188
THE LADY'S WORLD OF FASHION.
scarcely have detected him. I followed him up stairs into his room, and when the door was locked we mutually related our adventures. I spoke of the Lady Clara in enthusiastic terms.
"Can't we bring our farce to a close soon," said Dick, yawning, "for I'm becoming deucedly tired of being cooped up here, like a sheep for the slaughter; or trudging over rocks and through copses, with a sketch book, to keep up my character. The first of September will be here tomorrow, and there is prime shooting on my brother's preserves, but if I loiter here much longer I shall lose much of the sport. The landlady, too, begins to look suspicious, and has once or twice given me a look that said, as plainly as looks could say, that I was too fastidious for a travelling artist."
“Well,” said I, “suppose we try it now. Come with me to the Castle. We'll loiter about as if to pick out a good moonlight view, and who knows but we may catch a glimpse of the Lady Clara."
"Done," said Dick; and we started.
The Castle lay in deep shadow as we approached it, and as the moonlight silvered the old gothic towers, and tipped the abutting edges of the carved work that every where adorned the noble pile, the scene presented to the eye was one that reminded me of the enchanted palaces of the Arabian Nights.. We stopped, as if by a common impulse, to gaze on the spectacle. Suddenly the figure of a lady appeared in an open gallery above us, where she stood, for some minutes, totally unconscious of our vicinity, for we were hidden under the shadow of a huge oak that threw its thick foliage far and wide over us. The moon was sailing high in Heaven, and on that bright luminary the lady gazed as if in rapt admiration . The first glance at the fair apparition assured me it was the Lady Clara ; and never had she appeared more lovely. Attired in a magnificent robe of velvet, with her hair falling in luxuriant tresses down her neck, and her snowy and rounded shoulders seeming whiter than driven snow in the moonlight, she looked a divinity, holding communion with up-turned eyes, with a sister divinity of the skies. She wore a string of pearls around her neck, and a white rose nestling in her bosom—fit types of her maiden purity. I was so entranced by the sight that, for a minute, I had forgot my companion, when I felt him nervously clutch my arm. I looked around.
"Heavens how magnificent—it is—it is—I have found her," he said, agitatedly.
"Found who?"
"Miss Cleveland. Isn't she a superb creature. By George, the Lady Clara, with her dower, may go to the dogs."
I burst into uncontrollable laughter, for, if a world had been the price of restraint, I could not have refrained. The fair apparition disappeared in an instant.
"Confound you," said Dick, half angrily, "what makes you so merry? You have frightened away my Sultana."
"Merry," said I, "why here you've been avoiding the Lady Clara for years, and searching all England for Miss Cleveland, when they're but one and the same person," and again I laughed until the tears ran out of my eyes.
Dick gazed at me in blank wonder. Never did a poor fellow look more like a fool. This only increased my mirth, and at length Dick joined in it as heartily as myself, capering about in his extravagant joy, until I almost began to think his wits were deranged.
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The next day a post chaise and four dashed through the park of Arlford Castle, and my friend Dick paid his first visit since boyhood to the Lady Clara. Some little surprise was felt, though not evinced at his visit ; and the lady herself betrayed decided embarrassment. Dick prospered wonderfully in his wooing, and the next summer he led to the altar the Lady Clara.
It was not until after his marriage that his bride explained to him the little plot connected with her assumption of the name of Miss Cleveland. She was travelling, with her father, from Arlford Castle to London, when she heard of the county ball, and of Dick's intended presence. Piqued at his studied neglect of her she resolved to visit the assembly under an assumed name. This was easily effected. The result is known. But alas! in striving to win Dick, the Lady Clara lost her own heart. Delicacy forbade her afterward to reveal her disguise, and so she was compelled to trust to accident. But years elapsed, as we have seen, before she again met her lover.
The Lady Clara is now a matron of thirty, and the last steamer informs me that Dick has fallen heir to the earldom, his elder brother having died during the Queen's visit to Scotland. Lucky!—wasn't he?
_____
THE WREATH.
A SPIRIT-BREATH is wavering around
The gentle leaflets of each blushing flower
Thou hast, sweet one! in a rich cluster bound,
To blend for me their birthright's breathing dower;
And o'er the petals, a resistless spell
Is sweetly twining, which shall long outlast
The rays those fair, yet fading flowerets cast;
And oft when every leaflet's hue hath fled,
Each charm hath perished, each soft breath is dead,
"I will wake, in memory's deepest treasure-cell,
The gentle echo of thy name, recalling
All the heart's holiest passion waves, that gushed
Beneath thy secret spirit-chain's enthralling,
When thoughts of all save thee lie calmly hushed.
K. J. P.
