A Love Story

by William Harvey Christie

When we first introduced him to our reader's notice, we endeavoured to depict him as he then really was,--a man of strong principles, warm heart, and many noble qualities; but one, prone to over-estimate the value of birth and fortune--with a large proportion of pride and reserve--and with ideas greatly tinctured with the absurd fallacies of the mere man of the world.

But there was much in the family events we have described, to shake Delmé's previous convictions, and to induce him to recal many of his former opinions.

He had seen his brother form a connection, which set at naught all those convenances, which he had been accustomed to regard as essential to, and as indeed forming the very ingredient of, domestic happiness.

And yet Sir Henry Delmé could not disguise from himself, that if, in George's short-lived career, there had been much of pain and sorrow, they were chiefly engendered by George's mental struggle, to uphold those very opinions to which he himself was wedded; and that to this alone, might be traced much of the suffering he had undergone. This was it that had so weakened mind and body, as to render change of scene necessary;--this was it that exposed Acmé to the air of the pestiferous marshes, and which left George himself--a broken hearted man--totally incapable of bearing his bereavement.

On the other hand, the sunny happiness his brother had basked in,--and it was very great,--had sprung from the natural out-pourings of an affection, which,--unfettered as it had been by prudential considerations,--had yet the power to make earth a heaven while Acmé shared it with him, and the dark grave an object of bright promise, when hailed as the portal, through which he must pass, ere he gazed once more on the load-star of his hopes.

In the case, too, of Emily and Clarendon, although their union was far more in accordance with his earlier theories, yet he could not but note, how little their happiness seemed to rest on their position in society, and how greatly was it based on their love for each other.

These considerations were strengthened, by a growing feeling of isolation, which the death of George and of Acmé,--the marriage of his sister,--and probably the time of life he had arrived at, were all calculated to awaken.

With the knowledge of his disease, sprung up the hope of an antidote; and it may be, that the little episode of the May Queen in our last chapter, came but as a running comment, to reflections that had long been cherished and indulged.

The thoughts of Sir Henry Delmé anxiously centred in Julia Vernon; and as he recalled her graceful emotion when they last parted, the unfrequent blush,--it might be of shame, it might be of consciousness,--coloured his sun-burnt cheek.

At length,--the guests being dismissed, Delmé was at leisure to renew an acquaintance, which had already proved an eventful one to him. He had heard little of Miss Vernon since his return to England. His sister had thought it better to let matters take their own course; and Julia, who knew that in the eyes of the world, her circumstances were very different to what they had been previous to her uncle's death; had from motives of delicacy, shunned any intercourse that might lead to a renewed intimacy with the family.