“All this time, while I was lavishing the first thoughts of my youth upon her, she was engaged. I was nothing to her; Louisa told me this. Her own brother was betrothed to Miss Judson; on his return they were to be married.
“I do not think Louisa saw my anguish, or my despair, when she gave me this information, for deep feelings are seldom the most demonstrative. I felt myself growing pale, my very lips were chilled through and felt like marble as I closed them. She did not observe it. The very warmth was quenched in my veins, and she only said, as we shook hands in parting,—
“‘How cold your hands are, but the night is a little chilly.’
“As if influenced by some strange sympathy unexplained to her own heart, she bent down and kissed my hand; but I shrunk from the touch of her lips—they sent a pang through and through me. At such times even the most delicate sympathy is painful. How could this be otherwise than bitter?
“Those few words had blasted all the hopes of my life; but how could she understand this? I must have seemed strangely cold and ungrateful to that poor girl, who loved me all the time, but, in the egotism of my anguish, I was unconscious that she was made to suffer also.
“I saw Miss Judson after this, and with her own lips she told me of her engagement. She was white and trembling all the time, while I stood taking the death-blow of my hopes, in dead silence. I think now, that she hoped for some protest, and in her heart longed for an explanation, which I had no power to give. The expression of her eyes haunted me afterward, so wistful, so tender—oh! if I had spoken then. But I did not—could not. The image of my mother, in all her grim avarice, was standing before that young creature so pure, so exquisite in her refinement, made a coward of me.
“We parted that evening in mute anguish. Her hand was cold as snow when I dropped it from mine, and even in the moonlight I could see that her bosom swelled with proud grief. She never came to the garden after that, though I haunted it like a ghost.
“Oakley came at last to claim his bride. I heard of this through Louisa, who wandered into the arbor more frequently than ever, where she was almost certain to find me in sight. I was very wretched in those days, and, in the egotism of a first great sorrow, never thought to ask why this girl sought the old haunt so often. My object in seeking her was to obtain news of the woman I loved. In my thoughtless selfishness, I led the gentle girl into interviews that she might have misunderstood.
“Louisa was a sweet, kind girl, innocent as a child, and as confiding. Her society became a great relief to me, and I lost no opportunity of meeting her. Miss Judson was her superior in age, and in everything that goes toward making up a grand character; but a more affectionate, truthful, and kind creature never lived, than Louisa Oakley.