From Chambers' Papers for the People.
THE LOST LETTER.
I.
One night, between twenty and thirty years ago, a party were assembled in the drawing-rooms of a house situated in one of the most spacious squares of the great metropolis. The brightly lighted lamps lent an additional lustre to yet brighter eyes, and the sprightly tones of various instruments accompanied the graceful evolutions of the dancers, as they threaded the mazes of the country-dance, cotillon, or quadrille; for waltz, polka, and schottish, were then unknown in our ball-rooms. Here and there sat a couple in a quiet corner, evidently enjoying the pleasures of a flirtation, while one pair, more romantic or more serious than the others, had strayed out upon the balcony, to indulge more unrestrainedly in the conversation, which, to judge by their low and earnest tones, and abstracted air, seemed deeply interesting to both.
It was now long past the hour 'of night's black arch, the keystone,' and the early dawn of a midsummer morning was already bestowing its first calm sweet smile on the smoke-begrimed streets and world-worn thoroughfares of mighty London, as well as on the dewy hay-fields, shady lanes, green hedgerows, and quiet country homes of rural England. The morning star, large, mild, and lustrous, was declining in the clear sky; and on the left of the lovely planet lay a soft purple cloud, tinged on the edge with the lucid amber of the dawning day. A light breeze just stirred the leaves of the trees in the square garden, and fanned the warm cheeks of the two spectators, as, suddenly silent, they stood feasting their eyes and hearts on the surpassingly beautiful scene before them, and marvelling at the remarkable purity of the atmosphere, which, in the foggy metropolis of Britain, seemed almost to realize the Venetian transparency of the pictures of Canaletti. Perhaps it may be as well to take advantage of the pause to describe the two lovers, for that they were lovers you have of course already guessed.
A handsomer pair, I am sure, you would never wish to see! The well-knit, well-proportioned figure of the gentleman bespoke at once activity and ease, while the spirited, intelligent expression of his countenance—dark-complexioned as that of an Andalusian—would have given interest to far plainer features. The glance of his dark eye, as it rested fondly on his fair companion, or was turned abroad on the world, told alternately of a loving heart and a proud spirit. Philip Hayforth was one who would have scorned to commit an ignoble action, or to stain his soul with the shadow of a falsehood for all the treasures and the blessings the earth has to bestow; but he was quick to resent an injury, and slow to forget it, and not for all the world would he have been the first to sue for a reconciliation. Like many other proud people, however, he was open-hearted and generous, and ready to forgive when forgiveness was asked; the reason of which might be, that a petition for pardon is, to the spirit of a proud man, a sort of homage far more gratifying than the most skilful flattery, since it establishes at once his own superiority. But to his Emily, Philip was all consideration and tenderness, and she, poor girl, with the simple faith of youth and love, believed him to be perfection, and admired even his pride. A very lovely girl was Emily Sherwood—gifted with a beauty of a rare and intellectual cast. As she now stood leaning on the arm of her companion, her tall yet pliant and graceful figure enveloped in the airy drapery of her white dress, with her eyes turned in mute admiration towards the dawning day, it would have required but a slight stretch of the imagination to have beheld in her a priestess of the sun, awaiting in reverent adoration the appearance of her fire-god. Her complexion and features, too, would have helped to strengthen the fantasy, for the one was singularly fair, pale, and transparent, and the other characterized by delicacy, refinement, and a sort of earnest yet still enthusiasm. Her hair, of the softest and palest brown, was arranged in simple yet massive plaits around her finely-shaped head, and crowned with a wreath of 'starry jessamine.' From the absence of color, one might have imagined that her beauty would have been cold and statue-like; but you had only to glance at her soft, intellectual mouth, or to look into her large, clear, hazel eyes, which seemed to have borrowed their sweet, thoughtful, chastened radiance from the star whose beams were now fast paling in the brightening sky, to learn that Emily Sherwood could both think and love.
"Dear Philip," she said at last, in that low tone which is the natural expression of all the finer and deeper emotions, "is it not beautiful? I feel at this moment as if I were almost oppressed with happiness—as if this were but an intense dream of love and beauty, that must, as sentimental people say, 'be too bright to last.' I never felt as I do now in all my life before."
"Nor I neither, my Emily, my sweet little poetess; but I suppose it is because we love, for love intensifies all the feelings."
"All the best feelings."
"The whole nature, I think. It is, for instance, more difficult to bear a slight from those we love than from a comparatively indifferent person."