ALONE. BY MARION HARLAND, OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.

Hemans.

NINETEENTH THOUSAND.

NEW YORK: J. C. DERBY, 119 NASSAU STREET. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO. CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY. 1856.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by A. MORRIS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Virginia.

DEDICATION.

To my Brother and Sister.

It is meet that those whose sympathy has been dew and sunshine to the nursery plant, should watch over its transplantation into the public garden. And as this Dedication is the only portion of the book which is new to you, you do not require that it should remind you of the welcome stormy evenings, when I laid down my pen, to read to you the chapters written since our last "select party;" how the fictitious names of my real characters were household words to our trio: and your flattering interest—grateful because sincere—stimulated my flagging spirits in the performance of my task. You know, too, what many may not believe—with what misgivings it was entered upon, and prosecuted; what fears of the licensed critic's ban, and the unlicensed public's sneer;—above all, you comprehend the motive that held me to the work—an earnest desire to contribute my mite for the promotion of the happiness and usefulness of my kind. Coming as it does from my heart—penned under the shadow of our home-altar, I cannot but feel that the mission of my

offering is to the hearts of others,—ask for it no higher place than the fireside circle. Readers and judges like yourselves, I may not, do not hope to find; but I trust there are those who will pardon the lack of artistic skill in the plot, or the deficiency of stirring incident, in consideration of the fact, that my story is what it purports to be, a simple tale of life—common joy and sorrow, whose merits, if it has any, consist in its truthfulness to Nature, and the fervent spirit which animated its narration.

MARION HARLAND.

Richmond, 1854.

CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. CHAPTER XXVI. CHAPTER XXVII. CHAPTER XXVIII. CHAPTER XXIX. CHAPTER XXX. CHAPTER XXXI. CHAPTER XXXII. CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHAPTER I.

The Sermon was over; the funeral psalm chanted brokenly, by reason of quick-drawn sobs, and bursts of tender remembrance; the heart's tribute to the memory of the departed. "The services will be concluded at the grave," pronounced the clergyman in an unwilling voice; and a shuddering awe fell, as it ever does, upon all. "The Grave!" Even in the presence of the sheeted dead, listening to the rehearsal of excellences lost to earth,—set as living stars in a firmament of unchanging splendor;—we cannot comprehend the dread reality of bereavement. Earth smiles the same; familiar faces surround us; and if the absence of one is painfully noted, the soul would fain delude itself with the belief that his departure is not forever;—"he is not dead, but sleepeth." But "the Grave!" These two words convey an irrevocable sentence. We feel for the first time the extent of the gulf that separates us from the clay, beloved, although inanimate; the dissevering of every bond of companionship. For us the earth has, as before, its griefs, its joys and its duties;—for the dear one—but a grave!

The story of a life is ended there. The bearers advanced and took up the coffin. They were no hired officials, performing their work with ill-concealed indifference, or faces robed in borrowed lugubriousness; but old family servants, who had sported with the deceased in infancy; faithfully served her in later years, and had now solicited and obtained this mournful privilege. Tears coursed down their dusky cheeks as they lifted their burden and bore it forth from the portal which seemed to grow darker, as she, the light of the dwelling, quitted it, to return no more. They wound through the flowery labyrinth whose mazes were her care and delight. The dews of evening[Pg 6] were beginning to descend upon the thirsting petals, and in the breezeless air hung, in an almost visible cloud, the grateful return of spicy and languishing odors. A tall rose tree drooped over the path, and as the bearers brushed by its stem, a shower, like perfumed snow-flakes, lay upon the pall. The end of the journey was reached; a secluded and beautiful spot in the lower

part of the garden, where were many mounds clustered together—graves of a household. A weeping willow, years before, a little shoot, planted by the hand of the wife to mark her husband's resting-place, now grown into a stately tree, swept its feathery pendants above her pillow. The cords were lashed around the coffin, and the word given to lower it into the pit; when—with a shriek that chilled the blood of the bystanders—a slight figure darted forward, and clasped it in her arms. "Mother! oh mother! come back!" Men of iron nerve bowed in childlike weakness, and wept, as this desolate cry rent the air. She spoke not another word, but lay, her cheek to the cold wood, enclosing the colder form, and her fingers interlocked in a vice-like grasp. "Ida! my child!" said the old minister, bending to raise her; "She is not here. She is with her God. Can you wish her again upon this sinful earth?" His consolation was addressed to an ear as dull as that of the corpse. In that outburst of frenzied supplication, consciousness had left her.

"It is best so!" said the venerable man. "She could not have borne it else."

The ceremony was concluded—"dust to dust—ashes to ashes;"—and the crowd turned sorrowfully away. It was not in pity for the orphan alone. There were none there who could not recount some deed of love or charity done by her, whom they had given to the earth. Since the deaths of a fondly loved partner and three sweet children, Mrs. Ross had sought balm for her wounds, by binding up those of others. Environed by neighbours, whose position and means were more humble than her own, she had ample exercise for her active benevolence;—benevolence evincing itself,—not in studied graciousness and lavish almsgiving, but in kindly sympathy, and those nameless offices of friendship, so easily rendered, so dear to the recipient. "Her children shall rise up and call her blessed," was the text of her funeral discourse, and the pastor but uttered the[Pg 7] feelings of his auditory, when he called the community in which her blameless life had been passed, her family—loving her, and through her, united together in bonds of fraternal affection. In

this genial clime, had Ida Ross been nurtured;—beloved for her mother's sake, as for the warm impulses of her generous nature; petted and indulged; yet obeying the least expression of her parent's wishes, not in slavish fear, but a devotion amounting to worship. She had no companions of her own age who were her equals in education or refinement, and from intimate connection with vulgarity she shrank instinctively. Her pride was not offensively displayed. No one could live in the sphere of which Mrs. Ross was the ruling power and feel aught like superciliousness or contempt of inferiors. From infancy, Ida was her mother's companion; at an early age her confidante and co-adviser; had read her pure heart as a richly illuminated missal, from which self-examination and severe criticism had expunged whatever could sully or disfigure. Can we marvel that she shrined her in her heart of hearts as a being more than human—scarcely less than divine?

That mysterious Providence who guides the fowler's messenger of death to the breast of the parent bird, leaving the callow nestling to perish with hunger, recalled the mother's spirit ere her labor of love was completed. Ida was an orphan in her fifteenth year;—the age of all others when a mother's counsels are needed;—when the child stands tremblingly upon the threshold of girlhood, and looks with wondering, wistful eyes into the rosy vista opened to her sight. Babes in knowledge, nine girls out of ten are grown in heart at fifteen. A stroke, whether of extraordinary joy or sorrow, will oftentimes demolish the gew-gaws of the child, and reveal instead, the patient endurance, the steady faith, the all-absorbing love of a woman. A week had passed—a week devoted by the bereaved to thoughts of, and weepings for the lost, by others to preparations for her residence among strangers. Years might elapse before her return. That night, as stealthily as though seeking a forbidden spot, she trod the path to her mother's grave. It was clear starlight, and she

sat down beside the newly sodded mound, and rested her brow upon it. Cold—cold and hard! but it entombed her mother;—aye! and her heart! for what had she to love now? There was[Pg 8] no loving breast to receive that aching head;—no solace for the wounded spirit. The dew-gems lay freshly upon the grass;—for her the dewiness of life was gone;—earth was one vast sepulchre. She looked up to the stars. In the summer evenings her mother's chair used to stand in the piazza, and she sat at her feet, her eyes fixed alternately upon her angelic face, and the shining orbs above them. Mrs. Ross loved to think of them as the abodes of the blest; the mansions prepared for those who had sojourned in this sin-stained world and yet worn their white robes unblemished; and the theory was confidently adopted by the imaginative child. She drank in descriptions of the glories of those celestial regions until her straining eyes seemed to catch a glimpse of a seraph's glittering robe, and she leaned breathlessly forward to hear the music of his golden harp. But to-night

the sparkling smiles of those effulgent ones, "forever singing as they shine," were changed to pitying regards as they beheld her so sad and lonely;—the gleam of the seraph's wings was dimmed; his far-off melody plaintive and low, and the burden of his song was "alone." The wind waved the willow-boughs, and a whispering ran through the leaves—"Alone—alone!" The words were so audibly breathed that the girl started in her delirious sorrow, and gazed wildly around. "Oh mother! cannot you leave Heaven for one short minute to comfort your child? Who will love her now? Alone, all alone! mother! dear mother!"

[Pg 9]

CHAPTER II

Two persons sat in the parlor of a handsome house situated in a pleasant street of the capital of our Old Dominion. The afternoon of a summer's day was deepening into twilight, but the waning light sufficed to show the features of the occupants. There was no hazard in pronouncing them father and daughter. The square forehead, indicative rather of keenness of perception and shrewd sense, than high intellectual faculties; the full, grey eye; flexible lips, and heavily moulded chin were the same in both, although softened in the younger, until her face might have been deemed pretty, had the observer omitted to remark an occasional steel-like spark, struck from the clear eyes, and a compression of the mouth, betokening a sleeping demon whom it would be dangerous to arouse from his lair. A turbulent light flashed there now. She had thrown herself into the corner of a sofa, after many restless wanderings through the apartment, and the shapely foot, oscillating rapidly, beat with its toe, a tattoo agitato upon the floor. Her father was immersed in thought or apathy.

She repeated a question in a voice which savored of peevishness, before he withdrew his eyes from the watch-key, the twirling of which had been his occupation for a quarter of an hour. "At what hour will your ward arrive, sir?"

"She must be here in a short time. They have travelled slowly. The journey might have been accomplished as well in one day, as two."

"You said her escort was a clergyman, I think. Gentlemen of the cloth are not famous for inconveniencing themselves to gratify others," responded the young lady. "They inveigh against the emptiness and vanity of sublunary things; yet I know no class of men who enjoy 'creature comforts' more."

"Confounded humbugs!" was the rejoinder, and a muttered something about "priest-craft" and "blind leaders of the blind" finished the sentence so charitably begun.

Another pause was ended by the daughter. "Miss Ross'[Pg 10] father was an early friend of yours,—a college chum,—was he not?"

"He was,—and a clever fellow into the bargain;" said her father, with a touch of feeling in his tone. "At his death, he left to me the management of his child's property,—(a snug operation I have made of it, too!) In the event of the mother's decease, I was appointed sole guardian, an office for which, it must be said, I have little partiality. If Mrs. Ross had given her up to me ten years ago, I might have made something of her; but she said a mother was the proper guide for her daughter. Women are wonderfully self-sufficient,—always undertaking what it would puzzle sensible men to do, and perfectly satisfied with the style in which it is done." If there was any meaning in the severity of this remark, the face and voice of the listener betrayed no consciousness.

"How old is Miss Ross?"

"What is your age?" and seeing her hesitate—"What does the Family Bible say? I want no school-girl airs."

"I am fifteen sir," raising her eyes coolly to his.

"And she is two months younger. A pretty time I shall have for six years; unless she takes it into her head to marry before she is of age. Very probably she will; for her fortune, although small, is large enough to attract some fool, too lazy to work, and too ambitious to remain poor."

"Is she pretty?"

"How should I know? I only saw her at her mother's funeral, where she got up quite a scene—fainting and such like. I came away the next day, and she was still too unwell to leave her room, they said."

"Romantically inclined! Pity she should be doomed to uncongenial associations!"

"You would indeed have profited little by my instructions if your mind were infected by these whimsies," said her parent, with a self-gratulatory air. "I pride myself upon your superiority to the generality of your sex, at least, in this respect"—

"There is a carriage at the door," interrupted the other, in an unvarying tone, and without changing her posture. The host met, in the entry, an elderly gentleman and a young girl, whom[Pg 11] he saluted as "Mr. Hall" and "Miss Ross," introducing them to "Miss Read, my daughter." Ida glanced timidly into the face of her guardian, and then hastily scanned that of his daughter. That the scrutiny was unsatisfactory, was to be read in the deeper sadness that fell over her countenance, while the sinking lashes, and trembling lip showed how sharp was the disappointment. Youthful and inexperienced as she was, her heart told her that the bruised tendrils which had been torn from their original support could never learn to twine around these gelid statues.

"You will remain to tea, Mr. Hall," said Mr. Read, as the good clergyman arose.

"I thank you, sir; but our journey has been fatiguing owing to the extreme heat. I find myself in need of rest,—and my charge here requires it more than I do."

"You will call before you leave the city. May we not hope for the pleasure of your company to dinner to-morrow?"

The invitation was accepted; and after a silent pressure of the hand from Ida, and a courtly bow from father and daughter, Mr. Hall took his leave.

"Miss Ross would perhaps like to make some alteration in her dress, Josephine," Mr. Read said; his manner testifying how necessary he esteemed the proposed measure. Miss Read rang for a light, and signified to Ida that she was ready to show her up stairs. Any change from the bleak formality of their presence was a relief; and she longed to be alone, if but for half an hour, that she might give way to the emotions which had been rising and beating, through the livelong day, choking and blinding her. But Miss Read summoned a servant, whom she ordered to wait upon Miss Ross, now and in future; and seated herself in a rocking-chair to watch the progress of the toilette. Mechanically Ida went through the torture of dressing. There are times when it is such;—when the manifold details, heretofore so engaging, are to the preoccupied and suffering mind, like the thorn of the prickly-pear, too small to be observed, but pricking burningly in every fibre and pore. It was a woman—a sister—a girl as young as herself—perhaps as tender-hearted,

who sat there. Why not, with the unrepressed sorrowfulness of a child, bury her face in her lap, and sob, "I have lost my mother!" to be fondled and comforted into composure? It[Pg 12] would be sacrilege to ruffle the elegant propriety of her figure; and the glassy eyes said, by their tearless stare,—"Between you and me there is a great gulf fixed!" One weakness Ida could not overcome; the repugnance to beholding herself in her mourning garments. They as yet reminded her too vividly of the bier and the pall. She averted her eyes, as she stood before the mirror, to put the finishing stroke to her apparel. "I beg your pardon," said the calm voice of Josephine. "Your collar is all awry. Permit me"—Ida submitted in silence, while her volunteer assistant unpinned, and re-arranged the crape folds, but as she gathered them under the mourning brooch, a tear, large and pellucid, dropped upon her hand. It was but a drop of salt water to Miss Read, and she wiped it off, as she asked her guest "to walk down to tea." To the new-comer, the

palatable food was as the apples of Sodom—bitter ashes. She could not swallow or speak. Her companions ate and chatted with great gusto. The ill-humour of an hour since had passed away. This exemplary daughter was her father's idol, when contrasted with other, and less favored girls. She was formed in his image, and when the plastic mind was wax to receive, and adamant to retain impressions, he moulded it after a pattern of his own. He taught her deceit, under the name of self-control; heartlessness, he called prudence; veiled distrust and misanthropy under clear-sightedness and knowledge of human nature. All those holy and beautiful feelings which evidence to man his kindred to his Divine model and Creator, he tossed aside, with the sweeping condemnation—"romance and nonsense!" The crying sin was to be "womanish;"—"woman" and "fool" were synonymes, used indiscriminately to express the superlative of ire-exciting folly. He delighted in showing things as they were. Men were machines, moved by secret springs of policy

and knavery; the world a stage, viewed by others in the deceptive glare of artificial lights, and so made attractive. He had penetrated into the mysteries behind the curtain, and examined, in the unflattering day, the clumsy contrivances, gaudy daubing and disgustful hollowness of the whole. Fancy and the pleasures of imagination were empty, bombastic names; he would have seen in Niagara only a sizeable fall, and "calculated," amidst the rushing shout of its mighty waters, as to the number of[Pg 13] cotton-mills it would turn, and the thousands it would net him, could he transport it, patent right secured, to Virginia. He tore the cloud-covering from the storm-god's brow, and beheld a roaring, vaporing giant, whose insane attacks might be warded off by philosophical precautions, and discretion in the disposition of lightning rods.