CHAPTER. I

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On the last day of June, in the
year —, a small vessel, which traversed
weekly the waters of Lake Champlain,
was seen slowly entering one of the
most beautiful bays of that most beautiful
lake. A travelling carriage with
handsome equipments, a coachman in
livery and an outrider, were drawn up
on the shore, awaiting the approach of

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the vessel. On the deck stood a group
of travellers for whom the equipage
was destined: a beautiful young woman,
and her attendant, a female slave, were
surveying it with pleased and equal
eagerness, while the father of the young
lady seemed quite absorbed in the contemplation
of a scene which poetry and
painting have marked for their own.
Not a breeze stirred the waters; their
mirror surface was quite unbroken, save
where the little vessel traced its dimpled
pathway. A cluster of islands lay in
beautiful fraternity opposite the harbour,
covered with a rich growth of wood,
and looking young, and fresh, and
bright, as if they had just sprung from
the element on which they seemed to
repose. The western shore presented
every variety of form; wooded headlands
jutting boldly into the lake, and
richly cultivated grounds sloping gently
to its margin. As the traveller's delighted
eye explored still farther, it

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rested on the mountains that rise in four
successive chains, one above the other,
the last in the far distance dimly defining
and bounding the horizon. A cloud
at this moment veiled the face of the
sun, and its rich beams streamed aslant
upon the mountain tops, and poured
showers of gold and purple light into
the deep recesses of the valleys. Mr.
Redwood, a true admirer of nature's
lovely forms, turned his unsated gaze to
the village they were approaching,
which was indicated by a neat church
spire that peered over the hill, on the
height and declivities of which were
planted several new and neat habitations.
“Oh Caroline, my child,” exclaimed
the father, “was there ever
any thing more beautiful!”

“Never, certainly, to my eye,” replied
the daughter; “but I think a carriage far
less handsome than ours would look
beautiful, after those little ville calêches,
and viler ponies, with which we made

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our entree into Montreal. Oh, papa,”
continued the young lady, too intent on
present pleasure and past mortification
to notice the shade of disappointment
that had chased away the animation of
her father's face; “Oh, papa, I never
shall forget our odious little Canadian
driver, half Indian, half French, the
rose tucked into his button-hole, the
signal of one nation, and the wampum
belt of the other; and then his mongrel
dialect. Oh that `marse donc,' with
which he excruciated his poney and us
at the same moment, does it not yet
ring in your ears?”

“I cannot say that my recollections
are quite as lively as yours, Caroline,”
rejoined Mr. Redwood.

“You are such an old traveller, papa,
and besides you are always thinking of
something else; but it is quite a different
affair with me. My heavens! you had
no imagination of my misery from the
moment I entered the calêche at la Chine,

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until I was safely sheltered in my room
at the hotel: you sat rolling your eyes
around the green fields as if they were
all drawing-rooms, and every dew-drop
a diamond, while I would gladly have
drowned myself in the St. Lawrence!”

“Really, my dear,” replied the father,
his tone bordering on contempt, “I did
not suspect you of any such mad designs
on your own sweet person—you seemed
very quiet.”

“Quiet, yes indeed, quiet enough;
how could I help myself? but you must
own, papa, that it was excessively mortifying
to make our entrance into the city
in such style. Grandmamma says that
people of fortune should never lay aside
the insignia of their rank.”

“Your grandmother's jumble of fortune
and rank have a strong savor of
republican ignorance. I would advise
you, Miss Redwood, not to adopt her
wise axioms as rules for the conduct of
your life. And you really allowed

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yourself to suffer mortification on account of
entering the little city of Montreal, in
the best mode the country provides for
travellers—a place too, where not a
creature knew you from any other member
of the human family?”

“Ah, there Sir, you are quite mistaken;
for Captain Fenwick had written
to all the officers of his corps our intention
of going to Montreal, and he told
me that he had described me so particularly
to his friend Captain Fitzgerald,
that he was sure he would know me at a
single glance of his eye.”

“Then we are indebted to Captain
Fenwick for the honour of Fitzgerald's
civilities? I fancied our acquaintance
with him had been accidental.” The
penetrating look with which Mr. Redwood
finished his sentence, gave it an
interrogative meaning, and his daughter
feeling herself bound to reply, said,
rather sullenly, “Our introduction was
purely accidental: you saw it, Sir, and I

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thought at the time, seemed quite grateful
that the timely aid of the Captain's
arm saved me from being run over.”

“I was and am grateful, my child, for
the aid which the gallant Captain's arm
afforded you; though it may be, that
stoic as I am, I measured my gratitude
rather by the danger than the alarm.
The frightened animal, as well as I
remember, turned into another street,
instead of passing by the way we were
going; but this is neither here nor there;
I merely expressed an innocent surprise,
that there should have been grounds for
your acquaintance with Captain Fitzgerald
which you never intimated to me.”

“Lord, papa, it is so awkward to talk
to you about such matters; I am sure
I had no other objection to telling you
that Fitzgerald knew all about us before
he saw us.”

“All about you, Miss Redwood; for I
am quite a cypher in the eyes of such
men as the Captain, having no other value

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than what results from being your adjunct.
Fitzgerald was then apprised
that you are a belle, and will be an
heiress?”

“Probably. And if I do possess the advantage
of those distinctions, I am sure
I ought to be much indbeted to Captain
Fenwick for making them known, that
I may enjoy them abroad as well as at
home.” Mr. Redwood thought the distinctions
which procured for his daughter
a host of such admirers as Fitzgerald
of very doubtful advantage, and would
perhaps have said so, but the vessel at
this moment touched the wharf, and the
bustle of disembarking put an end to
the conversation. The travellers having
arranged themselves in the carriage,
Mr. Redwood ordered the coachman to
drive to the village tavern, where he
said it was his intention to pass the
night. A short drive carried them to
the door of the village inn. The landlord
was sitting on a bench before the

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door, alternately reading a newspaper,
and haranguing half-a-dozen loiterers
on the great political topics that then
agitated the country: his own patriotic
politics were sufficiently indicated by
the bearings of his sign-board; on one
side of which was rudely sketched the
surrender of Burgoyne, and on the other,
an American eagle with his talons triumphantly
planted on a British lion. It
cannot be pretended that the skill of
the artist had been adequate to revealing
his design to the observation of the
passing traveller; or rather the design
of “Major Jonathan Doolittle,” whose
name stood in bold relief on one side,
under the shadow of the spread wing of
the eagle; and on the other under the
delineation of the victory, which, according
to the major's own opinion, he had
been a distinguished instrument in
achieving. But any deficiency in the
skill of the artist was abundantly supplied
by the valuable comment of the

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major, whose memory or imagination
filled up the imperfect outline with every
particular of the glorious victory. The
carriage drew up to the door of the valiant
publican, and in answer to Mr.
Redwood's inquiry for the landlord, the
major replied without doffing his hat or
changing his attitude, “I am he, Sir, in
the room of a better.” Mr. Redwood
then inquired, if he could obtain accommodation
for the night. The major replied
exchanging with his compatriots a
knowing wink, “that he rather guessed
not: he did not lay out to entertain people
from the old countries; his women
folks thought they took too much waiting
on.” Caroline whispered an entreaty
to her father, to order the coachman
to drive on; but Mr. Redwood,
without heeding her, said, “you mistake
us, friend, we are your own country
people, just returning from a visit to
the British provinces, and as we have
our own servants, and shall not need

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much waiting on, you will not perhaps
object to receiving us.” The major's
reluctance was somewhat abated by
this information, and would probably
have been quite overcome, but for his
desire of keeping up his consequence in
the eyes of the by-standers, by showing
off his inherent dislike of an unquestionable
gentleman. He said, they were
calculating to have a training the next
day, and the women folks had just put
the house to rights, and he rather
guessed, they would not choose to have
it disturbed, but it was according as
they could agree; “and if,” he added,
for the first time rising and advancing
towards Mr. Redwood, “if the gentleman
could make it an object to them to
take so much trouble, he would go in
and inquire.”

This last interested stipulation of the
major filled up the measure of Mr.
Redwood's disgust; and turning abruptly
from him to a good-natured

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looking man, who, at that moment
riding past them on horseback, had
checked the career of his horse to gaze
at the travellers, he inquired the distance
to the next village. “That,” replied
the man, “is according to which road
you take.”

“Is there any choice between the
roads?”

“It's rather my belief there is;
anyhow, there is many opinions held
about them. Squire Upton said, it was
shortest by his house, if you cut off the
bend by deacon Garson's; and General
Martin maintained, it was shortest
round the long quarter, so they got out
the surveyor and chained it.” “And
which road,” interrupted Mr. Redwood,
“proved the shortest?”

“Oh there was no proof about it;
the road is a bone of contention yet.
The surveyor was called off to hold a
Justice's court before he had finished
the squire's road, and—”

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“Which do you believe the shortest?”
exclaimed Mr. Redwood, impatiently
cutting short the history of the important
controversy.

“Oh, I,” replied the man, laughing,
“and every body else but the squire,
calculate it to be the shortest way round
the long quarter, and the prospects are
altogether preferable that way, and that
is something of an object, as you seem
to be strangers in these parts.”

“Oh Lord,” exclaimed Caroline,
“it will soon be too dark for any prospect
but that of breaking all our necks!”

“Do you think,” pursued Mr. Redwood,
“that we shall be able to arrive
before dark?”

“That's according as your horses are.”

“The horses are good and fleet.”

“Well then, Sir, it will depend something
on the driver; but if you will
take my advice, you will stop by the
way. It is not far from night; there is
a pretty pokerish cloud rising; it is a

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stretchy road to Eaton, and it will be
something risky for you to try to get
there by daylight. But, Sir, if you find
yourself crowded for time, and will stop
at my house, we will do our best to
make you comfortable for the night.
If you will put up with things being in
a plain farmer-like way, you shall be
kindly welcome.”

Mr. Redwood thanked the good man
heartily for the proffer of his hospitality,
but declined it, saying, he doubted not
they should be able to reach the next
village before the storm. He then directed
his coachman to drive on rapidly;
and exchanging a farewell nod with his
informant, who rode on briskly before
him, he sunk back into his seat, and relapsed
into silence and abstraction.

Meanwhile, Caroline sat listening in
trepidation to the hoarse, though yet
distant threatenings of the thunder, and
watching with a restless eye the fearful
clouds that rolled darkly, volume over

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volume, in their ascent to mid heaven.
“For gracious sake put your head out
of the coach, Lilly,” said she to her
servant, “and look if there is any sign
of the village.” Lilly could just discern
the spire of a church that stood on a
distant hill. “On a hill of course,” replied
Caroline; “one would think these
Yankees had contrived their churches
for telegraphs. I am delighted at any
rate, that there is a landmark in sight.
For heaven's sake, papa,” she added,
impetuously turning to her father, “do
rouse yourself, and look at those clouds.”

“I have been looking, my child, for
the last half hour, watching the fading
away of the bright tints from the edges
of that beautiful mass of clouds, and
thinking them a fit emblem of human
life. Thus we gaze upon the brilliant vapour,
and are dazzled with its changeful
hues, till the storm bursts in fury on our
heads. Hark, Caroline, how the wind
sighs through the branches of the trees:

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does it not seem as if nature thus expressed
her dread of the violence that is
about to be done to her beautiful face?”

“Oh, what does master mean,” inquired
Lilly; “does he think our faces
will be struck with the lightning?”

“Heaven only knows what your master
means. Do, papa, tell Ralph to
drive faster, the darkness is horrible.”

Mr. Redwood soon felt that his daughter's
terrors were not groundless. The
clouds had gathered a portentous blackness,
strong gales of wind were rushing
over the lake, the rain already poured
in torrents, and there were only such intervals
between the lightning as served
to contrast the vivid flashes with the
thick darkness; the thunder burst in
loud explosions over their heads, and its
fearful peals were prolonged and reverberated
by the surrounding hills. The
horses became restive, and the coachman
called to his master for permission to
stop at the next habitation. This was

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readily granted, and the coachman reined
his horses into a road that led off the
highway, over a little knoll to a farm
house which stood on a small eminence
at the right. Some rocks, a few feet in
height, served as an embankment to the
read on the left. The coachman cracked
his whip, and the horses were pressing
on at their utmost speed, when a thunder-bolt
struck an enormous dead tree a
little in advance of them, fired its driest
branches, descended the trunk of the
tree, and tearing to splinters the parts
it touched, laid the roots bare, and passed
off across the road. The horses
terrified by the excessive vividness of the
lightning, or the flaming tree, or perhaps
both, sprang to the left, and before the
coachman, scarcely less terrified than
they, had made an effort to control their
movements, they had dashed over the
rocks, and forced the carriage after
them. The horses sprang through a
clump of young walnuts that grew at

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the base of the rocks. Most happily the
carriage was too wide for the passage,
and the axles of the wheels were caught
by the trees: the sudden check given to
the velocity of the motion of the carriage
broke the traces, and the released
horses bounded away, leaving it and its
inmates in perfect safety.

The moment Mr. Redwood perceived
the horses would inevitably descend the
rocks, he had instinctively opened the
carriage door and sprung out: he fell
against the trunk of a tree, and when he
attempted to rise to move to his daughter's
relief, he felt himself disabled, and
sunk back insensible. Fortunately the
coachman, quite unharmed, flew to the
aid of the mistress and maid, who were
both shrieking in the carriage. “Oh,
stop the horses, stop the horses!” cried
Caroline.

“The horses, Miss Caroline, are gone.”
“Gone; but oh, Raphy, won't they come
back again?”

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Upon Ralph's repeated assurances
that there was not the slightest danger
of, or from such a circumstance, Caroline
alighted, and found to her surprise, life
and limb unscathed. When she had
quite satisfactorily ascertained this fact,
she turned to look for her father, but
when she saw him stretched on the grass
the image of death, she shrunk back appalled.
At this moment she heard some
persons approaching to their assistance;
they were from the neighbouring farm-house,
and had been alarmed by her
shrieks which they had heard even amid
the “wild war of earth and heaven.”
“Make the best of your way, miss, to the
house,” said one of the men kindly, “we
will bring the gentleman in our arms.”
Caroline followed the direction, and
was met at the door by several females,
who clustered about her with expressions
of pity, and offers of assistance.
She moved past them all, and throwing
herself into a chair, vented her feelings

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in loud hysterical sobbings; while Lilly
set up a most doleful cry of “Oh, what
will become of us, master is killed, and
the horses are gone!” The mistress of
the house with a voice of authority commander
her to be still; and at this moment
the men entered, bearing in Mr.
Redwood, pale as death, but sensible and
calm. “Thank God you are not hurt,
my child,” he said, on seeing Caroline,
“and I am better.” The door of a spare
room being now thrown open, the bed
uncovered, the pillows shaken up, the
mistress of the house pointed to the men
to deposit their burthen there. Caroline
and her servant followed Mr. Redwood;
but so much were they both terrified by
his paleness, and the distortion of his
face from the extreme pain he endured,
that they were incapable of offering him
any assistance. Not so the good matron
and her young hand-maidens. It seemed
to be their vocation to act; and so efficient
were they in their prompt

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ministration of camphor and cordials, that he
was soon in a state fully to understand
his condition and wants. He said to his
daughter that it would be necessary for
him to remain where he was for the
present, to summon a physician immediately,
to ascertain the injury he had
sustained, and to set his arm if the bones
were, as he apprehended, displaced;
against this the daughter warmly remonstrated.

His host, having overheard a part of the
debate, which was conducted in an under
tone, said he would call Debby. “Debby,”
he said, “was as skilful as the run
of doctors; she was a nat'ral bone setter;
at any rate, if the gentleman was
not willing to trust himself in her hands,
she could tell if there were any broken
bones.” Debby was summoned, and
soon made her appearance, muttering
something about the boys, boy fashion,
having left out the old mare, and she
guessed she felt as much pain with her

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broken leg, as your quality. She, however,
seemed a little softened at the sight
of Mr. Redwood, who was evidently
suffering acute pain, and what probably
interested Debby more, bearing it manfully.
“Not,” she continued, “that I
would put a beast's life against a man's;
but she is a good creature, and a sarviceable,
and it is a shame for the boys to
neglect her because she grows a little
old and unsightly.” The boys, as she
denominated two full grown young
men, who stood at the foot of the bed,
exchanged smiles, as if they were too
much inured to this privileged railer to
heed her reproaches. Mr. Redwood
shrunk from her touch as she approached
him; but without noticing his alarm,
she thrust her hand into an enormous
pocket, which hung on one side of her
gaunt person, and extricating from its
miscellaneous contents a large pair of
scissors, (which one would have thought
stood as little chance of being found as

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a needle in a hay-mow,) she cut open
the sleeve of the coat with more care
and adroitness than could have been expected
from such an operator, and then
unceremoniously tearing down the shirt
sleeve, she proceeded to the examination
of the arm, which she pronounced a bad
business. The shoulder she said was out
of joint, and a breakage into the bargain:
“and do you, James,” said she,
turning to one of the young men,
“mount Rover, and go for Doctor Bristol,
and tell him to come as fast as horse-flesh
can bring him, for it an't all nature can
set this arm after to-night. And James,
child,” she added, “be careful when
you take Rover out of the stable, not
to hit the old mare; for beasts have
feelings too.”

There had been such promptness in
Miss Debby's proceedings, and the
family was obviously so much in the
habit of obeying her orders, that Mr.
Redwood had not as yet been able to

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interpose a question; but as James
turned to execute Debby's order, he
said, “stop, young man; before you go
I should like to know who this Dr.
Bristol is, and to ascertain his ability to
perform a delicate operation; and I
must know from you, my friend,” he
continued, turning to the master of the
house, (whom he had just recognised to
be the same person who had so kindly
invited him to accept a shelter beneath
his roof,) “whether you can accommodate
my daughter and myself, while we
may be detained by this unlucky accident?”

Mr. and Mrs. Lenox (the farmer and
his wife,) were eagerly beginning to
proffer their hospitality, with the courtesy
of genuine kindness, when Debby
interrupted them, with saying, “go
along, James, is this no time to stand
upon compliments, go like the wind, a
miss is as good as a mile.”

James obeyed; and Mr. Lenox said,

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I believe you may trust Dr. Bristol, Sir;
he doctors all the country round, and in
all curable cases, under Providence, he
cures. He studied under Rush, and has
but few equals in these parts.”

“No, no,” said Debby, “nor in any
other parts: he is a real likely man, and
they a'n't much thicker any where than
swallows in January.” “But,” interposed
Mr. Lenox, “as the gentleman is
a stranger among us, it is natural, and
very right that he should be mistrustful.”

“Oh, quite right,” replied Debby,
“and rational; and I like him all the
better for it; none but your parfect fools
believe in any thing and every body.
But it is,” she continued, with the goût
of an amateur in the matter, “it is a real
pleasure to see Dr. Bristol set bones; it
is beautiful. There was Tom Russel,
fool and mad-cap that he was, and bating
his being a human creature, better
dead than alive, that fell off from the

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steeple of our meeting-house; there was
scarce a whole bone left in his body;
and when the doctor first overhauled
him, he looked dumb-foundered, for he
is tender-hearted for all being a doctor
I spirited him up, and he went to work,
and a quicker, neater piece of work,
never has been done since the days of
miracles: the bones went snap, crack,
like the guns of our militia boys; not
quite so loud may-be, but full as reg'lar.”

“God Grant,” exclaimed Mr. Redwood,
(who had been writhing under
Debby's story,) “that your doctor may
not have lost his gifts, nor his skill.”
“No,” replied Debby, “a wise man
a'n't apt to lose either.” Mr. Redwood
felt a natural apprehension, lest he
should not be able to obtain the aid of
this physician, whose skill seemed to
have inspired such confidence, and he
inquired of Mr. Lenox, if he thought it
probable the messenger would find him
at home. “Almost certain,” replied

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Mr. Lenox, “he was here yesterday to
pay his last visit to a young man who
has been a long time sick, poor fellow:
he died last evening.” “A consolatory
proof of your doctor's skill,” murmured
Mr. Redwood.

Half-a-dozen mouths were opened at
once to explain the doctor's failure.
Deborah's shrill tones prevailed over
every other voice; “our days are all
numbered, man,” she said, “and to all
there comes a sickness that neither doctors
nor doctor's-trade can cure; and
besides, as to in'ard diseases, there's
none but your pretensioners that profess
to understand them at all times.”

“And poor Edward,” interposed
Mr. Lenox, “died, I believe, of that
which you may well call an inward disease,
for which there is no help in this
world, a broken heart.” “As much that
as any thing,” said Debby; “at least
that might be called the 'casion of it all;
and it is far easier,” she continued,

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looking at Mr. Redwood, “mending broken
bones than broken hearts.”

“And far easier breaking bones than
hearts,” replied Mr. Redwood.

“That,” said the indefatigable
Deborah, “depends something upon
what the heart is made of. Some
hearts are tough as a bull's hide; you
might as well break a rock with sun-beams
as break them with such troubles
as snapped the chord of poor Eddy, a
weakly narvous feeling creature.” Mr.
Redwood, was suffering too severely to
indulge any curiosity in relation to
Eddy. All parties became silent, and
remained so until the arrival of the
physician, save the occasional interruption
of a groan from the stranger, or an
expression of sympathy from some one
of the group that surrounded his bed.
We may profitably fill this interval
with a description of the various persons
that the occasion had assembled. And
first, as most conspicuous, the stranger,

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mutilated as he was, appeared a finely
formed and graceful man, with a certain
air of gentility and high-breeding,
which even an unpractised eye may
detect in the most unfavourable circumstances.
He was rather above the ordinary
height, and extremely thin. His
high forehead, from which the hair had
receded; the hair itself,


“Jet black save where some touch of gray
Had ta'en the youthful hue away;”
and the deep furrow in his cheeks, indicated
that sorrow in some of its Proteus
shapes, had accelerated the work of time;
that the fruit which youth had promised,
had been blasted—not ripened. His
face was a history; but there were few
that possessed the key by which the
settled gloom of his pallid brow, and
the melancholy of his fine hazle eye
might have been interpreted. The
figure of Deborah supporting the elegant
traveller, looked like the

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roughhewn stone beside the exquisitely polished
statue on which the sculptor has expended
all his art.

Miss Debby's person, mind, and history,
were altogether singular. Her
height was rather above the grenadier
standard, as she exceeded by one inch
six feet; her stature and her weatherbeaten
skin would have led one to suspect
that her feminine dress was a vain
attempt at disguise, had not her voice,
which possessed the shrillness which is
the peculiar attribute of a woman's, testified
to Miss Debby's right to make
pretensions which at the first glance
seemed monstrous; her quick grey eye,
shaded by huge, bushy eye-brows, indicated
sagacity and thought; time, or
accident, had made such ravages on her
teeth, that but a very few remained,
and they stood like hardy veterans who
have by dint of superior strength survived
their contemporaries.

As Debby would not voluntarily

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encumber herself with any toilette
duties that could in decency be dispensed
with, she had never put any covering on
her hair, which time had now considerably
grisled; but she wore it confined in one
long braid, and so closely bound with a
black ribbon, that it did not require, in
her judgment, more than a weekly
adjustment. The only relict of worldly
or womanly vanity which Debby displayed,
was a string of gold beads,
which according to a tradition that had
been carefully transmitted to the younger
members of the family, had been given
to their Aunt Debby some thirty years
before by a veteran soldier, who, at the
close of our revolutionary war, was captivated
by the martial air of this then
young Amazon.

But Debby was so imbued with the
independent spirit of the times, that she
would not then consent to the surrender
of any of her rights: and there was no
tradition in the family that her maidenly

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

pride had suffered a second solicitation.
The careful preservation of the beads,
and a certain kindliness and protecting
air towards all mankind, indicated
ever after a grateful recollection of her
lover. On the whole, there was in
Deborah's face, rough and ungainly as
it was, an expression of benevolence
that humanized its hard features, and
affected one like the sun-beams on a
frosty November day. She was an
elder sister of Mr. Lenox; had always
resided with his family; and was treated
with deference by all its amiable members.

Mr. Lenox, as master of the family,
was entitled to precedence in our description;
but in this instance, as in many
others, a prominent character has controlled
the arrangement of accidental
circumstances. He belonged to the mass
of New-England farmers, was industrious
and frugal, sober and temperate,
and enjoyed the reward of those staple

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

virtues, good health and a competency.
He was rather distinguished for the
passive than the active virtues, patient
and contented; he either enjoyed with
tranquillity, or resigned without repining.
His wife (we believe not a singular case
in matrimonial history,) was his superior:
intelligent, well-informed, enterprising,
and efficient, she was accounted
by all her neighbours an ambitious woman.
The lofty may smile with contempt,
that the equivocal virtue, which
is appropriated to the Cæsars and the
Napoleons, should be so much as mentioned
in the low vales of humble life.
But the reasonable will not dispute that
Mrs. Lenox made ambition virtue,
when they learn that all her aspirations
after distinction were limited to the appropriate
duties of her station. Her
husband and sons wore the finest cloth
that was manufactured in the county
of —. Mrs. Lenox's table was covered
with the handsomest and the

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

whitest diaper. Her butter and cheese
commanded the highest price in the
market. Besides these home-bread virtues,
she possessed the almost universal
passion of her country for intellectual
pleasures. She read with avidity herself,
and eagerly seized every opportunity
for the improvement of her children.
She had married very young, and was
still in the prime of life. The elder
members of her family were already
educated and established in the world;
and she had the prospect of enjoying
what Franklin reckons among the benefits
of our early marriages, “an afternoon
and evening of cheerful leisure.”
Her eldest son, with very little aid from
his parents, had, by his own virtuous
exertions, obtained a collegiate and
theological education, and was established
a popular clergyman in one of
the southern cities. Her second son
had emigrated to Ohio, and had already
transmitted to his parents a drawing

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

and description of a prosperous little
town, where, five years before, his axe
had first announced man's right to dominion
over the forest. Two sons remained
at home to labour on the paternal
farm; and four girls, from ten to
eighteen, diligent, good-humoured, and
intelligent, completed the circle of the
domestic felicities of this happy family.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Lenox had the wise
and dutiful habit, which, in almost any
condition, might generate contentment,
of looking at their own possessions, to
awaken their gratitude, rather than by
comparing the superior advantages of
others with their meaner possessions, to
dash their own cup with the venom of
discontent and envy, a few drops of
which will poison the sweetest draught
ever prepared by a paternal Providence,

On the kindness of this family Mr.
Redwood and his daughter were cast
for the present; and proud and powerful
in the possession of rank and fortune,

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

Miss Redwood was obliged to learn
the humiliating truth, that no human
creature can command independence.
Mr. Redwood had been all his life a
traveller, and was a man of the world.
He comprehended at once the embarrassments
of his situation, and gracefully
accommodated himself to the inconveniences
of it, and in such a way,
as to conciliate the favour of the goodhearted
people about him. How far his
daughter imitated his wise example, the
following pages will show.

CHAPTER II.

“A country doctor,” said Touchwood sneeringly; “you
will never be able to make any thing of him.”

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

Before the return of James Lenox
with the physician, Mr. Redwood had
made an arrangement with Mr. Lenox,
who consented to consider the strangers
as boarders while Mr. Redwood's accident
should detain him at the place we
shall call Eton. Some little bustle in
the entry announced the arrival of the
physician, and he entered the apartment
followed by Caroline, who with
more alarm than she had testified before,
advanced hastily to her father, and said
in a tone which, though a little depressed,

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

was still overheard by all the by-standers—
“My dear father, you surely will
not suffer yourself to be murdered by a
country doctor; pray, pray, remember
poor Rose.”

“Your grand mother' slap-dog? do not
be a simpleton, Caroline.”

“I do not see,” replied Caroline,
still in a tone of eager expostulation,
“how Rose, being a dog, alters the case.
I am sure grandmamma thought as much
of her as of any friend she had in the
world. May not,” she added, turning
to the physician, “may not my father
wait till a surgeon can be obtained from
Boston or New York?”

“Undoubtedly he may,” replied the
doctor, smiling.

“And without danger?” inquired
Mr. Redwood, who seemed to have become
infected with his daughter's apprehensions.

“Possibly without danger,” replied

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

the physician, “though I should apprehend
not without great additional suffering.”

“Better to suffer than to die,” urged
Caroline.

“I trust your father is not reduced
to that alternative,” replied the physician.
“Such accidents are inconvenient,
but seldom fatal. Shall I, Sir,” he
added, turning to Mr. Redwood, “proceed
to the examination of your arm?”

The modest demeanour and manly
promptness of the doctor inspired his
patient with confidence; and ashamed
of having for a moment yielded to the
weakness of his daughter, he said, “proceed,
Sir, certainly. Forgive my daughter's
scruples----she is alarmed and inexperienced.”

“She is a dumb fool,” muttered
Debby; and laying her arm on Caroline's,
with a force to compel obedience,
she pushed her out of the room,
and then with an absolute command,

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

dispersing all but those whose assistance
was required, she prepared to obey the
orders of docter Bristol, to whom she
evidently deferred as to a master operator.
The physician in his turn treated her
as a confidential agent; and so quietly,
skilfully, and expeditiously did he perform
the operation, that he fully substantiated
in the judgment of his
grateful patient, all the praise that had
been lavished on him. Mr. Redwood
bore the operation with stoical firmness,
but after it was over his strength seemed
much exhausted.

His physician ordered that he should
be kept perfectly quiet, and that no one
should have access to the room but those
whose services were necessary. He inquired
of Mr. Redwood if he preferred
that his daughter should stay with him.
Mr. Redwood sighing deeply, replied,
that his daughter was too much unaccustomed
to scenes of this kind to be of
any use to him; and the physician

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

proceeded to make arrangements with Mrs.
Lenox and Deborah. The result of their
deliberations was, that Deborah should
keep this night's vigil at the bed of the
sick man.

These important arrangements being
made, doctor Bristol undertook to inform
Miss Redwood of her father's
amended condition. She received the
intelligence with less animation than
might have been reasonably anticipated
from the apprehensions she had expressed.
“She was glad,” she said, “it
was all over, for she was tired to death
and wished to go to her room.”

“Yes,” said her officious domestic,
“you are tired, Miss Cary, you look
very sick, as pale as a ghost.”

“Oh Lilly,” exclaimed Caroline,
“that is impossible, for I never lose my
colour, you know;” and she ran briskly
to a looking-glass, which, shrouded in
gauze, and bedecked with festoons of
ground-pine adorned Mrs. Lenox's neat

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

parlour. The mirror was imperfect,
and it sent back as distorted a resemblance
of the disappointed beauty, as if
spleen and envy had reflected the image.
“Oh Lord! Lord!” she exclaimed, “it
would be the death of me to see myself
again in that odious glass.”

“I hope not,” said doctor Bristol.
“We have specifics for such diseases in
this retirement, where there are few to
admire, and none to flatter.”

“Are all your specifics, caustics,
doctor?”

“Oh, no!” replied the doctor, smiling
very pleasantly, (for it cannot be denied
that his instinctive indignation at Miss
Redwood's insensibility was softened
by her matchless beauty;) “no, we
prescribe caustics for inveterate diseases
only: for the young and susceptible
we have gentler remedies.”

“And your cure for vanity is—”

“Abstinence—or, a low diet often
subdues the violence of the symptoms—

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

the disease is of the chronic order, seldom
cured. But do not imagine that I
have the presumption to prescribe for
you, Miss Redwood, ignorant as I am
even of the existence of the malady.”

“Your prescription, Sir, would at any
rate be quite superfluous,” replied Caroline,
arranging while she spoke, with
evident satisfaction, her dark glossy
curls before the mirror of her dressingcase,
which Lilly (with the true instinct
of a lady's maid,) had placed before her
mistress; “vanity will die of starvation
in this solitude.”

“Oh my dear young lady, you are
ignorant of the disease,” rejoined the
doctor; “there is no element in which
it cannot live, and thrive, and find food
convenient for it. I am not much skilled
in the history of classic gentry; but
if I remember right, it was not the
flatteries of a court or a multitude that
cost poor Narcissus his life, but a rustic
truth-telling woodland stream: depend

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

on it, Miss Redwood, the danger is
within; and `inward diseases,' as my
friend Debby calls them, are apt to
baffle the most skilful.”

“That being so, Sir,” retorted Miss
Redwood, “it may be well to reserve
your skill for obvious diseases and real
dangers.” She then proceeded to inquire
with considerable interest, into the
particulars of her father's injury; and
concluded by asking how long they
should be detained at Eton.

“It is impossible to say,” replied the
doctor; “five or six weeks, perhaps
longer. Your father's recovery must
depend somewhat on his previous health
and stock of spirits.”

“Oh, then it is a desperate case, for
he has been on the verge of consumption
for these two years; and as to his
spirits, heaven only knows when he had
any. He has been as dull as death ever
since I remember him.”

“Very unfavourable,” replied the

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

doctor, shaking his head; “but a
parent's melancholy must be obstinate
indeed to resist the cheering efforts of a
child; and I trust, Miss Redwood, your
resolution and patience will be equal to
the present demand on them.”

“It is a demand I cannot answer, Sir.
I might as well call spirits from the
vasty deep, as summon mine at pleasure.
Grandmamma always said cheerfulness
was a virtue that belonged to
common people—quite necessary for
them. I am never melancholy, however.
Melancholy only suits the old
and unfortunate; and if I must remain
here, I will try not to hang myself.”

“A virtuous resolution, truly.”

“Doctor,” exclaimed Caroline, after
a few moments pause, “is there nothing
going on here; nothing to keep one
alive?”

“Yes,” replied the doctor, drily,
“from this very house there is to be a
funeral to-morrow.”

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

“Quite a diverting circumstance,”
rejoined Caroline. “Pray, Sir, who is
it that is to be buried? No one of any
consequence of course.”

“Goodness is the only consequence
that we acknowledge,” replied the doctor,
gravely; “and our young friend's
escutcheon has no blot upon it.”

Caroline seemed mortified, and did
not pursue her inquiries, and the physician
took his leave after having repeated
his orders that the invalid should
be kept as quiet as possible till his return
in the morning.

Miss Redwood was shown into a
small but very neat apartment, in which
were two beds; one of them had just
been arranged for her accommodation.
“This bed is for me, is it?” she enquired
turning to a little girl who was her conductor,
and at the same moment negligently
throwing down her hat on a
neatly spread quilt, as white as snow.

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

`,Yes, miss, that is yours,” replied
the child.

“And the other is my servant's?”

“Oh no, miss, that is Ellen's!”

“Well, you little thing, what is
your name?”

“Lucy,” replied the child, dropping
a courtesy.

“Well, Lucy, ask your mother to order
a bed to be made for my servant here.”

“I can ask her,” replied the child;
“but,” she added in a lower tone as she
was leaving the room, “I guess she
won't find it convenient to put that
black girl into Ellen's room.”

Lucy, however, notwithstanding her
prediction, returned in a few moments
to say that Miss Redwood's request was
granted; “and you may thank Ellen
for it,” she added, “for mother would
not hear to it till Ellen begged her.”
“Well, well, child, you may go now—
it is all very well. I shall take care to
compensate your mother, and this Ellen

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

too, for any favours they may grant me.
Lilly,” she added, turning to her servant
“undress me, and make over that bed,
it is not likely these people know how to
make a bed. Pin down the undersheet
all around as grandmamma has hers; I
feel fidgetty to-night, and a wrinkle
would disturb me—heigho! how long is
it since we left Montreal, Lilly?”

“Two days, Miss Cary.”

“Two days! what an age it seems:
two days since I parted from the divine
Fitzgerald, and it will be twice that number
of weeks before I see another civilized
being. That old jade that told my fortune,
coming down the lake, was not so
much out when she said I should meet
with losses and crosses; but who could
have dreamed of such a cross as this?
And then to think that the Crayton's
will get to Boston before us; and Maria
will contrive to show off her French
dresses first. Oh, it is too provoking!
For heaven's sake, Lilly, stow away my

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

trunk out of my sight, it will make me
wretched to see those beautiful dresses,
of Le Moine's all lying idle, getting
yellow, and old-fashioned.” Thus Miss
Redwood continued to run on, half to
her servant and half to herself, till she
lost in sleep the consciousness of her disappointments.

CHAPTER III.

“Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.”
Cowper.

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

Henry Redwood was a native of
Virginia, that State of the Union where
the patrician rank has escaped in the
greatest degree, the levelling principle
of republicanism. His father was a rich
planter: adhering pertinaciously to the
custom of his predecessors, he determined
that his eldest son should inherit
his large landed property. To Henry
he gave a good education, and designed
that he should resort to the usual expedient
of unportioned gentility,

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

compensating by his marriage for the defects of
his inheritance. He was early destined
to be the husband of Maria Manning,
the only daughter of Mr. Redwood's
sister, a rich widow who resided in
Charleston, South-Carolina.

Henry Redwood had originally a
highly gifted mind, and strong affections;
under happy influences he might
have become the benefactor of his country,
its ornament and blessing; or he
might in domestic life have illustrated
the virtues that are appropriate to its
quiet paths. His father trained his eldest
son in his own habits, which were
those of an English country squire.
Henry was left to follow the bent of his
own inclinations, and possessing a less
robust constitution than his brother, and
a contemplative turn of mind, he preferred
sedentary to active pursuits. He
early manifested a decided taste for
literature; he felt the beauty, and confessed
the power of the moral sublime;

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

he loved the virtues that illustrate the
pages of the moralist, and he sympathized
with the examples of heroism
which the poet and the historian have
rescued from the ashes of past ages.

But unhappily he saw few resemblances
in life to these fair portraits.
His father's character was of the coarsest
texture; his life when not devoted to
the gaming table, the excitements of
the race-ground, or the stimulating
pleasures of the chase, was wasted in
the most perfect indolence at home: his
mother had been a beauty, and possessed
many of the gentle qualities of her sex,
but, unresisting and timid in her nature,
she had fallen into such habits of unqualified
submission to her husband, that
she had no longer courage to assert the
rights of virtue, or power to impress
them on her children. Young Redwood
had one friend, the son of a neighbouring
planter, whom he called his
good genius, and his elevated character

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

and rare purity entitled him to this distinction.
The influence of his virtues
and affection might, perhaps, have preserved
Henry from the errors of his
after life, but their opportunities of intercourse
were rare and brief, in consequence
of a political animosity between
their parents; and before Henry had
received impressions deep enough to
mature into principle the strong inspirations
of feeling, he was sent to college;
there, by one of those unlucky
chances that sometimes give a colour to
the destiny of life, he was led, first to
an acquaintance, and subsequently to an
intimacy, with an unprincipled man, by
the name of Alsop. This man possessed
plausible talents and insinuating manners;
but his mind had been contaminated
by the infidelity fashionable at
that period, and his vanity was stimulated
by the hope of adding to his
little band of converts a young man of
Redwood's acknowledged genius.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

The unfeeling and audacious wit of
Voltaire, the subtle arguments of Hume,
and all that reckless and busy infidelity
has imagined and invented, were arrayed
by this skilful champion against the
accidental faith of Henry Redwood:
for that faith may surely be called accidental
which knows no reason for its
existence, but is the result of being born
in a christian community, and of an
occasional attendance at church. The
triumph was an easy one. Redwood's
vision, like that of other unbelievers,
was dazzled by the ignus fatuus that his
own vanity had kindled; and like them,
he flattered himself, that he was making
great discoveries, because he had turned
from the road which was travelled by
the vulgar throng.

In the free and even licentious speculation
of the closet, young Redwood,
was not surpassed by any of his new
intimates; but he had a purity and
refinement of taste, which, though it

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

would not have opposed an effectual
barrier to strong temptation, deterred
him from associating himself with them
in their gross and profligate pleasures.

He was sometimes disgusted, but
never shocked by their profligacy. He
maintained that whatever a man called
good was good to him; and that, released
from the thraldom of fearing a
visionary future, he was at liberty to
disengage himself from the galling
fetters which virtue and religion impose,
and to expatiate without apprehension
or compunction in a religion of perfect
liberty. A little reflection, and a very
short experience taught him, that these
principles would dissolve society, and
then like some other philosophers, he
adopted expediency for his rule of right.
He found it to be impossible so suddenly
to emancipate men from the slavery of
prejudice; “some hundred years must
pass away before the downfall of the
prevailing systems of superstition.” The

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

enlightened must submit, while the
ignorant are the majority; and a man's
conduct must be graduated by the
standard of the community in which
he lived.

Opinion was the rule, and ignorance
the presiding deity, in this new creed.
Still Henry Redwood's reason was not
quite obscured, nor his heart quite
depraved. He often turned from the
heartless pages of infidelity to the
inspiration of virtue, and found that
while the first controlled his judgment,
the latter could alone sway his affections.
A virtuous action would send an involuntary
glow to his cheek, and make
him wish he had never doubted the
reality of the principle that produced it.

Redwood was ambitious; and after
having won the first literary honours of
his college, he returned to his family
elated with his success, and proud of his
superiority. He again met the friend
of his youth Edmund Westall, who,

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

during their separation had become a married
man; and in whose family Redwood
found irresistible attractions.
Westall was a few years older than
Redwood; and there was an authority
in his example that could not well be
evaded, and a persuasion in his goodness
that touched Redwood's heart. He felt
it like an excrcism that conjured out of
him every evil spirit.

But the state of his own mind will be
best shown by a letter which he wrote
at this time to his infidel friend.

“Some months have elapsed, dear
Alsop, since we parted, and parted with
a truly juvenile promise to keep up
an unremitting epistolary intercourse.
And this I believe is the first essay made
by either of us; a fair illustration of the
common proportion which performance
bears to such promises. You, no doubt,
have been roving from pleasure to pleasure,
with an untiring impulse, and your

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

appetite, like the horse-leech, has still
cried, `give, give.' If one of your
vagrant thoughts has strayed after me,
you have doubtless fancied me immured
in my study, pursuing my free inquiries,
abandoning the fallen systems of vulgar
invention, and soaring far over the
misty atmosphere of imposture and credulity.
Or, perhaps, you deem that I
have adopted your sapient advice, have
returned to my home a dutiful child,
gracefully worn the chains of filial obedience,
made my best bow to papa, and
with a, `just as you please, Sir,' fallen,
secundum artem, desperately in love
with my beautiful, and beautifully rich
cousin; have rather taken than asked
her willing hand, and thus opened for
myself the path of ambition, or the
golden gates that lead to the regions of
pleasure, and which none but fortune's
hand can open, But, alas! the most
reasonable hopes are disappointed by
our fantastic destiny. We are the sport

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

of chance; and as we confess no other
deity, you are bound not to deride any
of the whimsical dilemmas into which
his votaries are led. Alsop, you have
often commended the boldness of my
mind, while you laughed at a certain
involuntary homage I paid to the beautiful
pictures of goodness, which some
dreaming enthusiasts have presented to
us, or to the moral beauty which among
all the varieties of accidental combination,
is sometimes exhibited in real
life.

“Have I prepared you to hear the
confession that I am at this present
moment the blind and willing dupe of
goodness, (I mean what the moralists
call goodness,) embodied in a form that
might soften a stoic, convert an infidel,
or perform any other miracle.

“You have heard me make honourable
mention of my friend Westall.
He is by some years my elder, three or
four at least. I think I never related

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

the circumstances of our introduction
to each other; I am quite certain I did
not, for you would have laughed at
them; they may now serve to elucidate
to you my friend's character, and to
account for our early and reciprocal
interest.

“My father had among his servants
a native African; one of those men
whom nature has endowed with a giant
frame, and correspondent qualities of
mind. At the time my father purchased
him, he was separated from his wife
and two children, girls; the only boy
my father purchased with him, whether
because he thought the presence of the
child would help to keep the father in
heart, or from a transient feeling of
compassion for the poor wretch, I know
not. The wife had suffered deplorably
from the voyage, and was knocked
down with her two girls to a Georgian
for a trifle. You do not know my
father: suffice it to say, that selfishness

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

and habit have made him quite insensible
to the sufferings of these poor devils,
whom he classes with other brutes born
for our service. But there was something
extraordinary in the strong affections
and unconquerable temper of this
man. His wife and little ones were
torn from his strong grasp, and when
resistance was hopeless, and he turned
from them, the large muscles of his
neck swelled almost to bursting, and
he set up a desperate howl, that made
every heart quake or melt. Some one
of the throng around him, put his boy
into his arms: the sight of him changed
the current of his feelings; he soon
became silent, and, a few moments after,
his tears fell thick and heavy on the
child. My father brought him home.
He performed his appointed tasks well,
but he was retired and sulky, and the
smallest services that were imposed on
his child seemed to exasperate his spirit.
It was not many months after he came

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

into our possession, that our overseer,
a cruel worthless dog, beat the child
who had unwarily offended him, unmercifully.
The father interposed and rescued
the child at the expense of some
cutting lashes on his own back, which
he seemed to regard no more than the
idle wind. The very night after, the
child disappeared, and it was believed
the unhappy father had put an end to
the boy's life. The fact was never
ascertained, though no one doubted it;
for as you will readily believe my
father was not very zealous to establish
a truth which would have deprived him
of one of his most valuable slaves. These
circumstances transpired before I was
old enough to remember them; but
when I first heard the report of them
among our domestic annals, I felt an
involuntary respect for this man, who
with a spirit more noble than Cato's,
cut the cord that bound his son to captivity,
and manfully continued to

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

endure the galling of his own chains.
Was not this a glorious illustration of
the truth of our old friend Seneca's
remark, that `sometimes to live is
magnanimity?'

“Time passed on, but Africk (for
that was the name my father had given
him,) remained unaltered. I think I
see him now, going to his daily task,
always apart from the herd, and quite
alone; his firm and slow step, the curling
of his lip, which would have better
become a monarch than a slave, and his
fixed downcast eye.

“His mind, which like adamant had
resisted the influence of time, was at last
subdued by fanaticism, which you know,
like some chemical powers, will dissolve
substances that no chemical force can
impress. My father (a little alarmed
himself, as I suspect, by an eloquent
harangue,) permitted a zealous Methodist
or Moravian, I am not certain which,
but a member of one of these tribes of

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

amiable madmen, to address his people.
A great sensation was produced, and
among the rest, Africk eagerly seized
every opportunity of communication
with the preacher. He had never before
sought human communion or sympathy.
He soon became a convert; his
fierce manner was changed to gentleness;
he no longer avoided his fellows;
and though still reserved and silent, it
seemed to me that his religion brought
him back to the human family, and by
uniting him to the common Father of
all, restored the broken links of fraternity.

“Whether his faith had an enfeebling
influence on his body as well as his
mind, I know not; but his health fell
into decay. The overseer complained
that he kept long vigils after his daily
labour; that he spent the nights which
were made to prepare him for his labour,
in prayers that exhausted his spirits and
his strength. My father inquired of

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

Buckley if he had used the whip; the
wretch replied, that he never entered a
complaint till that remedy had failed,
It did no more good, he said, to whip
him, than to beat the air; he bore it
without complaint, and without shrinking.
My father then recommended an
abatement of Africk's daily food.

“That,” Buckley said, “he had tried
till the rascal was so weak he could
scarcely stand. I was present at this
conference, and my nature rebelled
against the intolerable oppression the
poor wretch was suffering. I interposed,
and entreated my father to adopt
kind treatment.

“He swore at my boyish impertinence,
as he called it; but it was not,
however, without effect, for he recommended
to Buckley milder usage. But
the fellow's habits of cruelty were too
firmly fixed for any essential change.
It was not long after that Africk

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

interposed to rescue a female slave from the
horrible lash of this tyrant: his fury,
averted from the woman, fell with redoubled
violence on Africk, till no
longer stimulated by resistance, he turned
away from his silent victim, and left
him to crawl (for he could not walk)
to his little cabin. The following
morning he was missing; the plantation
was searched in vain, and I was
despatched by my father in quest of
him, as he deemed it probable that some
of the negroes of our neighbours might
have harboured and concealed him;
these sort of courtesies being not unfrequent
among our slaves.

“I went, but with the determination
never to reveal, if I discovered his concealment,
and to afford him every aid
in my power, for my youthful imagination
had been powerfully excited by his
heroism and his sufferings, and neither
philosophy nor experience had yet

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

steeled my heart against the spectacle
of human misery. Would to God they
never had!

“I began my expedition on foot,
being just then inspired with a passion
to emulate the feats of some European
pedestrians, of whom I had heard. I
cannot remember a period of my life
when some such whim did not rule the
hour. I had entered on Mr. Westall's
grounds, and in order to cross by a
straight line to the cabins of the negroes,
I left the circuitous road, and turned
into some low ground, covered with
pines. It soon became marshy, and
almost impassable, but I had proceeded
too far for retreat or extrication, and I
continued to push forward through the
snarled bushes and interwoven branches
of the trees; the daylight and my
strength were almost exhausted, and my
patience entirely, when I perceived the
ground harden to my tread, and pressing
eagerly forward, I issued from the wood

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

into an open space, a few roods in circumference,
around which the trees
grew so thick, that they formed an almost
impenetrable wall, a natural defence
for this sequestered retreat. To
my amazement I saw before me, and
just on the skirt of the wood, a rudely
constructed hut; two of its sides were
formed by slabs resting on the ground
at one end, meeting at the top, and
supported by poles inserted into two
notched posts; the third side was filled
by brush cut from the adjoining wood,
and piled loosely together; the fourth,
towards which I advanced, was quite
open to the weather.

“Alsop, I had proceeded thus far in
my narrative, when I threw down my
pen; my fancy had restored me to this
scene of my youth; I had insensibly
reverted to the influences that then
governed my mind, and I felt that I
was exposing the offices of the temple to
the derision of the unbelievers. I protest

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

against your laugh, and your more intolerable
ridicule: I know all these things
are the illusions of youth and ignorance,
but I sometimes think them better,
certainly far happier, than the realities
I have since adopted. Still vacillating,
you say between philosophy and superstition!
amiable superstition! I have
described this spot with some particularity.
It is, with all its accompaniments,
indelibly stamped on my memory.
As I said, I advanced towards the habitation,
and unperceived by its occupants,
I had leisure to observe and to listen to
them. Africk was lying extended on
some straw with which the ground (for
there was no floor) had been strewn for
this slight accommodation; his head
was supported by an old negro woman;
with one hand he grasped the hand of my
friend, with the other he held firmly a
saphie, which was suspended around his
neck; his short and spasmodic

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

breathing indicated the last feeble struggle
with death.

“Edmund Westall knelt beside him,
and might have been mistaken for a
bright vision from another and a higher
sphere, so beautiful was the combination
of faith, hope, and charity, as the enthusiast
paints them, in his fair and innocent
face. The last rays of the setting
sun entering an aperture in the
wall, fell athwart his brow, burnished
his light brown hair, and rested there,
a bright halo, which seemed the seal of
the celestial ministry. My ear caught
the broken sentence of the dying man.

“`No no,' he said; `Mr. Edmund, I
had no peace. I would have given my
life for one moment of freedom. I
looked for revenge. I thought of my
wife and my little ones; and I could
have poured out the blood of white men,
till it should run like the big waters
over which they brought us. But the

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

voice of God pierced to my heart;
and I was an altered man. And when
I prayed that blessed prayer, that I
might be forgiven even as I forgive
others, the fire in my heart was quenched,
and the terrible storm that had raged
here (and he pressed Edmund's hand
on his naked breast) was laid; and there
was peace, Mr. Edmund; God's peace.
I was a slave, and I was wretched, but
the sting was taken away. Do not
pray for me, nor for mine. I have been
on my knees for my helpless ones, night
after night, and all night long, and my
prayer is heard. But pray for your
father's land, and your father's children.
Pray to be saved from the curse that is
coming. Oh! (he exclaimed,) and his
voice became stronger, and his deep
tones seemed to bear to our ears the
sure words of prophecy; oh, I hear the
cry of revenge; I hear the wailings of
your wives and your little ones; and I
see your fair lands drenched with their

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

blood. Pray to God to save you in that
day, for it will surely come.' His voice
was spent; his eyes closed, as I believed
for ever, and I sprang towards the bed.
I then perceived that it was a momentary
exhaustion; he still grasped Edmund's
hand, and I noticed the feeble
beatings of his heart. The old woman
signed to me to withdraw from before
him; and I silently took my station
beside her. After a few moments, he
again languidly opened his eyes and
said, in a scarcely audible voice, `I
thought I was in my own land; and I
heard the rustling of our leaves, and the
voices of my kindred, and I was feeding
my little ones with their kouskous as
when the destroyers came. My spirit
will pass easier, if I hear the voice of
your prayer, blessed young man. Pray
for my master; for Buckley.' He paused;
and Edmund, in a low tender voice,
began his supplication. At the close of
each petition Africk murmured amen;

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

and at Edmund's fervent intercession
for his oppressors, he opened his eyes,
clasped his hands and in the intensity
of his feeling, half rose from the straw.
The effort exhausted him; he sunk
back on the breast of the old woman,
and expired. She released herself from
him, and then stretching her arms towards
Heaven, as if in acknowledgment
to Him who had broken the bonds of
Africk's captivity, she clapped her hands
and shouted, `he is free! he is free!'
Edmund and I laid our faces together
on the straw beside the poor negro,
and wept as youth is wont to do.

“Forgive me, Alsop, I have told you
a very long, and it may be a very dull
story, though I think not; for nothing
is dull to you that is connected with the
philosophy of the human mind. You
will ridicule me for ever having deemed
of importance the particulars of a vulgar
being, extinct after a few years of life,
and that for the most part passed in
abject slavery; but like a true

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

philosopher, you will with me eagerly explore
the past for the causes that have influenced
my character and governed my
destiny. And yet, `poor play things
of unpitying fate,' why should we be
so anxious to penetrate the mysteries
of a being which may cease for ever
to-morrow? The epicureans were more
consistent than we are; and we may
learn from the author of a faith that we
deride, the truest wisdom for us; `let
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'

“This scene has haunted my imagination:
the memory of it has sometimes
seemed to me like a voice from Heaven;
for a long while it kept alive a dying
spark of faith. I cherished it as a testimony,
that God had not left the creatures
he had formed to wander without
him in the world: I fancied there was
a supernatural ministry to the spirit of
this much-injured man, that had converted
his just and unrelenting hatred
to forgiveness—his pride to submissiveness—
and there seemed a witness to the

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

mercy of Heaven in the gentle and tender
countenance of my friend.

“Yes, Alsop, I confess it—the memory
of this scene has sometimes been an
impassable barrier to your infidel and
most ingenious arguments.

“You know one of the boldest, as
well as one of the most charming of
female sceptics, said, `in the silence of
the closet, or the dryness of discussion, I
can agree with the atheist or the materialist,
as to the insolubility of certain
questions; but when in the country, or
contemplating nature, my soul, full of
emotion, soars aloft to the vivifying
principle that animates them, to the
almighty intellect that pervades them,
and to the goodness that makes the scene
so delightful to my senses!'

“Thus it is with me: nature and the
beautiful traits of nature we sometimes
see in man, appeal irresistibly to my
feelings, and force their way to my convictions.

“My purpose was, frankly to tell you

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

my present embarrassments; but I have
been led into too serious a train of feeling
to proceed any farther, and certainly
to let you into the arcana of my present
perplexities.

“I explained to Edmund my intentions
in regard to Africk. We found
that we had participated in a strong
feeling of compassion towards him,
and this sympathy at once created
a bond of union between us. This
hiding-place had been contrived by
Westall's people for a refuge for the
runaways from the neighbouring plantations;
not at all for their own benefit,
for the conduct of the Westalls to their
slaves was noted for its benevolent and
paternal character. The retreat was
kept secret from Mr. Westall, (the
father;) for the negroes rightly concluded
that he would have been compelled
in honour to surrender, as the
property of his neighbours, the refugees
who took shelter there. The son had
been conducted to the place by the old

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

woman, who was his nurse, who knew
she might safely confide the secret to
his custody, and who could not believe
that any case was so desperate that he
could not bring some alleviation to it.
We agreed that Africk's body should
be conveyed during the night to the
cabin of one of the negroes, and should
in the morning be restored to my father.

“Before we parted from the remains
of the released slave, we examined the
saphie, which to his last breath, he had
so pertinaciously grasped. You must
know these saphies, are boxes made of
horn, shell, or some other durable mate
rial; they contain some charon, usually
a sentence from the Koran, which serves
as an amulet to keep off evil spirits.
Africk had changed the object of his
superstition, and the infidel charm had
been expelled to give place to the following
sentence, written at his request
by Westall: `Forgive me my trespasses,
even as I forgive those who trespass
against me.'

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

“At Edmund's instigation, I made
this the occasion of benefit to the other
negroes. I applied to my father in their
behalf, and found my way to his understanding
by the sure and well-trodden
path of selfishness. I convinced him
that Buckley's cruelty had shortened
Africk's life, and that the tyrant's
harsh treatment of the slaves prevented
half the profit that might
otherwise be derived from their labour.
My father, exasperated by his
recent loss, readily yielded to my arguments.
Buckley was dismissed, and an
efficient and tolerably humane overseer
employed in his place. I possessed then,
Alsop, some enthusiasm in the cause of
benevolence, and could have envied, and
possibly might have emulated the fame
of a Howard. But notwithstanding
this strange confession, you need not
now despair of your disciple and friend,

This epistle very naturally excited

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

some alarm in Alsop for the security of
his dominion over the mind of his young
disciple. He wrote to him repeatedly,
and received but few, and those brief
replies, till about the expiration of a
year, when an answer to an earnest
solicitation to Redwood to accompany
him to Europe, whither he was going
in a public service, and to his setting
forth in the most tempting manner the
advantages that he offered, he received
the following letter:

“Dear Alsop,

“I am grateful for your interest, and
convinced by your arguments that I
ought no longer to doze away my brief
existence in this retirement. I have obtained
my father's consent to the arrangement
you propose; and what is still
more indispensable, an ample supply in
consideration of a promise I have given
to him, that I will solicit the hand of my
cousin immediately after my return.

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

“Alsop, I find it necessary to recollect
all the arguments in favour of
virtue and vice being only conventional
terms, artificial contrivances for man's
convenience; for conscience, conscience,
`that blushing shame-faced spirit that
mutinies in a man's bosom,' tells me that
if it is not so, I am the veriest wretch
alive. I am married to a young creature
without fortune, without connexions;
innocent, and beautiful, and religious;
an odd union, is it not? I have not intimated
my free opinions to her, for why
should I disturb her superstition? It is
quite becoming to a woman, harmonizes
well with the weakness of her sex, and
is perhaps necessary to it. No one but
the priest (and he is trust-worthy) knows
our secret. My pride, my ambition,
rebel against the humble condition of
life to which this rash indulgence of
boyish passion condemns me. If my
father knew it, he would spurn me; for
my marriage disappoints his favourite

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

project, and my poor girl would provoke
his most inveterate prejudices;
and my mother, my timid mother,
would never forgive me for presuming
to offend my father: there is no tolerable
alternative; the fact must be concealed
for the present. Who knows
but one of the tides, which, `taken at
the flood lead on to fortune,' may await
me? any thing is better than to lose
this bright opportunity of pleasure and
advantage. Poor Westall is dead, and
died with unbroken confidence in my
virtue. Is goodness thus credulous? He
has committed his only son, a boy of
four years, to my guardianship. I will
not betray his trust, so help me God.

Redwood had determined to keep his
intended departure a secret, to save himself
from the remonstrances and entreaties
which he naturally expected from
his abused wife. He had no intention

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

permanently to desert her: she was residing
in the family of a Mr. Emlyn, as
teacher to his children, and might remain
there for one, or even two years if
necessary; and in the meantime, an unforeseen
accession of fortune, political
advancement, or any of the thousand
chances that happen to fortune's favourites,
might relieve her husband from
his present embarrassments, and enable
him to invest her with her rights without
too great a personal sacrifice. By
such and similar considerations he endeavoured
to soothe his conscience into
acquiescence; but neither these, nor the
sophistries of his friend, availed him to
silence the voice of nature within him,
that incessantly reproached him with
the wrong he was about to inflict on
a young, and innocent, and helpless
being.

On the night before his departure, he
summoned resolution to visit her, intending
to impart to her his designs,

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

and to soothe her with such promises
and arguments as he could marshal to
his aid. He found her alone in the little
parlour, which had been kindly assigned
to her. She started at his entrance, and
was hurrying a sheet of paper on which
she was writing into the desk at which
she sat. “Treason, treason,” said he,
detaining the paper, and at the same
time kissing her pale cheek. “Then it
is treason against my own heart,” she
replied, “for that is but too faithful to
you.” Redwood was conscience-stricken,
and to shelter his embarrassment, he
affected to read the letter he had seized:
it was blotted with his wife's tears.
“No, do not read it,” said she, laying
her hand on it, “it is only a little scolding;
you know I have so few of the
privileges of a wife, that I cannot but
use those that are not denied me.” Redwood's
eyes were still fixed on the letter,
of which, however, he had not read
a single word. She continued, “I am

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

so lonely, that I get low-spirited, and
sometimes I think you do not love me.”

“Not love you, Mary?” exclaimed Redwood,
in whose breast there was not at this
moment any feeling so strong as his tenderness
for the lovely being before him.

“Yes, Henry,” she replied, with more
courage than she had ever before shown,
“and have I not much reason to think
so? I am sure I could not make any
one suffer as you make me; I could not
live and let such a curse rest upon your
blessings.” “A curse, Mary, what do
you mean?” replied her husband.

“Oh, is it not a curse,” said she, “to
feel the misery of guilt and the punishment
of folly; to be suspected of crime;
to feel the blood freezing in my veins,
from the fear of detection; to see, or
fancy that I see, the smiles of derision
and contempt on the faces of the very
slaves of the plantation, as I pass by
them; and to blush and feel humbled,
when, at the mention of your name, my

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

eye meets the stolen glances of the children?
Oh Henry, I am a woman, and
I cannot bear such suspicions; I am a
wife, and I ought not to bear them.”

Redwood was affected by his wife's
appeal; but there was in it an assertion
of rights that mortified his pride and
surprised him; surprised him, because
Mary had always showed herself a timid
being, with unquestioning dependence
on his will, and submissive conformity
to his wishes. He defended himself
as well as he was able: he pleaded his
dependence on his father—his dread to
excite his tyrannical passions; he reminded
her that she had consented to their
clandestine marriage and intercourse.

“But,” she replied, “I was young
and inexperienced, and quite alone; and
I thought, Henry, you could not ask me
to do any thing it was not right to do;
and you promised, before God, to love
and cherish me, and I was quite sure

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

I never should suffer any evil that you
could shield me from.”

“And you shall not, Mary,” he replied;
“only have a little patience.”

“Ah, Henry, patience is the resource
of the miserable; and I,” she added,
turning on him a look full of the confiding
spirit of affection, “I ought not to
be miserable.”

“But what can I do?” said he impatiently.

“Withhold no longer the name to
which you have given me a right; save
me from cruel suspicions and remarks,
and I will endure silently and patiently
any other evil; I will live separate from
you, if your father requires it, or you
wish it; I will never see you again; any
thing will be better than to endure the
torment of shame, for from this torment
the consciousness of innocence has not
preserved me.”

Redwood felt the justice of his wife's

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

cause, and he might have yielded to the
best impulses of his nature, but he
thought he had gone too far with Alsop
to recede; he mentally resolved to shorten
his absence as much as possible, and
to return to make his wife happy. Having
appeased his conscience by this compromise,
he appealed to her compassion;
he represented, with tenfold aggravation,
the embarrassments in which he
was involved, and he soothed her with professions
of tenderness. Gentle and affectionate,
she soon relapsed into trustful
acquiescence, and, with a self-devotion
not singular in a woman, she resolved
and promised to abide his pleasure. Before
they parted, there was an allusion
made to a flirtation Redwood had had
with his cousin Maria Manning, and to
some tender letters she had written to
him since his marriage, to win him back
from what she supposed to be his indifference.
These letters had frequently
been the subject of raillery between the

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

lovers. Mary had never seen them;
and Redwood, in no humour now to
deny any thing which he could grant
without too great a sacrifice, promised
he would send her the letters the next
morning. He then parted from her,
but not without betraying real anguish,
which his tender-hearted wife blamed
herself for having inflicted on him.

The next morning a pacquet was
brought to her. It continued a brief
farewell from her husband, the most
plausible apology he could frame for his
departure, and a sum of money larger
than he could well afford to spare from
the allowance that he had received
from his father, but by which, as he said,
he meant to enable her to withdraw (if
she should prefer to do so during his
absence) from the situation she then
held. In the hurry of his departure
Redwood had sent, instead of the promised
pacquet, his correspondence with
Alsop. What a revelation it contained

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

for his deserted wife! She had reposed
in him the unqualified and unsuspecting
confidence of youth; she had believed
him to be just what he seemed—the natural
conclusion of inexperience. How
terrible are the reverses of opinion,
when those most tenderly loved are the
subjects of them! It seemed to Mary
Redwood, that she had fallen into an
abyss of hopeless misery. She read
over and over again these fatal letters,
till her head turned, and heart sunk
with the strange confusion of horrible
ideas which they communicated. The
language of the world, of philosophy,
(falsely so called) of infidelity, was an
unknown tongue to her; a strange jargon,
which introduced into her mind but
one definite idea, and that a deep conviction
that her husband was corrupt, more
corrupt in principle than in conduct;
and his conduct the natural and necessary
result of his principles. Ignorant as
she was of the world, and all its

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

intolerance and artificial distinctions, she had
never dreamed that her lowly fortune
and rank opposed a barrier to her acknowledgment.

The love of women is sometimes
ranked with incurable diseases. Mary
Redwood's at least was not so; perhaps
her husband seemed to her to lose his
identity from the moment that she discovered
his real sentiments; however
that may be, the discovery cut the cord
that bound her to him; and the repose
and happiness of trustful affection, and
feminine dependence, and the confidence
of youthful expectation, gave place to
deep despondency, and to all the apathy
of complete alienation. It was impossible
for her to conceal a change so suddenly
wrought in her feelings, and the
good people with whom she was living,
believed young Redwood's departure
for Europe to be the cause of it.

They had for a long time been apprised
of his secret visits, and suspicious

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

of his designs; but the purity and gentleness
of Mary's manners rebuked
suspicion, and they hesitated to communicate
their observations to her:
besides they were engaged with their
own concerns, and the transient love
affair (as they deemed it) of an obscure
young girl, seemed to them of no great
moment. They felt some regret, when,
after the lapse of a few days, she announced
her wish to relinquish the
care of their children, assigning as a
reason the evident decline of her health,
and she did not leave them without
generous tokens of their gratitude for
her fidelity. At the time of her departure,
her friend, Mrs. Westall, was
absent on a visit to a distant plantation;
this she esteemed fortunate, for she
wished to escape any observation that
would have been stimulated by affection.

She resolved never to reveal the secret
of her marriage; and thanking

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

God that her parents were removed
from this world, and that none remained
to be deeply affected with her misfortunes,
she determined to seek out some
retreat where she might be sheltered
from notice. As the carriage drove
away that conveyed her from the door of
Mr. Emlyn, Mrs. Emlyn turned from
the window where she had stood gazing
after her, and said to her husband, “is
it not strange that Mary should not
have felt more at parting with the
children? she did not seem to notice
their caresses, and poor things, they
cried as if their little hearts would break;
she is kind-hearted too.” “And did
you not mind mother,” asked one of the
little girls, “that when I offered that
pretty shell-box Mr. Redwood gave me
for a keepsake, she shivered as if she
had the ague, and dropped it on the
floor?”

“Ah,” said Mr. Emlyn, looking significantly
at his wife, “it is easy enough

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

to see where the shoe pinches. I tell
you my dear, that fellow has nearly
broken the girl's heart. It is just so
with all your tribe; `all for love, or the
world well lost.' But she will come to
her senses. `Sur les aile du temps la tristesse
s'envole.”'

[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]

Chapter

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

anity with its truth, and rejecting the
galling yoke, had loosened all necessary
and salutary restraints. There was in
them much to be admired by a virtuous
person, much to excite the sympathy of
the representative of a young republic,
for they had an unaffected zeal for
the happiness of their species, and a
genuine hatred of every mode of tyranny.
They had too an amenity and exquisite
refinement of manners, which they owed
to the vital spirit that Christianity had
infused into civilized life, and which
remained after the spirit had departed;
as the body from which the soul has fled
retains, while life is still recent, its fair
proportions, and beautiful expression; or,
as a plant which the passing gale has
uprooted, is still decorated with the
flowers that owed their birth to the
parent earth. In these circles, Redwood's
devotion to intellectual power
(the ruling passion of his youth) revived,
and he resigned himself to the charms

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

of society, to those pleasures which one
who was their victim, has, with a few
vivid touches, described “la parole n'y
est pas seulement comme ailleurs un
moyen de se communiquev ses idées, ses
sentiments, et ses affaires mais c'est un
instrument dont on aime à jouer et qui
ranime les esprits, comme la musique
chez quelque peuples, et les liqueurs
fortes chez quelques autres.”[1] And in
these circles, Redwood felt that Paris
“etait lieu du monde où l' on pouvoit
le mieux se passer de bonheur.Ӡ

While he remained in the French
capital, there was no suspension of excitement,
not an hour for reflection,

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

scarcely a solitary moment for the impertinent
whispering of conscience. His
wife, the young and innocent creature,
who had surrendered to him the whole
treasure of her affections, abandoned
solitary, sick, and heart-broken, was
scarcely remembered, or if remembered,
was always associated with the dark
cloud with which she had shaded his
future fortunes. But after he had left
Paris, in the further prosecution of his
travels, there were times when she was
remembered; the powers of conscience,
spell-bound by the noise and glare of
society, were awakened by the voice of
the Divinity issuing from the eloquent
places of nature. The pure streams, the
placid lakes, the green hills, and the
“fixed mountains looking tranquillity,”
seemed to reproach him with his desertion
of nature's fairer work; for all the
works of nature are linked together by
an invisible, an “electric chain.” Redwood
hurried from place to place; he

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

tried the power of novelty, of activity,
he gazed on those objects that have
been the marvel, and the delight of the
world; and when the first excitement
was over, he felt that he could not resist
the great moral law which has indissolubly
joined virtue and happiness.

On his arrival at Rome he found
letters awaiting him there. To avoid
the hazard of discovery, he had determined
that all intercourse between himself
and his wife should be suspended
during his absence, and had purposely
omitted to furnish her with his address—
his anxiety to receive some intelligence
from her, had, however, become so strong
that he would now have willingly incurred
any risk for that gratification. On
turning over his letters, he noticed one
in a hand writing which he recognised
to be that of the clergyman who had
married him to Mary Erwine; he hastily
tore it open. There was within it a
letter from his wife, and a few lines

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

from the clergyman stated that he had
received that letter enclosed in another,
and post-marked Philadelphia: he was
requested to forward it by the first conveyance,
and to inform him to whom it
was addressed, that the writer had died
two days after closing the letter.

Alsop entered Redwood's apartment
a moment after he had read the letter,
and while he was yet nearly stunned
with the sudden blow: Alsop looked at
the unsealed letter which had fallen
on the floor, and then took the open one
from the unresisting hand of his friend,
who, while he hid his convulsed face
with his hands, exclaimed, “oh, I have
killed her, Alsop—I have killed her!”

“No, no,” replied Alsop, comprehending
at a glance the import of the
intelligence, “nature sentenced her;
you may have hastened the execution—
but that's all. What do you mean by
this drivelling, Redwood? Is it thus you
receive one of fate's happiest strokes?

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

By my soul, man, I have been a sworn
knight to my lady Fortune for these
twenty years, following her through
good and evil report, and for all my
devoted services, I have never obtained
one such favour.”

There was an audacity in this levity
which quickened to keen resentment the
awakened feelings of Redwood. He
spurned Alsop from him, and resigned
himself to the tide of misery that overwhelmed
his fortitude. As soon as he
could command sufficient courage, he
opened his wife's letter—it was cold
and brief, without a request or reproach;
and simply informed him that after his
departure she had sought a retirement
where she might prepare herself for that
better world, towards which her heavenly
Father in his tender mercy was
evidently leading her: she had found
one; and had received under the humble
roof where she should soon close her
eyes for ever, every kindness that

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

humanity could render. Should any regrets
induce Redwood to make inquiries about
her, she informed him they would be
vain and useless—vain, for she had taken
every precaution to keep the place of
her retreat secret—and useless, for she
should then be where no human being
could confer happiness, or inflict misery
on her. Some portions of the letter
betrayed strong emotions, but apparently
it did not result from the relations
which had subsisted between herself and
him, to whom she wrote. It was an
elevated state of feeling with which no
personal considerations seemed to mingle,
in which she regarded what had passed,
not as offences against herself, but as
portending misery to Redwood. The
letter concluded thus—“you will not,”
she said, “need the assurance of my
forgiveness; believe me I have no sterner
feeling than pity for you. I have sought,
and till my heart is stilled in death, I
shall seek for you his mercy who came

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

to heal the sick, to seek the lost, and to
restore the wanderer. Farewell, Redwood,
God grant the prayer of your
dying wife.”

“And is this all,” thought Redwood,
“that remains to me of the tenderness of
youthful love; of that innocent generous
affection, that questioned not, suspected
not? oh, I have most foully betrayed
her trust! we are severed for ever—
yes, for ever; for surely if there is a
heaven, she has entered it; and I—I have
no place—no hope there. I could have
borne reproaches, invectives, any thing
I could have borne better than this calm
tone which pronounces the sentence of
death—eternal death to our union.”

There is perhaps no keener suffering
to a generous mind, than the consciousness
of having inflicted a wrong which
cannot be repaired. Redwood's first
hasty resolution was to make the poor
amends in his power, to return to his
country, proclaim his marriage with

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

Mary Erwine, and endure the infamy
his desertion deserved. No sacrifice
appeared to him too great to appease
the clamours of his conscience, no selfmortification
too severe, if he might
thereby pay a tribute to her memory,
whose life he had embittered and cut off
in its early prime.

But after the first access of grief and
contrition gave place to calm and natural
considerations, he saw that however
just might be his conduct, still it must be
quite useless to the injured being whom
he could no longer serve nor harm.
She was an orphan, without any near
connexions to inquire after, or to be
afflicted by her destiny: why then
should he publish his own infamy, which
could never be mitigated in the eye of
the world by the knowledge of the virtuous
intention and severe remorse,
which, as Redwood hoped, in some
measure softened its deepest colouring?
These were certainly reasonable

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

considerations; and though every one must
wish that Redwood had followed the
simple dictate of right, no one who
knows how very cogent arguments
appear on that side to which the inclinations
lean, will be surprised that his virtuous
resolutions should have died away,
and his good emotions have subsided;
but they did not subside without permanent
effects. The wave retreated, but
its ravages remained; and Henry Redwood
carried through life a fast-rooted
misery, a sense of injustice recklessly
committed; a feeling of degradation that
led him to turn from all that is fair and
good, as a sick eye shuts out the light of
heaven.

Redwood avoided the poisonous society
of Alsop. He left Rome after wandering
for a little time about its magnificent
ruins; the melancholy tone of his mind
suiting well with their gloomy grandeur.
From Italy he repaired to England, and
after rambling over our parent land,

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

and admiring without enjoying its beauties,
he returned to his native country.

Quite indifferent to his own domestic
fate, he yielded a ready compliance to
the importunate wishes of his father and
mother, and solicited and easily obtained
the hand of his cousin Maria Manning, a
spoilt child and flattered beauty. Her
girlish preference of her handsome cousin
had been stimulated by the difficulty
of achieving the conquest of his affections;
and if her vanity had been piqued
by his long apparent indifference and
protracted absence, it was quite soothed
by the professedly unqualified admiration
of one who had gazed on foreign
beauties, and had been received with
favour in the circles of rank and fashion
in countries more polished than our own.
The ceremony of Redwood's marriage
was celebrated with all due pomp and
circumstance. A troop of gratified
friends attended him to the altar, whither
he led his beautiful bride, the ido

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

of fashion and the favourite of fortune:
one person alone in all the assembly
rightly interpreted his faltering voice,
restless movements, and changing colour,
and the fixed gaze that proved his
thoughts intent on the visions of his
imagination. It was the same church
to which, at twilight, and in secrecy he
had led the trustful girl, whose artless
tenderness, simple and spiritual beauty,
and unsuspecting confidence, haunted
him at this moment. The same clergyman
officiated who had then recorded
his plighted faith. Neither the dogmas
of a selfish philosophy, nor the training
of the world had indurated Redwood's
heart. At the moment the service concluded,
he staggered from the side of
his bride, and caught hold of the railing
around the altar. The clergyman whispered,
“you betray yourself, Mr. Redwood.”
His father bustling up to him,
called him in the same breath, “a lucky
dog and an odd fish;” and his young

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

friends crowding around him, mingled
with their congratulation well-timed
raillery of his timidity. Recovering his
self-possession, he parried their attacks
skilfully, and apologized to his wife with
the adroit courtesy of a well-bred man;
and she, with the happy facility of habitual
vanity, not knowing what his
emotion meant, believed it meant something
flattering to herself.

Redwood now entered on the career
of politics. His wife was the bright
cynosure of the fashionable world; and
both were the envy of those who form
their childish judgments by externals,
forgetting that the most brilliant hues
are reflected by empty vapours. Mrs
Redwood survived her marriage but a
few years, and left at her death one
child, Caroline, whom she consigned to
her mother. The child was accordingly
transferred to the care of Mrs. Olney;
and conveyed to Charleston, S. Carolina,
the residence of that lady, who evinced

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

her grief for the death of her daughter,
by lavishing on the child a twofold measure
of the indulgences and flatteries
that had spoiled the mother.

Mrs. Olney's notions of education
were not peculiar. In her view, the few
accomplishments quite indispensable to a
young lady, were dancing, music, and
French. To attain them, she used all
the arts of persuasion and bribery; she
procured a French governess who was a
monument of patience; she employed a
succession of teachers, that much enduring
order, who bore with all long suffering,
the young lady's indolence, caprices,
and tyranny. At the age of seven, the
grandmother's vanity no longer brooking
delay, the child was produced at
balls and routs, where her singular
beauty attracted every eye, and her
dexterous, graceful management of her
little person, already disciplined to the
rules of Vestris, called forth loud applauses.
The child and grandmother

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

were alike bewildered with the incense
that was offered to the infant belle, and
future heiress; and alike unconscious of
the sidelong looks of contempt and
whispered sneers which their pride and
folly provoked. At fourteen Miss. Redwood,
according to the universal phrase
to express the debût of a young lady,
was “brought out,” that is, entered the
lists as a candidate for the admiration
of fashion, and the pretensions of lovers.
At eighteen, the period which has been
selected to introduce her to our readers;
she was the idol of the fashionable
world, and as completely au fait in all its
arts and mysteries, as a veteran belle of
five-and-twenty.

Mr. Redwood had received the noblest
gifts of his Creator: a mind that naturally
aspired to heaven, and sensibilities
that inclined him to all that was pure,
and good, and lovely. The worldly advantages
he possessed would have been
the means of happiness to a vulgar, or

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

even an ordinary character; but they
had no control over a spirit that could
not endure to be limited to the objects of
selfish gratification, to bound its desires
and pursuits within the earthy prison-house.
After a few years, he, wearied
of the toil and strife of political life, resigned
its honours, and embarked for
Europe, from whence, after having
worn out two or three years in a vain
effort to escape from the demons of
restlessness and ennui, he returned to
his own country to seek happiness,
where none but the good find it, at home.
He was surprised with the ripened
beauty of his daughter, but most severely
mortified to find her just what he ought
to have expected from the influences to
which he had abandoned her. He had
never felt so strong an affection for the
child as would seem to have been natural.
His indifference to her mother,
the circumstances that preceded his
marriage, and perhaps the child's

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

resemblance to the parent, accounted in part
for this want of affection; and the carelessness
that was the result of it was to
be expected from one governed more
by casual impulses than principle.

Mr. Redwood hoped it was not too
late to repair his fault. He perceived
that his daughter possessed spirit and talents
not quite extinguished by her mode
of education and life; and for the purpose
of breaking off all unfavourable
associations, and removing her from the
influence of her doating grandmother,
he resolved on a tour through the northern
states.

Mr. Redwood hoped too that this
jaunt might lead to the accomplishment
of a project which he had long secretly
cherished; a union between his daughter
and Charles Westall, the son of his
earliest friend. He had transferred to
the son the strong affection he bore to
his father; and though he had not seen
him since his childhood, he had from

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

report, and from an occasional correspondence,
conceived the highest opinion
of his character. Time and philosophy
had failed to subdue Mr. Redwood's
ardent temperament: he still pressed on
with eagerness to the accomplishment
of his wishes, flattering himself all the
while that he had ceased to be the dupe
of the promises which the future makes
to the inexperienced and the hopeful.

Mr. Redwood and his daughter had
made the fashionable tour, that is to
say, had visited the lakes of Niagara,
and the Canadas, and had turned their
course towards Boston, when the unfortunate
accident which has been mentioned
put a stop to their progress, and
deposited them for a while at the house
of a respectable New England farmer.

eaf337v1.n1

[1] Conversation is not there as elsewhere, simply a
medium for the communication of ideas and sentiments,
and the transaction of business; but it is
instrument on which they delight to play, and
which excites their spirits, like music among some
nations, and strong liquors among others.

eaf337v1.dag1

† Paris was that place in the whole world where
one might best dispense with happiness.

CHAPTER V.

“She came—she is gone—we have met—
And meet perhaps never again.”
Cowper.

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

As the day closed, on which Mr. Redwood's
journey had been so suddenly
suspended, the full-orbed moon rose
above the summit of the highest hills
that border the eastern shore of Champlain.
Not a vestige of the storm remained,
not a cloud stained the clear vault of
heaven, and the scene looked the more
beautiful as contrasted with its recent
turbulence. The vapour was condensed
on the low grounds, and instead of impeding
the rays of the “bright queen

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

of heaven,” looked as if she had sheltered
some favourite spots with a silvery
mantle; and the broad lake, glad to be
relieved from the stern shadows that
shrouded it, smiled and dimpled in the
rich flood of light that fell on its bosom,
and reflected in its clear mirror the pasture-hills,
covered with social herds, that
descended to its margin; and the water-loving
willow, the chesnut with its horizontal
branches and pendant blossoms,
and the little trig-birch that shadowed its
brim. The location of the farm-houses
planted here and there on the surrounding
hills was marked by the tall Lombardy
poplar, which through our country-towns
is every where the sign of a
habitation. The moon-beams played
on the white dwelling of Mr. Lenox,
which had an air of prosperity and
refinement above any of its neighbours,
from the ample, well fenced fields
around it, a colony of barns behind it,
and a neat little court-yard containing

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

peach and cherry trees, and rosebushes,
and vines skilfully guided around the
windows, and all enclosed by a curiously
wrought fence, on which the village
architect had exhausted all the cunning
of his trade. Mr. Lenox's family had
retired to their several apartments, excepting
those who were appointed to
keep their vigils with the sick stranger.
He had complained of the closeness of
the air, and Deborah had opened doors
that communicated by a narrow passage
with another apartment. She had then
stationed herself near the door, where,
after a few moments, her loud breathing
announced that she was in a profound
sleep. Mr. Redwood observed a female
sitting in the passage and obscured by
its shadows, who seemed to be stationed
there to act as a prompter to Deborah,
for whenever he was restless she awoke
the sleeper. In the opposite room he
perceived the body of the young man
he had heard spoken of, the head was

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

placed directly under a window through
which the full-moon shone so brightly,
that every object was almost as distinctly
seen as by the light of day. At another
time, or in health, Mr. Redwood would
have been quite unmoved by such a
spectacle, for death has no heart-stirring
associations to him who deems that the
“spirit shall vanish into soft air, and we
shall be hereafter as though we had never
been;” but there are few minds that are
independent of the condition of the animal;
and Mr. Redwood, weakened by
his sufferings, and his imagination stimulated
by a large dose of laudanum that
had excited instead of composing him,
felt himself yielding to the power of
busy and bitter fancies. The light graceful
figure of the young female as she gently
moved to awaken the amazon, seemed
to touch some secret spring of his imagination,
and once, as he fell into a dreamy
state, the wife of his youth was near
him, but cold and silent, as the dead

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

form he had just closed his eyes upon,
and when he started and awoke and saw
the young female standing like a statue
in the door-way, he identified her with
his vision and exclaimed, “for God's
sake speak to me.” Deborah was awakened
by the sound, and her coarse voice
inquiring what he wanted, restored him
at once to realities. She gave him at
his request a composing draught, and
again resumed her station, and saying
she believed she had been almost asleep,
she resumed instantly her harsh nasal
sounds; the only sounds that broke the
stillness of the night, save the falling of
the swollen drops of water as they rolled
from leaf to leaf on the branches of the
trees about the window.

By degrees Mr. Redwood became
composed, and was just yielding himself
to nature's best medicine, when his
attention was aroused by the sound of
light footsteps approaching the house.
He heard the latch of an outer door

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

gently raised, (for here fastenings were
considered a superfluity,) and a young
girl glided into the opposite room. Mr.
Redwood saw that she passed, observed
but not molested by his attendant. His
attention was now thoroughly excited.
She lingered for a moment, apparently
from irresolution or timidity, and then
throwing aside a shawl in which she had
muffled herself, she knelt beside the
body of the young man, and removing
the covering from his face, she gazed
intently upon it: the light fell on her
own, still beautiful, though distorted
and almost convulsed with the tumult
of her feelings. After remaining for a
few moments motionless, she laid her
burning forehead on the cold breast of
the young man, and sobbed passionately.
The young lady who had been a passive
spectator of the poor girl's involuntary
grief, now advanced to shut the door,
apparently with the purpose of sheltering
her from the observation of the

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

stranger, but he, perceiving her intention,
and unable to repress his curiosity,
called to entreat her to permit it to remain
open. The loud sobs of the girl
awakened the grandmother of the deceased,
who, reluctant to separate herself
for a moment from the body of her
grandson, had insisted on performing
herself the customary duty of watching
with the dead; but overcome with her
grief and infirmities, she had fallen asleep.
She recognised immediately in the afflicted
girl, the object of her child's youthful
and constant affections; whose girlish
coquetries and caprices had been the
first cause of that “inward disease,”
which Deborah had pronounced the
occasion of his death. She advanced to
her with trembling steps, and laying her
hand on the girl's head, and stroking
back her beautiful hair, “poor silly
child,” she said in a pitiful tone, “you
have come too late: once his heart would
have leaped at a word from you, but he

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

does not hear you now. He loved you,
Anne, and for that I cannot help loving
you;” and she stooped and kissed the
girl, who was awed into silence by her
unexpected appearance, and her calm
tone. “A grief have you been to him,
Anne; but the Lord changed his mourning
into joy, for when friend and lover
forsook him, then he turned to the sure
friend. Oh,” she continued, “he was
my last earthly hope, the staff of my
age; he was good, always good, but—”
and the tears poured down her pale
wrinkled face, “but it was his adversities
that made him wise unto salvation.
Sorrow upon sorrow, cloud upon cloud,
and he from the first such a feeling creature.”
Mrs. Allen's lamentation was
interrupted by the hysterical sobbings
of the penitent girl, “My poor child,”
she said, in a compassionate tone, “do
not break your heart; sore mourning
is it indeed for a wrong done to the dead,
but it was not you, Anne that killed

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

him; no, that was just the beginning
of it; then came his parent's losses, his
father's death, and his mother's; but all
these were dust on the balance; time to
eternity compared with the backsliding
of Emily; his root withered when this
branch was lopped off. Oh, my dear
boy, how often have I heard you say
you would die for her if thereby you
could bring her back from her idolatry.”
Here the aged mourner was again interrupted,
and all were startled by the
rumbling of an approaching waggon;
the young lady quick as thought, flew
to the window. “They are here,” she
exclaimed; and then turning to the old
woman, “I entreat you dear, dear Mrs.
Allen,” she said “to leave the room;
indeed you are not able to see them
to-night.”

“Oh, Ellen, I care not for myself,
say not a word; this may be the Lord's
set time to call home the wanderer; I
will not shrink from the trial, if it was

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

my last breath, I would spend it in
setting her sin before her.”

“But not now, Mrs. Allen, surely not
now; this is not the time to harrow up
the poor girl's feelings; consider for one
moment she has yet to learn Edward's
death; she is exhausted with her
journey, spare her, spare yourself to-night.”

“Ellen you know not what you
ask,” replied the old woman, who
seemed to gather strength and energy
to obey what she regarded as a call of
duty. “Are we not,” she asked, “to
pluck out the right eye, to pluck off
the right arm, if thereby we may save
the soul? Ellen, I will speak to her;
and if she is not dead to natural affection,
the light of that pale still face
will send my words home to her
heart.”

In vain Ellen argued and entreated.
Mrs. Allen seemed persuaded, or as she
expressed herself, she felt that now, if

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

ever, was the set time for the deliverance
of the child from captivity.

Debby, roused at the near approach
of the waggon, and again said, “she
did not know but she had been dosing;”
and, listening to the bustle in the opposite
apartment, “what does all this
mean?” said she; “I thought Ellen
was fit to be trusted, is there no discretion
in a young head?”

Mr. Redwood assured her that the
young lady had not failed in her duty in
the least; that the door had been continued
open at his request. “Oh well, well,
it is all very well: it is a good rule never
to cross the sick in their notions.” While
making this sage observation, she advanced
to the window. “For the land's
sake,” she exclaimed, “what has tempted
Susan Allen to come with Emily! It
will go nigh to break the old woman's
heart to see her. Ah, there will be no
good come of it, for there is that old
grim master-devil, brother Reuben.”

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

“In the name of heaven,” exclaimed
Mr. Redwood, “who is Emily? and
who is Susan? am I dreaming, or
what does it all mean?”

“No man, you are not dreaming, but
I guess in your right mind. Emily
Allen is a young girl twin sister to
Eddy there in the other room; she has
been befooled by the shaking quakers,
at least by her Aunt Susan, that has
been one these thirty years; and Susan
is a half crazy woman and half saint;
and there is the old woman that is
mother to Susan and grandmother to
Emily, that is taking on about them as
if they were sold to the evil one. But,
Sir, we are disobeying Doctor Bristol's
orders, and that an't honouring the
physician with the honour that is due
to him:” and thus concluding, she proceeded
to close the door that led through
the passage. Mr. Redwood had been
beguiled of the tedious sleepless hours,
by the curious spectacle of natural

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

feeling, undisguised by any of the artificial
modes of society, and he was now
determined to see the new characters
that were entering on the scene. He
entreated Deborah to permit the door
to remain open, and she, after examining
his pulse, and looking at his eye to
detect any incipient wildness, decided
that it would not be indiscreet to gratify
him.

To convey to our readers a clear idea
of this scene, we shall describe it as it
really occurred, and not as it appeared
to Mr. Redwood, who by the dim light,
and at the distance he was laid from the
parties, was compelled to be satisfied
with a very imperfect observation.

Ellen opened the outer door for the
two females, who entered dressed in the
shaker uniform, only remarkable for its
severe simplicity and elaborate neatness.
Both wore striped blue and white cotton
gowns, with square muslin handkerchiefs
pinned formally over the bosom,

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

their hair combed back, and covered
with muslin caps with straight borders,
and white as the driven snow. Susan,
the elder, was between forty and fifty
years of age: she was tall and erect;
and though rather slender in proportion
to her height, well-formed. There was
an expression of command in all her
movements that seemed natural to her,
and sate gracefully upon her. Her face
had the same character of habitual independence
and native dignity: the hues
of youth had faded, but a connoisseur
would have pronounced her at a single
glance to have been handsome. Her
features were large, and all finely formed;
her eye, there, where the “spirit has its
throne of light,” beamed with intelligence
and tenderness. It was softened
by a rich dark eye-lash, and of that equivocal
hue, between gray and hazel,
which seems best adapted to show every
change of feeling; but vain is this description
of colour and shape. It was

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

the expression of strong and rebuked
passions, of tender and repressed affections,
of disciplined serenity, and a soft
melancholy, that seemed like the shadow
of past sufferings, which altogether
constituted the power and interest of
her remarkable face.

The younger female was short and
slightly formed. Her features were
small; her blue eyes, light hair, and fair
complexion, would have rendered her
face insipid but that it was rescued by an
expression of purity and innocence, and
a certain appealing tender look, that
suited well her quiet and amiable character.

As they entered, Ellen threw her arms
around the younger sister, exclaiming
in a tone of the tenderest concern, “dear
Emily, why did you not come sooner?”
Emily trembled like an aspen leaf, and
her heart beat as if it would have leapt
from her bosom, but she made no reply.
The elder sister grasped Ellen's hand,

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

“Is it even so?” she said: she rightly
interpreted Ellen's silence and sadness:
“I foresaw,” she continued, “that our
coming would be worse than in vain:”
then turning to her young companion,
she said, “put thy hand on thy mouth,
and be still, my child. The mighty One
hath done it, strive not against Him, for
he giveth not account of any of his matters.”

A loud groan was heard in the apartment
of the dead. Susan Allen started,
and exclaimed, “is my mother here?
then, mother Anne be with me!” She
paused for a moment, and added in a
calm tone, “fear not, Emily, my child,
in your weakness strength shall be made
perfect; we shall not be left without the
testimony.” Her words were quick,
and her voice raised, as if she felt that
she was contending against rebellious
nature. She entered the room with a
slow and firm step. Emily followed
her, but it seemed not without faltering,

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

for Ellen had passed her arm around her,
and appeared to sustain half her weight.

Her face was as pale as marble, and
as still.

“Pray speak to them, Mrs. Allen,”
whispered Ellen: “yes, speak to them,”
said Debby, in a voice of authority;
“what signifies it! they are your own
children, and there is no denying it.”

“They were my children, but they
have gone out from me, and are not of
me,” replied the old woman, in a voice
scarcely audible. “I am alone; they
are uprooted; I am as an old oak, whose
leaf has withered; judgment has come
out against me.”

“She is going clean distracted,”
whispered Debby to Ellen, “you can
do any thing with her; make her hear
to reason while she has any left, and
get her to go out of the room with
you.”

“No no,” said the old woman, who
had over-heard Debby's whisper, “have

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

no fear for me, my spirits are a little fluttered,
and my soul is in travail for these
wanderers, to get them back to my
rest, and under my wing; but the Lord's
own peace is in my heart and none can
trouble that. Oh,” she continued,
bursting into tears, as she turned her
eyes from Emily to fix them on Susan,
“was it not enough that you were led
captive by Satan, enough for you to
put on his livery, but you must tempt
this child to follow you in your idolatries?”
Strong sensibility is perhaps
never extinguished; but Susan's was so
subdued that, obedient to the motion of
her will, it had soon returned to flow
in its customary channels. She replied
to her mother's appeal in her usual deliberate
manner. “The child is not my
captive, mother she has obeyed the
gospel,” and, added she, looking at
Emily with affectionate complacency,
“she has already travelled very far
out of an evil nature, and the believers

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

are looking to see her stand in the foremost
light, so clear is the testimony of
her life against all sin.” Susan had
an habitual influence over Emily; she
felt that she commanded the springs
that governed the mind of her timid
disciple. Emily felt it too, and was
glad to be saved from the efforts of
self-dependence. She approached Susan,
who had seated herself by the bed-side,
when her grandmother took her by the
hand, and drawing her towards her, she
said in a voice scarcely audible—for sorrow,
infirmity and despair almost deprived
her of utterance—“Oh, Emily
my child, my only child has she bewitched
you?” She drew the unresisting
girl towards the body of her
brother,—“there, look on him, Emily,
though dead, he yet speaketh to you, and
if nature is not quite dead in you, you
will hear him, he calls to you to break
to pieces your idols, and to come out
from the abominations of the land whither

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

ye have been carried away captive.”
Emily sighed heavily and wept, but said
nothing. Susan moved to the other side
of her, and seeming to lose the spirit of
controvesy in some gentle remembrance,
she said, “Edward was a good
youth, and lived up to the light he had.
There is one point where all roads
meet; one thing certain, mother,” she
added, an intelligent smile brightening
her fine face, “we shall all be judged
according to the light we have: some
have a small, and some a great privilege.”

“She has hit the nail on the head for
once,” whispered Debby to Ellen: “and
now Ellen, before they get into another
snarl, do separate them.”

Ellen's heart was full; she felt for all
the parties a very tender, and an almost
equal interest; and though she would
have rejoiced in Emily's renunciation
of her errors, she did not probably regard
the sincere adoption of them with

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

the terror and despair which the grandmother
felt.

“My dear friends,” she said, gently
taking the hands of the mother and
daughter, and joining them, “there is
that in the face of your good Edward
that bears an admonition to all our
hearts, and teaches us all to remember
how often we are commanded to love
one another, and to be at peace one
with another. It was the beloved apostle
who said, `He that doeth good is of
God:' may not then those who try
to do his will, leave the rest to his
mercy.” There was the eagerness and
the authority of truth and goodness in
Ellen's voice, and manner, and words;
the spirit of love and of reconciliation;
and the troubled waters would have
been laid at rest, for the raised eye of
the old lady showed that true devotion
was working at her heart; and Susan
looked on her acquiescingly and approvingly;
and Emily's face shone with an

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

expression of gratitude that her lips
could not utter: but at this moment the
outer door again opened, and Reuben
Harrington, that one of “the brethren,”
whom Debby had characterized as the
“master-devil,” entered.

He seemed to have arrived at that
age, which the poet has characterized
as the period of self-indulgence; and
certainly he bore no marks of having
disobeyed the instincts of nature by any
mortifications of the flesh. He was of
a middling stature, inclining to corpulency;
with a sanguine complexion, a
low forehead deeply shaded with bushy
black hair, that absolutely refused to
conform to the sleekness of his order;
a keen gray eye, which had a peculiarly
cunning expression from a trick he had
early acquired, and of which he could
never rid himself, of tipping a knowing
wink; a short thick nose turning upward;
a wide mouth, with the corners
sanctimoniously drawn down, and a

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

prominent fat chin following the direction
of his nose. In short, he presented
a combination and a form to awaken
the suspicions of the most credulous,
and confirm the strongest prejudices
against a fraternity that would advance
such a brother to its highest honours—or,
to use their own phrase, to the dead.
Reuben advanced to the bedside quite
unceremoniously, and seemed to survey
the dead and the living with as much
indifference as if he did not belong to
their species. No one spoke to him,
nor did he speak, till his attention was
arrested by poor Anne, who had shrunk
away from the side of the bed, and sat
on a low chair at its foot enveloped in
her shawl, and sobbing aloud, apparently
unconscious that any one saw or
heard her. “Who is that young woman,”
inquired Harrington of Debby,
“that is making such an unseemly ado,
is she kin to the youth?”

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

“No!” uttered in her harshest voice,
was all the reply Debby vouchsafed.

“Some tie of a carnal nature, ha?”
pursued Harrington. “No such thing,”
said Debby, “Eddy was her sweetheart.”

“Yea, yea, that is just what I meant,
woman. Well,” he continued, with a
long drawn gutteral groan, “the children
of this world must bake as they
have brewed; they are in the transgression,
and they must drink the bitter
draught their own folly has mixed.”
After this consolatory harangue, he
turned from the bedside, and began not
humming, but shouting with the utmost
power of his voice, a shaker tune, at all
times sufficiently dissonant, and that now
in this apartment of death and sorrow
sounded like the howl of an infernal: to
this music he shuffled and whirled in
the manner which his sect call dancing
and labour worship.

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

“Stop your dumb pow-wow!” cried
Debby, seizing him by the arm with a
force that might have made a stouter
heart than Reuben's rejoice in the protection
of the convenient principle of
non-resistance.

“Nay, ye world's woman, let me
alone,” said he, extricating himself from
her grasp, and composing his neckcloth,
which Deborah's rough handling
had somewhat ruffled; “know me for
a peaceable man, that wars not with
earthly powers.”

“True,” replied Debby, “your war
is with heavenly powers; but while
the Lord is pleased to spare the strength
of my right arm, I'll keep you peaceable.
Peaceable! indeed, one would
have thought all bedlam had been let
loose on us----peaceable! your yells almost
sacred the old lady's soul out of
her body.”

Poor Mrs. Allen, to whom Reuben's
singing had sounded like a shout of

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

victory from the infernal host, now really
seemed in danger of such a catastrophe.
She could scarcely raise her heavy eyelids,
and the low moaning sounds that
escaped her betrayed the infirmity of
age, and the grief that words cannot
express. Ellen renewed her entreaties
that she would retire to her own room.
No longer capable of resistance, she
silently acquiesced, and Ellen conducted
her to her bed, and watched over her, till
she perceived that her wearied nature
had sunk to repose. She then left her,
and was softly closing the door, when
she met Debby in the passage. “Now
child,” said Deborah, “it is time that for
once you should think a little of yourself;
go to bed and take a good nap;
there is no occasion for your going back
to that room; it is quiet enough there
now: poor little Ann stole away when
nobody saw her, and I got the old man
out, and gave him some victuals, and
he is making a hearty meal.”

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

“Where are Susan and Emily?” inquired
Ellen “they must need rest more
than I do.”

“Yes, poor souls, they need it enough,
but they will not take it; they are only
waiting for Reuben to go away again.”

“Away—before the funeral?”

“Yes, and I think Susan has the right
of it: she says `the dead need them not,
and they are no comfort to the living.'
And, to tell you the truth,” she added, in a
lower tone, “I suspect she is now afraid
to trust Emily here any longer. You
know she and our James always had a
notion for each other, and I guess Susan
has found it out too; for though she is
not much used to the world, she is a cute
woman by natur', and sees as far into a
millstone, as a'most any body. I marked
her looking at Emily when James came
into the room, for you must know he came
in just after you went out, and Emily's
face that was as white as curds before,
turned red to the very roots of her hair; and

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

when James offered her his hand, she
did not take it to be sure, for that is
quite contrary to all shaker rules and
regulations; but she did not look the
least affronted.”

“I cannot think,” said Ellen, shaking
her head doubtfully, “that Emily has
any attachment to James. If she had,
why did she join the shakers?” “Why!
ah, that's more than I can tell. It passes
the skill of a rational creature to give
the whys and the wherefores of the
motions of you young girls. I would
as soon undertake to give a reason for
the shiftings of the wind. But I am
as sure that Emily Allen would rather
stay with James, than to go back to the
shakers, as that I know a southerly
breeze from a northwester.” “But,
Miss Deborah,” asked Ellen, apparently
still incredulous, “was there any thing
said that would warrant your conclusion?”

“Yes, a good deal was said, but very

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

low, and I scarcely heard any thing.
But I did, however, hear James say,
`Oh, Emily, how can you bear to think
of all poor Edward felt for you, and of
your old grandmother, for it will certainly
kill her, and go back again to
those people?' mind you he did not say
a word about himself, but he looked
enough, and I am sure Emily understood
him, for girls are quick enough at
taking such ideas, and I saw the tears
gush from her eyes; and she said, `it is
a great cross, James, but I must bear
it.' Susan saw as much as I did, for
she seemed as uneasy as a bird when a
boy is robbing her nest. And she got
up and told Emily in her calm way, to
go with her to the kitchen fire. And
Emily followed her, and she will follow
her home, though with a heavy heart in
her bosom.”

`, But,” said Ellen, “Emily shall not
go against her inclination.”

“Ah there is the rub,” replied Debby.

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

“Susan has that in her that she can make
people a mind to do what they would
hate to do for anybody else. I don't
know what it is, she is not a stern woman,
but it is a kind of nat'ral authority, as if
she was a born-queen.”

“She is very good, certainly,” said
Ellen as if trying to discover the secret
of Susan's power.

“There it is,” replied Debby, “there
is no getting such a grapple upon young
folks' hearts, without goodness. But
come, Ellen, there is no use in our standing
here paraphrasing the matter, do
you go to bed and I'll wait till this old
vulture has done eating, and see them
off, and then go back to the traveller's
room; the laudanum has put him to
sleep at last, and that is the best thing
for him.”

Ellen assured Deborah, that she would
comply with her wishes, after having
made one effort to detain Emily. Deborah
commended her zeal, but was quite

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

hopeless of success. Ellen said, that if
she could not persuade her to remain with
them now, she might suggest some considerations
that might weigh with her
afterwards. Debby thought “that looked
rational; but there was no calculating
with certainty upon such a feeble
piece; if Emily's head had been as
strong as her heart, she would never
have been led away by such fooleries.”

Sanguine hope is the privilege of the
young; and Ellen began her expostulations
with her ardour unimpaired by
Debby's suggestions. She appealed to
Emily's reason, and to her feelings for
a long time, without producing any sensible
effect. Both Susan and Emily
sate in a fixed posture, with their eyes
rivetted on the floor. At last the poor
girl, unable any longer to smother the
voice of nature, sobbed out, “what
shall I do? what ought I to do?”

“Resist to the death,” exclaimed
Susan, in a voice of authority. “It is a

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

strong temptation, child, but there is a
way of escape. Come, Reuben,” she
added, turning to Harrington, “we cannot
tarry here in safety any longer.”

“I am ready to depart,” he replied,
for my deeaying nature is greatly refreshed
by this carnal food. I feared before I
took it, that, as the angel said to the
prophet Elijah, my journey had been too
great for me.”

“That is a small matter,” said Susan;
and then added in a lower tone, “Reuben,
the child's soul is at stake:” and she
followed him to the door, apparently to
hasten his preparations. Ellen availed
herself of this moment to ask Emily, at
the same time placing her hand on the
latch of the door that led into the apartment
of the deceased, “if she would not
once more look upon her brother?”

“Oh, yes,” said she, and for the first
time instinctively obeying the impulse of
her feelings, she darted through the
door: Ellen closed it after her without

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

following; believing that at this moment,
it was best to leave her to the unassisted
workings of her natural affections. But
Susan, as soon as she returned from laying
her injunctions on Reuben's reading
what Ellen most wished, went to the
door, and said as calmly as she was able,
for her fears were increased by seeing
James Lenox standing beside Emily,
and eagerly addressing her, “Come, my
child, we wait for you, be not like a silly
dove without heart; take up your cross
again, a full cross though it may be, and
turn your back upon the world.” Emily,
after a short struggle, obeyed, but with
evident reluctance. It was manifest
that the cords which bound her were relaxed,
though not broken. Young
Lenox followed her to the door, and unobserved
even by Susan's watchful eye,
he thrust a paper into her hand, which,
without examining or offering to return
it, she slipped into her bosom. A person of
ordinary sagacity might have predicted,

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

that from this moment the charm of the
eldest sister's power was dissolved, and
that though accident and habit, and the
natural submission of weakness, intellectual
or physical, to power, might detain
the youthful disciple in thraldom, it
would no longer be the service of a willing
heart. Emily took an affectionate
leave of Ellen; and Susan, after having
simply said, “Farewell,” turned and
added, “you meant well, Ellen — I
know you meant well; but you have
the voice of a charmer, and how should
I be justified if I suffered this young
child to be seduced from her obedience
to the gospel?”

“Promise me, at least,” said Ellen,
“that you will not constrain Emily to
remain among you; promise me that
you will suffer her to see and hear from
her friends.”

“Ellen,” replied Susan, in a tone of
solemnity bordering on displeasure,
“we have neither dungeons, bolts, nor

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

chains. We care not for the poor service
of the perishing body; but we
would bring all into the obedience of
the spirit; and,” she concluded, looking
at Emily with tearful eyes, “we would
keep them there, if watching and praying
can keep them: we have no other
means.”

“You promise then, what I ask?”

“I tell you, Ellen,” she replied,
“I need not promise. Emily is as free
as I am—as you are.”

“God grant that she may be,” said
Ellen, in a suppressed voice; and perceiving
that she could gain nothing
farther from the impracticable enthusiast,
she relinquished her hand, which
in her eagerness she had taken, and once
more bidding farewell, they parted. The
waggon drove away, and Ellen went to
her own apartment, of which she would
have been glad now to have been the
sole tenant. She had been too much
disturbed by the suffering of those she

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

loved, to be able to compose herself to
sleep; and she sate down by an eastern
window, to ponder on the various feelings
of the heterogeneous group of
mourners that Edward's death had
brought together.

“Oh,” thought she, as she gazed at
the fair stars in their “quiet and orderly
courses,” and then at the clear still lake
in whose depths their beautiful images
seemed to sleep: “why is it that all nature
above us, and around is harmony,
while we are left to such conflicts. The
material world is performing the will of
its Creator; the glorious sun is ever on
its way, shining on the just and the unjust;
the obedient planets roll on in their
appointed paths; the clouds distil their
nourishing waters, and the winds are his
messengers as they pass, stirring the
leaves, and waving the ripening harvest.”
Ellen's reflections might have
led her to a solution of the mystery, satisfactory
to herself at least, but their

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

chain was broken by an exclamation
from Miss Redwood, who waking suddenly,
exclaimed, “good heavens, Miss
what's your name, are you up already?
do be good enough to go to bed again—
I can never sleep when any one is
hazing about my room; and close the
blind if you please, the light disturbs
me.”

Ellen smiled, but not thinking it important
to explain the cause of her being
up at an hour that Miss Redwood
deemed so unseasonable, she let fall a
neatly woven rush curtain, which sufficiently
excluded the intrusion of the
approaching day; and, laying herself
on her bed, she was soon in a sleep that
Miss Redwood might have envied.

CHAPTER VI.

“Thus Aristippus mourned his noble race,
Annihilated by a double blow,
Nor son could hope, nor daughter more t'embrace,
And all Cyrene saddened at his wo.”
Cowper.

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

Doctor Bristol called on his patient
the succeeding day; he found him
feverish, and petulant in spite of his
habitual politeness; he complained that
the opiate had not been powerful
enough. He anticipated a long delay;
he was used to disappointment, and for
himself could bear it; but he dreaded to
encounter his daughter's impatience.
Doctor Bristol understood too well the
arts of his vocation, he was too sagacious
a practitioner, not to have observed
that a skilful application to the mind is
often a surer remedy than any favourite

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

or fashionable drug. He accounted satisfactorily
to Mr. Redwood for the increase
of fever; he detected and brought
to light many favourable symptoms;
spoke of a ball which was to be given in
the village, and intimated that some of
the most respectable inhabitants would
wait on Miss Redwood, and deem themselves
honoured by her presence. He
produced some late newspapers which
he had procured at the post-office; the
last foreign reviews; and succeeded in
producing as sudden a change of symptoms
as an empiric would have promised.

Mr. Redwood described the extraordinary
scene he had witnessed during
the night; asked many questions, and
with particular interest in relation to
the young lady whose face and demeanour
had impressed him as belonging to
an elevated sphere. Doctor Bristol assured
him, that his sagacity was not at
fault, for Miss Bruce (the young lady

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

in question) was not a member of the
Lenox family, but a stranger at Eton,
and a friend of the Allens. Mr. Redwood
said that the various modes of religious
superstition always interested
him; he was amused with seeing how
willing man was to be the dupe of his own
inventions; and intimating, that in the
eye of experience and enlightened observation,
all the forms of religious faith
were equally absurd; shackles which
men imposed, or wore, from tyranny or
imbecility, he concluded by insinuating
a compliment upon the free-thinking
which was so common among the enlightened
of the doctor's profession.
Doctor Bristol, without assuming the
attitude of combat, or seeming entirely
to comprehend the drift of Mr. Redwood's
remarks, observed, that there
were, in his fraternity, some distinguished
exceptions to the charge which had
been laid against them. Every one acknowledged
the authority of Boerhaave's

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

name, “and our own Rush,” he said,
(speaking with honourable pride of his
master,) “is among the most humane
and enlightened of philosophers, and
the most humble of Christians.” Mr
Redwood perceived that he had not proceeded
with his usual tact; that he had
presumed too far upon what he considered
the necessary result of Doctor Bristol's
general intelligence. He avoided any
farther remarks which might have a
tendency to disclose his own sentiments,
and confined himself to comments on
the persons he had observed the preceding
night. He said he hardly knew
whether the opinions of those people
seemed to him most ridiculous or shocking.
“Truly, he knew not which most
to pity; the poor old woman who fancied
a silly girl must lose all chance of
salvation, because forsooth, she had forsaken
the world, and in good faith
joined a gloomy and self-denying order;
or her child, the shaking quaker who

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

had immolated every right and natural
affection to an imaginary duty; who
had forsaken all that made life a blessing,
to follow an ignorant fanatic, or
an impudent impostor.” The doctor acknowledged
that such mistakes were
lamentable; the result of limited knowledge,
or accidental prejudices. Still,
he thought, that while we lamented the
errors to which we were liable, we
might rejoice that the light we enjoyed
was light from heaven, though its clearness
must depend somewhat on the purity
of the atmosphere into which it was
introduced; the mists of ignorance might
dim, but did not extinguish its pure ray.
If an immortal hope led these people to
some unnecessary sacrifices, it stimulated
them to those that were necessary; for
he believed there was no variety of the
Christian faith, however distorted from
the perfection of the original model,
which did not insist on a pure morality.

The doctor invited Mr. Redwood to
observe the state of things about him;

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

the wise and excellent institutions which
had sprung from the religion of the pilgrims;
the intelligence and morality
that pervaded the mass of the people,
which might be said to emanate from the
principle of equality, derived from the
Christian code. He spoke of the religious
zeal and active benevolence which
pervades our society, which, not neglecting
the means of moral regeneration
at home, sends its missionaries to the
fearful climate of the east; to the barbarians
of the south, and to the savages
of our own dangerous wilderness. These
noble efforts were not, as in older countries,
supported by the pious zeal of a
few of the bountiful, or the gifts of the
penitent rich, who by a kind of spiritual
commutation, expected to purchase, by
their brilliant charities, the remission of
their sins, but, for the most part, they
were the fruit of the virtuous self-denials
and exertions of the laborious classes of
the community.

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

Mr. Redwood listened with more
patience than could have been expected
from one who had philosophic prejudices;
more inveterate perhaps than
those which spring from the conceit of
ignorance, because they are fortified by
the pride of knowledge, and assume the
form of independent opinions which is
so flattering to our self-love. There was
something too in doctor Bristol's manner
that recommended every sentiment he
uttered; it was so calm, so dispassionate,
there was so much of the serenity of truth
in it. There was no extravagant statements;
he did not insist that another
should believe, because he felt the truth
of such and such propositions; he did
not enter ino a formal argument, but
intimated the grounds on which his own
opinions had been formed, and permitted
Mr. Redwood to draw his own conclusions,
hoping they would be such,
as seemed to him natural and inevitable.

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

Mr. Redwood made minute inquiries
in relation to the Lenox family. He
expressed his surprise and regret, that
they had not thought proper to interfere
and detain by force, if necessary, the
foolish little girl, who he predicted
would soon be sick of her folly. He
was pleased to hear that the doctor, as
well as himself, regarded Deborah as an
amusing original; and he again intimated
some curiosity in relation to Miss
Bruce, which the doctor either could not,
or did not choose to gratify. He did
not allow the doctor to leave him till
he had requested him to make his visits
as long and as frequent as possible, nor
till he had expressed in the most flattering
terms, his entire confidence in the
doctor's professional ability.

Miss Redwood entered her father's
room as doctor Bristol left it, to make
her dutiful enquiries which were perhaps
nearly as much a matter of form as the
professional visit of the physician. After

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

she had gone through the customary
routine of, “how he had slept? how
he felt himself,” &c. she said, “if
you have no objections, papa, I will
take a drive this afternoon to the
village while this funeral is going on
here. Ralph tells me, the injury done
to the carriage yesterday was very
slight, and that he can have it in order
by one o'clock, the hour appointed for
the funeral.”

“If that is the case, my dear,” replied
Mr. Redwood, “you will gratify me
if you will forego your ride, and offer
the carriage for the use of the poor old
woman and her young friend: they
have not probably as covenient a mode
of riding, and I am told it is customary
in New-England for the female
relatives to follow the body to the
grave.”

“How barbarous!” exclaimed Miss
Redwood; “but thank fortune there
is no occasion, for Lilly tells me, the

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

old woman is too sick to go out, and is
just to sit up and hear the sermon and
all that; and so, papa, if you have no
objections I will take the carriage, and
get out of the way: funerals and all that
sort of thing, are so dull and disagreeable;
I don't see the use of them.”

The poet's doctrine, that “sweet are
the uses of adversity,” was nearly as
foreign from the father's as the daughter's
experience: but he perceived that
the good-will of the Lenox family
would be of very material use to them;
and thinking that it might be conciliated
by the deference to their feelings which
would be evinced by Miss Redwood's
presence at the funeral solemnity, he requested
her to gratify him by deferring
her own inclinations. The request had
too much authority in it to be denied;
and though Miss Redwood thought it
great folly to take the trouble to win
favour which might be purchased, she
did not in the end regret that she had
complied with her father's request, so

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much was she amused with the number
and aspect of the crowd which the occasion
assembled.

The observances of a funeral in a
country town in New-England are quite
primitive; but their simplicity is more
touching than the most pompous ceremonial,
for it speaks the language of nature
to natural and universal feelings; and
even to those who are not of that soft
mould that is easily impressed by human
sympathies, and who have only witnessed
this last scene in the drama of
life in a city, the spectacle of a country
funeral must always be curious. In town,
a funeral procession scarcely attracts
the eye of the boy who is carelessly
trundling his hoop, or flying his kite, and
the busy and the gay bustle past, as if
they cared for none of these things, and
had neither part nor lot in them. But
in the country, where life is not so
plentiful; where each knows his neighbour,
the events of his life, and the hope

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he may have had in death; the full import
and terrible significance of this
event is felt. Some will attend a funeral,
because they remember a kind
word or deed of the departed, or, it
may be, a kind look that inspired a personal
interest; some, from respect to
the living; some because it is good to go
to the house of mourning: the old would
not shrink from the admonition they
hear there, and the old take the young
because they ought not to shrink from
it: some like to watch the tears of the
mourners, and some to note there are
no tears. The motives that draw any
crowd together are almost as various as
the persons that compose it. On this
occasion, there was an universal sentiment
of compassion for the solitary
aged mourner, and of respect for the
memory of the departed. Miss Redwood
took her statian at one extremity
of the apartment in which the assembly
met. She was arrayed with studied

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elegance; Lilly stood on one side of her
chair and a footman in livery on the
other: the body of the deceased was on
the opposite side of the room: next to
it sate Mrs. Allen, and beside her, and
supporting her, Ellen, who, in a simple
white dress, her face beaming with tender
sympathy, looked like the embodied
spirit of religion. Perhaps beauty is
never more touching than when exclusively
occupied with the sufferings of
others, it is lit up with that divine expression
of tender compassion, which, to a
religious imagination, is the peculiar
attribute of an angel's face. Next Ellen
sate Mr. and Mrs. Lenox and their
numerous family, all clad in mourning;
their sad looks suiting well with their
badges of grief. The two youngest
children were placed on a bench at their
parent's feet, and whenever they could
withdraw their eyes from the various
objects that attracted them, they would
peep into their parent's faces, and

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catching the expressive language of sorrow,
fall to crying, till some new object diverted
their attention. Miss Deborah,
having no part of her own to perform,
acted as mistress of ceremonies. She
spoke, perhaps, oftener and louder than
was necessary, but on the whole, she
conducted her affairs with less official
bustle than is common on such occasions.
After having made a clear space
for the clergyman in the centre of the
room, and assigned to others their places,
allotting the arrangement of the procession
to a gigantic militia Major, who
usually filled that office, she seated herself
at the foot of the coffin, permitted
a large gray cat that came purring
through the crowd to take its usual station
in her lap, composed her muscles
to a rigid attention, and motioned to
the clergyman to begin his duty. He
made an affecting exhortation, founded
on the 15th chapter of the Epistle to the
Corinthians. A funeral hymn was sung,

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and he then proceeded to close the services
with a prayer, not however until
Deborah had whispered to him, “the
old lady is just spent, be short, Sir: pray
but a breath or two.” The aged mourner
had listened without once raising her
eyes, without a sigh or a movement. It
seemed as if time or grief had dried the
fountain of her tears, for not one was
seen on her furrowed cheek. The services
over, the Major ordered the crowd
to fall back to the right and left, while
the coffin was carried out. His order
was obeyed, (though with somewhat
less of military precision than it was
given,) and the coffin was placed in the
court-yard under the wide spreading
branches of an elm tree. He then returned
to the door, and in the tone of
military command, desired the mourners
to advance and look at the corpse, and
added a notice to the assembly to come
forward immediately after the mourners
had retired, it being necessary that all

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should take their last looks now, as the
lid of the coffin was to be screwed down
before the procession moved: a burst of
grief from the group of mourners
evinced that these commands, given out
as the mere forms of preparation, were
to them the dreadful signal of a final
separation. Mrs. Allen rose from her
chair, but even with Ellen's aid was unable
to move forward till doctor Bristol,
advancing from the crowd, gave her
the support of his stronger arm. She
then approached the coffin, and bent
for the last time over the body of her
child; her tears, which had been checked
till this moment, now flowed freely;
and as she raised her head, she perceived
they had fallen on Edward's face; she
said nothing, but carefully wiped them
away. “She is right,” whispered Doctor
Bristol to Ellen. “Edward has
nothing more to do with tears: they are
all wiped away.” “Oh, my son,” exclaimed
Mrs. Allen, in a low broken

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voice, “would to God Emily laid beside
you; then would I thankfully lay
down my weary body with you.
But,” she added, after a moment's
pause, in which her piety struggled
with her nature, “God's will be done.”

“Glad am I to hear those words,”
said Debby, who stood near enough to
catch the feeble sounds: “the poor old
lady's cup has been brimful of trouble so
long that it would not be strange if she
did think herself something crowded
on.”

“Crowded on—what can the woman
mean?” asked a young man of his companion;
but before the inquirer could
obtain a reply, he was jostled out of his
place by others eagerly pressing forward
to gaze for the last time on the
face of the deceased. All as they
turned away looked on Mrs. Allen,
and some perhaps wondered that the
leafless scaithed trunk should have been
passed by, and the young sapling cut

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down in its prime and beauty. Mrs.
Allen was led back to the house, attended
by Ellen and doctor Bristol; they
passed through the apartment where
Miss Redwood still maintained her
station, and where she continued to
gaze upon all that passed before her with
the indifference with which she would
have regarded the shifting scenes of a
wearisome play: the Major approached
her, and with awkward but well-meant
civility, told her she would have a good
chance now to look at the corpse, and,
being she was a stranger, he would see
her through the crowd himself

“Oh thank you,” she replied disdainfully,
“I have no fancy for looking at
dead people, and certainly I shall not
look at one dead that I never saw living.”
The Major, thus rebuffed, turned away,
and meeting Debby, he said in a low
tone, “I rather think that young stranger
girl has got to find out yet that she
is mortal.” “Why, bless my soul! a

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body would think her road did not
lay grave-ward; but young, and handsome,
and topping as she is, she must
come to it at last.” “She is a pretty
creature though to look at,” he added,
paying her the tribute of another full
stare; “she is almost as handsome as the
wax-work Rode-Island beauty.”

“Pooh, pooh,” replied Debby, “handsome
is that handsome does,” and she
glanced her eyes towards Ellen Bruce;
that is my rule, it is an old one, but it
will never wear out.”

“Miss Debby is right,” whispered a
pert girl, with the insolence of youth;
“quite right to stick to every thing that
is old.”

“Yes, yes,” replied Debby, who unluckily
overheard her, “quite right, till
there is more reason to hope that the
rising generation will make good the
places of those who have gone before
them.”

A call was now given to form the

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procession. Mrs. Allen was conducted
by her kind attendants to her own
apartment. The rooms were cleared,
the procession moved away, and the
house was restored to its usual quiet and
order.

CHAPTER VII.

“What folly I commit I dedicate to you.”

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The week that followed the funeral
would have been passed by Miss Redwood
in perfect listlessness, had not Miss
Bruce excited her curiosity, and her
curiosity been stimulated by the difficulty
of its gratification. The following
petulant production of her pen, a
letter achieved to her grandmother after
repeated and painful efforts, may afford
a fair view of her feelings. It certainly is
not a favourable specimen of her talents,
for she had originally a strongly marked
character: but abandoned from her infancy
to the guidance of a doting and

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silly grandmother, and early initiated into
fashionable and frivolous society, with uncommon
intellectual capacities and strong
passions, she was permitted to devote
herself to every thing that was trifling,
and, in short, condemned to a perpetual
childhood. But no farther remarks shall
be intruded on the just inferences which
the good sense of our readers will enable
them to deduce from the document itself.

“My dear grandmamma,—I can fancy
your vexation when you receive this
letter; for you, and you alone, can form
an adequate notion of my disappointments
and present misery. As to papa,
you know he never feels, nor thinks as
you and I do.

“No doubt in your imagination I
am figuring in the drawing-rooms of
Boston, displaying those beautiful dresses
you imported for this ill-starred journey;
leading captive my thousands and my
tens of thousands; living in an

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atmosphere of lover's sighs, and on the eve of
breaking a hundred hearts by my departure
for the Springs, where we expected
that a second harvest of conquest and
glory awaited me. `Now look on that
picture, and on this.' Here I am at a
vulgar farmer's, on the outskirts of a
town called Eton; and so changed am
I, or rather every thing about me is so
changed, that I can scarcely believe that
not much more than one little month
has elapsed since I was parading Broadway
with Captain Fenwick—(by the
way, Broadway is a sublime place for a
real show off,)—and he said to me, as
admirer after admirer poured into my
train, `you see Miss Redwood, that you
are the centre of the system,—the sun;
and we, your satellites, humbly revolve
around you.' What would he think,
what could he say, if he were to see me
now; not a creature dazzled by my
brightness, though there is not a rival
star in the heavens?—but a truce to

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lamentations, I will proceed to facts, and
then, dear grandmamma, you will perceive
how much I deserve and need
your pity. I must begin my relation at
St. John's, where the only pleasant incident
occurred which this letter will
contain. You will remember that I
wrote you from Montreal the particulars
of my first interview with Captain Fitzgerald,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera:
how many delightful gallantries and
flattering speeches are included in these
et ceteras! Speaking of Fitzgerald, carries
me back to Montreal; and I must
say, en passant, I was shockingly disappointed
in the size and appearance of
the city, which I expected to find as
large as New-York; and still more
with the military band; for you know,
grandmamma, you always told me that
since the revolution we had never had
any military music fit to be heard. But
to return to our journey. The first person
I beheld on arriving at St. John's

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was Fitzgerald; he had come there, as
he whispered to me, to see me once
more. Papa was very cold—almost
rude to him; but I took care that my
pleasure should be sufficiently apparent
to compensate him for papa's incivility.
It is so strange of papa, when he knows
that Fitzgerald is the son of an earl, and
brother to a Lord; and if he is a little
gay, as papa says he is, dissipation is
universal among military men, and no
fault of theirs of course. I don't see
what good it does papa not to be religious,
if he will make such a fuss about
trifles. My dear grandmamma, you would
admire Fitzgerald; and you may have
an opportunity, for he assured me, that
if he could get up a cough that would
furnish a pretext to ask leave of absence,
he would pass the next winter at
Charleston. He hinted at the possibility
of meeting me at the Springs. I
am ready to die with vexation when I
think of what I may lose by our

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detention in this vile place. It is but little
more than a week, though it seems to
me an age, since we met with the shocking
accident which has caused our
delay. Immediately on getting into
our own carriage, (the sight of which
was the first thing that revived me after
parting with Fitzgerald,) we were overtaken
by a tremendous thunder-storm,
which of course almost deprived me of
my senses; the lightning struck a number
of trees, and the prodigious blaze
that ensued, so terrified the horses, that
they leaped over a precipice forty or
fifty feet high. Fortunately the carriage
was not turned over, owing, I believe,
though I never understood clearly how
it was, to its being caught among the
branches of the trees. I was wild with
fright, and poor Lilly as white as my
handkerchief. As soon as we were extricated
from our perilous situation, we
took refuge in the nearest farm-house,
glad, at the moment, of any shelter from

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the storm. We should have proceeded
the same evening to the village, but
papa had his arm horribly broken in
jumping from the carriage, and here
we were obliged to remain; and here
we have a prospect of passing the remainder
of papa's life; for strange to tell,
he has put himself into the hands of a
country doctor; and what is worse, though
he never believed in anything before,
he has taken a freak to place implicit
confidence in this man, whose interest it
is, you know, to detain him here as long
as possible. This papa does not seem
to suspect, clair-voyant, as he prides
himself on being, and aided too by the
light of my hints, which you may be
sure I have not spared. What is most
extraordinary and provoking of all is,
that papa, who was never contented
before in his life, appears as satisfied as
if he had entered elysium; and never
before patient, has suddenly become as
patient as Job.

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