had never loved Susan half as passionately as he loved her. That is all I saw or heard, Susan ; but that is pretty well.” “ Where were they ?" “In the grove, by the large elm-tree, at the turning. You know the bench." Susan went into the drawing-room. The scene swam before her eyes ; she answered questions at random ; and when Mr. Carnagie spoke to her, she turned faint and sick. Outwardly he was attentive to her, but it was a forced attention. In the course of the evening, when some of the party were in the garden, Mr. Carnagie drew Emma away from the rest. Susan followed them :: she believed it her duty: she was wretched, jealous, miserable. She saw them standing together in an attitude of the deepest affection, and she drew away again, more jealous and more wretched than before. “ What shall you do?-—what will be your course ?” Miss Maitland asked her. “I know not-I know not,” she answered, in a tone of anguish. “Frances, pity me!—oh, that I could fly away somewhere, from it all, and find rest!" Frances Maitland did pity her, little as she was given to pity anybody. “It will take Susan years to get over this,” was her mental comment. " I wonder whether she will marry him.” When they left that night, Mr. Carnagie offered his arm to Susan. She thanked him, and said she had her dress to hold up. Yet short petticoats were worn then. He went at once to Emma; she took it, and they lingered, whispering, behind Susan and Ursula. He left them at their door, and Susan shut herself into her chamber to think. An hour afterwards, she entered Emma's room, who was then undressing. She said what she had to say; despair was in her low voice ; no anger; yet Emma flung herself down on the floor, and shrieked and sobbed in self-reproach. “ I could not help it-I could not help it,” she shrieked forth. “That first moment, when he suddenly appeared, and clasped me in his embrace drew my heart to him: and my love for him is as living fire. Why was I so like you? Why are you so changed? Half his time he calls me Susan : his love has not altered, he says, only that I am now what you To love you, as you are now, he must change the object of his mind's affection and he cannot do it." “ Next to him, who was my second self, I have loved you,” moaned Susan, as she sat on a low chair, and rocked herself to and fro. “I have cherished you as something more precious than self ; I promised our mother to do so, on her death-bed : and this is my reward !” It was a strange scene. Emma sobbing, and writhing on the carpet in her white night-dress. “I would not have brought this misery to us all purposely,” she said, “and we never meant you to know it: I cannot think how it is you do. When once you and he have sailed, I shall sit were. - You never down and hug my unhappiness, and I hope it will kill me, Susan, and then you'll be revenged." “I would have sacrificed my life for you,” whispered Susan; " I must now sacrifice what is far dearer. You must be the one to sail with him; not I.” “Susan! you never shall sacrifice yourself for me! I" “No more," interrupted Susan. " My resolution is taken, and I came to tell it you. I hope that time will be merciful to me: to us both." Susan left the room as she spoke, and there stood Ursula. “ Susan, I heard you, in there; I almost hoped you were beating her. We must send her away to aunt's to-morrow morning, until the wedding is over.” “Oh, Ursula,” she wailed, in a tone of the deepest anguish, “can you not see what must be? The wedding must be hers, not mine : she must marry Mr. Carnagie." “Give in to those two false ones!” uttered Ursula. shall." “For my own sake as much as hers," murmured Susan. « To marry him, when his love has openly left me, might be to enter on a life of reproach from him, certainly of coldness, possibly of neglect and cruelty. Ursula, that is more than I could bear. I will have one more interview with him, and then leave till they are gone. You must superintend what is required by Emma." “What will the neighbours say?" wondered Ursula. And Susan shivered. She held her interview with Mr. Carnagie when morning came, but what took place at it was never spoken of by either. Susan's face was swollen with crying when she came out, and he looked more troubled and annoyed than he had ever looked before ; holding the unfortunate gold ring between his fingers, in a dubious way, as if he did not know what to do with it. The chaise was at the door to convey her to Stopton, on her way to her aunt's, when, as she was stepping into it, Frances Maitland came racing down. " What is all this rumour, Susan ?" she demanded. going away, and that Emma is to marry Mr. Carnagie. I will not have such folly. I have come to stop it. The country will cry her and upon him. Lock her up, and keep her upon bread and water. You have sacrificed enough for her, I think, without sacrificing your husband.” “ Say no more, Frances," was her only answer. “I cannot bear it." She waved her adieu, and drove away with a breaking heart. Never to return home until long after Mr. Carnagie, and Emma his wife, had sailed for Barbadoes. “ They will have no luck,” was the comment of Frances Maitland. “ That you are shame upon FOX AT ST. ANNE'S HILL.* BY SIR NATHANIEL. When in retreat he laid his thunders by, ROGERS. About him, heart and ear were fed To hear him, as he lay and read TENNYSON. A FOURTH volume now completes Lord John Russell's edition of “ Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox.” It comprises the three or four last years of the great Whig leader's life. Lord John has retrenched little of his correspondence with Lords Grey, Lauderdale, and Holland, and General Fitzpatrick, during the period that elapsed between his returning to active politics in 1804 and his coming into office in 1806. The volume also contains the official correspondence between Fox and Talleyrand relating to the negotiation of the latter year. To this the editor adds official letters concerned with that in 1782; the correspondence of Fox with Gilbert Wakefield, which has already been published ; sixteen of his letters to his friend (and eventually secretary) Mr. Trotter, also previously made public; and about the same number to the Duke of Portland, ranging from the year 1782 to 1792. It closes with Lord Holland's well-known narrative of his uncle's last illness, extracted from “ Memoirs of the Whig Party.” The noble editor expresses his hope, in a postscript, to be able soon to execute in some degree the design which Lord Holland had formed, of giving a connected narrative of Mr. Fox's life, with extracts from his speeches. “Political employments still more absorbing than those of the late Lord Holland have hitherto prevented my doing more than publishing the collection made by Lord Holland and Mr. Allen, with such comments as I thought essential. .... I shall endeavour, in a separate form, to place in a connected Darrative the relation of Mr. Fox's political career, and an account of his times. In that manner the great events of his life will be prominently set forth, and his public policy fully discussed.” Lord John Russell does not, therefore, differ from the opinion of the public, that, these four volumes of Memorials notwithstanding, the Life and Times of Mr. Fox remain to be written. He accepts the opinion—and the task. Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Edited by Lord John Russell. Vol. IV. Bentley. 1857. Oct.-VOL. CXI. NO. CCCCXLII. M be."* Among the political allusions in the letters now first published, the writer's dislike to Mr. Pitt, and his cherished contempt for Mr. Addington, “ The Doctor," are prominently put forth. It is curious to see Thomas Grenville, in January, 1804, insisting, in spite of Fox's demurs, on the probability of Pitt's returning to power, in case the Opposition succeeded in ousting the Doctor, and putting himself, Pitt, at the head of the existing Administration, or one like it : all which, as a foot-note intimates, to the credit of Mr. Grenville's sagacity, was exactly what happened. At the same time that Fox mistrusted the probability of any such stroke of business, he was forward in avowing his sorry estimate of his political rival. “My opinion is, that he [Pitt) is a man incapable of reposing thorough confidence in any friend.” “My guess is that Pitt will support me in some [questions] and not in others, but he does not know always his own mind, and much less can his friends answer for him. His temper makes him more and more in Opposition, whatever his intentions may “ You (Lauderdale] think that the Court cannot now be forced; remember, all I have said is that there is a chance that it may ; Pitt's utter incapacity to act like a man renders that chance much less than it would otherwise be.”+ “IF Pitt plays fair, we shall run him [Addington] very hard indeed on my motion. . . . . I have not written my IF in great letters for nothing. . . . . It is impossible not to suspect Pitt from his ways of proceediug, and yet his interest is so evident, that I think he will do right.” “I should write my if in rather smaller letters to-day, s but there is still an if upon the subject of P.” “ He is not a man capable of acting fairly, and on a footing of equality with his equals."| "I agree with almost all your speculations, except two :1st, the possibility of Pitt's showing any mercy to the Doctor, and 2ndly, in the danger of getting something worse than King Log. I do not think the Stork (which, by the way, is Pitt's crest) would be worse, for reasons which we may discuss when we meet."" is in a strange situation, and I suspect that he feels that he is so. His friends will be more dissatisfied with him and his enemies fear him less every day."** And once more e Pitt being now in power again (for, as a foot-note states the matter, Lord Moira had persuaded the Prince to prefer Pitt as minister to Fox, though this was a secret kept from the latter, both by the Prince and Lord Moira)—" Few now will dispute Pitt's being a contemptible Minister. He certainly gained more in numbers by his junction with the Doctor than I thought he would, but his loss in reputation from that and other causes is incalculable."tt The Doctor is more superciliously treated.“ Even the milk-and-water Addington," is a phrase expressive of ne plus ultra insipidity, incapacity, imbecility. “It is difficult for anything to be too foolish for the Doctor." Pitt's ambiguous situation in the spring of 1804 is said to have this “good effect, that it makes him (the Doctor) more and more contemned every day; indeed the contempt, both with respect to the degree and universality of it, is beyond what was ever known.” “ The Doctor out 6 Pitt * March 25, 1804. (To Lord Lauderdale.) † April 9. April 17. (To Hon. C. Grey.) § April 18. || April 19. ( April 27. ** Dec. 12. tt. March 19, 1805. (To Lord Holland.) |
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