Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/431

168 present state of my feelings for many reasons to decline a renewal of our engagement. It is with pain, Frederick, that I do this, for I feel how deeply it will grieve you ; but the truth is that I have ceased to love, and never again can feel aught save friendship toward you."

It can be but faintly imagined how like an icy chill those last words fell upon the heart and hopes of the humbled lover—benumbing them with despair. It was a sentence which he little expected, and was less prepared to hear, for he was a firm believer in the unchanging nature of woman's affection. He would as resignedly have listened to a decree of immediate death ; for it was the knell to all his hopes of happiness. He remained silent for a few moments with his face buried in his hands, while his anguish appeared powerful and intense ; and then he arose to take his sad departure from the presence of her whom he had lost forever. As he did so he glanced into the eyes of Florence, to convince himself that it was not possible (as the thought for an instant flashed through his mind) that she was only submitting his feelings to a just, though agonizing ordeal ; but he was struck at their calmness, and become fully assured of his despair.

"Farewell, Florence," he said mournfully, taking her listless hand and pressing it with fervor, " farewell ! My hope is that you may be happy--though such henceforth can never be my portion, for my heart not having experienced unkindness from yours, shall never cease its love or regret. I cannot blame your resolution, for I am sensible that I have deserved my fate ; and my dearest wish is now that you may find--no, no, I cannot wish that. I would have said another heart--one more true and less ungrateful ; but my tongue refuses to give utterance to so unnatural and palpable a falsehood. But I can wish, however, that you may never again be deceived as you have been in me. Farewell."

As the door closed upon his departing footsteps, Florence again burst into tears, and wept long and freely. Her mind was agitated by mixed and undefinable sensations, but her heart felt relieved from the sickening pressure of its gloomy forebodings. Sympathy for Moulton's grief-timid apprehension that her conduct might appear unnatural in the eyes of others, combined with a modest doubt in the infallibility of her own judgment, filled her breast, and caused it to thrill with fears of having overstepped the bounds of prudence, or rashly performed an action of which she might, perhaps, hereafter repent. But the consciousness of such having to the last been forced upon her without cause or deserving-and of the propriety of her motives in thus refusing to place herself again in a position where she had experienced so much unmerited sorrow at length re-assured her, and she banished these doubts and regrets from her mind. Her spirits now began to recover their natural elasticity-the prospect of unhappiness seemed to vanish like a cloud from the sky of the future; and Hope resumed once more a dominion within her heart, from whence she had fled before the portentous ills which lowered around its joys.

A few years have passed, and Florence is now the happy wife of another ; and though the freshness of passion may be said to have been wasted, she sees little cause for regret at the change that occurred in her prospects, or at the decision she made to improve them. But Moulton remains still a bachelor, and often casts a sorrowful retrospection over the past. He strives, however, to excuse his conduct, in his own mind, by affecting to believe that it was all intended to test the quality of his expected wife's disposition, and the strength of her passion, but without avail ; for, though he feels conscious that he was innocent of cruel motives, he cannot deny that his actions at times wore an ungracious appearance, and Florence seemed also more pained than offended at his trials. But whether this arose from her extreme sensitiveness, or from the test having been too severe for endurance, he was not perfectly willing to decide. He has, however, changed his opinions entirely with regard to the undying nature of woman's love, and now often takes occasion to rail against it whenever he hears of a case in point ; asserting in a jocose manner that it possesses as peculiar a quality as is erroneously attributed to the feline race.

SWEETER than the night-wind's slumbers Sighed the serenade; Stealing over beauty's slumbers, Round her couch it strayed: Softly 'neath the moonbeams gleaming Over glen and glade, Passion-fraught from love's young dreaming, Rose the serenade.

'Mid her dreams a soft spell twining Sighed the serenade, When the spirit stars were shining, And the dewy glade Sparkled with the gems 't was pressing— On its bosom laid— Jealous of the winds caressing, Woke the serenade.

Tones of love and rapture flinging, Sighed the serenade; From the soft strings brightly winging, Through the air it strayed, "Till it swept o'er beauty sleeping, Then its wing delayed; And in love its bright soul steeping, Died the serenade.