"The old days we remember;
How softly did they glide!
While, all untouched by worldly care,
We wandered side by side.
In those pleasant days, when the sun's last rays
Just lingered on the hill;
Or the moon's pale light, with the coming night,
Shone o'er our pathway still.
"The old days we remember,
O, there's nothing like them now!
The glow has faded from our hearts,
The blossom from the bough.
A bitter sigh for the hours gone by,
The dreams that might not last;
The friends deemed true when our hopes were new,
And the glorious visions past."
Rufus Malcome, as the accepted suitor of Florence, paid regular visits
to her father's mansion. Great was the glee of Hannah Doliver to behold
the young couple together; and great the nervous disquiet evinced by the
invalided Mrs. Howard when she was aware of the young man's presence in
the house. She had never met him, as her health, which had in the last
six months rapidly declined, confined her now entirely to her room, and
indisposed her more strongly than ever to behold strange faces.
The only person she had ever been known to express a wish to see, since
her residence in Wimbledon, was Edith Malcome,--a wish excited, perhaps,
by Florence's warm praises of the grace and beauty of her young friend,
who was as different from Rufus, she said, "as a sweet pink from an
odious poppy."
But Edith, strange as it may appear, had never visited at the Howards',
though often warmly invited by the whole family.
The colonel invariably excused her in his easy, graceful manner, saying
she was "a timid little thing, and dreaded to go for a moment from her
father's side." Latterly, her illness had been sufficient reason for her
seclusion.
Florence was restricted from frequent visits to her sick friend by the
state of her own health, which had grown so feeble and delicate as to
alarm her father exceedingly. Dr. Potipher was consulted, and strongly
advised travel and change of scene as the most effectual remedy for the
feverish disease that seemed preying upon her constitution.
Major Howard was very willing to take his daughter on a tour of travel,
but knew not how to leave his invalid lady, whose strength he thought to
be gradually failing. She was far too low for him to indulge the idea of
making her one of the party, and he was about relinquishing the project
in despair, when, on mentioning the subject to the sick woman, great was
his surprise to find her even more anxious and earnest for his departure
than he was to go. She said "she should do very well without him,--she
always mended as summer approached, and Florence was drooping from long
and close confinement. She needed exercise and change of scene, and it
was his duty to do all in his power to restore her to health and
cheerfulness." Major Howard felt the only obstacle removed by the
invalid's assent and hearty coöperation; so Florence was informed of the
project, and preparations immediately commenced for her tour.
It was a pleasant April evening as she sat in her luxurious apartment
with her journal open before her. "The last of these bright spring
evenings that I am to pass at home is closing in around me," she wrote.
"My trunks are packed and closed down, and to-morrow I am to start on a
tour of travel. How my long torpid bosom bounds at the thought! I shall
sail up that picturesque Hudson! I shall look on glorious Niagara! But I
fear my anticipations are too brilliant. Something will occur to dreg my
expected draught of happiness with sorrow. Thus it has ever been! Too
well I know I shall return to become the bride of one I detest; but I
will not let that thought embitter my enjoyment of the wonders and
beauties I shall behold. Besides, in so long a time as I shall be
absent, what may occur? Ah, I have written words that make me shudder! I
fear I may return to find the snows covering my mother's grave. Why do I
leave her? Is it not selfishness to allow her to urge me away when it is
her own generous care and affection for me which prompt her to do so?
There is something strange in the way she speaks of my matrimonial
engagement. I am sure it does not meet her approval, though she gave her
consent, as she always does to everything upon which father sets his
mind. She evidently dreads its consummation, perhaps because she has
discovered my aversion for the man I am to marry. As to Hannah Doliver,
she is wonderfully mollified toward me of late; but her fawning fondness
is more intolerable than her asperity and impertinence. Nothing seems to
delight her so much as to behold Rufus Malcome in company with me. I
caught her watching at the parlor-door this evening when he called in
company with his father to leave his adieus. She accompanied them to the
door and remained several minutes in conversation in the hall. I found
her in the kitchen a short time after, and she was muttering to herself
and slamming things about in a great rage. When she discovered me she
ceased, and grew suddenly as sunny as summer. She is a strange, dark,
intriguing woman, I fear, and wish we were well quit of her. I asked
mother if she had not better discharge her, and get a new person to
attend her during our absence; but she said, with a sudden expression of
alarm, 'O, no; she would not part with Hannah on any account!' So I said
no more, but fancied her preference was dictated more by fear than love.
But I spin out a long record for this last evening at home. O, budding
vines and flowers! who will train your rich luxuriance into fairy,
fantastic clusterings, or watch your opening petals in the summer which
is to come? Who listen to the babbling fountains, or roam the cedar-walks
that border the dancing river? And O, the far, far-stretching forest,
from whose mysterious depths, in a bright year passed away, I saw _him_
emerge, and hurried down the gravelled path to meet him at the
garden-gate, with happy, bounding heart! Will new scenes, however glad
and gay, e'er dim the memory of those dear times? Never!"