In Jackson's Administration
I.
HALF an hour before sunset on the afternoon of November 6, 1828, the Whigs of a certain precinct in Virginia were reasonably confident that Henry Clay would be the next President.
The ballot was taken in a long, low, weather-beaten structure, which served as bar-room, post-office, and general store. The long porch in front, and the yard trampled bare of grass, were tilled with excited politicians arguing the burning questions of the day. Impatient horses whinnied at the rack, sleek negroes on the outskirts pompously repeated the arguments of their masters, and dogs of high and low degree dozed in the yellow sunshine, or fought out their private quarrels as opportunity and instinct prompted them. On this day, caste distinctions were laid aside. The gentleman mingled freely with the horse-jockey, the negro-trader, and the poor-white, and party feeling drew men together with a tie closer than that of blood.
The sun had almost reached the rim of the horizon, when a florid young man, bearing the unmistakable marks of good birth and had living, appeared in the doorway, with a glass in his hand.
“ Hurrah for Henry Clay ! ” he cried in a thick voice. “ Who ’ll take a drink to the • Mill-boy of the Slashes ’ ?
There was a general stir, indicating a willingness to accept this invitation; but before the thirsty crowd could cross the threshold, a counter-sensation drew their eyes away to a cloud of red dust on the farthest limit of the horizon. This cloud increased rapidly in volume, and soon resolved itself into a group of ten or fifteen horsemen.
At their head rode a slender, erect young man whom nearly every one present recognized.
“ Jack Dangerfield, is n’t it, Poindexter ? ” inquired Major Catesby Ap-Roger, who was short-sighted, of the young gentleman who had invited the crowd to drink.
“Yes, d—— him!” was the sullen answer.
The sun was now about a hand-breadth from the blue summit of the Sugar Loaf Mountain. Dangerfield pointed to it excitedly, as lie threw himself from his horse and tossed the bridle to a little negro.
His companions hurried into the polling place, he following. Every one of the crowd who reluctantly made way for him knew that he had spent the day in collecting this posse, and that the number was sufficient to carry the district for Andrew Jackson. The dissatisfaction increased as man after man deposited his ballot. When it was Dangerfield’s turn, Poindexter cried with a loud voice, “ Gentlemen, this vote is fraudulent! I’ve known this fellow from his cradle, and lie’s not of age.”
Dangerfield’s face turned crimson, but he kept his temper. Drawing a folded paper from his pocket, he said quietly, “ I anticipated this charge, and prepared myself to meet it. This is a, copy of the record of my birth, in the register of the parish church. It proves that I was twenty-one the day before yesterday.” He held out the paper to Poindexter, inviting him to examine it; but Poindexter struck it aside, with a rejoinder which is not fit to be set down here. It began handsomely with an oath, but was scarcely finished when Jack Dangerfield’s arm shot out suddenly from the shoulder, and the slanderer fell senseless on the tloor behind the counter.
There was not a man present, Whig or Democrat, whose sympathies were not with the boy who had thus promptly punished the aspersion on his mother’s honor. But political animosities run high, and sometimes it is not expedient to express one’s convictions. Poindexter’s friends crowded round him and got him to his feet. Slighter things than this provoked a duel in those hot-blooded days.
Mr. Poindexter, somewhat sobered by bis fall, was quite angry enough to feel that nothing short of a challenge could wipe out the insult he had received. The matter was quickly arranged, for among the motley crowd at the polls there was scarcely a man of the better class who was not familiar with the code.
That night, Major Catesby Ap-Roger, the veteran duelist, invited a party of his friends to drink hot whiskey punch and play cards in his bedroom at the ramshackle tavern hard by. Of course the coming duel was the topic, of the occasion.
“ Queer that a fire-eater like Jack should have turned so pale at the sight of a challenge.”observed one of the party.
“ Why, don’t you know?” spoke up a beardless youth who had been invited simply to make up the rubber. “ It was because Poindexter’s cousin is Jack’s sweetheart. Miss” —
“ Stop, sir 1 ” cried the major sternly. u This is no place to handy about the names of ladies. I "m sure Mr. Dangerfield would not -wish his sweetheart’s name to appear in this discussion.” And the indiscreet young man, blushing deeply, remained silent for the rest of the evening.
II.
In the afternoon of the following day, Mrs. Fitzherbert sat with her daughters in a large upper room of the family mansion upon her estate of Coton. This room, called the “ eharmber,” was furnished iu the stately and cumbersome fashion of the period. The brass-handled dressing-table and claw-footed wardrobe were Ihe best products of British workmanship, hut the calico which draped the great four-post bedstead was purely American in style and sentiment, immense medallions of blue on a white ground represented a female figure seated on a dais, to whom another female was offering, after the manner of Herodias, a number of heads on something that looked like a platter ; and round about ran the legend, “ Virginia presenting to America, upon the altar of Liberty, portraits of her illustrious sons.”
With her dreams thus guarded by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, it is small wonder that the gentle mistress of the household took a keen interest in the affairs of her country. She was a warm partisan of the Wliigs, and the recent political contest which had resulted in the election of Andrew Jackson, and the defeat of Henry Clay, afflicted her like a personal misfortune.
When the clock struck five, she rose, took up her basket of keys, and bade her daughters put away tlieir tasks. Sydney, the eldest, who had been reading aloud, from the window-seat, the latest of those charming romances by Sir Walter Scott, closed the volume, and let her blue eyes stray to the fringe of Lornhardy poplars around the lawn, now buffeted and beaten by the November rain, Winifred and Eliza ran away to play battle door and shuttlecock in the long corridor, and Margaret and little Anne to read Télémaque with their tutor, M. Mongrand, the old French émigré, who lived in a cottage in the garden.
When they were all gone, Sydney slipped from her high seat, and, kneeling on the sheepskin mat before the lire, drew a locket out of the bosom of her low-necked white cambric frock, and gazed at it with the rapture of a young girl in the exquisite transport’ of first love. The face which looked back at her from the locket was one well fitted to charm her fancy. The hazel eyes were bold and bright, yet so well had tfie artist caught tlieir expression that they seemed at once both arch and tender. The aquiline nose had the drooping cartilage and sensitive nostrils which we associate with high spirit and long lineage. The small straight mouth was sweet as a woman’s, but the square resolute chin confirmed the energy and determination expressed in the bold bright eyes.
The noise of some one running up the stairs and along the hall made her start guiltily and drop the locket hack in its hiding-place.
Without the preliminary of a knock. Phyllis, her maid, hurst into the room, her eyes starting, the braided locks of her woolly hair standing almost upright with excitement,
“ Miss Sydney ! ” she cried. Marse Jack DangerfitT done kill Marse Royl Poindexter! ”
“Nonsense. Phyllis ! ” cried Sydney, as white as her frock. “ How dare you say such a tiling ? ”
Deed, miss, To’ Gawd it \s the truf. Marse Jack DangerfuTs nigger done brought a letter for ole miss. He tole us about it while he was waitin’ fo’ de arnser.”
Sydney grasped the back of a chair to keep lierselt from falling. Her mind was too much benumbed by the extent of the calamity for her to realize the situation fairly. The next moment she heard steps and voices in the hall and on the staircase, and her mother, followed by a train of servants and children, entered the room. Mrs. Fitzherbert was agitated and unnerved. She was wringing her hands and talking excitedly. When she caught sight of her daughter she cried, Oh, Sydney, the most dreadful thing has happened. Jack Dangerfield has killed your cousin Royall. Oh, my poor sister ! I must go to her at once. There was a letter. Where is the letter ? Oh, in my ridicule — but it’s no matter. Fly, Sydney, and get me my bonnet and mantle, and tell Martha to fetch a bottle of the Vinegar of the Four Thieves, and tell Boston to get out the carriage, and tell ” —
“ Give me the letter ! ” cried Sydney, snatching the reticule.
She had to lean down to the fire in order to read it, for in the confusion no one remembered to light the candles. It ran thus: —
RLADENSBCRG, MARYLAND. MRS. ANNE CARY FITZHERBERT :
My dear Madam, — I write to implore your pardon, to throw myself upon your mercy. A severe wound in the thigh obliges me to keep my bed, otherwise I would come in person to plead my cause with you. This morning at daybreak I fought a duel with your nephew, Royall Poindexter, and it was my fortune to he the survivor. The quarrel was not of my seeking. I do not willingly speak ill of the dead, but he bad been drinking, and he insulted me grossly. You will bear a different account of the affair, but this is 1he true one. Bitterly as I regret the outcome of it. I cannot feel that 1 am to blame. Although it may ruin my career, my chief concern is for Sydney. For God’s sake, do not let it turn her against me. It is for this I write you. Tn the name of justice, of mercy, of pity, send me by the bearer of this some word to give me the hope that our engagement will not be broken. We love earh other; our lives have been bound up together; without the hope of her I should pray to turn over on my pillow and die. For God’s sake, send me some word of consolation.
I remain, honored madam, Respectfully your Ob’t, Serv’t,
JOHN HAMPDEN DANGERFIELD.
P. S. I am thus urgent about a reply by messenger because to-morrow I must leave this place to go I know not where.
J. H. D.
When Sydney raised her eyes from the perusal of this letter, her mother’s toilet was almost completed.
“What answer did you send ?” she demanded.
“ I sent none,” replied Mrs. Fitzlierbert, turning full upon the girl with Hashing eyes. “ What answer could 1 send to a man whose hands are red with the blood of my sister’s child ? ”
“ No answer ? ” faltered Sydney. Never before bad she seen her mother look like this or heard her speak in such a tone. She stood for a moment with the paper shaking in her hand, and then she ran quickly from the room down the stairs and through the long covered way which led to the kitchen. She paused in the doorway of the great smoke-blackened apartment, lighted by the open fire and a primitive flaring lamp made by soaking a rag in a saucer of grease, and peered at the host of dusky figures before her.
“ I wish to speak to Mr. Dangerfield’s body-servant,” she said.
Several voices answered. “ Law, miss, he done gone ! ”
“ Gone ! ” She caught at the doorframe to steady herself. “ How long ago ? ”
“ He went just soon "s he heered dey warn’t no arnser. Marse Jack done tole him to make has’e.”
“There is an answer.” Her words sounded separate and distinct ;is the ticking of the clock. “ Which of you will overtake him and give it to him ?”
“I will, miss,” and “I ’ll do it sho’. Miss Sydney,” came the response from three or four young negroes, pressing forward, eager for the commission. She scrutinized the applicants with a full realization of how much depended upon her choice.
“ You may go, Tobe,” she said at last. “ Saddle the Black Prince, and come to the back porch for a letter.”
It was only one line, but she dropped a great blot of sealing-wax upon it and stamped it with her coat-of-arms. Never before had she revealed her heart to him as in these few penciled words, and her cheek flushed now to think that they might fall into other hands and be perused by other eyes.
“ I will keep the lamp burning in the corridor window,” she whispered when Tobe came for the missive. “ I will hear you when you come hack. Wait by the ailanthus-tree until I open the window.”
“ All right, miss.”
“ And Tobe, mind you ride fast.”
His answer was to rise in the stirrups and stick his heels into the horse’s flanks. The next moment he was gone.
“Sydney! Sydney! ” cried half a dozen voices from as many directions, and Sydney hastened back to the hall. “ Where have you been ? ” her mother asked, giving her a quick, suspicions glance; but without waiting for an answer, she handed the girl a heavy bunch of keys and gave her a number of rapid directions. The driver gathered up the reins. The mistress of the mansion stepped into the cumbrous old family coach. The wheels rolled away into the rainy night.
Sydney picked up her mother’s mantle and adjusted it over her slender shoulders. She soothed the excited children and servants, turned the heavy keys in the locks of smoke-house and granary, presided at the long mahogany table, and read prayers to the assembled household.
When her sisters had been coaxed into bed, she stole away with her letter and her candle to the long corridor. The thought of Jack, wounded and in peril, outweighed the shock of her cousin’s death. Royall’s career from boyhood had been a source of pain and shame to all his kindred. Her heart was filled with a passionate resentment against him that he should have forced a quarrel upon Jack which involved them all in this suffering. She was accustomed to think of dueling as the proper method of settling the difficulties of gentlemen. No blame could possibly attach to Jack in the matter. He was the victim of circumstances. She pictured him writhing with mental and bodily anguish, and imagined his despair if his messenger should return emptyhanded. Then, in unbearable suspense, she sprang up and paced the corridor. A dozen times mistaking the patter of the raindrops for the sound of hoofs, she flung open the window. At last a guarded voice spoke to her out of the darkness : —
“ Dat you, Miss Sydney ? ”
“ Oh, Tobe, did you overtake him ? ”
“ Miss Sydney, he got so much de start er me dat I could n’t keteli up wid him. Den it was so dark dat I done los’ de road, an’ when I got to de river dey warn "t no boat dar, so I could n’t git acrost, so I giv’ it up an’ come back agin ; but ’deed. Miss Sydney, ’fo’ Gawd I done my bes’.”
Sydney was turning away with a lump in her throat, when he called to her with a curious note of triumph in his voice :
Rut Miss Sydney, 1 done fotch back your letter : ” as if here indeed was a drop of consolation.
He passed it to her on the end of a long switch; and she held it in the candle till the flame burnt her fingers.
“ This is the end of everything,” she thought. “ He will think I have turned against him. like all the rest. To-morrow he will have left. Bladenshurg, and I shall not know where he is ! ”
She threw herself down on the floor of the corridor and burst into tears.
The next day, a messenger brought her the following letter : —
MY DEAR DAUGHTER, — I write to remind you to have some Black frocks made for yourself and Sisters to ware to the funerall. The Stuf is in the sender Chest in the blue Chamber. Amanda, Polly and Jane can Help you to make them. My pore Sister is more composed but takes no thought for anything. The
Feling here is very Bitter against J——
D——. Your cousins vow that he shall
never set Foot in the county again. I cannot Help feling I am being punnished for thinking We could ever contract an aliauce with a Dimocrat. Politics makes strange Bedfellows and he has doutless been corrupted by associating with “ Mr. Jefferson’s gentlemen.” Strange that a man of birth and breding should demene himself to belong to such a Party !
I find the Larder here very low. The Negrows have stolen everything. Have Celia boil a large hamm, & roast a pare of fowlls. You may bring them with some loaves of Bread when you come to the funerall. It will be necessary to set Forth a eolation for Thare will doutless be a Large crowd of frends and Naybors. Royall’s Body arrived this morning. He looks Pecceful as if sleping. I shuder to think of the Hand that brought him so low. Be sure you kepe the store-room & smoke-house keys. God bless you my dear Daughter prays, Your devoted mother ANNE CARY FITZHERBERT.
P. S. The funerall is set for Friday.
In the days that followed, Sydney lived that strange dual life which all know who have suffered overpowering emotion. When, in after years, she looked back upon this time, it seemed to her that she must have been two distinct individuals, so little did her outward actions express the intensity of her mental experience. She performed sedulously her daily tasks, helped her sisters with their lessons, and read the Bible to the old negroes in their cabins ; but whether she talked or worked, whether she were in company or alone, there was not a moment of her waking hours when her mind was not busy with imaginary conversations with Jack. Not a step sounded in the hall but she thought it might be his. Not a negro came to the plantation on an errand but her heart beat to suffocation. Some days she longed with passionate intensity for the sound of his name. But no one spoke it.
“ Right or wrong,” Mrs. Fitzherbert had said in a family council held after the duel, “ I should never give my consent to Sydney’s marrying Jack Dangerfield now. It is only a young girl’s fancy, and she will get over it when she has another lover. Never mention his name again in her presence. That will be the best way to treat it.”
“ Mother,” cried Sydney passionately one day, when she could bear it no longer, “ what has become of Jack Dangerfield ? ”
“I don’t know,” replied her mother.
“ He was severely wounded; is he dead?”
“ I don’t know.”
“ Mother, you do know.”
“Sydney, you may leave the room. That is not a proper tone for you to take in speaking to me.”
“ Mother, if he is dead, I have a right to know it. It is cruel, the way you are treating me.”
“ My child, I love you better than anything in the world, and I tell you now that the sooner you dismiss this fancy from your mind, the better. It can never matter to you whether he is dead or alive.”
But a few days later, she came, and without a word dropped a paper into the girl’s lap. It contained an account of a detachment of troops recently sent out to fight the Indians in the northwest, and Jack Dangerfield’s name was in the list of non-commissioned officers.
This comforted her a little. It lifted the terrible load of silence and suspense that had weighed upon her. It brought him so near to her to be able to see him, in fancy, marching in his uniform, or sitting beside the camp-fire, that for a day or two she went about the house singing. Then the finality of it all came upon her, and she felt that if he had not given her up entirely, he would have made a fresh effort to hear from her before he went away.
III.
In the days when Andrew Jackson was President, and Martin Van Buren Vice-President, a certain gay and beautiful woman enjoyed the affection of the old chief, and was adroitly used by his wily lieutenant to promote certain political schemes of his own. This lady, who found little favor in the eyes of her own sex. was immensely popular with men, and returned their admiration with such petting and patronage as she found it in her power to bestow.
Upon a windy March morning, a pale young soldier, lately returned from that campaign known as the Black Hawk war, whose wounds debarred him from active exertion, was spending an hour in the drawing-room of this accomplished dame. Her pretty toilet, her arch gray eyes and rich red hair, her vivacity, and her Irish accent would have made her a charming companion for any gallant officer of twenty-three, even if, as in the present ease, she had not thrown in all the flattery and the caressing wiles she knew so well how to employ.
“ So, me dearr bye,” she was saying in her delightful brogue, “ if there’s aimy office or appointment ye ’re wantin’, I think I can get it for ye. Shure I can turn the Preshident and little Van around me thumb.” She held out that pretty member, and laughed with infectious gayety.
“Thank you a thousand times,” returned the young officer languidly ; “ but I have an old plantation down in Loudon which I have neglected too long. If I should decide ” — He interrupted himself to call his companion’s attention to a pretty scene being enacted upon the street, some distance away. Two young ladies had been approaching along Pennsylvania Avenue : one, in a pelisse of pale blue merino trimmed with swan’sdown ; the other, in a similar garment of lemon-color. Both wore beaver bonnets which framed with demure austerity their charming faces. Suddenly the wind tossed off the bonnet of the damsel in yellow and blew her raven ringlets over her rosy, laughing face. The fair sister in pale blue tried hard to put it hack again : but the high wind and the rebellious curls made her task a difficult one. Every one in the street turned to look at the pretty pair; hats were lifted and admiring glances cast, unrebuked, at the hapless damsels : then, a lady passing stopped her carriage, and, tapping on the glass, invited the girls to get in,
“ Who are they ? ” asked the young officer as the carriage rolled away.
“ Two tearin’ beauties from the conntiny, who ’ve taken the town by sthorm. Allegra and Penserosa they call ’em. Penserosa, they say, is breakin’ her hearrt for a lover who killed one uv her longlegged eounthry cousins in a jule. Av co’rse the fam’ly would n’t hear of her marryin’ him afther that.” She directed a lively glance at her companion, and then, uttering a little shriek, sprang up and thrust her smelling-bottle under his nose.
He pushed the bottle away, but caught the hand that held it. “ Oh, Peggy,” he cried. “ sweet Peggy,” — for so her admirers were privileged sometimes to address this charming dame.— “for pity s sake tell me that again.”
Coquette though she was, the woman of the world was touched by the emotion of this young lover ; although perhaps curiosity as well as sympathy led her to draw him on.
“ Indeed, an’ that’s what they say,” she answered, “ but it ’s little I thought that you were the hero of the tale. So it ’s this that’s sent you off to shoot the redskins, is it ? But why should a man who can fight as well as you be afraid of half a dozen raw-boned young Virginians ? ”
Jack jumped up and walked about the room.
“ Who says I’m afraid of them ? ” he demanded with boyish bravado. “ There is n’t a man in their whole tribe who could keep me away if Syd— if Miss Fitzherbert wanted me to come. But if she had cared for me as I care for her, she would n’t have let them turn her against me.” He was weak yet from his wound, and his face turned red and pale as he talked. He paused, and then asked, with an evident effort, “ Who told you that—what you said just now — that she — that she cared ? ”
“ I was just givin’ ye the idle talk of the town,” the lady answered.
Jack threw himself down on a sofa. “ It is n’t true,” he said with a groan.
His hostess went over to him, and laid a light hand upon his hair. No one need say henceforth that a kindly heart did not heat in the bosom of this muchmaligned dame.
“ Cheer up,” she cried. “ I will get ye a carrd to one of the Wednesday receptions. She ’ll be sure to be there, an’ when ye ve once seen her, all will come right! ”
But stubborn Jack said, “ No; she hates me on account of her cousin. I will not force myself upon her notice.”
“ Why, man alive ! ” his companion cried. “ There ’ll be two hundred people there. Ye’ve as good a right to go as anny one in Washington. Ye ’ll have a chance to get a foine look at her, and iu a crowded room there ’s no need for folks to speak unless they ’ve a moind to.”
Then it was that Jack caught the pretty hand and kissed it.
“ Peggy,” he declared fervently, “ if any man ever says in my presence that you are not an angel, I swear that I will thrash him within an inch of his life.”
The promised card of invitation arrived duly, and when Captain Dangerfield presented himself at the house of a certain official of high degree, many eyes followed him with interest anti curiosity. It was not every night that one saw an officer, so tall, so pale, so distinguished. He found no personal acquaintances, and as the servant who announced him had made a mistake in his name, he felt secure that no rumor of his presence would reach Sydney before he saw her.
The party was in accordance with the fashion of the day. There were cardtables in one room, for the middle-aged ; and a pianoforte in another, where, later in the evening, the younger guests would dance a cotillion or two after a decorous fashion. In the dining-room was laid a substantial collation of cold turkey and ham, with beaten biscuit split and buttered, and pound cake, and great blue china bowls of lemon punch and apple toddy. Outside the windows were rows of black faces, gleefully expectant of the first strains of festivity. The rooms were furnished substantially with handsome carpets, and heavy chairs and sofas covered with black satin hair. A sampler done in worsted, a glass case of waxen flowers, and a motley group of stuffed birds did duty as decoration, and long curtains of red moreen covered the windows. Captain Dangerfield ensconced himself in the shelter of one of these windows while he watched the arriving guests.
He could never tell how it was that he missed seeing Sydney when she entered. After all the company had assembled, and still she had not come, his heart turned to a stone in his bosom. The air seemed to stifle him, and he arose to leave the room. On his way to the door lie glanced, almost unconsciously, into the long mirror framed in gilt which filled the space between two windows, and there he saw her. There could be no mistaking that lovely nape, those satin shoulders, those golden curls looped with an antique comb.
She was dressed after the adorable fashion of the time of Josephine, somewhat belated in reaching these barbarous shores. Her frock of India muslin, with its short waist and broad girdle, fell in scant folds to her ankles, and revealed the broad buckles upon her little shoes. Jack’s eyes, having taken note of the buckles, traveled upward again to rest with eager scrutiny upon her face, and then he observed with amazement that she was blushing vividly. A crimson wave had spread itself over her neck and arms and into the very roots of her hair. But why ? His heart leaped with the sudden thought that perhaps the recognition had been mutual, and then contracted with a fierce spasm of jealousy. He slipped back quickly and resumed his place in the embrasure of the window.
“ They are begging Miss Fitzherbert to sing,” he beard a lady near him say.
In that time almost every young lady sang. It was expected of her just as nowadays we are not surprised to hear a very respectable carol from even a commonplace bird. It was not thought necessary to evoke the notes from the diaphragm or summon them from the bridge of the nose. No rumors of the Italian method disturbed anybody’s self-satisfaction. Every well-brought-up damsel sang ballads and love-songs and patriotic ditties with no thought of vocal gymnastics, and her audience listened well pleased.
“ She has the sweetest voice in the world,” the lady went on, “ and plays with a great deal of taste. She is to sing a new song to-night that one of her admirers sent to London to get for her. I hear she ’s been practicing it this great while. ”
But it was not the new song from London that Sydney sang, but an old song that everybody knew, and that still some old-fashioned people sing for the sake of the sweet and tender sentiment that it contains : —
Though the herd have all left thee, thy home is still here.”
This is only the beginning, but the rest is all as sweet, and as tender, and as true. The strains sank into Jack’s heart as the rain sinks into the heart of the flowers, and he rose unconsciously and followed them as some bewitched mortal follows an elfin horn from fairyland, until he stood at the extreme end of the other long room, close beside the piano where Sydney was singing. She lifted her eyes at the close of the song, and they rested on his face. Then she turned very pale, and some one, thinking she was faint, brought her a glass of water. There ensued a little commotion, in the midst of which the hostess appeared, apologized for the heat of the room, and led her guest away, promising that she would send a maid to take her home.
But when Sydney emerged from the dressing-room, a few minutes later, it was not the maid who was waiting for her, with her wrap, in the hall, but a tall young spectre, who, when he put the mantle about her shoulders, forgot somehow to take his arms away.
“ And what became of the family opposition ? ” you say. What became of the family opposition to a certain famous Scotch suitor whom the fair Ellen preferred to the bridegroom her parents had provided for her ?
No one cares for an old-fashioned lovestory nowadays when sentiment is out of fashion, so I will not linger to tell how these two loved each other in their age with all the tender romance of their youth. But the other day I came across an old locket, and, opening it, met the gaze of the same bold bright eyes that had looked into Sydney Fitzherbert’s on that November afternoon in 1828 ; and I closed the trinket with reverent hands, for I knew that it had lain for sixty years above a faithful heart.
Lucy Lee Pleasants.