Elsies Girlhood | Page 7

having her remain at home.
They had walked some distance, and coming to a rustic seat where they
had often rested, they sat down. The moon was shining softly down
upon them, and all nature seemed hushed and still. For some moments
neither of them spoke, but at length Mr. Dinsmore broke the silence.
"Miss Allison," he said, in his deep, rich tones, "I would like to tell you
a story, if you will do me the favor to listen."

It would have been quite impossible for Rose to tell why her heart beat
so fast at this very commonplace remark, but so it was; and she could
scarcely steady her voice to reply, "I always find your stories
interesting, Mr. Dinsmore."
He began at once.
"Somewhere between ten and eleven years ago, a wild, reckless boy of
seventeen, very much spoiled by the indulgence of a fond, doting father,
who loved and petted him as the only son of his departed mother, was
spending a few months in one of our large Southern cities, where he
met, and soon fell desperately in love with, a beautiful orphan heiress,
some two years his junior.
"The boy was of too ardent a temperament, and too madly in love, to
brook for a moment the thought of waiting until parents and guardians
should consider them of suitable age to marry, in addition to which he
had good reason to fear that his father, with whom family pride was a
ruling passion, would entirely refuse his consent upon learning that the
father of the young lady had begun life as a poor, uneducated boy, and
worked his way up to wealth and position by dint of hard labor and
incessant application to business.
"The boy, it is true, was almost as proud himself, but it was not until
the arrows of the boy-god had entered into his heart too deeply to be
extracted, that he learned the story of his charmer's antecedents. Yet I
doubt if the result would have been different had he been abundantly
forewarned; for oh, Miss Rose, if ever an angel walked the earth in
human form it was she!--so gentle, so good, so beautiful!"
He heaved a deep sigh, paused a moment, and then went on:
"Well, Miss Rose, as you have probably surmised, they were privately
married. If that sweet girl had a fault, it was that she was too yielding to
those she loved, and she did love her young husband with all the
warmth of her young guileless heart; for she had neither parents nor
kinsfolk, and he was the one object around which her affections might
cling. They were all the world to each other, and for a few short months

they were very happy.
"But it could not last; the marriage was discovered--her guardian and
the young man's father were both furious, and they were torn asunder;
she carried away to a distant plantation, and he sent North to attend
college.
"They were well-nigh distracted, but cherished the hope that when they
should reach their majority and come into possession of their property,
which was now unfortunately entirely in the hands of their guardians,
they would be reunited.
"But--it is the old story--their letters were intercepted, and the first
news the young husband received of his wife was that she had died a
few days after giving birth to a little daughter."
Again Mr. Dinsmore paused, then continued:
"It was a terrible stroke! For months, reason seemed almost ready to
desert her throne; but time does wonders, and in the course of years it
did much to heal his wounds. You would perhaps suppose that he
would at once--or at least as soon as he was his own master--have
sought out his child, and lavished upon it the wealth of his affections:
but no; he had conceived almost an aversion to it; for he looked upon it
as the cause--innocent, it is true--but still the cause of his wife's death.
He did not know till long years afterwards that her heart was broken by
the false story of his desertion and subsequent death. Her guardian was
a hard, cruel man, though faithful in his care of her property.
"With him the child remained until she was about four years old when a
change was made necessary by his death, and she, with her faithful
nurse, was received into her paternal grandfather's family until her
father, who had then gone abroad, should return. But my story is
growing very long, and you will be weary of listening. I will try to be
as brief as possible.
"The little girl, under the care of her nurse and the faithful instructions
of a pious old Scotchwoman--who had come over with the child's

maternal grandparents, and followed the fortunes of