The morning at length dawned. It was a bright sunny day in early winter, and never shall I forget the cheery sound of the village bells ringing to announce my approaching nuptials. The air was keen and frosty; not a cloud was in the sky; the brown woods fairly glowed in the sunlight; and, in a word, had I chosen the day a more fitting one could not have been selected. My lady readers may expect a description of the dress of the bride, the carriage, the feast, and a thousand other things, but as I am no Sir Charles Grandison, I shall pass them over without comment. I will only say that Beatrice—my own Beatrice at last—never looked lovelier than when she descended to the room, where we were all awaiting her, on that marriage morn. The smile, the blush, the look of unreserved affection as her eye was raised timidly to my face and then dropped, I shall never forget. The Baron gave her away, the nuptial vow was said, and with a tumult of feelings I cannot describe, I pressed her to my bosom, a wife. A tear was on her cheek, but I kissed it holily away.
We remained in France for nearly a year after our union, and even after that prolonged stay, could hardly tear ourselves from the Baron and his lady. But the prospect of peace daily growing stronger we availed ourselves of the kind offer of the French monarch, and sailed for America in one of our allies’ frigates. I never, however, served again, for the war was in fact terminated, but thereafter I spent my life in the bosom of my family.
As the magician after having summoned up and marshalled before him a phantasmagoria of shadowy figures, at length perceives them fading from his sight, and, conscious that the spell is fast departing, lays down his rod, so we, approaching to the end of our task, find that the charm is beginning to lose its power, and that the beings we have conjured up are melting rapidly from our vision. Even now they seem to us only as a dream. Yet there is one glimpse more afforded to us before the magic curtain falls on them forever. It is that of a happy fireside and a smiling circle around it. Nor are the principals in that domestic scene wholly unfamiliar to us, for in the mild eyes and Madonna-like countenance of the one, and in the well-known face and embrowned features of the other, we recognize two of those who have figured as the chief personages in our story. Years have not impaired the beauty of Beatrice, for they have fallen as light on her as blossoms. But she is not now alone in her loveliness, for at her knee is one, like and yet unlike her, younger but not more beautiful, gayer but with scarcely less sweetness. Need we say of whom the group is composed?
And now, reader, let me drop my disguise and come before you in my own character as
Harry Danforth.
HE WOO’D ME AT THE FOUNTAIN.
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BY A. M’MAKIN.
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