Nothing could have pleased Mary more than this commission, for her affectionate heart was longing to offer its sympathy to her friends. Mrs. Oswald assumed perhaps a little more than her usual stateliness when she heard her announced, but it vanished instantly before Mary's tearful eye, as she kissed the hand that was extended to her. Mrs. Oswald folded her arms around her, and Mary sank sobbing upon the bosom of her whom she had come to console. And Mrs. Oswald was consoled by such true and tender sympathy. It was long before Mary could prevail on herself to disturb the flow of gentler affections by delivering Caroline's note. Mrs. Oswald received it with an almost contemptuous smile, which remained unchanged while she read. It was a labored effort to make her conduct seem a generous determination not to obstruct Philip's course in life, by binding him to a companion so unsuitable to his present prospects as herself. In reply, Mrs. Oswald assured Caroline Danby of her perfect agreement with her in the conviction that she would make a very unsuitable wife for Philip Oswald. "This," she added, "was always my opinion, though I was unwilling to oppose my son's wishes. I thank you for having convinced him I was right in the only point on which we ever differed."
It cannot be supposed that this note was very pleasing to Caroline Danby; but, whatever were her dissatisfaction, she did not complain, and probably soon lost all remembrance of her chagrin in the gayeties which a few men of fortune still remained, amidst the almost universal ruin, to promote and to partake.
In the mean time, Philip Oswald was experiencing that restlessness, that burning desire to free himself from all his present associations, to begin, as it were, a new life, which the first pressure of sorrow so often arouses in the ardent spirit. Had not his will been "bound down by the iron chain of necessity," he would probably have returned to Europe, and wasted his energies amidst aimless wanderings. As it was, he chose among those modes of life demanded by his new circumstances, that which would take him farthest from New-York, and place him in a condition the most foreign to all his past experience, and demanding the most active and most incessant exertion. Out of that which the fire, the failure of Insurance Companies and of private individuals, had left him remained, after the purchase of a liberal annuity for his mother, a few thousands to be devoted either to merchandise, to his support while pursuing the studies necessary for the acquirement of a profession, or to any mode of gaining a living, which he might prefer to these. The very hour which ascertained this fact, saw his resolution taken and his course marked out.
"I must have new scenery for this new act in the drama of my life," he said to his mother. "I must away—away from all the artificialities and trivialities of my present world, to the rich prairies, the wide streams, the boundless expanse of the West. I go to make a new home for you dear mother—you shall be the queen of my kingdom."
This was not the choice that would have pleased an ambitious, or an over-fond mother. The former would have preferred a profession, as conferring higher social distinction; the latter would have shrunk from seeing one nursed in the lap of luxury go forth to encounter the hardships of a pioneer. But Mrs. Oswald possessed an intelligence which recognized in that life of bold adventure, and physical endurance, and persevering labor, that awaited her son in the prosecution of his plans, the best school for the development of that decision and force of character which she had desired as the crowning seal to Philip's intellectual endowments, warm affections, and just principles; and, holding his excellence as the better part of her own happiness, she sanctioned his designs, and did all in her power to promote their execution. He waited, therefore, only to see her leave the house whose rent now exceeded her whole annual income, for pleasant rooms in a boarding-house, agreeably situated, before he set out from New-York.
It is not our intention minutely to trace his course, to describe the "local habitation" which he acquired, or detail the difficulties which arose in his progress, the strength with which he combated, or the means by which he overcame them. For his course, suffice it that it was westward; for his habitation, that it was on the slope of a hill crowned with the gigantic trees of that fertile soil, and beside a lake, "a sheet of silver" well fitted to be—
"A mirror and a bath for beauty's youngest daughters;"
and that the house, which he at length succeeded in raising and furnishing there, united somewhat the refinement of his past life to the simplicity of his present; for his difficulties, we can only say, he met them and conquered them, and gained from each encounter knowledge and power. For two years, letters were the only medium of intercourse between his mother and himself, but those letters were a history—a history not only of his stirring, outer life, but of that inner life which yet more deeply interested her. Feeling proud herself of the daring spirit, the iron will, the ready invention which these letters displayed, yet prouder of the affectionate heart, the true and generous nature, it is not wonderful that Mrs. Oswald should have often read them, or at least parts of them, to her constant friend and very frequent visitor, Mary Grayson. Nor is it more strange that Mary, thus made to recognize in the most interesting man she had yet known, far more lofty claims to her admiration, should have enshrined him in her young and pure imagination as some "bright, particular star."
Two years in the future! How almost interminable seems the prospect to our hopes or our affections!—but let Time turn his perspective glass—let us look at it in the past, and how it shrinks and becomes as a day in the history of our lives! So was it with Philip Oswald's two years of absence, when he found himself, in the earliest dawn of the spring of 1838, once more in New-York. Yet that time had not passed without leaving traces of its passage—traces in the changes affecting those around him—yet deeper traces in himself. He arrived in the afternoon of an earlier day than that on which he had been expected. In the evening Mrs. Oswald persuaded him to assume, for the gratification of her curiosity, the picturesque costume worn by him in his western home. He had just re-entered her room, and she was yet engaged in animated observation of the hunting-shirt, strapped around the waist with a belt of buckskin, the open collar, and loosely knotted cravat, which, as the mother's heart whispered, so well became that tall and manly form, when there was a slight tap at the door, and before she could speak, it opened, and Mary Grayson stood within it. She gazed in silence for a moment on the striking figure before her, and her mind rapidly scanned the changes which time and new modes of life had made in the Philip Oswald of her memory. As she did so, she acknowledged that the embrowned face and hands, the broader and more vigorous proportions, and even the easy freedom of his dress, were more in harmony with the bold and independent aspect which his character had assumed, than the delicacy and elegance by which he had formerly been distinguished. His outer man was now the true index of a noble, free, and energetic spirit—a spirit which, having conquered itself, was victor over all—and as such, it attracted from Mary a deeper and more reverent admiration, than she had felt for him when adorned with all the trappings of wealth and luxurious refinement. The very depth of this sentiment destroyed the ease of her manner towards him, and as Philip Oswald took the hand formerly so freely offered him, and heard from her lips the respectful Mr. Oswald, instead of the frank, sisterly Philip, he said to himself—"She looks down upon the backwoodsman, and would have him know his place." So much for man's boasted penetration!
Notwithstanding the barrier of reserve thus erected between them, Philip Oswald could not but admire the rare loveliness into which Mary Grayson's girlish prettiness had expanded, and again, and yet again, while she was speaking to his mother, and could not therefore perceive him, he turned to gaze on her, fascinated not by the finely turned form or beautiful features, but by the countenance beaming with gentle and refined intelligence. Here was none of the brilliancy which had dazzled his senses in Caroline Danby, but an expression of mind and heart far more captivating to him who had entered into the inner mysteries of life.