“My name is Margaret, sir; did you wish to see sister Edith?”
He answered in the affirmative, and as he took his seat while the sylph-like figure of the beautiful girl disappeared, he could not help glancing at the mirror, where a moment’s reflection soon convinced him that the years which had so changed him could scarcely have left Edith untouched. The thought that Margaret whom he had left almost an infant should have thus expanded into the lovely image of her sister, prepared him in some measure for other changes.
Edith had expected his visit with a flutter of spirits most unusual and distressing. She was conscious that he would find her sadly altered in person, and she had been trying to school herself for the interview, which she well knew must be fraught with pain even if it brought happiness. But when her young sister came to her with a ludicrous account of the strange gentleman’s droll mistake, her prophetic soul, which had acquired the gift of prescience from sorrow, saw but too plainly the cloud upon her future. She descended to the drawing-room with a determination to control her emotions, and, to one so accustomed to self command, the task though difficult was not impossible. The meeting between the long parted lovers was painful and full of constraint. In the emaciated figure, and hollow cheek of her who had long passed the spring of life, Ellis saw little to awaken the associations of early affection, for the being who now appeared before him scarcely retained a trace of her former self. Time, and care, and the wearing anxiety of hope deferred had blighted the beauty which under happier circumstances might have outlived her youthfulness. Edith was now only a placid pleasant looking woman with that indescribable air of mannerism which always characterises the single lady of a certain age, and as Ellis compared her present appearance with that of her blooming sister, who bore a most singular resemblance to her, he was tempted to feel a secret satisfaction in the belief that her heart was as much changed as her person.
And what felt Edith at this meeting? She had lived on one sweet hope, and had borne absence, and sorrow, and the wasting of weary expectancy with the patience of a loving and trusting heart. It is true that, as years sped on, she lost much of the sanguine temper which once seemed to abbreviate time and diminish space. It is true that as time stole the bloom from her cheek and the brightness from her eye, many a misgiving troubled her gentle bosom, and the shadow of a settled grief seemed gradually extending its gloom over her feelings. But still hope existed,—no longer as the brilliant sunshine of existence,—no longer as the only hope which the future could afford,—but faded and dim—its radiance lost in the mist of years, yet still retaining a spark of its early warmth. She had many doubts and fears but she still had pleasant fancies of the future, which, cherished in her secret heart, were the only fountains of delight in the dreary desert of her wasted feelings. But now all was at an end. They had met, not as strangers, but, far worse, as estranged friends. The dream of her life was rudely broken—the veil was lifted from her eyes,—the illusion which had given all she knew of happiness, was destroyed forever. In the words of him who has sounded every string of love’s sweet lyre, she might have exclaimed in the bitterness of her heart:—
“Had we but known, since first we met,
Some few short hours of bliss,
We might in numbering them, forget
The deep deep pain of this;
But no! our hope was born in fears
And nursed ’mid vain regrets!