How beautiful was Carolyn Clifton! So fair, so purely, so divinely fair, so radiant, so refined, so stately! How fit a consort for the proud Archer Clifton! How his heart swelled with admiration and pride as he gazed upon her queenly form—and how it glowed to think that in a very few days that fair and stately lady, who never deigned to own a passion, whose love he only guessed by her proud exaction of exclusive service, who scarcely condescended to extend her snowy hand to his salute—would be his own, his own, his wife, his property, his other self—whose form he might press to his bosom in the fullest freedom of possession! And as he sat by her side and held her hand, and gazed upon her inaccessible, delightful beauty; oh! how slowly, slowly, to his impatient, burning, throbbing heart—how slowly, dragged the days and hours.
Well—oh very well would it have been for Archer Clifton, could he have rent his gaze from his magnetic idol a moment, and caught a certain pair of evil eyes upon him. Their baleful glare might have shed upon his path some light to the pitfalls in his way.
CHAPTER V.
The Old Man and His Bride.
There is a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them as we will.—Shakspeare.
Carl Kavanagh and his sister were settled in the log cabin on the farm of Hardbargain. Carl, as an old acquaintance of the mistress, and a late laborer on the plantation, fell readily into his new business of overseeing it. Catherine began to busy herself in the management of her new and very comfortable home. Their cabin contained a sitting-room, kitchen, and two chambers. Mrs. Clifton had gratified her own kindly and benevolent disposition by adding several plain articles of furniture to the small stock possessed by the poor family. She had, besides, given Catherine a set of half-worn, white dimity curtains, and a pair of coarse, home-made, white counterpanes. These gave an air of neatness, approaching—I had almost said refinement to the sitting-room, and two little bed-rooms. Mrs. Clifton, of Hardbargain, was not addicted to taking sudden likings—indeed, though a lady of perfect frankness, benevolence and liberality of judgment, she was cool and prudent—yet, notwithstanding this her kindest affections were at once attracted towards Kate. It is true she had been prepared to think well of the child from an intimate knowledge of her brother Carl’s honesty and intelligence, but at the first sight of Catherine, the noble countenance of the mountain-girl riveted her esteem. There are some faces which we know at a glance cannot belong to other than a fine, high-toned character. And such a countenance was that of Catherine. And it won upon the lady every day, as no merely beautiful face could ever have done. For hers was a brow—
“Where every god did seem to set his seal to give the world assurance of—”
a peerless woman. Often Mrs. Clifton invited Catherine to bring her work and sit with her through the afternoon, and seldom did she let the girl return without placing in her hand some book just suitable to her very age, and the stage of progress of her mind. And oh! did not the heart of the maiden kindle and glow with love and admiration for the noble lady, who, without one particle of pride, or the least pretension to condescension—condescended so much. And so Catherine grew to understand and appreciate Mrs. Clifton, and to look upon her with a feeling amounting almost to worship. How happy were those afternoons spent with her in the cool and breezy parlor. How deeply grateful was Kate for all her benefits—how anxious to prove her gratitude—to do something for her benefactress. But Kate was very shy, and her love only spoke in the stealthy look of affection fixed upon the lady, and withdrawn with a deeply blushing cheek if discovered. But by these tokens sure did Mrs. Clifton know the sweetness and the tenderness, the modesty and the sincerity of the maiden’s hidden heart. And all this time was Catherine wishing for the ability to tell her friend how much she thanked and loved her. One afternoon she mustered up the courage to tell the lady that she should like to read to her any time that it would be agreeable; also, that she had some skill in doing up laces and such things and that she should be happy if she could assist Mrs. Clifton in such matters. Mrs. Clifton placed her hand affectionately on Catherine’s head, and declined all her offers of service except that which related to the reading—which she accepted—hoping thereby to improve her protégé in many ways—to direct her choice of books, to correct her elocution, and to awaken her understanding of what she read by questions and comments. So they began a course of historical reading with Rollin’s Ancient History. And that which this excellent lady commenced as a duty of kindness soon became a matter of daily recreation. It was indeed a rare intellectual pleasure to arouse, cultivate and hold communion with a fresh, vigorous, original enthusiastic mind like that of Catherine. And those afternoons were almost as happy for the lady as for her protégé—happier for Catherine they could not have been. Once, the shy girl was entirely carried out of herself and her reverie by the following circumstance: The lady had inadvertently let fall that she was a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, when Kate, hurried beyond her consciousness, clasped her hand and gazed fervently up in her face, exclaiming—
“Descended from Oliver Cromwell! Descended from Oliver Cromwell, that friend of man? that friend of freedom? Oh! it is no wonder, lady, that you are so noble, so superior to all the world!”
“My Catherine,” said the lady, calmly withdrawing her hand “You know too little—far too little of the world, to judge how I stand in comparison to others. And what know you of Oliver Cromwell? Our reading has scarcely reached the invasion of Britain by the Romans.”