The youth looked at him with amazement. The intense affection which transfigured those stern features exhibited itself so unexpectedly, that for the moment he was speechless.
The old man noticed this with a deprecating movement.
"She was the daughter of my old age!" he said, with ineffable humility, while his shoulders drooped, and his face bent towards his breast, "she looks so like her young mother."
"She is beautiful as an angel!" exclaimed Lovel with enthusiasm.
"She is like her mother!" murmured the minister, clasping his hands and looking wistfully out into the distance. "Ah, so like her mother!"
"No wonder you loved her mother, then!" said the youth, drawing close to the old man with prompt sympathy.
"Loved her—oh, God forgive me—how I did love her, young man! The very daisies upon her grave are like the stars of heaven to me, and she has been dead since Elizabeth was a babe."
"Oh, no wonder you look so old and care-worn; it must be like burying one's own soul, to see the mother of one's child die."
The old man did not answer, but his hands interlocked more firmly. The feelings swelling in his bosom were too painful for utterance. How far the intense affection, which death could not diminish, had approached insanity, it would be impossible to say; but all unconsciously, the young man had made the minister quiver in every nerve by the genuine sympathy he had given.
They walked on together, and entered the streets of Boston in company. When they reached the heart of the town, the old man stopped reluctantly, reaching forth his hand with a piteous smile.
"Farewell, young man," he said, "we may never meet again, but—"
"Nay, nay," cried the youth, blushing scarlet, "not meet again—God forbid that you speak sooth in this. Indeed, indeed—"
But the minister wrung his hand, turned suddenly down a cross street, and disappeared before the sentence was finished.
Young Lovel looked after him for a moment, made a step to follow the course he had taken, then returning slowly, walked on.
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY IN THE MORNING.
The town of Boston had little of its present compactness in those days. True, there existed streets and lanes, and wharves which served as barriers to the harbor, but green turf lay richly where slabs of granite form the sidewalk now, the streets wound in and out as they had been trodden broader and broader from the forest paths, and around the houses were yards and pleasant gardens, with carpets of green turf in which the wild flowers still lingered. The dwellings were mostly of wood; low, broad, and heavy, with cumbrous adornments; coats of arms surmounted the doors, cut out with the broad-axe and chisel, and heavy wooden cornices loomed over the front, betraying a surplus of timber and a lamentable scarcity of architectural art. Among these more imposing buildings, houses of hewn logs, and even ruder cabins were scattered, but the trees, the grass, and many a clinging vine, gave to the infant city a picturesque beauty which can never belong to the brick, granite, and mortar which have taken so many imposing forms since. But even then Boston had its fashionable street, and its aristocratic neighborhood.
To this portion of the town young Lovel bent his steps, and soon came out upon the green lanes of North Boston, which was in fact a wide area, where the palaces of the New World loomed proudly among the grand old forest trees, which softened their stateliness with touches of natural beauty.
The most imposing of these mansions, conspicuous for its three stories, and a certain attempt at architectural beauty, was the residence of Sir William Phipps, Captain-General and Governor-in-chief of New England. Those who knew the sheep-tender of Kennebec, the younger brother of twenty-six children, who even in his boyhood turned haughtily from the occupation of his father when proposed to him, and predicted of himself that he was born to greater matters, might have wondered as they stood before that stately dwelling, and saw in its vastness and its ornaments a fulfilment of the sheep-boy's prophecy. In all New England there was not a dwelling like that, or a man so powerful as its owner. Yet Sir William Phipps, titled, wealthy, and almost a sovereign, had not yet passed his prime of life; while he was comparatively a young man, all this great fortune had been wrought out by his own stern energies.
The youth stood for a moment in front of the mansion, gazing wistfully at one of the second story windows. It was very early in the morning; too early for any one in the gubernatorial mansion to be stirring, but he was disappointed to find the curtains drawn and the shutters partially closed. Evidently, the youth had expected some one to be watching for him, rendered miserable by his strange absence over night.
But every thing was still, even to the great elm-tree that swept its branches over one end of the house, and the rose bushes that clustered along the terraces. The youth did not like to claim admittance till some of the servants were astir, so walked up and down the green lane, always advancing toward the house, till you would have fancied him studying its architecture; but his eyes always wandered to one window, and that had nothing but a stone coping and an arched top to command his admiration. Still the gubernatorial mansion was well worth examining, if it were only to see how rudely the arts crept first into the New World from the mother land. Massive stone pilasters separated the windows to the second story; two long rows of windows ran between that and the roof, all set in stone, and slightly arched. The central window, with elaborate blinds and lateral sashes, carried up the outline of that ponderous wooden portico to the still more ponderous cornices on the roof. This elaborate attempt at architecture made the governor's house the show place of all New England. The very children of Boston held their breath with awe of its grandeur, and were half afraid to pluck dandelions in the green lane after it was built.
But young Lovel had seen the mansion too often for any feeling of this kind. The window still remained shrouded in its muslin curtains, though the birds in the elm branches had burst forth into gushes of music that might have charmed an angel from the brightest nook in paradise, and the rising sun came smiling over the terraces, turning each dew-drop, trembling on its blade of grass, into a diamond, rendering every thing so beautiful that slumber seemed an absolute sin.
"They take it coolly enough," muttered the youth impatiently, turning his steps to the broad gravel walk which crossed the terraces and reached the long, sloping steps that led to the portico. "I might crunch this white gravel under my feet forever, and she'd sleep on. No matter, I may as well take it easily as they do; I might be in the bottom of the harbor for any thing they know, or care either."
As he muttered these words, Lovel crossed the terrace, and stood between the fluted pillars of the porticoes which rose proudly over him, crowned with Corinthian leaves, and garlanded with rudely carved flowers, that ran up over the massy cornices, supplying the deficiency of family armorial bearings. But in his waywardness he had lost sight of the window, and so walked back upon the terrace again, pretending, even to himself, that he wished to gather a handful of blush roses while the leaves were wet with that diamond light. But his heart beat unsteadily, and he looked upward every moment as he broke the blossoms impetuously from their bushes. This impatience at the stillness broke at last upon the gentle flowers. He dashed them to the turf, shaking all the dew from their hearts. Then he rushed back to the portico, raised the ponderous knocker, and prepared to swing it against the great brass head which seemed to smile defiance beneath the blows ready to be rained upon it. But his hand was arrested by a sound within the house, and, softly relinquishing the knocker, he threw himself upon one of the long seats that ran down each side of the portico, eagerly watching the door.
There was a sound of bolts cautiously drawn, as if a person within were careful of making a noise. Then a leaf of the great oaken door opened, and with its glittering