Genoa the day before yesterday. We took Lady Alice round to them by sea ten days no doubt the family of Lady Alice wish it very ago.' งา Here the entrance of Dr. Macpherson changed the conversation, and gave Clifford an opportunity for meditation. He did not know too much about this ducal house, which must not be confounded with that of Lenox-Richmond. He resolved to exhaust the information of the Macphersons, which he saw would not be difficult. Augustus and the doctor were soon engaged in an argument about the Italians, whom the former warmly defended. Mrs. Macpherson disappeared on an intimation of tea; Frederick easily drew on Miss Stewart to talk of Lady Alice. Lady Alice was not in delicate health. No one's health was ever so good: She bathed entirely for recreation. She was fond of such amusements. Sometimes Miss Stewart thought she was a Naiad, at other times a Dryad; for she was equally at home in woods and waters. Miss Stewart was very willing to talk of their guest. She admitted that Lady Alice was a little willful; spirited almost to excess, considering her sex and extreme youth, yet as shy as possible in some respects. Her mother, she dared say he had heard, had been a Di Vernon. The Duke saved her life at a hunt, which was the beginning of her attachment to him. She had said she would never marry a Presbyterian, and the Dukes of Lennox had always been that; but in two months after this they were married. Frederick gave Miss Stewart a look, beaming with admiration and gratitude. He inquired, with some effusion of interest, if the children of the duchess were Presbyterians. much. The Marquis is a splendid parti, of course, and she is such an heiress, and so very young! Every handsome dandy will be throwing himself in her way. They keep her in great retirement, on that account; and the duchess wished her to come here partly for that reason, because here she would see nobody. We were even careful not to let any one know that she was with us, lest some of the adventurers, who, they say, are always hovering in their train, should hear of it and come down. That would have been very disagreeable." "Very," said Frederick, crimsoning, and with some hauteur. Miss Stewart suddenly recollected that he was a younger son and excessively handsome. She also colored and was silent. Frederick wondered at some people's want of tact. At last he asked abruptly, "How old is Lady Alice Stuart ?" "She was seventeen in May," said Miss Stewart, timidly. CHAPTER V. THE Duke of Lennox was a descendant of Robert III., king of Scotland, whose ancestors, by royal gifts, their own swords, and fortunate marriages, had acquired vast estates as well in England as in the kingdom of whose once royal race they had become the sole direct representatives. At the age of twenty-two, Charles Ludovic Stuart, being presumptive heir to the Scottish estates and all the honors of his house, "Oh no indeed!"-Miss Stewart was sur-married the Lady Mary Stuart, his cousin, whose prised that Mr. Clifford knew so little about the family. They belonged to the Established Church of England, and something more. In fact, the family were well known to favor Puseyism. Lady Alice was almost a Catholic, and she feared (she begged his pardon) that she would go over to the Roman Catholic Church one of these days. Frederick colored, and Miss Stewart, fearing that she might have transgressed by alluding to his faith, stopped. birth had originally threatened the loss of half his vast inheritance. It was a marriage of affection as well as family policy. They had been affianced from their childhood; they were married the day that Lady Mary completed her seventeenth year; within a year their happiness was crowned by the birth of a son; the old duke died of the joy caused by this auspicious event; and, with the exception of one estate settled on his daughter at her marriage, left to his son-inlaw every thing of which he might have dis "I knew her brother, Lord Stratherne, very well," he said, not wishing to change the sub-posed. ject. "Is he married yet?" "You don't mean the late Lord Stratherne, surely?" said Miss Stewart. "Is he dead?" said Clifford, looking shocked. "Lady Edith's brother is dead. Is it possible you did not know it? And yet you knew him. He died more than a year-yes, eighteen months ago.' "I have been away from England, and indeed from Europe, for several years," said Clifford; "I am a good deal behind-hand." "Why, so you must be. Then you don't know, of course, that Lord Stratherne left his whole fortune to Lady Alice ?" "No, I certainly did not know it," said Clifford, changing color. The young Duchess of Lennox was a type of the beauty for which the females of her house have been remarkable. Especially after her confinement the transparent clearness of complexion natural to women at this period was conspicuous, and was relieved by a delicate carnation that harmonized with her refined features. Her deep mourning enhanced this interesting beauty. Her husband had never loved her so much; their first moon, though sweet to the end, could not compare with their present bliss, which the loss of an aged father, gathered to his fathers in the fullness of years and gratified hopes, chastened rather than disturbed. The young duchess had taken cold during her "With all the accumulations of his long mi- confinement—a common occurrence; and the nority," pursued Miss Stewart. "She is the cold left a slight cough which lasted a month greatest heiress in England; and, by her broth- or two, then yielded, as the family physician er's wish, she is to marry Lord Wessex." thought, to judicious remedies. In fact, it hau "They were very intimate, I remember," said | yielded to the influence which pregnancy is well Frederick, with great indifference. known to exercise over pulmonary irritation. Her grace's youth was thought to forbid her fulfilling the sweetest duty of maternity, and she yet wanted some months of nineteen, when she became a second time a mother. Another cold! -a recurrence of the cough!-a pulse of one hundred and twenty beats in the minute! The family physician desired to consult his brethren. The duke was advised to take her grace to Italy. At Rome, a few months after the birth of a second daughter, the remains of child and mother were laid, by her own request, in the same grave, close to the pyramid of Caius Cestius. On the monument which her husband caused to be erected to her memory, it was recorded, after mention of her birth, inheritances, marriage, and titles, that she died "Aged 20 years.' "My other objection, of which you heard, is one of principle though," continued Lady Kate. "How can I waive it, even now?" "You object, on principle, to marrying a member of the Established Church of Scotland," said the duke meditatively, and making his horse walk. It was to be expected the Duke of Lennox would marry again. Three years elapsed, and he appeared once more in society, evidently with the intention of contracting a new alliance. He was extremely moderate in the qualifications "It depends whether your grace objects, on that he required in his future wife. They were principle, to your children being bred members only blood, beauty, goodness, and health! He of the Established Church of England. If I bewas at House one evening when the Count-came a mother," continued the young lady, with ess of Excester and Lady Katherine Courtenay were announced. "The best blood in England," murmured the duke to himself; "but I dare say an old maid, or plain, or, perhaps, a bad constitution." Still he stopped to look at her. "The most beautiful girl in England!" he internally exclaimed as she passed him. She might have been turned of nineteen, was attired in the classic costume which still lingered in Britain, and which set off to great advantage the figure of a grace, and the countenance of a muse. By her rich, sun-smitten cheek she might have been a wood-nymph. She smiled as she passed the duke, not with her lips, though breathing sweetness mixed with malice, but with her dark, speaking eye. great animation and a glowing cheek, "the religious nurture of my children would be in my eyes a sacred duty that I could never abandon to another; and plainly, I could not and would not teach them the tenets of your confession." "It is strongly Calvinistic," said the duke, a little confused. "I suppose you don't like that." "I don't know what that precisely means, but I understand very well the difference between the Church catechism and the Assembly's, which lately I have been studying," said the lady, with a faint embarrassment. "Tis a question whether we are to be taught, as soon as we can speak, that we are children of God, or children of the Devil, to speak plainly; and that must, it seems to me, make all the difference in the world to a mother." "And this scruple prevented you from accepting my hand when you really-loved me?" said the duke, in a deeply gratified tone, while they both drew up for a moment beneath a spreading tree. "It did." Lady Kate boasted, with equal wit and truth, that as many as had wished to marry her (she had been out a whole year) no man had offered to do so; and "He comes too near who comes to be denied," was a maxim that she wittily applied to honorable love. As for the Duke of Lennox, she immediately said to those who she "Could I hope that you would ever become knew would repeat it to him, that she had quite the mother of a child of mine, I would agree, made up her mind on three points: she never dear Kate, to your teaching it any religion you would marry a Scot, a widower, or a Presbyte-like." rian. His grace was all three; but he was a It is self-evident that this conversation decidman of national pertinacity; he was passionate-ed two questions most materially affecting the ly in love for the first time; and he was only heroine of this tale :-first, whether she should eight-and-twenty. He had the nerve to propose exist at all; secondly, how she should be eduto Lady Kate, who crimsoned and refused him cated after she had been brought into the world. in the most charming manner in the world. After that she forbore to rally him. She seemed a little afraid of the Duke of Lennox, and he got the Excesters, in the autumn, to visit him, with their daughter, at his Highland castle, where he got up stag-hunts on a magnificent scale, for the amusement of Lady Kate, who was passionately fond of the chase. The first run they had, the duke saved her life. They were separated from their company, and rode home together. "I will marry you," said Lady Kate, blushing and trembling on her spirited hunter. "Not for the world would I take advantage of a gonerous gratitude," said the duke. CHAPTER VI. THE CHILDHOOD OF LADY ALICE. I. ON the south coast of Devon there is an amphitheater of green hills rising round the shore of a beautiful bay, and backed far inland by one elevation which might almost deserve to be called a mountain, bold and picturesque, and crowned by a savage Tor, where mist drifts and clouds hang, and summer lightning breaks; or sometimes, like a ruin of old time, it rises gray and naked against a serene sky. The whole region is richly wooded, with a surprising quantity of evergreens and exotic trees, whose growth is fostered by the mild, moist air of Devonshire; and among these, a group of noble cedars of Lebanon could never pass unobserved by the eye that looked down upon the scene from the overhanging height, where the winding and ascending road enters the district. From this point might also be discerned the glitter of a distant cascade, one of a series of beautiful waterfalls, adorning a green and wooded valley running up into the bosom of the hills. But a more striking object still, is a stately edifice of the early Tudor architecture, and built of a white sparkling stone that abounds in the neighboring quarries, but now mellowed by time and stained by weather, to a richer, yet uniform tint. It is of great extent; stands in an eminent position, in the center of the vast and sylvan domain; is surrounded by terraced gardens; its lines of mullioned windows, its rich oriels, picturesque gables, shadowy turrets, its battlements, pinnacles, and chimneys, finely relieved against its green background of hills. This princely residence is the property of the Duke of Lennox; and the cultivated valleys and pastoral hills for miles in every direction, with the small sea-port town of St. Walerie, from which the house takes its name, acknowledge him as their lord. Everywhere in the beautiful drives, and more beautiful rides, you encounter the picturesque cottages of Devonshire, standing in their ancient garden-plats, sheltered with fruit-trees, and gay with flowers. Except in the village of St. Walerie, you would hardly find a house in the district of a later date than the reign of Henry VIII., and some were vastly older. The increasing exceptions are the new cottages built by the present duke, in which the style of the more ancient tenements is carefully preserved, while the health and comfort of the inmates are consulted, in the introduction of many a modern convenience. In a drawing-room of St. Walerie, the Duchess of Lennox, about eleven years after her marriage, was playing with the loveliest child of eight summers, with a seraphic head and golden ringlets. The duchess had several other children; her eldest son was absent on a visit to his maternal relatives; the younger children had at this hour (for tea was being dispensed in the drawingroom), passed under the care of nursery maids. The duke was talking to the Rev. Herbert Courtenay, a brother of the duchess, the Rector of St. Walerie, and unmarried, their only guest. Lord Stratherne, the duke's son by his first marriage, was at Eton; Lady Edith, his sister, had that evening disappeared before her father and uncle came in. Mr. Courtenay lived chiefly at St. Walerie House, and was its acting chaplain; the duke and he disputed perpetually on theological subjects, though in the most amicable spirit. Such was the topic on which they were now engaged; and as soon as the reluctant Lady Alice was taken away, after the sweet et-ceteras of a child's good night, the duchess took part in the conversation, and pressed upon the duke an instance which she thought her brother feebly urged. "There have been always instances of early piety," said her husband, "and doubtless Edith is one. In such cases much is due to a charac ter happily balanced, and much also to the influence of divine grace." "Which she received in baptism and has never forfeited," said Herbert. "So I hear you say. But we shall see how your system works with Alice. That little gipsy will put your theories to a severe test, or I am much mistaken. She is not like Edith." "I wonder what has become of this young saint, for whom grace and nature have both done so much," said the duchess, looking at her watch. "Bless me, she has been away this hour and a half. I must go and see what is the matter." While the duchess was gone on this errand, the duke occupied himself with examining a pretty though inexperienced drawing by the little Alice, who had evinced a singularly precocious talent for design, and he hardly looked up when his wife re-entered the room. The duchess was extremely pale. "Is Edith ill ?" "Charles! Edith has eloped!" II. A sister of Lady Excester's, and of course, the maternal aunt of the Duchess of Lennox, was married to Mr. D'Eyncourt of D'Eyncourt. Bucks; one of the oldest families in the kingdom, great barons in the time of Rufus, and great proprietors still, with a name nobler than a coronet. On a Christmas at St. Walerie, three years before, George D'Eyncourt, the heir and only son of the D'Eyncourts of D'Eyncourt, had fallen desperately in love with Edith Stuart, then only thirteen. Such a passion is necessarily a very pure sentiment; a young man really corrupted could hardly feel it. D'Eyncourt, a handsome, dissipated guardsman, still in his teens, compared himself with Edith, and was shocked at the difference. He resolved to reform, and he kept his resolution. D'Eyncourt was not allowed to correspond with Lady Edith, very naturally; but by sending presents to his "cousins," among whom he included her, to whom he was not related in the most remote degree, he contrived to keep alive in her mind the memory of his admiration; and after two years, during which the duke had managed that they should not meet, Captain D'Eyncourt, having got leave in August, to go to the moors, came to Strathsay on his own invitation, to see his "cousins." The early maturity of Edith, which alarmed her father, made it very difficult to keep her in the nursery; and her friendship with her stepmother made such a seclusion impossible. A duke's daughter, with a fine fortune secured by the terms of her mother's marriage settlement; beautiful to boot; good-almost too good for this world; could not want suitors. But the young guardsman, who was now just of age, had the advantage of pre-occupying her imagination, with an idea to which it was extremely assailable. Others might admire and love Edith; but the love of her, yet a mere child, had saved him. What could Edith do but love one who owed her a debt so sacred; to whom she must be so much more dear than she ever could be to any one else, and by whom, as D'Eyncourt told her, she was so revered? But her father looked upon an early marriage as a death-warrant for this darling child-and though he approved this connection highly in every other point of view, he resolved to stave off an engagement as long as possible. "They may make what promises they like to each other," said the duke, "I shall recognize no engagement as binding on Edith, till she has completed her eighteenth year." "We may make what promises we like to each other," said the self-willed inheritor of twenty manors. "Let us, then, Edith, betroth ourselves in the form of a Scotch marriage. Then, assured of your fidelity, because you will be my wife, I can wait with calmness till your father is pleased to give his consent. In fine, D'Eyncourt's apprehension that the duke would try to dissolve the engagement altogether, in order to form for Edith a more dazzling alliance, and Edith's persuasion of her parents' real approbation of her attachment, led the lovers to unite in so very imprudent an action, of which Edith, at fifteen, did not comprehend very clearly all the consequences. It was the day before her lover's leave expired, when her heart was softened by his approaching departure, that she was prevailed upon, sorely against her conscience, though she deemed it a not very important step, to comply with his wishes. In the presence of Edith's foster-sister and attendant from infancy-a Highland girl of the duke's clan, and of an old family servant of the D'Eyncourts (these necessary personages are never wanting at the right moment)-the lovers espoused themselves to each other in the words of the marriage service. D'Eyncourt placed the ring on Edith's finger, and saluted her as his wife. It happened that the very next day, after D'Eyncourt's departure, à-propos to an elopement in high life, the Scotch law of marriage was discussed. An Ex-Lord Chancellor, who was the duke's guest, explained the law with great clearness, and ended by saying "In short, parties between whom such a ceremony has passed are as much married as the Duke and Duchess of Lennox." Hear, hear!" said the duke, with a laugh. "Lord E- was himself married at Gretna Green, Edith," said the duchess. Lady Edith made no comment, but the impression that sank deep in her mind was, that she and George were as much married "as papa and mamma.' III. In the last days of December the lovers met again at St. Walerie. This time, D'Eyncourt was invited. There was a flock of Courtenays, Herberts, and D'Eyncourts;-a family party. It was extremely gay at Royal St. Walerie, but she who was gayest, and caused most gayety in others, was its mistress. The house was like some palace of Solomon at the Feast of Tabernacles, which foreshadowed, as Christmas commemorates, the coming of the Word to tabernacle in our flesh. There was a chapel which had remained unaltered since the time of the last Lord St. Walerie, who was a Roman Catholic. It was a peculiar and exempt jurisdiction, endowed with many singular privileges, and in which many singular customs had been religiously preserved even under the Presbyterian dukes. It was now beautifully dressed with evergreens intermingled with living flowers, and now and then in a deep niche of holly, an exotic tree with odorous blossoms and nodding golden fruit. The ancient altar of stone, ascended by steps of the same material, had a front embroidered, by Edith, with gold and colors on white silk, its altar-cloth of crimson velvet not less richly wrought, and its pall of fine linen and lace. Its six massive candlesticks of silver still remained, and were filled with huge wax candles ever lighted at the hour of service. The duke, indeed, held lands on condition that this was not omitted. A grand painting of the Nativity-a master-piece of Cignani, and the pride of St. Walerie, was the altar-piece. Here, night and morning, entered in solemn procession a youthful choir, stoled and surpliced, and preceded by cross, thurible, and lights. Here matins and even-song were chanted, and the prayers intoned by Herbert Courtenay, who had a genius for music and a passion for that of the Church. These beautiful services chastened the gayeties of the house, but certainly deepened the general enjoyment. It must be confessed that D'Eyncourt came down to St. Walerie with some wild wishes, struggling in his breast with a sense of honor, and the deep respect which the innocence of Edith inspired. But nothing could be more foreign to the dark excitement of clandestine intercourse than the spirit of affectionate gayety which the Duchess of Lennox diffused, by contagious sympathy, over the circle gathered round her Christmas hearth. The beautiful worship, too, that sanctified the household, and daily recalled the sacred meaning of the season, awed his spirit and elevated his thoughts. Edith's voice, in chant, anthem, and hymn, was the greatest musical interest of the chapel to all; but how much more to him who alone knew her to be his virgin wife! She became a sort of sacred being in his eyes. and when they were alone, as would sometimes happen, the most scrupulous mother could not have imposed upon him a conduct more delicately reserved than his. Edith, who had strangely trembled at his coming, reassured by his timid demeanor, yielded herself without fear to her guileless affection. There was not a feeling in her heart to cause her shame, but also there was not one that was not devoted to him. But this was too good to last, unless D'Eyncourt as well as Edith had been an angel indeed. IV. Edith's birth-day fell on Twelfth-day, and was to be celebrated by a brilliant ball, to which the county were invited. This year, as it happened, Epiphany was a Sunday, so, that the ball could not take place strictly on Twelfthnight, but the night after. "So you are only sixteen, Twelfth-night!" D'Eyncourt had said this a hundred times, and Edith had generally replied, as she now did, “I wish it were eighteen for your sake." "Your father says he won't consent to your marrying till you are twenty. Four years! Why, 'tis a life-time. The bloom of our youth will be gone!" "Do you think so?"-Edith blushed. "We might be so happy in those four years. And in so long a time how many things may happen to both of us. If you are too young to marry, Edith, you are not too young to die.' "That is very true, George; it is what we ought always to remember." "I did not mean it in that point of view," said D'Eyncourt, biting his lip. "But if such a misfortune should ever befall me, I should regret to my own dying day all the years that we had lived apart. "Certainly it is hard for you," said Edith, pitying her lover almost unconsciously, as the idea now rose before her of possibly dying even before they should have lived otherwise than apart. "And I, perhaps, shall not be as good four years hence as I am now. I don't mean that I am any better now than I should be, or so good; but temptation takes a thousand forms in the world I live in, so that it is a thousand to one if I escape them all." "If you are afraid of temptation," said Edith, fixing her blue eyes candidly upon his, "you should seek to strengthen yourself against it." "How ?" "You have been confirmed ?" "Yes." are whirling among the waltzers.-"God has made every thing beautiful in his time." Perhaps, also, we shall be inclined to smile, and say, แ we thought so," when we observe them resting in the curtained embrasure of a window, and perceive that D'Eyncourt does not relinquish his partner's waist, which makes Edith blush, though she permits it. In fact, that stolen contact has a charm for both, which the same thing has not before the world. Edith plays with her pretty handkerchief, and shakes out, but very gently, its perfumed folds. She does not like to stir too much, and the pressure of that trembling hand grows bolder every minute. They circle once more round the spacious chamber, and then they pause once more in their window to rest. How very natural! But the Lady Edith must not be suffered to go on so, and on the night of the fête, too: her father must interfere, if her step-mother will not; and, lo! the duke is approaching, just as matters are becoming critical, to raise the siege "And made your first communion afterward, of this fair fortress. His grace brings up a I know." "Epiphany morning," pursued Edith, "there will be an early communion in the chapel on my account, because it is my birth-day; and Lady Excester, and mamma, and Blanche Courtenay, are to receive with me. They are not my blood-relations at all." "And not your father ?" said D'Eyncourt, replying to her thought. "Nor my husband," said Edith, looking at him, and speaking in a very low voice. "For that word's sake, dearest Edith, I will be there." Which happened accordingly. Before the day arrived, D'Eyncourt had several interviews with Herbert Courtenay; and Epiphany morning, at the day-break service, when Edith drew near the altar with her mother, her young husband knelt by her side. And on the morrow, the flowers and lights are in all the palace of that princely race, to mimic on a northern night the sunshine and fragrance of a tropical noon; while the saloons are filled with a brilliant throng, little mindful of those matin sanctities, but intent to participate with what is, after all, a part of our nature, in the joy of a mysterious commemoration. For if worship be the union of man with his Maker, pleasure, rightly understood, is a bond of humble sympathy with our own kind. And in this sense, as there is a time to pray, so there is a time to dance. In her enchanting ball-dress, Edith rests a white-gloved hand on D'Eyncourt's shoulder; and she is young enough to be pleased with his uniform, which he becomes. His hand clasps a slender, rounded waist. This is before all the world; yet she looks in his face with the most unembarrassed smile :-in a moment they reinforcement that seems very like to accomplish this design, in the shape of a youthful hero, with a distinguished cravat, and the air of a conqueror. 66 "The Marquis of Wessex, Edith, is in the same form at Eton with your brother, and tells me that Ludovic and he are very great friends." My dear George," said the duchess, with a very irritating look of a suppressed inclination to laugh, "you must not stand here, looking so miserably jealous. Every body will be laughing at you. Have you so little confidence in Edith's affection ?" "I am not jealous of Edith's affection, but of the admiration of others, so openly expressed for one whom I consider the same as my wife." "Oh! upon my word! Excuse me, George, but you are too absurd even for a lover. If she were really your wife, you should not make such a fool of yourself. I declare that if I were a man, I would make love to her myself on purpose to plague you. Why, that is why we have determined to bring her out-that she may have serious suitors-and make a free choice. And, you silly boy, it is a great deal better for you that it should be so. Her constancy (of which I entertain not the slightest doubt) will be so much more flattering. Come, let us see if she will be as uneasy about you. Here is a pretty girl-the prettiest in Devon, they say— that I want you to dance with. They are forming the quadrille, and you shall be vis-à-vis to Lord Wessex and Edith, and show the greatest indifference all the while he is making love to her." But if D'Eyncourt is jealous, Edith is ashamed and distressed. To laugh at the practiced society manner of so very young a man and an Etonian, and to accept his admiration as an incense to her vanity, are alike foreign to a character of so simple truth. "How sorry I ought to be that you are brought out to-night, Lady Edith.” "Why sorry?" Why, indeed? since if you had not been I should have missed the pleasure of dancing with you; but to think of all the balls that you will grace, where, alas! I shall not have that plea sure!" |