Upon what slight chances does our happiness or misery rest. A few days—how simple their signification; and yet from their brief circle how many hours of bitter anguish may take their rise. Little did Lelland or Margaret dream of the untold future, whose all of earthly weal or wo these few days decided.
To know Margaret was to love her—yet she was not strictly beautiful; there may be features more regular, complexions more dazzling, and forms of more perfect symmetry than she possessed. She was one of those whose gentle and winning manners stole into your heart, and then only you saw her loveliness, or acknowledged the light of love and tenderness which beamed from her large, dark hazel eyes. Her beauty was not that which attracts the eye of every careless observer—it was the beauty of the mind and heart.
Richard Lelland was at that time twenty-one, rather above the ordinary height, and of graceful, polished manners, with a frank and open countenance, at once a passport to your favor and respect. His complexion was almost as delicate as a girl’s, a large, full, dark-blue eye, and hair of rich wavy brown.
Business detaining young Lelland in the vicinity of Willow Bank for some weeks longer than he had first anticipated, he took frequent opportunities of improving his acquaintance with Miss Gardner, and the interest she had first awakened in his heart soon ripened into a deep and fervent attachment. But he possessed a firmness and decision of character seldom met with in one so young; and he resolved to bury his love for Margaret in his own breast, until he could produce such testimonials as to family, etc., as should warrant his openly paying her his addresses. He therefore returned to the South leaving his love unspoken; but there is a language more eloquent even than words, and this had already made known to Margaret the sentiments of the young stranger; this, too, had whispered in the lover’s ear, thrilling his soul with ecstasy, that when he should ask the love of the pure and gentle girl, it would be his.
Within the year the lovers were betrothed, with the full sanction of Margaret’s parents, with the proviso that their marriage should not be consummated until Lelland, who had now nothing but his salary to depend upon, should be in a situation better calculated for the maintenance of a family. This was as much his wish as theirs, for he loved Margaret too well to take her from all the comforts and luxuries of the paternal roof, only to offer in exchange the embarrassments and privations attendant upon a narrow and straitened income. For three years, therefore, early and late did he cheerfully give all his energies to his business, and at the end of that time became a partner in the mercantile house in whose employ he had so faithfully exerted himself. There was no longer, as it would seem, any impediment to his union with his adored Margaret. The wedding-day was appointed, and the happy Lelland, with all the rapture of a bridegroom, flew to claim his bride.
Had the hand of misfortune been so long withheld but to crush with one fell blow so much of love and happiness?
The very evening of his arrival at Willow Bank, Mrs. Gardner was seized with a sudden and violent illness, which, alas! baffled all medical skill, and in less than twenty-four hours the beloved and idolized wife and mother was no more. To depict the anguish of the bereaved husband and daughter were a vain attempt. To those in whose dwellings the destroyer has never come, who have never read that fatal sentence, “Thou art mine!” imprinted by his icy fingers on the brow of the loved and cherished, or followed to the dark and silent chambers the lifeless forms of earth’s treasured ones, to them death is, indeed, a fearful thing. To them—yes, to all; and did not our Heavenly Father graciously extend to us the hand of mercy, and bid us, with smiles of ineffable love, turn to him for consolation in this hour of despair, how could we sustain the anguish of separation, as one after another the loved ones go home.
To Margaret the death of her mother at once opened a new path of duty, and however painful the sacrifice to herself, she hesitated not a moment as to the course she should pursue. But when she thought of Lelland—of the anguish her decision would cause him—of the bitter disappointment—of fond hopes all blasted—then, indeed, she faltered, and her heart shrunk from inflicting a blow so terrible. And again as she thought of her unhappy father, her resolution strengthened. Could she leave him; no! better sacrifice love, happiness, and with them perhaps life itself, than forsake him in his desolateness.
Stupefied as it were with amazement and grief, Lelland listened at first in silence to the cruel words of his beloved Margaret—then remonstrated—entreated—all in vain. Reproaches were alike unavailing to alter her decision, until touched at length by her grief, and filled with admiration of her self-sacrificing devotion to her parent, with an almost breaking heart he yielded to her persuasions.
A new character must now be introduced. Henry Wingate was an orphan nephew of Mr. Gardner, and since the death of his parents, which took place when he was quite young, Willow Bank had been his home. As a boy he was artful and selfish, passionate and cruel. As he grew up to manhood he still retained the same foibles, with the double art of veiling them under the most specious and insinuating address. If he loved any one when a child, it was his Cousin Margaret—she only had power to quell his wild storms of passion. With years this love (if it be not profanation to call it so) increased, until it took possession of his whole being—yet, characteristic of himself, it was purely selfish; so that he could make her his, it little mattered to him whether his love was returned.