coming has been perfectly convenient; and now only let me stay as long as I can be useful." "Then you must stay for ever," said Weymouth mournfully; "for you only have power to sway Florentia's anger. Even to you, Geraldine, it is a self-laceration for me to confess the agonies of the last six months. That I have been wronged or dishonoured I do not believe; she is alike too pure and too proud for that. But the step I have taken in prohibiting this Italian the house, and intercepting their correspondence I have never broken a seal, but burnt the letters unread-became imperative to save myself from insult, and her reputation from injury. Nay, Geraldine, do not weep, for your tears wring my heart more than my own sorrows." "This dreadful story," murmured Geraldine, seems more than I can realize. In the same house, yet refuse to see you!-you the most indulgent husband I ever knew. Violent and indignant at this first assumption of authority, and declaring she has ceased to love you!" "For a long time I have known that mournful truth," he replied; and, as he continued, his countenance assumed the same rigid mould of suffering which occasioned once before, but by a far different scene, was never to be forgotten by Geraldine--" for a long time I have known that wretched truth. And with love extinguished, sympathy dwarfed and dying, and my imagination shamed from the falsity which painted everything between us in its own bright colours, I have no hope but for our children's sakes to maintain the respectabilities of life, and let Ap- | pearance cheat the world and stalk like a ghost above the grave of my happiness." "Happiness!" the word was echoed, but not by Geraldine Harmer. At the moment Lionel had uttered it, Florentia glided into the room: she was attired in a loose white muslin wrapper, her long dark hair partially gathered up with a comb, but two or three heavy curls still falling on her shoulders; her cheeks were colourless, and her eyes heavy, as eyes become from want of sleep, or from the "weight of unshed tears." Geraldine's first impulse was to rise and embrace her; but Florentia waved her away, and resting her hand on the opposite side of the table which separated her from her husband also, she exclaimed, "Do not touch me, my sister, my friend. It was because I dreaded your affection that I refused to see you an hour ago. I feel that I shall lose my senses if I am melted to softness or tears, and there are many things I wish to speak of calmly and clearly." Geraldine attempted some soothing reply, but the words died on her lips; and both she and Weymouth felt awed to silence and attention. "I can read in your countenance," she continued, addressing Geraldine, "that he has made his deadly accusation; and only to you of all human beings, and only in his presence, would I deign to contradict this foulest charge. Hear me, just Heaven! By my children's sacred selves I swear it!" And raising the hand, already clenched, above her head, she poured forth asseerations of her innocence that were awful from the fervour and intensity of her expressions. "He does not doubt you-he does not doubt you," repeated Geraldine more than once ere the wretched wife comprehended her words: “ had you entered the room but a few minutes earlier, you would have heard his confident assertion." Mechanically, as it were, Florentia's eyes wandered from Geraldine's countenance to that of her husband, who, visibly affected, returned her gaze, it might be with more tenderness than she had seen in his looks for many a day. She took the hand he held towards her, and pressed it for a moment. "If I have not to defend myself." she said, but sinking now into a low chair that was beside her, "it is fit I should make a confession of such things as are true. Ah, Geraldine Harmer, you little thought when I was saved from the ocean which ought to have been my grave, that I should live to hate my life, and most of all to hate the destiny by which you fostered and cherished me. And Lionel Weymouth, my husband, you little guessed when early in our married days you showed me the letters which, still preserved with care, had travelled to another hemisphere and back again-the letters from Geraldine, which told my story, that their perusal was the sowing of deadly seeds in my heart. Little more than a child, I was ignoraut then of the heart's wants and its mysteries; but I lived quicklyand quickly learned a dreadful history. Yes, without knowing one detail, I know it-have long known it -as truly as if I were conscious of them all. You loved one another!" "Hush!" said Lionel, authoritatively; while Geraldine buried her face in her handkerchief, and could only by a gesture implore her to be silent. "I must speak," continued Florentia, but rising and bending over Geraldine, whom she caressed like a child. "Sister, I do not think you ever knew how much I loved you. Nobody could love you as much as I, because no one could know you so well; and when I left you for him-yes, even then there was an aching void in my heart that nothing but your presence could fill. A bad sign this, was it not? and such an one does not appear when pairs are mated by years, and sympathy and tastes, and a certain heart affection, that is not altogether what the world very falsely calls 'love.' Well, the deadly knowledge came-the knowledge that lifted up a curtain and explained everything which had seemed a mystery. The secluded youth -the single life-the perfect faith-and the bitter requital. And I-I-the creature of your goodness-I, who so loved you, to have been the cause of a life's misery-1 who would have died for you a thousand cruel deathsGeraldine, if I am mad do you have mercy on me." And Florentia, falling on her knees, flung her arms about the other as if she were indeed a maniac. Presently tears came to her relief, accompanied by deep drawn sobs. It was a dreadful scene for all; but one that was not now to be ended suddenly or abruptly. Like swimmers plunged in deep water, they could not touch the shore of safer discourse in a moment. "How bitter was my knowledge," pursued Florentia, when she had become a little calmer, "words cannot tell: the more bitter because I soon perceived that, grown used to my fatal beauty-it was that, you both know it was that which drew him to me-he discovered that my thoughts were not his thoughts, my pleasures and pursuits not his. It is pleasant to be pupil and teacher sometimes; but not always, as we were. He wanted a friend more often, and I was only a plaything. It might be different now, for my heart has grown old and wise lately; but love once burnt out is never to be rekindled; however, I too had discoveries to make. It is not good to analyze one's affections very closely-happy people never do it but I could not help such weakness, and I found that I too was unsatisfied. I found that I wanted the companionship of a young heart that had everything to hope for in life, instead of present existence to enjoy. I wearied of every luxury directly its novelty was gone; I wanted some one to laugh with my foolish thoughts and foolish deeds; not at, or worse-rebuke them; I wanted some one with whom, not from whom, hand in hand I could win my experience. I wanted a Young Heart to answer mine, even as he wanted one as wise and as gentle as yours." "One thing more," she continued; "and it shall be said, if I die in the telling. In him whose name has been slanderously coupled with mine the young poet, the exiled patriot-whose heart was one strong spring of hope and aspiration -whose love was the love of life or death, not like your English love!"-and her lip curled scornfully as she uttered the word-"not like your English love, whose pulses are regulated by the jingling of your gold; in him I recognized the soul's companion God had portioned for me. And yet we parted without a sign that could wrong my husband; parted with the cold measured adieu of friendship; parted without the utterance of one word that could open the tomb of either heart! Now tell me for what I have to live?" While she had been speaking Florentia had taken from the table the jewel-hilted dagger, which years before had been intended for some dark though unexplained purpose, but which from its costliness had been considered latterly a mere toy and ornament. She took it from its sheath, and felt with her hand the emper of the blade, which, blunted no doubt by time, and rusted from neglect, looked a less murderous weapon than it might formerly have done. Still there was something in the action which terrified Geraldine to a degree of which she felt almost ashamed, and coupled with the words, "tell me for what I have to live?" thrilled through her whole frame. "Your children, Florentia!" she exclaimed with much feeling, and attempting at the same moment to take the dagger from her hand. But Florentia started to her feet; there was a wild flash in her eyes which even Lionel noticed, and which communicated Geraldine's terrors to him. She clutched the dagger yet more tightly as she cried, "My children! they will be better cared for by their step-mother than they could be by me; they will be better loved by their father than now, when the only impediment to his happiness is removed." 66 Florentia, you are mad to talk thus wildly," exclaimed Weymouth, and attempting at the same moment to wrest the dagger from her grasp. But this was not to be easily done; and in the hand to hand struggle which ensued the point grazed her throat, so that the blood flowed freely. "Mad-mad-yes, I am mad!" she cried; “but not mad enough to be frightened at such a stream as this ;" and she resisted as earnestly as she could their a tempts to stay the bleeding. But let me not dwell on the terrors of a scene like this. Too many hearts there are so darkly learned that they can remember tragedies of human life, whose lurid light enables them to realize and understand those storms of passion which happier and less sadly experienced mortals can but feebly picture; scenes in which some human heart seems in its anguish torn open, its sacred depths laid bare, and unimagined horrors dragged to light! Before midnight Florentia raved in the delirium of brain fever! Raved chiefly of those two who were her most tender watchers of her husband and Geraldine Harmer-recognizing them at intervals, and perpetually joining their hands! Physicians crowded round her, but all their efforts were unavailing. By-and-bye her thoughts receded to the days of her childhood, and she talked of her tropical home and her dark-browed mother; yea, even with more precision than she had ever done by the light of life and reason! Oh, Death and Madness, what mysteries are in your presence and your coming! By degrees all newer memories were swept. from the seared and troubled mind, until she spoke only of those early years; of Netta the negress; her mother; the shipwreck; and the scene of confiding the dagger; but here she broke into the jargon of that mother tongue so long forgotten, and the words which might have been the revealing of an untold tale, died on the air without leaving a memory or a meaning behind them! And who shall say oblivion was not the best grave for a record so dread? And Florentia, the young and the beautiful, died in the flower of her days; died in her sorrow and madness; died clasped fondly by the Two whose hearts for long years she had sundered; the Two whom her death would, in the sure course of measured time, again make One; the Two whose souls were yet so wrung by the anguish of that last scene, that not a thought of self had place in either heart, where not one gleam of light from the future had power to dispel the agony of the present. It were a common figure of speech to say that Geraldine Harmer would have died to save that young life, and make its happiness. She had died a darker death for her sake-and another'syears ago. And not less true is it that at this dread hour the heart of Lionel Weymouth melted to a tenderness and affection he had not known even in the days of his passionate worship. The girlish wife-the early dead-the mother of his children-the once so wildly loved, were attributes that moulded into a sentiment and took root in his nature too deeply henceforth to change or depart. How strange those Two should mourn the Dead together!-and yet how natural! cherishing each token of her presence, and embalming her memory by every affectionate tribute! Why had she lived at all, or come like a meteor across their path? For some great purpose, inscrutable here, but decreed by a Power to whom our wisdom is folly. How strange the second wooing of Geraldine Harmer by Lionel Weymouth-and yet how natural! Life now wore a soberer hue than it had done some twenty years before; but if happiness seemed less extatic, it was more serene and secure. She, whose woman's life has thus been pencilled forth, is indeed a loving "mother" to the Geraldine and Florentia-who, "sisters" in truth, are almost shielded by guardian hands from even children's sorrows. But the Life of the Heart? Ah, that for them is still in the future. Time heals ever as he touches; softening even the harshest outlines by distance; and there is not a thing in the Past of which Lionel Weymouth and his wife cannot now talk freely and calmly. They stood one day near the drawingroom window already mentioned. It was months after their marriage, and two years since Florentia's death. Her children were playing in the verandah before them; the younger grown a little more stately with the increase of two years to her little life, while the elder had become gayer in a like proportion; so that strangers would have failed to see the different outlines of character, which they who loved them best nevertheless understood. Geraldine," said Lionel-his arm was round her waist, and he had been looking fondly in her face for a minute or two-" Geraldine, in my eyes you were never so beautiful as you now are. No, not even in the bloom of youth. I loved you then as well as my untried nature was capable of loving; but had I loved you as you deserved to be loved, I should not even have seen the change which I suppose ten years of absence worked. Or if I had seen I should have approved-should have felt that to be other than yourself precisely would have left something wanting-should have thought and knownHe paused a moment. دو and "What?" asked Geraldine, looking up, fondly kissing the hand she held in hers. "I should have known, he replied, that Love depends for its birth and existence on something quite irrespective of Youth and Beauty." MARY'S CHOICE. BY ADA TREVANION. Why should I sigh for the ruby's glow ? I love to behold them wreathe the hair I think, when their modest charms I view, Where once they lay 'mid the rainbow shells; I think of my old home far away, I think of the little coppice bower, And there are holier thoughts for me, Oh! rich are the gems to which the earth And potent 's the spell of that regal band To awaken dreams of the gay and grand; Then wish me not for my brow to twine CHAP. XIX. BOOK THE SECOND. THE UNEXPECTED MEETING. "The play's the thing." Hamlet. "Cheer up, Jerningham, my boy!" said Michael Brent, " your face is as long as a Chancery suit. A literary man must have the bravery of a lion, the endurance of a lamb; like the English at Waterloo, he must never know when he is beaten." It was a trying night for Edward Jerningham. Through the instrumentality of Greville and Michael Brent, his farce had been read and accepted, and this was the eventful eve fixed upon for its production. As he wandered about the streets on the morning of that day, its announcement on the playbills haunted him at every turn. He stopped once or twice to read the list of authors' names appended to the characters, for he had declined appearing at rehearsal, and the ever-useful Michael had undertaken the task; but if any stray passenger stopped too, or regarded him with a passing glance, he fancied himself recognized as the author, and hurried away, blushing guiltily. post. It struck six. He filled his glass, and tossed it off. Jerningham sat in his own lodgings, but not in the old house, with its cobwebbed gilding and echoing stairs, not with the simple, pretty Marie for his housewife. Lord Haverdale, after the meeting which followed their rencontre at the Baroness Flamingo's, had settled upon his ward a trifling allowance, which, though beggarly enough in itself, was sufficient to raise Jerningham above positive want. And as time passed on, and it became necessary to make known his “whereabouts" to the members of his miscellaneous acquaintance, the equivocal character of his position in such an asylum as the empty mansion, rendered manifest the necessity of a change. So he sought rooms in a street near Westminster, very cheap, and very high up in the house, and very low in the ceiling; and there he dwelt, in all the pride of literature it is true, but without much "pomp or circumstance" in point of furniture. His back window commanded the view of a wilderness of chimneys and tiles, his front window looked over the way, and no farther, for the opposite houses had a story more than those on his side of the way. On the right side of his retreat dwelt the wife of a waterman, who had no end of children; and many and various were the shrieks in treble which issued from these olive branches, who had always lungs of appalling healthfulness and vigour. On the left hand, an Irish lady, who took in washing, led an amphibious kind of life. The atmosphere near old Father Thames is always somewhat humid, not to mention the malaria arising from pollutions which empty themselves therein; and litters of superfluous kittens cast there to perish before their eyes are ever opened to the business of life; and over fed apoplectic spaniels, thrown there during the dog-days; and love-sick housemaids, who drown themselves then and there upon moonlight nights, because James the groom or Mr. Bilberry the grocer has been unkind. The airs of And now Jerningham sat in his own lodgings, endeavouring to gather consolation from the converse of Michael Brent, while Michael Brent fed the stream of his eloquence with tributary rivulets of brandy-and-water. A great many causes had combined to dispirit the neophyte in literary ways. The great comic actor of the house had thrown up his part at the last moment, and to ensure his perfect inability to appear, was now getting Bacchi plenus with all possible celerity under the Piazza in Covent Garden. Some new man had undertaken the rôle, and Jerningham shivered at the idea of all his crack hits being consigned to the tender mercies of a raw country barn-player. His ner-Thamesis are never exactly so aromatic as those vous irritation lent a scowl to every face he met, of " Araby the Blest;" but their mist was clear, and made the mizzling muddy weather more and their odours were a choice perfume, comdull and suicidal. He was in doubt whether to pared with the fog and the foulness of the Irish drown his intellects in the beverage which he lady's washing establishment. None of her had placed before his friend, or suspend his starch seemed to stiffen her own caps, they frame and his sorrows by a rope from the bed-hung despondently and limp as her curls, and her arms, with frequent vicissitudes of alternate heat and cold, were always chapped in winter and swollen in summer-time. Many an hour Jerningham sat biting his pen in the agonies of composition, and gazing upon the shirts and petticoats, and bibs and tuckers and frills which that lady extended from her window upon a pole to dry; and sadly he inhaled the scent of soapsuds and soda; and followed the reeking vapours of her cauldron with his eyes as they rose all heavily to upper air. But he had been busy of late. Upon visiting the Baroness a few mornings after his first introduction, the scheme of the Tale had been entered into and arranged. Much as Jerningham had been prepared by Michael Brent's imperfect outline of her life for the exhibition of an intellect peculiarly organized, the conversation of the Baroness, when uninterrupted by visitors, was doubly strange and enthralling. The stories she told him of Life, sometimes ludicrous, often tragic, but invariably startling, gave him an insight into the penetralia of society which riveted his imagination irresistibly, and lifted a veil that is seldom pierced even by those who have lived the allotted three-score years and ten. She possessed the true art of the raconteuse. Without daring to ask whether she had really witnessed all the scenes that she so vividly described, Jerningham felt that nothing short of personal experience could have given such a profound initiation into the byways of knowledge. No matter who was mentioned, she was equally at home. From the noble warrior who had fought England's last great battle to the young duke who might (she said) one day by revolution or right fill the throne of France, the Baroness Flamingo allowed none to escape. She had met them all "somewhere," and had a story to tell in connection with each. When Jerningham left her villa, he looked upon the whole world around him with a different eye. The delicate refined romance of youth, that paints all things couleur de rose, and makes love above everything a rainbow of nought but the bright and beautiful, was fled— gone for ever. But the more exciting side of human passions, the thrilling melodrama of the French stage, the intrigue and the counterplot, the hate that hates till death, the love that possesses its object or perishes, the romances which our writers breathed into the age of chivalry, deeming their fancies too exaggerated for the present working-day world, were here limned before his mental gaze as pictures of events that had passed around him during his entire existence, and were moving before him then. No wonder that Jerningham hurried home to his humble lodging, and, in spite of the waterman's twins on the right-hand side, and the Irish lady's soapy aroma on the left, that he struck off the first chapter of his tale with the rapid flight of a young eagle that has just felt its wings. And easily will the reader conceive, if he has ever dabb.ed in authorship, how carefully Jerningham folded up the sheets, and sealed them in a packet of impregnable strength. The landlady's son was then pressed into the service, with the promise of a shilling if he performed the service successfully, and the terror of frightful anathemas if he failed in conveying them safely to the Baroness. In spite of this young gentleman's predilection for chuckfarthing and Punch's show, and a desire to go over every post he saw, which seemed to be an indispensable condition of his being, the pregnant missive reached its destination. And the first notice Jerningham received of its fate was a copy of the Court Echo," with the commencement of his tale inserted therein, in all the glory of type and printer's ink, "to be continued." His first impulse was to blush with pleasure, his next to detect a fluttering but agreeable fear at the responsibility of the task he had undertaken. With the journal, however, a ticket for the opera was inclosed, and a note, expressing a hope that he would meet the Baroness in her box. The last proposal reassured him, but then came another tremor. The Farce! aye, there was the rub! He began to feel grey at the liabilities of his new position. "When the ancients were in any difficulty," said Michael Brent, rousing from a reverie, and drawing a protracted whiff from his pipe, “they called on the gods to aid them; even in the present godless time all have some worship, but you will neither minister to Venus nor Bacchus." "What are Venus and Bacchus to my farce?" said Jerningham; "they will not pay my bills if the farce fails to do it: look at that tailor's bill." Then came the destinies with the abhorred shears.' The 'shears' are a symbol of the craft.” "Here goes, then, to Bacchus," exclaimed Jerningham with a smile. "Ah! as old Fuller said so quaintly, doubtless God might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but doubtless God never did;' so it may be said that there is more ambrosial nectar than brandy-andwater; but it's a question." "In a bowl care may not be,'" sung Brent in mellow notes; "you can no more find it there than you can find a good dinner in a house where the footman has thin calves; remember that, Jerningham, my boy, as a golden maxin to be inscribed upon your wall with the reverence of a Chinese; when you dine out study the knocker (it should be a goodly round one), and the calves of the men servants, (they should be plethoric), otherwise depend upon it the house is as bad as Belgium for a dinner; and if you ever eat a beef-steak there you will never forget it: it is impossble to have, in fact, what the Tories call a stake in the country.” |