Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/598

 . 23, 1861.] recognise him, and to remember where she was, the flush which surprise had brought to her cheek faded, and she sighed. Her father gazed into her face with a sad and earnest scrutiny, and he read enough there to bring the terrors which had of late tortured him to a climax. Its ethereal delicacy was almost unearthly. A bright spot of vivid crimson burned on each cheek; and there was a flood of wandering, restless light in her eyes, which filled him with a nameless fear. Pressing her head to his breast, he kissed her forehead; but, controlling his emotion, he smiled, and tried to speak cheerfully, as he said:

“Shall we go and see the kind nuns at the Hôtel Dieu Mignon? It is a lovely evening, and you can take them some of your splendid geraniums, to deck the chapel for to-morrow’s fête?”

A tiny smile curled Coral’s lip.

“I don’t know whether they will ever welcome me again,” she said. “I shocked them dreadfully the other day, by saying that I was persuaded God was as much the Saviour of the wild Indian as the Catholic Frenchman, and that prayers said from the heart’s inspiration, under the green forest boughs and the blue sky, would be as acceptable to Him, as if muttered after white, stoled priests, before gilded altars or painted sanctuary.”

“The good nuns are only grieved to see you set so little value on the privileges you received at your baptism, my child,” said the Count, gravely.

Coral turned away her head, with a movement of impatience, and as her curls fell back from her cheek, the prophecy of early death, which its wasted transparency seemed to speak, was more clearly revealed to her father than ever it had been before. All his grief at her heterodox theology, all his mortification at the impossibility of reconciling the free, wild nature of his beautiful child to the artificial habits and tame routine of conventional life, all his regret at her unwillingness or inability to acquire those external accomplishments which civilised life prizes more than inward beauty, were as nothing, compared with the anguish that smote him at the thought that, like her mother, she was doomed to an early death.

“Don’t turn away from me, Mignon,” he said, “I am not going to tease you. I have something pleasant to tell you—something that will make you glad.”

A wild, bright hope thrilled through Coral’s heart, and she turned to her father with a glow on her cheek, rich as Hebe’s.

“You have often heard me speak of France, Coralie,” continued her father, “beautiful, glorious France, and of the dear old château where I was born, and where I spent my happy, careless boyhood with my father and mother, and my sweet little sister, now in Heaven. I have often described to you my birthplace, its quaint garden, with its arbours and trellised walks, its sundial, its fountains, its parterres and terraces; and the sea-beach far below, with its shining sands, on which the blue waves, coming softly in, drop lovely shells, and wreaths of seaweed in fresh variety, day after day; and the green old graveyard, with its low white tombs and flower-strewn mounds, where my parents sleep with poor little Celeste; where, one day, I hope my bones and your mother’s sacred remains shall rest by their side. We shall see them all together soon, my daughter. We are going to that beautiful land; we are going to that fair château; we are going to France.”

When Coral understood it was France, a look of listless indifference succeeded to the eager glance, which had given her countenance such brilliancy the moment before. As he proceeded, an expression of disgust crept over her face, and when he ended, by exclaiming with such emotion, “We are going to that beautiful France!” her features hardened into a look of inflexible opposition.

Her father did not appear to notice the effect his words had on her: he continued to speak with excited rapidity.

“Bonaparte has permitted me again to take possession of my estate, and we shall go there immediately. Provence will give its native rose to your cheek, and the soft breezes of the Mediterranean shall invigorate your delicate frame. Artists that are men of genius, not ignorant pretenders, shall impart to you those beautiful accomplishments in which I am persuaded nature formed you to excel; and when we visit Paris, my beautiful Canadian flower shall bloom the loveliest where all are fair.”

“Never!” said Coral, meeting her father’s glance with steady eye and firm-set lips. “I will never go to France; I will never leave Canada.”

“Never go to France, Coralie? What can you mean? What charm can you find in this land of dark tangled forests, of deep and sombre lakes, which even in summer wear the gloom of winter, and which for more than half the year are fields of ice and snow, over which the wild tempests of the arctic zone continually beat? We shall leave them behind us, for soft skies and blue seas; for fertile valleys, on whose sides the purple grape ripens, in whose openings white cottages and rich orchards cluster, and whose heights are crowned with lofty châteaux and picturesque gardens. To sail over those sunny blue seas, to wander along those shining yellow sands, to rest in those green flowery vales, to climb those breezy heights, for only a day, were worth a year of the dull, torpid, stagnant existence, which men call life, among the swamps, and wildernesses of Canada.”

Drawing away from her father, Coral stood up, her slight form and delicate features animated with pride and disdain.

“Its forests,” she said, “are more sublime than the most splendid cathedrals of Europe, and the music of the wind swaying the boughs a loftier hymn than organs ever sounded. And then she poured forth the following burning English words:—

This land is like an eagle, whose young gaze

Feeds on the noon-tide beam, whose golden plume

Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze

Of summer gleams, when earth is wrapt in gloom;

An epitaph of glory for the tomb,

Of murdered Europe, may thy fame be made.

Great people! As the sands shalt thou become;

Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade

The multitudinous earth shall sleep beneath thy shade!