Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/87

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70
THE LADY'S
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out over a rich sunset prospect of hill, wood, and meadow, stood Stanhope Vaux, and at his side, half-reclining on a couch, was the gipsy girl. Her beautiful face was pale with recent illness, but her dark eye was even softer than when we last saw her. She was no longer attired in her gipsy garb, but a rich robe enveloped her voluptuous form. She leaned on one arm and gazed thoughtfully on the floor. Stanhope looked on her abstractedly in a reverie apparently as deep as her own.

Circumstances had greatly altered since we last presented them to our readers. The gipsy had made a full confession. Isabel-for such was the real name of our heroine-was the only child of the late possessor of Vaux Hall. Her father, a stern, bad man, had, when she was quite a child, deeply wronged a man by the name of Dawlor, one of his tenantry, and the man, determining on revenge, and knowing that the baronet's heart could only be approached through his affection for his child, had stolen her away, and eventually joined a gipsy camp. Isabel, however, was old enough to remember, although but dimly, that she had not always been a gipsy ; and, although the man who stole her away, had endeavored to eradicate this impression from her mind, he had been unsuccessful. As she grew up, nothing could induce her to adopt the arts of the gipsy camp, and often would she have deserted it had she known whither to fly. By what fatality Dawlor, who had risen to be a leader of his gang, had been led to return to Vaux Hall, we do not know; but the scenery in its vicinity had awakened strange emotions in Isabel's bosom, as if a dream of the past had been realized. Whether Dawlor's hatred to her father had descended to the heir we cannot say ; but knowing that Stanhope often rode in the forest after dark, he projected this robbery. The woman's nature of Isabel led her to revolt at this plot, which happily she had overheard. The rest is known to our readers. The identity of Isabel was proved, not only by the numerous trinkets stolen with her, and which the gipsy now restored, but by the old nurse, who recognized her charge by a scar on the arm , produced by her own carelessness in suffering the infant to burn itself severely. The reader may well imagine that the old woman wept tears of joy on the bosom of her long-lost, but now recovered child. All this, we repeat, had transpired since we last saw Stanhope and Isabel ; and the knowledge of it is necessary to understand the following conversation. We have said that Isabel was gazing abstractedly on the floor. At length, however, she looked up timidly to her lover's face. Their eyes met. Why did Isabel blush over brow, neck and bosom ? Why did Stanhope betray equal emotion ? Isabel," he said, after a pause, taking her hand, and his voice was perhaps somewhat tremulous as he spoke, " we love each other- do we not ?"

The bosom of the beautiful girl heaved with emotion, and her long eye-lashes dropped to her cheek, while her glance once more sought the ground. But she made no answer. " Isabel, dear Isabel," said Stanhope, dropping on his knees beside her, " you are my equal, in birth , why then should you refuse to be mine ? I know we love each other. Dismiss your scruples then. Say, dear Isabel, say you will be mine." The impassioned tones of the speaker increased the agitation of the beautiful girl, and she could scarcely murmur a reply, but though the words were broken and low, they conveyed the wished for response, coupled, however, with a declaration of her own unworthiness. " You wrong yourself, dear Isabel," said the glad lover, imprinting his first kiss holily on her brow, " and so," he continued, rising suddenly as a lady entered the apartment, " my sweet sister will tell you . Think not love has blinded me—is it not so, Mary ?" They were married and went abroad ; and for months it was the delightful task of Stanhope to educate his young wife's opening mind. When, after an absence of two years they returned to England, there was not, in the whole county, a more beautiful or accomplished bride than Isabel.

THE ZEPHYR . BY B. FRANKLIN CHATHAM . "T WAS a lovely eve, and calmly at rest The sunset clouds were reposing, When the Zephyr passed from his home in the west, As twilight was gently closing.

"I will onward," said he, " and far away, O'er the valley, the hill, and the mountain, The ocean, the lake, and rivulet play, And revel in every fountain." It paused in an arbor's sylyan spot, Fragrant with blooming flowers, Whose dewy censors were closing up To be waked by the sun-beam's powers. It stooped to the blushing damask rose, And smiled at the lily's whiteness ; And the cowslip's lowly couch of repose It touched with a fairy's lightness. Onward it floated , with noiseless wing, Till a feeble note of sadness Once more arrested its wandering, And dampened its wonted gladness.

"T was the couch of Death- a sufferer lay At that pensive hour of even, The Zephyr caught up the dim flame, and away Bore it home to its native heaven.