Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, By D. APPLETON & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. TWO LIVES: OR, TO SEEM AND TO BE. CHAPTER I. LIFE IN THE SOUTH.-THE VOW. "Two lovely berries moulded on one stem." Midsummer Night's Dream. "A mansion where domestic love And truth breathe simple kindness to the heart." Mrs. Gilman. BENEFICENT Nature, how often does the heart of man, crushed beneath the weight of his sins or his sorrows, rise in reproach against thine unchanged serenity! We sin, and call on darkness to cover our shame,-but at morning hour the sun goes forth, "rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. We lay our loved ones in the earth; and while we weep above their graves, the light shines merrily there, and calls forth the gay flowers of spring to deck the sod; and we reproach thee because thou dost not, like us, struggle against the will of Universal Love,-because thou dost not cease to give forth from thy motherbosom food, and light, and warmth, to all thy children,— because, even while we murmur at thee, thou continuest to smile upon us and to send sweet and softening influences into our hearts from thy serene aspect. It was feelings such as we have described which made the young Grace Elliot draw her veil more closely around her, as she issued from her home to pay a parting visit to the newly-made grave of her father, accompanied by her scarce less bereaved and sorrowing cousin, Isabel Douglass. And surely never did impatient heart shut out a lovelier landscape than that home presented on this May morning. The verdant bank on which the house was built sloped gently down to a broad river on whose tranquil bosom the sunbeams lay in a column of golden light, wooing the eye farther and farther on, till at the distance of five miles it was met by ocean's wide expanse. If the glance was averted from this magnificent prospect, it rested upon oaks which had flung their gigantic arms above that spot before the memory of living man, and which still promised in their undecaying grandeur to wave their sombre drapery above many successive generations. Even when Grace looked sadly down she found the glad sun mirrored in the full cup of many a flower which Nature, prodigal of beauty, had strown at her feet, while, at every movement, her dress shook from some shrub the starry dews with which Night had robed it. In this abode of loveliness had Grace first seen the light, and here, at five years old, had Isabel found a home and a father with her mother's brother, Mr. Elliot. Left a widower in the prime of life, this gentleman had placed his household and his infant daughter under the matronly care of his elder sister, Miss Elliot, who had resided with him but a few months when the death of Isabel's mother sent her too to claim an interest in the maiden's kindly heart. Time had passed lightly over that quiet family. They were not gay, for the master of a mansion ordinarily gives the tone to his household, and Mr. Elliot could not be gay -the memory of his wife dwelling ever as a shadow at his side. Still it was a shadow of grace and beauty, mel ( lowing and subduing, but not obscuring the brightness of his life. He had ever a cheerful word for his children and a kindly smile for his dependants. Such was the serene atmosphere in which Grace and Isabel had grown to the dawn of womanhood-Grace being now fifteen and Isabel one year older. The first cloud that rose in their sky had burst in wild tempest over their heads. The father and the guardian had been stricken down in his strength, and they were now weeping over his grave. Yet not alone for him fell their tears. His death had been the signal for many sorrows. His will had committed them during their minority to the charge of his only brother, who, having married a lady of New York, resided in that city. To-morrow they were to leave their beloved home in the warm, friendly South, for one in a colder clime,—and the dwellers in that clime for whose society they must exchange that of their kind indulgent aunt, might they not prove that "The cold in clime are cold in blood?" Even the servants who had been familiar to them for years-who had ministered to their childish wants, borne with their childish caprices, and shared their childish sports -claimed a place in their memories and their regrets. Arrived, however, at the grassy knoll surrounded by a white paling and shaded by pines and cedars, which had been for more than a century the burial-place of the Elliots, all were for a time forgotten, except him who lay within the little mound at their feet. What a rushing flood of memories overwhelm the heart at such moments! How life-like are the pictures in which every varying expression of those now unchanging features passes before us! We remember the glad smile with which they welcomed us, and we feel that there is no joy in returning to a home where that is not-we recall the tender glances which soothed our childish griefs, and we are ready to submit to any of life's innumerable ills to win back to our darkened world that one beam of heavenly light-we see again the brow shadowed by some fault of ours, and our souls are bowed down with unutterable sorrow, and we cry to Heaven in our anguish for some voice from the world of spirits to assure us that the shadow has passed away. Grace Elliot sank on her knees beside her father's grave, and sobbed with convulsive agony, while Isabel stood beside her in deep and overpowering, if less tempestuous grief. Alarmed at last by the wild and increasing agitation of Grace, she put her arm around her, and strove gently to draw her away. "let me "Let me alone, Isabel!" Grace exclaimed; die here, for there are none left to love me now." "There are many left to love you, Grace; for their sakes go with me—we will not go quite away, only go to yonder spring where you can bathe your swollen face, and you can come back again if you desire it." Grace did not stir. "Then, for his sake who would have been grieved to see you abandoning yourself thus to your sorrow, come with me, Grace," said Isabel, subduing her voice to a reverential whisper; and Grace rose, and leaning on her cousin, suffered her to lead her away. They passed beyond the enclosure to a slight elevation, from whose summit grew a lofty magnolia shading a spring of the clearest water. Near this spring Isabel seated her cousin, and placing herself at her side, supported her head upon her shoulder, while she dipped her hand in the cool fount and pressed it to her burning brow. For some time Grace remained quite still, with closed eyes-then, her features becoming suddenly convulsed again, she sobbed |