SONNET. Go, pencil! faithful to thy master's sighs! When next her light steps wind these wood walks green, Ah! paint her form, her soul-illumined eyes, Would feel its charm, or think it could beguile! These lines were not inscribed to any person; Emily therefore could not apply them to herself, though she was undoubtedly the nymph of these shades. Having glanced round the little circle of her acquaintance without being detained by a suspicion as to whom they could be addressed, she was compelled to rest in uncertainty; an uncertainty which would have been more painful to an idle mind than it was to hers. She had no leisure to suffer this circumstance, trifling at first, to swell into importance by frequent remembrance. The little vanity it had excited (for the incertitude which forbade her to presume upon having inspired the sonnet, forbade her also to disbelieve it) passed away, and the incident was dismissed from her thoughts amid her books, her studies, and the exercise of social charities. Soon after this period, her anxiety was awakened by the indisposition of her father, who was attacked with a fever; which, though not thought to be of a dangerous kind, gave a severe shock to his constitution. Madame St. Aubert and Emily attended him with unremitting care; but his recovery was very slow, and, as he adynced towards health, Madame seemed to decline. The first scene he visited, after he was well enough to take the air, was his favourite fishing house. A basket of provisions was sent thither, with books, and Emily's lute: for fishing tackle he had no use, for he never could find amusement in torturing or destroying. After employing himself, for about an hour, in botanizing, dinner was served. It was a repast, to which gratitude, for being again permitted to visit this spot, gave sweetness; and family happiness once more smiled beneath these shades. Monsieur St. Aubert conversed with unusual The recheerfulness; every object delighted his senses. freshing pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and the confinement of a sick chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as the descriptions of those in health. The green woods and pastures; the flowery turf; the balmy air; the murmur of the limpid stream; and even the hum of every little insect of the shade, seem to revivify the soul, and make mere existence bliss. Madame St. Aubert, reanimated by the cheerfulness and the recovery of her husband, was no longer sensible of the indisposition which had lately oppressed her; and as she sauntered along the wood walks of this romantic glen, and conversed with him, and with her daughter, she often looked at them alternately with a degree of tenderness, that filled her eyes with tears. St. Aubert observed this more than once, and gently reproved her for the emotion; but she could only smile, clasp his hand, and that of Emily, and weep the more. He felt the tender enthusiasm stealing upon himself in a degree that became almost painful; his features assumed a serious air, and he could not forbear secretly sighing--Perhaps I shall some time look back to these moments, as to the summit of my happiness, with hopeless regret. But let me not misuse them by useless anticipation; let me hope I shall not live to mourn the loss of those who are dearer to me than life. To relieve, or perhaps to indulge, the pensive temper of his mind, he bade Emily fetch the lute she knew how to touch with such sweet pathos. As she drew near the fishing house, she was surprised to hear the tones of the instrument, which were awakened by the hand of taste; and uttered a plaintive air, whose exquisite melody engaged all her attention. She listened in profound silence, afraid to move from the spot, lest the sound of her steps should occasion her to lose a note of the music, or should disturb the musician. Every thing without the building was still, and no person appeared. She continued to listen, till timidity succeeded to surprise and delight; a timidity increased by a remembrance of the pencilled lines she had formerly seen, and she hesitated whether to proceed or return. While she paused, the music ceased; and, after a momentary hesitation, she re-collected courage to advance to the fishing house, which she entered with faltering steps, and found unoccupied! Her lute lay on the table; every thing seemed undisturbed, and she began to believe it was another instrument she had heard, till she remembered, that, when she followed M. and Madame St. Aubert from this spot, her lute was left on the window seat. She felt alarmed, yet knew not wherefore: the melancholy gloom of evening, and the profound stillness of the place, interrupted only by the light trembling of leaves, heightened her fanciful apprehensions, and she was desirous of quitting the building, but perceived herself grow faint, and sat down. As she tried to recover herself, the pencilled lines on the wainscot met her eye; she started, as if she had seen a stranger; but, endeavouring to conquer the tremor of her spirit, rose, and went to the window. To the lines before noticed she now perceived that others were added, in which her name appeared. Though no longer suffered to doubt that they were addressed to herself, she was as ignorant, as before, by whom they could be written. While she mused, she thought she heard the sound of a step without the building; and again alarmed, she caught up her lute, and hurried away. Monsieur and Madame St. Aubert she found in a little path that wound along the sides of the glen. Having reached a green summit, shadowed by palm trees, and overlooking the valleys and plains of Gascony, they seated themselves on the turf; and while their eyes wandered over the glorious scene, and they inhaled the sweet breath of flowers and herbs that enriched the grass, Emily played and sung several of their favourite airs, with the delicacy of expression in which she so much excelled. Music and conversation detained them in this enchanting spot, till the sun's last light slept upon the plains; till the white sails that glided beneath the mountains, where the Garonne wandered, became dim, and the gloom of evening stole over the landscape. It was a melancholy, but not unpleasing gloom. St. Aubert and his family rose, and left the place with regret: alas! Madame St. Aubert knew not that she left it forever. When they reached the fishing house she missed her bracelet and recollected that she had taken it from her arm after dinner, and left it on the table when she went to walk. After a long search in which Emily was very active, she was compelled to resign herself to the loss of it. What made this bracelet valuable to her was a miniature of her daughter to which it was attached, esteemed a striking resemblance, and which had been painted only a few months before. When Emily was convinced that the bracelet was really gone, she blushed and became thoughtful. That some stranger had been in the fishing house during her absence,her lute and the additional lines of a pencil, had already informed her. From the purport of these lines it was not unreasonable to believe, that the poet, the musician, and the thief were the same person. But though the music she had heard, the written lines she had seen, and the disappearance of the picture, formed a combination of circumstances very remarkable, she was irresistibly restrained from mentioning them; secretly determining, however, never again to visit the fishing house, without Monsieur or Madame St. Aubert. They returned pensively to the chateau, Emily musing on the incident which had just occurred; St. Aubert reflecting, with placid gratitude, on the blessings he possessed; and Ma dame St. Aubert somewhat disturbed and perplexed by the loss of her daughter's picture. As they drew near the house, they observed an unusual bustle about it; the sound of voices was distinctly heard, servants and horses were seen passing between the trees, and, at length, the wheels of a carriage rolled along. Having some within view of the front of the chateau, a landeau with smoking horses, appeared on the little lawn before it. St. Aubert perceived the liveries of his brother-in-law, and in the parlour he found Monsiur and Madame Quesnel already entered. They had left Paris some days before, and were on the way to their estate, only ten leagues distant from La Vallee, and which Monsieur Quesnel had purchased several years before of St. Aubert. This gentleman was the only brother of Madame St. Aubert; but the ties of relationship having never been strengthened by congeniality of character, the intercourse between them had not been frequent. M. Quesnel had lived altogether in the world: his aim had been consequence; splendour was the object of his taste; and his address and knowledge of character had carried him forward to the attainment of almost all that he had courted. By a man of such a disposition, it is not surprising that the virtues of St. Aubert should be overlooked; or that his pure taste, simplicity, and moderated wishes, were considered as marks of a weak intellect, and of confined views. The marriage of his sister with St. Aubert had been mortifying to his ambition; for he had designed that the matrimonial connexion she formed should assist him to attain the consequence which he so much desired; and some offers were made her by persons whose rank and fortune flattered his warmest hope. But his sister, who was then addressed also by St. Aubert, perceived, or thought she perceived, that happiness and splendour were not the same; and she did not hesitate to forego the last for the attainment of the former. Whether Monsieur Quesnel thought them the same or not, he would readily have sacrificed his sister's peace to the gratification of his own ambition; and, on her marriage with St. Aubert, expressed in private his contempt for her spiritless conduct, and of the connexion which it permitted. Madame St. Aubert, though she concealed this insult from her husband, felt, perhaps, for the first time, resentment lighted in her heart; and, though a regard for her own dignity, united with considerations of prudence, restrained her expression of this resentment, there was ever after a mild reserve in her manner towards M. Quesnel, which he both understood and felt. In his own marriage he did not follow his sister's example. His lady was an Italian, and an heiress, by birth; and, by nature and education, was a vain and frivolous woman. They now determined to pass the night with St. Aubert: and as the chateau was not large enough to accomodate their their servants, the latter were dismissed to the neighbouring village. When the first compliments were over, and the arrangements for the night made, M. Quesnel began the display of his intelligence and connexions; while St. Aubert, who had been long enough in retirement to find these topics recommended by their novelty, listened with a degree of patience and attention which his guest mistook for the humility of wonder. The latter, indeed, described the few festivities which the turbulence of that period permitted to the court of Henry the Third, with a minuteness, that somewhat compensed for his ostentation; but when he came to speak of the character of the Duke de Joyeuse, of a secret treaty which he knew to be negociating with the Porte, and of the light in which Henry of Navarre was received, M. St. Aubert recollected enough of his former experience to be assured that his guest could be only of an inferior class of politicians: and that, from the importance of the subjects upon which he committed himself, he could not be of the rank to which he pretended to belong. The opinions delivered by M. Quesnel were such as St. Aubert forebore to reply to; for he knew that his guest had neither humanity to feel, nor discernment to perceive, what is just. Madame Quesnel, meanwhile, was expressing to Madame St. Aubert her astonishment that she could bear to pass her life in this remote corner of the world, as she called it, and describing, from a wish probably of exciting envy, the splendour of the balls, banquets, and processions which had just been given by the court, in honour of the nuptials of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain, the sister of the Queen. She described, with equal minuteness the magnificence she had seen, and that from which she had been excluded; while Emily's vivid fancy, as she listened with the ardent curiosity of youth, heightened the scenes she heard of; and Madame St. Aubert, looking on her family, felt, as a tear stole to her eye, that though splendour may grace happiness, virtue only can bestow it. It is now twelve years, St. Aubert, said M. Quesnel, since I purchased your family estate.-Somewhere therea bout, replied St. Aubert, suppressing a sigh. It is near five years since I have been there, resumed Quesnel; for Paris and its neighbourhood is the only place in the world to live in; and I am so immersed in politics, and have so many affairs of moment on my hands, that I find it difficult to steal away even for a month or two. St. Aubert remaining silent, M. Quesnel proceeded: I have sometimes wondered how you, who have lived in the capital, and have been accustomed to company, can exist elsewhere: especially in so remote a country as this, where you can neither hear nor see any thing, and can, in short, be scarcely conscious of life. Five for my family and myself, said St. Aubert; I am |