 CHAPTER 45 The reading of this letter, though it made me mournful, did not hinder me from paying the visit I intended. My friend noticed my discomposure. What Arthur thou art quite the penceroso tonight? Come, let me cheer thee with a song. Thou shalt have thy favourite diddy. She stepped to the instrument and, with more than airy lightness, touched and sung. Now knit hands and beat the ground in a light fantastic round, till the telltale sun describe our concealed solemnity. Her music, though blithesome and aerial, was not sufficient for the end. My cheerfulness would not return even at her bidding. She again noticed my sedateness and inquired into the cause. This girl of mine, said I, has infected me with her own sadness. There is a letter I've just received. She took it and began to read. Meanwhile I placed myself before her and fixed my eyes steadfastly upon her features. There is no book in which I read with more pleasure than the face of a woman. That is generally more full of meaning and of better meaning, too, than the hard and inflexible lineaments of man, and this woman's face has no parallel. She read it with visible emotion. Having gone through it she did not lift her eye from the paper, but continued silent as if buried in thought. After some time, for I would not interrupt the pause, she addressed me thus. This girl seems to be very anxious to be with you. As much as I am that she should be so. My friend's countenance betrayed some perplexity. As soon as I perceived it I said, Why are you thus grave? Some little confusion appeared as if she would not have her gravity discovered. There again, said I, knew tokens in your face, my good mama, of something which you will not mention. Yet, soothed to say, this is not your first perplexity. I have noticed it before and wondered. It happens only when my best is introduced. Something in relation to her it must be, but what I cannot imagine. Why does her name particularly make you thoughtful, disturbed, dejected? There now, but I must know the reason. You don't agree with me and my notions of this girl I fear, and you will not disclose your thoughts. By this time she had gained her usual composure and, without noticing my comments on her looks, said, Since you are both of one mind, why does she not leave the country? That cannot be, I believe. Mrs. Stevens said it would be disreputable. I am no proficient in etiquette, and must therefore in affairs of this kind be guided by those who are. But would to heaven I were truly her father or brother. Then all difficulties would be done away. Can you seriously wish that? Why, no. I believe it would be more rational to wish that the world would suffer me to act the fatherly or brotherly part without the relationship. And is that the only part you wish to act towards this girl? Certainly the only part. You surprise me. Have you not confessed your love for her? I do love her. There is nothing upon earth more dear to me than my best. But love is of different kinds. She was loved by her father. Less than by me he was a good man, but not of lively feelings. Besides he had another daughter and they shared his love between them, but she has no sister to share my love. Calamity too has endeared her to me. I am all her consolation, dependence, and hope, and nothing surely can induce me to abandon her. Her reliance upon you for happiness, replied my friend with a sigh, is plain enough. It is, but why that sigh? And yet I understand it. It remonstrates with me on my incapacity for her support. I know it well, but it is wrong to be cast down. I have youth, health, and spirits, and ought not to despair of living for my own benefit and hers. But you sigh again, and it is impossible to keep my courage when you sigh. Do tell me what you mean by it. You partly guessed the cause. She trusts to you for happiness, but I somewhat suspect she trusts in vain. In vain? I beseech you. Tell me why you think so. You say you love her. Why then not make her your wife? My wife, surely her extreme youth and my destitute condition will account for that. She is fifteen, the age of delicate fervor, of inartificial love, and suitable enough for marriage. As to your condition you may live more easily together than apart. She has no false taste or perverse desires to gratify. She has been trained in simple modes and habits. Besides, that objection can be removed another way. But are these all your objections? Her youth I object to merely in connection with her mind. She is too little improved to be my wife. She wants that solidity of mind, that maturity of intelligence which ten years more may possibly give her, but which she cannot have at this age. You are a very prudential youth. Then you are willing to wait ten years for a wife? Does that follow, because my best will not be qualified for wedlock in less time, does it follow that I must wait for her? I spoke on the supposition that you loved her. And that is true, but love is satisfied with studying her happiness as her father or brother. Some years hence, perhaps in half a year, for this passion called wedded or marriage-wishing love is of a sudden growth, my mind may change and nothing may content me but to have best for my wife. Yet I do not expect it. Then you are determined against marriage with this girl? Of course, until that love comes which I feel not now, but which no doubt will come when best has had the benefit of five or eight years more, unless previously excited by another. All this is strange, Arthur. I have here to for supposed that you actually loved, I mean with the marriage-seeking passion, your best. I believe I once did. But it happened at a time when marriage was improper in the life of her father and sister and when I had never known in what female excellence consisted. Since that time my happier lot has cast me among women so far above Eliza Hadwin, so far above and so widely different from anything which time is likely to make her, that I own nothing appears more unlikely than that I shall ever love her. Are you not a little capricious in that respect, my good friend? You have praised your best as rich in natural endowments, as having an artless purity and rectitude of mind, which somewhat supersedes the use of formal education as being full of sweetness and tenderness and in her person a very angel of loveliness. All that is true. I never saw features and shapes so delicately beautiful. I never knew so young a mind so quick-sided and so firm, but nevertheless she is not the creature whom I would call my wife. My bosom slave, counselor, friend, the mother, the pattern, the tutorous of my children must be a different creature. But what are the attributes of this desirable which best wants? Everything she wants, age, capacity, acquirements, person, features, hair, complexion, all, all are different from this girl's. And pray of what kind may they be. I cannot portray them in words, but yes I can, the creature whom I shall worship. It sounds oddly, but I verily believe the sentiment which I shall feel for my wife will be more akin to worship than anything else. I shall never love but such a creature as I now image to myself, and such a creature will deserve or almost deserve worship. But this creature, I was going to say, must be the exact counterpart, my good mama, of yourself. This was said very earnestly and with eyes and manner that fully expressed my earnestness. Perhaps my expressions were unwittingly strong and emphatic, for she started and blushed, but the cause of her discomposure, whatever it was, was quickly removed, and she said, Poor Bess, this will be sad news to thee. Heaven forbid, said I, of what moment can my opinions be to her? Strange questioner that thou art. Thou knowest that her gentle heart is touched with love. See how it shows itself in the tender and inimitable strain of this epistle? Does not this sweet ingenuousness bewitch you? It does so, and I love beyond expression the sweet girl, but my love is, in some inconceivable way, different from the passion which that other creature will produce. She is no stranger to my thoughts. I will impart every thought over and over to her. I question not but I shall make her happy without forfeiting my own. Would marriage with her be a forfeiture of your happiness? Not absolutely or for ever, I believe. I love her company. Her absence for a long time is irksome. I cannot express the delight with which I see and hear her, to mark her features, beaming with vivacity, playful in her pleasures, to hold her in my arms and listen to her prattle, always musically voluble, always sweetly tender or artlessly intelligent. And this, you will say, is the dearest privilege of marriage. And so it is, and dearly should I prize it, and yet I fear my heart would droop as often as that other image should occur to my fancy. For then, you know, it would occur as something never to be possessed by me. Now, this image might indeed seldom occur. The intervals at least would be serene. It would be my interest to prolong these intervals as much as possible, and my endeavours to this end would, no doubt, have some effect. Besides, the bitterness of this reflection would be lessened by contemplating, at the same time, the happiness of my beloved girl. I should likewise have to remember that to continue unmarried would not necessarily secure me the possession of the other good. But these reflections, my friend, broke she in upon me, are of as much force to induce you to marry as to reconcile you to a marriage already contracted. Perhaps they are. Assuredly, I have not a hope that the fancied excellence will ever be mine. Such happiness is not the lot of humanity and is least of all within my reach. Your diffidence, replied my friend in a timorous accent, has not many examples, but your character, without doubt, is all your own. Possessing all and disclaiming all is, in few words, your picture. I scarcely understand you. Do you think I ever shall be happy to that degree which I have imagined? Think you I shall ever meet with an exact copy of yourself? Unfortunate you will be if you do not meet with many better. Your best in personals is beyond measure my superior and in mind, allowing for difference in years, quite as much so. But that, returned I with quickness and fervor, is not the object. The very counterpart of you I want, neither worse nor better, nor different in anything. Just such form, such features, such use. Just that melting voice and above all the same habits of thinking and conversing. In thought, word, and deed, gesture, look, and form, that rare and precious creature whom I shall love must be your resemblance. Your have done with these comparisons, interrupted she in some hurry, and let us return to the country girl thy best. You once, my friend, wished me to treat this girl of yours as my sister. Do you know what the duties of a sister are? They imply no more kindness or affection than you already feel towards my best. Are you not her sister? I ought to have been so. I ought to have been proud of the relation you ascribe to me, but I have not performed any of its duties. I blushed to think upon the coldness and perverseness of my heart. With such means as I possess of giving happiness to others, I have been thoughtless and inactive to a strange degree. Perhaps, however, it is not yet too late. Are you still willing to invest me with all the rights of an elder sister over this girl? And will she consent, thank you? Certainly she will, she has. Then the first act of sister-ship will be to take her from the country, from persons on whose kindness she has no natural claim, whose manners and characters are unlike her own, and with whom no improvement can be expected, and bring her back to her sister's house and bosom to provide for her subsistence and education, and watch over her happiness. I will not be a nominal sister. I will not be a sister by haves. All the rights of that relation I will have or none. As for you, you have claims upon her on which I must be permitted to judge, as becomes the elder sister who, by the loss of all other relations, must occupy the place, possess the rights, and fulfill the duties of father, mother, and other. She has now arrived at an age when longer to remain in a cold and churlish soil will stunt her growth and wither her blossoms. We must hasten to transplant her to a genial element and a garden well enclosed. Having so long neglected this charming plant it becomes me henceforth to take her wholly to myself. And now, for it is no longer in her or your power to take back the gift, since she is fully mine, I will charge you with the office of conducting her hither. I grant it you as a favour. Will you go? Go I will fly, I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of joy, on pinions swifter than the wind. Not the lingering of an instant will I bear. Look, one, two, three, thirty minutes after mine, I will reach curling's gate by the morn's dawn. I will put my girl into a shezz, and by noon she shall throw herself into the arms of her sister. But first shall I not in some way manifest my gratitude? My senses were bewildered, and I knew not what I did. I intended to kneel as to my mother or my deity, but instead of that I clasped her in my arms and kissed her lips fervently. I stayed not to discover the effects of this insanity, but left the room and the house, and, calling for a moment at Stevens, left a word with the servant, my friend being gone abroad, that I should not return till the morrow. Never was a lighter heart a gaiety more overflowing and more buoyant than mine. All cold from a boisterous night at a chilly season, all weariness from a rugged and myery road were charmed away. I might have ridden, but I could not brook delay, even the delay of inquiring for and equipping a horse. I might thus have saved myself fatigue and have lost no time, but my mind was in too great a tumult for deliberation and forecast. I saw nothing but the image of my girl, whom my tidings would render happy. The way was longer than my fond imagination had foreseen. I did not reach curling till an hour after sunrise. The distance was full thirty-five miles. As I hastened up the green lane leading to the house, I spied my best passing through a covered way between the dwelling and the kitchen. I caught her eye. She stopped and held up her hands and then ran into my arms. What means my girl? Why this catching of the breath? Why this sobbing? Look at me, my love. It is Arthur, he who has treated you with forgetfulness, neglect and cruelty. Oh, do not! she replied, hiding her face with her hand. One single reproach added to my own will kill me. That foolish wicked letter I could tear my fingers for writing it. But, said I, I will kiss them, and put them to my lips. They have told me the wishes of my girl. They have enabled me to gratify her wishes. I have come to carry thee this very moment to town. Lord bless me, Arthur, said she, lost in a sweet confusion, and her cheeks always glowing, glowing still more deeply. Indeed, I did not mean, I meant only. I will stay here. I would rather stay. It grieves me to hear that, said I, with earnestness. I thought I was studying our mutual happiness. It grieves you? Don't say so. I would not grieve you for the world. But indeed, indeed, it is too soon. Such a girl as I am not yet fit to live in your city. Again she hid her glowing face in my bosom. Great consciousness. Heavenly innocence, thought I. May Asha's conjectures prove false. You have mistaken my design. For I do not intend to carry you to town with such a view as you have hinted, but merely to place you with a beloved friend, with Asha-fielding, of whom already you know so much, where we shall enjoy each other's company without restraint or intermission. I then proceeded to disclose to her the plan suggested by my friend, and to explain all the consequences that would flow from it. I need not say that she assented to the scheme. She was all rapture and gratitude. Preparations for departure were easily and speedily made. I hired Asha's of a neighboring farmer, and according to my promise, by noon the same day, delivered the timid and bashful girl into the arms of her new sister. She was received with the utmost tenderness not only by Mrs. Fielding, but by all my friends. Her affection at heart was encouraged to pour forth all its feeling as into the bosom of a mother. She was re-inspired with confidence. Her want of experience was supplied by the gentlest admonitions and instructions. In every plan for her improvement suggested by her new Mama, for she never called her by any other name. She engaged with docility and eagerness, and her behavior and her progress exceeded the most sanguine hopes that I had formed as to the softness of her temper and the acuteness of her genius. Those graces which polished education and intercourse with the better classes of society are adapted to give my girl possessed in some degree by a native and intuitive refinement and sagacity of mind. All that was to be obtained from actual observation and instruction was obtained without difficulty, and in a short time nothing but the affectionate simplicity and unperverted feelings of the country girl bespoke the original condition. What art so busy about, Arthur? Always at thy pen of late. Come, I must know the fruit of all this toil and all this meditation. I am determined to scrape acquaintance with Holler and Linnaeus. I will begin this very day. All one's friends, you know, should be ours. Love has made many a patient, and let me see if it cannot in my case make a physician. But first, what is all this writing about? Mrs. Wentworth has put me upon a strange task. Not disagreeable, however, but such as I should, perhaps, have declined, had not the absence of my best and her mama made the time hang somewhat heavy. I have oftener than once, and far more circumstantially than now, told her my adventures, but she is not satisfied. She wants a written narrative, for some purpose which she tells me she will disclose to me hereafter. Luckily, my friend Stevens has saved me more than half the trouble. He has done me the favor to compile much of my history with his own hand. I cannot imagine what could prompt him to so wear his summon undertaking. But he says that adventures and a destiny so singular as mine ought not to be abandoned to forgetfulness, like any vulgar and everyday existence. Besides, when he wrote it, he suspected that it might be necessary to the safety of my reputation and my life, from the consequences of my connection with Wellbeck. Time has annihilated that danger. All enmities and suspicions are buried with that ill-fated wretch. Wortley has been won by my behavior, and confides in my integrity now as much as he formerly suspected it. I am glad, however, that the task was performed. It has saved me a world of writing. I had only to take up the broken thread and bring it down to the period of my present happiness, and this was done just as you tripped along the entry this morning. To bed, my friend, it is late, and this delicate frame is not half so able to encounter fatigue as a youth spent in the hayfield and the dairy might have been expected to be. I will, but let me take these sheets along with me. I will read them, that I am determined before I sleep, and watch if you have told the whole truth. Do so if you please, but remember one thing. Mrs. Wentworth requested me to write not as if it were designed for her perusal, but for those who have no previous knowledge of her or me. It was an odd request. I cannot imagine what she means by it, but she never acts without good reason, and I have done so. And now withdraw my dear, and farewell. CHAPTER 46 Move on, my quill. Wait not for my guidance. Reanimated with I master's spirit all airy light, a hay-day rapture, a mounting impulse sways him, lifts him from the earth. I must cost what it will reign in this upward pulling forward going, what shall I call it? But there are times, and now is one of them when words are poor. It will not do. Down this hill, up that steep, through this thicket over that hedge, I have labored to fatigue myself, to reconcile me to repose, to lulling on a sofa, to pouring over a book, to anything that might win from my heart a respite from these throbs, to deceive me into a few tolerable moments of forgetfulness. Let me see. They tell me this is Monday night, only three days yet to come. If thus restless today, if my heart thus bounds till its mansion scarcely can hold it, what must be my state to-morrow? What next day? What as the hour hastens on, as the sun descends, as my hand touches hers in sign of wedded unity, of love without interval, of concord without end? I must quell these tumults. They will disable me else. They will wear out all my strength. They will drain away life itself. But who could have thought so soon? Not three months since I first set eyes upon her. Not three weeks since our plighted love, and only three days to terminate suspense and give me all. I must compel myself to quiet, to sleep. I must find some refuge from anticipations so excruciating. All extremes are agonies. A joy like this is too big for this narrow tenement. I must thrust it forth. I must bar and bolt it out for a time, or these frail walls will burst asunder. The pen is a pacifier. It checks the mind's career. It circumscribes her wanderings. It traces out, and compels us to adhere to one path. It ever was my friend. Often it has blunted my vexations, hushed my stormy passions, turned my peevishness to soothing, my fierce revenge to heart-dissolving pity. Perhaps it will befriend me now. It may temper my impetuous wishes, lull my intoxication, and render my happiness supportable, and indeed it has produced partly this effect already. My blood within the few minutes thus employed flows with less destructive rapidity. My thoughts range themselves in less disorder. And now, that the conquest is affected, what shall I say? I must continue at the pen, or shall immediately relapse. What shall I say? Let me look back upon the steps that led me hither. Let me recount the preliminaries I cannot do better. And first as to Asha Fielding, to describe this woman. To recount in brief so much of her history as has come to my knowledge will best account for that zeal almost to idolatry with which she has ever since I thoroughly knew her been regarded by me. Never saw I one to whom the term lovely more truly belonged. And yet in stature she is too low, in complexion dark and almost sallow, and her eyes, though black and of piercing luster, have a cast which I cannot well explain. It lessens without destroying their luster and their force to charm, but all personal defects are outweighed by her heart and her intellect. There is the secret of her power to entrance the soul of the listener and beholder. It is not only when she sings that her utterance is musical. It is not only when the occasion is urgent in the topic momentous that her eloquence is rich and flowing. They are always so. I had vowed to love her and to serve her and been her frequent visitant long before I was acquainted with her past life. I had casually picked up some intelligence from others or from her own remarks. I knew very soon that she was English by birth and had been only a year and a half in America, that she had scarcely passed her twenty-fifth year, and was still embellished with all the graces of youth, that she had been a wife, but was uninformed whether the knot had been untied by death or divorce, that she possessed considerable and even splendid fortune, but the exact amount and all besides these particulars were unknown to me till some time after our acquaintance was begun. One evening she had been talking very earnestly on the influence annexed in Great Britain to birth and had given me some examples of this influence. Meanwhile my eyes were fixed steadfastly on hers. The peculiarity in their expression never before affected me so strongly. A vague resemblance to something seen elsewhere on the same day occurred and occasioned me to exclaim suddenly in a pause of her discourse, As I live, my good mama, those eyes of yours have told me a secret. I almost think they spoke to me, and I am not less amazed at the strangeness than at the distinctness of their story. And pretty, what have they said? Perhaps I was mistaken. I might have been deceived by a fancied voice or have confounded one word with another near akin to it, but let me die if I did not think that they said that you were a Jew. At this sound her features were instantly veiled with the deepest sorrow and confusion. She put her hand to her eyes, the tears started and she sobbed. My surprise at this effect of my words was equal to my contrition. I besought her to pardon me for having thus unknowingly alarmed and grieved her. After she had regained some composure she said, You have not offended Arthur. Your surmise was just and natural and could not always have escaped you. Connected with that word are many sources of anguish which time has not and never will dry up, and the less I think of past events the less will my peace be disturbed. I was desirous that you should know nothing of me but what you see, nothing but the present and the future, merely that no illusions might occur in our conversation which will call up sorrows and regrets that will avail nothing. I now perceive the folly of endeavoring to keep you in ignorance and shall therefore, once for all, inform you of what has befallen me, that your inquiries and suggestions may be made and fully satisfied at once, and your curiosity have no motive for calling back my thoughts to what I ardently desire to bury in oblivion. My father was indeed a Jew, and one of the most opulent of his nation in London, a Portuguese by birth, but came to London when a boy. He had few of the moral or external qualities of Jews, for I suppose there is some justice in the obliquy that follows them so closely. He was frugal without meanness, and cautious in his dealings without extortion. I need not fear to say this, for it was the general voice. Me and only child and, of course, the darling of my parents, they trained up in the most liberal manner. My education was purely English. I learned the same things and of the same masters with my neighbors. Except frequenting their church and repeating their creed and partaking of the same food, I saw no difference between them and me. Hence I grew more indifferent, perhaps than was proper, to the distinctions of religion. They were never enforced upon me. No pains were taken to fill me with scruples and antipathies. They never stood, as I may say, upon the threshold. They were often thought upon, but were vague and easily eluded or forgotten. Hence it was that my heart too readily admitted impressions that more zeal and more parental caution would have saved me from. They could scarcely be avoided, as my society was wholly English, and my youth, my education, and my father's wealth made me an object of much attention. And the same causes that lulled to sleep my own watchfulness had the same effect upon that of others. To regret or to praise this remissness is now too late. Certain did is that my destiny and not a happy destiny was fixed by it. The fruit of this remissness was a passion for one who fully returned it. Almost as young as I, who was only sixteen, he knew as little as myself what obstacles the difference of our births was likely to raise between us. His father, Sir Ralph Fielding, a man nobly born, high in office, splendidly allied, could not be expected to consent to the marriage of his eldest son in such green youth to the daughter of an alien, a Portuguese, a Jew. But these impediments were not seen by my ignorance and were overlooked by the youth's passion. But strange to tell what common prudence would have so confidently predicted did not happen. Sir Ralph had a numerous family, likely to be still more so, had but slender patrimony, the income of his offices nearly made up his all. The young man was headstrong, impetuous, and would probably disregard the inclinations of his family. Yet the father would not consent but on one condition, that of my admission to the English Church. No very strenuous opposition to these terms could be expected from me. At so thoughtless an age, with an education so unfavorable to religious impressions, swayed likewise by the strongest of human passions, made somewhat impatient by the company I kept, of the disrepute and scorn to which the Jewish nation are everywhere condemned, I could not be expected to be very averse to the scheme. My fears as to what my father's decision would be were soon at an end. He loved his child too well to thwart her wishes in so essential a point. Finding in me no scruples, no unwillingness, he thought it absurd to be scrupulous for me. My own heart having abjured my religion, it was absurd to make any difficulty about a formal renunciation. These were his avowed reasons for concurrence. But time showed that he had probably other reasons founded indeed in his regard for my happiness, but such as if they had been known would probably have strengthened into invincible the reluctance of my lover's family. No marriage was ever attended with happier presages. The numerous relations of my husband admitted me with the utmost cordiality among them. My father's tenderness was unabated by this change, and those humiliations to which I had been before exposed were now no more, and every tie was strengthened at the end of a year by the feelings of a mother. I had need, indeed, to know a season of happiness that I might be fitted to endure the sad reverses that succeeded. One after the other my disasters came, each one more heavy than the last, and in such swift succession that they hardly left me time to breathe. I had scarcely left my chamber, I had scarcely recovered my usual health, and was able to press with true fervor the new and precious gift to my bosom when melancholy tidings came. I was in the country at the seat of my father-in-law when the messenger arrived. A shocking tale it was, and told abruptly with every unpitying aggravation. I hinted to you once my father's death. The kind of death. Oh, my friend, it was horrible. He was then a placid venerable old man, though many symptoms of disquiet had long before been discovered by my mother's watchful tenderness. Yet none could suspect him capable of such a deed, for no one so carefully had he conducted his affairs suspected the havoc that mishants had made of his property. I, that had so much reason to love my father, I will leave you to imagine how I was affected by a catastrophe so dreadful, so unlooked for. Much less could I suspect the cause of his despair, yet he had foreseen his ruin before my marriage, had resolved to defer it for his daughters and his wife's sake as long as possible, but still had determined not to survive the day that should reduce him to indigence. The desperate act was thus preconcerted, thus deliberate. The true state of his affairs was laid open by his death. The failure of great mercantile houses at Frankfurt and Liege was the cause of his disasters. Thus were my prospects shut in. That wealth which no doubt furnished the chief inducement with my husband's family to concur in his choice was now suddenly exchanged for poverty. Bread up, as I had been, in pomp and luxury, conscious that my wealth was my chief security from the contempt of the proud and bigoted, and my chief title to the station to which I had been raised, and which I the more delighted in, because it enabled me to confer so great obligations on my husband, what reverse could be harder than this, and how much bitterness was added by it to the grief occasioned by the violent death of my father. Yet loss of fortune, though it mortified my pride, did not prove my worst calamity. Perhaps it was scarcely to be ranked with evils, since it furnished a touchstone by which my husband's affections were to be tried, especially as the issue of the trial was auspicious, for my misfortune seemed only to heighten the interest which my character had made for me in the hearts of all that knew me. The paternal regards of Sir Ralph had always been tender, but that tenderness seemed now to be redoubled. New events made this consolation still more necessary. My unhappy mother. She was nearer to the dreadful scene when it happened, and no surviving object to beguile her sorrow was rendered by long habit more dependent upon fortune than her child. A melancholy, always mute, was the first effect upon my mother. Nothing could charm her eye or her ear. Sweet sounds that she once loved, especially when her darling child was the warbler, were heard no longer. How, with streaming eyes, I have sat and watched the dear lady and endeavored to catch her eye to rouse her attention. But I must not think of these things. But even this distress was little in comparison with what was to come. A frenzy, thus mute, motionless and vacant, was succeeded by fits, talkative, outrageous, requiring incessant superintendents, restraint and even violence. Why led you me thus back to my sad remembrances? Excuse me for the present. I will tell you the rest some other time. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, accordingly, my friend resumed her story. Let me now make an end, said she, of my mournful narrative, and never I charge you do anything to revive it again. Deep as was my despondency, occasioned by these calamities, I was not destitute of some joy. My husband and my child were lovely and affectionate. In their caresses, in their welfare, I found peace, and might still have found it had there not been. But why should I open a fresh wounds which time has imperfectly closed? But the story must some time be told to you, and the sooner it is told and dismissed to forgetfulness the better. My ill fate led me into company with a woman too well known in the idle and dissipated circles. Her character was not unknown to me. There was nothing in her features or air to obviate disadvantageous prepositions. I sought not her intercourse, I rather shunned it as unpleasing and discreditable. But she would not be repulsed. Self-invited, she made herself my frequent guest, took unsolicited part in my concerns, did me many kind offices, and at length, in spite of my counter inclination, won upon my sympathy and gratitude. No one in the world did I fondly think had I less reason to fear than Mrs. Waring. Her character excited not the slightest apprehension for my own safety. She was upwards of forty, no wise remarkable for grace or beauty, tawdry in her dress, accustomed to render more conspicuous the traces of age by her attempts to hide them. The mother of a numerous family, with a mind but slenderly cultivated, always careful to save appearances, studiously preserving distance with my husband, and he like myself, enduring rather than wishing her society. What could I fear from the arts of such a one? But alas, the woman had consummate address, too, that nothing could tire. Watchfulness that none could detect. Insinuation the wileest and most subtle. Thus wound she herself into my affections by an unexampled perseverance in seeming kindness, by tender confidence, by artful glosses of past misconduct, by self-rebuke's and feigned contritions. Never were stratagems so intricate, dissimulations so profound. But still, that such a one should seduce my husband, young, generous, ambitious, impatient of contumely and reproach, and surely not indifferent before this fatal intercourse not indifferent to his wife and child. Yet so it was. I saw his discontents, his struggles. I heard him curse this woman, and the more deeply for my attempts, unconscious as I was of her machinations, to reconcile them to each other, to do away with what seemed a causeless indignation or antipathy against her. How little I suspected the nature of the conflict in his heart between a new passion and the claims of pride, of conscience and humanity, the claims of a child and a wife, a wife already in affliction, and placing all that remained of happiness in the firmness of his virtue, in the continuance of his love, a wife at the very hour of his meditated flight, full of terrors at the near approach of an event whose agonies demand a double share of a husband's supporting, encouraging love. Good heaven, for what evils are some of thy creatures reserved? Resignation to thy decree in the last and most cruel distress was indeed a hard task. He was gone. Some unavoidable engagement calling him to Hamburg was pleaded. Yet to leave me at such an hour. I dared not up braid nor object. The tale was so specious. The fortunes of a friend depended on his punctual journey. The falsehood of his story too soon made itself known. He was gone in company with his detested paramour. Yet, though my vigilance was easily deceived, it was not so with others. A creditor who had his bond for three thousand pounds pursued and arrested him at Harwich. He was thrown into prison, but his companion, let me at least say that in her praise, would not desert him. She took lodging near the place of his confinement and saw him daily. That had she not done it and had my personal condition allowed should have been my province. Passion and grief hastened the painful crisis with me. I did not weep that the second fruit of this unhappy union saw not the light. I wept only that this hour of agony was not, to its unfortunate mother, the last. I felt not anger. I had nothing but compassion for fielding. Gladly would I have recalled him to my arms and to virtue. I wrote adjuring him by all our past joys to return, vowing only gratitude for his new affection and claiming only the recompense of seeing him restored to his family, to liberty, to reputation. But, alas, fielding had a good but a proud heart. He looked upon his error with remorse, with self-detestation, and with the fatal belief that it could not be retrieved. Shame made him withstand all my reasonings and persuasions, and, in the hurry of his feelings, he made solemn vows that he would, in the moment of restored liberty, abjure his country and his family forever. He bore indignantly the yoke of his new attachment, but he strove in vain to shake it off. Her behavior always yielding, doting, supplicative preserved him in her fetters. Though upbraided, spurned, and banished from his presence, she would not leave him, but by new efforts and new artifices, soothed, appeased, and won again, and kept his tenderness. What my entreaties were unable to affect his father could not hope to accomplish. He offered to take him from prison. The creditor offered to cancel the bond if he would return to me. But this condition he refused. All his kindred and one who had been his bosom friend from childhood joined in beseeching his compliance with these conditions. But his pride, his dread of my merited reproaches, the merits and dissuasions of his new companion, whose sacrifices for his sake had not been small, were obstacles which nothing could subdue. Far indeed was I from imposing these conditions. I waited only till by certain arrangements I could gather enough to pay his debts to enable him to execute his vow. Empty would have been my claims to his affection if I could have suffered with means of his deliverance in my hands my husband to remain a moment in prison. The remains of my father's vast fortune was a jointure of a thousand pounds a year settled on my mother and after her death on me. My mother's helpless condition put this revenue into my disposal. By this means I was enabled without the knowledge of my father-in-law or my husband to purchase the debt and dismiss him from prison. He set out instantly in company with his paramour to France. When somewhat recovered from the shock of this calamity I took up my abode with my mother. What she had was enough, as you perhaps will think, for plentiful subsistence, but to us with habits of a different kind it was little better than poverty. That reflection, my father's memory, my mother's deplorable state which every year grew worse and the late misfortune were the chief companions of my thoughts. The dear child whose smiles were uninterrupted by his mother's afflictions was some consolation in my solitude. To his instruction and to my mother's wants all my hours were devoted. I was sometimes not without the hope of better days. Full as my mind was of Fielding's merits, convinced by former proofs of his ardent and generous spirit, I trusted that time and reflection would destroy that spell by which he was now bound. For some time the progress of these reflections was not known. In leaving England Fielding dropped all correspondence and connection with his native country. He parted with a woman at Ruin, leaving no trace behind him by which she might follow him as she wished to do. She never returned to England, but died a 12 month afterwards in Switzerland. As to me I had only to muse day and night upon the possible destiny of this beloved fugitive. His incensed father cared not for him. He had cast him out of his paternal affections, ceased to make inquiries respecting him and even wished never to hear of him again. My boy succeeded to my husband's place in his grandfather's affections and in the hopes and views of the family, and his mother wanted nothing which their compassionate and respectful love could bestow. Three long and tedious years passed away and no tidings were received. Whether he were living or dead, nobody could tell. At length an English traveler going out of the customary road from Italy met with Fielding in a town in the Venice Anne. His manners, habits, and language had become French. He seemed unwilling to be recognized by an old acquaintance, but not being able to avoid this and becoming gradually familiar, he informed the traveler of many particulars in his present situation. It appeared that he had made himself useful to a neighbouring seneur in whose chateau he had long lived on the footing of a brother. France he had resolved to make his future country, and among other changes for that end, he had laid aside his English name and taken that of his patron, which was Parin. He had endeavoured to compensate himself for all other provisions by devoting himself to rural amusements and to study. He carefully shunned all inquiries respecting me, but when my name was mentioned by his friend, who knew well all that had happened, and my general welfare together with that of his son asserted, he showed deep sensibility and even consented that I should be made acquainted with his situation. I cannot describe the effect of this intelligence on me. My hopes of bringing him back to me were suddenly revived. I wrote him a letter in which I poured forth my whole heart, but his answer contained avowals of all his former resolutions, to which time had only made his adherence more easy. A second and third letter were written, and an offer made to follow him to his retreat and share his exile, but all my efforts availed nothing. He solemnly and repeatedly renounced all the claims of a husband over me and absolved me from every obligation as a wife. His part in this correspondence was performed without harshness or contempt. A strange mixture there was of pathos and indifference, of tenderness and resolution. Hence I continually derived hope, which time, however, brought no nearer to certainty. At the opening of the revolution the name of Perin appeared among the deputies to the constituent assembly for the district in which he resided. He had thus succeeded in gaining all the rights of a French citizen, and the hopes of his return became almost extinct. But that and every other hope respecting him has since been totally extinguished by his marriage with Marguerite Dalmont, a young lady of great merit and fortune, and a native of Avignon. A long period of suspense was now at an end and left me in a state almost as full of anguish as that which our first separation produced. My sorrows were increased by my mother's death, and this incident freeing me from those restraints upon my motions which before existed, I determined to come to America. My son was now eight years old, and his grandfather claiming the province of his instruction, I was persuaded to part with him that he might be sent to a distant school. Thus was another tie removed. And in spite of the well meant importunities of my friends, I persisted in my scheme of crossing the ocean. I could not help at this part of her narration expressing my surprise that any motives were strong enough to recommend this scheme. It was certainly a freak of despair. A few months would perhaps have elade the fresh grief and reconciled me to my situation. But I would not pause or deliberate. My scheme was opposed by my friends with great earnestness. During my voyage, affrighted by the dangers which surrounded me, and to which I was wholly unused, I hardly repented of my resolution. But now, me thinks, I have reason to rejoice at my perseverance. I have come into a scene and society so new. I have had so many claims made upon my ingenuity and fortitude that my mind has been diverted in some degree from former sorrows. There are even times when I wholly forget them and catch myself indulging in cheerful reveries. I have often reflected with surprise on the nature of my own mind. It is eight years since my father's violent death. How few of my hours since that period have been blessed with serenity. How many nights and days in hateful and lingering succession have been bathed in tears and tormented with regrets. That I am still alive with so many causes of death and with such a slow-consuming malady is surely to be wondered at. I believe the worst foes of man, at least of men in grief, are solitude and idleness. The same eternally occurring round of objects feeds his disease, and the effects of mere vacancy and uniformity are sometimes mistaken for those of grief. Yes, I am glad I came to America. My relations are important for my return, and till lately I had some thoughts of it, but I think now I shall stay where I am for the rest of my days. Since I arrived, I am become more of a student than I used to be. I always loved literature, but never till of late had I a mind enough at ease to read with advantage. I now find pleasure in the occupation which I never expected to find. You see in what manner I live, the letters which I brought secured me a flattering reception from the best people in your country, but scenes of gay resort had nothing to attract me, and I quickly withdrew to that seclusion in which you now find me. Here, always at leisure, and mistress of every laudable means of gratification, I am not without the belief of serene days yet to come. I now ventured to inquire what were her latest tidings of her husband. At the opening of the revolution I told you he became a champion of the people. By his zeal and his efforts he acquired such importance as to be deputed to the National Assembly. In this post he was the adherent of violent measures till the subversion of monarchy and then, when too late for his safety, he checked his career. And what has since become of him? She sighed deeply. You were yesterday reading a list of the proscribed under Robespierre. I checked you. I had good reason. But this subject grows too painful. Let us change it. Some time after I ventured to renew this topic and discovered that Fielding, under his new name of Perin Delmont, was among the outlawed deputies of last year and had been slain in resisting the officers sent to arrest him. My friend had been informed that his wife, Marguerite Delmont, whom she had reason to believe a woman of great merit, had eluded persecution and taken refuge in some part of America. She had made various attempts but in vain to find out her retreat. Ah, said I, you must commission me to find her. I will hunt her through the Continent from Penobscot to Savannah. I will not leave a nook unsearched. CHAPTER 47 None will be surprised that, to a woman thus unfortunate and thus deserving, my heart willingly rendered up all its sympathies, that, as I partook of all her grief, I hailed with equal delight those omens of felicity which now at length seem to play in her fancy. I saw her often as often as my engagements would permit and oftener than I allowed myself to visit any other. In this way I was partly selfish. So much entertainment, so much of the best instruction did her conversation afford me that I never had enough of it. Her experience had been so much larger than mine and so wholly different, and she possessed such unbounded facility of recounting all she had seen and felt, and absolute sincerity and unreserve in this respect were so fully established between us that I can imagine nothing equally instructive and delightful with her conversation. Books are cold, jujune, vexatious in their sparingness of information at one time, and their impertinent locustity at another. Besides all they choose to give they give it once. They allow no questions, offer no further explanations, and bend not to the caprices of our curiosity. They talk to us behind a screen. Their tone is lifeless and monotonous. They charm not our attention by mute significances of gestures and looks. They spread no light upon their meaning by cadences and emphasis and pause. How different was Mrs. Fielding's discourse? So versatile, so bending to the changes of the occasion, so obsequious to my curiosity, and so abundant in that very knowledge in which I was most deficient, and on which I set the most value, the knowledge of the human heart, of society as it existed in another world, more abundant in the varieties of customs and characters than I had ever had the power to witness. Partly selfish I have said my motives were, but not so as long as I saw that my friend derived pleasure in her turn from my company. Not that I could add directly to her knowledge or pleasure, but that expansion of heart, that ease of utterance and flow of ideas which were always occasioned by my approach were sources of true pleasure of which she had been long deprived, and for which her privation had given her a higher relish than ever. She lived in great affluence and independence, but made use of her privileges of fortune, chiefly to secure to herself the command of her own time. She had been long ago tired and disgusted with the dull and fulsome uniformity and parade of the playhouse and ballroom. Formal visits were endured as mortifications and penances by which the delights of privacy and friendly intercourse were by contrast increased. Music she loved, but never sought it in places of public resort or from the skill of mercenary performers, and books were not the least of her pleasures. As to me I was wax in her hand. Without design and without effort I was always of that form she wished me to assume. My own happiness became a secondary passion and her gratification the great end of my being. When with her I thought not of myself. I had scarcely a separate or independent existence since my senses were occupied by her, and my mind was full of those ideas which her discourse communicated. To meditate on her looks and words and to pursue the means suggested by my thoughts, or by her, conducive in any way to her good, was all my business. What a fate, said I, at the conclusion of one of our interviews, has been yours. But thank heaven the storm has disappeared before the age of sensibility has gone past, without drying up every source of happiness. You are still young, all your powers unimpaired, rich in the compassion and esteem of the world, wholly independent of the claims and caprices of others, amply supplied with that means of usefulness called money, wise in that experience which only adversity can give. Past evils and sufferings, if incurred and endured without guilt, if called to view without remorse, make up the materials of present joy. They cheer our most dreary hours with the widespread accents of well done, and they heighten our pleasures into somewhat of celestial brilliancy by furnishing a deep, a ruefully deep contrast. From this moment I will cease to weep for you. I will call you the happiest of women. I will share with you your happiness by witnessing it, but that shall not content me. I must some way contribute to it. Tell me how I shall serve you. What can I do to make you happier? Poor am I in everything but zeal, but still I may do something. What, pray tell me, can I do? She looked at me with sweet and solemn significance. What it was exactly I could not divine, yet I was strangely affected by it. It was but a glance instantly withdrawn. She made me no answer. You must not be silent. You must tell me what I can do for you. Hitherto I have done nothing. All the service is on your side. Your conversation has been my study, a delightful study, but the prophet has only been mine. Tell me how I can be grateful. My voice and manner I believe seldom belie my feelings. At this time I had almost done what a second thought made me suspect to be unauthorized. Yet I cannot tell why. My heart had nothing in it but reverence and admiration. Was she not the substitute of my lost mama? Would I not have classed that beloved shade? Yet the two beings were not just the same, or I should not as now have checked myself and only pressed her hand to my lips. Tell me, repeated I, what can I do to serve you? I read to you a little now, and you are pleased with my reading. I copy for you when you want the time. I guide the reins for you when you choose to ride. Humble offices indeed, though perhaps all that a raw youth like me can do for you. But I can be still more assiduous. I can read several hours in the day instead of one. I can write ten times as much as now. Are you not my lost mama come back again? And yet not exactly her, I think. Something different, something better I believe if that be possible. At any rate me thinks I would be wholly yours. I shall be impatient and uneasy till every act, every thought, every minute, someway does you good. How, said I, her eyes still averted, seemed to hold back the tear with difficulty, and she made a motion as if to rise. Have I grieved you? Have I been importunate? Forgive me if I have offended you. Her eyes now overflowed without restraint. She articulated with difficulty. Tears are too prompt with me of late, but they did not up-brade you. Pain has often caused them to flow, but now it is pleasure. What a heart must be yours, I resumed, when susceptible of such pleasures what pangs must formerly have rented. But you are not displeased, you say, with my importunate zeal. You will accept me as your own in everything. Direct me. Prescribe to me. There must be something in which I can be still of more use to you, someway in which I can be wholly yours. Holy mine, she repeated, in a smothered voice and rising. Leave me, Arthur, it is too late for you to be here. It was wrong to stay so late. I have been wrong, but how too late I entered but this moment. It is twilight still, is it not? No, it is almost twelve. You have been here a long four hours, short ones I would rather say, but, indeed, you must go. What made me so thoughtless of the time, but I will go, yet not till you forgive me. I approached her with a confidence, and for a purpose at which, upon reflection, I am not a little surprised, but the being called Mervyn is not the same in her company and in that of another. What is the difference, and whence comes it? Her words and looks engross me. My mind wants room for any other object. But why inquire whence the difference? The superiority of her merits and attractions to all those whom I knew would surely account for my fervor. Indifference, if I felt it, would be the only just occasion of wonder. The hour was, indeed, too late and I hastened home. Stevens was waiting my return with some anxiety. I apologized for my delay and recounted to him what had just passed. He listened with more than usual interest. When I had finished, Mervyn said he, you seem not to be aware of your present situation. From what you now tell me, and from what you have formerly told me, one thing seems very plain to me. Prithee, what is it? Eliza Hadwin. Do you wish—could you bear to see her the wife of another? Five years hence I will answer you. Then my answer may be, no, I wish her only to be mine. Till then I wish her only to be my pupil, my ward, my sister. But these are remote considerations. They are bars to marriage, but not to love. Would it not molest and disquiet you to observe in her a passion for another? It would, but only on her account, not on mine. At a suitable age it is very likely I may love her, because it is likely, if she holds on in her present career, that she will then be worthy. But at present, though I would die to ensure her happiness, I have no wish to ensure it by marriage with her. Is there no other whom you love? No, there is one worthier than all others, one whom I wish the woman who shall be my wife to resemble in all things. And who is this model? You know I can only mean Asha Fielding. If you love her likeness, why not love herself? I felt my heart leap. What a thought is that! Love her I do as I love my God as I love virtue. To love her in another sense would brand me for a lunatic. To love her as a woman, then, appears to you an act of folly. In me it would be worse than folly, to be frenzy, and why? Why really, my friend, you astonish me. Nay, you startle me for a question like that implies a doubt in you whether I have not actually harbored the thought. No, said he, smiling. Presumptuous though you be, you have not, to be sure, reached so high a pitch. But still, though I think you innocent of so heinous in offense, there is no harm in asking why you might not love her, and even seek her for a wife. Asha Fielding, my wife, good heaven, the very sound through my soul into unconquerable tumults. Take care, my friend, continue to I in beseeching accents. You may do me more injury than you conceive by even starting such a thought. True, said he, as long as such obstacles exist to your success, so many incurable objections, for instance, she is six years older than you. That is an advantage. Her age is what it ought to be. But she has been a wife and a mother already. That is likewise an advantage. She has wisdom because she has experience. Her sensibilities are stronger because they have been exercised and chastened. Her first marriage was unfortunate. The purer is the felicity she will taste in a second. If her second choice be propitious, the greater her tenderness and gratitude. But she is a foreigner independent of control and rich. All which are blessings to herself and to him for whom her hand is reserved, especially if, like me, he is indigent. But then she is unsightly as a night hag, tawny as a moor, the eye of a gypsy, low in stature, contemptibly diminutive, scarcely bulk enough to cast a shadow as she walks, less luxuriance than a charred log, fewer elasticities than a sheet-pebble. Hush, hush, blasphemer, and I put my hand before his mouth. Have I not told you that in mind, person, and condition she is the type after which my enamored fancy has modeled my wife? Oh, ho, then the objection does not lie with you. It lies with her, it seems. She can find nothing in you to esteem. And pray for what faults do you think she would reject you? I cannot tell. That she can ever balance for a moment on such a question is incredible. Me. Me, that Asha Fielding should think of me. Incredible indeed. You who are loathsome in your person, an idiot in your understanding, a villain in your morals, deformed, withered, vain, stupid, and malignant, that such a one should choose you for an idol. Pray, my friend, said I anxiously, just not. What mean you by a hint of this kind? I will not just then, but will soberly inquire what faults are they which make this lady's choice of you so incredible? You are younger than she, though no one who merely observed your manners and heard you talk would take you to be under thirty. You are poor, are these impediments? I should think not, I have heard her reason with admirable eloquence against the vain distinctions of property and nation and rank. They were once of moment in her eyes, but the sufferings, humiliations, and reflections of years have cured her of that folly. Her nation has suffered too much by the inhuman antipathies of religious and political faction. She herself has felt so often the contumelies of the rich, the high-born, and the bigoted that, prithee then, what dost imagine her objections to be? Why, I don't know. The thought was so aspiring to call her my wife was a height of bliss, the very far-off view of which made my head dizzy. A height, however, to attain which you suppose only her consent, her love to be necessary? Without doubt, her love is indispensable. Sit down, Arthur, and let us no longer treat this matter lightly. I clearly see the importance of this moment to this lady's happiness in yours. It is plain that you love this woman. How could you help it? A brilliant skin is not hers, nor elegant proportions, nor majestic stature. Yet no creature had ever more power to be which. Her manners have grace and dignity that flow from exquisite feelings, delicate taste, and the quickest and keenest penetration. She has the wisdom of men and of books. Her sympathies are enforced by reason and her charities regulated by knowledge. She has a woman's age, fortune more than you wish and a spotless fame. How could you fail to love her? You who are her chosen friend, who partake her pleasures and share her employments, on whom she almost exclusively bestows her society and confidence, and to whom she thus affords the strongest of all indirect proofs of impassioned esteem. How could you, with all that firmness of love, joined with all that discernment of her excellence, how could you escape the enchantment? You have not thought of marriage. You have not suspected your love. From the purity of your mind, from the idolatry with which this woman has inspired you, you have imagined no delight beyond that of enjoying her society as you do now, and have never fostered a hope beyond this privilege. How quickly would this tranquility vanish and the true state of your heart be evinced if a rival should enter the scene and be entertained with preference? Then would the seal be removed and the spell be broken, and you would awaken to terror and to anguish. Of this, however, there is no danger. Your passion is not felt by you alone. From her treatment of you, your diffidence disables you from seeing, but nothing can be clearer to me than that she loves you. I started on my feet. A flush of scorching heat flowed to every part of my frame. My temples began to throb like my heart. I was half delirious, and my delirium was strangely compounded of fear and hope, of delight and terror. What have you done, my friend? You have overturned my peace of mind. Till now the image of this woman has been followed by complacency and sober rapture, but your words have dashed the scene with dismay and confusion. You have raised up wishes and dreams and doubts which possess me in spite of my reason, in spite of a thousand proofs. Good God, you say she loves, loves me. Me, a boy in age, bred in clownish ignorance, scarcely ushered into the world, more than childishly unlearned and raw, a barn door simpleton, a plow-tail, kitchen hearth, turnip-hoeing novice. She, thus splendidly endowed, thus allied to nobles, thus gifted with arts and adorned with graces, that she should choose me, me for the partner of her fortune, her affections, and her life, it cannot be. Yet, if it were, if your guesses should prove, oaf, madman, to indulge in so fatal a chimera, so rash a dream? My friend, my friend, I feel that you have done me an irreparable injury. I can never more look in her face. I can never more frequent her society. These new thoughts will beset and torment me. My disquiet will chain up my tongue. That overflowing gratitude, that innocent joy, unconscious of offense, and knowing no restraint, which have hitherto been my titles to her favor, will fly from my features and manners. I shall be anxious, vacant, and unhappy in her presence. I shall dread to look at her, or to open my lips lest my mad and unhallowed ambition should betray itself. Well, replied Stevens, this scene is quite new. I could almost find it in my heart to pity you. I did not expect this, and yet from my knowledge of your character I ought perhaps to have foreseen it. This is a necessary part of the drama. A joyous certainty on these occasions must always be preceded by suspensors and doubts, and the clothes will be joyous in proportion as the preludes are excruciating. Go to bed, my good friend, and think of this. Time and a few more interviews with Mrs. Fielding will, I doubt not, set all to the rights. CHAPTER 48 I went to my chamber, but what different sensations did I carry into it from those with which I had left it a few hours before? I stretched myself on the mattress and put out the light, but the swarm of new images that rushed on my mind set me again instantly in motion. All was rapid, vague, and undefined, wearying and distracting my attention. I was roused as by a divine voice that said, Sleep no more. Mervyn shall sleep no more. What chiefly occupied me was a nameless sort of terror. What shall I compare it to? Me thinks that one falling from a tree overhanging a torrent, plunged into the whirling eddy and gasping and struggling while he sinks to rise no more would feel just as I did then. Nay, some such image actually possessed me. Such was one of my reveries in which I suddenly stretched my hand and caught the arm of a chair. This act called me back to reason, or rather gave my soul opportunity to roam into a new track equally wild. Was it the abruptness of this vision that thus confounded me? Was it a latent error in my moral constitution which this new conjuncture drew forth into influence? These were all the tokens of a mind lost to itself, bewildered, unhinged, plunged into a drear insanity. Nothing less could have prompted so fantastically for, midnight as it was, my chamber's solitude was not to be supported. After a few turns across the floor I left the room and the house. I walked without design and in a hurried pace. I posted straight to the house of Mrs. Fielding. I lifted the latch, but the door did not open. It was, no doubt, locked. How comes this, said I, and looked around me? The hour and occasion were unthought of. Habituated to this path I had taken it spontaneously. How comes this, repeated I, locked upon me? But I will summon them, I warrant me, and rung the bell, not timidly or slightly, but with violence. Someone hastened from above. I saw the glimmer of a candle through the keyhole. The door was opened and my poor Bess robed in a careless and hasty manner appeared. She started at the sight of me, but merely because she did not, in a moment, recognize me. Ah, Arthur, is it you? Come in. My mama has wanted you these two hours. I was just going to dispatch Philip to tell you to come. Lead me to her, said I. She led the way into the parlor. Wait a moment here. I will tell her you are come. And she tripped away. Presently a step was heard. The door opened again and then entered a man. He was tall, elegant, sedate to a degree of sadness, something in his dress and aspect that bespoke the foreigner, the Frenchman. What, said he mildly, is your business with my wife? She cannot see you instantly, and has sent me to receive your commands. Your wife? I want Mrs. Fielding. True, and Mrs. Fielding is my wife. Thank heaven I have come in time to discover her and claim her as such. I started back. I shuddered. My joints slackened, and I stretched my hand to catch something by which I might be saved from sinking on the floor. Meanwhile, Fielding changed his countenance into rage and fury. He called me villain, bade me avant, and drew a shining steel from his bosom with which he stabbed me to the heart. I sunk upon the floor, and all for a time was darkness and oblivion. At length I returned, as it were, to life. I opened my eyes. The mists disappeared. I found myself stretched upon the bed in my own chamber. I remembered the fatal blow I had received. I put my hand upon my breast, the spot where the dagger entered. There were no traces of a wound. All was perfect and entire. Some miracle had made me whole. I raced myself up. I reexamined my body. All around me was hushed, till a voice from the pavement below proclaimed that it was past three o'clock. What, said I, has all this miserable pageantry, this midnight wandering, and this ominous interview been no more than a dream? It may be proper to mention an explanation of this scene, and to show the thorough perturbation of my mind during this night. Intelligence gained some days later from Eliza. She said that about two o'clock on this night she was roused by a violent ringing of the bell. She was so startled by so unseasonable a summons. She slept in a chamber adjoining Mrs. Fieldings and hesitated whether she should alarm her friend. But the summons not being repeated she had determined to forbear. Added to this was the report of Mrs. Stevens, who, on the same night, about half an hour after I and her husband had retired, imagined that she heard the street door opened and shut. But this being followed by no other consequence, she supposed herself mistaken. I have little doubt that in my feverish and troubled sleep I actually went forth, posted to the house of Mrs. Fielding, rung for admission, and shortly after returned to my own apartment. This confusion of mind was somewhat elade by the return of light. It gave way to more uniform, but not less rueful and despondent perceptions. The image of Asha filled my fancy, but it was the harbinger of nothing but humiliation and sorrow. To outroot the conviction of my own unworthiness, to persuade myself that I was regarded with the tenderness that Stevens had ascribed to her, that the discovery of my thoughts would not excite her anger and grief I felt to be impossible. In this state of mind I could not see her. To declare my feelings would produce indignation and anguish. To hide them from her scrutiny was not in my power, yet what would she think of my estranging myself from her society? What expedient could I honestly adopt to justify my absence, and what employments could I substitute for those precious hours hitherto devoted to her? This afternoon, thought I, she has been invited to spend at Stedman's Country House on School-Kill. She consented to go and I was to accompany her. I am fit only for solitude. My behavior in her presence will be enigmatic, capricious, and morose. I must not go, yet what will she think of my failure? Not to go will be injurious and suspicious. I was undetermined. The appointed hour arrived. I stood at my chamber window torn by a variety of purposes and swayed alternately by repugnant arguments. I several times went to the door of my apartment and put my foot upon the first step of the staircase, but as often paused, reconsidered, and returned to my room. In these fluctuations the hour passed. No messenger arrived from Mrs. Fielding inquiring into the cause of my delay. Was she offended at my negligence? Was she sick and disabled from going, or had she changed her mind? I now remembered her parting words at our last interview. Were they not susceptible of two constructions? She said my visit was too long and bade me be gone. Did she suspect my presumption and is she determined thus to punish me? This terror added anew to all my former anxieties. It was impossible to rest in this suspense. I would go to her. I would lay before her all the anguish of my heart. I would not spare myself. She shall not reproach me more severely than I will reproach myself. I will hear my sentence from her own lips and promise unlimited submission to the doom of separation and exile, which she will pronounce. I went forth to her house. The drawing room and summer house were empty. I summoned Philip the Footman. His mistress was gone to Mr. Steadman's. How to Steadman's in whose company? Miss Steadman and her brother called for her in the carriage and persuaded her to go with them. Now my heart sunk indeed. Miss Steadman's brother, a youth, forward gallant and gay, flushed with prosperity and just returned from Europe with all the confidence of age and all the ornaments of education. She has gone with him, though pre-engaged to me. Poor Arthur, how art thou despised? This information only heightened my impatience. I went away but returned in the evening. I waited till eleven, but she came not back. I cannot justly paint the interval that passed till next morning. It was void of sleep. On leaving her house I wandered into the fields. Every moment increased my impatience. She will probably spend the morrow at Steadman's, said I, and possibly the next day. Why should I wait for her return? Why not seek her there and rid myself at once of this agonizing suspense? Why not go so there now? This night wherever I spend it will be unacquainted with repose. I will go. It is already near twelve, and the distance is more than eight miles. I will hover near the house till morning and then, as early as possible, demand an interview. I was well acquainted with Steadman's villa, having formerly been there with Mrs. Fielding. I quickly entered its precincts. I went close to the house, looked mournfully at every window. At one of them a light was to be seen, and I took various stations to discover, if possible, the persons within. Me thought once I caught a glimpse of a female, whom my fancy easily imagined to be Asha. I sat down upon the lawn, some hundred feet from the house, and opposite the window whence the light proceeded. I watched it till at length, someone came to the window, lifted it, and, leaning on her arms, continued to look out. The preceding day had been a very sultry one. The night, as usual after such a day and the fall of a violent shower, was delightfully serene and pleasant. Where I stood was enlightened by the moon. Whether she saw me or not I could hardly tell, or whether she distinguished anything but a human figure. Without reflecting on what was due to decorum and punctilio, I immediately drew near the house. I quickly perceived that her attention was fixed. Neither of us spoke till I had placed myself directly under her. I then opened my lips without knowing in what matter to address her. She spoke first, and in a startled and anxious voice. Who is that? Arthur Mervin. He that was two days ago your friend. Mervin! What is it that brings you here at this hour? What is the matter? What has happened? Is anybody sick? All is safe, all are in good health. What then do you come hither for at such an hour? I meant not to disturb you. I meant not to be seen. Good heavens, how you frighten me! What can be the reason of so strange? Be not alarmed. I meant to hover near the house till morning that I might see you as early as possible. For what purpose? I will tell you when we meet, and let that be at five o'clock. The sun will then be risen in the cedar grove under the bank, till when farewell. Having said this, I prevented all expostulation by turning the angle of the house and hastening towards the shore of the river. I roved about the grove that I have mentioned. And one part of it is a rustic seat and table, shrouded by trees and shrubs, and an intervening eminence, from the view of those in the house. This I designed to be the closing scene of my destiny. Presently I left this spot and wandered upward through embarrassed and obscure paths, starting forward or checking my pace according as my wayward meditations governed me. Shall I describe my thoughts? Impossible. It was certainly a temporary loss of reason. Nothing less than madness could lead into such devious tracks, drag me down to so hopeless, helpless, panicful adepts, and drag me down so suddenly lay waste as at a signal all my flourishing structures and reduce them in a moment to a scene of confusion and horror. What did I fear? What did I hope? What did I design? I cannot tell. My glooms were to retire with the night. The point to which every tumultuous feeling was linked was the coming interview with Asha. That was the boundary of fluctuation and suspense. Here was the ceiling and ratification of my doom. I rent a passage through the thicket and struggled upward till I reached the edge of a considerable precipice. I laid me down at my length upon the rock whose cold and hard surface I pressed with my baird and throbbing breast. I leaned over the edge, fixed my eyes upon the water and wept. Plentifully, but why? May this be my heart's last beat if I can tell why? I had wandered so far from Steadman's that when roused by the light I had some miles to walk before I could reach the place of meeting. Asha was already there. I slid down the rock above and appeared before her. Well might she be startled at my wild and abrupt appearance. I placed myself without uttering a word upon a seat opposite to her. The table between and crossing my arms upon the table leaned my head upon them while my face was turned towards and my eyes fixed upon hers. I seemed to have lost the power and the inclination to speak. She regarded me at first with anxious curiosity. After examining my looks every emotion was swallowed up in terrified sorrow. For God's sake, what does all this mean? Why am I called to this place? What tidings, what fearful tidings do you bring? I did not change my posture or speak. What, she resumed, could inspire all this woe. Keep me not in this suspense, Arthur. These looks and this silence shock and afflict me too much. Afflict you, said I at last. I come to tell you what now that I am here I cannot tell. Where I stopped. Say what? I entreat you. You seem to be very unhappy. Such a change from yesterday. Yes, from yesterday. All then was a joyous calm and now all is, but then I knew not my infamy, my guilt. What words are these? And from you, Arthur, guilt is to you impossible. If purity is to be found on earth it is lodged in your heart. What have you done? I have dared—how little you expect the extent of my daring that such as I should look upwards with this ambition. I stood up and taking her hands in mine as she sat, looked earnestly in her face. I come only to beseech your pardon. I tell you my crime and then disappear forever, but first let me see if there be any omen of forgiveness. Your looks they are kind, heavenly, compassionate still. I will trust them, I believe. And yet, letting go her hands and turning away, this offence is beyond the reach of even your mercy. How beyond measure these words and this deportment distress me? Let me know the worst. I cannot bear to be thus perplexed. Why, said I, turning quickly round and again taking her hands, that Mervyn, whom you have honored and confided in and blessed with your sweet regards, has been—what has he been? Divinely amiable, heroic in his virtue, I am sure. What else has he been? This Mervyn has imagined, has dared. Will you forgive him? Forgive you what? Why don't you speak? Keep not my soul in this suspense. He has dared, but do not think that I am he. Continue to look as now and reserve your killing glances, the vengeance of those eyes, as for one that is absent. Why, what, you weep, than at last? That is a propitious sign. When pity drops from the eyes of our judge, then should the suppliant approach. Now, in confidence of pardon, I will tell you. This Mervyn, not content with all you have hitherto granted him, has dared to love you, nay, to think of you as of his wife. Her eye sunk beneath mine, and, disengaging her hands, she covered her face with them. I see my fate, said I, in a tone of despair. Too well did I predict the effect of this confession. But I will go, and unforgiven. She now partly uncovered her face. The hand was withdrawn from her cheek and stretched towards me. She looked at me. Arthur, I do forgive thee. With what accents was this uttered? With what looks? The cheek that was before pale with terror was now crimsoned over by a different emotion, and delight swam in her eye. Could I mistake? My doubts, my newborn fears, made me tremble while I took the offered hand. Surely, faltered I, I am not, I cannot be so blessed. There was no need of words. The hand that I held was sufficiently eloquent. She was still silent. Surely, said I, my senses deceive me. A bliss like this cannot be reserved for me. Tell me once more, set my doubting heart at rest. She now gave herself to my arms. I have not words. Let your own heart tell you. You have made your Asha. At this moment a voice from without it was Miss Steadman's called. Mrs. Fielding, where are you? My friends started up, and in a hasty voice bade me be gone. You must not be seen by this giddy girl. Come hither this evening, as if by my appointment, and I will return with you. She left me in a kind of trance. I was immovable. My reverie was too delicious. But let me not attempt the picture. If I can convey no image of my state previous to this interview, my subsequent feelings are still more beyond the reach of my powers to describe. Agreeably to the commands of my mistress, I hastened away, evading paths which might expose me to observation. I speedily made my friends partake of my joy, and passed the day in a state of solemn but confused rapture. I did not accurately portray the various parts of my felicity. The whole rushed upon my soul at once. My conceptions were too rapid and too comprehensive to be distinct. I went to Steadman's in the evening. I found in the accents and looks of my Asha new assurances that all which had lately passed was more than a dream. She made excuses for leaving the Steadman's sooner than ordinary, and was accompanied to the city by her friend. We dropped Mrs. Fielding at her own house, and thither, after accompanying Miss Steadman to her own home, I returned upon the wings of tremulous impatience. Now could I repeat every word of every conversation that has since taken place between us, but why should I do that on paper? Indeed it could not be done. All is of equal value, and all could not be comprised but in many volumes. There needs nothing more deeply to imprint it on my memory, and while thus reviewing the past, I should be iniquitously neglecting the present. What is given to the pen would be taken from her, and that indeed would be, but no need of saying what it would be since it is impossible. I merely write to allay these tumults which our necessary separation produces to aid me in calling up a little patience till the time arrives when our persons, like our minds, shall be united forever. That time may nothing happen to prevent, but nothing can happen. But why this ominous misgiving just now? My love has infected me with these unworthy terrors, for she has them too. This morning I was relating my dream to her. She started and grew pale. A sad silence ensued the cheerfulness that had reigned before. Why thus dejected, my friend? I hate your dream. It is a horrid thought. Would to God it had never occurred to you. Why, Shirley, you place no confidence in dreams. I know not where to place confidence, not in my present promises of joy. And she wept. I endeavored to soothe or console her. Why, I asked, did she weep? My heart is sore. Former disappointments were so heavy, the hopes which were blasted were so like my present ones that the dread of a like result will intrude upon my thoughts. And now your dream. Indeed, I know not what to do. I believe I ought to still retract ought at least to postpone and act so irrevocable. Now I was obliged again to go over my catalogue of arguments to induce her to confirm her propitious resolution to be mine within the week. I at last succeeded even in restoring her serenity and beguiling her fears by dwelling on our future happiness. Our household, while we stayed in America, in a year or two we hide to Europe, should be thus composed. Fidelity and skill and pure morals should be sought out and enticed by generous recompenses into our domestic service. Duties which should be light and regular, such and such should be our amusements and employments abroad and at home, and would not this be true happiness? Oh yes, if it may be so. It shall be so, but this is but the humble outline of the scene. Something is still to be added to complete our felicity. What more can be added? What more? Can Asha ask what more? She who has not been only a wife. But why am I indulging this pen prattle? The hour she fixed for my return to her has come, and now take thyself away, quill. Lie there, snug in thy leatheren case, till I call for thee, and that will not be very soon. I believe I will abjure thy company till all is settled with my love. Yes, I will abjure thee, so let this be thy last office, till Mervyn has been made the happiest of men.