A Leaf From A Family Journal - Page 2

forests! Let one horizon succeed another! The day is so lovely, and the night yet so distant!

While thus occupied with my newborn happiness, I had risen and joined Marcelle, who had already taken possession of her domestic kingdom.

Everything must be visited with her; her precocious housewifery must be admired; her arrangements must be applauded. First she showed me the little 'salle a manger,' dedicated to the meals which would unite us in the intervals of business: to this cause it owed the air of opulence and brightness which Marcelle had carefully striven to impart to it. China, silver, and glass, sparkled on the shelves. Here lay rich fruits half hidden in moss; there, stood freshly-gathered flowers--everything spoke of the reign of grace and plenty. From thence we passed into the salon, the closed curtains of which admitted only a soft and subdued light, which fell on statuettes ornamenting the consoles, and the gilt frames on the walls: on the tables lay scattered in graceful negligence, albums, elegancies of papier mache, and carved ivory; precious nothings which had constituted the young girl's treasures. At the farther end, the folds of a heavy curtain concealed the bower, sacred to the lady of the castle. Here admittance was at first denied me, and I was obliged to have recourse to entreaty before the drapery was raised for our entrance.

The cabinet was lighted by a small window, over which hung a blind, representing a gothic casement of painted glass, the bright colours of which were now rendered more brilliant by the sunlight which streamed through. The principal furniture consisted of a pretty lounging chair and the work table, near which I had so often seen Marcelle seated with her embroidery when I passed under her aunt's window. Her pretty flower-stand, gay with her favourite flowers, occupied the window in which hung a gilt-wire cage, the melodious prison-house of her pet bird; and lastly, there stood fronting the window, the bureau, consecrated since her school-days, to her intimate correspondence.

She showed it to me with an almost tearful gravity. Everything it contained was a relic, or souvenir. That agate inkstand had belonged to her elder sister, who died just when Marcelle was old enough to know and love her; this mother-of-pearl paper-cutter was a present to her from her aunt, before she became her adopted child; this seal had belonged to her father! She half-opened the different drawers, for me to peep at the treasures they contained. In one were the letters of her dearest school-friend, now married, gone abroad, and therefore lost to her; in another, were family papers; lower down, her certificates for the performance of religious obligations, prizes obtained, and examinations passed--the young girl's humble patent of nobility!--and last of all, in the most secret corner, lay some faded flowers, and the correspondence which, with the consent of her Aunt Roubert, we had