Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/441

1858.] Early in the morning,—it Was just after sunrise,—the kind Doctor Lester was driving home, after watching half the night out with a patient. He passed the avenue to the Willows, but drew up his horse just as he was leaving the entrance. He saw a young girl sitting under the hedge. She was without any bonnet, in a red dress, fitting closely and hanging heavily about her. She was so very beautiful, she looked so strangely lost and out of place here at this early hour, that the Doctor could not resist speaking to her.

“My child, how came you here?”

The young girl rose up, and looked round with uncertainty.

“Where am I?” she asked.

She was very tall and graceful, with an air of command, but with a strange, wild look in her eyes.

“The young woman must be slightly insane,” thought the Doctor; “but she cannot have wandered far.”

“Let me take you home,” he said aloud. “Perhaps you come from the Willows?”

“Oh, don’t take me back there!” cried Isabella, “they will imprison me again! I had rather be a slave than a conquered queen!”

“Decidedly insane!” thought the Doctor. “I must take her back to the Willows.”

He persuaded the young girl to let him lift her into his chaise. She did not resist him; but when he turned up the avenue, she leaned back in despair. He was fortunate enough to find one of the servants up at the house, just sweeping the steps of the hall-door. Getting out of his chaise, he said confidentially to the servant,—

“I have brought back your young lady.

“Our young lady!” exclaimed the man, as the Doctor pointed out Isabella. “Yes, she is a little insane, is she not?”

“She is not our young lady,” answered the servant; “we have nobody in the house just now, but Mr. and Mrs. Fogerty, and Mrs. Fogerty’s brother, the old geologist.”

“Where did she come from?” inquired the Doctor.

“I never saw her before.” said the servant, “and I certainly should remember. There’s some foreign folks live down in the cottage, by the railroad; but they are not the like of her!” The Doctor got into his chaise again, bewildered.

“My child,” he said, “you must tell me where you came from.”

“Oh, don't lot me go back again!” said Isabella, clasping her hands imploringly. “Think how hard it must be never to take a move of one’s own! to know how the game might be won, then see it lost through folly! Oh, that last game, lost through utter weakness! There was that one move! Why did he not push me down to the king’s row? I might have checkmated the White Prince, shut in by his own castles and pawns,—it would have been a direct checkmate! Think of his folly! he stopped to take the queen’s pawn with his bishop, and within one move of a checkmate!”

“Quite insane!” repeated the Doctor. “But I must have my breakfast She seems quiet; I think I can keep her till after breakfast, and then I must try and find where the poor child’s friends live. I don't know what Mrs. Lester will think of her.”

They rode on. Isabella looked timidly round.

“You don’t quite believe me,” she said, at last.“ It seems strange to you.” “It does,” answered the Doctor, “seem very strange.”

"Not stranger than to me,” said Isabella,—“it is so very grand to me! All this motion! Look down at that great field there, not cut up into squares! If I only had my knights and squires there! I would be willing to give her as good a field, too; but I would show her where the true bravery lies. What a place for the castles, just to defend that pass!” The Doctor whipped up his horse.

Mrs. Lester was a little surprised at