"Indeed, sir! I hope he is not dangerously ill," said Maxwell, in apparent alarm.
"Not at all. The doctor says he will be out in a week; but he thinks otherwise, and is now engaged in putting his house in order," replied Jaspar, with a sickly smile.
"I am glad he is no worse, though it is better at all times to be prepared for the final event."
"Perhaps it is," said Jaspar, coldly. "Here is a rough draught of the will, which he wishes reduced to the usual form with all possible haste. Will it take you long?"
"An hour or two."
"I will wait, then, as he requested me to bring you with me on my return."
"It shall be done with all possible haste. There are cigars, and the morning papers. Pray make yourself comfortable."
Jaspar seated himself, and lit a cigar, without acknowledging his host's courtesy, while Maxwell applied himself to the task before him. The first part of the will was speedily written; but those parts which alluded to the testator's daughter, foreshadowing the opulence that awaited her, he could not so easily pass over. They were so strongly suggestive of the fortunate lot of him who should wed her, that he could scarcely proceed with the work. An hour before, she had veiled his prospects in darkness; now he was preparing a will which would, at no distant day, place her in possession of a princely fortune. His mind was so firmly fixed upon the attainment of this treasure that it refused to bend itself to the task before him.
Jaspar had finished his cigar, and began to be a little impatient. Thrice he rose from his chair, and looked over the lawyer's shoulder.
"This is an important paper," said Maxwell, noticing Jaspar's impatience, "and must be executed with great care."
"So it is; but the colonel may die before you get it done," observed Jaspar, coarsely, and with a crafty smile, which was not unnoticed by the attorney.
"O, no! I hope not," replied Maxwell, exhibiting the prototype of Jaspar's smile.
A smile! What is it? What volumes are conveyed in a single smile! It is the magnetic telegraph by which sympathetic hearts convey their untold and unmentionable purposes. To the anxious lover it is the bearer of the first tidings of joy. Long before the heart dare resort to coarse, material words, the smile carries the messages of affection. To the villain it reveals the sympathetic purposes of his according fiend. What the lead and line are to the pilot, the smile, the cunning, dissembling smile, is to the base mind. By means of it he feels his way into the heart and soul of his supposed prototype.
Maxwell knew enough of human character to read correctly the meaning of Jaspar's crafty smile. The attorney had long known that he was cold and unfeeling, a bear in his deportment, and sadly lacking in common integrity; but that he was capable of bold and daring villany he had had no occasion to suspect. As he turned to the document again, the base character of the uncle came up for consideration in connection with his suit to the niece. Might not this circumstance open the way to the attainment of his grand purpose?
But, while he considers, let us turn our attention to the development of the history and circumstances of the Dumont family.
CHAPTER II.
"Lorenzo. You loved, and he did love! Mariana. To say he did Were to affirm what oft his eyes avouched, What many an action testified—and yet, What wanted confirmation of his tongue." KNOWLES.
On the right bank of the Mississippi river, a few miles above New Orleans, was situated the plantation of Colonel Dumont, which he had chosen to designate by the expressive appellation of "Bellevue;" though, it would seem, from the level nature of the country, it could not have been chosen on account of any fitness in the term.
In territorial extent, in the number of slaves employed, and in the quantity of sugar annually produced, the plantation of Colonel Dumont was one of the most important on the river. This fact, added to the possession of immense estates in the city, rendered its owner a man of no small consequence in the vicinity. But, more than this, Colonel Dumont was beloved and respected for his many good qualities of mind and heart. In the late war with England he had served in the army, and as an officer had won an enviable distinction by his courage and his talents. Coming unexpectedly into the possession of this estate by the death of an uncle, he retired, at the close of the war, from a profession to which a genuine patriotism alone had invited him, and devoted himself entirely to the improvement of his lands.
Colonel Dumont had been married; but, after a single year of happiness in the conjugal state, his wife died, leaving him an only daughter in remembrance of her. This child, at the opening of the tale, was within a few years of maturity—the image of her father's only love—not less fair, not less pure and good.
Emily Dumont was a beautiful girl, fair as the lily, gentle as the dove. She was of a medium height, and of slender and graceful form. Her step was light and elastic, and, if there was any poetry in her light, elegant form, there was more in her easy, fairy-like motion. Her features were as daintily moulded as her form. Her eye was light blue, soft, and beautifully expressive of a pure heart. She was a little paler than the connoisseur in female loveliness would demand in his ideal, and her expression was a little inclined to sadness; but it was a sadness—or rather a sweet dignity—more winning than repulsive to the gazer.
Emily Dumont, highly as fortune had favored her in the bestowal of worldly goods and personal beauty, was still more blessed in the gifts of an expansive mind and a gentle heart; and mind and heart had both been faithfully cultivated by the assiduous care of her devoted father. She was a true woman—not a mere plaything to while away a dandy's idle hours, not a piece of tinsel to adorn the parlor of a nabob, but a true woman—one fitted by nature and education to adorn all the varied scenes of life. Although brought up in unclouded prosperity, amid luxury and affluence, she was still prepared for the day of adversity, if it should ever come.
As the heiress of immense wealth, her hand was eagerly sought in the aristocratic circle around her; but thus far she had resisted all these attacks upon her heart, and upon her prospective riches. In the crowd of suitors who gathered around her was Anthony Maxwell. In the item of wealth his fortune was comparatively small; and in that of a noble character, smaller still. Emily could have forgiven him the want of the former, but the latter was imperatively demanded. At the young lawyer's return from the North, and on his first appearance at the bar, Emily had regarded him with more than ordinary attention. But, after the death of his father, the reports which reached her ears of his dissolute habits and inclinations caused her to regard him with distrust. His wit, accomplishments and native suavity, had procured him admission into the circle of her more favored friends. But the report of his vices had as promptly produced his expulsion.
The return of the army from Mexico brought with it the young officer whom we have before mentioned. The father of this young man had been a companion-in-arms of Colonel Dumont, and a strong friendship had grown up between the veterans. The tie was severed only by the death of the former, after a life of mercantile misfortunes, and finally of utter ruin. At the period of the father's insolvency and death, Henry Carroll, the son, was a cadet at West Point, and was about abandoning his chosen profession, for the want of means, when Colonel Dumont wrote him an affectionate letter, offering all that he required to complete his studies. This offer, coming from one who had been a heavy loser by his father's bankruptcy, was highly appreciated, and the young student had allowed no false delicacy to prevent his acceptance of the generous proposal, though with a stipulation to repay all sums, with interest. Colonel Dumont, in his regular summer tour to the North, never failed to visit his young friend, whose noble bearing and lofty principle entirely won his heart, and he charged himself with a father's duty towards him. A regular correspondence was kept up between the self-constituted guardian and his protegé; and the more the former read the heart of the young man, the more did he rejoice that he had befriended him. He read with mingled