Myra

by Ann S. Stephens

This is but an extract of Myra’s letter to Mr. Whitney, but it was enough to satisfy her delicate sense of honor. It set him free. It relinquished all claim upon his faith or his honor. Much there was in the letter to melt and touch a heart like his, for with a great secret swelling in her breast, she found consolation in pouring out the feelings that oppressed her, where she was certain of sympathy.

And Whitney answered the letter. He had not loved the heiress or the lofty name—but Myra, the noble-minded, the lovely, the beautiful. If she was an orphan, so much the better; he would be family, wealth, the world to her. He grieved for her sorrow, but seemed to revel and rejoice in the idea of having her all to himself. This was the tenor of Whitney’s reply, and Myra felt no longer alone—her elastic nature gathered up its strength again. She became proud of the pure and holy love, which only grew brighter with adversity, and this beautiful pride rekindled all her energies.

Among the fine scenery which lies upon the upper portions of the Delaware Bay, there is a splendid old mansion house, large, massive, and bearing deeper marks of antiquity and aristocratic ownership, than are usually found in a country where dwellings that have withstood the ravages of a hundred years are seldom to be found. It was a superb countryplace, uplifted above the bay, and commanding one of the finest prospects in the whole country. Picturesque and broken scenery lay all around. Portions of this scenery were wild, and even rude, in their thrifty luxuriance, while close around the dwelling reigned the most perfect cultivation. Park-like groves, lawns fringed with choice shrubberies, and glowing with a profusion of flowers, might be seen from every window of the dwelling. The stables, lodges, and other buildings, all in excellent repair, bespoke a degree of prosperous wealth, and a luxurious taste, seldom found in our primitive land. A spacious veranda that ran along the front, commanded a beautiful view of the distant bay and all the broken shore, for miles and miles on either hand. In the whole State of Delaware could not have been found, at that day, a gentleman’s residence more perfect in itself, or more luxurious in its appointments. To this house Mr. D. took his family to spend the summer months, and Myra entered it, for the first time in her life, with a feeling of profound loneliness. This noble mansion was to have been her inheritance; she had spent all her girlhood in the shadows of its walks; she had learned to love every tree and flower and shady nook that surrounded it—to love them as the home of her parents, the home that should hereafter shelter her and her children. Now she entered it sadly, and with a feeling of cold desolation. Transient, certainly, but very painful were these natural regrets.

But amid all the shadows that hung around her path, there was one gleam of golden sunshine. His love was left to her—his faith still remained firm and perfect.

With the visitors who came with Mr. D. to his country dwelling, was a distant relation of the family, his wife, and two lovely children. To these persons the secret of Myra’s birth was made known, and to the lady, young and apparently amiable, Myra sometimes fled for counsel and sympathy. But to these persons the secret of Myra’s parentage opened new and selfish hopes that forbade all genuine friendship for the confiding girl. Myra, severed by all ties of blood from the family that had adopted her, now seemed only an obstacle in the way of their own interests. The excessive love still expressed for her both by Mr. D. and his angelic wife, seemed so much defrauded from the rights of their own offspring, and those who had flattered and fawned abjectly on the daughter and the heiress, now returned the touching confidence of the orphan with treachery and dislike.

Thus surrounded by secret enemies and those sad regrets which hopes so suddenly crushed could not fail to excite, the young girl yielded her whole being up to the one sweet hope still left to her, undimmed and brightening each day—a lone star in the clouded sky of her life. The love, that under other circumstances might have been diversified by many worldly fancies, now concentrated itself around her whole being, and in its pure intensity became almost sublime.

Mr. D. in revealing the secret of Myra’s birth had, as it were, thrown off all claims to her filial obedience, but the generous girl took no advantage of this most painful freedom; her great desire was still to win his consent to her union with the man she loved, her penniless union, for Myra neither hoped nor wished for any thing more than the love of those who had protected her infancy to carry as a marriage dower to her husband. Under the sanction of her gentle mother—for such Mrs. D. was ever to Myra—the young girl had still carried on a correspondence with Mr. Whitney, and it was decided that he should write to Mr. D. and again request permission to visit the young creature, who, without a daughter’s right, had no desire to evade a daughter’s obedience.

Believing the acquaintance between Myra and her lover broken off by his own firm opposition, Mr. D. had not given up her union with another, which had for many years been a favorite object with him. His astonishment and indignation may, therefore, be imagined, when the mild and respectful letter of Mr. Whitney reached him at D. Place, some few weeks after the retirement of his family to their country mansion. It was early in the morning when this letter came, and Mr. D. was alone with his relative and guest when he broke the seal. The anger that shook the proud man’s nerves, the sharp exclamation that sprang from his lips, were heard by Mrs. D. as she passed into the breakfast-parlor. She saw the handwriting crushed angrily between the fingers of her husband, and filled with dread that Myra’s private correspondence had been betrayed, she left the room and hastened to her daughter’s chamber.

“O Myra! I fear—I fear that your papa has in some way obtained one of Mr. Whitney’s letters,” cried the generous lady, with a face that bespoke all the anxiety that preyed upon her.

Myra turned a little more pallid than usual, for her father’s anger was a terrible thing to brave,—of that she was well aware; but, after a moment, her natural courage returned, and she answered with some degree of firmness: