The night was piercingly cold.

Mabel sat down upon her travelling trunk, which had preceded her to her room, and which, carelessly, had been left corded. There was no bell by which she could summon a.s.sistance, and therefore, with trembling fingers, she undid the tightly-knotted cord, and with some difficulty, for the box was heavy, she managed to open it; but, having done so, it seemed as if she almost forgot the purpose for which she wished it--for clasping her hands together she wept long and convulsively. How many bitter thoughts crowded upon her in that hour of weakness. Her mind seemed to lose all its strength, as she hurried from the past to the future. Where was the elastic promise of bold reliance on that future, made by her mother's side? Where was that mother? Sleeping in the cold grave, and as Mabel wept on, there might have come the thought that in that grave there was peace and refuge, though the night winds even now howled above it. How had she flattered herself that she had gained the control of her own fervent imagination, and yet how it trembled at the thought of the morrow.

Hargrave, her infidel lover, so warmly loved and yet so steadily rejected, how should she meet him on that morrow--did he still love her, and if so, would he press his suit, and force her to fly from temptation, or would he prove the truth of his threat, that with him there was no medium between truthful love and contemptuous forgetfulness. If so, how could she bear it, how would they meet day after day, keeping up the formal semblance of politeness, and if it were true, that he was making his suit to Caroline, how could she find strength for the daily trials which would necessarily be hers.

The quick, fiery blood of jealousy kindled in her cheek, as this last thought arose, and she mechanically raised her hand and loosened the twisted tresses of her hair, as if her heated brain needed relief.

If there be, as some affirm, a good and evil angel to guard our way, and track our steps through life, it was the evil angel that had power then.

She felt it--she rose, and almost instantly sunk upon her knees. Her clasped hands were now raised above her head--now clasped convulsively over her face--as hour followed hour through that dark and cheerless night, till her head gradually sank upon the bed by which she kneeled, and she remained for a long time in perfect stillness. Her long, disordered hair hiding every feature from sight.

The Abbey clock announced the approach of the chill winter morning, before Mabel again raised her head, but then her countenance was firm, and there was a soft radiance about her eyes that told that those dark and weary hours had not been spent in vain.

Wearied with the long conflict, she laid herself down to rest, and was soon asleep.

Strong minds, when they are sick, require strong remedies; had any one watched her calm repose, and quiet breathing, they might have told, that with her the crisis was past.

As she slept--flitting dreams crossed her fancy--once she thought she stood upon a high hill, where a n.o.ble castle of fairy and transparent beauty, was built immediately above a rocky precipice. Suddenly, as she lost her footing, and fell, she tried to prepare for death, when invisible hands supported her, and softly placed her on the bank above.

Then her dream became more distinct--she was again at Aston, and the setting sun was going down behind the hills--while its golden rays gave beauty to earth and sky. She was seated on her father's tomb, in the well-known church-yard, and close beside her was the delicate form of the little Amy, which her arm encircled with the covetous clasp of affection. They both gazed upon the setting sun, and the child listened, as she spoke of the ages it had shone in beauty, and the ages it might still shine; of the time it marked, and the eternity it presaged, till her eyes grew brighter, and her color deepened. Then it seemed as if a strain of holy music softly stole upon the evening air, and Amy raised her hand to attract her attention to it--her face grew of more than earthly loveliness, and, as the music died away, Mabel woke and found herself alone. The moonlight streamed into her little room, rendering every object distinctly visible. It is beautiful to see the mingling light of the waning moon and rising sun changing the scenes of the early morning with the rapidity of a diorama; Mabel watched the light for some time with unthinking pleasure, till gradually upon her waking senses arose the remembrance of the night, but with the early morning came the strength for which she had so earnestly pleaded through those hours of darkness.

She had bent before the repeated strokes of Providence with something of the feeling that her earthly duties were finished. But now came purer and holier thoughts. "What right," she asked herself, "had she to say that she had suffered enough?" Had she not already some call to exertion, some friends whom she might perhaps love and serve, and more, the fresh suffering that seemed in preparation, told her that it was right to suffer. "Thy will be done," she repeated, in trembling accents, as she knelt in meek and quiet devotion, and the words came from a heart not untried by many sorrows.

Mabel's mind was anything but morbid, for the dangerous tendency so strongly developed in her mother, had been checked and controlled by that very mother herself, who gladly saw in her more active child, the same delicate perception of the beautiful, the good and the painful, sobered by her care for others, and her love of exertion.

It was then with a feeling of grat.i.tude that she looked round the little room, which, to many would have excited the most painful feelings of neglect and desolation. The small bed had been evidently used, formerly, in the nursery, and was diminutive in size; yet, as Kirk White, humorously observes of his study fireplace:--

"So big, it covered o'er, Full half the s.p.a.cious room, and more."

One side, from the ceiling, shelved down to the floor, leaving dark corners, where the light from the small window never penetrated, giving an uncomfortable suspicion of dust and cobwebs. The wide window ledge, which served for the purpose of dressing table, with one shabby chair, completed the fittings of the room--for, as Mrs. Villars had observed in her casual glance--a chest of drawers had been omitted.

It was impossible that any one so careful of the comforts of others--so used to luxury as she had lately been, at Aston, should not read, at a glance, the nature of the apartment which one of her mother's servants would, perhaps, have hesitated to occupy--yet she busied herself in arranging it to advantage. She could scarcely satisfy herself when she had finished, for the room was not quite clean, and nothing she could do could remedy that deficiency--so she turned to the window, and looked out upon the back view it displayed of chimney-pots--dark back windows, as cheerless as her own, and walls blackened by falling smoke. Still, above the low dark, damp, courts, there was a glimpse of the pure blue sky; and as Mabel's eye rested upon it, even the pa.s.sing shade of discontent vanished from her mind, as she remembered by whom her comforts and trials were meted; and then she turned her eyes again upon the room, and all that was uncomfortable before, seemed to have a light about it that made it look different now. It was all better than she might have had--more than she had any right to claim. Was she not under her aunt's protection, when she might have been left with strangers; left for the first time, in that kind of independence, most trying to a delicate woman? "Was not every thing," she again repeated, "better than she deserved? What could have made her think the room dark, and uncomfortable? What could have changed it so? Nothing but the reflected light of a humble and thankful heart. After remaining some little time longer in consideration, she went down stairs. She soon found the room where she remembered having been introduced the evening before; but, on opening the door, she perceived that it was still darkened, the window-curtains drawn, and the chairs arranged as they had been left on the preceding night. Looking again at her watch to persuade herself that it was really nine o'clock, she found her way to the drawing-room, which was in such dusty confusion, that she was going to return to her own room again, when a side door opened, and Mr. Villars appeared.

"Come in, come in," he said, stopping her; "you will not find a good fire any where else, for at least half an hour. My family are not fond of early rising, as you see; so I generally take my breakfast alone."

"Then, perhaps, I shall intrude upon you, sir;" said she, seeing the preparations for his simple meal already made.

"Not if you will have some breakfast with me; you look tired already, and will be better for it. Only say so, and I will ring for a cup and saucer."

He laid his hand on the bell as he spoke, but hesitatingly, as if accustomed to have his attempts at sociability negatived; but, when Mabel readily a.s.sented, he cheerfully busied himself in preparing for her. While he was doing so, she had an opportunity of scanning the apartment, which her host designated his den. It was lined on two sides, from the floor to the ceiling, with bookshelves, containing books of all languages, arranged according to their different subjects. Part of another side contained a selection from the best light literature of the day--and, beneath, were drawers, that seemed to have a habit of being always open, in which was a large store of written papers. The fourth side of the room was ornamented by a collection of stuffed birds, reptiles, and insects; curious specimens of botany, conchology, and mineralogy--shewing the various studies in which Mr. Villars had, from time to time, taken an interest.

Upon a table, near the window, were placed some open books, marked at different pa.s.sages--together with sc.r.a.ps of paper, old envelopes, and backs of notes, all neatly written upon.

But the breakfast table was prepared with great neatness, and nothing but an unopened paper of the day before gave any temptation to reading.

Mr. Villars, having made the tea, and toasted his m.u.f.fin, drew a chair to the table, and begged her to partake of both.

There is a kind of freemasonry by which some have the power of unlocking the hearts of others, and making them unreserved; perhaps it is the power of being genuinely natural oneself, which sets others so much at ease.

Mabel soon found herself conversing quietly, and without the least effort; and Mr. Villars, without anything of his nervous hesitation, had offered to a.s.sist her reading, by his advice, and instruction, as often as she pleased to spend an hour or two with him.

"May I then, feel free to come and go when I like;" enquired Mabel, rising when they had finished breakfast.

"Yes, at any time; at least, excepting when I have any particular desire to be alone."

"And then you must lock the door," she said, smiling; "because you might not like to turn me out--so that shall be a sign that you wish to be alone."

"A very effectual sign indeed," said Mr. Villars, returning her smile, though he suspected that he should not be often obliged to resort to this defence, as it did not seem likely that she would be more attached to his study than his daughters were.

Mabel felt reluctant to leave the quiet repose of his society, but unwilling longer to absent herself, she went to the breakfast room, where, by this time, the whole party, excepting Hargrave, had a.s.sembled.

She stopped to give her aunt a kiss, with a warmth, which might have told an intelligent observer, that the grat.i.tude she felt for her protection had closed her eyes to distrust.

Caroline, who had been left mistress of the house in her mother's absence, had intended the situation and furniture of her bed-room, at once, to announce the fact, that if admitted to their circle, it must be in the rank of a dependent. But this attempt to humiliate her, had seemingly failed. Mabel appeared pale, subdued, and sorrow-stricken, but evidently possessing a mind superior to trifles; and though, when she took her seat apart from the table, her lip slightly trembled, and her color came and went, not a sigh escaped from the sad heart within.

Caroline, as she rose from breakfast, said that Hargrave had promised to practise some duets with her, and she must go and find him--Maria and Selina followed her--and Mrs. Villars went to her house-keeping, leaving Lucy behind.

There was a momentary and awkward silence--and then Lucy walked up to her, and sunk down upon the floor at her feet, crying--

"How can you ever look upon me again? Think of my laughing and amusing myself, when--"

A shudder finished the sentence.

And Mabel stooped to raise her head, whispering--

"It is too easy to forgive you--you were more unkind to yourself than to me."

"How?" said Lucy.

"Because such things make the heart grow hard."

Lucy was silent, for a moment, and then exclaimed--

"How I wish I were married, and had a home to offer you of my own. Then you should not have such an old, poky bed-room as Caroline has looked out for you--I had such a quarrel with her about it. She is jealous, because I said you were beautiful, I know she is."

"Ah, Lucy," said Mabel, "how unkind to try and expose the weaknesses of a sister--remember the fable of the bundle of sticks. For myself, knowing that I do not deserve her unkindness, I shall not feel it. I own it is a trial--but as I am dependent on your mamma's kindness, by my own choice, and by my wish to please her, and not of necessity, and I can and will a.s.sert my independence when I please--it is quite a different thing."

"Are you going to be married then?"

"No, no," said Mabel, smiling; "I will tell you what I mean another day--perhaps I do not quite know how myself--I only know I will if I see it best--but do not let us talk of that now."

So saying, she took up a skein of silk which Caroline had been attempting to wind.

"Never mind that," said Lucy, "that is Caroline's, and she will never thank you for the trouble you take."

"Lucy!" said Mabel.

"Ah, I know you are the best of human beings; but I do not know what you would have been, had you been brought up in such a school as I have."