Page:New Peterson Magazine 1853 Vol. XXIV.pdf/125

PETERSON'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXIV. “MUSIC AND LOVE.”

BY JAMES H. Dama,

It was a picture of more then Arcadian beauty. & lovely greenwood bank, covered with rich, thick grass, and in the back-gronnd a lake and silver cascade, the rustling of leaves and the marmar of water filling the air with music.

Three persons occupied this picture, reclining ‘on the grass, as the lords and ladies did in Bacoxccio’s garden, They were dressed in the pic- taresque etyle of thelr time, which was that of the seventeenth contary. The ladies were attired not very dissimilar indeed from the pre- sent fashion. Bat the gontleman, for there wae only one, wore a deep Isce collar, rosettes in his shoes, and other ornament of the juxurious and still half poetic age, that aucceeded to the ateel clad era of chivalry.

The loveliar of the two fomales reclined in the centre of the group, while a femele companion assisted her to hold 9 music book, But ber and what magnificent eyes they were! as often strayed to the cavalier on her left, who, on his part, seemed to study her fair countenance fax more earnestly than the page. At times they joined in a duet, the gentleman accompanying the Indy on his guitar: and at times they chatted pleasantly together; but they were as frequently silent, looking now at the landscape, and then furtively at each other, blushing when their eyes encountered, and looking suddenly off, only to detect each other looking furtively again.

Tt needed no sage’s eye to divine, from these “signs, that they were lovers, The Lady Beatrice ‘was, indeed, one whom it would be impossible to know without loving. Bora and brought up in & distant province of the South of France, che knew nothing of the hollowness of courts, or the follies of fashion, but was all innocence, gaisty, grace, health, modesty, and beauty. Hor life, antit the last fow weeks, had been spent in doing good among the poor on her father’s estates, in

going to the chapel, in reading tho ponderous old romances. in the oastle library, and in living among the woods and fields, But, all at*once, & new world bad opened upon her. One day, while abont to step into the little boat, with Which she and her foster-sister navigated the lake, her foot had slipped, and she hed fallen in. The water was deep, and she disappeared Instantly. Her companion, frightened out of all self-possession, could only scream, so that the Lady Beatrice would, perhaps, have been drowned, if the poream bad not arrested the attention of a cavalier who happened to be passing, snd who, rushing te the spot, rescued the beautiful girl, and bore her to a neighboring cottage.

When the Lady Beatrice, restored to oonscious- nes by the peasant’s wife, and by the exertions of her foster-sister, would have thanked her pre- server, he was gone, But,afew days after, when ashe had entirely recovered from her accident, she revisited the scene of it; and here encountered the stranger. Ho bowed respectfully to hor, and ventured to ask after ber health. She could not but answer kindly, and even add, in s few em- barrassed words, how grateful she was to him, ‘The interview, thus begun, was protracted, end led to many others. There was such a sym- pathy between the mind of the Lady Beatrice and that of the cavalier; he was so respectful, yet a0 eloquent, so handsome, yet so courtly; the time they were together seemed so short, and the hours they were separated appeared so long, that, at Jast, and unconsciously almost, the interviews grew longer aud more frequent, until finally the Lady Beatrice went every day to the green bank below the waterfall, and there met, every day, the cavalier, though without avy formal appointment. She did thie, without in- terferenee from any one. Her mother was long �