CHAPTER VIII

“My heart is wondrous light. Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed.”

— Romeo and Juliet

THE NEXT MORNING opened on Boston with that boon to all small societies, a new topic of interest and conversation. The attempt on the prison the preceding night, was in every one’s mouth; and as the commu- nity had been much agitated concerning the heresies and trial of Gorton and his company, they did not hesitate to attribute the criminal outrage to some of his secret adherents, who, as the sentence that had passed on the unfortunate men, was the next day to take effect, had made this desperate effort to rescue them. It was not even surmised by the popular voice, that the bold attempt had been made on account of the Indian woman. The magistrates had very discreetly refrained from disclosing her connection with state affairs, as every alarm about the rising of the Indians, threw the colony, especially the women and children, into a state of the greatest agitation. The imprisonment of Magawisca was, therefore, looked upon as a transient and prudential and domiciliary arrangement, to pre- vent the possibility of any concert between her and the recovered captive. Faith Leslie, who was known to be pining for her Indian friends.

That the Governor’s secret conclusions were very different from those of the people, was indicated by a private order, which he sent to Bamaby Tuttle, to remove the Indian maiden from the upper apartment, to the dungeon beneath the prison; but by no means to inflict any other severity on her, or to stint her of any kindness consistent with her safe keeping. Gorton’s company were, on the same day, removed from the

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prison; and, as is well known to the readers of the chronicles of the times, distributed separately to the towns surrounding Boston, where, notwith- standing they were jealously guarded and watched, they proved dangerous leaven, and were soon afterwards transported to England.

Whatever secret suspicions the Governor entertained in relation to Everell Fletcher, his kind feelings, and the delicate relation in which he stood to that young man, as the son of his dearest friend, and the betrothed husband of his niece, induced him to keep them within his own bosom; without even intimating them to his partners in authority, who, he well knew, whatever infirmities they, frail men, might have of their own, were seldom guilty of winking at those of others.

But to return to our heroine, whom we left convalescing; the ener- gies of a youthful and unimpaired constitution, and the unwearied care of her gentle nurse, restored her in the space of two days, to such a degree of strength, that she was able to join the family in the parlour at the evening meal, to which we cannot give the convenient designation of “tea,” as Asia had not yet supplied us with this best of all her aromatic luxuries.

Hope entered the parlour leaning on Esther’s arm. All rose to wel- come her, and to offer their congratulations, more or less formal, on her preservation and recovery. Everell advanced with the rest, and essayed to speak, but his voice failed him. Hope with natural frankness gave him her hand, and all the blood in her heart seemed to gush into her pale cheeks, but neither did she speak. In the general movement their reciprocal emotion passed unobserved, excepting by Esther; she noted it. After the meal was finished, and the Governor had returned thanks, in which he inserted a clause expressive of the general gratitude “for the mercies that had been vouchsafed to the maiden near and dear to many present, in that she had been led safely through perils by water, by land, and by sickness,” Madame Winthrop kindly insisted that Hope should occupy her easy- chair, but Hope declined the honour, and seating herself on the window- seat, motioned to her sister to come and sit by her. The poor girl obeyed, but without any apparent interest, and without even seeming conscious of the endearing tenderness with which Hope stroked back her hair, and kissed her cheek. “What shall we do with this poor home-sick child?” she asked, appealing to her guardian.

“In truth, 1 know not,” he replied. “All day, and all night, they tell

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me, she goes from window to window, like an imprisoned bird fluttering against the bars of its cage; and so wistfully she looks abroad, as if her heart went forth with the glance of her eye.”

“I have done my best,” said Mrs. Grafton, now joining in the conver- sation, “to please her, but it’s all working for nothing, and no thanks. In the first place, I gave her all her old play-things, that you saved so carefully, Hope, and shed so many tears over, and at first they did seem to pleasure her. She looked them over and over, and I could see by the changes of her countenance as she took up one and another, that some glimmerings of past times came over her; but as ill luck would have it, there was among the rest, in a little basket, a string of bird’s eggs, which Oneco had given her at Bethel. I remembered it well, and so did she, for as soon as she saw it, she dropped every thing else, and burst into tears.”

“Poor child!” said Mr. Fletcher, “these early affections are deeply rooted.” Everell, who stood by his father, turned and walked to the other extremity of the apartment; and Hope involuntarily passed her hand hastily over her brow; as she did so, she looked up and saw Esther’s eye fixed on her. Rallying her spirits, “1 am weak yet, Esther,” she said, “and this sudden change from our still room confuses me.” Mrs. Grafton did not mark this little interlude, and replying to Mr. Fletcher’s last observation, “Poor child! do you call her? I call it sheer foolishness. Her early affections indeed! you seem to forget she had other and earlier than for that Indian boy; but this seems to be the one weed that has choked all the rest. Hope, my dear, you have no idea what a non compos mentis she has got to be. I showed her all my ear-rings, and gave her her choice of all but the diamonds that are promised for your wedding gift, dearie, you know, and do you think, she scarcely looked at them? while she won’t let me touch those horrid blue glass things she wears, that looks so like the tawnies, it makes me all of a nerve to see them. And then just look for yourself, though I have dressed her up in that beautiful Lyon’s silk of yours, w ith the Dresden tucker, she will — this warm weather too — keep on her Indian mantle in that blankety fashion.”

“Well, my dear aunt, why not indulge her for the present? I suppose she has the feeling of the natives, who seem to have an almost superstitious attachment to that oriental costume.”

“Oriental fiddlestick! you talk like a simpleton, Hope. I suppose you

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would let her wear that string of all coloured shells round her neck, would you not,” she asked, drawing aside Faith’s mantle, and showing the savage ornament, “instead of that beautiful rainbow necklace of mine, which I have offered to her in place of it?”

“If you ask me seriously, aunt, I certainly would, if she prefers it.”

“Now that is peculiar of you, Hope. Why, Miss Esther Downing, mine is a string of stones that go by sevens — yellow, topaz — orange, onyx — red, ruby — and so on, and so on. Master Cradock wrote the definitions of them all out of a latin book for me once; and yet, though it is such a peculiar beauty, that silly child will not give up those horrid shells for it. Now,” she continued, turning to Faith, and putting her hand on the necklace, “now that’s a good girl, let me take it off.”

Faith understood her action, though not her words, and she laid her own hand on the necklace, and looked as if obstinately determined it should not be removed.

Hope perceived there was something attached to the necklace, and on a closer inspection, which her position enabled her to make, she saw it was a crucifix; and dreading lest her sister should be exposed to a new source of persecution, she interposed: “Let her have her own way at present, 1 pray you, aunt: she may have some reason for preferring those shells that we do not know; and if she has not, I see no great harm in her preferring bright shells to bright stones; at any rate, for the present we had best leave her to herself, and say nothing at all to her about her dress or ornaments.”

“Well — very well, take your own way, Miss Hope Leslie.”

Hope smiled — “Nay, aunt,” she said, “I cannot be Miss Hope Leslie till I get quite well again.”

“Oh, dearie, 1 meant nothing, you know,” said the good lady, whose displeasure never held out against one of her niece’s smiles. “If Miss Esther Downing,” she added, lowering her voice, “had told me to say nothing of dress and ornaments, I should not have been surprised; but it is an unheard of simpleness for you, Hope. Dress and ornaments! they are the most likely things in the world to take the mind off from trouble. Till I came to this New-English colony, where every thing seems, as it were, topsy turvy, I never saw that woman whose mind could not be diverted by dress and ornaments.”

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“You strangely dishonor your memory, mistress Grafton, or Hope’s noble mother,” said the elder Fletcher; “methinks I have heard you often say that Alice Fletcher had no taste for these vanities.”

“No, you never heard me say that, Mr. Fletcher, Vanities! — no, never, the longest day I had to live; for I never called them vanities — no — I did say Alice always went as plain as a pike staff, after you left England; and a great pity it was, I always thought; for when queen Henrietta came from France, we had such a world of beautiful new fashions, it would have cured Alice of moping if she would have given her mind to it. There was my lady Penyvere, how different it was with her after her losses: let’s see, her husband, and her son Edward, heir to the estate; and her daughter-in- law — that was not so much — but we’ll count her; and Ulrica, her own daughter — all died in one week. And for an aggravation, her coachman, horses, coach and all, went off London Bridge, and all were drowned — killed — smashed to death; and yet, in less than a week, my lady gave orders for every suit of mourning — and that is the great use of wearing mourning, as she said: it takes the mind off from trouble.”

Hope felt, and her quick eye saw, that her aunt was running on sadlv at her own expense; and to produce an effect similar to the painter, when, by his happy art, he shifts his lights, throwing defects into shadow, and bringing out beauties, she said, “You are very little like your friend, lady Penyvere, dear aunt, for I am certain, if, as you feared, I had lost my life the other day, all the mourning in the king’s realm would not have turned your thoughts from trouble.”

“No, that’s true — that’s true, dearie,” replied the good lady, snuf- fling, and wiping away the tears that had gathered at the bare thought of the evil that had threatened her. “No, Hope, touch you, touch my life; but then,” she added, lowering her voice for Hope’s ear only, “I can’t bear to have you give in to this outcry against dress; we have preaching and prophesying enough, the Lord knows, without your taking it up.”

Lights were now ordered, and after the bustle, made by the ladies drawing around the table, and arranging their work, w'as over, Governor Winthrop said, “if your strength is equal to the task, Miss Leslie, we w ould gladly hear the particulars of your marvellous escape, of which Esther has been able to give us but a slight sketch; though enough to make us all

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admire at the wonderful Providence that brought you safely through.”

The elder Fletcher, really apprehensive for Hope’s health, and still more apprehensive that she might, in her fearless frankness, discredit herself with the Governor, by disclosing all the particulars of her late experience, which he had already heard from her lips, and permitted to pass uncensured, interposed, and hoped to avert the evil, by begging that the relation might be deferred. But Hope insisted that she felt perfectly well, and began by saying, ‘she doubted not her kind friends had made every allowance for the trouble she had occasioned them. She was con- scious that much evil had proceeded from the rash promise of secresy she had given.’ She forbore to name Magawisca, on her sister’s account, who was still sitting by her; the Governor, by a significant nod, expressed that he comprehended her; and she went on to say, ‘that she trusted she had been forgiven for that, and for all the petulant and childish conduct of the week that followed it.’ “1 scarcely recollect any thing of those days, that then seemed to me interminable,” she said, “but that I tried to mask my troubled spirit with a laughing face, and in spite of all my efforts I was rather cross than gay. I believe, Madam Winthrop, I called forth your censure, and 1 pray you to forgive me for not taking it patiently and thankfully, as 1 ought.”

Madam Winthrop, all astonishment at Hope’s exemplary humility and deference, graces she had not appeared to abound in, assured her with unassumed kindness, that she had her cordial forgiveness; though, indeed, she was pleased to say, ‘Hope’s explanation left her little to forgive.’

“And you, sir,” said Hope, turning to the Governor, “you, I trust, will pardon me for selecting your garden for a secret rendezvous.”

“Indeed, Hope Leslie, I could pardon a much heavier transgression in one so young as thee; and one who seems to have so hopeful a sense of error,” replied the Governor, while the goodwill beaming in his benevolent face, shewed how much more accordant kindness was with his nature, than the austere reproof which he so often believed the letter of his duty required from him.

“Then you all — —all forgive me; do you not?” Hope asked; and glanc- ing her eye around the room, it involuntarily rested, for a moment, on Everell. All but Everell, who did not speak, were warm in their assurances

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that they had nothing to forgive; and the elder Fletcher tenderly pressed her hand, secretly rejoicing that her graceful humility enabled her to start with her story from vantage ground.

“1 did not see you, I believe, Esther,” continued Hope, “after we parted at Digby’s cottage?”

“Speak a trifle louder, if you please, Miss Leslie,” said the Governor. Hope was herself conscious that her voice had faltered, at the recollection of the definitive scene in Digby’s cottage, and making a new effort, she said in a firmer and more cheerful tone, “you, Esther, were happily occupied. I was persecuted by Sir Philip Gardiner, whose ungentlemanly interference in my concerns, will, I trust, relieve me from his society in future.”

“Pardon me. Miss Leslie,” said the Governor, interrupting Hope, “our friend, Sir Philip, hath deserved your thanks rather than your cen- sure. There are, as you well know, duties paramount to the courtesies of a gentleman, which are, for the most part, but a vain show: mere dress and decoration; ” and he vouchsafed a smile, as he quoted the words of Mrs. Grafton, “Sir Philip believed he was consulting your happiness, when he took measures to recover your sister, w hich your promise forbade your taking.”

“Sir Philip strangely mistakes me,” replied Hope, “if he thinks any thing could console me for apparently betraying one w ho trusted me, to sorrowful, fearful imprisonment.”

There was a pause, during which Mrs. Winthrop whispered to Esther, “then she knows all about it?”

“Yes — she would not rest till she heard all.”

Hope proceeded. “I believe I am not yet strong enough to speak on this point.” She then w ent on to narrate circumstantially all that took place after she was parted from Magawisca, till she came to Antonio. Cradock, when she began, had laid aside a little Greek book, over which he was conning, and had at every new period of her relation given his chair a hitch towards her, till he sat directly before her, on the edge of his chair, his knees pressed close together, and his palms resting upright on them, his head stooped forward, so as to be at right angles with his body, and his parting lips creeping round to his ears, w ith an expression of compla- cent wonder. Thus he sat and looked, while Hope described her politic acquiescence in Antonio’s error, and repeated her first reply to him in

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Italian. At this the old man threw his head back, and burst into a peal of laughter, that resembled the neighing of a horse more than any human sound; and as soon as he could recover his voice, “did not I teach her the tongues?” he asked, with a vehement gesture to the company — “did not I teach her the tongues?”

“Indeed you did, kind master Cradock,” said Hope, laying her hand on his; “and many a weary hour it cost you.”

“Never — never one — thou wert always a marvellous quickwitted damsel.” He then resumed his seat and his former attitude, and, closing his eyes, said in his usual low, deliberate tone, “I bless the Lord that the flower and beauty of my youth were spent in Padua: a poor blind w orm that I am, 1 deemed it a loss, but it hath saved her most precious and sweet life.” And here he burst into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing, almost as violent as his laughter had been: his organs seemed moved by springs which, if touched by an emotion, were quite beyond his control, and only ceased their operation when their mechanical force was exhausted.

Hope had little more to relate: she prudently suppressed the private concerns of Sir Philip’s page, and attributed their accidental meeting to his having come abroad, as in truth he had, in quest of his master. When she had finished, the Governor said, “Thou hast indeed been brought through many dangers, Hope Leslie; delivered from the hand of thy strong enemy, and thy feet made like hinds’ feet; and 1 joy to say, that thy experience of the Lord’s mercies seemeth to have wrought a becoming sobriety in thee. I would fain pass over that last passage in thy evening’s adventures without remark, but duty bids me say, thou didst err, lamentably, in permitting, for a moment, the idol worship of that darkened papistical youth.”

“Worship, sir!” said Hope: “1 did not esteem it worship; I thought it merely an affectionate address to one who — and 1 hope 1 erred not in that — might not have been a great deal better than myself.”

“1 think she erred not greatly,” said Mr. Fletcher, who at this mo- ment felt too tenderly for Hope, patiently to hear her rebuked; “the best catholic doctors put this interpretation on the invocations to saints.”

“Granted,” replied the Governor, “but did she right to deepen and strengthen the superstition of the Romish sailor?”

“It does not appear to me,” said Mr. Fletcher, “that it was a season- able moment for meddling with his superstitions. We do not read that Paul

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rebuked the Melitans, even when they said he was a god.” This was but negative authority; but while the Governor hesitated how he should answer it, Mr. Fletcher turned to Esther: “Miss Downing,” he said, “thou art the pattern maiden of the commonwealth, — in Hope’s condition, wouldst thou have acted differently? out of thy mouth she shall be justified or condemned.”

“Speak, dear Esther,” said Hope; “why do you hesitate? If I were to choose an external conscience, you should be my rule; though I think the stern monitor could never be embodied in so gentle a form. Now tell us, Esther, what would you have done?”

“What I should have done, if left to my own strength, 1 know not,” replied Esther, speaking reluctantly.

“Then, Esther, 1 will put the question in a form to spare your humility; I will not ask what you would have done, but what 1 ought to have done?”

Esther’s strictness was a submission to duty; and it cost her an effort to say, “1 would rather, Hope, thou hadst trusted thyself wholly to that Providence that had so wonderfully wrought for thee thus far.”

“I believe you are quite right, Esther,” said Hope, who was disposed to acquiesce in whatever her friend said, and glad to escape from any further discussion; and, moreover, anxious to avert Esther’s observa- tion from Everell, who, during the conversation, had been walking the room, his arms folded, to and fro, but had narrowly watched Esther during this appeal; and when she announced her opinion, had turned disap-

Mrs. Grafton now arose with a trifling apparent vexation, and, taking Faith by the arm, she signified her intention to retire to her own apart- ment. While crossing the room she said, “It is not often I quote scripture, as you all know; because, as I have said before, I hold a text from scripture, or a sample of chintz, to be a deceptive kind of specimen; but I must say now, that I think the case of David, in eating the shew bread, instead of looking for manna, upholds Hope Leslie in using the means the Lord chose to place in her hands.”

Having the last word is one of the tokens of victory, and the good lady, content with this, withdrew from the field of discussion. Governor Winthrop retired to his study. Hope followed him thither, and begged a

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few moments audience; which was, of course, readily granted. When the door was closed, and he had seated himself, and placed a large arm-chair for her, all the tranquility which she had just before so well sustained, forsook her; she sunk, trembling, on her knees, and was compelled to rest her forehead on the Governor’s knee: he laid his hand kindly on her head, “what does this mean?” he asked; “1 like not, and it is not fitting, that any one should kneel in my house, but for a holy purpose, — rise, Hope Leslie, and explain yourself — rise, my child,” he added in a softened tone, for his heart was touched with her distress; “tyrants are knelt to— and 1 trust 1

am none.

“No, indeed, you are not,” she replied, rising and clasping her hands with earnest supplication; “and therefore, 1 hope — nay, I believe, you will grant my petition for our poor Indian friend.”

“Well, be calm — what of her?”

“What of her! Is she not, the generous creature, at this moment in your condemned dungeon? is she not to be tried to-morrow— perhaps sentenced to death— and can I, the cause of bringing her into this trouble — can 1 look calmly on?”

“Well, what would you have, young lady?” asked the Governor, in a quiet manner, that damped our heroine’s hopes, though it did not abate her ardour.

“1 would have your warrant, sir,” she replied boldly, “for her release; her free passage to her poor old father, if indeed he lives.”

“You speak unadvisedly, Miss Leslie. I am no king; and 1 trust the Lord will never send one in wrath on his chosen people of the new world, as he did on those of old. No, in truth, I am no king. I have but one voice in the commonwealth, and I cannot grant pardons at pleasure; and besides, on what do you found your plea?”

“On what?” exclaimed Hope. “On her merits, and rights.”

“Methinks, my young friend, you have lost right suddenly that humble tone, that but now in the parlour graced you so well. I trusted that your light afflictions, and short sickness, had tended to the edification of your spirit.”

“I spoke then of myself, and humility became me; but surely you will permit me to spreak courageously of the noble Magawisca.”

“There is some touch of reason in thy speech, Hope Leslie,” replied

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the Governor, his lips almost relaxing to a smile. “Sit down, child, and tell me of these merits and rights, for 1 would be possessed of every thing in favour of this unhappy maiden.”

“I have not to tell you, sir,” said Hope, struggling to speak in a dispassionate tone, “but only to remind you of what you were once the first to speak of — the many obligations of the English to the family of Mono- notto — a debt, that has been but ill paid.”

“That debt, 1 think, was cancelled by the dreadful massacre at Bethel.”

“If it be so, there is another debt that never has been — that scarce can be cancelled.”

“Yes, 1 know to what you allude: it was a noble action for a heathen savage; and I marvel not that my friend Fletcher should think it a title to our mercy; or, that young Mr. Everell, looking with a youthful eye on this business, should deem it a claim on our justice. They have both spoken much and often to me, and it were well, if Everell Fletcher were content to leave this matter with those who have the right to determine it.” Hope perceived the Governor looked very significantly, and she apprehended that he might think her intercession was instigated by Everell.

“I have not seen Everell Fletcher,” she said, “till this evening, since we parted at the garden; and you will do both him and me the justice to believe, I have not now spoken at his bidding.”

“I did not think it. I know thou art ever somewhat forward to speak the dictates of thy heart,” he continued with a smile; “but now let me caution you both, especially Everell, not to stir in this matter, any private interference will but prejudice the Pequod’s cause. They have ever been a hateful race to the English. And as the old chief and his daughter are accused, and I fear justly, of kindling the enmity of the tribes against us, and attempting to stir up a war that would lay our villages in ruins, i t will be difficult to make a private benefit outweigh such a public crime. At any rate, the prisoner must be tried for her life; afterwards, we may consider if it be possible, and suitable, to grant her a pardon.” Hope rose to with- draw: the sanguine hopes that had sustained her were abated, her limbs trembled, and her lips quivered, as she turned to say “goodnight.” The Governor took her hand, and said compassionately, — “Be not thus dis-

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quieted, my child; cast thy care upon the Lord, He can bring light out of this darkness.”

‘And he alone,’ she thought, as she slowly crept to her room. A favourite from her birth, Hope had been accustomed to the gratification of her wishes; innocent and moderate they had been; but uniform indul- gence is not a favourable school, and our heroine had now to learn from that stern teacher experience, that events and circumstances cannot be moulded to individual wishes. She must sit down and passively await the fate of Magawisca. ‘She had done all she could do, and without any effect — had she done all?’ While she still meditated on this last clause of her thoughts, Esther entered the room. Absorbed in her own reverie, Hope did not, at first, particularly observe her friend, and when she did, she saw that she appeared much disturbed. Esther, after opening and shutting drawers and cupboards, and seeking by these little devices to conceal or subdue her agitation, found all unavailing, and throwing herself into a chair, she gave way to hysterical sobbings.

This in almost any young lady would have been a common expression of romantic distress; but in the disciplined, circumspect Esther, uncon- trolled emotion was as alarming, to compare small things to great, as if an obedient planet were to start from its appointed orbit.

Hope hastened to her, and folding her arms around her tenderly, inquired what could thus distress her? Esther disengaged herself from her friend, and turned her face from her.

“I cannot bear this,” said Hope, “I can bear any thing better than this: are you displeased with me, Esther?”

“Yes, 1 am displeased with you — with myself — with every body — I am miserable.”

“What do you mean, Esther? I have done nothing to offend you; for pity’s sake tell me what you mean? I have never had a feeling or thought that should offend you.”

“You have most cruelly, fatally injured me, Hope Leslie.”

“Here is some wretched mistake,” cried Hope; “for heaven’s sake explain, Esther: if I had injured you knowingly, I should be of all creatures most guilty; but I have not. If I have innocently injured you, speak, my dear friend, I beseech you,” she added, again putting her arm around Esther;

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“have not you yourself, a thousand times, said there should be no disguises with friends; no untold suspicions; no unexplained mysteries.”

Again Esther repressed Hope. “I have been unfairly dealt by,” she said. “I have been treated as a child.”

“How — when — where — by whom?” demanded Hope impet- uously.

“Ask me no questions now, Hope. I wall answer none. 1 will no longer be played upon.”

“Oh, Esther, you are cruel,” said Hope, bursting into tears. “You are the one friend that I have loved gratefully, devotedly, disinterestedly, and I cannot bear this.”

There was a pause of half an hour, during which Esther sat with her face covered with her handkerchief, and sobbing violently, while Hope walked up and down the room; her tender heart penetrated to the very core with sorrow, and her mind perplexed with endless conjectures about the cause of her friend’s emotions.

She sometimes approached near the truth, but that way she could not bear to look. At last Esther became quiet, and Hope ventured once more to approach her, and leaned over her without speaking. Esther rose from her chair, knelt down, and drew' Hope down beside her, and in a low, but perfectly firm voice, supplicated for grace to resist engrossing passion, and selfish affections. She prayed they might both be assisted from above, so that their mutual forgiveness, and mutual love, might be perfected, and issue in a friendship which should be a foretaste of heaven. She then rose, and folded her arms around her friend, saying, “I have given w ay to my sinful nature; but I feel already an earnest of returning peace. Do not say any thing to me now', Hope — the future will explain all.”

There w'as an authority in her manner, that Hope could not, and did not, wish to resist. “If you speak to me so, Esther,” she said, “I w ould obey you, even though it were possible obedience should be more difficult. Now' w'e will go to bed, and forget all this w'earisome evening; but first kiss me, and tell me you love me as well as ever.”

“1 do,” she replied; but her voice faltered; and governed by the strictest law of truth, she changed her form of expression — “I mean that I shall again love you as well — I trust better than ever — be content with this, for the present, Hope, and try me no further.”

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Once, while they were undressing, Esther said, but without any emotion in her voice, — her face was averted from Hope, — “Everell has been proposing to me to assist him in a clandestine attempt to get Magawisca out of prison.”

“To get her out!” exclaimed Hope, with the greatest animation — “to-night?”

“To-night or to-morrow night.”

“And is there any hope of effecting it?”

“1 thought it not right for me to undertake it,” Esther replied in the same tone, quite calm, but so deliberate, that Hope detected the effort with which she spoke, and dared not venture another question.

They both went to bed, but not to sleep; mutual and secret anxieties kept them for a long time restless, and a strange feeling of embarrassment, as distant as the width of their bed would allow; but, finally, Hope, as if she could no longer bear this estrangement, nestled close to Esther, folded her arms around her, and fell asleep on her bosom.

Madam Winthrop had very considerately, in the course of the eve- ning, left Everell and her niece alone together; and he had availed himself of this first opportunity of private communication, to inform her, that after being frustrated in all his efforts for Magawisca’s rescue, he had, at length, devised a plan which only wanted her co-operation to insure its success. Her agency would certainly, he believed, not be detected; and, at any rate, could not involve her in any disagreeable consequences.

‘Any consequences to herself,’ Esther said, ‘she would not fear.’ Everell assured her, that he was certain she would not; but he was anxious she should see he would not expose her to any, even to attain an object for which he would risk or sacrifice his own life. He then went on eagerly to detail his plan of operations, till Esther summoned courage to interrupt him. Perhaps there is not on earth a more difficult duty, than for a woman to place herself in a disagreeable light before the man she truly loves. Esther’s affections were deep, fixed, and unpretending, capable of any effort, or any sacrifice, that was not proscribed by religious loyalty; but no earthly consideration could have tempted her to waver from the strictest letter of her religious duty, as that duty was interpreted by her conscience. It cost her severe struggles, but after several intimations, which Everell did not understand, she constrained herself to say, ‘that she thought they had

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not scripture warrant for interfering between the prisoner and the magistrates.’

“Scripture warrant!” exclaimed Everell with surprise and vexation he could not conceal. “And are you to do no act of mercy, or compassion, or justice, for which you cannot quote a text fr om scriptu re?”

“Scripture hath abundant texts to authorise all mercy, compassion, and justice, but we are not always the allowed judges of their application; and in the case before us we have an express rule, to which, if we submit, we cannot err; for thou well knowest, Everell, we are commanded in the first of Peter, 2d chapter, to ‘submit ourselves to even - ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.’”

“But surely, Esther, there must be warrant, as you call it, for some- times resisting legitimate authority, or all our friends in England would not be at open war with their king. With such a precedent, I should think the sternest conscience would permit you to obey the generous impulses of nature, rather than to render this slavish obedience to the letter of the law.”

“Oh, Everell! do not seek to blind my judgment. Our friends at home are men who do all things in the fear of the Lord, and are, therefore, doubtless guided by the light of scripture, and the inward testimony. But they cannot be a rule for us, in any measure; and for me, Everell, it would be to sin presumptuously, to do aught, in any way, to countervail the authority of those chosen servants of the Lord, whose magistracy we are privileged to live under.”

Everell tried all argument and persuasion to subdue her scruples, but in vain; she had some text, or some unquestioned rule of duty - , to oppose to every reason and entreaty.

To an ardent young man, there is something unlovely, if not revolt- ing, in the sterner virtues; and particularly when they oppose those objects which he may feel to be authorised by the most generous emotions of his heart. Everell did not mean to be unjust to Esther — his words were measured and loyal — but he felt a deep conviction that there was a painful discord between them; that there was, to use the modem German term, no elective affinity. In the course of their conversation, he said, “you would

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not, you could not, thus resist my wishes, if you knew Magawisca.”

“Everell,” she replied, “those who love you need not know this maiden, to feel that they would save her life at the expense of their own, if they might do it;” and then blushing at what she feared might seem an empty boast, she added, “but I do know Magawisca; I have visited her in her prison every day since she has been there.”

“God bless you for that, Esther — but why did you not tell me?”

“Because my uncle only permitted me access to her, on condition that I kept it a secret from you.”

“Methinks that prohibition was as useless as cruel.”

“No, Everell; my uncle, doubtless, anticipated such applications as you have made to-night, and he was right to guard me from temptation.”

‘He might securely have trusted you to resist it,’ thought Everell. But he tried to suppress the unkind feeling, and asked Esther ‘if she had any motive in visiting Magawisca thus often, beyond the gratification of her compassionate disposition?’

“Yes,” replied Esther, “I heard my uncle say, that if Magawisca could be induced to renounce her heathenish principles, and promise, instead of following her father to the forest, to remain here, and join the catechised Indians, he thought the magistrates might see it to be their duty to overlook her past misdemeanors, and grant her Christian privileges.” Esther paused for a moment, but Everell made no comment, and she proceeded, in a tone of the deepest humility: “I knew I was a poor instrument, but I hoped a blessing on the prayer of faith, and the labour of love. I set before her, her temporal and her eternal interest — life, and death. I prayed with her — 1 exhorted her — but, oh! Everell, she is obdu- rate; she neither fears death, nor will believe that eternal misery awaits her after death!”

To Esther’s astonishment, Everell, though he looked troubled, nei- ther expressed surprise or disappointment at the result of her labours, but immediately set before her the obvious inference from it. “You see, your- self,” he said, “by your own experience, there is but one way of aiding Magawisca.”

“It is unkind of you, Everell,” she replied, with a trembling voice, “to press me further; that way, you know, my path is hedged up;” and without saying any thing more, she abruptly left the room; but she had scarcely

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passed the threshold of the door, when her gentle heart reproached her with harshness, and she turned to soften her final refusal. Everell did not hear her returning footsteps; he stood with his back to the door; and Esther heard him make this involuntary apostrophe. “Oh, Hope Leslie! how thy unfettered soul would have answered such an appeal! why has fate cruelly severed us?”

Esther escaped hastily, and without his observation; and the scene already described, in the apartment of the young ladies, ensued.

Everell Fletcher must not be reproached with being a disloyal knight. The artifices of Sir Philip Gardiner, the false light in which our heroine had been placed by her embarrassments with Magawisca — the innocent ma- noeuvrings of Madam Winthrop, and finally, the generous rashness of Hope Leslie, had led him step by step, to involve himself in an engagement with Miss Downing; that engagement had just been made known to her protectors, and ratified by them, when the denouement of the mysterious rendezvous at the garden, explained his fatal mistake. When he recurred to all that had passed since his first meeting with Hope Leslie, and particu- larly to their last interview at the garden, when he had imputed her uncontrollable emotion to her sensibility in relation to Sir Philip, he had reason to believe, he was beloved by the only being he had ever loved. But in what cruel circumstance did this discovery find him! His troth plighted to one whose pure and tender heart he had long possessed. There was but one honourable course for him to pursue, and on that he firmly resolved; to avoid the presence of Hope Leslie — to break the chain of affection wrought in youth, and rivetted in manhood, and whose links seemed to him, to encompass and sustain his very life; in fine, to forget the past — but alas! who can convert to Lethe the sweetest draughts of memory?

Hope’s dangerous illness had suspended all his purposes; he could not disguise his interest — and indeed, its manifestation excited neither surprise nor remark, for it seemed sufficiendy accounted for by their long and intimate association. While Hope’s life was in peril, even Magawisca was forgotten; but the moment Hope’s convalescence restored the use of his faculties, they were all devoted to obtaining Magawisca’s release, and he had left no means untried, either of open intercession, or clandestine effort; but all as yet was without effect.

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