第12章

"Her playmate from her youth."

ROGERS.

{Samuel Rogers (English poet, 1763-1855), "Italy: Genevra" line 55}

ELINOR had been in her room for some minutes, and was standing in thought, before an open window, when she turned toward a little table near her, and, opening a Bible, drew from it a letter. She raised it to her lips, and, moving toward a light unfolded the sheet. Tears soon blinded her sight; she was much agitated; then, becoming calmer, she continued to read. It was a letter of some length, and every line seemed deeply interesting to the reader.

Once she paused, as if struck by some new thought, and then, again, she read with some anxiety. She had just finished the last words, when her door opened, and Miss Agnes entered the room.

"Be calm, my dear child," said her aunt; "it is indeed a precious letter, and one which we both value highly; your feelings are only natural, dearest; but do not indulge them to excess." Miss Wyllys, by her gentle, caressing manner, succeeded in calming Elinor, when, urging her not to sit up later, she left her niece for the night.

When Miss Agnes was gone, Elinor fell on her knees, with the letter still in her hand. She remained some time, apparently in prayer, and then rising calmly, she folded the sheet, and laid it on the Bible; and, before her head touched her pillow, the letter was again removed, and placed beneath it.

We have not the slightest wish to beguile the reader into believing that Elinor had a mysterious lover, or a clandestine correspondence; and we shall at once mention, that this letter was one written years previously, by the mother she had lost; and her good aunt, according to the direction, had placed it in her niece's hands, on the morning of her seventeenth birthday.

When Mr. Wyllys went down to breakfast, the next morning, he inquired if their drunken visiter {sic--the Cooper family's usual spelling of the word}, of the previous night, had shown himself again.

"I have just been out, sir, to look after him," said Harry, "and the fellow does not seem to have liked his night's lodgings. He broke jail, and was off before any of the men were up this morning; they found the door open, and the staple off--he must have kicked his way out; which could easily he done, as the lock was old."

Elinor suggested that it was, perhaps, some one who was ashamed of the situation in which he had been found.

"More probably he was too much accustomed to a lock-up house, to find it pleasant. But if he really had any business here, we shall hear of him again, no doubt," said Mr. Wyllys. The affair thus disposed of, the conversation took another turn.

Mr. Wyllys, Elinor's grandfather, was decidedly a clever man. He had held a high position, in his profession, until he withdrew from it, and had, at one time, honourably distinguished himself as a politician. He was well educated, and well read; his library, at Wyllys-Roof, was, indeed, one of the best in the country. Moreover, Mr. Wyllys was a philosopher, a member of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia; and the papers he read, before that honourable association, were generally much admired by his audience. It is even probable that Mr. Wyllys believed himself endowed with a good stock of observation and experience in human nature; but, in spite of all these advantages, we cannot help thinking that, although well-versed in natural philosophy, this excellent gentleman proved himself quite ignorant of boy and girl nature. Even his daughter, Miss Agnes, feared her father had been unwise and imprudent on an occasion which she considered of great importance.

A great deal might be said in favour of Harry Hazlehurst. Few young men, of his age, were more promising in character and abilities. He was clever, and good-tempered; and, with all the temptations of an easy fortune within his reach, he had always shown himself firm in principles. There was one trait in his character, however, which had already more than once brought him into boyish scrapes, and which threatened, if not corrected, to be injurious to his career through life. He was naturally high-spirited; and, having been indulged by his mother, and seldom controlled by his male guardian, a brother some ten years older than himself, Harry was rather disposed to be self-willed, and cherished some false notions regarding independence of character. His friends hoped, however, that as he grew older, he would become wiser. Something of this feeling had been mixed up with the motives which had lately led him to take a decided step for the future.

>From a boy, Harry had been more or less the companion and play-fellow of Elinor Wyllys and Jane Graham, whom he looked upon as cousins, owing to a near family connexion. He had always felt very differently, however, towards the two girls. Jane, a little beauty from her birth, had been an indolent and peevish child, often annoying Harry by selfish interference with their plans and amusements. Elinor, on the contrary, had always been a favourite playmate. She was an intelligent, generous child, of an uncommonly fine temper and happy disposition. As for her plain face, the boy seldom remembered it. They were both gay, clever children, who suited each other remarkably well, in all their little ways and fancies. Now, within the last year, it had struck Harry that his brother Robert and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Hazlehurst, were very desirous of making a match between Jane Graham and himself. He had overheard some trifling remark on the subject, and had suffered an afternoon's very stupid teasing and joking, about Jane, from a talkative old bachelor relation. This was quite sufficient to rouse the spirit of independence, in a youth of his years and disposition. When, at length, he heard a proposition that Jane should accompany them abroad, he went so far as to look upon it as something very like manoeuvring {sic}.

HE was not a man to be led by others, in the choice of a wife.