Various - Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848

Some weeks previous to the time at which my last chapter terminates, I had received a letter from an old friend, requesting me to inform him if any dwelling in our vicinity was for sale, as he was anxious to leave the city, and bring his family to a quieter home. I answered his inquiries satisfactorily, and now daily expected him to arrive, and make final arrangements for his removal.

He came at last, bringing with him his only son, a boy somewhat older than Theresa. Gerald Brandon was pale and feeble from recent illness, and I persuaded his father to leave him with me, until his new residence was prepared to receive its inmates. He gladly assented, and accordingly returned to town, while Gerald remained at the parsonage. The next two months were among the happiest my memory recalls; and they were the last untroubled ones Theresa passed in her secluded home. From their threshold she glided to a new life – to that conflict of will and purpose, that tempest of impulse and disappointment which finally subdued her spirit and wearied out her existence. But as yet all was serene and full of promise; and the golden hues of her sunny dreams invested our simple pleasures with varied and poetic interest. My young guest was a gentle, reflective boy of more than ordinary capabilities, but enfeebled by ill-health, and a victim to the lassitude which frequently follows protracted bodily suffering. He was too placid and pensive for his age, and his mind, though refined and harmonious, had nothing of that restless, energetic brilliancy which sparkled through Theresa's thoughts. He, however, eagerly participated in her accustomed studies, and contributed his share to our literary recreations. I sometimes looked on the two with that involuntary wish for the power of prophecy which so often rises upon us, and which in great mercy we are denied, and would frequently strive to shadow forth the destiny of beings who were now reveling in the brief, bright interval between childhood and the world. Beautiful era! time of star and flower, when the "young moon is on the horizon's verge," and the young heart, lovelier still, seems on the brink of rapture, and hallows existence with its own unshadowed and seraphic light. We have cause to be grateful that this episode is transient, that reality contradicts its hopes, for could its illusions last, who would pause to think of heaven, with so much of enchanting fulfillment around us here.

It was with instinctive pride that I felt my favorite's mental superiority to her companion, and noticed the genuine admiration with which Gerald acknowledged it. He was astonished at her variety of acquirement, her daring originality of opinion, and her unstudied readiness of expression. He was gratified, and it may be, flattered, by the disinterested solicitude she evinced for his enjoyment, and the readiness with which she discarded any scheme of amusement in which his health prevented his participation. There is a period in youth when the affections feel as a strong necessity, the desire for sympathy, when love is yet a stranger, and friendship is as intense as passion. Dearer than any after friend, is the one who first fills this yearning vacancy; and though as time wears on, and separation follows, that tie may be broken never to be re-knit, there is a halo around it still, and it is made almost holy by the blended tints of hope and trust, and tenderness, that, with reflected light, shine back upon its memory.

It was the evening before Theresa's departure, and we were all assembled at the cottage. It was impossible to feel very sad, where the majority were so eager and fraught with hope, and yet the mother's countenance was full of anxiety for her child. Little Amy sat on her sister's knee, and Theresa, in her graphic language, was relating some romantic history of her own invention, while Mrs. Germaine and myself spoke of her. The parent's solicitude was altogether physical; she feared only that Theresa would be sick, or that she would encounter some of the thousand accidents and evils, whose spectres haunt us upon the eve of a first separation. I thought it kinder to be silent as to my own very different misgivings, and to dwell only on the encouraging part of the prospect. There might be nothing to dread, after all, and it was possibly only our unwillingness to part with Theresa, that thus assumed to itself the tormenting shape of inquietude.

During our conversation, which was carried on in an under tone, little Amy had fallen asleep, and after carefully placing her on the couch, and kissing the fair face of the slumberer, that shone like a faultless picture from its frame of golden curls, Theresa adjourned with Gerald to the porch. It was a perfect evening, and the rays of the full moon illumined the little portico, throwing on its floor, in fanciful mosaic, the fantastic shadows of the vines which draperied the pillars, and lighting up with its spiritual radiance, the earnest countenances of the youthful friends. Gerald looked more than usually pale in the blanching beams, and Theresa's gaze was sad and tearful.

"You will forget us all, Theresa," said the boy; "you will find elsewhere gayer and dearer companions; you will be praised and flattered, and it will be several years before you will be stationary here again."

"Do you remember the book we read together but a few days since?" she answered, "and which says there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind?"

"Well, but at least you may grow indifferent," persisted Gerald, already betraying manhood's perverseness in suspicion, "at least you may grow indifferent, and that is even worse than forgetfulness."

"Far worse," answered Theresa, "I would rather a thousand times be wholly forgotten, than know that the heart which loved me had grown cold and careless. But, Gerald, you are my first friend, the only one of my own age I have ever known, and how can I lose the recollection of all we have thought and hoped together? And then I shall be too constantly occupied to form other ties, for I intend to study incessantly, and to return here all, mentally, that my friends can wish me."

"Are you not that already; I, for one, do not desire you to change."

"You will alter your flattering opinion, mon ami , if I can by application realize the bright pictures my ambition paints. I shall be so much happier when I have tested myself; for now, all is untried, the present is restless, and the future perplexing. It is so difficult for me to curb my impatience, to remember that our progressive path must be trodden step by step, it may be, through thorns and temptations. Patience is the golden rule of talent, the indispensable companion of success; for the 'worm may patiently creep to the height where the mountain-eagle has rested.' The hardest task for genius to learn is, through toiling, to hope on, and though baffled, never to despond."

Her face flushed with her own eagerness as she spoke, and Gerald looked on her with mingled admiration and want of comprehension, and something of that pity with which boyhood is prone to regard the wildness of girlish aspirations. It was with hopes and tears united, that Theresa bade me farewell; and as I turned away to seek my quiet home, the old feeling of desolation and loneliness, which interest in my favorite had long dissipated, returned upon me with its depressing weight. Our walk to the parsonage was taken in unbroken silence, for Gerald, like myself, was busy with the future – to him a smiling world of compensation and promise, to me, the silent land of fears and shadows. A whole year was to elapse before Theresa's return to us, and in the interval she engaged to write every week, either to her mother or myself.