her loved her son; one who nursed and fondled you in infancy; one
who has now come from another land but for the sake of seeing you,
and of holding once more to her heart the nursling of other years,
even more sad and terrible than these."
"From another land!" said Wilton, thoughtfully, while through the dim
and misty vista of the past, strange figures seemed to move before
his eyes, as if suddenly called up out of the darkness of oblivion by
some enchanter's voice. "Another land!" he said, thoughtfully--"Your
face and your voice seem to wake strange memories. I think, I
remember having been with you in another land, and I
recollect--surely I recollect, a pretty cottage with a rose-tree at
the door--a rose-tree in full bloom; and tying the knot of an
officer's scarf, and his holding me long to his heart, and blessing
me again and again--"
"Before he went to battle!" said the lady, "before he went to death!"
Her voice became choked in suffocating sobs, and she wept again long
and bitterly.
"Nay, but tell me more," said Wilton--"in pity, tell me more. Do I
not surely recollect his face, too?" and he pointed to Green, "and
the sparkling sea-shore? and sailing long upon the ocean? Tell me
more, oh, tell me more!"
"I must not yet, Wilton," she replied--"I must not yet. They tell me
it is dangerous, and I believe it is. Struggles must soon take place,
changes must inevitably ensue, and I would not--no, not for all the
world, I would not that your young life should be plunged into those
terrible contentions, which have swallowed up, as a dark whirlpool,
the existence of so many of your race. If our hopes be true, the way
to fortune and rank will be open to you at once: or there is no such
a thing as gratitude in the world. If not, you will have the means of
living in quiet and tranquillity, and if you will, of struggling for
higher things; for within six months the whole shall be told to you.
Ask me not! ask me not!" she added, seeing him about to speak--"I
have promised in this matter to be guided by others, and I must say
no more."
"But who is he?" continued Wilton, pointing to Green. The lady
looked first at him, and then at their companion, with a faint, even
a melancholy, smile.
"He is one," she replied, "whom you must trust, for he has ever
guided others better and more successfully than he has guided
himself. He is one who has every title to direct you."
"This is all very strange," said Wilton, "and it is painful, too. You
do not know--you cannot