"'William told me so himself. I told him I could not, would not marry Mr. Gardner—and he would not believe me—called me a foolish, nonsensical child, who didn't know my own mind—and at last, when nothing else would have any effect on his mind, I said—I said—ah! Susan, how hard it was and is to say it! I loved another!'
"'And how then, my poor child?'
"'Then—he just in his quiet, calm way, that kills one, you know—for it seems the death-blow to all sentiment—he said, 'Mary, if you mean young Randolph, whom I have sometimes met here, playing the lover, all I can say is, he is too discreet to contest the field, witness this note of farewell which was sent to my office this afternoon. He desires his very respectful compliments to you, Mary.' Would you believe it, Susan? I took that note—and read every word of it; yes, and I smiled, too, as I gave it back to him, as if it were the most indifferent thing in the world—though I felt then, as I do now, every line of it chilling my heart like ice.'
"'Dear Mary,' I said, still very quietly, for she grew almost wild with excitement, 'how is this? Why has Randolph gone? have you had any quarrel?'
"'Quarrel! God help you—no!—how should that be? don't I love the very dust he treads on!' she screamed out violently at last, and went into a hysteric fit. The sound of her maniacal voice brought her brother to the door with anxious inquiry, but as I told him Mary was a little over excited, and quiet would soon restore her, at my earnest request he retired. In a short time I was able, with bathing her head in cold water, and constantly soothing her with low murmuring tones of endearment, to see her sobbing herself into a troubled sleep, and as I looked on her beautiful face, pale as marble, and the black hair wetted and matted back from her fine brow, I felt that I saw a double victim to the cruel indifference of others, and the violent emotions of her own untutored nature."
Alice and Louisa Stanwood had gazed steadily into the face of their grandmother, while in the relation of this true story, it lighted up with remembered emotion.
"Poor, poor girl!" said they; "but where, then, was Mr. Gardener all this while? Surely he must have relented."
"Truth compels me to say, my romantic girls, that this quiet-loving lover, to all human appearance, was not in the least disturbed. Indeed, as I listened to the painful breathings of Mary, every now and then catching, as if for life, at a breath, and then hushed into all but dead silence, I was distinctly aware of certain audible demonstrations of profound composure on the part of Mr. Gardner. In sooth, he was not a lover for a romance writer at all; but such as he was—and you must remember our agreement was that I should only relate facts, not account for them—such as he was, he rose with the lark and took his usual walk, to promote his appetite and prolong his life.
"When he returned, as Mary was too unwell to go down stairs, I descended to the breakfast-room where I found Mr. Dunbar uneasily walking the room.
"'How is Mary?' said he, the moment he saw me? 'No better? Tell her to be comforted—be quiet. God forbid I should do any thing to make her unhappy. I will speak to Mr. Gardner about the matter myself, and tell him it can't be.'