Litchfield enquirer. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1829-current, 1843-12-07

guilt, had vanished amid the darkness him.
self lay stunned and disabled, yet breathing
heavily yet all had passed so quickly, that
the terror-stricken maiden knew not how or
why the grasp Of violence had been torn from
her sinking frame. Moments passed in silence
which she dared not to break; its preservation
restored and treasured her; she looked timid-
ly upwards, and her eyes encountered the I'M
mistakable gaze of purity and anxious tender
ness.
Lady you are safe my life shall an
swer it
She heard; she doubted not but the shud-
dering sensations of one terrible moment were
not to be dissipated by ward, and neither the
scene nor its associations were calculated to re-
store her to composure. She shrunk not, but
stood trembling and irresolute. Again he was
compelled to break the silence.
"Your home-your friends-may I attend
you?' ..-s
A burst of grief was the response; it seemed
at first likely to destroy, but it restored her
consciousness; and at length, she answered
calmly, though mournfully,
have no home-no friends -
&c Let me take you to one who will rejoice
in being all to you !" was the answering en-
treaty Of the student The maiden looked but
once again earnestly in his face she caught
once more that gaze of tenderness and truth
It was enough-she read there the assur-
ance Of which she stood so bitterly in need
Those could never be the eyes of villain
She placed her arm undoubtingly on his and
brief walk brought her beneath the shell
tering roof of an humble friend of Adolph-
an aged and lonely woman, whose industry
mEistered to her daily wants, whose benevo-
lence and worth were the praise of all who
knew her. She depressed her surprise at the
appearance of the student 80 strangely (for him)
of dod and xyolcouood both to her UloWinu
hearth with unaffected cordially. Adolph's
explanation was now given.
The story of the maiden was necessarily Ion
ger; for it glanced at the leading incidents of
her past life. 1t was sad, unromantic epito-
me of some of Lies darker realities-a story
of misfortune and suffering. Born in distant
village, in the humber walks of society, Ber-
tina Lindorf had been deprived in infancy of
fathers protecting care, and left the sole
charge Of a widowed and friondless mother
That mother had Stunned society since her
great bereavement, and the daughter was
brought up in comparative isolation from the
world. She had never pinned for society nor
its pleasures-she was hardly aware OF their
EXISTENCE mothers love was wholly hers,
and that suficed her. But at length their viii
lage was ravaged by an epidemic, and the mo-
ther was among the earliest of its victims =
When Bertha awoke from the stupor of her
the few who might be expected to feel an in
tcrest in her fate, had either fallen prey to
the destroyer or fled in terror from the vicini-
itv. 1t needed not this to dispose her to aban-
don the scene of her mi3fortunes but the ur-
gent necessity for some change mainly contri-
buted to arouse her from her deep desponden-
CIV. Her only surviving relatives, her moth
er's sister and her family, lived at considera-
BILE distance and in the vicinity of Gottingen
thither as dernicr resort, she bore the burthen
of her SORROWS. Judge, then, her constcrna-
ton, when, on reaching the place, she was in
formed that her relatives had emigrated some
weeks earlier to America. leaving her none to
lean upull, whether as kindred or friend'' she
was now indeed, alone in the world. Inc
meagre pittance which had been raised TOR her
by the forced sale of her mothers scanty ef-
fects, was nearly exhausted; what remained
would not suffice to transport her to the New
World, even did she know whittier to shape her
course on seeking its shores-it would not even
restore her to her native village, whittier moth
ing wooed her but rude and unmarked grave.
She had arrived at the end of her sorrowlng
Journey that very day, but to find new and
most unaffected cause of grief the house she
had sought stood tenantless, and no rites of hos
pitality had been rendered her by its churllsh
and unheedng neighbors. Dcsolate and dis
tracted, she had wandered in its vicinity I'M
p,ir, that Providence would restore her to
that deserted tenement and those from whom
alone she might look for welcome and
home. The shadows of evening at length dis
turbed her aching reverie livelier sense of
her lorn condition induced keener anguish,
but it was accompanied by consciousness that
shelter for the night, at least, must be sought
forthwith. Those only who realize IN all ITS
force that but few coins are between their
o,ol ha~, 1nn FaPnpIV
soul recoils from passing the dreadful barri-
er. With a home and friends in the distance,
she could have craved a nights sustenance
without pang; now the thought was torture
At any rate, she would not solicit it Of those
who should have offered it, but did not-far
sooner of the utter stranger. She grasped the
few coins that yet remained to her-hey had
not deserted her side-and turned with nasty
though weary steps toward the nelghDorlng
CITY, The rest need not be recapitulated.
Adolph listened with rapt attention to her
simple narrative, and soon after commended
the fair stranger to the rest she so much need
ed, and babe her and her hostess adieu till
the morrow. BY tacit agreement, the future
was for that evening avoided. 1t needed not
another glance at the dark abyss to fill the
cup of Bertha's sorrows.
Adolph sought his apartment. but not, as
we have seen, to rest. To him, the remain
ing hours of darkness were neither few nor
many; the heaviest footsteps of time would
have pressed his brow unheeded. All that
night crowd of confused, unwonted fancies
ran riot through his busy brain, dispossessing
its former inmates, and asserting new, yet
potent dominion. Hundreds of times were the
scenes Of the past evening reacted before his
mental vision I; the villains grasp, the maid
ems terror, the stupor of one moment and the
electric energy of the next-the ruffian's in
slant discontinue and the maiden's fervent graf
itude-her misfortnnes. her youth, and her de-
ISOLATION, all in rapid succession were vlvldly
presented to his minds eye; and the chain OF
incident was but completed to be commenced
anew Occasionally, his bewildered fancy would
wander into the future, to find itself instantly
arrested and thrown back and again it re-
cnmmenced ifs measured round. He did not