Ernest Linwood; or, The Inner Life of the Author. Caroline Lee Hentz
in my bosom and flashed from my eye. But the master-chord was silent. I knew, I felt even then, that there was a golden string, down in the very depths of my heart, too deep for his hand to touch.
I felt grieved and glad. Grieved that I could not give a full response to his generous offering—glad that I had capacities of loving, he, with all his excellences, could never fill. I tried to tell him what I felt, to express friendship, gratitude, and esteem; but he would not hear me—he would not let me go on.
"No, no; say nothing now," said he impetuously. "I have been premature. You do not know your own heart. You do love me—you will love me. You must not, you shall not deny me the privilege of hope. I will maintain the vantage ground on which I stand—first friend, first lover, and even Ernest Linwood cannot drive me from it."
"Ernest Linwood!" I exclaimed, startled and indignant. "You know he can never be any thing to me. You know my immeasurable obligations to his mother. His name shall be sacred from levity."
"It is. He is the last person whom I would lightly name. He has brilliant talents and a splendid position; but woe to the woman who places her happiness in his keeping. He confides in no one—so the world describes him—is jealous and suspicious even in friendship;—what would he be in love?"
"I know not. I care not—only for his mother's and Edith's sake. Again I say, he is nothing to me. Richard, you trouble me very much by your strange way of talking. You have no idea how you have made my head ache. Please speak of common subjects, for I would not meet Mrs. Linwood so troubled, so agitated, for any consideration. See how beautiful the sunlight falls is the lawn! How graceful that white cloud floats down the golden west! As Wilson says:—
'Even in its very motion there is rest.'"
"Yes! the sunlight is very beautiful, and the cloud is very graceful, and you are beautiful and graceful in your dawning coquetry, the more so because you know it not. Well—obedience to-day, reward to-morrow, Gabriella. That was one of my old copies at the academy."
"I remember another, which was a favorite of Mr. Regulus—
'To-morrow never yet
On any human being rose and set.'"
A few more light repartees, and we were at Mrs. Linwood's gate.
"You will not come in?" said I, half asserting, half interrogating.
"To be sure I will. Edith promised me some of her angelic harp music. I come like Saul to have the evil spirit of discontent subdued by its divine influence."
Richard was a favorite of Mrs. Linwood. Whether it was that by a woman's intuition she discovered the state of feeling existing between us, or whether it was his approaching departure, she was especially kind to him this evening; she expressed a more than usual interest in his future prospects.
"This is your last year in college," I heard her say to him. "In a few months you will feel the dignity and responsibility of manhood. You will come out from the seclusion of college life into the wide, wide world, and of its myriad paths, so intricate, yet so trodden, you must choose one. You are looking forward now, eagerly, impatiently, but then you will pause and tremble. I pity the young man when he first girds himself for the real duties of life. The change from thought to action, from dreams to realities, from hope to fruition or disappointment, is so sudden, so great, he requires the wisdom which is only bought by experience, the strength gained only by exercise. But it is well," she added, with great expression, "it is well as it is. If youth could command the experience of age, it would lose the enthusiasm and zeal necessary for the conception of great designs; it would lose the brightness, the energy of hope, and nothing would be attempted, because every thing would be thought in vain. I did not mean to give you an essay," she said, smiling at her own earnestness, "but a young friend on the threshold of manhood is deeply interesting to me. I feel constrained to give him my best counsels, my fervent prayers."
"Thank you, dear Madam, a thousand times," he answered his countenance lighted up with grateful pleasure; "you do not know what inspiration there is in the conviction that we are cared for by the pure and the good. Selfish as we are, there are few of us who strive to excel for ourselves alone. We must feel that there are some hearts, who bear us in remembrance, who will exult in our successes, and be made happier by our virtues."
He forgot himself, and though he addressed Mrs. Linwood, his eye sought mine, while uttering the closing words. I was foolish enough to blush at his glance, and still more at the placid, intelligent smile of Mrs. Linwood. It seemed to say,
"I understand it all; it is all right, just as it should be. There is no danger of Richard's being forgotten."
I was provoked by her smile, his glance, and my own foolish blush. As for him, he really did seem inspired. He talked of the profession he had chosen as the noblest and the best, a profession which had commanded the most exalted talents and most magnificent geniuses in the world. He was not holy enough for the ministry; he had too great reverence and regard for human life to be a physician; but he believed nature had created him for a lawyer, for that much abused, yet glorious being, an honest lawyer.
I suppose I must have been nervous, in consequence of the exciting scenes through which I had passed, but there was something in his florid eloquence, animated gestures, and evident desire to make a grand impression, that strangely affected my risibles; I had always thought him so natural before. I tried to keep from laughing; I compressed my lips, and turning my head, looked steadily from the window, but a sudden stammering, then a pause, showed that my unconquerable rudeness was observed. I was sobered at once, but dared not look round, lest I should meet Mrs. Linwood's reproving glance. He soon after asked Edith for a parting song, and while listening to her sweet voice, as it mingled with the breezy strains of the harp, my excited spirit recovered its equilibrium. I thought with regret and pain, of the levity, so unwonted in me, which had wounded a heart so frank and true, and found as much difficulty in keeping back my tears, as a moment before I had done my laughter.
As soon as Edith had finished her song, he rose to take leave. He came to me last, to the little recess in the window where I stood, and extended his hand as he had done to Mrs. Linwood and Edith. He looked hurt rather than angry, disappointed rather than sad.
"Forgive me," said I, in a low voice; "I value your friendship too much to lose it without an effort."
The tears were in my eyes; I could not help it. I was sorry, for they expressed far more than I meant to convey. I knew it at once by the altered, beaming expression of his countenance.
"Give me smiles or tears, dear Gabriella," he answered, in the same undertone; "only do not forget me, only think of me as I wish to be remembered."
He pressed my hand warmly, energetically, while uttering these words; then, without giving me time to reply, bowed again to Mrs. Linwood and left the room.
"A very fine, promising young man," said Mrs. Linwood, with emphasis.
"A most intelligent, agreeable companion," added the gentle Edith, looking smilingly at me, as if expecting me to say something.
"Very," responded I, in a constrained manner.
"Is that all?" she asked, laying her soft, white hand on my shoulders, and looking archly in my face; "is that all, Gabriella?"
"Indeed, you are mistaken," said I, hastily; "he is nothing more—and yet I am wrong to say that—he has been—he is like a brother to me, Edith, and never will be any thing more."
"Oh, these brother friends!" she exclaimed, with a burst of musical laughter, "how very near they seem! But wait, Gabriella, till you see my brother—he is one to boast of."
"Edith!" said her mother. Edith turned her blue eyes from me to her mother, with a look of innocent surprise. The tone seemed intended to check her—yet what had she said?
"You should not raise expectations in Gabriella which will not be realized," observed Mrs. Linwood, in that quiet tone of hers which had so much power. "Ernest, however dear he may be to us as a son and brother, has peculiar traits which