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exertion. Nobody thought that, tho’ young
and handsome, he would think of marriage,
“he was so grave but on the same princi
ple, I suppose, that the harsh and terrible
thunder is the companion of the gay and bril
liant lightning, majestic and sober husbands
often most desire to have gay and laughing
wives. , Now for the episode. Mrs. Seymour
had fretted herself to sleep, Mr. Seymour had
sunk into his afternoon nap, and Kate stole
into her own particular room, to coax some
thing like melody out of a Spanish guitar, the
last gift of Major Cavendish; the room told
of a change, affected by age and circum
stances, on the character of its playful mis
tress. Avery large Dutch baby-house, that
had contributed much to her amusement a
little time ago, still maintained its station upon
its usual pedestal, the little Dutch ladies and
gentlemen all in their places, as if they had
not been disturbed for some months ; on the
same table were battledores, shuttlecocks and
skipping-ropes, while the table at the other
end was covered with English and Italian
hooks, vases of fresh flowers, music, and
some richly ornamented boxes, containing
many implements that ladies use both for work
and drawing; respectfully apart, stood a
reading stand supporting Kate’s bible and
prayer-book ; and it was pleasant to observe,
that no other books rested upon those holy
volumes.
The decorated walls would not have suited
the present age, and yet they were covered
with embroidery and engravings, and mirrors,
and carvings, showing a taste not developed,
yet existing in the beautiful girl, whose whole
powers were devoted to the conquest of some
music which she was practising both with
skill and patience. There she sat on a low
ottoman, her profile thrown into full relief by
the back ground, being a curtain of heavy
crimson velvet that fell in well-defined folds
from a golden arrow in the centre of the ar
chitrave, while summer drapery of white
muslin shaded the other side; her features
hardly defined, yet exhibiting the tracery of
beauty; her lips, rich, full, and separated, as
ever and anon they gave forth a low and
melodious accompaniment to her thrilling
chords. There she sat, practising like a very
good girl, perfectly unconscious that Major
Cavendish was standing outside the window
listening to his favorite airs played over and
over again ; and he would have listened much
fconger, but suddenly she paused, and, looking
carefully around, drew from her bosom a small
case, containing a little group of flowers
painted on ivory, which he had given her, and
which, poor fellow! he imagined she cared
not for, because, I suppose, she did not ex
hibit it in public! How little does mighty
and magnificent man know of the workings
of a young girl’s heart! Well, she looked
at the flowers, and a smile bright and beauti
ful spread over her face, and a blush rose to
her cheek, and suffused her brow, and then it
paled away, and her eyes filled with tears.
What were her heart's imaginings, Cavendish
could not say; but they had called forth a
blush, a smile, a tear —love’s sweetest tokens;
and, forgetting his concealment, he was seat
ed by her side, just as she thrust the little case
tinder the cushion of her ottoman! How
prettily that blush returned, when Cavendish
asked her to sing one of his favorite ballads;
the modest, half-coquetish, half-natural air,
with which she said, “I cannot sing, Sir,—J
am so very hoarse.'’
“ Indeed, Kate ! you were not hoarse just
now.”
4i How do you know ?”
“ I have been outside the window for more
than half an hour.”
The blush deepened into crimson, bright
glowing crimson, and her eye unconsciously
rested on the spot where her treasure was
concealed. He placed his hand on the cush
ion, and smiled most provokingly, saying, as
plainly as gesture could say, “Fair mistress
Kate, I know* all about it; you need not look
eo proud, so shy; you cannot play the im
poster any longer!” but poor Kate burst into
tears, —she sobbed, and sobbed heavily and
heartily too, when her lover removed the
case, recounted the songs she had sung, and
the feeling with which she had sung them ;
and she did try very hard to get up a story,
about “accident” and “wanting to copy the
flowers,” -with a heap more of little things
that were perfectly untrue; and Cavendish
knew it, for his eyes were now opened; and
after more, far more lhan the usual repetition
of sighs and smiles, and protestations, and il
lustrations, little Kate did say, or perhaps,
(for there is ever great uncertainty in these
matters,) Cavendish said, “that if papa, or
mamma, had no objection she believed, —
she thought,—she even hoped ?” and so the
matter terminated ; and that very evening she
sang to her lover his favorite songs; and her
father that night blessed her with so deep, so
heartfelt, so tearful a blessing, that little Kate
V ®9 i £kEf SII ‘ff is ii A u"l ib ABJTIf is *
Seymour saw the moon to bed before her eyes
were dry.
How heavily upon some do the shadows of
life rest! Those who are born and sheltered
on the sunny side of the wall know nothing
of them, —they live on sunshine! they wake
i’ the sunshine —nay, they even sleep in sun- j
shine.
Poor Mr. Seymour, having gained his great
object, married, in open defiance of his wife’s
judgment, his pretty Kate to her devoted Cav
endish ; laid his head upon his pillow one
night about a month after, w*ith the sound of j
j his lady’s complaining voice ringing its i
changes from bad to worse in his aching ears, I
1 and awoke before that night was passed in
another world. Mrs. Seymour had never
| professed the least possible degree of aftec
lion for her husband; she had never seemed
to do so ; never affected it until then. But
the truth was, she had started a fresh sub
ject; her husband's loss, her husband’s vir
, tues, nay, her husband’s faults, were all new
; themes; and she was positively charmed in
j her own way, at having afresh cargo of mis
! fortunes freighted for her own especial use :
she became animated, and eloquent under her
troubles; and, mingled with her regrets for
her “ poor dear departed,” were innumerable
wailings for her daughter’s absence.
Kate Cavendish had accompanied her hus
band during the short deceitful peace of
Amiens, to Paris, and there the beautiful Mrs.
Cavendish was distinguished as a wonder “si
amiable,” “si gentille,” “si naive,” “simig
none the most accomplished of the French
court could not be like her, for they had for
gotten to be natural; and the novelty and dif
fidence of the beautiful English woman ren
dered her an object of universal interest.
Petted and feted she certainly was, but not
spoiled. She was not insensible to admira
tion, and yet it was evident to all that she
preferred the affectionate attention of her hus
band to the homage of the whole world; nor
wa.s she ever happy but by his side. Sud
denly the loud war-whoop echoed throughout
Europe ; the First Consul was too ambitious
a man to remain at peace with England, and
Major Cavendish had only time to convey
his beloved wife to her native country, when
he wascalled upon to join his regiment. Kate
Cavendish was no heroine; she loved her
husband with so entire an affection, a love of
so yielding, so relying a kind, she leaned her
life, her hopes, her very soul upon him, with
so perfect a confidence, that to part from him
was almost a moral death.
“How shall I think ?—how speak ?—how
act, when you are not with me t” she said;
“bow support myself?—who will instruct
me now, in all that is great, and goo.l, and
noble ?—who will smile when 1 am right,
who reprove me when I err, and yet reprove
so gently that I would rather hear him chide
than others praise ?” It was in vain to talk
to her of glory, honor, or distinction; was
not her husband in her eyes sufficiently glo
rious, honorable, and distinguished? whom
did she ever see like him?—she loved him
with all the rich, ripe fondness of a young
and affectionate heart; and truly did she think
that heart would break, when lie departed.
Youth little knows what hearts can endure ;
they little think what they must of necessity
go through in this work-a-day world; they
are ill prepared for the trials and turmoils that
await the golden as well as the humbler pa
geant of existence. After-life tells us how
wise and well it is that we have no prospect
into futurity. Kate Cavendish returned to
her mothers house, without the knowledge
of the total change that had come over her
thoughts and feelings: her heart’s youth had
passed away, though she was still almost a
child in years; and her mother had anew
cause for lamentation. Kate was so dull and
silent, so changed; the green-house might go
to wreck and ruin for aught she cared. And
she sat a greater number of hours on her
father’s grave than she spent in her poor mo
ther's chamber. This lament was not with
out foundation; the beautiful Kate Cavendish
had fallen into a morbid and careless melan
choly that pervaded all her actions; her very
thoughts seemed steeped in sorrow; and it
was happy for her that anew excitement to
exertion occurred, when, about five months
after her husband’s departure, she became a
mother. Despite Mrs. Seymour’s prognosti
cations, the baby lived and prospered; and
by its papa’s express command was called
Kate; an arrangement which very much
tended to the increase of its grand-mamma’s
discontent: “It was such a singular mark of
disrespect to her not to call it ‘ Mary.’ ”
How full of the true and beautiful mani
i festations of maternal affection were the let
| ters of Mrs. Cavendish to her husband ; —•
; “little Kate was so very like him : her lip,
| her eye, her smile;” and then, as years pass
ed on, and Major Cavendish had gained a
regiment by his bravery, the young mother
chronicled her child’s wisdom, her wit, her
voice—the very tone of her voice was so
like her father’s! her early love of study—
and, during the night watches, in the interval
of his long and harassing marches, and his
still more desperate engagements, Colonel
Cavendish found happiness and consolation
in the perusal of the outpourings of his own
Kate’s heart and soul. In due time, his se
cond Kate could and did write those mis
shapen characters of affection, pot hooks and
hangers, wherein parents, but only parents,
see the promise of affection : then came the
fair round hand, so en-bon-point , with its hair
and broad strokes; then an epistle in French ;
and at last a letter in very neat text, bearing
the stamp of authenticity in its diction, and
realizing the hopes so raised by his wife’s de
claration, that “ their Kate was all her heart
could desire, so like him in all things.” The
life of Colonel Cavendish continued for some
years at full gallop ; days and hours are com
posed of the same number of seconds, wheth
er passed in the solitude of a cottage or the
excitement of a camp; yet how differently
are they numbered, —how very, very different
is the retrospect.
Had Colonel Cavendish seen his wife, still
: in her early beauty, with their daughter half
sitting, half kneeling by her side, the one
looking younger, the other older than each
really was, he would not have believed it
possible that the lovely and intelligent girl
could be indeed his child, the child of his
young Kate. A series of most provoking,
most distressing occurrences had prevented
his returning, even on leave to England; he
had been ordered, during a long and painful
war, from place to place, and from country to
country, unhl at last he almost began to des
pair of ever seeing home again. It was not
in the nature of his wife’s love to change.
And it was a beautiful illustration of woman’s
constancy, the habitual and affectionate man
ner in which Mrs. Cavendish referred all
things to the remembered feelings and opinions
of her absent husband. Poor Mrs. Seymour
existed on to spite humanity, discontented
and complaining, —a living scourge to good
nature and sympathy, under whatever sem
blance it appeared, or, perhaps, for the sake
of contrast, to show her daughter’s many vir
tues in more glowing colours. The contrast
was painful in the extreme; and no one could
avoid feeling for the two Kates, worried as
they both were with the unceasing complain
ings of their woe-working parent. If a month
passed without letters arriving from Colonel
Cavendish, Mrs. Seymour was sure to tell
them “to prepare for the worst,” and con
cluded her observations by the enlivening as
surance “ that she ha 1 always been averse to
her marriage with a soldier, because she felt
assured that if he went away he would nev
er return !”
At last, one of the desolating battles that
filled England with widows, and caused mul
titudes of orphans to weep in our highways,
sent agony to the heart of the patient and en
during Kate : the fatal return at the head of
the column, “ Colonel Cavendish missing ” —
was enough; he had ’scaped so many perils,
not merely victorious, but unhurt, that she
had in her fondness believed he bore a charm
ed life; and were her patience, her watchings,
her hopes, to be so rewarded ? was her child
fatherless? and was her heart desolate?—
Violent was indeed her grief, and fearful her
distraction; but it had, like all violent emo
tion, its reaction; she hoped on, in the very
teeth of her despair; she was sure he was
not dead, —how could he be dead ?—he lhat
! had so often escaped; could it be possible,
that at the last he had fallen ? Providence,
she persisted, was too merciful to permit such
a sorrow to rest upon her and her innocent
child ; and she resolutely resolved not to put
on mourning, or display any of the usual to
kens of affection, although everyone else be
lieved him dead. One of the sergeants of
his own regiment had seen him struck to the
earth by a French sabre, and immediately af
ter a troop of cavalry rode over the ground,
thus leaving no hopes of his escape; the field
of battle in that spot presented the next day
a most lamentable spectacle : crushed were
those so lately full of life, its hopes and ex
pectations; they had saturated the field with
their life’s blood ; the torn standard of Eng
land mingled its colours with the standard of
France; no trace of the body of Colonel
Cavendish was found ; but his sword, his
rifled purse, and portions of his dress were
picked up by a young officer, Sir Edmund
Russell, who had ever evinced towards him
the greatest affection and friendship. Russell
wrote every particular to Mrs. Cavendish, and
said, that as he was about to return to Eng
land in a few weeks, having obtained sick
leave, he would bring the purse and sword of
his departed friend with him.
Poor Mrs. Cavendish murmured over the
word “departed;” paled, shook her head,
and then looked up into the face of her own
Kate, with a smile beaming with a hope
which certainly her daughter did not feel
“lie is not dead,” she repeated; and in the
watches of the night, when in her slumbers
she had steeped her pillow with tears, she
would start —repeat, “ lie is not dead,”—then
sleep again. There was something beautiful
and affecting in the warm and earnest love,
the perfect friendship existing between this
youthful mother and her daughter; it was so
unlike the usual tie between parent and child •
and yet it was so well cemented, so devoted!
so respectful: the second Kate, at fifteen
was more womanly, more resolute, more
calm, more capable of thought, than her
mother had been at seven-and-twenty; and it
was curious to those who note closely the
shades of human character, to observe’ how,
at two-and-thirty, Mrs. Cavendish turned for
advice and consolation to her high-minded
daughter, and leaned upon her for support.
Even Mrs. Seymour became in a great degree
sensible of her superiority; and felt some
thing like shame, at complaining before her
grand-daughter of the frivolous matters which
constituted the list of her misfortunes- The
beauty of Miss Cavendish was, like her
mind, of a lofty bearing—lofty, not proud.
She looked and moved like a young queen ;
she was a noble girl : and when Sir Edmund
Russell saw her first, he thought—alas! I
cannot tell all he thought—but he certainly
“fell,” as it is termed, “in love,” and near
ly forgot the wounds inflicted in the battle
field, when he acknowledged to himself the
deep and ever-living passion he felt for the
daughter of his dearest friend.
“It is indeed most happy for your moth
er,” he said to her some days after his arri
val at Sydney Hall, “it is indeed most happy
for your mother, that she does not believe
what I know to be so true ; I think, if she
were convinced of your father’s death, she
would sink into despair.”
“ Falsehood or false impressions,” replied
Kate, “sooner or later produce a sort of mo
ral fever, w T hich leaves the patient weakened
in body and in mind; I would rather she
knew the worst at once; despair, by its o\vn
violence, works its own cure.”
“Were it you, Miss Cavendish,! should
not fear the consequences ; but your mother
is so soft and gentle in her nature.”
“ Sir Edmund, she knew my father, lived
with him, worshipped him ; the knowledge
of his existence was the staff of her’s; he
was the soul of her fair frame. Behold her,
now; how T beautiful she looks! those sun
beams resting on her head, and her chiselled
features upturned towards heaven, tracing
my father’s portrait in those fleecy clouds, or
amid yonder trees; and do you mark the hec
tic on her cheek ? Could she believe it, 1
know she would be better: there’s not a
stroke upon the bell, there's not an echo of a
foot-fall in the great avenue, but she thinks
it his. At night she starts, if but a mouse do
creep along the wainscot, or a soft breeze dis
turb the blossoms of the woodbine that press
against our window, and then exclaims, ‘I
thought it was your father!’ ”
With such converse, and amid the rich and
various beauties of a picturesque, rambling
old country house, with its attendant green
meadows, pure trout stream, and sylvan grot
tos —sometimes with Mrs. Cavendish, some
times without her, did Kate and Sir Edmund
wander, and philosophize, and fall in love.
One autumn evening, Mrs. Seymour, fix
ing her eyes upon the old tent-stitch screen,
said to her daughter, who as usual had been
thinking of her husband,
“ Has it ever occurred to you, my dear
Kate, that there is likely to be another fool
in the family? I say nothing—thanks to
your father’s will, I have had this old ram
bling place left upon my hands for my life,
which was a sad drawback; better he had
left it to your brother.”
“ You might have given it up to Alfred, if
you had chosen, long ago,” said Mrs. Cav
endish, who knew well that, despite her
grumbling, her mother loved Sydney Hall as
the apple of her eye. “What, and give the
world cause to say that I doubted my hus
band’s judgment! No, no; lam content to
suffer in silence: but do you not perceive
that your Kate is making a fool of herself?
just as you did, my dear—falling in love with
a soldier, marrying misery, and working dis
appointment ?”
More, a great deal more, did the old lady
say: but, fortunately, nobody heard her, fW
when her daughter perceived lhat her eyes
were safely fixed on the tent-stitch screen,
she made her escape, and, as fate would have
it, encountered Sir Edmund at the door. In
a few minutes, he had told her of his loVefor
her beloved Kate; but though Mrs. Caven
dish had freely given her own hand to a sol
dier, the remembrance of what she had suf
fered—of her widowed years, the uncertainty