There, however, stood the pictures of the brave and beautiful of other times, bending down over their once-familiar halls and the doings of their descendants, as the spirits of the dead may be supposed to gaze upon the actions of the children they have left behind; and there in the oriel window, just about the time of day at which we commenced this tale, sat a creature whom those long-gone bold warriors and lovely dames might look upon with pride, and own her of their blood.
It was a lady of some twenty years of age, not very tall, but yet, if anything, above the middle height of women. She was very beautiful too in feature, with a skin as white as alabaster, and as smooth, yet with the rose glowing in her cheek, and her arched lips red and full of health.
I have long discovered that it is impossible to paint beauty with the pen; and, therefore, I will say no more than may be sufficient merely to give the reader some idea of what kind and sort hers was of, more that the harmony which ought always, and generally does, in some degree exist between the form and mind may be understood, than to draw a picture of which imagination would still have to fill up half the details. Though her skin, as I have said, was so fair, her hair, her eyebrows, and her eyes were dark--not exactly black, for in them all there was a gleam of sunny warmth which like the dawn brightened the deep hue of night. The expression of her countenance was generally gay and cheerful, but varying often, as a heart quickly susceptible of strong feelings, and a mind full of imagination, were affected by the events in which she took part, and the circumstances around her. Youth and health, and bountiful nature, had endued her form with manifold graces; and though her limbs were full and rounded in contour, yet they displayed in every movement lines of exquisite symmetry, and, like the brother of Joab, she was swift of foot as the wild roe. As is often the case with persons of quick fancy, her mind, though naturally of a cheerful and hopeful bent, was nevertheless not unfrequently overshadowed by a cloud of passing melancholy; and a look of sadness would occasionally come into her fair face, as if the consciousness which is in most hearts that this world of glittering delusions has its darker scenes, even for those of the brightest fate, made itself painfully felt at times when no apparent cause for grief or apprehension was near. But such shadows passed quickly away, and the general tone of her heart and her expression was, as we have said, bright and sunshiny.
Her father had been a man who took his ideas greatly from those amongst whom he lived. In short, he attributed too much importance to the opinions of his fellow-men. We may attribute too little to them, it is true, and even great men are bound to pay some deference to the deliberate judgment of many; but it is usually--nay, invariably--a sign of weak understanding, to depend for the tone of our own thoughts upon those around. However, as he was thrown into the society of men who set great value upon accomplishments, such as they were in those days, he had made a point of having his daughter instructed in all the lighter arts of the times. To sing, to dance, to play on various instruments, to speak the two languages most in fashion at the court, French and Italian, with the ease and accent of a native, had seemed to him matters of vast importance; and as she showed every facility in acquiring whatever he desired, he had no cause to be discontented with her progress. She might, perhaps, have been taught to consider such things of much importance too; but she had a mother--the safeguard of God to our early years. That mother was a woman of a high and noble mind, somewhat stern, perhaps, and rigid, yet not unkind or unfeeling; and between a parent weak, though possessed of talent, and one keen and powerful in intellect, though not quick or brilliant, it may easily be guessed which gave the stronger impress to the mind of the child. Thus Annie Walton learned somewhat to undervalue the accomplishments which, to please her father, she acquired; and though she possessed less of the stern, calm, determined character of her mother than her brother Charles, and more of the pliant and easy disposition of her father, yet she inherited a share of high resolution and firm decision, which was requisite, even in a woman, to enable her to encounter the dangers and difficulties of the times in which she lived.
She sat then in the oriel window of the hall at Bishop's Merton, reading a page printed roughly on coarse paper, while now a smile, somewhat saddened, and now a look of anger, somewhat brightened by the half-faded smile, passed over her sweet face, as, in one of the broadsheets of the day which had been left with her a few minutes before by Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, she saw the doings of a parliament which began by asserting the rights of the people, and ended by attacking the just prerogatives of the crown; which commenced by opposing tyranny and deceit in the rulers of the land, and ended by far exceeding all the tyranny and deceit it had opposed, and adding the most beastly hypocrisy and violence, fraud, rapine, and cruelty, to the crimes and follies which it had found existing. She read and smiled--she read and sighed; for, though her family had taken no part in the deeds of the last twelve months, and though her mother had been through life rather attached to the doctrines of the Presbyterians than their opponents, yet there was something in the cause of the Cavaliers, with all their faults, in their very rashness and want of all pretence--something in the cold-blooded hypocrisy and false pretexts of the Parliamentarians--which had engaged her sympathies on the losing side, and roused her indignation against the successful.
While she was thus occupied, a horseman passed rapidly before the window towards the principal door of the house, crossing like a quick bird in its flight; and, casting down the paper, Miss Walton ran out, murmuring, "It is Charles!"
There was a large old-fashioned vestibule hung with pikes and arms, corslets and head-pieces, and stags' antlers, and hunting horns, and all the implements of real battle, and of the mimic warfare of the chase. The door leading to the terrace stood wide open, with an old servant on either side; and as she bounded forward with the expectation of meeting her brother, her countenance beaming with pleasure to greet him on his return, a stranger entered, and advanced at once towards her.
Annie Walton's face suddenly became graver, and a blush rose into her cheek; but the cavalier came forward with a frank and unembarrassed air, walked straight up to her, and took her hand as if he had been an old friend.
"You thought it was your brother," he said, with easy grace, saving her all trouble of explanation, "and you are disappointed, Miss Walton. Would that I had a sister to look so joyful on my return to my old halls! but your disappointment will have no long life. Charles Walton will be here ere the world be an hour older; and in the mean time you must show me and my poor beast fair hospitality till the master of the mansion comes himself to tell you more about his friend, Sir Francis Clare."
He bowed as he thus introduced himself, and Annie Walton, with all courtesy, but with a grave air, invited him to the hall where she had been sitting, trying to call to mind the name he had mentioned amongst those of all her brother's acquaintances. She could recollect no such person, however, as Sir Francis Clare; and although there was in the frankness of the stranger's manner something that pleased her, yet she almost thought it too free in one whom she could not believe to be very intimate with Lord Walton. Yet there was a grace as well as an ease in his demeanour, a tone not easily described, but which can only be acquired by long, intimate habits of familiarity with persons of high mind and education, a self-possession, distinct from impudence, which showed her at once that the visiter was not one of the wild and reckless roysterers of the court and army of King Charles, who presumed without merit, and endeavoured to cover vulgarity of spirit with self-confidence.
Leading the way then to the hall, she begged the stranger to be seated. He bowed, and let her take her place, while he remained standing before her, calculating rapidly what was passing in her thoughts, and, to say truth, somewhat struck with the beauty of this cynosure of neighbouring eyes, who, whatever he might have expected to find, went far in loveliness beyond his imagination.
There was a momentary pause while she thought of what was next to come, but the stranger spoke first. "I must