66 can you speak thus princely name and the princely home of your ancestors, of deserting now, in the moment when she most needs the defence of every loyal cavalier, the young and innocent sovereign, in the assertion of whose rights you took so vivid an interest;-above all, can you think of forsaking me! True, I have a kind and an honourable husband; but even his affection would not suffice for my happiness, if you, the playmate of my childhood, the companion and friend of my maturer years, my twin brother, my only living relation, were to become a wanderer and an exile! Speak to my husband, Fernando; he, too, is a soldier, and a noble Castilian! Consult him. What was the commencement of this unlucky quarrel? Don Manuel Hernandez has a lovely daughter, the Donna Serafina, respecting whom he is known to be singularly tenacious. Surely, her name was not mentioned between ye?" disputed mistress (from one of whose opened the deepest affliction ; windows peeped forth the inquisitive and of leaving your country, of abandoning the laughing serving-maidens), the contrast-that contrast so frequent in this world of contradictions between the splendour and gaiety of outward circumstances, and the cares and anxieties of the interior mind, the wide difference, in short, between appearance and reality, was most strikingly exemplified. To the eye she was bright, fair, sweet, and calm, as the flowers clustered in their sculptured vase, that waved above her head, diffusing beauty and fragrance around her; but, as the flower-leaf is subject to influences from without, shaken by the night-wind, and battered by the rain, so is that sentient and delicate blossom, the human heart, liable to be swayed by the changeful gusts of passion and feeling; and, even when in itself equable and firm, it is but too often torn and shattered by sympathy with the sufferings and injuries of the objects of its best affections. And so it fared with the gentle Leonora at this moment, when, awakening from a long revery, occupied in vain guesses as to the purport of the letter which lay by her side, she glanced suddenly down towards the lake, and saw the signal-torch gleaming high above the waters. In a few minutes the brother and sister were standing together, in earnest conversation beneath a group of cedar, and cypress, and Portugal laurel, through whose dark foliage the moonbeams struck in bright fitful gleams, as the cool breeze of evening swayed the huge branches. "His daughter, quotha!" replied the fiery youth. "I never saw her, have hardly heard that such a person existed! Don Diego Velasquez and myself were speaking of a stranger, clearly a lady of distinction, a beauty whom we had met together on the Prado, and whom I had subsequently seen, oftener indeed than I cared to tell him, at early mass at the church of San Isidro. He dared to compare with this angel, pure, dignified, gracious, and graceful;-I have never spoken to her, but I am sure that she is all this; there is an evidence "He insulted me, Leonora, before the whole of bearing and of countenance, to say nothing regiment called me a rash, hot-headed boy; of the careful attendance of two old domesand when I sent the young Conde de Merida tics, whose appearance vouches for the station to him, to demand an apology, or to appoint and character of their mistress;-he dared to the time and weapons for a meeting, he re- compare with her a Jewish girl, picked up in fused to listen to him or answer him, other- some of the alleys of the city; and it was my wise than by saying that his regard for my indignation at this insult, offered to a virtuous father's memory, his old comrade in arms, lady, which provoked the interference of Coloalone prevented him from putting me under nel Hernandez, who had entered unobserved arrest for sending a challenge to my superior during the dispute. Don Diego apologised. officer; and that for this time he forgave me, He is a slight boy; a trivial jester, who would but that I had need look to it, for that the next crack jokes at his mother's death-bed, or his breach of discipline should be visited upon father's tomb: but Hernandez! And to reme with all the rigour of military law. And fuse me all explanation! all redress! To this from Manuel Hernandez to a descendant disgrace me before my comrades, and then to of the house of Guzman! And he survives, stand upon his seniority! his military discipand I survive! And all redress is closed line! "The day would come,' he said, 'when against me by military discipline, forsooth! Military discipline!!! Well, I have removed that barrier, have thrown up my commission; and if, upon my return to Madrid, he refuses me the satisfaction which I require, I will leave Spain-leave Europe! The world does not want in ways in which the son of an old Castilian, even if he abandon his estates, his rank, his country, may win for himself enough to maintain life, without forfeiting that without which life is worthless-honour." "Alas! my dearest Fernando! my most dear brother!" exclaimed Donna Leonora, in 48* 3 W I should repent my violence.' Death will ar- rapidly to the opposite shore; where Jose, his faithful domestic, attended with his horses. preserver, how can we repay such services? Don Fernando! Is it, indeed, Don Fernando de Guzman?" "Colonel Hernandez !" and, without their at all knowing how it happened, the two brave hands were joined in the most cordial grasp of affectionate amity. 66 Well, is this not better, now, than fighting for neither could tell what?" said Don Manuel, after a few minutes passed in the warmest expressions of gratitude on the part of the father and daughter. "You will understand, my good young friend, that I had heard enough of your conversation with Don Diego, to be convinced that you were speaking of Serafina, without exactly knowing the degree or the manner of your acquaintance with her. This occasioned my taking up the matter with undue warmth. Upon discovering, however, how matters stood, I was actually on my way to your excellent sister, Donna Leonora, to commission her to mediate between us; and, as you confess to having left her in some trouble, why, I think, with your permission, we had better proceed thither now. She will forgive our untimely visit for the sake of its object." The weather was singularly fine even for that delicious climate. The moon, nearly at full, reigned in the clear and deep-blue sky like a milder sun, throwing a silvery light upon the wild and beautiful scenery, the deep and richly-wooded glens, threaded by mountain streams, and surmounted by the abrupt precipices and rugged steeps of Sierra Guadarrama, into the defiles of which a few hours' riding had now brought them. Even the stormy passions of man were insensibly soothed by the peaceful sights and the harmonious sounds of nature, the calm sweetness of the night, the lulling sound of the wind amongst the willows, the distant fall of waters gushing from a rock, and the balmy odours of the cistuses, the wild thyme, and the thousand aromatic herbs that sprang around him on every side. Unconsciously, his anger was yielding to milder thoughts, as he wended his way, taking, at the guidance of Jose, or the will of his steed, the nearest but least-frequented road to Madrid, when, on emerging from a grove of cork-trees, and entering a strait and narrow valley, where the rude cart track wound between tall and almost inaccessible crags, celebrated as the resort of the banditti, formed in these times of civil war by the refuse of either army, he was startled from his meditations by the repeated sound of a pistol-shot, and the shrill screams of female voices; and saw right before him, in the moonlight, a carriage drawn by mules with one or two unarmed attendants, who, over-side of his beloved. powered by superiority of numbers, and the suddenness of the attack, were on the point of surrendering to half-a-dozen ferocious-looking savages, armed to the teeth, who were so intent on their booty, that they did not perceive the new-comers. "Carry off the trunks, Pablo! Take care of the lady, Joachim! She looks like one for whom we may demand good ransom!" cried the ruffian, who seemed to be their leader. The reply to this injunction was a shot from Fernando's pistol, which levelled the wretch to the earth. The faithful Jose seconded his master; the driver of the carriage and the attending servants, encouraged by the unexpected succour, rallied round their lady; and, in a few minutes, the assailants, dismayed by the loss of their captain, and alarmed also by the sound of horses advancing along the highway, fled the field. Don Fernando advanced to the trembling and frightened travellers, (for they were two females ensconced in the calèche,) whom he had rescued from worse than death. "The beauty of the Prado!" cried he, in ecstasy. "The lovely devotee of San Isidro!" "Serafina, my beloved daughter!" exclaimed the newly-arrived cavalier, joining the group; "and you, señor, her protector, her There is little need to say with how much delight Don Fernando acceded to this proposition, or how much more delicious the silver light of the moon, the lulling sound of wind and waters, and the balmy scent of the herbs, which hung heavy with the nightdew from the romantic defiles of the sierra Guadarrama, seemed to the lover, when traversed at the It was long past midnight when they arrived at the castle, to the unspeakable pleasure of its fair mistress, and a little to the disappointment of her waiting-maids, who found to their no small amazement, that the cavalier of the signal-torch was no other than their lady's twin brother. THE RETURN FROM THE FAIR. "For love, thou knowest, is full of jealousy." SHAKSPEARE. Ir was on a bright balmy evening towards! the end of July, that half the population of this sunny side of Berkshire were pouring through the suburbs of Belford Regis, on their return from the annual festival, popularly called the Cherry Fair, because it forms the great mart for the wagon-loads of that luscious fruit, which blacken the orchards, skirt the beech woods, and dot the commons, of that wild and beautiful tract of country which runs along the northern banks of the Thames. Carriages of every variety, from the lordly landau (our story bears date some thirty years back), with its she were, the world had gone well with her, and she had scarcely known a care since the sudden and almost simultaneous death of her son and her son's wife, except indeed the dread occasioned by the perversity and headstrong temper of Robert Owen, her pretty granddaughter's favoured suitor, who, whenever a fit of jealousy came across him, which was far oftener than ought to have occurred considering the reserve and prudence of his fair mistress, (but when did jealousy listen to reason?) was sure to avenge himself by threatening to turn soldier; a threat of all others most grievous to Dame Wharton's ears, whose eldest grand-son, having enlisted during his father's life, had thereby occasioned to his affectionate relatives a species of trouble and anxiety unknown in the traditions of that peaceful family since the time of a certain Rupert Wharton, some great-great-great-grand-father of poor James, who had followed the fortunes of his illustrious namesake, and fallen in the king's service during the civil wars. four prancing steeds and its liveried outriders, to the humble caravans crowded with women and children, already fretful from the fatigue which, in lower as in higher life, treads so close upon the heels of pleasure; all sorts of wheeled vehicles-chariots, phaetons, curricles, gigs, and carts, horsemen of every rank, and foot-people of all ages and denominations; some tipsy, some sober, some merry, some sad, all came pouring from the fair; and the stir and movement of the different groups, the sounds of so many passengers, talking, laughing, hallooing, and whooping, mingled with the distant noises of the scene of action, where the ringing of bells, the beating of drums, the lowing of cattle, and the blowing of trumpets, contended with, and at times nearly overpowered, the mingled hum of the multitude, formed a scene, which, lighted by the bright beams of a midsummer sun, and fanned by the pleasant evening breeze, had something peculiarly exhilarating in its aspect and character. Standing upon the hill which parts Belford Regis from Aberleigh, and looking towards the old town, its towers and steeples glittering in the sunshine, its venerable buildings mingled with groves and gardens, and crowned with terraces of a lighter and gayer style of architecture, the clear waters of the Kennet spanned by noble bridges and crowded with barges and pleasure vessels, whilst river, bridges, streets, and quays, were all alive with the gay and stirring "I suppose it's some foolish present of Robpopulation, rolling its apparently inexhausti- ert Owen's," said the good dame to her faithful ble tides upward from the good town, and adherent, Jenny Stubbs, a short damsel, who then onward through broad avenues and tufted assisted in the care of the cows as well as in lanes, into the neighbouring country beyond; carrying milk and butter about the town, and looking from this point, it was scarcely possi- had been left to attend her mistress during the ble for the coldest observer not to be gratified absence of her grandchildren; "It's certainly by a spectacle so full of innocent although some folly of Robert's, for I am sure that Susomewhat boisterous, gaiety, and wide-spread-san would never have given the boys such ing enjoyment. Among the most gratified of these spectators was a somewhat stern-looking dame, who sat in her own porch before a small farm-house, just without the suburbs of Belford Regis, and took off her spectacles, and laid aside her knitting, to survey her pretty grand-daughter Susan, who, followed by two fine boys, her brothers, one beating most lustily a child's drum, the other shouldering with great pride and valour a toy musket, approached slowly from the fair. Susan Wharton was one of the prettiest lasses of the country side, and her sweetness and modesty equalled her beauty. She and her brothers were orphans brought up by her father's mother, the venerable matron of the knitting needle and the spectacles, who, having a small but excellent pasture-farm close to the town, and being an active, stirring, bustling dame, accomplished in all the arts of the dairy, contrived to make a good living for herself and her grand-children by supplying the inhabitants with cream, milk, butter, and other pastoral luxuries. Lone woman though Jem's delinquency, and the threat to follow his example so frequently held out by Robert Owen, had so strongly impressed Dame Wharton's imagination, that her natural pride and pleasure at the sight of her blooming grandchildren was somewhat lessened by the martial array in which the two boys presented themselves. nonsensical toys fit only to put war, and soldiering, and such-like wild notions into their heads, poor children! But where is Robin ?" added she, as Susan approached; "and what ring is that upon your finger? You have not gone to church without leave or license, to be sure, Susan, now that all 's arranged for your being married at Christmas, when Robert is settled in his own little farm? I wonder what his uncle, Master Owen, the cooper, who has been as good as a father to him, would say to that. Speak, child, can't you? Are you married?-yes or no? or has Robin bought the ring beforehand, and got you to put it on in this way to make a fool of your old grandmother?" "No, indeed," returned Susan; "I would not have done any thing so disrespectful to you, grandmother, for twenty Robins. This is no wedding-ring." "No?" said her grandmother, assuming her spectacles to take a second view of the slender finger and the glittering gem which encircled it; and, comparing both with her own hard, ruddy hand. "No!" exclaimed she, eyeing it more attentively, "this gimcrack isn't such a ring as I was married with. But why dost wear it upon thy wedding-finger, child? and who gave it to thee? Eh? Robin? Ah! he's a foolish boy to throw away so much money. I warrant it cost a good half-guinea. And the boys and their nonsense! Ah! those young heads! I warrant he's been finely cheated! Robert bought it in the fair?" “No indeed, grandmother!" responded Su san. "Not Robert! who then?" inquired Dame Wharton, with great sternness. "How dare you accept a present from any one else? Ah, child! child! she that takes rings from fresh acquaintance little deserves that an honest man should seek to put one upon her weddingfinger. Who gave it to you, hussy? speak, I say! Who gave you the ring?" "I must not tell you his name, dear grandmother," began Susan with great agitation; "I have promised not to tell! You wrong me, grandmother! indeed you do!" sobbed the weeping beauty. "It was no fresh acquaintance! Indeed, indeed, it was not! but I cannot tell his name. I have promised not to tell any one, not even Robert or you!" "Thilk, I thay !" rejoined Willy. And the one beating a grand tattoo, and the other shouldering arms, off the two boys marched, each shouting at the top of his childish voice. "Thilk!" "Worsted!"-" Worsted!" "Thilk!" until the sound was lost in the distance. "Jem a serjeant! and at Belford! But why not come here, Susan? and why desire you to keep his being here a secret? I don't see any wisdom in such secrets," said the good dame, shaking her head. “And poor Robin, what 'll he say I wonder? And why does Jem desire you to wear this foolish ring? It's enough to make the lad enlist in good earnest." "Why, dear grandmother, that's the very thing that Jem wants; not that he should enlist in reality, grandmother; not that he should go for a soldier; but, to cure him of these threats and jealousies. Somebody told James, who came to Belford this morning recruiting, how foolish Robin had been about Harry Goddard and George Elton, and everybody who spoke to me or looked at me, whether I spoke to them or not. So when I met him, and—oh dear, grandmother, what a fine stately man he is grown and when he found me out (for he hardly knew me at first,) and had kissed me and hugged the boys-how pleased he was with Willy-he insisted on my taking this ring, which he received from some great lady "Athk me," interrupted the young gentleman with the musket, interposing between his angry grandmother and his frightened sister, with an alacrity and boldness of bearing, which together with his readiness and shrewd- to whom he had done a service abroad, and ness of speech contrasted laughably with an | infantine lisp from which Ned, his younger brother, (he of the drum,) was perfectly free. "Athk me, gwandmother, and don't thcold poor thither Thuthan! Athk me; I know the whole thtowy," pursued Master Willy, shifting his weapon most energetically with both hands from shoulder to shoulder. "Brother Jem the soger's come to Belford!" bawled Ned, shouting at the top of his voice to overcome the noise of his own drum. "Yeth," resumed Willy, "when bwother Dzem put the wing on thither Thuthan'th finger he pwomethed to make me a dwummer, a weal dwummer, not a tham, like Ned, but a weal dwummer." "And me a fifer!" shouted Ned, still accompanying himself with his noisy instru ment. "Ath thoon ath ever I wath ath tall ath a muthket; pwovided," resumed this discreet keeper of secrets, "pwovided we never thaid a thyllable of hith being at the fair! A weal dwummer! think of that!" "And a real fifer!" "Dwummer and fifer, fifer and dwummer," shouted the boys in chorus! "And bwother Dzem can make me a dwummer," added Master Willy, in a confidential whisper addressed to his grandmother, "for he'th a therdzeant and wearth a thwath!-a therdzeant with a thilk thwath !" brought it here that it might be sold and serve for my marriage portion: he insisted on my wearing it on my wedding-finger, and not satisfying Robin's curiosity farther than by telling him solemnly that no lover gave it to me; so that either he might put such a trust in my word and my truth as a husband ought to put -or, if that were too good to happen, that he might enlist in James's own party, and so be let off to-morrow after having a good fright. I was not willing to play poor Robin such a trick; for you know, dear grandmother, there was little chance if he saw the ring but he would fly off; only James insisted on the misery of a jealous husband-and so-" "And so Robert did see the ring, and did fly off? I thought something was amiss when you came home without him," said the grandmother. "Yes!" sighed Susan, "he did see the ring, poor fellow! as soon as ever he rejoined me: he had been to help his aunt and cousins into their cart when I met James: he did see the ring, and asked me over and over again how I came by it, and who gave it to me. Willy and Ned were gone with James to see Punch and the wild beasts, or else-but I had promised James not to tell. And, thank heaven, Robert said nothing of enlisting this time. So that I hope all will go right." "Heaven send it may!" said her careful, grandame; "but I love no secrets, and playing "Not silk!" interposed Ned-"worsted." at enlisting is playing with edge tools. Heark en, Susy! if Robert should come here to-night, send him to me. I must go see after the skimming!" and with a nod as eloquent as Lord Burleigh's, the good dame repaired to her dairy. Susan, although somewhat comforted by Dame Wharton's last speech, could not quite get rid of certain apprehensions that clung about her. She hummed unconsciously her grandmother's favourite ditty— "I hate the drum's discordant sound, Parading round, and round, and round"— "I hate yon dwom'th dithcordant thound, Pawading wound, and wound, and wound," gaily echoed Master Willy. "No, Ned," added the young gentleman, snatching from the boy's hand a mutilated nondescript, minus three legs, one tail, and half a head, and proffering in its place another monster cut asunder in the middle like Baron Munchausen's horse, and presenting a formidable horned head and two fore-legs, sans the body and hind quarters usually found in quadrupeds of all descriptions. "That'th a mithtake. Thith ith the other theep." "That!" rejoined Ned, "that's as red as Cherry's calf. It's a lion." "A lion!" repeated Willy contemptuously; hornth! Thithter Thuthan, look! It 'th a wam. Thee the hornth. Gwandmother callth Dzonth the thaddler ath cwooked ath a wam'th horn. It'th a wam, Thuthan! thome theep are black, and thome may be wed. Ith n't it a wam, Thuthan? Ith n't Ned wong?" Susan suggested that, so far as could be judged from the relics of the animal, both were probably mistaken, those interesting remains bearing most resemblance to a cow-an undignified solution of the enigma which united both disputants against their fair referee; and Dame Wharton returning from the dairy, and summoning the boys to supper and to bed, Susan reluctantly abandoned all hope, for that evening at least, of undeceiving her devoted but irascible lover. whenever the distant noise of the recruiting party reached her from the town, or the din of poor Ned's new toy echoed through the mansion; and over and over again did she lament the attractions of Punch, and of the lions, ele-"a lion with hornth! Look at the wam'th phants, and monkeys which had detained Willy from her side at a moment when his genius for explanations would have been invaluable to her unhappy lover; for, accustomed to love Robert, faults and all, and almost persuaded to consider his rash and violent, but often repented and easily appeased jealousy, as a proof of the strength of his passion, the soft-hearted beauty was more alive to the danger of losing her betrothed than to the peril in which this solitary failing might place her future happiness. She even contemplated the possibility of sending Willy in quest of her luckless swain; but again the great show of the wild beasts stood in her way. It had so happened that poor Robin himself, always generous, especially to the boys whom their sister loved so dearly, had presented them the Christmas before with a Dutch toy called Noah's Ark, consisting of a curiously fashioned compound of boat and house, filled not merely with the quaintly habited wooden figures representing the Patriarch's family, attired with an amplitude of apparel and a splendour of colouring which did honour to the Hollander's fancy, but with a variety of pairs of animals decked in hues almost as splendid and quite as unlike nature as those with which the Dutch artist had bedecked our antediluvian progenitors. Over this toy, preserved for them with great care by their grandmother, the young students in natural history were quietly seated, so deeply engaged in comparing those beasts which they had seen in the morning with their wooden prototypes in the Ark (where by the way they were most inartificially stowed one above the other, the receptacle being scarcely capable of containing them when shoved in en masse, whence divers accidents to leg and tail, head and horn,) that nothing short of a proposal to revisit Signor Polito's menagerie could have stirred them. "I hate yon drum's discordant sound, Parading round, and round, and round," half sung, half sighed, poor Susan. Before dawn the next morning the young damsel, who slept in a small chamber of which the casement overhung the garden, heard a low tap at her window, accompanied by the peculiar bird-like whistle which had so often summoned the rustic Juliet, late and early, to the brief delight of a stolen dialogue with her enamoured Romeo. Wrapping a large cloak about her, Susan stood leaning her hand against the open window. "Robin! dear Robin!" Robert could not see the rosy lips which spoke these few and simple words; but the tone, sweet, gentle, caressing, affectionate, implied all that could be imagined of truth and tenderness. It was a tone as sweet and open as her own sweet smile. He mustered all his indignation to resist the charm, and succeeded. "I come here, Susan," said Robert, in low resolute accents," to ask you for the last time, from whom, and for what purpose, you received the ring which I saw you wear yesterday? By heaven, I see it now glittering in the moonlight. Answer this question, or we part for ever." "It is a question, Robin, which I have promised not to answer at present. I can only tell you that I received it from no one |