Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 096.djvu/70

60 proud, high-born parents were laid in the dust to mingle with the honoured remains of the old stock. She was then still in her minority, and found a new home with a kind aunt, who had resided too short a time under the same roof with the ancestral portraits, and in the place which had been the cradle of their race, to have imbibed their exaggerated family pride.

The estate, which was entailed, with everything belonging to it, including the much-prized portrait, passed in trust, for future generations, to Adelgunda's only brother, of whom we purposely have not spoken, that we might not be obliged to give an account of all the exaggerated ideas of the consequence of his family which his father and mother had diligently and zealously laboured to imprint on the mind of their son—the only male scion of that ancient house, which was now threatened with speedy extinction—he who, after them, was alone to represent the glory of their time-honoured ancestry. What precepts and exhortations he, the only son and last hope, received under his progenitor's portrait,—what deference and devotion were inculcated to the name of the haughty-looking abbess, whose severe virtue and pious deeds were held to reflect honour on her descendants,—what aristocratic ideas and exclusive principles were there engrafted on his soul, we will not stop to relate,—they would be incomprehensible to many, and do not require to be dwelt on in our short tale.

In the aunt's cheerful, hospitable, pleasant, light modern villa quite another tone prevailed, and quite another mode of life from that within the solid walls of the old baronial castle or under its gloomy roof. At Adelgunda's age new impressions are soon received, new associates and new ideas are welcomed with avidity, and seldom fail to influence the mind. Adelgunda—truth obliges us to confess—soon forgot a very stringent and important paragraph in the paternal and maternal lectures,—forgot the faithful portraits of the defunct females of her noble house, and even the threatening glance—the dark eye that shone from beneath the white linen fillet of the haughty abbess,—forgot them all amidst new-born and overflowing happiness in the arms of an adored and adoring husband, a young naval officer, rich in all nature's brightest gifts, and standing high in the opinion of the world, but on whom the great ancestress would certainly never have permitted her hand to be bestowed, had she known of the matter; for his patent of nobility was not mouldy from age, was not even made out, and still worse, was not likely ever to be drawn up, because he did not feel the slightest wish ever to possess one.

Adelgunda, nevertheless, felt unspeakably happy, and her noble brother, to whom the family mode of thinking had descended as an heirloom in conjunetion with the entailed property, winked at the plebeian match,—partly because he well knew that Adelgunda's very limited portion would never tempt any among the needy and impoverished of his own class to lay their hearts at her feet,—partly because it was the preservation of the family name and tree in his own person that lay nearest to his heart, not the offshoots from the female line,—and partly that, though he was a proud man, and unflinching in his aristocratical notions, he had a kind heart, was fondly attached to his sister, rejoiced in her happiness, and was well aware how much superior in character his estimable brother-in-law was to the generality of the young men of the day.