Imatges de pàgina
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to a young patrician standing in the presence of his wild associate, "that his new relation might have been obtained at a much lower price than a coronet; but it was a hundred to one that she lost the precious strawberry leaves one of these days in a certain place called Doctors' Commons." This coarse and vulgar inuendo was heard by the kind-hearted monarch who then sat upon the British throne; who, pitying the confusion of the insulted bride, and the deep resentment of the peer, from that moment loaded them both with marks of both public and private favour, and had soon after offered himself and his august consort to be sponsors to their first child.

All this gossip I heard from time to time, as the said young ladies chatted away together; also, that the incensed nobleman, their host, had, in the plenitude of his anger, repeatedly sworn, "that his insolent nephew never should inherit his title and estates, even if he himself should not be blessed with an heir; for there was no scheme, however wild, he would not practice to remove from him the succession."

"What nonsense you do talk, Miss Calvert," said Lady Jane Urquhart, the favourite friend of the Marchioness, on hearing this last observation. "You should never repeat what was said in a moment of great excitement. How is it possible that the Marquis could prevent his nephew and heir-at-law succeeding him, in case of his having no male issue?"

"O I have no notion whatever," replied the pretty Miss Calvert; "I do not understand law matters: how should I?—but I do assure you, our dear Lady Ld herself told me that such had been the threat of the Marquis, when he came home from the Drawing-room that day. I hope he did not mean to assassinate Mr. Desborough, for that seems the only way that is the only certain one of getting rid of his nephew and his claims,❞—and the pretty chatterer laughed.

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"You really should not speak in this manner, Lucy," gravely remarked Lady Jane Urquhart, you put such odd notions into people's heads;"--and the conversation dropped for the present.

This Lady Jane Urquhart was a very lovely young woman, but had a very melancholy air impressed upon her fine features; she seemed to have the most devoted attachment to the Marchioness; they were almost always together; and I remarked, that very often Lady Jane, on leaving her friend's private boudoir, had traces of tears in her fine expressive eyes.

After about a fortnight's residence in this splendid mansion, I heard that the Marquis was hourly expected home; and all the guests, with the exception of Lady Jane Urquhart, departed; as it was whispered he always liked to have his home quiet, when he returned to it after any length of time, which Miss Calvert and the other young girls were very sorry for. They told me, "they should so have liked to have seen the little Earl, soon after he had made his appearance on his own inheritance!"

"You seem quite to have settled the matter in your own mind, Lucy," remarked Lady Jane, in the presence of the Marchioness, when Miss Calvert insisted upon it that the infant must be a boy : get that it is quite an equal chance whether we have a little earl or a little ladyship."

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Not so much a chance as the world would suppose," murmured Miss Calvert, in a most peculiar tone; it caused me to look up from the splendid Mechlin-lace infant's cap I was drawing into a supposed proper shape to fit the head of the little human being now expected every day. This cap, with a robe equally costly and beautiful, had been sent as a present from the highest female personage in the land, to the Marchioness, for the use of her future god-child.

"Not so much a chance as the world would suppose!" were the precise words that came from Miss Calvert's pretty mouth. I caught, as I looked up, the glance which passed like lightning from Lady Jane Urquhart to her friend the Marchioness; it was more remarkable even than the words; it was full of strange and undefined expression! I could clearly distinguish, as it rapidly shot from one pair of eyes to the other, anger, alarm, and shame, mixed up together in that darting glance; also a sort of questioning, an appealing, a cautioning as to how this odd kind of observation should be answered. I perceived, also, that the other two young ladies looked up from their netting, as anxious for some sort of a reply. As for myself, I looked down instantly upon my employment; I felt that there would have been an impertinence, a vulgarity on my part, to have investigated any further, the involuntary expression of Lady Jane Urquhart's eyes at this moment; her mind seemed all unguarded-the door of the sanctuary within was left wide open. I had no wish to take advantage of a momentary surprise, and rudely gaze into the secret chamber that every human being, however simple and pure he may be, possesses, and wishes to guard from the survey of others. The smaller this chamber is, the fewer of dark treasures, unacknowledged, unredeemed, contained within such storehouse, the better are we a pure angelic spirit does not possess such a magazine of abominations; nor shall we have one when regenerated. The whole temple will be thrown open. Until then, let us not seek to pry into this blue chamber," where goblins dance belonging to others; rather let us try to cleanse out and keep clear our own.

It may give us some idea of the comprehensiveness of mind, when we reflect how much can be gathered, how much more surmised, from one instantaneous, magnetic transition from one immortal spirit to another, even whilst under the trammels, and bandages, and weights, and disadvantages of thus being, like books, bound in calf, ass's-skin, or human leather.

Let me return to the observation of the gay and piquant Miss Lucy Calvert, which, like the text of a sermon, I shall repeat for the third time, lest it should have.escaped the memory of my sagacious reader. "Not so much a chance as the world would suppose;" and which said extraordinary remark drew from Lady Jane Urquhart a still more extraordinary eye-beam-no; the eye was only the battery that evolved it; the glance was a mind-beam, and, as it flew rapidly by me, scattered intelligence even upon my own; what must it have done to the mind with which it held correspondence? or, as the animal-magnetists say, was en rapport-no doubt it was fully understood.

There was a pause of nearly half a minute after this most eloquent language of the eye (pshaw, it was of the mind), and I must own I held my breath, that I might not lose a single tone of the marchioness's

reply. It came bland, collected, even gay; but I could plainly distinguish a slight tremor in the voice, a certain admonitory cadence in the latter part of it, which I thought I could understand nearly as well, as no doubt did the lady to whom it was directed-but I deceived myself, I knew nothing about it.

"Lucy Calvert is a believer in signs and omens," said the Marchioness," and more especially in Buonaparte's 'Book of Fate;' she thinks all those have portended that we are to have an earl of a span long amongst us shortly, and therefore that chance has nothing more to do with it. Is not this the case, Miss Calvert? Do you not thoroughly believe that Destiny has ordained that the Marquis will have an heir ?" "Destiny!" said Lucy Calvert, running to the harp and sweeping her fingers across the strings

No destiny o'er free-born man presides!

He is not ruled like shifting winds and tides;
He can refuse the good, or take the ill,
Man owns no Fate, but his immortal will!
Man's will can blinded Destiny controul,
An Angel or a Demor: make his soul;
Then let him use his privilege aright,

And act as do the seraphs clothed in light.

And Miss Calvert, after warbling in the sweetest and most playful manner the above words, immediately left the apartment ;-that very evening she took her departure, also, from Ld House, and, I have every reason for believing, never entered it again.

Let them talk as much as they will of subtle miasma; of the sudden and unaccountable effects produced by what they call contagion and infection; what are these to be compared to the influence, the instantaneous working, fermenting power conveyed from one mind to another, tainting, as it were, the whole moral atmosphere around it. Shall I own it-the plague-spot was beginning to rise upon my own healthy mind, from being under the influence of that of Miss Calvert. She had conveyed to me, as if by magic, some dark misgivings. Suspicion sat brooding over it; I became uneasy, watchful, taciturn, and thoughtful-extremely reserved, and, I doubt not, very disagreeable, yet striving with all my might to conceal my sensations,-to appear easy, unconcerned, and cheerful. And what was it I was so apprehensive of? Not yet shall my undefined thoughts be visible-the reader must accompany me through this labyrinth of mental perplexities, if he choose to to know all that was passing in Ld House at the time I was its resident.

The morning after the departure of Miss Calvert and the two titled young ladies, the other visitors at Ld House, I was sitting reading a most curious old vellum MS. I had hunted out from the back of one of the shelves in the magnificent library, having clambered up the mahogany steps (running on castors), to the very top of the ceiling, that I might search the highest shelf there, with the odd notion in my head, that what was little prized and placed out of sight in a nobleman's library, would most likely be the best worth reading. I had searched all round the topmost shelves, as Eve might be supposed to do, clambering up the tree of knowledge, to get an apple from the highest bough,

when I discovered the treasure I have just alluded to, now my own property, for the Marquis, as I supposed would be the case, put but little store upon a gentleman MS. with so dirty a face, and most freely made me a present, afterwards, of the queer little volume illuminated on its margins, and containing within it something that I shall as yet keep to myself. But it is necessary, to the proper developement of this narrative, that I should just mention the circumstance here, hinting, at the same time, once for all, that when a reader opens a narrative with the determination of going through with it, he is like a passenger on board a steam-vessel, he must trust himself implicitly to the guidance of the captain, and not be continually asking him questions, "Why he steers this way, or the other? why he runs out so far from the direct course, as a bird would fly, or a fish would swim, to the place he wishes to reach?" No, he must have patience; he must, moreover, have faith, and it is ten thousand chances to one, but that the captain, alias the writer, will land him safely at the port he wishes. Now, having cleared this shallow, we pursue merrily our way.

I was sitting reading this aforesaid vellum MS. in the splendid apartment allotted to my exclusive use, until I came into active service; an apartment where I had my dinner served up to me alone on gold plate, by a couple of tall handsome footmen, with tags upon their shoulders, and nosegays in their button-holes, for such had been the order of the Marchioness to ensure me every comfort and respect. And here, let it be remembered, that every day, when the dessert was laid on, it was the custom, in that gorgeous house, to have odoriferous perfumes burnt, in the shape of some costly pastile, upon the table, the small cutglass finger-vases filled with Eau de Cologne, instead of rose-water, and an elegant bouquet of the choicest aromatic flowers, tied with silver cord, placed beside it. But if I mention more of the excessive luxury and refinement I witnessed in Ld House, I fear I may betray "its local habitation and its name," which I have no intention of doing ;-people may guess, and so let them-after all their guessing, they can come to no certainty, it will only be a leap in the dark, at best.

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"Mrs. Griffiths," said Lady Jane Urquhart, on entering this splendid sanctum of mine, after tapping at the door to request admittance, am going to request of you a great favour;" and she gave a sweet, but mournful smile. I could not but smile again in return; yet I am sure mine was every whit as melancholy as her own. Pray be seated, madam," I said with courtesy. "How is your friend, the Marchioness, to-day?'

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Composed and happy," replied my visitor. "I think she grows handsomer and handsomer every day! did you ever see before so transparent a complexion ?-But to my errand-I am going to ask of you the favour to accept this Indian shawl on account of the little stranger my beloved Georgiana is daily expecting; -I should like him to be beneficent, even before his birth. You can have no idea, my dear Mrs. Griffiths, of the interest I feel for this dear child, although yet unbeheld. The Marchioness and myself have been so deeply attached to each other from our very infancy, that every thing connected with her, seems as if it were my own; you will, therefore, accept this trifle, as a present from the future little Earl of

How, in a moment, did these words present themselves to my lips, ready to be spoken: What am I expected, madam, to do for this magnificent bribe ?" But I repressed the honest and simple coinage of my heart, the instinctive reply of right, and substituted, as we all do, the artificial, and, therefore, false language of politeness and conventional life. "O madam," I said, gazing on the costly Indian scarf she unwound from her arm, rich with the brightest dyes, "this shawl is far too handsome for one in my capacity; it is fit for a duchess, and not for the humble Mrs. Griffiths."

"Mrs. Griffiths has been accustomed to wear Indian shawls, nevertheless;" argued Lady Jane, in the softest voice in the world, "and I will not be refused;" and she placed the superb Cachemire in my hands.

Lady Jane Urquhart had attacked me on my weak side, She had flattered my self-love. She had penetrated through my disguise, and had discovered the gentlewoman in the "Monthly Nurse." How very frail are the best of us! How could I rudely repel a lovely, distinguished, and clear-sighted young lady, who said such delightful things to me? Then the shawl-the elegant Cachemire, with its ends and borders so elaborately woven; so light, so ample! Was it in the nature of woman to be insensible to such a double charge of artillery; such a chain-shot upon her principles? I felt just as I did once before in the case of poor dear Mrs. Harcourt, which I have detailed in the first series of these papers. I felt the spells of fascination winding and weaving around me. I foreknew that something would be required of me that should not be done, and yet I weakly waited the developement of the scheme, whatever it might be, with a strange mixture of curiosity, alarm, and interest. I might have saved myself by running away from temptation; but, like a daughter of Eve, I believed myself strong enough to overcome it, when it came fairly and openly before me.

"You have some very beautiful lace on your cap, and round your apron, Mrs. Griffiths," said the Marchioness to me, on the evening of the same day, when I was seated in her boudoir, enquiring a little as to her symptoms-a sort of professional visit I was in the habit of paying, and which was daily expected of me. "You are extremely choice I see in your style of dress;" added she. "Every thing of the best kind! I have remarked this before, when you attended on the Countess M—; indeed, you are quite famed for it; is she not, Jane?"

The lady referred to answered most warmly in the affirmative. I felt the spell working, and it made me look very thoughtful, perhaps a little distant. "Now," said I to myself, "it is all coming out; but they shall not warp me to their will, that I am resolved on, should it be as I suspect."

"Jane, dearest!" said the Marchioness, from her pale blue damask ottoman, with its pillow of aromatic buds and blossoms, collected in the east, and especially the Kakathan petals, from the hills of Chinese-Teiran, and the scarlet flowers of the Dwe-war, culled with so much care from the banks of the Bhur-on-pootah. 'Jane, dearest, you are nearer to that cabinet than I am, give me that card of Brussels lace, the very finest manufactured there I believe; for the Marquis bespoke it for us, Jane, you know, from Madame Antoine herself. There is enough here,

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