STRIFE FOR AN EARL.
Thistledown--Thistledown!--join the pursuit;
While fashion flies onward, let wisdom be mute.
All pleasure is fleeting, and life's but a span,
Come gather up, Thistledown, souls, while you can!
It had been a brilliant season in the fashionable world that year.
Saratoga and Newport were perfect hot-beds of gaiety, splendor and
trivial ambition. A thorough bred nobleman or two from England--a German
countess--the greatest and most popular statesmen of our own land, had
flung a dazzling splendor over these places. But even amid all this
false life and _éclat_ there was one person whose dress, wit and beauty
became the theme of general comment. She had taken rooms at Saratoga
late in the season. Accommodations for half a dozen servants--stabling
for almost as many horses, all was in preparation long before the lady
herself appeared.
There was something about this to puzzle and bewilder the most
thorough-bred gossip of a watering-place. The servants were foreign, and
thoroughly educated to their vocation. When questioned regarding their
mistress, they spoke of her without apparent restraint, and always as my
lady. But there was no title attached to the name under which the superb
suite of apartments had been engaged. Mrs. Gordon! Nothing could be more
simple and unpretending. If there was a title behind it, as the
indiscretion of the servants seemed to intimate, she was only the more
interesting.
Mrs. Gordon's servants had lounged about the United States a whole
fortnight; her horses had been exercised by the grooms often enough to
attract attention to their superb beauty, and to keep the spirit of
gossip and curiosity alive. A lady's maid had for days been making a
sensation at the servant's table by her broken English and Parisian
finery. Yet no one had obtained a sight of the lady. At last she
appeared in the drawing-room, very simply dressed, quiet and
self-reliant, neither courting attention nor seeming in the least
desirous of avoiding it. She presented no letters, sought no
introductions. The various fashionable cliques, with their reigning
queens, seemed scarcely to attract the notice of this singular woman,
though a mischievous smile would sometimes dawn upon her beautiful
mouth, as some petty manoeuvering for superiority passed before her.
A creature so calm, so tranquil, so quietly regardless of contending
cliques and fashionable factions, was certain to become an object of
peculiar attention, even though rare personal beauty, and all the
appliances of great wealth had been wanting. The reputation of a title,
the graceful repose of manners just enough tinged with foreign grace to
be piquant, and, above all, the novelty of a face and position
singularly unlike anything known at the Springs that season, could not
fail to excite a sensation.
If the lady had designed to secure for herself with one graceful fling a
place among the _élite_ of American fashion, she could not have managed
more adroitly. But even the design was doubtful; she scarcely seemed
conscious of the position after it had been awarded to her, and accepted
it with a sort of graceful scorn at last, as if yielding herself to the
caprice of others, not to her own wishes.
In less than three weeks after her domestication at the Springs, this
stranger, announced without introduction, and with no seeming effort,
became the reigning belle and toast of the higher circles. Her dress was
copied--her wit quoted--her manners became a model to aspiring young
ladies, and, with all her power, she was the most popular creature in
the world, for she was affable to all, and peculiarly gentle and
unassuming to those whom other fashionable leaders were ready to crush
with a look and wither by a frown. Sometimes a dash of haughty contempt
was visible in her manner, but this was only when thrown in contact with
assumption and innate coarseness, which soon shrunk from her keen wit
and smiling sarcasms. She was feared by the few, but loved, nay, almost
worshipped, by the many.
When the season broke up and the waves of high life ebbed back to the
cities, this woman had attained a firm social position, unassailable
even by the most envious and the most daring. Still she was as
completely unknown as on the first day of her appearance. Of herself she
never spoke, and from the strange serving-man, who, maintaining the most
profound respect, always hovered about her, nothing but vague hints
could be obtained. These hints, apparently won from a simple and
hesitating nature, always served to inflame rather than satisfy
curiosity. One thing was certain. The lady had seen much of foreign
life--had travelled in every penetrable country, and her wealth seemed
as great as her beauty. More than this no one knew; and this very
ignorance, strange as it may seem, added strength to her position.
The way in which Mrs. Gordon shrouded herself had its own fascination.
True, it might conceal low birth, even shame, but it had pleased the
fashionable world to bury a high European title under all this mystery,
and this belief the lady neither aided nor contradicted, for she seemed
profoundly unconscious of its existence. With no human being had she
become so intimate that a question on the subject might be directly
hazarded. With all her graceful kindliness, there was some thing about
her that forbade intrusion or scrutiny. She came to Saratoga beautiful,
wealthy, unknown. She left it a brilliant enigma, only the more
brilliant that she continued to be mysterious, though a title still
loomed mistily in the public mind.
This mysteriousness was rather increased in its effect, and her position
wholly established at the annual fancy ball given the last week of her
stay at the springs.
During the whole of that season the United States Hotel had been kept in
a state of delightful commotion by the rivalry of two leaders in the
fashionable world, who had taken up their head-quarters in that noble
establishment.
Never was a warfare carried on with such amiable bitterness, such
caressing home-thrusts. Everything was done regally, and with that
sublime politeness which duellists practice when most determined to
exterminate each other. Of course, each lady had her position and her
followers, and no military chieftains ever managed their respective
forces more adroitly.
Mrs. Nash was certainly the oldest incumbent, and had a sort of
preëmption right as a fashionable leader. She had won her place exactly
as her husband had obtained his wealth, first plodding his way from the
work-shop to the counting-room, thence into the stock market, where, by
two or three dashing speculations worthy of the gambling-table, and
entered upon in the same spirit, he became a millionaire.
Exactly by the same method Mrs. Nash worked her way upward as a leader
of ton. Originally uneducated and assuming, she had exercised unbounded
sway over her husband's work-people, patronizing their wives, and
practising diligently the airs that were to be transferred with her
husband's advancement into higher circles.
Through the rapid gradations of her husband's fortune, she held her own
in the race, and grew important, dressy, and presuming, but not a whit
better informed or more refined. When her husband became a millionaire,
she made one audacious leap into the midst of the upper ten thousand,
hustled her way upward, and facing suddenly about, proclaimed herself a
leader in the fashionable world.
People looked on complacently. Some smiled in derision; some sneered
with scorn; others, too indolent or gentle for dispute, quietly admitted
her charms; while to that portion of society worth knowing, she retained
her original character--that of a vulgar, fussy, ignorant woman, from
whom persons of refinement shrunk instinctively. Thus, through the
forbearance of some, the sneers of others, and the carelessness of all,
she fought her way to a position which soon became legitimate and
acknowledged.
But this year Mrs. Nash met with a very formidable rival, who disputed
the ground she had usurped inch by inch. If Mrs. Nash was insolent, Mrs.
Sykes was sly and fascinating. With tact that was more than a match for
any amount of arrogant presumption, and education which gave keenness to
art, founded upon the same hard purpose and coarse-grained character
that distinguished Mrs. Nash, she was well calculated to make a contest
for fashionable superiority, exciting and piquant.
Women of true refinement never enter into these miserable rivalries for
notoriety, but they sometimes look on amused. In this case the ladies
were beautifully matched. The audacity of one was met with the artful
sweetness of the other. If Mrs. Nash had power and the prestige of
established authority, Mrs. Sykes opposed novelty, unmatched art, and a
species of serpent-like fascination difficult to cope with; and much to
her astonishment, the former lady found her laurels dropping away leaf
by leaf before she began to feel them wither.
Always on the alert for partisans, both these ladies had looked upon
Mrs. Gordon with calculating eyes. Beautiful, undoubtedly wealthy, and
with that slight foreign air--above all, with a title dropping now and
then unconsciously from the lips of her servants--she promised to be an
auxiliary of immense value to either faction.
For a week or two they hovered about her, much as two cautious trouts
might coquette with a fly on the surface of a mountain pool. Both were
afraid to dart at the fly, and yet each was vigilant to keep the other
from securing the precious morsel.
Thus, while they were manoeuvering around her, drawing public attention
that way, Mrs. Gordon became an object of very general admiration, and
bade fair, without an effort, and wholly against her will, to rival both
the combatants, and like the dancing horse of a Russian chariot, to
carry away all the admiration, while the other two bore the toil and
burden of the road.
But a few days before the fancy ball, a new fly was cast into the
fashionable current, that quite eclipsed anything that had appeared
before. An English earl, fresh from the continent, came up to Saratoga,
one day, in a train from New York, and would be present at the fancy
ball.
Here was new cause for strife between the Nashes and the Sykeses. Which
of these ladies should secure the nobleman for the fancy ball? True, the
earl was very young, awkward as the school-boy he was, and really looked
more like a juvenile horse-jockey than a civilized gentleman. But he was
an _earl_; would assuredly have a seat in the House of Lords, if ever he
became old enough; besides, he had already lost thirty thousand dollars
at the gaming-table, and bore it like a prince.
Here was an object worth contending for. What American lady would be
immortalized by leaning upon the arm of an earl as she entered the
assembly room? No minor claims could be put in here. The earl
undoubtedly belonged to Mrs. Nash or Mrs. Sykes--which should it be?
This was the question that agitated all fashionable life at the Springs
to its centre. Partisans were brought into active operation. Private
ambassadors went and came from the gambling saloons to the
drawing-rooms, looking more portentous than any messenger ever sent from
the allied powers to the Czar.
The innocent young lord, who had escaped from his tutor for a lark at
the Springs, was terribly embarrassed by so many attentions. Too young
for any knowledge of society in his own land, he made desperate efforts
to appear a man of the world, and feel himself at home in a country
where men are set aside, while society is converted into a paradise for
boys. It is rumored that some professional gentlemen took advantage of
this confusion in the young lordling's ideas, and his losses at the
gambling-table grew more and more princely.
But the important night arrived. The mysterious operations of many a
private dressing-room became visible. A hundred bright and fantastic
forms trod their way to music along the open colonnade of the hotel
toward the assembly-room. The brilliant procession entered the
folding-doors, and swept down the room two rivers of human life, flowing
on, whirling and retiring, beneath a shower of radiance cast from the
wall, and the chandeliers that seemed literally raining light. In her
toilet, the American lady is not a shade behind our neighbors of Paris;
and no saloon in the world ever surpassed this in picturesque effect and
richness of costume. Diamonds were plentiful as dew-drops on a rose
thicket. Pearls embedded in lace that Queen Elizabeth would have
monopolised for her own toilet, gleamed and fluttered around those
republican fairies, a decided contrast to the checked handkerchief that
Ben. Franklin used at the European court, or the bare feet with which
our revolutionary fathers trod the way to our freedom through the winter
snows. After the gay crowd had circulated around the room awhile, there
was a pause in the music, a breaking up of the characters into groups;
then glances were cast toward the door, and murmurs ran from lip to lip.
Neither Mrs. Nash or her rival had yet appeared; as usual their entrance
was arranged to make a sensation. How Dodsworth's leader knew the exact
time of this fashionable's advent, I do not pretend to say. Certain it
is, just as the band struck up an exhilarating march, Mrs. Z. Nash
entered the room with erect front and pompous triumph, holding the
English earl resolutely by the arm. Mrs. Theodore Sykes came in a good
deal subdued and crestfallen, after the dancing commenced. She was
escorted by one of the most illustrious of our American statesmen, which
somewhat diminished the bitterness of her defeat. Her fancy dress was
one blaze of diamonds, and when Mrs. Nash sailed by, holding the young
earl triumphantly by the arm, she seemed oblivious of the noble
presence, but was smiling up into the eyes of her august companion, as
if an American statesman really were some small consolation for the loss
of a schoolboy nobleman, who looked as if he would give his right arm,
which however, belonged to Mrs. Nash just then, to be safe at home, even
with his tutor. When Mrs. Gordon entered the room, no one could have
told. When first observed, she was sitting at an open window which
looked into the public grounds. The light was striking aslant the white
folds of a brocaded silk, and on the delicate marabout feathers in her
hair, with the brilliancy of sunshine, playing upon wreaths of newly
fallen snow. She evidently had no desire to enter into the spirited
competition going on between the rival factions. When a crowd of
admirers gathered around the window, she received them quietly, but
without empressment. At length, as if weary with talking, she took the
first arm offered, and sauntered into the crowd, searching it with her
eyes, as if she feared or expected some one. The first dance had broken
up; all was gay confusion, when unwittingly she came face to face with
Mrs. Nash, who was sailing down the room with her captive. The young
earl, who had remained awkwardly shy since his entrance, gave a start of
recognition, his sullen features lighted up, and freeing his arm from
the grasp of Mrs. Nash, with an unceremonious "Excuse me, Madam!" he
advanced with both hands extended.
"My dear, dear lady, I am so glad to see you!"
The lady reached out her hand, smiling and cordial. "You, here?" she
answered, shaking her head, "and alone, ah truant!"
"It wasn't my fault; I was deluded off--kidnapped--but by the best
fellow in the world; I will tell you all about it." With a hurried bow
to the party he was about to leave. The youth placed himself in a
position to converse with Mrs. Gordon, as she passed with her previous
escort, quite unconscious of her triumph, or of the rage it had
occasioned. The lady bent her head with matronly grace, and resumed her
walk. "And so you have run away from the good tutor?" she said.
"Run away? oh, nothing of the sort; he consented to let me come.
Leicester can do anything with him. A deuced clever fellow, that
Leicester; you know him of course! Everybody knows Leicester, I believe.
Ha, what is the matter? Did I tread on your dress?"
"No no! you were saying something of--"
"Yes, yes, of Leicester--a wonderful fellow--we have only known him a
week or two, and he can do anything with my tutor--got me off up here
like magic!"
"And do you like him?"
"Well, now, you'll confess it's rather hard to like a man who has won
ten thousand dollars from you, in one night; but I do rather fancy him,
in spite of it."
"Has he won this money from you?" inquired the lady, in a low
voice--"you, a minor!"
"_Entre nous_, yes; but it was all above-board, and in the most
gentlemanly manner."
"Is Mr. Leicester at the hotel? Has he ever presented himself in the
drawing-room?"
"No; he thinks the ladies a bore. I thought so myself, ten minutes ago;
but now, with an old friend, it is different. The sight of you brought
me back to Florence. You were kind to me there: I shall never, never
forget the days and nights of that terrible fever; but for you, I must
have died."
"I was used to sickness, you know," answered the lady, in a faltering
voice.
"I remember," answered the earl, "that lovely girl--your relative, I
believe--did she recover in Florence?"
"She died there," was the low reply.
"As I might have done, but for you," he answered, with feeling. "It was
the first idea I ever had of a mother's kindness."
"And do you really feel this little service so much?"
"I only wish it were in my power to prove how much!"
"You can, easily."
"How, lady?"
"Return to your tutor in the morning--break off all acquaintance with
this gentleman."
"What--Leicester?"
"Yes, Leicester."
"That is easy; he left for New York this evening, and I go forward to
Canada. Is there nothing more difficult by which I can prove my
gratitude?"
"Yes; tell me all that has passed between you and this Mr. Leicester,
but not here--let us walk down into the drawing-room."
A few moments after, Mrs. Sykes drew softly up to Mrs. Nash, with one of
her sweetest smiles: "His lordship, after all, glides back to his own
countrywomen; we Americans stand no chance," she said.
Mrs. Nash bit her lip, and gave the folds of her gold-colored moire a
backward sweep with her hand.
"I fancy the earl is not anxious to extend his attention beyond its
present limit; I always said she was worth knowing. Mrs. Gordon seems an
old acquaintance. We may, perhaps, now find out who she really is; I
will ask him in the morning."
"Do!" cried half a dozen voices--"we always thought her somebody, but
really, she quite patronises the earl himself: do ask all about her,
when his lordship comes back."
It was a vain request--the young earl had left the ball-room for good;
and long before the persons grouped around Mrs. Nash had left their beds
in the morning, he was passing up Lake Champlain, sleepily regarding the
scenery along its shore.
That same morning, Mrs. Gordon left Saratoga, so early that no one
witnessed her departure. But two or three young men, who had finished up
their fancy ball in the open air, reported that she was seen at
daybreak, on the colonnade, talking very earnestly to her tall, awkward
serving-man, for more than half an hour.
Mrs. Gordon--for thus the lady continued to be known--came to New York
early in the autumn, and in the great emporium began a new phase of her
erratic and brilliant life.
A mansion, in the upper part of the city, had been in the course of
erection during the previous year. It was a castellated villa in the
very suburbs, standing upon the gentle swell of a hill, and commanding a
fine view both of the city, and the beautiful scenery that lies upon the
North and East Rivers.
A few ancient trees, rooted when New York was almost a distant city,
stood around this dwelling, sheltering with their old and leafy branches
the glowing flowers and rare shrubbery with which grounds of
considerable extent were crowded.
This dwelling, so graceful in its architecture, so fairy-like in its
grounds, had risen as if by magic among those old trees. Lavish was the
cost bestowed upon it; rich and faultless was the furniture that arrived
from day to day after the masons and artists had completed their work.
Statues of Parian marble, rich bronzes, antique carvings in wood, and
the most sumptuous upholstery were arranged by the architect who had
superintended the building, and who acted under directions from some
person abroad.
When all was arranged, drawing-rooms, library, ladies' boudoir and
sleeping chambers, that might have sheltered the repose of an Eastern
princess, the house was closed. Those who passed it could now and then
catch a glimpse of rich fresco paintings, upon the walls, through a
half-fastened shutter; and through the hot-house windows might be seen
a little world of exotic plants, dropping their rich blossoms to waste;
while the walls beyond were laden with fruit ripening in the artificial
atmosphere. Grapes and nectarines fell from bough and vine, untasted, or
only to be gathered stealthily by the old man who had temporary charge
of the grounds.
Thus everything remained close and silent, like some enchanted palace of
fairy land, week after week, till the autumn came on. Since the
architect left it, no person save the old gardener, had ever been
observed to enter even the delicate iron railing that encompassed the
grounds. True, the neighbors, to whom this dwelling had become an object
of great interest, were heard to assert that at a time, early in the
summer, lights had been observed one stormy night, in the second-story,
and even high up in the principal tower. Some even persisted that before
it was quite dark, a close carriage had been driven up to the door and
away again, leaving two or three persons, who certainly entered the
house. After that, carriage wheels had more than once been heard above
the storm, rolling to and fro, as if people were coming and going all
night.
The next morning, when all the neighborhood was alive with curiosity,
this dwelling stood as before--stately and silent, amid the old forest
trees. The shutters were closed; the gate locked. Not a trace could be
found proving that any human being had entered the premises. So the
whole story was generally set down as an Irish fiction, though the
servant girl, who originated it, persisted stoutly that she had not only
seen lights and heard the wheels, but had caught glimpses of a cashmere
shawl within the door; and of a little barefooted girl, with a basket on
her arm, coming out half an hour after, and alone. But there stood the
closed and silent house--and there was the talkative old gardener in
contradiction of this marvellous tale. Besides, carriages were always
going up and down the avenue upon which the dwelling stood, and out of
this the girl had probably found material for her fiction. Certain it
was, that from this time till October no being was seen to enter the
silent palace.
Then, in the first golden flush of autumn, the house was flung open.
Carriages came to and fro almost every hour. Saddle horses, light
phætons, and an equipage yet more stately, drove in and out of the
stables. The windows, with all their wealth of gorgeously tinted glass,
were open to the hazy atmosphere; grooms hung around the stables;
footmen glided over the tesselated marble of the entrance-hall.
Conspicuous among the rest, was one tall, awkwardly-shaped man, who came
and went apparently at pleasure. His duties seemed difficult to define,
even by the curious neighbors. Sometimes he drove the carriage, but
never unless the lady of the mansion rode in it. Sometimes he opened the
door. Again he might be seen in the conservatory, grouping flowers with
the taste and delicacy of a professed artist; or in the hot-houses,
gathering fruit and arranging it in rich masses for the table. It was
marvellous to see the beautiful effect produced by those great, awkward
hands. The very japonicas and red roses seemed to have become more
glowing and delicate beneath his touch. But after the first week this
man almost wholly disappeared from the dwelling. Sometimes he might be
seen stealing gently in at nightfall, or very early in the morning; but
his active superintendence was over; he seemed to be no longer an
inmate, but one who came to the place occasionally to inquire after old
friends.
But the mistress of all this splendor--the beautiful woman who sometimes
came smilingly forth to enter her carriage, who sauntered now and then
into the conservatory, blooming as the flowers that surrounded her,
mature in her loveliness as the fruit that hung upon the walls bathed in
the golden sunshine--who was this woman, with her unparalleled
attractions, her almost fabulous wealth? The world asked this question
without an answer, for the Mrs. Gordon of Saratoga, and the Ada
Leicester of our story, satisfied no curiosity regarding her personal
history. She visited no one who did not first seek her companionship,
and thus deprived society of its right to question her.
We, who know this woman by her right name, and in her true
character--that of a disappointed, erring, but still affectionate
being--might wonder at her bloom, her smiling cheerfulness, her easy and
gentle repose of look and manner; but human nature is full of such
contradictions, teeming with serpents, absolutely hidden and bathed in
the perfume of flowers.
If Ada Leicester smiled, she was not the less sad at heart. If her
manners were easy and her voice sweet, it was habit--the necessity of
pleasing others--that had rendered these things a second nature to her.
With one great, and, we may add, almost holy object at heart, she
pursued it earnestly, while all the routine of life went on as if she
had no thought but for the world, and no pleasure or aim beyond the
luxurious life which seemed to render her existence one continued gleam
of Paradise.
Hitherto we have seen this woman in the agony of perverted
love--perverted, though legal, for its object was vile; and worship of a
base thing is hideous according to its power. We have seen her bowed
down with grief, grovelling to the very soil of her native valley, in
passionate agony. But these were phases in her life, and extremes of
character which seldom appeared before the world.
It is a mistake when people fancy that any life can be made up of
unmitigated sorrow. Even evil has its excitement and its gleams of wild
pleasure, vivid and keen. The sting of conscience is sometimes
forgotten; the viper, buried so deeply in flowers that his presence is
scarcely felt, till, uncoiling with a fling, he dashes them all aside,
withered by his hot breath and spotted with venom. This heart-shock,
while it lasts, is terrible; but those who have no strength to cast
forth the serpent bury him again in fresh flowers, and lull him to a
poisonous sleep in some secret fold of the heart, till he grows restless
and fierce once more.
With all her splendor, Ada Leicester was profoundly unhappy. The deep
under-current of her heart always welled up bitter waters. Let the
surface sparkle as it would, tears were constantly sleeping beneath.
There is no agony like that of a heart naturally pure and noble, which
circumstance, weakness, or temptation has warped from its integrity. To
know yourself possessed of noble powers, to appreciate all the sublimity
of goodness, and yet feel that you have undermined your own strength,
and cast a veil over the beautiful through which you can never see
clearly, this is deep sorrow--this is the darkness and punishment of
sin. If we could but know how evil is punished in the heart of the
evil-doer, charity would indeed cover a multitude of sins.
Ada Leicester was unhappy--so unhappy that the beggar at her gate might
have pitied her. The pomp, the adulation which surrounded her, had
become a habit; thus all the zest and novelty of first possession was
gone, and these things became necessary, without gratifying the hungry
cry of her soul.
At this period of her life she was utterly without objects of
attachment; and what desolation is equal to this in a woman's heart? The
thwarted affections and warm sympathies of her nature became clamorous
for something to love. Her whole being yearned over the blighted
affections of other days; maternal love grew strong within her. She
absolutely panted to fold the child, abandoned in a delirium of
passionate resentment, once more to her bosom. But that child could
nowhere be found. Her parents, too--that noble, kind old man, who had
loved her so--that meek and loving woman, her mother--had the earth
opened and swallowed them up? was she never to see them more?--to what
terrible destitution might her sin have driven them.
The time had been when this proud woman shrunk from meeting persons so
deeply injured--but oh, how fervently loved! Now she absolutely panted
to fling herself at their feet, and crave forgiveness for all the shame
and anguish her madness had cast upon them. In all this her exertions
had been cruelly thwarted; parents, child, everything that had loved her
and suffered for her, seemed swept into oblivion. The past was but a
painful remembrance, not a wreck of it remained save in her own mind.
Another feeling more powerful than filial or maternal love--more
absorbing--more ruthlessly adhesive, was the love she could not conquer
for the man who had been the first cause of all the misery and wrong
against which she was struggling. It was the one passion of a
life-time--the love of a warm, impulsive heart--of a vivid intellect,
and, say what we will, this is a love that never changes--never dies. It
may be perverted--it may be wrestled with and cast to the earth for a
time; but such love once planted in a woman's bosom, burns there so long
as a spark is left to feed its vitality; burns there, it may be, for
ever and ever, a blessing or a curse.
To Ada Leicester it was a curse, for it outlived scorn. It crushed her
self-respect--it fell like a mildew upon all the good resolutions that,
about this time, began to spring up and brighten in her nature. You
would not have supposed that proud, beautiful woman so humble in her
love--her hopeless love--of a bad man, and that man the husband whom she
had wronged! Yet so it was. Notwithstanding the past: notwithstanding
all the perfidy and cruel scorn with which he had deliberately urged her
on to ruin, she would have given up anything, everything for one
expression of affection, such as had won the love of her young heart.
But even here, where the accomplishment of her wish would surely have
proved a punishment, her affections were flung rudely back.
And now, when all her efforts were in vain, when no one could be found
to accept her penitence, or return some little portion of the yearning
tenderness that filled her heart, she plunged recklessly into the world
again. The arrow was in her side; but she folded her silken robes over
it, and strove to feed her great want with the husks of fashionable
life; alas, how vainly! To persons of her passionate nature, the very
attempt thus to appease the soul's hunger is a mockery. Ada Leicester
felt this, and at times she grew faint amid her empty splendor. She had
met with none of the usual retributions which are the coarser and more
common result of faults like hers. No disgrace clung to her name: she
had wealth, beauty, position, homage. But who shall say that the
punishment of her sin was not great even then? for there is no pain to
some hearts so great as a consciousness of undeserved homage. Still this
was but the silver edging to the cloud that had begun to rise and darken
over her life. Her own proud, warm heart was doomed to punish itself to
the utmost.