CHAPTER LXXXI.
And thou that, silent at my knee,
Dost lift to mine thy soft, dark, earnest eyes,
Filled with the love of childhood, which I see
Pure through its depths,--a thing without disguise.
Thou that hast breathed in slumber on my breast,
When I have checked its throbs to give thee rest,
Mine own, whose young thoughts fresh before me rise,
Is it not much that I may guide thy prayer,
And circle thy young soul with free and healthful air?--HEMANS.
The events we have recorded, from the time of Clarence's visit to
Mordaunt to the death of Lord Ulswater, took place within little more
than a week. We have now to pass in silence over several weeks; and
as it was the commencement of autumn when we introduced Clarence and
Mordaunt to our reader, so it is the first opening of winter in which
we will resume the thread of our narration.
Mordaunt had removed to London; and, although he had not yet taken any
share in public business, he was only watching the opportunity to
commence a career the brilliancy of which those who knew aught of his
mind began already to foretell. But he mixed little, if at all, with
the gayer occupants of the world's prominent places. Absorbed
alternately in his studies and his labours of good, the halls of
pleasure were seldom visited by his presence; and they who in the
crowd knew nothing of him but his name, and the lofty bearing of his
mien, recoiled from the coldness of his exterior; and, while they
marvelled at his retirement and reserve, saw in both but the
moroseness of the student and the gloom of the misanthropist.
But the nobleness of his person; the antiquity of his birth; his
wealth, his unblemished character, and the interest thrown over his
name by the reputation of talent and the unpenetrated mystery of his
life, all powerfully spoke in his favour to those of the gentler sex,
who judge us not only from what we are to others, but from what they
imagine we can be to them. From such allurements, however, as from
all else, the mourner turned only the more deeply to cherish the
memory of the dead; and it was a touching and holy sight to mark the
mingled excess of melancholy and fondness with which he watched over
that treasure in whose young beauty and guileless heart his departed
Isabel had yet left the resemblance of her features and her love.
There seemed between them to exist even a dearer and closer tie than
that of daughter and sire; for, in both, the objects which usually
divide the affections of the man or the child had but a feeble charm:
Isabel's mind had expanded beyond her years, and Algernon's had
outgrown his time; so that neither the sports natural to her age, nor
the ambition ordinary to his, were sufficient to wean or to distract
the unity of their love. When, after absence, his well-known step
trod lightly in the hall, her ear, which had listened and longed and
thirsted for the sound, taught her fairy feet to be the first to
welcome his return; and when the slightest breath of sickness menaced
her slender frame, it was his hand that smoothed her pillow, and his
smile that cheered away her pain; and when she sank into sleep she
knew that a father's heart watched over her through the long but
untiring night; that a father's eye would be the first which, on
waking, she would meet.
"Oh! beautiful, and rare as beautiful," was that affection; in the
parent no earthlier or harder sternness in authority, nor weakness in
doting, nor caprice in love; in the child no fear debasing reverence,
yet no familiarity diminishing respect. But Love, whose pride is in
serving, seemed to make at once soft and hallowed the offices mutually
rendered; and Nature, never counteracted in her dictates, wrought,
without a visible effort, the proper channels into which those offices
should flow; and that Charity which not only covers sins, but lifts
the veil from virtues, whose beauty might otherwise have lain
concealed, linked them closer and closer, and threw over that link the
sanctity of itself. For it was Algernon's sweetest pleasure to make
her young hands the ministers of good to others, and to drink at such
times from the rich glow of her angel countenance the purified
selfishness of his reward. And when after the divine joy of blessing,
which, perhaps, the youngest taste yet more vividly than their sires,
she threw her arms around his neck and thanked him with glad tears for
the luxury he had bestowed upon her, how could they, in that gushing
overflow of heart, help loving each other the more, or feeling that in
that love there was something which justified the excess?
Nor have we drawn with too exaggerating a pencil, nor, though Isabel's
mind was older than her years, extended that prematureness to her
heart. For, where we set the example of benevolence, and see that the
example is in nought corrupted, the milk of human kindness will flow
not the less readily from the youngest breast, and out of the mouths
of babes will come the wisdom of charity and love!
Ever since Mordaunt's arrival in town, he had sought out Wolfe's
abode, for the purpose of ministering to the poverty under which he
rightly conjectured that the republican laboured. But the habitation
of one, needy, distressed, seldom living long in one place, and far
less notorious of late than he had formerly been, was not easy to
discover; nor was it till after long and vain search that he
ascertained the retreat of his singular acquaintance. The day in
which he effected this object we shall have hereafter occasion to
specify. Meanwhile we return to Mr. Crauford.
