of Eglantine, and wept. The fear that I had unjustly accused the
innocent, the possibility, nay, the probability that she was guilty,
the loss of the first pledge of plighted love, indefinite terrors for
the future, a dim shade of superstition brooding over the whole, all
conspired to make me gloomy and desponding. We were all unhappy.
Ronald tried to laugh at my sadness, and promised me 'gems from the
mine, and pearls from the ocean,' to indemnify me for my loss, yet I
watched every change of his expressive countenance, and knew he
thought deeply and painfully on the subject. The strange suspicion
which had risen in my mind the preceding night, with regard to
Eglantine's feelings towards him, revived when I saw them together,
and I wondered I had not observed before the fluctuations of her
complexion, and the agitation of her manner whenever he addressed her.
He had always treated her with the kindness of a brother--that
kindness now made me unhappy. I was becoming suspicious, jealous, and
self-distrustful, with a settled conviction that some strange barrier
existed to my union with Ronald, a destiny too bright and too
beautiful to be realized in this world of dreams and shadows. My
mother was firm in her belief of the guilt of Alice, who had never
been a favourite of hers. Perhaps I lavished upon her too many
indulgences, which displeased my mother's soberer judgment. She
forbade all intercourse with her, all mention of her name, but she was
ever present to my imagination; sometimes the shameless ingrate and
accomplished deceiver, at others the eloquent pleader of her outraged
innocence. One day Eglantine came to me, and laid her hand on mine
with a look of unspeakable dismay--
"'I have heard,' said she, 'that Alice is dying. Let us go to her,
Laura, and save her, if it be not too late.'
"What I felt at hearing these words I never can tell,--they pressed
upon me with such a weight of grief--her innocence seemed as clear to
me as noonday--my own unkindness as cruel as the grave. Quickly as
possible we sought the cottage where her mother dwelt, and a piteous
spectacle met our eyes. There lay Alice, on a little bed, pale,
emaciated, and almost unconscious; her once bright hair dim and
matted; her sweet blue eyes sunk and half closed; her arms laid
listlessly by her side, the breath coming faint and flutteringly from
her parted lips. On another bed lay her poor, heart-broken mother,
unable to relieve the sufferings of her she would gladly have died to
save. Frantic with grief, I threw myself by the side of Alice, and
disturbed the solemn stillness of the death-hour with my incoherent
ravings. I declared her innocence; I called upon her to live, to live
for my sake, and throwing my arms wildly round her wasted form,
struggled to hold her back from the grave yawning beneath her. It was
in vain to cope with Omnipotence. Alice died, even in the midst of my
agonies, and it was long before I was able to listen to the story of
her illness, as related by her disconsolate mother. She had returned
home sick and feverish, and sick and feverish she evidently was on her
first awakening, and that wounded spirit, which none can bear, acting
on a diseased frame, accelerated the progress of her fever till it
settled on her brain, producing delirium, and ultimately death. During
all her delirium, she was pleading her cause with an angel's
eloquence, declaring her innocence, and blessing me as her
benefactress and friend."
Here my grandmother paused, and covered her eyes with her
handkerchief. I laid my head on her lap, and the ringlets of little
Mitty's hair were wet with my tears. I felt quite broken-hearted, and
ready to murmur at Providence for placing me in a world so full of
error and woes.
"Did you ever feel happy again, dear grandmother?" asked I, when I
ventured to break the silence,--curiosity was completely merged in
sympathy.
"Yes, Mina, I have had hours of happiness, such as seldom falls to the
lot of woman, but those bright hours were like the shining of the gold
that comes forth purified from the furnace of fire. The mother of
Alice soon followed her to the grave, and there they sleep, side by
side, in the lonely churchyard. Eglantine soothed and comforted me,
and endeavoured to stifle the self-upbraidings that ever sounded
dolefully to my heart. Alice had been the victim of inexplicable
circumstances, and so far from having been cruel, I had been kind and
forbearing, considering the weight of evidence against her. Thus
reasoned Eglantine, and I tried to believe her, but all my hopes of
joy seemed blighted, for how could I mingle the wreath of love with
the cypress boughs that now darkened my path? Ronald pressed an
immediate union, but I shrunk with superstitious dread from the
proposition, and refused the ring, with which he now sought to bind my
faith. 'No, no,' I cried, 'the pledges of love are not for me--I will
never accept another.'
"My mother grew angry at my fatalism. 'You are nursing phantasies,'
said she, 'that are destroying the brightness of your youth. You are
actually making yourself old, ere yet in your bloom. See, if there are
not actually streaks of gray threading your jetty hair.' I rose and
stood before a mirror, and shaking my hair loose from the confining
comb, saw that her words were true. Here and there a gleam of silver
wandered through those tresses which had always worn that purple depth
of hue peculiar to the raven's plumage. The chill that penetrated my
heart on the death-bed of Alice, had thus suddenly and prematurely
frosted the dark locks of my youth. My mother became alarmed at my
excessive paleness, and proposed a journey for the restoration of my
spirits and health. Ronald eagerly supported the suggestion, but
Eglantine declined accompanying us. She preferred, she said, being
alone. With books at home, and Nature, in the glory of its summer
garniture, abroad, she could not want sources of enjoyment. I did not
regret her determination, for her presence had become strangely
oppressive to me, and even Ronald's manners had assumed an
embarrassment and constraint towards her very different from their
usual familiarity. The night before our departure I felt more
melancholy than ever. It was just such a night as the one that
witnessed our ill-starred betrothal. The moon came forth from behind a
bed of white clouds, silvering every flake as it floated back from her
beauteous face, and diffusing on earth the wondrous secret of heavenly
communion. I could not sleep; and as I lay gazing on the solemn
tranquillity of the night heavens, I thought of the time when 'those
heavens should be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements melt
with fervent heat,' and I, still thinking, living, feeling, in other,
grander, everlasting scenes, the invisible dweller of my bosom's
temple assumed such magnitude and majesty in my eyes, the
contemplation became overwhelming and awful. The sublime sound of the
clock striking the midnight hour--and all who have heard that sound in
the dead silence of the night, can attest that it is sublime--broke in
on my deep abstraction. Eglantine, who had lain wrapped in peaceful
slumbers, here softly drew back the bed-cover, and rising slowly,
walked round with stilly steps to the side where I reclined, and stood
looking fixedly upon me. 'Eglantine!' I exclaimed, terrified at her
attitude and singular appearance. 'Eglantine, what is the matter?' She
answered not, moved not, but remained standing, immovable, with her
eyes fixed and expressionless as stone. There she stood, in the white
moonlight, in her long, loose night-dress, which hung around her, in
her stillness, like the folds of the winding-sheet, her hair streaming
down her back in long, lifeless tresses, and lighted up on her brow
with a kind of supernatural radiance--and then those death-resembling
eyes! I trembled, and tried to draw the sheet over my face, to shut
out the appalling vision. After a few moments, which seemed
interminable to me, she bent over me, and taking my right hand, felt
of my wrist again and again. Her fingers were as cold as marble. My
very blood seemed to congeal under her touch. 'It is gone,' murmured
she, 'but it is safe--I have it safe. It fits my wrist as well as
hers.' Terrified as I was at this unexpected apparition, my mind was
clear, and never were my perceptions more vivid. The mystery of the
bracelet was about to be unravelled. Poor Alice's assertion that she
had seen Eglantine standing by my side, and taking the bracelet from
my wrist, came back thundering in my ears. 'It is gone,' replied
Eglantine, in the same low, deep voice, 'but I know where it is laid;
where the bridegroom or the bride can never find it. Perhaps the moon
shines too brightly on it, and reveals the spot.' Thus saying, she
glided across the floor, with spirit-like tread, and opening the door,
disappeared. In the excess of my excitement I forgot my fears, and
hastily rising, followed her footsteps, determined to unravel the
mystery, if I died in the act. I could catch the glimpses of her white
garments through the shadows of the winding staircase, and I pursued
them with rapid steps, till I found myself close behind her, by the
door which opened into the garden. There she stood, still as a corpse,
and again the cold dew of superstitious terror gathered on my brow. I
soon saw a fumbling motion about the keyhole, and the door opening,
she again glided onward towards the summer-house, my favourite
retreat, the place where I had received this mysterious bracelet--the
place where Flora had collected all her wealth of bloom. She put aside
the drooping vines, sending out such a cloud of fragrance on the dewy
air, I almost fainted from their oppression, and stooping down over a
white rose-bush, carefully removed the lower branches, while the
rose-leaves fell in a snowy shower over her naked feet. 'Where is it?'
said she, feeling about in the long grass. 'It isn't in the spot where
I hid it. If she has found it, she may yet be a bride, and Ronald
still her own.' She stooped down lower over the rose-bush, then rising
hastily, I saw, with inexpressible agitation, the lost bracelet
shining in the light that quivered with ghostlike lustre on her pallid
face. With a most unearthly smile she clasped it on her wrist, and
left the arbour, muttering in a low voice, 'I will not leave it
here--lest she find out where it lies, and win back her bridal gift.
I will keep it next my own heart, and she cannot reach it there.' Once
more I followed the gliding steps of Eglantine, through the chill
silence of night, till we ascended the stairs, and entered our own
chamber. Quietly she laid herself down, as if she had just risen from
her knees in prayer, and I perceived by her closed lids and gentle
breathing, that a natural sleep was succeeding the inexplicable
mysteries of somnambulism."
"She was walking in her sleep, then, grandmother!" I exclaimed,
drawing a long breath. "I thought so all the time; and poor Alice was
really innocent! And what did Eglantine say the next morning, when she
awaked, and found the bracelet on her arm?"
"She was astonished and bewildered, and knew not what to think; but
when I told her of all the events of the night, the truth of which the
bracelet itself attested, she sunk back like one stricken with death.
So many thoughts crowded upon her at once in such force, it is no
wonder they almost crushed her with their power. The conviction that
her love for Ronald could no longer be concealed, the remembrance of
the accusation of Alice, which she had so indignantly repelled, the
apparent meanness and turpitude of the art, though performed without
any conscious volition on her part, the belief that another had been
the victim of her involuntary crime, all united to bow her spirit to
the dust. My heart bled at the sight of her distress, and, every
feeling wrought up to unnatural strength by the exciting scenes I had
witnessed, I promised never to wed Ronald, since the thought of our
union had evidently made her so unhappy. Eglantine contended against
this resolution with all her eloquence, but, alas! she was not
destined long to oppose the claims of friendship to the pleadings of
love. Her constitution was naturally frail, a fragility indicated by
the extreme delicacy and mutability of her complexion, and the
profusion of her pale golden hair. Day by day she faded--night by
night she continued her mysterious rambles to the spot where she had
first deposited the bracelet, till she had no longer strength to leave
her bed, when her soul seemed to commune with the cherubim and
seraphim, which, I doubt not, in their invisible glory surrounded her
nightly couch. As she drew near the land of shadows, she lost sight of
the phantom of earthly love in aspirations after a heavenly union. She
mourned over her ill-directed sensibilities, her wasted opportunities,
her selfish brooding over forbidden hopes and imaginings. She gave
herself up in penitence and faith to her Redeemer, in submission to
her Father and her God; and her soul at last passed away as silently
and gently as the perfume from the evening flower into the bosom of
eternity."
"Oh! grandmother, what a melancholy story you have told," cried I,
looking at the bracelet more intently than ever, the vivid feelings of
curiosity subdued and chastened by such sad revealings; "but did not
you marry Ronald at last?"
"Yes," replied she, looking upward with mournful earnestness; "the
beloved grandfather, who has so often dandled you in his arms, in this
very spot where we are now seated, whose head, white with the snows of
threescore years and ten, now reposes on the pillow all the living
must press,--who now awaits me, I trust, in the dwellings of
immortality, was that once youthful Ronald, whose beauty and worth
captivated the affections of the too sensitive Eglantine. Many, many
years of happiness has it been my blessed lot to share with him on
earth. The memories of Alice and Eglantine, softened by time, were
robbed of their bitterness, and only served to endear us more tenderly
to each other. The knowledge we had gained of the frailty and
uncertainty of life, led us to lift our views to a more enduring state
of existence, and love, hallowed by religion, became a sublime and
holy bond, imperishable as the soul, and lofty as its destinies. I
have lived to see my children's children gather around me, like the
olive branches of scripture, fair and flourishing. I have lived to see
the companion of my youth and age consigned to the darkness of the
grave, and I have nothing more to do on earth but to fold the mantle
of the spirit quietly around me, and wait the coming of the Son of
Man."
I looked up with reverence in my grandmother's face as she thus
concluded the eventful history of the Pearl Bracelet, and I thought
what a solemn and beautiful thing was old age when the rays of the Sun
of Righteousness thus illumed its hoary hair, and converted it into an
emblematic crown of glory.
THE
MYSTERIOUS RETICULE.
"I own," said Fitzroy, "that I have some foolish prejudices, and this
may be one. But I cannot bear to see a lady with a soiled
pocket-handkerchief. I never wish to see anything less pure and
elegant than this in the hand of a beautiful maiden." He lifted, as he
spoke, a superb linen handkerchief, decorated with lace, that lay
carelessly folded in the lap of Mary Lee.
"Ah, yes," exclaimed her cousin Kate, laughing, "it looks very nice
now, for she has just taken it from her drawer. See, the perfume of
the lavender has not begun to evaporate. But wait till to-morrow, and
then it will look no nicer than mine."
"To-morrow!" cried the elegant Fitzroy, with an expression of disgust;
"surely no lady would think of using a handkerchief more than once. If
I were in love with a Venus de Medici herself, and detected her in
such an unpardonable act, I believe the spell would be broken."
"I would not give much for your love, then," cried Kate, "if it had no
deeper foundation--would you, Mary?"
Mary blushed, for she was already more than half in love with the
handsome Fitzroy, and was making an internal resolution to be
exceedingly particular in future about her pocket-handkerchiefs.
Fitzroy was a young man of fashion and fortune, of fine person,
elegant manners, cultivated mind, and fastidiously refined taste. He
had, however, two great defects--one was, attaching too much
importance to trifles, and making them the criterion of character; the
other, a morbid suspicion of the sincerity of his friends, and a
distrust of their motives, which might become the wildest jealousy in
the passion of love. He had a most intense admiration of female
loveliness, and looked upon woman as a kind of super-angelic being,
whose food should be the ambrosiæ and nectar of the gods, and whose
garments the spotless white of vestal purity. He had never known
misfortune, sickness, or sorrow, therefore had never been dependent on
those homely, domestic virtues, those tender, household cares, which
can alone entitle woman to the poetical appellation of a ministering
angel. He was the spoiled child of affluence and indulgence, who
looked, as Kate said, "as if he ought to recline on a crimson velvet
sofa, and be fanned with peacocks' feathers all the day long." He was
now the guest of Mr. Lee, and consequently the daily companion of the
beautiful, sensitive Mary and her gay cousin. With his passionate
admiration for beauty, it is not strange that he should become more
and more attracted towards Mary, who never forgot, in the adornments
of her finished toilet, the robe of vestal white and the pure,
delicate, perfumed handkerchief, which Fitzroy seemed to consider the
_ne plus ultra_ of a lady's perfections. The cousins walked, rode, and
visited with the elegant stranger, and never did weeks glide more
rapidly away. Mary was happy, inexpressibly happy, for life began to
be invested with that soft, purple hue, which, like the rich blush of
the grape, is so easily brushed away, and can never be restored.
Fitzroy had often noticed and admired, among the decorations of Mary's
dress, a beautiful reticule of white embroidered satin. One evening,
on returning from a party, Mary's brow became suddenly clouded. "Oh,
how could I be so careless?" exclaimed she, in a tone of vexation; "I
have left my reticule behind. How unfortunate!"
Fitzroy immediately offered his services, but Mary persisted in
refusing them, and dispatched a servant in his stead.
"You must have something very precious in that bag," said Kate. "I
have no doubt it is full of billetdoux or love-letters. I intend to go
after it myself, and find out all Mary's secrets."
"How foolish!" cried Mary. "You know there is no such thing in
it--nothing in the world but----" She stopped, in evident
embarrassment, and lowered her eyes, to avoid Fitzroy's searching
glance.
The servant came without the bag, and again Fitzroy renewed his offers
of search in the morning.
"No, indeed," said Mary; "I am very grateful, but I cannot allow you
to take that trouble. It is of no consequence; I insist that you do
not think of going. I am very sorry I said anything about it."
Mary's ill-concealed embarrassment and flitting blushes awakened one
of Fitzroy's bosom enemies. Why this strange anxiety and confusion
about a simple reticule? It must be the receptacle of secrets she
would blush to have revealed. Kate's suggestion was probably true. It
contained some confessions or tokens of love which she was holding in
her heart's treasury, while her eye and her lip beamed and smiled
encouragement and hope of him.
The next morning he rose from his bed at an early hour with a feeling
of restlessness and anxiety, and resolved to go himself in search of
the lost treasure. He found it suspended on the chair in which he
remembered to have seen her last seated, leaning against the window,
with the moonbeams shining down on her snowy brow. The soft satin
yielded to his touch, and the exquisite beauty of the texture seemed
to correspond with the grace and loveliness of the owner. He was
beginning to be ashamed of his suspicions, when the resistance of a
folded paper against his fingers recalled Kate's laughing assertions
about love-letters and billetdoux, and jealous thoughts again tingled
in his veins. For one moment he was tempted to open it and satisfy his
tantalizing curiosity, but pride and honour resisted the promptings of
the evil spirit.
Poor Mary! had she known what sweeping conclusions he brought against
her during his homeward walk, she would have wished her unfortunate
bag in the bottom of the ocean. She was false, coquettish, and vain!
He would never bestow another thought upon her, but bid adieu, as soon
as possible, to her father's hospitable mansion, and forget his
transient fascination. When he entered the room where Mary and Kate
were seated, Mary sprang forward with a crimsoned cheek and extended
her hand with an eager, involuntary motion. "I thank you," said she,
coldly; "but I am very, very sorry you assumed such unnecessary
trouble."
She thanked him with her lips, but her ingenuous countenance expressed
anything but gratitude and pleasure. Fitzroy gave it to her with a
low, silent bow, and threw himself wearily on the sofa.
"I will know what mystery is wrapped up in this little bag!" exclaimed
Kate, suddenly snatching it from her hand. "I know it contains some
love talisman or fairy token."
"Ah, Kate, I entreat, I pray you to restore it to me," cried Mary.
"No--no--no," answered Kate, laughing, and holding it high above her
head.
Mary sprang to catch it, but Kate only swung it higher and higher with
triumphant glee. Fitzroy looked on with a scornful glance; Mary's
unaffected alarm confirmed all his suspicions, and he felt a selfish
gratification in her increasing trepidation.
"Kate, I did not think you could be rude or unkind before," said Mary,
looking reproachfully at Fitzroy, for not assisting her in the
contest.
"Since Miss Lee evidently endures so much uneasiness lest the
mysteries of her bag should be explored," cried Fitzroy, with a
sarcastic smile, "I am sure her friends must sympathize in her
sufferings."
"Oh, if you are in earnest, Mary," cried Kate, tossing the reticule
over her head, "I would not make you unhappy for the world."
There was a beautiful child, about two or three years old, a little
sister of Kate's, who was playing on the carpet with the paraphernalia
of her dolls. The bag fell directly in her lap, and she caught it with
childish eagerness. "I got it--I got it!" cried she, exultingly; and
before Mary could regain possession of it, she had undrawn the silken
strings, and emptied the contents in her lap--a parcel of faded
rose-leaves scattered on the floor, from a white folded paper that
opened as it fell. Fitzroy beheld it, and his jealous fears vanished
into air; but another object attracted his too fastidious gaze--a
soiled, crumpled pocket-handkerchief lay maliciously displayed in the
little plunderer's lap, and then was brandished in her victorious
hand. Mary stood for a moment covered with burning blushes, then ran
out of the room, stung to the soul by the mocking smile that curled
the lip of Fitzroy.
"Cousin Mary been eating cake," said the child, exposing the poor
handkerchief still more fully to the shrinking, ultra-refined man of
taste and fashion.
The spell was broken, the goddess thrown from her pedestal--the charm
of those exquisite, transparent, rose-scented handkerchiefs for ever
destroyed. Kate laughed immoderately at the whole scene. There was
something truly ridiculous to her in the unfathomable mystery, Mary's
preposterous agitation, and Fitzroy's unconcealed disgust. There was a
very slight dash of malice mingled with the gayety of her character,
and when she recollected how much Fitzroy had admired and Mary
displayed her immaculate and superb handkerchiefs, pure from all
earthly alloy, she could not but enjoy a _little_ her present
mortification. She ridiculed Fitzroy so unmercifully that he took
refuge in flight, and then the merry girl sought the chamber of Mary,
whither she had fled to conceal her mortification and tears.
"Surely you are not weeping for such a ridiculous cause?" said Kate,
sobered at the sight of Mary's real suffering. "I had no idea you were
so foolish."
Mary turned away in silence; she could not forgive her for having
exposed her weakness to the eyes of Fitzroy.
"Mary," continued Kate, "I did not mean to distress you; I did not
imagine there was anything in the bag you really wished concealed, and
I am sure there was not. What induced you to make such a fuss about a
simple pocket-handkerchief? It looks as nice as mine does, I dare
say."
"But he is so very particular," sobbed Mary, "he will never forget it.
I have always carried a handkerchief in my bag for use, so that I
could keep the one which I held in my hand clean and nice. I knew his
peculiarities, and thought there was no harm in consulting them. He
will never think of me now without disgust."