Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/427

Rh pronunciation, and as to calling him "Thomas," he never was so called in his life) was the fashion at Ebury: the village beholding with indescribable admiration his daring feats and scrapes, his lavish expenditure of money, his blood horses, his scarlet hunting coats. His time was passed in fox-hunting, steeple-chasing, horse-racing, dog-fighting, boating, shooting, and rioting; and, although Miss Emily Bell chose to include him in her list of lovers, she did not greatly like him. But he was the son of the squire, and Miss Emily, wanting family herself, looked up to the house of Hardwick, who traced its descent back to royalty, and was connected with some of the best county families, with undue reverence. Hence chiefly arose her patronage of Mr. Tom; and never better pleased was she than when strolling through the village, with the gentleman talking nonsense at her side, the village rustics bowing and curtseying to him at every step: marks of respect which Mr. Tom would carelessly acknowledge or wholly neglect, according to the leisure his gallant speeches to Enuly allowed him.

One fine morning in October, Emily Bell left the breakfast-table and retired to her own chamber, fastening the door after her. She then unlocked a small cabinet, which made the middle of a low, old-fashioned walnut-tree set of drawers, and drew forth a bundle of letters. They were from James Ailsa. Other packets were there, tied up with blue, pink, or yellow ribbon, and were the epistles of former lovers, but as Emily did not disturb these, neither can we. She opened three or four of James Ailsa's, glancing at their contents here and there: and the reader may look over her shoulder.

"Oh thank, thank you! to the last hour of my life will I thank you: whatever may be the fate of my love, and whether it shall hereafter be accepted or rejected, still will I thank and bless yon. Your little note has relieved me from suspense almost intolerable. A thousand fears were in my heart; a dread, almost as of death, was on my soul, that you might indignantly spurn me, and fling back my letter with scorn.

"Do you remember. Miss Bell, that morning, a few weeks ago, when we were walking together on the Brenton-road, and our conversation turned on the subject of love? Do you recollect how confused I became, breaking off in the midst of a sentence, and that after an interval of silence I dropped the topic for another? Can you guess the cause of that embarrassment?—did you guess it then? That my passion for you was so great, I could not speak on the subject of love to you without the most painful agitation—without betraying more than I then dared."

This is an extract from another:

"Oh, Emily, dearest Emily, how can I support the rapture which has throbbed within me since last night? You confessed I was not indifferent to you—your head for a few moments was pillowed on my bosom—those kisses which I snatched still seem to linger on my lips. I did not attempt to go to rest; it would have been useless: I sat in my room and watched the stars till morning. I lived over and over again our interview. I dared to conjure up visions of the future, our future: I pressed my hands upon my temples, and asked if this taste of paradise were not a dream. I ask it, still. I repeat to myself, 'She loves, she loves me!' Ought not our lives to be one continued breath of