Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/324

 MARIE

ANTOINETTE'S

TALISMAN.

BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS. [Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.] CONTINUED FROM PAGE 222. CHAPTER XVI. yet lay up honors and riches for our little one. ' ALL night long Marguerite Gosner lay by her Then in this beautiful hope he has come back mother's side, with that precious paper folded and embraced us again. I was weeping, for a close to her heart. She did not sleep, though strange, black presentiment of evil crept over the last two days had been full of excitement me ; but you sent kisses after him, fluttering and fatigue ; but her wild, bright eyes were that little hand in the air like a butterfly. He wide open, looking through the darkness, and waved his hand in adieu ; I saw him blinded by picturing there a scene of exceeding joy that tears ; I watched him depart. His voice sounded would come to them upon the morrow. How like a knell through my whole being ; the soroften during that night did she steal her hand rows of an eternal parting fell upon me. Then under the pillow, and draw forth the ivory cru- I felt your arms around my neck, and the soft cifix hidden there, that her lips, all quivering pressure of your lips on my face ; your tiny with thankfulness, might kiss it in blessing of hands, soft and white as rose-leaves, brushed the Holy Mother for the great happiness that away my tears. Oh! how I loved you, how I filled her heart. Yet all this was done so quietly do love you - his child, his child and mine." She threw her arms around the girl in a pasthat the woman by her side thought the girl asleep, and scarcely dared to draw an irregularsion of love ; then she pushed the young creabreath lest she might disturb her. Thus the ture away, and looked down in her face with a morning found them so restless with happiness, wild consciousness of the great change that had that it amounted almost to pain. fallen upon her. Beautiful as the face was, it "What if they would not give him up," seemed to fill her with infinite regret. thought the poor woman, who had been so "But the child is gone, " she cried out ; "this often thrust back from her hope, that nothing is a woman who holds up her arms and tries to good ever seemed quite sure to her ; "or he comfort me. Gosner will not know her ; he will might be taken suddenly ill and be unable to not know me. This child is the creature I was move. The king might be persuaded to retract then, young, beautiful, delicate. In her he may his mercy-she had heard of such things." Thus recognize the woman he loved ; but in me what the poor woman, who had been so long inured will be find, lines of sorrow where he left dimto suffering that she did not know how to be ples, golden hair turned to ashes, which long happy, tormented herself through that long, long years of suffering strews upon the head. Alas, night ; but when the day broke and Marguerite's alas ! this is not all joy ; these cruel people have eyes looked into hers all this changed. Her dug a gulf between us since I was like you, my heart leaped toward the hope held out to it. child. When we meet on the other side, the She reached forth her arms, and drawing the young man and that girlish wife will have disyoung girl to her bosom with an intensity of appeared forever. A man and a woman will affection never known to her before, cried out, clasp hands, broken down with sorrow, each " To-day, this very day we shall see your carrying a weight of years that cruelty has.ren father, so good, so learned, so wonderfully beau- dered a dead blank. The king bas pardoned tiful ! Ah, Marguerite, my child ! I almost feel him, the queen has smiled on you ; but is there his last kiss on my lips, my forehead, and my in all their royalty power enough to take back hair. You were clinging to me, one arm about the awful wrong that has been done to us?" my neck, the other reaching forth to him. Only Marguerite trembled and grew pale in her a few days,' he said, and I may come back mother's arms. Never, since her first rememcovered with honors. The King of France has brance, had she seen that look of wild excitesent for me- Louis has learned that Gosner is ment on her face, or heard that thrill of agony wise, that he has a knowledge of wonderful in her voice. And this was the morning which things in his brain. Perhaps my wife, we may should have been so resplendent in their lives. 291