Sweet slumber and pleasant dreams has Halbert Melville this night. He lies in that fair chamber, whose windows open to the rising sun, where rested after his great fight of afflictions that happy dreamer of old, where peace is, and no visions of terror can enter, and Halbert Melville, whatever his future fate may be, whether calm or tempest, fair or foul weather, has like the pilgrim found rest.
CHAPTER II.
Maiden! with the meek brown eyes,
In whose orb a shadow lies,
Like the dusk in evening skies!
* * * * *
O, thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands—Life hath snares!
Care and age comes unawares!—Longfellow.
T is well that there are swifter ways of mental travel, than even the very quickest means of transit for the heavier material part, or we should be too late, even though we crossed the Atlantic in the speediest steamer of these modern days, and with the fairest winds and weather, for Mrs. James Melville’s new year’s party. Mrs. James looks none the worse for these two years that have glided away since we saw her last; she is dressed in all her holiday smiles to-night, though, as you pass up the lighted staircase to her drawing-room, you can hear a shrill tone of complaint coming from some far-off nursery, which shows that James’s pretty house has got another tenant; and, truly, his paternal honours sit well on our old friend. The street without is illuminated by the lights which gleam through the bright windows, and are alive with the mirth and music that is going on within. There is a large company assembled; and, amid the crowded faces, all so individual and dissimilar, beaming on each other, here is one we should know—pale, subdued, and holy, like the Mary of some old master. It seems out of place, that grave, sweet countenance in this full room, and among this gay youthful company. It is our old friend Christian, hardly, if at all, changed since last we saw her, save for her deepened, yet still not melancholy sadness; it is said that her smiles, since that terrible time of Halbert’s disappearance, have been more sad than other people’s tears, but she does smile sweetly and cheerfully still; there is too little of the gall of humanity about her, too little selfishness in her gentle spirit to permit the cloud, which hovers over her own mind, to darken with its spectre presence the enjoyment of others. Christian likes—as may be well believed—the quietness of her own fireside better than any other place; but James would have been grieved had she stayed away, and therefore is she here amid this crowd to-night. But there is a graceful figure near her that we shall not recognise so easily, though coming from a contemplation of that thin, worn face, inspired as we saw it last in yonder American city, and looking as we do on Christian there before us, we see that the features of her brilliant countenance are as like as brothers and sisters may be—like, and yet unlike, for the pressure of that great sorrow has fallen lightly on little Mary’s buoyant spirit. She is still “little Mary,” though her head is higher now than Christian’s, who calls her so. Those two years have added no less to her inner growth than to her stature, and Mary Melville, with all the mirth and joyousness of her earlier girlhood, has the cultivated mind of a woman now. There are many bright young faces shining in this gay room, but there is not one like little Mary’s; not one eye in this assembly can boast such a sunny glance as hers, graver than her peers when it is called to look on serious things, and beaming then with a youthful wisdom, which tells of holy thoughts and pure intents within, and anon illumined with such a flash of genuine mirthfulness and innocent gaiety, so fresh and unconscious in its happy light, as would startle the sternest countenance into an answering smile. She is much loved, our sprightly Mary, and is the very sun and light of the circle she moves in; and friends who have known her from her childhood, tell one another how like she is to Halbert, and shake their heads, and are thankful that she can never be exposed to similar temptations. Do they think that Mary, like her brother, would have fallen, that she must succumb too, before the adversary’s power, if tried as hardly? Ah, it is not well that the innocent lamb, so tender, so guileless and gentle, should be exposed to the power of the wolf, and who can tell but that there may be deadly danger lurking about her even now.
Christian’s smile grows brighter as it falls on Mary, “little Mary’s” sparkling face, and her voice is happier and more musical in its modulation as she answers her affectionate inquiries. They speak truly who say that Christian has no thought of herself: at this hour Christian would fain be on her knees in her solitary room, pleading for her lost brother; not lost, deaf Christian, say not lost—is there not a lingering tone of sweet assurance in thy mournful heart, which, if thou would’st but hear it, speaks to thee out of the unknown secret stillness and says, Not lost, not lost, dear Christian, though thou yet knowest not how the faithful One has answered thy weeping prayers.