Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/90

Rh mother; and though her eyes often wandered around in the half-expectation of seeing the stranger, he was nowhere visible. The very first time she again took a solitary walk, she went in the same direction as on the day when she had met with her adventure. Perhaps she would not have owned, even to herself, that she did so in the hope of meeting him who had been of late so constantly in her thoughts—but so it was. Some vague hope of once more seeing him, hearing him speak, and, if possible, of penetrating the mystery that hung over him, prompted her to go in that direction. And she was not disappointed; she had not gone far when he again stood before her, and expressed, in words and tones to her new, strange, and thrilling, his pleasure at seeing her recovered. He joined her in her walk; and when they once more parted, her feelings for him, whatever they may have been, were certainly not weakened.

It were needless to trace in detail the events of the next few months: suffice it to say, that Mary's rambles became more and more frequent, and that seldom did she walk forth alone without meeting the stranger. Time passed, and her interest in him gave place to something stronger; and, at last, she was deeply, irretrievably in love. Perhaps, had she been thrown into society, this might not have been; but, notwithstanding her fond attachment to her mother, there was in Mary's, as in every young girl's heart, a space, a cell, quite distinct from that which contains the love for friends and relations: a dozen attachments may occupy it, which, like trees too thickly planted, stunt and destroy each other; but let one settle there undisturbed, and it soon exclusively fills the whole space—sometimes, perhaps, in time, encroaching upon the other portion. And Mary’s heart was a soil from which love, having once taken root there, might never more be eradicated.

At first her meetings with her lover—for so he may now be called—were, on her part, accidental—accidental, at least, so far as that, whatever may have been the hopes and fears of her inmost soul, she did not express them outwardly, even to herself; but, after a while, they often took place by appointment. She walked with him along the river’s side, or through the woodland paths, where formerly, alas! her sole companion had been her mother; and where she had listened to her simple stories, she now heard his passionate vows of love. It was strange—the influence he had acquired over Mary’s young heart. He might not so have fascinated her, had she been more acquainted with the world, and consequently more suspicious; for there was, every now and then, a something about his look which argued that all was not right and fair within. This expression he seldom or never permitted her to see; yet often, when her bright blue eyes were turned upon his face in all the confidence of young and innocent affection, his look would quail beneath their glance, and sometimes a dark angry frown would be on his brow, even whilst, in the most earnest tones of his rich voice, he poured forth his tales of love. But Mary saw nothing of this: good and pure herself, and unsuspicious of others, she saw in him only a being of a superior order, who had condescended to love her, to whom she owed her life, and for whom she felt in return the deepest, the most trustful affection. His name, he told her, was Frederick Hartman: though an Englishman, be had passed his life principally abroad, and had become implicated in