The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-06-10

| end oppressive, ik = perpetual presence,
! which destroyed DO kSsrest and ppconscioEs.
ness. She did not \ ies what she suffered, nor
Why, bot thin was a psychological ssssst of
her mute, iDas6site stiancholy, which no one
hAd VI enough 70 n d, - ay.f $50,
b. She Vas beautiful, Est of peculiar style of
beanty-a bloodless assionless, stafnesque
style. She was YER xsir, her hands and neck
Of almost fabulous fiteness, and her face of
shst Dad pallor whi b. though 90 lovely, is so
painfplly suggestiys Her hair was almost
pure, aAxen, With ii tiDge of gold at the
ends, and here and 4 y light threads Of brown,
! which gave 1t more !, ls semblance of warmer
tint than yfhs reslits, bat it was singularly
glossy, nd great fusion. Her eyes we're
dark gray The brow nd lsshes few shades
darker than her hsie She was of middle
height, slight, and w graceful, indolent to an
extreme, rxaNfturn, aa { elfpossessed. No one
had sysf sssp her Id d, excited, or agitated !;
no one hed ever - 4 her weep; no one had
j ever heard hes laugt she vss never known to
do generous actiol lever heard to say an
I unkind word. Gfvs4 pr French novel, an
easy chair, fashio. Die gown, and elegant
appointments, and + j Arden would read by
the freside undistuN nd while an earthquake
! rocked her cushione sieet, or the cry of murder
sounded in her ear But though she would
not have exerted he, Nf to save even fellow.
| creatures life, yet sb & wished tor no excessive
ct ention herself. = ound her with the luxu.
ries necessary to her he, then leave her to her.
self If Rosa Arden gould have imagined hap
pihess, it would ha e been under this form.
Her notion of parsdi e even as child, had al
ways been an island, ssaere she might be alone,
served BY invisible b .sras OF, by hands without
bodies TO them, as o. x reads of in fairy tales
and spiritual scar c,s." But she was tho
roughly we'll bred W Sssl, and, in spite of her
selfish Incidence, unte stood the laws of socie-
ty too we'll to fail in E.e of the most insiguif.
cant minutie of goos geeding and convention
al politeness. Such as the pearl which the
Dovetons had gathet.l from the wreck, and
which they now ensh e aed in their highest and
holiest niche. And s-oor Rosa, as an orphan
and ruined, found he's as well as in her bright
est days, the oppresssra of too much love.
She was such q centrsst to Marian No
wonder that even tn parents, with all the
blind Partially of p tents, placed Rosa on
higher point in the see of existence than they
could place their own Marian was TALL un.
developed, meagre, az ward creature, of TWEEN
ty-four or FIVE; like as ,vergrown girl of twelve,
30 far as figure was e. accrued, aud about thir-
ty or thereabouts in r,r face. She was we'll
instructed theoreticalE, but she knew nothing
that she could turn to practical account, either
for use or for show. She could not play fit to
|
perfection her drawings were innocent of per-
spective, and horribly colored, but she had
knowledge enough TO have made second
Claude, if she could but have transferred to her
hand one-hundredths part of the rules she had
imprinted on her brain. She could not crochet,
nor yet embroider, nor do Berlin work. nor
even sew plain wotk, better than a charity
school girl; but she was good gardener and
q good botanist, and knew both Latin and the
rudinents of Greek: these got from her father.
And she could read French fuently, though
her pronunciation of it would have disgraced
beginner stumbling over lie, la, les" She
was awkward and angular, shy, nervous, and
embarrassed, spoke in jerks, and rapidly, un-
der her breath for the most part, and never
with clear articulation. She ives full of odd
ideas, generally expressed in queer ejacula-
tione; easily shocked, with a superstitious
dread of the world, ard firm belief that every
man, woman, and child, in London, and large
cities generally, was monster of iniquity, ig-
norant of the first principles of virtue. Thiev-
ing and street murders she believed the order
of city life. As foe fires, neither she nor her
mother would have dared to sleep = night in
London higher than the ground floor; and if
Mr. Devotion had been out half an hour after
dark, they would both have bewaied him as
dead, or at least half murdered Such strange
ly unreal, unworldly household as they made
altogether Living in that quaint old Lone
house, as little like the ordinary men and wo
men of society as if hey had been merfolk land
ed by q gale, and secretly webfooted inside
their shoes.
Marian, besides cling ungainly, was plain.
featured as WE'LL Her scanty hair, of dull
brown, she gatheret up in queer little hard
, defying knot behird the front she braided
? tight, and fat to her face. She had large, clear
innocent eyes, but every other feature was bad
!. Her mouth was q ct aight line, her cheek-bones
? we're high, her hanes and feet large, ard the
, first red and swolleI; her neck was mere bone
, and sinew, and shss was a martyr to freckles
e and nudge bites. Eut she had heart Of pu
t rest gold-a warm, owing, unselfsh nature, tina,
e asked for nothing, end that gave all-that low
+ ed with the passionate tenacity of the unlovely
( and the single minded, content with the priv
r lege of loving and the JOY of selfsacrifce
e Poor unlovely Marian with her awkward
0 limbs and her ungs ally gestures, and the dear
4 noble, womanly hesst within, looking up to the
q graceful Rosa as toa revelation-a being from
another sphere-and feeling herself just mer,
# clod by the side of q rare, clear gem
s But Marian had something else to love be
d sides Rosa. Young Mr.. Rawlinson, the squire
d for WEAKNESS at his uonotony, made believe tc
g himself that he wa in love with the psrson'
If daughter, of Lone b use Dale, and in supper
8 of that phsntasy has made formal offer few
n months before, whISh had been formally &C
cepted. Awkward Marian, ten times more
b awkward than ever7-for now she was shy ant
p shamefsced as well 80 nervous and conscious
n yet loved this man lover with the whole silent
g quiet idolatry of he. nature and though sh,
was Aouty and jerks and uncomfortable ant
undemonstrative, nevertheless she well nigl
adored him, great, rGagh, coarse-natured, booty
r young squire as hS was. And when Ros,
5. was hshed up, as Mr.. Devotion said, like sec
y ond Aphrodite, from, the foam, Marian intro
b duced Mist Rawl ms MS /" name at least .
IT dozen times the vesy first evening, so full o
ID nervous love that tae seemed to think Ros,
n would find out her sbcret by intuition, till Ros,
N grew weary, and asked, "Who is Mr. Rawlin
SOM" much as if ST., had asked the age of til,
hippopotamus. /
Is TO which replies. Marian, jerking out he
IT. words, Mist Ravlns'n's, our young squire
Or and pas particular Friend"
10 "Ol said Rosa is he, indeed"
20 AT hrst, Rosa did .sot see this Mr.. Rawlinsol
u wnen he came; br after WHILE when tim
IN had sotened the sh p outlines of her grief, sh
remained In the roc 4 one day when he called
ut A nd this was the npnner of his coming:
% About twelve clock of Lone house DIAL
IN time-that is, abous eleven of civilized chro
y nometry-and an hour before the parsonap
If, dinner, the CHATTER O horses hoofs was hear
9. resembling up the ,ved road running through
ii the village. A 1euabarking from two undis
o. ciplined dogs accompanied that clatter, and
r. heavy horsewhip Was cracked in q series G
Is small pistolshots; tie tumult suddenly stoppe
b. just opposite ths parsonage, and q thick fluff
ut voice presently allied out, "Hi MarianID a
h IL il came struggling in apoplectic fashion fror