CHAPTER I.
In one of those stately old gardens which were attached to every lordly mansion of the reign of Charles the First, sat a cavalier and lady. The seat they occupied was a rude garden sofa, overshadowed by trees, and in close proximity to a colossal urn on which was represented in bold relief, according to the classic predilection of the age, Diana and her nymphs engaged in the chase. The lady was one of rare beauty. Indeed few creatures more lovely than Isabel Mordaunt ever graced a festive hall, or brushed the dew from the morning grass. She was gay, witty, eighteen, and an heiress. Her mother died when Isabel was an infant, and thus left chiefly to her own control she had grown up as wilful as a mountain chamois. Exulting in the consciousness of talent, there were few who had not experienced her wit. Yet she had a kind heart, and, if she was at times too apt to give offence, no one was more ready to atone for a fault. Her beauty and expectations had already drawn around her crowds of suitors; but though she laughed and chatted with all, she suffered none to aspire to an interest in her heart. Indeed she professed to be a skeptic to the reality of love. But, as is ever the case, her gay raillery and careless indifference seemed only to increase the number of her suitors.
The cavalier by her side was in the first flush of manhood, and one whose personal appearance rendered him a prize which any fair girl might be proud to win. Grahame Vaux had been the ward of Isabel’s father, and was but four years her senior. In childhood they had played together, and though subsequently separated by the departure of Vaux to the university, they had been again thrown into each other’s society at that critical period of life when the heart is most keenly alive to the influences of love. To Grahame this daily companionship was peculiarly dangerous. Isabel was just the being to dazzle a romantic character like his; for he regarded the sex with all the high, chivalrous feelings which actuated the Paladins of old, whom indeed he resembled in other respects. A second Sir Philip Sidney, he excelled in every graceful accomplishment. At Oxford he had won the first prize. In every manly sport he was pre-eminent. We will not trace the progress of his passion—how it sprung from a single word, fed on smiles, and finally devoured, as it were, his very being. Suffice it to say, he soon came to love Isabel with all the ardor of a first affection, worshiping her as an idolator adores his divinity, and evincing his passion in every look, word and gesture.
Perhaps this was not the surest road to the affections of a wilful creature like Isabel—perhaps the alternation of doubt and fear, of admiration and indifference, would more effectually have enlisted her feelings; but be this as it may, her new lover met at her hands the same capricious treatment which her other suitors received. In Grahame’s case this wilfulness was more than usually apparent, though there were not wanting those who said that this demeanor was only a veil worn to hide a growing preference for her noble-hearted lover. At any rate her conduct toward him was caprice itself. Now she would smile on him so sweetly that he could not help but hope, and now a word or gesture would plunge him into the deepest despair.
“I can endure it no longer,” at length he said, “I love Isabel!—Oh! how deeply and fervently God only knows. I will terminate my suspense. I will learn my fate. Better know the worst than live on in this agony.”
He rose and sought out the lady. She was at her favorite seat in the garden; and as she perceived him approaching, her color deepened, as if she divined, in Grahame’s excited air, the purpose of his visit. With that instinctive desire, so natural to the sex, to avoid the subject, she herself opened the conversation in a gay and trifling tone. Grahame, who could have stood the shock of battle undaunted, felt his heart fail him when he saw her sportive mood, but, firm in his resolve, he said, at length, at a suitable pause,
“Do you believe in love, Isabel?”
“Love! I believe in love!” laughingly replied the capricious girl. “What! give up my maiden liberty for a pretty gallant,—oh! no, Sir Romance, madcap as I am, it has not come to that. Believe in love, forsooth! why I should sooner believe that men were wise or women fickle. Love may sound very well in a play, but I’ll have none of it. Pale cheeks, sighs, and the gilded fetters of a wife are not for a free maiden who, like the untamed hawk, would soar whither she lists. Love, indeed!” and she laughed merrily.
Poor Grahame! how his sensitive heart throbbed at these words. He would have given worlds to be miles away. But the light, half-mocking laugh, all silvery though it was, with which she concluded, wrung even from him a reproach.
“Oh! Isabel,” he said, and his low voice trembled with emotion, “can you believe all this? Ah! little indeed then do you know of love.”