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CHAPTER XXXV.

Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which show like grief itself, but are not so:
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives which, rightly gazed upon,
Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry,
Distinguish form.-SHAKSPEARE.

THERE are few things more melancholy than to see in a beloved countenance, after a short absence, indisputable traces of grief or indisposition. Matilda had hoped to see Jeannette improved, but she came back the image of wo. The indulgence of her sorrow had made leisure for thought and memory almost necessary to her, and her return home had been in prospect, as it was in reality, painful to her, because there she knew she could not (more particularly at first) be the uncontrolled mistress of her time.

Consciousness of the influence of this condemnable feeling could not but be oppressive. Jeannette had wept bitterly that she could not grieve at parting with Matilda and her father; still she felt a more cruel and upbraiding sorrow that she could not, as she was wont, revel in joy at the sight of them. A pang of conscience was thus added to the woes of her heart; and, to gain relief from her own reproaches, she permitted herself to think and feel that her father was altered. She accused Matilda of indifference and harshness of feeling, and wished daily that she could see Hamond. By the management of Matilda, Hamond came. With desperate courage she one day mentioned Captain Bathurst's name. Her brother's manner was stern and grave as he told her, that "Captain Bathurst," he thanked God, "had left the regiment for ever."

It is inconceivable, till experienced, what additional horror may be imparted to a disagreeable fact by mere manner. The severe and emphatic tone in which Hamond uttered the words "Thank God," and " for ever," fully convinced Jeannette that he no longer loved her. Her affections had

been cruelly disturbed, and she cast all the blame of her own heart's vagrancy upon those she had once loved the best. They were no longer a whole and perfect world to her; and, in order to be reconciled to herself, she said, "I am not so dear to them as I once was." But bodily afflictions are sometimes sent to bring healing to the mind. Jeannette fell dangerously ill, and her watchful, tender, and anxious relatives, most affectingly revealed to her then how inexpressibly dear she was to them. At first, each look of inquiry, every word of affection, were so many reproaches for her former perversity, and she acknowledged to herself that she had indeed been unjust. She even said to her sister, when she was at the worst, and when she believed she could not recover, "I am happy, quite happy, dear Matilda! I have but one wish, that I could now tell you, my dearest sister, why I was not always so; but I cannot. tried, Matilda, and I cannot.

Forgive me!"

I have "Hush! hush! my dearest Jeannette: be well, and I will then listen,—not now."

Jeannette did not think she ever could be well; but her faculties were all awake, and in her inmost soul she felt Matilda's delicacy, and hoped to have the power granted her of confiding in her. But with her slowly returning strength came back, it should seem, her former reluctance to any thing like confidence, and she was as silent, though not quite as secret, as before—that is, if so nice a distinction may be suffered to pass, though she did not speak of what had been passing within her heart, she did not now seek to put a veil upon it. She would write in her journal in Matilda's presence, or weep beside her: she would even sometimes point out passages in the books she read that bore upon her own state, and converse upon them. Matilda trusted that such a mind would soon work its own cure, and respected the reserve of Jeannette as much as if she had been queen of the world.

It would have been better if she had not, for it is in the monotony of a secret grief that the danger chiefly rests. No sudden vexation or unsuspected annoyance is ever so burtful as this unvaried sameness-it always bringing, whatsoever its nature, the soothing antidote of change. This was what Jeannette's mind wanted. Could she have hoped for any vicissitude, she would have suffered less; but life,

now that she was restored to it, lay before her as one unvarying and trackless waste; and time became to her a wearying and profitless burden. She had recourse to occupation, it is true, but no longer felt the stirring interest that lends wings to the hurrying hours of happiness, and the self-imposed task which she performed to get over time, was often worse to her than entire inaction.

Still, to outward appearance, she was better, and Matilda and her father hoped all things-for what will ardent affection not hope and not believe? But it is time to return to Lindsay Bathurst.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from myself depart,

As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie;
That is my home of love: if I have ranged
Like him that travels, I return again;

Just to the time, not with the time exchanged.
SHAKSPEARE:

Ir has been endeavoured to be shown that Lindsay Bathurst, though very far from a perfect character, was not an every-day or commonplace person. It was perhaps partly to his singularity that he was indebted for the large share of unsought influence which he possessed over the minds of his friends and acquaintance in general; nor is it by any means improbable that Jeannette's heart, which seemed to herself to have been won by his immense and indisputable superiority over others, had in reality been first attracted by some distinguishing characteristic, at best of a doubtful nature.

Pride, jealousy of honour, uncurbed fastidiousness, were in him prominent and visible defects; but then, his pride was not so much the aristocratic hauteur of society, as the disdain of a noble soul that could not rest "beneath its native quarry." Yet so overweening was it in its nature, that it bore its own chastisement in its proper bosom, and

was thus a check to itself; for he at times despised himself for a feeling that puts its possessor so decidedly in comparison with others, and then he became too proud to be proud. At such moments, he would have scorned the idea of yielding to opinion; but they were too few, and came too rarely, to lessen his sensitiveness even to the lowest whispers of the multitude.

As has before been said, he loved Jeannette: and this, not with the passing affection that springs up with mere admiration of beauty, but with that pure and ethereal feeling, which, once implanted in minds of a high cast, diffuses itself over every hour of existence, and which, whatever may be its fate, dies only with the heart that gave it birth. He knew all the strength-all the value of her affections; he knew too, that love for him might be registered among them —and yet he left her!—But not callously,—not indifferently, -not without pain. At first, he seldom slept, but with the wish that he might not again awaken. He deplored the loss of her, as if the path that led him from her had not been of his own choosing. And no effort that he made to forget her ever displaced her image from his memory, or relieved his self-burdened mind from its load of discontent. He seemed to love her better for every sacrifice he had made in loving her at all; for, strange as it may sound, it is nevertheless true, that, when a man loves against his judgment, it appears to himself to arise from the courtesy of his will. Lindsay Bathurst had almost persuaded himself that his attachment to Jeannette Langham was a voluntary act, to which compassion had first given rise.

Regret for the loss of such a being, one too, who had begun to love him, accompanied him wherever he went. Yet, he thought not of regaining her, nor once reflected that the cause of his unhappiness lay in himself. The barrier between them was of his own erecting, but to his imagination it was insurmountable. Still less did he think of her sorrows or her regrets. Absorbed by his own feelings, the natural thought that she too perhaps might be miserable, did not for many months occur to him, and even then it was to accident that he was indebted for the supposition. For we feel as well as think in a circle, and often find ourselves, after treading and retreading for hours the same dull round, precisely at the point from which we started. Internal

unhappiness, after the tumult of grief has subsided into passiveness, grasps eagerly after novelty, but rarely creates it.

The bare idea of Jeannette having suffered as he had done, came to Captain Bathurst's mind tardily and unexpectedly; but when it did come, it had its plenary effect. At Pisa, as has been before said, he met Henry Milman. They met again, after the latter had seen Jeannette. Delicately, without compromising Jeannette in any degree, he ventured to suggest that his friend was too well remembered. Bathurst did not conceal that the subject was interesting to him, and Milman was not without suspicion that his conduct had not been entirely blameless. "They afterward discoursed on indifferent subjects, and among others on novels. Milman observed:

"I seldom read them now; but I shall ever speak of them with respect. Corinna first, Eliza Rivers next, made me, before I had had much experience in life, respect and dread the sensibility of woman. I can say with truth, that those books did me good."

Lindsay Bathurst did not betray the whole of his feelings to his old friend, although the words he had heard were to his mind what an electrical shock is to the body. A momentary convulsion disordered its powers; but as it passed away he beheld as if reflected in a mirror, not only all the past, all his own culpable and earnest endeavours to win Jeannette, but also all the probable present. The "thorny truth of things" seemed suddenly unveiled to him, and he resolved to write to Jeannette on the instant. Had he paused or reflected on the palpable inconsistency of the line of conduct he was about to adopt, he would most likely have shrunk from performing it. But, in his mind's eye, he beheld Jeannette sorrowing, and sorrowing for him! He pressed his hands against his throbbing temples, and wished for tears, as the wretched sometimes do, to give ease to his aching heart-his heart that seemed bursting within his bosom. He had purchased at Florence an alabaster statue, because of its likeness to Jeannette, and had had this inscription placed on its base :

"I would have thine image be

Fair as I can, though not as thee!"

This imagined image stood in his room, and this night he

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