Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/22

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It was the middle of October. The era was that of the American Revolution. The scene was a little farmhouse or rather cottage, situated in one of the pleasantest nooks of the valley of the Mohawk. A few acres of cleared land surrounded the tenement which was apparently buried in the very heart of the forest. In the rear of the cottage was a garden, through which brawled a brook, that after tinkling over a tiny waterfall in one of the neighboring fields, lost itself in the shadows of the dim old woods to the right of the house. Though the cottage, as we have said, was small, no language can describe its beauty. Every thing connected with the structure bore the impress of neatness and taste. It had been originally built of hewn-logs, and these had subsequently been covered with a weather-boarding, but neither could now be seen through the thick canopy of vine-leaves which covered the walls, and which all dyed in hues of purple, crimson and gold, gave the cottage a fairy-like appearance, reminding the traveller of the autumnal hills of the Rhine. Indeed so completely was the tenement buried in the foliage that the windows themselves were half shrouded from sight, while the door-way was partially concealed by the leaves that hung drooping from the arbor overhead.

The hour at which our story opens was that witching time betwixt sunset and dark, when every thing is hushed in a silence that seems to partake of Paradise. On this evening the twilight was peculiarly soothing. The sunset yet faintly reddened the western sky, and the moon just began to be seen on the eastern horizon, while the balmy wind of an autumnal evening was wakening its low symphony over earth and air. The little cascade could be heard murmuring sweetly in the distance. Occasionally a leaf would rustle to the ground, or the forest emit a low mysterious sound like the sighing of a multitude of wood-nymphs; while, now and then, the vine-leaves would rattle pleasantly in the breeze, or the whistle of a wood-pigeon would be heard down in the forest. The hour was one for melancholy yet sweet emotions—it was an hour to make one forget the earth and aspire after heaven.

In one of the rooms of the little cottage sat two beings, and both were surpassingly beautiful. The one was a dark-haired girl, with large flashing hazel eyes, and a figure that would have become a Juno. Her mien, so queenly and majestic, yet imbued with a feminine grace that rendered it bewitching—her lofty impassioned brow, softened, however, by a playfulness of expression almost infantile—and the deep dark splendor of her lustrous eyes so full of high resolve, yet beaming with womanly tenderness, all these combined to form a face and figure which reminded you one while of a Penthesalia, and another while of a Hebe. Her companion was smaller in size, and of a different order of beauty. Nothing could be more exquisitely proportioned than her slight and sylph-like figure-and yet nothing could be more full and rounded than every delicate limb. Her face was like that of a Madonna, so high and holy was its expression. It was one indeed to fall down before and worship. The eyes were of a deep blue, the hair was of a sunshiny gold, the forehead was broad and beautifully smooth, the lips were of a luscious red and delicately chiselled, and the smile that played around her mouth when she spoke had a purity and sweetness, and told of such deep affection smouldering in the virgin heart of the owner, that you could not gaze without admiration, nor admire without love. And then, as her companion spoke gaily and often teasingly on some subject which seemed to be near the heart of the maiden, the blushes would momently shoot into her face and die away, as the northern lights on a clear wintry evening flush the sky for an instant and then fade.

“Yes, coz," continued her companion, keeping up a conversation which had lasted some time, “this unnatural war will soon be at an end, and then how happy shall we all be—you in your house in the clearing below, and we in this old homestead scarcely a ten minutes walk distant. But," she added, rising, “it is nearly time for brother to be here. He said he would be absent at the fort only for two or three hours at the utmost, and it has now been at least four. But I suppose he will soon return—I must make you promise to chide Harry when he gets here—what! blushing again—but hark! was that a footstep?"

For an instant both maidens paused and listened; but not hearing a repetition of the fancied sound, they resumed their conversation.

“I did not hear any step," said Helen, “and I think I would have—" she stopped, on seeing the eyes of her cousin fixed laughingly on her, and turned away in a beautiful embarrassment.

“You would have said, or rather you thought," said her companion archly, “that you should know Harry's footstep—was it not so, sweet coz?" continued Jane, patting the fair girl's cheek as she would have caressed that of a young sister, "come, I know your every thought, and now you need not blush to own your love for Harry, when a nobler or truer heart never beat in a manly bosom," and as the warm hearted girl pronounced this eulogium on her brother, her dark eye kindled with sisterly pride.

“I do not blush to own that I love Harry," said the younger maiden, “as you know, dear Jane; and I would lay down my life," she continued with enthusiasm, “at any time, if it became necessary, for his—so wholly and VOL. I.- 2