Pages | Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, bf

Harpbr & Brothers, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.

HOPE LESLIE.

CHAPTER I.

•* Those well scene natives in grave Nature's bests, All close designs conceal in their deep brests."

MORRELL.

It would be highly improper any longer to keep our readers in ignorance of the cause of our heroine's apparent aberration from the line of strict propriety. After her conversation with Everell, in which we must infer, from its effect on his mind, that she manifested less art than zeal in her friend's cause, she was retiring to her own apartment, when, on passing through the hall, she saw an Indian woman standing there, requesting the servant who had admitted her '^ to ask the young ladies of the house if th^ would look at some rare moccasins."

Miss Leslie was arrested by the uncommon sweetness of the stranger's voice; and fixing her eye on her, she was struck with the singular dignity and grace of her demeanour—a certain air indicating an ** inborn royalty of soul," that even the ugly envelope of a blanket did not conceal."

The stranger seemed equally interested in Miss Leslie's appearance; and, fixing her eye intently on her, " Pray try my moccasins, lady," she said, earnestly.

" Oh, certainly; I should of all things like to buy a pair of you," said Hope; and, advancing, she was taking them from her shoulder, over which they were slung, when she, ascertaining by a quick glance that the servant had disappeared, gently repressed Miss LesUe's hand, saying at the same time, " Tell me thy name, lady."

" My name ! Hope Leslie. But who art thou ?" Hope asked in return, in a voice rendered almost inarticulate by the thought that flashed into her mind.

The stranger cast down her eyes, and for half an instant hesitated; then looking apprehensively around, she said, in low, distmct accents, " Hope Leslie, I am Magawisca."

" Magawisca!" echoed Hope. " Oh, Everell!" and she sprang towards the parlour door to summon Everell.

" Silence ! stay," cried Magawisca, with a vehement gesture, and at the same time turning to escape should Hope prosecute her intention.

Hope perceived this, and again approached her. " It cannot, then, be Magawisca," she said; and she trembled as she spoke with doubts, hopes, and fears.

Magawisca might have at once identified herself by opening her blanket and disclosing her person; but that she did not, no one will wonder who knows that a savage feels more even than ordinary sensibility at personal deformity. She took from her bosom a necklace of hair and gold entwined together. " Dost thou know this ?" she asked. *^ Is it not like that thou wearest ?"

Hope grasped it, pressed it to her lips, and answered by exclaiming passionately, " My sister! my sister!"

" Yes, it is a token from thy sister. Listen to me, Hope Leslie: my time is brief; I may not stay here another moment; but come to me this evening at nine o'clock, at the burial-place, a little beyond the clump of pines, and I will give thee tidings of thy sister: keep what I say in thine own bosom; tell no one*thou hast seen me; come alone, and fear nof

" Oh, I have no fear," exclaimed Hope, vehemently ; " but tell me—tell me!"

Magawisca put her finger on her lips in token of silence, for at this instant the door was again opened, not by the servant who had before appeared, -but by Jennet. Magawisca instantly recognised her, and turned as if in the act of departing.

Time had, indeed, wrought little change on Jennet, save imparting a shriller squeak to her doleful voice, and a keener edge to her sharp features. " Madam Winthrop," she said, " is engaged now, but says you may call some other time with your moccasins; and I would advise you to let it be any other than the fag-end of a Saturday—a wrong season for temporalities."

While Jennet was uttering this superfluous counsel, Hope sprang off the steps after Magawisca, anxious for some farther light on her dawning expectations.

" Stay, oh stay," she said, " one moment, and let me try your moccasins."

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At the same instant Mrs. Grailon appeared from the back parlour, evidently in a great flurry. " Here, you Indian woman,'' she screamed," let me see your moccasins."

' Thus beset, Magawisca was constrained to retrace her steps, and confront the danger of discovery. She drew her blanket closer over her head and face, and reascending the steps, threw her moccasins on the floor, and cautiously averted her face from the light. It was too evident to her that Jennet had some glimmering recollections ; for, while she affected to busy herself with the moccasins, she turned her inquisitorial gray eyes towards her with a look of sharp scrutiny. Once Magawisca, with a movement of involuntar}'^ disdain, returned her glance. Jennet dropped the moccasins as suddenly as if she had received a blow, hemmed as if she were choking, and put her hand on the knob of the parlour door.

« Oh," thought Magawisca, " I am lost!" But Jennet, confused by her misty recollections, relinquished her purpose, whatever it was, and returned to the examination of the moccasins. In the mean while, Hope stood behind her aunt and Jennet, her hands clasped, and her beautiful eyes bent on Magawisca with a supplicating inquiry.

Mrs. Grafton, as usual, was intent on her traffic. "It was odd enough of Madam Winthrop," she said, ^ not to let me know these moccasins were here; she knew I wanted them—at least she must know I might want them; and if I don^t want them, that's nothing to the purpose. I like to look at everything

that*s going. It is a diversion to the mind. A neat article," she continued ; " I should like you to have a pair, Hope; Sir Philip said, yesterday, they gaVe a trig look to a pretty foot and ankle. How much does she ask for them 1"

" I do not know," replied Hope.

" Do not know! that's peculiar of you, Hope Leslie; you never inquire the price of anything. I dare say Tawney expects enough for them to buy all the glass beads in Boston. Hey, Tawney 1"

Mrs. Grafton now, for the first time, turned from the articles to their possessor: she was struck with an air of graceful haughtiness in her demeanour, strongly contrasting with the submissive, dejected deportment of the natives whom she was in the hab-it,of seeing; and dropping the moccasins and turning to Hope, she whispered, " Best buy a pair, dearie— by all means buy a pair—^pay her anything she asks —^best keep peace wjth them: * never affront dogs nor Indians.'"

Hope Vanted no urging; but, anxious to get rid of the witnesses that embarrassed her, and quick of invention, she directed Jennet to go for her purse, ^ which she would find in a certain basket, or drawer, or somewhere else;" and reminded her aunt that she had promised to call in at Mrs. Cotton's on her way to lecture, to look at her hyacinths, and that she had no time to lose.

Jennet obeyed, and Mrs. Grafton said, "That's true, and it's thoughtful of you to think of it, Hope; but," she added, lowering her voice, " I would not

like to leave you alone, so I'll just open the parlour door."

Before Hope could intercept her, she set the door ajar, and through the aperture Magawisca had a perfect view of Everell, who was sitting musing in the window-seat An involuntary exclamation burst from her lips; and then, shuddering at this exposure of her feelings, she hastily gathered together the moccasins that were strewn over the floor, dropped a pair at Hope's feet, and darted away.

Hope had heard the exclamation and understood it. Mrs. Grafton heard it without understanding it, and fgllowed Magawisca to the door, calling after her, '^ Do stay and take a little something; Madam Winthrop has always a bone to give away. Ah! you might as well call after the wind; she has already turned the corner. Heaven send she may not bear malice against us! What do you think, Hope ?" Mrs. Grafton turned to appeal to her niece ; but she, foreseeing eodless interrogatories, had made good her retreat, and escaped to her own apartment.

Jennet, however, came to the good lady's relief; listened to all her conjectures and apprehensions, and reciprocated her own.

Jennet could not say what it was in the woman, but ^e had the strangest feeling all the time she was there—a mysterious beating of her heart that she could not account for; as to her disappearing so suddenly, that she did not think much of; the foresters were always impatient to get to their haunts;

flicy were Kbe tht ** wiM «Sj^^ tb^it tke Scripture saidi " scoroetfa the multitude of « cit)\^^

But we leave Mrs* Grafton and Jennet to their uned^ing conference, to fellow our heroine to \\v^ privacy of her own apartment. There, in the first rush of her newly-awakened feelings, till then re» pressed, she wept like a child, and re{>eateil again and, again, " Oh, my sister! my sister !*' Her mind was in a tumult; she knew not what to believe— what to expect—what to hope.

But, accustomed to diffuse over every anticipation the sunny hue of her own happy temperament, nhe flattered herself that she would even that night meet her sister; that she would be forever restored to her j that the chord severed by the cruel (1i«n»ter at Dethel would be rebound about their hearts. She had but a brief space to compose herself, and that was passed in fervent supplications for the blessing of Ood upon her hopes. She must go to thn lecture, and after that trust to her ingenuity to escape to the reti« dezvous. The thought of danger or cjiposure never entered her mind, for she was not addicted ia trntf and, 38 she reflected on the voice and de|K;H/fient (A the stranger, she wa« convinceil she could be m other than Magawisca, the hermne of Kterell> tm* 2^DSLii(m^ whom be bad tattgbi ber to beii«rt« WMI one cf Aose who,

** Wahost Mt^B tm^ Ss^, Ivf fiititm^§ fry%

Almost as impaitienit (o g/> to Dip^ htlme m 4m ws aftoward 1o cstape; £roM it (we tmil om #««mP

crs have absolved her for her apparent indecorum in the sanctuary), she had tied and untied her hat twenty times before she heard the ringing, of the bell for the assembling of the congregation. She refused, as has been seen, the escort of Everell, for she dared not expose to him-emotions which she could not explain.

After the various detentions which have been already detailed, she arrived at the appointed rendezvous, and there saw Magawisca, and Magawisca alone, kneeling before an upright stake planted at one end of a grave. She appeared occupied in delineating a figure on the stake with a small implement she held in her hand, which she dipped in a shell placed on the ground beside her.

Hope paused with a mingled feeling of disappomt-ment and awe; disappointment that her sister was not there, and awe inspired by the solemnity of the scene before her: the spirit-stirring figure of Magawisca, the duty she was performing, the flickering light, the monumental stones, and the dark shadows that swept over them as the breeze bowed the tall pines. She drew her mantle, that fluttered in the breeze, close around her, and almost suppressed her breath, that she might not disturb what she believed to be an act of filial devotion.

Magawisca was not unconscious of Miss Leslie's approach, but she deftmed the office in which she was engaged too sacred to be interrupted. She accompanied the movement of her hand with a low chant in her native tongue; and so sweet and va-

ried were the tones of her voice, that it seemed to Hope they nright have been breathed by an mvisi-ble spirit.

When she had finished her work, she leaned her head for a moment against the stake, and then rose and turned to Miss Leslie; a moonbeam shot across her face; it was wet with tears, but she spoke in a tranquil voice. " You have come—and alone V^ she said, casting a searching glance around her.

*' I promised to come alone," replied Hope.

" Yes, and I trusted youf and I will trust you farther, for the good deed you did Nelema."

" Nelema, then, lived to reach you."

" She did; Wasted, faint, and djing, she crawled into my father's wigwam. She had but scant time and short breath; with that she cursed your race, and blessed you, Hope Leslie; her day was ended; the hand of death pressed her throat, and even then she made me swear to perform her promise to you."

" And you will, Magawisca," cried Hope, impetuously, " you will give me back my sister ?"

" Nay, that she never promised—^that I cannot do. I cannot send back the bird that has mated, to its parent nest—the stream that has mingled with other waters, to its fountain."

" Oh, do not speak to me in these dark sayings," repUed Hope, her smooth brow contracting with impatience and apprehension, and her hurried manner and convulsed countenance contrasting strongly with the calmness of Magawisca; " what is it you Qiean 1 Where is my sister 1"

" She is safe—she is near to you—and you shall see her, Hope Leslie."

" But when—and where, Magawisca ? Oh, if I could once clasp her in my arms, she never should leave me—she never should be torn from me again."

"Those arms," said Magawisca, with a faint smile, " could no more retain thy sister than a spider's web. The lily of the Maqua's valley will never again make the English garden sweet."

" Speak plainer to me," cried Hope, in a voice of entreaty that could not^be resisted. "Is my sister—" she paused, for her quivering lips could not pronounce the words that rose to them.

Magawisca understood her, and replied. " Yes, Hope Leslie, thy sister is married to Oneco."

" God forbid!" exclaimed Hope, shuddering as if a knife had been plunged in her bosom. " My sister married to an Indian !"

" An Indian!" exclaimed Magawisca, recoiling with a look of proud contempt, that showed she reciprocated with full measure the scorn expressed for her race. " Yes, an Indian, in whose veins runs the blood of the strongest, the fleetest of the children of the forest, who never turned their backs on friends or enemies, and whose souls have returned to the Great Spirit stainless as they came from him. Think ye that your blood will be corrupted by mingling with this stream ?"

Long before Magawisca ceased to pour out her indignation, Hope's first emotion had given place to a burst of tears ; she wept aloud, and her broken ut-

terance of " O, my sister! my sister! My dear mother!" emitted but imperfect glimpses of the ruined hopes, the bitter feelings that oppressed her.

There was a chord in Magawisca's heart that needed but the touch of tenderness to respond in harmony; her pride vanished, and her indignation gave place to sympathy. She said in a low, sooth-* ing voice, "Now do not weep thus; your sister is well with us. She is cherished as the bird cherishes her young. The cold winds may not blow on her, nor the fierce sun scorch her, nor a harsh sound ever be spoken to her; she is dear to Mononotto as if his own blood ran in her veins; and Oneco—Oneco worships and serves her as if all good spirits dwelt in her. Oh, she is indeed well with us."

"There lies my mother," cried Hope, without seeming to have heard Magawisca's consolations; "she lost her life in bringing her children to this wild world, to secure thiem in the fold of Christ O, God! restore my sister to the Christian family."

" And here," said Magawisca, in a voice of deep pathos," here is my mother's grave; think ye not that the Great Spirit looks down on these sacred spots, where the good and the peaceful rest, with an equal eye ? think ye not their children are His children, whether they are gathered in yonder temple where your people worship, or bow to him beneath the green boughs of the forest ?"

There was certainly something thrilling in Maga-wisca's faith, and she now succeeded in riveting Hope's attention. " Listen to me," she said; " your

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aster is of what you call the Christian family. I believe ye have many names in that family. She hath been signed with the cross by a holy father from France; she bows to the crucifix."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Hope, fervently, for she thought that any Christian faith was better than none.

"Perhaps ye are right," said Magawisca, as if she read Hope's heart; " there may be those that need other lights; but to me, the Great Spirit is visible in the life-creating sun. I perceive him in the gentle light of the moon that steals in through the forest boughs. I feel him here," she continued, pressing her hand on her breast, while her face glowed with the enthusiasm of devotion. "I feel him in these ever-living, ever-wakeful thoughts— but we waste time. You must see your sister."

" When—and where 1" again demanded Hope.

" Before I answer you, you must promise me by this sign," and she pointed to the emblem of her tribe, an eagle, which she had rudely delineated on the post that served as a headstone to her mother's grave; " you must promise me by the bright host of Heaven, that the door of your lips shall be fast; that none shall know that you have seen me, or are to see me again.

"I promise," said Hope, with her characteristic precipitancy.

" Then, when five suns have risen and set, I will return with your sister. But hush!" she said, suddenly stopping, and turning a suspicious eye towards the thicket of evergreens. '

" It was but the wind/' said IJope, rightly inter-pretmg Magawisca's quick glance, and the slight inclination of her head.

" You would not betray me I" said Wagawisca, in a voice of mingled assurance and inquiry. " Oh, more than ever entered into thy young thoughts hangs upon my safety."

" But why any fear for your safety 1 why not come openly among us 1 I will get the word of our good governor that you shall come and go in peace. No one ever feared to trust his word."

" You know not what you ask."

" Indeed I do; but you, Magawisca, know not what you refuse; and why refuse 1 are you afraid of being treated like a recovered prisoner ? Ohj^no! every one will delight to honour you, for your very name is dear to all Mr. Fletcher's friends—^most dear to Everell." ^0

" Dear to Everell Fletcher! Does he remember me ? Is there a place in his heart for an Indian ?" she demanded, with a blended expression of pride and melancholy.

" Yes, yes, Magawisca, indeed is there," replied Hope, for now she thought she had touched the right key. " It was but this morning that he said he had a mind to take an Indian guide, and seek you out among the Maquas." Magawisca hid her face in the folds of her mantle, and Hope proceeded with increasing earnestness. "There is nothing in the wide world—there is nothing that Everell thinks so good and so noble as you. Oh, if you could but

have seen his joy, when, after your parting on that horrid rock, he first heard you was living! He has described you so often and so truly, that the moment I saw you %nd heard your voice, I said to myself, * this is surely Everell's Magawisca.'"

" Say no more, Hope Leslie, say no more,'' exclaimed Magawisca, throwing back the envelope from her face, as if she were ashamed to shelter emotions she ought not to indulge. " I have promised my father, I have repeated the vow here on my mother's grave, and if I were to go back from it, those bright witnesses," she pointed to the heavens, " would break their silence. Do not speak to me again of Everell Fletcher."

" Oh yes, once again, Magawisca: if you will not listen to me; if you will but give me this brief, mysterious meeting with my poor sister, at least let Ev-er^^Hse with me; for his sake, for my sake, for your own sake, do not refuse me."

Magawisca looked on Hope's glowing face for a moment, and then shook her head with a melancholy smile. " They tell me," she said, " that no one can look on you and deny you aught; that you can make old men's hearts soft, and mould them at your will; but I have learned to deny even the cravings of my own heart ; to pursue my purpose like the bird that keeps her wing stretched to the toilsome flight, though the sweetest note of her mate recalls her to the nest. But ah! I do but boast," she continued, casting her eyes to the ground. " I may not trust myself; that was a childish scream that esca-

ped me when I saw Everell; had my father heard it, his cheek would have been pale with shame. No, Hope Leslie, I may not listen to thee. You must come alone to the meeting, or never meet your sister: will you come ?"

Hope saw in the determined manner of Magawis-ca*ihat there was no alternative but to accept the boon on her own terms, and she no longer withheld her compliance. The basis of their treaty being settled, the next point to be arranged was the place of meeting. Magawisca had no objections to venture again within the town, but then it would be necessary completely to disguise Faith Leslie; and she hinted that she understood enough of Hope's English feelings to know that she would wish to see her sister with the pure tint of h6r natural complexion.

Hope had too much delicacy and too much feeling even inadvertently to appear to lay much stress on this point; but the experience of the evening made her feel the difficulty of arranging a meeting, surrounded as she was by vigilant friends, and within the sphere of their observation. Suddenly it occurred to her that Digby, her fast friend, and on more than one occasion her trusty ally, had the superintendence of the governor's garden on an island in the harbour, and within three miles of the town. The governor's family were in the habit of resorting thither frequently. Digby had a small habitation there, of which he and his family were the only tenants, and, indeed, were the only persons who dwelt B 2

- 18 HOPE LESLIE.

on the island. Hope was certain of permission to pass a night there^ where she might indulge in an ^ interview with her sister of any length, without hazard of interruption; and, having explained her plan to Magawisca, it received her ready and full acquiescence.

Before they separated, Hope said, " You will .allow me, Magawisca, to persuade my sister, if I can, to remain with me V^

" Oh yes, if you can ; but do not hope to persuade her. She and my brother are as if one life-chord bound them together; and, besides, your sister cannot speak to you and understand you as I do. She was very young when she was taken where she has only heard the Indian tongue: some, you know, are like water, that retains no mark ; and others like the flinty rock, that never loses a mark." Maga-wisca observed Hope's look of disappointment, and, in a voice of pity, added, " Your sister hath a face that speaketh plainly what the tongue should never speak—her own goodness."

When these two romantic females had concerted every measure they deemed essential to the certainty and privacy of their toeeting, Magawisca bowed her head and kissed the border of Hope's shawl with the reverent delicacy of an Oriental salutation; she then took from benejith her mantle some fragrant herbs, and strewed them over her mother's grave, then prostrated herself in deep and silent devotion, feeling (as others have felt on earth thus consecrated) as if the clods she pressed were instinct with

life. When this last act of filial love was done, i^e rose, muffled herself closely in her dark mantle, and departed.

Hope lingered for a moment. " Mysteriously,'' she said, as her eye followed the noble figure of Magawisca till it was lost in the surrounding darkness, " mysteriously have our destinies been interwoven. Our mothers brought from a far distance to rest together here—^their children connected in indissoluble bonds!''

But Hope was soon aware that this was no time for solitary meditation. In the interest of her interview with Magawisca she had been heedless of the gathering storm. The clouds rolled over the moon suddenly, like the unfurling of a banner, and the rain poured down in torrents. Hope had no light to guide her but occasional flashes of lightning, and the candle whose little beam, proceeding firom Mr. Cotton's study window, pierced the dense sheet of rain.

Hope hurried her steps homeward, and, as she passed the knot of evergreens, she fancied she heard a rattling of the boughs, as if there were some struggling within, and a suppressed voice saying, ^^ Hist! whish!" She paused, and with a resolute step turned towards the thicket " We have been overheard," she thought; " this generous creature shall not be betrayed." At this instant a thunderbolt burst over her head, and the whole earth seemed kindled in one bright illumination. Sh%was terrified ; and, perhaps, as much convinced by her fears

as her reason that it was both imprudent and useless to make any farther investigation, she again bent her quick steps towards home. She had scarcely-surmounted the fence, which she passed more like a winged spirit than a fine lady, when Sir Philip Gardiner joined her.

" Miss Leslie!" he exclaimed, as a flash of lightning revealed her person. "Now, thanks to my good stars that I am so fortunate as to meet you; suffer me to wrap my cloak about you; you will be drenched with this pitiless rain."

" Oh no, no," she said; "the cloak will but encumber me. I am already drenched, and I shall be at home directly;" and she would have left him, but he caught her arm, and gently detained her while he enveloped her in his cloak.

" It should not be a trifle. Miss Leslie, that has kept you out, regardless of this gathering storm," Sir Philip said, inquiringly. Miss Leslie made no reply, and he proceeded. " You may have forgotten it is Saturday night—or perhaps you have a dispensation ?"

" Neither," replied Hope.

" Neither! Then I am sure you are abroad in some godly cause; for you need to be one of the righteous—who, we are told, are as bold as a lion—to confront the governor's family after trespassing on holy time."

" I have no fears," said Hope.

" No fe^rs! That is a rare exemption for a young lady; but I would that you possessed one still more

*rare: she who is incapable of fear should never be exposed to danger; and if I had a charmed shield, I would devote my life to sheltering you from all harm: may not—may not love be such a one ?"

" It's useless talking, Sir Philip," replied Hope, if that could be deemed a reply which seemed to have rather an indirect relation to the previous address, ^^ it's useless talking in this rattling storm, your words drop to the ground with the hailstones '*

" And every word you utter," said the knight, biting his Ups with vexation, " not only penetrates my ear, but sinks into my heart; therefore I pray you to be merciful, and do not make my heart heavy."

^^The hailstones melt as they touch the ground, and my words pass away as soon, I fancy," said Hope, with the most provoking nonchalance.

Sir Philip^had no time to reply; they were just turning into the court in front of Governor Winthrop's house, when a flash of lightning, so vivid that its glare almost blinded them, disclosed the figure of the mysterious page leaning against the gatepost, his head inclined forward as if in the act of listen ing, his cap in his hand, his dark curls in wild dis order over his face and neck, and he apparently un conscious of the storm. They both recoiled : Hope uttered an exclamation of pity. "Ha, RAilinIi'-burst in a tone of severe reproach from Sir Philip; but, instantly changing it for one of kmdness, he added, " you should not have waited for me, boy, in the storm."

" I cared not for the storm—^I did not feel it," re-

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' plied the lad, in a penetrating voice, which recalled to Miss Leslie all he had said to her, and induced her to check her first impulse to bid him in; she therefore passed him without any farther notice, ascended the steps, and, as has been related in the pre* ceding chapter, met Everell in the hall.

It is necessary to state briefly to our readers some particulars in relation to the reappearance of Maga-wisca, which events have not as yet explained.

Her father, from the hour of his expulsion from his own dominion, had constantly meditated revenge. His appetite was not sated at Bethel: that massacre seemed to him but a retaliation for his private wrongs. The catastrophe on the sacrifice-rock disordered his reason for a time; and the Indians, who perceived somethmg extraordinary in tjie energy of his unwavering and imdivided purpose, never believed it to be perfectly restored. But this, so far from impairing their confidence, converted it to im-pUcit deference; for they, in common with certain Oriental nations, believe that an insane person is inspired ; that the Divinity takes possession of the temple which the spirit of the man has abandoned. Whatever Mononotto predicted was believed ; whatever M ordered was done.

He felt that Oneco's volatile, unimpressive character was unfit for his purpose, and he permitted him to pursue, without intermission, his own pleasure —^to hunt and fish for his " white bird,'' as he called the little Leslie. But Magawisca was the constant

companion of her father; susceptible and contemplative, she soon imbibed his melancholy, and became as obedient to the impulse of his spirit as the most faithful are to the fancied intimations of the Divinity. She was the priestess of the oracle. Her tenderness for Everell and her grateful recollections of his lovely mother she determined to sacrifice on the altar of national duty.

In the years 1642 and 1643 there was a general movement among the Indians. Terrible massacres were perpetrated in the English settlements in Virginia ; the Dutch establishments in New-York were invaded, and rumours of secret and brooding hostility kept the colonies of New-England in a state of perpetual alarm. Mononotto determined to avail himself of this crisis, that appeared so favourable to his design, of uniting all the tribes of New-England in one powerful combination. He first appUed to Miantunnomoh, hoping by his personal influence to persuade that powerful and crafty chief to sacrifice to the general good his private feud with Uncas, the chief of the Mohegans.

Mononotto eloquently pressed these arguments, which, as is allowed by the historian of the Indian wars, '^seemed to right reason not only pregnant to the purpose, but also most cogent and invincible,'* and fcHT a time they prevailed over the mind of Miantunnomoh.

Vague rumours of conspiracy reached Boston, and the governor summoned Miantunnomoh to appear before his court, and abide an examination there.

The chief accordingly (as has been seen) came to Boston; but so artfully did he manage his cause as to screen from the English every just ground of offence. Their suspicions, however, were not removed ; for Hubbard says, " though his words were smoother than oil, yet many conceived in his heart were drawn swords."

It may appear strange, that while prosecuting so hazardous and delicate an enterprise, Mononotto should have encumbered himself with his family. Magawisca was necessary to him; and he submitted to be accompanied by Oneco and his bride, from respect to the dying declaration of Nelema, that his plans could n^ver be accomplished till her promise to Hope Leslie had been redeemed; till, as she had sworn to her preserver, the sisters had met.

Had the Indians been capable of a firm combma-tion, the purpose of Mononotto might have been achieved, and the English have been then driven from the American soil. But the natives were thinly scattered over an immense tract of country; the different tribes divided by petty rivalships, and impassable gulfe of long-transmitted hatred. They were brave and strong, but it was brute force without art or arms: they had ingenuity to form, and they did form, artful conspiracies, but their best-concerted plans were betrayed by the timid or the treacherous.

Mononotto trusted to his daughter the arrangement of the meeting of the sisters, which, from his having a superstitious notion that it was in some way to influence his political purposes, he was anxious to

promote. Magawisca left her companions at an Indian station on the Neponset River, and proceeded herself to Boston to seek a private interview with Hope Leslie. The appearance of an Indian woman in Boston excited no observation, the natives being in the habit of resorting there daily with game, fish, and their rude manufactures. Aware of the necessity of disguising every peculiarity, she unbound her hair from the braids in which it was usually confined, and combed it thick over her forehead, after the fashion of the aborigines in the vicinity of Boston, whom Eliot describes as wearing this " maiden veil." She enveloped herself in a blanket, that concealed the rich, dress which it was her father's pride (and perhaps her pleasure) that she should wear. Thus disguised, and favoured by the kind shadows of twilight, she presented herself at Governor Winthrop's, and ^as, as has already appeared, successful in her mission.

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CHAPTER n.

" I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel, and to cry like a woman.**—Aa You lake It.

Sir Philip Gardiner, by the kind offices of Governor Winthrop, had obtained lodgmgs at one Daniel Maud's, the " first recorded schoolmaster'' in Boston. Thither he went, followed by his moody page, after receiving his cloak from our thankless heroine.

Not one word passed between him and his attendant; and, after they reached their apartment, the boy, instead of performbg the customary servile duties of his station, threw himself on a qushion, and, covering his face with his hands, seemed lost in his own sorrowful meditations.

There had been a little fire kindled on the hearth. Sir Philip laid the fallen brands together, lighted the candles, arranged his writing materials on the table, and, without permitting himself to be interrupted, or in the least affected by the sobs that, at intervals, proceeded from his companion, he indited the following epistle:

" To MY GOOD AND TRUSTY WiLTON :

"^In the name of Heaven, what sends you to New-England V were your last words to me. 1 had not time to answer your question then, and perhaps, when I have finished, you will say I have not ability now; but who can explain the motives of his

conduct ? Who can always say, after an action is done, that he had sufficient motive ? Not one of us, Wilton, sons of whim and folly that we are! But my motives, such as they were, are at your service ; so here you have them.

" I was tired of playing a losing game; even rats, you know, have an instinct by which they flee a falling house. I had some compunctious visitings at leaving my king when he hath such cruel need of loyal servants; jeer not, Wilton, I had my scruples. It was a saying of Father Baretti, that when Lucifer fell, conscience, that once guided, remained to torment him. My assertion thus modestly illustrated, have I not a right to say I had scruples 1 I was wearied with a series of ill luck, and, as other men are as good to fill a ditch, I have retired till Dame Fortune shall see fit to give her wheel a turn in my royal master's favour. But why come hither 1 to submit to ^ King Winthrop and all his inventions, his Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, mar-ryings, and other abusive ceremonies V Patience, my good gossip, and I will tell thee.

" You have heard of my old friend and patron, Thomas Morton, of Furnival's Inn ; and you know he was (Tnce master of a fine domain here, at Mount Wollaston, for which his revels obtained the name of the * Merry Mount.' The ruling saintships of this * New-English Canaan' were so scandalized because, forsooth, he avowed and followed the free tastes of a gentleman, that they ejected him from his own territory.

" He once wellnigh obtained redress from the king, and a decree in his favour passed the Privy Seal, but the influence of his enemies finally prevailed. He has had the consolation of sundry retaliations on his opponents ; now, as he said, * uncasing Medusa's head, and raising the old ghost of Sir F. Gorges's patent,' and then thrusting home the keen point of his satiric verse. However, though this was a bitter draught to his adversaries, it was but lean satisfaction to him; and having become old and poor, and lost his spirit, he came hither once more, last winter, ia the hope of obtaining an act of oblivion of all past grievances, and a restitution of his rights.

" Immediately after his arrival, he wrote to me that ^Joshua had promised to restore to him and to his tribe their lot in the inheritance of the faithful; that he was again to be king of the revels on the " Merry Mount," where he invited me to live Tvith him, his prime minister and heir-apparent.' The letter came to hand at a moment when I was wearied with a bootless service, and willing to grasp any novelty, and, accordingly, I closed with the offer; but, lo! on my arrival, I found that Morton, instead of being reinstated at Mount WoUaston, is in jail, and in honest opinion is reputed crazy, as doubtless he is! Laugh at me, Wilton, even as the foul fiends laugh when their master is entangled in his own meshes! I defy your laugh; for, though a dupe, I am not a victim; and Caesar and his fortunes shall yet survive the storm.

" I have done with Morton ; no one here knows or suspects our former alliance. My' name is not like to reach his ear, and if it should, who would take the word of a ruined man against an approved candidate for membership with the congregation, for such even am I—a * brother' in this community of saints.

" Luckily, Morton, with that cunning incident to madness, cautioned me against appearing in this . camp without the uniform of the church-militant, alleging that we must play the part of pilgrims till we were quite independent of the favour of the saints. Accordingly, I assumed the Puritan habit, bearing, and language, that so much amused you at our last meeting. But why, you will ask, prolong this dull masquerade ? For an object, my good Wilton, that would make you or me saint or devil, or anything else whereby we might secure it: the most provoking, bewitching, and soul-moving creature that ever appeared in the form of woman is my tempter. She is the daughter and sole heir of Sir Walter Leslie, who, you may remember, was noted for his gallantry in that mad expedition of Buckingham to the Isle ofRhee.

" Is it not a shame that youth and beauty should be thrown away upon these drivelling, canting, preaching, praying, liberty-loving, lecture-going Pi/-grims? Would it not be a worthy act to tear this scion of a loyal stock from these crabs of the wilderness, and set her in our garden of England 1 And would it not be a knightly feat to win the prize 0^2^

(

^ K;»r7<tt;» yo^ ^Uaai^ "Jfiton. joimIj jrrgcccs ^^ '*ir#mtv^'M me; i^rxaut aouLes. as j: nriiniHt to ^^ tiw^ j((y>l t^irzi ihe ius » jcoe iwed oie. I am m prime cri^tt indi ^riantiaxifl amd icveciczs—the

»fkl clMMee &70cir me; uit—init dbere is alirijs iir>me /t^iHub erf^tti upon mj line of Jick.

^ k/>iMcaivw^ with ue to thisban:arQfs lai^ afit UrAm^j^fn will la^^ fi:c a Xohanunedaxi sunt, but an o4d jupfy^tind^k^e t6 a canting Boondliead: eTen so iifi#;k; ^jfitwlMitwattobedoQe ! She had no ^el-Uft t0d ffty prfAtciifAL I had still seme Hngenng of |//v#! f//r her^ and pity (dcA't scoS'r; and, besides, MfffUm^n representaUaos had led me to beliere that ft)m wr/fiM not be an inconrenient m^nber of the ii//ttfM;h//kl at Merry Mount; so I permitted her to dis-f^um hemtlff and come orer the rough seas with me. Hill? m a fMrita^ical, wayward child, and a true wom-mi wiihnL She loves me to distraction, and would Mttcrificf? nny to nic but the ruling passion of her sex, her vnriily ; but^ in spite of my entreaties and commands, <ilm pi?riiiiiiitn in wearing a velvet Spanish hat, with a hiiokbi iind fuutherN, most audaciously cocked on one nldn ; nrid, indeed, her whole apparel would better m\\\ n <|ueeu'H piij^o than the humble serving-boy of It Mi*ir-(lonying Puritnn.

** laurlcily, h\\v \h sad and dumpish, and does not IholihP to ^o abmiul; but, whenever she does appear, I prhM»ivc rfm i« cyeil with curiosity and suspicion;

and suspicion once thoroughly awakened, discoy* ery is inevitable, for you know her face gives the lie to her doublet and hose.

'* * Diana's lip is not more smooth and rubious,

Her small pipe is as the maiden's organ, sound and shrill, And all is semblative a woman's part.'

" If we should be detected, I know not what punishment may be inflicted by the Draco-laws of these saints : a public whipping of poor Rosa—cropping of my ears—imprisonment—perhaps death, if, per-adventure, some authority therefor should be found in the statutes of the land; that is to say, in the old Jewish records.

"But why expose myself to such peril? Ah. Wilton, you would not ask why if you could see my enchantress; but, without seeing her, no man knows better than you that

" * Love is a sweet iiitice, 'Gainst whom the wisest wits as yet Have never found devise.'

"If I could but persuade Rosa to be prudent till we may both cast off these odious disguises; but she disdains all caution, and fears nothing but being supplanted in my favour.

** She is still in the fever of Iovct— all eye and ear —^irritable, jealous, watchful, and suspicious. One moment passionate, and the next dissolved in tears. So intense a flame must purify or consume the sentiment her beauty inspired; it cannot be purified^ and —^the alternative—it is consumed.

" I cannot rid myself of her, I cannot control her,

32 HOPE LESLIE.

and in this jeopardy I stand; but I abandon all to my destiny. Even Jupiter, you know, was ruled by fate. It is folly to attempt to shape the events of life; as easily might we direct the course of the stars: those very stars, perhaps, govern the accidents of our being. The stars—destiny—Providence, what are they all but various terms for the same invisible, irresistible agency ? But Heaven forbid I should lose myself in the bewildering mazes of these high speculations ! It is enough for me that I am a knight of the Holy Sepulchre, that I wear my crucifix, pray to all the saints, and eat no flesh on Fridays. By-the-way, on the very first day of my arrival here, I came nigh to winning the crown of martyrdom by my samtly obedience to the canons of Holy Church. The Leslie, in simplicity or mischief, remarked on my confining myself to fish on Friday; rebel conscience, in spite of me, tinged my cheeks; but, thanks to my garb of hypocrisy—panoply of steel never did better service—the light thrust glanced off and left me unharmed.

" You and I, Wilton, are too old to make, like dreaming boys, an El Dorado of our future, and you will ask me what are my rational chances of success in my present enterprise. I will not remind you of success on former similar occasions, for my vanity has been abated of its presumption this very evening by the indifference, real or affected, of this little sprite.

" Ladies must have lovers—^idols must have worr shippers, or they are no longer idols. I have but

one rival here, and he, I think, is appointed by his viise guardians to another destiny; and being a right dutiful youth, he, no doubt, with management, and good fortune on my part, may be made to surrender his preference (which, by-the-way, is quite obvious), and pass under the yoke of authority. Besides, the helpmate selected by these judges in Israel for the good youth might be, if she were a little less saint and more woman, a queen of love and beauty. But she is not to my taste. I covet not smiled cold as a sunbeam on Arctic snows. Nothing in life is duller than mathematical virtue; nothing more paralyzing to the imagination than unaffected prudery. I detest a woman like a walled city, that can never be ap-. preached without your being reminded that it is inaccessible ; a woman whose measured, premeditated words sound always like the sentinel-cry, * All is well!'

^^Now the Leslie has a generous rashness, a thoughtless impetuosity, a fearlessness of the sanctimonious dictators that surround her, and a noble contempt of danger, that stimulate me, at least, to love and enterprise.

" My hope is bold, Wilton; my ambition is to win hei heart; my determirudion to possess her hand, by fair means if I can ; but if fortune is adverse—^if, as I sometimes fear, when I shrink from the falcon glance of her bright eye as if the spear of Ithuriel touched me—^if she has already penetrated my disguise, and persists in disregarding my suit, why, then. Necessity! parent of all witty inventions, come thou to my aid.

34 HOPE LESLIE.

" Our old acquaintance, Chaddock,is riding in the harbour here, owner and commander of a good pinnace. I have heard him spoken of in the godly companies I frequent as a * notorious contemner of ordinances,' from which I infer he is the same bold desperado we knew him. My word for it, it does not require more courage to march up to the cannon's mouth than to claim the independence of a gentleman in this Pharisaic land. Now I think, if I should have occasion to smuggle any precious freight, and convey it over the deep waters, convenient opportunity and fit agents will not be wanting. Time will ripen or blast my budding hopes: if ripen, why, then, I will cast my slough here, and present my beautiful bride to my royal master 5 or if, perchance, royalty should be in ecUpse in England, there are, thank Heaven, other asylums for beauty and fortune.

" Farewell, Wilton; yours in good faith,

" Gardinee."

As Sir Philip signed his name to this epistle, he felt Rosa's head drop upon his shoulder; an action that indicated, too truly, that she had been looking over the last paragraphs, at least, of his letter.

Fury flashed from his eyes, and he raised his hand to strike her; but, before he had executed the unmanly act, she burst into a wild hysteric laugh, that dianged his resentment to fear. "Rosa, Rosa," he said, in a soothing tone, " for Heaven's sake be quiet ; you will be overheard—^you will betray all."

She seemed not to hear him, but wringing her

hands, she repeated again and again, ^^I wish I -were dead! I wish I were dead !"

" Hush! foolish, mad child, or you will be discovered, and may indeed bring death upon yourself."

" Death! I care not; death would be heaven's mercy to what I suffer. What is death to shame! to guilt! to the bitterness of disappointment! to the rage of jealousy! Why should not I die !" she continued, overpo\yering Sir Philip's vain attempts to calm her; " why should not I die 1 there is nobody to care for me if I live, and there is nobody to weep for me if I die."

" Patience—patience, Rosa."

" Patience! my patience is worn out; I am tired of this dreary world. 0 that Lady Lunford had left me in my convent; I should have been happy there. She did not love me. Nobody has loved me since I left the good nuns—nobody but my little Canary-bird, Mignonne ; and she always loved me, and would always sing to me, and sing sweetest when my lady was cruellest Cruel as my lady was, her cruelty was kindness to thine. Sir Philip. 0 that you had left me with her!"

"You came to me with your own good-will, Rosa."

" Ay, Sir Philip; and will not the innocent babe stretch its arms to the assassin if he does but smile on it 1 You told me you loved me, and I believed you. You promised always to love me, and I believed that too; and there was nobody else that loved me but Mignonne; and, now I am all alone in the

wide world, I do wish I were dead." She sunk down at Sir Philip's feet, laid her head on his knee, and sobbed as if her heart were breaking. " Oh! what shall I do," she said; " where shall I go ? If I go to the good, they will frown on me and despise me; and I cannot go to the wicked—they have no pity."

Sir Philip's heart, deprived as it was, felt some emotions of compassion as he looked on this young and beautiful creature, bowed to the earth with remediless anguish; some touches of remorse and pity, such as Milton's fallen angel felt when he contem* plated those " millions of spirits for his fault amerced of Heaven." " Poor child!" he said, laying his hand on her smooth brow," would to God you had never left your convent!"

Rosa felt the blistering tears, that flowed from the relics of his better nature, drop on her cheek. She raised her heavy lids, and a ray of pleasure shot from her kindling eye. " Then you do love me,'* she said; " you would not weep only for pity; you do love me still ?"

Sir PhiUp pprceived the eagerness with which she caught *at the first glimmering of returning tenderness, and well knew how to draw his advantage from it He soothed her with caresses and professions, and, when he had restored her to composure, he endeavoured to impress her with the necessity, for both their sakes, of more prudent conduct. He convinced her that their happiness, their safety, and perhaps their lives, depended on their escaping detec-

tion; and; after explaining the defeat of his hopes in relation to Morton, he averred that the part of his letter relating to Miss Leslie was mere badinage, written for his friend's amusement; and he concluded with reiterated promises that he would return with her in the first ship bound to England.

Rosa was credulous—at least she wished to believe ; she was grateful for restored tenderness; and, withoirt daring to confess how nearly she had already betrayed him to Miss Leslie, she promised all the circumspection that Sir Philip required.

Vol. n.— D

^^ He once wellnigh obtained redress from the king, and a decree in his favour passed the Privy Seal, but the influence of his enemies finally prevailed. He has had the consolation of sundry retaliations on his opponents; now, as he said,' uncasing Medusa's head, and raising the old ghost of Sir F. Gorges's patent,' and then thrusting home the keen point of his satiric verse. However, though this was a bitter draught to his adversaries, it was but lean satisfaction to him; and having become old and poor, and lost his spirit, he came hither once more, last winter, ia the hope of obtaining an act of oblivion of all past grievances, and a restitution of his rights.

" Immediately after his arrival, he wrote to me that ^Joshua had promised to restore to him and to his tribe their lot in the inheritance of the faithful; that he was again to be king of the revels on the " Merry Mount," where he invited me to hve wath him, his prime minister and heir-apparent.' The letter came to hand at a moment when I was wearied with a bootless service, and willing to grasp any novelty, and, accordingly, I closed with the offer; but, lo! on my arrival, I found that Morton, instead of being reinstated at Mount Wollaston, is in jail, and in honest opinion is reputed crazy, as doubtless he is ! Laugh at me, Wilton, even as the foul fiends laugh when their master is entangled in his own meshes! I defy your laugh; for, though a dupe, I am not a victim; and Cssar and his fortunes shall yet survive the storm.

)

^ I have done with Morton; no one here knovrs or suspects our former alliance. My name is not like to reach his ear, and if it should, who would take the word of a ruined man against an approved candidate for membership with the congregation, for such even am I—a * brother* in this community of saints.

" Is it not a shame that youth and beauty should be thrown away upon these drivelling, canting, preaching, praying, liberty-loving, lecture-going Pif-grims? Would it not be a worthy act to tear this scion of a loyal stock from these crabs of the wilderness, and set her in our garden of England ? And would it not be a knightly feat to win the prize

against a young gallant^ a pink of courtesy, while the unfledged boy is dreaming of love's elysium ?

" Marvel as you please, Wilton, goodly prospects are dawning on me; fortune smiles, as if inclined to pay the good turn she has so long owed me. I am in prime credit with guardians and governors—the beau-ideal of duenna-aunts and serving-maids. Time and chance favour me; but—^but there is always some devilish cross upon my line of luck.

" Rosa came with me to this barbarous land : a fit Houri, you will say, for a Mohammedan saint, but an odd appendage to a canting Roundhead: even so she is; but what was to be done ? She had no shelter but my protection. I had still some lingering of love for her, and pity (don't scoff!); and, besides, Morton's representations had led me to believe that she would not be an inconvenient member of the household at Merry Mount; so I permitted her to disguise herself, and come over the rough seas with me. She is a fantastical, wayward child, and a true woman withal. She loves me to distraction, and would sacrifice any to me but the ruling passion of her sex, her vanity; but, in spite df my entreaties and commands, she persists in wearing a velvet Spanish hat, with a buckle and feathers, most audaciously cocked on one side; and, indeed, her whole apparel would better suit a queen's page than the humble serving-boy of a self-denying Puritan.

" Luckily, she is sad and dumpish, and does not incline to go abroad; but, whenever she does appear, I perceive she is eyed with curiosity and suspicion;

and suspicion once thoroughly awakened, discovery is inevitable, for you know her face gives the lie to her doublet and hose.

" * Diana's lip is not more smooth and rubious,

Her small pipe is as the maiden's organ, sound and shrill, And all is semblative a woman's part.'

"But why expose myself to such peril? Ah. Wilton, you would not ask why if you could see my enchantress; but, without seeing her, no man knows better than you that

" * Love is a sweet intice, 'Gainst whom the wisest wits as yet Have never found devise.'

"If I could but persuade Rosa to be prudent till we may both cast oiF these odious disguises; but she disdains all caution, and fears nothing but being supplanted in my favour.

" She is still in the fever of love—all eye and ear —^irritable, jealous, watchful, and suspicious. One moment passionate, and the next dissolved in tears. So intense a flame must purify or consume the sentiment her beauty inspired; it cannot be purified^ and —^the alternative—it is consumed.

" I cannot rid myself of her, I cannot control her,

and in this jeopardy I stand; but I abandon all to my destiny. Even Jupiter, you know, was ruled by fate. It is folly to attempt to shape the events of life; as easily might we direct the course of the stars: those very stars, perhaps, govern the accidents of our being. The stars—destiny—Providence, what are they all but various terms for the same invisible, irresistible agency 1 But Heaven forbid I should lose myself in the bewildering mazes of these high speculations ! It is enough for me that I am a knight of the Holy Sepulchre, that I wear my crucifix, pray to all the saints, and eat no flesh on Fridays. By-the-way, on the very first day of my arrival here, I came nigh to winning the crown of martyrdom by my saintly obedience to the canons of Holy Church. The Leslie, in simplicity or mischief, remarked on my confining myself to fish on Friday; rebel conscience, in spite of me, tinged my cheeks; but, thanks to my garb of hypocrisy—panoply of steel never did better service—the light thrust glanced off and left me unharmed.

" You and I, Wilton, are too old to make, like dreaming boys, an El Dorado of our fiiture, and you will ask me what are my rational chances of success in my present enterprise. I will not remind you of success on former similar occasions, for my vanity has been abated of its presumption this very evening by the indifference, real or affected, of this little sprite.

" Ladies must have lovers—^idols must have worshippers, or they are no longer idols. I have but

one rival here, and he, I think, is appointed by his "wise guardians to another destiny; and being a right dutiful youth, he, no doubt, with management, and good fortune on my part, may be made to surrender his preference (which, by-the-way, is quite obvious), and pass under the yoke of authority. Besides, the helpmate selected by these judges in Israel for the good youth might be, if she were a little less saint and more woman, a queen of love and beauty. But she is not to my taste. I covet not smilei^ cold as a sunbeam on Arctic snows. Nothmg in life is duller than mathematical virtue; nothmg more paralyzing to the imagination than unaffected prudery. I detest a woman like a walled city, that can never be ap-. proached without your being reminded that it is in^ accessible; a woman whose measured, premeditated words sound always like the sentinel-cry, ^ All is well!'

" My hope is bold, Wilton; my ambition is to win hec heart; my determination to possess her hand, by fair means if I can; but if fortune is adverse—if, as I sometimes fear, when I shrink from the falcon glance of her bright eye as if the spear of Ithuriel touched me—^if she has already penetrated my disguise, and persists in disregarding my suit, why, then. Necessity! parent of all witty inventions, come thou to my aid.

(

" Oh! not in the least, ma'am," exclaimed Hope.

" Miss Leslie !" said Madam Winthrop, in a tone of surprise; and thien, turning her eye to Everell, who was standing next to Esther, she said, resuming her measured tone, " My responsibility is so great to my brother Downing—I had an uncommon dream about you, Esther, last night ,* and, if anything should happen to you— ^^

" If it is me you are concerned about, aunt," said Esther, untying her bonnet," I will remain at home. Do not let me detain you," she added, turning to Hope," another moment."

Nothing seemed to Hope of any importance in comparison with the prosecution of her plans; and, nodding a pleased assent to Esther, she took her aunt's arm in readiness to depart.

" How changed," thought Everell, as his eye glanced towards her," thus selfishly and impatiently to pursue her own pleasure without the slightest notice of her friend's disappointment." His good feelings were interested to compensate for the indiiFer-ence of Hope. " If," he said to Madam Winthrop, " you will commit Miss Downing to my care, I will promise she shall encounter no danger that my caution may avoid or my skill overcome."

Madam Winthrop's apprehensions vanished. " If she is in your particular charge, Mr. Everell," she said, " I shall be greatly relieved. I know I am ot too anxious a make. Go, my dear Esther; Mr. Everell will be constantly near you—under Providence, your safeguard. I believe it is not right to be too

much influenced by dreams. See that she keeps her shawl round her, Mr. Everell, while on the water. I feel quite easy in confiding her to your care."

Everell bowed, and expressed his gratitude for Madam Winthrop's confidence, and Esther turned on him a look of that meek and pleased dependance which it is natural for woman to feel, and which men like to inspire, because, perhaps, it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority.

" Miss Leslie has become so sedate of late," continued Madam Winthrop, with a very significant smile," that I scarcely need request that no unwonted sounds of revelry and mirth may proceed from any member of the governor's family, which ever has been, as it should be, a pattern of Gospel sobriety to the colony."

Mrs. Grafton dropped a bracelet she was claspmg on her niece's arm, but Madam Winthrop's remark —half reproof, half admonition—excited no emotion in Hope, whose heart was throbbing with her own secret anxieties, and who was now in some measure relieved by Sir Philip making a motion for their departure, by adroitly availing himself of this first available pause, and offering her his arm.

As soon as they were fairly out of the house, " Revelry and mirth," exclaimed Mrs. Grafton, as if the words blistered her tongue, " revelry and mirth, indeed! I think poor Hope will forget how to laugh if she stays here much longer. I wonder, Sir Philip, if it is such a mighty offence to use one's laughing faculties, what they were given for I"

"I believe, madam/' replied the knight, with well-sustained gravity, " that ingenious theologians impute this convulsion of the muscles to some disorganization occasioned by Adam's transgression; and, in support of their hypothesis, they maintain that there is no allusion to laughter in Scripture. Madam Winthrop, I fancy, intends that her house shall be a little heaven on earth."

Honest Cradock, who had taken his favourite station at Miss Leslie's side, replied, without in the least suspecting the knight's irony, " Now, Sir Philip, I marvel whence you draw that opinion. I have studied all masters in theology, from the oldest down to the youngest, and, gre^itest of all. Master Calvin, with whose precious sentences I' sweeten my mouth always before going to bed,' yet did I never see that strange doctrine concerning laughter. To me it appears—the Lord preserve me from advancing novelties—but to me it appears that there is no human sound so pleasant and so musical as the laugh of a lit tie child, and of such are the kingdom of Heaven. I have heard the walls at Bethel ring with bursts of laughter from Miss Hope; and the thought came to me (the Lord forgive me if I erred therein) that it was the natural voice of innocence, and, therefore, pleasing to him that made her."

Hope was touched with the pure sentiment of her good tutor, and she involuntarily slipped her arm into his. Sir Philip was also touched, and, for once speaking withoiit forethought, he said, " I would give a kingdom for one of the laughs of my boyhood."

" I dare say, Sir Philip," said Cradock, " for truly there is no heart-work in the transgressor's laugh/'

" Sir!'' exclaimed Sir Philip, angrily.

The simple man started as if he had received a blow, and Hope said," You did not mean to call Sir Philip a transgressor ?"

" Oh, certainly not, in particular, certainly not; Sir Philip's professions are great, and, I doubt not, practice correspondent; but all of us add daily transgression to transgression, which, I doubt not. Sir Phil-. ip will allow."

" Yes," said Hope, archly, " it is far easier, as is said in one of your good books. Master Cradock, ^ to subscribe to a sentence of xyiiversal condemnation than to confess individual sins.' "

" What blessed times we have fallen on," retorted Sir Philip, " when youthful beauties, instead of listening to the idle songs of Troubadours, or the fantastic flatteries of vagrant knights, or announcing with their ruby lips the rewards of chivalry, are exploring the mines of divinity with learned theologians like Master Cradock, and bringing forth such diamond sentences as the pithy saying Miss Leslie has quoted."

" Heaven preserve us! Sir Philip," exclaimed Mrs. Grafton, " Hope Leslie study theology! you are as mad as a March .hare; all her theology she has learned out of the Bible and Common Prayer-book, which should always go together, in spite of what the governor says. It is peculiar that a man of his commodity of sense should bamboozle himself with

48 HOPE LESLIE.

that story he told at breakfast. Oh, you was not there, Sir Philip: well, he says tha+. ^ his son's U-brary there are a thousand books, ' ^mong them a Bible and Prayer-book bound together^-one jewel in the dunghill—^but that is not what he says; it seems that this unlucky Prayer-book is gnawed to mince-meat by the nuce, and not another book in the library touched.* I longed to commend the instinct of the little beasts, that knew what good food was; but everybody listened with such a solemn air, and even you, Hope Leslie, who are never afraid to smile, even you did not move your lips."

" I did not hear it," said Hope.

" Did not hear it! that is peculiar; why, it was just when Robin was coming in with the rolls—just as I had taken my second cup—just as Everell g^ve Esther Downing that bunch of rosebuds: did you take notice of that?"

" Yes," replied Hope, and a deep blush sufiused her cheek. She had noticed the offering with pain, not because her friend was preferred, but because it led her mind back to the time when she was the object of all EverelPs little favours, and impressed her with a sense of his altered conduct

The telltale blush did not escape the watchful eye of Sir Philip; and, determined to ascertain if the "bolt of Cupid" had fallen on this "little Western flower," he said, "I perceive that Miss Leslie is aware that rosebuds, in the vocabulary of lovers, are made to signify a declaration of the tender passion.'' * A fact gravely stated in Governor Wintbrop's journal.

Secret springs of the heart are sometimes sudden-/y touchedf^.'*lrt feelings disclosed that have been hidden evcxi^^fom our own self-observation. Hope had been moved by Miss Downing's story, and taking a generous interest in her happiness, she had, with that ardent feeling with which she pursued every object that interested her, resolved to promote it ih the only mode by which it could be attained. But now, at the first intimation that her romantic wishes were to be fulfilled, strange to tell, and still stranger to her to feel, there was a sudden rising in her heart of disappointment, a sense of loss, and, we shrink from^ recording it, but the truth must be told, tears, honest tears, gushed from her eyes. Oh, pardon her, all ye youthful devotees to secret self-immolation! all ye youthful Minervas, who hide with an impenetrable shield of wisdom and dignity, the natural workings of your hearts! Make all due allowance for a heroine of the seventeenth century, who had the misfortune to live before there was a system of education extant, who had not learned, like some young ladies of our enlightened days, to prattle of metaphysics, to quote Reid, and Stewart, and Brown, and to know (full as well as they, perhaps) the springs of human action, the mysteries of mind, still profound mysteries to the unlearned.

Hope Leslie was shocked, not that she had betrayed her feelings to her companions, but at her own discovery of their existence; not that they had appeared, but that they were. The change had been 80 gradual,'from her childish fondness for Everell, to

Vol. n.— E ^

a more mature sentiment, as to be imperceptible even to herself. She made no essay to explain her emotion. Mrs. Grafton, though not remarkably sagacious, was aware of its obvious interpretation^ and of the pressing necessity of offering some ingenious reading. " What a miserable nervous way you have fallen into, Hope," she said, " since you was caught out in that storm; she must have taken an inward cojd. Sir Philip.'*

" The symptoms," replied the knight, significantly, " would rather, I should think, indicate an internal heat."

" Heat or cold, Hope," continued Mrs. Grafton, " I am determined you shall go through a regular Qourse of medicine; valerian tea in the morning, and lenitive drops at night. You have not eaten enough for the last week to keep a humming-bird alive. Hope has no kind of faith in medicine. Sir Philip, but I can tell her it is absolutely necessary, in the spring of the year, to sweeten the blood."

Sir Philip looked at Hope's glowing face, and said ^^he thought such blood as mantled in Miss LesUe's cheek needed no medical art to sweeten it"

Hope, alike insensible to the good-natured efforts of her aunt and the flatteries of Sir Philip, was mentally resolving to act most heroically, to* expel every selfish feeling from her heart, and to live for the happiness of others.

The experienced smile sorrowfully at the generous impulses and fearless resolves of the young, who know not how costly is the sacrifice of self-indul-

gence, how difficult the ascent to the heights of disinterestedness; but let not the youthful aspirant be discouraged; the wing is strengthened by use, and the bird that drops in its first ilutterings about the parent-nest, may yet soar to the sky.

Our heroine had rallied her spirits by the time she joined her companions in the boat that was awaiting them at the wharf; and in the effort to veil her feelings, she appeared to Everell extravagantly gay; and he, being unusually pensive, and seeing no cause for her apparent excitement, attributed it to Sir Philip's devotion: a cause that certainly had no tendency to render the effect agreeable to him.

When they disembarked, they proceeded immediately to the single habitation on the island, Dig-by's neat residence. The faithful fellow welcomed Everell with transports of joy. He had a thousand questions to ask and recollections to recall; and while Everell lingered to listen, and Hope and Esther, from a very natural sympathy, to witness the overflowings of the good fellow's affectionate heart, their companions left them to stroll about J:he island.

As soon as his audience was thus reduced, *^ It seems but a day," he said, " since you, Mr. Everell, and Miss Leslie were but children."

" And happy children, Digby, were we not?" said Everell, with a suppressed sigh, and venturing a side glance at Hope; but her face was averted, and he could not see whether Digby had awakened any recollections in her bosom responding to his own.

" Happy ! that were you," replied Digby, " and

52 HOPE LESLIE.

the lovingest," he continued, little thinking that every word he uttered was as a talisman to his auditors, " the lovingest that ever I saw. Young folks, for the most part, are like an April day—clouds and sunshine: there are my young ones, though they look so happy now they have your English presents, Mr. Everell,yet they must now and then fall to their little battles—^show out the natural man, as the ministers say; but with you and Miss Hope it was always sunshine: it was not strange, either, seeing you were all in all to one another after that terrible sweep-oflF at Bethel. It is odd what vagaries come and go in a body's mind; time was when I viewed you as good as mited with Magawisca ; forgive me for speaking so, Mr. Everell, seeing she was but a tawny Indian, after all.'*

" Forgive you, Digby! you do me honour by implying that I rightly estimated that noble creature ; and before she had done the heroic deed to which I owe my life—^yes, Digby, I might have loved her— might have forgotten that Nature had put barriers between us."

" I don't know but you might, Mr. Everell, but I don't believe you would; things would naturally have taken another course after Miss Hope came among us; and many a time I thought it was well it was as it was, for I believe it would have broken Magawisca's heart to have been put in that kind of eclipse by Miss Leslie's coming between you and her. Now all is as it should be; as your mother—^blessed be her memory—would have wished, and your father, and all the world."

Digby seemed to have arranged everything in his' own mind according to what he deemed natural and proper; and, too self-complacent at the moment to receive any check to his garrulity from the silence of his guests, he proceeded. "The tree follows the bent of the twig; what think, you, Miss Esther, is not there a wedding a brewing V Miss Downing was silent: Digby looked round, and saw confusion in every face, and, feeling that he had ventured on forbidden ground, he tried to stammer out an apology. " I declare, now," he said, " it's odd—it's a sign I grow old; but I quite entirely forgot how queer young people feel about such things. I should not have blundered on so, but my wife put it into my head; she is equal to Nebuchadnezzar for dreaming dreams; and three times last night she waked me to tell me about her dreaming of a funeral, and that, she said, was a sure forerunner of a wedding ; and it was natural I should go on thinking whose wedding was coming, was it not. Miss Esther ?"

Everell turned away to caress a chubby boy. Miss Downing fidgeted with her bonnet-strings, threw back her shawl, and disclosed the memorable knot of rosebuds. If they had a meaning, they seemed also to have a voice, and they roused Hope Leslie's resolution. Some pride might have aided her, but it was maidenly pride, and her feelings were as near to pure generosity as our infirm nature can approach.

" Digby," she said, " it was quite natural for you both to think and speak of Mr. Everell's wedding; we are to have it, and that right soon, I hope; you E 2

54 HOPE LESLIE.

have only mistaken the bride; and as neither of the parties will speak to set you right/' and she glanced her eyes from Esther to Everell," why, I must.'*

Esther became as pale as marble. Hope flew to her side, took her hand, placed it in Everell's, threw her arm aromid Esther, kissed her cheek, and darted out of the house. Digby half articulated an ex-pres^on of disappointment and surprise, and, impeU-ed by an instinct that told him this was not a scene for witnesses, he too disappeared.

Never were two young people left in a more perplexing predicament. To Everell it was a moment of indescribable confusion and embarrassment. To Esther, of overwhelming recollections, of apprehension, and hope, and, above all, shame.

She would gladly have buried herself in the depths of the earth. Everell understood her feelings. There was no time for deliberation; and with emotions that would have made self-immolation at the moment easy, and impelled, as it seemed to him, by an irresistible destiny, he said something about the happiness of retaining the hand he held.

Miss Downmg, confused by her own feelings, misinterpreted his. She was, at the moment, incapable of estimating the disparity between his few, broken, disjomted, halfuttered words, and the natural, free, full expressions of an ardent and happy lover. She only ^oke a few words, to refer him to her aunt Winthrop; but her hand, passive in his, her burning cheeks and throbbing heart, told him what no third person could tell, and what her tongue could not utter.

HOPE LESLIE* - 55

Thus had Hope Leslie, hf rashly following her first generous impulses, by giving to " unproportion-ed thought its act," effected that which the avowed tenderness of Miss Downing, the united instances of Mr. Fletcher and Governor Winthrop, and the whole colony and world beside, could neyer have achieved. Unconscious of the mistake by which she had put the happiness of all parties concerned in jeopardy, she was exulting in her victory over herself, and endeavouring to regain in solitude the tranquillity which she was surprised to find had utterly forsaken her; and to convince herself that the disorder of her spirits, which, in spite of all her efforts, filled her eyes vrith tears, was owing to the agitating expectation of seeing her long-lost sister.

The eastern extremity of the island, being sheltered by the high ground on the west, was most favourable for horticultural experiments, and had therefore been planted with fruit-tiees and grapevines; here Hope had retired, and was flattering herself she was secure from interruption and observation, when she was startled by a footstep, and perceived Sir Philip Gardiner approaching. " I am fortunate at last," he said; " I have just been vainly seeking you, where I most unluckily broke in upon the lovers at a moment of supreme happiness, if I may judge from the faces of both parties; but what are y6u doing with that vine. Miss Leslie ?" he continued, for Hope had stooped over a grapevine, which she seemed anxiously arranging.

^^ I am merely looking at it," she said; ^^ it seems drooping,'^

^^ Yes, and droop an'd die it must I am amazed that the wise people of your colony should hope to rear the vine in this cold and steril land: a fit climate it is not for any delicate plant."

The knight's emphasis and look gave a particular significance to his words; but Miss Leslie, determined to take them only in their literal sense, coldly replied, " that it was not the part of wisdom to re-lidt[uish the attempt to cultivate so valuable a production till a fair experiment had been made."

" Very true, Miss Leslie. The governor himself could not have spoken it more sagely. Pardon me for smiling; I was thinking what an admirable illustration of your remark your friend Miss Downing afforded you. Who would have hoped to rear such a hot-bed plant as love amid her frosts and ice? Nay, look not so reproachfiilly. I admit there are analogies in nature; in my rambles in the Alpine country, i have seen herbage and flowers fringing the very borders of perpetual snows."

" Your analogy does not suit the case. Sir Philip,*' replied Miss Leslie, coldly; "but I marvel not at your ignorance of my friend; the waters gushed from the rock only at the prophet's touch—" Hope hesitated; she felt that her rejoinder was too personal, and she added, in a tone of calmer defence, "surely she who has shown herself capable of the fervour of devotion and the tenderness of friendship, may be susceptible of an inferior passion."

" Most certainly; and your philosophy, fair rea-soner, agrees with experience and poetry. An old

French lay well sets forth the harmony between the passions; thus it runs, I think;" and he trilled the following stanzas:

" * Et pour v^rit6 vous record Dieu et amour sont d'un accord, Dieu aime sens et honorance, Amour ne Ta pas en viltance; Dieu halt orgueil et fau8set6, Et Amour aime loyaut^; Dieu aime honneur et courtoisie ^

Et bonne Amour ne hait-il mie; Dieu ^coute belle priere, Amour ne la met pas arri^re.'"

Sir Philip dropped on his knee, and, seizing Hope's hand, repeated,

** * Dieu 6coute belle pri&re,

Amour ne le met pas en ani^re.* **

At this moment, when Hope stood stock still from surprise, confusion, and displeasure, Everell crossed the walk. The colour mounted to his cheeks and temples, he quickened his footsteps, and almost in* stantly disappeared. This apparition, instead of augmenting Miss Leslie's embarrassment, restored all her powers. "Reserve your gallantries. Sir Philip," she said, quietly withdrawing her hand, *^ and your profane verses for some subject to whom they are better suited; if you have aught of the spirit of a gentleman in you, you must feel that I have neither invited the one nor provoked the other."

Sir Philip rose, mortified and disconcerted, and suSered Miss Leslie to walk slowly away from him without uttering a word to urge or defend his suit He would have been better pleased if he had exci-

ted more emotion of any sort; he thought he had never seen her, on any occasion, so calm and indifferent. He was piqued, as a man of gallantry, to be thus contemptuously repelled; and he was vexed with himself that, by a. false step, he had retarded, perhaps endangered, the final success of his projects. He had been too suddenly elated by the removal of his rival; he deemed his path quite clear; and, with d«e allowance for natural presumption and self-love, it was not perhaps strange that an accomplished man of the world should, in Sir Philip's circumstances, have counted sanguinely on success.

He remained pulling a rose to pieces, as a sort of accompaniment to his vexed thoughts, when Mrs. Grafton made an untimely appearance before him. "Ah ha!" she said, picking up a bracelet Hope had unconsciously dropped," I see who has been here— I thought so; but. Sir Philip, you look downcast.'* i^ir Philip, accustomed as he was to masquerade, had not been able to veil his feelings even frojn the good dame, whose perceptions were neither quick nor keen; but what was defective in them she made up in abundant good-nature. " Now, Sir Philip," she said, " there is nothing but the wind so changeful as a woman's mind ; that's what everybody says, and there is both good and bad in it: for if the wind is dead ahead, we may look for it to turn."

Sir Philip bowed his assent to the truismj^ and secretly prayed that the good lady might be just in her application of it. Mrs. Grafton continued: " Now, what have you been doing with that rose. Sir Phil-

ip 1 one would think it had done you an ill turn, by your picking it to pieces; I hope you did not follow EverelPs fashion; such a way of expressing one's ideas should be left to boys." Sir Philip most heartily wished that h§ had left his sentiments to be conveyed by so prudent and delicate an interpreter; but, determined to give no aid to Mrs. Grafton's conjectures, he threw away the rose-stem, and, plucking another, presented it to her, saying that "he hoped she would not extend her proscription of the language of flowers so far as to prevent their expressing his regard for her."

The good lady courtesied, and said "how much Sir Philip's ways did remind her of her dear deceased husband."

The knight constrained himself to say " that he was highly flattered by being thus honourably asso-<iiated in her thoughts."

" And you may well be. Sir Philip," she replied, m the honesty of her heart, " for my poor dear Mr. Grafton was called the most elegant man of his time: and the best of husbands he proved; for, as Shakspeare says, * He never let the winds of heaven visit me.'" She paused to wipe away a genuine tear, and then continued: " It was not for such a man to be disheartened because a woman seemed a little offish at first. J\PU desperandum was his motto; and he, poor dear man, had so many rivals! Herg,you know, the case is quite different. If anybody were to fall in love with anybody—I am only making a supposition. Sir Philip—there is nobody here but

these stiff-starched Puritans—a thousand pardons^ Sir Philip; I forgot you was one of them. Indeed, you seem so little like them that I am always forgetting it."

Sir Philip dared not trust Mrs# Grafton's discretion so far as to cast off his disguises before her, but he ventured to say that " some of his brethren were over-zealous."

" Ay, ay, quite too zealous, aren't they ? a kmd of mint, anise, and cummin Christians."

Sir Philip smiled: " He hoped not to err in that particular; he must confess a leaning of the heart towards his old habits and feelings."

^^ Quite natural; and I trust you will finally lean so far as to fall into them again^ all in good time; but, as I was saying, skittishness isn't a bad sign in a young woman. It was a long, long time before I gave poor dear Mr. Grafton the first token of favour; and what do you surmise that was. Sir Philip ? Now just guess; it was a trick of fancy really worth know-ing."

Sir Philip was wearied beyond measure with the old lady's garrulity; but he said, with all the complaisance he could assume, "That he could not guess 5 the ingenuity of a lady's favour baiSed conjecture."

" I thought you would not guess; well, I'll tell you. There's a little history to it, but, luckily, we've plenty of time on hand. Well, to begin at the beginning, you must know I had a fan—a French fan I think it was; there were two Cupids pabted on

it, and exactly in the middle, between them, a figure of Hope—^I don't mean Hope Leslie," she continued, for she saw the knight's eye suddenly glancing towards the head of the walk, past which Miss Leslie was just walking, in earnest conversation with Everell Fletcher.

Sir Philip felt the urgent necessity, at this juncture of affairs, of preventing, if possible, a confidential communication betwefen Miss LesUe and Fletcher; and his face expressed unequivocally that he was no longer listening to Mrs. Grafton.

" Do you hear, Sir Philip ?" she continued; " I don't mean Hope Leslie."

^^ So I understand, madam," replied the knight, keeping his face towards her, but receding vapidly in the direction Miss Leslie had passed, till, almost beyond the sound of her voice, he laid his hand on his heart, bowed, and disappeared.

" Well, that is pecuhar of Sir Philip," muttered the good lady; then, suddenly turning to Cradock, who appeared making his way through some snarled bushes, " What is the matter now. Master Cradock 1" she asked. Cradock rephed by informing her that the tide served for their return to town, and that the governor had made it liis particular request that there might be no delay.

Mrs. Grafton's spirit was always refractory to orders from headquarters; but she was too discreet or too timid for any overt act of disobedience, and she gave her arm to Cradock, and hastened to the appointed rendezvous.

Vol. n.— F

When Sir Philip had emerged firom the walk, he perceived the parties he pursued at no great distance from him, and was observed by Hope, who immediately, and manifestly to avoid him, motioned to Everell to take a path which diverged from that which led to the boat, to which they were now all summoned by a loud call from the boatmen.

We must leave the knight to digest his vexation, and follow our heroine, whose face could now claim nothing of the apathy that had mortified Sir Philip.

" You are, then, fixed in your determination to remain on the island to-night 1" demanded Fletcher.

"Unalterably."

" And is Digby also to have the honour of Sir Philip's company V^

" Everell!" exclaimed Hope, in a tone that indicated surprise and wounded feeling.

" Pardon me. Miss Leslie."

" Miss Leslie again! Everell, you are imkind; you but this moment promised you would speak to me as you were wont to do."

" I would, Hope : my heart has but one language for you, but I dare not trust my lips. I may—I must now speak to you as a brother; and, before we part, let me address a caution to you which that sacred, and, thank God, permitted love, dictates. My own destiny is fixed—fixed by your act, Hope; Heaven forgive me for saying so. It is done. For myself, I can endure anything, but I could not live to see you the prey of a hollow-hearted adventurer." The truth flashed on Hope: she was beloved—she loved

again—and she had rashly dashed away the happiness within her ^rasp. Her head became digzy; she stopped, and, gathering her veil over her face, leaned against a tree for support. Everell grievously misunderstood her agitation.

" Hope," he said, with a faltering voice, " I have been slow to believe that you could thus throw away your heart. I tried to shut my eyes against that strange Saturday night's walk—that mysterious, unexplained assignation with a stranger; knovring, as I did, that his addresses had received the governor's' full approbation—my father's, my poor father's reluctant assent, I still trusted that your pure heart would have revolted from his flatteries. I believe he is a heartless hypocrite. I would have told you so, but I was too proud to have my warning attributed, even for a moment, to the meanness of a jealous rival. I have been accused of seeking you from—" interested motives he would have added, but it seemed as if the words blistered his tongue; and he concluded, "It matters not now; now I may speak freely, without distrusting myself or being distrusted by others. Hope, you have cast away my earthly happiness; trifle not with your own."

Hdpe perceived that events, conspiring with her own thoughtless conduct, had riveted Everell's mistake ; but it was now irremediable. There was no middle path between a passive submission to her fate and a full and now useless explanation. She was aware that plighted friendship and troth were staked on the resolution of the moment; and when

Everell added, " Oh! I have been convinced against my will—against mj hopes: what visions of possible felicity\ have you dispersed; what dreams—"

" Dreams—dreams all," she exclaimed, interrupting him i and, throwing back her veil, she discovered her face drenched with tears. " Hark! they call you: let the past be forgotten; and for the future— the future, Everell—all possible felicity does await you if you are true to yourself—true to—" her voice faltered, but she articulated " Esther;" and,turning away, she escaped from his sight as she would have rushed from the brink of a precipice.

" Oh !" thought Everell, as his eye and heart followed her with the fervid feeling of love, " oh! that one who seems all angel should have so much of woman's weakniess!" While he lingered for a moment to subdue his emotion, and fit him to appear before Esther and less interested observers. Sir Philip joined him, apparently returning from the boat " Your friends stay for you, sir," he said, and passed on.

" Then he does remain with her," concluded Everell ; and the conviction was forced more strongly than ever on his mind, that Hope had lent a favourable ear to Sir Philip's suit. " The illusion must be transient," he thought; " vanity cannot have a lasting triumph over the noble sentiments of her pure heart." This was the language of his affection; but we must confess that the ardour of his confidence was abated by Miss Leslie's apparently wide departure from delicate reserve, in permitting (as he believed

she had) her professed admirer to remain on the island with her.

He now hastened to the hoat,in the hope that he should hear some explanation of this extraordinary arrangement 3 hut no such consolation awaited him. On the contrary, he found it a subject of speculation to the whole party. Faithful Cradock expressed smaple amazement. * Mrs. Grafton was divided between her pleasure in the probable success of her secret wishes, and her consciousness of the obvious impropriety of her niece's conduct; and her flurried and half-articulaftd efforts at explanation only served, like a feeble light, to make the darkness visible; and Esther's downcast and tearful eye intimated her concern and mortification for her friend. F 2

CHAPTER IV.

" The sisters* tows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us—oh, and is all forgot?"

Midsummer Ntght^a Dream,

On quitting Everell, our heroine, quite unconscious that she was the subject of painful suspicion or affectionate anxiety, sought a sequestered spot, where she might indulge and tranquilliz *her feelings.

It has been said that the love of a brother and sister is the only platonic affection. This truth (if it be a truth) is the conviction of an experience far beyond our heroine's. She had seen in Esther the pangs of repressed and unrequited love, and, mistaking them for the characteristic emotions of that sentiment, it was no wonder that she perceived no affinity to it in the joyous affection that had animated her own soul. " After a little while," she said, " I shall feel as I did when we lived together in Bethel; if all that I love are happy, I must be happy too." If the cold and selfish laugh to scorn what they think the reasoning of ignorance and inexperience, it is because they have never felt that to meditate the happiness of others is to enter upon the ministry and the joy of celestial spirits. Not one envious or repining thought intruded into the heaven of Hope Leslie's mind. Not one malignant spirit passed the boimds of that paradise, that was filled with pure

and tender affections, with projects of goodness, and all their cheerful train.

Ilope was longer absorbed in her revery than perhaps was quite consistent with her philosophy; and when she was roused from it by Digby's voice, she blushed from the consciousness that her thoughts had been too long withdrawn from the purpose of her visit to the island. Digby came to say that his wife's supper-table was awaiting Miss Leslie. Hope embraced the opportunity, as they walked together towards his dwelling, to make her arrangements for the evening. " Digby," she said, " I have something to confide to you, but you must ask me no questions."

" That's crossing human nature," replied the good fellow i " but I think I can swim against the current for you. Miss Hope."

"Thank you, Digby. Then, in the first place, you must know, I expect some friends to meet me here this evening; all that I ask of you is to permit me to remain out unmolested as long as I may choose. You may tell your wife that I like to stroll in the garden by moonlight, or to sit and listen to the waves breaking on the shore—as you know I do, Digby."

"Yes, Miss Hope, I know your heart always linked into such things; but it will be heathen Greek to my wife—so you must make out a better reason for her."

" Then tell her that I like to have my own way." ' Ah, that will I," replied Digby, chuckling;

" that is what every woman can understand. I always said, Miss Hope, it was a pure mercy you chose the right way, for you always had yours."

"Perhaps you think, Digby, I have been too headstrong in my own way."

" Oh, no! my sweet mistress, no; why, this having our own way is what everybody likes; it's the privilege we came to this wilderness world for; and though the gentles up in town there, with the governor at their head, hold a pretty tight rein, yet I can tell them that there are many who think what blunt Master Blackstone said, ^ That he came not away from the Lord's-bishops to put himself under the Lord's-brethren.' No, no. Miss Hope, I watch the motions of the straws—^I know which way the wind blows. Thought and will are set free, it was but the other day, so to speak—^in the days of good Queen Bess, as they called her—when, if her majesty did but raise her hand, the Parliament folk were all down on their knees to her i and now, thank God, the poorest and the lowest of us only kneel to Him who made us. Times are changed—there is a new spirit in the world—chains are broken—fetters are knocked off—and the liberty set forth in the blessed Word is now felt to be every man's birthright. But shame on my prating, that wags so fast when I might hear your nightingale voice."

Hope's mind was preoccupied, and she found it difficult to listen to Digby's speculations with interest, or to respond with animation; but she was too benignant to lose herself in sullen abstraction; and^

when they arrived at the cottage, she roused her faculties to amuse the children, and to listen to the mother's stories of their promising smartness. She commended the good wife's milk and cakes, and sat for half an hour after the table was removed, talking of the past, and brightening the future prospects of her good friends with predictions of their children's prosperity and respectability: predictions which, Digby afterward said, thPfe dear young lady's boun^ brought to pass.

Suddenly she sprang from her chair: " Digby," she exclaimed, " I think the east is lighting up with the rising moon—^is it not ?"

" If it is not, it soon will," replied Digby, understanding and favouring her purpose.

" Then," said Hope, " I will take a walk gpund the island; and do not you, Betsy, sit up for me." Betsy, of course, remonstrated. The night air was unwholesome; and, though the sky overhead was clear, yet she had heard distant thunder; the beach-birds had been in flocks on Shore all the day; and the breakers on the east side of the island made a boding sound. These and other signs were'urged as arguments against the unseasonable walk. Of course they were unheeded by our Tieroine, who, declaring that, with shelter so near, she was in no danger, muflSed'herself in her cloak and sallied forth. She bent her steps around the cliff which rises at the western extremity of the island, leaving at its base a few yards of flat, rocky shore, around which the waters of the bay sweep, deeply indenting it, and

forming a natural cove or harbour for small boats. As Hope passed around a ledge of rocks, she fancied she saw a shadow cast by a figure that seemed flying before her. " They are here already," she thought, and hastened forward, expecting to catch a glimpse of them as soon as she should turn the angle of the rock; but no figure appeared; and though Hope imagined she heard stones rattling, as if dis-jlaced by hurried steps, sh# was soon convinced the sound was accidental. Alive only to one expectation, she seated herself, without any apprehension, to await in this solitude the coming of her sister.

The moon rose unclouded, and sent her broad stream of light across the beautiful bay, kindling in her beams the islands that gemmed it, and disclo-sing^ith a dim, indefinite light, the distant town, rising over this fair domain of sea and land: hills, heights, jutting points, and islands then unknown to fame, but now consecrated in domestic annals, and illustrious in the patriot's story.

Whatever charms the scene might have presented to our heroine's eye at another moment, she was now only conscious of one emotion of feverish impatience. She gazed and listened till her senses ached; and at last, when anticipation had nearly yielded to despair, her ear caught the dash of oars, and at the next moment a canoe glanced around the headland into the cove : she darted to the brink of the water —she gazed intently on the little bark; her whole soul was in that look. Her sister was there. At this first assurance that she really beheld this loved,

lost sister, Hope uttered a scream of joy ; but when, at a second glance^ she saw her in her savage attire, fondly leaning on Oneco^s shoulder, her heart died within her; a sickening feeling came over her—an unthought of revolting of nature; and, instead of obeying the first impulse, and springing forward to clasp her in her arms, she retreated to the cliff, leaned her head against it, averted her eyes, and pressed her hands on her heart, as if she would have bound down her rebel feelings. ,

Magawisca's voice aroused her. " Hope Leslie,*' she said, " take thy sister's hand.'*

Hope stretched out her hand without lifdng her eyes; but when she felt her sister's touch, the energies of nature awoke; she threw her arms around her, folded her to her bosom, laid her cheek on hers, and wept as if her heart would burst in every sob.

Mary (we use the appellative by which Hope had known her sister) remained passive in her arms. Her eye was moistened, but she seemed rather abashed and confounded than excited; and when Hope released her, she turned towards Oneco with a look of simple wonder. Hope again threw her arm around her sister, guid intently explored her face for some trace of those infantine features that were impressed on her memory. " It is—it is my sister!" she exclaimed, and kissed her cheek again and again. " Oh, Mary! do you not remember when we sat together jon mother's knee ? Do you not remember when, with her own burning hand, the very day she died, s^e put those chains on our necks ? Do you

not remember when they held us up to kiss her cold lips ?" Mary looked towards Magawisca for an explanation of her sister's words. " Look at me, Mary; speak to me," continued Hope.

" No speak Yengees," replied Mary,- exhausting in this brief sentence all the English she could command.

Hope, in the impetuosity of her feelings, had forgotten that Magawisca had forewarned her not to indulge the expectation that her sister could speak to her; and the melancholy truth, announced by her own lips, seemed to Hope to open a new and impassable gulf between them. She wrung her hands: " Oh, what shall I do ? what shall I say V she exclaimed.

Magawisca now advanced to her, and said, in a compassionate tone, "Let me be thy interpreter, Hope Leslie, and be thou more calm. Dost thou not see thy sister is to thee as the feather borne on the torrent?"

" I will be more calm, Magawisca; but promise me you will interpret truly for me."

A blush of offended pride overspread Magawisca's cheek. "We hold truth to be the health of the soul," she said: " thou mayst speak, maiden, without fear that I will abate one of thy words."

" Oh, I fear nothing wrong from you, Magawisca; forgive me—forgive me—^I know not what I say or do." She drew her sister to a rock, and they sat down together. Hope knew not how to address one so near to her by nature, so far removed by habit

and education. She thought that if MaVy's dress, which was singularly and gaudily decorated, had a less savage aspect, she might look more natural to her; and she signed to her to jemove the mantle she wore, made of birds* feathers, woven together with threads of the wild nettle. Mary threw it aside, and disclosed her person, light and agile as a fawn's, clothed with skins, neatly fitted to her waist and arms, and ambitiously embellished with embroidery in porcupine's quills and beads. The removal of the mantle, instead of the effect designed, only served to make more striking the aboriginal peculiarities; and Hope, shuddering and heart-sick, made one more effort to disguise them by taking off her silk cloak and wrapping it clbse around her sister. Mary seemed instantly- to comprehend the language of the action; she shook her head, gently disengaged herself from the cloak, and resumed her mantle. An involuntary exclamation of triumph burst from Oneco's lips. " Oh, tell her," said Hope to Magawisca;" that I want once more to see her in the dress of her own people—of her own family— from whose arms she was torn to be dragged into captivity."

A faint smile curled Magawisca's lip, but she interpreted faithfully Hope's communication and Mary's reply: " * She does not like the English dress,' she says."

" Ask her," said Hope, " if she remembers the day when the wild Indians sprung upon the family at Bethel like wolves upon a fold of lambs 1 If she

Vol. II.— G

(

remembers when Mrs. Fletcher and her innocent little ones were murdered, and she stolen away V^

"She says *she remembers it well, for then it was Oneco saved her life.* *'

Hope groaned aloud. " Ask her," she continued, with unabated eagerness, " if she remembers when we played together, and, read together, and knelt together at our mother's feet ; when she told us of the Grod that made us, and the Saviour that redeemed us r

" She remembers something of all this, but she says ^ it is faint and distant, like the vanishing vapour on the far-off mountain.* "

" Oh, tell her, Magawisca, if she will come home and live with me, 4 will devote my life to her. I will watch over her in sickness and health. I will . be mother—^sister—^friend to her: tell her that our mother, now a saint in heaven, stoops from her happy place to entreat her to return to our God and our father's God."

Mary shook her head in a manner indicative of a more determined feeling than she had before manifested, and took from her bosom a crucifix, wh}ch she fervently pressed to her lips.

Every motive Hope offered was powerless, every mode of entreaty useless, and she leaned her head despondently on Mary's shoulder. The contrast between the two faces thus brought together was most striking. Hope's hat had slipped back, and her rich brown tresses fell about her neck and face ; her full eye was mtently fixed on Mary, and her cheek

glowing with impassioned feeling, she looked like an angel touched with some mortal misery ; while Mary's face, pale and spiritless, was only redeemed from absolute vacancy by an expression of gentleness and modesty. Hope's hand was lying on her sister's lap, and a brilliant diamond ring caught Mary's attention. Hope perceived this, and instantly drew it from her own finger and placed it on Mary's; " and here is another—and another—and another," she cried, making the same transfer of all her rings. " Tell her, Magawisca, if she will come home with me, she shall be decked with jewels from head to foot; she shall have feathers from the most beautiful birds that wing the air, and flowers that never fade: tell her that all I possess shall be hers."

" Shall I tell her so ?" asked Magawisca, with a mingled expression of contempt and concern, as if she herself despised the lure, but feared that Mary might be caught by it; for the pleased girl was holdmg her hand before her, turning it, and gazing with childlike delight on the gems, as they caught and reflected the moonbeams. ^^ Shall I ask your aster to barter truth and love—^the jewels of the soul, that grow brighter and brighter in the land of spirits—^for these poor perishing trifles 1 Oh, Hope Leslie, I had better thoughts of thee."

" I cannot help it, Magawisca; I am driven to try every way to win back my sister: tell her, I entreat you, tell her what I have said."

Magawisca faithfully repeated all the motives Hope had urged, while Hope herself clasped her sis-

/6 HOPE LESLIE.

Jer's hand, and looked in her face with a mute supplication more earnest than words could express. Mary hesitated, and her eye turned quickly to Oneco, \o Magawisca, and then again rested on her sister. Hope felt her hand tremble in hers; Mary, for the first time, bent towards her, and laid her cheek to Hope's. Hope uttered a scream of delight: " Oh, iie does not refuse; she will stay with me,*' she exclaimed. Mary understood the exclamation, and suddenly recoiled, and hastily drew the rings from her fingers. " Keep them—^keep them," said Hope, bursting into tears; " if we must be cruelly parted again, they will sometimes speak to 3^ou of me."

At this moment a bright light, as of burning flax, flamed up from the cliff before them, threw a momentary flash over the water, and then disappeared. Oneco rose: " I like not this light," he said; " we must be gone; we have redeemed our promise;" and he took Hope's cloak from the ground, and gave it to her as a signal that the moment of separation had arrived.

" Oh, stay one moment longer," cried Hope. Oneco pointed to the heavens, over which black and threatening clouds v^ere rapidly gathering, and Magawisca said, " Do not ask us to delay; my father has waited long enough." - Hope now, for the first time, observed there was an Indian in the canoe, wrapped in skins, and listlessly awaiting, in a recumbent position, the termination of the scene.

" Is that Mononotto ?" she said, shuddering at the thought of the bloody scenes with which he was as-

sociated in her mind; but, before her inquiry was answered, the subject of it sprang to his feet, and uttering an exclamation of surprise, stretched his hand towards the town. AU at once perceived the object towards which he pointed. A bright strong light streamed upward from the highest point pf land, and sent a ruddy glow over the bay. Every eye turned inquiringly to Hope. " It is nothing," she said to Magawisca, " but the light that is often kindled on Beacon Hill to guide the ships into the harbour. The^night is becoming dark, and some vessel is expected in; that is all, believe me.'*

Whatever trust her visiters might have reposed in Hope's good faith, they were evidently alarmed by an appearance which they did not think sufficiently accounted for; and Oneco hearing, or imagining he heard, approaching oars, said, in his own language, to Magawisca," We have no time to lose; I will not permit my white bird to remain any longer within reach of the net."

Magawisca assented: " We must go," she said, " we must no longer hazard our father's life." Oneco sprang into the canoe, and called to Mary to follow him.

" Oh, spare her one single moment!" said Hope, imploringly, to Magawisca; and she drew, her a few paces from the shore, and knelt down with her, and, * in a half articulate prayer, expressed the tenderness and sorrow of her soul, and committed her sister to God. Mary understood her action, and feeling that their separation was forever, nature for a moment as-G 2

serted her rights; she returned Hope's emhrace, and wept on her bosom.

While the sisters were thus folded in one another's arms, a loud yell burst from the savages; Maga-wisca caught Mary by the arms, and Hope, turning, perceived that a boat filled with armed men had passed the projecting point of land, and, borne in by the tide, it instantly touched the beach, and in another instant Magawisca and Mary were prisoners. Hope saw the men were in the uniform of the governor's guard. One moment before she would have given worlds to have had her sister in her power; but now, the first impulse of her generous spirit was an abhorrence of her seeming treachery to her friends. " Oh ! Oneco," she cried, springing towards the canoe, "I did not—^indeed I did not know of it." She had scarcely uttered the words, which fell from her neither understood nor heeded, when Oneco caught her in his arms, and shouting to Magawisca to tell the English that, as they dealt by Mary, so Would he deal by her sister, he gave the canoe the first impulse, and it shot out like an arrow, distancing and defying pursuit.

Oneco's coup-de-main seemed to petrify all present. They were roused by Sir Philip Gardiner, who, coming round the base of the cliff, appeared among them; and, learning the cause of their amazement, he ordered them, with a burst of passionate exclamation, instantly to man the boat, and proceed with him in pursuit. This one and all refused. " Daylight and calm water," they said, " would be neces-^

sary to give any hope to such a pursuit, and the storm was now gathering so fast as to render it dangerous to venture out at all/*

Sir Philip endeavoured to alarm them with threats of the governor's displeasure, and to persuade them with offers of high reward; but they understood too well the danger and hopelessness of the attempt to risk it, and tiiey remained inexorable. Sir Philip then went in quest of Digby, and at the distance of a few paces met him. Alarmed by the rapid approach of the storm, he was seeking Miss Leslie; when he learned her fate from Sir Philip's hurried communication, he uttered a cry of despair. " Oh! I would go after her," he said," if I had but a cockle-shell; but it seems as if the foul fiends were at work:. my boat was this morning sent to town to be repaired. And yet, what could we do V^ He added, shuddering, " The wind is rising to that degree, that I think no boat could live in the bay; and it is getting as dark as Egypt O God, save my precious young lady! God have mercy on her!" he continued. A sudden burst of thunder heightened his alarm: " Man can do nothing for h,er. Why, in the name of Heaven," he added, with a natural desire to appropriate the blame of misfortune, "why must they be forever meddling; why not let the sisters meet and part in peace V^

" Oh, why not ?" thought Sir Philip, who would have given his right hand to have retraced the steps that had led to this most unlooked-for and unhappy issue of the affair. They were now joined by the

guard with their prisoners. Digby was requested to lead them instantly to a shelter. He did so; and, agitated as he was with fear and despair for Miss Leslie, he did not fail to greet Magawisca as one to whom all honour was due. She heeded him not; she seemed scarcely conscious of the cries of Faith Leslie, who was weepmg like a child, and clinging to her. The treachery that had betrayed her rapt her soul in indignation, and nothing roused her but the blasts of wind and flashes of lightning, that seemed to her the death-knell of her father.

The storm continued for the space of an hour, and then died away as suddenly as it had gathered. In ^ another hour the guard had safely landed at the wharf, and were conveying their prisoners to the governor. He and his confidential counsellors, who had been awaiting at his house the return of their emissaries, solaced themselves with the belief that all parties were safely sheltered on the island, and probably would remain there during the night. While they were whispering this conclusion to one another at one extremity of the parlour, Everell sat beside Miss Downing in the recess of a windpw that overlooked the garden. The huge projecting chimney formed a convenient screen for the lovers. The evening was warm, the window-sash thrown up. The moon had come forth, and shed a mild lustre through the dewy atmosphere ; the very light that the young and sentimental, and, above all, young and sentimental lovers, most delight in. But in vain did Everell look abroad for inspiration; in vain did

he turn his eyes to Esther's face, now more beautiful than ever, flushed as it was with the first dawn of happiness; in Tain did he try to recall his truant thoughts, to answer words to her timid but bright glances; he would not, he could not say what he did not feel, and the few sentences he uttered fell on his own ear like cold abstractions. While he was in this durance, his father was listening—if a man stretched on a rack can be said to listen—to Madam Winthrop's whispered and reiterated assurances of her entire approbation of her niece's choice.

This was the position of all parties, when a bustle was heard in the court, and the guard entered. The foremost advanced to the governor, and communicated a few sentences in a low tone. The governor manifested unusual emotion, turned round suddenly, and exclaimed, " Here, Mr. Fletcher—Everell;" and then motioning to them to keep their places, he said, in an under voice, to those near to him, " We must first dispose of our prisoner: come forward, Magawisca."

" Magavnsca!" echoed Everell, springing at one bound into the hall. But Magawisca shrunk back and averted her face. " Now God be praised !" he exclaimed, as he caught the first glance of a 'form never to be forgotten; " it is—it is Magawisca !" She did not speak, but drew away, and leaned her head against the wall. " What means this ?" he said, now for the first time espying Faith Leslie, and then looking round on the guard; " what means it, foi ?" he demanded, turnmg somewhat imperiously to the governor.

"It means, sir," replied the governor, coldly, " that this Indian woman is the prisoner of the Com^ mon wealth/*

" It means that I am a prisoner, lured to the net, and betrayed."

" You a prisoner—^here, Magawisca!" Everell exclaimed. ^' Impossible! Justice, gratitude, humanity forbid it. My father—Governor Winthrop, you will not surely suffer this outrage ?"

The elder Fletcher had advanced, and, scarcely less perplexed and agitated than his son, was endeavouring to draw forth Faith Leslie, who had shrunk behind Magawisca. Governor Winthrop seemed not at all pleased with EverelPs interference. " You will do well, young Mr. Fletcher, to bridle your zeal; private feelings must yield to the public good: this young woman is suspected of being an active agent in brewing the conspiracy forming against us among the Indian tribes; and it is somewhat bold in you to oppose the course of justice—^to intermeddle with the public welfare—rto lift your feeble judgment against the wisdom of Providence, which has led, by peculiar means, to the apprehension of the enemy. Conduct your prisoner to the jail," he added, turning to the guard, " and bid Bar-naby have her in close and safe keeping till farther orders."

" For the love of God, sir," cried Everell," do not this injustice. At least suffer her to remain in your own house, on her promise—more secure than the walls of a prison." Governor Winthrop only replied by signing to the guards to proceed to their duty.

" Stay one moment," exclaimed Everell; " permit her, I beseech you, to remain here; place her in any one of your apartments, and I will remain before it, a faithful warder, night and day. But do not—r do not, I beseech you—^suUy your honour by committing this noble creature to your jail."

" Listen to my son, I entreat you," said the elder Fletcher, unable any longer to restrain his own feelings ; " certainly we owe much to this woman."

"You owe much, undoubtedly^" replied the governor ; " but it yet remains to be proved, my friend, that your son's redeemed life is to be put in the balance against the public weal."

Esther, who had observed the scene with an intense interest, now overcame her timidity so far as to penetrate the circle that surrounded the governor, ^ and to attempt to enforce EverelPs prayer. " May not Magawisca," she said, " share our apartment— Hope's and mine 1 She will then, in safe custody, await your farther pleasure."

" Thanks, Esther—^thanks," cried Everell, with an animation that would have rewarded a far more difficult effort: but all efforts were unavailing, but not useless; for Magawisca said to Everell, " You have sent light into my darkened soul—^you have truth and gratitude; and for the rest, they are but what I deemed them; Send me," she continued, proudly turning to the governor," to your dungeon; all places are alike to me while I am your prisoner; but, for the sake of Everell Fletcher, let me tell you, that she who is dearer to him than his own soul, if, indeed,

84 HOPS LESLIE.

she has lived out the perils of this night, must answer for my safe keeping."

" Hope Leslie !'* exclaimed Everell; " what has happened 1 What do you mean, Magawisca V*

" She was the decoy bird," replied Magawisca, calmly; " and she, too, is caught in the net."

"Explain, I beseech you!" The governor answered Everell's appeal by a brief explanation. A bustle ensued : every other feeling was now lost in concern for Hope Leslie ; and Magawisca was separated from her weeping and frightened companion, and conducted away without farther oppodtion; while the two Fletchers, as if life and death hung on every instant, were calling on the governor to aid them in the way and means of pursuit.

CHAPTER V.

" But oh! that hapless virgin, our lost sister, Where may she wander now, whither betake her V*

COMUS.

Hope Leslie, on being forced into the canoe, sunk down, overpowered with terror and despair. She was roused from this state by Oneco's loud and vehement appeals to his father, who onl^ replied by a low, inarticulate murmur, which seemed rather an involuntary emission of his own feelings than a response to Oneco. She understood nothing but the name of Magawisca, which he often repeated, and always with a burst of vindictive feeling, as if every other emotion were lost in wrathi at the treachery that had wrested her from him. As the apparent contriver and active agent in this plot, Hope felt that she must be the object of detestation and the victim of vengeance, and all that she had heard or imagined of Indian cruelties was present to her imagination; and every savage passion seemed to her to be imbodied in the figure of the old chief, .when she saw his convulsed frame and features, illuminated by the fearful lightning that flashed athwart him. " It is possible," she thought," that Oneco may understand me;" and to him she protested her innocence, and vehemently besought his compassion. Oneco was not of a cruel nature, nor was he disposed to inflict imnecessary

Vol.. II.—H

suffering on the sister of his wife; but he was determined to retain so valuable a hostage, and his heart was steeled against her by his conviction that, she had been a party to the wrong done him ; he therefore turned a deaf ear to her entreaties, which her supplicating voice and gestures rendered intelligible, though he had nearly forgotten her language. He made no reply by word or sign, but continued to urge on his little bark with all his might, redoubling his vigorous strokes as the fury of the storm increased.

Hope cast a despairing eye on her receding home, which she could still mark through the murky atmosphere by the lurid flame that blazed on Beacon Hill. Friends were on every side of her, and yet no human help could reach her. She saw the faint light that gleamed from Digby's cottage window, and, on the other hand, the dim ray that, struggling through the misty atmosphere, proceeded from the watch-tower on Castle Island. Between these lights from opposite islands, she was passing down the channel, and she inferred that Oneco's design was to escape out of the harbour. But Heaven seemed determined to frustrate his purpose, and to show her how idle were all human hopes and fears, how ,vain '* to cast the fashion of uncertain evils."

The wind rose, and the darkness deepened at every moment, the occasional flashes of lightning only serving to make it more intense. Oneco tasked his skill to the utmost to guide the canoe; he strained every nerve, till, exhausted by useless efforts, he

dropped his oars> and awaited his resistless fate. The sublime powers of nature had no terrors for Mononotto. There was something awe-striking in the fixed, unyielding attitude of the old man, who sat as if he were carved in stone, while the blasts swept by him, and the lightnings played over him. There are few who have not, at some period of their lives, lost their consciousness of individuality—their sense of this shrinking, tremulous, sensitive being, in the dread magnificence, the " holy mystery" of nature.

Hope, even in her present extremity, forgot her fear and danger in the sublimity of the storm. When the wild flashes wrapped the bay in light, and revealed to sight the little bark leaping over the " yesty waves,'' the stern figure of the old man, the graceful form of Oneco, and Hope Leslie, her eye upraised with an instinctive exaltation of feeling, she might have been taken for some bright vision from another sphere, sent to conduct her dark companions through the last tempestuous passage of life. But the triumphs of her spirit were transient; mortal danger pressed on life. A thunderbolt burst over their heads. Hope was, for a moment, stunned. The next flash showed the old man struck down senseless. Oneco shrieked, raised the lifeless body in his arms, laid his ear to the still bosom, and chafed the breast and limbs. While he was thus striving to bring back life, the storm abated; the moonbeams struggled through the parting clouds, and the canoe, driven at the mercy of the wind and tide, neared a

little island, and drifted on the beach. Oneco leaped out, dragged his father's lifeless body to the turf/ and renewed and redoubled his efforts to restore him; and Hope, moved by an involuntary sympathy with the distress of his child, stooped down and chafed the old man's palms. Either from despair, or an impulse of awakened hope, Oneco suddenly uttered an exclamation, stretched himself on the body, and locked his arms around it. Hope rose to her feet, and, seeing Mononotto unconscious, and Oneco entirely absorbed in his own painful anxieties and efforts, the thought occurred to her that she might escape from her captors.

She looked at the little bark : her strength, small as it was, might avail to launch it again; and she might trust the same Providence that had just delivered her from peril, to guide her in safety over the still turbulent waters. But a danger just escaped is more fearful than one untried; and she shrunk from adv-enturing alone on the powerful element. The island might be inhabited. K she could gain a few moments before she was missed by Oneco, it was possible she might find protection and safety. She did not stop to deliberate; but, casting one glance at the brightening heavens, and ejaculating a prayer for aid, and ascertaining by one look at Oneco that he did not observe her, she bounded away. She fancied she heard steps pursuing her; but she pressed on, without once looking back or faltering, till she reached a slight elevation, whence she perceived, at no great distance from her, a light placed on the

ground, and, on approaching a little nearer, saw a man lying beside it, and, at a few paces from him, several others stretched on the grass, and, as she thought, sleeping. She now advanced cautiously and timidly till she was near enough to conclude that they were a company of sailors, who had been indulging in a lawless revel. Such, in truth, they were; the crew belonging to the vessel of the notorious Chaddock. The disorders of both master and men had given such offence to the sober citizens of Boston, that they had been prohibited from entering the town; and the men having been, on this occasion, allowed by their captain to indulge in a revel on land, they had betaken themselves to an uninhabited island, where they might give the reins to their excesses without dread of restraint or penalty. As they now appeared to the eye of our heroine, they formed a group from which a pamter. might have sketched the orgies of Bacchus.

Fragments of a coarse feast were strewn about them, and the ground was covered with wrecks of jugs, bottles, and mugs. Some of them had thrown off their coats and neckcloths in the teat of the day, and had lain with their throats and bosoms bared to the storm, of which they had been unconscious. Others, probably less inebriated, had been disturbed by the vivid flashes of lightning, and had turned their faces to the earth. While Hope shuddered at the sight of these brutalized wretches, and thought any fate would be better than H 2

'' To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence , Of such late wassaiiers,"

one of them awoke and looked up at her. He had but imperfectly recovered his senses, and he per-' ceived her but faintly and indistinctly, as one sees an object through mist. Hope stood near him, but she stood perfectly still; for she knew, from his imbecile smile and half-articulated words, that she had nothing to fear. He laid his hand on the border of her cloak, and muttered, " St. George's colours— Dutch flag — no, d — n me, Hanse, I say — St George's—St. George's—nail them to the masthead —^I say, Hanse, St. George's—St. George's—" and then his words died away on his tongue, and he laughed in his throat as one laughs in his sleep.

While Hope hesitated for an instant whether again to expose herself to the thraldom from which she had with such joy escaped, one of the other men, either aroused by his companion's voice, or having outslept the fumes of the liquor, started up, and, on perceiving her, rubbed his eyes, and stared as if he doubted whether she were a vision or a reality. Hope's first impulse was to fly; but, though confused and alarmed, she was aware that escape would be impossible if he chose to pursue, and that her only alternative was to solicit his compassion.

" Friend," she said, in a fearful, tremulous voice, " I come to beg your aid."

" By the Lord Harry, she speaks!" exclaimed the fellow, interrupting her \ " she is a woman: wake^ boys, wake!"

The men were now roused from their slumbers: some rose to their feet, and all stared stupidly, not one, save him first awakened, having the perfect command of his senses. " If ye have the soul of a man,'' said Hope, imploringly, " protect me—convey me to Boston. Any reward that you will ask or take shall be given to you."

** There's no reward could pay for you, honey," replied the fellow, advancing towards her.

** In the name of God, hear me !" she cried; but the man continued to approach, with a horrid leer on his face. " Then save me. Heaven!" she screamed, and rushed towards the water. The wretch was daunted; he paused but for an instant, then calling on his comrades to join him, they all, hooting and shouting, pursued her.

Hope now felt that death was her only deliverance ; if she could but reach the waves that she saw heaving and breaking on the shore—if she could but bury herself beneath them! But, though she flew as if she were borne on the wings of the wind, her pursuers gained on her. The foremost was so near that she expected at every breath his hand would grasp her, when his foot stumbled, and he fell headlong, and as he fell he snatched her cloak. By a desperate effort she extricated herself from his hold, and again darted forward. She heard him vociferate curses, and understood he was unable to rise. She cast one fearful glance behind her: she had gained on the horrid crew. " Oh! I may escape them," she thought; and she pressed on vnih as

much eagerness to cast away life as ever was felt to save it As she drew near the water's edge, she perceived a boat attached to an upright post that had been driven into the earth at the extremity of a narrow stone pier. A thought like inspiratifon flashed into her mind; she ran to the end of the pier, leaped into the boat, uncoiled the rope that attached it to the post, and, seizing an oar, pushed it off.' There was a strong tide; and the boat, as if instinct with life, and obedient to her necessities, floated rapidly from the shore. Her pursuers had now reached the water's edge, and, finding themselves foiled,, some vented their spite in jeers and hoarse laughs, and others in loud and bitter curses. Hope felt' that Heaven had interposed for her; and,sinking on her knees, she clasped her hands, and breathed forth her soul in fervent thanksgivings. While she was thus absorbed, a man who had been lying in the bottom of the boat unobserved by her, and covered by various outer garments, which he had so disposed as to shelter himself from the storm, lifted up his head, and looked at her with mute amazement. He was an Italian, and belonged to the same ship's company with the revellers on the shore; but, not inclining to their excesses, and thinking, on the approach of the storm, that some judgment was about to overtake them, he had returned to the boat, and sheltered himself there as well as he was able. When the tempest abated he had fallen asleep, his imagination probably in an excited state; and, on awaking, and seeing Hope in an attitude of devotion, he very nat-

urally mistook her for a celestial visitant. In truth, she scarcely looked like a being of this earth: her hat and gloves were gone; her hair fell in graceful disorder about her neck and shoulders, and her white dress and blue silk mantle had a saintlike simplicity. The agitating chances of the evening had scarcely left the hue of life on her cheek, and her deep sense of the presence and favour of Heaven heightened her natural beauty with a touch of religious inspiration.

" Hail, blessed Virgin Mary!" cried the Catholic Italian, bending low before her, and crossing himself j " Queen of Heaven! Gate of Paradise ! and Lady of the World! O most clement, most pious, and most sweet Virgin Mary! bless thy sinful servant." He spoke in his native tongue, of which Hope fortunately knew enough to comprehend him, and to frame a phrase in return. The earnestness of his countenance was a sure pledge of his sincerity, and Hope was half inclined to turn his superstition to her advantage; but his devotion approached so near to worship that she dared not; and she said, with the intention of dissipating his illusion, " I am not, my friend, what you imagine me to be."

" Thou art, not—thou art not—^holy Queen of Virgins and of all heavenly citizens : then, most gracious lady, which of all the martyrs and saints of our holy Church art thou ? Santa Catharina of Siena, the blessed bride of a holy marriage ?" Hope shook her head. " Santa Helena, then, in whose church I was first signed with holy water ? Nay, thou art

not 1 then art thou Santa Bibiana ? or Santa Rosa 1 Thy beauteous hair is like that sacred lock over the altar of Santa Croce."

" I am not any of these," said Hope, with a smile, which the Catholic's pious zeal extorted from her.

" Thou smilest!" he cried, exultingly; " thou art, then, my own peculiar saint, the blessed Lady Petro-nilla. 0 holy martyr! spotless mirror of purity !" and again he knelt at her feet and crossed himself. " My life! my sweetness! and my hope! to thee do I cry, a poor banished son of Eve: what wouldst thou have thy dedicated servant, Antonio Batista, to do, that thou hast, O glorious lady! followed him from our own sweet Italy to this land of heathen savages and heretic English?"

This invocation was long enough to allow our heroine time to make up her mind as to the course she should pursue with her votary. She had recoiled from the impiety of appropriating his address to ihe Holy Mother; but, Protestant as she was, she unhesitatingly identified herself with a Catholic saint " Good Antonio," she said, " I am well pl^ed to find thea faithful, as thou hast proved thyself by withdrawing from thy vile comrades. To take part in their excesses would but endanger thine eternal welfare: bear this in mind. Now, honest Antonio, I will put honour on thee; thou shalt do me good service. Take those oars, and ply them well till we reach yon town, where I have an errand that must be done." " 0 most blessed lady ! sacred martyr, and sister

of mercy! who, entering into the heavenly palace, didst fill the holy angels with joy, and men with hope, I obey thee," he said; and then, taking from his bosom a small ivory box, in which, on opening it, there appeared to be a shred of linen cloth, he added, " but first, most gracious lady, vouchsafe to bless this holy reUc, taken from the linen in which thy body was enfolded, when, after it had lain a thousand years in the grave, it was raised therefrom fresh and beautiful, as it now appeareth to me."

Our saint ^could not forbear a smile at this startling fact in her history; but she prudently took the box, and, unclasping a bracelet from her arm, which "was fastened by a small diamond cross, she added it to the relic, whose value, though less obvious, could not be exceeded in Antonio's estimation. " I give thee this," she said, " Antonio, for thy spiritual and temporal necessities; and, shouldst thou ever be in extreme need, I permit thee to give it into the hand of some cunnmg artificer, who will extract the dia-mondsi for .thee without marring the form of the blessed cross," Antonio received the box as if it contained the freedom of Paradise; and, replacing it in his bosom, he. crossed himself again and again, repeating his invocations till his saint, apprehensive that, in his ecstasy, he would lose all remembrance of the high office for which she had selected him, gently reminded him that it was the duty of the faithful to pass promptly {roia devotion to obedience; on this hint he rose, took up the oars, and exercised his strength and skill with such exemplary fidelity.

that m less than two hours his boat touched the pier which Hope designated as the pomt where she would disembark.

Before she parted from her votary, she said, "I give thee my blessings and my thanks, Antonio; and I enjoin thee to say naught to thy wicked comrades of my visitation to thee; they would but jeer thee, and wound thy spirit by making thy lady their profane jest. Reserve the tale, Antonio, for the ears of the faithful, who marvel not at miracles.'*

Antonio bowed in token of obedienccj and, as long as Hope saw him, he remained in an attitude of profound homage.

Our heroine's elastic spirit, ever ready to rise when pressure was removed, had enabled her to sustain her extempore character with some animation ; but, as soon as she had parted from Antonio, and was no longer stimulated to exertion by the fear that his illusion might be prematurely dissipated, she felt .that her strength had been overtaxed by the strange accidents and various perils of the evenings Her garments were wet and heavy, and at every step she feared another would be impossible. Her head became giddy, and faintness and weariness, to her new and strange sensations, seemed to drag her to the earth. She looked and listened in vain for some being to call to her assistance: the streets were empty and silent; and, unable to proceed, she sunk down on the steps of a warehouse, shut her eyes, and laid down her head to still its throbbings.

She had not remained thus many minutes, when

she was startled by a voice saying," Ha! lady, dost thou too wander alone 1 Is thy cheek pale— thy head sick— thy heart fluttering ? Yet thou art not guilty nor forsaken!"

Hope looked up, and perceived she was addressed l^ Sir Philip Gardiner's page. She had repeatedly seen him since their first meeting; but, occupied as she had been with objects of intense interest to her, she thought not of their first singular interview, excepting when it was recalled by the supposed boy's keen, and, as she fancied, angry glances. They seemed involuntary; for when his eye met hers, he withdrew it, and his cheek was dyed with blushes. There was now a thrilling melancholy in his tone; his eye was dim and sunken; and his apparel, usually elaborate, and somewhat fantastical, had a neglected air. His vest was open; his lace ruflF, which was ordinarily arranged with a care that betrayed his consciousness how much it graced his fair, delicate throat, had now been forgotten, and the feathers of his little Spanish hat dangled over his face.

Hope Leslie was in no condition to note these particulars; but she was struck with his haggard and wretched appearance, and was alarmed when she saw him lay his hand on the hilt of a dagger that gleamed from beneath the folds of his vest.

" Do not shrink, lady," he said; " the pure should not fear death, and I am sure the guilty need not dread itc there is nothing worse for them than they may feel walking on the fair earth, with the lights

Vol. n.—I

of Heaven shming on them. I had this dagger of my master, and I think," he added, with a convulsive sob, " he would not be sorry if I used it to rid him of his troublesome page."

" Why do you not leave your master, if he is of this fiendish disposition towards you 1" asked Hope: " leave him, and return to your friends."

" Friends! friends!" he exclaimed; " the rich— the good—the happy—those bom in honour have friends. I have not a friend in the wide world."

"Poor soul!" said Hope, losing every other thought in compassion for the poor boy; and some notion of his real character and relation to Sir Phil-ip darting into her mind, " Then leave this wretched man, and trust thyself to Heaven."

" I am forsaken of Heaven, lady." ^

" That cannot be. God never forsakes his creatures: the miserable, the guilty, from whom every face is turned away, may still go to him, and find forgiveness and peace. His compassions never fail."

"Yes; but the guilty must forsake their sinful thoughts, and I cannot. My heart is steeped in this guilty love. If my master but looks kindly on me, or speaks one gentle word to me, I again cling to my chains and fetters."

" Oh, this is indeed foolish and sinful ; how can you love him whom you confess to be so unworthy ?"

" We must love something," replied the boy, in a faint voice, his head sinking on his bosom. " My master did love me, and nobody else ever loved me. I never knew a mother's smile, lady, nor felt her

tears. I never heard a father's voice; and do you think it so very strange that I should cling to him who was the first, the only one that ever loved me 1" He paused for a moment, and looked eagerly on Hope, as if for some word of encouragement j but she made no reply, and he burst into a passionate flood of tears, and wrung his hands, saying, " Oh, yes, it is—^I know it is foolish and sinful, and I try to ' be penitent. I say my paternosters,'' he added, taking a rosary from his bosom, " and my ave-maries, but I get no heart's ease; and by times my head is wild, and I have horrid thoughts. I have hated you, lady—^you, who look so like an angel of pity on me; and this very day, when I saw Sir Philip hand you i^to the boat, and saw you sail away with him over the bright water so gay and laughing, 1 could have plunged this dagger into your bosom; and I made a solemn vow that you should not live to take the place of honour beside my master, while I was cast away a worthless being."

" These are indeed ustless vows and idle thoughts," said Hope. "I cannot longer listen to you now, for I am very sick and weary; but do not grieve thus 5 come to me to-morrow, and tell me all your sorrows, and be guided by me."

" Oh, not to-morrow!" exclaimed the boy, grasping her gown as she rose to depart; " not to-morrow ,• I hate the light of day; I cannot go to that great house; I have no longer courage to meet the looks of the happy, and answer their idle questions: stay now, lady, for the love of Heaven! my story is short."

Hope had no longer the power of deliberation; she did not even hear the last entreaty. At the first movement she made, the sensation of giddiness returned, every object seemed to swim before her, and she sunk, fainting, into Roslin's arms. The page had now an opportunity to gratify his vindictive passions, if he had any; but his mad jealousy was a tranaent excitement of disordered passion, and soon gave way to the spontaneous emotions of a gentle and tender nature. He carefully sustamed his burden, and while he pressed his lips to Hope's cold brow, with an undefinable sensation of joy that he might thus approach angelic purity, he listened eagerly to the sound of footsteps, and, as they came nearer, he recognised the two Fletchers, with a company of gentlemen, guards, and sailors, whom, with the governor's assistance, they had hastily collected to go in pursuit of our heroine.

Everell was the first to perceive her. He sprang towards her, and when he saw her colourless face and lifeless body, he uttered an exclamation of horror. All now gathered about her, listening eagerly to Roslin's assurance that she had just fainted, complaining of sickness and extreme weariness. He, as our readers well know, could give no farther explanation of the state in which Miss Leslie was found; indeed, her friends scarcely waited for any. Everell wrapped her in his cloak, and, assisted by his father, carried her in his arms to the nearest habitation, whence she was conveyed, as soon as a carriage could be obtained, to Governor Winthrop's.

CHAPTER VI.

" J^e that questions whether God made the world, the Indian will leach him.. I must acknowledge I have received, in my converse with theqi, many confirmations of those two great points : first, that ' God is;' second, * that he is a re warder of all them that dihgently serve him.'"— Rogbe Williams.

Our readers' sagacity has probably enabled them to penetrate the slight mystery in which the circumstances that led to the apprehension of Magawisca have been shrouded. Sir Philip Gardiner, after attending Mrs. Grafton home on the Saturday night, memorable in the history of our heroine, saw her enter the burial-place. Partly moved by his desire to ascertain whether there was any cause for her running away from him that might sooth his vanity, and partly, no doubt, by an irresistible attraction towards her, he followed at a prudent distance till he saw her meeting with Magawisca; he then secreted himself in the thicket of evergreens, where he was near enough to hear and observe all that passed; and where, as may be remembered, he narrowly escaped being exposed by his dog.

Sir Philip had heard the rumour of a conspiracy among the natives ; and when he saw Magawisca's extreme anxiety to secure a clandestine interview . with Miss Leslie, the probable reason for her secrecy at once occurred to him. If he conjectured rightly, he was in possession of a secret that might be of 12

value to the state, and, of course, be made the means of advancing him in the favour of the governor. But might he not risk incurring Miss Leslie's displeasure by this interposition in her affairs, and thus forfeit the object of all his present thoughts and actions 1 He believed not. He saw that she yielded reluctantly, and because she had no other alternative, to Magawisca's imposition of secrecy. With her romantic notions, it was most probable that she would hold her promise inviolate; but would she not be bound in everlasting gratitude to him who, by an ingenious manoeuvre, should, without in the least involving her honour, secure the recovery of her sister ? Thus he flattered himself he should, in any event, obtain some advantage. To .Miss Leslie he would appear solely actuated by zeal for her happiness ; to the governor, by devotion to the safety arid welfare of the Commonwealth.

Accordingly, on the following Monday morning, he solicited a private interview with the magistrates, and deposed before them " that, on returning to his lodgings on Saturday night, he had seen Miss Leslie enter the burying-ground alone; that, believing she had gone to visit some burial-spot consecrated by affection, and knowing the ardent temper of the young lady, he feared she might forget, in the indulgence of her feelings, the lateness of the hour. He had, therefore, with the intention of guarding her from all harm, without intruding on her meditations (which, though manifestly unseasonable, might, he thought, tend to edification), followed her, and se-

eluded himself in the copse of evergreens, where, to his astonishment, he had witnessed her interview with the Indian woman.*' The particulars of their conversation he gave at length.

Unfortunately for Magawisca, Sir Philip's testimony corresponded with the story of a renegado Indian, formerly one of the counsellors and favourites of Miantunnomoh. This savage, stung by some real or fancied wrongs, deserted his tribe, and, vowing revenge, repaired to Boston, and divulged to the governor the secret hostility of his chief to the English, which, he said, had been stimulated to activity by the old Pequod chief and the renowned maiden Magawisca.

He stated, also, that the chiefs of the different tribes, moved by the eloquence and arguments of Mononotto, were forming a powerful combination. Thus far the treacherous savage told the truth ; but he proceeded to state plots and underplots, and artfully to exaggerate the number and power of the tribes. The magistrates lent a believing ear to the whole story. They were aware that the Narragan-setts, ever since they had witnessed the defeat and extinction of their ancient enemies the Pequods, had felt a secret dread and jealousy of the power and encroachments of the English, and that they only waited for an opportunity to manifest their hostility. Letters had been recently received from the magistrates of Connecticut, expressing their belief that a general rising of the Indians was meditated. All these circumstances combined to give importance to

Sir Philip's and the Indian's communications. But the governor felt the necessity of proceeding warily,

Miantunnomoh had been the faithiiil friend and ally of the English. He is described by Winthrop as a ^^ sagacious and subtle man, who showed good understanding in the principles of justice and equity, and ingenuity withal." Such a man it was obviously the policy of the English not to provoke; and the governor hoped, by getting possession of the Pequod family, to obtain the key to Miantunnomoh's real designs, and to crush the conspiracy before it was matured.

We have been compelled to this digression, in order to explain the harsh reception and treatment of Magawisca; to account for the zeal with which the governor promoted the party to the garden, and for the signal which guided the boat directly to the Pequod family, and which Sir Philip remained on the island to give. The knight had now got very deep into the councils and favour of the magistrates, who saw in him the selected medium of a special kindness of Providence to them.

He took good care

" That all his circling wiles should end In feign'd religion, smooth hypocrisy ;*'

and, by addressing his arts to the predominant tastes and principles of the honest men whom he deluded, he well sustained his accidental advantage.

It would be vain to attempt to describe the'various emotions of GovernoiiWinthrop's family at the return of Hope Leslie. Madam Winthrop, over-ex-

cited by the previous events of the evening, had fortunately escaped any farther agitation by retiring to bed, after composing her nerves with a draught of valerian tea. Mrs. Grafton, who had been transported with joy at the unlooked-for recovery of Faith Leslie, was carried to the extreme of despair when she saw the lifeless body of her beloved niece borne to her apartment. Poor old Cradock went, like a certain classic bird, "up stairs and down stairs," wringing his hands, and sobbing like a whipped boy. The elder Fletcher stood bending in mute agony over the child of his affections, whom he loved with even more than the tenderness of a parent. His tears, like those of old and tnie Meneni-us, seemed " Salter than a younger man's, and venomous to his eyes;" and his good friend Governor , Winthrop, when he saw his distress, secretly repented that he had acquiesced in a procedure that had brought such misery upon this much-enduring man. Jennet bustled about, appearing to do everything, and doing nothing, and hoping " to goodness' sake the young lady would come to herself, long enough, at least, to tell what had befallen her:" "she always thought, she did, what her harem-scarem ways would bring her to at last." Miss Downing, without regarding, or even hearing, these and many other similar mutterings, proceeded with admirable presence of mind to direct and administer all the remedies that were at hand, while EvereU, almost distracted, went in quest of medical aid.

A delirious fever succeeded to unconsciousness;

and for three days Hope Leslie's friends hung over her in the fear that every hour would be her last For three days and nights Esther Downing never quitted her bedside, except to go to the door of the apartment to answer EverelPs inquiries. Her sweet feminine qualities were now called into action : she watched and prayed over her friend; and, though her cheek was pale and her eye dim, she had never appeared half so lovely to Everell as when, in her simple linen dressing-gown, she for an instant left the invalid to announce some favourable symptom. On the fourth morning Hope's fever abated; her incoherent ravings ceased, and she sunk, for the first time, into a tranquil sleep. Esther sat perfectly still by her bedside, fearing to move, lest the slightest noise should disturb her ; she heard Everell walking-in the entry, as he had done incessantly, and stopping at every turn to listen at the door. Till now, all her faculties had been in requisition—her mind and body devoted to her friend—she had not thought of herself j and if sometimes the thought of Everell intruded, she blushed at what she deemed the unsubdued selfishness of her heart. " Alas!" she said," I am far from that temper which leads us to * weep with those that weep,' if I suffer thoughts of my own happy destiny to steal in* when my friend is in this extremity." But these were but transient emotions: her devotion to Hope was too sincere and unremitting to afford occasion of reproach even to her watchful and accusing conscience. But now, as she listened to Everell's perturbed footsteps, a new train

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