.
and that, had she intended to marry, she should have found it an easy duty to conform them to those of her husband: but that the thought of marriage was shocking to her, and she trusted no man would ever again think of her as a wife. Montreville, who for once suspected his daughter of a little affectation, made no effort to combat this unnatural antipathy, but trusted to time and nature for its cure.
As soon as her father left her, Laura, determined not to be brave by halves, began the painful task of destroying every relic of Hargrave's presence. She banished from her port-folio the designs he had made for her drawings, destroyed the music from which he had accompanied her, and effaced from her books the marks of his pencil. She had amused her solitary hours by drawing, in chalks, a portrait of features indelibly engraven on her recollection, and her fortitude failed her when about to consign it to the flames.—'No;' she exclaimed, 'I can never part with this. This, at least, I may love unreproved,' and she pressed it in agony to her heart—inwardly vowing that no human being should fill its place. But such thoughts as these could not linger in the reasonable mind of Laura. The next moment she blushed for her weakness; and, casting away its last treasure, averted her eyes till the flames had consumed it to ashes. 'Now all is over,' she cried, as she threw herself into a chair and burst into tears. But, quickly wiping them away, she resolved that she would not wilfully bind herself to the rack of recollection, and hastened to exert herself in some of her ordinary employments.
Laura was aware that the cottage, where every walk, every shrub, every flower spoke of Hargrave, was a scene unlikely to aid her purpose of forgetting him; and, therefore, she that evening proposed to her father that they should pay their long promised visit to Mrs. Douglas. He readily consented. Their journey was fixed for the following day, and Laura occupied herself in preparing for their departure, though with feelings far different from the delight with which, a few days before, she would have anticipated a meeting with her early friend.
CHAPTER IV
Mrs. Douglas observed, with satisfaction, the improved stature and increasing gracefulness of her young favourite; but she remarked, with painful interest, that the hectic of pleasure which tinged the cheek of Laura, at their meeting, faded fast to the hue of almost sickly delicacy. She soon noticed that an expression, as of sudden torture, would sometimes contract, for a moment, the polished forehead of Laura; that it was now succeeded by the smothered sigh, the compressed lip, the hasty motion that spoke of strong mental effort, now subsided into the languor of deep unconquered melancholy. Such depression Mrs. Douglas could not attribute to the loss of a mother, whose treatment furnished more occasions of patience than of gratitude; and she anxiously longed to discover its real cause. But it was soon evident that this was a secret which Laura had no intention to disclose. A glance from the inquiring eye of Mrs. Douglas, at once recalled her to constrained cheerfulness; and the presence of Captain Montreville seemed always to put her entirely upon her guard. While he was in the room, she talked, read aloud, or played with the children, as if determined to be amused; but as soon as he retired, she relapsed, like one wearied with effort, into languor and melancholy, till recalled to herself by the scrutinizing looks of Mrs. Douglas. Even in their most private conversations, the name of Hargrave never passed her lips. Months, indeed, had elapsed since Laura could have pronounced that name without painful emotion—to utter it now was become almost impossible. She felt that she had no right to publish, while she rejected, his addresses; and she felt an invincible repugnance to expose even his failings, but much more his vices, to the censure of the respectable Mrs. Douglas. Soon after she first saw Hargrave, she had written to her friend a warm eulogium of his fine person, captivating manners, and elegant accomplishments. Mrs. Douglas, in reply, had desired to hear more of this phoenix; but before Laura again found leisure to write, she was no longer inclined to make Hargrave her subject, and her friend had desisted from fruitless inquiries. Mrs. Douglas had lately had an opportunity of judging for herself of the Colonel's attractions; and, so great did they appear to her, that it was with extreme astonishment she heard his late disappointment from Captain Montreville, who did not feel his daughter's delicacy on the subject. This communication only served to increase her perplexity as to the cause of Laura's depression; yet she felt herself relieved from the apprehension, that hopeless love for Hargrave was wasting the health and peace of her dear Laura. Still, however, she continued to watch that expressive countenance, to weigh every word that might tend to unfold the enigma. In vain;—Laura studiously avoided all approach to an explanation. Mrs. Douglas's anxiety now increased to a painful extreme. She felt how necessary to female inexperience is the advice of a female—how indispensable to feminine sorrows are the consolations of feminine sympathy; and she resolved that no false delicacy should withhold her from offering such relief as she might have power to bestow.
One morning, after the gentlemen had left them alone together, Mrs. Douglas, meditating on the best means of introducing the subject she had so much at heart, had fallen into a long silence; when, looking up, she perceived that Laura had let fall her work, and was sitting with her eyes fixed, and her arms dropped, in the attitude of one whose thoughts had no connection with present objects. At the heavy sigh with which Mrs. Douglas surveyed her, she started, and was rousing her attention to some indifferent subject, when Mrs. Douglas, kindly taking her hand, said, 'My dear child, whatever may be necessary with others, I beseech you to be under no constraint with me. I am far from wishing to intrude into your confidence, but do not add the pain of constraint to anguish that already seems so oppressive.'
Large tears stole from under Laura's downcast eyelids; but she spoke not. Mrs. Douglas continued—'If my best advice, my most affectionate sympathy, can be of use to you, I need not say you may command them.'
Laura threw herself into the arms of her friend, and for some moments sobbed with uncontrolled emotion; but soon composing herself, she replied: 'If advice could have profited, if consolation could have reached me, where should I have sought them unless from you, respected friend of my youth;—but the warning voice of wisdom comes now too late, and even your sympathy would be bestowed in vain.'
'Heaven forbid that my dearest Laura should be beyond the reach of comfort. That is the lot of guilt alone.'
'I am grateful to Heaven,' said Laura, 'that I have been less guilty than imprudent. But, my best friend, let us quit this subject. This wretchedness cannot, shall not last. Only let me implore you not to notice it to my father. You know not what horrors might be the consequence.'
Mrs. Douglas shook her head. 'Ah! Laura,' said she, 'that path is not the path of safety in which you would elude a father's eye.' Laura's glance met that of her friend; and she read suspicion there. The thought was so painful to her, that she was on the point of disclosing all; but she remembered that the reasons which had at first determined her to silence, were not altered by any one's suspicions, and she restrained herself. Colonel Hargrave had cruelly wronged and insulted her—she ought therefore to be doubly cautious how she injured him. Sympathy, in her case, she felt, would be a dangerous indulgence; and, above all, she shrunk with horror from exposing her lover, or his actions, to detestation or contempt. 'Perhaps the time may come,' said she, pursuing her reflections aloud, 'when you will be convinced that I am incapable of any clandestine purpose. At present your compassion might be a treacherous balm to me, when my best wisdom must be to forget that I have need of pity.'
Mrs. Douglas looked on the open candid countenance of Laura, and her suspicions vanished in a moment; but they returned when her young friend reiterated her intreaties that she would not hint the subject to her father. Laura was, however, fortified in her resolutions of concealment, by an opinion she had often heard Mrs. Douglas express, that the feelings of disappointed love should by women be kept inviolably a secret. She was decisively giving a new turn to the conversation, when it was interrupted by the entrance of the gentlemen; and Mrs. Douglas, a little hurt at the steadiness of her young friend, more than half determined to renew the subject no more.
A letter lay on the table, which the post had brought for Captain Montreville; he read it with visible uneasiness, and immediately left the room. Laura perceived his emotion; and, ever alive to the painful subject nearest her heart, instantly concluded that the letter