Part 15 (1/2)

You must be contented not to stay here above two or three hours. I shall tell you my reason when you come. And pray inform yourself of all that your father will do on this occasion, that you may tell it me only; therefore let it be plainly and sincerely what he intends and all.

I will not hinder your coming away so much as the making this letter a little longer might take away from your time in reading it. 'Tis enough to tell you I am ever

Yours.

CHAPTER VII

THE END OF THE THIRD VOLUME

This short series of notes was written, I think, during a visit to London after the formal betrothal and before the marriage. These notes were evidently written upon the trivial occasions of the day, more perhaps for the sake of writing something than for any more serious reason. The note in French is somewhat of a curiosity on account of its quaint orthography, which is purposely left uncorrected. Was Dorothy in London to purchase her _trousseau_? Where did she and Jane spend their days, if that was the case, when Regent Street was green fields? These questions cannot be satisfactorily answered; but the notes themselves, without any history or explanation, are so full of interest, so fresh and vivacious, even for Dorothy, that they place themselves from the freedom and joy of their style and manner at the end of the third volume.

You are like to have an excellent housewife of me; I am abed still, and slept so soundly, nothing but your letter could have waked me. You shall hear from me as soon as we have dined. Farewell; can you endure that word? No, out upon't. I'll see you anon.

Fye upon't I shall grow too good now, I am taking care to know how your wors.h.i.+p slept to-night; better I hope than you did the last. Send me word how you do, and don't put me off with a bit of a note now; you could write me a fine long letter when I did not deserve it half so well.

You are mistaken if you think I am in debt for both these days. Sat.u.r.day I confess was devoted to my Lady; but yesterday, though I ris with good intentions of going to church, my cold would not suffer me, but kept me prisoner all the day. I went to your lodging to tell you that visiting the sick was part of the work of the day, but you were gone, and so I went to bed again, where your letter found me this morning. But now I will rise and despatch some visits that I owe, that to-morrow may be entirely yours.

I find my conscience a little troubled till I have asked your pardon for my ill-humour last night. Will you forgive it me; in earnest, I could not help it, but I met with a cure for it; my brother kept me up to hear his learned lecture till after two o'clock, and I spent all my ill-humour upon him, and yet we parted very quietly, and look'd as if a little good fortune might make us good friends; but your special friend, my elder brother, I have a story to tell you of him. Will my cousin F.

come, think you? Send me word, it maybe 'twas a compliment; if I can see you this morning I will, but I dare not promise it.

SIR,--This is to tell you that you will be expected to-morrow morning about nine o'clock at a lodging over against the place where Charinge Crosse stood, and two doors above Ye Goate Taverne; if with these directions you can find it out, you will there find one that is very much

Your servant.

Now I have got the trick of breaking my word, I shall do it every day. I must go to Roehampton to-day, but 'tis all one, you do not care much for seeing me. Well, my master, remember last night you swaggered like a young lord. I'll make your stomach come down; rise quickly, you had better, and come hither that I may give you a lesson this morning before I go.

Je n'ay guere plus dormie que vous et mes songes n'ont pas estres moins confuse, au rest une bande de violons que sont venu jouer sous ma fennestre, m'out tourmentes de tel facon que je doubt fort si je pourrois jamais les souffrire encore, je ne suis pourtant pas en fort mauvaise humeur et je m'en-voy ausi tost que je serai habillee voire ce qu'il est posible de faire pour vostre sattisfaction, apres je viendre vous rendre conte de nos affairs et quoy qu'il en sera vous ne scaurois jamais doubte que je ne vous ayme plus que toutes les choses du monde.

I have slept as little as you, and may be allowed to talk as unreasonably, yet I find I am not quite senseless; I have a heart still that cannot resolve to refuse you anything within its power to grant.

But, Lord, when shall I see you? People will think me mad if I go abroad this morning after having seen me in the condition I was in last night, and they will think it strange to see you here. Could you not stay till they are all gone to Roehampton? they go this morning. I do but ask, though do what you please, only believe you do a great injustice if you think me false. I never resolv'd to give you an eternal farewell, but I resolv'd at the same time to part with all the comfort of my life, and whether I told it you or not I shall die yours.

Tell me what you will have me do.

Here comes the note again to tell you I cannot call on you to-night; I cannot help it, and you must take it as patiently as you can, but I am engaged to-night at the Three Rings to sup and play. Poor man, I am sorry for you; in earnest, I shall be quite spoiled. I see no remedy; think whether it were not best to leave me and begin a new adventure.

And now we have finished. Dorothy Osborne is pa.s.sing away, will soon be translated into Dorothy Temple; with the romance of her life all past history, and fast becoming as much a romance to herself, as it seems to us, looking back at it after more than two centuries. Something it is becoming to her over which she can muse and dream and weave into tales for the children who will gather round her. Something the reality of which will grow doubtful to her, if she find idle hours for dreaming and doubting in her new name. Her last lover's letter is written. We are ready for the marriage ceremony, and listen for the wedding march and happy jingle of village bells; or if we may not have these in Puritan days, at least we may hear the pompous magistrate p.r.o.nounce the blessing of the State over its two happy subjects. But no! There is yet a moment of suspense, a last trial to the lover's constancy. The bride is taken dangerously ill, so dangerously ill that the doctors rejoice when the disease p.r.o.nounces itself to be small-pox. Alas! who shall now say what are the inmost thoughts of our Dorothy? Does she not need all her faith in her lover, in herself, ay, and in G.o.d, to uphold her in this new affliction? She rises from her bed, her beauty of face destroyed; her fair looks living only on the painter's canvas, unless we may believe that they were etched in deeply bitten lines on Temple's heart. But the skin beauty is not the firmest hold she has on Temple's affections; this was not the beauty that had attracted her lover and held him enchained in her service for seven years of waiting and suspense; this was not the only light leading him through dark days of doubt, almost of despair, constant, unwavering in his troth to her. Other beauty not outward, of which we, too, may have seen something, mirrowed darkly in these letters; which we, too, as well as Temple, may know existed in Dorothy.

For it is not beauty of face and form, but of what men call the soul, that made Dorothy to Temple, in fact as she was in name,--the gift of G.o.d.

Appendix