voice. At first, both she and her father objected to the cultivation of so elegant an accomplishment, as incompatible with her situation, but Mr. Wentworth insisted, that the proper developement of every innocent talent, was a duty to the great Giver of them, as shewing a grateful sense of his bounties: "Lucy will only praise God more fervently, I feel assured, for being taught to regulate her charming voice, devoting its finest strains to his service." Hence, no further objection was offered, and she soon played and sang delightfully. In this she found a never failing source of intense gratification; while to her father, it proved a soothing recreation, from the cares of the more serious avocations of the day. He was never weary of listening to Lucy's artless warblings, and evening after evening found her seated at the piano, singing his favourite ballads, the songs he remembered in his youth; the quaint old things, so lovely in their simplicity. Neither of them had received any direct information from Lord Morton since his abrupt departure; but, they frequently heard of him, through Mr. Wentworth, whose second son, Alfred, had succeeded Mr. Sackville, as his lordship's land agent; and also, indeed, from every tenant, whose flourishing circumstances, more than words, bore ample testimony to the benefits he was dispensing around his vast domain. Lucy had long since learned to consider the farewell letter she had received, as the mere outpourings of an ardent and overexcited imagination, stimulated by new and powerful emotions, as evanescent as they were impassioned. She constantly expected to hear of his union with some fair creature in his own station; and looked forward with an almost feverish desire, to behold the object of his maturer and more deliberate selection. Early in the following year, the farm contiguous to her father's, which had become vacant by the death of its late occupier, was, to the astonishment of all, and disappointment of many, taken by a Mr. Mortimer, a distant cousin of Lord Morton's, a gentleman of rather recluse habits, and delicate health, who had been strongly recommended by the faculty, to try country air, and rural pursuits, as a means of renovating an extremely shattered constitution. This news naturally startled the island from its propriety. Curiosity was raised to the highest pitch, to behold this cousin of my lord's; the young, wondering whether he was handsome, and the old, whether he could farm. Mr. Harcourt and Lucy shared the general excitement and anxiety, for the arrival of the stranger; the former, marvelling how one reared in inactivity and luxury, could ever entertain CHAPTER IX. "Adieu for him, The dull engagements of the bustling world; By streams and shades, to steal these sighing hours, Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination. "He has I know not what Of greatness in his looks and of high fate, That almost awes me”—Dryden's Marriage a-la-Mode. TIME sped on, in imperceptible and uninterrupted tranquillity; scarcely noted by the now happy Mr. Harcourt and Lucy. They who used so to dread every coming hour, as fearing it pregnant with some new calamity, suffered days, and even weeks to pass unheeded, in the smooth tenour of prosperity. Sorrow alone, with its murmuring voice, and heavy heart, faithfully registers the slow revolving hours. Joy soon becomes an idler in its accounts; soon becomes too accustomed to felicity, to mark its brilliant progress! Man must be naturally ungrateful to Providence, it would seem, thus to remember only to complain. Oh, why not be equally retentive of his blessings? Animated with the hope of paying off his longstanding arrears, health and strength returned; once more, he was the active, busy farmer; full of energy, seizing on every improvement, and proud in the promise of the finest crops eyes ever luxuriated on. Lucy, happy in the happiness of her father, partook of the buoyancy of his spirits, entered keenly into his sanguine expectations; yet, with a gentler, a more subdued tone of feeling, -trusting for their fulfilment to Him who regulates the seasons, and blesses the earth with increase. She, too, had recovered her original vivacity and beauty, lifting up her lovely young head, to the clear and genial sky, now smiling over her, as the snowdrop, bursting through the frost-bound earth, rears its pearly bells in the glad advent of spring. The kind young ladies at the parsonage, to divert her late melancholy, had insisted on instructing her in music, for which she had a surprising aptitude, united to a sweet, melodious voice. At first, both she and her father objected to the cultivation of so elegant an accomplishment, as incompatible with her situation, but Mr. Wentworth insisted, that the proper developement of every innocent talent, was a duty to the great Giver of them, as shewing a grateful sense of his bounties: "Lucy will only praise God more fervently, I feel assured, for being taught to regulate her charming voice, devoting its finest strains to his service." Hence, no further objection was offered, and she soon played and sang delightfully. In this she found a never failing source of intense gratification; while to her father, it proved a soothing recreation, from the cares of the more serious avocations of the day. He was never weary of listening to Lucy's artless warblings, and evening after evening found her seated at the piano, singing his favourite ballads, the songs he remembered in his youth; the quaint old things, so lovely in their simplicity. Neither of them had received any direct information from Lord Morton since his abrupt departure; but, they frequently heard of him, through Mr. Wentworth, whose second son, Alfred, had succeeded Mr. Sackville, as his lordship's land agent; and also, indeed, from every tenant, whose flourishing circumstances, more than words, bore ample testimony to the benefits he was dispensing around his vast domain. Lucy had long since learned to consider the farewell letter she had received, as the mere outpourings of an ardent and overexcited imagination, stimulated by new and powerful emotions, as evanescent as they were impassioned. She constantly expected to hear of his union with some fair creature in his own station; and looked forward with an almost feverish desire, to behold the object of his maturer and more deliberate selection. Early in the following year, the farm contiguous to her father's, which had become vacant by the death of its late occupier, was, to the astonishment of all, and disappointment of many, taken by a Mr. Mortimer, a distant cousin of Lord Morton's, a gentleman of rather recluse habits, and delicate health, who had been strongly recommended by the faculty, to try country air, and rural pursuits, as a means of renovating an extremely shattered constitution. This news naturally startled the island from its propriety. Curiosity was raised to the highest pitch, to behold this cousin of my lord's; the young, wondering whether he was handsome, and the old, whether he could farm. Mr. Harcourt and Lucy shared the general excitement and anxiety, for the arrival of the stranger; the former, marvelling how one reared in inactivity and luxury, could ever entertain the mistaken notion of being able to conform to the rude. labours, even the really independent farmer must submit to; and the latter, with all a woman's spontaneous commiseration, hoping he would not overtask himself, that he would not find it intolerably dull, and that instead of improving his health, and beguiling his sadness, increase both. 'My dear father," soliloquized the affectionate, and grateful girl, "must do all he possibly can to assist and amuse him; he owes so much to Lord Morton, it will be a pleasure to repay some of the obligations he is under to him, by kind and respectful attentions to his cousin." Upholsterers came from London to furnish the house, a large, commodious one, in the Elizabethan style; the garden, which had been much neglected in the more money-making days of his predecessor, was soon in admirable order, under the superintendence of the young gardener, engaged from a firstrate nurseryman near town; and the housekeeper, who, by a fortuitous circumstance, happened to be the foster-mother of Lucy's hapless orphanage, soon had everything most comfortably arranged for her new master: Lucy, by her advice and taste, helping the doating and obedient Martha most materially. She had been hired to fill this very easy situation, at the suggestion of Lucy, in her declining years, by Mr. Alfred Wentworth, who saw to all, having known Mr. Mortimer at college. Numerous were the questions put to him continually respecting the age, appearance, tastes, temper, character, and habits, of the neighbour so impatiently expected. He answered invariably that he was young, pleasing, elegant, accomplished, and of a benevolence of mind and suavity of manner most winning and encouraging. It was late on a Saturday evening when Mr. Mortimer reached the " Paddocks," the name of his residence. On the following day, Lucy beheld him seated in Mr. Wentworth's pew. She quite started at the extraordinary resemblance she fancied he bore to Lord Morton; on looking again, however, with more attention, she perceived that it was merely a strong family likeness which had struck her so at first: that he was not so tall, much paler, and with a fixed and inexpressibly pensive cast of countenance, totally at variance with the beaming joyousness of his cousin's. Lucy, even in that sacred place, could not restrain her thoughts within the sanctuary of her guileless bosom, from wandering occasionally to the interesting young man, whose bad health, and evident depression of spirits, awoke her sincerest pity. This impression in his favour was considerably strength ened by the devout and unaffected manner in which he entered into the truly sublime and impressive service of our church. Nothing, indeed, is more affecting than to witness those on the very threshold of this world, still offering up their aspirations on high, as if the young, unscathed hearts, as it were, by intuition, yearned for a better! On quitting the church, Lucy and her father were formally introduced to Mr. Mortimer by Mr. Wentworth, and they walked leisurely home together, Mr. Harcourt almost exclusively engrossing the conversation of their intelligent companion, who appeared most desirous of cultivating his good opinion, and benefiting by his experience, being, in truth, as he candidly confessed, a perfect amateur in agriculture. Mr. Harcourt listened, with patronizing compassion, to the modest avowal of his ignorance on such a momentous affair, and his earnest hopes of his kind instruction, which were promised with a hearty warmth. Lucy, too, listened to that clear, sonorous voice, that elegant enunciation, that rare selection of the most choice terms, even for the most common-place topics, and watched every turn of that eloquent countenance, now animated with the heat of argument almost to the glow of health, until she was fascinated with the enchantment of being in the presence of a true gentleman and a refined scholar, than which nothing is more enamouring. On reaching the little garden gate, Mr. Mortimer took his leave, after obtaining permission to call whenever he was at a loss for advice or assistance. Lucy lingered behind her father a few moments, to indulge the sweet and tender conjectures which crowded her fanciful imagination respecting the source of sadness so apparent in Mr. Mortimer. With all the tact of her sex, she concluded that he must be suffering from a disappointed affection. "Yet, what could have been adverse to his? No woman blest with the love of such a being could have deceived him, could have proved faithless. No: that was utterly out of the question. He is mourning over the hopes which death has blighted; his heart has withered beneath its blasting stroke; his tears have fertilized the sod that covers the remains of his betrothed! Yes, it must be so; his deep mourning, his pallid cheek, his abstracted air, all, all betoken that his anguish is the anguish of death, that his sorrow is the sorrow of the grave! And yet they send him here ALONE, to brood in silence and solitude, to nurse his despair, to recall the past, and feed on those memories which render the present so bitter! And they tell him, that he will regain his health and spirits, and learn to love and value life July, 1848.-VOL. LIII.-NO. CCVII. Z |