even on the threshold of paradise. It was night, and the wearied child laid her head on the pillow and slept. Mrs. Brandreth's elder sister and tender nurse wished to remove her, but the mother would not suffor it. "Do not wake her," she whispered, faintly-"let my darling sleep-I have kissed her and said good-night-a long night-until comes the eternal morning; let her sleep." * No more words passed through those white lips. Once or twice the eyes opened and rested lovingly, lingeringly, on the face of the sleeping child; then they closed for ever! When morning came, another spirit. had entered the gates of heaven. Silently, and without tears, the sister unclosed Stella's warm fingers from those that stiffened around them, and bore her away, still sleeping. sweet face wore, at times, that peculiar mournful look which the blind always have, but this was the only outward token of the affliction which had fallen upon her. Affliction it could hardly be called, for the child scarcely felt it as such; her blindness had come on so gradually, that Stella had become accustomed to her helpless condition. And, besides, from her very infancy the child had been quiet and thoughtful, caring little for the sports attractive to her age, as if with a foreshadowing of how soon she was to be deprived of them. Gentle and subdued she was, as became her helpless condition; it seemed as if He, who knew how dependent her whole life must be on the affection of others, had endowed her with that irresistible beauty which wins love, and the meek spirit which preserves it. But now Stella hardly felt her darkness, so illuminated was it by the light of a mother's love. More than her own life, more Wildly and resolutely the child strove to than her handsome, frank-hearted boy-return to her mother. Her darkened eyes nay, more even than the husband of her could not see the change of death, thereyouth, did Mrs. Brandreth cling to her blind fore she did not believe in its reality. An child; with a passionate fervor, an all-ab-hour before she had heard the voice, had sorbing love, that atoned to Stella for the felt the hand; both were the same, though loss of the blessed gift of sight. Perhaps her own delicate health made this love more intense, from the feeling that she would not always be with her darling, to cherish her in her heart's core, and shield her there from all contact with the rough world which the poor stricken one was ill-fitted to brave. The mother knew well that every year which unfolded, in new beauty, Stella's mind and person, drew her own life nearer towards its close. At last, when Stella and Edmund still lingered on the verge of childhood, the mother was called away. Gently, not rudely, came the summons, and yet it was sudden—just as an autumn leaf flutters and flutters until it drops at once and is seen no more. feeble; she could not comprehend that one short sleep had parted her mother from her. So clinging to her twin-brother, Stella came and stood by the dead; she called, but there was no answer. "Where is she, where is she?" cried the despairing child. Edmund guided his sister's hand to the fingers that had held hers while life lasted; their marble coldness made her start, and cling, trembling, to her brother's neck. "Edmund--I cannot see-tell how she looks," fearfully whispered Stella. "White-still-with closed eyes and parted lips-oh, mother! mother! it is not you!" and the boy burst into tears. for ever singing his praise-a spirit pure and perfect, though we know not what form she bears in heaven, save that it is in God's image, and must be beautiful." "No, my children," said the sister of Thus did Mrs. Brandreth die-even be- Mrs. Brandreth, who stood behind them. fore her husband, who, all-unconscious of "Edmund-Stella-I will tell you what danger, was on a journey, could reach his she is now-a white-robed, glorious angel home, the wife whom he had sincerely at the footstool of God's throne-a voice loved, though hardly with the tenderness meet for her gentle nature, had passed away. So swiftly came the angel of death, that the mother had hardly time to bless her two babes, and commend poor Stella to her brother's care, in a charge that lingered on the boy's memory from youth to old age. Then, worn out with pain, she kept silence, and lay with closed eyes still holding fast the little hands of her daughter, the thought of whose desolation troubled her spirit, And in the stillness of the death chamber that pious and gentle woman drew the orphans of her dead sister to her side and read aloud from the Holy Book, the words that speak of the immortality of the soul, and the state of the blessed in heaven; words so simple, that childhood finds in them no mystery hard to be understood-| wish to be again "sweet sixteen!" so sublime, that the grey-haired philosopher may feel his heart glow with the consciousness that he bears within his frail mortal frame a spirit that can never know death! The children listened, standing beside the clay of their mother; yet even then they thought of her no longer as dead on earth, but as rejoicing in heaven. CHAPTER II. "Are we not formed, as notes of music are, FROM the time of her mother's death, Thus, in this dreamy state of mind, the blind girl insensibly passed from childhood into girlhood. She had attained the age of which poets write as sweetest of all, when the bud is just opening into a flower, and life is in its hopeful spring. How little do these said poets know that this is the saddest age of all. What woman would ever Child hood's life is a never-ending present, a contented dwelling on what is best and pleasantest now, without memory to sharpen the past, or anxiety to darken the future. But with youth, soon-ah, how soon comes the thirst for something more-the bitter, unsatisfied yearning after vague happiness, some glorious ideal of human felicity, the same in all, yet varied in form, according to the different minds in which it abides. One dreams of wealth, another of gaiety, another-alas for her!-of love; and so the young creatures go on restlessly seeking to fathom their newly-awakened thoughts and feelings; and, knowing not their own hearts, nor yet life, they wander about, blindly dazzled or groping in darkness, until the waking comes from that troubled dream, and they enter on the reality, the true life of heart and soul, for which woman was made. Stella entered upon girlhood with few or none of the buoyant hopes of most young maidens. She saw not beauty, and love was to her only a name that brought to her the memory of her mother-the sole love she had ever known. Always thoughtful, she lived more than ever within the dark chambers of her own soul-her only world. But that world now became peopled with deeper and wilder fancies; every day new chords were touched in her heart, the mysterious harmonies of which she could scarcely understand. She loved to be alone: in winter she listened to the wind until she almost fancied it talked with her; in summer, she sat for hours in the still, silent sunshine, and thought of heaven, of the time when she should go thither, and see her mother, with eyes no longer darkened. Then a warble—a perfume would bring back the dreaming girl to earth, and she would think how sweet the world must be to others, and droop her head, and weep that she was blind. One gift atoned to Stella, in some measure, for the loss of sight, and that was a soul to which music was as its very breath. Her voice had those deep, low tones, that thrill from the heart to the heart; not a clear, musical, gladsome warble, but a voice that spoke of mind, of feeling, of passion, such as came from no angel's lips, but from a woman's heart. We once heard, and from one too who spoke and thought well, the saying-" One must always love a woman who sings sweetly;" and Stella's was a voice not to be admired, perhaps, but to be loved, as coming from a heart as Wearily did the blind girl ask to be left in peace with her birds and flowers, and heavily and fearfully did she look forward to entering on a world that could bring her naught but pain. Stella did not know that the silken thread of her destiny was insensibly drawing her towards him who was to lighten its burden, and make all joy and sunshine to her. Thus it was that she met him. As a man of science and learning, Mr. Brandreth had the entrée everywhere among the gifted, and the patrons of such. Thither he also carried his blind daughter, perhaps because he thought to please her, for he There are in life crises, distinct and was a kind father, in the main, and perhaps vivid, on which we can look back and feel he liked to see many eyes resting with adthat they have colored our whole destiny; miration on the beautiful English girl, and can say, but for that one year-one week to hear praises of her glorious voice. -one day, how different would all have Rarely was it that Stella suffered this gift been. Silently, unconsciously, are we to be shown forth; but, on one night, swept on towards these moments, which lie wearied of herself, of solitude, of society, like hills, placed here and there, from she gave way to her feelings, and sang, whose top we can see our whole life, like a with her whole soul in the music. panorama, stretched out before us; and know that but for such and such events we should not have felt, and been as we are. Chance, fatality, are the words on the lips of the wise proud man, in explanation of this; but the humble, loving spirit, looks higher for the unveiling of these marvels which pass worldly wisdom. Thus, nearer and nearer came the blind girl to the boundary of that golden shadow which overhangs human life, and ever has done so since the time when the first created one wooed the mother of all men, in the twilight of paradise. Once, and once only, can come this sunny cloud over mortal life. Man may love twice, thrice-nay, even woman's constancy may know the freshness of early fancy, or the calm peace of healed affections; but, be it first or last, every man and woman has, or has had, some love supreme to which all others are as nothing. And this is the immortality of love; falsehood, or change, or death, may intervene; the wounded heart may be healed, the fickle vow forgotten in other and higher ones, but no other feelings can ever be exactly the same. It is the idealization of love, which happens but once in a lifetime, and which each young life that enters earth renews in itself, thus making an ever fresh eternity of love. "Who is she who sang?" said a clear, low-toned, manly voice, whose pleasant English tones ran through the Babel of French, Italian, and German tongues that filled the saloon, and pierced to the acute ears of the blind girl. The answer was inaudible to her, but then she heard the same pleasant voice again, in tones that were much fainter, and had a mournful emphasis. Poor girl, poor girl, I had a sister who was blind." A deep crimson flushed Stella's cheek, for she was ever sensitive on the subject of her misfortune; but that sweet and compassionate voice healed where it wounded. As she left the piano, the blind girl felt her hand taken by that of a stranger, and a gentle "Suffer me to lead you, "fell on her ear, in the same voice to which she had listened before. Ere they could find Mr. Brandreth, the stranger had time to ask and claim pardon, as a countryman, for thus addressing one unknown; and by declaring his name, and speaking of some mutual friends, he won upon even the reserved father. All that evening, Philip Armytage sat by the side of the blind girl, who felt her heart warm to the sound of an English voice in that far land; and his was so sweet, and when he spoke to her, had such a pitySome inexplicable whim allured the re-ing softness, as if he thought of the sister tired and studious Mr. Brandreth from his home; and he set off to travel on the continent, taking with him his daughter. VOL. XI. No. IV. 33 he had mentioned. No wonder that when sleep came over poor Stella's dimmed eyes, that voice haunted her in her dreams. Philip Armytage was that darling hero feelings of those on whom outward impresof novelists, that Pariah of real life, a poor sions can have no influence, whom outward gentleman. Heir to an old uncle, who beauty cannot lure to fickleness! how inwould marry and thwart the hopes of the tense, how all-engrossing must be the love nephew he had educated with all the lux- of the blind! uries and expectations of wealth, young Armytage, at twenty-five, was thrown like a stray sea-weed on the ocean of the world, with manners, mind, and education that only made him feel more keenly his changed position. He experienced to the full" how differently the world looks on a baronet's heir and a nobleman's secretary; even the fine gentlemanly bearing and richlygifted mind, which could not be taken away from him, were almost thought to add to the category of his imperfections now. CHAPTER III. Amor che nullo amato amor perdona Mi prese, del cestui piacer si ferte DANTE. "Love, that to none beloved to love again THE wise ones of the earth may ridicule love's mysterious sympathies, as they do the stories of ghosts and apparitions, but there must be some truth in both, or much pains need not and would not be taken to prove them to be false. How was it, then, that before Stella and Philip Armytage had met half a dozen times, they began to feel and to talk like old friends? What was that strange sympathy which made the very words he uttered appear to her as if she had heard them before in some dim dream, as if she had thought his thoughts long before? And what was it that caused Philip Armytage, who had basked all his life in the smile of woman, to feel an irresistible charm in gazing on the sweet face of the poor blind girl, who, as yet unconscious of the nature of the invisible tie between them, treated him with the frank regard of a young sister towards a dear brother. Under the influence of these changed fortunes, Philip Armytage ought, in order to become a true novel hero, to have grown cold, sarcastic, haughty, misanthropic; but he very wisely did no such thing. A good mother, the guardian angel of a boy's life, had better trained her fatherless and only son. Philip's mind and principles were too well regulated for one blast of misfortune to wither the flowers, and cause ill weeds to spring up rampant in the garden of his heart. That heart was disappointed, but not chilled or soured; he did not scorn or rail at the world, but strove, like a true hero, to brave its frowns, and wait patiently until his own firm will and endurance should earn for him what fortune had denied. Philip Armytage was not perfect, who on earth ever was? but his foibles never amounted to vices; and, young as he was, he had learned wisdom, and bade fair to become, if he were not already, a talented and good man. Thus far we have spoken Most welcome is the society of a counof the mind of Philip Armytage; reversing tryman to those who are travelling abroad, the general order, and putting foremost what and Stella thought it was this reason that is indeed the highest. Of his face and made Philip's presence so grateful to her. person, we may now say, that both were Then, too, he was so gentle, and talked to pleasing to a lady's eye; he was certainly her of his lost sister, blind like herself, not an Apollo, but he was tall, graceful, and looked, moved, spoke like a gentleman. Such was he whom destiny, what can such things be but destiny? threw in the way of the young, beautiful, blind girl, whose lonely dreaming heart yearned for an ideal round which to hang, as a garland, all its flowers of love and fancy. And rare as the fact is in the history of most maidens' hearts, in this case the shrine was one worthy to receive that purest and holiest sacrifice, a woman's first love. If this be so powerful that it is sometimes unchanged, always remembered, to old age, what must be the until she felt that blindness to be less pain. He read to her, and thus opened a new world to her view; his high and cultivated intellect drawing out the hidden treasures of hers, and his early ripened judgment guiding her until she awoke from the vague, idle dreams of girlhood unto a better, brighter life. Yet all this while no words of love passed between them. For weeks, months, their life was a long dream of happiness, so sweet that neither thought of the waking. By slow degrees the truth dawned on Philip Armytage, and he knew that he, over whose heart light ly, of the chances how and where they might again meet. fancies before had swept like a summer wind, now loved, for the first time, with his whole heart and soul. And who was the "I shall hear of you sometimes," said object of this passionate love? A blind Philip, in that old, old parting sentence, girl, whose helplessness made her only the" and you will think of me now and then, dearer; for what is so sweet to proud man Stella " It was at her own particular as the sense of protection? Often when wish that he had called her by her sweet Philip sat and listened to her voice, or Christian name. looked on her fragile loveliness, as she clung to his guiding arm, he felt that if he could only take her in his heart's core, and shield her there from every breath of sorrow, what bliss it would be! And then he remembered himself, poor, friendless as he was, how dared he love her! And so his lips were sealed. Had Philip Armytage guessed that Stella would learn to love him, he would have flown from the spot rather than thus have brought sorrow upon her. He was too honorable, knowing his own poverty, to steal into a girl's heart, whose hand he hoped not to claim. Stella was so different from any woman he had ever met; her manner towards him was so frank, so open, with not a shadow of disguise in her simple, truthful soul, that Philip thought she regarded him only as a friend, and never by one word did he overstep the limits of that friendship. And Stella, in her unworldly and innocent nature, had deceived herself likewise. It was not until he came to tell her that he must soon depart with the noble lord who hired his services, that Stella knew how dearly she loved Philip Armytage. But with that knowledge came thronging a host of maidenly feelings, not pride, nor yet shame, why should she blush, that in loving him she had loved goodness, and talent, and everything that ennobles man? but painful reserve and sadness, which must now be hidden from sight. How little the poor blind girl knew how to conceal aught. Yet in a few hours of anguish, she learned more than in her whole life; and when Philip came next day to bid her adieu, he was almost startled by the change in her. The wavering color on her cheek had settled into a deadly paleness; and there was womanly calmness in her manner, but not the girlish freedom of old. A wild thought of sweet agony shot through Philip's brain-did she then love him? But no, there was no tremulousness in the lip, no blush, no tear, it could not be. Yes,;' ;" answered Stella, "I shall not forget how many dull hours you have made pleasant; I shall ever remember your kindness, your pity, to one like me." "You pain me by speaking thus,' Philip said, after a pause, during which his heart beat so violently that he vainly tried to make his voice seem calm. "I am sorry; then I will say no more about myself, and only thank you very much for all you have been to me," returned Stella, with something of her smile of old. Philip Armytage rose-he lingered over the last adieu. He held her hand and looked at her as if to imprint every feature of that beautiful face in his memory. Alas for the blind girl, who could not see what a world of love was revealed in his gaze e! With a voice, whose tremulousness went to Stella's very heart, he said, Farewell! lifted her hand half-way to his lips, and relinquished it without the so-longed-for kiss, and departed. He had scarcely crossed the threshold when he remembered Mr. Brandreth, whose cold but always courteous welcome had never failed him, and surely merited some adieu. Philip returned; but he had not meant to seek Stella again, for her silent farewell had pained him, but he heard a low wailing in the room where he had left her, and came near. There, weeping with a passionate vehemence that shook her slight frame, knelt the blind girl, her head bowed, and her hands tightly clasped together. "My mother-my Philip-both gone-I am all alone now, "she murmured in accents of thrilling sorrow. Philip forgot everything except that he loved and was beloved. He darted forward and knelt beside her. No, not alone, my Stella-star of my life--my only beloved," he cried, lavishing upon her the passionate epithets that love teaches. "I will never leave you, my heart's darling, my beautiful, more than all the world!" he continued, while his arms They talked long and calmly of his pro- encircled his treasure, and she trembling, posed journey-of Italy, whither he was almost doubting the joyful certainty, could going, of the time passed here so pleasant-only weep. He asked her why she did so. |