"Did you ever feel happy again, dear grandmother?" asked I, when I ventured to break the silence,—curiosity was completely merged in sympathy.
"Yes, Mina, I have had hours of happiness, such as seldom falls to the lot of woman, but those bright hours were like the shining of the gold that comes forth purified from the furnace of fire. The mother of Alice soon followed her to the grave, and there they sleep, side by side, in the lonely churchyard. Eglantine soothed and comforted me, and endeavoured to stifle the self-upbraidings that ever sounded dolefully to my heart. Alice had been the victim of inexplicable circumstances, and so far from having been cruel, I had been kind and forbearing, considering the weight of evidence against her. Thus reasoned Eglantine, and I tried to believe her, but all my hopes of joy seemed blighted, for how could I mingle the wreath of love with the cypress boughs that now darkened my path? Ronald pressed an immediate union, but I shrunk with superstitious dread from the proposition, and refused the ring, with which he now sought to bind my faith. 'No, no,' I cried, 'the pledges of love are not for me—I will never accept another.'
"My mother grew angry at my fatalism. 'You are nursing phantasies,' said she, 'that are destroying the brightness of your youth. You are actually making yourself old, ere yet in your bloom. See, if there are not actually streaks of gray threading your jetty hair.' I rose and stood before a mirror, and shaking my hair loose from the confining comb, saw that her words were true. Here and there a gleam of silver wandered through those tresses which had always worn that purple depth of hue peculiar to the raven's plumage. The chill that penetrated my heart on the death-bed of Alice, had thus suddenly and prematurely frosted the dark locks of my youth. My mother became alarmed at my excessive paleness, and proposed a journey for the restoration of my spirits and health. Ronald eagerly supported the suggestion, but Eglantine declined accompanying us. She preferred, she said, being alone. With books at home, and Nature, in the glory of its summer garniture, abroad, she could not want sources of enjoyment. I did not regret her determination, for her presence had become strangely oppressive to me, and even Ronald's manners had assumed an embarrassment and constraint towards her very different from their usual familiarity. The night before our departure I felt more melancholy than ever. It was just such a night as the one that witnessed our ill-starred betrothal. The moon came forth from behind a bed of white clouds, silvering every flake as it floated back from her beauteous face, and diffusing on earth the wondrous secret of heavenly communion. I could not sleep; and as I lay gazing on the solemn tranquillity of the night heavens, I thought of the time when 'those heavens should be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements melt with fervent heat,' and I, still thinking, living, feeling, in other, grander, everlasting scenes, the invisible dweller of my bosom's temple assumed such magnitude and majesty in my eyes, the contemplation became overwhelming and awful. The sublime sound of the clock striking the midnight hour—and all who have heard that sound in the dead silence of the night, can attest that it is sublime—broke in on my deep abstraction. Eglantine, who had lain wrapped in peaceful slumbers, here softly drew back the bed-cover, and rising slowly, walked round with stilly steps to the side where I reclined, and stood looking fixedly upon me. 'Eglantine!' I exclaimed, terrified at her attitude and singular appearance. 'Eglantine, what is the matter?' She answered not, moved not, but remained standing, immovable, with her eyes fixed and expressionless as stone. There she stood, in the white moonlight, in her long, loose night-dress, which hung around her, in her stillness, like the folds of the winding-sheet, her hair streaming down her back in long, lifeless tresses, and lighted up on her brow with a kind of supernatural radiance—and then those death-resembling eyes! I trembled, and tried to draw the sheet over my face, to shut out the appalling vision. After a few moments, which seemed interminable to me, she bent over me, and taking my right hand, felt of my wrist again and again. Her fingers were as cold as marble. My very blood seemed to congeal under her touch. 'It is gone,' murmured she, 'but it is safe—I have it safe. It fits my wrist as well as hers.' Terrified as I was at this unexpected apparition, my mind was clear, and never were my perceptions more vivid. The mystery of the bracelet was about to be unravelled. Poor Alice's assertion that she had seen Eglantine standing by my side, and taking the bracelet from my wrist, came back thundering in my ears. 'It is gone,' replied Eglantine, in the same low, deep voice, 'but I know where it is laid; where the bridegroom or the bride can never find it. Perhaps the moon shines too brightly on it, and reveals the spot.' Thus saying, she glided across the floor, with spirit-like tread, and opening the door, disappeared. In the excess of my excitement I forgot my fears, and hastily rising, followed her footsteps, determined to unravel the mystery, if I died in the act. I could catch the glimpses of her white garments through the shadows of the winding staircase, and I pursued them with rapid steps, till I found myself close behind her, by the door which opened into the garden. There she stood, still as a corpse, and again the cold dew of superstitious terror gathered on my brow. I soon saw a fumbling motion about the keyhole, and the door opening, she again glided onward towards the summer-house, my favourite retreat, the place where I had received this mysterious bracelet—the place where Flora had collected all her wealth of bloom. She put aside the drooping vines, sending out such a cloud of fragrance on the dewy air, I almost fainted from their oppression, and stooping down over a white rose-bush, carefully removed the lower branches, while the rose-leaves fell in a snowy shower over her naked feet. 'Where is it?' said she, feeling about in the long grass. 'It isn't in the spot where I hid it. If she has found it, she may yet be a bride, and Ronald still her own.' She stooped down lower over the rose-bush, then rising hastily, I saw, with inexpressible agitation, the lost bracelet shining in the light that quivered with ghostlike lustre on her pallid face. With a most unearthly smile she clasped it on her wrist, and left the arbour, muttering in a low voice, 'I will not leave it here—lest she find out where it lies, and win back her bridal gift. I will keep it next my own heart, and she cannot reach it there.' Once more I followed the gliding steps of Eglantine, through the chill silence of night, till we ascended the stairs, and entered our own chamber. Quietly she laid herself down, as if she had just risen from her knees in prayer, and I perceived by her closed lids and gentle breathing, that a natural sleep was succeeding the inexplicable mysteries of somnambulism."
"She was walking in her sleep, then, grandmother!" I exclaimed, drawing a long breath. "I thought so all the time; and poor Alice was really innocent! And what did Eglantine say the next morning, when she awaked, and found the bracelet on her arm?"
"She was astonished and bewildered, and knew not what to think; but when I told her of all the events of the night, the truth of which the bracelet itself attested, she sunk back like one stricken with death. So many thoughts crowded upon her at once in such force, it is no wonder they almost crushed her with their power. The conviction that her love for Ronald could no longer be concealed, the remembrance of the accusation of Alice, which she had so indignantly repelled, the apparent meanness and turpitude of the art, though performed without any conscious volition on her part, the belief that another had been the victim of her involuntary crime, all united to bow her spirit to the dust. My heart bled at the sight of her distress, and, every feeling wrought up to unnatural strength by the exciting scenes I had witnessed, I promised never to wed Ronald, since the thought of our union had evidently made her so unhappy. Eglantine contended against this resolution with all her eloquence, but, alas! she was not destined long to oppose the claims of friendship to the pleadings of love. Her constitution was naturally frail, a fragility indicated by the extreme delicacy and mutability of her complexion, and the profusion of her pale golden hair. Day by day she faded—night by night she continued her mysterious rambles to the spot where she had first deposited the bracelet, till she had no longer strength to leave her bed, when her soul seemed to commune with the cherubim and seraphim, which, I doubt not, in their invisible glory surrounded her nightly couch. As she drew near the land of shadows, she lost sight of the phantom of earthly love in aspirations after a heavenly union. She mourned over her ill-directed sensibilities, her wasted opportunities, her selfish brooding over forbidden hopes and imaginings. She gave herself up in penitence and faith to her Redeemer, in submission to her Father and her God; and her soul at last passed away as silently and gently as the perfume from the evening flower into the bosom of eternity."
"Oh! grandmother, what a melancholy story you have told," cried I, looking at the bracelet more intently than ever, the vivid feelings of curiosity subdued and chastened by such sad revealings; "but did not you marry Ronald at last?"
"Yes," replied she, looking upward with mournful earnestness; "the beloved grandfather, who has so often dandled you in his arms, in this very spot where we are now seated, whose head, white with the snows of threescore years and ten, now reposes on the pillow all the living must press,—who now awaits me, I trust, in the dwellings of immortality, was that once youthful Ronald, whose beauty and worth captivated the affections of the too sensitive Eglantine. Many, many years of happiness has it been my blessed lot to share with him on earth. The memories of Alice and Eglantine, softened by time, were robbed of their bitterness, and only served to endear us more tenderly to each other. The knowledge we had gained of the frailty and uncertainty of life, led us to lift our views to a more enduring state of existence, and love, hallowed by religion, became a sublime and holy bond, imperishable as the soul, and lofty as its destinies. I have lived to see my children's children gather around me, like the olive branches of scripture, fair and flourishing. I have lived to see the companion of my youth and age consigned to the darkness of the grave, and I have nothing more to do on earth but to fold the mantle of the spirit quietly around me, and wait the coming of the Son of Man."
I looked up with reverence in my grandmother's face as she thus concluded the eventful history of the Pearl Bracelet, and I thought what a solemn and beautiful thing was old age when the rays of the Sun of Righteousness thus illumed its hoary hair, and converted it into an emblematic crown of glory.