Oh, beauty, beauty! terrima causa belli, thou dost play the devil with the hearts of men! Who is there who doth not wish to look upon thee, from the saint to the sinner?—None. For thee worlds have been lost; nations swept off the earth; thrones overturned; and cities laid in ashes! Adam, David, Marc Antony, Abelard, and Denis O'Shaughnessy, exhibit histories of thy power never to be forgotten, but the greatest of these is Denis O'Shaughnessy.
Susan was about the middle size; her tresses, like those of the daughters of her country, were a fair brown, and abundant. Her features were not such, we admit, as mark regular and scientific perfection, and perhaps much of their power was owing to their not being altogether symmetrical. Her great charm consisted in a spirit of youthful innocence, so guileless that the very light of purity and truth seemed to break in radiance from her countenance. Her form was round, light, and flexible. When she smiled her face seemed to lose the character of its mortality—so seraphic and full of an indescribable spell were its lineaments; that is, the spell was felt by its thrilling influence upon the beholder, rather than by any extraordinary perception of her external beauty. The general expression of her countenance, however, was that of melancholy. No person could look upon her! white forehead and dark flashing eyes, without perceiving that she was full of tenderness and enthusiasm; but let the light of cheerfulness fall upon her face, and you wished never to see it beam with any other spirit. In her met those extremes of character peculiar to her country. Her laughing lips expanded with the playful delicacy of mirth, or breathed forth, with untaught melody and deep pathos, her national songs of sorrow.
A little before she made her appearance, the moon had risen and softened with her dewy light the calm secluded scene around them. Denis, too, had an opportunity of seeing the lovely girl more distinctly. Her dress was simple but becoming. Her hair, except the side ringlets that fell to heighten the beauty of her neck, was bound up with a comb which Denis himself had presented to her. She wore a white dimity bedgown, that sat close to her well-formed person, descended below her knee, and opened before; the sleeves of it did not reach the elbow, but displayed an arm that could not be surpassed for whiteness and beauty. The bedgown was frilled about the shoulder, which it covered, leaving the neck only, and the upper part of her snowy bosom, visible. A dark ribbon, tied about her waist, threw her figure into exquisite outline, and gave her that simple elegance which at once bespeaks the harmony of due proportion.
On reaching the well she filled her vessel, and placed it on a small mound beside her; then sitting down, she mused for some time, and turning her eyes towards Denis's father's sighed deeply.
“It's the least,” said the humble girl, “that I may look towards the house that the only one I ever loved, or ever will love, lives in. Little I thought when I loved him that I was standin' between him an' God. Loved him! I wish I could say it was past. I wish I could: for I am afeared that till my weak heart breaks it will love him still. God pity me! It would be well for me I had never seen him! But why he should go to Maynooth without givin' me back my promise I cannot tell.”
Denis rose and approached her. Susan, on seeing him, started, and her lover could perceive that she hastily wiped the tears from her eyes. A single glance, however, convinced her that it was he; and such was the guileless simplicity of her heart, joined to the force of habit, that her face beamed with one of her wonted smiles at his appearance. This soon passed away, and her features again resumed an expression of deep melancholy. Our hero now forgot his learning; his polysyllables were laid aside, and his pedantry utterly abandoned. His pride, too, was gone, and the petty pomp of artificial character thing aside like an unnecessary garment which only oppresses the wearer.
“Susan,” said he, “I am sorry to see you look so pale and unhappy. I deeply regret it; and I could not permit this day to pass, without seeing and speaking to you. If I go to-morrow, Susan, may I now ask in what light will you remember me?”
“I'll remember you without anger, Denis; with sorrow will I remember you, but not, as I said, in anger; though God knows, and you know, the only token you lave me to remember you by is a broken heart.”
“Susan,” said Denis, “it was an unhappy attachment, as circumstances have turned out; and I wish for both our sakes we had never loved one another. For some time past my heart has been torn different ways, and, to tell you the truth, I acknowledge that within the last three or four months I have been little less than a villain to you.”
“You speak harshly of yourself, Denis; I hope, more so than you deserve.”