“He can leave home, and I cannot.”
“Yes, he has left home,” said the old man, now beginning to be affected. “And where is he?”
“Ah! dear father, should he have joined the cause of the Pretender! Oh! how you would repent of the harsh words you have often spoken to him.”
“Dear Alice, I do repent already. Come and kiss your harsh old father. Look upon the face that you confess to be less pleasing than your looking glass. Ah, Alice, you are a sly girl.”
They at length became impatient, when night came on, and still, James was absent. They had heard the public crier announce that a general illumination of the town was to take place, and Alice thought that her brother might have appeared to assist in the arrangements. And now, when lights, many and brilliant, arose in the opposite windows, and crowds were passing in the streets, she proceeded, with a heavy heart, to give directions to the servants, and then anxiously sat down at the casement of her own apartment, not to view any object—save James. Private disappointments, however small, and in themselves contemptible, are fretted by public rejoicings; and as the bells rung out a merry peal, and music walked the streets, she only felt her loneliness the more. A knocking was heard at the door, and Alice flew down herself, to open it, and admit her brother to a well spiced scolding; if not (she was in doubts) to a more violent demonstration of her feelings.
It was Katharine Norton, who had come to enjoy the company of her friend, as her maiden aunt had been so busy in asking questions at her servants, relative to the Pretender, his dress, and his general appearance, that she had entirely deserted the parlour for the kitchen, and her niece was thus left alone.
They spoke of James, although Katharine occasionally paused, and introduced some other subject, lest he might arrive in the midst of their conversation; and she too well knew, that her mischievous companion would not scruple to inform him of its nature and subject; but he came not.
“Katharine, what can we do to know where he is? He is not well, or it is not well with him. Something must have happened. Katharine, ‘Beware of the Cockade!’ The prophecy now rises to my mind. It must be true. I feel that it is. My brother is ardent, and romantic; and often has he expressed his sympathy with the unfortunate house of Stuart.”
Servants were sent forth to obtain some information concerning James, and the causes of his strange absence. They returned, only to tell their disappointment. No one had a tale—save the old clock, which numbered the minutes and the hours; and although the minutes seemed to move slowly, the rapid flight of the hours was surprizing. The loud shouts of the crowd broke in upon the silence; and the heavy tread of her impatient father, in the adjoining apartment, fell upon the ear of Alice, but mournfully. She led her companion into her brother’s study, and playfully threw his dressing gown over Katharine, that she might behold a diligent student: but as she met her own gaze in a mirror opposite, she knew that she was but counterfeiting mirth and happiness. She placed before her Newton’s Principia, and requested a display of philosophy and learning, to support the great principle therein developed, ‘that every particle of matter is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other particle of matter, with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances.’ “Oh!” she exclaimed, as she seized upon a letter or two, concealed in the pages, in which was the hand-writing and signature of her friend, “so, my brother wishes to transplant beautiful flowers into such barren fields, that when he is puzzled with problems and themes, he may be refreshed with questions, and pretty soft confessions, which he finds no difficulty in understanding? Blush, Katharine, and close the volume.”