The Rebels; or, Boston before the Revolution/Chapter XII
But had I wist before I kiss'd,
That luve had been sae ill to win,
I had lock'd my heart in a kist of gold,
And pinn'd it wi'a siller pin.
Old Scotch Song
Leaving the young Canadians to enjoy "the sacred lowe o' weel placed love," we will return to the quiet library of the pious Mr. Osborne; the republican simplicity of which afforded so striking a contrast to the splendid apartment of Governor Hutchinson.
On the afternoon of the same day that Wilson commenced his journey to Quebec, Grace was seated at her father's table, busily engaged in painting glass,---a fashionable amusement at that period.
The door gently opened, and the good-natured countenance of Lucretia Fitzherbert presented itself to her view.
"Why, Grace, how long it is since I have seen you," exclaimed her animated friend. "For three long days we have been expecting you. Captain Somerville at last grew quite angry,---so, to please him, I came to-day to see what could have offended your ladyship."
"Offended! and with you?" said Grace, in a reproachful tone. "I assure you, I have wished to come; but I have been so very busy---"
"I wonder what has busied you so suddenly," interrupted Lucretia. "Have you been making linen for brother Henry? or knitting warm night-caps for papa?"
"The first," rejoined Grace, smiling; "and then all the leisure moments I have had, I have been practising on my spinnet, trying to learn those pretty songs that--- you like so well."
"Umph," said Lucretia, with the most provoking significance. "You are taking likenesses, too, I see. What is this you are copying?"
"It is the head of a young naval officer; Sir---somebody--- I have forgotten whom."
"How much it looks like Somerville," said Lucretia.
"Does it?" rejoined Grace, blushing deeply. "Perhaps it may, a very little."
"Captain Somerville is enthusiastic about painting," said Lucretia. "How I do wish I could sketch as well as you can."
Grace, in her turn, smiled significantly.
"I know you laugh because he is always the burden of my song," observed Lucretia; "but really if you lived in the same house with him, you could not but admire,--- very much admire, his sparkling intelligence, his ready wit, and his open gallantry."
"And my enthusiastic friend places so much confidence in her native good sense, that she is not at all afraid of admiring him too much, I suppose?" inquired Grace.
"I think nothing about it," rejoined Lucretia. "I am very happy; and that is all I am sure of. As for the good sense you are pleased to talk of,---Minerva's shield has withstood many a fierce attack; but I believe one of Cupid's minikin arrows might shiver it."
"Oh, Lucretia, how little need there is of a window to your heart."
"Yours is carefully muffled in a thick screen, dear Grace; but the flame will shine through."
The tears started to Miss Osborne's eyes, and forgetting that her remark would imply a keen reproof to her thoughtless friend, she said, "What have I done, that you should accuse me of being deficient in the delicacy which should ever characterize a lady?"
"Who would think of defending herself from a charge that has no foundation?" rejoined Lucretia, putting her arms round her neck, with girlish affection.
"What is the matter, young ladies?" inquired Henry Osborne, who entered the library at that moment.
"Nothing,---only I have offended Grace, as I often do the Graces," answered Lucretia; "and so I hav been trying to atone for it. What news, Henry?"
"None that will particularly interest such a staunch little tory as you are."
"Nay, I will not be called names," said she, gaily striking him with her parasol; "unless you can warp your conscience enough to call me by the old-fashioned name of angel. In good earnest, what has happened in the political world?"
"Accidents similar to those which happen every day," rejoined Osborne. "Merely a few mischievous tricks upon the tories. Mr. Paxton's horse, after being lost some days, was found shut up in the Town House, almost starved to death; and Doctor Byles, when entering his house this morning, was assailed by a violent shower of soot and water."
"How did he bear such treatment?" asked Lucretia.
"Just as you would suppose. He made a very low bow, and said, `My friends, you have entirely sooted me.' "
"I should like to walk there," said Lucretia, smiling; "it is several days since I have seen him."
Grace soon arranged her neat little gipsey hat, beneath which her golden ringlets escaped in the most enchanting luxuriance; and the shawl was just pinned about her neck with Quaker simplicity, when Somerville entered. "You are all for a walk I see," said he, bowing to the ladies. "I have arrived most fortunately."
His arm was offered to Grace, and he was not a little gratified at the slight tremor she betrayed on again meeting him; nor could she, with all her diffidence, help being a little vain of her infantile beauty, since it had so evidently fascinated Somerville.
True, his compliments were less frequent than formerly; for Henry, with the affectionate earnestness of an auxious brother, had cautioned him against the flattery so likely to tarnish the purity and artlessness of her character. Still, however, his delighted eye acknowledged her power, and she was not ignorant of its meaning.
During this walk, it seemed as if he exerted his uncommon powers of pleasing, to the very utmost. Now "his broad sail was set in the full, deep stream of argument;" and, now, every one was watching the eddies of his wit, as they sparkled, and broke, and whirled away.
The rein was held with as graceful a hand, whether he spurred his majestic war-horse to the battle, pranced by a lady's side over hill and dale, or appeared on the parade ground in gala dress, performing its complicated evolutions with careless dexterity.
The whole company were in high spirits when Doctor Byles met them at his door.
"Was there ever such an evening?" said he, as he came out to welcome them. "It is as light as a cork. I am glad you have come, my young friends; for Mrs. Byles and the girls have gone to see a sick neighbour, and I was just wishing somebody would come and take a glass with me."
"A most unclerical wish," observed Henry Osborne.
"Not as much so, as you think, young man," replied the clergyman, displaying a fine brass telescope, and motioning them to follow him up stairs.
"This is the glass I offer my friends," continued he, fastening one end in the window-shutter, and placing the other in Somerville's hand.
"I call this chamber my observatory; for, stationed here with my telescope, I can observe-a-tory all over Boston."
"I wish the search was as seldom rewarded as that of Diogenes with his lanthron," answered Henry.
"No doubt; but `the prayer of the wicked availeth not,' " replied Doctor Byles.
"How extremely beautiful!" interrupted Somerville, placing the telescope in Mr. Osborne's hand. "The bay of Naples hardly surpasses this."
Indeed, beneath the rich gush of autumnal twilight, the scene was indescribably enchanting.
The broad, blue harbour, like the ocean god, reposing on his own bright throne; the numerous islands, that seemed like infant Naiads waiting in his presence; the neighbouring churches, like youthful devotees, pointing the finger of faith to heaven; the foliage, rich with the hues of autumn; the herds, quietly grazing on the adjoining hills; and all so delightfully mellowed in distance and sunshine, formed a landscape that Claude would have delighted to copy.
Each one, in succession, gazed upon it till the strained vision was wearied. As they laid aside the telescope, Somerville glanced at Grace, and said, "To look beyond the smoke and din of the town, to a scene so lovely and placid as that, is welcome to the heart, as it is to meet unpretending goodness and unaffected beauty in the midst of this selfish, artificial world."
"Here," said Doctor Byles, "is something that precisely resembles the mind of a whig; for their reflections are all upside down;"---and he placed a large concave mirror before the young ladies.
"If the images are inverted, they are increased in beauty," observed Henry Osborne.
"At a distance, I grant ye; but examine closely, young man, and the defects are glaring enough. My dear girl, step up, and shake hands with yourself."
The figure of the little sylph seemed to come forth from the glass, as she advanced toward its focus.
"Nobody can say there is not a shadow of grace about that mirror," said the clergyman.
"But you can say there is not a shadow of beauty now," rejoined Lucretia, as she herself moved to the glass.
"If I did say it," replied Doctor Byles, "I would unite with the learned Bishop of Cloyne, and say, it is no matter---all is mind."
"How brilliant you are to-night," exclaimed Lucretia.
"Nay, it is you, ladies, who are bright," rejoined he. "When you both came in, lounging on a gentleman's arm, I could not but think you spark-led."
"Your ammunition is never exhausted," said Somerville; "one may always be sure of a corps de reserve . There is one of my acquaintance, the famous Samuel Johnson, to whom I should like to introduce you; but, with his invincible hatred of puns, it might prove dangerous."
"Wit is the least of Doctor Byle's qualifications," said Henry Osborne.
"Young man, I am not a woman. My constitution does not need the gilded pills of flattery," replied the Doctor.
The suddenness with which he changed from playfulness almost frivolous, to dignity bordering on sternness, produced a momentary embarrassment in the whole company.
Lucretia, who knew him well, was the first to break silence. "It is the way the Doctor sometimes chooses to cut his best friends," said she.
Doctor Byles looked very angry; and Somerville perceiving it, answered, "The friends of Doctor Byles are never cut, though often wit-led."
"It is contagious," exclaimed Henry Osborne, rising. "Let us depart by all means."
"I should never suspect that Mr. Osborne had a predisposition to the disease," replied the clergyman, with his usual dry, sarcastic manner. "But come into my study, Lucretia. I have Goldsmith's celebrated Chinese Letters; and you say, you have never seen them."
The first object that met their view on the library table, was a frightful mask, with a lighted candle within it, surmounted by the Doctor's wig.
It had been placed there by some mischievous boys. "You see the spirit of rebellion penetrates to our very closets," observed the minister. "However, the wig does but cover what it always has, `a burning and a shining light.' "
After examining the books and some beautiful philosophical apparatus, the young people departed, highly delighted with their visit.
"The evening is so pleasant," observed Henry, "that I see no reason why we should not extend our walk to Roxbury."
"I trust we shall return better pleased than my uncle did from his nocturnal excursion," said Somerville. "No one cares how much old Townsend is tormented; but it is really carrying the joke too far, when such men as Governor Hutchinson and Doctor Byles are harassed in this way."
"When one side carry a joke too far, it must be expected that the other will return it by such means as lie in their power," rejoined Osborne.
"You must not begin to talk politics," said Lucretia; "for Captain Somerville never speaks all he thinks, before you. One would hardly believe he could be the same man that I sometimes hear talk with uncle Hutchinson."
Somerville looked, as if he did not thank her for thus lowering him in the estimation of Miss Osborne; and Henry replied, "I think he begins to be a proselyte to the righteous cause. I have a mind to have him stop to see John, on purpose to give him a good commentary on American feeling. He lives the next door to Mr. Townsend."
The man of whom he spoke, had once been a servant at his father's; but had, to use his own expression, "laid by a trifle for a wet day," and was now a thriving New England farmer.
Every thing within their doors indicated industry and prosperity. The wife, a buxom, sweet-tempered looking matron, was supplying four or five white-headed children with bountiful slices of brown bread; and if she did not perform the simple office with as much grace as Werter's Charlotte, it was certainly very delightful to watch her look of maternal love, as she said, "Hearty souls! it does one good to see you eat. But hush, boys, hush; here are strangers coming."
The mother drew her cap down over her ears, and smoothed her checked apron,---then, after giving them a most cordial greeting, she showed the way into a neatly white-washed room, the floor of which was profusely sanded, and marked with a variety of fantastic figures, according to the fashion of the times.
The children in the mean time stationed one to peep at the door, who would now and then run to report proceedings to his laughing companions.
"They have over much of a good thing," said the father. "The rogues love liberty. Away with you, boys!---and, waving his hand, he cleared the door in a moment. An instance of the good old-fashioned obedience, seldom practised in these degenerate days.
"I must tell you," continued the farmer, "that you are heartily welcome, Miss Grace, and Mr. Henry, and Miss Fitzherbert, and the stranger gentleman."
"I forgot to mention that he was Captain Somerville, Governor Hutchinson's nephew," observed Henry.
"Perhaps you are from England, then?"
"I am," replied Somerville.
"And may be you will tarry some time in the Colonies?"
"That is entirely uncertain, sir."
"Well, it is none of my business, surely. It is a good country that you came from, and a good country that you have come to. Both the Englands are good; but I am sometimes afeard they will try to patch the old with the new, till they make the rents worse."
"England has no need of patches, my good sir," rejoined Somerville.
"I doubt that somewhat. They say the young king has some German notions, which he would be much better without. Then there is a heavy debt will go near to break the collar-bone, if it is carried much longer; and them who have the care of it, are, in my humble opinion, no more fit to set the broken bones of a nation, than my cows are to climb a ladder."
"Which I trust they never will do," said Lucretia, laughing. "Mr. Townsend would doubtless be sadly grieved to have a blade of his grass devoured by them."
"A queer man, that Mr. Townsend, beside being a tory," answered John Dudley; "but he that is with him is far worse."
"Who is it?" asked Grace.
For several weeks, our young friends kept the "noiseless tenor of their way," without meeting any other danger than that of frequent and delightful intercourse. Grace visited less and less frequently at Lucretia's lodgings, but the visits she received from Somerville were far too numerous to please her affectionate and judicious connexions. Perfectly aware of this, and sometimes chilled by the fastidious reserve of the little beauty, Somerville became more absent, irritable, and negligent than Lucretia had ever seen him. The inattention which originated entirely in thoughtlessness, seemed to her to be peculiarly pointed; and she began to fear that the gayety and frankness of her nature had been mistaken for undue levity. Painful as this idea might be, it was the medicine her diseased mind required. Pride took possession of a heart transparent as it was susceptible, and it was soon evident that she was exerting all her good sense to overcome the fascination to which she had so foolishly yielded. But when we have long allowed our feelings to spurn at restraint, it requires a giant's hand to curb them; and though Lucretia possessed great purity and rectitude of purpose, the important lesson of self-control was one she had never learned. The materials for a delightful and highly-finished character were rich and ample,---but want of judgment in the artist had marred the original design; and the mind that might have been a noble Corinthian pillar, now only displayed a few beautiful specimens, which, like the Elgin marbles, served to betray the perfection of the column.
It has been well observed that there is a time in the lives of most people, when character fearfully fluctuates in the balance; and when circumstances, apparently accidental, may do much to decide it, either to good or evil. Henry Osborne was aware that the present period was a very important one to Miss Fitzherbert; and he feared that the influence of Somerville was any thing but beneficial. The fearless reasoning, the contempt of quiet virtues, the restlessness under the salutary shackles of society, against which a vigorous understanding and a glowing imagination ought to be peculiarly guarded, were all increased by his bold and brilliant conversation. Perhaps a long-cherished attachment to Lucretia had made Mr. Osborne particularly keen-sighted to the faults of his rival; but so wise, so prudent had he been while under the dominion of that blind boy, who is wont to writhe and stamp so furiously in the chains of reason, that the state of his affections had never been suspected by their object. However, it had long been sufficiently obvious to Miss Sandford; and she could not so far overcome her established prejudices as to prefer his simple manners and unpretending good sense, to the elegance and genius of the high-born Englishman. With constrained politeness, therefore, she received him as he entered, according to his usual custom, just as the ladies had retired from the tea-table to the drawing-room. Governor Hutchinson was engaged in his library, and Mr. Osborne was too frequent a guest to disturb his arrangements. Somerville laid down the paper he was busily reading, and gave him a hearty welcome; and Lucretia, piqued at the silence and absent manner of her companion, received him with uncommon frankness and cordiality. He brought with him the spirited paper at that time edited by Edes and Gill; and smiled with much significance as he pointed out to Somerville the bold resolutions that had been passed in most of the Colonies.
"The spirit of New England may break, but you perceive that it will never bend," observed Osborne.
"I should despise them if it did, after having gone thus far," rejoined Somerville. "Indeed there is little danger of it as long as you have such writers as this," pointing to the signature of Hyperion.
"Whom do you suppose it to be?"
"No one can hesitate to decide," said Somerville. "Otis pours forth his eloquence like the streaming lava of Vesuvius, melting and scorching as it runs; Mayhew writes with the readiness of a scholar, and with a fiery and vehement zeal, strangely at variance with his mild, dispassionate character; but whose pages burn with a flame so strong, bright, and fervent as Quincy's? His style is lucid as a waveless lake; and it has the muscle of a Hercules."
"Perhaps you have altered your opinion that it is not worth while for England to search for talents in so poor a market as her Colonies," said Henry, smiling at his enthusiastic manner.
Lucretia gave an incredulous and significant look, as if she would say, "He does not always talk thus."
"That I have found more wealth, intellect, and refinement in America, than my English education taught me to expect, is certainly most true," replied Somerville; "and whatsoever I believe, I frankly confess; notwithstanding Miss Fitzherbert expresses by her looks that I am guilty of double-dealing."
"These are sad times," observed Miss Sandford. "The king condescends too much, for the sake of pleasing his refractory subjects. It is a pity the good old days of Richard the First could not be restored, when the eastles of the boldest barons belonged to the monarch, from the corner-stone to the topmost turret."
"Nay, Madam Sandford, the world is too old for such leading-strings," replied Henry Osborne. "You yourself would hardly wish for the return of old times with all their appendages. I query whether the preaching of Doctor Byles would not be more acceptable to you, than Hugh Latimer, when he proclaimed to the female part of his audience, "Ye are underlings! underlings,--- and must be obedient."
"For the love of quiet," said Lucretia, "do not set that ball a rolling; for do but name the words `female inferiority' before Aunt Sandford, and it will go like a bullet on an inclined plane, every step accelerating its motion."
"In my youth, children were not in the habit of dictating what should be said to their elders," rejoined Miss Sandford.
Lucretia whispered something that seemed to conciliate the offended maiden; and Somerville resumed the conversation by saying, "One must be difficult to please, if they are not satisfied with the preaching of Doctor Byles. His style unites the elegance of Addison with the fervent piety of Flavel."
"Of his warm and genuine devotion I have no doubt," replied Henry; "though most of his audience remember his jests better than they do his religious advice; but I must confess that his style is too florid to meet my ideas of pulpit eloquence. So rich an imagination is singular in a man of his years and deep learning. In his sermons it shows itself in language fanciful and brilliant; and in his conversation it bursts forth in the boldest and most eccentric comparisons. To this we owe the continual flashing of his wit; and though I know him to possess uncommon erudition, sincere piety, and the most unyielding integrity, I cannot but think this sparkling trait of character is too luxuriantly overgrown. I never see any one quality of the mind standing forth so prominently, without thinking of one of the finest passages in Bacon's philosophy: `In forming the human character,' says he, `we must not proceed as a statuary does in forming a statue, who works sometimes on the face, sometimes on the limbs, sometimes on the folds of the drapery; but we must proceed (and it is certainly in our power) as nature does in forming a flower, or any other of her productions; she throws out, altogether, and at once, the whole system of being, and the rudiments of all the parts."'
"It is a beautiful passage, indeed," rejoined Somerville; "but a character formed on such a plan must be intolerably flat. In good truth, I dislike a character formed at all. Give me nature, bold, impetuous, and unrestrained. It is as much preferable to all your artificial modes, as the foaming cataracts and towering mountains of Switzerland are to the well-built dikes and the dead level of the Netherlands."
"If it were possible for nature to pursue an unbiassed course," replied Osborne, "to give her the reins would be a hazardous experiment, though in some instances it might prove a fortunate one; but the fact is, we are so much the creatures of adventitious circumstance, that it is utterly impossible. She is always receiving impulses from surrounding objects; and if the impetus is violent, it is two-fold; for it gives the tendency to rebound to the other extreme. I admire an harmonious, well-adjusted character, be it formed as it may. He who gives himself up to the absorbing power of any one single passion, may draw the eyes of all mankind toward him; but qualities of a milder and more consistent cast constitute the chief charm of domestic life."
"I repeat that I dislike every thing like made-up goodness," said Somerville. "It is apt to be like brass plated with silver---in the long run it will show its materials."
"You are very right, Captain Somerville," answered Miss Sandford. "Your over-righteous ones generally prove to be the most consummate hypocrites."
"Perhaps hypocrisy is the real name of what the world generally calls virtue," rejoined the young sceptic.
"It is too much the case in these days, to be sure," answered the maiden.
Henry was about to enter into a vindication of aspersed humanity; but he well knew Lucretia's disdain of all beaten tracks; and he feared the effect of new and bold ideas elicited from the daring mind of Somerville.
"Doctor Franklin is a good example of the system I have supported," said he. "Such a character, instead of plated brass, is solid silver taken from the mine, and skilfully fashioned into useful forms. Never was there a man who owed so much to self-exerted discipline as he does. I remember in the long conversation I had with him the night before he sailed to England, he minutely detailed the process by which he had attained so much self-control. He made a list of the thirteen virtues he thought most necessary, and to each one he paid particular and undivided attention for one week. Thus one week he would refrain from speaking evil of others; another, he would abstain from every thing not absolutely necessary to life and comfort; and so on. At the end of every quarter, the circle commenced anew. There was sound philosophy in this,---for as each virtue was successively impressed upon the mind at succeeding intervals, no one had a chance to attain a giant growth at the expense of others.
"If I found any virtue peculiarly stinted, I would give it a double portion of cultivation. Those who are prone to do heedless things, would do well to appropriate two weeks in every quarter to the very necessary virtue called prudence."
"You look as if you wished that remark should be individually appropriated," said Lucretia; "and perhaps you would tell the same person to foster judgment as if it were a hot-house plant, and trust imagination to its own wild, spontaneous growth."
"Since you understand me so well," replied Osborne, smiling, "I will add, that whatever point of character we find the weakest, should be the most sedulously fortified; and for this purpose, the choice of friends and of books is equally important.
"Ah, well!" said Lucretia, in the careless gayety of her heart, "you must bear with me just as I am, a few years longer; and then I will promise to be so collected, so prudent--- My feelings shall be just as calm as the river in summer's moonlight. I will choose my friends among the Quakers, and read nothing but `The Saint's Rest,' or `Universal Love Established on a Right Foundation."'
With much emphasis, Mr. Osborne replied, "I should rather see particular love established on a right foundation."
Fearing he had trusted himself too far, he rose, and opening Thomson's Seasons, which lay on the worktable of the ladies, he carelessly looked over its contents, and then observed he must return home to write a letter, before the evening was far advanced. Somerville immediately proposed to Miss Fitzherbert that they should both accompany him. Lucretia coldly declined, pretending she feared the effects of evening dampness; and the young men, having expressed their regret, took their hats, and bade good evening. None of us are to blame for having selfish and evil thoughts; for imperfections will cling to our fallen nature; but when we cherish them for a moment,---more especially when we give utterance to them,---we are guilty of giving form and permanence to what would otherwise be fleeting and shadowy.
Miss Sandford was too apt to do this; and scarcely had the door closed, before she exclaimed, "I do not like that Grace Osborne, with all the sweetness and modesty she chooses to put on."
Lucretia had unconsciously been tying knot after knot in her thread, little aware that her friend suspected all that was passing in her mind. The tears started to her eyes, as she replied, "I am sure, dear aunt, she is every thing that is amiable and lovely."
"Nevertheless, with all her pretty diffidence, I do not doubt she tries her best to get Somerville away from you."
"Away from me!" said Lucretia, with a look of extreme surprise.
"I mean," answered Miss Sandford, laying down the screen she had been working, and sweeping up the hearth in a great flurry, "I mean that Somerville respects you very much, and would marry you, if those deuced Osbornes were out of the way."
Lucretia smiled at the good old lady's perturbation. "Captain Somerville's heart," said she, "is like the waves cut by a passing vessel---a moment after, you can find no traces of an impression. Grace Osborne can never be in my way. I have always loved her;--- and if Somerville can win her heart, and she can keep his, I shall surely be rejoiced to see a man I value so much united to a being so pure and lovely."
"The whole family are over good, and very prodigal of their advice," rejoined the matron. "I wonder what right Henry has to direct the books you shall read, and the friends you shall choose."
"He did not mean to direct, dear madam; but I am so much with Grace, that he feels the same freedom in talking to me that he does to her. I am sure I thank him for his friendship and candour."
"It is more than I do," retorted the maiden, whose fretfulness was not to be speedily appeased. "Grace, with all her perfections, is the veriest little coquette. Don't look me in the face with as much wonder as if I had said you had not common sense! I know they are all your oracles; and I dare say you will finish the business by marrying the prosing young man, who has given you so sage a lecture to-night."
"There seems very little chance for it," replied Lucretia,---"since such a thought probably never entered the young gentleman's brain."
"You need not tell me that. I have seen this thing coming on for more than three years. He would have made proposals before now, if he had known of the large fortune you are to have."
The attempt to vindicate her friends from such unfounded charges would have been, just at that time, entirely useless. Lucretia, who well understood the avenues to her heart, gave a more pleasant turn to the conversation, by acknowledging the old lady's experience in the affairs of the heart, and thus leading her to dwell, for the thousandth time, on the rejected addresses of her youth.
When Miss Fitzherbert retired to her chamber, she took with her the book which Mr. Osborne had opened, intending to search for a passage particularly admired by Somerville. The volume opened of itself, and displayed a note neatly folded, and directed to herself. She opened it, and read as follows:
" Dear Madam
"I hardly know how to account for the diffidence
I feel in addressing you. The usual exaggerated language
of affection would, I well know, appear ridiculous
to you; and coldness or reserve is but ill suited to the
present state of my feelings. The declaration that I
have been for years most sincerely and devotedly attached
to you, may not perhaps be entirely unexpected;
and I once hoped it would not be entirely disagreeable.
You do not owe your influence over me to a
sudden freak of fancy; it results from a long and intimate
knowledge of your character. Yet I will not
flatter you, by saying I consider you faultless;---on the
contrary, I think you have defects, which may prove
very dangerous to yourself and friends, unless timely
corrected. But I cannot imagine a character more
elevated than might be formed from a mind so vigorous,
and a heart so generous and candid as yours.
"How largely I think you would contribute to domestic
happiness, is proved by the step I have now taken.
Whether the lovely garland of hope, that my heart has
so long been weaving, is to be scattered to the winds,
depends on your answer. At all events, ever your
affectionate friend, and obedient servant,
Henry Osborne"
"Umph," said Lucretia, as she folded the letter, "I say with Cowley,
`I could not love, I'm sure, One who in love were wise.' "
With a promptitude, for which she did not stop to account to her own heart, she thanked Mr. Osborne for the confidence he had placed in her, and expressed an affectionate interest in his welfare and happiness; but declared that it was utterly impossible for her ever to reciprocate his attachment.