THE
A NOVEL.
AUTHORESS OF
“THE WIFE’S SISTER,” “MAY AND DECEMBER,”
ETC. ETC.
NEW YORK:
W. P. FETRIDGE & CO., PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
FETRIDGE & CO., 100 WASHINGTON ST.
1856.
STEREOTYPED BY
THOMAS B. SMITH,
82 & 84 Beekman Street.
PRINTED BY
GROSSMAN AND WILLETT,
82 & 84 Beekman Street.
It was a summer’s evening. The yellow sunshine streamedthrough the boles of the forest trees, tinting them with purple,vermilion, gold, or the richest brown. It gave a metallic lusterto the tops of the giant oaks, and lighted up with a silverygleam the long feathery sprays of the graceful beech-trees, wavinggently and slowly as the soft breeze passed rustling amongthem. The same slanting sunbeams fell on the dark glossy foliageof the tall groups of holly, and twinkled like stars upontheir stiff-pointed leaves.
Beneath these ancient and hoary trees, on a natural terraceclothed with soft mossy turf, and commanding, along the gladein the forest, a full view of the glowing west, there walked, withslow and lingering step, two persons, who seemed too deeply engrossedin conversation to heed the loveliness of the evening.One of these was a woman, who might perhaps be half way betweenthirty and forty, but still possessing a large share of personalbeauty; tall, dark, glowing, with bright black eyes, andhair as black as jet, parted off her forehead in rich braids, andas she carried her bonnet in her hand, they caught the gleamingsunshine, and seemed to turn purple in its splendor. Hercompanion was a young girl, slender, fair, and rather pale, exceptthat as she listened to the earnest discourse of the matron,the flitting color dyed her cheek for a moment, and then left itpale again. Her slim figure, and girlish proportions, gave anotion of extreme youth and delicacy, and yet her face was ofthat kind which brings a feeling of trust and repose as you gazeupon it; an idea that, young as she was, there was steadinessand principle to be read there.
“But, dear mamma,” said the girl, “why do you talk in thisway? You will soon be about again, and able to see all thesethings yourself.”
And she gazed with earnest, anxious fondness at the face ofher companion, unable to realize that danger could lurk near,or death invade a countenance