"Blessings, Gabriella, for this generous confidence!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms round me, with all the impulsiveness of childhood; "but it is all in vain. Do you think I would take advantage of Julian's uncalculating love, and entail upon him for life the support and guardianship of this frail, helpless form? Do you think I would hang a dead, dull weight on the wings of his young ambition? Oh, no! You do not know me, Gabriella."
"I know you have very wrong views of yourself," I answered; "and I fear you will do great wrong to others, if you do not change them. You are not helpless. No bird of the wild-wood wings their way more fearlessly and lightly than yourself. You are not frail now. Health glows on your cheek and beams in your eye. You cling to a resolution conceived in early youth, before you recovered from the effects of a painful malady. A dull weight! Why, Edith, you would rest like down on his mounting wings. You would give them a more heavenly flight. Do not, beloved Edith, indulge these morbid feelings. There is a love, stronger, deeper than a sister's affection. You feel it now. You forgive me for loving Ernest. You forgive him for loving me. I believe Julian worthy of your heart. Give him hope, give him time, and he will come erelong, crowned with laurels, and lay them smiling at your feet."
"Dear, inspiring Gabriella!" she exclaimed, "you infuse new life and joy into my inmost soul. I feel as if I could discard these crutches and walk on air. No; I am not helpless. If there was need, I could toil for him I loved with all a woman's zeal. These hands could minister to his necessities, this heart be a shield and buckler in the hour of danger. Thank Heaven, I am lifted above want, and how blest to share the gifts of fortune with one they would so nobly grace! But do you really think that I ought to indulge such dreams? Am not I a cripple? Has not God set a mark upon me?"
"No,—you shall not call yourself one. You are only lifted above the gross earth, because you are more angelic than the rest of us. I hear your mother's coming footsteps; I will leave you together, that you may reveal to her all that is passing in your heart."
I left her; and as I passed Mrs. Linwood on the stairs, and met her anxious eyes, I said: "Edith has the heart of a woman. I know by my own experience how gently you will deal with it."
She kissed me without speaking; but I read in her expressive countenance that mingled look of grief and resignation with which we follow a friend to that bourne where we cannot follow them. Edith was lost to her. She was willing to forsake her mother for the stranger's home,—she who seemed bound to her by the dependence of childhood, as well as the close companionship of riper years. I read this in her saddened glance; but I did not deem her selfish. Other feelings, too, doubtless blended with her own personal regrets. She had no reason to look upon marriage as a state of perfect felicity. Her own had been unhappy. She knew the dark phantom that haunted our wedded hours; and what if the same hereditary curse should cling to Edith,—who might become morbidly sensitive on account of her personal misfortune?
Knowing it was the last evening of our stay, I felt as if every moment were lost, passed within doors. It seemed to me, now, as if I had literally seen nothing, so stupendously did images of beauty and grandeur grow upon my mind, and so consciously and surprisingly did my mind expand to receive them.
The hour of sunset approached,—the last sunset that I should behold, shining in golden glory on the sheeted foam of the Falls. And then I saw, what I never expect to witness again, till I see the eternal rainbows round about the throne of God,—three entire respondent circles, one glowing with seven-fold beams within the other, full, clear, distinct as the starry stripes of our country's banner,—no fracture in the smooth, majestic curves,—no dimness in the gorgeous dyes.
And moonlight,—moonlight on the Falls! I have read of moonlight on the ruins of the Coliseum; in the mouldering remains of Grecian elegance and Roman magnificence; but what is it compared to this? The eternal youth, the undecaying grandeur of nature, illumined by that celestial light which lends glory to ruins, and throws the illusion of beauty over the features of decay!
Edith wandered with Julian in the stilly moonlight, and their low voices were heard by each other amid the din of the roaring cataract.