MORNING.
“Two maidens by one fountain’s joyous brink,
And one was sad and one had cause for sadness.”
Cicely Stuyvesant waiting for her father at the foot of the stairs, on the morning after these occurrences, was a pretty and a touching spectacle. She had not slept very well the night before, and her brow showed signs of trouble and so did her trembling lips. She held in her hand a letter which she twirled about with very unsteady fingers. The morning was bright, but she did not seem to observe it; the air was fresh, but it did not seem to invigorate her. A rose-leaf of care lay on the tremulous waters of her soul, and her sensitive nature thrilled under it.
“Why does he not come?” she whispered, looking again at the letter’s inscription.
It was in Mr. Sylvester’s handwriting, and ought not to have occasioned her any uneasiness, but her father had intimated a wish the night before, that she should not come down into the parlor if Bertram called, and—Her thoughts paused there, but she was anxious about the letter and wished her father would hasten.
Let us look at the little lady. She had been so bright and lovesome yesterday at this time. Never a maiden in all this great city of ours had shown a sweeter or more etherial smile. At once radiant and reserved, she flashed on the eye and trembled from the grasp like some dainty tropical creature as yet unused to our stranger clime. Her father had surveyed her with satisfaction, and her lover—oh, that we were all young again to experience that leap of the heart with which youth meets and recognizes the sweet perfections of the woman it adores! But a mist had obscured the radiance of her aspect, and she looks very sad as she stands in her father’s hall this morning, leaning her cheek against the banister, and thinking of the night when three years ago, she lingered in that very spot, and watched the form of the young musician go by her and disappear in the darkness of the night, as she then thought forever. Joy had come to her by such slow steps and after such long waiting. Hope had burst upon her so brilliantly, and with such a speedy promise of culmination. She thrilled as she thought how short a time ago it was, since she leaned upon Bertram’s arm and dropped her eyes before his gaze.
The appearance of her father at length aroused her. Flushing slightly, she held the letter towards him.
“A letter for you, papa. I thought you might like to read it before you went out.”
Mr. Stuyvesant, who for an hour or more had been frowning over his morning paper with a steady pertinacity that left more than the usual amount of wrinkles upon his brow, started at the wistful tone of this announcement from his daughter’s lips, and taking the letter from her hand, stepped into the parlor to peruse it. It was, as the handwriting declared, from Mr. Sylvester, and ran thus: