The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851

"The best laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft ajee."

During a visit to some relatives in London, Emily became acquainted with Philip Hayforth; and his agreeable manners and person, his intelligent conversation and devotion to herself, had quickly made an impression upon feelings which, though susceptible, were fastidious, and therefore still untouched. Then, too, the romantic ardor with which his attachment was expressed, the enthusiasm he manifested for whatever was great, good, or beautiful, aroused in Emily all the latent poetry of her nature. Naturally imaginative, and full even of passionate tenderness, but diffident and sensitive, she had hitherto, from an instinctive consciousness that they would be misunderstood or disapproved, studiously concealed her deeper feelings. Hence had been generated in her character a degree of thoughtfulness and reserve unusual in one of her years. Now, however, that she beheld the ideas and aspirations she had so long deemed singular, perhaps reprehensible, shadowed forth more powerfully and definitely by a mind more mature and a spirit more daring than her own, her heart responded to its more vigorous counterpart; and at the magic touch of sympathy, the long pent-up waters flowed freely. She loved, was beloved, and asked no more of destiny. It was not, it may be supposed, without some reluctance that Colonel Sherwood consented to the demolition of the aerial castles of which his beautiful Emily had so long been the subject and the tenant, and made up his mind to see her the wife of a man who, though of respectable parentage, could boast neither title nor pedigree, and was only the junior partner in a mercantile firm. But then young Hayforth bore the most honorable character; his prospects were said to be good, and his manners unexceptionable; and, above all, Emily was evidently much attached to him; and remembering the days of his own early love, the father's heart of the aristocratic old colonel was fairly melted, and he consented to receive the young merchant as his son-in-law. The marriage, however, was not to take place till the spring of the following year. Meanwhile the lovers agreed to solace the period of their separation by long and frequent letters. Philip's last words to Emily, as he handed her into the postchaise in which she was to commence her homeward journey, were, "Now write to me very often, my own dearest Emily, for I shall never be happy but when hearing from you or writing to you; and if you are long answering my letters, I shall be miserable, and perhaps jealous." She could only answer by a mute sign, and the carriage drove away. Poor, agitated Emily, half happy, half sad, leaned back in it, and indulged in that feminine luxury—a hearty fit of tears. As for Philip, he took a few turns in the park, walking as if for a wager, and feeling sensible of a sort of coldness and dreariness about every object which he had never remarked before. Then he suddenly recollected that he must go to the counting-house, as he was "very busy." He did not, however, make much progress with his business that day, as somehow or other he fell into a reverie over every thing he attempted.

Nothing could exceed the regularity of the lovers' correspondence for the first two or three months, while their letters were written on the largest orthodox sheets to be had from the stationer's—post-office regulations in those days not admitting of the volumes of little notes now so much in vogue. At last Emily bethought herself of working a purse for Philip, in acknowledgment of a locket he had lately sent her from London. Generally speaking, Emily was not very fond of work; but somehow or other no occupation, not even the perusal of a favorite poem or novel, had ever afforded her half the pleasure that she derived from the manufacture of this purse. Each stitch she netted, each bead she strung, was a new source of delight—for she was working for Philip. Love is the true magic of life, effecting more strange metamorphoses than ever did the spells of Archimago, or the arts of Armida—the moral alchemy which can transmute the basest things into the most precious. It is true of all circumstances, as well as of personal qualities, that

"Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity."

The purse was quickly finished, and dispatched to Philip, together with a letter. Emily was in high spirits at the prospect of the answer. She danced about the house, singing snatches of songs and ballads, and displaying an unusual amount of gayety; for, though generally cheerful, she was of too thoughtful a disposition to be often merry. Philip, she was sure, would write by return of post. How she wished the time were come! She knew pretty well, to be sure, what he would say; but what did that signify? She longed to feast her eyes on the words his hand had traced, and to fancy the tones and the looks which would have accompanied them had they been spoken instead of written. The expected day came at last, but the post-bag contained no letter for Emily. At first she could hardly believe it; her countenance fell, and for a few minutes she seemed much disappointed; but never mind, the letter would come to-morrow, and she soon began to trip about and to sing almost as gayly as before. But another day passed, and another and another, and still no letter! Poor Emily's blithe voice was mute now, and her light step rarely heard. Sometimes she tried to read, or to play on the piano, but without much success; while her anxious looks, and the tear which occasionally might be seen to glisten in her eye, betrayed the trouble within. A whole week elapsed, a longer period than had ever passed before without a letter from Philip Hayforth—a fortnight—a month—and the poor girl's appetite failed, her nights were sleepless, and her drooping figure and pining looks told of that anxious suffering, that weary life-gnawing suspense, which is ten times more hard to bear than any evil, however great, of which we can ascertain the nature and discern the limits. Could Philip be ill? Could he—No, he could not be inconstant. Ought she to write to him again? But to this question her parents answered "No. It would be unfeminine, unladylike, undignified. If Mr. Hayforth were ill, he would doubtless write as soon as he was able; and if he were well, his conduct was inexcusable, and on Emily's part rendered any advance impossible." Poor Emily shrank from transgressing what her parents represented as the limits due to delicacy and decorum, and she would have died rather than have been guilty of a real impropriety, or have appeared unfeminine in the eyes of Philip Hayforth; and yet it did often suggest itself to her mind—rather, however, in the shape of an undefined feeling than of a conscious thought—that the shortest, best, most straight-forward way of proceeding, was to write at once to Mr. Hayforth, and ask an explanation. She could not herself see clearly how this could be wrong; but she supposed it must be so, and she acknowledged her own ignorance and inexperience. Emily was scarcely twenty; just at the age when an inquiring and thoughtful mind can no longer rely with the unquestioning faith of childhood on assertions sanctioned merely by authority, and when a diffident one is too timid to venture to trust to its own suggestions. It is only after much experience, or one of those bitter mistakes, which are the great lessons of life, that such a character learns that self-reliance, exercised with deliberation and humility, is the only safeguard for individual rectitude. Emily, therefore, did not write, but lived on in the silent, wasting agony of constant expectation and perpetual disappointment. Her mother, in the hope of affording her some relief, inquired in a letter she was writing to her relative in London, if the latter had lately seen Mr. Hayforth. The answer was like a death-blow to poor Emily. Her mother's correspondent had "met Mr. Hayforth walking with a lady. He had passed her with a very stiff bow, and seemed inclined to avoid her. He had not called for a long time. She could not at all understand it." Colonel Sherwood could now no longer contain his indignation. He forbade the mention of Philip Hayforth's name, declaring that "his Emily was far too good and beautiful for the wife of a low-born tradesman, and that he deserved the indignity now thrown upon his family for ever having thought of degrading it by the permission of such a union. And his darling child would, he knew, bear up with the spirit of the Sherwoods." Poor Emily had, it is to be feared, little of the spirit of the Sherwoods, but she tried to bear up from perhaps as good a motive. But it was a difficult task, for she was well-nigh broken-hearted. She now never mentioned Philip Hayforth, and to all appearance her connection with him was as if it had never been; but, waking or sleeping, he was ever present to her thoughts. Oh! was it indeed possible that she should never, never see him again? No, it could not be; he would seek her, claim her yet, her heart said; but reason whispered that it was madness to think so, and bade her at once make up her mind to her inevitable fate. But this she could not do—not yet at all events. Month after month of the long dreary winter dragged slowly on; her kind parents tried to dissipate her melancholy by taking her to every amusement within reach, and she went, partly from indifference as to what became of her, partly out of gratitude for their kindness. At last the days began to lengthen, and the weather to brighten; but spring flowers and sunny skies brought no corresponding bloom to the faded hopes and the joyless life of Emily Sherwood. The only hope she felt was "the hope which keeps alive despair."

One May morning, as she was listlessly looking over in a newspaper the list of marriages, her eye fell upon a well-known name—the name of one who at that very time ought to have knelt at the altar with her. She uttered neither scream nor cry, but clasping her hands with one upward look of mute despair, fell down in a dead faint. For many days she was very ill, and sometimes quite delirious; but her mother tended her with the most assiduous affection, while her comfort and recreation seemed her father's sole care. They were repaid at last by her recovery, and from that time forth she was less miserable. In such a case as Emily's, there is not only the shock to the affections, but the terrible wrench of all the faculties to be overcome, which ensues on the divorce of the thoughts from those objects and that future to which they have so long been wedded. There is not only the breaking heart to be healed, but the whole mental current to be forcibly turned into a different channel from that which alone habit has made easy or pleasant. "The worst," as it is called, is, however, easier to be endured than suspense; and if Emily's spirits did not regain their former elasticity, she ere long became quite resigned, and comparatively cheerful.

More than a year had elapsed since that bright spring morning on which she had beheld the irrefragable proof of her lover's perfidy, when she received an offer of marriage from a gentleman, of good family and large property. He had been struck by her beauty at a party where he had seen her; and after a few meetings, made formal proposals to her father almost ere she was aware that he admired her. Much averse to form a new engagement, she would at once have declined receiving his addresses, had her parents not earnestly pressed the match as one in every respect highly eligible. Overcome at last by their importunities, and having, as she thought, no object in existence save to give pleasure to them, she yielded so far to their wishes as to consent to receive Mr. Beauchamp as her future husband, on condition that he should be made acquainted with the history of her previous engagement, and the present state of her feelings. She secretly hoped that when he learned that she had no heart to give with her hand, he would withdraw his suit. But she was mistaken. Mr. Beauchamp, it is true, knew that there was such a word as heart, had a notion that it was a term much in vogue with novel-writers, and was sometimes mentioned by parsons in their sermons; but that the heart could have any thing to do with the serious affairs of life never once entered into his head to suppose. He therefore testified as much satisfaction at Emily's answer, as if she had avowed for him the deepest affection. They were shortly afterwards married, and the pensive bride accompanied her husband to her new home—Woodthorpe Hall; an ancient, castellated edifice, situated in an extensive and finely-wooded park on an estate in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

But I have too long neglected Philip Hayforth—too long permitted a cloud to rest upon his honor and constancy. He was not, in truth, the heartless, light-minded wretch that I fear you may think him. Pride, not falsehood or levity, was the blemish in his otherwise fine character; but it was a very plague-spot, tainting his whole moral nature, and frequently neutralizing the effect of his best qualities. He had been quite as much charmed with Emily's present and Emily's letter, as she had ever ventured to hope, and had lost not a moment in writing to her in return a long epistle full of the fervent love and gratitude with which his heart was overflowing. He had also mentioned several affairs of mutual interest and of a pressing nature, but about which he was unwilling to take any steps without the concurrence of "his own dearest and kindest Emily." He therefore entreated her to write immediately; "to write by return of post, if she loved him." But this letter never reached its destination: it was lost—a rare occurrence certainly, but, as most of us are aware from our own experience, not unknown. And now began with Philip Hayforth the same agony which Emily was enduring—nay, a greater agony; for there was not only the same disappointed affection, the same heart-sickness, the same weary expectation, but there was the stronger suffering of a more passionate and less disciplined temper; and, above all, there was the incessant struggle between pride and love—the same fearful strife which, we are told, once made war in Heaven.

Sometimes he thought that Emily might be ill; but then that did not seem likely, as her health was generally good; and she was, when she had last written, perfectly well, and apparently in excellent spirits. Should he write to her again? No, she owed him a letter, and if she loved him, would doubtless answer it as soon as circumstances would permit; and he 'would let that haughty old aristocrat, her father, see that Philip Hayforth, the merchant, had more of the spirit of a man in him than to cringe to the proudest blood in England. And as for Emily, she was his betrothed bride—the same as his wife; and if he was not more to her than any father on earth, she was unworthy of the love he had given her. Let her only be true to him, and he was ready to devote his life to her—to die for her.' As the time wore slowly away, he became more and more exasperated, fevered, wretched. Sometimes it seemed to him that he could no longer endure such torment; that life itself was a burthen too intolerable to be borne. But here pride came to the aid of a better principle. His cheek tinged at the thought of being spoken of as the slighted lover, and his blood boiled at the bare idea of Colonel Sherwood's contemptuous pity for the vain plebeian who had dared to raise his thoughts to an alliance with his beautiful, high-born daughter. He 'would show the world that he was no love-sick, despairing swain; and Miss Sherwood's vanity should never be gratified by the display of the wounds her falsehood had inflicted. He would very soon, he knew, forget the fair coquette who had trampled thus upon his most sacred feelings.' So he tried to persuade himself, but his heart misgave him. No: he could not forget her—it was in vain to attempt it; but the more his feelings acknowledged her power, even the more the pride she had wounded in its tenderest point rose up in wrath against her; and he chafed at his own powerlessness to testify towards her his scorn and contempt. At such times as these he seemed even to himself on the verge of madness. But he had saner moments—moments when his better nature triumphed, and pride resigned for a brief space her stormy empire to the benigner sway of the contending passion.

In the midst of those terrific tornados, which in the West Indies and elsewhere carry in their path, over immense districts, ruin and desolation, there is a pause, often of considerable duration, caused, the scientific inform us, by the calm in the centre of the atmospheric vortex of which they are composed. Such a calm would occasionally rest upon the mind of Philip Hayforth, over the length and breadth of which the whirlwind of passion had lately been tearing. One night, after one of those hidden transports, which the proud man would have died rather than any mortal eye should have scanned, he threw himself upon his bed (for he rarely went to bed now, in the accepted sense of the phrase) in a state approaching exhaustion, mental and bodily. By degrees a sort of dream-like peace fell upon his spirit; the present vanished away, and the past became, as it were, once more a living reality. He thought of Emily Sherwood as he had first seen her—a vision of loveliness and grace. He thought of her as he had beheld her almost the last time on that clear summer morning, and like refreshing dew on his scorched and desolated heart fell the remembrance of her gentle words and loving looks. Could they have deceived? Ah no! and his whole nature seemed suddenly softened. He seemed to see her before him now, with her angel face and her floating white robes; he seemed even yet to be looking into those soft, bright eyes, and to read there again, as he had read before, love unspeakable, truth unchangeable. His heart was filled with a yearning tenderness, an intense and longing fondness, and he extended his arms, as if to embrace that white-robed image of truth and gentleness: but she was not there; it was but her spirit which had come to still his angry passions with the calm of trust and love. And in the fond superstition that so it was, he sprang from his couch, seized a pen, and wrote to her a passionate, incoherent epistle, telling her that she had tried him almost beyond his strength, but that he loved and believed in her still, and if she answered immediately, that he was ready to forgive her for all the pain she had caused him. This letter finished, he threw himself upon his bed once again, and after a space, slept more soundly than he had done for many a long night before. When he rose in the morning he read over his letter, and felt, as he read, some faint misgivings; but these were put to flight by the recollection of Emily, as she had appeared to him in the vision of the previous night. As the post, however, did not go out till evening, he would keep the letter till then. Alas for the delay! It changed for ever his own fate and that of Emily Sherwood. It chanced that very afternoon that, taking up a provincial newspaper in a coffee-room into which he had strolled, on his way to the post-office, the following paragraph met his eye:—'We understand that there is a matrimonial alliance in contemplation between J– R–, Esq., eldest son of Sir J– R–, Bart., and the lovely and accomplished Miss Sherwood, daughter of Colonel Sherwood, late of the —th dragoons, and granddaughter of the late R. Sherwood, Esq., of – Park.' On reading this most unfounded rumor, Philip Hayforth waited not another moment, but rushed home as if driven by the furies; and tearing his letter in a thousand pieces, threw it and the purse, Emily's gift, into the fire, and vowed to bestow not another thought on the heartless woman who had perjured her own faith and sold his true and fervent love for riches and title. Oh how he scorned her! how he felt in his own true heart that all the wealth and grandeur of the earth would have been powerless to tempt one thought of his from her!

To conceal all suspicion of his sufferings from the world, and, if possible, banish their remembrance from his own mind, he now went even more than formerly into society; and when there, simulated a gayety of manner that had hitherto distinguished his most vivacious moments. He had always been a general favorite, and now his company was more sought after than ever. Among the young persons of the opposite sex with whom his engagements most frequently brought him in contact, was a young girl of the name of Fanny Hartley, pretty, gentle, excessively amiable, but without much mind, and with no literary taste whatever. She had nothing to say, but she listened to him, and he felt in her society a sort of repose, which was at present peculiarly grateful to his angry, troubled spirit. Her very silence soothed him, while the absorbing nature of his own feelings prevented him at first from thinking of hers. Philip Hayforth had certainly not more than an average share of human vanity, but he did at last suspect, partly from an accidental circumstance which had first drawn his attention to the subject, that he had created in the heart of the innocent Fanny a deeper interest than he had ever intended. He was touched, grateful, but at first grieved, for he "could never love again." But the charm of being loved soon began to work: his heart was less desolate, his feelings were less bitter, when he thought of Fanny Hartley, and began to ask himself if he were wise to reject the consolation which Providence seemed to offer him in the affection of this amiable and artless young creature. And when he thought of the pain she might perchance be suffering on his account, all hesitation upon the subject was removed at once. If she loved him, as he believed, his conduct, it seemed to his really kind heart, had already been barbarous. He ought not to delay another day. And accordingly that very evening he offered his hand to Fanny Hartley, and was accepted with trembling joy.

Their marriage proved a happy one. Fanny was as amiable as she had appeared, and in the conduct of the commoner affairs of life, good-feeling with her supplied in a great measure any deficiency of strong sense. Philip did perhaps occasionally heave a gentle sigh, and think for a moment of Emily Sherwood, when he found how incapable his wife was of responding to a lofty or poetic thought, or of appreciating the points of an argument, unless it were upon some such subject as the merits of a new dress or the seasoning of a pudding. But he quickly checked the rising discontent, for Fanny was so pure in heart, and so unselfish in disposition, that it was impossible not to respect as well as to love her. In short, Philip Hayforth was a fortunate man, and what is more surprising, knew himself to be so. And when, after twenty years of married life, he saw his faithful, gentle Fanny laid in her grave, he felt bereaved indeed. It seemed to him then, as perhaps, at such a time, it always does to a tender heart, that he had never done her justice, never loved her as her surpassing goodness deserved. And yet a kinder husband never lived than he had been; and Fanny had died blessing him, and thanking him, as she said, "for twenty years of happiness." "How infinitely superior," he now daily and hourly thought, "was her sweet temper and loving disposition to all the intellect and all the poetry that ever were enshrined in the most beautiful form." And yet Philip Hayforth certainly was not sorry that his eldest daughter—his pretty, lively Fanny—should have turned out not only amiable and affectionate, but clever and witty. He was, in truth, very proud of Fanny. He loved all his children most dearly; but Fanny was the apple of his eye—the very delight of his existence. He had now almost forgotten Emily Sherwood; but when he did think of her, it was with indifference rather than forgiveness. He had not heard of her since his marriage, having, some time previous to that event, completely broken off the slight acquaintance he had formed with her relations; while a short absence abroad, at the time of her union with Mr. Beauchamp, had prevented him from seeing its announcement in the papers.

Meanwhile poor Emily's married life had not been so happy as that of her former lover. Mr. Beauchamp was of a pompous, tyrannical disposition, and had a small, mean mind. He was constantly worrying about trifles, perpetually taking offence with nothing, and would spend whole days in discussing some trivial point of etiquette, in the breach of which, he conceived himself aggrieved. A very miserable woman was his wife amid all the cold magnificence of her stately home. Often, very often, in her hours of loneliness and depression, her thoughts would revert to the brief, bright days of her early love, and her spirit would be rapt away by the recollection of that scene on the balcony, when Philip Hayforth and she had stood with locked hands and full hearts gazing at the sinking star and the sweetly breaking day, and loving, feeling, thinking, as if they had but one mind between them, till the present seemed all a fevered dream, and the past alone reality. She could not have been deceived then: then, at least, he had loved her. Oh, had she not wronged him? had there not been a mistake—some incident unexplained? He had warned her that his temper was proud and jealous, and she felt now that she ought to have written and asked an explanation. She had thrown away her happiness, and deserved her fate. Then she recollected that such thoughts in her, the wife of Mr. Beauchamp, were worse than foolish—they were sinful; and the upbraidings of her conscience added to her misery.

But Emily had a strong mind, and a lofty sense of right; and in those solitary struggles was first developed the depth and strength of her character. Partly to divert her thoughts from subjects dangerous to her peace, and partly from the natural bent of her inclinations, she sought assiduously to cultivate the powers of her mind, while her affections found ample scope for their exercise in the love of her infant son, and in considerate care for her many dependants, by all of whom she was loved and reverenced in no common degree. She learned thus the grand lessons—'to suffer and be strong,' and to make the best of destiny; and she felt that if she were a sadder woman, she was also a wiser one, and at any price wisdom, she knew, is a purchase not to be despised.

Mrs. Beauchamp had been married little more than five years when her husband died. His will showed, that however unhappy he had made her during his life, he had not been insensible to her merit, for he left her the sole guardian of their only son, and, while she should remain unmarried, the mistress of Woodthorpe Hall. In the childish affection and opening mind of her little boy poor Emily at last found happiness—unspeakable happiness, although it was of course qualified by the anxiety inseparable from parental love. She doted upon him; but her love was of too wise and unselfish a nature to permit her to spoil him, while her maternal affection furnished her with another motive for the cultivation of her own mind and the improvement of her own character. She was fired with the noble ambition of being the mother of her child's mind, as well as of that mind's mere perishable shrine.

II

Twenty-five years have passed away, with all their changes—their many changes; and now,

'Gone are the heads of silvery hair,
And the young that were have a brow of care:'

And the babe of twenty-five years ago is now a man, ready to rush into the thickest and the hottest of the great battle of life.

It was Christmas time; the trees were bare on Woodthorpe Chase; the lawns were whitened by a recent shower of snow, and crisped by a sharp frost; the stars were coming out in the cold cloudless sky; and two enormous fires, high piled with Christmas logs, blazed, crackled, and roared in the huge oaken chimneys of the great oak hall. Mrs. Beauchamp and her son sat together in the drawing-room, in momentary expectation of the arrival of their Christmas guests—a party of cousins, who lived at about ten miles' distance from Woodthorpe Hall. Edmund Beauchamp was now a very promising young man, having hitherto fulfilled the hopes and answered the cares of his fond and anxious mother. He had already reaped laurels at school and college, and his enlightened and liberal views, and generous, enthusiastic mind, gave earnest of a career alike honourable and useful. In person and features, though both were agreeable, he did not much resemble his mother; but he had the same large, soft, thoughtful eyes, the same outward tranquillity of demeanour hiding the same earnest spirit. At present he was silent, and seemed meditative. Mrs. Beauchamp gazed at him long and fondly, and as she gazed, her mother's heart swelled with love and pride, and her eyes glistened with heartfelt joy. At last she remarked, "I hope the Sharpes's new governess is as nice a person as the old one."

"Oh, much nicer!" cried Edmund suddenly, and as if awakening from a reverie.

"Indeed! I used to think Miss Smith a very nice person."

"Oh, so she was—very good-natured and obliging; but Miss Dalton is altogether a different sort of person."

"I wonder you never told me you found her so agreeable."

"I—Oh, I did not–That is, you never asked me."

"Is she young?"

"Yes—not much above twenty I should think."

"Is she pretty?"

"I—I don't exactly know," he said, hesitating and colouring; "I suppose—most persons–I should think she is." "How foolish I am!" thought Edmund. "What will my mother think of all this?" He then continued in a more composed manner—"She is a very excellent girl at least. She is the daughter of a London merchant—a remarkably honourable man—who has been ruined by these bad times; and though brought up in luxury, and with the expectation of large fortune, she has conformed to her circumstances in the most cheerful manner, and supports, it seems, with the fruits of her talents and industry, two little sisters at school. The Sharpes are all so fond of her, and she is the greatest favorite imaginable with the children." Edmund spoke with unwonted warmth. His mother looked at him half-sympathisingly, half-anxiously. She seemed about to speak, when the sound of carriage wheels, and the loud knock of a footman at the hall-door, announced the arrival of the Sharpes, and Mrs. Beauchamp and her son hastened into the hall to welcome their guests. Mrs. Beauchamp's eye sought for the stranger, partly because she was a stranger, and partly from the interest in her her son's conversation had created. But Miss Dalton was the last to enter.

Edmund had not erred in saying she was a pretty girl. Even beneath the cumbrous load of cloaks and furs in which she was now enveloped, you could detect the exquisite proportions of her petite figure, and the sprightly grace of her carriage; while a pretty winter bonnet set off to advantage a face remarkable for the intelligence and vivacity of its expression. Her features, though not regular, were small, while the brilliancy of her colour, though her complexion was that of a brunette, lent a yet brighter glow to her sparkling dark eyes, and contrasted well with the glossy black ringlets which shaded her animated countenance. At this moment, however, her little head was carried somewhat haughtily, and there was a sort of something not unlike bashfulness or awkwardness in her manner which seemed hardly natural to it. The truth was, Miss Dalton had come very unwillingly to share in the festivities of Woodthorpe Hall. She was not acquainted with Mrs. Beauchamp, and report said she was a very dignified lady, which Fanny Dalton interpreted to mean a very proud one; and from her change of circumstances, rendered unduly sensitive, she dreaded in her hostess the haughty neglect or still haughtier condescension by which vulgar and shallow minds mark out their sense of another's social inferiority. And therefore it was that she held her head so high, and exhibited the constraint of manner to which I have alluded. But all her pride and shyness quickly melted before the benign presence and true heart-politeness of Mrs. Beauchamp. Dignified the latter certainly was; but her dignity was tempered with the utmost benevolence of expression, and the most winning sweetness of manner; and when she took the hand of her little stranger-guest between both of hers, and holding it kindly, said, "You are the only stranger here, Miss Dalton; but for my sake you must try to feel at home," an affection for Mrs. Beauchamp entered into the heart of the young girl, which has continued ever since steadily to increase. That she should conceive such an affection was not unnatural, for there was something in the appearance and manners of Mrs. Beauchamp, combined with her position in life, calculated to strike the imagination and touch the feelings of a warm-hearted and romantic girl such as Fanny Dalton, more especially one circumstanced as she was. Even her previous prejudice, with the reaction natural to a generous mind, was likely to heighten her subsequent admiration. But it is not so easy to account for the sudden interest the pretty governess created at first sight in the heart of her hostess. Many girls as pretty and as intelligent looking as Miss Dalton she had seen before, without their having inspired a spark of the tenderness she felt towards this unknown stranger. She could not comprehend it herself. She was not prone "to take fancies," as the phrase is; and yet, whatever might be the case, certain it was that there was a nameless something about this girl, which seemed to touch one of the deepest chords of her nature, and to cause her heart to yearn towards her with something like a mother's love. She felt that if Miss Dalton were all that she had heard, and that if she should really prove her son's choice, he should not be gainsaid by her.

The Christmas party at Woodthorpe Hall was generally a merry one; and this year it was even merrier than usual. Fanny Dalton was the life of the party; her disposition was naturally a lively one, and this hour of sunshine in her clouded day called forth all its vivacity. But Fanny was not only clever, lively, and amiable; her conduct and manners occasionally displayed traits of spirit—nay, of pride; the latter, however, of a generous rather than an egotistical description. Nothing was so certain to call it forth as any tale of meanness or oppression. One morning Miss Sharpe had been relating an anecdote of a gentleman in the neighborhood who had jilted (odious word!) an amiable and highly estimable young lady, to whom he had long been engaged, in order to marry a wealthy and titled widow. There were many aggravating circumstances attending the whole affair, which had contributed to excite still more against the offender the indignation of all right-thinking persons. The unfortunate young lady was reported to be dying of a broken heart.

Fanny, who had been all along listening to the narration with an eager and interested countenance, now exclaimed—"Dying of a broken heart! Poor thing! But if I were she, I would not break my heart—I would scorn him as something far beneath me, poor and unimportant as I am. No, I might break my heart for the loss of a true lover, but never for the loss of a false one!" As Fanny's eyes shone, and her lip curled with a lofty contempt, as her naturally clear, merry tones grew deeper and stronger with the indignation she expressed, a mist seemed suddenly to be cleared away from the eyes of Mrs. Beauchamp, and in that slight young girl she beheld the breathing image of one whom she had once intimately known and dearly loved—in those indignant accents she seemed to recognize the tones of a voice long since heard, but the echoes of which yet lingered in her heart. Why she had so loved Fanny Dalton was no mystery now—she saw in her but the gentler type of him whom she had once believed the master of her destiny—even of Philip Hayforth, long unheard of, but never forgotten. But what connection could there be between Philip Hayforth and Fanny Dalton? and whence this strange resemblance, which lay not so much in form or in feature, as in that nameless, intangible similarity of expression, gesture, manner, and voice, so frequently exhibited by members of the same family.

As soon as Mrs. Beauchamp could quit the table, she withdrew to her own room, where she remained for some time in deep meditation, the result of which was a determination to fathom the mystery, if mystery there was. It was just possible, too, that the attempt might assist her to find a key to the riddle of her own destiny.

Accordingly, on the afternoon of the same day, she took an opportunity of being alone with Miss Dalton and her son, to say to the former—"I think you told me, my dear, that your father was alive?"

"Oh yes, thank God, he is alive! How I wish you knew him, Mrs. Beauchamp! I think you would like him, and I am sure he would like and admire you."

"Does your father at all resemble you in appearance?"

"I am not sure. I have been told that I was like him, and I always consider it a great compliment; for papa is still a very handsome man, and was of course even handsomer when he was young, and before his hair became grey. I have a miniature likeness of him, taken before his marriage, which I have with me, and will show you, if you will so far indulge my vanity."

Mrs. Beauchamp having replied that she should like exceedingly to see it, Fanny tripped away, and returned in a few minutes, carrying in her hand a handsome, but old-fashioned, morocco case. Mrs. Beauchamp had never seen it before, but she well remembered having given directions for the making of a case of that very size, shape, and color, for a miniature which was to have been painted for her. Her heart began to beat. She seemed upon the brink of a discovery. Fanny now opened the case, and placing it before Mrs. Beauchamp, exclaimed, "Now, isn't he a handsome man?" But Mrs. Beauchamp could not answer. One glance had been sufficient. A cold mist gathered before her eyes, and she was obliged to lean for support, upon the back of a chair.

"Dear Mrs. Beauchamp, are you ill?"

"My dear mother!" cried Edmund.

"It is nothing," she answered, quickly recovering herself; "only a little faintness." And then with the self-command which long habit had made easy, she sat down and continued with her usual calm sweetness—"I could almost fancy I had seen your father; but I do not remember ever knowing any one of the name of Dalton but yourself."

"Oh, but perhaps you might have seen him before he changed his name; and yet it seems hardly likely. His name used to be Hayforth; but by the will of his former partner, who, dying without near relations, left papa all his money, he took the name of Dalton. The money is all gone now, to be sure," she continued with the faintest possible sigh; "but we all loved the dear old man, and so we still keep his name."

Fanny had seated herself beside Mrs. Beauchamp, and as she finished speaking, the latter, obeying the impulse of her heart, drew her towards her and kissed her. Fanny, whose feelings were not only easily touched, and very strong, but even unusually demonstrative, threw her arms round Mrs. Beauchamp, and cried, with tears in her eyes, "How kind you are to me, Mrs. Beauchamp! You could hardly be kinder, if you were my mother."

"Dear Fanny," she answered in a low and affectionate tone, "I wish, indeed, I were your mother!"

As she spoke, Edmund, who had been standing in a window apart, made a sudden movement towards the two ladies, but as suddenly checked himself. At this moment his eyes encountered those of his mother, and colouring violently, he abruptly quitted the room. This little scene passed quite unnoticed by Fanny, who at the instant was thinking only of Mrs. Beauchamp, and of her own gentle mother, now beneath the sod.

The daughter of Philip Hayforth became a frequent guest at Woodthorpe Hall, spending most of her Sundays with Mrs. Beauchamp, who would frequently drive over to the Sharpes's for her of a Saturday afternoon, and send her back on the Monday morning. She was invited to spend the Easter holidays at the Hall—a most welcome invitation, as she was not to return home till the midsummer vacation. A most agreeable time were these Easter holidays! Never had Fanny seemed more bright and joyous. Her presence operated as perpetual sunshine on the more pensive natures of the mother and son. It was therefore a great surprise to Mrs. Beauchamp when, one day at luncheon, about a week before the time fixed for the termination of her visit, Fanny announced her intention of leaving Woodthorpe that afternoon, if her friend could spare her the carriage.

"I can certainly spare it, Fanny; but I should like to know the reason of this sudden determination?"

"You must excuse my telling you, Mrs. Beauchamp; but I hope you will believe me when I say that it is from a sense of duty." As she spoke, she raised her head with a proud look, her eyes flashed, and she spoke in the haughty tone which always brought before Mrs. Beauchamp the image of her early lover; for it was in her proud moments that Fanny most resembled her father.