CHAPTER XVIII.-MABEL'S JOURNAL.

GENERAL HARRINGTON was alone in his library. His lat and cloak lay in a heap on a sofa near the door, an indication of unwonted perturbation, for with him, a misplaced article was a proof of excitement which he was always ready to condemn. His dress was a good

deal disturbed, and his hair disordered, as if he had threaded it more than once with the white fingers that now clasped the open covers of Mabel's Journal which he was eagerly reading.

It was almost painful to see the excitement under Entered according to Act of Congress. in the year 1856, by ANN S. STEPHENS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the U. S., for the Southern District of New York.

which that old man labored. The book trembled in "So, I am to start at once, now that my education is his grasp, his lips clung more and more firmly together, completed-completed; I like the term-as if educahis blue eyes shone vividly from under his bent brows, tion were not always progressive, rounded off by death yet from beneath all, there stole out a gleam of tri- only. Well, at least, I am grateful to leave this tireumph, as if he were weaving some crafty web of under- some routine of lessons, and yet there is something of thought out from the angry tumult with which his soul | mournfulness in this abrupt entrance into life. labored. There was no sorrow in his look, no feeling "I have just opened the window, and would gladly of sadness or regret for the greatest loss man ever ex-look forth upon the morning. But this screen of perienced, that of a good woman's love. With him Cherokee roses hangs before me like a curtain, shedding vanity was the grand passion. Touch that and he be-fragrance from every fold. In parting its clusters with came sensitive as a boy of fifteen. In all things else my hands, tenderly for to my fancy, flowers are sensihe was invulnerable. tive and recoil from a rude touch-the dew that has been all night asleep in their heart, bathes my hands with its sweet rain, and through the opening comes a gush of odor from the great magnolia that reaches out its boughs so near my window, that I could lean forth and shake the drops from those snowy chalices, as they gleam and tremble in the bright air.

And yet Mabel's Journal might have touched deeper feelings than her husband was capable of knowing. Another man would have been roused to compassion by the fragments of thought, sometimes artless, sometimes passionate, that seemed to have dropped fresh from her heart upon the pages he was reading.

"What a beautiful world is this. The very breath one draws leaves a delicious languor behind it, a languor that falls upon the senses and gives back to the whole being a dreamy quietude that makes the mere effort of

feeling of strange loneliness in it all. It is pleasant to be happy, but oh! how more than pleasant to have some one near, to whom all these charming sensations can be expressed. I think one is never quite content alone, but then who ever is really content?

He opened the vellum book at the beginning, for with all his impatience, the methodical habits of his life prevailed even then, and at first, there was little to excite more than a strong curiosity. But as he read on, the perturbation we have described in his counte-existence an exquisite enjoyment. And yet there is a nance, became evident. He turned over the leaves violently, glancing here and there, as if eager to devour his mortification at a single dash. The cleft heart, whose breaking had given him access to poor Mabel's secrets, struck against his hand as he closed the book, and opened it again at random. He tore the pretty "How exquisitely pure every thing seems; my little trinket away, and dashed it into the grate, and a curse chamber here, with its delicate matting and snowy broke from his shut teeth, as he saw it fall glowing draperies, looks like the nest of a ring-dove, it is so among the hot embers. Then he turned back to the white and quiet, and the sweet visions which visit me beginning, and began to read more deliberately, allow-here are melodious as the warbling of the young bird, ing his anger to cool and harden, like lava, above his when the early morning wakens it, as the dawn has just smouldering wrath.

Thus it was that Mabel cominenced her journal.

aroused me, into a new love for its own song.

"I have been now for three days beneath my guardian's roof. Dear Neathcote, I love it already for its singular beauty! I shall never forget the strange feelings which crowded my bosom; as the carriage passed through the park gates and rolled slowly up the broad avenue. I threw open the window and leaned out with the eagerness of a child to catch a sight of my new home, then, as a sudden turn in the road brought the front of the mansion in full view, shrunk into my seat again, trembling from a vague fear, which had as much of joy as pain in it.

"I grew fairly dizzy and faint with excitement, as the carriage paused before the entrance, and I saw my guardian waiting on the steps to greet me, standing up so stately and proud, with his wife by his side, her sweet face lit up with a sort of friendly curiosity, to see what her unknown visitor would be like.

"A letter from my guardian. This is indeed an event. A year ago he wrote me a long letter of advice, touching my studies, and giving a world of counsel regarding my deportment. That cold, half-dictatorial, half-fatherly letter, seemed forced from his heart by a sense of duty. This is brief, elegant and kind. He is satisfied with my progress at school, and hears with pleasure, of the improvement in my person-this means, probably, that I am not near so plain as he fancied me. They tell him I have a sort of fire and animation of the countenance, more effective than perfection of outline could render me. I wonder if this be true-of course it is impossible to judge of one's self in a property which depends so much upon the feelings. There is no animation in a hurried or tedious toilet, and the beauty he speaks of is never given back by the mirror. To my vision, now, this is a rather dull and uninteresting face. I wonder if it ever does light up into anything like beauty. Some one must have said this to my guardian. Could it have been the young heir of Neath-Like a flash of lightning those thoughts swept in a cote? He did not seem to look at me at all, when he called at the school and I was frightened to death by his great, earnest eyes; if my guardian proves half as imposing, I shall be afraid to look up in his presence.

"It was not embarrassment that I felt, it was a deep, strange emotion for which I could not account. It seemed almost that in crossing that threshold I was to bid an eternal farewell to the repose of my past life.

tumult through my breast as I descended from the carriage, and went up the steps to meet my guardian and his wife, when they came forward to welcome me.

"I shall always love to look back upon that arrival!

'brother 'utterly strange to my life hitherto-my heart made a sudden recoil, and I could scarcely keep from weeping outright. General Harrington lifted his eyes to mine, with evident surprise, while the little white hand of his wife crept into my lap, and softly pressed mine. That moment a horse dashed up to the door, and young Harrington came into the breakfastroom; his fine eyes full of eager affection; his cheeks in a glow, and with the most beautiful smile I ever saw on mortal lips breaking over his mouth.

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"Will I go? Surely one of those lotus flowers never thrilled a more grateful response to the wave that sways it, than my heart gives back to his wish-will I go? Those sleeping buds will not answer the sunbeams that kiss them into another day of bloom, more gladly than I take the happiness he offers. I have been restless and sad all night, and my heart leaps to this new prospect of pleasure, as a bird flutters forth from the shadowy leaves where it has spent the dark hours.

"The lotus pond was like a fairy lake, when we reached it; the banks were festooned and garlanded with wild vines, prairie roses, and yellow jessamines, overrunning whole hedgerows of swamp magnolias, whose blended odor floated like a mist over the waters. Here and there an oak, with long, hoary moss bearding its limbs, lifted whole masses of this entangled foliage into the air, and flung it back again in a thousand garlands and blooming streamers, that rippled dreamily in the waters of the lake. As we came up, an oriole had lighted on one of these pendant branches, and poured a flood of song over us as we passed down to the boat, which lay in a pretty cove ready to receive us.

"An old negro sat in the boat, lazily waiting our approach, with his face bowed upon his brawny bosom, and the sun striking through the branches upon a head that seemed covered with crisp frost, age had so com

As he was about to release her hands from his clasp, she drew him towards me, and said pleasantly: "This is Mabel Crawford-the General's ward.' "He took my hand, and an expression of surprise or interest rose to his face as he felt my poor fingers quiver in his; while my face was burning with a consciousness of feelings more tumultuous by far, than the occasion could warrant. He held my hand a moment longer than was necessary to a cordial wel-pletely whitened his hair. A word from the young come, and, for an instant, seemed to wonder at my perturbation; then his features relaxed into the most kindly expression I ever saw, and some words of welcome fell upon my ears, but to this hour I cannot recollect what they were; the sound entered my heart, and that was enough.

"General Harrington seemed to watch us closely, for I saw a smile creep over his face, as if my awkwardness rather amused him; while his lady stood by, regarding us with her soft, brown eyes, which were beaming with a thousand affectionate welcomes.

"I think it was from that moment this strange happiness of heart commenced, which has made Neathcote seem so much like a pleasant corner of paradise to me. I never knew what companionship was before. If I wish to read, he seems ever to have the book uppermost in his mind that meets my own thought. If I am restless-and this mood grows upon me of late-he is ready to gallop by my side down to the quarters where I am never weary of watching the queer little negroes at their play, or through the magnolia groves that envelope us with a cloud of perfume as we sweep beneath their branches. In fact, I have not a wish from morning to night, which Harrington does not either share or anticipate; no brother could be more kind; and yet it gives me a strange pang to feel that all

this

"I left off with a half-finished sentence. Mrs. Harrington's maid broke in upon me at the moment with a message from the young master, as she calls him. In a hollow among the hills he has found a pond of waterlilies, and I must hasten to see them unfold their snowy hearts to the morning sun, after sleeping all night upon the lake.

master roused the slumbering old man; and, with a broad grin of delight, he proceeded to arrange the crimson cushions, and trim his snowy sails, making haste to put forth on our cruise along the shore, which was starred with opening lotus blossoms, and green with their long, floating leaves.

"It made my heart thrill with a sort of pain, as our boat ploughed through this exquisite sheet of blossoms for, as I have said before, it has always seemed to me like uprooting a tender thought when a flower is torn from its stem. I said something like this, as Harrington laid a handful of the open flowers in my lap. He looked at me steadily for a moment-muttered that it was a strange fancy-but plucked no more waterlilies that day. After a time, when the old man, thinking to please us, commenced to tear them up by the roots, Harrington rebuked him for his roughness, and bade him trim the boat for a sail across the lake.

"I wonder why it is, that, when we feel deepest, a disposition to silence always holds the senses in thralldom. I did not speak half a dozen words, as our boat sped like a bird across the lake; and yet my heart was full of happiness, for Harrington had his dark eyes fixed with a sort of dreamy earnestness on my face all the time. A consciousness so strange, and almost delirious, seized upon me, that I could neither look up nor speak, but bowed my head over the blossoms in my lap, whispering to them what had never been uttered in words, and never, perhaps, may be.

"While we sat thus in mute happiness, with nothing but the ripple of the boat to break the exquisite joy of our silence, the oriole began to sing again, and his mate answered back the song from across the lake. I looked up, and met his eyes bent upon me: a flush came to his

land. I could not understand Mrs. Harrington's burst of grief, so unlike her usual quiet demeanor. She has not seemed much in favor of this voyage, although she made no opposition when certain how greatly her husband desired to go. There has been a strange unrest about her for days, that I could not comprehend, but from a few words she unthinkingly uttered this morn

forehead, and I felt the warm blood burning over my cheeks and forehead. His lips parted, and for one instant he took my hand, but only to drop it among the cold water-lilies again, as if some distressing thought had aroused him to painful consciousness. Why was this? how came it that he relinquished my hand so abruptly? Was he shocked with my upward glances -did he think my recognition of his thoughts un-ing, I imagine her to be haunted by one of those mormaidenly?

"The orioles ceased to sing just then, and a sudden cloud came sweeping over us, which broke upon the pond in a sudden squall of wind. Before the old man could reef his sail, it gave way, and fluttered out, like the wounded wing of a bird, bearing our boat with it. The first plunge cast me forward at Harrington's feet; he caught me to his bosom, pressing me there with one arm, while he drew in the sail with the other.

bid fancies, which at times seize upon the strongest mind, in the eve of a long journey-the idea that she will never again behold the land she is leaving behind.

"She has been lying down in her cabin all day, for she suffers greatly, and I spent several hours with her, but at sunset James called me on deck. We stood side by side at the stern of the ship, and saw the sun go down behind a mass of clouds more gorgeous than I ever beheld. The western sky, bending over the shores we had left, seemed alive with molten flame-great billows of crimson rolled up against the amber waves of light the sun had left behind, streaming down over the waters, like a torrent of rainbows, until one could scarce tell which was sea and which sky.

"The wind rose high, tearing in a tornado across the pond; but, I am sure-sure as I am of the beating of my own heart, that Harrington trembled from other causes than the danger we were in. Twice he bent his lips to my face, but checked himself with murmurs which the cruel wind carried from me. "I do not know how we reached the shore, or why it was that we walked in such profound silence home-ing maiden, with only one star beside her, like the ward-but this I do know, another hour like that would have broken my heart with its wealth of happi

ness.

"I could not sleep last night, but lay quietly, with my hands folded softly over iny bosom as had been a childish habit, thinking over that sail upon the lotus pond. The moonbeams stole into my room, penetrating the roses that hung around the casement, and bringing their odor softly around my couch. This rendered my happiness complete.

"The morning found me wakeful, but when it brightened into day, I closed my eyes, and turned my head upon the pillow, ashamed that the broad light should witness my happiness.

"How sudden this is. Mrs. Harrington has been fading away for a month. Her physician recommends change of climate, and in ten days we all start for Madeira, or perhaps, Spain. He goes with us, and I am content.

"We stood there until the latest glories died, and then the moon stole slowly up, like some pale, dream

one bright hope of a human heart. We conversed but little. My soul was too full of the home we had left, and I knew, by the expression of Harrington's face, that he understood and shared my feelings. It was late when I left him, and I cannot write more. My hand is tremulous with the strange feelings which thrill at my heart; the excitement of these last few days has been too much for me, but in the quiet of this new life I shall grow calm again, perhaps. Just now something of Mrs. Harrington's fears seems to oppress me.

"A month has passed. Our voyage is almost at an end, for to-morrow the captain promises that we shall be safely anchored in the harbor of Cadiz. The sun went down this evening in an embankment of clouds, shedding pale, watery gleams upon the sea, that threatened rough weather. As the darkness came on, the clouds spread upward, blackening the whole sky, and flashes of lightning now and then tore through them, like fiery chain shot through the smoke of a battle. There was consternation on board, for we were near

"On shipboard at last! Here I sit in my little cabining the coast, and a storm like this threatened danger. and listen to the heaving of the waves against the vessel, as it ploughs proudly along, as if full of the consciousness of its own strength, and defying the very elements to impede its progress.

"The past ten days have been one continued fever of excitement, and I have scarcely opened my journal. This trip to Europe was finally decided upon in such haste, that we have known hardly a moment of rest.

"We were on board this morning at ten o'clock, and two hours after, New York lay stretched out behind us on the shore of its beautiful bay, like some enchanted city asleep in the sunlight.

"All that were dear to me stood by my side, so I had no sorrow at my departure, beyond the natural feeling of regret that all must feel on quitting their native

"I remained on deck till the rising wind almost swept me over the bulwarks. James Harrington was with me, and as the lightning gleamed athwart his face, I saw that it was anxious and very pale. He strove to appear unconcerned, and went down to the cabin, with a strong effort at cheerfulness, which neither deceived me, nor checked the terrible fears of his poor mother. General Harrington had retired to his state-room, where he sat in moody silence, wrapped in a large travelling cloak. When his invalid wife joined him, trembling with nervous terror, he only folded his cloak the tighten around himself, and muttered that she need apprehend no danger.

Young Mr. Harrington wrung my hand with more of warmth than he had ever exhibited before, when he