wo lives for ever
entangled. We walked and rode together, he taught me drawing, came
now and then and spent the long summer afternoons, and grandmother
liked and welcomed him; offered no obstacle to the strong current of
love that ran like a golden stream for those few hallowed weeks, and
afterward found only rapids and whirlpools. How deliriously happy I
was! What a glory seems even now to linger about every tree and rock
that we visited together! He told me he was very poor, and was
encumbered with the care of an infirm mother and sister, and of a
young brother who displayed great plastic skill, and gave promise of
becoming renowned in sculpture, while Belmont was devoted to
painting. He frankly explained his poverty, detailed his plans,
expatiated with beautiful poetic fervour upon the hopes that gilded
his future, and asked my sympathy and affection. While he was obscure
he was unwilling to claim me, his love was too unselfish to
transplant me from a sphere of luxury and affluence to one of
pecuniary want; and he only desired that I would patiently wait until
his genius won recognition. One star-lit night, standing on the bank
of the river, with the perfume of jasmines stealing over us, I put my
hand in his, and pledged my heart, my life for his. Nearly eight
years have passed since then, but no shadow of regret has ever
crossed my mind for the solemn promise I gave; and, despite all I
have suffered, were it in my power to cancel the past I would not!
Bitter waves have broken over me, but the memory of my lover, of his
devotion, is sweeter, oh! sweeter than my hopes of heaven! God
forgive me if it be sinful idolatry. It is the one golden link that
held me back, that saves me now, from selling myself to Satan. In the
midst of that rose-crowned June and July, in the height of my
innocent happiness, mamma fell upon us, as a hawk swoops upon a
dovecote, dividing a cooing pair. Disguising nothing, I freely told
her all, and Belmont nobly pleaded for permission to prove his
worthiness. Grandmother was a powerful ally, and perhaps the result
might have been different, and mamma would have ultimately been won
over, had not Erle Palma's counsel been sought. That cold-blooded
tyrant has been the one curse of my life. But for him, I should be
to-day a happy, loving wife. Do you wonder that I hate him? How I
have longed for the seven Apocalyptic vials of wrath! He and mamma
conferred. An investigation concerning the Egglestons