Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 096.djvu/293

Rh from thrusting my finger into the pie. It was this:—Are not riches, after all, the most real and solid of all the good things of this earth? Is not money a sufficient substitute for every other sublunary advantage and blessing; the unexceptionable passport for securing meat and drink, clothes and household comforts, respect and friendship, nay, a pretty large share of love itself? _Is it not fortune which furnishes the greatest number of enjoyments, and bestows the greatest: independence—which supplies almost every want? Is not poverty the rock upon which not only friendship, but love itself, often splits? "When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window," is a proverb quoted by all classes. Alas! it is much to be wished that only Love and Hymen should meet together, but they too often insist on having Plutus to accompany them.

After such a review of the world, as it is—but, perhaps a more rational review than many would wish or expect from a writer of novels=they will easily believe that I did not meddle in Esben's and Cecilia's romance, especially as I thought it not unlikely that, on the part of the former, this might have been merely an eligible speculation, founded less on the daughter's beauty and affection than on the father's commercial credit and well-filled purse. And though I could not admit that true love is only a poetic fiction, yet T could nat deny that it is more frequently found in books than in reality.

When the beautiful Cecilia had left the room, apparently to give vent to her feelings in a passion of tears, I ventured to remark that it was a pity the young man was not better off, adding that he seemed to be a fine fellow, and fond of the girl.

"What if he came back," I asked, "with some hundred dollars' worth of bank-notes?"

"If they were his own," said old Michel, with a significant wink, "well—that would be another affair."

I soon after took my departure, and went forth again into the deserted heath, free as it was from human beings and their cares. At a good distance on one side I perceived Esben, and the smoke issuing from his pipe. "Thus," thought I, "he is consoling himself in his sorrow and his love; but the unhappy Cecilia!" I cast a lingering look back on the rich hosier’s domicile, and said to myself, "Had that house not stood there—there would have been so many less tears in this sad world!"

Six years had passed away before I happened again to be on that part of the heath; it was a calm September day, like the one on which I had formerly been there. Chance led me to the hosier's habitation; and as I recognised old Michel Krænsen's lonely dwelling, I recalled to memory the pretty Cecilia and her lover. With the remembrance came a curiosity, or rather a longing to know what had been the conclusion of this pastoral poem—this heath-drama.

As usual with me in similar cases, I felt much inclined to anticipate the probable history. I made my own conclusions, and settled in my own mind how everything had turned out, guided by destiny to a happy dénouement. Alas! how often were not my conclusions widely different from the real course of events! And such was the case here; I pictured to myself Esben and Cecilia as man and wife—she, with an infant in her arms—the grandfather with one or two little prattlers on his knee—and