“When I was fifteen, an old college associate died and left my father guardian to his son and heir. This young gentleman’s arrival at the parsonage was an epoch in my life. A timid and feminine anxiety to please took possession of my heart. I gave up for his use my own little sitting-room, opening upon a wilderness of roses and tangled honeysuckles that had once been a garden, but which I had delighted to see run wild in unchecked luxuriance, till it had become as fragrant and rife with blossoms as an East India jungle.
“It was the first act of self-denial I had ever submitted to, and I found a pleasure in it which more than compensated for the pain I felt in removing my music and books, with the easel which I had taken such pains to place in its proper light, to a small chamber above.
“Heedless of my mother’s entreaty, that I would remain quiet and receive our guest in due form, I sprang out upon the balcony, and winding my arm around one of its pillars, pushed back the clustering passionflowers, and bent eagerly over, to obtain a perfect view of our visitor. He was a slight, aristocratic youth, with an air of thoughtful manliness beyond his years. He was speaking as he advanced up the serpentine walk which led to the balcony, and seemed to be making some observation on the wild beauty of the garden. There was something in the tones of his voice, a quiet dignity in his manner, that awed me. I shrunk back into the room, where my mother was sitting, and placed myself by her side. My cheek burned and my heart beat rapidly when he entered. But my confusion passed unnoticed, or, if remarked, was attributed to the bashfulness of extreme youth. Varnham was my senior by four years, and he evidently considered me as a child, for after a courteous bow on my introduction he turned to my mother and began to speak of the village and its remarkable quietude. I returned to my room that night out of humor with myself, and somewhat in awe of our guest.
“The history of the next two years would be one of the heart alone—a narrative of unfolding intellect and feeling. It was impossible that two persons, however dissimilar in taste and disposition, should be long domesticated in the same dwelling without gradually assimilating in some degree. Perhaps two beings more decidedly unlike never met than Varnham and myself, but after the first restraint which followed our introduction wore off he became to me a preceptor and most valuable friend.
“Two years brought Varnham to his majority. His fortune, though limited, was equal to his wants; he resolved to travel, and then take orders, for he had been intended for the church. It was a sorrowful day to us when he left the parsonage. The lonely feelings which followed his departure never gave place to cheerfulness again. In four weeks from that day my father was laid in the vault of his own loved church. My gentle mother neither wept nor moaned when she saw the beloved of her youth laid beside the gorgeous coffins of his lordly ancestors. But in three weeks after, I was alone in the wide world; for she was dead also.
“Two weary, sad nights I sat beside that beautiful corpse, still and tearless, in a waking dream. I remember that kind voices were around me, and that more than once pitying faces bent over me, and strove to persuade me away from my melancholy vigils. But I neither answered nor moved; they sighed as they spoke, and passed in and out, like the actors of a tragedy in which I had no part. I was stupefied by the first great trouble of my life!
“Then the passion of grief burst over me. I fell to the floor, and my very life seemed ebbing away in tears and lamentations. Hour after hour passed by, and I remained as I had fallen, in an agony of sorrow. I know not how it was, but towards morning I sunk into a heavy slumber.
“When I again returned to consciousness Varnham was sitting beside my bed; physicians and attendants were gliding softly about the room, and everything was hushed as death around me. I was very tired and weak; but I remembered that my mother was dead, and that I had fainted; I whispered a request to see her once more—she had been buried three weeks.
“Varnham had heard of my father’s death in Paris, and hastened home, to find me an orphan doubly bereaved, to become my nurse and my counsellor—my all. Most tenderly did he watch over me during my hours of convalescence. And I returned his love with a gratitude as fervent as ever warmed the heart of woman.
“I knew nothing of business, scarcely that money was necessary to secure the elegances I enjoyed. I had not even dreamed of a change of residence, and when information reached us that a rector had been appointed to supply my father’s place, and that Lord Granby, the elder brother of my lamented parent, had consented to receive me as an inmate of his own house I sunk beneath the blow as if a second and terrible misfortune had befallen me.