Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 6, December 1852

It seemed almost as if an angel’s voice now roused her, for the strange lady, bending over her, said in accents of almost unearthly tenderness, “You are ill, sweet maiden, speak to me.”

She paused, and her tones fell musically on the senses of the unhappy guest, for those notes of sympathy had reached even to her apathetic ear. Grace attempted to reply, but utter exhaustion followed, and tears alone attested all she felt. These proved no relief, however, and before night Georgiana Lincoln watched over her in the strong paroxysms of a brain fever.

—

CHAPTER IX

  A cloud of darkest gloom has wrapt  The remnant of my brief career.Margaret Davidson.

It would be equally needless and painful to linger over the sufferings of the sick maiden. The fever, which the terrible and agitating scenes she had passed through had excited, was so long in being subdued that those who watched her trembled lest the loss of either life or reason should ensue. When this was overcome it seemed as if she must sink under the exhaustion which followed. Her constitution, however, though delicate was good, and after weeks of unconscious agony, she did indeed appear sensible of the fond cares of the young, high-bred lady who was continually by her side.

Georgiana Lincoln was exactly opposite in appearance to the Puritan girl. A high polish and elegance of tone and manner marked her at once as the English lady of rank. Her style of beauty was one uncommon in America. A bright, sunny brunette, the soft brown of her skin was warmed with a rich crimson – the dewy coral has its freshness but not its brightness. Her tall figure was almost concealed by a white robe which still revealed the most exquisite proportions of her figure.

Grace Bartlett gazed on her with admiration, and endeavored to prove her gratitude by some expressions of thankfulness; but the touching mournfulness of her sweet face too painfully revealed that the causes she had for sorrow were not forgotten with her returning consciousness.

A settled melancholy followed her recovery. Every thing was done to arouse her from this. Among other resources that were adopted, she was taken to the boudoir of her hostess and companion, where birds and flowers formed the ornaments. But not the singing of the one, nor the odor of the other brought delight to her heart. What were music and perfume to her but agony?

To all Georgiana Lincoln’s attempts at consolation she listened with a calm look of hopeless misery which plainly told how incapable she was of receiving condolence. But despite all her causes for grief, and the deep melancholy that consumed her, Grace could not but be touched with the kindness lavished on her by the wealthy lady. Insensibly the poor girl wound her feelings around her, and bestowed on her all that she had of affection that was left from the grave of her parents, and the memory of her lover.

One evening, when the unhappy maiden was unusually depressed, she was seated in the boudoir of her new acquaintance.

“Thou art sadder than thy wont, sweet one,” said the latter, kissing the brow of the young Puritan. “But if naught in thy own situation can add to thy happiness, gladly as any change should be made in it at thy slightest bidding, I feel sure at least that one shadow will pass from thy sympathetic nature at hearing of thy friend’s prospect of happiness. Rejoice with me, Grace, my brother is expected home.”

“It doth, indeed, please me that thou art about to have any contribution to thy fullness of joy,” replied the poor girl, with a faint smile, and a pressure of her companion’s hand.

“We will have a series of festivities in honor of his arrival,” resumed the other; “and if you will not participate, dear Grace, in the dancing and merriment, you can at any rate be present to observe the company, and listen to the music. No wonder that thou weariest without other society than that of thy tedious friend.”

Our heroine smiled again, but more faintly than before, as if the tidings of the expected fêtes had little or no interest for her.

At that moment Gen. Lincoln appeared on the balcony upon which the window opened, exclaiming, “Georgiana, my love, I have brought you a visitor – a truant; yet one you will be glad to see. Come in, my son – what do you remain there for?” he added, turning to his companion.

But the latter hesitated. His glance rested on the figure of Grace, so graceful and almost spiritual, as it was brought forward in the shadowy moonlight.

“My brother, my own dear brother! What joy!” cried Georgiana, springing out eagerly to meet him; while Grace, startled and terrified at the idea of a stranger, hastily withdrew. General Lincoln at the same instant received a summons from below.

“Dearest Georgiana,” said the young man, “I am glad to see you again; looking, too, as lovely as ever, or else this evening hour deceives me. I fear me, though, you will deem yourself but little fortunate in my return, for I come back in no agreeable mood, I assure you.” So saying he entered, and threw himself listlessly on a lounge in the room.

“But I do rejoice to see you, dear Charles,” replied his sister, seating herself by his side, and gently stroking back the dark hair from his brow. “You will remain with us for a time, and we will be so happy.”

“Happy!” he exclaimed, with bitterness, “I see little prospect of my ever being happy in this life; or at least whilst our father continues this unjust persecution of the unpretending and religious settlers on the borders.”

He then proceeded to pour out to Georgiana the miserable intrigues in which Gen. Lincoln was engaged, and the embassy on which he had himself been absent. “But, my sister,” he continued, “I have resolved to take no further part in this accursed policy toward a defenseless and religious people. I have long enough worked out the will of others – a mere machine in the hands of my ambitious parent, who is striving by the course of heartless persecution I have described, to please a jealous monarch and a scheming court. The instigating of the Indians to massacre the Puritans, and exterminate their settlements, will cry aloud for vengeance.”

“Yes,” continued Charles, in an excited tone, “their death-shrieks are ever in my ears – in the dark night their massacre is ever before my eyes, in the day, heavy and dark upon my spirits – never away from me can it be in the future, but will haunt me throughout my desolate life, and seem to be calling on me to take vengeance against my father.”

“You talk wildly, dearest brother,” said Georgiana, looking at him in some alarm. “How canst thou be desolate with thy sister to love thee. And speak not of taking vengeance against our father, for that is God’s, even toward the humblest adversary, and not to be named by a son against his father.”

“Nay,” he answered, “hear me. I have just come from one of their exterminated villages, where, in the character of a spy, I resided among them some months ago, unsuspected by their guileless simplicity, and receiving their humble hospitalities. On my return thither recently, to visit one to whom I had become dearly attached, I found the place in ruins, and the hapless villagers destroyed by the firebrands of Gen. Lincoln’s emissaries.” He seemed overcome with his emotions, and rested his head on his hand for some moments in deep reflection.

His sister appeared not less affected with sadness, and held his hand silently.

By an effort, at length, arousing himself, he asked suddenly, “Who was that graceful figure that I saw sitting at your side, when papa would have hurried me so unceremoniously through the window. She could not have thrown herself into a more becoming attitude for effect as the moonlight streamed upon her.”

“Effect! poor maiden!” was the reply. “It was the last thing in her mind at that moment. She is a prisoner, brought hither by the Indians, for what purpose, originally, I know not. But whatever were his first intentions with regard to her, our father has abandoned them, and permitted me to treat her with the consideration due to her loveliness and her unhappy situation.” The announcement of company in the drawing-room here interrupted the conversation between the brother and sister.

—

CHAPTER X

  Lo! they muster – lord and lady —    Brow of pride and cheek of bloom,  Pointed beard and tresses shady —    Velvet robe and waving plume.Henry William Herbert.

Weeks passed on, and a round of festive entertainments took place in the mansion of Gen. Lincoln. In all these Charles Lincoln mingled with a discontented and gloomy air of abstraction.

Georgiana’s natural gayety seemed somewhat dimmed by this change in her brother. Their society consisted of the officers of the fort, but it was nevertheless of a kind to be grateful and pleasing to one of her temperament; and her predilections had furthermore been awakened in favor of a gallant young general in the service – so that there was still a source of interest to her unconnected with the brother, whose strange moodiness still gave her pain.

The fair colonist continued to decline mingling with the family, though with a gentle steadfastness that her friend might not at any time have found it difficult to disarm; but she did not insist, lest she should give pain to the sensitive nature of the timid and heart-sick stranger.

It was on a pleasant evening in June that, by the open window of Georgiana Lincoln’s apartment, Grace Bartlett was sitting languidly. Her thoughts were evidently of the past – for at intervals the faint color would fade from her cheeks, and an expression of deep mental pain pass over her countenance – her soft eyes assuming a fixed look, as if her remembrances were fraught with agony. As she sat in the dim twilight in that state, her thoughts broke forth into pensive song, and she almost unconsciously chanted the words,

  Oh, the home of my childhood! my desolate heart!  Its merciless loss bids the warm tears to start.

Her voice gradually died away, and by degrees she closed her eyes and slumbered. And now naught was heard save the gentle breeze waving the branches outside the window near which she reclined. But ere her tones ceased, they had reached other ears.

Charles Lincoln had stretched his lazy length on one of the couches in the balcony below; and those musical tones came to him laden with associations of other days – of a brief but transient period of bliss. With a magic power they arrested his attention, and he continued to ponder on them long after they had ceased, until he was filled with an ardent curiosity to behold once more the young stranger of whom he had caught a glimpse on the evening of his return, and whose position in his father’s house had afterward been described to him by his sister.

Whilst his curiosity was thus at work, his sister approached him, accompanied by the young officer above referred to, with whom she had been enjoying an evening stroll.

“Georgiana,” said her brother, starting up to meet her, and drawing her aside, “can you not prevail on your fair colonial guest to appear at the masquerade this evening? I am dying to see her, for the melody of her voice, just now wafted to my ears on the air, has reminded me of one who was dear to me, and is lost forever. I would fain hear its tones in conversation.”

“I have heretofore refrained from urging it on poor Grace to appear in the drawing-room,” replied the young lady; “she seemed so averse to the mention of such a thing. But I have do doubt that I could bring her yielding nature to comply, if I were to put the effort in the light of a favor toward me, whom she loves as a sister. It might do her good, too, poor thing, if she could only be induced to make the exertion. It shall be as you wish, dear brother; you may depend upon me.”

A few hours afterward more than ordinary excitement was passing in the mansion. A masquerade was given to the officers – and the scene was gay and picturesque. The main wing was lighted up, and gay with the festivities. The sounds of merriment and laughter were heard.

Grace Bartlett had at length yielded to the request of her hostess that she would be present, and had quietly submitted to be attired in a graceful robe of India Muslin, so transparent in its texture as to look like gauze. Her beautiful hair received a new grace from the single white camellia with its drooping bud, which gleamed like a star amid those golden tresses, so purely, so freshly beautiful, that it seemed a fit emblem of her it adorned.

Georgiana Lincoln appeared a fairy vision of beauty and brightness; the diamonds sparkling among her shining braids, and the graceful folds of her lace robe falling around her like drapery around a Grecian statue.

The masqueraders were intent on their amusement as the two females entered. Then, for a few moments, all merriment ceased, and murmurs of undisguised admiration went round. The Puritan was seated at once by her friend in a recess upon a couch raised a little above the floor, and immediately after Miss Lincoln proceeded to mix among the company. In a moment, a gentleman of elegant figure and handsome face pressed forward, and saluted her with marked empressement. “My dear Miss Lincoln, to-night carries me back to London refinement and fashion – dress – scenery – company – beauty – fascination. This evening will be impressed on our English hearts indelibly, to the utter forgetfulness of our rusticated state in these American forests.”

“Do be grateful, then,” the lady answered, “to me for giving you some taste of London and its fashion. Papa is much too solemn for any thing but those great, pompous dinners, which I detest.”

“But tell me,” rejoined her companion, “how did you induce that lovely flower” (and he turned his masked visage toward Grace Bartlett) “to shed its perfume on our scentless hearts?”

“By exhausting all that irresistible eloquence of which you speak so highly,” she replied; “for I recognize my complimentary acquaintance, Lieut. R – .”

“Indeed! Well, she is perfectly lovely, and with a touch of sadness so interesting,” said the gentleman. “I’ll exert myself to flirt with her.”

“I am not quite sure you will find that task so easy as you imagine,” was the laughing rejoinder.

“Very likely,” responded Lieut. R. “But in a good cause I am prepared to go great lengths, and as she is very pretty I’ll take my chance at any rate.”

At that moment, another individual approached, and after the ordinary civilities of the evening, said to her gently, “Miss Lincoln, will you not walk on the gallery by moonlight?”

The words, as they were pronounced in a somewhat tremulous tone, sounded musically in her ear, and taking the arm of the speaker she proceeded with him to the place alluded to.

For one or two turns they promenaded in silence. The gentleman seemed strangely agitated. He tried to say something indifferent, but it would not do, and he plunged at once into the subject near his heart.

“I thought,” he said, hurriedly and timidly, “that I could have waited calmly the answer which I requested in the early part of this evening; but I overrated my own powers of endurance, and I come now to hear my doom from your lips. Speak to me, Georgiana; I have dared to hope that the regard I feel for you is not wholly unreturned, and that you prefer me above some others around you. Is this so, dear girl, or must I teach my heart to forego all its hopes of happiness, all those blissful feelings of which, until I knew you, I was ignorant. Oh! do not condemn me to disappointment,” he exclaimed, passionately. “Give me at least hope. Georgiana, dearest Georgiana, am I too presumptuous?”

He spoke with strong emotion, and his was a voice, when in deep persuasion, difficult to resist: his arm was still encircling his companion, and she had not removed it, as she heard that the happiness or misery of a life depended on her decision.

“Speak, dearest, but one little word,” urged her lover, in a whispered voice of intense suspense.

Georgiana did not speak that word, little as it was, but she lifted up her truthful face, and fixed her clear, dark orbs for one brief moment fully upon his, and the next instant that lovely head was bent down, and the rich, mantling blushes hidden on his bosom.

“It is enough, my own one,” murmured the enraptured suitor, in all the ecstasy of that instant of first accepted love.

At length, remembering that they had deserted the drawing-room very unceremoniously, they returned to find the company in some surprise at their absence, but their excuses soon proved satisfactory, and they at once mingled separately amongst the various guests.

Shortly after, Charles Lincoln sauntered languidly into the apartment, closely masked. On first entering, he had for a moment fixed an almost startled gaze of admiration upon the Puritan. To a close observer, deep emotion would have been discernible beneath that mask. But a powerful will struggled against the display of it, as, half concealed behind a pillar, he retreated to look more intently, and without being observed. He wished to discover whether or no his sense of vision had deceived him. But no – it must be she whom he beheld – the same grace in the drooping form, but how fragile did it appear; how painfully changed in the character of its loveliness were the faultless features of that face – when the hair, combed carelessly back from her brow, displayed their delicate outlines. Her countenance spoke with truth of the ravages sorrow had occasioned.

Lincoln gazed until he had convinced himself, rushed forward and reached the astonished girl: then tearing off his mask, he exclaimed, “Grace! dearest Grace, you live yet, and I find you in my father’s halls!”

The astonished and bewildered girl gave one cry, and fell fainting at his feet.

—

CHAPTER XI

  Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.  The web is wove. The work is done.Gray.

It was on a lovely summer’s evening, rather more than ten years after the events last recorded, that two persons were sitting in the spacious drawing-room of a noble mansion in Canada, opening on a park. They had, it appeared by the lady’s attire, been walking, but as their conversation deepened in interest, the repose of home had again been unconsciously sought. She had thrown aside her bonnet, and as she sat, her face upturned to her male companion, her features disclosed a loveliness that would have irresistibly attracted attention. The repose of her features was so soft and gentle that the eye would have fallen there with the same delight, and turned away with the same regret which it experiences in regard to other things which are found to harmonize with its vision. In her the period of girlhood had merged into the epoch of woman’s maturity, when, nearer her prime than her bloom, she unites all the truth and freshness of early youth with those calm and more finished graces which come not to pass away, but to deepen and endure.

But one glance at the sweet Madonna countenance, the unequaled expression of the placid features, the golden hair, shaded now to something of a chestnut, will suffice for her recognition by all those whose interest in Grace Bartlett has sketched her image in their minds.

To the Grace Bartlett of our opening chapter, she bore indeed only the outward resemblance that the opening flower does to the early bud. But even as the full blown rose reveals the luscious scent and glowing beauty which the blossom contained, so did her character, as it now shone forth beneath the bright and dazzling sun of affluence, confirm and strengthen the promise of its dawn.

The gay, playful child of our first chapter, the timid, shrinking Puritan girl of our after history, was now the modestly dignified, though still retiring, wife of the Governor General of Canada. The pure and holy sentiments of religion which had formerly been spoken timidly, as hardly daring to find expression lest the high-born should mock or pity, were now avowed calmly, unostentatiously as they had been acted upon in the deep trials of her girlhood.

Her love for her husband was intense and absorbing, but it came not between herself and heaven. The fruits of her holy life were gentleness and self-denial, meekness and charity – plainly showing at whose feet she laid the offering of her heart.

In the polished circle in which she now moved, she had preserved within her that pure light which, when the sun is growing dim and waxing faint, alone can guide through the dark valley of the shadow of death. The heart of that lovely flower of a Puritan village – a heart that had throbbed and quivered at the faintest touch of kindness, and which a silken thread could lead in all other matters, had stood firm where her religion was concerned, and this very firmness had won her husband to her faith.

The importance which Frank Winthrop had acquired as the son of Gen. Lincoln, added to his personal merit – under the name of his adopted father, which he always retained, ignorant of his real origin, had attracted the attention of the government. He was soon employed in various situations of responsibility and importance. By the same progression in fortune which first elevated him, another and a later change had brought him in Canada to the rank of Governor General.

The conversation between the two had been continued for some time, when the voice of a young child was heard on the stair-case.

“Oh, there is my little bird singing,” exclaimed Grace Lincoln. She sprang to the door and returned, bearing in her arms a lovely boy, exquisitely fair, with deep blue eyes, and clustering curls of gold. The bright complexion and golden hair were hers, but his features were the miniature likeness of his handsome father at her side.

Over them we now drop the curtain, and in so doing, let them take their farewell of the reader.

SONNET

—BY CAROLINE F. ORNE—  Hid in the bosom of life-giving earth,    In darkness and in silence deep and still,  The buried seed to springing roots gives birth,    That fix them in the mold with firmest will;  Strong hold have they below there in the soil    Before the leaves upshoot them to the light,  And beauty crowns the deep and hidden toil    With blossomed boughs that charm the gazer’s sight.  So thou, oh soul, obscure and hidden long,    Uncared for and unknown must bide thy time,  And like the aspiring seed strike, deep and strong,    Roots that shall bear thee upward in thy prime,  So firm sustained, thou shalt the worthier be  For life’s fair flower that all men honor thee.

UPS AND DOWNS

CHAPTER I

“I trust Mrs. Davidson is at last satisfied.”

“In what?”

“Why, have you not heard the news of the engagement of Maria with Henry Dawson?”

“No, I have not before. But when did it occur, and are you positive it is so?”

“As to the when, sometime within a day or two; and as to the positive, the lady herself is my authority.”

“She is certainly very fortunate with her daughters.”

“So she thinks, at least this time. But I am not clear that the three former connections with Law, Physic and Divinity were exactly to her mind.”

“Certainly no three men occupy more respectable positions for their age in the community than her three sons-in-law, and as she had no fortune to give with her daughters, she should be thankful.”

“I imagine few will be inclined to differ from you; but that very want of fortune causes her to be peculiarly alive to its advantages, and hence her delight at her daughter’s engagement to young Dawson.”

“Is he so very rich?”

“Not having any marriageable daughters of my own to dispose of, I never asked him for a schedule of his effects. But I supposed you to have been well posted on that point.”

“Me! Bless you, my dear – I never trouble myself about such matters. Why should you think so?”

“Oh, I know not. A mere random remark of mine. I thought I had some faint recollection of his flirtation with Laura last winter, and knowing your prudence, supposed you had made the necessary inquiries.”

“You are much mistaken. There never was any thing between them. He is music-mad, and used frequently to come to listen to Laura’s harp. I suppose he thought it but right therefore to show her some attention in public, and hence the world interpreted it into something else. But, I assure you, there was never any thing in it.”

“I never supposed there was. I always thought Laura was merely amusing herself. But how remarkably well she is looking to-night. Who is that distinguished looking man who is paying her such marked attention?”