CHAPTER I.

THERE lived in Bloomingdale a paragon of beauty-Fanny Vane. But so shy, so coy, so queenly was Fanny, amid the roses and creepers of this fairy palace Bloomingdale, that her lovers were in despair.

Beautiful as the morning, and as rosy and fresh,this young creature was as bashful as fair, as seclusive as superior, and by far the most naively tantalizing of all her tantalizing sex. She was very quiet and still, and the light of her eyes was shut out by a pair of delicate waxen lids, and her dimples were constantly kept in ambush by this shy beauty of sweet sixteen. 'Twas said by those who knew, that her smile was glorious; that her upturned eyes spoke with angelic eloquence; that her tongue could rattle all the day, and that her laugh often came ringing from its coral and pearly fastnesses like a Swiss bell.

But this was only hearsay. Like the mimosa, she shrunk from the stranger's touch, and all her sweetness was distilled within the charmed circle of her home, and her loveliest smiles were lavished upon the members of that favored band.

Fanny Vane was an educated lady, and the possessor of a large estate. She had a voice of richest melody, and could boast of many accomplishments.

I fear I shall not be believed, but I must speak the truth, and say that Fanny could

VOL. IV.

blush! Nay, had often blushed, sometimes a dozen times a day, and sometimes not so often. This perhaps may account for the chivalrous devotion of the other sex to my little heroine. She was so gentle and timid, and blushed, and thereby enlisted all that manly enthusiasm and heroic devotion of which we sometimes read, as a characteristic of an age called a darker one than this. This treasure of modern society-and my heroine, chosen above all others of the present day-lived with her guardian, Colonel Roland, of Bloomingdale, of whom I should have made honorable mention before.

Colonel Roland was a handsome bachelor of forty. He was a brother officer of Fanny's father, and on the battle-field had knelt over the dying man, and with bended ear caught the faint accents ere they passed away, which gave him his infant daughter. But Colonel Roland was a bachelor, and so fastidious and hard to please that none of the thousand-and-one caps set for him by innocent young ladies and spinsters ever shook his heart. He placed his little ward at a first-rate boarding-school, and before she attained her sixteenth year, the mansion at Bloomingdale was fitted up for her reception. Having no mother or sister to overlook his interesting protégée, he engaged a Mrs. Brander, a teacher in the seminary which had the honor of finishing our

1

heroine for the tapis, to take charge of her at home. Mrs. Brander and Fanny were now inmates of Colonel Roland's establishment. They had their apartments and attendants, and Colonel Roland had his. And so highly sensitive was our bachelor of unromantic forty, that he never intruded upon their evenings, nor stepped in at odd hours; indeed Mrs. Brander often complained, and said, to use her own expressive phrase, that "he made himself entirely too scarce."

These two, the bachelor and the widow, accidentally entered the front hall together one day, as they came in from the street.

"Colonel Roland," said Mrs. Brander, loitering in the hall, "where do you think of taking Fanny this summer?"

"Indeed, I do not know, Mrs. Brander. Fanny's tastes and habits are so very domestic that I really do not know where we must take her."

"Exactly," observed our lady of the firstrate female seminary. "If those tastes and habits are allowed to grow upon her, she will be fit for nothing in the world but an obedient, yea and nay, country wife. will indeed."

She

"Is it possible," cried Colonel Roland, laughing, "that she is so inclined ?"

"I tell you that she doesn't care a fig for Saratoga or Newport; that she dearly loves Bloomingdale; that she has a pet kitten and a pair of canaries, and an abominable Newfoundland puppy; that she reads Miss Bremer, and abhors that charming fellow Sue. Now, sir, I ask you in the face of all this, is it not time to act?"

"These are alarming symptoms, I confess," remarked Colonel Roland, smiling strangely.

Yes, and they should be checked-nipped in the bud, and nipped instantly," replied the lady, bringing her finger down upon her palm in a most emphatic manner. Just then Fanny entered the hall, and Mrs. Brander smoothed her knitted brows.

"I have just heard that you were sick in bed all yesterday," said the girl to Colonel Roland.

"Yes, I had a chill, and a most unpleasant fever, but it passed off in a couple of hours."

"Ah! but you should have sent us word that you were sick. Are we never to be useful here at this beautiful Bloomingdale ? We sit in splendid rooms all the day idle and luxurious, while sickness and sorrow are all around us-while our best and dearest friend is sick, and he will not even let a servant tell us."

"You would only spoil me by your kindness," said the gentleman, opening the parlor door, while his lips quivered, for he was not well, and he had felt the need of a gentle hand in his life, though he had borne up proudly, and would not confess it.

"Perhaps you did not know Miss Fanny was a doctress," said Mrs. Brander crisply, "or you would have employed her."

Fanny laughed, and her dark eyes danced with delight; for though a model woman, our heroine loved dearly to vex her preceptress.

"I don't know what I shall do with you, ladies, upon my word," said the guardian, following with his eye the graceful figure of his ward, and glancing at the drooping lid and pencilled brow, and knowing very well what disposition he should like to make of her.

"You are looking very pale," said the girl after a pause.

"I believe I am on the verge of another chill," said the gentleman; "but having so famous a doctress beside me, I need not be alarmed."

This threw Fanny into a little panic. She rang the bell and brought her patient a glass of wine, and began to think about some pepper tea; but nothing could check the incipient chill. He was led to his apartment by his man John, and Fanny was left disconsolate in the wide hall.

Poor Fanny was restless and uneasy all day. In the afternoou she was found hovering about the sick-room, and eagerly questioning all who came out of that inner sanc

tum.

"Is he no better?" she inquired of tle housekeeper, who came out with a solemn visage and some broth on a tray.

"Bid Fanny come in," said Colonel Roland; "this is not the first time I have heard her voice to-day."

Now Fanny was in her element, and a pompous little nurse was she. Colonel Roland was not very sick; the cold stage had passed off, and was succeeded by the fever. He felt inclined to talk. His eyes were very bright, and his fine face glowed; but Fanny wore a very grave face indeed. She held a napkin, and a saucer of crushed ice, and a spoon, and proceeded to give it to the invalid very carefully and gravely. She dipped her little hand in ice water, and laid it on his head.

"You have a soft little hand of your own, Fanny, and as cool as a cucumber," said the invalid.

"Oh, never mind about my hand," she answered, with a charming smile; "Mrs. Brander pronounces it decidedly coarse."

Never had Colonel Roland seen a nurse so quiet and thoughtful, so busy, naïve, and charming. He watched her as she stood before a little table, arranging all things thereon to suit her. She had darkened the room, and was fixing his ices for him; getting empty glasses out of her way, and placing his powders just at hand when the hour should come for him to take them. He closed his eyes, and the fairy nurse tripped cautiously to his couch, and laid a cool cloth upon his brow, and then seated herself away in a quiet corner with her book; and the bachelor-guardian thought or dreamed of the angel, with the soft eyes and waxen lids, who bent over his couch, and ministered to him as only an angel could.

Fanny sat with her book in her hand, and the room was cool and still, and the fevered invalid reposed with a smile upon his lips. An hour thus passed away, and then another, and still she watched beside her patient, now looking at her tiny watch, and then casting a dreamy glance at the powders, for it was time for them to be taken

according to the prescriptions, and this threw our important little nurse in a quandary. "Must she awake him, or permit the hour to pass without giving the powders?" that was the question.

'Fanny, I am awake," said the Colonel.

"Oh, I am so glad! You must take those powders now; I am afraid we are too late with them."

Oh! no nectar was ever more delightful to a luxurious god than were those powders to our enamored Colonel. And then the fairy nurse tripped away, bearing in her bosom his promise to send for her again.

Colonel Roland himself had placed these stern barriers between himself and his fair ward, which had been to her so inexplicable and tormenting.

Why should there be no free and social intercourse in a family so secluded? Poor Fanny tried to break down the barriers with all her might, but the obdurate Colonel persisted. He only saw the ladies at dinner and tea. He was usually very grave, and Mrs. Brander always on stilts; so between the two our heroine led a sad life of it. There must have been some strong reason which could have forced a gentleman of Colonel Roland's extreme sensibilities so remorselessly to repulse the fair clinging creature who looked up to him as more than mortal. Still our heroine looked for better days; she saw at times a light stealing from his dark sad eyes, and to her this was the faint dawn of the looked-for day.

Great was her alarm when she saw symptoms of a relapse into that severe chilling politeness, which she so dreaded. This was a worse state than the first. She determined to check him ere he congealed completely. One day after dinner she watched her opportunity, and gently approached him as he sat smoking a fragrant cigar in his long piazza. He saw her, as with timid step she came and stood in the door. His heart yearned for her, but he sat as frigid as a statue. She leaned against the pilaster, and then looking up, she said very gravely, “I

wildering, amazing, and confounding. The man began to walk like a somnambulist; to watch with a quick pulse for the fairy figure gliding always away from him, and to catch the light of those eyes which were all in all to him.

It was the fifth of July. Twilight was gathering over the earth, and Fanny sat in a summer parlor, breathing odors of rare sweetness, and luxuriating in pensive reverie. Colonel Roland came in nervously, and sat down on a sofa at a respectable distance from his ward.

"Fanny, will you come here and sit beside me on the sofa ?" he asked.

"I-I-believe," said Fanny, rising and blushing very much-"I believe Mrs. Brander wants me."

"And you will not come! I think the distance between us is too great. Do you not remember when you were a very little girl,' &c.?"

"But you must excuse me just now; Mrs. Brander

"Is gone to tea with that dear gossip of hers, Mrs. Betts, and I shall have you all to myself this evening."

scending upon the gallant officer and his beloved?

CHAPTER II.

MRS. BRANDER was a shrewd lady, a very shrewd lady. Colonel Roland's shy attentions to Miss Vane did not escape her eye. And Mrs. Brander, like all her sex, could easily distinguish between parental attentions, guardian attentions, and lover attentions. Now this was too bad. The widow had counted on the Colonel as her own, and she was determined not to give him up without an effort. She had quitted the seminary at the north, not so much to take care of the motherless girl as to set her cap for the Colonel. His fine eyes, noble brow, lofty mien, splendid person, reserved but courtly manners, and magnificent estate, had actually impressed her Yankee heart. She had been laying preliminary snares for him, but had not commenced the game in real earnest. In truth, she was laying up stores and ammunition then to commence the siege. How mortifying to be anticipated. by that sly Fanny! She would not stand Therefore Mrs. Brander was in the house, though she had met Colonel Roland on the street, and told him she was on her way to Mrs. Betts'. She entered just as Colonel Roland had made a place for Fanny on the sofa. She entered, I say, at this interesting moment, preceded by a dandy servant man, bearing two bril

"But you are afraid of me, upon my word. Well, Fanny, I am going away; I am going to Cincinnati-will you sit by me now ?"

"Fanny, you do not love me."

The girl was silent, and shook her curls low over her glowing face.

"You shun me as you would a leper. Oh, I wish I were sick again!"

Oh, twilight! twilight of the fifth of July. You were the hours of love! Soft, and gently tempered, and pleasant to hearts. which loved. Who dared invade thy chosen sanctum, the summer parlor of Bloomingdale? Who dared to raise thy mysterious curtain, which was so beautifully de

Colonel winked and blinked his eyes, and Fanny could not face the light.

"It is very warm," said the Colonel to the lady, who, to judge from appearances, was very cool indeed.

"Do you think so?" she answered spitefully, glancing over her shoulders at the drooping Fanny, who, like a crushed violet, was sweet to the last.

"I have news for you, Fanny; but I do not wish to deepen your blushes. Allen: Grey- our Allen-your Allen-is in

town."