"How sweet she looks!" exclaimed a man of nearly my own age--a man
most distinguished in his own land--as we gazed on a young and lovely
girl, near and dear to us both as our own child--soon to become my
child-in-law as she already is in affection. "How sweet she looks!"
The words set me thinking. What was it in which that sweetness
consisted? Sweetness as of the song of a bird, or the ambrosial
breathing of a flower--sweetness as of an entrancing melody, which had
its solemn sadness as well as its delight--sweetness which carried the
soul on its wings of perfume into the far future, to gather in the
land of dreams, with the trembling awe of fear-touched hope, the
mystic signs of her future destiny. It consisted not in the lovely
lines of the features, in the exquisite hues of the complexion,
in the beautiful symmetry of the form. But it consisted in
that nameless, unphonetic, but ever lucid, hieroglyph of the
heart--expression--expression in form as well as in face--in
tranquillity as well as in movement--in the undefined and undefinable
beauty of beauties--grace.
"La grace encore plus belle que la beauté."
Grace which no art can ever attain, though it may imitate. Grace which
is the gift of God to the body, to the mind, to the spirit. Grace
which, in our pristine state, was, doubtless, common to all the three,
blending taste, and reason, and religion in one harmony almost
divine--breathing forth from the earthly form in the image of its
Maker, and which lingers yet, and breathes forth still, in the pure
and the innocent and the bright.
Such grace was in Edith Prevost; and hard or preoccupied must have
been the heart that could resist it. She was certainly very beautiful,
too, and of that beauty the most attractive. Though so young, her
fully-developed form left maturity but little to add; and every
swelling line flowed into the other with symmetry the most perfect.
The rich, warm, glossy curls of her nut-brown hair, unstained and
unrestrained by any of the frightful conceits of the day, wantoned
round her ivory forehead in lines all in harmony with her figure and
her features, and in hue contrasting, yet harmonizing, with her
complexion, in its soft, rich warmth; fair, yet glowing with a hardly
perceptible shade of brown, such as that which distinguishes the
Parian marble from the stone of Carrara. Then her liquid, hazel eyes,
full of ever-varied expression--now sparkling with gay, free joy, now
full of tender light (especially when they turned upon her father),
and now shaded with a sleepy sort of thoughtfulness, when one of her
day-dreams fell upon her. There was something, moreover, in her
manner--in her whole demeanour--which lent another charm to beauty,
and added grace to grace. Yet it was of a kind difficult to define. I
cannot describe it; I can only tell how she came by it.
I have shown that, in early years, she had been educated in a land
where civilization and refinement were carried to their highest point;
but it is necessary to add, that her education there had been
conducted in the midst of the most refined society of that land, and
by those in whom refinement had been a quality rather than an
acquisition. She had it, too, as an hereditary right: it was in her
blood and in her nature; and, until she was nearly fourteen years of
age, everything that father or mother could do was done to cultivate
the rich soil of her mind and her heart--remember, to cultivate, not
to alter: it needed no change. Every natural grace remained entire,
and many a bright gift was added.
Then suddenly she was transplanted to a scene where all was
wild--where there were no conventionalities--where Nature ruled, and
was the rule. She came there exactly at the age when, without losing
one particle of that which society could confer that was worth
retaining, the mind--the fresh, young mind--was ready to receive a
peculiar tone from the wild things around her, a freedom, an innocent
carelessness of the trifles magnified into false importance in a more
artificial state. Feeling, knowing, that she was a lady, that every
thought was pure and bright, that every purpose was noble and true,
she had no fear of infringing small proprieties; she had no thought of
that dread bugbear of the multitude, "_what the world would say._"
Thus, while habit rendered all refined, and while heart and innocence
gave dignity and calmness, she had all the free, frank, heartful
confidence of untutored nature.
Such was Edith Prevost, and such she appeared to the stranger who had
visited her father's house. At first, perhaps, he did not comprehend
her fully; but he was a man of keen perceptions and a great and noble
heart. Within his breast and hers were those sympathies which are keys
to open the doors of character; and he had not been four-and-twenty
hours under the same roof before he knew her, and appreciated her
entirely. He had seen much of the world, much of society; and perhaps
that which is false and wrong therein had been over-estimated by a
mind somewhat too clear-sighted for much happiness. At all events, he
had passed through life hitherto heart-whole and untouched with love;
and he felt fearless and confident from the experience of security.
Thus he boldly made the character of Edith a study; scanned it
accurately, watched every little trait, dwelt upon her beauty and her
grace, and took pleasure in eliciting all that was bright and lovely.
Imprudent man! He had never met any one like her before.
She, too, in unconscious frankness, without thought or design, was led
on, by new and fresh association, to open all the treasures of her
mind to her new friend, not knowing how they might dazzle; and her
brother and her father both aided, unthinkingly, in the same course.
When Brooks had left them, half an hour was spent in one of those
pleasant after-breakfast dreams, when the mind seems to take a
moment's hesitating pause before grappling with the active business of
the day. But little was said; each gazed forth from window or from
door--each thought, perhaps, of the other, and each drank in sweet
sensation from the scene before the eyes.
Each thought of the other, I have said; and when such is the case, how
infinite are the varieties into which thought moulds itself!
Walter paused and pondered upon the stranger's state and objects;
asked himself who he was; what could be his errand; how, why, he came
thither. Major Kielmansegge he knew him not to be. A chance word had
shown him not only his rank and station, but had shown also that there
was a secret to be kept--a secret to which his imagination, perhaps,
lent more importance than it deserved. He was an English peer, the
young man knew, one of a rank with which, in former years, he had been
accustomed to mingle, and for which, notwithstanding all that had
passed, and lapse of time, and varied circumstances, he retained an
habitual veneration. But what could have led a British peer to that
secluded spot? what could be the circumstances which, having led him
thither, had suddenly changed his purpose of proceeding onward, and
induced him to remain a guest in his father's cottage, in a state of
half-concealment? Could it be Lord Loudun, he asked himself, the
commander-in-chief of the royal forces, whose conduct had been so
severely censured in his own ears by the man just gone?
Youth always leaves a thousand things out of calculation, and darts at
its conclusions with rapidity that overleaps the real end; and thus,
what with the military bearing, the secrecy, a certain degree of
reserve of manner, and an air of command, he argued himself into the
belief that their guest was certainly the general of whom they had
heard so much and knew so little; without at all considering how
unlikely it was, that so important a command should be intrusted to
one so young. It did not, indeed, raise the stranger in his esteem, or
in his regard, to believe him to be Lord Loudun; for this nobleman had
not won the goodwill of the people of the province, nor secured their
approbation. They had perhaps expected too much from his coming, and
had been bitterly disappointed by the result.
Edith thought of his rank and station not at all. Some of his words
lingered in her ear, and afforded matter for the mind to work with.
They were not such as she had heard for long. They were different
even, in some respects, from any that she remembered. There was
nothing light in them, nothing frivolous; but, combined with the tone
and manner, they gave the impression that they sprang from a mind
deep, powerful, self-relying, cultivated and enriched by study and
observation, and full of activity and eagerness. She might inquire
what sort of heart was united with that mind; she might be doubtful of
it; for she had not much experience, and she knew not how often men,
in mere sport, or to elicit the shy secrets of woman's heart, or for
idle vanity or light caprice, utter that which they do not feel,
affect a character they do not possess, and often inferior to their
own.
She did not make up her mind hastily, however. Indeed she had not yet
sufficient interest in the object of her thoughts to care much about
making up her mind at all. She thought him a very handsome and a very
agreeable man, sufficiently odd, or different from the common run, to
excite some interest, yet with an oddity in no degree offensive; but
that was all. She knew that he had only come for a day, and that,
though some accidental meeting with Sir William Johnson had induced
him to protract his stay, it would probably only be for a day or two
longer. Then he would go: his shadow would pass away from the floor,
and his memory from her mind--she thought.
Accident! Who is there that believes in accident? On my life, it
requires more faith to conceive such a thing as accident than to
believe in the divinity of Juggernaut. The only reason why any man can
imagine such a thing, is because he sees not the causes which bring to
pass the event which he calls an accident; and yet he perceives the
hands of a clock move round the dial, without beholding the springs
and wheels, and never dreams it is by accident that the bell chimes
noon. Let any man look through the strange concatenation of event with
event, through the course of his own life, and dream of accident, if
he can.
It was not by accident that Lord H---- and Edith
Prevost met there. It was for the working out of their mutual destiny,
under the will of God; for, if there be a God, there is a special
Providence.
"This is very lovely, Miss Prevost," said the young soldier, when the
long meditative lapse was drawing to a close; "but I should think the
scene would become somewhat monotonous. Hemmed in by these woods, the
country round, though beautiful in itself, must pall upon the taste."
"Oh, no!" cried Edith, eagerly; "it is full of variety. Each day
affords something new; and every morning's walk displays a thousand
fresh beauties. Let us go and take a ramble, if you have nothing
better to do, and I will soon show you there is no monotony. Come,
Walter, take your rifle and go with us. Father, this is not your hour.
Can you never come before the sun has passed his height, and see the
shadows fall the other way?"
"Mine is the evening hour, my child," answered Mr. Prevost, somewhat
sadly; "but go, Edith, and show our noble friend the scenes you so
much delight in. He will need something to make his stay in this dull
place somewhat less heavy."
The stranger made no complimentary reply, for his thoughts were busy
with Edith, and he was, at that moment, comparing her frank,
unconscious, undesigning offer to lead him through love-like woods and
glades with the wily hesitations of a court coquette.
"Perhaps you are not disposed to walk?" said Edith, marking his
reverie, and startling him from it.
"I shall be delighted," he said, eagerly, and truly, too. "You must
forgive me for being somewhat absent, Miss Prevost. Your father knows
I have much to think of, though, indeed, thought at present is vain;
and you will confer a boon by banishing that idle but importunate
companion."
"Oh, then, you shall not think at all while you are with me," returned
Edith, smiling.
And away she ran, to cover her head with one of those black wimples
very generally worn by the women of that day.