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162 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