her. Had Charles Willersley again crossed her path, even her promise, given so unwillingly, would have, perhaps, been little regarded; but he left England to join his regiment abroad, without even venturing on a farewell call, and from that hour Agnes felt as if the chill of death was already in her heart. Strange that Margaret should have experienced actual delight at the departure of one whom her proud heart had stooped to love. But she had her own visions for the future now. Charles Willersley had embarked in a career where he might possibly obtain honours and distinction that might render him worthy even of herself, Before Willersley left home, Agnes clung to a wild scheme which floated through her mind, of seeking him out, or writing to him and telling him all. It was but her heart's momentary refuge from despair; she had not the energy to execute so bold a purpose. Day by day she arose, half resolved to make use of this, her last resource, and night after night saw her seeking her sleepless couch, weeping bitterly over her own irresolution. But the blow fell-the beloved of her heart was gone, and hope seemed dead for ever. Then did Margaret apply herself to reconcile her victim to the fate that awaited her. Her kindness of manner became greater and less mixed with haughtiness than it had ever been before. She drew vivid pictures of the splendid lot that must attend the wife of Colonel St. Aubyn. She represented her influence, her consideration, her elevated position in society, and Agnes, heart-sore and miserable as she felt, at length began to lend a languid ear to the often recited catalogue of her future advantages. Margaret's purpose was accomplished even earlier than she had hoped, and a few months saw her fair and timid sister the wife of Colonel St. Aubyn. I have after events to relate which I have felt some hesitation in making public. I have well considered ere I venture to write them down; but there is only one now left who can be hurt by their recital, and should this record ever meet her eye, she has earned for herself the pang that will be hers in perusing it. Already has her proud heart been wrung over the sorrow she herself prepared for those whom she best loved, and she deserves not to be spared even yet. She is the only one who will recognise through the veil of other names, the realities from which I frame this story, for all that the world knew of them is long ago forgotten. To my mind the history I relate appears to bear a deep and impressive lesson. It may be useful to others, and it can injure no one now. The bridal party arrived in the metropolis a few days after the celebration of the nuptials of Colonel St. Aubyn and Agnes; and it was then, for the first time, that I saw Margaret Vernon and her sister. The St. Aubyns were on the point of quitting England for some time, and it was the Colonel's wish that the portrait of his young bride should, ere their departure, be sent to grace a gallery of paintings which his brother had formed, with much trouble and expense, at Woodfield Park. I have said that Margaret Vernon was one of the most perfectly beautiful women I ever beheld; but surely her sister might claim to be one of the most interesting. Oh, the sweet, plaintive, expression of those soft grey eyes, with their long dark lashes-the loveliness of the fair cheek, where the colour went and came, with the scarcely perceptible flushings and fadings that are sometimes to be observed in a soft sunset sky! Hers was a face that once inspired interest and affection, from the extreme girlishness and innocence of its expression. The style of her dress which though rich, was extremely simple, and the manner in which she wore her hair, in ringlets all over her head, added to the youthfulness of her appearance. More than all, there was the charm of mystery about her-for even in the midst of her honeymoon, overwhelmed as she was with attentions and kindness by a man whom any woman might have "learned to love," I saw at once that Mrs. St. Aubyn was secretly and seriously unhappy. There was a listlessness and air of weariness about her, which in one so young could scarcely be the result of mere ennui, surrounded, too, as she was, by scenes to which she was unaccustomed, and where she met with every thing that is generally attractive to the youthful mind. I could only refer her unhappiness to one cause, and that as it proved the true one. She had given her hand without her heart, for that heart was not hers to give. I know not what induced Colonel St. Aubyn to have his lady pourtrayed as Sappho, for she was guiltless of the slightest tendency to blueism, and was, moreover, remarkably deficient in musical taste. She laboured under the misfortune of " having no ear," as it is generally called; and melodious as her own voice was in speaking, she had never been able to frame it into the simplest air. And yet when she was so pictured, with the lyre in her hand, her loose tresses bound with bays, and the absent but impassioned expression of eye, which had become almost habitual to her, every one owned that a more perfect impersonation of the unhappy Lesbian could not be imagined. She was interested and pleased with the picture herself. To me it was mournfully like a shadowing forth of what I suspected to be her history. Soon after the completion of this memorable portrait, the Colonel and his bride left England, and ten years elapsed before I saw them again. They had then taken up their residence at Woodfield Park, and being unblest with children, had adopted as their own, a little boy, the orphan child of a brother officer of the Colonel's. They paid me the compliment not only of remembering me, but of inviting me to stay with them whilst I executed a likeness of this child, on whom they both doated. I was most kindly received by them, especially by the Colonel, who having grown stout and bald, while his fine features had lost nothing of their dignity, appeared, on the whole, as good a specimen of an elderly British officer as one could desire to see. But the contrast between his wife and himself appeared far greater than it had done when I first knew them. Her complexion was perhaps less brilliant than it had been ten years before, her figure was even slighter, and a close observer might have noticed a few lines in her snowy forehead. But her hair still fell in careless ringlets on her neck—her eye had the same subdued, yet earnest expression-her voice the same plaintive cadence; I could not bring myself to believe that she was a day older than when I had last seen her. When I arrived at Woodfield Park, 66 I found that another visitor was expected, and on this coming guest's perfections the Colonel did nothing but expatiate from morning to night. He was a dear fellow," " a brave boy," "the noblest of God's creatures," in short, his dear godson, Major Charles Willersley. "You knew him in his boyhood, I think, Agnes," the Colonel would say, addressing his lady, "but you could not know then-I did not know what a glorious creature Charles Willersley would prove-so brave and fearless, yet so steady and self-possessed-so unflinching from danger, yet so tenderly alive to the sufferings of others, I never can tell you half his worth. I was grieved that when we met him for those few days in Malta, he could not manage to return with us. Of course, love, 1 don't expect you to remember much about him, for you know he left England before we were married, but if you could know him as well as I do, I am sure you would esteem him as much. I was absent from this dear girl for some months while we were in India," continued the Colonel, turning to me, "and during a long and severe illness, Charles Willersley was my nurse, doctor, comforter-every thing. He gave up all his leisure time to me, foregoing gaieties of every sort to sit with a peevish sick man. I wonder he has never married, he might pick the country now if he chose, and how pleasant it would be if he would settle near us! But I always supect poor Charles had some sort of disappointment in his early youth, though I never could get at the truth of the matter. I found it was a sore subject, so I soon ceased teasing him. There's your sister, Agnes, (though to be sure she is rather too old for him now,) but I think even her proud hear could not resist him." Thus the Colonel ran on, neither Mrs. St. Aubyn or myself attempting to interrupt him. I guessed at once by her heightened colour, and the compressed expression of her face, that this subject was to her one of intense and painful interest. A dark suspicion darted into my mind. Could this fair and guileless looking being be really less innocent than she appeared? Was it possible that the man so applauded and admired by her husband, could have some secret tie to her, some means of correspondence with her, of which that husband had no knowledge? I confess I trembled at such a supposition, I was ashamed of it, yet I could not shake it off. I longed to see this paragon of excellence, and yet I felt that his arrival was more to be dreaded than wished for. He came, and I could not for a moment doubt that at least a portion of my surmise was correct. I was sure that in spite of every other consideration, in spite of herself, Mrs. St. Aubyn loved him. It was in vain that she strove for self-command, the very effort for composure increased her confusion in his presence. In one sense, however, my mind was relieved by these symptoms. There could not be actual abandonment to guilt, where so deadly a strife was at work within. The boldness, or the reckless despair that follows the commission of actual crime, would have produced a very different demeanour from that of poor Mrs. St. Aubyn. My apprehensions for the future grew stronger as my fears for the past diminished. I felt that she was yet, at least, comparatively innocent. The behaviour of Willersley was altogether different. That he was not unscathed by the unhappy passion that seemed gnawing at the very core of Mrs. St. Aubyn's heart, I was well convinced. But he was gifted with greater skill in the concealment of his emotions, than poor Agnes, and his conduct towards her, while it was full of deference and respect, never was exchanged for more than distant politeness for a moment. He evidently shrunk from seeing her alone, attaching himself as much as possible to the Colonel, whose taste for farming and gardening kept him a good deal out of doors. It was pitiable to see Mrs, St. Aubyn's dejection during his absence. The colour faded from her cheek, and the light from her eye as the door closed on him. She would drop her work, and unheeding my presence, would sit with her pretty hands resting idly on her knee, in an attitude of the deepest melancholy. If any one entered the room, she would frequently quit it, to weep alone, as the pallid cheek and swollen eyes sadly testified on her return. I wondered that under the circumstances, Major Willersley should have chosen to pay a visit to Woodfield; but I found afterwards, that he had not done so with any good will of his own, but because he could not well avoid it. He had so frequently evaded the Colonel's pressing invitations, that there was no longer any escape for him, and he witnessed poor Agnes's ill-concealed unhappiness, until his own heart was almost tortured to madness. The enduring truth of her love for him had never forced itself on his convictions until now. He had imagined that his self-love had deceived him, when he deemed himself the object of her affections in long past years, or that at most her liking for him had been childish fancy, easily dissipated by the dazzling prospects which a union with Colonel St. Aubyn afforded. His own constancy had never for a moment been shaken; he had learned to think of her as another's wife with little pain, but he felt that the heart he had early consecrated to her could never be offered to another. riage, and then in the bustle of a few They had met but once since her mardays spent at Malta; but now that he met her in the quiet atmosphere of her English home, the truth, that she loved him still, entered his mind, and raised there a host of feelings even bitterer and harder to contend with, than those that had beset him in bygone days, when he became self-exiled for her sake. The second week of Major Willersley's visit saw the termination of mine, and I quitted Woodfield Park with a mind full of misgivings and presentiments of evil, doomed, alas! to be realized, though not in the way I apprehended. "You cannot leave us this week, Willersley. I am sure your business cannot be so pressing as to take you to town before Monday at soonest. You know I must be at Nboth on Friday and Saturday, about this confounded poaching affair, and who is to take care of my little Agnes whilst I am away." So spake General St. Aubyn, in reply to an allegation of Willersley's "that he must be in London on Friday." But the General's persuasion would have had little weight against his friend's resolution, had not a mightier spell just then been permitted to have power on him. For as he raised his eyes to repeat his refusal, he encountered those of Mrs. St. Aubyn's, full of an expression of such mournful lips, and he consented to remain. It entreaty, that the words died on his ought to have been otherwise, but woe for the frailty of human resolutions! It was Saturday evening. Agnes, with the strange perversity of an unhappy mind, though she had longed for nothing so much as the opportunity of once seeing Willersley alone, had remained in her chamber the whole of the preceding day, under the plea of a severe headache. Willersley tried to think he was glad, but his heart rebelled at the thought. He was vexed and disappointed, though he would scarcely allow it, even to himself. One moment he admired the self-denying virtue of Agnes,-the next he was inclined to accuse her of heartless coquetry. Was it not she who had induced him to stay,-whose influence had prevailed over his better judgment, whose glance had melted his stern resolves, as the lightning_fuses the hardest steel in a moment? Then, again, he reproached himself with injustice. Surely, if Agnes loved him, she was acting most wisely both by him and herself. If she were merely conscious of his passion, (but this could not be all,) she was equally right in removing herself from his presence. So he argued with himself, if argument be a fitting name by which to designate the contending thoughts and feelings that agitated him: but, when Mrs. St. Aubyn's absence extended to the second afternoon, he felt annoyed and miserably impatient for her appearance, if it were only for a moment. It There was a small apartment on the ground floor, opening into a conservatory, which was especially dedicated to Mrs. St. Aubyn's use. was fitted up with extraordinary taste and elegance; and here its fair mistress often retired to muse and mourn, indulging in solitary reveries, even more dangerous to her peace than the actual presence of Willersley. Into these enchanted precincts Charles had seldom sought admission. He felt as if that apartment, SO peculiarly Agnes's own, was a charmed circle, where her influence over him was too entirely paramount. His heart had never been so soft, and his resolutions so faint as in that bower of beauty. He had conscientiously shunned it,particularly for the last few days; but weary of his loneliness, restless and unhappy, he went forth, intending only, as he persuaded himself, to wander out into the gardens. The path to his intended promenade however, lay past the conservatory,—the door was slightly open, and he paused before it. Betwixt the orange-trees and myrtles, which bordered the approach to the boudoir, he could just perceive the figure of Agnes, seated near a table. Her back was towards him; her cheek rested on her hand, and her attitude was one expressive of deep dejection. He hesitated a moment, then entered the conservatory, and, advancing softly, murmured: "Mrs. St. Aubyn !" She started and turned round,-he caught her hand in his, and clasping it fervently, exclaimed— "Agnes!" Another moment, and, in all probability, he would have fallen at her feet, and confessed the burning passion that was fevering his soul, and, even in bidding her an eternal farewell, there would have been rapture, whose memory no after sorrow could have obliterated, in that agonized pouring forth of the hoarded feelings of years. But he was preserved in the hour of temptation, and the impulse was checked ere it could be acted upon; for a light, quick step was heard in the conservatory, and the orphan boy, before mentioned, came bounding into the room. 66 "Come, dear mamma," he cried, nurse says you are ill, but I am sure this soft sunshine would do you good. See, I have brought your bonnet; come and walk with us on the terrace." The child's sweet voice and winning smile were irresistible; and the unhappy pair arose, and each taking a hand of the fair boy, they went forth. They spoke not to each other, but each talked to the child; and, when Agnes kissed his brow, Willersley stooped and pressed his lips where hers had been; and Mrs. St. Aubyn trembled at the consciousness of the delight that thrilled her heart as he did so. It was a glorious sunset. They paused on the raised terrace-walk, which they were pacing, and gazed long upon the scene before them. Immediately beneath them lay an extensive garden, laid out in the Italian style, and ornamented with statues and temples. Its centre was marked by a magnificent fountain, whose waters rose and fell in large arched columns, their summits now radiant in the last sunlight. Beyond the garden spread a shrubbery, principally of evergreens, which formed a gloomy belt around that gay garden Farther yet was the park,-a broad space of velvet turf, richly studded with groups of fine old trees, and the far, blue hills, their outlines melting into the soft hues of the evening sky, formed the boundary of the scene. Here they stood in silence, the child still placed between them, and even his merry prattle was hushed, as he found himself unanswered; and he stole looks of curious wonder alternately at each of their faces. The tears were quietly stealing down Agnes' cheeks, and there was a relief in their indulgence; a calm seemed to have fallen on her grief, and, for a few minutes she felt comparatively happy. But there was a sound to disturb their momentary dreaming. A horseman galloped rapidly towards the house, and, in a few minutes, had dismounted and joined them. He brought them a hasty summons to proceed to N, where Colonel St. Aubyn had been seized with sudden and dangerous illness. On leaving home the preceding day the Colonel had complained of lassitude and headache, but he had tried to persuade himself that a gallop in the fresh air would certainly relieve him. Towards night he became much worse, and his symptoms had assumed such an alarming appearance on the following day, that the medical attendant had pronounced his removal, in his present state, impossible; and had deemed it advisable to send for his friends. Half an hour more, and the pair so lately wrapt in romantic dreaming, were whirling along a dusty road as fast as four post-horses could speed. In Mrs. St. Aubyn the sudden news had produced a strange revulsion of feeling. She seemed like one awakened from a dream. The reverence and gratitude, which, in spite of the absence of warmer feelings, she had always entertained for her husband, seemed to rush on her heart with overwhelming power, and she cried and sobbed hysterically, as, shrinking from Willersley's touch, she leaned in the corner of the carriage. It was long before his words of consolation were heard or heeded; and it was as much as he could do, to induce her to be tolerably composed by the time they reached Ň Who may paint the wretched combination of feelings with which she entered the apartment of the invalid? There was bitter shame and self-reproach at her heart when she remembered the state of her feelings a few hours before. For awhile they seemed to be utterly swept away in the torrent of her anguish and remorse: it was as if a world had been shattered at her feet, or a fearful chasm yawned in her path. The sinfulness of the love she had been indulging had never seemed so vividly placed before her eyes as now. For a week the Colonel seemed to totter on the very confines of the grave, during which time he was sedulously attended by his wife and Major Willersley. The character of their attachment seemed utterly changed. They seldom spoke together, and when they did, it was merely on some subject connected with the patient's accommodation or comfort, for they durst not trust themselves to think of the event that seemed fast approaching. They shrunk from alluding to its possibility; for each had a secret consciousness that their sorrow for such a termination of the colonel's illness would not be so unmingled with consolation as it ought to have been. At length the physician communicated to Willersley his fears that the crisis, which was approaching would be an unfavourable one; and, shortly after, the Colonel requested that Willersley and his wife might be left alone with him. He addressed them in detached sentences,-his exhausted state scarcely permitting him to speak audibly. "Agnes,-dear Agnes, you have been a gentle, attentive, obedient wife. The world might think I was too old for you, but you have never given me cause to regret our union. Charles, you have been dearer to me than any one on earth, except Agnes. I know you are brave, and wise, and generous. It grieves me to think of my gentle wife's situation when I am gone. Will |