The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-09 00:00:00

DECEMBER 9, 1854.

separate. Lord Carleton marries suitably, and
Margaret remains single. One pursuit only
does she cultivate with ardour : she studies
insanity under every form in which it has been
manifested ; she reads every work written on
it, and carefully treasures in her mind every
curative mode recommended. Misfortunes
fall thick on the earl's family. When the
malady attacks him Margaret is at hand to afford
assistance and soothe his frenzy; and when
one of his sons is attacked, it is to Margaret's
care that he is committed. Years pass by, and
Lady Carleton, a character in many lineaments
beautifully drawn, is worn down to the grave
by anxiety. The earl has forgotten his early
passion for Margaret ; he sees in her only an
attached adherent, and one most capable of
managing his home and caring for his family
So, partly from gratitude for her attention,
partly because he is used to her, and the
arrangement would be convenient, he asks her
for the second time to become Lady Carleton.
The scene in which this offer is made is the
best in the book ; but we can afford space
only for passages of it. Lord Carleton visits
Margaret in the well-remembered house
where he had seen her in her youth :
"Is your aunt at home, my dear ?" asked Lord Carle-
ton, measuring with his eye a fine acacia on the lawn, and
comparing it with his recollection of the same tree twenty-
five years before.
" Yes • but she is so unwell, that—"
" Indeed !" interrupted Lord Carleton—" I am sorry to
hear that! Is she confined to her room—or, can she
see me r
" She is not in her room, my lord : she is in that arbour,
yonder."
" Ah! the old jessamine bower !" He knew it well; for with
his own young hands he had made that bower and planted
the jessamine on the eighteenth birthday of the woman
who now sat within its luxuriant shade, and watched him
approaching. Why are her hands clasped so nervously ?
why does the heart within her beat audibly, and send the
blood once more like lightning through her veins? Why
is this ? Is she not a calm, sensible woman, in the autumn
of her days? What means this stirring of the spring-time
within her bosom ? She is astonished at her own emo-
tion. " I did not know I could feel so any more. I
thought it was all gone—all dead. Cannot I see him
without recalling the long-forgotten past? Surely there is
something unnatural in my sensations this day! All
nature impresses my spirit more vividly than usual.
Thought and feeling are as acute and brilliant as if I were
young again. Is it the sudden leaping up of the flame
before the lamp is extinguished ?"
The last question still lingered in her mind as Lord
Carleton ascended the grassy mound on which stood the
bower—its entrance curtained by the waving dark green
leaves.

By the time Lord Carleton had lifted the curtain of
tangled wreaths which veiled the entrance of the bower,
Miss Hastings hadrecovered her usual calmness of manner.
She held out her hand with the seriousness— almost
amounting to solemnity—which always characterised her
greeting of Lord Carleton ; she never smiled or aftbcted in-
difference when they met ; she was above all small
womanly deceits, and would not belie the feeling which the
sight of him always produced in her.
She was of a sallow complexion generally, but Lord
Carleton thought there was something almost deathly in
her hue as he took his seat beside her.
" Your niece told me you were unwell. You are very
pale today !" he Raid, looking kindly at her.
" Paler than usual am 1? I dare say the greenish light
which struggles into this place has something to do with it.
Are you well ? And your sons ? I saw Arundel come in
with you."
"We are all well," he replied ; "at least physically.—
Ah ! I remember when we selected this spot for a bower !"
he exclaimed half to himself.—" That shrubbery has grown
out of all memory ; the house is mantled with creepers
now ; the acacia, the two elms, and even the slow-growing
arbor vitae there, on the lawn, have improved wonderfully in
a quarter of a century. Those things are longer lived than
we."
Margaret answers him so quietly and
sedately that the earl replies :
" Still u fall of moral principle as ever I" he said,
smiling somewhat bitterly.
" Did you expect to find me changed this morning ?"
" Nay ; but I may have had a faint hope that old times
and old feelings were not quite forgotten ; and that when
you and I sit on this seat together, marked with our
entwined initials—( see ! they are not yet quite effaced,
Margaretl—l may have had a faint hope that you would
listen to what 1 am about to say with something of the
woman and nothing of the moralist !—You were not always
so purely rational, Margaret."
Then he explains to her his position es the
head of his family, and asks her advice :
" You must marry again," said Miss Hastings, quietly,
but without looking at him. " Was that your thought ?"
"It was. Is the thought right or wrong ?"
" Men are not wont to be guided by the opinion of others
in such matters," replied Miss Hastings, closing her eyes
for a moment, and placing her hand on her side. Lord
Carleton did not observe the movement, so indicative of
sharp, physical pain, and went on with what he had to say.
" Yes, I think 1 must marry again I—Caroline foresaw