As Shakspeare observes, "every one can master a grief but he that has it;" and among the many well-meaning but commonplace acquaintances who came to gossip over the sorrows of Marion, and to ascertain exactly how much Sir Arthur had left, there was not one to whom she could unveil her feelings. Each of her well-intentioned visitors said a few words in praise of Sir Arthur, enough to convince Marion that no one but herself could appreciate the hundredth part of his inestimable worth—a sentence or two then followed of pious reflection, obviously spoken with restraint, and picked up by rote from some volume of religious meditations, and the whole was generally concluded in a masterly manner, by repeating a few texts of Scripture, strung together from a concordance.
There is a solemn dignity in real grief, beside which all commonplace or trifling consolations fall powerless and cold; but strangers in return for their contributions of sympathy and comfort, evidently expected from Marion an ostentatious display of affection, and were often not a little disappointed, at the pale, still, concentrated calmness of the lonely girl, who, subdued beneath the weight of her recent sorrow, received visitors only when she felt able to do so with composure, speaking to them with gentle, melancholy kindness, and evidently endeavoring to derive all the comfort she could from their society; yet often in the solitude which followed, did she feel inclined to agree with an author, who remarks, that "la pitie n'est pas le plus due a celui qui pleure dans la solitude."
Marion seemed to live in a dream, yet she gazed on the daylight and the people moving about on their errands of pleasure or business, till she felt that the whole was a sad reality. The common, every day routine of life seemed strange and unnatural, amidst the agony of her first sorrow, when the tomb had so recently closed over her earliest friend. She felt as if nature herself should have suspended her ordinary course, and as if the melancholy awe so impressed upon her own heart should extend to everything animate or inanimate around—as if the very sun itself should scarcely rise and shine as heretofore; and nothing appeared to Marion so strange, as that sameness visible in the outward world, contrasted with the mighty revolution in all her own inward feelings. Marion tried to take a lesson in cheerful resignation, from thinking sometimes of the many created by the same Almighty Father, and yet suffering far more than she had ever done; and her eye fell one day on a blind beggar, seated near her window, shivering with cold, emaciated with hunger, solitary and deserted, shut out from the light of day, friendless, homeless, and desolate, with none to sympathize in his sorrows, or to cheer him by their affection. "Yet," thought Marion, "that miserable being finds an object to live for, and would not perhaps willingly die! God gives something to all his creatures; and who makes me to differ from the most wretched. But bodily wants are not the real sorrows of life! O no! The mind, when relieved from such abject cares, has more leisure to grieve over withered hopes and blighted affections; yet all trials, if rightly received, are but blessings in disguise. It is well if, by tasting such sorrows as mine—and they are many—I am taught to avoid the far greater and more permanent evils of futurity. In this world, we are suspended over the abyss of eternity, by a thread which grows more feeble every hour; and all events should be welcome which are ordained by infinite wisdom, to prepare me for that hour when my place on earth shall be vacant, and my place in eternity—in a ceaseless eternity, shall be filled."
Time has wings, even when they move most heavily, and as day after day passed slowly onwards, Marion felt more and more astonished to hear nothing of Agnes, who had written but once, a very few days after her departure from home, in gay and almost triumphant spirits, boasting of the excessive attention she met with from all the party, of the splendor in which they travelled, of the admiration she had herself excited, and of several magnificent presents she had received from Lord Doncaster. In a postscript to this letter, she expressed a careless, patronizing hope, that poor, dear Sir Arthur was now convalescent; and as for anything but a recovery, she seemed no more to doubt it than if death had been altogether abolished. To Marion's surprise, when looking at the signature of Agnes, a broad line had been drawn through the name of Dunbar, and the whole was surrounded by a fantastic wreath of flourishes, exactly imitating the very peculiar way in which Lord Doncaster was accustomed usually to encircle his own autograph; and much she marvelled what this uncommon device was intended to indicate, though she secretly dreaded to hear the interpretation of it, which her fears had at first suggested.
As the mind and heart become more matured in this world, they too often become, from sad experience, more apprehensive of evil, and more suspicious of earthly friendships; but it was otherwise with Marion in respect to Richard Granville; though a dark curtain had fallen suddenly between them, all intercourse was most unaccountably suspended, and the very thought of his attachment, once a pleasure without alloy, was now accompanied by a heavy, leaden depression and anxiety. She told herself a thousand times over that all would hereafter be explained, and yet her heart seemed turning to stone, while day after day dawned and closed without a line to give her comfort or to reassure her heart.
In this state of wearing suspense a visiting card was brought to Marion one morning of Captain De Crespigny's, accompanied by a letter which he had brought from Sir Patrick, strongly urging on her, in almost arbitrary terms, his earnest desire that she should reconsider her decision against her friend, and no longer wasting her affections on a penniless curate, who had proved himself undeserving of her,—bestow them where they would be so much better appreciated, and where they would exalt her to so distinguished a situation. Marion was astonished to think how Sir Patrick could know that she had any cause of dissatisfaction against Mr. Granville, whom she had never even named of late; but resolute if possible to avoid meeting Captain De Crespigny, she was denied again and again when he called, though to her surprise he persevered in almost daily inquiring for her, and numbered his visiting cards conspicuously on the corner till they amounted at last to more than a dozen.
Marion was sitting alone one evening, beside her solitary hearth, and to a spectator she would have seemed of more than earthly beauty, though the cold tear stood unheeded on her cheek, while her memory had become haunted by the ghost of departed happiness. She thought of her deceased uncle in his silent grave, yet it seemed as if still she could trace his step and hear his voice by her side. All was still as death, her soul seemed wandering in a mysterious existence, amidst the solitary and deserted world, and hope itself grew dim within her breast. The flood-gates of memory were now unclosed, pouring into her heart and spirit a ceaseless stream of old recollections, old scenes, and recent sorrows; while the bright mirror of joy which had once shone in radiant splendor before her eyes seemed now broken to shivers. No one seemed destined hereafter to know the deep mine of thoughts and affections which lay unspoken in her breast. She felt as if the summer might shine in its brightness, the spring might be gay with the blossoms of hope, but that her spring and summer would return in this world no more, yet she believed and knew that it was better to witness the death of every dear affection, and the burial of every promising expectation, if, when thus blighted and withered upon earth, they became rooted and strengthened for eternity.
"What empty shadows glimmer nigh!
They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love!
Oh! die to thought, to mem'ry die,