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"He was quiring.

a gentleman ?" said I, in- There, look there!" said she,

"Was he not a gentleman! Was not every word, every opinion he uttered, the soul of honor and high feeling! When he spoke of what he read, he knew how to praise all that was noble, and truthful, and worthy, and to decry whatever was ignoble or mean. When he helped a beggar on the road, he gave his alms like one whose happier fortune it was to aid a brother, and who might himself accept assistance to-morrow. And so through all he did, the world seemed like some flowery meadow, where, if we would, we might stroll or stretch at ease, each happy with each."

"Was he ambitious ?"

"If you mean of honor, fame, and good repute, yes, as I never heard of any one; but of that success that includes wealth and state, luxurious living, and the rest of it, he could not have been, for he has said over and over at our homely board, 'This is indeed what delights me! It is here I begin to feel how unworthy are the vulgar slaveries rich men submit to.""

"He had, then, some experiences of the life he censured ?"

"I don't know that he had, except from hearsay; but he had read, and conversed almost as much as he had read."

"Had he served as a soldier ?"

66 No, he could not bear any settled career; he called it a bondage, and that all men who followed any distinct calling lost their identity in the craft: he would laughingly say, they become smaller than

women.'

"He loved you very much, Marion, and

"Why has he not returned ?" said she, as her eyes flashed fiercely. "Say out your words, or if you have no courage for them, let me say them. It was this you would have asked."

66

"I had not any right."

"Of course you had not, but I will give the right, that I may shame the questioner. If he has not come back, will you be prepared to say he may not come to-morrow? this very night? At first in every footfall on the road, in every voice I heard-I have grown wiser now, and I can wait."

"Such trustfulness honors you," said I thoughtfully.

"It is no more than what I owe him.

"there is

a Levanter coming in already, and but a moment back that sea was like a mirror ! Is not life just such another ocean, and can he who plans a voyage be more certain of his weather? How can I know what difficulties he is now combating, what barriers oppose him ?"

"I should be glad to feel that some one would, one day, trust me in that fashion." "So she will, if you inspire her with the same love. A woman's heart can be as good or as bad as you like to make it ; she has but the keeping of it-the culture is another's."

This was the tone of many a conversation we had together, through all of which I could gather how a girl of a strong will and an untried nature had been gradually moulded to opinions so new and strange to her by one whose temperament and character were stronger than her own.

That she loved him with her whole heart-that she felt towards him that almost worship with which a fervid imagination will inspire its object of devotionwas clear enough. But I own that my greater anxiety was to learn, if I could, who was this man, what was he, and how came he here? It was not difficult to believe that even a man of culture and refinement might have fallen in love with this girl. She was, with certain traits of delicate health and pallor, of great beauty; her large lustrous eyes, more expressive from the dark color of the orbits round them, could change from a melting softness to a glance of wild defiance; and her mouth, of which the teeth inclined slightly inwards, had a character of winning sweetness there was no resisting. Her figure might be called faultless; all I had ever seen of statuesque in symmetry was realized in that lithe and graceful form, which, even under the coarse drapery she wore, betrayed in every pose and movement the perfection of form. And just as the conscious grace of the beautiful woman blended with the bounding elasticity of the happy girl, so in temperament she united all the thoughtful moods of a reflective mind with the fresh, wild impulses of the child.

"I know," said she to me one day, "I see it; you are puzzled about William Hope."

"I own it," said I, half sorrowfully. "And you cannot imagine how this

man of refinement-this creature of gifts and graces, this eminent gentleman, for I know your comprehensive phrase-could have loved such as me."

"Far from it, Marion; my wonder is how he could tear himself away from you, even for a season."

"That was duty."

"But what kind of duty? He had no ties no cares of any calling; you say he had no relatives to dictate to him: how could he explain a necessity where there was no pressure?"

"What he said was enough for me. And," added she, after a pause, "it would have been a bolder than either you or me would have dared to question him."

This chance speech explained in full the ascendancy that his more powerful nature had gained over her, and how it was easier to her to believe than to distrust him.

"Does he write to you?" "No."

"Nor you to him?”

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"No; he did not ask it!"

"And still you know he will come back ?"

"I know it;" and she nodded twice, with a little smile that seemed to say how assured she felt in the avowal.

If there seems scant delicacy in the way I dared to question her, let me hasten to say that our intimacy warranted the freedom, which her manner besides invited; for I have not given here the details of those conversations that occurred between us, nor told how we were led on from word to word to closest confessions.

Strange girl in every way! she would suffer me to walk with my arm around her waist, and yet would fire indignantly if I dared to call her "Marion mou," as in Greek phrase Hope had called her.

Anything more hopeless than the attempt to gain her affections I could not imagine; but the conviction, strong as it was, did not save me from feeling desperately in love with her. In honest fact, the glimpses I had caught of her nature, when revealing to me her love for another, had completely enraptured me; her warm fidelity, her unswerving faith, and her sustaining pride in the man she loved, needed less loveliness than hers to make her a prize to be striven for.

And so it was, I did love her, dreamed of her by night and canvassed in my mind by day what way to win her. There was

not living a man who had less count to render to his fellows than myself; I was actually without kith or kin or belongings of any kind. That I should marry a girl in the humblest condition was purely my own affair. There was not one to question me; but above all this and beyond it, I owned the one great difficulty, how should I gain her love? The very mode in which my intimacy with her had been effected, would make it a sort of treason were I to try to win her affections; and I could fancy that scornful banter in which she would meet my addresses, and ask me what sort of memory was mine? I could picture her raillery too on the nature that could deliberately raise its hopes on the foundation of affection laid by another, and make what, to an honest mind, would be jealousy, minister to his own passion.

It was all true, and except some advantages of a pure worldly kind, and for which I knew she would have little value, I had nothing in my favor. The only question then that remained was, should I better break the spell that was on me by incurring a distinct refusal; or should I fly at once, and leave the place for ever?

The latter seemed the wiser resolve, and I came to it as I slowly walked homeward to my inn at night. Instead of going to bed I sent for the landlord, and engaged with him to furnish me horses and a guide to anywhere on the coast by which I might take shipping for Italy or the shores of the Adriatic. There was a return caravan with a strong armed party bound for Salonica to start at midnight. I made my bargain, and within two hours after was on the road.

I have little more to add. We were nearly three weeks on the way, and I was thoroughly exhausted, weather-worn, and very ragged, when I entered at nightfall that dirty seaport which I am now told is to become the greatest commercial mart of the Levant.

One of the first sights that struck me as I came in was a party of yacht sailors with the word "Marmion" on their glazed habits.

The Marmion was the crack yacht of Cowes-the fastest cutter, it was supposed, ever built, and lately bought by the Duke of R- whom I had known intimately at All Souls. Having learned that he was bound for the Piræus, I sent off a few lines, asking, if not utterly incon

venient, that he would give me a passage to Greece.

A letter from the Duke, with a most cordial invitation, answered me within an hour. He was on his wedding-tour, and had a small party of friends, but ample room, and a hearty welcome for me.

If I were painting a picture de genre, I might linger to sketch some of the scenes, and one or two of the characters, of that yacht party; but though there was a very pretty and attractive bride, and more than one bridesmaid of striking beauty, and some half-dozen very assiduous young men of great fascination and faultless costume, I was too much under the shadow of my late discomfiture to emerge into the broad sunlight of their gay converse.

"What is the matter with you?" said R to me one night, as we walked the deck alone; "I never saw you before in such low spirits."

I made some pretext of health, and changed the theme, when he asked me where I had been, and how I had come to that little-visited spot-Salonica.

"As for that," I said, "I have been sojourning in scores of places not fit to compare with it; places you never so much as heard of Yanina, Arta, Corstatacu, and Prevesa."

"Prevesa! the little bay opposite Corfu ?"

"Yes; how do you know it ?"

"Because I passed three months there. It was in that little dreary fishing village where I lived on sardines and boiled rice. I wrote a marvellous state paper, that the fellows at F. O. used to say made it a crying shame for me to leave diplomacy. I was then attached to my uncle's Embassy at Constantinople."

"What year was that?"

"In 18. I seldom can recall a date, but I have a clue to this one." He paused for some seconds and added— "There was a good-looking girl there that I 'spooned' and got very fond of too. That's the confounded part of those barbarous places. It is not only the onions and the black bread you get used to, but you conform to the women too, and if you remain over long you end by marrying one of them. Shake your head, old fellow, but it might happen all the same." He paused for a moment or two, gave a faint sigh, and then, with a sort of shake, like one throwing off a load, said—" Come down below and let's have a glass of brandy and water."-Blackwood's Magazine.

ABSOLUTION.

Two loved a few years since, and read anew
The mysteries of God; and earth and sky

Were but reflections of a great I AM,

Whose name was Love: for Love is God, they said, And thought it were the same as God is Love.

So they smiled on in a large land of smiles,
Where, as of old, the blind man with half-sight
Saw men as trees before him: and their feet
Went airily along on untouched earth,
And birds were angels, and to love was life.
And with the eyes of children that first see
And know it, so they saw and wondered much
How they had ever lived so blind before.

And then the real awakening came-the day
When, children still, they learnt to see beyond
The mazy borders of the land of Love;

Saw more than men as trees, and learnt to know
The harder after-lesson of "I feel."

man of refinement-this creature of gifts and graces, this eminent gentleman, for I know your comprehensive phrase-could have loved such as me."

"Far from it, Marion; my wonder is how he could tear himself away from you, even for a season."

"That was duty."

"But what kind of duty? He had no ties-no cares of any calling; you say he had no relatives to dictate to him: how could he explain a necessity where there was no pressure?" ⚫

"What he said was enough for me. And," added she, after a pause, "it would have been a bolder than either you or me would have dared to question him."

This chance speech explained in full the ascendancy that his more powerful nature had gained over her, and how it was easier to her to believe than to distrust him.

"Does he write to you?" "No."

"Nor you to him?”

[ocr errors]

No; he did not ask it!"

"And still you know he will come back ?"

"I know it;" and she nodded twice, with a little smile that seemed to say how assured she felt in the avowal.

If there seems scant delicacy in the way I dared to question her, let me hasten to say that our intimacy warranted the freedom, which her manner besides invited; for I have not given here the details of those conversations that occurred between us, nor told how we were led on from word to word to closest confessions.

Strange girl in every way! she would suffer me to walk with my arm around her waist, and yet would fire indignantly if I dared to call her "Marion mou," as in Greek phrase Hope had called her..

Anything more hopeless than the attempt to gain her affections I could not imagine; but the conviction, strong as it was, did not save me from feeling desperately in love with her. In honest fact, the glimpses I had caught of her nature, when revealing to me her love for another, had completely enraptured me; her warm fidelity, her unswerving faith, and her sustaining pride in the man she loved, needed less loveliness than hers to make her a prize to be striven for.

And so it was, I did love her, dreamed of her by night and canvassed in my mind by day what way to win her. There was

[ocr errors]

not living a man who had less count to render to his fellows than myself; I was actually without kith or kin or belongings of any kind. That I should marry a girl in the humblest condition was purely my own affair. There was not one to question me; but above all this and beyond it, I owned the one great difficulty, how should I gain her love? The very mode in which my intimacy with her had been effected, would make it a sort of treason were I to try to win her affections; and I could fancy that scornful banter in which she would meet my addresses, and ask me what sort of memory was mine? I could picture her raillery too on the nature that could deliberately raise its hopes on the foundation of affection laid by another, and make what, to an honest mind, would be jealousy, minister to his own passion.

It was all true, and except some advantages of a pure worldly kind, and for which I knew she would have little value, I had nothing in my favor. The only question then that remained was, should I better break the spell that was on me by incurring a distinct refusal; or should I fly at once, and leave the place for ever?

The latter seemed the wiser resolve, and I came to it as I slowly walked homeward to my inn at night. Instead of going to bed I sent for the landlord, and engaged with him to furnish me horses and a guide to anywhere on the coast by which I might take shipping for Italy or the shores of the Adriatic. There was a return caravan with a strong armed party bound for Salonica to start at midnight. I made my bargain, and within two hours after was on the road.

I have little more to add. We were nearly three weeks on the way, and I was thoroughly exhausted, weather-worn, and very ragged, when I entered at nightfall that dirty seaport which I am now told is to become the greatest commercial mart of the Levant.

One of the first sights that struck me as I came in was a party of yacht sailors with the word "Marmion" on their glazed habits.

The Marmion was the crack yacht of Cowes-the fastest cutter, it was supposed, ever built, and lately bought by the Duke of R, whom I had known intimately at All Souls. Having learned that he was bound for the Piræus, I sent off a few lines, asking, if not utterly incon

venient, that he would give me a passage to Greece.

A letter from the Duke, with a most cordial invitation, answered me within an hour. He was on his wedding-tour, and had a small party of friends, but ample room, and a hearty welcome for me.

If I were painting a picture de genre, I might linger to sketch some of the scenes, and one or two of the characters, of that yacht party; but though there was a very pretty and attractive bride, and more than one bridesmaid of striking beauty, and some half-dozen very assiduous young men of great fascination and faultless costume, I was too much under the shadow of my late discomfiture to emerge into the broad sunlight of their gay converse.

"What is the matter with you?" said

R to me one night, as we walked the deck alone; "I never saw you before in such low spirits."

I made some pretext of health, and changed the theme, when he asked me where I had been, and how I had come to that little-visited spot-Salonica.

"As for that," I said, "I have been sojourning in scores of places not fit to compare with it; places you never so much as heard of Yanina, Arta, Corstatacu, and Prevesa."

"Prevesa! the little bay opposite Corfu ?"

"Yes; how do you know it ?"

"Because I passed three months there. It was in that little dreary fishing village where I lived on sardines and boiled rice. I wrote a marvellous state paper, that the fellows at F. O. used to say made it a crying shame for me to leave diplomacy. I was then attached to my uncle's Embassy at Constantinople."

"What year was that ?"

"In 18. I seldom can recall a date, but I have a clue to this one." He paused for some seconds and added"There was a good-looking girl there that I 'spooned' and got very fond of too. That's the confounded part of those barbarous places. It is not only the onions and the black bread you get used to, but you conform to the women too, and if you remain over long you end by marrying one of them. Shake your head, old fellow, but it might happen all the same." He paused for a moment or two, gave a faint sigh, and then, with a sort of shake, like one throwing off a load, said—" Come down below and let's have a glass of brandy and water."-Blackwood's Magazine.

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