I construed this remark, though made at the expense of her brother, as a compliment to myself, and soon gained her smiles, by many sarcasms which I levelled at pedants, scholars and students. Without professing flattery, I pleased her by a ready acquiescence of sentiment and opinion; and anticipating her pride of sex and her tenderness of heart, I lauded in the richest language of quotation, woman's love, and woman's constancy. The artlessness of her character, and the simplicity of her nature, could not hide from my vanity the favorable impression I had made on her heart. I looked on my victim with some emotions of pity, and paused for a moment under the goading sting of conscience; yet the fiend-like passion which rioted on my life, told me that the ruin of her peace, and the destruction of her happiness, would be the proudest victory which my hate could achieve.
Leaving her for a few moments, I looked around at the mirthful throng which filled the room, and sauntered to the bar, which was a point where conversation converged its focus. About a table prodigally ornamented with decanters and glasses, were collected numerous groups of young men, who were all talking at the same time on beauty, horseracing, politics and duelling. Here and there a solitary tobacco chewer might be seen, stealing to some fire place or window, and enjoying in mute rapture, the filth, excitement and grossness of his depraved appetite. Two or three youthful legislators from the adjoining counties, were flaunting their maiden honors in the broad light of political vanity—while four elderly gentlemen, in embroidered waistcoats and fair-top boots, were eloquently deprecating the onward march of democracy, which made the legislature a mob of demagogues, and the ball room a collection of fine clothes and vulgarity. This was my uncle's favorite theme, and from the folly of such croaking aristocracy, common sense and not education had delivered me. An aged negro, the "harmonious Phillips" of the country, dressed in the ample costume of the old school, with a powdered head, a large knob of watch seals, and a silver ship in his bosom, controlled with fierce tyranny his partners of the bow, fife and triangle. Bowing almost to the floor, he would ever and anon cry out in a magisterial tone, cross over—forward—turn your partners—done, and catching the inspiration of catgut and rosin, his ivory teeth were displayed like the keys of a piano-forte, while his broad face fairly laughed itself into ecstasy.
At the conclusion of the ball, I became the solitary escort of Miss Pilton. The moon was shining coldly and brightly over the world; and when I was about to leave my fair charge, looking up she exclaimed, "How beautiful!—how melancholy!—it makes me almost a poetess. What a contrast to the busy crowd we have just left; oh! that human life was as cloudless, and human love as pure!"
There was no affectation in this rhapsody—no girlish sentiment in the display; for nature called forth the gushing softness of her heart, and I quickly took advantage of this moment of philosophic romance.—Where is the lover who has not found the moon his silent yet most impassioned advocate, and who, when gazing on its mellow light, has not caught that saddened sympathy which brightens every dark spot in the horizon of the heart.
"Yes," I replied, "it is the same cloud-wrapt sphere which has always looked down on the little drama of human folly, unmoved amid the desolations of death and the fall of empires, forever whispering love, and exalting the best affections of our nature. Marriages must be made in heaven—and this pale messenger, in expanding the heart, almost persuades me that it is commissioned to teach love and awaken affection."
Ere she could reply, I placed a leaf of evergreen in her hand, and uttered enough of love to call a burning blush to her cheek. I lingered for a few moments at the door, and on leaving the scene, I turned around to gaze on the being who was thus insensibly falling into the toils of my duplicity. I saw her place in her bosom the treacherous emblem which I had given her; and as the silvery light of the moon trembled over her marbled brow and placid countenance, I almost believed that its rays had claimed that spot, as the only tranquil home in the wide world on which they might kiss themselves into slumber.
THETA.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.