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"It is true," he said, "that the first impression of the sublime is sadness; but does not that soon wear off, and leave behind an indelible memory of rejoicing veneration! You will never forget the sea, but you will think of it as the brightest and most joyous of nature's elements!"

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enough, cannot enough comprehend what is so stating that Mr. Anson was engaged when he much above the highest imaginations!" first entered our family, that he had long conThese last words I uttered abstractedly, for Ifided to me this secret, and that, in spite of had already forgotten the presence of the stranger, being known by a girl, it continued to be a secret and was once more gazing on the waves. But till Mr. Anson himself announced it previous to his voice recalled me instantaneously. I never his departure. Nay, more: it was through the heard a voice like it-low, sweet, mournful interest of a connexion of his betrothed that he in its usual tones, yet capable of many varied obtained the chaplaincy on which he now hoped intonations, and glorious in reciting kindred to support a wife. He had often said that the poetry, as I learned too well, when in after days first cause of his taking an interest in me, was I heard him reciting my own. some indefinite resemblance that I bore to his beloved Menie Fraser, before she had known trial, and the loneliness of orphanage. Mrs. Butler, my kind aunt, had arranged with my father that we were all to be present at our esteemed teacher's wedding, and that I was to act bridemaid. Thus I have clearly proved to you, good reader, that my regard for Mr. Anson was a sort of filial attachment, an enthusiastic veneration; but love for one so wise, so thoughtful, so tried in trouble, as he was, would have seemed to me most presumptuous folly. It was very different with respect to Ernest Marchmont. He was younger, gayer, more gallant in manner, and more variable in temperament, with a fire and spirit which always kindled a like spark in me. I liked his changes of moods; his abrupt transition from a witty lampooning style of conversation, to a serious, awe-stricken reflectiveness, that seemed to mirror all my own deepest, saddest, meditations. I liked his knowledge of the world, his descriptions of "Why, Marchmont, you seem to have intro-society-all an unknown hemisphere to me. I duced yourself! This old friend of mine is to bear us company in our little tour, Laura. You have seen Mrs. Marchmont at Studlegh, I think?"

ing.

'You are a prophet," I exclaimed, half laugh

"I judge of you by myself, Miss Studlegh; I remember feeling exactly the same when first I beheld the mighty ocean' rolling evermore."" "How do you know my name?" I said. "Are you one of those who examine the tickets on the passengers' luggage? I saw a lady, with a blue plume in her bonnet, on her knees before my trunk; so perhaps she was your informant ?”

He smiled again. "No, Mr. Anson was my informant; and here he comes to introduce me in due form." My good tutor approached, with some surprise in his face.

Yes, I had seen her an elegant, venerable widow, with a pale, mournful face; and I had heard of the genius and filial affection of her only child, Ernest.

I bowed my head mechanically; for the first time in my life a feeling came over me that I had been forward and unmaidenly in addressing a stranger, and springing up with my natural vehemence, I fled down stairs to the cabin, to the sheltering wing of my chaperone. And yet, though I ran away from him, I was very glad Ernest Marchmont was to be one of our party.

СНАР. ІІ.

"All my welfare to sorrowe and care
Sholde change yf ye were gone;
For, in my mynde, of all man kynde
I love but you alone."

Ballad of the Nut Brown Mayde.

It may have occurred to iny sentimental readers that, in accordance with the old usages of romance, I ought, so self-willed and imaginative as I have described myself, to have fallen in love with my tutor, Mr. Anson. I can only excuse myself for this breach of the heroics, by

liked his inexhaustible memory, his abundant quotations, which with him were not pedantic, but irrepressible; his passionate love of music, not for its artfulness, but its sentiment. I never was so delighted as when I heard him condemn the "fioriture of singing, and eulogise the affecting simplicity of peasant ballads. I had little talent for music as a science, and that little had never been cultivated. Madame had at times condescended to give me a short lesson on the piano; but the dreadful entanglement of my fingers, when I came to my " prestissimo," and the utter impossibility I found in playing four parts at once with two hands, in the style of Thalberg or Liszt, soon sealed my disgrace. An equally futile attempt was made in the vocal department. Madame declared I was barbare because I laughed when I came to a con passione, and my endeavour at a shake put her teeth on edge; and a cadenza was a fall indeed. No; I never could have been an Italian cantatrice. Song is a spontaneous gush of feeling, but not a series of melodramatic adventures. I was abandoned in this, as in all else, to my own wilful way; and I amused myself by catching the tunes sung by the country girls, to which I wrote my own words, and arranged my own simple accompa niments. Well, these songs, generally impassioned, tender, and artlessly mournful, were what seemed so much to please Mr. Ernest Marchmont; and though many years have gone since the evenings when I sang them among the Highland hills, the least cadence of one recalls

as vividly as ever the happy time that glorifies their memory.

and up steep precipices, on purpose to weary me,
and induce me to return. At length I gave in,
when we came to a place where the river Beauly
leaps sheer over the rocks in a narrow ravine.
The boys proposed swinging themselves across
by the overhanging branch of a large tree; and
seeing I could no longer keep up the game of
where I had left the elders of our party. I was
in no very good humour, when I came to a small
moss bower perched on the verge of the cliff,
and commanding a fine view down the ravine to
the open country beyond. Mr. Anson and his
affianced stood talking at some distance further
down the stream. I was proceeding to join
them, when I heard Ernest's voice within the
moss bower, where he was sitting with my aunt.
They were praising Menie Fraser. I felt so pro-
voked I was going to turn away, when my own
name raised my curiosity, and I forgot the mean-
ness of playing the eavesdropper in my eagerness
to hear what Ernest would say of me.
"that poor

"What a pity," said my aunt,
Laura is so plain; her mother lays such a stress
upon beauty; and the Effingham ladies have
been always famous for their charms. Laura is
so unlike her lovely sisters-you cannot fancy
what a contrast they present."

Our first stage, I said, was Glasgow. Hence we made pleasant excursions to Bothwell, Hamilton, the Falls of Clyde, &c. We next procceded up Loch Fyne, and among the Western Isles, till we joined the Caledonian Canal, which brought us to Inverness. Never shall I forget" follow my leader," I returned to the place sailing up that mighty chain of lakes, with the green hills on either side, and the distant blue mountains crowning the head of the valley. The utter calmness and silence of a track traversed twice a week by bustling, crowded boats, was not the least surprise to me. I had expected to see cottages thickly scattered along the banks, and was solemnised by the uninhabited grandeur of the scene. Ernest stood beside me on the deck, pouring out rich treasures of poetry, extemporising as he was apt to do. And in the evening we stopped at Fort Augustus to sleep; and after dining at the little inn, we all walked out by moonlight along the lake, and sitting down on the beach, I sang to them all the Scottish ballads I had learned from an old nurse of yore. Those were indeed delicious days. I had all the rapture of love's first dream without having awaked to its cares. I thought too much of Ernest to have time to consider what he thought of me, and when with him, the absorbing interest of his conversation left no room for the coquetries of idle vanity. It was not till we reached Inverness, and saw the lovely serene Menie Fraser, that I began to reflect on myself and my personal deficiencies. Then, indeed, I said to myself, "No one who sees her can ever look twice at me." She was fair as a child, with a childlike expression of truthfulness in her eyes, and a clear, unruffled forehead. Yet she had known sorrow and dependence; but these had quieted, not disturbed her. Her trials had made her voice low, her movements noiseless, and had given a touching falter to her beautiful mouth. The very guileless confidence in her eyes had an appeal in it, an imploring "Forsake me not; I trust all to you." I liked to see those eyes turned to her betrothed, and to catch his answering glance of pride and admiration. There was so much selfreliance about him, she was sure to have adequate strength in his strength.

Ernest was charmed with Menie, and openly said so; and descanted very eloquently on her feminine and gentle character.

Now a man cannot offend a high-spirited independent-minded woman more deeply than by praising to her the opposing qualities of meekness and self-negation. I took all his eulogies as a covert reproof of myself, although I perfectly agreed with him in admiring Menie and her sweetness. We went that very afternoon to the Falls of Kilmorach, in a very beautiful district, some miles from Inverness. I was sullen, and chose to go off with my brothers instead of entering into conversation with Mrs. Butler and Mr. Marchmont. The boys did not want to have me in their scramble, and led me over the most slippery rocks, close to dangerous pools,

"A contrast, indeed!" responded the musical tones of Mr. Marchmont : "I have seen both the sisters, and they may be almost called faultlessly beautiful; yet they would look insipid beside Miss Studlegh. She has a charm far more rare than regular features, or ivory skinthe ever-changing play of expression-the brilliant variations of light and shade-the shining of the inner soul through the outer coating so vividly, that the features themselves seem altered according to the mood that animates them.”

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“I beg you wont say any of this nonsense to Laura," interrupted my aunt, laughing goodhumouredly. You will ruin the greatest merit the poor child has, which is, that she devoutly believes herself a miracle of ugliness: it has been well impressed upon her."

"Yes; her artlessness is indeed one of her most charming characteristics," answered Ernest, his voice faltering methought not a little. "She is so much a child in purity of heart at an age when most fashionably brought-up girls are running a tilt for a titled husband, or calculating the riches of their male acquaintances with a vulgar sordidness shocking to behold.”

I stood astonished; saying, like Beatrice, "What fire is in mine ears!" What! after having lived seventeen years in the belief that I required, like Mokannah, a silver veil to hide my face-now to know that I was not without some female weapons, and that my very ignorance of their possession had made them more effectual ! It requires a woman to have been often called ugly to understand my emotions at this moment. It was not vanity that rejoiced me-it was humble, passionate gratitude to the first man that had discovered I was not a Paria of my species. How could I thank him but by the surrender of the heart he had first taught to leap at the ac

cents of the beloved one? This is a rhapsody; | was not a beauty; what should I do with costly but I am speaking of love, and love is a rhapsody dress? I had not accomplishments; what would from beginning to end. I ran back to the water- I feel in company? I loved the use of my limbs; side, to the bottom of the fall, and sitting on the of what use to me would be carriages with powfurthest stone I saw, I began to collect my scat- dered lacqueys? Youth is wiser in its instinct tered thoughts. Evening-a crimson summer sometimes than age in its experience. The spirit evening-sank noiselessly around me. The dark becomes so bent aside by the world, that it shadows of the rocks, hollowed out into caverns pities those who still stand upright. by the boiling waters, grew deeper and deeper. The stars came out in the narrow strip of in tense blue which stretched high overhead between the tops of the lofty banks; a few red rays shivered, and then faded from the white bosom of the cascade, and still my watch was unbroken; and the repose of all around soothed my soul into perfect peace.

Would I had died then-the loveliest, the purest moment of my life!

The voice of Ernest Marchmont broke the spell, only to wind round me a stronger one; but one more chequered by earthly care, and disquieted by earthly passion.

"This place," he said, "is like a city churchyard. That deep black pool under the hollow rock hides all its secrets, gloomy and repulsive; and the ceaseless roar of water goes on above and around, hurling downwards to its relentless bosom flowers of beauty, and fragments of stone, and splinters of trees, which are all swallowed by the river just as the city churchyard swallows from the crowd daily hurrying above it the beautiful and the strong-hearted, the luxuriant minded and the beloved."

I garble his words dreadfully: I cannot give his richness of language, and I forget his beautiful imagery. The reader must not judge of Ernest Marchmont from my feeble rendering: it is like Schiller badly translated into English. I am, alas! no Coleridge to transpose genius into other tongues.

I knew that I could stand alone, without the sickly props of luxury; and, poor as I knew Ernest Marchmont to be, I made a vow within myself to love none other.

His mother had a small sum of money, which was invested at a high rate of interest in my father's banking-house; and from this interest she had managed to educate her only child at Rugby, where his talents had early made him remarked. She was the widow of a naval officer, whose distinguished services, though he was cut off before he could ascend in his profession, had obtained for his child the promise of some small government appointinent. Ernest had now returned from college, and was awaiting his destiny from the ministers in office.

My good tutor's kind-meant warning operated like all warnings to the young and ardent. For a short space Ernest avoided me, only to return to me more cordially than ever, to display a stronger zest for my conversation, and a warmer interest in my welfare. At last he appeared to surrender himself entirely to his feelings, and to submit to be floated down love's bright stream without caring about the cataracts that might end his career midway. We rode, walked, read together. The Ansons were married, and departed to their home, and Mrs. Butler prepared to convey myself and my brothers southward. Ernest accompanied us as far as Edinburgh-or at least he was to have done so; but the news which greeted us at Perth hastily broke up the A few days after this, in a general conver- party. We younger ones had gone out to assation, flirtation became the subject of discus- cend Kinnoul hill. It was a beautiful walk; sion. Here I betrayed such excessive ignorance and, in such society as I enjoyed, not knowing it of the ways of the world, as to excite the was the last for a long dreary interval (though laughter of my aunt and Ernest, who protested I did know the last day of Ernest's company he had not thought it possible a young lady was approaching), I could not fail to be happy. could reach seventeen in such unsophisticated No words or vows had Ernest said; yet I was simplicity. Mr. Anson did not laugh; he looked not disappointed, for I did not expect them at anxiously from me to Ernest, and next morning that stage of our intercourse. Woman is patient I saw him on the lawn, in very grave conversation in her love. She is grateful for the ideal prowith the young man. The consequence of his mises which her imagination reads in looks and advice soon showed. Ernest avoided me for tones. What are these, though, to bind man ? some days; spoke shortly and snappishly to me, "They are not in the bond." They are not and went on a fishing excursion with my brothers. tangible, or actionable; they do not affect his I suspected Mr. Anson as the cause of this, and conscience; they are glittering counters, not took a meditating fit. I saw all his fears, and I coins. He says, "Where are my words? my saw also how groundless they were. I knew my-written letters? Looks and tones are easy to self better than he did. I felt that wealth to me would bring no happiness. I felt that a love of simplicity and a dislike of show were my prevailing characteristics; that what I required in this world was one to advise, to assist me in my struggles with my own waywardness; one whose love would spur me to exertion, to please whom continual labour would be as pleasant as it would be bracing and improving. I hated idleness; what, therefore, should I do with wealth? I

be misconstrued; words may seem to mean much, and yet be only the senseless verbiage of flirtation: the tautology of a shallow-witted fancy."

No! Man scorns to be judged save by the letter of the law; and the woman who has had no proposal from her lover, is despised for having given her happiness in exchange for hints and hopes. Such exactly Ernest certainly was not. He did not mean to trifle with

me; he really, I believe, loved me; but he was poor, and he put off the irrevocable words to a more convenient season.

I thought not of these things. I saw affection in his eyes, I heard it in his voice, and I wished for no more. I had consented before to give him some of my writings to correct, which he had done with great judgment and charity; and having highly embellished them by a few of his own brilliant touches-unconsciously to himself, for it was merely substituting one word for another, which new word threw a blaze of light over the formerly obscure-he had promised to use his interest in gaining them admission into some literary periodical. We had been discussing this plan on our way home, and I was in a flutter of delightful hope and pride when I ran into our sitting-room at the hotel. My aunt was at the table drowned in tears. A black-edged letter lay before her: she had no words to speak. I took up the letter, and saw my father was dead. A sudden fit of apoplexy had

removed him from the world.

I had never been much loved or regarded at home, yet this loss struck heavily to my heart. Nature was strong in me, and I wept as passionately as if for a dear and valuable friend. Even the careless pat on the head which had been his warmest salutation to me would now have been more precious than the kindest ca

resses from others. I had lost not only the father who had neglected me, but the father who might have been my best and tenderest guide and protector. I had always hoped that, when my sisters and brothers were disposed of, my father would feel me to be of some use-that then I might gain the affection my childhood had never known. Before I left home to become acquainted with Ernest Marchmont, I had always looked forward to a single life.

Mrs. Butler proceeded home by Glasgow. We found my eldest brother at Studlegh. My mother had gone to London to reside with Lady Fitzinterest; thither I, too, was sent. Two of the boys were placed at Addiscombe, my father having obtained cadetships for them; and the youngest returned to school. The family affairs were said to be in great confusion; but my brother had succeeded as principal partner in the banking house, and he told the lawyers that, if they would only give him time, he would set everything to rights, so that the will could be carried entirely into effect. We were each left five thousand pounds, and the rest was to belong to my elder brother. Forty-five thousand pounds was a large sum, he said, to take at once from the banking house: it must be done gradually he must make suitable arrangements.

The executors were lazy, wealthy, goodnatured people, and agreed to his proposals, for which they were afterwards severely censured by the world, as well as by the sufferers from their supineness.

Meanwhile, I journeyed to London. Tennyson had not then given to the world that beautiful image in his "Locksley Hall:"

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Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,

Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night, along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,

Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn,

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,

Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men.”

A beautiful picture. Tennyson, thou art the most seductive of mannerists! Had I written such poetry as some of the bursts in "Locksley Hall," I had not now been a disappointed authoress; but my dreams were too dreamytoo much of the filmy gossamer. I lacked nerve to knit them strongly for the lasting use of my

fellow-creatures.

Although "Locksley Hall" was not written, I felt a great deal of its spirit in my heart. London looked grander in the distance than when I found myself in the grin brick street in which Lady Fitzinterest resided. Some of the streets frequented by the nobility are the very gloomiest in the town. Belgravia and Asia Minor (as the Anglo-Indian colony beyond the Edgeware-road is sometimes termed) were then in infancy, and aristocracy did not disdain the wretched lanes running out of Piccadilly. My sister's was a large gloomy house in one of these narrow streets. It was dulness itself by day; but the long suite of rooms looked very imposing by night. Adelicia, however, could not entertain so soon after our father's death, and the season, fortunately, not being very near, she made the whole household emigrate a fortnight after my

arrival.

Stillington Manor was a very fine old place, river running in sight of the house; but it was with very magnificent foliage, and a beautiful interest had engaged a moor in Scotland, and a desert to my sister and mother. Lord Fitz

carried off all the men he could muster to swell

his game-list. Adelicia languished without gentlemen. My mother disliked the seclusion of widowhood. The house was as hushed as death. Adelicia's children seldom left the nursery; their noise was too much for their delicate relatives. The poor things went out to walk at the back-door, and were never seen in the dining-room or drawing-room save after dinner, when they crept in noiselessly one by one, to show their new frocks and to kiss their mamma, and then they crept out the same way. I think to their mamma the great object of their existthey had a new frock on every day. It seemed ence that they should wear as much embroidered muslin, showy ribbon, lace, velvet, and satin as their little bodies could accommodate in the twelvemonth. They were girls both, and that was a grand fault in their parents' eyes. I liked them all the better for their "femenitye." never could tolerate little heirs and lordlingsthey are such grievous specimens, generally, of corrupted infancy. Celia was with them: I had

I

not seen her for a year. She was now nine years
old, with a promise of great beauty. Her pure
spirit was unspoiled by all the injudicious flattery
she had received. The praises lavished on her
beauty and her musical abilities only made her
guilelessly happy and overflowingly grateful to
every one.
She was glad for all they told her,
but not vain. Her perfect innocence of thought
kept her untainted by the worldlings around
her. She conceived a strong fancy for me, and
I was delighted to read to her and to interest her
in her studies. Her "studies"-a word foolishly
misapplied. My poor Celia was taught at this
time three instruments-the harp, the piano, and
the guitar. She had a French bonne to teach
her the language, and an Italian footman for a
similar purpose.
She had had lessons in
dancing, and in all sorts of posture exercises
from professors of graceful deportment. My
mother was almost insane about Celia. She
expected great and lofty results from her. She
was to marry higher than any of her sisters, and
to be the leader of the London ton. "I have been
quite heart-broken," she murmured, "about poor
Effingham's degradation to that vile counting-
house; but I am resolved to have my own way
with Celia."

serted rooms, and the uncomfortable sensation of carpetless floors, covered-up furniture, and closed shutters. Nor did the mood of Effingham add much to its liveliness. Some heavy care seemed pressing on his mind. He would leave me alone all day, while he was either closeted with the steward, or visiting every farm on his property, where he made so many and such strange inquiries with such a disquieted air, that his tenants looked at each other significantly when he turned away, and touched their own foreheads with a shrewd nod.

One of my first visits was to Mrs. Marchmont. She lived in a pretty green-venetianed cottage near the Mersey. She was tying up early roses against a wall when I entered by a wicket on her neat small lawn. Ernest, with a book in his hand, was speaking to her very thoughtfully. Both started when they saw me, and Ernest's face was suffused with crimson-a very rare event with him. His mother welcomed me kindly, and I sat some time in conversation; but Ernest was sad and constrained. I felt exceedingly surprised, and perhaps showed this feeling; for Mrs. Marchmont apologised for not having visited me by saying they had not heard Mr. Studlegh was accompanied by any of his sisters. Ernest had not yet received his promised appointment, and repeated laughingly, yet with an involuntary dash of bitterness, "It is very hard, Laura, you have always had Spencer's famous lines, which applied to him your own way; you have grown up as mascu- too truly. He had been twice or thrice in Lonline and inelegant as you chose; for I always don, to try personal solicitations, and as yet had saw you were too obstinate to do anything with. failed. But his genius was beginning to bear But I must beg you do not corrupt your sister's fruits; his talents had latterly been employed mind with your radical politics and blue-stock-on political subjects, and his writings were graing learning. If you think you should work as hard in the library as if you made your bread by it, all very well; but Celia is quite another thing she is sure to marry as soon as she is presented. I feel confident she will make a great sensation, if she is not vulgarized by unnecessary reading.”

You may therefore imagine Lady Arabella's horror when it was discovered I was trying to teach Celia Latin.

I quietly acquiesced, and the arrival of a new regiment at the county town, with a posse of music-mad officers, made a revolution in the state of things. The major and the captain were continually at the manor, practising with the ladies, and Celia ran a risk of being made a precocious flirt by the gallant foppery of her tuneful accompaniments.

Adelicia recovered her spirits and her good looks in the animation of receiving visitors, and Lady Arabella grew more monomaniac than before about Celia.

Now, indeed, I felt the want of intellectual society. The silly, vapid, persiflage of the officers-the meaningless smiles of the ladies the trite commonplaces of conversation-jaded my spirit. Most of my time I spent alone, wandering in the woods, luxuriating in poetical dreams, or pensively recalling the days of Ernest Marchmont. Winter was passed very much in the same way, but in spring Effingham good-naturedly asked me to return with him to Studlegh. We two were all alone in that great house. It looked very mournful-the wide, de

dually making their way in the world. His poetry likewise was favourably reviewed and widely circulated. These facts his mother told me.

"Why not," I exclaimed, with a burst of enthusiasm-" why not trust to your pen, and follow literature entirely? There you have every advantage."

I stopped suddenly, for I caught his eye, which expressed a kindly pity for inexperience. "Don't you remember Walter Scott's advice with regard to literature? It is a starving trade --a good servant, but a bad master; writing for one's house-room and dry crust would clip the boldest-winged imagination. The pressure of necessity squeezes out the very dregs of the mind. No; I will wait for necessity; I will not turn literature-monger till every other honest trade is denied to me. I would rather serve for hire in any shop, and write my poetry for dear love by a farthing rushlight when everybody was sleeping. No one who truly estimates the dignity of the poet would write down to the passing frivolities of the season to pay his daily way. Poetry is to me too sacred to jar its harmony with the jingling of the guinea."

He stopped, confused by his own energetic feelings. His mother looked upon him with a proud sadness. She seemed to see him already in the iron crush of the starving crowd.

I rose up and went home. A foreboding voice within me said, Ernest Marchmont cannot

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