Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 400: what you’re looking at

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ELLEN PEECY; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS. 387 tears which had a few minutes before flowed as it; brown eyes, when I announced my intention of were to the very brims of my eyes, were held back. | going to London to seek my own bread! Ob, as But why had I been so sad ? and why was it that | I thus retrospected, I felt that I had long loved the spectacle of Juliet’s happiness had excited that , my cousin dearly—very dearly !—and the deeper sorrow in my mind—though heaven knows that it | grew this conviction in my mind, the stronger was untinctured by envy! I could not help think- | became the feeling also that if anything were to ing to myself that the loves of all my friends and happen to Henry I could not survive the mis acquaintances seemed to prosper, while mine had | fortune. No! it would be the same as dealing a hitherto experienced only disappointment and death-blow unto myself, if I were to be told that calamity. Aline had espoused the object of her the hand of the ruthless Destroyer had smitten heart’s devotion—Mary Glentworth was equally down the object of my love—had turned into signalized by Fortune’s smile—the same was now marble those Grecian features that were wont to to be said of Juliet: while I was in a state of | beam with intelligence, and had dimmed the light painful uncertainty relative to the fate of my own that shone eo luminously in the large brown well-beloved Henry Wakefield! It was nearly a/| eyes! ‘ twelvemonth since he and my father had set off for| 1 was suddenly startled from my reverie at the California ; and months had elapsed since I had | moment when it was reaching its most painful last reeeived any intelligence from them. Six crisis: I heard the front gate open and shut— months had gone by since William Lardner had | then there were the sounds of footsteps. I looked set off to America in quest of them ; and only once | had any intelligence been received from him—and this was when he first arrived at New York. And here was I, rich once more—the possessor of a large fortune—and there were bright prospects awaiting Henry Wakefield—and yet he came not! up—and O heaven! what a cry of joy it was that suddenly pealed from my lips as I caught sight of those of whom I had been thinking! Yes—there was my cousin Henry! there was also my father! and between them was athird person. Ah! was this possible? did I indeed behold the countenance I knew not even whether he was still in the land of Mr. Moss? of the living: for often and often when I had re- Towards my sire and my cousin I flew!— flected upon the stupendous perils which must be towards me they flew likewise!—and in a few encountered by those who journey across the moments I was folded in their arms. By turns whole immense region of North America, from the | they embraced me—that father and that cousia landing-place on the eastern shore to the littoral of who were restored to me!—and I need not say the mighty North Pacific—I had shuddered and how fervidly I embraced them in return. Bat in trembled on behalf of those who were so dear to me—my lover and my father! Ob, what had be- the midst of my own joy—in the vortex as it were of my own wild delight, I was not so selfish as to come of them? what had become of them? It) forget the happiness of another who was dear to was this question which had over and over again recurred to my mind while I was seated at the banqueting-table!—it was this bewildering con- me; and thinking of Beda, I inquired anxiously, “Have you seen William Lardner ?” “There! there!” ejaculated both my father and *ecture which had overshadowed my soul with its| Henry; and glancing in the direction to which gloom ! I paced slowly along the gravel-walk in the garden: the soft tranquillity of the seene infused a sensation of relief into my heart. I stopped | they pointed, I beheld the delighted Beda clasped in the arms of her faithful William. Bat now another scene of exciting interest took place: for Moss, throwing himself at my short near an enormous vase; and there I fell ; feet, exclaimed, “They have promised that you into a deep reverie. I thought to myself that | will pardon me, Miss Percy! On, promise that you heaven would scarcely be so harsh and cruel as to sunder me for ever from those on whose safe return my happiness so entirely depended: I blamed myself for having yielded to Henry’s mad scheme of seeking an El Dorado in the Far West ; and then I mentally exclaimed, “ But it was not will do so!” “This penitent young man, dear Ellen,” said my father, “has come to restore you the fortune of which he plundered you. Yes! the whole of it—thirty-six thousand pounds and upward ¢ “Whatever promises you have made,” I replied, my fault! he was resolute!—and after all, he was | with a gush of joyous emotions, as I glanced from impelled by the most laudable spirit of indepen- - dence !”’ As I thought of my cousin, my recollections were slowly carried back to other scenes and inci- dents: I remembered him as I had first seen him —a tall, genteel, and slender lad; and I recol- lected how I had then thought to myself that his large brown eyes, shaded by their ebon lashes, were the most beautiful I had ever seen. Then I remembered how I had againeeen my cousin Henry: it was at the time of my grandfather’s ‘death; and though I was overwhelmed with grief, yet even then I could not help thinking how gen- teel and agreeable he was growing! And next my reminiscence settled upon the period when I lived ‘with my aunt and Henry at Sheffield; and I recol- lected how a consternation had smitten him, and how tears had started into his handsome dark- ~ my father to my cousin, “1 am only too happy to confirm.” “And thus you are rich once more, dearest Ellen!” cried Henry. “Yes—richer far than you at present sur- mise,” I exclaimed: “for Mr. Macdonald has re- stored me everything—wealth has come to me from that quarter also——~” “God be thanked!” ejaculated my father; while at the same time a cry of exultation burst from the lips of Henry. “Yes,” I said; “Fortune has reserved all her bounties to shower them upon me thick and fast,” “Oh! you are now rich, dear Ellen,” cried Henry: “but we have no such favourable tale to tell! Obedient to your summons we returned; and if the hopes at which in your letter you ECORNICLOO© EE ES _ re crm a ee ee ee EOL ee ~ (CO)