Oft in life's stillest shade reclining,
In desolation, unrepining,
Without a hope on earth to find,
A mirror in an answering mind.
Meek souls there are who little dream,
Their daily task an Angel's theme;
Or that the rod they take so calm,
Shall prove in Heaven a martyr's palm.
Christian Year.
The night was piercingly cold.
Mabel sat down upon her travelling trunk, which had preceded her to her room, and which, carelessly, had been left corded. There was no bell by which she could summon assistance, and therefore, with trembling fingers, she undid the tightly-knotted cord, and with some difficulty, for the box was heavy, she managed to open it; but, having done so, it seemed as if she almost forgot the purpose for which she wished it—for clasping her hands together she wept long and convulsively. How many bitter thoughts crowded upon her in that hour of weakness. Her mind seemed to lose all its strength, as she hurried from the past to the future. Where was the elastic promise of bold reliance on that future, made by her mother's side? Where was that mother? Sleeping in the cold grave, and as Mabel wept on, there might have come the thought that in that grave there was peace and refuge, though the night winds even now howled above it. How had she flattered herself that she had gained the control of her own fervent imagination, and yet how it trembled at the thought of the morrow.
Hargrave, her infidel lover, so warmly loved and yet so steadily rejected, how should she meet him on that morrow—did he still love her, and if so, would he press his suit, and force her to fly from temptation, or would he prove the truth of his threat, that with him there was no medium between truthful love and contemptuous forgetfulness. If so, how could she bear it, how would they meet day after day, keeping up the formal semblance of politeness, and if it were true, that he was making his suit to Caroline, how could she find strength for the daily trials which would necessarily be hers.
The quick, fiery blood of jealousy kindled in her cheek, as this last thought arose, and she mechanically raised her hand and loosened the twisted tresses of her hair, as if her heated brain needed relief.
If there be, as some affirm, a good and evil angel to guard our way, and track our steps through life, it was the evil angel that had power then.
She felt it—she rose, and almost instantly sunk upon her knees. Her clasped hands were now raised above her head—now clasped convulsively over her face—as hour followed hour through that dark and cheerless night, till her head gradually sank upon the bed by which she kneeled, and she remained for a long time in perfect stillness. Her long, disordered hair hiding every feature from sight.
The Abbey clock announced the approach of the chill winter morning, before Mabel again raised her head, but then her countenance was firm, and there was a soft radiance about her eyes that told that those dark and weary hours had not been spent in vain.