Vera

“ What is there in the smile of a woman, in the glance of her eye, in the sound of her voice, to speak so eloquently to man's susceptibilities; why does one woman never see this power in another, nor one man in his fellow-man? Is it a portion of ourselves that we recognize in those we love, that their loss is our wreck and their gain, our fortune? Oh mysterous mysteries of the human soul, ye taunt us and teaze us, but ye are our life, our happiness, and our hope, may we never solve your fascinating secrets, 'tis their obscurity is their charm. ”

“ To begin a new life on the wreck of an old one is a very hard and painful task, and one that Guy Elersley, above every other living creature, would never have attempted unless when influenced by so strong and pushing and stimulating a power as the love of a good woman—this alone, it was that worked reformation in Guy Elersley: from contemplating her pure and noble soul, he had been seized with an ambition to grow like her, her word and example sickened him of his old pursuits until he wondered and wept over the sacrifice he had so heedlessly made of his youth and character. ”

“ To those who know what it is to breathe, live, and act under the soothing influence of a first love, the page would be a superfluous one, and to those for whom such a blessed phase of life is yet among the things to be, mine must not be the pen that will spoil the luxury thereof by anticipating its joy—and again, to the wrinkled brows and aching hearts for which such a thing lies among the "might have beens," oh, I will not surely speak—I see their blinding tears—I hear a long, mournful sigh—somebody's fate is cursed, somebody's hope is trampled, somebody's heart is withered and dead! ”

“ Experience comes to us in a reverie, or in a dream, and we raise ourselves up from that couch, in a stupid wonder, but our hair has turned white, hard lines mark the once smooth features, we are sadder, wiser, more cautious men, but I doubt if it has made us any better. The halo of golden sunlight that hope sheds over the future, has a holier influence over our present life, than the shadows of suspicion and distrust, with which anticipations of evil and darkness, cloud the vista of coming years.
For a young girl, the possible phases that life may assume is one long mystery and dread. ”

“ He could hear the strains of music and the peals of merry laughter—bitter mockery at such a moment! He knew that while he suffered in suspense outside, she was the object of much admiration within, that the words of false flatterers charmed her ear, and the smile of pretended devotion gratified her heart. A man can bear much, but as it is in his love that he shows himself strongest, it is also— alas!—in his love that he is weakest. A true woman, then, must never encourage a passion in the heart of a man which she will not share with him to the very end. ”

“ It is breakfast-time in Henry Rayne's house and the curling steam rises in graceful clouds from the hot tasty dishes that Mrs. Potts concocts with so much art. Honor, Nanette and Mr. Rayne are as usual the only participants of the wholesome things. Honor has just come in, fresh and rosy, all smiles as she steps up to Mr. Rayne's chair with a cheery good-morning. Then kneeling beside her guardian, and looking into his kindly face, she says shyly:
"I have something to tell you all, a surprise, and don't begin breakfast before you know it. ”

“ Vivian Standish gave one quick, searching glance at the features of the young girl, and Honor saw in a moment how every tinge of color died out of his face, a grey, unearthly shadow crept over it, and his features assumed a set expression of misery which almost excited her to pity.
"Do you recognize this gentleman, mademoiselle?" Guy said, addressing the girl, and pointing in mock civility to Vivian.
"Oh! yes, sir—I do indeed," she answered in a sweet, melancholy voice, "it is Bijou—see! he recognizes me!" ”

“ I was given days and nights of endless duration in which to live over and over again, the agony and despair of that bitter experience. What was I to do? I had not secured my money, but I had this additional misfortune on my conscience: I had wrecked the life of a fair young girl, and had the hitherto spotless page of my dealings with my fellow-creatures, stamped with a foul indelible stain, that cried shame and retribution on my whole generation. I fled—of course—when the hasty realization of my misdeeds forced itself into my mind. ”

“ Just as hurriedly and as anxiously as if he were hastening to the death-bed of his nearest relative, Guy took the very next train down to Quebec, resolving silently to spend every exertion he was capable of in this precious duty, or die.
In the fiercest battles of our daily lives, there are only two incitants which can never fail to give our heart a hope, our hope a courage, our courage a strength, and our strength whatever possible success can be wrung from fate under such circumstances; these are, the two great influences of hatred—and of love. ”

“ Honor is seated at the piano, stealing her slender fingers over the ivory keys. It is a low, rippling strain—Valse des Soupirs—such as fairies might bring from their magic touch. 'Tis the music of her own heart—the sound of her sighs, and she plays on softly, heedlessly. She is lost in the ecstacy of her own reverie.
We turn to the other side of the picture. Noisy strains of dance music, merry peals of laughter, little snatches of society gossip, beaming faces, silk and lace and flimsy loveliness, bouquets and gloves, trains, handkerchiefs, fans and flirtation, all in a sweet confusion. ”

“ We have a great antithetical existence before us, but the beauty of experience can only be seen by the backward glance, 'tis when we turn our sad and tear-dimmed eyes to look over our bended shoulders at the thorny way that bears the impress of our weary feet, that we can feel what a grand and salutary prayer our lips might make by substituting the murmur and the cry of pain by a holy accent which should be a "fiat."
The strain of mournful confidence that had passed between these reunited friends brought its own bitterness to Guy Elersley's heart. ”

“ Give me a man for courage, if you will, for power of action, if you will, but give me a woman with a heart for an unrivalled endurance and fortitude.
Vivian Standish cool, keen, deliberating, could read nothing in his companion's face, and thus baffled, he began inwardly to wonder what would be his next course.
Honor looked at him in the most provokingly composed way and said dryly:
"You may give the word 'friend' a rather extensive meaning for aught I know. Things have grown into such an exaggerated state, now-a-days, that a commonly sensible person is lost towards understanding them." ”

“ There is no strength so fierce, so terrible as the hater's, just as there is no strength so steady, so hopeful, so ambitious, as that which guides the lover's hand. We would do a great many hard and trying things for our love's sake, but those things which the righteous could never do—even for their love—are the better sweets of an active hatred. Love has its limits, but hatred—its only sweetness is its infinity, its boundless freedom, and its endless resources.
There was something of both these stimulants pressing Guy Elersley onward to determined action. ”

“ While she thought, she remembered the little note Guy had written her that morning, telling her to let him know when her next meeting with Vivian Standish should take place. Instinctively she rose up, as if to leave the room. What could it matter now to either her or Guy whether they had ever loved each other or not? Was it not the only misery of her life that her love had come between her and the will of her kind guardian? Duty is such a sober piece of heroism when one's affections, one's very heart-core are not its sacrifice. ”

“ It was a great relief to Honor when she recognized Fitts at the depot awaiting their arrival with Mr. Rayne's own comfortable sleigh. After all, even in the little events of a life-time, we can learn how prone we are to cling to old familiar things, that fill our memories with fondest associations and nestle the closest to our heart's core, and we say with Walter Scott: "The eye may wish a change, but the heart never."
Honor strove hard to conceal her emotion, almost as much from her own self as from those around her. Here was one of those little deceptions, which make up the human life. ”

“ Honor says laughingly, looking straight into Vivian's eyes.
"And yet you would throw away on him, the favors I crave to obtain."
He said this half reproachfully, half eagerly. She placed her dainty little programme in his hand, and smiled when he returned it, to find he had written, "Lucky Vivian S." opposite the promised waltz.
I wonder if any realization in life thrusts itself so forcibly upon us, as that of the flight of time. Our dearest and most precious moments do not dare to linger with us an added instant, but hasten on with ceaseless flow to lose themselves in eternity's gulf. ”

“ Is it surprising that good and wise men from their corners of seclusion call the world degenerate, and wonder at the persistent wrong-doing of those who are the work of such merciful hands? Strange to say, most of us know, or pretend to know, that life is all deception; that the world itself, and those who belong to it are essentially, almost necessarily, selfish; that the goodness and charity which circulate at rare intervals are only the superfluidities of comfort, proceeding from no generous impulse whatever. It is not dealt out at the sacrifice of a crust of bread. ”

“ Honor said to herself on the afternoon of this same day, looking, as she spoke, towards the delicately tinted window-sill. She had whiled away so many afternoons in this little boudoir, or family sitting room, that she could tell by the progress of the sun on the broad sill when to expect Mr. Rayne home from his office. "He will be here in half-an-hour," she soliloquized, then looking aimlessly around for distraction, Honor spied a half-knitted stocking and a ponderous looking pair of gold-mounted spectacles lying carefully on a side table. ”

“ Now she must leave her destiny to chance. She would keep her promise—aye, to the very letter—if nothing happened before this terrible to-morrow, she would lay her life at the feet of her benefactor, to dispose of it as he deemed best. Guy Elersley was the man she loved, the only being in the whole wide world that influenced her life, but if it were her fate to be the victim of deception then with the mightiest strength of a womans will will she would cast his image out of her heart forever. She would live for the man she loathed, a life of voluntary martyrdom. ”

“ To lie in a recumbent attitude and feel the gentle breath of the breeze, playing among her yielding curls, or listen to it, whispering its effective lullaby into her ears, to drink such a long draught of nature's own narcotic, as would steal her away from the world of reality, closing her drowsy lids upon the actual, and unfolding to her in tempting dreams, the realizations of all her exaggerated, but cherished ideals, this was the luxury of living, this made life worth prizing, worth striving for in Honor Edgeworth's eyes. ”

“ All I will say is, that the sun which set upon the world on the day when, for the first time, Guy and Honor linked hands, never, since nor before, went down upon any two creatures who were more thoroughly satisfied with themselves than were these two.
When Guy left Mr. Rayne's house, the evening was far spent—and such an evening! If an exclamation point cannot imply its happiness it must remain a mystery. Long after he had bade his earnest "good-night," Honor and her guardian sat together over the dying coals and chatted pleasantly. ”

“ Oh, Guy! who, among your high-toned lady friends on Sparks Street to-morrow will recognize in you the fast midnight rambler, that the pale winter moon and the cold silent stars see in you to-night? You, the brilliant one of Ottawa's best drawing-rooms, ejaculating all the hard words you know, because you can't open the door with a lead pencil, nor find the handle on the wrong side. How well you have learned the art of veneering your character! ”

“ With scalding tears in her eyes, and a burning misery in her heart, the sorrowful mother stoops over the doomed form of her sleeping child, gently chafing the fevered hands, tenderly cooling the flushed and fevered brow; softly pressing the trembling lips on the clammy cheek of her darling, driving back her agony with a heroic cruelty, lest a sob or a sigh, or a falling tear disturb the quiet slumber of the little one she loves. A mother and her child, a wife and her husband are never drawn so closely together, one never seems so truly a part of the other, as during a moment like this. ”

“ Honor was not even one of those exceptionable women created, not out of the slime of the earth, but conceived in the romantic mind of some extravagant novelist, and brought into the world by his magic pen. No indeed, she had certainly a beautiful face, almost a faultless face, but how many have cursed the day when first they knew their own beauty! How many look back over pages and pages of awful crimes and shameful deeds, and the index page, the starting point, is their beautiful face. So do not be too hasty in envying the physical perfection or loveliness of others. ”

“ Rayne, rising, "You won't blame me for the consequences, when you really want my opinion I'll give it to you, I'll try to show you fairly and honestly both sides of the picture of life, I would like to see you stand by its colossal works of art, you may perhaps care to imitate the artists. All that is great and good within my reach, you will see, and yet, I think it wise that you should turn from the luxury of wealth and self-indulgence now and then, to look unshrinkingly upon the squalid misery and wantonness that haunt the greater half of the world. ”

“ But Honor displays no more sign of gratification at this lavish display of admiration, than if it had been an every day occurrence of her life. She gives each anxious solicitor a dance without any of the condescending airs of other ladies, and her programme is almost full when some one brushes through the crowd and addresses her hastily.
"Miss Edgeworth, not too late am I?"
She looks up and sees Vivian Standish before her, as handsome a picture as ever riveted any one's gaze. She smiles a bewitching smile of assumed despair. ”

“ It is a very universal passion, and is easily aroused. A note of music, a breath, a sigh or a little pressure of the hand may be enough to call it out from its hidden nook within the heart. You can't tell me what it is to love, my boy, nor can I tell you, though we've both passed through the experience, the explicable part is a prominent part, I admit, if we analyse the little creeping sensations of gladness, that a touch of her hand, no matter how inadvertent, or the steady gaze of her deep eyes, could cause us to feel. ”

“ He had thought he was anchoring at despair, and now that a star broke through the clouded heavens, beckoning him on, was he mad to scorn the hope that lay within his grasp? No, indeed, and that very night, under the immediate impulse of his new-born emotions, Guy Elersley made up his mind.
We cannot be surprised at this sudden change in Guy, although it was the most unexpected and unlooked for circumstance that could possibly have come to him. Falling in and out of love is almost so certain a portion of our destiny, that we should never be surprised by it. ”

“ Rayne's house, and separated at the gate, the masks fell immediately, and each went his way laughing at the absurd mockeries of life, by which, we cheat one another face to face, at those ridiculous attempts at veneering, through which it is as easy to see, as through a pane of polished glass, and yet, to which we have constant recourse, as though the human heart were more presentable in its mean disguises of truth and honesty, than when laid bare, in the actual existing state, of diplomacy, selfishness, and deceit. ”

“ In the gray of the following morning, the angels of slumber on their upward flight must have borne one another an interesting message, for Honor's guardian spirit had noted the happy smile creeping over her face, as in her dreams she saw the noble hero of her waking reverie—and Guy, as he tossed restlessly on his pillow, betrayed to his "silent watcher" a heart overflowing with a new-born love for a creature to whom he had yet spoken no word. ”

“ And yet, every year, numbers of these golden-haired, blue eyed girls leave the altar on the arm of some well-to-do young fellow, his, until death, and no one in the admiring throng of spectators doubts that the sequel of this bright day's doings will be one of endless felicity. But they are deceived. It is the wife's lack of sympathy in the hour of distress, her incapacity to solace the troubled mind and heart of the man who has loved her, that drives the young husband from his home, to seek distraction in the bottomless wine-cup. ”

“ If such were indeed the case, woman would be more independent in her social standing than she is to-day, but, I blush to say it—there are those among Ottawa's fair ones, who are flattered by the attentions and compliments of such as live these two lives of daylight and lamp-light;—flattered that an arm should encircle their waists in the dance, which is unworthy of cleaning the shoes they wear, or sweeping the ground they tread,—flattered by the attentions and flighty words falling from lips across whose threshold comes the foul breath of sin and dissipation. ”

“ Well, what are you thinking of now? when you cross your arms, bury your gaze in the fire and strike your slipper with such measured beat on the fender, I know you're not paying much attention to what I am saying."
She drew a long breath as though no answer were required, and then in a quiet, low tone she said,
"Guy, do not talk in that light way of any woman. I know what you men have long accustomed yourselves to believe—that woman was made purposely for your pleasure; 'Man for God only, she for God in him,'—but, all the same that does not exact the ratification of Heaven. ”

“ Hearts to which you are closely attached are sadly in need of your attention, and while you are so solicitous in providing for corporal necessities and comforts, forget not the poverty, the destitution of the moral nature. Wrap the robe of innocence and repentance round the heart that is naked and susceptible to all the influences of foul weather. Go bravely forth in the bark of divine charity and save the soul that is tossing helplessly on an angry sea, without food or support or safety, plunging into irremediable debauchery, as Guy Elersley is to-night. ”

“ What is there so resistless and so fatally fascinating in those pastimes which are indulged in after nightfall by our young men? Is it the staunch proof that it seems to be, of the entire annihilation of conscience? Is it so certainly the spiritual death that it seems to be?—and if so, what sad, sad wreck! Is there no one whose influence can lead those stray sheep back to the fold? No mother, no sister, no lady love to plead as a woman's eloquence alone can plead, in behalf of that fair young soul exposed to every danger? ”

“ I did not rashly censure anyone for my misfortune, but that night the coldness and cruelty of life, as it unravelled itself to me, blighted every womanly sentiment within my heart. From that moment dates the cynicism that marked my after life. My old self died out, and the flickering flame that started afresh into existence, was no longer the quiet subdued one of older days I had passed from a gay happy girl, into a hardened reckless woman, and I have never regretted it. ”

“ Why are our cities so plentiful of sin and shame, and wrecked youth, if not, because of women who never considered the serious importance of their vocation as mothers, who were unworthy their title of wives, who tired of their self-assumed duties. If any of these destinies awaited me, Guy, I would rather die to-night, than risk them—the thought makes me shudder."
"You, Honor?" he said, viewing her with very evident admiration, "such a destiny as that for you, you are jesting, for since you can save, and reclaim others, you know, you are above every taint of evil yourself." ”

“ The gas burned very low within, and with its subdued light only helped to make Honor still more like a spectre than she was. Guy, standing quite close to the panes, could see the gray pallor that had come over her agitated face, her eyes wore that far-off look that is not of earth, as if she were peering through the impenetrable, into mysteries beyond, he leaned forward breathlessly, noiselessly, and looked into the room, she was alone—quite alone, looking pale, and ill, and tired—Oh, how he longed to comfort and protect her! ”

“ The long, dark lashes that fringed the white lids, and rested languidly on the pallid cheeks, every now and then shaded the deepest, dreamiest and most mournful eyes Guy had ever seen, and the subdued passion and smothered emotion that the keen glance might detect trembling on her full, red lips, was grander to Guy than anything else human he could conceive. Then the large, creeping waves of the dry, dark hair that encircled her intelligent brow, and nestled around her well-formed ears to her shapely neck behind, capped the climax of Guy's rapturous admiration. ”