Evenings at Donaldson Manor

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Lilian knew that the inhabitants of Mossgiel kept early hours, and the
gay pink and blue and white convolvuluses, which arched the rude gate
leading from the more public road into the rural lane by which their
house was approached, had just unfolded their petals, when she rode
through it on the morning succeeding her arrival at Trevanion Hall. She
had declined the attendance of a servant, and set off at a brisk canter,
but soon reined in her horse and proceeded at a slower pace. Hope and
fear were busy at her heart. Six months! What changes might not have
taken place in that time! Again Lilian touched her horse with her light
riding-whip, and rode briskly on till she reached the gate of which we
have spoken. Here she alighted to open the gate. As she entered the lane
she saw, not far in advance of her, a boy who had been hired to assist
Mr. Grahame in the garden. She called to him, and giving him her bridle
to lead her horse to the stable, walked on herself towards the house,
which was little more than a hundred yards distant. After walking a few
steps, she turned to ask, "Are Mr. and Mrs. Grahame well?"

Another question trembled on her lips--but she could not speak it. "If
_he_ love me, he will be here," she whispered to herself, and again
passed on. The road wound around the house, and led to the entrance on
the river front. There was a side gate leading to the garden, and there,
at that hour, Lilian knew she would most probably meet the elder Mr.
Grahame, while his wife was almost certain to be found in the dairy, to
which the same gate would give her access; but the gate was passed with
a light, quick step, and Lilian entered the house at the front. With a
fluttering heart, but a steady purpose, she passed on, without meeting
any one, or hearing a sound, to the usual morning room. The door was
open; she entered, and her heart throbbed exultingly, for _he_ was
there. Michael Grahame sat at a table writing. His back was towards the
door, and her light step had given no notice of her presence. Agitated
by a thousand commingled emotions, wishing, yet dreading to meet his
eye, she stood gazing on his face as it was reflected in an opposite
mirror. It seemed to her paler and graver than of yore. Manhood had
stamped its lines more deeply on the brow since last they parted. But
some movement, a sigh, perhaps, from her, has startled him. He raises
his head, and in the mirror their eyes meet. In that glance her whole
soul has been revealed, and with one glad cry of "Lilian! my Lilian!" he
turns, and she is folded in his arms.

There was no more doubt, no more fear, on her part--no concealment on
his. She had chosen freely and nobly, and she was rewarded by love as
deep, as devoted, and as unselfish as ever woman inspired, or man felt.

The marriage of Lilian, which took place in three months after her
return to Mossgiel, could not but excite some interest in the world in
which she had so lately occupied a conspicuous place. When, however, to
the great question--"Who is this Mr. Grahame?" the answer, "Nothing but
a mechanic," was received--the interest soon faded away, and in the
winter Lilian found herself in New-York, with scarcely an acquaintance,
except the Trevanions, and she could easily perceive that something of
pity was mingled with their former kindness. Yet never had Lilian been
less an object of pity. Every day increased not only her affection to
her husband, but her pride in him, by revealing to her more of his high
powers and noble qualities. Those powers had received a new spring from
his desire to prove himself worthy of his cherished wife. He had long
been occupied with a problem whose solution, he believed, would enable
him to increase greatly both the speed and safety of steam navigation.
In the early part of the winter succeeding his marriage, with a glad
spirit, with which Lilian fully sympathized, he cried "Eureka." Before
the winter concluded he had been to Washington, and explaining to the
officers of our own government the importance of his invention, sought
permission to test it on a government vessel. After many delays, with
that short-sighted policy which cannot look beyond the present expense
to the overpaying results, the proposition was declined. During his stay
in Washington, his object had become noised abroad, and the Russian
Minister had opened a correspondence with him and with his own court on
the subject. The result of this correspondence was, that in the
following spring Michael Grahame sailed for Russia, to test his
invention first in the service of its emperor. He was accompanied by
Lilian. Their departure and its object were talked of for awhile, but
soon ceased to be remembered, except by men of science, and those
immediately interested in the result of his experiment.

In the mean time Anna Trevanion married. Her husband, Mr. Walker, was a
man of large property, and of social position equal to her own. They
spent the first two years of their married life abroad. It was in the
second of these two years, and when Lilian had been four years in St.
Petersburgh, that Mr. and Mrs. Walker entered that city. One of their
first inquiries of the American Minister was, "What Americans are here?"
and at the head of the list he presented, stood Mr. and Mrs. Grahame.
"And who are Mr. and Mrs. Grahame?" asked Mr. Walker. "You say they are
from New-York, and I remember no such names of any consequence in
society there."

"I do not know what their consequence was there, but I assure you it is
as great here as the partiality of the Emperor, the favor of the
Imperial family, and their association with the highest rank, can make
it."

"But how did people unknown at home work themselves into such a
position?"

"They did not work themselves into it all--they took it at once, by the
only right which Americans have to any position abroad--the right of
their own fitness for it. Mr. Grahame, besides his high attainments in
science, and his skill in mechanics, which first introduced him to the
Emperor, is a man of fine appearance, of very extensive information, and
very agreeable manners, and Mrs. Grahame is one of the most beautiful
and cultivated women I know. I repeat, you cannot enter society here
under better auspices than theirs."

And thus the long-severed friends met in reversed positions; and if
something of triumph did flash from Lilian's eyes, as she saw her
husband, day after day, procuring from the Emperor's favor, privileges
for Mr. and Mrs. Walker, not often enjoyed by strangers, her triumph was
for him, and may be excused.

After eight years spent in Russia, during which he had acquired fortune
as well as fame, Michael Grahame returned to America, with his wife and
three lovely children, and retired to a beautiful country seat within a
mile of Mossgiel, purchased and furnished for him during his absence.
His father still cultivates his garden, though he has ceased to sell its
produce, and through those flowery walks Lilian and her husband still
delight to wander, recalling the happy memories with which they are
linked, with grateful and adoring hearts.

"I shall never object again to any woman in whom I am interested,
marrying the man of her choice, because he is only a mechanic," said
Mrs. Trevanion to her husband, as they were returning one day from a
visit to Mr. and Mrs. Grahame.

"There, my dear, in those words, _only a mechanic_, lies our mistake,
the world's mistake, in such matters. No man is _only_ what his trade,
his profession, or his position in life makes him. Every man is
something besides this, something by force of his own inherent personal
qualities. By these the true man is formed, and by these he should be
judged."

CHAPTER XII.

Again we were all assembled in the parlor in which so many of our
cheerful evenings had been spent, but a shadow seemed to have fallen on
our little circle. The New-Year was now close in its approach, and
immediately after the commencement of the New-Year we must separate. Mr.
and Mrs. Dudley, with their children, and Mr. and Mrs. Seagrove, with
theirs, and Mr. Arlington and I, must all leave within a day or two of
each other, and a year, with all its chances and changes, will probably
intervene before we meet again. The very thought, as I have said, threw
a shadow upon us; but Col. Donaldson, who is a most inveterate foe to
sadness, would not suffer us to yield unresistingly to its influence. If
our time was short, the greater the necessity for crowding enjoyment
into its every moment, he said: we could spare none of it for
lamentations.

"Now, Aunt Nancy," he continued, "if I am not mistaken, you can match
Mr. Arlington's story with one quite as romantic, of an extraordinary
marriage in high life. Do you remember Lady Houstoun and her son Edward
Houstoun--"

"Oh, yes!" I cried, interrupting him, "and the beautiful Lucy Watson
too."

"Then I am sure you must have their story somewhere in your bundle of
romances."

"I believe I have," I replied, as opening my desk I drew out package
after package, the amusement of many an hour, which but for such a
resource might have been sad in its loneliness. Some were looking fresh
and new, and others yellow from age. Among the latter was that for which
I was searching, and which Annie insists that I shall give to the
reader, under the title of

LOVE AND PRIDE.

A proud and stately dame was Lady Houstoun, as she continued to be
called after the independence of America had rendered such titles
valueless in our land. Sir Edward Houstoun was an English baronet, whose
estates had once been a fit support to his ancient title, but whose
family had suffered deeply, both in purse and person, by their loyalty
to Charles the First, and yet more by their obstinate adherence to his
bigot son, James II. By a marriage with Louisa Vivian, an American
heiress possessed of broad lands and a large amount of ready money, Sir
Edward acquired the power of supporting his rank with all the splendor
that had belonged to his family in the olden time; but circumstances
connected with the poverty of his early years had given the young
baronet a disgust to his own circle, which was not alleviated by the
rapid changes effected by his newly-acquired wealth, and he preferred
returning to America with his young bride, and adopting her country as
his own. Here wealth sufficient for their most extravagant desires was
theirs--houses in New-York, and fertile acres stretching far away from
the city, now sweeping for many a rood the banks of the fair Hudson, and
now reaching back into the rich lands that lie east of that river. When
the separation of this country from England came, the representative of
her most loyal family, whose motto was "_Dieu et mon Roi_" was found in
the ranks of republican America. "He could not," he said, "recognize a
divine right in the House of Hanover to the throne of the Stuarts, or
justify by any human reason the blind subservience of Americans to the
ruinous enactments of an English parliament, controlled by a rash and
headstrong minister and a wayward king." Ten years after the
proclamation of peace Sir Edward died, leaving one son who had just
entered his twentieth year.

Young as Edward Houstoun was, he had a man's decision of character; and
when the question of his assuming his father's title, and claiming the
estates attached to it in England, was submitted to him, he replied that
"his proudest title was that of an American citizen, and he would not
forfeit that title to become a royal duke." He could therefore inherit
only his father's personal property, consisting principally of plate,
jewels and paintings. The property thus received was all which the young
Edward Houstoun could call his own. All else was his mother's, and
though it would doubtless be his at her death, the Lady Houstoun was not
one to relinquish the reins of government before that inevitable hour
should wrest them from her hand. She made her son a very handsome
allowance, however, and, with a higher degree of generosity than any
pecuniary grant could evince, she never attempted to control his
actions, suffering him to enjoy his sports in the country and amusements
in the city without constraint. The Lady Houstoun was a wise woman, as
well as an affectionate mother. She saw well that her son's independent
and proud nature might be attracted by kindness to move whither she
would, while the very appearance of constraint would drive him in an
opposite direction. On one subject he greatly tried her forbearance--the
unbecoming levity, as she esteemed it, with which he regarded the
big-wigged gentlemen and hooped and farthingaled ladies whose portraits
ornamented their picture gallery. For only one of these did Edward
profess the slightest consideration. This was that of the simple
soldier whose gallantry under William the Conqueror had laid the
foundation of his family fortunes and honors.

"Dear mother," said he one day, "what proof have we that those other
fine gentlemen and ladies deserved the wealth and station which, through
his noble qualities, they obtained?"

"Sir James Houstoun, my son, who devoted life and fortune to his king--"

"Pardon me, noble Sir James," interrupted Edward, bowing low and with
mock gravity to the portrait, "I will place you and your stern-looking
son there at your side next in my veneration to our first ancestor. Yet
you showed that, like me, you had little value for wealth or station."

"Edward!" ejaculated Lady Houstoun, in an accent of displeasure, "that
we are willing to sacrifice a possession at the call of duty does not
prove us insensible of its value."

"Nay, mother mine, speak not so gravely, but acknowledge that you would
be prouder of your boy if you saw him by his own energies winning his
way to distinction from earth's lowliest station, than you can be of him
now--idler as he is."

"There is no less merit, Edward, in using aright the gifts which we
inherit, than in acquiring them. There is as much energy, I can assure
you, demanded in the proper management of large estates, and the right
direction of the influence derived from station--ay, often more energy,
the exercise of higher powers, than those by which a fortunate soldier,
in time of war, may often spring in a day from nameless poverty to
wealth and rank."

The Lady Houstoun's still fine figure was elevated to its utmost height
as she spoke, and her dark eye flashed out from beneath the shadow of
the deep borders of her widow's cap. A stranger would have gazed on her
with admiration, but her son turned away with a slight shrug of the
shoulders and a curling lip, as he said to himself, "My mother may feel
all this, for she manages the estates, and she bestows the
influence--while I _amuse myself_. Mother," he added aloud, "they say
there is fine sport in the neighborhood of the Glen, and I should like
to see the place. I will take a party thither next week, if you will
write to your farmer to prepare the house for us."

"I will, Edward, certainly, if you desire it, but it has been so long
since any of us were there, that I fear you will find the house very
uncomfortable."

"So much the better, if it give us a little variety in our smooth lives.
I dare say we shall all like it very much. I shall, at least, and if the
rest do not, they can return."

The Glen was a wild rural spot among the Highlands, where Sir Edward had
delighted occasionally to spend a few weeks with his wife and child and
one or two chosen friends, in the enjoyment of country sports. For
several years before his father's death, Edward had been too much
engaged in his collegiate studies to share these visits. During the
three years which had passed since that event, neither Lady Houstoun nor
her son had visited the Glen, and it was not without emotion that she
heard him name his intention of taking a party thither; but she offered
no opposition to the plan, and in a little more than a week he was
established in the comfortable dwelling-house there, with Walter Osgood;
Philip Van Schaick, and Peter Schuyler, companions who were soon
persuaded to leave the somewhat formal circles of the city for a few
days of adventure in the country. They had arrived late in the night,
and wearied by fifteen hours' confinement on board a small sloop, the
visitors slept late the next morning, while Edward Houstoun, haunted by
tender memories, was early awake and abroad. Standing in the porch, he
looked forth through the gray light of the early dawn on hill and dale
and river, endeavoring to recall the feelings with which he had gazed
on them seven years before. Then he was a boy of scarcely sixteen,
eager only for the holiday sport or the distinction of the
school-room--now, he stood there--a boy still, his heart indignantly
pronounced, though he had numbered nearly twenty-three years. Edward
Houstoun was beginning to wake to somewhat of noble scorn in viewing his
own position--beginning to feel that to amuse himself was an object
hardly worthy a _man's_ life. Turning forcibly from such thoughts, he
sprang down the steps, and pursued a path leading by the orchard and
through a flowery lane, towards the dwelling of the farmer to whom the
management of the Glen had been intrusted, first by Sir Edward and
afterwards by Lady Houstoun. The sun was just touching with a sapphire
tint the few clouds that specked the eastern sky; the branches of the
wild rose and mountain laurel which skirted the lane on the right were
heavy with the dews of night, and the birds seemed caroling their
earliest song in the orchard and clover-field on the left, yet the
farmer's horses were already harnessed to the wagon, and through the
open door of the house Edward Houstoun as he approached caught a glimpse
of Farmer Pye himself and his men seated at breakfast. As he was not
perceived by them, he passed on, without interrupting them, to the
dairy, where the good dame was busy with her white pails and bright
pans. A calico bonnet with a very deep front concealed his approach from
Mrs. Pye until he stood beside her; but there was one within the dairy
who saw him, and whose coquettish movement in snatching from her glossy
brown ringlets a bonnet of the same unbecoming shape with that of Mrs.
Pye, did not escape his observation.

"Well, now--did I ever see the like! Why, Mr. Edward, you've grown clean
out of a body's memory--but after all, nobody couldn't help knowing you
that ever seen your papa, good gentleman--how much you are like him!"

Thus ran on Dame Pye, while Edward, except when compelled by a question
to attend to her, was wondering who the fair girl could be, who was
separated from her companion not less by the tasteful arrangement of her
dress--simple and even coarse as it was in its material--and by a
certain grace of movement, than by her delicate beauty. Her form was
slender in proportion to its height, yet gave in its graceful outline
promise of a development "rich in all woman's loveliness;" and her face,
with its dark starry eyes, its clear, transparent skin, and rich, waving
curls of glossy brown, recalled so vividly to Edward Houstoun's memory
his favorite description of beauty, that he repeated almost audibly:--

"One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
That waves in every glossy tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place."

His admiration, if not audible, was sufficiently evident to its
object--at least so we interpret her tremulous and uncertain movements,
the eloquent blood which glowed in her cheeks, and the mistakes which at
length aroused Mrs. Pye's attention.

"Why, Lucy! what under the sun and earth's the matter with you, child?
Dear--dear--to go putting the cream into the new milk, instead of
emptying it into the churn! There--there--child--better go in now--I'll
finish--and just tell Mr. Pye that Mr. Edward is here," said Mrs. Pye,
fearful of some new accident.

The discarded bonnet was put on with a heightened color, and the young
girl moved rapidly yet gracefully toward the house.

"I did not remember you had a daughter, Mrs. Pye," said Edward Houstoun,
as she disappeared.

"And I haven't a daughter--only the two boys, Sammy and Isaac--good big
boys they are now, and help their father quite some--but this girl's
none of mine, though I'm sure I love her 'most as well--she's so pretty
and nice, and has such handy ways, though what could have tempted her to
put the cream in the new milk just now, I'm sure I can't tell."

"But who is she, Mrs. Pye?"

"Who is she? Why, sure, and did you never hear of Lucy Watson? Oh!
here's Mr. Pye."

Edward Houstoun was too much interested in learning something more of
Lucy Watson, not to find a sufficient reason for lingering behind the
farmer, who was impatient to be in his hay-field. Mrs. Pye was
communicative, and he soon learned all she knew--that Lucy was the
daughter of a soldier belonging to a company commanded by Sir Edward
Houstoun during the war--that this soldier had received his death-wound
in defending his commander from a sword-cut, and that Sir Edward had
always considered his widow and only child as his especial charge. The
widow had soon followed her husband to the grave, and the child had been
placed by Sir Edward with the wife of a country clergyman. To Mr. and
Mrs. Merton, Lucy had been as an own and only daughter.

"The good old people made quite a lady of her," said Mrs. Pye. "She can
read and write equal to the parson himself, and I've hearn folks say
that her 'broidery and music playin' was better than Mrs. Merton's own;
but, poor thing! Mrs. Merton died, and still the parson begged Sir
Edward to let her stay with him--she was all that was left now, he
said--so Sir Edward let her stay. Mr. Merton died a year ago, and when
Mr. Pye wrote to the lady--that's your mother, Mr. Edward--about her,
she said she'd better come here and stay with us, and she would pay her
board, and give her money for clothes, and five thousand dollars beside,
whenever she should get married. I'm sure she's welcome to stay, if it
was without pay, for we all love her, but, somehow, it don't seem the
right place for her--and, as to marrying, I don't think she'll ever
marry any body around her, for, kind-spoken as she is, they wouldn't any
of them dare to ask her, though they're all in love with her beautiful
face."

In a week Edward Houstoun's friends had grown weary of ruralizing--they
found no longer any music in the crack of a fowling-piece, or any
enjoyment in the dying agonies of the feathered tribes, and, having
resisted all their persuasions to return with them, he was left alone.

"I shall report you as love-sick, or brain-sick, reclining by purling
streams, under shady groves, to read Shakspeare, or Milton, or Spenser,
for each of these books I have seen you at different times put in your
pocket, and wander forth with a most sentimental air--doubtless to make
love to some Nymph or Dryad."

"Make love! Ah! there, I take it, you have winged the right bird, Van
Schaick."

"If I had seen a decent petticoat since we took leave of Mynheer Van
Winkle and his daughter, on board the good sloop St. Nicholas, I should
think so too, Osgood."

"At any rate, it would be wise to report our suspicions to his lady
mother."

"Your suspicions of what--lunacy or love?" asked Edward Houstoun.

"A distinction without a difference--they are equivalent terms."

Thus jested his friends, and thus jested Edward Houstoun with them--well
assured that no gleam of the truth had shined on them--that they never
supposed his visits at Farmer Pye's possessed any greater attraction
than could be derived from the farmer's details of improvements made at
the Glen, of the increased value of lands, or the proceeds of the last
year's crop. They had never seen Lucy Watson, and how could they suspect
that while the farmer smoked his pipe at the door, and the good dame
bustled about her household concerns, he sat watching with enamored eyes
the changes of a countenance full of intelligence and sensibility, and
listening with charmed ears to a soft, musical voice recounting, with
all the simple eloquence of genuine feeling, obligations to the father
whose memory was with him almost an idolatry. Still less could they
divine that Shakspeare, and Milton, and Spenser were indeed often read
beside a purling stream, and within the dense shadow of a grove of oak
and chestnut-trees--not to Nymph or Dryad, but to a "mortal being of
earth's mould,"

"A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For simple pleasures, harmless wiles,
For love, blame, kisses, tears and smiles."

Here, one afternoon, a fortnight after the departure of his friends, sat
Edward Houstoun with Lucy at his side. They had lingered till the
sunlight, which had fallen here and there in broken and changeful gleams
through over-arching boughs, touching with gold the ripples at their
feet, had faded into that

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