HOPE LESLIE:
OR,
EARLY TIMES
IN
THE MASSACHUSETTS.

BY
CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK
AUTHOR OF
“THE LINWOODS,” “POOR RICH MAN,” “LIVE AND LET
LIVE,” “REDWOOD,” &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST.
1842.

[COPYRIGHT.]

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New-York.

[EPIGRAPH.]

Here stood the Indian chieftain, rejoicing in his glory!

How deep the shade of sadness that rests upon his story:

For the white man came with power—like brethren they met—

But the Indian fires went out, and the Indian sun has set!

And the chieftain has departed—gone is his hunting-ground,

And the twanging of the bowstring is a forgotten sound:

Where dwelleth yesterday? and where is Echo’s cell?

Where has the rainbow vanished?—there does the Indian dwell.—E.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

NOTES

ENDNOTES

HOPE LESLIE,
VOLUME II.

CHAPTER I.

“Those well scene natives in grave Nature’s hests,

All close designs conceal in their deep brests.”

Morrell.

It would be highly improper any longer to keep our readers in ignorance of the cause of our heroine’s apparent aberration from the line of strict propriety. After her conversation with Everell, in which we must infer, from its effect on his mind, that she manifested less art than zeal in her friend’s cause, she was retiring to her own apartment, when, on passing through the hall, she saw an Indian woman standing there, requesting the servant who had admitted her “to ask the young ladies of the house if they would look at some rare moccasins.”

Miss Leslie was arrested by the uncommon sweetness of the stranger’s voice; and fixing her eye on her, she was struck with the singular dignity and grace of her demeanour—a certain air indicating an “inborn royalty of soul,” that even the ugly envelope of a blanket did not conceal.

The stranger seemed equally interested in Miss Leslie’s appearance; and, fixing her eye intently on her, “Pray try my moccasins, lady,” she said, earnestly.

“Oh, certainly; I should of all things like to buy a pair of you,” said Hope; and, advancing, she was taking them from her shoulder, over which they were slung, when she, ascertaining by a quick glance that the servant had disappeared, gently repressed Miss Leslie’s hand, saying at the same time, “Tell me thy name, lady.”

“My name! Hope Leslie. But who art thou?” Hope asked in return, in a voice rendered almost inarticulate by the thought that flashed into her mind.

The stranger cast down her eyes, and for half an instant hesitated; then looking apprehensively around, she said, in low, distinct accents, “Hope Leslie, I am Magawisca.”

“Magawisca!” echoed Hope. “Oh, Everell!” and she sprang towards the parlour door to summon Everell.

“Silence! stay,” cried Magawisca, with a vehement gesture, and at the same time turning to escape should Hope prosecute her intention.

Hope perceived this, and again approached her. “It cannot, then, be Magawisca,” she said; and she trembled as she spoke with doubts, hopes, and fears.

Magawisca might have at once identified herself by opening her blanket and disclosing her person; but that she did not, no one will wonder who knows that a savage feels more even than ordinary sensibility at personal deformity. She took from her bosom a necklace of hair and gold entwined together. “Dost thou know this?” she asked. “Is it not like that thou wearest?”

Hope grasped it, pressed it to her lips, and answered by exclaiming passionately, “My sister! my sister!”

“Yes, it is a token from thy sister. Listen to me, Hope Leslie: my time is brief; I may not stay here another moment; but come to me this evening at nine o’clock, at the burial-place, a little beyond the clump of pines, and I will give thee tidings of thy sister: keep what I say in thine own bosom; tell no one thou hast seen me; come alone, and fear not.”

“Oh, I have no fear,” exclaimed Hope, vehemently; “but tell me—tell me!”

Magawisca put her finger on her lips in token of silence, for at this instant the door was again opened, not by the servant who had before appeared, but by Jennet. Magawisca instantly recognised her, and turned as if in the act of departing.

Time had, indeed, wrought little change on Jennet, save imparting a shriller squeak to her doleful voice, and a keener edge to her sharp features. “Madam Winthrop,” she said, “is engaged now, but says you may call some other time with your moccasins; and I would advise you to let it be any other than the fag-end of a Saturday—a wrong season for temporalities.”

While Jennet was uttering this superfluous counsel, Hope sprang off the steps after Magawisca, anxious for some farther light on her dawning expectations.

“Stay, oh stay,” she said, “one moment, and let me try your moccasins.”

At the same instant Mrs. Grafton appeared from the back parlour, evidently in a great flurry. “Here, you Indian woman,” she screamed, “let me see your moccasins.”

Thus beset, Magawisca was constrained to retrace her steps, and confront the danger of discovery. She drew her blanket closer over her head and face, and reascending the steps, threw her moccasins on the floor, and cautiously averted her face from the light. It was too evident to her that Jennet had some glimmering recollections; for, while she affected to busy herself with the moccasins, she turned her inquisitorial gray eyes towards her with a look of sharp scrutiny. Once Magawisca, with a movement of involuntary disdain, returned her glance. Jennet dropped the moccasins as suddenly as if she had received a blow, hemmed as if she were choking, and put her hand on the knob of the parlour door.

“Oh,” thought Magawisca, “I am lost!” But Jennet, confused by her misty recollections, relinquished her purpose, whatever it was, and returned to the examination of the moccasins. In the mean while, Hope stood behind her aunt and Jennet, her hands clasped, and her beautiful eyes bent on Magawisca with a supplicating inquiry.

Mrs. Grafton, as usual, was intent on her traffic. “It was odd enough of Madam Winthrop,” she said, “not to let me know these moccasins were here; she knew I wanted them—at least she must know I might want them; and if I don’t want them, that’s nothing to the purpose. I like to look at everything that’s going. It is a diversion to the mind. A neat article,” she continued; “I should like you to have a pair, Hope; Sir Philip said, yesterday, they gave a trig look to a pretty foot and ankle. How much does she ask for them?”

“I do not know,” replied Hope.

“Do not know! that’s peculiar of you, Hope Leslie; you never inquire the price of anything. I dare say Tawney expects enough for them to buy all the glass beads in Boston. Hey, Tawney?”

Mrs. Grafton now, for the first time, turned from the articles to their possessor: she was struck with an air of graceful haughtiness in her demeanour, strongly contrasting with the submissive, dejected deportment of the natives whom she was in the habit of seeing; and dropping the moccasins and turning to Hope, she whispered, “Best buy a pair, dearie—by all means buy a pair—pay her anything she asks—best keep peace with them: ‘never affront dogs nor Indians.’ ”

Hope wanted no urging; but, anxious to get rid of the witnesses that embarrassed her, and quick of invention, she directed Jennet to go for her purse, “which she would find in a certain basket, or drawer, or somewhere else;” and reminded her aunt that she had promised to call in at Mrs. Cotton’s on her way to lecture, to look at her hyacinths, and that she had no time to lose.

Jennet obeyed, and Mrs. Grafton said, “That’s true, and it’s thoughtful of you to think of it, Hope; but,” she added, lowering her voice, “I would not like to leave you alone, so I’ll just open the parlour door.”

Before Hope could intercept her, she set the door ajar, and through the aperture Magawisca had a perfect view of Everell, who was sitting musing in the window-seat. An involuntary exclamation burst from her lips; and then, shuddering at this exposure of her feelings, she hastily gathered together the moccasins that were strewn over the floor, dropped a pair at Hope’s feet, and darted away.

Hope had heard the exclamation and understood it. Mrs. Grafton heard it without understanding it, and followed Magawisca to the door, calling after her, “Do stay and take a little something; Madam Winthrop has always a bone to give away. Ah! you might as well call after the wind; she has already turned the corner. Heaven send she may not bear malice against us! What do you think, Hope?” Mrs. Grafton turned to appeal to her niece; but she, foreseeing endless interrogatories, had made good her retreat, and escaped to her own apartment.

Jennet, however, came to the good lady’s relief; listened to all her conjectures and apprehensions, and reciprocated her own.

Jennet could not say what it was in the woman, but she had the strangest feeling all the time she was there—a mysterious beating of her heart that she could not account for; as to her disappearing so suddenly, that she did not think much of; the foresters were always impatient to get to their haunts; they were like the “wild ass,” that the Scripture saith “scorneth the multitude of a city.”

But we leave Mrs. Grafton and Jennet to their unedifying conference, to follow our heroine to the privacy of her own apartment. There, in the first rush of her newly-awakened feelings, till then repressed, she wept like a child, and repeated again and again, “Oh, my sister! my sister!” Her mind was in a tumult; she knew not what to believe—what to expect—what to hope.

But, accustomed to diffuse over every anticipation the sunny hue of her own happy temperament, she flattered herself that she would even that night meet her sister; that she would be forever restored to her; that the chord severed by the cruel disaster at Bethel would be rebound about their hearts. She had but a brief space to compose herself, and that was passed in fervent supplications for the blessing of God upon her hopes. She must go to the lecture, and after that trust to her ingenuity to escape to the rendezvous. The thought of danger or exposure never entered her mind, for she was not addicted to fear; and, as she reflected on the voice and deportment of the stranger, she was convinced she could be no other than Magawisca, the heroine of Everell’s imagination, whom he had taught her to believe was one of those who,

“Without arte’s bright lamp, by nature’s eye,

Keep just promise, and love equitie.”

Almost as impatient to go to the lecture as she was afterward to escape from it (we trust our readers have absolved her for her apparent indecorum in the sanctuary), she had tied and untied her hat twenty times before she heard the ringing of the bell for the assembling of the congregation. She refused, as has been seen, the escort of Everell, for she dared not expose to him emotions which she could not explain.

After the various detentions which have been already detailed, she arrived at the appointed rendezvous, and there saw Magawisca, and Magawisca alone, kneeling before an upright stake planted at one end of a grave. She appeared occupied in delineating a figure on the stake with a small implement she held in her hand, which she dipped in a shell placed on the ground beside her.

Hope paused with a mingled feeling of disappointment and awe; disappointment that her sister was not there, and awe inspired by the solemnity of the scene before her: the spirit-stirring figure of Magawisca, the duty she was performing, the flickering light, the monumental stones, and the dark shadows that swept over them as the breeze bowed the tall pines. She drew her mantle, that fluttered in the breeze, close around her, and almost suppressed her breath, that she might not disturb what she believed to be an act of filial devotion.

Magawisca was not unconscious of Miss Leslie’s approach, but she deemed the office in which she was engaged too sacred to be interrupted. She accompanied the movement of her hand with a low chant in her native tongue; and so sweet and varied were the tones of her voice, that it seemed to Hope they might have been breathed by an invisible spirit.

When she had finished her work, she leaned her head for a moment against the stake, and then rose and turned to Miss Leslie; a moonbeam shot across her face; it was wet with tears, but she spoke in a tranquil voice. “You have come—and alone?” she said, casting a searching glance around her.

“I promised to come alone,” replied Hope.

“Yes, and I trusted you; and I will trust you farther, for the good deed you did Nelema.”

“Nelema, then, lived to reach you.”

“She did; wasted, faint, and dying, she crawled into my father’s wigwam. She had but scant time and short breath; with that she cursed your race, and blessed you, Hope Leslie; her day was ended; the hand of death pressed her throat, and even then she made me swear to perform her promise to you.”

“And you will, Magawisca,” cried Hope, impetuously, “you will give me back my sister?”

“Nay, that she never promised—that I cannot do. I cannot send back the bird that has mated, to its parent nest—the stream that has mingled with other waters, to its fountain.”

“Oh, do not speak to me in these dark sayings,” replied Hope, her smooth brow contracting with impatience and apprehension, and her hurried manner and convulsed countenance contrasting strongly with the calmness of Magawisca; “what is it you mean? Where is my sister?”

“She is safe—she is near to you—and you shall see her, Hope Leslie.”

“But when—and where, Magawisca? Oh, if I could once clasp her in my arms, she never should leave me—she never should be torn from me again.”

“Those arms,” said Magawisca, with a faint smile, “could no more retain thy sister than a spider’s web. The lily of the Maqua’s valley will never again make the English garden sweet.”

“Speak plainer to me,” cried Hope, in a voice of entreaty that could not be resisted. “Is my sister—” she paused, for her quivering lips could not pronounce the words that rose to them.

Magawisca understood her, and replied. “Yes, Hope Leslie, thy sister is married to Oneco.”

“God forbid!” exclaimed Hope, shuddering as if a knife had been plunged in her bosom. “My sister married to an Indian!”

“An Indian!” exclaimed Magawisca, recoiling with a look of proud contempt, that showed she reciprocated with full measure the scorn expressed for her race. “Yes, an Indian, in whose veins runs the blood of the strongest, the fleetest of the children of the forest, who never turned their backs on friends or enemies, and whose souls have returned to the Great Spirit stainless as they came from him. Think ye that your blood will be corrupted by mingling with this stream?”

Long before Magawisca ceased to pour out her indignation, Hope’s first emotion had given place to a burst of tears; she wept aloud, and her broken utterance of “O, my sister! my sister! My dear mother!” emitted but imperfect glimpses of the ruined hopes, the bitter feelings that oppressed her.

There was a chord in Magawisca’s heart that needed but the touch of tenderness to respond in harmony; her pride vanished, and her indignation gave place to sympathy. She said in a low, soothing voice, “Now do not weep thus; your sister is well with us. She is cherished as the bird cherishes her young. The cold winds may not blow on her, nor the fierce sun scorch her, nor a harsh sound ever be spoken to her; she is dear to Mononotto as if his own blood ran in her veins; and Oneco—Oneco worships and serves her as if all good spirits dwelt in her. Oh, she is indeed well with us.”

“There lies my mother,” cried Hope, without seeming to have heard Magawisca’s consolations; “she lost her life in bringing her children to this wild world, to secure them in the fold of Christ. O, God! restore my sister to the Christian family.”

“And here,” said Magawisca, in a voice of deep pathos, “here is my mother’s grave; think ye not that the Great Spirit looks down on these sacred spots, where the good and the peaceful rest, with an equal eye? think ye not their children are His children, whether they are gathered in yonder temple where your people worship, or bow to him beneath the green boughs of the forest?”

There was certainly something thrilling in Magawisca’s faith, and she now succeeded in riveting Hope’s attention. “Listen to me,” she said; “your sister is of what you call the Christian family. I believe ye have many names in that family. She hath been signed with the cross by a holy father from France; she bows to the crucifix.”

“Thank God!” exclaimed Hope, fervently, for she thought that any Christian faith was better than none.

“Perhaps ye are right,” said Magawisca, as if she read Hope’s heart; “there may be those that need other lights; but to me, the Great Spirit is visible in the life-creating sun. I perceive him in the gentle light of the moon that steals in through the forest boughs. I feel him here,” she continued, pressing her hand on her breast, while her face glowed with the enthusiasm of devotion. “I feel him in these ever-living, ever-wakeful thoughts—but we waste time. You must see your sister.”

“When—and where?” again demanded Hope.

“Before I answer you, you must promise me by this sign,” and she pointed to the emblem of her tribe, an eagle, which she had rudely delineated on the post that served as a headstone to her mother’s grave; “you must promise me by the bright host of Heaven, that the door of your lips shall be fast; that none shall know that you have seen me, or are to see me again.”

“I promise,” said Hope, with her characteristic precipitancy.

“Then, when five suns have risen and set, I will return with your sister. But hush!” she said, suddenly stopping, and turning a suspicious eye towards the thicket of evergreens.

“It was but the wind,” said Hope, rightly interpreting Magawisca’s quick glance, and the slight inclination of her head.

“You would not betray me!” said Magawisca, in a voice of mingled assurance and inquiry. “Oh, more than ever entered into thy young thoughts hangs upon my safety.”

“But why any fear for your safety? why not come openly among us? I will get the word of our good governor that you shall come and go in peace. No one ever feared to trust his word.”

“You know not what you ask.”

“Indeed I do; but you, Magawisca, know not what you refuse; and why refuse? are you afraid of being treated like a recovered prisoner? Oh, no! every one will delight to honour you, for your very name is dear to all Mr. Fletcher’s friends—most dear to Everell.”

“Dear to Everell Fletcher! Does he remember me? Is there a place in his heart for an Indian?” she demanded, with a blended expression of pride and melancholy.

“Yes, yes, Magawisca, indeed is there,” replied Hope, for now she thought she had touched the right key. “It was but this morning that he said he had a mind to take an Indian guide, and seek you out among the Maquas.” Magawisca hid her face in the folds of her mantle, and Hope proceeded with increasing earnestness. “There is nothing in the wide world—there is nothing that Everell thinks so good and so noble as you. Oh, if you could but have seen his joy, when, after your parting on that horrid rock, he first heard you were living! He has described you so often and so truly, that the moment I saw you and heard your voice, I said to myself, ‘this is surely Everell’s Magawisca.’ ”

“Say no more, Hope Leslie, say no more,” exclaimed Magawisca, throwing back the envelope from her face, as if she were ashamed to shelter emotions she ought not to indulge. “I have promised my father, I have repeated the vow here on my mother’s grave, and if I were to go back from it, those bright witnesses,” she pointed to the heavens, “would break their silence. Do not speak to me again of Everell Fletcher.”

“Oh yes, once again, Magawisca: if you will not listen to me; if you will but give me this brief, mysterious meeting with my poor sister, at least let Everell be with me; for his sake, for my sake, for your own sake, do not refuse me.”

Magawisca looked on Hope’s glowing face for a moment, and then shook her head with a melancholy smile. “They tell me,” she said, “that no one can look on you and deny you aught; that you can make old men’s hearts soft, and mould them at your will; but I have learned to deny even the cravings of my own heart; to pursue my purpose like the bird that keeps her wing stretched to the toilsome flight, though the sweetest note of her mate recalls her to the nest. But ah! I do but boast,” she continued, casting her eyes to the ground. “I may not trust myself; that was a childish scream that escaped me when I saw Everell; had my father heard it, his cheek would have been pale with shame. No, Hope Leslie, I may not listen to thee. You must come alone to the meeting, or never meet your sister: will you come?”

Hope saw in the determined manner of Magawisca that there was no alternative but to accept the boon on her own terms, and she no longer withheld her compliance. The basis of their treaty being settled, the next point to be arranged was the place of meeting. Magawisca had no objections to venture again within the town, but then it would be necessary completely to disguise Faith Leslie; and she hinted that she understood enough of Hope’s English feelings to know that she would wish to see her sister with the pure tint of her natural complexion.

Hope had too much delicacy and too much feeling even inadvertently to appear to lay much stress on this point; but the experience of the evening made her feel the difficulty of arranging a meeting, surrounded as she was by vigilant friends, and within the sphere of their observation. Suddenly it occurred to her that Digby, her fast friend, and on more than one occasion her trusty ally, had the superintendence of the governor’s garden on an island in the harbour, and within three miles of the town. The governor’s family were in the habit of resorting thither frequently. Digby had a small habitation there, of which he and his family were the only tenants, and, indeed, were the only persons who dwelt on the island. Hope was certain of permission to pass a night there, where she might indulge in an interview with her sister of any length, without hazard of interruption; and, having explained her plan to Magawisca, it received her ready and full acquiescence.

Before they separated, Hope said, “You will allow me, Magawisca, to persuade my sister, if I can, to remain with me?”

“Oh yes, if you can; but do not hope to persuade her. She and my brother are as if one life-chord bound them together; and, besides, your sister cannot speak to you and understand you as I do. She was very young when she was taken where she has only heard the Indian tongue: some, you know, are like water, that retains no mark; and others like the flinty rock, that never loses a mark.” Magawisca observed Hope’s look of disappointment, and, in a voice of pity, added, “Your sister hath a face that speaketh plainly what the tongue should never speak—her own goodness.”

When these two romantic females had concerted every measure they deemed essential to the certainty and privacy of their meeting, Magawisca bowed her head and kissed the border of Hope’s shawl with the reverent delicacy of an Oriental salutation; she then took from beneath her mantle some fragrant herbs, and strewed them over her mother’s grave, then prostrated herself in deep and silent devotion, feeling (as others have felt on earth thus consecrated) as if the clods she pressed were instinct with life. When this last act of filial love was done, she rose, muffled herself closely in her dark mantle, and departed.

Hope lingered for a moment. “Mysteriously,” she said, as her eye followed the noble figure of Magawisca till it was lost in the surrounding darkness, “mysteriously have our destinies been interwoven. Our mothers brought from a far distance to rest together here—their children connected in indissoluble bonds!”

But Hope was soon aware that this was no time for solitary meditation. In the interest of her interview with Magawisca she had been heedless of the gathering storm. The clouds rolled over the moon suddenly, like the unfurling of a banner, and the rain poured down in torrents. Hope had no light to guide her but occasional flashes of lightning, and the candle whose little beam, proceeding from Mr. Cotton’s study window, pierced the dense sheet of rain.

Hope hurried her steps homeward, and, as she passed the knot of evergreens, she fancied she heard a rattling of the boughs, as if there were some struggling within, and a suppressed voice saying, “Hist! whish!” She paused, and with a resolute step turned towards the thicket. “We have been overheard,” she thought; “this generous creature shall not be betrayed.” At this instant a thunderbolt burst over her head, and the whole earth seemed kindled in one bright illumination. She was terrified; and, perhaps, as much convinced by her fears as her reason that it was both imprudent and useless to make any farther investigation, she again bent her quick steps towards home. She had scarcely surmounted the fence, which she passed more like a winged spirit than a fine lady, when Sir Philip Gardiner joined her.

“Miss Leslie!” he exclaimed, as a flash of lightning revealed her person. “Now, thanks to my good stars that I am so fortunate as to meet you; suffer me to wrap my cloak about you; you will be drenched with this pitiless rain.”

“Oh no, no,” she said; “the cloak will but encumber me. I am already drenched, and I shall be at home directly;” and she would have left him, but he caught her arm, and gently detained her while he enveloped her in his cloak.

“It should not be a trifle, Miss Leslie, that has kept you out, regardless of this gathering storm,” Sir Philip said, inquiringly. Miss Leslie made no reply, and he proceeded. “You may have forgotten it is Saturday night—or perhaps you have a dispensation?”

“Neither,” replied Hope.

“Neither! Then I am sure you are abroad in some godly cause; for you need to be one of the righteous—who, we are told, are as bold as a lion—to confront the governor’s family after trespassing on holy time.”

“I have no fears,” said Hope.

“No fears! That is a rare exemption for a young lady; but I would that you possessed one still more rare: she who is incapable of fear should never be exposed to danger; and if I had a charmed shield, I would devote my life to sheltering you from all harm: may not—may not love be such a one?”

“It’s useless talking, Sir Philip,” replied Hope, if that could be deemed a reply which seemed to have rather an indirect relation to the previous address, “it’s useless talking in this rattling storm, your words drop to the ground with the hailstones.”

“And every word you utter,” said the knight, biting his lips with vexation, “not only penetrates my ear, but sinks into my heart; therefore I pray you to be merciful, and do not make my heart heavy.”

“The hailstones melt as they touch the ground, and my words pass away as soon, I fancy,” said Hope, with the most provoking nonchalance.

Sir Philip had no time to reply; they were just turning into the court in front of Governor Winthrop’s house, when a flash of lightning, so vivid that its glare almost blinded them, disclosed the figure of the mysterious page leaning against the gatepost, his head inclined forward as if in the act of listening, his cap in his hand, his dark curls in wild disorder over his face and neck, and he apparently unconscious of the storm. They both recoiled: Hope uttered an exclamation of pity. “Ha, Roslin!” burst in a tone of severe reproach from Sir Philip; but, instantly changing it for one of kindness, he added, “you should not have waited for me, boy, in the storm.”

“I cared not for the storm—I did not feel it,” replied the lad, in a penetrating voice, which recalled to Miss Leslie all he had said to her, and induced her to check her first impulse to bid him in; she therefore passed him without any farther notice, ascended the steps, and, as has been related in the preceding chapter, met Everell in the hall.

It is necessary to state briefly to our readers some particulars in relation to the reappearance of Magawisca, which events have not as yet explained.

Her father, from the hour of his expulsion from his own dominion, had constantly meditated revenge. His appetite was not sated at Bethel: that massacre seemed to him but a retaliation for his private wrongs. The catastrophe on the sacrifice-rock disordered his reason for a time; and the Indians, who perceived something extraordinary in the energy of his unwavering and undivided purpose, never believed it to be perfectly restored. But this, so far from impairing their confidence, converted it to implicit deference; for they, in common with certain Oriental nations, believe that an insane person is inspired; that the Divinity takes possession of the temple which the spirit of the man has abandoned. Whatever Mononotto predicted was believed; whatever he ordered was done.

He felt that Oneco’s volatile, unimpressive character was unfit for his purpose, and he permitted him to pursue, without intermission, his own pleasure—to hunt and fish for his “white bird,” as he called the little Leslie. But Magawisca was the constant companion of her father; susceptible and contemplative, she soon imbibed his melancholy, and became as obedient to the impulse of his spirit as the most faithful are to the fancied intimations of the Divinity. She was the priestess of the oracle. Her tenderness for Everell and her grateful recollections of his lovely mother she determined to sacrifice on the altar of national duty.

In the years 1642 and 1643 there was a general movement among the Indians. Terrible massacres were perpetrated in the English settlements in Virginia; the Dutch establishments in New-York were invaded, and rumours of secret and brooding hostility kept the colonies of New-England in a state of perpetual alarm. Mononotto determined to avail himself of this crisis, that appeared so favourable to his design, of uniting all the tribes of New-England in one powerful combination. He first applied to Miantunnomoh, hoping by his personal influence to persuade that powerful and crafty chief to sacrifice to the general good his private feud with Uncas, the chief of the Mohegans.

Mononotto eloquently pressed those arguments, which, as is allowed by the historian of the Indian wars, “seemed to right reason not only pregnant to the purpose, but also most cogent and invincible,” and for a time they prevailed over the mind of Miantunnomoh.

Vague rumours of conspiracy reached Boston, and the governor summoned Miantunnomoh to appear before his court, and abide an examination there. The chief accordingly (as has been seen) came to Boston; but so artfully did he manage his cause as to screen from the English every just ground of offence. Their suspicions, however, were not removed; for Hubbard says, “though his words were smoother than oil, yet many conceived in his heart were drawn swords.”

It may appear strange, that while prosecuting so hazardous and delicate an enterprise, Mononotto should have encumbered himself with his family. Magawisca was necessary to him; and he submitted to be accompanied by Oneco and his bride, from respect to the dying declaration of Nelema, that his plans could never be accomplished till her promise to Hope Leslie had been redeemed; till, as she had sworn to her preserver, the sisters had met.

Had the Indians been capable of a firm combination, the purpose of Mononotto might have been achieved, and the English have been then driven from the American soil. But the natives were thinly scattered over an immense tract of country; the different tribes divided by petty rivalships, and impassable gulfs of long-transmitted hatred. They were brave and strong, but it was brute force without art or arms: they had ingenuity to form, and they did form, artful conspiracies, but their best-concerted plans were betrayed by the timid or the treacherous.

Mononotto trusted to his daughter the arrangement of the meeting of the sisters, which, from his having a superstitious notion that it was in some way to influence his political purposes, he was anxious to promote. Magawisca left her companions at an Indian station on the Neponset River, and proceeded herself to Boston to seek a private interview with Hope Leslie. The appearance of an Indian woman in Boston excited no observation, the natives being in the habit of resorting there daily with game, fish, and their rude manufactures. Aware of the necessity of disguising every peculiarity, she unbound her hair from the braids in which it was usually confined, and combed it thick over her forehead, after the fashion of the aborigines in the vicinity of Boston, whom Eliot describes as wearing this “maiden veil.” She enveloped herself in a blanket, that concealed the rich dress which it was her father’s pride (and perhaps her pleasure) that she should wear. Thus disguised, and favoured by the kind shadows of twilight, she presented herself at Governor Winthrop’s, and was, as has already appeared, successful in her mission.

CHAPTER II.

“I could find in my heart to disgrace my man’s apparel, and to cry like a woman.”—As You Like It.

Sir Philip Gardiner, by the kind offices of Governor Winthrop, had obtained lodgings at one Daniel Maud’s, the “first recorded schoolmaster” in Boston. Thither he went, followed by his moody page, after receiving his cloak from our thankless heroine.

Not one word passed between him and his attendant; and, after they reached their apartment, the boy, instead of performing the customary servile duties of his station, threw himself on a cushion, and, covering his face with his hands, seemed lost in his own sorrowful meditations.

There had been a little fire kindled on the hearth. Sir Philip laid the fallen brands together, lighted the candles, arranged his writing materials on the table, and, without permitting himself to be interrupted, or in the least affected by the sobs that, at intervals, proceeded from his companion, he indited the following epistle:

“To my good and trusty Wilton:

“ ‘In the name of Heaven, what sends you to New-England?’ were your last words to me. I had not time to answer your question then, and perhaps, when I have finished, you will say I have not ability now; but who can explain the motives of his conduct? Who can always say, after an action is done, that he had sufficient motive? Not one of us, Wilton, sons of whim and folly that we are! But my motives, such as they were, are at your service; so here you have them.

“I was tired of playing a losing game; even rats, you know, have an instinct by which they flee a falling house. I had some compunctious visitings at leaving my king when he hath such cruel need of loyal servants; jeer not, Wilton, I had my scruples. It was a saying of Father Baretti, that when Lucifer fell, conscience, that once guided, remained to torment him. My assertion thus modestly illustrated, have I not a right to say I had scruples? I was wearied with a series of ill luck, and, as other men are as good to fill a ditch, I have retired till Dame Fortune shall see fit to give her wheel a turn in my royal master’s favour. But why come hither? to submit to ‘King Winthrop and all his inventions, his Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marryings, and other abusive ceremonies?’ Patience, my good gossip, and I will tell thee.

“You have heard of my old friend and patron, Thomas Morton, of Furnival’s Inn; and you know he was once master of a fine domain here, at Mount Wollaston, for which his revels obtained the name of the ‘Merry Mount.’ The ruling saintships of this ‘New-English Canaan’ were so scandalized because, forsooth, he avowed and followed the free tastes of a gentleman, that they ejected him from his own territory.

“He once wellnigh obtained redress from the king, and a decree in his favour passed the Privy Seal, but the influence of his enemies finally prevailed. He has had the consolation of sundry retaliations on his opponents; now, as he said, ‘uncasing Medusa’s head, and raising the old ghost of Sir F. Gorges’s patent,’ and then thrusting home the keen point of his satiric verse. However, though this was a bitter draught to his adversaries, it was but lean satisfaction to him; and having become old and poor, and lost his spirit, he came hither once more, last winter, in the hope of obtaining an act of oblivion of all past grievances, and a restitution of his rights.

“Immediately after his arrival, he wrote to me that ‘Joshua had promised to restore to him and to his tribe their lot in the inheritance of the faithful; that he was again to be king of the revels on the “Merry Mount,” where he invited me to live with him, his prime minister and heir-apparent.’ The letter came to hand at a moment when I was wearied with a bootless service, and willing to grasp any novelty, and, accordingly, I closed with the offer; but, lo! on my arrival, I found that Morton, instead of being reinstated at Mount Wollaston, is in jail, and in honest opinion is reputed crazy, as doubtless he is! Laugh at me, Wilton, even as the foul fiends laugh when their master is entangled in his own meshes! I defy your laugh; for, though a dupe, I am not a victim; and Cæsar and his fortunes shall yet survive the storm.

“I have done with Morton; no one here knows or suspects our former alliance. My name is not like to reach his ear, and if it should, who would take the word of a ruined man against an approved candidate for membership with the congregation, for such even am I—a ‘brother’ in this community of saints.

“Luckily, Morton, with that cunning incident to madness, cautioned me against appearing in this camp without the uniform of the church-militant, alleging that we must play the part of pilgrims till we were quite independent of the favour of the saints. Accordingly, I assumed the Puritan habit, bearing, and language, that so much amused you at our last meeting. But why, you will ask, prolong this dull masquerade? For an object, my good Wilton, that would make you or me saint or devil, or anything else whereby we might secure it: the most provoking, bewitching, and soul-moving creature that ever appeared in the form of woman is my tempter. She is the daughter and sole heir of Sir Walter Leslie, who, you may remember, was noted for his gallantry in that mad expedition of Buckingham to the Isle of Rhée.

“Is it not a shame that youth and beauty should be thrown away upon these drivelling, canting, preaching, praying, liberty-loving, lecture-going Pilgrims? Would it not be a worthy act to tear this scion of a loyal stock from these crabs of the wilderness, and set her in our garden of England? And would it not be a knightly feat to win the prize against a young gallant, a pink of courtesy, while the unfledged boy is dreaming of love’s elysium?

“Marvel as you please, Wilton, goodly prospects are dawning on me; fortune smiles, as if inclined to pay the good turn she has so long owed me. I am in prime credit with guardians and governors—the beau-ideal of duenna-aunts and serving-maids. Time and chance favour me; but—but there is always some devilish cross upon my line of luck.

“Rosa came with me to this barbarous land: a fit Houri, you will say, for a Mohammedan saint, but an odd appendage to a canting Roundhead: even so she is; but what was to be done? She had no shelter but my protection. I had still some lingering of love for her, and pity (don’t scoff!); and, besides, Morton’s representations had led me to believe that she would not be an inconvenient member of the household at Merry Mount; so I permitted her to disguise herself, and come over the rough seas with me. She is a fantastical, wayward child, and a true woman withal. She loves me to distraction, and would sacrifice any to me but the ruling passion of her sex, her vanity; but, in spite of my entreaties and commands, she persists in wearing a velvet Spanish hat, with a buckle and feathers, most audaciously cocked on one side; and, indeed, her whole apparel would better suit a queen’s page than the humble serving-boy of a self-denying Puritan.

“Luckily, she is sad and dumpish, and does not incline to go abroad; but, whenever she does appear, I perceive she is eyed with curiosity and suspicion; and suspicion once thoroughly awakened, discovery is inevitable, for you know her face gives the lie to her doublet and hose.

“ ‘Diana’s lip is not more smooth and rubious,

Her small pipe is as the maiden’s organ, sound and shrill,

And all is semblative a woman’s part.’

“If we should be detected, I know not what punishment may be inflicted by the Draco-laws of these saints: a public whipping of poor Rosa—cropping of my ears—imprisonment—perhaps death, if, peradventure, some authority therefor should be found in the statutes of the land; that is to say, in the old Jewish records.

“But why expose myself to such peril? Ah, Wilton, you would not ask why if you could see my enchantress; but, without seeing her, no man knows better than you that

“ ‘Love is a sweet intice,

’Gainst whom the wisest wits as yet

Have never found devise.’

“If I could but persuade Rosa to be prudent till we may both cast off these odious disguises; but she disdains all caution, and fears nothing but being supplanted in my favour.

“She is still in the fever of love—all eye and ear—irritable, jealous, watchful, and suspicious. One moment passionate, and the next dissolved in tears. So intense a flame must purify or consume the sentiment her beauty inspired; it cannot be purified, and—the alternative—it is consumed.

“I cannot rid myself of her, I cannot control her, and in this jeopardy I stand; but I abandon all to my destiny. Even Jupiter, you know, was ruled by fate. It is folly to attempt to shape the events of life; as easily might we direct the course of the stars: those very stars, perhaps, govern the accidents of our being. The stars—destiny—Providence, what are they all but various terms for the same invisible, irresistible agency? But Heaven forbid I should lose myself in the bewildering mazes of these high speculations! It is enough for me that I am a knight of the Holy Sepulchre, that I wear my crucifix, pray to all the saints, and eat no flesh on Fridays. By-the-way, on the very first day of my arrival here, I came nigh to winning the crown of martyrdom by my saintly obedience to the canons of Holy Church. The Leslie, in simplicity or mischief, remarked on my confining myself to fish on Friday; rebel conscience, in spite of me, tinged my cheeks; but, thanks to my garb of hypocrisy—panoply of steel never did better service—the light thrust glanced off and left me unharmed.

“You and I, Wilton, are too old to make, like dreaming boys, an El Dorado of our future, and you will ask me what are my rational chances of success in my present enterprise. I will not remind you of success on former similar occasions, for my vanity has been abated of its presumption this very evening by the indifference, real or affected, of this little sprite.

“Ladies must have lovers—idols must have worshippers, or they are no longer idols. I have but one rival here, and he, I think, is appointed by his wise guardians to another destiny; and being a right dutiful youth, he, no doubt, with management, and good fortune on my part, may be made to surrender his preference (which, by-the-way, is quite obvious), and pass under the yoke of authority. Besides, the helpmate selected by these judges in Israel for the good youth might be, if she were a little less saint and more woman, a queen of love and beauty. But she is not to my taste. I covet not smiles cold as a sunbeam on Arctic snows. Nothing in life is duller than mathematical virtue; nothing more paralyzing to the imagination than unaffected prudery. I detest a woman like a walled city, that can never be approached without your being reminded that it is inaccessible; a woman whose measured, premeditated words sound always like the sentinel-cry, ‘All is well!’

“Now the Leslie has a generous rashness, a thoughtless impetuosity, a fearlessness of the sanctimonious dictators that surround her, and a noble contempt of danger, that stimulate me, at least, to love and enterprise.

“My hope is bold, Wilton; my ambition is to win her heart; my determination to possess her hand, by fair means if I can; but if fortune is adverse—if, as I sometimes fear, when I shrink from the falcon glance of her bright eye as if the spear of Ithuriel touched me—if she has already penetrated my disguise, and persists in disregarding my suit, why, then, Necessity! parent of all witty inventions, come thou to my aid.

“Our old acquaintance, Chaddock, is riding in the harbour here, owner and commander of a good pinnace. I have heard him spoken of in the godly companies I frequent as a ‘notorious contemner of ordinances,’ from which I infer he is the same bold desperado we knew him. My word for it, it does not require more courage to march up to the cannon’s mouth than to claim the independence of a gentleman in this Pharisaic land. Now I think, if I should have occasion to smuggle any precious freight, and convey it over the deep waters, convenient opportunity and fit agents will not be wanting. Time will ripen or blast my budding hopes: if ripen, why, then, I will cast my slough here, and present my beautiful bride to my royal master; or if, perchance, royalty should be in eclipse in England, there are, thank Heaven, other asylums for beauty and fortune.

“Farewell, Wilton; yours in good faith,

“Gardiner.”

As Sir Philip signed his name to this epistle, he felt Rosa’s head drop upon his shoulder; an action that indicated, too truly, that she had been looking over the last paragraphs, at least, of his letter.

Fury flashed from his eyes, and he raised his hand to strike her; but, before he had executed the unmanly act, she burst into a wild hysteric laugh, that changed his resentment to fear. “Rosa, Rosa,” he said, in a soothing tone, “for Heaven’s sake be quiet; you will be overheard—you will betray all.”

She seemed not to hear him, but wringing her hands, she repeated again and again, “I wish I were dead! I wish I were dead!”

“Hush! foolish, mad child, or you will be discovered, and may indeed bring death upon yourself.”

“Death! I care not; death would be heaven’s mercy to what I suffer. What is death to shame! to guilt! to the bitterness of disappointment! to the rage of jealousy! Why should not I die!” she continued, overpowering Sir Philip’s vain attempts to calm her; “why should not I die? there is nobody to care for me if I live, and there is nobody to weep for me if I die.”

“Patience—patience, Rosa.”

“Patience! my patience is worn out; I am tired of this dreary world. O that Lady Lunford had left me in my convent; I should have been happy there. She did not love me. Nobody has loved me since I left the good nuns—nobody but my little Canary-bird, Mignonne; and she always loved me, and would always sing to me, and sing sweetest when my lady was cruellest. Cruel as my lady was, her cruelty was kindness to thine, Sir Philip. O that you had left me with her!”

“You came to me with your own good-will, Rosa.”

“Ay, Sir Philip; and will not the innocent babe stretch its arms to the assassin if he does but smile on it? You told me you loved me, and I believed you. You promised always to love me, and I believed that too; and there was nobody else that loved me but Mignonne; and, now I am all alone in the wide world, I do wish I were dead.” She sunk down at Sir Philip’s feet, laid her head on his knee, and sobbed as if her heart were breaking. “Oh! what shall I do,” she said; “where shall I go? If I go to the good, they will frown on me and despise me; and I cannot go to the wicked—they have no pity.”

Sir Philip’s heart, depraved as it was, felt some emotions of compassion as he looked on this young and beautiful creature, bowed to the earth with remediless anguish; some touches of remorse and pity, such as Milton’s fallen angel felt when he contemplated those “millions of spirits for his fault amerced of Heaven.” “Poor child!” he said, laying his hand on her smooth brow, “would to God you had never left your convent!”

Rosa felt the blistering tears, that flowed from the relics of his better nature, drop on her cheek. She raised her heavy lids, and a ray of pleasure shot from her kindling eye. “Then you do love me,” she said; “you would not weep only for pity; you do love me still?”

Sir Philip perceived the eagerness with which she caught at the first glimmering of returning tenderness, and well knew how to draw his advantage from it. He soothed her with caresses and professions, and, when he had restored her to composure, he endeavoured to impress her with the necessity, for both their sakes, of more prudent conduct. He convinced her that their happiness, their safety, and perhaps their lives, depended on their escaping detection; and, after explaining the defeat of his hopes in relation to Morton, he averred that the part of his letter relating to Miss Leslie was mere badinage, written for his friend’s amusement; and he concluded with reiterated promises that he would return with her in the first ship bound to England.

Rosa was credulous—at least she wished to believe; she was grateful for restored tenderness; and, without daring to confess how nearly she had already betrayed him to Miss Leslie, she promised all the circumspection that Sir Philip required.

CHAPTER III.

“I should have been more strange, I must confess,

But that thou overheard’st me ere I was ’ware

My love’s true passion; therefore pardon me,

And not impute this yielding to light love.”

Romeo and Juliet.

The week that succeeded Hope Leslie’s interview with Magawisca was one of anxiety to most of the members of Governor Winthrop’s family.

The habitual self-possession of the governor himself seemed somewhat disturbed; he was abstracted and thoughtful; frequently held secret conferences with Sir Philip Gardiner in his study; and, in relation to this stranger, he appeared to have departed from his usual diplomatic caution, and to have admitted him to the most confidential intimacy. There were frequent private meetings of the magistrates; and it was quite evident, from the external motions of these guardians of the colony, that some state secret was heaving in their bosoms.

The governor was in the habit of participating with his wife his most secret state affairs, moved to this confidence, no doubt, by his strict views of her rights as his helpmate; for it cannot be supposed, even for a moment, that one of the superior sex should find pleasure in telling a secret.

But in this instance he communicated nothing to his trustworthy partner, excepting some obscure intimations that might be gathered from the significant utterance of such general truths as, “That it was impossible for human foresight to foresee everything; that those who stood at the helm of state could not be too vigilant; that ends were often brought about by unexpected means;” and similar truisms, which, enunciated by grave and dignified lips, are invested with importance from the source whence they proceed.

Madam Winthrop was happily too much absorbed with the feminine employment of watching the development of her niece’s affairs to have much curiosity in relation to cabinet secrets. She naturally concluded that some dangerous adherent of that arch-heretic, Gorton, had been discovered; or, perhaps, some new mode of faith had demanded magisterial interference; whatever her mental conclusions were, it is certain her thoughts all ran in another channel. In all ages of the world, in every condition, and at every period of life, a woman’s interest in the progress of a love-affair masters every other feeling.

Esther Downing was a favourite of her aunt; and as it had been urged by Mr. Downing, as an objection to his removal to New-England, that his daughters would have small chance of being eligibly married there, it became a point of honour with Madam Winthrop, after he had been persuaded to overlook this objection, to prove to him that it was unfounded.

Madam Winthrop was too upright intentionally to do a wrong to any one; but, without being herself conscious of it, she was continually setting off the lights of her niece’s character by what she deemed the shades of Hope Leslie’s. Our heroine’s independent temper and careless gayety of heart had more than once offended against the strict notions of Madam Winthrop, who was of the opinion that the deferential manners of youth, which were the fashion of the age, had their foundation in immutable principles.

Nothing was farther from Miss Leslie’s intention than any disrespect to a woman whom she had been taught to venerate; but, unfortunately, she would sometimes receive what Madam Winthrop meant for affability as if it were simply the kindness of an equal; she had been seen to gape in the midst of the good lady’s most edifying remarks; and once she ran away to gaze on a brilliant sunset at the moment Madam Winthrop was condescendingly relating some very important particulars of her early life. This was certainly indecorous; but her offences were trifling, and were probably forgotten by Madam Winthrop herself long before their effects were effaced from her mind.

Esther was always respectful, always patient, always governed by the slightest intimation of her aunt’s wishes; and it must be confessed that, even to those who were less partial and prejudiced than Madam Winthrop, Miss Downing appeared far more lovely than our heroine during the week when she was suffering the extremes of anxiety and apprehension. No one who did not know that there was a secret and sufficient cause for her restlessness, her seeming indifference to her friends, and to everything about her, could have escaped the conclusion that forced itself on Everell’s mind: that fortune, and beauty, and indulgence had had their usual and fatal effect on Hope Leslie. In the bitterness of his disappointment, he wished he had never returned to have the vision of her ideal perfection expelled from his imagination by the light of truth.

With the irritable feeling of a lover, he watched the devoted attentions of Sir Philip Gardiner to Hope, which she, almost unconscious of them, received passively, but, as Everell thought, favourably. Utterly engrossed in one object, she never reflected that there had been anything in her conduct to excite Everell’s distrust; and, feeling more than ever the want of that sympathy and undisguised affection which she had always received from him, she was hurt at his altered conduct; and her manner insensibly conforming to the coldness and constraint of his, he naturally concluded that she designed to repel him, and he would turn from her to repose in the calm and twilight quiet that was shed about the gentle Esther, whom he knew to be pure, disinterested, humble, and devoted.

Poor Hope, the subject of his unjust condemnation, was agitated, not only by impatience for the promised meeting with her unfortunate sister, but by fear that some unforeseen circumstance might prevent it. She was also harassed with a sense of conflicting duties. She sometimes thought that the duty of restoring her sister to the condition in which she was born was paramount to the obligation of her promise to Magawisca. She would waver and resolve to disclose her secret appointment; but the form of Magawisca would rise to her recollection, with its expression of truth, sweetness, and confidence, as if to check her treacherous purpose.

A thousand times she condemned herself for the rashness of her promise to Magawisca, by which she had reduced herself, surrounded as she was by wise and efficient friends, to act without their council and aid. Had Everell treated her with his accustomed kindness, the habitual confidence of their intercourse might have led her to break through the restriction of her promise, but she dared not deliberately violate her word so solemnly pledged. Oppressed with these anxieties, the hours rolled heavily on; and when Friday, the appointed day, arrived, it seemed to Hope that an age had intervened since her interview with Magawisca.

She had taken care previously to propose an excursion on Friday to the governor’s garden; and, contrary to usual experience when a long-projected pleasure is to be realized, every circumstance was propitious. The day was propitious—one of Nature’s holydays; the governor, too, was propitious, and even promoted the party with unprecedented zeal.

After various delays, which, however trifling, had increased Hope’s nervous impatience, they were on the point of setting forth, when Madam Winthrop, who was not one of the party, came into the parlour, and said, after a slight hesitation, “I am loath, my young friends, to interfere with what you seem to have set your hearts on, but really—” she paused.

“Really what, ma’am?” asked Hope, impatiently.

Madam Winthrop was not inclined to be spurred by Miss Leslie, and she answered very deliberately, “I have a feeling as if something were to happen to-day. I am a coward on the water at all times, more than becomes one who fully realizes that the same Providence that watches over us on the land follows us on the great deep.”

“But your fears, madam,” said Sir Philip, “did not prevent your crossing the stormy Atlantic.”

“Nay, Sir Philip; and I know not what mettle that woman is made of that would not go hand in hand with her husband in so glorious a cause as ours.”

“Are we not all ready?” asked Hope, anxious to escape before Madam Winthrop proposed, as she apprehended she was about to do, a postponement of the party.

“Yes, all ready, I believe, Miss Leslie, but not all too impatient to await a remark I was about to make, namely, Sir Philip, that a party of pleasure is very different from a voyage of duty.”

“Certainly, madam,” replied Sir Philip, who trusted that assent would end the conversation, “widely different.”

“It is not necessary for me,” resumed Madam Winthrop, “to state all the points of difference.”

“Oh! not in the least, ma’am,” exclaimed Hope.

“Miss Leslie!” said Madam Winthrop, in a tone of surprise; and then, turning her eye to Everell, who was standing next to Esther, she said, resuming her measured tone, “My responsibility is so great to my brother Downing—I had an uncommon dream about you, Esther, last night; and, if anything should happen to you—”

“If it is me you are concerned about, aunt,” said Esther, untying her bonnet, “I will remain at home. Do not let me detain you,” she added, turning to Hope, “another moment.”

Nothing seemed to Hope of any importance in comparison with the prosecution of her plans; and, nodding a pleased assent to Esther, she took her aunt’s arm in readiness to depart.

“How changed,” thought Everell, as his eye glanced towards her, “thus selfishly and impatiently to pursue her own pleasure without the slightest notice of her friend’s disappointment.” His good feelings were interested to compensate for the indifference of Hope. “If,” he said to Madam Winthrop, “you will commit Miss Downing to my care, I will promise she shall encounter no danger that my caution may avoid or my skill overcome.”

Madam Winthrop’s apprehensions vanished. “If she is in your particular charge, Mr. Everell,” she said, “I shall be greatly relieved. I know I am of too anxious a make. Go, my dear Esther; Mr. Everell will be constantly near you—under Providence, your safeguard. I believe it is not right to be too much influenced by dreams. See that she keeps her shawl round her, Mr. Everell, while on the water. I feel quite easy in confiding her to your care.”

Everell bowed, and expressed his gratitude for Madam Winthrop’s confidence, and Esther turned on him a look of that meek and pleased dependance which it is natural for woman to feel, and which men like to inspire, because, perhaps, it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority.

“Miss Leslie has become so sedate of late,” continued Madam Winthrop, with a very significant smile, “that I scarcely need request that no unwonted sounds of revelry and mirth may proceed from any member of the governor’s family, which ever has been, as it should be, a pattern of Gospel sobriety to the colony.”

Mrs. Grafton dropped a bracelet she was clasping on her niece’s arm, but Madam Winthrop’s remark—half reproof, half admonition—excited no emotion in Hope, whose heart was throbbing with her own secret anxieties, and who was now in some measure relieved by Sir Philip making a motion for their departure, by adroitly availing himself of this first available pause, and offering her his arm.

As soon as they were fairly out of the house, “Revelry and mirth,” exclaimed Mrs. Grafton, as if the words blistered her tongue, “revelry and mirth, indeed! I think poor Hope will forget how to laugh if she stays here much longer. I wonder, Sir Philip, if it is such a mighty offence to use one’s laughing faculties, what they were given for!”

“I believe, madam,” replied the knight, with well-sustained gravity, “that ingenious theologians impute this convulsion of the muscles to some disorganization occasioned by Adam’s transgression; and, in support of their hypothesis, they maintain that there is no allusion to laughter in Scripture. Madam Winthrop, I fancy, intends that her house shall be a little heaven on earth.”

Honest Cradock, who had taken his favourite station at Miss Leslie’s side, replied, without in the least suspecting the knight’s irony, “Now, Sir Philip, I marvel whence you draw that opinion. I have studied all masters in theology, from the oldest down to the youngest, and, greatest of all, Master Calvin, with whose precious sentences I ‘sweeten my mouth always before going to bed,’ yet did I never see that strange doctrine concerning laughter. To me it appears—the Lord preserve me from advancing novelties—but to me it appears that there is no human sound so pleasant and so musical as the laugh of a little child, and of such are the kingdom of Heaven. I have heard the walls at Bethel ring with bursts of laughter from Miss Hope; and the thought came to me (the Lord forgive me if I erred therein) that it was the natural voice of innocence, and, therefore, pleasing to him that made her.”

Hope was touched with the pure sentiment of her good tutor, and she involuntarily slipped her arm into his. Sir Philip was also touched, and, for once speaking without forethought, he said, “I would give a kingdom for one of the laughs of my boyhood.”

“I dare say, Sir Philip,” said Cradock, “for truly there is no heart-work in the transgressor’s laugh.”

“Sir” exclaimed Sir Philip, angrily.