Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

INDIA:

THE

PEARL OF PEARL RIVER.

BY

MRS. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.

AUTHOR OF “THE MISSING BRIDE,” “THE LOST HEIRESS,” “THE DESERTED WIFE,” “THE WIFE’S VICTORY,” ETC.

Complete in one large volume, neatly bound in cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five Cents; or in two volumes, paper cover, for One Dollar.

“‘INDIA: THE PEARL OF PEARL RIVER,’ taking it all in all, is the best work Mrs. Southworth has yet written. It is one great merit in her fictions, that they faithfully delineate life and manners, without entering on vexed social, religious, or political issues. In ‘India,’ the reader will find a vivid delineation of the South-West. But this is not all: the characters are boldly drawn, the incidents natural, and the action of the story rapid and absorbing. The two heroines are finely contrasted. The hero is a noble creation; strong of will, earnest in purpose, firm for the right, and persevering to the end in whatever he believes to be justice and truth. We cannot recall, in any late work, a character so ideally lofty, yet so faithful to reality. The heroic spirit in which he goes West, abandoning the luxuries he has been accustomed to, and settling down in his rude log hut, determined to conquer fortune with his own good right hand, is, indeed, the true type of a self-relying American. No fiction of Mrs. Southworth’s bears such proofs of careful finish. It ought, on these several accounts, to have a popularity unrivalled by any of her former works, spite of the immense circulation they have attained.”

☞ Copies of either edition of the above work will be sent to any part of the United States, free of postage, on the person wishing it remitting the price to the publisher, in a letter.

T. B. Peterson publishes a complete and uniform edition of Mrs. Southworth’s works, any one or all of which will be sent to any place in the United States, free of postage, on receipt of remittances. The following are their names:

THE LOST HEIRESS. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Being a splendid Picture of American Life; everybody admiring and applauding it as a master production. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

THE MISSING BRIDE; OR, MIRIAM, THE AVENGER. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

THE WIFE’S VICTORY; AND NINE OTHER NOUVELLETTES. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. It is embellished with a view of Prospect Cottage, the residence of the author, as well as a view of Brotherton Hall. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

THE CURSE OF CLIFTON. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

THE DISCARDED DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Two volumes, paper cover, price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

THE DESERTED WIFE. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

IN PRESS, AND WILL BE SHORTLY PUBLISHED.

RETRIBUTION; OR, THE VALE OF SHADOWS. A Tale of Passion. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW; OR, THE ISLE OF RAYS. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

SHANNONDALE. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

VIRGINIA AND MAGDALENE: OR, THE FOSTER SISTERS. By Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

☞ Copies of either edition of any of the above works, will be sent to any person, to any part of the United States, free of postage, on their remitting the price of whatever works they may wish, to the publisher, in a letter post-paid.

Published and for Sale by T. B. PETERSON,

No. 102 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

MOVING INTO WOLF GROVE

INDIA:
THE
PEARL OF PEARL RIVER.

BY

EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.

AUTHOR OF “DESERTED WIFE,” “LOST HEIRESS,” “CURSE OF CLIFTON,” “DISCARDED DAUGHTER,” “MISSING BRIDE,” “WIFE’S VICTORY.”

“How changed since last her speaking eye

Glanced gladness round the glittering room,

Where high-born men were proud to wait—

Where beauty watched to imitate

Her gentle voice and lovely mien—

And gather from her air and gait

The graces of its queen!”—Byron.

Philadelphia:

T. B. PETERSON, NO. 102 CHESTNUT STREET.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

T. B. PETERSON,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

PRINTED BY KING & BAIRD.

TALMAGE BROTHERS, BOOKBINDERS.

TO

MRS. HELEN MOORE WALL,

OF PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA,

This Volume is most affectionately Dedicated,

BY HER FRIEND,

EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.

Prospect Cottage,

February 16th, 1856.

PREFACE.

The leading incidents of the following story were suggested by circumstances in the life of a near relative, long since, we trust, in Heaven. I have used the novelist’s privilege in giving a happier termination to the fiction than is warranted by the facts.

E. D. E. N. S.

Prospect Cottage,

February 16th, 1856.

CONTENTS.

INDIA:

THE

PEARL OF PEARL RIVER.

CHAPTER I.
THE COLLEGIAN’S SUPPER.

“Filled is life’s goblet to the brim.”—Longfellow.

“India!” exclaimed Mark Sutherland, rising at the head of his table, and waving high the brimming glass, while his fine dark countenance lighted up with enthusiasm. A young Ajax in athletic beauty and strength, stood the Mississippian, until—

“India!” responded his friend Lauderdale, from the foot of the table.

“India!” echoed the young men around the board, as they all arose, and, standing, honoured the toast. Then the glasses jingled merrily down upon the table, and then—

“Now that in blind faith we have worshipped your goddess—who is India? Is it a woman or a quarter of the globe—your idolatry?”

“India!” ejaculated the young Southerner with fervor. “India!

“‘Oh! a woman! friend, a woman! Why, a beast had scarce been duller’

than to have harboured such a question! Fill high your glasses again, and

“‘’Twixt the red wine and the chalice’

let me breathe her beauty’s name. Gentlemen, are you ready?—The Pearl of Pearl River!”

“The Pearl of Pearl River!” responded Lauderdale.

“The Pearl of Pearl River!” re-echoed all those gay youths, as this toast was also quaffed standing, and the empty glasses rattled down upon the table.

This was the parting toast, and the company broke up to separate. The young guests all crowded around their youthful host with adieus, regrets, congratulations, and kind wishes; for all these opposite phrases were equally appropriate, as will be seen.

Mark Sutherland was the son and nephew of the celebrated Pearl River planters—the three brothers Sutherland. He was the prospective possessor of three immense estates—being the heir of the first, betrothed to the heiress of the second, and co-heir with her to the third extensive plantation. He had just concluded a brilliant collegiate course with distinguished honour; he was soon to return south, to enter upon his patrimony, and claim the hand of his affianced bride, before he set forth upon his European travels. And this was his valedictory entertainment, given to his classmates. For him, indeed—

“Filled was life’s goblet to the brim!”

No wonder those fine strong eyes danced with anticipation as he shook hands right and left. He was, up to this time, a frank, thoughtless, joyous, extravagant fellow—selfish because he knew nothing of sorrow, and wasteful because he knew nothing of want. Affluent in youth, health, and love—affluent in wealth, honour, and homage—he seemed to consider gold valueless as dust, and deference only his just due. He “the heir of all the ages” past of thought and toil, had entered upon his intellectual inheritance with great éclat; but as yet not one mite had he added to the store; not one thought had he bestowed upon the great subjects that now engross all earnest minds. Too full of youthful fire, vitality, love, hope, and joy, for any grave thought or feeling to find room in his brain or heart, was the planter’s son. How, indeed, could earnest thought find entrance through such a crowd of noisy joys to his heart? He stood upon the threshold of the past, indeed, and his face was set forward towards the future; but not one onward step had he taken. Why should he trouble himself? The bounteous future was advancing to him, smiling, and laden with all the riches of life and time.

But he stood, receiving the adieus of his young friends, and dealing out wholesale and retail invitations for all and each to come and visit him, for an indefinite length of time, or until they were tired. At last they were all gone, except Lauderdale, his chum, who was passing some days with him, as his guest, at the Minerva House.

“You are an enviable dog, Sutherland,” exclaimed the latter, clapping him sharply upon the shoulder. “You are a deuced enviable villain! By my soul, it is enough to make a poor man like me dissatisfied with his lot, or the present arrangements of society, which amounts to precisely the same thing, I suppose. Deuce take me, if it is not enough to make me turn Agrarian, Chartist, Radical, or whatever may be the new name for the old discontent! Just contrast our positions! Here are you, at one-and-twenty years of age, entirely free from all toil and care for the whole remainder of your life. You will now return to a sumptuous southern home, on a magnificent estate, where troops of friends wait to welcome you, and troops of slaves attend to serve you, and where your bride, the very pearl of beauty, dreams of and languishes for your presence; and, above all—yes, I speak reflectingly, above all—more than sumptuous home, and troops of friends, and trains of servants, and blushing bride—where, lying perdue at your service, is a plenty of the root of all evil—

‘Gold to save—gold to lend—

Gold to give—gold to spend.’

While I!—well, I shall just plod on in the old way, teaching school one half the year to pay my college expenses for the other, until I find myself in some lawyer’s shop, in arrears with my landlady, in debt to my washerwoman—detesting to walk up the street, because I should pass the tailor’s store—abhorring to walk down it, because I should be sure to see the shoemaker standing in his door. With no more comfort or convenience in my life than can be enjoyed between my little back-chamber, up four pair of stairs in a cheap boarding-house, and the straight-backed chair and high-topped desk of the law shop. And no more love, or hope, or poetry, in my life, than may be found bound up between the covers of Coke upon Lyttleton. Or perhaps I shall turn private tutor, and advertise, ‘A highly respectable young gentleman, a graduate of Yale College, wishes to obtain,’ &c.; and you, who will be by this time the grave head of a family, with several little domestic liabilities, will probably answer the advertisement; and I shall find myself teaching the names of the keys of knowledge to young Mark and his brothers. Oh!”——

“Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!” laughed Sutherland.

“Oh, you’ll patronise me, rather! You’ll be kind to me; for you’ll say to yourself and friends, ‘He was a college friend of mine, poor fellow.’ I fancy I hear and see you saying it now, with that careless, cordial, jolly condescension of yours.”

“Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! My dear Lincoln! My dear fellow, why should that be? Why should you be pettifogger or pedagogue, unless you have a vocation for it? Why should anybody do what they don’t want to do? Life is rich—full of wealth, and love, and joy, and glory. Enter and take possession.”

“Enter and take possession! Yes, that is what you can do. Life is full of wealth, and love, and joy, and glory, for you, indeed; and you can afford to mock me with those words! But, never mind, my fine flamingo! I have heard the wise say that happiness is not so unequally distributed, after all. And I, for one, don’t believe this cake of comfort is going to be so very unjustly divided between us, or that you will have all the white sugar on the top, and I all the burnt paper at the bottom.”

“See here, my friend, remember that we good-for-nothing Mississippians are not initiated into the mysteries of the kitchen, and therefore I don’t understand your culinary figure of speech at all.”

“Oh, go on! go on! You’re a young bear!”

“A young bear! Comrades! Oh, they are all gone! A young bear? Oh, I suppose he alludes to my black whiskers and hair, and my shag over coat!”

“I mean your trouble is all before you!”

“Trouble? Oh, my dear boy, that is a word with out a meaning! Trouble? What is trouble? What idea is the word designed to represent? Trouble? Oh, my dear fellow, it is all a mistake, a mere notion, a superstition, a prejudice; a saying of old folks, who, being near the verge of departure from this bright, glad, joyous, jubilant world, vainly try to console themselves by slandering it as a world of trouble, and talk of a better one, to which they are progressing. If this world in itself is not ‘good,’ as the Creator pronounced it to be in the beginning, by all the rules of comparison, how can any other world be said to be better?”

“Well, I believe in the better world as much as they do; but look you! the pleasantest notion I have of Heaven is its being—being”——

“Oh, don’t let it go any further—as good as this world, and only better as far as it endures longer. This world is full of all that is great and glorious for enjoyment! And, Lincoln, my fine fellow, enter and take possession! Don’t teach or study law! Don’t plod; it is ungentlemanly. Somebody, I suppose, must teach and study law, and do such things—but don’t you. Do you leave it to those a—those persons a—those in fact who have the plebeian instinct of labor; you apprehend? They really enjoy work now! Just think of it! I suppose that gracious nature, intending them to carry on the work of the world, endowed them with a taste for it! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! But I’ve no vocation for it! Neither have you, my dear boy. Don’t force your nature in an opposite direction to which it tends, therefore! Enter life, and take possession!”

“Humph! thank you! This is to say, ‘follow my attractions,’ and if they ‘attract’ me to lead an idle life, and live upon other people, why, so much the better—they are my attractions; and if they ‘attract’ me to pick my host’s pocket, or run away with his daughter, it is the same thing by the same law.”

“Ha! ha! ha! Oh, certainly; remembering that your host might experience an attraction to blow your brains out.”

“Pleasant points to be drawn to. I guess I shall not follow my attractions! I’ll stick to the little law shop, and relieve weariness by grumbling. Some distinguished men have emerged from those little law dens; and, by the way, seriously, my dear Mark, I think that I, that you, even you, possess those very qualities out of which really distinguished men are formed, and that if destiny had not ‘thrust’ a sort of moneyed and landed greatness upon you, that even you would ‘achieve’ some judicial, political, diplomatic, or intellectual greatness of some sort.”

“Ha! ha! ha! even I! Well, that is a stretch of possibility, indeed. Even I, humph! Mais à nos moutons. Will you come home with me? Do come and be my guest à éternité—or until you win some rich Mississippi beauty. Woo beauty, not Blackstone, for a fortune. You have so much more genius for the first than for the last, my fine fellow.”

“Oh, then you would have me turn fortune-hunter, and, under cover of your friendship and introduction, aim at some heiress, and bring her down, and so secure wealth?”

“Set fire to you, no! Whom do you take me for? Do you think that I would present an adventurer to Southern creoles? No, sir! But I do want you to fall in love with a Southern beauty, and fortune would follow, of course.”

“I do not see it at all. There are several links wanting in that chain of reasoning. But, apropos of beauty, love, and marriage. Tell me something more of Miss Sutherland, votre belle fiancée.”

“India! listen, you.” And he took Lauderdale’s arm, and turned to walk up and down the room for a confidential chat. “Listen, you! I named her just now over the wine. I regret to have done so. Would it were undone! But so it is; in some moment of excitement a word passes our lips, and it is unrecallable forever. She is so sacred to my heart, so divine to my soul! I often wonder if Helen of Argos were half as beautiful as she—my India.”

“What a strange, charming name that is for a woman!”

“Is it not? But, rich, luxurious, and gorgeous, in its associations, too—(and that is why it was given to her) it suits her. She is India. Her mother was like her—a beautiful, passionate Havanienne, rich in genius, poetry, song—luxuriating in the beautiful creations of others, yet far too indolent to create. More than all, she lost herself amid the oriental elysiums of Moore, and thence she named her only daughter Hinda. And as the maiden budded and bloomed into womanhood—well, yes, I believe, after all, it was I who softened down her name to India. It has the same derivation, it is the same name, in fact. Oh! and it suits her.”

“Describe your nonpareil to me.”

“I cannot. By my soul’s idolatry, I cannot. The best of beauty—the charm, the soul, the divine of beauty—can never be described or painted. It is spiritual, and can only be perceived.”

“Humph! is she fair?”

“No—yet radiant.”

“Dark?”

“No—yet shadowy.”

“Is she tall?”

“No.”

“Short?”

“No, no; nonsense!”

“What, neither tall nor short? Perhaps she is of medium height.”

“I do not know. I cannot tell, indeed. But oh! she is beautiful—she is glorious! My lady, my queen!”

“To come to something tangible, what is the colour of her eyes?”

“Oh! what is the colour of love, or joy, or heaven? for as soon could I tell you the colour of these as of her witching eyes. I only know they have light, softly thrilling all the chords of life, like music; and shadows, calming my spirit, like silence.”

“Well, I admit the hue of beautiful eyes to be a mysterious point; but hair, now, is a little more certain in that respect. Tell me the hue of your lady’s tresses.”

“I cannot. I only know they are rich, warm, and lustrous.”

“Humph! satisfactory portrait that. Oh! here is Flamingo. Come, Flame, and tell me what is the colour of your young mistress’s hair.”

The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Sutherland’s valet, who had just entered. Flamingo was a character in his way; a handsome, bright mulatto, with quite a “wealth” of bushy black silky hair and whiskers. Very mercurial in temperament, and excessively fond of dress, he presented quite as gay and gorgeous an exterior as the famous feathered biped, his namesake. Flamingo stood for a moment in a quandary, at the suddenness and novelty of the question put to him.

“Oh, come, now; you are not poetically bewildered. Can’t you tell us the colour of the lady’s hair?”

“De colour o’ Miss Inda’s hair, sir—a—yes, sir—its—its—’bout de colour o’ ‘lasses taffy, when you’re ’bout half done pullin’ of it, an’ it’s shining.”

“Molasses taffy! Out, you wretch! It is amber-hued, Lauderdale—amber-hued, understand; the rich, warm, lustrous hue of amber. Molasses taffy! Oh, villain! To think I could not find a comparison in all nature precious enough for those precious tresses, and he should compare them to molasses taffy! Out of my sight, beast! Molasses taffy! Pah!” exclaimed Sutherland, in disgust, while Lauderdale laughed aloud, and Flamingo vanished into the adjoining chamber, where he turned on the gas, and busied himself in making the apartment comfortable for the night.

“Come, let’s get out of this mess before the waiters come to clear away the service. Look! This is one of the things that always make me melancholy,” said Sutherland, pointing to the disordered table.

Both young men were about to retire, when Sutherland again clasped the hand of his friend and said—“But you have not yet told me whether you will accompany me home. Come, laying all jesting and raillery aside, you know how happy I should be to have you.”

“And you know what I have told you before, my dear Sutherland, that I must go to New York for the anniversary week. And by the way, my dear Damon, why cannot you stop a few days before you go South, and attend some of these meetings?”

“Me! Heavens! You shock me! You deprive me of words—of breath! I! a Mississippian! Why, look you; if I were to attend one of those meetings, and if it should be known in my neighborhood, my friends would turn me off, my uncles disinherit me, and my father rise from his grave to reproach me. Sir, my friends and relatives are ‘of the most straitest sect of the Pharisees!’”

“And do you share their opinions?”

“Opinions? Opinions, my dear fellow! I have no opinions. Opinions, it appears to me, are the currency of—of—those who have nothing else to offer in exchange for a living.”

“Levity! Oh, Mark, how you sin against your own fine mind!”

“Oh! come, come, come, no more of that. ‘Sir, praise is very flat, except from the fair sex.’”

“Ah! I see you are hopelessly flighty to-night. Good night.”

“Good night. Stay; you will go with me?”

“No; unless you first accompany me to New York, and remain through the anniversary week, and attend the meetings.”

“And hear myself traduced, slandered, abused, cursed! A pleasant invitation—thank you.”

“And get yourself disabused of many things, you should rather say. See here, Mark, my proposition is perfectly fair and reasonable, and has a meaning in it. Observe: you invite me to the South, and laughingly promise that an actual acquaintance with the patriarchal system shall cool what you call my fever; and that a Southern bride with two hundred negroes, shall completely cure it. Well, I am reasonable. I am open to conviction. I am willing to try it—to examine the ‘peculiar institution’ with the utmost impartiality. Nor do I fear or doubt the result. But observe further. Both of us, it seems, have heard but one side of this great question. I therefore consent to go with you to the South, and spend some weeks on a cotton plantation, only on condition that you accompany me to New York, and attend the anniversary meetings. In a word, I will see your side of the question, if you will hear ours.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll go,” exclaimed Sutherland, laughing, and clapping his hand cordially into that of Lauderdale. “I’ll go, nor have I any doubt or fear as to the result.”

CHAPTER II.
A SOUTHERN HOME.

“——A villa beautiful to see;

Marble-porched and cedar-chambered,

Hung with silken drapery;

Bossed with ornaments of silver,

Interlaid with gems and gold;

Filled with carvings from cathedrals,

Rescued in the days of old;

Eloquent with books and pictures,

All that luxury can afford;

Warm with statues that Pygmalion

Might have fashioned and adored.

In the forest glades and vistas,

Lovely are the light and gloom:

Fountains sparkle in the gardens,

And exotics breathe perfume.”—Mackay.

The sun shines on no more beautiful and entrancing region than the vale of Pearl river. It is the Elysium of the sunny south, reposing between the rich alluvial lands of the Mississippi, and the fragrant[^[1]] pine forests of the Pascagoula. The green land of the valley seems to roll in gentle undulations, like the waves of a calm sea. Between the swelling hills, or rather waves of verdure, flow crystal streams towards the bosom of the Pearl. These lovely hills are capped with groves of the most beautiful and odoriferous of the southern flowering trees. These charming streams are shaded with the most fragrant and delightful of the flowering shrubs and vines. Here nature throws around her riches with an unsparing hand and a wonderful exuberance of luxury. Birds of the most brilliant plumage and enchanting melody fill all the summer groves, at early morn and eve, with their perfect music. Flowers of countless varieties, and most beautiful forms and hues, laden all the air with their ambrosial perfume. The breeze is charged with music and fragrance, as from the spicy groves of Araby the Blest.

[1]. All who have travelled through or near the pine woods of Mississippi know the effect of the southern sun upon these trees, ripening and rarefying from them a most grateful and salubrious fragrance, called the “terebinthine odour.” The effect of the climate is still more obvious upon ornamental trees and flowers. Those that lose much of their luxuriant beauty and fragrance in the North, attain in the South their utmost perfection.

If in this garden—this conservatory of Nature, where all her choicest luxuries are assembled—there is one spot more favoured than all the rest, it is “Cashmere,” the beautiful seat of Clement Sutherland.

The brothers Sutherland emigrated from the old dominion, and settled on the Pearl river, in those palmy days of cotton-planting, when every planter seemed a very Midas, turning all he touched to gold, and when the foundations were laid of some of the present enormous southern fortunes. It was no love for the land of sun that brought the Sutherlands there. They had heard that the common annual profits of the cotton crops were from ten to eighty thousand dollars; and they had sold their tobacco plantation on the Potomac, and emigrated to the valley of the Pearl. The spot selected by the brothers was that Eden of the valley where the Pearl river turns with a serpentine bend in the form of an S with an additional curve, shaping the land into two round points to the west, and one—the largest and loveliest—to the east. The east point had been taken up by Clement Sutherland, the eldest of the brothers, and the west points by the two others. Thus Clement Sutherland’s plantation lay embosomed between those of his brethren. On the upper side lay that of Mark, the second brother, and on the lower, that of Paul, the third and bachelor brother.

Very early in life, and some years previous to their emigration, Mark Sutherland had been united in marriage to a lady of St. Mary’s—one of the noblest of Maryland’s noble daughters. From her, their only son, Mark Sutherland, the younger, inherited a strong mind, warm heart, and high spirit; from his father he took the stalwart form, athletic strength, and dark and sometimes terrible beauty, that marked the race of Sutherland.

Clement Sutherland had remained unmarried until long after his settlement upon the Pearl. But one autumn, while on a visit to New Orleans, to negotiate the sale of his cotton, he chanced to meet a beautiful West Indian girl, whom he afterwards wooed and won for his bride. Whether the sweet Havanienne, or the large fortune of which she was the sole heiress, was the object of his worship, was a mooted point by those who knew him best. It is probable he adored both. Certainly no slightest wish or whim of the lovely Creole remained unsatisfied. It was she who gave the charming scene of his home the appropriate name of Cashmere. She it was who persuaded him to pause in his incessant, exclusive thinking, talking, and acting, about cotton-growing, and his mad pursuit of gain, to build and adorn an elegant villa upon the site of the temporary framed house to which he had brought the beautiful épicurienne. Her rare artistic taste presided over the architecture and embellishment of the mansion, and the laying out and ornamenting of the grounds. But here the evanescent energy of the indolent West Indian died out. She was, at best, but a lovely and fragile spring flower, that faded and fell ere the summer of her life had come. She left a child of perfect beauty—a little girl—who inherited her mother’s graceful harmony of form and complexion, and her father’s strength and vigour of constitution.

Immediately after the death of her mother, the orphaned infant had been taken home by her aunt, Mrs. Mark Sutherland, to share the maternal cares bestowed upon her only son. The lady gave herself up to the rearing and education of these children. And not the noble mother of the Gracchi was prouder of her “jewels” than Mrs. Sutherland of hers. Thus the infancy and childhood of Mark and Hinda were passed together—the same mother’s heart, the same nursery, the same school-room, nay, the same book, with their heads together, and their black and golden locks mingled, were shared by the children. And no Guinea mice or turtle doves were ever fonder of each other than our boy and girl.

It was a woful day when they were first separated—Mark to enter college, and Hinda to be placed at a fashionable boarding-school. Tears fell on both sides, like spring showers. Young Mark, when laughed at for his girlish tears, angrily rejoined, that it was no shame to weep; that the renowned hero, Achilles, had wept when they took Briseis away from him, also when his friend Patroclus was slain.

Paul Sutherland, the third brother, had remained up to the present time unmarried, with the determination to continue so until the end of his life. He bestowed his affections with paternal pride and devotion upon his niece and nephew, resolving to make them his joint heirs, and with his own large property swell the enormous bulk of theirs. Just two years previous to the opening of our story, the Pearl river trio had been broken by the death of Mark Sutherland, the elder. Young Sutherland had hastened home to console his widowed mother, but not long did the widow permit him to remain. The lady sent him back at the commencement of the next following term.

But it is time to describe more particularly Cashmere, the charming seat of Clement Sutherland, and the principal scene of our drama. The estate itself was a very extensive one, comprising several thousand acres of the richest land in the vale. That part of the plantation on which the villa had been erected lay in a bend of the Pearl river, surrounded on three sides—north, east, and south—by its pellucid waters. The whole of this area is occupied by the mansion and ornamental grounds.

The villa itself is a very elegant edifice of white freestone, fronting the river. The building is long and broad, in proportion to its height—this being the necessary plan of all southern mansions, to save them from the effects of the terrible tornadoes that sweep over the country, and to which a higher elevation would expose them. But the mansion is relieved from all appearance of heaviness, by a light and elegant Ionic colonnade, sustaining an open verandah running around three sides of the building. On the fourth side, looking to the south, the aspect is diversified by a large bay window projecting from the lower story, and an elegant Venetian balcony from the upper one.

The villa is also shaded on three sides—north, west, and south—by a grove of the most beautiful and fragrant of the southern trees—the splendid tulip-poplar, lifting to the skies its slender shaft, crested with elegantly-shaped leaves of the most brilliant and intense verdure, and crowned with its bell-shaped flowers of the most vivid and gorgeous flame colour; the beautiful cotton-wood tree, softly powdered over with its formless snowy blossoms; the queenly magnolia-grandiflora, with its glittering green foliage and dazzling white flowers and rich oppressive aroma; the pretty red-bud, with its umbrella-shaped top, its crumpled, heart-shaped leaves, and scarlet tufts; the bois-d’arc, in full bloom, the most splendid and magnificent of ornamental trees, uniting the rarest qualities of the orange tree and the catalpa; the chinidine, with its vivid green foliage and brilliant purple flowers, dropping delicious but heavy narcotic odours, weighing down the nerves and brain into luxurious repose, and stupefying the very birds that shelter in its aromatic shades, so that they may be taken captive with the bare hand; the imperial catalpa, sovereign of the grove by virtue of the grandeur and elegance of its form, the grace and beauty of its foliage, and the ambrosial perfume of its flowers, filling all the air around with its delightful fragrance; and many, many others, so various, beautiful, and aromatic, that one is lost and entranced amid the luxuriating wealth of the grove. Birds of the most splendid plumage and the most exquisite melody—the goldfinch, the oriole, the redbird, the paroquet, the nightingale, swallow, and innumerable others, shelter here, and their songs fill the air with music. No artificial walk disfigures the sward. The green and velvety turf affords the softest, coolest footing. Rustic seats of twisted bow-wood are under the trees; here and there fountains of crystal water leap, sparkle, and fall, ever playing silvery accompaniments to the song of birds; statues of Diana, Pan, and the wood-nymphs, peopled the grove. Its shades are the delightful resort of the Sutherlands and their friends, to enjoy the freshness and brilliancy of the morning, to find shelter from the burning rays of the sun at noon, or to luxuriate in the delicious breeze of the evening. This Arcadian grove, as has been said, surrounded the house on three sides—north, west, and south.

The east is the front of the house towards the river. The view here is open, and the most beautiful, charming, and variegated, to be imagined.

From the colonnaded verandah a flight of broad marble steps lead to a terrace carpeted with grass, and planted with rose-bushes—the Damascus, the Provence, the scarlet, the white, the multiflora, the moss rose; daily, monthly, and perpetual roses; “roses—everywhere roses”—such a luxuriant exuberance of roses upon this velvety terrace. The rose terrace is divided from the lawn by a treillage of the most delicate and elaborate trellis-work; and this also is wreathed and festooned by running rose vines.

Below this spreads the lawn on every side, not level, but gently waving, and covered with grass as soft, as smooth, and as downy as velvet; and everywhere the eye roves with pleasure over a turf of brilliant intense green, except where it is variegated with the floral mosaic work of gay parterres, or trellised arbours, or reservoirs, or single magnificent forest trees left standing in honour of their monarchal grandeur. The parterres are rich, beautiful, and fragrant beyond description; there our hothouse plants bloom in the open air; and there our common garden flowers—violets, lilies, roses, myrtles, irises, and innumerable others—flourish with surpassing luxuriance. The arbours, of delicate trellis-work and elegant form, are shaded and adorned with running vines of rich Armenean and cape jessamine, honeysuckles, and woodbine. The reservoirs contain gold fish, and other ornamental specimens of the piscatorial kingdom.

This extensive and beautiful lawn is surrounded by an iron open-work fencing, very light and elegant in appearance, yet very strong and impassable. Three ornamented gates relieve the uniformity of this iron trellis; one on the north leads through to the orange groves, always inviting and delightful, whether in full bloom, and shedding ambrosial perfume in the spring, or laden with their golden fruit in the fall. The gate on the north admitted into the vineyard, where every variety of the finest and rarest grapes flourished in luxuriant abundance. The one on the east is central between these two others, and leads from the lawn down to the white and pebbly beach of the Pearl, where pretty boats are always moored for the convenience of the rambler who might desire to cross the river.

And then the curving river itself is well named the Pearl, from the soft, semi-transparent glow of roseate, whitish, or saffron tints, caught from the heavens.

Across the soft water, in rich contrast, lie hills, and groves, and cotton-fields—the latter, one of the gayest features in southern scenery. They are sometimes a mile square. They are planted in straight rows, six feet apart; and the earth between them, of a rich Spanish-red colour, is kept entirely clean from weeds. The plants grow to the height of seven feet, and spread in full-leaved branches, bearing brilliant white and gold-hued flowers. When in full bloom, a cotton-field by itself is a gorgeous landscape. Beyond these hills, and groves, and cotton fields, are other cotton-fields, and groves, and hills, extending on and on, until afar off they blend with the horizon, in soft, indistinct hues, mingled together like the tints of the clouds.

I have led you through the beautiful grounds immediately around and in front of the villa; but behind the mansion, and back of the grove, there are gardens and orchards, and still other fields of cotton and outhouses, and offices, and the negro village called “The Quarters.”

CHAPTER III.
THE PLANTER’S DAUGHTER.

She has halls and she has vassals, and the resonant steam eagles

Follow fast on the directing of her floating dove-like hand,

With a thunderous vapour trailing underneath the starry vigils,

So to mark upon the blasted heavens the measure of her lands.

Mrs. Browning.

The summer sun had just sunk below the horizon, leaving all the heavens suffused with a pale golden and roseate light, that falls softly on the semi-transparent waters of the Pearl, flowing serenely on between its banks of undulating hills and dales, and green and purple lights and glooms. No jarring sight or sound breaks the voluptuous stillness of the scene and hour. The golden light has faded from the windows and balconies of the villa, and sunk with the sunken sun. An evening breeze is rising from the distant pine woods, that will soon tempt the inmates forth to enjoy its exhilarating and salubrious freshness and fragrance. But as yet all is quiet about the mansion.

In the innermost sanctuary of that house reposes Miss Sutherland. It is the most elegant of a sumptuous suit of apartments, upon which Mr. Sutherland had spared no amount of care or expense—having summoned from New Orleans a French artiste, of distinguished genius in his profession, to superintend their interior architecture, furnishing and adornment.

The suit consists of a boudoir, two drawing-rooms, a hall or picture gallery, a music room, a double parlour, a library, and dining and breakfast rooms; and, by the machinery of grooved doors, all these splendid apartments may be thrown into one magnificent saloon.

But the most finished and perfect of the suite is the luxurious boudoir of India. It is a very bower of beauty and love, a chef d’œuvre of artistic genius, a casket worthy to enshrine the Pearl of Pearl River.

There she reposes in the recess of the bay window, “silk-curtained from the sun.” This bay window is the only one in the apartment; it is both deep and lofty, and is a small room in itself. It is curtained off from the main apartment by drapery of purple damask satin, lined with gold-coloured silk, and festooned by gold cords and tassels. The interior of the recess is draped with thin gold-coloured silk alone; and the evening light, glowing through it, throws a warm, rich, lustrous atmosphere around the form of Oriental beauty, reposing on the silken couch in the recess.

It is a rare type of beauty, not easy to realise by your imagination, blending the highest charms of the spiritual, the intellectual, and the sensual, in seeming perfect harmony; it is a costly type of beauty, possessed often only at a fearful discount of happiness; it is a dangerous organisation, full of fatality to its possessor and all connected with her; for that lovely and voluptuous repose resembles the undisturbed serenity of the young leopardess, or the verdant and flowery surface of the sleeping volcano. It is a richly and highly gifted nature, but one that, more than all others, requires in early youth the firm and steady guidance of the wise and good, and that in after life needs the constant controlling influence of Christian principle.

India Sutherland has never known another guide than her own good pleasure. “Queen o’er herself” she is not, indeed, unhappily; but queen instead over father and lover, friends, relatives, and servants. In truth hers is a gentle and graceful reign. It could not be otherwise, over subjects so devoted as hers. All of them, from Mr. Sutherland her father, down to Oriole her bower-maid, deem it their best happiness to watch, anticipate, and prevent her wants; and she is pleased to repay such devotion with lovely smiles and loving words. She is, indeed, the tamest as well as the most beautiful young leopardess that ever sheathed claws and teeth in the softest down. She is no hypocrite; she is perfectly sincere; but her deepest nature is unawakened, undeveloped. She knows no more, no, nor as much, as you now do, of the latent strength, fire, and cruelty of those passions which opposition might provoke. There she lay, as unconscious of the seeds of selfishness and tyranny as Nero was, when, at seventeen years of age, he burst into tears at signing the first death-warrant. Awful spirits sleep in the vasty depths of our souls—awful in goodness or in evil—and vicissitudes are the Glendowers that can call them forth. There she lies, all unconscious of the coming struggle, “a perfect form in perfect rest.” A rich dress of light material, yet dark and brilliant colours, flows gracefully around her beautiful figure. She reclines upon a crimson silken couch, her face slightly turned downwards, her head supported by her hand, and her eyes fixed upon a book that lies open upon the downy pillow; a profusion of smooth, shining, amber-hued ringlets droop around her graceful Grecian head; her eyebrows are much darker, and are delicately pencilled; her eyelashes are also dark and long, and shade large eyes of the deepest blue; her complexion is very rich, of a clear warm brown, deepening into a crimson blush upon cheeks and lips the brighter and warmer now that the book beneath her eyes absorbs her quite. The light through the golden-hued drapery of the window pours a warm, subdued effulgence over the whole picture. On a cushion below her couch sits a little quadroon girl, of perfect beauty, fanning her mistress with a fan of ostrich plumes; and while she sways the graceful feathers to and fro, her dark eyes, full of affection and innocent admiration, are fixed upon the beautiful epicurienne.

When the rising of the evening breeze began to swell the gold-hued curtains, Oriole dropped her fan, but continued to sit and watch lovingly the features of her lady. When the purple shades of evening began to fall around, Oriole arose softly, and drew back the curtains on their golden wires, to let in more light and air, revealing the terrace of roses, the lawn and its groves and reservoirs, and the lovely rose and amber-clouded Pearl, rolling on between its banks of undulating light and shade; and giving to view, besides, the figure of a lady standing upon the terrace of roses, and who immediately advanced smiling, and threw in a shower of rose-leaves over the recumbent reader, exclaiming—

“Will that wake you? Mon Dieu! What is it you are idling over? The breeze is up, and playing a prelude through the pine tops and cane-brakes, and the birds are about to break forth in their evening song. Will you come out?”

The speaker was a lady of about twenty-five years of age, of petite form, delicate features, dark and brilliant complexion, and sprightly countenance, which owed its fascination to dazzling little teeth, and ripe lips bowed with archness, great sparkling black eyes full of mischief, and jetty ringlets in whose very intricacies seemed to lurk a thousand innocent conspiracies. She was dressed in mourning, if that dress could be called mourning which consisted of a fine light black tissue over black silk, and a number of jet bracelets set in gold, that adorned the whitest, prettiest arms in the world, and a jet necklace that set off the whiteness of the prettiest throat and bosom. Mrs. Vivian, of New Orleans—Annette Valeria Vivian—spirituelle Valerie—piquant Nan!—the widow of a wealthy merchant, a distant relative of Mrs. Sutherland by her mother’s side, and now with her step-daughter on a visit of some weeks here at “Cashmere.”

“Ciel! then do you hear me? What volume of birds or flowers do you prefer to the living birds and flowers out here? What book (pardieu!) of poetry do you like better than the gorgeous pastoral poem spread around us? Mon Dieu! she does not hear me yet! India, I say!” exclaimed the impatient little beauty, throwing in another shower of rose petals.

Miss Sutherland, languid and smiling, rose from her recumbent posture, and handed her the volume.

“Pope! by all that is solemnly in earnest! Pope’s Essay on Man, by all that is grave, serious and awful! Why, I thought at the very worst it was some Flora’s Annual, or Gems of the Aviary, or some other of the embossed and gilded trifles that litter your rooms. But Pope’s Essay on Man! Why, I should as soon have expected to find you studying a work on tanning and currying!”

“Oh, hush, you tease! And tell me what these lines mean. I have been studying them for the last half hour, and can’t make them out.”

“You studying! Ha! ha! ha! You doing anything! By the way, I have been trying to discover what office I hold near the person of our Queen. I have just this instant found out that I am thinker in ordinary to her gracious majesty.”

“Well, dear Nan, do credit to your post—think me out these lines,” said the beauty, languidly sinking back upon her couch.

“But what lines do you mean?”

“Oriole, show them to her. Oh, never mind, you don’t know them. Hand me the book, Nan! Here, here are the lines—now make out a meaning for them, if you can:

‘And binding nature fast in fate,

Left free the human will.’”

“Well,” said Mrs. Vivian, laughing, “it sounds very like—

‘And tying Adam hand and foot,

Bid him get up and walk!’

And it looks as if it might have been written by Uncle Billy Bothsides! Ah, by the way, here he comes. Talk of the evil one, and—you know the rest. Ah, I shall be amused to hear his opinion of the sentiment in question. It is just in his way.”

I am sure that I shall never be able to do justice to the gentleman that was now seen advancing from the lawn—Mr. William I. Bolling, as he called himself; Billy Bolling, as he was called by his brothers-in-law; Bolling Billy, as called by his boon companions of the bowling alley; Uncle Billy, by the young people; Marse Billy, by the negroes; and Billy Bothsides, by everybody else. He was a short, fat, little gentleman, of about fifty years of age, and clothed in an immaculate suit of white linen, with a fresh broad-brimmed straw hat, which as he walked he carried in one hand, while in the other he flourished out a perfumed linen handkerchief, with which he wiped his face and rubbed his head. His little head was covered with fine light hair, that did not shade, but curled itself tightly off from his round, rosy, good-natured face, full of cheerfulness, candour, and conceit. The damper or the warmer the weather, or the more excited state of Uncle Billy’s feelings, then the redder grew his face and the tighter curled off his flaxen hair.

Mr. Bolling was one of those social and domestic ne’er-do-wells of which every large family connection may rue its specimen—one of those idle hangers-on to others, of which almost every southern house does penance with at least one. He was a brother of Mrs. Mark Sutherland, but no credit to his sister or their mutual family; though, to use his own qualifying style, neither was he any dishonour to them. He was a bachelor. He said it was by his own free election that he led a single life, though he vowed he very much preferred a married life; that nothing could be justly compared to the blessings of celibacy, except the beatitude of matrimony. He compromised with the deficiency of every other sort of importance by a large surplus of self-importance. He valued himself mostly upon what he called his cool blood, clear head, and perfect impartiality of judgment. He was not to be seduced by love or bribed by money to any sort of partisanship. And as there are two sides to most questions under the sun, and as Mr. Bolling would look impartially upon positive and negative at once, so Billy

“Won himself an everlasting name.”

He now came up to the bay window, wiping his face, and fanning himself, and saying—

“Good evening, ladies! It is a perfectly delightful evening—though, to be sure, it is insufferably warm.”

Mrs. Vivian immediately challenged him with, “Mr. Bolling, we are anxious to know your opinion upon these lines of Pope;” and she read them to him, and put the book in his hands. He took it, and wiped his face, and fanned himself—but these cooling operations seemed to heat him all the more, for his face grew very red and his flaxen hair crisped tightly as he gazed upon the page, and said: “Eh, yes, that’s all right—certainly!”

“We believe it right, but what does it mean?”

“Mean! Why, this is what it means—

‘Binding nature fast in fate,

Left free the human will;’

certainly—yes.”

“Please to explain yourself, Mr. Bolling,” said the widow, while India gazed on in languid amusement.

Uncle Billy wiped his forehead, and said, “Why I don’t think ladies understand these grave theological matters.”

“No, but you can enlighten us, Mr. Bolling.”

“You see these lines comprise the profoundest problems of philosophy—so profound as to perplex the understandings of the greatest scholars and philosophers that have ever lived; so profound, in fact, as to be quite unintelligible even to me—yet so simple as to be easily comprehended by the narrowest intellect—so simple as to be clear even to you, or to Fly here.”

This was said of a small boy who at that instant appeared with a basket of oranges.

“Fly, do you know what your master William is talking about?”

“Yes, ma’am; politics.”

“Exactly,” smiled Valeria; “go on, Mr. Bolling.”

“Hem! Observe, Mrs. Vivian, that there is an analogy all through nature—physical, mental, moral, spiritual.”

“Yes. Fly, listen—what is he talking about now?”

“Physic and sparrits, ma’am.”

“That is right. Pray go on, Mr. Bolling.”

“Yes; permit me to seat myself.”

Uncle Billy let himself cautiously down upon the green turf. Valeria gave her hand to India, who stepped out upon the terrace and seated herself. Mrs. Vivian sank down near her. Oriole placed herself by her mistress, with the plume fan. Fly stood a short distance off, with his basket of oranges.

The tall rose-trees, blown by the breeze, shed coolness and fragrance over the party. The beautiful variegated lawn, with its groves, ponds, and parterres, stretched out before them; and below it flowed on, between its banks of purple shadow, the limpid Pearl, with the evening light fast fading from its white bosom.

“Now, then, Mr. Bolling!”

“Now, then, Mrs. Vivian! I said that there was an analogy running through the universe of nature; thus, the centripetal and centrifugal forces, that modify each other’s power, and regulate the motions of the planetary systems, correspond exactly to predestination and free will”—

“Do you understand him now, Fly?”

“No, ma’am; Marse Billy’s too deep for me now.”

“And for me too, Fly; put down your basket now, and go, Fly. I dislike to see a poor child tiring himself, first upon one foot, and then upon the other; it puts me ill at ease.”

“Yes, go! you sickly little wretch, you! I wonder how you think the ladies like to have such an ugly little attenuated black shrimp as you are about them; and I’m astonished at the gardener for presuming to send you here. Be off with you, and never show your face again,” said Master Billy, growing very red in the face with zeal and gallantry.

Little Fly looked first surprised and grieved, and then penitent on the score of his sickness and deformity, and set down his basket and turned to go.

“Please don’t scold him, Mr. Bolling; it’s not his fault, poor little fellow! It was I who asked Mr. Sutherland to take him from the field and place him in the garden, because it is shadier there, and the work is lighter. Everybody cannot be strong and handsome—can they, Fly?” And the gentle speaker turned and laid her hand kindly upon the boy’s head and smiled encouragingly in his face. The child looked up in grateful affection; and the eyes of all the party were raised to welcome the orphan step-daughter of Mrs. Vivian. She was a fair, pale girl, of a gentle, thoughtful, pensive cast of countenance and style of beauty, with which her plain dress of deep mourning perfectly harmonized.

“Come and sit by me, Rosalie, love,” said the widow, making room for the maiden, half embracing her with one arm.

The kind girl put an orange in the boy’s hand, and, smiling, motioned him away; and Fly, no longer mortified, but solaced and cheerful, ran off.

“Now proceed, Mr. Bolling. Rosalie, dove, Mr. Bolling is explaining to us the two great motive powers of the universe; the centripetal, which he says means the law of the Lord, and the centrifugal, which he says means the temptation of the demon. And we, my love, are the planetary bodies, kept from extremes of good and evil by the opposite action of these two forces. Is not this it, Mr. Bolling?”

“No, madam; no! no! no! Lord! Lord! Thus it is to expose one’s theories, especially to Mrs. Vivian there, who would wrest the plainest text of Scripture to her own perdition. No, ma’am; I was about to say that the overruling will of Providence and the free agency of man were the two great motive powers of the moral universe—the human free will, being the great inward and impulsive force, is the centrifugal or flying-off power, and the government of God the centripetal or constraining power; that in the moral world these two great forces modify each other’s action, just as their prototypes do in the material world—keeping all in healthful action. Do you understand me?”

“Do you understand yourself, Mr. Bolling?”

“Ah, I see you don’t—women seldom do!” said Uncle Billy, wiping his forehead. “Thus, then, were man without free will—without the power of working out his own salvation, or the privilege of sending himself to perdition, if he desired it—he would no longer be a moral agent, and, were he never so sinless, he would be at the best only a sinless puppet, an automaton, and God’s creation would be a dumb show. And, on the other hand, were human free will left without restraint of the Lord’s overruling government, why, man would rush into all sorts of extravagances, become a maniac, and convert God’s order into chaos again. But, both these evil extremes being avoided, the Scylla of inert, passive obedience is left upon the right, and the Charybdis of unbridled license on the left, and all goes on well and harmoniously. And now I hope you understand how it is that in ‘binding nature fast in fate,’ God still left free the human will.”

“No, I do not; it seems to me that we are free agents, or we are not free agents—one or the other.”

“We’re both, I assure you—both. Truth generally lies between extremes. I have known that all my life, and acted upon it. We are free agents, and we are not—that is to say, we are free agents within a certain limit, and no further. And observe, my dear Mrs. Vivian, and my dear girls! within that limit we have still room enough to save or to lose our souls!”

This speech was concluded with so much solemnity of manner, that it imposed a silence on the little circle, that might have lasted much longer than it did, had Mr. Bolling been disposed to repose on his laurels. He was not.

“Now, are you satisfied, madam?” he inquired of Mrs. Vivian.

The little lady shook her jetty ringlets, and slowly picked her marabout fan to pieces.

“I think mamma wishes to know why these things need be so,” said Rosalie.

“My sweet Miss Vivian, little maidens should be seen, and not heard.”

“Don’t tempt Mr. Bolling beyond his depth, Rosalie,” smiled the widow; and not suiting the action to the word, she handed Uncle Billy an orange she had just peeled.

The little gentleman received the attention with a deprecating, humble bow, and, to prevent inconvenient questioning, turned to Miss Sutherland, and inquired when she had heard from her cousin Mark, winking with what he supposed to be a killing leer.

The beauty slightly raised her lip and arched her brows, but deigned no other answer.

“Oh, she has not heard from Mr. Sutherland for three whole days, and his last letter was but twelve pages long. I am afraid he is fickle, like the rest. I should not wonder if he were now the humble servant of some northern blue ——. It is written, ‘put not your trust in’—pantaloons. Men are so uncertain,” said Valeria.

“Men are so uncertain! What men? Uncertain in what respect?”

“All men are uncertain, in all things!”

“Humph, that is a totally unfounded calumny on our sex; though, to be candid, I acknowledge it is but too true of all men, without a single exception—save myself!”

“You? Oh, dear, oh! Ha! ha! ha! You!”

“Yes, me! In what did you ever find me uncertain?”

“In what? Oh, heavens! he asks in what! Why, in all things—mental, moral, and physical! In religion, politics, and morality! In friendship, love, and truth! In war, courtship, and money! In one word, you are a thorough, essential, organic uncertainty. Other people are uncertain—you are uncertainty. I think, in the day of general doom, you will find yourself—nothing in nowhere!”

Uncle Billy turned away from this unmerciful philippic, and again asked Miss Sutherland if she had lately heard from her cousin.

“I have not heard from him for two weeks,” replied the young lady, in a low voice, and without raising her eyes.

“Nan, what would you give me for a letter?” inquired Mr. Bolling, rolling his little blue eyes merrily, as he drew one from his pocket and laid it before her.

“Oh, Mr. Bolling! have you had this letter all this time, and detained it from me?” said the beauty, reproachfully, as she took it, and, excusing herself, withdrew into the house to peruse it.

“Come, Rosalie, this night air is deadly to you, my child.”

“Oh, mamma, see, the full moon is just rising over those purple hills. I only want to see it reflected in the river, and then I will come.”

“Are you moon-struck, then, Rosalie? Come in; you can safely view the scene from the house. Besides, coffee is about to be served.”

And the lady gave her hand to her step-daughter and assisted her to arise, and then tenderly drawing the girl’s arm within her own, turned to lead her into the house. And Mr. Bolling lifted himself up, and picking up his straw hat, said—

“And I must go down to the cotton-mills, and make Clement Sutherland come home to his supper. Heigh-ho! it’s an incontrovertible fact, that if I did not walk after that man and take care of him, he’d kill himself in the pursuit of gain in one month. Everything is forgotten—mental culture and bodily comfort. I have to bully him to his breakfast, and dragoon him to his dinner, and scare him to his supper. If things go on in this way, I shall have to cut up his food and place it to his lips. He is growing to be a monomaniac on the subject of money-getting. He is as thin as a whipping-post, and about as enlivening to look upon. He looks like a weasel in the winter time, all skin and hair, and cunning and care! He looks as if he felt poor in the midst of all his possessions, and I suppose he really does; while here am I, without a sous, cent, markee, happy as a king, and much more at leisure; eating hearty, and sleeping sound, and growing fat; ‘having nothing, yet possessing all things,’ according to Scripture, and without a care in life, except to keep Clement from sharing the fate of Midas, and starving in the midst of gold. And, by-the-by, that is another heathen myth, with an eternal, awful truth wrapped up in it. Heigh-ho!. Well, here’s to bring him home to his supper. And a hot time I shall have of it, between him and the infernal machinery! I shall not get the thunder of the mills out of my ears, or the shower of cotton-lint out of my eyes, nose, and throat, the whole night! Oriole, is that you? Do you go and tell the housekeeper, child, to have something comforting prepared for your poor master. He’s had nothing since breakfast; I couldn’t find him at dinner-time. He was gone, devil knows where, to inspect, devil knows what! He is the only southerner I ever did know to give himself up so entirely to the worship of Mammon, and the only one, I hope, I ever shall know!”

And, having eased his mind by this fit of grumbling, Uncle Billy waddled off on his benevolent errand to the mills.

In the meantime Mrs. Vivian conducted her step-daughter into the drawing-room communicating with Miss Sutherland’s boudoir. The room was now brilliantly lighted up, but vacant of the family. The broad doors were slidden back into the walls, revealing the boudoir in its rich-toned gloom and gleam of purple and gold; and India herself, standing in the midst, quite lost in thought, with one jewelled hand pressing back the amber ringlets from her forehead, and the other hanging down by her side, clasping the letter of Mr. Sutherland. So deeply troubled and perplexed was her look, that Valeria impulsively sprang to her side, exclaiming, “What grieves you, my dearest India? No evil news, I trust?”

Miss Sutherland burst into tears, and silently handed her the letter. But before Valeria had turned it about and found the commencement, India recovered her voice, and said in broken accents, “You know how closely I have kept his correspondence for the last few weeks. Alas! I have had reason for it, Valeria. Little do his uncles imagine what detains him at the North. But he conceals nothing from me, and he lays the heavy responsibility of his confidence upon me. For a month past it has been an onerous burden to my conscience.”

“My love! what has he been doing there? Has he killed his man in a duel, and got himself in trouble, in that frozen stiff North, where a gentleman cannot even shoot his rival in a generous quarrel, without being put to the inconvenience of a judicial investigation? I really do suppose that is it, now!”

“Oh, no! Would it were only that! That were no dishonour, at least. Oh, no! It is as much worse as it could possibly be!”

“I cannot believe that Mr. Sutherland would do aught unworthy of a man and a gentleman.”

“Woe to my lips that they should utter the charge. But read his letter, Valeria, and advise me, for I am deeply distressed,” said Miss Sutherland; and she threw herself back into a cushioned chair, and bowed her face upon her hands, until all the amber ringlets drooped and veiled them.

Valeria ran her eyes quickly over the letter, and then she threw herself into a chair—but it was to laugh. Miss Sutherland raised her head in silent surprise and displeasure. But still Valeria laughed, till the tears ran down her cheeks, holding up one hand in speechless deprecation, to implore forgiveness for a mirth impossible to restrain. When she found her voice—“Why, my dear, unsophisticated girl, there is nothing except a great deal of food for laughter in all this! He has been in New York at the height of the annual fever, and has caught it! He has been bit by a raging reformer, and gone rabid! Not the first hot-headed young southerner sent to a northern college who has fallen into the same series of fevers. But they all come safely through it! When they find out that to free their slaves means just to empty their pockets, and go to work with their own hands or brains, you have no idea how refrigerating the effect. Don’t fear for Mr. Sutherland. He will be brought beautifully out of it! Only note it! he will never send a son of his to be educated at a northern college. Come, cheer up, my love, and never mind my laughing. Really it is legitimate food for laughter! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!”

“Oh, don’t! Only think of it, even at its best! Here, for weeks past, he has been mingling freely with these sort of persons—mixing in their assemblies, where people of all colours and castes meet on equal terms, in a stifling crowd—oh, Queen of Heaven! it is a ruinous dishonour—an unspeakable insult he has cast upon me, his betrothed!” she exclaimed, rising with all the proud and passionate energy of deep and strong conviction.

And again Mrs. Vivian gave way to a peal of silvery laughter, exclaiming, “Why, you simple maiden! gentlemen will do such odd things, because you see they (poets excepted) have no instincts—not even any original ideas of refinement. But be comforted! He comes to us by sea, and will have passed through several hundred miles of salt sea wind before he reaches your fragrant boudoir.”

“Do not pursue this subject! Do not, Valeria! Do not press it upon me so! It wrongs, it injures me—I feel it does!” said India, with energetic earnestness.

“I never saw you so deeply and strongly moved before—nonsense! But indeed I must have my laugh out with somebody! It is, besides, too good to keep—this ludicrous secret! Ah, here comes Mr. Bolling, with Uncle Clement in his wake, no doubt, for he went to fetch him! I must tell Uncle Clement of his son-in-law’s conversation or—die.

“Uncle, Uncle Clement! what do you think has happened to Mark? Listen,” exclaimed the vivacious lady, running off with the letter. Miss Sutherland sprang and caught her hand, and, pale as death, cried out, “On your life, Valeria—on your soul! You do not know my father; he abhors those sects with an exterminating fury of hatred! Give me the letter! Nay, now by your honour, Valeria! It was a sacred confidence. Give me the letter!” and she wrested the contended paper away from the giddy, laughing, little lady.

“Heyday! What the mischief is all this? A regular romp or wrestle? Let me put down my hat, and I’ll stand by and see fair play,” exclaimed Mr. Bolling, who had just entered.

Blushing with anger at having suffered herself to be surprised out of her usual repose of manner, Miss Sutherland sat down in silent dignity, while Mrs. Vivian, still laughing, inquired, “Where is uncle?”

“Where? Yes! ‘Echo answers where?’ He has not been home to breakfast nor dinner, and now I suppose he’ll not be here to supper. I went down to the mill to bring him home to supper; he was not there! Guess where he was? Gone over the other side of the river, to preside at the lynching of an incendiary. Upon my sacred word and honour!” exclaimed Uncle Billy, growing crimson in the face, “the most cruel, unjust, unwarrantable proceeding I ever heard of in all my life; though, to be perfectly fair, I must say it serves the fellow exactly right.”

“Apropos—what did I tell you, Valeria?” said Miss Sutherland, in a low voice.

“And, now, what is this mighty mystery that must be concealed from Clement?”

Mrs. Vivian and Miss Sutherland exchanged glances, and the latter replied: “It is a letter from Mr. Sutherland, sir, that concerns myself alone, and I do not choose to make its contents public, even at the suggestion of my dear esteemed friend here.”

“Ah! Umph—hum! Yes! But now, my dear child, let me say one word. Young people are foolish, and need to be counselled by the wisdom of age. Observe, therefore, what I say, and be guided by my advice. There is no circumstance or combination of circumstances whatever, that will justify you in withholding any secret from your father; nevertheless, I am bound to say that nothing under the sun could excuse you in betraying, even to him, the confidence of your betrothed husband. Now, I hope you understand your duty! At least, you have my advice!” said Uncle Billy, wiping his head, after which he placed his handkerchief in his straw hat, seated himself, and put the hat upon the carpet between his feet—all with a look of great self-satisfaction.

“At least the advice is very practical!” said an ironical voice behind him. All turned to see Mr. Sutherland the elder, who had silently entered. He was of an unusually tall, attenuated form, with a yellow, bilious, cadaverous face, whetted to the keenest edge by care and rapacity, and surrounded by hair and whiskers so long and bristling as to give quite a ferocious aspect to a set of features that without them would have looked merely cunning. He strode into the midst of the circle, and standing before his daughter, demanded in an authoritative tone, “Give me that letter, Miss Sutherland!” She turned deadly pale, but without an instant’s hesitation arose to her feet, placed the letter in her bosom, and stood fronting him.

Seeing that the matter was about to take a very serious turn, Mrs. Vivian playfully interfered, by nestling her soft little hand into the great bony one of the planter, and saying, with her bewitching smile, “Ah, then, Mr. Sutherland, let young people alone. Do not rifle a young girl’s little mysteries. Remember when you were youthful—it was not so long ago but what you can remember, I am sure,” she said with an arch glance. “And when you used to write sweet nonsense to one beautiful Cecile, her mother, how would you have liked it if the practical commercial eyes of good Monsieur Dumoulins had read your letters? Come! give me your arm to supper; we have waited for you half an hour;” and the lively lady slipped her arm into his; and Mr. Sutherland with the very ill grace of a bear led captive, suffered himself to be carried off. Mr. Billy Bolling, with a flourishing bow, gave his hand to Miss Sutherland, and Paul Sutherland led Rosalie.

The apartment was very pleasant. The inner shutters of wire gauze, that were closed against the mosquitoes, did not exclude the fresh and fragrant evening breeze that fanned the room. The elegant tea-table stood in the midst, and the whole was illumined by light subdued through shades of ground glass—not figured—but plain, and diffusing a soft, clear, even radiance. They sat down to the table, and coffee and tea were served by waiters from the sideboard. To dispel the last shades of suspicion and discontent from the mind of Mr. Sutherland, Mrs. Vivian remarked: “We are to have Mr. Mark Sutherland home in a very few days, if I understand aright. N’est ce pas, chere Indie?” Miss Sutherland only bowed, and the conversation turned upon their approaching voyage to Europe.

CHAPTER IV.
MRS. SUTHERLAND.

On her cheek the autumn flush

Deeply ripens; such a blush

In the midst of brown was born,

Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses lay—

Which are blackest, none can say;

But long lashes veil a light

That had else been all too bright.—Hood.

On the opposite side of the Pearl from Cashmere, and a little further down the river, and back from its banks, in a small vale embosomed in hills, was Silentshades, the home of Mark Sutherland. The homestead was the same that had been built by his father, upon first laying out the plantation. The house was very modest and unpretending—a moderate-sized, oblong building of two stories, painted light brown, with green shutters, and with piazzas surrounding both floors. The house was shaded and darkened by catalpa trees clustering thick about it and overhanging the roof. The pillars of the piazzas were thickly twined with running vines, that, branching and interlacing, formed a beautiful treillage of foliage and flowers. Doors from this piazza admitted directly into the rooms upon the first floor. In the right-hand front room, opening upon two sides into the piazza, upon the next evening after the events related in the last chapter, sat Mrs. Sutherland. She was a medium-sized, full-formed brunette, of perhaps forty years of age; yet so perfect was her physical organization, and so well regulated her moral nature, so even, calm, and blameless had been the tenor of her life, that now, she was a specimen—not, certainly, of youthful beauty—but of a rarer kind of matured and perfected matronly beauty. Her style was noble and simple. Her rich, abundant hair of glossy black, with purplish light, was plainly divided above a broad forehead, and laying down upon the temples in heavy looped bands, was carried behind and twisted into a thick, rich coil, and wound round and round into a large knot fastened with pins; there were no combs, curls, ribbons, or fripperies of any sort, to mar the simple, grand beauty of the head. The eyebrows were black and lightly arched; the eyes large, dark, and very quiet, under their curtain of long black lashes; the nose perfectly straight; and the cheeks, lips, and chin, perfectly beautiful in contour. Her complexion was of that mellow, Italian brown, flushing and deepening in the cheeks to a carnation richness. (Uncle Billy, who sincerely admired his sister, always said that her complexion ever reminded him of the bloom on a ripe, luscious peach.) Her dress was very simple—a black silk with a delicate lace collar pinned with a small diamond brooch. She sat in an easy chair, reading a letter; and as she read and turned the leaves a quiet smile would just dawn and play on her lips. By her side was a stand with an open book, a workbox, and a little silver hand-bell. At last, without removing her eyes from the letter, she smilingly extended her hand, and rang the little bell. A servant entered, and still without withdrawing her eyes from the fascinating letter, she said:

“Send Mrs. Jolly to me, William.”

The man withdrew with a bow, and the housekeeper entered, and awaited the commands of the lady.

Slowly and smilingly folding up the letter, she said, “Mr. Sutherland is coming home this evening. He brings a friend, a young gentleman, with him. I wish you to have their chambers prepared; and do remember to close the wire-gauze blinds, and burn catalpa leaves in the rooms, to destroy any mosquitoes that may remain.”

“And at what time shall I order supper, madam?”

“Ah, yes—it will be necessary to put it back two or three hours. You must judge of that. Mr. Sutherland may arrive at any time between this and ten o’clock.”

The housekeeper left the room, and the lady sank into her chair again, to re-peruse her letter, smiling and murmuring to herself, half aloud—“Dear boy! dearest Mark! Sure no mother ever had a son like mine. Comes to me first—comes to me before hastening to see his lady-love—his adored India. Dearest Mark—but his devotion shall be rewarded. He shall find his India here.” And she went to a writing-desk, took paper, and pen, and ink, and wrote the following note:

Silentshades, June, 184–.

Dear India: My dear niece, but dearer daughter, just get into your carriage, and come to me, and do not pause to wonder why I ask you. It is late, I know, but the moon shines brightly, and the roads are good—your driver is careful, and the distance is short. More than all, dear daughter, I consider your coming very important. So hasten, darling, to

Your affectionate aunt and mother,

Helen B. Sutherland.

Having sealed this letter, the lady rang the bell and gave it in charge of a footman, urging dispatch.

Soon a waiter entered, and lighted up the rooms; and he had scarcely closed the blinds and withdrawn, before the sound of carriage-wheels was heard approaching, and the lady hastened out into the hall. The carriage paused before the door, and in an instant after, Mark Sutherland had alighted, and was clasped to the bosom of his mother.

“Oh, my dear Mark! I am so overjoyed to have you again!”

“Dear mother, I am so proud and happy to find you looking so well! Permit me to present my friend—Mr. Lincoln Lauderdale—Mrs. Sutherland.”

A low bow from the gentleman, and a deep courtesy from the lady, and then smilingly throwing off her habitual reserve, Mrs. Sutherland offered her hand, saying—

“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Lauderdale. You are not a stranger, I assure you. My son has taught me to esteem you, and desire your friendship. Will you enter now?”

And with another smile she gave her hand to her guest, and permitted him to lead her into the drawing-room.

Mr. Sutherland remained in the hall to give some directions to the grooms, and to order the baggage of his guest to be taken up to his chamber. After which he entered the parlour, and laying his hand affectionately upon his friend’s shoulder, said—

“My dear Lauderdale, when you feel disposed—or, rather, if you feel disposed—to change your dress—Flamingo will show you your apartment. Supper will be ready—Madame, when will supper be ready?”

“My dear Mark, any time—in an hour—an hour and a half”——

“In an hour, Lincoln; that will give you ample time. Flame! lights here. Show Mr. Lauderdale to his room, and consider yourself in his exclusive service while he honours us with his company. I presume you will prefer Flame, my dear Lincoln, because you already know the fellow.”

“Thank you, but really I do not need”——

“Oh, say not a word, my dear boy! When you have been subjected to the enervating influence of this climate for a week, you will better know what you need.”

By this time Flamingo made his appearance with chamber lamps. Lauderdale arose to follow him. Sutherland accompanied him into the hall.

“My dear Mark,” said the former, “did I understand you to say that Mrs. Sutherland was your own mother?”

“Undoubtedly my own mother! What a question! Besides, my friend, pardon me! but really, where are your eyes? We are said to be the image of each other!”

“Well, now, although both of you are dark, with high complexions, I cannot see the likeness, to save my soul,” said Lauderdale, mischievously; then adding, “she is very handsome.”

“Is she not!” echoed Sutherland, with enthusiasm, and accompanying Lauderdale up stairs—“the handsomest woman in the world? oh, except one. You should see India. And, more than that, she—my mother, I mean—is the most excellent, except—none.”

“I cannot think that she was so handsome in early youth as she is now.”

“Oh, I suppose her youth to her maturity was as the budding to the blooming rose—that is all. Here is your room. Make Flame supply you with anything you may need, that is not at hand; and for your life—nay, more, for your good looks, worth more than life—do not open the wire shutters; if you do, you may look in the glass in ten minutes after, and fancy yourself ill with the erysipelas. Au revoir! When you are ready, come down.”

Mark Sutherland left the room, and instead of seeking his own chamber, to refresh himself with a change of raiment, he hastened down the stairs, entered the parlour, and once more clasped his mother fervently in his arms, and—

“My dearest mother,” and “My dearest Mark,” were the words exchanged between them. “But, oh, Mark! how haggard you look, my love! You have been ill, and never let me know it.”

“No, upon my honour, mother!”

“Ah, but you are so pale and thin, and your expression is so anxious—what is it? What can it be, Mark?”

“My own dear mother, it is nothing that should give you any uneasiness. I have had a long, fatiguing ride, and—I have not heard from India for more than a week. How is my Pearl?”

“Ah, rogue! a lover’s anxiety. Is that the cause of those haggard looks? And yet, to come to me first! Dear Mark! But I have anticipated all your wishes. Your India will be here to meet you—I am expecting her every moment. Hark! there are her carriage-wheels!” said the lady, going to the window; then hurrying back, she exclaimed, “Peste! she has some one with her—that lively little Mrs. Vivian, I suppose. Listen, Mark! I will carry her off to a dressing-room, and leave you to meet India. She does not know that you are here.”

And Mrs. Sutherland went to the hall door, which she reached just as Mrs. Vivian, who was the first to alight, entered.

“Ah, how do you do, Mrs. Vivian? I am very glad to see you! Come, come into my room.”

“Oh, but stop—let us wait for India!”

“By no means, my dear. Mark will wait for her.”

“A-h-h-h! He has come!”

“Certainly,” said the lady, carrying off her captive.

India sauntered languidly up the door-stairs. Mark sprang forward to meet her. She started—paled—reeled—might have fallen, but he caught her to his bosom, murmuring deeply, earnestly, “India! my India!”

For a moment she had nearly swooned with surprise and joy, but in the next instant she recovered, and deeply blushing, withdrew herself from him, saying, “I did not know that you were here.”

“I have only this instant arrived,” he replied. “My dear, beautiful India! to see you, it is unspeakable happiness.”

And he would have clasped her form again, but with flushed cheek she glided out of his arms and entered the parlour. He followed her, placed an easy chair, seated her on it, rolled a cushion to her feet, untied and removed her bonnet, lifted the mass of shining amber ringlets and pressed them to his face, and then would have sunk down upon the cushion at her feet—there to sit and worship with his eyes her peerless beauty, only the sound of light footsteps and silvery laughter arrested the folly.

It was Valeria, who, chatting and laughing with her usual gaiety, entered, accompanied by Mrs. Sutherland. Their entrance was soon followed by that of Mr. Lauderdale, who was immediately presented to Mrs. Vivian and Miss Sutherland.

Supper was next announced, and the party left the drawing-room. After supper, the evening was spent in music, conversation, and cards. A storm arising, detained the ladies all night. After the party had separated, each to seek his or her own apartment, Sutherland stopped for an instant in Lauderdale’s room to ask, “Well, what do you think of her, Lincoln?”

“She is perfectly beautiful.”

“Is she not?”

“There is positively nothing possible to be added to her beauty!”

“Ah, did I not tell you so?”

“She has taken me completely captive.”

“The deuce! I did not require you to be taken captive.”

“If I were only in a condition to seek the lady’s love—”

“Humph! What would you do, then?”

“Lose no time in suing for it.”

“The demon you wouldn’t! That is extremely cool, upon my sacred word and honour!”

“Such glorious black eyes!”

“They are not black, mine honest friend, but blue—celestial blue.”

“Blue, are they? I thought they were black; but, in truth, one cannot follow their quickly-changing light and shade to find the hue, they scintillate and flash so.”

“Scintillate and flash! Why, they are calm and steady as stars. What the deuce are her eyes to you?”

“And then her magnificent black hair!”

“Black! you are mad! Hers is bronze in the shade, and golden in the sunlight. D——l fly away with you!” the latter clause under his breath.

“I swear her hair is superb black!”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Who—who but charming Mrs. Vivian!”

“Cousin Valeria! Oh-h-h-h! ha! ha! ha! And I was speaking of India! So you think Mrs. Vivian good-looking?”

“Good-looking—divine.”

“I thought no one in his senses could apply that term to any woman but Miss Sutherland.”

“Who—the red-haired young lady?”

“Red-haired!” burst out the voice of Sutherland, in indignant astonishment; then reining in his anger with a strong hand, he added, “Lincoln, you are my friend, but there are some provocations”—

“Miss Sutherland is graceful,” said Lauderdale, with a quiet smile.

“Tah-tah-tah, with your faint praises; good night.”

“Now, here is a reasonable man! When he thought me praising his love with great fervour, he was so jealous as to feel like running me through the heart; and now that he finds me very moderate in my admiration of his idol, he is angry enough to sweep my head off at a blow,” said Lauderdale, laughing.

“Good night!” said Sutherland, to cover his confusion.

“Stay, I can’t let you go so; your lady-love is really lovely enough to turn all the heads and break all the hearts that approach her. But she has not disturbed the healthful action of mine—will that content you?”

“Yes, because I know it is true—especially the first part of it. Good night.”

“Good night.”

And the friends separated.

“And is this all you have to say in support of your project, Mark?”

“Not all, my dear mother.”

The lady applied her handkerchief to her eyes quietly, almost stealthily; her face was pale and sorrowful; she seemed to restrain herself steadily, as though she thought the betrayal of strong emotion unbecoming to a woman of her age and station. Her son had just revealed to her his purpose of emancipating all the negroes upon his plantation and sending them to Liberia, with his reasons for so doing. The scene took place very early in the morning after his arrival. It was in her dressing-room. Before any of their guests had arisen, they were up, and she had called him, as he passed her door. They sat now at the open window that looked out upon the beautiful valley of the Pearl, with its groves and fields and streams all fresh and resplendent in the light of the newly-risen sun. The mother sighed deeply as she withdrew her glance from the gladdening scene, and fixed it upon the face of her son.

“And so, Mark, this is the cause of your ill and anxious looks?”

“Yes, mother; I will not deny to you that it has cost me a very severe struggle; and perhaps you see some of its effects.”

“Yes, some of them, Mark—alas! not all,” said the lady, in a low, faint voice.

If a little while before she had restrained unmeet energy of expression in the strong emotion she had felt, now all power as well as all will seemed to forsake her. She sat silent, with her hands folded and her eyes fixed upon them. Mr. Sutherland watched her anxiously.

“My dear madam, I have pained you.”

“I am a widow, Mark, and have no child but you”—

“Mother”——

“It is a sorrowful time for the mother, Mark, when the boy she has nursed and brought up to man’s estate turns upon her in her weakness, arrayed in all the strength and power of manhood.”

“My dearest mother”——

“Your father, Mark, never caused me a tear or a sigh in his life.”

“God bless his memory for that.”

“He trusted so in your affection for me, Mark—and so did I—that he left me totally dependent upon you”——

“My dearest mother, your comfort and convenience shall be my first object in life. Not even India, my loved India, shall cause me to forget all I owe to you.”

“Words, Mark! words! This project of yours will reduce me to beggary!”

“No, dear madam, it shall not. Me it will reduce to—my own exertions for a livelihood, but not you. When all my slaves are freed, and on their way to Africa at my cost, there will still remain, from the sale of the land, some thirty thousand dollars. That money, mother, with the homestead here, I intend to settle upon yourself”——

“Oh, my son! you break my heart. Do you think, then, that I will suffer you to beggar yourself to enrich me? No, dear Mark; no! Since you do not forget me—since you remember me with affectionate interest, it is sufficient. If I reproached you just now, it was only because I felt as if you did not care for me; and that is a sorrowful feeling in a parent, Mark.”

“I never for one instant forgot your interests, dear mother. How could I? I had settled the plan I have named to you, in my mind, before I left the North.”

“I cannot bear the name of that quarter of our country! the word strikes like a bullet, Mark!” exclaimed the lady, with an impulsive start, and shrunk as if indeed she were shot.

Mr. Sutherland looked down, mortified and troubled.

“And as for this plan, Mark,” proceeded the lady, “it must not be carried out. Under no circumstances can I consent that you beggar yourself for me.”

“Dearest mother, I do not think it possible for mere loss of fortune to beggar a man of good health and good morals. I shall go to the West. It is a broad field for enterprise. I studied law for my amusement, having had a strong natural attraction for it. I shall commence the practice of that profession in some western village, and grow up with the town. I shall succeed. Indeed, methinks new life and energy runs through my veins and fires my heart at the very thought of difficulties to meet and overcome!” said Mr. Sutherland, smiling gaily, stretching his arms and rubbing his hands together.

“Alas! you do not know what you are talking about, Mark! What a project! And your approaching marriage with India—is it possible in this connexion that you do not think of that?”

“Not think of that!” echoed Mr. Sutherland, as a strange, beautiful smile flitted over his face. “Mother, I dreaded this interview with you; but I looked forward to an explanation with my loved India as the first reward of right-doing—if what I have done is right—a foretaste of what the rewards of Heaven will be! My India! I know her generosity, her magnanimity, her high-souled enthusiasm! How many times I have experienced it! How many times, when reading with her of some high heroism of the olden time, when there were heroes, have I seen her pause, her bosom heave, her cheek flush, her eye kindle and gaze upon me, expressing unspeakable admiration of those lofty deeds! And now, when in her own life an opportunity occurs of practising those very same great virtues—when she has the power, by sacrificing wealth and luxury, to bless hundreds of her fellow-beings, and not them only, but their children and children’s children—do I not know that high-souled girl will aspire to do it! Madam, it is a majestic, a godlike power, to be able to confer the blessing of liberty and education upon hundreds of beings and their descendants to numberless generations—a power I would not now exchange for a small limited monarchy. And, oh! do I not know that my India—soul of my soul!—will think as I do—will feel as I do? Nay, do I not know that she will go beyond me? Mother, when I have doubted, or struggled against my better feelings, I have seen as in a vision, her eyes suffused with generous tears, her cheek kindle, and felt the warm pressure of her hand encouraging, inspiring me!”

“Oh, Mark! Mark! romance! nothing more. And even should India approve your project, which I think quite impossible, what is your further purpose? To leave her here, bound by an engagement, to wear out her youth in expectation of your making a fortune and coming back to claim her hand?”

“No, dearest mother, that were too hard a trial to both of us. No, I mean to take her with me to the West, to encourage and assist me while I make her as happy as I possibly can!”

Here, again, the lady’s feelings arose to so high a pitch of excitement that she had to put a violent constraint upon herself, while she answered quietly, “And how do you think Miss Sutherland will like to lay aside all the prestige of her rank, and wealth, and bridehood, and, instead of a splendid wedding, and a bridal tour, and a voyage to Europe, take an ignominious departure from her father’s house, for a life of poverty and privation in the West?”

“I told you, dearest mother, that my India was of a highly heroic nature. That does not mean wedded to ease and worldly honour; indeed, it more frequently means the loss of both.”

“And so you deliberately mean to take that girl—if she will go with you—to some miserable western village, to endure all the miseries of poverty?”

“What miseries of poverty, dearest mother? If you were a European talking of Europeans, I could understand your prudence; but you are an American matron talking to an American youth, and advising him not to marry the girl he loves if he has not a fortune to support her. It seems to me, mother, that in our country the man or woman who refuses to marry for such a reason, wants faith, love, hope, enterprise, energy, and every thing they ought to have; and under such circumstances, it seems but right, indeed, that they should stay single.”

“You do not know what you are talking about. But should India be so imprudent, do you think her father will consent to such a mad project?”

“His consent to our union was long ago obtained; and if, under present circumstances, he should withdraw it—India is of age, you know!”

“Mark, tell me if you have ever had any experimental knowledge of want?” The young man looked up with a questioning glance. “Because if you do not know, I can tell you, Mark. I know how young people think of poverty, and talk of poverty, when any strong motive like love, or any other passion, urges them to embrace it; and people who are older, and should know better, talk pretty much in the same way. They will tell you that poverty deprives you of none of the real essential blessings of life; that the riches of nature and of nature’s God are free alike to the rich and the poor; that the blessings of health, of well-doing, of sunshine, and the face of nature, are open alike to both. It is so with the rich, doubtless, and it may be so with the poor who were born in this poverty; but to the well-born and well-educated, to the refined and intellectual, poverty is a dreadful, dreadful thing. It is not only to suffer the privation of proper and sufficient food, and comfortable clothing, and dwelling—it is to be shut out of all enjoyment of the blessings of nature and of society, and at the same time be exposed to all the evils that nature and society can inflict upon you. You have no leisure, or if you have, you have no respectable clothing, in which to go out and take the air, and enjoy the genial sunshine of pleasant days, on the one hand; and on the other, no adequate protection against the freezing cold of winter, and no escape from the burning heat of summer. And for society, pride will not permit you to seek the company of your sometime peers, and delicacy restrains you from the coarse association around you. To us, Mark, poverty would be the privation of every enjoyment. To be poor, were to be maimed, blind, ill, and imprisoned, at once!”

“Dear mother, you are a lady—I, a man! And loss of fortune has now no terrors for me; and birth and education, so far from rendering me more helpless, shall make me stronger to conquer my difficulties. I have no fear of wanting any of the comforts of life from the very onset. And as for being shut out, or rather shut in, from nature—mother, do you think I shall be? Do you think I shall keep away from nature because I cannot call on her in a coach, with a groom on horseback to take in my card? No, indeed. On the contrary, I purpose to live with nature. She’s an old intimate friend of mine, and no summer friend either—nor shall I be a summer friend of hers, and shrink from her boisterous winds and rattling sleet. And as for society, mother—oh, let me quote to you the words of Dr. Channing, whose lips, indeed, seemed touched with fire: ‘No matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the Sacred Writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of paradise, and Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship.’ So, dearest mother, with industry that will procure me all the necessaries of life, health that will enable me to enjoy or endure nature in all her moods, and a mind dependent on itself for its enjoyment, what have I to dread from loss of fortune?”

“It may be very well for you, at least tolerable; but for India! You would not bring Miss Sutherland down to such a state?”

Mark paused, and then answered—

“Yes, mother, yes; if the only other alternative is to be a separation of many years, I would bring India down to this state.”

“Oh, Mark! that is very, very selfish!”

“I do not think so, madam.”

“Mark! Just now, when I told you of the nameless miseries of the well-born poor, you did not deny them, but said, ‘Mother, you are a lady—I, a man.’ Mark! out of your own mouth I will condemn you. India—Miss Sutherland—‘is a lady,’ Mark! Are you not selfish?”

“No, mother! not if India feels as I do—as I know she does; not if our separation would be to her, as it would be to me, a greater evil than all the early struggles our union may bring upon us.”

“My dear son, your sanguine confidence gives me deep pain. Dear Mark, be not too sure! Not for worlds would I speak a word against your India. Nor do I know that, under her circumstances, I speak much evil of her when I say that she is haughty, self-willed, indolent, and fastidious! But are those the elements of self-sacrifice?”

“Mother, I would not hear another soul breathe aught against India but you; but to answer your question—and granting, what I am unwilling to grant, that these faults of her station may be also hers—affection will conquer them! My life upon India’s magnanimity!”

Yet, even while he spoke, he became suddenly pale and aghast, as if, for the first time, the possibility that it might be otherwise had struck him.

The lady had been pale and disturbed throughout the interview; and now she rose, and taking his hand, said—

“Mark, they have gone down to breakfast; we must go too. We will speak of this again. Mark, I should be in despair, if I did not hope that circumstances will compel you to abandon this insane purpose. When do you break it to India?”

“This day, mother! You have conjured up a phantom whose presence I would not endure for many hours. It must be exorcised by dear India forthwith.”

Mrs. Sutherland had two grounds of hope. The first was, that her son, restored to home associations and influences, might change his views and purposes before they should become known to his uncle. Upon this first hope she founded her purpose of preventing, as long as possible, Mark’s intended communication to India. The second ground of hope was, that in the event of Mr. Sutherland’s intentions becoming known, the powerful motives that would be brought to bear upon him—the threatened loss of his uncle’s favour, and of his promised bride’s hand—might irresistibly impel him to renounce his project.

But her present wish was to arrest the disclosure of her son’s resolution until she could gain time to use her influence upon him to induce him to abandon them. These thoughts did not arise in her mind during her interview with Mark, nor until she sat reflecting upon it, after breakfast, in the back parlour. Her visitors, on leaving the table, had retired into the front room.

Her fit of deep thought was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Vivian from that front parlour. The “lady gay” came in, trilling a lively opera air. Mrs. Sutherland arose, and took her hand with a very serious manner, saying—

“My dear Valeria, who have you left in the other room?”

“Mark and India,” answered the little widow, raising her eyebrows with slight surprise.

“No one else?”

“No—yes—I do not know; I believe there is a waiter, or”—

“My dearest Valeria,” said Mrs. Sutherland, drawing her to the opposite extremity of the room, “do me a favour; return to the room, and, not only while you remain here, but after you go back to Cashmere, prevent as long as possible any private conversation between those two young people; interrupt them; follow them; stay with them: circumvent them in every way.”

“Helen, you astonish me! Me play Madame Detrop, not ‘for one night only,’ but for a whole season! You positively shock me!” exclaimed Mrs. Vivian, and her eyes asked, what can you mean?

Mrs. Sutherland answered both words and looks at the same time, by saying, very gravely,—

“Valeria, I ask a very strange favour, and impose upon your friendship the unpleasant alternative of refusing me point blank, or taking upon yourself a most ungracious duty; but, dear Valeria, in this at least the end will justify the means. I do not wish to separate my son and niece, as your eyes seem to say, but au contraire, to prevent their separation.”

“I do not comprehend.”

“I wish to prevent a quarrel. Young people will not quarrel before others, any more than they will make love before them. There is a point of controversy between Mark and India, and I do not wish them to have an opportunity of discussing it until both their heads are cool.”

“Ah, I think I know the point of contention,” said Valeria, with a bright look of sudden intelligence.

“You?”

“Yes.”

And the thoughtless little lady, totally forgetful that the communication had been confidential, imparted to her the contents of Mark’s letter to India, and the indignation she had expressed at its contents, and the fear she had betrayed lest her father and uncle should discover her lover’s change of sentiments.

Mrs. Sutherland heard the story with a thoughtful brow, and at its close, said—

“And do you not think, Valeria, that the discussion of this subject between them at present would end fatally for our hopes?”

“I do not know, indeed. I cannot estimate the strength of Mr. Sutherland’s convictions and purposes.”

“But you think that India will never yield to them?”

“Never!”

“And so think I. Yet Mark, dear, deluded child, would stake his soul on what he calls her heroism. Well, Valeria, now will you promise me to prevent an interview as long as you can, to give me an opportunity of trying to bring that poor boy to reason?”

“Ha! ha! ha! It is a thankless task, but I will undertake it. But you must give me an assistant, to relieve me sometimes, and to better insure the success of your enterprise. Confide in Uncle Billy, and let him be on duty while I am off.”

“I intend to have a talk with my brother upon the subject, but in the mean time I rely mainly upon you. Promise me again that you will be vigilant.”

“As vigilant as I can, Helen; but you know my first duty is to Rosalie, dear child! I reproach myself for having left her last night, but the housekeeper promised that she would sleep in the adjoining room, and watch over her.”

“Do you not think that you watch over her too much? Do you not see that she is made too much of a hothouse plant?”

“Rosalie? What! when even a slight change in the weather, or a draught of air, or a piece of fruit not ripe, or a little too ripe, or some such trifle, is sufficient to make her ill for a week, and to bring her to the brink of the grave? I would give half my fortune to any physician who would”—

The little lady’s voice broke down, and her sparkling eyes melted into tears; then she said, in a faltering tone—

“Do you think she will die? or do you think there is a blessed possibility of her health being restored?”

“That which she never possessed, and therefore never lost, cannot, of course, be restored. But I think a different manner of treatment would strengthen the child; for how can you expect her to be strong, confined to hot rooms, and idleness, and super-dainty diet?”

“I am sure I do the very best I can for the dear girl; I take her out twice a day in the carriage; I never suffer her to go alone; she never has a bath until I dip the thermometer into it with my own hands, to regulate the temperature; she never puts on an article of clothing until I have ascertained it to be well aired; and she never even eats an orange until it has first passed through my fingers; and yet, with all my care, she droops and droops”—

“Like an over-nursed exotic. But, dear Valeria, there! There goes Thomas, with a vase of yesterday’s flowers, to change them. Hasten in there, dear Valeria, and prevent an eclaircissement, while I speak to my brother.”

“Why, is he here?”

“Certainly; he came while we were at breakfast, and went up stairs to change his dress. That is the reason I remained in this room, to give him his breakfast.”

The flighty little lady, already oblivious of her causes for distress, went singing into the room, just in time to overhear, with her quick ears, Mr. Sutherland say to his betrothed—

“Dear India—(Oh, heavens! here comes that widow again!)—but I must have an uninterrupted talk with you; when and where shall it be?”

“In the library, at twelve. Hush! She’s here”——

“So,” thought Mrs. Vivian, “I have just got in time enough to hear for myself that my efforts to be useful and impertinent will be totally fruitless.”

In the meanwhile Uncle Billy had changed his dress, and had come down in a jacket and trousers of linen, white as “driven snow,” and took his seat at the breakfast table. While she waited upon him, Mrs. Sutherland cautiously communicated the news that so burdened her mind. Gradually, as she proceeded, the truth burst with the suddenness of a thunderbolt upon Uncle Billy, who dropped his roll and cup of coffee, turned pale, fell back in his chair, and gasped—“Good gracious!”

“Don’t make a noise, brother, if you please. See, James is coming with your eggs; wait until he has withdrawn,” said the self-possessed Mrs. Sutherland; and then she directed the servant who came in to set down his salver, and leave the room. When he had gone, she turned again to her brother, and said—

“Yes, this is true, and nothing remains now but to try to overrule his purpose, or at least to gain time.”

“I—I am overwhelmed, prostrated, stunned with astonishment; though, to be sure, at my time of life, I am never the least surprised by any thing that happens. They are fools who at fifty wonder at any thing.”

Mrs. Sutherland then expressed a wish that her brother would aid her designs, both by delaying the opportunity of an explanation between the young people, and also by using all his logical powers upon her son, to convert him from his purpose; for, strange as it may seem, Mrs. Sutherland had unbounded faith in Mr. Bolling’s polemic abilities. His soi-disant impartiality, coolness, and precision of judgment, had really imposed upon her.

Uncle Billy dug both his hands in his pockets, and dropped his rosy chin upon his chest with an attitude and expression of deep cogitation, and his face quite flushed with the heat and burden of his thoughts. At last he said, with an air of great deliberation—

“Hem! In the first place, we must essay every possible means of persuasion and coercion, to move him from his purpose. Yes, persuasion and coercion of every possible kind and degree; for in this case the end justifies the means.”

“Yes, my dear brother, I agree with you perfectly; it is just what I said.”

“Yes, but at the same time,” said Billy Bothsides, shaking his head, and glancing keenly at his sister, with the astute air of one making a very fine distinction—“at the same time, we are not to use any undue or unfair influence over the young man.”

“Oh, certainly not,” said Mrs. Sutherland.

“No, no, I never could consent to that, although I would go to any justifiable or even unjustifiable lengths, to cure the boy of his folly. You understand me? You follow out my line of reasoning?”

“Well, no, brother William, I do not, clearly.”

“Women seldom do! women seldom do! But never mind! Trust to me! I’ll bring him round I—though I confess I do not believe it will be in the power of mortal man to do it,” said Mr. Bolling, rising from the table, and sauntering into the front parlour.

He found Mrs. Vivian monopolising the attention of Mr. Sutherland, by making him translate for her a sonnet of Petrarch. As soon as Uncle Billy appeared, to relieve guard, Mrs. Vivian suddenly lost all interest in Italian, dropped her book, and left the room, passing Mrs. Sutherland on her way, to whom she said, laughingly—

“A pretty commencement I have made of it! First, heard myself anathematised for a ‘pestilent widow’—next made myself and three other people wretched for an hour—those were, Sutherland, who was dying to speak to India—Lauderdale, who was longing to talk to me—India, who wishes to listen to Sutherland—and last, not least, myself, who was quite willing to hear what Lauderdale had to say.”

“Mr. Lauderdale seemed quite—pleased with you last night.”

“Pleased? Well, I should not be surprised. Perhaps he means to make love to me this morning. If he does not, perhaps—he’s only a college boy—I mean to make love to him, pour se disennuyée;” and waving her fan playfully, and half curtseying, the trifler glided off.

And soon after she was seen promenading on the piazza with young Lauderdale.

Ennuyée with the dolce far niente of the morning, Miss Sutherland ordered her carriage to return home. Uncle Billy begged a seat inside, and Mr. Sutherland and (at the invitation of the latter) Mr. Lauderdale mounted horses to attend the party.

Their way lay through a beautiful piece of woods, that covered the hill, just rising, and then gradually declining to the river. They crossed by a ferry.

This part of the river, being the head of the bend, resembled a beautiful woodland lake, lying embosomed among its green hills and groves, which were all distinctly reflected in the water, that was flushed with a pale purple light, changing ever into azure or crimson, or fading off into faint beautiful hues of pink or saffron.

“Oh! it is well named the Pearl—this lovely river—though it might as well be called the Opal,” said Billy Bolling, who had a taste for natural beauty.

They were but few minutes in reaching the other bank of the river, and landing at Cashmere.

Arrived at Cashmere, the party passed up the winding road leading through the groves and shrubberies of the lawn, to the foot of the marble steps leading to the rose terrace, and there alighting, passed through the verandah into the house.

Laughingly Mrs. Vivian took immediate possession of Miss Sutherland, and carried her off to seek Rosalie.

Mr. Sutherland, senior, happened to be in the house, and Mark immediately introduced his friend Lauderdale. The old gentleman welcomed the stranger with the stately suavity habitual to men of his day and station; but he received his nephew with an earnestness of affection scarcely restrained by the presence of a third party—pressing his hand with much warmth, and detaining it lingeringly in his clasp.

Mark Sutherland could hardly repress a groan, to think how soon all this must be changed. Nay, more: he even felt a species of compunction for receiving his uncle’s kindness under what he felt to be false colours; and he determined, if possible, not to let an hour pass before having a full explanation with him. And so, after the first compliments were over, and when the planter arose and politely excused himself, saying that important business called him over to his new plantation, and expressing a hope that Mr. Lauderdale would consider his house, servants, and stables, entirely at his commands, Mark Sutherland laid his hand solemnly upon his arm, and said—

“My dear uncle, I must have a conversation with you this morning.”

“My dear Mark,” said the old man, smiling—if it could be called a smile—“I know what you are about to ask, and I answer beforehand, just as soon as India pleases. The sooner the better. I speak freely before your friend”—bowing to the latter—“whom, I presume, you have persuaded to do you the honour of attending you upon the occasion. Consult my daughter! You know her will is law in this affair.”

“My dear sir, it is upon another subject that I really must consult you, at your very earliest convenience,” said Mr. Sutherland, with such earnestness of manner as to enforce serious attention.

“Well, sir,” said the planter, “to-day you must really excuse me. I have to go over to the new plantation. Stoke, my manager there, thinks that the cotton crop is not in a vigorous state; he fears that it is taking the rot. But, excuse me—young men know little and care less for the anxieties that make their elders slaves.” And, smiling and bowing, the old gentleman withdrew.

And Mark Sutherland, seeing no opportunity of breaking his mind to either father or daughter for the present, invited Lauderdale for a ride over the plantation.

Mr. Sutherland rang, and ordered horses, which were at the door in fifteen minutes, and he and his friend mounted and commenced their ride.

First winding round the shaded path at the foot of the rose terrace, they turned to the left, and entered the grove which surrounded three sides of the back of the house. Half a mile’s ride through a narrow, tangled pathway, up which they were obliged to proceed in Indian file, led them to an elevated clearing of about a hundred acres, on which was situated the negro village, called, in plantation parlance, “The Quarters.”

“There! what do you think of that?” asked Mark Sutherland, with a slight dash of triumph in his tone, as they drew rein and paused under the shade of the trees at the edge of the grove.

Lauderdale’s eyes were roving leisurely and attentively over the woodland village. It was certainly a most lovely scene. The sky above was of the brilliant, intense blue of southern climes; the foliage of the woods around was of the vivid green of early summer. A few large trees were left standing at intervals in the clearing; and under these, and scattered at irregular distances through the area, were the neat white cottages with their red-painted doors. Each cottage had its small vegetable garden, and some few of the better-kept houses had their fruit trees, and even flower yards. The village was deserted now, except by the children playing at the doors, and the old people left to take care of them. Of these latter, some were seated upon the door-steps, and some were standing leaning over the fence-rails; some were occupied with knitting coarse stockings; and some, mostly men, were smoking their pipes. All the able-bodied men and women were out in the fields.

Lauderdale looked on, first with an expression of surprise and pleasure, but afterwards with a countenance full of thought.

“Well, my friend, how do you like that?” repeated Mr. Sutherland.

“I will give you my opinion more at large, later in the day, my dear Mark,” replied Lauderdale; and then he added, “I have been told that you have the best stud and best stables in Mississippi; will you favour me with the sight of those also?”

Mr. Sutherland immediately assented. They turned their horses’ heads, and taking another path, rode in a circuit around to the site of the stables, which lay at some distance to the right of the mansion house, and were concealed from the latter by an intervening arm of the grove. The stables were built in the most approved modern style, with much architectural beauty, and possessed every requisite for the health and comfort of the noble animals for whose accommodation they were designed. Here again Lauderdale expressed no opinion, but asked to see—don’t start, super-refined reader—the pig pens. Mark, with a queer smile, conducted his guest to the desired premises; and also, without waiting to be solicited, introduced him to the cow pens, the hen house, etc. All these buildings had been constructed under the direction of a celebrated English rural architect, and of course were fitted with every modern improvement for the well-being of the stock. Still Lauderdale as yet reserved his judgment, while he expressed his thanks to his host for the privilege he had enjoyed. Sutherland mischievously asked him whether he would not also like to see the pigeon boxes before dinner. Lauderdale smilingly declined, and they returned to the house. They alighted from their saddles and threw the reins to the groom, entered the hall, and separated to dress for dinner.

Half an hour after, when they met in the drawing-room, Lauderdale advanced to his host, and said,—

“Sutherland, I must thank you again for the sight of your plantation arrangements! and I must say that all your stock—horses, cows, and pigs, and slaves—are probably the best accommodated of any in the state!”

Mark Sutherland, with a flushed brow, turned away. But in an instant, Lauderdale laid his hand upon his arm, and said, with a voice and manner full of affectionate earnestness—

“I mean to say just this, dear Mark—that your negro village is comfortable, and even exceedingly beautiful, but that no amount of physical comfort can or ought to compensate an immortal being for the loss of liberty!”

The entrance of other members of the family and the speedy announcement of dinner ended this conversation for the present.

Haggard, careworn, anxious, as he was, the deep, ever-springing fountain of gladness in Mark Sutherland’s heart dispersed all his gloom; and, during dinner, when the jest and laugh went round, he was as usual the spring of wit and humour to the party.

After dinner, when he was about to seek an interview with his betrothed, Mrs. Vivian forestalled him, by carrying off Miss Sutherland to examine a box of goods, lately arrived from New Orleans for the bride elect. And Mr. Bolling, leaving Sutherland, senior, to entertain the guest, ran his arm through that of Mark, and marched him off in triumph.

“Well, Mark,” he said, as soon as he had got him on to the lawn, “I cannot understand it! how a young man of your strength of character, of your firmness—nay, obstinacy; stubbornness—should permit yourself to fall a prey to these adventurers.”

“I really do not see how I am their prey, Uncle Billy, or why they should be adventurers.”

“Oh, Mark, you are—I mean, dear Mark, you want experience of the world; and no amount of moral or intellectual excellence will stand you in stead for that. Nay, indeed, goodness will only make you the easier victim, and talent the more useful tool to these speculators.”

“Uncle, you wrong them! By the honour of my soul, you do! You have never seen or heard but one side of the question, and therefore you are bitterly prejudiced.”

“Prejudiced! Me prejudiced! when everybody knows that I am the most impartial person in the world! But ‘moderation has its martyrs also.’”

“You certainly are prejudiced in this matter; yet how shall I set you right? And why should I be surprised? Once, there was never such a scoffer as I was.”

“Yes, and that’s just what raises the hair of my head with wonder! Your good-humoured satire and gay indulgence used to please me so much more than your uncle’s haughty, scornful, persecuting resentment of these people’s affronts. You used to laugh, and say to your uncles, ‘Your anger is inadequate to the offence; it is ungenerous. These objects of your displeasure are very harmless enthusiasts.’ And now! Ah, Mark, I call to mind the poet’s line—

‘First endure, then pity, then embrace.’

You began by enduring, and you end by embracing their doctrines. Ah, Mark! Mark! Mark! how came it so?”

“Uncle, did you never hear of a gay man or woman of the world—well enough in their way—not sinners above all sinners, but with a certain light, satirical way of treating serious subjects, and a certain good-humoured contempt for those that entertained them—did you never hear an instance of such a man or woman going into a religious meeting to scoff, but returning home to pray? Well, very much akin to that was my experience. I went to the convention in New York, just to fulfil a promise made to my friend Lauderdale, and next to have a laugh at them! At the first meeting—well; I am not going to give you a report of it—sufficient is it to tell you that the subject was presented to my mind in a new and startling aspect. I laughed, or rather tried to laugh, it off.”

“I wish to goodness you had taken it more earnestly than to begin with laughing, to end with imitating.”

“At the second meeting, there were some still higher, purer souls, and more eloquent and commanding tongues; lips touched with fire, whose words were flame consuming the wrong principle, that shrivelled up before it. But I do not mean to become eloquent myself. This is not the time or place, nor are you the audience. It is enough to say that the speakers in that meeting gave me the heartache and the headache, and I wished in my soul I had never entered their hall. Yet nevertheless a fascination drew me there the third evening. And then, whether ‘the master minds’ of the cause had said all they had to say for the time, or whether they had not yet arrived upon the scene of action, I really cannot say—(for the room was crowded, and not by friends of the cause, as you will hear, but by conspirators, who had come there to break the meeting up)—but certainly, after one short address of thrilling eloquence and power—during the progress of which I felt myself to be a participant in an injustice, and at the close of which I was ready to make an irrevocable oath to clear my life from the sin—up jumps a fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, and more deviltry, I perfectly believe, than either, and so defames me and my fellow-citizens of the South, and so caricatures us as monsters of atrocity, and so whirrs and rattles whips and chains and gyves about my ears and eyes, that it was the cast of a die whether I should laugh or swear. But before it was decided, a resolution was put and an amendment offered, and two or three people rose, and half a dozen began to speak, and everybody wanted to talk, and nobody—but me—wanted to hear, and there was a confusion inside and a gathering mob outside, and in an incredibly short time there was a hailstorm of stones, and battered walls, and smashed windows, and the meeting was broken up in a row; and my Celtic blood boiled up and boiled over; and while laying about me valiantly in defence of freedom of speech, I lost myself. And when I found myself, I was lying with a broken arm and broken head in the watchhouse!”

“Good gracious, Mark! what a dishonour! What would my sister, what would my niece, say to that?”

“They do not know it, and they need not.”

“Well, really, one would have thought that would have cured you!”

“My good uncle, it did—of indecision. One is very apt to be confirmed to a cause in which they have suffered somewhat. I lay very ill for two weeks. During that time I was ministered to by some excellent men, and women also—persons whose disinterestedness, benevolence, gentleness, and perfect sincerity, gave me such a deep and beautiful impression of the Christian character as I had never received from book or pulpit—persons who had sacrificed fortune, position, friendships—all, to a pure but despised cause. It was the silent influence, even more than the spoken words of these, which fixed me forever in my good purpose.”

“It may be true, Mark, that there are such, or it may only have seemed so to you. What I know is, that if there are such disinterested souls in the cause, they are, at best, only the instruments with which the party leaders work for their own individual ends and selfish purposes.”

“No, it is not so, nor could it be so; wisdom and goodness could not become the tools of selfishness and worldliness.”

“Now, Mark, don’t stand there and try to dazzle your old uncle’s intellect, by a fine-sounding Joseph Surface sentiment! You must either be a blockhead, or take me for one, when you pretend to tell me that the teachers of that party are not a set of self-seeking agitators, whose motives range from the mere getting of daily bread, up to the getting of political power; and who, if it fell easily in their way, would as willingly reach their ends by entering into the slave trade, as by agitating the question of emancipation.”

The hot blood crimsoned Mark Sutherland’s brow, and he answered indignantly—

“You speak of that of which you know nothing. You speak of those whose”——

“Ah! don’t I know nothing?” interrupted Mr. Bolling. “Where is that Mr. Grab, who came down here as a travelling preacher, and took that opportunity (or perhaps he was sent on purpose, and paid to do it) to preach abolition to the poor whites and the blacks, and to do Satan knows what other mischief; and the Lord knows what judgment would have fallen on him from our incensed planters, if he had not been offered an asylum in the house of your cousin, Mrs. Tilden, who, being a sentimental, compassionate young woman, and finding herself the protectress of a pale, persecuted young preacher, began to court him, as widows will court; and so, when all her brothers and brothers-in-law came in force to turn him out and lynch him, they met the pair coming home from the minister’s—married! The pretty widow, the plantation, and the negroes, had proved most convincing arguments, and had converted him. And now, when he feels it necessary to defend himself from the charge of treachery to his party, he says, ‘Oh, the erroneous sentiments of his youth were the effects of ignorance and enthusiasm!’ Umph, humph! we all understand that—in his case second thoughts paid better.”

During this speech, Mark had put down his anger, and now replied, gravely and earnestly—

“Uncle, it is a point that I must meet—this of yours. It has given me much, deep pain. But why should it make you scornful and incredulous of the disinterestedness of these reformers, or why should it give me sorrow? We must separate a high and pure cause, and its devoted self-sacrificing supporters, from its few unworthy advocates. Why, uncle, do we reject Christianity because among the Saviour’s chosen twelve there was one Judas, who was covetous, and whose covetousness made him sell his master? Or because among His many disciples there were some who followed Him, hoping for high places in the kingdom they supposed Him about to establish on earth? Or, even now, do we all refuse to hear the Gospel preached, because there have been some Averys and Onderdonks in the pulpits? And shall we stop our ears, and close our eyes, and fold our hands before the cause of reform, for the reason that there are some Grabs in the party? Nay, God forbid!”

Mark Sutherland paused as in painful thought some time, and then, with more than usual emotion, he exclaimed—

“I would to God there were no Achans in the camp! For this work, that at the best is apt to arouse so much evil passion—for this work, requiring so much wisdom and goodness to carry it on aright—for this work, more than for all others, should the labourers have clear heads, and clean hands, and pure motives.”

Then, after a short pause, addressing his uncle again, and taking his hand, he said—

“Uncle, I am about to sacrifice all I have in the world, to principles I have but so lately embraced. Well, sir, believe me, for it is God’s holy truth—notwithstanding these Grabs who bring dishonour on their cause, there are hundreds of philanthropists who have sacrificed as much as I.”

“Indeed, indeed, Mark, you are very wrong and foolish to do this thing! Very, very foolish and wrong, indeed. Nevertheless, I am constrained to say that you are perfectly wise and right in persevering in your duty! Yes, sir!” said Mr. Bothsides, wiping his face furiously, and stuffing his white handkerchief back in his pocket. “And now, what do you mean to do further?” he asked.

“I shall go to the West.”

“Yes—yes—yes—yes,” said Uncle Billy, meditatively; “do so. Go to the West—go to some new place, and grow up with it. It will be the easiest thing on earth for you to rise in the world there, and success in the end is almost certain—though—confound it! you will find you’ll have to struggle very hard, and be very apt to be disappointed at last. You have no reason in the world to be the least bit discouraged—but—you must not be sanguine—that I can tell you! I make it a rule, without an exception never to give advice, Mark—notwithstanding—if you are ever at a loss how to act in an emergency, consult me, Mark—my best counsel is at your service. And I really think that with it you could not possibly go wrong,” said Mr. Bolling, drawing his handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his forehead, and replacing it with a look of great self-complacency.

“My dear Uncle Billy,” said Mark, with a quiet smile, “believe me, I know how to appreciate your fine, impartial judgment, and feel convinced that I never should come to harm in following your advice.”

With this proof of his high-minded nephew’s affection and confidence, Mr. Bolling’s blue eyes filled with tears, and he seized Mark’s hand, and squeezed it, and shook it, crying—

“Deuce fly away with you, Mark! I feel a perfect contempt for your folly and wrong-headedness in this matter—nevertheless—I am compelled to admit that I am filled with unmingled admiration for the wisdom and rectitude of your character and conduct! Yes, sir!”

This was said with great emphasis, and once more the cambric handkerchief was brought into violent requisition.

An hour after the end of this conversation, Mark Sutherland was seated in the library, impatiently waiting the entrance of his uncle, with whom he had at last succeeded in appointing an interview. He was anxious, restless, and unable to occupy himself with anything, during the few moments which seemed ages before the planter should enter. He tumbled over the books, rumpled the papers, shifted his position many times, started up and paced the floor, looked out of all the windows in turn, and finally went to the door to listen, and reached it just as it was swung open in his face, and old Clement Sutherland entered. The planter walked to the centre of the room, and threw himself into his leather-covered chair at his writing-table, saying, in a curt voice—

“Well, sir, what is your business with me?”

Startled by the unusual sternness of his manner, Mark Sutherland turned and looked at him inquiringly. The planter’s countenance wore an aspect of severity that at once told his nephew that from some cause or by some means he had been led to suspect the nature of the communication the latter was about to make him.

“Will you oblige me, sir, by opening your business at once, as my time is somewhat valuable?” said Clement Sutherland, looking at his watch.

The young man bowed, drew a chair to the opposite side of the table, took a seat, excused himself, and deprecated his uncle’s displeasure for the painful subject he was about to introduce.

Here Clement Sutherland waved his hand impatiently, begging that he would cut his introduction as short as possible.

Then the young man commenced to relate the history of his life and experiences for the last preceding three months; he told how he had been induced to attend the colonization meetings, first merely in the spirit of bravado; how, in hearing the subject freely and ably discussed, the conviction had forced an entrance into his soul.

Here Clement Sutherland wheeled his chair around, so that his back was presented to the light, and his face cast into deep shadow, and from this instant to the end of the conversation, Mark Sutherland could not watch the expression of his countenance to judge his mental comments.

But he went on to relate how long and stoutly he had struggled against this conviction; how at last it had overcome him; how his pride, his selfishness, his interests, his passions, and affections—all had yielded, or must yield in any conflict between them and his sense of duty.

“Facts, sir! facts! Let us have no sentiments, no moral or metaphysical disquisitions, but actual facts! What do you intend to do?”

Mark Sutherland answered, calmly—

“To free every negro on my plantation, and at my own expense to send every one, who is willing to go, to Liberia.”

A scornful, most insulting laugh, was the only comment of the planter.

“And after freeing them, I must do all in my power to place them in a situation of happier circumstances for their present, and more hopeful probabilities for their future, lives.”

The young man here paused, and as the planter did not answer, silence ensued between them for several minutes, during which the latter passed his hand slowly back and forth over his bearded chin. At length Mark Sutherland said, in a troubled voice—

“I do not wish to conceal from you, sir, the fact that my greatest trial in this affair has been connected with the thought of India.”

Again he paused for a reply or comment. But the planter only caressed his bristling chin, while his countenance was inscrutable in the deep shadow.

The youth spoke again:

“It has been a subject of deep regret and anxiety to me, to feel that I can no longer hope to offer India a fortune or a position equal to her just expectations. For myself, I have no doubts or fears for the future. I feel within me a power to struggle and to conquer. I feel assured that within a very few years my position will be a higher one than it is now, or than it would be were I to retain my present wealth. I believe that my India will have no cause to blush for her husband, or you for your son-in-law.”

Still the old man did not make a single remark, and so deep remained his face in the shadow, that the youth could not read his thoughts. It was rather trying to continue speaking under these circumstances; but there was no alternative. He concluded by saying—

“Although I have long enjoyed the pleasure of your approbation in my addresses to your daughter, I thought it proper to take the very earliest opportunity of informing you of my purposes, and the consequent change they must make in my fortune and circumstances. And now, sir, I have told you all, and I wait in much anxiety to hear what you have to say.”—

“What do you wish me to say?” dryly inquired the planter.

“Just what is on your mind, my uncle.”

“Humph! this is rather sudden, sir. It is true that a few words dropped by Mr. Bolling, and unexpectedly overheard by myself, in some degree prepared me for the strange communication you have just made. Still, it is sudden, sir! It is sudden! What, may I inquire, did you expect me to say? How did you anticipate that I should meet this?”

Mark Sutherland hesitated to reply, but got up and walked the floor in an exceedingly troubled manner.

A strange smile sat upon the face of the planter. At last he said—

“You doubtless, and with much justice, expected me to withdraw my consent to the marriage of yourself and my daughter. Did you not? Reply, if you please.”

“Sir—my dear uncle!” said Mark, coming forward again, “I had my doubts and misgivings about that. It would have been unjust to you to have seriously entertained them; and it would be unjust to myself to say that I did so.”

“You were right, sir!” said the planter, with the same inscrutable smile; “you were right—I shall not interfere. Having once sanctioned your addresses to my daughter, I shall not now oppose them. Miss Sutherland is of age. I refer you solely to her. If, under the new aspect of affairs, she is willing that this engagement between you and herself shall stand, and that the preparations for marriage proceed, I shall throw no obstacles in your way. Nay, further, sir, that in that case, the marriage shall be conducted precisely as, under other circumstances, it was planned—that is, in all things befitting the social position of myself and my sole daughter. Our interview is at an end, I believe?”

The words of Clement Sutherland would have called forth from his nephew the warmest emotions and expressions of gratitude, but that the tone and the smile that accompanied them, more than neutralised their good effect, and sent a pang of terrible foreboding through the heart of the young man.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said, laying his hand gently and respectfully upon the arm of his uncle, as the latter was rising to leave the library. “Do I understand you to say that you approve”——

“You will please to understand me to say, sir, that I refer you to my daughter, Miss Sutherland, and that I shall endorse her decision, whatever that may be. Excuse me, sir—good afternoon.”

And Clement Sutherland, coldly bowing, left the library.

Mark Sutherland walked up and down the floor in great disturbance of mind, and then at last he seized his hat and hurried from the room, to seek the presence of India.

CHAPTER V.
CHAMBRE DE TOILETTE ET LA TROUSSEAU.

“’Tis a proud chamber and a rich,

Filled with the world’s most costly things,

Of precious stones and gold;

Of laces, silks, and jewelry,

And all that’s bought and sold.”—Howitt.

“Rosalie! what is it you are poring over, now? Good heaven! Moore’s Sacred Melodies! Now, my love, that is not the food for you to be feeding your sick fancies upon! Plague take the books! I could find it in my heart to throw every one I find into the fire! Come, throw aside that blazée sentimentalist, and come with me into Miss Sutherland’s room, and try to interest yourself a little in healthful external life. Miss Sutherland’s boxes have just arrived from Paris, viâ New Orleans; they have been carried up into her dressing-room; and by this time, I suppose, the men have opened them, and carried off all the rubbish of nails, and bands, and outside boxes, and we have only to go and help to set the beautiful things at full liberty.”

This was addressed by Mrs. Vivian to her step-daughter, when, on entering the chamber of the latter, she found the young invalid reclining upon a couch, and reading, as usual.

The fair girl closed her book, and smiling gently, arose, and passed her arm through that of her step-mother. And they left the chamber, crossed the hall, opened an opposite door, and entered the dressing-room of Miss Sutherland.

A scene of splendid chaos met their view. Most of the boxes had been unpacked and taken away, and their brilliant contents littered chairs, couches, ottomans, psyches, and even the carpet. And the favoured mistress of all this wealth sat in the midst of the resplendent confusion, with an air of extreme languor and indifference. At her feet sat her beautiful hand-maiden, Oriole, with a box of white satin slippers by her side, and her mistress’s small foot in her lap, fitting the fairy shoes. By her side stood her woman, Meda, holding a box of white kid gloves, from which she continued to hand out pair after pair to the young lady, who would draw one half upon her fingers, and then draw it off and let it fall, and drop her hand upon her lap with a look of extreme fatigue, as if the exertion had really been too much for her, and say, languidly—

“There, take them away; they are all too large, or too small, or something”——

“Dear India, how can you say that?” said Mrs. Vivian, approaching, and taking up a pair of gloves; “they are all exactly of a size, and all number sixes—your number—and are really beautiful gloves.”

“But I’m so tired—it is such a bore. Oriole, cease tormenting my feet, and take away those odious slippers.”

“How can you call them odious—the beauties?” said Mrs. Vivian, stooping down, and taking up a pair.

And Oriole herself echoed the question with her eyes, as she fondled her mistress’s beautiful foot, in its case of white satin, soft and light as a snow-flake.

“Oriole, did I not tell you to let my foot alone? Meda, clear away all this chaos from around me. Rosalie, my love, reach me the vinaigrette”——

“Can I also do anything to serve you?” asked Mrs. Vivian, mischievously.

“Yes, dear Valeria; just see that they hang the dresses up, and put away the cases and things, while I close my eyes upon this glare, and rest.”

Mrs. Vivian arched her eyebrows, and did as she was bid, examining at her leisure the magnificent trousseau, as it was detailed off under her eye into various wardrobes and bureaus. Only once she interrupted the repose of Miss Sutherland, to ask her if the wedding-dress had come.

“Meda, tell Mrs. Vivian about it,” said the languid beauty, scarcely lifting her long lashes.

And the waiting-woman respectfully telegraphed the lady, and preceded her into the adjoining chamber, where upon the bed was laid the magnificent bridal costume of white brocaded satin, the superb veil of Honiton lace, and the beautiful chaplet of orange flowers.

Mrs. Vivian beckoned Rosalie, and when the child stood by her side, they examined it together, and the mother tried to make the daughter understand how elegant, how costly, how recherché was this costume.

“And to think,” she said, “that India is so indifferent about a trousseau that would have turned my head when I was a girl. I don’t believe it is indifference either; I believe it is affectation.”

“No, it is not, mamma. She is really indifferent to all this. There is something troubles her. She was not resting when she sat so still. I saw her lips tremble and her eyelids quiver.”

Mrs. Vivian cast a scrutinizing glance at the girl, thinking, “How is it that in some things she is observant?” But Rosalie, almost unconsciously, was repeating to herself the refrain of the song she had been reading:—

“All that’s bright must fade.”

“Rosalie, have done with that sentimental melancholy; it disturbs me; and it is untrue, besides. The best things are most enduring. And it is all nonsense, besides, to suppose that anything more serious than indolence troubles India. And now, my dear, do you know the programme of these bridal festivities and tour, as we arranged it yesterday?”

“No,” said the young girl, trying to be interested.

Mrs. Vivian dropped herself into an easy chair at the side of the bed, and Rose sank upon the cushion at her feet, and laid her head in the lady’s lap; and while Valeria ran her fingers caressingly through the soft ringlets of the child, she said—

“The marriage was long ago fixed to come off on Miss Sutherland’s birthday, and she and her friends see no reason to change it now. That, you know, my dear, is on the 15th of this month—a week from to-day. The ceremony is to take place in the morning, my love, and you are to be one of the bridesmaids. Immediately after the benediction, the bridal pair are to set out upon a tour of the springs and other places of fashionable summer resort, of six weeks. You and I, Rose, are going up into the pine woods, to a quiet farm-house, to spend the hot months; for indeed, dear child, I do not think you strong enough to bear the fatigue of a northern journey, or the crowd and bustle of a watering-place.”

“Dear mamma, how much you give up for me!”

“My child, I would do anything in the world to see you restored to health and cheerfulness like other young girls.”

“But this, sweet mamma, is too much to sacrifice. It is too much for you to give up Saratoga and Nahant, where you meet so many friends and admirers, and where you enjoy and adorn society so much. Mamma, do not think of giving this pleasure up, and burying yourself for me in the pine woods. Let us go to Saratoga.”

“My love! I tell you the long, fatiguing journey, the crowded hotels, the execrable tables, the wretched attendance, and the noise and confusion, would kill you, Rosalie!”

“And then my sweet mamma would really be the rich young southern widow she is generally supposed to be,” said the girl, gazing on her young step-mother with a fond, sorrowful smile.

“Oh, Rosalie! why did you say that to me, love? Do you believe in the traditional selfishness of all step-mothers, from the days of Cinderella’s step-dame to yours? Or have you read such poetry as—

‘There’s nothing true but heaven,’

till you have lost faith in all things?—poetry that, Heaven knows, gives anything but ‘Glory to God, and peace and good will to man.’”

“Dear mamma, I am very sorry I said what I did. Oh, believe me, it was far from my heart to be so cruelly unjust as I see you must think me! You selfish—the most disinterested mother that ever cherished a poor, sick, troublesome child! Oh, forgive the light and thoughtless words that could be twisted into such a hint.”

“Just tell me how you came to say what you did, Rosalie, for the words trouble me.”

“Nay, never heed them, dear, kind mamma. Forget them; they were wicked words, since they gave you pain.”

“Rosalie, I insist upon knowing what put such a thought into your head.”

“Mother, sometimes I hear things not intended for my ear, which, nevertheless, I cannot help hearing”—

“Explain.”

“Why, often when I have been reclining in a shaded window-seat with a book, or lying on a distant sofa with my eyes closed, and they think I am asleep, or quite abstracted, I hear them say, ‘Poor girl, she is a trouble to herself and all around her.’ ‘She can never live to be a woman; so, if it were the Lord’s will, it were better she should die now.’ ‘Her death would be a great relief to the young widow; and, by the way, Mrs. Vivian would come into the whole property then, would she not?’ That is all, dear mamma. Do not let it disturb you. It did not disturb me the least.”

Mrs. Vivian placed her hand upon the bell. Miss Vivian gently arrested her purpose, saying—

“What are you about to do, mamma?”

“Ring, and order our carriage. I will not stay in this house, where you are so cruelly wounded, one minute longer than is required to put the horses to the carriage.”

“Dear mother, you cannot surely imagine that it is in this house I have ever been injured, in word or deed?”

“Where, then, Rose? Rose, you have distressed me beyond all measure. Tell me where it is that such wanton words meet your ear?”

“Dear mother, almost everywhere where you and I sojourn for any length of time. On our own plantation; in our own house at New Orleans; at our place in the pine woods; and while we are travelling, in steamboats, in hotels—in short, wherever the great world that knows us has entered.”

The lady looked so deeply distressed, and the maiden felt so grieved to see her troubled, that she hastened to turn the conversation, by saying, gaily—

“But, mamma, you did not finish telling me about our summer arrangements. You said that immediately after the marriage ceremony, the bridal pair would set out on a tour of the northern watering-places, and that you and I should go into the pine woods. And what next?”

“We shall spend two months in the pine woods, where the terebinthine air is so strongly recommended as the great specific for weak or diseased lungs; and where the quiet and regular hours, plain, simple food, and gentle exercise, will bring back the colour to my child’s cheeks. And, after two months, when my drooping rose will be fresh and blooming again, I will take her to Charleston, South Carolina, there to meet the married pair by appointment, and who, it is to be hoped, will then be sufficiently satisfied with each other’s exclusive society, to be able to tolerate ours for a little while. When we join them, we embark across the ocean, and make the tour of Europe together—winter in Sicily, and return home next spring. And by that time, I hope, the sea voyage, the change of scene and of climate, will have completely restored my darling to health!”

CHAPTER VI.
LOVE AND GOLD.

“On her forehead sitteth pride,

Crown’d with scorn, and falcon-eyed,

Yet she beneath, methinks, doth twine

Silken smiles that seem divine.

Can such smiles be false and cold?

Will she only wed for gold?”—Barry Cornwall.

While Mrs. Vivian sat talking with her daughter in the bed-chamber of Miss Sutherland, the latter remained in the adjoining dressing-room, where we left her seated in the easy chair, with her hands folded upon her lap, and her eyes closed as in gentle repose, only sometimes a half-smothered, shuddering sigh disturbed the statue-like stillness of her form. It was no deep sorrow, no great anxiety, that troubled this favourite of fortune—only, being quite unused to pain of any sort, physical or mental, she was impatient of its lightest touch. But she had that day been summoned to the presence of her father, and by him had been informed of Mr. Mark Sutherland’s whole plan, as he had just learned it from the latter. The planter had told his daughter, with distinct and dreadful detail, of all the numerous privations, toils, hardships, and humiliations, and vaguely hinted at a countless variety of suffering she must endure, if she should become a party to her lover’s purpose. He had further assured her, that if she should remain firm in opposing the plan of her lover, his resolution must finally yield to his affection for herself. And at last he had wrung from his daughter a promise, that she would make the total resignation of Mr. Mark Sutherland’s plans the only condition upon which their marriage should proceed. And so the interview between father and daughter had closed; and Miss Sutherland had returned to her room with little disposition to be amused by the variety and splendour of her newly-arrived trousseau. And, by seeming lassitude and nonchalance, she had drawn upon herself the unjust censure of Mrs. Vivian, and the wondering compassion of the more sympathetic Rosalie.

India never for an instant doubted her power over Mark Sutherland; nay, she never mentally even limited the extent of that power. The worst she anticipated was a controversy with her betrothed. That this controversy could end in any other manner than in her own favour, she never once inquired. That his fanaticism must yield to her influence, she felt certain. But she did not like to have to exert this influence. She admired and honoured Mark Sutherland above all men—nay, there were times when she feared him above all things. And she loved him as those of her clime only love. And with all her faults, this spoiled child of fortune was too true a woman to wish to take the position and tone of a dictator to the man she so loved. Nay, she felt indignant with all concerned in thrusting upon her such inevitable, yet such repulsive, “greatness.” And now she sat trying to compose her nerves and collect her thoughts for the unavoidable interview to which she momentarily expected to be summoned.

She had not much longer to wait. A servant soon entered, and, bowing, informed her that Mr. Sutherland requested the favour of an interview at her earliest convenience, and desired to know when and where she would receive him.

“Where is Mr. Sutherland?” inquired the young lady.

“In the library, Miss.”

“Proceed thither and announce me, then.”

Arrived at the library, the man opened the door, and merely saying, “Miss Sutherland, sir,” held it open until she had passed in, and then closing it, retired.

And India found herself alone with Mark. He was sitting at a central library-table, leaning with his head resting upon his hand; his face was very pale, his countenance haggard, his dark hair slightly dishevelled, his manner disturbed and anxious, yet withal controlled. He arose and advanced to meet her, led her to a sofa, and placed himself beside her. Taking her hand in his own, and pressing it gently, he looked down into her face, regarding her with a grave, sweet, sad, almost solemn expression of countenance; and, after a brief pause, he said, “My dearest India, you cannot be at a loss to understand my motive for requesting this interview?”

He paused, as expecting her assent, but she did not reply in any way. She did not even lift her glance from the carpet. He pressed her hand fondly, and resumed: “My love, the time has come, the opportunity is presented for us—even for us, my India—to put in practice some of those high examples of heroism, which in others have so often won our fervent admiration. Even we, my India, may”—

She arrested his serious words by suddenly drawing her hand away, and hurriedly exclaiming, “I have heard something of your purpose of manumitting the people on your various plantations. But I would prefer to hear your plan of benevolence, or philanthropy, whichever it may be, from your own lips, unwarped by prejudice, and uncoloured by passion, and with as little preface as possible!”

The coldness and reserve of her words and tones smote him to the heart. Nevertheless, he replied, “My purpose is no plan of benevolence or philanthropy, my dear India, but a simple act of justice, originating in a simple impulse of conscientiousness.” Then gently repossessing himself of her hand, he held it tenderly in his own, while he began, and, for the fourth time since his return home, related all the mental and moral experiences that had led him to determine upon the contemplated act of emancipation. She heard him out without again interrupting him. She sat very still, with her face pale and impassable, and her eyes cast down. She was no match for him in argument, yet, nevertheless, seeing that he silently awaited her answer, and preferring to convert rather than to cast him off, she recalled and repeated all the arguments she had ever heard in defence of slavery; she began by saying that she thought the existence of the system of slavery to be the manifest will and ordination of Divine Providence; and she wondered how any rational being could doubt it. Was not their present subordinate position here infinitely preferable to their former savage and cannibal condition on the coast of Congo? Here at least they were Christianized.

A smile dawned upon the young man’s countenance. She saw and felt it. Her cheek flushed, and she hastened to say—

“They must be blind indeed, Mr. Sutherland, who cannot see in the enslavement of the African race by the Anglo-Saxons the purpose of Divine Providence to civilize Africa.”

Mark Sutherland took her hand, and replied gently—

“My dear India, we do not deny that God continually brings good out of evil; but is that a justification of the evil? And even admitting, for argument’s sake, that the reduction of a portion of the Ethiopian race to slavery by the Anglo-Americans is to be the means of Christianizing them, is it not full time, after two hundred years of bondage, that some of this harvest sowed with tears and blood should be reaped?—that some of these good fruits should begin to be enjoyed?”

“Besides,” said Miss Sutherland, eluding his question and evading his eye, “there is a fitness in these relations between the European and the African races—Europeans could not engage in agricultural labour under the burning heat of our Southern sun”——

“But why enslave the negroes—why not emancipate and hire them?” interrupted Mark.

“O! you know,” she replied, hastily, “that the negroes will not work effectually, unless driven to it.”

“Plantation slaves will not, I grant you; but what has reduced them to this hopeless and inert condition?”

“I do not know why you should call their condition hopeless—I think, upon the whole, they are at least as hopeful and as happy as poor white people, or free blacks. And I never heard of a bad master, who was not also a bad son, brother, husband, father, neighbour—in short, who was not a bad Christian. And if you feel a call to reform the world, Mark Sutherland, why not begin at the right end, and Christianize it—and all other reform will follow early, and as a matter of course. Why not do that?”

“Because, my dear India, unluckily the world thinks itself already Christian. ‘And if the light that is in it be darkness, how great is that darkness?’ Neither, my dear girl, am I the missionary to dispel it. I am quite unworthy of, and unpretending to, the name of Christian, and have no presumption to begin reforming the world, either at the right end or the wrong end. I only wish to do what I consider a simple act of justice, in a matter between me and my own conscience.”

“I do not understand why your ‘conscience’ should meddle in the matter. The system appears to me to be perfectly right—every thing that we can wish. There is a beautiful adaptation in the mutual relations existing between the Anglo-Saxon master and the Ethiopian slave; for, observe, the Anglo-Saxon is highly intellectual, strong, proud, firm, self-willed, impelled to govern, gifted with great mental independence; the Ethiopian, on the contrary, is very unintellectual, weak, lowly in mind, imitative, affectionate, docile, easily controlled—and these traits of character so harmonize in this connection, that it seems to need only the spirit of Christianity to make it a beautiful and happy correspondence.”

“I think, my dearest girl, that even in that case the ‘beautiful and happy correspondence’ would be like Irish reciprocity—all on one side. Selfishness so blinds us, India”——

I have no space to dilate on what was said on either side. Both grew very serious, earnest, and emphatic. India became heated, fevered; she brought forward every plea she had ever heard pressed in favour of her own side of the controversy; but she was not his equal in logic. Baffled and disappointed in her failure, and unnerved by the strangeness of anxiety and contention, she suddenly burst into tears, and passionately exclaimed—

“You do not love me! You never loved me! You prefer the fancied welfare of these miserable negroes to my comfort and happiness!”

Mark Sutherland saw and felt only her tears and sorrow, and addressed himself to soothe her with all a lover’s solicitude. She took advantage of his tenderness—perhaps she even misunderstood it. She had failed to convince his judgment by her arguments, failed to change his purpose by opposition and reproaches, and now she resolved to try the power of love—of persuasion. She let him draw her to his bosom; she dropped her head upon his shoulder, with her blushing, tearful face and soft hair against his cheek, her arm upon his neck, and half-caressing, suffered herself to be caressed, and let him feel how sweet her love was, by the unutterable sweetness of her shy caress; and when his heart was weak unto death, she pleaded with him, yieldingly, submissively, tearfully, as with one who had the right and the power of ordering her destiny—that he would not doom her to a lot so cruel, so terrible; that she was so unprepared for it; that he must know she was; that it would kill her in a year.

All this was pleaded with her head upon his shoulder, with her face against his cheek, with her hand pressed around his neck. This seductive gentleness was very hard to resist, indeed. He answered—

“My dearest India, you are sole mistress of your own destiny, and, to a great extent, of mine. I did hope that you would have borne me company in my pilgrimage, and, even from the first, have shared my lot, hard as it is sure to be. We have both read and heard how women, even the most tenderly reared and delicate, have, for affection, for constancy, for truth, and the great idea of duty, borne poverty, toil, hardships and privations, even with a better grace and with more fortitude and patience than the strongest men. But I begin to think that history and tradition must exaggerate. How, indeed, could my own fragile lady-love endure what my strong frame must encounter and overcome? No, dear India, ardently as I once desired that you should be, from this time forward, the partner of my lot, I see and feel that the wish was thoughtless, unreasonable, selfish. It was exacting far too much. No, dearest, painful as it must be to tear myself from you, I must go forth alone to do battle with an adverse fate. Yet why should I call it adverse? I go forth with youth, and health, and strength; with a liberal education, and some talent; and when I have attained fame and fortune, then, like a true knight, I will come and lay them at my lady’s feet, and claim—no, not claim—but sue for my blessed reward.”

She said that she could not let him go; it would break her heart to part with him. Could he leave her to break her heart? Would he not give up his purpose for her sake, and stay with her? Her head was still upon his shoulder, and her face against his cheek. With a slight movement, at once shy and fond, she pressed her lips to his neck, and repeated her question: Would he not give up his purpose for her sake, and stay with her?

He felt his fortitude and strength fast leaving him. Amidst the fondest caresses, he said—

“My own dear India! how have I merited such love? My India, I will not stay so long as I said. I will not stay till I have won fame or fortune. I cannot remain away so long. But as soon as I have won a modest competence—in a year or two—I will be back to claim my blessing.”

Her tears fell like rain. Still she clasped, and pressed, and kissed his neck, and said that would not do at all; he must not leave her—no, not for a week; she could not, would not, bear it; she should die.

He kissed away her tears, fast as they fell, and then proposed again that she should go with him, promising to do more than man ever did, or even could do, to shield her from hardship till all hardship should be over, as it surely would be in time.

With a few deep-drawn sighs, she lifted up her head, and answered, No, she could not go; she was far too delicate to bear such a change; he ought to know it, and ought not to ask it. No, if he loved her, he must give up his project, and stay with her; and if he did love her, he surely would do it. Any man that really loved would do that much for his lady.

She was evidently merging from her tender, alluring mood, into an irritable and capricious one.

Full of doubt and trouble at her words, he answered—

“My dearest India, I told you that this purposed action of mine is a measure of conscience. You know it involves an immense sacrifice. Do you suppose that I would make that sacrifice, except from the most righteous principles, and do you suppose I can possibly abandon such principles? My India, if from my great love for you I could now sacrifice my conscience to your convenience, you would soon lose all esteem for me, and, in losing all esteem, lose all comfort in loving me. My India, no honourable woman can continue to love a man who has forfeited his own and her respect. Do you not know that?”

Coldly she put away his encircling arms—coldly she withdrew herself from him, saying—

“I see how it is, sir! You do not love me; you are faithless; you seek an excuse to break with me, by putting our union upon conditions impossible for me to comply with. You need not have taken such a crooked path to a plain end, sir; you needed only to have frankly named your wish, to have had your plighted troth restored. You are free, sir——to unite yourself with one of the favoured race, the objects of your manifest preference, if you please”——

This last, most insulting clause was cast at him with a glance of insufferable scorn, as she turned to leave the room.

His brow crimsoned with the sudden smite of shame, and—

“This from you, India!” he exclaimed.

She was looking at him still; but the scorn and anger slowly passed from her face, as he rose and advanced towards her, saying—

“But you are excited; I will not lay your bitter words to heart, nor suffer you to leave me in anger. Dearest India!”

She had already regretted her sharp words; love and anger were balanced in her bosom so evenly, that it took but a trifle to disturb the equilibrium; and now his forbearance and his kind words completely upset the scale, and love ascended. Turning to him once more, and throwing herself in his open arms, she burst into tears, and said—

“Dearest Mark, only give up this mad, mad project, and I am all yours. Oh, you know I am, any way; for even now the separation that would pain you, would kill or madden me! But, oh! you know I cannot endure the hardships you would prepare for me; they would be equally fatal. Give it up, Mark! Dear Mark, give it up, for my sake, for your dear mother’s sake, for all our sakes! Stay with us! do not divide us, and break our hearts, by leaving us! We all love you so! you know we do! We would do anything in the world for you, if you would stay with us! And I only grow angry and lose my senses, and utter mad words, when you talk of leaving us! Don’t go, Mark! Dearest Mark, don’t leave us.”

And so she pleaded, hiding her tears and blushes on his shoulder, and clasping, and pressing, and kissing his neck and cheek. The pleadings of young beauty to young love, most powerful, most painful to resist, yet they were resisted, mournfully, but calmly and firmly, resisted.

She raised her head from his shoulder.

“And you persist in your purpose?” she said.

“My India, I cannot do otherwise.”

“Notwithstanding all the suffering you may cause your mother, your relatives, and me?”

“My own India, I would I could bear all your grief in my own person.”

“But you adhere to your resolution?”

“I have no alternative.”

“And this is your final decision?”

He bowed.

“Even if you should lose me for ever?”

He started, as if suddenly struck by a bullet. He changed colour, but did not speak. She regarded him fixedly. At last she said, slowly and calmly—

“Will you please to answer my question?”

“India,” he said, “I will not for a moment, admit such a possibility. God will never repay fidelity to conscience with calamity.”

“Perhaps it might not be a calamity. I think it were well we should understand each other. The question is now before you—do not evade it.”

“My India, it is not practically before me. No, thank Heaven, the intolerable alternative of resigning you or my principles is not yet before me.”

“By all our past dreams, and present hopes, of happiness, I assure you that the alternative is now submitted to you, sir. And I adjure you, by your conscience, and by the strength of your vaunted principles, to decide the question, which I now repeat to you—if the adherence of your present purpose involve the final loss of my hand and heart, do you still persist in that purpose?”

Something in her tone caught up his glance, to rivet it upon her. Never in all their lives had she seemed to him so beautiful, so regnant, so irresistibly attractive. He gazed upon, he studied her face; nor did she turn it from him, nor avert her glance. She met his searching gaze proudly, fearlessly, imperially; she seemed to wish that he should read her soul, and know its immutable determination. There was no pique, no anger, no weakness, or wavering, on that high, haughty brow now; there was nothing but calm, indomitable resolution. He gazed upon her in wonder, and in sorrow, some time fascinated by the imperious beauty of her young brow, and marvelling that this could be the tender, seductive woman that lay cooing on his bosom scarce an hour ago. It would not do to waver now. He took her hand again. He answered, solemnly—

“India, you have adjured me, by my conscience, by the sacredness of my honour, to answer your question, and say whether, were the alternative finally before me, I should resign my resolution, or be resigned by you. India, I may not, must not, evade this. And I answer now, by my sacred honour and my hopes of heaven, come what may, of trial, of suffering, or of agony, I will never forego this purpose, to which reason and conscience alike urge me.”

“And that is your final determination?”

He bowed.

“Now, then, hear mine; but first I give you back your plighted troth and its less perishable symbol”—here she drew a diamond ring from her finger, and handed it to him—“and I remove your image from my heart with less difficulty than I disentangle this miniature one from my chain”—here she took a locket, set with diamonds, from her chatelaine, and handed him. He received both pledges back, and stood with a certain mournful dignity, awaiting her further words and actions. “And now,” she said, “let me make you thoroughly acquainted with my thought upon this subject which so interests you, so that you may see how far, as the East is from the West, is my thought from yours. Know, that I like the position that I occupy, the power that I wield; our plantation is as large as a German or Italian principality; our people are better governed, more prosperous, and more profitable, than the subjects of such a principality. We have more power than its prince. And I was born to this power; I am accustomed to it; I like it. Heaven crowned me with it; and do you think that I will discrown my brow to become—what? A drudging peasant? Never! And now, hear my oath. As you are the ‘dupe’ of a party, we separate, never to meet again until you have recovered manhood and independence enough to abjure this pernicious influence, and abandon the mad project to which it has forced you—so help me God!”

And, turning haughtily away, she left the room.

CHAPTER VII.
REACTION.

“Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bend

To this thy purpose—to begin, pursue,

With thoughts all fixed and feelings purely kind;

Strength to complete, and with delight review,

And grace to give the praise where all is due.”—Charles Wilcox.

It was over. Until this, he had not realized his true position. Nay, he did not fully realize it now. He sat, as one stunned, in the seat into which he had dropped when the door closed behind her. Until now, he had been elevated by a high enthusiasm in his purpose, and supported by a firm faith in her sympathy and co-operation—a faith, the strength of which he had not known until it was stricken from him, and he was left weaker than a child.

Why! it really had not seemed so great a sacrifice to resign wealth and position with her by his side—with her approving looks, and smiles, and words—with her cordial, affectionate concurrence. And how often the picture had glowed before his imagination, as he recalled her kindling cheek, and kindling eye, and fervent imagination, while reading with him of some heroic deed of self-devotion in another! And when he thought of all that earnest enthusiasm with himself for its object——forgive him, it was no better than a lover’s aspiration, perhaps; but all his soul took fire at her image, and all things seemed easy to do, to be, or to suffer, for such an unspeakable joy. That he should be her Curtius, her Bayard, her Hampden, Sydney, her hero. And until now, he had believed this, and had lived and acted under a strange illusion. And if for an instant his faith in her sympathy had ever been shaken, it was merely as the Christian believer’s trust is shaken, only to strike its roots the deeper after the jar.

But now—oh! this was indeed the bitterness of death! In the first stunned moment after his fall from such a height of confidence and joy, into such a depth of desolation and wretchedness, he could scarcely believe in his misery, far less analyze it, and detect its hidden and bitterest element. And this was its bitterest element—the ascertained antagonism of his India—her utter antagonism! This was the weapon that had felled him to the earth. This was the fang of the adder, struck deep in his heart, and poisoning all his soul!—with what? With distrust!—distrust of her, of himself, of all men and women! As yet, all this he felt, without acknowledging, nay, without perceiving it. He sat there as one in a trance. And the hours that passed over him were as a blank.

He was aroused by psychological disturbance. Why should he immolate himself upon the altar of a principle that one half of the Christian world would consider a mere madness? And how if, after all, it was madness? How if he was self-deceived?—actuated by fanaticism, and not by legitimate heroism? She whose whole soul had glowed at the mere mention of true magnanimity—she whose approbation had been the ardently desired reward of his sacrifice—the object of his young heart’s passionate aspiration—how had she regarded him? As a hero or a fanatic! How had she received him in his new aspect? Not as he had often fondly prevised—not with a faithful, loving clasp, strengthening his hands—not with a fervent, inspiring gaze, imparting courage and energy to his soul—not with approval and sympathy, and faithful cordial concurrence, confirming his faith—arming him for any conflict—strengthening him for any sacrifice. Oh! no, no; far otherwise. She had heard him with repelling hand and averted eye, and scorn, and loathing, and repulsion, that had left him bitterly disappointed, humbled, weakened, prostrated, paralyzed by self-doubt!

Was she right? Was he a madman?

Oh! there had been an element of worship and of aspiration in his love for India. And was this idol a mere stone, upon which he had broken himself in vain? He could not bear to think so. He was willing to believe himself a fool or a madman, so that her image remained undimmed, unspotted, unchanged in its shrine—so that she was still a perfect woman, angel, goddess!

And was this not truly so? Was her decision not really just, and was he not indeed a fanatic?

To believe this, would end the struggle and the agony at once. To confess this, would restore harmony and happiness to the grievously-disturbed family circle, and peace and joy to himself and his India! How easy to step down from his pedestal of principle, frankly confess it to have been a false position, taken in a fit of generous, youthful enthusiasm; to jest over it with his friends—friends recovered by that step; to call himself Don Quixote the younger, laugh at the matter, and dismiss it to oblivion. And then India! This beautiful, bewildering girl would be his own in five days. That vision whelmed him in vague, intense delirium.

Would it be so easy to step from his post, to abjure his principles, to silence his conscience?

No! Even amid the intoxicating dream of his beautiful India’s love, his stern soul answered, No!

He knew that he had not taken a false position—the Tempter could not persuade him that he had done so. He knew himself to be right; he knew that he was not self-deceived. Not even now, in this hour of bitter trial, would his moral sense be so confused. In his conscience, the dividing line between right and wrong was too clearly, distinctly, sharply defined, and there was no possibility of confusing or mistaking the boundary.

And so the mental sophistry of the temptation ended.

And now for the moral conflict. Admitted that his convictions were those of pure rational duty, why should he sacrifice so much to them? Did others around him do so? Did any one live up to his or her high idea of right? On the contrary, who did not silence the voice of conscience every day of their lives? Who in this world was not, in their turn, and in their way, more or less unjust, selfish? And did they not, the best of them, compound for all this by going to church, and confessing themselves “lost and ruined sinners,” and returning with a clean conscience, like a tablet newly sponged over, and prepared to be inscribed all over again with the same sins, to be effaced in the same manner? Now, why could not he also do his pleasure, enjoy his wealth, hold to this world, and secure heaven—all on these easy terms? It was only to make a profession.

It would not do. His heart, it is true, had not been touched by the spirit of Christianity, yet his mind was too clear and right to deceive itself so delightfully about this matter. That grace of God which hath appeared unto all men, taught him that Christ was not the minister of sin—not one who gave out patents conferring impunity in sin, and signed with his own life-blood—not one who wiped out the sins of the soul, as men sponge out marks from a note-book, to make room for more of the same sort of matter—not one to make his own righteousness the shield for our wilful unrighteousness. In a word, he felt and knew that Christ was not the minister of sin.

This sorely tried and tempted man had made no professions, had used no cant, but he nevertheless possessed a large portion of natural conscientiousness, and he had a frank, light-hearted manner of doing right, bordering on levity and nonchalance—a manner tending to mislead superficial observers into making too shallow an estimate of the depth and earnestness of his convictions and principles.

All his family, from the cold-hearted, clear-headed Clement Sutherland, down to the ardent and impulsive India, had miscalculated the strength of his character and the firmness of his purpose. And hence the comparative indifference with which they had hitherto received the communication of his intentions. I say comparative indifference; for though indeed the family were much disturbed that he should for a moment entertain such purposes as he had revealed, yet none of them had doubted that the influences which should be brought to bear upon him would compel him to abandon his project. And thus agitation at this time was calmness, perfect halcyon peace, in comparison with the confusion, the chaos, the tremendous storm of indignation, opposition, and persecution, that afterwards arose and hurtled around him. There are no wars so bloody as civil wars; there are no feuds so deadly as family feuds; there are no enemies so bitter, so cruel, so unrelenting, as those of our own blood, when they are enemies! Others may spare, but they will never spare! Others may in time become sated with vengeance, but they never! while their victim has one faculty of mind left uncrazed, or one heartstring unwrung. Others may in time be touched by some sense of justice; they never! they hold to and defend their cruelty. Others may repent; they never. It would seem that a fatal blindness of sight and hardness of heart fell upon them as a judgment from Heaven for their unnatural sin.

Perhaps you think that the days of martyrdom have been passed ever since the stake and the faggot went into disrepute; and that the spirit of persecution went out with the fires of Smithfield. If you do, may you never have more reason for thinking otherwise than is contained in the simple narrative before you. I am not going to enter minutely into the details of all the scenes that followed that last interview between Mark and India. I have all this time gone around and about the subject, fearing or disliking to approach it. In real life, evil, malignant passion is not really the graceful and dignified and all but too fascinating thing that we see it represented on the stage—for instance, in the toga and buskins of Brutus, and Cassius, or the train and plumes of Lucretia Borgia. Nor has it a stately, measured gait, a sonorous utterance, or a grand gesture. It is a humiliating fact, but it is a fact, that it looks and behaves very much more like an excited Terry or Judy at a fair. It shakes its fists, and strides, and vociferates, and chokes, and stutters. Fierce anger, hatred, and vengeance are of no rank. They show just as hideous, revolting, and vulgar, in the prince or princess, as in the meanest peasant. And all this has been suggested by the recollection of the manner in which Mark Sutherland was treated by his family.

He had made one more attempt to obtain another interview with India, by addressing to her a note. This note was returned, with the seal undisturbed, and with an insulting menace to the effect that any communication addressed by Mr. Mark Sutherland to Miss Sutherland must be preceded by a complete and final renunciation of his present purposes, before it could be received by her. Full of bitterness, he wrote to her again, and concluded his note thus:—

“I know you now, India; I know you perfectly. I no longer worship you. Alas! there is nothing in you to worship, or even to approve beyond your enchanting beauty. And yet I love you still for that bewildering beauty and for the dream that is passing away. And you love me for something better than that; you love me, now that for conscience I withstand you, as you never loved me before. You wrong me in taking yourself away. You take from me mine own. There is a voice in your heart that assures you of this. But you stifle that voice. You outrage Nature—but beware! Be sure that Nature is a dread goddess, and Nemesis waits upon her bidding!”

There is something awful in the just anger of a noble-minded, pure-hearted, high-spirited man; and thrice awful is it to the woman who loves him, when that anger falls upon herself.

India received this letter, and as she read it, bitter and scalding tears fell upon it. He had surmised the truth—she did love him now with ten-fold strength and fervour, now that she had tried and proved his strength. There was something in him to love, to lean upon, to worship—something far more reliable, more attractive, and more binding than mere masculine beauty—than the stately form, the dark, spirited countenance, and the fascinating gaiety, that had pleased her childish fancy. There was firmness, courage, fortitude, moral strength; something that a true woman loves to rest upon, serve, adore. A wild and passionate longing seized her heart—to go and stand by him in his emergency—to help to sustain him, if it were ever so slight a help, in this storm of opposition.

While the soul of India was convulsed in the terrible struggle between her strong and passionate affection, and her invincible spirit of antagonism, Mark Sutherland lingered at Cashmere. The habit of considering himself a son of the house could not easily be uprooted; and the absorption of all his thoughts and feelings in the subject of his broken relations with India, prevented him, for a time, from perceiving the cold and scornful demeanour of the master of the house. Had he not been totally abstracted in mind, he would not for an hour have borne the arrogance, which neither age nor relationship justified.

Miss Sutherland had perseveringly absented herself from the drawing-room, and from the table—confining herself to her own room, and taking her meals there.

At length one day, the family, as usual, with the exception of India, sat down to dinner. There were present Clement and Paul Sutherland, Mrs. Vivian, Miss Vivian, Mr. Bolling, Mark, and Lincoln—a party of seven persons claiming to be refined women, or honorable men; in a word, ladies and gentlemen—enough, under any emergency, to preserve the decencies of a family dinner-table. Clement Sutherland, the host, sat with the usual cloud upon his brow. When the waiter was about to lift the cover from the dish before him, he arrested his act, by saying—“Stop, sir! where is Miss Sutherland? Go, and let her know that dinner waits.”

The man bowed and left the room. An embarrassing pause and silence ensued, during which Clement Sutherland sat back in his chair, with a scowl upon his yellow forehead, with an expression and an attitude that he doubtless supposed to be awfully tragic and imposing, and which, in truth, was inexpressibly disagreeable, and even alarming; for all present felt that under all that ridiculous dramatic acting there was some real offence meant—some mean, unmanly, inhospitable act to be perpetrated. In about ten minutes, the servant returned. Entering, and stepping lightly, he went up to his master’s side, bowed, and in a low voice said—“Miss Sutherland, sir, has ordered me to say that she desires to be excused.” And, with another bow, the waiter retired, and stood behind his master’s chair. Clement Sutherland started up with an angry gesture, pushed his chair violently behind him, to the risk of upsetting my gentleman-waiter, and exclaimed—“Sirs, I have to ask you if the laws of hospitality are to be so abused as to exile my daughter from the head of the table, and how long it is your pleasure that this state of things shall continue?”

This explosion was just as shocking as though something like it had not been expected.

Mark Sutherland, with a crimsoned brow, arose from his chair.

Lincoln, with perfect self-possession, deliberately arose, walked into the hall, took down his hat, returned, and, standing before Clement Sutherland, deliberately said—“Mr. Sutherland, permit me to make a due acknowledgment of the hospitality you have extended me, and also to express my regret that it has been so unpardonably trespassed against. I shall be most happy if you will afford me the opportunity to reciprocate the hospitality, and atone for the trespass. Good day, sir.

“Oh! young man, you have nothing to thank me for.” Bowing to the ladies present, Lincoln withdrew. Mark Sutherland snatched his hat, and, without a word of leave-taking, left the room.

All the other members of the family circle remained seated at the table, with the exception of Miss Vivian, who, rising, excused herself, and retired.

When Mark Sutherland reached the rose terrace, he called to Lincoln to stop, and wait until their horses were saddled. And then he hastened off to the stables to give his orders.

In a very short time the horses were brought up, and the young men mounted, and gallopped away from the house. They rode on in silence for some time—Lincoln buried in calm thought, and Mark enrapt in a sort of fierce reverie. At length he backed his horse close up to Lincoln’s steed, seized his hand, and exclaimed, “Lauderdale, how can I ever atone for exposing you to such insult?”

“Insult? My dear fellow”—(he was just about to say, “Mr. Clement Sutherland cannot insult me;” but, delicate and generous in his consideration for the feelings of Mark, he only said)—“look into my face, and see if you think I am very much troubled.”

And, indeed, the pleasant countenance of the youth was well calculated to re-assure his friend.

They relapsed into silence as they approached the river. Sutherland was absorbed in mournful and bitter reverie, which Lauderdale forbore to break. They crossed the Pearl in perfect silence; Lincoln glancing from the beautiful semi-transparent river, with its surface softly flushed with rose and saffron clouds, to the gorgeous fields of cotton, with its myriads beyond myriads of golden white flowers. When they left the ferry-boat, and cantered up the gradual ascent of the road, and entered upon the domain of Silentshade, once more Mark put out his hand and seized that of his friend, saying, “Here at last is my home, where I may welcome any friend of mine for any length of time; and I do not so much invite you, as I entreat you, to come and stay with me as long as you can give me your company, if it be only, dear Lincoln, to prove that you forgive me the offence that has been offered to you.”

“Pray say no more about it, dear Mark; how are you responsible for an affront offered yourself as well as me? As for staying with you, I will do so with the greatest pleasure as long as I may.”

And once more Mark Sutherland fell into silence—into bitter and sorrowful meditation—into deep despondency. Since India’s haughty rejection of his hand, his life had grown very real to him. Before that, he had thought, spoken, and acted, as one under the influence of some inspiring dream. His anticipation and appreciation of the trials that awaited him, differed as much from the real experience of them as the imagining of some glorious martyrdom falls short of the suffering it.

Young enthusiast that he was, he had thought only of the excitement and glory of the heroism, and not of the fierce torture and maddening shame of the sacrifice. But now he felt his position in all its dreadful reality. And it was well that he should so feel it. It would test his sincerity, try his strength, prove his character. And now he rode on despairing, almost heart-broken. Yet even in this dark and clouded hour, one bright star of hope, and promise, and strength, shone on him—a mother’s love—a mother’s undying, unchanging love. It has been the theme of poets, of philosophers, and of novelists, since hearts first beat with affections, and tongues first gave them utterance. It is the chosen Scripture illustration to express even the divine love of God. The young man rode along, deeply musing on that mother’s love—deeply thirsting for it. He felt—man as he was—that it would be a sweet and grateful relief to sit by her side, to drop his proud, but weary head upon her shoulder, and for a little while to give vent to the flood of sorrow now stifled in his bosom—sure, that if others thought even such a transient yielding to grief unmanly, she, that tender and affectionate mother, never would think so. And so he mused upon that love—the only earthly love that never faileth—that neither misfortune can abate, nor crime alienate. And, unfortunate and suffering in the cause of conscience as he was, how confidently he trusted in that mother’s sympathy and support! Yea, though all other affection might fail him—though friends should forsake, and relatives abandon him, and even his bride discard him—she, his mother, would be true!

He would have staked his salvation upon this, as they turned into the avenue of limes leading up to the house, and saw Mrs. Sutherland standing, smiling, upon the piazzi. But, on seeing the young men approach, in one instant, the lady’s countenance changed.

She had had her lesson.

Without advancing one step to meet and welcome them, she allowed them, after dismounting from their horses, to walk quite up the steps, and to the very spot where she stood, and to bow and speak, before she relaxed one muscle of her countenance.

She replied to their greeting in the coldest tones, inviting them to enter the house.

For an instant, Mark and Lincoln raised their eyes to each other’s face, and their glances met. A pang of mortification and disappointment sped through the heart of Sutherland; and Lauderdale, apparently not the least surprised or disconcerted, took his resolution.

Preceded by the lady, they entered the house, and passed into a front parlour, and at her cold invitation, which seemed more like a strained and reluctant permission granted, they took seats. Nothing could be more deeply disagreeable and embarrassing than the next few minutes. Mrs. Sutherland took her sofa in perfect silence, turned her face towards them with a look of cold enquiry, and assumed the air of waiting to hear what might be their business with her—what they might have to communicate.

This was very perplexing. They did not come on business—indeed, they were made to feel that they had no business there. They had come to be entertained, and comforted, and compensated, after the Clement Sutherland infliction. They had nothing particular to answer to that cold, questioning look, except Lauderdale, who, cool as his own clime, informed Mrs. Sutherland that the day was “very fine.” The lady bowed in silent assent.

“The weather for many days past has been very pleasant,” continued Lincoln, without the least embarrassment.

“Yes—I think the present state of the atmosphere highly favourable to travelling,” said the lady.

“Your climate here, madam, is not near so sultry as we of the North have supposed it to be,” persevered Lincoln.

“Hem—yet at this season we think it too hot to be wholesome to you of the North,” said the lady, with a curling lip.

“Humph,” thought Lauderdale, “your courtesy, madam, is cold enough to cool the hottest hour of the hottest day, in the hottest clime under the sun.” But, turning to his friend Mark, said—

“Sutherland, if madame will excuse us, will you be kind enough to let me have my room?”

And Mark, released from the vice into which he had felt himself compressed for the last ten minutes, very gladly sprang up to accompany him. Lauderdale bowed to Mrs. Sutherland, with some pardonable formality of ceremony, perhaps, as they left the parlour.

When they had reached Lincoln’s chamber, in the second story, Mark threw himself into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. Lincoln went calmly to work, packing up his wardrobe. After a while, seeing that Sutherland kept his attitude of humiliation, he went up to him, clapped him upon the shoulder cheerfully, and said—

“Never mind, my dear Mark! never mind! You take this to heart far more than necessary. Now, I dare say that one of your hot-blooded, fire-eating Mississippians, treated as I have been, would call somebody out, and do something desperate; but I really do not feel obliged to do anything of the sort.”

“I am a Mississippian—do you consider me a very hot-blooded person? Am I not rather a miserable poltroon, to see my friend and guest outraged and insulted as you have been?”

“Well, that is as fine a piece of self-accusation as I have met with since reading the formula of confession in a Roman Catholic missal. You could not help it, Mark—you could not affront age or womanhood, in my defence or your own,” said Lauderdale; and he resumed his packing.

In a very few minutes it was completed, and then he came to announce his departure to Mark, and to take leave of him.

“I have nothing to say to you, dear Lincoln—nothing whatever, except once more to entreat your pardon for what has passed, and to wish you well with all my heart.”

He could not seek to change his guest’s purpose—could not ask him to remain; how could he do so, indeed? He wished to order the carriage, but Lincoln positively refused to avail himself of it, saying that he would walk to the next village, and send for his trunks. Mark impressed upon him the use of his own riding-horse, and Lincoln, to avoid wounding him, accepted it.

The young men then went down stairs; Lincoln entered the parlour, to bid adieu to his hostess, and Mark left the house to order the horses, for he was resolved to accompany his friend.

In a few minutes they were in their saddles, and on the road leading to C——, a muddy, miserable town, about five miles down the river.

Here the friends finally separated, but not until Lincoln’s trunks had been sent for, and had arrived, and Lincoln himself had entered the stage that passed through the village that night, and was to convey him to the steamboat landing on the Mississippi, by which route he preferred to return north. They took leave with mutual assurance of remembrances, and promises of frequent correspondence.

It was late at night when Mark Sutherland returned to his home, and he immediately went to his room.

He arose the next morning, with the full determination to set immediately to work.

“I must plunge myself into action, lest I wither by despair,” might have been his thought. His mother received him at the breakfast table with coldness. He told her respectfully what he intended to do during the day. She curled her lip, and begged him to proceed, without remorse or fear, to unroof the house that sheltered her head—and she trusted Heaven would give her strength to bear even that.

After breakfast, he set out, and rode to Jackson, to engage the services of a lawyer to assist him in making out the deeds, and taking the legal measures required in emancipating his people. As the distance to the city was a full day’s journey, and he had business enough to occupy the whole of the second day, he did not reach home until the evening of the third day.

He came, accompanied by a lawyer. They were both tired and hungry, but found no supper prepared, and no one to make them welcome. Mr. Sutherland went out, and enquired for his mother, and was told that the lady desired to be excused from receiving an official, that had come to make her homeless. Mark stifled a sigh; he ordered refreshments for his guest, and soon after showed him to his sleeping chamber.

The next day was a very busy, yet a very trying one. On coming down into the breakfast-room, Mark Sutherland heard with poignant sorrow that his mother had departed from the house, carrying with her many of her personal effects, as if for a long or permanent absence, and had gone to take up her abode in Cashmere. In consternation at this act, Mark Sutherland rushed out to institute further enquiries, and found in front of the house a baggage-waggon, with Billy Bolling standing up in the midst, receiving and packing away trunks, boxes, and packages, that were lifted to him by two negro men in attendance.

“In the name of Heaven, what is the meaning of all this, uncle?” asked Mark with trepidation.

Mr. Bolling stood up, took his handkerchief leisurely from his pocket, wiped his flushed, perspiring face, replaced it, and answered—

“It means, sir, that you have turned my sister out of doors; that is all it means.”

“But, uncle, my dear mother has perfect”——

“D——n it, sir, don’t call my sister mother, or me uncle! You are no son or nephew of ours; we wash our hands of you! We cast you off! We’ll have nothing to do with you!”

“Why, Mr. Bolling, what is the”——

“Confound it, sir, don’t talk to me; you are a villain, sir! James, drive on!” And clapping his hat upon his head, Mr. Bolling sat down and settled the last box in its place, and the waggon was driven off.

It is impossible to describe the state of mind in which Mark Sutherland found himself. The distracting thoughts and emotions that whirled through his brain and heart, excited him almost to frenzy. He immediately wrote an imploring, passionate note to his mother, briefly alluding to the independence he intended to secure to her, and supplicating her to return to her own home. He sent it off; and, in a few minutes, unsatisfied with that note, he wrote another, more affectionate, more ardent, more supplicating, and despatched that also.

And then, half-maddened as he was, he turned and set himself to his business. He caused all the servants to be assembled on the lawn. He went out to them, and announced his intention of setting free, and sending all who were willing to go, to Liberia. He explained to them the good that must accrue to the younger, and more intelligent and industrious among them, who might emigrate and settle in the last-named place. This news did not take the negroes the least by surprise. They had heard whisperings of the cause that had broken off their master’s marriage, and set all his family and friends at feud with him. After closing his little speech to the assembled slaves, he singled out some dozen among them—heads of cabin families—old and steady men; and he took them with him into his library, where he explained to them, at greater length, the advantages of the plan of emigration to Liberia. And then he dismissed them, to converse with each other, to reflect, and decide what they wished to do.

Next, he left his study to go and enquire if the messenger sent to his mother had returned. He found the man watching for him in the hall. He held a letter in his hand. Mr. Sutherland eagerly snatched it. It contained a few lines, formally advising him that no further communication would be received from him, which was not preceded by a full and complete renunciation of his obnoxious plans. While his gaze was painfully riveted upon this note, the second messenger arrived, bringing a letter in his hand. He seized it. It was his own, returned unopened.

“Did you see Mrs. Sutherland, Flamingo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did she say?”

“I gave her the letter, sir; she took it, and read the direction, and handed it back to me, and told me to take it back to him who sent it, and not to bring her another one.”

“That will do—you may go,” said Mark, and a spasm of pain twitched his countenance, as he tore up the letter, and threw the fragments away.

“That is not all, sir—there is something else.”

“Well, what new stab?” he thought; but he said—

“Well, what is it?”

Flamingo took from under his arm a small packet, wrapped in tissue paper, and handed it to him.

“What is this? Where did you get this?”

“Miss Rosalie gave it to me to bring to you.”

“You may go now,” said Mr. Sutherland, as he opened a door, and passed into the parlour, and sat down to look at the packet. It was a little morocco case, containing a lady’s small pocket Bible, bound in white velvet and silver, with silver clasps. An elegant little bijou it was. Upon the fly-leaf was written, “Rosalie Vivian, from her affectionate and happy mother.” And this writing bore a date of several years before.

On the opposite page was inscribed, “Mark Sutherland, with the deep respect of Rosalie Vivian.” And this inscription bore the date of to-day. A leaf was folded down, and when he opened it at the 27th Psalm, he saw marked this passage: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then will the Lord take me up.” There was still another page turned down, and another pencil stroke, enclosing these words, (Mark x. 29,) “And Jesus answered, and said, Verily, I say unto you, there is no man hath left home, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundred-fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come, eternal life.”

He turned over the little book with a fond look and smile—partly given to the elegant little bijou itself, such an inappropriate sort of copy to be sent to a man—and partly to the fair, gentle girl, its donor. The little incident came to him like a soft, encouraging pressure of the hand, or a kind word at his greatest need—like a loving benediction. And for those blessed words that were marked, they were dropped into his broken and tearful heart, like good seeds into the ploughed and watered earth, to bring forth fruit in due season.

He replaced the little book in its case, wrapped it again in its tissue paper, and, for the present, lodged it within the ample breast of his coat. He had never in his life heard Rosalie give expression to one fine heroic sentiment, such as fell plenteously from the lips of India, as the pearls and diamonds from the fairy favoured maiden of the child’s story. But now he could not suppress the painful regret that the brilliant and enthusiastic India had not possessed more of the tenderness, sympathy, and real independence, found in the fragile, retired Rosalie.

It were tedious, as needless, to follow Mr. Sutherland through all the multifarious and harassing details of business that filled up the next few weeks. His path was full of difficulties. Not only social and domestic discouragements, and legal obstacles and delays, but difficulties that arose on the part of the negroes themselves. A few of them did not want the old state of things, with its familiar associations, and close attachments, broken up. Some of them, who were anxious to be free, had wives and children, or husbands, upon some neighbouring plantation, and so were held bound by their affections. Nay, indeed, often a mere fraternal love was sufficient to produce this effect. This class of negroes, proved to be a great trial and vexation to Mark, not only by throwing nearly insurmountable obstacles in the way of their own emancipation, but also affording his opponents much material for laughter. It was in vain their benefactor told these men, that, after a few years of labour and saving, they would be able to purchase their wives or children. They shook their heads—they feared—their spirits were too faint. As far as his means would go, Mr. Sutherland purchased these wives or children, and sent them off with their husbands and fathers.

At length, it was all over—the slaves were emancipated and gone, each with a sum of money to pay their transport, and provide their immediate necessities, until they should find work. Many misgivings troubled the head of Mr. Sutherland, as to whether they would do well with the liberty, so unaccustomed, and so newly given; but no doubts as to the righteousness of his own act ever crossed his mind. And so he committed the result to Providence.

He had taken care to secure the homestead to his mother. For her benefit, he had also placed at interest thirty thousand dollars, which, at six per cent., would yield her an income of eighteen hundred.

Having thus wound up his business, he went over to Cashmere to seek an interview—a farewell interview—with his mother and relatives. He learned that they had, a few days before, left Cashmere for the North.

The next morning, Mark Sutherland, with only ninety dollars in his pocket-book, with his wardrobe and his law books, departed from his childhood’s home.

It may be as well to state here, that when the Sutherlands returned, in the autumn, Mrs. Sutherland, with some ten or twelve slaves, her own personal property, took up her abode at Silentshades, availed herself of the income her son had secured to her, and made herself comfortable.

CHAPTER VIII.
FAREWELL.

“Fair wert thou in the dreams

Of early life, thou land of glorious flowers,

And summer winds, and low-toned silvery streams,

Dim with the shadow of thy laurel bowers.

“Fair wert thou, with the light

On thy blue hills and sleepy waters cast

From purple skies, soft deepening into night,

Yet slow as if each moment was their last

Of glory waning fast!”—Hemans.

The sun was rising in cloudless splendour, on the morning on which Mark Sutherland paused upon an eminence, to throw a farewell glance over the beautiful scenes of his childhood and youth—the fair valley of the Pearl. East lay the dark boundary of the pine forest, pierced by the golden, arrow-like rays of the level sun, or casting long, spear-like shadows athwart the green alluvion—south and west, belts of forest alternated with gaudy cotton-fields, and rolling green hills, interspersed with graceful groves, until in softly-blended hues they met the distant horizon. From this beautifully-variegated circumference, his eye returned to gaze upon the centre of the scene—the Pearl—the lovely river which took its name from the semi-transparent hues of clouded saffron, rose, and azure, that seemed not only caught from the glorious sky above, and the gorgeous hills, and fields, and grove, around, but flashed up from the deep channel of the stream, as if its clear waters flowed through a bed of opal.

At some distance below him, encircled by a bend of the river, lay—like some rich mosaic on the bosom of the vale—“Cashmere,” the almost Oriental scene of his youthful love-dream. There was the pebbly beach, with its miniature piers and fairy boats—the lawn, with its flowering and fragrant groves, its crystal founts, its shaded walks and vine-clad arbours; and, nearer the house, the rose terrace, with its millions of odoriferous budding and blooming roses, surrounding as within a crimson glow, that white villa and its colonnade of light Ionic shafts. At this distance, he could see distinctly the bay window, with its purple curtains, of India’s boudoir; and, at its sight, the image of the beautiful India arose before him. Again he saw her in that poetic harmony of form and colouring that had so ravished his artist soul—the slender, yet well-rounded figure—the warm, bright countenance, with its amber-hued ringlets, and clear olive complexion deepening into crimson upon cheeks and lips—a beauty in which there was no strong contrast, but all rich harmony—a form that he once had fondly thought clothed a soul as harmonious as beautiful. They were lost! all lost—home, and bride, and lovely dreams of youth! Do not despise him, or blame him, when I tell you, in the touching words of Scripture, “that he lifted up his voice and wept.” He was but twenty-one, and this was the first despairing passionate sorrow of his youth.

It is very easy to talk and write of the “rewards of virtue,” the comfort of a good conscience, the delights of duty. Alas! I am afraid the delights of duty are seldom believed in, and seldomer experienced. Be sure, when a great sacrifice of interest, of affection, of hope, is made, and a great sorrow is felt—nothing—nothing but a loving, Christian faith can console.

And Mark Sutherland was not a Christian man.

Here, then, even a philanthropist might reasonably inquire why all this was done? Why a youth, born and brought up a slaveholder, should, against preconceived ideas, against prudence, against self-interest, against hope, with doubtful good even to the beneficiaries of his self-devotion, beggar himself for the sake of their emancipation? Why he, being no Christian, should make such an immense sacrifice of wealth, position, affection, hope—in short, of all temporal and earthly interests?

We are all able to answer, that, had a scientific phrenologist examined the moral organs of Mark Sutherland’s head, he would have found his answer in the predominant CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. It was, therefore, only a severe sense of justice that laid its iron hand upon him, obliging him to do as he had done—a single sense of justice, such as might have influenced the actions of a Pagan or an Atheist—a hard, stern sense of justice, without faith, hope, or love—an uncompromising sense of justice, without self-flattery, promise, or comfort.

He is not as yet a Christian, but he may become one, he must become one, for no great sacrifice was ever made to duty, without Christ claiming that redeemed soul as his own.

After all, perhaps, there is but one sin and sorrow in the world—Idolatry—and all forms of evil are compromised within it. It includes all shades of sin, from the lightest error that clouds the conscience, to the darkest crime that brings endless night upon the soul; and all degrees of suffering, from the discontent that disturbs the passing hour, to the anguish and despair that overwhelms and swallows up all the hopes of life. We are all idolaters. Some god-passion of the heart is ever the deity we worship. Ambition, avarice, love—“the world, the flesh, or the devil,” in some form, is always the idol. Perhaps, love; the first, the most disinterested, self-devoted, of all the forms of idolatry, comes nearest to the true worship. But it is not the true worship—by all the anguish that it brings, it is not the true worship.

Oh! if but for a moment we could raise our souls to God, in the self-surrender wherewith, in passionate devotion, we throw our hearts beneath the feet of some weak and perishable form of clay—that were conversion—that were regeneration—that were a great deliverance—that were eternal life, and full of joy!

And are there not moments when we catch a glimpse of such a possibility? when brain and heart stand still, thoughtless, breathless? when life itself pauses in the transient revelation of such unsufferable light? And we know that some have entered in and lived this light all the days of their lives. To many of us, alas! and in most of our moods, they seem to live in an unknown world—to speak in an unknown tongue.

Who of us has not occasionally experienced these thoughts and emotions, in reading and meditating on the lives and characters of Christians of any name?—it matters little what; for there is a unity of spirit in all regenerated children of God, of every nation, rank, or sect. Fenelon and George Whitefield—the Frenchman and the Briton—the mitred archbishop and the poor field preacher—the Roman Catholic and the Methodist, dwelt in the same light, spoke the same language, because both were one in spirit. What if through the medium of each separate brain, the theology look different? The heart is greater than the brain; or, in other words, the affections are higher than the intellect. “Out of the heart are the issues of life;” and “this is life eternal, that we should know the true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent.” With their hearts, their affections, they discerned Him. And in love they were one with each other, and one with Christ and God. And who, in communing with their fervent souls—in meditating on their perfect faith and love—perfect devotion to God, has not been startled by some such light as this let in upon the mind?—“Why, if this unfailing love—this unwavering faith—this unreserved devotion—this total self-surrender—be the worship we owe to our Creator, then have we been idolaters; for all this instinct and power, and necessity of loving, sacrificing, and worshipping has been ours, and has been lavished, wasted, only on the creature.”

Akin to this was the feeling that impelled the dying Wolsey to exclaim, “Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”

And as Mark Sutherland stood gazing in bitterness of spirit upon the beautiful scene of his love and joy, the maddening scene of his trial and suffering, these words escaped from his bursting heart: “Oh, God! if I had worshipped thee as I worshipped her, Thy beautiful work, I had not been now alone—alone in my sorrow.”

It was the sincere, earnest cry of a stricken, penitent, suffering heart.

It was answered then and there. Around him fell an influence sober and more genial than sunshine—more refreshing than dew—a spiritual influence, warming, renewing, supporting—a Divine influence, kindling and strengthening the soul within him.

The Comforter had come, and was acknowledged. With uncovered head, and uplifted heart, then and there Mark Sutherland consecrated his life to the service of God, and His work on earth.

From the beautiful vale he turned, and, inspired by new strength and courage, put spurs to his horse, and galloped rapidly on towards the road leading to the town of C——, where, six weeks since, he had parted with Lauderdale. He reached C—— in time for an early breakfast. Here—not wishing to leave his family in ignorance of his fate, and by his departure thus to cut down the bridge of communication between them and himself—he addressed a letter to his bachelor uncle, Paul Sutherland, informing him that his destination was some north-western town, whence, as soon as he should become settled, he should write. He gave this letter in charge of the landlord, to be forwarded as soon as his uncle should return from the North. He then mounted his horse, and took the road to Natchez, whence he intended to embark in a steamboat up the Mississippi. He reached the city by nightfall, and found his baggage, sent by the stage-coach, had arrived in safety. He took the boat that passed that night; and the next morning he found himself many miles on his way up the river.

“The world was all before him, where to choose

His place of rest, and Providence his guide.”

And to a young, adventurous, hopeful spirit, this uncertainty, joined to liberty, was not without its peculiar charm. During the greater part of the day he remained on deck, with a spy-glass in his hand, examining the face of the country on either side of the river. The lawns and villages on the Lower Mississippi did not attract him in the least degree. Their situations were low—their beach sluggishly washed by the thick and murky water—their thoroughfare wet and muddy—their general aspect unwholesome to the last degree.

But, farther up the river, and above the mouth of the Ohio, the country and the colour of the water began to change. High bluffs, gray old rocks, and gigantic woods, diversified the shores—crystal creeks and verdant islets varied the river. He approached the fine “Rock River country.”

Beautiful as a poetic vision of Elysium, had seemed the luxurious valley of the Pearl.

But this gigantic scene—Rock River, Rock Island, with the opposite shores of the Mississippi, widening here into a lake-like expanse—had a breadth of grandeur, a Titanic vigour and vitality of beauty, the most consonant, the most imposing and encouraging, to his own young energetic spirit.

The boat stopped opposite the village of S——, just as the morning mist was rolling away before the sun, and revealing the scene in all its picturesque beauty, and fresh life. The young city was but two years old—yet, infant of the Titaness West, it was growing and thriving most vigorously. Here, then, Mark Sutherland determined to take up his abode—here to live and labour. He ordered his baggage into the boat, and stepped in after it, and was swiftly rowed to the shore. Here, too, in order to begin aright and betimes, he shouldered his own trunk, while a porter followed with his box of books, and wended his way to the hotel on the hill.

CHAPTER IX.
THE FATAL MARRIAGE.

“Isabella.—’Tis a babbling world

“Mr. Graves.—Oh! ’tis an atrocious world!

It will be burnt up one day—that’s a comfort.”—London Assurance.

Eighteen months have passed since Mark Sutherland left his home. Eighteen months of persevering study, of unsuccessful effort, and of varied wanderings, find him, at the close, in Cincinnati, quite penniless, and nearly hopeless. His efforts to find employment here are unavailing. He has not even the means to pay his board—a situation in which many a worthy and promising young man has found himself, who has afterwards nevertheless risen to fame or fortune. Embarrassing and discouraging enough is the position while occupied, however piquant to look back upon.

In a listless and disappointed mood, Mark Sutherland entered the reading-room of the hotel, and, taking up the daily papers, began to look over their columns, to see if any new want of a clerk or an agent had been advertised, which might hold out the hope of employment to him. At last, in the Intelligencer, his eye lighted upon an advertisement for a classical and mathematical teacher. The candidate was required to produce the highest testimonials of character and competency, and requested to apply through the office of that paper. Mr. Sutherland’s classical and mathematical attainments were far above mediocrity, and the references he could give were unexceptionable. He felt therefore certain of being able to offer more than an equivalent for the salary. He saw, too, that the office of a teacher, by leaving him many hours of the day, and the whole of Saturdays and holidays free, would afford him ample leisure for the pursuit of his legal studies.

He called for writing materials, and immediately wrote and mailed a letter of application. He was scarcely anxious about the result—only a little interested to know whether he should get the situation, and what sort of a one it would be, when it was got; whether it would be the place of assistant in a public academy, or that of tutor in a private family; also, whether his temporary home should be in the cold North or the sunny South, the populous East or the sparsely-settled West, or in the indefinite country between them; lastly, with what sort of people he should find himself.

But, upon the whole, he scarcely hoped to get a response to his application, as the paper containing the advertisement was several days old when he first saw it. Therefore, when days passed into weeks, and weeks became a month, he gave up all hopes of obtaining an answer, without much disappointment.

At length—as generally happens after expectation sickens and dies, and is buried—the unlooked-for letter arrived. It contained a proposition from Colonel Ashley, of Virginia, to engage Mr. Sutherland as private tutor, to prepare his two younger sons for the university, offering, in remuneration, a very liberal salary, and requesting, in the event of Mr. Sutherland’s acceptance, that he would reply promptly, and follow his own letter in person as soon as possible.

Mark sat down and wrote at once, closing the contract, and promising to be at Ashley by the first of March.

It was now near the last of February. He sold his horse, paid his bill at the hotel, and having money enough remaining to take him to Virginia, left the same afternoon by the steamboat up the river, and met the stage at Wheeling. After two or three days’ travelling upon the turnpike road, through the most sublime and beautiful mountain and valley scenery in the world, he arrived, late one evening, at the little hamlet of Ashley, situated in a wild and picturesque gap of the Blue Ridge.

Here, at the little inn, he ordered supper, and purposed to spend the night. But he had scarcely entered the little bed-room allotted to him, with the intention of refreshing himself with ablutions and a change of dress, before the head of the host was put through the door, and the information given that Colonel Ashley’s carriage had come to meet Mr. Sutherland, and was waiting below. He finished his toilet, however, before leaving his room.

He found the parlour occupied by two boys, of about thirteen and fifteen years of age, disputing the possession of a pistol, which, in the wrestle that ensued, went off—harmlessly. And before Mark could reprove them for their imprudence, they came to meet him. The elder lad, cap in hand, inquired, respectfully—

“Are you Mr. Sutherland, sir?”

“Yes, my son; have you business with me?”

“Father has sent the carriage for you, sir—that is all. My name is Henry—he’s Richard. St. Gerald, you know, is in Washington. He is in Congress, you know, and has made a great speech—father says, one of the greatest speeches that has been made since”—

“Oh, sho! He’s a great deal older than we are, Mr. Sutherland; and he’s only our half-brother besides. You don’t know every thing,” said the younger boy Richard, addressing the last phrase, accompanied by a punch in the side, to his brother.

“I am happy to meet you, Henry—how do you do, Richard?” said Mr. Sutherland, giving a hand to each of the boys.

“And so,” he added, smiling to himself, and at them, “this new star of the Capitol—this eloquent and admired St. Gerald Ashley—is a relative of yours?”

“Our brother,” said Henry.

“Our half-brother,” amended Richard, favouring his senior with another malicious punch in the ribs.

Hereupon another scuffle ensued, which Mr. Sutherland ended, by saying—

“Come—shall we go on to Ashley Hall, or will you take supper first, here, with me?”

“Take supper first here, with you,” assented the boys, who could have been tempted by nothing but the novelty to forego their father’s sumptuous supper-table for this poor tavern meal.

“It was kind to come and meet me. But how did you guess that I should arrive this evening?”

“Oh, we did not guess. Father thought it about time you should come, and he sent the carriage, and intended to send it every stage-day until you did come, or write, or something. Father would have come himself, only he staid home to read St. Gerald’s great speech.”

“St. Gerald” was evidently the hero of Henry’s worship.

While they supped, their horses were fed and watered. And, half an hour afterwards, Mr. Sutherland and his pupils entered the carriage, and were driven to Ashley Hall. It was quite dark when the carriage drew up before the door of a large, rumbling old building of red sandstone, scarcely to be distinguished from the irregular masses of rock rising behind and around it. A bright light illumined the hall, where the travellers were received by a negro man in waiting, who would have conducted them into a drawing-room on the left, but that Henry and Richard, breaking violently forward, threw open the door upon the right, exclaiming—

“Father is here. He is come, father! We found him at the village.”

A genial wood fire blazed and crackled in the wide, old-fashioned chimney of this room; and near it, in an easy chair, beside a candlestand, sat an old gentleman, engaged in reading a newspaper. No whit disturbed by the boisterous onslaught of the boys, he calmly laid aside his paper and stood up—an undersized, attenuated old man, with a thin, flushed face, and a head of hair as white and soft as cotton wool. He stood, slightly trembling with partial paralysis, but received Mr. Sutherland with the fine courtesy of an old-school gentleman.

The boys hurried about their own business.

The man-servant placed an arm chair for Mr. Sutherland. And when the latter was fairly seated, the old gentleman resumed his own seat, and inquired whether his guest had supped. Being answered in the affirmative, he nevertheless ordered refreshments to be served there.

A stand, with wine, sandwiches, cake, and fruit was placed between them; and while they discussed these, the old gentleman, in an indifferent sort of manner, said—

“By the way, Mr. Sutherland, have you seen Monday’s paper, with the debate on the tariff? Here it is; take it—look over it. Never mind me, I would prefer that you should see it now. If any thing strikes you, just read it aloud, will you?”

Mark took the paper, but found the “debate” to be all on one side, and in the mouth of one individual, to wit—the Hon. St. Gerald Ashley, of Virginia. He ran his eye over it—the old man fingering cheese and crackers, and pretending to eat, not to interrupt him. “Do you wish me to read this debate aloud, sir?” asked Mark, benevolently inclined to indulge the aged father’s pride.

“Yes, yes,” said the old man, smiling, nodding, and crumbling soda crackers; “yes, if it will not tire you.”

“Oh, by no means,” answered Mark; and forthwith began.

The celebrated speech was, indeed, a master-piece of legislative oratory; and Mark Sutherland was an admirable elocutionist. He read, became deeply interested and absorbed, and before long was betrayed, by the old man’s enthusiasm and his sympathy, into declamation, interrupted now and then by Colonel Ashley’s exclaiming, “That’s it! hear, hear. That must have brought down the House! I wonder what the Democrats will find to say to that!”

Finally, laughing at the fever into which he had worked himself and his hearer, Mark finished the speech, and laid down the paper. It was time—it was past eleven o’clock—late hours for country people, and far too late for the aged and infirm.

“Thank you, sir. Thank you. You have given me a treat. It was as good as if I had heard it spoken,” said the old man, flushing with pride and pleasure. Soon after, he rang for night lamps, and a servant to show Mr. Sutherland to his room.

Early next morning, Mark Sutherland arose and left his bed-room. The family were not yet stirring; none but the house servants were about. And with the restlessness of a heart ill at ease, he walked out upon the piazza, to find diversion from the bitter retrospections of the past, and gloomy forebodings of the future, in the novel aspect of the country around him.

To one used to the undulating, luxurious beauty of southern scenery, there was something startling and inspiring in the abrupt, stern, rugged, yet vigorous and productive aspect of this mountainous region.

The Ashley plantation filled the whole of a small valley, shut in between two curving spurs of the Alleghanies, and watered by a branch of the Rappahannock. The Ashley house, an irregular but massive building of red sandstone, was situated at the foot of the mountain; behind it arose hoary rocks, intermingled or crowned by dark evergreens of pine and cedar; before it, at some distance, flowed the branch: around on every side within the vale were gardens, shrubberies, orchards, wheat and corn fields; and here and there, picturesquely placed, or half concealed by trees or jutting rocks, were the negro quarters; while more conspicuously, in the midst of the open fields, stood the barns and granaries. Altogether, the plantation, occupying the whole valley, and completely shut in by mountains, was an independent, isolated, little domain in itself.

Now, upon the second day of March, the grass along the margin of the branch was already fresh and verdant, and the wheat fields sprouting greenly. The morning was very bright and fresh, and Mark walked into the garden that lay to the left of the house. There he found three or four negroes, under the direction of the gardener, engaged in clearing up beds, tying vines, trimming trees, and repairing arbours and garden seats.

This place had not the luxurious beauty of the south, nor the fresh and vigorous life of the west; yet there was a solid, jolly, old homeliness about it, very comfortable even in contrast to those other scenes. Mark felt this, while alternately talking with the old gardener or contemplating the old home.

He was interrupted by an irruption of that Goth and Vandal, Henry and Richard Ashley, who, rushing upon him, seized the one his right hand and the other his left, and boisterously informed him that breakfast was ready, and had “been waiting ever so long.”

He returned their vehement greeting good-humouredly, and accompanied them into the house, and to the breakfast table, which was set in the old oak parlour where he had passed the preceding evening.

Two ladies, in simple, graceful, morning dresses of white cambric, sat near the fire, occupied with a little delicate needlework; Colonel Ashley stood with his back to the chimney, with the paper in his hand, and talking to them about the speech.

On seeing Mr. Sutherland, the old gentleman immediately stepped forward, welcomed him, and conducted him to the ladies, saying, “My dears, this is Mr. Sutherland; Mr. Sutherland, my”——

But before another syllable was spoken, the elder lady had lifted her face, started up with a blush of pleasure, and extended her hand, exclaiming—

“Mark Sutherland! Is it possible!”

“Mrs. Vivian! Miss Vivian!” exclaimed Mark, extending a hand to each, impulsively.

“Why, how strange that we should meet here!” said Valeria.

“A most pleasant surprise, indeed!” responded Mark.

“The surprise as well as the pleasure is mutual, I assure you! But how did it happen?”

“I am sure I do not know.”

“Nor I. Can you guess, Rose?” and Mrs. Vivian turned to her step-daughter, who remained silent, with her fingers in the unconscious clasp of Mark Sutherland’s hand.

“I inquired only in jest, but now I really do believe you could tell us something about this,” persisted the lady, looking intently at the maiden.

Rosalie’s pale face slightly flushed; she withdrew her hand, resumed her seat, and took up her work. Colonel Ashley, if he felt, certainly expressed no surprise at this re-union; but as, with stately courtesy, he handed his niece to the head of the table, said, “As Mrs. Vivian arrived only yesterday afternoon, and retired at once to rest from the fatigue of her journey, and as Mr. Sutherland reached here last night, there has been no time for conversation about our arrangements.”

“Ah, yes; that’s all very well; but you’ll never make me believe that Rose is not at the bottom of this, somehow,” laughed the widow, shaking her jetty curls as she sat down at the table. Her eyes met those of Rosalie for an instant, and the spirit of mischief was quelled. She became silent on that topic, and soon after changed the subject, entering into gay conversation about St. Gerald Ashley and his sudden fame.

When breakfast was over, Colonel Ashley invited Mr. Sutherland to accompany him to his study, where he began to unfold his plan for the education of his boys. After hearing him through, Mark inquired when he should enter upon his new duties, and requested to defer the commencement until Monday, and to use the intervening time to become acquainted with his home and pupils.

The interview then closed. Both gentlemen descended the stairs. Colonel Ashley told Mr. Sutherland that he would find the ladies in the parlour, and then, excusing himself, bade him good morning, and entered the carriage, which was waiting to take him to the village.

Mark opened the parlour door, advanced into the room, and before he could retreat, saw and heard the fragment of an earnest interview between the mother and daughter. Mrs. Vivian sat upon the sofa, her head bent, her jetty curls drooping, her jetty eyelashes and rosy cheeks sprinkling and sparkling with teardrops, like morning dew upon a fresh flower. She was nimbly and nervously stitching away at a piece of muslin embroidery.

Rosalie sat on a cushion before her, with her hands and her needlework fallen idly on her lap, and her pale hair fallen back from her paler, upturned brow, and earnest eyes, that were fixed upon her mother’s. She was asking in open accents, “Oh, mamma! can this be possible?”

“Not only possible, but true, Rose,” replied the lady, dashing the sparkling tears away.

“Oh, mamma! do not let him meet such a shock; prepare him for it, mamma.”

“I cannot; how could I? Hush—here he is,” said she, perceiving Mark. And in an instant, presto! all was changed.

Smiling out from her tears, like an April sun from a cloud, or a blooming rose scattering its dew in the breeze, she looked up and said, “Come in, Mark; draw that easy chair up here to the sofa, and sit down, for I know by experience that men are lazy as the laziest women.”

Mr. Sutherland took the indicated seat. Miss Vivian started from her lowly position, resuming her place upon the sofa, drawing the foot-cushion under her feet, and arranging her needlework.

“It is really surprising that we should all meet here so unexpectedly in Alleghany county,” said Mrs. Vivian.

“I certainly had not anticipated such a pleasure. I did not know that you were related to Colonel Ashley, or to any one else in this part of the country.”

“Nor am I. Colonel Ashley is Rosalie’s great uncle—her mother’s uncle. Colonel Ashley’s last remaining single daughter was married last year, and Rosalie was invited to take her abdicated place in his household. Physicians recommended the bracing air of the mountains for my delicate girl, and therefore Rosalie has been living here for the last eighteen months—ever since we left Cashmere, in fact. Last winter, I think, was rather too cold for her here on the mountains. I spent the season in Washington, from whence I have just returned; but next winter I intend to take Rose to Louisiana with me, and make an arrangement by which she can spend all her winters in the south.”

“Indeed, mamma, you shall not immolate your happiness upon my ill health. You shall just spend your winters in Washington, where you enjoy life so much, and your summers at the watering-places, where you meet again your gay and brilliant friends. I shall do well enough. You shall visit me in the spring and autumn intervals.”

“Oh, a truce, Rosalie! We shall be set down as a model mother and daughter. I know, for one, selfishness is the mainspring of all my acts. I rather think I like you, child, and prefer to see you well. There! I declare there’s Robert with the horses already. Put on your cloth habit, Rosalie; the morning is really cold; and don’t let him take you far, child; these hearty men have very little instinctive mercy for delicate girls, and he would not imagine he had tired you to death till you had dropped from your horse.”

Rosalie arose, rolled up her work, and left the room, nodding and smiling to a young man who entered as she left. “Mr. Bloomfield,” said the lady, presenting him to Mr. Sutherland. Mr. Bloomfield was a sufficiently pleasing specimen of a well-bred, country beau—moderately tall, broad-shouldered, and deep-chested—with regular features—fresh, ruddy complexion—clear, merry blue eyes—and lips, whose every curve expressed the good humour and benevolence of a kind, contented heart.

“You mustn’t take Rose far, Robert.”

“I will take her only to mother’s.”

“And you sha’n’t teaze her with any more nonsense! I can’t put up with that, you know.”

Robert Bloomfield blushed violently, smiled till all his regular white teeth shone, and was stammering out a blundering deprecation, when, to his great relief, Rosalie appeared, attired for the ride. The young man arose, Mrs. Vivian surveyed Rose, to be sure she was well defended from the cold, and finally yielded her in charge of her escort, who bowed and took her out.

Mrs. Vivian and Mark looked at them through the window, saw him place her in the saddle with more than polite attention—with a careful and tender solicitude that made her smile. When they had ridden off she turned to Mark, and said—

“I like that good-humoured, blundering boy. He has been paying court to Rose ever since she has been here. He is a young man of independent fortune, irreproachable character, fair education, and most excellent disposition, and he has loved Rose for more than a year. Yet, with all, he is not worthy of her! he wants polish—the polish that nothing but intercourse with refined society can give him. He came to see me last winter in Washington, got fitted out by a fashionable tailor, and I good-naturedly took him with me to an evening party. If ever I do such a thing again as long as I live may——; but never mind! Just think, when I presented him to a superfine belle, of his holding out his hands to shake hands with her, telling her he was glad to see her, and hoping that if ever she passed through his part of the country, she would pay his mother and sisters a visit, &c. And then, when the elegant Mrs. A. inquired if Mr. Bloomfield waltzed, just fancy him blushing furiously, and saying that he would rather not—that he disapproved of waltzing!”

“Well!” said Mrs. Vivian, looking up, after a pause.

“Yes—well?” inquired her companion, raising his eyebrows.

“You have not made a single comment upon my country beau. I see how it is. You’re thinking of your relatives. Mark, you must question me if you want me to tell you anything.”

“My mother”—began the young man.

“She is living very comfortably with her husband at Cashmere.”

“With her husband!”

“Is it possible you did not know she was married, Mark?”

“I never knew it—I never dreamed it—I never thought it possible.” He looked shocked—he was shocked.

“And why not?” asked the lady, with a little jealous petulance. “Why may not a widow remarry?”

“Nay—I do not know, I’m sure,” said Mr. Sutherland, with his eyebrows still raised, and his eyes fixed upon the floor. “My mother married! Will you please tell me to whom?”

“To whom? Oh, of course you know, Mark. Now, who was it likely to be, but Dr. Wells?”

“Our old family physician!”

“Why of course. You know he had been pleased with her a long time.”

“That my mother should have married!”

“She never would have done so, Mark, had you not left her.”

“And she is happy, you say?”

“Comfortable, Mark. Your mother and Dr. Wells make what Tim Linkenwater calls ‘a comfortable couple.’”

“I am not so much grieved as surprised,” said Mr. Sutherland. And after a short pause he said, “There was another—my cousin.”

The face of the lady grew troubled—she did not speak.

“Is India well?” again spake Mark, in a faltering voice.

“India is well, and beautiful as ever. She was the belle of Washington last winter—her beauty the theme of every tongue—the envy of every woman, the madness of every man. No assembly was complete without ‘the Pearl of Pearl River!’”

Mark Sutherland grew pale, and shivered—saying, “Of course she”——

“Among her own sex there was no rival star. She divided public interest and attention only with St. Gerald Ashley, that great new planet on the political horizon.”

Mark Sutherland’s whole strong frame was convulsed. He started up and paced the floor in extreme agitation—then, seizing his hat, rushed out of the room.

“And I was to prepare him for it, said Rosalie!” exclaimed Mrs. Vivian, looking after him, as the pity of her heart grew strong.

CHAPTER X.
ROSALIE AND HER LOVER.

“She loves, but ’tis not him she loves—

Not him on whom she ponders,

When in some dream of tenderness

Her truant fancy wanders.

The forms that flit her vision through

Are like the shapes of old,

Where tales of prince and paladin

On tapestry are told.

Man may not hope her heart to win,

Be his of common mould.”—C. F. Hoffman.

In the meantime, the two young riders took their way up a narrow bridle-path, leading up a long crooked pass of the mountain.

The morning was glistening with brightness and freshness, and the mingled joyous sounds of rural life made music in the air. They rode along awhile in silence, strange enough in a pair so youthful. At length the young man broke the spell.

“Rose!”

“Well, Robert!”

“I cannot bear this suspense! I cannot, indeed. Heart and frame are wearing out with it!”

Rosalie stole a glance at his clear, bright blue eye, and round, fresh, ruddy cheek, looking still brighter and fresher under the glossy, crisp, curling, auburn hair—and a smile lighted up her countenance.

“Ah! you may laugh! You have the hardest, the most unimpressible heart I ever saw in my life! But good and strong as my constitution is, it will break down—it will indeed, Rosalie—if you keep this up much longer. And I wish it would break down! I do so! Then perhaps you would pity me.”

“But, Robert, my pity would be very poor compensation for lost health.”

“I don’t know! If I could make you feel for me any way, or at any cost, I should be glad.”

“I do, Robert. I feel a very sincere esteem and friendship for you. Surely you cannot doubt that.”

“Oh! yes, you are good to me to a certain degree. Your heart is like a peach!”

“Like a peach!”

“Yes; it is superficially soft and impressible, but the core of it is hard and rough—hard and rough! Oh, Rosalie, can’t you try to like me a little?”

“I like you very much without trying!”

“Oh, you know what I mean, you tormenting girl! Can’t you—you—can’t you love me well enough to be my own? Speak! Answer! Tell me, Rose!”

“Oh, Robert, how many times have I told you—no?”

“I—but I won’t take no for an answer! All my affections and hopes are freighted in you, and I will not resign you; I will not, Rose. I will go on hoping in spite of you—hoping against hope! It is impossible—mind I say impossible—any one loving as I do, should not win love in return. It does seem to me as if it would be unjust in heaven to permit it!”

He spoke with impatient, passionate vehemence and earnestness.

Rosalie watched and heard him with wondering and sorrowing interest. She gravely said—

“‘It is impossible that one loving so much should not win love in return,’ you say? Yes, it does seem impossible, if we did not know it to be often really possible. It does seem unjust!”

“You acknowledge it! You own it to be unjust that I should give you so much—give you all—my entire heart, with all its affections and hopes—and get back nothing, nothing in return—or next to it—only ‘esteem,’ forsooth! and ‘friendship!’ That provokes and exasperates me beyond endurance! Rosalie, I don’t want your esteem or friendship. I refuse and repudiate it! I reject and repulse it! I will have none of it! Give me nothing, or give me your whole heart and hand!”

“I would to Heaven I could do it, Robert! I would to Heaven I could give you my heart. I am ready to say that if I could, I should then be a happy and enviable girl, because I believe you a most excellent young man, whose only weakness is your regard for me. But I cannot, Robert. With all my friendship for you”—

“Don’t name it!”