SMALL | MEDIUM
-- "My heart is wondrous light,
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed."
Romeo and Juliet.
The next morning opened on Boston with that boon to all small societies, a new topic of interest and conversation. The attempt on the prison the preceding night, was in every one's mouth; and as the community had been much agitated con- cerning the heresies and trial of Gorton and his company, they did not hesitate to attribute the criminal outrage to some of his secret adherents, who, as the sentence that had passed on the unfor- tunate men, was the next day to take effect, had made this desperate effort to rescue them. It was not even surmised by the popular voice, that the bold attempt had been made on account of the Indian woman. The magistrates had very discreetly refrained from disclosing her connec- tion with state affairs, as every alarm about the rising of the Indians, threw the colony, especially the women and children, into a state of the great- est agitation. The imprisonment of Magawis- ca was, therefore, looked upon as a transient and prudential and domiciliary arrangement, to prevent the possibility of any concert between -151- 
SMALL | MEDIUM her and the recovered captive, Faith Leslie, who was known to be pining for her Indian friends.
That the Governor's secret conclusions were
very different from those of the people, was indi-
cated by a private order, which he sent to Barna-
by Tuttle, to remove the Indian maiden from the
upper apartment, to the dungeon beneath the
prison; but by no means to inflict any other se-
verity on her, or to stint her of any kindness con-
sistent with her safe keeping. Gorton's company
were, on the same day, removed from the prison;
and, as is well known to the readers of the chron-
icles of the times, distributed separately to the
towns surrounding Boston, where, notwithstand-
ing they were jealously guarded and watched, they
proved dangerous leaven, and were soon after-
wards transported to England.
Whatever secret suspicions the Governor en-
tertained in relation to Everell Fletcher, his kind
feelings, and the delicate relation in which he
stood to that young man, as the son of his dearest
friend, and the betrothed husband of his niece,
induced him to keep them within his own bosom;
without even intimating them to his partners in
authority, who, he well knew, whatever infirmi-
ties they, frail men, might have of their own,
were seldom guilty of winking at those of others.
But to return to our heroine, whom we left con-
valescing; the energies of a youthful and unim-
paired constitution, and the unwearied care of her
gentle nurse, restored her in the space of two
Hope entered the parlour leaning on Esther's
arm. All rose to welcome her, and to offer their
congratulations, more or less formal, on her pre-
servation and recovery. Everell advanced with
the rest, and essayed to speak, but his voice failed
him. Hope with natural frankness gave him her
hand, and all the blood in her heart seemed to
gush into her pale cheeks, but neither did she
speak. In the general movement their reciprocal
emotion passed unobserved, excepting by Esther;
she noted it. After the meal was finished, and
the Governor had returned thanks, in which he
inserted a clause expressive of the general grati-
tude "for the mercies that had been vouchsafed
to the maiden near and dear to many present, in
that she had been led safely through perils by
water, by land, and by sickness," Madame Win-
throp kindly insisted that Hope should occupy her
easy-chair, but Hope declined the honour, and
seating herself on the window-seat, motioned to
her sister to come and sit by her. The poor girl
obeyed, but without any apparent interest, and
without even seeming conscious of the endear-
ing tenderness with which Hope stroked back
her hair, and kissed her cheek. "What shall we
"In truth, I know not," he replied. "All day,
and all night, they tell me, she goes from window
to window, like an imprisoned bird fluttering
against the bars of its cage; and so wistfully she
looks abroad, as if her heart went forth with the
glance of her eye."
"I have done my best," said Mrs. Grafton, now
joining in the conversation, "to please her, but
it's all working for nothing, and no thanks. In
the first place, I gave her all her old play-things,
that you saved so carefully, Hope, and shed so
many tears over, and at first they did seem to
pleasure her. She looked them over and over,
and I could see by the changes of her counte-
nance as she took up one and another, that some
glimmerings of past times came over her; but as
ill luck would have it, there was among the rest,
in a little basket, a string of bird's eggs, which
Oneco had given her at Bethel. I remembered
it well, and so did she, for as soon as she saw it,
she dropped every thing else, and burst into
tears."
"Poor child!" said Mr. Fletcher, "these early
affections are deeply rooted." Everell, who stood
by his father, turned and walked to the other ex-
tremity of the apartment; and Hope involuntari-
ly passed her hand hastily over her brow; as she
did so, she looked up and saw Esther's eye fixed
on her. Rallying her spirits, "I am weak yet,
"Well, my dear aunt, why not indulge her for
the present? I suppose she has the feeling of the
natives, who seem to have an almost superstitious
attachment to that oriental costume."
"Oriental fiddlestick! you talk like a simple-
ton, Hope. I suppose you would let her wear
that string of all coloured shells round her neck,
would you not," she asked, drawing aside Faith's
mantle, and showing the savage ornament, " in-
"If you ask me seriously, aunt, I certainly
would, if she prefers it."
"Now that is peculiar of you, Hope. Why,
Miss Esther Downing, mine is a string of stones
that go by sevens -- yellow, topaz -- orange, onyx --
red, ruby -- and so on, and so on. Master Cra-
dock wrote the definitions of them all out of a la-
tin book for me once; and yet, though it is such
a peculiar beauty, that silly child will not give up
those horrid shells for it. Now," she continued,
turning to Faith, and putting her hand on the
necklace, "now that's a good girl, let me take it
off."
Faith understood her action, though not her
words, and she laid her own hand on the neck-
lace, and looked as if obstinately determined it
should not be removed.
Hope perceived there was something attached
to the necklace, and on a closer inspection,
which her position enabled her to make, she saw
it was a crucifix; and dreading lest her sister
should be exposed to a new source of persecution,
she interposed: "Let her have her own way at
present, I pray you, aunt: she may have some
reason for preferring those shells that we do not
know; and if she has not, I see no great harm in
her preferring bright shells to bright stones; at
any rate, for the present we had best leave her
"Well -- very well, take your own way, Miss
Hope Leslie."
Hope smiled -- "Nay, aunt," she said, "I can-
not be Miss Hope Leslie till I get quite well
again."
"Oh, dearie, I meant nothing, you know," said
the good lady, whose displeasure never held out
against one of her niece's smiles. "If Miss Es-
ther Downing," she added, lowering her voice,
"had told me to say nothing of dress and orna-
ments, I should not have been surprised; but it is
an unheard of simpleness for you, Hope. Dress
and ornaments! they are the most likely things
in the world to take the mind off from trouble.
Till I came to this New English colony, where
every things seems, as it were, topsy turvy, I never
saw that woman whose mind could not be divert-
ed by dress and ornaments."
"You strangely dishonor your memory, mistress
Grafton, or Hope's noble mother," said the elder
Fletcher; "methinks I have heard you often say
that Alice Fletcher had no taste for these vani-
ties."
"No, you never heard me say that, Mr. Fletch-
er. Vanities! -- no, never, the longest day I had
to live; for I never called them vanities -- no -- I
did say Alice always went as plain as a pike staff,
after you left England; and a great pity it was, I
Hope felt, and her quick eye saw, that her aunt
was running on sadly at her own expense; and
to produce an effect similar to the painter, when,
by his happy art, he shifts his lights, throwing de-
fects into shadow, and bringing out beauties, she
said, "You are very little like your friend, lady
Penyvére, dear aunt, for I am certain, if, as you
feared, I had lost my life the other day, all the
mourning in the king's realm would not have
turned your thoughts from trouble."
"No, that's true -- that's true, dearie," replied
the good lady, snuffling, and wiping away the
tears that had gathered at the bare thought
of the evil that had threatened her. "No, Hope,
touch you, touch my life; but then," she added,
Lights were now ordered, and after the bustle,
made by the ladies drawing around the table, and
arranging their work, was over, Governor Win-
throp said, "if your strength is equal to the task,
Miss Leslie, we would gladly hear the particulars
of your marvellous escape, of which Esther has
been able to give us but a slight sketch; though
enough to make us all admire at the wonderful
Providence that brought you safely through."
The elder Fletcher, really apprehensive for
Hope's health, and still more apprehensive that
she might, in her fearless frankness, discredit her-
self with the Governor, by disclosing all the par-
ticulars of her late experience, which he had al-
ready heard from her lips, and permitted to pass
uncensured, interposed, and hoped to avert the
evil, by begging that the relation might be defer-
red. But Hope insisted that she felt perfectly
well, and began by saying, `she doubted not her
kind friends had made every allowance for the
trouble she had occasioned them. She was con-
scious that much evil had proceeded from the rash
promise of secresy she had given.' She forbore
to name Magawisca, on her sister's account, who
was still sitting by her; the Governor, by a signi-
ficant nod, expressed that he comprehended her;
Madam Winthrop, all astonishment at Hope's
exemplary humility and deference, graces she had
not appeared to abound in, assured her with un-
assumed kindness, that she had her cordial for-
giveness; though, indeed, she was pleased to
say, `Hope's explanation left her little to forgive.'
"And you, sir," said Hope, turning to the Go-
vernor, "you, I trust, will pardon me for selecting
your garden for a secret rendezvous."
"Indeed, Hope Leslie, I could pardon a much
heavier transgression in one so young as thee;
and one who seems to have so hopeful a sense
of error," replied the Governor, while the good-
will beaming in his benevolent face, shewed how
much more accordant kindness was with his na-
ture, than the austere reproof which he so often
believed the letter of his duty required from him.
"Then you all -- all forgive me; do you not?"
Hope asked; and glancing her eye around the
room, it involuntarily rested, for a moment, on
"I did not see you, I believe, Esther," con-
tinued Hope, "after we parted at Digby's cot-
tage?"
"Speak a trifle louder, if you please, Miss Les-
lie," said the Governor. Hope was herself con-
scious that her voice had faltered, at the recollec-
tion of the definitive scene in Digby's cottage,
and making a new effort, she said in a firmer
and more cheerful tone, "you, Esther, were hap-
pily occupied. I was persecuted by Sir Philip
Gardiner, whose ungentlemanly interference in
my concerns, will, I trust, relieve me from his so-
ciety in future."
"Pardon me, Miss Leslie, said the Governor,
interrupting Hope, "our friend, Sir Philip, hath
deserved you thanks rather than your censure.
There are, as you well know, duties paramount
to the courtesies of a gentleman, which are, for
the most part, but a vain show: mere dress and
decoration;" and he vouchsafed a smile, as he
quoted the words of Mrs. Grafton, "Sir Philip
believed he was consulting your happiness, when
he took measures to recover your sister, which
your promise forbade your taking."
"Sir Philip strangely mistakes me," replied
There was a pause, during which Mrs. Win-
throp whispered to Esther, "then she knows all
about it?"
"Yes -- she would not rest till she heard all."
Hope proceeded. "I believe I am not yet
strong enough to speak on this point." She then
went on to narrate circumstantially all that
took place after she was parted from Maga-
wisca, till she came to Antonio. Cradock,
when she began, had laid aside a little Greek
book, over which he was conning, and had at
every new period of her relation given his chair
a hitch towards her, till he sat directly before
her, on the edge of his chair, his knees press-
ed close together, and his palms resting up-
right on them, his head stooped forward, so as to
be at right angles with his body, and his parting
lips creeping round to his ears, with an expression
of complacent wonder. Thus he sat and looked,
while Hope described her politic acquiescence in
Antonio's error, and repeated her first reply to
him in Italian. At this the old man threw his
head back, and burst into a peal of laughter, that
resembled the neighing of a horse more than any
human sound; and as soon as he could recover
his voice, "did not I teach her the tongues?" he
asked, with a vehement gesture to the company --
"did not I teach her the tongues?"
"Indeed you did, kind master Cradock," said
Hope, laying her hand on his; "and many a
weary hour it cost you."
"Never -- never one -- thou wert always a mar-
vellous quick witted damsel." He then resumed his
seat and his former attitude, and, closing his eyes,
said in his usual low, deliberate tone, "I bless the
Lord that the flower and beauty of my youth
were spent in Padua: a poor blind worm that I
am, I deemed it a loss, but it hath saved her most
precious and sweet life." And here he burst into
a paroxysm of tears and sobbing, almost as vio-
lent as his laughter had been: his organs seemed
moved by springs which, if touched by an emo-
tion, were quite beyond his control, and only
ceased their operation when their mechanical
force was exhausted.
Hope had little more to relate: she prudently
suppressed the private concerns of Sir Philip's
page, and attributed their accidental meeting to
his having come abroad, as in truth he had, in
quest of his master. When she had finished, the
Governor said, "Thou hast indeed been brought
through many dangers, Hope Leslie; delivered
from the hand of thy strong enemy, and thy feet
made like hinds' feet; and I joy to say, that thy
experience of the Lord's mercies seemeth to have
wrought a becoming sobriety in thee. I would
fain pass over that last passage in thy evening's
adventures without remark, but duty bids me say,
thou didst err, lamentably, in permitting, for a
"Worship, sir!" said Hope: "I did not esteem
it worship; I thought it merely an affectionate
address to one who -- and I hope I erred not in
that -- might not have been a great deal better
than myself."
"I think she erred not greatly," said Mr.
Fletcher, who at this moment felt too tenderly
for Hope, patiently to hear her rebuked; "the
best catholic doctors put this interpretation on the
invocations to saints."
"Granted," replied the Governor, "but did she
right to deepen and strengthen the superstition
of the Romish sailor?"
"It does not appear to me," said Mr. Fletcher,
"that it was a seasonable moment for meddling
with his superstitions. We do not read that Paul
rebuked the Melitans, even when they said he
was a god." This was but negative authority;
but while the Governor hesitated how he should
answer it, Mr. Fletcher turned to Esther: "Miss
Downing," he said, "thou art the pattern maiden
of the commonwealth, -- in Hope's condition,
wouldst thou have acted differently? out of thy
mouth she shall be justified or condemned."
"Speak, dear Esther," said Hope; "why do
you hesitate? If I were to choose an external
conscience, you should be my rule; though I
think the stern monitor could never be embodied
"What I should have done, if left to my own
strength, I know not," replied Esther, speaking
reluctantly.
"Then, Esther, I will put the question in a form
to spare your humility; I will not ask what you
would have done, but what I ought to have
done?"
Esther's strictness was a submission to duty;
and it cost her an effort to say, "I would rather,
Hope, thou hadst trusted thyself wholly to that
Providence that had so wonderfully wrought for
thee thus far."
"I believe you are quite right, Esther," said
Hope, who was disposed to acquiesce in what-
ever her friend said, and glad to escape from any
further discussion; and, moreover, anxious to
avert Esther's observation from Everell, who, dur-
ing the conversation, had been walking the room,
his arms folded, to and fro, but had narrowly
watched Esther during this appeal; and when
she announced her opinion, had turned disappoint-
ed away.
Mrs. Grafton now arose with a trifling appa-
rent vexation, and, taking Faith by the arm, she
signified her intention to retire to her own apart-
ment. While crossing the room she said, "It is
not often I quote scripture, as you all know; be-
cause, as I have said before, I hold a text from scrip-
ture, or a sample of chintz, to be a deceptive kind
Having the last word is one of the tokens of vic-
tory, and the good lady, content with this, with-
drew from the field of discussion. Governor
Winthrop retired to his study. Hope followed
him thither, and begged a few moments audi-
ence; which was, of course, readily granted.
When the door was closed, and he had seated
himself, and placed a large arm-chair for her, all
the tranquillity which she had just before so well
sustained, forsook her; she sunk, trembling, on
her knees, and was compelled to rest her fore-
head on the Governor's knee: he laid his hand
kindly on her head, "what does this mean?"
he asked; "I like not, and it is not fitting, that
any one should kneel in my house, but for a holy
purpose, -- rise, Hope Leslie, and explain yourself
-- rise, my child," he added in a softened tone,
for his heart was touched with her distress; " ty-
rants are knelt to -- and I trust I am none."
"No, indeed, you are not," she replied, rising
and clasping her hands with earnest supplication;
"and therefore, I hope -- nay, I believe, you will
grant my petition for our poor Indian friend."
"Well, be calm -- what of her?"
"What of her! Is she not, the generous crea-
ture, at this moment in your condemned dungeon?
"Well, what would you have, young lady?"
asked the Governor, in a quiet manner, that
damped our heroine's hopes, though it did not
abate her ardour.
"I would have your warrant, sir," she replied
boldly, "for her release; her free passage to her
poor old father, if indeed he lives."
"You speak unadvisedly, Miss Leslie. I am
no king; and I trust the Lord will never send
one in wrath on his chosen people of the new
world, as he did on those of old. No, in truth, I
am no king. I have but one voice in the com-
monwealth, and I cannot grant pardons at plea-
sure; and besides, on what do you found your
plea?"
"On what?" exclaimed Hope. "On her mer-
its, and rights."
"Methinks, my young friend, you have lost
right suddenly that humble tone, that but now in
the parlour graced you so well. I trusted that
your light afflictions, and short sickness, had tend-
ed to the edification of your spirit."
"I spoke then of myself, and humility became
me; but surely you will permit me to speak cour-
ageously of the noble Magawisca."
"There is some touch of reason in thy speech,
Hope Leslie," replied the Governor, his lips al-
most relaxing to a smile. "Sit down, child, and
"I have not to tell you, sir," said Hope, strug-
gling to speak in a dispassionate tone, "but only
to remind you of what you were once the first to
speak of -- the many obligations of the English to
the family of Mononotto -- a debt, that has been
but ill paid."
"That debt, I think, was cancelled by the
dreadful massacre at Bethel."
"If it be so, there is another debt that never has
been -- that scarce can be cancelled."
"Yes, I know to what you allude: it was a
noble action for a heathen savage; and I marvel
not that my friend Fletcher should think it a title
to our mercy; or, that young Mr. Everell, look-
ing with a youthful eye on this business, should
deem it a claim on our justice. They have both
spoken much and often to me, and it were well,
if Everell Fletcher were content to leave this mat-
ter with those who have the right to determine it."
Hope perceived the Governor looked very sig-
nificantly, and she apprehended that he might
think her intercession was instigated by Everell.
"I have not seen Everell Fletcher," she said,
"till this evening, since we parted at the garden;
and you will do both him and me the justice to
believe, I have not now spoken at his bidding."
"I did not think it. I know thou art ever some-
what forward to speak the dictates of thy heart,"
`And he alone,' she thought, as she slowly
crept to her room. A favourite from her birth,
Hope had been accustomed to the gratification
of her wishes; innocent and moderate they had
been; but uniform indulgence is not a favourable
school, and our heroine had now to learn from
that stern teacher experience, that events and
circumstances cannot be moulded to individual
wishes. She must sit down and passively await
the fate of Magawisca. `She had done all she
could do, and without any effect -- had she done
This in almost any young lady would have been a
common expression of romantic distress; but in
the disciplined, circumspect Esther, uncontrolled
emotion was as alarming, to compare small
things to great, as if an obedient planet were to
start from its appointed orbit.
Hope hastened to her, and folding her arms
around her tenderly, inquired what could thus
distress her? Esther disengaged herself from her
friend, and turned her face from her.
"I cannot bear this," said Hope, "I can bear
any thing better than this: are you displeased
with me, Esther?"
"Yes, I am displeased with you -- with myself --
with every body -- I am miserable."
"What do you mean, Esther? I have done
nothing to offend you; for pity's sake tell me
what you mean? I have never had a feeling or
thought that should offend you."
"You have most cruelly, fatally injured me,
Hope Leslie."
"Here is some wretched mistake," cried Hope;
"for heaven's sake explain, Esther: if I had in-
jured you knowingly, I should be of all creatures
most guilty; but I have not. If I have innocently
injured you, speak, my dear friend, I beseech you,"
she added, again putting her arm around Esther;
"have not you yourself, a thousand times, said
there should be no disguises with friends; no un-
told suspicions; no unexplained mysteries."
Again Esther repressed Hope. "I have been
unfairly dealt by," she said. "I have been treat-
ed as a child."
"How -- when -- where -- by whom?" demand-
ed Hope impetuously.
"Ask me no questions now, Hope. I will an-
swer none. I will no longer be played upon."
"Oh, Esther, you are cruel," said Hope, burst-
ing into tears. "You are the one friend that I
have loved gratefully, devotedly, disinterestedly,
and I cannot bear this."
There was a pause of half an hour, during which
Esther sat with her face covered with her hand-
kerchief, and sobbing violently, while Hope walk-
ed up an down the room; her tender heart pe-
netrated to the very core with sorrow, and her
mind perplexed with endless conjectures about
the cause of her friend's emotions.
She sometimes approached near the truth, but
that way she could not bear to look. At last
Esther became quiet, and Hope ventured once
more to approach her, and leaned over her with-
There was an authority in her manner, that
Hope could not, and did not, wish to resist. "If
you speak to me so, Esther," she said, "I would
obey you, even though it were possible obedience
should be more difficult. Now we will go to bed,
and forget all this wearisome evening; but first
kiss me, and tell me you love me as well as ever."
"I do," she replied; but her voice faltered;
and governed by the strictest law of truth, she
changed her form of expression -- "I mean that I
shall again love you as well -- I trust better than
ever -- be content with this, for the present, Hope,
and try me no further."
Once, while they were undressing, Esther said,
but without any emotion in her voice, -- her face
was averted from Hope, -- "Everell has been pro-
posing to me to assist him in a clandestine at-
tempt to get Magawisca out of prison."
"To get her out!" exclaimed Hope, with the
greatest animation -- "to night?"
"To-night or to-morrow night."
"And is there any hope of effecting it?"
"I thought it not right for me to undertake it,"
Esther replied in the same tone, quite calm, but
so deliberate, that Hope detected the effort with
which she spoke, and dared not venture another
question.
They both went to bed, but not to sleep; mu-
tual and secret anxieties kept them for a long
time restless, and a strange feeling of embarrass-
ment, as distant as the width of their bed would
allow; but, finally, Hope, as if she could no long-
er bear this estrangement, nestled close to Es-
ther, folded her arms around her, and fell asleep
on her bosom.
Madam Winthrop had very considerately, in
the course of the evening, left Everell and her
niece alone together; and he had availed himself
of this first opportunity of private communication,
to inform her, that after being frustrated in all his
efforts for Magawisca's rescue, he had, at length,
devised a plan which only wanted her co-opera-
tion to insure it success. Her agency would cer-
tainly, he believed, not be detected; and, at any
rate, could not involve her in any disagreeable
consequences.
`Any consequences to herself,' Esther said,
`she would not fear.' Everell assured her, that
he was certain she would not; but he was anxious
"Scripture warrant!" exclaimed Everell with
surprise and vexation he could not conceal.
"And are you to do no act of mercy, or compas-
sion, or justice, for which you cannot quote a
text from scripture?"
"Scripture hath abundant texts to authorise
all mercy, compassion, and justice, but we are not
always the allowed judges of their application;
and in the case before us we have an express
rule, to which, if we submit, we cannot err; for
thou well knowest, Everell, we are commanded
in the first of Peter, 2d chapter, to `submit our-
"But surely, Esther, there must be warrant, as
you call it, for sometimes resisting legitimate au-
thority, or all our friends in England would not be
at open war with their king. With such a prece-
dent, I should think the sternest conscience would
permit you to obey the generous impulses of na-
ture, rather than to render this slavish obedience
to the letter of the law."
"Oh, Everell! do not seek to blind my judg-
ment. Our friends at home are men who do all
things in the fear of the Lord, and are, therefore,
doubtless guided by the light of scripture, and the
inward testimony. But they cannot be a rule for
us, in any measure; and for me, Everell, it would
be to sin presumptuously, to do aught, in any way,
to countervail the authority of those chosen ser-
vants of the Lord, whose magistracy we are pri-
vileged to live under."
Everell tried all argument and persuasion to sub-
due her scruples, but in vain; she had some text,
or some unquestioned rule of duty, to oppose to
every reason and entreaty.
To an ardent young man, there is something
unlovely, if not revolting, in the sterner virtues;
and particularly when they oppose those objects
which he may feel to be authorised by the most
"Everell," she replied, "those who love you
need not know this maiden, to feel that they
would save her life at the expense of their own,
if they might do it;" and then blushing at what
she feared might seem an empty boast, she ad-
ded, "but I do know Magawisca; I have visit-
ed her in her prison every day since she has been
there."
"God bless you for that, Esther -- but why did
you not tell me?"
"Because my uncle only permitted me access
to her, on condition that I kept it a secret from
you."
"Methinks that prohibition was as useless as
cruel."
"No, Everell; my uncle, doubtless, anticipated
such applications as you have made to-night,
and he was right to guard me from temptation."
`He might securely have trusted you to resist
it,' thought Everell. But he tried to suppress the
unkind feeling, and asked Esther `if she had
"Yes," replied Esther, "I heard my uncle say,
that if Magawisca could be induced to renounce
her heathenish principles, and promise, instead of
following her father to the forest, to remain here,
and join the catechised Indians, he thought the
magistrates might see it to be their duty to overlook
her past misdemeanors, and grant her Christian
privileges." Esther paused for a moment, but
Everell made no comment, and she proceeded,
in a tone of the deepest humility: "I knew I was
a poor instrument, but I hoped a blessing on the
prayer of faith, and the labour of love. I set be-
fore her, her temporal and her eternal interest --
life, and death. I prayed with her -- I exhorted
her -- but, oh! Everell, she is obdurate; she nei-
ther fears death, nor will believe that eternal mi-
sery awaits her after death!"
To Esther's astonishment, Everell, though he
looked troubled, neither expressed surprise or dis-
appointment at the result of her labours, but im-
mediately set before her the obvious inference
from it. "You see, yourself," he said, "by your
own experience, there is but one way of aiding
Magawisca."
"It is unkind of you, Everell," she replied,
with a trembling voice, "to press me further; that
way, you know, my path is hedged up;" and
without saying any thing more, she abruptly left
Esther escaped hastily, and without his obser-
vation; and the scene already described, in the
apartment of the young ladies, ensued.
Everell Fletcher must not be reproached with
being a disloyal knight. The artifices of Sir
Philip Gardiner, the false light in which our he-
roine had been placed by her embarrassments
with Magawisca -- the innocent manoeuvrings of
Madam Winthrop, and finally, the generous rash-
ness of Hope Leslie, had led him step by step, to
involve himself in an engagement with Miss Down-
ing; that engagement had just been made
known to her protectors, and ratified by them,
when the denouement of the mysterious rendez-
vous at the garden, explained his fatal mistake.
When he recurred to all that had passed since
his first meeting with Hope Leslie, and particu-
larly to their last interview at the garden, when
he had imputed her uncontrollable emotion to her
sensibility in relation to Sir Philip, he had reason to
believe, he was beloved by the only being he had
ever loved. But in what cruel circumstance did
Hope's dangerous illness had suspended all his
purposes; he could not disguise his interest -- and
indeed, its manifestation excited neither surprise
nor remark, for it seemed sufficiently accounted
for by their long and intimate association. While
Hope's life was in peril, even Magawisca was
forgotten; but the moment Hope's convalescence
restored the use of his faculties, they were all de-
voted to obtaining Magawisca's release, and he
had left no means untried, either of open interces-
sion, or clandestine effort; but all as yet was
without effect.