CHAPTER XIV. "Alas! for earthly joy, and hope, and love, "Thou wert of those whose very morn MRS. EMBURY. T. K. HERVEY. IF ever Circumstance, that "unspiritual god" of Byron, took it into his head to put Wordsworth's theory of "how divine a thing a woman may be made," into practice, it was in the case of Beatrice de los Zoridos. Her early childhood had been passed among the wild mountains of her native province-whither Don Henriquez had conveyed his family: one attack had been beaten off from his luxurious home in the valley; that cost him dear enough -another might be fatal. Besides, the security of the mountains to those he loved most would send him forth an unfettered warrior against his country's enemy. But what took Lorraine three weeks to learn, may be told in three minutes. Margaretta Fortesque was the very sweetest little sylph that ever was spoiled by being a beauty and an only child. The last of one of our noblest Norman familes, who, from professing the Catholic faith, lived much to themseves a whole household seemed made but for her pleasure. The first suspicion that even a wish could exist contrary to her own, was when she fell in love with the handsome and stately Spaniard Don Henriquez de los Zoridos, who had made their house his home during his visit to England. The high birth, splendid fortune, and answering creed for her lover, overcame even the objection to his being a foreigner. From Margaretta was married; her parents accompanied her abroad; and for four years more her life was like a fairy tale. Its first sorrow was the death of her father. her great to her small scale Fate repeats her revolutions. Families, as well as nations, would seem to have their epochs of calamity. Thus it proved with the Zoridos. The sunny cycle of their years was past, and the shadows fell the darker for their former brightness. The French invaded Spain, and their path was as that of some terrible disease, sweeping to death and desolation all before it. Don Henriquez' house was attacked one night; the French were beaten off for a time, but not without much bloodshed. A chance ball laid Mrs. Fortesque a corpse at her daughter's side. Beatrice was wounded, though but slightly, in her very arms; and when daylight dawned on the anxious household, to one half of them it dawned in vain. Zoridos saw that no time must be lost; the enemy would soon be down upon them in overwhelming numbers. A summer house near, which had been fired, served as a funeral pile-any thing rather than leave even the dead to the barbarity of the invader. Henriquez himself was obliged to force his wife from the body of her mother. A few necessaries were hastily collected for valuables they had neither thought nor time. Zoridos placed the insensible Margaretta before him on his horse, and rode off, without daring to look back on the happy home they were deserting for ever. Beatrice's nurse followed, with her husband and the child. In better days, a daughter of the nurse had married a young mountaineer, whose remote cottage owed every comfort to their master's fair English bride. There they resolved to seek for shelter. A few days saw them in, at least, safety. But Zoridos was not the man to remain inactive and secure at a time when it was so imperative on every Spaniard who wore a sword to use it. His plans were soon formed-his wife's frantic entreaties were in vain-and he descended into the plain at the head of a gallant band of guerillas. Soon after his departure, it became evident, not only to the nurse, but to every individual in the cottage, that the lady's mind had received a shock, not her health. For days together she did not know them-spoke only in English-addressed her nurse, Marcela, as her mother-and played with the little Beatrice as if she were herself a child, and were delighted with such a living plaything. The first interval he could snatch, Don Henriquez hastened to the cottage. His wife did not know him, shrunk away in pitiable terror from the arms that he wore, and, as if all late events had passed from her memory, only seemed to know that she was spoken to when addressed as Miss Fortescue-by which name she invariably called herself. That night the dark and lonely rocks, where he wandered for hours, were the only witnesses of Zoridos' agony. The next day he was at the British camp. A week's intended halt permitting such an absence, he prevailed on an English surgeon to accompany him to the mountains. His opinion was only too decisive. Quiet and kindness might ameliorate, but never restore. The only chance he held out was, that when circumstances enabled them to return to their house, familiar scenes, and accustomed dress, might awaken some touch of memory— though nothing could ever recall the whole mind. To such a blow as this, death had been merciful. Similar tastes, similar pursuits, had bound Zoridos to his young English wife-his mind had been accustomed to see itself mirrored in hers, only with a softer shadow. He had been used to that greatest of mental pleasures-to have his thoughts often divined-always entered into. And nowthe intelligent and accomplished woman was a weak, and even worse, a merry child. The affectionate wife looked in her husband's face as in that of a stranger, from whom she shrank with fear. The past with no memory, the future with no hope. The bitterest cup has its one drop of honey; and the feeling of reciprocal affection was roused in Zoridos by the almost frantic delight of his infant girl at seeing him again; she clung to him-hid her little face in his bosom-sat still and silent, with that singular sympathy which children often show to the grief of their elders-and only when overpowered with sleep could she be removed from his knee. Months passed on. The unfortunate Margaretta was taught to consider Zoridos as her husband, and Beatrice as her child, and gradually to feel for them the affection of habit. But her mind seemed to have gone back to her childhood: all her recollections, her amusements, her sorrows, and her joys, belonged to that period. And once when Zoridos brought home for Beatrice a large doll he had obtained from the family of an English officer, her mother seized it with a scream of delight, and made dressing it a favorite employment. Months grew into years before they dared return to their home; and it was not till after the battle of the Pyrenees that Henriquez and his family again took possession of their mansion. No trace was left of either its beauty or luxury. His embarrassed affairs quite precluded Don Henriquez' plan of taking his wife and daughter to England. A few rooms were made habitable: and Zoridos gave his time and attention to the education of his child, which, from the extreme solitude in which they lived, devolved entirely upon himself. Time passed without much to record till Beatrice reached her sixteenth year, when the system of oppression and extortion enforced in his native province called imperatively on Don Henriquez to take his place in the Cortez. A few weeks of bold remonstrance ended with the imprisonment of the most obnoxious members, and a heavy fine on their property. At sixteen Beatrice found herself in a large desolate house, with scarce resources enough for mere subsistence, her father in an unknown prison, her mother imbecile, and herself without friend or adviser. Zoridos had always foreseen that his daughter's position must be one of difficulty, and he had endeavored to prepare for what he could not avert. The free spirit of the mountain girl had been sedulously encouraged: she had early learnt to think, and to know the value of selfexertion. To privation and hardship she was accustomed. She had read much; and if one work was food to the natural poetry of her imagination, and the romance nursed in her solitary life, another taught her to reflect upon her feelings, and by the example of others' actions to investigate her own. She was now to learn a practical lesson-lessons which, after all, if they do but fall on tolerable ground, are the only ones that bear real fruit. One day, Minora, the daughter of the old guerilla who had served with her father, came up with the intelligence that a detachment of soldiers, galloping up, had detailed their business, while pausing for wine and directions in the village. It was to levy the fine, and search for suspected persons-in other words, to pillage the house. Beatrice looked at her mother, who was busy sorting colored silks for her daughter's embroidery. Who could tell the consequences of another alarm, where the first had been so fatal? Her resolution was instantly taken. A few weeks since, with the view of supplying Donna Margaretta with a constant amusement, Beatrice had fixed on an open space in the thicket for a garden, and had there collected bees and flowers, and framed a little arbor. The way to it was very intricate, and the place entirely concealed. If she could but prevail on her mother to remain there, her security would be almost certain. Hastily placing a little fruit in a basket, and catching up a large cloak, she proposed their going to eat their grapes in Donna Margaretta's garden. "She will never stay there," said the old man. Beatrice started-a sudden thought flashed across her mind-she turned pale and hesitated; at that moment the foremost of the soldiers appeared on the distant hill; she rushed out of the room, and returned with a small phial and a wineflask, which she placed in the basket. "Leave those," said she to Pedro and her nurse, who were clearing away a little remnant of plate; " to miss the objects of their search would alone provoke more scrutiny. Follow me at once." The garden was reached before the soldiers rode up to the house. The wind blew from that direction, and brought with it the sound of their voices and laughter. The misery of such sounds was counterbalanced by the certainty that the same wind would waft their own voices, or rather Donna Margaretta's voice, away from the house. Still Beatrice, who knew the extreme restlessness of her parent's disorder, felt convinced that she should never be able to prevail on her to remain quiet. To be discovered by the soldiers would be death and insult in their worst forms. The whole province had been filled with tales of their reckless brutality towards those suspected by the government. One course remained-it was one she trembled to pursue. She had brought a little phial with herit contained laudanum. It had been used by her father, who frequently suffered from a wound he had received. She had often dropped it for him. But she knew it was poison-she could not foresee what its effects might be upon her mother in her state, if she were to give her too much. Her blood froze in her veins at the thought. Donna Margaretta grew every moment more restless and angry at not being allowed to return to the house. If |