CHAPTER I. A NEW FRIEND.

There were no bounds to the affection Miss Warmond had conceived, or professed to have conceived, for Mina Frazer: her parents had, no doubt, entertained a sort of love for the girl; Malcolm, possibly, might be fond enough of his sister; the laird and Allan were evidently deeply interested concerning her welfare; but to have seen and heard Miss Warmond, one really would have imagined that her very soul was wrapt up in her new friend; that Mina Frazer was to her, light, air, sunshine; that where she lived, happiness must ever abide.

Now, every one among us has probably met, at one period or other, some bright sunshiny face that claimed and received at once, without the usual dreary preliminary fee, called long acquaintance, a 2portion of his regard, a corner in his memory, a very abundant share of friendship; and, therefore, to deny that occasionally an individual may jump into an intimacy, and not repent of his rashness afterwards, would be an absurdity. But for one person who leaps and finds good safe ground under his feet, fifty discover they have managed to entangle themselves in a very difficult quagmire. The rule is, that friendship, being an affair of sense and reason, and not a dream of sentiment, ought to be the result of long acquaintance and great watchfulness; and the exception that, as some people are possessed of the great art of making themselves liked at once, the acceptance of their hand in friendship is not an act always to be dreaded, though it may be well to perform even that simple operation with a sufficient amount of caution to lessen the risk of subsequent disappointment.

A limited number of individuals are perfectly irresistible: if they say, “You shall like me,” they are sure to accomplish their purpose; and if one of this chosen band do occasionally work mischief, the victim is rarely blamed for being so absurdly “taken in,” everybody knowing that some human beings, like some snakes, are impotent to repel the power of “fascination,” and that it is not in the nature of 3man to be always suspecting evil, more especially when it lies hidden under honied words and kind looks and noble sentiments.

And so, if Mina Frazer had been a peculiarly “captivating creature,” a bright cheerful gladsome being, going about claiming a corner in every heart, a joyful greeting in every home, who had mixed much in society, and yet remained unspoiled by it, who went through the world gathering friends as others do enemies at each brief stopping-place, Miss Warmond might have professed an undying attachment for her on the occasion of a first interview, without incurring the imputation of telling fibs; but, as it unfortunately chanced that she was the enchantress, it resulted that Mina was the dupe of Cecilia, who succeeded to perfection in throwing all sorts of dust into the unsuspecting eyes of the laird’s niece, a feat she had often successfully performed on the much keener orbs of wiser and older persons.

Mina Frazer was a girl to become gradually interested in, not perhaps to be taken with soon, but to remember for long; to value, not for any particular grace, or ease of manner, or felicity of expression, or striking beauty, but for the real genuineness of her character, the steadiness of her nature, 4and the earnest truth and purity of her heart. It is said that extremes meet, that opposites agree, and if any one who had acquired the least insight into Miss Warmond, could have dreamt of believing her sincere in anything save her aversions, the above paradoxes might have accounted for the sudden affection she evinced towards Mina. But Cecilia denied that they were dissimilar in aught “save manner and, perhaps, appearance:” she said, “their tastes, thoughts, feelings were identical;” and her new friend believed this statement to be perfectly correct, for the General’s daughter could “seem all things to all men,”—sneer with the scoffer and pray with the Christian; she laughed with the hopeful and sighed with the desponding; she had a clever

story or witty repartee for those whose temperament was more mirthful than melancholy, and yet there was not a chord of sentiment, a tone of grief, she was not capable of sounding for the edification of the romantic, the world-tired, the unhappy.

Her mind was just like her piano, she could draw anything from it she pleased; whatever air was called for, whether joyful or sorrowful, plaintive or spirit-stirring, mournful or triumphant, holy or profane, came ready to order.

All she required was a hint as to the sort of 5melody her auditor fancied; that sufficed, for simple ballad or brilliant bravura, slow dirge or rapid concerto, all seemed alike to her.

“She is so clever she can do anything,” said her father.

Perhaps it might have been quite as well had fewer talents been entrusted to her keeping, for then she could not have been held accountable for the misuse of so many.

There is, however, a charm about real simplicity of character, which exercises a strange spell even over those whose minds are as full of twists and turns as was the Cretan labyrinth of old; and thus, perhaps, as Mina was by no means so accomplished or so handsome as Miss Warmond, and appeared, in that lady’s eyes, in the light “of quite a chit of a child,” it is just possible, at the bottom of the immense mountain of absurd pretence which the General’s daughter raised and styled attachment, there may have originally existed a little grain of that indefinite article, liking, beyond which, staid, sensible people never go,—further than which it might be well for many never to venture.

Mina’s boundless admiration probably flattered the vanity of one whose desire for praise was, indeed, almost unlimited; besides, Miss Warmond had 6a few very cogent reasons for affecting, in the present instance, a fondness she was incapable of feeling; and accordingly she lavished such an amount of attachment on the girl, that Mr. Frazer felt quite gratified, and Mina wrote Miss Caldera a long letter full, as that lady drily remarked, of “Cecilia Warmond;” and Malcolm—who, whenever he once became enamoured of a face that pleased him, went on from stage to stage of absurdity till he grew tired of it, or saw something which pleased him better—began to think, in the superlative vanity and conceit of his boyish heart, that the Edinburgh belle, the heiress of Glenfiord, must have taken a fancy to his mother’s darling,—that, in short, the lady’s love for the sister was caused solely by her love for the brother; whilst Allan, who alone fully comprehended the whole business, sneered as he looked grimly on, for it was Cecilia Warmond who had

contrived, with sweet smiles and sweeter words, to cast the shadow over Craigmaver, the cloud across the soul of Mina’s clever cousin.

No mortal ever ventured within the magic circle of her attractions who passed out scatheless therefrom; no one who once gazed admiringly upon her, ever subsequently forgot that woman: she was not a being to be looked at, flirted with, talked to, flung 7by, and forgotten, but a creature to remember, not for a few hours merely, but through life.

People liked her too soon, and despised her too late; nobody ever “found her out” in time: friend, suitor, enemy, it was just the same,—Cecilia, in due course, wrought sorrow for them all; if any one loved her with a lasting attachment, it was grievous to have to part from her; and it was a worse fate to stay long enough beside her to get a glimpse of the dark turnings of her heart, and yet not be able to leave the enchantress, whose songs had ceased to be melodious, whose tones struck harshly on the ear, whose smiles wearied the eye, whose artifices had no more power to delude; who, the more her captive struggled to be free, held him the tighter; who said to those desirous to become her slaves, “I want you not, away from my presence, and be happy if you can;” and to those who loathed the fetters they had once foolishly permitted her to bind around them, “I will never unloose the chain, and every effort you make to escape me only renders my determination stronger.”

It was, perhaps, merely an act of retributive justice, that Allan Frazer, the most incorrigible flirt who ever existed, should finally meet with his “match” in the person of Cecilia Warmond; still 8it was a hard fate. He had rushed willingly into the trap; and then he would have given all he possessed on earth to get out of it again: but he had caught the bait too greedily to escape the hook, and a hand, strong and cruel, though apparently weak and merciful, held the line,—and, spite of her assumed negligence and careless demeanour and teazing and tormenting, held it, as Allan well knew, securely also.

And for all this, the young man confessed he had nobody to thank but himself: he had fallen so desperately in love with Miss Warmond the season previously, when she first “came out” in Edinburgh, after various “comings out” in London, Paris, and elsewhere, that he had neglected every other pursuit, abandoned every other object, and devoted the whole of his thoughts, energies, and talents to one great end, namely, that of inducing her to care for him; and when, thanks to his being at that time the “rage,” he had succeeded in effecting this purpose, he never rested, by night nor by day, till he had gained a promise from General Warmond, that whenever Cecilia was one-and-twenty she should become his wife. He had, in fine, managed, in the course of a few brief months, to get himself so hopelessly entangled with her and 9her connections—to rush so far along the dangerous road leading to matrimony, without once seriously thinking of whom he actually intended to take for better, for worse—that when, before marriage, he contrived to do, what many of his relatives had

accomplished after that event, namely, fall out of love again, he found, to his unspeakable dismay, that retreat was utterly impossible.

His grandfather beheld the lady in Edinburgh, just when Allan’s affection for her was at fever heat; and the beauty, the vivacity, the grace, the position, the pretended high-mindedness, and the assumed amiability of the General’s daughter, so completely captivated old Mr. Frazer, that, with a tremulous voice, he told the young man that the “dearest, proudest wish of his heart would be fulfilled when he brought her home to Craigmaver—a bride;” and thus matters progressed charmingly, till General Warmond and his daughter returned to Glenfiord, and invited Allan to go with them there.

Then, at last, light dawned on his eyes; and when they were opened, he beheld, like the disenchanted visitor to some fairy palace, deformity instead of beauty, affectation in the place of what he had fondly called candour; in fact, just as paper, on which words unintended to meet the common eye have 10been traced, when held before the fire, presents, instead of its former pure white surface, dark tracings, whose very existence was previously unsuspected, so the apparent guilelessness of Cecilia’s character, when presented calmly and steadily to view in the clear searching light of truth, was seen to be spotted all over with stains of hypocrisy, envy, uncharitableness, and selfishness.

He remained a fortnight to note the process, became restless, uneasy, unhappy, and returned to Craigmaver so altered, as to cause his grandfather to mourn over the fickleness of his character, to lament the change society and flattery, and the pomps and vanities of the world, had wrought in the soul of the boy he had educated and been proud of, as if he had been a still nearer relation than was actually the case—his own son.

The quondam lover dared not explicitly state the opinion he had recently arrived at about Miss Warmond; first, because it was not one great fact that could be related against her, but a series of little droppings that had made such fearful inroads on his affection; second, because he had heard the old remark cavillers made anent the inconstancy of his race in matters of the heart; and, as he knew himself sufficiently well to be compelled to admit he 11could admire more ardently than steadily, he was aware that if he confessed the whole state of affairs to his grandfather, he would only be met with charges of changeableness and caprice, from which, on account of various foregone circumstances, he should be perfectly unable to clear himself.

Besides, what was the use of speaking! it was utterly impossible for him to draw back now with honour: if he jilted the girl whom he had professed to adore, it would blast his own prospects and break his uncle’s heart; and, besides, if Miss Warmond really cared for him—which vanity whispered was more than possible—he must marry her, there was no help for it. Fifty times a day Allan cursed his overhaste and his folly and his unlucky destiny, in terms that would have alarmed the old laird’s piety had he heard him: and thus, pining and fretting, because of the chain he had doomed himself to wear, the young man dragged over a few weeks, at the expiration of which time Mina and her brother arrived at Craigmaver.

During those weeks, however, a sort of comprehension of the storm raging within his grandson’s bosom had dawned on the old laird’s brain, and the very day before their relative’s arrival he asked Allan abruptly,

12“Do you repent this engagement?”

“Bitterly,” was the answer, which almost involuntarily escaped the happy lover’s lips; “but there is no use in talking, I cannot recede; I have gone too far for that: if beggaring myself could free me, I would relinquish every shilling I possess; I would give up every dream of fame, every hope in life, to have my liberty restored, to undo ever having seen or spoken to Cecilia Warmond.”

“I never had but one fault to find with this alliance, Allan,” responded the laird, sadly; “I feared you were too unsteady to make any woman permanently happy: you have been flattered and caressed by the beautiful and the amiable till you have grown like a spoiled child, dissatisfied with everything; you weary of the loveliest faces and the most interesting pursuits the moment they lose the charm of novelty; my conviction is,” he added, earnestly, “that Miss Warmond is too good to throw herself away on a ridiculous fellow, who has not the sense to value the pure sterling love of such a creature, when he knows himself to be actually in possession of it.”

“I hope you may always think so, sir,” responded Allan, as he turned to leave the room; “and I only wish you could persuade Miss Warmond to become 13a convert to your opinion. However,” he continued, noticing the shade that came over his grandfather’s face, “I have no intention of running off my engagement; I shall marry whenever the proper time comes: meanwhile, all I ask is no conversation on the subject: I must endeavour to forget her for a space, and try whether absence will, in my unfortunate case, make ‘the heart grow fonder.’”

And accordingly from that hour the lady’s name was never mentioned at Craigmaver till she herself appeared there, for Mr. Frazer had great faith that separation and silence would rekindle the flame; and Allan, feeling that when near Mina he breathed a purer atmosphere than was his wont, not merely, during the course of the month succeeding her arrival, strove to forget Miss Warmond altogether, but occasionally succeeded in this laudable object.

For he was, indeed, fickle as the winds; and, though, had any one told him he was “getting up a flirtation with Mina, his cousin,” she who had been so lately a child, he would indignantly have rejected the idea; yet there cannot be a doubt that he was travelling very fast towards it, when Miss Warmond’s unexpected visit to Locholen startled him from his dream, and roused him to a full memory of 14how he was situated, whom he had proposed for, ay, and actually intended to marry.

He would fain have kept Mina and her apart; but Mr. Gordon knew of the advent of his cousins, and he could not deny that they were still at Craigmaver: he pleaded Mina’s delicacy as an apology for deferring a visit to some indefinite period; but the General’s daughter was too skilful a tactician to be so put off. See the new arrival she was determined she would; indeed, the instant she had heard of the flutter of a petticoat having been noticed on the lawn of Allan’s home, her curiosity had become painfully excited, and accordingly she volunteered to lay aside all ceremony, and “come and make friends with the old laird’s niece,” of whom she had heard so much ever since her arrival in Scotland.

And finding Mina as unlike a rival as can well be imagined, she took the girl thenceforth under her caressing hand, petted and fondled her, and treated her as if she had been a favourite kitten; and poor Mina, never once imagining aught so beautiful could ever treat her unkindly, gave herself up altogether to the care of the lovely vision, who had glanced so unexpectedly across her path.

Locholen was such a distance from Craigmaver, Cecilia found it impossible to see as much as she 15desired of her new friend, so she appeared one day in a handsome open carriage, and carried Mina off bodily with her; but when pressed by the laird to come and spend a little time with his niece, she answered, shaking her curls till their brightness arrested the very sunbeams and caused them to fling rich golden shades on the tresses of her luxuriant hair,

“No, no, the dear grandpapa at home could not do without me at all; I cannot leave him during my brief visit, even for a day;” and so Mina passed the greater portion of a fortnight at Locholen, during which period Miss Warmond, by dint of a little judicious feminine cross questioning, contrived to get everything out of her she wanted to know, which, in plain English, meant that Mina was so foolish as to tell her all the particulars of her life, all about her uncle and Malcolm, and Mr. Westwood and Miss Caldera, and Ernest Ivraine, and everybody and everything; and the young lady, when she had read her through like a book, breathed freely and felt satisfied.

She had never met any one who resembled his niece, she assured the Laird of Craigmaver; there was a something so perfectly natural and unsophisticated about her, so different from the generality of 16the girls she had known, it really was quite refreshing to talk with her; and, in fine, she did talk so effectually to all, that it was ultimately agreed Mina should return with her to Glenfiord, and General Warmond politely hoped “Mr. Frazer, his grandson, and nephew would accompany them also.”

“Should you like to have a peep at your old home, my pet?” demanded Miss Warmond of the girl, when she had fairly set matters in train to effect the grand explosion she contemplated; “should you like to see Ben Lomond and Loch Lomond, and the flowers and the fields and the trees of Glenfiord once more?”

“I should be so glad,” answered Mina, after a pause, “so very glad to see it, only—only—I should be so sorry.”

“Not to come and be my sister there for a while, surely?” said the other; “you have not lost that home, remember, you have only changed it, as you will again change your present one for a brighter and a happier; think of it in that light: let me take you back there and we will talk about anything you like under the shadow of the hills, sitting beside the waterfalls, looking over the silent lake.”