lodious with their songs, the trilling stream
mingles its murmurs, and nature would seem gathering her beauties into
one enchanting harmony. In the foreground of the grove, and looking as
if it borrowed solitude of the deep foliage, in which it is half buried,
rises a pretty villa, wherein may be seen, surrounded by luxuries the
common herd might well envy, the fair, the beautiful siren, Anna Bonard.
In the dingy little back parlor of the old antiquary, grim poverty
looking in through every crevasse, sits the artless and pure-minded
Maria McArthur. How different are the thoughts, the hopes, the emotions
of these two women. Comfort would seem smiling on the one, while
destitution threatens the other. To the eye that looks only upon the
surface, how deceptive is the picture. The one with every wish
gratified, an expression of sorrow shadowing her countenance, and that
freshness and sweetness for which she was distinguished passing away,
contemplates herself a submissive captive, at the mercy of one for whom
she has no love, whose gold she cannot inherit, and whose roof she must
some day leave for the street. The other feels poverty grasping at her,
but is proud in the possession of her virtue; and though trouble would
seem tracing its lines upon her features, her heart remains untouched by
remorse;--she is strong in the consciousness that when all else is gone,
her virtue will remain her beacon light to happiness. Anna, in the loss
of that virtue, sees herself shut out from that very world that points
her to the yawning chasm of her future; she feels how like a slave in
the hands of one whose heart is as cold as his smiles are false, she is.
Maria owes the world no hate, nor are her thoughts disturbed by such
contemplations. Anna, with embittered and remorseful feelings--with dark
and terrible passions agitating her bosom, looks back over her eventful
life, to a period when even her own history is shut to her, only to find
the tortures of her soul heightened. Maria looks back upon a life of
fond attachment to her father, to her humble efforts to serve others,
and to know that she has borne with Christian fortitude those ills which
are incident to humble life. With her, an emotion of joy repays the
contemplation. To Anna, the future is hung in dark forebodings. She
recalls to mind the interview with Madame Montford, but that only tends
to deepen the storm of anguish the contemplation of her parentage
naturally gives rise to.