That same night there had been a gay
and sumptuous ball in London, at the
prime minister's. The king had himself
honored it with his presence for an hour
or two; and all that was gay and witty,
great and beautiful, wise, noble, or in any
way distinguished, had been assembled
round the monarch's person. Nothing
could possibly have been more brilliant in
the shape of a fête, nothing at the same
time more magnificent and merry.

But the ball had come to an end, as all
earthly pleasures will, even the purest and
the most enduring; and once ended had
left the heart full of bitterness and ashes,
or at the best vacant and exhausted. The
guests had departed to their homes, to
abuse one another, and criticise, as it might

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

be, the ostentation or the meanness of
their entertainers. The crash of carriages
and the din and quarrelling of drunken
servants had subsided into stillness; the
lights were extinguished in the ball-room;
the flowers were fading on the wall; the
tables were strewn with the relics of the
splendid supper; and who was now the
happier, for the wild gaiety, the lavish
luxury, the vast expanse!

In a large airy bed chamber situated in
the corner of a stately house in Spring
Gardens, the newly created marquis's, the
Lady Fanny Asterly was sitting by an open
window that overlooked the beautiful and
quiet Thames, pensive and melancholy,
and undressed, as if for bed; yet she sat
there as she had sat for about an hour,
and taken no thought of the time, nor
dreamed of lying down since she dismissed
her woman.

That evening she had been the beauty
of the ball-room, the admired of all men,
the observed of all the observers. Adulations
had flowed into her ears in one continuous
stream of silvery music; homage
the most devoted, attentions such as must
gratify every female heart, even when
those who tender them are but regarded
lightly, had been paid her on all sides.

Even the monarch had remarked her
charms with an observant eye, and struck
with her graceful manners and rare beauty,
had desired that she should be presented
to him. Beauty could have no greater
triumph than Fanny Asterly's had met at
that high festival. Nor, while the triumph
lasted, had she been insensible to something
akin to gratified ambition, to the high
perilous excitement of successful vanity,
and conscious superiority.

Her cheek had flushed with a warmer
and more bright carnation; her eye had
beamed more exultingly than its wont, as
she swam through the mazes of the
voluptuous dance, the cynosure of every
eye; and heard the stifled hum of admiration
which followed her steps everywhere—
that hushed and sincere applanse,
paid by the heart to loveliness, which every
woman understands, and to which she
who is insensible, can scarcely be called
woman. Greater or less it may be, but
not genuine, very woman—not that sweet
fascinating compound, whose very weakness
is so far more adorable than any
strength of mind or purpose; whose very
virtues are so much made up from, and
complicated with; those weaknesses, that
you can scarcely destroy one without
throwing down the other; whose very
love of pleasing and thirst for admiration
are perhaps half the secret of the
pleasure which she inspires—the admiration
which she wins from half reluctant
reason.

And Fanny Asterly was not insensible,
nor yet ungratified—for she was indeed all
woman—sweet, gentle, innocent, and amiable;
yet in her every phase of thought, in
her every fault, her every charm, a very,
very woman. Yes! she had been pleased,
delighted, almost intoxicated by the events
of that evening; yet now, though she had
not one thought or deed for which she
could reproach herself with justice, it
was with no sense of pleasure that she recurred
to the events of the ball.

She felt annoyed and angry with herself
that she shoutd have been pleased and
amused by such frivolous folly; she fancied
that she had been guilty of a sort of
half infidelity to Edward Hale, in suffering
herself to listen to the flatteries, and to be
pleased with the attentions of the young
cavaliers of the court of James.

“And this is his birth-day, too—this is
the very day on which, one little year ago,
he plighted me his faith, and we exchanged
rings in the linden avenue at
Asterly. Dear little ring—” and she raised
her finger to her lips, and kissed the senseless
gift of her lover's affection—“dear little
ring, how I love you—how I wish that
he were with me here who gave you to
me a year since; and he, I doubt it not,
he hath been thinking of me all this night;
while I, false girl, have been listening
and smiling, as if I had forgotten—but no!
no! Edward, Edward—” she went on, becoming
more excited as she gave vent to
her feelings—“it is not so—it is not. I
am true—true to you in my heart of
hearts, Edward! There is not, in my
most secret soul, dear Edward, one
thought which I would hide from thee—
one thought which I would hesitate to
tell—one thought on which thou wouldst
not smile thine approbation, even as, I
doubt not, in thy spirit there is not one
passing fancy which should raise a blush
or call up a frown on my cheek or brow,
did I know it.”

Alas! for the pure confidence of innocentand
guileless womanhood. Unsullied
herself as the virgin snow, her heart and
mind an unsoiled sheet, as it were, of
parchment, until love had inscribed there
one foundly cherished name, she never
doubted that he on whom she had set the
priceless jewel of her inestimable love
was spotless as herself from any taint of
voluptuous and sensual sin—nothing that
she could have heard, scarce anything
that she could have seen, were it not in
his own handwriting, or from his own

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

tongue, would have induced her to believe
that at this very moment he was
coveting if not loving the charms of another
woman.

Alas! alas! how does the boasted virtue
of the most virtuous and moral of
us men shrink into measureless vice,
when compared with the purity, the trust,
the truth of an innocent and loving woman.

Edward Hale was no worse, nay, he
was far less evil than the generality of
young men of his age, at that, or perhaps
at any day. Yet, troth-plighted as he
was to that sweet girl, he dreamed not
that he did her any wrong in dallying with
other women, in winning their affections,
in defrauding them of their virtues, so
long as he preserved his own heart and
his own affections in allegiance to her empire;
and by a sophistry not uncommon,
though most absurd and inconsistent, he
justified himself in this breach both of purity
and truth by saying to himself that
by her father's decision a year was yet to
pass before she could yet be his wife.
And she, while his heart was afire with
unholy passions for the betrothed wife of
another, and his brain busy with intrigues
whereby to work her ruin, she, in her exquisite
purity of soul, was accusing herself
of faithlessness, and almost weeping
over her own imaginary delinquencies, because
she had danced a few harmless
dances, and listened to a few unmeaning
compliments, and perhaps, at the most,
endured a casual pressure of the hand
from some gay coxcomb, whose attentions
had no meaning beyond the present.

But she was sad at heart—the excitement
of the last hours had ceased, and
the cold re-action had ensued, as is so frequently
the case, more painfully than the
bygone sensations had been pleasurable.
She was sad, almost sick at heart.

The moon was shining broadly into the
tall French windows of her chamber, for
she was near her full, and the skies were
almost as light as at noonday, except when
some great cloud came sweeping over the
bright disc, and veiling everything for a
few moments in clear and almost luminous
obscurity, when compared to the darkness
of a moonless midnight. And still she sat
there watching the vast shadows creeping
over the river's breast, and over the silent
streets, and drawing fancied auguries from
their strange forms and ghost-like movements.

After awhile she pressed her hand on
her heart and said, in low, mournful
tones, “I know not what it is—I know
not what ails me! I do wish that I had
seen Serena this morning, or that I could
see Arthur now—I have no reason, it is
true, for any fear or apprehension—yet I
do fear everything! Oh! how unhappy
I am—oh! how unhappy? There seemed
to fall a shadow on my heart, a chill upon
my spirit, as I saw that Sir Henry Davenant
pass by the window, with his bitter
and sarcastic smile—and he has seemed
to haunt me ever since! I met him twice
when I was walking out this morning in
the park, and both times he sneered at
me with his horrid supercilious courtliness—
and then, this evening at the ball, his
cold snake-like eye was never withdrawn
from my face for a moment; whenever I
stopped in the dance, or turned my head
from hearing some gay speech, I was
sure to catch sight of him. He put me in
mind of the skeleton the old Egyptians
used to place at their banquets as a ghastly
admonition. Whenever I beheld him,
my heart stood still within me; and my
blood seemed to run cold. Why can it be
that I so loathe that man? Can it be, that
the soul is prescient of its secret foes, and
is inexplicably warned against those that
shall work it woe?—No! no!—It cannot
be—and yet—I do believe—I do—that he
will one day injure me.” And she paused
for a long time, and sat still, thinking
deeply; but almost unconscious that she
was thinking at all, so wildly and fantastically
did her thoughts come and go; at
last she gave a sort of start; and exclaimed,—
“Yes! there is something going
on—there is something wrong and evil
plotting against us, I am sure. My
mother—I observed my mother's eye
many times to-day, fixed on me and not
lovingly.—She does not love me!—and
yet, my God, my God, what have I ever
done, or failed to do, that she should not?
She never loved me; never liked Edward!
alas! alas! and my father, though kind,
is not energetical.—Oh! Arthur, Arthur,
my dear brother, why are you not here,
why are you not at hand to help and comfort
your unhappy sister?—She wrote to-day
to St. Maur, and to Spencer, at his
house at Arrington, and not one word to
him! To Spencer—for what can she
write to him; but for evil—evil, it must
be evil! And oh! why will he associate
himself with comrades such as Lord Henry,
and this Captain Spencer, of whom no
man or woman had ever yet one good
word to say—whose very glance is poison!—
Oh! Edward—Edward—did you
but know—could you but know what
agony it gives me.—But no! he knows it
not—he cannot know it!—Nor can I send
him word at all, nor even summon him to

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

town, unless my brother should come
back!” For a few minutes she was again
silent, but then rising from her chair suddenly,
she fell down upon her knees, and
prayed fervently and long; and her meek
supplication finished, stood up refreshed
and strengthened, and feeling something
like a ray of heavenly consolation shining
upon her heart.

“Well, it is very late,” she said; “I
will to-bed, to-bed! but, I fear, not to
sleep!” and drawing the curtain over the
window, through which the moonlight
fell too brilliantly and full upon her couch,
she walked across the room to reach
something from a table, covered with
books and drawings, and a few stands of
flowers, before she lay down to rest.

She had taken up the article, whatever
it was, of which she was in search, and
was in the act of turning away from the
table, when her eye fell quite suddenly,
and as if by accident, upon a neatly folded
note, which she did not remember to have
seen when she came into the room, on
her return from the minister's ball. She
took it up; it was unopened, and secured
with a seal of red wax, bearing a deep impression,
an antique head of Minerva.
Thinking to herself that something must
have been lying over it when she looked
upon the table as she re-entered her room,
she walked with the note to the window,
in order to read it by the aid of the clear
moonlight.

Though she was very anxious, she
knew not why, to arrive at the contents;
and though she half prognosticated something
of evil tidings, she yet, as we often
do, even when we are the most impatient,
turned it again and again, to examine the
seal and superscription, and conjecture
from whom it possibly could have come,
when in all probability by opening it she
would have learned the whole in a moment.

Her hand literally shook as she broke
the seal, and her eyes swam, as if dazzled
by excess of light, so that some moments
passed before she could fix the letters.
At last, by a great effort, she composed
herself, and read as follows:

“One, who has seen and known the
Lady Frances Asterly, almost from her
cradle to the present day, although she
knows him not, nor has ever seen him—
who has watched her growth, daily, nay
almost hourly, from the wild buoyant
days of thoughtless infancy, through the
sweet spring of girlhood, up to her present
plenitude of glorious beauty—who has
marked every growing charm both of
mind and body—who has noted her fea
tures, full of rare inborn music, her form
ripe in most perfect loveliness—who has
read her soul, and knows it to be pure
and bright and spotless as the spirit of the
new-born babe, fresh from the hands of
the Creator—who loves her with an affection
surpassing that of a father, because,
unlike a father's, it is divested of all
prejudice, and arises only from his sense
of her exquisite and peerless beauty,
beauty both of mind and body. One who,
had he the means of altering his mission
and changing his existence, would be her
guardian spirit—one who has many times
already stood, though she knew it not,
between her and many an earthly peril—
writes now once more to warn, and if
possible to save her. Mark his words, innocent
and lovely one, mark his words;
and, although the task be a hard and bitter
one, believe them and be warned.
And oh! above all, fancy not that he who
writes these lines, has any secret or unworthy
object—that he is a resentful rival,
a discarded suitor, an avenger of
wrong done—”

“For I am none of these. Before thou
wert born I was old, wronged, and
wretched. It was a fate, a wondrous
fate, that interested me in thy birth, and
it has been my fate ever to cross thy path,
till I am, as it were, wound up in thy well
being. I had a daughter once, innocent
as thou art, and almost as beautiful—she
heard, but would not heed my warning—
she wedded, was deceived, lived wretched,
and died young, young and heart-broken,
as though wilt live, and die also,
Fanny, if thou attend not this my warning.

“He unto whom thy troth is plighted is
not what thou deemest him, not what
could make thee happy. Even now his
house is full of revelry and riot, debauchery
and—what it befits thee not to hear
of. His friends and chosen comrades, the
worst, the most notorious of the world's
wicked devotees. Beware! beware! ere
it shall be too late!

“Be warned by my words, Fanny; but,
even warned, I ask you not to act upon
them, until convinced that they are true—
true to the letter, or if lacking truth,
lacking it only in that they come not up
to the full measure of his wildness, his
unworthiness, his falsehood.

“Reject this warning, and you are lost
for ever!”

Eagerly she devoured every word of
this strange wild epistle. She read it and
re-read it, and in her own despite she felt
that it had left a sting in her soul. It was
in vain she said to herself, “Tush! it is

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but an ordinary slander! a vile thing composed
by a wretch who dares not sign
his name to the emanations of his own
guilty mind.” It was in vain; she could
not so banish it for there was something in
the whole style and wording of the letter,
in the antique and flowery phraseology,
in the obscurity and mystery in which the
writer was shrouded, in the dark sounding
prophecies, and the strange emphasis of
the warning, that made it obviously different
from a commonplace anonymous letter.

The character of Lady Fanny was naturally
somewhat poetical and romantically
inclined; and on this, doubtless, the writer
had calculated in framing his artful and
insidious missive. It happened, moreover,
that the very tone of thoughts in
which she was indulging herself at the
time, harmonized singularly with the
spirit of the letter, and of the warning it
contained. She had been secretly deploring
the connexion of her betrothed husband
with the men whom she knew to be
his companions at this moment; and lo!
the letter spoke, not in dark hints, but in
open language and spoke, as she believed
truly, their characters in the world's
estimation; and when the world does indeed
condemn unanimously, it is rare that
it condemns unjustly.

Besides, did it not challenge investigation?
Did it not recommend inquiry? It
could not, therefore, be a mere baseless
slander. Oh! of a truth it was very
plausible! A very cunning spirit had devised
that shaft, had steeped it in the very
poisons which with a devilish foresight it
knew would be the most likely to corrode
and canker that pure heart; and a strong
hand, and practised in the works of evil,
when the unguarded moment had been
duly chosen, sped it with sure aim to the
mark, to rankle there, and blight the very
soul of confidence.