The Bride of Fort Edward by Bacon, Delia, 1811-1859

Cruel indeed! That little rose!--He might have spared me this. A dull reader I were, in truth, if this needed comment,--but I knew it before. He might have spared me this.

Yet, who knows--(_lifting her head with a sudden smile_,) some trace, some little curl of his pencil I may find among these leaves yet, to tell me, as of old,--

(_Reading_.) These cold words I understand, but--_letters!_--He wrote me none! Was there ever a word between us, from the hour when he left me, his fancied bride, to that last meeting, when, at a word, and ere I knew what I had said, he turned on me that cold and careless eye, and left me, haughtily and forever? And now--(_reading_)--misapprehension, has it been! Is the sun on high again?--in this black and starless night--the noonday sun? He loves me still.--Oh! this joy weighs like grief.

Shall I see him again? Joy! joy! Beautiful sunshine joy! Who knows the soul's rich depths till joy hath lighted them?--from the dim and sorrowful haunts of memory will he come again into the living present! Shall I see those eyes, looking on me? Shall I hear my name in that lost music sound once more?--His?--Am I his again? New mantled with that shining love, like some glorious and beautiful stranger I seem to myself, _Helen_--the bright and joy-wreathed thing his voice makes that name mean--My life will be all full of that blest music. I shall be Helen, evermore his--his.

No,--it would make liars of old sages,--and all books would read wrong. A life of such wild blessedness? It would be fearful like living in some magic land, where the honest laws of nature were not. A life?--a moment were enough. Ages of common life would shine in it. (_Reading again_.) "Elliston's hut?"--"If I choose that the return should be mutual,--and the memorials of a despised regard can at best be but an indifferent possession;--a pacquet reinclosed directly in this same envelope, and left at the hut of the missionary, cannot fail to reach him safely."

"Safely."--Might he not come there safely then? And might I not go thither safely too, in to-morrow's light? O God, let not Passion lead me now. The centre beaming truth, not passion's narrow ray, must light me here!--But am I not his?

Once more, one horizon circles, for a day, our long-parted destinies; another, and another wave of these wild times will drift them asunder again, forever; and I count myself his wife. His wife?--nay, his bride, his two years' bride, to-night, his wife, to-morrow. He must meet me there, (_writing_) at noon, I will say.--I did not think that little hut of logs should have been my marriage-hall;--he must meet me there, and to-morrow is my bridal day.

PART THIRD.

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FATE.

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DIALOGUE I.