Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Such a rencontre could scarcely fail to excite the poetic fancy of Herbert Dudley, when the heroine of the adventure was a beautiful and fascinating girl. The acquaintance, begun under such pleasant auspices, was not suffered to languish: the new-found relatives passed a happy winter together at Florence. When springthe full flush and luxuriance of an Italian spring-gladdened the earth once more, the cousins were declared lovers,

"Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands:

Every moment lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands ;

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might,

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight."

[ocr errors]

The favourite haunt of the lovers was the classic hill of Fiesole. The bright April mornings found them wandering in the orange-groves of the Villa dei Tre Visi, where erst the fair story-tellers of the "Decamerone wove "their hundred tales," or loitering on the terrace of the Villa Mozzi, the chosen retreat of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Mary, under the lover-like tuition of her cousin, conned the soft lay of him,—

"Who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue."

She hung enraptured upon the tide of eloquence which flowed from her companion's lips when he called up the illustrious dead whose memory hallows that thricefamous spot. Plato, Dante, Milton, Galileo, rose before her mental vision, mirrored in the bright imagery of her poet-cousin. Mary, like the gentle Desdemona, was beguiled of her heart by the wondrous tale; and she, too, thanked Heaven for having made her such a man. Nor were the bright moonlight evenings less propitious to the interviews of the new-found relatives.

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night!

How rapidly, in such charmed companionship, the hours make themselves wings and fly away!

Mr. Dudley sighed as he watched the youthful pair, and thought upon his own fair bride, so early called away. He accepted the proposals of his nephew for his daughter's hand with a generous kindness which went to the young man's soul.

"I will not deny," he said, "that my brother's conduct wounded me deeply. Had I vegetated through life as became the dignity of the surviving scion of a worn-out race, I had won his esteem. I worked like a man among my fellow-men-he despised me. Again, had I married the daughter of a gentleman, were she hideous as the 'lothely ladie,' my brother's congratulations had not been wanting. The lovely and accomplished girl I made my wife was the daughter of an honest tradesman-my brother spurned her with contempt. Nay, young man, would your own choice find favour in your father's eyes, were he alive at this moment?

وو

"I dare not answer in the affirmative," was the reluctant response. "But I do not-cannot share my father's prejudices. Mary is one of those women who would lend lustre to a coronet, but borrow none."

The father's eyes glistened as he grasped his nephew's hand. "The pride of the Dudleys is not wholly extinct in my breast," he said, with a smile. "The dream which gilded the prosaic details of the countinghouse approaches its fulfilment; the goal is well-nigh reached. You do not understand me. I speak parables." He paused, then resumed, "It has been the ambition of my life to redeem a portion of the alienated lands of our forefathers, long in the market. I had just completed the purchase when I encountered you. I was about to settle the estate upon Mary and her heirs, upon condition that her husband (at that time a very problematical personage) should assume the name and arms of Dudley. We met; I waited; I noted, to quote the wise saw of Prospero, that at the very first meeting you had changed eyes,' and 'all

[ocr errors]

worked as I could wish.' Such is my explanation. On the day Mary becomes your wife, the estate is yours -a free gift, unfettered by conditions of any kind." "My dear sir, my dear uncle, it is impossible. I cannot accept your princely gift.”

-a

The merchant drew himself up, and all the pride of all the Dudleys flashed in his eye, as he replied, "The merchant's daughter shall restore to the heir of the Dudleys part of the alienated patrimony of his house. This is my revenge."

A tear glistened in Herbert's eye as he murmured, in a broken voice, "My life's devotion to your daughter's happiness shall prove my love and gratitude."

"Forgive my ungenerous triumph, my son; henceforth the past is forgotten."

11

CHAPTER II.

Ir I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;

But I forgot, when by thy side,

That thou couldst mortal be.
It never through my mind had past,
The time would e'er be o'er,

And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more.

And still upon that face I look,
And think 'twill smile again;

And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain!

But when I speak, thou dost not say

What thou ne'er left'st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,

Sweet Mary! thou art dead!

REV. CHARLES WOLFE.

THE marriage was solemnized with the ceremony befitting an alliance which, strange to say, met with the approbation of all the friends of the contracting parties.

So

The bridegroom was well-born; spirituel, in the fullest meaning of that untranslateable word; distinguished-looking; the bride was young, rich, and beautiful. It was a marriage comme il n'y en a peu. said the world. The happy pair, each doing full justice to the virtues and noble qualities of the other, believed their union one comme il n'y en a point in this work-aday-world of ours. Herbert Dudley and his beautiful

wife resided at the Wilderness for six happy years. They were universally esteemed and beloved. Herbert, no longer the dreamy speculator, but the active country gentleman, laid aside his desultory literary labours, in order to devote himself to the double task of improving the estate, and ameliorating the condition of his poor neighbours, who had suffered severely, notwithstanding the strenuous exertions of their rector, during the years the manor had been deserted or occasionally let, for the shooting season, to some sporting squire.

One thing was wanting to complete the felicity of the wedded pair: they had no child. When the blessing was vouchsafed it cost them dear. Mary died a few weeks after the birth of her infant. The grief of her husband-lover bordered on distraction, and for a time the helpless infant was an object of indifference, if not of positive dislike. Such a state of unnatural feeling could not continue. Herbert Dudley buried his dead out of his sight, and little Florence (so she was named, in remembrance of the first meeting of the cousins at Florence the fair,) speedily became the idol around which every earthly hope was garnered.

It is a trite remark that misfortunes seldom come alone. Mr. Dudley never recovered the shock of his daughter's death: the manor, where every object reminded him of her, grew distasteful. He returned to London, to business; he sought in the fluctuations of the money market oblivion of his woe. His mind was shaken, his habitual caution forgotten; he speculated largely, succeeded beyond his wildest hopes, speculated again, and failed. Maddened by disappointment, he risked all, became involved, he scarcely knew how, in some not very creditable transactions, and, finally, eight years after his daughter's death, lay upon his death-bed, a man of ruined fortune if not tarnished honour. His nephew flew to obey his dying summons. He listened to the sad tale of disappointed ambition and blasted hope.

Herbert Dudley saw before him, not the ruined

« AnteriorContinuar »