CHAPTER I.
Oh do not look so bright and blest,
For still there comes a fear,
When hours like thine look happiest,
That grief is then most near.
There lurks a dread in all delight,
A shadow near each ray,
That warns us thus to fear their flight,
When most we wish their stay. Moore.
Far down upon the Long Island shore, where the ocean heaves in wave after wave from the "outer deep," forming coves of inimitable beauty, promontories wooded to the brink, and broken precipices against which the surf lashes continually, there stood, some thirty years ago, an old mansion-house, with irregular and pointed roofs, low stoops, gable-windows, in short, exhibiting all those architectural eccentricities which our modern artists strive for so earnestly in their studies of the picturesque. The dwelling stood upon the bend of a cove; a forest of oaks spread away some distance behind the dwelling, and feathered a point of land that formed the eastern circle down to the water's edge.
In an opposite direction, and curving in a green sweep with the shore, was a fine apple-orchard, and that end of the old house was completely embowered by plum, pear and peach trees, that sheltered minor thickets of lilac, cerenga, snow-ball and other blossoming shrubs. In their season, the ground under this double screen of foliage was crimson with patches of the dwarf rose, and the old-fashioned windows were half covered with the tall graceful trees of that snow-white species of the same queenly flower, which is only to be found in very ancient gardens, and seldom even there at the present time. In front of the old house was a flower-garden of considerable extent, lifted terrace after terrace from the water, which it circled like a crescent. The profusion of blossoms and verdure flung a sort of spring-like glory around the old building until the autumn storms came up from the ocean and swept the rich vesture from the trees, leaving the mansion-house bold, unsheltered and desolate-looking enough.
The cove upon which this old house stood looked far out upon the ocean; no other house was in sight, and it was completely sheltered not only by a forest of trees but by the banks that, high and broken, curved in at the mouth of the cove, narrowing the inlet, and forming altogether a sea and land view scarcely to be surpassed.
The mansion-house was an irregular and ancient affair enough, everyway unlike the half Grecian, half Gothic, or wholly Swiss specimens of architecture with which Long Island is now scattered. Still, there was a substantial appearance of comfort and wealth about it. Though wild and of ancient growth all its trees were in good order, and judiciously planted; well kept outhouses were sheltered by their luxurious foliage, and to these were joined all those appliances to a rich man's dwelling necessary to distinguish the old mansion as the country residence of some wealthy merchant, who could afford to inhabit it only in the pleasantest portion of the year.
It was the pleasantest portion of the year—May, bright, beautiful May, with her world of blossoms and her dew-showers in the night. The apple-orchard, the tall old pear-trees and the plum thickets were one sheet of rosy or snow-white blossoms. The old oaks rose against the sky, piled upon each other branch over branch, their rich foliage yet blushing with a dusky red as it unfolded leaf by leaf to the air. The flower-garden was azure and golden with violets, tulips, crocuses and amaranths. In short, the old building, moss-covered though its roof had become, and old-fashioned as it certainly was in all its angles, might have been mistaken for one of the most lovely nooks in Paradise, and the delusion never regretted.
I have said that it was spring-time—the air fragrance itself—the birds brimful of music, soft and sweet as if they had fed only upon the apple-blossoms that hung over them for months. Yet there was no indication that the old house was inhabited. The windows were all closed, the doors locked, and the greensward with the high box borders, covered with a shower of snowy leaves that had been shaken from the fruit-trees. Still, upon a strip of earth kept moist by the shadows from a gable, was one or two slender footprints slightly impressed, that seemed to have been very recently left. Again they appeared upon a narrow-pointed stoop that ran beneath the windows of a small room in an angle of the building, and from which there was a door slightly ajar, with the same dewy footprint broken on the threshold. Within this room there was a sound as of some one moving softly, yet with impatience, to and fro—once a white hand clasped itself on the door, and a beautiful face, flushed and agitated, glanced through the opening and disappeared. Then followed an interval of silence, save that the birds were making the woods ring with music, and an old honeysuckle that climbed over the stoop shook again with the humming-birds that dashed hither and thither among its crimson bells.
Again the door was pushed open, and now not only the face but the tall and beautifully proportioned figure of a young girl appeared on the threshold. She paused a moment, hesitated, as if afraid to brave the open air, and then stepped out upon the stoop, and bending over the railing looked eagerly toward the grove of oaks, through which a carriage-road wound up to the broad gravel-walk that led from the back of the dwelling.
Nothing met her eye but the soft green of the woods, and after gazing earnestly forth during a minute or two she turned, with an air of disappointment, and slowly passed through the door again.