querulous expression, which I had never noticed before, about the mouth; and the skin round the eyes had that livid hue, which gives to the countenance so peculiar an appearance of unhealthiness.
"My dear Louisa," I exclaimed, "you are surely not well!"
She answered she was tolerably well, and, as she did not appear to like to be questioned, I made no farther inquiries, but gave my attention to the detail of the various arrangements that had been entered into for the approaching ceremony. I was to see the wedding clothes, of course, and I exposed my ignorance, or at least forgetfulness, of modern fashion, by asking for the bonnet.
"Bonnet! aunt," cried Amy; "wreath I suppose you mean – here it is," and she placed it on her beautiful brow. Louisa threw the costly vail over her head, and there was a picture which a Reynolds or a Lawrence might have been proud to copy. I had not long to admire it. Amy laughed and blushed, and threw the things away again. What strange fashions there are with respect to wedding clothes, thought I; my mother was married in a riding-habit and hat, just as if she had been going fox-hunting; nowadays, nothing but a ball dress will do for the ceremony; albeit it be performed on the stone floor of a country church, at Christmas time. Must a wedding dress, indeed, be one as different as possible to the wearer's daily habits and every-day appearance – a kind of climax to all the little duplicities, voluntary and involuntary, which, it is said, are inseparable from courtship? Well, well, be it so! Thy outward attractions, Amy, will not have lost much, when the blonds and satins are put into the bandbox. God grant that it may be the same with the other and dearer graces of the heart and mind!
The few days which intervened between my arrival and the wedding-day were very busy ones; so busy that I could see very little of the bride elect, and still less of the bridegroom. What I did see of the latter, however, impressed me very favorably. He seemed worthy of all Amy might become, all he thought she was, for he was passionately in love, as it is not difficult to imagine a young man would be with a being so beautiful and attractive. What her feelings toward him were, I could not exactly decide. Everybody said she loved him, and so she thought herself; but I could not bring myself to believe that her heart was yet awakened to a profound and passionate sentiment of affection. She admired her future husband, and was flattered by being the choice of one who was universally allowed to be a superior man; she liked his company, and felt grateful to him for his love. If this were not love, it was at least a good foundation for it, and, perhaps, the wonder was that it had not yet ripened into a warmer sentiment. But Amy was a child – a child whose whole life had been surrounded by trifles; and there was a depth and seriousness in Edward Lennox's character to which her own was yet but imperfectly attuned. Would the future bring with it companionship and love, or estrangement and indifference? A tremendous question this appeared to me, but one which apparently entered into the head of no one in all that busy house, except into that of the elderly spinster aunt.
The wedding took place. There is no occasion to describe it; most people, at any rate the young ones, know how such things are managed nowadays. The bride and bridegroom departed, and the bridesmaids dispersed until the return of the wedded pair should re-assemble them for the important business of receiving company. As this return was not likely to be speedy, I too said farewell, for I had engaged to visit other friends, before returning to my hermitage – as Mrs. R. persisted in denominating my cottage – although it was situated close to a populous village, and not far from a flourishing market-town.
I went away very anxious about Louisa. Mrs. R. was sensible of the change in her daughter's appearance and professed herself unable to understand it. No girls, as she observed, had more indulgences or greater means of amusement than hers had, but nothing pleased or amused Louisa now. I inquired if any thing had occurred to render her unhappy. Her mother said there had been a slight love affair, but that reasons sufficient to satisfy Louisa herself had set it on one side, and that she did not think the attachment still existed. My future observations inclined me to agree with Mrs. R. in this latter particular, but it seemed to me as if this fancy, slight as it might have been, had awakened the poor girl to the consciousness that she had a heart and a soul; that she possessed capacities which called for nobler objects and a wider sphere of action, than were furnished in the region of frivolity wherein she dwelt. Not that she could have put her feelings into words – they existed in her mind too vaguely for that; her longings were indefinable to herself, but they were real, and I was convinced they were sapping the very foundations of her existence. I would fain have taken her home with me. I would have brought her into contact with the genuine wants and woes of humanity, represented, it might be, in humble types, but varnished over by none of the falsehood and glitter of fashionable society. I would have done so, because I believed that here she might find something to interest and rouse her to action. This once accomplished, her energies would no longer be left to prey upon themselves, and the weariness of an aimless existence would be at an end. But had my abode been, indeed, the cell of an anchorite, and buried in the depth of the wilderness, Mrs. R. could not have shrunk with more horror from the idea of trusting her daughter to my guardianship, than she did when I made the proposal. In vain I represented how happy Amy had always been while under my care, and how infallible had been the effect of Cumberland air upon all her juvenile ailments. In as plain terms as were consistent with her accustomed good breeding, Mrs. R. intimated, that though it might do very well for a child, Louisa would be moped to death at my cottage. She needed amusement, interest, that was certain; she must go to Brighton, to Hastings, to Baden, if possible – any where, to give her a complete change of scene and ideas. I gave the matter up, but I believed that in my solitude she would have found a greater change of scene and ideas than she would be likely to meet with in any fashionable watering-place.
Months rolled on. The bride and bridegroom returned, but not before I was again settled at home. I had letters from Amy, cheerful, happy letters they were. How could they be otherwise? The whole joys of the world were before her, and with a lively fancy, and the keen sense of enjoyment of eighteen, how could she be insensible to their attractions! I had letters from Mrs. R. too, full of Amy's praises. They told me how gracefully she had played her new part – how, whether she appeared abroad or received guests at home, she was the delight of every eye, the praise of every tongue. This was not all I would have known, but I could learn no more, and it was two years before Amy and I met again. She was then the mother of a fine little boy, and as blooming and beautiful as ever. She seemed happy too, and preserved that uninterrupted flow of gayety which had always been so charming. Not so her husband. The ease and cheerfulness, which had once characterized his conversation, had vanished; he was silent and reserved; it seemed to me that some hidden sorrow, for which he had no confidant, was preying on his mind. When I hinted to Amy the change in her husband's manner, she tossed her pretty head, and poutingly remarked, that she supposed men were always more agreeable in the days of courtship than after marriage. But, in spite of her childish petulance, a tear stole to her eye, which I was not sorry to see there. True it was that Edward Lennox was completely disenchanted. He had found out that the thoughtless, inexperienced girl, who had never been led to reflect on any thing more serious than the amusement of the present hour, was not the perfect woman, the ideal of his fancy, and the echo of his every thought and feeling. He was a man of an almost jealously sensitive turn of mind, and when he found he was not comprehended, he shrank into himself, and took refuge in an impenetrable reserve. Amy, poor child, had no idea of all that was passing in her husband's mind. She was conscious of no change in herself, and she little thought how different had been his conception of her character to its reality. She believed that what her mamma had told her about the caprice of men, explained the change which she could not but be sensible had taken place in his sentiments toward her; and though this change sometimes made her sad, she did not love deeply enough to be quite heart-broken. But Amy was still loved. If Mr. Lennox did not love her as he could have loved the true wife of his bosom, he cherished her as a lovely child, whose happiness was intrusted to his keeping, and it seemed to me as if fears for her, as well as sorrow of his own, harassed and perplexed him.
Mrs. R. was right. Nothing could be more faultless than the easy grace with which Amy presided at her husband's table, or mixed in the gay circles of fashionable amusement. With perfect truth, I could congratulate her mother on this point, but I felt a kind of wonder, well as I
