Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850.

"I entirely agree with you. But I believe Mr. Thomas and the general never exactly understood or suited each other."

"I don't know – I never heard."

"I am myself not utterly unknown to every member of the family. I was at school with the young gentleman who married Miss Melwyn… Yet why do I recall it? He has probably forgotten me altogether… And yet, perhaps, not altogether. Possibly he might remember James St. Leger;" and he sighed.

It was a light, suppressed sigh. It seemed to escape him without his observing it.

Lettice felt unusually interested in this conversation, little as there may appear in it to interest any one; but there was something in the look and tone of the young man that exercised a great power over her imagination. His being of the cloth– a clergyman – may account for what may seem rather strange in her entering into conversation with him. She had been brought up to feel profound respect for every one in holy orders; and, moreover, the habits of her life at one time, when she had sunk to such depths of poverty, had, in a considerable degree, robbed her of the conventional reserve of general society. She had been so used at one time to be accosted and to accost without thinking of the ceremony of an introduction, that she probably forgot the absence of it in the present case, more than another equally discreet girl might have done.

The young man, on his part, seemed under the influence of a strange charm. He continued to walk by her side, but he had ceased to speak. He seemed lost in thought – melancholy thought. It certainly would seem as if the allusion to Edgar's home, and his own school life, had roused a host of painful recollections, in which he was for the time absorbed.

So they followed the windings of the deep hollow lane together. Necessarily it would seem, for this lane appeared to defy the proverb and have no turning. But that it had one we know – and to it the little party came at last. A gate led to some fields belonging to the estate of the Hazels – Lettice and the nurse prepared to open it and enter.

"Good morning, sir," said Lettice, "this is my way; I will strive to do something for the poor woman you recommended to me, and I will mention your recommendation to Mrs. Melwyn."

He started as if suddenly awakened when she spoke; but he only said, "Will you? It will be right and kind. Thank you, in her name." And, with a grave, abstracted sort of salute, he left her, and pursued his way.

Catherine was standing rather anxiously upon the hall-steps, looking round and wondering what had become of her nurse and her baby, when nurse, baby, and Lettice returned.

"Dear people," she cried, "I am glad you are come back."

She had been, if the truth were told, a good deal fidgeted and frightened, as young mothers are very apt to be, when the baby does not come home at the usual hour. She had suffered a good deal of uneasiness, and felt half inclined to be angry. A great many people with whom I am acquainted, would have burst out into a somewhat petulant scold, when the cause for anxiety was at an end, and baby and her party, all safe, appeared quietly walking up the road as if nothing in the world were amiss. The very quiet and tranquillity which proved that they were quite unconscious of having done any thing wrong would have irritated some people more than all the rest. I thought it was very nice of Catherine to be good-humored and content as soon as she saw all was safe, after the irritating anxiety she had just been going through. She, however, ran eagerly down the steps, and her eyes sparkling with impatience caught her little one in her arms and kissed it very fast and hard. That being the only sign of an impatient spirit which she showed, and, except crying out, "Oh! I am glad to see you safe back, all of you. Do you know, Lettice, I began to wonder what had become of you?" – not a syllable approaching to reproof passed her lips.

"Dear Mrs. D'Arcy! Dear Catherine! I am afraid we are late. We went too far – we partly lost ourselves. We got into a long, but oh! such a lovely lane – where I never was before, and then, we have had a little wee bit of an adventure."

"Adventure! Oh goodness! I am glad of that. Adventures are so excessively rare in this country. I never met with one in my life, but happening upon Edgar, as the people say, when he was coming from hunting; and the wind had blown off my hat. A wind that blew somebody good, that … dear, beloved, Lettice, I wish to goodness, that I do – an adventure of the like of that, might have happened to you."

Lettice colored a little.

"Gracious!" cried Catherine, laughing merrily, and peeping at her under her bonnet – "I declare – you're blushing Lettice. Your adventure is something akin to my adventure. Have you stumbled upon an unparalleled youth – by mere accident as I did? and did he – did he pick up your hat?"

"If he had," said Lettice, "I am afraid my face with my hair all blown about it would not have looked quite so enchanting as yours must have done. No, I did not lose my bonnet."

"Any thing else? Your heart, perhaps?"

"Dear Catherine! How can you be so silly."

"Oh! it was such a blessed day when I lost mine," said Mrs. D'Arcy, gayly. "Such a gain of a loss! that I wish just the same misfortune to befall every one I love – and I love you dearly, Lettice."

"There must be more than one heart lost I fancy, to make adventures turn out as well as yours did, Catherine."

"Oh! that's a matter of course in such sort of things. There is always an exchange, where there is love at first sight. But now do tell me, that's a dear girl, what your adventure was."

"I only saw a clergyman reading to a poor woman – or rather I only saw a clergyman, a Bible, and a poor woman, and thence concluded that he had been reading to her."

"Oh! you tiresome creature. Poor, dear, old Mr. Hughes, I'll be bound. Good old fellow – but such a hum-drum. Nay, Lettice, my dear, don't look shocked and cross. A clergyman may be a very stupid, hum-drum, tiresome fellow, as well as any other man. Don't pretend to deny that."

"I would as lief not hear them called so – but this was not Mr. Hughes."

"Oh, no! I remember now you were not in his parish. If you went down Briarwood-lane far enough you would be in Briarwood parish. Mr. Thomas, perhaps."

"No."

"Mr. Thomas's curate. Oh! of course the curate. Only I don't think Mr. Thomas keeps one."

"No; I believe not Mr. Thomas's, or any one else's curate; but a gentleman who says he knew Captain D'Arcy at school."

"Nay, that is too charming. That really is like an adventure."

"Here, Edgar!"

He was crossing the paddock at some little distance.

"Come here for one instant. Do you recollect what I was talking to you about this very morning? Well, Lettice has met with an adventure, and has stumbled upon an old acquaintance of yours – reading the Bible to an old woman – he was at school with you.

"Well, as there were about five hundred people, more or less, who had that honor – if you mean to know any thing about him, Miss Arnold, you must go a little more into detail; and, first and foremost, what is the young gentleman's name?"

"James St. Leger," said Lettice.

A start for answer, and,

"Ha! Indeed! Poor fellow! he turned up again. I little thought our paths in life would ever cross more. How strange to unearth him in such a remote corner of the world as Briarwood. Poor fellow! Well, what is he like? and how does he look?"

"Ill and melancholy," said Lettice. "I should say very ill and very melancholy – and with reason I believe; for though he is in holy orders, something is the matter with his throat or his chest; which renders him useless in the pulpit."

"You don't say so. His chest! I hope not. And yet," continued Edgar, as if musing aloud, "I know not. He was one when I knew him, Miss Arnold, so marked out through the vices of others for misery in this world, that I used to think the sooner he went out of it the better for him."

"Ah!" cried Catherine, "there is an interesting history here. Do tell it us, Edgar. Of all your charming talks, what I like almost the best are your reminiscences. He has such a memory, Lettice; and so much penetration into the characters of persons: and the connection of things; that nothing is so delightful as when he will tell some old history of his earlier years. Do, dear Edgar, tell us all about this charming young curate of Briarwood."

"Flatterer! Coaxing flatterer! Don't believe a word she says, Miss Arnold. I am as empty-pated a rattle-skull, as ever was turned raw into one of her Majesty's regiments – and that's saying a good deal, I can tell you. But this dear creature here loves a bit of romance in her heart. What's o'clock?"

"Oh!" looking at the tiniest of watches, "a full two hours to dinner; and such a day too for a story – and just look at that spreading oak with the bench under it, and the deer lying crouching there so sweetly, and the wind just lulling the boughs as it were to rest. Here, nurse, bundle the baby away to her nursery. Now, do, there's a darling Edgar."

"Why, my love, you are making awful preparation. It is almost as terrible as reading a manuscript to begin a relation, all sitting solemnly upon a bench under a tree together. There is not much to tell, poor fellow; only I did pity him from my heart of hearts."

Catherine had her way, and they sat down under the green leafy canopy of this majestic oak; and she put her arm in her husband's, and her hand into that of Lettice, and thus sitting between them, loving and beloved, she listened, the happiest, as she was one of the honestest and best, of heaven's creatures.

"We were both together at a large rough sort of preparatory school," began Edgar, "where there might be above a hundred boys or so. They were mostly, if not entirely, intended for the military profession, and came from parents of all sorts of positions and degrees, and of all sorts of principles, characters, and manners. A very omnium gatherum that school was, and the ways of it were as rough as in any school. I should think, they could possibly be. I was a tall, healthy rebel, when I was sent there, as strong as a little Hercules, and excessively proud of my force and prowess. A bold, daring, cheerful, merry lad, as ever left his mother's apron-string; very sorry to quit the dotingest of mothers, and the happiest of homes, and the pleasantest of fathers; but mighty proud to come out of the Gynyseum, and to be a man, as I thought it high time I should, in cloth trowsers and jacket, instead of a black velvet coatee. In I plunged, plump head-foremost amid the vortex, and was soon in a thousand scrapes and quarrels, battling my way with my fists, and my merry eye; for they used to tell me the merry eye did more for me even than my impudence in fighting every thing that would condescend to fight such a youngster. I was soon established, and then I breathed after my victories, and began to look round.

"So long as I had considered the throng about me but in the light of so many adversaries to be beaten by main force, and their rude and insulting ways only as provocatives to the fray, I had cared little for their manners or their proceedings, their coarseness and vulgarity, their brutality and their vices. But now, seated in peace upon the eminence to which I had fought my way, I had time to breathe and to observe. I can not describe to you how shocked, how sickened, how disgusted I became. Par parenthèse, I will say that it has always been an astonishment to me, how parents so tender as mine could send a frank, honest-hearted, well-meaning little fellow into such a place. But the school had a high reputation. I was then a fourth son, and had to make my way as best I could in the profession chosen for me. So here I came. I was about ten or eleven years old, I must add, in excuse for my parents, though I called myself so young, I felt younger, because this was my first school. To resume. When I had vanquished them, it is not in words to describe how I despised and detested the majority of my schoolfellows – for their vulgar pleasures, their offensive habits – their hard, rough, brutal manners – their vicious principles, and their vile, blasphemous impiety. I was a warm lover and a still more ardent hater, and my hatred to most of them exceeded all bounds of reason; but it was just such as a straightforward, warm-tempered fellow, is certain to entertain without mitigation in such a case.

"It is a bad element for a boy to be living in. However, I was saved from becoming an utter young monster, by the presence in the school of this very boy, James St. Leger.

"In the bustle and hurry of my early wars, I had taken little heed of, scarcely observed this boy at all. But when the pause came, I noticed him. I noticed him for many reasons. He was tall for his age, slender, and of extremely delicate make, but with limbs of a symmetry and beauty that reminded one of a fine antique statue. His face, too, was extremely beautiful; and there was something in his large, thoughtful, melancholy eyes, that it was impossible ever to look upon and to forget.

"I no sooner observed him at all, than my whole boyish soul seemed knit to him.

"His manner was extremely serious; the expression of his countenance sad to a degree – deeply, intensely sad, I might say; yet through that deep sadness there was a tender sweetness which was to me most interesting. I never shall forget his smile – for laugh he never was heard to do.